Family Practice (23 page)

“Any of your siblings have a painting to sell?”

“I don't see how they could. Why are you asking all these questions about Daddy's paintings?”

“One was sold recently.”

“There were some sold before he died. Anybody who owned one could have sold it.”

“This one was sold by someone in the family.”

“I don't believe it. Who?”

“There is a man at a gallery in Kansas City who says you sold it.”

“What?” Her face went white; her dark eyes got a hunted look. “That's impossible.”

“Tell me why it's impossible.”

“Because I didn't do it.”

“Where are the paintings stored?”

Ellen vaguely waved a hand toward the ceiling. She looked numb, face even paler, hands in her lap twisted together.

“If you'll show me where they are,” Susan said as she rose, “I'd like to take a look at them.”

Like a dutiful child, Ellen stood and trudged toward the stairway.

“I don't think that's a terribly good idea, Ellen.” Taylor put a hand on her arm to get her attention.

She pulled away and looked up at him. “Why?”

“Don't be stupid, Ellen. At least get a lawyer before you do anything.” He turned to Susan. “Have you got a search warrant?”

She did not. The warrant they'd used in searching for the murder weapon wouldn't apply. She wasn't sure she could get one.

“Are you going to arrest me?” Ellen asked.

“Right now, I'm simply trying to gather information. One of your father's paintings was recently sold for quite a lot of money. I need to know if it came from here.”

Without a word, Ellen turned and headed for the stairway.

“Ellen—” Taylor said in warning.

“I have to know,” Ellen said without stopping.

Susan and Taylor followed her up the stairs; Parkhurst trailed in the rear. The hallway went on long enough to resemble a hotel. It was dim, but Ellen didn't bother to turn on the chandeliers.

The dark, angry sky could be seen through a window at the end. Ellen stopped in front of a door, seemed to steel herself for a difficult ordeal, then took a breath and turned the knob.

Susan wasn't quite sure what the legal position was here. One of the paintings had been taken before Dorothy's death. Dorothy'd had ownership, at least until her death. Now that she was deceased, Ellen had some claim on them. A charge of theft by one of the other heirs would be required before any kind of arrest could be made.

Ellen stiffened her back, stepped into the room, and turned on lights. Two cut-glass chandeliers cast a sparkling rainbow pattern on the polished oak floor. The room was about fifteen by twenty, with no furniture except for three straight-backed Victorian chairs. The walls were covered with paintings. Susan made a quick estimate and came up with forty.

No obvious gap. If one were missing, she had no way of telling. But Ellen obviously could. She stood in the center of the room and looked intently at the north wall, then turned and looked just as intently at the east, and the same with south and west. Her face was set, carefully blank, but Susan could see the effort it cost to cover up a jolt.

Taylor, face a mask of worry, said nothing. Hands in his pockets, he stood nervously by the door.

“Ms. Barrington?”

Ellen brought her thoughts back from some far place and focused her dark eyes, angry and afraid, on Susan. “I never sold one of Daddy's paintings.”

“One is missing?”

“It looks like they're all here.”

She was lying. A painting—at least one—was gone. Ellen had known immediately. Lord knows, Susan had been lied to before and fooled, but she'd bet money this was the first Ellen knew about a missing painting. If Ellen hadn't stolen it, who had?

She turned to Taylor. “Mr. Talmidge, how many are missing?”

“I don't believe any are missing. It's hard to say; there are so many.”

Ellen shot him a look, then quickly lowered her eyes. Susan couldn't read it. Were these two in collusion? The impression given was that they didn't even like each other. Though that didn't mean diddly. All they needed was mutual benefit.

She questioned them, Parkhurst questioned them; they got zip. Neither would even admit there was an inventory listing. There was no way to check what was here with what should be here.

“What do you think?” she asked Parkhurst as he started the Bronco.

“I think we're getting nowhere. We've got suspects hanging all over the place. Nothing that points to any one of them. Now we've got another motive on top of just whacking her for the money. And we've got young Ms. Ellen fingered for the theft.”

“You think she did it?”

“On the face of it, I'd say no, but that doesn't mean I'd be right. We could put her in a lineup and have old Claude Jennings in to see if he could pick her out.”

