The Silent Sister(25)

“Would you like to have it?” I asked.

She looked surprised. “Oh, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I have to say, though, that I still can’t get over Frank leaving this collection to the Kyles.”

“Well, I guess they’ve helped him a lot with the park, and they—”

She made a sound of disgust. “I’ll tell you something,” she said. “I don’t like to gossip, but you should know why this makes no sense to me. Tom Kyle was beholden to your father, not the other way around.”

“What do you mean?”

Jeannie carefully replaced the pipe in the cabinet. “Your father was his supervisor back when they worked for the Marshals Service,” she said. “Tom had an affair with a client he was supposed to be protecting and Frank found out about it. He should have canned Tom, but he didn’t. He even helped him cover it up. Tom owed him his job and probably his marriage. So why would your father—”

“He’s been giving Tom checks for five hundred dollars every month, too,” I said.

Jeannie stared at me, and I saw a blaze starting in her eyes. “You’re joking.”

I shook my head.

“He could have given that money to me, if he was so hot to part with it,” she said bitterly. “I’m underwater on my mortgage, and I thought that after a six-year relationship, he—” She shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “It is what it is.”

Now I understood her lukewarm reaction to my father leaving her only the piano and ten thousand dollars. And I thought of the hundred thousand that would soon be in my own bank account.

“I’m sorry, Jeannie,” I said. “How can I help? He left me more than I need right now, and—”

She bent over and put her hand on mine. “Don’t even think about it, honey,” she said, her features softening. “I’m sorry to lose my composure like that, and I’m fine. Truly. I just wish I understood why Tom and Verniece rated so high in his opinion.”

“Do you know Verniece well?” I asked.

“Not all that well. They pretty much keep to themselves out there.”

“She told me I was adopted.”

Jeannie’s blue eyes flew open even wider than usual. “What?” she said. “That’s crazy.”

Had the color left her face or was I imagining it? “She says my mother told her I was.”

“She didn’t even know your mother,” Jeannie scoffed as she set the pipe back on its ledge again, fingers shivering. “Not really.”

I hesitated before I spoke again. “Well, she admitted that,” I said, “but according to Verniece, she was upset over losing a baby and my mother suggested that she wasn’t too old to adopt. She said she and Daddy adopted me, and that’s what encouraged Verniece and Tom to adopt a little boy.”

“Ludicrous,” Jeannie said. “Just utterly ludicrous. Think about it,” she said. “Even if it were true, your mother wouldn’t tell a near stranger, for heaven’s sake. You know what a private person she was.”

“Actually, I don’t know that,” I said. “I only know what she was like with me, not what she was—”

“Listen to me, Riley. I was her dearest, oldest friend and she still wouldn’t tell me half the things that were going on with her. So the idea of her telling a woman she barely knew something that intimate is just plain silly.”

“I guess.” I felt only slightly relieved, especially with Jeannie admitting that my mother didn’t tell her everything. Maybe my mother’d had a weak moment, touched by Verniece’s pain, knowing she could say something to relieve it. Verniece was so sweet. I could understand how she might have inspired my mother to confide in her.

“Enough of that nonsense,” Jeannie said. She picked up a notepad from the piano bench where she’d set it when she first arrived at the house. “I’m going to walk through the house and make a list of what needs to be done, starting with the collections upstairs. I can’t wait for you to meet Christine,” she added. “You’re going to love her and vice versa. She really knows the value of things and ways to publicize a successful estate sale.”

“I found Daddy’s keys for the upstairs cabinets, if you need them.” I thought of the key to his RV that I’d left with Verniece. “Do you happen to know if he let someone else use his RV?” I asked.

“Heavens, no! He loved that old thing. He called it his man cave. Even I wasn’t allowed inside.”

“It’s strange,” I said. “He has a bunch of CDs in there, but they’re all bluegrass and country. When have you ever known my father to listen to bluegrass?”

“I haven’t,” she admitted, “but he knew that wasn’t my thing, so he probably just didn’t play it around me. He had very varied tastes.” She looked at me. “And we’ve already established that you didn’t know much about him, haven’t we?” It wasn’t a question; it was a dig, and the sympathy I’d felt for her moments earlier melted away. I did not like this woman! I didn’t trust her. I just didn’t. “So,” she said, taking me by the arm and leading me over to the wall of cabinets. “You get started here going through your father’s papers, and I’ll work upstairs.”