Echoes among the Stones

by Jaime Jo Wright

  “We don’t always get justice for the ones we lose.” Ollie’s observation was so quiet, it was almost swallowed by the truck’s noisy muffler and the breeze whipping through the open windows.

  This time, Imogene did muster the energy to lift her head and open her eyes. She narrowed them at Ollie, irritated by his lack of sensitivity. “You wouldn’t know what it’s like to have someone you love murdered. That kind of talk is ignorant.”

  Ollie turned his head from the view out the window, and the blue of his eyes pierced Imogene’s soul. There was such sadness in them, such beaten-down determination, that Imogene wanted to apologize for snapping at him—even if she was right in what she’d said.

  “I know what it’s like.” He didn’t blink, and there was such honesty in his expression, Imogene felt more pain, this time in her very soul. “I had buddies blown to bits, and what justice did they get? War isn’t fair, Genie.” Ollie turned back to the window, but she caught his words just before she drifted off into oblivion. “It isn’t fair abroad or at home.”

  “Thank the Lord, you’re awake.” Lola’s worried voice filled Imogene’s senses. She opened her eyes against the light shining through her bedroom window. “Your mama’s downstairs making cookies. She’s just about mad with worry.”

  Of course she was. She’d already lost one daughter, and now her other was blown into the side of the police station in an explosion. Imogene grimaced as she moved to sit up against the pillows.

  “Ollie and Sam Pickett brought you home. Chet called ahead and let your mama know and then he called me. Of course, I already knew because Mrs. Nelson had heard on the party line, and she didn’t waste time rushing next door to tell me the news.” Lola helped adjust the pillows, then held a hand to Imogene’s forehead as if she were feverish. “What is this world coming to? Honestly, Genie, the blast put three people in the hospital. You’re the lucky one! Just lightly concussed, no doubt.”

  “Was anyone killed?” Somehow, Imogene was able to push out the words.

  “No. Not killed. Thank the Lord.”

  Yes. The Lord. Imogene winced inwardly. Oh, for the old-time religion to be as sweet as it had seemed when she was a child. The church with its white clapboards and Sunday-happy bell ringing. A little bit of Jesus and Sunday afternoon potlucks were the memories she’d expected to carry her through her entire life.

  Not anymore.

  The church had become tarnished by war vigils, where the women had knitted socks for soldiers. It was the catchall for the donation of food to help those who didn’t have as much and were running out of rations. It was the doorway through which Imogene had ushered Hazel into her eternal rest, singing hymns over her casket as though somehow that “hope of Jesus” would shine down from heaven and relieve their weary souls.

  It hadn’t.

  He was silent.

  “Why were you at the station anyway, Genie?” Lola’s question was soft but insinuating.

  Aside from her pounding headache, the last thing Imogene was in the mood for was justifying her reasons for holding Chet accountable to solve their sister’s murder. Or the fact she was trying to do it for him.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Imogene picked at a piece of lint stuck to the cotton sheet that covered her.

  “Well”—Lola allowed Imogene her reasons—“they said they saw someone running away from the post office just after the blast.”

  That snagged Imogene’s attention. Her eyes snapped up to meet Lola’s. “And?”

  Lola shrugged. “No one could recognize him. And a few others said everyone was running away from the post office, so just ’cause some saw a man running doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” Lola crossed her legs at the ankles and tucked them behind the foot of the chair on which she sat. Her large brown eyes were inquisitive. “Rumors are already flying around that someone made a homemade bomb. They probably stole the powder for it from the plant.”

  Imogene hadn’t expected that, and she knew surprise must have registered on her face. “How could anyone—?” She left her question hanging. Nothing made sense anymore. Peaceful Mill Creek had borne the shock of a murder and now the post office’s destruction.

  “You’d best be cautious, Genie.” Lola’s eyes darkened with concern. “It’s not hard to figure out why you stopped working at the beauty salon and took a job at the plant. Now with this? Makes me wonder . . .”

  “Wonder what?” Imogene leaned forward, reading her friend’s face in hopes someone else would justify her own thoughts and suspicions.

  Lola crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips, raising an eyebrow and staring down her strong German-ancestral nose. “What did Hazel get mixed up in, Genie?”

  The question hung between them like an omen—a bad one. Imogene locked eyes with her longtime friend. She couldn’t answer for the pounding in her head and her throat, which seemed clogged with tears of relief that she wasn’t the only one to harbor such questions.

  “I don’t know,” Imogene finally admitted, “but I aim to find out.”

  Lola shook her head and stood, her cotton dress falling around her shins. She crossed the room to look out Imogene’s bedroom window, keeping her arms wrapped around herself. She was a pretty silhouette, the white filmy curtains pushed back, the flowery print on her dress, her bobby socks at her ankles, and her sensible oxfords on her feet. Lola’s dark hair was permed and pinned on the sides, just like Imogene had taught her.

  Lola sniffed and shook her head again, speaking over her shoulder. “I know Chet isn’t a numskull. He’ll figure this out without you putting yourself in harm’s way.”

