Murder at Monticello (13 page)

27

The quiet at Eagle's Rest proved unnerving. Ansley regretted saying how much she loathed the loud music the boys played. Although cacophonous, it was preferable to silence.

Seven in the evening usually meant each son was in his room studying. How Breton and Stuart could study with that wall of reverberating sound fascinated her. They used to compete in decibel levels with the various bands. Finally she settled that by declaring that during the first hour of study time, from six to seven, Stuart could play his music. Breton's choice won out between seven and eight.

Both she and Warren policed what they called study hall. Breton and Stuart made good grades, but Ansley felt they needed to know how important their schoolwork was to their parents, hence the policing. She told them frequently, “We have our jobs to do, you have your schoolwork.”

Unable, at last, to bear the silence, Ansley climbed the curving stairway to the upstairs hall. She peeked in Breton's room. She walked down to Stuart's. Her older son sat at his desk. Breton, cross-legged, perched on Stuart's bed. Breton's eyes were red. Ansley knew not to call attention to that.

“Hey, guys.”

“Hi, Mom.” They replied in unison.

“What's up?”

“Nothing.” Again in unison.

“Oh.” She paused. “Kind of funny not to have Big Daddy yelling about your music, huh?”

“Yeah,” Stuart agreed.

“He's never coming back.” Breton had a catch in his breath. “I can't believe he's never coming back. At first it was like he was on vacation, you know?”

“I know,” Ansley commiserated.

Stuart sat upright, a change from his normal slouch. “Remember the times we used to recite our heritage?” He imitated his grandfather's voice. “The first Randolph to set foot in the New World was a crony of Sir Walter Raleigh's. He returned to the old country. His son, emboldened by stories of the New World, came over in 1632, and thus our line began on this side of the Atlantic. He brought his bride, Jemima Hessletine. Their firstborn, Nancy Randolph, died that winter of 1634, aged six months. The second born, Raleigh Randolph, survived. We descend from this son.”

Ansley, amazed, gasped. “Word for word.”

“Mom, we heard it, seems like every day.” Stuart half smiled.

“Yeah. Wish I could hear him again and—and I hate all that genealogy stuff.” Breton's eyes welled up again. “Who cares?”

Ansley sat next to Breton, putting her arm around his shoulders. He seemed bigger the last time she hugged him. “Honey, when you get older, you'll appreciate these things.”

“Why is it so important to everyone?” Breton asked innocently.

“To be wellborn is an advantage in this life. It opens many doors. Life's hard enough as it is, Breton, so be thankful for the blessing.”

“Go to Montana,” Stuart advised. “No one cares there. Probably why Big Daddy never liked the West. He couldn't lord it over everybody.”

Ansley sighed. “Wesley liked to be the biggest frog in the pond.”

“Mom, do you care about that bloodline stuff?” Breton turned to face his mother.

“Let's just say I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

They digested this, then Breton asked another question. “Mom, is it always like this when someone dies?”

“When it's someone you love, it is.”

28

Medley Orion left Monticello in the dispersal after Thomas Jefferson's death in 1826. Kimball burned up tank after tank of gas as he drove down the winding county roads in search of genealogies, slave records, anything that might give him a clue. A few references to Medley's dressmaking skills surfaced in the well-preserved diaries of Tinton Venable.

Obsessed with the murder and with Medley herself, Kimball even drove to the Library of Congress to read through the notations of Dr. William Thornton and his French-born wife. Thornton imagined himself a Renaissance man like Jefferson. He raced blooded horses, designed the Capitol and the Octagon House in Washington, D.C., was a staunch Federalist, and survived the burning of Washington in 1814. His efforts to save the city during that conflagration created a bitter enmity between himself and the mayor of Washington. Thornton's wife, Anna Maria, rang out his praises on the hour like a well-timed church bell. When she visited Monticello in 1802 she wrote: “There is something more grand and awful than convenient in the whole place. A situation you would rather look at now and then than inhabit.”

Mrs. Thornton, French, snob that she was, possessed some humor. What was odd was that Jefferson prided himself on convenience and efficiency.

Kimball's hunch paid off. He found a reference to Medley. Mrs. Thornton commented on a mint-green summer dress belonging to Martha Jefferson—Patsy. The dress, Mrs. Thornton noted, was sewn by Patsy's genie, as she put it, Medley Orion. She also mentioned that Medley's daughter, not quite a woman, was “bright,” meaning fair-skinned, and extraordinarily beautiful like her mother, but even lighter. She further noted that Medley and Martha Jefferson Randolph got along quite well, “a miracle considering,” but Mrs. Thornton chose not to explain that pregnant phrase.

