by Nancy Bush
“Maybe Dahlia said something, or knew something, that set Lily off?”
“Maybe…” I could feel something banging around in my head. I finally hit on it. “Oh. During one of her fretting episodes, Orchid was worrying about both of her daughters. Maybe she knew something was up between Dahlia and Lily?”
Dwayne frowned. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Most of the women, Dahlia included, really missed out on the Purcell looks, but Lily didn’t. Zach said she was a looker.”
“So…”
“Two sisters. One’s beautiful, and one’s plain. It’s the kind of thing gruesome fairy tales are written about.”
“Hunh,” Dwayne said. “Let’s go talk to the doc.”
Jazz called me as Dwayne and I were heading down the freeway toward River Shores. I was driving as I didn’t want to spend more time than I had to in Dwayne’s truck. It made me uncomfortable talking to Jazz while Dwayne was within earshot, but it couldn’t be helped.
“What’s up?” I asked by way of greeting.
“We’re just going into the lawyer’s office. I just wanted to check in.”
“Okay. Let me know how that goes.”
“What are you doing?” he asked curiously.
“Working with Dwayne.”
“Oh.”
“How about I call you this afternoon?”
“Sure,” Jazz said, sounding like he wanted to keep me on the phone a little longer, but I managed to ease him off.
“The boyfriend checks in,” Dwayne observed.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“He know that?”
“Yes,” I said firmly, but I wasn’t so sure.
Dwayne and I were both dressed in our usual garb: jeans and casual shirts. No Veronica Kellogg today. I’d called Doctor Bergin and explained that I was Jane Kelly and I’d been hired by the Purcell family. I did not reveal that Jane Kelly was Veronica Kellogg, but I suspected he knew by now. If by some chance he hadn’t connected the dots, he soon would. He sounded less than thrilled to attend a meeting, but I was kind of insistent. I might have used the word “lawsuit” and the name “Gina” in one sentence.
The guard at the gate let us through when I invoked Dr. Bergin’s name, but the fifty-something, cranky receptionist took one look at me and her hand shot for the phone. Dwayne leaned in and said in a soft drawl, “You might want to hold your horses, darlin’. We got ourselves an appointment.”
She slowly pulled her hand away and checked the book. Then she buzzed us through.
“That shtick really works for you, doesn’t it?”
“Seemed to today.”
Doctor Bergin wasn’t nearly as personally interested in Jane Kelly as he’d been in Veronica Kellogg. As we sat in front of his desk he studied the papers on his desk and didn’t meet our eyes.
Dwayne acted as the intermediary between me and a possible lawsuit. He didn’t look the part of a lawyer, but it didn’t matter as he pointed out that I’d been attacked by one of the patients and all I’d heard were excuses about Gina “never having done anything like that before.” Although my ear had healed and had mainly a scratch by now, it had been a horrifying experience.
While he laid out my story I adopted a long-suffering look accompanied by a lot of sighing.
“Just tell me what you want.” Cal finally said, lifting his eyes. He wasn’t fooled. “And I’ll determine whether I can help you or not.”
“We want the truth about Lily Purcell,” I said.
“Funny thing about that. I went down to the records room. Lily Purcell’s file is missing.”
“Maybe you just didn’t look hard enough,” I said, meeting his gaze steadily.
“Maybe.”
Dwayne asked, “Was your father the baby’s father?”
Bergin hesitated briefly, then took a breath. “My father thought the baby’s father was an employee who worked here when Lily was a patient, Zach Montrose.”
I said, “I’ve spoken to Zach. He swears it wasn’t him.”
“From what I understand, Zach’s not the most credible witness. There was a lawsuit at the time, which was settled. The family claimed undue force caused Lily’s death. It was really just an unfortunate accident.”
“And when was that? How long had she been here?”
“I believe the dates are in the file.”
