Sidetracked-Kobo

by Brandilyn Collins

  “Thank God you’re all right, Del. Thank God.” His hand cradled the back of my head.

  “Claraaaa.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry.”

  Melcher eased past us out of the room.

  “Why, Andy, why?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just so sorry you’re the one who found her.”

  So was I.

  We pulled apart, Andy placing his palms on my cheeks. His deep brown eyes looked into mine, checking, assessing. Sometimes when he did that I’d think, Surely he must see the lies there …

  He rubbed my face. “I heard you saw someone.”

  I nodded.

  “Any idea who?”

  “No.”

  Andy shut his eyes. “To think he got that close to you.”

  The station phone rang again. The front door opened and closed.

  “Did he see you, Del? Enough to recognize you?”

  The question froze me. Surely my car had kept me in shadow, even if I’d been near a streetlight. “Does it matter? By now the whole town’s heard.”

  Andy looked away, his jaw moving back and forth—the expression that overtook him whenever he processed how to take care of a problem. The look mimicked his dad’s in similar situations. The Bradshaws were the richest, most influential family in Redbud. They were used to fixing things.

  “You should stay at my parents’ house tonight.” Andy squeezed my shoulder. “You’ll be safe there.”

  “I want to go home.” My relationship with Andy’s parents was tenuous at best. I didn’t fit their picture of the Kentucky belle their son and only child should marry. “Pete and Nicole and Colleen are waiting for me. They’re worried.”

  “I’m worried.” Our past discussions tinged the words. Andy never could understand my modern-day “boarding house,” the eclectic trio I’d gathered around me. But then, Andy had always had family.

  “I’ll be fine. Besides, Pete has a gun.”

  “Pete’s in his seventies.”

  “And knows how to shoot.”

  Melcher came back into the room, ending the conversation.

  “Are you done here?” Andy’s tone said he should be.

  The Chief nodded. “For now. If we have more questions, Miss Miller, we’ll let you know.” He retrieved the green blanket from the floor and laid it on the table.

  Andy picked up my purse and handed it to me. “You okay to drive?”

  No. “Yes.”

  He turned to the Chief. “You need to find who did this now.”

  Melcher bristled. “We’re working on it.”

  Andy stood a few inches taller than Melcher. He looked down and held the chief’s gaze. “Nobody’s safe until you do. Especially Delanie.”

  “I’m aware—”

  “Especially if he thinks she can identify him.”

  The chief’s mouth hardened. “I don’t need you telling me how to do my job.”

  “I’m merely worried about Delanie.”

  “We’ll do everything we can to keep her safe, Mr. Bradshaw. As well as the rest of the town.”

  Andy held the chief’s gaze a moment longer, then nodded.

  Melcher put his hands on his hips. The old cop swagger. “We’re going to put the word out that she can’t identify who she saw. It was a shadowed figure in the dark, that’s all. Besides, that’s the truth.”

  I managed a nod.

  “Of course we still have the main issue. Whoever did this is still on the loose, and in that sense no one’s safe.” Melcher ran a hand across his forehead. “Mr. Bradshaw, see that she gets home. I’ve got a lot of other people to talk to. Won’t be seeing my bed tonight.”

  The two men sized each other up. Andy embodied the town, all its citizens who would be pressing for a quick arrest. The chief clearly felt that stress already and wasn’t about to look weak under it.

  Andy slid a protective arm around me. “Let’s go.”

  Once in our cars he waved for me to get on the road first. He would follow, watching my back.

  I drove by rote, my spine not touching the seat. The night, so beautiful and full of promise a few hours ago, now hung heavy with portent. How many people lived without ever stumbling upon the body of a loved one? Now it had happened to me twice.

  Was God punishing me?

  Surely not this way, involving innocent Clara. But hadn’t I always feared one day it would all catch up to me?

  I needed to call Clara’s parents. And Jerald. Tell them how sorry I was. How I wished I could have helped …

  Fresh tears rolled down my face.

