A Familiar Tail (21 page)

“What?”

Mrs. Maitland set down her cup. Her expression had gone sad and serious. “She had run out of money. Bad investments, like so many of us.” She shrugged. “And, of course, all those loans to her nephew. When the recession came, she was ruined.” She looked down at her fingertips. “She turned to blackmail to try to make ends meet.”

I didn't believe it. I couldn't. Not Dorothy Hawthorne, with her beautiful house and beautiful garden, her cat and all her friends. I saw the woman in the photograph, laughing and wearing her witch's hat. The same woman who kept a picture from
The Wizard of Oz
around the house because it tickled her funny bone. I would not believe that this woman could be so . . . wicked.

“Have you got proof?” I heard myself ask. Why was I even asking? It didn't happen. It was impossible.

Oh, yeah?
murmured a treacherous voice in the back of my head.
And just how many impossible things have turned out to be true since you got here, A.B.?

“I thought you'd want to see evidence.” Mrs. Maitland got to her feet. She walked over to an inlaid cabinet table and pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket. She unlocked the center drawer and brought out a piece of paper. Her hand shook as she handed it to me. “I never wanted to show this to anyone, but . . .”

I took the letter. I recognized the small slanted handwriting. I'd seen it in the journal in Dorothy's attic. In fact, it looked a lot like Elizabeth Maitland's handwriting, which made sense, I supposed. They'd have learned at the same time, and probably from the same teachers.

I read:

We're not finished yet. I will not let you go halfway on this. It will ruin you. Bring the rest with you on Saturday, then we will both be free.

D.H.

That was
smart,
I thought.
Using an actual paper letter. Easy to create, easy to destroy, and no unauthorized copies floating around the Internet to come back and bite you.

That was stupid,
I thought.
Using an actual paper letter. Handwriting can be recognized, and then you go and put your real initials on it?

Instead of, say, D.G., for Dorothy Gale.

That last hit me so hard, my hand shook briefly.

“So.” I drew the word out. I needed time to wrap my head around what I was seeing, and what Mrs. Maitland was saying, even if I really didn't want to. “You're telling me Dorothy Hawthorne tried to blackmail you?”

“Oh, no, not me. Bradley Thompson.”

31

THIS MAKES NO
sense.

I forced my hands to relax before I crumpled the letter. In my mind's eye, I saw Brad Thompson, sitting across from me at Raja Rani. He was worried. No, he was frightened. He was looking for copies of documents, or something, he thought Dorothy had left in her house.

That much certainly fit with the idea of blackmail. It was the rest that was all wrong.

Brad Thompson had wanted to talk to me, but only as long as he thought I was working for Dorothy. When he decided I was working for Frank, he lost it.

If Dorothy was blackmailing him, that all should have been the other way around.

Unless . . .

Unless Dorothy wasn't the blackmailer. What if it was Frank himself? That D. in the D.H. could stand for Dorothy, or it could stand for Darius.

I looked at Mrs. Maitland. Did she believe what she was telling me? I couldn't tell. She was too practiced at holding
her emotions in for me to read anything on her smooth, perfectly made-up face.

Something else didn't make sense.

“If Dorothy was blackmailing Brad, how did you get this?” I held up the letter. “Don't tell me Brad gave it to you.”

“I got it from Ellis.” Elizabeth took the paper from my hand and locked it back in the drawer. “My son cares a great deal about our town and its people. He listened to Dorothy when she told him Brad deserved a fresh start. She reminded Ellis that Brad was a family man who had fallen on hard times, and said he deserved a new beginning.”

“Dorothy got Brad the job with Maitland and Associates?”

Elizabeth nodded. “My son has been trying to bridge the rift between me, Dorothy and Julia for years. As I said, he cares about this town and about the old families. He doesn't know everything, of course. The craft is passed from mother to daughter, not mother to son. I cannot go against that, no matter how much I might want to. I'm not like Dorothy. I cannot simply disregard the rules because they do not suit me personally.” She took a deep breath and dragged her thoughts back onto the paths she wanted to follow. “Dorothy wanted Brad to work for Ellis, but not because Brad needed the job. She wanted Brad to have access to certain sensitive documents about various loans and real estate transactions. Dorothy could then bully him into finding out what she wanted to know.” Mrs. Maitland's hands curled into bony fists. “Laurie Thompson found that letter. She showed it to Ellis, and Ellis brought it to me.”

