Mary paused and then said, “She made it clear she was disinheriting someone again. She…well…Mom was mean.” She gave a short snort of laughter. “She liked to rub it in that someone would be losing the money. She wanted all of us to worry. She would have strung it out…who she was disinheriting. Dinner that last night was…hard.”
Claire put her hand on Scott’s. It was all so terrible to hear. Mary’s voice was flat, dry even, as if she didn’t have enough moisture in her mouth to explain what was happening. It was painful to see, the way that her eyes didn’t quite meet theirs. Was Mary lying? Was she ashamed? Or was she just in mourning?
“Were you worried it was you that would be disinherited?” Claire asked, and Mary shrugged.
“I told myself when I tricked her into paying for my school, and to never expect any money or let her hold it over me. I’m not sure I succeeded though. Once I had the girls…I could see how different their lives would be if they had a cushion. I tried to play nicer with mom then. But Danny hated it. He wouldn’t let us bring the girls to dinner—ever. He would immediately leave if she started to be horrible when we did bring them by. He said we didn’t need the money or the manipulation.”
Claire thought for a moment, then carefully asked, “Is Danny your husband?”
Mary nodded and said, “Danny knew about my mom. We met in college, and I told him everything. He knew about the whole situation. We never should have come back to Brightwater Bay. His parents are lovely. But…I love it here. This town gets in your soul. It was always my plan to come back here. We shouldn’t have though. We should have been smarter.”
Mary sniffed again. “Mom was just so…evil. She paid for IVF for us. I couldn’t get pregnant without it. She was mad when I had a girl. Like Hannah was anything but wonderful. And when I had a second girl…” she said quietly, then took a deep breath. “Mom was awful. Told me I should have to pay her back. What made Mom furious wasn’t something you could ever predict. Why would she be so angry over having granddaughters?”
Claire shivered at the emotion in Mary’s voice. It was pure heartbreak. Claire reached out a hand and took Mary’s, but she didn’t even seem to notice. She was staring at the floor as she talked, face as flat as ever, and her voice only showing emotion by the utter lack of inflection.
“I’d have had another baby if I could have. But Mom wouldn’t help us again, and it was just too expensive.” Mary’s shaking fingers wiped a tear away. “It’s always been as though she took my next baby from me. It wouldn’t have hurt her to pay. To help us. She wouldn’t have even missed the money. But she wouldn’t do it. No matter how much I begged. No matter how hard I tried to help her understand that our girls were a gift and another girl would have been, too. Mom never saw my daughters that way. Just boys.”
Claire felt tears burning in her eyes for Mary. The emotion called to something within Claire, and she couldn’t help but wipe a tear away.
Mary noticed, but she didn’t say anything more than, “Makes you realize what she thought about me and Helen, doesn’t it?”
There was a flash of bitterness with that comment, and Claire felt a pang of sympathy for Mary. It did indeed. It was clear from the will that Gertrude Park favored her son with the way the will was set up, but she hadn’t thought it would have been quite so uneven.
Claire thought of Mary and Helen, and Michaela, the beautiful little Miller girls. Second rate to the son, just because of their gender.
“But that was a while ago, you know? Not helping me with the baby. That was years ago. Maisey is my youngest. She’s six-years-old now. Was Mom going to disinherit me now because of how angry I got then? Maybe…maybe if she knew how mad I was. Maybe if she knew the things I said? Or how much I hated her for it. But it’s too late for me to have another baby now. And we don’t need the money for anything else. We’ll be fine. I have Danny. I have my girls. I have a good job and a nice house. I don’t need anything else. I wouldn’t risk all my good things for revenge this late.”
“You don’t have your mom, though,” Scott said gently. He ran his hand down Claire’s arm as both of them stared at Mary with her shaking fingers and her too-white face.
Mary’s face was stark when she replied, “I never did, though, did I?”
Claire felt like the world’s cruelest monster when she asked, “Do you know any reason why your mom might have disinherited your brother or your sister?”
