by Jan Burke
“I miss Hastings,” Helen murmured, not as softly as she probably thought she did.
“Now, Swanie, why on earth have you dragged Irene into this?” Lillian asked as she came forward to meet us.
“Because she and Lydia are the closest thing I have to daughters these days,” Helen said sharply. “Granddaughters, I suppose I should say. The point is, I’m old as hell and I want to make sure that if I croak in my sleep, someone else will know full well what you are up to.”
Lillian looked as if she had been slapped.
“Yes,” Helen said. “Unlike some people I know—”
“That’s enough!” Lillian snapped.
They stood glaring at each other.
I glanced toward the housekeeper, whose wide blue eyes indicated she was a fascinated audience.
I ventured onto the battlefield with, “Maybe we could move into a room where we could discuss this calmly and privately.”
They both fixed their glares on me, seemed to recognize that I was not the enemy — yet, anyway — and thawed a bit. Lillian glanced at the housekeeper. “Yes. Let’s go into the library.”
“Do you need me to bring anything, ma’am?” the housekeeper asked hopefully. She had an Eastern European accent that I couldn’t quite place.
“No, thank you, Bella,” Lillian replied.
“I’ll just clear the—”
“Let that wait, please,” Lillian said. “Thank you. That’s all for now.”
In the library, a fire was already burning in the hearth, a coffee urn had been brought in, and several china cups — three of which had been used — rested on saucers on a side table.
“Oh, Lillian, how could you?” Helen said in despair. “You’ve already done it, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Lillian said.
“Done what?” I asked.
“Agreed to give a blood sample for a DNA test,” she said offhandedly. “Please be seated, Helen. You, too, Irene. The coffee’s still fresh and hot. Would you care for some?”
We both agreed to it. I studied Lillian while she played hostess. She was impeccably dressed, as always. A lovely silk suit. Simple but striking jewelry. She was still a woman with presence, and appeared younger than her years. But in ways that weren’t easy to name, she hadn’t aged as well as my aunt Mary or Helen. Although she had apparently had face-lifts, no one seemed to have done the same for her spirits. Unhappiness had made its mark over the decades. Although she enjoyed far more luxuries and comforts in life than either Mary or Helen, I found myself feeling sorry for her.
We all sat. We all drank coffee. No one said a word. Hell if I was going to be the one to light the fuse. I was starting to worry about Helen, who looked twice as upset as she had been before we arrived. I couldn’t figure it out. I knew Max must be happy. Why was Helen angry?
Eventually, Lillian said, “How have you been, Irene? I haven’t seen you in a long time.”
“Fine,” I said. “And you?”
Instead of answering, she asked me about Frank. Easy for me to talk about Frank.
After about five minutes of this, Helen suddenly said, “You really don’t care about him, do you? Not really.”
“Frank?” Lillian asked.
“You know I don’t mean Frank! You don’t care about Max!”
“Of course I care about him. That’s why I did what I did.”
“Oh, really? What do you suppose is going to happen when the Yeagers learn that you’ve submitted blood for a DNA test?”
“Mitch is not stupid, Helen—”
“I never inspected him as closely as some others did.”
“—however little you may think of him,” Lillian went on. “He has known for several years now that this would be possible. News stories about the power of DNA tests have abounded recently, and I’m sure he has imagined that Max would want to know his origins. Mitch has been thinking that at any time, I could participate in the testing, and Mitch would have awkward questions to answer if Max proved to be the missing child.”
She turned to me. “Perhaps it’s for the best that you are here today. Perhaps a story could run in tomorrow’s paper, saying I’ve already submitted a blood sample? If you think it would be newsworthy, that is.”
“She doesn’t lay out the front page, you know,” Helen said. “Why can’t you ever learn what it is a reporter does and does not do?”
“I can provide you with the name of the doctor who drew the blood,” Lillian said, ignoring her. “And give you the name and address of the lab that has the sample — or will have it in a few hours, anyway. Max is flying it up to Seattle. He’s chosen a lab up there.”
