Fatal Family Ties

by S. C. Perkins

  Trent looked around the stairwell for listeners, then said in a conspiratorial way as we started down the last set of stairs to the first floor, “Was he talking to his lawyer about the lawsuit?”

  Only the fact that my phone vibrated with a text at the same moment and I performed the Pavlovian response of looking down at the screen kept the twitch I gave from being an obvious tell. The text was from my mother, and I just made out the words You were right! SOILS FROM HEAVEN! before my head came back up to look at Trent. My shock, both at his question and at Mom’s text, must have given my expression a suspicious edge, and Trent rushed to explain himself.

  “Gaynor was talking to another student, just before he came upstairs. They were making plans to meet for a paper they’re working on jointly, and Gaynor said he had a call with his lawyer first.” Trent shrugged, looking pleased with himself. “I simply overheard, that’s all.”

  I felt a bit pleased with myself, too, because I’d realized something: Trent Marins was a gossip, and a gossip was someone I could mine for information.

  “He was talking to his lawyer, as a matter of fact,” I said in a low voice. Then I pretended to give him a hesitant expression. “You do know what it’s about, then? Because I wouldn’t want to talk out of turn …”

  “Oh, honey, everyone here knows,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Gaynor’s suing Camilla’s family because Gaynor’s ancestor had Camilla’s ancestor, some rich old Civil War vet, over to dinner.” Trent gave me an incredulous look, then shrugged. “I mean, as genealogists, you and I both know that happened a lot in earlier centuries. Hell, half of England’s landed gentry became gentry after having a member of royalty stay at their house.”

  “True,” I said. “And the money they shelled out to impress their royal guest was astronomical. It was a very common thing.”

  “It certainly was,” Trent said, “but it still stuns me. One dinner with Braithwaite—that’s it, one measly dinner—and it set Gaynor’s ancestor back so much money that it affected his family for ages. You may have read about it in the latest issue of Chronology.” Trent’s eyes lit up. “The whole article was about Camilla’s ancestor, you know. The reporter really ripped the Braithwaite family a new one with her claims, don’t you think?” He gave me a sidelong look. “I mean, you have read the article, haven’t you?”

  “I have—and wow,” I said, letting my eyes go round as we reached the bottom step. We stopped just before the doors to the main reading room. “I’ve subscribed to Chronology for years and I’ve never read an article quite like it.”

  A student came breezing through the doors and dashed up the steps, barely taking notice of Trent and me. I took the opportunity to steer the conversation.

  “So, tell me,” I said, moving a bit closer to him. “Camilla said her ancestor was a painter and she’s got part of a triptych done by him.” Pointing upstairs to the Duchess Room, I said, “I overheard Mr. Gaynor saying something about the painting being worth a lot of money. Something about another painting being underneath the top one. I mean, how freaking cool! Did she ever say anything to you about it?”

  Trent’s eyes narrowed. “We knew she found what looked to be another painting underneath, but I don’t know anything about it being worth that much.” His voice took on the purr of someone who’s just heard something particularly juicy. “Well done, Camilla.”

  I nodded emphatically. “Mr. Gaynor said something about someone from the library staff telling him about it. Do you think it was Roxie or Patrice?”

  Trent tapped his lips with one long finger, assessing me with amusement as he did so. “Lucy, are you helping our Camilla with an ‘investigation’?” he asked, using air quotes.

  “How do you mean?” I hoped my face was an innocent mask, but I could feel the heat in my cheeks. It only got worse when he swiped his finger along the side of his nose as if to assure me that I didn’t need to worry, he would keep my secret.

  “Come on,” he said, tilting his head toward the bullpen. “Let’s go find Roxie and Patrice so you can see what they have to say for themselves.” And he yanked open the door to the main reading room.

  It was all I could do not to slump as I walked through. In seconds, Trent Marins had seen right through my attempts to extract information from him. And the sinking sensation I felt when I met Roxie’s cold stare as I neared the reference desk told me things weren’t likely to get one bit better.

