Beads of Doubt

by Barbara Burnett Smith

  “Just a conversation,” I said. Then I smiled, thinking of the Camden lawyers. “And a touch of arm-twisting.”

  “You get that from your grandfather.” She shook her head. “I suppose there are times when that’s necessary. Oh, and Katie is already waiting for you at the gatehouse. That little Gabrielle is so adorable.”

  “Isn’t she?” She looks, and has begun to act, more like her mother and my mother every day. She doesn’t get a thing from me, but I love her dearly.

  I went to my mother’s house through the sliding glass doors and found Katie just closing her cell phone.

  “Gran Kitzi!” Three-year-old Gabrielle reached up and threw her arms around my hips. “You’re late! We missed you.” I had to laugh. First thing and already there was that slightly problematic tone. She was fine—I was the problem.

  “I missed you, too,” I said, giving her a hug. “Want a strawberry?” I held it out to pop it in her mouth when Katie intervened.

  “No, we don’t want anything messy on your clothes,” she said to Gabrielle. “Besides we’re having tea in half an hour.” She ran her hand across her daughter’s cheek then raised her eyes to me. “Hi, Mom. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine, honey.” I gave her a hug, and she hugged me back with one arm. “Where are the twins?” I asked.

  “They’re with Beth in the tent. She said she’d bring them over.”

  “Oh, great. You’re going to love all the booths. Take a look at the French beaded flowers; they’re amazing. And the tea is divine.” I held out my half-eaten scone. “These are my favorites.”

  “Careful, you’re getting crumbs on the rug. Gabrielle, run and get Gran Kitzi a napkin from the kitchen.” After Gabrielle raced off, she said, “Mother, I wish you’d set a little better example for the kids. We have rules. You have to follow the rules.”

  “No, no, you’ve got that wrong. I am the grandmother. At my house we follow my rules. Unless you want to be the family crone.”

  She shuddered. “That’s disgusting.” Gabrielle returned with a napkin. “Thank you, honey,” she said to Gabrielle. “Maybe Gran Kitzi should sit at the table. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  Gabrielle nodded. “Yes. Then she won’t make a mess.”

  It was clear that Gabrielle needed to spend more time with me and less with her mother. Or, maybe her mother needed to spend more time with me. I had obviously done something wrong if Katie was more concerned with crumbs than hugs—especially since I hadn’t seen any of them in two weeks.

  However, this was a discussion better left for another time. I had plenty to deal with, and I also needed Katie’s cooperation if we were going to fight the vote on the Manse.

  I went to the breakfast table and gestured for Gabrielle to sit beside me.

  “I have to go potty,” Gabrielle said. “And I don’t need any help. I can do it myself.”

  “Good for you,” I said. “You’re a very big girl.”

  “Yes,” Katie said, as Gabrielle headed for the bathroom. “And don’t forget to wash your hands. If you can’t reach, call me.”

  Nice timing since it gave us the privacy I needed to enlist Katie to help me. “Do you have time to sit down and have coffee?”

  Katie shook her. “Not if we’re going to see any of the booths.”

  “Then come by after your tea. I’ll be here.”

  “Mother, I really can’t. I have to pick up some groceries and wrap a present for a birthday party that Shelby has at four.”

  “That’s five hours to wrap a present.”

  “Yes, but we have to buy the present, too.”

  “Buy a gift bag to put it in, Katie. And please sit down. I can’t talk at this angle. This is important. I’m going to need at least a half hour of your time.”

  “Mother—”

  “Your future and the future of the free world depend on it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What could possibly be that important?”

  “How about a corporate takeover of the Manse? Does that get your attention?”

  She went pale and sat at the table. “You’re kidding. This is a joke, right?”

  “You’ll have to ask Houston, since he’s the one who’s instigated it. His attorney wasn’t laughing.” I looked around. “And, Katie, I haven’t told your grandmother. In fact, no one knows but Beth, so don’t say anything.”

  She had her hand over her mouth either from shock or to stop herself from vomiting. “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true.”

