"As a matter of fact, Dodie, I've been in contact with Sam for quite a while now. He's been protecting Babs, trying to keep the men you hired from killing her. We've both been looking after her. The problem is we didn't do a very good job."
There was a long silence and then everyone began to talk at once.
"What do you mean you weren't successful?"
"Oh dear, has something happened to Babette?"
"Now, my dear, don't worry about it. I'm sure Babette is just fine."
"I'm afraid not, Clarence. She's not fine at all." Emmet's grim tone cut through the babble like a hunting knife through silk. Before he could say anything more, the door behind him was pushed open and Sam walked in. His tousled hair seemed even blacker than usual against the pallor of his skin. A dark growth of beard shadowed his jaw giving him a lean and dangerous look. But it was the state of his clothes that drew a stunned silence. The gray shirt he was wearing was coated with a rusty substance that was horribly, unmistakably blood.
He looked at no one but Emmet, his eyes burning a bright, agonized blue. "I just left the hospital. She didn't make it."
There was a horrified gasp and then the questions broke out again.
"Who is this man?" Even Dodie's stern manner failed her in this moment.
"My God. Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Lionel mopped nervously at his brow.
"Babs? Dead?" Lance reached for the cognac bottle, his face pale, his eyes shocked.
"Babette? Oh, dear." Bertie stared at Sam as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
Clarence cleared his throat and patted his wife's hand. "There, there, my dear, I'm sure it's all a terrible mistake."
Emmet's gaze settled on the old man as Sam came up to stand beside him, the gore on his shirt a silent accusation.
"If there's been a mistake made, you made it, Clarence. This is Sam Delanian."
Clarence looked at Emmet, his eyes showing a surprising streak of shrewdness. "I don't know what you're talking about, my boy. The shock you know. Perhaps I should take Bertie to lie down. We were always so fond of young Babette."
Sam moved to block the door, his eyes never leaving Clarence. The old man looked at him and then looked away from the burning rage in those eyes.
"You're not going anywhere. Give it up. We know it was you who hired the kidnappers. You called on people you'd kept in touch with for years, people from the old days when your life wasn't quite so respectable. It was you who had the idea of kidnapping Babs and you were the one who made the arrangements. But kidnapping wasn't all you had in mind?'
"Don't be absurd." The voice had lost the quavering quality that had always marked Clarence's speech. "Why on earth would I want Babette dead?"
"Try several million dollars. And two hundred thousand in gambling debts. Money you borrowed on the understanding that you were soon going to come into a large sum of money."
"Prove it." Clarence stood up, facing his accuser. The feeble old man had disappeared. A ripple of shock ran through the company at the change. Gone was the slightly batty old character they'd all taken for granted. This was someone else. Someone much stronger. Someone capable of murder.
"You understand that we didn't know a thing about any of this, Emmet." Lionel rapidly mopped at his brow now, his eyes darting back and forth. "Legally, we can't be held responsible for any of this."
The look Emmet threw him was full of contempt. "Shut up. You may not have planned the murder but I don't think any of you would have been too upset when the money rolled in."
"You can't prove any of your accusations," Clarence challenged.
"We caught one of the men you hired. Do you really think he's not going to name names?"
Something terrible sparked in the faded old eyes. He reached inside his coat and drew out a small pistol, aiming it unwaveringly at Emmet. Suddenly, fear had joined the shock that already filled the room.
"I waited sixty years for that damned money. I should have had it years ago. The old man was supposed to leave it to Bertie, only he tied it up so that I couldn't get my hands on it. I tried every way I could to get it but he did too good a job."
"So you decided to kill Babs?"
"I didn't have a choice. It was the only way I could get the money. The people I borrowed from were getting impatient. I'm too old for meetings in dark alleys. And I'm too old to spend the rest of my years in prison. Now just get out of my way, like the smart man I know you are. No one else has to get hurt."
"Even if he got out of your way, Uncle Clarence, you'd have to go through me and I don't think you want to kill me in front of so many witnesses."
