Death on the Family Tree

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “You’ll mess up your back,” Rosa warned. “Better call some of Jon’s friends to help, or Hollis’s new boyfriend. He’s sturdy-looking.” She sidled to the door of the music room and peered in at the new secretary. “Where’d you get that piece in there now?” Her tone implied that Katharine had picked it up on the black market.

  “It was Aunt Lucy’s. She left it to me.” Their conversation could go on forever unless she left. Rosa would far rather talk than work. “Well, I’m off now, to buy a new rug and a surprise for the patio. I don’t know if I’ll be back before lunch, so don’t count on me.”

  She picked up her purse and the second volume of the Atlanta Yellow Pages and headed to the garage with the strange feeling that she was going on vacation. She waited until she was in her car before she opened the phone book and ran her finger down the list of Oriental rug dealers, feeling the same anticipation she felt picking out a cruise itinerary.

  On the way, she tried to analyze her delight. With Tom gone so much, she chose most things for the house—everything from new carpet for the den after the dishwasher overflowed to a new digital camera to record Jon’s college graduation. But she always made the choice wracked by indecision. Would Tom like it? Was this the very best price she could find for the quality? She also braced herself to answer his invariable questions about why she had chosen that color over another, or why she hadn’t chosen another (possibly superior) model over the one she had bought. He didn’t mean to criticize—just wanted to understand the process by which she had made her choice. But it wore her out having to consider his opinion of every decision.

  Exhilaration bubbled up in her as she turned onto West Paces Ferry Road. For the first time in her life, she was going to make a major purchase to please no one but herself.

  First, she stopped by Aunt Lucy’s school and dropped off the boxes. On the way to the first carpet dealer she spied a lawn furniture place. They had exactly what she wanted for the patio: a round metal table for two with matching chairs that didn’t need cushions. They also had some cushions that could be left on the wicker furniture even when it rained. Posey and Tom might think them tacky, but Posey and Tom didn’t have to live with them.

  “Your husband will have to assemble the table,” the clerk warned as he put the big flat box in the back of her SUV with two chairs on top of it.

  “I can manage,” she informed him in a tone worthy of Aunt Sara Claire. “Any woman worth her salt knows how to use a screwdriver.”

  Worth her salt? Now she knew where that old saying came from.

  Having conquered the patio, she set out to capture a rug. She found an antique Aubusson in shades of cream, green, and peach with occasional accents of deep cherry red and felt she could gaze at that rug forever and never tire of it.

  “I’ll take it with me,” she announced.

  With the rug fitted around her new chairs, she stopped at a phone store and bought herself a dark green phone to complement the rug. She also bought supplies to install a new line and a book on how to do it. “How hard can it be?” she asked herself as she headed back to the car. “The folks who do it every day aren’t rocket scientists.” That was her mantra whenever she had to master a new skill.

  Euphoric from all she had accomplished, she stopped by a couple of dumpsters and fitted cardboard boxes around the rug, table, chairs, and cushions. Feeling like the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath, she headed home. Only as she drove up the hill toward her garage did she begin to have qualms. Nothing in the house was in those colors. Except for the kitchen, which Katharine had dreamed of for years, the house was decorated in taupe and cream accented with red, hunter green, or brown. That was what Tom preferred and was what she had preferred, too—until she saw the rug. Now, she wondered, “Do I even know who I am and what I like?”

  As usual, Rosa’s growl had been a sham. She had vacuumed and rolled the old rug and dragged it into Tom’s study, where it lay against the far wall. Aunt Lucy’s secretary glowed from a brisk polishing. Rosa had even taken all the books down and dusted the shelves.

  Katharine eyed the piles of books on the floor and followed the sound of the vacuum to the upstairs bedrooms. “I’ve asked you not to climb ladders when nobody is here,” she said without preamble.

  Rosa shrugged. “I didn’t climb no ladders. I pulled in a straight chair. You get you a rug?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “The way you look, it must be something really special.”

