Chapter 3

"Tell you what." Lowell's voice held a note of gentle consideration again. "Tell you what's cozy and friendly about this stage of the game."

"What?" she asked drowsily.

"Your legs. Get them up around me. Ankles crossed."

She did, surprised at the thrill that produced. "Oooh! I like it!"

He chuckled. "A guy likes it even more. It's one step better than hugging him."

"Well...." she giggled. "It's sort of in a different category."

"Depends on how free you are with hugging. Like a guy well enough to hug him, you probably like him well enough to screw."

She hesitated. "Maybe," she said finally. Maybe when Fue been shacking up as long as you, she thought.

"No maybe, puss. You're no 'Little Miss Prim.' You couldn't live that way. After a few days, when you get used to the idea you don't have to protect a cherry any more, why don't you spend an hour or two with all of us? We have a pretty good time once in a while." He uttered a dirty-sounding chuckle.

"I ... I'd be such an outsider...."

"Just one of the family, chickadee. Everybody ought to go through one good orgy before he kicks off."

"Kicks off!"

"Sure! How many people you think ever experience an orgy? I'll bet ninety percent of our beautiful, Victorian bourgeoisie die without!"

"Oh. As long as you don't mean me when you say 'kick off.' " She shivered happily and squeezed him, realizing it was a far more satisfying thing to do when one used arms and legs instead of arms only. "If you think it would be all right..."

"You know it, baby! Let me know when you're ready." He jabbed at her with his hips, his softened cock failing to transmit the thrust. "Not that you'll have to. I'll keep after you."

She thought about that promise that afternoon when he relieved her at Sarah's bedside so she could go downstairs for coffee and a brief rest. She'd come to look forward to those breaks. Colleen was a different kind of person from the others in the gloomy old house. Despite the woman's obvious grief over Oliver's death, she had a kind of vibrant life about her that Judy didn't feel in the others. Maybe it's just she comes closer to talking like John and Penelope, Judy thought. Something I like because it's familiar.

She could smell the aroma of the coffee the moment she reached the head of the stairs. Lowell had told her Colleen was brewing a fresh pot. And she'd expected it; that had become an unspoken link in the sympathetic bond that had developed between the two non-family members of the household. Judy had only gradually come to appreciate the gesture, but the more the others had talked about the strength of some of the brew Colleen downed, the more she realized the significance of Colleen's ritual of starting fresh for their mid-afternoon breaks.

"Aha! There you are!" Colleen flashed a warm grin at Judy. "Good thing you wasn't late. I told Lowell he better send you right along. Went ahead and poured so's it'd be ready to drink. Come on, girl-set."

With an amused glance around the kitchen, Judy sank into one of the straight chairs by Colleen's work table. The buxom Irishwoman dropped into another with a sigh, startling her cockatiel so he leaped from her shoulder into the air with a squawk of irritation.

Maybe "buxom" isn't the word, thought Judy conscientiously. Like Joey says, "Lookee the boobs!" But she sure hasn't put on any fat! No wonder Lowell watches her the way he does!

Colleen picked up her mug and raised it with a flourish. "Here's mud in your eye, girl."

Judy grinned and imitated Colleen. She paused to watch Joey while he ran down the maid's arm to perch on the rim of her mug.

"Just a goddamn minute!" he shrilled. "Coffee for Joey!"

"Okay, you spoiled shit!" exclaimed Colleen, laughing. "Go ahead and get your share!"

Joey bobbed his head, fluffed his wings once, and dipped his hooked bill into the black liquid. His lower mandible full, he raised his head and let the coffee run down his throat, his thick tongue working. He shook his head vigorously, scattering excess drops, and dipped his bill again.

"Goddamn!" he muttered into the liquid.

"Dishwater! Garbage! Medicine!" He tilted his head back and swallowed the second mouthful. With another shake of his head, he backed off the mug onto Colleen's hand. He half turned and cocked a rapidly winking eye at her. He reeled momentarily in an incredible imitation of a drunk.

Judy gasped with laughter. But Colleen's expression stopped her.

"Joey! Joey, what the hell? Joey!" Colleen dropped the full mug and caught the ruffled gray bird as he toppled drunkenly sideways. "Joey! Joey!"

Joey lay in Colleen's hand, one foot kicking feebly and his wing stirring. He peered into the face that hovered over him and made a throaty, sad chortling sound. The entire little body shuddered violently and grew still.

Colleen shook her head in disbelief. "Joey! Oh, Joey...No! Joey, you can't!" She pressed him to her cheek, her tears wetting the soft, gray feathers.

