With every strand of her chin-length platinum blond hair in place, Claudia sat nestled in the antique canopy bed, her back braced against a mountain of pillows. She clutched a gold and white telephone in her hand.
Dear God, she was on the phone! Why the hell hadn't Ida Mae picked up when she'd heard it ringing? He moved slowly across the Persian rug that covered the hardwood floor and approached the side of the heavily draped bed.
"Don't worry, darling," Claudia said into the telephone. "Maxine Carson is an excellent attorney. She was Papa Henderson's choice to take over his practice. She's as good as they come. Bethany is innocent, and I promise you that she won't be convicted of murdering that horrid man."
Morgan stood by his mother's bed, watching and waiting, amazed not only by Claudia's sweet, almost motherly tone of voice, but by the truly concerned look on her face.
"Now, has Nana ever made any promises to you that she didn't keep?" Claudia paused, smiling weakly. "I love you, too, darling. Please tell Bethany that although I can't come to her, I'm with her in spirit." Another slight pause, then Claudia swallowed hard. "Call me every day … and come to see me soon."
Claudia placed the receiver in the cradle atop the nightstand, then glanced up at Morgan. "Good morning, son."
"Who was on the phone?" he asked.
She patted the wide expanse of unoccupied bed to her right. "Sit down. We need to talk."
Morgan sat; Claudia reached for his hand. Surprised by the gesture, he almost pulled away, but stilled his involuntary rebuff and allowed her to grasp his hand. "That was Anne Marie. Bethany's daughter."
"She calls you Nana?" How was it that his mother's great-niece called her a diminutive of grandmother? Had Amery taken his place in the family so completely that his own mother had considered her nephew a substitute for the son who had sorely disappointed her?
"Anne Marie is my granddaughter." Claudia squeezed Morgan's hand. "In every way that matters to either of us."
"I heard your end of the conversation, so I assume you already know what I came up here to keep you from finding out. I was going to wait for Dr. Bowers to arrive before I told you."
"Ida Mae is no doubt in a tizzy. But there's no need to bother Wes Bowers." Claudia's sharp blue-gray eyes, identical to her son's, glared at him. "I may have a bad heart, but my mind functions quite well, thank you. I'm perfectly capable of dealing with this atrocity. And that's what this is—an atrocity. To think that anyone could believe our Bethany is capable of killing someone, even that vile Jimmy Farraday, is—"
"Stay calm, Mother." Morgan clutched her chin gently. "Don't upset yourself."
Releasing her hold on his hand, she jerked away from him. "You're right. I have to remain calm and in control. I can't help Anne Marie or Bethany if I have another heart attack. And I intend to help them in any way I can. You must help them, too, Morgan."
She looked pleadingly at him. He couldn't remember his mother ever begging, either by word or gesture. She was a proud woman. But for some reason she was willing to put aside her pride for the sake of Amery's widow and child.
"You work for a private security and investigation firm, don't you?" Claudia looked him directly in the eye. "You could investigate Jimmy Farraday's murder and find his real killer."
"No, Mother. I can't." He had no intention of seeing Bethany, for any reason, not even to help prove her innocent of murder. "I won't be in town long enough to be of any help. I'd planned to stay only a few more days. Besides, if you want to hire an investigator, I can call my boss and have him send someone over from Atlanta."
"Why request someone else when you're already here?" Claudia asked.
"I came back home to see you, not to become involved with the family again, not to get embroiled in some mess Amery's wife has gotten herself into. And certainly not to become a part of the life I left behind sixteen years ago."
"You're so bitter, Morgan. Why?" Claudia reached out and touched his cheek. He withdrew instantly. "We didn't leave you. You left us. We didn't stop loving you. You grew to hate us and everything our lives represented."
"And the minute I left town, you threw Bethany into Amery's money-grubbing clutches." Morgan shot up off the bed, rammed his hands into the pockets of his tailored slacks and paced back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. "You and Eileen Dow were so damned and determined to see the Dows joined with our family in marriage that you gave Bethany to a man who wanted her only because she'd been mine."
