Death on the Family Tree (13 page)

“Couldn’t he have appealed?”

“It wouldn’t have done him any good. That was 1951 and he was black. What good lawyer would take his case? And he’d been arrested because he was wearing a ring that had belonged to Carter Everanes. I guess they thought he’d stolen it or something. Maybe he did. In those days a lot of Negroes—that’s what we were, back then, Negroes—and a lot of Negroes who worked in white houses figured they had what was called ‘toting rights,’ the right to carry home food and little things left lying around from time to time, to supplement the pitiful wages they were paid. I’m not condoning stealing, mind, but it’s the way things were. So Alfred may have taken that ring, as much as I hate to think he would.”

Katharine’s mother’s maid used to carry a full bag of food home almost every week. When Katharine was eight, she had hotly accused the maid of stealing, but her mother had shushed her and whispered, “It’s all right, honey. Just ignore it.”

“Did he say how he got it?” she asked Dr. Flo.

“I don’t know. Soon after the trial began, Mama shipped me off to a cousin out in Memphis. I didn’t get to come home until the trial was over. I remember the night Alfred was executed, though. Our whole church got together to pray and cry. Alfred was very loved in that church.”

Katharine felt physically ill. “How awful for you all!”

“That’s not the only awful story I could tell you, but I won’t waste your time. Things are somewhat better now, and our task is to make sure they get even better than this before our time on earth is done. I just wanted to let you know why the name Carter Everanes was familiar to me. I can’t believe I forgot at the time why that was. You reckon I’m getting old and forgetful?”

Katharine laughed. “I reckon your mind is so full, it just can’t hold everything up front where you can get to it right away. That’s what my Aunt Lucy claimed, anyway. She’s the one who started me poking into this, since she was Carter Everanes’s sister and left me his things mixed in with hers when she died.”

Dr. Flo sounded a bit discomposed. “I don’t mean to ruin your memories of your Aunt Lucy. She didn’t have a thing to do with this.”

“Of course not. But if Alfred didn’t, either, I wonder who did kill Carter?”

“I guess we’ll never know that, after all this time.” Dr. Flo’s voice was matter-of-fact. “The best we can do is trust that God punished whoever it was, in His own good time and way.”

“God can do the punishing, but I still want to learn all I can about this. Family history has grabbed me in a big way. Do you have any elderly relatives who might know more about the case?”

Dr. Flo considered. “Alfred’s sister Cleetie is still alive, but I don’t know if she’d talk to you. She’s a bit shy around strangers. I’ll call and ask her, though, and let you know.”

“Thanks, Dr. Flo. I really appreciate this.”

Dr. Flo sighed. “You cannot believe what a relief it is to me to find somebody who cares what happened to Alfred after all these years. I’ve been a little down after failing to find Maurice’s cousin, but you are likely to restore my faith in humanity.”

By four-thirty Katharine had laid out the green silk dress Tom had bought her on their last trip to Paris and sexy gold sandals with four-inch heels. She had baked his favorite chocolate cake (“my birthday cake,” she reminded herself, although she preferred caramel), and while it cooled, she went out and cut armfuls of hydrangeas to decorate the house. She was bringing them in when she heard the telephone.

“Katharine?” It was Tom. When she heard the hesitancy in his voice, she went limp as an earthworm. Scarcely able to breathe, she sank into a chair before her legs collapsed under her.

“Did you have a wreck on your way from the airport?”

“No, hon, I’m still in D.C. We just learned today that an important meeting will be held Monday morning to draft some legislation that could be detrimental to us. That’s got everybody hopping, as you can imagine, because we have to come up with our own recommendations and figures to back them up. I’ve been running to catch my tail all day, or I’d have called sooner. But obviously I’m not going to make it home this weekend, so we’ll have to celebrate next weekend, okay?”

Her relief that he wasn’t hurt was followed by anger so intense, it scared her. Her whole body shook, and it took all her willpower not to hurl the phone through the window.

Tom went right on. “But listen, the symphony tickets are at Will Call. Find somebody to go with you, will you? And dinner is on me.”

So what’s new?
she thought through a red haze of rage.
My whole life is on you.

She had never worked, because Tom and she both felt she should be home with the children. Besides, in all those years while he was battling his way up the corporate ladder, she often had to attend business functions with him or host them. Even in these pseudoenlightened times, few men climb high in corporate structures without a supportive, stay-at-home wife.

She knew that wives’ birthdays weren’t high on the corporate priority list, but Tom and the company owed her something. She had raised the children almost single-handedly. She had attended hundreds of boring functions on Tom’s arm. Had sat through interminable dinner parties, picked up his dry cleaning so he could be presentable on the job, kept the house going so he’d have a home to come back to, and dealt with all the chores and emergencies he wasn’t there to handle. Even a servant deserved to be treated better than that late, offhand call.

