Fatal Family Ties

by S. C. Perkins

  “Well, for one, you did this.” I imitated the way she jerked her head to swing her hair behind her shoulders. “You do it only when you’re stressed.” She looked surprised that I’d noticed this. “I also couldn’t imagine you being in league with Trent all this time in the first place. You’re too …” I tilted my head side to side, searching for the right phrase. “Too straightforward. There was also something about the way you spoke to Helen. If you really had been in with those two, I think you would have sounded more like your usual self.”

  Then, realizing what I’d just said, I clapped my hand over my mouth, mortified.

  Camilla was shaking her head, though. “No, don’t be sorry. I do tend to sound … unfriendly sometimes. It’s something I need to work on.”

  “Well, I have things to work on about myself, too,” I said, then I grinned. “Isn’t it the worst that life is mostly about constantly having to improve yourself?”

  “It sucks really big rocks,” Camilla said with a laugh. “But I guess it’s worth it.” Then she added, “Though one thing you don’t need to change, Lucy, is your willingness to give people second chances. Too few people are open like that these days. Don’t give it up, okay?” Then she laughed again at the nonplussed look on my face.

  I kept goggling at her until the sound of struggling made us look over. Savannah, who had woken up a few minutes ago and was being looked over by the EMT crew, had tried to get up and lunge toward us when she’d heard Camilla laugh. She’d been caught instantly by Officer Park and was being walked to the door, where an ambulance waited to take her and her half brother for medical evaluations before heading to jail.

  “You won’t find the other two pieces of the triptych, Camilla!” Savannah yelled to us with maniacal glee as she was being led away. “You might get a decent price for your painting, but it will be small potatoes compared to what all three would fetch!”

  Camilla, who had been staring at her long-lost cousin with a mixture of horror, anger, and loss, called back, “You’re too late, Savannah. While you were passed out, Trent was only too happy to talk, especially after hearing you say you would leave him in the wind. He already told us your piece and Uncle Charlie’s piece are hidden in his storage unit, and Cisco and the Houston police are on their way there now. He also told us that your father, Lucas, is the rightful owner of the painting, so it was never yours to begin with.” Then she added, “And it was never about the money for me in the first place!”

  Savannah’s eyes had gone furiously horrified with this knowledge, and she uttered a frustrated noise followed by a stamp of her foot. Camilla and I both had to bite our tongues to keep from laughing when Savannah howled with pain, having just stamped the foot Camilla had smashed with her boot, and was escorted, hobbling, out the door.

  Camilla wasn’t kidding, though, when she said Trent was happy to talk. Seeing his sister passed out, he’d immediately offered Dupart testimony in return for a lighter sentence. While Dupart didn’t agree to anything, Trent spit out information anyway.

  After Trent and Savannah had been taken away, Camilla and I explained the finer points to Helen.

  “So, Savannah and Trent share the same father, whose name is Lucas Lundstrom,” I said. “Lucas is the eldest grandson of Roger Smith, Henrietta Braithwaite’s eldest son. He, Lucas, inherited the third piece of the triptych from his grandfather.”

  “Then why is Trent’s last name Marins and not Lundstrom?” Helen asked.

  I replied, “Because his parents—Lucas and Renee—divorced very quickly, and Renee married another man named Marins, who legally adopted Trent as a toddler. Renee made sure Trent had a relationship with Lucas, though. And if you’re wondering, I found this out from Renee’s social media posts.”

  Camilla said, “Then Lucas Lundstrom married Savannah’s mother soon after that?”

  “You’re correct,” I said, unscrewing the cap of my water. “Savannah and Trent are only two years apart. Renee Marins got to know Savannah, and they became a blended family of sorts—to the point that Renee referred to Savannah as her stepdaughter.”

  Helen said, “They sound like a decent family. What made Savannah and Trent feel like they needed to steal two paintings? Not to mention committing murder as they did so?”

  Camilla said, “This is where I can help a bit, only because Trent talked while he had me tied up. Basically, Trent and Savannah became aware of their connection to my family as they grew up. Trent described his family as ‘comfortably middle class’ themselves, but he and Savannah were both very ambitious.”

