Daughter of Deceit (21 page)

“A despicable thing?” Anybody but Posey would have had a deep wrinkle between her waxed brows. Katharine knew Posey didn’t have a wrinkle. She’d spent too much on Botox and plastic surgery to permit wrinkles to form. Posey let tone of voice convey her distress. “You are sure that’s what Rita Louise said? She did a despicable thing?”

“A
most
despicable thing.” Katharine wondered if she’d made a mistake by calling Posey on her way home. She had sworn Posey to secrecy, so she didn’t fear that Posey would blurt out the story during a beauty-parlor fest of “sharing heartfelt concern for other women,” but Posey was worrying Rita Louise’s words like a cat with a string.

“I’ll bet
she
shot Foley, don’t you? She found him beating the tar out of Bara, and—” Posey came to a stop.

“And what? Whipped a trusty gun out of her pocketbook and drilled him neatly between the eyes? Pressed Bara’s fingers to the gun and left without being able to say goodbye to her hostess? Don’t be silly. Whatever Rita Louise has done, I don’t think she shot Foley. For one thing, she’s too frail. Any gun has some kick, doesn’t it? But even a little kick, and Rita Louise would have been knocked off her feet, and been found lying beside Bara with a broken hip. Besides, everybody knows she’s in bed by nine.”

Posey heaved a deep sigh. “I’d rather it was her than Bara. Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m glad that’s a choice I don’t have to make.”

“What do you think she’s done if she didn’t kill Foley?”

“I have no idea, and she made it clear she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“She might talk if you went alone, you being Sara Claire’s niece, and all. I mean, you’re practically family.”

“Think again. She once informed me that my mother was a wild political renegade who abandoned Buckhead, taught her daughter none of the social graces, then sent the child back to foist herself on polite society.”

“She didn’t!”

“She certainly did. Granted, that was back when I was in my early twenties and more outspoken than I am now. I had asked her why they didn’t take the money they were spending on a black-tie ball and give it directly to the poor, and while it is a question that often deserves to be asked, Rita Louise was heading up that particular function. She has never forgotten—and definitely does not consider me family.”

“So how soon can you come over so we can go talk to other people?”

Katharine spoke magic words to thrill Posey’s romantic soul: “I need to go home. Tom may have gotten there while we were out.”

“Oh. Well, you all spend some time together, then call me. Have fun.”

Tom wasn’t home. Katharine swiped a couple of chocolate-chip cookies from the round belly of her cookie-jar pig, and while she munched them with a glass of tea, she considered what she and Posey might accomplish by running all over town talking to people Bara had already talked to in the past two days. Nothing. Solving the murder had to be left to the police. She and Posey had no right or reason to poke around in the mystery of Bara’s parentage without Bara’s permission. She had just come to that comforting conclusion right when Payne called again. “I hate to bother you, but Mama’s awake and asking for you. Could you come back?”

Payne had freshened up since Katharine’s earlier visit. Her hair was combed, her lipstick bright. She had even changed clothes, and her face wore an expression Katharine recognized from her own days in ICU waiting rooms. Payne had gone from frantic to resigned—the only two states of being in a place like that.

She greeted Katharine like an old friend. “I am so glad you would come. She’s awake but very agitated, and she keeps asking for you.”

“Will they let me in?”

“I told them you are her sister.”

From strangers to bosom buddies to sisters in less than a week. Katharine couldn’t ever remember a relationship developing so quickly. Given how well Bara was known in Atlanta, she doubted if the hospital staff was fooled, but if her visit could help calm Bara, she’d play along.

Payne walked her to the doors of the unit. “She doesn’t remember a thing. Says she came home yesterday afternoon and had supper. That’s all she remembers. Not a thing between suppertime and waking up in the hospital a little while ago.”

Katharine couldn’t ever remember visiting a patient with a police officer at the door. She wondered if she’d be frisked before entering, but the man simply gave her a nod as she passed.

Even though Katharine knew about Bara’s injuries, she was unprepared for the rainbow of green, purple, and gray that covered the left side of her face and the instant aging process the accident had wreaked. In a faded hospital gown and a nest of pillows and blankets, Bara looked shrunken and ancient.

