Pages of Sin (9 page)

“Okay, we’ll put the duct tape away and concentrate on archival tape.” I held up the box of tape. “I prefer this brand, but there are several others to choose from. It comes in a roll. Duh.” I pulled the roll of tape out of the box and showed them how to use it.

I cut off a short piece of tape. “Then I like to cut that piece in half lengthwise because it’s thinner and easier to work with. It’s also more economical. See? Twice the amount of tape for your money.”

A couple of the librarians applauded.

“We’re all about saving money around here,” one of them said.

“Good point,” I said. “But also, the less tape you use to muck up a book, the better. Just my humble opinion.”

“Oh, hey,” Ruby said. “Here’s another book with something stuck inside it.”

I glanced over and saw her wiggling a dark green book in her hand. It was another Jane Austen that matched the one that had caused problems yesterday. This one was slightly more faded, yet still had its lovely leather binding, so I wasn’t sure how it had ended up in the box of damaged books. Once again, I suspected Mom was the culprit.

Ruby jumped up and handed me the book and an envelope.

I smiled tightly. “Thanks, Ruby.”

“I didn’t open it,” she said.

“I wasn’t worried about that.” I stared at the envelope, almost afraid to open it myself. So I didn’t. It might be important or it might be nothing. But whatever was inside that envelope had been hidden away this long; it wouldn’t hurt to let it sit for another few hours.

I tucked the envelope back inside the copy of
Mansfield Park
and slipped the book into my bag. Then I concentrated my energies on repairing my students’ flapping spines and loose hinges.

 

 

“A birth certificate?” I said in amazement. “Whose is it?”

Earlier, I’d thought it would be nice to wait and let Mom do the honors and open the envelope. But I’d just about changed my mind after pacing anxiously around the house for the past forty-five minutes, waiting for my parents to get home from their dinner with Byron. Then I heard their car drive up.

The first thing Mom and Dad did when they entered the house was share with me everything Byron had said about Elaine. Sadly, that amounted to almost nothing. Since then, Dad had gone off to bed and I’d been pacing the room while Mom sat in her favorite chair by the fireplace and examined the aged document.

“Mom, what does it say?” I asked.

“This is so bizarre,” she muttered, holding it up to the light. “I shouldn’t judge, but I have to wonder what is up with that crazy family.”

Frustrated, I stuck out my hand. “For God’s sake, Mother. Either speak to me in clear sentences or hand the thing over so I can read it for myself.”

I guess I was feeling a little anxious.

“Sorry, sweetie. It’s just that I’m flummoxed.”

“Why? Whose birth certificate is it?” I asked with as much patience as I could muster. “Does it belong to one of the sisters?”

She shook her head as she peered up at me. “I don’t recognize the name of the child, so it’s not anyone we know.”

“Then who’s the mom and dad?”

She glanced down to double-check the information, then looked up. “According to this form, the father is Byron Frawley.”

“Byron?” I frowned. “I thought he and Wanda didn’t have any kids.”

She shook her head numbly. “They didn’t.”

“Okay.” I was getting a bad feeling about this. “So whose kid is it?”

Wearing a look of pure dismay, she said, “It’s Marjorie’s.”

“That’s impossible,” I said, shaking my head in complete befuddlement. “Marjorie and Byron had a child together?”

“That’s what this document says.” Mom waved the paper in her hand, then rose from the chair and walked into the kitchen. “I think we need a little nightcap.”

“Oh, I’d say so.” I followed right behind her. Like mother, like daughter, I guess. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Mom was the best role model ever. Well, except for the occasional purges and those wild chanting drum circle trances she had a tendency to fall into. I couldn’t go there with her.

She brought the bottle of Baileys’ Irish Cream down from the cupboard, filled two small glasses with ice, and poured the liqueur. We sat at the kitchen table and sipped our yummy drinks in silence for a moment.

“I want to know when all of this could have taken place.” I tried to calculate. “First Byron and Elaine were in love. A year later, Byron and
Wanda
were married. So where in that time frame did Byron and
Marjorie
hook up?”

