Sweet Liar

by Jude Deveraux

  It was at the mention of her singing with Ornette that she stopped them and made them explain. Interestingly enough, it was Kane who did the explaining. She could see in Mike’s eyes that he was concerned about her reaction to his idea.

  Kane, who, as far as she could tell, had been told everything there was to tell about what had happened with Doc and Maxie, told her that all the principals were lying. “Jubilee won’t tell what he knows; H.H. won’t tell what he knows; Maxie is too afraid for you to tell; Doc tells but no one can believe him.”

  What Mike had come up with was a way to solve the riddle: He and his family and Sam were going to recreate the night of May the twelfth, 1928. They were going to rebuild and redecorate Jubilee’s Place as it had been on the night of the massacre, then reenact the entire evening, machine guns and all.

  After his initial explanation, Kane sat back and listened to his brother further rationalize his idea to Samantha. The brothers had talked well into last night, with Mike explaining about Samantha’s life, how Samantha had been such a good little girl since her mother died, a dear child who never caused anyone any bother, never asked anyone for help, and, as a consequence, had never been helped. She had done everything she could to gratify her father, even marrying a man she now knew she had never really liked, and she’d gone on to try to satisfy her husband—and become angry at herself, not him—when she couldn’t please him.

  Now Mike was telling Samantha that he wanted to recreate what happened on that night so long ago so he could complete his book, but the truth was, Mike was hoping to shock Samantha into facing what had been done to her. He wanted to shock her into expressing her sorrow, her grief, and, most of all, her rage.

  After Kane was told what had happened to Samantha’s mother, Mike said that after each of these horrifying revelations, Samantha would retreat into herself for a while, then after a few days, she’d act as though nothing had changed. For years the events of Samantha’s life had been an endless list of disasters—a list that was now so long that most people could not have survived it. Yet Samantha not only survived, she went about her daily life as though nothing had happened to her. Mike had said he felt sure that if his only goal was to find out what transpired that night, Maxie could tell them everything, but Mike had a vision of Sam sitting primly in one of the little suits she was so proud of and silently listening to yet another story of unspeakable tragedy, then getting up and saying, “Where shall we go for dinner tonight?” No matter what Maxie told Sam, no matter the depth of the evil described, Mike was sure Sam would internalize the information, suppress what she felt about it, and continue with her life, apparently unaffected.

  Mike’s fear was that someday, maybe twenty years from now, she was going to be like those women in the papers who at fifty, after a seemingly normal life, suddenly became suicidal. If they endured, they had to at last confront abominations that had been inflicted upon them during their childhoods, incidents they had forbidden themselves to see when they were happening.

  Mike was afraid for Samantha, afraid of what would happen to her if she didn’t release the rage that had to be seething within her. Mike feared that, like a volcano, if Sam didn’t explode now, she would later. The only fact for certain was that eventually Samantha had to release what she had repressed for so many years.

  So Mike had planned this reenactment, telling Samantha that the reason for it was that he wanted to know what had transpired that night, but Kane well knew that if it were up to Mike, he’d walk away from all of this, content to never again hear the name of Doc or even of Maxie. Long ago Mike had lost the desire to know what had occurred so many years ago; now his only concern was Samantha and her future well-being. Mike’s feeling was that if there were any way in the world to help Samantha and to give her what she needed, then he was going to do it, no matter what the expense, the time involved, or the people he had to recruit to help him.

  It wasn’t easy for Mike to put her through this theatrical production. He suspected that, at best, it was going to be an ordeal for her, but he also knew by something he called gut instinct, but Kane very well knew was nothing more than deep, unselfish love, that this was the only way that Samantha could ever possibly attain the peace she so desperately needed.

  Because Mike saw it as the only way—abhorrent to him as it might be—he was going to say whatever he had to, to get Samantha to participate. He couldn’t very well tell her that he thought the sight of blood and having to hear all the gory truth of what some gangster had done to decimate her family would be good for her, so in essence, Mike was telling her that the night was to be an amusing little diversion that would give his relatives something to do and would entertain everyone.

