First Kill All the Lawyers (23 page)

“Mother, there is nothing that Sam Adams likes better than telling a good story.”

“Yes, there is,” her uncle disagreed. “Writing one.”

“And that was a doozie that appeared on this morning’s front page.” Beau tipped the hat, which he was still holding, toward her. “Was Hoke pleased?”

“Yes.” She grinned. “In a begrudging kind of way.”

“Gin and tonic, please,” Beau said in answer to Horace’s silent query. “So, you got your corrupt sheriff and the answer to the Ridley mystery all rolled up into one. Couldn’t have asked for it neater, Sam. But come on, give us the straight skinny, the stuff you didn’t write for the paper.”

“Well…” Sam
settled into her chair and looked around at her audience. “I’ll tell you the part about
Forrest Ridley before Liza gets here. There’s no need for her to know all of this.”

They nodded.

“Kay Kay
did
send the invitations to the party at the Ridleys. She got the idea from a story that Forrest had told about a practical joke he played when he was a law student.”

“Her prints were on the follow-up note,” Beau confirmed. “It was easy, once Sam told us who we were looking for.”

“But why?” Miriam asked. “Why would a grown woman do a thing like that?”

“Because she knew her daughter was having an affair with Forrest Ridley. That was part of it. She wanted to shake him up. But mostly, I think, she did it because she hated Queen.”

Miriam asked her next question with raised eyebrows.

“Queen was having an affair with her husband, Edison.”

“My word!” Miriam cried. “That’s all so sordid.”

“Mom’s led a very sheltered life.” Beau patted her on the shoulder.

“As well she should. And we’ll keep it that way.” George smiled at Miriam, and then down at the magnificent new string of pearls she was wearing. He still had an excellent eye, for a man who was going blind. His latest gift looked beautiful on her.

“I don’t think that affair between Queen and Edison had been going on awfully long, but long enough for Kay Kay to get wind of it,” Sam continued. “And Queen knew about her husband and Totsie, which hurt her pride more than anything else—which was one reason she got involved with Edison. But when Liza started asking questions about his being away—at which point he was actually already dead—Queen just wanted to put a lid on it. She figured he was with Totsie somewhere, and his absence gave her a chance to spend more time with Edison. Of course, Edison really wasn’t such a catch. I think that money, not women, was his game, just as Kay Kay said. But for Queen, besides revenge, there was the appeal of all that money. Don’t think she didn’t notice that Edison was doing
awfully
well.”

“You mean you don’t think she loved him,” Miriam said.

“I’m not sure I think Queen Ridley ever loved anyone except herself,” Sam replied. “But she sure picked wrong with Edison. What with the accessory-to-murder charges, not to mention the drugs and the land deals, it’s going to be a very long time before Edison Kay is a free man again.”

“I never did like that man anyway,” Miriam sniffed.

“Me either,” said Peaches, who had come in with a plate of roasted pecans and cheese straws.

“I didn’t know you knew him,” Sam said, surprised.

“I know what I know,” Peaches sniffed.

“I should have just asked her who the murderer was in the first place,” Sam said to George after Peaches had left the porch.

“I always do,” her uncle agreed.

“Well, why didn’t you ask her this time?”

“I didn’t want to mess in your business.”

“Go ’way.” She slapped at him.

“Don’t you think Liza knows all this?” Beau asked. “About Queen and her father and Totsie?”

“I think she suspects. And if she wants to know the details, she’ll ask. I think she’s protecting herself right now until she’s through grieving for her father.”

“I think you’re right, dear,” Miriam agreed.

The doorbell rang just then, and moments later Horace announced Liza. Sam stood to greet her, as did the two men, but when the young woman appeared on the porch, Sam stepped back a pace. She almost didn’t recognize this new Liza, who had discarded her punk artist all-black costume and was now dressed head-to-toe in white. She was lovely.

“I’m nothing if not a creature of extremes,” she said, laughing at Sam.

“And a very pretty one.” Beau bent to kiss her on the cheek.

After a few moments of small talk, Liza turned to Sam. “I’m dying to hear about your grand escape.”

Sam barely had her mouth open when Horace reappeared. “Lunch,” he announced.

*

The meal began with vichyssoise and progressed to shrimp and lobster salad with Louis dressing.

“Now, Sam, I want to hear it,” said Liza.

Sam took a deep breath to begin, but Peaches interrupted her. “I hope you’re not going to talk about unpleasant things at my table and upset your digestion and ruin a good meal.”

“Then you and Horace will join us afterwards for dessert, and I’ll tell the rest of the story,” Sam said.

“What about digesting dessert?” Beau whispered. Sam kicked him under the table.

“Sure, we can wait,” said Liza. She hesitated, inspecting a beautiful piece of lobster. “After graduation next month, I’m going to live with my Aunt Jean in New York and study painting. She has a great loft in Soho.”