  She took her hand down. “How can he do that? After all the money you’ve put into the house and the grounds, and the time and effort. Does he have any idea how much work it is? You know he isn’t going to be cleaning the gutters, and it will all go downhill again.” She was so agitated she was practically twitching in her chair. “How is Rebecca going to deal with the Manse? She’s sick, for God’s sake. Doesn’t that man have any brains at all?”

  I crumpled my napkin with the crumbs of the scone in it. “One assumes he does, but it doesn’t seem he’s using them.”

  Katie jumped up. “I’m going to talk to Rebecca. She—”

  I grabbed Katie’s arm. “Sit down. Please. Calling Rebecca would be the worst thing you could do. She doesn’t need this.” Katie was still undecided. “Especially now,” I said, “with Houston’s business partner murdered. And Rebecca’s scared that—”

  “What? Who was murdered? No one told me that!”

  “Well, yes.” I struggled with words. I hadn’t meant to let that slip out. “It was his young partner, Andrew Lynch. Rebecca and Aunt Miranda are concerned, as you can well imagine. It really doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Two nights ago. Katie, that isn’t what’s important; it’s just another reason we have to keep this from Rebecca and handle it ourselves—”

  “Where was he killed? Was it downtown? Was he out partying? Drunk or something? Who did it?”

  I had well and truly stepped in it this time. “I don’t have all the details.” Which was true. “I do know that the police talked with Houston at length yesterday, which is why Aunt Miranda and Rebecca, and your grandmother, asked me to step in. I didn’t do much. I just talked with the detective and they let Houston come home. He wasn’t being charged—”

  “That was all you did? You just talked with him and he let Houston go?”

  “It wasn’t quite that simple, but close.”

  “This whole thing—”

  “Mommy!” Gabrielle said, racing in. “I put the lid down, just like you tell Cliffie to, so then I could standed up. See? I washed my hands.”

  Here was my reprieve. “Good girl,” I said, pulling her onto my lap. “You made your own stepping stool. You’re very clever.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  Katie was still stewing, but she wasn’t about to have a conversation regarding murder with Gabrielle there. “I think we need to talk later,” she said. “After the tea?”

  “Perfect,” I said, since that had been my goal all along.

  Katie lifted Gabrielle off my lap. “Please don’t say anything about this to the twins, and I won’t mention the other thing we talked about to Grandmother. I’m sure we can work something out.”

  Our family keeps so many secrets it’s a wonder that we all even know we are related. Unfortunately, until Katie grows up and realizes that the world happens and you just deal with it, I much prefer to keep it that way. If she learned that Andrew had been here the night he was killed, or that he was found behind our property, she was perfectly capable of taking the children home because there was some kind of bad influence around. I love my daughter very much, but she isn’t always rational. She prefers to be right.

  Beth arrived with the twins, and there were more hugs and kisses. “Gran Kitzi!” “We’ve missed you!” Shelby was climbing on my lap; Cliffie was hugging my arm.

  “What are we going to do today?” Shelby asked. />
  “I’m so glad we don’t have to have tea,” Cliffie said, kissing my neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I don’t like tea. Gabrielle says you have to stick your little finger out. That’s stupid.”

  Shelby flipped her blonde hair back. “She was just making that up. She only does it to make you go all weird.”

  “I don’t go weird,” he said.

  Katie leaned over and kissed them both on the head. “Be good for Gran Kitzi. We’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “Okay, Mommy,” Shelby said.

  Katie left with Gabrielle, and Beth began pulling things out of the armoire in the living room. “We need your help,” I said. “Beth and I have to go to a poker tournament tonight, and we have to practice playing Texas hold ’em. Will you help us with the rules?”

  “Kewl!” Shelby said. “I taught the kids at kindergarten to play, but the teacher got mad because I won all their cookies.”

  Great. “Did she call your mother?”

  “No.” She flipped her hair again and sat in a chair next to me. “She said if I gave everything back and promised not to play poker at school again, she wouldn’t call Mom.”

  “Sounds like a good deal to me,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Shelby agreed.

