The Arcanum of Beth

by Mary Jane Russell

  Janet was speechless.

  Will held out his hands, palms up. He imitated weighing something. “My wife…my sister…my wife…my sister. I made the wrong choice again, and it cost me the one person left in this world who truly loved me. I thought Beth would eventually tolerate Lou as I did Patti. Beth honestly loved Lou.” Will’s hands slowly dropped to his side.

  “And you,” Janet said quietly.

  “And me. Mom and Beth were right.” He waited for Janet to look at him. “They learned with my dad. There are worse things than dying. There’s having to live with seeing things you wish you’d never known and seeing yourself as you never thought you’d be.” He stood and walked to the door and didn’t turn when he spoke.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.” He shuddered. “I just needed to say that out loud to someone. Do what you have to with all of this…with all of us.” He left the building.

  Janet pressed the speed dial button for home. “Don’t ask questions, just please come get me.” She didn’t trust herself to drive.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “What is it about being out of town at a conference that makes us think there’s no limit on how many of these that we may drink?” Janet stared at the pile of tiny umbrellas in the middle of the table.

  “And that there are no calorie consequences.” Gloria raised her glass to her friend and smiled contentedly.

  “Just what do these coconut shell glasses have to do with Colonial Williamsburg, by the way? Doesn’t everything else around here have pineapples on it?” Janet had to admit, if only to herself, that this was the most relaxed she’d been in months.

  “Not a damn thing, historically speaking.” Gloria belched gently and giggled. “I think we’re too far north to have been part of the rum runners. Pineapples signify hospitality.”

  “Couldn’t be any more hospitable than this.” She raised her glass in return. “To be able to drink these secret concoctions, we must have salty quesadillas.” Janet caught the waiter’s eye and held up the empty appetizer plate. “You don’t want to spoil our buzz with a heavy dinner, do you?”

  Gloria shook her head and mouthed, “No.”

  Janet glanced at her watch and tried to read the dial. “Ellen is supposed to meet us. She couldn’t wait to get her laptop out and try the free wireless connection in the room. She said she had an idea she needed to follow up on.” Janet shrugged.

  “Whatever.” Both women giggled as though Gloria had told a hilarious joke.

  They had ducked out of the opening session of the conference as soon as they gathered all the registration information. The trick with any conference was to decide early on what was mandatory and skip the rest. They had to accrue hours each year to stay current and maintain their bar standing.

  “Well, I’m glad to see I’m not the only one playing hooky.” The voice boomed across the bar.

  Janet and Gloria reacted identically—their eyes closed as though trying to keep the sound out, then opened as their heads turned to follow the voice to its source.

  “Ben Richards.” Janet waved at him to join them. “Don’t take his tone personally. Tank duty in Iraq during Desert Storm, hearing’s not worth a damn, and he hates wearing his hearing aids.”

  The man made his way across the room. Gloria stared. He was a fortyish Richard Gere lookalike with brilliant white hair and round black eyeglasses. Green eyes sparkled at her. He leaned into the booth and hugged Janet. She scooted over so he could sit beside her.

  “These conferences are never worth how far behind it puts me at the office, yet I can’t afford not to have occasional face time with my counterparts from other jurisdictions.” He drained the last from his mug.

  Janet did the honors. “Gloria Jarrett…Ben Richards. Ben…Gloria.” She spoke to Gloria as though Ben was not there, “My first boss when I left law school, commonwealth attorney for the county. Scared the bejesus out of me the way he would just hand off cases to me as though I’d been in practice for years and knew what I was doing.”

  “Well, that’s the only way to learn. Just do it.” He signaled the waitress for another beer. “Where do you practice, Gloria?”

  “Staunton. Janet and I are both alumnae of Washington and Lee. She was a legend whispered about on campus by the time I was admitted.”

  “Uh-huh. I bet you could tell stories.” He tried to clean his glasses on his necktie.

