Murder Comes to Notchey Creek

by Liz S. Andrews

  “And Susan’s real father?”

  “Susan’s real father,” she said, looking wistfully past Harley to the row of windows overlooking Main Street, “was the only man I ever truly loved.”

  Her eyes met Harley’s. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. You think I don’t know about Arthur’s late-night dates, his preference for cheap women? Of course, I know it. I’ve always known it. The difference is I don’t care. You have to love someone to be made jealous by them, and I don’t love Arthur, never have.”

  “But you’ve always acted so convincingly.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m quite the little actress.” A smile formed on her face, then disappeared. “Always have been, even when I was a child. That’s what you do when you grow up one of seven in a two-room housing project, fighting for every little scrap you have. You become crafty, artful, doing anything within your filthy little means to rise above the squalor. And I did. Oh, how I did.”

  A look of triumph lit up her face then darkened. “My father was a drunk, you see, always between jobs, could never keep one for very long because he couldn’t stay sober for any period of time. And when he did have a job, he squandered his wages at the neighborhood bar, leaving nothing for us. My mother … she started bringing men home when my father wasn’t there—for money—just to buy food for us. The men …” She swallowed hard and exhaled. “When they left my mother, some of them tried to come into my room and …”

  Her face tightened with disgust then relaxed. “Anyway, I left after that. I ran away from home when I was sixteen, and I got a job at one of the department stores in Knoxville, convincing women that if they would just buy that new pair of gloves, that new dress, that new pair of shoes they would feel beautiful. And it worked. By year’s end, I was number one in sales in my department.

  “I also knew that if I was going to rise above my station at work or anywhere else, I was going to have to look the part, so I started stealing little things from the store, just here and there, nothing that would be noticed. First a pair of earrings, then a pair of stockings, and then graduating to clothes. By the time I was eighteen, I had a complete wardrobe I could wear to my evening typing classes and then to my job interviews in the afternoons.

  “Then, a law office hired me as a secretary, and that was where I met Susan’s father, one of the partners in the firm. He was handsome and charming and dignified, tall and regal in his suits and ties. He was quite a bit older than me, at least fifteen years, I think, and married with children of his own, but it didn’t matter. I was so taken with him from the very first time I ever saw him, ever talked to him, that I knew my fate had already been sealed.

  “I didn’t want to fall in love with him, of course. I didn’t want to fall in love with anyone. But then again, you can’t choose who you love, can you? It happens even when you want to be completely self-reliant, like I did, not letting anything interfere with the goals you’ve set for yourself. But Susan’s father was a weakness I could not resist, and to this day, he’s been the only weakness I’ve ever had besides Susan.

  “It all started very innocently, our affair. He was staying at the office late some nights, working on cases, and it was just the two of us there, all alone, in the dim office, just the streetlights and table lamps keeping us company.

  “When I first started working there, you see, I pledged that I would always be the last to leave the office and the first to arrive in the morning. That was the key to success, I told myself. And so you see, I wasn’t going to leave there until after he did. So there I sat at my desk, typing away, the light filtering in from his corner office as he pored over his cases.

  “I caught him looking at me from time to time, and when our eyes met, he blushed with embarrassment, and returned to his work. But over time, the looks grew longer between us, lingering, until there was no embarrassment behind them at all, no blushing, just an understanding.

  “One night he asked me to come into his office, said he needed to ask me something. I knew the real reason behind his request, of course, and I knew what was going to happen between us when I crossed the threshold that night, that my life was about to change, that my world would be forever altered.

  “And when I did go in there, and he rose from his desk, and he stood over me, so handsome and dignified and strong, his eyes caressing my hair, my face, my figure, I knew fate had dealt a heavy hand. And then he closed the door behind us and shut off the lights, darkness covering our desire, our sin, a sin that has followed me like a shadow for more than fifty years.”

  She closed her eyes and paused in a moment of silence, then opened her eyes once more. “The affair carried on for a few months after that, in the same way it had that first night. I thought he must love me by that point, the way he would send me flowers, jewelry, dresses, tell me how beautiful I was, how desirable I was. And his interest did not wane, did not abate until I asked him what his intentions were for our future. He was married, I knew, and with two children, but I assumed that the love he felt for me, the passion that had caused him to betray his family in the first place, would drive him to leave them, to start a new life with me.

  “But this wasn’t the case. I began seeing less and less of him. He would avoid me, leaving early in the evenings, inventing fabricated meetings that took him outside the office. Before long, I was seeing him hardly at all. I thought perhaps he needed time to think, to mull over what his next step would be for us. After all, it was a major life decision, leaving your family for a woman who was so many years your junior, and who came from nothing.

  “But this wasn’t the case, of course, either. I knew the affair was over between us, that he had wiped his hands of me completely, when one of the other partners came into my office one evening after everyone else had left. He set a pair of diamond earrings on my desk and told me they could be mine if I met him at a hotel after work the next day. He said he heard I liked nice things, that I liked to have a little fun too for the right price, and that he would give me those earrings, and other things, lots of other things, if I did what he wanted.

