Then Hang All the Liars (24 page)

“Did you try to explain this to Margaret?”

“
Explain?
I couldn't explain anything. She'd already gone by the time I got there. Felicity was a lunatic. It took me days to get the story out of her. And Margaret wouldn't return my calls.”

“But I don't understand. Now Margaret seems to be—you were at her party. Both of you. And Laura, her daughter—Jesus, Felicity's granddaughter—comes to Felicity for coaching.”

“Yes.” Emily smiled. “There was that horrible day, and then a silence, and then—poof! It was as if it'd never happened. Margaret still wouldn't talk with me, but suddenly one afternoon Felicity—who, of course, jammed that ugly incident away in a corner—said that Margaret had called and invited her to a dinner party. Had someone she wanted Felicity to meet. An old friend.”

She gave Sam the nod, and Sam cocked a finger like a gun and named the name.

“Randolph Percy.”

Seventeen

Sam was driving over to Sweet Auburn to the Players to find Margaret Landry. She wanted to talk with her. Now.

It was no coincidence that Margaret had introduced Randolph Percy to Felicity. She knew he was trouble. More than trouble. Percy was a weapon if pointed in the right direction. She'd wager Margaret had done more than that. She'd oiled and loaded him and slipped his safety.

The light changed and a horn behind her honked. She sped along DeKalb Avenue, a utility street, graceless, commercial, running beside the railroad tracks from Decatur into Atlanta, the same path that had transported Confederate soldiers in a vain attempt to save the city from the Yankees.

Okay. Margaret, angry as shit, fueled by gin, or maybe vodka, riding on the selfsame roller coaster of mania and depression as Felicity, introduces Percy to her mother. Then sits back and waits for him to kill her.

But he doesn't. He falls in love with Felicity—truly. And refuses to do her in.

Bullshit. He doesn't need to kill her because she gives him what he wants for the present, and maybe she's going to give him the rest in her will.

Fine. So what happened? How come Felicity's still doing fine and Percy's dead?

Felicity caught on and killed him first.

Or—Emily, who knew the whole story from the beginning, cut Margaret and Percy off at the pass.

Did
Percy know what Margaret was up to?

Did it matter?

What else? Who else?

Ah, the lovely Laura.

And what was her role in this scenario?

Her mother told her about Felicity and Emily—the two high and mighty Miss Annes, denying her her birthright—not to mention a goodly fortune.

Laura helps her mother cook up the scheme for revenge. Whatever it is. But something goes wrong, and that's why Laura's at the Edwardses' house.

But Emily corroborated that Laura was there for a coaching session.

Well, of course, she had an alibi.

Sam ran that incident back through her mind. Laura at the door in her tennis whites. Laura awfully curious about what's going on with Felicity, trying to get past her to hear Felicity and Emily's conversation. But she did get past her.

Sam let her go by herself back into the kitchen for a drink of water. And behind the kitchen was the pantry.

Of course!

Laura ransacked the pantry.

But that didn't fly. Laura came over on Wednesday afternoon. It wasn't until Friday, yesterday, that she and Emily had found the pantry pillaged.

Laura could have sneaked back later. Or Margaret, for that matter. Percy sure as hell hadn't. He'd been dead for two days.

Sam started. It was the damned cellular phone in her car. She'd never get used to it.

“It's Beau. Want to hear the latest on Percy?”

“Speak to me of the devil.”

“Well, you know I told you that Mrs. Percy and the sister were camped out in my lobby?”

“Uh-huh.” She was downtown now. She had to pay attention to traffic.

“So, when I released the body—they were ever so grateful—I went down personally, and Mrs. Percy started telling me how she'd urged Randolph—
Randy
,
she called him—to go to the doctor. He'd been sick for a couple of days.”

“How'd she know?”

“Seems as though he'd called her in Savannah. Momma's boy, I guess.”

“Damn it! I knew that!”

“She told you?”

“She did. I wasn't paying attention because I didn't care about his health then. I was worried about Felicity's. She said he'd been feeling poorly.”

“Well, she elaborated on it for me, and then I called the Claridge and got some corroboration from a steward there.”

“And?”

“It sounds like flu. But flu didn't kill him, didn't develop into pneumonia like it does with a bedridden elderly person. Percy was in the pink of health, especially for his age.”

“So?”

“This is what I've got. He complained to his mother that he felt dizzy. Sick to his stomach. He'd vomited a couple of times.”

“But there was no vomitus with the corpse.”

“Right. The vomiting was earlier. The steward said that on Tuesday night, Percy was complaining that his neck ached, felt weak. He was having some difficulty turning his head and more than a little trouble breathing. The steward tried to get him to go to a hospital, but Percy insisted it was only a flu bug and that he'd feel better.”

“And he died the next day.”

“Or sometime that night. Somewhere in that range.”

“You think you know what it is, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“So tell me, for Christ's sakes!” She veered into the left lane, narrowly missing a honking truck.

“Wait till I finish screening for it.”

“Why?”

“I want to be sure. And trust me, Sammy. It's what I think it is, his death was accidental. Nobody ever murders anybody this way.”

“People murder people every which way! And I'm inches away from who killed him. Beau, you can be such a Pollyanna!”

