Then Hang All the Liars Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Then Hang All the Liars

  Dedication

  Special Thanks

  Macbeth, Act IV, Scene ii:

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Then Hang All the Liars

  By Sarah Shankman

  Copyright 2015 by Sarah Shankman

  Cover Copyright 2015 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 1989

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by Sarah Shankman and Untreed Reads Publishing

  First Kill All the Lawyers

  He Was Her Man

  Impersonal Attractions

  Keeping Secrets

  She Walks in Beauty

  Say You’re Sorry: 12 Stories of Bad Manners & Criminal Consequences

  www.untreedreads.com

  Then Hang All the Liars

  Sarah Shankman

  To the Janes

  Magidson and Rottenbach

  with love and gratitude

  Special thanks to Dr. Kenneth Alonso, Chief Medical Examiner, State of Georgia, Carmen Alonso, Gary Bradley, and Dana Isaacson. Also to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, its director, William Smart, and staff. And once again, to Harvey, who always takes my calls.

  Macbeth, Act IV, Scene ii:

  Son: Was my father a traitor, mother?

  Lady Macduff: Ay, that he was.

  Son: What is a traitor?

  Lady Macduff: Why, one that swears and lies.

  Son: And be all traitors that do so?

  Lady Macduff: Every one that does so is a traitor and must be hanged.

  Son: And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?

  Lady Macduff: Every one.

  One

  “May I pour you some tea?” Felicity Edwards Morris laid her still-beautiful hand upon the swan-neck handle of a silver teapot.

  “Why, yes, please.” Randolph Percy smiled.

  God, he loved pretty women, and Felicity certainly did qualify as one. Never topped a hundred pounds in her whole life. She was like a white-haired, seventy-two-year-old, pansy-eyed doll who didn’t look a day older than he, who was very well preserved if he did say so himself, at sixty-five.

  “I never saw a bit of sense in lying about one’s age,” she’d offered the night Margaret Landry had introduced them at a dinner party. “Do you?”

  Well, of course, she wouldn’t—not a woman who’d kept her looks as well as Felicity, growing a patina like fine old silver as the years passed.

  Which reminded him. He took a harder look at the teapot in her hand. Now that was worth a pretty penny. And there was plenty more of the good stuff on a breakfront in her parlor, and in the dining room he had made note of a dinner service for twenty-four, not to mention a huge beveled-glass cabinet filled with porringers, candle snuffers, salvers, chafing dishes, trays from toast to turkey, a sea of miniature salt and pepper shakers, and gravy boats.

  “What lovely things you have.” His porcelain caps were as white as Felicity’s Haviland teacup.

  “They say that my great-grandmother’s having buried the silver in the back yard, so the Yankees wouldn’t get it, gives it that special glow.”

  Felicity tilted her head as she delivered the line. Scarlett couldn’t have done it better if she’d been here on this Sunday afternoon. And then she laughed her magical laugh that sounded like someone running a finger first up and then down a piano. Felicity’s voice was only part of her very attractive package, the kind of package to which Randolph was always drawn: age, beauty, and, as he liked to say, the good things of life in plenitude. Or, in short, cash.

  “Now look what Louise has put together for us.” Felicity leaned forward from the green settee and lifted an embroidered cloth to reveal a feast that made Randolph sit up straight.

  Lord knows, if there was one thing he liked as well as gambling and pretty ladies, it was good food. He rubbed his hands down his gray flannel pants while looking at two kinds of cheese, paper-thin Smithfield ham, bread-and-butter pickles, Louise’s egg bread, to which he was most partial, marinated mushrooms, Vidalia onion relish which Felicity had canned, and homemade cookies—both chocolate lace and sand tarts.

  “Felicity, I swear I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  She smiled up at him from beneath her eyelashes, a trick practiced before her mirror and perfected sixty-five years ago. Then a glissando of her delighted laughter floated up as Randolph had pulled from behind his ear a silk orchid that he kissed and presented to her.

  “You are so full of tricks! I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

  He trained his lapis blue eyes on her soft violet ones.

  “Marry me.”

  “Oh, Randolph! You are preposterous!”

  “Now why do you say that every time I ask you? You know, Felicity, if I didn’t think you were fond of me,” he said and stuck out his bottom lip in what he’d always thought was an adorable pout, “I’d have my feelings hurt.”

  But he wasn’t so upset that it put him off his feed. He piled a plate with ham and cheese and mushrooms while Felicity watched. Randolph had lovely table manners, but, my Lord, the quantity of food she’d seen pass through his lips, which he licked with the little eraserlike tip of his tongue and then wiped with his napkin. His fastidious gluttony made her tremble. What might that indicate about his other appetites?

  “Well, my dear?” he asked between bites.

  “Randolph, we’ve only just met.”

  “That is not true. It’s been,” he said and rolled mischievous baby blues as he calculated, “two months, four days, and sixteen hours. And in that time, I’ve come to love you as if I’d known you forever. My sweet, at our age,” he said and leaned over, took her hand, and kissed it softly, “I’m afraid we don’t have forever. We must gather our rosebuds while we may.”

