Page 1 of A Matter of Pedigree
Chapter One
December 2023
“You’re going to kill them,” she said, making eye contact with her two companions. “You’re going to blow them away.”
As if providing emphasis to the tense situation, a stiff December wind kicked up, bending the bare branches of the trees and clattering the tightly curled leaves of the enormous rhododendron bushes on either side of the grim mansion’s impressive and rather intimidating portal.
“Follow me,” she said, charging up the steep stone steps. “Don’t be nervous; you’ve got this,” she added, crossing her fingers for luck. Real estate agent Susan Weaver had high hopes for this deal; she stood to make a killing if the owners agreed to accept Frank and Carole Capobianco’s generous offer. “You’ve got plenty of ammo.”
Frank Capobianco had reason to be optimistic. The four million he was willing to pay for the condo at prestigious Prospect Place was double the asking price. But money was no object to Frank; he was rolling in the stuff. It hadn’t always been that way, of course. He’d grown up in the Italian Federal Hill section of Providence, Rhode Island, and after graduating from high school, he’d taken his place in the family business, Capobianco and Sons. He’d made a good living working in the plumbing and heating business, but it wasn’t until his patent for the Bye-Bye Toilet was purchased by Wexler Industries that he began to see serious dough. Frank’s invention of the low-flow fixture, which was guaranteed to work as well as traditional water-guzzling models, was seen as a genuine breakthrough by the industry. The Bye-Bye Toilet technology was quickly embraced by the green building movement, and the royalties had started pouring in. Global warming was the best thing that ever happened to Frank.
And now, his pockets stuffed with money, Frank was ready to take his rightful place in the city of his birth. He wanted to let everyone know he’d arrived, he was a success. A big deal. A very big deal. And the best way to do that was by moving out of Federal Hill and buying into Prospect Place, the absolute primo address on College Hill in the city’s most exclusive neighborhood, the extremely hoitsy-toitsy East Side.
Unlike on Federal Hill, where the cramped wood tenements were jammed together in the streets around Atwells Avenue, the substantial brick and stone houses in the East Side stood in spacious gardens, rising out of professionally landscaped green lawns dotted with leafy trees and flowering shrubs. And none was grander than Prospect Place, built of sturdy ship’s timbers and carved blocks of stone, its wooded acre securely walled off from its neighbors.
Erected in the eighteenth century, the edifice was a tribute to the daring and financial success of its builder, Jonathan Browne. One of the first to join the fight for independence from Great Britain, his fortune had grown along with the young nation as his ships plowed the waves of the vast Atlantic Ocean, reaping profits from the notorious Triangular Trade. Jonathan’s ships brought human cargo from Africa to the West Indies, trading men, women, and children into slavery for the molasses and sugar the hungry new nation demanded. And although Jonathan lived hundreds of years before Frank, his motives for building Prospect Place were exactly the same as Frank’s. From his lofty perch on the high hill overlooking the city and its bustling harbor, the massive stone structure announced to the world that Jonathan Browne was a man of wealth and importance.
Now, more than two centuries later, Frank identified with Jonathan Browne, apart from the reprehensible and disgusting human trafficking, of course. Like Jonathan, he was a man of vision who’d risen above the common mass. It was time to proclaim his ascension to the upper class, the one percent.
Carole, Frank’s wife, didn’t share his enthusiasm for the massive mansion, but she had dressed carefully for this interview in hopes of making a good impression. She was beginning, however, to think the taupe Ferragamos with the four-inch heels may have been a mistake. They were far and away the best shoes in her extensive collection, but she was having trouble negotiating the steps, which tilted this way and that. Nearly losing her balance, she grabbed Frank’s arm. He responded by taking her elbow to steady her and then squeezing her hand, and Carole felt a sudden surge of affection for him. She hoped he wasn’t in for a big disappointment.
Unlike her husband, who’d gone to work straight from high school, Carole had spent a year at Mount Holyoke College, one of the highly selective Seven Sisters. It was there that she’d had her first brush with the East Coast snobbism practiced by the daughters of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite, or WASPs, as they were called by the other scholarship students. It took only a question or two for these privileged girls to identify their own kind: “Where did you prep? Where do you summer? Did you bring your horse?” If you didn’t have the right answers, you were clearly not a member of the tribe and not worth knowing.
At the time, Carole had been stung by their attitude, and she’d been relieved when Frank got her pregnant during summer vacation, a vacation spent working as a waitress in one of the restaurants on Federal Hill. A hasty marriage was arranged, Carole and Frank settled into the third-floor apartment at the top of his parents’ tenement, and Carole was warmly embraced as a young wife and mother by the Hill’s traditional matriarchy. There was always someone to mind the kids, someone to gossip with over coffee and biscotti, someone’s shoulder to cry on. Now, looking at the forbidding structure Frank was determined would be their next home, Carole was afraid they would encounter the same snobbish attitude she had faced at Mount Holyoke.
