by Edie Claire
She had to choose her words carefully; as much as she could use Adith’s local insight into the whole situation with Peggy’s family, she didn’t want Dean’s true parentage to get out that way. Little as she thought of the man, it hardly seemed fair for "the girls" to know before he did. So she had edited out the whole interlude with Becky; choosing to make what she had learned about the baby switch sound like pure conjecture.
"So anyway," she summarized, "If Lilah Murchison wasn’t actually on that plane, the whole inheritance issue is moot. But I do believe that Lilah gave birth to a stillborn in 1977, and that Peggy Linney helped her quickly locate an adoptable baby. I guess Lilah felt she needed a baby to keep her marriage intact, and that that pregnancy would be her last chance."
Adith’s prunelike face twisted into a coarse frown. "Well, that may be, but it doesn’t tell us if there's still a missing millionaire out there, does it? And it doesn’t tell you who’s threatening your daddy’s people, either."
Leigh’s stomach groaned, expressing her mind’s thoughts. "No, I guess it doesn’t."
Adith continued frowning. "I don’t buy it," she said finally.
"Buy what?"
"The stillborn thing."
Leigh stared at her. "Why not?"
"Too convenient."
Leigh exhaled. She was entirely too weak from hunger to draw inferences. "What do you mean exactly?"
Adith’s mouth screwed up tight as she thought. "Lilah claims to have another baby out there. But the girls don’t see how she could have had one any time after she came straggling back to town without her first husband. Some people get fatter as they age; Lilah got skinnier. I don’t know if she went anorexic after the car crash that killed him or what, but she lost weight. And ever since then she’s been too skinny to cover up a goose egg—much less a baby. So she either had the baby way, way back"—she leaned closer for effect—"or the baby she had twenty-five years ago wasn’t stillborn."
Leigh blinked. "Why switch them at all, then?" Adith tsk tsked and stretched a bony hand out to pat Leigh’s shoulder. "Honey, honey. I know you think women now are liberated and all that, but Albert was of the old school. I’ll bet you anything that old coot had his heart set on a son."
A weight settled in Leigh’s midsection. "Give up her own baby girl and raise a stranger’s child…just to make her husband happy?" Her hand moved reflexively to her waistline again, and this time she didn’t bother to pull it back. The mere thought of trading off one baby for another made her nauseous. A lot of things made her nauseous. "I can’t believe that," she said weakly.
Adith patted her again. "You didn’t know Lilah Murchison, honey," she said softly. "I did."
***
The tamales sat steaming on Leigh’s plate, melted cheese and hot sauce running in tempting rivulets down either side.
She couldn’t begin to touch them.
Warren watched her worriedly. "I didn’t think you’d ever meet a tamale you didn’t like. Should I take this personally?"
"No," she said sadly, "I’m sorry. They look wonderful. It’s just…I don’t feel all that well."
Her husband’s eyes widened just a bit before he turned his face away.
Leigh watched him with a sigh. Oh, no. Now he would think…
"I had some old leftovers at the clinic earlier," she said quickly. After their two previous pregnancy disappointments, they had an unspoken agreement to leave the topic unspoken. And since she knew her waffling appetite problems stemmed purely from her head, she was loathe to raise false hopes.
In the last hour, she had thought of little else besides Adith Rhodis’ theory. It made an awful lot of sense; even more knowing everything that Adith hadn’t. Peggy Linney could easily have held her granddaughter’s baby as an insurance policy for Lilah. If Lilah had a son, fine. If she didn’t, maybe Becky would. The odds were three-to-one in their favor. As for Peggy telling Becky that the adoptive mother had had a stillborn, that made sense too. The less the girl knew about who was adopting her baby and why, the less likely she would be to resurface as a blackmail risk later.
The twosome had covered their bases well. Becky’s family lived in Brentwood, on the other side of the burg. Lilah Murchison’s reputation, however lurid, would not have stretched so far. Even if Becky did learn, years later, that her grandmother’s employer had a son about the same age as her first-born would be, that knowledge alone would be unlikely to set off any alarm bells. Particularly since no one else had any reason to believe that Dean was adopted.