When Katharine came close to the bed, Bara grabbed her with a hand that felt like a talon. “Find out,” she rasped. “Find—” The word ended in a burst of coughing.

“The police are doing all they can,” Katharine assured her. “They will find whoever did this.” She winged a silent prayer that it was so.

Bara tried to shift her position in the bed and winced with pain. She clutched Katharine tighter. “Find…my daddy. Need to know! And envelope…in kitchen. Lock…” Again she was racked by a cough, then the hand clutching Katharine’s tightened to a vise. “Bring.” The raspy voice grew weak. “Promise?”

“I promise,” said Katharine.

Bara turned her head into her pillow and closed her eyes.

The scene was so like a movie death scene, Katharine was terrified. She summoned a passing nurse. The nurse eyed Bara with an experienced eye, took a quick pulse, and checked monitors over the bed. “Sleeping. She comes and goes. I suggest you come back in an hour.”

Katharine had no intention of coming back that weekend. She left the unit wondering how on earth she had gotten involved in that mess. Tom was coming home. They had a huge party to prepare for. She wanted to buy a car. She had no time to fetch envelopes from Bara’s kitchen or track down Bara’s purported birth father—if such a person existed beyond the realm of Bara’s alcohol-sodden imagination. Besides, she scarcely knew the woman. She would tell Payne about the envelope and go home.

She found Payne talking with a police officer. “I don’t know if I could bear it.” When she saw Katharine, she reached out and clutched her much as Bara had clutched her minutes before. “They want me to go walk through Mama’s house to see if anything is missing. I can’t go in there by myself. Could you go with me? It won’t take long.”

Katharine had never been inside, but she had seen the house. Walking through would not be a quick proposition.

If Susan were ever in a similar situation…
That had to be her mother.

How could Susan be in a similar situation?
Katharine protested silently.

If Susan ever needed a friend, wouldn’t you hope somebody would step to the plate?

Besides,
added the waspish voice of Sara Claire,
you did promise you’d get that envelope.

“Your mother wants an envelope she left in the kitchen,” Katharine told Payne. “I could go with you if we leave right now.”

“The sooner the better,” the officer told them.

“That was all Mother wanted to see you about?” Payne asked as Katharine followed the cruiser toward Bara’s house. “An envelope?”

Katharine had long ago concluded that an inconvenient truth is wiser in the long run than a kinder lie. “No, she still wants me to try and find out who her birth father was, but I think that’s something you ought to pursue, not me.”

“I can’t leave her right now for a wild-goose chase. They think she killed Foley!”

When Katharine didn’t reply, Payne added, “The officer we are following was over at the house this morning. He says the place is a mess, with glass and dirt all over the floor of the front hall. They think Mama and Foley were fighting and she shot him. I told him Mama doesn’t have a gun, but he said hers were the only fingerprints on it and they have no record of who it belongs to. I cannot believe Mama had a gun and I never knew it. Besides, if she’d been going to shoot anybody, she’d have shot Daddy years ago. I don’t believe she let Foley beat her, either. After living with Daddy, she would never have stood for that.”

It was precisely Bara’s not standing for it that could be the problem, but Katharine didn’t point out the fact.

In another moment, Payne burst out, “I’m sure all those questions she was asking must have something to do with this. That’s why I wish you would see what you can find out about…you know. Won’t you?”

“I don’t see how I can. It would look like nothing but blatant curiosity on my part.”

“You could tell folks I sent you.”

“Sorry. I don’t think it’s something I can do.”

Annoyance flitted across Payne’s face. Katharine pulled to a stop with relief. “We’re here.”

The vans and paraphernalia of a crime scene/media event crowded into the circular drive. News reporters recognized Payne and came rushing toward the car with cameras. “I don’t know a thing!” she protested, covering her face.

Katharine and the police officer hustled her inside.

A man in a business suit met them just inside the door. “Detective Swale.” He extended a hand to Payne. “Homicide.” Obviously a man of few words. He had a rumpled look, like he either hadn’t slept or kept his clothes in a wad by his bed.

“Have you figured out what happened?” Payne demanded. “Have you found any clue to who came in and did this thing?”

