Slice and Dice (47 page)

“My mother didn’t poison Pepper Buckridge.”

“Right,” Paul said, an angry crimson spreading over his cheeks. “Constance Buckridge is the personification of womanhood. She’s too pure and noble to harbor emotions like hate and greed. Come on, Nathan, don’t you realize she lied to you just like she lied to everyone else? She fed some friend of hers a line of bull about my dad wanting my mother out of the way so that he could marry her — the maid, for chrissake. It’s ludicrous.”

Arthur handed Nathan a file folder. “This is Damontravilie’s most recent interview — again, compliments of Paul.

She talked to a woman named Beverly Custerson. Both Constance and I knew her back in the Fifties, before I got sick.”

“You mean before you lost all your fucking marbles,” said Paul, his voice brimming with disdain. “That whole secret agent story. How pathetic can you get? If I hadn’t been a kid, I would have seen right through it. And you wonder why I have a hard time believing anything you or Constance say.”

Sophie knew she didn’t belong here. It was hard to watch a family, people she’d once loved, disintegrate right before her eyes.

“We told you that story,” said Constance evenly, “because I was afraid your father wouldn’t let Arthur come live with us if he knew the truth. Arthur needed constant care after he got out of the hospital.”

“Right. And we all know what kind of care you chose to give.”

“That’s enough,” snapped Arthur.

“Oh, I don’t think it’s nearly enough,” bellowed Paul. “What’s it like to sleep with your sister, Art? Did it start then, or were you sleeping with her back in the Fifties, too?”

“My personal life is none of your business,” Arthur replied firmly, attempting to retain some shred of dignity. And yet, with all the eyes in the room centered directly on him, it was a losing battle. “You don’t have a clue what it was like for me.”

Paul bent over him. “You wanna give us the details?”

Arthur glanced at Constance, then looked away. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Paul taunted. “I’d like to know. For instance, what was it like listening to my dad call for help when you knew he was dying? Did you enjoy it? Did it make you feel powerful, like you’d taken his wife away from him right under his nose? You disgust me, you know that? What kind of a man are you?”

“Stop it!” demanded Constance, standing up and meeting Paul’s eyes. “1 was the one who refused to help your father. Your source was wrong. Arthur wanted to go to him, but I was the one who held him back. Wayne deserved to die for what he did.”

“Right. He loved you. He gave you a good life. He bought you everything you ever wanted. He took you all over the world so that you could indulge your little hobbies. He really deserved to die for
that.”

“He took my life from me,” said Constance, “just as surely as he took your mother’s from her. And then he informed me that he’d turn me over to the police unless I married him.”

“That’s a lie!”

“It’s the truth,” said Nathan. His voice expressed no anger, just weariness. “I was there. I heard it all.”

Paul turned to look at him. “Don’t do this, Nathan. Don’t lie to protect her. She’s not worth it.”

“I’m not lying. Your father poisoned your mother. He used antifreeze. He even sent me out to the garage one evening to fetch it for him. He said he needed it for the radiator in his car. I believed him. But
he
was the liar, Paul. I was in the house the day he issued that threat to my mother. Pepper hadn’t even been dead twenty-four hours. Wayne Buckridge was a bastard, a sick man. Maybe my mother shouldn’t have let him die, but I understand why she did it. He used your mother’s death and my mother’s love for me to force her into a loveless marriage.”

“Take that back!” Paul thrust a fist in Nathan’s face.

“I can’t. It’s the truth. And if you don’t believe me, there was another witness to what your father said to my mother that day.”

“You’re making it up as you go along. You’re just as pathetic as she is.”

“Remember Andrea Shaw, Paul? The girl who lived next door? She was a couple years older than me, but we played together all the time. She was with me that afternoon. We were in the pantry. We’d just come in from outside, so nobody knew we were there. Your father and my mother were talking in the kitchen. We heard it all. Andrea wanted to tell her parents, but I stopped her. I was glad I did, because later Mom made us both promise to keep what we’d heard a secret. Andrea and I talked about it a few times after that, but we finally made a pact never to discuss it again. I went to visit her last night, Paul. She lives in Duluth now. While I was there, she typed out a short statement. It’s in my briefcase over on the desk if you’d care to look at it. It confirms what I just told you.”

