A Will To Murder (8 page)

“Have you met them?” Jac exclaimed, noticing something odd in her aunt’s face.

The old lady looked furtive.  “I wasn’t supposed to, since James refused to let any of Sophia’s family inside the house, but I visited Lance and Colette when they were children.  They’re sweet.”

“Did Dad ever meet them?” Jac asked.

“No,” sighed Katherine.  “I asked him if he would, just once, but he refused.  He never forgave Sophia for discarding the family.”

“This is just wonderful,” gobbled Armagnac.  “Perfect strangers are dropping in on us, and God only knows if they’ll inherit the entire estate.  This is another of Father’s filthy little games.”

Rose exploded.  “The Wileys are our cousins, and it wasn’t their fault they were cut off from the family!”

“I wouldn’t care about these damn Wileys one way or another,” Armagnac replied hotly, “if Father hadn’t intended to use them against us.  It is
intolerable
that he can treat us this way even after he’s dead.”

Cautiously, the lawyer interrupted.  “By the way, you will have another family member arriving as well, on the day after tomorrow.  His name is Bradley Smith.  You will need to prepare two bedrooms for him, since a friend is driving him to Chichiteaux.  I will arrange a time for the will-reading once we finally account for everyone.”  Hamilton stepped towards the foyer with Armagnac sputtering questions after him.

“Bradley Smith!?” cried Jac.  “Who on earth can that be?  We don’t have any Smith relatives.”

Everyone was staring at Katherine for an explanation, but even she looked blank.

“Would you pry this cat off the steering wheel?” Eric was saying testily.  He and Bradley were driving to Chichiteaux in Eric’s Honda.  With them were Bradley’s cats, a calico named Purrball and a white kitten called Muffin.  Both cats were wandering loose in the car because Smith thought caging animals was a crime.  

“God, Eric, you must never have owned pets before.” Bradley tugged Purrball off and lowered her into the backseat, which he had turned into a playpen for the cats.  A tangle of extension cords plugged a pair of battery-heated cat beds into the cigarette lighter, allowing the cats to lounge like pashas.  Of course, Bradley had brought along their scratching posts, chase balls, plush toys, feather twitches, and wind-up mice.  Smith had looped a pair of swat toys around the head rests, causing Maxwell to fret about his upholstery.  And Bradley had not forgotten the more practical items like combs and brushes.  Two suitcases alone had been necessary for the cat’s luggage.

Glancing over his shoulder, Eric said with disapproval, “You know, those cats have more toys than I ever did in all the time I was growing up.”

“Want a catnip-stuffed mouse to make you feel better?”  

“No, thank you.”

“I was getting rid of one anyway.  The seams are coming loose.”

“And a dozen more shall take its place,” Eric proclaimed in Biblical tones.  “God only knows what your relatives will say when you show up with those cats.”

“Why are you so worried about my family?”

Eric could not resist grinning.  “I’m afraid they’ll be like you.”

“Pah.  If they’re like me, they’ll be wonderful people.”

“Besides, I think they might be rich.”

“So?”

“Hey, I grew up poor but respectable.  I’m
still
poor but respectable.  And I’m poor by choice.  You don’t become wealthy on a reporter’s salary for a small paper.  But rich people don’t understand guys like me.  They’ll ask why I don’t have a better paying job, and I’ll have to hurt their doltish feelings when I tell them I don’t give a damn.”

“Oh for God’s sake, rich people are just like you and me.  They just have--weirdly dead relatives,” Bradley said with rising surprise.

“What are you looking at?”

Smith was holding a newspaper.  “I borrowed this from the library.  It’s the latest issue of the
Chichiteaux Weekly
and it has James Boyle’s obituary in it.”

“You’ll have to return that.  Libraries don’t take to thieves,” Eric chided.  

“All
right
.  But listen to this.  ‘Mr. James Elmont Boyle, 71, died in Chichiteaux on August 8th, while out for a drive in his beloved Mercedes-Knight town car.  He was killed by a CD.  Mr. Boyle was the son of Hiram Boyle, a local manufacturer, and Christina Howland.  He had spent all his life in this community and was well-known as a fancier of antique cars.  He was also an honorary colonel in the 1st Chichiteaux Regimental Militia.  Mr. Boyle was preceded in death by his wife, Anna Newcombe Boyle.  Survivors include his sister, Katherine Boyle, his son, Armagnac Boyle, and his two daughters, Jacquelyn Salisbury of New York City and Rose Cummings of Albany.  He is also survived by three grandchildren.  The burial was held Friday at the Douthit Cemetery.  The family requests that all memorials be sent to the Chichiteaux Garden Club.’  
Killed by a CD?
 What’d he do, swallow it?”

