Meg and Kirk exchanged questioning looks. He shrugged, leaving it up to her. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, putting her glass down on the side table and rummaging through her purse. She took out a small round mirror with Snoopy on the back and peered into it as she pulled the lipstick case apart.
“You could tell a little white lie and say I hadn’t gotten back,” I said.
Kirk said, “Tell her the truth: Claire is ill, you’re tired, and we all—”
“Meg!” I shrieked, jumping to my feet, brandy sloshing onto my jeans. “Where did you get that lipstick?”
She glared at me. “You scared me to death!” She rubbed off the slash of dark red lipstick she’d smeared beyond the corner of her mouth, then held up the faux carved-ivory case. “What do you mean, where did I get it, you know it’s from that new cosmetics line—”
“You didn’t lose it?” I demanded.
“Yeah, I did at that rehearsal last week, so I bought another. I just love this color.”
I got up. “I’m going to turn the heat back on under the stew and call Alisz,” I said. I went down the hall, poked at the stew and turned on the burner. Then I punched out Alisz’s number.
Jared answered, voice drowsy. “I fell asleep studying,” he said when I apologized for waking him.
“I wanted to talk to your mother about her invitation to dinner,” I said, “is she around?”
“Just a sec.” He set the phone down with a crack. I heard him calling for her. When he came back he said, “I guess she’s made a last-minute trip to the store.”
“How long’s she been gone?” I asked, thinking of the caller.
“Can’t have been long,” he said, yawning.
There went that theory. “I hope she’s not going to any trouble. Mother was taken ill this afternoon, and we need to stay home by the phone.”
He said, “You’re probably following the wisest course, Mom’s cooking has taken a turn for the worse lately.”
“You try cooking meals for twenty years straight and see how inspired you feel,” I said.
“Dull I’m used to, but last week she made some chicken dish that smelled so bad I became an instant vegetarian.”
“Then I guess you won’t want to come over for beef stew.”
“I’ll pass, and I’m sure Mom wouldn’t want to intrude when you’re worried about Ms. Macrae.”
I phoned the hospital and asked for an update on Mother. They said she was resting comfortably. I decided to believe them and let sleeping mothers lie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Gene padded in, his feet bare.
I tore open a box of brownie mix.
“You plan on using Jennifer’s recipe for those?”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand marijuana’s attraction.”
“You’re probably too uptight to let it work its magic.”
I turned to stare at him. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
“Distant memories,” he said.
“You do surprise me sometimes.”
He grinned, pulled a chair out from the table and sat. He sighed. “You said Fran left those photos in your desk? When?”
“Yesterday morning.” As I added the water, oil and eggs to the mix, I told him about finding her in my study. I started to tell him about my conversation with Max.
“Jeez, Liz, you’re just now telling me this?” He pulled out his cell phone, looked at it, and muttered, “Damn cheap thing.” His chair scraped as he jumped up. He used our phone to call the station and told them to pick Max up. He sat back down and said, “Now finish, and don’t leave anything out.”
I told him about Max and what Sibyl, Charlie, and Jennifer had said. I slumped against the counter. “Why would Fran do it?” I bit my lip. “How could she?”
He shrugged. “She liked risks and she liked money.”
“But what was she doing with the money?”
“I don’t know.” He settled back in the chair and crossed his arms. He looked so tired.
“I’ll get the photos for you as soon as I can. Tuesday at the latest,” I said.
He scratched his ear. “Fran involved in blackmail, huh? I knew something wasn’t right, but, jeez.”
“Would you have paid for the pictures?”
He laughed. “Nope, even supposing I could come up with some cash. Blackmailers are the lowest form of scum—”
“What about Sibyl? Would she pay?” I beat the dough.
“How would I know?” he snapped.
“I assume you know her better than I do.”
In the tense silence that followed, I scraped the brownie dough into a pan and shoved it in the oven.
I began to straighten the junk Meg had left on the table.
Gene reached out and covered my hand with his.
My hand grasped his for a moment. I pulled away. “Fran couldn’t have killed Andre. Maybe she got the pictures by accident, and she was hiding them until she decided—”
“Don’t lie to yourself—just let it go until I dig up some facts.” He went to the sink and got us both glasses of water. “And do I need to tell you not to dig any more? Besides giving people grounds to sue you for harassment, you could be baiting a killer.”
“It’s hard to sit still when someone’s killed Fran and threatened my family.”
“Leave it up to the professionals.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, flipping him a mock salute.
“Jeez, that was pitiful,” he said. “Look, you have to keep your wrist straight, like this.” He snapped off a salute, the sleeve of Kirk’s sweater climbing to his elbow.
The phone rang. “You get it,” I said.
He answered, listened, then swore. “Put out an APB,” he said and hung up.
Turning to me, he said, “Max skipped.”
“Do you think Max killed Andre and Fran?”
“Seems to me he had more to gain with them alive, but then I haven’t had a chance to talk to him.”
“Gene, how do you think Fran was killed?”
“We won’t know till the autopsy.”
