Blackberry Crumble

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Chapter 3

  The first indication of trouble was the embarrassed smile Harriet Shub gave Sadie when she put her salad on the table. She dropped eye contact almost immediately, turning back to her sister, Leslie, who looked at Sadie with an uncomfortable expression before looking away as fast as Harriet had. Sadie adjusted the salad bowl and pulled off the plastic wrap while letting her gaze span the room. Another group was watching her and leaning in toward one another in such a way that made Sadie’s stomach sink even further. Sadie knew gossip when she saw it; she was an expert on the subject, even if she preferred to call it “staying informed.”

  Don’t overreact, she told herself. A moment later, Paul came in, and she busied herself with prepping the meat trays. Baskets of rolls appeared as though from nowhere, and then Ben Lancaster, the Latham Club president, stood up front and welcomed everyone. Sadie, as well as the rest of the kitchen crew, moved back toward the wall—out of the way, but still on hand should anyone need anything.

  As she looked at the crowd, she caught the eyes of two different people, who both quickly looked away. It did nothing to calm her growing fears that there were a number of people in this room who knew something she didn’t—something that wasn’t necessarily complimentary. It had to be that article. She only took the Sunday paper; why hadn’t someone called her if she’d been featured? She immediately answered her question. If it were negative, people would be hesitant to tell her about it. Her stomach sank further.

  Ben droned on and on while Sadie continued experimenting with eye contact. Several people smiled back when she held their eye, helping her feel better, but there were a few who pretended not to see her.

  Finally, Ben finished speaking, and people began to line up at the food tables. Sadie was unsure what to do and decided to retreat to the kitchen. Maybe she could call Pete and ask him to get another paper on his way back so she’d know what she was up against.

  Smiling tightly, she was just stepping over the kitchen threshold when someone saying her name in conversation caused her to come up short. The open door blocked the room from seeing her, but didn’t protect her in any other way.

  “Sadie and that locksmith?” Glenda’s voice said, tsking. “And here she’s going around as though she’s a good Christian woman.”

  Instant heat overtook Sadie’s chest. The locksmith—Eric Burton.

  “It’s a new world,” a voice Sadie didn’t recognize said. “Even so-called conservatives are embracing more and more liberal lifestyles. I heard she told the women at church she’d visited a roommate that weekend.”

  “And we all fell for it,” a third voice said as Sadie’s whole body seemed to catch fire. “I can tell you one thing, she’s not going to be the speaker at the youth campout this summer if I have anything to say about it. No way am I having her stand up in front of my daughter and voice her opinions on taking the moral high ground.”

  Sadie was too stunned to notice the voice drawing closer to the doorway until Brenda Norton was suddenly in front of her. Brenda’s eyebrows went up and for a split second her expression showed embarrassment, but almost as quickly her face settled back into one of judgment. “Excuse me,” she said in a perfectly polite tone.

  Sadie was the first one to look away, which she feared made her look guilty, but she felt guilty. She stepped aside, letting Brenda leave before she entered the room. Glenda and the other woman, Jackie something, looked at her with embarrassed surprise.

  They know about Eric, she said to herself, feeling her heart rate increase. They know I didn’t visit a roommate. Sadie’s eyes focused on her purse by the door, and she hurried toward it. She had to get a copy of that article!

  She dialed Pete’s number, despite her stomach being in her shoes. “Pete,” she said when he answered. Her voice cracked, and she took a breath, turning away from the other women in the room, who were silent as they went about finding serving spoons for the salads.

  “I’m in the parking lot,” he said. “Come out for a minute.”

  Sadie searched his tone for anger. Did he know? Had someone called him? But she didn’t ask. She just hung up, put her phone back in her purse, and went outside, glad for a reason to distance herself from whatever was happening.

  The heat nearly knocked her over after the too-cold air conditioning in the gym; she felt as though she’d walked into the stream of a massive blow dryer. Pete got out of his car as soon as the kitchen door closed behind her, and gave her a sympathetic look. Her eyes went to the newspaper in his hand. He’d bought a copy without her having to ask. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  Whatever it was that was initiating the gossip was fifteen feet away and getting closer with every step she took. Ten feet, eight, five, two. Pete held out the paper, and she watched his face as she took it from him. Being unable to read his expression was not new to Sadie—he was a police detective, after all—but it hurt her this time. She wondered what he was hiding.

  She took a deep breath and looked again at the headline of the paper: “Modern Miss Marple: A Magnet for Murder?” by Jane Seeley, feature reporter.

  The evening sun was as unrelenting as the words on the page. Sadie could barely note the impending heatstroke, however, as she read the article. Instead, she was numb, and the lump in her throat threatened to strangle her at any moment. When Pete’s hand touched her arm, she jumped and looked up, finally aware of the sweat gathering under her arms and down her back.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “How can I be?” she whispered. “I—I don’t even know how to process this.” The things Jane said weren’t true—well, mostly. Sadie had gone to Florida, and Eric Burton was there, and she had become involved in a missing person’s case, but the other things were just . . . wrong. She hadn’t gone away with Eric, a Garrison resident she’d met several months ago, for some romantic weekend despite being in a relationship with Pete. She hadn’t misled Florida police and shown “no regard for the law” as stated in the article. And those were only things Jane had said about what had happened in Miami. She’d also pointed out each of the other murder cases Sadie had been involved in, presenting the information almost as though Sadie had been a . . . cause of those tragic events.

