“At that time, Aiko and Maria are usually in the kitchen preparing lunch,” Sutton said. “The stairs cannot be seen from the kitchen.”
“We waited in Sutton’s room till we heard the clock in the hallway chime and knew it was time for lunch. Aiko always serves Maggie on the patio, unless, of course, it’s raining. And Ellis had told us over breakfast that he was going out for lunch. We waited a few moments; then Sutton went to search Ellis’s bedroom. I ran back down the servants’ stairs through the back hall to the foyer and into the office. I began looking around. I saw ashes in the wastepaper basket. I looked in Maggie’s desk, and Ellis’s, for anything that might tell me why the lawyer was there. And then…”
“You heard a gunshot,” Claire said.
“Yes. I watched Maggie through the window. She leaped up and started running toward the office. I ducked down behind her desk. She ran right past me into the foyer without knowing I was there.”
“Why?” For the first time Claire looked at Judith.
“What?”
“Why did you hide behind the desk?”
“I was afraid. I wasn’t supposed to be in the office.”
“But weren’t you the least bit concerned, if not curious, about the gunshot? You knew Sutton was upstairs. You didn’t know your brother was going to kill himself.”
“Of course not.”
“Your mother might have been endangered. Weren’t you worried about her?”
“Yes…but…I wasn’t supposed to be there…in the office…in the house…I was confused and frightened…I…I’m not going to continue if she keeps asking me questions,” Judith whined at her mother.
“Go on.” Claire leaned back in the chair and continued staring into the fire.
“After Maggie ran into the foyer, I just stood there not knowing what to do. Then I saw it—her purse on the patio. I never remembered her carrying her purse onto the patio before. I used to watch her from upstairs. Aiko serving her. An employee being served by our Aiko.”
“They’re not interested in your pettiness, Judith,” her mother said sharply.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology was by rote. She had said the phrase so many times in her life that it no longer had any meaning.
“I went through your purse, Maggie.” Her voice was a whisper.
“Speak up!” Eleanor demanded.
“Your purse! I went through it!” She spat out the words with disdain. “I found the envelope and opened it. There was the codicil. I kept it. And put the envelope back. I ran down into the garden, out through the hedge and into the alley. He was standing there. That awful lawyer.”
Claire looked back into the fire. “Go on, Judith.”
“I tried to go around him. He moved in front of me, blocking me…smiling. He pulled the codicil from my hand, looked at it, and said, ‘I hope you didn’t have to kill anybody for this. I’ll be in touch.’ He walked down the alley to his car and drove away. I ran down to the side street where we had parked the car and waited for Sutton. I was so frightened. So confused.” Tears rolled down her tense face.
Claire looked at Sutton.
“Go on, tell her,” Eleanor prompted.
“I searched Ellis’s room.” Sutton lovingly curled a strand of his mother’s hair around his index finger as he talked.
“What did you find?” Claire asked.
“Nothing. Except his shotgun was out of its case and there was a box of shells on his desk. I heard someone come down the hallway, so I hid in his closet. Ellis came into the room. He sat at his desk and began writing. When he had finished, he picked up the gun, loaded the shells, and went into the bathroom. I stepped out of the closet. I could see him through the half-open door. He was undressing. And I knew he was going to kill himself…” His voice faltered.
Judith sobbed. Eleanor stroked her son’s hand. “Go on,” she said gently.
“He was sitting naked in the shower. His legs drawn up. Knees shaking. He placed the butt of the gun in the corner of the shower and the end of the barrel under his chin. He stayed that way for a few moments until his knees stopped shaking. Then he pulled the trigger.”
“You didn’t try to stop him?” I demanded.
“No,” he said simply. “It must be difficult for you to understand, Maggie, but he’d caused the family, and especially Mother, a great deal of pain.”
“I assume you heard Miss Hill come down the hallway?” Claire asked.
