“But why not?” I asked. “At that time, did you suspect him of anything?”
They glanced at each other, glances full of fury.
“Only of selfishness and stubbornness,” Suanna said. “We were afraid he wouldn’t let us spend any of the money on Mother, once he knew where it came from. Do you think we should go to the police?”
“Go to your mother first,” I advised. “Then to a lawyer. He’ll tell you what sort of case you have. But please …”
They both stared at me, hearing the intensity in my voice.
“Please don’t spend all of your inheritance trying to get revenge on your stepfather. If the money’s gone, it’s gone. If you spend all of this new money on lawyers and lawsuits, you’ll be letting him steal that from you, too.”
I couldn’t tell if I’d gotten through to them, and I couldn’t blame them if they didn’t want to hear it. They’d spent their lives in false and miserable penury; by now, they might have lost any talent they had for happiness. I thought: Cat Benet, you have some of this to answer for—did you think the money would be enough, did you think that all you had to do was instruct your accountant to mail checks and everybody would live happily ever after?
His pudgy, unhappy children left my motel room soon after that, promising to keep in touch. I gave them the names and addresses of their half sisters in Kansas City and of the boy named Ladd Benet in Fort Worth, but I didn’t really expect them to do anything with the information. None of this had the makings of a great family reunion.
When I finally got to bed, it was with questions whirling in my brain, colliding with each other: Just how deep and obsessive was the hate that Railing bore for Cat Benet? Enough to demand some final, ultimate, irrevocable outlet? Had he somehow learned of the trusts that would come to his adopted children upon the death of their natural father? What was the source of his hate? How much did the woman in the upstairs bedroom know about what her second husband had done with the money? Why had she allowed him to cheat not only herself but worse, her children? Just how crippled and helpless was she, really?
I wished I could meet her.
And I did, in my dreams that night. She wore a white diaphanous gown and she floated over the prairie like a cloud, never coming to earth.
I woke up a few hours later, convinced the best thing for me to do was leave town.
29
Over a late Tuesday morning breakfast of pecan waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs, and coffee, I glanced through the appendixes of The Barons of Branchwater and discovered something very interesting. There at the back of the book was a family tree—one of those foldout jobs because the author had traced the Benets back so many generations they wouldn’t all fit onto one page. And there, branching off from Cat Benet’s mother and father was a second twig: Judith. And out of Judith came: Ladd, the nephew in the broken picture frame.
It was Judy who intrigued me—Cat’s sister, born almost a generation later than he. Of whom I had thus far heard scarcely a word. Who was not mentioned anywhere else in the book, although it was true that no one of her generation was, because the narration stopped at the marriage of their parents, which meant, of course, that the biography didn’t tell me all that much about Cat, either, except to place him in his lineage. But what about Judith?
After breakfast, I returned to my room and called my office.
“Mr. Dwight Brady is trying to reach you,” my assistant said.
“Did he say why?”
“No, but he’s called twice already.”
When I screwed up my courage and called him in Kansas City, he told me it was a false alarm. Lilly Ann Lawrence had slipped away again, and they had been frantically looking for her when she came home protesting her innocence and claiming to have spent the night at a friend’s house.
The man had no idea how much of a false alarm it really was, and how rapidly my heart was beating as a result of it. I had half-expected him to tell me there was a warrant out for my arrest.
“Why call me?” I asked him.
“To see if you thought she’d try the ranch again.”
“I don’t know her that well, Dwight.”
“Consider yourself fortunate.”
That made me want to rush immediately to her defense, but I clamped my tongue on it. Stay out of it, I warned myself. Their business. Not yours, not unless she actually steps on the property. Still, my tongue got loose long enough to say, intending sarcasm, “I guess you’ll just have to hire a private investigator to follow her around, Dwight.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“Yes, it is,” I said firmly.
I got off the phone feeling extremely annoyed with Mr. Cat Benet, cowpoke and philanthropist. So annoyed that I had to express it to somebody.
I called the ranch, only to get the telephone answering machine. As I was leaving my message, Slight’s voice cut in.
“Good morning,” he said.
I felt so relieved that he’d flown safely through the rainstorm that I sounded like an irritated parent when I said, “Don’t you ever just pick up the phone and answer it?”
“I like to know who I’m talkin’ to.”
“Before you talk to them. Right. I have a question for you, Slight. Is Judy Benet still living in Fort Worth?”
There was a silence, and then he said cautiously, “Cat’s sister? I don’t know the answer to that.”
“Well, hell, what do you know?”
“I know three more heifers delivered last night.”
“Poor things. Slight, did Cat handle his child support payments himself?”
“I doubt it,” he drawled. “He had secretaries and accountants through the years, you know. Had to, operation the size of his, at least the size it used to be. Small as it is now, comparatively speaking I mean, it don’t take more ’n’ Carl and me and a part-time tax man to handle things. But back then, yeah, I expect he had somebody else doin’ that stuff for him. Why, Jenny?”
