Black Betty (29 page)

“This is important. It’s got to do with Betty and you.”

She didn’t take my meaning. “Where’s Betty?”

“She’s fine.” I was happy to see her relief. “Maude and Odell lookin’ out for her. But Terry’s gone.”

Before that moment, Gwendolyn Eady was just a girl to me. But seeing the pain she felt for that wild boy, who she didn’t even know to call her brother, made me have respect for her as a woman. I knew right then that I would come calling if I survived. Even before she nodded, holding back the grief, I imagined her and Feather riding a bicycle down that rocky dirt road near the sea.

She stepped aside and we came into the house.

Arthur and Sarah were standing in the entrance hall. They both had dark circles under their eyes.

“What is this?” Sarah Cain asked. “Where is Elizabeth?”

“Where she’s safe from you,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that we’ve come here to set things straight.”

“What are you talking about?” Arthur wanted to know.

“He means,” Saul piped in, “that we know everything that happened and that we’re going to go to the cops with it. But first we wanted to give you a chance to explain yourselves.”

“And who are you?” When Sarah’s straw-colored eyes blinked at Saul they reminded me of frail butterflies in the rain.

“Saul Lynx, ma’am. I was employed by you, through Calvin Hodge, until I realized that I was being used for murder.”

Sarah reached behind to grab hold of Arthur’s arm. Gwen drifted across the room toward them. They were the only family she knew, but she didn’t know that they really were related. Sarah and Gwen were half sisters.

“Come into the sitting room,” Sarah said.

We followed them down a long hall lined with suits of armor designed for tiny little men; even Saul towered over them. We reached a doorway that was flanked by two larger metal figures; maybe six feet each.

“What’s this?” I asked. “Giants?”

“After the plague,” Arthur said, distracted.

“How do ya mean?” I asked.

“The reason Europeans were so small back then was because of diet. They didn’t get enough meat, protein. After the plague there were lots of cows but hardly any people. So people grew bigger and some of the biggest ones put on armor.”

I didn’t know if it was true, but it was a good story. I’d try it out on Jackson Blue if we both lived long enough.

“Come in, gentlemen.” The sweep of Sarah’s arm introduced us to a large room. The ceiling hovered twenty feet above. From it was a chandelier adorned with crystal balls big enough to see back to the beginning of time. The clear crystal was surrounded by red and blue teardrop glass. The floor was covered with an off-white and thick carpet. The walls were a marbled tan. It was a room that cost more than I was ever likely to make in a lifetime. There was a stand of fifteen-foot palm trees against the far wall. On wheels so that they could easily be taken outside for the sun.

The trees made the air fresh and friendly. But Mr. Lynx and I weren’t after friendship.

We sat on a smoke-colored leather couch while the family members spread themselves out on chairs sheathed in wolf pelts, heads and all, that sat here and there.

“So?” Sarah wondered out loud.

“We know why Terry Tyler was killed,” I said.

“Who is Terry Tyler?” Sarah asked me.

“You know who he is,” I answered back. I could see the truth slowly dawning.

“That boy who, who used to come play with Gwen?” Sarah was shaken.

“What has that got to do with us?” Arthur said.

“Arthur!” Arthur followed his mother’s stare to Gwendolyn, who was biting at her lower lip.

“Sorry,” the boy said. He got up and went over to her. He even put his arms around her.

“I’m sorry about the boy, but I really don’t see how you can think that has anything to do with us.” Sarah’s eyes were strong again. They bored into me.

“But it’s not only him,” I said. “Marlon Eady has disappeared and Elizabeth is hiding in fear for her life.”

At least I rubbed some of the arrogance off her face.

“And it’s all because of your father’s will.” I was finished.

The silence was profound. Arthur released Gwen. Sarah sat perfectly still except for the tremor up the back of her neck—keeping time with her wild heart.

“It’s true, Mrs. Hawkes,” Saul Lynx said. “We have reason to believe that Elizabeth Eady and her immediate family are the heirs to your father’s estate. Somebody killed your father and then they found out about the will. That’s how we figure it.”

“If…” She stammered for a moment and then halted. “If… that’s true, then you think it was me?”

“You killed Terry,” I said, “her son, and now all that’s left is her daughter…”

“No,” Sarah said, holding her hand up to stop my words.

