“Will they let me in?”
“I told them you are her sister.”
From strangers to bosom buddies to sisters in less than a week. Katharine couldn’t ever remember a relationship developing so quickly. Given how well Bara was known in Atlanta, she doubted if the hospital staff was fooled, but if her visit could help calm Bara, she’d play along.
Payne walked her to the doors of the unit. “She doesn’t remember a thing. Says she came home yesterday afternoon and had supper. That’s all she remembers. Not a thing between suppertime and waking up in the hospital a little while ago.”
Katharine couldn’t ever remember visiting a patient with a police officer at the door. She wondered if she’d be frisked before entering, but the man simply gave her a nod as she passed.
Even though Katharine knew about Bara’s injuries, she was unprepared for the rainbow of green, purple, and gray that covered the left side of her face and the instant aging process the accident had wreaked. In a faded hospital gown and a nest of pillows and blankets, Bara looked shrunken and ancient.
When Katharine came close to the bed, Bara grabbed her with a hand that felt like a talon. “Find out,” she rasped. “Find—” The word ended in a burst of coughing.
“The police are doing all they can,” Katharine assured her. “They will find whoever did this.” She winged a silent prayer that it was so.
Bara tried to shift her position in the bed and winced with pain. She clutched Katharine tighter. “Find…my daddy. Need to know! And envelope…in kitchen. Lock…” Again she was racked by a cough, then the hand clutching Katharine’s tightened to a vise. “Bring.” The raspy voice grew weak. “Promise?”
“I promise,” said Katharine.
Bara turned her head into her pillow and closed her eyes.
The scene was so like a movie death scene, Katharine was terrified. She summoned a passing nurse. The nurse eyed Bara with an experienced eye, took a quick pulse, and checked monitors over the bed. “Sleeping. She comes and goes. I suggest you come back in an hour.”
Katharine had no intention of coming back that weekend. She left the unit wondering how on earth she had gotten involved in that mess. Tom was coming home. They had a huge party to prepare for. She wanted to buy a car. She had no time to fetch envelopes from Bara’s kitchen or track down Bara’s purported birth father—if such a person existed beyond the realm of Bara’s alcohol-sodden imagination. Besides, she scarcely knew the woman. She would tell Payne about the envelope and go home.
She found Payne talking with a police officer. “I don’t know if I could bear it.” When she saw Katharine, she reached out and clutched her much as Bara had clutched her minutes before. “They want me to go walk through Mama’s house to see if anything is missing. I can’t go in there by myself. Could you go with me? It won’t take long.”
Katharine had never been inside, but she had seen the house. Walking through would not be a quick proposition.
If Susan were ever in a similar situation… That had to be her mother.
How could Susan be in a similar situation? Katharine protested silently.
If Susan ever needed a friend, wouldn’t you hope somebody would step to the plate?
Besides, added the waspish voice of Sara Claire, you did promise you’d get that envelope.
“Your mother wants an envelope she left in the kitchen,” Katharine told Payne. “I could go with you if we leave right now.”
“The sooner the better,” the officer told them.
“That was all Mother wanted to see you about?” Payne asked as Katharine followed the cruiser toward Bara’s house. “An envelope?”
Katharine had long ago concluded that an inconvenient truth is wiser in the long run than a kinder lie. “No, she still wants me to try and find out who her birth father was, but I think that’s something you ought to pursue, not me.”
“I can’t leave her right now for a wild-goose chase. They think she killed Foley!”
When Katharine didn’t reply, Payne added, “The officer we are following was over at the house this morning. He says the place is a mess, with glass and dirt all over the floor of the front hall. They think Mama and Foley were fighting and she shot him. I told him Mama doesn’t have a gun, but he said hers were the only fingerprints on it and they have no record of who it belongs to. I cannot believe Mama had a gun and I never knew it. Besides, if she’d been going to shoot anybody, she’d have shot Daddy years ago. I don’t believe she let Foley beat her, either. After living with Daddy, she would never have stood for that.”