“I bet it was penicillin. But she’d never have taken it willingly. She’d have fought.”
“There was no sign of a struggle. Maybe it was disguised.”
“But it has such a distinctive smell. How could you disguise that?”
“I don’t know, and it’s a waste of time to speculate since we won’t know if she was poisoned until—”
“I know. I just can’t turn off the questions. Of course, she was tipsy last night, maybe too drunk to notice? And anyone could have penicillin on hand from a prescription they never finished. How’ll you ever find the right person?”
He sniffed. “One thing we know, anyone could have had access to the building. That office manager of hers handed out keys and alarm codes as if they were lollipops. No security at all.” With a disapproving shake of his head, he left.
The refrigerator motor kicked on, making a pleasant background noise. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.
“Aunt Liz? You asleep?” Meg hovered by the table holding the brandy bottle in one hand and the glasses by their rims in the other.
“Just about, I guess.”
“How’s the stew coming? Kirk’s starving.”
“Isn’t he always?”
She poked a fork into the pot. “The carrots are almost tender.” She leaned against the counter. “Aunt Liz, why were you so weird about my lipstick?”
“Let’s wait until we’re alone.”
She crossed to the kitchen door and closed it. “Kirk’s reading, and Gene’s asleep on the window seat.” She sat down across from me. “So what’s wrong?”
I took a deep breath. “I’ve been wanting to ask you the same thing.” I reached for the brandy bottle and poured, letting just a trickle of the amber liquid escape the round, smooth neck of the bottle. I looked up.
She had pulled the rubber band off her pony tail so her lustrous auburn
hair curled on her shoulders. Her slight frown emphasized how young and unlined her skin was, but her hands, gracefully entwined in stillness, reminded me she wasn’t a little girl any more.
I said, “It’s been a dreadful couple of days, hasn’t it?”
“I feel empty.”
I nodded. “Sort of afraid to look around because of what’s missing.”
A sad smile flickered on her lips. “You’re so good with words, Aunt Liz.”
“I wish I were better at other things. Meg, I’ve been so worried about you.”
She shook her head, “I don’t want to talk about that, not now.”
“When? Meg—” I couldn’t say it, I couldn’t tell her I’d suspected her of murder, that only yesterday I’d seriously considered institutionalizing her.
The scratching at the hall door was a relief. Meg got up and let the poodle in. She picked him up and hugged him, then sat down with him on her lap. “Poor orphan,” she said. “Little Orphan Bunny, that’s what we should call him.”
“No way!”
She giggled. “It would be severely retrograde.” She nuzzled Bunny’s topknot, then peered up at me, “Gene wasn’t fooled by your lame cover-up about the lipstick.”
I took a sip of the brandy I’d poured. “Andre had one just like it in his hand when I found him.”
“Weird. What would he be doing with a lipstick? Was it the same color as mine?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t take the cover off. I assumed it was yours.”
“Why did you think he had my lip—” Bunny yipped as her hand jerked. “You’re going nuts! How could you suspect me?”
“I was afraid that you’d gone nuts.”
“Give me a break!” she said, her voice harsh.
“Well, look at that trouble you got into at college and then the way you’ve been acting since. You fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.”
Her expression was half resentful, half gratified. “Sounds more like PMS than homicidal mania to me,” she said, her disdainful sniff very like Mother’s.
I rubbed my temples, my fingers unsteady. “When I found the lipstick I didn’t sit down and analyze what it meant, I just took it so no one else could find it. The next day, Fran found out the police had discovered sequins from your costume in the closet—”
“Then why didn’t you get the sequins too?”
“I didn’t see them. They were under him.”
“I’ve been framed!”
“Who would do that, Meg? Isn’t it more likely that you dropped—”
“I didn’t go near that closet, so the sequins couldn’t have gotten there from me.”
“Unless they’d caught on his clothing?”
“I suppose. But I don’t know how he got the lipstick.”
“Everyone knew you’d lost it the week before, you made such a fuss.”
“It was brand-new.”
She was so indignant, I smiled. “Maybe Andre had found it, picked it up to return to you, and got hit before—”
“Let’s let Gene figure this out,” she said, jumping to her feet.
“No!” I yelped. “Honey, don’t hand him another reason to suspect you.”
“He’s our cousin, for heaven’s sake,” she said, setting Bunny on the floor.
“An exceedingly distant cousin, and a policeman, and he has to follow the evidence no matter where it leads. I don’t want you to talk to him about the case until we get you a lawyer.”
“I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t do anything.” She took the glass with the dark red lipstick on the rim and poured brandy into it. She gulped some down.
I wasn’t aware I was frowning until she said, “I’m not an alcoholic.”
“Good.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
“Well, after the other night—”
“That was one time, Aunt Liz.”
“But you drove—”
“And now you’ll never let me forget it.” Her eyes glittered.
“Honey, do you see how quickly you’re growing angry? Do you see—”
“And do you see what a pain in the ass you are?”
