Twenty-three
Who in Shady Hills didn't attend the annual church bazaar? Jane wondered. It seemed the whole village had turned out for this, a favorite event.
Thumping dance music blared from a tall speaker that had been set up to the right of the church stairs, and with a pang of chagrin Jane realized that the commanding voice of the singer was that of Goddess. “Don't ever be afraid to fly-y-y-y!” came her vibrant tones.
This only hardened Jane's resolve. She made her way down the aisle, stroking Winky's soft fur. By then Winky seemed to have become accustomed to being outside, and sat, quite calm and contented, in Jane's arms.
“Hello, Jane,” came Rhoda's voice from behind, and Jane turned. Ginny was with her. “Jane . . .” Rhoda eyed Winky warily. “Why are you carrying that cat?”
“This is
my
cat,” Jane said.
Rhoda rolled her eyes. “Well,
obviously
. But what are you doing with him here?”
“Her.”
Ginny laughed. “Forget it, Rhoda. Jane's in one of her kooky moods.”
Jane threw back her head and laughed. “That's it. One of my kooky moods.” Suddenly she thrust Winky at the two women, who drew back slightly in surprise. “Pat her,” Jane invited them. Now looking at Jane as if she were slightly mad, Rhoda and Ginny each gave Winky a tentative stroke.
“Kooky mood is right,” Rhoda muttered, grabbing Ginny by the arm and pulling her away. “See you later, Jane.”
“Yes, later!” Jane said, and moved on.
Two aisles over, she spotted Doris with Arthur. Doris was examining a hand-painted glass cake plate, while Arthur stood very still beside her, smiling placidly.
Then Jane saw Daniel and Laura in the next aisle, near a beverage booth. They looked up, saw her, and waved cheerily. Jane moved on, stopping to browse at a table displaying handmade silver jewelry. Just as she realized she thought it was all quite ugly, she also realized she recognized it as the work of Rob, Ginny's boyfriend. Jane looked up and found herself looking into his pale gray eyes. He was smirking.
“Hi, Jane. What's with the cat?” he said, his head bobbing in that annoying way he had, his ponytail jiggling.
“What's with the cat? She's my cat,” Jane said, realizing she sounded inane but not caring. In past years she'd always bought something from Rob, for Ginny's sake, but this time she didn't think she would. Ginny and Rob were on the rocks, and besides, Jane had something important to do. “See ya!”
She walked on and came face to face with Daniel. He carried two tall cardboard drink cups. He saw Winky and opened his mouth to speak, but Jane beat him to it.
“I'm thinking of making her an indoor/outdoor cat. Why don't you pat her?”
“Jane,” he said, looking at her strangely, “I
can't
pat herâI've got my hands full of drinks. One of which is for you, by the way.”
“How thoughtful. Which one?”
“This one, of course.” He handed her the cup filled with the dark fizzing beverage. “Your favoriteâDiet Coke. I'm having this strawberry papaya swizzle.”
“And welcome to it,” she said, taking her Diet Coke. “How much do I owe you?”
“Don't be silly,” he said.
“Thanks. Now pat Winky.”
He studied her a moment. “Okay.” And he dutifully stroked Winky's fuzzy head. She gave a little purr and closed her eyes.
“She always has liked you,” Jane said, and took a little sip of her drink, grateful for the refreshingly cold carbonation on this day that had grown quite warm.
Daniel continued to pet Winky. “I thought you'd sworn you'd never let her go outside. Wild animals and all that.”
She shrugged and gave a little smile. “I decided that didn't seem quite fair. Why should she be deprived of this?” She indicated the lovely day around them. “And she's got her claws. I think she'd do surprisingly well defending herself in the wild, wouldn't you, Wink?” And she squeezed the cat affectionately, giving her a little shake. “You always
want
to go outside, don't you, Wink?” She looked at Daniel. “This is a trial run.”
“Ah,” he said, and they walked together to the end of the aisle. Three aisles over, close to the church, Jane was surprised to see Louise and Ernie, perusing what appeared to be a display of embroidered linens. In the next aisle over, Laura was now at a game booth, throwing back her head and laughing as she tossed colored plastic rings at tiers of goldfish bowls.
“Let's go cheer her on,” Daniel suggested playfully.
“Great idea.” Jane followed him.
But when they reached the end of their aisle, Jane was overcome by a wave of dizziness. “Oh,” she said, wobbling a little.
Daniel looked at her, his face concerned. “Are you all right?”
The dizziness, to her surprise, didn't stop; it kept coming, the bazaar beginning to rise and fall sickeningly around her. She steadied herself on Daniel's arm.
“Jane, what is it? Are you sick?”
