A Comedy of Heirs (24 page)

If only I could figure out what side of the family the nosiness comes from.

“I should go rescue, Rudy,” I said.

“How did your lunch go with Ruth?” he asked as I was about to get up.

“Good. If she wasn't lying, she told me quite a bit of useful information.”

“I'm glad.”

“Of course, I had to write it in blood that I would never bring the subject up to her again,” I said.

He smiled. “I thought as much.”

“Hey, have you ever heard of a woman named Naomi Cordieu?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Though there are some Cordieus from around here.”

“She seemed to be under the impression—you absolutely cannot breathe a word of this—that your father might not have been the son of Nate Keith.”

“What?” he asked.

“Was that ever the subject of an argument at your grandparents' house?” I asked. “That you can remember.”

He gave me the raised eyebrow.

“Naomi has a box of pictures of your father … said that they were given to her late husband from Della Ruth.”

The other eyebrow went up. After all, how could you explain that unless Della Ruth was a close personal friend of either Naomi or Bradley Ferguson? Even then, why only pictures of John Robert? Why not all the other kids?

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “She gave them to me. I have them at home.”

“I can't answer that,” Dad said. “I really don't know.”

“Okay,” I said. “Just curious.”

We sat there a few more minutes and finally I stood up. I looked at Uncle Jed's body lying on the white satin lining of the casket from the pew.

“I truly believe he was drunk and slipped on the ice,” Dad said.

“Really? You're not just saying that?” I asked, desperately wanting to believe him.

“Yes,” he said. “I really believe that.”

Thirty-three

Hubert McCarthy sat in his wheelchair looking pitifully pale, darn it. I couldn't be ruthless if he was looking all pitiful and puny. His son was at the grocery store and Hubert had yelled at me to come on in.

He also had a look of expectation. Either he expected me or he couldn't wait to find out what it was that I had to say. “Please, sit,” he said.

“No, thank you,” I said. I didn't want to sit. I didn't want to let my guard down for a second. I wanted to remain in charge of the situation.

He pointed to the magazine rack by his television. “There's a present in there,” he said. “For you.” Since his Christmas tree was tiny and on top of his television, the magazine rack doubled as a present holder.

Great. Just what I needed. A present. Maybe he did this on purpose, to throw me off. So that I wouldn't say what it was I came here to say. Actually, I wasn't exactly sure what it was I was going to say. I'd rehearsed it a thousand times on the drive up here to south St. Louis. Nothing sounded right. It always sounded like I was accusing his dead wife of murder. Okay, so in a roundabout way I was accusing his dead wife of murder. But all he had to do was convince me of it otherwise, and I'd drop it.

“Mr. McCarthy, I'm sure you're aware that your wife was the daughter of Harlan Clayton,” I said.

“I'm aware of that.”

“Harlan Clayton hung himself.”

“Yes.”

“Because of Nate Keith.”

“As I live and breathe,” he said. I wasn't too convinced that he was doing too good a job at breathing, myself.

“Were you aware, I don't know how you couldn't be, that Nate Keith was murdered on the anniversary of Harlan Clayton's suicide?” I asked.

He narrowed his filmy eyes at me and then he smiled. Crooked yellow teeth peeked out behind thin gray lips. “You're good,” he said. “You think you got it figured out?”

“No, not exactly. I wouldn't be here asking questions if I did. I know that the murderer was a woman,” I said.

“Really?” he asked. “I see you got somebody to break the silence.”

“Mr. McCarthy, the individual that gave me that piece of information also said that they told you that same thing,” I said. He said nothing. He just went about his business of trying to breathe. “Which means either they didn't tell you and lied to me about it, or they did and you kept it out of your report for fear that your wife or one of her sisters would be suspect number one. Considering the August fourth date and all.”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked.

“Did you know? Did you keep it out of your report?” I asked.

“My wife did not kill Nathaniel Keith,” he said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because she was my wife. I know.”

