Cruel as the Grave (26 page)

‘That must have been very painful for you,” Maggie said, feeling inadequate.

“It was horrible,” Harold said. “I had already noticed that Magnolia and Henry were having some problems. They had always seemed so happy together, but that summer, something was definitely wrong. Magnolia was angry with everyone just then, and Henry did nothing to make it better. Evidently he’d had a brief fling with someone, and Magnolia had found out about it. It took them quite a while to work through that, but they did eventually.”

“Sounds like it was hell on the rest of the family, too,” she observed.

“Yes,” Harold smiled wryly. “Neither Magnolia nor Henry were ever ones to suffer anything alone. Anyone around them had to feel the effects, one way or another.”

“What happened with you and Lawrence after that?” Maggie asked, after a brief pause.

Harold shook his head. “After that, and Magnolia’s tirade, Lawrence was terrified. I know it’s difficult for you to imagine, but your grandmother had such a strong personality. Lavinia would stand up to her, or at least try, but Lawrence never could. Magnolia told him what to do, and he did it. I tried to talk him into coming back east with me, but he refused. We kept in touch, but things were never the same after that.”

“And only my grandmother knew about what had happened between the two of you?” Maggie asked.

Harold nodded slowly. “It wasn’t something she wanted everybody to know. She told Henry, of course, but other than that, she kept quiet about it. And I never even told Helena. She may have suspected, but she’s not said anything to me in all these years about it, and I didn’t bring the subject up, even after Lawrence died.”

“What about Lavinia?” Maggie asked, remembering that her great-aunt had told her how Lawrence couldn’t keep his hands off a pretty woman. Had she known the truth about her brother?

“I don’t know that Lavinia knew the truth about Lawrence and me, but she did know Lawrence was homosexual, if that’s what you’re asking.” At Maggie’s nod, Harold continued. “Both Magnolia and Lavinia found it difficult to accept, so they encouraged stories about Lawrence being a scandalous womanizer. In his letters to me, he would laugh at them behind their backs, but it didn’t really bother him that much. It was useful camouflage. He never tried dating a woman. He just let the two of them talk about him as if he had. That was enough, and he went his own way.”

“But what about Claudine, then?” she asked as an important point occurred to her.

“That’s a good question,” Harold responded, nodding approvingly. “Whatever Lavinia or Magnolia thought, Lawrence most definitely was not Claudine’s father. He told me that himself.”

“Why would they all have pretended he was for all these years?” With a sudden flash of insight, Maggie thought she knew the answer, but she wanted Harold to confirm it for her.

“For one thing, it gave a ring of truth to those stories Magnolia had been telling for so long about Lawrence. She’d much rather have had to tell people, albeit shamefacedly, that her brother had gotten a servant in the family way than to tell them that he was a queer.” He laughed bitterly. “Lawrence didn’t live very long after that for it to matter much to him.”

“Who was Claudine’s father, then? She certainly looks a lot like Lawrence. I saw his picture in Lavinia’s room. Although,” she continued, thinking back to the conversation, “Lavinia did say Claudine looked more like her own mother, Claudine’s grandmother.”

Harold shrugged. “To tell you the truth, back then I never cared that much about it. I just assumed that old man Culpeper’s brother was responsible, and that he had gotten poor Lorraine Sprayberry in the family way. She was very pretty, and he was the one who had trouble keeping his hands off a pretty woman, not his nephew. But nobody’s ever said. As far as I know, even Claudine thinks Lawrence was her father, though she uses her mother’s name, Sprayberiy.”

Maggie mulled this over for a moment. Harold waited in silence.

“If Lawrence wasn’t her father, but there’s definitely a Culpeper family resemblance, then I think that leaves one other possibility,” she said slowly.

Harold nodded.

“Lavinia must have been her mother, then.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Harold said.

“But who, then," Maggie wondered aloud, “is her father?”

Harold cocked his head to one side, waiting.

“Good lord!” she said, stunned, as the answer hit her. “You really think so?”

“Yes, I do,” Harold said.

“That changes everything!” Maggie was flabbergasted.