Then, mercifully, the world righted itself again. “That was so strange,” she said, making an effort to hold on to a now-squirming Winky. “I didn't get much sleep last night. I'm just plain overtired.”
He nodded, watching her carefully. “And a lot has happened lately. It's inevitable that you would feel the strain. I know
I
have been.”
“I'm sure it's all of the above.”
“Would you like to go inside the church and sit for a few minutes?”
“That won't be necessary.” But then the spinning began again, worse this time. “Actually, yes, I think that would be a good idea.”
Daniel took her arm and led her toward the old white building. They walked up the four steps and Daniel pulled on one of the doors. When it held fast, he tried the other, but it too appeared to be locked.
“Locked,” came a man's voice behind them, and they turned to see the Reverend Lockridge himself smiling up at them. “Hello, Jane . . . Daniel. We always keep the church locked during the bazaar,” he explained. “But if you need the facilities, we've got several Porta-Johns set up behind the building.”
The spinning grew faster. Even the music, another Goddess dance tune, seemed to spin with the bazaar, the looming white church. Jane suddenly felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat and literally prayed she wouldn't vomit in front of the Reverend Lockridge.
But he had moved on and was already deep in conversation with an elderly couple.
“Daniel,” she said, still holding his arm, “I think I'll just sit in my car for a minute, take it easy. That's all I need.” A thought occurred to her. “I hope I'm not coming down with something. She started down the steps, Daniel assisting her. “Would you do me a favor?” she asked him. “Nick might look for me and not know where I am. Would you find him and let him know I'm just in the car and will be right back?”
“Of course, Jane. I'll walk you to your car.”
“No, no, I'll be fine. Just find Nick. Thanks.”
She gulped down the rest of her Diet Coke, tossed the cup in a trash can, and tottered to her car at the back of the parking lot. Carefully she deposited Winky in the backseat. Then she got into the front passenger seat, knowing it reclined farther than the driver's seat. She closed the door, opened her window a crack, and lay back, closing her eyes. Even with them closed, she couldn't stop the nauseating spinning.
“What on earth is the matter with me?” she muttered to herself, but just as she did she became aware that the spinning was mercifully subsiding, giving way to a warm, enveloping darkness.
Twenty-four
“Jane . . . ? Jane . . . ?”
A familiar voice, gentle, solicitous.
So hard to open my eyes . . . to rise out of this darkness
.
“Jane, drink this. It will make you feel better.”
Vaguely she felt something with a hard rim being pressed to her lips.
“Come on now.”
Finally, with a supreme effort, Jane was able to open her eyes.
She was still in her car, still in the front passenger seat. But she was no longer in the parking lot of St. John's. Outside the car window, not four feet away, stood a wall of grassâthick green stalks, easily six or seven feet tall, like cornstalks without the corn, densely packed and swaying slightly in the breeze.
She looked to her left. In the driver's seat sat Laura. She was smiling at Jane, a gentle smile, the kind of smile one gives someone who's coming out of an illness or awakening from unconsciousness, as Jane realized she had just done.
“Laura,” Jane said groggily. “Where are we? What happened? What's going on?” She tried to sit up, but the grogginess was still thick in her head and she gave up, relaxing once more into the seat.
“You gave me quite a scare,” Laura said. “You fainted.” She raised a cup, a large cardboard one like the ones at the bazaar. “Please, Jane, have a drink of this. It will make you feel much better.” She brought it closer to Jane's face.
“Where are we?” Jane asked again.
“In the Meadowlands, in Secaucus. We're not far from Unimed, the company where I work.” Laura looked about them. “I know this area well.” She concentrated again on Jane. “Really, Jane, you've been ill. You're still not yourself. If you'll just drink this”âshe raised the cup, her expression earnestâ“you'll feel well again.”
Jane watched Laura closely. “The way your father did?”
Laura's look of solicitous concern abruptly vanished. “So you do know,” she said flatly.
“Yes.” Jane's voice was sad, and now it was her turn to show sympathy.
“Don't look at me like that,” Laura said contemptuously, “with such . . . pity. You don't pity me. You don't even like me, any more than I like you.”
“Why'd you do it, Laura?” Jane asked softly. “Why'd you poison your father?” She was taking a chance here, for this was only a theory, but she knew immediately from Laura's reaction that her theory was correct.
Laura was breathing rapidly, clearly about to cry. Then her face contorted almost grotesquely. “So you've got it all figured out, haven't you. Our very own Miss Marple, isn't that what
People
called you? Damn them,” she muttered viciously.
“Your name is really Agnes, isn't it,” Jane said calmly. “Agnes Oppenheim.”