  THIRTY

  “I was wondering if you were going to come say hello or if you were going to keep running scared from us,” Roxie said in her slightly raspy voice from her perch at the reference desk. As it sat higher than the other two desks in the bullpen, I felt like a peasant being led to an imperious-looking queen.

  “Now, Rox, don’t be prickly,” Trent said. “Lucy here was going to come say hello. She just had some work to do first. Isn’t that right, Lucy?”

  I nodded like a robot. Roxie, whose hazel eyes seemed to laser in on any level of bull, didn’t look convinced. For his part, Trent left me and headed upstairs again, but not before turning around and giving me two thumbs up in encouragement behind Roxie’s back. He also mouthed, Patrice is in her office, and pointed to the hallway just beyond Roxie’s desk, where the librarians and the in-house genealogist each had a small private office. I wondered if Patrice and Helen were still there talking rare Texas maps.

  Roxie continued to look at me, unsmiling, but a student stepped up to the desk and asked her for the Wi-Fi password, giving me a temporary reprieve. I sent a quick reply to my mother’s text, telling her where I was and that I’d call her back soon.

  Then, almost as if Helen knew I’d been wondering if she were still here at the library, my phone buzzed in my hand with a text. She wrote that she had waited for me as long as she could after accepting the maps from Patrice, but had to get back on the road to Austin. She told me to keep her updated, wished me luck, and finished with a good reminder.

  And if either of those catty women hisses at you, remember, you’ve got fangs, too. Use them.

  I looked up from my phone, my lips twitching. Roxie was giving me a look like there was a bad smell in the room.

  “Your hair looks really nice, Roxie,” I said by way of breaking the ice. “Layla’s outdone herself this time.”

  Even the mention of Roxie’s girlfriend and a compliment on her hair didn’t thaw her. “Why are you here, Lucy?”

  Suddenly, I realized how tense I was—just like I had been every day I worked here—and I didn’t want to feel that way ever again. I lifted my chin and stared back at her. I didn’t raise my voice, nor did I sound defensive. I merely spoke with resolve.

  “Roxie, I have every right to be here, for whatever reason I like, and I’ll thank you to drop the attitude with me.”

  For a moment, Roxie didn’t do anything but glare at me. Then she sat back in her chair, almost looking impressed.

  “Grown a spine since you were last here, have you?”

  “No, I already had a spine,” I said. “You just chose to see my niceness as a weakness instead of that of a strong woman who chooses to embrace the positive and lift up other people along with her. What’s changed is that now I know you’re the one with the problem, not me.”

  When the silence between us stretched into its third long second and I gave no sign of unlocking my eyes from hers, Roxie glanced at her computer screen, then back at me. Her gaze was as cold as ever, but I thought I saw a flush creeping up her neck. “Fine,” she said. “What can I do for you, then?”

  From the moment I knew I was going to come here and try to get information out of Roxie, I’d been dreaming about finessing and finagling details out of her so she wouldn’t know how sneaky I’d been until she thought about it later. I wanted her to think, Damn, Lucy Lancaster got the better of me! and give me some respect for it, even if it was begrudgingly.

  However, I’d forgotten what a force Roxie was, even when someone had just knocked her down a peg. I might have been able t
o at least somewhat use Trent’s love of gossip against him, but with Roxie? I couldn’t play games.

  So, I made a decision. Camilla may not have wanted her coworkers to know how closely she was working with me, but a murder had occurred—of her own close relative, no less—and if I wanted information from Roxie, Camilla and her desire to keep secrets were just going to have to lump it. I moved closer to the reference desk and spoke in a low voice.

