C
HAPTER
27
Jerry met up with us at the cemetery, and I introduced him to my friends as we gathered around Claire’s grave. At one point Siobhan looked at me and nodded a slight greeting. She stopped when she saw Jerry and stared. Then she looked back at me as if to ask,
Who is this man?
I was sure she was figuring it out.
Several times during the brief graveside service, Siobhan glanced at Jerry, but her husband didn’t seem to notice him at all. Jerry seemed too lost in thought to be aware of the scrutiny, gazing the whole time at Claire’s casket. At one point tears stole down his stoic face. There was no mistake he was grieving, and once again I just couldn’t imagine him to be a killer.
Immediately after the service, the Terrys and their stellar entourage left in long black limousines. I turned to Jerry. “Siobhan kept looking your way. I think she may have recognized you.”
He wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand, smoothed back his blond hair, and briefly worked his jaw. “Do you think my grandfather recognized me, too?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked at me earnestly. “Are you going to the reception? I could use a friend.” Jerry looked like a sad, scared little boy.
“We’ll be there, dear.” Birdie was earth mother to all living things. “You will sit with us, of course.”
A dozen young men in red jackets trotted up and down the street providing valet parking for the mourners at the Terrys’ Benedict Canyon estate. In the backyard, tents with open sides dotted the lawn and shaded dozens of tables covered with white linen cloths. A huge buffet and bar were set up under a large tent on the tennis court, and waiters in black suits carried trays of white wine and Perrier through the growing crowd. Other servers carried hors d’oeuvres on silver trays with paper cocktail napkins.
Jerry sat with us at a table near a large fountain featuring lion heads gently spouting water from their mouths. The soothing sound of water splashing over carved stone attracted little brown towhees with tinges of orange and dun-colored sparrows.
Carlotta Hudson approached a group of quilters sitting at a nearby table. She threw a derisive look at us and then turned away. Just then, several crows cawed hoarsely and flew over her head, landing in the branches of the many eucalyptus trees surrounding the estate.
Lucy pointed to the trees. “I see Carlotta brought her posse.”
A voice in back of me asked, “May I sit with you?”
I turned around.
Ingrid was dressed in a tight-fitting black jersey sheath with a torsade of pearls and jet beads around her neck.
“Of course! Please join us.”
Ray and Jerry stood up while Ingrid took a seat next to me. She smiled at Jerry. “I think I’ve seen you several times at Claire’s. I’m Ingrid, Claire’s neighbor.”
“Jerry.” He shook her proffered hand and smiled briefly.
“I really didn’t spy on Claire. I work in my garden a lot and see the comings and goings of the street. Claire and I were on very friendly terms. We drank the occasional morning coffee together. You’re the doctor, right? She mentioned your name a couple of times. Weren’t you related?”
“Still am.”
All during lunch the Terrys were sequestered inside with their high-profile friends. They finally emerged at about two and a crowd of us normal humans swirled around them as Will shook hands and Siobhan accepted an occasional hug. When she spotted us standing on the edge of the pack, Siobhan waved at me in a gesture more of a command than a greeting.
“Wait for me here.” I set out over the lawn toward Claire’s puffy-eyed mother.
Siobhan stood stiffly, clasping her elbows, the wrinkles around her mouth accentuated by the black dress she wore. A slight breeze lifted the feathers of white hair floating around her face and the diamond and sapphire earrings tugged a little at the holes in her earlobes.
Siobhan reached for both of my hands. “Martha, how nice of you to come.” The next thing I knew we were walking through a set of French doors into a sunroom at the back of the house.
As soon as we were alone, she looked at me with fierce, glittering eyes. “Who is he?” A frightened look shone in her eyes.
I led her over to an overstuffed rattan sofa and sat next to her. She’d sneaked looks at Jerry all during the funeral and, from the expression on her face, I was sure she’d figured it out. “Who do you think he is, Siobhan?”
“He’s Claire’s boy, isn’t he?”
“His name is Jerry Bell. He found Claire a few years ago after his adoptive mother died. According to Jerry, they saw each other frequently and she helped him through medical school.”
“He’s a doctor? Why didn’t she tell us about him?”
I could think of a hundred reasons Claire wouldn’t want to confide in her mother, beginning with Siobhan’s failure to protect Claire from incest. “You can probably answer that better than I, Siobhan. Jerry’s resemblance to your family is unmistakable. If you doubt him, I’m sure a simple DNA test will confirm he’s Claire’s son.”