“When Henry was murdered," Harold said reflectively, “I honestly hadn’t given this aspect of it much thought. Just about any one of us could have murdered him, he gave us all enough cause over the years. But after Helena told me what you were thinking about Magnolia’s death, I got to thinking. Then with Lavinia’s death, I thought maybe it had all fallen into place.”

“What were you planning to do?” Maggie said.

“Keep my mouth shut, for the moment,” Harold said, making a face. “I didn’t want to give anything away and get my head bashed in or get pushed down the stairs.” He laughed, a bleak sound which gave Maggie a momentary chill.

“That’s not going to happen again,” she said firmly. “Now that you’ve told me all this, we can put an end to it.”

“Yes, my dear, I know you will.”

Maggie stood up and moved in front of her great-uncle’s chair. “Thank you,” she said softly as she bent down to kiss his cheek.

He sat quietly in his chair as she, empty soft-drink can in hand, left the room.

Reaching the solitude of her room, Maggie thought to check her watch. Nearly time for the evening meal. She tossed her empty can into the wastebasket in the bathroom before running a brush through her hair. After washing her face and hands, she went back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed.

She was pretty sure now that she had figured out who the murderer was, and why. But how to prove it?

It wasn’t really her job to do that, of course. That was up to the police. Perhaps she should just call Arthur Latham and tell him. Let him figure out how to prove it.

That was the crux of the problem. As far as she could see, there wasn’t much but circumstantial evidence linking the killer to the crime. She had no idea what evidence the police might have, however. Maybe they had something which could link the killer with the crime.

What to do?

She consulted the list of telephone extensions, figured out which room Ernie was in, then punched in the number.

She held her breath until Ernie answered.

“Ernie, it’s me, Maggie. Don’t ask me why, but can you call the police and get Arthur Latham here? I think we can get this over with.”

Ernie squawked a bit, but she soon agreed to do what Maggie asked. “You know you’re killing me with curiosity, don’t you?” she grumbled at Maggie before hanging up.

“I’m trying to keep any more of us from being killed,” Maggie replied. “And hopefully this is the way.”

She hung up the phone and checked her watch. Just about time for dinner; she might as well head downstairs.

A few minutes later she pushed open the door to the dining room. Adrian and Claudine were standing at the sideboard. Adrian was saying, “No, for the last time, no. Forget about it, once and for all.”

In their brief acquaintance, Maggie had never heard him sound so annoyed.
What had Claudine said or done to him?
she wondered.

She cleared her throat to announce her presence. Turning, Claudine scowled at Maggie. “What do you want?” she asked. One hand reached up nervously and plucked at the brilliantly colored scarf around her neck.

“Of course!” Maggie said, then was disconcerted when she realized that she had spoken aloud. She was so stunned by the revelation she’d just had, she lost sense of where she was and who was listening to her.

“What is it, Maggie? Are you okay?” Adrian moved toward her.

She nodded her head. “I’m fine, really.” She flashed them a nervous smile. “I’m just wandering around in a daze, as always. Pay no attention to me.”

“Was there something you needed?” Claudine asked pointedly.

“Dinner,” Maggie pointed out, her tone as mild as she could make it. “I thought it was about time for dinner.”

“Oh, right,” Claudine said. She turned and walked away, through the door which led to the kitchen.

“Everything will be ready in just a few minutes,” Adrian said. “Would you like something to drink while you wait?” “Yes, thanks, don’t mind if I do,” Maggie said, approaching the sideboard. She helped herself to a glass of iced tea, then took it around to her accustomed place at the table, and sat down. “Okay if I wait here?”

“Certainly,” Adrian smiled at her. “I’ll be back in a tick, and surely the others will be down for dinner any minute now.” He followed Claudine back to the kitchen.

Alone in the dining room, Maggie sipped at her tea. She had figured out what had been missing, and now she just had to steel herself for the confrontation to follow.

Chapter Nineteen

Maggie had drunk about half of her glass of tea by the time other members of the family began trickling in for dinner. Gerard came first, followed soon by Ernie and Harold. Helena came with Sylvia, who announced that her grandmother was resting in her room and wouldn’t join them for dinner that night.