  Her eyes went back to the byline: Jane Seeley. Jane was a very unfortunate acquaintance of Sadie’s, whom she hoped would never cross her path again. Apparently that had been wishful thinking. Whether the motive was revenge or simply Jane’s disregard for people when a story was on the line, Sadie didn’t know. Didn’t really care. What mattered was that Sadie had just been libeled on the second page of The Denver Post.

  Pete’s hand was still on her arm. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and Sadie was disappointed to see that his expression was still guarded. She wanted to ask if he believed any of this; if he thought what she’d told him about the Miami trip was an attempt to hide the truth. But even if he believed what she’d told him months ago—when all this had happened—it didn’t change the fact that she was his girlfriend, which meant anything said about her would affect him too. How unfair.

  “I’m sorry,” Sadie said.

  Something jumped in Pete’s eyes, and she realized that her apology sounded like she was admitting to the things Jane had written. She hurried to repair it. “It’s not true. Well, I mean parts of it are, but the other stuff . . . It’s not true, I swear.”

  “You did let people believe you were visiting a roommate,” Pete reminded her.

  “I didn’t let you believe that,” she said, before remembering that wasn’t entirely true either. “Not for long anyway.” Besides Sadie’s best friend, Gayle, Pete was the only other person who knew the whole story, but neither Pete nor Gayle had actually been there. They had taken her at her word. How hard was it for them to imagine that she’d lied about it? Especially when a very different version of the story was printed in black and white?

  Pete looked away from her, and she noticed that he’d changed into a yellow polo shirt. It was a cheerful col
or, and completely incongruous with the mood between them. “I believe you,” he said, but something was missing from his tone, and Sadie felt as though the last three months they’d shared were being sucked into a vortex.

  “No, you don’t,” Sadie whispered, feeling the tears rise in her eyes.

  She pulled her arm away, suddenly reliving the other times when Pete had questioned her integrity. She would be the first to admit she hadn’t always given him reasons to trust her completely, but she’d thought they’d moved past it. She thought they were heading to a new point in their relationship—one where they would use a certain four-letter word that started with “L” and ended with “E.” The current climate between them, however, didn’t seem to support that level of intimacy, and she wondered about their stability.

  “Of course I believe you,” he said, a flash of irritation crossing his face. “Let’s talk about this later.” He offered her a reconciliatory smile as he pulled on the collar of his shirt. “I’m melting out here, and staying in this heat isn’t going to do either of us any good. I just need a little time to process everything, that’s all.”

  Without waiting for her to answer, he moved toward the back door of the city hall building. Sadie stood rooted in her place. Pete didn’t look back, and the door shut behind him with a soft oooph. A few moments passed before Sadie managed to gather up her shattered courage and go back inside.

  Glenda was in the kitchen when Sadie entered, and she paused in refilling the platter of cookies. She looked away from Sadie, then took a breath and looked back, smiling in a careful way that made Sadie stiffen.

  “I’m sorry if you overheard something,” Glenda said. “I’m usually very careful about what I say.”

  “I know you are,” Sadie said, noting that Glenda hadn’t apologized for saying it, just for being overheard. Sadie lifted the newspaper she was still holding and shook her head for emphasis. “It’s not true.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Glenda said quickly, too quickly for it to be anything other than the right answer. It’s what she was supposed to say, and it broke Sadie down even more. She’d known Glenda for years and had always had an easy friendship with her. Sadie’s eyes drifted to the doors that led out to the gym. She could see people through the window; they weren’t looking at her, but were they talking about her? Whispering about her lack of virtue? Wondering if she was somehow a catalyst to the murders that had been happening around her? A lady looked up and saw her, then took the arm of the person she was talking to and pulled her to the side, out of Sadie’s range of vision.

  Suddenly the idea of heading out there and pretending she didn’t know or didn’t care about the accusations being made about her seemed impossible. Sadie could smile through many things, but she’d never had to smile by way of her own defense. She didn’t know how to do it, and her feet were frozen in place as though they too knew that entering the gym was something they were ill prepared to do. It didn’t help that in the months since Miami, Sadie had interrogated herself as to her motivations for the things she had done. There were still a few questions she couldn’t answer as comfortably as she wanted to, and Jane’s accusations made those things pulsate in Sadie’s brain.

  “I think it would be a mistake for me to stay,” Sadie said to Glenda, who was lifting the now-full tray of cookies. She wondered if Glenda would argue. After all, Sadie was head of the food committee, and dinner had just started. If Glenda tried to convince Sadie to stay, maybe she could. Maybe all she needed was someone to tell her to keep her chin up and stick up for herself by not retreating.