  “It is,” Katharine promised. “I’m going to love it.”

  “You get us some boxes?” Before Katharine finished nodding, Rosa had abandoned her vacuum cleaner and headed for the stairs. “Might as well get them books out of the way, then. What you gonna do with ’em?”

  “Take them to the public library for their book sale.” Katharine had the heady feeling that she was making a lot of spur-of-the-moment decisions all of a sudden. “Except for those from the bottom shelf. We’ll put them back. They were Aunt Lucy’s and I need to go through them.”

  She lost her nerve, though, about getting rid of the books without asking Tom. As she and Posey often joked, he might be a businessman by profession, but he was a pilot at heart: pile-it here, pile-it there. And she had promised years ago not to throw out anything of his without asking him first. If those books suddenly disappeared, he would remember them fondly and forever as his favorites.

  Rosa and Katharine staggered down the hall with the boxed books and stacked them in the library beside the rug. Heaven only knew when Tom would get around to doing anything with either the books or the rug, but that was his concern.

  “What you gonna put in place of the books?” Rosa asked.

  “My own books and favorite things,” Katharine told her. “That can wait.”

  Rosa headed toward the door to the garage. “I guess we might as well fetch that rug in, then. I sure hope you hasn’t wasted your money.”

  The rug would have to be rolled up again when the room was painted, but Katharine was as eager to see it in place as Rosa. They could scarcely lift it, and by the time they had dragged it from the back of the SUV and carried it through the house, both were panting. Katharine fetched scissors from the kitchen junk drawer to cut the twine and they carefully unrolled it. It lay like muted jewels on the music room floor.

  Rosa stared down at it, hands on her hips. “That’s the prettiest rug I ever did see,” she admitted. “but it don’t match your walls or drapes.”

  “I’m going to paint the walls,” Katharine explained, “and I’m changing the window treatment, too. Hollis is coming over to help me choose fabrics and colors.”

  “You’d better hang on to your seat,” Rosa advised. “Hollis has some pretty wild ideas. Good ones, mind—she’s fixed up her own room real strikin’ lookin’, but Miss Posey is worryin’ herself sick about what she’s fixin’ to do to their carriage house.”

  “I’m not worried.” Katharine spoke absently, looking at the window and wondering if she ought to go ahead and take down the heavy drapery while she was in the mood. “She rearranged my living room last night. Don’t you like it a whole lot better?”

  Rosa wasn’t committing herself quite that far. “All I’m sayin’ is, you better make sure you got veto power.” She turned back toward the stairs. “Hollis is mighty arty. And strong willed? Next thing you know, she’ll have painted three of your walls black and the other one purple.”

  “Over my dead body,” Katharine vowed, but Rosa was already gone. She liked having the last word.

  Chapter 10

  Katharine assembled her new table and carried their lunch out there. Rosa grumbled at the heat, but grudgingly agreed the table was “right nice.” Afterwards, Katharine went to the history center to read newspaper archives for the summer of 1951. She didn’t know the date of Carter’s murder, but it had to have been front-page news. He had been a war hero and a member of a Buckhead family. And white, she mentally added.

  She found the story in the third week of June. PROMINENT A
TTORNEY GUNNED DOWN AT HOME, screamed Thursday’s headline over a picture taken at a formal function some time before. Carter stood with a glass in his hand talking to someone who had been cut from the picture. He was stunning in a tux. It was no wonder the paper described him as “one of Atlanta’s most eligible bachelors.” Katharine did the math. He was thirty-four at the time. She stared at his picture and felt tears sting her eyes. What a waste!

  She printed out the story when she had read it, then printed follow-up stories for the next few days without reading them. She was wondering how to find the trial for his killer when she smelled stale coffee and cigarettes over her shoulder. “You back researching your family?” Lamar Franklin asked.

  Katharine greeted him with mixed emotions. He had nearly scared her to death the last time she saw him, but maybe he’d been telling the truth and was only trying to protect her from Hasty. And she respected his skill at digging into the past. “I’m still checking out Carter Everanes,” she told him. “The man I was looking for last time.”

