Daughter of Deceit (32 page)

But if Scotty knew Bara was adopted, would that make a difference to him?

Katharine was a firm believer that an adopted child is completely a member of his or her adoptive family, but the witnesses agreed that Nettie Holcomb hadn’t felt that way. Nettie had preferred Art and never warmed up to Bara. Scotty was a better actor than Nettie—years of bonhomie proved that. But had he secretly resented Bara, too? Enough to beat her if she came upon him robbing her house? Enough to frame her for Foley’s murder?

Katharine couldn’t investigate Foley’s girlfriend, and she wasn’t willing to believe Bara had killed him, but she decided she would like to ask Eloise a few questions.

Since Posey’s was on the way to the nursing home, she stopped by, hoping Posey could go with her. She preferred to question Eloise in front of a witness.

Posey was at aerobics, but Julia, her housekeeper, was puttering in the red, black, and white kitchen. “Are you limping, Miss Kat?”

“I’ve got a blister and a splinter in my foot,” Katharine admitted.

“Come on into this here powder room and let me have a look.” After she’d examined the foot, Julia fetched a large bowl, tweezers, Band-aids, antibiotic cream, and a soft wash cloth. She filled the bowl with warm soapy water. “Put your foot in there a minute. This may hurt a little, but I’ll fix you right up.”

Feeling younger than Hollis, Katharine sat on the lid of the toilet and let Julia wash her foot, wincing when the blister sank into hot water and again when the wash cloth passed over the splinter in her sole.

Julia noticed the second wince and reached for the tweezers. “Let’s see what you got in there.” In an instant she held up something that glittered in the light. “That’s no splinter. You picked up a little piece of glass.” It was a tiny spike, perhaps a quarter of an inch long. “What you been doing to those poor feet? That’s a bad blister on that toe, too.” She applied antibiotic cream liberally to the wound and sore toe. Katharine wasn’t sure why the cream was needed on the blister, but it felt heavenly to have Julia’s strong fingers massage her feet.

Julia stuck on a Band-aid and heaved herself to her feet. “You go straight home and put that foot up a while,” she instructed. “Tell Tom to order in a pizza or something for dinner.”

“In a little while,” Katharine hedged. “I have one short errand to run for Bara Weidenauer first.”

Julia filled a glass with ice and poured in tea to the brim. As she handed it to Katharine, she demanded, “When you gonna learn not to take on everybody else’s troubles? Sometimes that can be more trouble than it’s worth.”

Within an hour, Katharine would heartily echo those sentiments.

Much refreshed, Katharine drove to visit Eloise. She found Eloise by her window again, looking up at the hazy sky. Did that suit her hazy thoughts?

“Hello, Miss Eloise. It’s Katharine Murray, Ann Rose’s friend.”

“I know who you are, dear. It is so good to see you.” Eloise gave her a welcoming smile. “I don’t know if I have any cookies in the jar in my kitchen, but I can at least make us some coffee. It is good of you to stop by.” She attempted to rise, but straps fastened her arms to the arms of the chair.

Katharine laid a hand on one shoulder. “I don’t need coffee this morning, but thank you, anyway. How are you feeling?” She took the visitor’s chair.

Eloise settled into her seat. “I’m fine. Nothing the matter whatsoever. And you? Were you limping?”

Imagine her noticing. “Just a little. I have a blister.” Katharine tried to think how to get from a blister to what she wanted to ask. “I got it walking from the hospital parking lot to Bara’s room. Did you know she’s in Piedmont?”

“Bara? What’s the matter with the child? She is never ill. Art has a weak throat and Murdoch gets a dreadful cold every winter, but Bara is strong as a horse. Strange, considering.”

“She—uh—fell down some stairs a couple of days ago.” Perhaps it was true.

“Oh, dear. Will she be all right? Nobody ever tells me anything. Nobody ever comes—”

“I came,” Katharine said quickly. She didn’t want Eloise veering off into anger. “I want to ask you a question about Scotty.”

Eloise peered at her. “Are you from the newspaper, dear? I never speak to reporters.”

“No,” Katharine assured her. “I am Ann Rose’s friend.”

“How is dear Ann Rose? I haven’t seen her for ages. Such a charming girl. I knew her mother, you know. She made me laugh.”

“Ann is fine. She and I came earlier, to ask you about Nettie.”

