Creeps Suzette (22 page)

It sounded like a low, rolling moan. Climbing the last three steps, they saw that the door to Kenneth's room was open. Kenneth was lying on the bed; the moans were coming from him.

“Kenneth!” Judith cried, hurrying to the young man. “Are you ill?”

He kept moaning. Judith grabbed his arm and gave it a sharp shake. “Say something, please. What's wrong?”

“Everything,” Kenneth wailed, his eyes closed and his
expression wretched. “I hate my family. I hate everyone. I hate myself.”

A half-empty glass of juice sat on the nightstand. Judith picked it up. “Drink this, and tell us why you're so upset.”

Kenneth waved the glass away, but struggled to sit up. “I love Creepers,” he declared. “Isn't that enough?”

“You tell us,” Renie said, leaning against the fireplace mantel.

“No.” Kenneth shook his head several times. “I feel sick.”

“Kenneth,” Judith said quietly, “did you go into the safe the night before last?”

Kenneth's jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

“Logic,” Judith replied. “You came here earlier in the evening, around seven while your grandmother was watching TV. You knew she was occupied, and you had another purpose. Ada Dietz said you ate some strawberry pie. Then I suspect you came into the library where you opened the safe, and left not only a smudge of strawberry, but your fingerprints. Whatever you found in the safe didn't alarm you too much, because the discussion you had later that evening with your grandmother was fairly tame. Then yesterday the two of you quarreled violently. Supposedly, you fought over the raccoon. But I don't think that was the main issue.”

Kenneth's narrow shoulders sagged. “I'd looked for her will in the safe. She'd been threatening to change it. She hadn't.” He winced as he tried to sit up straighter on the bed. “
Grandmaman
promised I'd inherit Creepers when she died because I was the only one in the family who loved the house. Monday night, I talked to her about my plans for an animal sanctuary here. She just laughed, as she's done before. I didn't tell her I'd already looked at the will to make sure she hadn't changed it.” Kenneth flushed and ducked his head. “I mean, it's not really a secret, is it? We're all family.”

“I'm not sure that counts,” Judith said.
Especially
, she thought,
with this crew
.

“Then, when I brought Roscoe up to visit her yesterday,” Kenneth continued, “she got very angry. She said she'd already talked to Gaylord Gibbons about adding a codicil or something to the will which would state that if I brought any animals into Creepers after she died, I'd have to forfeit the house. Isn't that outrageous?”

“No,” Renie said calmly. “Sunset Cliffs isn't a zoo. Keeping animals around here could be dangerous.” She paused, glancing around the room. “Where
is
Roscoe?”

“I set him free,” Kenneth replied, on the defensive. “His paw seemed all right this morning.”

Judith sat down in a railback chair. “I understand why you're upset. But that's no reason to hate your family.”

“Yes, it is,” Kenneth asserted. “They all want money when
Grandmaman
dies. All I want is the house. I still have most of my money from the trust that my grandfather left me. I haven't thrown it away like the rest of them.”

“Do you mean spent—or squandered?” Renie put in.

“Both.” Kenneth was looking petulant. “Bop used his to set up his pizza parlor. Carrie just frittered hers away, mainly on her husband, Brett. The dumb thing was that he didn't want expensive cars and designer clothes. Brett just wants to write his books. He should never have married my sister. I think he felt sorry for her.”

“But Bop has been very successful,” Judith pointed out.

“Oh?” Kenneth looked askance. “Then why is he always begging
Grandmaman
for loans?”

The cousins exchanged quick glances. Behind Kenneth's back, Renie made card-dealing gestures with her hands. Judith gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“What about your parents and the Wayne Burgesses?” Judith said. “Have they used up all their money, too?”

“I don't know about Uncle Wayne,” Kenneth replied. “Somebody said the family business has gone sour. That's his problem. Nobody ever asked Bop or me to work for Evergreen. I wouldn't have anyway—all they do is chop down trees and ruin the animal habitat.”

“Why weren't either of you asked?” Judith inquired.
“Maxwell, Walter, Wayne—three generations, and then…” She threw up her hands.