Mary laughed, but she wasn’t amused. “I don’t want to help you catch them. But…you know what makes me angry? That they didn’t kill her before. Why didn’t Ethan kill Mom when she started twisting her screws into his boys? Why didn’t Helen kill her when Mom was so mean about Michaela? Why did they have to wait until after I couldn’t have a baby? If they were going to do it, couldn’t they have done it when I could still have my chance?”
Chapter 9
A tear rolled down Mary’s face as she hoarsely said, “Why is that what upsets me? Not losing my mom. Not losing the money. But the fact that whoever killed her did it after it was too late for me.”
She stood up and walked to the window, but she kept talking. “Both of the other kids have reasons Mom might have taken away the money. I don’t know what Mom knew. I don’t care.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “I want to be sad she’s dead. I want to be angry that one of my siblings killed her. I don't want to feel like this, but I do….”
“I…” Claire started, but Mary held up a hand to interrupt her.
“Please don’t apologize for it. It doesn’t help.”
“Can you tell us about that last dinner?” Scott’s voice was soothing and calm, which seemed to be just what Mary needed.
“Mom invited us all over every Friday. I didn’t always go. We knew she really had a bone to pick this time. She let little comments drop. She made it clear that she was going to mess with us.”
Scott nodded as Claire squeezed Mary’s hand.
Mary sniffed as she admitted, “Danny and I had a bet for when Mom would kick us out. We stopped for the early happy hour over at the steak house since sometimes Mom would make us stay and just torment us before letting us leave. The last time I got a migraine because I’d missed lunch.”
“So, you ate before her dinner?” Claire asked and Mary nodded.
“Not always, but often enough,” Mary said. “When we got there this time, she wasn’t too bad. Little comments but nothing terrible. I expected her to lash out soon but that isn’t what happened. Danny said something to Michaela and she took it the wrong way. I didn’t even hear it, but she started to cry.”
“Oh, no,” Claire murmured.
“Danny usually gets along with everyone but my mom, so I was really surprised. So was Helen. She’s super protective of Michaela because of how bad our mom was about Michaela. Mom called her “the by-blow” up until she died. Not always, but often enough.”
Scott cursed under his breath and Claire elbowed him sharply in the ribs.
“It was probably just because we were on edge, but when Helen and Danny started arguing, Mom kicked us all out. She even threw her wine on Helen. She got up and told Mom she was a nasty old woman and she deserved all the unhappiness she sowed.”
Claire glanced at Scott and back to Mary.
“It was typical of Helen to say stuff like that to Mom. Helen went to school and graduated but Mom always treated her like a high school dropout without a brain in her head, so Helen over-compensated.”
“Oh, goodness,” Claire muttered. “So, she didn’t mention the will?”
“We all knew she was up to something, and that always meant threats about the will. Any of us could have been disinherited when my mom was on one of her tirades. All I can tell you is that either Helen or Ethan could’ve been easily disinherited. Myself as well. And any of us had a chance to put poison in that cake. I don’t know which one did it or why. It wasn’t me. Believe me or don’t, but it wasn’t me, I swear.”
Claire would have said, I’m sorry for your l
oss but it somehow seemed as if it would have been unkind, so she simply said, “Thank you for your time.”
Scott opened the door so Mary’s dog could dart inside, then shut the door quietly behind them. They walked in silence to the car. The pouring rain seemed to be crying for Mary and the baby she’d wanted. It seemed to be crying for that mother and that daughter who would never love each other. It seemed to be crying for all those wasted moments. They held hands as they ran to the car and the warmth of each other’s fingers helped against the chill they felt. If only the chill had been from the wet weather and not from what they’d heard.
* * * * * *
“I need to clear out my brain,” Scott said as they drove away from Mary Miller’s house. “Want to go to the beach?”