Byron had been a busy guy, that much was clear.

“See for yourself,” Mom said, and passed the thin, aged certificate over to me.

It was a smudged and faded carbon copy of a document titled Certificate of Live Birth. All the boxes were filled in except for the name of the baby. The box for “female” was checked, so it was safe to say that Marjorie had given birth to a little girl.

It was strange to be studying this unknown child’s birth certificate. What was even more surreal was that the child’s date of birth was only a few months after Elaine wrote her letter to Byron and left for Africa.

“Whoa.” I stared at Mom. “So Marjorie was involved with Byron while he was dating Elaine.”

“That’s what it looks like,” she said, frowning as she chewed on an ice cube.

“But somewhere in the middle of all that, he married Wanda.” I handed the document back to her. “You’re right. That’s one bizarre family. And Elaine didn’t say a word about it. Do you think she knows about the baby?”

With a slow shake of her head, Mom admitted, “I haven’t got a clue.”

My eyes widened as something else occurred to me. “Do you think Wanda knew?”

Mom gripped my hand. “The real question is, does Byron know?”

 

 

The next morning, in an abundance of caution, Mom and I went back to Byron’s house to examine every volume in Wanda’s massive wall of stacked books. We lucked out and arrived while Byron was away, so there was no need to fabricate a story about why we were looking through all those books again.

I was good at a lot of things, but I wouldn’t have been able to bring a poker face to a confrontation with Byron Frawley. Come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure I owned a poker face.

While Mom tackled the books in the shorter stacks, I went straight for the Jane Austens. It only took a few minutes to gather up the four remaining volumes, and the documents we found tucked inside them were doozies.

“Mom, look at this,” I said after scanning the document I’d found inside
Persuasion.

Mom stared in amazement at the faded paper. It was a Certificate of Adoption from the State of Texas dated within weeks of the birth certificate we’d found the day before. So now we knew the child’s name. Elizabeth.

And inside the copy of
Emma
was a faded photograph of a little girl wearing a frilly white dress. We both assumed this was Elizabeth. In the photo, she looked about four or five years old, but by now she was probably in college.

There were other photographs as well, each slipped inside one or another of the dark green leather bound books that made up the six-volume set of Jane Austen classics. If only I had taken more care to bundle up the entire set in the first place, we might have had some answers sooner.

“Let’s get out of here,” Mom muttered.

“Good idea.” As I drove back to her house, I happened to glance down and saw that I was filthy. I longed to take another bath, but first, Mom and I had some logistics to work out and a few decisions to make.

“What should we do?” Mom asked, twisting her hands together “Who shall we call? Wait. Maybe we should just leave it alone. We could shut these items away in our safe deposit box and never say a word about them again. Or should we confront the people involved? Which ones? This is so upsetting. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll think of something.”

She shifted in her seat to look at me. “You’ve had to deal with stranger situations than this, Brooklyn. What do you think we should do?”

True, lately I’d had plenty of experience with murderers and their victims and suspects, but Mom was usually so much better at dealing with people than I was. The fact that she was turning to me for advice made it clear how completely distressed she was by what we’d found today.

There was only one person I could think of who could make sense of all this intrigue and could deal with the various family members in a nonjudgmental way. “We need Guru Bob.”

 

 

That night, Mom, Dad, and I arrived at Robson’s elegant home an hour and a half before Wanda’s memorial service was scheduled to begin at the town hall.

Guru Bob ushered us into his stylish sitting room and asked us to amuse ourselves until the other guests arrived. Five minutes later he walked in with Elaine, the two chatting like they were old friends. “It has been too long since we last saw you in Dharma,” Guru Bob told Elaine.

“Thank you, Robson,” she said, nervously smoothing the hem of her subdued but pretty sage jacket. “It’s lovely of you to invite me here.”

“The others will arrive shortly,” Guru Bob told her, then indicated an array of wines and finger foods laid out on the sideboard. “Jim will pour you a glass of wine or a soft drink if you wish one.”