Judy gazed helplessly at the other's grief. She raised her mug to her lips absently.

"No!" Colleen shrieked and knocked the mug from Judy's hand. "Whatcha think killed Joey?" Then she turned her head away. Great, choking sobs shook the slender body and Judy impulsively put her arm around the pretty shoulders.

"Oh, Colleen! I'm so sorry! Oh, honey!"

Colleen mumble through her sobs. "Eighteen years ... a little more! Oliver...when my baby- Oh, God, he was such a sweet little fellow! Everywhere I went! Had to have his sip first...."

"Honey, it couldn't have been the coffee! Everybody knows!"

She must have had at least one mugful before I got here, thought Judy. She couldn't resist a fresh pot even that few minutes.

"Pretty baby," crooned Colleen to the still form. "Pret-ty ba-by! You're just teasing!" But the grief in her voice left no doubt she knew the truth.

"Where...where will you bury him?" asked Judy softly.

The other turned fiercely on her. "Bury him! A bird? God's only creatures made to fly. They don't belong in the ground when they're dead." She shook her head. "Come on, dearie-can't do it by myself. Couldn't stand to."

She led Judy outside to a compact little oven. "Oliver," she remarked tersely. "No pollution for him. And that was long before they started talking about it. Incinerator. Electric. Doesn't even leave any gas...except water and carbon dioxide." She placed Joey's lifeless body in a container she took from a cupboard next to the oven. Setting the container inside the incinerator, she hesitated, then sealed the door and closed a heavy switch. She cried quietly and watched the air shimmer with heat waves above the vent.

"G'night, Joey," she whispered. "Save me a dream."

Judy choked back tears of her own. She put her arm around Colleen again, holding the shaking body close. At last a small green light glowed below the switch. Colleen opened the switch and unlocked the oven door. Judy heard the hum of a blower and saw a tiny swirl of ashes sucked off the floor of the oven. There was a barely-visible puff at the mouth of the vent and the hum died away. Colleen shut the door again and turned toward the house.

"They wasn't try in' for Joey," she said dully. "Like you said, I like my coffee too much for that."

"You must have had at least one cup before I got down there!" Judy protested. "It couldn't have been the coffee!"

"Not today. Lowell brought me his mother's bedpan. Asked me to get it done so's you could bring it back up when you came. So I sterilized it while the coffee was perking. Just barely had time to get them two mugs poured by the time you got down there."

"Bedpan? In the middle of the afternoon?"

"It was kind of messy. He knows. I'll do it any time it needs it."

"But I could have brought it down!"

Colleen shrugged. "Lowell did. You know how he is with his mother."

Judy did. Half the time, if she had to leave Sarah in order to go to the bathroom, she'd find Lowell in the older woman's room when she got back. That must have been how he'd noticed the bedpan needed attention this afternoon.

When they reached the kitchen Edith was plugging in the percolator.

Colleen stared at the haughty woman. "That was a fresh pot!" she exclaimed. "What..."

Edith shook her head. "I came after ice for Mother. Two broken mugs and a half gallon of coffee all over the floor. I could see something must be wrong with the stuff. God, it stunk! You ought to wash the pot between brews, Colleen...or rinse the disinfectant off your hands before you handle the basket."

"Hmph!" Colleen stared hard at Edith but said nothing more.

Edith returned the stare coldly, her dark brown eyes looking almost black as she briefly included Judy in her expression of disapproval. Without a word, she swept regally from the room with a tray of ice cubes in her hand.

"Stuck-up bitch!" Colleen's muttered imprecation dripped with venom. "First time since they've been here she's even known what that damn pot was for! Wanted to be sure nobody analyzed what was in it, that's all!"

The maid's bitter accusation reinforced Judy's own suspicion. Interfering with Colleen's coffee rituals was a breach in the strict protocol of Garlock Heights. It was hard to believe Edith would so blatantly cross the barrier without a compelling reason. The real tragedy-and it was a frightening thought-was there was no hope now of finding out what Colleen-and perhaps Judy, herself-had so nearly drunk. She recalled Edith's fury at Lowell's continuing weakness for Colleen. Maybe fifteen years of being jealous would be enough for murder, she thought. Especially if you couldn't ever put on a show about how he belonged to you.

Edith had thrown dish towels on the floor to soak up the spilled coffee. Judy helped Colleen gather them and put them in the washing machine, then watched the other mop the floor. She heard the washer go into its first spin cycle prior to rinse.

"Colleen! Good God, Coleen!"

The brooding woman started. "Judy! What's wrong?"