“Not yet.” He jingled the change in his pocket. Katharine suspected it was a nervous habit he wasn’t even aware of. Uncle Walter used to do that when perturbed.

Payne didn’t seem to notice. “But you know it couldn’t have been Mama, right? I mean, she was unconscious, the front door was standing open….”

“She could have gotten to the phone, tried to leave the house, realized she was too weak, and gone back in before she collapsed.”

“Or somebody else could have beaten her unconscious, Foley came in and surprised him, he shot Foley and put Mama’s prints on the gun.”

“That’s one possibility. But it’s hard to believe somebody that vicious would have taken the time to put a pillow under her head. It’s more likely that Mrs. Weidenauer and her husband had an altercation—”

What a civilized word for an uncivilized act
, Katharine thought.

“—and she shot him, then was able to stagger to the phone and grab a pillow before she passed out from her injuries.”

“It wasn’t my mother. Somebody must have broken in.”

“There’s no evidence of a break-in, and Mr. Weidenauer had a key to the back door in his pocket.”

“That rat! Mama’s lawyer made him give back all his keys. He must have made a duplicate.”

“It did look new,” the detective agreed. He didn’t add, or need to, that if Foley had come into the house uninvited, that could have provoked the “altercation” that led to his death.

Payne had been so focused on the detective, she hadn’t looked at the foyer until that moment. She gave such a cry that Katharine thought she had hurt herself until she fell on her knees and picked up a scrap of crystal. “Mama’s Fräbel!” She held out what looked like a piece of wing. “Mama got an Otto Godo Fräbel piece for her work with the elderly. A heron. It must have gotten broken.” Her throat was clogged with tears.

Katharine was having trouble breathing herself. Seeing the glass and dirt on the floor gave her a flashback of standing in her own home two months before and seeing all her precious things ruined. Her knees wobbled. She knew exactly how Payne felt—and why she was weeping over the heron. It wasn’t its monetary value. It represented the entire mess.

Speaking of mess, dirt littered the floor. Seeking the source, Katharine saw a large potted ficus lying on its side. “That tree needs water,” she said to the detective, “and to be repotted soon if it’s to survive. It’s been without water too long.”

“Is that right?” He looked at it curiously.

“That’s right,” she snapped. “Couldn’t somebody set it back in its pot and water it?”

“Sorry, ma’am. This is a crime scene, not a nursery. The dirt is evidence. See? It’s been tracked all over, even up the stairs.”

She peered at the dirt nearest her feet. “This has been here longer than twelve hours. Look how dry it is. And that big a tree wouldn’t have wilted in that short of a time.”

“Are you a horticulturalist?”

“No, but I grow plants.”

“We’ll check it out.”

She had little faith that he would, but he immediately motioned one of the techs to join him near the tree and said something she could not hear.

“Do you notice anything missing here?” the officer who had brought them asked.

Payne swiped tears off her face and climbed to her feet. “A valuable painting from over the foyer table,” she said when she had looked around. “It was a Monet.”

Katharine looked about as well. She remembered Bara saying the house had been built to outshine the old governor’s mansion. In that it might have succeeded, but while it was elegant, it was heavy and showy. Quantities of Georgia marble had been quarried for the floor of the foyer. The banisters of the large curving staircase looked like ebony, and its treads were also marble. Red carpet ran down the center of the stairs like a river of blood.

Katharine suspected the airy drapes and modern furnishings had been Bara’s, not her grandfather’s. They displayed better taste than the house itself.

Shards of glass crunched underfoot as they walked toward the dining room. “Watch your shoes,” called a tech. “That glass is sharp.”

Payne stopped in the doorway and pressed one hand to her cheek. “The Dolley Madison tea set!” she whispered. “Murdoch is going to kill us!”

The officer poised his pen over his notebook. “A tea set. What was included?”

“A large tray, a coffeepot, a teapot, a sugar bowl, a creamer, and”—Payne colored delicately—“I don’t know the official name for it. Mama called it the slop jar. It was where people poured out cold coffee or tea before they refilled their cup.” She moved toward the buffet like a woman dazed.