Ted took a seat behind his desk. “James Barber has come up with something—interesting. I think I mentioned that until the past few weeks he had never bothered to go through his brother’s belongings; he figured there was nothing of any real worth in the few cardboard boxes Jake had left behind, and the brothers hadn’t been close in Jake’s final years—but neither could James bring himself to throw the boxes away.”
“He found something more significant than an old videotape?” Laura felt her heart begin to race—just a bit—with excitement.
“Possibly. James is still hoping to find something that might eventually lead him to proving that Herbert Aldridge employed Jake to perform illegal activities.” Ted paused. “James found a gun.”
Laura startled. She didn’t like guns. She didn’t want anything to do with guns. “Oh,” she said after a moment.
“This gun is what some might call a lady’s gun. Very small, with a mother-of-pearl handle, and, most potentially interesting for us, an inscription. The initials F.A. and a date, 1982. James, taking an understandable leap of imagination and supposing that F.A. stood for Florence Aldridge, brought the gun to me. It’s currently in my safe.”
Laura tried to process what Ted had just told her. It wasn’t easy. “May I see it?” she asked finally.
Ted got up from his desk and retrieved the gun from his safe. He brought it back to the desk and placed it on the blotter. It was in a sealed plastic bag.
Laura stared at the thing. It was almost pretty. “Where are the initials?” she asked flatly.
Ted pointed them out. Laura looked away. No. Guns were not for her.
Ted sat back in his chair. “When James had gone, I suddenly remembered a conversation I’d overheard between my parents about a year before Rob Smith went missing. We were all in the living room after dinner. I remember my mother looking up from the book she was reading and saying something like ‘I can’t believe Herbert bought Florence a gun. The only person she needs protecting against is herself.’ To which my father replied with something like ‘The last thing I’d give that woman is a gun. She’ll blow her own hand off one of these days, shooting at shadows.’”
Laura shook her head. All that her mother had told her about Florence Aldridge’s precarious state of mind had been too true. “Was the gun ever registered?” she asked finally. “You must be able to find out if it was and to whom.”
“If Herbert gave his wife a gun back in 1982, he was under no legal obligation to have it registered.” Ted paused. “Anyway, even if we knew for sure that the gun once belonged to the Aldridge family, the gun, like the video clip, doesn’t prove anything, but it is a possible link between the Aldridge family and a known lowlife with a record.”
Laura laughed helplessly. “I don’t know what to think at this point. I really don’t.”
“There’s one more thing. I have a friend in ballistics. I asked him to examine the gun. There were no fingerprints other than Jake’s; James used gloves when he handled it. And my friend determined that the gun hasn’t been fired in over thirty years. Not much use to us, sadly.”
“Why would this Jake character have the gun?” Laura mused aloud after a moment. “Do you think Herbert Aldridge hired him to kill my father?”
Ted frowned. “With Florence’s gun? No.”
“So maybe . . .” Laura shook her head. “I’m very confused. What the heck happened that Sunday in August of 1984?”
“Damned if I know. One idea: Herbert Aldridge killed your father and hired Jake to dispose of the body and the evidence. For some reason, Jake kept the gun instead of tossing it.”
“But why would Herbert Aldridge use his wife’s gun to kill my father? Surely he would have used a gun that couldn’t be traced. And if no gun was available to him, he would have had access to another means of murder, like—”
Suddenly, another possibility struck Laura like a slap across the face. “Do you think that Florence Aldridge could have killed my father? And that her husband hired Jake to get rid of the evidence that would lead back to her?”
“I honestly don’t know. Maybe Jake stole the gun from the house at another time, before or after Rob went missing. We don’t know for sure how Rob was killed or even if he was killed.”
Laura shook her head. “So, we have no evidence of anything other than the fact that when Jake Barber died he left behind this particular gun, which might or might not have belonged to Florence Aldridge.”
“I’m sorry,” Ted said feelingly. “Still, I thought you should know what my friend found.”