The name made Eloise widen her nostrils and shy back. “Nettie made him do it. He’s not a bad man. She insisted!”

“Do what?” Conversing with Eloise was like walking on ball bearings.

“You know, dear. About the man.”

Before Katharine could react, Eloise was chirping on like a canary whose cover had been taken off. “He didn’t want to do it. He really didn’t. But Nettie made him. That man showed up and wanted to talk to Bara, and Nettie was afraid people might find out about”—she peered toward the door with an anxious frown, and her voice dropped—“you know. She couldn’t stand that. And Winnie was out of town. She didn’t know what to do about the man.”

Katharine hazarded a guess. “The man from Yugoslavia?”

“Some foreign place. Coming to the house like that, demanding to see Bara.”

“Was he Bara’s father?”

Eloise gave her a puzzled look. “Winnie was Bara’s father.”

“But Bara was adopted. Didn’t you know that?”

Eloise peered toward the door and the window, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Winnie went and got her, but we never speak about it. Nettie doesn’t want people to know. She’s so ashamed. That’s why…” Eloise broke off, her face puckered in distress. “Scotty is not a bad man. He’s not! He’s just weak. It was Nettie who made him do it!”

She was getting excited again. Katharine stroked her arm and murmured, “I know.”

“What are you all talking about?” Murdoch stood in the doorway. How much had she heard?

A nurse came in behind her with a syringe on a tray. “It’s time for your mother’s insulin.” Murdoch took the tray. “I’ll give it to her.”

When the nurse had left, Murdoch repeated, “What were you talking about?”

Katharine thought quickly. “I was asking your mother if they knew Bara was adopted.” That wasn’t going to be a secret much longer, anyway.

“Sure.” Murdoch set the syringe tray on a table beside Eloise. “They adopted her in New York. I didn’t know, though, until last week. All these years, they never told me. But we had been over at Bara’s—I wanted a good look at the silver service before I went to Boston—and on the way home Daddy started talking about how it was a shame she got Nana’s things, because she wasn’t really part of the family.” Murdoch’s face grew pink. “Nana had no cause to bypass Aunt Nettie and me and leave the most valuable things in the family to Bara!” Murdoch had rocketed from calm straight to the screeching stage. Katharine wondered if she was in the early stages of her mother’s condition.

Afraid they would disturb the other residents, Katharine lowered her voice, but felt compelled to protest. “Adopted children belong as much as birth children do. Once they are adopted, they are family.”

“But Bara always was her favorite.” The perennial whine of younger children.

Katharine stood. “Well, since you’ve arrived, I’ll let you two have a visit. It’s good to see you, Eloise.”

She meant to hurry past, but Murdoch caught her arm. “Why were you asking her questions about Daddy?”

So she had overheard part of the conversation.

Did she know what her father had done?

“Bara asked me to try and find out who her birth parents were.” Katharine tugged, trying to gently disengage her arm. “I had hoped your mother knew.”

Murdoch’s grip tightened. “I think it’s more than that. You like solving mysteries, don’t you? And murders. Genealogy isn’t serious for you. It’s just a pretext for sticking your nose into other people’s business.” Her eyes glittered, and a drop of moisture formed at the end of her nose. “Bara should never have had that tea set! And the Monet? Do you know how much that thing is worth? Millions! But she hung it right in her front hall, like it was no more valuable than something in a scruffy motel.”

Katharine doubted that Bara had any acquaintance with pictures in scruffy motels, but this wasn’t the time to think about that. Murdoch was so close she could smell coffee on her breath, and her eyes glittered. How far would she go to protect her father?

In a quick gesture, Murdoch grabbed the syringe and held it aloft. Katharine frantically tried to remember what she knew about insulin. Couldn’t it be deadly, injected into a person without diabetes? In another instant, Murdoch would jab the syringe into Katharine’s arm.

Katharine summoned more energy than she knew she possessed and wrenched away. Screaming, she dashed for the door. “Help! Help!” She pelted down the hall.

“Stop, thief!” Murdoch cried behind her.

An orderly ran after Katharine. “Stop her!” Katharine gasped at him. Her sandals slipped on the tile floor. “She’s trying to kill me!”

She heard him pause, but any second Murdoch and her murderous syringe could be upon her. She kicked off her sandals and darted for the front door. Ignoring the gravel that bruised her feet, she ran to her car. Murdoch’s Buick was backed into the adjoining space, its bumper scraping the low white concrete wall in spite of several signs in the lot reading
PLEASE DO NOT BACK IN.

