“That should be interesting,” said TJ, “since we didn’t arrest him.”
“Well,” Lettie said, “you know that Mike Sturgis doesn’t have the brains of a snail. I knew he couldn’t kill anybody because he’d probably shoot himself in the foot or set his pants on fire.”
Grace laughed and then groaned because laughing hurt her back.
“Oh, that reporter, Kelsey Karnes, called and wants an interview. I told her to leave you alone until you felt better,” Lettie reported.
“I’m sure that went over well,” said Grace.
“I’m off to see what needs to be done at the house before the parade. You’ll be home sometime this afternoon and I will be all ready to nurse you back to health. Got soup simmering on the stove already. See you later.” And Lettie was out the door.
“Oh, TJ, please save me from this fate,” Grace said as she stretched her beseeching arms.
“Sorry, Grace. You’re the one who gets yourself in these messes. Now you have to pay your dues. By the way, we recovered Tully’s gun from the ashes and debris. No registration, of course, and no serial numbers. Seems ironic that he died in a fire of his own setting.”
“He told me he loved the flames.” After a pause she added, “How did you find me, TJ?”
“Ah, that’s magic, Grace. Just good detective work. We like to keep the inner workings of our investigations on the down-low.”
“Can I join in this conversation?” asked Jeff Maitlin, sticking his head in the door and bringing Grace a bouquet of daisies.
“Hi, boss. Those daisies are just beautiful. Thank you.”
“Looks like you have some other admirers, too,” he said, and pointed to three other flower arrangements.
“Better that I get them in the hospital rather than the funeral home,” she said soberly. “We were just talking about Bill Tully.”
“I hear he admitted killing a lot of people,” Jeff said, looking over at TJ.
“He told Grace he killed the Kesslers because Ted was going to turn himself in for those fires years ago. And he killed both Brenda and Ronda to keep his secret.”
Grace added, “So perhaps old Ben Franklin was right. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Unfortunately for Tully, other people figured it out. He was an unhappy man, abused and neglected when he was young, and able to lie with ease as an adult. I felt a little sorry for him.”
“Grace!” TJ walked over to her bed. “He was a cold-blooded sociopath who didn’t care about anybody, and he could tell the truth as easily as lies. It didn’t matter who stood in his way and their lives meant nothing to him. He doesn’t deserve your sympathy. He tortured you with the idea of fire. He’d have killed you in a horrifying way if you hadn’t outsmarted him.”
“I’ll second that,” Jeff said. All three of them were silent for a moment.
“What I don’t understand,” said Jeff, “is how they could have been so wrong on the identification of the Lawler kid—Tully—in the first place.”
“I can help you with that,” Grace said. “I’ve thought about it a lot. When I talked to Deputy Chief White he said that they didn’t have any dental records on the Lawler kid or Ted Kessler. The parents, yes. And back then they wouldn’t have had fingerprints on file unless Kessler or Lawler had been arrested. It wasn’t like today when parents routinely have their children fingerprinted in case some ugly event happens down the road. No DNA either in 1968. So the fire chief simply used the location of the body—the extra bedroom—to identify it as Lawler’s. Tully, er Lawler, was counting on that so he could just disappear and start a new life.”
TJ glanced out the window and then turned back to Grace. “I did some checking on the background he gave you about Tennessee and Kentucky. At least two departments were uneasy about him. He seemed to turn up at fires. He was questioned at least a couple of times about suspicious fires and they had his fingerprints on file as Tully. The departments faxed fire photos from three different towns and there he was—watching right on the front lines. They didn’t have enough information on him to hold him, and since he never left any kind of starter material, they didn’t have an MO to try to match a pattern. He just favored gasoline, and heaven help the person who got in his way.”
“I’d agree, Grace. No sympathy,” Jeff seconded and glanced at his watch. “And I need to change the subject for a moment. I fired Shannon Shiveley. Hate having sniveling, lying employees, so she’s gone. That means I’m short on news reporters. Thought you might be willing to help a bit from time to time if you think your future novel can spare you.”
Grace was silent.
“Nothing? No reaction?”
