Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (6 page)

“Exactly why did he give you up for adoption?”

“He knew he couldn't take care of a child. By the time Lis was sentenced to die, Vincent Benedict could barely take care of himself.”

I glanced at Rae again. Her eyes met mine and she quickly looked away. Then she got up and began clearing the table.

This was not going as I'd hoped. I turned back to Judy. “What about finding Cordy's ring?”

“Now,
that
I remember.” She drew in her breath and looked at Jack, who put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You know how there are certain milestones in your life?” she asked. “‘This happened before, this happened after?' Well, that night is mine. After the trial I used to daydream a new ending, where I didn't go up to the attic and come down with the ring. Even when I was old enough to know daydreaming doesn't change anything, I held on to that fantasy.” She paused, added in a softer voice, “I still do.”

The thought of living with so much guilt was something I could scarcely comprehend, “Tell me about that night.”

She shifted uneasily, candlelight from the tapers on the table reflecting unsteadily in her round lenses. “We'd moved away from Seacliff,” she began. “Nobody wanted to live there after . . .what happened, especially Vincent my father. He found us a house on Lake Street, not far away. I remember not liking it much. At the mansion, I'd had the run of the grounds, and I loved my attic room; it was like an eagle's aerie from where I could spy on the world unobserved. Anyway, they'd sent me to theater camp down the Peninsula that summer—this was early in July—and I needed a costume for the next week's production. Nobody would help me get one together. Dr. Eyestone and his wife were there, and the Sheridans, and they were all having cocktails.”

I recalled one of the names from the transcript. “Russell Eyestone was the director of the think tank, right?”

“Yes.”

“Is he still living?”

“He died about two years ago. His son, Leonard, runs the institute now.”

“And the Sheridans—who were they?”

“He was on staff, a physicist, I believe. I don't know what happened to them; they moved back east after the trial.”

“What about the Institute? Is it still located at Seacliff?”

“No. As soon as Russell Eyestone died, Leonard began building a new physical plant on the Embacadero. The old one, he said in a newspaper interview, was outmoded. The new building's very modern, very plush. I hear the Seacliff property, what hasn't already been sold off, is on the market.”

“Okay, you were saying that your parents were having cocktails with the Eyestones and Sheridans at your house on Lake Street. . .”

“It was more of a conference than a party. There had been a lot of those: very tense, very worried conversation about what affect the murder would have on the future of the Institute. And they were always accompanied by plenty of booze. No one was paying any attention to me.” She paused, seemed to be replaying the memory.

When she didn't go on, Jack prompted her. “You needed a costume.”

“Yes, a costume. Earlier that week I'd seen my mother take a box of clothes to the attic—things that were out of style but too good to throw away. I went up there and rooted through it and came up with the ring.”

“Where?” I asked.

“In what part of the box, you mean? I don't recall.”

Judy's transcript testimony had said that the ring was in the pocket of a blue brocade dress. “You're sure you don't remember?”

“As I said, there are a lot of gaps in my memory.”

“Did you recognize the ring as Cordy's?” I asked. “For that matter, did you know Cordy?”

“Everybody at the Institute knew her. Her parents were good friends of the Eyestones, and she came by to see them frequently. Too frequently, if you ask me.

“Why?”

“Well, it's not natural for a twenty-one-year-old to be that interested in her parents' friends. Even I suspected what she was really after.” Judy's lips tightened. Her dislike of the young woman lived, even though Cordy was decades dead. “I suppose I also suspected who had given her the ring. When it appeared on her finger a few weeks before the murder, it fascinated me. Fascinated my mother, too, judging from the way she looked at it.”

Another reason to disbelieve Lis Benedict's claim of innocence. “Okay, you found the ring in the box . . .”

She nodded, staring at the flickering candle flames. “I took it downstairs to show my parents. I knew Cordy had been killed, although I wasn't too clear on the details, and I realized the ring shouldn't be in our attic. When Mama saw it . . . I'll never forget her face.”

