Strawberries and Suffering

by Katherine Hayton

  “At least once a week. Sometimes it’s every day. The manor recommends our services when they’re taking bookings because they know they can count on us. Our boss gives them a discount price in return.”

  “Just a moment,” Holly said, holding her finger up. “What do you mean that William was just leaving? He told me he’d had to take his car because he’d slept through his alarm and missed the bus.”

  Alex shrugged. “If it wasn’t him, then it was certainly his vehicle. It was parked up close beside the house when I arrived.” He pointed out the door to the right-hand side. “Just around that sharp corner so I didn’t see it until I was around the bend. If I’d been traveling any faster, I probably would have pranged it.”

  Sergeant Matthewson made some notes and nodded his head. “Thank you for that. Will you be around here much longer if I need you again?”

  This time it was Holly who cleared her throat. When the sergeant turned to her, she mimed taking a drink, and his face brightened.

  “I don’t suppose you saw Wendy Tahoe bringing in some wine glasses, did you?”

  Alex pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “They were in a box right beside the sink,” Holly added. “When all the other flutes were prepared ready for champagne on arrival, they were just off to one side.”

  “Oh, yeah. I didn’t know they were glasses,” Alex said. “But I saw that young lady barking at someone to leave them alone when they tried to move them out of the way.”

  Holly’s heart sank, but she tried to keep her face still. “Do you mean Emma?”

  Alex frowned. “Nah. Not Ems. It was that other young lady.” He pointed up at the ceiling, and the sergeant and Holly followed his gesture as though they’d see something stuck up there. Alex gave a small chuckle.

  “It was that other woman, the one getting married. What’s her name?”

  “Sheila Tahoe?”

  Alex’s face broke into a wide smile of relief. “That’s the one. Sheila. That girl just about broke William’s heart.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wendy didn’t want to go free when the police released her. She would still face charges—obstruction of justice for lying to the police at the very least—but she was free to go, with a court date pending.

  “I did it,” she had screamed when Sergeant Matthewson first came to tell her that Sheila had been arrested for the crimes. “You have to let my daughter go. I’m the one responsible.”

  With her car still sitting at Inglewood Manor and no one else that she could call upon for help, Holly offered to drive her home. It was a long ride, punctuated by short bursts of panting as the horror of the day caught up with Wendy. She pulled at the loose skin at the base of her throat until it looked raw.

  Holly had never visited Wendy’s home before. Although Matthewson had given her the address, as they got closer to the target, Holly had to break the heavy silence to ask for directions.

  “Take the next turn on your right,” Wendy said, her voice containing the same inflection as an automaton. “Once you get to the end of the street, it turns into a dirt road, and I’m at the end of it.”

  As they edged off the tarseal onto the muddy track, Holly clenched her jaw. The sedan that she’d run home to fetch was okay for running the short distances in and around the township. It wasn’t an off-road vehicle by any stretch of the imagination.

  Luckily, or by design, there was a good mix of gravel to offer a solid footing to the softening earth. The sedan gave an occasional lurch, but maintained traction as the road twisted up the side of the hill.

  Holly breathed a sigh of relief as she nosed the vehicle into a spot under a lean-to near the house. “We made it!”

  She turned to Wendy, and her expression of triumph changed into concern. The woman was sitting, staring straight ahead. There was no recognition on her face of where they were or what they were doing here. Wendy’s hands were clasped gently in her lap as though she was sitting in church.

  “We’re home,” Holly said, trying to nudge the woman into action. “Would you like me to help you inside and get you a cup of tea?”

  There was still no reaction, and Holly felt a glimmer of fear. Although she wanted nothing more than to go home and pretend the whole day had never happened, she couldn’t leave Wendy alone in such a vulnerable state.

  “I’ll just go and check if your door’s open,” Holly said, getting out of the vehicle. The rain had started again after a few hours of reprieve, but this time, there was no ferocity in it. Instead, a gentle spatter of drops formed a thin film on Holly’s skin as she crossed from the parking bay to the front door.

