“Did you kill your niece and your husband?”
Max expected Evelyn to rage. She expected her to cry. She expected her to drop in a dead faint. She didn’t expect her to laugh.
They were in Evelyn’s living room seated on her patternless furniture. She hadn’t offered them coffee this time nor turned on the lamps. Without artificial aid, the oppressive sky outside failed to lighten the room. The old woman’s face creased with shadows, and her brown eyes appeared almost black. Evelyn put one elegant Cameron-like hand to her mouth, but the laughter didn’t stop.
Not having fully recovered from the morning’s jaunt in the snow, Max shivered. Or perhaps the resemblance to Bud Traynor’s black gaze caused her teeth to chatter before she caught herself.
“I know you don’t mean to offend me, but—”
“Well, of course, I do,” Max snapped. “I want to make you so damn mad you spill your guts.” She looked to Witt, sitting in the chair as he had before, lifted her chin as if to say how’s that for honesty. Damn him, he smiled, with approval or censure she couldn’t be sure.
The wind picked up, buffeting the window and hurling snow about like the flakes in a snow globe after a vigorous shake.
Evelyn’s laughter waned. “Why are you so angry?” Surreal, unbelievable. The woman was asking her questions.
“I’d say you were the one who was angry. We saw what you did to that album.” Max waved a hand indicating herself and Witt.
Evelyn sighed, still without emotion. “Oh my dears, that was such a long time ago. I’d forgotten about those pictures.” Right, yet she’d known immediately what Max referred to. Max let her go on, hoping she’d crucify herself. Evelyn, though, was apparently done.
Max pushed her. “Why keep the album at all? You could have thrown it out instead of mutilating it.”
Witt gave Max the floor. Just the facts, ma’am, she remembered his earlier admonition. He eased back in his chair, put his hands on the armrests. Max wasn’t sure if she’d blown it or if he was pleased. But it did get Evelyn started again.
“The album was all I had after Madeline left for Cincinnati. I sometimes took it out to remind myself what they looked like. Father, Madeline, Cameron. Cordelia when she was a little girl.” As Max had used the box of Cameron’s things under her bed.
“Why did you tell us Cameron didn’t have a sister?”
Like Witt, Evelyn eased against the back of the sofa, crossed her legs and smoothed the skirt of her unadorned olive green dress over her knees. “Because you’d want to know where she was. Then I’d have had to tell you I didn’t know, and ... well, I assumed you’d keep asking questions until you got the whole shameful story.” She pursed her lips. The green dress turned her skin sallow. “And I didn’t want to tell it.”
“You never answered that first question, Ms. Hastings.” Max waited a beat. “Did you kill them?”
Evelyn’s next words answered nothing directly, yet somehow protested her innocence. “I never loved BJ, you know. I was tired of being alone.”
“Why slash the photos?”
“He made us unhappy. He took away Cordelia. He disappointed my father. Then there was what he did to Cameron.”
A closed fist twisted inside Max. “What did he do?”
Evelyn smiled and looked fifteen years younger. “Cameron adored BJ. His own father had let him down. BJ came along and did all those fatherly things, campouts, coached Cameron’s baseball team at the Rec Center, taught him to drive, took him to a few Notre Dame games.” She shook her head. “BJ always had a line on tickets.” Her eyes refocused on Max. “He treated Cameron like the son he’d never had.” A little spurt of laughter shot out her nose. “And all the while, what he wanted was Cordelia.”
Cameron had never told Max a thing. BJ must have crushed him before he was even a man. Oh Cameron, how could you blame me? They’d both had their painful childhood secrets. Perhaps he’d turned his own guilt over his inability to face his past against her.
“When did you suspect he was the father of Cordelia’s baby?”
“I didn’t.” Evelyn smoothed the line of her skirt in what was fast becoming a compulsive gesture. “Madeline did.”
“Cameron’s mother? But ... didn’t she tell you?” Questions jumped off Max’s tongue. “How long had she known?” She pointed a finger at no one in particular. “She must have been the one who first realized Cordelia was pregnant.”
“Madeline knew what BJ was...” Evelyn pursed her lips. “What his proclivities were ... before I married him.”