House of Secrets - v4 (46 page)

“Let’s not start that. You and I both agreed this was the only place where the jackals couldn’t follow us.”

“You tricked me,” Christine said again. “Why did you call him in the first place?”

“Don’t be so mean, Chrissie. I called the man because I wanted to see him while I was East. Simple as that. I do have that right, do I not?”

Christine had an urge to take off running across the sand and plunge into the chilly water. “Of course you do,” she said evenly. “What I’m asking is why you felt compelled to drag me into your little reunion.”

“No one’s dragging you anywhere.”

“Does he know that
I’m
here?”

“He knows I was hoping I’d finally find the nerve to tell you all this. We discussed it at length when I spoke to him from Denver. He said that with all his current hullabaloo he was not so impressed with my timing.”

Christine was surprised to hear herself laugh. “Timing has never exactly been your strong suit, Mother.”

A light twinkled in Lillian’s violet eyes. “There are some who would argue that point, sweetheart.”

A
s the two approached the massive stone house, Lillian explained to her daughter that it was Chris Wyeth who had informed Whitney that he wasn’t Peter’s biological father.

Christine asked, “But why in the world would he tell him?”

“It’s another long story.” Lillian slowed her steps. Her eyes cast about the large silent house. “Whit and Chris have such a peculiar history. The news about Peter was a large part of why your… why Whitney dropped his plans to run for the White House that year. Why we took off for En gland.”

“Was he separating you from Chris?”

Lillian considered the question. “Honestly? There was nothing to separate at that point. Anything between Chris and me was long over by then.”

“So why did he tell him?”

“It just came out one night when the two were together. Whitney was being Whitney, and I think Chris had just finally had enough of him.”

“That’s one very serious sucker punch.”

They had stopped some fifty feet from the house. In the subdued light peeking in through the thick pine cover, the structure lacked definition. Moss and lichen tempered the stone, giving the place a sense of something that had risen up gradually from beneath the ground. Christine turned to face her mother.

“So then, what about
me
? I’ve always been Whitney’s little princess. He was always smearing me in Peter’s face. When he learned the truth about Peter, he must have immediately asked you about me.”

“He doesn’t know.”

“But that doesn’t make
sense
. He must have at least suspected.”

The breeze was stirring the pine trees and Lillian hugged herself against its sudden chill.

“Whitney could not get me pregnant, darling,” Lillian said flatly. “It’s… this is a horrible thing to tell you. He was never tested for this, at least not in my time with him. After Peter was born, trust me, I felt so guilty, all I could think about was bearing Whitney his own child. But it just wouldn’t happen.”

“So you turned back to Old Faithful.”

Lillian’s shoulders sagged. “Please. Don’t be like that. I didn’t turn back to Chris simply to get pregnant.”

“But that’s what happened.”

“Yes. That’s what happened.”

Lillian reached out to touch her daughter, but Christine stepped clear.

“But when Whitney learned about Peter, he must have suspected me as well.”

“Of course he did. Whitney asked me point-blank if the same was true with you. And I denied it. I’m a good liar when I have to be. I said you were his, Chrissie, and that there was no question about it. He wanted to believe me. Deeply. That’s the thing. When a person wants to believe a lie—”

She cut herself off. A light had come on over the front door. Lillian gazed up at the buttery glow, then turned a beatific face to her daughter.

“Oh, look. I think someone’s home.”

D
oris Smallwood was hanging Japanese-beetle traps around her vegetable garden when Megan pulled in next to the elderly woman’s eleven-year-old Plymouth. The sense of a property slowly losing the long battle against overgrowth of ferns and wildflowers and tall grass was mirrored somewhat in the image of the property owner herself. Doris Smallwood wore her body heavily. The nest of frizzled gray hair could have been a bramble of untouched weeds. She was dressed in a pair of faded khaki shorts, a worn blue oxford shirt, and a pair of red rubber boots. Not that Judy Resnick would have thought to warn Megan — and certainly hadn’t — but the detective nonetheless wished she had been prepared to encounter a woman who stood easily over six feet tall, even bent as she was with the gravity of her eighty-three years on the planet. As Megan killed the engine and got out of the car, the large woman made her way over from the far side of the garden, wielding one of the yellow traps as if it were an old-fashioned train lantern.

“Lost?”

“Mrs. Smallwood?”

The woman nodded and Megan shut the car door.

“I’m Detective Lamb with the New York City Police Department. I’d like a little of your time, if I may?”

“New York City?” The mocking tone was only slightly disguised. “That’s quite a wrong turn, Miss.”

“No wrong turn.” Megan said. “I’m here to talk with you about Robert.”

“Robert?”

“Your grandson.”

“I know who Robert is.”

Megan sensed that she was on delicate ground. “It’s very important, Mrs. Smallwood. I don’t know if you’ve been following the news. This concerns the daughter of Senator Foster. She’s missing, and we have reason to believe your grandson has information on where she might be. Time is of the essence, ma’am.”

“You don’t have to ‘ma’am’ me.”

The phaser was definitely set on
hostile
. Doris Smallwood lifted the yellow trap. “You want to help me with this?”

“What is it?”

“It’s for Japanese beetles. You ever seen those? They’re no bigger than your little fingernail. Copper-colored. Real shiny. You could mistake them for good brass buttons. Except brass buttons don’t eat holy hell out of leaves and vegetables. I’ve got to hang one up in each corner of the garden.”

“The fact is, Mrs. Smallwood, I need to locate your grandson right away,” Megan said. “I don’t really have time right now.”

