Death on the Family Tree

by Patricia Sprinkle

  His voice was sharp. “It shouldn’t be in private hands. It belongs in a museum.”

  “It belongs where it started out. We can’t keep her necklace.”

  “It’s not her necklace. Georg Ramsauer had no right to give it to his daughter.”

  “That’s for the Austrians to decide, not you.”

  “Don’t you mail it back to some old Austrian woman before I’ve spoken to the university lawyers.”

  “Emory has no claim on that necklace whatsoever. If any university is involved, it ought to be an Austrian one.”

  “Don’t you mail it back. I’m warning you.”

  After all she’d been through that week, Hasty’s threats didn’t scare her.

  Chapter 28

  Another summer storm was brewing. The sky to the west was dark and thick with clouds.

  She headed back to the kitchen phone and gathered her courage to call the Ivories. They intimidated her more than she liked to admit, but she owed it to them to tell them she had found the rightful owner of the necklace, and she had promised Amy to talk to Rowena about Zach’s funeral. She would begin there.

  She found Rowena’s number in a club directory and told the secretary who answered that it was important that she speak to Rowena Slade on a matter of personal importance. She was both disgusted and amused at how gratified she felt when Rowena came on the line at once. “You rate, girl,” she crowed silently.

  “Is it about the necklace?” Rowena asked immediately.

  “Only partly,” Katharine admitted. “I have some information about it, but I mostly want to talk about Amy. She was over here yesterday and asked me to speak to you, but I’d rather do it in person. Would you mind if I ran over for a few minutes? This is terribly important to her.”

  “Amy?” Rowena sounded like she was trying to remember who Amy was or how Amy fit into her current schedule. “Well, if you feel it’s important, I’ll be here the rest of the afternoon. Do you want to come over now?”

  “Perfect. Thanks. I won’t take up much time. But I need to ask one more favor, if I may. I need about five minutes with your father, to ask him a question relating to his college days. Do you think—?”

  “Dad never sees anyone,” Rowena’s voice was brusque and final. “If you’ll tell me what the question is, though, I will ask him and have an answer for you.”

  “Very well. I am trying to track down a man named Leland Bradford. I believe he may be connected with the history of that necklace, and I would very much like to talk to him. If your dad doesn’t know how to get in touch with him, perhaps he could ask the Sewanee alumni office for a number. They are more likely to give it to him than to me.”

  Only a few minutes later, Rowena called her back. “Dad asks if you will stop by his house on your way to mine. He says he can give you an address and phone number for Leland Bradford.” Her voice was puzzled. “I told him I’d give them to you, but he said he’d prefer to speak with you personally. You seem to have made a hit with him the other night.”

  Katharine was delighted. Once she got the address and phone number, she would turn them plus everything she knew and suspected over to the police who were investigating Dutch’s death. That old laundryman might have even been Leland, who had gotten wind of her investigation and decided to eliminate Dutch, who might have known more than he had realized.

  Before she went to the Hill, she decided to send Maria the necklace immediately, and mail the diary’s final page later to clear Carter’s name. It would be a lot easier to tell Rowena about Maria’s claim to the necklace knowing it was already out of reach, so she couldn’t pressure Katharine to change her mind. She would give Rowena Maria’s address if she wanted to try and persuade her to sell. Picturing negotiations between those two, Katharine smiled. How sparks would fly!

  She would not mention to Mr. Ivorie that Ludwig had given the necklace to Carter, though. Ivorie lawyers might argue that that gave Mr. Ivorie, the Everanes’s closest living relative, a better claim to it than Maria—particularly if Carter had not willed it to Lucy but merely left it in the family home. Then it might not legally be part of Lucy’s “bits and pieces,” as she had called them. Katharine hadn’t the foggiest notion how to find Carter’s will, but she had no doubt that Ivorie lawyers could.

