Conspiracy of Silence

by Martha Powers

  Jake was right. Her mother was already dead when she fired the gun.

  Was the voice she heard calling her Rose’s?

  If so, it was the scenario she’d described to Jake.

  Rose must have found her missing from the house and gone searching for her. When she found her in the boathouse with the gun beside her and Lily Newton’s body on the floor, she would have assumed that she shot her mother. Like falling dominos, each event after that would have precipitated the next.

  If Rose thought she killed Lily, she would have told Jimmy. Jimmy would have tried to protect her by sending her away and confessing to the murder. Each subsequent action the result of normal human reaction.

  There were two questions in her mind. The first was, could she trust her memory?

  She’d had so many versions of the boathouse dream. Each timea vital element changed or was added. This time the metal letterbox was added. Were the box and the pirate just part of her fantasy or were they real? She needed to know if what she had witnessed was the truth.

  The second question was more frightening. Did Jimmy Newton kill her mother after all?

  Someone had been in the boathouse before she arrived. She had heard the three shots when she was outside. Was it possible thather father believed that Lily was having an affair and came to confront the lovers? He might have brought the gun to scare them, but a struggle ensued and Lily was shot.

  It was obvious she didn’t want her father to be guilty of murder. She wanted to believe that someone else had killed her mother.

  Tooagitated to remain cooped up in the car, Clare got out and paced around Nate’s gravel driveway. Suddenly it occurred to her. In the newspaper articles she had read, the boathouse was never mentioned. No crime scene was ever indicated. If there was any evidence to prove her father’s guilt or innocence, it might still be in the deserted building.

  Clare glanced at her watch. It was two thirty. So deep in her own thoughts, she had completely forgotten about Erika’s show. If she went to the boathouse, she’d never get back to the nursing home in time. Nate would be worried when she didn’t show up.

  Opening the car door, she leaned in and picked up her cell phone. She punched in Nate’s number but there was no answer. He must have turned his off.

  “Hi, Nate. Tell Erika I’m sorry I’m going to miss her performance. I’m at your place. There’s something I have to check on. I’ll meet you here after the show.”

  She dropped the phone on the front seat and put her car keys in the ashtray. She popped the trunk. After the tire-slashing incident, she’d put a few things in the trunk in case of another emergency. She pulled up the carpet covering the spare tire, and grabbed the flashlight and a screwdriver from the wheel well. At least she’d be able to pry the boards off the door. Too bad she hadn’t put a pair of sneakers in the car, but at least she didn’t have sandals on this time.

  Slamming the trunk of the car, she headed for the woods.

  S

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Yes. I’m Jimmy Newton,” Jake repeated, his voice loud in the silent room. Erika hurried over to Nate. He put his arm around her, but he didn’t take his attention off Jake. Ruth staggered to a chair and sat down.

  “Are you all right?” Jake asked. He smiled at her when she appeared startled by the question. “I’m still the same person you knew a few minutes ago. It’s just a name change.”

  “Did you kill Lily Newton?” Nate asked, locking gazes with Jake.

  Erika’s arms tightened around his waist and he squeezed her shoulder to reassure her.

  “No.”

  It was just one word spoken without a hint of reservation. Jake didn’t move, waiting for a sign from Nate. He noticed that the older man stood taller and seemed to have shed the air of shyness that had been a part of his persona ever since Nate met him. There was even a hint of a smile in his eyes that indicated his awareness that he was being judged.

  “Does Clare know?” Nate asked.

  Jake shook his head, running a hand up through his white hair. “I wanted to tell her yesterday, but she was already upset and I didn’t want to send her into another emotional guilt trip.”

  Nate shifted restlessly. He had so many questions that he didn’t know where to begin. Jake seemed to sense his dilemma. “I think it might help if I told you about the night of the murder. My question for you, Nate, is whether you want Erika hearing all this.”

  Nate’s arm tightened around Erika. He could see the curiosity written so clearly on her upturned face. He’d like to protect her from all the ugliness in the world, but it wasn’t possible. He led Erika over to the couch and sat down next to her.

