Cruel as the Grave (10 page)

She took his hand in her own and squeezed it tightly. “Don’t start thinking things like that,” she protested, her voice sharp. “Don’t load yourself down with guilt that doesn’t belong to you.” Even as she spoke, however, Maggie couldn’t overcome the feeling that her father might be right. Somehow their visit might have served as a catalyst to Henry McLendon’s murder. Did it have anything to do with Magnolia McLendon’s death twenty-five years ago?

This was a question Maggie wanted to explore with her father, but he didn’t need to discuss the deaths of his parents right now. Her immediate concern was to get him into bed, where a good night’s sleep might do something to restore his shattered equilibrium.

“You need to try to get some sleep,” she told him firmly. “Where’s your room, by the way?”

Gerard took a moment to focus on what she was saying. “Oh, it’s next door, sort of. My bathroom is next to yours, and on the other side of that is my bedroom.”

"Well, come on, then,” Maggie urged him gently. “You’re going to bed.” She led him to the door and then down the hall to his bedroom.

The room reminded Maggie of Gerard’s bedroom in Houston. Obviously, in some matters of taste, he had changed little in the years since he had grown up in this house. She speculated now that his discomfort with—or more likely rejection of—his father’s wealth explained his preference for spartan furnishings in this most personal of all rooms. While his study might be crammed with comfortable chairs, books overflowing from their shelves, and a rack of pipes and expensive tobaccos in their containers, Gerard’s bedroom betrayed the ascetic side of his personality.

Sitting on the one straight-backed chair in the room, Maggie waited patiently while her father changed into his pajamas in the bathroom. He sat wearily on the edge of his bed. She bent over to brush his brow lightly with her lips in a good-night gesture.

“Be careful,” he urged her, his voice tired. “Lock your door, and don’t let anyone but me in.”

“I’ll be fine,” Maggie promised. “You lock your door after I leave, and then get some rest.” She kissed him once more and left the room, then waited a moment to hear the lock click into place.

Ministering to her father as if he were an overtired but docile child left Maggie feeling confused. This reversal of roles disturbed her, because she had never seen him in such an emotionally delicate state. Wearily, she made her own preparations for bed, after locking her bedroom door. Things would look better in the morning—that was her prayer, at least.

She was settling into the bed, about to switch off the bedside lamp, when someone knocked quietly but insistently on her door.

“Damn!” she muttered, remembering that Helena had said something earlier about talking to her. Maggie had hoped that her aunt would have forgotten about it until the morning.

Cautiously she unlocked her door, opening it slightly, and peered out at Helena’s worried face.

“Come on in,” Maggie invited, none too graciously, but Helena paid no attention to the tone of her voice. She plumped down on the bed and motioned for Maggie to join her. After locking the door again, Maggie did so, wishing that instead she might burrow under the covers and ignore whatever frightful revelations Helena had come to bestow upon her.

“Now then,” Helena said comfortably, once Maggie was settled beside her. “We have quite a lot to talk about if we’re going to sort this out between us.”

Maggie forced back a yawn and asked, “What do you mean?” But she had an uncomfortably certain feeling that she knew what her great-aunt was going to propose.

“Well,” Helena said, “since you and I are the only ones who have an alibi for the apparent time of the murder, we really should stick together and try to figure this thing out.”

Maggie shook her head. “You’re getting a little ahead of yourself.”

Helena cocked her head to one side interrogatively. Maggie explained patiently, “We don’t know yet when... when it happened, so we can’t know for certain that you and I do have an alibi.”

Helena waved this objection aside. “A minor point, I promise you. I’m sure we’ll find out tomorrow—or whenever—that it must have happened while we were watching the movie. The whole family—well, everybody except you and Gerard, that is—knew we usually watched a movie after dinner, so the murderer could count on carrying out his plan to murder Henry then. Don’t you see?”

Exasperated, Maggie nodded. “You’ve made a good point, but you’re still arguing from the wrong end of the stick, so to speak.”

Helena laughed. “You just wait—you’ll see that I’m right.”