The only thing Leigh couldn’t imagine was what the two women had done with Lilah’s baby girl. Couldn’t they have kept both infants, and claimed they were twins? At the very least, she would think Lilah would want to know exactly where the baby was going, and would want to keep tabs on her. Maybe even keep her close? A girl just Dean’s age…
She scooted her chair back from the table abruptly. "Is Maura coming over tonight?" she asked eagerly.
Warren shook his head. "I called, but she’s on duty till 11:00."
Leigh gazed back at her tamale and thought hard. She needed info on local families, and she needed it now. Who else could she ask? Maura’s mother, the ultimate source on Avaloners, had been beyond answering questions for a while now. There was Adith…but any suspicions admitted to her would be broadcast across the North Boros by "the girls" in a matter of minutes, and this was a delicate matter. Her father knew people with pets, but the kind of information she needed, his brain simply didn’t store.
"Are you going to tell me what’s going on now," her husband asked pleasantly, digging into his tamales, "or I am going to go on a cooking strike?"
"You wouldn’t be so cruel," she returned absently. "I’ll explain everything in just—" A bald, jolly head popped suddenly into her mind. Its lips were moving.
Of course. She got up and walked to the phone, pulling out the white pages. In seconds she had her man.
"Vestal? Hello, It’s Leigh Koslow. Sorry to call you at home, but—"
He responded as she had expected—as though it were a privilege to be bothered.
"I’m looking into some things for my father," she explained vaguely, knowing she could get away with it, "and I thought maybe you could help me figure something out."
"Delighted."
Leigh smiled. She just might have to purchase one of those prepaid burial plans. "You know Jared Loomis, who works at the clinic?"
"Fine boy."
"Yes, he is. I know that he has a sister and two brothers; it’s kind of a delicate question to ask the family, but—I was wondering if it was common knowledge whether any of those children were adopted."
An odd, snuffling sound piped through the phone wire. She would guess it was either a muffled snicker or a sob, and the latter seemed unlikely. Vestal reserved his voluminous tears for the funerals of clients who would appreciate it.
"I’m sorry," he said after a bit. "Didn’t mean to be disrespectful of Wanda—God rest her soul. She died in ’98. Cancer, I believe. But my, my, what a question. No, Miss Koslow, I sincerely doubt that Wanda Loomis would have ever adopted so much as a kitten. The woman was what they call perpetually pregnant. Six kids and more miscarriages than anyone could count."
"Six kids?"
"Oh, yes. The oldest two are long gone. The other boys, Bill and Red, are born troublemakers. Spend as much time in the county lockup as home. Then there’s Jared, whom you know, and the girl, Nikki. Now, she’s a bright one. Had to be tough, too, growing up in that mob."
Leigh could imagine. "Did they—all have the same father?"
The muffled sound came again. "Um, well…" Vestal began when he recovered, "I doubt that. Loomis is Wanda’s maiden name. She never married anybody."
"I see," Leigh responded. It wasn’t the information she was expecting, but she wasn’t finished yet. "One more question. Wanda Loomis—do you happen to know of any connection, however thin, between her and Lilah Murchison?"
"Oh, of course," he answe
red immediately, as if anyone with half a brain should know the same. "The Loomises and the Beemishes were thick as thieves once upon a time. I believe maybe Wanda’s mother and Lilah’s mother were cousins. But as I’m sure you know, the late high-and-mighty Ms. Murchison—God rest her soul—wouldn’t have a thing to do with the likes of Wanda. You can imagine we were all pretty surprised when Lilah took on Wanda’s daughter as staff. Not the charitable type, that woman. But it seems to have worked out."
Leigh thanked the funeral director profusely and hung up, smiling broadly. Warren leaned back in one of the real chairs he had dragged in from the living room. "You’ve got fifteen seconds to start talking," he informed her. "If not, the tamales go to Mao Tse."
"You wouldn’t dare." She sat down quickly and snatched up her fork. "I’m starving."
Chapter 14
"Do you think Nikki knows?" Warren asked, leaning close to the windshield of the blue Beetle. It was pouring buckets, and the trip from the North Hills down to Ben Avon seemed to be taking an eternity.