  “I’d call it greedy,” Helen said flatly.

  “I can’t disagree,” Camilla said. “Anyway, Trent admitted it was their connection to my family and our shared history that made him become a genealogist—though he told me he never liked working with clients and preferred to teach the theory rather than do the work in practice.”

  “It’s wonderful to teach, of course,” I said, “but I think Trent taught so he didn’t really have to do the constant legwork of an actual genealogist.”

  Camilla’s lips thinned. “There always seemed to be something lazy about him, even if he was smart. That’s one of the many reasons I came to you, Lucy, instead of going to him.”

  I blushed. It was nice to hear the true compliment in Camilla’s voice.

  “Anyway,” Camilla continued, “Trent had done his family tree, of course, and knew he had lots of Braithwaite cousins in Houston, but at the time it was just interesting information to him. He then found out that one of his relatives—me—worked as a librarian at Howland University, when he coincidentally met our former genealogist, Ginger, at a conference last year and they got to talking. Ginger also mentioned that she was retiring soon, and Trent considered applying for her job—but, again, it was nothing more than a thought in his mind because he and Savannah hadn’t found what was underneath their piece of the triptych yet.”

  “I take it things changed rapidly when that happened,” Helen said.

  “Oh, from what Trent told me, things moved really fast,” Camilla replied dryly. “After he and Savannah saw what was under their painting and were told the potential value of it—and then the value of all three paintings together—Trent pursued Ginger’s job as soon as it was posted. He figured if he got to know me, maybe he could buy my part of the painting. But when he and Savannah quickly realized how attached Uncle Charlie and I both were to our paintings, and how proud we were to be Braithwaites, they knew we wouldn’t sell. That’s when they hatched their plan, and Trent went about researching me, so to speak.”

  “Like asking questions about her ex-husband and finding out that he doesn’t put names with phone numbers in his phone,” I explained to Helen. “And things like the specific way Camilla would text someone.” Opening up my text messages, I brought up Camilla’s texts and pointed out a couple. “Such as the fact that she uses ‘Thx’ for the word ‘thanks,’ and tends to text in short sentences.”

  Helen smiled. “Unlike me, who texts like an emoji-happy fifteen-year-old.”

  “Hey, if you ever see a text from me without at least one exclamation point, you know something’s wrong,” I joked, before becoming serious again. “Anyway, Trent did this so that when he texted Camilla’s ex-husband from the burner phone Savannah purchased on one of her work trips, he could sound like Camilla and Gareth wouldn’t question it when he saw the request to go back to Camilla’s house and get the painting.”

  Camilla nodded sadly. “Trent also found out that my door code is the same as Uncle Charlie’s. Roxie knew what it was because she and Layla stayed at my house one weekend, and he finagled it out of her.”

  “Speaking of Roxie, was she involved?” I asked. I’d confessed what Patrice had told me about how it seemed Roxie might be in on the scheme somehow.

  “No, I think Patrice simply misheard or misinterpreted the conversation,” Camilla said. “Roxie was only involved with Trent in helping Soils from Heaven bring in more customers. She wanted a c
ut for her participation, and when Trent came back with a low number, she insisted on better terms.”

  “What about the soil company?” Helen asked. “How did that fit in?”

  “It was ninety-nine percent exactly what it appeared to be,” Camilla said. “Trent and his other Marins family members had no clue about the arsenic in the soil until they began to hear from customers. That’s it—though it sounds like his behavior when Lucy confronted him made her more suspicious of him.”

  I made a kinda-sorta gesture with my hand. “I knew you’d told him about your painting, but I didn’t know he was related to you at the time. My suspicions were that he might have been trying to poison Charlie in order to get to your painting.”

  “Well, you weren’t entirely wrong,” Camilla said, her jaw set with anger. “Trent says he truly didn’t know that Uncle Charlie got soil with higher levels of arsenic in it, but when he realized it, he and Savannah hoped that it might make the painting easier to steal if Uncle Charlie were bedridden and weak. That’s the reason why they made their move to steal it when they did. They knew he was ill enough that I was worried and taking him to a doctor.”

