Yeah. Something like that. Staring at the page, Leo felt the stirring of anger. He hadn’t been angry in years, hadn’t allowed himself to feel that way. In the life he had constructed, anger was a luxury he couldn’t afford. He worked the night shift at Margene’s MiniMart. He lived alone, out in the woods, in his trailer not far from Luton’s Landing. He didn’t spend much money, and he kept out of everybody’s way. Coming to work at Margene’s had been a risk, and Leo had known it. But years had gone by. Everything was different now.
Except now Clara Trent had shown up. And with a few words, she had dragged the past in the door with her. Clara Trent had her finger on the button that could explode Leo’s life. She shouldn’t have come here. She should go back where she was before. Leave the Gulf Dream Lounge alone. Leave the Gulf Dream Villas alone. Leave Leo Swain alone.
Leo stared at the page. Go away. She should just go away.
50
“Did you know Clara Trent was in town, Aaron?” demanded Patsy Orr.
It was way too early in the morning for this. Patsy had turned up at the Department with no warning, and to Aaron’s chagrin the door of his office had been open. Without invitation, Patsy had walked in and planted herself in his visitor’s chair, where she sat radiating righteous indignation. She was wearing a pink blouse with a design of kittens chasing balls of yarn and an assortment of charm bracelets. Her glasses glinted at Aaron with what looked to him like ferocity.
Aaron had known this would happen, hadn’t he? He had known Clara coming here was a bad idea, and he had told her exactly that. So why did he have to be on the firing line? “I heard,” he said.
Patsy bristled, sitting up a little straighter. Aaron figured she was disappointed that she didn’t get to break the news to him. “Well, have you heard where she’s staying?” she asked.
Aaron wasn’t going to tell her he’d heard that, too. He said, simply, “Where?”
Patsy leaned forward. “She— is— staying— at— the— Villas!” she said. After a moment to let it sink in she said, “Aaron, that’s insulting to Vickie Ann and Jim. It’s an outright slap in the face, and on top of that, it’s weird.”
Aaron agreed with Patsy that Clara staying at the Villas was weird, but he said, “It’s a free country. She can stay where she wants to, as long as she pays the bill.”
There was an ominous silence as Patsy sat back in her chair and stared at Aaron. “So you’re all right with Clara Trent being in town,” she said in a toneless voice.
Aaron shrugged. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m all right with it. She hasn’t broken the law.”
“Well, what do you think she’s doing here? Do you want to take a guess?”
Aaron was getting fed up with Patsy, which was fairly easy to do. “I don’t know what she’s doing here, and I don’t want to take a guess,” he said. “Anyway, Patsy, I’m kind of busy—”
“Think about this,” Patsy said. “What if Clara Trent starts making a fuss? What if she says her husband is innocent? That the DNA was wrong? What about that?”
“What if she builds a rocket and flies off to the moon?” Aaron said. “The DNA wasn’t wrong, OK? If she makes a fuss, I’ll deal with it when it happens. I’m not going to waste time speculating.”
“You should talk to her, Aaron,” Patsy said. “Tell her that coming to St. Elmo was a mistake, and she’s going to get people upset.”
Aaron was not about to mention the fact that he had already done exactly what she was suggesting. He said, “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea for her to come here. I’ll give you that. But I didn’t bring her here, and it’s not up to me to make her leave, either.”
Patsy’s bracelets jangled as she folded her hands in her lap. She said, “Well, I’m surprised at you, Aaron. Your mother has always been so proud of you. Solving crimes, standing up for victims. But this time, you’re leaving us in the lurch. Poor Vickie Ann lost her mother in the most horrible possible way. And I had to go through finding the body. It gives me nightmares, even today. And you’re saying this woman has a right to come in and ask questions and cause us pain.”
Aaron blinked the sting from his eyes. The remark about his mother had hit home. His mother had looked shrunken and weak when he saw her. He would’ve been happy if she’d asked him about Stacey, but she didn’t. He said, “I feel for Vickie Ann and Jim. And yes, you had a tough time, too. But try to remember one thing, Patsy. Clara Trent didn’t kill Alice Rhodes. That’s an important point.”
Patsy gave him a look of disappointment. Or maybe it was contempt. She gathered her handbag and stood up. “If that’s the way you feel about it,” she said.
Aaron also stood. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Patsy didn’t answer, but gave him another long stare, turned, and walked out.
Aaron sat down again. By the time Patsy was out the door he had forgotten her. He was thinking about his mother.
51
Clara had slept badly, and she woke up late. Not that it mattered, she thought wearily. What was her plan for today? She would try once again to get somebody to talk with her about the killing of Alice Rhodes. And, she probably would be rejected again, and vilified on top of it for attempting to understand what her husband had done— or what people believed he had done.