Claire nodded. Their fingers were wound together, and the beach was mostly deserted. The rain had let up, but they were certainly going to get wet if they got out. Instead, Scott cracked the windows, so they could hear the sound of the rain and waves combined. The insides of the windows fogged up a bit, and there was the smell of salt air and damp seaweed. The wind whistled through the car, carrying with it the renewing scent of rain and the ocean.
“Did you ever want a child that badly?” Scott asked.
“That’s a level of wanting that I think few people ever reach,” Claire said, thinking about how Mary regretted the child she never had more than the death of her mother. “She’s clearly a good woman, so I’d have to imagine that she’s feeling…broken…by her thoughts.”
Scott looked at her sideways. “Are you avoiding answering my question? About wanting a child so bad?”
Claire shrugged noncommittally, looking out the windshield at the blowing sea grass. “Sure, I’ve thought about it, but I think that ship’s pretty much sailed. You know, sometimes I’m amazed people go out walking on the beach in weather like this. It’s really starting to blow.”
Scott looked at Claire and back out at the water. The beaches of Washington State weren’t tropical paradises. They tended to have gray skies, low cloud cover, big rocks, and sometimes gusts of wind that could nearly blow an adult off their feet.
“Do you think Mary killed her mom?” Scott asked.
Claire had to think about it for a while. The assumption that it was anyone other than one of the Park family was ridiculous. The will was going to be changed, someone who expected an inheritance would lose it.
“No,” Claire admitted. “I think she’d have killed her mom when she couldn’t talk her into another baby. If she didn’t do it then, as angry as she was, she wouldn’t kill her mom now.”
Scott sighed and said, “It amazes me how horrible people can be to each other sometimes. Gertrude Park was a terrible mother, and even though her kids are in their middle age she was tormenting them up to the day of her death.”
Claire laid her head against the headrest and sighed. Finally, she turned around and pulled two cookies from one of the pink boxes and handed one to Scott. She was kind of sick to her stomach, so after a moment’s thought she handed him the second one as well.
They watched the incoming storm for a few minutes, eating and thinking, and then Scott admitted, “I don’t think it was Mary either. And not just because she didn’t kill her right after Mrs. Park said ‘no’ to paying for the IVF treatment.”
Claire nodded. “And since she didn’t kill her then, why would she kill her now? She loves those kids more than anything. It’s clear in her house, on her Facebook page, in the way she’s mourning a third one. She’s projecting the love she has for her daughters onto that dream child.”
Scott started the car as their gazes met. “She didn’t kill her mom.”
“Nope,” Claire agreed.
Ruling someone out should feel a little more…triumphant, but it didn’t. Mary Miller had a motive that Claire could understand well enough, even if she didn’t admit it to Scott, but mostly she empathized with the lack of regret for a woman like Mary Miller’s mother.
Chapter 10
The road from Brightwater toward the countryside curved and wound through the forest by the resort, then the darkness of a forest canopy opened up into wider spaces and lush fields. The scenery had more dairy farms and grazing cows than the forests and trees that surrounded the town. The house of Ethan and Leah Park was out in the countryside with their three sons. Somehow the fields of long grass morphed into perfect carpets of green, and Claire guessed they were getting close.
Scott knew where he was going and navigated with practiced ease, but Claire had never been to this part of the countryside. He explained that Ethan Park and his family lived in country ‘estates’ with property attached. An elaborately carved sign at the entrance to the subdivision said Parklane Hills.
“Is it named after them?” Claire asked Scott, who nodded once.
“Mom calls them McMansions. Lots of acreage, mostly in lawn. Huge chunks of country land bought up by people who are worried about what other people think about the size of their houses and the size of their wallets.”
There was an unexpected note of bitterness in Scott’s voice, one Claire had never heard before. She turned and looked out her window at the estates rolling by. According to the map on the entrance sign, the smallest piece of property was three acres and the largest was over twenty acres. Tall brick homes were flanked with columns and circular driveways, with rolling fields and expensive horses surrounding them, or sometimes just fields of highly-manicured lawn.