“…Gwendolyn.”

“What?” Gwen asked. She wasn’t upset, just bemused.

“We haven’t gone to the police, because there’s no proof, and when there’s no proof there’s no case. But…” Saul was at a loss for words.

“But we know that you killed Terry and Marlon and that you plan to do in Gwen and Betty ’fore you through.” I was mad enough to pull out my pistol, but I didn’t. “But we’re not gonna stand for that.”

“My mother? Betty?” Gwen shook her head.

“Yeah.” I stood up to meet her. “Here you are treatin’ these white people like they loved you and when they just reapers cuttin’ down your real people like dead grass!”

“Easy.” Saul was by my side. “Calm down.”

“This is ridiculous.” Sarah Cain was up too. “Do you really believe that Arthur or I could go out killing people like that?”

“I believe that Commander Styles could do it. I believe that Calvin Hodge could do it.”

“It’s true? Oh my God!” Gwen put her hands to her face and backed away from everyone.

“No, honey,” Sarah cried. But when she approached, Gwen fell down to the floor.

“Uh-huh! Now she see the light. Now she sees.” I was ranting. Some deep hatred inside of me came out suddenly, evilly.

“No!” Sarah yelled. “It’s not like that! We were only trying to help Betty.”

“But it’s true about the will, ain’t it? It’s true that Gwen is Betty’s girl but you never let her know it.” I wanted Gwen to know, to see the truth.

“We only wanted time to talk to Betty.” Sarah was crying now too. “She ran away and my father was dead…”

“You thought that Miss Eady killed your father?” Saul asked.

“She, she ran. And then we found him dead.” Sarah turned to Gwen. “That’s why Arthur called Styles. My father had had dealings with Commander Styles before, and, and we didn’t want any trouble for Betty. We wanted everything quiet. It wasn’t to hurt your mother, it was to keep her out of trouble. I had nothing to do with keeping secrets from you. That had to do with Betty and my father.”

“Betty killed Cain?” The wind was out of my sail.

“Who’s my father?” Gwen asked.

Nobody answered.

Right then a bell rang. It was the kind of buzzing bell that schools have to indicate the passing period between classes.

“I’ll get it,” Gwen said, comforting herself in the role of a maid. She pulled herself to her feet and staggered away toward the hall.

No one moved to stop her.

“So.” Saul started thinking out loud. “You got Hodge and Styles in here to take care of anything, um, nasty. But then they find out that you’re broke, that the murderer, if there was a murder, has inherited the money.” He pushed out his lower lip and nodded, appreciating the complexity of the crimes. “If it was just her, if she was the only heir, then all they’d have to do would be to turn her in. But since it’s her whole family the court might rule that they get the pie.”

“No!” Sarah Cain was ready for another round. “No! That’s not it! That’s not what happened! I wouldn’t hurt Betty. She’s like my mother.”

“But that could still make sense,” Saul said. “Sure it could. Hodge and Styles want their piece, and the way they see it is that all Eadys have to go. They don’t need you to tell them that.”

“Calvin didn’t come to me until after Father died,” Sarah Cain said. “Somehow he’d found out about the will. Father had fired him and taken on a new lawyer, his old business partner Bertrand Fresco. Calvin said that we’d better find Betty and talk to her. That’s all I wanted to do.”

“Sure, sure you did. We believe you.” Saul touched my arm to include me in his generosity. “But they knew that these people were going to lay claim to your fortune. They’d lose whatever you promised plus the blackmail they’d get later on—I mean if there was a murder and then a cover-up.”

I had to admit that Lynx made sense. But there was something wrong, something I wasn’t sure about.

“Did Betty kill your father?” I asked straight out.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“He was suffocated. He was really suffering. Maybe she just wanted to help him.”

The sorrow in her face forced a sudden truth in my heart. I came to a decision that I knew would follow me down into my grave.

The hurt must have shown in my face. Sarah mistook my deadly decision as having something to do with her. She said, “You see? You understand, Mr. Rawlins.”

“I don’t understand a damn thing. What I wanna know is what’s goin’ on. ’Cause if you so worried ’bout Betty and her family, then why didn’t you tell Gwen about all this?” I looked around but Gwen hadn’t returned yet.

