Cruel as the Grave (25 page)

Adrian flashed a brief smile. “Go right ahead. There’s a case in the pantry. I just need to put some in the fridge.” He stood up. “Might as well do it now. If I don’t start moving around, we’ll never have dinner on time.” He looked at Maggie, as if expecting something.

“Need some help?” Claudine asked quickly. “You know I’m not much of a cook, but I can slice, dice, peel, or whatever.” She smiled. “I’m a good assistant.”

“Sure.” Adrian said. He smiled, but to Maggie he looked disappointed. She felt awkward. Had Adrian wanted her to offer to help? Should she offer to pitch in now?

But, she told herself sternly,
you’ve got to talk to Harold, and you can’t put it off any longer.
She was torn, but she decided that she’d be better off talking to Harold.

“Anybody know where I might find Harold?” she asked before Sylvia made it to the door.

“He’s probably in his room,” Adrian answered her. “He likes to read in the afternoon. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind an interruption, if you want to talk to him.”

“Thanks, I do,” Maggie replied with a smile. “See you later.” She followed Sylvia out the door as Adrian and Claudine began inspecting the contents of the meat drawer of the refrigerator.

Sylvia said nothing as Maggie quietly followed her to the front staircase. Observing the look of intense concentration on her cousin’s face, Maggie was loath to disturb her thoughts, but she was concerned—and curious—to know what was exercising Sylvia’s mind.

“Sylvia,” Maggie said hesitantly as they began mounting the stairs. She had to repeat her cousin’s name in a louder tone to catch her attention.

“Sorry,” Sylvia smiled, tiredness making her look even more fragile than usual. “I’m afraid I’m not very good company right now.” She halted where she was, about halfway up the stairs, and Maggie paused beside her.

“Are you worried about your grandmother?” Maggie queried in sympathy.

Sylvia nodded. “She’s taking all this pretty hard.” She grimaced. “I guess we all should, but to be honest, I was never that fond of either Uncle Henry or Lavinia. Grandmother wasn’t either, most of the time, but Uncle Henry was her twin brother, after all.”

Maggie squeezed Sylvia’s arm comfortingly. “I’m glad she’s got you to look after her. She’s in good hands.”

“Thanks,” Sylvia smiled wanly. She started again up the stairs. “I know we’ll all feel a lot better when this is settled. I just wish it were over now. I’m not sure how much more Grandmother can take.”

I wonder, Maggie thought slowly, whether Retty knows who the murderer is, but can’t bear to do anything to convict her brother or sister as a murderer. Or, her thoughts continued, she’s terrified that she’s going to be found out herself.

At the top of the stairs Maggie quickly asked Sylvia to point her to Harold’s room, and Sylvia obliged. “It’s the room right across from Lavinia’s.”

Sylvia knocked gently at the first door on the left, her grandmother’s room, while Maggie continued slowly to the end of the hall to Harold’s room. She gave an involuntary shiver as she looked toward Lavinia’s door. Resolutely she turned her back and knocked firmly on Harold’s door.

In the ensuing silence Maggie began to think that Harold was after all downstairs somewhere, but then the door swung inward without warning, and Harold peered out at her.

His face cleared when he recognized his visitor. “My dear,” he exclaimed, as he swung the door wide open, “this is a pleasant surprise. Do come in.” He stepped aside to allow her to enter.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said, half hoping he would tell her that she was.

“Not at all. Not at all!” Harold ushered her farther into the room and seated her in a comfortable chair near the window. He sat in the companion chair on the other side of a small table standing between them. He pushed a small crystal coaster toward her, and she set her Diet Coke can down on it.

Maggie glanced around the room, registering with approval the quiet good taste with which it was furnished. Here there was no suffocating Victoriana like she had seen in Lavinia’s room, nor the bizarre eclecticism in Helena’s, but a cool and stylish simplicity which gave the room an air of space and a surprising amount of comfort. She liked the subdued colors of cream, brown, and gold, livened here and there with touches of a vivid green.

One wall, as in her room, was lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. As always, Maggie itched to inspect the books, but for now she had to concentrate on the point of her visit.

Harold had been watching patiently, smilingly, while she let her eyes roam around the room. “Retty is responsible for the decor,” he said. “Do you like it?”

“Very much,” Maggie replied. “It’s certainly different from Hel—” she trailed off awkwardly, realizing what she had almost said.