Touché, I thought. “If Zach is telling the truth, who’s your best guess on the father?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said tightly. “I think it was assumed she came to the Haven of Rest already pregnant.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The family never accused anyone here. The truth is Lily Purcell really didn’t belong here. Her problems weren’t something to institutionalize over. She was hypersexual. She was pregnant. The general assumption was her father wanted to put her someplace where she wouldn’t embarrass him any further.”
“So, he sent her to a sanitarium?”
“I doubt he advertised the fact,” Bergin said dryly. He gave me a cool glance. “You never intended to file suit about Gina, did you?”
I shook my head.
“Then we’re done.” He pushed himself back from his desk.
Dwayne asked casually, “How old was the baby when Lily died?”
“Again. It’s in the file.”
Dwayne and I were quiet on the way back, locked in our own thoughts. Finally, I said, “He’s wrong. That information isn’t in the file. I looked it over pretty carefully and there’s not a lot there. I’m not saying anything’s missing. I just think they were really careful about not writing anything down that could bite them in the ass.”
“You find it kind of curious the family didn’t ask about the baby’s paternity?” Dwayne asked.
“They must have already known.”
He nodded. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking unless Lily had some sweetheart we still haven’t heard about, that Jazz’s uncle or grandfather might also be his daddy.”
I sighed. “How do you tell somebody that?”
“Maybe you don’t. We’re just talking out loud here.”
“You’re right. In fact, I’m going to forget it all. Orchid’s death was an accident. Lily’s death was an accident. The secrets floating around in that family are best left alone.”
I pulled up in front of Dwayne’s cabana and dropped him off.
“You coming back to work then?” he asked, inclining his head to his house. I hadn’t spent a lot of time at his place recently. I knew he was really asking if we could put things back on track, work-wise.
“Mom’s here for a few more days and Binks gets her stitches out next week. Then I’ll be back.”
“All right, then.” He headed out of sight. I watched the back of him as he strode to the door. I’ve never been into that cowboy thing. Not one of my personal fantasies, but Dwayne wore it so well I was starting to come around.
Chapter Sixteen
“She left it all to Logan, just like she said…”
I stared through my windshield, my cell phone pressed to my ear, as Jazz’s bemused voice gave me the outcome of the meeting with the lawyers. Though I really wasn’t surprised, I kind of was, too. She’d really done it. She’d left everything to a twelve-year-old. “It’s in trust, I hope,” I said.
“Oh, yeah.”
I relaxed a bit. The Purcells were a family who knew all about trusts.
“And there are some bequests to family members and a few other people, but the bulk of the estate is Logan’s.”
It was evening and Mom and the Binks were home while I was on my way to visit Jazz. He’d asked me to stop by and I’d been unable to come up with a reasonable excuse why not. He seemed so immersed in the aftermath of Orchid’s death—the family was in the process of planning the funeral—that I believed he would not remember about our proposed trip back to River Shores. And I did
n’t want to admit that I’d gone without him. I hadn’t learned anything I wanted to share, so there didn’t seem to be any point.
I was following the directions he’d given me to his home in Portland Heights, an area of the West Hills located above the city. Now I checked to see if I’d made a wrong turn as I’d lost concentration upon learning Logan was in charge of the purse strings.
“I bet that went over well,” I told him, and he snorted his agreement.
Jazz’s house wasn’t nearly as imposing as I’d expected. A two-story colonial of modest proportions, it had the look of a property in need of serious attention. Not the moldy disuse of the Purcell mansion, but the scene of more recent neglect. I suspected Jennifer had paid more attention to home and hearth than Jazz, but then he’d been dealing with medical and family issues ever since the accident.
And maybe there was the matter of money involved. How much had Jazz been receiving from his grandmother’s trust each month? And how much might he receive now? I could just see the rest of the Purcells aligning and realigning, figuring out how to wrest their fair share from Logan’s control.
I hadn’t dressed to stop by Jazz’s. Truthfully, I was way over getting dressed up, and I was feeling a little prickly about even thinking I should. Who was I trying to impress? I’d told Dwayne that Jazz wasn’t my boyfriend. The person I should be telling was Jazz.