  “Maybe that would be best,” Glenda said, sounding both sympathetic and relieved. “We’ll be fine.”

  Sadie stood for a moment, absorbing both what Glenda had said, and what she had not said. After a few seconds, Sadie nodded her understanding that Glenda didn’t want her there. It was impossible to think that anyone else felt differently. She didn’t bother saying good-bye to Pete or retrieving her dishes. She didn’t even take a plate of her own cookies. She simply grabbed her purse, noted with relief that no one had stolen her keys, and slipped out the back door. She tried to talk herself out of the heaviness she was feeling. What was it they said, the pen was mightier than the sword? She felt chopped into a million pieces as she slid into the front seat of her car, a headache coming on thanks to the stress and the heat of the last several minutes.

  Sadie drove straight home, kicked off her shoes, and climbed into bed with her dress still on. She hoped that silence and rest would bring clarity. Was she overreacting? Were her feelings justified? She’d never dealt with anything like this and had no way of knowing if her reaction was reasonable. The whole town would know she’d lied about her trip to Florida. And how would she explain her reasons for that?

  She pulled the covers over her head, questioned everything she’d done on that trip to Miami three and a half months ago, and racked her brain for ideas on how to make things better.

  Chapter 4

  The phone on her nightstand started ringing half an hour later. It was Pete, asking where she’d gone. She explained the headache, assured him she was fine, and cut the conversation short. The next call was from Jack, Sadie’s younger brother. She had a similar conversation with him—she was afraid to ask how he’d heard about the article—and again ended the call quickly.

  The third call, twenty minutes after Jack’s, was from a number she didn’t recognize. She didn’t answer. As the minutes ticked by, all Sadie could think about were the stories she’d seen on television where media crews camped out on the street, drooling over a potential interview.

  When the phone rang yet again, she pulled the covers over her head. When the ringing stopped, she took the receiver off the hook. Was it too much to ask for a little silence so she could focus on how to best recover?

  Gayle called her cell phone around eight o’clock. Sadie let it go to voice mail, then sent a text explaining that she was tired and going to bed early. Just before hitting send, she decided to send it to Breanna and Shawn as well in case they heard about the situation before she had time to talk to them. Breanna was in London, working at the London Zoo in a temporary position while she determined the status of her current romantic relationship, and Shawn was in Michigan getting ready for his junior year of college. She would take this night to pull herself together before discussing it with them . . . or anyone else for that matter.

  Bases covered, she turned off the volume on her cell phone, ignoring the vibrations as text messages came in. She just needed a little time to figure things out. However, as evening slid into night, she found it harder and harder to pull herself out of the embarrassment. It was difficult to imagine how she could set the record straight due to the complexity of what was truth and what was not. What happened in Miami had barely made the news there, let alone anywhere else, and after coming home, she’d held her breath those first few weeks, hoping nothing would connect her to the case. When a month had passed, then two, she had concluded that her story about visiting a roommate had done the trick. Her complacency was now working against her.

  Around midnight, she plodded into the kitchen and chose to eat the last of the blueberry muffin-top dough; she hadn’t had any dinner. The red light blinking on her wall phone meant that she had new calls—which meant she had voice mails waiting for her, but she dreaded listening to them. They could wait until she felt stronger. She peeked out her front window, relieved to see that there were no news vans at the curb, but she didn’t discount the possibility that they were waiting around the corner.

  She took the cookie dough to her favorite chair in the living room and stared at the blank television screen while she ate in the dark. In the back of her mind, she tried to make herself feel better by saying the numbness couldn’t last forever. Then she remembered the article. She retrieved it from the kitchen, sure she could be more objective now. All she needed to do was properly compartmentalize the comments and come up with a way to counter each one of them effective
ly.

  After turning on the lamp by the chair and reading the article again, however, she realized numb wasn’t so bad. Romantic tryst. Cover story. Disregard for proper procedure. The words stabbed through any reasonable thoughts she’d come up with.

  In its place, anger took hold. This was so unfair! Yes, she’d lied about why she went to Florida, and yes, she’d been involved in yet one more murder investigation down there, but Jane had twisted things—turned them into something they weren’t. Sadie didn’t deserve that. She’d never been malicious to Jane and had done nothing to earn this kind of treatment. Yet, she was the one holding a leaking reputation, having to figure out how to explain it. And what could she explain? The case in Miami hadn’t gone to trial yet, and she’d been told not to talk to anyone about the particulars of the case until the FBI, or whoever, took over and had gathered all their information. Even if she wanted to explain it to people, her hands were tied. She couldn’t defend herself without jeopardizing everything she’d uncovered.

  “Jane Seeley,” she growled, stabbing her spoon into the half-empty container of cookie dough and scooping out a huge bite. She shoved the whole spoonful into her mouth and chewed it up, the sugar gritty between her teeth even as the blueberries both sweetened and soured the overall taste. What she wouldn’t give to be in a room with Jane Seeley right now.