A Comedy of Heirs (19 page)

“Mr. McCarthy, the main reason we are here to see you is that Torie has made a discovery that we are a little perplexed about,” the sheriff said with complete authority.

“What's that?” Hubert said from his wheelchair.

“I found a photograph of you with my grandfather,” I said.

“So?” he asked.

“With your arms around each other. You two look like best friends,” I stated and waited for him to either deny or confirm.

Hubert McCarthy was quiet a moment. Roger looked at his father and then back to us and then back to his father. Roger seemed just as anxious to hear his father's reply as I was. Finally, Hubert clicked his dentures together and spoke.

“We were best friends,” he said. “I did not let that interfere with my investigation.”

“How could it not?” Sheriff Brooke asked. “Did John Robert Keith just stand back while you drilled each one of his children over and over? No father would have stood for that, and no investigating officer would have let up.”

“We were best friends and I repeat, it did not interfere with my investigation,” Hubert McCarthy said.

“I apologize if we sound like we're accusing you of something,” I said to him. “You must know how this came as a shock to us.”

“I understand,” Hubert said. “After you left the last time, I sent my son up to the attic to find my old files. I have the one on Nate Keith, if you want it.”

I was a little taken aback by his generosity in light of the fact we'd come here to accuse him of having a conflict of interest on this case. I wondered at his motive for this. Maybe he really wanted us to get to the bottom of it after all these years.

“We can take it and look at it,” the sheriff said. “We'll bring it back.”

Hubert McCarthy motioned to his son to go and get the file from some other room. The room was silent except for the music coming from the television set. Everybody in cartoon land was happy-go-lucky and singing a wonderfully cheery song. Roger came back in less than two minutes and before he could choose which one of us to give the file to, the sheriff held out his hand. Roger handed it to him and Sheriff Brooke nodded his head to him in acknowledgment.

“What did you think of Nate Keith?” I asked. Somehow I just didn't feel comfortable with the fact this man was my grandfather's best friend, and then the investigating officer of his best friend's father's murder. Maybe Hubert knew who killed Nate and just looked the other way. Maybe he'd just pretended to have not solved it all these years.

“Nobody liked Nate Keith, the good-for-nothing. My grandma used to say that sometimes evil came to the earth and walked around in the disguise of men. That was Nate. He beat his boys in the head with his fists until their ears bled. John was a musician. Last thing he needed damaged was his ears,” Hubert said. “Evil or not he was killed by evil and whoever did it should have been sent to jail.”

“How do you know it wasn't self-defense?” I said.

“Coulda been,” he said and shrugged. “Considered that a few times.”

“Well, Mr. McCarthy, we're going to go now. I know you should be in bed. I'll return your file to you as soon as we've read it. If you can think of anything, give us a call,” the sheriff said.

“You can keep the file. It's not state property. Was my own private files,” Hubert said. Then he turned his attention to me. “You been finding out about your family?”

“Yes,” I answered him. “After this, I think I may just stick to names on a chart and the heck with the ‘other pertinent information' section.”

“You talk to your father,” Hubert instructed.

I nodded to him and the sheriff and I left. He had driven the official car, by the way. As soon as we were in the car I asked to see the file.

“Let me look at it first,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“He might have pictures in it,” the sheriff said. “You don't want to see pictures of your great-grandfather lying there with his guts spilled on the front porch.”

“Thanks for sparing me,” I said, trying to erase the visual he'd just given me. Little did he know my imagination was far more vivid than any photograph I would see. It was a nice gesture, though.

“What do you think?” he asked me. We were all the way to Loughborough in nothing flat.

“About what?”

“About his statement. Do you really believe he could have been the investigating officer without the conflict of interest?”

“I think you'd be more likely to answer that than I would. What do you think?” I asked.

“I don't see how he could. If he really drilled them, and kept going back and going back, like a good detective would have … you know what that would have done to his friendship,” the sheriff said. “Because, if I were a father and was worried about one of my sons being carted off to jail because of killing an—”

“An evil man that deserved it,” I finished for him.

“I didn't say that.”

“That's what you were going to say. Are you telling me, Sheriff, that there is a type of murder that you wouldn't pursue?”

He rubbed his eyes and thought about it for a moment. “No,” he said. “What I'm saying is, if I were a father and it were one of my children … I don't know what I've would have done. Protect them, most likely. Especially if it was a self-defense. If it were just coldblooded murder, child or not, I'd turn him in.”

I stared at him for a moment. It took a lot for him to say that, because he was basically saying that there was a circumstance when he would break the law. And being a sheriff, that was saying a heck of a lot.

“It's obvious the man was a monster,” he said.

“Well, the thing I noticed,” I said, “was that Hubert never once said that he and my grandfather were still friends later, after the murder. He said over and over they
were
best friends. Maybe that's exactly what happened. Maybe he did do his job, and my grandfather told him to take a hike. In all my years at my grandparents' house when I was a child, I never heard Hubert McCarthy's name mentioned. I never saw his face. And I met a lot of the old-time friends of my grandparents. And I hung on every word the adults talked about. I don't think their friendship made it through the investigation.”

“Either that or…”

The sheriff hesitated a little too much. He wanted me to answer for him, but he was not my mother and I couldn't play those little mind games with him. “Or what?”

“You ever think maybe Hubert McCarthy killed Nate Keith?”

I was silent for a long while. A couple of blocks at least. We passed the Nationals grocery store on our right and then the sheriff got on to southbound Highway 55.

“Not really,” I said. “I had thought that maybe he knew who it was and just pretended to investigate the murder. But for him to actually be the killer. No, I never thought of that. What reason would he have had?”

“Who knows? Maybe he just happened to be out there that day and maybe Nate started in abusing John, your grandfather, and maybe Hubert just snapped,” the sheriff said. “Tired of seeing his best friend treated like that, and then realized he could cover it up by doing the preliminaries to an investigation and calling it unsolved.”

