Deadly Descent (4 page)

Chapter Seven

Three days after Zelda’s funeral I gave myself permission to take a Dumb Day at the historical society. What I really wanted was a day off. But I had a whole assortment of piddling tasks I did when my head wasn’t clear enough to edit. I typed file folder labels, entered data on the computer, organized photographs.

I was paid a token wage for professional and political reasons having to do with the county’s mill levy. Everyone else who worked here volunteered, and at the Carlton County Historical Society we prided ourselves on being open when we were supposed to be, by god.

Nevertheless, it was gorgeous outside, and I wanted to be home doing fall gardening, not working in a stuffy old courthouse surrounded by one hundred years of yellowing newspaper clippings and old pictures.

I had been too restless to work well all week. I could not put the question out of my mind. Who
had
murdered Zelda? Despite the theft of Zelda’s purse, Sam was not convinced the motive was burglary. Josie was sure bludgeoning was an unplanned crime of passion. Passion would indicate someone who knew her. Like her sister.

There are ghosts in this vault. Men and women clutching at my sleeves, murmuring, “I want to tell you my story. Please let them know my life counted for something. Please tell them. Who I was. What I did.”

Zelda was the newest haunt.

The funeral had gone well. Heavily sedated, Judy had behaved. Brian had made a sweet, earnest speech about his happy memories of his beloved aunt. And Max. The poor, pitiful, lost, weepy-eyed old man was enough to break your heart.

Judy St. John blew into the vault like a wisp of fog. One moment I was thinking of Zelda, the next I looked up and her daughter was standing in front of me.

Warily, I waited for Judy to speak. When she did, the words seemed strange and hollow. Like they were put there by a ventriloquist.

“Lottie, I know Aunt Fiona murdered my mother. I just know it. How can I convince you? If you won’t believe me, no one in this town will believe me.”

My fingers tightened around the pencil I was holding. I couldn’t think fast enough. I had thought this nonsense was over, a passing hysterical notion of an unstable woman. She was right that no one around here would believe her. But outside the county? The press would have a field day with Brian’s campaign.

“Judy, if there’s trouble in a family, a funeral brings it out. People are inclined to think terrible things.” I picked around for words. “Thoughts they never would have had otherwise.”

“It’s not my imagination.” Tears welled in her enormous blue eyes. “Somehow, someway, Aunt Fiona is behind all this.” She reached for a Kleenex and pressed it against her trembling mouth.

“Judy,” I said carefully, “I wish you would…”

“Wish I would what? Shut my mouth? Not make waves?” She quivered like a little Chihuahua.

“I wish you would be a little more sensitive to what’s at stake for Brian if you make accusations. The press will tear him to shreds if you even hint at anything amiss.”

“I know what’s at stake. His whole career. I don’t care.” But her body language said she did. She sat with her legs rigidly thrust in front of her, white knuckled hands clutching the edge of the chair, as though she would fly up and hit the ceiling if she relaxed her grip for a second.

Josie has an uncanny ability to tell when people are lying or merely have a skewed sense of the truth. She would know everything about Judy St. John in two hours time. I didn’t. However, I was certain she believed everything she was saying.

“What is it you want from me, Judy?”

“I want you to go with me to the police.”

Stunned, I could only think of the impact this would have on Brian Hadley’s career.

“I’ll go to the press if you won’t go with me to the police.”

“Judy, I know you must trust me, or you wouldn’t be here. You would find someone else. But you have to know Brian won’t be elected dogcatcher, let alone senator if you go through with this.”

It was the right tone. Her car keys slipped out of her clenched fist and clattered to the floor. She leaned forward in her chair and picked them up.

“I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever met,” she said. “You listened to me once before. Believed me. Everyone else saw me as dingy and a little crazy, like my mother. Everyone else just remembers the drugs, the drinking, the freaky boyfriends.”

“Okay, then. I’m going to make a deal with you. Please, please keep quiet about your suspicions. I have ways of finding things out. I work right here in the courthouse. Let me look into this. I’ll put everything else aside for two weeks. If I find something to connect Fiona Hadley or anyone else to this murder, I’ll go to the police. If there’s nothing there, you’ve got to promise me you’ll drop it.”

“Oh, you’ll find something all right. Start by finding out why my mother was so mad at Aunt Fiona. They had a huge fight the night Mom died.”

Startled, I bit back a flow of questions. Sam Abbott had not mentioned this fight. I was positive he didn’t know about it. Was she making it up?

“How do you know that?”

