This Bitter Treasure: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 3)

by S. W. Hubbard

  The guy on the other end sighs. “Yeah. It’s always life or death. You gotta wait for her to call back, ma’am. We don’t take messages for inmates.”

  “Okay, okay—I get it. I’ll come to visit her. When are vising hours today?”

  “No hours until Saturday.”

  “Saturday!” I can’t come on Saturday—that’s the day of the sale. “What happened to Thursday and Friday?”

  “We don’t have visitation seven days a week, ma’am. It’s a staffing issue. Come on Saturday.”

  He hangs up.

  Damn! After the way she treated me when I visited her, Darlene sure isn’t calling me for social reasons. If she’s reaching out to me, it’s gotta be because she thinks I can help her. It’s gotta be something to do with Tom Eskew’s visit to her home.

  While I’m trying to think how to handle the Darlene problem, Ty appears holding a scroll of art paper in front of him. I can see a faint pattern of colors from the wrong side. I wish I had a camera ready to capture the expression on his face: brow furrowed deeper than when he’s doing Stat homework, lip curled higher than when he’s disturbed a swarm of roaches.

  “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  “You tell me.” He turns the painting around. It’s one of Rachel’s distinctive watercolors, primitive yet compelling. I take a step closer to study the scene.

  A girl in a pink dress lies on a bed, the same four-poster bed that’s in the second bedroom on the right upstairs. Her arms and legs are each tied to a bedpost with colorful, fluttering scarves. Her mouth is open in a silent scream. A man dressed in doctor’s scrubs stands beside the bed. With one hand, he’s reaching into the girl’s torso; with the other he holds a gory mass dripping giant blobs of blood. On the other side of the bed stand a man and woman, impeccably dressed. Their faces are dominated by huge red smiles, the same shade as the blood. They hold their hands out in front of them, palms parallel. To show that they’re clapping, Rachel has painted tiny sparks of yellow and orange.

  My eyes meet Ty’s. “I was in jail with a dude whose son drew a picture of him gettin’ shot up by a posse of Crips. Then the kid handed it in for Back to School night. That’s what this reminds me of.”

  “What’s the doctor doing to her, I wonder? Did something awful happen or was she just traumatized by having her appendix out or something? Rachel’s so strange, it’s hard to know.”

  “What are we going to do with it?” Ty asks.

  I take it and roll it up. “Someone might buy her nature paintings, but no one will be buying this. I think I’ll hang onto it though.”

  As I put the picture in my bag, my phone rings. “Audrey? It’s Wes Tavisson.”

  I wasn’t expecting to hear from him so soon. I hope he hasn’t discovered the painting is damaged beyond repair. “How’s the restoration going?”

  “Huh? Oh, the Arthur Dove—no worries. That’s not why I’m calling.”

  There’s a long pause, so long that I pull the phone away from my ear to see if the call got dropped. No, he’s still there.

  Finally, Wes speaks. “I called Sloane Trevelyan.”

  “You did? I thought you barely knew her.”

  “I know. I can’t believe I had the nerve, but ever since I talked to you I haven’t been able to get Parker off my mind. I kept stewing over why he would have called me to tell me about the trouble with Sloane. It was almost like he was determined that I should know the truth, not the cover story. Finally, I couldn’t bear it anymore, and I called a mutual acquaintance and got Sloane’s private number. And now I’m calling you. Because what Sloane told me has me even more confused.”

  I hear him take a deep breath.

  “There was no rape. She never accused him of anything. She loved him, so she did what he begged her to do.”

  “Which was?”

  “Send that letter. She forged it on her father’s letterhead.”

  “But why? Why would he want her to tell a terrible lie about him?”

  “He wanted to transfer to Columbia. He knew his father would never allow him to leave Harvard. So he arranged the transfer, then got Sloane to forge the letter so his father would have no choice but to go along with the transfer.”

  “That’s crazy! He could have been arrested if the letter became public. It could have ruined his whole future.”

  “I know,” Wes agrees. “It blew my mind.”

  “And she told you all this freely?”

  “Audrey, it was like a dam bursting. Once I got her started, I couldn’t have stopped her if I tried. It’s been weighing on her all these years. And she also has been thinking about Parker since his mother’s murder has been in the news.”

