Paging the Dead (30 page)

“Well, listen to you,” Coco said, “you'd think you've been hanging out with a member of law enforcement or something.”

“Y'all are the ones who ragged on me to get out and have fun,” Esme said.

“It's strange about Vivian and Dorothy,” Marydale mused. “I think they really did care about each other. But it was a peculiar relationship all along. And adding in Vivian's discovery that she'd been the child kept hidden all her life, denied the Pritchett name and any part in the life Dorothy had? Well, if Vivian really did just snap I feel sorry for her.”

“I'm not so generous,” Winston said. “The more I think on it the more sure I am she was the cause of me falling off that ladder. I
know
that ladder was steady before she decided to come over and hold it for me. Me and Linda were talking and Linda was getting a little emotional, telling me some things about the night she found Dorothy. I think Vivian was afraid of what she might say. I'm not saying she meant for me to get hurt, but I think she wanted to get us off that subject any way she could.”

“In that case I withdraw my sympathy,” Marydale said.

“All this tragedy,” Coco said. “All because of the Pritchett name. Vivian wanting it so bad and Dorothy thinking she had to protect it.”

“The irony is
neither
of them was a Pritchett,” Esme said,
which caused all heads to whip around in her direction—except for mine. Esme and I had spent some time with Vivian's Aunt Anita the afternoon after she was arrested. And we'd spent hours that night combing through every piece of information we had. With that, plus the information Esme had gleaned from
elsewhere,
we'd finally put it all together. And what a tangled web it was.

“You know I told y'all Sarah Malone kept visiting me and flipping that baby quilt over again and again,” Esme said. “I finally figured out what she was trying to tell me. Like they used to say back in the day, a baby was born on the wrong side of the blanket. An illegitimate child.”

“She was trying to tell you about Vivian,” Coco said.

“No, she was trying to tell me about her own son, William Pritchett, Dorothy and Ingrid's father,” Esme said. “And Vivian's father, too, as it turns out.”

Frowns all around as everyone ticked through what they could remember of the Pritchett family history. I jumped in to ease their strain. “Remember that Sarah Malone was a girl from the tidewater area who was sent to the big city of Richmond to live with the Spencer family? Not as a guest as Dorothy liked to tell it, but as a nanny to the two Spencer children. And remember that Agnes Spencer did not treat Sarah well and was resentful of the attention Sarah got from men? One of those men, presumably, was Agnes' husband, Raeford. We believe in one way or the other, either through seduction or force, Sarah became pregnant with his child.”

“Force,” Esme said.

“We don't know that for sure,” I said. “We don't know any of this for sure, and there's obviously no documentation.”

“Force, and I
am
sure,” Esme said. “Got it straight from the woman in question.”

“Okay,” I said, “let's just say we couldn't prove it in
this
world.”

Esme nodded. “Go on with your story.”

“Anyway, Sarah was being wooed by Harrison Pritchett and it seems she returned his affections. It was a short courtship. They eloped and moved here to what was to become Morningside very shortly afterward. We think she was pregnant with Raeford Spencer's child.”

“Do you think Harrison Pritchett knew?”

“He absolutely knew,” Esme said.

“We
think
he knew,” I corrected.

Esme huffed. “I know he knew,” she said, lifting her chin.

“We believe he loved Sarah fiercely and wanted to rescue her from the situation she was in. He was her Sir Galahad. We know Harrison's friendship with Raeford Spencer ended at about that time. They quarreled bitterly and we think it was about Sarah. Agnes Spencer made reference to that in her diary, but you have to read between the lines. I don't think she knew about Sarah being pregnant, but she knew something had happened. She wasn't at all sorry to see Sarah go.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Jack said. “William Pritchett wasn't really a Pritchett?”

“If our theory is correct, then no, he wasn't a Pritchett by blood,” I said, “though Harrison raised him as his own. And since Harrison and Sarah had no children, that Pritchett bloodline ended with Harrison.”

“Ah,” Coco said. “So Harrison Pritchett's hair from the
baby book didn't match up with Vivian's because William wasn't his blood son.”

“Correct. And Dorothy's wouldn't have either,” I said. “Though if she'd chosen to run the test with her own hair against Vivian's that
would
have shown they were related—and maybe Dorothy would still be alive.”

“That's assuming Dorothy ever intended to tell her the truth if it came back a match,” Winston said. “Or that she even had the hair tested in the first place. Do you think maybe she was just bluffing?”

“No, I found the test report in her desk,” I said. “Jeremy had seen the envelope with the baby hair in her study and Denny and I went looking for it after the excitement was over. When Linda overheard them arguing the night before she thought it was about hairstyles, but it was actually about the test results from the hair. Vivian was afraid it wasn't going to come back in time for the Founders' Day event, but Dorothy'd already had it in her possession for days. She must have been trying to figure out how to tell Vivian and she'd arranged one of her formal sit-down meetings to break the news.”

“Oh, oh, oh,” Jack said, scrambling to a sitting position from where he'd been lounging on the picnic blanket. “I got it. Okay, so those coffee cups they tested for DNA. It
was
from a male relative of Dorothy's. Hank Spencer. They'd be related, right?”

“They'd be related,” I said. “They shared a common male ancestor.”

“So this happened two generations in a row?” Marydale asked. “The head of the household and the nanny? That's just revolting.”

