by J. C. Eaton
“Here’s where it gets tricky. While the author of the book, whoever that may really be, since no one can seem to find a Lily Margot Gerald, was just out to make her novel famous, other members of the community used that premise of a cursed book to take care of their own agendas.”
“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, LADY?” Maisy-Jayne shouted. “THAT MY GRANDMOTHER WAS MURDERED?”
“Whoa. Hold on. I’ll try to get to everything.”
Just then, Gretchen pushed her way toward me and grabbed the microphone out of my hand. “This is absolutely ridiculous. Pure speculation. I insist we go back to our regular program agenda.”
“The hell with your agenda,” someone shouted. And it wasn’t a Kirkson. “We want to hear what that police lady has to say.”
“Yes, give her a chance,” came another voice.
And suddenly, the entire audience was up in arms, shouting for me to continue. Gretchen had no choice but to relinquish the mic and let me speak.
“Edna Mae Langford was the next member of the club to die. She was elderly, hard of hearing, legally blind, and more than just a little forgetful. Her family had been trying for years to get her into assisted living, but she would have no part of it. Her house was a veritable deathtrap, yet somehow she managed to live day by day. Her family was scared to pieces she would fall in the shower or, worse yet, turn on the stove, forgetting that she put the mail on top of one of the burners. Edna Mae refused to get one of those medical alert buttons and wouldn’t hear of letting anyone into her house to help her with her daily chores. And that’s when her daughter and a close friend hatched a plan to force Edna Mae out of the house. They would use the idea of a book curse to cover up what really happened.”
“She’s good,” Vivian Knowlton whispered to Gretchen. “I should get her on Psychic Divas.”
“Try to get her away from the microphone,” Gretchen hissed back.
“By tossing gravel near Edna Mae’s mailbox, Edna would certainly trip and fall on the pieces of rock. She was too blind to see them. Her daughter hoped it would be a “wake-up call” when Edna Mae found herself lying in the driveway. The daughter never expected Edna Mae to break a hip, much less wind up in the hospital and die of pneumonia. In fact, according to an eye witness, Edna’s fall was timed so that the UPS driver would be coming down the block shortly after the mail truck. Edna Mae would be seen and helped right away.” I looked directly at Jeanette and then moved my gaze to the audience, where Leslie Sackler was seated. Both of them were poker-faced, but I could tell by looking at Jeanette’s hands that she was shaking.
“Now there were three deaths. And all three of the women were reading that novel. The idea of a book curse was firmly hatched. As the rumor started to spread, some people in the community went out of their way to tell anyone and everyone they should stay away from that book.” I stared directly at Jerry.
“In fact, one such vigilant man got escorted out of the swimming pool for harassing people reading the book. Let’s face it, we’re all like kids and if we’re told not to do something, we immediately want to go ahead and do it. Reverse psychology was working well for this book marketing campaign.”
“WHAT ABOUT MY GRANDMA? YOU HAVEN’T SAID ANYTHING YET ABOUT HER!” Maisy-Jayne wasn’t giving up and neither was I.
I cleared my throat and, at that moment, my mother stood and gave me a poke in the arm.
“Use the whiteboard. Start writing names and information.”
“I think a timeline would really help, so give me a second,” I said to the audience as I began to write. I made sure each name was printed clearly and large enough to be seen on TV. The camera crews were all over the place. By now, my heart was palpitating, and I prayed I could get through this without falling apart.
Suddenly, Lucinda Espinoza started sobbing at the table. “It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”
“What is?” Shirley asked.
“It’s my fault Edna Mae is dead.”
Chapter 28
Lucinda’s confession came out of nowhere and, for a second, I was stunned. Before I could form words, Shirley pressed Lucinda for the sordid details.
“Tell me, Lucinda. What did you do? Were you working in cahoots with the daughter?”
“What are you talking about? No, nothing like that. I didn’t even know she had a daughter.”
“Good Lord, why did you say Edna Mae’s death was your fault?”
At this point, someone moved two microphones closer to the table.
