A Lethal Legacy

by P. C. Zick

  "That's when you called Claire," I said.

  "Right, but I knew it was mistake. Claire was loyal to you, and I could tell right away that I shouldn't have mentioned the fact that you weren't a real relative.

  "Right after Kristina left for Ocala this last time, they discovered that someone had broken into the med cabinet at my job. I was convinced that Kristina had come here to kill Claire."

  "Have you told the police all of this?"

  "Yes, but I'm not sure they believe me. I think they might still think I'm a suspect. I'm sure that Kristina didn't try and change that perception when they spoke to her."

  "Right now it seems they're focusing in on me. Did you know that Claire changed her will after Kristina's last visit? I inherit everything."

  "Why did Claire change her will?" Oscar asked.

  "I don't know, but I think I know the person who does,” I said as I prepared to leave. “It was nice to meet you Oscar. I'm sure we'll see one another again soon. Pam, I need to see Kristina, and then I think I'll understand things a little better."

  I pointed the car toward Kristina's motel. I had no intention of staying away like Tim suggested. I drove there deliberately and with no thought in my mind but to get some answers to questions that had been plaguing me during the last few hours.

  Kristina had killed Claire. At least that is what I started to believe as I drove the car toward the motel. The world began to lose its vagueness, and as I drove, my vision began to focus.

  Now I knew she could either pull me down with her, or I alone would stand accused if I didn't get some answers pretty quickly.

  Kristina, my lover for the past seven years, threatened to take everything from me, and I willingly allowed her to do what she had always done best.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" she said when she saw me standing outside her motel room door.

  "I wanted to finish our discussion, Kristina."

  "Get out of here, you bastard," she said so quietly that I almost didn't hear her.

  "You know, Kristina, it would have been all yours if you had just waited. What was so important about that money that you couldn't wait?"

  "You couldn't ever begin to understand. It wasn't the money," she said in a different, sadder tone.

  "What was it then?"

  "It would have meant that I was somebody. I could have bought you, too."

  I shook my head. "I would have eventually come to my senses."

  "Maybe, but I would have won."

  "Won what? I don't get it."

  "No, you wouldn't, would you, Eddie? You know we could still leave together. It's not too late. I know the police are torn between their suspicions of the two of us plus Pam. Did the mother or the daughter give her the drugs? Did he? Did they do it together? It was simple to plant those seeds once I found out that the will was changed. Claire had me fooled on my last visit, that's for sure." She sat down on the bed and shook her head with a bemused smile crossing her face.

  "Kristina, what happened when you visited last time? What happened that made her change the will?" I needed to hear about the last piece of the puzzle.

  She snorted in derision as she looked up at me with haunted and sunken eyes, the eyes of an old woman. I could no longer see her beauty nor could I see any resemblance to Gary as I had before. She had become as ugly and worn as her dreams and desires.

  "I decided it was time to come clean. I thought maybe she'd feel a little more sympathy for me. I really thought it had worked. Claire was a good actress," she said with a touch of admiration.

  "Come clean about what?" I asked, not sure that I wanted the answer now that I had come so close.

  "Come clean about the whole thing. I even cried a whole lot, and she held me. I told her about Oscar and Pam and their little jobs for me as I grew up. Then she cried. It was a real Waltons' moment, Ed. You should have been there. But then of course you would have been feeling me up and getting a hard on, so the moment would have been lost."

  "You disgust me," I said as I turned to go.

  "No, I don't, Ed. The only reason you say things like that to me is because you know how disgusting you are. You were ready to screw my brains out just a few hours ago even though you had come here to accuse me of murdering Claire. Now that's disgusting."

  "So you told Claire that you were a prostitute? That must have killed her. Why did you lie?"

  "What do you mean lie? I told the truth, and she was shocked. Let's face it; the country club life hadn't prepared her to hear anything like that about her granddaughter. But that's not the part that really killed her, the part about having a prostitute as her granddaughter." She looked at me for a long time, and I held my breath.

  "You better tell me the rest of it, Kristina."

  "You don't know, do you? You never suspected?"

  "Suspected?"

  "Who my real father is? I'll be damned. Pam was sure you knew and were just too much of a gentleman to bring it up. I guess she miscalculated. You were too stupid to figure it out."

  "Gary is your father."

  "No, I don't think so. Gary never managed to finish the job with old Pam. Can't say I blame him. But now Philip, that's a different story. Twice he managed to knock her up; luckily for everyone, especially the baby, Pam had a miscarriage the second time around."

  "You're lying." I stood over her threateningly. The only other time I had been tempted to hit another human being had been when Philip called Gary a queer when I told him his son was dying of AIDs. As I stood there accusing Kristina of lying, I knew that it was all true. For once, she told the truth.

  "No, I'm not lying, and you know it. But it doesn't really matter now. Claire pretended that she didn't care when I told her. Said stuff about me always being her granddaughter no matter what. I left thinking all was well. I drew up papers, which said that Philip was my father, and Claire even told me that she would sign them. That way I could inherit Susan's estate."