  Mike was lying, as Kane knew that Sam often accused him of, but Mike knew that Samantha would never take part in this drama if she thought it was just for her. She would do it for Mike, but she’d never do this for herself.

  Silently, Kane listened as his brother threw out a long line of bull about Jubilee having secrets and H.H. knowing more than what he was telling, and how, if Mike could find out answers to his questions, he would fulfill a lifelong goal of writing this book. But Kane knew exactly what his brother was doing, and he’d never been so proud of him in his life as he was at this moment. With identical eyes that reflected the pride and love he felt, he looked at Mike; Mike saw and, as always, he understood exactly what his twin was thinking. Turning a bit red, Mike looked away, but he smiled, pleased with his brother’s unspoken praise.

  After Samantha heard what Mike had to say, she knew that if she hadn’t already been sitting she would have had to. “Who are we going to use for an audience?” she asked, eyes wide in astonishment. “How can we get enough actors to participate? And even if we found them it would take months to rehearse them.” The unspoken words that Maxie doesn’t have months filled the room.

  “We’ll use relatives,” Mike and Kane said in unison—something that she was beginning to learn that they often did—and they said the words as one would say, We’ll use mannequins.

  “Mike,” Samantha said, trying to sound reasonable. “We would need over a hundred people and they need 1920s clothes. It’s going to cost—”

  “Hell, we’ll let the Montgomerys pay, or Frank can pay. Frank can buy some costume studio in L.A. and make a fortune off of it—as he always does. Don’t worry about the money.”

  Looking down at her hands, then back up at them, she grimaced. The mention of Ornette made her feel a little queasy. “What about the band?”

  “We’ll ask Jubilee for the music.”

  She gave them a look of disbelief. “Jubilee is a hundred and one years old!”

  “And bored out of his mind,” Mike answered. “If we can get him away from his termagant daughter, I bet he’d love to help us.”

  Samantha wanted to say that the whole idea terrified her. It wasn’t just the idea of singing in front of a lot of people that bothered her, although it did, nor was it the idea of trying to act in front of more than a hundred people. What bothered her was the outrage of that night. People had been killed that night; her mother had been murdered since then; her grandmother had spent a lifetime in hiding because of whatever happened on that night. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to look into the face of that evil.

  Mike saw her hesitation. Reaching across the table, he took her hand. “I think the idea of a show will appeal to Jubilee, and H.H. with that tattoo of his has got to be the biggest ham alive and maybe, if Maxie sees what everyone else is doing, she’ll open up.”

  She looked at him. “And what about Doc?”

  Mike took a while before he answered. “Doc is going to watch all of it.”

  At that Samantha laughed. “I can see the invitation now: Miss Samantha Elliot and Troupe request the pleasure of your company at Jubilee’s Place to recreate the worst night of your life.”

  Neither Mike nor Kane looked at each other, but Sam could feel them exchanging looks. “Mike,” she said softly, “ho
w are you going to get him there?”

  “Let me worry about that,” Mike said patronizingly.

  But Kane didn’t lie to her. Of course, he didn’t have the motivation for lying that Mike did, for Mike was sure his life would be over if anything happened to Sam. Then, too, Mike knew Samantha’s propensity for sticking her nose into places where it didn’t belong.

  “We’re going to kidnap him,” Kane said.

  Samantha nodded, for it’s what she’d thought when Mike had first said Doc was going to watch. “What has been done so far?” she asked, for she could tell that during the last days, while she had been grieving all over again for her mother, Michael had been very, very busy.

  This time Mike and Kane did exchange looks, but it was a look of pride on Mike’s part, as though he’d told his brother that Sam was the bravest person in the world and here was proof.

  As they started talking, right away Samantha could see things that needed to be done, such as who was going to play Doc and what did Doc look like as a young man, and where were the headquarters for the many meetings that were going to be needed, and where were his parents staying, not, she hoped, in a hotel.

