Daughter of Deceit (3 page)

Jeffers and Ann Rose Anderson lived with Jeffers’s father, Oscar, in a magnificent brick home atop a gentle hill, surrounded by acres of landscaped lawn and a high brick wall. Oscar’s wife had inherited the house from her father—a scion of a family endowed with old money. When Oscar’s wife had died the year Jeffers finished med school and married Ann Rose, Oscar had suggested that the newlyweds join him in the big house until they found something they liked better. They had lived together amicably for forty years.

That morning, the drive was full of cars, so the only place Posey could park was down near the wall. Posey didn’t mind. She went to aerobics twice a day. Katharine didn’t. The house was nearly a block away, uphill. As she panted in Posey’s wake, she hoped she would live long enough to reach one final glass of water.

“Don’t you dare leave me alone with Ann Rose,” Posey warned as they approached the front steps. “She intimidates me. She’s so…so erudite. I mean, look at all those trips she takes. She never travels simply to relax and shop. She comes back with lectures.” Posey’s idea of a perfect vacation was two weeks on tropical beaches at five-star resorts with a cold drink close at hand, gift shops within easy strolling distance, and a spa off the pool. Katharine had never figured out how Posey and Tom, growing up in the same house, had turned out so different. Tom adored trips where he came back more educated than he left. So did Katharine.

That was only one thing she and Ann Rose had in common. Another was that neither had grown up in Buckhead, although both their mothers had been born and bred there. Katharine had grown up in Miami, where her father taught at the University of Miami School of Law. Ann Rose grew up in Mississippi, and had met Jeffers in New Orleans while she was getting her masters in English and he was at Tulane med school. Like Katharine, Ann Rose had come to Buckhead as a bride.

A third thing they shared was a firm conviction that wealth was not a measure of personal value, but a trust from God to be used for the good of others. They had often worked together in hands-on projects in Atlanta’s poorer neighborhoods, and both belonged to organizations that lobbied the recalcitrant Georgia legislature to remember that children matter as much as highways. But Katharine felt that Ann Rose’s priorities were clearer than her own. Ann Rose might live in a spacious home filled with antiquities her husband’s mother’s family had accumulated over several generations, but she had taught in an inner-city high school until her recent retirement, and she personally dressed and lived simply and had never spent much time in beauty parlors or spas. She had always been comfortable with her sturdy body and prematurely white hair. Her one extravagance was travel, and her lectures were widely requested by women’s clubs and churches.

“When does the woman sleep?” Posey demanded “Now remember, if she calls for volunteers and you see me about to raise my hand, grab me.”

“She’s looking for people who
want
to tutor, not people who have been shanghaied. All you have to do is listen to what she has to say, then we can eat and leave.”

“Yeah, but you know how impressionable I am.” Posey patted frothy curls that created the impression of a blue-eyed bimbo, unless you got a good look at the shrewdness in those eyes. “I might volunteer if she makes a really great speech.”

“You’re about as impressionable as stainless steel,” Katharine told her, “but stick with me, baby, and you won’t get hurt. You’re just along for the ride.”

Posey reached for the doorknob. “Isn’t that what you said before that trip where I almost got shot?”

By the time Katharine got her glass of water, the meeting was about to begin. Posey motioned her to a chair she had saved at the back of several rows set in the large front hall and whispered, “If I fall asleep, prop me behind that suit of armor over yonder.”

Aerobics and social events, not good works, were Posey’s forte. She and Wrens attended black-tie functions for many good causes and contributed generously, but Posey was at the meeting about adult illiteracy only because Katharine was currently without a car. Hers had been wrecked several weeks earlier. Since Tom represented his company in Washington most weeks and only came home on weekends, she had been using his Lexus, but that week, he was working in Atlanta. She had realized during breakfast that she’d need a ride to the meeting, and her fingers had dialed Posey’s number out of habit. As she settled into her chair, she reflected that a new car might be essential for her health.

As Ann Rose was beginning her PowerPoint presentation, the front door opened and the scent of bourbon flowed into the hall. Katharine and Posey looked back to see Bara Weidenauer swaying in the doorway. “Lordy,” Posey breathed. “Is she drinking again?”

