Truth Be Told

by Kathleen Barber

  “Back together,” Lanie corrected, joining me on the couch. “There have been plenty of intervening love affairs. She married his brother at one point, if you can believe it.”

  I looked sideways at my sister, uncertain whether she was being purposefully ironic.

  “Listen, Josie,” she said. “I’m really sorry about last night. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Poppy Parnell has been hounding me incessantly, and then Mom . . . I guess I’m just a little more on edge than normal.”

  I forced myself to nod while I scrutinized my sister, wondering if she was being entirely honest or if there was something more sinister lurking behind her big, sad eyes.

  “What’s that?” Lanie asked suddenly, pointing at the UPS box still sitting in the corner.

  “Mom’s stuff from the LFC. They sent it to us yesterday.”

  Lanie rose silently and crossed to the box, kneeling almost reverentially before it. Carefully, she pulled open the flaps and dipped a hand inside.

  “Look!” she exclaimed, lifting a pile of photographs. There had to be thirty or forty of them, neatly stacked and bound with green ribbon. The gummy infant smiles of my twin and me beamed up from the top photograph, and my heart swelled. She did think about us when she left. I moved to Lanie’s side, and we began peeling the photographs from the stack, one by one. I was in tears by the time we reached the last one, a snapshot of us as toddlers “helping” our mother bake cookies. Her arms were around both of us, beaming proudly, and there was pink frosting in our hair and on our noses.

  Lanie traced the curls of our mother’s hair lightly with a fingertip. “I didn’t know she took these with her.”

  “Me either. I thought she was trying to forget us.”

  “Oh, Josie,” Lanie said, looking up with a pained expression. “You didn’t really think that.”

  I briefly described my meeting with Sister Amamus in California, when I was told in no uncertain terms that our mother did not want to see me.

  “We don’t know what her reasons were,” Lanie said. “But she always loved us.”

  “Sometimes that’s hard to remember.”

  “Here,” Lanie said, snatching one of the photographs and pushing it into my hands. Lanie and I were six years old, with gap-toothed smiles and sunburned cheeks, squinting at the camera, while our mother knelt in the middle, one arm around each of us, her dark hair caught in the wind, Mount Rushmore looming large and out of focus in the background. “Do you remember this road trip?”

  I struggled to remember the trip as I studied the laughing, seemingly carefree face of our mother. Was she happy then? Or did she hide her sadness well?

  “Was this the vacation where they sent us down to the pool on our own, and we got in trouble with the management?”

  “No, you’re thinking of when we went to Yellowstone and stopped at that motel in Kansas. That was a few years later. The trip to Mount Rushmore was the one where Dad got lost, and we couldn’t find anywhere to eat. Remember? And they let us eat bags of potato chips in the backseat until we found that all-night diner? And then we had scrambled eggs and milkshakes at, like, ten o’clock?”

  I smiled, the long-ago memory suddenly fresh: tired, smelly, barefoot, sitting in a shiny red vinyl booth, swapping sips of my strawberry milkshake with Lanie’s chocolate one, while Mom and Dad hunched over the counter, pointing at a map and talking with the smoky-voiced waitress, trying to figure out where we had gone wrong.

  I picked up the pile of photographs again, hoping to recover more memories. As I flipped through the stack a second time, a vague sense of unease settled over me. I closely examined my mother’s face in a photograph of her in the garden with the two of us, trying to remember the exact tilt of her lips when she smiled, the pitch of her laughter. My eyes landed on a blurry figure over my mother’s shoulder in the photograph, and I squinted. I could make out the blond hair, the pink sundress. Melanie Cave.

  Placing my thumb over Melanie’s unfocused face, I swallowed hard and asked Lanie, “Did you know about Melanie Cave?”

  “What do you mean?” Lanie asked, her voice sounding strangled.

  My stomach flipped at the tone of her voice. She knew Melanie had been having an affair with our father, I was certain of it. She knew Melanie Cave had reason to kill our father. But why would she have said that Warren did it?

  Before I could answer, a sharp knock sounded on the front door.

