As for Daisy’s death, the prisoner knew nothing about it, further confirming that Jackson was her killer. The final proof that Jackson was Daisy’s murderer came when the State Police brought back some material from Jackson’s cave. They were notes that Daisy had made about women around the country and that had obviously been stolen from her trailer. It was enough reason for Jackson to finally do away with his sister and end it all for good. If he hadn’t missed the magazines in her trailer, we never would have had the clues we needed to pursue the story. Detective Morse called us during the interview to let us know that although the note in the ice cream was not salvageable, the knife had an unknown fingerprint and DNA from one of the murder victims. We put him in touch with the Pennsylvania State Police, and together they determined that the print belonged to Jackson.
Wheeler was picked up later that day amid a media frenzy. He denied everything, of course, but as expected, it was later revealed that it all had to do with covering up his past actions. If the public found out that he was involved with Holt in manipulating the aftermath of the mine disaster, his career would be in ruins.
“You know, it’s amazing we’re still alive,” I said that night in our hotel room. I had my arm around a naked Sabrina as we laid in bed. We were totally exhausted and knew it would only be a few minutes before we were asleep. “We had three different groups after us. Barbara Holt, with Jackson pulling the strings, had the blonde and her buddy following us to keep track of our whereabouts. They were the least dangerous of the lot, but dangerous nonetheless. Then we had Wheeler’s guys. It’s just luck that they didn’t kill us. Finally, there was Jackson, the scariest of them all. Hopefully there is no one else after us.”
I could have saved my breath. Sabrina had fallen fast asleep.
Chapter 39
We were back in Wisconsin, driving down the main street of the sleepy town. After all we’d been through, sleepy was appealing. Also, getting away from the limelight was necessary. I was starting to understand Sabrina’s distaste for much of the human race. They had been all over us from the moment word got out that Sabrina, the Adventuress, was once again involved in a deadly undertaking. Crowds of reporters had followed us everywhere for days and it took some sleight of hand by Mo to get us to the airport and onto a plane without being seen.
Sabrina and I were questioning our innate understanding of people. We had both liked Wheeler and he had turned out to be not only a crook, but a murderer. The same with Jackson. A nice guy who just happened to have killed thirty-seven women. The count wasn’t complete yet. That number was based solely on the trophies he had collected and had stored in the mine. The authorities felt that the number might actually be higher than that. Could we really be that obtuse? Could our understanding of human nature be that far off? Did we just see what we wanted to see?
The uproar over Wheeler’s arrest was massive. The public was getting tired of politicians who betrayed their trust, and the calls for his head ranged far and wide. He had been smart when dealing with us. Most of the story he had told was true, with a few exceptions. Wheeler did start the fire when he was a kid and Holt did hold it over him, but the minute Holt needed Wheeler’s help with the mine, the tables were immediately turned. The story of Barbara Holt seducing him was false, just another way to gain our sympathy. That made me feel better. The thought of a naked Barbara seducing someone turned my stomach. Basically he was covering his tracks. The minute he found out that we were investigating Daisy’s death, he had put out the hit on us. He had every intention of killing us. After all, he had everything to lose if the true story got out. He knew he had missed his chance to get the material from Daisy’s box, so he no longer had to target Brenda and Bob. However, if for some reason we survived, by telling us the sob story and gaining our trust, he might have avoided having his name involved.
We pulled up in front of Ronnie’s house and she came out to greet us. Sabrina hadn’t told her much on the phone, but Ronnie had been following the story on the news, so we wouldn’t have to recap everything.
Her children were at a friend’s house for the day. Ronnie felt it would be easier to talk, and more importantly, to process everything, with her kids gone.
After we had gotten settled and had declined the obligatory coffee offer, she said, “So I heard the safe deposit box only contained a diary of sorts.” There was a definite note of disappointment in her voice.
“That is true,” said Sabrina. “It told the whole story of your mother’s life and foretold her death. And it proves that she didn’t kill your father.”
“Which only makes me feel guilty that I hated her for so many years. I wish she had told me.”
“She was protecting you. If she had said anything, you probably would be dead now.”
“Well, I’m glad it’s settled.” Again, Ronnie sounded disappointed.
Sabrina just stared at her for a few seconds.
“You don’t get the whole picture, do you?” she finally said.
Ronnie just looked at her.
“Barbara and Lucas Holt, your grandparents, are dead. Jackson Holt, your uncle, is dead. Who do you think is left in the family to inherit the thriving coal mine?”
It took a moment, then her face took on a surprised look.
“Me?” she asked.
“You inherit the whole thing.”
“There is a catch,” I ventured.
“There’s always a catch.”