  “Well, there is one story I’ve been trying to catch up with you about.” Janet knocked her shoulder into his.

  Ben rolled his eyes. “It was an accident. Nothing you’ve told me makes me think otherwise. Relax and enjoy your weekend off, for Christ’s sake.”

  Janet didn’t miss a beat. “The brother is suspicious.”

  “The same brother who has not made any type of complaint, statement, or even questioned the sheriff’s office?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give it a rest, Janet. Your friend is gone. I know it’s difficult for you, but you must accept it. Hell, I knew Beth. I thought the world of her. I’d like to have married her and don’t think I didn’t try. If I had even a shred of proof of foul play, I’d light up this case in a heartbeat.”

  Janet nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll hold you to that.”

  Ben looked over his shoulder. “What do I have to do for another beer?” He caught Gloria looking at him. “Don’t answer that question.” With a blazing grin, he was out of the booth and taking a beer from the bartender.

  Gloria studied Janet before speaking again. “Are you doing any better about Beth?” She asked the question gently. All it had taken was mention of Beth Candler to sober both of them up.

  Janet stopped the glass en route to her lips and returned the drink to the table. “Some, until two weeks ago when Beth’s brother came to see me. About the time I calm down, something else happens. I can see Beth writing ‘burden of knowledge’ now.”

  “How is the brother?”

  “Not good. I keep trying to tell myself that alcohol had much to do with the conversation we had. Before, on his part, after, on mine.” She leaned back from the table as the platter was set between them. She motioned Gloria to go first.

  Gloria selected the smallest slice and heaped salsa and sour cream on the tortilla. “I’ve been thinking about our lunch in Harrisonburg quite a bit.” She licked a small spot of sour cream off her finger.

  “Those two.” Janet shivered. “Patti did see us.”

  Gloria frowned. “I’ve also been thinking about attorney-client privilege.” She took the first bite of the quesadilla.

  Janet nodded. She knew how deliberate her colleague was. She needed to build slowly to her point whether in a meeting or a courtroom.

  “I think you need to know that Beth came to see me several weeks before her death.” Gloria folded her napkin and pushed her plate to the side.

  Janet stared.

  “She had very well-thought-out questions that she wanted to ask me after she made me take a twenty-dollar bill.” Gloria pulled a small notebook from her bag. She habitually jotted notes about everything.

  “I have debated confidentiality with myself. I’ve taken a hard look at my own ethics. I’ve researched time limitations. But it all comes down to the plain fact that you need to know what was on her mind.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, if someone inherits, then is convicted of a major crime against the deceased, what is the impact upon that inheritance?”

  Janet blinked in rapid succession.

  “Such as, if the bulk of an estate ends up in probate entangled with a criminal or civil case, what are the statutes? Who then decides the dispensation of the estate and what is it based on?

  “Such as, if she set up a trust for her brother, is that enough to keep him out of the rest of her estate if he contests the will?

  “Such as, exactly what rights did the woman she was living in a lesbian relationship with have if she recanted any verbal agreement with a legal will?”

  J
anet drank the entire glass of water that she had avoided so far for fear of diluting the piña coladas.

  “And the kicker. Could she file a lawsuit against her sister-in-law for alienation of a same-sex partner’s affection and have it taken seriously?”

  “You are friggin’ kidding.”

  Gloria shook her head. “She was strongly considering it. I hated to tell her that type of suit was no longer allowed in the commonwealth. She bounced between estate questions and wanting to know what was considered a frivolous case in her type of relationship. She was torn out of the frame over what Patti and Lou were doing to her and to Will.”

  Janet stared across the room. She had to think.

  “I still can’t believe what a mess her life had turned into. She went from being so happy with having a true relationship to sounding like she was the sociopath with her questions. Yet I knew her well enough to know if anyone had just cause, she did. But I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t talking to you.”