  Camilla went on to explain that Trent had confessed he’d driven into Austin to meet up with Savannah the night Charlie was killed. The siblings had staked out the house, waiting for Camilla to leave to pick up food, then used the key code to walk in the door. They’d planned on taking the painting and leaving without touching anything else. Charlie, however, had surprised them by waking up and getting out of bed when he heard them in his office.

  Beyond that, the details became murky. Trent claimed Savannah pushed Charlie back into his bed and smothered him. However, one of the first things Savannah said upon coming to and seeing officers standing over her was, “Trent killed him, not me.”

  This issue seemed to be on Camilla’s mind, too, as she and I sat on our stools while Helen went back to speak with Dupart. “Do you think I’ll ever know who actually killed Uncle Charlie?”

  “It’s a toss-up,” I said, “though I kind of wonder if it’s best, the not-knowing. Neither of them are worth trusting, anyway.”

  “Very true,” Camilla said. She was silent for a moment, then asked, “Oh, but do you want to know how Savannah knew you’d taken my panel to the conservator in Houston?”

  “Um, yes,” I said with an exaggerated nod.

  “So, Trent told me Savannah hired some guy with a shady background to follow you and steal my panel out of your car after you took it from my house.” Camilla paused at the way my jaw dropped, but I waved off her concern.

  “I’ll tell you later how I know about that. Just keep going.”

  “Well, the shady guy reported you’d taken it to Morris Art Conservation and, even though her stepmother was a docent there, Savannah wanted the shady guy to break in and take my panel—or something to that effect.” She rolled her eyes, adding, “Trent was chintzy on the details at this point. However, somehow the shady guy found out that Ben is with the FBI and got cold feet. He backed out, and then Savannah apparently ended up convincing her stepmother, Renee, to dress up as a conservator and attempt to steal my panel.”

  “So Renee wasn’t part of the main scheme?”

  Camilla shrugged. “It sounded like she wasn’t, but I guess that will be for Dupart to figure out.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “I have to say, though, I got the impression Trent told me all this because he felt like Savannah might double-cross him.”

  “And he was right, wasn’t he?” I said.

  “He sure was,” Camilla agreed, and we both sighed at the sadness of it all.

  Then Camilla’s phone rang and I saw the name Elaine Trudeau on her screen just as Ben walked through the door, making a beeline toward me with a relieved smile.

  “You know, maybe you could try that second-chances thing now,” I said, nodding toward her phone. “Whatever Elaine’s faults, she truly loved Charlie.”

  Camilla nodded, and I heard her answer the phone with a very pleasant “Hi, Elaine” as I hopped off my stool and walked into Ben’s arms.

  FORTY

  The days following our thwarting of Savannah and Trent’s attempt to steal the triptych panel were filled with revelations and explanations, one of which was surprisingly assisted by my grandfather and brought a long-standing mystery to a close.

  A huge clan of Braithwaites came into Austin for Charlie Braithwaite’s funeral, including Camilla, Tor, and Mrs. Hocknell—or Jensen, as she’d asked me to call her.

  After the morning service, which I attended along with Helen, I invited all sixty-eight Braithwaite family members to the Harry Alden Texas History Museum. There, the Civil War exhibit area had been temporarily roped off, and chairs added so the family could sit while I spoke. Movable curtains had been placed in front of what had been the exhibit on Charles Braithwaite.

  Standing in front of the curtains, I introduced myself and Helen, who was manning my laptop to help run my presentation.

  Having not told Camilla or any of the family what I’d found, I began in a serious tone.

  “The opening sentence in Ms. Lundstrom’s article about your ancestor’s life was this: His name was Charles Edward Braithwaite, and he was a coward, a deserter, and a charlatan.” I paused just long enough to feel the tension from the assembled Braithwaite clan and to see Camilla’s face cloud over with dread.