The lightning flashed, white hot as her resentment. When a sudden gust of rain sprayed the glass, she felt the sting in her soul. She still hadn’t said a word.

“Honey?” Tom sounded puzzled. No wonder. She had always understood before when his plans had abruptly changed. Or had she? Was she being swept out to sea on twenty years of pent-up rage?

She wasn’t sure what had changed, why this time was different, but she knew it was.

She couldn’t trust her voice, so she said nothing. Tom grew defensive. “I’m sorry, honey, but you know how it goes. We could be in for a real big fight. If I can change their minds, I’ll get a great bonus.”

“That’s all that matters to you men, isn’t it?” she snapped. “Your battles and your bonuses. Not wives’ birthdays, children’s piano recitals, family vacations. It’s nice if they fit into your schedule, but what really matters is duking it out and collecting the Almighty Dollar.”

“Katharine!” Now he was shocked. “I do all this for you, hon—so you and the kids can have nice things.”

She wasn’t ready to canonize him yet. Sure, she and the kids had reaped benefits from his job, but Tom reserved for himself the exhilaration of the fight and the right to control everybody’s schedule.

The rain came down in a rush, drumming on the patio and muffling his voice. Katharine held herself very still. If she moved, she would gush tears from every pore. “I’ll miss you,” was all she could manage when Tom finally stopped talking.

When she didn’t say the rest of the things he was accustomed to hearing her say on similar occasions—“It’s all right, honey. I completely understand”—he muttered, “Yeah, well, I’ll miss you, too. We’ll do it next weekend, okay? Or something.”

“Or something,” she echoed and hung up.

Her anger drained, leaving her limp with self-pity. Hot tears trickled down her cheeks, mirroring the drops slowly gliding down the window. “It’s not fair!” she cried in a sharp whisper. She pounded her fists on the tabletop until she felt pain, then she pressed them against her cheeks and let sobs overwhelm her. She cried for herself and for all women who celebrate birthdays alone. She cried for all the good times she and Tom had missed because he was out of town. She cried for what she and Hasty had had and had thrown away. She cried for the absence of Susan, and of Jon. She cried for her mother and father, and for Aunt Lucy.

One by one all the losses in her life rose up and towered over her, until she cowered against the tabletop, oppressed by their weight. Finally, when there were no more tears in her, she slumped exhausted in the chair with her cheek on the table, watching the rain.

Gradually she could think again. The depth of her misery surprised her. “I ought to be used to this,” she told herself. “It happens often enough. And I don’t really mind missing the symphony or the dinner. I would rather have cooked him a special meal for two. It’s just…”

She came to a dead halt. What
was
it that held her like a lead weight in her chair?

It was this new feeling since her birthday that she was slowly fading away. The sense that everybody else was real and she was a reflection in their windows. She remembered Hasty across the table: “It sounds like you’ve done real well for yourself, Kate. Married a corporate executive, got a house in Buckhead, what more could a woman ask for? I’m happy for you.” Was this all she could ask for—a big house and a wedding ring?

She held out her left hand and considered her rings. The diamond was a large emerald cut, the wedding ring a band of diamonds that had belonged to Tom’s grandmother. The stones were large, but dim. When had she stopped cleaning them every week?

She reached out and traced a raindrop as it trickled down the pane. “I’ve got all the restrictions of marriage and none of the privileges,” she whispered. She stared across the rain-soaked yard and down a tunnel of years and years of disappointing phone calls. Tom would retire in fifteen years or so, but then what? If he came home to stay, would she know him? Every Saturday when he was home, they ate waffles and read the paper together. On Sundays, they ate French toast and went to church. What did he eat for breakfast on Tuesdays? What television did he watch on Wednesday nights? What book was he reading that week? He was always reading something. They used to read the same books and have animated discussions about them. When had that stopped? If she were on a quiz show and in order to get a prize, had to name his favorite color, current favorite author, and favorite food, could she win?

She felt drained and a little nauseated after her personal storm. She certainly had no inclination to call friends hoping somebody could take her up on a late invitation to dinner and the symphony. Not only was it pouring rain, but she could not face making the explanations, getting dressed, driving through slick streets to pick somebody up, making brittle conversation when she felt like lead. Maybe Hollis and Zach would like to go. She was about to call when she remembered that Hollis was working that night.

She felt one last spurt of anger. Why was she trying to save Tom’s tickets? She would call Symphony Hall and release them. If nobody needed them and Tom had to eat them, he could pay for them out of his precious bonus.

That energized her. She made the call, slammed the phone down in its charger, and made thick gooey chocolate icing for the cake. She took a Stouffer’s tuna casserole for one from the freezer—comfort food—and while it microwaved, she made a salad and poured herself a tall glass of Pinot Grigio. She cut herself a sinfully wide slab of cake, noting that the storm was growing worse. Rain pounded the patio like snare drums. It was just as well she hadn’t gone out in her gold sandals.

