Watkins - 05 - Poison Heart

by Mary Logue

  “You did that?” Margaret couldn’t imagine Mark doing anything that might hurt an animal.

  “I didn’t shoot the elk; I just cut the fence line. They wouldn’t have gone far. It was just something to relieve what I’m feeling.” He picked up an old red bowl that her mother had given her and looked inside it as though there might be a secret there for him to read.

  “She’s going to be in court today. I saw it in the Durand Daily. Maybe I’ll go down there and give them a piece of my mind.”

  He let the bowl fall from his hands. He didn’t throw it, but it broke, nonetheless, in a rain of red shards all over the floor. He stormed out of the house, letting the door bang shut behind him. She called after him, but he didn’t even turn around. He ran to his truck, jumped in, and drove out of the yard.

  Margaret checked to make sure the baby goat hadn’t been hurt by the shards. “I have to stop him.”

  She looked up a number and dialed it. When a operator answered at the sheriff’s department, she asked for Claire Watkins. “I’ll transfer you.”

  A moment later, Claire’s voice came on the line. “Deputy Watkins.”

  “Claire, it’s Margaret. I’m sorry to bother you. . . .”

  “Oh, Margaret. I was going to call you. It’s looking like Patty Jo might accept a plea bargain. She’ll be in court this afternoon. Don’t bother to come. It’ll do you no good. I’ll call when it’s over.”

  “It’s about Mark.”

  “Mark?”

  “Well, he just stormed out of here as angry as anything, and he was talking about being at the courtroom when Patty Jo was there. I’m afraid of what he might do.”

  “Do you know if he took a gun?”

  “I think he might have one in the truck. You gotta stop him.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get to him before he gets to the courtroom.”

  Margaret hung up. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She thought of getting in her car and driving down to the government center, but she couldn’t stand the thought of seeing what might happen to Mark. She’d be better off waiting at the house.

  She stared at the old trunk sitting under the window. It was all she had left of her father and mother. At least she had that to remember them by.

  Margaret went to the trunk and opened it. The faint smell of lavender floated out of it and took her back to her childhood, when this trunk had always been in her parents’ bedroom.

  Her father used to leave her surprises in a secret compartment that was tucked under the one drawer. Sometimes it was silver dollars, sometimes candy. Once he’d left her an arrowhead that he had found in the fields.

  She opened up the drawer and then slid back the secret compartment. It was empty. Nothing from her father. She felt bitter disappointment. Then she realized that what she had thought was the lining was actually a piece of paper. She reached in and lifted it out. It was folded. When she opened it, she saw it was a letter from her father.

  Dear Margaret,

  If you are reading this, that probably means I’m dead. I always wanted to explain to you what happened with your mom. It was my fault, and I accept responsibility for it. When your mom got so sick, I didn’t want her to live like that. You understand. I talked to Patty Jo about it, and she said she would help me release your mother from her illness. She killed your mom, but I helped her do it. After we married, she kept bringing it up and said if I didn’t sign over everything to her in the will, she would tell what we had done. It was never my intention to hurt your mom. And I never wanted to hurt you. Please forgive me.

  Your dad.

  The letter was dated in the lower left-hand corner—five days before he had his stroke.

  Margaret stood up and held the letter tightly in her hand. So Patty Jo had told the truth. Her father had helped Patty Jo kill her mother. Or rather he had known she was going to do it and hadn’t stopped her. Hard to blame him. But this letter did prove that Patty Jo had coerced her father into writing a new will. This evidence might make all the difference. She had to stop Mark. Maybe her father had left her a way to get the farm.

  Claire sat outside on the front steps of the government center in the autumn sun and watched as Mark pulled up in his Chevy truck. She knew his vehicle.

  He stepped out of the truck and saw her sitting there. At first it looked like he was going to try to skirt around her, go in one of the other doors, but then he changed his mind and walked straight toward her.

  “Hey, Claire. You taking a break?” he asked.

  Claire stood up. She was between Mark and the door. She saw no reason to pretend. “Waiting for you. Margaret called me.”

  “Why’d she go and do that?”

  “She doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I just wanted to check out what’s going to happen to Patty Jo.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  He took a step closer, and Claire moved toward him. She was ready to get in his way if she needed to.

  “What’re you doing? It’s a public building. I want to go in and watch.”

  “You going to let me pat you down?”

  “Since when did that start happening here?”

  “Since you might be carrying a weapon.”

  He looked chagrined.

  “I think you should go home, Mark.”

  He slumped and turned toward the truck, then bolted. He ran toward the other door. But she was closer. She cut over the lawn and reached it before him.

  She stood in front of the door and patted her gun. “Let me tell you how it is. There’s two deputies stationed at the entrance to the courtroom. No way would you get by them. You’re not getting by me. If you turn around now and get back in your truck, we forget this happened. If I have to pull my gun on you, you will be under arrest for not obeying an officer. If you are arrested, this will not be taken lightly.”

  “You think you have all the answers, but that woman is getting away with murder.”

  “I know. But you will only hurt yourself and Margaret if you try and stop this process. We all live under the law.”

  “It’s fucked.”

  “It doesn’t always work the way we want it to, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  “But why do I have to play by the rules when she doesn’t?”