Just as well,
Maggie thought.
Retty was the one who’d likely be the most upset by what she was planning to do.

Adrian and Claudine came back from the kitchen with the last serving dishes, and soon everyone was filling plates with a variety of vegetables and cold cuts. Adrian apologized for the odd fare, but Helena assured him that this was fine.

Maggie had decided to wait until everyone had at least had a few mouthfuls of food before she put her plan into motion. Shortly after taking her seat at the table, Ernie had assured her with a quick nod that the police were on their way. Now all she had to do was settle her stomach a bit and get going.

Putting aside her fork, Maggie cleared her throat loudly. “Excuse me, everyone. If I could have your attention for a few minutes, there’s something I’d like to say to you all.”

Conversation ceased, and everyone looked at Maggie. She focused on Ernie’s face, and her cousin’s calm visage gave her courage.

“Coming home,” she began, “has been much more of an ordeal than either my father or I ever expected. I’ve been wondering, if we had stayed in Houston, would things have happened differently? Would two lives have been spared? Maybe.” She took a drink from her tea glass, pausing for time.

“This homecoming was joyful, at first. My father and my grandfather were reconciled, after a long separation. They were each doing their best to put aside past differences, and I’m happy that I was able to meet my grandfather, however briefly, before he was so brutally murdered.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I know this all probably sounds unbearably pompous and self-indulgent, but there is a point, if you’ll just bear with me. The thing is, in a very short period of time, I’ve learned all sorts of things about my family. Other than Helena, I never really knew anything about any of you before my father and I came here. And now I’ve learned maybe more than I wanted to know about the McClendons and the Culpepers. But I guess, like any family, we all have things we’d rather forget, secrets we’d just as soon keep out of sight forever.

“The trouble is, sometimes secrets can be dangerous. Secrets can cause resentment, and resentment can get really ugly. Even deadly. Just like it happened here. One member of this family finally couldn’t stop the resentment from boiling over, and the result was that two people have been murdered.”

“Are you telling us you’re about to accuse someone?” Gerard demanded.

“Yes, Dad, I am,” Maggie said.

“Who?” Helena asked, looking around the room.

“Yes, who, Miss McLendon?” Arthur Latham startled them all. Ernie must have left the front door unlocked for him, Maggie realized, and he had come right in and no one noticed his presence. He advanced into the room and stood at the head of the table, behind Re tty’s chair.

“Someone who had better cause than most to resent my grandparents and poor Aunt Lavinia,” Maggie said. “Someone who was treated like a servant all her life, but who really was a part of the family, by blood. Someone whose real parents never acknowledged her, as far as I know. At least, not publicly.”

“Claudine?” Helena’s voice rose an octave in amazement.

All eyes in the room turned on Claudine, who sat coolly at her place at the table.

“What wonderful little fairy tale have you cooked up, Maggie?” Claudine said. “Trying to come up with a story so some other member of the family won’t get the blame? Pin it on me, instead?” She shook her head. “Honey, I don’t think you’re nearly as clever as you think you are.”

Maggie smiled, deliberately. “Maybe not. But then neither are you, honey.”

“Maggie, what is this?” Gerard said. “How is Claudine supposed to be a member of the family? You mean because Uncle Lawrence was her father? How does that have anything to do with this?”

“Yes, Maggie,” Claudine said. “How does that have anything to do with the murder of your grandfather and my aunt?”

“For one thing,” Maggie said, taking a deep breath, “Lawrence Culpeper wasn’t your father.”

The silence in the room was absolute.

“Why on earth would you say something like that?” Helena said impatiently. “Everyone knows he was a womanizer! Magnolia always said so. I can’t remember how many times she was telling me about little scrapes he was getting himself into over some woman.”

“That was deliberate on my grandmother’s part, Helena,” Maggie said. “She was trying to mislead you and everyone else about her brother, because she didn’t want them to guess the truth.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Helena demanded.

“Lawrence was gay, like me,” Harold said quietly. “He wasn’t interested in women. As Maggie said. Magnolia made up all those stories because she didn’t want anyone to know the truth. You can take it from me, Lawrence was not Claudine’s father.”