  Although Holly was growing used to houses being unlocked in the peaceful township, she also wasn’t surprised to find that Wendy’s door was locked tight. If what Emma said about the profitability of Wendy’s business was true, then even a carefree attitude would demand that basic level of safety. Not to mention the insurance company she’d probably have underwriting the company.

  After a quick check under the mat and on the ledge above the door, Holly jogged back to the car, opening the door and squatting down on the passenger side.

  “Do you have your house keys on you?” she asked. “I’ll get the place unlocked and set the kettle on to boil.”

  Wendy flinched back at the words, then resumed her blank stare at the windscreen. After a moment longer, Holly rose up from her squat and wrung her hands together. She really didn’t know what to do.

  “Wendy?” This time, Holly waved her hand in front of the woman’s face, hoping that would provoke a reaction.

  Nothing.

  “I’m just going to search through your pockets and see if I can find some keys to the house, okay?” Holly hesitated before leaning over and starting to pay Wendy down. “I won’t hurt you,” she added when the woman flinched back from her touch.

  “Here we go.” Holly felt the outline of keys in Wendy’s pocket. “I’m just going to reach in and pull them out. I’ll be quick.”

  She grabbed the keyring and tugged it free, accidentally snagging another set that fell onto the ground.

  Car keys. Holly bent over and picked them up, then noticed that the set of housekeys already had a vehicle key and fob on it.

  A spare set?

  The emblem for William’s car manufacturer was on the second keyring.

  “Wendy? What are you doing with William’s keys?”

  The woman gave a gasp, jerking as she inhaled as though just that small breath was a physical battle.

  “Never mind. I’ll open the house and set the kitchen up, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Holly retraced her steps to the house and breathed a sigh of relief as the key slid into the door and turned. She opened the home up, letting out a blast of stuffy air in the process. The light in the sky was falling into twilight, so Holly flicked on the lights as she walked through, searching for the kitchen.

  “There we are.” Holly crossed over to the sink and filled up the kettle before switching it on. In the cupboard above she found a tray of different teas. A cup of Rooibos would go down nicely, and not have caffeine to keep either Holly or Wendy awake at night. When everything was set up, the kettle boiled, and the tea steeping, Holly turned to head back to the car.

  Wendy was standing in the middle of the entranceway, hands hanging limply at her sides.

  “I hid them,” she whispered.

  Holly walked closer to Wendy, touching her hand then pulling back when the woman jerked away.

  “What did you take?”

  “I took the car keys. I told William that I’d lost them. I was scared that if I handed them over and let Sheila follow Derek to the hospital, she’d finish him off.”

  A wave of gooseflesh traveled down the length of Holly’s arms like the world’s tiniest Mexican wave.

  “You knew that Sheila tried to kill Derek?”

  Wendy nodded, a tear slipping off the bottom eyelid to splash down on the floor. “She told me when I too
k her upstairs. I never thought… I didn’t want to believe…”

  As Wendy trailed off, Holly nodded. What mother would want to believe her child—her own flesh and blood—would be capable of such a heartless act.

  “I already suspected. That’s why I hid the keys and told the paramedic to take the body. He said that Sheila could travel beside Derek to the hospital, but there was no way I could allow that to happen.”

  “That was a courageous thing to do,” Holly said. The words may have sounded like appeasement, but they were meant from the heart. What an awful decision to have to make. Holly couldn’t imagine the pain that the actions must have caused Wendy.

  “I wanted to make sure he was safe.”

  “You did.” Holly stepped forward and grasped Wendy’s hands between her own, and never mind if the woman winced at the touch. “Derek is safely in the hospital, and the staff thinks that he’ll make a full recovery.”

  “She stole the plants out of my garden. I always told Sheila, ‘You stay away from those. They’re dangerous.’ Here I thought she never listened to me.”