“Thank God he’s out of the area, anyway,” Helen said.
“He’ll be back Monday.”
“My God,” Helen said. “What can be done?”
“Nothing,” Lillian said. “Will you please use that brain of yours? The key has been to get the test in progress before Mitch could do anything about it. If I waited, he might kidnap Max again, just to keep him from being tested. I felt as you did, until Max told me he was willing to take some extreme measures. Exhumations are not done quite so speedily as blood tests, Helen. If it were to become known that Kathleen would be exhumed — a thought I find unbearable to begin with — Mitch would have the time he needs to make sure something horrible happens to Max.”
“What do you think has stopped him before now?” I asked.
“My very well-known refusal. Knowing that I refused the tests, and that I would fight an exhumation, has been enough.”
“You egotistical fool,” Helen said.
I said, “But Max might have gone to the other side of the family for help. If Warren Ducane—”
Lillian interrupted. “Mitch probably doubts that a man in hiding for over two decades will come forward just to make the parents of Max’s fiancée happy.”
“Exactly why is he in hiding?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Lillian answered.
“Because,” Helen said, “he has known that no one — no one has a longer memory than Mitch Yeager when it comes to avenging slights or injuries. If he needs twenty years to carry out his revenge, he’ll happily take that long to do it. As Lillian is fully aware.”
“Yes, and Warren would be a target of that revenge,” Lillian said. “He took Max away from Mitch and caused questions to be raised about Mitch and his nephews. Mitch had worked hard to make everyone forget his beginnings.”
“She means,” Helen said, “that his father was a good-for-nothing who abandoned his family, his mother was a drunk, and his brother was a thief and a bootlegger. Mitch’s own business practices have never been entirely aboveboard, either.”
“He tried to change,” Lillian said, “but there were always those who were ready to snub him or remind him of his past. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps if the Express had left him alone, he would have been just another successful businessman.”
“I don’t believe it!” Helen said furiously. “A woman your age cannot be so hopelessly naïve! After that speech, I could swear you’re still carrying a torch for Mitch Yeager. Good God, Lillian! Have you forgotten what he’s done?”
“No,” Lillian said quietly. “How can you possibly ask such a thing?”
“I can ask it when you do things on impulse, things that will only hurt Max. You haven’t solved a problem, Lily — you’ve only created new ones, as well you know. Or is this your own—” She stopped herself, with a visible effort, from finishing that sentence. “You really don’t care about what this will do to Max or anyone else, do you, Lily?”
“He’s all I care about in this, Helen.”
“Helen,” I said, “what aren’t you telling me?”
That silenced them both.
“I know you both adore Max,” I said. “And you know I would never want any harm to come to him, either. I’m trying to figure out what’s really going on here. There are only two possible outcomes for these tests. One is that Max is Lillian’s grandso
n.”
“I feel sure he is Katy’s son, don’t you, Helen? He is so much like her.”
“Don’t play games with me, Lillian! You’ve put him in danger!”
“I can’t help but think she’s right, Lillian,” I said, “although if we alert the police, they may be able to help us. Because if he is your grandson, Mitch Yeager’s ties to the events of that night in 1958 will be difficult for him to refute.”
“You go right ahead and tell Frank.”
“But, Lillian, you have to face the fact that there is a possibility that the tests will prove he is not your grandson, which—”
“Which will again leave him with no idea who he is,” Helen said. “And no real possibility of ever finding out the truth. Don’t you remember what he went through when all this began? How confused and unsure he was? He’ll feel he came by all his wealth and advantages dishonestly, that he has robbed the estate of some poor murdered infant who will never be found. Oh, Lily, why didn’t you tell Gisella Ross’s parents to stow the Mayflower Compact where the sun don’t shine, right alongside the blue book and all the other trappings of their stupid snobbery?”
