Genuine Lies

by Nora Roberts

  “Your honor.” Lincoln rose to his feet. “The defense is ready to stipulate that Miss Benedict had a child, which she gave up for adoption. And that the child is Julia Summers. The state need not waste the court’s time proving what has already been established.”

  “Mr. Williamson?”

  “Very well, your honor. Ms. Travers, is Julia Summers Eve Benedict’s natural daughter?”

  “She is.” Travers flicked one brief, hate-filled glance in Julia’s direction. “Eve agonized over that adoption, did what she thought was best for the child. She even kept tabs on her over the years. It upset her something fierce when the girl got herself pregnant. Said she couldn’t bear to think about her going through all that she’d been through herself.”

  Lincoln leaned toward Julia. “I’m going to let her go on. It establishes a bond.”

  “And she was proud,” Travers continued. “Proud when the girl started writing books. She used to talk to me, cause there was nobody else who knew.”

  “You were the only one aware that Julia Summers was Eve Benedict’s biological daughter?”

  “No one knew but me.”

  “Can you tell us how Miss Summers came to live on Miss Benedict’s estate.”

  “It was that book. That cursed book. I didn’t know then how she got the idea in her head, but nothing I said talked her out of it. Said she was scooping up two birds. She had a story to tell, and she wanted time to get to know her daughter. And her grandson.”

  “And did she tell Miss Summers the truth of their relationship?”

  “Not then, not for weeks after she’d come. She was afraid how the girl would react.”

  “Objection.” Lincoln rose smoothly to his feet. “Your honor, Miss Travers couldn’t know what was in Miss Benedict’s mind.”

  “I knew her,” Travers tossed back. “I knew her better than anybody.”

  “I’ll rephrase, your honor. Miss Travers, were you a witness to Miss Summers’s reaction when Miss Benedict told her of their relationship.”

  “They were on the terrace, having dinner. Eve had been nervous as a cat. I was in the parlor. I heard her shouting.”

  “Her?”

  “Her,” Travers spat out, pointing at Julia. “She was screaming at Eve. When I ran out, she’d shoved the table over. All the china and crystal were smashed. There was murder in her eyes.”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Miss Travers, can you tell us what Miss Summers said during this incident?”

  “She said don’t come near me. And I’ll never forgive you. She said …” Travers aimed that black, furious look at Julia. “She said I could kill you for this.”

  “And the next day Eve Benedict was murdered.”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained.” The judge looked faintly censorious. “Mr. Williamson.”

  “Withdrawn, your honor. No further questions.”

  Lincoln was clever on cross. Did the witness believe that everyone who said “I could kill you” in anger meant it literally? What kind of a relationship did Eve and Julia establish over the weeks they’d worked together? During the argument, which was born out of natural shock, did Julia try to strike or harm Eve in any physical way?

  He was clever, but Travers’s conviction that Julia had killed Eve seeped through.

  Nina took the stand, looking chic and efficient in a rose-colored Chanel. She gave her observations on the argument. Lincoln thought that her doubt, her uncertainty, was more damaging than Travers’s testimony.

  “That same night, Miss Benedict summoned her attorney to the house.”

  “Yes, she insisted he come right away. She wanted to change her will.”

  “You knew this.”

  “Yes. That is, after Mr. Greenburg arrived, Eve asked me to take the changes down in shorthand, and transcribe them. I’d witnessed her other will, and it was no secret that she’d left the bulk of her estate to Paul Winthrop, with a generous provision for her nephew, Drake Morrison.”

  “And in this one?”

  “She bequeathed a trust to Brandon, Julia’s son. After the other bequests, she left the rest to Paul and Julia.”

  “And when did Mr. Greenburg return to have Miss Benedict sign the new will?”

  “The next day, the next morning.”

  “Do you know if anyone else was aware of Miss Benedict’s change of heart?”

  “I really can’t say for sure.”

  “You can’t say, Miss Soloman?”

  “Drake came by, but Eve wouldn’t see him. I know he saw Mr. Greenburg leave.”

  “Did she see anyone that day?”

