Daughter of Deceit (28 page)

Katharine didn’t have time to process that. Hollis was already moving ahead.

“I sat down next to a tree and waited for Jon to come, but he had loaned somebody his car, so Kenny brought him. By the time they got there, I was sick as a dog. I threw up all over both of them and Kenny’s car. Kenny was utterly disgusted. I don’t know how he ever got the smell out of his upholstery, and Jon said later that Kenny asked several times about his ‘weird druggie cousin.’ That’s all he’ll ever see when he looks at me.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Katharine said cautiously. “He looked pretty happy to see you this morning. Have you ever told him what really happened?”

“I hadn’t seen him again until your house. I thought about telling him this afternoon, we were having such a good time. The view was gorgeous from up on top of the ridge, and those horses were wonderful. He’s a good rider, too. I never knew he liked to ride. But he has no idea how to take a compliment. When I told him he was a better rider than I am, he said you learn to ride, growing up in a barn. I was so tired of him acting like a hayseed when he isn’t one that I said some things I shouldn’t have, then he said some really spiteful things back. I don’t care if I never speak to him again!”

They had arrived at her house by that time. Hollis got out and slammed the car door so hard that Katharine hoped she hadn’t done permanent damage to the rental vehicle.

Monday

Ann Rose called early Monday morning. “I went through Oscar’s albums, and I’ve found something interesting about Bara that you need to see. Can you come over?”

Katharine consulted the to-do list on her counter, decided it was still in the “delay” stage rather than the “procrastination” zone, and agreed she could be there in fifteen minutes. On the way over, however, she reflected that one week earlier, she had scarcely known Bara Weidenauer. Since then, the woman and her problems had co-opted her life.

Ann Rose led her directly to Oscar’s library at the back of the house, a comfortable, cluttered room with shelves overflowing with books and a large leather desk chair shaped to fit Oscar’s considerable bulk.

“Look.” Ann Rose lifted a brown cardboard album covered to look like leather—very like those Katharine’s Aunt Lucy had filled back in the thirties and forties. Ann Rose opened it across the desk. “This one is mostly Oscar’s high school and college days, but it includes the war years. I don’t think they could get much film, because there aren’t many pictures from then. Here he and Winnie are in high school.”

Katharine peered down at a small sepia picture with scalloped edges, in which two boys in leather helmets and jackets clowned for the camera next to a small plane. No one would have predicted that the lanky boy on the right would grow into a prosperous architect, or that the skinny one on the left would become a stout doctor.

Ann Rose flipped over two pages, hunting for a particular picture. “Here! This is the one I was looking for. See?”

A man and a woman stood beside a large bush. She was handing him a round hydrangea blossom while he faced directly into the camera. Katharine had no trouble recognizing Nettie and Winnie Holcomb. Winnie was already striking, if not traditionally handsome, and Nettie already had the look of a bad-tempered but highly bred horse, which grew more pronounced over the years. Beneath the picture was written in block letters,
FAREWELL NETTIE AND WINNIE, HAVE FUN IN NEW YORK!

“If Oscar wrote that, he writes better than most doctors I know,” Katharine commented.

“He went to Tech to study engineering. He didn’t decide to become a doctor until he served in the ambulance corps. He and Winnie both changed professions as a result of the war. But what do you notice about the picture?”

Katharine studied the picture carefully. “It had to have been taken in summertime. The hydrangea is in full bloom.”

“Right. And this is the section of pictures Oscar took in 1945, after he got home from Europe.”

“But Nettie—” Katharine peered down in surprise at the slender woman standing with her side to the camera. “She doesn’t look the least bit pregnant!”

“That’s what I noticed, too. If Bara was born in September…”

“She must have been adopted.” Katharine was so surprised, she sat in the nearest chair. “I wonder why they never told her.”

“People didn’t, back then. They kept it a deep, dark secret so children wouldn’t get traumatized.” Ann Rose sounded as angry with Winnie and Nettie as Katharine felt.

“So instead, she gets traumatized when it’s too late to ask the questions she’d like to ask.”

Ann Rose closed the album and rested her hand on it. “Do you think we should tell Bara? Or show her this and let her draw her own conclusions?”

“I don’t know. She’s not in the best shape right now to get hit with it, but maybe it would cheer her to know Nettie wasn’t her blood kin.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, neither wiser than the other about what to do with what they knew.

“Can you ask Oscar the next time he calls?”

“Yes, but that will be a while. I spoke with Jeffers Saturday and told him about Bara.”

“Rita Louise knows something, but I don’t know if she’d tell what she knows.” Katharine related what had happened at the cathedral.

“Eloise might tell us something, as well. She’s two daisies short of a bouquet where the present is concerned, but she sometimes talks quite clearly about the past.”