“Mom called me that evening. She said she would never speak to her sister again.”

“Your mother called you the night she died? Had Fiona been to see her? Didn’t the police talk to you?”

“I wasn’t here of course, but Betty Central called me right after Dad phoned.”

She didn’t have to say another word. Betty would have had her mind made up. She wouldn’t have asked a single intelligent question or followed up on a single lead. “Betty asked me if my mom and I got along and where I was that night. That’s all.”

“Did your mother say when Fiona was there?”

“Early. About five-thirty or so.”

I nodded. Fiona must have driven there right after she left the historical society.

“Mom said she would tell me all about it the first time I came home. She said it was high time I knew a few things about the family.”

“Was she frightened?”

“No, Mom was mad. Furious, in fact. And that same night she was murdered.”

I picked up a pile of papers and whacked the edges against the desk to bring them in line.

“Did your mother mention her story? Have you seen it?”

“No.”

“I want you to read it.” I started to get the working copy, then remembered Josie had taken it back to Manhattan for handwriting analysis. Judy would have to see the original, and I hated having it handled again. Nevertheless, I unlocked the master file, gave the pages to Judy, and positioned myself where I could see every nuance on her face as I watched her read.

She paled, laid it down and pressed her hand against her forehead before she picked it up and continued reading.

There was a catch in her throat. “Lottie, please believe me. I’m not like this. Brian isn’t either.”

“I thought you didn’t care about Brian.”

“I care about justice. I care about seeing my aunt pay for my mother’s murder. If putting her away ruins Brian’s career it can’t be helped. I’m just saying that Brian isn’t a racist. I don’t know what Mom was thinking. As to the ancient Rubidouxs, I hate to admit it, but that part is true. But I know my cousin. He’s fair play all the way.”

“Did you notice anything else? You’d be surprised at the amount of controversial material that’s camouflaged. Just last week I had another pair of sisters in the middle of a family quarrel. They were devout Catholics. One of them wanted to delete a line saying there had been a divorce in the family, saying it wasn’t a true marriage to begin with.”

“You’re kidding.” Distracted by the story, she started to relax.

“It was just a simple line saying that Kenneth and Roberta were divorced in 1929, but it unleashed a storm within the family. Then there are the widows who don’t want their husbands first wives mentioned. Or the kids who don’t want their father’s late-in-life wife in the history. The stories
read
just fine, but there’s something hidden or omitted. A date that’s a red flag. Something.”

“You’re not going to get a Paul Harvey ending from me. You know—‘and now for the rest of the story,’” Judy said. She looked away then dug around in her purse for a Kleenex and blew her nose. “Is this
exactly
what you showed her?”

“Yes. The very pages your mother turned in.”

Good historians know the importance of actually seeing primary documents. It’s part of our training, but her attention to detail surprised me. It had to be part of her personality. Came from being whacked by life, I decided. She only trusted her own five senses.

She fanned the pages, then turned them over and glanced at the back. “There’s a shadow on all of them. A rose.”

Startled, I moved to her side and studied the faint imprint. How had I missed that? I held the pages up to the light. Perhaps the faint watermark had not been pronounced enough to show up on the working copy.

“Nice, Judy. Very observant. You noticed a detail I overlooked.”

She shrugged, but blushed at the praise. I put Zelda’s story back in the master file, and locked the cabinet. “Where can I get in touch with you? In case I find something.”

“I’m taking a leave of absence from my job, Lottie. Dad needs me. I’m going to stay home with him for the next couple of weeks. And I intend to help
you.
Thanks for everything.” She gave me a tremulous smile as she walked out the door.

Chapter Eight

I snapped my pencil in half. The last thing I wanted was Judy’s help. The muscles leading from my neck to the tops of my shoulders became as hard as tree trunks, signaling the on-set of a tension headache.

I reached for my notebook containing a sequence of research procedures I follow. I don’t follow the money here in Western Kansas. I start with the land. Follow the land.

I reached for the telephone and called Minerva.

“Would you have time to trace the holdings of the Rubidoux family?”

“Not today, but I can do it tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow is fine. Just the bare facts.” It would do little good to say this. Everything she did was detailed and concise. She even typed sticky notes. “In fact, if I can get William Webster to take over here, I think I’ll take the rest of the afternoon off,”

I groped at the muscles in the base of my neck. Gone to petrified wood. I needed to transplant my mums, and there was nothing like a little physical labor to break up muscle tension.

William said it would be another hour before he could get around and he would like a little more notice next time.

I said if he didn’t want to do it I could find someone else.