  I opened it to find Poppy Parnell, her right fist raised, about to knock again. Her frog-like eyes were wide behind a pair of glasses with thick black rims, and they jumped eagerly from me to Lanie.

  “Oh, good,” she said by way of greeting, practically salivating. “You’re both here.”

  “Go away,” I said, starting to shut the door.

  Poppy jammed out her arm to hold the door open. To Lanie, she said, “I came by your house this morning.”

  “I know,” Lanie said, joining me in the entryway. “I didn’t open the door because I didn’t want to talk to you.”

  Poppy wagged a finger at Lanie, a gesture that seemed infuriatingly familiar, and stepped into our foyer without waiting for an invitation. “When you do things like that, it makes me wonder what you’re hiding.”

  “This is a private home,” I said. “You can’t just come in without an invitation.”

  Ignoring me, Poppy said, “I know you’ve both declined participating in my podcast, but I wanted to make one last plea.”

  “We’re not interested,” I said. I was surprised to realize I was holding Lanie’s hand, and I was unsure whether I had grabbed hers or vice versa.

  “I can understand your hesitation, but I wish you would reconsider,” Poppy said earnestly, apparently oblivious to her ironic usage of the word. “Right now, the only story I can tell is the one I’m getting from people who knew your father casually. The narrative could really benefit from the perspective of those who knew him intimately.”

  “Fuck your narrative,” Lanie said, tightening her grip on my fingers.

  “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I know my podcast has been cast as a campaign to free Warren Cave, but that’s not my objective. My goal is to review the case as a disinterested outsider. Your father’s murder was shocking, and it’s possible emotions interfered with accurate processing of the case. All I want is for the truth to be known, and for your father to be properly avenged.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “That’s a nice line, but I don’t believe it for a second. All you want is to make money off rumors.”

  “I’m a journalist, Josie. I don’t trade in rumors. Unless they’re confirmed, that is.”

  Lanie twitched beside me. “What does that mean?”

  Poppy’s smile turned menacingly saccharine. “It means that I’ve heard some very interesting things about you, Lanie. For example, I heard that your husband was your sister’s high school sweetheart.”

  “Leave Adam out of this,” Lanie hissed. “It doesn’t have anything to do with him.”

  “Maybe not,” Poppy said, lifting her thin shoulders in an irritatingly innocent shrug. “But when the paramount piece of evidence damning a man to life behind bars is the word of one woman, that woman’s reputation had better be pretty darn impeccable, don’t you think? If, instead, she’s the kind of woman who would steal her twin sister’s boyfriend . . . well, I think that’s the kind of character flaw that could call certain other things into question.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Besides, Lanie didn’t steal my boyfriend,” I said, surprised to hear how fluidly the lie rolled off my tongue. “I decided to do some traveling. Lanie and Adam got together after I left.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” Poppy said, her tone revealing she didn’t believe my fib.

  “So now you’re accusing us both of lying? Come on, you can do better than that.”

  “I certainly can,” Poppy said, her eyes glittering behind her glasses. “You might want to tune into my podcast tomorrow. It’s a bombshell.”


  The hair on my arms rose. I glanced at my sister, but her expression gave nothing away.

  “More rumors?” Lanie asked coldly.

  “You’ll have to listen to find out,” Poppy said, twitching a finger at us. “I don’t give previews. Unless, of course, I can record your reaction for the show.”

  “Not a chance,” Lanie scoffed.

  “Think about it,” Poppy prodded.

  She might have said more, but that was the moment Ellen strolled through the open front door, looking exceedingly blond and swollen, and a little crabby. Putting her hands on her hips, she demanded of Poppy, “What are you doing here?”

  “Telling your cousins that my podcast would benefit from interviews with people who actually knew their father.” Poppy inclined her head toward us and offered Ellen a slight smile. “I haven’t been having much luck. Perhaps you could help them see the benefit of participation—or maybe you’d be interested?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Ellen said, deadpan. “Get out of my mother’s house, you hack.”

  “I’m finishing up tomorrow’s episode tonight,” Poppy said, turning back to us, unperturbed. “This is your last chance to listen to the interview before it goes live, and to tell your side of that night.”

