Daughter of Deceit

Primary Characters

Monday

Bara Holcomb Weidenauer was on a mission to save her life. She sped through Buckhead on a hot August Monday, headed for the storage unit where she had sent her father’s things after he died. Winnie had had a habit of tucking stray fifties and hundreds into desk and dresser drawers until he needed them. She desperately hoped she could find a few. Her husband had frozen her bank accounts and credit cards, and her cash was almost gone.

She groped for her father’s silver flask in the glove compartment of her navy Jaguar. “A little something to steady my nerves,” she explained. She unscrewed the top with one hand in a practiced motion and held the flask up, waiting for objections.

She got none.

She was alone in the car.

In fact, Bara was alone on the street—a rarity at that hour in Buckhead. Mornings in that privileged Atlanta community, where massive houses sit on acres of tree-shaded lawns, usually feature a parade of maids and lawn service trucks, delivery vans, and women heading to aerobics, meetings, and children’s activities.

Taking her privacy as a sign—for Bara seldom took a drink when someone else could see her—she gulped down two big swigs of Wild Turkey’s
Rare Breed
. That’s what her husband kept under his bathroom sink. She felt no guilt about stealing Foley’s bourbon. He owed her.

She didn’t really like the taste of alcohol, but had learned young to appreciate the way it relaxed strictures her mother had imprinted on her brain:
Be sweet, now. Pull down your skirt. Wear a hat, honey—your skin turns so dark in the sun. Don’t let profanity pass your lips. Don’t stride so—ladies glide like swans. Don’t be rowdy—nobody wants to marry a tomboy.

Bara lifted the flask to toast the invisible presence who hovered at her shoulder, as impossible to please in death as in life. “I
was
a tomboy, Mama, but two people still wanted to marry me. Foul-mouthed losers, both of them, but they asked to marry me. Fool that I was, I let them.”

Linking Ray Branwell and Foley Weidenauer in one thought required a large, fortifying gulp. The whiskey blazed down her throat but settled like a water balloon in her stomach. It never landed as easy as it went down. Her mother’s disapproval accompanied every swallow.

She kept one eye on the rearview mirror as she drove out what she thought of as the back door to Buckhead. West on West Pace’s Ferry Road where the governor’s mansion, up near Peachtree, was by no means the largest house on the street. Left onto Moore’s Mill and past several miles of houses that were smaller, but still beyond the means of most Atlanta residents. Across a railroad bridge far too short to prepare one for the sudden change to seedy strip malls, light industry, and a sewage treatment plant. Foley had no idea where Bara was hiding Winnie’s papers. Bara had no intention of letting him find out.

She pulled into the parking lot, took one more short swallow, and continued her defense to an invisible jury. “I need a pick-me-up this morning. If I don’t find some money, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

She left the flask in the glove compartment. Bara didn’t carry whiskey in her purse. She was no drunk.

Heat rose in waves from the parking lot asphalt. Atlanta’s morning temperature was eighty-five and rising. “Why did I put on long sleeves and silk?” she muttered, pulling her shirt from her body to let in some air. Because she hadn’t been thinking clearly. She hadn’t been thinking clearly since Winnie died.

As she unlocked the door to her unit, she protested, “I know it’s been four months, Mama. I know I need to go through all this. I would have, if Foley hadn’t demanded that divorce almost immediately. Fighting him has taken every bit of strength I’ve got.”

She stepped into the dim, chilly unit separated from others by thick concrete walls. A sob caught in her throat as she saw the big leather chair and desk Winnie had used at home. A whiff of his scent glossed the musty air. He could have simply stepped out for a moment. His mahogany bedroom chest stood with its back to a wall, still full of clothes she could not bear to discard. Shoulder-high stacks of boxes contained the contents of his library: books, awards, trophies, and knickknacks. Other boxes held files from his downtown office—files without which Foley couldn’t carry out all of his diabolical plan. Had Bara had a premonition of what he was going to do? Was that why she had seized and hidden all Winnie’s files immediately after his death? She was pleased to think she had been at least that smart.

