Grave Deeds. Betsy Struthers
pushed against one wall was a crowd of picture frames. I headed straight for it.
“Just a minute,” Wilson said. “You’re not to touch anything.”
The three men pushed into the room, Markham edging in front of the two cops. He grabbed my arm. I pulled away from him and in doing so backed into the table. The frames fell like a set of dominoes, one after the other, knocking pictures flat. I grabbed a silver oval disc as it slipped over the edge.
“My goodness,” Mr. Ross exclaimed. “Be careful, Roger. Come and sit down, Mrs. Cairns. That is your name now, isn’t it?”
He pointed with his stick at the sofa. I obeyed, still clutching the photo in my hands. Markham muttered an apology and stood back, almost but not quite leaning against the wall. Gianelli looked at one of the armchairs for a moment, as if tempted to sit, but the dust and the layer of cat hairs that covered it discouraged him. Wilson didn’t mind. He plunked down so heavily on the other end of the sofa that I distinctly heard a spring pop.
Mr. Ross sat on the edge of the huge chair, his hands folded on top of the cane, his chin nearly resting on them. He had taken off his hat and placed it on the floor where it rested, like a contented cat curled by his feet.
Gianelli was determined to take control of the interview. “You claim that this woman is a relative of the deceased?” he asked the old lawyer again.
“Of course, young man. I helped Beatrice locate her. There’s not much of the family left and she felt badly about what had happened. She wanted to make amends.”
“What did happen?” Wilson asked.
“It was long ago,” the old man waved a hand. “Nothing to do with this. An old story.
” “I’d like to know,” I said.
“The point is,” Markham added, “that she will now inherit considerable property.”
“What?” I said at the same moment that Gianelli asked, “This house?”
Mr. Ross shook his head. “No, no. Her grandfather’s summer home. Did your mother never tell you about the Cooks?” he said to me.
I shook my head, staring down at the yellowed photograph in my hand. Posed in front of a draped curtain and Grecian urn were two children, the boy dressed in a sailor suit with knee pants and a white cap, the girl in a lacy dress that reached to her ankles.
“Who are they?” I asked, handing the picture to Mr. Ross.
He studied it, holding it out at arm’s length. “That would be your grandfather and your great-aunt Beatrice when they were children. This must be in the library of the Cook house over on Brunswick Avenue. It’s gone now.”
“Excuse me,” Gianelli broke in. “But what property are you talking about? That she inherits?” He jerked his thumb at me.
“The original Cook claim: one hundred acres of farm land up north. Beatrice wanted Mrs. Cairns to have it. It’s rightfully hers after all, has been for years.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Markham interrupted.
Mr. Ross turned on him. “You, boy, you don’t know the half of it. There’s what’s legal and there’s what’s right. Beatrice wanted to do what’s right and I, as her lawyer and the executor of the estate, am going to carry out her wishes.”
“Other people have interests here,” Markham objected.
“Other people have no business in what doesn’t concern them,” the old man snapped. “Your job is to manage accounts, not make decisions about my clients. Not that you’ve left me that many. But Beatrice trusted me, and I made sure her will was up-to-date and binding. There’s no question of contest. No question at all.”
“Perhaps you’ll explain what you’re talking about?” Gianelli asked.
“We’ll begin at the beginning,” the old man leaned back in the chair, his voice already slipping into the slight singsong of the raconteur.
Wilson sighed. He patted a pocket as if looking for cigarettes. He shook his head and began to pick idly at a loose hair on the arm of the sofa. He must have just quit smoking. He had that yearning look.
Mr. Ross launched into his story. “The Cooks came over from Belfast in the middle of the last century and took up land in Haliburton. One hundred acres of rock and swamp on the shore of a big lake they named for themselves. The oldest boy left for the city, went into the undertaking business, while the daughter’s husband, a McDonnel, tried to keep the farm going. There were two younger boys, but they went out west and lost touch with the others.”
“So there are McDonnel cousins and other Cooks as well?” I asked.
He ignored my interruption. “The McDonnels fell on hard times while George Cook prospered, as did his son. He paid the taxes while the McDonnels worked the land. Then your grandfather decided to give his new wife a summer home. This was about 1925 or ’26, something in there. He claimed the lake property back.”
“What about the McDonnels? Wasn’t the place theirs?”
The old lawyer shrugged. “Those who pay the taxes own the land. And remember, George had title. The McDonnels threatened to sue, but they didn’t have a leg to stand on. One of them still lives up there somewhere, I believe. He’d be an old man by now.”
Wilson looked at his watch. “What’s this got to do with Mrs. Cairns and the old lady?”
“Ah well,” Mr. Ross said. “It all comes down to family in the end, who belongs, who doesn’t. George, her grandfather,” he jabbed his thumb at me, “hated his son’s English wife, specially after she left him. He almost wrote little Rosalie out of his will. But she was family, and, after young George died, she was the last of the Cooks. So he wanted her to have the property in the end.”
“When?” I asked. “When did he die?”
“In 1961.”
“Then why did no one contact me until now?”
“Let me finish,” Mr. Ross commanded. “Your grandfather hated your mother.” He held up his hand to quiet my objections. “Even after she left young George and wouldn’t take any maintenance from him. Old George couldn’t forgive her.”
“For leaving her husband? But he beat her,” I protested. I squeezed my eyes shut. I would not allow myself to cry in front of these men.
“That’s what she said, but I never saw any bruises. He said he slapped her once, when she insisted on going out instead of taking care of you. Your grandmother never believed he would hurt any woman, not on purpose, not without being provoked. She said your mother never got over the war, the rationing and misery. That she married your father to get out of England and then wouldn’t settle down to be a proper wife and mother.”
“She was a wonderful mother,” I protested. “She worked really hard for both of us.”
“That’s as may be,” Mr. Ross said. “Fact is, she left young George and took you with her, wouldn’t let your grandparents see you. I tried to help. I even got her a job with a friend of mine…”
“Mr. McIntosh? You knew Mr. McIntosh?” I broke in. My mother’s employer had been like an elderly uncle to me. On my rare visits to the office, he always spoke to me about school and friends while offering a choice of biscuits from the tin he kept on his desk. And at Christmas there was always a wrapped present under the tree for me from him.
“When I saw how determined she was, I figured it was best to leave her where we could keep tabs on her. It was a good job she had there; she worked herself up from receptionist to secretary. She made me promise not to tell the family where you lived. She said that if George ever tried to contact her, she’d take you and disappear. He asked me often enough, but I never told.”
“He never visited us.” I remembered my old sorrow, my