"The towels! They were full of coffee!"

"Sure. That's why we ... " She stopped and gasped. "My God, girl! We're insane!"

Judy shook her head sadly. "We're upset," she said. "And it's too late to blame ourselves now."

"Don't matter none." Colleen shook her head grimly. "She'll try again. Never was the type to give up easy." She rinsed the mop and hung it in its rack. "Lookee, girl. Get that bedpan out of the utility room and get back upstairs. No need to have'em down on you."

Judy went into the utility room, removed the bedpan from the sterilizer and returned. "Maybe we could have a cup of coffee before bedtime tonight," she said softly.

Colleen nodded. "Won't be the same without Joey."

Judy could not reply. She hurried upstairs. Just inside Sarah's room she felt a rush of nausea. Lowell sprang to her side.

"Judy! What is it? Who's-"

"Lowell! Oh, Lowell!" She shuddered violently. Her knees gave way under her and only Lowell's quick grab kept her on her feet. "It's Joey, Lowell! The coffee was poisoned! It killed Joey!"

Lowell gasped. His arms tightened around her abruptly.

"Judy! No! Not Joey!"

"Y-y-yes!" She began to sob. "The ... the poor little guy ... "

He led her to the chair and helped her into it, taking the bedpan from her and slipping it onto the lower shelf of Sarah's bedside stand.

He turned toward Judy with a stricken expression and whispered. "Not Joey!" And then softly to himself so she could barely hear: "Joey! Poor little bastard!" He shook his head. "I don't know. How the hell's Colleen going to make out without him? Little son of a bitch sat right there and cussed me out the first piece of ass I ever got! Embarrassed me so I almost forgot what I was there for!"

Judy frowned and fidgeted. It seemed somehow heartless to remember Joey that way. What was worse, perhaps, was Lowell's failure to realize the implications of the bird's death. It could have been me! she thought, shuddering again. Or Colleen! Maybe both of us!

"How come it got him and neither one of you? How come it got him instead of Colleen, for God's sake? She must have had a cup of that stuff before you got downstairs!"

"The bedpan, Lowell. That's all that saved her." She told him how.

He stared open-mouthed. "I'll be a son of a bitch!" he exclaimed. "Look. Why don't I go down? Maybe I can cheer her up a little. She's going to need it."

Like I needed something this morning, she thought.

Sarah sighed when Lowell had left the room. "She's going to miss that little bird more than anybody will know," she said.

Judy winced. The tragedy would have to happen when Sarah was in one of her better states. It would have been merciful to keep the news from her; death wasn't the most suitable topic for her to hear about. But she rambled, and she turned the subject away from Joey soon, herself.

"I didn't really think you'd been taken in by that 'secret heir' notion," she said in a grumbling tone.

"Huh? What secret air?"

"No, no, child!" She frowned impatiently. "Wait! You don't know?"

"Know what, Sarah?"

She stared into space for a time. Judy decided the patient's mind had begun to wander again, but the dying woman's words dispelled the idea when they came.

"You ought to know, child. Anybody who has to be at Garlock Heights now ought to know. The children think there's an heir to Oliver's estate...." She paused, then smiled faintly and added, "And mine. Anyhow, an heir to the estate nobody knows about. It's the way he worded the will, you see. And the way the estate is."

"I don't see..." Judy felt distinctly uncomfortable; Sarah was talking about things that couldn't possibly concern her youthful companion.

But Sarah dismissed the unborn objection impatiently. "Just listen, child! Don't interrupt!"

"Yes, ma'am," Judy replied meekly.

"Most of the estate already existed before our marriage. And Oliver's attorneys and accountants maintained very careful separation between that portion and what we accumulated afterward." She smiled again, a wintry grimace. "I'd divorce the children's father. Jerome was a delightful man, of course, but he was just too stolid when it came to experimenting. And he got more and more conservative as time went on. Still, Oliver did worry about what would happen to the estate if I should divorce him! Or if he should die first." She paused and her features softened in a wistful, distant expression of revery.

Judy clasped her hand gently.

"Even this year," said Sarah regretfully, "He worried. His attorneys suggested rewriting the will and he wouldn't hear of it. You see, all the estate pre-dating our marriage was left to those persons of direct, bloodline descent from Oliver, himself. First generation to share eighty percent of the estate equally, second generation and on, equally the balance."

Judy nodded. "If Mike had kids they'd split that other twenty percent. Or if you and Oliver had ever had a child it would have shared with Mike. Out of his eighty percent."

