Dangerous Inheritance (15 page)

“Yes, she doesn’t talk much about Lindy. In fact, she sort of keeps to herself. Oh, she goes to church and community events, but she doesn’t really get involved.”

“She works hard and the house looks better since she started taking care of it,” Macy said. “Neva’s not much for standing around talking. She gets the work done, and I like having someone besides me in the house. I’m still not used to anything this big and empty. Houses like this weren’t built for just one person to live in.”

Hilda laughed. “No, I guess back then they planned on big families to fill all of these rooms. These old mansions are beautiful, but I prefer something smaller, myself.”

Macy hesitated. She needed to know something about the woman who had raised her the first seven years of her life. The mother she still couldn’t remember.

“Hilda, I want to talk to someone who might have been a friend of my mother’s. It’s driving me crazy that I can’t remember her. I need more than just a vague idea of what she was like. Who can I talk to?”

“You have to remember, Macy, that Megan was a lot younger than me. I was her mother’s age. Opal’s age. I didn’t know her all that well, didn’t know her friends, but I never heard anything bad about her and as far as I know she didn’t have any real enemies. Oh, Anita bad-mouthed her every chance she got, but that’s all.”

“She had one enemy,” Macy said. “The one who killed her.”

Hilda nodded. “That’s true enough. Someone did that. Have you found her diary?”

Her diary? Her mother kept a diary? It would be full of personal information. Things Megan Douglas had thought were important enough to record. No, she hadn’t found anything like that while searching through the house. She stared at Hilda. “You mean she actually kept a diary? I didn’t know that.”

“Opal found it a couple of months ago. She mentioned it to me and said it hurt her to read it.”

Macy felt as if someone had handed her a gift. Her mother had kept a diary? She had to find it. That handwritten account might be just what she needed to jog her memory.

“It was right after that she started acting funny.”

Macy zeroed in on that comment. “Funny? How?”

Hilda leaned back, frowning. “Like I told you, she started talking about Steve, and she never did that before. It was almost like she felt he was innocent.”

She gave Macy an intent look. “Opal lived her beliefs. If there was anything in that diary that pointed to someone besides Steve, Opal would have done something about it. She’d have felt that was what God would want her to do.”

Macy felt excitement building inside her.
God, help me find that diary. Show me where my grandmother kept it.
She was sure it held a clue to her mother’s death, or at least she prayed it did.

Hilda glanced at her watch. “I need to go. Lila Vester is in a nursing home and I promised I’d stop by and see if she needs anything. But if this place gets to be too much for you, I’ve got an extra bedroom and you’d be welcome anytime.”

Macy got to her feet, smiling. “I know that and I appreciate it. I believe meeting you was one of the nicest things that has happened to me since coming here.”

And meeting Nick was another, but not something she felt like talking about, even to Hilda. She wasn’t sure about what she felt for him. For the time being she was calling it friendship although she knew it went beyond that. But friendship was all she could handle right now.

After Hilda left, Neva stepped out onto the porch. “Was that Hilda Yates? What was she doing here?”

“We’ve become friends. She drops by occasionally.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“At church. Do you go to church, Neva?”

Neva’s face creased in a smile. “Yes, I go to the same church Hilda does. The church Megan and Opal went to. I saw you there the first day you came.”

Macy tried to remember seeing her, but there had been too many people that Sunday, and after all, Neva had been practically a stranger then. “I’m sorry I don’t remember. It was my first time there and I was a little overwhelmed.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m easy to overlook.” Neva changed the subject. “I heard Hilda talking about Megan’s diary. I knew she kept one but I’ve never seen it.”

“Neither have I,” Macy said. “But I’m going to start looking for it. If my grandmother found the diary and was troubled by it, then maybe she really was coming around to believing someone other than my father had killed my mom. You know this house better than I do. Would you have any idea where Grandmother Opal might have kept it?”

“No, but I’ll be on the lookout for it. If you find it before I do, I’d like to see what she wrote. It would bring Megan back to me, just by reading her thoughts and what was important to her. It would be a blessing.”

