Tennyson Frasier said slowly, looking directly at his wife, “I don’t find that amusing, Savich. You have judged me on supposition, on a simple coincidence, no evidence that would stand up anywhere, and surely a cop shouldn’t do that. Lily didn’t die, thank God, either time. If she had died in that accident, I doubt I would have survived. I love her very much. I want her well.”
He was good, Savich thought, very good indeed. Very fluent, very reasoned and logical, and the appeal to gut emotion was surefire. Tennyson was certainly right about one thing—they didn’t have any proof. He was right about another thing—Savich had already judged him guilty. Guilty as sin. They had to get proof. MAX had to dig deeper. There would be something; there always was.
Sherlock chewed on a homemade roll that was now cold, swallowed, then said in the mildest voice imaginable, “Where did Lynda get the potassium chloride?”
“From her doctor, the one who diagnosed her in the first place. He was infatuated with her, which is why, I believe, he assisted her. I knew nothing about any of it until she was dead and he told me what had happened, what he had helped her do. I didn’t file charges because I’d known she’d wanted to end her life herself, on her own terms. Dr. Cord died only a short while later. It was horrible, all of it.”
Lily said, “I heard about Dr. Cord’s death from a woman in Casey’s Food Market. She said he shot himself while cleaning his rifle, such a terrible accident. She didn’t mention anything about your wife.”
“The townspeople didn’t want to see me hurt any more, I suppose, particularly since I had a new wife, so I guess they kept quiet.” He turned to his wife and said, his voice pleading, his hand stretched out toward her, “Lily, when you came to town, just over a year and a half ago, I couldn’t believe that someone else could come into my life who would make me complete, who would love me and make me happy, but you did. And you brought precious little Beth with you. I loved her from the first moment I saw her, as I did you. I miss her, Lily, every day I miss her.
“What you’ve been going through—maybe now it’s over. Maybe what happened with the Explorer, maybe that snapped you back. Believe me, dearest, I only want you to get well. I want that more than anything. I want to take you to Maui and lie with you on the beach and know that your biggest worry will be how to keep from getting sunburned. Don’t listen to your brother. Please, Lily, don’t believe there was anything sinister about Lynda’s death. Your brother is a cop. Cops think everyone has ulterior motives, but I don’t. I love you. I want you to be happy, with me.”
Savich, who’d been finishing off his lasagna during this impassioned speech, looked only mildly interested, as if he were attending a play. He laid down his fork and said, “Tennyson, how long has your dad been on the board of the Eureka Art Museum?”
“What? Oh, I don’t know, for years, I suppose. I’ve never really paid any attention. What does that have to do with anything?”
“You see,” Savich continued, “at first we couldn’t figure out why you would want to marry Lily if your motive was to kill her. For what? Then we realized you knew about our grandmother’s paintings. Lily owns eight Sarah Elliotts, worth a lot of money, as you very well know.”
For the first time, Savich felt a mild surge of alarm. Tennyson was a man nearing the edge. He was furious, his face red, his jaw working. He readied himself for an attack.
But what Tennyson did was bang his knife handle on the table, once, twice, then a really hard third time. “I did not marry Lily to get her grandmother’s paintings! That’s absurd. Get out of my house!”
Lily slowly rose to her feet.
“No, Lily, not you. Please, sit down. Listen to me, you must. My father and I are familiar with the excellent work of the folk at the Eureka Art Museum. They have a splendid reputation. When you told me your grandmother was Sarah Elliott—”
“But you already knew, Tennyson. You knew before you met me that first time. And then you acted so surprised when I told you. You acted so pleased that I had inherited some of her incredible talent. You wanted so much to have her paintings here, in Northern California. You wanted them here so you could be close to them, so you could control them. So that when I was dead, you wouldn’t have any difficulty getting your hands on them. Or maybe your father wanted the paintings close? Which, Tennyson?”
“Lily, be quiet, that’s not true, none of it. The paintings are great art. Why should the Art Institute of Chicago have them when you live here now? Also, administration of the paintings is much easier when they’re exhibited locally.”
