Sinister Heights Read Online Free

company. That pays me thirteen million a year.”
    We were in the room with the white piano, sitting on a couple of leather slingback chairs with aluminum frames. The piano was the only thing you couldn’t carry out under one arm; everything else, including the clear Lucite rack containing sheet music, had been selected not to interfere with the resonance of the keys. There were more costume sketches on the walls and three narrow floor-to-ceiling windows with the view of horizontal housing developments and the hill where the original Stutch Motors factory still stood, looking like a brick prison. Black smoke from its triple stacks clawed the sky. I asked her if she missed Grosse Pointe.
    â€œNot for a minute. The house required a huge staff. I was never alone. I’m not completely comfortable with just Mrs. Campbell knowing most of my secrets, and I’d trust her ahead of anyone, even Connor. She’d worked for Leland for years before I came along. Have you ever noticed how only the rich talk about being private people? That’s because they aren’t.”
    â€œLife’s a bitch.”
    She started to smile, but jerked it back. “Anyway I’ve felt more at home here than I have anywhere.”
    â€œYou could feel the same way in West Bloomfield.”
    â€œMrs. Campbell recommended Iroquois Heights. Her mother worked for Leland when he ran Chevrolet. She counted out the payroll up on the hill for forty years. I know what people say about this town, but you get a different picture when you live in it.”
    â€œNot if you’re in jail.” I drank water from a glass on a tall stem. It was city water, treated and passed through filters belonging to a private contractor who had bought the system from the council when the cash was needed to avoid default. In the past five years the local residents had paid more than three times the selling price to lease the service. Meanwhile the city attorney who brokered the deal had retired to Texas. It was good water, pure as a bishop.
    Mrs. Stutch had showered and changed into a loose silk shirt and black stirrup pants. Her unpainted toes showed in a pair of woven leather sandals. She had nice feet, tanned and pumiced.
    She laughed, as if the jail comment were a joke. Her black hair was still damp at the ends and her high cheekbones wore no powder. Her eyes were a very dark brown, almost black. I wondered if she was part American Indian. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “and you’re right. I was twenty-six when Leland proposed. Why would I marry a centenarian, except for money? He knew it. He also knew I’d see he got better care than Hector would have. If I hadn’t, and he cut me out, there was no way under heaven I’d break the will. We lived without illusions, which is more than you can say about most married couples. And I liked him. I miss him.”
    â€œHe was pretty hard to miss when he was alive. They built a whole century around him. Do you play the piano?”
    â€œMrs. Campbell does. She used to be with the Detroit Symphony. I pay better. Shall I invite you the next time I have people over? She knows all of Ellington by heart.”
    â€œI like Chopin.”
    â€œOuch.” She sipped from her glass and set it down on a table with a clef-shaped base. “I went slumming there, didn’t I? After I spoke with Connor I searched you out on the Net. You’ve made the papers a few times, not the Lively Arts sections. I figured you drank straight gin and listened to gutbucket. People have been jumping to conclusions about me for ten years. You’d think I’d know better. I’m truly sorry.”
    â€œMe too. I wouldn’t know Chopin on a cracker.” I tilted my glass toward the wall. “Those her doodles?”
    â€œNo, I did those. Before I was married I designed costumes for the stage. I met Leland at a party at the Fisher Theater. Someone talked him