  I turned onto my street, and soon my rambling brick house came into view. It had never looked so comforting. I pulled into the garage, Andy parking his BMW in the driveway. He followed me into the garage, making sure I closed the door. We’d barely stepped into the kitchen before Pete appeared. “She’s home!” he yelled over his shoulder. Pete’s voice was gravelly, his back stooped. He’d worked out West as a locomotive engineer most of his life, and his body bore the toll the stressful work had taken.

  Pete hurried toward me with his hitched gait and slapped gnarled hands on my shoulders. “You all right, Del-Belle? I heard it all from Tucker, you know he lives three doors up from where you found Clara?” Pete’s cheeks were red, at the least the part I could see around the unruly gray beard that spread down his neck. His small blue eyes glistened with concern. “We were so worried ’boutcha, started hearin’ things ’bout somebody dead. Can’t believe it’s Clara, I just can’t believe it.”

  Clara had been in our house many times.

  Andy eased into the kitchen and shut the door to the garage. “Hi, Pete.”

  “Hi, Andy.” Pete didn’t take his eyes off me. “You okay, Del-Belle, are ya?”

  My throat knotted. I raised my chin.

  Colleen appeared, trailed by Nicole. In her mid-fifties, Colleen was big-chested and stout. Despite her odd ways she was the mother I wished I had. Always there for me, with a wise word and a soft touch. Colleen loved to run around the house in fuzzy multicolored socks that reminded me of Dr. Seuss. Her short brown hair was never quite in place, her hands always moving when she talked. At dinner she was known to take out a glass or two.

  She hugged me hard. “I’m so sorry about Clara. Don’t know what this world is coming to. In our little town.”

  I hugged Colleen back, even as I felt Andy’s distance from the scene. He never knew quite how to fit into my “family.” And they weren’t quite sure what to think of him, either. Except that any future I built with Andy would mean the breaking up of our household.

  Nicole was shaking as she stepped up to me. At twenty-one, she’d seen too much, lived too much. I knew what that was like. She’d lost her parents in her teens. They’d been abusive. She came to Redbud to live with her grandmother, who ended up needing Nicole’s care when she became an invalid. The elderly woman died last year, leaving her house to Nicole. But Nicole needed a home. She needed love. I’d invited her to come live with us.

  I wrapped my arms around her. “Shh, don’t worry now. We’ll get through this.”

  She shook her head. “I was there. I should have stayed and helped you clean up. Maybe if I’d left when Clara …”

  Faulting herself was something Nicole did well—in all circumstances. I attributed it to her difficult childhood. But Clara’s murder would give her the perfect opportunity for self-blame. Hadn’t I been doing the same thing?

  “You couldn’t have stopped this, Nicole. Any more than I could. It just … happened.”

  The question was why.

  Andy took charge, herding us all to sit down on the couch and chairs in our large “gathering” room. He talked with Pete about keeping his gun loaded and ready—a task Pete was more than eager to do. Andy tried to reassure Nicole, Colleen, and me, telling us to look out for each other.

  “We do that already.” Colleen waved a hand.

  My heart pin
ged. Some things Andy just didn’t understand. But then again—how could he?

  “Well, do it more.” Impatience tinged his voice. He pulled his head back, his tone lightening. “Sorry. I just … I’m really worried.”

  Pete ran a hand down his beard, an old habit. “We all are.”

  Andy’s cell phone rang. It was his mother, who’d heard what had happened. He said he was with me and would call her back. Apparently she wasn’t too happy about being put off.

  Phyllis and Doug Bradshaw lived on the outskirts of town in a huge Southern mansion. White pillars, long porch, and green shutters. Ancient oaks in the yard. They were of the country club set, born and bred. Phyllis stood tall and lithe, her Kentucky drawl as much a part of her as her perfectly groomed eyebrows. Her husband, a college football star, had founded a real estate company in Lexington years ago that now housed over one hundred realtors. Andy worked in that firm.

