Big Lies in a Small Town (ARC)

by Diane Chamberlain

  “Are you Anna?” Oliver asked. The gentleness in his voice touched me.

  Judith nodded. “I suppose there’s no harm in saying that now,” she said. “I doubt anyone’s going to lock up an old woman after eighty years.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gloria asked.

  “Oh, hush,” Judith said to her. “I’ll explain it all later.” She looked at Oliver, then me. “How did you know? Did Jesse say something?”

  “I never met Jesse,” I said, “but in his will he asked that I be the one to restore the mural, and I—”

  “Ah,” she interrupted. “You were one of his projects?”

  I smiled. “Apparently, though I have no idea how he even knew I existed,” I said. “Anyway, Jesse kept the mural in his studio for many years, and—”

  “Here? In Edenton?” Judith looked stunned, her eyes wide.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “All those times I visited him here, and he never told me he still had it.” She looked bewildered. “I knew he…” She seemed to catch herself, then continued. “I just didn’t know he still had it,” she said.

  “It was in terrible shape when I started working on it,” I said. “But I gradually discovered some strange things about it. A lot of … disturbing images, and—”

  “Yes, yes.” She nodded. “I was going through a … a rough patch when I worked on it. It was a difficult time for me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gloria asked again.

  “I understand that now,” I said. “I understand it because I read your journal.” Across from me, I could almost feel Oliver tense. We were heading into delicate territory.

  Judith frowned, the paper-thin skin of her face suddenly full of new lines and her eyes cloudy with confusion behind her sparkly glasses. “My journal?” she asked.

  “Do you remember keeping a leather-bound journal?” I asked. “Your mother gave it to you?”

  She looked into the distance, then slowly nodded. “What did I do with it?” she asked. “How did you find it?”

  “Do you remember Mama Nelle—”

  “Nellie,” Oliver corrected me.

  “Right,” I said. “Nellie. Jesse’s little sister? You stayed with them when—”

  “The cutest little girl.” Judith smiled. “Of course I remember her.”

  “She passed away recently, and she and I … we’d gotten to know each other and she knew I was working on the mural and she left me your journal.”

  “Nellie had my journal?” Judith looked perplexed, and I guessed she didn’t remember leaving it behind when she ran.

  “Her family—Jesse’s family—kept you safe,” Oliver said. “Do you remember that? You stayed with them, while Jesse drove off with the mural in your—”

  “Oh, yes, I remember that very well.” She chuckled. “Years later, he told me he stowed it in one of his cousin’s haylofts before he went in the army. He never told me he found it again, though.” She looked at me. “Do you know about the … the man? The Edenton portrait artist?” Her expression was wary, as though she wasn’t certain she wanted to go there.

  I nodded. “Martin Drapple,” I said. I thought the name made her wince, but I couldn’t be sure. “I’m sorry all that happened to you.”

  “What happened to you?” Gloria asked.

  “Later.” Judith held up a hand to hush her. She looked from Oliver to me. “I was scared when Jesse moved back to Edenton in … when was it? The late seventies. Early eighties? I didn’t know who they thought killed that terrible man. I felt safe, hidden away with a new name in New York. But for Jesse to come back here then? A black man? And he kept his same name? I knew there was no … what do you call it? The statute…”

  “Statute of limitations,” Oliver said.

  “Right,” Judith said. “No statute of limitations on murder, and—”

  “Murder!” Gloria exclaimed, and we all ignored her.

  “And if they suspected he might have done it…” Judith let her voice trail off.

  “We wondered about that,” I said. “How could he have come back safely?”

  “It was that boy…” Judith looked into the distance, as if trying to remember. “A boy who helped Jesse and me in the warehouse. Blond hair. I don’t—”

  “Peter?” I asked.

