“And our mother, beaten little mouse that she was, tried to protect us at first. He gave her a money stipend to run the household each week, and heaven help her if she needed more.” Grace looked over at Emily and saw tears in her eyes. “No emotion, no love, no hugs, no expression of feelings—oh, except anger. One time he got so angry at Will—and I can’t remember why—that he killed his dog right in front of him. Just strangled her with his strong hands and wrists. Unfortunately, Will cried and it made everything worse.” She paused and took a deep breath. Then she cleared her throat. “Will didn’t go to school for several days because his backside hurt.”
“How could this go on in such a small town? Didn’t people know it was happening?” asked Grace.
TJ took the opportunity to talk after silently listening to Jessalynn’s story. “Goes on all the time, Grace. Even now here in Endurance. Many of our calls are domestic abuse calls.”
“Oh,” said Grace quietly. She glanced at Emily, who was looking down at the floor.
Then Jeff spoke up. “So how did you get away? How did you manage to leave all this and become . . . well . . . the normal person you seem to be?”
Jessalynn smiled. “Normal? Now that’s an interesting word. To understand how I got away, you’d have to be a witness to the competition.”
“Competition?” asked Emily.
“Ah, yes. The race went to the fittest. As far as our father was concerned, Conrad was the one who eventually came out on top. Now, I wasn’t stupid, and I was a few years younger than the boys. So I was privy to a great deal. It became obvious Father was grooming Conrad to follow him as president of the bank. It could never have been Will, even though he was the oldest. But Will was not a willing student. He was too weak, too quiet, and too kind. Conrad, on the other hand, was just like the old man: mean, arrogant, and cruel. We had a woods out behind our house, and he used to go out and trap small animals—squirrels, rabbits—and then torture them before he finally killed them.”
Emily gasped.
“I’m sorry, Emily. But I’m quite sure you’ve seen Conrad’s cruel proclivities. The sad thing is, Conrad was never as smart as my brother Will. But poor Will. He was always passed over. It was like the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible. Nothing was good enough for my father when it came to Will. But Conrad—he could do no wrong. And it always seemed like every scrape he got in only solidified his tie with our father. I can’t recall all the problems he got Conrad out of because my brother had so many, but I do remember before I left for good, it was whispered that Conrad got some poor girl ‘with child’ in college, and Father had to go buy his way out of that one too.”
“It’s the perfect setup for what Conrad finally became,” TJ said. Then she looked at Emily and continued. “Only Conrad was really good at keeping up appearances, too, wasn’t he, Emily? I checked the hospital records, and he put you in there with a broken arm one time, didn’t he?”
Emily bit her lip and hesitated. Then she softly said, “Yes, but I had to lie about it.”
Jessalynn’s voice said bitterly, “I remember that scene, too, only he didn’t break Mother’s arm exactly. Mother always had to cook one meal for Father and another for the rest of us. He had to have everything just so. One night—I can’t remember what started it—he slapped her right in front of all of us. It shocked me. I ran upstairs and called the police. I think I was in junior high. They came. I thought—I hoped—they would take him away and do something bad to him. But no. They walked him around the block and talked to him, and pretty soon he was right back at the house. After that, I couldn’t sit down for a week.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” said TJ. “Back then, domestic abuse was considered a private situation to be worked out between husband and wife. Rarely were people jailed for it.”
Jessalynn’s face was serious. “I imagine it still happens in some places, TJ. I decided that as soon as I could get away, I’d leave. I didn’t have any money to speak of, but after high school I had saved enough allowance to get a train ticket. I packed my bags and left for Chicago. My father probably thought, ‘good riddance,’ and I know I felt that way about him.”
“But what about an education? What about college?” Grace asked.
“Not for me. Remember: I was a woman. Why would I need an education?” Grace could hear the bitterness in her voice. “I was simply going to marry some man who would have children with me and beat me.”
“But how did you live? How did you manage on your own?” Emily asked, barely disguising her anxiety.
“Wasn’t easy. I got a newspaper, checked out the want ads. I began with a clerical position in a bank. Ironic, huh? But I was lucky. An older woman who mentored me thought I was bright and deserved a chance. She helped me, both at work in the bank, and also with my education because I had to save money and find loans and scholarships. I went to night school, off and on, and finally graduated with a BS in 1991. It took me an extra year. That led to a job in New York City because my mentor had some ties to a bank there. Once I got to New York, I was able to pay back some of the loan money, go to school again, and finish an MBA in 1995. Again, it took me a little longer, but I was determined. Now I’m an in-house financial advisor for a corporation in New York City, and I love my job and I’m good at it. Ironic, again. My father would never have put me to work in his bank. But I’m the one who has the head for finance. Conrad barely scraped through his big, Ivy League school.”
“That’s quite a story,” said TJ.
“Oh, I assure you, it’s all true,” said Jessalynn.
“But what about romance? A husband? Children?” asked Emily.
Jessalynn stared at her for a moment, and then her expression softened as she looked at Emily. “I vowed, quite a long time ago, that I would never let a man have any kind of power over my life or my finances. Never.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Emily, surprisingly, said, “You know, you do owe your father for one thing.”
