by Madyson Grey
“Did she hurt you?” Lena asked, alarmed.
“No, but she was screaming loud enough to wake the dead.”
Victoria winced as she said that phrase. She wished her daddy could be wakened from the dead.
“What’s her problem this time?”
“The usual. I haven’t learned anything about Rafael that could force him to return the company. I don’t know what could do that anyway. I just don’t know what she expects me to find?”
“She did say something that struck me as being odd, though. She said that Daddy deserved what he got. Now just what does that mean?”
Lena looked puzzled. “I don’t know,” she said. “Usually when someone gets what they deserve, something or somebody does something to them. Suicide is something you do to yourself.”
“And why did he have no right to sell the company? It was his company. Marian’s name wasn’t even on the sale documents or on his business license. I’ve seen the business license many times. It was in his company name only.”
“Well, yes, the corporation’s name would be all that was on a business license. The owner’s name or names would be on the incorporation papers,” Lena said.
“Yeah, I guess that’s right,” Victoria said.
“Another thing I discovered was that there was a water ring on Daddy’s desk in the death scene photos. Daddy would have never allowed a spill on his expensive desk like that. If he had anything to drink on his desk, it was on a coaster. Never just on the desk itself. But in all the photos, the mug never appears. It had been there, but then was gone by the time the photos were taken.”
“Maybe one of the officers moved it,” Lena suggested.
“No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t show in the very first photo that was taken from the doorway. That photo is time-stamped 3:42, which is probably the time they arrived here.”
“You know, now that you mention it, your dad’s favorite coffee mug was in the dishwasher later than evening. I didn’t open the dishwasher until after the police at gone. And I didn’t think anything of it being in there.”
“Too bad it’s been washed days ago,” Victoria said. “There might have been traces of something interesting on it.”
“Like what?” Lena asked.
“Poison,” Victoria said dramatically.
“You watch too much television,” Lena said laughing.
“Yeah, probably,” Victoria agreed. “I’m going in to Daddy’s office for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
Victoria set her coffee mug down on the kitchen counter and went through the adjoining dining area to David’s office that was at the back of the house. Once inside, she carefully examined the desktop for water rings. Yep. There it was. Just a faint ring of liquid had dried right there where a mug would have had to be sitting. On impulse, she snapped a picture of it with her cell phone camera.
As she was shutting the office door, she heard Marian coming down the stairs, heels clicking on the hardwood steps. Oh brother. Here goes. Sure hope she’s in a better mood this morning, Victoria thought as she hurried back to the kitchen. She didn’t want her mother asking her what she was doing in David’s office so early in the morning.
Victoria looked at her mother warily as she entered the kitchen. Marian looked haggard this morning. Not her usual look of perfection.
“Good morning, Mrs. Thornton,” Lena said in her usual dutiful manner.
“No it’s not,” Marian said sarcastically.
“What are you staring at?”
This question was directed to Victoria.
“Just you, Mother,” she replied tonelessly.
“Looking for bruises?” Her voice was laced with contempt.
“Look, Mother, I’m sorry I slapped you last night, but you were out of control. I had to do something,” Victoria said in self-defense.
Lena’s eyes widened, but she said nothing. Victoria hadn’t mentioned that part of the story.
“It’s not my fault you’re incompetent,” Marian snarled. “If you’d keep your pants on and pay attention to business, you might learn something.”
Rather than hit her again like she wanted to, Victoria instead threw the ball right back into Marian’s court.
“You’re the one who told me to do whatever it takes, remember?” Victoria reminded her.
“You’re supposed to be keeping your wits about you and seducing him, not the other way around, stupid girl.”
“That’s enough, Mother! I will not put up with your insults and your bad-mouthing me any longer. I’m not a child anymore who has no choice. I’m an adult and I don’t have to put up with you.”
“What do you think you’re going to do, missy? Run back to your precious Seattle and hide while I get tossed out on the street?”
“You won’t get tossed out on the street, Mother,” Victoria sighed. “Daddy left us both this house. We are now joint owners. Half and half. You can live here. I can live here. Or we can sell it and split the money half and half. Quit being so dramatic.”
“How am I going to afford the upkeep on the house? The lawn hasn’t even been mowed this week for pity’s sake. I can’t pay the taxes or the insurance. Or the utilities. Or Lena. Or anything else. Much less keep up appearances and maintain my standing in the community.”
Marian was starting to get hysterical again.
“Just calm down, Mother,” Victoria said. “Daddy left you enough money to live comfortably the rest of your life if you will just spend it wisely. Maybe invest a little of it. And what happened to your inheritance from your parents? That was several million, if I recall.”
“Huh. What do you know about how to live comfortably? You probably live in some little dump up there in Seattle. My inheritance is gone. That paltry amount didn’t last long at all.”
“I have a very comfortable home in Seattle,” Victoria said defensively. “And it’s looking better and better by the minute.”’
“Yeah, well why don’t you just get out of here and go back to your little slum, you stupid slut. Just leave me here to rot. You don’t care.”
