Cruel as the Grave (9 page)

Don’t do this to yourself!
she admonished herself silently.
Don't manufacture problems before they arise on their own!
She tried to take comfort in the belief that the police wouldn’t be that shallow.

Latham returned, his face set in grim lines. He no longer had about him any air of a friend of the family. His relaxed and friendly manner had retreated behind a cool mask of professional imperturbability.

He spoke first to Retty, requesting the use of Henry McLendon's downstairs study as a suitable place to interview them all. Woodenly Retty gave her consent, and Latham requested that Sylvia follow him, as he wished to interview her first. Everyone else he told to remain in the room until called for.

Sylvia stood on shaky legs to follow him. Retty’s voice stopped him in the doorway. “Arthur, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to you right after you finish chatting with Sylvia.”

Latham nodded. “That’s fine by me, Mrs. Butler. I’ll send someone for you. It shouldn’t be too long.” He turned on his heel and was gone.

The silence settled around them once more, and Maggie drained the last of her brandy from her glass, wishing desperately for more but not having the energy to get it for herself. Adrian had come back into the room with Latham, and seeing Maggie gaze longingly at the brandy decanter, he hastened to refill her glass. After doing so, he sat down on the couch beside her, acknowledging her low-voiced “thank you” with a slight smile.

From that point onward, in intervals of fifteen or twenty minutes, Latham sent one of his men to call each of them to be interviewed, until finally only Gerard, Maggie, and Helena were left. When Gerard was called, Maggie and Helena sat quietly for a few minutes under the watchful eye of the young policeman.

Abruptly Helena got to her feet and went to the opposite corner of the room, away from the door where the policeman stood. She glanced significantly at Maggie, who was slow to realize that Helena wanted her over in the corner with her.

With a languid stretch of her arm Maggie placed her brandy glass on the table beside the couch and got to her feet. She walked over to Helena with an inquiring look on her face. Casually the policeman took a couple of steps away from the door.

Helena flashed him a sweet smile before turning her back to him. “You and I are going to have to stick together, my dear,” she told Maggie in a whisper.

“Why?” Maggie whispered back, puzzled.

“I’ve been thinking, and if Henry was murdered during the movie—which seems pretty likely—then only you and I have an alibi,” Helena replied triumphantly, pleased with her reasoning—so pleased, in fact, that she had let her voice rise above a whisper. As soon as she realized this, she glanced guiltily over her shoulder at the young policeman, who smiled back.

Amused, in spite of the situation, Maggie nodded. “I think you may be right. About the timing, that is, and of course the other follows right along with that. We’ll just have to wait and see, though, won't we?” This last came out a little plaintively. “Anyway, I know that you and I didn’t do it, and of course Dad didn’t either, but I can’t imagine why any one of us would have. Why would anyone do this?”

Helena’s face twisted into an oddly uncomfortable expression. “My dear, that’s what’s so awful about all of this! Every member of the family had a good motive for murdering Henry—including me!”

Chapter Six

Aghast, Maggie stared back at Helena. “You can’t be serious!” Her stomach tightened into a cold little knot.

Helena nodded. “I’m afraid so. We’ve got so many skeletons in the family closet, you could have a Halloween parade. And Henry put most of them there.” She glanced furtively at their silent companion, then dropped her voice to the merest whisper. “We obviously can’t talk about it here and now, but later on I’ll come to your room and we’ll talk, okay? These are certainly things you should know about—now, anyway.”

Reluctantly Maggie voiced her agreement. “Okay.”

Helena moved back to the couch and sat down, her face once again blank. Listlessly, Maggie walked over to the cabinets housing the videotape collection and glanced through the contents. She was getting a headache, trying not to think about all the family secrets Helena intended to reveal.

About ten minutes later, another policeman came to the door to ask Helena to accompany him, leaving Maggie alone with the guard, as she now thought of him. Without the presence of one family member, she felt completely isolated from what was going on in the rest of the house. She shivered.