  Cliffie took the chair on my other side and said to me, “I told her not to play at school, but she didn’t listen. I told her it would get her in trouble, too.”

  Beth was busy counting out poker chips, and I began shuffling cards. “Yes, I said. “Luckily it didn’t. So, here’s what we want you to do. Play tough.”

  “How?” Cliffie asked.

  Beth said, “Bluff, go all in, do whatever you can to beat us. And if we do something wrong, tell us, okay?”

  Shelby nodded. “Kewl.”

  “Yeah, kewl,” Cliffie added.

  I shuffled one deck as I watched Beth hand out our stacks of chips. Shelby and Cliffie accepted her like a favored aunt. They weren’t on their best behavior, or their worst. They were just themselves, and Beth was one of the family. Isn’t it said that children have an instinct for people? Wouldn’t they sense if she had done something . . . something . . .

  Beth said, “Red is five, blue is ten, white is twenty-five, and black is fifty.”

  Cliffie restacked his chips. “And a black with a white and another black is an Oreo!”

  It didn’t matter whether the kids liked Beth or sensed anything. Beth was my friend. She had been my friend for almost fifty years and I knew her. If she hadn’t killed Mo-Ron in all those years of marriage, she wouldn’t bother with someone she’d just met.

  As for the candlestick under her bed, there was a good explanation. One that would make me laugh—once I heard it—and she would tell me when we had a free minute. But I wasn’t going to ask, just in case the answer was embarrassing to her. Whatever that could be.

  “I’ll deal,” Shelby said.

  “Excellent,” Beth said.

  I put the all thoughts of candlesticks back in some barely accessible portion of my brain. I was here to refresh myself on poker and pick up a few tips. I needed to concentrate.

  I sat up straighter in my chair and said, “This is going to be fun.”

  Shelby’s a little slow at dealing, since the cards are big for her hands, but she knows what she’s doing.

  The object of Texas hold ’em is to make the best five-card poker hand using your own two cards and the five community cards on the board. There are four chances to bet on each hand, and the game has a language all its own that I hadn’t quite mastered.

  “Put out the blinds,” Cliffie said. I was ready to close the miniblinds when he added, “Miss Beth, you’re the small blind. Five dollars.”

  “Oh, right.” She put out a red chip.

  I had known about the blinds, I just didn’t have my poker brain in gear yet. The blinds are like the ante in regular poker, except only two people put up money, the small blind and the big blind. Cliffie put out two five-dollar chips, and Shelby was dealing the cards, two for each of us, facedown.

  Now we did our first round of betting, based on what we thought the hands would end up being. I had a king and a ten. Both hearts. Well, I could get a flush, which is five hearts, or I could get a straight, or pairs—

  “Gran Kitzi,” Cliffie said, “are you going to bet?”

  I put out three chips, although I couldn’t remember what each one was worth. “There.”

  Shelby said, “If you’re going to raise, you’re supposed to say ‘raise.’ If you’re only going to call, then you say ‘call.’ If not, people get confused.”

  “That would be me,” Beth said.

  “I raised,” I said. “I have out more chips than you do.”

  “I call,” Cliffie said, matching his stack to mine.

  “Fold,” Beth said, tossing her cards facedown on the table.

  “I call,” Shelby said. “I’m a very good poker player. I’m usually the winner, except when I lose.” Once her chips were out she said, “Now comes the flop.” She put three cards faceup in the center of the table, or at least as close to the center as she could reach. “A pair of queens and a ten.”

  Beth frowned at me. “Are these two practicing for the World Poker Tour?”

  “Don’t talk to me,” I said. “I’m concentrating.” I knocked on the table. “Check.”

  Cliffie bet a hundred, and Shelby said, “I’m folding. Cliffie, I hate it when you get all the good cards.”

  I matched his chip, and Shelby put another card faceup. “Fourth Street.”

  I checked, he bet, I called. The last card was another ten. As the kids would say, kewl. Except when the hand ended, I had three tens, while Cliffie had three queens. Not kewl. Or cool.

