by Karen White
She couldn’t answer. Because as she watched the man get out of the car and approach them, she suddenly knew that nothing would ever be okay again.
The man showed her a badge that she didn’t look at. “I’m Detective Richard Kobylt from the Gainesville Police Department. Are you Merilee Dunlap?” He stopped at the bottom of the porch steps.
“Yes, that’s me. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I was hoping you could come down to the station and answer a few questions about the evening of October twenty-ninth.” He gave her a friendly smile. “Just down to the Sweet Apple police station—no need to go all the way up to Gainesville.”
Breathe. Breathe. She’d been through this before, but it didn’t make it any easier. “But I’ve already told the police everything I know. I heard the dog barking and I followed him—”
“These are just routine questions, ma’am, filling in some blanks in the report, that sort of thing.”
“Right now?” she asked. “I have my children—”
“Sugar and I will watch them,” Wade said calmly. “It’s better to get this over with now. We’ll all be here when you get back.”
“Can I drive myself?” she asked, remembering the humiliation of being driven through her hometown in the back of a cruiser.
“That won’t be a problem. You can follow me if you’re not sure where the station is. Is that your minivan?” When she nodded, he said, “I’ll go ahead and move my car in front of yours.”
She nodded. “I just need to grab my purse and keys and let my kids know what’s going on.” Without looking in Wade’s direction, she went inside. Her hands shook as she picked up her purse and kissed each child on the forehead. A river of ice had taken over her bloodstream, and she wondered whether she’d ever feel warm again. After slipping on her wool peacoat, she stepped outside. She’d told Lily and Colin to stay inside, but she knew they’d be pressed up against the front window, Colin’s binoculars held up to his eyes.
“Thank you for watching the children,” she said to Wade as she walked past him.
He grabbed her arm. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She tried to find her anger again, but it had been buried under the ice-cold blast of fear that rattled her bones inside her coat. “A lot of people think I was responsible for my husband’s death. If the police know about that . . .” She stopped, unwilling and unable to think beyond that.
“Were you?” he asked, his eyes boring into hers. But all she could see was her mother’s face, telling a television news reporter how ashamed she was, because she’d raised her daughter better.
She broke away, then ran down the steps to her car, starting it and driving away without looking back, her hand already reaching for her phone and hitting one of the numbers she kept on her favorites list but rarely used. There’d been a time, after her grandfather had died, when her father had tried his best to be the kind of parent she needed. The kind she could turn to in trouble. That had ended with John’s death, when all faith in her had vanished.
Her mother answered on the sixth ring. Merilee almost hung up or asked for her father. But she clung to the memory of how much they’d once loved her. And how much she’d once loved them.
“Mama? I’m in trouble again. Somebody died, and I was there, and the police are asking questions.” She was crying now, tears of fear and desperation, carrying with them the last shred of hope that her parents would realize after all this time that she was still their daughter.
“No, Merilee. Not again. I will not have you do this to me again. We had to move to another town last time because of you. I will not have you shame us again. Please don’t call back until you’ve sorted all this out on your own. We cannot help you.”
The phone clicked and there was nothing to listen to but air. Merilee dropped the phone to clutch the steering wheel, trying to stop her hands from shaking. She suddenly thought of her grandfather and of the maps they’d begun collecting together as proof that everything you loved changed no matter how much you wanted it to stay the same. She thought of Sugar, too, holding on to her woods as if she could keep her past intact, oblivious to the world spinning inexorably and utterly out of control.
Were you? It wasn’t until she was parking her car in front of the police station that she remembered Wade’s question as they’d stood on the porch, and how she’d left him without an answer.
Thirty
SUGAR
Sugar carefully applied her lipstick before picking up the silver tray full of chocolate chip cookies. They were Colin and Lily’s favorite and she was glad she’d had a fresh batch right out of the oven when Wade called to tell her about Merilee being asked to go down to the police station. Nothing like a healthy dose of something sweet to soften the blow of your mother being questioned by the police. Or the death of a friend who had died way too young.
Sugar made her way slowly to the cottage, where Colin sat on the porch steps, watching her approach with his binoculars facing the wrong way. “Hello, Miss Sugar,” he called out as she stopped directly in front of him. “Have you ever noticed how tiny everything is when you look through the other side?”
“No, I don’t believe I have. Although my brother Jimmy used to ask me the same thing. Now, if you don’t want me to spill these cookies all over the porch, may I suggest you take the tray and offer me your elbow?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he stood and took the tray, then helped her up the steps.
Wade looked surprised to see her when she entered the kitchen, where he sat at the table with Lily, her schoolbooks and papers stacked in neat piles around her. “Did you sprint? I just hung up the phone with you a couple of minutes ago.”
“More like lumbered quickly, like a turtle with its shell on fire, I expect, but I wanted to get here as fast as I could. We’ve got work to do.”
He raised his eyebrows as she set about putting several cookies on individual plates and pouring two glasses of milk. “Why don’t you children go take your snack into the living room and watch a video?”
“What’s a video?” Colin asked.