  "But why did you start giving her the pills?"

  "That was Pam's idea. She got her med list and then got someone to send her pills, which had more pheno in them than what Claire was already taking. We really didn't see the harm. After all, Claire had lived a long life, and it was only a matter of time before she died anyway. We just tried to speed things along a little."

  "That's murder."

  "Well, that's what you believe, Ed. I don't happen to see it that way."

  "Pam didn't really have anything to do with it, did she, Kris? You stole the pills, and you came here twice to kill Claire."

  "Pam, who had been pushing me for years to do something about the money, started acting weird when I talked about the meds. But her place at the nursing home, provided me with easy access. People are pretty easy to seduce, you know." She looked at me with that grin that I thought always resembled Pam, but now I realized that it was Kristina's all alone.

  "You've seduced all of us, haven't you, Kristina? For the first time, I'm thankful Gary is dead. If he saw this, it would kill him."

  "It would have been so simple if you had just gone along with it, Eddie," Kristina said.

  She attempted to come closer, raising her hand toward my face. I stepped back toward the door and took one last look at what had become of this child who had been loved by everyone except her mother. I walked out the door and away from Kristina forever. The fog had finally lifted, and I walked away a free man, even though I still had to deal with the police and my wife.

  He fought against the rising tide and swam as if his life depended on it. If he couldn't out swim the current, he would go under and never recover. Soon he rested on the beach breathing in the fresh air and watching the sun rise over the horizon.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When I got back to the house, Cassie's car was still gone. I parked in the driveway and walked. But I wanted to talk to someone. I wanted to walk and talk with Gary. In my entire life, I had never told anyone my innermost feelings, and now I found myself longing to confess to the one pe
rson I had listened to the most. Gary would understand and guide me.

  Gary and I protected one another for so long. We stood up against our fathers together. Without his presence in my life, I doubt I could have taken care of the family for so long. I had managed somehow, and I even enjoyed the position that had come to me as the head of the family. But it didn't negate the ache and longing for spending time with Gary.

  The affair with Kristina didn't begin until the night I found out that Gary had AIDs. We needed one another at that awful movement. She came to me wounded, and I was in dire need of tenderness. I couldn't turn her away from my bed anymore than I could stop breathing. I needed her as much as she needed me. That night it was pure and simple and helped us both survive and face the pain of losing Gary. Funny, but I had never analyzed it much before. I just always felt guilty, but there was something there between us.

  I love Cassie, but I never felt the same way about her that I did about Kristina. Cassie doesn't need me. She could survive without me. She would probably even thrive without me in her life. But Kristina always needed me, I thought. I brought her protection and safety. If I had chosen to go to Mexico with her, she would have needed me. But then how could I ever be sure that she wouldn't be out picking up some other jerk who she convinced she needed, too. I had been deceiving myself about Kristina for too many years. Maybe if I had loved her enough and in the right way, she could have changed.

  Even as I had these thoughts, I knew I was once again retreating behind my mask. Even when I attempted to understand my feelings, I still lapsed into a great void of unreality. I couldn't shake the feeling that if Kristina knew she was loved, she could be a good person. She had so little acceptance in her life and that caused her to do many of the same things Gary had done. They both ran from the truth and looked for acceptance in the wrong places. How was I any different? The three of us, the children of Stanley and Philip, were not so very different after all.

  Suddenly I realized there was one person who would listen to me and make an attempt to understand. I turned around and headed home. As I came to our corner, Cassie pulled in the driveway.

  "Where are the kids?" I asked when I noticed she didn't open the back door of the car to begin the ritual of unfastening seat belts and car seats.

  "At my sister's. Detective Larson called and asked to come over so he could question me. I thought it would be better if the kids were gone. I'll be less distracted that way. You look exhausted. The detective said you were there most of the night filling in the pieces for them."

  "Cassie, we need to talk before they get here."

  "I know," she said.

  We walked into the house silently, and I wondered how I could ever explain to this kind woman what happened. Confessing my sins to my wife would be the most difficult thing I had ever done in my life.

  We sat at the kitchen table, and I began with Kristina's birth. When I finished Cassie looked very carefully at me.

  "Did you ever use protection?" she asked.

  "What?" I expected her to say many things but not this.

  "Did you ever use protection when you were with Kris?"

  "Most of the time."

  "Most of the time? But not all of the time?"

  "No, not every time, at least not the first time."

  "Then you and I both need to get tested. I can't believe you would be so stupid in your passion that you wouldn't use a condom, especially after what happened to Gary."

  Her indictment of me came as the biggest blow of all. It was no more than I had been doing to myself all these years. Somehow, it relieved part of my guilt and disgust to have a public judgment made about something so tangible and obvious.

  "Do you want a divorce?" I asked.

  "I honestly don't know, Ed. It's all too much, although I suppose I should have suspected before this. You always looked like a sick puppy whenever Kris came to visit. I could tell she had some type of power over you, but I chose not to dwell on it. When I saw the two of you together today, it was as if I’d been expecting it. I didn't feel the shock you'd expect.

