“Really?” Amalia said. “Because I can think of several people – starting with you!”
“Let's not get into this again,” Rachel said. “I truly don't believe anyone here killed John –”
“And what do you think happened?” Amalia snapped. “He committed suicide?”
“I probably would have,” Marjorie said into her coffee cup as she raised it to take a sip, “if I was married to you …”
Amalia's eyes flashed in rage.
“You just wait until the police get here,” she seethed. “I'll have them drag you away in shackles!”
“No one's going to be dragged away in shackles,” Bernadette said. “If anything, whoever did it will be taken as subtly as possible to avoid bringing any further shame on the family –”
“If the killer's worried about shame, they should have considered that before killing my husband!”
“Well, there's nothing to be done about it now,” Bernadette said. “So might we continue our breakfast in peace?”
Edie set down her silverware.
“I agree with Amalia,” she said. “Something has to be done – I can't go on like this!”
“Whatever do you mean, dear?” Bernadette asked.
“I can't sleep at night! Not with – not with two dead bodies inside the house!”
“Well, we could put them both outside, I suppose,” Bernadette said. “Though there's only one pedestal ready in the mausoleum at the moment …”
“No one's touching my husband again,” Amalia said. “Not until the police come and prove which of you did it! I'm locking the door!”
“Alright then, we'll keep them inside,” Bernadette said. “So long as the room's properly chilled there shouldn't be a problem.”
“Oh, Birdie,” Rachel said, looking revolted. “Please: that's our mother and brother you're talking about.”
“It's just science, dear,” Bernadette said. “Bodies decompose at a much faster rate in warm temperatures –”
“I can't sleep knowing that there's a killer in the house, either!” Edie exclaimed.
“Well, then the killer can sleep outside,” Bernadette said.
“Oh, yes,” Marjorie said dryly. “Whoever it is, just drag your comforter outside at night … Alexandra will help you …”
“Can you two be serious for one minute?” Edie said. She was nearly crying. Her fingernails dug into her arms as she grasped herself tightly, looking frightened of coming apart. My mind went back to her twelve dead children, and suddenly she didn't seem as ridiculous as her siblings made her out to be, but rather sorrowful. I tore my eyes away, unable to look at her a moment longer. “Can't we just – just say who did this?”
“Oh that should entice whoever killed John to come forward,” Marjorie said. She looked around the table. “Everyone, Edie is uncomfortable, so whichever of you stabbed dear John to death, please admit it now – no hard feelings, she just wants you to sleep over at the guesthouse until she's able to leave –”
Rachel flinched violently, though no one else seemed to notice. I frowned, trying to place her reaction. Perhaps she was just fearing another argument like the one the night before.
“There you go again!” Amalia said. “John wasn't dead a day before you started making jokes about him –!”
“I made jokes about him his whole life – why stop just because he died?” Marjorie returned.
“Yes,” Amalia said, nodding as though she had just realized something that made her dislike her sister-in-law even more. “Yes, you did make fun of him all his life – and it hurt him very deeply! I can't begin to tell you the pain he suffered at yours and your sisters' hands –!”
“Oh, get over it. He could dish it but couldn't take it, couldn't he?”
“My husband was never as cruel as you've all been –!”
“There's no need for this fighting,” Rachel interjected, trying to placate her siblings despite her shaking voice, “so let's not jump on one another –”
“Oh, easy for you to say,” Amalia said. “You're happy that he's dead, aren't you? Just admit it!”
“I am not!” Rachel breathed. “I don't understand how you could think –?”
“Stop acting like you're better than all of us! Always playing the saint when we all know better! You're glad he's dead! You've been waiting for this since he – since James had his accident!”
“She's been waiting for someone to stab him outside on the night of our mother's wake?” Marjorie asked skeptically. “Goodness, what a specific wish to be miraculously fulfilled –”
“She's been waiting for him to die!” Amalia screeched. “Even before what happened to James! Ever since he showed your mother those love letters that Frank used to send you and revealed what a whore you are!”
Rachel's expression froze as though she had been turned to marble.
“Now hold on, Amalia –” Bill started, but Amalia cut him off.
“She has! She wanted him dead, and she wants me to suffer for it by being stuck here with all of you –!”
“Believe me when I say this,” Marjorie cut in, “no one wanted you here. We were all hoping you'd be on another of your supposed 'retreats' –”
“You wanted me out of the way, more likely!” Amalia said. “You knew if I wasn't here you'd have an easier time covering the whole thing up –!”
“Oh, for Christ's sakes,” Marjorie said, “if we were all in on it together, don't you think we would have been able to think up something a bit more clever?”
“You – you were probably all bickering too much to decide on something proper!”
Marjorie downed her orange juice as though it was vodka, her eyes never leaving Amalia's face.
“Oh, yes,” she said caustically. “Rachel wanted to push him off a cliff, Birdie wanted to slowly poison him, Lennox wanted to throw him out a window –”
Lennox's hand twitched and he splattered coffee over his plate. Edie put her face in her hands, unable to listen to anymore talk of death.
“You undoubtedly wanted to beat him to death,” Bernadette whispered loudly in Marjorie's direction, and Marjorie's nostrils flared out as though about to spout fire.