How like Ann Rose,
Katharine thought,
with all she has to do, to still take time to visit a woman who won’t remember she’s been there.

One word caught her attention. “You said ‘us.’ Would you talk to Rita Louise and Eloise for Bara?”

“No, but I will go with you,” Ann Rose consulted her watch, “if we go now. Chip won’t get back until nearly noon. I think I must go, don’t you? After all, I was the one who found the picture, and it was at my house that Bara first asked you to look into these medals. You shouldn’t have to shoulder this alone.”

I shouldn’t have to shoulder it at all,
Katharine mused while Francie helped Ann Rose figure out where she had dropped her purse when she last came in the house.

“She’s having a better day today,” the aide said as they signed in at the desk. “Her sugar was so out of whack yesterday, we were afraid we’d have to call the doctor. We finally got it under control, but we think her husband has been sneaking her sweets again.”

“Is she diabetic?” Katharine asked Ann Rose as they walked down the long hall to Eloise’s room.

“Apparently so. I didn’t know.” Ann Rose looked ruefully at a bag Francie had sent, filled with petit fours and éclairs left over from the party. “I think we’ll leave these at the nurses’ station, don’t you?”

Eloise Payne sat beside the window, looking up at the sky. Katharine wondered what she was seeing. If Eloise had lowered her gaze she could have seen trees and shrubs on the nursing-home grounds with the smudge of Atlanta’s skyline on the horizon. Instead, since the sky was a gray heat haze, she seemed mesmerized by nothing.

Katharine was grateful that her parents had not outlived their minds.

“Hello.” Eloise welcomed them with a smile. “How nice of you to come.” She was neat and pretty, her hair freshly set and her nails manicured. Only if you looked into her eyes did you see that there was nobody home.

Eloise peered at Ann Rose and asked, puzzled, “Are you my sister?”

Ann Rose sat beside her and took one hand. “No, we’re your friends. I’m Ann Rose Anderson and this is Katharine Murray. Oscar Anderson is my father-in-law. You know Oscar. He went to school with Scotty and Winnie. We want to talk to you about the war.”

Since there were only two chairs, Katharine sat on the edge of the bed and let Ann Rose steer the conversation.

Eloise looked puzzled. “Are we at war?”

“I meant World War Two, when Scotty was in the army and Winnie was a pilot. Over in Europe. You and Nettie stayed home with little Art.”

“Scotty was in Atlanta. Were you in the war?” Eloise waited for Ann Rose to fill the gaps in her memory.

“No. But do you remember Bara, Art’s little sister?”

Eloise puzzled that over. “The girl.”

Ann Rose nodded encouragingly. “Little Bara.”

Eloise watched her fingers pluck the throw and spoke as if to herself, her words scarcely audible. “Scotty thought her ugly and skinny, but I liked her. She had very expressive eyes, even before she could understand what we were saying.”

“Did Nettie and Winnie adopt her in New York?” Ann Rose slid the blunt question in like butter.

Eloise looked up, suddenly angry. “Nettie! She made him do it, you know. He didn’t want to. But Nettie insisted. He had nightmares for weeks, after. Terrible dreams.” She plucked at the soft pink throw covering her knees, eager for them to understand.

“Nettie wanted to adopt the child but Winnie didn’t?” Ann Rose asked, puzzled.

Eloise stared like a pupil who doesn’t understand the question. “In New York,” Ann Rose prompted her.

Eloise nodded. “Scotty doesn’t, but I do. I like seeing all the people. Murdoch likes to go, too.” She turned to Katharine. “I’m glad you finally decided to come see me. My own sister, and you never come. Nobody ever comes. Nobody!” Her voice rose. “I sit in this stinking place day after day and they don’t feed me, don’t bathe me…. I’m not leaving you a penny! Not one red cent. You never come!”

An aide rushed in and began to talk softly. “It’s okay, Miss Eloise. You need to rest. Let me help you to your bed. You need to rest.” She waved toward the door and spoke softly to Ann Rose and Katharine, “I’m sorry, you need to leave now. She gets like this sometimes.”

As they walked to the car, Ann Rose asked, “Did you get anything from that?”

“Not much, except Nettie wanted to adopt the child and Winnie didn’t—which is odd, considering the way they treated her later. He adored Bara, and she him.”

Ann Rose nodded soberly. “He was Bara’s god. She has never been the same since Winnie…”

Katharine almost confessed right then what Bara had told her, but she couldn’t bring herself to repeat it aloud, even to Ann Rose. Surely Bara had been confused from drugs.