He said there was no need to get snippy.

It was the usual pattern of what passed for conversations between us. We all have a cross to bear. William Webster was mine.

Just as I was hanging up the phone, I heard footsteps in the corridor. I rose when Fiona Hadley and Brian walked through the door.

“We came to thank you, Lottie, for everything you’ve done these last three days,” Fiona said.

“I don’t have to tell you how disastrous this would have been if you hadn’t taken charge,” Brian added.

“The vicious little misfit has always been jealous of our Brian. She’s just like her mother. She and Zelda both just hated him.”

Brian’s face was white. I stood stone still, my heart aching, realizing the enormous handicap his mother was going to be to his campaign.

“You know I don’t agree with anything you’re saying, Mother.” Brian forced calmness, but there was a tremor in his hand as he reached to touch Fiona’s arm. “It’s history now anyway. No need to speak ill of the dead. That’s another reason I’m here, Lottie. She was my aunt. She contributed a lot to this town. I’d like to write a tribute to her for the book.”

“I’d love to include it.”

“Good. I’ll turn it in before I leave town. And of course we want the family story she turned in for our family scrap book.”

“I can make you a copy, but the original stays here.” I glared at Fiona. “Your mother and I have already had this discussion.”

She stopped breathing for a full ten seconds. When she started again, her nostrils were pinched and white, and there were twin spots of color on her cheeks.

“You aren’t actually considering printing that silly piece of work, are you?” she asked. “Her dying changes everything. She can’t be reasoned with now. Surely you aren’t going to keep a story that reflects so badly on my poor deceased sister.”

“I’m not considering it. I’m doing it,” I said, wondering when Zelda had suddenly become the poor deceased sister instead of the jealous monster.

“Why?” asked Fiona.

“Because it’s a vivid example of how people used to think. And some obviously still do.” I looked pointedly at Fiona. “But the main reason is that it’s her story. Her view of the world, and she turned it in before she died.”

“Even if it ruins my son’s career?”

“I don’t intend to print it now. But it’s still a historical document. Material for scholars.”

“No big deal, Lottie.” Brian smiled winningly. “Just so my tribute gets in.”

“It will.”

“Excellent,” said Brian. “May I have a copy for my personal records?”

“Sure,” I said. William Webster came into the office just as I was heading toward the master file to copy the original as Josie had my working copy.

“Brian. Fiona. My deepest sympathy.”

“Thank you, William,” Brian said. “It’s been a blow.”

William Webster, retired railroad engineer, carried a small canvas bag containing carving tools and a block of cedar. On idle days, the women volunteers quilted or sorted or filed when they answered the phones. William carved. He was the only person I knew over eighty years of age who didn’t require glasses for reading. I loved the odor of cedar shavings that permeated the vault after he left.

I had had a hard time passing William’s subtle character tests when I was hired. He asked the toughest questions of any of the board members and had been very reluctant to let an “outsider” be in charge of the books. He had grilled me like F. Lee Bailey over my insistence on editorial control. In fact, it had been a battle royal.

“The buck has to stop somewhere,” I’d insisted. “You can’t have a committee making editorial decisions.”

I won. Not only the battle, but William’s respect. He’d been a tough sell. Even now, he had a habit of stopping in unannounced, as though he expected to find me eating bon-bons and reading novels on the county’s nickel. His blue chambray work shirts were patched over and over. His sharp eyes saw everything, but after a while I could feel him switch to an occasional ally. If you could call a porcupine an ally.

“B’God, boy. You look like you haven’t slept for days,” William said, glancing at Brian. “If I didn’t know you, I’d figure you were coming off a three-day drunk. Your eyes look like a dried-out chamois cloth.”

Brian flushed. Press-jittery like most politicians, he was usually able to mask any signs of irritation. Not this time. His jaw muscle jumped like a shocked rabbit.

“It’s been very trying, and I’ll admit that I haven’t been able to sleep.”

I, too, had noticed his muddied eyes and his sallow complexion today, but a weekend with Edgar and Fiona would be a strain on anyone, even without a death in the family.

Flustered by William’s comments, Fiona and Brian said their goodbyes, and left without a copy of Zelda’s story. Even my empathy for Brian was overshadowed by my annoyance with his mother. She was bringing out what my husband called my Mammy Yokum streak. All I lacked was a corn cob pipe and sawed off shotgun as I defended the Historical Society from foreigners. Guarding the gold in them thar hills.

I reached for my jacket. “I guess I don’t have to tell you not to let anything out of this room, William.”