“Any other details?”

“None.”  

“Doesn’t sound probable.”

“Maybe he tripped over it.”

“Doesn’t sound likely, either.  We’ll find out what happened from your family.”

Chapter 6

The next morning Arthur sat down to breakfast.  Someone had apparently decided that he could graduate to the dining room table, for this is where his mother placed him.  Of the family, only Rose and her son were up.  The sound of frying bacon could be heard, and Rose strode into the kitchen to quell a whistling teapot.

Thumps came from the ceiling.  The chandelier swayed a little.  Richie must be up, Arthur decided.  He stared hard at the kitchen door, willing his mother and Sheila to bring him his breakfast before Richie came down.  Rose arrived a moment later with his plate.

“Here you go, honey.  Scrambled eggs and bacon.”

Arthur was aghast.  “No!  Noooooo!  Noooooo!”

“What’s the matter?”

“You broke all my bacon slices in two,” wailed the boy.  Rose ceased her breakfast of verbena tea and nibbled hair ends.  “What’s wrong with that?  It was the only way to fit the bacon on the plate with the eggs.  It still tastes the same.”

Arthur stared at her, astonished that she didn’t understand.  Richie entered the dining room at that moment and took a chair with a bump that slopped Arthur’s milk over the side of the glass.  

“Hey!” said Richie, “Mom told that old witch Marshpool off, and I get to eat in here!”  He leaned over to have a look at Arthur’s plate.  There was, unfortunately, no way to hide the damage.

“Look at that!  All the bacon is broken in half.  Arthur’s eating sissy bacon!  Arthur’s eating sissy bacon!  Arthur’s a fa--hag!  Arthur’s a fag!”

Arthur gave his mother a look of woe and accusation.  How could she not have foreseen this?

“Richie, stop that,” Rose said.  “I’m going to get your breakfast from Sheila.  Is your sister up?”

“She’ll be down in a moment,” Richie replied with  disdain.

The kitchen door swung shut after his mother, and Richie raised a fork, tines poised over Arthur’s face.  Arthur picked up his plate and threw it at his cousin.  Normally, he wouldn’t have had the courage for this, but he was feeling desperate.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Marshpool walked in right at that moment.  “Oh!  This is exactly what I knew would happen!  
Get out!
”

She seized arms from both boys and jerked them off their chairs.  Arthur squalled with outrage.  Richie, delighted to have caused such trouble, managed to knock his chair over as Mrs. Marshpool dragged him away.  Rose’s startled face appeared at the kitchen door.   

“They were throwing food!”  Mrs. Marshpool snapped at Rose.  She shook each of the imprisoned boys’ arms hard, digging her long nails in.  “I will not stand to have such ill-mannered and ill-bred children in this house!  They are going outside where they belong.  If any more of this behavior continues, I will insist that the children be sent home for the good of this household.”

Rose’s jaw wobbled as she tried to protest, but the housekeeper’s steely ego overwhelmed her.  Mrs. Marshpool brushed past her and chucked the boys out the kitchen door.  They landed in the yard, and the door slammed shut behind them.

Richie laughed wildly.  Arthur gazed back at him with disgust, rubbing the nail-marks in his arm.  He could tell Richie was the sort who didn’t care how much trouble he got into as long as he could drag someone else there with him.  “Go ahead and laugh,” Arthur growled.  He stalked off to go play with the Opel.

Still howling, Richie followed.  Just before they reached the car, they heard the kitchen door open and saw Briarly being thrown out by Mrs. Marshpool.  Richie guffawed like an idiot.  Somberly, Arthur viewed his cousins.  If he wasn’t mad at Briarly, he would have felt sorry for her.  She was looking wretched, sitting on the grass all bewildered by Mrs. Marshpool’s treatment of her.  The housekeeper must not have explained to Briarly why she was being robbed of her breakfast.

Then Briarly saw her brother.  She climbed to her feet, hiked over to the Opel, and kicked her prone brother in the side.  Richie, however, was laughing too hard to be able to punish her.

“You little shit!”  Briarly yelled.

Arthur was impressed.  He had never heard an eight-year-old girl swear with such venom before.