“Yes. I shut the connecting door. I could hear her in the bathroom, and then I heard her talking to Mother in the hall, taking her to her bedroom.” He looked at me. “I’m grateful for that, Maggie.”
“And then you opened the connecting door and took the suicide note,” Claire said.
“The suicide note is none of your business,” Eleanor said. “Our only common interest is the codicil.”
“All right. When did Valcovich contact you?” Claire asked Judith.
“Early the next morning. He wanted five hundred thousand dollars.”
“And that was when we told Mother,” Sutton said.
Claire tapped her fingers on the walking stick; the lapis shimmered in the glow of the fire. “And what did the three of you decide to do?”
“Actually, four of us.” Sutton cleared his throat.
“Stupid girl had to tell that evangelistic economist.” Eleanor glared at Judith.
“He’s the only one who cares about me,” Judith pouted.
“He doesn’t care about you!”
“We decided,” Sutton cut in, “that Judith should go to Valcovich and try to reason with him.”
“You were in the office! The first time I was there!” I said.
“I went out the private door when you came in. I was so afraid you saw me. There was no reasoning with him. Last night, Brian and I took him a check for a hundred thousand. We hoped it would keep him quiet for a while. And…there was blood everywhere…he was dead!” Her thin body swayed.
Claire stood, but Judith was closer to me: I grabbed her and helped her sit down in my chair. Sutton and Eleanor stared at her. Compassion wasn’t one of this family’s strong points.
“I’m all right.” Judith’s body stiffened under my attention.
“What time did you go to Valcovich’s office?” Claire asked.
“A little after six. We left immediately.”
Claire stood up and moved slowly around the room, staring at the silver-framed photographs and the delicate porcelain. Judith’s fingers kneaded her skirt. Sutton and Eleanor watched Claire. The fire cracked and popped.
Claire faced Eleanor. “Instead of distancing herself from Valcovich’s murder, your daughter’s story puts her right in the middle of it.”
“I didn’t want to tell you. They made me tell you!” Judith cried.
“Shut up!” Eleanor leaned forward, slapping her hand on the side of the lounge, then turned on Claire.
“Don’t you think I realize the implications of her story! I know my daughter is not capable of murder! Nor is my son!”
“He let his brother kill himself.”
“He will have to live with that. But it was not murder.”
“What do you want?” Claire asked her.
“To protect my daughter and son. And to retrieve the codicil.”
“I don’t need your protection!” Judith stood. “Brian will protect me. He’ll say I was with him. I don’t need—”
“Brian Waingrove will think of himself first,” Eleanor hissed. “Then he will think of Victoria Moor. I doubt you will even enter his mind!”
“Victoria? What do you know?”
“Leave the room.”
“Mother, please, tell me! What do you know?”
“Leave!”
“It’s not true. It’s not true!” Judith sobbed quietly.
“I said, leave!”
Judith stood and, like a scolded child, quietly left, shutting the door behind her.
Eleanor smoothed the sleeves of her bed jacke
t and said to Claire, “I have a proposition for you. I believe whoever killed this dreadful Valcovich also has the codicil. You find his murderer and I will split the revenues of Ellis’s coin collection with you eighty-twenty. I will have to rely on your discretion.”
“I can’t believe this!” I blurted. “That coin collection belongs to her one hundred percent. She doesn’t have to split with you or anybody.”
“Miss Hill, please,” Claire warned.
“None of this makes sense. You’re not seriously considering—”
“Consider this,” Eleanor interrupted. “If the codicil turns up—and that’s a big ‘if,’ because paper is so easily destroyed—we will contest it, and we will win. My son did kill himself, and nobody in his right mind kills himself.”
“It always comes back to Ellis, doesn’t it, Mrs. Kenilworth?” I said.
“I’m not talking to you, Miss Hill. You were just a pawn used by my sick son.”
Claire took the photograph from her pocket and handed it to Eleanor. “Is this an example of your son’s sickness? Would you use it in court against us?”