“History repeats,” I said with a shrug. “But this shame isn't on the Pritchetts. By all accounts Harrison Pritchett was a principled man. And according to Vivian's aunt, when Harrison and Sarah figured out what was going on with William they were the ones who insisted he support Vivian financially and that he look out for her welfare. They weren't willing to go so far as to publicly ruin him, or themselves by extension, but the aunt says Harrison made some sort of arrangement that insured William would live up to his obligations to the girl or else he'd forfeit part of the estate to her and her grandmother.”

“I can only imagine how conflicted Sarah must have felt,” Marydale said, “knowing her son had done to someone else the same thing that had been done to her.”

“The circumstances weren't quite the same,” I said, “though it's still a sordid story. Vivian's aunt was very frank with us. She says Vivian's mother went into the job with the Pritchetts looking for a way to make it her meal ticket. She's convinced Helen Pearce set out to seduce William Pritchett from the start. But afterward it didn't go as she'd planned. The aunt thinks Helen suffered from postpartum depression, plus the disappointment of having her big plan derailed when William made it clear he wasn't going to do the honorable thing after Dorothy and Ingrid's mother died. She doesn't believe the drowning was an accident. She thinks Vivian's mother meant to end her life. It's all just so scrambled up and tragic.”

“Much as I hate all this,” Marydale said, “for Cassidy's sake I'm relieved Jeremy had no part in it. He was looking
pretty sketchy there for a while what with that DNA stuff and him being so evasive about everything.”

“Jeremy
is
harboring a secret,” I said. “I'll tell you, but you are all hereby sworn to keep mum for a little while. You know he's a manager at the bank, but what you probably don't know is that the bank has a very strict anti-fraternization policy. Management and those in subordinate positions are not to date.”

“It's a no-no,” Esme stage-whispered.

“Anyway, there's a woman named Sherry in my yoga class and a couple of weeks ago I overheard her telling a friend that she was seeing someone seriously, but that she couldn't say who just yet. Her friend asked if she was involved with a married guy but Sherry swore that wasn't it. Did I mention Sherry works at the bank as a teller?”

Heads began to nod.

“He was with Sherry that day,” I said. “They really were out taking sunset photos at the lake. But Jeremy wants to keep his job so he couldn't very well say anything or show the pictures since she was in them. Sherry's going to quit her job and go back to school as soon as she gets enough money saved, then they can be together out in the open, but until then we're all guardians of the big secret.” I grabbed an apple from the bowl in the middle of the blanket. “Now, no more about Dorothy or the case. Today's for fun. Can we please talk about good stuff?”

“I got something,” Jack said. “I landed a new client. I've been wining and dining the guy for a couple of weeks now. He's building a new condo complex on the west side of the
golf course and he's given us the contract for all the landscaping.”

“That's fantastic,” Coco said, giving him a high five.

“Yeah, that's who I was with when you called the other night, Soph. Sorry I never got back to you. He wanted to drive out to the site and discuss some things and I got caught up and forgot to call you back.”

“That's okay,” I said. An employment opportunity I could easily forgive.

“Esme, I think somebody's looking for you,” Coco said, pointing to the middle of the square.

We all looked over to see Denny scanning the crowd. He spotted us and nodded his head in greeting.

“He's only got a couple of hours off duty,” Esme said, getting up from her chair. “I think we'll go stroll around the festival for a bit.”

As I watched them walk away, laughing together about something, I told myself if this got serious I wouldn't be losing Esme, I'd be gaining a cop.

“We should go check out the crafts booths, too,” Jack said, getting up off the blanket and offering me a hand. “Anybody else game?”

“I've gotta go get my parents and bring them in to enjoy the festivities for a little while,” Coco said. “I'll get up with y'all later.”

“I'm game, but I don't think this thing is,” Winston said, tapping his cast with a spoon. “Y'all go on, I'll be fine right here.”

“I'll keep you company,” Marydale said. “Roxie's watching
the shop for a couple of hours. I was there at six this morning getting everything ready and I'm tuckered. I'll enjoy just chillin' here with Win and the pups. You two go on.”

As we walked across the square I got lots of stares. I knew the word was out and this time I was being hailed as a hero, the one who'd gotten Vivian to confess and solved the case. I didn't deserve that any more than I'd deserved the suspicious looks I'd gotten just after Dorothy died. I tried Esme's advice and looked straight ahead, ignoring it all, knowing it would blow over in a few days.

The last couple of weeks had been awful but I'd learned some valuable lessons. One of which was what can befall a friendship when one person wants what they can't have from it. I was going to have to find a way to accept Jack and Julie's relationship if I wanted to keep his friendship, and I needed to start now. As sincerely as I could manage I asked, “What's Julie up to today?”

“Working, I suppose,” Jack said. “This is a hot story, she'll be all over it.”

“That's good, I guess. But it's too bad you two probably won't be able to see each other very often for a while. Between your new job and her being caught up in this story, that doesn't leave much time for dating.”

“Dating?” Jack said. “You think Julie and me are dating?”

“Well? Aren't you?”

“No, we're not,” Jack said. “I took her out a couple of times to get information for you and Esme,” he said. “And she was in town a lot covering the story, so we kept running into each other, but we're not dating. She'd drive me nuts. I
love her as a friend, but she's really high maintenance. I'm not saying anything I wouldn't say to her face; she knows she's a handful. That's what makes her a good reporter, I guess. But we're just old college friends.”

“Friends like us,” I said, almost giddy with relief.

“No, Soph, not friends like us,” Jack said. “Nobody's friends like us.” He looped his arm around my shoulders and gave me that smile I like so much.

Coco was right. Best Honeysuckle Festival
ever.