“You might as well ask me why I didn’t assassinate Watson and Crick when I saw what their DNA discoveries might lead to,” Lillian said. “Don’t you see, Helen? You’re the one who’s being naïve. Max has never felt sure of his identity. Never. From the moment I learned that DNA was being used to determine paternity, I knew that sooner or later he would want to have DNA tests done. He has, in fact, asked many times before. He cares for my wishes, and without this added pressure from Gisella’s family, perhaps I would have been able to go to my grave without having to face what I’m facing now. But the Rosses’ request is only an excuse that he was all too happy to grab hold of.” She sighed dramatically. “I understand they can test hair from a hairbrush. I feared it was only a matter of time before I’d discover Max combing through my brushes.”
Both women fell silent again. Helen stood and said, “Irene, please take me home.”
“So you see it my way now?” Lillian asked.
“Oh no, Lillian.”
Lillian suddenly went white. “You wouldn’t say anything about — Helen, I’ve made the right choice. You’ll see I’m right.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Lily, but I can hardly believe you’ve considered all the implications. I think you’re wrong about why Mitch hasn’t harmed Max.”
“What do you mean? What do you mean by that?”
“You tell me Mitch is intelligent. And you tell me you think you’re the reason Mitch hasn’t harmed Max.” Her hands clenched and unclenched. “I’ve never told you this, Lillian, but there was a reason Katy asked Jack to come to her birthday party that night, and it wasn’t just to spite you.”
“Helen, there’s no need to go into this now, is there?”
“She was upset about something and she tried to talk to him, but Jack said you and Todd made sure she was never alone with him for more than a minute. So she used one of those minutes to slip him a note. Conn found it in the pocket of Jack’s overcoat. It probably should have ended up with the police, but both Jack and Conn knew what it might do to your reputation.”
Lillian glanced at me and said, “Perhaps we should discuss this—”
“Irene has all of Conn’s old papers now, so I’m sure she’ll come across it, if she hasn’t already. Jack kept the note for years, because it was the last thing Katy had given to him, even if it only hurt him to see it. I finally told him to give it to Conn, that Conn could keep it in the collection of things the two of them gathered while they were trying to investigate all that happened on that night.”
“You don’t know that Conn kept it!” Lillian said. “Please—”
“Oh, he kept it. He mentioned it to me when Eric and Ian were facing charges in ’seventy-eight. If he had it then, he kept it.”
Helen turned to me. “The note said, ‘Is it true Mitch Yeager is my father? You’re the only one who will tell me the truth.’” She stared hard at Lillian as she said this last sentence.
“Katy thought Mitch Yeager was her father?” I asked, stunned.
“Damn it, Helen! What have you done to me!”
“All about you, isn’t it, Lily? Well, I’m tired of it.”
“But… Helen,” I asked, “are you saying that Mitch Yeager thinks Max is his grandson?”
“Yes. At least, there’s a real possibility that he does.”
“Is it true?” I asked Lillian. “Was Mitch Yeager Katy’s father?”
“No. I’ve told him that again and again.”
“But he has reason to believe he could be?”
“I don’t think I should answer that.”
“Cut the crap. You tell her or I will,” Helen said.
“You horrid old bitch!” Lillian said.
I thought back to O’Connor’s diaries. “Katy was twenty-one in January of 1958, so she was born in January of 1937, and would have been conceived in April or early May of 1936. Possibly a little later, but prematurely born infants weren’t as likely to survive then, so it’s more likely she was conceived in April or May. Mitch Yeager was on trial around then, but out on bail for most of April.”
“Go on,” Helen said, which drew another plea from Lillian. Helen shrugged and said, “Tell her yourself, then.”
“I… I was a stupid young girl,” Lillian said bitterly. “Mitch and I had been having an off-and-on affair for some time. I had been rather sheltered, and I rebelled. I found there was something exciting about him.”
“You dated Jack Corrigan in April of that year, too,” I said. “I’ve seen that in O’Connor’s diaries.”
“Diaries! He was a child!”
