Part 32
Lily stopped in the doorway.
“How did you get in?”
Eleanor held up a brass key. “There are more than two antique keys.”
Lily’s pulse quickened. “You can’t be here.”
“I lived here for twenty-three years.”
“The court order allows scheduled access with counsel.”
“I came for clothing.”
“At midnight?”
“It is nine forty.”
Lily took out her phone. “I’m calling Claire.”
“Of course.”
Eleanor looked toward the display cabinet where the ivory box had been taken. The humidity monitor blinked green.
“Your mother hated that cabinet,” she said.
Lily’s hand stopped over Claire’s number. “You knew her?”
“Everyone knew Anna.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Eleanor removed one glove finger by finger. Her emerald ring appeared beneath the leather. “She was talented and exhausting.”
“What did she exhaust you with?”
“Conviction.”
Lily remained near the door. “Graham threatened her.”
“Yes.”
The direct answer unsettled her.
“You knew?”
“I heard them.”
“And you did nothing.”
“I agreed with him.”
The room seemed to narrow around the sentence.
Eleanor placed her gloves on her lap. “Marianne had been dead six weeks. Anna wanted trustees, architects, donors, students, public access. She spoke of Graham’s home as if he were already an administrative inconvenience.”
“It was Marianne’s home too.”
“She was dead.”
“That didn’t erase her plans.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “Graham did that.”
Lily tightened her grip on the phone. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because Claire has shown you the letter.”
“How do you know?”
“Your father called my attorney and accused us of digging up his wife’s grave.”
Lily closed her eyes briefly. “Of course he did.”
“He remains vivid.”
“That’s one word.”
Eleanor looked toward the cabinet. “Anna believed the house belonged to everyone capable of appreciating it. Graham believed appreciation did not pay the heating bills. Both were correct. That made them unbearable.”
“You wanted the rooms sold.”
“I wanted liabilities reduced.”
“You planned to remove the library shelves.”
“The shelves were appraised at four million dollars.”
“They’re part of the structure.”
“Structures can be altered.”
“Destroyed.”
“Repurposed.”
Lily took one step into the room. “You had buyers before Graham died.”
“Yes.”
“Did he know?”
“He knew I was exploring options.”
“Did he know which options?”
Eleanor’s pause answered.
Lily called Claire.
Eleanor watched her. “Tell her I am stealing a dress.”
Claire answered on the fourth ring, her voice thick with sleep until Lily explained.
“Do not confront her,” Claire said immediately. “Go outside and call the police.”
Eleanor heard. “Predictable.”
Lily stayed where she was. “Why did you bring the brooch to lunch?”
Eleanor’s eyes shifted to the phone. “You should follow your attorney’s advice.”
“Why?”
“Because I am dangerous, apparently.”
“You put spoons in a hidden handbag.”
“I put nothing in any handbag.”
“Adrian saw them.”
“Adrian wants housing.”
“He gave up his housing.”
“And obtained yours.”
Lily’s anger sharpened. “Answer me.”
Claire’s voice came through the phone. “Lily, leave the room.”
Eleanor stood.
She slipped her gloves beneath one arm and looked at the dark fireplace.
“The brooch belonged to Marianne’s mother,” she said. “Marianne wore it in her wedding portrait. Graham gave it to me ten years after she died.”
“Did he?”
“He placed it around my neck himself.”
“Brooches don’t go around necks.”
“It was pinned to a ribbon.”
The small correction carried an intimacy Lily had not expected.
Eleanor continued. “He said objects should not be punished for surviving their owners.”
Lily lowered the phone slightly.
“Did he give you a letter?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then legally it may belong to the house.”
“I am aware.”
“Was that why you used it?”
Eleanor’s mouth tightened. “I wanted the trustees to understand what kind of person Graham had chosen.”
“So you made one.”
“I created an opportunity.”
“You created evidence.”
“I created a question.”
“You tried to destroy my career.”
Eleanor looked directly at her. “You accepted a house from another woman’s husband.”
“He was dying.”
“That does not improve it.”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“You stayed.”
The words struck somewhere Lily had been avoiding.
She had stayed in Graham’s hospital room after visiting hours. She had brought him restoration photographs he did not need to see. She had listened while he complained about nurses, trustees, and pudding. She had accepted the access, the private jokes, the sense that her opinion mattered in rooms where it previously had not.
Being needed and being loved.
Her mother’s warning returned with the sterile smell of the hospital.
Eleanor saw the hesitation. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The part you prefer not to examine.”
Lily raised the phone again. “Claire, I’m going outside.”
“Good.”
Eleanor moved toward the door.
Lily stepped aside, keeping distance between them.
At the threshold, Eleanor stopped. “I did not come for clothing.”
“I know.”
“I came to see whether the house had already changed.”
“Has it?”
Eleanor looked into the hall. A drop cloth covered the table beneath a ceiling leak. Lily’s discount handbag hung from the newel post. Adrian’s work boots stood by the service entrance because he had forgotten them before his shift.
“Yes,” Eleanor said.
Her voice held neither approval nor disgust. Only injury.
She walked out through the front door before the police arrived.
Claire came to Bellweather the next morning with coffee and fury.
“You remained alone in a room with a litigant who had entered in violation of a court agreement.”
“She left.”
“That is not a defense.”
“I called you.”
“And ignored me.”
“I was asking questions.”
“You are not an investigator.”
“I found out she knew about my mother.”
“We already knew that was possible.”
“I found out Graham gave her the brooch.”
“He may have.”
“She described it.”
Claire set the coffee on the kitchen table hard enough to spill through the lid. “People can describe jewelry they do not own.”
“She said he pinned it to a ribbon.”
“That may be true. It does not establish a completed gift.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
May you like
“Yes. I have been awake since four.”
Lily handed her a towel.
