Whispers (56 page)

Besides, he hadn’t actually killed her, for she would come back to life in some other body, pushing out the person whose rightful flesh it was.

Now he must forget about Sally and find Hilary-Katherine. She was still out there somewhere, waiting for him.

He must locate her and kill her before she found a way to kill him first.

At least Sally had given him one small lead. A name. This Topelis fellow. Hilary Thomas’s agent. Topelis would probably know where she was hiding.

 
They cleared away the dinner dishes, and Joshua poured more wine for everyone before telling the story of Bruno’s rise from orphan to sole heir of the Frye estate. He had gotten his facts over the years, a few at a time, from Katherine and from other people who had lived in St. Helena long before he had come to the valley to practice law.

In 1940, the year Bruno was born, Katherine was twenty-six years old and still living with her father, Leo, in the isolated clifftop house, behind and above the winery, where they had resided together since 1918, the year after Katherine’s mother died. Katherine had been away from home only for part of one year that she had spent at college in San Francisco; she had dropped out of school because she hadn’t wanted to be away from St. Helena just to acquire a lot of stale knowledge that she would never use. She loved the valley and the big old Victorian house on the cliff. Katherine was a handsome, shapely woman who could have had as many suitors as she wished, but she seemed to find romance of no interest whatsoever. Although she was still young, her introverted personality and her cool attitude toward all men convinced most of the people who knew her that she would be an old maid and, furthermore, that she would be perfectly happy in that role.

Then, in January of 1940, Katherine received a call from a friend, Mary Gunther, whom she’d known at college a few years earlier. Mary needed help; a man had gotten her into trouble. He had promised to marry her, had strung her along with excuse after excuse, and then had skipped out when she was six months pregnant. Mary was nearly broke, and she had no family to turn to for help, no friend half so close as Katherine. She asked Katherine to come to San Francisco a few months hence, as soon as the baby arrived; Mary didn’t want to be alone at that trying time. She also asked Katherine to care for the baby until she, Mary, could find a job and build up a nest egg and provide a proper home for the child. Katherine agreed to help and began telling people in St. Helena that she would be a temporary surrogate mother. She seemed so happy, so excited by the prospect, that her neighbors said she would be a wonderful mother to her own children if she could just find a man to marry her and father them.

Six weeks after Mary Gunther’s telephone call, and six weeks before Katherine was scheduled to go to San Francisco to be with her friend, Leo suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and dropped dead among the high stacks of oak barrels in one of the winery’s huge aging cellars. Although Katherine was stunned and grief-stricken, and although she had to start learning to run the family business, she did not back out of her promise to Mary Gunther. In April, when Mary sent a message that the baby had arrived, Katherine went off to San Francisco. She was gone more than two weeks, and when she returned, she had a tiny baby, Bruno Gunther, Mary’s alarmingly small and fragile child.

Katherine expected to have Bruno for a year, at which time Mary would be firmly on her feet and ready to assume complete responsibility for the tyke. But after six months, word came that Mary had more trouble, much worse this time—a virulent form of cancer. Mary was dying. She had only a few weeks to live, a month at most. Katherine took the baby to San Francisco, so that the mother could spend what little time she had left in the company of her child. During Mary’s last days, she made all of the necessary legal arrangements for Katherine to be granted permanent custody of the baby. Mary’s own parents were dead; she had no other close relatives with whom Bruno could live. If Katherine had not taken him in, he would have wound up in an orphanage or in the care of foster parents who might or might not have been good to him. Mary died, and Katherine paid for the funeral, then returned to St. Helena with Bruno.

She raised the boy as if he were her own, acting not just like a guardian but like a concerned and loving mother. She could have afforded nursemaids and other household help, but she didn’t hire them; she refused to let anyone else tend to the child. Leo had not employed domestic help, and Katherine had her father’s spirit of independence. She got along well on her own, and when Bruno was four years old, she returned to San Francisco, to the judge who had awarded her custody at Mary’s request, and she formally adopted Bruno, giving him the Frye family name.