Paul glanced at the briefcase but made no move toward it. “I don’t believe you,” he said after a few seconds, though his voice had lost some of its conviction.

“Go ahead and have Pepper Buckridge exhumed,” said Constance, sitting back down next to Arthur. “If you force the issue, you’ll only succeed in proving to the world what kind of monster your father really was.”

Paul whirled around to look at her. In a voice full of loathing, he said, “I wish to God this family had never heard of Arthur or Connie Jadek.”

Kenny had been silent throughout the entire argument, but now Sophie watched him as he moved away from the mantel. He cleared his voice, then said, “Something truly amazing happened to me about an hour ago. I was just leaving the Maxfield to drive out here when I got a call on Paul’s cell phone.”

Paul felt his pocket.
“You
got a call?”

“Well, it was for you, of course, but I took the message. It was from Marie Damontraville. Seems she was about to get on a plane but had just received a fascinating piece of information from one of her field researchers. She wanted to pass it on.”

“She must have thought you were me,” said Paul, looking indignant.

“Guess so.” Kenny seemed to be enjoying himself. He paused. Then looking around as if he was about to make a momentous announcement, he said, “Connie Jadek died in Libertyville, Wisconsin, when she was five years old.”

Constance gasped.

“Say that again,” said Paid.

“You all heard me. And that leads to my next question.” Fixing his eyes firmly on Constance, Kenny said, “Who the hell are
you?”

Bram returned to the Maxfield after spending the afternoon working in his office at WTWN. He was tired and wanted nothing more than to mix himself a dry martini and sit out on his balcony with his feet up on a footstool. Mosquito-free evenings were springtime events in Minnesota. They didn’t last long. He knew that Sophie had probably talked to Nathan today, and he wanted to hear all about it, but first he needed a mental-health moment. Saying goodbye to Marie earlier in the day hadn’t exactly been the highlight of his week. Even though she’d told him not to worry, he was still concerned for her safety, and he would continue to be for a long time to come.

Before going upstairs he checked Sophie’s office, the place she’d normally be on a Saturday afternoon, but he found it empty. Her cell phone was right where it shouldn’t be, in its battery charger. If she’d left the hotel, it meant he couldn’t reach her. Feeling thwarted, he headed toward the elevators, but before he reached the side hallway, one of the bellboys trotted up with a note Sophie had left for him at the concierge desk.

Thanking the young man, Bram opened the envelope and took out a piece of hotel stationery. He read through it quickly, happy at least to know where his wife was, but unhappy about her destination. He was hoping she’d be able to meet with Nathan at the Maxfield. Safety in numbers, that sort of thing.

As he stuffed the note in his coat pocket, he looked up and saw Harry coming out of the kiosk. “Damn,” he muttered to himself, hurrying toward him. Didn’t he realize he was a wanted man? Sophie had ordered him to stay in his room.

“Evening, Harry,” Bram said, clapping him on the shoulder, then taking him by the arm and leading him toward the back stairs. They could walk up two flights and catch the elevator on three. Fewer prying eyes. “Didn’t you see the paper this morning?”

“Of course I saw it,” said Harry, yanking his arm away.

“The police are officially looking for you. You shouldn’t be wandering around the lobby.”

“I got bored,” he grumbled. “I needed some fresh air. A few snacks. And some reading material. Don’t worry, I was careful.”

Since Harry was carrying neither, Bram had to ask. “This isn’t the first time you’ve come down here today, is it?”

“The third. Let me tell you, that little store of yours was really jumpin’ around three. That tabloid newspaper was selling like hotcakes. And hey, someone told me Constance Buckridge and her family are staying at the Maxfield. Have been all week. I didn’t believe them, but then I saw the whole group march out of here, and let me tell you, nobody was in a good mood.”