  “Yes, Miss DuBarry was by. She left just before one o’clock.”

  “Did Miss Benedict make plans to see anyone else?”

  “I …” She pressed her lips together. “I know that she phoned the guest house.”

  “The guest house where Julia Summers was living?”

  “Yes. She told me to keep her afternoon clear. That was right after Miss DuBarry left. Then she went into her bedroom to call the guest house.”

  “I didn’t talk to her,” Julia whispered urgently to Lincoln. “I never talked to her after that night on the terrace.”

  He only patted her hand.

  “After the phone call?”

  “She seemed upset. I don’t know whether she reached Julia or not, but she was only in her room for a minute or two. When she came out, she told me she was going down to talk to Julia. She said …” Her troubled eyes darted to Julia, then back to the prosecutor. “She said they were going to have it out.”

  “And what time was this?”

  “It was just one o’clock, perhaps a minute or two past.” “How can you be sure?”

  “Eve had given me several letters to type. As she was leaving, I went into my office to start them, and I looked at my desk clock.”

  Julia stopped listening for a while. If her body couldn’t get up and walk away, at least her mind could. She imagined herself back in Connecticut. She’d plant flowers. She would spend a week planting them if she wanted. She’d get Brandon a dog. That was something she’d been thinking about for quite a while, but she’d put off going to the pound to choose one, afraid she’d want to take them all.

  And a porch swing. She wanted a porch swing. She could work all day, then in the evenings, when things were quiet, she could sit and swing and watch night fall.

  “The state calls Paul Winthrop to the stand.”

  She must have made some sound. Lincoln put a hand on hers under the table and squeezed. Not in comfort, but in warning.

  Paul answered the opening questions briefly, weighing his words, his eyes on Julia’s.

  “Would you tell the court the nature of your relationship with Miss Summers?”

  “I’m in love with Miss Summers.” The faintest of smiles touched his lips. “Completely in love with Miss Summers.”

  “And you also had a close personal relationship with Miss Benedict.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Didn’t you find it difficult to juggle relationships with two women, women who were working closely together. Women who were in actuality mother and daughter.”

  “Your honor!” Lincoln, the picture of righteous indignation, sprang to his feet.

  “Oh, I’d like to answer that one.” Paul’s quiet voice cut through the uproar of the courtroom. His gaze had veered from Julia to pin the D.A. “I didn’t find it difficult at all. Eve was the only mother I’d ever known. Julia is the only woman I’ve ever wanted to spend my life with.”

  Williamson folded his hands at his waist, tapped his index fingers together. “Then you had no problem. I wonder if two dynamic women would have found it so easy to share one man.”

  Heat flashed in those pale blue eyes, but his voice was cool and disdainful. “Your implication is not only idiotic, it’s revolting.”

  But he need not have spoken. Lincoln was already objecting over the courtroom buzz.
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  “Withdrawn,” Williamson said easily. “Mr. Winthrop, were you present during the argument between the deceased and Miss Summers?”

  “No.”

  “But you were on the estate.” “I was in the guest house, watching Brandon.” “Then you were present when Miss Summers returned, directly after the scene on the terrace.” “I was.”

  “Did she describe her feelings to you?”

  “She did. Julia was upset, shocked, and confused.”

  “Upset?” Williamson repeated, rolling the word around on his tongue as if testing its taste. “Two witnesses have stated that Miss Summers left the terrace in a rage. Are you saying that in a matter of moments that rage had cooled so that she was merely upset?”

  “I’m a writer, Mr. Williamson. I choose my words carefully. Rage is not the term I’d use to describe Julia’s state when she returned to the guest house. Hurt would be closer to the mark.”

  “We won’t waste the court’s time with semantics. Did you receive a phone call from Miss Summers on the day of the murder?”

  “I did.”

  “At what time?”

  “About one-twenty P.M.”

  “Do you recall the conversation?”

  “There wasn’t a conversation. She could barely talk. She told me to come, to come right away. That she needed me.”

  “That she needed you,” Williamson repeated on a nod. “Don’t you find it odd that she would have found it necessary to make a phone call when her mother was lying dead only a few feet away?”

