Bones of Contention

by Jeanne Matthews

  She thought, I’d get more from the sale of just one of the paintings than I ever dreamed of having. I could hold one back until a more propitious time and if Lucien apologizes and shows a little respect for my needs and my opinions, he can keep it for me in his house.

  Of course, a painting that valuable would have to be insured. That would cost a pretty penny and eat into her profits from the sale of the other one. But no, even if the timing was wrong, she would sell them both. She wondered what an apartment in London would cost. Or Paris. She visualized her life in Paris. It wouldn’t take long to dispel the noir of Nick in the City of Light.

  Dispelling the noir of Lucien would be harder. He and Cleon had banged heads many times before and, up until now, they’d found a way to smooth things over. But she and Lucien had never fought and his hostility came as a shock and a betrayal. Again, she was beset by the thought that he wanted the Homers for himself. It couldn’t be for the money they’d bring, because he had oodles. Did he read Cleon’s decision to give the only good art that he owned to her as a repudiation of him? Surely their wires weren’t that crossed. But even if Cleon was dissing him, how could Lucien be so flippant about her fear that Cleon might be murdered?

  A film of dust enveloped the Mercedes. Cleon turned on the windshield wipers.

  She didn’t want to offend him or start an argument. But if giving the Homers to her was what had stoked Lucien’s resentment, if that was Cleon’s intention, she needed to know.

  She said, “Lucien told Mack that Winslow Homer is America’s greatest artist.”

  “That should make you feel good about your pictures.”

  “It does, only…Has Lucien said anything about wanting them himself?”

  “Naw! He thinks they’re blah.”

  “He can’t have said that.”

  “Yes, he did. Changed his mind since, I reckon.”

  “But why would he say they were blah one time and miraculous the next?”

  “Could be he was just showin’ off his superior ah-tistic discernment for Mack. It don’t matter. You and me like ’em and we ain’t feebleminded.”

  You and I, she thought reflexively. You and I like them. She gave up on delicacy. “Uncle Cleon, if you’re using those paintings to get at Lucien by giving them to me, I won’t stand for it. If he wants them, I’ll give them to him after you’re dead.”

  “Listen, doll, I know you think I’m a shit-stirrin’ old bastard and I oughta kiss and make up with your brother. But Lucien and me, we’re at loggerheads right now. We’ll thrash things out before I croak. It ain’t my purpose to stiff him out of what he wants. I swear on my life, what’s left of it, that Lucien’ll be very happy with his legacy. Wendell, now. Wendell may not fare so well.”

  She studied his face. “Why? Why won’t Wendell fare so well?”

  He mashed her hand in his big, red-knuckled mitt and winked. “You know, it ain’t as much fun defendin’ corporate crooks and tortfeasors as it was defendin’ regular folks. Did I ever tell you about Luther Jones?”

  “No.” He was obviously avoiding her question, but that wink kindled suspicion.

  “Luther was a tenant farmer, worked a few acres of corn and collard greens outside of Mayday, Georgia. He was a deacon over at the Baptist church, never caused any trouble. Everybody thought well of him until he got drunk as a wheelbarrow one night and shot his wife dead. There was never a question he’d done it.”

  “Did he get the death penalty?”

  “Naw. I get a letter from him every once in a while. Says prison ain’t half bad. He’s too old now for hard labor and the prison dishes up three squares a day.”

  If this story had a point, he was taking his sweet time getting to it. She said, “There must have been extenuating circumstances.”

  Cleon chuckled. “At the trial, the jury looked kinda mean-eyed and I didn’t have much choice but to call Luther to the stand to see if he couldn’t cultivate a little sympathy. I asked him, ‘Why’d you do it, Luther?’ He said, ‘She took up with a back-door man.’ ‘And who was this back-door man?’ I asked. Luther scrunched up his face, mournful as a whipped hound, looked straight at the jury and said, ‘It was my brother.’ After that, you could’ve heard a pin drop.”

  Dinah stared at him. The point of the story was, he knew. Cleon knew about Wendell and Neesha.

