The ringing of the telephone stopped me. My impulse was to go on, to ignore the ting-a-ling summons. On the chance that it might be Tilda Grace calling again, I answered.
"Sarah Booth, thank goodness." Harold's voice came over the wire, tired and desperate. "You've got to help me."
"Harold!" At my elbow Jitty made a victory sign.
"I'm in Memphis and I need your help."
"Where's Brianna?" I asked, suddenly wary.
"Listen to me, Sarah Booth. Several of Lawrence's paintings have been switched. The originals have been taken."
Art was nice, but I truly didn't give a damn. Harold was under suspicion for murder and kidnapping. Paintings could wait. "Coleman thinks you had a hand in killing Lawrence, and I'm sworn to tell him your whereabouts. You'd better get back to Zinnia and straighten this out."
There was a pause. "You don't believe I'm guilty of such a thing, do you?"
"Guilty of stupidity in getting mixed up with Brianna Rathbone." I was very angry with him. "Not guilty of murder," I added grudgingly.
"Thank you for that, Sarah Booth."
Something in his voice made my thumb give a weak throb. What did he care what I thought? He now belonged to the queen spider herself. By the time she finished with him, he'd be little more than a crusty husk. Whatever chance we might have had as a romantic couple was long over. "My opinion isn't the one that counts. Coleman is looking for you, and he's serious. He doesn't want to believe you're guilty. But the evidence . . ." I was on the horns of a dilemma. I wanted to tell Harold about the rat poison, but it would be the worst betrayal of Coleman. "Listen to me. Coleman has physical evidence. You'd better get home and talk to him. Now!"
"Two of Lawrence's Pleshettes are missing. They were original works, valued at somewhere around half a million dollars. The security team at the art storage vault found where someone had, unsuccessfully, tried to break into the place. That means the paintings were switched before Lawrence died. Someone very talented did this. The art appraiser just left. He's positive the Pleshettes are excellent frauds."
The beauty and value of a painting by Rene Pleshette were not beyond my comprehension, but Harold's complete ability to ignore the danger he was in baffled me. "Screw the paintings. Coleman has—"
"I believe these stolen paintings are the key to who murdered Lawrence. I have one potential suspect."
He didn't have to say Willem Arquillo's name. I was already thinking it. Was it possible Willem had killed Lawrence over paintings? I thought back to his insistence on finding the manuscript. He could have been looking for the key to the vault the entire time. It was a sickening possibility, made more sickening by the fact that I'd aided and abetted him.
Willem's role in Lawrence's death was something to worry about, but Harold had something more immediate to deal with. "Coleman's taken Madame in for questioning. The evidence implicates her, too." That much I could tell him.
"Madame! That's ridiculous. I have to get back to Zinnia."
I heard his anger, and it was very reassuring. "Harold, do you have any idea where Brianna and the manuscript might be?"
His next question was my answer. "Sarah Booth, do you think you could get into Rathbone House?"
Harold was asking me to breach the walls of the Rathbone estate. He was requesting that I enter the spider's den and rifle through her personal things. He wanted me to violate Brianna's sanctuary and plunder her private affairs. "I'm on my way," I said quickly. "You'd better call Coleman and tell him you're headed home."
"It isn't Brianna. Sarah Booth, you don't understand—"
I didn't want to hear how I didn't understand his love for her, how it was different for them than it had ever been for any other lovers on the face of the earth, how she was misunderstood—the beauty who was never allowed to be human because of her physical perfection. Not a word of it. Zippo. "I'll see what I can turn up at her house. Just remember, if she tries to press charges against me for breaking and entering, you have to get me out of it." If he still had any pull left in town after being a suspect in a murder.
"You don't understand—"
I hung up the phone and stared directly into a pensive Jitty's dark eyes. She'd changed from her sort-of-cool polka dot pajamas into very tailored capris and a scoop-necked wool sweater in fuchsia. "Is that color allowed in the fifties? It's sort of loud. Calls undue attention to you, and we all know a woman's place is in the shadows." I was trying to forestall the lecture I knew was coming.