“That’s wonderful!” said Sam.

“I know.” Liza’s eyes were happy and shiny. No one asked what her mother was going to do alone, but Liza ventured a theory anyway. “Maybe Queen will go and live with Dr. Tuckit in Rio.”

*

“Now,” Peaches said to Sam as they all settled around the table in the screened gazebo where she had decreed that they should enjoy dessert, “shoot.”

“So that night at the Kays’, Totsie walked straight up the front stairs at her parents’ house, and then right down the back stairs. And—”

Suddenly there was the thud of heavy footsteps on the brick driveway that curved around the side of the house, and a startling figure appeared.

“Good Lord, have mercy,” Peaches cried. “Who…
what…
is that?”

Sam recognized the figure. “It’s Herman Blanding.” She rose. “Oh, my! Would you look?”

Mr. Blanding was a sight to behold in his full Civil War regalia. It was not the uniform he had worn when Sam called on him at home, but a dress suit complete with a sword in a shining scabbard. He was rather elegant. His hair was even combed. And instead of his usual pallor, the color was high in his face.

“I’ve come to slay the man who killed Forrest Ridley,” he announced, brandishing his sword as he approached the door of the gazebo.

“Lord and the saints preserve us,” Peaches whispered.

Horace stepped out and took Mr. Blanding by the arm.

“Sorry.” Blanding tipped his hat. The plume brushed the grass. “I knocked for a long time on the front door. I didn’t mean to barge in like this.”

“Mr. Blanding,” Horace said as if this were an everyday occurrence, “won’t you come and join us for some dessert?”

“Have you lost your mind?” Peaches hissed.

“I can’t. I have to kill the man.” Blanding stood at attention. “It came to me in a dream.”

“Are you sure you won’t join us?” Samantha called. “We have homemade raspberry sorbet and Peaches’ famous coconut cake.”

“No.” Blanding’s jaw was strong, as was his resolve. “I must stand guard.”

“I’m sure he’ll be perfectly all right,” Miriam said to Peaches in a low voice. Miriam Talbot had seen more than a few Southern eccentrics in her sixty-odd years and considered herself a good judge of them. “Just leave him be for a while. He’ll simmer down. Now, go on with your story, Samantha.”

“As I was
saying…”
Sam leaned into her chair and continued for the fourth time. “Totsie skipped down the back stairs. She figured she was in so much trouble…” Sam looked at Liza, who waved her on. Either Liza knew or she didn’t want to know, but in any case, Sam didn’t have to explain that part. “…in so much trouble that she’d get out of there and go to her apartment and sleep in her own bed. But what she saw when she stepped outside was Buford Dodd pulling out behind my car with no lights on.”

“So she followed,” said Beau.

“Yes. We must have made quite a parade. Me, toodling along, too fast probably, but never thinking to look back. Dodd behind me in his dark patrol car. And then Totsie behind him, also with no lights. It’s a wonder somebody didn’t come along and crash into us.

“When Totsie saw Dodd pull me from my car, she knew she’d done the right thing. So she just kept on following.”

“Still with no lights?” George asked.

“Partly. Once we got on I-75, she knew she was okay. She doused them again, of course, when Dodd pulled down the little dirt lane toward the dogs.” Sam shuddered involuntarily.

“Oh, my dear!” Miriam said. “That must have been so awful.”

“It was. I thought I was dead.”

“You would have been,” said Liza, “if Totsie hadn’t saved you. I’ll always have to be grateful to her for that.”

And then Sam knew that Liza knew the whole story about Totsie and her dad, but had come to terms with it.

“Did you have an escape plan?” Beau asked.

“I wish I could say yes, but I’m afraid I would have been a goner if Totsie hadn’t come after me,” Sam admitted. “She
is
a crack shot. Kay Kay did one whale of a job training her.”

“I’ll kill him,” Mr. Blanding started up again out in the yard.

“Now, Mr. Blanding, sir,” Horace called. “You’re going to have to quiet down.”

Beau leaned toward Sam’s ear. “I’d have died if anything had happened to you. Won’t you come with me after lunch? I need to talk with you.”

She felt herself softening a little. She never should have worn this damned yellow dress.

“Going to call him out and challenge him to a duel!” Blanding shouted.

“You don’t need to do that.” Samantha stood, stepped through the gazebo door into the soft grass, and took Blanding’s hand. “The villain’s been taken care of, Herman. Somebody else drilled him. It’s okay.”

“Oh.” Herman Blanding blinked, and then blinked again. “Oh. All right. In that case”—and he stepped forward smiling that lovely sweet smile that Sam remembered from the day he’d served her tea and animal crackers and reminisced about his Susan—“in that case, I believe I
will
have a piece of that coconut cake.”