Laura spoke as if she hadn't heard Jane. “I loved him.” A large tear welled in one of her eyes, and Jane watched it roll down her cheek until Laura swiped at it with her hand, the hand that bore the ring.... “He called me the most beautiful girl in the world. . . .” Laura's eyes unfocused, seeing the past. “And Daddy had met the world's most beautiful women.”
“Of course he had,” Jane said. “Anthony Oppenheim owned luxury hotels around the world.”
“That's right,” Laura said eagerly, as if a girl of thirteen again. “He took me to a lot of them. London, Paris, Rome, Madrid.... We had some of our best times in those places.”
“Until you realized you were expecting his child.”
Laura nodded, her gaze lowered to the console between their seats. “I waited until we were back in SharonâSharon, Connecticutâto tell him. I waited for a special moment, when Mother was out with Elaine. I thought he'd be so pleased.” She met Jane's gaze, her eyes wide with horror. “He said it was impossible, that I was too young. But I
wasn't
too young, I hadn't been too young for two years! I explained this to him. I explained that I had always avoided him when I had my period because he wanted me pure, his beautiful little girl. But I
wasn't
a little girl, I was a young woman, and I was pregnant.”
“He wanted you to get an abortion, didn't he,” Jane said.
“Yes.” Laura's face reflected the disbelief it must have reflected at that horrible moment so many years ago. “We had a terrible fight. He said awful things to me. He said he wasn't about to give up everything he'd worked for and be a figure of shame around the world because of some kid. âSome kid'! But I told him I wanted the baby,
our
baby. I loved the baby, loved
Daddy
. It was part of us both.
“But he wouldn't listen. Even as I was talking to him, pleading with him, he picked up the phone beside the bed and started calling someone. I looked shocked, then he smiled at me and said of course this was all terribly upsetting and I needed time to accept what had to be.”
Laura's eyes came back into focus, fixing sharply on Jane's face. “I knew what had to be. I knew what it all came down to.”
“Either you or the baby,” Jane said hollowly.
“That's right. You know what I decided.”
“How did you do it, Laura?”
Laura smiled, her gaze darting to the cup in her hand. “There's poison everywhere if you know where to look. For Daddy I felt rat poison was appropriate. We had lots in the gardener's shed. Daddy always had the same cocktail every evening, something called an imperial. The night after we fought, I told him I'd get his drink for him, and I added an extra ingredient.”
She frowned, remembering. “Oh, it was awful. Daddy on the floor, holding his stomach, vomiting, pleading with me to call a doctor. It was a shame, it broke my heart, because I loved him, loved him more than anyone in the world. But he'd sealed his own fate, hadn't he?” she said simply.
“I just left him there on the floor. It must have been a good twenty minutes before Christineâshe was one of our maidsâfound him and screamed. I was surprised he was still alive. The ambulance came, but he died in it.”
“And everyone blamed your mother,” Jane said.
“Well, I had to set her up for it, didn't I?” Laura asked, as if this were obvious. “What would have been the point of killing Daddy if I'd gotten blamed and hadn't been allowed to keep our baby?
The baby
was the one I'd done it for!”
“Your mother, Rosamond, was convicted.”
“Yes. I'd made sure of that. I put some of the poison in a little plastic bag at the bottom of one of her dresser drawers.” Laura looked vaguely regretful. “She loved Daddy, too, or at least she
said
she did, and her grief, combined with the thought of having to be locked away in prison the rest of her life . . . well . . .” She shook her head. “Before the police could come for her so that she could start serving her sentence, she took one of Daddy's guns and blew her head off.”
“Don't you also think,” Jane suggested gently, “that the truthâthat
you'd
murdered your fatherâwas too much for her to bear?”
“Oh, she never figured it out, I'm sure of that. She got me alone once and said she was sure Victor, our groundskeeper, had done it, and had I seen him in Daddy's room, and to please think hard. . . .”
“That was ironic,” Jane said. “I mean, that your mother would suspect Victor. Since it was Victor Mangano and his wife who would take you in.”
Laura looked distressed at this memory. “Neither of my parents had any family. The Manganos volunteered to take me in, but they had two children of their own and said they couldn't take Elaine too. So Elaine was put up for adoption.” She gave an empty laugh. “The Manganos thought they were doing me such a favor. I could stay right there with people I knew. Yeah,” she said with a disdainful chuckle, “
in the caretaker's cottage
. From the window of my room there I could see the window of my old room in the big house....
“I wished I was Elaine. . . .”
“Who was adopted by Carl and Viveca Hamner, who named her Katherine.”
Laura laughed. “Later to become Goddess!” She shook her head. “I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. Our mother had been an actressâbefore she married Daddy. She was quite talented, actually, did a lot of stage work in New York. I guess Elaine inherited her talent. I'd say she's quite an actress in her own right.”
“I'd say you were, too,” Jane said solemnly.