Helen smiled. “Jack told him to keep them, Lillian. Conn also wrote little stories about everything he had seen and heard.”
“Everything?” Lillian said weakly.
“Jack showed a few of them to me when he first started giving him ‘assignments’ — they were uncanny. Jack used to say that Conn was born holding a pen, and I believe it’s true.”
Lillian frowned, then admitted, “Yes, I dated Jack. Mostly to make Mitch and Harold jealous, I suppose.”
I remembered O’Connor’s observations and wondered if that was true. But I didn’t say that — couldn’t say that in front of Helen. I was already wondering if I should have kept my big mouth shut about Jack’s previous affairs.
I glanced at her and found that far from looking injured over Lillian’s talk of dating Jack, she looked knowing — almost smug. Maybe she didn’t care about Jack’s past, since she was the only one he married. Of course, Jack and Helen had been friends long before they married, so she must have known that “Handsome Jack” hadn’t lived a celibate life.
Lillian said, “You may not be aware of it, but Winston Wrigley — the first one, I mean — was my godfather. He was furious when he found out that I was dating Jack. One of his own reporters! Then later, Mitch told him that if the paper printed so much as one more negative story about him, he’d tell the world a few stories about me.”
“What kind of stories?”
“The kind that might have caused problems for my marriage.”
I waited.
“You have to understand that Harold was my parents’ choice,” Lillian said, “and though I liked him, he didn’t seem as romantic as the other fellows did to me. Then he did something very romantic — he asked me to elope with him, and I did, in late April.”
Helen stood and walked toward the big windows, looking out on the gardens below them.
“Was Mitch upset?” I asked.
“Upset! I should say so. Mitch had this insane notion — he was sure I had married Harold as quickly as I did because I was pregnant with his — Mitch’s, I mean — child. According to this cockamamie theory of his, since Mitch was in jail and would likely go to prison, there was nothing else I could do, and so in desperation I made a fool out of Harold.”
“You mean h
e believed Harold was raising his daughter?”
“Exactly.”
“But then, why would he harm Katy?”
“I’ve never been as sure as others are that Mitch himself was behind all of that,” Lillian said primly.
Helen made a noise of derision. “Lillian, tell the truth.”
“All right, I will. Katy hated him and made no secret of it. She never failed to be rude to him, and he resented it — she publicly insulted him, and Mitch won’t tolerate that from anyone. Jack and Helen had something to do with her attitude toward him, I’m sure.”
“If that’s so,” Helen said, “I’m glad of it.”
“Are you?” Lillian said. “What if it cost Katy her life?”
Helen didn’t answer right away. After a moment, she said, “I was always proud of Katy. If Mitch Yeager had anything to do with her murder, and I can prove it, I don’t care what she did to him. Don’t make it sound as if she deserved what happened to her. I didn’t cause her to be murdered, either, Lillian. And you know it.”
“Yes, of course,” Lillian said. “I didn’t mean that. I — oh, Helen, you know I loved her and was proud of her! It was just that you made me so damned angry! Forgive me?”
Helen didn’t answer.
“Helen,” I said, “it seems to me that what’s done is done — the tests are going to be in progress soon. Lillian is right about one thing — Max seems determined to find out whether or not he’s Katy’s missing child. You won’t be able to stop him from doing that.”
She sighed and turned toward me. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Let’s go, Irene. I’m suddenly very tired.”
She fussed a little when I offered to help her climb into the Jeep, complained about how much she hated seat belts when I refused to close the passenger door until she had hers on. Warned me not to slam the door when she gave in and exaggerated a startled jump when I shut it.
I stood outside the passenger side of the Jeep for a moment, a sensation of being watched suddenly coming over me, causing goose bumps to prickle along my skin. I spun around, as if I might catch some watcher unawares, but saw nothing. I looked around me. The street was quiet. No faces stared back from windows in the few houses I could see from here. There were trees and shrubs planted for privacy all along the borders of Lillian’s property. I scanned them, looking for a glimpse of a face, a sign of movement.