Motion to Kill

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

She reddened, stood, and walked toward the bookshelves. Mason gripped the arms of his chair to keep from cutting her off before she noticed his phone. She stopped at Sullivan’s desk and took his seat.

“He said something about it once, a long time ago.”

“What did he tell you?”

Her eyes filled with the memory. “That he’d gotten some girl pregnant a long time ago but didn’t find out until years later. Once he found out, he paid support but never saw the child.”

“That must have been torture for you. To be right there in front of him and realize he didn’t know you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! Pamela, get him out of here. We don’t have to listen to this!”

Mason glanced up at Pamela, whose face was a furious mask. Diane pushed the desk chair back against the credenza. Her eyes were wild. Mason reached in his jacket and opened the Bible in his lap.

“Pamela, there’s an old man lying in a nursing home in Rogersville. He’s in a coma. His name is Vernon Phillips. This is his Bible. His family tree makes interesting reading.”

“Where did you get that?” Diane hissed, her body taut, ready to spring at him.

“Homework, Alice. When did you take your grandmother Diane Farrell’s name? Were you just being clever or did you want Sullivan to figure it out on his own?”

“My mother loved him, gave herself to him, and he pissed on her-on both of us!” she screamed. A lifetime of venom contorted her face.

“He paid child support.”

“Money! She didn’t want his money! She wanted him! But Pamela, beautiful Pamela, got him. And we got nothing.”

“You couldn’t stand that he didn’t want you-didn’t even want to see you,” Mason said, driving each nail slowly. “When did Meredith tell you about him?”

She was startled at his use of her mother’s name. It was another invasion of her life. Mason was Sherman marching through Georgia, and he was just warming up.

“Did she tell you Daddy was dead or that she didn’t know who your daddy was? Or maybe she didn’t tell you anything at all. Then one day, you found a check from a man you’d never heard of before.”

Diane/Alice bolted from her chair, leaning hard on the desk. Mason had scored a direct hit. The words poured out of her in a torrent.

“When I was thirteen, she wrote him a letter begging him to acknowledge me. He sent it back unopened with a check. My mother left it out where she knew I would find it. That’s how she told me!”

“And working for him was your way of getting even? Wasn’t it worse when he didn’t recognize you or your name? Surely he must have remembered Meredith’s mother?”

“My grandmother died when my mother was young. He’d have never known her.”

“But still, not to recognize you at all. There had to be some family resemblance.”

Mason shook his head sympathetically. Pamela stood as still as Lot’s wife as he moved from his chair to the arm of the sofa. He couldn’t predict what Diane would do if he kept pushing her, and he wanted more mobility.

“When did you finally tell him?”

“Last January.”

“Just before he revoked his will. What was his reaction?”

“He told me to keep my mouth shut and my billable hours up.”

“That’s it?”

“We made a deal. I told him all I wanted was my inheritance. I didn’t care if anyone knew, so long as I got my share.”

“Why not make you a beneficiary in the will?”

“That was too public an acknowledgment. This way, if Pamela died first, I’d get everything as the only heir.”

“How were you going to prove paternity?”

“He took a blood test when I was ten. That’s when he started paying child support. And I made him sign something.”

“Where is it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Mason remembered that Angela had told Sandra that there was something else she wanted to talk with her about.

“Angela found it, didn’t she?”

Diane’s face softened and then hardened again as she sensed where he was headed.

“Mason, I’m getting tired of this.”

She stepped away from the desk. He stood as she reached behind the Carl Sandburg biography of Lincoln and turned around, holding Pamela’s gun.

“Oh shit,” Mason said.

“How right you are.”