“What time was that?”

“An hour ago, maybe.”

Now Bram was worried. As he glanced toward the front doors, two uniformed policemen entered the lobby.

“Listen to me, pal. You’ve got to get out of here.”

Looking around, Harry said, “Oops. The fuzz.” He ducked his head.

“We don’t want to attract any attention, so play it cool.”

It wasn’t far to the back stairway. As soon as the door closed behind them, Bram told Harry to stick close. He led the way down to the basement, then out into another hallway. At the far end, they got on the service elevator, which took them back to the main floor. Since it put them right next to the rear exit, Bram unlocked the door with his key and pushed through. Finally they were out on the street.

“Listen,” said Bram, drawing Harry close. “I want you to wait in the alley. Stand in the shadows until I come to pick you up.”

“Where are we going?”

“You said you were bored, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to visit a monastery.”

Harry blinked twice. “I’m not very religious.”

Bram didn’t care what Sophie said about Nathan’s innocence. He didn’t like the idea of her being alone with him out in the middle of nowhere. Not that he knew where New Fonteney was, but he’d get directions on the way. Harry would just have to come along for the ride.

Kenny had dropped his bomb and the explosion had been suitably deafening. Sophie wanted to say something to erase the stunned look on Nathan’s face, but that was up to his mother now.

As the silence settled around them, Constance sat next to Arthur, looking deeply shaken. Everyone was waiting for her to respond to Kenny’s question, but so far she hadn’t. Finally, after standing and straightening her dress, she said, “My name is Betty Kovak, or at least it was when I was growing up in the Forties back in Madison, Wisconsin. My father was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and my mother was a housewife. My father and mother were also alcoholics. My childhood was miserable, full of fights and abuse, and very little love. In 1953, when I was fifteen, I took a job at a local cafd. I worked afternoons and weekends, anything to get out of the house. I met a boy, fell in love, and got pregnant, all within the space of six months. When my parents found out about the pregnancy, they threw me out of the house. I had no choice but to go to where my boyfriend was and beg him to take me in.”

Constance looked tenderly at Arthur, then sat down and took hold of his hand. “This wonderful man sitting next to me isn’t my brother. But I took his name long before I had any right to it. I lied to him about my age. He thought I was seventeen when we met. When he found out I was pregnant and barely sixteen, he was scared. I don’t know what the laws are now, but back then he could have gone to jail for statutory rape. He was a junior that year at the University of Minnesota, well on his way to a fine career and a good life. But it all would have ended if the authorities had found out. Mostly, though, we were afraid of my dad. If he discovered where I’d gone and who the father of my child was, he would have hurt Arthur, maybe even killed him. Certainly he would have turned him over to the police. My father’s temper had ruled my life ever since I was a small child. So when I got to Minneapolis and one of my boyfriend’s neighbors, a woman named Beverly Custerson, asked me who I was, I said I was Arthur’s sister, come to live with him because I was pregnant and desperate. It was a lie, of course, but Arthur and I felt it was a necessary charade. That way, my father could never find me.

“I knew that Arthur’s sister, Connie, had died as a young child. We figured out later that we could get a copy of her birth certificate and use it to help me get a driver’s license. And then I used the driver’s license and the birth certificate to help us get a marriage license when I turned eighteen.” She looked around the room, waiting for reactions, but encountered only incredulous stares. So she continued. “We were married in the spring of 1956. But then Arthur got sick. I didn’t understand mental illness back then. I just knew he wasn’t the person I’d fallen in love with. Nathan, you were barely five when Arthur left for good. I thought my world had ended. In many ways, it had. I struggled for almost two years to keep us off the streets, and I managed, with the help of friends, to do just that. I took any job I could get. I never stopped looking for Arthur, but by the time I took the position as maid at the Buckridge household, I was twenty-three years old. No longer a girl. The time Arthur and I had spent together felt like a dream.