  Lanie’s palm felt slick in mine, but when I glanced at her, her face was blank.

  “You need to leave,” Ellen said. “My husband is a lawyer. Don’t make me call him.”

  “There’s no need to be so adversarial,” Poppy said, her thin eyebrows jumping behind her glasses as she seemed to consider whether to heed our demands or whether anything could be gained from sticking around. Finally, she nodded. “All right, I’m going. But I’m leaving my card—please, please think about speaking with me.” Her cold, impartial gaze zeroed in on me. “Together we can make sure that your father has justice.”

  From Twitter, posted September 27, 2015

  chapter 17

  Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Ellen said, slamming the door behind Poppy. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I could use a drink.”

  “Hard day?” Lanie sneered, yanking her hand out of mine. “It must be exhausting having poison injected into your forehead.”

  “Lucky for you, I don’t need forehead muscles to do this,” Ellen said pleasantly as she flipped her middle finger. “Join us for a drink or don’t.”

  “I don’t drink,” Lanie said stonily.

  “Oh, right,” Ellen said, snapping her fingers in mock remembrance. “You’re a dry drunk.”

  Lanie’s eyes flashed, and she opened her mouth to say something, but glanced at me and shut it. “I was just leaving anyway.”

  “You should stay,” I said, surprising all three of us. “I’m sure there’s some iced tea in the fridge or something.”

  I trailed off. Lanie and I might have been making some steps to repair our relationship, but there had been nearly ten long years of hurt and resentment between us. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and our relationship wouldn’t be healed in a couple of afternoons—especially not when Poppy Parnell was raising questions about our father’s death.

  “I would, but I’d rather have hot pokers stuck through my eyes than have to listen to our vapid cousin talk about the latest advances in plastic surgery.”

  “Sick burn,” Ellen said sarcastically.

  Lanie gave me an annoyed look that I supposed was intended to reprimand me for choosing Ellen over her yet again. I looked away. Ellen had been the one there for me when things had really gotten bad, the one who had held my hand while I wept for my family; Lanie hadn’t been around.

  So as my sister walked down the front porch, I followed Ellen into the kitchen. She retrieved a bottle of fizzy Moscato from the refrigerator and poured the sweet wine into a pair of stemmed glasses.

  “Do tell,” she said. “What was everyone’s least favorite podcast host doing here?”

  “Just what she said. Trying to get Lanie and me to talk. She claims to have some sort of bombshell for the next episode, and said she would only tell us what it was if we promised to comment.”

  “She’s fishing,” Ellen said dismissively. “Everything she’s put out thus far has been nothing more than rehashed gossip.”

  I swirled the wine in my glass. “Did you listen to the third episode? She actually made a really solid case for Melanie Cave being the one to kill Dad, not Warren. Especially after that scene at the funeral home.”

  “Is that what you think? That Melanie Cave let her son go to prison for something she did?”

  “If she’s a murderer, why shouldn’t I believe that she’d let someone else take the rap?”

  “The rap?” Ellen repeated with an amused smirk. “When did you become a television cop?”

  “It makes sense, Ellen,” I insisted. “She had motive. She had opportunity. And there was this voicemail . . . The only thing that doesn’t fit is Lanie saying she saw Warren.” I sagged against the counter. “I can’t believe I’m letting this get in my head so much. It has to be Warren Cave. If Warren didn’t kill Dad, then why would Lanie say he did?”

  “Don’t hate me for saying this,” Ellen said carefully, pouring more wine into our glasses, “but have you ever considered that maybe your sister lied?”

  “But why? Why would she lie to protect Melanie Cave?”

  Ellen held my eyes, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She lifted the wineglass to her mouth, and into the globe, said, “Maybe that’s not who she was protecting.”

  My blood froze in my veins. “What are you saying?”

  After her morning at the salon, Ellen’s face was impressively blank. “Have you ever wondered if Lanie killed your father?”

  My extremities went numb; the wineglass slipped from my hand and shattered on the kitchen floor.