“Describe her reaction.”

“Shocked at first. Then she got really quiet, scared. Daddy made me take him upstairs and show him where I'd found the ring. When we came back down, Mama had shut herself in the kitchen, and . . . everybody else was whispering, looking funny.”

Judy's voice had risen to a childish pitch. The second time she called Lis “Mama,” I glanced at Jack. He'd notice the change, too: frown lines were etched between his brows. His eyes met mine, clearly uneasy.

Judy, he'd once told me, had a tendency toward the melodramatic—not surprising, given that she'd been an actress. But this abrupt shift felt a bit eerie.

“What happened then?” I asked, aware my own voice was unusually hushed.

“Daddy was . . . He went into the kitchen and started shouting at Mama. I don't remember what he said. Mama shouted back. And then he hit her. She screamed. He kept hitting her and she kept screaming until Dr. Eyestone and Dr. Sheridan went out there and made him stop. And then the police came.”

“Who called them?”

Her face grew very still; she seemed to be momentarily mesmerized by the candle flames. She drew a shuddering breath.

Jack put his hand on hers shoulder. “Judy?”

She shrugged his hand off. “My God,” she said, “
I
did. I called the police!”

“Why?” I asked. “To protect your mother?”

She shook her head, clearly confused. “I guess so, but I'd never done that before when my father beat her.

“Did that happen often?”

“When he drank. And he drank often.”

Jack said, “You never told me any of that.”

She pursed her lips in irritation. He noticed, drew back. I'd seen them behave this way a couple of times: she'd project emotional neediness; he'd become solicitous; then she'd seem to reach a saturation point and turn on him in annoyance, and he'd withdraw.

Into the awkward silence, I said, “Had the drinking and physical abuse been going on long?”

Judy didn't reply immediately; she seemed to be trying to get her temper under control. “For as long as I can remember. My parents were married in ‘forty-three, when he was still in graduate school. He'd never done anything but go to school, and I think he felt trapped in the marriage. And in his job; he was the junior staff member at the Institute, and people stuck him with routine work. Plus he was good-looking and could be charming when he had to, so they were always using him for P.R. purposes.” She paused. “I guess he felt trapped by me, too. He sure got rid of me in a hurry when Mama was arrested.”

She turned to Jack, lips curling down in a way that begged forgiveness for her earlier annoyance. “The reason I never mentioned the abuse to you is that I only remembered it recently. And I only remembered about calling the police right now.” She glanced at me. “Lately that's been happening a lot. Lis will say something, or I'll see something that reminds me of my childhood, and—bingo!—I'm right back in the past, and it's all so clear.”

I asked, “What else have you remembered?”

“Nothing like this. Just the way a place looked or something a person said. I don't know why it happens—or why it happened just now.”

I looked at the candle flames, where she'd been staring as she spoke of that long-ago night. They flickered in a draft, colors shading from gold at their tips, through red and purple, to cobalt at their bases. “You were talking about Cordy's ring. Maybe the amethyst in the flames triggered the memory.”

“Maybe. But why so many years later?”

“Lis is back in your life.”

“She's been in my life sine I turned twenty-one and got in touch with her in prison.”

“But not on a day-to-day basis. Not living under the same roof.”

“I guess that's why.” He face fell into weary lines. She reached for Jack's hand, entwined her fingers with his. He squeezed them comfortingly; the pattern was entering another cycle.

After a bit she said, “My God, what else do you suppose I'm going to remember? What
else
did I do to my mother?”

“You didn't
do
anything,” he told her. “You were a child, not responsible.”

I glanced at Rae, who was standing behind Judy's chair, arms folded across her breasts. She wore the expression she gets when she wants to clear the air about something, but all she said was, “I think we could use an after-dinner drink.”

Jack demurred, but the rest of us opted for sherry. When Rae had served it and sat back down, I asked Judy, “Do you recall how you felt about having to testify against your mother?”

