“And so he helped Gwendolyn?”
She nodded. “It was as if he was determined to do whatever he could to make her smile or laugh. To be honest, I don’t know anyone who made her smile more often. And when he got to an age where-well, boys get to be men, physically if in no other way, and if he hadn’t started thinking about the one thing that seems to take up most of the male brain, he wouldn’t have been normal, would he?”
“There weren’t any other women around?”
“You have to remember that Gerald kept as tight a rein on that kid as Papa DeMont kept on Gwen. Only I don’t think Gerald was above smacking Arthur around. He was a kid raising a kid.”
I thought of the photo of the wedding day, and wondered if that was why Arthur looked different-was his face a little swollen?
“Gerald made sure Arthur learned gardening and landscaping-and not the type of farmwork that would put him out in the fields or in the factory,” Leda was saying. “Gerald was proud if nothing else.”
“Forgive me, but Gwendolyn’s-” I hesitated, sought a word. “Gwendolyn’s availability might explain why she was his first sexual partner, but it wouldn’t explain why he married her.”
“Gerald. Gerald pushed that. It surprised me at first. At the time, I thought maybe Gerald figured he could control Arthur and Gwen’s money both-prenuptial agreement or no. I don’t mean to say that his intentions were bad. He was very fond of Gwen, and since he was one of Papa DeMont’s favorites, he was close to her, too. He was protective of her, and he resented what my father and brother were doing.”
“You had more than one brother, didn’t you?” I asked.
“I had two, but Douglas died in 1980,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Doug left home early on, and never had much to do with any of us. That may make him the smartest of the bunch. When he heard what had happened to Gwen, he was angry, and he fell for Richmond’s theory. But I think anyone who didn’t know the whole story would have believed what Harold Richmond was telling them. And of course, my father and Robert backed Richmond all the way.”
“Because they wanted the money?”
“Yes. If Arthur had been proven to be the killer, they were the next in line for money-and not just Gwen’s inheritance. They could have brought a civil suit against Arthur, and taken his money, too.”
“But you seem sure he wasn’t the killer. Why?”
“He loved Gwen. Maybe not in the way a husband should love a wife, but they were friends. He had his business. He could have left her a long time before she died and he would have been fine. But I think he was grateful to Gwen. She gave him a way to get out from under Gerald’s thumb-that was Gerald’s big surprise.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Gerald sort of bullied Arthur. Ordered him around. Of course, Gerald was the head of the household after his folks died, and he took on a big responsibility at a young age. But he just couldn’t seem to understand that Arthur was growing up. Gwen saw it. And after the wedding, she stood up for Arthur in a way that just shocked Gerald-shocked us all, really. She encouraged Arthur to get a driver’s license and a car and to travel off the farm.”
“All the things she had never done?”
She nodded. “Exactly. And one day-I think this might have even been the day of the wedding-she told Gerald off in a way that maybe she had always wanted to tell Papa DeMont off. I had never imagined she had that much spine.”
“So Arthur felt indebted to her.”
“Oh, yes. And as he got older, I think he also saw how very much she depended on him. Maybe-”
But before she could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by a loud male voice roaring a random litany of oaths and obscenities that turned the white room blue and Leda Rose’s face red. It wasn’t just one cannonball of cussing that hit in a single shot; it was a rapid, rat-a-tat-tat, machine-gun-fire swear-o-rama. It was hard not to be impressed.
“Excuse me,” Leda said, but she was no sooner off the couch than a leathery wisp of a man wheeled himself into the room. This had to be Horace DeMont. He was closely followed by his great-granddaughter, who had her arms folded and a mulish look on her face.
You could have put three of him into that chair, and still had elbow room. He was wearing a bathrobe and pajamas, his head looked too big for his neck, and most of his hair had abandoned his mottled pate. You might not have thought he had any fire left in him until you looked at his face. There was so much anger burning there, it would probably keep Horace DeMont around long enough to get another look at Halley’s Comet.
“My father,” Leda said, having recovered her poise. She moved toward the back of the wheelchair.
“Who’s this?” he barked. There was nothing wrong with his ability to speak, but a minute earlier I had already heard more than enough to know that.
“None of your business,” she said, giving me a warning glance as she grabbed the handles of the wheelchair. “Why are you out here, Daddy?”
“I want apple juice, and that damned girl won’t get me any,” he said, taking his hands off the wheels, content to be pushed now that he had the attention of his daughter.
“We’re out of apple juice,” she said, guiding the chair back to the hallway.
Another string of expletives preceded them as they went down the hall, but they lacked the passion of the earlier performance.
“Poor Grandmother,” Laurie said, pushing a stray hair out of her eyes. “She has to put up with that all the time.”
“She must be very grateful for your help.”
She shrugged. “Somebody has to help her. Uncle Bobby’s too spaced out, fooling around with his inventions.”
“He’s an inventor?”
“Not really. To be an inventor, you have to make things that work, don’t you?”
I laughed. “I don’t know. I guess lots of inventors fail more often than they succeed while they’re working on their ideas.”
“Yes,” she said, “but they usually learn something from their mistakes, right?”
I left that one alone. “Do you visit him while you’re here?”
“Well, since his car problems, Grandmother has been making things for him to eat, and I bring them over to him. I hate it. He always wants to show me some new thingamajig that doesn’t work, or to be like his guinea pig or something. Nothing that would hurt me or anything, but it’s so weird. And then he says, ”No, wait! Wait! Just let me adjust this…‘ and that never works, either, so finally I just have to say, “Bye, Uncle Bobby, have a nice time!”“
“It sounds like your Grandmother has her hands full. Like I said, she must appreciate your help.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about maybe becoming one of those people who take care of old people, you know, maybe have a business doing that. It’s going to be a big business, you know. Because of all the people who are, you know, your age. The Baby Boomers. You’re all getting older.”
I laughed. “Not all of us, but for now, at least, I’d rather be in the group that is.”
She smiled. “Yeah.”
Within a few minutes, Leda came back out, looking weary. “Your great-grandfather is a mean old son of a bitch, Laurie.”
“No kidding,” Laurie said, apparently used to such proclamations.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Kelly, but I have a brother to feed and a nasty old man to calm down. I would talk to you more, but Laurie and I will be busy for a while now.”
“Please don’t apologize,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful. And I’ll tell my cousin what you said.”
“And avoid Mr. Richmond,” she added.
“Yes, I will. I wondered-since I’m on my way out anyway, would you like me to take your brother’s meal to him?”