Sam's head jerked around, his eyes narrowing on Babs's slim figure. She was leaning in the library door and he wondered how she'd managed to get by the police stationed outside. She was wearing jeans, with a hospital gown flapping over them, her feet bare. Her hair was a wild cap around her pale face, her eyes looking too big for her head.
This time the shock wave that rippled through the room was more subdued. There's been so many surprises in the past few minutes. One more hardly made an impression.
"Babs, what are you doing? You shouldn't be out of bed." Sam started toward her but she waved him away.
"I had to be here. I wanted to look him right in the eye."
Clarence stared at her, his face pale, his eyes wild. All his plans were dissolving around him. Nothing was going the way it should have.
"They said you were dead."
"I guess they were a little premature." Babs stared at him. "Why? If you'd come to me, told me you needed the money, I'd have given it to you. Why?"
His face changed, hatred twisting it into a caricature of the dotty old man they'd all thought they knew. "Ask you for it? Why should I ask you for it? It was mine. I put up with this family for sixty years, your snobbery and stinginess." He gestured with the gun and Dodie cringed back in her chair. Lionel looked as if he might pass out and Lance quickly finished off another drink.
"Sixty years. No one in this family ever thought I was good enough to be a Malone because of what I was."
"But I never felt that way. Never." The pain in Babs's voice cut through Sam, making him hurt for her.
"Maybe not but if it hadn't been for you, I would have had the money years ago. When your parents died, half of it would have come to Bertie. I wasn't greedy. Half would have been enough. You should have died with them and then this wouldn't have happened. But you didn't die and I couldn't risk another accident."
Emmet's harsh exclamation drowned out the sharp gasps and murmured words of shock. "You killed Earl and Lenore? All these years and no one ever knew. My God."
Clarence waved the gun again. "I was a professional. Of course no one knew, but she should have died with them." Madness glittered in his eyes. "She ruined everything when she survived the crash. It's all her fault."
Sam tensed as the gun wavered between Babs and Emmet. Babs clung to the doorway, her strength clearly ebbing, the last traces of color gone from her face as she absorbed the news that her parents' accident had been a murder.
"All her fault." Clarence appeared to settle on a target and the gun focused on Babs's slumped figure. Sam braced himself, prepared to lunge forward and block the old man's aim. "All her fault. All her—" The insane litany ended abruptly but not in the way any of them had expected. Instead of a gunshot, Clarence's shriek of pain filled the room. His gun jerked upward, burying in the ceiling the bullet he'd intended for Babs.
They'd all forgotten Bertie, as usual. She'd been sitting on the sofa, wrapped in her shawls, the usual pile of tangled knitting on her lap. She'd listened without speaking as her husband admitted to murder and attempted murder. No one had even thought to wonder at her reaction. They'd been too absorbed in the life-and-death drama unfolding in front of them to worry about a batty old woman. That turned out to be Clarence's fatal mistake. The point of a knitting needle applied to the soft skin of his side had been painful and unexpected.
Sam and Emmet both moved simultaneously. Emmet lunged forward, grabbing Clarence's upraised arm and wresting the gun away from him with little effort. Sam crossed the few feet that separated him from Babs, catching her in his arms as her knees gave way completely. He knelt on the floor, his body shielding her from anything that occurred in the room behind him.
In a matter of seconds, Emmet had the gun in his own possession and Clarence was standing sullenly in front of him, a broken old man. Emmet glanced over his shoulder to make sure Babs was all right and then looked at Bertie, who was still sitting on the sofa.
"Good work, Aunt Bertie."
Bertie drew her shawls closer around her narrow shoulders and stood up, looking down her short nose at the man who'd been her husband for nearly sixty years.
"I was raised to think divorce a sin. And I was determined to prove Papa was wrong about you. If I hadn't been so stubborn, I'd have been rid of you years ago. I hope they put you away for a very long time." Clarence didn't lift his eyes as she left the room, unconcerned by the armed police officers she passed on the way out.