“Pass ‘GO’ and collect two hundred dollars,” she muttered hopefully as she sank into Winnie’s chair. To appease her mother’s pious spirit, she added, “Fervently do we hope, devoutly do we pray.”

As she pulled out the bottom drawer, she had to overcome a surge of guilt. Her father’s desks had been off-limits when she and her brother, Art, were small. “I need groceries,” she whispered to Winnie’s memory. “I will not beg Foley for milk money.”

An old manila envelope lay on top. Bulky, it was faded to a dull gold—the kind of place Winnie might have stuffed cash and forgotten it. When she shook it, it rattled. The tape that once sealed the flap was brittle, provided no resistance when she slid a finger under it. Inside, she felt plastic, paper, and round hard disks. She sank into Winnie’s chair and dumped the contents onto the top of the desk. Out fell old driver’s licenses, political campaign buttons, and masses of yellowed newspaper clippings. Among them were all her report cards and letters to Winnie.

No money.

Disappointed, she was about to shove everything back in when she felt something hard lodged in the bottom. She shook the envelope again. Out tumbled a chain holding a thick silver locket shaped like a heart. She held it to her breast, trying to capture a memory. She had been small, and it had thumped heavy against her dress. Had she worn it, or merely held it against her? She could not remember.

Had it been Nettie’s? Had her mother ever been sentimental enough to carry her husband’s picture around her neck? Bara would like to open it, but her gnawed nails were too short to slip between the halves, and she had no thin blade with her. She put it back in the envelope with the rest of the junk, to examine at home.

She returned to the drawer and flipped through three ledgers that had been under the envelope. She found nothing. She set them aside and took out a wooden cigar box. Had she finally hit pay dirt?

Instead, a pile of beribboned medals brought back a memory of startling clarity:

She was sitting on her daddy’s lap with her legs dangling down his while he opened the wooden box. She could feel the soft/hard place where his artificial leg connected to the stump. The smell of sweet tobacco filled her nostrils as Winnie lifted the medals out one by one. She clapped with delight as he held them to catch the sun. She reached for one bright star.

The memory ended, as many of her childhood memories did, with unhappiness. Her mother had caught them poring over the medals and put a stop to their game. “Bara, come wash your hands. It’s almost time for lunch. Winston, put those things out of the reach of small hands and curious minds.” Nettie Payne Holcomb had a genius for taking light and laughter out of life.

Not like Winnie, who loved to laugh. He had whooped when Bara had stomped her small foot at the president of the C&S Bank and insisted, “He is Winston Arthur Holcomb Senior. He is not Winnie. Winnie is a stuffed bear!”

Her daddy had laughed and thrown her high in the air, then he’d explained, “My friends call me Winnie, for Winston.”

“May I call you Winnie too?”

“Sure. Call me Winnie.”

Her mother hadn’t liked it. Nettie always called him Winston. But she had failed to make Bara call him Daddy after that. By the time Bara was ten, she was also calling her mother Nettie—but only in the privacy of her own thoughts and with selected friends.

The next time Bara had asked about the “ribbons and stars,” though, Winnie had said, “Your mother asked me to put them away.” She had never seen them again. Wherever he had kept them while she was growing up, he must have put them back in his desk drawer when he moved into a condo two years before he died.

In the dusty storage unit she rocked gently in the butter-soft chair that smelled of Winnie and sifted through the medals, her pleasure mingled with regret. There was the gold star she remembered, Purple Hearts she had thought cute—having no idea of what it cost to earn one.

She wished Winnie had told her what his medals were for. He had been a hero in World War II, had returned from Italy with one leg. Why had he always refused to talk about what he’d done in the war?

In addition to Winnie’s medals, she found a Bronze Star with her brother’s name on it, sent by the U.S. Army after it was too late for Art to wear it. Her big brother had not always been kind, and their mother clearly preferred him, but Bara had loved him. She deeply regretted that his remains lay in an unidentified grave somewhere in the jungles of Vietnam.

