When Will the Dead Lady Sing? (29 page)

“It’s never wise—” Edward began in a lecturing voice, but Lance flapped a hand for him to hush. Then he put an arm around his wife and pulled her to him. Renée laid her head on his shoulder and wept.

“It wasn’t your fault, honey,” he whispered. “It’s not your fault. Hush, now. Hush. It’s not your fault.” His eyes met mine over her rough-cut brown hair. “She told me what had happened as soon as I got back from Dublin. We drove back to the pond to see if we could find the woman, because I figured that whoever she was, if she was that determined to talk to me, I ought to give her a chance.” His voice grew bleak. “I never for a second imagined it was really Mother.”

“She was probably wandering around town with her letter by then,” I said, “looking for Hector. You never did find her?”

He shook his head. “No, but I got her note a little after three. She signed it with a little bird that she taught me to draw as soon as I could hold a pencil and enclosed this picture.” He fished it from his wallet and held it up. “I didn’t even tell Daddy, though, because I thought I ought to go see her before I mentioned her to anybody.”

“What did you do with the note?” I asked. “Do you still have it?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it. We were all in the sitting room when it came, in the middle of a meeting, and I needed time to think about it, so I shoved it between the pages of the speech I was working on for Augusta. Tuesday, after I heard what had happened”—he paused for a deep breath—“I got it and put it in our room.”

“You’d better go flush it,” Edward commanded.

Lance shook his head. “Not for a million dollars.”

“It won’t matter whether he has it or not,” I told Edward. “Enough people have seen it to verify its existence. Why don’t you tell us about your Monday-evening schedule, Lance?”

“I would have skipped the meeting entirely—Hubert wanted Daddy to speak, after all—but Edward, here”—he jerked a finger in that direction—“got the bright idea that Daddy ought to say a few words, then turn it over to me. I was in no shape to write a speech that afternoon. I still don’t remember what I said, and it didn’t matter anyway—nobody wanted to hear me when they’d been promised Daddy. And then Hubert announced that Q & A session, so I didn’t get away until a minute or two past nine. I even had to stay after Daddy, because some people had heard I was planning to change parties—”

“Which wasn’t your idea,” Renée added. “It was theirs.” She glared at Edward and Burlin.

“We have discussed the possibility of Lance running on the other ticket,” Edward quickly explained to me, as if it were no more important than his deciding to wear a different tie.

“Mentioned it,” Georgia added, to soften the effect.

“You were going to make him betray everything he stands for,” Renée snapped.

Burlin gave me a rueful grin. “Bullocks never have easy marriages.”

I wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. “So, Lance, where were you after the meeting? And can you prove it?”

“No, ma’am, I can’t.” His dark eyes were sober. “I came back here—” He dropped his gaze to the table and started scratching at a speck of something on the cloth.

I didn’t raise two boys without recognizing when a man-child isn’t being truthful. “But not straight here, right?” He looked up, startled. My eyes held his until he shook his head.

He took a deep breath as if he hoped air would give him strength. “Okay, everybody might as well know the worst. I did go to the tank.”

“You never!” Was that Georgia, Burlin, or Edward? They spoke at the same time.

“I did,” he admitted.

He’d shocked even Renée. Edward made a motion for Lance to hush. Burlin sat there like he’d seen a Gorgon and turned to stone. Renée reached out and took one of Lance’s hands in her own. “But you didn’t kill her.”

“No.” He spoke around what sounded like a sob in his throat. “She was already dead when I got there.”

“Tell it in order,” I commanded.

He took a long minute to compose himself. “I left the meeting place a little after nine. There were only a couple of folks still there by then. Hubert had run Daddy by here to change and promised he’d come back to lock up. I was later than the note had said, but I hoped if it was Mother, she’d realize I could have been detained. She’d been married to Daddy, after all, and that happens all the time in politics. So in case it was her and she was still waiting, I drove to the water tank.” He took a gulp of tea like we were sitting in a desert and he was parched. “The streetlights aren’t bright over there, but what I could see of the lot around the tank didn’t look safe for my tires, so I parked at the curb and walked. About halfway to the tank I started calling, ‘Mother? Mother?’ The word felt good in my mouth. I hadn’t used it for so long.”