  Andy slid the phone back into his pocket, shooting me a wry look. He loved his parents. He loved me. But the three of us were oil and water.

  My own cell phone rang. I checked the ID, and when I saw it wasn’t a policeman, didn’t answer. Intermittently it went off again and again. This friend and that, surely wanting to know if I was all right. And no doubt seeking details. I didn’t want to talk to any of them. At the fourth call I looked helplessly to Andy. I just wanted the world to go away.

  “Babe,” he said, “you don’t have to feel guilty about not answering.”

  “I know but … they’re my friends.”

  “You’ve been through enough tonight.” He took the phone from my hand and shut it down.

  The five of us talked about Clara’s death. Did she have any enemies? Who would want to do this? None of us could think of anyone. The Crenshaws were loved in Redbud. Townspeople had watched Clara grow up. She was one of their own.

  I faded in and out of the conversation, my mind churning through pictures of death, recent and old. Ever since I came to Redbud almost five years ago, I’d met each day with a strange mix of freedom and entrapment. Both of them self-inflicted. I’d built my life here, created the family I lacked. Was on the verge of realizing my dream, if Andy asked me to marry him. Maybe then, I’d thought, I could really leave my past behind. Forever.

  Now this.

  I couldn’t begin to sort it all out. What it meant. Why, on some cosmic level, I’d been chosen to lead a life stained with murder.

  But how could I even be thinking of myself at a time like this? Clara was dead. Her parents and fiancé, devastated. The town, blistered and scared. Redbud was my town now. These were my people. Somehow I had to help them.

  But a small voice inside me—a voice that sensed what was to come—whispered, At what cost?

  Chapter 3

  That night I slept fitfully, knotting my covers in scrabbling fists. Fear and grief warred for first place within me. I could not believe Clara was dead. I could not believe any of this.

  In the morning I turned on my phone. It started ringing by six-thirty. I ignored all calls except Andy’s. Told him I was okay. Which I wasn’t. By the time I stumbled into the kitchen around seven, still clad in pajamas, Nicole was already seated at the table, eating her bagel and cream cheese. Breakfasts and lunches were do-it-yourself meals at our house. Dinner was a sit-down-together affair, made by me and whoever else was around to help. I knew Colleen would show up soon. Not Pete. He liked to sneak into the kitchen early, fill a mug with the strong coffee I made just for him—set the night before to go off automatically—and take it back to his room. He’d linger there until the “ladies” cleared out of the kitchen. Often he worked on his memoirs. Through his closed door I’d hear him recounting his railroad stories into his little voice-activated tape recorder. After a few hours of that he’d head for the kitchen, where he could bang around making eggs and bacon with no one else in his way.

  Nicole’s eyes looked puffy. Probably no worse than mine. I gave her a somber smile. “How you doing?”

  She lifted a shoulder, clearly in one of her I-don’t-want-to-talk moods. Which didn’t tend to be good for her.

  I laid my cell phone on the counter and set about making more coffee. When I hit the power button the machine’s loud bean grinder whirred on. I waited for the noise to die down. “This is Thursday. Which means you have a full load of classes, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Since Nicole came to live with me she’d returned to college, attending the University of Kentucky. She planned to major in business marketing.

  “That’s good. Gets you out of town and your mind on other things.”

  “But how can I think?” She put down her bagel. “How can I do anything?”

  The ennui that comes after someone close to you dies. I remembered those days all too well. Now here they were again.

  I pulled out a chair opposite Nicole and sat. “You do it because you have to.”

  Nicole looked out the kitchen window. She’d had plenty terrible days in her life. She should know how to push on. But she so easily fell into the victim mentality.

  “Hey.” I tapped her hand. “You know I’m not telling you to do anything I haven’t done.”

  “I know.”

