Daughter of Deceit (25 page)

Payne sat in the waiting room with Scotty beside her. Legs stretched out before him, he was snoozing. Payne wore a puzzled expression. “Did you meet somebody named Maria in Mama’s room?” she asked Katharine.

“No, but I think we passed on my way out.”

“I wonder who she is. She showed up here a few minutes ago and insisted she had to see my mother. I told her I’d ask the nurse, thinking they’d say no, but the nurse said Mama wanted to see her.”

“Bara sounded delighted she had come.”

Payne shrugged. “Maybe she’s one of the maids Foley fired. Mama used to know the names of all their kids and husbands, and used to sit in the kitchen with them drinking coffee and talking all morning sometimes. It drove Foley crazy.”

“She seemed better today, I thought.”

“A little better. They were able to set her leg and her wrist. They don’t set ribs or collarbones. She’s still in pain, but she’s more coherent than she was.”

Their voices roused Scotty. He blinked and struggled to his feet in a half-awake show of manners. “Good to see you, Katharine. Good of you to come.”

He rubbed his florid face to get the sleep out of his eyes, then stuck out his hand. His palm was hot, damp, and revolting. “I must have been dozing. Seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Fell asleep on the couch last evening and almost missed my weekly poker game. Didn’t get there until nearly ten. Isn’t this some to-do?” He seemed oblivious that his booming voice might be disturbing other families. “Who could have done such a terrible thing to our Bara?”

Katharine had never liked Scotty, but she pitied him. What she pitied was his inability to live up to the illustrious Atlanta reputation his family had achieved in nearly two centuries. In another pond, among other frogs, Scotty might have been modestly successful at a number of things. In Buckhead he was the incompetent who had failed to live up to his family. What Katharine disliked was his façade of bonhomie and success that forced others to pretend along with him. She and Tom sometimes wondered how Scotty paid Buckhead taxes and kept up his membership in the Ansley Park Golf Club.

“Do the police have any more ideas who it could have been?” she asked Payne.

Scotty answered. “Not a clue. I don’t know what we pay them for. By now they should have had those fellas by the scruff of the neck.”

“What fellows?” Again Katharine addressed Payne, and again, Scotty answered.

“Those ruffians who broke in there, robbed the place, and did this to Bara.”

Katharine persisted in trying to talk to Payne. “Bara said they still think she shot Foley.”

“Fools!” The words burst from Scotty like a minor explosion. “They think he beat her and she shot him. I keep telling them she doesn’t know a thing about guns, but they say her prints were on it. Any fool who watches television knows you can put somebody’s prints on a gun and make it look like they shot it.”

Katharine wondered if it was really that simple. Wouldn’t it be hard to get somebody else’s hand to hold the gun in the right position without smudging the prints or getting your own on the gun as well?

“I don’t think they’re as sure about Mama as they were.” Payne seized the crack in her great-uncle’s tirade and slid softly into the conversation. “Not since they’ve learned about the missing silver and painting.”

“Including a tea set that has been in our family for two hundred years,” Scotty said in a blend of boast and chagrin. “Should have been mine. I was older than Nettie.” He didn’t actually say, “Then it wouldn’t have gotten stolen,” but the implication was clear.

“Grandmother Payne left it directly to Mama,” Payne told him sharply, “and told her to leave it to her oldest daughter. Besides, the tea service wasn’t the only thing stolen. They took several trays, a vase, a pitcher, a set of candelabra, the Monet from the hall, and the Louis Tiffany lamp by the window. Anything that was easy to grab in the dining room. They also knocked over a plant and shattered that crystal heron in the front hall.”

Scotty shoved one hand through his gray curls. “Murdoch is gonna kill me when she finds out about that tea set. She must have told me fifty times before she left town to call Bara and make her take it to the bank for safekeeping. It was the last thing she said as she climbed in the cab to the airport, and she even called from Boston last night—in the middle of the best hand I had all evening—to see if I’d talked to Bara.” He rubbed his face. “I meant to, I just hadn’t gotten around to it.” He gave a blunt, not-funny laugh. “All Murdoch was worried about was that Foley might get his hands on that tea service. She never imagined it would get stolen. She is flat-out gonna kill us all.”

Katharine felt there were more serious issues at stake than Murdoch’s wrath.

“Do the police actually know anything more than they did yesterday?” she asked.

Payne shook her head. “Not much. I told them they ought to check out the woman Foley was seeing, but I don’t know her name. Mama would never share something like that with me. Do you know who she was, Uncle Scotty?”

Scotty didn’t seem to have been listening. “Who?”

“The woman Foley was seeing. Do you know her name?”