As always when Bara made an entrance, the room fell silent. The woman’s long, strong face wasn’t beautiful, but she was striking: tall and slender with arresting dark eyes, a mass of once-black curls that were now silver, and eccentricities that kept Atlanta talking. Hostesses dreaded what Bara’s blunt tongue might say in their homes, but they invariably invited her. Parties were remembered and talked about if Bara had been there. Committees were never dull if she chaired them. Events that she orchestrated raised more money than others in the city. Her father, Winnie Holcomb, had been a mover and shaker in a city that loves to be moved and shaken, and in the realm of volunteer work, Bara was as unorthodox and effective as her dad.

She raised one hand in apology. “Sorry I’m late. I had to run by Publix for a few things. Oh, drat, I forgot to take them out of the car. Do you reckon they’ll be okay?” She flapped one hand in Ann Rose’s direction. “Never mind. Go on with what you were saying. Sorry I’m late.”

Whispers of surprise rippled the room. Katharine heard “…drunk?” “…buying groceries?” She wondered which of the two the women found more shocking.

Ann Rose, who was seldom ruffled, asked, “Do you have anything that needs to go in the freezer or refrigerator?”

“They ought to be all right for a couple of hours.”

Ann Rose raised her voice slightly. “Katharine, since you’re near the door, would you ask Francie to have someone bring in Bara’s groceries and store them properly until she’s ready to leave? Bara, give Katharine your keys. I believe there’s a seat here on the couch.”

Two women obligingly shifted to make space for a third in the center. Katharine took the keys and headed in search of Ann Rose’s cook. Ann Rose resumed her speech.

The kitchen bustled with caterers in gray uniforms with white aprons, preparing dainty sandwiches and finger foods under Francie’s stern eye. Francie—who had run the Anderson kitchen since Jeffers was a boy and who insisted that the Anderson staff wear soft peach uniforms (“more friendly” she called it)—accepted the commission as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. “Bara don’t know a thing about groceries. I’ll take care of them.”

As Katharine rejoined the group, Posey leaned over and whispered, “Did you know there are grown people in Atlanta who don’t know how to read? I’ll fill you in later.” Katharine would be interested to hear what Posey absorbed. That ought to give Ann Rose a baseline for the least somebody could retain.

Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang twice, an urgent summons. Katharine rose to answer, but reached the door in a dead heat with a peach-clad maid. The maid opened the door, then stepped back to let Katharine welcome the newcomers.

Katharine found Murdoch Payne about to press the bell a third time. Behind her stood Payne Anderson wearing an anxious expression and the casual seersucker shorts and T-shirt of a young mother who had been forced to run out when she’d planned to be home all day.

No stranger seeing the two women on the doorstep would guess they were cousins. Payne at thirty looked a lot like her mother used to: tall and striking, with smooth olive skin, perfect brows above dark eyes, and short silky curls the color of polished ebony.

Murdoch looked like a large mouse in a tan pantsuit and comfortable shoes.

Payne spoke in a low, anxious voice. “Did Mama get here safely?”

Katharine nodded, but before she could speak, Murdoch sidled into the hall and announced, “Bara forgot to pick me up, after I’d called!”

Katharine had never liked Murdoch much. They had served together on a couple of committees, and the woman screeched when she got excited. She also took forever to make up her mind about minor decisions, driving other members of the committee wild with pointless discussion; yet, if she were in charge of anything, she would make impulsive, unwise decisions that left messes for others to clear up.

She took the first empty chair she came to—which happened to be the one Katharine had just vacated—and dropped her purse on the floor with an indignant
clunk
! Since she didn’t look before she dropped it, she squarely bombed the half-full glass Katharine had left beside her chair. Water flowed under Katharine’s purse and across the hardwood floor.

The same maid who had opened the door hurried forward with towels to sop up the mess. Murdoch ignored her and continued her lament. She didn’t bother to lower her voice, being one of those women who presume their distress is the concern of the world. “I’m sorry to be so late, but Bara forgot to come get me.” She glared at her cousin. Bara ignored her.

Payne apologized for them both. “I’m sorry we interrupted the program.”

Ann Rose smiled her forgiveness, but Rita Louise Phipps—a frail elderly woman in a wing chair—gave Payne a formidable frown. She had been the close friend of Payne’s grandmother, Nettie Holcomb. For five decades Rita Louise, Nettie, and Katharine’s aunt, Sara Claire Everanes, had formed a triumvirate that arbitrated Buckhead’s manners and monitored its social gates. Posey used to refer to them as “the scariest women in town.” As the only survivor of the triumvirate and the widow of an Episcopal priest, Rita Louise presided over any gathering like a queen. She lived with one maid in a condominium high above Peachtree Street, where, Posey pointed out, she could look down on everybody else.