"It seems like she would have to in order to claim the inheritance," Leigh reasoned. "Unless Lilah left her a sealed envelope or something. But my instincts say Nikki doesn’t have a clue. She just doesn’t act like she knows. She doesn’t even act likes she cares."
Warren queued the Beetle in a line of cars stuck at an unilluminated stoplight. "But you think Dean knows."
"He must. I don’t know if Lilah told him or if he figured it out, but he must know. And I think he’s trying to threaten Nikki out of claiming the inheritance."
"Why through the clinic, though? Why not contact her directly?"
Leigh had been thinking about that. "Well, first of all, I don’t think Dean planned any of this. He’s more the waving-his-hands-around-screaming type." She was not going to think about the incident in the Chuckwagon again. She had mercifully left that part out of her explanation to Warren, for his own good. Not that he was the type to go punching anybody out—but woe unto Dean if he ever needed paperwork from the county.
"It’s his wife Rochelle that’s the schemer," she continued. "My guess is that they’re not sure if Nikki knows yet or not, and if not, they don’t want to tip her off prematurely. Or anybody else, for that matter. But they can preemptively threaten her—and by implication, Jared—through the clinic without anyone knowing their exact target."
Warren was quiet for a moment as he steered carefully through the intersection. The wind was blowing hard against the Beetle, and the lifeless stoplights swayed violently over their heads. "I wish we could get hold of Mo," he said finally. "Don’t you think you should at least tell someone at the Avalon PD?"
"I can, but they won’t care," Leigh insisted. "Dean Murchison is already suspect number one for the threats; but as Maura said, they can’t charge him because they don’t have any evidence. All I could provide at this point is more motive."
Warren did not appear appeased. "I’m just not sure confronting Nikki about this now is the way to go."
"If all goes well, I won’t have to," she responded brightly. "All I want to do now is tell her about Jared seeing Mrs. Wiggs. She should be able to tell if there are any other signs of Mrs. Murchison roaming around the place. And if there are, the whole inheritance thing is moot, and Rochelle’s reign of terror is over."
Warren threw her a skeptical look. "And then you’ll trot off merrily home and leave the whole mother-daughter reunion thing to follow its natural course with no interference."
"Of course," she agreed. Then she considered. "Well, probably."
A bolt of lightning split the sky, and she looked anxiously out the window. They had reached Ben Avon—finally. She directed Warren to the Murchison mansion, then around the side to the driveway. The zigzagging maze that passed for Lilah’s front walk might be fine in the daytime, but at night in the middle of a thunderstorm, she would take her chances on a more accessible route.
Warren pulled into the awkwardly angled drive, and they made their way slowly toward the garage. "I’m surprised she doesn’t have a gate," he commented.
"Physical barriers are a Sewickley Heights kind of thing," she said philosophically, referring to an even ritzier borough farther downstream. "People like Lilah prefer to keep out the riffraff with good, old-fashioned psychological intimidation. More sporting, you know."
He threw her a skeptical look, but said nothing. A second later, they lurched forward as he slammed on the brakes. "Who is that?" he exclaimed, looking at the bright-yellow hooded raincoat bobbing around a few yards in front of the fender. "It looks like a kid. They came out of nowhere."
Leigh rolled down her window, and the hood turned in her direction. "Nikki?" she called. "Is that you? It’s me, Leigh! Can we come in for a minute?"
The hood made its way around to the passenger side of the car, and Nikki Loomis’s wet face appeared. "Are you nuts?" She rolled her eyes. "Never mind. Yeah, whatever. Park in front of the garage and come to the porch." She uttered an expletive, pulled the yellow slicker tighter over her head, and marched off toward the house.
Refusing her husband’s offer of his umbrella, Leigh made the sprint from the garage to the back door in record time, but was still soaked. The glass-encased sunroom was nicely furnished, but since the carpeting was Aster-Turf, she didn’t feel too bad about dripping on it. "I know you weren’t expecting us, Nikki," she began breathlessly, "but I had to see you right away. There’s news about Mrs. Murchison. Have you talked to Jared today?"