  “So what made Sloane go along with such a wild scheme?”

  “She explained it by saying they were kids. Even smart kids don’t think about how their actions could come back to haunt them. And I guess the awareness of campus rape was totally different then. It was still the kind of thing that regularly got swept under the rug. They simply took advantage of that attitude.”

  I’m still stunned by the extreme nature of Parker and Sloane’s hoax. “But why would he want to leave Harvard that badly? I thought he was brilliant. Was he so unhappy there?”

  “He was a straight A student. He had plenty of friends. All he would tell Sloane was that he needed to be close to home. At Columbia, he was a forty-five minute train ride from Melton.”

  “He was homesick?”

  “No, it can’t be that. He’d been going away to camp all summer long for years.”

  “If he and Sloane were in love, why would they want to go to different schools? Was he trying to break free of her?” But even as I say this, I realize how nutty is it. If this were a scheme to dump her, why would Sloane go along with it?

  “Sloane said they never fought, but after the transfer they drifted apart. She would write and call, and he would barely answer. He seemed preoccupied. Then he invited her down to Columbia for the weekend. They were supposed to spend a fun long weekend in Manhattan. Instead, after the first day, he announced he had to go home to Melton. Obviously, he couldn’t take her with him. She was marooned in his dorm room until she finally gave up and returned to Cambridge. That was the end. Eventually, Sloane married someone else. They’re divorced now. I think she never got over Parker.”

  “And she never found out what was happening at home? Where were his siblings?

  “I know his younger brother and sister both went to boarding school,” Wes says. “Only his sister Rachel would have been home with his parents.”

  Rachel again. What was the bond between Parker and Rachel? “What was Parker like around Rachel, Wes? Do you remember anything unusual about their relationship?”

  “She was just his kid sister. She was always kinda ‘off’, you know, but Parker was very patient with her. More so than anyone else in the family.”

  “And Parker never talked to Sloane about Rachel? Discussed what was wrong with his sister?”

  “Nope. Sloane said he just shut down. Wouldn’t tell her anything about what was going on at home. By the end of our conversation, Sloane was in tears,” Wes continues. “She was blaming herself, saying if she’d been more understanding, stuck with him through whatever the problem was, maybe…you know, none of it would have happened the way it did.”

  There would’ve been no Leonie. No pregnancy. No flight to Hilton Head.

  Parker would be alive.

  Chapter 33

  Tonight, after a long day at work, I have to face the Coughlin siblings family meeting. Topic under discussion: how to deal with Sean and Audrey’s wedding. Sean and I want to keep the guest list to under one hundred, which means a whole raft of Coughlin cousins and in-laws will be excluded. We need a strategy for informing Sean’s mother, and that requires all the siblings to maintain a united front. No wavering in the defensive line.

  When I pull up in front of Deirdre’s house, there’s no sign of Sean’s car. Rats! I’ve beaten him here. I se
riously consider keeping my foot on the gas and driving a few loops around the neighborhood to give Sean time to arrive. I still feel uneasy in the boisterous whirl of the Coughlin family, and I’m not sure how to manage it solo. But just as I’m deciding to move on, the kids tumble out of the house and spot my car.

  “Audrey! Audrey! Audrey!” Three of them come charging toward me while a fourth leans back through the front door and bellows, “M-o-o-o-om, Audrey’s here.”

  The kids surround my Honda, a gang of four-foot-tall carjackers. “She brought Ethel!”

  A screech of excitement goes up, causing Ethel to cower in the back seat.

  The kids fling open all four doors at once, but luckily Ethel is too nervous to run off despite the allure of a wide lawn and leaf piles. I clip on her leash and drag her out.

  “Easy, guys. She needs to get used to you.”

  The girls wrap their arms around Ethel while the boys attempt to shove them away. Little fingers jab her ears and little sneakers tramp on her tail. Ethel bears it all stoically.

  Eager to rescue her, I search the clutter of toys in the yard. “Hey, is that a Frisbee? Ethel loves to play Frisbee.”