Which certainly would explain the exhaustion in Laurie Thompson's eyes. “But none of you thought about going to, say, the police?”

Mrs. Maitland laughed, and it was a brittle, mirthless sound. “Oh, yes, the lady from the manor descends and uses her influence with the police. That would work so very well.” Her voice lowered. “You may have noticed, Anna, I do not
have the gift of making myself liked. My mother used to tell me that's the one unforgivable sin in a woman. I do try, but I simply do not make friends easily.” Her words grew softer, like she was at the end of her strength. “But I believe in loyalty, and I believe that we must help our own. I offered to help Dorothy when her money started to run out, but she turned me down flat. She'd never forgiven me for not taking her side all those years ago. Oh, she could hold a grudge with the best of them.” Mrs. Maitland bit her lip. With an effort, she lifted her head and her voice returned to a normal conversational tone. “You were asking why I did not go to the police. I didn't go because I do not have evidence of actual wrongdoing. I have a single unsigned letter that has passed through any number of hands. If I went to them with my story, I would be patted on the head and sent home. I would also, of course, instantly alert Dorothy that I knew what she was up to.”

“Because Dorothy had a . . . friend on the force?”

“A friend. Yes. Exactly. Dorothy, you see, had the gift I do not. Everyone loved her. Me, they simply tolerate for my name and my money.”

Jealousy filled her voice as she said this, but so did pain. If she had been anyone else, I might have reached out to touch her.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“I'm worried about Bradley. It is my hope that whatever Dorothy dragged him into can be cleaned up, quietly, so that his family doesn't have to suffer anymore. With Dorothy dead, that should be possible, especially if it's just a matter of papers that were, shall we say, misdirected?”

And here we were, back to finding Brad's copies.

“And if it's not just papers?” I asked. Mrs. Maitland must have heard the rumors about Dorothy having been murdered.

“Then the police must be called,” she said firmly. “It would be painful, of course, but if poor Bradley was driven
that far . . .” She was talking to the French doors and the empty yard and the still, brown pond. “But perhaps it will serve to expose Dorothy and the chain she was part of.”

“What you send out in the world comes back threefold,” I murmured.

Elizabeth's head jerked around. “Yes. Exactly. You do know something of the craft, then.”

“A little,” I admitted. “I'm learning more all the time.”

“I could help with that. If you wanted.” A trace of wistfulness drifted through those words. I felt all the silence pressing heavily against us.

“I'll think about it, thank you.” There was something else. “Why did you wait so long to start looking into this?”

She smiled. “Because in the end it seems I am a naive old woman. I wanted the whole matter to simply go away. I thought with Dorothy's death, it might. But, clearly, that was a foolish and, indeed, an irresponsible hope.” Her jaw tightened. “With your arrival, and the rumors all starting up again, it became quite clear I must act.” Mrs. Maitland stretched out one hand hesitantly. “Annabelle . . .”

“Anna.”

“Anna. Your grandmother and I were friends once. When you're an old woman who does not have many friends left, you think a great deal on the ones you used to have. I would wish . . .”

There was a soft knock at the door. Elizabeth jerked backward like she'd been burned. “Come in.”

The door opened and Marisol stepped through. “Excuse me, Mrs. Maitland, but there's a phone call from Mr. Ellis.”

“Please take a message, Marisol. I will call him back as soon as I am finished here.”

“He won't leave a message, ma'am. He says it's urgent.”

A spasm of annoyance flickered across Mrs. Maitland's face. “I'm sorry,” she told me. “I should only be a moment.”

Once she left, the polite thing to do would have been to stay sitting here in my assigned chair. Maybe eat a few of
the finger sandwiches that Marisol had probably worked hard to make.

Of course that's not what I did.

