Then Hang All the Liars

by Sarah Shankman

  “Pardon my asking, but did your mother have a considerable estate?”

  Patsy sniffed. “My father left her very comfortable. He was a wonderful businessman and was smart about insurance. He was smart about everything. He left me some, too, of course, I’m an only child, but the bulk was Mother’s. Then mine.”

  And there was a whole other story that Sam didn’t want to hear. But something else did occur to her.

  “I’m looking at a pattern here, Miss Finch—was your mother pretty?”

  “My mother? She was beautiful. Till the day she died she never had a gray hair. People thought we were sisters.” There was a long pause. “She would have been the pretty sister.”

  Yes, ma’am. You keep talking like that, Patsy, people are going to think you bumped her off.

  Except she hadn’t gotten all the money, had she? Wasn’t that right?

  “Miss Finch, do you mind my asking what your mother died of?”

  “Old age, the doctor said. But I’ll tell you something. I got cheated out of more than half my inheritance by that man, and I don’t think the cause was natural at all.”

  And there that was.

  *

  She’d barely hung up when Nicole Burkett was on the line, returning her call.

  “Ms. Adams, I understand you have something of importance to discuss with me.”

  The lady’s voice was silk, fine wine, old silver.

  “Yes, I’m—”

  “I know who you are. Does this concern me, or a member of my family?”

  “Your family.”

  Madame waited. There was a polite impatience in the waiting. Not a woman to play games with, Sam guessed, unless she wanted to play for keeps.

  “Your daughter. Miranda.”

  “Yes. I see. Can you come to me?”

  “I can. When?” It was irresistible, aping the woman’s crisp style.

  “When is your earliest convenience?”

  “Sometime later today? After four?”

  “Come at six. We’ll be alone. We’ll have a drink.” There was just the tiniest of pauses. “I’ll have Perrier for you. That is your preference?”

  Nothing like a woman who had the power to do some serious homework, or have someone else do it. And wasn’t shy about letting you know it.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “And you know where I am?”

  “I do.”

  “Till six then.”

  Great. By that time, she should have figured out a graceful way to break it to this lady that her daughter was taking her clothes off in public and possibly renting some moments with her sweet young body. Then she’d sit back and see what Mrs. Burkett wanted to do about it. That’s what she’d figured out in her sleep, what had been on her mind when she woke up this morning. She wasn’t going to do the story. She wasn’t going to pursue it any further if she could find some other solution. And Jane had implied that Mrs. Paul Coles Burkett with the nonexistent past was Ms. Fix-it-all, Ms. Superwoman. Hadn’t she? Well, she’d find out soon enough come six o’clock.

  In the meantime, back to Mr. Percy. She punched in the code for Percy’s file on her computer and scrolled through it. Review time.

  That was her system. She took almost indecipherable notes like any other reporter in four-inch-wide notebooks, then input the information to her computer as soon as possible. There, with a program she’d designed, she could access, cross-index, and manipulate data in countless variations, making it stand on its head until it produced what she wanted—though, of course, she got only as good as she gave.

  And she hadn’t given it much on Percy.

  What was his system? Where did he find these women? How did he meet them?

  She punched in a code. Mrs. Percy’s next-door neighbor in the orange sundress said he met them at Old Miss America pageants. Cute, but no cigar.

  There now. Emily, a much more reliable source, said he’d met Felicity at Margaret Landry’s. She’d forgotten that. The Ms. Landrys, Junior and Senior, seemed to be everywhere she turned. Perhaps Margaret could vouch for Percy and set Emily’s mind at ease.

  Fat chance.

  Her instinct was that Randolph Percy was exactly what everyone so far, except his mother, said he was. A ladykiller. One who was playing silly games with candy bars and dolls—and not-so-funny games with Emily’s dogs. Was he trying to scare Felicity to death? Or drive her further into madness? Why? What was the point?

  Well, it was time she met Mr. Percy face to face. Maybe then she’d know the answers to some of her questions.

