Daughter of Deceit (31 page)

“People didn’t always, back then.” Katharine repeated what Ann Rose had said. “Perhaps they didn’t want to upset you.”

“Still, Winnie was a good daddy. The best.” Bara spoke the words as if tasting each one. “Now I know why Nettie didn’t want people to know when I was born. And what Art used to mean when he’d say things like, ‘Before you came.’ Winnie never made a distinction between Art and me, though, like Nettie did. He was my real daddy, and I killed him. I killed him as surely as if I’d pulled the trigger.”

With her eyes closed, she could have been talking to herself. “I went to his place and told him the board was going to make Foley CEO as soon as he retired. Foley had just called to tell me. Winnie said that would happen over his dead body, that he would make some calls and get it stopped. I told him I knew that’s what he would say, but that I had come to tell him I thought Foley deserved it, that he had worked hard for the company all those years, and that he—Winnie—shouldn’t try to stop the board. So help me, God, I believed it. I never knew what Foley had in mind. But Winnie knew what a low-down snake Foley was. After I left, he made some calls. I know at least two men he spoke with. They told me later he’d asked them not to vote for Foley. Both told him they’d think it over, but neither promised. Later that afternoon Winnie went out on his balcony and…” Her voice grew thick and she looked away.

Was Bara sincere? Or was she preparing Katharine for a time when she might be called to the witness stand to testify, if the murder of Winnie was added to the charge of murdering Foley?

When Katharine didn’t speak, Bara said roughly, “I know some people think somebody else came in and shot him, but I never will. I think Winnie saw everything he had worked for going up in smoke, and me taking Foley’s side. I killed my daddy!” Tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks.

Katharine wanted a direct answer to a direct question. “You didn’t literally shoot him?”

“Not literally.”

“They’ve found the gun that did it.”

Bara’s eyes flew open. “Where?”

“In a drawer in your dining room.”

“Oh. That gun.” Her excitement vanished as suddenly as it had come. “It wasn’t in a drawer, it was lying near me, with my fingerprints all over it. But that was a gun Winnie gave me in college. It couldn’t have been used to kill him. It had been in my attic for forty years. Nobody knew I had it except Winnie. I’d brought it down one day last week and left it on the dining-room table, fool that I am. Whoever used it just had to pick it up and fire.”

“I’m not talking about the gun that killed Foley. This was another one. The detective said they found it in a drawer. Didn’t Payne tell you?”

“Payne doesn’t tell me a dadgum thing. She keeps saying, ‘Don’t worry, Mama, rest.’ How am I supposed to rest when I may have shot and killed a man and can’t remember doing it? I mean, Foley was a rat and he wanted killing, but I cannot believe I would have actually done it—or that I could have if I’d wanted to. I’m a lousy shot.” She looked at her hand. “Unless alcohol improves your aim. Do you reckon?”

“I doubt it. But the gun I was talking about, the one that killed Winnie, was a second gun they found in a drawer in your dining room.”

“No way! I’d been through every one of those drawers the Monday before, hoping I might have left money or liquor in one of them. There wasn’t a gun in there. Who was it registered to?”

“Winnie. He had reported it stolen three years before he died. The detective told Payne on Saturday that they’d found it and traced it to Winnie. While we were out in the hall a minute ago, he said they’ve matched it to the bullet that killed your dad.”

“He was murdered? Oh, God!” It was a sigh of a prayer, followed by a wince of pain. Bara said nothing for several minutes. At last she said, “I never had it. Did they say my prints were on it, too?”

“No prints. It had been wiped.”

Bara pulled the covers over her head, as if this was one thing too many to know. Katharine wondered if Payne was right, and she should not have been told.

Bara had gone to earth to think. In a moment she said, as if working it out as she went, “I did not put it in my drawer and it wasn’t there last Monday. That morning I looked everywhere I could think of for money to buy groceries, and finally went to the storage unit. That’s when I found the medals. This gets weirder and weirder, Katharine. Could somebody want me in jail? I don’t mean to sound paranoid or anything, but somebody has planted two guns on me and left me next to Foley’s body. Who could hate me that much? Have I offended someone to that extent?”

Katharine couldn’t answer that, but she could ask some pertinent questions. The problem was, the most pertinent one was also impertinent, the one a lady never asks. Since Bara wanted plain speaking, Katharine asked it anyway. “Who benefits from your death?”