  “I reckon Luther would’ve killed his brother, too, if he hadn’t run like a jackrabbit. Yessireebob. The fact it was his own brother is what saved Luther from the needle. That and Luther’s winsome way of speakin’. He said, ‘I shot her, all right, and no denyin’. But I pulled the trigger real slow, bein’ as how I’d had tender feelings.’”

  Dinah’s thoughts weltered. Was it conceivable…well, of course it was conceivable because she just conceived it, that Cleon had tried to kill Neesha and killed Desmond Fisher by mistake? Or more diabolical still, did he poison the doctor to foil his suicide and confound the adulterers?

  “What have you done, Uncle Cleon?”

  “About my will, you mean?” He took a card out of the glove box and handed it to her. “That’s the bub we’re goin’ to see, Stephen Geertz. When I get around to it, he’s gonna videotape me readin’ my will. I was thinkin’ I’d leave the Mercedes to Eduardo. He enjoys the trappings of wealth and if things don’t work out with him and Lucien, he deserves a souvenir of his time with the Dobbses.”

  She tried to erase the thought of Cleon as murderer. It was hysterical. Against all reason. But there was no doubt in her mind that he was wise to Wendell. Maybe cutting him out of his will was Cleon’s way of pulling the trigger real slow. “You promised Margaret that you’d divide your money fairly among the children.”

  “Fair means different things to different people. You heard Wendell say how he don’t care about money. I should take him at his word. That’ll teach him not to palter.”

  Dinah no longer took anyone at his word, Cleon included. She said, “Margaret takes it for granted that Wendell will get all of Dez’s money.”

  “Does she now? That’s a right strong motive for murder.”

  “Not so sure anymore that you were the intended victim?”

  He screwed up his face and rubbed his jaw. “Old moneybags like Dez and me, it coulda been either one of us. I’d be lyin’ if I didn’t say I was right pleased to wake up and smell the coffee this mornin’.”

  Margaret was right about his improved outlook. Fisher’s death seemed to have given him a new lease on life. She said, “You don’t seem much distressed by your old friend’s death.”

  “Our friendship was wearin’ thin since he became such a Johnny-one-note on death and politics. A man ain’t got much sense of humor about his own demise.”

  Dinah had seen no aspect of Fisher’s character that would appeal to Cleon. It was a strange relationship, made stranger by Margaret’s affair with Fisher. “When did he become so enamored of euthanasia? And why?”

  “First off, he was enamored of a young nurse. Married her and, before they had time to get sick of each other, she came down with a rare wastin’ disease. No cure, no letup from the pain. Watchin’ her shrivel up and die a slow death and not bein’ able to help her put Dez off doctorin’ for a while. I think it made him a little careless of his own life.”

  That snippet of history explained the man’s obsession, but it didn’t make Dinah like him any better. “How,” she asked, “did an Australian doctor come to own a fish processing plant in Georgia?”

  “He had a fair amount of money and he was always on the lookout for investment opportunities. The Brunswick plant came on the market at a time when he was in town visitin’ Maggie. He bought the controllin’ interest, ponied up fresh capital, and handed over the runnin’ of the place to the people who knew what they were doin’.”

  “Not Wendell?”

  “Dez wasn’t that boneheaded. He let him put in a few dollars and call himself an owner, but Wen couldn’t pull the fire alarm without a
memo from headquarters.”

  She began to wonder if she’d misread that wink. If he believed Wendell was so timid and inept, would he think him ballsy enough to seduce Neesha?

  Cleon said, “As his drinkin’ got worse, Dez started to lose his rudder in more ways than one. He quit takin’ care of business like he oughta have done.”

  That rang a bell. “At dinner that last night, he said something about not taking orders from you anymore. Were you in business together?”

  His face contorted. Either he was in pain or the question required a grueling intensity of thought. After a while, he said, “We threw in together from time to time.”

  He clammed up for the next mile and she took another tack. “Dr. Fisher mentioned that he went hunting with my dad. Did you introduce them?”

