The Milburn Big Box Set

by Nancy McGovern

“No, it’s not. I feel like I messed up, Grace. I’m terrified. Dropping out of college was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but…studying’s just not for me. It was wearing my soul down being there. I’m not like you. I never was.”

  “You don’t have to be,” Grace said. “You’re fine being yourself. If dropping out is what you want to do right now, maybe that’s okay.”

  “Yeah I know. But Mom and Dad don’t get it. They think I’m a loser, too, you know. I’m twenty and I feel like I’ve messed up my life in ways that can’t be undone. Like there’s no hope for me. I disappointed them…and I’ve disappointed me, too.” Tears were pouring down Hazel’s cheeks.

  “Oh, Hazel.” Grace put her arms around Hazel and gave her a tight hug.

  This was all Nora could take. She opened the kitchen door and burst in. Both Grace and Hazel looked up. Hazel immediately tried to hide her tears with a towel but Nora wasn’t having it.

  “Grace, would you mind leaving us alone for a bit?” Nora asked.

  “Sure.” With a slight smile on her face, Grace backed out of the kitchen. They heard her feet stomping up the stairs.

  “Hey, Mom.” Hazel was awkwardly wiping away her tears when Nora enveloped her in a hug. Hazel resisted for a second, then broke down into tears again, sobbing on Nora’s chest.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Nora said. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me you felt that way?”

  “I thought it was obvious.” Hazel sniffed. “The truth is always obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Far from it,” Nora said. “You’re always so prickly and confident, I never guessed what you were feeling.”

  “But it is true, isn’t it?” Hazel asked. “I am a loser. I flunked college twice. I still live at home. At my age Grace had a scholarship and a job.”

  “Sweetheart, everyone has their own path in life,” Nora explained. “I love your sister and I’m very proud of her achievements. But that doesn’t mean I love you any less, or that I’m not proud of who you are, too.”

  “Yeah, right,” Hazel scoffed. “Like there’s anything to be proud of.”

  “Of course, there is. You’re a sweetheart, Hazel. Everyone who works with you loves you. I hear nothing but praises about you. Zoey, Matt, even Kim — they all adore you. You’re hard working and a good person, and that’s what matters in life.”

  Hazel sniffed. “Really?”

  “Really,” Nora confirmed. “Look, darling. You’re young, and you make mistakes. That’s life. At your age, your father was locked up for a bar fight. Did you know that?”

  “No.” Hazel brightened. “I didn’t.”

  “It’s not something he’s very proud of, but there it is,” Nora said. “Everyone makes mistakes. I was a confused, lost soul when I was twenty. And I had a negative bank balance. I didn’t feel much older than ten. The thing is, I didn’t have social media. I didn’t compare the drudging routine of my daily life to a hundred other people’s highlights. That’s what social media shows, really. Just the highlights. The good stuff. Not the tears and frustration and roadblocks.”

  “Yeah… that’s true,” Hazel conceded.

  “I believe in you, okay?” Nora said. “So does your father. We didn’t offer you that job at the diner because we felt you were too useless to succeed anywhere else. We offered it to you because we’d be proud and happy to have you learn under us, and grow to eventually take the place over.”

  “Aw, Mom, I told you. It’s not for me—”

  “And that’s okay,” Nora said. “Just as long as you know we don’t think you’re a loser, or a disappointment.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “Not even a little,” Nora said. “You’ll do fine, darling. You’re a good girl and you’ll find your own way eventually. I know it.”

  Hazel’s face glowed. “Thanks, Mom,” she said.

  “Just remember not to compare yourself to others. The only person you need to compare yourself to is—”

  “Me from yesterday.” Hazel rolled her eyes. “Alright, I’ve heard that speech a million times before, Mom.”

  “Well, why don’t you actually think about it sometime?” Nora kissed her. “I’ll cut my lecture short this time. I know you hate them.”

  “I don’t really. I guess I needed this,” Hazel said. “I’m just a jerk sometimes. Sorry, Mom.” She kissed Nora on the cheek and Nora felt her own heart glow a little, too.

  “I’ve got to go,” Hazel continued. “I’ve got a meeting with Matt about the company. He’s having some money issues. I’ll see you in the evening, okay?”