Mrs. Thornton then went on to discuss thoroughly her feelings about slavery—she didn't like it—and her feelings about mixing the races, which she didn't like either. She felt that slavery promoted laziness. Her argument for this, although convoluted, contained a kernel of logic: Why should people work if they couldn't retain the fruits of their labors? A roof over one's head, food in the stomach, and clothes on one's back weren't sufficient motivation for industriousness, especially when one saw another party benefitting from one's own labor.

Kimball drove so fast down Route 29 on his way home that he received a speeding ticket for his excitement and still made it from downtown Washington to Charlottesville more than fifteen minutes faster than the usual two hours. He couldn't wait to tell Heike what he had discovered. He would have to decide what to tell Oliver, who grew more tense each day.

29

Kimball Haynes, Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, Mim Sanburne, and Lucinda Coles crammed themselves into a booth at Metropolitain, a restaurant in Charlottesville's Downtown Mall. The Metropolitain combined lack of pretension with fantastic food. Lulu happened to be strolling in the mall when Kimball spotted her and asked her to lunch with the others.

Over salads he explained his findings about Medley Orion and Jefferson's oldest child, Martha.

“Well, Kimball, I can see that you're a born detective, but where is this leading?” Mim wanted to know. She was ready to get down to brass tacks.

“I wish I knew.” Kimball cut into a grits patty.

“You all may be too young to have heard an old racist expression.” Mim glanced at the ceiling, for she had learned to despise these sayings. “‘There's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere.' Comes from the Underground Railway, of course, but you get the drift.”

Lulu Coles fidgeted. “No, I don't.”

“Somebody's hiding something,” Mim stated flatly.

“Of course somebody's hiding something. They've been hiding it for two hundred years, and now Martha Jefferson Randolph is in on it.” Lulu checked her anger. She knew Mim had yanked properties away from Samson because of his outburst at the funeral. Angry as she was at her husband, Lucinda was smart enough not to wish for their net worth to drop. Actually, she was angry, period. She'd peer in the mirror and see the corners of her mouth turning down just as her mother's had—an embittered woman she swore never to emulate. She was becoming her own mother, to her horror.

Harry downed her Coke. “What Mim means is that somebody is hiding something today.”

“Why?” Susan threw her hands in the air. The idea was absurd. “So there's a murderer in the family tree. By this time we have one of everything in all of our family trees. Really, who cares?”

“‘Save me, Lord, from liars and deceivers.' Psalm 120:2.” Mrs. Hogendobber, as usual, recalled a pertinent scripture.

“Forgive me, Mrs. H., but there's a better one.” Kimball closed his eyes in order to remember. “Ah, yes, here it is, ‘Every one deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.' ”

“Jeremiah 9:5. Yes, it is better,” Mrs. Hogendobber agreed. “I suppose letting the cat out of the bag these many years later wouldn't seem upsetting, but if it's in the papers and on television, well—I can understand.”

“Yeah, your great-great-great-great-grandfather was murdered. How do you feel about that?” Susan smirked.

“Or your great-great—how many greats?” Harry turned to Susan, who held up two fingers. “Great-great-grandfather was a murderer. Should you pay the victim's descendants recompense? Obviously, our society has lost the concept of privacy, and you can't blame anyone for wanting to keep whatever they can away from prying eyes.”

“Well, I for one would like a breath of fresh air. Kimball, you're welcome to go through the Coleses' papers. Maybe you'll find the murderer there.” Lulu smiled.

“How generous of you. The Coleses' papers will be invaluable to me even if they don't yield the murderer.” Kimball beamed.

Mim shifted on the hard bench. “I wonder that Samson has never donated his treasures to the Alderman Library. Or some other library he feels would do justice to the manuscripts and diaries. Naturally, I prefer the Alderman.”

The olive branch was outstretched. Lulu grabbed it. “I'll work on him, Mim. Samson fears that his family's archives will be labeled, stuck in a carton, and never again see the light of day. Decades from now, someone will stumble upon them and they'll be decayed. He keeps all those materials in his temperature-controlled library. The Coleses lead the way when it comes to preservation,” she breathed, “but perhaps this is the time to share.”

“Yes.” Mim appeared enlightened when her entrée, a lightly poached salmon in dill sauce, was placed in front of her. “What did you order, Lucinda? I've already forgotten.”

