Later that morning found me knocking on Mrs. Goodfellowe’s door.
Roland shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in. Miss Katherine says she don’t want to see you no more.”
“Well, she’s going to have to. She’s got bad news coming and it’s better if it comes from me.”
His forehead creased with deep worry lines. “What bad news?”
“Roland! Who’s that at the door?”
Katherine Goodfellowe’s querulous voice rang out from the living room. The sliding French doors to the room were slightly parted.
I slipped past Roland, left him in the entryway.
Mrs. Goodfellowe sat in her wheelchair by the fireplace.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
She used her good hand to back her chair away from me. Despite her outer show of imperiousness, she was good and scared. She had reason to be.
“Roland!” she cried out.
He came to the doorway.
“You don’t want him to hear what I have to say,” I said.
Her eyes flicked from me to him, her fear battling her pride. Finally, she nicked her head at him. “You can go.”
Her gaze followed him. As soon as he was gone and the parlor doors were slid shut, she turned on me. “You’re on thin ice.”
I thought of the evening before. “Ma’am, you have no idea.”
“What do you want?”
How would she take the news?
“We’ve found her,” I said.
“Who?”
“Esther.”
A moment passed. A heartbeat. Her voice was tight as she asked, “Where was she?”
“In a most obvious place.”
Her eyes searched mine. “You’re sure it’s her?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s?”
“Dead, Mrs. Goodfellowe. Been dead, for a long time.”
The only sound was of the flames crackling in the fireplace.
“I’ve always known,” she said. “I just hoped…” She blinked back a tear. “If the family will let me, then I’d like to help make the arrangements.” She paused. “Do they know what happened? Why or who?”
“Why? No, no, they don’t. But it’s a good question, don’t you think?” I studied her. “A very good one.”
Waxen mask or not, her eyes were a dead giveaway. They were dark with fear. Using her good hand, she half turned her wheelchair away.
I gripped the arms, swung her back and made her look me in the eye. “Bellamy’s dead, Mrs. Goodfellowe. I shot him.”
“You what—?”
“Sutton shot Beth and now he’s on ice, too. Literally. The whole rotten scheme’s fallen apart. Do you understand? It’s been shot to smithereens.”
She drew herself up. Her heavy-lidded eyes grew narrow and her lips pressed into a tense pink line.
“Get your filthy hands off me. And get out.”
Cold anger chilled my spine. This lady wasn’t getting the message. She needed me to drive it home.
“You’d better stop thinking about my hands and start worrying about my lips, ‘cause they’re about to spread the word––about you and your husband and how he killed his best friend ‘cause he needed a corpse to hide behind.”
“No—”
“Your man Sutton helped him do it and then kidnapped Esther. He did it right before the heist to make it look as though she was in on it. Then Bellamy and Ritchie entered the scene. They weren’t as clumsy as the papers made them out to be. They actually figured it out. Sutton offered a payoff and Bellamy went for it, but Ritchie didn’t, so Bellamy nailed him.”
“I don’t—”
“And you were the puppet mistress, pulling all the strings.”
The clock ticked on the mantelpiece. The flames in the fireplace hissed and spit.
“You’re a fool,” she said.
“Yes,” I sighed, straightening up. “I guess I am—because I didn’t want to suspect you. Not for your sake, but for Esther’s. Her family trusted you. They believed in you and, for their sake, I wanted to believe, too. Even when you told me straight to my face that Esther was dead—”
“I never told you that.”
“But you did. You said it, sitting right here, trying to convince me of how much Esther meant to you. ‘Esther was the same age as my daughter when she died.’ Those were your exact words.”
“I was talking about my daughter.”
“That’s what I told myself, too. But you weren’t. At best, it was what Freud would call a ‘slip of the tongue.’ At worst, it was arrogance talking. You knew that Esther was dead, not just disappeared. Now, I want to know why. Why did you do it?”
She was silent. On previous visits, the room had felt warm, even suffocating. Right then, it felt frigid. And I sensed currents, currents swirling around me every bit as dark, deep and as icy as the river.
Mrs. Goodfellowe assessed me. Whatever she saw she decided she could handle. Her eyes were cold, as cold as a mama crocodile studying its young. They showed no remorse, none.
“Why not tell you? You can’t do anything. You never could.” Her lips twisted with contempt. “Why?” Her gaze moved over the grand room, and returned to me. “Isn’t it obvious? It takes money to maintain all this, to uphold an image. I didn’t have it.”
“But your husband—”
“My first husband spent as much as he earned. I used a good part of my inheritance just to keep up appearances. And then I went and married Eric. When I found out what kind of man he was, I realized what a fool I’d been. I was always weak for scoundrels, men who didn’t think the law applied to them. I should’ve known better.”
She was thoughtful, nostalgic but bitter. “When Mr. Sutton told me what sort of man I’d married, I decided to make the most of it. Eric had married me for my money. Soon he’d learn that I didn’t have any. I decided to use him before he could leave me. We’d become partners in a way he’d never foreseen.”
“So the heist was your idea.”
“Mine and mine alone.”
“Sutton tried to say it was his.”
She smiled wistfully. “I liked him. If I’d been younger …” Her smile faltered. “He was trying to protect me. But the idea was mine. Sutton and I forced Eric to go along. If he refused, we said we’d turn him in. He told me he didn’t believe me. That there was no way I’d face that embarrassment. I told him he was right. If I couldn’t turn him in, then I’d kill him—or have him killed. Now, that he believed.”
“But what about Esther? How could you have done that to her?”
Her expression changed. For a fraction of second, it softened. Then, just as quickly, it hardened again. She shrugged. “I gave Esther a place in history. Something she wouldn’t have achieved on her own.”
My fingers itched to get around her scrawny neck. But I resisted. I don’t know how, but I did.
Her lips sloped in that lopsided curve that passed for a smile. “You’re shocked?”
“By your hypocrisy? God no, I wish I were.”
She reddened as though I’d slapped her. But she recovered quickly. She raised her chin.
I had everything I needed, so I turned to leave. Her needling voice followed me.
“I hope you don’t think you can peddle your little story to the police. With everyone dead, they’ll never believe you.”
“Everyone dead? Where did you get that idea? Beth isn’t. You aren’t.”
She blanched. “But you—you said Beth was sh—”
“Exactly. I said ‘shot.’ I never said ‘dead.’ That, I’m afraid, was you expressing an expectation.”
The parlor doors opened and Roland came in. Sam, Blackie and Reed were right behind him. Clearly, they had heard everything she’d said. Her gaze swung back to me.
“I should’ve had you killed,” she hissed. “I should’ve let Bellamy and Sutton move against you sooner.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You should have.”