“It’s not a bad one. Now that the story has come out, there are going to be a lot of miners’ families out to sue your company for the damage caused by the Holts,” I said. “Sabrina, with the help of her lawyer, has already talked to the former Clover Mine owners about buying you out. You’d only get a fraction of what the mine is worth, as they would have to use much of the equity to pay off the families, but in the end, you would be nicely compensated, the families of the dead miners would be fairly dealt with, and the Clover Mine owners would be able to start over. Everybody wins.”
“Except the dead miners,” Sabrina reminded me.
“Yes.”
“How much do you think I’ll get?” asked Ronnie.
Sabrina reached into her handbag and produced a legal-looking letter. She handed it to Ronnie.
As Ronnie read it, her eyes lit up.
“Are you kidding me? Seriously? We’ll be set for life. Thank you!”
“I’ll have the lawyers contact you,” said Sabrina.
We got up to leave. Ronnie followed us out and as we got into the car, she said, “I learned all about you from the news reports. Now that I can afford it, I’ll go out and buy all of your books.”
“And seeing as how you can afford them,” replied Sabrina with a smile, “I’ll let you.”
Epilogue
It was a couple of months later. The hoopla from our adventure had finally died down a bit. We had spent some time in Virginia looking at property, but had come back empty-handed. The Holt’s property in Pennsylvania had even gone on the market, but it was too tainted. Sabrina decided that she was way too busy to think about buying property. It was still a dream, but she was happy splitting her time between western Mass and East Boston for the time being.
She was hard at work writing the story of our first adventure together. I had finally finished writing down the details of the mystery and she was pounding away at the computer adding the verbs and adjectives and such. I read each chapter as she finished and was blown away by how she could take my research and fashion it into a piece of brilliance. Oh, her buying public was going to love that one.
Me? I was hard at work transcribing the events of our just finished adventure. Now that I could see how good the fruit of my labor could look once Sabrina got her hands on it, it wasn’t such a chore. I was actually having fun. In fact, I now had my answer to the question of what I did for a living. I was a writer. It had a nice ring to it.
Now that our lives were back to normal, whatever that was, we had Mo and her partner, Peep, up for dinne
r. Peep wasn’t her real name. I just called her that because she looked like Little Bo Peep from the nursery rhyme. Compared to Mo’s overall toughness, Peep seemed so small and fragile. But they loved each other, so who’s to judge?
Seymour was also invited and he actually came. I had to promise that I’d order a pizza, but it was still a shock nonetheless to see him in my apartment.
We wanted to thank them for all of their help. We were all having a merry old time when I made the mistake of asking Seymour how he had dispatched the man on the stairs without any apparent reaction. He went silent and said he had to go. I felt bad about it. But it did answer one question: there was definitely a story there.
The FBI had taken Daisy’s letter to Sabrina as evidence, but with the stipulation from Sabrina that if any of the letter was leaked to the public, Sabrina would sue the pants off the federal government. She was now a force to be reckoned with, so they took it seriously. The story could be made public, but not the letter. Sabrina was saving that for the book. Of course, she made copies, just in case someone screwed up and destroyed the original letter.
Senator Wheeler was going to die a broken man in prison. I had a particular contempt for him because he played us for fools. He was going to get everything that was coming to him. Once the surviving gunman had made a plea deal that took the death penalty off the table, he couldn’t stop talking. His testimony was going to finish Wheeler.
Jackson’s body was cremated, but there was nobody to claim the ashes. Did they end up in a landfill somewhere? I hoped so. Or a septic tank. Between Wheeler and Jackson, my confidence in being able to read people had taken a serious hit.
My leg eventually healed, as did our emotions from almost getting killed numerous times. Our lives had become peaceful again.
And the word on Mandy was that she was still in rehab, but was doing well. Our fingers were crossed. It would be nice if something else good came out of this.
*****
The funeral was held on a sunny day, with cotton-ball clouds dotting the sky. There was a slight breeze, with a bit of a chill in the air. Sabrina and I had flown up to Wisconsin the night before. Sabrina had spent the whole flight going over the notes of her eulogy, but finally put them away and said, “Hell, I’ll wing it.”
The crowd was small, as befit a forgotten soul like Daisy. Ronnie and her children were there, of course, as was Karen Ackerman and her husband, who had accompanied his wife for moral support. The support was necessary, as Karen had tears running down her cheeks from the moment she arrived to the moment it was over. The minister and a few of Ronnie’s friends rounded out the group. Seeing as how the whole story had burned up the news wires, there were a dozen reporters and a couple of news cameras. Out of respect for the family, I had asked them to keep their distance and cover it from afar. Surprisingly, they complied with the request.
Ronnie had insisted that Daisy’s ashes be buried near her in Wisconsin. “If I couldn’t know her in life, at least I can have her here now,” she had said. I had a feeling Ronnie was going to spend many hours at the gravesite in the coming years, talking to her mother.