Bara wasn’t offended, but her laugh was harsh. “Nobody, until all this mess is cleared up. Foley froze my accounts, remember? But if we ever get through this without it all going to the lawyers, then Payne gets everything. As soon as Foley started talking about wanting a divorce, I went to our lawyer and changed the will so that Payne would get everything if I died either during or after a divorce. I’m not utterly dumb. I knew it would be easier for Foley to hire somebody to kill me than to divorce me, and I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t get more than half no matter what happened. It’s a shame Foley got shot. He’d be such a good suspect.”

“Nobody else benefits? Not Scotty, or Murdoch?” Katharine hated bringing them into the discussion, but if Bara was right, somebody had to have a motive for all this.

Bara shook her head. “Scotty poor-mouths about needing money all the time, but I didn’t leave either of them a penny. Why should I? They’re taken care of for life, and Murdoch’s too old to have kids. Besides, they have no claim to my money. Most of mine was Winnie’s or Ray’s. My share of our grandparents’ estate was the house, some silver, a Monet painting I liked, and a Tiffany lamp Nana always kept in the front window and I loved as a child. It doesn’t go with a thing I own, but I still keep it in the window.”

Katharine didn’t tell her the tea set, painting, and lamp were stolen. If Payne was shielding her mother from as much as possible, she would honor that.

She heard Payne’s voice in the hall and rose to leave. But before Payne got through the door, Murdoch burst into the room screeching, “You poor darling! You look absolutely awful!”

“It’s good to see you, too.” Bara put up one cheek with the air of one who wishes she didn’t have to. Murdoch kissed her as if she wished she didn’t have to, either. “So glad you came to cheer me up. I thought you were in Boston for the week. I hope you didn’t hurry home on my account.”

“Of course I did.” Murdoch set her big purse on Bara’s uninjured foot. Payne moved it to the floor. Murdoch tugged down the jacket of a green polyester pantsuit that made her look like a chubby frog and patted her dreary hair. “When Payne called Saturday, I’d have come right away, but changing tickets is so expensive, especially for the same day. A cousin doesn’t count for those bereavement tickets, like a member of your immediate family.”

Bara didn’t try to conceal a yawn. “I think they are called compassion tickets and are for when somebody dies. You could have counted Foley, I suppose, if you could have drummed up some compassion for him. No, I don’t mean that. He was a weasel, but he’s a dead weasel and deserves some respect, even from me. Did you get in last night?”

“No, I had my car at the airport and came straight here. I’d have been here sooner, but there was a wreck on the connector and I had to sit there half an hour.” She went closer to the head of the bed and peered down. “You look terrible.”

“You don’t look so good yourself, but I’m getting better each day. Hope to be out of here and to a rehab center—the exercise kind—soon. Maybe by then they’ll know who did all this.”

Murdoch looked confused. “Didn’t you shoot Foley? I heard you tell him you would.”

Bara forgot her injuries long enough to rear up as far as she could. “You what?” She collapsed against her pillows, groaning.

“Tuesday night, when I called to tell you to put the Dolley Payne Madison tea set in the bank—remember?” Murdoch sounded so put out with Bara that Katharine wanted to smack her.

“Vaguely,” said Bara.

Murdoch sighed. “And see? It got stolen, just like I said.”

“Stolen?” Bara looked from Murdoch to Payne. “What got stolen?”

Payne glared at Murdoch. “I wasn’t going to tell her.” She said to her mother, “Some silver and stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“The Monet in the hall, a lot of your silver, and the Tiffany lamp.”

“Oh!” Bara arched her neck and screwed her eyes shut like she’d gotten a new physical blow. “I was just telling Katharine about that lamp and picture. Anything else?”

Payne shook her head. “Not that I saw, but you’d know better than I would. I don’t know why they didn’t take the flatware. It was in a drawer right under the Madison tea set.”

Murdoch leaned closer to Bara and spoke in what Katharine presumed she thought was a consoling tone. “Losing the tea set doesn’t matter as much as it could have. The only two George Paynes I’ve found in our family so far were born a hundred years too late. I’ll bet somebody in our family bought the tea set at an auction or estate sale because of the name. Alas, so far, I cannot find any connection between Dolley Payne Madison’s family and ours.”

Katharine noticed that even so, Murdoch still gave the president’s wife her full name. To keep the possibility of a connection alive?

“The set is priceless, nevertheless,” Payne pointed out.

“Yes, but it isn’t as if it belonged to the family.” Murdoch looked around for confirmation, but got none. Miffed, she said waspishly, “You forgot to hang up the phone, Bara. Before Foley found it, I heard you tell him you were going to shoot him and get it over with.”

“Don’t you ever repeat that!” Payne said fiercely.

“If they ask me, I’ll have to. I can’t lie in court.”

And you’ll enjoy every second of it,
thought Katharine.