  Hazel tossed this out casually, but her eyes searched her mother’s face, and Nora knew what she was looking for. She was searching for a reaction. Nora had two choices: she could be protective and forbid Hazel from seeing Matt or she could let her little girl go and trust her to make her own mistakes and recover from them. It was a tremendous struggle. For a split second, Nora wavered. Then she made her decision — it was time to cut the apron strings and let her little chick fly on her own path.

  Quietly, Nora said, “Good luck with it. I’m sure you’ll figure out a way if you put your heads together.”

  Surprise, then joy, bloomed on Hazel’s face. She hugged Nora tightly then skipped out of the door, humming a song as she went.

  Nora smiled as she watched her go, feeling her heart ache. Something had changed now and things would never be the same again. Without looking back, Nora cleared her throat and blinked away the tears in her eyes.

  Then she said, “You can come out now, Grace. I know you never went up.”

  Grace peeked around the kitchen door and grinned. “That old trick of pretending to stomp away doesn’t work on you anymore?”

  “It never did.” Nora smiled.

  “Well, you’re not the only one with tricks.” Grace grinned. “I guess my little trick worked, too.”

  “What do you mean?” Nora asked.

  “I knew you were on the doorstep, Mom.” Grace laughed. “You think you’re so sneaky but, really, you’re completely transparent sometimes. I brought up the conversation so you and Hazel could talk it out.”

  Nora felt like Grace had bolted her to the floor. Grace’s words opened up a door in her mind and something clicked into place.

  Grace raised her nose and sniffed. “Smells like the brownies are nearly done,” she said.

  Nora clutched at the kitchen table, stumbling a little. Her brain was in overdrive. She’d been a fool. She’d been such a fool!

  “Mom?” Grace looked worried. “Are you alright?”

  “I have to go,” Nora said, her voice tight. “I…I have to go right now.”

  “Where?”

  “To catch a killer!” Nora exclaimed as she raced out of the house.

  *****

  Chapter 22

  To Catch A Killer

  Nora knocked furiously on the door, wondering if it would ever open. She took a deep breath, then another, trying her best to calm down.

  “Nora?” Kim Morris opened the door, looking surprised. She had an apron and yellow house-cleaning gloves on. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “May I come in?” Nora asked. “We need to talk. It’s about Perry.”

  “Sure.” Kim looked confused, but she moved aside.

  Nora walked in through the glamorous living room and towards the mantelpiece. She stopped and looked up at the portrait photo of Kim and Perry. Her eyes paused on Perry’s cheeks, smooth and unlined.

  “What’s the matter?” Kim asked.

  “Nothing,” Nora said. “I was just thinking that wounds heal…sometimes. Like if a man is scratched by a woman on his cheek —time may eventually heal that, leaving not a single trace behind.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No. Of course, you don’t,” Nora said. “Matt Whitman was arrested thirty years ago, did you know that?”

  “So what?” Kim looked confused. “What does that have to do with Perry?”

  “I
t was a bar fight,” Nora said. “I thought that proved he was unstable, But Harvey pointed out that everyone does stupid things when they’re young.”

  “O…kay?” Kim frowned.

  “The thing is,” Nora said. “When you get into bar fights and you get arrested, they take your fingerprints. They also take a sample of your DNA.”

  “Right? So?”

  “So Matt Whitman was arrested about thirty years ago. Twenty years ago, the police obtained The Silver Strangler’s DNA, thanks to Patricia Halsey. They ran it through the system but it didn’t match anyone. Which means Matt Whitman is not The Silver Strangler. The Silver Strangler is someone who’s never been arrested.”

  “The who? What’s a silver strangler anyway?”

  “Oh, just a serial killer who was active in Wyoming twenty years ago,” Nora explained. “As a matter of fact, Zoey had a run-in with him. She escaped, luckily. All she remembered about the man who attacked her was his jacket. A silver jacket. The Strangler mysteriously stopped killing right around then. Nobody’s heard of him since.”

  “OK… maybe he died,” Kim said.

