Claim the Crown

by Carla Neggers

  * * *

  Toward dawn, three men gathered on the blustery sun porch. The entrance of MacGregor Stevens had silenced Andrew Balaton and J. Land Crockett, neither of whom he liked, nor ever had. Remaining on his feet, Mac patted out a cigarette and lit it. He exhaled a lungful of smoke rudely at the old man, daring him to say anything. He knew he’d been smoking too much. He could feel it in his lungs, and a callus was forming on his lower lip.

  Back among his blankets and sweaters, Crockett waved the smoke away irritably. “Smoking isn’t good for your health.”

  “I know.” Mac took another deep drag and blew it out in the same place. “That’s why I quit ten years ago. Something about you people brings back my old habits. I wonder what it is.”

  Andrew Balaton eased onto a wicker chair. “Fear of your own weaknesses, perhaps.”

  Mac smiled thinly. “Perhaps.”

  “What’re you doing here?” Crockett asked gruffly, with more bluster than anything else. Although the old man wouldn’t remember, Mac had met him once, more than thirty years ago. He hadn’t been afraid of him then; he sure as hell wasn’t now. Crockett reddened, his irritation deepening at Mac’s obvious insolence. “How’d you get on this island?”

  “It’s not as impregnable as you think. I bribed a lobster man. It was really quite simple.” He puffed again on his cigarette and thought briefly of Elaine. She hated cigarettes; she used to complain about his stinking up the house. Then he banished the thought of her, the vision, the reality. He couldn’t afford any sentimentality. “Bartholomew Wakefield could easily do the same.”

  Crockett’s eyes, more black than blue in the night air, bored into Mac, but Mac merely flicked ashes onto the gleaming bare floor. “Tell me about this man who calls himself Bartholomew Wakefield. Do you know him?”

  Another thin smile. Another “Perhaps.”

  “I want the truth, Stevens,” Crockett demanded, as imperious as ever. “I know you were in Vienna in ‘56, I know you got Balaton out of Hungary. Goddammit, I’m not some stupid old fool! I want to know who Ashley and David Wakefield are—who this uncle of theirs is. I want to know what happened to my daughter.” He erupted into spasmodic coughing and with a trembling hand reached for the crystal glass of water at his side. He managed to choke out, “And the jewels—I want to know what they mean. Did this Bartholomew Wakefield seduce my daughter? Did he steal from her? Damn you both to eternal hell if you’ve lied to me all these years.”

  “If anyone lied to you,” Mac said without emotion, “it was Judith—and yourself. Maybe these are questions you should have asked thirty years ago.”

  “My daughter was dead. What did I have left?”

  Mac looked at him without sympathy. “Her children.”

  Crockett’s thin gnarled hands, blue veins bulging, shot out from under the blankets and gripped the arms of the chair. Mac thought the old man would try to come after him, but instead he bellowed, “How the hell was I supposed to know she had children? She refused to see me. She didn’t want me to know.” He coughed loudly; or perhaps it was just a cover for his anguish. “My God, didn’t she know she could have come to me?”

  In the silence that followed, Mac crushed his cigarette butt under his shoe, on the polished floor. Andrew Balaton seemed to be trying to remove himself to another place, another time; he pretended to have no interest in the dialogue between MacGregor Stevens and the chairman of Crockett Industries. But Mac knew that was definitely not the case. Perhaps even more than he, Balaton was riveted to every word being said.

  Through sheer force of will, J. Land Crockett regained his composure, and his eyes grew cold—endless dark pits of bitterness and anger. “If I’d let an autopsy be performed, I’d have known she’d given birth recently—and nothing would have stopped me from finding her child. Her twins. My God.” He shut his eyes, steeling himself against another uncontrolled outburst of emotion. “I never would have stopped.”

  “We were both robbed,” Andrew said unexpectedly, his voice calm and quiet, as if discussing the latest profit-and-loss figures.

  Crockett stared at him. “Then they’re yours?”

  “They have to be.”

  Mac patted out another cigarette and left it, unlit, hanging from the corner of his mouth. “Not necessarily. We only have the word of a proven liar that the twins were born in July of 1957. They might have been born in August—or earlier.”

