Death on the Family Tree (6 page)

Rowena turned and stepped aside slightly. “This is my daughter, Amy Faire Slade,” she continued, “and her friend, Hollis Buiton, who also happens to be Katharine’s niece.”

Until Rowena mentioned her, Katharine hadn’t noticed Amy standing beyond Hollis. Poor Amy was easy to over-look—a pale, drab child with her mother’s sharp features and the hesitant look of a creature who fears the sun. Perhaps that was because she stood so consistently in the shadow of her mother and older brother. Even after four years of college, she seemed socially awkward, far younger than Hollis. Her summer dress was attractive and probably had cost as much as Katharine’s whole outfit, but it hung on her skinny frame in a shade of pallid pink that was far too bland for her coloring.

“You’ve changed your hair,” Katharine murmured to Hollis while Rowena and Hasty chatted. She was determined not to let the meeting become too important for either one of them. “It looks great. When did you get it cut?”

“We both got our hair done,” Amy boasted with the pride of a ten-year-old. “Mama gave us makeovers for my birthday.” Her limp brown hair cascaded in curls that would last until she slept on them, and her face had the disconcerting look of a child’s made up for a beauty pageant.

Hollis’s hair, however, was radically different. Instead of self-dyed black strings down her back or twisted sloppily on top of her head, it was beauty-shop mahogany with a burgundy stripe, and expertly cut to cup her chin in front but very short in the back. Her mother might have a fit, but the style suited her face. In an instant Hollis’s expression went from stony disapproval to self-satisfaction. “This morning. Do you really like it?”

“Very much,” Katharine assured her. Which was more than she could say about Hollis’s vivid red lipstick, purple eye shadow, gold nose stud, and eyebrow ring. Worn with a black miniskirt and tank top, they made Hollis look like a vampire—or a New York model. Katharine wouldn’t have chosen black rubber flip-flops for lunch with friends, either, but she loved Hollis for herself, not her clothes, and appreciated that her niece used clothing as both a fashion statement and a declaration of independence from her mother.

“It’s quite the family day today, isn’t it?” Now it was Rowena’s curious gaze that roved from Katharine to Hasty. “We’ve been celebrating Amy’s birthday. If I’d known you were coming here, Katharine, I’d have invited you to join us.”

“We just arrived,” Katharine replied. “We came up from the Kenan Research Center.” She was speaking more to Hollis than Rowena, but Hollis was looking at the floor. Was she embarrassed because she had caught her aunt with another man, or because Katharine had caught her hobnobbing with the Ivories? Given Posey’s opinions of the family, Katharine wondered whether Hollis had mentioned whose birthday she was celebrating.

Katharine hadn’t realized Hollis and Amy were special friends. In fact, when they were all in high school, she remembered Jon saying that Amy was a “space cadet” who had no friends. If Hollis was dating Zach and he was working for the Ivorie Foundation, Katharine hoped she wasn’t cultivating Amy for ulterior reasons.

Amy slid Hasty an admiring look and held out a clutch of bright gift bags with a giggle of delight. “Mama really went all out, didn’t she? And Hollis gave me these great earrings she designed and made herself.” She held back her hair and shook her head. Bright beads swung against her cheeks.

“It’s Kate’s birthday, too,” Hasty informed them, “so we’re celebrating.”

“We were in the same class at Coral Gables High School years ago, and ran into each other over at the history center library. Isn’t that amazing?” Katharine knew she was talking too fast. Were her cheeks as pink as they felt? She wished he hadn’t called her Kate. Hollis had noticed, and was again looking at her with a speculative eye. “Hobart agreed to join me so I wouldn’t have to celebrate alone.” Maybe he’d get the hint if she used his full name.

Hollis looked down at the necklace lying by her plate. “Looks like you got a present, too. Did Uncle Tom send it?” She put a slight emphasis on his name.

“No.” Katharine hoped she sounded cheerful and normal. “He’ll bring me something when he gets home Friday, then we’re going to dinner and the symphony that night to celebrate.”

“So what’s that?” Hollis asked warily.

Katharine picked it up and held it out to her, ignoring Hasty’s glare. “Something I found among Aunt Lucy’s stuff. In fact, that’s why a curator over at the history center suggested I talk to Hobart. He’s a history prof at Emory.”

Hollis eyed the necklace with the eye of an artist. “It looks real old. Is it?”