“His children in Winnetka never got their money.”
I thought I could feel shock waves coming through the phone lines from Kansas. When he finally responded, it was with a low, skeptical “Whaaat?”
“Mark and Suanna, his children by Anna.”
“I remember,” Slight said huffily.
“Then you probably know Anna remarried, to a man named Railing. It looks as if he took whatever was left of her money, as well as the children’s money, and they never saw a penny of it.”
I could hear heavy breathing. “How do you know?”
“Mark and Suanna told me.”
“Told you? What are you up to? Where are you?”
“Sitting by the bed, calling you. They don’t know what he did with the money, Slight, but now that they know he cheated them, I hope they’ll be able to find out.”
“The checks were made out to her,” he said heavily.
“Anna?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Then she may have endorsed them and turned them over to Railing. How could Cat have let this happen, Slight? How could he just send that money up there and never check to see if it got where it was supposed to go? Why didn’t he write to his children? Didn’t he ever try to see them? He was their father, for heaven’s sake. What was the matter with him?”
“Anna asked him not to.” Slight’s voice was full of defensiveness for his late boss. “When she remarried, she wrote to him and said, leave us alone, we’ve got a new life now, you stay out of it. The new husband offered to adopt the children and I guess Cat thought that might be best for them, so he went along with it. But he kept sending the checks, Jenny. Legally, he didn’t have to, ’cause they weren’t his kids any longer. But he did keep sending the money—”
“For all the damn good it did them!”
“He didn’t know Railing was a crook! You’ve got to understand??
?”
“I do understand. He had children and he abandoned them. Slight, they’re pitiful. They’re fat, scared, shy people. Their mother’s an invalid who apparently never leaves her room. Mark stutters worse than any adult I’ve ever heard. Was all of this necessary so that Cat Benet could have his precious freedom? Was it?” I heard myself nearly yelling at him and stopped. “Oh, Christ, Slight, I don’t mean to yell at you, it’s not your fault. I’m sorry, it’s just that—”
“Anna’s an invalid?”
“Multiple sclerosis.”
“Oh, God Almighty.”
“Mark and Suanna want to buy her a better wheelchair,” I said bitterly.
“She was beautiful,” he murmured. “She didn’t have much of a sense of humor, poor woman, but she was pretty as a beauty queen. Is the daughter pretty?”
“No.”
He sighed. “Lord, I feel sorry about all this.”
“I do, too,” I said tiredly. “And I’m sorry to take it out on you, Slight.”
“Who better?” he asked lightly. “When you comin’ back to us, Jenny?”
“I thought you wanted to be rid of me.”
“Carl and me? Never. We miss you. Molly misses you.”
“I’ll bet. What’s the livestock market doing this week?”
“If I told you, would it mean anything to you?”
I laughed. “Probably not.”
“Hogs are up,” he said.
“I’m so glad.”
“But pork bellies are down.”
“Where else would they be?”
“And soybeans are steady.”
“As so few things are in this world.”
“I do wish you’d come back,” he drawled. “One day.”
“You think it’s safe for you to say that because you don’t think I’m going to do it,” I said, and he chuckled. “But you’d better keep your boots shined, Quentin, because you never know when I might show up. I just might surprise you.”
“I hate surprises.”
“The hell you do,” I said, and hung up without telling him where I was or where I was going next.
30
I reserved a ticket on a flight to Fort Worth, but it wouldn’t leave until that evening, so I used the rest of the morning to find a Laundromat and wash my clothes. What I also needed was a dry cleaner for my suit, but there wasn’t time for that. No, what I really needed was a couple of cooler outfits for the warmer climate of the South. Now there was a lovely excuse, if I ever heard one, to drive back into Chicago to visit Marshall Field’s Department Store.
So I did just that, after checking out of the motel. I spent—in more ways than one—the afternoon shopping in the vast and famous old store downtown. It was unaccustomed luxury to one who was used to picking up quick bargains at her brother-in-law’s discount emporium back home in “Poor Fred.” I bought a hot-pink T-shirt dress, belted at the waist, a cool khaki suit for traveling and business, and a pair of white slacks with an African-print tunic overblouse. And a brightly flowered cotton dress in case I went to dinner someplace nice. And a pair of leather sandals. And a summer purse. And a T. J. MacGregor mystery novel from the book department. And a box of Marshall Field’s famous candy. And a pair of khaki shorts for Geof. And I had a beautiful brass fireplace screen shipped back to our new house, for the fireplace in our bedroom. And then I had them mail a catalog home, too, just in case I’d missed something.
I ate a late lunch at the store. While I chewed an egg salad sandwich and sipped a vanilla milk shake, I mulled over my retrograde shopping spree in this old-fashioned emporium. An observer might have thought I should have spent my free afternoon in scholarly pursuit at the Museum of Natural History. Such an observer would obviously not be a native of Poor Fred, where it’s a whole lot easier to find nature than to find better dresses.