  “She’ll hear it via the grapevine so I’d rather she hear it with me.”

  Jake nodded his head. He walked to the mantel, staring for a moment at the painting of Clare. Then he turned and Nate could see the pain carved in the lines of his face. No matter what the man had done, he’d suffered for it.

  “It was the Fourth of July. It was a hot and muggy Saturday. Lily’s sister Rose had come up from Minneapolis for the weekend. The three of us were going to a dance over in Bovey. I wasn’t keen on leaving Abby with a babysitter.”

  “You mean Clare?” Erika asked.

  Jake chuckled. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember her name is Clare. In my heart, she’ll always be Abby.”

  He swallowed several times and cleared his throat before he could continue.

  “I wasn’t happy taking Rose with us. I wasn’t all that fond of her. She’d been very popular in high school and college. She ran with a very fast crowd and ended up getting pregnant in her twenties. She was living in Minneapolis at the time. I don’t know any ofthe details but, according to Lily, Rose miscarried and had to have a hysterectomy.”

  “What a shame at such a young age,” Ruth said. “Had she wanted children?”

  “Yes. It was her one saving grace. Wild as she was, she loved children and adored Abby.” He smiled. “We piled in the car and drove to Bovey. It was a wonderful evening. Lily loved to dance. If I’d known it was our last evening together I would have danced every dance with her.”

  His voice broke and Nate could almost sense the pain at reliving Lily’s last hours. He felt a lump in his own throat and drew Erika closer to his side.

  “There was a makeshift bar outside the hall and I drank a good bit that night. It was getting late when Lily came to get me. She said she wanted to go home. Rose’s friend had overheard Rose making plans to meet her old boyfriend. She was worried about Rose getting back into that relationship again.”

  “Was Rose’s friend Margee Robinson?” Nate asked.

  “Yes. I didn’t recognize the name when I heard that she had died at the Farm Show. I didn’t make the connection until Clare and I were talking yesterday.”

  Nate thought Jake might say more, but one glance at Erika and he shook his head, returning to the story.

  “In my drunken state, I went in search of Rose. I found her outside. She was in a heavy clinch with a man I assumed was her old boyfriend. I pulled them apart and then the fight started. It was Big Red Wiklander. We were both pretty drunk and threw a lot of wild punches, occasionally connecting, until we were pulled apart.

  “Lily drove home. I sat in the front seat nursing a nosebleed. Rose sat in back crying. When we got home, Abby was on the couch in the living room sleeping. The babysitter had taken her to see the fireworks and apparently let her eat a lot of junk. She’d been sick to her stomach, but wasn’t running a fever. She was all tucked up with her blanket and her doll.”

  “I was sick yesterday,” Erika said, “but I’m all better now.”

  It surprised Nate that Erika seemed so at ease in a situation where the adults in the room were practically vibrating with tension. His gaze crossed Jake’s and he could see that the man had sensed the same thing.

  “I’m glad you are.” Jake continued, “I went to bed after checking on Abby. What I didn’t know until later,
when Rose told me, was that Lily was furious with her. Lily accused Rose of making arrangements to meet her old boyfriend in the Egner’s boathouse. That’s over at the youth camp. It’s the place we talked about when you and Clare were looking at the paintings. Right along the edge of Nate’s property, Ruth,” he said by way of explanation.

  “I’ve seen the boathouse,” Erika said. “It’s all boarded up and really spooky now.”

  Jake began to walk around as if he were too restless to stay in one place.

  “Lily told Rose she couldn’t go. Rose said, no matter what hadhappened before she still loved him and couldn’t stay away. Lily was furious and slapped her. According to Rose, Lily went to the linen closet and took down the box with my gun in it. She told Rose to go to bed because she intended to put a scare into ‘that man.’ Rose was so frightened, she agreed. That was the last time Rose saw Lily alive.

  “At one in the morning, Rose woke me. She was sobbing, unable to speak. Abby was standing in the bedroom doorway, blood on her nightgown and her hands. I examined her and found a nasty cut on her knee but that didn’t account for the amount of blood. When Rose was able to talk, she said it was Lily’s blood. Lily had been shot.”