  “Look, what Camilla didn’t tell y’all was that I was with her when she found her great-uncle Charlie. The Saturday before, she’d hired me to look into the accusations made in the Chronology article about her ancestor.” I’d pointedly left Ben out of the picture, and on an inspired whim, I corroborated Camilla’s lie by adding, “And Charlie wanted his maternal line researched, too, so it was a double deal. Anyway, I’d gone over to Charlie’s house to have a quick meeting with him, and I was in the living room when Camilla found him.” I saw Roxie’s mouth open just slightly as I continued. I had her attention, which was rare, so I wasn’t going to let it go just yet. “Then there’s another side to this. If Camilla didn’t tell y’all, her uncle Charlie had another piece of the triptych painted by her ancestor, and that piece was stolen the night of the murder. I know Camilla told you about her piece of the triptych, that it had another painting underneath it. I’m here to ask you if you mentioned that to anyone.”

  Roxie was quiet for a moment, and I wondered if she was going to refuse to answer me just to be contrary. Instead, she picked up a pencil and started rolling it between her fingers. I recognized it as her habit when she was thinking. After a few more moments, she sighed and said, “I told Layla, of course, and my mother, and a handful of other friends. Layla and I had a dinner party one night and it segued nicely into the conversation.” She shrugged. “That was it.”

  Somehow, I wasn’t buying this. It was the way my former coworker looked almost too blasé. At the same time, over Roxie’s shoulder, I’d noticed someone with a cranberry-colored sweater and dark hair lurking just beyond the reference desk, at the edge of the hallway leading to the back offices. When I chanced a look, however, Patrice had disappeared. Had I caught her frowning at what Roxie said as well? I was pretty sure I had.

  I was just about to push away from the desk and go in search of Patrice when Roxie moved her computer mouse and an invoice came up on her screen, catching my eye.

  “You bought Soils from Heaven potting soil, too?” When her eyes flicked irritably my way, I said with a shrug, “I noticed some bags at Camilla’s great-uncle’s house.”

  I was about to add my suspicions that the soil was tainted with arsenic from the bodies of dead Civil War soldiers, but I stopped when I saw Roxie’s face become somewhat animated. I’d forgotten she enjoyed gardening.

  “I’ve been hearing great things about it from Trent,” she said. “I’m sure Camilla told you that he sells it, and we’ve all bought a bunch. I just got twenty bags the other day, and Layla and I are going to plant tomatoes and other veggies this weekend.”

  “Trent sells it?” I repeated. “I didn’t know that.”

  Roxie nodded as she closed the window on her screen. “It comes from land his family bought that used to be a farm many decades ago. It’s all organic and supposedly really great soil.” She looked up at me, and—seemingly remembering to whom she was talking—her expression shut down again. I made my reply light and breezy.

  “Well, my parents just bought some standing vegetable planters, so I may get some bags for them. They love anything organic.” Roxie didn’t respond. She wasn’t going to offer up any more tidbits to me, about gardening or anything else.

  All right, then, so be it.

  Not that I was going to let her harm herself by using the soil or anything. Roxie wasn’t my favorite person—and obviously I wasn’t hers, either—but I’d never put her in danger. Thankfully, though, I had a couple days to figure out what was going on with Soils from Heaven—especially now that I knew Trent Marins was involved—before she planted her vegetables. Once I did, I’d do what was right and warn her about the potential for high levels of arsenic.

  “Well, thanks for the information, Roxie,” I said. Inclining my head in the direction of the back offices, I said, “I’m just going to go say hi to Patrice, and then I may use the computers upstairs for some genealogy research until my boyfriend comes to pick me up.”

  “Still dating that rich pretty boy?” Roxie asked in a snide voice. She was, of course, talking about my ex, Nick, who, unlike the stone lion with the same name outside, had never brought me luck.

  “Nope. My new one’s a whole lot hotter,” I said with a broad smile, and left her scowling after me.

  * * *

  I found Patrice in her office, staring at her computer screen, seeming to be in another world. My encounter with Roxie having left a bad taste in my mouth, I resolved to go into my conversation with this former coworker in a more positive mindset.

  “Knock, knock,” I said with a smile, rapping lightly on her doorframe. “May I come in?”

  “Lucy!” she said, sitting up straight and smoothing back a stray lock of dark hair from her face. A bit of pink came into her cheeks and her words came out in a rush, like they always did when she was embarrassed or uncomfortable. “How are you doing? I was just speaking to your friend Helen Kim. She, ah, overheard Roxie saying you were here—she said she ran into you outside.”

