All Fall Down (26 page)

“What could he prove? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was very careful. Besides, do you think he would have wanted the whole town to know his daughter was a murderer? He would have been afraid of what the scandal would do to
Rosalind
, his darling. Oh, no. He went along when I told him we should say Charlotte died in Brazil with her husband. It was so far away, no one would ever find out, and if Charlotte ever came back, I explained, we could claim there had been a horrible mistake about her death. But he changed toward me after that.” She smiled. “He never spoke to me unless he had to. In fact, as he got older, he acted almost
frightened
of me. It was very satisfying. At last I had the upper hand.”

“But when Rosie confronted you about there being no Derek Van Zandt and you told her the same story—that her mother had run off to Europe and abandoned her—she didn’t believe you, did she?”

“No. I guess everyone had done too good a job brainwashing her about what a wonderful person Charlotte was. She didn’t believe her mother would have left her.”

“But there was something else, wasn’t there? Something that made her
afraid
of you?”

Joan’s tongue darted out, wetting her dry lips. “It was Rick. She was very intuitive. She knew that I…cared for Rick.”

For a moment Blaine’s fear vanished with her shock. “You
did?
”

“Yes. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Well, no, I guess not.”

“I’m only a few years older than he. And for a while he seemed interested in me, too. And then he found out that I had no money except my salary at school. Father left me only enough money to buy Rosie a car on her seventeenth birthday,
which
I dutifully did. And
Mother
, God bless her rotten little soul, was leaving everything to Rosie.”

“Everything?”

“
Everything
. And if by some chance Rosie predeceased her, everything went to Baptist charities. Father had instructed her to do this, and although she didn’t know why she was doing it since she didn’t have a clue about how Charlotte had really died, she went right along with him. She didn’t put up one word of argument in my favor. You see how much she loves me?”

“Joan, I’m sorry,” Blaine said sincerely, for the first time realizing the depth of the Peytons’ disregard for their elder daughter and understanding a little better what the tremendous pain of being deprived of their love had done to Joan and how she’d learned to turn her tremendous anger and hurt onto others.

“I was sorry, too,” Joan said bitterly. “And when Rick found out, he turned his attentions to you, the very woman who married Martin Avery.”

“Martin?” Blaine said blankly. Then something clicked in her mind. “You said that when Charlotte was home, she captured the interest of the man you wanted. Was it Martin?”

“Of course. I was dating Martin—oh, casually, but I knew I could win him over. He was so handsome, Blaine, even handsomer than when you married him.”

“I know,” Blaine said slowly.

“Oh, yes, you would. You did yard work here, didn’t you?” she sneered. “He married the woman who once mowed his grass. Good God!”

Even under these circumstances, the old feelings of embarrassment and resentment flared up in Blaine, but she concentrated on keeping herself calm, on keeping Joan talking. “Joan, you claim there is one other person who knows what happened to Charlotte.”

“There
was
one other person.”

“Martin.”

She nodded. “He called me one Saturday afternoon. He said he had to talk to me because he’d been doing a lot of thinking. A
lot
of thinking since his accident. And things didn’t fit together. Things about Charlotte.”

Blaine felt as if she couldn’t get her breath. “That was the afternoon of his death.”

“Yes. I came out as he asked. He told me that he’d staged an argument with you—even thrown an ashtray at you to get you out of the house. He had to because you were always hovering over him. Then he called Bernice and told her not to come. We were alone for the afternoon. Then he started talking about Charlotte. He said he’d never been able to stop thinking about her. He’d loved her, you see, and he’d never gotten over her.”

Blaine felt a dull hurt, but she wasn’t surprised. She’d always known there was someone in Martin’s past he couldn’t get over, but she’d mistakenly thought it was his wife, Gloria.

“Charlotte had nearly obsessed him since the car wreck, he said. He didn’t know why. He’d been recalling how she looked, acted, little things she’d said. He’d been trying to straighten it all out, writing it all down in journals.”

The journals in which he wrote for hours shut in his study, Blaine thought.