  Wendy broke down then, sobs tearing out of her chest like they were flesh being ripped from her bones. As Holly pulled her into a hug, her own tears started. The fear from earlier in the day was still there, lingering on like a ghostly stain.

  Behind them, the kettle whistled to a stop. Holly pulled Wendy through to the kitchen and sat her down on a chair. “Wait there. I’ll fetch you a cup of tea with far too much sugar. I’ll feel better when I know you’re not about to go back into shock.”

  She poured the tea and stirred four heaping teaspoons of sugar into it. When Holly had been little, that was pretty much the only medicine she and Crystal ever received. If she had something far worse, then maybe half a tab of aspirin might be doled out under watchful supervision. but for the most part it was tea. Tea. And more Tea.

  For the moment, it did the trick. The warm brew seemed to loosen up the knots in Wendy’s shoulders and dull down the trembling in her hands. As the color came back into her cheeks, Holly’s body edged into calmness. Perhaps that was the tea working its magic on her, too.

  “I made so many mistakes with Sheila growing up,” Wendy said after she was well into her third cup. “I know that everybody thinks they’re ruining their child—there are so many ways it can all go wrong—but I think now I have conclusive proof that I was right.”

  Holly felt her irritation start to rise. “I don’t believe that. Sure, if you’d beaten her black and blue each night, or left her alone for days on end I could believe that your behavior might have turned her a bit screwy, but…”

  For a second, Holly’s voice trailed off and her frown deepened. “You didn’t do anything like that, did you?” she whispered.

  Wendy’s eyes stretched wide, and she gave a bark of laughter. “No. I did not!”

  “Good. Just checking. Where was I?”

  “Somewhere between insisting that everything was my daughter’s fault and having the nerve to outright imply that I might ever have treated her that badly.”

  Holly rubbed her upper lip with her finger to hide the ghost of a smile. That sounded more like Wendy—a bit on the defensive side but also ready to fight her corner.

  “Well, as I was saying, unless you were the sort of mother who turns up on Sixty Minutes, I think you can put aside your claims to be the sole cause of everything that’s ever gone wrong with your daughter. I know that Sheila’s young, but not so much that the consequences of her actions are beyond understanding.”

  “But she did it because of my complaints,” Wendy protested. “For years, I’ve whined on about how the people in town don’t like me or respect our family. I told her that Brian Masters was by far my worst critic.” Her finger started to wag in Holly’s face. “There’s no way that I’ll be drawn on that last point. Sheila picked on that poor boy Derek for one reason only—because of me.”

  “Did you whine on about how you wished they were dead?”

  “Probably.” Wendy shook her head, even as she agreed with the question. “I’m sure I’ve blurted out that I wished Brian Masters was wiped off the face of the earth, more than once.”

  “I’ve done that too,” Holly said. “That man is an arrogant pain in the behind. Does that mean I’m also responsible for Sheila making the bizarre and awful decision to try to murder her husband?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Ditto.”

  Wendy crossed her arms over her chest and bent forward as if in pain. She rocked back and forth a few times, shaking her head. “I don’t understand how she thought that doing something like that was okay.”

  “I don’t know, Wendy. Whatever the reason, it was her decision, and she should bear the consequences alone. If you want to do something to lessen some of the harm done, then I would approach Arnold’s family and offer to help them in whatever way they need. They’re the ones hurt most by your daughter’s actions. Derek had a lucky escape.”

  At the mention of Derek’s name, Wendy burst into tears. “Do you know what Sheila said to me, down at the station?”

  Holly shook her head. She was shocked that the sergeant had given the two women the opportunity to speak together at all.

  As if she’d read her mind, Wendy said, “I slipped back past Sergeant Matthewson when he was showing me out and ran back to the cell. Sheila didn’t even look upset. When I told her she’d better pray that Derek didn’t die, she just laughed and said she’d be better off if he did. That way she could use his money to pay for better lawyers and get off the charges.” Wendy shook her head. “I feel like I never knew my daughter. Not at all.”

