In the Event of My Death (21 page)

“Well, now, isn’t that just fine?”

They all stood looking at each other for an awkward moment. Oh, no, Laurel thought. It can’t end like this. We haven’t found out a thing. “I brought a heavy-duty hook for the wreath,” she said hurriedly. “Would it be all right if Neil hangs it? It’s getting
so
near Christmas.”

The sisters looked at each other. “Certainly,” Hannah said. “How kind of you. I’ll get a hammer.”

“Can you do this?” Laurel whispered as Adelaide scurried out of the room behind her sister.

“I’m capable of doing more than hitting computer keys,” Neil retorted.

“Don’t get your feathers ruffled. Not all men are handy with carpentry.”

“Hanging a Christmas wreath is hardly carpentry.”

The sisters returned with a huge hammer. “Is this one all right? We have another somewhere. We could look for it.”

“This one will be fine,” Neil said, looking at the hammer dubiously.

When Neil went to the door, hook and unwieldy hammer in hand, Miss Adelaide motioned to the settee. “Sit down, my dear. Would you care for tea?”

“No—” Laurel caught herself. Tea could draw out the visit. “Well, yes, tea does sound lovely.”

Both sisters went to the kitchen again. A great deal of muttering and clattering went on. Neil turned to Laurel and grinned, murmuring, “What a production over tea, not to mention that I could knock the whole damned house down with this monster they call a hammer.”

Twenty minutes later Neil had the wreath in place and the sisters walked in carrying a silver tea service and a plate of lemon cookies. They first oohed and aahed over the wreath, then set about the elaborate ritual of serving tea. Laurel thought of her own style—pouring boiling water over a tea bag and dumping in a packet of artificial sweetener—and thought she’d never drink tea again if it involved all this ceremony. When at last everyone had been served, Miss Adelaide asked, “How is Mary Howard?”

“All right,” Laurel said. “She had a nasty cut on the back of her head and a concussion, but she’s fairly well recovered. She was back at work today.”

“Oh, that’s fine! Honestly, I thought I would faint when she crashed into those shelves. That awful man. He should be locked up.”

“The police tried, Miss Adelaide, but there are so many legal technicalities,” Laurel said. “One of the problems was that Mary wouldn’t file a complaint against him.”

“I can’t imagine why. That man is a cruel, unbalanced detriment to society who should
never
have been allowed to run loose,” Miss Hannah burst out. “He was
always
crazy!”

“Now, Hannah!” Adelaide said, faint alarm in her eyes. “You mustn’t upset yourself. Your heart, you know.”

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with my heart and Zeke Howard
is
crazy. Has been since he was a child.”

“You’ve known him since he was a child?” Neil pounced.

“Oh, yes,” Hannah went on heatedly. “He used to live here in Wheeling. He was a close friend of our younger brother, Leonard. And what my brother did—”

“Hannah!” Adelaide cried. “Please watch what you’re saying!”

“I get tired of watching what I say!” Hannah spluttered. “When I saw that maniac push poor Mary into those shelves, I felt like killing him myself. How in God’s name Leonard could have done what he did—”

“What did he do?” Laurel asked breathlessly.

The regal white-haired woman from the cemetery entered the living room from the hall. “He forced me to marry Zeke Howard when I was only seventeen years old.”

4

Laurel and Neil both stared at her. Miss Hannah made helpless fluttering motions with her hands while Miss Adelaide stood abruptly, banging her knee into the coffee table and nearly overturning the tea service. “Genevra, dear, don’t you think you should be resting?” Adelaide asked.

Genevra Howard smiled. Her smile was so much like Faith’s that for a moment Laurel felt the past and the present blending together. “I believe these people want to talk to me.”

“No they don’t, dear,” Adelaide assured her. “They just brought a Christmas wreath. Mr. Kamrath here used to take lessons from me.”

“Neil Kamrath,” the woman said gently. “You dated my daughter.”

“Yes.” For a moment Neil looked as if he were going to flounder, unable to talk to this woman he’d been seeking. Then he recovered himself. “How did you know we dated?”