The police were probably still upstairs in her grandfather’s bedroom, poking around all over the place, trying to find evidence. Resolutely Maggie blocked from her mind thoughts of her grandfather lying dead in his bed. Since the discovery of the murder, she had distanced herself as best she could from the grief she thought she should feel. But now, when she had opened her mind tentatively to emotion, she felt nothing. Perhaps this emptiness was a form of grief in itself. But she had known her grandfather only a few hours, had spoken to him twice, before his life had been ended violently.

More than grief, she felt a sense of irretrievable loss. Those precious few minutes they had spent together were all she would ever have. Even they might be lost in the aftermath of his murder. Unhappily she mulled over the possibilities in her mind while she waited for her turn to be interviewed. Could she really imagine Retty, or Harold, or Helena a murderer?

Mercifully for Maggie, her wait was brief. After about fifteen minutes, the officer serving as courier came back to escort her to her grandfather’s study.

Arthur Latham stood up from behind a desk as Maggie entered the room. “Sorry to keep you waiting so long, Miss McLendon. Please have a seat.” He indicated a chair beside the desk—Henry McLendon’s desk, she realized dully.

As she sat. Maggie made a quick survey of the room. Dark, rich paneling, shelf upon shelf of leather-bound tomes of law, and heavy, ornate furniture gave the room a brooding, uncomfortable feel. That was somehow suitable to its present business—the conducting of a murder inquiry. She shivered again.

Maggie looked at Arthur Latham, forcing herself to focus on the policeman and what he wanted of her.
What was he
, she wondered,
a lieutenant
? Given her grandfather’s wealth and prominence, Latham just might be the chief of police. After all, he had referred to himself as the “top man.”

He smiled, but that gesture of friendliness did nothing to put Maggie at ease. He opened his mouth, but she anticipated him, none too politely. “Yes, I do look incredibly like her.”

The lines around his mouth tightened a little, and for a moment Maggie feared she had insulted the man. She grimaced in self-deprecation. She had to get a grip on her emotions; antagonizing this man needlessly wouldn’t serve any purpose. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, but that’s the first thing anybody has said to me all day long, and I couldn’t resist beating you to the punch line, so to speak.”

He accepted her apology with another smile. “You should take it as a compliment, young lady. Your grandmother was one of the most beautiful women that I ever had the privilege to know.”

Disconcerted by the rebuke, despite its being politely uttered, Maggie murmured a thank-you. She was relieved when Latham asked her to recount the day’s activities. Settling her mind to the task at hand, she began to organize her thoughts.

“We arrived this morning around eleven or eleven-thirty. As you may know, this is my first visit here.” Latham inclined his head slightly. Relieved that she wouldn’t have to go through the story of the family estrangement, Maggie continued. “I met several members of the family—Retty, Harold, Helena, and Sylvia, and of course, Adrian Worthington— before we had lunch. After lunch I met my... my grandfather”—she stumbled a little over the word—“for the first time, as well as his nurse, Claudine Sprayberry.” She swallowed hard.

“I talked to my grandfather for several minutes before leaving my father alone with him. They had a lot to discuss, and I knew—at least, I thought—I’d have plenty of time to talk to him later."
Don’t dwell on it, move on,
she told herself. “I went to my room—actually my grandmother’s room—to try to rest. I could hardly sleep last night”—she smiled shyly at Latham—“I was so excited about meeting everyone today. Then my father came along and told me about his talk with my grandfather. They had reconciled after all these years, and my father was very happy about it.” She couldn’t—at least, not now—tell him about the real source of the estrangement. But perhaps he already knew, since he seemed well-acquainted with the family.

Latham nodded his encouragement for her to continue.

“Well, then my father told me that my grandfather wanted to talk to me, so I went along to his room. Sylvia was with him then. He seemed rather tired, but we talked for several minutes. He gave me—or rather he passed along to me—the most wonderful gift.”

“What was that?” Latham asked, frowning.

“My grandmother’s books,” Maggie said. Then she wondered what he thought about that. Was he thinking her grandfather’s gift to her might be a motive for murder?

Latham urged her on. “And then?”

