She spun around, flushing with embarrassment. The maid’s expression was cold. Abigail thought, I must look like a hooker touching up before crashing a party, and groaned inwardly.
“May I help you, ma’am?”
“My name is Abigail James and I would like to speak with Judge Kyle on a matter of importance.”
Without speaking, the woman ushered the visitor into a parlor located across from the foyer and departed. Unable to remain still, Abigail paced the small room, pausing to study a Meissen Harlequin posed to admire the porcelain butterfly perched on his hand.
“Ms. James?” At the pleasant baritone, she turned to find her host standing in the doorway. He extended his hand as if greeting a long expected guest. “How nice to see you again,” he continued. “Although I assume this is business and not pleasure, we might as well be comfortable in my den.”
As he led the way, Judge Kyle asked after Paul’s health and commented on a tax evasion trial that he’d been following in the Chicago papers. Abigail made the appropriate responses until she was seated in a comfortable room scented with tobacco, rich leather, and furniture polish. Beside her, a globe was suspended on a bronze rod. The light of the setting sun streamed into the western exposure and highlighted a crystal piece in the shape of the Golden Gate Bridge displayed on a low table. One of the oak-paneled walls was lined with shelves filled with carvings of waterfowl.
The only jarring note in the symphony of warmth and color was an oil painting above the fireplace. It portrayed a tall man in a dinner jacket. Posed beside a leather wingback chair, an implacable iron in the painted glance boded ill for anyone daring to cross his path. A discreet brass label identified the man as Lawrence Kyle.
As she studied the portrait, Abigail shivered. Full lips were in a surprisingly sensuous contrast to the puritan ancestry of high cheekbones and beaked nose and his dark brown eyes seemed to focus on the viewer with hooded malice. The artist had furnished a disturbing glance into a man’s soul and she turned with relief to the carved waterfowl.
“These are exquisite! Where did you get them?”
His proud smile gave her the answer and Abigail noted the aesthetic cheekbones he had inherited from the man above the mantelpiece. He lifted a merganser duck off a shelf. Brushing gentle fingers across the stiff crest and hooked beak of the carving, she listened while he explained the steps involved in the creation of the birds. The detail of the feathers was superb; Abigail suspected she was in the company of the artist who had captured Rosemary’s likeness in the miniature.
After replacing his handiwork, the judge seated himself behind the handsome Regency-style writing desk. “You didn’t drop by just to admire my ducks, Ms. James. How may I serve you?”
Abigail crossed her legs and observed that his gaze dropped and lingered. If her speculation regarding Lawrence Kyle’s sensual nature was correct, then the son had inherited more than the cheekbones from his father. “I’ve come on behalf of Flora Albertson,” she said.
Surprise flitted across his features; he clearly hadn’t expected a reference to his invalid neighbor. Gracious manners were bred into the bone, however, and he bowed a distinguished head. “A lovely woman. Among our social leaders for many years. She has been quite ill, I understand.”
He chose a pipe from the pipe stand on the desk and began to fill it from the blue-and-white Miessen humidor at his elbow. “Do you mind my pipe?”
Abigail shook her head as the tang of tobacco permeated the air. Long, slim fingers packed moist flakes into the pipe bowl with the loving touch of a gardener patting soil over a rare seed.
“Mrs. Albertson has asked me to carry out a commission. She desires to learn more about her sister.”
As she paused, he looked up. “And you believe I could help you? Perhaps in a judicial capacity?”
“You were once acquainted with the woman in question.”
The polite smile broadened. “Acquainted with her sister? I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the lady.”
The blankness remained in place, his features wiped as clean as a newly erased blackboard. Perhaps he told the truth—Flora’s humble background would have excluded her from Austin’s social strata until Daniel built his fortune. The two of them had surely chatted at cocktail parties, unaware of the common bond they shared in Rosemary; the answer to Flora’s quest for her sister might have been close enough to touch.
“Her name was Rosemary. Rosemary Dickison.”
