Cemetery Silk (19 page)

My mind had cleared even more and I was frantically trying to remember which sofa had the broken spring. If it was the one I was sitting on, I had a slim chance.

“He didn't touch me much after that. Except when he'd been drinking. I had one more brat, and then I lost the next one. Thank God! When I delivered the last one, I hemorrhaged again and I had to have a hysterectomy. Ernie was so sweet. He brought me flowers.”

Sue's thin lips turned up in a crazy, lopsided smile.

“I thought he still loved me. But he was just feeling guilty because he'd been out all night with his girlfriend when I started to bleed. That was the last straw. I decided to get my degree and then a decent job, so I wouldn't have to take care of his snot-nosed kids. So I wouldn't be home the nights he went out to be with her and all the others that took her place over the years.”

She switched the gun to her other hand and blew her red and swollen nose with the tissue.

I took a chance and reached down between the cushions. Thank you, God! I pulled the broken spring out as straight as I could with my fingers. I started rubbing the adhesive tape on my wrists across the sharp point slowly and carefully.

Sue tucked the tissue neatly in her pocket and glared at me.

“That's why I had to have your cousin's money.”

I decided that if I talked to her it might take her mind off of any movement I might make.

“I…I don't understand.” My lip was swollen and sore. It hurt to speak. “What does that have to do with Abigail and the money?”

“Don't you see? When Ernie told me how much they had, I knew I had to get my hands on it, somehow. Those crazy old farts didn't know how to enjoy the money. They wore threadbare clothes and lived like paupers. Stupid old people! I needed that money to make me pretty again. I was going to have breast implants and buy some pretty new clothes. Ernie would fall into love with me all over. We could go on cruises and buy a fancy car, and live happy ever after.”

“So you talked him into killing Abigail.” I sawed as hard as I could against the tape. “How did he do it? Did he poison her like my book said?”

She laughed like I'd made the world's funniest joke and then spat at me, “I poisoned her, you idiot, not Ernie! He was too afraid of eternal damnation.”

Sue laughed again. “That stupid kid of mine helped with that.”

She saw the shock on my face. “Oh, she didn't even know about it. The silly little twit brought home a bag of dope when she came back. It was kid stuff mostly, Ecstasy, crap like that. She had something else, something I had read a warning about, Ma Huang. You wouldn't understand. You're not a trained professional like me,” she sneered. “It mostly contains ephedrine which is a stimulant. Combined with caffeine it can make the heart race. Too much ephedrine and caffeine can kill you. That's what killed Abigail Roth. I gave her a chocolate pie brimming over with ephedrine and caffeine. Her little old heart just ‘skipped to my Lou.'”

She directed an imaginary orchestra with her left hand.

“Your brat found out about that when she copied the hospital record. I saw her name on the Xerox log down in Medical Records. Of course, you probably didn't realize that it was chocolate pie that she vomited up all over the ambulance, but I couldn't take a chance. I bought the pies from that little slut at Molly's. I was real clever about that.”

She beamed at me. She was proud of herself.

“I got two pies. William wouldn't touch chocolate and Abigail loved it. It was a perfect way to get her without touching him. Her eyesight was so bad she couldn't see it had been messed with.”

“You bitch!” I screamed in outrage.

She slapped me again even harder this time. The blood ran freely from my mouth and down my chin. It puddled on the lap of my caftan. I found myself absently hoping that it would not soak through and stain this sofa, too. Mother would not like that at all.

“Watch your language,” she spat sarcastically. “I don't want to have to kill you before your little girlie and the old woman get here to watch. That would spoil all my fun.”

“You killed Rae Ann with that ephedrine stuff, too, didn't you?”

“Oh, give me more credit than that. Puulease!”

I had never seen a face so ugly and contorted with hatred.

“The Cooledge whore was a special case. Ernie couldn't remember what he had said to her. I knew I had to kill her before she spilled something to you or somebody else. I cut her tire with a scalpel at the motel then followed her and offered to help out when it went flat. When she leaned over to get the spare out of the trunk I gave her a shot of Valium. I was careful. It was just enough to make her helpless but not enough to put her out. I told her she was the lucky one. She had been chosen to represent all the girls Ernie slept with instead of me.”

