Blood Kin

by Judith E. French

  “I thought if I could find some of the family records in the church rolls—birth dates . . . deaths—that might lead me somewhere.”

  “Right. So when do we start?”

  “You’ll help?”

  “Why not? What are friends for?” She grinned mischievously. “After all, I’m an outsider too. Right?”

  “Do you have time to go to the church with me now?”

  “Sure. And I’m a member. Grace can’t refuse me.” She started to walk in the direction of the church. “Come on. I’ve got time.”

  Bailey hurried to keep up with her. “Grace didn’t exactly—”

  “I can imagine. You probably asked, and she probably made excuses why they—”

  “Actually, it was Matthew. He said that his father, the last pastor, kept terrible records.”

  “Right. But Matthew doesn’t sneeze . . .” Cathy stopped to wave at a woman painting her front step. “Hi, Ellen!”

  The woman raised her paintbrush and smiled.

  “Be sure Ryan is at school tomorrow. He still needs help on his fractions if he’s going to pass that test.”

  “I will.”

  “She’s nice,” Cathy said. “Two kids, both boys. You’ll have her oldest, Andrew, in your class. Very polite. Shy, but sweet.” She rubbed the front of her shirt. “Settle down there, Tarzan. I think he’s swinging from tree to tree this morning.”

  “Is it uncomfortable?” Bailey asked.

  “No, just weird. Where was I? Oh, yes, I remember. Matthew’s nose. He doesn’t sneeze unless Grace gives him permission. She’s devoted to him, fusses over him more like a mother than a wife. And she’s done a lot of good for the town and for the church. I always thought she was a pastor wanabe. She’s never stood up and given the sermon, but none of us would be surprised if she did.”

  They crossed the street to the graveyard and entered by the main gate. “I can’t say that I particularly like Grace, but she has been kind enough to loan me her bike. And she invited me to lunch after Sunday services.”

  “Run. Run away. Avoid the parsonage lunches like the plague,” Cathy whispered conspiratorially. “Grace is the mistress of bad cooking. She bakes her chicken for an hour and a half.” Cathy pulled a pack of chewing gum from her pocket. “Gum?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “It helps with the heartburn. Anyway, if Grace can’t drive nails with the drumstick, she puts it back in for another half hour. Her Maryland beaten biscuits are like stone, and she boils her vegetables until they’re limp and tasteless.”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t intend to accept. Emma has spoiled me beyond belief.” They stopped at the rear of the church. “I don’t know—”

  “Not that door. That leads into the sanctuary. That one there. Ah, yes, perfect Emma. Even my husband tells me I should take cooking lessons from her. He would trade our firstborn son for her oyster fritters.” A bell over the door rang as they stepped into an office area in a frame addition to the brick building. “The light switch is on the left.”

  Bailey flicked on the lights. The room contained a desk, a table with six chairs, a computer and printer and copier, and a row of filing cabinets.

  “What we want should be in there,” Cathy said. “Matthew may be unorganized, but Grace keeps everything shipshape around here. The older records would be at this end. So what we want is probably somewhere in—”

  “Hello?” Footsteps sounded from an inner door. “Is someone—”

  “Oh, Grace.” Cathy smiled at her. “We didn’t know you were in the church. I told Bailey that I would help her find—”

  “Yes, she asked about her family records earlier.” Grace entered the room and smiled graciously. “Matthew didn’t forget you, dear, but he’s taken poor Creed’s horrible death so hard that I’m afraid he’s made himself quite ill.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bailey said. “If it’s a bother, I can—”

  “Nonsense. I already pulled some of them and copied down the information. Here, on the table. I was hoping you’d stop back. We can look at them here, or you’re both welcome to come back to the parsonage for coffee. I just made a—”

  “No, thank you,” Cathy said quickly. “I have to get home, but I know Bailey would love to see what you’ve found on her family, especially her mother.”