  “I handed in my resignation the next day. By then, though, I knew I was pregnant with Susan. I confronted her father about it, told him about the child, that I expected to keep her, expected him to help me raise her. He said the baby probably wasn’t even his, that I should try to get rid of it, that a child didn’t deserve to be brought up by a soiled woman who turned tricks for anybody with a wallet.”

  Pearl paused, her mind caught up in the memory as if it were happening all over again, as if Susan’s father was standing right before her eyes. “It’s amazing, really,” she said, “how love can turn so quickly to hate. How you can live your entire life for someone in one moment, then want the world rid of them the next. Susan’s father was the first person I ever loved. He was also the first person I ever killed. It was so difficult for me that first time, I felt so conflicted over him. It gets so much easier, you see, over time, the more you do it, the more experience you have of separating your emotions from the act of killing. But his death … his death was the hardest.”

  She looked at Harley. “So hard for me … but so easy in the execution.”

  She deflected her gaze back to the windows overlooking Main Street. “My father was a drunk, you see, but he was a good mechanic when he was sober. He taught me a few things about cars, enough to know my way around an engine without any problems, and while Susan’s father was working late one night at the office, probably seducing the poor girl who replaced me, I cut the brakes to his Mercedes while it was parked in the office lot.

  “A few hours later, as he was driving home to his precious family, he tried to brake for a deer in the road, and his car swerved, striking a tree head-on. It killed him instantly.” She paused and her eyes met Harley’s. “Can you believe that even after everything he had done to me, even after all of the hurt and pain he had caused me, I mourned him? That I missed him? That I still miss him to this very day?”

  She drew in a deep
breath and released it slowly. “The human heart is a mysterious thing. Anyway, I gave birth to Susan some months after that, and as much as I hated to, I gave her up for adoption. You see, it wasn’t as accepted back then as it is today. People frowned upon unwed mothers. It was a shame that followed you for the rest of your life, killing any chances you might have at marriage with a respectable man.

  “Giving up Susan was the only viable option I had at that point. Sometime thereafter, I discovered Susan had been adopted by a childless couple here in Notchey Creek, the Thompsons. When the opportunity arose, I moved here and took a job at the public library as an aide. I met Arthur, we were married soon after, and I still had the opportunity to be near Susan. I volunteered at the school, always ensuring that I would get to interact with her class, spend time with her in a safe environment. We became very close over the years, and she adored me, just as I adored her. It was almost like she somehow knew I was her real mother, and that made the bond between us that much stronger.

  “Then, when she became pregnant with Martin’s child, and she moved out of her mother’s house, she came to live with us. Arthur didn’t care, of course, as long as it didn’t interfere with his extramarital liaisons, and he never suspected, not once, that Susan was my daughter.

  “And then everything started coming together in a way that seemed like it was ordained from above, that what was about to happen had been fated in the stars.”

  55

  Michael Sutcliffe

  “Susan was terribly unhappy,” Pearl said. “Clinically depressed. There she was with a newborn child, and no husband. She was still so young, still wanted to go to college, to start her life over. If she could just find a safe home for the baby, a family that would take him so that she could start anew.

  “Then, there was James Sutcliffe. He had just lost his wife. He was alone, depressed, and too useless to care for his newborn son, or for his family’s company. James had already told Arthur and me that if anything were to happen to him, he would leave Michael in our care, as his legal guardians, with a generous trust fund and all of the comforts a child could desire. And at that age, all babies tend to look alike, and Michael and Beau had the same blond hair and blue eyes.”

  Noticing the expression of surprise on Harley’s face, she said, “Oh, yes, Beau Arson is really a blond, didn’t you know? A full golden Sutcliffe crown. Always has had it, from the time he was a baby to when he was a teenager and until now. I assume he must dye it dark as part of his public persona. The golden hair wouldn’t have worked with that Gothic image his band had, I imagine.

  “And so after James died, I switched the two babies. By that time I had told Susan the truth, that I was her real mother, and that we could give her the freedom she wanted and the baby the best home possible under my and Arthur’s care. As Michael Sutcliffe, her child would have the life others only dreamed about. She agreed and said she would put James’s real son, the person we now know as Beau Arson, up for adoption, claiming he was hers.

  “But I explained to her that this couldn’t be the way of things, as Beau Arson was living proof of what we’d done, and the only way to keep our secret safe was to get rid of him. Permanently. It was the only option. After some reluctance and much persuasion from me, she agreed, and we constructed a plan. On Halloween night, she would take Beau to the edge of Maple Bluff and drop him into the ravine. No one would ever find his body there. Then she would leave town, start a new life, no one the wiser.

  “But Patrick Middleton threw a wrench in our plan. I wasn’t expecting him to hit Susan’s car that night as it was parked on Maple Bluff, to kill her, and to save Beau’s life in the process.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “And I was so crushed by Susan’s death afterward, and realizing the baby was still alive somewhere out there, knowing he was the one link to all of this, was still discoverable—I was so worried and anxious about it. But time passed, and no questions were ever raised. No one ever suspected what we’d done or even linked Beau Arson with Susan’s car accident.”