Bunny whined in the silence that fell between us.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Liz. I didn’t mean to say that.”
“But if it’s what you’re thinking, you might as well or some day you and I will end up having the fight Mother and I had this afternoon. All that poison.”
She jumped up and went over to the stove. She stirred the stew vigorously, then whapped the spoon against the pot. When she turned to look at me, her eyes gleamed with tears, a fist pressed against her lips.
“What is it?”
She shook her head.
I got up and walked over to her and put my hands on her upper arms, barely touching. “Meggie, please. Whatever it is, please tell me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Meg pulled away and went to the sink. She stood in the spot where the linoleum had worn to an indented black patch and stared out the small window above it. When she spoke, her voice was so low I could barely hear her. “My mother. My real mother—she never wanted me.”
“No, honey, she would have kept you, but—”
“Tell me the truth.” She turned on me, eyes fierce.
“You know the story, how she—”
“I know the story you and Grandmother told. All tied up in pink ribbons to make it look better.” Her voice rose, “How could you lie to me about my own mother?”
I reached for her. She slapped my hands away.
She pounded on the drain board with her fists. “This house is full of lies. I hate it.”
My stomach clenched. I had feared this moment for so long.
“According to the Macrae legend, my mother was dying of leukemia and had to give me to my father’s family to raise.” She glared at me. “Right?”
“If you want to discuss this rationally, come sit down,” I said, touching her chair. “One scene a day is my limit.”
“You sound like Grandmother,” she sneered.
I sat down.
Meg released a gusty sigh. She strode to the table and sat with her hands flat on the table in front of her. “It’s the lying that’s making me crazy,” she said, tugging on a strand of her dark red hair. “You told me she brought me to you when I was four months old because she was dying, but Alisz said—”
“Why on earth would Alisz tell you—”
“She was trying to help—”
“It was none of her business!”
Meg held up her hand. “Just listen, okay? Last summer after Hugh was shot she was feeling so bad. I said she was lucky to have had him to love even if it wasn’t long enough because my parents had died before I’d had a chance to know them at all.
“She said I should know the truth. She quoted that thing, you know, ‘The truth shall make you free.’”
She poured more brandy into the lipstick-stained glass. “She was trying to help, so don’t go into a tailspin because Alisz told me the truth and you told me a lie, okay?”
It was my turn to sigh.
It had been a June evening, still light, the air heavy with heat and the scent of roses. Mother, George, and I had been sitting out on the front porch when an old, rust-spotted car pulled up in front of the house. A young blonde, her hair scraped back in a knot, got out, opened the back door of the car, reached in and straightened up holding a sleeping, red-headed baby clothed only in a diaper.
George went absolutely still, his hands nearly as white as the old wicker chair he gripped so tightly.
Grim-faced, the young woman marched up our porch steps.
Mother rose from her chair. George looked as though he couldn’t have stood if he’d tried.
The woman held the baby under the arms and thrust it at George. The baby started awake. “You gave me a present I didn’t want,” she said over its screams. “I’m returning it.”
George didn’t move.
The woman seemed capab
le of throwing the baby at his feet, so I reached for it. My hands went around the tiny body. The woman tried to pull it back. My mind said to let go, not to hurt the baby, but my hands held fast, sure the baby wasn’t safe with that woman.
“You’re the sainted sister, I suppose,” the woman hissed as she released her grip.
I pulled the baby close against me and murmured, “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” as I rested my cheek against her silky hair and rubbed her back. The baby shuddered and hiccupped as she calmed. Tears pooled in her large brown eyes, but she smiled, revealing the Macrae dimple in her right cheek.
George’s mouth trembled when he said, “I don’t want—”
“Well, neither do I,” the woman snapped. She turned on her heel and marched back down the steps.
Jill Ferguson and her father watched from their porch.
Mother went to the railing and said, “You can’t do this.”
The woman glared up at her. “What makes you think your son can drop a baby on me? Put her in an orphanage if you don’t want her.” She strode to her car.
“What’s her name?” I called.
“She hasn’t got one.”
The woman got in the car and drove away.
My mother turned on George.
Baby in my arms, I walked into the house, through it, and out the back door to the car. We’d return when the smoke cleared. It didn’t matter what they said, anyway, no one was going to take this child away from me.
Now I looked at Meg. She’d never learn from me any of the ugly details Jill Ferguson had missed or had not passed on to Alisz. “Honey, your mother was young, not prepared in any way to take on the responsibility of raising a baby.”
“You were only 19 yourself,” Meg said. “My age now.”
“Yes, but Mother supported us until I got out of library school, and we thought George—”
“If he hadn’t died, he would have sent for me.”
I nodded, unable to speak. That’s what we’d told her.
“Alisz said my mother was a waitress in a tacky coffee shop in Illinois. I guess she wouldn’t have had much money.”
I nodded. “We don’t know what she went through during the four months she kept you. There’s no use torturing yourself over what she didn’t do.” I reached out, stroking her twisting fingers. “Meg, can’t you see the details don’t matter?”
Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly Page 20