Lethal Lineage (27 page)
Sam and Keith and I threw a victory party for three. Deal was dead and his whole family would have to follow this country’s laws, just like everyone else. In fact, according to the boys at the coffee shop, Deal’s family now claimed he had been an aberration. A lone twisted twig on their magnificent family tree.
KBI had verified the presence of poison from the golden poison dart frog in Mary’s cross. Although the wind was picking up, the evening was pleasant, and there was a possibility of our resuming what passed for normal lives.
“It’s still not really over though,” I said. “Mary may have killed herself to escape torture, but we still haven’t found the man who triggered it.” Sam scowled, annoyed that I couldn’t leave it alone.
The kitchen phone rang.
“We’re not here,” the two men chorused together.
It was the hospital. “Lottie, Edna has taken a turn for the worse. We don’t know how much longer she has. We’ve called her son and he left Wichita immediately, but she wants you to come right now.”
“I’m on my way.”
***
The head of Edna’s bed was elevated and she lay in a quilted pink bed jacket, too large for her frail body. She stirred when I came in.
“I knew you would come,” she said. “My blessed Lottie. If Stuart doesn’t come in time, please tell him.”
She closed her eyes and I thought she had dozed off. Then, “I killed her,” Edna whispered. “I killed Mary Farnsworth.” I reached for her hand. She was delusional. Rambling. Old. Frail. She had been so crippled with arthritis she could scarcely move that day.
“I gave my own little girl a heart attack.”
My blood froze and all the saliva drained from my mouth.
“I’m the one who said those words. ‘I know who you are, and I know what you’ve done’.”
“Edna. I don’t understand. Mary Farnsworth was your daughter?”
She nodded. “My own little Mary Claire. My little girl.” She began to sob. “I didn’t mean to do it Lottie. Didn’t know she had a weak heart.”
“My God, Edna, why would you have said anything at all?”
“I wanted her to know how proud I was. Gerta wrote me. Through the years. Told me what a fine daughter I had.”
“Edna, how did you know who she was?”
“When Gerta’s husband died Mary came back to Iowa for the funeral. I saw a picture of her in the paper. So I knew what she looked like all grown up. She was such a loving child. I was so proud of her. What she had done. She saved children, you see. Over in Africa.”
“But why didn’t you get in touch with her earlier? She’s been in Northwest Kansas for nineteen years.”
“I didn’t know she was here. Why would I know that? I didn’t need no social services. Wasn’t no reason for us to bump into each other. Last I knew, she was in Africa. She came to a bad end dying of a heart attack in a church instead of marrying and settling down. She should have had her own children. Like I had with my husband here in Kansas. A son like Stuart.”
I squeezed her hand, knowing she had never heard of the wars ripping Africa apart.
Tears streamed down Edna’s face. “But when I saw her coming down the aisle I knew who she was. I thought my heart would burst I was so proud.”
Her breath was faint and I bent to hear her soft speech.
“I wanted her to see me kneel,” she said. “I was going to tell her who I was after the service. And I did it. I managed to kneel.”
“Yes, you did,” I whispered. “Yes, you did.”
“There wasn’t no stranger,” she said softly. “I said those words. Me. And I gave her a heart attack. I just wanted her to know how proud I was.”
I know who you are, and I know what you’ve done
.
The words of Annette and Claudette’s testimony about using old women seared my mind. “They used old women. They used old women. As messengers. As spies.”
And more words. Mary Farnsworth already shocked by the presence of Bishop Talesbury. “She couldn’t have known what compromises he had to make,” Dr. Brown had said.
Couldn’t have known. Couldn’t have known.
Then the next horror.
I know who you are, and I know what you’ve done
.
The fatal words that sent Reverend Mary running into the anteroom.
“Oh Edna, why did you even tell me there was a man? Why would you do that?”
“I didn’t want you to think poorly of me. I thought if you knowed it was a heart attack, you wouldn’t go poking around looking for some other reason. Wouldn’t cut up her insides. It’s not decent. My little girl didn’t need to be cut up.”
She sniffed again. “Course she thought I was dead. I was going to break it to her real gentle after the service.”
“Edna,” I asked, not wanting to make her close up, “did you say something else? What else did you say?”
“It was nothing. I didn’t have time to say much more before she dropped the chalice.”
“What else, Edna?”
“Just, ‘You’ll tell. You’re going to tell.’”
