*
Terry’s daughters were framed by the kitchen window. Dara held a large silver pitcher. Delia was shaking her head. Leigh knocked on the door, and the two women jerked around, staring into the dark yard.
Dana opened the door. “You.”
“I hoped I could say goodnight to your dad,” Leigh said, entering before Dana could tell her to leave.
“He’d like that,” Delia said.
“He’s ready to go to bed,” said Dana.
“I know the rules. I won’t be long.”
Terry smiled broadly when she entered the study. He pointed to the brandy. “Pour a night cap for each of us. Don’t be stingy this time.”
Leigh did as her boss commanded. After she’d warmed herself with a first sip, she sat down. She pulled the newly-framed Seville out of her backpack and dropped it on his lap. “I can’t be responsible for that, not another moment. I’ve been told that it’s worth several thousand dollars, and it should be locked up. What’s more, I’d like your permission to invite three hundred women into the cottage tomorrow morning. I promise to stand guard over small objects that could be easily stolen and you can dock any damages from my pay.” She took another sip. Lord, it was good brandy. “And while I’m at it, I sincerely hope you’ve left something—a lot of something—in your will to the local library.” Another sip. “This is really good stuff, Terry. I’ll miss our nightcaps.”
“Sounds like you’re quitting.”
His white hair stood on end. He hadn’t shaved, or been shaved, and his shirt had been buttoned wrong.
She slouched in the chair and sighed. “No. I’m staying. We’ll finish the book. And I’m sorry about mentioning your will and the library. None of my business.”
“Those women finally get to you?”
She nodded.
“You weren’t serious about letting them tour the cottage tomorrow, were you?”
After a moment, she shook her head. “But I am serious about that drawing. Things can disappear.” She rocked her tumbler, watching the brandy slosh in the glass.
The voices in the kitchen became briefly audible. His raised his drink toward the door. “To daughters. You’ll join me in that toast won’t you, Leigh?”
She raised her glass. “To daughters.”
He sipped, then tipped his head back, savoring the taste with pursed lips. He set the glass down hard. “My daughters are busy taking inventory. They’ll want to know about that drawing, that’s for sure. They’ll want to add it to the total.”
She shook her head, thinking about the missing drawing. Surely that was worth even more.
“For two days now I’ve heard them roam all over, just like when they were young. Back then they were seeking hiding places, adventure, the odd relic with a good story. Now they’re counting chicks before they’ve hatched.”
“They may be eyeing the family silver, Terry, but your daughters have made some good decisions for you. The walker will be helpful.” She pointed to the corner of the study where a hospital bed had been set up. “That’s new.”
He swore. “I’m not so decrepit I can’t still handle the stairs. It’s like they’re taunting me, Leigh. Taunting me with my infirmity and approaching death.”
“One fall, Terry—”
“You think I don’t know what falls do to people my age? I thought you were on my side. Where have you been all day? You’ve abandoned me too, just like Geneva.”
“Geneva hasn’t abandoned you. She calls every day. And I am on your side.”
He snorted. “Your turn will come, just wait. That daughter who’s broken your heart will do it again and again and again. What’s she up to tonight? Found a local boy, I bet. Just like her mother!”
“Yes, in fact. My daughter seems to be enjoying the company of Peach Wickham’s son.”
As he laughed, his expression again revealed a gleeful boy. Leigh rose, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. She fell back into her chair.
He wagged a finger. “Now I understand why you want me to let the women into the cottage. Start a ruckus, cause some damage, and by the terms of the trust the Bancroft fortune goes to Ida May’s heirs. Your daughter’s new boyfriend!”
“Very funny, Terry.”
He picked up his glass and smiled into it. “You could have that woman at all your holiday parties the rest of your life.”
“Stop it.”
“You’ve cheered me up tonight.”
“And you’ve cheered me up. Thank you, Terry.”
“No more nonsense about the cottage?”
“None.”