In a matter of minutes Clarence had been handcuffed and led away. They'd all be expected to make a statement but it was agreed that they could have a little while to recover from the day's events.
Sam was seated in a big leather chair, Babs cradled protectively across his lap. Emmet crossed to the bar and poured himself a healthy drink. Lance picked up the decanter as Emmet set it down, the Waterford clinking against his glass in time to the shaking of his hands. Dodie sat rigidly in her chair, not looking at anyone and Lionel mopped constantly at his forehead, his face flushed and his eyes darting nervously about.
"Well, I guess that's settled," Lionel laughed nervously. "Quite a surprise. Who would have thought it?"
"This was a disgusting spectacle." Dodie's voice quivered with indignation. "I hope you're proud of yourself, Emmet."
Emmet swirled the amber liquid in his glass and nodded. "Yes, I am rather proud of myself. My only regret is that the rest of you aren't going to pay for your parts in this. I'd like nothing better than to be sending the whole lot of you postcards in San Quentin."
Dodie glared at him and then her eyes shifted to where Babs and Sam sat, his arms protectively around her. "I suppose it didn't occur to any of you to handle this in a more discreet manner. Do you have any idea the scandal this is going to cause?"
Babs lifted her head from Sam's shoulder and looked at the older woman, seeing the narrow face and the deep lines of bitterness as if for the first time. It hadn't occurred to one of them to ask how she was or to apologize for their part in all of this. Their only concern was how it was going to affect them.
"You know, Aunt Dodie, I sincerely hope the papers have a field day with this. If I'm lucky, they'll dig up the fact that you sold paintings to a known mobster and then Finney will get to take everything away from you. And, if that happens, I wouldn't advise any of you to come to me for help. I've finally realized that Uncle Emmet is absolutely right: None of you is worth a plug nickel."
She let her gaze move from Dodie's pinched expression to Lionel's nervous face to Lance, who at least had the grace to look away. They were all shallow, unhappy people and perhaps that was their punishment. She let her head fall back against Sam's shoulder, her strength draining away.
"Take me home, Sam. I'm tired."
Sam stood up, cradling her against his chest, his expression full of tenderness. "I'll take you back to the hospital where you belong. As soon as you're well, I'm going to kill you for this stunt." But the threat didn't hold much impact when he was holding her as if she were the most precious thing in his life.
❧
Babs pushed her thumb along the edge of a pea pod, feeling a sense of real accomplishment when the shell popped neatly open and the peas inside fell into the bowl in her lap. She tossed the shell into the basket beside her. Cecily said the empty pods were going into the compost pile, which was another mystery to Babs. It was funny how she'd managed to go her entire life without shelling a pea or seeing a compost pile.
She leaned back in her chair and reached for another pea, her eyes focused on the hillside that rose up from the backyard. In the month since the shooting, Sam had stripped the vegetation from it and was in the process of terracing the steep hill. It was as if he were doing penance for her injuries. If the hill hadn't been so overgrown, the killer wouldn't have been able to hide there. Babs had pointed out that Sam couldn't hold himself to blame. The man would simply have found somewhere else to hide. She might as well not have spoken. He'd continued to work doggedly, stripping every shred of cover from the sloping land.
Cecily had stopped her when she would have argued further. This was something Sam needed to do. Besides, she'd always wanted the hill terraced anyway. She'd smiled but Babs could see the worry in her eyes as she watched her son tear into the vegetation as if it were a malevolent presence.
She sighed. A month. It seemed like it had all happened in the dim and distant past. Her memories of the shooting were vague and unfocused, like images from a bad dream. Her memories of the confrontation with her family were more vivid but they'd taken on a surreal quality. Perhaps it was the only way her mind couid deal with the hurt.
She hadn't seen any of her family since the day the police had taken Clarence off to jail. Aunt Bertie had taken a trip to Europe. Babs had received one letter from her, apologizing for the things Clarence had done and saying that perhaps when she returned, Babs wouldn't mind seeing her. Babs held no grudge against her great-aunt. It was hardly Bertie's fault that her husband was a killer.
