“I didn’t think anyone would look,” he said, as the clouds darkened the night again.
“Bull,” she said. “You knew exactly what you were doing. Planting evidence in my office.”
“It was your evidence,” he said as moonlight, then shadow, rushed over us. “Not mine. You’re the one who just had to hit her. Whatever made you choose your own statuette? Madness, I say.”
“Madness? Is that what you call it?” I could hear her voice rise. “I only wanted a little money to help my husband.”
“Of course,” Doctor Wilson said. “That’s why you bought a ticket to Belize. Yes, I know about that. You know the pretty little thing at the agency?” He laughed, “hehe.”
Patsy snorted angrily. “Another of your conquests. You… you ass!”
So, apparently, she wasn’t a conquest. What were they? Long time friends and murder pals? It definitely sounded like they’d done the deed together. Though, perhaps, each for their own purposes.
Light broke over us as clouds scuttled past. Patsy’s pistol had dropped, just a bit, but maybe I had a plan. I nudged Emma, hoping she would understand. Clouds plunged us into darkness again, and holding my sister’s hand, I sprinted for the trail she’d pointed out. She hung back only a second, but as my arm jerked backward from her lack of motion she suddenly got it and started after me—rather like train cars just getting started.
The bark of a gun broke the silence.
“Ouch! You shot me.” Doctor Wilson shouted angrily. I didn’t turn to look.
“I grazed you.”
Jeez, what were they, the Keystone Cops?
The gun flashed again! Or it might have been lightning. We dove into the cover of the tree lined path that I’d seen earlier. The one Tonya had come up years ago. We paused in the near darkness. Patsy and Doctor Wilson crashed towards us through the darkness.
“I can’t see a thing,” she said.
“Obviously. It’s dark.” His voice held a note of contempt. The sound of their movements halted. “Let me try my cell phone.” I could see it blink on through the trees. Then off. Then on again. “Damn thing!”
“Let me try,” Patsy said as her own cell blinked on. Then off.
I stifled a giggle. This wasn’t the time or place, and it really wasn’t funny! We could both be killed. But, the two of them fighting with their cell phones… how many times had I done that? Screen Timeout was suddenly my favorite feature.
“I have a flashlight app somewhere on this thing.”
Crud.
“I can’t believe you came out here without a plan,” Emma whispered.
“I didn’t expect everybody to accept my invitation!”
I could hear Laurel and Hardy hoofing it toward us again. But, no light. I guessed they’d given up. “Hey, remember Earl?”
She did. I could tell as she crossed to the left side of the trail. We’d played the game often enough on him. And he never figured it out. I shoved back into the shrubbery on my side, and hoped we were both hidden from view. Especially if someone’s cell phone light clicked on again. We could hear Patsy and the doctor nearing the trail. Then, they were on it. One. Two. Three. I counted. Patsy first, followed by Wilson. I leaped.
Chapter Thirty-Six
What kind of person challenges a murderer without a plan? Worse yet, three possible murderers? The kind of person who doesn’t expect to come out alive. I hadn’t expected to. When I left the necklace on the seat of the Jeep, I’d made a choice. I didn’t know it, then. Not until Doctor Wilson showed up, I think. And I knew for sure when Patsy brought her gun. I hadn’t cared anymore.
But, then there was my sister. I could end my own life through my own folly. I couldn’t end hers. I fought, and I scratched like a she-lion for my kid sister’s life. I bought her time to get down the path to safety. In our game on Earl we’d jump on him together, then she’d take off for home with his hat, or his shoe, or the apple out of his hand. Whatever. So that’s what I expected. For her to run. A strange thing happened, though. She didn’t leave. She fought for me, too. We had been apart for thirty-eight years. Then, when she needed me the most, I was finally there for her. And when I needed her… she stayed by my side.
We didn’t have a chance. I knew that, but a miracle happened, just when Warren Wilson’s hands had found their way around my throat, and lights began to flash behind my eyes. He was there, and then suddenly, he wasn’t. Like the hand of God. I felt something under me as my vision returned, and as I became aware of more than my life disappearing. I thought it was a rock, and rolling off of it, I grabbed it. It wasn’t a rock, it was the gun. I aimed it high, and pulled the trigger. It sprang to life with a bang, and a flash of light.
