The Silent Sister(33)
I felt the first teeny stab of worry. As much as I wanted the house cleaned out, I had the feeling I was going to lose control of everything in the process. Not that I felt very much in control to begin with.
“Please run everything by me before any major decisions are made,” I said. “And remember that once the pipes are appraised, they go to Tom Kyle, not the estate sale.”
“Oh, of course,” Jeannie reassured me.
Christine picked up on my concern. “I’ll just be making a general inventory today,” she said. “I usually have a team working with me but one of them is pregnant on bed rest and the other’s taking summer courses at the community college, so Mom will help me. We’ll be sorting and pricing things once we get rolling toward the sale. As for this morning, I just want to get the lay of the land before the appraisers come.” She smiled at me. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?” She sounded sad.
I shook my head, doing my best to look apologetic.
“You were the cutest thing,” she said. “I’d hang out with your sister.” She laughed, a deep laugh, the sort that sounded like she smoked, although I couldn’t smell tobacco on her. The last thing I wanted was somebody smoking in the house. “Not that your sister actually ever took the time to hang out,” she added. “That girl had so much ambition.” She shook her head sadly.
I wondered if she, too, knew my sister had killed someone? Did she know the real reason Lisa drowned herself?
“Well,” I said, anxious to get the subject off my family. I spread my arms wide, taking in the whole house. “How do we begin?”
* * *
I started shredding the old paperwork in the first of my father’s cabinets, while Jeannie and Christine made their way through the house. I could hear them chatting together from time to time, closet doors being opened and shut, the pull-down stairs to the attic being lowered. I was glad now that Jeannie had known my father so well. I told myself that he would have trusted her with this job. That eased my discomfort over having two people I barely knew pawing through his belongings.
Just breathe, I thought as I listened to them rattling through the house. Everything’s going to be fine.
* * *
Around eleven, Suzanne e-mailed to tell me that Tom Kyle and I needed to sign a document, transferring the pipe collection to him. She’d reached him by phone, she said, and he was coming in the next morning. Could I come at the same time?
I had no desire to see Tom Kyle, although I wouldn’t have minded talking to Verniece again. But I e-mailed Suzanne that I’d be there.
The appraisers, both men, arrived together as I was getting back to the shredder. Jeannie greeted them, introduced me, and then sent one of them upstairs to work with the lighters and compasses. The other man, a Santa Claus look-alike right down to the snowy white beard and round belly, pulled a chair in front of the pipe collection. “Nice stuff,” he said to me as I refocused on the paperwork, but other than that he was a man of few words. I was glad he said nothing about the missing glass doors.
I was making egg salad in the kitchen a while later when Jeannie walked into the room.
She leaned against the counter. “Maybe you shouldn’t sell Lisa’s violin,” she said.
I spooned mayonnaise into the bowl. “What would I do with it?”
“You never know.” She shrugged. “You might have a talented child one day who wants to play the violin. Who knows? Maybe even Danny will have children one day. Even if the two of you aren’t musical, you’ve got MacPherson blood in you. Maybe you’ll pass that talent on to the next generation and it would be lovely for your son or daughter to have a MacPherson violin.”
I thought she was trying to reassure me that I wasn’t adopted and I appreciated the effort. “I guess I don’t need to make a decision about the violin right now,” I said.
“The appraiser upstairs says he’s not an expert in stringed instruments, but he took a look at it and thinks it’s quite valuable, so you might want to store it someplace safer than the house.”
I nodded, stirring the egg salad in the bowl. One more thing to look into.
I felt her gaze on me. “Are you okay?” she asked.
I dropped my hands to my sides. “No, to be honest. How could I be okay?” I spoke quietly, aware of the appraiser in the living room. “My awesomely talented sister’s a murderer. My family may not be my family. My brother’s not doing great. And I miss my father.” My voice broke, and Jeannie stepped next to me, her arm around my shoulders.
“I wish you’d never found that box of articles,” she said. “It’s my fault. I—”
“It’s not your fault, Jeannie.” I hunched my shoulders involuntarily, getting rid of her arm. “I had the right to know the truth and I’m glad I know it. It explains a lot.”
“Your family was … is your family. Your blood family. That adoption nonsense is just that: nonsense. I am absolutely certain of that. I don’t know who Verniece Kyle thinks she is, planting seeds of doubt in your mind. Can you put that worry to rest? Please.”
The doorbell rang before I could respond. “Someone’s here!” the pipe appraiser called from the living room.
“Oh! The piano movers!” Jeannie said.
“Today?” I didn’t even know she’d contacted the movers, and I suddenly felt like running into the living room to block their path. I couldn’t face more people in the house.