  Oh, it was tempting. He was such a clever man and so amusing. Why, she couldn’t remember anyone who had made her laugh like Randolph—not since dear Joseph.

  Pish! What was she thinking about? Joseph, who’d widowed her seven years ago, had never made her laugh. Why on earth was she so polite about him—even in memory—just as she’d always been the ever-so-proper banker’s wife for, Lord have mercy, could it really have been forty-one years?

  Why,
that was silly. She wasn’t even that old. She smiled and tossed her head. Felicity Edwards was still a young thing. With young passions.

  Oh, Johnny. Her breath came faster. She crossed her bediamonded wrists across her breast so that her fingertips touched both sides of her throat. She felt her pulse there—quickening when Johnny entered the room. Johnny pushed her back on a pile of fur coats in the cloakroom of a Fifty-second Street speakeasy and ran his long, clever fingers along the scalloped edge of her rose silk teddy. Johnny sang into her ear the same tune she’d heard him play earlier that evening on his saxophone. Johnny thought she was the most talented ingénue on Broadway.

  “You’re not acting with me, are you, baby?” he teased as he tickled her ear with his pink tongue. She laughed. Lordy, how she laughed.

  Look at him now, wiggling his ears. Her daddy used to do that when she and Emily were girls—gave them the silly giggles.

  “Felicity?”

  Her big soft eyes swam as she pulled herself back into the room and the present—wherever and whenever that was.

  “I asked if you wanted to play cards.”

  “Oh, my dear!” She loved the past. It was so cozy. But the present was where she lived. Well, most of the time. “I must owe you five hundred dollars at gin. You are such a clever player. I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you.” She dimpled then, for, of course, Randolph wouldn’t take her money. It was all a game.

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way.” Then Randolph lightly goosed her in the middle, just high enough to let her know that he was aware of her breast but low enough to call himself a gentleman.

  For just a moment, his touch felt like Johnny’s, and she began to drift again, but then she jerked herself back. Pay attention. “Why don’t you do some card tricks for me? That’s so amusing.”

  From Randolph’s navy blazer sleeve, a deck materialized. He fanned the pasteboard royalty before her.

  “Pick a card, any card.”

  Felicity’s finger tapped. Her old rose-cut diamonds sparkled with blue fire. Tiffany & Co. He didn’t have to guess their pedigree; he knew it.

  If only it were so easy for him to pick winners at the track. He’d lost a bundle in Birmingham the previous week. Sea Breeze looked right, he smelled right, his jockey even wore the right colors. And what did the nag do? He stumbled and came in last.

  Randolph cut and recut the cards, fanned and refanned, and out popped Felicity’s choice. Queen of hearts.

  She crowed with delight. They always did.

  “I can’t believe they taught you tricks like that at Harvard Law.”

  “How else do you think I worked my way through?” Randolph smiled. “As I’ve told you before, dear heart, my beloved father took a long walk off a short Savannah pier when he lost everything, leaving my poor mother without a dime, my sister without a dowry, and me in very embarrassing straits. Difficult to be genteel when you’re all a-tatter. Of course, I’m grateful, dear sweet thing, that you never had to know about that sort of thing.”

  “Why, Randolph.” It always embarrassed her when people talked about money. She felt she ought to have Louise pack them a lunch. Or she should write them a check. Something.

  “Now, Felicity. Remember I already know that except for the short time you were acting—up in New York—you’ve spent your whole life right here in Inman Park. Furthermore, this gorgeous piece of Victoriana,” he said and waved a hand at the parlor in which they were seated, “is equally as elegant as the house on Elizabeth, in which you were born, surrounded with neighbors like the Candlers. Is it true that old Asa Candler kept the secret recipe for Coca-Cola in a vault in the basement of Callan Castle?”

  “Gracious, I don’t know. That’s what everyone said, but I don’t care about things like that.”

  “I know.” She didn’t have to. He put away the cards. “Enough tricks for now. Let’s get out the Ouija and see what’s in store for us on our trip.” He pulled the Ouija board from beneath a table with long, slender legs carved like lilies. “I think we ought to take our time getting to Louisville, don’t you? Take a couple of days to drive it. Spend the night in, say, Gatlinburg. The leaves should be beautiful by then. Let’s see what the Ouija says. Put your fingers on the marker, dear.”

  Felicity did his bidding, and soon the electricity between them grew, and the plastic marker began to circle. She watched it slide around and around on the slick board. Was she really making it move, or was Randolph? Who knew? Who cared? It was a metaphor, she thought, for the dance that took place between a man and a woman when they stripped off their clothes, the dance that, when it was good, assumed a life of its own.

  “Oh, Johnny,” she began to sing. “Johnny be good to me.”

  “Hush now. You’re interfering with the Ouija. You can’t make it speak. You have to trust it.”

  “Oh, I don’t have to make Johnny come to me.” Felicity’s voice grew huskier. It was a very sexy sound.