Lucinda blew into a tissue and the noise reverberated off the walls. Amid her sobbing, she was able to sputter out a few words. “I was supposed to take Edna Mae to Costco’s that day. I was going to pick her up at ten but decided instead to go to the Casino in the Pines. My neighbor, Doris, called and there was an extra seat on her church bus. I figured I could take Edna Mae to Costco’s anytime. Oh, I feel so awful. So absolutely awful. It really was my fault.”
My voice was getting stronger as I leaned into the mic. “No, it wasn’t your fault, Lucinda. If Edna Mae hadn’t fallen on that day, it would have happened the next. Or the day after that. The point is, it was going to happen because her family had reached their breaking point and were desperate to move Edna Mae out of her house.”
“ENOUGH WITH EDNA MAE. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THELMALEE KIRKSON!”
This time it was a different voice. A woman’s. Carleen or Almalynn? It didn’t matter. It was all coming from the same tribe.
“Fine. I might as well get to that,” I said.
The relief on Jeanette’s face was obvious. She was off the proverbial hook, for at least a few minutes, as the Kirkson clan began to circle around the table as if we were a wagon train and this was the Wild West.
“Everyone will need to step back,” my mother said. “The audience needs to hear and see what’s going on, and the media is trying to film it.”
The Kirksons fanned out a bit, but I was certain their breath could be felt on the necks of the ladies sitting at the table. I immediately underlined Thelmalee’s name and started talking before Gretchen decided to make a move.
“Thelmalee Kirkson, as we have been informed, died of an allergic reaction to a bee sting while she was sunbathing at the recreation center swimming pool. At least that’s what the official report says. However, it took more than one bee to sting Thelmalee, and it was no accident.”
“I TOLD YOU SOMEONE OFFED THE OLD COOT!”
This time it was one of the sons-in-law, but I couldn’t tell which one. “No one meant for Thelmalee to die. No one expected her to die. Those responsible for her demise just expected her to . . . well, not hog an entire section of the sunbathing area. You see, I’m sure Thelmalee was a lovely and delightful person, but when it came to sunbathing, she was quite territorial.”
“Damn straight she was. Not to speak ill of the dead, but, my God, that woman hogged the best spot in the pool for years and wouldn’t let anyone take it!”
I looked out in the audience to see who said that, but it was impossible to tell. I only knew it was a woman’s voice.
Before I could say another word, someone else blurted out, “You can say that again! She once threw ice water at me when I tried to move my lounge chair near her spot.”
Cecilia leaned her head into the center of the table and whispered, “Sounds like Thelmalee, all right.”
I didn’t want to lose control of the situation, and I was afraid that was the direction in which we were going. I raised the pitch of my voice. “Thelmalee apparently made life unbearable for the other sunbathers at the pool, especially a group of women who frequented that spot every afternoon. So, when they found out Thelmalee was reading The Twelfth Arrondissement, and that three other book club members had died while reading the same novel, they saw an opportunity and took it. They wanted everyone to think she got stung by bees as a result of the book curse. They had no thought that she would die. However, those bees didn’t attack Thelmalee at random. Someone went to a lot of tr
ouble to make sure the bees would swarm her.”
One of the sheriff’s deputies standing in the back started to make his way to the front of the room. Then he looked right at me. “Are you accusing someone in this community of murder, because if you are, you’d better have some evidence.”
“Not murder. Like Edna Mae, no one planned to murder Thelmalee. All they wanted to do was give her a good scare so she’d stop hogging the coveted chaise lounge site. And how they went about it was quite clever. You see, there are bushes behind the pool and lots of them. Honeysuckle. Boxwood Beauties. Lantana. Bougainvillea. Bees normally mill around the bushes. So how could someone ensure they’d be right by the very bush where Thelmalee’s chair was? Simple. Dig a small hole and fill it with sugar. And that’s exactly what they did.”
The deputy sheriff had moved a few feet closer. His voice was loud enough so that he had no need for a microphone. “Can you prove that?”