Marian was near hysteria now, and too mad to cry. Lena had wisely stayed out of this mother-daughter argument until now. But when Marian called Victoria a slut, it was more than she could take.
“Listen here, Mrs. Thornton, Marian,” she said, getting right in Marian’s face. “You will not call Victoria a slut. This girl is a more of a lady than you’ve ever been. That’s right. I know about your little affairs. David didn’t know, rest his soul, because I couldn’t bear to see him hurt by the knowledge that his precious wife was a tramp.”
Marian’s face grew deep red and twisted with rage. She drew back her hand to slap Lena, but Victoria stepped up and grabbed her arm and held it back.
“Let go of me, you little twit. No servant of mine will talk to me in this manner.”
“Somebody needs to set you straight,” Lena said. “Heaven knows David wouldn’t. He was too blinded by his misplaced love for you, although what he saw in you, I’ll never know.”
“He saw a woman of breeding, not a low-life like you, you little peon.”
Victoria didn’t know what to do. Marian was totally flipping out again, and now including Lena in her outrage. She considered calling 911 and having them take her off to a psych ward, but she didn’t know if they would.
“Sit down, Mother, and calm yourself,” Victoria said firmly, using her leverage on Marian’s arm to force her to walk over to the table. She pulled out a chair with one foot, and pushed Marian down to sit on it.
“Sit there now and be quiet,” she ordered, as if Marian were the child and she were the mother.
Marian thrashed around some and resisted Victoria’s hold on her, but Victoria was stronger than her mother and held her down firmly. Marian began screaming at the top of her lungs. No words, just screams, as if she were being tortured.
“Shut up, Marian,” Victoria said through clenched teeth.
But Marian continued screaming, sc
reaming, screaming. After two or three minutes of nothing but solid hysterical screaming, Victoria told Lena to call 911 and have them send an ambulance for a woman in hysterics. It took ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and Marian sat there screaming the whole time.
She was still screaming when Lena opened the door for the EMTs to come in. Lena briefed them in the entryway on Marian’s condition, then they came into the kitchen where Victoria was still holding her in a chair. One of them tried to talk to Marian while the other prepared a sedative injection. If Marian was aware of their presence, she gave no indication of it. The first EMT continued talking in a calm, soothing voice while the other one stuck the needle into the upper part of the arm that Victoria was holding.
Within a few seconds, the sedative began its work and she began to settle down. Her screams subsided and morphed into sobs. Victoria thought it might be safe enough now to let go of her arm. When she did so, Marian put her hands over her face and sobbed until even the sobs faded and she began to sag.
One EMT told Victoria they would help her to her bedroom if she would show them the way. One got under one arm and the other got under her other arm, and they lifted her to her feet. She was too far gone by this point to walk, so one of them scooped her up in his arms and carried her like a baby up the stairs to her bedroom and laid her down on her bed.
“She should sleep for about three or four hours now,” one of them told Victoria. “If she sleeps much longer than four hours, call us again. But I don’t think she will. Does she have these outbursts often?”
“I’ve only been here for a few days,” Victoria said. “It’s the first time I’ve been back home since I left for college seven years ago. My dad died several days ago and that’s why I came home. She lit into me last night until I slapped her face and jolted her out of it. Then we got into it again this morning, only she really went ballistic this morning. The thought has crossed my mind to seeing about hospitalizing her.”
The EMTs expressed their condolences on her loss and told her maybe it was just the grief coming out. But Victoria told them probably not, because she had always been like this, only not nearly as bad as this time had gotten.
“Does she have any Valium or other sedative around?” The EMT asked.
“I’ll look.”
Victoria went into the master bathroom and searched through the medicine cabinets. The only thing she found was an empty bottle of Tylenol 3s. No Valium or other drugs were in there, except Marian’s hormone therapy medication.
“It she does this again, call us and we’ll take her to a hospital where they can treat her properly,” the man said.
“I will. I was thinking about doing it now, but maybe I’ll wait. Thank you for coming and helping me,” she said.
“No problem,” he replied. “That’s what we do.”
Victoria walked downstairs with the men and saw them out, thanking them again for their help. Then she went back upstairs to make sure Marian was all right. She covered her with an afghan, closed the curtains, and closed the door. She went back downstairs to make sure Lena was all right.
“I’m so sorry about what she said to you, Lena,” Victoria said, wrapping her arms around the older woman.
“No worries, honey,” Lena said, returning the hug. “She’s said worse things to me over the years.”
“She has?” Victoria was surprised. “I’ve never heard her get on you like that.”
“Oh, yeah, she has,” Lena said. “Just usually not when anyone else is around.”
“Were you serious about Marian having affairs?” Victoria asked.
They both sat down at the kitchen bar with cups of coffee that Lena had just poured.
“Unfortunately, yes. I’m sorry you had to find out about it,” Lena said.
“But Daddy never knew?”
“Well, I never told him. If he knew, I don’t know about it.”
“How did she manage it, and with whom?” Victoria was rather stunned at this revelation. She’d never imagined her mother cheating on her father. They had always seemed to have a good marriage. Granted, he always gave in to her demands, or most always anyway, but Victoria knew without a doubt that he loved her dearly. Marian had always seemed to love David, she was just much more self-centered in their relationship than he was.
