Never Tease a Siamese: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (28 page)

The ornate key remained nestled in the chest’s lock, and she turned it and lifted the lid. There was no need to treat the contents with kid gloves, she told herself, since they had been thoroughly picked over and trampled already. She would sort everything into nice neat piles, then set it all safely aside until Maura came to retrieve it. She had done the detective a favor, actually—if Maura was out working another case for the county, she would probably rather pick up the box at the house than downtown anyway.

Rationalizations completed, Leigh dug in.

Into one pile went photographs—all of which were cats. Some were labeled, others not, but from the backgrounds she gathered that most had been taken during Lilah’s childhood, in the forties and fifties. The cats, none of which were Siamese, ran the gamut in terms of appearance, but all looked well fed and cared for.

Into another pile went cat-related "literature," a term which Leigh applied purely out of respect for the dead. Poem after dreadful poem, written on scraps and the occasional napkin, all vainly attempting to extol the virtues of bright eyes and soft paws. There were a few stories too, frighteningly anthropomorphic, in which cats invented human-vaporizing guns, dog-enslaving potions, and space travel. These, Leigh graciously assumed, must have been byproducts of the grade-school years.

Into the third and last pile went what Leigh believed to be the latest offerings—things Lilah had wanted to conceal from her third husband. Included were the hair swatch; a playbill from an off-color, off-Broadway production (as best Leigh could tell, Lilah had
not
been in the cast herself, though if rumors about her character were true, she had probably been quite familiar with someone who had); the prenuptial agreement; and three successive last will and testaments.

The first was written in 1973, evidently not long after Lilah and Albert’s marriage. It was short and to the point—if Lilah were to predecease her husband, he was entitled to just enough money to keep him and the house afloat. The rest went in trust to the cats.

The next was written in 1977, soon after Dean and Jared’s birth, and Leigh read it over carefully. The cats were still well provided for, but Lilah had decided to leave the lion’s share to baby Dean, with a little for Albert on the side. Peggy Linney, interestingly enough, was to receive quite a tidy sum—much more, ironically, than she had been allotted to receive in the most current will.

As Leigh pored over this will a second time, her blood pressure rose a little. There was not one word about Wanda Loomis, who was presumably raising baby Jared as her own. Not one red cent to a legitimate second cousin—even though such a bequest would probably not even raise an eyebrow. Couldn’t Lilah have left at least a little money in trust to make sure her son was adequately provided for? Leigh wasn’t sure what Jared’s overall health had been like when he was younger, but she knew that children with Down's Syndrome often had special medical needs. Who did Lilah expect would pay for them?

Her blood was close to boiling when she set will number two aside and began to reread number three. The cat-money to son-money ratio had increased considerably over five years, perhaps testifying to Lilah’s opinion of motherhood. What had not increased, Leigh noted with agitation, was any concern whatsoever for the child she had given away.

Leigh paused a moment and took in a breath. The contents of the box, more than anything else, were giving her a disturbingly clear picture of the kind of woman Lilah Murchison had really been. She did not eat kittens—no. But no decent person would sneak up behind a six year old girl holding a dead mouse in a bag and say "boo" either. Lilah was antisocial. Not a sociopath, certainly, but someone who simply didn’t like people very much. She preferred to devote all her affection to her cats—which, while not a bad sentiment in itself—was not the healthiest way to raise a son.

Perhaps Jared had been better off than Dean after all.

She picked up the 1982 will once more. Lilah had shown some improvement in the generosity category, Leigh noted, even if it didn’t extend to family members. Peggy Linney again received a generous bequest, along with a dozen or so other employees. A few of the men’s names Leigh thought were familiar—and, remembering Adith Rhodis’ gossipy prattle at the will reading, she couldn’t help wondering what the men were being rewarded for. But it was the name at the end of the list that stopped her short. The name…and the amount.