The large woman continued to ignore her visitor’s urgency. She held up the trap again. “You see, there’s a plastic bag goes with each of these. Black bag. By midsummer there’ll be over a thousand of the beetles in each of the bags. What you do is you pour sex scent in there. They can’t help themselves, they dive in and then just start piling up on top of one another. The ones down below suffocate. The ones on top gradually sink down below.”

Megan sensed she was being toyed with. “Could we maybe go inside, Mrs. Smallwood? Or have a seat out here somewhere?”

Doris Smallwood stared at her for several seconds. “You help me hang this one, and we’ll have your talk.”

She turned around and started back over to the garden. Megan followed. Some fifty feet or so past the garden, past a decaying trestle long ago captured by vines and weeds, stood a small barn sharing the property’s general sense of neglect.

They stopped at the near corner of the garden. The woman had been pounding a long wooden stake into the ground with a rubber mallet. A metal hook was screwed into the stake, near the top. She picked the mallet up off the ground and handed it to Megan.

“Here. See if you can sink it a little farther.”

Compliance seemed to be the currency, so Megan humored her. Her angle was a lot less effective than the considerably taller woman’s, and she had the feeling that Doris Smallwood was having her wield the mallet primarily to emphasize the fact. Megan pitched upward on her toes and landed the mallet solidly several times on top of the stake. The ground was moist from the recent rain, and the stake sank obediently. Doris Smallwood tested the spike and made a satisfied sound.

Megan lowered the mallet. “Mrs. Smallwood, this is official police business I’m on here. I’d really like us to go inside now, if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course,” the older woman said. “The name was Land?”

“Lamb.”

“Right. Baby sheep. Well, come on.”

W
hether the inside of the house looked like it was in the state of fading away or of resurrection from an era of neglect would depend on the mind of the observer. Megan leaned toward the former, if only because her assessment of the owner fell in that direction as well. With some silver and brass and wood polish and an astute eye, an antiques dealer could have seen a mother lode in the stuff that was crammed in the front room alone. A fifteen-foot-long, rough-hewn wooden dinner table sat in the middle of the floor. Doris Smallwood asserted that the table had originally come from an Italian monastery, circa the late 1700s.

“You could fit eighteen bald men around that piece,” she said, cutting loose a husky laugh. She pointed to the table’s claw feet.

“I used to be your basic domestic slave. When the children were in their teens I went on strike. One day I got down on the floor and gave those claws a layer of red toe polish and I gave it a full two weeks to see if anyone noticed. Not a soul said anything. That’s when I started my strike. If that’s how much attention people were paying to my work around this place, I was wasting my valuable time.”

“How long did the strike last?” Megan suspected she knew the answer already.

“It’s still on.” There was a touch of pride in the answer. “My husband’s dead. My son’s dead. My other children don’t come visit. I’ve only got to please myself now, and it turns out I just don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, I’d be happy to just lie down next to the squash and beans one day and sink on down into the ground.”

T
he Louis XIV chair that Megan lowered herself onto tried to throw her to the ground. An unmoored spring pushed at the faded upholstery just under Megan’s thigh. Doris Smallwood settled into the colonial rocking chair. It creaked. Or the floor creaked. Something creaked. She threw Megan her hardest look yet.

“What exactly are you accusing my grandson of?”

“I told you. We’re trying to find Senator Foster’s daughter.”

“What does Robbie have to do with that?”

“Mrs. Smallwood, are you aware that a Suffolk County detective and an agent with the FBI were shot to death on the doorstep of your family’s house on Shelter Island?”

The woman did not answer immediately. Her eyes remained on Megan as she rocked forward to pick up a wooden ruler from the floor and used it to reach an area in the middle of her back.

“I don’t watch the news,” she said curtly.

“The evidence is very strong that your grandson is responsible for those murders.” Megan decided to leave out the presumption of Robert Smallwood’s culpability in the killing of his cousin.

“That’s a ridiculous accusation.”

“I’m afraid it’s not. The point is, your grandson is very sick. A woman was also killed in connection with the abduction of Michelle Foster.”

“I see. So now Robbie is shooting anything that moves?”

“In fact, that victim had her throat slit. Have you spoken with Robbie recently?”

“Why would he do any of this?” she demanded. “You don’t know Robbie. He’s a kind, moral man. He’s got higher standards than most of the people you know.”

“He needs help.”

“Oh. He needs help? Is that what you’re here for? You’re trying to locate Robbie so you can get him some help? You’ll have to excuse me, but I don’t buy that. I don’t know where Robbie is, but if I did, I’d give him that car out there and tell him to drive it to Mexico.”

“Your grandson has a—”

The woman wasn’t finished. “Are you even aware of the life that boy has led? I’m telling you, he’s a sweet young harmless man. His mother turned out to be nothing more or less than a whore, and his father had all the backbone of a jellyfish.”

“Robert killed his parents,” Megan said.

“Jesus Christ!” The ruler rattled to the floor as Doris Smallwood pushed herself up from the rocking chair. For a moment Megan feared she was about to be attacked by the old woman. “He did not kill anyone! Ray killed that slut, and then he killed himself, useless coward that he was. What are you trying to do, pin every last thing on that poor boy? I want you out of here! This instant!”

Megan held her ground. “You need to hear this. Something sets your grandson off. His best friend from high school died the exact same way as his mother. In the bathtub with a bullet to the heart. And just like with your daughter-in-law, the man’s partner also wound up dead on the bathroom floor. It was made to look like a murder-suicide.”

The elderly woman’s face was crimson. “You give me that gun on your hip, young lady, and I’ll show you murder-suicide right now! You are trespassing on my property. I want you back in that car and out of here by the count of ten!”

Megan rose from the chair with deliberate slowness.

“We’re going to ignore that threat to a law enforcement official,” Megan said evenly.