  Janet briefly covered her face with her napkin. “That’s easy. Our friendship went too deep. I would have realized what a nightmare her life had turned into and dragged her ass out of there. I would have hurt those two women and that sorry-ass brother of hers.”

  “The things we do to each other are incomprehensible.”

  “Gloria, what did you advise her?”

  “The joint bank account with your name on it. The trust for Will. The trusts and personal items to the cousins in North Carolina, establishing them as family she had interest in leaving part of her estate to. Leaving Lou only what Lou had participated in the purchase of. Basically, the handwritten codicil to the will that you had done for her. Someone,” Gloria looked pointedly at Janet, “needs to bring them to trial for what they did.”

  Janet looked about the room. “I shouldn’t tell you this. I’m being very careful before I do with this what I’m going to.” She leaned across the table. “Beth told Will that she knew Patti and Lou were making plans to kill both of them.”

  “I feel sick.”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  “I’ll transcribe my meeting notes, have them notarized, and overnight a packet to you as soon as I can next week.”

  Janet nodded.

  “I don’t know what happened, but her death was not a routine farm accident on a tractor.” Gloria’s face was as red as if she’d been out in the sun all day.

  “Hell, no.”

  “Count on me if you need any help.”

  “Can we make this a threesome?” Ellen slid into the booth beside Janet. “Nice perfume. You’re looking particularly lovely tonight, Mrs. Cleaver.” She leaned into Janet.

  “Behave yourself. What took you so long?” She punched Ellen solidly on the arm. “And stop making fun of me because I was a traditional housewife in my youth. You won’t believe what Gloria just told me.”

  “What a mean right hook. You won’t believe what I got into by myself in our room.” She grinned at Janet.

  Janet elbowed her. “Not in front of Gloria.”

  “With this, knucklehead. I can tell where your mind is.” Ellen set her laptop on the table. “Gloria, I’m going to open this file, and I’d like you as a witness. This booth seat is long enough for all of us on one side. Do you mind?”

  Gloria moved beside Ellen.

  Ellen began. Janet knew it was important because Ellen waved off the waitress who would have taken her drink order. “I had a thought, and I know that always surprises you.”

  Janet threatened another punch.

  “Hotmail, it’s a free Internet e-mail provider. Remember Beth’s e-mails with her initials and birthday as the account name?”

  Both women nodded.

  “My thought was that I wondered if Beth’s e-mail was still sitting out in cyberspace.”

  Janet’s eyes widened.

  “I had her address saved in my AOL contact list. So I went to Hotmail and decided to give it a try. The stumbling block was her password. I tried her childhood nickname, the dog’s name, her parents’ first names, none worked. I didn’t want to throw up a red flag to freeze the account. Then it hit me as though she whispered it in my ear.” Ellen waited, looking from blank face to blank face.

  “Remember at the hospital when she looked at me and wrote that word that neither of us knew was a word?”

  “Arcanum,” Janet whispered.

  “Secret,” Gloria said, immediately thinking of the Latin origin as Janet had, “from arcanus.”

  “Sheesh, you two and your high school Latin.” Ellen typed in Beth’s e-mail address and arcanum. Beth’s e-mail account opened. “I hit the mother lode.”

  Their eyes followed the cursor to a file named Betrayal. Ellen began opening one e-mail after another written by Patti and sent to Lou—explicit paragraphs filled with her declaration of love for Lou and her absolute joy with the physical side of their relationship and how she was experiencing so many firsts with Lou.

  Ellen made herself be quiet as the women skimmed the screen.

  “I can’t read any more right now.” Janet rubbed her eyes and returned her glasses to the case.

  Gloria pursed her lips and blew air. “Sheesh, she was laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?”

  Janet looked at them. “Reeling Lou in to do her bidding and every damn one I read reminds Lou to hit delete.”