  Kane sat back and drank a cup of coffee while he watched Sam and Mike argue over having his relatives move into Mike’s town house for the duration. “They are perfectly happy in their various hotels. They have room service, maid service—and I have peace and quiet and privacy.”

  “All of New York is room service!” Samantha snapped at him. “And where is your brother staying? Your twin brother and his darling children?”

  “Those brats are anything but darling!” Mike half shouted at her. “They’ve already eaten half my roses this morning and one of them dug a hole in my garden you could drop a car into. If I let them in my house, they’ll destroy this place.”

  “Oh, is that it?” she asked, her mouth in a tight line. “It’s your house, your relatives. Not any of it is mine, I guess, not even the upstairs. I should have understood that from the beginning, after all, I’m just your tenant and nothing else. I have no rights.”

  At that Mike took her in his arms. “Ah, baby, that’s not what I meant. Of course you have rights. If you want all of them, cousins, whatever, here, then you can have them.”

  Looking over Mike’s shoulder, Samantha winked at Kane. She may have played dirty in the fight, but she’d won, and wasn’t that what counted? Kane raised his cup to her in silent salute.

  31

  After Samantha got over her initial qualms about the feasibility of trying to recreate a moment of the past, she went to work with a vengeance. The first thing she did was invite everyone who was to be involved in key roles to the house for dinner and a planning meeting.

  “And I will cook,” she said, to which Mike began to guffaw, saying that to her cooking probably meant punching the telephone buttons until her fingers were sore. Ignoring him, Sam gave Mike and Kane a very long grocery list that included such things as fresh cilantro, green chilies—“not those awful canned kind”—cumin, piñon nuts, and posole.

  By the evening, when Mike’s relatives arrived, the house was redolent with smells of chili, corn, and beef. Mike, Kane, and the twins had spent the day being ordered about by Sam as though they were in the army, as she gave them onions to chop, chilies to roast and peel, and, for the boys, bread to tear into pieces for bread pudding.

  Everyone arrived hungry. While Mike poured margaritas they began to organize the recreation of the long-ago evening.

  Jubilee with his mean-looking gray-haired granddaughter in tow came, but Jubilee sent her home after the first five minutes, leaving Ornette to stay with his great-grandfather.

  It was as everyone was eating plates full of enchiladas, relleños, posole, and pinto beans, exclaiming with every bite about how hot the food was and saying they couldn’t eat it even as they reached for more, that Samantha began to believe that it was really going to work, because people were already talking of revealing secrets. Jubilee said that whoever was going to be directing Scalpini’s men had better talk to him first. And H.H. (only the older children had been allowed to come and they were fascinated with H.H.’s tattooed hand) said he’d need to talk to Samantha/Maxie.

  Halfway through the meal, when it was so noisy they could hardly hear each other, the front door opened and in came Blair, and she had Maxie on her bed, tubes connecting her to the machine rolling beside her.

  “I tried to talk her out of it,” Blair said, wearing her doctor face. “But she begged me. Well, is there any food left?”

  For a moment, everyone gave Jubilee and Maxie some time alone as they held hands and looked into each other’s eyes, sharing secrets that the others could only guess at. To the surprise of Mike and Sam, H.H. seemed to know Maxie very well. What’s more, his respect for her seemed to be something that was usually reserved for overlords or, at the very least, great wizards.

  “Who’s going to play Doc?” Sam asked loudly, her hand on her grandmother’s shoulder, wanting to break the somber mood the evening had taken, for Maxie looked weaker every day. “Of course it would help if we knew what Doc looked like in those days.”

  With those words Maxie became involved. All the way over in the ambulance that held Maxie’s bed and machines, Blair had told her about what they planned, so Maxie knew what was needed.

  Blair reported to Mike that the bloodstain on Maxie’s dress was A positive, the most common type of blood. It could have been the blood of any number of people who were shot that night. It was not Michael Ransome’s blood, which was O positive.

