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Damn.
The doorbell sounded again, disrupting the panic growing inside him. The sketch had to be here somewhere. But where?
A horrible feeling knitted around the panic. Surely Birdie hadn't taken the rendering of her mother to the gala. Birdie was at the age where nothing was more embarrassing than having your mother half naked on display for everyone to see. He knew. His mother had been painted, sculpted, and captured on film in the buff. He'd cringed every time he saw images of her hanging in museums across the Southwest.
The bell sounded again, and he wrenched open the door hoping Birdie would be on the other side, holding the rendering of her mother, ready to apologize for nearly giving him a heart attack.
But it wasn't Birdie.
It was Bart, dressed in a tuxedo.
"Bart," Leif said, confused at the sight of the man on his porch.
"Good evening," Bart said, glancing around and nodding at the neighbor and the damn dog that pooped on everyone's lawn but its own. "Can I have a word with you before this evening gets under way?"
"I'm kind of in a hurry."
"I understand, but this is important," Bart said, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him.
Leif gestured toward the sofa. "I need to make a call first."
"Go ahead. I'd rather stand. Too pent-up."
Leif grabbed his cell phone and dialed Jolene. She didn't answer. He sent a text asking her to call him. Immediately. No need to alarm Abigail yet.
Then he turned to Bart, who looked as nervous as a goat in a room full of cheetahs. Leif sank onto the couch, trying to give Bart some breathing room. Yeah, Leif and his damned infamous breathing room.
"Look,after you left, I couldn't get that night out of my head,"Bart said.
"Makes sense. I dragged it up again, but now isn't the time-"
''No, I have to do this. I couldn't go there tonight without clearing this off my mind. I can't sleep or eat or-" Bart paused, setting a hand to his chest.
"Fine." Leif glanced down at his cell phone. Nothing from Jolene.
"See, Uncle Simeon wasn't the easiest guy to love, but he was the last of my family. He cared for me, though I exasperated him greatly in those days." Bart paced toward the fireplace before turning toward the door again. ''This thing is just ripping at me, and I can't keep the truth buried any longer."
"What truth?" Leif asked, the concern over Birdie and the sketch fading as Bart's words hit him.
"I lied."
"About...?"
Bart rubbed a hand over his face. "Your mother didn't push my uncle. She wasn't even upstairs when the accident happened. I was."
"You?"
Bart threw up his hands. "Look, I didn't push him, but I was scared someone would think I did. Uncle and I had been arguing because he wanted to give his money to the foundation, appointing your mother the custodian of the endowment. He was tired of me wasting money and wanted to wash his hands of me. I, of course, was against this, so we argued about the foundation and the endowment.”
"So how did my mother even-"
"She interrupted. We were upstairs, where my uncle stubbornly kept his bedroom. With his health he should have been on a lower floor, but the silly man didn't want friends to think him infirm. Your mother called out from downstairs and his foot missed the top step. I don't know if he was looking at her or at me, but somehow he just missed. He landed nearly at your mother's feet."
"Why did you say she pushed him?"
Bart inhaled as he paused at the window. "I'm not proud of myself. I knew what my uncle wanted to do with the family money, knew he'd already contacted his attorney, so I told your mother if she didn't pack up and leave, I'd tell the police she pushed him. I told her the authorities would believe me over her. She literally ran from the house and I searched my uncle's papers and destroyed any evidence of his plans for the endowment fund. His attorney had no other recourse but to drop it because there was nothing official. The money went to me."
Leif sat a moment, reeling at what Bart had revealed. Anger burgeoned within him at the bullish tactics the man had used to chase a no doubt terrified Calliope away from Magnolia Bend. She'd left thinking she'd be arrested for a crime that never existed.