It was precisely Bara’s not standing for it that could be the problem, but Katharine didn’t point out the fact.
In another moment, Payne burst out, “I’m sure all those questions she was asking must have something to do with this. That’s why I wish you would see what you can find out about…you know. Won’t you?”
“I don’t see how I can. It would look like nothing but blatant curiosity on my part.”
“You could tell folks I sent you.”
“Sorry. I don’t think it’s something I can do.”
Annoyance flitted across Payne’s face. Katharine pulled to a stop with relief. “We’re here.”
The vans and paraphernalia of a crime scene/media event crowded into the circular drive. News reporters recognized Payne and came rushing toward the car with cameras. “I don’t know a thing!” she protested, covering her face.
Katharine and the police officer hustled her inside.
A man in a business suit met them just inside the door. “Detective Swale.” He extended a hand to Payne. “Homicide.” Obviously a man of few words. He had a rumpled look, like he either hadn’t slept or kept his clothes in a wad by his bed.
“Have you figured out what happened?” Payne demanded. “Have you found any clue to who came in and did this thing?”
“Not yet.” He jingled the change in his pocket. Katharine suspected it was a nervous habit he wasn’t even aware of. Uncle Walter used to do that when perturbed.
Payne didn’t seem to notice. “But you know it couldn’t have been Mama, right? I mean, she was unconscious, the front door was standing open….”
“She could have gotten to the phone, tried to leave the house, realized she was too weak, and gone back in before she collapsed.”
“Or somebody else could have beaten her unconscious, Foley came in and surprised him, he shot Foley and put Mama’s prints on the gun.”
“That’s one possibility. But it’s hard to believe somebody that vicious would have taken the time to put a pillow under her head. It’s more likely that Mrs. Weidenauer and her husband had an altercation—”
What a civilized word for an uncivilized act, Katharine thought.
“—and she shot him, then was able to stagger to the phone and grab a pillow before she passed out from her injuries.”
“It wasn’t my mother. Somebody must have broken in.”
“There’s no evidence of a break-in, and Mr. Weidenauer had a key to the back door in his pocket.”
“That rat! Mama’s lawyer made him give back all his keys. He must have made a duplicate.”
“It did look new,” the detective agreed. He didn’t add, or need to, that if Foley had come into the house uninvited, that could have provoked the “altercation” that led to his death.
Payne had been so focused on the detective, she hadn’t looked at the foyer until that moment. She gave such a cry that Katharine thought she had hurt herself until she fell on her knees and picked up a scrap of crystal. “Mama’s Fräbel!” She held out what looked like a piece of wing. “Mama got an Otto Godo Fräbel piece for her work with the elderly. A heron. It must have gotten broken.” Her throat was clogged with tears.
Katharine was having trouble breathing herself. Seeing the glass and dirt on the floor gave her a flashback of standing in her own home two months before and seeing all her precious things ruined. Her knees wobbled. She knew exactly how Payne felt—and why she was weeping over the he
ron. It wasn’t its monetary value. It represented the entire mess.
Speaking of mess, dirt littered the floor. Seeking the source, Katharine saw a large potted ficus lying on its side. “That tree needs water,” she said to the detective, “and to be repotted soon if it’s to survive. It’s been without water too long.”
“Is that right?” He looked at it curiously.
“That’s right,” she snapped. “Couldn’t somebody set it back in its pot and water it?”
“Sorry, ma’am. This is a crime scene, not a nursery. The dirt is evidence. See? It’s been tracked all over, even up the stairs.”
She peered at the dirt nearest her feet. “This has been here longer than twelve hours. Look how dry it is. And that big a tree wouldn’t have wilted in that short of a time.”
“Are you a horticulturalist?”
“No, but I grow plants.”
“We’ll check it out.”
She had little faith that he would, but he immediately motioned one of the techs to join him near the tree and said something she could not hear.