Macy nodded, but she had reservations about showing her mother’s diary to anyone except maybe Nick. It would seem like a betrayal of her mom’s private thoughts and feelings. If she found the diary, she’d read it and then decide if it had any bearing on their mystery. If not, she would keep it to herself.

Neva left and Macy made a run to the grocery store to pick up a few items. After she got back home, she sat down at the table to look at the photo album from her grandmother’s room, hoping she would see something familiar. The pictures of her with her parents were heartbreaking, but from what she could see there had been love, laughter, life. Nothing that pointed to problems.

* * *

Nick tapped on the door frame of Sam’s office. “You got a minute?”

“Sure. What’s on your mind?”

He stepped inside and sat down. “I want to run something by you. It’s this Megan Douglas thing. There’s no evidence that she got involved in politics like Steve did. She ran her own business, raised her daughter, went to church. I can’t find anyone who had a problem with her, except maybe Anita Miles, and I don’t have anything that points to her as a killer.”

Sam shook his head. “Anita’s a hard one to handle when she’s upset about something. But we need more than the fact she didn’t like Megan. Megan was a good woman, but she had a reputation for being kind of outspoken and she ran a tight business, didn’t put up with much. I remember she fired an employee for stealing. Can’t think of the name right now, but it’s a little far-fetched to think someone killed her over something Steve did.”

Nick shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable. “Yeah, I thought of that. A killer’s mind doesn’t usually work that way.”

“You had any luck turning up anything about Steve and that so-called affair Anita is always ranting about?”

“No. In fact, from what I’ve learned Steve Douglas was a family man. He worked late at the paper sometimes, but not very often. Mostly he was home in the evening.”

Sam looked at him, nodding as if that was no more than he had expected. “We need to check into that alibi of his. He was supposed to have gotten a phone call about a wreck outside of town. When he got there nothing had happened. Maybe someone set him up. Let me get his file and see what they learned back then, or if they bothered to follow through.”

He walked over to the file cabinet, opened a drawer and thumbed through it. While Nick watched, he went through it again and then turned to face him with an incredulous expression.

The file was gone.

Nick was bewildered. He’d read through that file, taking notes, but not finding anything that pointed to evidence being mishandled by the police. He’d put it back exactly where he’d found it. And now Sam was looking at him, frowning.

“You can drop what you’re thinking, right now. Yes, I’ve been reading the file, but I put it back. If it’s missing, it’s not my fault. Someone else has it.”

Sam didn’t look convinced. “Who else would be using it? You’re the one obsessed with this case and digging around on your own.”

“I have no idea, but I’d like to find it, too. I’ve still got a few questions about how the case was handled.”

Sam eyed him, skeptically. “I’d hate to think one of our guys took it, and I can’t see why they would. After all, none of them were involved in police work back then. They were too young.”

Nick shrugged. Sam didn’t seem to have any problem believing he took it. “Well, I hope you find it. I’m going to check on Quent. He’s the one who told Macy her dad was having an affair with Anita.”

“Yeah. I guess Anita testified to that at the trial, but I never put much stock in it. Any man who had Megan wouldn’t waste time looking at Anita. Even back then, she was trouble.”

“That’s what I heard. But it won’t hurt to check it out.” He got to his feet. “I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

Nick drove to Quent’s and pulled into the driveway of the white frame bungalow where he lived. Soon he was settled in a brown leather armchair that looked almost as old as the house.

“Good to see you, Nick,” Quent said after they were both seated. “What’s up?”

“Oh, not much. Macy told me what you said about Steve and Anita. You really think something was going on there?”

“Well, I don’t have any proof one way or the other, but my gut feeling says no. He already had a good woman. Megan Douglas was a fine person, hardworking, everybody liked her. Never could figure out why anyone would kill her.”

And that was the problem, Nick thought. No one, except Anita, seemed to have anything against Megan. Maybe he needed to take another look at Anita. He’d always felt she was more talk than action, but he’d been wrong before.