“Everybody thinks that their loved one—father, best friend, wife—couldn't have done something horrible based on the simple fact that they are their father, best friend or wife. Somewhere along the line, somebody gets disappointed,” I said.

“My wife did not do it!” he said. It took every ounce of energy he had to raise his voice to a convincing yell. His chest rose and fell heavily, trying to make up for the exertion he just exhibited. “Nathaniel Keith caused her and her family enough pain, without his death dragging their reputations through the mud, too.”

“I understand what you're saying,” I said. “But, if one of them did do it…”

“My wife did not kill Nathaniel Keith.”

“Did you know the killer was a woman?”

He just looked at me. If he said yes, he was admitting to leaving information out of his report of the investigation.

“Did you know?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Yes, Ruth did tell me that she saw somebody in a dress. That doesn't mean a woman pulled the trigger. It doesn't mean that she was alone. It doesn't mean that a woman did it. Ruth could have seen her cousin, Dolly, walking around in the yard. So, yes, I knew that Ruth said it was a woman. No, I didn't know that it was a woman. Can you say without a doubt that it was a woman?”

Well, gee. When he put it that way, I guess not. I lowered my eyes and looked away. I sat down on the edge of his couch and rested my head in my hands. “My head hurts,” I said. “I'm almost to the point of not caring. I've never been to the point of not caring.”

“I'm impressed that you persuaded the family to open up. Especially Ruth,” he said. “You've done good.”

“Oh, who cares,” I said and slouched back on his couch. I couldn't believe I was actually sulking in this man's house. I couldn't help myself, though.

“You've got them to admit and acknowledge that this did happen,” he said. “After I closed my case, they never spoke of it again. You did good.”

“Yeah, well, I feel like crap. I feel like a failure. I feel like…” Just what did I feel like? “Did you know that my uncle Jed died?”

“No,” Hubert said. “I'm sorry.”

“Did he try and contact you in the last week?”

“No,” he said. “Why? Was his death suspicious?”

“No,” I said. “Not that we know of. We think he slipped on the ice and fell into the river when he was drunk.”

“He's been drunk since he was twenty,” he said. “How did his liver keep going?”

“I don't know. I'd written your name down on a piece of paper and it turned up missing. When they fished him out of the river, he had the piece of paper in his pocket. Do you think that he contacted somebody, other than you, who might have wished him harm over this whole thing?”

Hubert McCarthy thought a moment and then he answered. “No. I think he was just afraid of somebody finding out about the whole mess. So he swiped the piece of paper. I think it was as innocent as that.”

“Still trying to cover up after all these years,” I said.

“Yes.”

Like he could be doing right now, and how would I ever know the difference? I was frustrated and depressed. I had a funeral to attend tomorrow and tons of presents still to buy and wrap for Christmas. I was truly getting tired of thinking about this whole mess.

“The important thing is, you got them to face it,” he said. “Now, reach in there and get your present.”

“Mr. McCarthy, I can't accept—”

“Oh, just hush up and reach in there and get it.”

I sorted through the three or four presents in the magazine rack. I found the one that said simply
Torie.
It was wrapped in the same paper as the other presents. Cheap red paper with snowmen holding presents on it. It was the kind you'd find in the four rolls for a dollar bin at Walgreen's.

I opened the present and found my grandfather staring back at me, holding his beloved fiddle in his left hand. The photograph was in a nice wooden frame. He must have been about twenty at the time, young and handsome. You never knew people's stories just by looking at them. He looked wholesome, happy and pure, not like someone from a horribly dysfunctional family. His hair was parted in the middle and his hazel eyes smiled, even though his mouth was not overly curved. It was a studio picture, professional.

“It was a promotional picture he had made. Advertising his fiddle playing,” he said. “Never could figure out how hands that worked so hard could caress a fiddle like they did.”

I'd only heard my grandfather play a few times and he had been old and arthritic. Even then, though, there was a special sound to what he did. I think it was the sound of love. He loved what he was doing.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you very much. I will treasure it, always.”