  But first, she’d see what Margaret Landry had to say. The lady was listed, but there was no answer. No answering machine either.

  Next she tried the theater downstairs. Someone at the party had mentioned that Margaret lived upstairs above the store. That’s probably where she was.

  “Box office,” chirped a bright young voice.

  “I’m trying to reach Margaret Landry.”

  “I’m afraid Ms. Landry is indisposed.”

  The child had probably learned the phrase from drawing-room comedies.

  Sam identified herself. “Can you tell me where and when I might reach her?”

  Four beats passed while the young woman struggled for her next line and obviously ran out of dialogue.

  “She’s out sick.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah. Well, we are, too. She’s been out of the show two days.”

  “Really?” And here she thought the show must go on. “I just called her apartment and there’s no answer.”

  “All I know is we haven’t seen her in two days, and Laura’s filling in for her.”

  The lovely Laura understudying for Lady Macbeth—her mother’s role? Interesting. The sort of thing a shrink would love.

  “Could Laura help you? You want her to call you?”

  She certainly wouldn’t mind talking with Laura again, about Percy and Miranda.

  “Thanks, yes, please tell her I called.”

  *

  The Burkett house was one Sam remembered from her childhood. She’d grown up in this neighborhood, had ridden her bike through its winding streets, past mansions with gazebos and parklike yards. But even for Tuxedo Park, old Clyde Castle was something special—with crenelated towers, turrets, and a moat.

  She pulled up to the little guardhouse where an electronic scanner registered the presence of her car.

  “Yes, please?”

  The disembodied voice was male and decidedly British.

  “Samantha Adams to see Mrs. Burkett.”

  “Could you turn your face more to the left, please?”

  She did, then heard a whirring. There was a brief pause.

  “Please drive through, Ms. Adams.”

  The heavy ornamental wrought-iron gates, very pretty and very effective, swung open slowly to allow her to pass, then began to close immediately.

  The cobblestone drive led her past formal gardens with low hedges planted in a series of fleurs-de-lis. The house was brick and stone with carved marble ornaments. An equestrian statue sat above the double nail-studded front doors, which opened as she switched off her ignition. A butler in a black coat and striped trousers popped out of the doors.

  “Good evening, Ms. Adams. Madame is in her study. If you’ll follow me?”

  Yes indeedy. Right on her tippy toes. The whole setup was like an old movie. Any minute now an ax murderer was going to jump out of a suit of armor.

  She ran her lines—how she was going to play the scene with Nicole Burkett, though from their phone conversation she didn’t sound like she was going to keel over.

  She couldn’t wait to hear what the lady did have to say, and what suggestions she might offer. God, she’d be glad to get shut of this mess. What was she thinking about poking around it in the first place? That’s what came of having a little free time, no major story cooking. She liked the issues clearer. Murder, for example, had none of this moral ambiguity.

  Sa
m followed the butler across several acres of Aubusson carpeting, past a drawing room, a library; then he stopped and motioned her forward. It was quite a grand view from the gallery to the round room below—Madame’s study. She waited for a salute of trumpets—no such luck. Heavy wooden beams curved up to the middle of a pale ivory domed ceiling. Walnut paneling to about shoulder height was carved with a double-folded and pleated linen pattern. Very Francis I. Very elegant. And very dear.

  “Ms. Adams.”

  She turned once, twice, looking for the source of Nicole Burkett’s voice.

  “I’m over here.”

  Indeed she was, materializing from behind a screen emblazoned with likenesses of Pegasus, the flying horse.

  And she was ever more stunning—one of the most beautiful women Sam had ever seen—blond, blue-eyed, somewhere between Catherine Deneuve and Princess Grace, with that same kind of glacial perfection. Then Nicole Burkett pushed a button and her wheelchair scooted forward.

  “I was busy at my desk. Always the paperwork. Do you find it so, too?”