  “On Beth Tawes. Yes, yes, of course.” Grace picked up a yellow legal pad from the table. “I’m quite concerned about Matthew. He and Creed Somers, Emery Parks, and Senator Marshall all went to school together, you know. They hunted together, fished, knew each other from the time they were babies. And now both Joe and Creed are gone. It’s so difficult for him to understand . . . to accept God’s will. Death is difficult, even for a man of the cloth.” She handed Bailey the pad.

  “I went to see my great-uncle,” Bailey said. “But he doesn’t want to talk to me. These records seem my only—”

  “Will Tawes.” Grace pursed her mouth. “Will Tawes is an ungodly man. Crazy as a coot. Lord forgive me if I’m being uncharitable, but you should stay clear of him, my dear. Nothing good will come of that man. Nothing ever has, and nothing ever shall. He’s evil, if you ask me. A spawn of Satan.”

  “He may not be the most pleasant person I’ve ever met, but he didn’t seem crazy to me,” Bailey said. “And he didn’t seem evil.”

  Grace frowned. “You’re very young, my dear. You’ve not seen as much of the world as I have.”

  “That’s true.” Bailey forced a smile. “May I have this?”

  “Certainly. The records are public. But no father is listed, if that’s what you hoped for. I’m afraid Beth always was secretive. Especially when she’d done something . . . when she was hiding . . .”

  “You knew her well enough to know that about her?” Bailey scanned the names and dates on the paper. Grace’s handwriting was full of exaggerated loops and oversize capitals, but clear enough to easily read.

  “I don’t think anyone knew all Beth’s little secrets. She was . . . troubled. I don’t believe that she should have lived with Will Tawes, uncle or not. Elizabeth was the proper guardian for a young girl. There was always talk. . . .” Grace trailed off suggestively. “Not that Beth would have been responsible for the way she was raised. She was spoiled. Will Tawes is the one who—”

  “What about Will?” Matthew stood in the doorway.

  Bailey noticed that his eyes were bloodshot and his face swollen and pale. “I’m sorry, Matthew,” she said. “I forgot all about the archeological dig.”

  “Canceled,” Grace said. “Until next month. No one felt it was appropriate, under the circumstances. Unfortunately, you’ll have left us by then.”

  “Unfortunately,” Bailey said.

  Matthew looked from his wife to the paper in Bailey’s hand. “Is there something I can help with?”

  “No, dear, it’s all taken care of.” She moved to stand alongside him. “Bailey attempted to contact Will Tawes. I told her that was unwise.”

  “Absolutely,” Matthew agreed. “Leave him to his own pursuits. He’s a lost soul, and the less contact you have with him, the better.”

  Cathy glanced at her watch. “Would you look at the time? I’ve got scads to do at home, and I forgot to take anything out of the freezer for dinner.” She edged toward the door. “I hope you feel better, Matthew.”

  “Yes.” He sighed and shook his head. “Thank you.”

  “Well, I’ll be going too,” Bailey said.

  Grace brightened. “Maybe you’ll be able to make lunch next Sunday.”

  “I can’t promise. My friend said something about returning—”

  “Bring Mr. Elliott too, dear. Always room for one more.”

  Outside, with the door to the office safely closed, Cathy giggled. “Always room for one more. Your ex isn’t really coming back, is he?”

  “How did you know he was my ex?” Bailey grimaced. “Right. It’s a small island.”

  “Exactly.” Cathy folded her arms over her belly and rubbed them. �
��I try to be pleasant to Grace, but she’s such a . . .” She shook her head. “Poor Matthew. It can’t be pleasant, living with her.”

  “I wouldn’t think so.” Bailey glanced back at the church. “I just hope that Grace isn’t right about my great-uncle. That he isn’t so bad.”

  “That’s what my husband says. Daniel likes him, and . . .” She shrugged. “Daniel’s word is gospel with Jim.”

  “But what if I am prying into things better left in the past?”

  “I don’t know,” Cathy said. “But if it were me, I think I’d keep digging. The truth has to be easier to accept than all the crazy stuff you can imagine.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “You don’t look well, dear. Come back to the house and lie down.” Now that Cathy and Bailey had left them alone in the church office, Grace’s demeanor softened as she rubbed the knotted muscles at the back of her husband’s neck.