I put my hands on her shoulders and turned her toward me so she’d have to look in my eyes. “Claire never told him who his father is. I think I’ve finally figured it out. However, I don’t want to be the one to break the ugly news to Jerry. I’ll leave that up to you, if you ever decide to talk to him.”
Siobhan buried her face in her hands and started to weep. “How do you know all this? What can you possibly think of me now?”
Good question. I took a deep breath. “You know all those French knots Claire sewed on her quilts?”
Siobhan nodded.
“Well, Claire was brilliant, really. Those knots are Braille. I think each quilt represents a chapter of her life’s story. I found a Braille alphabet to test my theory and started to decipher one of the quilts. I didn’t get very far, but I got far enough to learn about the incest.”
Siobhan moaned.
“How could you let that happen?”
She was still weeping. “I swear I didn’t know about them until it was too late, until Claire was already pregnant. I drank a lot in those days and I slept a lot. I found out later he . . . they . . . it didn’t happen until he was certain I was out for the night.”
“What about after you found out? Why didn’t you turn him in?”
“He swore to me he’d never hurt her again, and I wanted to believe him. I wasn’t strong. I couldn’t have made it on my own.”
What about Claire?
What about protecting her? Poor Claire didn’t have a chance with a predator for a father and a drunk for a mother.
Siobhan dried her eyes with a tissue. “We sent Claire away to a convent to have the baby. During the time she was away, I went into rehab and stopped drinking. I don’t think she ever even saw her son. His adoptive parents took him home practically from the delivery room. Will said it was best that way.”
Best for whom?
“What are you going to do about Jerry Bell now that he’s here?”
“If he really is Claire’s son, I want to meet him. I don’t know how Will is going to take the news. He won’t like this one bit.”
“Forget Will! He doesn’t deserve any consideration in this matter. You don’t need his permission for anything. You can do this on your own.”
Siobhan stared at me and then burst out laughing. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that for the last forty-five years.”
Just then the door flew open and Will Terry stormed inside. “Just what do you mean leaving me alone out there? We have guests—” He stopped when he saw me.
“If you don’t mind, Miss Rose, this isn’t a good time to visit with my wife. You’ll have to go back outside with the rest of the people.”
What an imperious little jerk. Did he think he could just order me around like he did everyone else? I sat up straighter. “I’ll leave when Siobhan asks me to leave.”
Will Terry pulled down the corners of his mouth and spoke through clenched teeth. “I don’t think you realize who you’re talking to.”
I stood and looked at the reprehensible little pedophile. I’m only five feet two and we stood exactly eye to eye. “This is a free country,
Mister
Terry. Your wife can speak to whomever she pleases.” I thought about this man committing the unspeakable to his daughter and getting away with it, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. “You may be able to push your wife around and rape your daughter, but you don’t intimidate me one bit!”
My words hung in the air like the particles of a bomb after an explosion. I’d spoken out loud the terrible truth this family worked so hard to keep hidden for three decades. Will Terry’s mouth fell open and he staggered backward for a moment, too stunned to speak. Then he turned to Siobhan. “What have you been telling her?”
“Your wife told me nothing. Claire told me through her quilts. She sewed everything in her quilts using Braille. I imagine she wanted to make sure that somewhere there would be a record of what happened to her. Of how she was repeatedly raped by you when she was just a child. Of how you got her pregnant and then forced her to give up her child.”
Will’s face turned frigid. “Get out of my house, you fat kike, or I’ll have you thrown out.”
Kike. The anti-Semitic slur sent icy shards into my heart. This man was a typical narcissist with no regard for other human beings whatsoever. He was cruel and arrogant and probably not used to people standing up to him. I’d managed to push his ugly buttons.
But calling me
fat
? That was war. I leaned forward, hands on my hips. “Listen, you pathetic little pile of monkey puke. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were behind your daughter’s death and the theft of her quilts. Who had a better reason to want to keep the world from knowing the truth about the incest and pregnancy?”
He glanced at Siobhan, who was still crying. “I’d never kill my daughter.”
“Oh no? Claire wrote all about the incest in her quilts. In details I imagine you’d do anything to keep secret.”
Will waved his hand dismissively. “Until Siobhan engaged your so-called services, I had no idea Claire might have used her quilts in that way. My wife never told me about Claire’s messages.” He paused and said in a slightly softer voice, “The love of my life was gone.”
My skin crawled as I remember what Claire wrote in her quilt:
He told me I was the love of his life
. If he was still calling her that, had he still been sleeping with her? “This new baby she carried—was this one yours as well?”