“What’s Anita’s problem, anyway?”

Quent was silent for a moment, looking thoughtful. “Well, mostly, I guess, she thinks she’s so important that no one should cross her and she should have exactly what she wants. No one is supposed to get in her way.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s right. I’ve pretty well tried to stay away from her. She’s usually on the warpath about something.”

“Yeah, someone isn’t doing things the way she wants and she has to straighten them out.”

“But what does that have to do with Steve and Megan Douglas?”

“Steve was a good-looking man. Lots of women had their eye on him, but when he met Megan, the search was over as far as he was concerned. I never heard of him looking at another woman once they started keeping company.”

“And Anita didn’t like that, I guess.”

“That’s right. From what I heard she did everything she could to break them up, but she just couldn’t do it. That testifying against him was probably her idea of getting even.”

“I think you just gave Anita a reason to commit murder.”

Quent nodded. “I wouldn’t take her off your list.”

After he left Quent, Nick decided to drop by and see Macy. He knew he was probably overreacting, but he couldn’t stop worrying about her. Something just didn’t feel right.

TWELVE

T
he doorbell rang and Macy answered to find Nick standing there. It gave her a warm feeling, knowing he cared enough to be so protective. Not that she needed it, of course; she could take care of herself...but still, it was nice.

He grinned at her. “Thought I’d drop by and see if I could get a glass of tea or something.”

She laughed. “There’s a pitcher of tea in the refrigerator and Hilda brought over a plate of fresh-baked brownies. Will that do?”

“Sounds great. Lead me to it.”

Impulsively, she caught his hand and strolled with him toward the kitchen, strongly aware of the way he walked so close to her. Macy knew she needed to think less about Nick and more about the quest she had embarked upon, but her heart wasn’t listening.

He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, as casually as if he belonged there, and for a fleeting moment she wished he did. Macy acknowledged to herself that she was being foolish. Nick Baldwin was a policeman working to unravel this case. If he was friendly and protective, it was merely because he was that kind of man. A man a woman could trust and depend on. She hadn’t met many like that. But he hadn’t given any indication of wanting to be more.

Nick moved the photo album over where he could see, and Macy drew up a chair beside him, enjoying the intimacy of sitting so close together while they looked at the pictures. He pointed at one of her and her parents. “That must have been taken at the park.”

Macy shook her head. “No, we’d been fishing.”

She glanced at him, wide-eyed, not sure where that had come from. How could she know where they had been? Yet she did. Knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

Nick stared at her. “You remember it?”

Macy looked at the picture, then back at him, unable to hide her confusion. “No. It just slipped out. I don’t really remember anything about it.”

“Maybe that’s the way it’s going to be. Not one big flash of memory, just little things.”

She hoped it wouldn’t be that way, although recent events seemed to bear it out. “I’m too impatient for that. I need to know. I have a feeling we’re running out of time, like something is about to happen. Something bad.”

Nick had a serious expression, and she could see the concern in his warm brown eyes. “Has anything new happened since I last saw you?”

Macy hesitated, not sure how he would take this. Finally she took a deep breath and nodded. “I don’t know how this will sound, but the other day I was in the living room, and something happened. In my mind I saw one of those gold brocade chairs turned over on its side, and then I saw my mother’s body lying in front of the fireplace.”

She couldn’t tell from Nick’s expression what he was thinking, but she wouldn’t blame him if he thought she was losing it. Why should she expect anyone to believe something so strange? It was time to step back and stop trying so hard, put it in God’s hands and trust Him to work it out for her benefit. A difficult task for someone who always had to be in control.

After a long, drawn-out moment, Nick asked, “What did she look like?”

Macy stopped to think. “She had on a blue robe. One shoe was lying over at the side. She was facedown on the carpet, and her head was all...bloody. That’s all I remembered before it faded, like everything else has done.”

Nick sighed. “I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before, so I’m not sure what to think about it.”