There was nothing but static for a minute. Then he said, “You know, Sammy, I put up with a lot of crap from you. But I think I've had about enough for this week. Why don't you go find yourself another M.E. to bother with your bullshit suspicions?”

Splat, slam, crackle. And then there was a dial tone.

Fuck him. She was way ahead of him on this anyway. Him and his super lab. Percy died accidentally? Horse shit. She could handle this like she handled everything else. By herself, thank you.

Eighteen

Margaret Landry sat by herself in her kitchen. Drinking.

She'd been at it for a couple of days now, lining up miniatures in a row like toy soldiers, then mowing them down.

The sweet ones were her favorite, peach schnapps in particular. It was cool and frisky at first, then warm and smooth in her tummy. Peachtree schnapps, actually, according to the label. How aptly named; her poison.

The thought made her smile.

The small bottles were best because she could hide them from Laura.

Oh, Laura knew she'd been drinking. She fussed at Margaret about it until she was red in the face—as if she were the mommy. But Laura couldn't stop her.

Not with these babies. She couldn't find the little bottles. Not in this apartment.

Margaret laughed at the idea.

Ho-ho-ho: her Santa Claus laugh.

She had played Santa Claus once at Macy's in New York when she'd been—what else was new?—in between shows and needed the cash. Laura was a toddler then—afraid of Mommy's white beard and mustache.

Laura would never find the cute little bottles in this jumble. Even in the kitchen, the shelves were piled high with scripts shoved in between her cookbooks, bowls, and Mason jars.

The rest of the apartment was a warren, passageways carved in among clothes racks jammed with costumes from the past ten, fifteen years.

Laura was always after her to get rid of them. Momma, why don't we clean this mess up? she would ask.

This was no mess. This was Margaret's life: slipping in and out of characters' skins, changing a bathrobe for a ballgown. That's what her life was all about.

Margaret twisted the top off another little bottle and held it up to the light. Inside the brown glass the liquid had no color. It could have been lots of things. Rubbing alcohol. Water. Cleaning compound. Peroxide—bleach your insides white as snow. You wouldn't know what it was until you put your tongue to it. Close your eyes. It was sweet—just like Margaret.

Don't kid a kidder.

Don't shit a shitter.

Sweetheart.

That's what Papa had called her:
my little sweetheart.

But he'd been wrong, shitting her all that time. He and Big Ma, too. Didn't they know she'd catch on? Did they think that photograph of a high yellow woman they ran by her,
your poor momma,
tricked her for one minute?

Even as a child, Margaret had been nobody's fool.

She knew her momma was a white woman. What she couldn't figure out was why.

Why would her daddy, as handsome a brown-faced man as ever lived—and she knew those pictures were him—why would he choose a milk-pale woman like
her
?

Because
she
tricked him. That's why.

Lured him into her, spider to the fly. And then she killed him.

Oh, she knew how it had happened, Margaret did. She'd seen it all live and in color in her own head. Just like an MGM movie in her own little theater, the one where she held private screenings. When she closed her eyes the picture came up and she'd seen that white woman seduce and abandon her daddy. And then abandon
her
,
poor, helpless child.

She'd seen it all, just like she'd seen Miss Felicity die.

Emily, too.

Both those bitches toying with her like she was a fool, some witless fluff, some piece of rag and bone they could bat around for a while, then leave to die.

And the instruments of revenge, she'd seen those too in the movie.

She raised both her hands—smooth, light coffee, lots of cream—then flipped them over to the still paler palms. She'd seen her own fortune in them, scaring herself.

The instruments had come to her as if out of the sky.

Randolph Percy. That tongue-flicking snake. She could
smell
the evil in him.

When she'd said, “I have someone you need to meet,” he hadn't even blinked. Thought he was so clever. Twinkling. Blue-eyed. But she'd wound him up and off he marched like a good little soldier.

She plucked another bottle now from the neat row. Twisted the top off. Sucked the sweet liquid.

Too bad he wasn't good enough.

Percy, Percy.
Tsk, tsk.

What was she going to do now?

Maybe the
other
instrument's still there. Not a human one, and therefore more reliable. Sitting quietly on the shelf. Festering. Just waiting for a white hand, spotted with liver, to pick it up so it can reach down inside and kill her.

Maybe.

But better safe than sorry.

She'd have to go back.

It wouldn't be hard. Those
ladies
feeling so safe and sound in their world, the one they own, bought and paid for with the sweat off other people's backs. They were so easy to fool.

Just have to make sure the instrument works. No need to juice it up. You know what I'm saying?

You hear me, woman?

Momma, you hear me calling?

Can't you see that I was there?

Don't you know me, sweet momma?

Why, I left my calling card.

Don't you hear me knocking—knocking at your heart?

*

In the theater below Margaret's apartment, Sam parted a black velvet curtain at the back of the aisle and stepped into darkness. The only light was trained upon the lady. She was winding toward her end. The familiar lines were coming.

Lady Macbeth's hands writhed before her. “Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One; two; why then 'tis time to do't. Hell is murky!”

Was that Margaret?

The power was there, but it didn't sound like her contralto.

“Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”

It was Laura. The understudy standing in for the lady at a Saturday matinee. Close to the end now. Sam had best get on with it if she wanted to see Margaret alone. That was probably the best way.