  “I really wanted to have some sort of prayer vigil for Creed this evening, but—”

  “Never mind, Matthew. It will be fine. We’ll have a memorial service for him once his remains have been released by the medical examiner’s office. When I called, whoever answered the phone couldn’t tell me just when it would be. She acted as though he wasn’t a high priority.”

  “That’s disgraceful.”

  She patted his cheek. “What can’t be helped must be endured. And, it isn’t as if Creed was a member of our congregation.”

  “He was my friend . . . drunk or not.”

  She folded her arms and gave him a stern look. “You mustn’t trouble yourself about him anymore. We need to think of the living, who need to be protected from Will Tawes’s spite.”

  He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. “It could have been an accident. Will had nothing against Ida Love.”

  “Poor Ida. If she was in that house, she was a witness to his crime. He would have had to silence her as well.”

  Matthew replaced his glasses and peered down at her. “But you said—”

  “I don’t care what I said,” she protested. “I’m scared. And you know I speak before I think. My tongue has always been too harsh, and I’m too quick to judge others, Lord forgive me.”

  “I know some think that, but I know how goodhearted you are.”

  “No, Matthew, I’ve never denied my faults. I’m an embittered woman. When I miscarried our babies, one after another, compassion died inside me. And try as I might, I can’t find it again. It’s a cruel joke, isn’t it? My name is Grace, but I possess so little of it.”

  He embraced her. “That’s not true.”

  “It is.” She pulled away, her eyes full of moisture. “With all the infants born in this world to mothers who don’t want them, why couldn’t I have given you just one living child?”

  Matthew clasped his hands together. “We should have adopted when we were younger, when my health was better.”

  She nodded. “And now it’s too late, and you’re stuck with a shrew of a wife instead of the caring one you deserve.”

  “No, I won’t accept that. You’re the most caring person I know. You’re always doing for others.” He glanced away absently. “Didn’t you just go to the trouble of finding those dates for Bailey? I’d intended to look for the records today, but . . .”

  She turned to the outer door leading to the churchyard. “Enough of my sniveling. I have some nice lentil soup and biscuits for your dinner, and I can fix a spinach salad, if you’d like.” She kissed his cheek. “Oh, dear, you forgot to shave this morning.”

  He patted her shoulder. “You go ahead. I need a few minutes to pray for Creed and for the other poor soul who died with him.”

  “I’m going to heat up that soup. I’ll give you ten minutes, and then if you aren’t at the table, I’ll come looking for you.”

  “Just a quick prayer. Ten minutes. You know I always find inner strength . . . forgiveness . . . in the sanctuary.”

  “You’re human, Matthew. Isn’t that what you always say—‘the church is for sinners’?”

  “Yes.” He forced a thin smile. “I suppose I do.”

  “Whatever sins you may have committed in the past are long forgiven by an understanding God. You can’t go on chastising yourself. You do His work every day.”

  “And I sin every day.”

  Grace sighed heavily. “Don’t we all?” Nodding, she said, “Only ten minutes, and then Precious and I will expect you.”

  As his wife hurried out of the office door, Matthew’s shoulders slumped and his chin sank almost to the knot of his tie. He knew that people on Tawes said Grace ruled his life. And perhaps she did. But life had been cruel to her. To him, she was a rock. When she wasn’t with him, he sometimes felt he didn’t have the strength to go on. How he wished he had Grace’s energy. There was no doubt in his mind that she loved him, and he’d often worried that perhaps he wasn’t good enough for her.

  Blinking back tears, he smoothed the front of his white dress shirt, switched off the office light, and went back into the adjoining hall that led to the church proper. He pushed open the sanctuary door and went rigid. Someone or something was in here. A chill skittered over the surface of his skin. “Hello? Who’s there?”

  A bulky figure rose from a bench halfway down the aisle. “Matthew? It’s me.”

  His knees went weak, and he reached out to steady himself against the back of the nearest pew. What had he expected? Creed’s blackened corpse? Will Tawes come to add one more notch to his gun?