Tobacco sprayed in all directions as his hand jerked out of the humidor. His eyes dilated in shock and his head swiveled toward the ducks as though beseeching the lifeless carvings to come to his aid.
“Who is Rosemary Dickison? And who are you?”
Abigail rose and turned to face the speaker, a woman with a willowy figure and raven dark hair marred by a streak of silver at the left temple. The high cheekbones betrayed her identity—Julia, if what Quincy said was true, once vehemently opposed to her brother’s liaison with the dead woman. At first glance, Austin’s sister reminded Abigail of a pond in winter, with an ice-coated surface and treacherous, hidden depths.
“My sister, Julia Kyle. Julia, Abigail James.” Austin, recalled to his duties by his sister’s sharp questions, almost stuttered the introductions.
Julia inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Why are you here? Are you a journalist?”
“I’m an attorney. I asked Judge Kyle about a Rosemary Dickison who was killed in 1937. I’ve been retained—”
With a shake of her head, Julia broke into the explanation. “I’ve no knowledge of this woman and I’m sure Austin is equally in the dark. Austin?”
Her brother was dabbing at the tobacco crumbled across the desk’s smooth patina. He seemed to have shrunken inside his tailored jacket but looked up at his sister’s crisp prompting.
“Rosemary Dickison? No. But 1937 was a troubled year, as I recall, with fighting in Spain, fighting in Russia, fighting in China…”
And fighting at home, according to Quincy. Under Julia’s narrowed gaze, Austin hastened to add, “I’m sorry, Ms. James. I don’t remember her.” He drew a breath, looking at his sister for approval—the tension emanating from the pair labeled them as liars.
Julia pressed a button on a panel near the door; her gaze never left her brother’s face. Abigail had been in enough courtrooms to know when a witness was perjuring himself, but her hands were tied by the woman’s expert manipulation of her brother. The pair were at a distinct advantage—twinlike, they were able to communicate with their eyes and the slightest movement of facial muscles, excluding the visitor as completely as if they’d lapsed into Swahili.
The uncomfortable silence was broken by the reappearance of the maid, and Julia spoke without looking at Abigail. “Please show Ms. James out, Lizbeth. I’m sure you’ll excuse us. Austin and I are late for a dinner party.”
Irritated by the curtness of her dismissal and determined to go down fighting, Abigail glanced around for ammunition. “Your brother is a talented artist, Miss Kyle.” She walked over to study the portrait of the family patriarch up close and for the first time saw the artist’s signature—A. Kyle.
“You certainly captured your father’s personality on canvas—or at least your perception of him, Judge Kyle. Tell me, have you ever done anything smaller, such as a miniature?”
The pipe clattered to the desktop. Abigail flashed a smile at the siblings grouped like waxwork figures around the desk. “Have a lovely evening and thank you for your time.”
The door closed behind her and Austin went slack in the joints, a puppet whose strings had been released. His sister turned on him. “You’re a fool, Austin! You acted as guilty as if you’d strangled that scheming minx in this very room!”
Unable to take in the implications of this revival of the dead, he murmured, “Flora Albertson, Rosemary’s sister? She never mentioned Flora—I didn’t put two and two together…”
“It’s been obvious for years that you’re incapable of simpl
e addition, Austin. If only you weren’t so spineless into the bargain!” Julia’s magnificent eyes flashed. “You sit and whimper when boldness is required.”
“That James woman—she knew about the miniature…” His gaze was pleading, but she scorned to offer reassurance.
“We’ve got to put a stop to this investigation.”
He closed his eyes as forgotten memories surfaced.
“If only you were more like Father,” Julia continued, moving across the room to stare out into the gathering dusk. “He would never have gotten himself into such a mess.”
Austin’s hands gripped the pipe stem as though the smooth ivory was a lifeline from a burning ship, while dark, angry waters of memory lapped at his feet…
Chapter 8
He was standing in front of a mirror. The high cheekbones of the man reflected in the glass were freshly shaven and the eyes sparkled with youthful spirits. Deft fingers knotted a silk tie.