To my good and faithful housecleaner Hetta Johnson…a trust…sufficient to provide an annual stipend of approximately $30,000…for the next twenty years…or to her heirs should she die before the twenty years has elapsed…

Leigh’s breath caught.
Thirty thousand
dollars a year? To a housekeeper? In 1982 dollars? For
twenty
years?

She let her hands fall limply onto Mao Tse’s vibrating back. Hetta Johnson. Nancy Johnson’s mother. The woman must have provided a service to Lilah Murchison that went far beyond housecleaning. It must have gone far beyond helping to cover up a baby switch. And it must have been a service she was expected to keep on providing.

All of Leigh’s previous questions began swirling in her head, and after a few stormy rotations, they settled into almost perfect formation. She ousted a displeased Mao Tse from her lap, packed up the contents of the chest, and slid it behind a handy pile of unpacked boxes. Grabbing her keys from the kitchen table, she headed straight for the Cavalier.

She knew now why Lilah Murchison had been unwilling to provide for Jared. She also knew who had—all along—been the sole target of the threats.

Because in 1977, Lilah Murchison had
not
given birth to a baby boy with Down's Syndrome. She had given birth to a half-black baby girl.

***

The clinic was eerily quiet as Leigh walked in the back entrance, particularly for the afternoon following such a hectic morning. She supposed Nancy had rescheduled all but the most urgent appointments, and she also imagined that her father was on the phone in the basement, busily attempting to reconstruct a staff for tomorrow morning. The clinic could not continue indefinitely with unskilled help, and she could not continue indefinitely putting off her work at Hook.

But the advertising business could at least wait until tomorrow. Because at the moment, she was on a mission.

She found Nancy sitting in an empty waiting room, reconciling the checks, credit card receipts, and cash with the computer, as she ordinarily did at the end of every work day. She acknowledged Leigh’s entry with only a brief nod, then returned to her task.

Leigh pulled up a stool and sat down next to her. There was no point in pussyfooting. Who knew what the next threat would entail?

"Nancy," she began calmly, but firmly. "I know you think that keeping quiet about who you are is the best thing for everybody, but I think you’re wrong. I think you need to tell the police."

Nancy’s fingers stopped flipping twenties in mid pile. Her dark eyes caught Leigh’s for a moment, then looked away. She rose with a jerk and walked to the front door, pulling on the handle to check the lock. Then she returned to Leigh’s side and gestured wordlessly, her hands trembling.

Follow me
.

Leigh got up and followed the other woman into the small half bath that doubled as the x-ray processing room. Nancy shut the door behind them, flipped down the toilet lid, and sat down heavily.

"You may think this is silly," Nancy began shakily, her voice barely above a whisper. "But I can’t trust anyone anymore. I’m afraid all the time that someone is listening to me." Her head sank slowly down into her hands, and for a moment, she was silent. "How did you figure it out?"

"I saw a will from 1982," Leigh explained quietly. "It seemed odd that Lilah would leave your mother so much money. But there were other things, too."

The younger woman’s eyes brimmed with moisture. "Like why any woman would give up her own flesh and blood—then adopt another baby."

Leigh nodded silently.

"Well, now you know." Nancy’s voice was still unsteady, and she breathed deeply to regain her composure. After a few seconds, she succeeded. "In a way, I’m relieved," she admitted. "I’ve never discussed it with anyone before. Except
her
."

There was no need to ask who "her" was. "Hetta didn’t tell you?" Leigh asked softly.

Nancy shook her head. "She had promised Mrs. Murchison that she would treat me as if I were her own, and that’s exactly what she did, for as long as she lived." Moisture swelled beneath her eyes again, but she removed it with an almost-vicious swipe of the hand. "It was Mrs. Murchison who told me, the day my mother died. I suppose she thought it would help. She was wrong. I loved my mother with all my heart; she was one of the greatest women I’ve ever known—or ever will know. I was devastated to find out I wasn’t her biological child."

Nancy’s hands moved down to her hug her middle. She doubled forward on the seat, almost as if her stomach were hurting. Perhaps it was.