“He said he knew what happened. Just like my father, he figured it out. He knew I’d killed Charlotte.”

“Then why didn’t he go to the police?”

“Martin’s mind wasn’t functioning up to par.” Joan gave her superior smile. “He was obsessing on the past, while the present was losing reality. Just like an old person. I didn’t know if anyone would take him seriously or not, but I couldn’t take the chance.”

“So you shot him.” Joan nodded. “But the locked gun case…”

“Robin told Rosie where you’d hidden the key shortly after Martin’s accident. Rosie and I still had a good relationship back then—she confided in me about things like that. After I left Martin on the deck that afternoon, I simply went in your room, found the key, got a gun from the case, went outside, and shot Martin in the head. Then I fired a second shot with the gun in his hand.” She frowned. “You see, I really
wanted
that one to look like suicide. I didn’t want a police investigation, because I wasn’t sure who else he’d told his theories about Charlotte to. Then I put another cartridge in the gun, came in the study and got his journals, and burned them.”

“Because if they’d simply vanished, then questions
would
have been raised about the possibility of an intruder in the house. Burning the journals seemed like something Martin might do before he killed himself.”

“That’s right. I also thought the police might check your phone record, and I knew they’d find a call to my home just shortly before Martin died. So I made up the story about him calling to see when Rosie and Robin would be home.”

“Are you the hit-and-run driver who rammed our car last New Year’s Eve?”

Joan looked affronted. “I’m smarter than that. I could have been injured or unable to get away from the scene.
That
was an unfortunate accident. The rest of it—all that was in my control—all had been carefully planned. I thought of everything!”

“Except that the second shot you fired hit that tree in the backyard.”

Some of the glee faded from Joan’s face. “You know, I was so nervous, so afraid you or Robin was going to walk in, that I didn’t even realize that shot hit the tree. As I said, I
wanted
it to look like suicide.” She shook her head. “But then Logan Quint and the prosecutor decided it was murder made to
look
like suicide. So when it was necessary for me to eliminate Rosie, I decided to follow what the police thought was your pattern.”

“And if they hadn’t suspected me?”

“I was prepared to tell them about Rosie’s affair with Rick, the man so
many
people think you’re involved with. I was going to say that Rosie was afraid of you. After all, she didn’t come out here to visit Robin anymore, did she? It would all look quite plausible, especially since I’m such a good actress. That was my talent in the Miss West Virginia contest, you know. Acting. I’m wonderful.”

“You’ve certainly had
me
fooled for years,” Blaine said dryly.

“Yes, I knew I did. Anyway, after what I told the police about Rosie and Rick, they would have to proceed with a murder investigation that would point right at you.”

“So why didn’t you do it?”

Joan brushed at her forehead. “I didn’t want to do it unless I was forced to. I wanted to appear your loyal supporter. That made me seem more sympathetic, don’t you see?
The woman who believes in Blaine Avery no matter what the evidence
. That’s how the police would think. It would keep their attention away from me, just in case Martin had babbled his
deductions
about Charlotte to anyone else. Besides, other problems came up. There was so much to think about. Like Kathy Foss. The girl knew something. I didn’t know how dangerous she might be, so I had to get rid of her.”

Blaine couldn’t help noticing the strange grinding noises coming from the kitchen. Teeth on wood. What was Ashley
doing?
“How did you know Kathy knew something?”

“You forget—even though I was on leave, I had a direct line to the school. Susie saw Kathy collapse and wake up babbling about Rosie and seeing something and being afraid. Susie called Bernice every day. She told her about it, and Bernice told me.”

“And Bernice?”

“She knew about the medicine,” Joan said casually. “Not your Martin’s medicine, like Logan Quint thought. My
father’s
medicine. He, too, took Dilaudid when he was dying of cancer last year. Everyone forgot about that. You see, I had a fantasy about giving both him and Mother overdoses—of course I would never have done such a thing, but it was fun to imagine. It gave me such a sense of power. So I started sneaking small quantities of Dilaudid out of the vials and replacing them with water. Then it got to be a game—exactly how much Dilaudid could I steal without Bernice noticing?