“Strange to live in a place that’s named after yourself,” Scott added as he eyed the houses.
“Oh my,” Claire whispered thinking of her little rental cottage. She wasn’t envious. She was actually grateful. Grateful for her tiny war-era home that was snug and had a view of the ocean and didn’t come with all this maintenance, let alone the taxes. The properties, despite their lushness, had a weird sort of sterility and lack of life to them.
A black horse with white socks lifted its gorgeous head as they drove by and then she felt a flash of envy. It was the envy of her inner twelve-year-old who’d spent countless hours doodling sketches of horse heads on her notebooks during school hours. “Oh, that horse is beautiful,” she said, her eyes following his graceful movements.
“He’s a beauty,” Scott agreed as he turned down the drive that went with the horse.
The horse’s head turned and followed their movement, walking slowly along the fence line where they were driving. Scott was taking it slow on the gravel road, which let Claire and the horse make friends through the window. His eyes were so bright with curiosity and personality that she fell more and more in love with the great beast.
“He’s the Park’s?” Claire guessed, given that the field was attached to the house they were stopping at. “I’m jealous.”
They both looked to the house and Claire’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t because the house was a huge gray brick monstrosity complete with two levels of porches, French doors, and pillars. It was because there was a moving van in front of it and Ethan Park was pleading with his wife. Claire glanced over around and found three boys watching. They weren’t watching their parents, though. They were watching the moving van fill with box after box of things. Leah Park must have already been packed.
“Oh no,” Claire said, staring at the big, fat motive in the drive. “She’s leaving him.”
She couldn’t imagine that Mrs. Gertrude Park who disowned one child for having a baby out of wedlock and refused to pay for fertility treatments for another after having two girls would somehow be okay with a divorce in the family. Especially the divorce of the one child who had her support. The one child who had sons.
The heir.
“We can’t bother them now,” Scott said. He reversed the car out of the drive as Claire attempted to exorcise the looks on those boys’ faces from her memory. They’d been so solemn, so stark and hopeless. Dead eyes in too-pale faces. Standing together, a united front while their parents split.
She couldn’t get the image of th
em out of her mind. “Did you see them? The kids?”
Scott nodded. His jaw was tight, and you could see the muscle ticking in the jaw. “I saw.”
“Oh man,” Claire muttered. “Ethan Park had plenty of time, the murder weapon was there at the house. He’d have been disowned. Mrs. Park must have found out about Leah leaving her son. Maybe she told him if he couldn’t sort it out, she’d disown all of them?”
“Maybe,” Scott said as he turned them back onto the main road.
They drove back through the countryside towards the town and Scott suggested, “Dogwood Café? We’ll see if we can get Darryl to come by and talk to him about what we saw. Makes me feel bad to do it though. The more I find out about Mrs. Park the more I wish that lightning had struck her before she could twist her kids all up.”
Claire agreed, and they parked outside the café a few minutes later, walking right past the specials board without even seeing it. Their minds still on what they’d seen, Claire and Scott dropped into the booth that Lucy nodded towards. With a quick glance around, Claire didn’t see anyone else she knew. She sighed as she fiddled with the silverware and thought about what it might have meant to have Ethan and his wife separate.
“You look like you got hit by a truck, sweetie,” Lucy said, not unkindly.
Claire looked up at her friend and took the cup of coffee Lucy was holding out. She’d poured the coffee before she’d even walked over to their table.
“Bless your kind heart,” Claire murmured. She closed her eyes, breathed it in, and said, “I wish I was just making cookies today. I feel a little dirty by moving into these people’s lives.”
Darryl walked in, still in his police uniform. At Scott’s nod, he came over and slid into the seat across from Claire and Scott.
Claire had to say what was on her mind. “Okay, I have to ask. Darryl, how do you do this? Squirreling into people’s lives? Finding their darkness? How can you stand seeing the worst side of humanity every day?”
A Sweet Spoonful of Cyanide Page 6