by Sofie Kelly
I moved gingerly from side to side, but the scarf and the ice pack stayed put.
“Better. Thank you.” The beaded ends of the material tickled my chin. I pressed them down out of the way. The fabric was incredibly soft. “Did Ami make this for you?” I asked.
“She did. I told her how much I liked the one she made for Rebecca and the next day she came back with this one for me.” She smoothed down one stray bead. “Now, stay put while I make you some more cocoa.”
She headed back to the kitchen, trailed by Owen and Hercules, sniffing around for more toast for themselves.
I leaned back against the cushions and thought about Will Redfern. I could almost feel sorry for him. Then I remembered Gregor Easton’s body slumped over the piano at the Stratton. I remembered that drywall knife Will had in his pocket and how he’d planned to dump the cats out at Wisteria Hill, and the feeling pretty much passed.
Maggie spent the rest of the evening catering to the cats and me. “If they hack up something I’m getting you the mop,” I warned her when I caught her sneaking each of them more peanut butter.
She just laughed. She’d called Everett, postponing our meeting, so we spent the evening watching silly sitcoms on TV. A couple of times I noticed a police car cruise by the house. Marcus Gordon’s doing, I guessed. Sometimes he made it hard to dislike him.
I soaked for a long time in the bathtub and figured I’d be unconscious once my head hit the pillow, but I couldn’t sleep. My shoulder ached. My wrist hurt and my mind wouldn’t slow down, let alone shut off. Finally I eased out of bed, settled more or less comfortably in a chair by the window and opened my laptop.
And there it was. The e-mail from Phoebe Michaels with the photo of Gregor Easton’s seminar class from Oberlin, on the grass outside a lecture hall. Phoebe had listed all the names in her e-mail, working clockwise around the circle.
I found the face right away. And another that surprised me. I had to check the names twice.
Maggie’s scarf was over the arm of the chair. I ran my hand over the soft fabric, putting together the pieces of what I knew. Tab A into slot A. I knew the how. I was pretty sure I knew the why. And I knew the who. I knew who had killed Gregor Easton. And it wasn’t Will Redfern.
24
Cross Hands
In the morning I called Susan and asked if she could open the library and take my morning shift. She already knew about my encounter with Will.
“You’re really okay?” she asked.
“I really am.”
“Good,” she said. “Take your time coming in.”
It was harder to convince Maggie to go home.
“I’m all right,” I said, thinking how many times I’d said that in the last week. “Mags, Will is in jail for assault. There’s a police car driving by every time I look out the window, and I have Owen and Hercules.” I hugged her with my good arm. “And if it’ll make you feel better I’ll make more cinnamon rolls.”
She left after we agreed she’d bring food from Eric’s and we’d have supper before the special episode of Gotta Dance.
I sat at the table with my coffee, both cats at my feet. I told them what I’d figured out. They listened or at least pretended to. I thought maybe saying it out loud might make my reasoning fall apart. But it all still made sense.
I washed the dishes, and spent a lot of time fiddling with my hair. I was stalling.
I hesitated before I stepped into the porch, flashing back to seeing Will standing there. The cats were waiting by the door. I took a couple of deep breaths and a couple more. Hercules meowed at me. I was going to hyperventilate if I didn’t stop with the deep breaths. I squared my shoulders and stepped into my gardening clogs.
“Let’s go,” I said, heading outside with Herc and Owen at my heels. Over in Rebecca’s yard, Rebecca, Violet and Roma were sitting in the gazebo, having coffee. I started across the grass. It wasn’t how I’d planned to do this, but maybe it would be better.
Rebecca caught sight of me and waved. Roma stood up. As I came up the gazebo steps she moved around the table to meet me.
“How’s your arm?” she asked.
“Sore,” I admitted. I knew she wouldn’t believe me if I told her I was fine.
“May I?”
I held out my arm. I was wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt. Roma pushed back the unbuttoned cuff and examined my bruised wrist. The swelling had gone down a little and the bruises now formed a pattern from where Will’s fingers had been on my arm.
“What about the shoulder?” Roma said.
I made a face. “It’s okay,” I said. “It hurts, but I think it looks worse than it feels.” I held up my other hand. “And, yes, I’m going to the clinic.”
She smiled. “Good.” She gestured to the table. “Sit down. Take my chair. I’ll get another one.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Roma, would you get Kathleen a cup from the kitchen, please?” Rebecca called after her.
“I will,” Roma said.
Rebecca turned to me. “We heard about Will. Did he hurt you?”
“Just some bruises,” I said. “I managed to hit him with . . . something, and then Harry showed up.”
“I’m glad to see you’re all right,” Violet said. “Is it true Will wanted to scare you into leaving town?”
I nodded. “He was involved with the previous librarian.”
“Ingrid?” Rebecca said.
“Yes. He wanted Ingrid to get her job back.”
Violet took a sip from her coffee and set the cup on the table. “But she wasn’t fired. She resigned.”
“That didn’t matter to Will. He thought if he could get me to leave, Everett would ask Ingrid to return to her old job.”
“Ingrid’s leaving for Canada—Montreal—at the end of the month,” Violet said.
