Dead in a Flash

by Brynn Bonner

  “Which proves nothing,” Esme said. “If it happened the way Yvonne claims, I’m betting the baby wasn’t born in a hospital.”

  “Maybe that’s all this is about for Yvonne. She thinks she’d get in trouble for whatever she did to doctor the records, and maybe she would. There might be some prosecutable offense there still, and old woman or not, they might decide to hold her accountable.”

  “If they knew her personally I suspect they’d be happy to throw the book at her, her being so charming and all,” Esme said.

  “I hate the idea of bringing all this to Conrad right now. His wedding is so close and he’s so happy. I don’t like to be the one to rain on that. And I wonder how Phoebe would react. What’s your take on her, Esme?”

  “I only talked to her briefly,” Esme said. “But she seems nice enough.”

  “Patricia seems to think she’s a gold digger,” I said.

  “Patricia is a harsh critic of everything and everybody,” Esme said. “Dinah Leigh likes Phoebe fine and she’s very protective of Conrad. That tells me something.”

  “I wonder if it’d make any difference to Phoebe if she found out he was adopted.”

  “I don’t know why it would,” Esme said.

  “Unless she is a gold digger,” I said. “And a very calculating one who orchestrated their whole romance to get near the Dodd fortune.”

  “But that’s the thing,” Esme said. “Dinah Leigh and Conrad grew up as brother and sister, and they’re both way along in life now. It wouldn’t change Dinah Leigh’s feelings toward him. Oh, she might be devastated at first, but—”

  “Yes, she might be,” I said, sitting up straighter in the chair, “she might be devastated. Esme, could this have been what Chelsea and Lincoln were really arguing about the night he was killed?”

  “How would they have learned about it?” Esme asked.

  “Maybe the same way we did, through Yvonne, or maybe something in that box. The blue envelope! Emma said Chelsea reacted funny when she read whatever was in that blue envelope. Maybe it was something to do with the adoption.”

  “If there was an adoption, Sophreena. We still don’t even know if Yvonne’s story is true. You know, that’s the thing I like best about dead people. I may not always understand what they’re trying to tell me, but they never lie.”

  * * *

  We spent the day of the funeral examining and ordering the facts we’d already found out about the fire, and as Esme was searching for more, I dug deeper into Conrad’s family history, wallowing in the quandary of what to do about Yvonne’s revelation. Obviously I couldn’t conceal it. That would be a breach of professional ethics. It’d kill us professionally if it came to light later that she’d been telling the truth and that we knew about it. And if that came to pass I was sure the lovely Aunt Yvonne would gladly volunteer our guilty knowledge.

  But perhaps I could delay it, until after the wedding. Maybe give Dinah Leigh a sealed report and ask her not to read it until after the wedding.

  And I could leave the tree as it was. After all, the records were all in order. I’d scrutinized them down to the last jot and tittle and nothing seemed amiss. I had no way to prove or disprove Yvonne’s contentions with what was available to me.

  I’d halfway talked myself into that plan. Maybe with a nice accompanying greeting card: Congratulations on the marriage of your not-quite brother.

  Not an appealing prospect.

  After mulling it over for hours I’d realized this wasn’t about adoption, it was about deception. If it came out that Dinah Leigh and Conrad weren’t blood siblings, they would adjust to the idea, but coming to grips with their parents’ lies might prove more difficult. And since Aunt Yvonne was the only one left who had a part in it, they could turn their ire on her. That was probably what she feared.

  So what could Yvonne’s motive be to tell us that story unless there was at least some truth to it? I was really warming to Esme’s theory that Yvonne might be Conrad’s biological mother. That would be a secret worth protecting, given the circumstances.

  I could only think of one way to get more answers. I retrieved the bag with the cigarette stub from my desk drawer and filled out the form to send it in for testing. I felt not one twinge of apprehension where Yvonne was concerned. She’d raised all these questions and she’d unwittingly given us the means to an answer.