"Morgan, no, we didn't—"
"I came home after basic training," he said, cutting off his mother's explanation mid-sentence. "You didn't know that, did you? When I went to Bethany's house, the maid told me that she was getting married that very day. I stood outside the church, in the rain, and watched Amery and Bethany get into a white limousine."
"Oh, Morgan … son, we never knew. You—you had told us that you never wanted to see us again. You cut off all ties to us. You broke Bethany's heart as well as mine and your father's. When you left Birmingham, we had no idea where you'd gone. Not for several years. Not until you finally called Ida Mae."
"You ask me why I'm bitter, Mother. Well, I'll tell you. I came back to Birmingham after basic training to get the one thing I'd left behind that I found out I truly wanted. And guess what? I was too late. My mother and father had already given her to my cousin."
"I'm sorry," Claudia said in a calm, quiet voice. "I am so very sorry."
"And I'm sorry, too. Sorry that I came back to see you. And sorry I can't be the comfort to you that Ida Mae thinks I should be."
When his mother made no reply, Morgan walked out of her bedroom, down the back stairs and outside to the driveway where he'd parked his car. Ida Mae called after him. He hesitated, his hand clutching the door handle.
"Look after Mother," he said. "I've got to get out of here for a while."
"Are you coming back?" Ida Mae asked.
Was he? He wanted to run now as badly as he had sixteen years ago. Run and never look back. "I don't know."
He slid behind the wheel of his black Ferrari F-40, revved the motor, raced around the circular drive and out onto the road. He had to get out of Redmont, off Red Mountain, away from Birmingham.
He never should have come home. Not even to see his sick, possibly dying mother. It had been a mistake to think he could return home and not run headlong into the past.
* * *
The spectators at the graveside crowded around the family like vultures preparing to swoop down and devour. Local and state reporters and photographers were bad enough to deal with at such a time, but national TV networks had sent representatives to Alabama to cover the sensational murder of Jimmy Farraday.
Hordes of Jimmy's Wake Up Birmingham fans called out slurs and threats when they saw Bethany. Prompted by the crowd's actions, the police guard that Chief Baker had arranged circled the tent that provided protection and partial privacy for the family.
Eileen Dow Farraday, tiny, delicate and lovely in her black silk mourning suit sat between her eighteen-year-old stepson, James, and Anne Marie. Tears streamed down Eileen's china-doll perfect face.
How could this nightmare they were embroiled in be real? Bethany wondered. If only she could awaken and discover that the past few days had been nothing more than a bad dream.
Someone had murdered Jimmy. That unknown person had emptied all six rounds of her KBI pistol into him. She hated guns. Everyone knew she despised carrying her small handgun for protection. Seth had bought it for her two years ago, right after she'd been mugged leaving Bethany's Boutique in Huntsville.
If only she hadn't gone to WHNB three days ago. If only she had ignored the message Jimmy had left on her answering machine Friday afternoon. But there was no going back to change the past. She couldn't erase the scratch marks from Jimmy's face—the ones she'd put there. And she couldn't alter the fact that she had returned to his office for her shoulder bag that she'd dropped on the floor during her scuffle with him.
&nb
sp; After she'd run out into the parking lot, anyone could have gone into his office, picked up her purse and found her gun. Anyone who hated Jimmy Farraday could have killed him. But the police weren't looking for anyone else. They were certain they had their murderer. She supposed if she saw the facts from their point of view, she would believe what they believed. That Bethany Dow Wyndham had made good on her threats and murdered her stepfather. She was the last person seen entering his office. The murder weapon belonged to her, and only her fingerprints were found on it. And the night before the murder, at a gala party in her mother's home, she had threatened—before two witnesses—to kill Jimmy.
Dear God, Maxine was going to have a difficult time proving her innocence. Considering the evidence, if she didn't know better, she'd think she had killed Jimmy.
"Are you all right, Mama?" Anne Marie squeezed Bethany's hand as they rose to their feet after the minister finished his final prayer.