“I was already thinking about how retirement is going to seem a bit tame compared to the last week. But despite the excitement, I’d rather not live through that last week any other time in my life.” Her cell phone began playing “Nine to Five” and she hit the decline button. “It’s Jill. I’ll call her back.”
Jeff laughed. “Do I have a ringtone?”
“Sure. You want to hear it?”
He nodded. She pushed the buttons and the mellow sounds of “New York State of Mind” started playing.
Jeff smiled. “Perfect. So if you continue to work for the paper, it doesn’t mean you need to dig up any more murderers. But I do want you to put in a story about Tully and explain the facts about the Kessler fire. It’s about time Ted Kessler had some peace.”
“I’d be glad to do that.”
“And consider further employment?”
“Yes,” Grace said, a wide grin on her face.
Jeff let out a deep sigh. “So when are you blowing this joint?”
“Probably as soon as the doctor comes in and releases me.”
“I hear Lettie has the sickroom set up at your house.”
“Oh.” Grace put her head back and looked up at the ceiling. “This may be more than I can bear.” She gave TJ a martyred look.
“I have a suggestion,” Jeff said. “Of course, it depends on how you’re feeling.”
“And what might that be?” Grace asked, her features softening.
He walked over closer to the bed where Grace was sitting up on the edge, her legs dangling over the floor. “If you’re feeling up to it, let’s go to the dinner and dance tonight. At least you’ll get to see a little of the celebration. You’ve already missed most of it.”
She looked at Jeff with a bemused smile. “Sounds like a great plan to me. Of course, Lettie will probably have a curfew for me.”
“Ah, I can take care of Lettie,” he smiled. “Pick you up around six p.m. Don’t know about the dance part. You’re still pretty sore and tired, I’d imagine. We could always watch the dance part.”
“Thanks, Jeff. My back is still pretty sore.”
“Well, off to the parade.” He turned, waved to TJ, and left. Grace looked at TJ and said, “You know, he has the most beautiful periwinkle blue eyes.” Then she sighed.
TJ lifted one eyebrow quizzically. “Well, I just have one question before I go.”
“Yes? How did I get out of that barn? How did I manage to leave my cell phone on so you could find me? How did I happen to dig a hole under the wall? How did I keep Tully from killing me before he set the barn on fire? Fire away! Well, maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it.”
TJ gave her a quizzical look. “Who is Roy Trotter?”
“Ah,” she said, lying back on the bed. “Ow. Darn back.” She sat up again. “That is a secret, my dear TJ, that you will not hear from my lips. I have to keep some of my secrets to myself.”
“Hmmm.” TJ walked over to Grace and added, “I’m glad you’re still with us.”
For a moment Grace was silent. Then her eyes filled with tears and she said, “I’m glad you found me. Thank you, TJ. You are the best of friends, and I owe you my life.”
The detective smiled and gently shook her head. “Seems to me you’ve been amazingly lucky so far. I think maybe you should stay away from fires. Three mi
ght be a charm.”
After TJ left, a nurse came into the room with a thermometer and blood pressure cuff. The nurse said, “All right, Ms. Kim-ball. We just need one last reading and you can check out. I think your sister-in-law has been called to come pick you up.”
Grace let out a deep breath. She looked at the nurse and thought to herself, Clarissa Durdle, one of the good ones. She did her term paper on Florence Nightingale and it was superb.
EPILOGUE
* * *
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Grace glanced at the yellow, gold, orange, and red leaves adorning the trees in a perfect Midwest fall tableau. This is why I don’t live in Arizona, she mused. She glanced at her three children and granddaughter, hoping they couldn’t read her thoughts. She could imagine what they probably texted to each other after she’d called them from the hospital a few weeks ago—M call U 2? Did she cry this time? Think we should go home and C her?
A gentle breeze blew some of the leaves on the ground and they rustled, brushing up against each other and swishing across the grass. Soon the green blades would be dying and the cold November chill would start to set the stage for winter. But for now it was enough—the beauty of the fall and the sun shining down on the groups of people standing nearby.