“Somebody had better admit something,” Amalia said shakily, her beautiful face contorted in rage and her dark hair flying out around her head like the snakes of Medusa's, “or I'll – I'll – I'll kill myself!”
Whatever reaction she might have been hoping for, it certainly wasn't the one she received. Silence met her words, and there was no hint of worry on anyone's face.
“Would you like my knife?” Marjorie asked, holding it out toward her while taking another bite of her scone.
Amalia let out a shriek. Picking up her plate, she flung it across the table. It hit Marjorie in the shoulder and cracked in three, then fell to the floor and shattered.
“You bitch!” Marjorie fumed.
“Stop it – both of you!” Rachel said. “This isn't helping anything!”
“I don't need your advice!” Amalia seethed. “Go back to caring for your crippled husband, why don't you? That's the only purpose you have in life!”
“Now hold on,” Bill interjected, pushing his glasses up on his nose in what appeared to be an attempt at gaining valor. “That's not fair: Rachel's the only decent person at this table!”
“Is she?” Edie asked sourly, her blue eyes bulging as she looked up from her hands.
“Well, no, I didn't mean –”
“You can't work your way out of that one, Bill,” Marjorie said briskly, taking a sip of coffee. “And I'll remember that sentiment, thank you very much.”
“The only decent one?” Amalia echoed, ignoring her sisters-in-law and staring at Bill with rounded dark eyes. Her anger was rendering her a bit unhinged, and though she was fuming, she was almost smiling, too, as though she found the process either amusing or liberating. “I'm not sure 'decent' is how I would describe a woman who had an affair with the help while her husband was incapable of stopping
her –!”
“Well,” Bill spluttered. “Well, that's none of my business –”
“How is dear Frank doing?” Amalia said, rounding on Rachel again. “What does he do over there in the guesthouse, other than pine away for you?”
Rachel looked as though she was on the verge of tears. Her mouth and jaw were quivering, and from the greenish tinge that had taken over her skin, I readied myself to throw the breadbasket in front of her to use as a basin.
“What's your plan now?” Amalia continued. “Going to move in with him now that your mother's not here to disown you? I'm sure James won't mind: just wheel him into the corner while you throw yourself into another man's arms –”
“That's enough, Amalia!” Lennox said, but Amalia had gained too much momentum and there was no chance of stopping her now. Her face broke into a smile as she watched Rachel's crumble.
“Go on,” she goaded. “We all know you want to. You've been dying to do it for years –!”
Rachel stood up. For a moment I thought that she might strike the other woman, but then she sucked in a breath and stood from the table. Taking the handles of James's wheelchair, she pulled him back, not caring that he had been trying for several minutes to pick up his scone, and they left the room.
“There was no need for that, Amalia,” Lennox said as the door snapped shut.
“I can do without your input, too!” she replied. “Don't think I've discounted how you might be involved in John's death!”
“I didn't kill your husband.”
“Really? Because I'm finding your presence here odder and odder. You just happened to show up the night he was killed –”
“Which was also the night of the wake,” he interjected.
“And you're the only one with an air-tight alibi?”
“It's better than not having an alibi at all, I would think.”
Amalia's lips thinned into a tight line.
“Yes, but you seem to have a funny way of being around when people mysteriously drop dead, don't you?”
“Not that I'm aware of,” he returned, and for the first time his tone turned harsh as she wore away at his patience. “But if you keel over unexpectedly in my presence, I'll be sure not to be alarmed.”
Amalia leaned toward him.
“You're not getting any of the money,” she warned. “I don't care what the will says: you won't get any of it.”
“I'm not interested in the money.”
“Really? Still have enough from your last inheritance, do you?”
Lennox stood up. Amalia mirrored him.
“Your husband invited me here,” he said.
“And why would he do that?”
“You can ask him,” Lennox said angrily, “when you see him in Hell.”
He turned and left the room. Amalia's mouth was twitching as she watched him, and a moment later she slammed down her napkin and stomped out through the other door. I stood in my spot by the wall rather than retreating to the kitchen, still holding the coffee pot as though there was a chance that someone might ask for a refill. I had to hand it to whichever of them was the killer: they all did a very good job at feigning innocence.
The remaining family members eyed one another. Marjorie was the first to speak.
“Though I would never admit it in front of her,” she said, “Amalia has a point. Why would John invite him here?”
“Probably for the sole purpose of sticking him in the nursery to sleep,” Bill said. “Or have you forgotten your brother's sense of humor?”
“John didn't have a sense of humor,” Marjorie retorted. She scooped more butter onto her knife and spread it over her scone.“He had a sadistic sense of self-worth that he insisted on sharing with the world. And knowing that, why would Lennox show up?”
Bill didn't respond. Marjorie raised her eyebrows at him, waiting for an answer.
“To kill him,” she said for him.
“He had no reason to,” Bill said, but his uncertain tone didn't agree with the words.
“Of course he did: for the money. And we'll know soon enough what Mother's will said once we get out of this place. Why shouldn't she have left it to the closest thing to a male heir she had?”
“I think I'm a closer male heir than he is!” Bill exclaimed.