“Not without some charge we couldn't.”

Rain drummed on the roof of the Bronco; water rushed along the gutters and fountained over the curbs.

“Taylor's jumpy,” Parkhurst said.

“Most people are around cops.”

“I've been looking at his finances. He's strapped pretty tight. Down to nickels and dimes. His salary's nowhere near poverty, so where's all the money going?”

“Investing in the stock market?”

“Could be Beautiful Brent was right about that. How about we grab something to eat before we take on the physicians?”

Best suggestion that had come along all day.

19

W
OULD THEY EVER
leave? Ellen felt as though rubber bands stretched to breaking point were all that held her together. Any second they'd snap, and she'd fly apart. Oh, God, let them get out of here. Cops in the house. Her only thought on first seeing them had been,
They've come to arrest me.
It took up all her mind. She couldn't clear space for Daddy's painting. Stolen?

And Taylor giving advice. Why? Maybe she should be nicer to him.

Questions and questions and questions. She couldn't bend her mind around what they were asking.

Finally they stopped hammering at her, and Taylor opened the door for them. Just when she thought she could take a breath, Chief Wren turned in the doorway and looked at her. Ellen's heart flopped around like a landed fish.

Go! Please just get out of here!

‘We'll be back,” Chief Wren said softly.

Ellen watched them trot through the rain and get in the Bronco.

When they drove off, she turned to Taylor, standing in the archway to the living room. “Did you know about the painting?”

He tried to paste surprise all over his face. “Are you saying one
is
missing?”

Right. Hot news. Like bat shit. Use it for fertilizer. “Why give me advice?”

A smile, the fond-uncle kind. “You needed it. You should have followed it.”

She needed a lot more than that. She needed to find out what was going on, who was trying to frame her, and figure out how to get out of this trap somebody was busily closing over her head.

“I've never had any quarrel with you,” he said. “Of all you Barringtons, you've been the least uncordial. I had no desire to stand by and see you let yourself get into trouble.”

Least uncordial? He was saying he liked her? Yeah, right. Brain flash. Taylor, painting under arm, furtive look, tippytoeing down the wide staircase. Who easier than Taylor? He lived here. Dorothy. Would she? No. Ellen couldn't see her selling one without saying something. She wasn't underhanded.

Shit. What am I going to do? Somebody stole a painting. Sold it. Somehow used my name. First the gun and now the painting. Why make me look guilty? A sneaky thought lit up like fireworks in her mind.
One of her nearest and dearest hated her.
No, let's not get blown out here. Had to hate her, to do this. She suddenly felt bereft, all alone in a little bitty boat adrift in a storm. Always, she'd felt she really didn't fit in with the rest of them, now and then wondered whether they even liked her. But at least they were there. Family. She was part of it.

No, she told herself. No. No. No. It doesn't have to be Willis or Carl or Marlitta. Not Carl. What about Willis' wife? Vicky always seemed halfway scared of Dorothy, maybe glad she wasn't around anymore. Maybe she'd wanted Willis to do something Dorothy wouldn't let him do. Now Vicky could get Willis to do it. Do what? I don't know what! Anything. But Vicky wasn't all that swift. Was she bright enough to pull off a murder?

Marlitta's husband. Now, there was bright. Brent was a shit, and maybe not as smart as he thought, but clever enough to work out a murder and frame her.

And Taylor, what about him? He might have given her good advice, but maybe there was more to it.

She realized she was still standing by the front door staring at him. Just how bright was she, staying in this house with a man who might be a killer and who might be trying to frame her?

Nuts, going nuts. She grabbed her hair and held on. Taylor gave her a weirded-out look.

She dropped her arms, folded them across her chest, and dropped them to her sides. “I need to call Carl,” she said, and headed for the kitchen.

She punched in the number, turned to face Taylor, who had followed her, and leaned back against the counter with her fingers twined through the cord. “Carl,” she said when he answered, “I think I know why Dorothy wanted us all here for Saturday night.”

That got them. Two hours later, they were in the music room just like they'd been the night of the murder.