“I'll tell you why,” Peggy Hillman said from the doorway. “Kenny, what's wrong? You look God-awful.”

“I don't feel so good, Mom,” Kenneth replied as his mother entered the tower room and put a hand to her son's forehead. “Do I have a temperature?”

“I don't think so,” Peggy said. “You're just upset. Is it about that blasted raccoon?”

“In a way,” Kenneth replied, peevish.

“I'll go get Dr. Stevens just to make sure,” Peggy replied. “He's still with your grandmother.” She stopped, then looked at the cousins. “You two have certainly managed to invade our lives in record time. Did Bev send you to watch
Maman
or to find out what she's been missing while she and Tom are rooting around in some pharaoh's tomb?”

Judith tried to detect if there was any humor behind Peggy's words. But the other woman seemed serious. Indeed, she looked as haggard as her son. The tinted blond hair seemed to have lost its luster, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

Judith evaded the question. “How long did you have to stay at the hospital with Nurse Fritz last night?”

Peggy shrugged. “A couple of hours, maybe more. I wanted to make sure she'd pull through. She will, but it was a near thing.”

“Do they know anything more about what caused her illness?” Judith asked.

“Not that I've heard,” Peggy said. “Fritz won't get out of the hospital until tomorrow. I guess she wants to go to Dr. Moss's funeral. She worked a lot of cases with him over the years.”

“Tell them, Mom,” Kenneth said suddenly. “You started to, then you stopped. They ought to know.”

Peggy looked blank. “Tell them what? Don't you think they've heard too much?”

Kenneth shook his head. “About how people get passed over or ignored in the family business. Especially you.”

“Oh.” Peggy's face fell. “That's not…What the hell, why not?” She gave her son a feeble smile. “Kenny's proud of his old lady. That's nice, don't you think?” she asked of the cousins.

“My kids think I'm an idiot,” Renie said.

Peggy's glance at Renie indicated that she probably agreed with the Jones offspring. She made no comment, however, and began speaking of herself.

“I'm almost two years older than Wayne. As the firstborn, I should have gone into the family business—except that I came along a generation too soon. When we grew up in the late fifties, women weren't supposed to work outside the home.”

“Bunk,” Renie muttered. “All the women in our family did.”

Peggy ignored the remark. “I always knew I was smarter than Wayne. Oh, he's not stupid, just average. You can't be average and run a big corporation like Evergreen Timber. And you can't be timid, either. You need nerve, and plenty of it. Wayne is inclined to be wishy-washy.”

Peggy must have seen the look that passed between the cousins. She let out an exasperated sigh. “Good Lord, so you know about my brother and Sarah, too?”

“Um…wel…” Judith mumbled.

“We're like termites,” Renie said. “We come into a house and eat up all the information like it was cheap wood.”

“Worms would be more like it,” Peggy said, but this time there was a spark of something that might have been amusement in her blue eyes. “The liaison between Wayne and Sarah is no secret, at least not within the family. Dorothy's put up with it because, believe it or not, she loves Wayne. Or did, until lately. Now she wants a fresh start, before she gets too old. I don't blame her. She's another rich woman who hasn't been able to do what she wanted with her life because of social and family pressure. Wayne can't deal with it, not when he's up to his wire-frame glasses with Evergreen Timber troubles.”

“I understand all that,” Judith allowed, “including the part about you being passed over because the fifties were a different era for most women. But what about Bop? He was actually in line for the corner office at Evergreen, and we know he's got good business sense.”

Peggy nodded. “That wasn't the problem. Bop would have been ready to enter the business about seven or eight years ago, shortly after my father died. Wayne had recently taken over, and the company was already in trouble. I think Wayne looked down the road and didn't want to saddle his son with the demise of Evergreen Timber. He's never said so outright, but that's the impression I've gotten over the years.”

Judith gave Peggy an ironic look. “Nor did he want to admit you or even Bop might have done a better job. That's really sad.”

“Sad, but true,” Peggy said, biting off the words. “Excuse me, I'm going to try to catch Dr. Stevens before he leaves.”

Kenneth laid back down in the bed. “Mom's got it all together. I really admire her.”