  “I seem to recollect your daddy joinin’ in a quail hunt with us one time. Wouldn’t shoot the birds, but got a kick out of watchin’ the dogs work. Hart didn’t have much of a stomach for huntin’. Miss Margaret now, she’s a huntress if ever there was one. She went on a number of hunts with Dez and me. She could outshoot the both of us.”

  “I gather she and Dez were an item once upon a time.”

  “It’s true. Maggie set her cap for him a long while ago, but Dez never requited her affections, not to the point of matrimony anyways. I toyed with the notion that she’s the one who tried to poison me. She’s got a backlog of mighty hard feelings against me. But maybe I’m too self-centered. Maybe she got the right man. A woman scorned is apt to do something drastic, especially if it gives her only son a big payday.”

  Dinah didn’t doubt the siren song of money, but if being scorned could send Margaret over the edge, she’d have murdered Cleon years ago. “Do you really believe Margaret’s capable of premeditated, cold-blooded murder?”

  “I don’t know if you could rightly call Maggie cold-blooded, but she can do what needs doin’ and not bat an eye. She’s got sangfroid.” He pronounced it correctly, without the drawl, absent-mindedly erudite.

  He stopped at the intersection with the Stuart Highway and turned his face to her. He might be grateful for a brief extension of his lease on life, but age and illness had etched deep lines in his forehead and for the first time, she saw the pall of death behind the mask.

  “I’ve agonized over this, Dinah. Whoever that poison was meant for, I hope to God it wasn’t one of my children that served it up.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The offices of Arnold, Rutledge, and Geertz were located in a modest brick building in a quiet street lined on either side by extremely wide-spreading trees with ugly, tangled roots and a pervasive smell that reminded Dinah of Vicks VapoRub. A bronze plaque on the sidewalk next to their parking space identified them as coolabah trees.

  Cleon’s gloomy spell had passed or at any rate, he’d gotten back some of his color and put on his game face. As he escorted her into the lobby, he sang. “Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, under the shade of a coolabah tree.”

  They took the elevator to the second floor and Cleon announced himself to the receptionist as if his entrance must mark the high point of her career.

  She was a slack-mouthed girl of about twenty with frizzy yellow hair, cherry-red talons, and a starchy blue suit no one her age would be caught dead in after five. “Please take a seat, sir. I’ll let Mr. Geertz’s secretary know you’re here.”

  “We’ll stand,” said Cleon. “Geertz won’t keep me waitin’ long.” He pulled Dinah a foot or so away to the end of the reception desk. “That Inspector Newby’s a peculiar pheasant plucker, don’t you think?”

  An elderly man sitting on the sofa behind them looked up from his magazine.

  Cleon took no notice. “Fortuitous him runnin’ into you at the Darwin Airport like that. What d’ya suppose got him interested in us?”

  “Another murder. The murder of a British journalist on Melville Island.”

  The man on the sofa leaned forward.

  Dinah dropped her voice. “Did Jacko ask you anything about it? I don’t know why, but he seems to think there’s a link between the murdered man and somebody in our family.”

  “He asked me if I knew him. I never heard of the fella ’til now. What was his name again?”

  “Hambrick. Bryce Hambrick.”

  “How does Newby figure he’s connected with us?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  “That figures. Newby can talk the hind legs off a donkey and not say a cottonpickin’ thing you can hang your hat on. You reckon his elevator goes all the way to the top floor?” His eyes twinkled. He was testing her.

  Her temper flared. It dawned on her that Jacko Newby and Cleon Dobbs might have been twins separated at birth. Disarmingly rustic, deeply calculating, and determined to use her to their own ends. She had no doubt that Cleon was using her, but to what end? Did he want her to pass on his suspicions about Margaret to Jacko? Tell Wendell and Neesha he was on to them? Had he brought her to the reading of Fisher’s will so she could inform Jacko who benefited from his death? Or was he plotting against Lucien in some Byzantine way she didn’t quite capiche? And not to get too carried away by suspicion, but Hambrick’s murder would have led the TV news when it was first discovered and every newspaper in the country would have carried the story. How could Cleon have missed it?

  She said, “I don’t think anyone gets to be Detective Chief Inspector of the Territory if his elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top.”