  “Where did you learn so much?” Beth wanted to know.

  “Hold ’em is on AOL Games,” Cliffie said. “We used to play a lot.”

  Shelby put the cards back into a neat stack. “And it’s on TV, too. The Travel Channel.”

  We played a good forty-five minutes, and I could feel myself getting back into practice. After all, I am the one who taught the twins to play. Twice we had to get Shelby to sit down because she was dancing around the table singing, “I’m a winner, a winner.”

  At the end I had what I was sure was the top hand. “All in,” I announced, pushing my entire stack toward the center.

  Shelby watched me for a minute, her eyes narrowed. “I can’t decide.” She picked up her two cards and studied them again.

  “Leave them down; that’s for amateurs,” Cliffie said. “The cards didn’t change.”

  “Maybe I just forgot,” Shelby said. “Maybe I’m trying to bluff her. Don’t bug me, Cliffie.” She stared at me, then at the cards. Finally she said, “All in.”

  She won my entire stack of chips, which ended the game, at least for me. I stood up. “We’d better put these away,” I said, scooping up cards. “We don’t want to upset your mother.”

  “It’s okay,” Shelby said. “She doesn’t care anymore.”

  “Yeah,” Cliffie added. “She knows you’re a bad influence.”

  Beth rolled her eyes and started to laugh. “I think the twins should come with us tonight. They can be Katherine Zoelnick and Lupe whatever the name is.”

  By the time Katie was back, all the evidence of our gambling was put away and we were watching cartoons. I’m not sure if they were parent-approved cartoons, but I can’t worry about everything.

  “Did you have fun?” Katie asked the twins.

  “Oh, yeah,” Shelby said. “And I won.”

  “Won what?” her mother asked.

  Shelby rolled her eyes. “You know. I just won.”

  “Don’t do that to me,” she said. “It’s rude. Now, I have to talk with Gran Kitzi for a while. Can you three play on the patio?”

  “Can we go see Sinatra?” Cliffie asked. “I haven’t seen him at all.”

  “Yeah,” Shelby added.

  “Sure,” I said. “He’s in the�
��” I just realized where he was. “I left him closed up in my bedroom. I hope he hasn’t torn the place apart. Damn.”

  “Gran Kitzi said a word!” Gabrielle piped up.

  Beth scooped up Gabrielle. “I’ll go with the kids, and we’ll take care of Sinatra. Want us to bring him back here for the day?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But if he’s done something terrible—”

  “I’ll clean it up. I’ll consider it my penance for giving him to you in the first place.”

  Katie and I got up and went to the table where we sat across from each other. “All right,” Katie said. “Give me the details. How bad is it?”

  Fifteen

  Katie’s face, so lovely, with its smooth skin and delicate bone structure, had little lines that I’d never noticed before. Were those from the seriousness of our topic, or was her outlook on life making her old?

  Kate had been such an adorable child, so fair that she was almost ethereal, wispy like she could float away. When she was a baby I remember watching her sleep, as I suppose all new mothers do with their firstborn, and thinking that this had to be the most angelic child ever born. And then she grew. She remained fragile and beautiful in appearance, but her first word had been no, as in not now, not ever, and I really mean it. We had an old English sheepdog at the time that was short on brains but big on beauty. Before Katie’s second birthday she had taught that dog to sit and to stay, not for fun, but because she didn’t want a hundred-pound fur ball knocking her down.

  In school it became obvious that Katie was both bright and ambitious. If there was a spelling bee, she wanted to win. If there was a math contest, she went into it with the full intention of coming out first. If she wasn’t the winner, then she would arrive home not disappointed as other kids would be, but furious that she hadn’t worked harder, studied more, or whatever.

  Some people said I was driving her to be the best, but the truth is it didn’t matter a whit to me. I don’t judge people by where they land on the world’s scale, and I never have. When I was in elementary school, I overheard my mother telling my aunt that if I made it to sixth grade without flunking out or being kicked out, she would consider me a success. I took her at her word and stayed out of too much trouble and passed all my classes, some of them by the skin of my teeth.