  Balaton shook his head. “Not earlier. I would have noticed. As it was, I never suspected Judith was pregnant. I had no idea. If I had known...”

  “We were both duped,” Crockett said. “What possible reason could this man have had for taking these children, raising them on a farm, living in poverty all these years? And the trust—was that his doing? Or Judith’s? I want answers.”

  “We all do,” Mac pointed out, lighting his cigarette. “Unfortunately, all I have are suspicions.”

  Crockett pulled his hands back inside the warmth of the wool blanket. “You know, if those two—Ashley and David—if they can prove Judith Land was their mother, they’ll inherit her entire estate. Andrew, you’d lose the nice pot Judith left you.”

  Andrew looked insulted. “Please, you should know that would make no difference to me. My own portfolio is not only sufficient, but ample. I would want them to have Judith’s legacy. It would be their due.”

  Crockett grunted with obvious skepticism. “You wouldn’t stand in their way?”

  “Of course not.”

  Satisfied, Crockett looked up at Mac. “All right, Stevens. Tell me your suspicions.”

  As if you’re in control of this, old man, Mac thought, surprised at the twinge of amusement he felt. Perhaps Ashley Wakefield’s tenacity and incorrigible audacity had rubbed off on him—not that he didn’t believe the beautiful young spitfire should be in bed anywhere in the world but here on Badger Rock Island. But he’d deal with that later. “First I want to know what Andrew knows about our Bartholomew Wakefield.” He glanced down at Balaton. “Well? What’s your story, Andrew?”

  Balaton opened his fine hands placidly on his thighs. “He’s a jewel thief.”

  “You know better than that.”

  Balaton said nothing.

  “Tell me, damn it.”

  He grimaced. “In private.”

  “No,” Mac said, before Crockett could speak. “Crockett has a right to hear.”

  Balaton looked away from both men. “The man who now calls himself Bartholomew Wakefield is Hungarian.”

  “What?” Crockett bellowed. “You know him and you never told me?”

  Balaton ignored his former father-in-law. “He came to me in January of 1957. He wanted a job. I had none to give him. He left, and I never saw him again—until this week’s edition of You magazine. I had no idea he had taken Judith from me...stolen my children. If I had known—” He tightened his hands into fists and dug his whitened knuckles into his thighs. “I thought he was just another displaced Hungarian. There were many who came to me—because of my marriage to a famous American actress, because of my connections with the Crockett family. I had no reason to be suspicious.”

  “What did you do with him?” Mac asked.

  “I told him I couldn’t help him. I sent him away.”

  “You didn’t know he’d met Judith?”

  “No.”

  “And now?” Mac exhaled smoke. “Now what do you think he is?”

  “What can he be? An opportunist. A thief. Behind my back, he met with my wife, he seduced her into giving him things, he destroyed her happiness.”

  Mac dropped his cigarette into Crockett’s water glass. “What if I told you he was the same man who arranged for us to get out of Budapest—and then betrayed us to the Russians?”

  Balaton went white. “What are you saying?”

  “We knew him as orült szerzetes. The mad monk. He was a true Hungarian hero—or so we were led to believe. In fact, it’s my opinion that he was working for the Russians all along, and probably still is
. Imagine the valuable information he could have provided them, posing as a hero of his enslaved countrymen. I’ve had thirty years to think over that night, Andrew. And now, from what’s happened during the past few days, I can make a few educated guesses. One, our ‘mad monk’ wanted you that night, not just me. He must have found out you’d been supplying the Americans with information from your position with the ÁVH.”

  Crockett leaned forward. “The what? What the hell are you talking about, Stevens?”

  “The Államvédelmi Hivatal,” Balaton said hoarsely. “The Hungarian secret police. I was a member during the Stalinist period, but I served as an agent for the Americans.”

  “Why was I never told?”

  Mac gave a raw smile. “State security, Crockett, or whatever bullshit you want to call it. I was sent into Budapest to get Balaton out. Our ‘mad monk’ did his damnedest to stop us—without exposing himself as a traitor to his people, of course. He got me, but Balaton escaped. And orült szerzetes came after him. I don’t know what happened between him and Judith, I don’t know about her children, I don’t know about her death. But I do know Wakefield has been sitting tight for the past thirty years, waiting for his chance.”