“Yes. Yes, I can.” I opened my mother’s big Vera Bradley bag and took out the small piece of cardboard. Then I held it up in the air. “You see this piece of cardboard? It’s from a cane sugar box. Common brand. Found in every grocery store. This particular piece was found under the bush when I went to investigate. There was a small hole where sugar had been poured. Someone forgot to remove the evidence.”
For the first time, the audience was speechless. Even the Kirksons.
The deputy sheriff, however, had a few words to say. “It may be evidence, but it’s not going to be admissible in court and it doesn’t lead us to the perpetrators.”
“No, not by itself. However, it does match exactly to the box from which it was taken.”
At that moment, I pulled out the entire box I’d found while sifting through the garbage behind Nolan and Nolan Realty that night.
“This is the box where it came from, and I found it in the garbage Dumpster behind Nolan and Nolan Realty, along with a number of other items and correspondence from their office.”
Josie Nolan shot out of her seat like a missile. “That doesn’t prove anything!”
“It proves the box came from your company. And that’s not all I found in that Dumpster. Let’s see, where did I put that note . . . ?” I thumbed through the Vera Bradley.
By now, Josie Nolan was getting frantic. “I don’t care what you found. Nolan and Nolan Realty did not murder Thelmalee. I certainly didn’t plant that sugar behind the bush. I mean, all of us sunbathers talked about it, but we didn’t do it.”
Then the deputy sheriff stepped in. “I’m afraid, Mrs. Nolan, you’ll have to come with me. Admissible or inadmissible evidence, you’ve got some questions to answer.”
“But, but . . .”
As the deputy started to escort Josie to the exit, another lady stood. It was Joanne. I recognized her as the woman with Peg at the pool. She grabbed Josie by the elbow and looked directly at the deputy. “Josie is telling the truth. She didn’t have anything to do with planting the sugar. It was me. I did it.”
Like the flick of a switch, the noise in the room dropped.
Hallelujah. A confession. I did it. Even with inadmissible evidence.
Joanne took a deep breath and then rambled on a confession I swear was longer than the Declaration of Independence. “None of us meant for Thelmalee to die. Especially me. I’m not a killer. I just wanted to enjoy the sunshine, like everyone else around here, and Thelmalee was making that impossible. She was particularly obnoxious the week before her bee sting. So when Peg and I stopped in at Nolan and Nolan for a cup of coffee, which we do from time to time since Peg is Tom Nolan’s sister and likes to visit, I saw the sugar cane box on the counter and decided to do something that day. The box was only half full and there was enough sugar in the bowl, so no one would notice if it went missing. I shoved it in my tote bag and ‘borrowed’ it. I brought it back the next day after I had poured some of the sugar under the bush. It wasn’t pouring out fast enough, so I ripped the tab from the other side. It must have fallen off.”
Then one of the other sunbathers spoke up. “Joanne didn’t act alone. We’re all responsible. You can arrest all of us. We all came up with that plan.”
One by one, they started to stand. That was when Peg held her arms straight out in front as if she were directing traffic. “Arrest all of them. I didn’t have a part in any of this. And for heaven’s sake, Joanne, why couldn’t you have used your own sugar? It’s not that expensive.”
“I’m sorry, Peg. I don’t have sugar at home, just Splenda.”
Peg shook her head, straightened her hair, and stared into the nearest TV camera. “I knew this was going to get out of hand. I told my sister-in-law I thought it was a stupid idea and that we should just follow the rules and file a complaint at the rec center. Didn’t I, Josie?”
Josie didn’t say a word.
“Well, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”
By now, Peg was getting really adamant.
But instead of answering her sister-in-law’s question, Josie made her own announcement. “THOMAS NOLAN, IF YOU’RE STILL IN THIS AUDIENCE, QUIT HANDING OUT BUSINESS CARDS AND CALL OUR LAWYER! JOANNE NEEDS A GOOD DEFENSE.”
One of the sunbathing ladies put her arm around Joanne. “It was a stupid thing to do, a prank. Each one of us thought someone in our group did it, but no one wanted to ask who. In a way, we’re all responsible for what happened to Thelmalee. So, when we found out about the book curse, it was serendipitous. It would take any suspicions away from us. We all agreed to keep that rumor going.”
