In-Laws and Outlaws (23 page)

“What you're telling me,” I said miserably, “is that the money was there, but you were unwilling to jeopardize the business even to save Theo's life.”

“You don't
know
it would have saved him!” Annette snapped.

“You don't know it wouldn't have!”

“Annette,” Michelle said softly, “you're wasting your breath. She just doesn't understand our business.”

“Your business!” I cried, furious with them. “I understand what your business is! And what I understand is that you've gotten fat off other people's ideas—
that's
your business!”

“Gillian,” Michelle said in a tone of remonstrance.

“Well, haven't you?” I went on, wanting to hurt them. “Have you ever had one innovative idea in your lives? You look around for talented people with no money and then buy your way in. You're in the business of
leeching
. You've done nothing original of your own—nothing!”

“Original?” Annette inquired archly. “Like directing other people's plays, perhaps?”

“Theater is a communal effort,” I replied hotly. “Everybody contributes. You ought to try it sometime.”

“Oh, this is too much,” Michelle said, provoked. “I don't know how much more of these holier-than-thou pronouncements of yours I can take. We buy our way in, you say? What do you call what you did with that museum of yours in Chicago? Gillian, you can't even get a
job
without buying it!”

A bucket of ice water in the face. I stared at them, unable to speak.

Annette was nodding. “We did a little checking up, once we knew where you'd been these past few years. You used Stuart's money to make a generous donation to the museum at the same time you were applying for the job of curator.” She looked at me with contempt. “You have this glamorous picture of yourself as some independent, creative free spirit, when the truth is you'd have been waiting tables or on welfare if it hadn't been for Stuart's money. And you dare to criticize
us
? What a hypocrite you are, Gillian.”

My mouth was too dry to speak. I took a swallow of wine, now warm, and said, “Detectives. You hired detectives. To check on
me
.”

Michelle lifted one graceful shoulder, let it fall. “Gillian, you were Stuart's wife, and that means there'll always be a place for you in the family. But you're hardly in a position to pass judgment, are you? So we'll have no more accusations or name-calling, is that understood?”

A charged silence descended. The twins were staring at me with something very like disgust … and suddenly I was afraid of them. I was out there alone on a boat with two women who'd let their brother's son die rather than do anything that might hurt their goddamned precious business. And they knew all about me.
All
about me. Shakily I moved away from the twins; I didn't even want to look at them. I curled up in the prow, seasick and wretched, and stayed there while they turned the boat around and headed back home.

I had never felt so desolate in my life. Michelle and Annette were right about me; I was a failure. All those years in the New York theater … it had taken me a long time to face up to the fact that whatever talent I had was minimal. Simply wanting a thing badly wasn't enough. The Deckers had never been cursed with the kind of uncertainty I was living with then; I felt totally lost. This was one show I wasn't directing; I didn't even know the script.

If it hadn't been for Stuart's legacy, I'm not sure what I would have done. Now I had a nice home and good work … but I hadn't
earned
any of it. At the time, it had seemed like a smart move to make a large donation to the Chicago museum, neatly cutting out the penniless Leonard in his bid for the curatorship. I'd even managed to soothe my conscience by telling myself I'd do a better job than that constipated little wimp, which was true. But it was still a shameful secret.

Only now it was no longer a secret. Did Tom know? Of course he knew; they all knew. Maybe they hadn't told Connie, but everybody else would know. I was ashamed. And the irony of it was that right now good old Leonard was in the process of stealing that very job I'd acquired by less-than-honorable methods.

It was late afternoon by the time we pulled into the yacht club slip. The twins did make some effort to talk to me; I answered in monosyllables. Michelle dropped Annette and me off at the compound and then drove away; she was picking Rob up at the airport.

Annette locked the gate behind us. “Gillian—”

I turned my back on her and walked away.