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Crockett said, the sharp executive now. “Any damage Andrew could have done the Russians he’s already done.”

  Mac nodded, patting out yet another cigarette. “My thought exactly—until I looked into how he could help the Russians. Crockett Industries has huge interests in the defense industries, companies and departments on the cutting edge of technology. The Soviets would be delighted to get their hands on some of your company’s secrets, Crockett. If they could get to Andrew, blackmail him somehow, they could get themselves some valuable information.”

  Crockett nodded thoughtfully. “I see.”

  “And that,” Mac went on, “is where the jewels come in.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Balaton sniffed arrogantly. “What could this man have on me? I have a clear conscience. I have nothing to hide.”

  “What about the diamond-and-pearl tiara and choker, Andrew? Wakefield went to tremendous lengths to get them from Ashley. What kind of leverage do they give him against you? What do the jewels prove, Andrew?”

  Balaton stared down at the floor. “Absolutely nothing. If he wanted them, it’s because he needed them for the money.”

  “His so-called niece and nephew would have given him as much money as he asked for.”

  “Then I don’t know. He’s a murderer, a thief—a madman. How should I know how he thinks? If I’d realized when he came to me thirty years ago what he was, who he was, I’d have acted then. Now...now I don’t know what his plans are.”

  “Whatever else he is, Andrew, Bartholomew Wakefield is not a fool.” Mac was losing his patience. “What—do—the—jewels—prove? Tell me!”

  “I don’t know!” It was the first time Mac remembered Andrew Balaton ever losing his composure. He was beginning to perspire at the temples. “Maybe that I was ÁVH—”

  “You were, Andrew.”

  “The world doesn’t know that—and it’s not something I’d care to have to explain now, thirty years later.”

  Mac laughed nastily. “When will you learn, Andrew? The world doesn’t give a damn.”

  “You’re so bitter, MacGregor Stevens.”

  “Just a realist. I pulled your ass out of the fire in ‘56, Andrew. I’ll do it again—and I don’t care what you’re hiding. You’re not going to become a traitor, if I have anything to say about it. Now, tell me where and when you’re meeting Wakefield.”

  Balaton threw up his hands in defeat. “We’ve already met.” His voice was barely audible. “He came to me and said he could protect me from this mad monk—he had made my life in Budapest hell, and I never could understand what he was doing. Now I realize: he was on to me. If I had known you were going to him for help with our escape, possibly I would have made the connection sooner and stopped you. He must have known I was working for the United States. I had no idea—none—that the man who came to me in Los Angeles, and then this week...I had no idea he was the mad monk, KGB. I...I just didn’t know.”

  “What does he want?” Mac was relentless. “Where and when?”

  Balaton licked his lips. “He said he’d contact me. The crown—tonight, in the soup...that must be his warning, his sign. It always was in Hungary.”

  “Then he’s on the island?” Crockett said. “I’ll have it searched at once.”

  “Save your energy,” Mac said. “He’s had thirty years to plan this night. You won’t find him unless he wants to be found.”

  Balaton was breathing rapidly, a wreck of a man, terrified. “He must know now that I can’t be blackmailed with the jewels—that they mean nothing to me; he was misled. But the twins... He knows they believe in him, trust him.”

  Crockett rose to his feet, almost as tall as Mac. “What are you saying?"

  “If I don’t do as he says, he will kill them. No sooner have we found them—your grandchildren, my children—than they will be dead.”

  29

  Looking out her window at the glittering starlit ocean, Lillian Parker sat on the chaise lounge, hugging her knees to her chest, glad to be alone.

  The cellar was cold and damp and smelled of gasoline, smoke and death. Huddled under the frayed woolen blanket, Judith Land was pale and sick No longer the cool, witty American actress, she was a frightened young woman in a place where she didn’t belong. “Please, Lil,” she said, “let’s just call the American embassy and ask them to help.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Oh, Lil. They’ll only call our fathers. Nothing will happen.”