  Jake put his hand on the mantel, his distress readily apparent in his bowed head and slumped shoulders. No one spoke. After a minute or two, he began to pace again.

  “The storm woke Rose and she got up to close the window behind the couch in the living room where Abby was sleeping. She was worried that the child might get wet. When she discovered both Abby and Lily missing, she got a flashlight and started down the trail. She ran into Bianca bringing Abby back to the house. Bianca was distraught. She’d heard gunshots in the direction of the boathouse. She’d rowed there and found Abby beside Lily. When she asked her what happened, she kept repeating, ‘I shot the gun. It went boom. It went boom.’ ”

  “Oh, dear God! Clare shot her mother.” Ruth covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Poor Clare,” Erika cried, burying her head against Nate’s chest. He tightened his grip on her, patting her back as he stared at Jake.

  “No wonder she lost her memory,” Nate said.

  “I’ll tell you more later, but for the moment you just need to know Clare did not shoot her mother. She thought she did, but her memories turned out to be faulty. I repeat. Clare did not shoot Lily.”

  Erika clapped her hands. Ruth smiled across at Nate and even Jake looked amused at her childish enthusiasm. Nate suspected thatErika viewed the retelling of the murder almost as if she were listening to the plot of a book.

  “Like you,” Jake said, “I assumed Abby had killed Lily. I couldn’t bear for her to live with that knowledge. I told Rose to clean up Abby and I raced down to the boathouse where Bianca was waiting. Lily was lying on the floor. My gun beside her.”

  “If I had only myself to worry about, I’d have called your dad, Nate. I couldn’t risk putting Abby in the glare of the media. I knew there would be traces of evidence in the boathouse. So I wrapped Lily in beach towels and put her in Bianca’s boat. I rowed across the lake. I found a grassy spot where I could leave her.”

  Ruth was crying softly and Erika’s body shook against Nate. He couldn’t conceive the pain that Jake must have felt, leaving his wife on the shore. The return to the boathouse must have been hellish. Jake cleared his throat several times before he could continue.

  “I erased my footprints and rowed across the lake. By the time I got back, Bianca had cleaned up the boathouse. She’d scrubbed the blood off the floor and scattered other things around so that you wouldn’t know that anyone had been there. She said she’d thrown the gun as far out in the lake as she could. I told Bianca thatI planned to send Abby away and she agreed it was the only thing to do. I added the floor rags to the bundle of beach towels. Outside she put the padlock back on the door and I helped her into the rowboat. Then I went home.”

  “So Bianca’s known all along about Clare,” Nate said.

  “She’s known about Clare’s involvement in Lily’s death,” Jake said. “I don’t think she knows that Clare and Abby are the same person.”

  “She does too,” Erika said.

  “You told her?” Nate asked.

  “No, it happened by accident. She was snooping. I was telling Cindy about Clare. Miss Egner’s always listening to us when we’re at rehearsal. And then she tells Pastor Olli and he gives you one of those looks. You know what I mean, Dad.”

  “Having been on the receiving end of his famous disapproving looks, I know exactly what you mean.” Looking up at Jake, he said, “I remember reading that you’d burned something in the fireplace. The newspapers mentioned how suspicious it was on such a hot night. Did you burn the towels?”

  “The towels and rags used to clean up. My clothes had blood on them from holding Lily. And Abby’s nightgown, robe, and slippers. It was three o’clock in the morning by the time the fire was out.” He looked at Nate. “I called your father at home and told him Lily was missing. It was agony knowing where she was and not being able to tell them where to look. Luckily she was found quickly. During the night, Rose and I had worked out a reasonable plan. She was to take Abby to Minneapolis. She wouldn’t go back to her place, but go to Ruth’s brother, Owen, instead.”

  “I gathered from Clare that he was involved,” Ruth said. “Now I understand why.”