All those music sessions, Mozart and Bach and Telemann and Vivaldi. Oh, hell. Ellen was all of a sudden overcome by astuteness. The music let them get together without having to talk to each other. She could do without these visions of clarity. Like a plow horse, she was better off with blinders.

Same as Saturday, they were sliding glances at each other. All here but Dorothy. Ellen looked at the piano gleaming under the chandelier and got weepy. Dorothy had wanted to be a pianist. Ellen hadn't even known. She looked at her siblings one by one.

Carl wanted to be a farmer. She hadn't known that either. Willis. What did he want? To be looked up to, take his rightful place as head of the family? And Marlitta? Only thing she ever wanted—that Ellen knew about, and she was finding out she didn't know anything—was Brent. Well, she had him. Lately, she hadn't seemed really, really happy. Seeing him clearly at last? Not likely. Her face glowed with love and admiration whenever she glanced at him.

Willis seemed like he'd aged ten years and lost part of his soul. Inside his suit and tie, he seemed to be shrinking, as if he were slowly getting hollow. His eyes were sunken, face gray. He poured soda in a glass, added an ice cube with a plop, then another, and went to sit beside his wife on one of the Victorian sofas. Vicky tucked an arm through his, a gesture of comfort, or a way of reminding him she was there. Whichever, Willis ignored her, didn't even offer her anything to drink.

Carl, in baggy khaki pants and a loose white shirt, face hard and lined, opened a bottle of red wine, poured a glass, and took it to Marlitta, who gave him a murmur of thanks. Ellen couldn't guess what he might be thinking. She never could with Carl. If Marlitta had any expression besides fatigue, Ellen could only think it was bewildered.

Carl asked Vicky if she'd like a glass of wine. Vicky shook her head and asked in her sweet little voice if she could just have some club soda. No alcohol? Vicky didn't want to flap her tongue? That always happened after a drink or two.

Ellen got up and poured her own glass of wine, returned to the wing chair, and tucked her feet up under her. Nobody seemed eager to dive right into conversation. Even for this family, the silence was getting thick, everybody worried what was slithering around underneath.

Taylor dipped at his drink, keeping an eye on them in a chicken-among-hawks sort of way. Brent was watching too, in his usual thoughtful observation pose, giving the impression brilliant cogitation was washing around inside. Probably the truth of it, his mind was on getting out of here and on to his swimming session. Tuesday was one of his swimming nights.

“I'm not terribly surprised,” Willis said. “I've been telling Dorothy for years better security arrangements should be made. Anybody could break in and make off with the lot.”

“Nobody broke in.” Carl filled up his glass again, slouched to a wing chair, and sat, legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.

“She wanted us here because of Daddy's paintings?” Marlitta acted like a brain dead.

“There was mention of a sale in the
Kansas City Star,
” Carl said. “And for those of you who are uninformed, the seller is $100,000 richer.” He raised his glass high in the gesture of a toast and then took a sip.

That must be how the cops knew. How did Carl know? Ellen felt Vicky's eyes on her and looked up. Vicky peered into her soda real fast.

“Carl, I don't understand you,” Willis said. “First you imply one of us might have something to do with her death, and now you're saying one of us sold a painting.”

“I'm saying,” Carl said, “Dorothy knew one of us had stolen it. It pissed her off. She wanted us here to tell us whoever did it was going to get chopped.”

“She didn't know who?” Marlitta said dimly.

Marlitta, get a clue. What are we talking about?

“The cops think I did it,” Ellen said. Eyes snapped her way, like somebody had clicked a switch.

“Why?” Marlitta asked.

“I didn't. If anybody wants to know.”

“Of course you didn't,” Willis said. “None of us did. The police have got it wrong. Somebody bought a painting years ago and recently sold it. That's all there is to it.”

Vicky slid another glance at Ellen. Why all of a sudden was Vicky looking at her?

“Dorothy believed one of us stole it.” Ellen tried to take in them all, head wobbling around like one of those cutesy things on a dashboard. Willis and Vicky on one sofa, Marlitta with Brent on the other, Taylor on one side of the fireplace, Carl on the other side. All of them looked back at her with varying degrees of interest. “That's why she was killed.”