Sweet Liar

by Jude Deveraux

  Holding his left hand up, Walden studied it. “When I was sixteen, I got drunk for the first time in my life, and when I woke up I found that I had gone to a tattoo parlor and had this done to my hand in memory of my grandfather. When I was sober I wanted to have it removed, but my father said it was an omen.”

  When both Samantha and Mike looked puzzled at that, Mr. Walden chuckled. “My dad had a rich fantasy life. He got married when he was little more than a kid and I was soon on the way, so he never had a chance to go to school. After he saw my hand, he said I was destined to become an attorney and save men like my grandfather. I don’t know how a sixteen-year-old with a hellacious hangover and a tattooed hand equaled attorney to my father, but the whole scheme sounded good to me. I went to law school thinking that I was going to be spending my life saving misunderstood men and women, but I find that I defend the dregs of humanity.”

  His words and his expression were at odds with each other, for he looked well pleased with himself.

  “Why?” Samantha asked.

  “Money, my dear. The scum-of-the-earth wouldn’t do scummy deeds if it didn’t make them a lot of money, and defending them has made me a rich man. My parents lived in a two-room apartment with five kids. I have a penthouse on Fifth Avenue and an estate in Westchester. I’ve sent my four daughters to Ivy League schools, and my wife has her clothes made for her in Paris.”

  He smiled at the innocence of the two handsome young people before him, for their faces were readable, telling him that they would never sell their souls for money. But, then, from the looks of the way they were dressed and from the way they carried themselves, neither of them knew what it meant to be hungry or cold or have the landlord evict them in the middle of the night for nonpayment of rent. His daughters were like this pretty little Samantha, well groomed, well fed, not haunted by memories of poverty. Inadvertently, the garbage he defended had done this good deed and helped put something clean and good on earth.

  “When I was twenty-one, I changed my name to H. H. Walden, a nice WASP name that I used all through law school. It helped me with the blond tennis players, and later, I could tell the bums I defended that the H. H. stood for Half Hand, so it helped me there too.”

  “Because they had heard of Half Hand’s lost three million,” Mike said, making Walden smile.

  “You’ve done some searching, haven’t you?”

  Mike told him about the biography he was writing and about Maxie being Sam’s grandmother. “What can you tell us about her?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Mr. Walden said, his eyes locked with Mike’s and never flinching.

  A practiced liar, Mike thought. “Not even the name of the nursing home she’s in?” Mike asked. “Do you have any idea who’s paying her bills?”

  At that Walden put his head back and laughed uproariously. “Caught me, did you? Yes, I know where Maxie is, but I’m not paying her bills. If you want to know that, you should ask her where the money comes from.”

  “She pretends she’s someone named Abby and won’t even admit she’s Maxie.”

  “Ah, well, that’s understandable. She’s probably afraid for the young lady here, afraid Doc will do something to her, or if not Doc, then someone else. The legend of Half Hand’s money is still alive in some circles. Of course, you do know that her name really is Abby, don’t you? No? It’s Mary Abigail Dexter. When she signed on with Jubilee to sing in his club, she initialed the contract, but instead of using her initials of M.A.D., she wrote M.A.X. Jubilee’s bookkeeper, who needed glasses, thought her name was Maxie and the name stuck.”

  Mike gave Walden a hard look, for he had a feeling the man was withholding information, information that he had no intention of telling them. “Someone broke into an upper floor of my house and tried to kill Samantha.”

  Walden didn’t so much as blink, but then he lived with death and murder and mayhem on a daily basis. “Did they now? You catch him?”

  “No,” Mike said tightly. “You have any idea who it could have been? Someone you know?”

  Walden smiled. “It could have been any one of thousands of people I know. There isn’t a person I’ve defended who isn’t capable of climbing into a window and trying to kill a pretty girl. You just have to tell me a time and a place, and I can match a murder with it.”

  Samantha opened her mouth to speak, but Mike beat her to it.