Karen had hugged Ronnie and cried for many minutes, until Ronnie became uncomfortable and Karen’s husband had to pry his wife from the embrace. Then Karen came over and clung to us for a while. It was then that I realized how much Karen had loved Lucinda and how it must have torn her apart when Lucinda disappeared. Karen also understood at that moment that Lucinda had loved her deeply enough to terminate their friendship and disappear in order to keep Karen safe from Jackson.
After the minister did his thing, Sabrina got up and stood before the small crowd, her abandoned notes in her pocket.
“There is a lot of evil in this world,” she began, “and we all run across it in our lives. Daisy—or Lucinda, however you knew her—ran across more than her share. She had a bright future ahead of her. She was intelligent, enthusiastic, and full of the hopes and dreams that come with youth. These were all destroyed by the actions of others. Because she was strong, however, she was able to escape and begin a new life, one that produced a beautiful daughter. But again the evil crept in and took everything she loved away from her. When I knew her, the light had been extinguished. The hopes and dreams were a thing of the past. As strong as she was, the negative forces were just too much.”
She took a breath.
“But it’s not my purpose here to illustrate the sadness and tragedy in Daisy’s life. But rather, it is to show that even in the worst situations, love can shine through. Yes, Daisy was a broken woman in so many ways and for the longest time I thought it was hate that drove her. In fact, it was love. It was her willingness to sacrifice herself so that others could live—people who had no idea that they were alive because of Daisy’s sacrifice: her best friend and college roommate, her beautiful daughter, and the grandchildren she never knew.”
She looked at Ronnie and then at Karen.
“You owe your lives to Daisy’s willingness to stand between you and the madness that made up the rest of her family. While in prison, Daisy saved my life a number of times. She always shrugged it off, and in fact, sometimes didn’t treat me very well herself, especially during my first couple of years there. Because of it, I can’t say that I knew Daisy all that well, even though we spent six years together. But in a final note to me, one that we discovered after her death, she referred to me as a friend.
“Once Daisy was released, she made it her mission to destroy those who had destroyed her life. But it wasn’t out of revenge, but duty. It was because she wanted it all to end. She never wanted her daughter or grandchildren to have to have the dark cloud of their heritage to always be hanging over them.
“Because of Daisy’s love and sheer courage, and her willingness to sacrifice herself so that others might have a better life, she brought down the evil. There is no greater love. And there was no greater hero than Daisy.”
Sabrina had tears flowing down her cheeks.
“I got to know Daisy better in death than I ever did when she was alive. I saw what was behind the stony exterior she displayed to the small world around her. With her death I was able to see her for what she was. She was my friend.
“I will miss you, my friend.”
Sabrina almost didn’t get the last sentence out, choking on the words. As I hugged her, I looked around. Everyone was crying.
As we walked to the car, I looked back at the gravesite. Ronnie was holding her children close to her as she looked down at the partially filled hole.
“That was your grandma…” she began.
The End
Did you miss the first book in the series, All Lies? Read on for a peek.
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About the Author
Andrew Cunningham is the author of the Amazon bestselling thriller Wisdom Spring, the “Lies” Mystery Series: All Lies and Fatal Lies, the post-apocalyptic Eden Rising Trilogy: Eden Rising, Eden Lost, and Eden's Legacy, and the Cape Cod terrorist/disaster thriller Deadly Shore. As A.R. Cunningham, he has written a series of five children's mysteries in the Arthur MacArthur series. Born in England, Andrew was a long-time resident of Cape Cod. He and his wife now live in Florida. Please visit his website at arcnovels.com, or his Facebook page, Author Andrew Cunningham.
All Lies by Andrew Cunningham
Here’s a peek at the first book in the series, All Lies!
Prologue
"I come from a long line of idiots…"
Those were his last words. I was tempted to have them inscribed on
his headstone, because, in fact, he wasn't wrong. My family did have an abnormally high incidence of stupidity running through its genes. As far back as I could determine, my ancestors—the men, to be specific—were known for their questionable actions, actions that usually left them dead.
That worried me of course, as I was the next in line. An idiot-in-waiting, I suppose.
I would love to know what the rest of that sentence was going to be. Maybe "I come from a long line of idiots … but thank God you're normal," or "… and it's up to you, son, to change the pattern." Sadly, it was probably more along the lines of "… and the future doesn't look any brighter."
It wasn't a lack of intelligence by any means. As far as I know, my ancestors all had the normal allotment of brains. There was a politician, a scientist, and even a minister mixed in somewhere down the line. My recently deceased father had been a university professor.
Fatal Lies ( Lies Mystery Thriller Series Book 2) Page 21