Another deputy walked over to the deputy, and they spoke quietly before escorting the ladies to the exit doors. As they walked out of the social hall, Maisy-Jayne let out a clarion cry that could be heard for miles. “THERE’S GONNA BE A LAWSUIT!”
In less than thirty seconds, the entire room erupted into bedlam. Complete and total chaos. The Kirksons were shoving chairs and people out of their way in order to get to the doors. Members of the frantic audience tried to get away.
At one point, an elderly woman fainted and someone yelled, “Can we get some assistance?”
Unfortunately, her words were drowned out by the Kirksons, who had a few choice words as they stormed to the exit.
“LAWSUIT, HELL. I WANT TO WRING THAT SKINNY WOMAN’S NECK!”
“TAR AND FEATHER HER!”
“SHUT UP, FRANKIE. THAT’S AGAINST THE LAW IN ARIZONA!”
“SAYS WHO?”
“GET HER! SHE’LL PAY FOR THIS!”
A few posse members from the sheriff’s department tried to run after them, but they were no match. The firefighters took off as if they were about to battle a three-alarm fire. Meanwhile, the audience was in turmoil.
“It is that book, you know,” Vivian Knowlton said as I stared straight ahead. “Only a powerful curse could do something like that.”
“Not a curse. Bad upbringing.”
I had no idea how I was ever going to continue, because the Kirksons lit a spark that ignited the entire room. People were yelling at one another, pushing, shoving, and swearing. It was Sodom and Gomorrah. Unfortunately, it was being televised.
The camera crews moved in like they were covering a war zone. And suddenly, all of the ladies sitting quietly at the table began to stand and head toward the nearest reporter.
“Pardon me, Phee.” Lucinda edged behind me. “I didn’t get my hair done for nothing.”
Then Myrna Mittleson elbowed Lucinda. “Forget your hair. I spent half my social security check on this dress. Out of my way, Lucinda!”
“PHEE!” My mother yelled. “PHEE! Your phone’s ringing. I can hear it from here. Answer it.”
It was as if my mind was working on a ten-second delay. I was so intent on processing the chaos that had erupted around me that my hand couldn’t seem to reach into my pocket fast enough to get the phone. It was too late. I had lost the call. Frantic, I tried dialing Nate’s cell number, but all I got was voicemail. I left a brief message, knowing he’d hear the panic in my voice. “No time to expl
ain. TEXT ME with any info.”
My mother gave me a funny look and shook her head. “I thought you don’t like to get text messages.”
“I don’t. And I don’t like to send them, but I’ll never hear Nate with this calamity going on.”
I couldn’t tell which part of the three-ring circus was worse—Vivian off to the side interviewing with a reporter from Fox, the three local channels weaving in and out of the confusion as they tried to get comments from the public, or Gretchen Morin making her way to the cameraman from CNN.
“I’ve got to do something, Mom. I can’t let this go on. I’ve got to finish what I started.”
Then it dawned on me. I was the one who started this. It happened the minute I revealed who was responsible for Thelmalee’s death. I should have gone to the sheriff’s department the second I uncovered the matching cardboard piece from the cane sugar box. But nooooo . . . I had to have the spotlight, like all those famous detectives. And where did that get me? Standing in front of a disaster zone, not knowing what to do next.
“It’s not too late.” My mother pointed to the doors. “Look. See for yourself. The deputies have removed the Kirksons, and the firefighters are coming back into the room.”
“You really think I can pull this off?”
“I don’t think you have a choice.”
Chapter 29
The social hall looked more like a junior high school dance gone awry, but at least the Kirksons were out of the way and the screaming had stopped. I tapped on the microphone to try to get everyone’s attention, but it wasn’t working. My mother looked as frustrated as I felt.
“Remind me, Mom, to never, ever, under any circumstances become a school principal, because the last thing I want to do is to try this in front of an auditorium filled with kids.”
“Quit tapping on the mic and tell everyone to take a seat. Speak like you mean business, Phee.”
I held the mic at my chin and articulated each word. “I need everyone’s attention and I need it NOW. Please return to your seats.”