by S F Bose
After giving me an appraising look, she continued. “A few of us wanted something more permanent.” She put her mug on the coffee table and leaned forward. Sue slid up her left sleeve and revealed a multi-colored butterfly tattoo on her inside forearm. She held her arm so I could see it better.
I leaned in and admired the tattoo. “That’s beautiful work.”
“Thank you. It brings me comfort. I see it every day and it reminds me of Sharon. Butterflies symbolize joy, change, and resurrection.” Sue pulled down her sleeve. “My sister was full of joy.”
We drank our tea. Then Sue offered the plate of cookies and I took one. We nibbled at the butter cookies and sipped tea.
“These are delicious!” I said, finishing off a cookie and eying the plate.
Sue nodded. “Mama is one of the best bakers I know. Have some more. You know you want to.”
I laughed and took another cookie. “Thank you. This is a real treat.”
Sue’s eyes widened. “I almost forgot. Mama sends regards to your grandmother and great aunt. How are they?”
“They’re fine. They’re still working at the family B&B. They have fond memories of your mother at the Women’s Club and quilting club,” I replied.
Sue’s head moved up and down slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. “Those were much simpler times in Mystic Grove. People were active in the community. They joined churches and clubs and formed lifelong friendships with real people.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “Sue, you and your family should come to the B&B for dinner some evening. Grandma Addie and Nana Anna would love to see you and your parents.”
Sue’s eyes lit up. “That would be wonderful. I’ll talk to Mama and Daddy about it. Thank you, Liz.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied and sipped more tea. After a pause, I shifted the conversation. “So you’re a blogger?”
“Yes, I am. Isn’t that crazy? Contrary to what I said just now about real friendships, I ended up creating an online community,” she replied and laughed. “I began blogging after my daughter, Sharon, was born. It started out as an outlet to share my experiences. After a while, I met other mothers online and read their blogs. Everyone was friendly and we shared information back and forth. I became friends with some of them.”
“Did you ever meet in person?” I asked.
Sue nodded. “We did. A few of us had a get together in Madison one weekend. It was so much fun and we found we got along in real life, which was wonderful. One of the women recommended that I add a mailing list option. So I did that and was amazed at the number of moms who joined the list. Over time, I added the paid membership forum and started doing online workshops. Then we started holding annual conferences where everyone could meet, if they wanted to. It kept growing into the monster it is today.” She laughed again. Sue’s laugh was infectious and made me smile.
“You should be proud. You’re very successful,” I replied.
She sipped her tea and shook her head. “I never expected it, but it’s been a blessing. I can help my family, which is the best part of the blogging. You know the other great thing?” she asked, staring at me.
“What?”
“I’ve received countless emails from women who have used the information I shared on my blog to improve their lives. Some of them are successful bloggers. Others decided to start other businesses. It’s been humbling and rewarding to know that I helped them a little.”
Sue looked down and when she looked up again, her eyes glistened with tears. “When I was young and we lost Sharon, Kiara, and Michael, I didn’t have any hope at all. I was afraid all the time. I never thought I’d be happy again or that anything good would happen in my life. Everything changed when I met Leon and fell in love. We married and had our beautiful children. Then I started scribbling online and it became this big success. I never ever expected it. Sometimes I feel so happy I think my heart will burst.”
It moved me that Sue shared her feelings so freely. I wanted to hug her. Instead, I said, “You deserve all the good things that came into your life, Sue.”
She looked at me and blinked. “Aren’t you wonderful? Thank you, Liz. Now tell me about you. Do you like being a private investigator?”
I nodded. “I do. I enjoy solving puzzles and helping people.”
“Isn’t it dangerous though?” Sue asked.
“It can be. But we’re trained to be careful and to protect ourselves,” I replied. “Although my mother won’t relax until I get a safe job like a teaching position at the university.”
We both laughed. “She’s a mother. I completely understand. We always worry about our children,” Sue replied and smiled. “What would you teach at the university?”
“My academic background is in foreign languages. I also worked at a company out East as an interpreter and translator before coming back to Mystic Grove. I could teach a foreign language class, I guess. The problem is I would be bored silly,” I replied.
“Why did you leave the company out East?” Sue asked.
I shrugged. “It was time for a change and I missed my family, so I came home.” I didn’t want to go into more detail than that with a stranger.
Sue stared at me for a minute. “Well that’s a good reason to come home,” she said and smiled. “And now you’re on a new adventure.”
“I am,” I agreed and sipped my tea.
Sue shifted on the couch. “You came to talk about Steven Meagher?” she asked.
“I did,” I replied, leaning forward for my notebook and cell phone. “Would you mind if I record this? That way I don’t have to take that many notes.”
“Of course not, as long as it remains confidential,” Sue replied.
“It will. My boss might listen to it. But I can make sure that no one else hears it.” I turned on the voice recorder app and placed my phone on the coffee table.
“I have a client who has had some bad interactions with Meagher. After doing some investigating of her own, she suspects he’s involved in something illegal,” I said.
“Something he’s doing now?”
When I replied, “Yes,” Sue Barlow frowned.
