The Popsicle Tree (30 page)

The phone ringing pulled me out of my reverie.

It was my insurance agent with some definitely not-good news. He'd just heard from the owner of the garage where I'd taken the car, and apparently the damage was a lot more extensive than was first thought—the frame had been bent, and the rear axle cracked. Plus it would need a lot of body work to get out the dents, then would need a new paint job, and…

“We're willing to consider it totaled,” he said. “Considering the age of the car, you'd be just as far ahead to use the money to put a down payment on another one.”

Great. Just great!
I thought, looking out the window for an approaching plague of locusts.

Well, at least it took my mind off the case for a while.

But not for that long. The phone rang again about ten minutes after the insurance agent called.

Well,
I thought with a flash of hope,
maybe it's a paying client.

Wrong again.

“Mr. Hardesty, this is Mildred Collins, and I do think we should talk.”

*

Well, surprise, surprise!
When I'd given her my phone number, it was more or less an afterthought, and I never seriously thought I'd hear from her. But…

“Of course. When would be convenient for you?”

“Any time at all.” Then, as if sensing my unspoken question, she added, “Angelina was unexpectedly called back to Louisville. She left this morning.”

“Would you like to join me for lunch? We really didn't have much of a chance to talk the last time.”

She gave a quiet laugh. “That would be nice. I really don't get out much. And why don't we meet at the same place? I'd never been there before, but the popover was delicious—what little of it I was able to eat before Angelina rushed us off.”

“That's fine. About twelve thirty?”

“I'll see you there,” she said, and hung up.

I didn't muse this time. Musing is a quiet, almost lazy process. My mind was going much too fast for that.

Okay, so what's going on here?
my mind wanted to know. So did I. Obviously she had a reason—I hesitated to call it a “motive”—but I didn't have a clue as to what it might be. From what little I'd seen and subsequently conjectured about Angelina D'Angelo and her sister, it just might be some sort of payback time for Mildred Collins—though payback for exactly what, other than Angelina's obvious dominance over her, I again had no idea. And why had Angelina suddenly up and taken off for Louisville? Was that the sort of thing she did all the time? Well, once again, I'd find out.

*

I was just finishing my first cup of coffee at the restaurant when I saw Mildred Collins walk in. I waved to catch her attention, and she came right over and took the chair opposite me.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, and she smiled.

“It's my pleasure, really. As I told you, I don't usually have the opportunity to get out nearly as much as I'd like. And now I'll be able to see my daughter again.”

I somehow suspected that was more than a non-sequitur.

“I'm sorry? I'm afraid I don't follow.”

She smiled again. “My daughter will not come near me when Angelina is visiting,” she said, picking up the menu the waitress had left by her plate.

“That's too bad.” I hoped she'd shed a little more light on the subject.

She nodded, studying the menu and not looking up. “Most of my friends are the same way, and I now have very few friends left, I'm sorry to say. Angelina is something of a dark cloud at a picnic.”

The waitress came with coffee for Mildred and a refill for me. “Are you ready to order?” she asked, as Mildred put down her menu.

“It must be difficult for you,” I said when we were alone. “I'm curious as to why you don't have a talk with your sister, if she is a problem for you.”

She added sugar and cream to her coffee before speaking. “Because,” she said with a small shrug, “she is my sister, and without me, she really would have no one. I couldn't abandon her.”

“I admire you for that,” I said, honestly.

She smiled again. “It's not an application for sainthood. It's merely the way things are.”

“Well, I'm really glad you agreed to talk with me, but to be honest, I'm a bit curious as to why you did.”

“There are several reasons, I suppose,” she said. “For one, I sensed a certain empathy in you, and that you would be willing to listen to an old woman ramble on without passing judgment. I don't really have anyone with whom I can discuss certain things, and sometimes an empathetic stranger can provide an outlet.”

The arrival of the waitress with our food paused the conversation.

Squeezing a slice of lemon over her cod, she resumed talking.

“Please don't misunderstand me, Mr. Hardesty. I do love my sister. Really. But we couldn't be more different. Angelina always sees the glass as being half empty, and I see it as being half full. I'm early to bed and early to rise, Angelina's a night person, staying up until two or three a.m., then sleeping until ten or later.”

She sighed. “She is in many ways a very difficult woman to be around for long periods of time. Many of the things she does, and the way she does them, are, I know, rude, thoughtless, spiteful. But I long ago recognized that they are not conscious choices. That's simply the way Angelina is. I can understand her actions without excusing them.”

We each took several bites of food before she picked up where she'd left off.

“Being the oldest, Angelina was the apple of our father's eye. She is very much like him in many ways, which may be the reason he favored her so. She could do no wrong, so she never learned otherwise. They both had wills of iron, and both, once they decided upon something, let nothing stand in the way until they achieved it. I always found it fascinating that she and our father never fought. She was smart enough to know that she would not win. As I told you, Roy shares many of her traits, but he never acquiesced to her as she did to our father, and as a result they have never gotten along.

“Ever since we were children, Angelina has operated on the principle that what is hers is hers, and what is mine is hers. I don't think she's ever given a moment's thought to it—it's just the way it is and has always been. After my husband died, and my daughter was grown, I gathered together enough fortitude to try to construct my own life. I left Louisville and moved here.” She sighed. “But I should have realized that just moving away wouldn't make any difference. Angelina spends several months a year here—she refers to it as her ‘summer home,' though she comes and goes throughout the year, often with little or no advance notification.”