They all turned to Wade. “She means a DVD. I’m sure you’ve got something to watch. Sugar and I need to talk.”
“I’ll pick the movie!” Colin called out, sprint-walking toward the living room while balancing his milk and cookies.
Lily stayed behind, a deep furrow between her brows. “It’s about my mom, isn’t it? Is she going to jail?”
“Of course not,” Sugar said. “The police just needed to ask her some more questions. Sadly, she was there when Dr. Blackford died, so they have lots of questions.” She met Wade’s gaze for a moment. “You can ask your mother more when she gets back. But for now, go take a break. And if you need anything, just let us know. Unless it has something to do with how to watch your movie; then just ask Mr. Kimball because I have no earthly idea how those things work.”
Lily’s lips lifted in a little half smile as she picked up her own plate and glass and followed her brother into the other room.
“I’m worried,” Wade said as she joined him at the table. “I asked Merilee about the rumors. She was married before Michael. Her husband drowned on their honeymoon, which is probably what has fueled the gossip train here in Sweet Apple. Two men drowning while Merilee was present is almost too much of a coincidence to be believed.”
Sugar stayed silent, knowing there was more and that he was debating whether to tell her. “And?”
“And Merilee told me that when her first husband died, a lot of people thought she was responsible.”
“Oh. My.” She’d known there was something. Had known it since back when she’d first met Merilee. But she’d had no idea it was something as big as this. “Did you ask her if she had anything to do with it?”
Their eyes met. “She didn’t answer.”
Sugar stayed silent. S
he wouldn’t judge, or jump to conclusions, even after all the facts were placed in front of her. Because she knew they rarely told the whole story. “What do you think?” she asked instead.
“I have no idea what to think. The Merilee I know couldn’t possibly be responsible for someone’s death. But I’m not a good judge of character, am I? I once thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Heather.”
Sugar leaned forward. “Does Merilee have any idea who started the rumors? It had to be someone she told.”
He shook his head. “Nobody knew—not even Michael. It’s like somebody is intentionally stirring up trouble for Merilee and using Dan’s death as an excuse. But if she hasn’t told anybody, including her ex-husband, then who would know about it?” He picked up a cookie, then proceeded to crumble it between his fingers onto the table. Sugar frowned at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He looked up. “I bet that’s how Bill and I recognized her—from the newspaper stories around the time of her first husband’s death. Especially if there was some doubt about how he died. That kind of tragedy always makes the news. Her picture would have been all over the place, I’m sure. She said she was married right out of college, and he died on their honeymoon. Assuming she married Michael shortly afterward, and was married to him for eleven years, that would have been about the time I was living nearby, in Augusta. I probably saw it on the local news.
“I Googled her, you know—that means searched the Internet—that first time I saw her and thought she looked familiar. She just didn’t show up because I was using her maiden name, Talbot. Or maybe it did show up but I ignored it if it had her married name, too, and I had no idea she’d been married before Michael.”
Sugar closed her eyes for a moment, trying to recall something important. Something that had to do with Merilee and her first husband. She supposed she should be glad that her long-term memory was still so intact. Her short-term memory sometimes decided to become another vexation to her spirit.
“What is it?” Wade asked.
She closed her eyes tighter, trying to see a face. Nothing. Her eyes popped open and she was surprised to see Wade staring at her with a worried expression.
“I want to say that I met her first husband, that I know what he looks like, but that can’t be right, can it? Because I’m sure I didn’t know Merilee back then. But I could swear on a stack of Bibles that I know him . . .”
Lily came back into the room. “Can we have more cookies? Colin ate his so fast and then ate mine, so I only got one.”
Wade stood to get more from the tray on the counter while Sugar stared at Lily thoughtfully. Lily had been with her. Yes, that was right. She’d been with her . . . when? When they met . . . “The yearbook!” she said with more excitement than was probably necessary. It was always such a happy surprise when her memory worked. “His picture was in Merilee’s yearbook—at least I think it might have been him.” She smiled warmly at the little girl. “Lily, would you mind getting your mother’s yearbook—the one you and I were looking at—and bringing it here? We’re trying to help your mother, so I don’t think she’d mind if we took a look at it.”
“Sure.” Lily ran toward her mother’s bedroom and returned quickly with the book.
“Thank you, dear. Don’t forget the cookies.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lily said, taking the plate and hesitating just in case the adults asked her to stay, then walked slowly back to the front room.
Wade placed the book before Sugar and opened the cover, revealing signatures sprawled across the two pages. “She had a lot of friends.”
“Yes, she did,” Sugar said, remembering what Merilee had told her about her high school years and about the girl named Daisy. With fingers that didn’t move as nimbly as they once had, she flipped through pages until she reached the sports team section, past the cheerleading photos and then to the football team. “I’m thinking this must have been her first husband. She told me he died, but not that they were married at the time. I’m assuming there can’t be more than one.”
Wade turned the yearbook to face him. “Nothing would surprise me at this point.” He focused on the photo of the football captain with the heart drawn around his face. “John D. Cottswold,” he said out loud. “You think this is him?”