  She retrieved the necklace from the bank and took it to a UPS store. In the parking lot she took it from its bag and held it to her neck once more. In the small rearview mirror, it looked more like a chain of slavery than something a lover would give a woman. She pitied any woman who had to wear it long. She held it a few minutes, though, trying to absorb its age and some sense of all those who had owned it since it was first forged. In the past week it had come to seem a part of her. Sending it away felt like sending Jon to China, except more permanent.

  She carried it into the store and watched it being wrapped in several layers of bubble wrap and placed in an ordinary box. She told the man behind the counter that it was a piece of jewelry she had commissioned for a friend and casually insured it for two hundred dollars. When he tossed it into a bin with other boxes, she sent up a prayer that it would arrive safely.

  As she left the store, she turned back in indecision. Had she been too impulsive? Too casual? Should she have insured it for thousands? Asked a museum to ship it for her? Waited to ask Tom what he thought she should do?

  In the plate glass window she saw her reflection, peering in. At her shoulder stood a slender woman with long dark hair. She smiled and raised one hand.

  Katharine turned, but there was no one there. When she looked back at the window again, only her own face peered back.

  Entering the Hill was not for the fainthearted. A high brick wall and an equally tall metal gate obscured any view of what lay inside. A uniformed guard asked for her name, business, and picture ID and then walked around to peer into her car on both sides and at the back. Satisfied she was not carrying bombs, firearms, contagious plants, terrorists, homosexuals, illegal immigrants, or whatever else he was currently guarding the Ivories against, he pressed a button to open the gates and waved her through. When they closed behind her, Katharine considered turning around and heading home, but she had come this far. She might as well complete her errands.

  Her hands began to sweat and her heart to drum as she drove down a short incline and around a bend. Then she was too enchanted to be nervous. Ahead of her the drive crossed the narrow end of a silver pond that gleamed and glittered to her left, lit by one ray of slanting light that pierced the lowering clouds. The drive then crossed a grassy meadow full of wild flowers and ran alongside a small orchard to the right, where a white van was parked and a man was spraying the trees. Beyond the orchard, the driveway climbed upward and curved toward three houses perched on a hill. The first was built of gray stone and stucco, with steep slate roofs and arched windows, and looked like a chateau airlifted from the Loire Valley of France. The one beyond it was Greek revival style, slightly smaller, but impressive nevertheless. The third was contemporary, all wood and glass. Massive trees framed all three houses.

  As Katharine slowed, delighted by the view, thunder boomed overhead. A rabbit hopped alongside her car and across the meadow, and a bluebird darted toward a small birdhouse nailed to one of the peach trees, heading for cover ahead of the storm. They could have been out in middle Georgia somewhere. How many acres were inside these gates? Twenty?

  Her nervousness returned as she pulled under the porte cochere of the first house and a uniformed man came to open her door. “Mr. Ivorie is expecting you. I will park your car.”

  Katharine wished she had changed into something dressier than the black pants and green shirt she had put on for Cleetie. For the second time that day, she felt like a Cinderella who had come to the ball underdressed. A burly man whom she presumed was the butler met her at the door, wearing a dark suit and white shirt. As he escorted her across a marble-tiled foyer, she saw Amy sitting with a book in a room to the right—a living room half as large as Katharine
’s whole downstairs. Katharine would have liked to inform Amy that she was heading to Rowena’s later to present her request, but Amy didn’t look up.

  The butler ushered Katharine through wide double doors into a library Tom would covet, where long shelves of books rose twelve feet to a ceiling decorated with an ornate plaster medallion. Before Katharine could do more than glance around, the butler led her across thick red carpet to two black leather chairs placed to face long windows overlooking the meadow. Lightning flickered. Mr. Ivorie turned his head in the nearer chair. “Ah, Mrs. Murray. I am weary today, so I will not rise. Please excuse me.” He looked hearty enough in a red silk dressing gown over a white shirt and black slacks, but his hand was dry and limp in hers. “I am so pleased you could come. Would you like coffee?”

  Thunder rumbled while she hesitated, wondering what he would prefer. She didn’t want to intrude too long on his time. He motioned to the butler. “Coffee for two, Styles.” When the butler had moved out on soundless feet, the old man gave her his charming smile. “Welcome to the Hill.”