  When court recessed from one to three, Lincoln tucked Julia away in a small room. There was a plate of sandwiches, a pot of coffee, but she touched neither. She didn’t need his constant rehearsing, refining, to remind her that she would take the stand herself when court resumed.

  Two hours had never gone more quickly.

  “The defense calls Julia Summers to the stand.”

  She rose, well aware of the stares and murmurs behind her. Reaching the witness box, she turned and faced those stares. She raised her right hand and swore to tell the truth.

  “Miss Summers, were you aware when you came to California that Eve Benedict was your natural mother?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you come across country to live on her estate?”

  “I had agreed to write her biography. She wanted to give her complete cooperation to the project, as well as maintain some control. We decided that my son and I would stay on her estate until the first draft was completed and approved.”

  “During the course of this project, did Miss Benedict share portions of her private life with you?”

  Sitting by the pool, sweating in the gym. Eve in a vivid robe squatting on the floor building a space port with Brandon. The image flashed by quickly, stinging her eyes. “She was very frank, very open. It was important to her that the book be thorough. And honest,” Julia murmured. “She didn’t want any more lies.”

  “Did you have occasion to tape conversations with her, and with people closely connected with her, personally and professionally?”

  “Yes. I work from taped interviews and notes.”

  He walked back to his desk to pick up a box of tapes. “Are these copies of those taped interviews you conducted from January of this year?”

  “Yes, those are my labels.”

  “I’d like to offer these tapes into evidence.”

  “Your honor, the state objects. These tapes contain the deceased’s opinions and recollections, her personal observations on individuals. And their authenticity cannot be substantiated.”

  Julia let the argument roll around her. She didn’t see the point in bringing the tapes into it. The police had listened to the originals, and nothing they had heard had swayed them.

  “I’m not going to allow the tapes at this hearing,” the judge decided. “Since Mr. Hathoway cannot establish their direct bearing on the accused’s defense. My listening to Miss Benedict’s memoirs at this time would only cloud the issue. Proceed.”

  “Miss Summers, during the course of conducting these interviews, did you receive certain threats?”

  “There were notes. The first one was left on the porch outside the house.”

  “Are these the notes you received?”

  She glanced down at the papers in his hands. “Yes.”

  He questioned her about Eve’s reaction to them, about the plane flight back from Sausalito, about the argument, her feelings, and at last her movements on the day of the murder.

  Her answers were calm, brief, as she’d been instructed.

  Then she faced the prosecutor.

  “Miss Summers, was anyone present when you received these notes?”

  “Paul was there when I received the one in London.” “He was present when it was handed to you?” “It was delivered to my room, my hotel room, with a room service tray.”

  “But no one saw who delivered it, or when.” “It was left at the front desk.”

  “I see. So anyone might have left it there. Including yourself.”

  “Anyone could have. I didn’t.”

  “I find it difficult to believe that anyone would feel threatened by such inane phrases.”

  “Even the inane is threatening when it’s anonymous, particularly when Eve was relating to me volatile and sensitive information.”

  “These anonymous notes weren’t found in your possession, but in the deceased’s dressing table.”

  “I gave them to her. Eve wanted to deal with them herself.”

  “Eve,” he repeated. “Let’s talk about Eve, and volatile information. Would you say you trusted her?” “Yes.”

  “That you had grown fond of her?” “Yes.”

  “And that you had felt violated, betrayed by her when she revealed that you were the child she had borne out of wedlock, in secret, then had given up for adoption?”

  “Yes,” she said, and could almost hear Lincoln wince. “I was stunned, and hurt.”

  “You used the word manipulated that night, did you not? You said she had manipulated your life.”

  “I felt that way. I’m not sure what I said.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “No.”

  “Because you were too enraged to think clearly?”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Were you angry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you threaten to kill her?” “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Miss Summers, do you often have trouble recalling your words and actions during violent incidents?”

  “I don’t often have violent incidents.” “But you have had them. Didn’t you once attack a teacher for correcting your son?” “Your honor, really!”