"Be careful, Sarah Booth," she said slowly. "Remember, a spider is good at hidin' and waitin' until the unsuspectin' fly lands in the web."
24
Getting into Rathbone House was easier than I'd ever dreamed. In her haste, Brianna had failed to shut the gate or set the alarm system. Or check the downstairs windows. Big windows which were easy enough to lift and step inside without even stooping much.
One thing I hadn't expected was a general atmosphere of neglect. The paint on the porch was peeling, and the window latches were rusted. The house had been empty for too long, and like all abandoned things, time was taking a toll on it.
As I slipped through the lacy sheers, I froze. There was a sound, as if the house sighed—or someone was softly shutting a door somewhere upstairs.
I tucked my body to the left, hiding in the thick brocade of the draperies, and listened. The sound wasn't repeated. There was the ticking of a clock, the whir of the heating system—the creaks and moans of an older home, like Dahlia House.
I cased the house once, thoroughly, to be sure I was alone, then headed back to the room that passed as Brianna's study-library. It was a beautiful room, walnut bookshelves gleaming with leather-bound volumes and a portrait of Layton Rathbone in his striking riding attire standing beside his big black Tennessee Walker. The horse's name had been Satan. I remembered it as I stared at her father. No wonder Brianna was so beautiful. She'd had the genes handed to her on a silver platter and served with a silver spoon.
Nothing of Mrs. Rathbone had surfaced in Brianna. She was petite, dark, and very quiet. It was Layton and Brianna that I remembered so vividly, riding wildly over the cotton fields together in what could have been a snippet of a movie about the beautiful people. Brianna was strictly her father's daughter, and her destiny had been almost inescapable.
My gaze happened to fall on the telephone. I considered calling Coleman and telling him that I'd moved my portion of the investigation into Rathbone House, but he was undoubtedly busy interrogating Madame. I wouldn't trouble him. Aunt LouLane had taught me to be considerate of others. In the arduous study of transforming myself into a Daddy's Girl, I'd learned the value of a considerate spirit.
I started in the filing cabinet, hoping to discover some correspondence that might direct me to Brianna's current whereabouts—and the manuscript.
The files were mostly outdated and a mess. Although Rathbone House was not her permanent residence, it was obviously where she stored the data of her life. Several different handwritings indicated Brianna's lack of ability to keep help. Out of curiosity I pulled her modeling contracts and then wished I hadn't. For sitting in an air-conditioned room with a fan blowing her hair into tousled disarray about her perfect face, Brianna made ten thousand dollars an hour. An hour!
The sum was staggering. The date on the contract was 1984, the year we'd graduated from high school. Ten grand an hour.
I suddenly understood a little better how Brianna might have gotten a big head. In the Delta in 1984, many families didn't make ten grand a year. She was oozing money, and all because of the good fortune of her genes.
Nosiness made me scan some more current contracts. Time had definitely marched on, and in more current years her fee had dropped considerably, down to a full-day charge of five thousand dollars. For the past year there were only about a dozen contracts. It was still a lot of money for looking good, but at thirty-three, Brianna was a has-been. Not an easy fact to accept.
The gift of beauty had a hidden pr
ice tag that was steeper than even I had anticipated. For years I'd been jealous of Brianna's looks. Now I pitied her for them.
I closed the file cabinet and moved on. The minutes were ticking away from me. The wheels of justice had begun to grind, and I was certain two innocent people were tied to the tracks in front of the oncoming locomotive.
I could have spent two weeks going through Brianna's private affairs, absorbing every delicious tidbit. She'd squandered millions of dollars, some her own but plenty of it belonging to the men she'd married. As I dug through the files and drawers, I compiled a stack of pertinent documents. Numbered bank accounts, names of lawyers, that kind of thing. I wasn't an accountant, but the bottom line appeared to be Brianna's rapidly approaching financial ruin. And then I found the real bonanza—foreclosure papers on Rathbone House.
There was a second mortgage from the Bank of Zinnia. Harold had executed the loan himself.
