Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [119]
“It would have, except Giles somehow found out about the murdered babies.”
A muscle in her cheek flinched at my graphic words.
“Probably, because of her senility, from your mother,” I continued, “and he was blackmailing the family to force you to merge your winery with his father’s. You, or somebody in the Brown family killed him to keep him quiet.”
Speaking slowly, obviously choosing her words with care, she replied, “Giles’s death was a tragic event. I know his family will miss him. I wish it didn’t have to happen.”
“You know I have to tell Detective Hudson. I have to tell Gabe.”
“What is there to tell? I’ll deny anything you claimed I said about my mother and her babies. As for the rest...” She shrugged. “You and I were just lamenting over poor Giles’s tragedy.”
Our eyes met, and in that moment I knew she’d killed Giles and I knew she’d never get caught.
“Now you, too, have a burden to carry,” she said, her voice not unkind, but firm and, it seemed to me, tired.
My heart pumped wildly out of control. It took me a moment to find the voice to ask the question I knew I had to ask. “Why would you protect her all these years when she murdered your sisters?”
An almost astonished expression crossed her old face, as if she couldn’t believe I’d ask such a ridiculous question. “She’s my mother, Benni.”
“But she murdered your sisters,” I repeated, my voice a whisper.
For the briefest second, her expression changed. All the years of fear and shame and grief and disappointment seemed to converge, and I thought for a moment she might lay her head in her strong, capable hands and start sobbing. Then her back stiffened, and cool resolve again blanketed her face.
“We’ve talked long enough,” she said. “Please go.”
I stood up, my knees trembling, wanting to say something, but not knowing what. Finally I said, “You won’t get away with this forever.”
“Good-bye, Benni,” she said, then took a deep breath and turned her chair around, dismissing me.
Detective Hudson was pacing the hallway when I came out of Cappy’s office.
“What did she say?” he demanded.
Stumbling over the words, trying to keep my composure, I told him.
He pushed past me and stormed into her office, his face white with anger. “You sick, sorry piece of human garbage,” he said. “You’d protect a woman who murdered her own babies just for some attention. You’d protect a woman who’s lived a lie most of her life, this woman who professes to be a great lover of children. You’d kill another human being in cold blood for a woman who’d do that! Why?”
She turned her chair slowly around, her face as expressionless and cold as a smooth river stone. Had I really seen all those emotions on her face minutes before, or had it just been wishful thinking on my part?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
His breathing sounded loud in the quiet room. “You won’t get away with it. I’ll find a way to see that you or your mother doesn’t get away with this.”
“You don’t have that kind of power, Detective,” she said, unmoved by his anger. “And you never will.”
“Maybe not,” he said, his voice steel-edged, “but I have time. And if it takes me the rest of my life, I’ll expose you and your mother.”
“Excuse me,” she said, picking up the phone, dismissing us. “I have some important phone calls to make.”
He started to say something else, but I laid a hand on his forearm. “Let’s go, Detective Hudson.”
He turned and looked at me, ready to snap a reply. We stared at each other a long moment, and I saw a small muscle flutter in his smooth cheek. Without a word, I took his arm and led him outside without looking back.
Swallowing the salt that coated the back of my throat, I willed myself to stay calm. Get away, a voice inside me kept saying. Just get away. Away from this house with its ghoulish secrets, away from a woman so tainted by the evil she saw as a child, it destroyed her, too. Having lost my mother