“Hobart thinks so. How old?” Katharine asked him.

He was watching the necklace like he wanted to snatch it and keep it safe. “If it’s genuine, it could be twenty-five hundred, maybe even three thousand years old.”

“Wow.” Hollis had been lightly touching it, but jerked her hand away like the bronze was hot. Lamar Franklin was craning his neck to get a good look as well.

“The diary may be an important find, too,” Katharine added. “It may be the detailed record of an important archaeological dig, lost for a hundred and fifty years.” She gloated at the surprised look on Hasty’s face. He hadn’t been going to tell her about the missing diary.

Hollis looked from the necklace to the diary with a puzzled frown. “So how did Miss Lucy get them?”

“That’s a mystery.” Katharine stowed both artifacts in her tote bag. “I’m working on it as my birthday present to myself.”

Amy giggled. “I hope you have as good a birthday as I am. I had lunch with Hollis and Mama, and Papa—my granddaddy—has promised to come with us to the club for dinner. That’s really special, because he almost never leaves his house anymore.”

Rowena turned to Katharine. “It was good to run into you. Happy birthday.” She ushered the girls ahead of her, checking her watch and picking up her pace as they reached the door.

“Probably running late for some important meeting,” Hasty said as he resumed his seat.

“Don’t knock it,” Katharine told him. “Rowena’s a competent woman. It makes me mad enough to spit that her daddy may skip over her and make her son head of the Ivorie Foundation.”

“Brandon Ivorie is her son?” Hasty’s brows rose in surprise. “I thought he was her younger brother.”

“No, he was the product of a disastrous early decision, or so Rowena tells high school students when she preaches to them about the dangers of having sex before marriage. And to give her credit, she knows what she’s talking about. Brandon was born when she was barely sixteen. The rumor is that her daddy held the proverbial shotgun to the young man’s head and made him marry Rowena to legitimate the baby, but within weeks of Brandon’s birth, Napoleon had paid the young man and sent him packing. Rowena got a divorce, took her baby to her parents, reclaimed her maiden name, and changed Brandon’s last name to Ivorie.”

“Bad precedent,” said Lamar from the next table, lathering a biscuit with butter. “Shows young men that sex before marriage can pay off real good.”

Katharine wished he’d stop eavesdropping and butting in uninvited. She lowered her voice as she continued. “After high school, Rowena went to Bryn Mawr, graduated summa cum laude, and came back to Atlanta. Her second husband was old and died not long after Amy was born. Since then, Rowena has devoted herself to politics and good works. And as much as I deplore what the Ivorie Foundation stands for, she would make an excellent director. She’s more human than either her daddy or her son, and might moderate its politics a little—or its ferocious pursuit of them.”

“Which may be why the old man is leaning toward Brandon,” Hasty suggested. “We can’t have women running things. You know that. You all aren’t capable.” He grinned, to show he was joking. “Did you ever forgive me for what I did back in Miami? I was a pig.”

“You were,” she agreed, “but I wasn’t exactly a saint myself.”

“All square?” When she nodded, he held out one hand and motioned with his fingers. “Then let me see that book. Please? I read German. Fluently.”

“I read it, too.” She put one protective hand over the tote bag, which was still in her lap. Hasty could probably read the diary in a day, but she wasn’t about to let him take it away.

“You have no right to those things,” he protested. “If that diary is what I think it is, it ought to be in a museum. So should that necklace. Heaven only knows how they got among your Aunt Lucy’s things.”

“Heaven only knows and I intend to find out.” She stowed the bag under her chair. “Besides, Aunt Lucy was a history teacher. She’d have known if these things ought to be in a museum. The diary’s probably unimportant and the necklace a copy or something.”

His voice hardened. “Marked Hallstatt 1850? I don’t think so. I know about these things. You don’t.”

“Aunt Lucy wouldn’t have stuck them in a box if they were really valuable.” It was amazingly easy to fall back into adolescent patterns with Hasty.

“Unless she was in the habit of pilfering.” His expression was stony, and his eyes darted to the floor and back like he was measuring the distance to the tote bag and calculating whether he could grab it and run.

“Aunt Lucy was not a thief!” Katharine looped one of the handles over her right foot. She wouldn’t let it go without a fight.

The waitress set food before them, but they didn’t pay any attention.

