“Several days ago he called Gary. I overheard snatches of their conversation, enough to ascertain the manuscript has disappeared. Your office was mentioned. I heard Gary say something about the medical examiner. You, I suppose. And at this point he was getting angry. I concluded Mr.
Sparacino was trying to determine whether it was possible my brother might have the manuscript.”
“Is that possible?” I wanted to know.
“Beryl would never have turned it over to Gary,” she answered with emotion. “It would make no sense for her to have relinquished her work to him. He was adamantly opposed to what she was doing.”
We were silent for a moment.
Then I asked, “Miss Harper, what was your brother so afraid of?”
“Life.”
I waited, watching her closely. She was staring into the fire again.
“The more he feared it, the more he retreated from it,” she said in a strange voice. “Reclusiveness does peculiar things to one’s mind. Turns it inside out, puts a spin on thoughts and ideas until they begin to bounce off center and at crazy angles. I think Beryl was the only person my brother ever loved. He clung to her. He had an overwhelming need to possess her, to keep her wedded to him.
When he thought she was betraying him, that he no longer had power over her, his madness became more extreme. I’m sure he began to imagine all sorts of nonsense she might divulge about him. About our situation here.”
When she reached for her wine again, her hand trembled. She was talking about her brother as if he had been dead for years. There was an edge to her voice when she spoke of him, the well of love for her brother lined with hard bricks of rage and pain.
“Gary and I had no one left when Beryl came along,” she continued. “Our parents were dead. We had no one but each other. Gary was difficult. A devil who wrote like an angel. He needed taking care of. I was willing to facilitate his desire to leave his mark on the world.”
“Such sacrifices are often accompanied by resentment,” I ventured.
Silence. The light from the fire flickered on her exquisitely chiseled face.
“How did you find Beryl?” I asked.
“She found us. She was living in Fresno at the time with her father and stepmother. She was writing, was obsessed with writing.”
Miss Harper continued staring into the fire as she talked. “One day Gary got a letter from her through his publisher. Accompanying it was a short story written in longhand. I still remember it well. She showed promise, a germinal imagination that simply needed shepherding. Thus the correspondence began, and months later Gary invited her to visit us, sent her a ticket. Not long after that, he bought this house and began to restore it. He did it for her. A lovely young girl had brought magic into his world.”
“And you?” I asked.
She did not reply at first.
Wood shifted in the fireplace and sparks popped.
“Life was not without its complications after she moved in with us, Dr. Scarpetta,” she said. “I watched what went on between them.”
“Between your brother and Beryl.”
“I did not want to imprison her the way he did,” she said. “In Gary’s relentless attempts to hold on to Beryl and have her all to himself, he lost her.”
“You loved Beryl very much,” I said.
“It is impossible to explain,” she said, her voice catching. “It was very difficult to manage.”
I continued to probe. “Your brother didn’t want you to have contact with her.”
“Especially during the past few months, because of her book. Gary denounced and disowned her.
Her name was not mentioned in this house. He forbade me to have any sort of contact with her.”
“But you did,” I answered.
“In a very limited way,” she said with difficulty.
“That must have been very painful for you. To be cut off from someone so dear to you.”
She looked away from me, interested in the fire again.
“Miss Harper, when did you find out about Beryl’s death?”
She did not reply.
“Did someone call you?”