Everything paused.
Then it was dark again. And then flashing blue and red lights penetrated the darkness.
❃ ❃ ❃
We gathered in Mother’s living room. She sat in her green chair. Someone had got her a crochet hook, and taught her how to make a chain. Four old women clustered around the black game table by the front window. Maria Montoya, Dee Garfield, Donna Trueblood, and Paisley Jones. I sat in the fifth chair, the one my mother used to occupy, before the series of mini-strokes turned her into a fictional sleuth. They had become my family.
Football strolled into the room, and slid under the table. He purred, and rubbed my ankles, so I picked him up. He settled in my lap.
“Tell us,” Dee said.
I’d told it before, and, no doubt, I’d be called on to tell it again.
“It began with the murder of Tonya Romero,” I said.
I’d had to piece the story together, after everything was over. Most of that story I got from my sister, Emma. And a little from Patsy Daniels, Joe Gonzalez, and Anthony Sanders.
Back when my sister was just fourteen years old, she’d befriended the older girls. Tonya, Tammy Lynn, and Patsy. The three were cheerleaders, and Emma felt really honored to be their friend. As was often the case, however, she was there simply to do their bidding.
Tonya and her boyfriend, Joe, had a fight the night of the keg party. Rumor said she was pregnant, but that was never confirmed. Regardless, they’d had a car accident on the road leading to Lover’s Lane. Joe left her in the car, hoping to get help. But when he, and some friends returned, Tonya was gone.
What nobody, except Patsy, knew was that Tonya had left the car. They got into their own argument, and Patsy smacked her on the head with a branch and ran back to the party thinking she’d killed her. But, she hadn’t. Tonya took the forest trail and arrived back at the party. That’s when they were all caught in the photo. Tonya was disoriented from her head injury and the others were too drunk to realize they needed to get her to the hospital. So, the girls decided to go home, but they blamed Emma for being too young to stay, as if it was her fault they had to leave.
Emma drove. Before they got back to the bridge, Tonya fell asleep in the back seat. But, Tammy Lynn and Patsy thought Tonya had died. When they got to the picnic grounds, Tammy Lynn and Patsy ordered Emma to pull off the road. They didn’t want to be found with a dead girl in their car, so they dumped Tonya into the river.
The next day, Tonya’s body was found by the police. As the last person to have seen her alive, Joe was taken into custody. Anthony, went to jail, too, because of the lies he told trying to cover for his friend. It came out sounding like both boys had killed her together.
Emma knew the boys weren’t to blame. But Tammy Lynn and Patsy threatened her. So, she kept quiet. This was the source of my sister’s guilt.
Lonnie and the D.A. decided not to arrest Emma. He said she’d been under the influence of the older two girls. Patsy, however, confessed to the crime. He said that Joe Gonzalez and Anthony Sanders would receive apologies from the state for the time they spent in prison.
Tammy Lynn Wilson’s murder wasn’t exactly related to Tonya’s, except that Patsy was forever worried that Tammy Lynn and Emma would someday spill the beans. Patsy Daniels and Doctor Warr
en Wilson cooperated in the murder of Tammy Lynn Wilson. Patsy, because Tammy Lynn had caught her embezzling, and the good doctor, because he wanted the freedom to pursue whomever he pleased. Whenever he pleased.
I told the story for the umpteenth time.
“What’s going to happen to Patsy’s husband?” I turned to Maria, who was the de facto leader of the group. Not counting Mother and her delusions.
“He’ll be fine without her,” she said. “He’s really not as rude as he came across. Apparently, his pain killers do that.”
“Ah.”
“But, he’s terminal.”
Everyone sighed and nodded sadly. Then, Dee laughed, in her tinkly, little girl giggle. “He used to always play Santa.”
I couldn’t see it, but… okay.
“Who were you talking to at the river, Mother?”
“When, Raymond, dear?”