  Lillian Parker, who wanted so to be taken seriously, shook her head, adamant. “You can make it, Judith.”

  “I can’t! Something terrible will happen, I know it.”

  Lillian was annoyed. “Do you want us to be the laughingstocks of the whole world?”

  “Oh, Lil, no one will care.”

  Shivering herself, Lillian knelt beside her friend. “Let’s do it my way, Judith, please. It was your idea to come along. Look, you’ll feel better in a couple of days, and everything will be fine. I promise. Thousands have already made it over the border.”

  “But how many Americans, Lil? How many heiresses who are here illegally in the first place? I feel like such an idiot.”

  Lillian sighed. “So do I.”

  * * *

  Finally, although it was nearly dawn, Lillian walked downstairs and found Crockett still sitting up on the sun porch. He’d suffered from insomnia for years, but refused to take any medication for it. He wanted to die, he’d always said, wide awake.

  She sat near him, on a wicker chair. He didn’t look at her. “They’re in danger, Lil,” he said.

  “Who, Crockett?”

  “My grandchildren.” He smirked, facing her. “You’ve known who they are from the beginning, haven’t you?”

  Lillian wished she’d worn something over her flannel caftan; it was frigid on the porch. She didn’t know how Crockett stood it. “How would I?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Crockett—”

  “You knew Judith was pregnant.”

  “You can’t tell Daddy...you can’t tell anyone. Lillian, please, you’re the only one I can trust.”

  “But Judith—how?”

  “Oh, Lil, don’t be so dumb. Now promise me, Lil. Please promise me.”

  “Of course I promise.”

  “I couldn’t have,” she told the man who had loved and mourned his only child. “I never saw her after the Christmas ball.”

  He nodded to himself. “You knew.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Don’t what, Lil? Don’t say anything I’ll regret? Don’t ask questions now that I should have asked years ago? Don’t open my old fool’s eyes? All these years I’ve had something—two children growing up on a farm in Massachusetts, raised by a madman, and I didn’t even know it.
Damn anyone to hell who kept me from them—who put me in hell.”

  Lillian shook her head, so tired of it all. “You put yourself into hell, Crockett.”

  “This man—this filth who calls himself Bartholomew Wakefield—stole my children, stole Judith from me. If she hadn’t tried running from him, if she hadn’t been on the ranch that day...”

  “But she was, Crockett. We can’t change the past.”

  “No. But we can punish the people who caused such pain.”

  Lillian shuddered. You must be brave... One day, perhaps. She had been brave, and her one day had never come. She needed a brandy...oblivion. “What are you going to do?”

  He scrunched lower under the covers. “Protect Ashley and David, if I can—and stop this madman. I want to see him rot in hell.”

  “Maybe he’s already there.”

  * * *

  Jeremy lay fully dressed atop the hand-stitched patchwork quilt. Sometimes he thought he could hear Ashley breathing, but then he’d realize it was just the waves, and he’d shut his eyes tightly and wonder if she were in bed, thinking of him.

  When the knock at his door came, he sprang out of bed and instantly tore open the door, but there was Mac Stevens, looking haggard and nervous. Uninvited, he walked into the dark room. Ominous black clouds had rolled in during the night—appropriately, Jeremy thought. It promised to be a miserable day.

  Mac said matter-of-factly, “I’m sorry you didn’t heed my advice, Jeremy.”

  “I did—Ashley Wakefield didn’t.” He sat on the lower end of the double bed.

  “You’re falling for her, aren’t you?”

  “Fallen, Mac.”

  He nodded, as if he’d expected nothing else. “She’s the sort of woman I’ve always envisioned your ending up with. I hope things work out, Jeremy, but this is going to be hell on her. She still believes in her uncle, doesn’t she?”

  “If it were my father, Mac, so would I.”

  “Despite the evidence?”

  Jeremy looked at his friend, his colleague, a man he had admired since childhood. Was Mac slipping quietly over the edge? Had he lost any semblance of perspective on this bizarre situation—or had he never any to begin with? Jeremy said carefully, “There hasn’t been much actual evidence, Mac.”