Maggie conceded for the moment. There was nothing to be gained right now from arguing with Helena over a mere point of logic. The issue of premeditation, which Helena seemed to endorse, bothered Maggie. She thought it more likely that the murderer had adapted his intent to the household routine, rather than mapped out a cold-blooded campaign to murder her grandfather.
But,
she thought dully,
that still makes it premeditated to a certain degree.

But for the moment Maggie was more interested in the question of motive. Opportunity would have to wait until they learned more about the time of Henry McLendon’s death. She watched Helena for a moment. For a woman whose elderly brother had just been murdered, Helena seemed remarkably untouched by grief. Maggie wondered why. Perhaps that was what Helena intended to tell her.

Hoping to nudge her great-aunt toward the point of this nocturnal visit, Maggie reminded Helena of her earlier remark about the skeletons in the family closet. “What were you talking about?”

Helena grimaced. “I don’t want you to think of me as some acidulated old gossip-mongering tabby who has nothing better to do than talk about her relatives.” Maggie had to smile at the idea of Helena as “acidulated,” but Helena did momentarily have something of the smug feline about her.

Maggie nodded encouragement, and Helena continued. “I might have exaggerated slightly when I said that we all had reasons to murder Henry. But not by much!”

Holding on to the fraying edges of her patience, Maggie replied, “For example?”

“Before I launch into a catalog of the family secrets, I think I ought to explain to you a little about Henry.” Helena glanced sideways at Maggie but could tell nothing from the stillness of her face. “When you saw Henry today, you saw someone who had mellowed considerably in the last few months. Serious illness affected Henry more than I would’ve ever thought possible. That, plus the fact that he was almost eighty.”

She shook her head. ‘The tragic thing about it, of course, is that it came years too late. Henry was the most stubborn, infuriatingly self-righteous person I’ve ever known, and believe me, in this family that’s quite an accomplishment. He was always stiff-necked about everything, and he never would admit he was wrong about anything. Gerard is just like him in some ways, but at least your father has the saving grace of a sense of humor so that he doesn’t always take himself so seriously. Henry could never unbend that much.

“Gerard went his own way, and Henry thought it was foolish of him, but you couldn’t talk either one of them into seeing the other’s point of view. Magnolia tried. We all tried, at one point or another, but we finally gave up. Then, when Magnolia died, something in Henry just seemed to close itself off from everyone, and he was worse than before.” She sighed. “He never relented all those years. We couldn’t even mention Gerard’s name in this house. I used to pretend I was going to Atlanta to visit an old friend those few times I came to Houston to see you.”

Helena removed her shoes and tucked her legs underneath her on the bed. Maggie leaned back against the headboard, resigned to a long conversation. Interested as she was in what Helena was telling her, Maggie nevertheless was having to fight to keep from yawning into her aunt’s earnest face. She was too tired to hold herself up any longer.

“Then,” Helena went on, “like I said, when Henry had his first stroke about nine months ago—there were a couple of others after that—he changed. I think he was kind of superstitious about dying without talking to Gerard first, because he knew all along that he was wrong. But he was just too damn proud to admit it. He put it off for months after the first stroke, but he finally hinted to me that he wanted to see you and Gerard. And the rest I did myself.”

Helena looked apologetically at Maggie, who suppressed a yawn in order to smile in a forgiving manner at her aunt. She truly harbored no resentment over Helena’s ploy to bring Gerard home to Mississippi.

“I talked to Henry this afternoon,” Helena said softly, “and he was very happy that he and Gerard had patched things up. And he was delighted with you, too.” She patted Maggie’s nearby foot fondly.

Quickly Maggie blinked back the threat of tears. At the moment she was too tired to think about her grandfather and her all-too-brief memories of him in a detached fashion. She attempted to steer Helena toward the intended topic of their conversation, the possible motives for murder, acknowledging to herself as she did so the contradictory responses to her grandfather’s death.

“What about the motives you mentioned earlier?” Maggie reminded her.