  “Was that his name? I believe it was.” She nodded. “By the time Jesse had some fame as a New York artist, twentysome years had passed. Peter was high up in the police force here by then. I don’t know exactly how, but he swept things under the rug. And by the time Jesse actually moved back to Edenton, Peter was chief of police. Plus forty years had passed. No one remembered what had happened, and if they did, they didn’t care. By then, it was ‘keep your hands off Edenton’s claim to fame, Jesse Jameson Williams.’”

  “How did the two of you ever meet up again?” Oliver asked the question I was wondering.

  Judith had her eyes on the mural, but I thought she wasn’t really seeing it. She was lost in her memories. “Well,” she said, “I knew the best place for me to disappear was New York City, so I went there as Judith Shipley, and—” She suddenly laughed and looked at me. “Want to hear how I got that name?” she asked.

  “Yes!” I smiled, more at the enthusiasm in her face than the question. I thought I could see the younger woman—Anna—in her face when she laughed.

  “Well … you must know from the journal that I had a baby, right?”

  I nodded. “I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.”

  “Yes, it was a hard—”

  “Was that your daughter Debra?” Gloria interrupted.

  “No, no,” Judith said. “Debra was born much later. No, that baby was … not conceived in love, shall we say. And my labor seemed to go on forever. And I was in Jesse’s aunt’s room, in her bed—”

  “Aunt Jewel,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s right!” She seemed delighted to be reminded of the name. “Aunt Jewel. Saint Jewel, I came to think of her. What I would have done without that woman, I don’t know.” She waved a hand through the air, brushing away the thought. “Anyhow, I knew I’d be leaving soon after the baby was born and I had to think of a new name for myself. Aunt Jewel had a bookshelf in her room, and the whole time I was in labor, I could see those books. And there was one by a Judith Somebody, and the one next to it was by a Somebody Shipley. And I just took those names and threw them together, and that’s who I’ve been ever since.”

  Gloria’s mouth hung open. “I’ve known you eight years and you never said a word about any of this!” she said. I couldn’t tell if she looked more shocked or hurt.

  “Because it’s ancient history,” Judith said. “It’s as though it happened to someone else. I made peace with all of it long ago. You have to make peace with the past or you can never move into the future.”

  “So how did you and Jesse reconnect?” Oliver gently reminded her of the original question.

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “It was in the late sixties. I’d already made a bit of a name for myself, and one day a friend told me about a show in the Village by a talented black artist who’d just moved to New York from Paris. I just had a feeling it was Jesse. It was like a sixth sense. I walked in and there he was. I was forty-six … at least Judith was forty-six.” She chuckled. “Anna would have been fifty. I hadn’t seen him in nearly thirty years. Of course, Jesse didn’t recognize me right away, but you should have seen his face when he did! I made sure he met all the right people, then, and of course we became fast friends, as equals finally. There had always been a bond between us. My husband Max was an agent and he took Jesse on as a client, and we introduced him to Bernice, who became his wife. We never lost touch, even after he moved to Edenton. But in all these years, he never mentioned that he still had … this.” She motioned toward the mural.

  “He was adamant you be invited today,” Oliver said. “We thought it was because your painting—Judith’s painting, Daisy Chain—would have a place of prominence in the
main gallery. We had no idea it was because of the mural.”

  Judith turned toward me. “What kind of shape was it in before you restored it?” she asked.

  “It was a mess,” I said. “And I had such a short time to work on it because he—Jesse—insisted that it be finished by the gallery opening—today. If it wasn’t finished, his daughter Lisa—do you remember Lisa?”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. I saw her many times.”

  “If the restoration wasn’t completed by today, she’d lose the house.”

  Judith frowned. “I’m not following you.”

  Oliver and I explained about Jesse’s conditional will. “So I had less than two months to restore the mural and I had no idea what I was doing,” I said. “Oliver had to pretty much teach me everything.”

  “You were a very quick learner.” He smiled at me, but Judith hadn’t seemed to hear me. She looked deep in thought.

  “He insisted the opening be today?” she asked. “August fifth?”

  “Yes,” Oliver said. “He was firm about it.”

