Who'll Kill Agnes? (24 page)

“Uh, ma’am, this is a small town. Things get around.” He could sense Metson’s snickering smile. His gossip had been right on the money.

“The Tuckers, of course,” declared Audrey. “Bernie just couldn’t keep her mouth shut.”

“Well, I couldn’t say. Have you found out what Kevin’s going to do?”

“No, not yet. He seemed to just collapse after the reading of the will. He had been overwhelmed by his mother’s death but had seemed to be recovering. Then the magnitude of what his mother had done for him has just seemed to overcome him. However, Bernie says that we’re going to continue just as before so that’s why we decided not to disclose the contents of the will, that is, to save face, especially for poor Lester.”

And,
thought Donovan, for you, too
.
He noted the tone of bitterness in her voice.

“But,” she continued, “obviously the cat’s out of the bag. Does any of this have anything to do with Agnes’ death? I thought the inquiry was closed.”

“Yes, ma’am, it is. We’re just here as concerned citizens to see how you folks are dealing with your grief. Miz Agnes was a dearly beloved figure in this town.”

“Well, that’s kind of you,” she said dubiously.

“So you’re all going to stay on as before?” he asked rhetorically. “Well, I wouldn’t have thought that Kevin would put out his own father or his aunt. What about Miss Penelope?”

Aha, thought Audrey, so the focus might be shifting to Penny anyway. Audrey doubted very seriously that they were here just as concerned citizens.

“She’s staying on, too, as far as I know. Kevin’s a good kid and they’ve been close. She used to babysit for him when he was little. But Bernie getting her hands on my aunt’s-uh-things is another matter.” Damn! She just couldn’t resist a few digs at Bernie
.

Donovan, however, had his mind on something else and ignored the references to Bernie.

“Changing the subject a little bit,” he said, “there’s something about Miz Agnes that I don’t understand.”

“Oh?” Audrey contained a snicker. “What might that be?”

“The autopsy revealed she dyed her hair. She wasn’t a redhead but a brunette.”

Audrey let out an undignified snort. She found this unexpected disclosure hilarious, a reaction that startled both Donovan and Metson. “Oh yes, we both color, uh, colored our hair. My natural color is a medium brown and I have always felt that blonde was much more becoming to me. Agnes’ hair was much darker.”

“But she’s been a redhead for as long as I’ve known her. And if she’s not a redhead, then how did she and Lester produce a redheaded kid? Do you have redheaded ancestors?”

“Oh, Agnes would just die if she knew this was coming out.” She paused, realizing what a ridiculous, incongruous statement that was. “Well, you know what I mean,” she added apologetically.

“No, ma’am, I don’t. How do you explain Kevin?”

“Kevin was adopted.”

“What?” exploded both Donovan and Metson.

“Oh, it was kept very hush-hush. I don’t think Kevin knows to this day. In fact I was thinking about it the other night.”

“But nowadays people tell their kids.”

“Yes, but as parents both Agnes and Lester were crazy about their little boy. In their own way, I think they both forgot the adoption. Agnes began dying her hair as soon as red hair appeared on the baby’s head. She wanted him to look like her. I think both of them, maybe Agnes more than Les, actually began to believe that Kevin was their natural son. In fact, Agnes, as time went on, became more and more in complete denial of the adoption and the fact that she was a brunette.”

“Gawdamighty,” muttered Metson who was usually silent during Donovan’s interrogations.

“And to tell you the truth, officers, I hope Kevin never finds out the truth. I want him to think I’m really his blood-relative. That way maybe he’ll feel a sense of family responsibility and give me-uh-certain family valuables.”

“Well, what do you think now, Chief?” asked Metson as they drove away.

“I think Miss Audrey wants the family jewels.”

“Yeah, but what do you think about Miz Henley’s accidental death?”

“Damned if it don’t get weirder and weirder. Now, if this was a mystery novel or a movie or a TV show, the suspicion would now turn on Kevin. Adopted son. Fortune. All his.”

“But you don’t think so?”

“He didn’t know nothing about any of it. And this is real life anyway.”

“So?”

“Out of all this craziness that’s been revealed about Henley House, what’s the craziest of all?”

“Mark?”