Eleanor’s gnarled hands shook as she studied the photo. Her lips drew back, and a mournful sob escaped.
“Where did you get this?”
“Victoria and her mother gave it to me. Inadvertently.”
“She’s a slut. A slut!”
“Mother, Mother…” Sutton spoke soothingly.
She grabbed for his hand and rubbed her cheek against it.
Claire moved closer to Eleanor. “I will consider your proposition if you will be honest with me. Are you being blackmailed?”
Eleanor’s hand tightened around the photo and she began to crush it. Claire placed her hand on Eleanor’s and carefully removed the picture.
“Your son was a sick man who could not face his desires for his own daughter. My guess is that he was being blackmailed because of those desires. And so he killed himself. But why did he will the collection to me and not to you, his family?”
“How many times do I have to say it? He was not in his right mind! There was no reason!”
“Maybe he was trying to reach out of his sickness. Maybe he thought I could find the answers for him.”
“What more of an answer do you need than this!” She clawed at the photo, but Claire held it out of reach.
“Let Sutton tell me what your son’s last words were.”
“Show them out, Sutton. I’ve been a very foolish woman to expect your help, Claire Conrad.”
“You don’t strike me as a foolish woman, Mrs. Kenilworth. Where are your son’s last words?” Claire looked into the fireplace. “In here?”
“Show them out!”
In the hallway Sutton turned toward the stairs. Claire headed toward the glassed-in rotunda. I hurried after her.
“What are you doing?”
“Servants’ stairs, Miss Hill.”
“What?”
“Just a minute,” Sutton said, coming after us. “I was told to show you out.”
Claire peered down a dark stairwell where the hallway connected to the rotunda—stairs I’d never noticed.
“Are there lights?” Claire asked.
“Of course.” Sutton ran his hand along the wall of the stairs and found the switch. A dim light displayed simple wooden steps covered by a rubber matting.
“When I was a child I used to play with dolls on our back stairs,” Claire said.
“It’s hard to imagine you playing with dolls,” I said.
“Childhood and old age are great equalizers.” Claire walked down a couple of steps. “It’s only in between we have the chance to define ourselves.”
She disappeared around the curve of wall.
I started to follow; Sutton stopped me. “Maggie, I want you to understand. If I had stopped Ellis, he would have killed himself eventually. It seemed easier just to let him do it. Can you understand?”
“I’ve never taken the easy way out.”
“No. You wouldn’t.” He smiled sadly. Youthful beauty glimmered in the dim stairwell, then disappeared. “He caused Mother so much pain. I think I let him die to save her.”
He walked down a few steps and peered around the wall. I followed him. “Where is Claire Conrad? How dare she.” A cold, superior tone edged his voice.
He hurried down the stairs. I was right after him. The stairs ended in a small, narrow hall. I could hear the sound of a television from behind a closed door. I followed Sutton down the hall. He moved quickly toward an open back door. I followed him outside to a small brick patio and down another flight of stairs to the sculpture garden. I stopped. At night the animal sculptures looked black and ominous in the glare of the garden lights. I saw a white form. I stepped onto the grass. It was Claire. She lay awkwardly on her back among the topiary, as if she’d been carelessly tossed there.
“Good God,” Sutton groaned.
I ran, kicking off my shoes so I could move faster. I sank down on my knees next to her. Her eyes stared.
“Good evening, Miss Hill. Lovely view from here.” She smiled.
“Damn you!” I gasped.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I thought you were dead!”
“Is she all right? She’s not…” Sutton came up behind us, breathing hard.
“Of course I’m all right.” Claire rose to her feet. “I hope you’re not disappointed,” she said to Sutton. “Just took a tumble. Come along, Miss Hill. Don’t forget your shoes.”
The Bentley rolled toward the cottage. I rubbed my damp feet.
“Did you really fall?”
“Only far enough to see what I had to see.”
