“Before, before you do this, I want to know. What was in the letter you sent with Brian?”
“I wanted Fiona to know that this baby’s mother was quality,” she said. “When I knew the Hadleys would be adopting Brian, I searched all of Topeka for stationary worthy of that letter. Back then, I didn’t have this tremor. I wrote it with my finest penmanship on stationary by Eaton called Love Letters. It was perfumed and exquisite and had this lovely rose watermark.” Minerva’s voice quivered.
“I told them I was very intelligent and extremely talented. Not that starkly, of course. I chose each word with great care. Then I added that Brian was actually a descendent of one of the Lees of Virginia. I wanted them to raise Brian as a very special child. I put all my expectations into that letter.”
“A Lee! With Fiona being Southern, no wonder she raised the child like he was next to the Almighty. No wonder she kept that letter.”
“Then God help me, I could not resist sending the collection of the baby clothes my mother had embroidered for me. My real mother. The clothes she had intended for me.” Her voice caught. “Rebecca had kept them all in a special trunk.”
“And Judy found the letter?”
“She found the copy Zelda had made. Judy intended to give Zelda’s copy to you and Sam. My original was safe with Fiona. God knows that bitch would never show it to anyone, but she’d kept it, of course, because it said her son was a Lee.”
There was little daylight left. Soon my escorts would arrive, find the Suburban and notify Sam. Soon people would be searching. I had to keep her talking.
“Why did you kill poor Zelda? I understand that you killed Judy to keep her from taking the copy to Sam, but why Zelda?”
“That day Fiona went running out of the courthouse I knew something was wrong.”
“We were watching the clouds,” I said. “And I had left my office unlocked.”
“Zelda’s story was lying on the floor where Fiona dropped it. I saw the watermark. I knew Zelda printed her story on copied sheets from the backside of that letter. To Fiona, it was simply proof that her sister had the guts to go through with the blackmail. But I had notarized deeds, signed hundred of documents for the county. I was afraid Zelda had recognized my handwriting and knew I was Brian’s mother. My son was running for the senate. Everything would come out then. Everything.”
A coyote howled in the distance, sending a shiver up my spine.
“That’s when I made my stupid, stupid mistake.” Minerva’s voice softened with remorse. “I went to her house that evening after Max had left for the Lion’s Club. On impulse. It wasn’t like me. But I had to know! She let me in and I could tell she hadn’t connected me to the handwriting, the letter, anything. So I just told her I was there to get a contribution for Sunny Rest’s literacy program.”
“Why did you kill her then? If she didn’t know?” I blurted out the question, hoping the agony in my voice wouldn’t stop her from telling me the rest.
“We chatted. She went to the bedroom to get her checkbook. I waited next to her piano with all those pictures of Judy. And Brian. She and Max were always crazy about Brian. She came back into the room. Looked at me like she was seeing a ghost. It was the picture. If I hadn’t been standing with my head at the same angle as Brian’s in that picture, she would never have known.”
I closed my eyes, opened them. Waited for her to go on.
“I’ll never forget her words. Never. ‘So it’s you,’ she said. ‘You. A Virginia Lee, my foot. Well, I’m calling a halt to this whole charade. I’m going to the paper tomorrow morning.’”
Minerva’s voice faltered.
“Fiona had been there earlier that evening, you see, and they had gotten into this flaming fight. Zelda was so angry she’d lost all thought of blackmail. She wanted revenge instead. Wanted to get even with Fiona for years and years of slights. I tried to talk to her, but she just laughed. I started toward her and she got scared and ran into the bedroom and I guess you know the rest.”
“Does Brian know you’re his mother? Does Fiona know?”
“No.” There was a new weariness to her voice. “Only Zelda. Only I knew the horror of the story the press would uncover if they started digging.”
“Fiona wanted to cover up the adoption,” I said, seeing it all now. “Brian wanted to cover up Wilson’s Disease. You knew the stakes were much larger. You wanted to hide old murders.”
Minerva was breathing harder now. She was seconds away from dragging me into the woods.
“Herman Swenson is your father. Your own father. Don’t you care? How can you stand to let that poor man go to his grave letting everyone think he killed his wife and his son and his baby?”
At last I had hit the spot I had been probing for.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Her voice sank to a whimper, as though she were drained of all energy. “He’d have been a wonderful father. Emily would have been a wonderful mother. Instead I was raised by that creature.”
“No wonder he’s the one you read to in the nursing home”
“I wanted to know what he was like. What I would have been like.”
“It’s not too late.”
“Shut up. It’s too late for everyone but Brian. I’m not going to let you ruin Brian.”
“Brian’s father. Who was Brian’s father?”
“Just a man I met. I wanted to lose my virginity. I wanted to know if I could feel. Be normal.”
“And were you?” I asked cruelly. “Are you?”
She gave another vicious tug on my arm. I was close to passing out from the pain.
“Shut up. What do you know about doing without a mother and a father? You know nothing. Do you know what I did first? The very first thing after I shoveled the last load of dirt over Rebecca?”
“No, Minerva. I’m trying to understand. Really trying to understand,” I sobbed.
“I looked in the trunk. The forbidden trunk.”