First I wandered over to the door that led to the hall. I eased it open, and I listened. I've got no excuses. This was straight-up, blatant eavesdropping. Unfortunately, it was also useless. Wherever Mrs. Maitland had gone to take that call, it was too far away for me to hear anything.

I wandered over to the French doors and looked out at the sunshine and the tangle of the wilderness beyond the little pond with its cattails and water lilies. Then I examined the landscapes on the wall. They weren't by anybody I recognized, but they were not only original; they were extremely well done.

I tried the drawer on the cabinet table, but Dorothy had locked it again. I thought about my trusty nail file.

“Annabelle Britton, what are you doing?” I muttered, turning my back on the table. I ran both hands through my hair. I was trying not to think; that's what. Because I was confused all over again. Dorothy Hawthorne couldn't be a blackmailer. It was the mirror image of everything I'd heard so far. Everyone I'd talked to had loved Dorothy.

Except the Thompsons. Who might have been bullied or blackmailed or bribed.

And Dorothy really was a witch. She knew about secret influences. She knew how to pressure people in ways that couldn't be tracked because the rest of the world thought they were impossible.

Could Julia and the others be trying to cover up Dorothy's blackmail? No. They couldn't possibly know. Not even Julia.
If Dorothy was a blackmailer, she'd be a complete idiot to tell anybody at all. Another unwanted memory pricked my mind.

She'd become so secretive lately,
Julia said.
She used to be so outgoing, and all that stopped.

No. I shook my head. It didn't add up. Not when you looked at it all together. Brad's reaction to me didn't fit with any of the rest of what Elizabeth said. Unless . . .

I froze.

Unless Brad Thompson wasn't Dorothy's victim. Unless he was her partner in the crime of blackmail. That would explain everything. If Brad and Dorothy had been working together, he would naturally want all the copies of whatever incriminating documents she had kept. Because:

1) “Incrimination” is also an ugly word.

2) He could continue their blackmail business on his own.

3) If Frank found the copies and uncovered the scheme, it wouldn't matter if the police believed it. Frank could just publish the whole story in the
Seacoast News
, naming all the names when he did.

I was cold, so cold I was shaking. What if . . . what if . . . Frank
had
discovered Dorothy was a blackmailer? How angry he must have been, how hurt and betrayed. Angry enough to shout, maybe angry enough to push her.

Maybe angry enough to give her a shove when she was standing at the top of the basement stairs.

Stop it, A.B.,
I told myself.
You don't know. You don't know anything.

I turned away again, searching the room for something, anything, to take my mind off this. There was a door in the right-hand wall I hadn't tried yet. I put my hand on the brass
push plate and listened for a moment. When I didn't hear any sound of returning footsteps, I pushed it open.

On the other side of the door was a small library. The built-in shelves were filled with old leather-bound books, just like you see in all the movies. Actually, they reminded me a lot of the ones in Dorothy's attic. There were no landscapes on the walls in here, but there was a pair of portraits, done in that early American style where everybody looks a little flat and heavy. The first was a man dressed in Puritan black and white. He was bareheaded, and his flowing locks were streaked with gray. The shining hat with its gleaming gold buckle that he held in both well-gloved hands spoke of respectable prosperity.

Five-Times-Great-Grandfather Diligence, I presume.

To the grandfather's right hung a portrait of a woman. She wore a lace cap with dangling strings, but the rest of her clothing was as plain and severe as her husband's. They made the perfect Puritan couple. Except for one thing. Grandmother Diligence didn't hold any hat in her hands. Instead, she held a tiny golden cage, and inside there was a tiny yellow bird.

I sucked in a breath and I stared. The artist had lavished as much care and detail on that bird as he had on the woman. It was thin and it had an intelligent light in its beady black eye.

Nothing ends up in a picture by accident or coincidence. If it was in there, it was because it was important enough for the artist to take time over, or for the client to request. One way or another, that particular bird was very important to Five-Times-Great-Grandmother Maitland.

That bird belonged to the Maitland family the way Alistair belonged to the Hawthornes and to me. It was their familiar.

Which meant Julia must know about it.

Which meant Julia Parris had lied.