Then Hang All the Liars
Then Hang All the Liars
By Sarah Shankman
Copyright 2015 by Sarah Shankman
Cover Copyright 2015 by Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover Design by Ginny Glass
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 1989
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This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Also by Sarah Shankman and Untreed Reads Publishing
First Kill All the Lawyers
He Was Her Man
Impersonal Attractions
Keeping Secrets
She Walks in Beauty
Say You're Sorry: 12 Stories of Bad Manners & Criminal Consequences
Then Hang All the Liars
Sarah Shankman
To the Janes
Magidson and Rottenbach
with love and gratitude
Special thanks to Dr. Kenneth Alonso, Chief Medical Examiner, State of Georgia, Carmen Alonso, Gary Bradley, and Dana Isaacson. Also to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, its director, William Smart, and staff. And once again, to Harvey, who always takes my calls.
Macbeth,
Act IV, Scene ii:
Son: Was my father a traitor, mother?
Lady Macduff: Ay, that he was.
Son: What is a traitor?
Lady Macduff: Why, one that swears and lies.
Son: And be all traitors that do so?
Lady Macduff: Every one that does so is a traitor and must be hanged.
Son: And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
Lady Macduff: Every one.
One
“May I pour you some tea?” Felicity Edwards Morris laid her still-beautiful hand upon the swan-neck handle of a silver teapot.
“Why, yes, please.” Randolph Percy smiled.
God, he loved pretty women, and Felicity certainly did qualify as one. Never topped a hundred pounds in her whole life. She was like a white-haired, seventy-two-year-old, pansy-eyed doll who didn't look a day older than he, who was very well preserved if he did say so himself, at sixty-five.
“I never saw a bit of sense in lying about one's age,” she'd offered the night Margaret Landry had introduced them at a dinner party. “Do you?”
Well, of course, she wouldn'tânot a woman who'd kept her looks as well as Felicity, growing a patina like fine old silver as the years passed.
Which reminded him. He took a harder look at the teapot in her hand. Now that was worth a pretty penny. And there was plenty more of the good stuff on a breakfront in her parlor, and in the dining room he had made note of a dinner service for twenty-four, not to mention a huge beveled-glass cabinet filled with porringers, candle snuffers, salvers, chafing dishes, trays from toast to turkey, a sea of miniature salt and pepper shakers, and gravy boats.
“What
lovely
things you have.” His porcelain caps were as white as Felicity's Haviland teacup.
“They say that my great-grandmother's having buried the silver in the back yard, so the Yankees wouldn't get it, gives it that special glow.”
Felicity tilted her head as she delivered the line. Scarlett couldn't have done it better if she'd been here on this Sunday afternoon. And then she laughed her magical laugh that sounded like someone running a finger first up and then down a piano. Felicity's voice was only part of her very attractive package, the kind of package to which Randolph was always drawn: age, beauty, and, as he liked to say, the good things of life in plenitude. Or, in short, cash.
“Now look what Louise has put together for us.” Felicity leaned forward from the green settee and lifted an embroidered cloth to reveal a feast that made Randolph sit up straight.
Lord knows, if there was one thing he liked as well as gambling and pretty ladies, it was good food. He rubbed his hands down his gray flannel pants while looking at two kinds of cheese, paper-thin Smithfield ham, bread-and-butter pickles, Louise's egg bread, to which he was most partial, marinated mushrooms, Vidalia onion relish which Felicity had canned, and homemade cookiesâboth chocolate lace and sand tarts.
“Felicity, I swear I've died and gone to heaven.”
She smiled up at him from beneath her eyelashes, a trick practiced before her mirror and perfected sixty-five years ago. Then a glissando of her delighted laughter floated up as Randolph had pulled from behind his ear a silk orchid that he kissed and presented to her.
“You are
so
full of tricks! I don't know what I'm going to do with you.”
He trained his lapis blue eyes on her soft violet ones.
“Marry me.”
“Oh, Randolph! You are preposterous!”
“Now why do you say that every time I ask you? You know, Felicity, if I didn't think you were fond of me,” he said and stuck out his bottom lip in what he'd always thought was an adorable pout, “I'd have my feelings hurt.”
But he wasn't so upset that it put him off his feed. He piled a plate with ham and cheese and mushrooms while Felicity watched. Randolph had lovely table manners, but, my Lord, the quantity of food she'd seen pass through his lips, which he licked with the little eraserlike tip of his tongue and then wiped with his napkin. His fastidious gluttony made her tremble. What might that indicate about his other appetites?
“Well, my dear?” he asked between bites.
“Randolph, we've only just met.”