He stood abruptly and went to stand at the rail with his back to us. But although Annie Dale’s lawn was lovely, I doubted that he saw a single plant. His voice was distant, as if he were narrating a movie while the events of that night reeled by. “When nobody answered, I realized if anybody else heard me, they’d think I was nuts, so I shut up and kept walking. I didn’t know if she’d meant to meet in the parking lot or right under the tank—I wasn’t even sure you could get under the tank, with all those bushes around it. But I prowled around and found one place that looked like a way in, so I pushed through. It was dark in there, and my night vision isn’t real good, so I didn’t see anybody. It was when I was walking over to the tank that my foot hit something. I had some matches in my pocket. I lit one and saw—and saw—”

“Did you recognize her?” I interrupted.

He shook his head. “Oh, no. Renée had told me about the man’s suit and hat, but I forgot that right then. I thought it was some drunk who had crawled through the bushes to sleep it off—or die. He looked so still, I knew almost immediately he was dead. I wondered if Mother had seen him and run away—or even if he’d tried to bother her and she’d killed him. It sounds dumb now, but you get funny thoughts standing beside a body in the dark. Besides, I was still thinking about how I could find Mother.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?” I asked.

“I was going to, but I figured I ought to be sure the fellow was dead. I didn’t want to be embarrassed by bringing them out for a sleeping drunk. When I reached for his wrist”—he paused for a deep breath—“when I felt for his pulse, my finger rubbed a little double mole. Mother had one exactly like that, in the same place. It crashed over me like an ocean wave that this
was
Mother, and she was dead again.” He kicked the banister with one toe. “After all those years, I got there late. If I hadn’t—” He paused to swallow convulsively. “She was still warm.”

Nobody said anything for several minutes. Finally I felt compelled to point out, “But you didn’t call the police.”

He shook his head. “I went a little crazy. If the police knew who she was, they’d be sure to think I—or one of us—killed her. Nobody knew she was here except Renée and me, and I hadn’t done it. I didn’t think Renée had, either—I mean, I was sure she hadn’t. Hell, I don’t know what I thought. Not much, to tell the truth. I just turned tail and ran. My mother was dead, and I
ran!
”

He bent over the railing while sobs shook him. Renée hurried to stand behind him, and now it was she holding him like a grieving child. “How could I have missed her?” he cried. “How could I have come so close, and missed her?”

He slumped with grief. Renée couldn’t support his weight much longer. Burlin left his chair and touched her arm. She stepped back to let him hold his son, but hovered nearby, as if protecting Lance still.

Lance sobbed and sobbed. Burlin stroked his back. “Hush, son. Hush, now.” Finally Lance quieted down and stumbled toward his chair. He sprawled with his head on the table, his arms flung out beyond it. Renée took a napkin and gently lifted his head to wipe his flushed face. Then she and Burlin returned to their seats.

I felt like a drill sergeant, expecting him to keep talking after that, but we needed to know. “Did you come straight back here after that?”

He seemed to appreciate my matter-of-fact tone. “No, ma’am. I drove to Main Street—”

“Oglethorpe,” I corrected him. He didn’t notice.

“—and when I saw a sign to Waynesboro, I decided to go to Waynesboro. Don’t know a soul there, but it seemed as good a place to go as any. Then, just out of town here, I saw a filling station and noticed I was low on gas. So I stopped to fill up my tank and get something to drink. The man who took my money said, ‘You’re shaking like a leaf, buddy. What’s the matter?’ I came within a hair of telling him, but by then I had some sense, so I told him I was low on sugar and needed a Coke real fast. He’s bound to remember me. He had to pop the top on my can.”

“Since you don’t really have a sugar imbalance, that could cause some problems in court.”

He looked at me, surprised. “But I do. I’ve had diabetes since I was fourteen.”

Edward figured it out as he went. “If you had driven straight out there after the meeting, it wouldn’t have taken you much less time than stopping by the water tank, right?”

Lance shook his head. “Five minutes, maybe, or even less.”

“And you came right back?”

“Yeah. I looked in on Abigail, who was working, and told her I was home.”

