Part 5 (1/2)
I noted again the use of the possessive, as if Luther had no share.
”Let me get something straight. Your father inherited your mother's insurance. Who inherited when your father died?”
Her only reaction was a deep inhalation. ”I don't have time for this. Look, you have my permission to go inspect the land and house. There's a trust. Luther and I are equal partners in the land. If Luther says anything, tell him I know what he's been up to and I'm going to make him pay.” She didn't hold back on threats.
”I've already spoken with Luther, and he seemed concerned about what's happening in Sunflower County.”
She tapped a thick silver ring on her left hand against the fine wood of her desk. ”I'll bet he cried huge ole crocodile tears, too. Pretended to be so concerned for his fellow citizens. Don't buy it. Luther cares about Luther. That's it.”
”What did your brother get out of killing your parents?”
”Not what he expected, that's for sure.” She pushed off the desk and paced across the room to a huge filing cabinet. Digging through a drawer, she kept talking. ”He thought I was still estranged from Mom. He thought he'd permanently destroyed our relations.h.i.+p, but she and I had come to an understanding.”
She pulled a large, heavy sheet of paper from the drawer and handed it to me. To my surprise, it was a lovely picture of a middle-aged woman who looked a lot like Erin. Lana Entrekin Carlisle had retained her beauty, but there was no escaping the sadness she'd also endured. It was written in her eyes.
”This was taken only a week before she fell. And that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Luther didn't even call and tell me she was dead. I missed her funeral. When I finally got there, they were putting the casket in the hea.r.s.e for transport to West Point.”
”Your father could have called.”
She made a sound of disgust. ”Could have and didn't. He was furious that mother had changed the will, I'm sure. He thought he'd get the land back.”
Now that was a point of curiosity. ”How had the Carlisle land come into the hands of someone who married into the family?” I asked.
”Father made some really bad decisions in the seventies. He borrowed money at a high interest rate, then nearly defaulted on the loans. He'd put the land up as collateral.”
Harold hadn't mentioned this to me, and it seemed that he would have. ”The Bank of Zinnia held the mortgage?”
”My father did his business with a bank in Chicago. He liked going to the Windy City as a Southern plantation owner. I guess they saw him coming a mile away.” She twisted the ring.
”So your mom bailed him out?”
”Exactly. And the land was transferred to her name. She was a far better businessman than my father ever dreamed of being.”
”So when you breached the wall between the two of you, she changed her will.”
”That's correct. She recognized how much I loved the place and I was returned as coexecutor of the trust.” Erin was seemingly unaware that that action gave her and her brother equal motives for murder.
”Say Luther killed your mother before he found out about the new will, why would he kill your father?”
”Half a million in Mother's insurance policy. Had he not stopped my father, he would have run through it just as he squandered the Carlisle money. Luther wasn't about to let that happen.”
”Do you know what your father spent money on?”
”Unfortunately not, nor do I care. Now you need to go. I have a sitting in two minutes.”
She stood at the door waiting for me to exit her office. When I did, she followed me to the reception area.
”I've told you everything I know, Ms. Delaney. Everything. Don't waste your time or mine by coming back.”
She left the room, and her office door closed. The young woman at the reception desk busied herself writing something down. She ignored me as I left.
Along with the cot, Cece had also managed to smuggle a recliner and a few other homey touches into the hospital for Tinkie. The families of the other sick people had left for a few hours, and I found my partner tilted back, her eyes closed, an OttLite reading lamp on beside her, and Mary Saum's latest book sprawled across her lap. Tinkie had aged in the last week.
I tiptoed to the window where I could view Oscar, Gordon, and the women. They were all four lined up, and it struck me that forty years ago, or less, they'd all been in a hospital nursery in tiny ba.s.sinets, arranged before another window for their parents to look on with pride. It just about broke my heart to think of the joy the earlier scene had provoked. Now, despair was the overriding emotion.
Gordon had no real family to watch over him, so I concentrated on him for a while. His chest barely moved as the ventilator pushed oxygen into his lungs. The sores that covered his face and neck and arms--which was all I could see exposed above the sheet--had begun to scab over. Was the absence of fresh ones a good sign? I had to believe it.
Two hazmat-suited nurses entered the isolation ward and began a check of vitals and the administration of some clear fluid into the drips that ran into the arms of each patient. As I watched the process, I realized Regina and Luann had fewer sores and better color. They were on ventilators, but they seemed, somehow, more alive.
My attention turned to Oscar.
”Doc says he may not wake from the coma.”
I spun around to find Tinkie in the same pose, but her eyes were wide open.
”Doc has never been accused of being an optimist. Tinkie, he has to tell you the worse-case scenario. He's like an older relative. He doesn't want to lead us to believe--” Where the h.e.l.l was I going with this? No place Tinkie needed to follow.
”To believe in a miracle,” she finished softly. ”But I do, Sarah Booth. I've had my own miracle.”
”You did indeed.” What ever happened to her breast lump--whether a piece of scar tissue, a bruise, a fibroid, or a cancer--it was gone. That was miracle enough for me to cling to for now.
”Have you found anything?”
”A lot of drama in the Carlisle family, but nothing solid enough to report.”
”You will.”
Her faith in me was humbling. ”I'll try. That's for sure. Tinkie, can I take you home for a bit?” I knew the answer already.
She shook her head. ”Mother will relieve me in a while. You hunt for clues. I'm fine. I want to be here when Oscar wakes up.”
”Chablis and Sweetie are having a blast, but your baby misses the two of you.”
”We'll be home soon.” She picked up her book. ”I think I'll read for a while longer. This keeps me from thinking about Oscar too much.”
I bent and kissed her forehead. ”I'm going to check with Coleman and see if the EIS agents found anything at the Carlisle estate.”
”You'll call me?”
”You don't even have to ask.”
6.
When I pulled up beneath one of the budding white oaks that lined the court house square, I realized that news of the strange illness had broken with the media. Cece had honored her word and kept mum about it, but news vans from regional television stations in Memphis, Jackson, and Atlanta cluttered the public parking s.p.a.ces.
The source of the leak could have been anyone in the hospital or the bank, and it was bound to happen. It was incongruous, though, to see the gathering storm of media on a day that had been gifted by the G.o.ds. The courthouse lawn was a riot of color, from the fuchsia-hued azaleas to the yellow, purple, and red flower beds that local gardening clubs tended.