“Hi,” he greeted me warmly, ushering me into his living room. He switched on the gas fireplace and with the overstuffed furniture there was something homey and inviting that I hadn’t expected from him. He was standing close to me and I wondered how to ease away.
“Where’s Logan?” I asked.
“Upstairs. Go on up and say hello. I’ll open a bottle of red.”
“I can wait for you.”
“No, no. Go ahead. I’ll have your glass ready when you come back.”
How had I suddenly become the person to go say hidey-ho to Logan? We weren’t even friends. My feet dragged and I had to swallow back a certain resentment that was beyond childish. So, I didn’t like him. He was just a kid, for God’s sake.
I followed the electronic sound effects to the room at the end of the hall. Logan was squatting on the floor in front of a television the size of Paraguay, playing some game that involved animated females with Barbie figures dressed in camouflage and sporting Uzis, handguns, quivers full of arrows on their backs, and the rogue grenade or two. They seemed to be patrolling some burned out futuristic city.
“Hi, Logan, how’s it going?” I said.
He didn’t look up. “Did you hear about the will?”
“Sure did.”
“I’m a multimillionaire. Maybe a billionaire.”
“Yeah…well…”
“None of the kids are going to believe this!” He was grinning, his attention still on his pack of female killers. Maybe they wore the white hats. It was hard to tell.
That was pretty much the extent of our conversation. I headed back downstairs and accepted the glass of wine. Later, Jazz suggested we eat at a little café in the Pearl, so we spent a couple of hours alone where he kept reaching across the table to hold my hand, and I kept trying to figure out how to address our “non” relationship. Neither of us got what we wanted.
Back at his house, he tried to talk me into returning inside for a nightcap, but I begged off with my current favorite excuses: Mom and injured Binkster. I went home, crashed on the couch and slept like the dead.
I spent the next few days avoiding Jazz. Luckily, he was busy with funeral preparations, while I was trying to figure out how to completely extricate myself from all things Purcell without completely ruining my friendship with him. I liked Jazz. I wanted him as a friend. But I didn’t want anything more.
Orchid’s funeral was scheduled for Saturday, and though Jazz invited me, I graciously declined. I knew the rest of the Purcells would treat me like an interloper, and I didn’t want to be there anyway.
Orchid’s death had made the local news and her funeral became a minor media event. I resisted Jazz’s continual pleas to have me be by his side, but I buckled for the post–funeral reception because Jazz was making me feel like a heel. He even went as far as saying he wouldn’t go without me. This was an empty threat, but I’d spent so much time avoiding him that I couldn’t say no again. I promised to meet him at the house.
Saturday afternoon I donned the black dress I save for these kinds of events, and drove myself over to the Purcells, joining the throng of about three hundred others who’d paid their respects and now were ready to partake of the food and drink. I recognized several Portland luminaries, members of families as influential as the Purcells who sang Orchid’s praises and Percy’s as well. I steered clear of Neusmeyer, who seemed to know everyone. William DeForest was there, too, looking sad and pissy that the attention wasn’t on him. It was a little like a retiree convention: most of the seats were taken by people from Orchid’s generation. I was introduced to Bonnie Chisholm, who eyed the appointments of the room enviously. I asked her how her son was and got an earful about how he’d been attacked by a person or persons unknown and it was a police matter now.
This both irked and worried me. I could picture myself getting dragged to jail in cuffs for taking him down. Stranger things have happened.
The hors d’oeuvres were enough to keep me hanging around: Ahi tuna with ginger sauce, tiny quiches with chopped mushrooms, olive tapenade, and glasses of soda water, fruity wines that made me gag, and coffee with or without a shot of bourbon.