  Sam nodded and swallowed hard. Nothing in the computer data had prepared her for the wheelchair.

  “A riding accident a few years ago.” Nicole was reading her mind. “My beloved Windstar misjudged a hurdle, shattered a leg, and had to be shot.”

  And you didn’t.

  “And I didn’t. Now,” she said and pressed another button on the chair’s console and spoke into the air, “Drinks, please, Edward.”

  Sam clocked him at forty-five seconds. In, out, and she was holding a crystal glass filled with Perrier, thank you very much, and a slice of lime. Nicole sipped blond Lillet with a slice of orange, a fine French vermouth and one of Sam’s favorites in the bad old days. The Limoges platter Edward had placed between them was decorated with red tuna carpaccio, tiny pasties with oyster mushrooms, checkerboard green and orange vegetable pâté. Food as art.

  “How lovely.”

  “My chef is Japanese, trained in Paris.”

  “Ah.”

  “Please. Help yourself. You don’t have to feel guilty about enjoying my food even if you’ve come to break my heart.”

  Was it a good line because it was delivered by that perfect mouth with that charming accent—or was it just a good line?

  “What makes you think I am?”

  “An urgent matter concerning a member of my family is not going to be good news. You could have sent a telegram if Miranda had won an award. Or a lottery.”

  The woman knew she had one foot in the abyss, and still—such charm.

  Nicole was wearing buttery Italian leather pumps of magenta. Resting on the bright chrome step of the wheelchair, they looked brand new. They always would.

  Both feet in the abyss.

  Then, with a heavy gold lighter, Nicole lit a long, thin brown Turkish cigarette and exhaled through her nose.

  “Now, tell me,” she said.

  Sam studied the ceiling. She focused on a little golden angel at the center where all the beams came together.

  This hesitation wasn’t like her. She enjoyed a rep for coming right at you—the antithesis of the indirection she’d been taught as a Southern girl. But now, sitting in this beautiful room in her old neighborhood with a woman who reminded her more than a little of her long-dead mother, she found herself going the long way around.

  “A week or so ago I got a tip from a friend who works plainclothes with the police department,” she began, spinning it out as if she were telling Nicole a story about someone else. The visit to Tight Squeeze. The Japanese tourists. The man offering her money to dance. Seeing Jane Wildwood. Hoke giving Jane a job. Holding back the list with Miranda’s name on it. She was all over the map here, but Nicole Burkett let her go, sipping and smoking as if they were old friends enjoying a leisurely visit.

  Then Nicole asked, “Have you ever met my daughter?”

  “No. But I saw her at a party at the Players.”

  “The Macbeth party.”

  “Yes.”

  “Margaret Landry is stunning in the play, isn’t she?”

  “Fabulous,” Sam agreed.

  Were they going to do movie reviews next?

  “I’ve known Margaret for a long time.”

  There was something else there, right on the tip of Nicole’s tongue, but Sam could see her holding back.

  Then Nicole focused the beam of her sky-blue gaze. “And what was my daughter doing at the party to make you notice her?”

  “She was talking with Laura Landry.”

  “Ah. And what were they talking about?”

  With that, Sam told her. Laid it right out. What Laura had implied about Miranda and the club. About the list Jane had given her.

  Nicole didn’t even blink. “Like mother, like daughter,” she murmured.

  What?

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing. I was talking to myself.” Nicole shook her head. Not a hair in her silvery-blond chignon stirred. Then she seemed to make up her mind about something. “What did your inquiries tell you about me?”

  “Not much. Nothing between your birthdate in Paris and your marriage to Mr. Burkett. Big blank in the middle.”

  “Did you find that curious?”

  “Very curious.”

  “But not enough to pursue it?”

  “You aren’t the subject of my concern here.”

  Nicole nodded. “Of course. And what have you decided to pursue? Or not to pursue? I assume you wouldn’t have come to me if you were going to spread this story all over the front page of the Constitution.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Did Miss Wildwood give you my name?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did she tell you?”