Hoping to get a clue from Joshua’s story, alert for any inconsistencies or absurdities, Hilary and Tony had been leaning forward, arms on the dining room table, while they listened. Now they leaned back in their chairs and picked up their wine glasses.

Joshua said, “There are still people in St. Helena who remember Katherine Frye primarily as the saintly woman who took in a poor foundling and gave him love and more than a little wealth, too.”

“So there wasn’t a twin,” Tony said.

“Definitely not,” Joshua said.

Hilary sighed. “Which means we’re back at square one.”

“There are a couple of things in that story that bother me,” Tony said.

Joshua raised his eyebrows. “Like what?”

“Well, even these days, with our more liberal attitudes, we still make it damned hard for a single woman to adopt a child,” Tony said. “And in 1940, it must have been very nearly impossible.”

“I think I can explain that,” Joshua said. “If memory serves me well, Katherine once told me that she and Mary had anticipated the court’s reluctance to sanction the arrangement. So they told the judge what they felt was just a little white lie. They said that Katherine was Mary’s cousin and her closest living relative. In those days, if a close relative wanted to take the child in, the court almost automatically approved.”

“And the judge just accepted their claim of a blood relationship without checking into it?” Tony asked.

“You have to remember that, in 1940, judges had a lot less interest in involving themselves in family matters than they seem to have now. It was a time when Americans viewed government’s role as a relatively minor one. Generally, it was a saner time than ours.”

To Tony, Hilary said, “You said there were a couple of things that bothered you. What’s the other one?”

Tony wearily wiped his face with one hand. “The other’s not something that can easily be put into words. It’s just a hunch. But the story sounds . . . too smooth.”

“You mean fabricated?” Joshua asked.

“I don’t know,” Tony said. “I don’t really know what I mean. But when you’ve been a policeman as long as I have, you develop a nose for these things.”

“And something smells?” Hilary asked.

“I think so.”

“What?” Joshua asked.

“Nothing particular. Like I said, the story just sounds too smooth, too pat.” Tony drank the last of his wine and then said, “Could Bruno actually be Katherine’s child?”

Joshua stared at him, dumbfounded. When he could speak, he said, “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“You’re asking me if it’s possible that she made up the whole thing about Mary Gunther and merely went away to San Francisco to have her own illegitimate baby?”

“That’s what I’m asking,” Tony said.

“No,” Joshua said. “She wasn’t pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well,” Joshua said, “I didn’t personally take her urine sample and perform a rabbit test with it. I wasn’t even living in the valley in 1940. I didn’t get here until ’45, after the war. But I’ve heard her story repeated, sometimes in part and sometimes in its entirety, by people who
were
here in ’40. Now you’ll say that they were probably just repeating what she had told them. But if she was pregnant, she couldn’t have hidden the fact. Not in a town as small as St. Helena. Everyone would have known.”

“There’s a small percentage of women who don’t swell up a great deal when they’re carrying a child,” Hilary said. “You could look at them and never know.”

“You’re forgetting that she had no interest in men,” Joshua said. “She didn’t date anyone. How could she possibly have gotten pregnant?”

“Perhaps she didn’t date any locals,” Tony said. “But at harvest time, toward the end of summer, aren’t there a lot of migrant workers in the vineyards? And aren’t a lot of them young, handsome, virile men?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Joshua said. “You’re reaching way out in left field again. You’re trying to tell me that Katherine, whose lack of interest in men was widely remarked upon, suddenly fell for a field hand.”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“But then you’re also trying to tell me that this unlikely pair of lovers carried out at least a brief affair in a virtual fish bowl without being caught or even causing gossip. And
then
you’re trying to tell me that she was a unique woman, one in a thousand, a woman who didn’t look pregnant when she was. No.” Joshua shook his white-maned head. “It’s too much for me. Too many coincidences. You think Katherine’s story sounds too neat, too smooth, but next to your wild suppositions, her tale has the gritty sound of reality.”

