Betrayal of Trust jpb-20

by J. A. Jance

  “All of this makes me incredibly thankful that I don’t have to be in high school anymore,” I told Mel.

  She nodded. “And it makes me grateful I never had kids,” she said. “Kids today do stuff we never considered doing.”

  “Not all of them,” I said, thinking about Greg Alexander, a kid who, despite a troubled home life, would one way or another make it where he was going.

  A bell rang in the aircraft’s cabin. We were starting our descent into Beaumont. It was time to raise our seats to their full upright position and fasten our seat belts.

  When I had called my cousin in Texas to let her know our plans, I originally told her that we would rent a car. She wouldn’t hear of it.

  “Someone will be there to pick you up,” she had said firmly.

  Three and a half hours after leaving Seattle, when we landed at Southeast Texas Regional Airport, a shiny black Suburban limo was waiting for us next to the Fixed Base Operation. The Suburban drove out onto the tarmac to meet our plane. When the driver stepped out of the car next to the plane, he was wearing a gray suit with a starched white shirt, a bright blue tie, a gray felt Stetson, and a pair of highly polished black cowboy boots.

  The pilot opened the hatch, letting an ungodly combination of the heat and humidity roar into the cabin.

  “Welcome to Texas,” he said.

  I knew in that moment that I never wanted to live in Texas. If this was what Texas was like in June, I wasn’t interested in seeing July or August.

  The driver and our copilot took care of transferring our luggage from plane to vehicle while Mel and I settled into the backseat of the Suburban and reveled in air-conditioned comfort.

  “I hope you know where you’re going,” I said jokingly to the driver when he got behind the wheel. “I have no idea.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m glad your plane was on time. Miss Hannah usually don’t make it past seven o’clock or so. Sad to say, she’s doing poorly. It’s breaking Miss Sally’s heart.”

  I had thought Sally would hire a local shuttle service to come to the airport to do the ferrying honors. Instead, she had sent someone who was clearly a longtime family retainer. When we pulled into the driveway on Shadow Bend Avenue, we saw that the house was huge. My first thought was that we were pulling up to a hotel rather than a private residence. The driver popped the back hatch and then hopped out onto the baking driveway.

  Mel reached over and squeezed my hand. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “It’s a little bigger than I anticipated,” I said.

  The driver opened the car door and helped us out. Once I was upright, I needed to stand still for a moment or two to let my knees straighten out. “Has Mrs. Mathers lived here long?” I asked.

  “Long as I can remember, that’s for sure,” the driver said, handing Mel out of the vehicle as well.

  While he was grappling with the luggage, a woman came flying out the door to greet us. She was blond with big hair and dressed like she was about to hit the roundup trail, complete with jeans and boots. This was someone who, like Julie Hatcher, knew her way around horses.

  “You must be Sally,” I said.

  “Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed, launching herself at me and grabbing hold of my neck. “Bless my soul if you don’t look just like your daddy.”

  Of all the words I never expected to hear in my lifetime, those were at the very top of the list.

  “This is my wife, Melissa Soames,” I said.

  “People call me Mel,” Mel said, extending her hand. Sally Mathers ignored the proffered hand and wrapped Mel in a bear-hug embrace.

  “Welcome, welcome, welcome!” Sally gushed. “I just can’t believe you’re really and truly here. Please, do come in.”

  She ushered us into a grand foyer that made the one in the Washington State governor’s mansion look like a cheap reproduction.

  “Bobby, please take their luggage up to their room,” Sally said. “You’ve had a long trip. If you want to freshen up first, that would be fine, but I really want to take you to meet Mama. She usually has good spells late in the afternoons like this, but they don’t last long. And I haven’t told her you were coming. First I was afraid it might not happen, then I decided I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “You’re sure it won’t be too much for her?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” Sally said. “Mama’s tough as nails.”

  Mel took her purse and ducked into a powder room just off the front entry. She came out with her lipstick refreshed and her hair combed, which, in my opinion, was more than she needed to do. Then Sally led us through the house. The artwork on the walls had names I recognized from my college humanities class. It made me smile to think that my first thought-and Ralph Ames’s thought as well-was that Sally Mathers was running some kind of game in hopes of scamming me out of some money. Not.

  Hallways fed off one another, as though the house had been enlarged over the years simply by adding another section. Finally, at the end of the last one, Sally opened the door on an enormous bedroom. It was unrelentingly pink. There were froths of pink curtains at the windows and a cloud of pink material crowning the four-poster bed. There seemed to be a whole houseful of furniture arranged in the spacious room: a flowered sofa along with several matching easy chairs and several pieces of high-gloss cherry furniture-coffee tables, end tables, and dressers.

  A tiny white-haired woman lay in the middle of the bed, propped up by a mound of pillows and wearing a pair of amazingly thick glasses. She looked downright ancient.

  “No company, Sally,” Hannah Greenwald grumbled disapprovingly. “I told you very clearly that I was too tired for any more company today.”

  “He’s come a long way to see you, Mama,” Sally said respectfully. “This is Mr. Beaumont.”

  “Sure he is!” Hannah exclaimed. “Beaumont-that’s not a fit name for a chicken. And if he’s Mr. Beaumont, then I’m Miss Dallas.”

  Sally shot me a sympathetic glance, but I deserved it. After all, hadn’t I made fun of Ronald Darrington Miller?

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, suppressing a chuckle. “I suppose it is a silly name. Some might even call it pretentious.”