“I don’t understand. When you called, you said you had questions about what happened with Meagher in 1995. How is that related to what happened to your client?”
I paused. “What happened in 1995 is a part of Meagher’s story. I may learn something that will help me in the current investigation. There’s another thing and it may sound crazy. I sometimes operate on intuition. I’ve learned to listen to my gut feelings because often they’re right. In this case, my intuition is telling me to learn more about what happened in 1995.”
“That doesn’t sound crazy to me at all. The subconscious can lead to many insights. I did a blog post about that once,” Sue replied and set her mug on the tray.
“Okay, let me run though what I’ve learned so far,” I said. Sue listened intently as I related everything I knew about the loss of Sharon and her children in 1995 and the subsequent investigation. When I was done I said, “One thing I’d like to understand better is your family’s view of what happened that terrible year and Meagher’s role in it.”
Sue sat back and sighed. “First, we never liked Meagher. He was on his best behavior when he and Sharon were dating. However, there was always an undercurrent of anger to him. Mama tried to talk Sharon out of marrying him, but my sister didn’t listen. He was young and handsome and she was in love.”
I nodded. “Love is blind.”
“Especially young love. Anyway, she was happy the first few years. She got pregnant with Kiara right away. Michael was born two years later. The only redeeming thing about Meagher was that he loved those children. They were a happy family for a while.”
“What happened?”
Sue shook her head. “His drinking got worse and he couldn’t control his anger. He and Sharon fought more. Daddy talked to him a few times, but it didn’t help.”
“Was he abusive?”
“At first, he just
yelled. Sharon said he’d come home from work and things would be fine. Then something would set him off and he’d start shouting and throwing things. I think it was the mental stress of whether it would be a good or bad evening that got to her. She was also worried about the children.”
I refined my question. “Was he physically abusive?”
Sue hesitated and then looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “Sometimes I saw bruises, but she always had an excuse. Then one day I saw bruises on her neck. I told her I was going to tell Daddy, but she swore me to secrecy. I still feel guilty about that. If I’d told him about the bruises, maybe things would have turned out differently.”
“I don’t know about that, Sue. Your father and Meagher could have ended up in a fight and who knows how that would have turned out,” I said.
“That’s true,” Sue replied.
“Did Sharon ever call the police?”
“She called them three or four times that I know of. The neighbors also called them a few times when they heard the yelling. When the police came, Meagher was always drunk. The only thing they did was bring him to the station and let him sleep it off in a cell. No paperwork and no official record. Also, Sharon never filed charges.”
“Why not?”
“She said Meagher might lose his job as a deputy sheriff and there was nothing else he could do. It would just make him angrier.”
“So she was going to stay with him?” I asked.
“No, she had a plan. The month before she disappeared, she told him she wanted a divorce.”
“Wow that took courage. How did he react?” I asked.
“At first he yelled,” Sue replied. “But Sharon had made up her mind. She felt she needed a safer life for the children. He begged for one more chance and promised to stop drinking and yelling.”
“She believed him?”
Sue frowned. “Sharon wasn’t stupid. She decided to give him a chance, but she also talked to a divorce lawyer in case it didn’t work out. For several weeks he kept to his word and things were better.”
“Did your parents know about the divorce?”
“They did. Sharon came and told them. They said she and the kids would always have a home on the farm with them.”
“What do you remember about the day Sharon disappeared?”
Sue exhaled deeply. “I was working by then. I had a small apartment and an old car Daddy had fixed up for me so I could drive to work. It was early Sunday morning and Mama called me at home to see if I’d heard from Sharon. She said they couldn’t reach her. I hadn’t spoken to her that day, so I hung up with Mama and tried to call Sharon. I must have dialed ten times, but the phone just rang and rang.”
“They didn’t have an answering machine?” I asked.
“No, they didn’t. I called Mama back and said I was going over to Sharon’s house. She said she and Daddy would meet me there. When we arrived, Sharon’s car was parked on the street. We rang the bell and knocked on the front door but there was no answer. Sharon kept a spare key under a big flowerpot and we used that to get inside. Everything looked orderly. There was no sign of a fight. No notes or anything. Daddy checked the garage and Meagher’s car was gone.”
“Did you call Sharon’s cell phone?”
“She didn’t have one. None of us did back then. We all went back to the farm and discussed what we should do. We figured out that Friday was the last day we had talked to Sharon. Normally Sharon, Mama, and I talked on the phone several times a day. I felt so guilty that I hadn’t spoken to her since Friday. We decided we should report it, so Daddy called the sheriff’s office. At first, he asked if Meagher was on duty. They checked and said he wasn’t scheduled until the next day. So Daddy reported that Meagher, Sharon, and the children were all missing.”
Sue squeezed her hands together.
“A local sheriff’s deputy came out to talk to us right away. He took a report and asked us a lot of questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“He asked if they could have taken a day trip somewhere. Or maybe they were visiting friends in another town. Mama said Sharon would have called to let us know if they were going anywhere. That was when Mama mentioned Sharon had been planning to divorce Meagher. The deputy wrote everything down. He took information about their car and said they’d start looking for them.”
“Did anyone tell him about the boat?”