“With a figure like that, who needs a name?” Then he caught the look Payne and Katharine exchanged and muttered, “Carmen or something like that. I don’t know her last name.”

“That reminds me,” Katharine told Payne. “Your mother had rented a storage shed for your grandfather’s things from his condo and office. You might ask her about it and go over to check it out, to make sure somebody didn’t steal the key and raid the unit, as well.”

“I will.” Payne blinked and suddenly looked very young. “There’s so much to deal with.”

“I know.” Katharine almost added, “If there’s anything I can do—” but for once she swallowed twenty years of training at her mother’s knee. It nearly choked her.

Scotty checked his watch. “I’d better be going.” He added, to Katharine, “Shall I walk you to your car? I just came to hang out with Payne and keep her company.”

Remembering how she had found him, Katharine had trouble keeping a straight face. When she caught Payne’s eye, Payne turned away and gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like a cover-up for a snort.

In the parking lot, Scotty stopped by a silver Mercedes convertible parked in a handicapped space.

Katharine gave him a swift, appraising look. “I didn’t realize you had a health problem.”

“I don’t. I got the tag for Eloise, but since she doesn’t need it any longer…” He let the sentence trail off, obviously expecting Katharine to concur that it would be a shame to let the tag go to waste.

She frowned at him. “I drove my mother and two aunts for years, and they badly needed those handicapped spaces.” When he didn’t reply, she added, “Be careful. If God sees you, you may wind up needing one.” To take the sting out, she added, “How
is
Eloise?”

He unlocked his door like a man who didn’t want to stick around if he wasn’t being admired. “About the same. Good days and bad days. Today is a bad day. I haven’t told her about Bara, so don’t tell her if you go over.”

Katharine had never visited Eloise Holcomb. She scarcely knew the woman. That made it real easy to promise, “I won’t say a word.”

Sunday

When Katharine and Hollis got to the mountain church on Sunday morning, they found not a small white-frame building out in the country with a cemetery beside it, but a large, corrugated-steel building with a brick front and a huge parking lot full of cars. The people heading toward the doors in a steady stream were dressed not in what Katharine thought of as Sunday clothes but in jeans and running shoes. The teens wore shorts. Neither men nor women wore jackets. Hoping the building would not be overly air conditioned, Katharine left hers in the car.

She saw Kenny before he saw them. Standing on the top step, he was more formally dressed than the other men, wearing a blue oxford-cloth shirt the same color as his eyes and khaki slacks with a sharp crease. He peered around the crowd with a look both nervous and hopeful. When he glimpsed them, his face lit for a second, then went completely rigid. Katharine wondered if she had imagined that lightning second of joy.

“I’m glad you could come,” he greeted them formally. “Granddaddy is saving us seats up front.” He was wearing a spicy aftershave. Katharine had no doubts about which of them he had dressed up for when his glance darted to Hollis before he said to her aunt, “You look real nice.”

Hollis did look prettier than usual. She had put on a pale yellow cotton top instead of her standard black, and wore simple hoops instead of the dangling earrings she usually favored.

The sanctuary was enormous, with a soaring ceiling, chairs instead of pews, and huge colorful banners in lieu of windows. It seethed with people greeting one another, hugging, kissing, and talking at a pitch that seemed likely to raise the roof. Kenny led them down to the third row from the front, where his grandfather, Lamar Franklin, had saved three seats by putting shiny black loafers on two and his wallet on the third. He stood in sock feet and stuck out a calloused hand. “Hey, Miz Murray. I’m real glad you all could come today.”

He sounded like they were old friends, although Katharine had only met him three times before: twice at the Atlanta History Center and once when he’d dropped a book by her house and stayed for cookies and tea with Katharine and a friend. He had been very helpful with two genealogy searches she had done, though, and she had discovered she liked the old coot.

He had spruced up for church. His gray ponytail lay in a freshly washed ringlet down his back, and not only had he worn the polished loafers instead of scuffed work boots, he had managed to clean all the roofing tar from the creases of his hands. As usual he wore black jeans and a black T-shirt, but Katharine supposed this was his Sunday shirt, for the message across his chest admonished,
A CLEAR CONSCIENCE IS USUALLY THE SIGN OF A POOR MEMORY.

He gave Hollis a penetrating look. “You must be Hollis. I’m Lamar Franklin, Kenny’s grandpa. You doing all right?” His voice was full of concern.

“I’m doing fine.” Hollis shot Kenny a look Katharine was glad she could not read. Kenny turned bright pink and bent to collect his grandfather’s possessions from the chair. Lamar slipped his feet into his loafers and motioned Katharine toward the chair on his right. “Let’s all sit down. They’re gonna be starting in a minute.” Sure enough, the melee was beginning to organize itself as people filed into rows and others climbed onto what looked like a stage.

