Chapter 40

“Good morning, Mrs. Murdoch,” a strong, confident voice greeted me that morning as I answered the phone right after seeing Etta Mae off to work. “Ernest Sitton here. A few matters have recently come to my attention that might interest you. Would it be possible to meet with me here in about an hour? I’d prefer not to discuss it over the phone.” Which I certainly understood, having had that same preference.

My first thought was that I had done, or was doing, something wrong. My second thought was that if so, I’d gladly relinquish all benefits and duties to anyone who was willing to sleep in Mattie’s bed. My back was killing me. That mattress had been so old and so soft that Mattie had left a furrow down the right-hand side, and I’d kept rolling into and out of it all night long.

After agreeing to meet with Mr. Sitton, I called Helen and asked her to delay packing up the items on the shelves of the étagère until there was no longer a need to have a guard on duty.

“They’re our alarm system,” I told her.

She was silent for a few seconds, then said, “You mean they’ll get broken if somebody breaks in? Is that a good idea?”

“As good as I could come up with and be able to get any sleep. Helen, as far as I can tell, none of the items is worth anything. And if you’re worried about them, ask Diane to put a price on them, and I’ll pay for any breakage. If,” I went on, “it saves something a great deal more valuable from being stolen, it’ll be worth the expense. And if, at the same time, it also saves me from bodily harm and mayhem, it most certainly will.”

“Oh, yes, I see. Don’t worry about it, Julia. Diane and I will be there early this morning—there’s still so much to do before the moving van comes. But we’ll leave whatever’s on the étagère until Monday morning. I’m so sorry that you feel the need to stay overnight to protect everything. It’s all been a real burden for you, I know.”

After saying our good-byes, I hung up feeling somewhat compensated for all my efforts. At least Helen understood and appreciated the heavy load I was under.

_______

Greeting Mr. Sitton, who had come forth from his inner sanctum upon my arrival, I entered his office, hoping to hear confirmation of Andrew F. Cobb’s kinship to Mattie. What a relief it would be to let Mr. Cobb deal with her inflated idea of her estate’s worth, and at the same time be able to dump on his shoulders the pleas of the pastor and the board of deacons of the First Presbyterian Church of Abbotsville.

But while driving to Delmont, I’d had a sinking feeling about relinquishing control of the sampler, which was still in the safety of Mattie’s closet. Even though very few knew of its existence, there was really no telling what Mr. Cobb knew. For all I knew, his knowledge of the sampler could’ve been the reason he’d shown up in Abbotsville in the first place.

I had not told Mr. Sitton of my discovery, and wondered as I took a seat at his conference table if I should maintain my silence. He could be trusted to keep it to himself, but could his secretary? She, by her chilly demeanor, had not inspired in me a whole lot of confidence in her trustworthiness. But, then, not a whole lot of people did.

“Mrs. Murdoch,” Mr. Sitton began. I nodded as he sat across from me and folded his hands on the table. “I have disturbing news. Although as yet unconfirmed, I felt I should share it with you.”

I nodded again, feeling my entire body tighten up as I waited to hear what he had to say. I didn’t need any more such news from him. Being named Mattie’s executor had been disturbing enough.

“You will recall my telling you the Freeman/Cobb family history as related to me by the retired sheriff in Kentucky. From further research, I am inclined to accept all that he told me as a true account—excepting one thing. The man who has presented himself as Andrew F. Cobb is quite likely not Andrew F. Cobb.”

“Really? You think he’s an impostor?” My hands tightened on my pocketbook at the ramifications of this news. “But how could that be? How would he know so much about Mattie and her family?”

“Actually, he doesn’t. He himself told me very little other than his name and that Mrs. Freeman was either his aunt or his great-aunt. There was some discrepancy about the specific relationship, which he put down to his being so long away from home and family.”

“So what does this mean for us? I mean, for me? What am I to do?”

“You should continue what you’re doing. As long as Mr. Cobb, or whoever he is, makes no move to qualify as Mrs. Freeman’s relative and beneficiary, her will stands as the only legal document pertaining to her estate.”

“Well,” I said, able finally to begin thinking of what Mr. Cobb’s lack of legal moves might entail. “Maybe the reason that he’s made no move to qualify as her relative is because he isn’t. It has always struck me as passing strange that he would deny any interest in her estate other than pictures and letters and so forth. I can understand that a roving man would not want the encumbrance of an apartment full of furniture and an old car on its last legs, but I can’t understand why he’s so indifferent to the cash those things would generate. Nobody, to my way of thinking, would want to be footloose and fancy-free without a penny to his name.”