I sat back in my chair and tried to think it through. The sum of money was staggering. Nearly a million. More than Rathbone House was worth, in my opinion. Maybe the land holdings were more extensive than I knew, but Christ, what had Harold been thinking? Brianna had no current modeling contracts. She had no training to do anything except look beautiful.
Lawrence's book had been her only hope.
The date on the loan was November 29 of the current year. Feeling slightly nauseated, I got up and moved into Brianna's bedroom. The chaos there hid nothing of significance that I hadn't already deduced— she wore designer underwear and had a fetish for ugly socks and big feet: size ten, double A.
Brianna's boudoir looked as if a cyclone had torn through the room. I wished for the newspaper's camera to document the piles of expensive clothes trampled on the floor, the drawers half closed with saucy underwear hanging out, the shoes scattered hither and yon. I would make Jitty eat the photos, since she viewed Brianna as such an accomplished femme fatale. Hah! Brianna was a bigger pig than I ever dreamed of being.
I didn't know her wardrobe well enough to determine what clothes she'd taken, but I could tell by the scattered pieces of luggage in the hallways and under the mess on the bedroom floor that she'd been packing.
Her bath held every luxury known to woman. Oils, unguents, masks, toners, tighteners, defoliants, the gamut of beauty aids, all designer names. She hadn't missed a trick in a pitched battle to hang on to her beautiful skin.
Though I sifted through her things, I was on the alert for something to show Harold's tenure of residence at Rathbone House. Perhaps he'd always planned on bailing her out financially by purchasing the place for her. Once, not so long ago, he'd indicated his willingness to save Dahlia House for me.
Saddened by that memory and how far things had progressed down a slippery slope for Harold, I moved into the guest rooms. It was there I found evidence of Harold's occupancy—a sock under the bed, some Obsession on the dresser. Knowing his passion for neatness, it didn't surprise me that he'd chosen to store his things in an orderly room. Had he tried to move into Brianna's closet, he wouldn't have been able to hang a shirt.
My last hope was crushed. Harold had moved in with Spiderwoman, even if it was only a minimalist move. And he'd loaned her a lot of money. Money he would never recover if she went to prison for murder. Perhaps that was why he'd proven such a willing helpmeet for her. Duty, obligation, an attempt to recoup the money he'd loaned her—anything was better than the possibility that he was actually in love with her.
Opening the guest room dresser drawers, I came upon a handsome leather briefcase embossed with Harold's initials. I flipped the snaps up and stared. A single page of typewritten, doubled-spaced manuscript rested in the bottom. I scanned it quickly. The implications were so complex I reread the entire passage:
By the time my book has blown up a storm gale of denials and outrage, I'll be long dead and buried. There is no art in telling secrets. The art is in keeping them. For all of these years I've harbored the truth, giving it a safe place to rest, until it was time to tell it. This was my last promise to Lenore, the thing she asked—no begged—of me when she was huge with child and learned that they would take the baby front her.
It was the last thing she asked of anyone before she took her own life. So now I, the man who loved her and could never win her, have told the truth, finally and ultimately putting it all down for future generations to read, or not.
Rosalyn will forgive me. I never judged her for actions I wasn't forced to take. It was not a hospitable world for women in the summer of 1940. The common sentiment was that she got what she deserved for daring to have ambition, for possessing talent. Who can blame her for turning a cruel tragedy into a means of support? Certainly not I. Hopefully not the reader.
Our only true flaw was our youth and naivete. We went to Moon Lake with two simple desires— to enjoy life and to perform. We stayed that summer and developed a political conscience. It was an experience that shaped each of us, molded us into the people we became. That summer informed us of the treacheries of life and the intricacies of human nature. It was the seed for fiction and the spur to action.
If my friends are still alive, they'll know that I await them in a place where the desire for life, the joy of creation, and the heady thunder of applause is given freely. When we're all together again, the curtain will rise once more. The End
My hand shook as I held the page and let the words wash through me. Lenore had been pregnant just before she took her own life. She'd given birth to a child that someone subsequently took from her. Odd that neither Bev nor Rosalyn nor Harold had mentioned such a thing. Odd and disturbing. Lenore had been in her early forties when she'd given birth. A grown woman who was bullied into giving away her child—an act that resulted in a suicide. What was it Bev had said? Something about how Lenore was the quiet one, the instigator, yet too shy to enjoy performing herself. She'd returned to her family home in Greenwood after that summer and slipped from view.
