I said, “There you are. I’m sorry to barge in uninvited. I thought maybe you’d have people here.”
She shook her head. “We’re on our own. Hollis is napping and I’m wandering around thinking I should be doing something. I don’t blame people for avoiding us. There’s nothing in the etiquette books to cover situations like this. What do you say to a mother whose son has been murdered? What comfort can you offer a father who’s lost his only child? It’s awkward and difficult and people think of reasons to stay away. They tell themselves we’d prefer to be alone. They’ll remember how undemonstrative we are and think we’d doubtless protect our solitude. In some ways, that’s correct. I find it hard to deal with people I don’t much like.”
I’d actually told myself much the same thing, thinking that if I tried to hug or console her, she’d rebuff me. I don’t particularly like to be hugged myself, especially in a social setting where there’s no reason whatsoever to promote physical contact beyond a handshake. Most of the time, people are just going through the motions anyway, pretending to be happier to see you than they actually are. “Isn’t there someone you’d like me to call?”
“Well, that’s just it. I can’t think of anyone. A friend will come to mind and I’ll realize I haven’t spoken to her in a year. This is hardly the time to offer an invitation. I tried calling another friend, someone I was close to in the past. I found out she died two months ago and no one thought to tell me.”
“What about Hollis’s brother? You’ve mentioned him.”
“Their relationship is strained. Really, it’s quite superficial. Having him here would be a burden. They don’t get along and I’d be stage-managing their bad behavior, which is something I can do without. I’d have to think about meals and entertainment and small talk. You can’t have people in from out of town and then leave them to their own devices, even if the occasion is a death.”
“I can see your point,” I said. “The question may seem odd, but have you heard from the extortionist?”
“No and I don’t anticipate contact. If this is someone who knows us, then he’s probably heard about Fritz’s death. Even if he doesn’t know us, surely he’d be keeping tabs on us and he’d be aware of what’s happened. Anyway, Valerie did stop by and I thought that was lovely.”
She made the reference to Valerie as though the name would mean something, which it didn’t. Then I remembered that Valerie was the cleaning lady I’d encountered in my initial meeting with her.
I thought I should tell Lauren why I was there, but I wondered if it would seem callous if it was business as usual for me while she was trying to cope with her son’s death. This was probably one of the finer points of good manners that she was referring to. “This may not be a good time for you, but I have questions and I don’t know who else to ask.”
“Why don’t we sit?”
We moved into the living room, where she took a seat at the end of the sofa and I settled in the upholstered chair nearby. “Were you aware that Tigg Montgomery was Sloan’s bio-dad?”
“Yes. He talked to Hollis about his options—whether to own up to it or keep the information under wraps. There might have been a middle road, but none of us could think of one. Tigg was extremely conservative. His values were strictly Old Testament. Adultery was prohibited, as he believed it should be, even though he was a party to it. He decided to keep it quiet, which I didn’t particularly admire, but he was Hollis’s boss and I knew better than to speak up.”
“Eventually, Bayard found out. How did that happen?”
“Tigg told him. When he had the new will drawn up, he thought it would be unfair to have Bayard find out about the changes after he was gone.”
“What was Bayard’s reaction?”
“He was angry at first. He looked at Tigg’s money as his reward for being a good boy and putting up with the brutal emotional gamesmanship he was subjected to as a child. The notion of cutting his payoff in half didn’t sit well at first. Then he realized how much he loved and admired Sloan. He’d been raised as an only child and suddenly he had a younger sister. It shed a whole different light on the situation.”
“You think he was sincere? He wasn’t just covering?”
“I can’t answer that. I thought he was fully reconciled, but he’s always been good at guarding himself.”
“You said Tigg was extremely conservative. How did he feel about Bayard’s being gay?”
“He didn’t know. The rest of us were aware of it, but he seemed to have a blind spot. He was rabidly homophobic, so if he found out, he’d have cut Bayard off without a cent.”
One call. I thought about Austin’s warning about one call, his harping on it. That’s what it was about, Austin’s threat to pull the rug out from under Bayard. One more piece of the puzzle had locked into place.
40
Saturday, October 7, 1989
I didn’t sleep well. I found myself turning this way and that, thinking some as-yet-undiscovered position would be sufficiently comfortable to invite unconsciousness. Instead, with one eye on the digital clock, I watched the minutes flick by. If I slept at all, it was in brief increments, at least until the wee hours when I fell into a deep pit of dreams. I woke at nine, feeling groggy, startled that the time had gotten away from me. It was Saturday and it was light out, so in theory I could have gotten in a run, but I didn’t want to. I was anxious about Celeste’s arrival, uneasy about the fact that Ned had dropped out of sight again. I didn’t see how he could interfere with the plan, but Ned had the built-in cunning of a psychopath and he’d show up when least expected.