“I cut my bangs once when I was a kid. They looked a lot like that.” Jesse offered a smile of solidarity.
“It was an impulse,” Celeste confessed, briefly returning Jesse’s grin. “I’ve probably had better ideas.”
Jesse dropped the flip-flops onto the ground and slid her feet into them. “Maybe I can help you straighten it up a bit when we get back to the house.”
The other woman flashed a brief, half-hearted smile. “That would be nice of you.” She turned back toward the house, but not before Jesse saw tears swimming in her hazel eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think nothing is going to be okay again.”
“Look, Celeste, once we get back to the house, I have something I think you should see.”
“What?”
“A note that Vivian and I found on a flash drive. We think that Amanda was writing it to you.”
“What kind of note?”
“A personal note. But I think it’s something that she would want you to have.”
Without warning, Celeste began to cry. Not delicate tears, but huge, heaving sobs that quickly became wails. She dropped down onto the grass, slumped forward over her crossed legs and buried her face in her palms.
Uncertain what to do next, Jesse sat down beside her, grateful for the warmth of the sun on her back, and content to ride out the emotional storm. Her shirt was almost dry, and a shower could wait awhile longer. It was about time to get to the bottom of some things, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
~~~~~
When Celeste’s storm of tears had slowed to a dribble with an occasional sniffle, Jesse asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I…I don’t know what you mean.”
“The note we found from Amanda appeared to be addressed to someone named Cece. Is that you?”
Celeste hesitated, then nodded. “That was what Frankie called me when he was little. Amanda heard him and started calling me that.”
“The note said something about forgiveness and learning to trust again. For both of you. It sounded like you’d had an argument or a misunderstanding of some kind. Do you know what she was talking about?”
“It was personal.” Celeste’s gaze slid sideways and down.
“So there was a misunderstanding.” More irritated than sympathetic at this point, Jesse pressed on. “Did you fight? From her note, it sounded pretty serious.”
“It was an accident.” Celeste’s sniffles increased. “We neither one meant anything. It was all just an accident.” She drew in deep shuddering breaths. “It’s over and done now, and no one needs to know. Amanda said so.”
Tears streamed down Celeste’s cheeks and dripped off the curve of her chin. She finally looked up with pleading eyes. Jesse ignored her instinct to back off. Lots of people were sorry after doing something awful in the heat of the moment.
“Amanda’s dead, but nothing is over and done with, Celeste,” Jesse said, softening her tone. “First, someone gave her an overdose of her medicine that almost killed her. Then she had barely gotten here when she fell down the stairs and died. Nothing is over and done with, so anything that you know…”
“It was an accident! It was all an accident.”
“What was an accident? The medicine or the fall?”
“Both! It had to have been both!”
“Or neither,” Jesse argued. “The overdose wasn’t an accident. And I don’t think the fall was either.” She dropped her voice to an urgent whisper. “What was the note about, Celeste? What had happened to destroy the trust between you and Amanda?”
“It was an accident… it was. I never meant to hurt her. I just wanted her to need me again. That’s all. Just to need me!” Celeste’s outcry ended in sobs, with her head buried in her hands once again.
Jesse continued to sit there, listening, thinking, frustrated. One minute it sounded as if Celeste was about to confess, and the next instant she sounded like a lost child.
The note had said something about desperate measures. It had been written before they arrived on the island, possibly around the time Amanda decided to leave Oklahoma on such short notice. Could something in the note be related to that decision?
“Look, Celeste, stop.” Jesse put her hand on the other woman’s arm and shook her lightly. “Stop crying. We have to talk. Come on. If you didn’t kill Amanda, then you may know who did.” Jesse shook her again, harder. “Now, stop crying.”
Celeste sucked in a shaky breath and lifted her face. It was wet, red and swollen from her tears. “What? What are you saying? Amanda tripped and fell.”
“No.” Jesse stared into the puffy, bloodshot eyes rimmed by tear-matted lashes and almost wished she could just forget the whole thing. But if genuine grief and sincere regret didn’t make a person innocent, then neither did tears.
“No,” she said again. “If Amanda simply tripped going down the staircase, she wouldn’t have landed where she landed. She wouldn’t have hit the back wall where she hit it. And once she was on the landing, she couldn’t have tripped with enough force to do the damage that was done. That means someone shoved her into the wall and probably hit her before shoving her.”
“Why?” Celeste looked more confused than convinced. “Why would someone do that?”
“Anger. Hurt. Desperation,” Jesse suggested. “Who knows? They may not have meant to kill her. They might have reacted without thinking and then been afraid to confess when she died. Why would someone give her an overdose of her own medicine?”
All the color drained from Celeste’s face leaving it a guilty shade of pale. Her hazel eyes looked haunted. “What are you trying to say?”
“I don’t think you meant to kill her.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t kill her! I didn’t push her! That wasn’t me!”
“But you did tamper with her medicine so that she got too much,” Jesse said gently. She had no idea if what she said was true, but it was obvious that Celeste was hiding something that left her tormented by more than simple grief.
