All Fall Down (5 page)

After school, exhausted and still shocked by Tony’s behavior, Blaine forced herself to drive to the Peyton home. She parked in front, noting about seven other cars parked in the big driveway and down the street, and looked at the pristine white Colonial house where Rosie had spent most of her life. “I think Grandpa was trying to re-create Tara,” she’d told Blaine once. “Can’t you just see Joan and my mother sweeping down that spiral staircase on their way to senior proms? And, of course, Joan had her picture taken, tiara and all, standing halfway down it when she was Miss West Virginia. She looked
so
beautiful.”

Blaine was very familiar with that picture. It had been in the paper when she was a child, and she had cut it out and taped it to her mirror, hoping that someday she would grow into a young woman as lovely as Joan Peyton. In her opinion, she never had, although careful makeup and lighting could make her look striking. Joan, however, had been a natural beauty who didn’t need all the props.

Blaine took a deep breath and started up the walk to the pillared front porch. This was not a call she wanted to make. God only knew what shape Joan would be in, and perhaps old Mrs. Peyton hadn’t even been told. Her health hadn’t been good since her husband’s death from cancer a year earlier, and Rick said the constant pain from the broken hip that refused to heal had debilitated her mentally as well as physically. Still, Blaine had always admired Joan. She couldn’t let any more time pass without offering her condolences and her help.

The door was opened by a heavyset woman with broad, rather Slavic features. She wore a white uniform and a hat pinned carelessly too far to the right. She looked rumpled and upset, her eyelids swollen from crying.

“Blaine Avery.” She stared at Blaine, making no move to usher her inside. “It’s been months since I’ve seen you.”

“Hello, Bernice.” Blaine tried to ignore the woman’s barely concealed rudeness. She had been passionately devoted to Martin, and certainly not one of Blaine’s supporters during the investigation into his death. She had even suggested to the police that probably only under duress had Martin called her, telling her he was going out for a drive with his wife and wouldn’t be needing her services on the afternoon of his death. Blaine had not forgotten the woman’s damning attitude and insinuations, but she was determined to disregard her. After all, she was here to comfort Joan, not to confront Bernice Litchfield.

“I’ve come to see Joan.”

“Plenty of other people here.” Bernice’s face suddenly contorted. “Poor little Rosie.”

“Yes.” A chilly breeze ruffled Blaine’s long hair, and she was beginning to wonder if Bernice was ever going to let her in the house. She could hear a hum of voices in the background.

“You
found
her,” Bernice said.

“Yes.”

“She was on your land.”

Blaine stared at her coldly. She could simply walk back to the car, or she could face the hostility and suspicion in the eyes boring into her own, as she had so many times in the past few months. She stood still.

Bernice took a breath. “Susie told me how hard the kids at school are taking this.”

“Susie?”

“Susie Wolfe. My granddaughter.”

“Of course. I forgot that you’re related.”

“I told you often enough. I guess you weren’t listening.”

“Of course I was listening,” Blaine said with increasing impatience. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. The family connection didn’t come to me immediately.”

“Well, Susie’s mother is my daughter,” Bernice said, standing stolidly in the doorway. “We’re very close. I talk to her almost every day on the phone. She’s a sweetie, that girl is.”

“Yes, I’m very fond of Susie.”

Bernice beamed at the compliment, temporarily forgetting her enmity toward Blaine. Then her face clouded again. “It was so awful about Rosie, but when I think of such a thing happening to Susie…well, I just can’t imagine…Not that Susie knew Rosie real well or anything,” Bernice added hastily. “She hardly knew her at all.”

Which is a blatant lie, Blaine thought. The police know that, so don’t expect them not to question Susie like they’re questioning all of Rosie’s friends. Or did Bernice’s lie have a deeper significance? Blaine stiffened. Did she believe Blaine had something to do with Rosie’s death, and was she trying to shield her granddaughter from a killer?

Suddenly furious, Blaine was turning to walk back to the car when she heard someone say, “Who’s there, Bernice?”

Joan’s voice. “It’s Blaine Avery, Miss Peyton.”

Joan came to the foyer. She stared at Blaine for a moment, then with a small cry enfolded her in her arms. “Blaine, I’m so glad you’ve come.”