Will remained silent, and Siobhan stopped crying and looked up sharply.
“I’m sure you didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. Claire was four months along, which tells me she intended to keep this baby. So killing her would solve the problem.”
“It wasn’t my baby! Claire cut me off over a year ago after she went into therapy with that quack Godwin.”
Siobhan was an armed missile as she jumped up and ran at her husband. She clawed at his face with her carefully manicured red fingernails, forty-five years of fury blazing in her eyes. “Bastard! You bastard! You swore to me you ended it after the boy was born. I should have known!”
Will grabbed her wrists and threw her down on the sofa. Then he stepped toward me, with blood trickling down his cheeks. “You will regret this.”
I hoped he couldn’t see my heart pounding in my throat. “I doubt it. The police know all about you. I made sure they did. You touch me now and they’ll be crawling all over your scrawny pedophile neck.”
Someone coughed in the open doorway. We looked over. Jerry Bell stood there. I could tell Will didn’t recognize him. He snarled, “What do you want? This is a private conversation.”
Jerry looked at me and my heart sank. “Jerry, honey, how much of this did you hear?”
“Enough.” His eyes were swimming as he glared at his grandparents.
Will glared back. “Who are you?”
Jerry walked into the room and over to Will Terry. “Your son.”
C
HAPTER
28
Will Terry fell into the nearest chair, Siobhan started to wail again, and Jerry just stood looking at both of them. What would they say to each other? I decided I didn’t want to know. Enough was enough. I left quickly, closing the door behind me.
On my way to rejoin my friends, I pulled out my cell phone and left a message for Detective Beavers. “I know you told me not to tell anyone, but I couldn’t help myself. The cat is out of the bag. I told the Terrys about the secrets I read in Claire’s quilts, and Jerry Bell overheard everything. So now he knows, too. You have to get those quilts away from Will Terry before he destroys them.”
By the time we got back to Lucy’s house, my head was throbbing and every muscle in my body ached. The confrontation with the Terry family caused my fibro to flare up. I dug a Soma and a migraine tablet out of the small cloisonné pillbox I carried in my purse.
The antique box came from imperial China and featured a small peach-colored lantern surrounded by tiny pink peonies on a turquoise background. My grandfather found it in an antique store and gave it to my bubbie on her birthday, and she used it for many years. I caressed the design gently with my finger before putting this precious keepsake back in my purse. Then I took a gulp of water and threw my head back to swallow. Bumper purred and rubbed against my ankle.
Joey walked into the kitchen. “Your alarm system is in, Aunt Martha. Me and Richie straightened the mess up a little, so you might find things in the wrong place, but at least they’re off the floor.”
I hugged him. “Joey, you didn’t have to do that.” But I was secretly relieved I wouldn’t have to clean my ransacked house while suffering such pain. Whatever mistakes the boys made, I could put right tomorrow. I smiled. “All I want to do now is go home and fall into bed.”
“I’ll follow you home then and show you how to work your new alarm system. You’re being monitored by All City Alarm Company.” Joey grinned. “I know a guy. He gave me a really good deal.”
I picked Bumper up. “Great. I’ve already said good-bye to your parents. Just let me put this guy in his crate and gather our things and I’m good to go.”
“Don’t forget the gun.”
“In my suitcase.”
On the way home, Bumper started yowling again. “Poor little guy. First your mommy gets killed, then you get adopted by me, then you get kidnapped overnight, then you go to live at Lucy’s house, and now you’re coming back home with me again. Poor kitty. I promise you this will be the last disruption in your life. From now on, it’ll be just you and me.”
I pulled into my driveway a few minutes later and as soon as I turned off the motor, someone tapped on my car window. Sonia Spiegelman. How did she manage to appear so fast? She couldn’t even wait until I was out of the car? I opened the door and got out, still angry she took Bumper home with her the night I was arrested. I could barely remain civil.
“Hello, Sonia.” I refused to look at her. I turned my back and yanked out my suitcase and Bumper’s crate a little too hard, hoping she’d take the hint and leave. She didn’t. When I turned around, she blocked my way.
“Hello, Martha.” She put a worried look on her face as transparent as a politician’s promise. “Have you been in jail all this time?”
What an idiot. Like I’d tell her anything? The entire Northern Hemisphere would know in about ten seconds.
I looked over her shoulder and pretended she wasn’t there as I tried to walk forward, but she stayed put.