Susan rang the bell, and they huddled together on the stoop as the cold wind blew around them. They’d dressed to impress instead of for the weather, and Carole was freezing in her beautifully tailored Armani suit; she didn’t like to think what the wind was doing to the hair she’d had styled that very afternoon. Frank was getting restless as they waited on the doorstep. “What’s taking so long?” he fumed, rubbing his hands together.
The door was finally opened by a very slight woman with thinning, faded red hair, dressed in a pleated plaid skirt and a threadbare cashmere twin set topped with a truly fabulous string of pearls. Carole’s heart sank, as she knew the look, but the woman’s welcome was warm.
“Come in, come in,” she urged, “we’re all waiting for you. Oh, my goodness gracious, haven’t I forgotten my manners? This is Susan, of course, and you are the Capobiancos, and I am Millicent Shaw.” She grabbed Carole’s and Frank’s hands in turn. “I am so happy to finally meet you.”
Somewhat reassured, Carole smiled at Frank and straight ened his tie. He was built like a fire plug, there was no denying it, but in a blue oxford-cloth, button-down shirt, a conservative tie, and a Harris tweed sport coat with leather patches on the sleeves, he could pass for a college professor who enjoyed his dinner a bit too much. Carole hoped she hadn’t overdone it when she chose his outfit at Brooks Brothers.
They hardly had time to take in the worn Oriental rug, the stately grandfather clock, the hand-painted antique wallpaper, and the staircase with elaborately carved mahogany balusters before Millicent opened one of the massive doors on either side of the hall and ushered them inside. They found themselves in a spacious sitting room with wood-paneled walls and long, red velvet curtains hanging on either side of the tall, paned windows. Five people were seated on the leather sofas and chairs arranged in front of the fireplace, and from the looks of them, Carole knew they were in enemy territory. She gave Frank’s arm a pinch, warning him to let Susan introduce them.
“You all know me, I’m Susan Weaver from Prestige Prop erties, and I’m representing the vacant unit, Unit 3, which is owned by Jon Browne. Tonight, I’ve brought two exceptionally well-qualified buyers, Frank and Carole Capo bianco.” She paused. “Millicent, could you please do the honors?”
“Oh yes, oh yes,” said Millicent, nodding and fluttering her hands. “Let me introduce the other owners. First, of course, is Hosea Browne.” She indicated a tall, thin, elderly man seated in a massive leather wing chair. Wire-rimmed glasses were perched on his hawkish nose, his gray hair was thinning above a high forehead, and long parentheses ran from each side of his nose to his thin slit of a mouth. Like Frank, he was wearing an oxford-cloth shirt and tweed blazer, but his were soft and worn from years of wear, unlike Frank’s crisp new togs. Hosea tented his hands in front of his chest and nodded.
“As you no doubt know, Prospect Place was built by Mr. Browne’s ancestor, Jonathan Browne,” said Susan. “It was the Browne family home until 2008, when it was converted into five luxurious units and became the premier address in Providence.”
“A lot of folks took a hit in 2008 when the stock market tanked,” observed Frank, with a knowing nod.
Hosea was quick to put this notion to rest. “The place was too big; there’s just myself and my brother now. Made no sense for us to rattle around in here all by ourselves.” Left unsaid was his rock-solid belief that failure to capitalize on a potential source of income was a sin of the highest order.
“Absolutely,” agreed Millicent. “Times change, and we have to change with them.” She indicated a well-dressed young couple with blond hair, seated together on one of the sofas. “This is Celerie and Mark Lonsdale; they have the charming unit on the top floor.”
“The attic,” said Celerie, giving a broad smile that revealed a dazzling set of very white teeth. “So nice to meet you,” she said, speaking through her teeth as she extended a pale, slender hand. Carole couldn’t help noticing the decidedly unimpressive diamond and slim gold wedding band on her other hand.
“Same here,” agreed Mark, also rising and offering a firm but dampish hand.
Once the handshakes were completed, Millicent continued her introductions. “Last, but not least by any means, we have our lovely professors, Stuart and Angelique Poole.”
Angelique, a dark-haired woman of a certain age, chicly dressed in black, remained seated beside her husband on the second sofa but offered her hand. Her nails, Carole noticed, were neatly trimmed but free of polish. “Enchanté,” she said. Her husband, Stuart, casually dressed in a cardigan with leather buttons, rose and also shook their hands.
Introductions completed, Millicent indicated three straight-backed dining chairs with elaborately carved backs and urged them to sit. She herself perched on a hassock shoved beside Hosea’s armchair. Frank and Carole sat down, but Susan remained standing.
“As you all know,” she said, “the Capobiancos have put forward a very generous offer, which is actually double the asking price of two million dollars.”
