Past Sins Revisited

by Mary Goldberger

  Calida saw the smug smile on her brother’s face as he walked away the men following him as one carried the sheet.

  As soon as the car pulled away, Calida was out of her side and heading for the thicket her heart beating fast in her chest hoping against hope that the woman was still alive as she knelt next to her body.

  Calida’s eyes filled as she stared down at the young woman she had met earlier that day and yet she had thought she had been hearing things when her name was called in the pool area as Jeffrey and his friends partied.

  “Adella,” Calida said reaching out a hand to her and Adela’s eyes flashed open. “I’m sorry that I didn’t help you that I was scared and cowardly to stop what he did to you.”

  Adella coughed blood coming up as she said lowly, “Call…my…brother…Ric…” and she recited a number as Calida said urgently, “We need to get you some help and then we can call…”

  She shook her head coughing and wincing her eyes blurring on her, “No…brother…Ric” reciting the number again and yet slower.

  “The…cops…” Adella said weakly.

  Calida’s face hardened at her words watching as a smile slipped across her face, “He…will…be…a…good…one.”

  Calida face was puzzled not understanding her words as Wilma said in a low voice, “Calida, I’m getting a voice mail.”

  Calida took the phone and left a message thinking how cold and inhumane it was to leave a message as Adela stared up at her.

  “Thank…you,” she whispered as Calida hung up the phone.

  “Let us call an ambulance,” Calida begged tightening her grip on Adela’s hand.

  Adela sighed before she uttered, “I’m…dirty…now.”

  “Your boyfriend will understand if he truly loves you,” Calida argued only to watch as Adela shook her head one last time before her eyes closed and the hand that Calida had been holding slipped from her gasp.

  “No, not like this,” Calida yelled as she frantically lifted her hand before she started to shake her as Wilma watched eyes brimming with tears. “No, no, you can’t die. You had so much to live for, you can’t.”

  Calida began to cry as she tried to shake life back into the woman’s body and Wilma hearing noises said urgently, “Calida we need to go.”

  “I can’t leave her here, Nanny,” Calida said eyes resting on the young woman in front of her who was only a couple years older than she was.

  “We need to leave now, Calida,” Wilma said pulling her by the arm and away from the area as Calida fought her trying to go back.

  “Nanny,” Calida cried as Wilma dragged her back to the car and shoved her in.

  Wilma gave one last to the thicket hoping that she would be found soon as she hurried around to the driver’s side before she pulled out of the parking lot.

  If she had waited ten minutes, she would’ve seen another vehicle, a patrol car, pull in lights blaring as two men got out running over to the thicket then a cry filled with pain and helplessness echoed around the park.

  The following day as Calida made her way slowly down stairs, she heard loud voices in what had been her father’s study but now Jeffrey used it for whatever and she stopped by the door listening an intently.

  “The wrong girl,” Jeffrey uttered in a cold hard voice. “You mean to tell me that the girl from last night wasn’t that damn man’s sister at all. Who in the hell was she?”

  “A student who had applied to the local college here which explains why she had took up your offer for information and help about the university,” another voice said, and Calida remembered the voice from the night before.

  “Just damn great,” Jeffrey muttered as something fell to the floor and Calida moved away from the door feeling as if she was going to throw up hearing what she did.

  She went to the kitchen where Wilma was making breakfast and taking one look at her face, Wilma stepped toward her only to stop when Calida whispered, "It wasn’t Adella he wanted.”

  Wilma’s eyes widened but before she could say anything, Jeffrey’s voice was loud as he said sharply, “Where the hell is my breakfast?”

  Calida turned her face away as Wilma hurried to do as he ordered, but she sensed something in Calida that she hadn’t sensed before.

  A few days later, Calida was making calls and filling out new applications with only one person knowing about it.

  “Calida,” Wilma said, but Calida merely shook her head as she went about her business.

  Two months later, instead of entering the local college, Calida packed up her things and had Wilma, and her husband, drive her to the airport.

  “I will be back, but only when I think it is the right time,” Calida told them as they walked her into the airport.

  In the past two months, both she and Wilma had searched the house for some evidence or anything that could show Jeffrey had some connection with Adella, and yet they find nothing.

  “Calida, what are you planning to do,” Wilma asked not realizing how that night had changed Calida as she hadn’t heard, or seen, everything Calida did that night although what she did see would live with her until her dying day.

  “Let his past sins revisit him,” Calida said her voice cold as her hazel eyes glazed over with her own doubt, and fear.

  Wilma and her husband, Jake, watched her walk into the terminal as he asked, “Whatever she heard that night has changed her.”

  Wilma nodded her head as she said, “And what we both saw will stay with us forever.”

  Jake frowned as she shivered and put his arms around her wishing that he had been there instead out of town on some call that Mr. Reseda had told him was important and just turned out to be a time waster.

  “Let’s quit working for Reseda. We only stayed for Calida and we have money saved up to get our own place. We don’t need to continue working for Jeffrey,” Jake said as they headed out of the airport and Wilma bit her lip as she nodded her head.