“I haven’t seen you around for a few days, but we noticed a lot of activity at your house. We called an emergency meeting and activated the patrol.”
Sonia had organized a harmless but zealous neighborhood watch group that sometimes patrolled the streets at night. They even used walkie-talkies and wore matching T-shirts proclaiming they were the “Eyes of Encino.”
I took a step forward, but she persisted. “The police came back here the day after you were arrested, but none of us could get them to say what was going on. Just what happened here? We’d all like to know.”
I sighed. Conversation with Sonia was unavoidable. “Yes, Sonia. The bomb squad has been working like crazy to remove all the ordnance I have hidden in my basement. They’re having particular difficulty disarming the ground-to-air missiles, but I think they’ve got them all.”
While I talked to Sonia, Joey picked up my overnight bag and Bumper’s crate and carried them up the walkway to the front door. I followed him with Sonia still chattering to my back. “I’m glad to see you know this young man. I saw him earlier at your house and didn’t know whether or not he was the one who broke in. I was waiting to see if I should call the police.”
I caught up to Joey.
He shook his head and grinned. “Ground-to-air missiles? Dude!”
I looked back. Sonia was already talking on her cell phone. “The nosy neighbor who stole my cat right after I was arrested.”
Joey unlocked my front door and turned to a new white keypad on the wall, beeping urgently. “I gave you a temporary code, Aunt Martha. I chose the number of guys on a pro football team, fifty-three, and entered the number twice. So you just press five three five three and then press ‘Enter.’ You can easily change the code. Just read the manual I left on the coffee table.”
“Thanks, Joey.” I couldn’t care less about sports. I’d have to think of something easier to remember. I briefly wondered why they settled on exactly fifty-three players. Why not fifty-one or forty-eight?
I looked around at a fairly cleaned-up house. “Looks normal in here again. You boys did a really nice job.”
He just grinned. “Come on. I’ll show you how to set the alarm after I leave. Then you can ‘fall into bed.’”
A half hour later, Bumper was curled up next to me on top of the antique blue and yellow Ohio Star quilt my grandmother sewed before I was born. As I snuggled between clean sheets, I didn’t want to think about the knife stuck in my other pillow a few nights ago. I was home at last, and between the alarm and the gun sitting in the drawer beside my bed, I felt safe.
I looked at the clock before I closed my eyes. It was four in the afternoon and there was something I ought to do tonight, but my brain was foggy with fatigue and I couldn’t remember.
Never mind. Everything will just have to wait
.
Was someone hammering nails? No, they were slapping boards together. No, they were beating a drum. Why didn’t they stop? I slowly swam up from my dream and realized someone was pounding on my front door. The clock read past seven.
I stumbled out of bed, put on a robe, and shuffled through the living room, eyes half closed. “Hold on!” The pounding stopped.
“Who’s there?” I pulled my robe closer around me and strained to look through the peephole.
“Arlo Beavers.”
I opened the door and a howl immediately pierced the air inside the house and out. My eyes snapped open and I jumped. The abort code—what was it again?
I looked at Beavers. “Quick, how many guys on a pro football team?”
“Eleven.”
“No, I mean all of them.”
“Uh, fifty something.”
Oh yeah. I pushed five three five three Enter, and the howling stopped.
“Sorry.” My ears were still ringing. “I forgot about this thing. Not used to it yet. Are they all this loud?”
“The louder the better.”
We still stood at the door. “I just woke up. Was something supposed to happen tonight?”
“Yeah. May I come in?”
“Oh.” I hopped backward. “Sorry.”
It wasn’t until he walked inside I saw he wasn’t alone.
I pointed. “Who’s
that
?”
“Arthur.”
Then I remembered Beavers said he was going to bring over someone named Arthur for protection. “This is my bodyguard?” I was expecting someone beefy, tall, and wearing sunglasses. What I got instead was a German shepherd. Arthur cocked his head at me as if he could read my mind.
“No offense, Arthur, but I don’t think this arrangement will work. I’ve got a new cat who’s still getting used to this place.”
Just then Bumper walked into the room. He took one look at Arthur and hissed. Arthur got down on his belly and put his head on his paws and whined.
I looked at Beavers and rolled my eyes. “Great! How can this dog protect me if he can’t even stand up to my cat?”
“Arthur is a retired police dog with dozens of take-downs to his credit. He’ll turn into a fierce fighting machine if he senses danger. Obviously, your cat doesn’t scare him.”