“I just wanted her to need me again.” The words came out on one long, undulating wail, but the tears seemed to have dried up. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I just…” Celeste caught her breath in a hiccup. “…just wanted her to be sick so I could sit with her. So I could be the one to take care of her. Me, not… not Bethany.”
Was that a confession? And for what… the medicine or the fall?
“She almost died, Celeste.”
“I made a mistake.” The younger woman clenched her fists and began to rock slowly back and forth. “I made it too strong. She was just supposed to get a little sick.”
“How did she find out you did it?”
“I told her. I felt so guilty, I had to tell her. But she forgave me.”
The tears returned, running in two narrow trickles down each of Celeste’s cheeks. But instead of sobs, her lips curved in a small, sad smile. “We talked for a long time, and she forgave me.”
Jesse thought about the note—the things it said, the promises it made. It was obvious that Amanda felt partially responsible for Celeste’s actions, something that didn’t entirely make sense to Jesse.
“Did she tell you why she decided so suddenly to leave for this island?”
Celeste nodded. “Bethany was still worried about the overdose, and Amanda was afraid that the police would figure out that I did it. She wanted to get me away from there until it all died down.”
“Did anyone else know anything about it?”
“I don’t think so, except…” Celeste’s voice died away as she rubbed at the tear tracks on her cheeks.
“Except what?” Jesse prodded. Her irritation had returned, made worse this time by disappointment. And having to pull every tiny bit of information from the girl wasn’t helping any.
“Well, normally I didn’t come with her when she came here to stay.” Celeste sniffed again, and Jesse would have given anything for a tissue t
o hand her.
“Did anyone seem suspicious as to why you were here this time?”
“I don’t think so. It was all so sudden. But Mrs. Shoemacher didn’t have a room ready for me, so I know she was surprised to see me.”
“How about Gordon?”
“Who would know?” Celeste answered with a shrug. “He doesn’t talk much in case you haven’t noticed. But if Amanda was going to confide in anybody, it would have been him.”
“Why do you say that?”
Once again someone had mentioned the bond between Amanda and Gordon Pitts. So far no one had been able to tell Jesse what it was based on, and while it might not be relevant to Amanda’s death, unanswered questions were never good when someone had just died violently.
“They’ve been friends forever. I remember when he came to work for her. My mother told me to stay away from him because he was dangerous, and she couldn’t imagine what Amanda was thinking.”
“Really? Did Amanda know that?”
Celeste shook her head. “No. I asked Amanda about it, but I wouldn’t tell her where I heard it. She explained that he was a good man who’d had a hard life, and that we had to love him extra to make up for it. I was just a little girl, but I understood then that Amanda was a nicer person than my mother was. And a better friend to someone who needed one.”
“How about Treena?” Jesse asked. Now that she finally had Celeste talking, she might as well find out what the girl knew about the people she lived with. “Can you imagine her having a reason to shove Amanda on the staircase?”
“Other than this stupid fixation she seems to have about Brandon Carmichael being her father?” Celeste asked without hesitation.
“Has she talked to you about that?”
Celeste snorted and rolled her eyes. “Treena and I aren’t exactly girlfriends. But it’s hard not to overhear comments. And then Trisha mentioned it to Frankie, and he mentioned it to me.”
“And what about Trisha? Does she agree with her sister?”
“She thinks it’s a fantasy their grandmother has talked Treena into believing. Trisha’s a lot more practical than her sister, and I don’t think she’s all that fond of her grandmother.”
“And how about Amanda? How did Treena feel about her?”
Puckering her mouth in a moue of distaste, Celeste said, “Treena cares about Treena. Are you asking me if she would hurt Amanda? I’d say not on purpose. Could Treena do something in a fit of temper? Probably. But she had a lot more to gain with Amanda alive.”
“Arghh!” With a growl, Jesse threw her head back and glared at the cloudless blue sky overhead. “This is so frustrating!” She tipped her head sideways to look at the younger woman sitting next to her. “Are you sure you didn’t shove her down the stairs? My life would be so much simpler right now if you would only confess.”
Shocked, Celeste stared back with eyes that were slightly less pink and puffy. Then a small, sad smile stole over her face when she realized Jesse wasn’t serious.
“I may be thoughtless, immature, and downright stupid at times,” Celeste said, offering a different confession, “but I learned my lesson the night I accidentally put Amanda in the hospital. I have never been so scared or so sorry for anything in my life. One whole night on your knees in prayer is a night you never forget.”
“Well, darn it, Celeste. You were my best suspect for a few minutes there.”
“How about Nettie?” Celeste suggested. “Surely somebody running around the island with a gun and almost drowning someone in the process deserves some serious consideration.”
“Oh, she’s getting consideration, trust me. She’s at the head of the list right now. Except that she had a reason to be upset over something else that wouldn’t be worth killing over. How about you? Can you think of anything Nettie had to gain from killing Amanda? Did they argue that night you arrived here?”
Celeste shook her head. “Not really. Nettie was always possessive of this place and resented having other people here. She tried to hide it when Amanda was around, but the rest of us were all uncomfortable around Nettie. Helen refused to come back after her first visit.”
“Did something happen then?”