There’s something lovable about every human creature,
her mother reminded her.
You just have to look for it.

I’m pretty sure Murdoch is the exception that proves that rule.

“I didn’t say I was going to shoot him,” Bara corrected Murdoch. “I may have said something like, ‘I might as well shoot you and get it over with,’ but that was two days before he died, and I didn’t shoot him—at least I don’t think I did. I don’t remember doing it.”

“Daddy said you had a concussion and can’t remember anything about that night. But I’m sure you had a good reason to shoot him, even if he was bending over backward to give you a good deal.” Seeing blank stares from everybody in the room, Murdoch elaborated. “I heard Foley tell Bara he’d give her the Buckhead house and just take the lake house, and he’d split all their money. All she had to do was give him enough shares of Uncle Winnie’s company so he could vote to sell. He
was
being reasonable,” she said to Bara.

“He was never reasonable,” Bara snapped. “Payne, get her out of here. She makes me hurt all over.”

Payne shot Katharine a pleading look. Reluctantly, Katharine shoved her feet back into her new shoes and tried not to wince as she stood. “I was about to leave. Bara needs to rest. Want to walk with me to the parking lot, Murdoch?”

Payne called as they reached the door, “Don’t you say a word to anybody about—you know.”

“I couldn’t lie, Payne,” Murdoch said, loud enough for the policeman outside the door to hear her. “If somebody asks me, I’ll have to tell them.”

Murdoch’s rubber soled shoes squeaked on the vinyl tiles as they walked down the hall. When they were out of earshot of Bara’s room, she complained, “I knew they would try to make me lie. As soon as I heard what had happened, I told myself, ‘They aren’t going to want me telling what I heard.’ But I did hear it. She said, ‘I ought to shoot you and get it over with.’”

“It’s the kind of thing people say in an argument. It doesn’t mean she was going to do it.”

“She was furious. And Foley
was
being kind. He truly was. I know some people didn’t like him, but he was always a gentleman to me. He’d ask about Mother and how she was, or he’d make little jokes like, ‘Still climbing the family tree, Murdoch?’” She tittered. “He had such a great sense of humor. I found him charming. Bara never really appreciated him.”

“He could be charming,” Katharine agreed. “I liked him at the few functions where we met. But he lost his charm for me as soon as I heard he hit Bara hard enough to break bones.”

She was having trouble concentrating on the conversation. She could feel a blister forming as they walked. She contemplated the long hobble to her car with dread.

“He didn’t!”

Katharine had to think a second to remember what Murdoch was referring to. “He or somebody did. You saw her. Broken shoulder, broken wrist, a couple of ribs, her right leg, and at least one skull fracture. Not to mention the bruises on her face and the concussion.”

“Why should they think Foley did all that? She could have fallen downstairs.”

It was an idea. Katharine remembered the curving marble staircase, ending at a marble foyer. And how was it Maria had described Bara when she found her? Lying in a heap at the bottom, as if she had gotten drunk and fallen down? Would a fall down a marble staircase result in the injuries Bara had? Looked like it would have killed her. But it was carpeted….

Katharine would have to think about that later. At the moment her whole attention was on a spot on her little toe smaller than a dime.

To distract her thoughts while they waited at the elevator, she said, “Both your daddy and Payne thought you’d be a lot more upset about the tea set.”

“I would have been devastated if it had been connected to our family, but since it isn’t—there’s no use crying over spilt milk.”

Especially if the milk belongs to your cousin.

In the elevator, Murdoch was full of her research. “I got a lot of work done yesterday. I found all sorts of relatives I didn’t know we had! I even found a George Payne of the right age, married to Ellen, and he probably was a cousin of Dolley Payne Madison, but I couldn’t find any connection between his family and ours. Of course, his was up in New England, and ours was down in Georgia.”

“That might have had something to do with it.”

Sarcasm was wasted on Murdoch. All she seemed to want was an audience. “But who knows? When I go to England in October, maybe I’ll find we are related after all. If I do, I am going to be so angry about that tea set. I warned Bara she needed to put it somewhere safe!”

Katharine regarded her curiously. Postponed anger was a new concept. But she felt confined in the elevator. It was too small for the two of them and Murdoch’s obsession. She was glad when they reached the bottom.

Murdoch turned one way and Katharine the other. “The garage is this way,” Murdoch called after her.

“Mine isn’t. I came from that direction.”

“Are you limping?”

Katharine gave her a rueful smile and held up her foot, ridiculously grateful for the first interest Murdoch had ever shown in her. “New shoes. I didn’t know I’d have so far to walk.”