Helena looked studiously at her hands. “Guess I might as well start with myself first.” She looked somewhat defiantly at Maggie. “We all blamed Henry for a lot of things, but if we hadn’t been pretty weak-spirited creatures in the first place, I guess he’d never have walked all over us the way he did. He controlled the purse strings, and we all grew up having money. Our father wasn’t as rich as Henry became, but we did okay. Usually all he had to do to keep us in line was threaten to cut off the money supply, and we jumped when he hollered ‘Frog!’”

Seeing no condemnation in Maggie, only interested concern, Helena relaxed. “I went to college, but I didn’t get any kind of useful degree, and there never was much question of my going to work. I was supposed to marry into one of the right families, produce a gaggle of the right children, and turn into a respectable old vegetable.”

Tired as she was, Maggie couldn’t keep from laughing at this. She had a brief vision of Helena as a gray-haired carrot toddling around an imposing house, and she had difficulty controlling her laughter.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie gasped. “When I’m really tired, I get silly, and I couldn’t help myself, thinking about you as a vegetable.” She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“Well,” Helena smiled in return, “that’s okay, and thanks for the compliment—I think.

“Anyway, I was a little like Gerard. I didn’t want to do what everybody else thought I should, but I never really had his courage, or I would have gotten the hell out of Jackson a long time ago. Instead I managed to insult every man—and his family with him—that Henry trotted out for me to marry. All except one, that is.” Her face reddened suddenly, and again she concentrated on her hands.

“One man they paraded in front of me I didn’t find just awful. In fact, I fell in love with him, and he with me. We were getting ready to announce our engagement to the family when Henry found out that my... my intended was about to be arrested for embezzling from the company he worked for. Henry couldn’t stand the thought of one of the McLendon sisters marrying a criminal—and frankly I wasn’t too fond of the idea myself—so he simply faded from the scene while the rest of the family pretended he had never been admitted into this house. Henry was always very good at getting rid of anything—or anyone—that threatened the good family name,” she added bitterly.

She looked squarely at Maggie, who was embarrassed by her intensity. ‘There was just one thing which Henry didn’t know,” Helena continued softly. “We had anticipated our wedding, if you know what I mean, and I found out right afterward that I was going to have a baby.”

Horrified, for she could see what distress this revelation was causing Helena, Maggie could only sit there and gape. If she had been more alert, she might have guessed that something like this had happened, but her aunt’s admission had taken her by surprise. The next thing Helena told her, however, jolted her wide-awake.

“When Henry found out, he was livid of course. And then he tricked me into giving the baby up for adoption. I never, ever forgave him for that!”

Chapter Seven

Her hands clutching her stomach, Helena swayed slightly back and forth on the bed. Her eyes were shut as she made an effort to maintain control of her emotions. Maggie, left speechless by the blunt announcement, rested against the head of the bed, waiting for her to amplify the statement, unsure whether she should attempt to comfort her great- aunt.

After a few moments Helena felt able to continue. “I know that must sound to you like I was an idiot or something, but I was barely twenty-one at the time, and I hadn’t really realized yet just how ruthless Henry could be. When he found out I was pregnant, he was so solicitous about my condition he really had me fooled. He insisted that I go to Boston to a specialist he had heard about. Our mother had had a difficult time with all four of us, and Retty had trouble with her one child, and I was awfully sick right away. Henry said he didn’t want anything to happen to me, so I believed him when he said he wanted the best for me.”

She wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “At the time I was so confused by everything. The man I had been prepared to spend the rest of my life with turned out to be a crook, and I just didn’t know what to do, so I sort of let Henry take over my life. He sent me to Boston with Retty. We saw the doctor the day after I arrived, and after examining me, the doctor informed me that I was in such a delicate state that if I wasn’t very careful, I might miscarry at any time.”

Maggie frowned, and Helena laughed shakily. “Of course, what I didn’t know at the time was that the doctor was acting on instructions from Henry. No doubt Henry had promised him double or triple his usual fees! And back then, a woman never dared question her doctor. I never thought twice about what the doctor told me.”

“So what happened next?” Maggie asked.

“The doctor had me admitted to a private hospital there in the Boston area. Retty flew home, and there I was alone. I stayed at that place for nearly six months, until the baby came.” Her breathing grew labored, and Maggie extended her hand. Helena clutched at it.