“Come on, Kate. History teachers don’t make enough to buy things like that. She had to have stolen it—or maybe her brother did. In either case, you don’t have any right—”

“Neither do you!” She buttered a biscuit and reminded herself they were both past forty-five and ought to be able to conduct a civilized conversation, even a disagreement, without resorting to rudeness or raised voices. “I’ll keep it safe,” she promised, trying to mollify him. But his temper was up.

“You don’t know the first thing about storing valuable artifacts. If anything happens to that necklace and that diary—”

She glared at him. “Are you threatening me?”

He pushed back his chair. “Not yet, but if anything happens to either one of them, I’ll make sure somebody sues you for everything you’ve got.” He flung his napkin onto the table and took out his wallet. He selected a fifty-dollar bill and dropped it beside the napkin. “Happy birthday. Keep the change.” He strode from the restaurant, followed by the gaze of every woman in the room.

Katharine heard a low chuckle from the man at the next table.

During the rest of her meal, Katharine felt other women’s eyes sliding her way. Thankfully, the man at the next table ate quickly and left, but on his way out he called, “Be seein’ you, Mrs. Murray,” attracting more stares from other women.

She devoutly hoped she wouldn’t be seeing him again. Or Hasty.

She forked in chicken salad and frozen salad without tasting a bite, mulling over the past hour. She knew she was reasonably attractive, but she had not consciously set out to attract either of those two. Was she sending out some subliminal chemical that announced, “I’m lonesome, pay me attention”? Was this the first sign of menopause?

She decided to pass up dessert. Before she went outside, she scanned people waiting for valets to bring their cars but saw neither Hasty nor Lamar Franklin. When she was halfway down the hill, though, Hasty rose from a bench just ahead. “Kate? Wait up!” He loped toward her.

Behind her, Lamar shouted, “Hey!” and she heard him jogging down the hill.

Being chased stimulates primeval fears. Katharine set off at a dead run—a mistake going downhill in huaraches with slick soles. She slipped, slid, and sprawled on the road.

“Watch that bag!” Hasty yelled.

His priorities were clear. As Katharine climbed awkwardly to her feet, she was glad she hadn’t cherished any illusions that he was attracted by her charms. Still, his lack of concern for her turned her fear to fury. She clutched the bag under one arm and wiped her hands on her pants. “How dare you follow me?” she stormed. Her palms and knees were stinging, fueling her fury. “Scat! Both of you!” She shooed them away like two mangy cats.

Hasty turned to the other man and demanded, “What are you doing following this lady?”

“This lady obviously does not want your attentions, sir. Leave her be,” the older man said in his gravelly voice.

“You leave her alone. She’s a friend of mine,” Hasty insisted. “Tell him, Kate.”

“I never want to see either one of you again.” She hobbled toward the garage with as much dignity as she could muster.

“You heard her,” Lamar warned behind her. “Leave her be.”

“You back out of this! I told you I’m—”

The next sound Katharine heard was a thud. She looked over one shoulder to see Hasty lying on the ground nursing his nose, with Lamar standing over him. “I told you, Dr. Hastings, leave her be. You go on, ma’am. I’ll see he don’t bother you none.” He glared down at Hasty.

Two women stared from the sidewalk. Red-faced with embarrassment and fury, Katharine limped toward her car.

Before she got in, she looked around the covered parking garage—an automatic gesture after years of living and driving alone. As she unlocked her doors, Lamar was just coming inside, a black shadow against the light. She jumped in and locked the doors even before she stuck the key in the ignition, then she was immediately ashamed. Why should she feel so leery of him? He had been nothing but friendly and helpful. But his work-callused hands, mountain vowels, tattoos, and long, gray ponytail were so out of place in Buckhead, he could have come from another planet.

“Difference breeds distrust,” her father used to say. “And we all have a tendency to be prejudiced against those who are different from us. Watch your reactions to people, Kat. You’ll find it inside yourself.”

“Okay, Daddy,” she muttered to him, wherever he might be, “I’ll admit it. I’m prejudiced toward outdated hippies who butt in where they aren’t wanted and former classmates who want to get their hands on my possessions. I wish they’d leave me alone.”

When she had started the car, she tucked her purse between her left side and the door, but dropped the tote bag down in front of the passenger seat. She doubted that any snatch-and-grab thief would be interested in an old canvas tote.