“Usually it was when your father was at work and you were at school,” Lena explained. “Occasionally she would bring a man here, but she usually met them somewhere else. I rarely saw the same man twice. Sometimes I would accidentally overhear her on the phone making arrangements to meet one somewhere, usually an out of the way motel. That was the closest to slumming it I ever knew your mother to do. But she couldn’t risk being seen in any of the hotels in the city.”
“Wow! I can hardly imagine it,” Victoria said. “Was it a regular thing?”
“Well, not really regular,” Lena said. “She usually did it when she and your dad had a spat. Which, thankfully, wasn’t that often. Sometimes she’d bring a man here if your dad was out of town on a business trip. If I had to guess, I’d say that I knew about twenty or so times that I knew for certain she was either with a man here or somewhere else.”
“Did you know any of the men? Were they friends of theirs or business associates of Daddy’s? Or do you know?”
Lena hesitated a moment. She did know who several of them were. But was it wise to tell her?
“Three or four of them looked familiar. Men whom I’d seen here for parties and such. I can’t say I personally knew them, but I knew who they were.” That was close enough. There are some things better left alone.
“Poor Daddy,” Victoria said after a moment of silence. “I hope he never knew. Although maybe that’s what contributed to his … his death.”
She still couldn’t say the word “suicide” in connection with her daddy.
“I hope so, too, honey, that he never knew.”
There was a period of silence while the two women sipped the last of their coffee and pondered the turn life had taken for them both.
“Do you want some breakfast?” Lena said at last.
“I dunno,” Victoria said. “Guess I should eat something. Do we have some Cream of Wheat?”
“Yes, would you like some?”
“Yes, please,” Victoria said.
Lena made enough cereal for the both of them, and they ate together, grateful for each other’s company. When they were finished, Lena put their bowls in the dishwasher and wiped off the counter.
“Well, I’d better get busy, I guess,” she said to Victoria.
“What do you have to do today?” Victoria wanted to know.
“It’s laundry day and I’ll clean the downstairs. I won’t go upstairs and take a chance on disturbing your mother.”
“Good idea,” Victoria grinned. “Do you happen to know where Daddy’s car keys might be? I want to go back to the police station and talk to the officer who made the report.”
“Well, he usually keeps, kept, them on a hook by the back door going into the garage.”
“I know, but I looked there and didn’t find them.”
“He may have had them in his pocket, I suppose,” Lena said.
“Or maybe Mother put them somewhere else. I think I’ll try to sneak into her room and look for them. She should be pretty well out.”
With that, Lena went to the laundry room to start a load of wash, while Victoria went upstairs to her mother’s bedroom. She tiptoed in and looked in the nightstand on David’s side of the bed, then on his dresser and in the caddy, but no keys. She opened each dresser drawer and rooted around carefully, but couldn’t find the keys.
She looked over at her mother’s sleeping form several times to make sure she wasn’t rousing, but she hadn’t moved a muscle. So Victoria got brave and looked on and through her mother’s dresser and nightstand. There, in the nightstand drawer, she found the keys to David’s car. She picked them up carefully so they didn’t jingle and quietly close the drawer again.
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br /> She looked at Marian for a long moment until pity had replaced the disgust in her heart. What a miserable woman she must be inside to be so desperate for money and social standing to be so unreasonable, crazy even, to think she could get her daddy’s company back from a man who had purchased it fair and square. Then, thinking of all the affairs that she must have had, the disgust again surged up in her.
She noted that there were a few gray roots showing in her hair, and fine lines were etching their way from her eyes to her temples, and down the sides of her nose. Marian had always said that she would fight the signs of aging with everything she had. She must have been doing it, too, because she still looked pretty good for a woman of past fifty.
Tiptoeing out of Marian’s room, she closed the door quietly behind her and then went to her room. She checked her hair, picked up her purse and the folder with all her dad’s important documents in it, and then stood there thinking for a moment. She was trying to decide whether to stay in the house or not. She didn’t want to face anymore of the scenes that she had just dealt with in less than twelve hours. On the other hand, she hated to leave Lena alone with Marian.
She considered asking Lena if she could stay in her apartment with her. She could come and go from Lena’s private entrance, and if she were careful, Marian might not realize she was there. She finally decided to at least pack up her things and ask Lena if she could put them in her apartment, so that if Marian went on another rampage when Victoria wasn’t there, she couldn’t tear up her things.
She spent fifteen or twenty minutes not only packing her suitcase, but also gathering up childhood things that had been left behind when she left for college. There were several trinkets that her daddy had brought her when he came home from business trips that she wanted. She went downstairs to get some sacks to put the things in.
She also asked Lena if she could put her things in her apartment at least temporarily. Lena was glad to let her. The only thing that Victoria left in the bedroom was a pair of old pjs that she didn’t care about, in case she needed to sleep there without being able to retrieve her things from Lena’s. There were toiletries and old make-up in the bathroom that she could use in a pinch.