“Well, finally she did. Sort of. She said Father was in so much pain, the medicine just wasn’t working, and she didn’t understand it. Then once I got careless, and she told me there was less Dilaudid in the vial than there should have been. But she wasn’t
totally
sure, so she never said anything to the doctor. She was always afraid people were going to think she was incompetent, find out about her drinking. But when Logan came to the house asking about Dilaudid, I could see the wheels starting to grind away in that dull brain of hers. Pretty soon even
she
would have been forced by conscience to go to the police and tell them about the Dilaudid that seemed to have disappeared a year ago.”

“So
that’s
the medicine you’ve been using,” Blaine said. “And you saved empty vials from that time to store it in. One of them was found at the high school.”

“Exactly. And that was no accident. I wanted the police to know what the girls had been given. Then someone, probably Rick, would tell them Martin had been on Dilaudid. My only mistake was in hiding the vial a little too well. I wanted it found immediately.”

“But what made you think I’d go to Bernice’s last night?”

Joan gave her a sage look. “I know people, Blaine. I’ve known
you
since you were a smart-aleck little girl who never knew her place.”

The eyelashes! Blaine thought in ironic astonishment She’s hated me ever since I was six and told her the false eyelashes didn’t look good on her.

“I knew that if stupid Bernice called and threatened you, you’d probably tell her to take her hints about the missing Dilaudid to the police and be damned.”

How wrong you are, Blaine thought. I’ve been frightened to death of spending the rest of my life in prison ever since Martin’s death.

“But if she threatened Robin, well, that would be another matter. Martin told me that. He said to me during those last days, ‘Do you know that Blaine still loves me? In spite of everything, she still loves me. And she loves Robin. Oh, they may spat, but there’s feeling there. Yes, Blaine will always protect my girl.’ ”

“Martin said that?”

“Yes. You see, he didn’t resent you as much as you thought he did. At least not when he was himself, not consumed with self-pity. He did leave you in his will, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Blaine said softly, feeling as if a tremendous hurt were easing. Martin hadn’t hated her after all.

“But just in case he was wrong about how much you cared for Robin, and Bernice’s insinuations didn’t work, I took along a bracelet of yours. I got it from your jewelry box the day I found the key to the gun case. A cheap little bracelet, but one that had your initials inside.”

“The bracelet my father gave me when I graduated from high school! I’ve looked everywhere for it!”

“How touching. Anyway, if you didn’t show up at Bernice’s, I was going to drop it there. As it turned out, that would have been the wisest course,” Joan said thoughtfully. “That way Bernice
would
have bled to death, and I would have avoided that awful run through the woods.”

“And what about the phone calls? Why did you keep calling me and playing music?”

“I thought it was a nice, macabre touch.”

“You wanted to torment and frighten me.”

“Oh, yes. You deserved it for marrying Martin. Besides, you told people about the calls. Thanks to Arletta and Abel Stroud, half the town knows about them. People think you’re crazy, claiming to get calls like that. Crazy enough to commit murder.”

Blaine closed her eyes. When she opened them, Joan was withdrawing a multi-dose vial from her coat pocket. “I have plenty of Dilaudid left.”

Blaine’s mouth felt full of sand. “I thought the idea was for me to be charged with all these murders.”

Joan frowned. “Well, it was. And I just about made it happen. But Bernice was my downfall. She lived. When she regains consciousness, she’ll tell who tried to kill her, so my plan won’t work now. I’ll have to kill you myself.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ll leave the country. I think I’ll go someplace warm. Some place where they don’t have an extradition agreement with the United States. Yes, that would be best.” She smiled. “Won’t Mother be in a fix then? No Bernice, no Joan.”

“But if Bernice regains consciousness soon, you won’t make it out of town.”

“Oh, yes, I will. I’m driving my father’s old car. They won’t be looking for it. They won’t even know it’s missing. I’ll drive to Columbus to catch a plane and be gone before they know what happened.”

And she could get away with it, Blaine thought in horror. The chances of Bernice coming to and talking coherently within the next few hours were frighteningly slim.