“Would you like a lift? I’ve got a really close space. I’m lucky that way. Parking spaces open up for me.”

“Lucky for both of us.” Katharine accepted the offer gladly.

Murdoch’s daddy might drive a Mercedes, but she drove a white Buick several years old—her mother’s old car. A purple suitcase sat on the backseat. Seeing Katharine’s glance, Murdoch said, “I wanted a color that didn’t look like everybody else’s on the carousel.”

“But why didn’t you put it in the trunk?”

Murdoch hesitated—to ask herself the same question? “I was only going to be in there a minute, and besides, the hospital ought to have good security.”

Katharine didn’t point out a sign directly above the hood stating that the garage was not responsible for items stolen from cars.

As Murdoch continued to chatter about her research while she drove, Katharine wondered: Do people get self-centered from living alone, or do people wind up alone because they are so self-centered?

That was followed by a scary thought.
When Tom has been gone awhile, do I do that to people? Hang on to them and bore them to death with my own obsessions?

At least I don’t make an idol of family,
she comforted herself.

Family idolatry seemed rampant in the Payne family. All her life Bara had idolized a living relative, while Murdoch idolized the dead ones.

Surreptitiously Katharine slid off her painful shoe and rubbed her foot on the carpet. She felt a prick from something on the bottom of her foot, but savored the relief of her unconfined toe. Dare she walk barefoot to her car?

“I appreciate the lift. I can get out here. The elevator is right there.” Katharine slid her foot back into her shoe and felt a sharper prick. Great. Now she had two wounds instead of one. She could hardly wait to get to her car.

She tried not to limp the short distance to the elevator and then to her car, but as soon as she sat down she jerked off the shoe and peered at her foot. Even in the dim lights of the parking garage, she could see that the blistering toe was red and angry, while a tiny spot of blood swelled from her sole. Something must have clung to her bare foot from Bara’s floor and worked its way in while she walked. Heaven only knew how many germs it had carried in with it.

She used a tissue to stanch the blood and wished she had a flashlight so she could see the spot more clearly. In the dimness of the garage she saw nothing—except dirt. She was glad she hadn’t examined the foot in Murdoch’s presence. Her sole was filthy. Accustomed to going barefoot around her house and even out onto the patio, she must have forgotten to wash her feet before sliding them into her sandals.

She scratched the wound gently and felt something sharp. She had no tweezers, but didn’t Tom keep Scotch tape in his armrest? But she wasn’t in his car—she was in the rental. Drat!

She dampened a bit of tissue with spit and stuck it to the wound to stanch the blood. That would have to do until she got home.

As she drove, she mulled over Bara’s situation, trying various scenarios.

Scenario one: A thief came to rob the house. Bara heard the intruder, came down to confront him, and got beaten up. Foley heard the beating and came up. The intruder grabbed the convenient gun and shot him, then put Bara’s prints on the gun—to make it look like she had killed Foley—and escaped with the loot. Surely that was plausible enough for a good attorney to instill reasonable doubt in the minds of a jury?

Unfortunately, scenario two was more likely: Foley was lifting the family silver and Bara heard him after he’d removed most of what he was after. She went down to confront him, he beat her, she snatched the gun from the table and shot him, then collapsed to the floor.

What happened to the silver, the lamp, and the Monet?
Whether it was her father’s voice or her own, Katharine knew it was his legal mind at work.

Maybe Foley’s mistress took the loot. Maybe they conspired together and were putting things in her car when Bara surprised them. After—or while—Bara shot Foley, the woman fled.

Had the police asked Bara for the woman’s name? Would Bara remember it? Might it stimulate her poor brain to remember more about that dreadful evening?

Katharine’s own brain was stimulated to recall something Bara
had
remembered: Scotty had been at her house the week before, asking for money. That opened up a whole new avenue of thought. Scotty, playing the amiable fool, but knowing that Foley was likely to get away with treasures that had been in his family for years. Scotty, who might feel he had a justifiable excuse to take back the treasures. Scotty, who had “fallen asleep” and been late for his Thursday poker game. Scotty, who could have carried all the stuff to his house and had days to dispose of it, with Murdoch away. Scotty, who knew somebody who could sell Bara’s tea service—and possibly the other items?—on the QT. Scotty, who had a key to Bara’s house, because he grew up there.

Did Bara hear him from upstairs and come down to investigate? Or had he come to her room to argue with her, and…?

That’s where Katharine’s imagination shut down. She could imagine Scotty shooting Foley on the spur of the moment if interrupted in looting the house, but where did Bara fit into the scenario? Katharine could not imagine Scotty beating Bara.