Bloody Kin Read online

  Kate gritted her teeth. “I’ll help you carry them up,” she said tightly. Together, they maneuvered the settee up the wide stairs into Lacy’s bedroom in the back corner of the house. The only other time she’d ever entered that room was the first day Jake showed her over the house, and she’d forgotten its Spartan bachelor simplicity.

  The brass double bed was covered with several patchwork quilts, no spread. There was a rag rug on the bare boards next to the bed. A painted bedside table held a lamp, an electric clock, an ashtray, and a couple of pill bottles. Against the opposite wall, between the side windows, was a tall five-drawer dresser and mirror. On top of the dresser lay an opened carton of cigarettes, a worn comb and brush set, a Bible, and a triple-fold picture frame.

  The central photograph was a hand-tinted portrait of Lacy’s mother and father. The right section held a picture of his brother Andrew and Andrew’s wife Jane; the left was an enlarged snapshot of Jake as he sat on the top step of the front porch with the dogs nuzzling his hands.

  A straight-back wooden chair by the rear windows completed the furnishings.

  The room felt chilly and the air was stale, as if it had been breathed in and out for months on end until nothing was left, only a faint smell of dry flesh, cigarette ash, and sun-faded net curtains over sealed windows.

  Lacy seemed uncomfortable with Kate in his room and gave her no time to sightsee. As soon as they had placed the settee next to the chair, he held the door for her to leave.

  He carried up the banished chair and lamp alone without comment, but balked again when Kate told him the sideboard had to go, too.

  “That come from Gilead,” he protested.

  So Kate knew.

  Patricia had tried to wheedle Jake out of the sugar chest and lamp stand while she was restoring Gilead, but when Kate later offered to return the sideboard, Patricia had refused in mock horror.

  “All Gilead’s geese weren’t swans, honey,” she’d giggled, “and that thing’s a real turkey.”

  “It’s too heavy to carry upstairs,” said Kate, “but maybe we could slide it out to the hall and I’ll get the movers to do something with it tomorrow.”

  Despite his age, Lacy was still strong, yet even with Kate’s help, the solid oak hulk resisted mightily. The floor beneath shrieked as they managed to heave it a few inches away from the wall.

  “Can I help?” asked a pleasant masculine voice.

  Kate straightened to see a vaguely familiar man standing outside the parlor door. Just under six feet, he had light brown hair, a medium frame and a diffident, slightly lopsided smile. He wore well-cut gray slacks and a light tweed jacket over a blue oxford shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

  “Sorry just to walk in, but the door was open and I did knock.” He pantomimed knocking with the knobbed cane he carried. “Good evening, Mr. Honeycutt; welcome back to Colleton County, Kate.”

  Lacy gave a formal nod, but Kate crossed the parlor with outstretched hands and impulsively clasped his.

  “Gordon!” she said, conscious of his double loss since they’d last met. “How good to see you again. I almost didn’t recognize you without your beard.”

  “The nurses shaved it off after the accident,” said Gordon Tyrrell, “and it wouldn’t grow back properly, so I’ve had to get acquainted with a razor again.”

  He bent to kiss her cheek in greeting and she saw the long smooth scar. It followed his strong left jawline and was almost unnoticeable now, but it would undoubtedly stand out in white relief if he tried to grow a beard around it.

  “You look very nice without it,” Kate smiled.

  And he did. Younger, too, and somehow more vulnerable. In the few times they’d been thrown together over the past four or five years, Gordon had always struck her as very Old South—ever aware that the blood of a heroic Confederate colonel flowed in his veins, but ready to be polite to the granddaughter of Irish immigrants since she was the wife of his own wife’s cousin. Without Elaine’s vivacity to play against now, and bereft of his precisely clipped beard, he seemed more human and less standoffish.

  “Can I help with that?” he asked, eyeing the sideboard.

  “Oh, no,” said Kate. “You shouldn’t.”

  “Because of the cane?” Gordon asked. “That’s mainly for show. My leg’s almost completely healed.”

  He laid the stick aside and with all three of them shoving, the sideboard edged another six inches closer to the door.