  “We were good friends. I’d known him in Minneapolis, and I knew he was moving to Chicago. I called him and he agreed to help Rose and Abby disappear. He handled all of the paper work — property sales and adoption papers. Thank God, Rose owned the house here, since I wouldn’t have been able to sell it. Owen did everything he could to help. As soon as I was convinced Abby was safe, physically and financially, I left Grand Rapids.”

  A heavy silence filled the room. Questions flitted through Nate’s mind but he knew most of them would be answered eventually. For the moment, Clare was uppermost in his thoughts.

  “What convinced you that Clare didn’t shoot Lily?”

  “You know that dream she’s been having?”

  “The one where she’s running through the woods?”

  “Yes. It’s what I think is called a recovered memory or something similar. Her memory was coming back. She remembered picking up and firing the gun. She remembered the sound of the gun going off and her falling down. When I pressed her, she said she’d fired the gun once. Just once.”

  “Ah,” Nate said.

  Ruth and Erika looked at him in confusion.

  “Lily Newton was shot three times,” he explained. “I’m curiousas to how you became Jorgenson and why you came back to Grand Rapids.”

  “I’d gone to Wisconsin after I left Grand Rapids. I lived mostly on the fringes of big cities or in small towns. I tried to bury myself in work. Physical labor so I’d be tired at night and could sleep. I had no plan. I just moved from place to place when life got unbearable. Actually, the day I died was a good one. I’d been ice fishing.”

  Nate grinned, reminded of how Jake had tried to introduce him to the joys of ice fishing. The only part of it he’d enjoyed was standing on the ice with other men, talking and drinking coffee, laced heavily with whiskey.

  “A fella I’d met on the ice that day and I were walking back to town. We were crossing over some railroad tracks when we saw a man either slide off or jump off an embankment and get hit by a train. We raced down to see if we could help him. He was a goner. The other man was younger and said he’d go to the police if I’d stay with the body.”

  Jake scratched his head. “I’m not sure when the idea came to me. I took out his wallet, grateful to see his identification since no one would recognize him after the train hit him. He looked like he’d been on the road for a while. No one would know he’d even died. It occurred to me that if I died that would effectively close themurder case. There’d be no reason for anyone to look into it and Clare would be safe forever.

  “I put my wallet in his pocket and took his. I took off my ne
ck chain. I busted the clasp trying to get the medal that Lily had given me off.” He reached inside the collar of his shirt and pulled out a gold medal on a chain. “I couldn’t bear to leave this behind. I hookedthe chain on him somehow, figuring they’d put the broken links down to the train accident. I spent the rest of the time waiting for the cops memorizing the details on his driver’s license. When the cops came, Jimmy Newton was officially dead.” “Did you pay for your own grave site?” Ruth asked. “I assume that’s the remains of the real Jake Jorgenson.”

  “Yes. I thought it was the least I could do for the man who’d given me a new life. I arranged for the funeral home here to retrieve the ashes and have him buried. Wired them the money. In his wallet, there was an obituary from the newspaper. His wife had died a year earlier in Trego, Wisconsin. I called the funeral home and the woman I talked to remembered him. It was only the wife and Jake. No kids. No other family.”

  “Are you also the one who’s been taking care of Lily’s grave?” Ruth asked. “I took Clare over to the Itasca Cemetery to see it. It pleased her.”

  “I never got too far away from Grand Rapids. Lily was here and I wanted to be near her. I had eventually settled in Duluth, working as a graphic designer. Three years ago I figured twentytwo years of exile was enough. It was time to come home.” “Weren’t you worried that someone would recognize you?” Nate asked.

  “No. According to my new ID I was six years older than Jimmy. My physical appearance was totally different. Jimmy was a hefty man with dark red hair and a beard. Pale skin from spending too much time indoors. I’d aged considerably since I left Grand Rapids. I’d lost a lot of weight and shaved off my beard. With my white hair and tanned leather skin, I was fairly certain no one would recognize me. Besides, everyone believed that Jimmy Newtonwas dead, so they’d never think to make the connection.” “You knew Abby was Clare,” Erika said. “Does she look like her mom?”