“I’m grateful. What will you do with the gun now?”
“Return it to James.” Ted walked her to the door of his office, thanked her for coming in, and wished her a safe journey back to Eliot’s Corner.
The meeting had disturbed Laura; it had brought a sense of violence too close for comfort. Maybe that was why she had a sudden and strong—if macabre—desire to take another look at the house atop Old Orchard Hill before returning to Eliot’s Corner. She brought the car to a stop about half way up the drive and willed someone to appear, to open the front door, to peer out a window, to come striding from around the back of the house. But there was no sign of human life, and no sign of the old black Cadillac. The spot at the end of the road seemed somehow more lonely and isolated than it had on her last visit, though of course the change was in Laura, not in the big house on an expansive bit of property.
Abruptly, Laura restarted the car. She couldn’t get out of Port George fast enough.
Chapter 70
“So, what did you learn on this latest trip to Port George?” Arden asked.
Laura had returned to Juniper End late that morning, with no explanation for her unexpected appearance. Arden, who had been about to leave for the shop, hadn’t pressed her daughter then, but now, as the day was nearing its end, Arden could no longer quiet her curiosity.
Laura, on whose lap Falstaff had made a bed, smiled as she related the childhood memory Ted had shared with her. “He said your mother would not have been happy to learn she was housing crawling creatures.”
“He was right, she wouldn’t have. I remember that day, as well. I think it was the first time it really occurred to me that it was possible—even necessary—to feel empathy with nonhuman lives. It was a turning point in my emotional development. It’s odd to think that Ted remembers that moment, too.”
“Well, he did have a crush on you back in the old days.”
Arden nodded. “Yes. But tell me. What else did you find out while in Port George? And why did you come home so abruptly?”
For a long moment Laura lowered her eyes to the cat on her lap. Arden wondered if Laura was drawing comfort from Falstaff’s warmth and steady breathing. Finally, Laura looked up.
“There’s something not so pleasant I need to tell you,” she said evenly.
Arden felt her stomach clench. “Go on.”
She listened with close attention as Laura spoke about the gun Ted’s friend James Barber had unearthed among his brother Jake’s effects. The name Jake Barber was vaguely familiar to Arden. She thought he might have run with a small group of thugs who had occasionally been a public nuisance when she was a teen.
“And that’s the whole story,” Laura said finally. “A lot of what ifs and maybes.”
“I can’t believe my mother would own a gun,” Arden said raggedly. She felt as if she had been running for a long time, weak at the knees, exhausted. “Why would she want one?”
“Maybe she didn’t want one. Maybe your father insisted she keep a gun for protection. I told you about the conversation Ted remembers. His parents knew that Herbert Aldridge had given his wife a gun.”
Arden struggled to take a clean breath. Had Mr. and Mrs. Coldwell known for a fact that Herbert had given Florence a weapon? What if Herbert had lied to his friends? . . . But why?
“What would have been her motive in killing Rob?” Arden said almost pleadingly. “It was already decided that I would be sen
t away and the baby adopted. And she knew that my father would handle any other details that needed handling. He always did. Why would Rob be a threat to her? No, the idea of my mother hunting Rob down to exact revenge is ridiculous. My father, maybe. But he’d hire someone to do his dirty work.”
“Maybe Florence didn’t have to hunt Rob down. Maybe he showed up at the house, wanting to see you.”
“But he didn’t. I would have known about it. I was there the whole time, from the night I told my parents that I was pregnant until the day I left for Two Suns.”
“Would you really have known if Rob had come to the house? Isn’t it possible you were asleep when he came to the door, or taking a shower?”
Arden put her hand to her head. “Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s possible.”
“So, what if Rob showed up one afternoon and confronted your parents?”
“My father would have turned him away immediately.”
“What if Florence was alone when Rob showed up?”
“Assuming he did,” Arden snapped.
Laura nodded. “Always assuming. What if Florence lashed out? You’ve said she was unstable and that she could get out of control when she felt threatened.”