“When you disappeared. You were talking to a woman. She said that she loved Tonya.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I spun around in my seat. “You have to! It must have been Emma.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t been to the river in years, dear. Perhaps we could take a trip to the shore? I know a cute little hotel in Brighton.”
I rolled my eyes. What Marple murder took place there?
“Hey, how about the envelopes?” I turned to look from face to face. “Has anyone figured out who was sending us the hints in the envelopes?”
“That would be me.” A man’s voice came from the kitchen, followed by the man, himself. Laden with a tray, he delivered cups and tea all around. I jumped out of my chair.
“Dad!”
He smiled sheepishly, and ducked his head as he handed a cup to Mother.
“Thank you,” Mother said as she took it. “Raymond… I’d like you to meet my friend, Sir Henry. How are you getting along with your construction project?”
“Very well, Jane,” he said. “The adobe… er… cottage behind the workshop is in livable condition now.”
“Daddy! I thought you were in Costa Rica,” I ran over and hugged him.
He hugged me back, then put a finger against my lips. He wagged his eyebrows and tipped his head toward mother. “I used to be the handyman from The Four Suspects. It appears I’ve graduated to the teller of that particular tale. And to the level of a friend.”
Someone banged on the door, and my dad… er… Sir Henry, answered. “Hi Lonnie,” he said.
My heart jolted as he entered the room. I felt cold, then hot, then thought I might pass out. And then I was mad because he hadn’t said anything about my father. “You knew?”
“For a while,” he said. He avoided looking at me. He took off his cowboy hat. “He asked me to keep it secret. For her sake.” He indicated Mother with the hat.
He caught my eye, then hitched his head toward the door. I followed him outside, and leaned against the side of the Jeep. “I suppose my dad’s going to want this old thing back?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “This is a walking town. And if he needs a ride, he’s always got you.”
“That’s true.”
“Did you know your parents never got divorced?”
“Wait! What?” I couldn’t believe it. I’d been waiting for the Parent Trap thing to happen, and it had never un-happened. I sighed, and couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across my face.
“Oh,” Lonnie said. “You forgot something.”
“What?”
“This.” He straightened his arm, fist down, and I held out my open palm. Hanging onto the leather cord, he dropped an arrowhead into my hand. The one I’d left in the Jeep before going to Lover’s Lane. “I made you this.”
“I know.” I twisted it around in my hands.
“You took it off?”
He took it from me, then took my shoulders and turned me away from him. He lifted my hair and I shivered, lightning shooting through my veins. But, I couldn’t do this. Not without clarifying something. “I heard a girl when we talked yesterday. On the phone.”
“Hmm?” Lonnie sounded perplexed. “When was that?”
He finished hooking the necklace and held my hair in his hand. I could feel him rubbing it between fingers and thumb.
“I was telling you about my plan. You were… I don’t know… maybe at her place?”
His fingers paused in my hair. Then, he laughed. “Is that why you’re mad at me? That was my mother!”
“Your mother? No, it couldn’t be.” I felt like an idiot, but I also didn’t completely believe him. “It sounded like a young person. Our age.”
A car crunched up the drive. Emma and Earl got out.
“Hi sis,” I said. “How are you doing?” I was worried about her after the excitement. And she took some of the heat off my conversation with Lonnie.
“Good,” she said. She gazed longingly at the Garfield place, and I recalled seeing that same expression on her face that first time we were in The Blue Gringo together. When Mac played. Ah. She wouldn’t be coming out any time soon.
There was just one more mystery to be solved, and that was how my father knew the things he did about the murders, when he and I hadn’t been here for so long. Lonnie, my siblings, and I went inside.
“Dad?”
“Yes, honey.”
I followed him to the kitchen, leaving Lonnie staring after me. I felt lukewarm. I didn’t know what to do about that. Was I going? Was I staying? What about me and Lonnie? Dad turned on the burner and started another pot of tea. “How did you know all those things? And where did you get that old photo from the keg party? We weren’t here back then.”
“Nope. But your mother was.” He winked. “I spent a little time as the Vicar before I became the handyman.”
