Beads of Doubt

Table of Contents

 

 

“Fun and interesting . . . I’d like to see more of Kitzi’s adventures.”
—Rendezvous

 

“This wonderful new series is easy to fall in love with.”

 

“Kitzi Camden is a hoot! She has the crusty spirit of an ol’ Texas politician . . . When it comes down to loyalty and protecting the people she cares about, she can be as gracious and genteel as a coiled rattlesnake. I look forward to spending more time with her.”—Joan Hess, author of the Claire Malloy and Arly Hanks mysteries

BEAD ON TROUBLE
BEADS OF DOUBT

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

BEADS OF DOUBT
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / June 2007

Copyright © 2007 by The Estate of Barbara Burnett Smith and Karen MacInerney.

 

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eISBN : 978-0-425-21608-8

 

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Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
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“Ms. Camden, the letter was sent to you two
weeks ago, and you signed for it. It is vital that you...”

Outside my second-story window a teal and white tent was being erected on the west lawn. The tent was sixty by eighty feet with the hugest stripes I had ever seen in my life. It was also being dragged perilously close, I mean within inches, of my begonia bed.

“Excuse me, Mr. Warrington—”

“Harrington.”

“Mr. Harrington. I have a situation here that I need to handle, and I would be happy to call you back in a few days.” I was fumbling with the window, which was refusing to move.

I love my house, all eight thousand square feet of it, and I even love most of its idiosyncrasies. The same kind you’ll find in every old house. At that particular moment, however, I was not particularly in love with this particular stuck window.

“Go up,” I commanded under my breath, but the window didn’t budge.

The Camden Manse, as it’s known, was built by my grandfather back in the twenties when he was governor. When I was a child, over fifty years ago, I thought if heaven was all it was cracked up to be, then it must be just like this house. With the wisdom of age I now think that if the house and heaven are alike, God must have an easier time keeping his place in good repair than I do mine, although I try my best.

I jerked at the window again and it flew up so unexpectedly I almost fell out. “Hello—hello!” I shouted at the truck driver, but he wasn’t hearing me.

On the telephone Mr. Harrington sounded exasperated. “Ms. Camden, you must read the letter today.”

Patience has never been my strong suit. In fact, I’m not sure I even have that suit. “Mr. Harrington, tomorrow we are having the Bead Tea for ovarian cancer on my grounds. There will be thirty-four vendors and artisans, tea for hundreds being served in the conservatory, and right now, even as I speak to you”—I looked out the window and yelped—“a truck is backing toward my begonia bed.”

“That is not really important. This letter is about your future.”

I turned away from the window. “Fine. Mr. Harrington, what is in this letter that is so terribly important it can’t wait for three days?”

“You need to read the letter.”

I huffed. “So you’ve said, but at the moment I can’t read the letter. I don’t even remember signing for it. That may have been my mother.” Who, at seventy-nine years old, is as elegant and charming as she ever was. She still has a great memory, too; it’s just short. She could have signed for the letter, then sent it off to her cousin, or thrown it out.

I knew for sure she hadn’t given it to me. “Mr. Harrington, you are going to have to tell me—”

“I’ll fax you a copy.”

“I don’t have a fax. Sinatra, my cat, ate the rubber and I haven’t replaced it. If you want some action, then you’d better explain the urgency.” I used the same firm tone I used to use on lobbyists when I was in the Texas Senate. “I have three minutes to spare, but that’s all.”

“All right, if this is the way it has to be.” He sounded testy.

“It is.”

“The letter states that you are, at this time, in possession of the Camden Manse and are occupying both the main house and the gatehouse.”

Since I was standing in one of the upstairs guest rooms of the main house, it seemed to me the letter wasn’t terribly informative, and he was using up his allotted time pretty quickly with this statement of the obvious. “My mother lives in the gatehouse, but that’s close. And I knew that all along.”

His tone got a little snippier. “The letter also states that there have been some changes in the corporation that controls the Camden Manse—”

“There have been no changes to the corporation.”

“The changes are in the way the shares are being voted.”

That got my full attention as every drop of blood in my body sank to someplace below my knees. “What voting changes?”

“You no longer have sufficient votes to maintain occupancy. Therefore, you need to move out within thirty days. Actually, that would be about fourteen days now. If you had only read the letter, this would not be coming as a shock to you.”

I thought I might fall over.

“That’s not possible,” I said. This was my home. I loved this house as much as anything in the world. My grandfather had built it, and when I was just six he had promised me that I would someday live here. Many years later, after he died and my grandmother had no longer wanted the burden of the Manse, she moved into the gatehouse and my parents and I had moved into the main house.

When I got married I lived elsewhere, but the house has a way of choosing its own, and after the divorce and my father’s death, my mother needed help. In fact, just six years ago nobody in the family would take the place. Of course, that was before I’d inspected every inch of it and spent all the income from my trust to restore it.

Mr. Harrington was going on, “. . . therefore, a meeting of the corporation board has been called, but that is just a—”

“Mr. Harrington, I want two answers. And I’ll bet you I already know what they are. Number one, who are you representing?”

“Mr. Houston David Webber.”

“No surprise.” Whenever there was a problem in the family, you could bet that my cousin Houston had something to do with it. It had been that way since we’d been kids. “And, who,” I went on, “is changing the way they vote?”

“I’m not at liberty—”

“Fax that letter to my attorney.” I snapped out the name.

“Certainly,” he said. “I’m pleased that I have finally convinced you of the gravity of my call.”

“I assure you, Mr. Harrington, I am suitably grave.” I looked out the window and saw that the truck was now in the begonias. “Get out of there!” I yelled, but of course, he couldn’t hear me.

Mr. Harrington went on, “Ms. Camden, please. We need to discuss some things. There are some arrangements that—”

“Mr. Harrington, at this minute I don’t have time to discuss anything with you. I have to get that damn truck out of my begonias, and I’ve got to have a very intense talk with Houston.” I took a breath and said, “Have a nice day.”

Then I hung up and stuck my head out the window. The truck was now
parked
in the begonias.

I grabbed something off the night stand, took aim, and threw. A solid and very satisfying smack let me know I’d hit the hood of the truck. I looked to see what I’d thrown and realized that I had pitched the one thing that might have helped. It was
The Little Book of Calm
.

Oh, well, I wouldn’t have read it anyway.

The shortest distance between two points is a
straight line, so I went flying down the back staircase, the faster to get to my car and to my cousin Houston. While he has every right in the world to try and take the Manse away from me, I have every right to fight him right down to the door of the moving vans. That’s what I intended to do, although this little bombshell, coming out of the blue, or the Ethernet, is pretty typical of Houston.

In Apollo 13 when the space mission went awry they created that famous line, “Houston, we have a problem.” My brother and I have always said it a little differently: We have a problem; it’s Houston.

I was halfway down the stairs, traveling at about the same speed as the Apollo, when my cat came flying down behind me. He miscalculated, passed me up, and landed under my right foot. I grabbed the banister to avoid stepping on him, and Sinatra did a tuck and roll that would have impressed Nadia Comaneci.

“Sinatra!” I shouted, doing a pretty good midair gyration myself. “Cat, you cannot do that. You are going to kill someone.”