She lifted the tail of her shirt and polished the star before replacing it in the box. Then she rummaged all the way to the bottom of the cigar box, hoping Winnie had stashed money there. She unearthed a small envelope, blank and sealed.

It was heavy. Coins? Winnie never saved coins. He emptied his pockets into any handy receptacle when he changed clothes. Her mother endlessly complained, “You are putting temptation into the way of the maids.”

He would drop the coins into used coffee cups or empty vases and retort, “They are welcome to any change they find. I will not walk around with that weight.”

Maids. The thought of maids made Bara tremble with rage. She wouldn’t be in the mess she was in except for a maid named Carlene.

From the beginning Bara had not liked her. She was not only blond, curvy, and sly, she was sullen and insubordinate to Bara and Deva, Bara’s housekeeper. When Deva had reported that Carlene was more apt to stroke the silver than polish it, Bara had said, “So fire her.”

“I did, but she complained to Mr. Foley. He told me to give her another chance.”

Bara had shrugged. “One more month.” She had kicked herself a thousand times since.

When Deva had caught Carlene trying on Bara’s clothes, she had fetched Bara. Carlene saw her mistress in the mirror and smirked. “Your shoes are too big for me.”

Bara had fired her at once.

That led to a huge row with Foley. Six months later, Carlene was wearing sapphires and spending time with Foley in downtown bars. Bara was searching frantically for cash in a concrete storage unit.

She took a deep breath and clenched her fists. She would not cry. She made it a matter of pride. She might kill Foley, but he would not make her cry.

What was in the blank envelope?

She opened it and dumped another Purple Heart and a set of dog tags onto her palm. Her eyes blurred as she read the name: W
INSTON
A
RTHUR
B
RANWELL
. Her son’s tags and medal, sealed away and shoved down under all the other medals as if they were too much for Winnie to bear.

Pain burrowed deep and clutched her. “Oh, Win!” Tears she would not shed for Foley fell for Win. They spotted her red silk shirt like drops of blood. She had known Win was too fragile to make a good soldier, had begged him not to listen when Foley called him a sissy and taunted him with the heroism of his uncle and grandfather. But one day Foley’s taunts goaded Win into a rage so fierce that he had enlisted before he’d cooled down. Bara would never forgive Foley for that. Never.

Win had been killed in Baghdad the week before Christmas. His loss was still a raw gash in his mother’s soul. When the news had come, she’d had to be sedated for weeks. Winnie must have intercepted the medals and stored them with his own. Oh, Win! Winnie!

She had borne too much that year. Clutching Win’s medals close to her heart, she flung her head down on her bony knees and had a major meltdown.

A thump somewhere in the building reminded her she was not alone. She inhaled deeply through her nostrils and pressed her lips together, the way her mother had taught her.
A lady never cries in public.
She dried her tears, then replaced Win’s medals in the cigar box and set it beside her on the floor. Desperately she shook each ledger. Finally she had her reward: a couple of fifties fluttered onto her lap. That was enough for the moment. She had lost her zest for the search.

She powdered her face to remove traces of tears, and dabbed on lipstick with a shaky hand. She replaced the ledgers in the desk drawer, but carried the cigar box and old envelope to the car with her. She might as well run by a grocery store while she was out and had a little change in her pocket.

She entered the Publix warily. Bara had never bought groceries until two months ago, when Foley had fired their staff. She had never realized how many choices buying food entailed. Bewildered, she roamed the store amid towers of stuff she didn’t want or need. She couldn’t make even minor decisions. Bananas or cantaloupe? Pork chops or chicken? In frustration, she piled her cart with everything.

What a relief to finally reach the aisle for beer and wine. She didn’t like wine, but put three bottles of cheap red in her cart. Red wine was supposed to be good for your heart—or was it your stomach? It was healthy, anyway. Probably full of vitamins.

At the register, she found she had more than depleted her newfound wealth. Flushed with shame, she randomly selected items to abandon and fled to her car. She headed home with more food than one woman needed, almost nothing in her purse, and a barbed wire of grief piercing her heart.