Jessalynn, curious, looked at the quiet Emily and said, “Really? I can’t imagine what.”
As Emily looked up, Grace saw, once again, a flicker of the woman she used to know. “Your father gave you the will and the anger to become what you’ve become in, what I would guess, is a highly masculine world. Look at what you’ve done with your life, Jessalynn. And look at where I am in mine.”
Jessalynn reached over and put her hand on Emily’s. “If that’s the case—and I hadn’t considered the idea—then you have a lot of fighting to do yourself, Emily Petersen Folger. What’s more, you have two children to fight for. One is a daughter who needs to grow up strong from your example, starting now, and the other is a son who needs to learn how to treat women with respect. Perhaps you can break the cycle of abuse. They are your life, your legacy, and you have something remarkable I’ll never have”—she smiled and added—“little people who love you.” She leaned back and said, “And now that I have no one left to hate in this town, perhaps I will keep in touch with you, Emily, and see what happens. I, for one, don’t believe you could have killed my brother. I’m a good judge of character, and I don’t see you as a murderess. So I hope, TJ, you will hurry up and figure out who did do this deed. I know you’d call it a heinous crime, but I think of it as putting down one more male Folger who has made a life out of beating the hell out of women.”
The fire was burning low, and everyone seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time: it was time to leave. Grace decided to stay with Emily another night, and as she closed the door to the others and listened to the car engines start in the driveway, she turned around and saw a pensive Emily sitting on the sofa, staring at the fire, deep in thought.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The following morning Grace walked into the Endurance Register, intent on transcribing her Lockwood House notes. She unlocked her office door, placed her briefcase on the love seat, and took off multiple layers of winter outer clothing, hanging them in a small closet. The morning was quiet, Jeff w
asn’t in yet, and Rick Enslow, who was usually at the front desk, was evidently in a back room doing something with the ads. Grace could almost hear the clock ticking, it was so quiet. She opened her laptop and fired it up, clicked on her mouse, and went out to the main room to pick up her mail while her computer loaded. Checking the pigeonhole for two-day-old mail, she glanced at the latest copy of the Woodbury newspaper. She grabbed her mail, studied the outrageous newspaper headline, and shook her head. When would that idiot learn?
After picking up a cup of coffee from the break room, Grace settled into her desk and used her letter opener to slit open the sealed envelopes. She was just placing the first two bills in a pile when she stopped cold at the address on the third envelope. It read “To Ms. Kimball, c/o Endurance Register, Endurance, Illinois,” but it didn’t have a return address. It must have come in the mail yesterday when she wasn’t here. She studied the words on the light blue envelope and saw her name was scrawled in childish letters, as if someone had disguised his handwriting.
“Hmm,” she said. “This is strange.” Then she carefully slit the seal on the envelope and opened it cleanly. Pulling out the matching blue paper, she unfolded it and saw the same childish handwriting, all in capital letters.
EMILY FOLGER IS A MURDERESS.
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.
Grace dropped the paper on her desk and scowled. How many stupid people do we have in this town? First, they leave messages on Emily’s answering machine and now they leave dumb notes in my mailbox. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say “dumb” since everything is spelled and punctuated correctly for a change. She reread the words and then realized she probably shouldn’t have touched the letter because TJ might find fingerprints on it. Pulling a pair of tweezers out of her purse, she grabbed the corner of the paper and laid it on the loveseat. That doesn’t seem at all in character for Emily Folger—TJ’s suspect—so it’s either the actual murderer (who must be able to spell) or it is some idiot, like the voices on Emily’s phone messages. Just as she was about to call TJ, her phone rang with Cat Stevens’s “Morning Has Broken,” her generic ringtone. It was a local cell number.
“Grace Kimball,” she said, and sat down in her desk chair. She heard the voice of Abbey Parker, talking faster than Grace could hear. “Whoa, slow down a little, Abbey.”
“Ms. Kimball. You gotta come over here right away.”
“Where is ‘here’?”
“The Depot.”
“Why? I thought you weren’t open yet for lunch. What’s going on?”
“TJ Sweeney was just here, and I think she may arrest Camilla.” Grace could hear pots and pans banging in the distance.
“Is Camilla destroying the kitchen?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen her so angry. You gotta come over. She’ll listen to you.”
“All right, Abbey. Give me five minutes.”
A sigh of relief floated through the phone receiver. “Thank you, Ms. Kimball.”
“Grace.”
“Grace.”
By the time Grace reached The Depot, the sky was darkening and another storm appeared to be on the way. Abbey had been sitting at a table just inside the restaurant, and she came to the front door and unlocked it, since they weren’t open to the public for two more hours. She pulled her former teacher inside the door, and then shut and relocked it. Grace could hear extremely loud, metallic banging coming from the kitchen.
“Maybe we should get Camilla out here and sit down at a table so we can discuss whatever this is like grown-ups.”
“I hate to try to calm her down when she’s like this,” said Abbey. “She’s likely to bean me with a pan. Last time she lost her temper, she ended up punching a hole in our living room wall. That’s why I called you.”