And Madame. "A cruel tragedy into a means of support." What could it mean? I examined Lawrence's words again, wondering how this single page had been left. Who would steal a book and leave the last page? It didn't make sense.
I considered returning the page to the briefcase when I noticed something else, a dusting of fine, white powder. Cocaine was the first thing that came to my mind. The second possible explanation was worse. Poison.
Still holding the damning page, I backed out of the room and stood in the hallway, the sound of my breathing harsh in the silent house.
My formal training as a private investigator is rather sketchy, but I'd always been a good observer of the people around me and a student of human nature. Harold had been in my gunsights for a long time. I found myself thinking of his image and wondering if somehow I'd failed to learn him at all.
Good people can become diseased. The Christian religion has a single name for evil—Satan. In psychology, cruelty is called by a number of names, most describing aberrant mental conditions.
There is a process in both psychology and religion where good becomes corrupted, where the strong are brought to weakness. Whether one believes it's the work of Satan or a process of mental deterioration, the end result is the same—suffering.
For the first time I accepted that Harold Erkwell, the man I'd known as a good businessman, an educated man with a sensitive side that I'd never anticipated but definitely appreciated, the man I'd considered—on more than one occasion—crawling into bed with, was someone I didn't know at all.
The sound of something sliding came from downstairs. It was a soft, subtle noise. Very much like the shush the window had made when I opened it to slip inside the house. I'd taken care to park my car in the barn so that no one who happened up would know I was here. Now my only choice was to pick a hiding spot and employ it.
I snatched the page and out of some misguided loyalty I grabbed Harold's Obsession, his sock, and the briefcase, and dove under the guest bed. It wasn't a position of strength if someone wanted to harm me. The ug
ly truth was that there wasn't a hiding place in the house that would protect me if someone meant to get me. Sucking in my gut I crept to the center and listened.
There were two of them—both creeping up the stairs in slow, stealthy movements.
"What makes you so certain the manuscript is here?" one asked.
I gripped the carpet. I recognized that voice. It was Cece Dee Falcon!
"Because Willem said it was here."
And that was Tilda Grace. I started to wriggle out from under the bed, then thought better of it. They'd broken and entered into Brianna's home. They'd come to look for the manuscript, and they had to have good reason for such a search. The two of them together. It was a twist in the case I hadn't expected. If I stayed under the bed and remained perfectly quiet, maybe I'd learn something useful.
The two women stopped in the doorway of Brianna's bedroom. "My God, what a mess," Cece said.
"Come on," Tilda ordered, her voice stronger than I'd ever heard it.
They continued closer.
"Why did you ever send that information to Lawrence?" Cece demanded in a voice roughened by emotion. "I never did anything to you. I didn't even know about you until you walked in that door. He was my teacher. I never thought to ask if he was married."
"I never blamed you." Tilda spoke with amazing calm. "You're as much a victim of a monster as I have been."
"But if this gets out, if this scandal is started, I'll lose my job. No one will ever hire me again. You don't know—" She broke off.
Tilda's sigh was deep. "I'm sorry. If I had it to do again, I wouldn't. But I was so angry, so hurt. He was so cruel to me, furious that I'd dared to enter his private world. He'd made me believe that I was less than a woman, someone he married out of pity but could never love. His cruelties were immense. Then I walked into the room and saw you both. He'd destroyed me so that he could have his life exactly as he wanted it."
"Why didn't you leave him?" Cece asked.
"I was afraid. I had no place else to go, no family, no money, no job. On the very day that I found you, a young man, with my husband, I should have left. But I didn't. When he said that we would never consummate our marriage and never have a baby—I didn't leave him, as I should have done. Instead, I wrote it all down and sent it to Lawrence."
Sarah Booth Delaney Page 51