  Claire was fed up with him. “Mark, what is the matter with you? I’m sorry about all that’s happened. Patty Jo can’t mess up your life, but you can. If you don’t pull yourself together right now, you will take one giant step toward destroying yourself. Then she will continue to win.”

  For a moment Claire thought she was getting through to Mark. He glanced down at the sidewalk and looked as though he was about to slink away. Then he grabbed her by the shoulders and started shaking her.

  Claire couldn’t get her arms free, so she kicked and connected with his knee. He screamed in pain but wouldn’t let go of her. She slammed her head into his face and then he fell over, pulling her down with him.

  He was on top of her, but he had let go of her shoulders and brought his hands up to his face. He was bleeding. She tried to scramble away from him, but he caught the belt of her pants, and she couldn’t get away.

  Just when she was ready to punch him again, she heard a scream. The next thing she knew, a woman had her arms around Mark’s neck and was pulling him away from her. The woman was Margaret.

  “Stop it,” Margaret screamed. “Stop.”

  Mark quit fighting and put his face in his hands, sitting on the sidewalk.

  Margaret stood over him, her hands on her hips, and yelled, “What’s the matter with you? Do you want to ruin everything? You should be so ashamed, Mark. We’re going to get our farm back from Patty Jo if you will just pull yourself together.”

  Claire dusted off her clothes and stood up. When she saw Margaret, she knew something had changed for the better, though she wasn’t sure what it was. Margaret was yelling as though she had a new life. Her head was held high, and she was finally fighting for what w
as hers.

  CHAPTER 27

  Claire and Rich swayed around the dance floor in the old barn on Ruth and Jake’s farm. It had been a perfect wedding: a crisp, bright, early November day, a large gathering of close friends, the woman pastor from Fort St. Antoine’s Moravian Church doing the honors of uniting Ella and Edwin in holy matrimony. Meg’s new goat had gaily pranced down the aisle by her side, both of them wearing crowns of flowers, although Poppy the goat had ended up eating hers during the ceremony.

  Margaret and Mark danced close to them, and the two women smiled at each other. Margaret had told Claire the other day that Mark had gone to his first AA meeting in Wabasha. With the new evidence of Walter’s letter, the court had decided that Patty Jo had used undue influence to force Walter to change his will in her favor.

  Since the court had reversed its decision and given the farm to Margaret, she seemed so much happier. Claire realized she had never really known who Margaret was, having met her under such dire conditions. Also, Margaret had told Claire her hot flashes were finally subsiding.

  Claire was glad that Patty Jo Tilde—she even hated that the woman still carried the name of the man she had probably murdered—was out of the county for good. In a plea agreement she had been given twenty years for the murder of Florence Tilde, with possible parole after ten.

  Someone started clinking a glass, and the whole room exploded with the sound of forks tapping wineglasses. Edwin and Ella stopped where they were on the dance floor and kissed. Cheers erupted. They looked so happy together. Ella had worn a lovely taupe silk dress, her hair in short white curls all over her head. Edwin had rented a tux. He looked like an English butler.

  Stuart, Lucas, and Rich had all rented tuxedos. But Rich had insisted on wearing his cowboy boots. Claire had found a lovely rich claret silk dress at the thrift shop in Red Wing.

  The wedding presents were in a pile by the cake. Claire could hardly wait for them to be opened. Rich and she had picked out a cream-colored hand-sewn quilt from the Amish Country store in Stockholm. She knew Ella would love it.

  Claire looked around for Meg. Her daughter was dressed in a flowered dress that made her look like the teenager she would soon become. Claire was surprised to see her dance by with Ted. It looked like her daughter had her first boyfriend.

  Even Beatrice seemed happy. She was sitting with two older women friends and had been talking away all evening. She was looking a little tired now, and Claire knew they’d have to get her back to the nursing home soon, but she seemed to have enjoyed herself. In another week or two, she was going home to her own apartment.

  “Time to cut the cake,” Ruth called out when the music ended.

  Stuart had made a three-tiered cake and decorated it with lovely sculpted roses. Almost a shame to cut into it, but there was Ella brandishing a knife and ready to cut the first piece. Edwin circled her waist with his arm and then joined hands with her.

  The cherry pie that Daniel Reiner had delivered yesterday was sitting next to the cake. He had left it with Rich, telling him that he owed Claire big-time and this was his way of thanking her. She could tell the pie had come from Le Pain Perdu, but it was the thought that counted. Maybe the guy had a chance of fitting into this community after all.

  Claire felt Rich wrap her in his arms and kiss her on the neck as Ella and Edwin cut the cake.

  “Are we going to have to wait that long?” Rich asked her, whispering in her ear.

  “Till we’re eighty? Maybe not.”

  OTHER BOOKS BY MARY LOGUE

  Novels

  Red Lake of the Heart

  Still Explosion

  Claire Watkins Mysteries

  Blood Country

  Dark Coulee

  Glare Ice

  Bone Harvest

  Poetry

  Discriminating Evidence

  Settling

  Poison Heart is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2005 by Mary Logue

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the publisher upon request.

  Ballantine Books website address: www.ballantinebooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-345-48457-4

  v3.0