  Judith nodded. “Well, I can think of one reason why.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She smiled like the cat that swallowed the canary. “Judith turned ninety-six on June seventh,” she said. “But Anna turns a hundred today.”

  Oliver and I sat in silence as her words registered. I pressed my hand to my mouth.

  “What?” Gloria sounded shocked. She leaned back to look at Judith. “You’re a hundred years old?”

  “Jesse knew your real birth date?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. He’d always send me a card on that date. This date. Today. Not a birthday card, of course. Just a ‘thinking of you’ type card. I felt sad knowing I wouldn’t hear from him this year. It was … it was our shared secret, you know? My husband and daughter were the only other people who knew everything. Well, and Jesse’s Bernice, of course. But no one else.”

  “Well.” Oliver smiled past the shock he had to be feeling. “Happy birthday!”

  “Thank you.” Judith returned his smile, and with some effort and a hand on her turquoise cane, she got to her feet. “Now”—she said, nodding toward the mural—“I’d like to get a closer look at that old thing, if I may.”

  “Of course,” Oliver said. He stood up and reached for her elbow, but Gloria slipped between him and Judith to do the job herself.

  All four of us stood in front of the mural, and Judith read the wall text—the wall text that was now wildly inaccurate and would have to be rewritten once again. I watched her face as she read, her pink lips moving ever so slightly. Suddenly she gasped. She turned to look at me, her eyes intent on my face.

  “Oh, my dear,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Oh, my goodness.”

  The three of us stared at her. “What?” I asked.

  She licked her thin lips, her eyes riveted on mine. “I think I know why Jesse chose you to do this work,” she said.

  Chapter 67

  Judith pointed to the last line on the wall text: Restored by Morgan Christopher. “Is this your name?” she asked. “Not your married name, or … is this the name you were born with? Morgan Christopher?”

  “Yes,” I said, frowning.

  She turned back to the wall text and it was a long moment before she spoke again. “Perhaps it’s just a coincidence,” she said, “but…” She glanced toward Oliver. “May I sit down?”

  “Of course,” he said, and slid one of the chairs over to where she was standing. She shifted the chair slightly so she was facing us and lowered herself into it with a soft groan, her eyes on me the whole time. There was the slightest tremor to her lips.

  “My daughter Debra died four years ago,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Terrible thing, to bury a child.” She looked away for the first time in what felt like minutes, but quickly returned her gaze to me. “Shortly before she died, she did one of those … DNA tests? You know the ones I mean?”

  “Yes.” Oliver and I spoke at the same moment.

  “Debra knew I’d given up a baby long ago and she was curious to see what might pop up on the test.”

  “I don’t understand how those tests work,” Gloria said.

  “I would have preferred she not tamper with the past, but I thought she had a right to know if she had cousins or whatever out there.” She pressed her lips together, her eyes on me again. She drew in a breath. “Well, what popped up was the surname ‘Christopher.’ Over and over and over again. Lots of second and third cousins and … I don’t know what else, but it was clear that name had significance in her family tree.”

  A chill ran up my arms. I felt Oliver’s hand on my back. “It’s a pretty common name,” I said. Was Judith thinking I was somehow related to the baby she gave away? And how would Jesse have known that? And what possible difference could it make?

  Oliver rummaged around on the information counter and found a small notepad and pencil. He set it on the counter near me. Patted my hand. I was sure it felt cold to him. My blood seemed to have stopped flowing.

  “Let’s figure this out,” he said, beginning to write on the notepad. “Anna had a baby in 1940.”

  “That’s right,” Judith said from her seat in front of the mural. Her gaze was still riveted on my face. I felt her studying me.

  Anna had a baby in 1940 with Martin Drapple, I thought, repelled.

  “Why haven’t you told me any of this?” Gloria asked Judith, and we all ignored her.

  “The baby was given to neighbors of Jesse’s family,” Oliver said, jotting something on the notepad. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, they had the surname Christopher.” He looked at me. “What do you know about your lineage on the Christopher side?”