  I sealed the envelope and checked the calendar. There was no way the results would arrive before the wedding, even if I paid the exorbitant fee for rushed processing. So I still had the dilemma of what to do about the family tree.

  I’d spent the morning tracking down every Leggett I could find who could be related to the storeowners and had spoken to three of them by phone. All were too young to have any memory of the relatives I asked about, much less any adoption shenanigans. One was gracious and apologetic that she couldn’t help, another seemed hopelessly confused by my questions, and the third told me to take his number off my calling list or he’d report me to the Do Not Call Registry and hung up on me.

  I was tired and irritable and sick of this job. Esme and I talked it over and made the decision that we’d finish the tree as the information stood so Dinah Leigh could give it to Conrad on his wedding day, but we’d give her the verbal caveat that we were still investigating some irregularities. Then when the DNA report came back we’d give them all the info we had.

  I looked over the tree. It would take me maybe two more hours to finish it up. It was visually beautiful, if I did say so myself, but as family history it was very likely counterfeit. Every fiber of my being hated the idea of delivering it as authentic, but it seemed the only viable plan.

  Now if we could only make progress with our other nettlesome job. As Esme continued the search online, I reviewed everything again and prepared a list of questions for Cyrus Hamilton’s father. This did nothing to improve my mood. At mid-afternoon Esme had to go to her house to let the plumbers in and I wandered aimlessly around the empty house, too frustrated to work. I made a halfhearted attempt to tidy my bedroom, putting away the folded clothes that had been sitting in a laundry basket for more than a week. I stuffed my T-shirts into a dresser drawer and nudged it shut, then opened the top drawer reserved for miscellaneous junk and rummaged through until I found the Zippo that had been my grandfather’s. I clicked it open and thumbed the striker, but it didn’t spark. I shook it. No fuel, probably no flint either. I closed the lid, using two fingers to flip it shut. Then I cupped it in my hand and tried to flick it open as I’d seen Cyrus do. It took a little practice, but once I had the motion down it was very satisfying. And Lily Rose was right; the sound was very distinctive. Click-hiss-clack.

  I decided to visit Lily Rose again. I had the feeling we were going to fail at this job and it was important to me that she knew we’d given it our best and that neither Esme nor I took defeat lightly. I wanted her to hear that from me.

  * * *

  Sarah let me into the room and spoke softly. “She’s not doing as well as yesterday.”

  “I can come back another time if she’s not up for a visit.”

  “No, please,” Sarah said. “She’d love to see you and when you called, I made an appointment downstairs. With all that’s happened I haven’t even been down to the spa since we arrived. I could really use a massage. Will that be okay? Can you stay that long?”

  “If she can’t, I’ll be fine,” a voice came from across the room where Lily Rose sat by the window. “My legs don’t work very well today, but my ears are dandy. Please, Sarah, go on, and take your time. You’ve hardly left this room in days. Sophreena and I will have a nice visit and if she has to leave, I will distract myself with mindless television until you return. I can’t get into any trouble with that agenda.”

  “How I wish I could spare her worries about me,” Lily Rose said as the door closed behind Sarah. “She doesn’t need that on top of her struggles as a temporary single parent, and to a teenager no less! Emma’s a good girl at heart, but
she can strain against the traces with the best of them.”

  “Emma’s a delight,” I said, and meant it.

  “You surely can’t believe a grandmother would disagree,” Lily Rose said. “And Damon is a handsome, smart fellow, but he’s got much to learn about how to get on gracefully in the world. He, too, can still give Sarah gray hairs, even if he is a grown man.”

  “I understand he’s to head the foundation,” I said.

  “Yes,” Lily Rose said with a sigh. “I hope he’s up to the task. I think that’s one reason Stan is so set on having everything absolutely beyond challenge. He doesn’t want to give the boy a handicap out of the gate on his first big job.”

  I told her about my planned meeting with Cyrus’s father the next day.