  Ian, the oldest, scampers off to get the orange disk. He throws it with a smooth flick of his wrist, and Ethel charges in pursuit. She positions herself strategically, leaps, and catches it in midair.

  The kids scream in delight. “Let me throw it! Let me throw it!”

  Relieved, I sit on the porch steps to supervise. I’m in no rush to go in and make small talk with my future sisters-in-law.

  The Frisbee game continues for a good twenty minutes. Still no Sean. Finally Ethel can’t take it anymore and comes limping up to me with her tongue lolling. As I’m getting her a drink from the hose, Deirdre emerges from the house.

  “There you are!” She hugs me. “Thanks for wearing the kids out. Maybe we can have a quiet dinner for a change.”

  I follow her into the kitchen. Deirdre’s home is like a “before” picture from Love it or List It , while Adrienne’s is the fabulous house that no one can afford. Where Adrienne has acres of gleaming granite and stainless steel, Deirdre’s counters are so covered in piles of homework and mail and soccer schedules that I’m not sure what material they’re made of.

  Deirdre scoops a pile of papers off a chair and orders me to sit. Her gaze turns to the clock on the microwave. “Five-forty. Usually I wait ‘til six to have a drink, but if we have something to celebrate we can start a little early.” She pulls a big jug of pinot grigio from the fridge and unscrews the cap. “So, what are we celebrating?”

  “Uhm…”

  “No one had detention this week. How’s that?” She fills two tumblers to the brim and pushes one toward me. We raise our glasses in a toast.

  It’s not that I don’t like Deirdre; I do. But I’m still edgy that she might question me about how I managed to lose Chrissy at the carnival, but apparently that episode has been forgotten. In the front of the house, I hear Sean’s other siblings and their families arriving, first Terry, then Colleen. Deirdre tells me a story about her oldest son’s encounter with the principal, which I strain to hear over the increasing din of the arriving cousins.

  I catch a whiff of charred meat. “Uh, Deirdre…could something be burning?”

  “Shit!” She hustles over to the oven to check the damage.

  Meanwhile, Chrissy barrels into the kitchen and skids to a stop beside me. “I’m going to make you a friendship bracelet. Let me see your wrist.”

  I hold it out.

  “Green or pink?”

  “Green.”

  “I like pink better.”

  “Pink.”

  She’s wearing a Larchmont School Lynxes sweatshirt. “Chrissy, do you know a boy named Kenny Hayes?”

  “No.”

  “Really? I think he goes to your school. He’s handicapped.”

  “Oh, yeah—Stretch.”

  Deirdre drains a pot of potatoes. “What do you mean, Stretch?”

  “That’s what kids call him cause of the way he goes.” Chrissy demonstrates the spastic movement of Kenny’s neck.

  “Chrissy!” Deirdre drops what she’s doing and grabs her daughter by the shoulders. “That poor child has a health problem! He can’t help it that he makes that motion. Don’t you ever make fun of him.”

  Chrissy squirms out of her mother’s grasp. “I don’t call him that. I said other kids. Anyway, he doesn’t go to my school anymore.”

  “He doesn’t? Since when?” I ask.

  “This week. The teacher said he’s going to a new school where they can help him more. He’s going to live there. We all had to write him a note so he won’t be homesick.”

  Every hair on my body stands up. A residential treatment center? Where would Darlene possibly get the money for that?

  “The teacher showed us a picture of the place. It was pretty. But I wouldn’t want to go there. You wouldn’t ever send me to boarding school, would you, Mom?”

  Deirdre hugs her daughter. “Of course not, honey. I’d miss you too much. But I’m sure Kenny’s parents are just trying to do what’s best for him.”

  Chrissy’s face lights up as she looks over her mother’s shoulder. “Uncle Sean!” she squeals, and Kenny is forgotten. Sean comes into the kitchen and lifts his niece into his arms. She wraps her skinny legs around his waist and buries her head in his neck. Who can blame her? Sean’s embrace is a great place to be.

  “My three favorite women all in one room.” Sean sets Chrissy down and moves to hug his sister. Then he crosses over to stand behind me and massage my shoulders.

  “Four, Uncle Sean. Ethel’s here too.”

  Sean peeks under the table where Ethel is curled in a tight ball, trying valiantly to make herself invisible to the growing horde of Coughlin children.