Accustomed to a hushed sanctuary with a pulpit, a communion table, and a choir loft up front, Katharine was bewildered by several mikes, kitchen stools, a proliferation of power cords, and some initial confusion as ten musicians connected with six electric guitars, two keyboards, a basket of percussion instruments, and a drum set. A miked voice boomed over the crowd. “Welcome, y’all. Are you ready to worship God?” She had to look closely at the musicians to see that it was the man with the black electric guitar speaking.

“Yeah!” voices roared back.

He struck a chord, the drummer rattled the snares, and the whole crowd rushed to its feet. Katharine wondered why they had bothered to sit.

She found the music jarring—too loud and too repetitive, more like a pep rally than a worship service. Unable to think, much less worship, in all that noise, she considered the three women musicians and decided Kenny’s mother must be the tambourine player, the one with flowing brown hair, full breasts under a skin-tight red top, and a fixed look of ecstasy on her face. She didn’t look at all like Kenny, but the blond at one keyboard and the redhead on drums were far too young.

No wonder Kenny was embarrassed by her singing. She tended to bawl the words out with an abandon Katharine found embarrassing, too. She looked at Hollis to see how she was reacting, but Hollis had her eyes closed and was swaying with the music, apparently caught up in the celebration. Beyond her, Kenny had his head bowed and eyes closed, but he wasn’t singing.

Katharine endured.

After a while, Lamar Franklin leaned over to ask, “Would you like to sit down? My legs get tired about now.” He sank to his chair and she gratefully followed suit. She checked her watch. They had been standing for fifteen minutes. Nobody under forty seemed to mind.

He leaned close again. “Hang in there. It gets better in a minute. This is for the young folks.”

“I don’t think I was ever that young when I
was
that young,” Katharine told him. He grinned and nodded.

As he had promised, the worship leader gradually led the congregation from their boisterous beginning into softer, gentler songs. Now that she could hear the music, she learned that Lamar had a surprisingly sweet tenor. Kenny finally joined in, too, but he seemed on a dedicated journey to find the right note in the right key.

Again Lamar leaned close. “The kid can do a lot of things, but sing isn’t one of them. The best to be said is that he makes a joyful noise.”

When the music ended, Hollis dropped into the chair beside her with her face shining. Kenny gave her a quick, puzzled look, but seemed to like what he saw. When she glanced his way, though, he looked away.

The keyboard played softly and the congregation sat in prayerful silence while the musicians quietly removed everything except five mikes, four stools, and one keyboard from the stage. When they had finished, a man in a bright green shirt and tan slacks came to the central mike, and what Katharine thought of as God’s pep rally resumed.

With a broad smile, he raised both hands into the air and shouted, “We’ve had a great week of services, haven’t we?”

The crowd broke into applause.

“We’ve discovered that the Christian faith is not something you believe, it’s something you do!”

“Yeah!”

“It’s not something to ram down people’s throats. It’s got to be contagious or it’s nothing at all.”

“Yeah!”

His voice grew quieter. “We’ve learned that God blesses us not by giving us stuff, making us better or richer than other people, or taking away all our troubles. God blesses us by walking with us through the troubles of life, and uses the way we walk through those troubles to show other folks what this faith is all about. Is that right?”

“That’s right,” the congregation called back softly.

“Well, nothing lives and grows without being fed, so we’re gonna wrap up this week with a time of feeding our spirits. Sit back, close your eyes, and let God speak to you through Mama and the Aunts!”

Katharine and Hollis stared at each other in delight. But then Katharine noticed Kenny. He sat hunched in his seat, looking at the floor and rubbing his palms together as if he were trying to light a fire.

As the room burst into applause, Hollis hissed fiercely, “Your mother is one of
them
?”

He nodded as if confessing to a crime.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

Kenny shrugged.

“You said they were ‘just okay.’”

He hunched deeper, as pink as a baby’s bottom. “I didn’t know what else to say.”

Lamar leaned over and told Hollis, “It embarrasses him to death when his mama sings in public. He’s always been that way.”

Katharine studied the five women coming onstage. Two carried guitars, one a mandolin. One seated herself behind a plucked dulcimer and another took her place at the keyboard. They all had masses of blond curls and wore denim outfits with cowgirl boots. They were gorgeous and obviously professional.

Katharine leaned over and whispered, “None of them looks old enough to be your mother.” She meant it for a compliment, but Kenny looked even more miserable.

Then the dulcimer struck the first simple chord and she forgot Kenny.