“I was wondering,” I said, after taking another forkful of casserole, “if there might be something wrong at home that she would leave so suddenly. I gather you weren't expecting it?”

She dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “No, I wasn't expecting it, but that's hardly unusual behavior for Angelina. She had a phone call last night, and right afterwards she called the airport. I have no idea who called. Angelina doesn't feel it necessary to confide such things to me.”

We ate in silence for a minute or two while I sorted through my thoughts.

“I'm still very curious about why Roy might take such a sudden interest in a son he apparently never even knew he had, and where he might have gotten the money to hire a top lawyer to press his custody suit.”

Mildred looked at me over the rim of her coffee cup as she took a sip, then lowered the cup to its saucer. “I'm afraid I would have no way of knowing for sure. Roy's…antipathy…toward Angelina spills over onto me. Guilt by association, no doubt. We really aren't close. To be honest, I was very surprised to hear that he was filing for custody. He definitely never struck me as the fatherly type. But I support him in his efforts. Kelly is his son, and he should be in his father's custody. I'm sure the Ericksons are fine people, but Roy
is
his father. And as to where he got the money…well, that's not too difficult to figure out. I would expect Angelina gave it to him.”

“And why might she do that? I had the definite impression that she totally disapproved of Roy.”

She smiled a Mona Lisa smile. “Angelina totally disapproves of almost everyone, but as in everything she does, she would have her reasons.”

“Can you imagine what her reasons might be in this instance?”

She carefully cut open her popover and lathered butter into the concave interior of one half.

“Of course,” she said, lifting the buttered half to her mouth. “She wants Kelly.”

*

Whoa!

As I sat there, momentarily speechless, Mildred savored her popover.

“
She
wants Kelly?”

Mildred nodded, taking another sip of her coffee. “Yes. I think she looks on it as a second chance to have the kind of son she feels Roy should have been.”

My mind was trying to catch and sort out the thoughts that came tumbling to the surface. “So she is, in effect, buying herself a new son?”

Mildred gave me a very small smile. “She can afford it.”

So that was it! Roy didn't want Kelly, Angelina did! He'd get custody, and then just turn Kelly over to her—undoubtedly being well paid to do so.

As if reading my thoughts, Mildred said, “But Angelina is far from stupid—nor, contrary to appearances, is Roy. It would be impossible to prove. Roy will be, for purposes of the custody proceedings, the perfect father. He will, as they say nowadays, ‘get his act together.' I imagine he will probably even marry the woman with whom he is living, to reinforce the ‘loving family' image. But Angelina, you can have no doubt, will be the primary influence in Kelly's rearing, and it is highly unlikely, given Roy's desire for money and Angelina's considerable wealth, that Roy will put up much resistance to whatever she might want to do with Kelly.”

“But the courts would never allow that to happen.” I realized even as I said it that Angelina's intentions would be impossible to prove and would therefore have no effect on the custody suit.

Mildred merely gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

It was all coming together, now!

“Do you remember that when we met the other day I asked if Mrs. D'Angelo knew a man named Eddie Styles?”

“Yes, I remember, and I'm afraid she wasn't being quite truthful. I'd say she simply did not recall, but Angelina remembers everything…and everyone. We both knew an Eddie Styles in Louisville. Not well, but we had some social contacts through our husbands and our father. I understand he had a rather disreputable reputation, but he was always quite pleasant when I saw him. Our husbands and father knew him much better than we did.”

“And Roy knew him?”

“I'd assume so. As I said, Mr. Styles was fairly close to Angelina's husband—both her husbands, now that I think of it. Roy must have known him. Why do you ask?”

“Were you aware that Eddie Styles was driving the van that killed Carlene DeNuncio?”

She was in the process of picking up her coffee cup, but put it down abruptly. It made a loud “click” as it made contact with the saucer. Her eyes opened wide and she looked directly at me. “Why, no, I didn't,” she said, her brows furrowed. “Are you sure? How could it possibly have been him? What would he be doing here? And why would he have done such a thing?”

Good questions, lady,
I thought.

But before I could say anything, she said, “Surely you're not implying…Angelina…?”

“Or Roy.”

She shook her head strongly.

“No! Impossible! I know both Angelina and Roy are capable of a many things, but this? Never. There has to be another explanation!”

Well, I realized there was one.

“Do you know a Jan Houston?”

She looked at me.

“Of course I do! I thought you knew. She's my daughter.”

CHAPTER 15

Uh, no…I
didn't
know,
I thought as I mentally picked myself up off the floor—though I certainly
should
have at least guessed. The evidence was there—the unconnected pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but all there. Carlene had told me about Jan having been abandoned by her mother and being dumped on an aunt. Angelina D'Angelo was her real mother! Angelina had dumped Jan on Mildred, who raised her as her own! So Jan and Roy D'Angelo
were
brother and sister—well, half-brother/sister. No wonder Jan hated Roy—and from what Mildred had inferred, Angelina as well.

Good Lord, what a mess!

“No, I didn't know,” I repeated aloud, hoping not too much time had passed between the dropping of the bomb and my response. “Then you knew Carlene, too.”

A look of sadness crossed her face. “Not very well, I'm afraid. When I moved here, Jan stayed in Louisville—that's where she met Carlene, and then they moved to Cincinnati, and Kelly was born. I didn't have a chance to see her very often.”