Surprised by Joan’s unusual effusiveness, Blaine found herself chattering out an unnecessary excuse. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier, but today was my first day back at school, and after all the weeks I’ve missed, I couldn’t ask that another substitute be found on such short notice.”

“I understand. Don’t apologize.” Joan held Blaine away from her and smiled weakly. The years had been kind to Joan Peyton. At forty-four, she had thick, glossy black hair that was undoubtedly touched up a bit, drawn into a neat French twist with the front waving slightly over her high, nearly unlined forehead. Even now, in her awful grief, she still looked tall and elegant with her broad, swimmer’s shoulders and firm body kept in shape by daily laps around the indoor pool she’d had built ten years ago. Blaine had always thought she had the bearing of a queen—a real queen, not a beauty queen. She wore a gray cashmere sweater, a matching skirt, and low-heeled shoes. Although she was alarmingly pale, only the redness in her remarkably beautiful violet eyes showed that she’d been crying, and her pink lipstick was askew, as if it had been applied by a shaking hand.

“People are in the living room,” she was saying, “but I’d like a few minutes alone with you. Would you come into the library with me?”

“Of course.”

“Bernice, you won’t mind running up to check on Mother again, will you?”

“Certainly not. That’s my job.” Bernice gave Blaine a final, sour look and plodded heavily up the graceful sweep of staircase.

“Just ignore her, dear,” Joan said, steering Blaine into the library. “She’s so moody.”

“She doesn’t like me.”

“I apologize for her rudeness, and normally I’d dismiss her for treating a guest in this house that way, but there aren’t many private-duty nurses around here, so beggars can’t be choosers. We had her for Daddy last year, too.” She turned. “Do you want something? Coffee? Tea? A drink?”

Blaine sat down on a leather wing chair placed in the only shaft of sunlight cutting through the dimness of the room.

“No, Joan, I’m fine.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll have a small brandy. I know Mother wouldn’t approve of my drinking in front of the mourners in the living room—most of them are her friends. I assume Rosalind’s friends will be dropping by later.”

And where are
your
friends? Blaine wondered briefly as Joan poured a snifter of brandy, took a sip, and wrinkled her nose. “Quince. I absolutely hate this stuff, but Mother loves it. In private only, of course. Oh, well, I guess it’s as good as anything for calming the nerves.”

“Why don’t you ask Bernice for a tranquilizer?”

“So she can tell everyone I had to be sedated, just like Mother? No, thank you.”

“I’m surprised more people from school aren’t here,” Blaine ventured.

“I guess they will be, later. Most of them will want to go home and rest before coming to offer condolences. Frankly, I’d prefer they just stay home. Oh, I know that sounds awful, but times like this are the very worst for the family to have to entertain people, especially when so many are just curiosity seekers, not real friends like you.” Which wasn’t exactly true, Blaine thought. It was Martin with whom Joan had been good friends. Blaine had never been much more than an acquaintance and a colleague at work. “But I know you understand exactly what I’m talking about,” Joan was going on. “You’ve been through it all.”

Once again Joan’s memories were inaccurate. No one had come by to comfort her and Caitlin when their father had gone to bed in a drunken stupor and died in his sleep from a leak in a gas stove. And no one except Joan had come to the home after Martin’s brutal death. Everyone had been too daunted by the police swarming through the house and around the lawn. But Blaine saw no point in correcting Joan’s recollections.

Joan took another sip of brandy, lighted on a chair opposite her for a moment, then quickly rose and began pacing around the room. “I keep prattling because I don’t know where to begin,” she said, twisting the wide silver bracelet she always wore. “Your Ashley found Rosalind.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“In the creek. My beautiful girl lying out there in that filthy water for God knows how long. Was it awful? I mean, did she look—” She gasped. “Oh, God, what am I going on about that for? I know how she looked. Her face, at least.” Joan took a deep, shaky breath, getting control. “I suppose I should be glad she was caught in those roots and didn’t sink. Bodies don’t surface for days, you know. That’s what Logan Quint told me. If not for those roots, it might have been spring before she was found…” She made a shattered motion with her hand, her voice breaking. “Blaine, I thought she was in Charleston.”