“What administration?”
Tennyson shrugged. “There are phone calls coming in all the time, questions about loaning the paintings out, about selling them to collectors, the schedule for ongoing minor restoration, about our approval on the replacement of a frame. Endless questions about tax papers. Lots of things.”
“There was very little of what you just described before I married you, Tennyson. There was only one contract with the museum to sign every year, nothing else. Why haven’t you said anything about any administration to me? You make it sound like an immense amount of work.”
Was that sarcasm? Savich wondered, rather hoping that it was.
“You weren’t well, Lily. I wasn’t about to burden you with any of that.”
Suddenly, the strangest thing happened. Lily saw her husband as a grayish shadow, hovering without substance, his mouth moving but nothing really coming out. Not a man, just a shadow, and shadows couldn’t hurt you. Lily smiled as she said, “As Dillon said, I’m very rich, Tennyson.”
Savich saw that his brother-in-law was trying desperately to keep himself calm, to keep himself logical in his arguments, not to get defensive, not to let Lily see what he really was. It was fascinating. Could a man be that good a liar, that convincing an actor? Savich wished he knew.
Tennyson said, “It’s always been my understanding that you simply hold the paintings in a sort of trust. That they aren’t yours, that you’re merely their guardian until you die and one of your children takes over.”
“But you’ve been in charge of their administration all these months,” Lily said. “How could you not know that they were mine, completely mine, no trust involved?”
“I did believe that, I tell you. No one ever said anything different, not even the curator, Mr. Monk. You’ve met him, Lily, up front, so pleased to have the paintings here.”
Savich sipped at the hot tea Mrs. Scruggins had poured into his cup. “None of us hold the paintings in trust,” he said. “They’re ours, outright.” He knew Mrs. Scruggins was listening to everything, forming opinions. He didn’t mind it a bit. Maybe she’d have something more to say to him or to Sherlock when this little dinner party was over. “If Lily wants to, she can sell one or two or all of the paintings. They’re worth about one million dollars each. Maybe more.”
Tennyson looked stunned. “I—I never realized,” he said, and now he sounded a bit frantic.
“Difficult not to,” Lily said. “You’re not a stupid man, Tennyson. Surely Mr. Monk told you what they’re worth. When you found out I was Sarah Elliott’s granddaughter, it would have been nothing at all for you to find out that she willed them to me. You saw me as the way to get to those paintings. You must have rubbed your hands together. I left everything in my will to Beth, at your urging, Tennyson, if you’ll remember, and I named you the executor.”
“As it happened,” Savich said, “Beth did predecease Lily. Who inherits?”
“Tennyson. My husband.” She continued after a moment, so bitter she was nearly choking on it. “How easy I made everything for you. What happened? Big money troubles? You needed me out of the way, fast?”
Tennyson was nearly over the edge now. “No, no, listen to me. I suppose I saw the paintings as your grandmother’s, nothing more than that. Valuable things that needed some oversight, particularly after you became so ill. All right, I was willing to do that work. Please, Lily, believe me. When you told me that she was your
grandmother, I was very surprised and pleased for you. Then I dismissed it. Lily, I didn’t marry you for your grandmother’s paintings. I swear to you I didn’t. I married you because I love you, I loved Beth. That’s it. My father—no, I don’t believe there could possibly be anything there. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Tennyson,” Lily said, her voice low, soothing, “do you know I’ve never been depressed in my life until I married you?”
“Before Beth’s death, you had no reason to be depressed.”
“Well, maybe I did. Didn’t I tell you a bit about my first husband?”
“Yes, he was horrible, but you survived him. Lily, it was completely different when your daughter was killed by a hit-and-run driver. It’s only natural that you’d be overcome with grief, that you would experience profound depression.”
“Even after seven months?”
“The mind is a strange instrument, unpredictable. It doesn’t always behave the way we would like it to. I’ve prayed and prayed for your full recovery. I agree it’s been taking you a long time to recover but, Lily, you’ll get well now, I know it.”
