I nodded.
“Why?”
I looked into his pale eyes, and for some reason, for the first time since I’d started on this quest, I felt compelled to tell the whole story, completely, without any lies or evasions. I don’t know what it was about this man, but whether he wanted it or not, as he slowly rocked in his maple chair, he received the real story, including everything that was happening between me and Gabe, me and Hud, and how I realized that I wanted desperately for a happy ending to everything, especially Maple’s story, even though I knew that was probably an impossible wish.
“I guess,” I said, “what I really want is to know she ended up okay. That she had a good life. I don’t believe she killed Garvey. I don’t know why, but I just don’t.” I set my teacup down and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Mr. Laramie, I have a feeling you have what I need. Was Marybell Knott really Maple Sullivan? Did she have a happy life? Can you help me?”
He stopped rocking and stood up. “I have something to show you.” I stood up to follow him, but he gestured at me to sit back down. “No, stay here. I’ll get it.”
When he came back, he carried a small box. He sat down next to me on the sofa and handed it to me. I opened the box and pulled out a small silver locket.
“Oh,” I said, my exclamation a small sigh. I knew what this was and what I’d find when I opened it. A picture of Garvey Sullivan. The picture that she’d gently complained about in her letter, the one where he wasn’t smiling.
I looked up at Mr. Laramie. “How did you . . . I . . . I don’t know where to start. Did you know who she was?”
He clasped his large, soft hands in his lap. “Not for many, many years. To us here, she was Marybell Knott. She was a waitress at the Red Kettle and belonged to the historical society. She loved cats and was very clever with words. Back in the sixties, she wrote a Christmas play for the children at the church that was so popular we’ve done it every year since.”
“Were you and she . . . ?” I didn’t know exactly how to say it.
He gave a sad smile. “A couple? Oh, no, we were only friends. Dear, dear friends. We felt comfortable with each other. Never felt like we had to chatter away when we were together. That says a lot about a friendship, the ability to be quiet together. Had a lot in common, the two of us, though we didn’t find out how much until the end of her life.”
“What do you mean?”
He pointed at the wall of crosses and crucifixes. “I was a Jesuit priest. Left the priesthood when I was forty, back in 1965. Moved here and started my leather shop.”
I smiled. That explained why I found him so easy to talk to. He was trained in listening to people’s deepest feelings.
As if he were reading my mind, he said, “It’s a long story why I parted from the Catholic Church. Wasn’t the Church’s fault. It all lay within me. I’ve been happy with the Episcopalians. All the same God, as far as I’m concerned.” He looked at me silently for a moment, then said, “I’ve never told anyone else but Marybell that I was a priest. Until now.”
“Maple Sullivan converted to Catholicism when she married Garvey,” I said.
“I know.”
I held his steady gaze and said in a low voice, “Mr. Laramie, I need to know what happened to Maple.”
“Even if you can’t make it public knowledge? Even if it would be her wishes that the history books remain as they are?”
That stopped me. I had assumed from the beginning that whatever I found out, unless she was still alive, would fill out the story of her life, would set the record straight. I never thought about what she might have wanted known about her . . . or not known. I assumed that the truth would always be the most important thing.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“I’ll tell you and then you can make up your mind. Everyone who’s involved with this is dead now. No one can be hurt, but memories are funny, precious things that many people guard like gold. Sometimes, even if we reveal the truth, people still don’t want to change their memories.”
“That’s awful,” I said. “The truth should always be better than a lie.”
“Ah, but it’s a fallen world we live in, my dear.”
“So, what is the truth about Maple Sullivan?”
He twisted around, arranged a pillow behind his back, and proceeded to tell me the true story of Garvey Sullivan’s death.
23
BENNI
“I TOLD MARYBELL . . . Maple . . . a few years before she died that I’d been a priest,” he said. “She laughed and said she’d guessed it a long time ago. She was no dummy. I asked how she knew and she confessed that she’d been a Catholic for a short, happy time of her life and she missed it. I didn’t ask her at the time why she’d left the Church, just as she never quizzed me about why I left. Our ability to let the other have their past without insisting on knowing it was what made our friendship so special. We both had things to hide, things we were ashamed of, for good reasons or not, and we never forced the other to reveal more than they wanted.”
He folded his hands across his stomach. “The day she died, she asked Thelma to call me. I guess she suspected the end was near. She wanted to make a confession, get absolution, receive the Holy Eucharist. I told her she knew I couldn’t officially perform Extreme Unction, but she said that we were both a couple of rogue Catholics and that perhaps God would grant us mercy and forgiveness in our attempt to do what is right. I agreed with her and heard her confession, prayed with her for forgiveness, and gave her my blessing, such as it was.” His old blue eyes grew watery at the memory. “Since it wasn’t an official confession, I don’t think it would hurt to tell you. Whatever judgment God has rendered has already been done. Whether you tell anyone or not about this is up to you. Frankly, it will feel good to get it off my chest. You were right, she didn’t kill her husband, Garvey.”
“I knew it!” I burst out, unable to control myself. “Mitch Warner? Did he—?” I started.