  He bent and peered at the screen, where the headline read NEW LEADS IN EVERANES MURDER. “He got murdered?” She didn’t bother to reply, since that was self-evident. Besides, he was already demanding, “You doin’ this for somebody else or for yourself?”

  “Just for myself. Why?”

  “Because you’ll need to be certified if you’re goin’ into the business.”

  “Business?” Did people look up old murders for pay?

  “Genealogy research. They’s people make a living doing family research for other people. For me, now, it’s a hobby, but my daughters say I might as well get paid, ’cause I might-near do it full-time. But I don’t take money for it, exceptin’ for lectures and classes.”

  If he lectured and taught, that might explain his familiarity with all the big words associated with genealogical research.

  “It does kind of grab you,” Katharine admitted. “It’s like a real-life detective story.”

  He gave her a wide grin that showed two gold-crowned molars. “It sure is. You done any research into your own family?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think I have very interesting ancestors.”

  “Heck, everybody’s got interesting ancestors. They were people just like us—some of ’em good and some as ornery as all get-out. But you find out all kinds of things that help you make sense of who you are. For instance, take my family, now. Every one of us loves to play cards. One night I went home from doin’ research and found my daughters and their husbands all at my house, drinking my whisky and playing canasta. And you know what I told them? That very day I had found records of a church trial where my great-granddaddy was accused of visiting a lady for immoral purposes. You know what he said?”

  “What?” Katharine was interested in spite of herself. She rested her chin on one palm while she listened.

  “He told ’em he hadn’t done what they accused him of, but he had two sins on his conscience. He had traveled on a Sunday and he had a habit of playing cards. What you think of that? Card playin’ has come down in our family for at least five generations.” He chuckled softly. “Talk about the sins of the fathers bein’ visited on their children—You never know what you might find if you start diggin’ into your family. Could be horse thieves or could be kings.”

  “Farmers and merchants, more likely.” But his enthusiasm was contagious. Maybe she would check out her family one day.

  However, his blend of stale cigarettes and coffee was almost overpowering. She gathered up her papers and prepared to leave. She wanted to read the stories about Carter, but not with him breathing fumes down her neck.

  “Did you find out anymore about that necklace?” he asked as she picked up her pocketbook and stood.

  “Not yet. But this was the man who apparently owned it before my friend got it, so maybe I’ll find out something if I learn more about him.”

  “Well, you keep it safe, now.”

  “I will,” she promised—not that it was any business of his.

  She drove to a nearby Starbucks and perused the clippings over a cold frappuccino.

  A neighbor had found Carter Everanes late Wednesday evening. “I figured something was wrong,” he had said, “because the dog kept howling. Then, when I got over there, the front door was standing wide open and all his lights were on. He’s usually in bed by ten-thirty, and his dog wasn’t the noisy kind. So I called through the screened door, and that’s when I saw him, sprawled on the living room floor. I ran right home and called the cops.”

  According to the police, Carter had been killed by a shot through his brain, probably sometime between seven and nine p.m. It had been a warm evening, so doors and windows stood open, but all his immediate neighbors had been at church for Wednesday night suppers and prayer meetings. The perfect time to commit murder in the Bible Belt.

  Robbery was believed to be the motive, for the house had been torn apart. Walter Everanes had declared, “Whoever did this was after my brother’s money and valuables. Several pairs of jeweled cuff links are missing and a set of diamond studs, along with a gold and ruby ring he was particularly fond of and a fine set of silver he inherited from our parents.” Walter also claimed that his brother was accustomed to carrying several hundred dollars for day-to-day expenses and emergencies, but no money was found in the house.

  Saturday’s paper carried an article that filled more than half of page two, and contained pictures of Carter in his army uniform, Carter with his law partners, and Nappy, Carter’s pet schnauzer, sitting woebegone on the front veranda of a one-storied house with a graceful mock-Tudor roof rising to a point, then swooping down to one corner. The grounds, according to the article, included a second lot which was shaded by mature trees and beautifully landscaped, “with a small fountain splashing merrily, oblivious to tragedy, surrounded by early summer flowers and a freshly mown lawn.”