  “Your grounds are gorgeous,” she told him, indicating the view. “I had no idea there was this much undeveloped land in the heart of Buckhead.”

  He chuckled. “The developers do—and drool.”

  While they waited for coffee, he spoke of his love of plants, of how he had planted the peach orchard with his own hands and tended the trees, trying to develop a new variety with deep pink meat. She told him about finding the book about Conrad Faire and his descendents and how surprised she had been to discover that he and Aunt Lucy had been cousins.

  “Oh, yes, I grew up with Walter and Carter.” He touched his fingertips to one another in a arch and looked far over the grounds as if he were looking down the years. “Walter and I grew apart after Carter’s death, but we boys used to have some wonderful times down yonder in the meadow. We would set up our tents and pretend to be Billy the Kid and his cohorts, camping out to avoid the sheriff, or we’d swim and race canoes on the pond. I have always been sorry that Brandon didn’t have cousins. There is a special bond that develops with those of your own blood.” He looked up as Styles set a tray of coffee and assorted cookies on a table between them. When they each had a steaming cup, he murmured, “That will be all for now. Mrs. Murray and I want to speak privately.” He turned to her. “Now, what was it you wanted to ask me? Oh, yes, about Leland Bradford. I called the college alumni office and got an address for him. He’s in a nursing home up near Nashville. I have written it down for you.” He took a folded piece of paper from a drawer in a table beside his chair and handed it to her. She slid it into her pocket to read later, and wondered how quickly she should drink her coffee and depart.

  He forestalled her by asking, “Why do you want to speak to him?”

  Those piercing silver-blue eyes compelled her to be frank. “Dutch Landrum told me Sunday night he would try to get in touch with Leland. I have been translating the diary I found with the necklace, and while I know you aren’t interested in old books—”

  He arrested her midsentence with a gesture of one hand. “I did not say I am not interested in old books.” He waved toward the well-filled shelves around them. “As you see, I have a few. I just don’t collect them seriously. But if this was the diary you found, the one Georg Ramsauer kept of his archeological excavations, I understood from Amy that it had been stolen.”

  “The diary was stolen, but fortunately I had made a copy.”

  “Ah, yes.” He sipped his coffee. “I believe Amy mentioned that, as well. She has been full of stories about you and your family this week.” He gave her a charming, frosty smile and his eyes twinkled.

  Katharine was surprised Amy had had time to notice or hear anything at her house, considering how full her mind had been of Zach. She did not say that, however. Instead, she explained, “The diary turned out not to be the one from Hallstatt, as I first thought, but it may still be of some importance. It was the journal of Ludwig Ramsauer, a descendent of Georg. You may have known Ludwig—he studied at Sewanee for a year.”

  “Journaling seems to have to run in their family.” His lifted his cup to his lips again, holding it in both hands because of tremors. “Were you able to translate this diary?”

  “With the help of a friend. And as incredible as it may seem, Ludwig, several Austrian friends, and two of your classmates—Leland Bradford and Donk Western—were Communists and conducted a campaign of terror, protesting Hitler’s influence in Austria. They spent several months in the summer and fall of 1937 blowing up things. According to Ludwig, Leland financed their enterprises, Donk set the explosives, and he chose the targets.”

  “Remarkable!” Mr. Ivorie paused in the process of lifting a delicate lemon cookie to his mouth. “Are you absolutely certain you translated that correctly? I knew Donk. He died in the war.”

  She smiled. “That’s what Dutch kept saying about him, too.”

  “You tend to remember friends you have lost in combat. You are certain that Donk was part of this?”

  “Pretty sure. Ludwig called him ‘D’ throughout, and Dutch ran into Donk and Leland over in Vienna that summer, with Carter and Ludwig. The diary says that they stayed all fall and eventually went to Spain for a time, to join the communist forces in the civil war.”