“No, Mitch didn’t kill him either. Mr. Warner helped Maple make her fresh start and was a good friend to her. He lost as much as she did when they ran away that day except he had a rich, powerful family to help him start a new life in Mexico. For years she received checks from him until she told him that she was doing fine, that he no longer was responsible for her. About three years before she died, she said she got a letter from a woman named Maria down in Mexico City who claimed to be his daughter. Said she found her address among his things and wanted Marybell to know he’d passed away. Heart problems.”
“So who killed Garvey Sullivan?” I asked, trying not to grab his arm and shake it.
“He did,” Mr. Laramie said, his voice sad. “He killed himself.”
Then it all made sense. “Maple discovered her husband’s body,” I said, “called Mitch, and between the two of them, they made it appear as murder.”
I looked at Mr. Laramie in amazement, stunned by the enormity of Maple and Mitch’s sacrifice.
“They did it so he could be buried on sacred ground,” I whispered.
He nodded, his eyes closing for a moment. “She knew how much that meant to him, to his family. She said without him, she had no life there anyway. And Mitch was the kind of friend any of us can only hope and pray we have.”
Why hadn’t I seen it before? All the references to Garvey’s sadness, his disappearances, his time in San Francisco. She’d taken the blame for his suicide so he could lie next to his family throughout eternity.
Hugh opened his eyes. “That, among other things, is one of the reasons I left the Church. It’s changed so much these days. Now, many of the priests would, out of kindness to the families, look the other way, allow the person who commits this heartbreaking act against himself to be buried on sacred ground. Suicide is a touchy subject in the Church. I’ve always believed that we cannot be damned when we commit acts we do not realize we are committing. Of course, only God can truly know the heart of a person. In Garvey’s case, he was an extreme
ly depressed man, had fought it all his life. After his death, Marybell said all those trips he made to San Francisco made sense to her then. He was seeking medical help. All those weeks he’d stay at the ranch and not want her to visit him. He tried desperately to hide his mental illness from the world and from his wife. One night, apparently, his sadness became just too much.”
“His father never knew,” I said.
Mr. Laramie shook his head. “No one did, except Mitch Warner and me. And now you.”
I sat back against the sofa, feeling completely drained. “If I tell the truth, even to clear her name, her sacrifice would be for nothing.”
He shrugged. “I doubt that the Church would throw his body out of the family plot, but she told me on her death bed that she never wanted anyone to know what had happened to him, that she wanted his memory to remain as a good, Catholic man. The good, Catholic man she knew he was.”
“Even if it meant she lost her whole life.”
“Even then.”
I sat there for a moment, stunned. Then I remembered something. “Mr. Laramie, there was a baby blanket in her things. Did she ever tell you anything about a baby?”
He nodded, exhaustion softening his flushed face. “She told me the baby died two days after it was born. It was a little boy. He only weighed four pounds. It happened right before she moved here. She was living in Riverside at the time. Their son is buried in a grave there.” He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. “Maple is buried down in Hemet. And I believe, though they were separated in life, they are all together now, Mrs. Harper, resting in God’s embrace. I truly believe that.”
I nodded in agreement. “Thank you for telling me her story,” I said, standing up. “You can trust that I will honor Maple’s memory, her sacrifice.”
He laid a hand on my shoulder and gently patted it. “I know that, young woman. I sensed that the minute your hand touched mine. Go with God, my dear. I’ll be praying for you and your own troubles. And trust in the power of love. As you’ve seen, it’s more powerful than we humans truly realize.”
Back in my cabin, I made a fire and sat in front of it staring at the flames until they were nothing but embers. Would I have ever been able to sacrifice what Maple had for love? I wasn’t sure. Right then, I wasn’t even sure what love really was. Was it, as Mac pointed out, truly wanting the best for that person, sometimes even protecting them from themselves, being patient and kind and forgiving? I had no idea. Finally, I set my alarm for 6 A.M. Then, too tired to do more than crawl under the covers, I fell asleep in my clothes, my hand touching Scout’s head as he lay on the floor next to me.
After I got up and packed, I dropped my key off in the slot in the office’s front door and started for home. I pulled over once for coffee and once for a taco in Ventura. In spite of the two traffic jams in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, I reached San Celina at 3 P.M. I had an hour to take a shower, get dressed, and drive to the mission for Elvia and Emory’s wedding rehearsal.
I was only five minutes late.
“Where have you been?” Elvia said, when I met her in the bride’s room. “I’ve been trying to call you all day and only got your voice mail.”
“I guess I forgot to turn my cell phone on,” I said, hugging her. “I’m here now. How’re you doing?”
I patiently listened to all her last-minute woes about napkins and hand-decorated truffles and the mixup about the cake filling, saying all the proper things and making all the sympathetic noises. But my mind was on Maple Sullivan and what I would or wouldn’t tell Hud. I’d already decided only seconds after hearing Mr. Laramie’s story that I wasn’t going to make the story public. Maple gave her life to hide her husband’s secret—who was I to throw all of that away?