  “No,” I said emphatically. “Jesus, Ellen, no. He was our father.”

  “You’re right,” Ellen said, her voice sounding far from convinced. “Forget I said anything.”

  • • •

  Such an accusation was, of course, impossible to forget.

  Ellen knelt down to collect the shards of glass, deftly changing the subject to harmless gossip overheard at the salon. I nodded numbly and laughed at the appropriate intervals, drinking wine from the sturdy mug Ellen had handed me in lieu of another glass, but I wasn’t listening. Ellen’s words throbbed obtrusively in my head, calling to mind images of my sister smothering our mother, upending all the furniture in our room in an apoplectic frenzy, using a lit cigarette to burn her own face from a family photo. I shivered.

  “Afternoon, ladies,” Caleb said, descending the back staircase, interrupting my dark thoughts and whatever gleeful story Ellen was telling.

  “How’s the work going?” I asked, eager for the distraction.

  “Eh, it’s going,” he said with a mild shrug. He yelped suddenly, and looked accusingly at the ground. He bent down and produced a chunk of glass, which he held up in confusion. “What’s this?”

  “Josie broke a wineglass,” Ellen said.

  Caleb frowned slightly, glancing from Ellen to me to the bottle on the counter. He flickered on a lopsided grin and said, “Little early in the day to be shit-faced, huh, gals?”

  “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” I offered.

  “Not on this continent.”

  “That’s my cue,” Ellen announced, giggling into her hand as she swept out of the room.

  Caleb stood and squinted after my cousin. “Does Ellen look a little odd to you this afternoon?”

  “She says it’ll settle.”

  “Did something happen down here? I heard some people come over.”

  Ellen’s egregious accusation raced around my brain, but I couldn’t bring myself to give voice to it. The very idea was insane. Lanie might be a lot of things, but a killer wasn’t one of them.

  “Poppy Parnell came by,” I finally said.

  Caleb looked disgusted. “Bloody piranha.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded,
wracking my brain for an alternate topic. I didn’t want to talk about Poppy’s big bombshell, didn’t want to have to consider what it might be, didn’t want to have to worry that Ellen might be right. “Hey, do you have a minute to look at flights?”

  Caleb nodded. “Are you sure you’re ready to go home? You don’t think you need to stick around for your aunt? Help her probate the estate and all that?”

  “My mother spent the last decade living on a commune where they shared chickens and sexual partners. All of her belongings are sitting in the living room in a UPS box. She doesn’t have any estate to probate.”

  “Ah,” Caleb said, flashing a quick, humorless smile. “Of course. Let me grab a snack, and then we’ll get right to it, okay?”

  I nodded. “I’ll go upstairs and get my laptop.”

  But as I passed through the living room, I saw the stack of Mom’s pictures, and I grabbed them without thinking. Sitting on my bed, I pored over them, blinking through tears at the smiling faces of Mom, Lanie, and myself. Looking at Lanie’s cheery smile—a genuine smile I hadn’t seen in years—Ellen’s accusations seemed even more insane. Lanie had loved our father. I flipped through the stack, looking for evidence of that, but couldn’t seem to find any pictures of him. A feeling of disquiet washed over me. I flipped through the stack again, more quickly this time. Perhaps she kept the photos of Dad somewhere else? Maybe they were still in the box?

  Dropping the photos on my bed, I moved to the framed picture I had shown Caleb, the one that I had since propped up beside the bed. There, our father had one of his big hands resting on Lanie’s shoulder, and she was grinning, cheeks flushed with excitement, leaning into him adoringly. Ellen was insane. There was no way my sister killed our father.

  • • •

  The following morning, I sat cross-legged on my bed, emailing my boss to inform her I was returning to New York the next evening and could be back at work on Wednesday. As I waited for a response, I navigated to Facebook and scrolled idly through my feed. My stomach flipped when I saw an acquaintance—a girl who had lived on my floor during my one semester at college, and whom I had never thought about again until that instant—had shared a link to the Reconsidered website. New episode!!! she had written. Nobody bug me for the next 6o minutes!