  After Maxie arrived, Daphne entered with six of her friends. The sight of Daphne brought a hush over the crowd, for she was dressed as gaudily as a Texas tourist in Santa Fe, dripping sparkling fringe, with black and white feathers sprouting from her shoulders. After Samantha introduced her to Mike’s family, Mike told them that Daphne and her friends were going to be the chorus and backup singers for Samantha. One of Mike’s teenage cousins gaped at Daphne. When he recovered his powers of speech, he asked Vicky if they could measure Daphne and her friends for their costumes. Vicky rolled her eyes skyward, but one of Daphne’s girls, looking at the clean-cut young men, said they’d not mind at all if the boys measured them—it would make them feel like schoolteachers.

  When Samantha showed Maxie’s clothes to everyone, Raine said, “Nice shoes,” and they all laughed. Asking about the joke, Sam was told that Raine’s mother loved shoes so much that she had a room full of them. Straight-faced, Sam asked, “What size?” which caused more laughter.

  They ate bread pudding and bowls full of flan as they assigned roles and figured out how everyone was to rehearse. Some of them were to help the principals, such as Vicky, to make clothing, then later they were to be in the audience. Jilly was to be the resident historian, giving answers on any and all questions about what to wear, how to act, and what slang was to be used. Slang study was considered necessary after one of Mike’s young cousins said he was sure the word groovy came from the twenties.

  Only once did Samantha think of calling the whole thing off, and that was when Mike’s dad, Ian, talked of arranging for machine gun practice. He saw Sam’s face and told her the guns wouldn’t be any more real than they were in the movies, but she remembered the death not too long ago of an actor who was playing with a pistol loaded with blanks.

  It was late when everyone left, and there was lavish praise of Samantha’s cooking.

  “I haven’t been in Santa Fe for years,” Ian said as he stood at the front door, “but I remember it as being a rather sophisticated little town.”

  “I wouldn’t say it’s exactly unsophisticated,” Samantha answered without a hint of smile, “but the brides there do register their china and silver at Wal-mart.”

  Ian chuckled all the way down the stoop while Pat and Samantha arranged for her and Ian to move into Mike’s house the next day. When she left, she kissed Sam’s cheek.

  When everyone had left, Maxie with Blair back to t
he nursing home, Kane with the boys to the hotel to return in the morning with their clothes to move in, Samantha looked at Mike. And Mike looked at Samantha.

  In the next minute they were on each other, making love on the foyer floor, then moving into the living room, then to the library, both of them feeling as though they hadn’t seen each other in six months. In his exuberance, Mike began to bend Sam’s body into unnatural shapes, but she was so limber from years of aerobics classes that she bent easily, her legs twisting about various parts of him with ease. They fell asleep on the floor of the breakfast room and woke in the wee hours, to feel bruised parts of each other’s bodies. Mike, yawning, said they ought to go to bed, but Samantha said that she just had to have a bath—a nook and cranny bath. Grinning, Mike picked her up and carried her up to the bathroom.

  Hell, Samantha thought, was rehearsing with Ornette Johnson. Never in her life had she met such a bigot, and when she called him that—after he’d told her for the fourth time in three hours that she was too white to sing the blues—a hush came over the room. According to Ornette, only white people could be bigots, and that idiocy sent Samantha into a rage.

  When Mike entered the nursing home recreation room, he found Samantha standing on a chair shouting into Ornette’s handsome face while he yelled back at her. Maxie and Jubilee sat to one side, looking on with expressions of adoration.

  “So who’s winning?” Mike asked, taking a seat next to Maxie.

  “I’d say it was a draw, wouldn’t you, Jube?”

  “A draw, yes. I think Ornette’s met his match.”

  Leaning forward, Mike quietly told them that he had arranged for a record producer to attend the night Ornette was going to play. “Who knows what will happen, but at least he’ll be heard.”

  Smiling and nodding, Jubilee nudged Maxie to tell her that Samantha had just called Ornette a racist and that they should watch the show the way the other residents of the nursing home were doing.