She chuckled softly. “She knew exactly what was going to happen but she couldn't move. I drove real slow over her body so I could enjoy every minute. You know,” she confided, “I actually heard her head pop!”

Bile rushed up the back of my throat and mixed with the blood in my mouth. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I was determined not to let Sue Dibber see me vomit. Die maybe, but not vomit.

I looked at the little porcelain clock on the mantle. It had never been as accurate as it was pretty, but if it was keeping anywhere near the correct time, I had less than thirty minutes before Mother and Cassie would get home.

The tape on my left hand was almost cut through. I could unwrap the other hand easily but then what would I do? At least I could get some more answers before I decided what my options were.

“Did William get Valium or that other stuff?”

“Ma Huang? No, he got plain old morphine and then later, some Demerol, happy juice. Standard treatment for heart attack victims. Mr. Roth just got a tad more than usual. Made it easy for Ernie to get him to sign the new will.”

She looked at me and grinned.

“If it makes you any happier, the will in his lockbox left everything to your Mother, you, and somebody named Velvet. But we took care of that. We burned it up.”

She looked around her, “Like you really needed it.”

She popped another toffee in her mouth.

“Then Ernie started to feel sorry for the old man. Told me to let him die in peace. He got that priest to give him last rites. He had to baptize him first because he wasn't Catholic. Poor Ernie was such a hypocrite.”

She got a faraway look in her eyes and the tears started to flow again. “He was going to tell on me.”

She sobbed big gulping sobs. I took the chance and pulled the tape off both hands hoping she would not hear. Now was the time for me to review my options. I had two: sit still and die, or run for it and maybe live a little longer. Sue was exhausting herself with her hysterics. I knew she would run out of steam soon. Sure enough, she hiccoughed loudly and wiped her face with the mess of wadded up tissue. The gun was still pointing at too many of my vital organs for me to make a move. I decided to wait for a better moment. I prayed there would be one.

“Hypocrite! He was a cowardly, lying little hypocrite. He could screw everything in panties from here to Nashville, but when he found out that I had killed that old woman and Rae Ann, he went crazy. He kept crying all the time and moaning in his sleep about the devil and burning in hell. He was going to go to that priest, Father Bernard, and tell him what I had done. You see why I had to kill him, don't you? Why I had to kill my poor precious darling?”

She dabbed at her eyes some more with the remnants of the tissue.

I decided to go for it.

I shoved my bare foot hard against the coffee table. It went over with a crash against her knees and ankles. The heavy crystal lamp shattered on the hearth.

I ran.

I heard Sue scream in pain and frustration. She was struggling to move the heavy table as I fled from the room. I had the advantage of knowing my way around the house in the dark, but she still had the gun. I heard Aggie barking faintly behind closed doors and somehow it made me feel less afraid and alone. I headed for the kitchen and the back door. If I could get outside there were a million places I could hide.

I heard her footsteps running behind me. She had the uncanny luck of knowing just which way I had gone. I burst out the screen door and let it slam behind me in her face. I ran as fast as I could toward the orchard and the cover of the trees.

My long silk skirt was soon soaked from the wet grass. It clung to my legs and got tangled between my ankles. I went down in a tumbling heap of wet cloth. I ended up flat on my mangled lip. I stifled a scream of pain and crawled as fast as I could under the spreading limbs of a chestnut tree. Old husks from the year before littered its base and the prickly spines bit into my hands and knees. The fear did not dull my pain. I was in agony.

I heard her breathing hard as she ran past the rose garden. She was coming directly toward me.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my head in my arms. I tried to make myself as small as I could. Maybe she wouldn't see me in the dark. Then fate dealt me a low blow. The moon came out from behind a cloud. It shone full and bright, illuminating the whole orchard and chasing away the shadows, including mine.

“Come out, little missy. I'm getting very cross with you. You're spoiling my fun.”