“He really looked tired by then. Sylvia said he had had several others with him before me. So I told him I thought I should go, and he agreed. When I stepped back from the bed, I bumped into the chair and knocked over a baseball bat which had been propped against the chair. I couldn’t imagine what it was doing there, and my grandfather explained that it had belonged to my father and that he had asked Dad to bring it to him.”

“Did you touch the baseball bat?” Latham asked casually.

Maggie frowned, remembering. “Yes, I did. Why...” Her voice trailed off. With sickening certainty, she knew why Latham had asked. The murderer had used the baseball bat to kill Henry McLendon. Suddenly she felt like vomiting. “That was the murder weapon, wasn’t it?” She gripped the sides of the chair.

Latham stared at her. “I’m afraid that’s something I can’t discuss just now. But of course we’re going to need to get your fingerprints, since you were in your grandfather’s room today.”

Numbly, Maggie nodded her assent. Latham wouldn’t confirm it, but she knew she was right.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she said, “Okay, where was I?”

“You had just talked to your grandfather for the second time,” Latham prompted.

“Oh. Well, after that, I guess it was about four-thirty by then, I went to my room.” She paused for a moment. There was something about the conversation with her grandfather that teased her memory, but for the moment the memory refused to surface. She went on, “Just after I got there, Adrian Worthington knocked on the door. He passed along a message from Harold. We had been supposed to talk this afternoon, but Harold kindly offered to wait, since he knew I had been talking to my grandfather and probably wanted some time to rest before dinner.” She paused for a much needed breath. The memory surfaced, and Maggie stiffened. Should she tell Latham about Henry McLendon’s odd remark about her grandmother’s death? No, better talk to her father first and find out more about it.

Latham looked curiously at her but did not press her for an explanation. Quickly she continued before the pause became uncomfortably longer. She decided without really thinking about it not to mention her conversation with her father.

“Adrian told me when dinner would be, and then he left. I spent the rest of the time before dinner looking through my grandmother’s books. I made it downstairs just in time for dinner. Everyone except Sylvia was there. After dinner we went into what they call the entertainment room, where Sylvia joined us, to watch a movie, “The Lion in Winter,” which they let me pick out. It lasts a little over two hours, I think. Helena and I sat together on a small sofa nearest the screen, and neither one of us moved from it until the movie was over.”

Maggie took another deep breath. “While Adrian was asking everybody what they wanted to drink, Sylvia went upstairs to check on my grandfather. She came immediately back to tell us that somebody had... somebody had killed him.”

“Thank you, Miss McLendon,” Latham said briskly. “You’ve given a concise and clear report.” He stood up. “I think that’s enough for now. We’ll probably be talking again sometime tomorrow when we know more.”

Maggie stood also. She longed to ask him whether he had any idea yet about the time of death, but she decided that they would know in due course and that he probably would misinterpret her reasons for asking.

She bade him good night and made her way wearily through the hallway to the stairs. Slowly she mounted them, dreading the thought of having to pass her grandfather's bedroom. Crossing her fingers, she hoped that the police had finished, at least for now, with the room. When she reached the top of the stairs, she looked apprehensively down the hallway but could see no one going in or out of the room, so she hurried down the hall toward the comparative safety of her room.

Maggie opened the door and flicked on the light switch. As she came face-to-face with her grandmother’s portrait once again, she thought about the one thing she had decided not to tell Arthur Latham—at least not yet.

In their second—and last—conversation, Henry McLendon had told her that there was little he could do to repair the damage he had done to his relationship with her father, but that there was something he could do about her grandmother’s death.

What bearing did that odd remark have on her grandfather’s murder?

Before Maggie had time to speculate further, someone knocked on her door. She opened it just enough to peer through the crack and was relieved to see her father standing there. Stepping back, she swung the door open to allow him to enter.

Gerard’s eyes as he looked at his daughter expressed a mixture of bewilderment and hurt, as if he still couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened. Added lines of doubt and worry had been etched into his face over the last several hours, aging him ten years. He sighed.

“I just don’t know what to think about all this. I can’t believe that someone deliberately killed him.” He shook his head. “I can’t help feeling, in some strange way, that if we hadn’t come here, he’d still be alive.”