The ineffective front door was still hanging from a lone hinge, and at first I couldn’t see anything but the front yard and the road beyond it.
Not remembering about the third guy was this group of criminals’ biggest mistake. They should have wondered why he hadn’t reported back, and what might have happened to him. We all found him a few moments later.
Everything happened pretty quickly when we went through the front door, and it’s the sounds I’ll always remember.
Flanking the front door were a number of police officers, Cliff and Jim among them. I don’t know if I really heard the metallic click of guns coming to the ready or if I’ve seen too many movies, but my memory remembers those clicks followed by Jim saying, “Drop your weapons now!”
There was that predictable beat as the big guys looked around and then noticed their friend already deposited in the back of one of the police cars out in the street. It didn’t take them long to figure out they should follow the instructions. They dropped the weapons and were immediately grabbed and subdued, and Opie and I were scooted to the street and out of the way.
“One more in the attic,” I said to someone. Eloise hadn’t joined us and I wondered if she was looking at the diary or cleaning up after her strange group of bandits.
Even with all the commotion, I finally saw the two bystanders down the road, pacing nervously beside the Nova. Teddy and Gram were doing everything they could to stay away from the scene, like they’d probably been told to do. I decided not to make them work any harder.
“Come on, Opie, I think there are some people who’d like to talk to us.”
They met us halfway, but hugged us both all the way. I didn’t watch Teddy and Opie hug. There’s only so much a person should have to put up with in one day.
After Gram hugged me, she put her hand on my cheek and said, “Oooh, when I saw those men bring you two out it was all I could do not to run down there and kick their butts. How dare they!”
Opie put her hand on my arm. “I don’t understand. How did you know I was there? Why did you…?”
“I followed you. What were you doing with Sally Swarthmore’s diary?” I kept my eyes steady, but in my peripheral vision I saw Teddy run his hand through his hair.
Opie looked toward the old house. “I love that place.” She sighed. “Since I was a little girl, I’ve snuck away and hidden there sometimes—you know, to get away. There’s just something about it that I love. I was drawn to it, have been drawn to it forever.”
Well, that figured, but I didn’t say so.
“I found the diary about five months ago. When I read it, I knew I had to be Sally this summer. We seemed like kindred spirits. When I heard they were going to tear the place down, I thought I’d replace the diary, send Jake out here on an anonymous tip, and maybe the diary could be enough to help keep it from being demolished. But I couldn’t seem to part with it, until today.” She paused, looked at Teddy, and then cleared her throat. I thought she might light into him for snooping, but all she said was, “Thank you, Betts.”
I waved away her gratitude. “Does the diary say who the real killer was? Does it clear Sally?”
“Oh, no, not at all. There’s no real indication. Her father was kind of mean, but homicidal intentions on anyone’s part aren’t mentioned. You’ll see when you read it.”
My heart sunk. So Sally was the real killer? Or not?
A VW came into view behind Gram. I smiled at Jake and his big scared eyes.
“Come on, Gram.” I took her hand. “Let’s see if…I don’t know. Let’s get Jake and go in there, together.”
Chapter 27
Once the house was cleared and the attic processed for evidence and fingerprints, and everyone’s statement was taken, I managed to talk Jim and Cliff into letting Gram, Jake, and me enter the attic by ourselves. They probably shouldn’t have, but somehow Jim concluded that they had enough evidence and confessions to protect their case. We scurried up the stairs the second he hesitated to give us anything but a go–ahead.
On our way up the first flight, Jake touched my arm. “It’s paint, Betts. On the piece of fabric you found. It’s paint, not blood. It was the first test the lab did and it was quick and easy. I know now’s not the best time, but I wanted you to know.”
“Thanks, I’m glad you did. It’s somehow…a relief I guess, but I’m not sure that it proves anything. Maybe Sally put it there.”
“Here’s my theory, and I have no proof: Sally hid it there so she’d have evidence that she didn’t get blood on her dress. If anyone thought they’d seen blood, she could prove it wasn’t. But I really don’t know. I don’t know why she didn’t use it to save herself. We’ll try to ask. And the pain in Sally’s side? Gall bladder. I’m going to do a more thorough investigation, but I don’t think she died of a heart attack, or heart condition. I think it was something with her gall bladder. It could have probably been prevented. It doesn’t matter, I suppose, but I like accurate archives.”
“You’ve been digging deep.”
“It’s what I do.” Jake smiled, but it was a sad smile. He was becoming attached to Sally, too.
“Hopefully, we’re about to find out at least some of the truth.”
“Yes, hopefully.”
The lawn chairs were still in the attic, the book was left in the middle of the floor, as I’d asked the police to do. Again, they probably shouldn’t have, but maybe they just felt sorry for how scared we’d all been.
Of course, they hadn’t removed Sally—they couldn’t see her; but she was still sitting on the floor next to the diary.
It broke my heart to think about what I was going to have to tell her.
“Jake, you’re just going to have to try to follow along. Gram and I can’t relay everything to you. Okay?” I said.
“Do I get to see the diary eventually?” he asked as the three of us stood together right inside the attic’s entry.
“Sure,” I said. “Come on, Gram.”
