Disguise for Death

by Sylvia Nickels

  Gardening had never failed to soothe her mind when she was troubled, but today it did. After five minutes, she found that she had viciously snipped every blossom, wilted and newly opened, from a mound of white chrysanthemums. Eddy’s favorite flowers. White chrysanthemums in late summer and fall, Shasta daisies in the spring. She crumpled to the grass and sobbed until the hiccups started and she thought her tears were exhausted.

  She reached to put a hand on one of the large landscaping boulders to get to her feet. The feel of the rough stone brought a memory and renewed the deluge of tears.

  One day, the summer Palm was about ten, Eddy had pulled into their driveway at lunch time and honked. She’d told him earlier that Palm would be helping her rearrange the annual beds that day. They both looked up at the rumble of the police cruiser’s big engine.

  “Care for a spin around the block, sport?” Eddy shouted. Palm looked at Royce and she waved him to the car. Palm’s delirious glee was infectious, and she surrendered to impulse, discarded her gardening gloves, and climbed into the back seat. It was one of the happier hours they’d shared. She jerked her hand from the rock and stumbled into the house.

  Her life and marriage with Eddy was gone forever. An ocean of tears would not bring it back. She jerked open the bottom drawer of her desk and buried the legal folder with Eddy’s will and the bank papers under some old contractor’s receipts. Yet another reminder that her home was no longer the peaceful sanctuary she’d created. Maybe she should burn it all, receipts, letter, bank book, everything. No, she might need the money.

  Marc had to have seen her surprise when she looked at the bank book. And he knew something in Eddy’s letter had shaken her badly. The pity she had seen in his eyes galled her. But Marc couldn’t know what, could he? Surely Eddy had not told even his lawyer the whole story. The story of his attempt to atone for his betrayal.

  Chapter Two

  Royce’s phone rang one morning near the end of September. In the several weeks since Eddy’s funeral, she had begun to accept the incontrovertible fact of his death.

  “Royce. How are you? Making it okay?” The voice of Ross Morris, her literary agent, came over the line. Aside from a brief note expressing his condolences after Eddy’s death, she hadn’t heard from him since she’d shipped her manuscript to him a couple of months before.

  “I suppose, Ross.”

  “Crank up your computer. An editor at CrimeCase Books is really interested in your novel. With a few changes, I’m sure he’s going to accept it.”

  Her heart sank. Changes? She’d written and revised the manuscript for two years. “What sort of changes?”

  “He thinks if the fugitives are both female the impact will be greater. And have them running from a murder charge instead of just dodging a fugitive warrant for disorderly conduct at a protest demonstration.”

  She thought about it for a minute. “I could try that, I guess. It will mean rewriting almost the entire book.”

  “Send me a couple of chapters as soon as possible. We better reel in this editor right away.”

  “Okay, Ross. I’ll let you know when I have the chapters done.”

  “Soon, now. I think he’ll spring for a hefty advance, too.” Ross hung up and she stared at the phone.

  Had Ross said hefty advance? Maybe she wouldn’t need to touch the money Eddy left. Eleanor’s money. She’d better get busy.

  ****

  For the next month, she immersed herself in the manuscript and concentrated on the revisions. Often, her sorrow intruded, and she wondered if the effort was worth it. Eddy was not there to encourage her when the right word wouldn’t come. He wouldn’t be there to help her celebrate if the book did sell. But if it did, she might not have to think about finding a full-time job to supplement Eddy’s pension. Some days she had to force herself to sit at the computer, but she stuck to the task.

  Taking a break from her writing on a golden late October day, she wandered to the bay window of her study, which overlooked the street. Palm’s pickup came into view, moving slowly in and out of the tree shadows as he approached the Woodstone house. He pulled to the curb near the driveway and sat in the truck for a few moments.

  Since Eddy’s death, Palm had dropped by to visit once or twice a week, always asking if he was keeping her from something. She could not turn him away though each time her heart twisted anew with grief tinged with anger.

  Royce watched as Palm finally opened the door, emerged, and walked toward the back of his house, jacket slung over slumped shoulders.