“Oddly enough, I wanted to—one more thing to feel guilty about. I was angry with her. Because she'd killed Cordy—or so I thought at the time—I'd lost everything.”

“What happened to you after she was arrested?”

“For about two weeks my father tried to hold things together. He hired a woman to come in and cook and be there when I got back from theater camp; he came home on time and didn't drink so much. But then on July twenty-sixth—I remember the exact date because it was the day after the
Andrea Doria
and the
Stockholm
collided and everybody was talking about it—he came home . . . well, really plastered. He drank at the kitchen table most of the night until he passed out. And the next afternoon he sent me to stay with the Eyestones. They kept me for a couple of weeks, and then I went to a foster home. And except for a few short visits, I never saw my father again. I lost everything.”

“What about your mother?” Rae asked. “Did you see her in jail?” Her voice held an edge of emotion; she herself had lost both parents at an early age and had been raised by a grandmother who made it plain she didn't really want her.

“A few times.”

I asked, “What was her reaction to you testifying?”

“She told me to do what I had to. To tell the truth and never regret it. Even at that time I thought that was strange. I knew if they convicted her, they would kill her.”

“Have you talked about that since?”

“All she'll say is that she didn't want to make it any harder on me than it already was. But doesn't that sound kind of flimsy?”

“Maybe not,” I said, thinking of my own mother. “Some parents can be very selfless where their children are concerned. Who did you first tell about the blood on your mother's clothing? And when?”

“Red stains, not blood. I don't remember.”

“And when did you first meet Joseph Stameroff?”

“In the foster home, about a week after I went there, months before the trial. He came to talk with me and brought me a teddy bear. I told him I was too old for stuffed animals, and he said nobody was too old for them, that sometimes you needed something to hug and tell you secrets to. He understood . . . a lot of things.”

“Lis claims he and his wife tried to turn you against her.”

Judy's lips compressed. After a moment she said, “There's a good deal Lis can't comprehend about my relationship with my parents . . . adoptive parents.”

Jack said gently, “But she has good reason to think he might have influenced you. He's pressured you to have nothing to do with her all along, ever since you first contacted her in prison. He made it clear that he didn't want her living in your house. And since he heard about the mock trial, he's virtually badgered you, trying to talk you out of it.”

She looked at him, face tense with anger. “How do you know about that?”

“About his feelings about the trial? I can infer it, from things you've let slip. And he called me at the office last week, attempting to apply pressure. He also phoned Lis today while you were out running errands—and it's not the first time.”

“He did? She told you that?”

Jack nodded.

Judy was silent for a moment. Finally she said, “Speaking of Lis, we ought to be getting back to her.”

Jack didn't seem surprised at the abrupt switch of subject. He merely checked his watch, said, “Jesus, it's after midnight,” and stood up. As Judy rose, he asked me, “Will I be hearing from you before Monday?”

“Possibly. Will you be available tomorrow?”

“All day. I'm prepping for a trial on Tuesday.”

“Then maybe I'll stop by.” I followed them to the door and watched them walk down my narrow, congested street to where Jack had wedged his van. Then I went back inside and joined Rae by the fire.

Immediately she said, “Don't ask me to take it on.”

“I ... How'd you know?”

“You've been trying to hook me since last night. ‘Rae, listen to this! Rae, this case would be such a challenge!'” Her imitation of my rather transparent efforts was unflatteringly accurate.

“Pretty obvious, wasn't I?”

“You should never try to manipulate people. You're just not very good at it.”

“And you really don't want to take this on?”

“Not unless you order me to. My caseload, as you well know, is heavy. I don't want to give our clients short shrift because of this . . . research project of Jack's.”

“You don't approve of it?”

“No, and probably not for the same reasons you don't, but that's my affair.” She poured us more sherry and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace. “What I don't understand is why you're considering it at all.”