Harold laughed. “I would never let Helena decorate my room for me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I do love her, but she has no taste when it comes to furnishing a room.” He laughed again, and Maggie joined him.

“I’m very happy,” Harold continued, and his voice assumed a serious tone, “that you and Gerard have finally come home. But I certainly wish the circumstances could have been happier.”

Maggie indicated her soft drink. “Would you think me rude if I drink? I’ve been sitting outside talking with Ernie, and my throat’s a little dry.” At Harold’s quick nod, she took a sip from her drink. Then she addressed Harold’s remark.

“It has been very distressing, I must admit, because I knew practically nothing about all of you before now, and these certainly aren’t the best circumstances for getting to know the family.” She paused, and Harold smiled his encouragement at her. “But I think something—not necessarily murder, though—was bound to happen once my father came home.”

“What do you mean?” Harold asked, startled.

Maggie took another sip from her drink before replying. “Has Helena told you anything about the theory that she, Ernie, and I have come up with?”

“That Magnolia was murdered, and that her murderer is responsible as well for Henry’s death?” At Maggie’s nod, Harold continued. “We’ve talked about it, and I admit the idea is plausible, but it’s pretty horrifying.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “From what everyone has told me about my grandmother, I find it hard to believe that anyone hated her that much. I understand that she could be difficult at times—and perhaps overbearing—but to such an extent that someone wanted to murder her? Nothing I’ve heard so far has convinced me of that.” She took a deep breath. “What do you think?”

Harold shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You realize you’re asking the wrong person, don’t you?”

“Helena told me something about the way my grandmother treated you, and I regret that. It bothers me, because I guess I just thought any grandmother of mine should have been more enlightened than that.”

Harold regarded his fingernails as he replied. “I’ve lived with that particular prejudice quite a long time, and I suppose I’ve gotten used to it, after a fashion, but it rankles all the more when it comes from one’s own family.” He looked straight at Maggie, disconcerting her with the intensity of his gaze. “Being homosexual in the South when I was growing up was just as bad as, or maybe even worse than, being black. Being black was at least an act of nature, albeit a cruel one, but being homosexual was unnatural. And of course it was an unnatural choice—why would anyone want to behave in such a way?”

He spoke in a bitter tone, and Maggie at first was at a complete loss to reply, but then she realized that he didn’t expect this of her. She simply nodded encouragement, and he continued.

“Helena has always accepted me just the way I am, and Retty more or less so, once I had explained it all to her. She was shockingly naive for a married woman.” There was a hint of amusement in his voice for the moment. “Even so, I was always expected to be excessively discreet and to play a part—mustn’t do anything to disgrace the family, you know.” There was no trace of self-pity in his voice, yet Maggie could sense the frustration behind the coolly uttered words. But had this frustration caused him to murder three members of his family?

She drained the last of her drink and set the empty can once more on the crystal coaster. The conversation had progressed rather rapidly in the direction she had wanted, but now she was uncertain how to push it further.

“I don’t know,” she began slowly, “whether my father has told you this, but Arthur Latham considers Dad his prime suspect right now.”

Harold snorted in derision. “Arthur’s just stuck without any real evidence, so he’s clutching at the handiest straw available, and that’s Gerard.”

“Still, it’s a pretty scary clutch he’s got,” Maggie pointed out. “And that’s why I’m trying to do what I can to figure out who the real murderer is. Will you help me?”

“I’ll try, certainly,” Harold responded, sounding surprised that she should doubt his willingness. “But I’m not sure what I can do.” He waved one hand in the air.

Here goes nothing, Maggie thought. She plunged in. “So far I’ve been told a number of family secrets, and I’ve been trying to make sense of the whole mess, sorting out who’s got a motive to do what to whom, if you follow.” Harold nodded, and she continued. “Someone told me why you would have a motive to murder my grandmother—namely, that she didn’t want to have you around the house with my father when he was younger. I don’t really think that’s much of a motive, do you?”

“Of course not," Harold laughed uneasily. “But, as I told you before in another context, you’re probably asking the wrong person.”

“That’s as may be,” Maggie commented drily. “Anyway, I’m just not convinced that it’s so simple. Why, for example, was my grandmother so worried that you would... er... behave badly? Was it really sheer prejudice, or misunderstanding, on her part? My impression was that she was a little smarter than that, but nobody’s saying anything.” Harold’s face had lost color. Maggie sensed there was something he could tell her, something that might prove important, but what else could she say to encourage him to tell her? Stymied, she decided to wait.