  “Exactly,” Ellen said. “But do you realize what this means?” Ellen glanced at the number of tiny umbrellas on the tabletop. “Beth cracked Lou’s e-mail and forwarded these to herself to have absolute proof of what she suspected. Look at the dates. She picked ones for each month from August when Keith was dying to October when they had the blowup at the beach until February eight weeks or so before the accident. She knew for sure what was going on between those two.”

  Janet stared at the list of e-mails. “Oh, my God, it goes one step further than that.” She looked at the other two women. “I recognize some of these phrases. The lunch in February when I was to meet Beth and she brought Lou who in turn asked Patti to be there.”

  Ellen nodded.

  “Beth acted so strange that day. No wonder. She was quoting from these e-mails to let Lou and Patti know they were busted. She cracked Lou’s e-mail and threw down the gauntlet. No wonder Patti was so pissed. Lou was to have deleted these, not saved them.”

  “And look where it got her,” Gloria whispered. “She’s up shit creek. Both of them are. I’m going to give you two Nancy Drews a little advice you need to listen to because this mess is only going to become worse. Play this thing very closely. Those two are a force to be reckoned with. Be sure, or they’ll sue you and ruin everything you’ve worked for. Do you have proof or instinct?”

  Janet and Ellen looked at each other.

  “Do you have real physical evidence?”

  Janet shook her head. “It’s circumstantial or hearsay.”

  “How in the hell are we to prove it if the cops haven’t?” Ellen said.

  “All I’m saying is be damn sure. Have a string of evidence, connected and leading to only one possible outcome, or you’re committing professional suicide. I know damn well that they killed her. Just as I knew they were cheating on her. But I know it here.” Gloria pointed to her heart. “I don’t know it as hard fact that I could put before a judge. Read those e-mails carefully. My instinct screams that Patti just may have written something she shouldn’t have, besides the love crap.”

  “At the very least, enough pieces of circumstantial evidence will have to be put together so that a jury will draw the same conclusions we have.” Janet swirled the alcohol mix in the glass.

  “Is that all?” Ellen took the glass from Janet’s hand and drained it.

  “All for Beth, damn it.” Janet hit the tabletop with her fist.

  “Beth,” Gloria echoed.

  Gloria looked at Janet and Ellen. “I need to lie down. Janet, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Ellen signaled the waitress to come back for her order.
“Gloria, it’s always a pleasure. Come to the beach for a weekend sometime soon. We have a spare room at the cottage you would be most welcome to use when this mess is resolved.”

  “I would love to.” Gloria waved over her shoulder to them as she walked away.

  “We have scintillating meetings tomorrow. Something tells me we’ll be text messaging most of the day.” Janet looked at the laptop again. “Let’s bribe someone to connect us to a printer.”

  Ellen nodded. “I’ve already forwarded the e-mails to my account, but a hard copy is a good idea.”

  Janet studied her. “Have I told you lately, or often enough, just how much I love you?”

  “I’d rather you show me.”

  “Elevator or room?”

  Ellen laughed so loud that all in the bar looked their way. “Surprise me.” She knew this would be their last unbridled fun for some time.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Lou Stephens slid into the booth across from Janet and looked at her as though she had no idea why she’d been invited to lunch. “Mrs. Evans.”

  “Don’t even try that.” Janet spoke quietly and deliberately. She had called Lou and purposely asked her to meet at the neighborhood diner on the fringe of the Fletcher campus. It was basically one big room with a half wall separating the kitchen behind the bar from the customer area.

  Janet wanted Lou to be able to walk so that she couldn’t deny that she had time, and Janet wanted the meeting in a public place. Normally, students packed the stools along the bar and waited turns for the six booths. Janet had timed it just right to arrive after the grilled cheese at noon crowd, even if it meant tolerating soap operas playing on the television in the corner.

  Lou stared at the tabletop, tracing the years of whittling with her index finger. Each class was encouraged to leave their marks behind.

  “You’re wearing makeup. Unreal. Princess Patti wins yet another round.” Janet made herself focus. “We need to talk. I’m only giving you this chance because Beth did love you.”