Laurel realized he knew the answer to his question, but he didn’t want the Lewis sisters to know Faith had confided in him about the post office box.

“My daughter wrote to me. She admired you very much.”

Laurel noticed Neil’s weak smile. She was sure admiration wasn’t the primary emotion he’d wanted Faith to feel for him.

Hannah looked up at Genevra. “If you don’t want to keep where you’re staying a secret, which you obviously don’t, you might as well sit down and have some tea and cookies.”

“I’d like that.” Genevra wore a long pink robe tied at the waist. She was tall and her thick white hair hung below her shoulders. Her delicate skin bore a cobweb of fine wrinkles, but her eyes were a lovely, if slightly faded, blue-green, her lips touched with faint pink lipstick. She must have been absolutely beautiful when she was young, Laurel thought. As beautiful as Faith. Now she had a thin, attenuated look and a sweet but removed manner, almost as if she weren’t completely aware of those around her. She reached for tea with her left hand. Laurel saw that she wore no wedding ring.

“I heard Zeke caused quite a commotion in your store,” she said to Laurel.

“He was frightening. At first he just quoted Bible verses, then he pushed Mary into a set of glass shelves. I was scared to death for her, but as I’m sure you know, she’s fine now.”

“I know because you’ve told me,” Genevra said. “Unlike Faith, Mary doesn’t communicate with me.”

Miss Adelaide’s face set in disapproving lines. “Mary is a sweet girl but she doesn’t have a mind of her own like Faith did.”

“No, Faith was her own woman,” Hannah agreed. “Spirited, much as I was when I was young.”

Adelaide cast her an astonished glance. Laurel doubted if either sister had ever been what could be called “spirited.”

“Mrs. Howard, why did you mn away from me at Faith’s grave?” Laurel asked bluntly.

Genevra looked into her eyes. “I came here because Adelaide and Hannah told me what happened to Mary. I wanted to keep my presence a secret because I hoped to get a casual chance to know Mary without her knowing who I was. If she knew I was here, she’d avoid me. If Zeke knew…” She shivered.

“I noticed you left six red carnations on Faith’s grave,” Laurel said.

“Faith loved red carnations.”

“And the red plastic heart attached to the flowers?”

Genevra smiled her placid smile again. “It’s a key ring. Faith sent it to me a long time ago. She said she had one and she wanted me to have one, too, because it had a special meaning.”

Laurel’s scalp tingled. She certainly wasn’t going to ask what that special meaning was. Even if Genevra knew about the Six of Hearts, she didn’t want her to admit it in front of the Lewis sisters.

Neil leaned forward. “Mrs. Howard—”

“Please call me Genevra. I hate being Mrs. Ezekial Howard.”

“I understand,” he said gently. “Genevra, you can tell me to mind my own business if you like, but where have you been for nearly twenty-five years?”

Laurel felt the Lewis sisters stiffen, but Genevra merely took a sip of tea and looked at Neil calmly. “I’ve been in a mental institution. I was committed when I was twenty-three for killing my infant son.”

1

Utter silence fell over the room. Miss Hannah’s hands locked on the arms of her chair. Neil’s teacup froze halfway to his mouth. After a moment when Laurel was certain her breath had stopped, Miss Adelaide looked around brightly and said, “Lemon cookie, anyone?”

Later Laurel thought if she’d seen that moment on television, she would have laughed, but there was nothing laughable about the shock on Neil’s face or Miss Adelaide’s desperate attempt to bring things back to normal.

“I’ve been locked away too long,” Genevra said. “I’ve said something awful and mined the evening.”

“You just surprised us,” Laurel said in a composed voice that didn’t sound like her own. “Neil and I had no idea.”

Genevra shook her head. “As close as you were to Faith, she never said anything? Or did she repeat Zeke’s story that I’d run off with another man?”

“She never said you ran off with a man,” Neil told her. “She just didn’t say that you’d—”

“Murdered my son,” Genevra finished for him.