My lips began to tremble. “Tell what Edna?”
“Just that she would tell Stuart about how our life was…we had baby chicks…and raised flowers.”
There was no man.
My gentle, lying little mouse murderer, who simply could not bear for people to think poorly of her, had made up the mysterious stranger. Sent us on a wild goose chase because she couldn’t bear for us to know she’d given her daughter a heart attack.
Old woman, old woman
.
There was more. Much, much more to it than that. She’d spoken words that trigged her daughter’s suicide. A daughter who understood torture.
Old woman, old woman
.
Webbing through life like a spider heedless of tangles and tendrils.
Seen through my tears, her face was hazy, unfocused. The door opened. “Mom,” Stuart called softly. “I’m here.”
I left.
***
She was buried here in Gateway City. An overworked priest from a community ninety miles south conducted the service in our local funeral home.
I had called Agent Brooks three days earlier and gave her “the rest of the story.”
“Will this never end?” She gasped, incredulous. “I’ll call Annette Brown and Claudette Rodin immediately and let them know they are not in danger.”
“I think this just about does it. For you, at least, but not for me.”
There was a son. And a mother who had trusted me to pass on information. And I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do.
Nancy Brooks’ search ended with our conversation. The KBI would no longer expend energy chasing after a man who didn’t exist. But it hadn’t ended for me.
***
Two days later, I drove over to St. Helena hoping to find Bishop Talesbury. According to Margaret, the boys at the coffee shop said he practically lived there.
He was working outside cutting boards with an old fashioned hand saw. He looked Amish in his full beard and suspendered pants. I stood apart until he stopped, straightened, and waited for me to approach.
“Sir, I have questions. But they have nothing to do with my duties as a police officer.”
“Then there’s no need for me to answer them.”
“Yes, there is. The people of this community built this church. It’s yours now. I understand that. But I believe I’m owed a little consideration.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“Why did Irwin Deal want this land? What was it about these god-forsaken forty acres that was so valuable?”
For the first time ever, I saw a spark of humor in his eyes.
“What do you have more of than anything else out here, Miss Albright?”
Exasperated by his riddles, I felt like I was burdened with a trig problem.
Then he bent and plucked a dandelion stem and gently blew the seeds into the air.
“Wind,” I said. “Our wind.”
“Exactly. My glebe stands directly in the path of a proposed wind farm. Irwin would have made a decent living for the rest of his life if he could wrest the glebe away from me. Not a killing, but a living.”
“And there’s no way you would have done that.”
Talesbury nodded. “He thought I would sell it to him without giving the matter a second thought. He contacted me and informed me of my inheritance, assuming I would prefer the money to the forty acres. He had already signed a contract to lease a strip of family land for the route if the company decided to locate their wind farm out here. He thought my glebe was the only impediment to closing the deal. But it wasn’t.”
“Chip and Myrna,” I said. “They would never, never give up their land.”
“Exactly. He was livid when Chip offered to donate material. He knew it would make me even more determined to stay. Irwin kept whittling at me, telling me there was no way I could support the children I planned to bring here. Chip was going to change all that. In addition to building materials, he offered to fund me.”
I remembered Chip’s miserly handwriting, the money-centered narrative. “A major change of heart.”
“I’ve known many men like Chip.” Talesbury studied a distant patch of grass undulating in gusts of wind. “Greedy. Calculating. All their lives. Then when they see the end coming they want to be remembered for something. Or think they do.” His lips lifted in a slight smile. “At heart, I suspect he was more interested in protecting his own land, than benefitting my children. But Myrna’s family certainly brought out the best in him.”
“That’s true,” I said.
“When he killed Chip, he had no idea that Chip would leave his land to Myrna.”
“Irwin bumbled everything he did,” I said. “Everything. But then what
did
he think would happen to Chip’s land. It would have been tied up in court for years since he had no direct heirs.”
“Not years. Not out here. And you can bet any heirs would sell out in a heartbeat.”
Talesbury pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blade of his hand saw. The wind ruffled his beard. He closed his eyes and could not disguise a shudder. He bowed his head. The saw dangled at his side. “So many deaths. And now I’ve killed too.”
“There’s a difference in wanton murder and what you did.”
His head snapped up, his haunted eyes condemned me for my attempt to rationalize what he had done. “I killed, Miss Albright.”
I swallowed and could not speak.
“Is there anything else?” His tone was formal, polite. As though dismissing a child or a fool.