Suddenly, she was there in front of me. The toes of her white shoes were right in front of my face. They were soiled with grass stains. One of her stockings was torn and hanging down over her skinny ankle. I realized then that Sue Dibber's feet might be the last thing I would ever see.

“I ought'a kill you right here,” she spat. “I want to kill you soooo bad! But I can't, you see? I have to make it look like you did it. So you'll have to come back to the house.”

She took a step forward to grab for my shoulder then suddenly fell backwards in the dark with a loud, “Oompf!”

Sue lay stunned in the wet grass. One bony ankle was firmly wedged in the soft dirt of a mole hill. It was swelling rapidly above the top of her shoe. It looked broken even to my untrained eye. Sue moaned loudly, then screamed in pain. I crawled out from under the limbs of the chestnut as fast as I could and stood up on shaking legs. I knew this was the only chance I might have to save myself.

Just before Sue Dibber managed to pull herself up to a sitting position I threw myself against her midriff as hard as I could. We both went down in a whirling pinwheel of arms and legs. When we stopped rolling, Sue lay still and quiet on top of me. Making an enormous effort, I untangled myself and pushed the dead weight of her unconscious body off mine. I fainted as Cass and Danny pulled up in the driveway.

When I returned to consciousness, it looked like Christmas. There were brightly colored lights flashing everywhere. I felt a sharp stinging pain in my upper arm. Thinking it was Sue Dibber and her little syringe full of venom, I struggled and tried to pull away.

“Paisley, darling.”

Somewhere in the lights was Mother's soft, worried voice.

“It's all right, dear,” she said soothingly. “She's just trying to make you feel better.”

“No! No! It's happy juice! Please don't let her.…”

And I was out again.

Chapter Seventeen

The sheets on the hospital bed were definitely not Pima cotton. The rough cloth scratched my tender aching behind every time I moved. I wanted to go home.

“When am I getting out of here?” I asked querulously for the tenth time that morning. I am not a good patient.

“Mom, I told you. When the orthopedist gets here from Morgantown and reads your x-rays, you can go.”

Cassie straightened the rough sheet and patted me on the head.

“Stupid little one-horse town,” I growled. “Why don't they have their own ortho-what's-it? Besides, my shoulder is not broken.”

I raised my arm with enormous difficulty to make my point.

“See!” I gasped in pain. “I would think I would be the first to know.”

“Not your shoulder, your clavicle. This little bone right here.”

She pressed on a particularly delicate spot under my neck.

“Ouch!”

“I rest my case. Besides, I've heard he's really gorgeous, and I want to meet him.”

“Fine! Keep me here against my will. Use me for date-bait. Your own mother. After all I've done.…”

The door opened and a tall and pretty young nurse entered. She was carrying more flowers to add to the jungle of blooms already on the dresser. I jumped a little inside my skin when I saw her. I think it will be a long time before I get over my phobia of nurses.

“Dr. Harvard is here, Mrs. DeLeon,” she smiled, sending chills down my spine. “As soon as he sees your x-rays, he'll come in to talk to you.”

She started to lean over to check on the stitches in my lip but saw the fear in my eyes and wisely changed her mind. Maybe, I decided, she was not so bad after all.

Cassie was preening in front of the mirror on the back of the door.

“I think I'll go see what the doctor has to say. Okay, Mom?”

“Would it matter?”

The nurse smiled as Cassie left. “Dr. Harvard's very cute. Great looking buns. But she has her work cut out for her. I've tried everything. Rumor is he's gay.”

The door opened again. Mother bustled in looking like a million dollars in a grey linen pantsuit and white silk blouse.

“Great news, Paisley! Dr. Harvard says you're fit as a fiddle. Well, he didn't really say that. He's too young to know that expression.…”

“Mother, get me out of here!”

Ten minutes later she was rolling me in a wheelchair to the entrance of the hospital. A small entourage of nurses and orderlies followed with all the flowers and a paper bag containing my ruined caftan. Horatio's Bentley was waiting for us at the hospital entrance. A big, gentle orderly lifted me carefully into the back seat and tucked a light blanket around my legs.