“I’ll think about the library, though. That’s a good idea. It’s been a long time since the Bancrofts gave anything to this town. Granddad had everything tied up so tightly. He sure as hell didn’t give anything to the town or anyone in it. He was so bitter, so angry about the doctor, about how she was treated, how it all ended. The way people rallied around Grandmother.”
“He surely shouldered some of that guilt.”
There was no hint of the gleeful boy in the face of the man who studied her. Then he turned and looked out the window, his hand automatically lifting and tracing the tree.
She’d learned to wait, working with these old men. To sit silently and wait for the rush of memories to ebb and they’d reclaimed a foothold on the present. She sipped brandy.
He dropped his hand into his lap and said, “Granddad told me once that he and the doctor had planned to leave town together when the girl had gone back to college after that Christmas vacation. He had some business in St. Louis to finish up, then he was returning to Pepin to get his lover. They planned to leave town and leave my grandmother forever.”
“But she killed herself.”
Terry stared at her a long moment. “Granddad told me…” his voice broke. “He told me… Oh hell. There’s no proof now and there wasn’t any back then. Granddad suspected something, but what could he do? Accuse his own wife, the mother of his children? That’s why he moved into the cottage. He was heartbroken. His lover was dead, and how could he live with the woman he suspected of killing her?”
Leigh set down her glass. “Your grandmother murdered Susan Turnbull?”
“My grandmother couldn’t even boil water, Leigh. She was a Chandler from Boston, which she never failed to remind everyone, and Chandler women were reared to do nothing but give orders to others. She had help for everything. From the lowest domestic to the county sheriff—everyone in this town hustled when Lila Bancroft gave the word. No, Granddad thought she’d gotten someone to do it for her.”
“But there were suicide notes.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s all part of the Little Girl mythology, Terry. I’ve been piecing it together since I moved to town. Two suicide notes left in the cottage on the fireplace mantel.”
He nodded. “There were. But for a woman who could arrange a murder, creating two letters would not have been a problem.”
“You believe it’s true?”
“Granddad was sick, Leigh. Bitter and sick. He stayed alone in the cottage for years, rarely seeing anyone but a few business associates and the woman who went in to clean and cook. No family. My parents and aunts and uncles were furious with him, because of his treatment of my grandmother. He didn’t care. He was happy they stayed away. He didn’t like anyone else to be in the cottage. Her cottage. But he let me visit. We’d always been great friends. The last time I saw him I’d just started law school and he wanted to know all about that. He told me then all that he believed about Susan Turnbull’s death. Told me about the suicide notes, how he was certain they weren’t written by the woman he loved, how they’d been immediately confiscated by the sheriff after he and the daughter had only one chance to see the note the doctor had left each of them.”
“How did he know it was a fake?”
“The handwriting, I think. Something about the language, maybe. I don’t remember, Leigh. It was so long ago when he told me the story,
and the woman’s death had happened long before then. But it wasn’t just the sham of the note that made him suspect my grandmother had a hand in it. The sheriff’s boy was given a good job with one of the Bancroft companies about then, one he surely didn’t earn on merit. And Grandmother’s driver and general dog’s body started his own business. Grandpa thought Josh, the driver, was probably the actual killer. The great-grandfather of the man who fixed your car.” He pointed to a pitcher of water. “Please.”
He drank slowly until the glass was empty. “He didn’t know for sure, of course, but he believed my grandmother arranged the killing, maybe even watched. He believed that, Leigh. To his dying day he believed his wife killed the woman he loved. He sat in your little cottage and thought about it, day after day. And I thought I had a bad cancer.”
His daughters’ voices grew closer and louder. Leigh and Terry held still until Dana and Delia had passed the study and gone up stairs.
Terry closed his eyes. “What the hell, Leigh. Put it in my book. Put it all in. Sylvia. Geneva. Tucker. My grandfather’s obsession with his murdered lover and his murdering wife. Put it all in. And give credit to yourself: Thanks to Leigh Burton, who was interested in the dark side.”
“It’s a political memoir, Terry.”
