by Edie Claire
Maura smiled back. "Actually, it was my mother who tipped me off. When I heard the voice mail message from Leigh, I knew something was out of whack." She leaned forward toward the box of sausage and mushroom, then slid three still-connected pieces onto her paper plate.
"Mom said she was 'sitting on the wall,'" Maura continued. "The only wall I could think of was the old Avalon Elementary School wall, which wraps around the corner of California Avenue and North School. Just about anybody who grew up in Avalon has sat on that wall at one time or another, swinging their feet and watching the traffic go by. But the thing is, the wall’s kind of high—it’s hardly a typical hangout for women in their forties."
Maura paused to take a gargantuan bite of pizza, and Detective Frank, who ordinarily said next to nothing, continued for her. "There was the cherry cola thing, too. Pre-fab Cherry Coke didn’t come out until the eighties. But soda shops used to make their own, with cherry syrup."
Maura agreed with a nod, then swallowed. "I’d never heard of anyplace called Meister’s either, so I asked around. Turns out that there was a Meister’s Dairy Store on the corner right across from the school wall—back in the fifties."
Cara’s eyebrows rose.
"You see," Leigh explained further, "we were stuck on this idea that the mystery heir was born in 1977, when everyone thought Lilah was pregnant with Dean. And she did give birth to Nancy Johnson that year. But Nancy wasn’t her firstborn."
Maura turned to Leigh. "It’s taken me a couple trips back to Maplewood," she said. "But I think I’ve finally pieced together the whole story of what my mom saw."
Leigh nodded encouragingly. "What?"
"She was just a teenager," Maura began, "and so was Lilah Beemish. Mom was sitting on the wall, hoping somebody named Betty would be able to join her for a soda. While she was there, she saw Lilah skulking around a particular house, a house near the corner that all the kids knew they were supposed to stay away from.
"I’m not sure what all else the people who lived there were into, but apparently, they had enough black market connections to broker the sale of a healthy white infant."
Cara drew in a breath. "In the fifties?"
"It happened," Frank explained, cutting in. "Sometimes wealthy couples didn’t want to wait. Other times, they tried to cover up births that didn’t go as planned."
"Just like Lilah herself did—twenty-odd years later," Leigh noted.
Maura continued. "According to my mother, Lilah had quite a scandalous reputation already, even at that age. So mom figured she was probably involved with somebody at the house. But that worried her. You see, nobody had seen much of Lilah lately, and Mom thought that maybe she’d been sick. And that night in the spring, even though it was warm, she was bundled up like she was about to take a trip.
"Mom waited on the wall a long time before Betty showed and they got their sodas. But she kept an eye out the whole time, waiting for Lilah to come out of the house. She never did, at least not that Mom saw, which worried her. Finally, after Betty left, Mom finally got up the nerve to walk over to the house herself and peek in one of the windows.
"She could hear Lilah moaning as she got closer, and it scared her to death. But when she looked in and saw the man of the house holding a crying newborn, she almost wet her pants. Mom just stood there watching as his wife helped Lilah pull her clothes back on.
"Then the man handed Lilah a wad of bills, and the girl perked right up. She stuffed them in her coat pocket and walked out the door."
"Good God," Cara breathed.
"It gets worse," Maura replied. "Mom followed her, wondering if she was all right. But Lilah didn’t go home. She walked up to the dairy store on the corner, drew one of the bills out of her pocket, and ordered a cherry cola."
The last bite of Leigh’s fourth piece of pepperoni and green pepper went down awkwardly. "Unbelievable," she said with a cough. "You hear about easy births, but for a teenager to take the whole thing that coolly is disturbing."
"What did your mom do then?" Cara asked, her own pizza forgotten. "Did she confront her?"
"Yep," Maura answered between bites. "And I think she would have liked to go to the police right afterward, too. But Lilah made that hard for her. She claimed that if her stepfather ever found out she’d had a baby, he would kill her. She also claimed that the father of her baby was somebody named Horace. Mom’s story gets a little murky here, but as far as I can tell, Horace was Betty’s dad."
Leigh grimaced. "Her own schoolmate’s father?"
"Right," Maura answered. "A scandal like that would have destroyed Betty, and her family, and Lilah threatened to scream it from the rooftops if Mom said a word. Mom said she was torn, but in the end she figured that whoever the baby had ended up with was bound to be a better parent than Lilah or her alcoholic parents. So she kept her mouth shut."
"For almost fifty years," Leigh noted, impressed. "But it was a good thing she decided to remember it when she did."
"I’ll say," Cara agreed, slicing her pizza again. Then she looked back up at Maura. "So, you realized that Lilah’s firstborn had to be in his or her late forties by now."
Maura nodded. "To be honest, Sheridan was already on my list. There were a few things about his handling of the will that weren’t exactly routine. And it was clear that whoever was behind the threats had to have inside information."
She dove in for another bite, and Frank spoke up for her again. "The problem was establishing motive. But once she got a warrant to search Sheridan’s office, that became self-evident."
"You had already searched the office before he brought Leigh there, then," Cara surmised.
Maura nodded. "There was no doubt after that. William Sheridan was Lilah Murchison’s biological son. His adoptive mother had informed him of that years ago; but apparently, Lilah herself didn’t have a clue. She had never shown any interest in tracking down the baby boy she had sold—which was probably one of the things that irked him.
"My guess is he’d been trying to figure out how to get his hands on Lilah’s money for quite a while already. Maybe he even thought about doing it legit—by getting to know her and then acknowledging himself. She and Dean were clearly on the skids anyway.
"But then Lilah found out she was dying," Maura continued, turning to Leigh. "You were right about that, by the way. The autopsy showed she had an inoperable aneurysm. She could have lived a year, or she could have died any day. So she put her affairs in order, which meant making the decision to disinherit Dean and favor Nancy. Sheridan had snagged her business by then, and you can guess how thrilled he was to learn he would be passed over for another bastard child he didn’t even know about."