“You’re right,” Hilary said. “So another promising theory bites the dust.” She finished her wine.

Tony scratched his chin and sighed. “Yeah. I guess I’m too damned tired to make a whole lot of sense. But I still don’t think Katherine’s story makes perfect sense, either. There’s something more to it. Something she was hiding. Something strange.”

 
In Sally’s kitchen, standing on broken dishes, Bruno Frye opened the telephone book and looked up the number of Topelis & Associates. Their offices were in Beverly Hills. He dialed and got an answering service, which was what he had expected.

“I’ve got an emergency here,” he told the answering service operator, “and I thought maybe you could help me.”

“Emergency?” she asked.

“Yes. You see, my sister is one of Mr. Topelis’s clients. There’s been a death in the family, and I’ve got to get hold of her right away.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.

“The thing of it is, my sister’s apparently off on a short holiday, and I don’t know where she’s gone.”

“I see.”

“It’s urgent that I get in touch with her.”

“Well, ordinarily, I’d pass your message right on to Mr. Topelis. But he’s out tonight, and he didn’t leave a number where he could be reached.”

“I wouldn’t want to bother him anyway,” Bruno said. “I thought, with all the calls you take for him, maybe
you
might know where my sister is. I mean, maybe she called in and left word for Mr. Topelis, something that would indicate where she was.”

“What’s your sister’s name?”

“Hilary Thomas.”

“Oh, yes! I do know where she is.”

“That’s wonderful. Where?”

“I didn’t take a message from her. But someone called in just a while ago and left a message for Mr. Topelis to pass on to her. Hold the line just a sec. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“I’ve got it written down here somewhere.”

Bruno waited patiently while she sorted through her memos.

Then she said, “Here it is. A Mr. Wyant Stevens called. He wanted Mr. Topelis to tell Miss Thomas that he, Mr. Stevens, was eager to handle the paintings. Mr. Stevens said he wanted her to know he wouldn’t be able to sleep until she got back from St. Helena and gave him a chance to strike a deal. So she must be in St. Helena.”

Bruno was shocked.

He couldn’t speak.

“I don’t know what hotel or motel,” the operator said apologetically. “But there aren’t really many places to stay in all of Napa Valley, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding her.”

“No trouble,” Bruno said shakily.

“Does she know anyone in St. Helena?”

“Huh?”

“I just thought maybe she’s staying with friends,” the operator suggested.

“Yes,” Bruno said. “I think I know just where she is.”

“I’m really sorry about the death.”

“What?”

“The death in the family.”

“Oh,” Bruno said. He licked his lips nervously. “Yes. There have been quite a few deaths in the family the past five years. Thank you for your help.”

“No trouble.”

He hung up.

She was in St. Helena.

The brazen bitch had gone back.

Why? My God, what was she doing? What was she after? What was she up to?

Whatever she had in mind, it would not do him any good. That was for damned sure.

Frantic, afraid that she was planning some trick that would be the death of him, he began to call the airlines at Los Angeles International, trying to get a seat on a flight north. There were no commuter planes until morning, and all of the early flights were already booked solid. He wouldn’t be able to get out of L.A. until tomorrow afternoon.

That would be too late.

He knew it. Sensed it.

He had to move fast.

He decided to drive. The night was still young. If he stayed behind the wheel all night and kept the accelerator to the floor, he could reach St. Helena by dawn.

He had a feeling his life depended on it.

He hurried out of the bungalow, stumbling through ruined furniture and other rubble, leaving the front door wide open, not bothering to be careful, not taking time to see if anyone was nearby. He sprinted across the lawn, into the dark and deserted street, toward his van.

 
After they enjoyed coffee with brandy in the den, Joshua showed Tony and Hilary to the guest room and connecting bath at the far end of the house from his own sleeping quarters. The chamber was large and pleasant, with deep window sills and leaded glass windows like those in the dining room. The bed was an enormous fourposter that delighted Hilary.