“Including Olin Taverner?”
“Especially not Olin. He-was an important figure in my life.” “More important than your father,” I suggested.
His lip curled in a scornful smile. “Certainly more important than Calvin, who barely registered my existence.”
I looked at him curiously. “Olin Taverner paid active attention to you when you were a child? He was the one who took you to ball games and taught you to ride your first pony?”
He turned his head away, discomfited. “No, but Calvin sure as hell didn’t-he was too busy being a hero to the whole damned world. Olin lived in Washington when I was growing up. He had an active law practice there, and, anyway, after the hearings, Calvin and Renee took over New Solway; they made Olin uncomfortable in his own home. Can you believe that? Calvin and Renee bore him such a grudge that they persuaded people he’d known his whole life to cut him!”
“He tried to destroy your father’s life,” I said. “It’s not too surprising your parents weren’t his biggest well-wishers.”
“Well, they had their own dirty laundry to hide. Or at least Calvin did, and Renee, of course, trotted around after him in her busy efficient way helping him bury it.”
“So when did Taverner show you what their laundry was?”
He cast me a sidelong glance, as if trying to decide what story I’d be most likely to believe.
I spoke before he chose a version. “This afternoon at your mother’s, you were implying that your father’s financial dealings were shaky. Did Taverner tell you that?”
“Not exactly.”
“So what exactly?”
“I found a letter in Calvin’s desk,” he blurted out. “From old Mrs. Drummond-Mrs. Graham’s mother.”
“She knew about your father’s financial situation?” I was incredulous. “Apparently, Calvin was stealing from the Drummonds, or maybe the Grahams. I can still recite that damned letter by heart:
Dear Calvin,
I am aware of the theft you are committing against my household. A streak of hypocrisy seems to grow deep within your family’s character; your mother had a similar tendency to parade the halls draped in righteousness while her conduct behind the scenes didn’t bear close scrutiny. I shall, of course, expect restitution, and you may be sure that I will take appropriate measures should your actions continue.
“She signed it with her full name, Laura Taverner Drummond, which is how I learned she was related to Olin. No one ever told me anything about all those people-I kept stumbling on bits of information like that and feeling goddamned blindsided”
The resentment from twentyfive years earlier still burned: his cheeks were red now, and his voice shaking with anger.
“So then did you take the letter to Taverner?”
“I was only sixteen, I went to Renee and demanded she tell me what the letter was about. She laughed-laughed, mind you, as if it were a joke,
not a character flaw. She said Calvin had been `a bit unscrupulous’ in borrowing from the neighbors, but that when she married him she put a stop to all that. But you know, word always seeps out in a small town, and people gossip endlessly. It’s one thing I owe Renee-growing up chiefly in Chicago instead of that dead-alive fishbowl on Coverdale Lane. Weekends there were bad enough.”
“Yes, indeed.” In any small community, including the urban neighborhood o? my own childhood, people gossip mercilessly about Mrs. This’s daughter’s pregnancy and how poor Mrs. That felt when her husband lost all the rent money at craps. I felt momentary compunction for Darraugh and for the angry man in front of me-both of them poor little rich boys in their way.
“I wonder why your father kept the letter? Anyone on your family’s staff might have found it and blackmailed him.”
“Calvin is-was-an incurable pack rat. His study out in New Solway is crammed with papers. I can’t imagine the Lantners being bothered to look through all that crap.”
“And why were you looking at it? A congenital weakness for poking through other people’s desks?” I spoke with deliberate roughness, hoping to goad a further response.