"I'm OK, honey." Bethany slipped her arm around her daughter's shoulder and drew her closer. "I suppose I feel a bit like a hypocrite coming to Jimmy's funeral the very day I was released from jail on a half-million-dollar bond."
"Grandmother wanted you here," Anne Marie whispered. "She knows you didn't kill Jimmy. Besides, Maxine said that it was important for you to be there. To show the world that you don't have a guilty conscience."
Coming up behind her, Seth Renfrew eased his arm around Bethany's waist and hugged her. "I'm going to ride home with Eileen and James. Will you be all right?"
"I'll ride with Mama," Anne Marie told him. "We'll see you at Grandmother's in a little while."
Ignoring the ugly shouts and graphic threats that Jimmy Farraday's loyal fans bellowed at the top of their lungs, Bethany eased inside the second limousine waiting in the line of vehicles. Her daughter slid in beside her.
"You should have ridden in the limo with your grandmother." Bethany glanced out the window as the line of cars began the long, slow drive down the winding roads toward the white iron gates at the entrance of Elmwood Cemetery. Eileen's black limousine led the procession past the old crypts and impressive monuments. "I could have asked Maxine to ride with me."
"Grandmother has all the help she needs. James and Seth have hardly left her side for the past few days." Anne Marie kissed her mother's cheek. "I thought maybe you needed me today. Having to spend the whole weekend in jail must have been just horrible for you."
Tears glazed Bethany's eyes. She gripped her daughter's hand tightly as their limousine circled the small rose garden at the cemetery's entrance and followed Eileen's limo out onto Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive
.
Sometimes Anne Marie's maturity amazed Bethany. She had long ago decided that the girl possessed an old soul. From the moment she'd first felt her baby move inside her, the child had become the focus of her life, the center of her world. And after she was born, Anne Marie had become more precious with each passing year.
Bethany had done and would do anything for her daughter. She had married a man she didn't love and endured nearly four years as Amery's wife in order to protect Anne Marie and give her child the heritage she deserved.
She had built a business—a chain of successful boutiques—by combining an investment by her business partner and her mother's friend, Seth Renfrew, with years of hard work. She had wanted not only to give Anne Marie every advantage, but had been determined to make her daughter proud of her and to look to her as a role model. She wanted her daughter to grow up strong and confident and able to meet the world on her own terms. She didn't want Anne Marie to ever be as weak and vulnerable and easily manipulated as she once had been. Bethany intended to make sure nothing and no one ever hurt her child. And that very devotion, that maternal protectiveness was what the prosecuting attorney could and would use against her.
What would happen if the grand jury turned her over for trial and she was found guilty? Who would take care of Anne Marie? Her mother? Eileen was hardly the person Bethany wanted in charge of her daughter's formative teen years. She was far too flighty, too entrenched in her old-fashioned ways to raise a modern-thinking young woman. Besides, her mother already had one teenager to worry about. James adored Eileen. And why not? She had been a loving, doting stepmother for the past ten years, showering him with attention when his own father had had little time for him.
And Claudia, who adored Anne Marie, wasn't physically able to take on the responsibility. Although she knew she could always depend on dear Seth, what did a fifty-year-old bachelor know about raising a teenage girl?
No, what Anne Marie needed was her father.
Even if Amery were alive, Bethany knew they would be divorced now, and she doubted that he would have played a major role in Anne Marie's life. Even before his death, he'd paid little attention to her.
Of course, Bethany didn't think of Amery as Anne Marie's father. She never had.
The ride to her mother's home seemed endless, but Bethany was simply glad to be out of jail and sitting in the back of a limousine, holding her daughter's hand. If the trip had taken hours, she wouldn't have cared.
When they arrived at Eileen's huge, stone Colonial Revival house in Mountain Brook, reporters and spectators alike mobbed the limousines as they pulled into the long, narrow drive leading to the' mansion.
"What's wrong with those people?" Anne Marie clutched her mother's hand as they stared outside at the screaming, shouting horde. "Why don't they leave us alone?"
"Jimmy was adored by a lot of people here in Birmingham, and I'm afraid they're determined to see his killer punished."