  “Except Patrick Middleton,” Harley said.

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t find that out until very recently.” She paused. “There was one other time, too, years after the car accident, when I worried someone might catch onto our secret, might guess.”

  Harley waited for Pearl to continue.

  “It was around the same time I realized who Beau Arson really was, what happened to him after Patrick saved him from Susan’s burning car that night. He was a teenager by then, I imagine. As a favor to Patrick, the Winstons agreed to keep him for the summer at their house.”

  Pearl’s eyes met Harley’s. “You may not remember it now, but you knew Beau Arson all those years ago, the two of you became unlikely friends the summer I babysat you. Oh yes, that was him. The blond boy next door. You thought he was Eric Winston, didn’t you, and I wasn’t going to tell you the truth. None the wiser, I told myself.”

  She seemed to take delight in Harley’s shocked expression, to relish in the fact she had one-upped her. “And I remember he gave you that book by Charles Dickens. What was it called?”

  “Great Expectations,” Harley muttered, still stunned by the revelation.

  “Yes, that was the one. And he saved you from those bullies. Put the fear of God in them, I remember, and filled your head with all of those grand predictions for your future. Such nonsense.

  “Anyway,” she said, “he was in between foster homes, and the Winstons’ son, Eric, was away in Europe for the summer. They had heard the boy was musically gifted and, sad that Eric was away, they thought it would be nice to help out an aspiring prodigy, one so highly esteemed by Patrick Middleton.

  “But what worried me at the time, after I had seen him all grown up, was that he looked so much like his father. I knew who he was immediately. So tall and handsome like James, the features, the likeness was unmistakable. It probably still is underneath all of that hair and scruff. But the summer passed, and Beau Arson moved on and no one made any connections. Everything was quiet until Martin Evans rose from the dead and came back into our lives.”

  56

  The Ghost

  “I was home the night Martin came looking for Patrick.” Pearl took a breath, then continued. “They were supposed to meet at Bud’s, but Martin had gotten the day wrong and had come looking for Patrick at his house instead. I was seated on the porch, finishing a novel for book club when I saw him knocking on Patrick’s front door.

  “I never would have known it was him. Goodness, he was so unrecognizable with all of the scars, nothing like he was when I knew him as a young man. I called across the yard and asked if I could be of any help to him, and that’s when he recognized me. You see, he remembered me from when Susan lived with us.

  “Oh, the timing couldn’t have been more horrible. Just as Michael had returned to Notchey Creek, had established himself at Briarcliffe, Martin Evans had to appear. I wanted to kill him right then and there.

  “But that’s not how one gets things done, is it? So I feigned to Martin that I was so very happy to see him again and wouldn’t he please come inside for a cup of hot tea, to catch up on old times. I’d already decided at that point what I was going do, what I had to do … and with Arthur out with one of his floozies that night, there was little to deter me.

  “Martin accepted my invitation for tea and joined me in the living room, and over a few cups of Darjeeling, he told me everything. How Patrick Middleton had confessed to him that he killed Susan in that car accident all those years ago, that his son was still alive somewhere, that he hoped to reunite the two.

  “But then Martin noticed Michael’s photograph on the mantel, recognized the strong likeness between them, and asked if Michael was the long-lost son Patrick hoped to reunite him with. I told him absolutely not, that the young man’s name was Michael Sutcliffe, and he was James Sutcliffe’s only son. But he didn’t believe me, pointing out that Michael had the same heart-s
haped birthmark on his neck that his son had had.

  “By that time the drugs had taken effect, thankfully, and I decided to just confess and admit the truth, that yes, he was right, Michael was his son, and wasn’t it good that I had saved the child from being raised by a useless, derelict father like himself.

  “Martin was downright stumbling, asking what had happened to the real Michael Sutcliffe, what we had done with him, saying that the boy was innocent. He said he was going to go to the police, tell them the truth, that the world needed to know what I had done. When he left, his speech was slurring, no longer making any sense. So I just let him go. I knew it wouldn’t take very long for the drugs to kill him, and it didn’t. I predicted the police would find him in a day or two and rule his death an overdose.

  “Then I just had Patrick to deal with. I knew I would have to kill him too, of course, and do it quickly. I wasn’t sure how much he knew already, and how much he was bound to find out. He was too much of a liability. And with all of the controversy swarming around the new history museum, there would be a multitude of suspects with a motive to kill him. I would use that angle.

  “So that night, at the historical society meeting, I was the one who threw that rock through Patrick’s living room window with the note STOP NOW OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.”

  “When you excused yourself to go to the restroom,” Harley said.

  “Yes. It was quite easy, really. I typed up the note beforehand, placed the rock in my pocket, and once Tina was distracted in the kitchen, I sneaked out the back door, crept around front, and broke the window. I knew everyone would think one of the museum protestors had done it.