  That’s all I said-those few words, but suddenly there was a sea change in that appallingly pink room.

  “You come closer, young man,” Hannah ordered. “Let me get a look at you.”

  I stepped forward. She reached out a bony hand and pulled me to her, peering up at me, her eyes huge behind those ungodly glasses. She studied me for a long time. Then she dropped my hand.

  “There you have it,” she said. “I guess I’m done.”

  “Mama. .” Sally began.

  “Yes, I’m dead already, and Saint Peter has sent Hank to take me through the Pearly Gates. Believe me, I’m ready.”

  “You’re not dead,” Sally scolded. “This is your brother’s son, Jonas. He and his wife, Melissa, have come here all the way from Washington just to see you.”

  Hannah squinted at her daughter. “Are you sure? Are you just playing a trick on me?”

  “I’m sure, Mama,” Sally said. “It’s no trick.”

  With that, Hannah Mencken Greenwald, the beloved aunt I never knew I had, broke down and sobbed like a baby. And I admit it-so did I.

  Hannah stopped crying abruptly and looked at Sally. “All right then,” she said. “Tomorrow first thing, you get Leroy over here. Tell him I need to change my will.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Sally said. “I’ll call him as soon as his office opens up in the morning.”

  Hannah frowned. “What year is it again?” she asked.

  “It’s 2009, Mama,” Sally said. “June.”

  “All right then,” Hannah said. “You-all had better hope I die this year or next. After that, the damned estate taxes are going to be sky-high, and I don’t want you to give Uncle Sam one more nickel of my money than you have to.”

  I guess there wasn’t much question about Hannah Mencken Greenwald being of sound mind
.

  Chapter 29

  After that initial audience with Hannah, Sally took us to our room. It was upstairs. I had seen Bobby bounding up that carved double stair loaded down with our luggage, and I was dreading having to make that long climb under my own steam. To my immense relief, however, I discovered the house had a tiny elevator tucked invisibly into the wall behind the same stairway.

  Our luggage had been taken to our room and unpacked. I was surprised to see my tux and one of Mel’s silvery, shimmery gowns laid out on the bed.

  “I thought so,” Mel said. “We’re expected to dress for dinner.”

  I spent the rest of the evening being very glad that I had turned the packing over to Mel instead of doing it myself.

  Cocktails were served before dinner. Wine was served with dinner. After I had a word with the server, my glass of delightfully sweetened iced tea never made it below the halfway mark, and the food that was served easily outstripped anything we’d seen in the governor’s mansion.

  When dinner finally ended that night, somewhere on the far side of ten o’clock, I was glad to ride the elevator back upstairs and fall into bed.

  We stayed for three days. When Hannah was up to it, I spent several hours of each day sitting in one of the flowery chairs in her room, chatting with Miss Dallas, as I teasingly called her. She wanted to know about my life, my kids, my work, my everything. In exchange, she told me stories about my father, her beloved Hank-her fun-loving, mischievous, sorely missed older brother. Hannah and I were like two parched travelers wandering in the desert. The stories we told back and forth slaked our thirst. And knowing my history-my family’s history-made me feel whole.

  While I talked to Hannah, Mel plied Sally for information. Each night, after dinner ended, we’d retreat to our room and compare notes. Painful as it is for me to admit it, that’s pretty much all we did in that room-dress and talk and sleep.

  Tuesday morning we packed our bags. Actually, Mel packed and I supervised. While we were in the breakfast room, Bobby brought the luggage downstairs. By ten o’clock we were ready to head for the airport.

  Before we left, I made my way once more through the labyrinth of hallways to Hannah’s gaily pink room. She was sitting up in bed, wearing a frothy pink robe that matched the decor. She was wearing powder and lipstick and a carefully combed wig.

  “You’ve come to say good-bye,” she said accusingly.

  “Yes, Miss Dallas. I’m afraid I have.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes as she pulled me into a perfume-drenched hug. “I’m going to miss you,” she declared. “But then I’ve missed you all your life. This way, though, I’m gonna die happy.”

  There was still a lump in my throat when I got back to the foyer.

  Bobby took us to the airport and loaded our bags into the plane’s luggage hold. It was hot as blue blazes. Even though they had a fan on in the plane while it waited on the ground, it was a huge relief when the engines came on and with them the real air-conditioning.

  The plane took off, gaining altitude far faster than a lumbering commercial plane.

  “Well,” Mel said when we finally leveled off. “What do you think?”

  “It was unbelievable,” I said. “I can’t think of anything that would make my life more complete.”

  “I can,” she said.

  “What?”

  She picked up her purse-her amazing purse-and reached inside it. She fumbled around, found a business card, and handed it to me.

  “Dr. Merritt Auld, Orthopedic Surgeon.” Along with those words was a whole series of Seattle-area phone numbers.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Just what it says. Dr. Bliss tells me that when it comes to knee surgery, this guy is the best in the business. He already sent over your latest X rays. You have an appointment to see Dr. Auld tomorrow morning at ten o’clock for an initial consultation.”

  “Come on,” I objected. “My knees aren’t that bad.”

  “Yes, they are,” she said.

  “I don’t need to have them fixed. I’m fine.”

  “Maybe you’re fine, but I’m not. I need to have your knees in working order,” Mel added forcefully. “If you won’t have them fixed for you, then how about having them fixed for me?”

  How could I argue with that?

  “Right you are,” I said. “Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock.”

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