  She sank to the window seat, hand going to her mouth and choked back a sob. Often, she’d watched Eddy walk toward her with that same dejected posture after a rough shift. Had Lily told the truth in the note Eddy said she left for him? Was it true that Eddy actually was Palm’s biological father?

  It didn’t make any difference. She couldn’t allow anyone to know. It wasn’t Palm’s fault, and she certainly couldn’t hate him. But she’d be damned if she would endure the humiliation her mother did from her father’s womanizing. How could Eddy betray her like that? He knew how it would hurt her.

  She heaved herself up from the window seat and turned toward her desk. Better get back to work. Need to send the next chapters to Ross.

  Next day, she opened the door to leave the house, in her hand a manila envelope with the revised chapters for Ross, and came face-to-face with Amanda Sage. Amanda, partner and wife of Marc, dropped her hand, which had been a few inches from the doorbell.

  “Amanda. Hello.” Royce stepped aside and gestured.

  For a second, Amanda made no move to enter the house. Straightening her shoulders, tailored black suit perfectly fitted to her tall frame, she said, “You were going out. But this won’t take long.” She sighed and ran a hand through her mass of dark hair, several diamond rings sparkling in the sunlight.

  “It’s all right.” Royce tried for a cordial response. “I was just going to the post office.”

  “I wouldn’t have barged in like this.” Amanda crossed the threshold with a determined step and perched on the arm of the sofa. “But I wanted to tell you in person.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “And I hope you’ll understand, I can’t get out of it.”

  “Out of what?”

  “Judge Goddard will probably reprimand me if he finds out I talked to you.”

  “Reprimand you? I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry, Royce. As I said, I have no choice.”

  In all the time she’d known the blunt-spoken attorney, Royce had never known her to mince words. “What are you trying to say, Amanda?”

  “I’ve been appointed as defense attorney for Tim Conroy.”

  “His defense attorney? You’re going to defend the man who killed Eddy?”

  Royce had caught part of yesterday’s evening news on television. The anchor woman began by reminding viewers Conroy was the driver of the car that had killed Fall Creek Police Sergeant Eddy Thorne. When she announced a trial date had been set for Conroy, Royce had switched off the set.

  She leaned forward. “I thought lawyers could decline a case if they had good reason.” She could hear the stiffness in her voice.

  “Ordinarily, yes. But Fall Creek’s pool of criminal defense lawyers is not that large. And the other competent ones”—she raised an eyebrow—“who’ve been here longer than I have, are either just too busy to take the case or are out of town. So I’m it.”

  “Judge Goddard knows that you’re—that you lived next door to Eddy”—Royce’s voice faltered—“for several years, doesn’t he?”

  Amanda held both hands out, as though entreating Royce to believe her. “Of course. I reminded him.”

  Royce clenched her fists, biting back the accusatory words she wanted to say. Who knew what the trial might reveal? If she mentioned any anxiety about Eddy’s past, what would Amanda think?

  “How can you defend that killer? He didn’t even know Eddy. He killed him just because he was a police off
icer.”

  “I don’t know. I have to study the case before I can formulate a defense.” Amanda’s gaze sharpened. “You know for a fact he didn’t know Eddy personally, Royce?”

  Royce shot back. “A drug addict? Of course, he didn’t know him personally.”

  Damn. Had she aroused Amanda’s suspicions so she would dig too deeply into Eddy’s life? The fact that Eddy had fathered an illegitimate son would have no bearing on his murder. But it might come out somehow, if Amanda discovered it. Amanda was well known in Fall Creek and back in Atlanta as a tenacious defense attorney who left no stone unturned in defending her clients.

  “Eddy did participate in one of Conroy’s previous arrests.” The attorney still held Royce’s eyes in an intent look.

  “As backup,” Royce said.

  Amanda got to her feet and picked up her bulging leather tote. “I’m sorry, Royce. I didn’t want you to hear it on the news. I’m due back in court.”

  Royce followed Amanda across the room and restrained herself, with some effort, from slamming the heavy oak door when the attorney was on the other side.

