Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (25 page)

I got up, put my hands on hers, trying to calm her. She shoved me away, stood, and wrenched the cape from her shoulders. Then she hurled it on the floor and kicked it.

“I hate her!”
All my life I've hated her and I've felt guilty and she just let me. All my life I tried to make it up to her, and she took whatever I offered. And then she went and made a mockery of everything with her fucking letter!”

“Do you still have it?”

“Of course I still have it! Do you think I'd part with my mother's precious gift?”

“May I see it?”

She shook her head, face still showing rage and sarcasm. Then abruptly she began to cry again.

“Go ahead,” she said after a moment. “It's in my purse. Take it. I never wanted it in the first place.”

My daughter—The time has come to put an end to this. As long as I live, you will continue to resurrect memories that are better left dead. And frankly I am weary of the effort to protect you. Weary of those memories, of the horror that lives within me, and of life itself. For years I've remained silent, and I will continue to do so. I struck a bargain, however poor, and I will honor it for both our sakes. Is it better to think of your mother falsely convicted of murder or to know her for the despicable creature she is? Only time and understanding can answer that, and we have neither. How are you to understand that I forged the letter that lured that woman to her death? That I went to the dovecote that night armed with talismans against failure? How are you to understand my rage and frustration, my awful sense of being thwarted at the very last? The knowledge that if I didn't act, she would forever be frozen perfect in your father's emotions? But in some secret place you've always known, although I've never dared ask. And I well know your own rage and frustration. Let it go, Judy. Let it go, as I am. And forgive me. Your loving mother—Lis.

I looked up from the flimsy lined sheet. Judy, calm again, watched me, eyes unreadable in the candle glare on her glasses. “See?” she said. “She finally confessed.”

“It's a very self-serving letter, but I'm not convinced it's a confession.”

“It's all there, written down.”

“She admits to writing the letter that sent Cordy to Seacliff. She admits to going to the cote. But she doesn't come out and say, ‘I murdered Cordy.'”

“Yes—in typical Lis fashion, she skirts the truth.”

“I don't think . . . What's this about a bargain?”

Judy shrugged.

“And ‘talismans against failure'?”

“I assume she meant the gardening shears.”

“And she says you've always known. Always known what?”

“Always suspected that she did it.”

“She says
known
.”

“Semantics. Imprecise choice of word.”

“I doubt that. This letter was important to her. There're no crossed-out words, no misspellings, no evidence of haste. I wouldn't be surprised if she drafted it more than once.”

“What're you trying to say? That you still believe Lis didn't kill Cordy?”

“I don't know what I believe. But we can't base any conclusion on what she says in this letter.”

Judy was silent for a moment. Finally she said, “Well, now you see why I need to go ahead with this trail. Need to know more than ever.”

“And you don't care what damage that might do your mother's memory.”

“Did she care what damage she did to me? Look at the opening of that letter. She practically came out and said she was killing herself because she was tired of protecting me from the truth!”

“As I said, it's very self-serving.”

“That was Lis. She played the martyr. First she was martyred by my father's drinking and womanizing and abuse. Then she was martyred by being falsely accused of murder. That letter makes it sound as if she nearly martyred herself into the gas chamber—and all so she could protect me from God knows what.”

I studied the letter some more. “I wonder about this bargain. It supports the cover-up theory. And it fits with something else she said to me one of the first times we talked—that when she was reprieved from the gas chamber she ‘knew what was operating there.' “

“You think the bargain was to go to prison but not to be executed? In exchange for what?”

I shook my head.

“Who did she make the bargain with? My adoptive father?”

“Not likely. He wasn't all that important then. I think he was acting on orders from someone more powerful.”

“The governor?”

“More likely one of those behind-the-scenes people who hold the real money and power.”

Judy slumped, a trifle theatrically. “My first parents were an alcoholic and a . . . I don't know what. And then I was adopted by a man who would make a deal with the devil.”

“What was your adoptive mother like?”

“Cold. I could sense she didn't really care for me, and she died only a couple of years after I went to live with them.”

“He never remarried?”

“He was too busy moving up the political ladder to take the time. I was more or less raised by the housekeeper.”

“Okay,” I said, “enough rehashing the past. Right now you're going to have to do something that I guarantee won't be easy.”

“You mean tell the police about this letter, and the fact that I've let them proceed as if Lis had been murdered.” She bit her lip. “Will they arrest me?”

“Maybe, but I think we can persuade them not to, or at least to hold off until after the mock trial.”

She nodded resignedly. “Will you call them?”

“Don't you want a lawyer present?”

“The only lawyer I trust is Jack, and I definitely don't want him here. I'll take my chances with just you and the cops.”

I nodded and started for the phone. As I reached for the receiver, the overhead lights flashed on. The refrigerator's motor sighed and groaned, then started whirring. In one of the neighboring houses, someone let out a cheer.

I tried to take it as a good omen.

“I am so pissed off,” Adah Joslyn said. “Does either of you have any idea just how truly pissed I am?”

I said, “To hazard a guess – truly.”

“This is no laughing matter, Sharon. I shouldn't even be talking to her”—she jerked her chin at Judy—”without her attorney present. She's admitting to obstruction. That's a heavy—”

“Come on, Adah. You're not going to charge her.”

“The hell you say!”

“You are not going to charge her, because if you do there will be no mock trial. And if there is no mock trial, you and Wallace will not accomplish your prime objective.”

“Our prime objective was to solve this homicide—which now turns out not to be a homicide.”

“You have—or at least Wallace has—a more personal agenda.”

Her eyes narrowed. I knew what she was thinking: since Lis had committed suicide, they couldn't nail Joseph Stameroff for murder, so what sense was there in pursuing either the old case or the new one?”