“For your sake, and for your father’s,” Harold said at last, his voice low, “I’ll tell you something that not even Helena knows. In fact, it’s something no one else in the family knows. Henry probably did, but no one else, I’m sure. I’m not certain how useful this information could be, but the way things have been going the last few days, I simply don’t know anymore. You can either eliminate me entirely from your list of suspects, or move me to the number one position.”

Maggie waited, scarcely breathing, for Harold’s revelation. “Magnolia didn’t trust me around Gerard,” Harold said wearily, “because she held me responsible for seducing her baby brother.”

You wanted to know,
Maggie told herself sharply,
and now that you know, what do you say?

Harold took pity upon her embarrassment. “It’s quite all right, my dear,” he said gently. “I think perhaps the time has come to talk about this with someone. I’ve kept it to myself for a long time. I’ve never even told Helena. Probably I should have, but I was so used to keeping some things secret that I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her.” He sighed deeply.

“Do you think it has any bearing on what has happened here?” Maggie asked.

Harold shrugged. “Perhaps. I don’t really know. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve realized that there may be a connection. Let me tell you my story, and I’ll see if you reach some of the same conclusions.”

Maggie nodded.

Harold launched into his story. “Lawrence and I had been friends, as were Lavinia and Helena, in our youth. We all attended the same school, as Helena probably told you. But I was a couple of years older than Lawrence, and I went away to college while he was still in high school. At the time I had feelings for him, feelings I didn’t completely understand, because I just didn’t understand much at all about what I was. I was shockingly naive, though perhaps that sounds silly these days.”

“Not at all,” Maggie said. “It’s perfectly understandable.”

“In college,” Harold continued, after a brief smile, “I soon discovered that I was not the only person like that, that I wasn’t isolated and alone. That was incredibly liberating, I’m sure you can understand. When I would come home to the family again, during holidays, though, I felt out of place, maybe even more than before. Consequently, I made fewer and fewer visits home.

“Lawrence had also gone away to school, and I rarely saw him. When I did, I was much too shy to approach him, to tell him of my feelings, because I was so afraid of his reaction.” Harold took a deep breath. “Then came the Korean War. Lawrence went into the Air Force, and I was in the Army. We didn't see each other for several years because of the war.”

Fascinated, Maggie imagined a younger and more dashing Harold in uniform. Almost as if sensing her thoughts, Harold pointed toward a shelf. “There’s a picture of me, taken during the war.” She got up from her chair and walked over to the photograph. A young face, remarkably like her father’s, peered out at her. She noted the lines of strain in the face, but the eyes were keen and alert, the body poised for action.

“Very handsome,” she commented, turning with a smile to her great-uncle. “Then and now.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he said, his face alight with pleasure. Maggie resumed her seat, and Harold continued.

“After the war, I went back to graduate school, and Lawrence went back to college and then on to law school. Again, our paths rarely crossed. We both became caught up in our careers. I was teaching at a small university in the East, and Lawrence set up practice here in Jackson. Then old man Culpeper died, and a day later, my father died. So I came home for the funerals. The night of my father’s service, Lawrence and I sat up late talking. I suppose we’d both had a bit too much to drink, and I said something. Now I can’t even remember what, but then we were confessing how we’d always felt about each other. I was stunned, and thrilled, as you might imagine. We agreed to meet the next afternoon.”

“What happened?” Maggie asked softly, when Harold had fallen silent.

“There’s an old summerhouse out by the tennis courts,” he replied. “Have you been out there yet? No, I guess not, you haven’t had much time. Anyway, that’s where Lawrence and I met that day. No one else in the family was much interested in tennis, and he and I did genuinely like to play. But it was a convenient site for us to meet. That day,” Harold sighed, “we were just careless, so caught up in each other that we weren’t thinking clearly. Magnolia walked in on us. She was looking for Gerard, who had just had yet another argument with his father about something. Gerard was fourteen or fifteen, and he and Henry were always butting heads, it seemed. Magnolia didn’t find Gerard, but she did catch me and her brother in a compromising situation. That was the point at which she wanted me out of her house for good.” Harold laughed, bitterly this time. “It did no good for Lawrence to tell her that he hadn’t been coerced, or even seduced. For pity’s sake, we were both around thirty at the time! She wouldn’t believe that her only brother was ‘like that.’ She blamed me completely. Years later, I think she eventually understood and perhaps forgave me, although she never really trusted me again.”