Rita Louise had used her money and influence to insure her husband a pulpit in Atlanta for his entire ministry, but it was his own humility and ability to speak truth in love that had guaranteed that Father John was revered and loved. His widow was revered and feared.

That morning, Rita Louise sat with her gnarled hands resting on a silver-headed cane, swollen joints covered by emeralds and diamonds. Her silver-gray shirtwaist and matching cardigan had been in style forty years before and would be in style forty years thence, as would the double strand of pearls that circled her throat. Her long, slender feet, encased in gray flats, were crossed at the ankles. Her silver hair, confined in the French twist she had worn all her adult life, looked ready for a tiara.

Posey had been known to ponder whether she ever combed out her hair completely, or whether bugs might nest in its recesses. That remark, fortunately, had never reached Rita Louise.

The only discordant note that morning was Rita Louise’s too-bright lipstick. Katharine, having helped her mother and two elderly aunts dress for social occasions for years, suspected Rita Louise’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be. Her vinegary disposition certainly was. Her eyebrows—not simply silver but strongly penciled charcoal gray—drew together. “Get yourselves settled so Ann Rose can go on with her program.”

“I can’t stay. I have Chip in the car.” Payne clutched Katharine’s arm and drew her toward the door. “Does Mama seem to be okay?”

Katharine glanced toward the couch near the window, where Bara’s neighbors on both sides were hunched as far as they could get into the fat arms of the couch, looks of distress on their faces. Payne’s gaze followed Katharine’s and she caught a quick breath of dismay.

As if drawn by a magnet, Bara looked that way. “You don’t have time to tutor anybody.”

Payne turned a miserable pink. “I only came to bring Murdoch. Do you want to go home?”

“I just got here. Go on home.” Bara waved a hand dismissively.

“You forgot to pick me up,” Murdoch repeated.

Bara shifted to show them both a bony shoulder.

Ann Rose, conditioned by years of teaching unruly students, remained unruffled. “If you’d like to stay, Payne…”

It was a clear dismissal. “Take care of her,” Payne told Katharine softly as she left. One maid let her out the front door and another materialized with a chair for Katharine.

As Ann Rose finished her speech and opened the floor for discussion, the army of caterers silently moved into the dining room across the hall, putting out trays of sandwiches, tarts, and crudités, and crystal pitchers of iced tea with lemon and mint. One opened bottles of chilled wine while another carried in a silver pot of coffee. Peach-clad maids set up card tables and chairs in the far end of the hall and covered them with soft green cloths and small vases of flowers. Katharine had seen that the den and library were already full of tables when she carried back Bara’s keys. Posey was right. A woman who could invite fifty women into her home, give a lecture, and then serve them a sit-down luncheon was formidable.

Having eaten a light breakfast, Katharine was more than ready for lunch. Being at the back of the crowd, she looked forward to being at the head of the line.

“Katharine?” Ann Rose called. “Since you’re back there already, will you be so kind as to pour coffee?”

Katharine grabbed a tiny crabmeat-and-cream-cheese sandwich and swallowed it in two bites before taking her position behind the silver service.

Murdoch, who had managed to secure the position Katharine had hoped for, held out a porcelain cup and nodded toward the pot Katharine held. “That set is almost as nice as a tea set we have in our family. It was a gift from Dolley and James Madison to one of our ancestors. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.” Katharine handed back her cup and looked toward the woman next in line.

Murdoch, however, wasn’t finished. Ignoring the line building up behind her, she gushed, “Oh, yes. It’s Revere silver, and a beautiful set. I used to go to Grandmother’s after school every afternoon until Mama finished at her school and could come get me, and I loved picturing Dolley Payne Madison touching every piece. It’s engraved ‘To George and Ellen Payne from Dolley and James Madison on the Occasion of Their Twenty-fifth Anniversary.’ I haven’t yet established exactly who George was or how he was related to us, but Dolley was a Payne before she married, so she must have been related to us, as well. I may have proof by next week. I’m flying to Boston Thursday night for a mini-reunion weekend at my college, then I’ll spend several days looking at documents I can’t get online. I’ve also traced one branch of our family to the
Mayflower
, and if I can find the money”—she gave a self-conscious little laugh to show she was joking, for who in that group ever had to worry about money?—“I want to go to England in October for a genealogy conference, and then visit the village I think we originally came from. Didn’t I hear that you are interested in genealogy too?”