  “February 1975, Louisville, Kentucky,” Mike shot out, but he didn’t turn to look at Samantha who was glaring at him. That was the time and place when her mother had died.

  “I’d like to go now, Mike,” she said softly, but Mike kept looking at Walden and didn’t move from his chair.

  After looking from one to the other of them, Walden punched a button on his phone and told his secretary that he wanted anything she had for the date and place Mike had given him. “She has everything on computer so it should take only a minute,” he said into the silence that had developed after Mike asked his question.

  For five long minutes he sat back in his chair and looked at the two of them, trying to figure out what was going on besides the writing of a biography. He wondered if they knew the full extent of what a nasty creature Doc was, or if they thought he was a sweet old man merely because he had defied the devil long enough to reach the age of ninety-something.

  When his secretary placed a single fat file folder on his desk, Walden leaned forward.

  “Ah, I remember this creep well. He went to the gas chamber about ten years ago and never was there a more deserving occupant. I defended him, but I was glad to know that there was no way I could win the case. On the night before he was executed, he asked me to come to his cell so he could tell me all about his life. I’d like to tell you that he was remorseful, but he said he wanted me to write everything down so he could be put on TV or in the movies like Al Capone was.”

  Walden flipped through the pages of notes. “I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d die before I made him into a folk hero, but I recorded everything he said in case I later had someone accused of something he’d done.”

  Running his finger down the pages he said, “1975. Ah, here it is. My, my, but he was busy that year. Four, no five killed by him, all of them gang members. No, wait, here’s one.”

  Glancing up at Mike, he said, “Louisville, Kentucky. February.” He looked back down at the pages. “Nasty, nasty, this one. Good lord! I had forgotten about this. He was looking for Half Hand’s money. I think someone hired him but he wouldn’t say if he was hired or on his own. I think he wanted me to think he was smart enough to kill people without someone else telling him who, what, and where.”

  “What did he do?” Mike asked quietly

  “He killed a woman. He said he had a tip that someone in her family knew about Half Hand’s money, so he went to Louisville, kidnapped the woman, and tortured her a while to get her to talk. Let’s see…He held her against a hot radiator, but when he realized that she didn’t know anything, he took her out and ran her over with his car. He bragged about how the woman begged him not to hurt her little girl, so after he killed her he stayed in town a few weeks and talked to the kid and asked lots of questions to see if she or her father knew anything. He decided they didn’t, so he left town.”

  H.H. looked up at the two of them. A moment before they had been healthy-looking and pink fleshed, but now they appeared pale and sickly. The man reached out and took the woman’s hand where it was gripping the chair arm, and it was then that H.H. realized that the tortured woman was probably this young woman’s mother.

  “I…I…” he began, and H. H. Walden, the man who was never at a loss for words, could think of nothing to say.

  Mike stood up. “Mr. Walden, thank you so much for your help. I think we’ll leave now.”

  “Look, I’m sorry I told you that story. I didn’t mean…” There was nothing else he could say as he watched the two of them leave his office.

  “Are you all right?” Mike asked when they were on the street.

/>   Samantha nodded. “Fine. Really, Mike, I’m fine, but I think I’d like to take a little walk now. By myself. So I’ll see you later.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.” When he continued looking at her anxiously, she gave him a reassuring little smile and put her hand on his arm. “Mike, it happened a long, long time ago. I’ve had many years to get over my mother’s death, and it really doesn’t matter how she died. Dead is dead, whether it was an accident or murder. I’d just like to be alone now. Maybe I’ll go to a church for a while.” With a little squeeze on his arm and another little smile, she turned away.

  Mike caught her arm and spun her around. She was a good actress, he had to admit that, and if he hadn’t known what she’d just found out, he’d never have known she was suffering. But he was beginning to know Samantha, know her well. Most of her life had been spent keeping grief and despair to herself, sharing it with no one. “You’re going with me.”

