Schooled In Lies (24 page)

“I never accused Audrey of murdering Ms. Flack,” I said indignantly, though technically I think I had. “And I’m no blackmailer!”

“Okay, I believe you.” He held up his hands. I noticed his wrist was still bandaged. It must have been a really bad sprain to still be bandaged almost two weeks later. “I know better than anybody what a drama queen Audrey is and I know you’d never blackmail anybody.”

“Did you and your parents know Clair Easton?”

“Not really. She was always the neighborhood crackpot. Sometimes she would speak to you and be friendly, and other times she’d look at you like she’d never seen you before. How’d you know her?”

“Long story,” I said. He was waiting for me to elaborate but I wouldn’t. “Did you know Gerald was Clair Easton’s financial consultant?”

“Why would I? Gerald doesn’t discuss his clients with me.” I couldn’t be sure, but I got the feeling he was lying to me. He may not have been serious about what he’d said during our last conversation, but his loyalties were still with Audrey and Gerald.

“And you didn’t know that she claimed he stole fifty thousand dollars from him?”

“So, what, now you think Gerald killed that Easton woman? Man, you sure don’t think very highly of us.” He laughed. I just stared at him. Pissing him off wasn’t the way to get the info I needed.

“I think I’ll take that ride,” I said, giving him a big smile.

I sat in the backseat of Dennis’s black Lexus with his mother, Emma Kirby, who was still a very pretty, petite, blonde woman in her early fifties. Ellis Kirby, Dennis’s father, sat in the front seat. Both of the Kirby’s were polite, especially Emma, who was thrilled to discover that I was the granddaughter of Estelle Mays, who used to work for her family.

“How is Estelle? It’s been years since I’ve seen her,” said Emma Kirby. Up until that point, she hadn’t really paid much attention to me beyond the bounds of common courtesy.

“She’s fine. I’ll tell her you said hello.”

“Since you’re a friend of Dennis’s from high school, you must have known Julian, right?” asked Ellis Kirby partially turning in his seat. I could see Dennis’s jaw clench briefly and wondered if it was due to his father’s assumption that we were friends, or the mention of his deceased cousin.

I also couldn’t help but notice that Dennis didn’t look much like his refined and cultured parents, both of whom were immaculately and expensively dressed in contrast to Dennis’s wrinkled Polo shirt and chinos. Beyond the blue eyes he shared with his mother and the cleft in his chin he got from his father, Dennis didn’t seem to fit. He was like an ostrich in the nest of a pair of swans.

“Well, we didn’t have the same friends. But, yes, I knew him,” I replied politely.

“Kendra was a good girl, Dad, too good to hang with the likes of Julian and me. We were wild men,” chuckled Dennis. His father gave him a tight smile.

“You mean
you
were a wild man, Denny. I suspect Julian just got dragged along for the ride,” replied Emma Kirby coolly. Ellis Kirby chuckled his agreement.

I could have easily contradicted that statement but kept my mouth shut because apparently the Kirbys didn’t want to hear anything remotely unflattering about their nephew. Poor Dennis. Thinking back on Audrey’s comments at the last reunion committee meeting about Dennis playing second fiddle to his cousin Julian, it was no wonder he was such a loudmouth. He was looking for attention.

“Why were you at Clair Easton’s house? Did you know her?” asked Emma, turning towards me. Even in the dark car, I could see the curiosity in her eyes.

“I was conducting a marketing survey,” I replied quickly. I met Dennis’s eyes in the rearview mirror and his smirk told me he knew I was lying. His mother seemed to buy it.

“Poor Clair. She was always odd but when her dog died last weekend she went off the deep end.”

“Did she find out what killed him?” Dennis’s father asked.

“Jeeves was killed?” I said more to myself then anyone. I wondered why Clair Easton hadn’t mentioned that fact during our meeting.

“She found him dead in her backyard last Saturday night. He must have gotten into some rat poison that she kept in her garden shed,” replied Emma Kirby.

“Man, when she found him you could hear her screaming like she’d been shot. I bet you could hear her from six blocks away,” Dennis said, shaking his head sadly.

“That dog was all she had. She never married or had children or anything. She was alone. It was so sad,” Emma Kirby replied, pulling the sweater of her Kelly green twinset closed to ward off the chill of the air conditioning. I noticed she was wearing a gorgeous pearl drop bracelet. Before I could compliment her on it, Ellis Kirby spoke up.

“Then she should have kept the damned dog inside. She let it roam all over the neighborhood. It dug up my azaleas.” Ellis Kirby sounded highly put out.

“They’re both dead, dear. I think your flowers are quite safe now.” The sarcasm in Emma Kirby’s voice cut her husband to the quick and he gave her an embarrassed look before fiddling with the radio dial.