  “Emma? What are you doing here?”

  “Are you alone? Where’s Grace?” She came toward him. “We need to talk.”

  “This is God’s house. Be careful what you say within these walls.”

  “He’s heard worse.”

  “Has He?”

  “I can’t put it behind me. I want to go to Will and settle it, once and for all.”

  “At what cost? How many more have to die to satisfy your conscience?”

  “What about your conscience? Has your wife erased that completely?”

  “Leave her out of this!”

  “But you can’t, can you? She’s as much to blame as—”

  “It’s over and done with. Can’t you let the past lie?”

  Emma seized him by the tie and yanked his face down to hers. He was taller by nearly six inches, but she outweighed him, and her arms were corded with muscle earned by a lifetime of hard work. “She’s the image of her mother! How can you look into her face and not remember?”

  “Let me go!” He pushed at her shoulders. “You’re hysterical. He doesn’t know. He can’t know, or we’d all be dead.”

  “Damn you for a fool.” Emma shoved him away. “Go on telling yourself that Joe’s death was an accident. And now Creed’s. Keep saying it when you’re staring down the barrel of Will’s shotgun.” She sank onto a pew and lowered her head into her cupped hands. “Maybe it would be best if he did end it. Maybe then I could sleep.”

  “Don’t go to Will. Wait. She’ll be leaving in a few days.”

  “That’s Grace talking. You’re wrong. Didn’t you hear that Bailey is taking Ida’s place at the school? She’ll be here for weeks.”

  “Weeks, then. Not months. And who’s taken the woman under her wing—treated her like family? You.”

  “I like her. None of this is her fault.”

  “I know that. I like her too, but Grace is right. We’re both too soft. It’s either keep quiet and wait for the inevitable, or stop Will before he gets the rest of us.”

  Emma raised her head.

  Matthew could feel the intensity of her stare.

  “You want me to commit murder?”

  “No.” Matthew’s voice cracked. “No. I’d not damn you to hell by suggesting that you kill another human being.”

  “But you thought it, didn’t you?”

  “No, no, I didn’t. I’m a minister of the church.”

  “You’re more a hypocrite than I am if you can’t admit the truth. I’ve thought of i
t. Believe me, I have, but the fact is, I’m as much of a coward as I always was.”

  “Please, Emma,” Matthew bargained. “All I’m asking for is a little more time. What if Joe and Creed both just suffered tragic accidents? What if their deaths were just an awful coincidence? Why open Pandora’s box?”

  “It’s what I keep telling myself. But I don’t know how long my conscience will let me stay silent.”

  “And take the chance of putting three more of us in the grave? Do you really think mere words can undo the wrong that was done?”

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “Lord, help me. I don’t know.”

  Back at Emma’s, Bailey surprised herself by getting a signal on her cell long enough to make one call to her neighbor to ask her to water her plants and check the mail and another to Forest’s office in Annapolis. Forest assured her that he was dealing with the last obstacles to getting a clear deed for the bequest and told her that he’d be speaking with her in person soon. When she tried to stretch her luck by calling Elliott, she suddenly lost the signal.

  It was just as well, she supposed, as she tossed a load of laundry into Emma’s washer. It was becoming harder and harder to overlook her ex’s failings. She knew what he earned at the restaurant where he worked, and she knew what his monthly expenditures were. If Elliott had enough cash to pay a skipper two hundred and fifty dollars to transport him to Tawes, he’d been at the Dover slots. It was the same old story. He rarely won, and when he did, he considered his winnings “found money” and spent it without regard for his debts. Bit by bit their relationship had changed, until the man who had once been her lover now seemed like an irresponsible younger relative.

  Ouch. She winced inwardly. She’d resented Elliott’s attempts to advise her on what to do with her inheritance, and she’d been more than a little suspicious of his motives. The two of them shared a lot of memories, and she valued his friendship, but maybe she was being as immature as Elliott. Maybe it was time she grew up, admitted that her marriage was over, and moved on before it was too late to make a new life.