“That's very sweet,” Judith remarked.

“That's very weird,” Renie said. “Say, what about Bev? Has she used up all her money?”

Kenneth grimaced. “I guess so. She used it to finance her husband's digs. Talk about pouring sand down a rat hole.”

“That's not fair,” Renie countered. “Tom Ohashi is doing important work.”

Seeing an argument brewing, Judith intervened. “That's good news about Nurse Fritz. I hope she can attend the funeral tomorrow if it means so much to her.”

“Nurse Fritz,” Kenneth said in disgust. “She's nothing but a money-grubber.”

Judith was surprised. “How do you mean?”

Kenneth laughed with a cynicism that ill-suited him. “She thought my grandfather would be so grateful to her for nursing him through his last illness that he'd leave her some kind of legacy. He didn't. Somehow, Dr. Moss
coaxed her into taking care of
Grandmaman
when she was sick with her gall bladder, but she wouldn't come when
Grandmaman
sprained her ankle. I was really surprised to see her here yesterday.”

Judith was silent for a moment, lost in thought. Fritz's knowledge about Walter Burgess's will obviously stemmed from personal interest. No doubt she had read the document after it had been filed for probate. Before Judith could comment further, Dr. Stevens appeared.

“We'll get out of the way,” Judith volunteered.

Dr. Stevens smiled. “That's fine. By the way, what are those tools doing outside the door?”

With only a hint of embarrassment, Judith confided that she and Renie were going to try to get inside the top floor of the tower.

“Why?” Kenneth asked, his eyes wide.

“We like to keep ourselves occupied,” Renie responded.

To Judith's surprise, Dr. Stevens was looking almost as dumbfounded as Kenneth. “What do you think is up there?” the doctor asked in a voice that sounded strained.

“We don't know,” Judith said truthfully. “We're just curious.”

Dr. Stevens gave a single nod. “I see. Maybe I'll join you as soon as I've checked out Kenneth here.”

“Be our guest,” said Renie.

Without speaking, the cousins trudged up the next two flights. They heard no odd sounds, felt no strange sensations. The bar across the solid oak door and the heavy padlock looked formidable. Judith went first, using the crowbar.

“Oof,” she gasped. “This thing's rusted to the wood.”

“You try one side, I'll use the hammer on the other,” Renie suggested.

Judith pried and Renie swore. It occurred to Judith that her cousin couldn't perform a manual task without swearing, a trait she'd inherited from her father, who had been a seagoing man.

After the tenth or eleventh ear-scalding curse, Judith felt
compelled to upbraid Renie. “Coz, please. These people are going to think we crawled out of the sewer.”

Renie let out one more string of curses that would have made public access TV viewers blush. But even as she wound down, the bar came free at one end and fell to one side of the door.

“Can I keep swearing?” Renie panted.

Also out of breath, Judith could only nod and point to the axe. Renie waited a few moments to catch her breath, then let loose with a mighty swing.

The axe made only a small dent. “We should have gotten a wedge from Jeepers,” Renie said. “Let's try hitting the axe with the hammer.”

It took several blows and a few more curses from Renie, but the door finally budged. Between gasps, Renie nodded to Judith. “Strut your stuff, coz.”

Judith reached into the pocket of her beige slacks and removed a manicure kit. Dan McMonigle had had his own kind of life insurance: He had hidden away IRS notices, collection agency letters, promissory notes, and other incriminating pieces of paper so that Judith couldn't find them and thus try to kill him. To preserve her sanity, which she'd succeeded in doing, and to save the house, which she'd failed to do, Judith had learned to pick locks and open safes. Like riding a bicycle, it was not a skill she would ever lose.

The padlock was easier than she'd expected. The old Yale lock was more challenging, apparently because of the rust. It took Judith over three minutes to loosen the inner workings.

The door creaked open, revealing a room like the other two in the tower, except that the dormer ceiling was at steep angles. There was another small fireplace, and the furnishings had been left intact. The air smelled stale and damp. Cobwebs and dust covered the single bed, the bureau, the dressing table, and two chairs.