“The trunk that’s in your house?” She kept coming back to it. Now, and before as AngelChild.
“Yes. She had never let me see inside that trunk. But I knew where she kept the key, and I looked. And I found my baby clothes. Layer after layer of baby clothes. And newspaper clippings. Then I knew where she had gotten me. She killed my mother. Her very own sister. I was robbed of a real mother who would have loved me. And a big brother. I would have had a real brother.”
She’s talking, talking. Wants me to know. Hope flickered. Perhaps at some subconscious level she didn’t want to kill me.
If I could just find the right words.
“Minerva, don’t do this. For Brian’s sake, don’t do this.”
I had found the wrong ones.
“This is for Brian’s sake,” she cried with new determination. “Don’t you know that yet? It’s for his future.”
“Oh, Minerva, he’s already struggling to keep himself together. I thought he was an alcoholic.”
She whirled me around and slapped me hard across the face. In that instant, when she let go of my arm, I tried to run, but she grabbed my arm again before I could turn, then kicked me in the stomach. This time I fell to my knees, dizzy with pain.
She let go long enough to pick up a limb, raised it over her head. I tried to get to my feet, but managed only to twist aside far enough to take the impact of the blow on my shoulder, instead of my skull. She hit something. Something tore. My arm was finished.
I fell back full length and hoped she thought I was unconscious. She began dragging me into the thicket. I was wild with pain, but I did not cry out. My only chance would be to catch her off guard.
Eventually, she would have to go back for the shovel, the sacks of lime. It would take her a while to cover her tracks. That’s what the rake had been for. To rearrange this carpet of leaves.
I was dead weight. She was exhausted. Her breath was now coming in hot ragged gasps. She could drag me only a few steps at a time before she had to stop and rest. She dropped me abruptly.
I knew we had reached my grave.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Was she going to shoot me, knife me, or bash in my head?
Whatever she was going to do, she would do it right now, before she went back to the pickup for supplies.
Please God, I prayed. Let me live. My timing had to be perfect.
Remembering what Sam Abbott had taught me about the danger of hesitation, before she could experience the giddy intake of breath from knowing she had reached her destination, I rolled toward her ankles, and yanked on her right arm, tumbling us both over into the open grave.
She landed hard, face down. I was on her back. Before she could catch her breath and push up, I got to my knees on top of her flattened body. My left arm was useless. I could only brace myself with my right arm. It was not enough to leverage myself out of the hole.
Her face still pressed into the damp earth, she groped behind her and grabbed my ankle. My blood froze. I was injured. She was not. It would all be over in a matter of seconds.
But it was Friday. I was wearing my cowboy boots. I kicked her head with my free foot. Kicked her three times.
Once for Zelda.
Once for Judy.
Once for Josie.
She was as still as a corpse. I stood fully upright on her back. Bracing my right elbow, I heaved myself out of the grave. Dizzy and terrified, I wobbled to my feet and stumbled toward the edge of the thicket. My tongue swelled in my dry mouth. I plunged forward, the hair prickling on the back of my neck, as though she could rise from that grave, fly though the air, and grab me.
I reached the edge of the clearing. Her Toyota was only three hundred yards away.
I could hardly breathe. I knew I had to get to the pickup.
I opened the door and dropped into the driver’s seat. The damned stick shift. My left arm was too injured to manipulate controls simultaneously. The seat was too far back to brace myself well. When I finally got into position to turn the key and hold down the clutch, there was a sickening whir, whir, whir, like an old engine makes on a cold morning. Frantically, I tried to reposition myself. The engine was getting weaker.
I tried to calm myself. I counted to thirty. When I turned the key again, there was a dead click.
I trembled violently, and knew with sickening certainty it was not from fear. Pain surged and I tasted blood.
My hands shook as I reached into my purse, glanced at the “no service” bars on my cell, then grabbed my gun. I tucked it into the band of my jeans. I had to get help, and there was only one way out. Down the road, the same way we came in. I shut my mind against the thought I might not have enough time.
Dizzy with shock, I got out and started down the road that was little better than a rutted path. I heard an occasional car in the distance. I reached down and picked up a limb to steady myself. I willed myself to push against the pain, the terror. Felt my blood pressure dropping like a rock in a lake. I had to get help. Had to make it to the road.
If I didn’t, I would die.
I staggered across the little culvert. I was close. Only twenty more yards and I would be over the little hill that obscured this area from the highway. If only I could make it to the side of the highway.
Any day but Friday and this road would be scarcely traveled. But it was high school football night. Everyone would be going to the game. Lots of people coming and going.
I heard a sound behind me. A twig snapped. Minerva was not dead.
Not dead.
She was coming for me.
I clamped down on a sob, on any sound at all.
Her progress would be slower than mine because she was trying to move quietly. She was skirting the edge of the clearing and I was using the road. But I was hurt and she clearly had not been hurt enough.
Not nearly enough.
My gun was useless. There was too little light for a long shot. Even if I made it to the highway there was no guarantee someone would see me before she killed me. She would know I was headed for the road. She would stop at the dead pickup. She would know a lot.