“Oh, Genevra, dear, please stop saying that,” Adelaide said in distress. “It sounds so terrible and you know it’s not true.”

“I
hope
it’s not true,” Genevra said.

“Would you mind telling us what happened?” Laurel asked softly, praying the Lewis sisters wouldn’t interfere and send her and Neil straight out the door. But they seemed too flustered to do much except stare.

Genevra began speaking in a firm, even voice. “You know that Zeke has his own religion and he’s very fervent about it. Long ago, when he lived in Wheeling as a boy, he made friends with my father, Leonard Lewis. My father was…well, very devoted to Zeke and his religion—”

“Leonard was unbalanced,” Miss Hannah interrupted. “Our parents couldn’t handle him so they simply let him go his own way unchecked. It was a great mistake. He only got worse. He moved to Pennsylvania shortly after Zeke did. Much later he married some unfortunate young girl who died giving birth to Genevra, leaving poor Genevra to be reared by Leonard. Considering that Leonard left here over fifty years ago and never came back, not even for one visit, most people still living don’t remember him or even knew his daughter was Faith’s mother.”

“My father promised Zeke that if he had a daughter she would become Zeke’s wife,” Genevra went on. “I was that unlucky daughter.”

“But it wasn’t the middle ages,” Neil said. “He couldn’t
force
you to marry Zeke.”

“I had a very strange childhood. Repressive, they said in the hospital. I didn’t go to school. I was home-taught. I didn’t really know what life was like for regular children. I only knew what life was like in my father’s delusional world, and I was terrified of him. He was very physically abusive—not sexually, but he kicked and hit and he often locked me in a closet without food for two or three days at a time when he felt I’d been bad. As I said, I was afraid of him. Terrified. I didn’t want to marry Zeke, but my father said I had to or suffer punishment as I’d never known before. I was only a frightened teenager. I thought of running away, but I believed my father had the power to find me anywhere. Besides, I had no money, no knowledge of how to get along in the world, so I did as he ordered. I was afraid not to.”

“I had Faith when I was eighteen,” she continued.
Eighteen!
Laurel thought. My God, the woman was only forty-eight. She could have passed for sixty-eight. “Zeke was pleased that I could produce a healthy baby, but he was disappointed that the child was a girl. Four years passed before I conceived again. Those were four very difficult years. Zeke was always raving that I was out of God’s favor and that’s why I couldn’t conceive. He was also getting stranger, keeping me almost a prisoner in the house so I wouldn’t have a chance to do wrong and displease God, preaching at me constantly. When I had a second baby, it was Mary. I’m sure you can imagine his reaction.”

She took a deep, slightly shaky breath. “Less than a year later I gave birth to a boy, Daniel. He was premature and had respiratory problems. All the children were born at home, you understand. They had none of the benefits of hospital births. I was so worried about Daniel, but Zeke would never let me take him to a doctor. He said God would look after him. Daniel cried constantly, couldn’t keep down milk—he was miserable and so was I. I suppose I had a breakdown. I really don’t remember much about that time.”

Her gaze grew distant. “Then one morning I was sitting in the rocking chair. It was a beautiful spring morning, I do remember that. A soft breeze was blowing. I was so tired. I’d been up all night with Daniel. I’d put him in his crib just about an hour earlier. At least I think it was an hour. It’s all so vague. Then Zeke came in holding Daniel. He was dead. Zeke screamed that he found the baby lying on his face and there was a pillow over his head.” She shuddered. “Zeke wouldn’t stop screaming. He laid Daniel on the couch and hit me. He kept hitting me. Mary was shrieking. Little Faith was pummeling her father’s legs, trying to make him stop. I was afraid he was going to turn on her. ‘You killed the baby, didn’t you?’ he kept yelling. ‘You’re crazy and you killed my boy child because he made so much noise. Admit it!’ Finally I did. He called the police.”

“It was probably sudden infant death syndrome!” Laurel exclaimed.

Genevra smiled gently. “I’d never heard of such a thing.”

“But you didn’t deny that you’d killed Daniel?” Laurel gasped.