“That is not true. It's been,” he said and rolled mischievous baby blues as he calculated, “two months, four days, and sixteen hours. And in that time, I've come to love you as if I'd known you forever. My sweet, at our age,” he said and leaned over, took her hand, and kissed it softly, “I'm afraid we don't have forever. We must gather our rosebuds while we may.”
Oh, it was tempting. He was such a clever man and so amusing. Why, she couldn't remember anyone who had made her laugh like Randolphânot since dear Joseph.
Pish! What was she thinking about? Joseph, who'd widowed her seven years ago, had never made her laugh. Why on earth was she so polite about himâeven in memoryâjust as she'd always been the ever-so-proper banker's wife for, Lord have mercy, could it really have been forty-one years?
Why, that was silly. She wasn't even that old. She smiled and tossed her head. Felicity Edwards was still a young thing. With young passions.
Oh, Johnny.
Her breath came faster. She crossed her bediamonded wrists across her breast so that her fingertips touched both sides of her throat. She felt her pulse thereâquickening when Johnny entered the room. Johnny pushed her back on a pile of fur coats in the cloakroom of a Fifty-second Street speakeasy and ran his long, clever fingers along the scalloped edge of her rose silk teddy. Johnny sang into her ear the same tune she'd heard him play earlier that evening on his saxophone. Johnny thought she was the most talented ingénue on Broadway.
“You're not acting with me, are you, baby?” he teased as he tickled her ear with his pink tongue. She laughed. Lordy, how she laughed.
Look at him now, wiggling his ears. Her daddy used to do that when she and Emily were girlsâgave them the silly giggles.
“Felicity?”
Her big soft eyes swam as she pulled herself back into the room and the presentâwherever and whenever that was.
“I asked if you wanted to play cards.”
“Oh, my dear!” She loved the past. It was so cozy. But the present was where she lived. Well, most of the time. “I must owe you five hundred dollars at gin. You are such a clever player. I don't know how I'm ever going to repay you.” She dimpled then, for, of course, Randolph wouldn't take her money. It was all a game.
“I'm sure you'll find a way.” Then Randolph lightly goosed her in the middle, just high enough to let her know that he was aware of her breast but low enough to call himself a gentleman.
For just a moment, his touch felt like Johnny's, and she began to drift again, but then she jerked herself back.
Pay attention.
“Why don't you do some card tricks for me? That's so amusing.”
From Randolph's navy blazer sleeve, a deck materialized. He fanned the pasteboard royalty before her.
“Pick a card, any card.”
Felicity's finger tapped. Her old rose-cut diamonds sparkled with blue fire. Tiffany & Co. He didn't have to guess their pedigree; he knew it.
If only it were so easy for him to pick winners at the track. He'd lost a bundle in Birmingham the previous week. Sea Breeze looked right, he smelled right, his jockey even wore the right colors. And what did the nag do? He stumbled and came in last.
Randolph cut and recut the cards, fanned and refanned, and out popped Felicity's choice. Queen of hearts.
She crowed with delight. They always did.
“I can't believe they taught you tricks like that at Harvard Law.”
“How else do you think I worked my way through?” Randolph smiled. “As I've told you before, dear heart, my beloved father took a long walk off a short Savannah pier when he lost everything, leaving my poor mother without a dime, my sister without a dowry, and me in very embarrassing straits. Difficult to be genteel when you're all a-tatter. Of course, I'm grateful, dear sweet thing, that
you
never had to know about that sort of thing.”
“Why, Randolph.” It always embarrassed her when people talked about money. She felt she ought to have Louise pack them a lunch. Or she should write them a check. Something.
“Now, Felicity. Remember I already know that except for the short time you were actingâup in New Yorkâyou've spent your whole life right here in Inman Park. Furthermore, this gorgeous piece of Victoriana,” he said and waved a hand at the parlor in which they were seated, “is equally as elegant as the house on Elizabeth, in which you were born, surrounded with neighbors like the Candlers. Is it true that old Asa Candler kept the secret recipe for Coca-Cola in a vault in the basement of Callan Castle?”
“Gracious, I don't know. That's what everyone said, but I don't care about things like that.”
“I know.” She didn't have to. He put away the cards. “Enough tricks for now. Let's get out the Ouija and see what's in store for us on our trip.” He pulled the Ouija board from beneath a table with long, slender legs carved like lilies. “I think we ought to take our time getting to Louisville, don't you? Take a couple of days to drive it. Spend the night in, say, Gatlinburg. The leaves should be beautiful by then. Let's see what the Ouija says. Put your fingers on the marker, dear.”