  “Okay,” she said as they walked over to the car and she glanced up as a plane took off into the bright sky. “Be careful, Calida.”

  It was almost a year after Calida left, Wilma opened up a newspaper early one morning before work only to gasp at the story written inside, and her husband coming into the room rushed over to her in worry.

  “What’s wrong,” Jake said his sharply seeing how pale her face had become as Wilma lifted up her eyes to him.

  “These two men were with Jeffrey that night,” she said pointing to the two men in the picture.

  Jake took the paper from her as he read the article before he said, “Says here that the men are charged with possession of heroin with the intent to sell. According to the article, it seems that an anonymous source called in a tip leading to the cops doing a drug sting and catching them with the heroin at the time.”

  Wilma wondered as she watched her husband read on before he lifted his head and their eyes met. “Do you think…?”

  Wilma shook her head as she finished her coffee but she had a feeling that Calida had something to do with those men getting busted.

  “Wilma didn’t a Robertson work for Jeffrey a few years ago,” Jake asked as he got up from the table a slight frown on his face.

  Wilma nodded her head slowly as she told him, “I believe so, and yet I don’t think I’ve heard anything about him lately. Why do you ask?”

  “He is the one who wrote this article,” Jake told her pointing to the name underneath the article headline.

  Wilma’s eyes widened but she didn’t comment as Jake put the paper down and picked up their coffee cups a thoughtful look in his eyes.

  “What is he playing at,” Jake muttered as he and Wilma stepped out of their house heading for their

  car just as another car pulled into the driveway.

  Jeffrey stepped out as Wilma froze and Jake immediately pulled her next to him shifting slightly in front of her.

  “Don’t worry,” Jeffrey stated with a harsh laugh. “I just want to know where Calida is living as I’m wor
ried about my baby sister especially after a year of no contact.”

  “We don’t know,” Jake told him honestly as they had learned the flight they had believed Calida had taken hadn’t been her finally destination although they got letters in the mail every month since she left.

  “If my sister calls you, tell her that I want to see her,” Jeffrey ordered his eyes narrowed as he stared at them although a smile still lingered on his mouth.

  Jake nodded his head although he didn’t say a word and Jeffrey laughed as he nodded his head to his men before he climbed back into his car.

  Jake and Wilma watched the car drive away before Jake suggested, “I think we should consider making a few changes.”

  Wilma nodded her head as they stood there eyes narrowed but fear clouding them before they got into their car and drove away from their house.

  It wouldn’t be until two years later before Calida would call them and she would fill them in on what she had been doing while Wilma could hear the change in her voice as she talked to them.

  “I’m going to make him pay, Nanny, even if I can’t prove he killed my mother he will pay for the life of Adella as I think her family needs closure while her boyfriend needs to know how much she cared about him.”

  Wilma was quiet for a long time before she said, “All right. What do you need us to do?”

  “Nothing for right now,” Calida told her but she warned that she would be staying in touch and sooner, or later, the past would come back to haunt them all.

  Chapter 19

  Calida woke up gasping tears streaming down her cheeks and her body running with sweat as she sat up putting a hand to her head.

  “Calida,” Wilma’s soft voice said as she opened the door and seeing Calida’s pale face she stepped into the room closing the door behind her before going over to the bed.

  “I never wondered why she asked for her brother that night,” Calida whispered lifting stricken eyes to her. “You remember what she called him, Nanny?”

  Wilma’s face went pale as she whispered, “Ric.”

  Calida nodded her head as she said her voice shaking, “It didn’t even recollect when they call him Ric because I didn’t want to remember what happened afterwards. I’ve been so focused on what Jeffrey did so I wouldn’t remember what I didn’t do.”

  “Calida, you can’t blame yourself,” Wilma argued reaching out to grab her hand but Calida shook her head.

  “We could’ve saved her if we called someone right away instead of waiting, if we had confronted Jeffrey and his men…” Calida said sobbing, and Wilma gripped her hand tightly.

  “Stop now,” Wilma said in a hard voice getting an immediate reaction from Calida as her head snapped up and guilt-stricken hazel eyes met her own. “If we had confronted them, we would be dead too and you know that. Calida, you did what you could and Adella is the one who asked us to call her brother, not the police.”

  Wilma’s mouth tightened before she continued, “I’m sure she was conscious enough to hear them as Jeffrey bragged about the officer he had on his payroll.”

  She glanced at Calida who bit her lip but nodded her head slowly in agreement and Wilma smiled as she said softly, “I think that’s the reason you went after him first, right, Calida?”

  “If he had done his job right instead of thinking about the money Jeffrey could pay him, then things may have been different,” Calida said running a hand through her dark hair. “But I learned that Jeffrey was also blackmailing him about an affair he was dumb enough to do not too long after his marriage.”

  Wilma’s eye widened at that information before a smug smile came across Calida’s face before she said, “His wife learned about it, but she also learned through an anonymous source that her husband hand been drugged and it had been a setup.”

  Wilma shook her head as she said, “You even helped him.”