“I was going to tell her. I was. It’s just that it was such a shock. A terrible shock. You can understand that, can’t you? He’d made sure that Gwen never found out about him.”

“Why’s that, Mrs. Hawkes?” Saul asked.

She looked at him as if he had just peed on the floor. “She’s Negro. He couldn’t let people know about that, not if she was still living in the house. That would be as if he recognized her.”

“Bastard,” Saul said through clenched teeth.

“And he had to keep her,” I said. “Because Betty would have left if he tried to take her girl.”

“Why didn’t she just leave anyway?” Saul asked.

“We’re a family here, sir,” Sarah said. “She was afraid. Everybody in the house was afraid of him. He had an awful lot of power. Betty didn’t want to leave Arthur and me alone. She took over for us after my mother died.”

“Where’s the girl?” Saul asked.

“She answered the gate. Maybe it was a delivery,” Arthur said. I noticed that he’d turned a grim shade of green.

“Gwen!” Sarah shouted. She went to the door and yelled down the hall, “Gwen!”

“It’s just a delivery, Mother,” Arthur said. He was at a chrome-and-glass standing bar that came out from the wall, adding things to a tumbler of gin, or vodka.

“Let’s go look,” Saul said, and it struck me that this careful little man was like me, that he lived his life on hunches. Hunches are a desperate man’s way to hope.

The front door was ajar and Gwen was nowhere in the house; at least she didn’t answer our calls. She wasn’t in the driveway or around the lawn.

“Let’s break up,” I said, taking Mr. Thirty-two from my pocket. Saul took out his piece too.

“What are the guns for?” Arthur asked. The most compelling argument that he was innocent.

“I don’t know if you’ve been listenin’, son,” I told him. “But people want the dark side of your family dead.”

Arthur went with Saul down around the Greek statues while Sarah and I went back down a lane of apple trees along the side of the house.

The lane opened up to a long tier of white marble stairs overlooking a dense green maze cut from a great stand of bushes. At the center of the maze was a large bronze statue in the likeness of a prancing bull. Beyond the maze was a white stone house with weeping willows on either side.

“That’s Betty’s house,” Sarah said, so close to me that the whisper was like a lover’s request.

“How do we get down there?”

“Through the maze. Father said that the maze was better than a lock because with that nobody could even find your house.”

“Unless they just cut right on through.” I was up on my mythology too.

“But those bushes are laced with barbed wire.”

THE MAZE WAS BEAUTIFUL. Vines of delicate white flowers hung down, gently camouflaging the barbed wire. The path was paved with lava stones that had been cut into brick. At every turn there was a small metal statue of a realistic-looking insect. A termite, ant, or wasp—all about the size of a toy poodle.

When I saw the termite for the third time I knew we were lost.

“Don’t you know your way through here?”

“I didn’t usually go back here,” Sarah said. “Father would go sometimes.”

The thought of her father and Betty sent Sarah down the wrong road again and again. I made us turn left at the termite and then right at the copper-green praying mantis. He was leering at the spread-legged corpse of Gwendolyn Eady.

She was on her back. The skirt was all the way up to her waist. The bullet holes in her chest and over her right eye were small. A high-velocity .22 probably, the kind of weapon that a professional criminal would use; a professional crook—or a cop. Her hands were out to the side, fresh blood and skin under her fingernails. She’d fought hard with her attacker. Her shoes were badly scuffed and one was half off. Her dress was torn around the collar and sleeve.

I was down on my knees again, looking in the face of another dead innocent. Gwen’s eyes were almost completely shut. She seemed to be just awaking from a nap. I put my face up next to her mouth to see if she was still breathing. I could get physically close but I couldn’t get close to her in my mind, couldn’t accept her any more now that she was dead.

A noise came out of my mouth, unbidden. A sob or moan. I remember it because I didn’t have any feelings right then, it was only because of that sound that I knew my own sorrow.

Sarah had pressed back against the hedge. When I saw the shock in her face I went to her, putting my arms around her and pulling her head to my chest. Her forearms were bleeding from pressing against the wire. I remembered holding Gwen the same way.

It hadn’t helped.

I led Sarah back to the house, saying stupid little things like “It’s all right” and “It’ll be okay.” I put the grieving woman in a chair in the entrance hall of the house and went out to find Saul and Arthur.