  Although Holly tried to put herself in Wendy’s place, she didn’t have the capacity. It was beyond her imagination to think of what it would be like just to have children. To have a daughter who grew up and turned into a complete stranger? It would take a stronger mind than Holly’s to imagine how that scenario felt.

  Suddenly, she remembered what Aidan had told her. At the thought of him, a smile played across her lips, and then Holly looked again into Wendy’s stricken face, and solemnity pulled her back across the line.

  “If it helps, Sheila wouldn’t get any money, even if her plan had worked out perfectly.”

  Wendy looked up, a suspicious frown carving lines on either side of her brow. “What do you mean?”

  “The marriage license was left behind in the church. Even though Minister Woodfield performed the wedding ceremony, there was no legal marriage. Not until they both put their signatures on that piece of paper. Whether or not Derek died, the circumstances would be precisely the same. Sheila never stood to get a penny of his money.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Holly drove the car down the long bends of the road back home, she thought about the dreadful situation. The day had done nothing to perk up her ideas about marriage. Instead of thinking back to her and Simon, though, the disaster today would always be the first to spring to mind when people spoke of their wedding day.

  Crystal had waited up, even though the yawn she sported spoke volumes about how tired she was. “At least I got a start on the day tomorrow,” she said after giving Holly a hug. “I’ve got two batches of cupcakes ready and cooling on the counter.”

  Holly tipped her head back and groaned. Often, working at the bakery didn’t actually feel much like work. The prospect of tomorrow, however, was about as welcome as the thought of punching in at a factory or dropping down into the mines.

  “Go to bed,” Crystal said, pushing at Holly’s shoulder. “Once you clock up a few hours’ sleep, you’ll be as right as rain.”

  “As welcome as a good sleep would feel right about now, I think you’re placing too much faith in its restorative facilities.” Holly peered at the clock over the kitchen counter. “Especially since, by my reckoning, I’m only giving it five hours to do its job.”

  “So, you can nap during the slow times.” Crystal laughed and shook her head. “It’s like living
with you as a teenager all over again. We can’t afford to close the bakery for two days running. We could only do that yesterday because the commission was so high.”

  At that, Holly’s eyes snapped wide open. “About that?”

  “Yes? What about that?” Crystal stared at her sister for a few moments, then tipped her head back and groaned again, even louder. “Let me guess. As if it wasn’t bad enough that her daughter tried to kill the poor boy that I’m sponsoring through AA, you don’t want to charge her for all the effort that we put into today.”

  “To be fair,” Holly said, shifting from one foot to the other, “we really didn’t provide the full service, after all. Not to mention, I accused her of murder when she was completely innocent.”

  Crystal rolled her eyes. “Not completely, if you ask me. She did cover for her daughter, so she must have had a fair idea of what was going on.”

  “I don’t think she could let herself believe it,” Holly said. “And by the time she knew anything, it was far too late for Arnold or Derek.” She shivered. “I’m just grateful that the timings worked out so well with the paramedic. I hate to think what would have happened if he’d just been a few minutes later.”

  “Don’t think about it then, that’s my advice.” When Holly started to open her mouth, Crystal put a finger up to her sister’s lips. “No. No more talking tonight and no more thinking. Get to bed”—she leaned over and gave Holly a peck on the cheek—“and I’ll see you in the morning.”

  As Holly slipped between the sheets, she expected to fall asleep the moment her eyes closed. Instead, a replay of events from the day spun through her mind, the same scenes scrolling over and over.

  The look on Wendy’s face when she said, “It’s all my fault.” The instinctive drive to protect her daughter leading her first to confess to crimes she didn’t commit and then accept the blame for the decisions her daughter had made alone. Esmerelda stepping in front of Elvira to protect her great-niece from attack.