“Do you notice anything missing here?” the officer who had brought them asked.
Payne swiped tears off her face and climbed to her feet. “A valuable painting from over the foyer table,” she said when she had looked around. “It was a Monet.”
Katharine looked about as well. She remembered Bara saying the house had been built to outshine the old governor’s mansion. In that it might have succeeded, but while it was elegant, it was heavy and showy. Quantities of Georgia marble had been quarried for the floor of the foyer. The banisters of the large curving staircase looked like ebony, and its treads were also marble. Red carpet ran down the center of the stairs like a river of blood.
Katharine suspected the airy drapes and modern furnishings had been Bara’s, not her grandfather’s. They displayed better taste than the house itself.
Shards of glass crunched underfoot as they walked toward the dining room. “Watch your shoes,” called a tech. “That glass is sharp.”
Payne stopped in the doorway and pressed one hand to her cheek. “The Dolley Madison tea set!” she whispered. “Murdoch is going to kill us!”
The officer poised his pen over his notebook. “A tea set. What was included?”
“A large tray, a coffeepot, a teapot, a sugar bowl, a creamer, and”—Payne colored delicately—“I don’t know the official name for it. Mama called it the slop jar. It was where people poured out cold coffee or tea before they refilled their cup.” She moved toward the buffet like a woman dazed.
“How valuable was this set? Was it insured?”
“It was insured, but it’s priceless. It was a gift from President Madison and his wife to one of her cousins. Their names were engraved on it.” Payne stroked the top of the buffet as if she were rubbing a magic lamp for a genie who could return the set.
Having wept over losing her own grandmother’s silver service in her break-in, Katharine thought she understood Payne’s stricken look until she heard the repeated whisper. “Murdoch is going to kill us!”
“This Murdoch,” said the officer, pencil poised. “Who is he?”
“She. She’s Mama’s first cousin, and obsessed with family history.”
“Could she have taken the service?”
Payne shook her head. “She’s in Boston. She called today from up there, begging me to have Mama put that tea set in a safe place. She was worried Foley would try to take it in the divorce.” Payne’s voice faltered. “I had to tell her he’s dead.” She whirled to ask Katharine, “Will we have to plan his funeral? I don’t think I could stand that.”
“Don’t worry about it right now,” she advised.
“Anything else missing?” the officer inquired.
His brisk tone helped Payne recover. She peered around. “Silver candlesticks used to be on the mantelpiece. There were silver trays and a pitcher on that shelf of the china cabinet.” She pulled open a drawer. “All the flatware is here.” She looked around again, then pointed to a round table between two front windows. “A Tiffany lamp sat on that table.”
The officer made a note. “Would you check the other rooms, please?”
They roamed the entire house, but nothing else seemed to be missing until they got to her mother’s room.
“What happened here?” Payne demanded of the crew inside. All the covers were on the floor, the duvet dragged nearly to the door.
A woman shook her head. “We don’t know. We’re trying to work it out.”
All the terror of the past hours caught up with Payne in the doorway. She started to shake and then to sob, pressing her face into her hands. “Whoever it was found Mama here! He must have killed Foley first, then dragged her—beat her—who knows what he did to her?” She fell to her knees, sobbing.
Katharine put her arms around Payne’s shoulders and spoke in her most soothing voice. “Calm down, now. We don’t know what happened. We need to wait until Bara is better. Calm down. Calm down.” Gradually Payne’s hysterics subsided and she let Katharine lead her down the stairs. Katharine wondered if Payne had seen the empty bourbon bottles on the nightstand.
The kitchen was their last stop. Payne wrinkled her nose and sniffed. “This place is a mess and it stinks.” She spoke in the grumpy voice of somebody who regrets losing control and is willing to take her frustration out on the next irritant that comes along. “Foley fired the staff and hired a cleaning service to come once a week. I don’t know which service he was using, or what day they are supposed to come, but I suppose we can’t get them out here anyway until the police are done.” She noticed a skillet full of burned eggs sitting in a box on the counter. “What is that?”
