Jan Burke - Bloodlines

I disconnected the call and put the phone away. I turned to her and said, “Wow.”

“Wow?”

“You two had a hellacious fight, one I was afraid would end in blows, and that’s all it took to patch things up?”

“We’ve had lots of practice over the past sixty or so years. Eventually you figure out that you’ll never have enough time to enjoy the company of your closest friends, so it’s best to learn how to mend damage quickly.” She paused, then said, “Lydia called me yesterday.”

I felt my spine stiffen.

“Do you know,” Helen said, “I think she’s in the wrong.”

“Not entirely,” I admitted. “Really, my attitude started it.”

“Perhaps, but the thing is, she knows that for the most part, it’s she who is in the wrong now.”

“She knows?”

“Yes. Which is why you’ll have to be the one to make another effort, Irene-so that she can admit it.”

I frowned.

“Is the worst thing she said to you worth more to you than the best thing she’s ever done for you?”

“Not even close.”

“Then let go of it. Call her. Invite her somewhere. Not to talk things out, just to see each other, and when the time comes you can tell each other how stupid all of this fighting is. All right?”

“If she snubs me again, I am siccing you on her.”

“I doubt it will be necessary.”

“Tell me about the will.”

She sighed. “All right. I want you to understand two things. The first is that I didn’t know the answer to this until very recently. I threatened to sell the cabin, and I suppose that was enough to make Lillian cave in and tell me what had happened. The other is that this is absolutely confidential. If you feel you might have to tell someone at some point in time, it will have to be after Lillian has given you permission, or because she’s dead. If you can’t promise that, I can’t tell you.”

“All right.”

“Here’s what Lillian told me. A few days before Katy’s birthday, Mitch came across Katy and Lillian when they were together, doing some shopping downtown. Their hands were full, holding the handles of their shopping bags-you know the type of bag-big fancy paper bags with twine handles. The chauffeur had already gone ahead with an armload of boxes, and was going to bring the car around. Mitch offered to help carry the bags until the car arrived, and Katy snubbed him. He asked her why she was always so rude to him. She said something like, ‘Uncle Jack has told me all about you.’”

“I remember O’Connor mentioning that she called him that.”

“She had always called Jack that, from the time she was little. Jack was much more of a father to her than Harold was-Harold spent less than a half-dozen nights a month at home. But whatever she called Jack, she probably shouldn’t have mentioned him to Mitch. Jack’s name was always enough to make him lose his temper.”

“Because of the stories he wrote about Mitch?”

“I think so. Although God knows Mitch’s mind works differently than a reasonable person’s-he can’t forgive any injury, he’s quick to perceive a slight, and he sees the smallest criticism as a major insult. Which is why what happened next was-was the worst thing that could have happened.

“According to Lillian, Mitch took her by the chin and said, ‘Uncle Jack, is it? He’s not your uncle, any more than Harold’s your father. Didn’t your mother ever tell you how close we were, all those years ago?’ Katy spit in his face.”

“Not that I blame Katy,” I said, “but given what happened later, why didn’t Lillian tell the police about this?”

“Irene, you must remember that for twenty years, we thought Katy had drowned in a boating accident. Lillian told me she thought of going to the police about it in 1978, when you found out what had really happened to Katy and Todd, but when she saw that even Ian and Eric wouldn’t be convicted, she realized that it would be her word against Mitch’s and Mitch would claim it never happened.”

“No one else saw it?”

“Someone might have seen it, but to be able to recall a relatively minor incident twenty years later? She doubted anyone heard him. At the time it happened, she was hardly in a state to take down names from witnesses-she was hoping no one had seen it. She apologized to Mitch and fortunately her driver pulled up just then, which is probably all that kept Mitch from striking Katy.”

“What happened after that?”

“Lillian dragged Katy into the car and, once they were home, scolded her. She tells me that Katy retaliated by asking certain uncomfortable questions about Lillian’s past, and why there had never been any other children in the family, and so on. Lillian refused to answer them, and told her she should be less worried about Lillian’s youthful foolishness and much more worried about her own-that insulting a man like Mitch Yeager could be extremely dangerous. When she asked if Mitch was her father, Lillian said that if she didn’t want someone to spit in her face, she’d better stop asking such things.”

“And the will?”

“Ah, yes. The will. Katy said Jack should have been her father, and that she loved him more than anyone she was related to by blood. Lillian said, ‘This is your family, and it will be Max’s family, and you ought to be grateful that you weren’t raised by a drunkard without two nickels to rub together.’”

“Ouch.”

“Lillian said that Katy managed a parting shot as she left the house. She told Lillian to roll up all her nickels and shove them up her ass-yes, I know, not very ladylike-and that drunk or sober, Jack could do a better job of raising a child in a shack than Lillian or any of the Ducanes could in a mansion.”

“So she went from there to a lawyer?”

“Oh, that wasn’t the mystery it seemed at first. Apparently she already had an appointment to see him. Dan Norton-the homicide detective who first investigated their disappearances?-did look into the business of the will back in 1958. The lawyer told Norton that she had come to consult him about getting a divorce from Todd, something she had told others she intended to do. She arrived early-probably a result of storming out of Lillian’s house before she planned to leave. While she waited to see the lawyer, she talked to another client who was there to have a will and other papers drawn up-a young widow who said she wanted to make sure that if anything happened to her, her children would be left in the care of an aunt, and not her mother.”

“Which made Katy think of her own child. And she made sure Jack had a shack to raise him in.”

“Yes.”

I thought about all she had told me. “I’m not sure this brings me any further along,” I said.

“Perhaps not. Keep reading those diaries of Conn’s,” she said. “And come to me again if I can be of any help.”

I thanked her for confiding in me. Just before I left, I asked, “Helen, are you hoping the tests prove Max is the missing child, or that he isn’t?”

“I’m hoping for Max’s happiness and safety. That above all and more than anything.”

“Nothing more?”

“Oh, are you asking me if it would be a relief to know that Katy’s child lived? Yes, because given what you and Conn figured out about that night, if Max isn’t that child, I fear that child was murdered. I also hope that perhaps, one fine day, there will be justice. Justice would be sweet. It’s one of the things that happens as you age, you know. The taste buds go like everything else, but the last ones to leave you are the ones that can taste sweetness. If the good Lord is willing, I’d like to taste a little sweet justice for Katy.”

F OUR WEEKS LATER, THINGS SEEMED TO BE LOOKING UP. HAILEY’SSTORY on Helen was nothing short of beautiful. We got letters from readers young and old after it ran. I had taken Helen’s advice and called Lydia and pretended we weren’t fighting, which happened to work, and eventually we had a long heart-to-heart about it that resulted in newsroom harmony, greater mutual respect, and increased local sales of Kleenex.