“Damned right. What the hell’s he doing there?”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Kevin watched from the window of his second floor master suite as the two officers drove away. “Bernie, honey, go ask Mark if he knows what those two nitwit cops were doing here.”

Bernie flipped off the TV. “Sure thing, sweetie,” she replied, only too glad to have an excuse to join the cheerful Mark in the kitchen. Kevin’s mood swings were getting on her nerves.

Left alone with his thoughts, Kevin lay on his bed thinking of the recent events, not knowing what to make of them. So far his actions, while improvised hastily with unexpected results, had gone undetected. Presumably, he had committed the perfect crime and apparently had gotten away with it. Like his father, he found the presence of the police unnerving. Why won’t those jackass cops stay away, he asked himself.

His thoughts returned to the morning of the Garden Club visit. Before breakfast that day, he had gone upstairs to ask his mother for an advance on his monthly salary. He had never considered it as an allowance. He was too old for such a thing even though he had been receiving one since he was ten years old. To his amazement, he had found her lost in rapture sitting beside a floor safe which he had not known was there. She was fondling an emerald necklace! Unfortunately the door had creaked and he retreated quickly, realizing that he had seen something he was not meant to see. Perplexed by this discovery, he returned to her rooms while she was eating breakfast and easily picked her door lock. He lifted the rug from the safe and was surprised to find it unlocked.

The enormity of the jewelry collection had stunned him. But as he rifled through her papers, the ones that caught his eye were her will, which left almost everything to him, and the adoption papers. The ramifications of what he had discovered confounded him as he quickly returned everything to the safe and left his mother’s suite. Angered at having been deceived about his birth, yet amazed at the enormity of his mother’s wealth, which one day would be his, he staggered back to his room. Unbelievably, his mother had disinherited her husband and sister for an adopted child.

His feelings for his mother began to change. He had always been fond of her, ignoring her eccentricities and the patronizing control she had exerted over his life and the lives of the other members of Henley House. He had simply accepted his position as the way life was meant to be for the son of a prominent family. But he had never considered or realized the extent of the family fortune. Agnes kept him and his father on shoestrings, expecting them, along with Audrey and Penny, to kowtow to her every beck and call. He had always been able to charm his mother into giving him more than his allotted salary but now he realized that she could have afforded much, much more.

And why the deception regarding the adoption? Were his real parents someone to be ashamed of?
Rage began to envelop him as he realized he was not truly descended from Magnolia Creek’s illustrious Briars. Why had Lester played along? Strangely, his feelings for Lester didn’t change. He had been a good father and, Kevin assumed, had obeyed Agnes’ every whim for the benefit of his son. Kevin smiled as he remembered his conversation with Lester that afternoon when the two of them had returned from town. Lester had been rather morose as if he knew that either he or Agnes were going to die and had tried to reassure him.

“And I had told him not to worry because I knew I was set for life, a fact that I had learned that morning.”

Ironically, it had been Agnes and her Garden Club that had set the stage for her demise, although her death had not been on his mind that morning, far from it in fact. He had nervously joined Mark in the garden trying to gain self-control and appear normal, temporarily disregarding what he had just learned from his mother’s papers. Soon Agnes and her entourage appeared providing entertainment for himself and Mark and also for Audrey and Bernie who were hiding in the bushes. What a scene, he exclaimed to himself.

However, it was the next day when Agnes herself had inadvertently egged on her own death.

He remembered the scene vividly as he replayed it in his mind.

“
Hi, Mom, what are you doing? Are we the only ones here for lunch?”

“
Oh, darling, I didn’t know you were still here. I thought everyone had gone to town.”

“
Naw, Bernie went with Audrey and I just stayed in the room, watching a tennis match on ESPN. Say, aren’t ya going to eat some of this stuff that Mark set out?”

“
No, darling, I’m fixing to go out to the garden and get some salad greens. But, son, there’s something that I want to discuss with you.”

“
Yeah, what’s that?”

“
Bernadette.”