Roma returned with a chair for her and a cup for me. Rebecca reached across the table for the pot and poured me some coffee. “Maybe that’s why Will was getting desperate,” she said. “Ingrid is a very nice woman, but she’s not the type to make a man—”
“—fall into the deep end?” Roma finished.
“Yes,” Violet said.
“Love and loyalty will drive people to do things you’d never expect them to do,” I said, wrapping my hands around my mug so the others wouldn’t see them shaking.
“That’s true,” Rebecca agreed.
“That’s why Gregor Easton died,” I said.
Violet looked at me. “I beg your pardon, Kathleen?” she said.
“Love and loyalty. That’s what killed Easton.” I looked at Violet. “Your loyalty to Rebecca.” I turned to look at the older woman. “And your love for Ami.”
Rebecca folded her hands in her lap. “Yes,” she said.
Roma and Violet both started to talk. Rebecca looked at both of them. “Stop,” she said. “It’s time to tell the truth.” She seemed so calm. “How did you figure it out?”
I turned to Violet. “Gregor Easton was Douglas Gregory Williams,” I said. “You were in his class at Oberlin.”
She said nothing.
“I found a charm, a silver musical note, on the floor at the Stratton. It was yours.”
“It may have been,” she said.
“I thought it was a musical note hanging from a silver circle, but it was hanging from an O, for Oberlin.”
“I did lose my note charm,” she said. “Somewhere.”
I continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “The problem was the only person I could connect to Easton and Oberlin was Oren. I talked to Phoebe Michaels and there was no other connection. It seemed like a dead end. Then she said she thought she had a photo of the group. She sent a copy of it to me yesterday. Along with the names of everyone in the picture.”
For the moment I focused all my attention on Violet. “I should have made the connection the first time Phoebe told me the names of the women in the class—maybe I would have, if I’d seen them written out. Your house is called Llŷn House. It�
�s Welsh, just like your name.”
A touch of a smile appeared on Violet’s face. “Yes, it is. That’s not exactly a secret.”
“It’s not exactly common knowledge, either,” I said. “Violet is your middle name. Your first name is Gynwafar.”
I pulled a folded piece of paper from my pocket and smoothed it flat on the table. “There you are,” I said, pointing to a young and smiling Violet. She leaned forward to study the image.
“Were we ever that young?” she said softly.
I moved my finger one face to the right and turned to Rebecca. “And there you are. Gwyn’s friend, Phoebe told me.”
“Yes, that’s me,” Rebecca said.
“You met Easton when you were visiting Violet.”
“He seemed so sophisticated, so charming,” she said. “He wasn’t.”
“I know what he did,” I said. “When you came home on Tuesday and found out that Easton was here—a last-minute replacement for Zinia Young—and that he’d been favoring Ami, you were afraid he’d take advantage of her somehow. The way he took advantage of you. I know how much you love her. You couldn’t let that happen.”
Rebecca was incredibly composed. “No, I couldn’t,” she agreed.
“You got Easton to meet you by pretending to be me. You overheard me tell Maggie what had happened at the library with Owen.”
Rebecca put both hands on the edge of the table. “I’m so sorry about that. You’re young and pretty. I knew in his arrogance he’d come for you. He’d never have shown up for an old lady.”
Roma looked like she’d been hit in the head herself. “That’s where you were coming from?” she whispered.
Rebecca nodded. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you the truth.”
“How did you get into the building?” I asked.
“I’m on the library centennial committee,” she said. “We have an office at city hall. Like all the committee members I have access to it. There’s a set of keys there.”
“Rebecca didn’t do anything to that man,” Violet said.
Rebecca smiled across the table at her best friend. “It’s all right, Vi,” she said. “I need to do this.” She poured more coffee for herself and added a little to my cup.
“I knew what I had to do, so I got the key, and then I left the note at the hotel.”
“No one saw you there. How did you manage that?”
“I’m an old woman,” she said. “To young people we’re just like furniture. One old lady looks like the next.” She tipped her head back and studied Old Harry’s handiwork above her head.
“He didn’t remember me,” she said. “I never forgot him, but I had to tell him who I was.”
My hands were trembling just a little again. “He took pictures of you.”
She looked at me then. “They’d mean nothing today. I wasn’t naked, just bare shoulders and back, but in those days . . .”
I remembered what Phoebe Michaels had said. “Nice girls didn’t pose for pictures like that.”
“No matter how innocent the photographs were.” Rebecca shook her head. “He said I was beautiful. And I was very foolish.”
“What happened at the library?” I prompted.
“He laughed.” She traced her finger around the rim of her cup.
“Easton was a pig,” Violet said, and her face twisted for a moment with anger.
“He told me no one would care about some old photographs,” Rebecca said. “He said I wanted to pose for him. He called me a tease.” She looked directly at me. “I’m not that naive girl from Mayville Heights anymore. I told him all I needed was a little suspicion that he was a dirty old man, not proof. I told him I was willing to bet there were other women out there he’d tricked into posing for him over the years, and worse. I said maybe someone else would speak up if I started.” She rubbed her hand over her bandaged wrist.