Gabe and I barely glanced at each other the whole rehearsal. When Emory and Elvia stood before the priest and pretended to say their vows, I felt as if I would be sick. I swallowed hard over the cold stone in my throat.
A couple of times, Emory gave me an odd look and finally asked, “Is everything okay with you and the chief?”
“We’re fine,” I told my cousin, patting him on the shoulder. “Just stressed out over this move. You know how irritating escrow can be.”
He nodded, his face not entirely convinced.
“Now, stop it,” I said, punching him gently in the arm. “You have a wedding and a honeymoon you’ve been waiting twenty-five years for. You just quit worrying about me.”
He grinned. “Sweetcakes, I never thought this day would come.”
I gave him a full-on hug. “I know, kiddo. I know.”
After that exchange, I went over to Gabe and asked him to come out to the Mission garden with me. His followed me without a word.
“Look,” I said, before he could speak. “We’re doing a real poor job of hiding our problems here, and my cousin and my best friend deserve better than that. I’ll fake it if you will, okay? Just for tonight and tomorrow. Then we’ll let the chips fall where they may. Deal?” I made my voice as cool and dispassionate as I could. If I could, I wasn’t going to let him see how much I was torn up inside. I wasn’t going to let anyone see it.
Apparently I was successful. His bottom lip stiffened under his mustache. A sure sign he was upset. Had Del told him about our encounter? At this point, I didn’t care. All I wanted was to get through this wedding without falling to pieces in public.
“Deal.” His voice was cool. He turned and walked back into the church.
At Daniello’s Trattoria, a new restaurant out by the mall, Emory had rented the whole back room for the rehearsal dinner. A string quartet played softly in the background as we ate lasagna and eggplant parmesan.
Gabe and I did our best to pretend as if everything were normal between us. I think we succeeded as I didn’t get any troubled looks from either Emory or Dove, the two people who knew me best.
I was passing by the restaurant’s bar area on my way out to my truck when I heard Hud call my name. He was sitting on a black leather barstool at the end of the small, but elegant mahogany bar.
“How was your trip?” he asked.
I slid onto the barstool next to him. “Fine.”
“Do you have anything to tell me?”
I studied his face for a moment, the responsibility of what I knew weighing heavily on my conscience. Hud was first and foremost a police officer. This was an old case, but it was still an unsolved homicide. Would he feel duty bound to report what he knew to someone in authority?
“I don’t know,” I said.
He twirled the golden brown liquid in his old-fashioned glass, then took a sip. “But you know what happened.”
I nodded yes.
“You’re afraid I’ll feel obligated to tell someone, right?”
I nodded again.
“And what was told to you was told in confidence.”
“Sort of.”
“They gave you the discretion to tell who you wanted.”
I bit my bottom lip. Hud was a good detective.
He tipped back his head and drained his glass, setting it firmly on the bar in front of him. The bartender looked at him in question and he shook his head no. “I got to give it to you, ranch girl, you are a loyal one. You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
I shook my head no. “It’s not that I don’t trust you—”
“Except that you don’t trust me.”
“You’re a cop,” I said. We both knew what I meant.
“That, darlin’, is where you are wrong. I am not nor ever have been first and foremost a cop. Someday, you’ll realize that.”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say. To be honest, I just didn’t know him well enough to know if he was bullshitting me or not. So I couldn’t take the chance.
He smiled sadly, reached inside his tweed Western-style coat, and pulled out an envelope. “If I ever need a secret kept, I’ll sure remember that you’re the one to tell. Found this while you were on your travels. Somehow, in all G
arvey’s careful hiding, it wasn’t destroyed.”
I opened the envelope. It appeared to be a unfilled prescription from a Dr. Samuel Crowther in San Francisco. The date scribbled on it was two weeks before Garvey’s death. I could barely make out the word, it was so faded, the handwriting so bad.
I said in surprise, “Lithium?”
“It appears that something caused Garvey not to fill this prescription in San Francisco. He came back to San Celina and two weeks later he was dead. All his books on Abraham Lincoln make sense now. He was trying to find out how he coped with depression. Of course, it wasn’t called that back then. Back then it was called melancholia and there was only two ways to treat it—shock treatments and lithium. I’m guessing neither worked for Garvey Sullivan. I’m guessing he killed himself, and Maple and Mitch covered it up.”
I didn’t say a word, but I knew by the expression on my face that he knew he was right.
“The thing I can’t figure out,” he said, truly perplexed, “was why would they do that? They both threw away their lives to protect his reputation. That is unbelievable. And stupid.”
“Not stupid,” I said. “And not to protect his reputation. It was so he could be buried next to his mother in the family plot in the Mission Cemetery. It was so he could be buried on sacred ground.”
Hud stared at me, his dark eyes angry. He and I had tangled about God before and I could tell he wanted to say something. I braced myself for his tirade, then was surprised when he just inhaled deeply and gestured at the bartender for a refill.
“Want something to drink?” he asked me.
“No, thanks. I have to go home and get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes, the wedding of the century.”
“Are you going to tell anyone about what you discovered?”
He thanked the bartender and took a sip of his drink before answering. “What do you think I should do?”
Steps to the Altar Page 28