“You’ll finish it, Leigh, won’t you? No matter what trouble my girls give you, you write my story. And you write it any way you want and put in anything you want. I don’t want anyone saying we didn’t write an honest book. Promise?”
“Yes, Terry. I promise.”
11.
Lights went out in Roberta’s room as Leigh approached the cottage. She entered quietly and got ready for bed quickly, all the while hoping her guest would come out to talk and hoping she wouldn’t. What was there to say after a day like this? Nice speech, sorry about the blackmail, any idea where my daughter is?
Reading was hopeless. She reread the same page of Paris Nocturne three times. Even a rather detailed tryst on a train couldn’t hold her attention. She finally gave up. She was about to give up on trying to sleep when she heard the cottage door open and close. Leigh pushed up on an elbow and reached for the lamp when Emily came into the bedroom. “I’m awake. Honey, I’m so sorry about today and—”
Just as the light went on, Emily stumbled into the airbed, sending the lightweight mattress scooting across the bare floor and into a nightstand. Paris Nocturne toppled off the small table, hit the mattress, and bounced up just as Emily fell forward.
“Shit,” she said. She pressed a palm against her face. “Got me in the eye. That hurt.”
“Let me see,” Leigh said.
“It’s okay. Never mind. I was just startled.”
Leigh knelt in front of her daughter, who had her eyes closed tightly, the right one protected further by a hand. She peeled the hand away. A triangular mark was reddening under the eyebrow. “I am so sorry about today,” she said as she inspected Emily’s face. “So sorry about everything.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She blew softly and Emily’s eyelids fluttered open.
Narrow ice-blue irises were barely visible around widely dilated pupils. Leigh pulled on the baggy sleeve of the Pepin High sweatshirt and pulled it up to her nose. She sniffed and let go.
Emily said, “I just want to go to bed, okay?”
Leigh sat cross-legged on her own bed. She glanced at the clock. One-thirty. “Smoking that stuff always used to make me sleepy. I never understood the charm. I gather you and Joe had a nice time after Roberta’s talk.”
“Busted!” Emily said in a faux-deep voice, then laughed. She held out her wrists. “Cuff me, officer.”
“I don’t want to play cop and I don’t want to get in an argument and wake Roberta, so let’s just drop it and go to bed. Please don’t tell your father or grandmother I didn’t punish you for smoking dope. And if you have any more I want you to hand it over. I don’t want you getting busted for real in Pepin. Not on my watch.”
Emily giggled again.
Leigh sighed. She remembered the laughing fits too, and hoped her daughter’s wouldn’t last long.
“Dope?” Emily said. “No one calls it that. And Marti already busted us and confiscated what Joe had left, so you two can have a good time tomorrow after I’m gone.” She giggled again and fell back on the airbed, clutching a pillow and bouncing her head.
“What do you mean, gone?”
Emily bounced her feet, left right, left right.
“Emily?”
“I rebooked my flight for tomorrow night.”
“Since when?”
Emily’s head rolled and she looked at the clock radio on the dresser. “Since about ten this morning; oops, yesterday morning. I did it before our little drama, okay? So don’t feel guilty. I had to go to Marti’s office to photocopy handouts for one of the workshop speakers. I used her computer. You don’t have to take me to the airport. Joe will take me. He’s tempted to go with me. Once his mother finds out…” She slapped a hand over her mouth.
Leigh slid down and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Emily, look at me. You can’t leave.”
Emily wiggled free and sat up. She leaned back against the bed.
“Did you take the naughty Seville?”
Emily nodded. “Joe wanted to see it.” She started giggling again, then stopped. “Oh, no I left it… Oh, damn.”
“Where is it?”
“I’ll get it, don’t worry. It’s safe. It’s in Marti’s office, okay? In her copier. You know how sometimes you’re in such a hurry you leave the original? I did that.”
“Her copier?”
Emily yawned. “Joe’s idea, I swear.”
“You broke into Marti’s office, after stealing the picture?”