“He came after you,” I said. My shoulder was aching and I had to shift in the wooden chair. “That poultice isn’t for arthritis, is it?”
“He grabbed my arm and his ring cut my wrist.”
The other blood at the library.
“I pushed him and I ran,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know he’d hit his head.”
“You met Roma somewhere on the way home.”
“I was on my way up the hill. I’d had an emergency—a dog choking on a chicken bone,” Roma said. “Ever give a German shepherd the Heimlich?”
“You wrapped Rebecca’s wrist.”
“Yes.”
“Catnip, for its antiseptic properties.” I folded my arm across my chest, sliding my hand under the cuff of my shirt.
“That’s right. She’s allergic to neomycin and I didn’t want to take a chance with anything else.”
“She didn’t tell you how she got hurt.”
Roma still looked a little lost. “She said she’d tripped on the sidewalk. She was embarrassed.”
“You realized you’d dropped your scarf somewhere,” I said to Rebecca.
“Yes, I did.”
“You didn’t find it because Violet had beaten you to it.”
Violet smiled, but there was no warmth in it. I fished in my pocket again and held out the bead from Rebecca’s scarf. “This was at the library.”
Rebecca took the glass ball from my hand and rolled it between her fingers.
“Where was the scarf?” I asked Violet.
She shrugged but said nothing.
“You found Easton at the theater.”
“Yes.”
As usual she was calm and collected, her posture perfect. I was surprised she’d admit to having been with Easton.
“He’d always practiced late at night, so no one would find out how much work it was for him to learn a new piece. I knew he’d be there. A leopard doesn’t change its spots. I went to tell him to leave. Then I went home. That’s all.”
My mouth was so dry. I took a sip of my now-cold coffee. “He didn’t remember you, either, did he?” I asked.
She laughed. As with her smile, there was no trace of warmth or humor in the sound. “No more than he remembered Rebecca.”
“He’d hit his head at the library when he grabbed Rebecca and she pulled away. I’m guessing he lost his balance and fell against the disassembled staging.”
Violet gave an elegant shrug. “I don’t really know how he hit his head. He seemed fine.”
Rebecca blanched. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she said.
“You didn’t,” I said. “He grabbed you. You pushed him away. You were protecting yourself. He was twice your size.”
“Kathleen’s right,” Roma said. “What happened isn’t your fault.”
I turned back to Violet. “You cleaned up his head.”
She nodded imperceptibly. “There’s a first-aid kit backstage. I may have helped him a little.”
“And you gave him aspirin.”
She studied her nails for a moment. “He was complaining of a headache. He may have taken something.”
“You gave him aspirin?” Roma said, clearly shocked. “He had a head injury. He was probably bleeding into his brain.”
“Vi, what did you do?” Rebecca asked.
Violet smiled over the table at her. A genuine smile. “Only what I should have done a long time ago.”
“I don’t understand,” Rebecca said.
“I knew who—what—Easton was the first day I walked into his class. I should have protected you from him. Instead I ruined your life.”
Rebecca stood up and walked around the table to Violet’s chair. “You didn’t ruin my life. Why do you think that?”
“You went after Easton because of Ami,” Violet said. She reached up and took Rebecca’s hands in her own. “You love her as if she were your own granddaughter. If it hadn’t been for him, for me, she would have been.”
Tears filled Rebecca’s eyes. “No, no, no, Violet,” she said. “I lost Everett because I was afraid to tell him the truth. Because I didn’t tr
ust that he loved me as much as he said he did.”
Rebecca and Everett?
She squeezed Violet’s hands, then let go of them and turned to me. “Kathleen, I’m so sorry for getting you involved in this and then not speaking up. I hope you can forgive me.”
“I can and I have,” I said.
She paused, searching for just the right words. “I saw those pictures, you know. Someone sent them in the mail. They weren’t so terrible. I should have told Everett. I was scared that I wasn’t good enough for him. My mother cleaned other people’s houses. I thought that mattered.”
“It didn’t.”
We all turned at the words. Everett was standing on the gazebo steps. His eyes were locked on Rebecca. I’d forgotten that Maggie had rescheduled our meeting for this morning.
“That man was the reason you ended things with me? Over a few pictures of your bare shoulder?”
“It was a long time ago,” Rebecca said, blinking away her tears.
“And you risked everything to protect Ami.”
“I’m all right,” she said. “And I love Ami. For herself. I would do anything for her.”
She swallowed and pulled the sleeve of her blouse down over her bandaged arm. “There’s something I haven’t told anyone,” she said. “When I was away last week, it was really so I could see a doctor. A specialist.”
Violet paled and pressed her lips together. Roma leaned forward in her chair.
“I was getting a second opinion. I have a growth on my leg. I was afraid . . . I thought maybe I wouldn’t have another chance to stop Easton and protect Ami.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Everett said. The way he looked at her gave me a lump in my throat.
Rebecca turned her attention to Violet again. “Tell me you didn’t do anything to that man,” she said.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Rebecca,” Violet said. “Things worked out the way they were supposed to.”
I leaned over to Roma. “Do you have your cell phone?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Would you call Marcus and ask him to come out here?”