  “Maybe,” Nora said. “But sometimes, sometimes, when a serial killer gets married, he stops killing. It’s true, you know. Unbelievable, but true. It’s a pattern the FBI has observed in more than one killer. Of course, it doesn’t last forever. Sure, ten, twenty, thirty years can go by. But that lust to kill never goes away, really. It awakens at the oddest moments.”

  “Nora, if you have a point, please get to it,” Kim said.

  “You and Perry got married twenty years ago,” Nora said. “Right when The Strangler stopped his killings.”

  “I don’t like what you’re implying,” Kim said, her face turning red.

  “Alright,” Nora said. “Zoey was cleaning your attic that Saturday, wasn’t she? The day before she died?”

  “So what if she was?”

  “She found a jacket,” Nora said. “She found a silver jacket. Only, twenty years had gone by, and she wasn’t sure if it was the jacket, or if she was just being stupid. She packed up the jacket and planned to send it to her friend Patricia Halsey, the other witness. But at 7pm on a Saturday, the post office was closed. So, Zoey thought she’d confide in me, but that didn’t work either. You see, she saw Perry at my surprise party and, terrified, she left.

  “No,” Kim said. “No.”

  “Yes,” Nora said. “Perry is The Silver Strangler, Kim. I’m sure of it. He killed all those women, all those years ago.”

  “No!” Kim broke down sobbing, tears creasing down her cheeks.

  “That cologne you got him, that’s what finally clued me in,” Nora explained. “Mysore Rajah. A discontinued scent. A scent that Perry didn’t wear for twenty years. Deputy James said that Perry was smelling like a forest earlier today and he was right. Perry was smelling like a sandalwood forest. Mysore is famous for sandalwood. And Patricia Halsey’s one memory of The Silver Strangler is an overpowering scent of sandalwood.”

  Kim could only shake her head in disbelief.

  “For so long, I was so sure that it was Matt that I was blind to the obvious. It was your house Zoey was at that day. She found something here that freaked her out. She found the jacket,” Nora said. “She realized then that Perry might be hiding his true nature under a mask. She was right.”

  “It’s not true,” Kim said. “Perry didn’t kill Zoey! He didn’t!”

  “True. Perry didn’t kill Zoey, did he?” Nora asked. “No. Poisoning wasn’t his style. That was yours.”

  “I—”

  “You knew about the doll’s eyes plants, too.” Nora said. “You had access to them.”

  “I—”

  “It struck me earlier today, when my daughter told me I’m not half as sneaky as I like to think I am. That day in your study, you imagined you heard a knock on the door and conveniently left me alone to snoop.”

  A faint smile touched Kim’s lips.

  “It’s true, isn’t it? You were so desperate to pin the crime on someone else. First Matt, then Brock. Either would do. First, you showed me Zoey’s will. It was a happy accident that you and Perry happened to be the witnesses. So, when you killed Zoey, your first plan was to accuse Brock. You knew he’d get accused because of the money trail. And, of course, you could have told me anything that Zoey might have said to you about him or the will or Matt and I’d have no reason not to believe it. So, you tried to plant the idea that Brock did it when you first came to the diner to see me, only it didn’t work. Once I met Brock, I knew he was innocent. So then you placed a note in Perry’s drawer that proved Matt had access to doll’s eyes and, therefore, to white baneberries. You deliberately planted that note there, hoping I’d make the connection. Only, silly me, I took ages to do it. I didn’t make that connection until earlier today.”

  “Because you’re an idiot, Nora!” Kim exclaimed. “You’re an idiot and a pain in my side. Always snooping, always in everybody’s business. You nearly ruined us when you gave that idea about the package to Brock.”

  “Ah, the package,” Nora said. “Brock guessed where Zoey had hidden it, only he got greedy. So he tried to blackmail Perry. I’m guessing he was dreaming of a red convertible and a bag full of cash. Poor Brock. Even after all these years, he still fell for the lure of easy money.”

  “Why couldn’t you just stop snooping? Even a brick through your window didn’t knock any sense into you,” Kim said. “I like you, you know. I always thought you were a good person.”

  “I think I am,” Nora agreed. “I guess it blinded me a little.”

  “So here we are,” Kim said. “What now? Are you going to try and blackmail me, too?”