“Very true.” Mr. Sitton nodded sagely. “I’m in full agreement. Now, perhaps you’d like to tell me how you’re coming along with generating cash from Mrs. Freeman’s possessions.”

But I was barely paying attention, for something had rung a bell in my mind. Where had I found that remarkable sampler? Why, stored away among Mattie’s photograph albums and boxes of letters, that’s where. Certainly it had been in a safe, but would the nameless man who called himself Andrew F. Cobb have known that? Or had he known it? Could there be something else of value among the letters and pictures crammed into the boxes that were stacked on the floor of my library?

“I’m sorry? Oh, her possessions.” I was brought back to his question by the twiddling of his thumbs. “A moving van from the auction house will be here on Monday to take everything. After cleaning the apartment, I’ll give up the lease. As far as I know, all I have to do after that is wait for the checks to come in. Disbursement of whatever amount I recieve will immediately follow. But, Mr. Sitton, if there’s not enough to cover all the bequests, I will need your help in deciding who gets what.

“But I’ll tell you one thing,” I went on. “I don’t know how your church would respond under similar circumstances, but mine—and Mattie’s—is, well, let us say, eager to get its share. We’ve lost our air-conditioning, and you’d think the world was coming to an end in a ball of fire, beginning in our sanctuary.

“Although,” I continued, somewhat contritely, “I don’t believe in discussing the difficulties in my church with a member of another church. So I am depending, Mr. Sitton, upon the constraints of client confidence and upon your discretion.”

“I’m quite familiar with difficulties within a church,” he said, with a twist of his mouth. “Have no fear of anything said in this room going any further.”

“That is certainly reassuring,” I said—and it was, especially since I’d revealed the unwillingness of a certain number of local Presbyterians to suffer a little discomfort. “But what are we to do about Mr. Cobb? Or whoever he is?”

“Yes,” Mr. Sitton said, returning to the main subject, as he straightened himself in his chair. He had a tendency to slump during long conversations. “What are we to do? I am, of course, continuing to follow every lead to enable us to make a determination of his authenticity. At the moment, I am awaiting word—and, hopefully, pictures—from the state prison in Kentucky where Andrew F. Cobb was incarcerated for a few years sometime ago—I told you about that. It’s taking longer than I’d hoped because the sheriff who told me Cobb had been in prison couldn’t remember the exact years. He’s also checking the local records, even as the state is checking theirs.”

“Wait, wait,” I said, doing some straightening up of my own. “Let me be sure I understand. I know that Mattie’s husband had been in prison, but her nephew—or whatever—was also incarcerated?”

“Yes, as a young man and only for a year or so. I thought I’d told you that.”

“You may have. But between the Cobbs and the Freemans and the mess they made of their lives, I keep getting the generations mixed up. Well,” I said, sighing, “it’s no wonder Mattie moved to North Carolina. With a background like that, I would’ve, too.”

In a musing way, as I studied the ceiling and the problem, I said, “If the man who’s presented himself as Andrew F. Cobb is not Andrew F. Cobb, then he has to have known or known of the real Andrew F. Cobb. How else would he have known about Mattie, where she lived, or anything else about her?”

“True. But according to the sheriff I talked with, when the real Cobb was a young man, he followed the picking seasons. Migrant workers make up a whole subculture, and he would’ve met and talked—perhaps shared confidences—with any number of people of various stripes. The big question is this: if this man isn’t Cobb, where is the real one?”

“Oh, my,” I said, a whole new can of worms beginning to open up. “Do you think . . . ? Could this man have done away with the real one? I mean, if he’s not the real one?”

“Not necessarily,” Mr. Sitton hastened to assure me. “It could be that he learned that the real Cobb is deceased, and that gave him the incentive he needed to impersonate him, especially if he’d previously learned something of the Cobb and Freeman families.”

“But it sounds as if this all happened years ago when both would’ve been young men.”

“Mrs. Murdoch,” Mr. Sitton said with a sigh, “you are apparently uninformed about sociopaths. They store away information like squirrels store acorns, then wait for an opportunity to use it. Mrs. Freeman’s death would present just such an opportunity.”

“Sociopath? Oh, my, that is truly disturbing. Do you really think that’s what he is?”

“If he’s not Cobb himself, it’s a distinct possibility. But, I caution you, Mrs. Murdoch, what I say in this office must also be kept in confidence. We should know more when and if I get pictures—mug shots—of Andrew F. Cobb from either the sheriff or the warden of the prison he was in. Preferably both.”

“Well, have mercy,” I said, sprawling back in my chair. “I don’t want to have anything to do with a crazy person. I have enough to deal with already.”

It was a settled fact that dealing with Mattie’s estate and her kinfolks was getting messier and messier.