“Oh, yes,” Marjorie tutted. “But you have no children, nor will you. Lennox, at least, has the time and means to procreate, and so long as the children don't die …”
Edie stood and ran from the room. I could hear her sobbing as she ran through the empty East Room.
“Well,” Bill said unhappily, rising from his chair, “I guess I'll go check on my wife.”
Marjorie, Cassandra, and Bernadette remained at the table. From the look in the former and latter's eyes, they seemed to be in a contest to see who could stay the longest.
“I bet you're glad you came down to breakfast today, Cassie,” Marjorie finally said.
“I'm afraid I haven't been glad in many years,” Cassandra said. She wasn't wearing quite as an elaborate get-up as usual, though there was a pillbox hat perched on her head and a double-layered veil over her face. Given her silence during the family's heated discussion, for once she almost seemed to be the sanest person in the room. I rather thought that didn't bode well for the rest of us. “And I doubt I'll be glad for years to come, what with losing John –”
“Oh, for Christ's sakes,” Marjorie said, and threw down her napkin and left.
I cleared my throat.
“Should I clear the table, Mrs. Carlton?” I asked.
Bernadette gave me a withering look.
“No, you should certainly not,” she said, and indicated for me to bring the platter of scones back over. “I'll not be made to starve just because of my siblings' inability to sit properly for a meal …”
Chapter 8
When they had finished and I could finally slip away, I hurried up to the third floor to find Lennox, but found the nursery empty. I returned downstairs and checked outside, thinking that he might have gone for a smoke, but there was no sign of him out there, either, and it was such a frigid day that it didn't seem likely that he would stay out for so long. I continued my search on the first floor, weaving in and out of the rooms. As I walked, the dimness of the house greeted me with shadows, and the unseen ghosts that I didn't believe in but couldn't get out of my mind followed me like a stranger.
I slid my fingers over the top of the baby grand piano in the Music Room, drawing a line through the thick dust that I hadn't bothered to clean yet. No one ever entered the room anymore, and the windows were covered over in dormant vines that blocked out the sunlight. Photos of the Marlowes as children littered the top of the mantle: they were young and wild-looking, with starched play-clothes that were stained with grass and mud, and wiry little smiles that seemed to hide devious intentions. Mrs. Marlowe wasn't in any of the photos, but several different nannies were. Their black-and-white faces stared up at me from the paper as though warning me that the house had chased them away.
As I reached the last picture frame and looked down at a thirty-something year old Edie with an infant child in her lap, I pulled myself from the room. There was nothing to find in there except the loneliness that I had been hoping to outrun.
The wall in the Lounge had partially come down, revealing the rot behind the wallpaper, and it was so drafty that it was normally kept tightly closed off. I gave it a glance and then headed down the hall to the Ballroom, which was nothing more than a huge empty space with golden chandeliers and gilded stucco walls, an ornately painted ceiling, and tiled mosaic flooring that served as a reminder of the glory of the past. I shut my eyes and tried to picture the children from the photographs dancing around the room, or the older ones from the portraits in the East Room waltzing with suitors, but the image wouldn't come. It was as though the house was doing everything in its power to protect its inhabitants' identities, and the more I searched, the darker and colder the rooms became in the hopes of chasing me a
way.
Spider-webs like silvery curtains hung down from the ceiling as I entered the Smoking Room, and I ducked to avoid them. Forgotten furniture reeked of smoke and a large container of butane sat in the middle of the floor. Mrs. Marlowe must have used it to refill her lighter, which – by the state of my surroundings – got more use than anything else in the house. I coughed into my sleeve and patted my hand against the wall behind me in search of the light switch, but the push-button wouldn't budge against my thumb. I moved into the room even so, thinking that Lennox might have holed himself up in a corner to brood over Amalia's accusations, but before I could take a proper look around, a voice spoke.
“Who's there?”
I jumped and looked around. Rachel was sitting in the far corner of the room at a small table, though I could barely see her.
“Oh – I – sorry, Mrs. Langston,” I said. I cleared my throat. “I was just – I thought I might do some cleaning in here.”
She surely knew I wasn't telling the truth: the lie sounded false even to my own ears. She didn't move from her spot.
“That's all right, Alexandra.”
I couldn't see her face, and without the ever-present smile on it, her voice sounded sorrowful. Something tugged me toward her despite my senses telling me to leave.
“Can I bring you anything?” I asked. “Some coffee – or a lamp?”
I had meant to say or a cup of tea, but the idea that she was sitting in the dark had overtaken the words.
“No, no thank you,” she said. “I'm just taking a break.”
I didn't ask what from. Caring for her husband, I assumed, or else from dealing with her family's explosive fights. As I moved closer to better see her, though, another thought crossed my mind – one that I didn't wish to believe but that I couldn't discount, either – and I found myself wondering if she was sitting in the dark contemplating a horrid guilt she held for killing her brother. The thought made me shiver.
“Isn't there somewhere more comfortable for you?” I asked. I moved around the boxes so that she was at least in my line of sight, though she was still just a dark shape on the chair now. “It's – smoky in here.”
The Marlowe Murders Page 16