I had an instant flashback to that rainy afternoon when Mary Ann Dibber was putting her baby in the car seat. I covered my eyes and groaned.

“Paisley! Are you all right?”

Mother leaned over the front seat and looked at me, her eyes full of concern.

“Just take me home, please, Mommy.”

I had never felt so small and vulnerable in all my life. It frightened me more than Sue Dibber ever had.

On the short drive home Horatio went on and on about what a little heroine I was and how proud he was of me. He kept it up until I “huffed” loudly at him.

When we arrived at the house and he came around to help me out of the car, I saw tears in his eyes.

“You must forgive an old man, my dear. When I think we might have lost you forever.…”

I kissed his only slightly wrinkled old cheek.

“Thanks, Horatio. I love you, too.”

I refused to go inside. It was a beautiful Indian summer afternoon, and I wanted to be out on the patio.

Mother and Mabel padded the chaise lounge with pillows. With Horatio's help they managed to ease me down on it. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and smiled.

“I'm happy now. You're all forgiven.”

Mother laughed as she sat down next to me and held my hand. “Whatever for, Paisley? Do you forgive us for coming home to find you down in the orchard, your poor little bleeding body draped over Sue Dibber's? Or maybe, you forgive us for restraining that murderous woman until the police got here? For rushing you to the hospital to attend to your wounds? Oh, and I almost forgot—for rescuing poor little Aggie before she ate through her crate trying to help you.”

“Yeah, all of that.”

Dr. Peter Harvard brought Cassie home around four o'clock. He had taken her to lunch instead of going back to Morgantown. She brought him out to the patio so he could tell me himself that I was “fit as a fiddle.”

“Actually, you have some very deep bruises, Mrs. DeLeon. Both shoulders are quite hemorrhagic. But the good news is that nothing is broken.”

He winked at Cassie. He was definitely not gay.

“I'll need to check on you again soon. Maybe next Saturday night, say, about eight-thirty?”

“Great! Plan to stay for dinner. Gran is a fabulous cook.”

Cassie smiled shyly and I watched in admiration. I had never really seen her at work.

“Gran's teaching me everything she knows.”

“Oh, boy.”

“What's that, Mom?”

“Nothing, dear.”

I dozed off after the good doctor left. When I awoke, Pamela was sitting next to me looking anxiously at my stitches.

“Oh, Paisley, are you going to be all right?”

She burst into tears. “I thought I would die when your Mother called. We were all so worried. You are going to be all right, aren't you?”

“Of course, I am. Quit sniveling. By the way, I'm still mad at you for that crack about the farm thing.”

“Now I know you're okay.” She laughed and blew her nose. “I'm sorry about that, but I was mad at you, too. I thought you had really blown it.”

She surveyed my bandages.

“My God, child! What you will go through to prove a point.”

“So everything's fine?” I inquired. “No more lawsuit? No more kicking poor little old ladies off the old home place?”

“I can't see anyone kicking your mother anywhere. But, yes, everything is fine. Dibber's lawyer called two days ago. He apologized for his part in what he called ‘their foul charade.' Although, I'm sure the little weasel knew all along Dibber was conning your cousin.”

“Just like Leonard Paisley said.”

“Leonard knew,” she nodded in agreement.

“Has anybody heard from Mary Ann?”

“Yes, she went to the priest, Father Barnard, who, by the by, is also sorry for his part in the foul charade. He hopes to make it up by helping young Mary Ann and her Jimmy get back on their feet.”

“And the money?”

“According to my lawyer, a person cannot profit from murder. Nice little law, quite logical don't you think? Anyway the money goes back to William's next of kin, three cousins, I think. Too bad you all can't get any. But the good news is that all this publicity has sent book sales skyrocketing. We're going to make a fortune! The publisher is clamoring for Leonard's next book.”

“Damn Leonard! I'd like to wring his neck.”

Pam patted my sore knee until I winced.

“Not yet, old girl, not yet,” she said.