Richie sat up.  “Hey, knock it off.  You ought to thank me for making old Marshpool blow a gasket.”

“What do you guys think Mrs. Marshpool might do next?” Arthur said queasily.  He knew his mother was no match for the housekeeper, and Bert might not defend him if he found out that his son had thrown the plate.  Briefly, Arthur pondered running away.

“Who cares?  I’m going to get her back.  She owes us for last night, too.”  Richie began to move from bush to tree, working closer to the house like a guerilla in enemy territory.

“What happened last night?” Arthur asked.

“Mrs. Marshpool locked our doors after we went to bed.”

Arthur remembered his own locked door, and his eyes narrowed.  This Marshpool business was getting serious.  “She did mine, too,” he said, “but I can still get out through my parents’ door.”

“No, you can’t.  She locked their door also.”

“She wouldn’t dare!”

“She said she did.”

“Marshpool’s lying.  There’s no way she’d lock my parents in.”

“She did it to everybody.  Mom was furious when she found out and said she’s going to teach Marshpool a lesson.”

This sounded so bizarre that Arthur knew he had to tell his father.  He began to travel across the lawn like Richie, plotting each move to the next bit of cover.  When he reached the corner of the house and was hiding behind Katherine’s roses, he saw a taxi stopping in the driveway.  This looked interesting, so he crept forward to see who had arrived.

Bert, Rose, Jac, and Katherine were standing out in front.  Marshpool wasn’t there, so Arthur dashed from cover to join his father.

“Well, kid, I see she didn’t kill you this morning.”

The boy felt better.  His father would have yelled if he’d been angry.

“Richie was trying to stab me with a fork,” said Arthur in a low voice, “and I was only trying to stop him.  I didn’t mean to get into trouble.”

“Yeah, your cousin is really something.  Your Mom says Mrs. Marshpool was pretty extreme with you kids.  She’s talked to Armagnac about it.  Hopefully that woman will restrain herself in the future.”

“I’m still hungry, and Mrs. Marshpool locked all of us in our rooms last night.”

“And I think you can wait until lunch, and that Mrs. Marshpool didn’t.  Now pay attention so you can greet your cousins.  These are the Wileys.”

Two people were climbing out of the taxi while the cabdriver lifted luggage from the trunk.  The cabbie seemed annoyed.  The first passenger was a crew-cut male about college age, in a T-shirt and shorts.  His features, neither handsome nor ugly, were best described as generic state university frat boy.  He was standing with his hands behind his head as if stretching from the cramped ride, but really to display his muscles.  Ignoring the assembled company, he lifted a lip in a perplexed sneer at the odd black exterior of the house.

“Hey, Colette!” the crew-cut yelled, “quit fussing with your clothes and pay that driver!  I want to get in some time with my weights.”

The other passenger was a very pretty girl, about the same age as the young man.  Her hair was white blonde and long, and was trimmed in bangs in front.  She wore black velvet trousers, high-heeled wooden clogs, and a tight  sweater she was tugging down.  A cigarette drooped negligently from her mouth.  “Pay him yourself, shithead,” she said to the young man without bothering to look in his direction.

“You have to do it.  I don’t have any money,” crew-cut retorted.  “Hey, there’s people waiting for us.  Don’t take all day.”

The blonde girl extracted a few bills from her pants pocket to pay the driver, her cigarette pinched artfully between two crooked knuckles.

Arthur recognized them.  They were in those photos he had asked Aunt Katherine about, the ones on the living room table.  He hid behind his father in case the blonde girl looked his way.  She was unnervingly attractive.

“These are your cousins,” said Bert to his son.  “Lance and Colette Wiley.”

Armagnac strode down the marble steps, puffing his cheeks and chest out like the man-of-the-manor.  Behind him, Mrs. Marshpool was peering through the diamond-shaped panes of the foyer with a measuring squint.  The cabdriver lifted a pair of obviously heavy bags out of the trunk and let them fall to the pavement with a dull thunk.  Then he drove off with a thankful expression.  

“Hey,” Lance Wiley barked at his sister, “c’mere and help carry my weights.”

Colette only replaced her cigarette in her mouth.  “Carry them yourself,” she retorted, her lips showing a monkey-like dexterity with the cigarette as she spoke around it.  “You’re the idiot who’s always picking them up and putting them down.”  She gave her sweater a final tug at the waist.  Not once had she bothered to look at her hosts.

“Oh my God,” gasped Armagnac, “they’re
proles
.”