As she left the garage, she saw the hippie heading toward a red Jeep that sat beside a big black truck.

Going up the drive, she passed Hasty, who was stomping into the garage. He glared at her as she approached and tried to flag her down, but she didn’t stop.

Traffic was heavy on Andrews Drive, so she had to wait to pull out of the parking lot. Before she could turn left, she saw the red Jeep zoom out of the garage just ahead of the big black truck. Reluctant to head home with those vehicles behind her, she decided to pick up Tom’s shirts at the laundry while she was out. She turned right without changing her blinker. Both vehicles turned behind her. At West Paces Ferry Road, she turned right again. So did they.

Both also turned behind her onto Peachtree Street, but neither followed her into the laundry. Relieved, she left the drive-through window and headed back to Peachtree. She decided she might as well go somewhere and copy the diary. That way she could make notes in the margins.

As she stopped at the next light, she noticed a red Jeep a couple of cars behind her. Was it the same one from the parking garage? And was that the same black truck hugging its bumper?

Katharine had watched enough television to know how to figure out if somebody was following her. She switched lanes as soon as she could and watched her mirrors. Within a few seconds the Jeep also changed lanes, keeping two cars between them. The truck pulled in behind the Jeep.

Coincidence? She changed lanes again.

So did they.

By then she was pretty sure one of them was Hasty and the other Lamar. Two dogs after one bone, but which was which? Back in high school, Hasty had wished for a big black truck instead of the used Volvo his parents bought him. Had he finally gotten one as part of his recent midlife and marital crisis? Was he following Lamar, who was following her? Or was Lamar in the truck, following Hasty in the Jeep?

Her first inclination was to laugh. “This is so
silly
,” she muttered. But when she turned right at the next intersection, the red Jeep turned a few seconds later with the black truck right behind. She put on another burst of speed and turned right again at the next intersection, planning to dash to the next corner and lose them. Instead, she got stuck behind somebody looking for an address. She was only halfway up the block when the Jeep turned the corner with the truck behind it.

Her arrogance turned to anger, tinged with anxiety. “It’s just Hasty,” she reminded herself. “He wouldn’t hurt me.” But what about the other? And how far would either go to get that bag?

“Get back on Peachtree,” she told herself. “I’ll be fine there.” But when she wended her way back to Peachtree—which wasn’t as simple as it sounds, since no two streets in Atlanta run parallel or perpendicular—the red Jeep was not far behind and the black truck rode its bumper.

Some people complain about Atlanta traffic, but Katharine was grateful for every car. She felt safe surrounded by all those people. But what should she do? Going home was out, and she would feel silly calling 911 when one of her followers was an old friend. She peered into her mirror at the Jeep, which was now right behind her, but its visor was down and she could not see the driver.

In spite of her common sense, she was feeling menaced. She tried to think of a smart move, but her brain was sluggish. Articles about what do if you were being followed said, “Go to a police station,” but she’d never needed one before, so had no idea where to find one. Why didn’t police stations fly flags, like post offices? A special flag that could be seen blocks away?

But even if she found a police station, she couldn’t drive straight through the door. What was to prevent whoever was in the Jeep from grabbing her as soon as she left her SUV?

She drove up Peachtree Street picturing a perfect world in which bright red flags flew over drive-in police stations.

When she saw an office supplies store ahead, she made a snap decision. Quickly she changed lanes and barreled through a cacophony of horns into a narrow strip of parking spaces that fronted on Peachtree Street. Then she remembered—the front of that store was at the back, down a narrow alley. Already the red Jeep was moving into the right lane.

She roared down the alley and swung into a parking place right in front, grabbed the tote bag and her purse, and leaped from her car. The blood on her knees, which had dried to her pants, tore loose, but she ignored the pain and dashed for the steps.

Yes, steps. Because of a hill, there was a flight of steps to the front door.

She was still sprinting up when the Jeep screeched to a stop beside her SUV and the big truck roared to a stop behind, blocking them both.

As the wide glass doors opened, spilling cold air onto the sidewalk, she heard doors slam behind her. Without looking back, she darted inside and yelled, “Restroom?” to the startled clerk at the counter. He pointed toward the copy center to the left. She ran in the direction he pointed, tote bag pounding against her thigh in time to the frantic beat of her heart.