He had bristled as he always did whenever his mother mentioned his wife’s name. Marrying Bernie had been his only act of independence in his twenty-five years. Motherly love had not been able to compete with a young man’s lust and desire. Living all his life in the protected cocoon of Henley House and dating only girls his mother approved of, he was unprepared for the feelings aroused by Bernie when he met her for the first time at The Cracked Cup. Mark Robeson, a casual acquaintance, had invited him over for a hamburger and had introduced him to Bernie. She had teased and taunted him and he had pursued her vigorously. He had never met anyone like her. His previous admirers had thrown themselves at him but not Bernie. He kept their dates secret from his mother and, when Bernie accepted his marriage proposal, he had insisted that the marriage take place immediately. He knew how his mother would react to such a socially unacceptable girl like Bernie so they eloped and Agnes had had to accept the situation. Bernie was now his wife and therefore deserved her place at Henley House. He had ignored his mother’s taunting of Bernie mainly because Bernie herself had taken it in stride. Bernie was one in a million. Only she could have held her own with a mother-in-law like his mama.

“
So what about her?”
he had asked his mother

“
Kevin, darling, surely now you realize that she can never be a true Henley. Her behavior is unbearable.”

Since it was Lester who had brought the Henley name to Briar House and he had come from a not-so-well-to-do family in Connor’s Corner, Kevin thought Bernie had become a perfect Henley. Maybe Agnes thought she had remade Lester in her own image but no one else had been fooled.

“
She’s a Henley now, Mom.”

“
No, Kevin, it’s high time this charade ended. Divorce her now. Get rid of her and don’t give her a penny.”

“
What? No, Mom, no! I can’t do that.”

“
Now, darling, don’t get upset. You think about it and we’ll work out a way to end this-this marriage without you having to give the little tramp the time of day. And, darling, if you don’t do something soon, I will.”
She had smiled a sickenly sweet smile, which had irritated him no end.

At that moment he had snapped yet outwardly he maintained his composure. He suddenly had an idea of how he could put a stop to her malicious scheming, a temporary measure that might give him more time to figure out how he could preserve his marriage and keep his mother at bay.

As amiable as ever, he addressed her,
“Hey, Mom, you don’t have to go out to the garden. I’ll get salad stuff for both of us and fix our salads. You just sit down there and relax.”

“
Oh, how precious of you, darling,”
she said, apparently mollified that her dear sweet son would follow her advice and divorce his wife.

It had been so easy, too easy. He had gone to the garden, enraged, and picked the poisonous greens as well as some lettuce, radishes, and tomatoes. Returning to the kitchen he washed and chopped the veggies, filling his mother’s bowl not only with the good vegetables but also with the poisonous ones. For himself, of course, he had fixed a completely edible salad. He placed his mother’s salad in front of her and sat next to her. His mother chattered as she ate continuing her diatribe against Bernie. As he watched her eat, any remorse at what he was doing vanished. He didn’t know how poisonous the plant was but assumed it would make her sick enough to put her in bed for a few days, enough time to plan how to keep Bernie in the house or to get money from his mother so he and Bernie could find a nice place of their own. After all, his mother could afford it. He thought his dad might help him but Lester had never shown much backbone in dealing with Agnes.

Suddenly his mother became very still, her eyes glazed with terror. He had put down his fork and stared back at her.

“
So, Mom, how do you like the salad?”
he had whispered.
“To tell the truth, I’m not very hungry. I think I’ll go to town. Enjoy your meal.”

Her eyes had widened in even more horror but she didn’t say anything nor did she move. He thought that was rather strange but kept up his charade as if nothing was wrong. Another plan was beginning to form in his mind. While she was sick in bed, he would have Bernie wait on her hand and foot so she could see what a wonderful daughter-in-law she was. He had asked his mother if she would like to finish his salad, too, and without waiting for her to answer or nod, he had poured his salad into hers, lifting her hand to do so, dropping it back as he finished. He had washed his bowl and fork and left, waving good-naturedly to his mother as if nothing unusual had happened.

Next, he had gone downtown to the deli to eat just before, as luck would have it, Mark walked in providing him with an alibi, more or less. That fool Donovan had never pinpointed him on the exact time that he had arrived at the deli. The place had been crowded, he had been seen, and the witnesses that he had mentioned to Donovan had given approximately the same time frame. Yes, he had committed the perfect crime, which in reality had been an accident! He assured himself that he had never meant to kill his mother. He had been shocked to the depth of his being to learn that she had died and that it was his salad making that had killed her. But somehow it had all worked out for the best. Life did seem much more pleasant without his mother around, especially now that he was the one in command.