Katharine slid into her seat and locked the door with no seconds to spare. Murdoch pounded on her window. “Don’t you go spreading stories about Daddy, you hear me! If you do, we’ll sue you for slander. Bara didn’t deserve all that! She doesn’t need the money. And she doesn’t even like the tea service. It shouldn’t have gone to Bara. She isn’t part of our family! She doesn’t love it like I do. To her, it’s something on a sideboard. She never sat at Nana’s imagining Dolley Payne Madison drinking tea from that pot. And the Monet! Fifteen million dollars, and Foley wanted half. He’d have gotten it, too. Everybody said so.”

Katharine started her engine. If she had to, she’d back out and take Murdoch with her. When her car started to roll, Murdoch jumped back, still shouting.

Katharine looked over her right shoulder to make sure she was clear on that side, and glimpsed the luggage on the backseat of the Buick. Two more pieces of the puzzle fell into place, rearranging her conclusions. Instead of backing straight, she turned so that her car blocked Murdoch’s in front. The concrete wall blocked it behind.

She stopped and lowered her window a crack. “It wasn’t Scotty,” she called. “It was you! You didn’t fly to Boston Thursday night. You couldn’t. They were socked in by the storm. Tom couldn’t come home that night.”

Clear as a memory, she could see Murdoch dithering in the congested Atlanta airport, uncertain whether it was better to stay and hope for a flight or go home and sleep in her own bed. Worrying about the silver service and whether Bara could keep it safe for another week. Deciding to go to her house and tackle her, remove it forcibly if necessary, knowing that Bara would probably be drunk.

“Also, you took a cab to the airport. Your dad said so. But with all that time to waste, you decided to go get your car and drive to Bara’s to get the things, didn’t you? Scotty was playing poker. Did he even know you’d been home? I’m surprised he didn’t report your car stolen.”

“I park in the garage.”

As soon as she said that, Murdoch turned an unlovely shade of red. But she quickly recovered and lifted her chin. “You can’t prove a bit of it.” She headed to her car.

Katharine cracked her passenger window and called, “Your hotel will know when you arrived in Boston. And I picked up a splinter of glass somewhere. Was it from the floor of your car when you gave me a ride?”

But even as she spoke, Katharine knew Murdoch was right. Without Bara’s stolen items, why should the police take her accusations seriously? Murdoch had a reason for her prints to be at Bara’s, and who in the Atlanta airport would have noticed if she’d slipped out for a couple of hours? Murdoch was so easy to overlook.

Katharine shifted her foot and felt the sore place where the glass shard had been. Perhaps, even if Murdoch vacuumed, the police could find traces of dirt and glass on the floor of her car that matched the debris in Bara’s front hall. Somewhere in Atlanta there might be a cabby who remembered picking her up at the airport or at a MARTA station and taking her home. Maybe an airport car park would have a record of when she came in or went out. But what would persuade the police to put in the man-hours or run the tests required to prove any of that? Only the silver, the lamp, and the Monet.

Oh God, what do I do now?
Katharine was baffled.

Murdoch sneered over the roof of the Buick. “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard of. Move your car. I’m going home.”

Katharine almost left. But some prayers are answered in the oddest ways.

Murdoch pressed the automatic button to open the door. Instead, her trunk lid flew up. Inside was a pile of lumpy blankets with what looked like a wrapped painting on top.

With a scream of fury, Murdoch slammed the trunk and jumped in her car. She started her engine, pressed down on the gas. Her car hit Katharine’s with enough force to whiplash her neck and jar her teeth. The side door caved and the air bags deployed.

Fighting her air bag, Katharine grabbed her cell phone and punched 911. Before they answered, Murdoch had backed up as far as the car could go, then rammed her again. Katharine couldn’t find the steering wheel, so she held onto the armrest with one hand while she held the phone with the other. “A madwoman is attacking my car, and I think she’s committed a murder. Come quickly!” She gave the address and hung up.

Again and again Murdoch slammed her. Katharine clutched the armrest with both hands, feeling like she had fallen into a blender. Between blows, she considered jumping out, but she felt safer in the car.

The next time Murdoch hit Katharine, she gunned her engine until it roared. Did she think she could push a car sideways? Katharine was afraid she could. She stepped on the emergency brake and prayed for help.