  No wonder she was still in demand as a voice coach. She might be a little dotty, though that came and went, but to Randolph, her voice was a rush as thrilling as a bugle, as mournful as a dove. It was bright lights and promises and magic. It was rumpled sheets and fog horns and shiny golden rings.

  “I just snap my fingers and Johnny’s right there. There.” She pointed.

  Then Felicity stood—scattering the Ouija—and began to sway around the room, dancing to music that Randolph couldn’t hear. But he could tell that in her mind someone was holding her, someone whom she loved.

  “Yes, darling, anything you say,” she trilled. “I’d go anywhere, do anything, if you play it for me. Pretty please. Play ‘Embraceable You.’”

  Randolph could almost hear the horns in the background, that brassy sass of a big band.

  He was tempted to get up and join Felicity—wherever she was. For a moment, he wondered if he really could.

  He tucked the last piece of ham around the remaining bite of mushroom and washed it down with sherry from a crystal decanter on the sideboard helping himself.

  Could he whistle Felicity’s tune? Wouldn’t it be something if he could come in on the same note she was hearing out there in the ozone?

  “Oh, Johnny,” she cried in a long, slow moan, and the sound was royal blue flashed with fire-alarm red. Then it darkened through midnight blue, faded to purple. She flung her arms around her body as if she were holding together two halves that had been sliced apart.

  “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,” she moaned. As the tears began to fall, her face crumpled. Fifty years twisted across her skin like a shroud.

  “No!” Now her voice shrilled. It was an ugly sound. “No, no, you can’t. I won’t let you!” Then the back door slammed, and the no-nonsense tones of Emily Edwards boomed through the house.

  “What in the hell is going on?”

  *

  “Out.” Emily pointed with one arm as she threw the other around Felicity’s shoulders.

  “I don’t think it was anything I—”

  “Mr. Percy, I’m sure that you’re a perfect gentleman at all times. But my sister is ill. She’s not herself these days and I must ask you to leave.” She pointed again with a finger that would brook no objection. “Now!”

  Randolph Percy had little choice but to grab his hat.

  *

  Felicity pulled away from her sister and resumed her dance. It was a tearful fluttering now like a butterfly trying to get back outside a pane of glass.

  “Embrace me,” she whispered, a husky-voiced little girl. Then she hummed the song’s old familiar tune.

  “Felicity. Come sit down, darling.” Emily patted the settee beside her. She reached out to her sister, but Felicity pulled away, needing both hands for her finale. She stood on an invisible stage, her arms raised beneath an imaginary spotlight that played across her lovely, ruined features.

  “Don’t be naughty. Baby, baby. Momma. Come to Momma.” She faltered over the song’s words, mixing them up, missing her cue.

 
“Oh, Felicity,” Emily cried as the last note faded. “Poor Felicity.” She enveloped her sister who relaxed—like a child who needed nothing more than a comforting hug. But only for a minute.

  Then Felicity pulled back and spat, “You had to come in and ruin it, didn’t you? You always do that. You want Randolph.”

  “Easy now. Easy. Shhhhhh.” Emily hadn’t worked nearly fifty years as a nurse not to know how to deal with hysteria, though she knew this was only a symptom; Felicity’s real problems were much more complex.

  “No! There’s nothing to talk about. You always send my boyfriends away. You’re just jealous. You hate it that I’m the pretty one.”

  “I’m glad that you have admirers. I just wish you didn’t get so upset.”

  “I’m not upset.” Felicity flung out a hand, and a teacup crashed. “Look what you made me do!” Fresh tears flooded. “I don’t know why you want all my boyfriends. You have plenty of your own. Too many.” Then she lowered her volume to a whisper, a seething damp of menace. “Be careful, Emily. People are going to find out you’re a slut.”

  Emily stood and smoothed her skirt. “I think, my dear, I’m going to get something to calm you.”

  “No!”

  Felicity screamed and flailed with both fists now. The tea tray smashed onto the pink and green Chinese carpet.

  “No! No! No! No! No!”

  *

  Emily made her way back to the little refrigerator in the pantry where she kept an assortment of medications for her spaniels, her own insulin, and, recently, Felicity’s tranquilizers. Kneeling before it, she let her eyes unfocus, and there was Randolph Percy’s face—the profile as handsome as a Roman coin, the still-full head of white hair. He was a handsome man with charm to burn. She could see why Felicity was so attracted to him, why she’d chosen to ignore the fact that he was about as trustworthy as a snake.

  She unlocked the little refrigerator and reached inside. What in heaven’s name was she going to do about Felicity?

  And what the hell was she going to do about Randolph?

  She stared at the giant economy-size pharmacy bottle of Valium, which didn’t need to be refrigerated but which she’d placed there for safekeeping. Then another handsome silver head swam into focus. George Adams. He was the man to call in a tough spot. She’d talk to her friend George. His niece Sam, too. Now she was thinking. Since Samantha Adams’s series on the Constitution’s front page about that north Georgia sheriff, she’d been the talk of the town. Yes, Sam was what in her day had been called one smart, not to mention tough, cookie.