“Helen said Mrs. Shoemacher wouldn’t let her have any part in running the house. Apparently, Helen inventoried the pantry and when she tried to order food, Mrs. Shoemacher had a fit and said she was the one who did that.”
“Hmm-m-m.” Jesse thought of the files and flash drive with the breakdown of costs between the two households in Oklahoma and Washington, item by item over the last two years.
It had seemed like nothing more than nitpicky bookkeeping on Amanda’s part, and so Jesse had only skimmed the dollar amounts on the printouts without really studying them. Perhaps she should take a second, harder look for something else that Amanda might have been focused on.
“Did I say something?” Celeste asked. “You got awfully quiet.”
“You never know,” Jesse answered vaguely while her mind raced ahead. Suddenly eager to get back to those files, she stood and dusted off the seat of her still-damp jeans. “Are you feeling better? I just remembered something I need to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Do you have any idea where Bethany is?” Jesse asked when she and Celeste entered the seemingly empty house.
“Gordon told her to take Lady and lock herself in her room until he got back.”
“I think we’ll just leave her there for now, then.” Jesse glanced around. There were no echoes of conversation, footsteps, papers rustling, or anything else. She wasn’t sure if she had ever heard so much silence in one place before. “How about Treena? Did you see her before you came to find me?”
“Not since she left the meeting with Nettie. But I’ve been upstairs getting rooms ready for everyone’s arrival.”
“Well, I’m going up to Amanda’s room to see if Vivian is there,” Jesse said. “Would you see if you can locate Treena?”
“Sure. I’ll start in the kitchen and work my way upstairs. She’s not a big fan of nature, so she’s probably in here somewhere.”
Jesse started up the main staircase, but stopped after only a few steps. “Celeste?”
The other woman paused at the door to the butler’s pantry and turned to look up. “Yeah?”
“Maybe you should come with me and not go wandering off by yourself. There are some seriously strange things going on in this house, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
Celeste laughed and pushed open the door to the pantry. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ve been living in a household with seven women and practically no men. You haven’t seen strange.”
With that, she disappeared into the back of the house, leaving her words behind to call up images of mothers without husbands, and children without fathers, and lives lived in the shadows of loneliness and disappointment.
Once again Jesse remembered her Saturday appointment with Joe Tyler. Maybe, if the craziness died down, she would give him a call tonight. It didn’t look like she would make it home by the following evening. And maybe she’d call her mother, too.
The rest of the way up the stairs a lingering homesickness clung to Jesse like her clammy jeans, which she should probably change out of before she went any further. Turning into her room at the top of the staircase, Jesse quickly stripped off her sea-soaked clothes and put on a new pair of jeans and a comfy, plaid flannel shirt, this one orange and green rather than the red and blue she had just discarded. She still needed to shower the salt off, but that would have to wait.
Her feet felt gritty with sand, and she decided not to change shoes yet, but quickly regretted her decision. The term flip-flop had never seemed more appropriate than during her journey down the hallway to Amanda’s room. With every step she took, the foam rubber slapped the bottoms of her feet, announcing her presence to one and all and echoing in the silence.
“Hello, dear,” Vivian called without turning as Jesse entered the bedroom. “I’ve
found something. Not what I was looking for, but something I didn’t expect.”
Rising, she lifted a large hatbox from her lap and set it on the bed, then advanced toward Jesse holding a handful of old snapshots. Passing the pictures to Jesse, Vivian lifted a lock of partially dry hair and held it out for examination. “My, you did fall in, didn’t you?”
“Does it look bad?” Jesse asked. She hadn’t stopped to check her reflection in a mirror, and it occurred to her that it might be best not to until she had a chance to shower.
Putting a finger to the side of her cheek, Vivian cocked her head and stepped back for a better view. “Well, your hair’s a little stiff and your makeup is mostly gone, but for someone who almost drowned, you don’t look too bad.”
“At least I know that wherever Nettie Shoemacher is, she’s not looking any better. Now, what are these pictures?”
“Take a look.” Vivian sat on a bench at the foot of the bed and pulled Jesse down beside her. “And don’t peek at the back until you’ve seen all of them.”
Jesse studied the picture on top of the stack. It was of a young couple in what looked like prom dress. The brunette girl wore a strapless gown in gold with a champagne lace overdress and an orchid corsage on her wrist. The boy had red hair streaked with blond and fair skin with pink cheeks. They stood side by side at the foot of a staircase, smiling into the camera, looking happy and eager to be on their way.
There was another of the girl standing alone with a well-dressed woman who looked like an older, more soured version of the girl. In one more the same woman stood beside the younger couple, her arm linked with the girl’s, a pinched smile on the woman’s face.
In yet another picture, an older couple stood on a different porch with only the boy. The man had cinnamon red hair with curls. The woman beside him had dark hair. The boy bore a resemblance to both of them, and Jesse assumed they were his parents. There was another picture taken on the same porch of the boy and the same older couple with another couple. This man also looked a lot like the boy, with sandy red hair and a tan. The woman beside him was blonde. The smile on her beautiful face seemed forced, and she looked nothing like the others.
Murder on a Silver Sea (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 3) Page 21