“Oh, yes. That’s the only photo of him in that entire book that doesn’t have his handwriting beneath the picture asking ‘Tallie’ to marry him.”
“Tallie?”
“Yes. Lily and I think that was her nickname in high school—a shorter name for Talbot. Although I can’t imagine why they thought they needed to abbreviate a two-syllable word with another two-syllable word. I’ve never understood teenagers. Even when I was one.”
Wade looked like he might say something but refrained. He picked up the laptop near where Lily had been sitting and carried it to the doorway. “Lily—would you mind if we used your laptop to look something up?” Facing Sugar, he said, “I need a bigger phone. I can hardly read this tiny screen anymore.”
“Welcome to my world, young man.”
Lily called out, “It’s not mine—it’s my mom’s. But I don’t think she’d mind. The password is eight ones. She wanted just four, but they needed eight.”
“Naturally,” Wade said as he settled himself back at the table, opened the laptop, and began to type. After only a few moments, he said, “Bingo.” He was silent for a long while, his eyes moving from side to side as he read from the screen, then returned to the top and read it again.
“Are you going to allow me to read it?” Sugar asked, growing impatient.
“I don’t know if I can make the font big enough. I could read it to you, or sum it up. Either way, it’s pretty awful.”
“I don’t know if I can focus that long without needing to powder my nose or take a nap, so just sum it up, please.” She was surprised to find she wasn’t nervous, although she’d thought she would be. If only because she was very, very sure that Merilee Dunlap hadn’t done anything that Sugar couldn’t understand or justify.
Wade studied the screen for a moment before speaking. “Merilee and her husband, John, went scuba diving on their honeymoon in Hawaii. They were both experienced divers, having been certified while in high school and then continued to take dive trips through their college years at UGA. According to police reports, during a dive John lost consciousness and sank to the bottom, about a hundred feet below the water’s surface. While trying to reach him, Merilee claimed she knocked off her mask and had to return to the surface. When she dove back down to try to reach him, the strong current had taken him away. They recovered the body the next day. Cause of death was drowning, although there were questions about a mechanical failure in his breathing apparatus, which may or may not have been tampered with.”
Their eyes met. “She must have been heartbroken.” Sugar stared back unblinking, as if daring him to say what they both were thinking.
“His family pushed to have her arrested for murder. They were well-off and fairly prominent in their hometown. Pretty influential, which is probably why their suspicions gained traction. It never went to trial—the case against her was dismissed.” He sat back in his chair, his brow furrowed. “It’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think? Her little brother, then her husband. And now Daniel Blackford.”
“I suppose so,” said Sugar, her voice not as firm as she’d have liked it to be. “Or Merilee is just very unlucky. Because I don’t believe for one moment that she was responsible for any of those horrible accidents. I have always prided myself on being a good judge of character. Remember how I disliked and distrusted Heather from the moment you introduced her? And I was right in my original assessment, which is why I never changed my opinion.”
He was still looking at her, but not really listening. “Either Merilee is very unlucky, or . . .”
“Or . . . ?” Sugar prompted.
“Or
somebody knew about her first marriage, and about the drownings, and was just waiting for the right time to talk about it.”
“Like a convenient drowning?” Sugar’s eyes widened.
“Something like that.” He stood. “What’s Merilee’s friend’s name—the one who told her about the rumors at the funeral?”
Sugar blinked several times. “Do I know the answer to that? If I do, I’m afraid I don’t remember.”
“It’s Lindi Matthews. Her daughter is my friend Jenna,” Lily called from the next room. “I can get her phone number if you want.”
“That would be great—thank you,” Wade called out. He shook his head. “So much for protecting the children from all of this.”
They heard Lily’s feet thundering down the back hall before she appeared with a school directory. “Here. It has Mrs. Matthews’s work number and cell number, too.” Lily looked up, her expression one of such worry and agony, Sugar was afraid she’d look like one of those wrinkly dogs when she was older. “Why are you calling Mrs. Matthews? Does Mom need a lawyer?”
Wade squatted down and smiled at the little girl. “Actually, I wasn’t even aware that Mrs. Matthews was a lawyer. I want to call her because I think your mom needs a friend right now.”
Sugar pressed her lips together and gave Wade her serious look. Standing, she took Lily by her shoulders. “What do you say we have pizza delivered for lunch? You talk with your brother and decide what you want, and then Mr. Kimball will order it and pay for it, too. All right?”
Lily looked slightly less upset as she returned to the front room to talk with Colin.
Turning to Wade, Sugar said, “Why do you want to talk with Lindi?”
“Because I want to find out who started the rumors. I’m sure someone told the police, which is why they have more questions for Merilee.” He sat and began drumming his fingers against the table. “There’s something not right about any of this. Not right at all.”
While Wade took his cell phone from his pocket and began dialing, Sugar removed her glasses to clean them, wondering how they always managed to get so dirty when she was doing absolutely nothing. After resettling them on her nose, she turned her head to look out of the window at the woods, testing her vision, wondering if the blurriness was because of the distance or a spot she’d missed on the lens.