“I know.”

“She said she wanted to visit her cousin Amanda. You know she did that a few times a year. This particular trip
did
seem a little sudden to me, but I didn’t put up an argument. Mother has been impossible the last few weeks—I thought Rosalind just needed a break. She didn’t even feel free to invite people to the house anymore. We never knew when Mother was going to throw one of her colossal tantrums. A young girl shouldn’t have to deal with someone in Mother’s condition. I should have put her in a nursing home.”

“Joan, we can spend our whole lives thinking of what we
should
have done, but it’s useless. You were doing what you thought was best for your mother. Lots of people don’t adjust well to nursing homes, and I know Rick Bennett thought your mother was one of those people. He thought she was better off at home. And you
certainly
shouldn’t blame yourself for letting Rosie go on her weekend trip.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying, but I do.” Joan rubbed her forehead distractedly. “I asked Rosalind to call when she got to Amanda’s. She fussed a bit, but agreed. And a little over an hour after she left, around five, she
did
call. That’s when I should have known.”

Blaine frowned. “You should have know what?”

“That she was lying. The call didn’t sound right.”

“How?”

“There was background noise—traffic. It flashed through my mind that she was calling from a pay phone, but when I asked, she said Amanda’s mother had the window open. She didn’t sound as if she was telling the truth, and besides, Amanda lives on a fairly quiet street. I should have called right back to verify her story. It’s just that Rosalind had been complaining lately about my being too strict, too protective. Oh, not making a big thing out of it, but dropping little remarks here and there. So lately I haven’t been checking up on her as much as I always did. And look, just
look
what came from my carelessness!”

She was speaking much faster than usual, her voice high and tight. She set down the brandy snifter and began wringing her hands. Blaine stood up, taking those twisting hands in hers. Close up, in the bright light streaming through the library windows, she noticed with a start the small wrinkles around Joan’s eyes and lips. She’d always thought of Joan Peyton as ageless, like a beautiful portrait. “Joan, you have to stop this. Rosie was seventeen, and this isn’t the nineteenth century. Girls that age need some freedom. Believe me, I’ve learned that from Robin. I’m only thirteen years older than she, but customs have changed even in that short a time. Besides, Rosie had never given you any trouble, any reason to doubt her. She was the model child.”

Joan’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes, yes, she was. So easy to love, to trust. I just don’t know—” Her voice broke. “I just don’t know what could have happened. Do you know? Do you know
anything
about what could have caused Rosalind to do such a thing?”

“No, Joan,” Blaine said carefully. “And neither does Robin.”

“I thought she was happy.” Joan’s knees sagged and Blaine led her to a chair, where she sank down and looked beseechingly up at Blaine. “What am I going to do? How am I going to get through every day of the rest of my life after this…this
thing
that’s happened to my baby? Because she was like my own, you know. Like my very own.”

Blaine hesitated. Should she tell Joan that
she
didn’t believe Rosie had killed herself? No, certainly not. Now was not the time for her to offer theories that were probably wrong. Instead she put her arm around Joan’s shoulders. “I guess now I’m supposed to say that time heals all wounds.”

“And does it?”

“No.”

Joan managed a weak smile. “You’ve always been brutally honest, even when you were a child. Why, I remember one day when your father was here doing some yard work. He brought you along.” Joan’s voice had taken on a tone of rambling, which she never did. Blaine listened patiently, knowing Joan’s reminiscences were the result of grief and shock. “I was twenty and absolutely full of myself. I came outside dressed in my best bikini and began lounging seductively around the pool. I thought I looked just like Elizabeth Taylor. But you, young lady, marched your six-year-old self right over to me and said, ‘You’re real,
real
beautiful, Miss Peyton, but all that black stuff around your eyes makes you look like you got in a fight.’”

Blaine’s face reddened at the memory. “What a brat.”

But Joan shook her head in amusement. “I stormed upstairs, looked at myself in the mirror, and decided you were right. I’ve never worn heavy eyeliner and false eyelashes again. They made me look like a clown. And the very next year I became Miss West Virginia.” Abruptly her smile faded. “But I understand what you mean about time not healing all wounds. You were speaking of losing Martin, weren’t you?”