Yeast of Eden

by Sarah Fox

  When she saw the sad surprise on my face, she hurried to add, “I don’t think that was as much her doing as her parents’ influence. They believed as much as anyone that Harry was likely behind their oldest daughter’s disappearance. It makes sense that they wouldn’t have wanted their other child associating with his family, even once he was no longer in town.”

  She fell silent, her eyes distant, as if her mind was drifting away from the present and into the past.

  “I found some of Camelia’s diaries in the attic,” I said once the silence had lasted several seconds. “It sounded like she was falling in love with Harry.”

  Joan’s sad smile made a brief reappearance. “And he was in love with her. Completely.” Some of the sadness left her smile. “I thought it was all so romantic. Camelia was so beautiful, and Harry was my favorite brother. There were five of us kids in the family. Three boys and two girls. I was the youngest.”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything, letting her continue.

  “I saw the way he looked at Camelia, the way he treated her. There’s no way he ever would have harmed her. He wouldn’t have harmed any girl. Tassy worked at our house as a maid. One day she never made it home, and when Camelia vanished, it all seemed like too much of a coincidence. Harry knew both girls. He’d been seen with Camelia frequently in the weeks before she disappeared, and he walked Tassy home sometimes, especially if it was after dark. He seemed like the most likely suspect, at least to those who didn’t know him like I did.”

  “The sheriff didn’t seem to agree.”

  “Ah, but I’m guessing you’ve heard what people thought about that.”

  “He and your dad were buddies.”

  “And it’s true. They were.” She frowned, her eyes changing, taking on a hint of an angry glint. “And he would have turned a blind eye to the truth for my father’s sake—that much I can’t deny. He did it often enough.”

  Her statement surprised me. “What do you mean?”

  “I never admitted this to anyone until I met my late husband, Emmanuel, but my father was a mean drunk. He kept up a good appearance as the mayor and an upstanding citizen, but he drank a lot, and he wasn’t the nicest of men even when sober.”

  Sympathy and apprehension sat heavily in my stomach. “I’m so sorry, Joan. Was he violent?”

  “Oh, yes. At times. He’d strike out at any of us, but if Harry wasn’t the target and he was around, he’d step in. So he always took the worst of it.”

  I pushed my unfinished tea aside, no longer having an appetite for anything. “And the sheriff knew?”

  “He did. Never did a damn thing about it, even when my father beat up Harry so badly that he ended up with a broken arm and a concussion.”

  I winced. “Didn’t people get suspicious?”

  “Oh, I’m sure there were plenty of people who were far more than suspicious. But my father would spin a story about Harry falling down the stairs or whatnot, and even if people didn’t truly believe it, they pretended they did.”

  We sat silently for a minute until Angel raised his head and whined at Joan.

  “It’s all right, sweetie,” she said, giving him a pat. “It’s all in the past now.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should voice my next question, but after a brief hesitation, I did. “And Harry never showed any signs of copying your father’s violent behavior?”

  “Never. Harry was the complete opposite of our father. He didn’t harm Tassy James or Camelia Winslow. I knew that without a doubt even before I ever had confirmation of that belief.”

  “Confirmation?” I latched on to that word. “You have proof that Harry didn’t kill the girls?”

  “I never had proof that he wasn’t involved in Tassy’s disappearance, but, yes, there was evidence that showed my brother most definitely did not kill Camelia Winslow.”

  Chapter 21

  “What kind of proof?” I asked, surprised and eager to hear more.

  “Maybe you’ve heard that Harry left town shortly after Camelia was last seen.”

  “I did.”

  “Before he left he told me it was too difficult for him to stay here with so many people having already convicted him in their minds. Those people made it clear he was no longer wanted in town. That was the reason he gave me at the time.”

  “That must have been terrible for you,” I said.

  “It was. Especially when he told me he wouldn’t be in touch for a good while. I begged him to write to me secretly, but he said there was no way for me to get letters without people knowing. And that was true. The lady at the post office was a terrible gossip, and my parents would have noticed if I’d received mail.”

  “Why would it have been bad for your parents to know he was writing to you? Wouldn’t your mother at least have wanted to know where he was and that he was all right?”

  Joan nodded, and for the first time her eyes grew misty. “It was terribly hard on our mother. But Harry insisted that he needed to keep his whereabouts secret, so he slipped away one night before our father got wind of his plans.”

  “And he was never heard from again. That’s what Nancy Welch at the museum told me. So how did you end up with proof that Harry didn’t kill Camelia?”

  The mistiness faded from her eyes. “He was heard from again. He got in touch with me. I just never told anyone about it.”

  I pulled my cooling tea back toward me and took a sip, trying to understand. Some of my puzzlement must have shown on my face.

  Joan patted my hand. “I’ll explain. It’s hard to get everything out at once.”

  I waited as she gathered her thoughts.

  “I didn’t hear from Harry for decades. It was only eight years ago that I received a letter from him. This isn’t the house I grew up in, but he managed to find out my married name and my current address thanks to the wonders of the internet.”

  “It must have been a shock to receive a letter from him after so long.”