Edward sat back in his chair and lifted his hands. “So what are we worried about? Everybody has an alibi. Lance won’t mention the tank detour, and the police will eventually find the killer—or not.” He gave a scornful laugh. “It was probably some tramp who’d staked out the tank as his private estate.”

“Maybe so,” Burlin agreed, “but I think we all owe Mackie a round of thanks for helping us get the stories clear in our minds.” He gave me his famous lazy grin. “You’re as good as Abigail said you were. Thanks.”

Georgia patted my hand. “I didn’t know you had this gift.”

Edward stood and stretched. “Well, I haven’t had much sleep, and we’ve promised to hold a press conference at two.” He checked his watch. “Until then, I’m heading to my bed and recommend the rest of you do the same. We need to look our best.”

In an instant, tensions around the table dissolved. Burlin reached for Georgia’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Renée patted Lance’s shoulder. “You’re going to be fine,” she murmured. “Let’s get some rest.”

I’d seen that phenomenon before—the relief when a group of people was finally persuaded none of them had committed some dreadful crime. They took deep breaths of Annie Dale’s new-mown grass and relaxed. I hated to spoil their new mood, but I held up one hand.

“We haven’t heard from Binky yet. I think we’d better find out what she has to say.”

Georgia frowned. “I hate to bother her right now. She’s sleeping.”

“And nobody would suspect Abigail,” Edward agreed. “She’s too—too
honest
to kill somebody in that secret way.”

Burlin shoved back his chair. “I agree, but like you’re always telling me, it’s good to anchor loose cannons. Until we hear what Binky has to say, she’s a loose cannon, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll get her.”

Georgia got to her feet first. “No, I’ll get her. You know she doesn’t like men in her bedroom. Better still, I’ll send Annie Dale and ask her to bring us some more tea, too. My ice melted ages ago.”

She swung up the walk like a woman whose future was brighter than the immediate past.

We sat there enjoying the buzz of bees and the graceful ballet of butterflies on the goldenrod and buddleia. Then we heard a series of thuds, like somebody falling down the stairs. Burlin half rose in his chair, and poised, listening. We heard Annie Dale call out, and feet running quickly up the stairs.

In another minute, Georgia ran onto the porch, clutching her chest with one hand. In the other, she waved a piece of white paper. Even at that distance, we could see that her eyes were huge. She stumbled across the grass and held on to the rail of the gazebo, gasping. “Abigail’s killed herself.” Her voice changed to a wail. “Oh, Burlin, Binky’s dead!”

25

I reached for my cell phone, but Georgia put out a hand to stop me. “Annie Dale’s calling the police. I told her I’d come tell everybody.” She pulled herself up the single step, stumbled toward her chair, and drained the inch of pale liquid in her glass. I had the feeling she wished it were something stronger. She crumpled the note she carried in one fist.

“What happened?” Burlin demanded. “Should I go up?” He shoved back his chair.

Georgia touched his arm. “Not until the police get here. She must have taken pills. You know, the ones she took sometimes to help her sleep? She’s cold. I shook her, and she’s cold! She must have done it before she went to bed this morning. She left—this.” She handed him the page.

He smoothed it and laid it on the table. Reading upside down, I made out the scrawled words, “I cannot stand this any longer.” That was all. No signature, no explanation.

“You’re sure that’s her handwriting?” When I spoke, everybody looked at me like they wondered what I was doing there. I was wondering the same thing—particularly since any minute, Chief Muggins would be arriving. He was bound to come himself. The Bullocks were important. If he found me there, he’d be sure to imply I’d had something to do with Binky’s death. He’d also be sure of what I saw in everybody else’s eyes: that Binky killed Sperra and had been unable to face the consequences of what she had done.

That horror was clearly mixed with their grief. Lance had turned pale and was staring into space like he was trying to fit the word “murderer” to the aunt who’d replaced his mother. Burlin’s eyes were dripping tears he kept swiping away with the back of one hand, but the other was clasped over his mouth. Renée had turned her back and was gazing out toward the garden. Georgia wasn’t crying, but she trembled all over and, for once, looked her age.

Even Edward, while obviously calculating the damage done to the upcoming election by this latest development, had an unexpected glimmer of grief in his eyes.