“No and no. She let us in and your silly drawing is safe. She…”
Oh god, she’d throttle her daughter if she didn’t stop laughing.
“It was so funny,” Emily said. “You should have seen Marti and Ellen climbing up on the box—”
“They were involved? And what box are you talking about?”
Emily burped. “Hank and Chet helped too, but they wouldn’t climb up. They’re really cute. Marti didn’t want to call them at first but Ellen said we should because they had staple guns, and when they saw the pictures they joined us too. The big plywood box covering the statue that’s being unveiled tomorrow. At the museum? Under the balcony? Joe thought it needed some decorating. Don’t look at me like that; you’re the one who wanted to splash the picture where the world would see it. Now we have.”
Leigh sat down on the bed. Naughty pictures and a naughty prank. “Why didn’t you come get me?”
“Believe it or not, Mom, I did say we should get you but Marti said, ‘No, you were probably asleep or visiting with Roberta, and besides’, she said, ‘you have too much of a conscience.’ Which is pretty funny she thinks that, all things considered.” She took a deep breath and stood, and managed a couple uncertain steps toward the door. “Sorry for the surprise, but I really need to go home. A couple of friends are going through some shit and I want to be there. And I need to face Grandma and then there’s this thing at the beach coming up with Alexa’s family.” Emily put a hand on the door. “I’m going to be a good little girl and brush my teeth. I know,” she put a finger to her lips and made a shushing noise, “don’t wake Roberta, not that there’s much chance of doing that. I bet she’ll sleep for days. She was whipped after the speech. And about what I said earlier? This afternoon? Don’t think I meant it. Things are fine at home. It’s all good.”
It’s been a difficult spring. “We’ll talk about it when you’re…feeling better.”
“I mean it, Mom. That’s not why I came to Pepin. I just needed a place to hide for a while. Sort of like you. But now I’m tired of hiding and I want to go home even though it won’t be pleasant. At least I can go home. I guess that makes me the lucky one, doesn’t it? You really should think about staying in Pepin, you know. I wouldn’t mind visitin
g here. Joe’s sweet. Ellen says she’ll knit me a sweater if I visit and that would be nice. And then there’s Marti. She’s like a crazy aunt. Crazy Aunt Marti. I’d come just to visit her.”
Emily leaned against the door, eyes closed and her head rocking back and forth. Leigh guided her daughter to the bed. “Brush your teeth in the morning.”
Emily said, “Don’t tell Grandma I didn’t brush my teeth.”
Leigh said, “Don’t tell her I didn’t get mad.” She peeled off Emily’s socks and tugged off her sweatshirt and jeans. She pulled the sheet up to Emily’s shoulder blades, then started massaging her shoulders. “You can’t go tomorrow.”
“Now you can work and I won’t be in the way. You can write your book.”
“There probably will never be a book. Why don’t you cancel the plane ticket? I’ll drive you home.”
Emily opened an eye. “In the Beamer?”
“The Toyota.”
Emily closed her eye again and shook her head. “What do you mean, no book?”
Leigh pressed a thumb against a knot under a shoulder blade. “Terry’s daughter said there’s no publisher who’s really interested. His agent is an old family friend, and he’s only been encouraging Terry just to be nice.”
“But that isn’t nice. Lower, please. You’d just walk out on him to drive me home? Wouldn’t you have to tell him why there’s no rush on the writing? Wouldn’t that disappointment kill him?”
Leigh rolled her knuckles across the new spot. “I think it might.”
“Better not take a road trip then, Mom. And it doesn’t matter because I don’t want to spend all that time in the car because I have to get home. A friend’s having an abortion next week. She can’t get one in Columbia, of course. I said I’d drive her to Atlanta. Her parents don’t know and neither does the idiot guy.”
Leigh drew back. “Emily!”
“She’s really stressed. I’m the only one who knows and being with her is more important than patching things up with my mother, as if that was going to happen anyway. I’ve never done it, you should know.”
Venom and the River Page 19