Now. Now when he was wallowing in guilt would be the ideal time to ask if he would consider holding services in St. Helena. Ashamed at the impulse to take advantage, I decided to call Bishop Rice instead. Talesbury needed confession and absolution. My compassion did not stop me from pressing forward with one more question.
“Yes. You were frightened at the jail. Scared to death. Why?”
“When Chip was killed, I thought the man everyone was looking for had returned. I believed he was the one who had killed Mary Farnsworth, then Chip, and I was next. To be killed or worse. I could not go through that again.”
“What made you change? You weren’t frightened when we released you.”
“I heard Miss Brooks say two separate poisons were used to kill Chip and Mary. When she didn’t find the stiletto, I immediately suspected Irwin had murdered Chip. I figured Mary was the hit man’s only target and that he had fled after she beat him to the punch.”
“You know the truth now?”
His eyes fluttered, warning me not to press him too much.
“I heard.” He did not mention the sisters.
“One last question. The time you called at the historical society. What did you want to tell me?”
“That I had notified Sister Mary’s family. Through a Fr. Reilly in Suriname.” There was a tell-tale bob of his Adam’s apple. “They would take her home.” He picked up his saw.
***
A week later, back at the historical society, I finally decided. Burdened by my promise to Edna, I reached for the phone. There would be no more secrets in the Mavery family.
Stuart was still at his mother’s house, preparing for the sale. He answered on the first ring.
“Would you mind coming by? I have something to tell you.”
Lethal Lineage
required synthesizing a peculiar blend of research. Kansas has a number of communities that sociologists and historians refer to as hamlets. Hamlets have a population of 250 and under. Police techniques and procedures used in these tiny settlements are quite different from those followed in cities and larger counties. A number persons involved in law enforcement in various sizes of communities have shared their expertise for this book.
I would like to thank Ellen Hansen, Chief of Police, Lenexa, Kansas, and Ron Greninger, former Field Sergeant with the Lenexa Police Department, for helping me work my way out of a swamp of often conflicting information. Mark Bouton, a career FBI agent with a law degree, helped resolve jurisdictional issues between the FBI and KBI. Bouton worked criminal and terrorism cases, helping to identify the Oklahoma City bombers.
The following priests answered questions about frontier and contemporary Catholic and Episcopal churches: Fr. Ben Helmer, Fr. Frederick Sathi Bunyan, Fr. Don Martin, and Fr. Jean-Jacques D’Aoust. Kansas was a particularly difficult assignment for pioneer priests sent across the prairie to locate scattered communicants.
Mortician David Leopold provided information about Kansas County and District Coroner systems and the decisions involved with “unattended deaths.” Luci Zahray, the well-known “Poison Lady” advised me on the poison issues. Jimmy Stewart coached on farming and planting techniques.
I owe a special debt to fellow knitter and good friend, Judy Cunningham, and her mother Nola Hall, for passing down one of the most peculiar family incidents I’ve ever heard. I met Barbara Booth at the state Kansas Authors Club Convention and she told me about the only glebe in Kansas. It’s located at Clay Center.
The Kansas State Historical Society is outstanding. I plug this amazing organization in every book. It was founded in 1875 and has one of the largest newspaper collections in the world. As a Kansas historian, I could not ask for a more valuable resource. The Lottie Albright series has been greatly enriched from help given on the state level, and through the hours spent by dedicated workers in small county historical societies scattered across Western Kansas.
A special group of Episcopal women have made my transition from Kansas to Colorado much, much easier. I’m grateful to the Hood: Janis Davis-Lopez, Nancy Riddell, Sharon Robertson, and Maureen Ford.
My editor, Barbara Peters, and her husband, Robert Rosenwald, publisher, richly deserve the cascade of honors showered on them by the literary community. I owe Barbara special thanks for her keen editorial eye, and Robert for his superb support in all the stages of publication. This manuscript was greatly improved by suggestions from Editor Annette Rogers. Associate Publisher Jessica Tribble has an amazing ability to coordinate all the complex stages of getting a book to market.
As always, I cannot express enough appreciation for my steadfast and savvy agent, Phyllis Westberg, of Harold Ober Associates. She has unlimited patience with my extraordinary curiosity that requires her to coordinate a variety of projects.
Hugs and kisses to my wonderful daughters who were raised assimilating the twists and turns of my peculiar writing career.
God bless them, they thought our household was normal.