Reyna was at the house but she was just kind of watching the catering staff. She told me she was quitting. The only Purcell she’d cared about was Orchid and now she was gone. With a faint smile she admitted none of them had shown much dismay when they’d learned she was leaving. Assuming the bulk of the Purcells were going back to their own homes, I asked Reyna what James was planning to do for meals. She just shrugged, so I said maybe he’d find a new interest in cooking—especially since he had such a thing for knives. It scared a smile out of Reyna but Dahlia overheard and her lips turned all tight and pruney.
As the crowd thinned I found Jazz at my side. The man was impossibly good-looking and incredibly wealthy. He liked me. Kind of a lot, I was pretty sure. He could handle himself in social situations, even be clever upon occasion. Sharona had pointed out that he didn’t have a lot of depth, but I asked myself if I needed depth. Was shallowness so bad?
Oh, Jane, you just don’t want to face a messy breakup.
I went back to the coffee urn and tossed a bit of bourbon in my cup. Jazz followed me. He grabbed another glass of the fruity white wine. There was kind of a repressed excitement about him that I’d noticed vaguely. “What?” I asked.
“Look over at Logan,” he said.
I gazed across the room. Logan was standing by the window, playing—big surprise—a handheld video game. His head tilted, he was listening to something Benjamin was saying to him. Benjamin did not look happy, but Logan was cock of the rock. He was grinning. Switching off the Game Boy, he looked over at Jazz, got down on one knee, gave an arm pump and said, “Yes!”
“That’s what he did when he learned he was Nana’s heir,” Jazz told me, sounding a little embarrassed but also kind of proud.
I squinted at him. This was just not okay.
“It’s almost funny,” Jazz went on. “The family’s in a state. Benjamin’s pissed. Dahlia and Roderick are fit to be tied. I mean, Garrett can’t even look at Logan and he won’t talk to me. And James has suddenly become my new best friend.”
“What about Cousin Cammie?” I asked, looking over at her. She had Rosalie on her lap and both of them had that set look around their mouths that speaks of bad temper.
“She’s not happy, either.”
An understatement, but I let it pass. “Logan’s not exactly winning friends.”
“He’s a kid.” Jazz shrugged. “Nothing’s really changed. The trusts are still in place.”
“But the bulk
of the estate is still Logan’s.”
“Yes.”
“What about the house? Is there a certain amount set aside for its upkeep?”
“I don’t know,” Jazz said, unconcerned. “Maybe we’ll sell it.”
I remembered Lorraine’s comment about the Purcells owning a great deal of real estate all over the state. There were probably lots of places to sell.
“Logan gets control when he’s eighteen,” Jazz said. “Until then, I’m in charge to a certain point. It’s all tied up in legal stuff.”
But it’s a hell of a lot of money, I thought, reading between the lines.
I looked over at Dahlia, whose color seemed to have left her face. I then glanced at Garrett, who was just the opposite of Dahlia; his skin was florid and blotchy. And James was just plain gray.
Jazz said, “When are we going to River Shores?”
My heart sank a bit. “You know, I’ve changed my mind about that. I don’t think there’s any big mystery to unravel down there.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
He thought about it a moment, then let it go. I expelled a breath, unaware I’d been holding it.
“I thought this was supposed to be a business arrangement,” Roderick’s amused voice sounded to my left, “but you two have gotten pretty cozy. Kissing on the landing.” He made a tsk, tsk, tsk sound. “You must be a better private detective than I thought. You sure found where the money is.”
I turned to him, expecting to see his usual satisfied expression. But today it was replaced by anxiety. He’d been smug and delighted when Dahlia had the Power of Attorney, but now things had taken a turn for the worse. He was really worried that I was edging my way in to the Purcell fortunes.
Cammie, overhearing, said, “Nana wasn’t in her right mind. We all know that. The estate is going to be divided among all of us.”
No one responded because it just wasn’t true.
Cammie then glanced around in disbelief as Rosalie kicked herself out of her mother’s arms. “You don’t seriously believe Logan will end up with everything. Oh, come on. That’s ridiculous. We’ll contest it and we’ll win.”