Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [99]
“Who cares what you think?” Leona said. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you think about kissing my—”
“Leona! Mattie Lee!” Thelma said, her voice sounding the way it did when she caught us kids jumping on the expensive hay bales in back of her store. “Now, let’s not set a bad example for Benni here. She’s still at an impressionable age, you know. We have a responsibility.”
Leona looked over at me and winked. Mattie Lee’s chin moved an inch higher. I bit my lip trying not to laugh.
“Okay, just assuming ...”—I gave Mattie Lee an apologetic look—“... pretending that this horrible rumor had some truth to it, why do you think anyone would do such a terrible thing?”
Leona shook her head. “Who knows, Benni? With what I’ve seen in my ninety-two years I’m only certain about one thing. Just when you think human beings can’t sink any lower, they do. On the other hand, there’s more good bein’ done out there than bad. So far, anyway.”
“Maybe it was for the insurance,” Selma Gonzales suggested. She’d been a legal secretary for fifty years and had a kind and intelligently practical view of every situation. “That’s always a consideration.”
“Did people insure babies back then?” I asked.
“Maybe one of the older sisters did it out of jealousy,” Leona said. “Or the judge himself because he thought they weren’t his children.”
“Rose Brown committing adultery?” Mattie Lee exclaimed. “Why, I can’t even imagine that.”
Leona gave Mattie Lee a disgusted look.
“Maybe it was Rose’s sister,” Juby said. “She was an old maid. Heard she had a crush on the judge her whole life. Maybe she killed the babies out of jealousy.”
“There was the nanny, too,” Selma offered.
“Or the butler,” Martha added with a giggle.
“Oh, girls,” Thelma said. “They didn’t have a butler.”
I sat back in my chair, my head spinning. These ladies had just handed me even more suspects than I’d started with. That was certainly not my intention when I started questioning them.
“That nanny, Eva something-or-other,” Leona said. “I heard she’s still living.”
Knoll, I filled in silently. The nanny who was Mr. Foglino’s mother’s best friend’s neighbor.
“Still living?” Mattie Lee said. “My goodness, she’d be ninety-six or -seven. Would she even be able to—”
“To what?” Leona said, narrowing one pale eye in Mattie Lee’s direction. “Be coherent?”
Mattie Lee’s face turned pink, and she leaned back over the quilt, stitching furiously.
“What was her last name?” I asked, just to double-check Mr. Foglino’s information.
“Knoll,” Leona said, her voice triumphant. “Her name is Eva Knoll. Pretty good for someone in her nineties, don’t you think?”
“Does anyone know where she lives?” I asked, sitting forward in my seat. Next to talking to Rose Brown again, the nanny who was there when the babies died would be a great source of information.
The women shook their heads no.
“After the last baby died, she was let go,” Leona said. “Rumors were she was paid to go away. That tells me there was something fishy going on.”
“Did you hear where she went?” I asked, unrolling some white thread and snipping it off.
“Don’t reckon she’d go far,” Leona said, “if I remember right.” She glared at Mattie Lee. “And I do believe I do. Her only family was her father and a child. A boy, I think. Most likely she settled in San Celina County somewhere.”
“Do any of you ever see or talk to Rose Brown?” I asked.
“Huh!” Leona snorted. “Miss High-and-Mighty Brown leave her private tower and walk among the heathens? Don’t think so.”
“Now, Leona,” Juby said, shaking her head of poodle hair. “You know Rose is not able to socialize.” She gave me a kind look. “Rose Brown has her own suite on the other side of the home, near the offices. She doesn’t take her meals with us. But she has good girls. They visit her regularly and hired her private nurses. Tell you the truth, I don’t really know why she’s here and not at her lovely home, but they say she didn’t want to die there. I don’t think she’s quite all there, poor dear.”
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