The restrooms were tucked inside a large gloomy storeroom, down a hall that led past the break room. Inside, she leaned against the door, trembling. One part of her felt silly, the rest was downright scared. She hurried on rubber legs into the larger stall, locked the door, and leaned against it, gasping for air. How had she gotten into this mess?

She stood breathing hard for several minutes, wondering what to do next.

If she went outside, would one of them be waiting for her? Or both?

No. More likely, one was lying unconscious on the sidewalk right now, while the other prowled the store, hoping to get his hands on Aunt Lucy’s antifacts.

What was to prevent him from coming into the ladies’ room? Nobody would see him unless they happened to be taking a break. She thought of Edna Buchanan’s
Miami It’s Murder
and wished she hadn’t. In that book, women were raped and murdered in locked restrooms. This one wasn’t even locked. Did she hear somebody breathing outside her stall?

She held her own breath and listened, but heard nothing.

After what seemed like an eternity, common sense returned. She would be safer in the store than in an isolated restroom, so long as she was willing to scream if necessary. Gathering up her purse, her tote bag, and her courage, she crept from the stall into the empty bathroom and opened the door. She saw nobody in the storeroom but a clerk carrying a large cardboard box.

She walked cautiously into the store and still saw no sign of Hasty or Lamar.

She headed toward a copier, keeping a wary eye out for either man. All the clerks were bunched near the door, staring at something outside. Blue lights flashed in the parking lot.

“What’s going on?” she asked a man in a store vest near the back of the huddle.

“Some woman came running in here yelling and two men started fighting in the parking lot. Probably drug-related or something. The manager called the cops.”

She edged closer to the glass doors and saw Hasty and Lamar both wearing belligerent expressions while a serious young police officer talked to them. She considered going outside, but decided against it. She didn’t know what either of those men was up to, but they had scared the living daylights out of her. They deserved whatever they got.

She headed back to the ladies’ room, took off her bright outer shirt, and put it in her tote bag. She tugged her yellow T-shirt out of her slacks and let it hang loose. She dragged her hair back, and secured it with a rubber band. She put on a thick layer of lipstick and rubbed some into her cheeks. She perched her reading glasses on her nose. At the last minute she remembered Aunt Lucy’s peach pits, so she stowed her silver-and-turquoise jewelry in her purse and slung the despicable pits around her neck. Tacky Kat, mistress of disguise, she headed for the copier.

One man in a store vest eyed her suspiciously. “Aren’t you the woman who came running in here just before all hell broke loose outside?”

She frowned. “Didn’t she have on a bright shirt?”

He thought that over. “Yeah, I guess she did.”

She spent an hour copying the diary, careful of the pages and pleased to see that it became more legible if she heightened the contrast. Perhaps she would spend the afternoon trying to translate it.

The whole time, though, she kept checking to make sure Hasty or Lamar weren’t lurking behind a display—and that nobody she knew was in sight. She didn’t want somebody asking why she had left her house looking like that. When she left the building, she stopped at the top step and looked both ways.

She was so relieved to have run into nobody she knew that it took her a couple of seconds to register the fact that her car was gone.

She wanted to stomp her feet and scream, or sit down and bawl. Screams and tears, however, are only satisfying if there is somebody to calm or console you, so she hitched up her mental socks, headed around the corner, and pulled out her cell phone.

She wasn’t about to return to the store and explain, so first she called information and got the number of the store against whose wall she was leaning. She told whoever answered that her car had broken down at their curb earlier that afternoon, and that while she was looking for help, it had disappeared.

“Oh! It was towed!” The clerk sounded horrified. “We’d had a bit of trouble in the parking lot, with the police here and everything, and one of our customers thought that car might be a car bomb. He called and had it towed.”

“Don’t you think terrorists would use something a little cheaper than a new Cadillac?” she asked. The clerk seemed so baffled by that question that Katharine didn’t ask whether they hadn’t been worried that the bomb might blow up the tow truck and driver en route. Instead, she ascertained that the number of the towing firm was on a sign in the parking lot and hung up.

While she waited for the towing firm to answer, she murmured to the sky, “Oh, Daddy, can you see the state we’ve worked ourselves into since you left? Terrorists behind every abandoned car.”

The towing firm informed her that getting the car back was only going to involve showing up at their lot with identification and paying an arm and two legs. Katharine considered calling Posey or another friend to run her down, but she looked a fright and was in no mood to explain.