Speaking slowly, with emphasis, I added, “I know what Benedict said in the letter about being weary of life, but I also know that the woman was literally hounded to death by graffiti and anonymous phone calls. Both Judy and I have lost sleep and suffered property damage. Now, Adah,
someone
is behind all that.
Someone
does not want the facts of that old homicide to be taken out and reexamined. That someone is guilty of illegal acts in the present, and probably in the past as well. I think that you and Wallace could accomplish what you hope to do by attending the mock trial and seeing what's revealed there.”

“You sound quite confident that the trial will produce the desired results.”

“My investigation points that way.”

“Are you sure you aren't promising more than you can deliver?”

I wasn't sure, but I said yes.

Joslyn's gaze flicked to Judy, who was watching us, puzzled and somewhat wary. Then it moved back to me. “Well, it wouldn't be a foolproof way of taking an individual down, but it'd be satisfying nonetheless. I think Bart would agree.”

“Does this mean that you'll forget the idea of charging Ms. Benedict?”

“I can see my way to that.”

“What about the publicity on this new development?” I motioned at Lis's letter, which lay on the table between us. “What's your feeling about that?”

“Keeping it quiet would be difficult. There's a certain amount of media curiosity about the case, as well as a good deal of departmental pressure.”

“I'm wondering if publicizing it would be such a bad thing, anyway.”

Judy made a noise of protest.

“I know how you feel,” I told her, “but if the public assumes that your mother confessed before killing herself, it might put someone off his—or her—guard.”

“You're really convinced that Lis didn't kill Cordy,” she said.

“As I told you before, we can't base any conclusion on such an ambiguous letter. So why not proceed on our original assumption?”

Judy looked down at where her hands tightly clasped Lis's black cape; she'd rescued it from the floor, folded it lovingly, and now seemed reluctant to let it out of her grasp. “Lis is dead,” she said in a small voice, “and very few people believed in her innocence to begin with. You might as well release the contents of the letter to the press.”

Joslyn nodded decisively. “We'll just say it's new evidence and skirt the issue of how we discovered it.” She looked sternly at Judy. “I don't know why I'm cutting you this much slack, but you've got a powerful ally in McCone here.” Then she turned to me. “So where do we stand? What else have you found out since we last talked? As if this wasn't enough.”

I related my day's activities. When I got to the part about my visit to her parents, she turned another stern look on me.

“Lot of nerve, bothering them without consulting me first,” she commented.

“I tried to consult. You weren't available. You ought to at least get an answering machine.”

“I've got one. I just keep forgetting to turn it on. Hate the damn things. What did you think of my folks?”

“I liked them. But I can see why they'd be hard to live with.”

“‘Hard' doesn't begin to describe it. Anyway, this Commie connection—you think there's anything to it?”

“It's worth following up.” I looked at Judy. “What do you recall about your biological parents' political stance?”

“They toed a strict conservative Republican line, I'm sure. In the fifties, people in the military-industrial-intellectual alliance would have been fools not to; they had little choice in the matter. Security clearances were absolute requirements, both for the Institute staff and for their families.”

“Then there's no line of inquiry there.” I turned back to Joslyn. “Will you run the name Roger Woods through NCIC and CJIS?”

“Sure. Not much to go on, though, and the feds and state are damned slow. I'll see if I can't get them to expedite this.” She stood, picked up Lis's letter. “I'll have to take this,” she told Judy, “but eventually you'll get it back.”

Judy released her grasp on the cape, moved her hand as if to stay Joslyn. Then she pulled it back, shaking her head. “Take it. Keep it.” To me she added, “I meant what I said earlier—I don't want it anymore.”

I was home in bed by midnight, exhausted but wakeful. Ralph and Alice sensed my unease and pressed close to me, hemming me in on either side until I felt like a booked between furry bookends. The cottage had not been harmed, and there were no messages on my answering machine tape—not even from Hy, which puzzled me. Still, I lay tense, waiting for stealthy noises outside or the ring of the phone or doorbell. And as the hours passed, Adah Joslyn's question kept replaying in my mind:
Are you sure you're not promising more than you can deliver?

Thursday morning there had been a heap of garbage in front of my house; on Friday I found Justice Joseph Stameroff in his gray Towncar. As I went down my front steps, his driver got out and opened the door to the backseat. Stameroff motioned for me to get in. I complied, doubting that a state supreme court justice would harm me in front of curious neighbors who were eyeing the car while leaving for work.

Like Judy's the night before, Stameroff's face was marked by pronounced strain lines. Arrogance still shone in his eyes, but it was clouded by worry and sorrow. He said, “I've come to ask you one last time to put a halt to this mock trial.”

“I can't. By involving yourself, you've ensured that.”

“Miss McCone, I'd gladly back off. And I've observed a certain . . . force of character in you. You could stop the trial if you chose.”

“Maybe, if only Jack Stuart were involved. But it's Judy who's determined to go forward. Have
you
ever tried to stop her when she's bent on a course of action?

He sighed. “Tried, yes. Succeeded? No.”

“She's given you a lot of trouble over the years, hasn't she? I hope the bargain you struck with Lis Benedict was worth it.”

“I struck no bargain with her.”

“Come on, Stameroff, we both know there was a cover-up and that you were smack in the middle of it. Why don't you admit it—at least to me?”

“Miss McCone, at the time of the Benedict trial, I was a very small cog in the wheel of justice. If Mrs. Benedict bargained, it was with someone far more important than I.”

“Just following orders, were you? Was adopting Judy one of them?”

Wearily he shook his head. “You don't understand at all, do you? I genuinely cared for the little girl. She was alone in the world—or soon to be—and needed me in a way no one had before. It may surprise you, Miss McCone, but even a man of whom you think so little is capable of loving. Judy is going to be badly hurt in the next few days, and I have no choice but to defend myself.”