Grace laughed. “What? So she can throw a pot at me instead of you? I remember her temper in high school. It was legendary.”
Abbey shook her head. “I’d like to say it has mellowed over the years, but you can obviously see I’d be lying.”
Grace pulled off her coat and scarf and laid them on a table. “All right, Abbey. I’ll see what I can do.” Walking toward the kitchen, Grace thought, Well, I didn’t really want to do the story on the Lockwood house today, did I?
Three cups of coffee were sitting on a table in the middle of the restaurant. Abbey was on one end, Camilla on the other, and Grace sat in the middle.
First, Grace took a long sip of coffee. “All right. Start at the beginning and tell me what brought on this huge cloud of anger.”
“Well,” Abbey began. Camilla scowled and looked away. “Sweeney came in this morning early. She knocked on the door and we let her in, of course. Why wouldn’t we? She had been at the bank and read a letter someone wrote to Conrad Folger.” She glared at Camilla. “I told you not to mail that.”
Camilla stood up and pointed her finger at Abbey’s face. “You always want to just let things go by. ‘It will get better,’ you say. ‘Just wait and things will calm down,’ you say. Well, things haven’t gotten better, and I won’t take that kind of crap from anyone, least of all a rich bastard like Conrad Folger.”
“I don’t understand,” said Grace. “Folger is dead.”
“Sit down, Camilla, and stop pointing your finger in my face,” Abbey said. She turned to Grace. “She’s referring to the letter she sent to him before he was murdered. It was pretty nasty, and TJ found it in Folger’s files when she was down at the bank.”
“He has no right—especially in this day and age—to tell us we can’t borrow money,” said Camilla. “I’m so sick of people treating us like we’re second-class citizens. We have just as much right to ask for a loan as any straight couple.”
Grace put both of her hands out. “It’s fine, Camilla. You’re talking to the choir here. I don’t understand what this has to do with TJ.”
Grace looked at Camilla, who appeared to be pouting. “She took my stuff and asked a lot of questions.”
“What stuff?” asked Grace. “I know you might regret writing that letter to Conrad, but why would she take things? And what things?”
Camilla laid both her hands on the table, her anger gradually subsiding.
“She took the gloves Camilla uses for her plants,” Abbey said, pointing up at the huge planters suspended from the ceiling. “And she also took her bag of potting soil, the one that was open and about half-used.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Grace. “Did she say why?”
“No!” said Camilla, her voice rising again. “And then she asked me about the alarm system—you know, the one I put in, that big mouth here”—she pointed at Abbey—“just had to mention when you were in the other day.”
“I don’t know why you think I shouldn’t tell people how proud I am of all the things you’ve done to make the place work better. Of course I mentioned it,” said Abbey. “I know very few people who are that handy: carpentry, plumbing, electricity, and even the alarm system.”
Camilla glared at Abbey. “For some reason, TJ was awfully interested in the alarm system, so now I suppose she thinks I could get in the Folger house and do the awesome deed.”
“How about a fresh pot of coffee, Abbey?” said Grace.
“Sure.”
She watched Abbey head back to the kitchen. “Now,” said Grace, moving her hand over to Camilla’s arm and patting it softly. “Tell me in a calm, rational, grown-up, Camilla-like manner, why TJ was so concerned about your skills around the restaurant. And quietly,” she said, looking toward the kitchen.
“Don’t you get it? She read the letter, figured I had a huge motive to kill the scumbag, and realized—thanks to Abbey’s big mouth—that I know how to install alarm systems. Didn’t people say—right here in the restaurant—that Conrad Folger’s house had an alarm system? Sweeney probably thought I knew how to short-circuit it so I could get in. And if I could get in and then reset it, Emily would be off the hook since she was supposedly the only one there.”
�
�And?”
“And what?”
“And do you know how to do that?”
Camilla put her head down and looked away, pausing before she said a word. Then she looked at Grace and answered, “Of course I do.”
“So, why the concern about talking to TJ about it? She must know you wouldn’t murder someone. Why would she be overly concerned about your alarm system?”
Camilla took a deep breath and then let it out. “I probably acted suspicious when she asked me about it. You see, Ms. Kimball, I didn’t exactly get the alarm system we have from ordering it over the Internet. I kind of got it very cheap from someone who had it to sell. He owed me a favor. I didn’t mention how I got the alarm system to Abbey because I knew she would be ticked off at me.”
Just then Abbey came back from the kitchen, a steaming coffee pot in her hand. She looked down at Grace and Camilla and smiled. “That’s better. I knew you could work wonders with her temper, Ms. Kimball.”
Grace leaned in and looked directly at Camilla. “You think TJ’s got you on her suspect list because she believes you were acting suspiciously, and your letter indicated a strong motive.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, Camilla, not to put things in writing?” Abbey said, pouring more coffee. “Your mouth—or, in this case, your pen—seems to get you in trouble these days.”
“Well, let’s hope this isn’t the day. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk to TJ,” Grace said. “My guess is she’s covering all her bases. Since you didn’t have anything to do with the murder, you should just wait, and TJ will come to the right conclusion. But I’m not sure why she took your gloves and potting soil. That’s a mystery.”
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