“Well, it's a nice thought,” I said.

“Why?” he asked me.

“Because he's like the first real suspect that isn't blood related to me. I think.” If Naomi was right, Bradley would have definitely been related.

“I understand,” the sheriff said. “You're really down.”

“Part of it is hormones,” I said. “But, yeah. I'm down. My uncle is dead, my father has lied to me, and my great-grandfather was either a monster or a murderer.”

The sheriff just looked at me oddly, because he didn't know what I knew about Bradley Ferguson. About all the things Naomi Cordieu had told me. “Can you check something else for me?” I asked. The sheriff didn't answer so I went on. “Check on Bradley Ferguson. He would have died in Africa on a safari around 1950. He's buried down in Pine Branch.”

“Why?” Sheriff Brooke said.

“Just check to see if there was an autopsy or anything out of the ordinary about his death. Supposedly the gun misfired. He was hunting lions.”

The sheriff nodded to me. I sighed heavily. I was miserable. There didn't seem a way to make me feel better. Well, there
was
one way.

Twenty-six

I knocked on the door to my father's two-bedroom flat in south St. Louis. I stood there with my knees knocking partly from the cold and partly from the fear of confronting the man who'd dished out the majority of my groundings and punishments as a child. They were just normal childhood punishments, but he ruled with an iron fist when I was younger and the thoughs of me confronting him over something this big … Well, I was suddenly ten years old standing on his porch.

I'd gone home and tucked the kids into bed and kissed my husband, who said something about missing me of late. He really is an angel, when you think of the things he puts up with. When I get involved in something, I throw myself into it. There doesn't have to be a murder for me to get lost in what I've just discovered. And he just rides the tide, making his own dinner or whatever, until I've satisfied myself with whatever it is.

After I apologized to him profusely, with lots of promises of staying home all week next week, I hopped in my car and drove back up here to the city.

My father answered the door and gave me a look of surprise which soon turned to satisfaction. He'd been expecting me. Maybe not tonight, but he'd been expecting me, eventually.

“Hi, Dad,” I said. “Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Come in.”

He motioned me into his flat and offered me a seat in the front room. The front room was the music room, with all of his instruments and recording equipment. Some of his old violins and stuff that he collected he had mounted on the wall, along with a big 11 × 14-inch photograph of my two daughters that I'd had made one year as his Christmas present. My mother got one, too.

The house was smoky—that was no surprise—and stuffy warm. He had the old radiator heat and there was no regulating it. Let's just say he was never cold in the winter. The coffee table was covered with coffee rings, and two ashtrays that were heaping full.

“Want something to drink?” he asked.

“Water is fine,” I said.

He went to get me a glass of water and I saw that he had his photo album out, and it was turned to a page with a few pictures of Uncle Jed on it. When he came back in, I noticed his eyes were a little puffy. He handed me the glass.

“I'm gonna bury a brother tomorrow,” he said.

“I know. It's awful and I feel so bad.”

“It sucks. That's all there is to it. How can you have the Keith clan without Jed?”

“Dad, can we change the subject?” I said. “I don't want to break down. The state I'm in I don't know if I could stop.”

“Sure,” he said and sat down on the couch. I sat down in a chair directly across the room from him.

Where to start? “Um, I hope you didn't hear it through the grapevine. I'm pregnant.”

“Oh, no kidding,” he said and smiled. “That's great, kid. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I said. There was no way I could bring up this subject without just stubbing my toe on it and saying it.

But he knew it. He knew why I was there. He was just waiting for me to say something. He picked up one of his acoustic guitars and started strumming some old Jerry Reed song.

“You sent me those newspaper articles. Why?”

He raised one eyebrow as if surprised that I finally had the guts to say what it was that was on my mind. “What makes you so sure?”

“The handwriting is a pretty good match, and the librarian that you asked to photocopy the stuff for you said a male between forty-five and fifty-five You're fifty-eight,” I said. “Why?”

“I thought you should know. Everybody should know.”

“Then why didn't you just tell everybody?”

The plucking of guitar strings abruptly stopped and he sat forward on his couch. He wore a gray work sweatshirt that made his skin look a little gray, too. His red hat was lying on the back of the couch. He looked tired and, I hate to say it, old. Not ancient. Just weathered.

“You don't understand,” he said.

“Who killed Nate Keith?” I asked him.

He said nothing.

“Look, you gave me this information for a reason. You either wanted me to pursue it and find out who it was quietly or you wanted me to bring everything to light for you. Now answer me.”

He still said nothing.

“I've talked to Sissy. She said you were in the barn. She also said that Della Ruth wouldn't let anybody out on the porch until Nate was dead. I've spoken to Hubert McCarthy,” I said. With that, both of my father's eyebrows went up. “And Naomi Cordieu. I've found more things out that I'm not real sure I wanted to know. Now answer me. Who killed Nate Keith?”

“I don't know,” he said finally.

I stood up abruptly and paced across his living room floor. “How can you not know?”

“I was in the barn getting Daisy ready to milk. I heard a commotion. Some yelling and stuff. I knew that Grandma and Grandpa were fighting. Jed was there. Then I heard the gunshot and I froze.” He seemed rather aloof about his whole retelling. Not terrorized like Aunt Sissy had been. I think it was because he'd pushed it away for so long that he'd forgotten it had really happened. “It took me a while but I finally managed to get my legs to walk over to the door and I saw Grandpa lying on the porch. I heard more commotion and footsteps, running.”

“You didn't go check on him?” I asked.

“No. I was afraid the killer was still there and I didn't want to be shot, too. And I was eight years old. I was too afraid to go to the porch. I didn't want to see what I knew I'd see,” he said.