Sue shook her head and looked sad. “It was the last place any of us thought they might be. Sharon loved sailing but felt the children were too young to be on a boat. Meagher had even talked about selling it. In retrospect, I wish we had told that deputy about the boat. Maybe…” Sue’s voice trailed off.
I leaned forward. “Sue, why do you think Sharon and the kids went out on the boat with him?”
“I have no idea,” Sue replied. “Maybe he persuaded Sharon or forced her to go sailing. I don’t know.” Her eyes were teary again.
“Would you like to take a break?”
“No. This is just harder than I expected after all this time,” Sue replied and took a deep breath. “So later in the day a deputy sheriff from Ozaukee County called the house and told Daddy about the boat and the storm. He said the Coast Guard had found Meagher alone and in a bad way on the boat. He also said it looked like Sharon and the kids had been washed overboard during the storm. I was at the farm and never saw Daddy so angry,” Sue said.
“So the Coast Guard discovery had nothing to do with your missing person’s report?” I asked.
Sue shook her head. “Right. I’m not sure how the Coast Guard found the boat, but it had nothing to do with our call to the local sheriff’s department.”
“Okay, what happened next?” I asked.
“Daddy shouted at the deputy sheriff that Sharon had planned to divorce Meagher. He also said he thought Meagher had harmed Sharon and the children. The deputy sheriff said they’d look into it and that the Coast Guard was starting a search for Sharon and the kids. After Daddy hung up, he related everything the deputy had said. The first words out of my mouth were, ‘That bastard killed them.’”
“You didn’t think it was an accident?”
“Not for a second. Meagher knew enough to check the weather before he sailed. I always thought he knew there was a lake storm predicted.”
“You believe he planned to kill his family?”
Sue hesitated. “I think Steven Meagher wanted to hurt Sharon. A leopard can’t change its spots. I figured he drank on the boat and he fought with Sharon. Then he hurt her and she ended up in the lake. I don’t know about Kiara and Michael. Maybe the storm did wash them overboard.”
“So you think Meagher was drinking on the boat?”
“I know he was. Daddy said there was alcohol on board.”
“Really? Because I found no mention of alcohol in the newspaper reports. And I’ve heard the official police report didn’t mention it either.”
Sue grimaced. “We suspected the deputies from the other county hid or destroyed evidence of drinking because Meagher was a sheriff too. If they tampered with the evidence, it would never have made it into the newspapers or the official report. My guess is that some decent deputy told Daddy the truth on the side.”
“It sounds like you distrust the entire investigation,” I said.
“That’s true. Mama and Daddy do too,” Sue agreed.
I nodded. “Okay. Have you had any contact with Meagher since the loss of your sister and the children?”
“No. He pretty much disappeared for a while. He didn’t come to the memorial service. If he had, Daddy would have thrown him out.”
“Meagher never contacted your parents after this happened?”
Sue paused and closed her eyes. “I remember Daddy said Meagher called him later and was crying. He apologized for losing the kids and said he loved them.”
“What did your father say?”
“Daddy swore and hung up on him. He told Mama and me, ‘The bastard never said a word about Sharon.
Not one word.’”
“That was your last contact?” Liz asked.
“Yes. The few times we saw him when we were in Mystic Grove, we avoided him. Five years after it all happened, I heard he remarried and stayed in the same house he had with Sharon. It was...grating.”
I nodded. “Did you ever consider moving out of Mystic Grove sooner?”
“After it happened, I had a melt-down. Sharon and the children were gone and I was deathly afraid of Meagher. I moved back to the farm. Later, I met Leon and we fell in love. We built a separate house on the farm and raised our family there. It’s hard to explain, but for the longest time I felt the safest place for me was the farm. And my parents didn’t want to give up farming until five years ago. Once they sold the farm, we moved out here.”
I nodded. “Would it be okay if I spoke to your parents?”
Sharon’s eyebrows shot up and her face hardened. She leaned forward and locked her eyes on mine. “Under no circumstances. I don’t want anyone dredging up bad memories for them. At their ages, I’m not sure they could survive it. Is that clear?”
Surprised at the intensity of her reaction, I raised my hands. “Sue, I don’t want to upset them either. That’s why I asked. You have my word that I won’t contact them.”
Sue took a deep breath and smiled weakly. “Okay. I’m sorry. One of my goals is to make their lives as happy and secure as I can. They can’t relive 1995 all over again.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “Sue, what got you through this terrible loss?”
Without hesitation, Sue replied, “My mother and father helped me. My faith helped. We were all very active in the Mystic Grove Lutheran church. Also, there were so many good neighbors like your grandmother and great aunt who were so supportive and helped us. Liz, I will never forgive Meagher for how he treated Sharon and for what he did to her and the kids. I know in my heart that he’s responsible for their loss. However, I also know that someday he will get the punishment he deserves. Mama put it in God’s hands back in 1995. It took me a good while longer.”
I nodded.
“Has this helped you at all?” Sue asked.
“It has. I have a better idea of what happened back then. I’m sorry if any of my questions were upsetting,” I replied. I turned off the voice recorder and pocketed my phone. Then I shoved my notebook into the messenger bag and stood.