“Okay. but how does that help?”
“She confided in me as the Vicar. Before she put that honor, and rightly so, on Father Brown. Then, she gave me some things to keep for her when I was the handyman.”
“Why didn’t she just tell me herself? It’s like she already knew all the answers!”
He leaned against the counter. “She meant to, I think. But, it’s the mini-strokes. She forgets. So, I helped her remember. She’d already figured it out, it appears. But she forgot the significance of these things right after she handed them to me. And most of them… well… I didn’t know what they were. I just had hints. She’s the one who could remember.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell Lonnie?”
“I didn’t know what any of it meant. I knew that I had to parcel it out to her in the same order that she’d given it to me. I figured she’d remember.”
“But, when did she find all the clues?”
“She doesn’t really sleep as much as she lets on.”
“Oh.” My face burned. “You mean, when I was out investigating, she was, too?”
“Mm-hmm. And pretty successfully, I might add.”
I raised my hand to lightly cover my chin and mouth with my fingers. “What about the knitting needles, and the yarn? And now the crochet hook?”
“Me,” he admitted.
“But, don’t you think it’s unfair to encourage her in a delusion?”
“You don’t think it’s worse for her to have nothing? Knowing she’s lost her memories and can’t find them? At least this gives her something.”
“Something she loves,” I said.
We stood side by side watching the kettle slowly heat up. The kettle began to whistle, and I watched as he turned down the burner. “Dad, are you staying?”
He handed me a cup of tea. “I am. Are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I have something for you. “He handed me a manila envelope. I laughed.
I slit the end, and let the contents fall onto the kitchen table. Inside, were two items. The first was a check from the local newspaper for the story I’d written the previous week.
Second was a letter from the Bird Sanctuary.
“Dear Ms. Murphy, we would like you to consider writing an article about our sanctuary. Perhaps something along the lines of your Hippo story.”
I fingered the arrowhead hanging from my neck. Could I stay?
❃ ❃ ❃
Dad left me alone in the kitchen. A few minutes later Lonnie replaced him. I glanced once at him, then looked back at the papers resting on the table.
“Your dad gave you those?” He looked over my shoulder.
“Yeah.” My hands shook as he rested his palms on my shoulders. He began to knead lightly. The tension in my shoulders began to ease, replaced by a riotous leaping in my chest.
“Remember that missing bracelet?” His hands continued to work their magic.
“Sure. The one you and Mother looked for at the river?” My eyes closed and my mind drifted.
“I found it.”
“You did!” I turned beneath his hands, so that we faced each other. His fingers still lightly rested on my shoulders.
“Yep. Apparently, Tammy Lynn gave it to her daughter. She acknowledged the girl about a week before she was killed. Warren Wilson admitted that it was one of the things that prompted him to kill his wife. He thought she was getting between him and one of his… conquests.”
“Wow. What a jerk.”
“So…”
“So what?”
“Am I still a jerk?”
“You were never a jerk, Lonnie! But, I might have been.”
“No. You’ve just been under a lot of pressure. With your mom and everything.”
I rubbed my toe across the floor. “I was… thinking about leaving. Before.”
“But not anymore?” I shook my head. Hope glittered in his tawny eyes and his fingers gripped my shoulders. It felt like electricity pulsated from him and into me. I caught my breath. He bent his head toward me and our eyes locked. I licked my lips in nervous anticipation. And then his lips touched mine. Softly, then more demanding as I returned the kiss.
❃ ❃ ❃
Everything was right with the world. I had my siblings. And my Parent Trap thing had finally come true—with a caveat. Dad couldn’t live in the house because Mother didn’t remember him as her husband. That’s why he’d fixed up the little adobe behind the house. So he could be close by now that she needed him. I could write short ‘feel good’ news articles for the local rag, and Continental Geographic wanted me to write feature stories for them. The kind that didn’t require me to live in Baltimore, at their Home Office. Instead, I’d get to go on quarterly assignments. And best of all? I had Lonnie.
It's Marple, Dear Page 21