Looking confused, Nikki shook her head slowly. "I teach aerobics at the Y on Tuesdays. Is Jared okay?"
"He’s fine," Leigh said quickly.
"He didn’t hear those rumors, did he?" she asked with alarm. "I got an earful of that at the Y already. Everybody thinks Lilah faked her own death now."
Leigh took a deep breath. News couldn’t travel that fast—even in the North Boros. Sure, the whole clinic staff had heard Jared’s story, and the communicative powers of Mrs. Rhodis and "the girls" should not be underestimated. But still. "Why do they think that?" she asked.
Nikki shrugged. "I guess just because her body wasn’t found. You know people. Everything’s a TV movie."
Warren walked in through the porch door, turned around to shake out his umbrella, then leaned it carefully against the door jamb. He was almost perfectly dry. "Nikki," Leigh began, "this is my husband, Warren—"
"Warren Harmon, County Council, District Two," he said in his best politician’s voice, extending a practiced hand. "Delighted to meet you. I’ve met your brother—wonderful guy. My father-in-law thinks the world of him."
"You mean Jared," Nikki said with a rare smile. "Thanks." She turned back to Leigh, and the smile disappeared. "Now, why are you here? And don’t ask to come in again. I’m still trying to fix all those pictures up on the third floor your old-lady friend rearranged."
Leigh cringed. "Sorry. But this is important. Jared thinks he saw Mrs. Wiggs last night."
A well-timed bolt of lightning accentuated the blanching of Nikki’s small face. "He what?" she croaked.
"He told me he saw Mrs. Wiggs last night. On the third floor, sleeping on the window seat. He was certain Mrs. Murchison was alive too, though he said he hadn’t seen her." She was going to ask Nikki how reliable she thought her brother’s observations were, but the look on the younger woman’s face made that clear.
"I’m always out Monday nights," Nikki answered numbly, turning toward the house with her key outstretched. "Ms. Lilah knows that." She inserted the key into the heavy back door, opened it, and began punching some buttons on a security panel around the corner. Rain was still beating heavily on the glass roof of the sun porch, and Leigh, following close behind, had to strain to understand Nikki’s mumbling.
"I’m always out on Tuesday afternoons, too. I teach at the Y and then I go out to eat with Leslie and them—I’m almost never back before seven…" She was staring at the security console, the puzzled look on her face deepening. "This isn’t right."
Warren followed the women into the house and closed the door behind them. The loud hammering of the rain ceased, leaving an eerie quiet.
"What isn’t right, Nikki?" Leigh asked softly.
The stillness was interrupted by a rumble of thunder. "It’s off," she said simply. "Somebody turned it off." She exhaled loudly, then slammed her back against the wall with a thump. "Damn her."
Warren suddenly turned his eyes toward the ceiling. "Wait. I heard something."
Leigh listened, and she heard it too. A low moaning, almost a sobbing. This time it didn’t sound like a Siamese. It sounded like a man.
"Jared!" Nikki shouted, bolting forward. Leigh leaped after her, careful to avoid her husband’s would-be restraining clutches. The three raced up the back stairs of the kitchen and emerged, one by one, in the upstairs hall.
Jared sat hunched on his knees in the middle of the corridor, swaying slowly backward and forward. His face was buried in his hands, and he appeared to be half crying, half hiccuping from too many lost breaths. He made a noise that seemed as though it were intended to be words, but came out only as a garbled moan.
Nikki was with him on the floor in a flash. "Jared," she said soothingly, pulling his hands down. "What happened? Are you all right? Are you hurt?"
The young man looked at his sister for a long moment, and his breathing gradually steadied. "Nikki’s at the Y on Tuesdays."
"Yes," she answered. "But I’m back now. You cleaned the cages?"
He thought a moment. "I was cleaning the cages in the basement, Nikki."
"You were cleaning the cages in the basement and something happened?" she coaxed.
"I heard the doorbell," he replied more evenly, and adjusted himself to sit in a more comfortable position. One of several Siamese prowling the hall strolled up, approached his arm, and rubbed its face against him. "I heard the doorbell but I didn’t open the door, Nikki. I don’t open Mrs. Murchison’s door."