“Which was?”
“I’ll know better after we talk to Victoria Moor’s daughter. When we get home, I want you to call Bobby Alt. Tell him we need to come to the house to see Rebecca, but only when Victoria and Patricia aren’t there.”
“He won’t like it.”
“That should please you.”
15
“YOU WILL TALK TO the child, Miss Hill. I find communicating with children tedious at best and mind-numbing at worst.”
It was eight thirty the next morning. We sat in the Bentley, waiting for Bobby Alt, at the bottom of Victoria’s driveway.
“What should I ask her?”
“Ask her if she took this picture,” Claire said, handing me the photograph. “The detective business is usually quite straightforward.”
She was all in black today. I was beginning to figure it out: one day she wore white, next day black, then white, then black.
“Do you ever get confused and wear white when you’re supposed to wear black?” I asked her.
“Never.”
“Which color did you start with first?”
“White, of course. And I’ll probably end up in black. We all do in one way or another.”
The white limo pulled up alongside.
“He’s here. Let me make sure he’s alone,” Boulton said, getting out of the Bentley.
He checked the limo, then motioned for us to get into it. We settled in the backseat. Boulton got in front, next to Bobby. Bobby squirmed around and started babbling to Claire.
“What is it you want? I can’t let you take anything. Wouldn’t be right.”
“Are Victoria and her mother gone?” I asked.
“I told you last night—Victoria had an eight o’clock call at the studio. I just dropped them off.”
“The little girl is still at home?”
“Yeah.” Innocent eyes blinked nervously. “And someone else. If he sees you…”
“Who?” Claire asked.
“His name’s Brian Waingrove. He sometimes spends the night. I saw his car in the garage when I took Victoria and Patricia to the studio. He thinks he’s hot shit. But you should see him in a bathing suit. Hair everywhere. I mean gorilla.”
“Poor Judith,” I said to myself.
“Where do you usually park the car?” Claire asked.
; “In the garage.”
“Do so.”
We drove in silence up the long curve of asphalt. I looked out the window at the profusion of ferns lining the edge of the drive. They were as feathery and as provocative as a fan dancer’s fans, but they couldn’t hide the sharp, steep hillside and its dry, bumpy terrain. I bet when the Santa Ana blew, tumbleweeds rolled across Shangri-la. I turned away from the window and saw Bobby’s virgin eyes in the rearview mirror, watching me. His wide-eyed innocence belonged to the young—the very young.
He looked away and pushed the buttons on some gadget. The wrought-iron gates slid open, as did the garage doors. He guided the car in and the doors gently closed behind us. The garage was the size of a house. Snuggled in it were a cute, creamy Mercedes convertible, a hunter-green Jaguar, and Waingrove’s silver Mercedes.
“Where are your quarters?” Claire asked.
“Over the garage. If you’d just tell me what it is you want…”
“We’ll talk in your room.”
He led us out a side door and up some stairs.
No expense or detail had been spared on the chauffeur’s quarters: beamed ceiling, wooden floor, built-in refrigerator, and a built-in entertainment center with all the equipment for one’s visual and audio needs.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?” He swaggered around the room.
“I think I’ll take up limo driving,” I said.
“You gotta get with the right people, though,” he said earnestly.
Claire moved quickly around the room, looking out the windows and into the bathroom. Boulton leaned against the front door.
“What time does Waingrove usually leave?” she asked casually, looking through a pile of papers on his built-in desk.
“He usually takes a swim, then he gets dressed and leaves about now,” he said, eyes intent on the papers in her hands. “Sometimes he sits around the pool and talks real loud on the phone. That’s my private stuff.”
“Where’s the child’s room located?” Claire opened an envelope.
“What do you want her for?”
“Where is her room?”
“South side of the house. Victoria and Patricia’s rooms are in the north wing.” He liked saying “the north wing.”
“Is there a nanny?”
Mother Shadow Page 17