  I took the seat across from her desk, acting like it was no big deal that Roxie had alerted Patrice as she watched me on the security monitors. “Helen and I went to college together. She’s fantastic. I didn’t know she would be here, but she told me about the maps. That was pretty cool of you to convince that student to donate them to the Alden museum in Austin instead of keeping them here.”

  Patrice shrugged modestly, but I could tell she was pleased, and it served to return her voice to its normal speed. “They were really special maps, and as much as I love it here at Howland, so few people would see them. They belong in a true museum. I’m just glad the student and his family agreed.”

  I glanced at the framed photo on her desk, trying to keep a positive vibe going. “Wow, Anamaria and Esteban have really shot up,” I said, leaning forward for a better look at the young boy and girl mugging for the camera. Though the sun was high in the sky, they wore sweatshirts under their hiking vests. A distinctive rock formation loomed in the background, with what looked like a huge egg-shaped boulder balancing precariously on its side between two other upright rocks, the taller almost in the shape of a crude obelisk.

  “They have,” Patrice said, casting a warm glance toward the photo. “They’re seven and six now, if you can believe it.”

  “No kidding?” I said. She nodded, and despite my efforts, we lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

  I thought about how Patrice had always taken all her cues from Roxie, from how to handle any project to how to deal with students to how to treat her coworkers. In some ways, imitating Roxie had been good for her. Roxie was an excellent researcher and librarian; therefore, Patrice was now, too. But in other ways, Patrice hadn’t helped herself at all. Of the three librarians, it was Patrice whom the students went to the least. I had always suspected that Patrice’s problem was that she tried too hard to mimic Roxie’s prickly manner, and the students could sense it was inauthentic. Roxie may have been intimidating to them, but somehow they seemed to appreciate that her personality wasn’t a shadow of someone else’s.

  Now, however, I sensed something was different with Patrice’s demeanor, but I couldn’t quite put my finger it. Shaking off the feeling, I got to my point.

  “Patrice,” I said. “I’m here to help Camilla in finding out some information.” I went on to tell her the same details I’d told Roxie, and she replied with much the same gaping silence. “I’m trying to figure out just how many people knew about the triptych, and if anyone was unduly interested in it. Did you happen to tell anyone what Camilla found under her painting?”
>
  Patrice’s complexion seemed to turn sallow for a moment. She acted like she wanted to look out her office door to see if anyone was there. I got up and did it for her.

  “All clear,” I said, sitting back down, and she nodded, putting her elbows on her desk and leaning forward.

  “The answer for me is no, I never mentioned to anyone.”

  I was skeptical, and it clearly showed on my face.

  “Honestly, Lucy, no one.” She looked earnest, then frowned with a memory. “That day Camilla told us, my mother called maybe twenty minutes later. My dad had fallen downstairs and broke his leg in two places. He’s all right now, thank goodness, but I took several days off to help my family, and then a holiday came around. By the time we came back to work, Camilla’s find had been forgotten.” Patrice paused, lowering her voice. “By most of us, at least.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “I heard Roxie telling you that she only told Layla and some friends she’d had over for a dinner party, and that was probably true. They’re all her longtime friends.” Then her voice became laced with sarcasm as she said, “But they’re not her most recent best buddy, Trent, who she seems to talk to about everything now. And that includes Camilla’s painting.”

  Ah, I thought, hearing the jealousy in Patrice’s voice. I recalled how Trent had referred to Roxie as “Rox”—something no one but Patrice had ever done when I worked here. And also how he’d told Roxie to chill out, another thing no one ever said to her. Now, not only was Patrice actually talking to me like we’d always been friendly, she was also giving up dirt about Roxie.

  Yes, I thought I had it figured out now. Trent had displaced Patrice as Roxie’s favorite, and the green-eyed monster was making Patrice loose-lipped.

  Well, if spite and jealousy got me good information, then so be it.