“Evidence,” the officer told her. “We found it in the trash compactor.”
“And you think what?” she demanded with a brittle laugh. “That Foley beat Mama because she burned his eggs? She never cooked.”
“Her fingerprints are on the skillet, ma’am. Excuse me, I need to make a call.” He stepped into the hall and closed the swinging door, leaving them alone.
Payne stared into the skillet as if it were a magic mirror that could tell her who the murderer was.
Katharine spied a large manila envelope on the countertop with a locket lying beside it. Locket, not lock. That’s what Bara had been trying to say.
“This is what she wanted me to get—the envelope and the locket.”
Payne peered into the envelope. “Looks like old newspaper clippings and stuff.” She slid a fingernail into the locket. “And this is just an old picture of Mother. Maybe the locket was Nana’s.” She put the locket in the envelope, slid the envelope sideways into the front of her pants, and pulled her shirt low over it. “Can you see it?”
Katharine heard something outside in the hall: the jingle of coins. She motioned for Payne to be quiet. Payne shivered. “I don’t like being here, do you? Let’s go.”
Katharine was nervous about Payne walking out of the kitchen with what might be considered evidence. “Do you think you ought to?” she whispered. “It’s illegal to remove something from a crime scene.”
“If Mama wants it, I’m taking it.” Payne’s mouth was set in a line very like her mother’s.
Change was still jingling faintly in the hall.
Katharine spoke louder. “If there’s nothing missing in here, I need to be going. I have other things I have to do today.” Payne was rustling as she walked, so Katharine added, “I guess you don’t look forward to telling Murdoch about that tea set, do you? When does she get back?”
“Too soon.” Payne took her cue and spoke loudly, too. “It took all the tact I had to keep her from getting on the first plane and coming home. The best I could do was persuade her to stay until Monday evening. I wish she’d stay up there all week. Mama doesn’t want Murdoch hovering over her. She says Murdoch reminds her of fingernails on a blackboard.”
Katharine wished she hadn’t heard that. It was so apt, it would be hard to forget.
As they went out the swinging door, the detective pushed away from the wall. “Mrs. Anderson? May I have a word?”
He looked at Katharine, obviously waiting for her to disappear.
She was going to oblige, but Payne grabbed her elbow. “I want her to stay. Have you found evidence to clear Mama?”
“No, ma’am, but I have just gotten a report on a second gun we found in a drawer in the dining room. It was one reported stolen by Winston Holcomb three years before his death.”
“You think Mama stole a gun from Winnie? She doesn’t even like guns.”
“We don’t think anything at the moment. I wanted to keep you abreast of developments.” His change jingled merrily. “We’re having some tests run on it. Are you finished in the house?”
His eyes flickered toward the kitchen door, but he didn’t open it.
In the car on the way back to the hospital, Payne pulled out the envelope and peered inside. She pulled out a political button that read I LIKE IKE. “Odd,” she said. “Winnie voted Democrat.”
“He fought in Europe,” Katharine reminded her. “Maybe he liked Eisenhower even if he didn’t vote for him.”
“Or he liked the button.” Payne tucked the flap inside the envelope. “It looks like a lot of junk, frankly.”
“Your mother wanted it, though.”
Payne reached behind her and laid the envelope on Katharine’s backseat. “She doesn’t have any place to keep it right now, and I’ll lose it if I take it. Keep it for a day or two and bring it to her when she gets her own hospital room.”
As Katharine drove home after dropping Payne off, she wondered how and when she had become Bara Weidenauer’s personal assistant.
Chapter 25
Posey called before Katharine got home. “Are you on your way to my house?”
“No, I’m on my way home from the hospital. Bara is conscious and wanted to see me about something.”
“What?” Posey had no problem with blatant curiosity.
“There was an envelope at her house she wanted me to check on.”
“Okay. We can do it on our way to talk to the women.”
Daughter of Deceit Page 21