Suddenly Arden stood and began to pace. “I suppose that anything is possible. You always hear that in an extreme situation a person can do the unthinkable, something totally out of character, something insanely heroic or unspeakably violent.” Arden shook her head. “But, no. No, not my mother. She was a gentle person. Troubled, yes, but fundamentally loving. Thwarted, shame ridden, depressed, but I know she loved me and would never do anything to hurt me.”
“Except to send you away and force you to give up your baby,” Laura said quietly.
“But that wasn’t an act of physical violence. And we don’t know for sure that the gun James Barber found in his brother’s things belonged to my mother. Other people have the initials F.A.”
Laura nodded. “You’re right. Let’s put this topic to rest for now. I’ll go put a pot of water on to boil. I thought I’d make pasta primavera for dinner using the tomatoes and sweet peppers you got at the farmers’ market.”
Arden nodded vaguely as Laura extricated herself from Falstaff’s bulk and went off to the kitchen. When Arden felt her breathing return to an almost normal rhythm, she asked herself why she was defending her mother so strongly against the possibility of having committed a crime. Had she learned compassion for Florence Aldridge without realizing it? Was that possible? Had she come to forgive her mother, if not her father, for her part in the terrible things that had happened in August 1984?
Anything was possible. Anyone could commit a murder. A long-lost child could turn up on her mother’s doorstep. A man she had loved but thought long dead could—
With a sigh of exhaustion, Arden sank back onto the couch.
Chapter 71
“Never a dull moment around here, is there!” Deborah shook her head. “And I thought there were some strange happenings in my family.”
After a lengthy discussion over dinner the night before, Laura and Arden had agreed to tell Deborah and Gordon absolutely everything they had learned concerning the summer of 1984 as it pertained to the disappearance of Rob Smith, everything they believed or suspected might have happened, every rumor they had been privy to since Laura had begun her quest for the truth.
Earlier, Arden had spoken to Gordon. Now, gathered in Arden’s yard with a pitcher of cold lemonade, Laura and her mother had filled Deborah in as best they could. Deborah was not happy to hear about the latest factor—the gun couldn’t be called evidence—to come to light, nor was she surprised to learn that Arden had long suspected her father of being involved in Rob’s disappearance.
“So, where do you go from here?” Deborah asked.
Laura sighed. “I wish I knew. Let’s face it, as an amateur detective, I’m terrible. What little evidence I’ve stumbled upon is purely circumstantial, if that.”
“I’ve been wrestling with the idea of letting the matter drop,” Arden admitted. “Of accepting that we might never know what happened to Rob and moving on with our lives. And, of course, of going to the Smith family with the good news we do have, that Rob’s daughter is alive and well.”
“How will you know when it’s time to let the investigation go?” Deborah asked.
“I don’t know,” Laura admitted. “I’ve got to get back to my teaching job. I can’t afford to be without income for much longer. And long ago I put my academic career on hold because of Jared’s overwhelming neediness. Now that he’s gone, I’d like to return to graduate school as soon as I can.” Laura smiled and held her hand out for Arden to take. “At least I found my mother. My quest wasn’t entirely a failure.”
“And there’s still a possibility the truth about what happened to Rob will out,” Deborah said robustly. “Can you at least give it until the end of the summer before you go back to Connecticut?”
“Yes, but no longer.” Laura released Arden’s hand. “The semester begins right after Labor Day.”
“We’ve gone on long enough about our woes,” Arden said suddenly. “How’s the sale going, Deborah?”
Deborah frowned. “We’ve hit another snag. I’m not the sort of person who gives up without a good fight, but I swear, there are moments when I want to throw in the proverbial towel and walk away. But I won’t. Too much depends on my closing this sale.”
“What got you into real estate?” Laura asked.