  “She just said that I should call you.”

  “Yes.” Nicole smiled. “That sounds like something Jane would do.”

  “She did suggest that you might help me with a solution.”

  “About what to do if you don’t do the story?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will. I’ll take care of everything. Consider the matter closed.”

  Then she extended her hand. The emerald-cut diamond could knock your eyes out. “Thank you for all you’ve done. And thank you for coming to me. Mr. Burkett and I will be forever grateful to you.”

  Sam stood, knowing that she was being dismissed. And handled, as she’d been throughout the interview, which was fine with her. As long as Nicole Burkett took care of the dirty linen. But she couldn’t quite let go.

  “So you are going to shut them down?”

  “Rest assured.”

  “Good. And the girls?”

  “Ms. Adams, my daughter is one of those girls. Everything will be taken care of. Don’t worry. You’ve done the right thing.”

  “Okay. Of course. So, good-bye now.” Sam turned and then turned again. Nicole hadn’t moved an inch, as if she were anticipating the next question. “I don’t understand why you didn’t know about this. You obviously have resources and know how to use them.”

  “I try not to meddle in my children’s business. Particularly Miranda’s.”

  Sam shrugged. It wasn’t much of an explanation.

  Nicole could see that. “It’s very complicated. The relationship. When this—this business is all finished, maybe we’ll have another drink and I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Fine. Oh, I almost forgot.” Sam reached in her bag. “You’ll want this list of owners of the club. Though Jane said they’re probably fronts, covering for someone else.”

  Nicole shook her head. “I won’t need it.”

  Okay. Right. Sure. She knew there was no point in asking why. She was beginning to get the drift that Nicole Burkett’s sources and solutions were a hell of a lot more efficient than her computer.

  “Good-bye now,” her hostess said. “And thank you.”

  “Thanks for the drink. And—well, you have my number.”

  She was going to die if she didn’
t find out how this all ended.

  Nicole knew that. She nodded. “I’ll call you.”

  Twelve

  “George, pass the biscuits, please,” asked Sam at the breakfast table the next morning.

  “Here you are, my dear. Trade you for an update.”

  “Well, I had a most interesting visit yesterday with Nicole Burkett, P.C.’s wife. What do you know about her?”

  At that, Horace spilled the coffee he was pouring.

  “Wait.” Sam laid a hand on her uncle’s arm. “I’ve obviously asked the wrong person. Horace, did you want to get in here?”

  “Well, I don’t know, but there are those who say it’s peculiar the lady seemed to arrive in this town with no baggage. She’s hardly ever seen in public. Ask her a question about the past and she just smiles that pretty smile—is what I hear.”

  “Arrived full grown as if from the head of Zeus,” George added.

  “And those who would say she has some interesting friends,” Horace continued, “especially for a lady who doesn’t get out much.”

  “Interesting how?”

  “Shady.”

  “Big shady or little shady?”

  “Big shady.” George beat Horace to it.

  “Excuse me,” Sam said. “The two of you are sitting here, telling me over grits and sausage that P.C. Burkett’s wife is hooked up with—shall we say an underground source of protection?”

  The mob had never been a very visible force in Atlanta, though here, as in every big city, its presence was understood.

  “Did you say that?” George asked Horace.

  Horace looked around is if there were someone else in the room. “I don’t think so.”

  “But that’s what you’re implying. Am I right?”

  “I’m just telling you what folks say,” Horace said. “They could be wrong. Folks don’t know everything.”

  Sam snorted. For the most part, what Horace’s folks didn’t know wasn’t worth spit.

  “Well, hell,” Sam said and reached for another biscuit. “More power to her. At least it’s out of my hands.”

  “That Tight Squeeze matter?” George asked.

  “Yep.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Horace.

  “You got time?”

  He nodded and sat down. Sam poured him a cup of coffee, then filled them both in about her meeting with Nicole Burkett.