We both watched as Bumper walked over to Arthur and delicately sniffed the dog’s nose in the universal cat greeting. Arthur thumped his tail loudly on the floor while Bumper executed an imperious turn and sauntered away.
Arthur thrust his head forward, and in the universal dog greeting stuck his nose in Bumper’s butt. The cat jumped three feet in the air, yowling and clawing.
“See?” Beavers chuckled. “Another take-down.”
I wasn’t amused. Didn’t I just promise Bumper our domestic bliss was only going to be about the two of us? “This definitely won’t work.”
Beavers shifted his feet. “Arthur’s like me. He’ll grow on you.”
Whoa. Was he flirting with me? Hummingbirds started beating their wings inside my chest again.
“I don’t know . . .” I dared not look at him. I stuck out my hand for Arthur to sniff. He sat up and started licking my fingers. “Well, maybe he is kind of nice.” I scratched Arthur behind the ears and he closed his eyes. “Where’d you get him?”
“I adopted him two years ago. He’s a bit gray in the muzzle, but he’s still got a lot of life left in him.”
I looked sideways at Beavers’s white mustache. I pushed away thoughts of how much life he might have left. “This is your personal dog, then?”
“Yes, but he was trained at the taxpayers’ expense. Shame to have all his training go to waste.” He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “Shall I bring Arthur’s food and gear in from the car?”
“Well, as long as he leaves Bumper alone, I guess we could try this out for a while.” Arthur was now on his back begging for a tummy scratch. “He really doesn’t seem like much of a bodyguard to me.”
Two minutes later Beavers carried in a thirty-pound bag of kibble, two giant stainless steel dog bowls, a slightly hairy dog bed, and a pooper scooper. “For the backyard. You’ll want to put his bed next to yours. That way he’ll be right there if you need him.”
“He better not snore.”
After some searching, I finally located where Lucy’s boys had put things, and I was able to make some tea. We sat at the table and Beavers clinked his spoon against the blue mug as he stirred in some sugar. “I got your message. Talk to me.”
I told him about the sordid events earlier in the day with the Terrys, including Will’s admission he slept with Claire up to a year ago. “I was totally grossed out, and I felt so sorry for Jerry.”
“Do you still think Jerry’s a suspect?”
“Well, even though he’s got motive, means, and opportunity, I don’t think he’s involved with Claire’s death or the theft of the quilts. He seems to be genuinely grieving over losing her.”
Beavers gulped the last of his tea. “Once we pick up Claire’s quilts, we might find some more answers.”
I scooted forward on the edge of my chair and put my hands flat on the table. Was I hearing him right? “Oh my God! Haven’t you collected them yet? Don’t you realize Will Terry has every reason to destroy those quilts to keep from being exposed as a pedophile?”
“I sent Kaplan out there this evening to pick them up, but Will Terry wouldn’t cooperate. We have to get a court order tomorrow from a sympathetic judge. The Terrys have friends in high places and the DA has to be very careful about this. Meanwhile, I want you to promise you’ll quit poking around and leave the rest of this investigation to the police.”
I wasn’t going to let him brush me off so easily. “Well, what about our stolen quilts? Are you doing anything about them?”
Beavers stood, preparing to leave. “In the grand scheme of things, Ms. Rose, a murder investigation trumps everything else. We can always hope that in the course of solving this murder we’ll also find your missing quilts.”
I didn’t like his officious tone. I also stood and put my hands on my hips. “You wouldn’t have gotten this far without my help and expertise. Surely I deserve to know what else you discover in those quilts.”
“Possibly in the end the whole world will know.”
I screwed up my face. “Please. Spare me the vague platitudes. And by the way, why haven’t I gotten my computer back?”
“I’ll bring it back to you tomorrow.” Beavers reached in his pocket and handed me a piece of paper. “Here’s the instruction manual for Arthur. Feeding times and all that.”
I sighed and took the paper.
Then he knelt down and ruffled Arthur’s head. “You be a good boy, Artie. Take care of this lady here. She’s very important and we don’t want anything bad to happen to her. Please go easy on the cat.” The dog wagged his tail and licked Beavers’s face.
“We’ll take care of each other.” I scratched Arthur’s ears.
As I closed the door behind Detective Beavers and set the alarm, I smiled because, although he didn’t know it, the photos of Claire’s quilts were still in Lucy’s computer. If Claire’s baby wasn’t Will’s, then it must be Godwin’s. I needed to decipher the story in the baby quilt to see if I was right.
There’s more than one way to get at the truth, Detective
.