  “It certainly was. I wasn’t even sure if I should believe it was really from him at first. But his handwriting hadn’t changed much over the years, and he called me Jojo in the letter. No one else ever called me that. I’ll admit, I broke down crying when I read the letter. Shook like a leaf too. He included his address and phone number. He was living in Raleigh, North Carolina, by then. I called him up and he invited me to visit. So I did. He didn’t want me to tell anyone that we’d been in contact, though. So I kept it to myself right up until today. My husband had passed away by then, you see. Otherwise I would have told him, of course.”

  “What was it like to see him again?”

  “Incredible. I’m afraid I blubbered quite a bit at first. Decades had passed, and he was well into his seventies by then, but there was no doubt he was my brother Harry.”

  “And when you visited him… Is that how you found evidence that he didn’t kill Camelia?”

  She nodded. “For the first time, I heard the truth. Some of it was hard to hear—some of it is still hard to think about—but other parts were a relief, like finding out that Camelia wasn’t murdered. She lived until the age of sixty-nine. She died of a stroke one evening, sitting across the room from Harry.”

  I took in that information, connecting the dots. “They were together all that time.”

  Joan smiled, and this time there was no sadness in it. “They were. Madly in love right up until the very end. He had photos of the two of them throughout their lives. There’s no doubt about it. Camelia was alive and well for decades after she vanished from Wildwood Cove.”

  I struggled to make sense of everything she’d told me. “So did they leave Wildwood Cove together?”

  “They left separately, but with a plan to meet up in Seattle, which they did.”

  “But why would Camelia run away like that and leave her family to think she might have been killed? Why couldn’t Har
ry let you or your mother know where he was?”

  Joan’s smile disappeared. “This is the part that was hard for me to hear, even though I think in a way I suspected it all along.”

  I waited as Joan paused and closed her eyes for a moment, as if steeling herself to say her next words.

  “Camelia wasn’t murdered, but Tassy James was,” she explained. “Only, it wasn’t Harry who killed her. It was my father.”

  I stared at her. “Are you sure? Harry told you that?”

  She nodded. “And I believe him. Like I said, I think somewhere deep down I always knew. My father was a nasty piece of work, and he was… inappropriate with Tassy at times. My best guess is that he took that too far and she fought back. It’s all too easy for me to picture him reacting violently in such a scenario.”

  I wrapped my hands around my mug, seeking some warmth, but it had long since cooled. “I’m so sorry, Joan.” I couldn’t even begin to imagine how terrible it had to be for her to know her father was a murderer.

  “You’re probably wondering how Harry knew this,” she said.

  “Did he witness Tassy’s murder?”

  “No. Camelia did.”

  I sat back in the chair, floored by that revelation. “How?”

  “She’d arranged to meet Harry in the woods beyond our house. Harry was late and while she was waiting, Camelia saw my father strangle Tassy and bury her body. When Harry finally arrived, Camelia was distraught. They considered going to the sheriff with what she’d seen, but in the end they were both too scared.”

  “Because the sheriff would have protected your father.”

  “He would have,” Joan confirmed. “My father wanted to protect our family’s image, so Harry didn’t get much official attention as a suspect. But Harry never doubted—and neither do I—that if Harry or Camelia had accused him of killing Tassy, he would have sacrificed Harry to protect himself. Nobody would have believed Harry over the mayor of the town. At first they tried to keep quiet about it, to pretend they knew nothing, but then Camelia got spooked. She didn’t like the way my father looked at her whenever she was visiting the house. Whether he somehow suspected that she knew something, or he was eyeing her as a replacement for Tassy for his unwanted advances, they never knew for certain. Either way, they decided it would be safer for the two of them to disappear. So that’s what they did. Camelia left with nothing more than the clothes on her back and some money Harry had given her. She didn’t think she could get out of her house with a suitcase without her family knowing, and her parents would never have let her go off with Harry—or any other man—no matter what the reason. So she went in secret, taking no belongings. Then Harry followed soon after.”

  “But for Grace and her parents to be left wondering for the rest of their lives…” I said with an ache in my chest.

  “I don’t know for sure that Grace was left to wonder.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Harry told me that Camelia left a letter for Grace, letting her know that she was leaving of her own accord.”

  “So Grace knew Camelia was alive.”

  “I don’t know for certain. By the time I learned all of this, Grace had long since passed away. To my knowledge, she never let on that she knew Camelia was alive, but maybe she did know and decided to keep that information to herself. In the letter, Camelia gave the address of a friend in Seattle and told Grace if she wrote to her there she’d get the mail eventually. But the friend never received anything from Grace. Camelia figured she was angry about her leaving like she did and was never able to forgive her enough to try to get in touch.”

  I couldn’t reconcile any of that with the Grace I’d known. “Are you sure Grace received Camelia’s letter? Was Harry sure?”

  “No, I don’t think he knew for certain. And to be honest, I wondered about that myself from time to time. Camelia didn’t want to leave the letter out in the open, so she hid it in a secret hiding place that she and Grace had used in their younger years.”

  “Do you know where the secret hiding place was?”

  “I haven’t a clue, I’m afraid.” Joan regarded me closely. “You don’t think Grace ever found the letter.”