“Sweetbreads.”

“Me too.” Harry's mouth watered as the dish's tempting aroma wafted under her nose.

“What a lunch.” Kimball inclined his head toward the ladies. “Beautiful women, delicious food, and help with my research. What more is there to life?”

“A 16.1-hand Thoroughbred fox hunter that floats over a three-foot-six-inch coop.” The rich sauce melted in Harry's mouth.

“Oh, Harry, you and your horses. You have Gin Fizz and Tomahawk.” Susan elbowed her.

“Getting along in years,” Mim informed Susan. Mim, an avid fox hunter, appreciated Harry's desire. She also appreciated Harry's emaciated budget and made a mental note to see if she could strong-arm someone into selling Harry a good horse at a low price.

Six months earlier the idea of helping the postmistress wouldn't have occurred to her. But Mim had turned over a new leaf. She wanted to be warmer, kinder, and more giving. It wasn't easy, overnight, to dump six decades of living a certain way. The cause of this volte-face Mim kept close to her chest, which was, indeed, where it had begun. She had visited Larry Johnson for a routine checkup. He found a lump. Larry, the soul of discretion, promised not to tell even Jim. Mim flew to New York City and checked into Columbia-Presbyterian. She told everyone she was on her semiannual shopping spree. Since she did repair to New York every spring and then again every fall, this explanation satisfied. The lump was removed and it was cancerous. However, they had caught the disease in time. Her body betrayed no other signs of the cancer. Procedures are so advanced that Mim returned home in a week, had indeed accomplished some shopping, and no one was the wiser. Until Jim walked in on her in the bathtub. She told him everything. He sobbed. That shocked her so badly that she sobbed. She still couldn't figure out how her husband could be chronically unfaithful and love her so deeply at the same time, but she knew now that he did. She decided to give up being angry at him. She even decided to stop pretending socially that he didn't have a weakness for women. He was what he was and she was what she was, but she could change and she was trying. If Jim wanted to change, that was his responsibility.

“Earth to Mrs. Sanburne,” Harry called.

“What? I must have been roller-skating on Saturn's rings.”

“We're going to help Kimball read through the correspondence and records of Jefferson's children and grandchildren,” Harry told her.

“I can read with my eyes closed,” Miranda said. “Oh, that doesn't sound right, does it?”

After lunch Lulu escorted Mim to her silver-sand Bentley Turbo R, a new purchase and a sensational one. Lulu apologized profusely a second time for her outburst during Wesley's funeral. After Mim's luncheon she had smothered her hostess in “sorries.” She had also confessed to Reverend Jones and he had told her it wasn't that bad. He forgave her and he was sure that the Randolphs would too, if she would apologize, which she did. Mim listened. Lulu continued. It was as though she'd pried the first olive out of the jar and the others tumbled out. She said she thought she'd smelled another woman's perfume on Samson's neck. She'd been on edge. Later she'd entered his bathroom and found a bottle, new, of Ralph Lauren's Safari.

“These days you can't tell the difference between men's colognes and women's perfumes,” Mim said. “There is no difference. They put the unguents into different bottles, invent these manly names, and that's that. What would happen if a man used a woman's perfume? He'd grow breasts overnight, I guess.” She laughed at her own joke.

Lulu laughed too. “It strikes me as odd that the worst thing you can call a man is a woman, yet they claim to love us.”

Mim arched her right eyebrow. “I never thought of that.”

“I think of a lot of things.” Lulu sighed. “I'm a tangle of suspicions. I know he's cheating on me. I just don't know who.”

Mim unlocked her car, paused, and then turned. “Lucinda, I don't know if that part matters. The whole town knows that Jim has enjoyed his little amours over the years.”

“Mim, I didn't mean to open old wounds,” Lulu stammered, genuinely distraught.

“Don't give it a second thought. I'm older than you. I don't care as much anymore, or I care in a new way. But heed my advice. Some men are swordsmen. That's the only word I can think of for it. They swash and they buckle. They need the chase and the conquest to feel alive. It's repetitive, but for some reason I can't fathom, the repetition doesn't bore them. Makes them feel young and powerful, I suppose. It doesn't mean Samson doesn't love you.”

Tears glistened in Lucinda's green eyes. “Oh, Mim, if only that were true, but Samson isn't that kind of man. If he's having an affair, then he's in love with her.”

Mim waited to reply. “My dear, the only thing you can do is to take care of yourself.”