  “This isn’t working,” said Kate, “and we’re wrecking the floor. The movers are bound to have a dolly or something and I’ll get them to shift it tomorrow. Come and sit down, Gordon. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Actually, I came to offer you one,” he said. “Dinner, too. Much against her will, Mrs. Faircloth’s cooked a whole leg of lamb, and there’s just Mary Pat and me. We’d be very honored if you and Mr. Honeycutt would join us.”

  “Thank you kindly,” said Lacy, who’d never tasted lamb till Kate came, “but I reckon I’d better hang around here. Dogs ain’t been fed yet and there’s still some chores need doing.” His voice trailed off.

  The thought of spending the whole evening with Lacy’s taciturnity was suddenly more than Kate wanted to face.

  “I’d love to come,” she said. “What time?”

  “Now,” said Gordon. “Mary Pat’s still a little young for more formal hours. I’ll wait if you want to change.”

  “I won’t be more than ten minutes,” Kate promised. “Lacy, there’s a chicken casserole on the stove, if you want it.”

  Without waiting to hear his rebuff, Kate hurried down the hall to her room and kicked off her sneakers. She had not forgotten the quick-change tricks she had learned as a model and in precisely nine and a half minutes, she had showered, brushed her hair into an elegant twist, and slipped into low heels and a short cream-colored skirt topped by an oversized pullover of pale blue, green, and lavender cotton that brought out the blue of her changeable eyes and disguised her thickened waistline.

  “Beautiful,” said Gordon as she came back along the hall with a white shawl draped over her shoulder in case the night turned chilly. “Elaine never made a huge mystical production about changing either. She could go from a boat deck to a ballroom in less time than it took most women to decide what shade of lipstick to wear.”

  As Gordon held the door for her, Kate paused and said, “Gordon, forgive me, but I must tell you how sorry I am about Elaine and James. Jake and I both were.”

  He closed the door and looked down into her earnest face. “It was a hellish autumn for both of us, wasn’t it, Kate?”

  His lopsided grin was wobbly but he took a deep breath as he straightened and walked around the car to slide in beside her. He put the key in the ignition but did not immediately turn it.

  “When Rob Bryant called to tell me about Jake, I couldn’t believe it. I’d just had a letter from him three days before. Kate, you must know that if I hadn’t still been laid up in that Mexican hospital—”

  “I know,” she said quickly. “The flowers you sent were so beautiful. Did you—I mean, what about Elaine and James?”

  “In late October—after the doctors finally let me out of the hospital—there was a little church near our villa that Elaine used to stop in at once in a while. I’m afraid none of us were very religious, but I think she and James would have liked the memorial service.

  “There were services for the others, too. Seven other people, Kate. The Dickersons, Jill and Win Harkness, friends the three of us had known for years. Gone. And then to hear that Jake—”

  He switched on the ignition, put the Porsche in gear, and eased into the lane. “All I could think about was how James had saved his life in Vietnam, and then a freakish accident on his own land, with his own gun!”

  “I know,” Kate said bleakly.

  “And now this,” said Gordon as they drove slowly past the packhouse.

  “Did James talk about Vietnam much?” Kate asked.

  “Occasionally.
Especially when he first came home. Not so much in recent years.”

  “Do you remember the other two who were on that patrol? A younger man and a Bernie-somebody?”

  “Yes, he mentioned them. Why?”

  “The man Mary Pat and I found—you didn’t see him, did you?”

  “No, but Major Bryant described him; asked if anyone at Gilead had seen him around. He didn’t sound like anyone . . . wait a minute! Bernie? Was he the man who was killed?”

  “It could be,” said Kate. “I never met him, but Jake told me about that patrol and how Bernie and James killed the sniper. And there were pictures. He had a black mole on his right cheek, too, just like the dead man, only he had a beard back then. Lacy’s misplaced the snapshots Jake sent him, but I think there may be duplicates in the things the movers are bringing tomorrow.”

  “It’s probably not him,” said Gordon. “Why would he turn up here after all these years?”

  “Maybe he came to see Jake. Not knowing.”