  “I can’t say for sure, of course,” I said. “But I have a strong feeling that’s probably the case.”

  Joan shook her head. “That would be terribly sad. If Grace had still been alive when Harry got in touch with me, I would have told her everything. But it was far too late.”

  A wave of sorrow washed over me as I thought about Grace dying without ever knowing the truth. That couldn’t be undone now, but maybe there was still a chance to set things straight. “Have your father and the sheriff from back then both passed away?”

  “Oh, yes. Years ago. And I thought about trying to clear Harry’s name, many times over the last few years, but I no longer have any evidence to back up his story and I don’t want to publicly dredge up that part of the past if I have no proof.”

  “What about Harry himself? And all the photos that prove Camelia was alive long after she vanished?”

  “When Harry got in touch with me, his health was failing. He passed away only weeks after I visited him. Before I was able to get back to Raleigh to collect his personal effects, a bad flood destroyed everything on the lower level of his house.”

  “Including the pictures,” I guessed.

  Joan nodded. “I searched and searched for any others, but there weren’t any left. So I have no proof. Only a secondhand story from Harry.”

  My thoughts swirled about like dry leaves caught up in a sweeping wind. “But if we had the letter, that would help.” I tried to grasp another one of my whirling thoughts. “If Grace had found it, surely she would have kept it. But it wasn’t with Camelia’s diaries or the newspaper clippings. It’s possible she put it elsewhere, but I really believe she didn’t find it.”

  “But how can we possibly find it?”

  “If we knew where the secret hiding place was…”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Neither do I, but I do have an idea about where I might be able to find out. I don’t remember any mention of a hiding place in Camelia’s diaries, but I only skimmed through the early ones. Maybe if I read them more carefully, I can find a clue.” I grabbed hold of another thought as it swirled around. “And what about Tassy’s body? If you know where she was buried, that’s something you should tell Sheriff Georgeson.”

  Joan’s face took on a pained expression. “I know. I should have said something as soon as I heard the story from Harry, but I was so overwhelmed at the time, and the man who was sheriff before Ray Georgeson… I’m pretty sure he would have laughed and written me off as a batty old woman.”

  “Ray won’t do that,” I assured her.

  “No, I can believe that. He’s a good man. But I don’t know exactly where she’s buried. The woods went on forever back then, and the house isn’t there anymore. It was torn down to make room for new houses a few decades ago, and some of the trees were cleared too. Tassy could be under a house now.”

  Disappointment weighed on my shoulders. For a few moments, I’d had a spark of hope that we could at least find Tassy so she could have a proper burial, to bring at least a measure of closure to any of her family members who might still be alive.

  I asked Joan if she knew if any of Tassy’s relatives were still around.

  “She had several siblings—at least six—most of them younger than her, so it’s more than likely some of them are still alive. I don’t think any of them live here in Wildwood Cove, though.”

  Ray could probably track them down. At least, I hoped so. But unless we could find Tassy’s remains, there wouldn’t be any reason to.

  “I’ll see if I can find Camelia’s letter,” I said. “But even if I can’t, I think you should tell Sheriff Georgeson what you know. Maybe it won’t come to an
ything, but maybe it will.”

  “You’re right,” Joan said. “I should have done so already, but better late than never, I suppose.”

  I didn’t stay much longer. Our foray into the past had left us both somber and I was itching to get my hands on Camelia’s diaries again. The letter’s whereabouts was a mystery unto itself, one I knew I wouldn’t be able to ignore any more than I could the recent murders. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to find it—maybe it didn’t even exist any longer—but I knew I wouldn’t be able to accept those possibilities until I’d done everything I could to locate it.

  As I left Joan’s house and followed the narrow path to the sidewalk, the front door to Lisa’s house opened and Ray emerged onto the porch. I halted my steps, apprehension settling over me. Ray nodded at me as he headed for his cruiser, speaking into his radio.

  Lisa stood on her porch now, rubbing her arms, still in her work clothes but without a coat. As Ray drove off, I hurried over to Lisa.

  “What’s happened?” I asked with concern, noting the slight trembling of her lips as she pressed them together.

  Tears welled in her eyes and overflowed onto her cheeks. “I’m going to end up in jail,” she said with despair. “Now the sheriff thinks I killed Wally and Chester.”

  Chapter 22

  I ushered Lisa inside and out of the cold, shutting the door behind us.

  “What possible motive would you have for killing Chester?” I asked once we were in the house.

  Lisa wiped at one cheek with the back of her hand. “To keep him quiet because he knew I killed Wally.”

  “But you didn’t kill Wally. And if Chester knew you had, why would he have kept quiet over the past few days? He had no reason to cover for you.”

  “That’s what I told Sheriff Georgeson but…”

  She looked like she was about to crumple into a heap on the floor. I grabbed her arm and quickly steered her to the couch in the living room.

  “What is it?” I asked, knowing there was something she hadn’t yet told me.

  “They found a bracelet in Chester’s apartment. The sheriff showed it to me. It’s mine, Marley. I didn’t admit to that, but he already knows. I could tell.”