Genevra shook her head. “I told the police? I did it. I wrote a confession. I don’t remember writing it, but I saw it later. I said I’d deliberately smothered my baby because I couldn’t stand his crying anymore. There was a trial. My lawyer used the insanity defense and I was found guilty. I’ve been in a sanitarium in Pennsylvania until just a few weeks ago, around Thanksgiving.”

“But she did
not
kill that baby,” Miss Hannah insisted. “I know my niece. She wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Adelaide agreed. “That’s what I told Faith when Zeke brought the girls back here. Faith had loved her mother so much and Zeke had told her all those awful stories about Genevra. He’d told her she
murdered
Daniel but that she was to say Genevra had run off with another man and deserted her. Faith never believed any of it. She was aptly named. She had faith in her mother. That’s why Hannah and I rented a post office box for her so they could write to each other. We wanted her to know her
real
mother, not the creature Zeke invented.”

“We tried to do the same with Mary,” Hannah said, “but she would never listen to us or to Faith.”

“Mary was only a baby herself when I was sent away,” Genevra said defensively. “She didn’t have any impression of me besides what Zeke told her. Faith was older and we’d been
so
close. I adored her.”

“She adored you,” Neil said.

Genevra smiled. “That means so much to me. I know how much she cared for you, too.”

Faith’s baby, Laurel thought. Did she dare bring that up in front of the Lewis sisters? It didn’t seem appropriate, but they might not get another chance to talk to Genevra.

She cleared her throat. “Faith was pregnant: when she died—”

“She was
not
!” Hannah flared.

Adelaide’s clouded eyes snapped wide. “A vicious rumor! Not true, absolutely not true! Faith knew right from wrong and Neil was such a good boy!”

At first Laurel had been a bit puzzled by how nice the sisters were to the man who supposedly seduced and impregnated their niece. Now she understood. They didn’t believe Faith had been pregnant. But Genevra? Laurel glanced at her. She was sipping tea, looking as if she were in another dimension.

“Then you don’t believe Faith committed suicide because she was pregnant?” Laurel ventured.

“That’s ridiculous!” Hannah huffed. “Adelaide and I don’t know exactly what happened in that bam, but we know Faith didn’t commit suicide. She was too full of life, too excited about the future. Isn’t that right, Genevra?”

Genevra Howard blinked at her aunt, slowly turned her head and gave Laurel an unnerving, cunning smile. “My daughter did
not
commit suicide.”

2

Neither Laurel nor Neil pressed the subject further. Miss Adelaide abruptly asked if Laurel had been a friend of Denise Price’s. When Laurel said yes, the woman looked as if she were going to cry. “I give little Audra lessons. I’m afraid she’s not very talented, but she’s a dear thing. Mrs. Price seemed so nice, too. I don’t suppose the police have any leads about who could have done this awful deed.”

“No, they don’t,” Laurel said. She looked directly at Genevra. “But her murder was exactly like Angela Ricci’s. We were all friends in school, you know—Angie, Denise, Faith, and I.”

Genevra yawned politely behind her hand. “I hope you’ll excuse me. I seem to tire easily these days. Good night. It’s been so nice talking with you.”

“Good night,” everyone murmured as the woman rose and drifted away. The sisters seemed flustered by her behavior, but they weren’t going to comment on it. Hannah forced a smile. Adelaide turned the subject back to Audra. “How is the little girl?”

“Audra is in the hospital. She was already getting the flu and being out on such a cold night looking for her mother—”

“What?” Adelaide cried. “The police made the child search for her mother?”

“Oh, no,” Laurel corrected. “Audra had been in the car with Denise taking a tour of the light show. She got out and went running toward one of the displays to take a picture. Denise went after her. That’s when Denise was attacked. Audra didn’t see the murder, but she did see her mother’s body. Between that and the snow, she got very sick.”

“Oh, dear Lord!” Adelaide fanned herself as if she were going to faint. “I didn’t know all that. That dear child! That poor woman! Oh, this is dreadful…”

“I’m sorry I’ve upset you so,” Laurel said sincerely. “I assumed you knew. Audra will be all right. I’ve been to visit her in the hospital.”