As lightning flashed and thunder crashed, she assembled candles and a flashlight in case the power went out, then carried her dinner upstairs on a tray. She put on the pretty nightgown she had planned to wear for Tom, fetched a P. G. Wodehouse collection from the hall bookshelf, and chuckled her way through the adventures of Jeeves and Bertie while she ate. Rain lashed her windows and wind assaulted the house, but her room felt like a safe cocoon.

When she finished one story, she remembered that Dutch was nervous about storms. She reached for the phone and gave him a call, but though his phone rang seven times, he did not answer. Probably downstairs watching a movie, she figured.

When the power went out a little after nine, she pulled the covers up to her chin and went fast to sleep.

She came instantly awake, ears straining. What had wakened her? Was there somebody in the house?

Nobody could get through the security system
, she reminded herself as lightning lit up the storm-tossed yard.
Besides, anybody would be crazy to come out in this downpour to rob us
.

The wind flung handfuls of rain against her window. In flashes of light she saw maples and hickories flailing the air like demented creatures. She must have heard a branch falling, or a transformer blowing out. Still, she knew from years of experience that once she woke up nervous, she was not likely to sleep again. No matter how accustomed a person is to being alone, it is hard to recover from fright in the night.

She peered at the clock to see what time it was, how much more time she would have to sweat it out before dawn, but the clock was black. The power must still be out. Was it out all over the neighborhood, or had somebody cut her wires? Had she reset the alarm after she went into the yard for the hydrangeas? Had she locked the French doors to the patio? She had been intent on getting to the phone, and afterwards, she had been so angry. Had she forgotten to reset the alarm? Those questions would plague her as long as it stayed dark.

She fumbled under her pillow for her cell phone to check the time, to see how many more hours she would have to endure before dawn. But before she could turn on the phone, she heard a thump in Tom’s library below. It sounded like books falling from a shelf.

Katharine snatched up the phone and leaped from her bed. She tiptoed to the door, opened it slowly, and peered into the hall. Everything was in utter darkness, but she heard little whispers of movement downstairs near the kitchen.

For one joyful instant she thought Tom had flown home to surprise her, was getting a snack before coming upstairs. Then the narrow beam of a flashlight reflected on the staircase wall, and somebody bumped into something and swore softly. Tom knew his way around the house in the dark and swore more intelligently than that.

She caught her breath—a sharp sound in the silence. That galvanized her into action. She darted on tiptoe across the hall and into Jon’s room, a rapid shadow, willing the old wood floors not to creak. She wended her way through the darkness to the closet and pulled its door shut behind her. As silently as she could, she pushed her way past clothes and sports paraphernalia Jon had left behind. His down sleeping bag draped over a hanger in the far corner, for Jon was more careful of his sleeping bag than of his clothes. She felt behind it for the almost invisible handle of a little door in the wall. The opening was sized for children, not women, but she forced her limbs through, feeling the satin of her gown snag on a rough place. She jerked it loose, pulled the door shut behind her and rammed a sturdy bolt in place.

She flipped the light switch before she remembered that the power was out. Then she stood in silence, her pounding heart the only sound. The little space was hot and dark and might house unknown creatures, but at least she was hidden and safe. That was far better than being in the rest of the house with an unknown human.

She felt for the button to turn on her cell phone and winced at the musical chime that announced it was powering up. While it sought a signal, she pressed her ear to the door, straining to hear any noise beyond the closet. When she still heard only silence, she held up the phone monitor and saw with relief that she was reconnected to the world. She also saw it was just past ten o’clock.

“There is somebody in my home,” she whispered to the 911 operator.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Where is your emergency?”

Katharine gave her address then froze. The door to the closet beyond the wall had opened. Somebody was moving around inside.

“Hello? What is the nature of your emergency?”

She did not speak.

“I cannot hear you.” The operator’s tinny voice sounded loud as cymbals.

“Help me,” Katharine whispered, then closed the phone to break the connection.

She did not dare breathe.

Beyond the wall, somebody was shoving aside clothing, moving soccer shoes and tennis rackets—almost as if the intruder knew there was a door, but didn’t know where to find it. In another minute he or she would reach the back of the closet, shift the sleeping bag, and see it.

Exactly how sturdy was that bolt?

Her heart thundered, keeping time to a desperate prayer:
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!

Then, over her heartbeats and his fumbling, Katharine heard a blessed sound. A siren wailed somewhere in the neighborhood, coming closer.

The other person heard it, too, for everything grew silent. Then she heard another oath and feet hurrying from the closet.

But the sirens did not come to her house after all. They whined off into the distance.