  Hal Woodstone was their neighbor on one side when she and Eddy moved to Fall Creek and bought their house. Two elderly retired sisters lived on the other side. At that time, all three houses were not in the best of shape. Ten years later, the sisters went to assisted living, and their big house was a rental for five years until Marc and Amanda bought it three years ago, long after Lily left town.

  Marc Sage was Amanda’s husband, but Royce was sure he would honor his attorney/client obligation. Chrys had mentioned that Marc and Amanda kept their very different law practices completely separate. Amanda loved the more exciting aspects of criminal law. Anyway, the will had nothing in it about any son, and since Royce had not asked him to file Eddy’s will with the probate court, it was not a public document. All their real property, house, vehicles, had always been held in both their names so ownership automatically defaulted to Royce. Savings and checking accounts were joint and not large, so filing the will had not been a legal requirement. The secret bank account was in Royce’s name alone, to all appearances unconnected to Eddy. Marc might wonder about the bank statement, but it didn’t matter.

  Royce convinced herself Amanda couldn’t uncover Eddy’s supposed fathering of Lily Woodstone’s son, which had no relevance to her defense of Tim Conroy anyway. She’d just have to watch her words around Amanda, not difficult with the Sages’ busy lives and the fact they moved in different circles. Royce grabbed purse and manuscript envelope and left for the post office.

  ****

  Another month passed, and on Thanksgiving Day, Royce picked up the phone with some misgiving. Eddy had always called his sister once a week and on holidays.

  “Yes?” The coldness in her sister-in-law’s voice told Royce that Eleanor’s caller ID had informed her who was calling. She pictured the woman in her spacious living room, holding the antique replica telephone she favored instead of a plain cordless handset.

  The image brought to Royce’s mind the words of one of the country classics that always poured from the radio in Hal Woodstone’s greenhouse, “…in your lovely mansion on the hill.” Eleanor’s mansion was indeed on a hill in an exclusive gated community on the edge of Metro Atlanta. About as far as she could remove herself from the slums and still remain in the city.

  Royce tried to force warmth into her voice. She might have saved herself the trouble. “How are you, Eleanor?”

  “This is not a convenient time to talk.” The line went dead almost before the icy reply was finished.

  Despite reminding herself before the call that she would never again be hurt by Eleanor Thorne Frost, her distant rebuff stabbed Royce’s heart.

  The first couple of years after they’d moved to Fall Creek, Royce accompanied Eddy on his annual visit to his sister. Their last trip was soon after Royce had suffered a third miscarriage. Eleanor had been less than sympathetic. Her long-ago words to her brother’s wife had seared the aching double trauma of Royce’s last miscarriage and discovery of Eddy’s infidelity.

  Eddy had gone into the city to look up some of his old friends on the police force and to visit the widow of Victor Prescott, the man whose intervention drew Eddy away from the gangs and led to his career in law enforcement.

  While he was gone, Royce and Eleanor sat in her sunroom drinking iced tea.

  “Considering the Henderson/Thorne family histories, perhaps it’s best that Eddy and I have not produced progeny.” Eleanor had made the hateful pronouncement in the imperious Southern dowager accent she affected.

  “In your case, that is a good thing, Eleanor.” Royce lashed out before she could rein in her pain and anger. “But Eddy’s a giver; he’d make a wonderful father.”

  Though deep in denial of her upbringing, Eleanor, too, was a product of the housing projects, where an insult was always answered in kind. “That’s true, Royce. But you would be the mother.”

  Royce jumped to her feet, fists clenched. “Remember it was your mother who invited my father to her bed.”

  “I believe I said that considering both our histories, childlessness is best. Sit down, Royce, don’t be gauche.” Eleanor, well-schooled in manners thanks to Agnes Scott College, never raised her voice. The woman’s calm face, makeup perfect at ten o’clock in the morning, belied the scorn in her words.

  For a few seconds, Royce stared at Eleanor. How could this woman be her husband’s sister? Then she turned and marched from the sunroom to the guest bedroom. When he returned, Eddy found her there with packed suitcases. Thereafter, Eddy visited his sister alone. When Vernon Frost died a few years later, he had also gone alone to Georgia for the funeral.