Leigh tried to picture the scene, popping veins and all. "He would have been furious," she declared.
"But he plotted it all out very carefully, still," Maura credited. "I believe his plan was to wait until his mother died, at which point he would claim she had finally told him the truth, or left him a note with her will, or whatever. He could say that he previously had no idea that Lilah was his mother, but that Lilah must have known, which is why she set up the crazy will with his firm in the first place."
Frank clicked his tongue and cocked his head to one side. "You’ve got to admit, the man wasn’t stupid." He smiled at Maura warmly. "But then, he didn’t count on the Polanski factor, did he?"
Leigh quickly averted her eyes from the lovebirds, but watching her perceptive cousin grin at her was even worse. She looked at her watch instead.
"What’s keeping Harmon?" Maura asked finally. "He’d better not miss two weeks in a row."
"He won’t," Leigh answered quickly. "He said he’s running a little late, but he’ll be here."
"So," Cara asked, after a few moments of contented chewing noises all around, "who will get the money?"
Maura and Frank both shook their heads. "You’re looking at a real legal nightmare there," Maura explained. "The will Sheridan prepared is invalid; so the settlement could take yea
rs. But it looks like the last will Mrs. Murchison had with Lang and Madia was almost identical, except that instead of the option of getting everything, Nancy Johnson would get only a small trust put in her late mother’s name."
"So, if Mrs. Murchison had died back then," Leigh said thoughtfully, "everyone would have gone right on thinking that Dean was her one and only child."
She couldn’t help wondering if, now that he knew the whole story, Dean would want to meet his biological mother. Who knew? They might actually have a lot in common. One thing she did know—it would be downright scary if, after all this, Dean and Rochelle did end up as millionaires. Of course, given their combined fiscal acumen, they probably would not be millionaires for long.
"Will there be any trouble getting enough evidence against Sheridan?" Cara probed.
"Lilah’s murder won’t exactly be an open and shut case," Maura said regretfully. "And Peggy Linney’s may be a lost cause. But I’m sure the prosecutor can get convictions on the kidnapping, forgery, and extortion charges, at least."
"Don’t be so modest," Frank chided. "He’ll get murder one. Should have known that buying his grown-up toys online would come back to haunt him."
Maura chuckled a little. "We owe your friend Jared one, there. If Sheridan had had enough time to get that whip off Lilah’s neck, we’d be pretty hard up for physical evidence."
All four jumped sharply as Mao Tse landed solidly in the middle of the table, hissed at Frank, then just as quickly scuttled off. Leigh concealed a grin. The cat had taste.
Cara let out a small laugh. "And what about poor Mrs. Rhodis? Did you explain all this to her yet? I bet she was practically bursting to get in on the action."
Leigh exhaled with a groan. "That woman has called me six times a day, every day, ever since Sheridan was arrested. 'The girls' want to know every little detail—right down to exactly what the handcuffs looked like. Do you believe that? Like I even want to think about Sheridan’s idea of leisure time."
Cara grinned. "Now, Leigh, you should be proud. You not only kept her grandson out of jail, but as far as juicy gossip goes, you’ve put the woman in her glory for years to come."
Leigh returned a sarcastic smile. "Great." She turned to Maura. "Speaking of jail—I assume your friend Hollandsworth won’t be pestering Jared or Nikki anymore, especially not now that Jared is finally back to his old self again."
Maura’s cheeks flamed a little. "Hollandsworth never pestered Jared. He was quite polite. But that pint-sized sister of his is a flat-out maniac. If it hadn’t been for your Aunt Bess, he would have arrested the girl for assaulting a police officer. Not to mention obstruction of justice."
Leigh straightened. "What is going on with my Aunt Bess and Hollandsworth? She won’t tell me a thing, even now."
Maura’s apple cheeks reddened further, and Frank smiled his trademark crocodile smile. "I believe your Aunt Bess doesn’t want to worry you," he said gently. "She’s got this crazy idea that you have a hang-up about detective boyfriends at family gatherings."
It was Leigh’s turn to flush. "Well," she returned uncertainly. "That’s just silly now, isn’t it?"
The sound of a rising garage door rumbled through the house, and she sprang to her feet. "Warren’s here," she said thankfully, moving toward the noise. "I’ll be right back."
It was the perfect time to excuse herself, but she had been planning to greet her husband privately in any event. The automatic door was closing again as Warren emerged from his blue Beetle, looking glad to be home.
She stepped out into the garage to meet him, and he wrapped her in a hug that was just a little stronger and a little longer than strictly necessary. He had been doing that ever since Maura had called him to pick up a shaken Leigh outside Sheridan’s office, and Leigh didn’t mind it one bit.
"Gang’s all here," she announced as he released her.
"Good," he said cheerfully. "And how are you?"
She smiled at the perfect opening. "Pregnant."
***
Enjoy all five mysteries in the Leigh Koslow Mystery Series: Never Buried, Never Sorry, Never Preach Past Noon, Never Kissed Goodnight, and Never Tease a Siamese, available now as e-books! To find out more about these and other books by Edie Claire, including her novels of classic romantic suspense and comedic stage plays, visit www.edieclaire.com , or email the author at [email protected]. Thanks for reading!
Acknowledgments
Special thanks go to John F. Waldron, whose knowledge of "Old Avalon" was indispensable in the plotting of this book. And as always, I thank those unfortunate individuals whom I routinely pester with police procedural and legal questions: Siri and Joe Jeffreys, Scott Robinette, and Gregg Otto. Lastly, I would like to thank any reader who has ever taken the time to send me an email. Your encouragement means more than I can say.