Out Оf Circulation

TWENTY-EIGHT

The more I thought about it, the more I considered the blood relationship between Vera Cassity and the Ducote sisters a weak motive for murder. Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce would have to be the other side of crazy to want to kill Vera to stop her from claiming kinship to them.

Besides, I had no proof that the sisters were even aware of the relationship. They had the means and the opportunity, though. Even at their ages—early eighties, I suspected—they appeared vigorous and healthy enough to give Vera a hard shove down the stairs.

I also realized that I simply didn’t want to think the sisters would do any such thing. I liked and admired them tremendously, and I would be both horrified and disappointed if either of them turned out to be the murderer.

How could I prove that they did or didn’t know Vera was a distant cousin?

Then I realized how odd it was that Vera didn’t already know herself. She must have suspected something; otherwise, she wouldn’t have sent me the photograph of her mother. She at least had no proof, or the whole state of Mississippi would have known.

Essie Mae McMullen, later Hobson, evidently kept the knowledge of the relationship from her daughter. Why? Was she forced to do so by the Ducotes? Or did she not want to claim kinship for her own reasons?

I stared at the journal. The answers to those questions might lie within its pages. With a certain amount of reluctance I picked it up and found the last entry I’d read.

Essie Mae figured often in Cecilia’s journal. The young Mrs. Ducote relied more and more heavily on her cousin-companion, and within months Cecilia pronounced her indispensable. One typical entry summed up the situation.

Essie Mae is the dearest girl on earth. And so grateful to Dick and me for giving her a home, one where she feels appreciated and useful. She is more like a sister to me now, the sister I never had. She is only fifteen months older, but sometimes seems so much younger. For her birthday three days ago, Dick and I gave her a silk dressing gown, and she actually cried. She told us both over and over there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for us. So very sweet! She has spoken only rarely of her life before she came to us, but I suspect it was far more dreadful than I first realized.

Essie Mae had really wormed herself into Cecilia’s heart.

That thought brought me up short. Why did I think of it in those terms? I realized I was projecting backward, based on my distaste for Vera. That was not fair to Essie Mae, and I resolved not to fall into that trap again.

I returned to reading. There were occasional references to the baby, but judging from the tone of the entries, Cecilia seemed determined to be more cheerful, particularly with her husband, who still felt the loss of the child keenly.

Dick so desperately wants a child. I know he would love a son to carry on the Ducote name. He is an only child, and now that his father is gone, he is the only male Ducote left. I want so much to give him a son and am quite willing to try, but he is terrified that another pregnancy will be dangerous. I suspect the doctor told him things that neither of them shared with me about my health. I have taxed him with that, but he always evades the questions. Once I suggested that we adopt a child, but he was adamant. I don’t think I have ever seen him so furious. Only a child of his blood would be good enough to inherit River Hill. The Ducote bloodline must carry on.

I frowned. Had Cecilia been able to overcome Dick’s objections to adoption? Or was the doctor wrong after all? I began to have suspicions that the answer to both questions was no.

I skimmed through ten pages of routine journal entries, mostly accounts of social engagements. I found an amusing reference to Hester Beauchamp, who I figured must be the grandmother of Hank and Sissy. According to Cecilia, Hester was a homely frump and a vicious gossip. Neither Hank nor Sissy inherited his or her looks from Granny Hester, that much was obvious.

I turned a page, and my eyes widened in shock, even though I had begun to suspect what I read.

There is to be a child with Ducote blood after all. Essie Mae is with child, and Dick confessed shamefacedly that the child is his. I am sick over this double betrayal. Not one, but two vipers I have nursed in my bosom!!!

Poor Cecilia. Perhaps my assessment of Essie Mae’s character hadn’t been off after all.

The next entry was dated four days later.

I am trying to reconcile myself to the fact that my husband and his concubine are having a child. I tried to insist that Essie Mae be sent away forever because I can’t stand to have her near me, but Dick refused. He has grown callous in a way I never suspected he could be. He is determined to have a child. What am I to do?

I felt heartsick for Cecilia. I could only imagine the depth of her outrage and her hurt. I also realized that Essie Mae’s child had to be Miss An’gel, and that was hard to grasp. Vera and Miss An’gel were half sisters.

What about Miss Dickce? I read on.

Essie Mae and I are going to North Carolina for the next six months. Dick is telling everyone that I am “in an interesting condition,” and that I need time in the clear mountain air to be sure to deliver a healthy child. No one besides the three of us knows the truth, and we will leave before Essie Mae grows large enough with child to reveal the shameful secret. When we return, the child will be considered my own. Essie Mae has agreed to this. She is terrified, of course, that she will be sent away once the baby is born, but I will reserve judgment on that.

The next entry came six months later.

Essie Mae was delivered of a girl this morning. One glimpse of that angelic little face, and I was lost. The child is the innocent in all this, and I will not visit the sins of her father and mother upon her. She is so like a little angel that I have decided that shall be her name. It should have a French sound, however, so her name will be An’gel. An’gel Ducote. Dick will not dare argue with me over this. He of course will be disappointed that my An’gel is not a boy, but perhaps the Lord has decided to repay him in this way for his perfidy.

I was so absorbed in my reading that I completely forgot my napping cat. Diesel took care of that by butting the back of my head several times to get my attention. I took a minute to reassure him that he was still wonderful and that I adored him, and he purred in satisfaction. When he’d had enough he went back to napping, and I returned to the journal.

From that point on I skimmed even more rapidly, searching for mention of a second child. Cecilia grew reconciled to the presence of Essie Mae in the household, and everyone within the house and without apparently accepted An’gel without question as the child of Cecilia and Richard. At first Dick had little to do with his daughter, severely disappointed that she wasn’t a son. Eventually the child won him over, however.

I was rather glad to read that. I would have hated to think that Miss An’gel wasn’t cherished by her father.

When An’gel was a year old, Cecilia began to long for another child. Richard continued to refuse to risk her health and at last confided in her that the doctor had said another pregnancy might kill her. She battled with her emotions in the pages of her journal, but she finally resolved to ask Dick to father another child with Essie Mae.

That shocked me, but I could understand Cecilia’s longing for another baby. At least, as she reasoned to herself, a second child would be a full sibling to little An’gel. Richard readily agreed to the scheme, but Essie Mae took more persuading. She soon consented, however, and within two months was with child again.

They followed the same procedure as before. Away Cecilia and Essie Mae went to the mountains of North Carolina, and six months later came home with another baby, again a daughter, this time named Richelle after her father. I knew that at some point Richelle became Dickce, a nickname formed from the names of her legal parents, Dick and Cecilia (often called Kitce by Dick, I discovered, Kit for Katherine and Ce for Cecilia).

I had a slight headache now from reading the cramped handwriting, and I set the book aside even though there were more pages left to read. I wanted to consider the implications of the true relationship between Vera Cassity and the Ducote sisters.

Being a distant cousin was one thing. Being a full sister or a half sister—especially if Vera had been able to prove the relationship—was quite another.

If she were their full sister, Vera might have some claim to her father’s estate—worth millions, if rumors about the Ducote fortune were accurate.

That was not a crazy motive for murder.