Laura just stared at her for a moment. “Elaine grew to hate the Hamners,” she said thoughtfully. “I see now why her films and music are so angry. She even rejected the name they gave her.”
“And you hated the Manganos, too, didn't you?”
“No, not that way. I didn't hate
them
. It wasn't their fault they were poor. But I hated being poor. Funny, isn't it? Elaine was only five when all this happened, young enough not to remember what her life had been like. If the Manganos had taken her instead of me, she wouldn't have known the difference. I loved the life I'd been livingâthe beautiful big house, traveling around the world with Daddy to all those fabulous places. . . .”
Jane said, “But the Manganos' taking you in turned out to be fortuitous for you, didn't it?”
“Yes,” Laura said uneasily. “When Hannah was only a few months old, it was clear there was something wrong with her. Victor told me it wasn't my fault, that he knew what Daddy had done to me and that this was God's way of meting out punishment. âThe sins of the fathers,' Victor said. He was very religious.”
Jane nodded, remembering his room at the nursing home.
“Victor moonlighted as a janitor at a place called Whiteson Institute. Finally he and his wife convinced me Hannah needed special care. They were right. Hannah was unbelievably difficult; it would have been hard for a grown woman to take care of her, let alone a girl of fourteen! And Victor's wife said she had her hands full with her two, a boy and a girl, and me.
“When Hannah had just turned two, Victor came to me one day and said he'd arranged with the people who ran Whiteson for them to take Hannah in. He never told me this, but his wife made sure I knew he was paying for Hannah's care by working there.” Laura looked down into the cup in her hand. “I suppose it was all for the best. Now Hannah could be cared for by professionals, and Victor could keep an eye on her for me.”
And, Jane thought, as a janitor with full run of the Insitute, he could empty Hannah's file so no one would know her shameful, scandalous origin. But he didn't know there was another fileâthe file for “highly sensitive” materialsâinto which the director had placed a newspaper story about the Oppenheim scandal.
“Having Hannah at Whiteson worked for you, too,” Jane said. “Now you could leave town without worrying about her.”
“That's right.” Laura's face was impassive. “I had to get away. Victor, with all his brimstone and Bible-thumping, sour Mrs. Mangano, always the martyrâI couldn't stand it anymore. But I couldn't leave yet, I was too young. I went to high school in Sharon. I used the Manganos' last name so no one would know who I wasâbefore then I'd always gone to private schools.” She frowned, remembering. “Two or three times Victor took me to the Institute to see Hannah, but I told him I couldn't go anymore. The older she got, the clearer it was that something was terribly wrong with her. That was another reason I just had to get away.”
“So you left,” Jane said. “You enrolled at Yale.”
Laura let out a derisive laugh. “You need money to go to college. I didn't have any, remember?”
Jane looked at her in puzzlement. “But why was that? With both your parents dead, their fortune would have gone to you and Elaine.”
“We were children, Jane. The money was put in âtrust' for us.” Laura laughed again, a sharp bitter sound. “ âTrust'âthat's a good one.
Millions
of dollars. Elaine and I were supposed to get it when we turned eighteen. Well, my father's business judgment wasn't always as good as it should have been, and his lawyer, who administered the trust, had gone through it all by the time I was old enough to claim my share. I considered suing him, but for what purpose? I looked into all my options, believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you,” Jane said. “So you had nothing. Then how did you pay for Yale?”
“It took me five years to save enough money, five years of working two jobs at a time in towns you've never heard of in Connecticut, Massachusetts.... Once I was in college, I got financial aid and kept working. I'm older than you and Daniel think, Jane. Five years older. When Daniel entered Yale at eighteen, I was twenty-three. I'm thirty-one now, but I've always looked younger than my age. So has Elaine.”
She gazed out the car window at the high walls of grass flanking the narrow road. “I enrolled as Laura Dennison.”
“And you met Daniel.”
Laura's smile was sly. “Met? You might say that. I've always been a good researcher. I started checking out my classmates, and bingo! Daniel Willoughby, son of Cecil Willoughby and heir to the
Onyx
magazine empire. So I made it my business to âmeet' Daniel.” She smiled. “And I liked him! I thought he was sweet. Better yet, his father had just had a heart attack that nearly killed him. He had quadruple bypass surgery. I figured it was only a matter of time before he kicked.”
“But that fortune was of no use to you unless you were married to Daniel,” Jane interjected.
“That's right.” Laura suddenly looked weary. “And oh how I worked at himâall through school.” She shook her head. “Daniel was stronger-willed than I'd thought. I got him to agree to live together, I even convinced him we should get engaged, but I couldn't get him to actually
marry
me. And all the while, old Cecil refused to die. Worse than that, he was getting better!”