Clarence was awaiting trial. Emmet had been wearing a wire and the police had a complete tape of Clarence's confession, both to attempting to murder Babs and to killing her parents. The judge had set the bail high and no one had seen fit to pay it. When the time came, Babs knew she'd have to testify but that lay in the future.
Right now it was the present and the very near future that concerned her. Her shoulder was healed. The bullet had managed to go through without doing much damage. There was some residual stiffness and the doctors had warned her that it might be months before that faded completely. She flexed it. There were still twinges of discomfort but not enough to worry about.
"Does it hurt?" Babs looked over her shoulder, smiling at Cecily as the older woman stepped out onto the porch.
"Just a little stiff."
"You're sure?" Cecily laid her fingers on the injured shoulder as if she could tell by touch alone whether or not Babs was in pain. Babs shook her head, feeling a warm glow at the other woman's concern. Over the past few weeks, they'd grown close but Cecily's concern always surprised her. Since her parents' death, there'd been no one in her life to fuss over her. Emmet cared and he took care of her but it wasn't in his nature to fuss. Cecily fussed in the nicest possible way and Babs savored every moment of it.
"I was just thinking that it was about time I stopped pretending I was an invalid and got out of your hair."
"Don't be silly." Cecily sat down in a chair next to Babs and reached for a handful of peas, shelling them with quick efficient movements. "I've enjoyed having you here."
"You were very kind to ask me to stay here when I left the hospital."
"I wanted you to stay here. And so did Sam."
Babs looked away, her eyes showing a shadow of pain that had nothing to do with her shoulder. "I think Sam felt guilty about what happened and that's why he wanted me here."
"Sam wanted you here so he could keep an eye on you."
"Well, he's been avoiding me ever since." The words were out before she could call them back. She hadn't meant to say anything but the hurt went deeper than any physical injury.
Cecily reached out, touching the back of the younger woman's hand, her fingers light and gentle. "Men can be very peculiar. Sam has a lot to work out in his own mind but don't give up hope. My son may be a little slow but he's not stupid. He'll come around. Just be patient."
Babs picked up a pod and pried it open, lifting out each pea individually and dropping them into the bowl one after another. "I just wonder if he doesn't wish he'd never met me."
"Of course he wishes it." Babs's head jerked around and Cecily laughed gently. "He wishes it because you've disrupted his life and things can never be the same. Men are inherently resistant to change. But underneath the urge to hide his head and pretend everything is the same as it was, he knows just how much better his life is going to be with you in it. Just have a little patience."
"I hope so." Babs glanced at her, noticing a gleam in Cecily's eyes. "You look pleased with yourself."
To her surprise, the other woman blushed, the color tinting her cheeks a soft shade of pink. The peas were forgotten. Babs turned her full attention on her friend.
"What's going on?"
Cecily's smile deepened, her eyes soft and glowing. "Last night Emmet asked me to marry him and I said yes." She rushed the words, as if afraid they might not get out unless she hurried them.
"That's wonderful!"
"Do you really think so? We haven't known each other very long and I was afraid it might seem like we were rushing things."
"I think the two of you are perfect together. Uncle Emmet has been alone a long time. I can't imagine anyone more perfect for him than you."
"Thank you."
"Have you told Sam yet?"
"Just a little while ago."
"What did he say?" Babs toyed with the basket of peas, the task forgotten.
Cecily laughed, her happiness reaching out to light everything around her.
"Well, once he'd recovered from the shock, he said he was very happy for me. Poor Sam. I'm afraid he's had to make a lot of adjustments in his life." Cecily looked at her watch and stood up. "I have an appointment with the hairdresser in half an hour. Emmet is taking me out to dinner tonight so you and Sam will be on your own."
"Where is Sam?" She hoped that the panic she felt at the thought of being alone with him didn't show in her voice.
"He went for a drive. He said he'd be back before dark."
Lost and Found Page 20