  Reservation coated her tone. From the stories I’d told of my past, she believed I’d lost my parents at a young age, as she had. An auto accident killed them both, I’d told her. Told everyone. But that’s all Nicole knew about my hardships. In her mind, her abusive childhood loomed so much bigger, which meant I couldn’t understand the extent of her pain. It was her excuse of choice when I nudged her to seize the world instead of letting it seize her.

  If she only knew the truth of all I’ve lived through. But that was the irony of our relationship, of my relationships with everyone. Truth was everything to me. And truth was the one thing I could not give.

  Still, Nicole clung to me as the mentor she longed for. And I wanted to help her all I could.

  Colleen trundled in, wearing her hot pink robe, and headed straight for the coffee machine. Her bed-head hair stuck out all directions. Grief for Clara strained her face, but Colleen would not want to talk about it. “My phone’s been ringing off the hook.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, then headed for the refrigerator. “Everyone wanting to know what happened and how you are. Would you believe even my ex called? Like he has the right to ask me anything.”

  Colleen’s jerk of a husband had divorced her six months ago, but not before tricking her into signing papers that gave him everything they owned. If I hadn’t taken her in, asking for nothing more than money to cover her food, I don’t know what she would have done. Now at least she had a job working at Granger’s Gift Store on Main for seven hours every weekday.

  “Did you talk to him?”

  She snorted. “Not on your life.” She pulled a box of cereal from the pantry and plopped it and the milk on the table. Fetched a bowl and spoon, and brought over her coffee. Colleen seated herself with a muffled harrumph. “Delanie.” She pointed her spoon at me. “I think you should go shopping today. In Lexington.”

  “Shopping?”

  “Hit fancy stores, buy yourself something nice.”

  “I don’t even like shopping, you know that.”

  “What I know is, you need something to keep you occupied today. Otherwise you’ll think and grieve too much. You can only clean this house so many hours a day.”

  “And do laundry,” Nicole put in.

  “And pull weeds in the garden.” Colleen wagged her head.

  “And go to the grocery store.”

  “And do all the other errands this household needs.” Colleen sighed. “Okay, maybe you don’t have time to go shopping. Do it anyway.”

  How odd, the way we talked about everyday things. While Clara was … where right now—in the morgue? I couldn’t grasp it.

  I looked at my hands. “Maybe I should get a job.” We’d had this conversation before. With my inheritance, I d
idn’t need to work. In fact that money had made it possible for me to pay cash for this house. I probably would be working if I didn’t run the household for three people. But I didn’t mind staying home, cooking for all of us and washing clothes. Made me feel useful. Not so alone. This was my family, and I wanted to take care of them.

  Andy didn’t understand this part of me at all. He wanted me to get out and work somewhere, learn something new. The very thought overwhelmed me. I didn’t want to spend my time in some new environment. I was perfectly content in the one I’d created. Not to mention the huge problem inherent with applying for a job.

  Sometimes I wondered what Andy saw in me.

  My cell phone rang. I pushed up to check the ID. Chief Melcher. I steadied myself before picking up the phone. “Hi, this is Delanie.”

  “Hi.” His voice sounded rough. In need of sleep. “I need you to come back down to the station.”

  “Now?”

  “Soon as possible. I have some additional questions.”

  I didn’t like his tone. Dread needled my gut. “I … need to get dressed.”

  “How soon can you get here?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Make it ten.”

  The line clicked in my ear.

  I hung up and tried to breathe. What had he seen in me, what had I done?

  “Who’s that? You’re turning white.” Colleen’s spoon of cereal hung in mid-air.

  “Chief Melcher. Gotta go down to the station.” I tried to keep my voice light. Didn’t work.

  “Why?”

  I pushed up from the table. “More questions.”

  “Maybe he’s found something.” Nicole raised her eyebrows.

  Maybe he had.

  Heart tripping, I threw on some clothes and minimal make-up. Combed my straight blonde hair. Tiredness clung to my face. Only thirty-four, but today I looked a lot older. In the mirror my green eyes looked back at me, full of fear. I couldn’t let the chief see that. He’d wonder why.