  They paused at the top of the lane to wait for a huge, late-working tractor to pass. The sky blazed with silver pricks of stars everywhere except where blanked out by Raleigh’s glow in the north. The new moon was a pristine crescent against the blue-black of the western sky. They crossed the highway. Gilead’s long drive was lined on either side by double rows of tall oaks which were just beginning to push out tiny leaves.

  “Odd business,” Gordon said thoughtfully. “Did you tell Bryant?”

  “Yes, he’s coming back tomorrow to see if I can find the pictures.”

  Gordon drove past the white pillars of the wide veranda and on around to the study entrance on the west side.

  “You know,” he said, cutting off the switch, “there’s a trunk of James’s things in the attic. I remember he had a little chest of war souvenirs. It might give us more information about Bernie. I’ll have a look tomorrow.”

  The study had a low wide window and they saw Mary Pat slip into the room and look out at them shyly.

  “There’s the reason I’ve had to put death behind me and pick up the pieces,” said Gordon. “Children do make a difference, Kate.”

  “I’m counting on it.” The huskiness of her voice made him look at her quizzically. “Yes,” she nodded.

  His lopsided grin widened into a delighted smile. “That’s wonderful!” he exclaimed and his smile grew as he circled the car to help her out. “Truly wonderful.”

  “What is?” asked Mary Pat from the doorway.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lamb is not a meat commonly found on Colleton County tables. Pork is the mainstay of most meals, followed closely by chicken and beef. Pan fish are also favored, as well as any kind of shellfish so long as it can be battered and deep-fried; but eating baby sheep carries outlandish connotations and, as they went into dinner, Gordon Tyrrell had Kate laughing over how he’d initiated Mrs. Faircloth into the mysteries of buying and then cooking a leg of lamb. Kate described Lacy’s reaction to his first grilled lamb chop; and by the time Gordon finished carving, Mary Pat had lost her shyness of Kate and was peppering the dinner with questions about the baby.

  “But when will it come?” she asked again, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.

  “In four more months—around the Fourth of July,” said Kate. “Independence Day will probably be my last day of independence.”

  Mary Pat looked puzzled and there was a brief digression as Gordon tried to explain the significance of the Fourth and American independence.

  He was extraordinarily patient with the child, thought Kate approvingly. Although Mary Pat displayed the precocity of most children raised in the company of adults, she seemed unspoiled. The conversation was geared to her level and her questions were taken seriously, but she was not allowed to monopolize.

  Seated beneath the crystal chandelier, the little girl looked more like Park Avenue tonight than Tobacco Road. Her dark curls were brushed to a sheen, parted on the side, and held back from her face with a delicate cloisonné barrette. Instead of scuffed sneakers, she wore black patent-leather Mary Janes and long white socks, and her scruffy knit slacks and pullover had been replaced by a white batiste dress smocked with green threads and laced at the waist with a thin green velvet ribbon. Her small face was a blend of her parents’ best features, and when she cut her eyes at Kate without moving her head as Patricia once had, or when her lips quirked in one of Philip’s smiles, Kate was captivated.

  “You know one nice thing about my baby?” she told Mary Pat. “You two will be double cousins.”

  “What’s that?” the child asked.

  “It means you share great-grandfathers on both sides.”

  Mary Pat was startled. “Sides?” she asked, looking down at both elbows.

  “Let’s see you explain that,” said Gordon, amused.

  Kate requested paper and pen and the maid produced them. “Southerners aren’t the only ones who keep their bloodlines straight,” she said, and hoped she would remember all that Miss Emily had told her that morning.

  Mary Pat slipped from her chair and came to stand by Kate’s shoulder.

  “Let’s say this is you,” said Kate, sketching in a small stick figure with twin ponytails. “And this is the baby.”

  On the other side of the sheet appeared a bundle with a tiny smiling face.

  “Here are your mother and father, and here’re Jake and me.”

  “Will you die, too, after the baby comes?”

  “No, sweetheart,” she said before Gordon could admonish Mary Pat.