  “Well, that’ll be lovely. So he’s coming here? I haven’t seen Luther in years. He was always faithful to come by and say hello to Stanton if we were there when he was back in Quinn County to visit his folks, but after they passed, the visits became less frequent and finally just stopped altogether.”

  “He’s agreed to talk with me about what he remembers. Cyrus says his memory is still sharp, so maybe I’ll learn something new,” I said, feeling like a fraud, since I sincerely doubted we were going to find anything of use.

  “Maybe,” Lily Rose said. “He would’ve been a very young man back then, so the memories certainly won’t be fresh.”

  “Yes, a very young man,” I said, frowning as I did the math. “But he was the farm manager, right? Not a hired hand.”

  “That’s right,” Lily Rose said. “He was a pretty remarkable young man. I’m told Alton gave him almost complete autonomy in running the farm. Which was unusual because, first off, Alton Sawyer was a very hands-on kind of man. He was slow to delegate and always imagined he knew how to do things best. And secondly, Luther didn’t even come from a farming family. His folks had both been teachers. He knew little about farming when he came to work for Alton, but he was a quick study and a natural-born manager. He was soon running the whole operation with Alton’s complete confidence.”

  “Did he live on the property?” I asked.

  “No, he had a little house about three or four miles as the crow flies. He was a married man by then, though not a happily married one.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “This is all gossip, you understand. Mother Meg spoke of it to me; she was very fond of Luther and distressed about how his wife acted. Luther had married a young woman who made it clear she felt she’d made a bad match in hitching herself to a farm manager. She’d come from a family of means. I don’t know what they did or anything else about them except that Mother Meg thought they looked down on Luther. As it went, I guess Luther told her he wanted to stay on with the Sawyers for a few more seasons and she up and left him without a by-your-leave and went back to her folks. I forget where they lived—down in Tennessee, maybe? Anyway, Luther was crushed when she left him, but he had his pride and he didn’t go after her. Everybody thought it was the end of the marriage. But then the tragedy struck and the Sawyers moved away and Luther went west to manage that little motel for his brother. Nearly a year later his runaway wife showed up on his doorstep with a curly-haired toddler she’d never even deigned to let him know he’d got on her.”

  “Cyrus?” I asked.

  “Cyrus,” she said. “They patched things up and apparently lived happily ever after, especially after Luther started to prosper in the hospitality industry. Mother Meg was always so impressed with how well Luther treated his in-laws, even after their harsh judgment of him in the early years. She saw that as a real testament to his character. And I do, too. I’ve always liked that story about him.”

  “I like it, too,” I said.

  “Is something troubling you, Sophreena?” she asked, and I realized I’d gone silent and was staring out the window, probably with a frown on my face.

  “Yes,” I said. “Things aren’t going real well with the job. I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to give the senator and Lenora what they asked for and I feel we’re failing them. And you.”

  “Nonsense, Sophreena,” she said. “Both Stanton and Lenora have lived with this conundrum. They appreciate how tangled it is. Do what you can and don’t fret over it.”

  Easier said than done, I thought, but Lily Rose’s kindness disarmed me. “I’m just discouraged right now because we’ve got two challenging jobs at once. This job for Dinah Leigh is turning out to be quite complicated, too. I’m having some trouble tracking down some things their aunt Yvonne told me.”

  “Yvonne,” Lily Rose said with a huff. “You’ll think me a terrible person for saying so, but that woman would try the patience of a saint. I think that must be where Patricia got her acid tongue. I never knew Dinah Leigh’s mother, but those who did say she was a nice lady, nothing at all like Yvonne.”

  A nice lady who may have been quite willing to take advantage of a young girl’s dire circumstances, I thought. Or fake a pregnancy to hide an illegal adoption.

  “Did you know Dinah Leigh’s father?” I asked.

  “I met him once. He was sort of a morose man. Course, I don’t know what he was like when he was younger. He was an elderly man by the time I met him and quite ill. Cancer, as I recall. It was a lingering death, something I don’t really care to think about given my prospects.”

