“Apparently not,” Alex said, looking into the picnic basket that Matt had loaded with refrigerator containers full of food.
“Nice family,” Matt said. “Go on. What else?”
“That’s it. Dolores said that the only time the paper was ever mentioned again was at their mother’s funeral. She said she got Manville alone and asked him what had happened to the permission slip. Dolores said she’d only meant it as a joke, but she said Manville got real angry. She didn’t understand why until it dawned on her that Lillian probably didn’t know about the paper. She figured Manville didn’t want his wife to know that he’d been so sure of getting her that before he even asked her to marry him, he’d had all the paperwork done. Dolores said she figures that she’s the only person who ever beat James Manville at anything. She said to him, ‘So, where’d you put the paper, Jimmie?’ Dolores said that, as far as she knew, until that moment, Lillian was the only person in the world who’d ever called him by the nickname. Dolores said Manville sneered at her, but it made her feel great. She said he told her, ‘I gave the paper to the person I trust most in the world.’ Dolores was gloating; she said she thought this meant he didn’t trust Lillian, and to Dolores, the fact that Manville left Bailey no money was proof of his distrust.”
Alex took another bite. “I’ve sure missed Bailey’s cooking! Anyway, at the funeral, Dolores told Manville that she’d just seen the cutest little Mercedes convertible. It was white with a red interior. So the next week some guy shows up and hands her a set of keys to a white Mercedes convertible. With red leather interior, of course. And, after that, Dolores received a yearly six-figure allowance from Manville, and if she wanted anything extra, like a country club membership, Manville gave her that, too.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” Matt said softly.
“Not by a long shot. And now Dolores says that she’s tapped into the heart of all that should have been hers.” Alex swallowed, then said, “For the life of me, I can’t figure out how she thinks Manville was hers if she’d never met him.”
“If you’re asking me to explain women, I haven’t lived long enough.” When Alex yawned, Matt said, “Come on, kid, you need to get to bed, and tomorrow, early, I’m sending you to stay at Patsy’s house. The less Bailey hears about the details of this, the better.”
Twenty-six
Violet called Janice again to let her know when she and Arleen would be arriving home. Janice told Bailey, so Matt and Bailey met the plane.
Arleen seemed to think it was normal to have someone waiting to meet her and deal with her luggage, but Violet was suspicious from the first moment. She arranged it so she sat in the backseat of the Toyota with Bailey.
“What do you want so much that you came all the way to the airport to get us?” Violet asked softly. In the front seat, Arleen was talking nonstop to Matt about the funeral and who had been there. “Mrs. Manville,” Violet added.
“Who else knows?” Bailey asked quickly.
“Just us, but it won’t be long before they find you.”
“They,” of course, were Atlanta and Ray.
“They grilled Carol pretty hard, but she told them nothin’. At one point Carol nearly got hysterical. She thinks those two had Phillip murdered.”
Bailey drew in her breath. “Does Carol know why?”
Violet looked at Bailey for a long moment. “No, but you do, don’t you?”
Bailey hesitated while Violet waited in silence. The older woman looked much better than she had when Bailey first met her. She was dressing better, and the weight loss made her stand up straighter and move more easily. “There is a possibility that all Jimmie’s billions belong to me and not to them,” Bailey said at last.
At that Violet leaned back against the seat and shook her head. “In that case, honey, you could hide in one of those caves in Afghanistan, and they’d still find you.”
“And meanwhile, Atlanta and Ray are putting people out of work and—”
“Oh Lord! a do-gooder. You better get out of Calburn before—”
Bailey didn’t want to hear advice about where she should hide and how she should start running and never stop. It was only a matter of time until Atlanta and Ray found out where she was, but until they did, she was going to do what she could to find out all she could. “Why didn’t you tell me you were married to one of the Golden Six?”
“What on God’s green earth that has to do with those two money-grubbin’ murderers is—” Violet cut off as she looked at Bailey’s face, then gave a little smile. “I see. You and that gorgeous man of yours are onto somethin’, aren’t you?” When Bailey didn’t answer, Violet smiled broader. “So what’s he like in bed? And don’t bother tellin’ me you don’t know. You two were givin’ each other looks hot enough to set the runway on fire.”
Bailey narrowed her eyes at Violet. “I am not going to satisfy any of your sexual fantasies. I just want to know anything your former husband ever told you about Frank McCallum’s son.”
“Frank’s son?” Violet said, puzzled. “I didn’t even know that Frank had a son. He— Wait a minute. Didn’t I hear that he had a retarded kid that stayed up in the mountains? Never came down. Nobody ever saw the kid.”
For a moment Bailey looked out the window, and her stomach turned. Jimmie. A man as gregarious and as social as Jimmie hidden away in a cabin in the mountains. How many years? Was the isolation imposed on him or voluntary?
Violet was watching Bailey intently. “Harelip,” she said softly. “Was the kid retarded or just deformed?”
There was a lump the size of an orange in Bailey’s throat, and she couldn’t speak. The few words Violet had just said explained so many things about Jimmie. He couldn’t bear to be alone even for seconds. He craved being accepted by society. The first day she’d met him, he’d ridden the rides as though he’d never been on them before—and maybe he hadn’t.
Violet patted Bailey’s hand as they pulled into her driveway. “Drop Arleen off, then come back. I’ll tell you what I know.”
It was two hours later that Bailey and Matt drove into Violet’s driveway. They’d stopped by the grocery and loaded the back of the car with bags of easy-to-prepare food to leave for Violet, plus a leg of lamb and wine so Bailey could cook the three of them dinner. “You take Violet outside and talk to her about Carol while I cook,” Bailey told Matt. “Then the three of us will talk about the Golden Six.”