  “Now here’s your grandfather Franklin Gilbert and your greatgrandfather Gilbert. Where you have grandfather Franklin, the baby has grandmother Jane. Jane and Franklin were brother and sister and had the same daddy. Your mother and Jake were first cousins so you and the baby will be second cousins on your Gilbert side. Got that?” she asked as her pencil deftly sketched amusing little stick figures.

  Mary Pat nodded.

  “Okay. Your dad and my mother had the same grandfather Carmichael, so you and I are second cousins and the baby will be your second cousin once-removed on the Carmichael side!” Kate finished triumphantly.

  “Bravo!” Gordon applauded and lifted his wine glass in toast.

  Mary Pat carried the tablet to the other end of the table. “Where are you, Uncle Gordon?”

  Gordon touched the Patricia figure with the pencil tip. “This is your mother, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I can’t draw as well as Cousin Kate, but we’ll let this be Aunt Elaine next to your mother because they were sisters. Then we draw double lines from Aunt Elaine to me and put me in here like this because we were married.”

  “Do Uncle James, too, please.”

  Patiently, Gordon drew in the figure and lines that included his brother on the crowded chart.

  Kate began to regret that she’d brought up the subject of kinship, but if Gordon was pained by this mention of James and Elaine, he hid it from his niece.

  “No, honey, we can’t put lines to Sally. She’s not kin. But here’s Uncle Lacy.”

  The entrance of dessert sent Mary Pat back to her chair. Their conversation turned to kittens and Kate invited her to come back the next afternoon to find the kitten Lacy had given her.

  “We’ll have coffee in the study,” Gordon told the maid and as they left the dining room, Sally Whitley appeared on the landing above.

  She gave Kate a shy smile and beckoned to Mary Pat. “Time to get ready for bed.”

  “Off you go,” said Gordon.

  Still carrying the tablet, Mary Pat scampered up the wide carpeted stairs. “Guess what, Sally? I’m going to have a second cousin on both sides!”

  Gordon laughed as they entered the study. “I hope you’re prepared for the whole neighborhood to know.”

  It was a welcoming room. Books lined the fireplace wall and a fire in the hearth banished the slight chill that had appeared after the sun went down. The lamps cast mellow pools of light upon a faded orien
tal rug and over comfortable leather chairs and couches.

  The maid—Kate thought she was one of Bessie Stewart’s nieces, but she wasn’t sure—followed with the coffee tray and then withdrew.

  Gordon brought a bottle from a side cabinet. “Brandy in yours?”

  “No, thank-you. I probably shouldn’t even be drinking this much coffee. I will join you in a cigarette, though.”

  He held a light for both of them. “I should think cigarettes would be verboten.”

  “They are,” she sighed. “I’ve cut down to less than half a pack a day, but I just can’t seem to quit altogether. Especially after a meal when there’s someone to talk to. And that,” she added grimly, “is the first positive thing about life with Lacy Honeycutt that I’ve come up with. After a week of facing him at every meal, I’ll probably be cured of ever wanting another cigarette.”

  “Don’t be bitter, Kate. It’s been rough on him, too.”

  She shrugged and Gordon stooped to put another log on the fire. He seemed awkward for a moment.

  “Was it the left leg you broke?” she asked.

  Gordon nodded. “It’s pretty much healed, but the doctors said I could expect some continuing weakness there for at least a year. I’ve acquired quite a collection of canes for my old age. Midge and Knowland Whaley—did you ever meet them?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “They sent me a gold-headed cane from Cannes and Sean Riley—”

  “A redheaded Irishman with a professional brogue?”

  “The same. He turned up at the hospital in Mexico with an authentic shillelagh. I was still pretty groggy, bandaged from head to foot like King Tut’s mummy, but damned if he didn’t make me laugh before the nurses chased him out.”

  “How long were you actually in the hospital?”

  “Eight weeks total, I think it was. From early September to late October. The concussion kept me in a coma for almost ten days.”

  He fingered the scar along his jawline. “This took twelve stitches, they tell me.”

  Kate made a sympathetic sound.

  “The worst thing about it is that the whole day was wiped out of my memory.”