What she could not know was that I was slowly bleeding to death.
I couldn’t let her know that. I pressed on toward the highway, as though I had not heard her. I was nearing the rise. I knew she would try for me before I reached it.
She would not know about the gun, but it was too dark to shoot.
I heard a sound about ten yards away. Then dead silence. I knew she had stopped, cold afraid I had heard her.
Spurred by panic, I knew I had one chance. I groaned to let her know I was injured. Injured and easy prey. Groaned like I was too wiped out with pain to be aware of what was before or behind or below or above.
I dropped to my knees. An irresistible target. Hurt. Terribly hurt.
Now she did not bother to hide herself. She walked steadily toward me.
When she loomed right before me, I raised my gun and shot her. Three times.
Once for Zelda.
Once for Judy.
Once for Josie.
I hoped she was dead. I hoped I would live.
I dragged myself down over the rise.
There were cars coming. I saw there were two cars close together. One might stop if there was the safety of another close by. I thanked God this was Western Kansas. Farm country where people were used to looking, seeing, noticing.
Dazed, I heard Edgar Hadley’s pickup. Saw him pull over, jump from the cab. Start toward me.
Blackness. I swirled down into velvety blackness.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Blinded by an explosion of light, I squeezed my eyes tight against the pain. I heard voices.
“She’s awake,” Keith said. There was an odor wafting across the room. Jasmine. Roses. Heavenly. Something in me loosened, let go of terror. I knew I was smiling despite the torture of moving cracked lips and bruised flesh.
I slept again. Hours later, when I could bear to open my eyes again, Keith’s face was flanked by people in white.
“Josie,” I murmured. “Josie.”
Keith was by my side in an instant. “She’s fine,” he said. “Just great, Lottie.”
“I already know that,” I whispered.
Then I fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
“How did you know?” he asked, the next morning after I devoured a breakfast large enough for a harvester.
“I smelled Joy Perfume and figured she had sent you or someone else out to buy it. I knew everything was all right. Only a very conscious Josie would insist on her little luxuries while lying in a hospital bed. She had to have been out of her coma to send you off shopping. I doubt if even I could get you to shop for me,” I said ruefully. “So where are you hiding her?”
“On another floor. We’ll put the two of you together as soon as you’re out of intensive care. You’ve got a busted rib and it punctured a lung.”
“Josie’s here. Right here in this hospital?” But of course they would have flown me to Denver.
Later that morning, I was pronounced fit to be moved and transferred to her room.
“It’s for smokers, you know,” Josie said. She sat on the edge of my bed, her eyes bright with tears.
“Is not.” I laughed, then winced at the pain. I reached for her hand and patted it. We leaned toward one another, foreheads touching. I stroked her hair and felt her shudder.
“I’m so sorry I got you into this,” I murmured. “So terribly sorry.”
“Just hush. I’m fine. And we caught a murderess.”
***
“You have a visitor,” Keith said.
Elizabeth walked through the door, bearing flowers.
“I hear you’ve been blooded, Lottie,” she said. Her voice was solemn, respectful.
“It’s been quite an ordeal,” I said. She glanced at Josie and flushed. She walked over to her bed.
“I owe you an apology. I’m terribly sorry for my behavior the night you were at our house. Please forgive me.”
There was no mistaking
Elizabeth’s sincerity.
“Of course I accept your apology,” Josie’s voice dripped with sugar. “Put the whole incident out of your mind, please. That’s certainly what I intend to do.”
“Thank you. You’re being very gracious.”
Keith beamed. Elizabeth came back to my bedside. “There’s so much I don’t understand, Dad. Edgar Hadley found her? Brought her to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Why was he looking for her?”
“According to Sam Abbott, Edgar had seen our Suburban parked in his driveway, and when he went into the house, he asked Brian and Fiona what Lottie had wanted. When Brian realized what she might have seen or heard, he went tearing out of the house. He wanted to track Lottie down and ask her not to take his allegations against Fiona too seriously. He wanted his mother to have a decent lawyer before she talked to anyone.”
“And Edgar?” Elizabeth asked.
“Edgar had finally come to believe that Brian was the murderer. He went to town to warn Lottie.”
“Lottie’s family history books were like opening Pandora’s Box,” Josie said. “All the troubles in the world flew out.”
They were still limiting our visitors. Elizabeth stayed, chatted, until a nurse told her it was time to leave.
“Bye, Mom,” Elizabeth said shyly. Touched, I squeezed her hand, watched her stride from the room, followed by Keith.
Josie started to laugh. I tried not to. It was killing me.
“You’re in, girlfriend,” she said. “Part of Elizabeth’s sisterhood. I can feel the change in the air. You’re going to be her number one guru from now on.”
“Stop,” I managed to wheeze, but she would not. She finally shut up when the nurses came in to change her dressings.
***
Two days later we were sitting on the tiny little patio bordering the hospital courtyard.
“I’m still not sure just how all this started,” she said.
I had already told her about Minerva’s background and Wilson’s disease. It took a while to fill her in on all the rest.
“So Fiona knew Zelda was serious about blackmailing her when she saw the watermark on the paper?”
Deadly Descent Page 25