“Austin!” Lawrence Kyle followed his angry shout into the room.
“Yes, Father?” Austin turned, reaching for his dinner jacket, feeling an unexpected strength in the familiar confines of his room.
Lawrence extended his arm, a piece of paper clenched in his fist. Face flushed, he glared at his son.
Austin’s stomach lurched in apprehension when he recognized the letter being thrust in his face. “You opened my mail?”
“Addressed to the university? Of course I opened it!” The purple tide crept higher up his father’s neck as he shook the paper skyward, as if calling God to witness his wrath. “I pulled strings, called in favors, paid tutors, and now you are going behind my back to withdraw from Harvard! What base ingratitude!”
Austin retreated, clutching the coat to his chest, and struggled to marshal an appeal to soften his father’s anger. “But I have no desire to study the law. I want to learn about physiology and muscle structure, painting techniques, even try my hand at sculpting! Inside, I have this desire to create…”
His voice trailed away as he searched the reddened features for a sign of understanding, but Lawrence Kyle tore the letter into shreds and flung the pieces into his son’s face.
Biting off each word, he snapped, “You will attend Harvard. You will become a lawyer. You have no choice.” The sentences were hurled into the void between the two men, a gulf that opened irrevocably wider with every syllable.
No pity or empathy lived behind the blazing eyes, only anger and the bitter reflection of implied failure, and Austin, recognizing this, felt a sickness welling up within his soul. He was trapped behind a stack of textbooks, hemmed in behind family honor and parental ambition. The force of his father’s personality washed over him, drowning the tiny spark of rebellion, and he bowed his head to hide the misery in his eyes.
Lawrence Kyle stalked down to his study and sat down behind the desk. After congratulating himself on the forceful handling of a crisis, he debated whether to give in to temptation. The struggle was brief; he fumbled with the watch fob on the chain at his waist and unhooked a tiny key. A quick twist unlocked both the secret compartment in the back of the middle drawer and the gates of paradise.
He lifted out a silver-framed miniature and studied the features of a woman, her pouting rosy lips, and the golden hair laced with reddish lights as it brushed across bare, satin smooth shoulders. With a trembling finger, he touched the barrier to the painted mouth. Rosemary looked up into his eyes, her gaze promising that she could fulfill his every fantasy.
His fingers formed rigid claws around the smooth glass. He pressed the miniature against his heart and relished the throb of his pulse in his ears, his fervid brain reliving his encounter with the flesh and blood woman. The man in the chair was unaware that his daughter stood in the doorway, horror freezing her tongue as she recognized the object Lawrence Kyle held.
Julia stumbled away. The knowledge that her father gloated over Rosemary’s likeness had made her worst fears a reality.
In his upstairs room, Austin brushed away a scrap of paper that had stuck to his shirtsleeve. The words “I regret I must withdraw” fluttered to the hardwood floor. Wadding up the tailored symbol of wealth and distinction, he fired his dinner jacket across the room.
The rustle of silk drew his attention and he turned. Julia, resplendent in her Paris original gown, stood in the doorway, the scarlet of the material setting off her dark hair and eyes and a cluster of diamonds and rubies flashing on her ring finger. Her expression, however, brought to mind a woman facing the shining blade of the guillotine.
“Julia? What’s happened?”
She looked through him as though he were invisible, the blankness of her expression that of a sleepwalker.
“Julia?” He touched her arm and she blinked as if awakening from a trance.
“No! I won’t allow it!” She turned and stumbled blindly down the corridor.
Austin was shocked by her distress, and started to follow until the realization came that he must act to save himself if he wanted to escape. His father’s contempt had confirmed the decision Austin had agonized over for the past month.
Julia’s door slammed and the hallway was deserted. Austin found himself standing outside his father’s closed bedroom door. Without conscious volition, he turned the knob and entered, crossing the room to stand before a picture of a clipper ship framed in gold leaf. Removing the painting from the wall, he placed it on the floor and his fingers closed around the cool metal of the lock of the safe that had been concealed behind the picture.