  "You're a good father, Ed. I also know that you've suffered all these years. I just never knew the exact cause of the suffering."

  "Do you think you could ever forgive me?"

  "I guess time will tell. I know that the only time you cheated was with Kris, and I also know that it will never happen again with anyone else." She smiled at me as she reached for my hand across the table.

  "You're pretty smart, you know." I squeezed her hand and smiled for the first time in a week.

  "But for now, why don't you just move some of your things into Claire’s or Susan's apartment? Then we'll see. First we've got to deal with the police; we'll work on us afterwards."

  I nodded my head, grateful she wasn't throwing me out like I deserved. I headed back to our bedroom to pack a few things when I heard the detective at the door.

  They arrested Kristina the next morning. Detective Larson was kind enough to call me that afternoon to tell me what happened.

  "What about bail for Kris?"

  "The judge will hold a hearing today. Do you think she can make bail?"

  "Probably not. The only person who ever bailed her out of her situations before is now dead," I said.

  "That's the shame of this whole thing, isn't it? She probably did away with the only person who could now save her."

  "Detective, when did I stop being a suspect?"

  "You never really were. Winston likes to play tough, and he thought you might know more than you were telling. We knew it was Kristina all along. We contacted the nursing home where Pam worked and found out the type of medication found in Claire's bloodstream had come up missing from the med room a week before Claire's death. Kristina made the rest easy."

  "So you didn't believe her when she started accusing me or her mother?"

  "No, it was too obvious. Believe me, we've dealt with her type before. Pam was pretty forthright, and her story checked out. It really was simple to put it all together, especially when we saw Kristina's reaction to finding out about the will."

  After I hung up, I sat for a long time looking at the phone thinking about the irony of his comments. I couldn't help Kristina ever again. She had to face her punishment no matter what form it took.

  As for me, my punishment wouldn't be quite so obvious. I would get tested for AIDs within the week. Whether I tested positive or not, my scars were deep and permanent. There would be no surgery or salve that could ever erase my guilt for past actions. I carried with me the strong notion that I could have prevented Claire's death if only I had stopped Kristina earlier.

  I knew I had to clear Kristina out of my mind and my life. Then I'd get to work on this novel inside of me. It was time to create and cleanse myself. I needed to make some sense of the horror of the past.

  For a few seconds when Kristina asked me to go away with her, I was sorely tempted because the enormity of Claire's death hadn't hit me yet. The murder of Claire was not real, and as I've always done in my life, I was able to sweep it away and not deal with it. That's why I was able to go into Kristina's arms so easily.

  When Cassie entered the motel room, I finally woke up. It was as if I’d been wrapped in that New Orleans fog for the past ten years, if not for my entire life, and suddenly it cleared, and I saw myself, Kristina, and Gary all clearly for the first time. I saw what we had done to each other through our fear and selfishness and the belief that we were not worth anything ourselves.

  We all shared that quality, and so we did things that hurt others. Even Claire allowed Philip to torment and abuse Gary because she was afraid of him and even more afraid of being alone. Gary never allowed his real feelings to show because he was afraid of the consequences, and Kristina never wanted anyone not to love her first so she made herself as unlovable as possible sometimes.

  And me, good old Ed Townsend, everyone's friend; a friend to everyone except myself. I allowed things to happen to me in my life. I went into my
first two marriages with little thought. They wanted to get married, and so I married them.

  For now, I'll move into Aunt Susan's apartment. It may not be the best situation, but Cassie wants me to stay close to the kids, and so do I. And when I'm writing, I shut myself in and become a recluse anyway so staying in the house is perfect for right now.

  I wonder if I'm meant to be married. I like the idea of our family unit, but I'm not sure that's a reason for Cassie and me to stay married. Cassie has to be able to trust me again. I have to be able to trust myself, too. I let myself down more than anyone else. My pain and guilt cut deep but for so many years, I kept it at bay by not thinking about it. A great Townsend family trait. We don't talk about those difficult things, like homosexuality or Alzheimer's.

  I never even confronted Philip about finding him and Pam in the garage. In fact, I tried to wipe the whole thing from my memory. I should have been outraged for Gary’s and Claire's sakes when I found them. Instead, I pushed it aside. I wonder if I did that because I suspected all along that Philip had fathered Kristina?

  When Gary died, instead of dealing with my pain, I fell into Kristina's arms. Then I could concentrate on that guilt and not feel the loss of my best friend.

  I believe that within all of us we have the potential for good and for destruction. Sometimes we do both and sometimes one wins out over the other. I allowed my darkest nightmares to emerge when Kristina pulled me into her darkness. She never had a chance to develop the goodness that I would sometimes see glimmer across her face. She never was allowed to develop that side of her. I had plenty of opportunities to work on my good side. Only Kristina saw my other side.

  But my darkness, evilness, whatever it is called, hurt only me at first. When I allowed it to continue, it hurt Cassie, too.