Ann Rose was still mulling over what Eloise had said. “I wonder why Winnie didn’t want the child. I mean, he had such a heart for children. Look at how much he contributed every year to various charities for children.”

“And you would think adoption would be something a couple ought to agree on before they do it.”

Ann Rose’s face grew grave. “Nettie and Winnie agreed on very few things, from what I understood.” She checked her watch. “I think we have time to swing by Rita Louise’s.”

Katharine grimaced. “The shorter our visit, the better, as far as I am concerned.”

“But I think we ought to call before we arrive on her doorstep, don’t you?” Ann Rose pulled her cell phone from her capacious bag.

“Don’t tell her I’m with you,” Katharine warned, “or she might suspect what we want.”

“Come in, dear,” Rita Louise welcomed Ann Rose dressed in a powder blue linen dress and low gray heels, every hair in place.

Her cordiality dropped several degrees when she glimpsed Katharine, and plummeted as her gaze traveled down Katharine’s clothes. Rita Louise belonged to the school of ladies who manage to drag themselves to the beauty parlor every week long after they get too frail for other functions, and who rise and dress for company every day whether they expect guests or not. Katharine’s Aunt Sara Claire had been the same.

Ann Rose’s classic khaki skirt, starched striped blouse, and polished flats with stockings passed muster, but Rita Louise’s expression made it clear that the turquoise cotton T, cropped khaki pants, and turquoise leather flip-flops Katharine had put on for a casual day at home were not acceptable for a morning call.

If Rita Louise remembered her tearful confession to Katharine at the cathedral, she gave no sign. Feeling like an urchin dragged in off the street, Katharine decided to let Ann Rose do the talking.

“We’ve come on a sort of delicate matter,” Ann Rose began when they were seated with cups of steaming coffee before them. “I think you know that Bara asked Katharine, here, to help her identify a box of medals she found among Winnie’s things, and in the process they came across a citation stating that Winnie didn’t get home from the war until February of 1945.”

Rita Louise gave a chilly nod.

“Do you also know that the police may suspect Bara of shooting Foley?”

“Yes.” Rita Louise didn’t indicate whether she agreed or disagreed with that theory.

Katharine gave Ann Rose high marks for plowing on through rising ice. “Now they have discovered that some valuables are missing, so they are beginning to wonder if someone came in from the outside and beat up Bara, Foley interrupted them, and the intruder shot him. Payne wonders whether the intrusion had anything to do with all the visits Bara made last week.”

“Payne wonders whether one of
us
killed Foley and beat Bara?”

Rita Louise’s power bills must be low in the summer, Katharine reflected. The woman could chill the air with a look. Even Ann Rose was nonplussed.

Katharine decided it was time to pull her share of the sled. “Payne asked me to at least talk to the people Bara talked to, to see if they have any inkling of what kind of hornet’s nest Bara may have stirred up.”

Rita Louise lowered her face to her coffee cup so they could not see her expression. “Bara spoke and acted rashly, before she thought. Nettie did her best to civilize the child, but—”

“Bara was adopted, wasn’t she?” Ann Rose asked.

When Rita Louise looked like she was about to deny it, Ann Rose added quickly, “I found a picture in Oscar’s album showing Nettie three months before Bara was born. Nettie wasn’t pregnant.” She put one hand on the gnarled bejeweled ones. “If you know something, Rita Louise, you need to tell it. For Bara’s sake.”

“Everything in the world has been done for Bara’s sake! What has she given in return? She despised the woman who raised her. She flouted the society that nurtured her. She brought disgrace on the family name.”

Katharine would have argued Bara’s case. After all, the woman and her eccentricity had raised more money for charity in Atlanta than Rita Louise. She had survived two dreadful marriages and managed to raise decent children. She had stayed sober for twenty-five years. But before she could defend Bara, Ann Rose chose a simpler and more effective way.

“For truth’s sake, then,” Ann Rose said gently. “Because it is truth that sets us free.”

Rita Louise did a moment of private battle before she sagged. Her shoulders slumped. Her spine curved. Her chin quivered. She had to set down her coffee cup because her hands trembled too much to hold it. To Katharine, it was like watching a spring thaw after a particularly severe winter.

Rita Louise spoke only to Ann Rose. Katharine felt uneasy, like she was eavesdropping on a confessional. “I don’t know what to do. Promises are sacred. I have believed that. I do believe it.”

“You made a promise to somebody you aren’t sure you should keep?”

Rita Louise twisted her hands in her lap. “Yes. Years ago, a good friend asked me to share her burden. In great distress she told me a secret and asked me never to reveal it to anyone. I promised, even though…” She broke off and said hoarsely, “I gave my word, but sometimes I wonder if I was wrong. I kept my promise, though. I never even told John.”