  Sunday’s paper announced that two boys playing ball had found Carter’s silver, money, and all his jewelry except the ruby ring late Saturday afternoon. The valuables were in a large grocery bag that had been shoved inside a stand of tall Formosa azaleas circling a tree two blocks down the street. The boys were pictured receiving a quarter each from Walter Everanes for their honesty in returning the valuables.

  “Good old Uncle Walter,” Katharine murmured. “Generous to a fault.”

  Tuesday’s paper reported that Alfred Simms, Negro, Carter Everanes’s yard man, had been seen wearing his employer’s ruby ring and was being questioned in the case. Alfred’s high school picture was included. He had been a sweet-faced young man with a shy grin.

  EVERANES MURDER SOLVED! screamed Thursday’s headline. A picture showed Alfred hiding his face behind handcuffed wrists as he was led to a police cruiser. The story said that the ring “and other evidence” linked Simms to the murder.

  Katharine found herself wanting to see the house where it had happened.

  She checked the address and found it on a street map she always carried, Atlanta’s metro area not being the easiest in the world to get around in. Streets are apt to change names once or twice and may cross each other a couple of times under various pseudonyms.

  Thirty minutes and only two wrong turns later, she pulled up to the curb. The house hadn’t changed much in fifty years, but the side yard had been replaced by a long narrow house that looked like it had been added in the midfifties. Knowing Walter Everanes, Katharine figured he had built that one. Uncle Walter had had no use for any unproductive land except the spacious acres around his own home.

  She sat in air-conditioned comfort trying to picture herself in a simpler but less comfortable era when doors and windows were left wide open at night to catch a breeze. She imagined a shadowy figure creeping up the front walk at twilight, pulling open the screen, entering the house carrying a sack. Saw him pull a gun, saw Carter turn in surprise and crumple as the bullet struck him. Saw the man frantically rifling the dim house, stuffing the silver ser vice, jewelry, and money
into a sack, hurrying down the sidewalk. Was he surprised into dropping the sack? No, he had shoved it far under the bush. Had he hidden there, hearing something? The paper did not say. Why had he left his loot behind?

  A young woman pulling weeds near the front steps had begun to watch the big SUV out of the corner of her eye. A toddler plied his shovel in a nearby sandbox. Katharine wondered if the woman suspected she wanted to snatch the child, or whether she knew her house’s history.

  When the woman glanced her way again, Katharine had seen enough. No point in distressing the natives.

  She drove back to Buckhead trying to square her imagination with reality.

  The fact was, Carter’s front walk was open to the street, not hidden by bushes, and the windows were double at the front. So how had someone crept up the walk and into the house without Carter seeing him? Atlanta is less than fifty miles from the western edge of the eastern time zone, and that was the week of the longest days of the year, so twilight wouldn’t have fallen until nine or so. Surely Carter would have shouted and even run if a stranger had entered. Why didn’t he run? Or fight back? And how could the murderer be certain of not being seen?

  She still wanted to read the story of Alfred’s arrest and trial. After she talked with Dr. Flo again, she would return to the history center. She might even read up a bit on her mother’s family.

  She smiled as she thought of how engrossed Dutch had been in recent years in putting together the history of his family, with papers and books spilling off his desk. If she got that engrossed in it, she would have a real reason for claiming the music room as her own.

  Katharine spent the rest of the afternoon working on the room. She took down the red floral drapery and stuffed it into a black plastic bag to haul to the cleaners. She browsed all the shelves in the house for books she particularly liked and arranged them on the deep music room shelves by category and alphabetically by author. She left lots of space for more books she might want to buy. She chose favorite pieces of porcelain, mementoes, family snapshots, and a couple of her childhood dolls to set in front of the books. Since the shelves were built-in, they could be covered while painting was in progress.