“Yes,” she said very slowly and pushed back her chair. “Yes, I know I’ll get well now.” She felt her stitches pull, a tug that made her want to bend over, but she didn’t. “Yes, Tennyson,” she said, “I fully intend to get well now. Completely well.”
She pressed her palms flat on the table. “I will also love Beth for the rest of my life, and I will know sadness at her loss and grief until I die, but I will come to grips with it. I will bear it. I will pray that it will slowly ease into the past, that I won’t fall into that black depression again. I will face life now and I will gain my bearings. Yes, Tennyson, I will get well now because, you see, I’m leaving you. Tonight.”
He rose so quickly his chair slammed down to the floor. “No, you can’t leave me ... Lily, no! It’s your brother. I wish my father hadn’t called him; I wish Savich hadn’t come here to ruin everything. He’s filled your mind with lies. He’s made you turn on me. There’s no proof of anything at all. No, none of it’s true. Please, Lily, don’t leave me.”
“Tennyson,” Lily said very quietly now, looking directly at him, “what sort of pills have you been feeding me these last seven months?”
He howled, literally howled, a desperate, frightened sound of rage and hopelessness. He was panting hard when he said, “I tried to make you well. I tried, and now you’ve decided to believe this jerk of a brother and his wife and you’re leaving me. I’ve been giving you Elavil!”
Lily nodded. “Actually, there doesn’t seem to be any solid proof to haul you to the sheriff. The sheriff is something of a joke anyway, isn’t he? When I remember how he tried so hard to apprehend Beth’s killer.”
“I know he did the best he could. If you’d been with Beth, maybe you would have made a better witness, but you—”
She ignored his words and said, “If we find proof, then even Sheriff Bozo will have to lock you away, Tennyson—no matter what you or Daddy say, no matter how much money you’ve put in his pocket, no matter how many votes you got for him—until we manage to get some competent law enforcement in Hemlock Bay. The truth of the matter is, I would leave you even if you didn’t kill your first wife, if you hadn’t, in truth, tried to kill me, because, Tennyson, you’ve lied to me; from the very beginning you lied to me. You used Beth’s death to make me feel the most profound guilt. You milked it, manipulated me—you’re still doing it—and you very likely drugged me to make me depressed, to make me feel even more at fault. I wasn’t at fault, Tennyson. Someone killed Beth. I didn’t. I realize that now. Were you planning on killing me even as you slid the ring on my finger?”
He was holding his head in his hands, shaking his head back and forth, not looking at anyone now.
“I found myself wondering today, Tennyson—did you kill Beth, too?”
His head came up, fast. “Kill Beth? No!”
“She was my heir. If I died, then the paintings would be hers. No, surely even you couldn’t be that evil. Your father could, maybe your mother could, but not you, I don’t think. But then again, I’ve never been good at picking men. Look at my pathetic track record—two tries and just look what happened. Yes, I’m obviously rotten at it. Hey, maybe it’s my bookie genes getting in the way of good sense. No, you couldn’t have killed or had Beth killed. Maybe we’ll find something on your daddy. We’ll see.
“Good-bye, Tennyson. I can’t begin to tell you what I think of you.”
Both Savich and Sherlock remained silent, looking at the man and woman facing each other across the length of the dining table. Tennyson was as white as a bleached shroud, the pulse in his neck pounding wildly. His fingers clutched the edge of the table. He looked like a man beyond himself, beyond all that he knew or understood.
As for Lily, she looked calm, wonderfully calm. She didn’t look to be in any particular discomfort. She said, “Dillon and Sherlock will pack all my things while you’re at your office tomorrow, Tennyson. Tonight, the three of us are going to stay in Eureka.” She turned, felt the mild pulling in her side again, and added, “Please don’t destroy my drawing and art supplies, Tennyson, or else I’ll have to ask my brother or sister-in-law to break your face. They want to very badly as it is.”
She nodded to him, then turned. “Dillon, I’ll be ready to leave in ten minutes.”