  “Fascinating.” He again raised his cup to his lips with shaking hands. She looked away to give him privacy. He took a sip and returned the cup to its saucer with a delicate clicking like castanets. “But why should you care about that, especially after all these years? Are you a historian?”

  “No, but my friend is. He teaches history at Emory and actually did most of the translation. My German is poor and rusty.”

  He brushed a crumb from his leg. “Ludwig mentioned Leland Bradford by name?”

  “No, he called him L2. Apparently it was a nickname between them. It was Dutch who referred to ‘Lee and Donk,’ and in Dutch’s Sewanee yearbook, I found messages from L1 and L2. The handwriting for L1 was the same as Ludwig’s in his diary.”

  “Fascinating,” he repeated. He turned and looked over the lawn, where the first thick drops of rain were falling. “It sounds like you have been doing some pretty detective work this week, Mrs. Murray. This is one of the most interesting—and disturbing—stories I have heard in a long time. It is hard to believe about people I once knew. And now, you think if you can speak with Leland—what? He will fill in more details for your friend to write a book? Confess to what they did? What help do you expect him to give you, if he can?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know how much news you keep up with—”

  “Very little, any more, except what my family brings me. They are carrying on things these days. I sit here and enjoy the wildflowers and the butterflies, putter a bit in my orchard, hit a few golf balls—”

  A loud clap of thunder interrupted him and he chuckled. “Although, before I am struck by lightning, I’ll confess I no longer am able to play. There is little I am able to do anymore. My life is very restricted, and almost over.” One hand stroked the arm of his chair.

  She felt a twinge of pity. His mind seemed as vibrant as ever. What a shame that his body had let him down.

  “But you were going to tell me some news?” he asked.

  “Dutch Landrum was murdered Monday morning,” she said as gently as she knew how.

  He grew very still. “Oh, my! You are certain it was murder?”

  She nodded. “Somebody impersonating a laundryman went to his apartment and strangled him with his own tie. But the evening before, Dutch had told me he was going to try and get in touch with Leland. I want to know if he did, and if Leland has any information that might help the police solve Dutch’s murder.”

  His white brows rose an inch. “Surely you don’t suspect Leland of murdering Dutch? It would be rather difficult, don’t you think, from a nursing home in Nashville? And aren’t you a little concerned that if Dutch got killed after asking questions, you yourself might be in danger?”


  She gave him a rueful nod. “I’m being very careful—especially since I’ve had a couple of break-ins that may be connected to the necklace. Zachary Andrews—” She paused, wondering how much he already knew and how much risk she ran of upsetting him too much by what she was about to say. “Zach broke into my house Friday evening and took the diary. At least, I presume he did, although the police didn’t find it, because he also took a jade collection they recovered from his car.”

  “How infuriating!” he exclaimed. “Amy said something about hoodlums destroying your home.”

  “That was Monday morning, after Zach was dead. It may have been a random home invasion.”

  “Did they get the necklace?” His voice was anxious.

  “No, I had taken it to my safe-deposit box.”

  “Very wise. Now, back to Leland. When you see him—”

  “I don’t plan to see him. All I want is to give the police information about how to reach him. I really appreciate your getting that for me. And I’d better be going. Rowena is expecting me.” She started to stand, but he waved her back to her seat.

  “Not so fast. In exchange for the number, I want to know about the necklace. Have you had any success in learning where it came from and whether it is genuine? And are you ready to sell?”

  “Yes, yes, and no. It did come from Hallstatt and was given by Georg Ramsauer to one of his daughters as a wedding present. It has been passed down in their family ever since, so I think its authenticity would not be hard to establish. But I have spoken with Ludwig’s sister. She told me Carter lived with them one winter, and she thought he had stolen it from them. She was delighted to know it had turned up. I have promised to send it to her. You will need to contact her to see if it’s for sale, but I failed to bring her address with me. I’ll send it to you.”

  His hand reached out and stroked hers with a whisper of dry skin. His felt as delicate as fine china. “My dear, when you have lived as long as I have, you will learn not to be so trusting of people. I knew Carter well. He was no thief.