  Royce had not spoken to Eleanor again until she was forced to call and deliver the news that Eddy had been killed.

  Now Royce stood at her desk in the corner of her kitchen and held the phone a moment longer. She was not surprised Eleanor had hung up on her. She’d had little expectation of a different outcome. In spite of her resolve, a lump formed in her throat. Eleanor was the only remnant of family Royce had in all the world. But she’d survived after she lost even the poor family substitutes of foster care. She’d survive now. Friends would be her family. And since none of them knew of Eddy’s affair, Royce’s secret would be safe.

  She picked up the phone again and dialed the private number of the Sages. Marc and Amanda were with family in Virginia for Thanksgiving. But maybe she’d catch Chrys.

  Royce had long finished the remodeling of their house when Marc and Amanda moved to Fall Creek three years ago and bought the rental house next door. They’d restored the old, rundown Victorian to its former glory, including hundreds of feet of intricate gingerbread trim.

  They were the first of several families who bought and renovated the other well-built though neglected homes on the short street. Most were in the professions, financial, legal, educational.

  One of the newcomer couples waged a legal fight to close Hal Woodstone’s greenhouse. Half meaning it, Eddy had said, “Babe, they’ll be trying to push us out next. They probably don’t want a cop living in the neighborhood either.”

  Some of the more affluent had moved on to the newer, more prestigious Fall Creek Estates on the edge of town.

  The Sage law firm quickly thrived. But its demands and their frequent travel kept both partners too busy to be very involved in neighborhood activities.

  Chrys Wynter, office manager for Sage & Sage, came to Fall Creek with the attorneys and bought a unit in Creekside Commons, a modern condo community near Fall Creek Mall. But she stayed at the Sage house when they traveled. Nights when Eddy worked late, she would sometimes join Royce for a cup of tea when she was house sitting.

  After a dozen rings, no one had answered. Chrys was probably with her family for the holiday, too. Royce dropped the phone back in the cradle. The French doors leading to the deck revealed a gray, overcast sky, which matched her mood on this dismal holiday. And Christmas was st
ill to come.

  Chapter Three

  When Royce answered the phone early in December, to her surprise, Amanda was on the line. “How are you, Royce? Marc and I have wondered how you’re getting along.”

  “I’m okay, Amanda. Busy, but okay.”

  “We’re going to be in Aspen over the holidays. You should take a break. Why don’t you spend Christmas in Florida? Our condo in St. Augustine will be empty. Take a friend if you like. Rest, walk on the beach.”

  “It’s tempting, but I really have to finish this book. My agent is waiting for it.”

  Which was true, but she had another reason as well. She’d kept her distance from the Sages since the wretched visit to Marc’s office when she read Eddy’s letter and learned of his relationship to Palm. She knew Marc to be the soul of discretion. He didn’t know about Palm, but he knew something in Eddy’s letter had shocked her to the core of her being. When the judge appointed Amanda to represent Eddy’s killer, Marc had to remember that meeting.

  “If you change your mind, just go on down. I’ll leave word with the property management firm to give you the key. And there are all styles and sizes of swimsuits in the closets.”

  “I’ll think about it. Thanks again.” They hung up. Neither had referred to their last conversation. Royce had no idea what the status of the case was by now. She wasn’t sure she could bear to find out.

  ****

  The weeks crawled by, and ten days before Christmas, Royce opened her back door to find Palm holding a shivering, half-grown black dog. He thrust the mutt into her arms. “Dad won’t hear of keeping him at the house. He was scrounging for scraps around the Dumpster at work, and I couldn’t leave him.”

  When she held the skinny little animal, he licked her chin and snuggled against her chest. She gave a shaky laugh. “How can I refuse now?”

  “He’ll be company for you, and a good guard dog, too.”

  At first dubious about having a dog around, she could not resist the soulful eyes of the puppy. She named him Devon, for no particular reason except the name appealed to her. He slept in a basket next to her bed. Within days, he began to banish the mental haze in which she was struggling to finish the rewriting of Two on the Run.