“Dad does have a point, Mom,” said Dennis in an attempt to lighten the mood. “She used to walk that dog at all hours. I’ve come home at three in the morning and passed her walking Jeeves. He was so hyper she was running through everyone’s yards trying to catch him. It was the funniest damned thing I ever saw.” Ellis Kirby chuckled heartily, but Emma remained silent.

The rest of the drive was silent. Dennis dropped off his parents first. I was surprised that they only lived four doors down from Claire Easton in a salmon-colored, three story, art deco house that sat up on a hill. I’d have figured them for a nice sedate Cape Cod. As we were pulling out of the steep driveway, Dennis indicated that he lived in the old caretaker’s cottage at the back of his parent’s property.

“Much as I love the folks, I can’t be in the same house with them. I like having my own place and they don’t want me in the house anyway. I’m a slob,” he said, laughing.

“Not like it used to. That’s why I moved to the West Coast. I thought if I put some distance between us they’d miss me and appreciate me more.”

“Did they?”

“Yeah, they did. But only as long I was on the West Coast. Once I moved back home, it was the same old story.” He shrugged his thick shoulders. “Where to?” he asked, changing the subject. I told him where I lived and we were silent for a few minutes.

“Did you know Julian gave the reunion fund money to Gerald to help him out of a bind on his last job?”

“Audrey told me after the last committee meeting. I guess I’m not surprised. Julian was like that. Always helping out a friend.”

“I never got to know that side of him,” I replied, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. He glanced over at me but didn’t comment.

“It is. Julian was Clair Easton’s accountant. He was the one who recommended her to Gerald in the first place. When Audrey told me Julian had given the reunion fund money to Gerald, I was worried that Julian may have also dipped into one of Clair Easton’s accounts. She wouldn’t have noticed a few hundred missing here or there. It would just kill my folks if they thought he was stealing.”

“But why would he have stolen from Clair Easton?”

“Julian was in a lot of debt. His business was in trouble, which was why he freaked out when he lost out on that account thanks to Cherry. And he’d bought the old Bridges house out on Faucet Road and was sinking a ton of money into it to get it all fixed up. He was planning to turn it into a real show place and thought he would make a huge profit and use the money for his business. Even doing most of the work himself, the cost of materials was eating him alive.”

“He was trying to flip the old Bridges place?” The house Dennis was referring to had been an old abandoned house where he and his round table cronies used to get drunk and smoke weed. I had no idea that Julian had bought the place.

“Flip? Oh, yeah that’s what they call it. Yeah, he was trying to flip it. But it flipped him instead,” he said referring to the fact that Julian had fallen to his death from the roof of the house.

“Why didn’t he just get the money he needed from your parents?”

“Because they loaned him the money to start up his business. My folks adored Julian. But they’re both real big on initiative and making your own luck. They don’t believe in having anything handed to you. Their big thing is that hard work never hurt anybody. But hard work didn’t do a damned thing for Julian.”

“You don’t think Julian could have actually stolen money from Clair Easton, do you?”

“Naw, probably not. But Gerald’s another story. He’s as broke as Julian was and ten times shadier. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love the guy to death. But he owes child support for four kids and is still paying his first wife alimony. He’s seriously tapped out and refuses to live within his means. You saw that car he drives, didn’t you?” I nodded. I could have pointed out that a Lexus wasn’t the kind of car most college bookstore managers drove but didn’t bother. He must have bought the car when he’d had his last job.

“Not once I moved out West. We were both so busy we just didn’t have the time to talk as much as we used to. I can’t believe it. Julian and Ms. Flack? You know, now that I think about it, Julian used to do handyman work on the side to earn extra money. He learned all that stuff from his dad. He told me he was seeing someone whose house he’d done work at. He never told me who it was, though. Damn! I had no idea he was into older women.”

He pulled up in front of my duplex and I thanked him and got out. I started to walk away when his voice stopped me. I leaned down into the window.

“I’m really sorry about that rumor I started about you back in high school. About you having had a secret abortion and not knowing who the baby’s father was. Forgive me?” He was giving me an embarrassed look and I stared at him without speaking for what seemed like an eternity before he repeated his request.

“Can you ever forgive me? I know I was a real asshole.”

First an apology from Audrey and now Dennis. I hoped this wasn’t a sign of the coming apocalypse. With great effort I gave him a smile and managed to say, “Don’t sweat it. It was a long time ago. You were a different person. We all were.”

I watched Dennis pull off and headed into my apartment thinking not about how much that rumor had hurt me, but realizing I now knew what Ivy Flack thought she’d had on me. She’d actually believed that old rumor about me and thought I’d be willing to pay to keep it quiet. If she’d believed it, then someone must have told her it was true. Who disliked me that much?

Chapter Eighteen

MY MOUTH WAS FILLED with buttered toast and I was rushing around trying to get dressed the next morning when my phone rang. It was only 7:00. I didn’t have to be at work until 8:30, but I was trying to catch Cherisse before she left for work. I managed to answer the phone on the second ring.