We all sat on the filthy floor next to Sally. Even Gram, who was much less sentimental about the ghosts than I thought I would ever be, seemed concerned about what might happen next.
“It’s here, Miz, Betts. You don’t have to dig me up, after all.” Sally laughed.
“That’s for sure. Opie found it a few months ago. She read it from front to back and knew she wanted to be you this summer. You fascinated her. You fascinate a lot of people,” I said.
“Did she say…did you ask…am I…?” Sally said.
I nodded. “She said the book doesn’t give an indication that you or anyone else was the killer.”
“That’s too bad. It might make for interesting reading, though,” Sally said, unsuccessfully trying to hide her disappointment.
“I’m sure it will be very interesting. You okay if we give it to Jake for the archives?” I said.
Jake smiled crookedly in the direction I’d been talking.
“I think that would be great,” Sally said.
I nodded at Jake.
“Would you read some of it to me?” Sally said.
“Sure.” I carefully picked up the fragile book. I patted the pages back into what seemed like their appropriate places and put it on my lap.
Suddenly, the scent of ink filled the room, almost obscuring Sally’s lavender. And then other smells joined them. There were so many scents, it became difficult to distinguish each one.
“Uh–oh,” Gram said. “Looks like the party’s started.”
“What’s going on?” Jake said.
“More ghosts,” I said as we all stood up and looked around.
The only one I recognized was Edgar O’Brien, who tipped his hat to me. He was accompanied by two other women and two other men, also dressed in period clothes, but I didn’t know who they were.
“Uh, Sally, do you see the others?” I said as we all looked at the crowd.
At first she didn’t say anything. I looked to see if she was paying attention. She had her hands to her mout
h. Finally, she nodded. “Yes, that’s my sister Jane. And those are my parents, and that’s Bartholomew, my half brother, I think. Momma, Daddy, Jane, hello,” she said.
Other than Sally, the only other ghost who seemed coherent was Edgar. He stepped forward and stood next to Sally.
“Hello, my dear, you might not remember me, but we chatted a little during your trial.”
“I remember, somewhat,” Sally said.
“We’ll talk about them in a minute.” He nodded at the other ghosts. “Please allow me to introduce myself to you, Missouri Anna.” Edgar tipped his hat to Gram. “I’m Edgar O’Brien, and I have wanted to meet you for a long time.”
“Welcome to Broken Rope, Edgar, but all of this isn’t the way this is supposed to work. I’ve never experienced anything like this, and I’m not sure I like it very much.”
Edgar laughed. “I was told you were blunt. Do not fret; this is an unusual circumstance. We’ll all be gone shortly. They”—he waved toward the others—“are not allowed to roam. They’re just here to share the truth and then move on. Sometimes finding the truth calls for unusual circumstances, don’t you think?”
“I’m not sure what I think, Edgar O’Brien, but I’ll keep an open mind,” Gram said.
“Thank you. All right, then, let’s proceed. Sally, you didn’t kill your parents.”
“How do you know?” I said, because Sally seemed dumbfounded by the entire scene.
“It’s all there, in your diary and in my notes. It’s not spelled out so much as both Sally and I left clues, though frankly, neither of us really knew we were leaving them. It will take some cross-referencing, but I do believe your eager friend will figure it out if you give him enough time. Besides, we’re about to tell you anyway. But for the town, for the tourists, it will be a better idea to give him credit.” Edgar looked at Jake, as did Gram and I.
“What?” he said.
“Now, come along, friends, let’s tell them what we’ve come here to tell them,” Edgar said to the other ghosts, who didn’t look as confused as they had a few moments ago.
“Sally, is that you?” Jane asked. Jane looked like a smaller, less interesting version of Sally. “Sally?”
“Yes, it’s Sally,” Edgar said. “But there’s no time for that. You are here to tell the pertinent events, nothing more.”
Sally was still dumbfounded. I stepped closer to her, but the attic wasn’t quite dark enough for her to take on her more substantial form. I would have put my arm around her if I thought she’d be able to feel it.
“Sally,” I said. “You good to hear this?”
She looked at me with surprise. “Yes!”
“Of course she is,” Edgar said. “You first, Abbie.”
“Oh, Sally,” her mother said. “Your father did lots of terrible things, but one of them was an affair with another woman. From that affair, he”—she pointed at Bartholomew—“was born. Gracious, this is odd. Anyway, he thought he deserved part of your father’s pitiful fortune. He came to talk to him and, well…” She looked at Sally’s father, who had yet to speak.
“I thought Daddy said yes to Bartholomew. You told us that a deal was a deal. Did you really tell him no? Bartholomew, did you kill my parents?” Sally said, finding her voice and now wanting the truth.
“No!” Bartholomew yelled. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I didn’t tell him no,” Alex Swarthmore said. “I said I would share. I said yes.”
Sally’s mother stepped forward. “And that, my dear, did not make your sister at all happy.”
Sally looked at Jane. “You did it? You killed our parents?”
Jane looked up at her sister, at her parents, and then at Bartholomew. “I took care of getting rid of Daddy before he could change his will. I had to kill Momma, too. She caught me. I took care of it, Sally.”