Deborah took a drink of her lemonade before replying. “Not even Arden knows this part of my life. After my first marriage ended in such a tawdry way, I swore I’d never walk down the aisle again. But a few years after my divorce I met a truly lovely man. His name was Charles, and he had his own business as a finish carpenter. We dated for about three months before it was obvious to both of us that what we had was really special. I was serenely happy, which felt like a big improvement on the sort of frantic happiness I’d felt with Alan. A month later, we were married. This time, I opted for a quiet ceremony. Besides the minister and our two witnesses there were only my parents and Charles’s mother. After the wedding, Charles and I traveled through Italy for three weeks and it was bliss. I’d never felt more at peace with myself and the world.”
Deborah paused to take another drink from her glass. “We’d been back home about six weeks when I began to notice that Charles was acting strangely. He was absentminded and rarely smiled. His appetite began to dwindle and he got into the habit of taking a long walk on his own each evening after dinner. At first I thought there was a problem at work, but he said that everything was fine. Then, I considered that he might be physically unwell, but I was wrong there, too. Finally, I worked up the nerve to ask if he was unhappy in our marriage—and I got the shock of a lifetime. Charles had decided he needed to devote the rest of his life to contemplation, specifically as practiced by a lay Carmelite order he’d visited when we were honeymooning in Italy.” Deborah gave a grim smile. “I don’t know where I was that day, probably shopping. Anyway, I was stunned even though I knew Charles had always been a spiritual person. It was one of the things that attracted me to him. I used to think, ‘This is someone who takes love seriously. He’s not going to run off with another woman like Alan did.’”
“No, he just decided to run off with God,” Laura said dryly.
Arden shook her head. “And God is pretty serious competition.”
“The thing is,” Deborah continued, “I could never bring myself to dislike him, let alone hate him. I mean, to be left because a person wants to devote his life to prayer and community service? That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Still,” Laura said, “it must have been a blow.”
“Yes. I felt as if I was losing my mind. At first, I wondered if Charles was lying to me about the monastery, that maybe there really was another woman somewhere just waiting for him to leave me. I debated contacting his mother and the friend who’d stood up for us at the wedding to see if
they had any insight into what was going on, but I felt it would be wrong to go behind Charles’s back so I didn’t.” Deborah sighed. “In the end, his intentions proved to be genuine. At least I hadn’t married a liar.”
“What did you do then?” Laura asked, shaking her head.
“What could I do? I agreed to the divorce and that was that. A mere blip in my life. I’d been working in retail since I’d graduated from college, but at that point I realized I needed to reinvent myself.”
Arden nodded. “Reinvention isn’t easy.”
“Tell me about it! Anyway, all my life I’ve been drawn to the idea of land ownership, something tangible a person could call her own.” Deborah shrugged. “So, I chose to work in real estate.”
“Real estate is a pretty competitive business,” Laura said. “You must have to be a bit—well, I won’t say cutthroat—but seriously focused and determined to make a go of it.”
“True. And yet, like I said, there are moments when I feel overwhelmed by the challenges and tempted to give it up, but those moments pass and I recommit and press on.”
“Do you know what became of Charles?” Arden asked. “Is he still a member of the cloistered order?”
Deborah shrugged. “As far as I know. But it’s funny. I have the feeling that one day he’s going to show up in my life again. Honestly, I’d welcome it. I think. He was a very special person.”
“You don’t still love him, do you?” Laura asked.
“I think in some way I do, though I’m not in love the way I was. Still, I did renew my earlier vow never to marry again. If either of you ever sees me weakening, I want a full-blown intervention.”
“Don’t worry,” Laura assured her. “I’ll bring the restraints.”
“Thank you for sharing your story with us, Deborah,” Arden said feelingly. “We’ve spent so much time this summer going on about the Smith and Aldridge drama, I fear we might have been ignoring our friends.”
“Not at all,” Deborah said. “We’re in this crazy thing called life together. Sometimes one of us needs more attention than the other; sometimes one of us is happy to retreat a bit. I’m just grateful to be sharing my journey with you guys.”
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