"But you didn't kill him."
"I know that and you know that, but those people—" Bethany nodded her head backward as the iron gates closed behind them, shutting out the angry crowd and curious reporters "—believe I did."
The moment the limousine came to a stop, Seth opened the door and helped Bethany out, then offered his arms to her and her daughter. Flanking Seth, they allowed him to lead them up the wide rock steps, onto the entrance porch and into the house.
"I'm afraid this whole affair is going to be nothing but a three-ring circus," Seth said. "Everyone from the governor on down will arrive shortly, and I'm afraid Eileen has even agreed to allow WHNB to send a reporter and cameraman."
"My God! How can mother be so stupid!"
"You know Eileen. She hasn't been thinking straight. It never occurred to her that your being here is what they'll focus on instead of all the people who are here to pay homage to Jimmy."
"My car is parked in the garage," Bethany said. "I think I'll slip out the back way and go home. Would you ask Maxine to bring Anne Marie home later?"
Tall, willowy and strikingly attractive for a woman of forty-five, Maxine Carson approached her client. "Did I hear my name mentioned?"
"Yes, would you—" Bethany said.
"I'm going home with you, Mama. I don't want to stay here."
"I've already paid my condolences to Eileen," Maxine said. "Why don't the three of us make a graceful exit together? I'll follow you home. We have a lot to discuss, and I see no reason to delay making some vital decisions."
"All right." Bethany turned to Seth. "Later, when she's had time to miss me, tell Mother why I left."
On the way out the back door, Anne Marie said, "I hope there aren't any reporters or Jimmy Farraday fans waiting at our house."
* * *
Two hours later, after the police had dispersed the crowd outside Bethany's home in Forest Park, she and Lisa Songer prepared sandwiches and soup for themselves, Anne Marie and Maxine. Fixing supper was such an insignificant thing, but for Bethany the simple act helped her feel as if she had regained some control over her out-of-control life.
Lisa, the manager of Bethany's Boutique in the Galleria, had stopped by after the funeral to bring Bethany up-to-date on the business. And as a friend, she'd stayed to give comfort.
They ate on trays in the cozy living room. A room, like the others in her house, that Bethany had
personally decorated for homey warmth and casual livability. She had wanted Anne Marie to grow up in a home, not a museum, not a look - but - do - not - touch mansion.
When the telephone rang, Anne Marie jumped up off the beige and aqua floral sofa. "I'm taking that darn thing off the hook! If it's an emergency, Grandmother and Nana both know your cellular phone number."
Easing out of her brown suede flats, Bethany slipped one leg under the other and leaned back against the sofa arm. "Just turn the volume down on the ringer and on the answering machine." She looked at Maxine. "Isn't there anything we can do to put an end to the phone calls? I can't believe that ten of Jimmy's devoted fans have called here in the past two hours. And two of them threatened me with bodily harm."
"We'll get you an unlisted number," Maxine said.
"Jimmy Farraday catered to some of the worst elements in our society." Lisa stacked the dinner trays and carried them toward the kitchen. "Let's face it, a lot of Jimmy's fans don't have the brains God gave a billy goat."
Maxine reached across from the chair she'd shoved up against the sofa and put her hand on Bethany's arm. "While you were fixing supper, I called the Dundee Agency in Atlanta and spoke to Dane Carmichael, who's in charge now that Dundee himself has retired. I told him that we wanted him to send someone over here to start a private investigation into Jimmy's death."
"What can a private investigator find out that the police can't?" Bethany asked.
"For one thing, a P.I. is going to look for another suspect, and at this point, the police aren't. Even though Detective Varner has some doubts about your guilt, his hands are tied." Rubbing the back of her neck, Maxine turned her head from side to side. "The D.A. believes he has his murderer, but we know he doesn't."
"Just how expensive is a private investigator?" Bethany was not poor by any means, but she was not a multimillionaire in her own right, as was her mother. She poured a great deal of her boutique profits back into the business, and her largest savings account was earmarked for Anne Marie's future.
A MAN LIKE MORGAN KANE Page 2