The women made the music seem effortless, yet the harmonies were intricate and the arrangements complicated. For the next hour Katharine gave herself up to what was not only one of the most professional musical performances she’d ever attended, but one of the deepest worship experiences. At the end, she felt as refreshed as if she’d stood under a cool waterfall on a hot summer day.

When the music ended and the preacher climbed back on the stage, Lamar said, “I’m gonna duck out. I need to get things ready up home.”

“Do you want any help?”

“No, the fellas have been cooking while we were here. They’ve probably got most of it under control. See you in a little while.” He stood and worked his way down the aisle, shaking hands and accepting hugs all the way.

“You’d better follow me,” Kenny said after the service. “It’s kinda hard to tell folks how to get there.” He had avoided discussing his mother and her sisters after the service, replying to their questions with, “We can talk about that later. We ought to be getting up to Granddaddy’s now, ahead of the crowd.”

As Katharine followed his Mustang, she saw why he wanted to lead them in. They wound their way onto progressively smaller roads and eventually turned onto a gravel road marked only by six mailboxes perched on one long board. That road wandered up a mountain around several hairpin bends. Not a single house was visible in the hardwood forest on each side.

At the top of the ridge she had to slow to a creep, because she could not see where the road went after the crest of the hill. It could end in a sheer drop, for all she could tell.

“He could be taking us back in these hills to murder us,” Hollis warned.

Katharine braked to descend the mountain. “I hope there’s a place to turn around at the end. There’s no way I’m backing out.” Fortunately, Kenny had slowed ahead to wait for her.

Around the next bend, Hollis gasped in surprise. Katharine took her eyes off the road now and then to look down into a small horseshoe cove with a stream running through it and what looked like a sampling of houses from a builders’ convention scattered along the stream. One was large and brick, the kind you saw on expensive lots in any American suburb—except this one had enough acreage around it to make it look grand rather than cramped. One was white and square like a cotton plantation home, with fat columns holding up the porch roof in front. A third was contemporary, lots of glass and a cantilevered deck overlooking the hills. One was a sprawling white farmhouse with wide porches and a red barn behind it. In a pasture at the back, three sleek horses grazed. The fifth house was built of Georgia granite but resembled a Tuscan villa, complete with grapevines rising on terraced land above it and a small orchard of young apple trees to one side.

At the head of the cove stood a small weathered farmhouse that had never seen a coat of paint. A waterfall fell from a cliff at its back and made a rainbow over its rusty tin roof. Two chimneys peeked through trees that towered over the house and shaded its broad front porch. Rockers filled the porch. Long tables covered in white marched across the front lawn and a cloud of smoke rose from the side yard. Katharine rolled down her window. They could smell roasting meat over the scent of dust from the road. She had the feeling she’d like to pull up one of those rockers and stay forever.

“I don’t see an ordinary brick house on a street in town,” she told Hollis.

Hollis didn’t say a word. She wore the balky look of somebody who knew she ought to apologize but was determined to resist as long as possible.

Katharine rubbed salt in the wound. “Those look like pretty nice horses, too.”

“Don’t you say a word about what I said,” Hollis warned.

“I won’t if you’ll treat Kenny nice, just for today.”

“Just for today.” Hollis looked away, but Katharine was certain she had seen a smile.

Kenny pulled into the circular drive in front of the Tara look-alike. Two red-and-white spaniels bounded out to meet the car. Three cats sunned on the front steps. Kenny bent to stroke the cats and fondle the dogs’ ears before he addressed Katharine.

“Mama said to bring you to her house in case you’d like to freshen up. Granddaddy’s facilities are a bit primitive.” He still seemed embarrassed as he led the way to the porch and into a large front hall. “You can use the front bedroom and bathroom upstairs, if you’d like.”

Hollis took one look at the rug in the vast front hall and turned deep rose. It was an Aubusson at least as old as the one on Katharine’s dining-room floor.

The entire house was furnished in antiques. Hollis lightly fingered a tapestry hanging in the stairwell, and in the upstairs bedroom she looked in awe at the canopy over the mahogany bed. “That has to be two hundred years old! Isn’t it fantastic?”

It was, but Katharine agreed with Kenny’s remark the first evening he’d come to her house: The house was more like a museum than a home. Where did the family kick off their shoes and relax?

When she and Hollis went back downstairs, they found Kenny sitting on the porch steps holding a knotted cloth while one of the dogs playfully tried to take it away. “Grrr!” Kenny growled. “Grrr!”

“You make a good dog,” Hollis informed him.

He grinned. “I ought to. I grew up with dogs instead of children—except for Wanda, and she didn’t count.”

Katharine indicated the other houses. “Are these all your relatives?”

“Yep. Vik and Janie have the rock house—he grows grapes and hopes to grow apples one of these days.”