The day had worn me down, and I wanted nothing more than a cool shower and a soft bed. I found Connie in the kitchen making brownies with Joel, back from his birthday party and bored with sitting alone in an empty house. They had the radio tuned to the island's only broadcasting station, which was playing Beatles tunes as if they were brand new. It was a homey scene, but I was too depressed to join in; I told them I was going to my room. Joel followed me upstairs uninvited, demanding to know how I liked their new sailboat.

“The boat's a dandy, Joel,” I told him. “The trouble is me. I'll never make a sailor.”

“Sure you will,” he said with conviction. “Everybody in the family sails.”

“Your Uncle Raymond tried to teach me once,” I said, remembering. “But even he was ready to give it up as a lost cause.”

“Really? He's the one taught me. All us kids.”

“A man of infinite patience.”

He made a face. “Well,
almost
infinite.”

“Almost?”

“Yeah, except when he blew his top, he
really
blew.” He broke off sharply.

“When was that?” He didn't want to answer. “Joel?”

“Oh, that time, you know, when Theo got killed. He got mad at the family.”

“At the family? About what?”

“The money,” he mumbled.

It was like pulling teeth. “The ransom money?”

“Yeah. He was really steaming there for a while. So, when're you going sailing again?”

A real subtle change of subject, that. I looked at him, this boy, this probable cousin-and-uncle-killer, if I could only convince myself. “Do you miss Raymond?” Casually.

Joel shrugged. “Sure.”

Did he?
Could
he? “Joel, I'm tired and I'm sweaty and I want a shower and a nap. I'll talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay,” he said amiably and went back downstairs to Connie and the brownies.

I took something to settle my stomach and stood in the shower for a long, long time, relishing the feel of the cool water on my head and body. So Raymond hadn't been fooled by the family's excuse-making; seemed to me if anyone had a right to be furious, he did. While I was drying off I noticed my skin had that particular pinkish tinge that means a bad sunburn unless you do something fast, so I slathered myself with Noxema.

Once again, it took me several minutes to understand the significance of something Joel Kurland had let slip; I was just lying down when it hit me. I jumped up and threw on some clothes and ran downstairs. A quick look around told me Joel was gone; a plate holding exactly two brownies sat on the kitchen counter. I found Connie out on the back deck, watering three plants I'd never seen before.

“Oh, Gillian … look at these! Aren't they pretty? They—”

“Connie, listen to me. I have to ask you a disturbing question. Put that down so you won't drop it.” Wondering what I was talking about, she lowered the watering can to the deck railing. “I'm sorry as hell to have to bring this up, and I wouldn't if it weren't so important. Connie, I want you to tell me what Raymond did when he found out he couldn't raise all of Theo's ransom money.”

In an instant her face crumpled and she started stuttering and mewing; just like
that
the new Connie had regressed to the distraught, incoherent woman who'd first met me at the door of the Beacon Hill house. How frail her defenses were! I swore at myself for being so blunt and grabbed her by the arms. “Connie, listen! Get hold of yourself! Don't do this! Take a deep breath, count to ten.”

She did, and I kept talking to her—not the way we'd all talked to poor, fragile Connie but the way I'd talk to a go-getter out to rid the world of junk food. It did the trick, because after a few moments she regained her composure and was able to talk without stuttering. “That was a terrible thing to throw at me, Gillian.”

“Yes, it was, I'm a stupid woman, I should have led up to it. But, Connie, I still need an answer. I'm really sorry, but I
have
to have an answer.”

She didn't ask why. “All right, I'll tell you.” She swallowed. “He went crazy, Gillian! He scared me to death—I'd never seen Raymond act like that before! Shouting and making threats, breaking things. He'd calm down for a minute or two, but then his face would turn this horrible purple color and then he'd be off again. He was making all sorts of dreadful accusations, calling the family murderers and all … I didn't know what to do!”

“Did the rest of the family see him like that?”