Maybe, in the end, Clara was going to have to believe it, too.
But maybe not quite yet. She stared at the shifting patterns of light on the bedroom wall. Everybody pointed to the DNA as proof that Ronan had killed Alice Rhodes. And nobody, certainly not Clara, would deny that Ronan’s DNA match proved he had been at the scene of the murder. But did it prove he was the murderer? His guilt, as far as Clara could see, had been assumed because he acted guilty, lied, changed his story, and claimed at the last minute to have seen somebody else lurking around Alice’s place. Only one sample had been kept from the murder scene, and that one had Ronan’s DNA on it. But nobody knew about DNA evidence back then. No other samples were retained. Clara wasn’t ready to give up her doubts.
She got up, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. The air conditioner rattled on, but still the air seemed stale. She was already sick of this place, with its beach-themed bric-a-brac, its dingy walls. And yet, Ronan had been here. That was enough to keep her here. She would know when it was time to leave.
The Book of Alice lay on the dining table, where she had left it last night. Preparing to make toast and tea, she picked the book up to move it to an end table. Instead of putting it down, though, she sat on the sofa to glance through it again.
She turned the pages, already familiar after close study, perusing the depictions of Alice. Clara could feel Ronan in every line. Here was the page with studies of Alice’s hands. In one of them she was wearing the ring with twining leaves and berries and a carved rose. Below it was Alice’s pencil notation, “My pretty ring!!!!” The ring, Clara thought, was very much the same style as the box Ronan had given Clara long ago, the wooden box that now held her pills. It, too, had a pattern of twining vines and leaves. It was the type of thing Ronan liked. After a moment Clara blinked, and thought: Ronan gave Alice this ring.
Immediately, she believed it was true. Alice’s “pretty ring” had been a gift from Ronan. He loved Alice, Clara thought. He loved Alice more than he ever loved me.
Clara recognized this idea for the exercise in futility it was. How much Ronan had loved anybody was an unanswerable question, now that he was dead. To continue down this path was to fall into a pit, and so it was time to do something else— like make toast and tea. She started to put down the sketchbook, and found that it would not close as it should.
The book, of course, was old, and both the cover and the pages were yellowed and swollen with damp. Still, she had not had trouble closing it before. She examined it. There seemed to be an obstacle in the spine.
She examined the spine and the cover, which were somewhat tattered. It looked as if something, a piece of paper, had been dislodged f
rom the interior of the spine, and was slipping into the crack where it connected to the cover. If she removed the paper, the book could close.
The space was too narrow for her fingers, so Clara got a pair of tweezers from the bathroom and fished out the obstructing paper. When she had it in her hand, she realized that it had never been part of the binding. It was a piece of white paper, obviously much newer than the sketchbook paper, folded into a small oblong. She unfolded it and spread it out.
Printed on the paper were the words: Warning from a friend. They are going to come after you for the murder of Alice Rhodes.
Clara looked at the paper. The words were printed, perhaps on a printer, rather than handwritten. There was no signature, no salutation, no address. Clara searched in the spine and through all the pages, but she didn’t find an envelope. Had this note, this warning, been sent to Ronan, or handed to him? He, or someone, folded it up and concealed it in the spine of The Book of Alice. When had this happened? And the bigger question— who wrote the words? And why?
She had no answers. She had no idea. She stared at the paper. Eventually, the words lost their meaning. They had become as indecipherable as hieroglyphics.
Dedication
To Julie Smith, my editor and friend.
Acknowledgments
“Misleading DNA Evidence” by Peter Gill (Academic Press, 2014) was a useful and informative aid in writing this book.
I received invaluable help from Sally Arteseros, Roger Brunswick, Chris Buchanan, Nick Collins, Matthew Nadelson, Joseph Perez, Diane Scharff, and Connie Williams. My thanks to all.
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Also by Michaela Thompson
PAPER PHOENIX
FAULT TREE
VENETIAN MASK
The Georgia Maxwell Series
MAGIC MIRROR
A TEMPORARY GHOST
The Florida Panhandle Mysteries
HURRICANE SEASON
RIPTIDE
HEAT LIGHTNING
About the Author
MICHAELA THOMPSON is the author of seven previous mystery novels, originally published under the name Mickey Friedman. She grew up on the Gulf Coast in the Northwest Florida Panhandle, the locale described in Hurricane Season, Riptide, and Heat Lightning, and still spends a significant amount of time there. She has worked as a newspaper reporter and a freelance journalist, and has contributed mystery short stories to a number of anthologies. She lives in New York City.
The Complete Mystery Collection Page 156