  Calida’s mouth turned down at the corners as she said, “Even though I would’ve liked to see him suffer, he did it to protect his wife even though telling her the truth would’ve been a lot more easier, and I will give him credit that he didn’t know what Jeffrey had planned for Adella. From what I learned, it ate at him that a young girl died while he took his time getting here because of Jeffrey.”

  Wilma hadn’t heard about the cop in some time although she did know that he had it rough in the two years he spent in prison but after his release, she hadn’t heard another word about him.

  “He was good with making things like tables and such,” Calida revealed as she started to get out of bed.

  Wilma nodded her head when suddenly her head snapped up and she said suspiciously, “The couple that bought your bakery turned it into a furniture shop, homemade furniture.”

  “Really,” Calida said with the right amount of shock in her voice, but Wilma wasn’t fooled.

  Wilma watched as Calida got out her clothes for the day laying them on the bed and she asked, “What’s the plan for today?”

  “I need to go see the woman who is doing the flowers for the wedding and the caterer I was thinking of hiring,” Calida told her in a soft voice. “If Mariah should call about the bills, just make something up or better yet, tell her that I haven’t organized the receipts and once I do I will get them to her.”

  “Calida,” Wilma began only to stop when Calida gave her stubborn stare.

  “I think, Wilma, that breaking my heart can’t compare to what Jeffrey did to his sister, but it was the only think that Edric could do to avenge what was done to her,” Calida told her before she smiled with satisfaction. “As for ruining Jeffrey, he has my full, and complete, support.”

  Wilma shook her head a frown on her face but her eyes shimmered with tears before she blinked them away and said standing up, “Would you like some company today?”

  Calida stopped for a second before she nodded her head grabbing her robe and undergarments heading out of the room for the bathroom. “I would enjoy some company today, Wilma, and thank you.” Calida said a second before she entered the bathroom closing the door behind her.

  Wilma stared at the door a sad look on her face but she nodded her head and turned to go to her own room where Jake was just waking up and she walked over kissing him briefly.

  “Good morning,” he said with a smile on his face as he sat up in bed watching her move around the room.

  “I’m spending the day with Calida, honey, so go ahead and do what you wanted for the house,” she suggested to him seeing how his eyes lit up at doing the project he had in mind since the day they moved in.

  “You don’t think Calida will mind,” he asked although they didn’t bother him as he climbed out of the bed.

  Wilma shook her head giving him a smile as she watched him and even after so many years of marriage, she still loved seeing him naked although he no longer was a young man.

  She gave him another kiss before she gathered her things and headed out of the room for the bathroom just as Calida stepped out steam following her.

  “You’ve learned my schedule, Wilma,” she remarked on a laugh before she walked to her room and Wilma didn’t comment a soft smile crossing her face as she walked into the bathroom grimacing at the steam as she closed the door.

  Not even an hour later, everyone was sitting at the table eating a decent breakfast although Marti was the only one not dressed which she commented on as she glanced around the table.

  “Why did I feel as if I’m being lazy this morning,” she muttered as she took a sip of her coffee.

  Everyone laughed before Calida said with a smile and a wink, “And yet, you were the one who was up and making breakfast when we all came out of our rooms.”

  “True,” Marti agreed with a knowing smirk and Wilma gave her a narrow look while Jake chuckled smearing a biscuit with strawberry jam.

  Calida cleaned up the breakfast dishes and she was just finishing up when Wilma came in the room with her cell and a look in her eyes.

  “Calida,” she said handing out her phone with a
frown on her face which warned Calida who was probably on the other end.

  “Hello,” Calida said once she took the phone from Wilma.

  Wilma watched her eyes go soft even though a sad look flickered in them as Calida said, “Hello Edric. How are you doing?”

  Calida raised her eyes to Wilma and waved her hand to indicate that they should get going, but she continued talking on her phone.

  Edric sighed silently as he leaned back against the desk chair while he told Calida, “I could be better, sweetheart, if you were here.”

  Calida laughed on the other end before she responded, “I would offer to come there, but I’m finishing up what you asked me to do before your return.”

  Edric chuckled as he confided, “If it wasn’t for that, I would’ve already bought you a ticket.”

  He was about to say something else when suddenly a knock sounded on his door and the door opened before he called out, ‘come in.’

  “Ric,” Sophie trilled as she stepped into the room her eyes alight with smugness as Edric frowned at her.

  “Sophie,” he said in a surprised voice not knowing that on the other end of the phone, Calida had stilled hearing the surprise but a note of pleasure too.

  “I think,” Calida started before Edric said, “I will call you back.”

  He hung up before Calida could reply and Calida smiled sadly as she flipped her phone close before she muttered, “I guess you don’t need me after all.”

  Wilma glanced over at her as she slid inside the car and seeing the look in her eyes, she asked sharply, “What happened, sweetie?”

  Calida shook her head as she buckled herself in telling Wilma, “He had a visitor and said he would call me back later.”

  She didn’t add anything else about it as she switched the conversation to what they would be doing today as she drove away from the house, but Wilma sensed the tension in her and she wondered who Edric’s visitor was.