  “No, I…” She tried to get away from him, but he caught her arm and held her to him.

  Curling his bottom lip around his teeth, he gave a piercing whistle that made a cab come screeching to a halt. Mike opened the car door and pushed Sam inside. When she tried to speak to him, he told her to be quiet. As they neared the house, he took her chin in his hand and turned her face to the light to look at her. Her skin was pale and clammy to the touch; her breath was uneven.

  When the cab stopped, Mike paid and got out, pulling Sam behind him as he ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, half carrying her when she couldn’t keep up with him. Shoving the key into the lock, he flung the front door open and once inside, he ran with her toward the bathroom.

  He barely made it before Sam began vomiting into the toilet. With one big hand on her forehead, the other arm wrapped around her ribcage, he held her while she heaved and heaved and heaved, her stomach convulsing, jerking in its attempt to bring up more. When there was no more, when she was hanging over the bowl with her stomach moving in spasms, he went to the sink and soaked a washcloth in cold water, then pressed it to her forehead as he flushed the toilet and put the lid down.

  He had to help her off the floor to sit down. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “Really, I am.”

  “Like hell you are.” Leaving her alone for a moment, he got her some orange juice, then had to make her drink it. “And this.” He held out a mint and when she shook her head no, he squeezed her chin and popped it into her mouth.

  Taking the washcloth from her, he rinsed it, wrung it out, and wiped her hot face. What did one do in situations like this? he wondered. How did one deal with such devastating news as Samantha had just received? He tried to imagine how he’d feel if he’d just been told that his mother had been tortured and killed at the whim of some criminal who thought she might know where some money was.

  “When you were a child,” Mike asked, tenderly stroking her hot face with the cool cloth, “and you were sick, who took care of you?”

  “My mother,” she whispered.

  “And after you were twelve?” Pausing in wiping her face, he waited for her answer, but she gave none.

  Sam turned her face away. “I think I’d like to lie down now,” she said as she started to rise.

  “Go to bed? By yourself?”

  “Mike, please. I really don’t want to—”

  He would not allow himself to be angry because she seemed to think that he’d demand sex from her at a time like this. Remembering that she’d said that when she found out her father was dying all she wanted to do was go home to her husband and have him hold her, he caressed her cheek. But her husband hadn’t been there when she’d needed him, and after her mother had died and she’d needed her father, he’d failed her too. Mike thought that it was time that a man didn’t fail her. “Sam-Sam, I’m not going to leave you alone. Your father may have left you alone to be an adult, but I’m not going to.” Picking her up in his arms, cradling her like a child, he started out of the bathroom.

  “Put me down,” she said, struggling against him.

  Stopping in the hallway, he looked down at her. “I’m not going to allow you to be alone. Call me autocratic, call me a male chauvinist pig. Call me whatever you want, but tonight you aren’t going to be alone. This time you aren’t going to have to deal with death by yourself.” When she pushed against him, he pulled her closer. “You aren’t big enough to fight me.”

  He started walking, not toward his bedroom as she’d thought he meant to, but toward the back garden, and as he walked, he pulled an afghan from the back of a chair. When he was in the garden, he sat with her on a chaise, holding her on his lap as though she were a child, and put his hand on the side of her head as he pulled her head down to his shoulder.

  “Tell me about your mother,” he said.

  Burying her face in the muscle of his shoulder, Sam shook her head. Right now the last thing in the world she wanted to think about was her mother, about her mother being held to a hot radiator, her mother begging for the safety of her child.

  “What was her favorite color?”

  He waited, but when Sam didn’t speak, he said, “My mother’s favorite color is blue. She says it’s the color of peace, and with all of us kids peace is what she most wants in life.”

  Sam was silent as he tucked the afghan over the two of them. It was a balmy, warm day, but Sam’s shock had made her body cold to the touch, as though all her warming blood had retreated to somewhere deep within her. Stroking her damp hair back from her temple, Mike pulled her closer, trying his best to cover all of her with his own body. He didn’t know why he was so adamant about it, but he felt it was imperative that he get her to talk.