  I thought about it. “Not much. My parents aren’t exactly the type to hang on to old mementos and photographs. I know my father was born in Cary. My grandparents on that side lived in Cary, too. They died when I was pretty young.”

  “Could your grandfather have been born here in Edenton?” Oliver asked.

  “I don’t think so … I never heard my parents mention anything about Edenton. I’d never even heard of Edenton myself before I met Lisa. And besides, I never met Jesse. How could he have known who I was?”

  “Jesse knew who the family was that took my son,” Judith said quietly. Now she was looking into the distance with an expression on her face that suggested she was lost in a memory. “He told me once … when was it?… Maybe 1980, when he moved back here? Yes.” She nodded. “That makes sense. I would have been in my early sixties. He told me that his sister Nellie knew the family and where they’d moved to long ago. My son—the baby I gave away—would have been about forty years old then. Jesse said he could tell me where he was, if I wanted to know.” Judith looked from me to Oliver. “I told him I didn’t want to know,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’d closed that chapter of my life long ago.”

  I frowned at her. “But even if your son was my grandfather, which just … I doubt very much, is it just a crazy coincidence that I ended up here? That Jesse picked me to—”

  “Not a coincidence,” Oliver said.

  “He’s right.” Judith nodded toward Oliver. “I imagine Jesse kept an eye on my son. I’m guessing that he followed that family line just in case I one day said to him, tell me about my child. And then you came along, with an interest in restoration and—”

  “No, I didn’t know anything about restoration,” I said. “I was an art major at UNC, and not a very good one, either.”

  She studied my face for a moment. Then she chuckled. “Well, there you have it,” she said. “I can imagine how delighted Jesse was to stumble across someone in the Christopher line who was not only an art major but who was also having a rough time of it. No wonder you became one of his projects.”

  I held up my hands. “Wait,” I said. “I’m still not buying that I’m one of that line of Christophers.”

  “Call your parents,” Oliver s
aid. “Find out where your grandfather was born. Then we’ll know if there’s anything to this, one way or another.”

  I felt my face heat up as I thought of making that call. “I can’t call them,” I said. “I’m not speaking to them. They don’t even know I’m out of—” I cut myself off. I didn’t want to get into all of that in front of Judith and Gloria. I felt suddenly self-conscious about the monitor on my ankle.

  “Call them,” Oliver said again. The tone of his voice left no room for argument. I knew he was right. It was the only way to find an answer to this puzzle.

  I looked at him for a long moment. “My phone is in the kitchen,” I said. “I’ll call from there.” It was going to be hard enough talking to my parents without an audience. “I’ll be back.” I turned toward the hallway.

  “Want me to come with you?” Oliver offered from behind me, but I shook my head. I needed to do this alone.

  My mother picked up even before I heard a ring. “Who is this?” she asked instead of hello. A charmer, through and through, my mother. Even with those three words—“Who is this?”—I could hear the booze in her voice.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Morgan.”

  “What’s this number you’re calling from?” she asked. “It’s not your usual number at the prison.”

  “I’m out. I’m just calling becau—”

  “You’re out?” She sounded surprised. “Are you coming home?”

  “I’m not coming home,” I said. “I just need to speak to Dad for a minute. Is he there?”

  “Yeah, he’s here, but talk to me. How come they let you out? Why aren’t you coming—”

  “Put him on, please.” I would not get sucked into my mother’s weird games and guilt-tripping. I was twenty-two years old. An adult. I could live wherever I pleased.

  My mother hesitated. I heard the clink of ice in her glass. Heard her swallow.

  “I need to talk to him,” I said again. “Please put him on.”

  “Hold on,” she said with a sigh.

  I pictured her shuffling through the house toward my father’s office. She was probably still in her robe, although it was nearly evening. I cringed at the memory of the house. The air would be filled with the scent of cigarettes and booze and whatever was crusted on last night’s dishes in the sink.