  I knew better than to speak pretty, empty words to Lily Rose on this subject. She understood her own situation and faced it with stalwart resolve. I searched my mental databank on Conrad’s family tree. “So his wife predeceased him by almost twenty years,” I said. “Did he live alone after that?”

  “For a while I think he did. He was in pretty bad shape by the time he went to live with Dinah Leigh and Preston. He was there for some time, but eventually, given the level of care he needed, they decided it was best to move him to a facility near their home. He was there until the end.”

  “Conrad tells me he doted on Dinah Leigh,” I said. “She must’ve taken it hard when he died.”

  “She did,” Lily Rose said. “She loved her mother, too, of course, but I think she was especially close with her father. I never witnessed it myself, but they say Marie wore the pants in that family. Back then they would’ve called him henpecked. I am so glad you young people have evolved to the point where a young man can appreciate a strong woman and not be threatened by her.”

  “Your lips to God’s ears, Lily Rose. I’m not sure we’ve quite completed that evolutionary process, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

  Lily Rose laughed, then abruptly her laughter died away and she fished in her sleeve for a tissue. “I feel guilty being lighthearted about anything today as they prepare to put Lincoln to rest. I think of his poor father and wonder how he can bear this burden alone. Though I think he and Stanton are very alike in that way; they prefer to keep their feelings inside. In fact he and Stanton are alike in many ways. I hope they’ll keep a good friendship now that they’ve endured this shared loss. It would help both of them.”

  I thought of the morning I saw Senator Stan greeting Lincoln’s father and how they’d walked away, two proud tall men, a decade apart in age, both bent with grief but so attuned to each other. I had the feeling it was a bond that would endure.

  twelve

  I ARRIVED THIRTY MINUTES EARLY for my appointment the following day with Cyrus’s father, Luther. I was hoping for a chance to talk with Chelsea. I wanted to see how she was holding up, but I also wanted to ask about that blue envelope. It was bugging me that an artifact was missing, especially given the train wreck this job had become.

  I was told she’d gone for a walk, and I knew where I’d find her. Sure enough, she was sitting on the same mossy embankment where we’d talked before. She assured me I wasn’t intruding and I settled down beside her, regretting my decision to wear khaki pants instead of jeans.

  “Everyone was wonderful to me,” she said in response to my question about the funeral. “I’d only seen Lincoln�
��s father a few times, but he treated me like family. They certainly raise some wonderful men out in Quinn County. Mr. Cooper reminds me so much of Senator Stan, courtly and kind. Lincoln had told him all about us, so he knew what Lincoln’s loss meant to me. Seems practically everyone in the universe knew about us. How could we have been so oblivious? We thought we were so discreet.”

  “And how do you feel about them knowing?” I asked.

  She picked up a pebble and threw it in the water, watching the disturbance spread into a circle. “I guess it makes it easier to grieve because I don’t have to hide anything anymore, but really, what difference does it all make now? All the things I feared about revealing our relationship don’t apply anymore. Lincoln’s gone. And so are our plans for the future.”

  I wanted so badly to ask her about the argument they had the night Lincoln died, but even if I’d been able to explain how I knew about it, I could see this wasn’t the time.

  “I know this is a terrible time to be asked about work details,” I said, “and this is a trivial thing, but I was wondering if you remembered seeing a blue envelope with a letter or some papers inside the box of Dinah Leigh’s that you inventoried for us.”

  “Blue envelope?” Chelsea asked, turning to pick up another pebble. She took a long beat before she went on—too long in my estimation. “No,” she said, drawing out the word. “I don’t remember seeing a blue envelope. What was in it?”

  “Not sure,” I said. “Emma thought she remembered seeing it when she was helping you go through the things.”

  “Did she say what it was?” Chelsea asked, throwing another pebble into the lake.

  “I don’t think she knows,” I said. “She said you looked it over and set it aside. I thought maybe it was something you wanted to talk with us about.”