It was, I mused, for afternoons like this that ladies and their children and nurses once boarded trains bound to Chicago or Kansas City from the ranches and farms and small towns of the Midwest. If Lilly Ann Lawrence had come along a few generations earlier, she might have been one of those children. When her glamorous trip was completed, she would have gone home to a ranch, just the sort of place where the girl romantically thought she’d like to be now. Was she a throwback, caught out of time, out of step with her own generation? Or was she just a rebellious teenager with no better ideas about how to stage a revolution from her parents’ values?
I was feeling mellow enough to be foolish.
After lunch, I found a pay phone and called the Lawrence home in Kansas City. Without identifying myself, I asked for Lilly, half-hoping she wouldn’t be there.
“Hello?” the girl answered, in a low, dull voice.
“This is Jenny Cain,” I told her. “I have an idea. You said you want to get to know your grandfather. Well, I think I know how you can do that, without getting yourself into trouble or debt. Since you have money to burn, I suggest you catch the first flight out of Kansas City to Fort Worth. Take a cab to the downtown Holiday Inn and ask for me. If I haven’t checked in yet, tell them you’re sharing my room and get them to give you a key. I’ll add your name to my reservation.”
“I don’t get it,” she said, but her voice sounded more lively, less dull.
“You might get to meet some people who knew him, and maybe they’ll tell us more about him. You might even get to see one of the old ranches. I can’t promise anything will come of this, but do you want to take the chance?”
“Yes!”
“Will you meet me in Fort Worth tonight?”
“If I can! If I can get on a plane!”
“Do me one favor, Lilly Ann.”
“What?”
“Tell your folks where you’re going, all right?”
“All right.” She tried to sound grudging, but her heart wasn’t in it anymore. “I’ll see you soon!”
I hung up and turned around to stare at the counters and aisles of the department store. “You did this to me,” I silently accused Marshall Field’s. “It’s not enough that you lure me in here and run my credit card to the limit. No, you have to get me in a sentimental frame of mind so I’ll do something as quixotic as take an overgrown adolescent girl under my stupid wing. Well, enough is enough. I will not order anything from your catalog for Christmas!”
On my way out of the store, I happened to pass by the toy department where they happened to have perfectly marvelous jigsaw puzzles on sale. My niece and nephew loved jigsaw puzzles. All right, just one. Well, two. One for each of them, and maybe those two little ones over there for their Christmas stockings.
“Thank you for shopping at Marshall Fields,” the clerk in the toy department said graciously.
“How do I get out of here?” I pleaded.
“Go past cosmetics—”
“No! Isn’t there a closer exit?”
I managed to escape without buying anything else, although I did get sprayed with a sample of some new perfume whose French name sounded like “Buy Me.” Leaving the store was a shock, like walking back into the real world, where I had real big problems. I looked back, once, wistfully at the store and thought, Thanks, it was a great escape for a little while.
I drove directly to the airport, where I turned in my rental car. In half an hour, I was aboard a nonstop flight to Dallas/Fort Worth.
The room at the Fort Worth Holiday Inn was dark when I entered it. I started to flip the light switch, but then I saw that Lilly was asleep in the bed near the window, so I slipped into the bathroom and turned on that light instead. The girl didn’t stir during the small commotion I made in opening closet doors, sliding zippers, hanging things up. I began to move about the room with less hesitancy once I remembered what it was like to be young enough to sleep like the dead. That thought unnerved me for a moment, however, and I walked over and took a good look at her.
Good. Whew. Breathing.
I undressed, showered, got ready for bed.
After I pulled back the covers
on my own queen-size bed and slid in, I sat up against a pillow for a while, considering the sleeping girl. Her long, straight blond hair was spread out wildly around her on her pillow. She was sleeping on her left side, curled up tightly except for her right arm, which was flung onto the pillow over her head. Interesting body language, I thought, the fetal curl of a child, the bold, free arm of the independent adult. She wore a pink T-shirt to sleep in.
It was clear to me that I had been crazy to invite her. She’d only be in the way—her own distinctly aggravating way at that. Just what did I think I was going to do with Ms. Lilly Ann Lawrence now that I had her down here?
31
I took her to lunch with Miss Rose Sachet at the Century Club in downtown Fort Worth. The legendary Miss Rose was the director of a Texas foundation that was so fat you could practically hear a burp when you opened the pages of its annual report. I knew her from having attended national conventions where she was always a star, in part because of her encyclopedic knowledge about Texas and foundations, but also because of her unusual appearance and personality. It was Miss Rose’s membership that admitted us to the penthouse restaurant in the skyscraper bank building, but only after I’d given her firmly to understand she was my guest.
“Your guest?” she said when I phoned her at her office that morning. “Or a guest of your foundation?”
“My guest.”
“Thank you,” she drawled, a note of approbation in her deep, smoker’s voice. Miss Sachet was known as a believer in the theory that funds given to charity ought to go for charity and not to buy fancy lunches for herself. I was of the same school. We got along fine.