As an eighteenth birthday present, Lawrence Kyle had divulged the safe’s combination to his son, a gift Austin had viewed as a hollow gesture of trust. Now a sardonic smile teased his mouth as he thought of how shocked his father would be if someone suggested his despised son would use the knowledge to pillage the king’s treasury.
A final click and the door swung open. Still smiling, Austin pulled out a folded wad of bills and stuffed it into his pocket before reaching for the supple leather sack in the back of the compartment that was his real goal. Hefting the bag, he calculated that he had enough room for the gold coins in one of the pigskin valises hidden in the carriage house.
“Thank you, Father, for financing my trip,” he murmured. He turned to go back to his room and check on the condition of his jacket. He had a dance to attend first.
Chapter 9
They were to meet in the park. Julia sat on a scarred wooden bench with her knees pressed together, toes pointed, and linen suit unwrinkled, striking as incongruous a note in the bedlam of her surroundings as a delicate watercolor hung on a tavern wall.
Children shrieked approval of the ice-cream wagon’s wares, a local dealer exchanged joints and white powder for folded bills, and a young couple engaged in a no-holds-barred wrestling match on a nearby blanket.
Julia checked the time on her ruby-encrusted wrist-watch and touched her handbag to make sure it hadn’t been snatched from her side. He was late. She’d give him ten more minutes.
“Good afternoon.”
She turned her head, noting the bandanna tied around the calf of his leg, the leather vest, and the boom box perched on his shoulder like a plastic bird.
“You dressed this way to further my humiliation, didn’t you?” Her tone was even but the words dripped with contempt.
“You gotta blend with the crowd, Julia, go with the flow. You look like you’re heading for a presidential ball.”
“You picked this disgusting place—I could have been robbed and my throat slit before you showed up. Just because you consort daily with riffraff. And I’d appreciate it if you’d drop the phony speech patterns. You’re an educated man.”
He dropped the jive accent but his grin mocked her prim posture. “You disappoint me, Julia. I thought you’d enjoy a glimpse of real people, doing real things.” He gestured appreciatively at the couple writhing on the blanket. “Oh, you’re safe enough—no one’s foolish enough to bother you. One blast from those laser eyes and they’d be reduced to
a pile of smoking ash.”
Julia’s lips tightened and she started to rise.
“Okay, okay. I’ll remember my ‘place.’ You said on the phone that you’ve got a proposition for me, perhaps a way to increase my allowance?”
“I have a problem. You may be the solution. It’s time you earned the blood money you’ve been collecting.”
He knew that to press Julia any harder would be as foolhardy as poking a rattlesnake with his finger, and so he made his tone conciliatory. “When money talks, I’ve got ears like a night owl.”
Her companion remained on the bench long after Julia’s elegant form had vanished down the path. He had used one of the bills out of the envelope Julia left to purchase a joint and the smoke from the cigarette curled up into his nostrils, adding to his mellow mood.
The sun was warm on his shoulders and life looked very good. What a gift, and from a woman who’d like to see him hung from the nearest tree! And as a bonus, the target was a sassy redhead with legs like a Rockette. He’d keep Abigail James in suspense until she was trembling like a leaf in the wind and then…
He mimicked the chopping gesture Julia had used to terminate their conversation and smiled a predatory smile. For starters, the little lady would follow the clichéd path to the newspaper stories. All right, fella, he told himself, let’s not waste the imagination that got you through college and into this job.
The denim molded to his thigh muscles whispered as he crossed his legs. He was aware that two young women walking a Great Dane were eyeing him. The ponytailed blond in the hot pants whistled in admiration and he winked back. They started toward him, whispering and giggling.
With Julia’s money behind him, advancement in his career was a certainty. Representative? Senator? Washington, D.C. He pinched the crease of an imaginary pinstriped suit and dragged deeply on the cigarette before stubbing it out on the bench and rising to meet the girls.
Rosemary for Remembrance Page 5