  “I’m here to tell you that it’s all over,” Nora said. “The sheriff knows, and he’s on his way to Perry to get a DNA sample. When the sample matches, and I’m sure it will, all of this will be over.”

  Kim bit her lip and turned to the window. She clenched her fists.

  “Why did you help him, Kim?” Nora asked. “You could have come forward. You could have given peace to the families of the women he’s killed. Instead you chose to shield him.”

  “You won’t get it,” Kim said.

  “Try me.”

  “I love him, Nora. He loves me.” Kim turned around, her eyes still teary. “We never had kids, but we had each other, and that was my world. He told me about his past. He confessed to me a long time ago. But I forgave him. Don’t you see? He changed. He gave up his murders for me. He stopped. He said it was like a sickness in him, that he couldn’t help what he’d done to those women. What was I supposed to do? Perry’s a good man. You’ve seen how he helps the charities here. Once he channeled all of his energy into building an empire at work and a home with me, he didn’t have those destructive urges anymore. He didn’t even remember that life.”

  “He didn’t remember that he’d once attacked Zoey?” Nora asked.

  Kim shook her head. “No. It was dark, and he didn’t really pay attention to their faces. He never realized how Zoey was connected to his past. If he had, we’d have fired her ages ago.”

  “Or worse. And the jacket?”

  “He kept it. Sentiment, I suppose. I told him more than once to get rid of it. But as the years went by, we forgot all about it. It stayed in a box up in the attic.”

  “Until Zoey found it,” Nora said.

  “I knew she had to die then, Nora. I knew she’d never keep quiet about it,” Kim said. “Perry told me I should be the one to do it. That way, I’d know what it felt like, too. I’d feel the power coursing through me. But I didn’t want to watch it happen. I wanted to be far away. The baneberries were perfect for me.”

  Nora stared at her, feeling as though she were looking into Kim’s exposed heart. The veneer of respectability and riches had been stripped off now and all that stood in front of her was a person who was willing to lie and kill for love. Funny. She’d always thought of love as pure and wholesome. But it wasn’t, really. Like any other e
motion, it could twist itself into the darkest of shapes if you didn’t stay true to your moral center.

  “Zoey didn’t deserve to die for your cowardice. Brock didn’t deserve to die, either, even if his greed got the better of him,” Nora said. “You say you forgave Perry but you weren’t the only one whose forgiveness he should have begged for. You should have given him up to the police right then. He deserves to pay for his crimes. Now, so will you.”

  “Sure.” Kim looked defeated. “I never understood Perry’s bloodlust, you know. I hated murdering them. It felt sick and gross to me. I didn’t feel powerful. I felt weak.” Sighing, she said, “I suppose the sheriff will be here soon?”

  “He will,” Nora said.

  “I suppose you’ve been recording all this, too?” Kim laughed.

  “I have,” Nora admitted. “There’s just one more thing: where’s the jacket?”

  “Back in the attic.” Kim laughed again, more maniacal now. “Can you believe it? After all this rigmarole, Perry still refused to burn it. Flat out refused. We kept it in the attic and swore not to let anyone else up there.”

  Nora looked up the stairs and then back at Kim.

  “Go ahead,” Kim said. “I’m going to take a nice bath with a bottle of wine for as long as I can. I suppose it’ll be my last — I hear they only have showers in jail.”

  Nora frowned. Kim was acting weirdly. “You aren’t going to try and escape, are you?”

  “What’s the point? I wouldn’t get very far.” Kim’s shoulders were slumped and her head was down. “I’m done. You’re right. It’s all over.”

  Outside, Nora could hear sirens as the sheriff raced up the street. Kim gave a sad smile and began walking towards the master bedroom. Nora followed her for a bit and then stopped when the bathroom door slammed shut.

  Then, curiosity overrode all her other senses. Nora raced upstairs to the attic. It was small, cramped and dusty with piles of old furniture, stacks of yellowing magazines and boxes & bags of old clothes scattered around. Nora spotted the parts of the attic that looked as though they’d recently been dusted and headed toward them. Within a few minutes, she was holding what she knew was the package. It was ripped open on one side to reveal a silver, shimmering cloth.