  Then I smiled, and added, “However, I’ve found definitive proof that the only true part of this sentence is that your ancestor was, in fact, named Charles Edward Braithwaite.”

  The relieved laughter was exactly the happy tone on which I wanted to start off my findings.

  I explained that researching a Civil War soldier’s military duty wasn’t as simple as finding their name on the muster roll of a particular battle and then being able to say that without a doubt, that soldier was in precisely that town, at that battle, on that day.

  “Roll calls were only taken every two months, and records of events were sometimes detailed, sometimes not. Also, records pertaining to the Confederacy can be especially spotty because many were lost or destroyed after the war.”

  I went on to explain that per the article, Charles had deserted his regiment, the Fifth Texas Infantry, after the Second Battle of Bull Run.

  “Charles’s compiled military service records—his CMSR—seemed to confirm this,” I explained. “He is listed as having deserted on September first, 1862, and, upon first inspection of the files, this appears to be the end of it.” I grinned. “Until you look closer.”

  Helen called up my first photo, which indeed showed one of Charles Braithwaite’s CMSR abstract cards. I explained that when the files were re-created by the War Department to aid in authorizing pensions as well as veterans’ benefits, cards were preprinted with lines to fill in details of the soldier’s name and company designation—such as Company “A”—at the top, plus any other information relevant to his service. However, it wasn’t the same War Department staffer filling out all the abstract cards. Thus, some had lovely, easily readable handwriting; others did not.

  Knowing what I wanted her to do, Helen flipped through a few of Charles’s abstract cards. Some were company muster roll cards and others were regimental returns—which, I explained, helped show a regiment’s strength through a listing of soldiers who were present, absent, sick, deserted, and the like. I pointed out how the handwriting could differ, and how sometimes it was nearly undecipherable.

  Using a laser pointer, I sent a red stream of light onto a Regimental Return card that showed “Confederate” at the top, with a space for the company designation below. Next to that was printed a number five, and then the word “Texas.”

  Under the words “Enlisted men on Extra or Daily Duty” was a nearly illegible scrawl.

  “I found I couldn’t decipher these words,” I said. “What I have that most people don’t, though, is a fellow genealogist friend who is also an expert at untangling handwriting such as this. When I sent this l
ink to my friend Ginger, she helped me to determine the words were ‘transf. to Fourth’—meaning ‘transferred to the Fourth Infantry.’”

  The Braithwaite family members all looked at each other in shock.

  Helen switched to the next photo, a company muster roll for the Fifth Infantry that, in a firm, clear hand, listed Charles Braithwaite as Deserted.

  “So, you have to remember these abstracts are only as complete as what the War Department had to work with,” I said. “Also, it was often the case that if a soldier had been captured or if he were ill, he was often listed as absent without leave, or even dead. Sometimes this was because the soldier was injured in battle and was left behind, and, thus, wouldn’t be able to catch up with his regiment for days or weeks. Then, later, you might find this soldier listed back with his regiment again. The point here is, there could have been other information available on Charles—such as why he was transferred, if he indeed was, or why he deserted, if that happened to be the truth. Or maybe it was possible he was simply in the hospital or temporarily in enemy hands. However, those records for Charles were lost along the way.” I smiled at the crowd. “So I had to start digging in other places.”

  As Helen slowly cued up the corresponding photos, I explained how I researched Charles’s journal for evidence of where he’d been and found several references. I then cross-checked them against various other reports, anecdotes, and records, some of which I found through the letters, journals, and other documents digitized and kept by Daughters of the American Revolution. Helen brought up a photo of one of Charles’s journal entries, where he mentioned losing his horse to a bullet at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and that his comrade had lost his horse as well. This was backed up by a mention from his comrade’s diary, which I’d found in the Texas State Archives.

  “While Charles never applied for a pension after the war because, one, he didn’t marry until after he came home, and two, he managed to thrive after the war, some of his fellow soldiers did indeed apply for one. Pension files often contain soldiers’ testimonies of where and with whom they fought, in the hopes of proving their right to a pension—so that was one place I looked.”