Head up, back straight, as if she didn’t have stitches in her side, she left the dining room. Lily saw Mrs. Scruggins standing just inside the kitchen door. Mrs. Scruggins smiled at her as she walked briskly past, saying over her shoulder, “It was an excellent dinner, Mrs. Scruggins. My brother really liked it. Thank you for saving my life seven months ago. I will miss you and your kindness.”
EIGHT
Eureka, California
The Mermaid’s Tail
Lily swallowed a pain pill and looked at herself in the mirror. She’d looked better, no doubt about that. She sighed as she thought back over the months and wondered yet again what had happened to her. Had she looked different when she’d first arrived in Hemlock Bay? She’d been so full of hope, both she and Beth finally free of Jack Crane, on their own, happy. She remembered how they’d walked hand in hand down Main Street, stopping at Scooters Bakery to buy a chocolate croissant for Beth and a raisin scone for herself. She hadn’t realized then that she would soon marry another man she’d believe with all her heart loved both her and Beth, and this one would gouge eleven months out of her life.
Fool.
She’d married yet another man who would have rejoiced at her death, who was prepared to bury her with tears running down his face, a stirring eulogy coming out of his mouth, and joy in his heart.
Two husbands down—never, never again would she ever look at a man who appeared even mildly interested in her. Fact was, she was really bad when it came to choosing men. And the question that had begun to gnaw at her surfaced again. Was Tennyson responsible for Beth’s death?
Lily didn’t think so—she’d been honest the night before about that—but it had happened so quickly and no one had seen anything at all useful. Could Tennyson have been driving that car? And then the awful depression had smashed her, had made her want to lie in a coffin and pull down the lid.
Beth was gone. Forever. Lily pictured her little girl’s face—a replica of her father’s, but finer, softer—so beautiful, that precious little face she saw now only in her mind. She’d turned six the week before she died. Beth hadn’t been evil to the bone like her father. She’d been all that was innocent and loving, always telling her mother any- and everything until ... Lily raised her head and looked at herself again in the mirror. Until what? She thought back to the week before Beth was killed. She had been different, sort of furtive, wary—maybe even scared.
Scared? Beth? No, that didn’t make any sense. But still, Beth had been different before she died.
No, not died. Beth had been killed. By a hit-and-run driver. The pain settled heavily in Lily’s
heart as she wondered if she would ever know the truth.
She shook her head, drank more water from the tap. Her brother and Sherlock had left, after she’d assured them at least a half dozen times that she still felt calm, didn’t hurt at all. She was fine, go, go, pack up her things in Hemlock Bay. She hoped Tennyson hadn’t trashed her drawing supplies.
She drew a deep, clean breath. Yes, she wanted her drawing supplies today, as soon as possible. She wanted to hold her #2 red sable brush again, but it would be foolish to buy another one just to use today. No, she’d buy only a small sampler set of pens and pen points, inexpensive ones because it didn’t really matter. Maybe she’d get a Speedball cartooning set, like the one her folks had given her when she’d wanted to try cartooning so many years before. Those pens would still feel familiar in her hand. And a bottle of India ink, some standard-size, twenty-pound typing paper, durable paper that would last, no matter how many times it was shoved into envelopes or worked on by her and the editors. Yes, some nice bond paper, not more than a hundred sheets. Usually, since she did political cartoons, she used strips of paper cut from larger sheets of special artist paper, thicker than a postcard—bristol board, it was called, well suited for brushwork. And one bottle of Liquid Paper. She could see herself—not more than an hour from now—drawing those sharp, pale lines that would become the man of the hour, Senator No Wrinkles Remus, the soon-to-be president of the United States, from that fine state of West Dementia, where the good senator has managed to divide his state into halves, to conduct the ultimate experiment with gun control. One half of the state has complete gun control, as strict as in England; the other half of West Dementia has no gun control at all. He gives an impassioned speech to the state legislature, with the blessing of the governor, whom he’s blackmailed for taking money from a contractor who is also his nephew: “One year, that’s all we ask,” Remus says, waving his arms to embrace all of them. “One year and we’ll know once and for all what the answer is.”
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