  “Everyone who matters is here,” Sean says. “Except, where are Brendan and Adrienne?”

  On cue, Adrienne waltzes in, but she’s alone. “I brought the kids. Brendan’s coming straight from work.” She gives Deirdre an air kiss and agrees to a glass of wine. I watch her wrinkle her nose at the first sip.

  “How’s the wedding planning?” Adrienne asks. “Have you found a dress yet? If you procrastinate any longer, you’ll be walking down the aisle in yoga pants.”

  I have, in fact, ordered a very simple dress from J. Crew with the help of my best friend, Maura, but I don’t want to announce it here. I can hear the squeal of excitement that will go up from all the Coughlin women. Then they’ll insist that I find a picture on the Internet, and they’ll fuss, and cluck, and crow. I don’t want to be the center of all that attention. It makes me squirm.

  “I’m closing in on it,” I say, and Sean winks at me.

  “I’m st-a-a-rving,” one of the kids complains.

  Sean checks his watch. “It’s after six. What time do you think Brendan will get here?”

  Adrienne shrugs. “I’m not my husband’s keeper. I reminded him this morning and got accused of nagging. I’m done.”

  Sean’s lips compress into a thin line. Not one of his more endearing expressions. Deirdre also notices and starts herding everyone into the dining room. “The pot roast is already overdone. Let’s start eating and I’ll fix a plate for Brendan when he gets here.”

  Deirdre’s pot roast is the ultimate comfort food and the dinner conversation is all light-hearted banter about the Mets post-season, and the kids’ soccer, and whether dressing as the Pope for Halloween would be sacrilegious. Ethel parks herself beside the youngest Coughlin’s booster seat and obligingly cleans up everything he hurls to the floor. I attempt to hold up my end of the conversation, but under cover of all the noise, I’m thinking about Darlene’s son going off to a therapeutic boarding school. How can that be?

  Eventually the kids head out to the backyard to eat their ice cream sandwich dessert and play whiffle ball and still no Brendan. Now Sean is actively angry. “No one else’s time is valuable except his? No one else is busy?”
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br />   Adrienne doesn’t respond. She’s not about to defend her husband, but she seems to know better than to join in Sean’s attack. It’s okay for the Coughlins to criticize one another, but woe be to the outsider who has the nerve to utter a harsh word about one of them.

  The sisters try to smooth things over. “We can just settle it ourselves and Adrienne can fill him in.”

  But Terry, who I’ve noticed likes to throw gas on every fire, won’t go along. “No. No point in doing anything without our big brother here. You know Mom and Dad will only listen to him. If Brendan says it’s okay for Sean to get married by some Moonie out in a cornfield then it’ll be fine with Mom. Any of the rest of us say it—no dice.”

  “Pastor Jorge is not a Moonie. And the rose garden of the Palmer Arboretum is not ‘some cornfield’.”

  I lay a calming hand on Sean’s arm. Can’t he see that his brother is baiting him? Who cares if anyone in the family likes our venue or our clergyman or our outfits? They can come or not come as far as I’m concerned.

  Up until last year, I always assumed that if I ever got married, I’d simply elope. An only child with no mother and an estranged father doesn’t need a big wedding. I’d still elope, except now that my father and I have mended our fences, I’d hate to deny him the honor of walking me down the aisle. He started talking about it as soon as Sean and I announced our engagement. Should he wear a suit or a tux? Would we walk to the Stanley trumpet voluntary or the traditional Mendelsohn? How can I disappoint him?

  I suppose that’s how Sean feels, only multiplied by two parents and four siblings. The rational part of both of us wants to say, “Screw you. We’ll do as we please.” The emotional part wants all our parents there, beaming with joy. But pleasing my father is easy-peasy compared to pleasing every member of the Coughlin clan.

  Deirdre has succeeded in distracting us all with a large apple pie. As she’s passing the slices around, a car door slams and all our heads swivel toward the window. Brendan’s Porsche sits gleaming in the driveway.

  A moment later he appears in the doorway, red silk tie loosened and suit jacket slung over his shoulder. “Dessert already? Don’t tell me I missed the main event!”