“Jane, you have no choice but to tell the truth. What else did you do?” Edgar asked.
Jane looked like she wasn’t going to finish the story, but then the words came from her mouth.
“I killed Bartholomew, too, a couple weeks after Sally and his grandmother both died. I didn’t want him to continue to try to claim the money. I knew he’d try to fight me if I didn’t kill him first. I poisoned him. It was easy.”
“I didn’t have much of a fortune, Jane,” Alex Swarthmore said. “Was it worth it?”
“You had more of a fortune than I would ever have. No man wanted to marry me. Sally was always the prettier one, always the more social one. I couldn’t have found a good job. I needed that money.”
“But, you let me go to jail for killing our parents?” Sally said.
“I didn’t intend that to happen. You found them. You weren’t supposed to find them. The maid was supposed to find them. But once everyone began to think it was you, I couldn’t change the story without looking guilty. Why did you have to be the one to find them, Sally? You were supposed to be here, at this house, in the attic, hiding away from the rest of us.”
“And how did Sally’s diary get here?” Edgar asked Jane.
“I put it here, after she died. I wanted to burn it at first, but it was all I had left of her and she so loved it here. I thought putting it here would honor her.”
Edgar spoke to Sally and me. “She took it quickly from the jail when Sally died or I would have been able to claim it for its newsworthy value. After Sally’s shocking demise, it should have been mine. I might have been able to clear her name, but it wasn’t to be.”
“Oh, Sally!” Jane said.
“And that’s about enough,” Edgar said abruptly, and Sally’s family disappeared. I wanted to protest that it wasn’t nearly enough, but Edgar answered my protest before I could voice it. He stepped to the other side of Sally. “The truth was told, but there is no manipulating the past, you understand, Sally? Their being here was simply to try to right an injustice, but only for you, that’s all, and that’s more than most of us get. Any extra sentimentality wouldn’t be wise, not at this point. I tried to get Oscar Lowenfeld here, too. You and he became fast friends in jail. Do you remember him?”
“I do.”
“You told him what you thought the truth was. You see, you suspected your sister all along. You took the fall for her, but no one would listen to him. I wanted him to be here, that also wasn’t to be. Hopefully, you can understand that, too.”
Sally nodded. “I don’t remember suspecting Jane.”
“Some things are too awful to remember,” Oscar said.
No kidding, I thought.
Edgar looked at Gram and me. “I am so sorry to say that I have to go now. It took a lot of work and many decades to see that this was done right. I thought I would never be able to get things straightened out. If your friend hadn’t stolen the diary, put it back in circulation so to speak, I’m not sure it would have been taken care of, but it was. Do what you will with the information. It’s fine to keep the legend in place. It’s probably up to your friend.” He nodded at Jake again. Gram and I looked at him, too.
“What?” he said again.
And then Edgar was gone.
We were left in the stuffy attic with only one ghost: Sally. She wasn’t the same ghost who’d come into my life a few days earlier, and once again I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I hoped that collectively we’d done something to make her existence, whatever that was, somehow better. Maybe Gram and I had been wrong. Maybe, in a small way, significant only to the ghosts, we could help them. A little at least.
“What’s going on, Betts, Miz?” Jake said.
“We’re getting the Sam Hill out of this disgusting attic. I don’t care if you work to make this wretched place a historical archive or not, Jake, but if you do, you will make sure this attic has some ventilation,” Gram said before turning to make her way out of the room and down the narrow stairway.
Jake smiled at me and then followed her.
“You ready to get out of here?” I said to Sally.
She nodde
d. “I wish…”
“What? What do you wish?” I said.
She smiled slowly. “Nothing, Betts. Honestly, I couldn’t ask for more. I’ll meet you downstairs. Be careful with my diary.”
As we stood on the lawn and breathed in the fresh perfect air, I noticed that Teddy and Opie were gone, though I didn’t know if they’d found her BMW.
A few police officers were still walking around the grounds, Cliff included. On his way back into the house, he stopped and kissed me quickly with the promise that we’d get more time together soon.
“Mmm, he is definitely cute,” Sally said.
“So, do we know if Sally was the killer or not?” Jake said.
“Oh, we know exactly who the killer was,” I said.
“Well, who?!”
Gram put her hand on my arm, looked at Jake, and said, “It’s in the books, Jake. All the answers are in books. You should know that.”
It wasn’t until that moment that I noticed Sally’s lavender scent grew stronger every time she laughed.
Afterword
I’ve always been fascinated by Lizzie Borden’s story. Sally is not a factual portrayal of Lizzie, but I tried to include some of the strange and horrific components from the real crime and Lizzie’s trial in Sally’s story, though I played very fast and loose with the details. That’s what’s so fun about writing fiction.
Lizzie Borden was acquitted and lived thirty-four more years after her trial. The murders of Andrew and Abby Borden have never been solved.
I don’t claim to have come up with a viable solution, but, well, maybe…
Recipes
MASHED POTATOES
Long before I even knew nonmechanical potato mashers existed, I’d watch my own grandmother whip up her mashed potatoes—and that’s what it seems they’re called these days: whipped. But to me, this will always be the best version of mashed.
If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance Page 24