"Yes. Except for one curious provision. Well, really two. Stepchildren, if any at the time of his death, were to be treated as if they were direct grandchildren. But in the event there was only one living child-his own, that is-half of the eighty percent was to be transferred to the twenty percent part and distributed equally among grandchildren and stepchildren."

"So Mike would never get more than forty percent?"

"That's right, dear. It was Oliver's way of telling me he didn't think I wanted children by him. If I should bear him one, that child would inherit forty percent of his estate."

"But your children would come out with sixty percent either way!"

"Unless Mike or the child I never had presented Oliver with grandchildren. But Lowell and Edith don't understand the twisted motives that drove Oliver. They think he made those provisions because there was another child he never publicly acknowledged."

Judy felt her eyes widen. "What an awful thing to think!"

Sarah chuckled dryly. She didn't sound at all like a woman who would soon be dead. "I tell them that," she said. "There's no need for them to know any differently unless such a person is proven to exist." She leaned slightly toward Judy and lowered her voice. "I'm sure there was another child. I think that child lives right in this house!"

She stilled Judy's incredulous exclamation. "Colleen, child! Colleen! A memento of Oliver's 'wild oats' days, don't you see? Norma-that was Oliver's first wife, who died when Mike was born-probably wouldn't put up with Oliver's bringing the girl into the house. But the moment she was dead, in came Colleen. Of course, Oliver always insisted he'd hired her through an agency. But what agency would send a slip of twelve to keep house for a man and an infant? Hmph!"

"Wh-what does Colleen say?"

Sarah sniffed. "What would she say? Oh, they worked out their story all right! Maintain she'd just immigrated. Imagine! Anyhow, like father, like daughter, as they say. Had her own illegitimate baby only three years before I married Oliver. He wouldn't even let her see it when it was born. Already had arrangements made for somebody to take it." She chuckled unpleasantly. "Gave the cockatiel to her instead."

Judy felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. The time span sounded exactly right. Oliver had arranged for John and Penelope to take care of her-had done it "for a friend" as Penelope put it. Had she been Colleen's baby? Could she be anything else? Coincidence just wouldn't stretch that far.

"Sarah! Ami..."

"Child, would you ask Oliver to come in for a minute, please? There's a dear girl." Sarah mumbled and her eyes had a dull, vacant look.

Judy sighed and patted the now-limp hand. "Of course, Mrs. Garlock. Of course, I will."

She hesitated, then rose, staring down at the confused woman with compassion. In that brief period of lucid memory, Sarah had revealed a secret only one other person could have told. And Colleen would hardly have been likely to admit her own origin. But the story fit. No wonder Colleen loved Oliver when everybody else considered him an irascible, eccentric tyrant! Even that might not be quite true, though, Judy reflected. Sarah's tone had suggested she had an honest, unselfish affection for the man who had treated her so shabbily.

If Sarah's story was true, Colleen was the secret heir. No wonder Edith wanted her dead! Judy winced at the bald assumption. It might not have been Edith at all. She was certain it couldn't have been Lowell; he wouldn't do such a thing. But there might be a motive for Mike that Sarah hadn't touched on.

She glanced away from Sarah and started, her hand going to her throat. Lowell stood in the doorway, studying her thoughtfully. She had been so totally unaware of his presence she wondered how long he'd been there.

"How is she?" he asked softly.

"Asking for Oliver."

"Hmm. Well, then I'm Oliver for now."

"She's terribly tired, Lowell."

"I'll get her to rest."

"Thanks. Want me to leave for a bit?"

"Good idea. Half hour, say."

Judy hunted for Colleen. She finally found her in her room, which was a modest apartment on the opposite side of Sarah's from Judy's.

"Was Lowell any help?" she asked gently.

Colleen shrugged. "If it's any help when a man wants you to climb into bed with him." She grinned briefly. "Guess it don't do a woman's morale no harm, at that. Only thing he had to offer about Joey was gettin' one to replace him."

"Why not?"

Colleen looked disgusted. "Joey was a Garlock. That's a proud name! He wasn't just a bird! He was my baby's soul, he was."

God! It's hit her mind! thought Judy. Oliver gave her Joey to sop up the mother love she'd been saving for her baby. So he became the baby's soul! And because everything in Garlock Heights was a Garlock, so was Joey.

Colleen obviously wanted no company to share her mourning. Judy left. She'd bring the woman a cup of coffee before returning to Sarah's room. She'd use the service stairs; they'd be a short-cut. She turned into the dark stairwell, running lightly downward with her hand sliding along the rail. One of the treads turned under a quickly planted foot and she pitched forward with a shriek.