“Oh, I suppose I should go, too. The dear thing. And I was rather sharp with her during her last lesson.”

“Now, Adelaide, settle down,” Hannah said sternly. “You wouldn’t be a good piano teacher if you didn’t point out mistakes or let children know they aren’t practicing enough. Isn’t that right, Neil?”

“Yes,” he said gently. “And I’m sure you weren’t harsh, Miss Adelaide. You never were with me, now matter how abominably I played.”

“Oh, I hope not. Dear me. I feel awful.”

“Perhaps we should go,” Laurel said quickly. “We’ve taken up your entire evening and upset you on top of it all.”

“Oh, no you didn’t,” Adelaide said kindly. “It’s just the state of the world. Sometimes I just think I can’t stand all the frightful things that happen. Poor Genevra. And Faith. And Mrs. Price and Audra.”

Hannah nodded at them. Laurel and Neil stood quickly. “We’ll be leaving now. I do hope you’ll feel better tomorrow,” Laurel said.

“She will,” Hannah said firmly. “A good night’s sleep makes a new woman of her. And thank you so much for the wreath.”

“Yes, thank you,” Adelaide said faintly.

“You’re very welcome. I hope you enjoy it.”

Once they were outside in the biting cold, headed for their cars, Laurel said, “I thought I’d feel triumphant after learning so much. Instead I feel terrible for upsetting Adelaide.”

“Hannah’s right. She’ll be fine. They didn’t live to be this old by collapsing over every little thing.” Neil smiled. “Under all that artificial Southern gentility they are two tough broads.”

Laurel laughed. “Somehow I’ve never thought of the Lewis sisters as ‘broads.’”

“Neither have I until just now.” Neil put his hands in his pockets. “Want to meet at our favorite restaurant and talk over what we’ve learned?”

“By favorite restaurant I assume you mean McDonald’s.”

“Of course. Only I think we’d better go inside. It’s a cold night.”

Laurel thought for a moment. She still worried slightly about meeting with Neil, but once again he’d not suggested coming to her home. He seemed to be going out of his way to make her feel comfortable. “Okay. Meet you inside in fifteen minutes.”

3

It was almost ten when they converged at McDonald’s. Both ordered coffee and an apple pie. At this time of night the coffee was strong and bitter, the apple pies soggy after too much time under the infrared lights. As if I didn’t do a number on my stomach earlier, Laurel thought as they sat down at a booth away from any other customers. Nevertheless, she quickly took a sip of the coffee.

“Well, I don’t know where to start,” Neil said in a weary voice. “We thought we’d tracked down a woman who’d run off with her lover twenty-four years ago. Now we know she’s been in a mental institution for killing her baby.”

“What do you think of her story?” Laurel asked. “Do you believe she’s innocent of murder?”

Neil frowned. “You know, she never really protested her innocence. She kept saying she didn’t remember. Then she said Zeke screamed at her and hit her until she claimed she
had
killed the baby. Even if the child had died of sudden infant death syndrome, I can understand her saying anything at that moment to make Zeke stop hitting her or keep him from turning on Faith, but why the confession to the police?”

“Because she was afraid and confused?”

“Afraid and confused enough to write a confession claiming she killed her own baby? And what about the pillow over the child’s head?”

“According to her, Zeke is the one who said there was a pillow over the baby’s head. Anyway, I suppose after all she’d been through—life with her father, five years with Zeke, the death of her baby—she might have been emotionally battered enough to say anything to the police.”

“It’s also possible all that history with her father and Zeke pushed her to the point where she
could
kill her baby. Laurel, did she act normal to you?”

“Sometimes. She’s well-spoken. She has a good vocabulary, her sentences flow smoothly. And she seems very calm.” Laurel and Neil looked at each other and said simultaneously, “Too calm.”

Laurel grinned. “We sound like people on a bad television show. Still, it’s true that sometimes she seemed totally removed from what she was saying as if it’d had no effect on her.”