  “Did your mother sing to you?” he asked. Sam didn’t answer. “Did I ever tell you that my great-great-grandmother was a famous opera singer? She was called La-Reina. Ever hear of her?”

  Sam shook her head no.

  “My father has some records she made. Pretty good voice if I do say so myself. It amazes me, though, that no one in my family can sing a note. Not fair, is it?”

  She was silent as he rubbed her back and held her so very tightly, so very securely to his big body. Samantha remembered what she had worked so hard not to remember: No one had held her after her mother died. After her mother’s death, her father had spent three years sitting in a darkened room. Most days he didn’t bother to shave or change out of his bathrobe, and he ate only enough to keep himself alive. Sam had done her best to cheer him up, but whatever she did, she never allowed him to see her own loneliness. She had never let him see her own sadness, never let him know how much she needed him, and how much she missed her mother.

  “Yellow,” Sam whispered. “My mother liked yellow.”

  Mike held Samantha for hours as she talked to him and told him about her mother and about how much her mother had meant to her. Remembering the story she’d told him about her father and her being like clocks that ran down after Allison Elliot died, Mike began to hear something else in Samantha’s words: She blamed herself for her mother’s death. She’d said that to him once, that she had killed her mother with her demands to go to a children’s party, but she’d covered herself by saying that she knew that wasn’t true. He now realized that had been an intellectual response. On a gut level, Samantha really and truly thought her mother’s death was her fault. What’s more, she thought that her father also believed she was responsible. Why else had Dave shut her off, not looking at his only child, not talking to her, not comforting her? The selfish bastard! Mike thought. He’d thought only of his own grief and not his daughter’s.

  After Kane’s wife had died, Kane’s grief had debilitated him, but he’d done his best to be there for his boys who’d waked in the night crying for their mommie.

  But Samantha hadn’t cried and she wasn’t crying now. She was pale and cold and so weak she could hardly move her hands, but she was dry eyed. Denying herself the release of tears was the way she had punished herself for causing her mother’s death
and her father’s grief.

  “As a child I was a terror,” Sam was saying. “I was selfish and demanding and always had to have my own way. Once my mother bought me a beautiful pair of blue velvet shoes, and I was so rotten, I wouldn’t even try them on. I’d wanted red patent leather shoes.”

  “What did your mother do?”

  “She told me that she was not going to drive all the way back downtown to purchase different shoes for me. She said she was not raising a prima donna and that I was to take what I could get.”

  “Did you get your red shoes?” he asked softly, already hating this story. It was the third one she’d told in which her normal, childish selfishness was blown up into making Samantha sound like a child demon.

  “Oh yes. The next day, I told my mother how pretty her hair was and how blue her eyes were. I told her I was pleased she didn’t look old like my friends’ mothers who were without exception fat and ugly. I told her she should dress like the beauty she was. She smiled at me and asked what I had in mind, so I told her I remembered seeing a dress on a mannequin in the window of Stewart’s Department Store that would look fabulous on her.”

  “And she took you back downtown?”

  “She said that such sincere flattery and such cleverness in trying to get what I wanted deserved to be rewarded, but she warned me that there had better actually be a dress in Stewart’s window or I’d catch it.”

  “I guess there was.”

  “I sweat all the way downtown. I was afraid Stewart’s would have a display of men’s clothes only, but they didn’t let me down. I got my red shoes and Mom got a new dress.” Samantha was silent for a moment. “It was the dress she was buried in.”

  Mike continued holding her, continued stroking her hair, continued listening to one story after another, but with each story his resolve hardened. Blair had suggested that Samantha go to therapy. For what? So some guy could tell her over and over that it wasn’t her fault that her mother died? Tell her that her father’s depression wasn’t her fault? It was going to take more than words to make Sam actually believe that what had happened wasn’t her fault.