"Mrs. Murchison tried to explain why she had given me up. She used phrases like 'another time' and 'the way things were back then.' She said that she had been trying to get pregnant for years, but was having no luck. She was getting old and her husband was older, and time was running out. So she started having affairs—for Albert’s sake. Even at sixteen, of course, I knew that was rubbish. The woman clearly had the morals of an alley cat. Eventually she did get pregnant, by a man she hired to paint the house. The funny part was, for obvious reasons, he was the only one in the lineup she did
not
want to get pregnant by."

She pulled out an attractive, milky-brown arm and looked at it critically for a moment. "It’s funny—I always knew that my father must have been white, even though my mother would never confirm it. She refused to talk about my father at all; it was as though my conception were immaculate."

Her eyes suddenly turned hard, and she pulled her arms tight around her again. "Ironic, huh? And all the time I had it backwards. My mother was white as a lily, and my father was a man she slept with once whose name she couldn’t remember."

Leigh trembled a little herself as she leaned back against the sink. She wished there was something she could do or say, but she knew that there wasn't.

"Lilah moaned about how Albert would have divorced her in a heartbeat, and how there was nothing else she could do," Nancy continued grimly. "She made a big production about how she had trolled the earth for Hetta, and how she had given Hetta a place to live and enough money to stay home with me until I went to school. Then she had brought both of us back into her own house."

Nancy paused.

"And Peggy Linney hit the roof," Leigh whispered.

"Dean was her great grandson," Nancy answered matter-of-factly. "As far as she was concerned, he was the only child Mrs. Murchison had any business fussing over. She hated that Mrs. Murchison wanted to keep me close. After Albert died, I think she lived in constant fear that Mrs. Murchison would disinherit Dean and acknowledge me.

"Which I suppose she eventually did," Nancy hedged. "Sort of."

"All the secrecy," Leigh asked, unintentionally holding her breath. "Why? Do you know?"

There was no answer for a moment. "I suppose that might have been for my sake. But I’m not really sure."

The next pause was so long, Leigh thought her lungs would burst.

"She never out-and-out offered to acknowledge me publicly," Nancy said finally. "Almost ten years have passed since the day she told me everything, and not once did she ever admit that she had done anything wrong, much less apologize. What she did do was tell me that she had always been fond of me, and that she would be happy to pay for my education."

Leigh thought a moment. She knew for a fact that Randall Koslow had offered to help Nancy pay for graduate school. But even with the money couched as an employee benefit, Nancy, knowing that she would not work at the clinic after graduating, had flatly refused the offer. Now it was apparent that the manager, who had busted her butt working full-time while getting her business degree, hadn’t
had
to work at all. She could have gone straight to Carnegie Mellon, or the Wharton School of Business…

"I didn’t want
anything
from her," Nancy insisted, as if reading Leigh’s mind. "I didn’t want anyone to ever know that I was her daughter. And I told her that, in no uncertain terms." Her eyes clouded over. "I suppose I was a bit harsh about it. Well—let’s not mince words. I screamed at her. I even tried to strike her. I was sixteen and I was hurt and I was furious. But I went way out of control."

"Of course you did," Leigh defended. She would not let Nancy feel guilty for what was a perfectly understandable adolescent reaction. What she herself might have done under similar circumstances, she shuddered to think.

"I’m not sure how our relationship might have developed if it hadn’t been for that one awful day," Nancy continued. "But what happened was that she would drop by to see me once in a while—maybe every six months. She would ask if I needed anything. I would say no. Then she would leave."

There was another long pause.

"When I heard that she had died in that plane crash, I didn’t know what to think. I’d be lying if I said I would miss her. In a way it was a relief. I always worried that someday the truth would come out, and I didn’t want it to. All I’ve ever wanted to be, since I was sixteen years old, is Hetta Johnson’s daughter. With Mrs. Murchison dead and buried, I could finally pretend that I was."