“He was my very best friend,” Hubert said.

“I don't remember you at his funeral,” I said.

“I was there,” he answered. “You were young. Thinking of other stuff. I was in the back of the church.”

“Well, I should be going. Thank you again,” I said.

“You're welcome. I had a whole bunch of pictures of him. A few of him and me,” he said.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked.

“They came up missing,” he said. “I haven't moved in thirty years, and yet … I haven't seen those pictures in fifteen years. Don't know how long they been gone.”

“Oh, that's a shame,” I said. “Maybe they will turn up.”

Thirty-four

“Okay, Sheriff, I know this seems strange…”

“No, it's not,” Sheriff Brooke said. “You've done this to me before. Just hauled me off to some unknown destination because you have a hunch on something.”

I looked at him sharply to see if he was being facetious or what. “You're driving,” I said. He looked over at me from behind the wheel of his squad car, in his perfectly laundered tan and brown uniform. I wish somebody would come up with a different color for sheriffs to wear.

“So?” he said.

“So I'm not hauling you anywhere. I'm the passenger here.”

“You have to be the most annoyingly argumentative person that I know,” he said. “Did you go to school to learn that?”

“No,” I said. “Comes quite naturally. Father's side of the family.” He rolled his eyes as we made headway down the highway at seventy miles per hour. “Be happy you're not marrying my father.”

“I am happy that I'm not marrying your father. Very happy,” he assured me. “So, you want to start from the top on all of this?”

“Okay. Did I tell you about the old lady, Naomi Cordieu, that worked for the historical society?” I asked and pulled my left foot up under my right leg to get comfortable. I wore my red Converses today, jeans and my big blue sweatshirt that said
WEST VIRGINA MOUNTAINEERS
. My grandmother bought it for me last year for Christmas. She might have moved from there forty years ago, but she's never forgotten her favorite football team.

“I think, vaguely,” he said.

“She just happened to come into the library and found out that I was asking questions about Bradley Ferguson and the drowning of his brother and all sorts of things. I mean, the ironic part is I would have eventually gotten around to contacting her even if she hadn't left word for me to do so. Are you following me?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“She is the widow of Bradley Ferguson.”

“And Bradley Ferguson is the one you had me check on. The hunting accident in Africa. Right?” he asked.

“Yes. Bradley Ferguson was in love with, and I'm fairly sure had an affair with, my great-grandmother, Della Ruth. He was also the little brother to Wil, who drowned in the accident for which Nate Keith was largely responsible.”

“Okay…”

“So, when I first visited this Naomi Cordieu lady, she told me that her widow, Bradley Ferguson, was madly in love with Della Ruth before he met Naomi, and they had an affair,” I said.

“So, why are we going to see her?”

“Because … here's where it gets sticky. She also told me that Bradley was the father of my grandfather, John Robert,” I said. The sheriff's eyebrows went up a bit and he gave a little whistle. “I know, I know. Well, at first, I'm thinking … who am I to say that it wasn't true? I mean, I found evidence of this affair, so who's to say she didn't get pregnant?”

“Yeah, well, I can see that. Go ahead,” he said.

“What really convinced me that maybe she might be telling the truth was this story that she told me about how Della Ruth would send Bradley photographs of ‘his son' John Robert once a year. She had a shoe box full of these pictures and she gave them to me.”

“Where did she get the pictures?” he asked.

“Exactly. I believed her, because … how else would she get all these pictures of my grandfather?”

“So why do you doubt her now?”

“I went to see Hubert McCarthy last night,” I said. “He gave me a photograph of my grandfather—”

“Why did you go see Hubert McCarthy?” he asked, a sudden sharpness to his voice.

“Uh … well, Aunt Ruth—”

“Torie, blast it!” he said and hit the steering wheel a good one. “You just can't go off on your own like that. I would have taken you if you'd have asked.”