  “You’re probably right.” He ticked a finger against his watch dial to telegraph his impatience to the receptionist.

  The girl was saved when a woman with a helmet of gray hair and an air of brisk efficiency stepped into the lobby. “Mr. Geertz will see you now, Mr. Dobbs. This way, please.”

  “Madam, your charmin’ backside will be my beacon.”

  The lady drew in a sharp breath and preceded them down the hall to an open door.

  A dapper man with nervous eyes and a small, melancholy blond mustache stood to greet them. “Good to see you again, Cleon.”

  “How’s tricks, Steve? It’s been a while.”

  The men shook hands and the helmeted lady spanked the door shut behind them.

  “This is my niece, Dinah.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Geertz shook Dinah’s hand and bade them sit.

  “May I offer you a drink? Beer, Scotch, water?”

  They both asked for water and he poured two cups from the dispenser in the corner. Cleon fished a bottle out of his pocket, shook two pills into his palm, and tossed them down.

  “I appreciate you takin’ the time to meet with us, Steve. I know there’s no requirement to read the will, but as I explained on the phone, how Dez left things in his will may affect how I write my own. If Wendell scores big off Dez, I ain’t gonna lumber him down with still more money.”

  “Glad to do it,” said Geertz. “I’ll be filing the will in Sydney in the next few days and apply for a Grant of Probate. I know Wendell will have to travel back to the States soon and it’s best that everyone be apprised of the terms. Paying the debts and taxes and managing the transfer of assets, it’ll necessitate a lot of work.”

  Cleon said, “I’m sure you put in a clause that guarantees your hourly rate.”

  Geertz laughed uneasily. “I was surprised to hear of the doctor’s death. He was in fine fettle when he came into the office last month.”

  “He want you to sue somebody?” asked Cleon.

  “No, no. He was here to add several codicils to his will.”

  Dinah pricked up her ears. Was it whiffy on the nose that will changing had become such a fad? She wondered if Cleon had something to do with the changes. Had he inveigled Fisher to cut Wendell out of his will? That would certainly give the lovebirds a nasty surprise.

  Cleon frowned at his watch. “Where is Wendell? You told him four o’clock sharp, didn’t you, Steve?”

  “I’m sure he an
d the others will be here soon. Wendell had a few more arrangements to tend to at the funeral home. Dez left detailed instructions regarding the cremation. He felt that anything other than a cardboard casket would be a waste of money.”

  Cleon reared back in his chair and crossed his arms over his paunch. “I’m havin’ my body preserved cryogenically in a freezer in Houston, Texas. Might come back to see y’all one of these days when they get the bugs out of the defrostin’ part.”

  Geertz smiled. “I understand your other son is handicapped and unable to be with us in person, so we’ll get him on the speakerphone as soon as the others arrive.”

  “He ain’t too handicapped to gad about lookin’ at art.”

  Geertz cleared his throat and twiddled with one end of his mustache. A knock on the door brought him out of his seat like a jack-in-the-box. “Come in, come in.”

  Wendell, Margaret, and Neesha walked into the office together. There was a lot of handshaking and shuffling of chairs and passing out of drinks. When everyone was introduced and settled, Geertz buzzed his secretary and asked her to put through a call to Lucien.

  Dinah got why Wendell and Neesha and Margaret would want to be here. But what interest would Lucien have in Fisher’s estate?

  “Now,” said Cleon. “Let’s hear how old Dez decided to treat the world in his absence.”

  Geertz cleared his throat again and opened a green file folder. “There’s the usual legal verbiage.”

  “Unless he’s left it all to famine relief or a bunch of do-gooders, we’ll stipulate he was of sound mind,” said Cleon. “Leastways he was when he was sober.”

  Margaret said, “I think Mr. Geertz should read the document in its entirety. There may be restrictive clauses.”

  “Don’t be a stickler, Maggie. We can hash over the fine print if any of us decides to contest the will.” Cleon leaned across Geertz’s desk. “A while back, Dez represented to me that my minor children would come in for a goodly sum when he died. Did he come through?”