“Oh, yes! They all flew to Norway as soon as they could, and … well, Annette said he was just taking his anger and grief out on them because he couldn't get at the men who'd taken Theo. But he was completely irrational there for a while, and then I … I was sick for a couple of weeks, but by the time I got out of the hospital he seemed to be over it.”

“No more rages?”

“No, no more. Every once in a while he'd mutter ‘Five million,' but that was all.”

“Five million … dollars?”

Connie lowered herself gingerly into one of the deck chairs. “That was the amount the rest of the family contributed to Theo's ransom. They had only eight hours, you know.”

Oscar had told me seventeen million of the demanded twenty had been paid. If the others had provided only five, that meant Raymond had managed to raise twelve on his own. Twelve million dollars in eight hours, over the phone, from a foreign country. Jesus. “Relations must have been pretty strained after that.”

“Yes, they were for a while. But you know how Raymond always insisted the family was the most important thing—after a while things got back to normal. The twins and Rob went over the company books with Raymond when we all came back from Norway … to show him how the money was tied up? Rob tried to explain it to me, but I couldn't follow. Anyway, we all made the effort to forget what had happened.” She looked at me hopefully.

Connie wanted me to forget, too, to make everything nice again. I truly regretted forcing her to relive all that horror, but she was the only one I could count on to tell me the truth. I bent over and gave her a hug. “I'm sorry, Connie. I won't bring it up again. I promise.”

That was what she wanted to hear. She laughed and said, “You smell like Noxema! Oh, Gillian, I'm so glad you've come back! You belong here, you know.”

I turned away so she couldn't see how the thought of that shook me. It shook me, because she might be right. Maybe the way I went about things wasn't so different from the twins' way after all; the significant difference was that they were better at it. They'd knocked my morally superior perch right out from under me that afternoon, and the fact that I'd had it coming didn't make it any easier.

Mrs. Vernon had given Connie the evening off, so the two of us stayed in alone. Tom called to say it would be hours before he'd know whether his patient was out of danger or not, so he was going to stay at the hospital overnight. Connie was back to being the new Connie and chattered easily about this and that. I'm afraid I wasn't very good company.

Because now that I understood what had happened here, I was all but paralyzed by the knowledge. It was so obvious, and so painfully inevitable—the only thing that could have happened. For the first time I understood why the kids had been killed, and Raymond. And who had done the killing. It wasn't Joel at all; I'd actually been willing to label that kid a psychopath rather than acknowledge what had been staring me right in the face all the time. It was so nauseating I couldn't bear to think about it. But I couldn't
stop
thinking about it. After a while I told Connie I wasn't feeling well and went up to bed.

But not to sleep, not even with the help of pills. Willing myself to relax didn't work; it almost never did. I heard Connie come up and go into her room. The clock said midnight. Then one o'clock. Then two. This was no good; I was just getting tenser and more wrought-up by the minute. I got up and dressed.

Tom was still at the hospital. Connie didn't know anything. I didn't feel stalwart enough to take on two of them at the same time, so that ruled out the Kurlands and the Fergusons. But Annette was over there in her big house by herself. Annette, then.

Confrontation time.

I jogged along the eerily moonlit road past the cedar grove, past the Fergusons' place, and then around to the back of Annette's house. Everyone kept a spare set of keys hidden somewhere between the house and the beach; but try as I might, I couldn't remember where the Henrys had kept theirs. It didn't matter; I found a window with a screen I could remove and I climbed in, like a thief in the night.

Up the stairs to the second floor. Frontal attack: I opened the first door I came to and turned on the lights. The bed was empty. So was the next one I tried. But in the third room I hit the jackpot; Annette was sleeping in that bed all right.

And so was Tom.

16

I stood like a statue inside the bedroom door. Tom and Annette went through a one-two-three response to my headlong intrusion. One, they squinted against the sudden light; two, they focused on me; and three, they reacted. Annette was out of bed in a flash, pulling on a wrap of some sort. Tom tried to speak to me, but he couldn't seem to get the words out.