Dad had already poured half glasses of wine for Mom and me. Strangely enough, I wasn’t in the mood for anything strong tonight, but the glass gave me something to hold.

I truly didn’t want Elaine to be hurt, but I was still excited to have a front row seat for the unraveling of an almost-twenty-year-old mystery, along with any accompanying fireworks that might take place.

Marjorie breezed in a minute later, looking very chic and blond in a red wrap dress with black patent leather heels. A double gold rope chain hung around her neck and braided gold hoops dangled from her ears. She was all dressed up for a fancy cocktail party rather than for a memorial for her dead sister.

I remembered meeting Marjorie once or twice when I was much younger. Back then, Mom had called her the vivacious Bradford sister, and she still held that title.

I was currently having a hard time feeling much sympathy for Marjorie. She’d slept with the guy that one sister had loved and the other had married. And what kind of woman showed up in a red dress for her sister’s memorial service? I mean, come on!

I tried to tamp down on my initial reaction to Marjorie by reminding myself that she and Elaine had recently suffered a great loss. Who knew what went through someone’s mind when a beloved sister died? I only prayed I wouldn’t have to suffer that fate for many, many years.

Marjorie cast a wary glance at Elaine, who was standing by herself across the room. She hesitated, but then seemed to draw on some internal strength and strolled directly over to her, clutched her by the arms and said, “We’re sisters and we always will be. Wanda would want us to make amends. Despite our differences, I’ve always loved you and . . . I need you, Elaine. Byron needs you. He needs us both right now.”

Well. That was unexpected. Seconds ago, the lady in red hadn’t looked like she needed anyone—unless it was to fetch her a cocktail.

I didn’t have to look at Elaine to know that tears were forming in her eyes. The woman was a natural crier. It was no wonder I liked her so much.

Despite the tears, Marjorie and Elaine’s reunion looked happy. Were we about to throw cold water on their warm feelings?

A moment later, Marjorie looked around and seemed to remember her role as a world-famous author and international jetsetter. She had people to schmooze. Giving Elaine’s arm another quick squeeze, she headed straight for Mom and Dad and greeted them effusively with hugs and air kisses. “Becky, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Hello, Jim. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

Whatever that meant.

Elaine managed to ignore her sister’s flirty behavior as she serenely studied the artwork on the walls. At moments like these, it was easy to see what had attracted the wealthy Earl of Radisson’s eye. And that reminded me: Elaine was a member of the British nobility, however minor. She looked polished and dignified, especially when compared to her flamboyant, famous-author sister.

But Elaine had also written a number of books, so she certainly was no slouch in the creativity department. Okay, her children’s books were all about llamas, but still, her world famous older sister had nothing on her. Tonight, however, Elaine seemed perfectly happy to allow Marjorie the spotlight.

My thoughts drifted to poor Wanda, who had been tucked away in her ivory tower all those years while these two had roamed the world, living adventurous lives, quelling revolutions (and perhaps starting one or two), and collecting a lifetime’s worth of stories that the rest of the world clamored to read. Had Wanda been jealous of her more worldly sisters? Had those feelings eaten her up inside?

Then I pictured her beautiful gardens and all the charming and dramatic furnishings she’d surrounded herself with. Perhaps her own world hadn’t been all that drab, after all.

Ten minutes had passed and Byron still wasn’t here. I was in danger of hurling if I had to hear one more of Marjorie’s gushing comments to my father.

Mom didn’t seem at all concerned with Marjorie’s flirtations, but she noticed my agitation and slipped her arm through mine. “That’s a pretty blouse, Brooklyn. Is it new? I don’t think I’ve seen you wear it before.”

“Thank you, Mom.” We smiled at each other and shared a silent moment of familial camaraderie. “I just bought it last week.”

“Great color on you.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t mention that Derek had picked out the blouse for me. It was bad enough that I was a fashion faux pas waiting to happen without advertising that even my boyfriend had better taste in clothing than I did.