After Grace’s stories appeared about the misidentification of Ted Kessler and the details leading up to the fire at his house, Jeff Maitlin spearheaded a drive to amend a terrible wrong. The funeral home donated flowers and the townspeople gave generously, hoping to put a closing chapter on this miscarriage of justice. Jeff had even twisted Mike Sturgis’s arm and gotten some money out of him. Grace smiled when she remembered she’d been suspicious of Jeff.
The minister was just finishing the short graveside service. No longer was there a small stone moved off yards away from William and Terry Kessler. Now the couple was joined by a grave and a coffin that had been exhumed and moved. She looked at the newly carved gravestone and read the words:
“Theodore Austin Kessler, Beloved Son, 1952–1968.”
Grace looked at the faces of her townspeople as she listened to the words of the Reverend Ellis Groves. Most of her neighbors had turned out, and she saw faces of people she had met when she first moved to Endurance and faces of their children whom she had taught. “This is where I belong,” she whispered, her lips barely moving.
As she stood next to Ted Kessler’s grave, she sorted out the conflicting thoughts she’d considered as she occasionally rested on the sofa surrounded by her books in the aftermath of the murders. No more fire nightmares since the death of Nick Lawler. It was as if a burden had been lifted, an understanding that she was stronger than she knew. Thank you, Mother. And then she considered the retirement issues. Teacher Grace had been feeling used up, sad, unhappy about no longer being in a classroom. That feeling was balanced by her realization that she’d accomplished some good. Every time she turned around she saw another former student who had become part of her memory—some more than others.
She smiled and almost laughed, but TJ’s elbow jabbed her side, reminding her where she was.
Grace looked across the grave at the faces of her friends—Deb, Jill, and Lettie—and she thought about how she had cheated death twice. Perhaps she was being given more time for a reason. Maybe she was supposed to stick around.
She decided she had more stories to write, more wrongs to right. Maybe a novel set in her little town could be entertaining. Lord knew Mayor Blandford and his wife Polly were great material, and so were the eccentric characters she saw every day. The town’s history could use more research, and putting it on paper would be a perfect project. Who knew what she might dig up—another old murder or two?
The service ended and people began to turn and leave the cemetery in small groups. She crossed over to her children and hugged each of them. Then she explained that she had something to do and she’d be home shortly. She turned to Jeff Maitlin and they both walked over to his car. He opened the trunk and they picked up two bouquets of flowers. They crossed the road and walked up a path where they put one bouquet on each of two new graves—one for Brenda Norris and the other for Ronda Burke.
“After all,” Grace told him, “I knew them a long time and loved their better qualities. Even now I could name them for you.” She said a brief prayer over each grave. Then she said to Jeff, “I need to do one more thing before we leave. Please go ahead and wait for me at the car. I’ll be right there.”
She turned and marched back over to Ted Kessler’s grave. Leaning over, she pulled a shiny object out of her coat pocket, a small metal circle with a raven’s head, and laid it on top of the coffin. Then she turned and motioned to a man from the funeral home who was waiting to remove the chairs and green carpet. She had recognized him earlier when they walked into the cemetery for the service.
“James Trotter, I just knew that was you.” A young man—probably in his mid-twenties—with long brown hair hanging into his eyes, turned and smiled as he recognized her. She was thinking, I remember he was suspended for making a peephole into the girl’s locker room his junior year. She sighed. I guess it is my teacher’s fate to remember these silly things forever.
She smiled back at him and said, “James, I need to get hold of your brother, Roy. Do you have his college address?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
Susan Van Kirk, was educated at Knox College and the University of Illinois. After college, she taught high school English in the small town of Monmouth, Illinois [pop. 10,000]. Some of Grace’s fictional memories are based on that experience.
Van Kirk taught an additional ten years at Monmouth College, where she also began writing. Her short story, “War and Remembrance,” became one of the chapters in her creative nonfiction memoir, The Education of a Teacher (Including Dirty Books and Pointed Looks). Three May Keep a Secret is her first Grace Kimball Endurance mystery. She divides her time between Monmouth, Illinois, and Phoenix, Arizona, where her three children and nine grandchildren live. Currently, she and Grace are headed for another adventure.
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