  Imogene bit her lip. She only ever truly second-guessed herself when it was Lola criticizing her. She respected her friend, wanted her approval, and more she saw Lola’s intuition for what it was—wisdom. But that didn’t mean Imogene always listened.

  “It’s been almost a month, Lola.” Imogene shifted in the bed, pulling her knees up and dragging the blanket over them. “The longer it goes since the day I found Hazel, the more I believe every clue Chet won’t share with me is just getting colder. Pretty soon—” her voice hitched—“pretty soon they’re gonna box up all of Hazel’s files and put them away in a closet somewhere. That can’t happen. You know it isn’t right. No one would just—kill Hazel. It was someone she knew.”

  Lola turned, a question on her face. “How do you know that?”

  Imogene didn’t dispel her own theories with Chet’s arguments of earlier. She believed her theories. She had to or no one else would. “Because the screen door was unlocked. Because Hazel didn’t fight. She didn’t fight until she was in the attic.”

  Lola blanched at the idea.

  Imogene continued, bouncing her reasoning off her friend. “She wasn’t injured either. There wasn’t any blood downstairs. No smearing of it on the walls like she was fighting anyone off or . . . or that they dragged her upstairs. She just walked them up the stairs to her room. Hazel knew her killer, Lola. She trusted him.”

  Lola walked back to her chair by Imogene’s bed and sat down, leaning forward and reaching for her friend’s hand. Her gaze was sincere and searching. “Or someone could have just come into the house. A stranger. A vagabond. They could have found her up in the attic and, well, you know . . .”

  “No.” Imogene shook her head. “Nothing happened to Hazel outside of being bludgeoned to death.”

  “Genie!” Lola flopped back in her chair and covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Well?” Imogene snapped. “If no one is willing to say it aloud, then I shall! There was blood on the wall, Lola. The wall! They didn’t just hit her by accident and cause her death. They didn’t come with lust in their eyes. They intended to do away with her for a very specific reason. And they made their point over and over and over again until Hazel was good and dead.”

  Lola’s throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. Her eyes were watery. But Lola was tough too, and the breath she drew in, while it shuddered, also bolstered he
r. “And you don’t think Chet sees the same story?”

  “I don’t know if he does or not.” Imogene waved her hand dismissively. “He won’t tell me anything. And who did Hazel know enough to trust to take them to the attic? Family, most likely. That’s all she had was family. She didn’t have friends. At least not that she spoke of.”

  “Which,” Lola mused, “I always thought a tad odd, didn’t you?”

  Imogene frowned.

  Lola held up her hand as if to beg for Imogene’s patience. “Hazel wasn’t shy, Genie. ’Course, she wasn’t outright flamboyant and a flirt like you—”

  “Hey!”

  Lola dipped her chin and looked down her nose at Imogene. “You know as well as I do that if you had three men hanging on your arms at the dance joint downtown, you’d be happier if there was a fourth to balance it out. But Hazel was . . .”

  “Friendly.” Imogene nodded. She had to agree, for it was the truth.

  “And doesn’t that inspire friendship? So why didn’t she have any close ones?” Lola asked.

  Imogene drew in a contemplative breath. “Which is why I took a job at the plant. Hazel had acquaintances at church and in town. Of course, you were her friend, but what reason could you possibly have to kill Hazel?”

  “Thank you,” Lola mumbled.

  Imogene kept musing aloud. “So then, if everyone loved Hazel, but no one knew my sister, who did she know well enough to invite into her private room?”

  Lola smiled a sad little smile. “What if Hazel’s death and the post office explosion are somehow related?”

  Imogene frowned. She could see where Lola’s reasoning was taking them, although it didn’t make clear sense. “Powder.”

  Lola nodded.

  Imogene wrestled with the idea, because it was the only common factor between Hazel and today’s explosion. Yet Imogene was certain Hazel hadn’t been smuggling materials out of the plant in order to blow up the town of Mill Creek and then later murdered for it.

  Well, almost certain.

  CHAPTER 19

  Imogene pressed the back of her hand to her brow and let her eyes rove over the tables in the powder plant’s canteen. She’d made enough sandwiches to last her a lifetime in the last week since she’d returned to work after her mild concussion. If she never saw another marriage of two slices of bread with condiments and meat in the middle, she’d be happy. Truth be told, she missed the pungent smell of the perming chemicals and the sweet scents of the shampoos.

  Men rammed food into their mouths during their short lunch break. The fact the room was filled with men might have once been the only bright spot in a dirty, glamourless place such as this, but it now brought little interest to Imogene. She caught threads of conversation, and it squelched any healing that could have possibly come to her soul since Hazel’s death.

  “Fact is,” she’d heard one man say yesterday as he stood in line for his lunch, “they can’t figure out whodda been dumb enough to blow up the post office, let alone the why of it.”

  “Maybe one of them Comm-you-nists?”

  That was the newest thing since the Nazis had been bested and the Japanese regime pushed back after the war. Communism. Imogene wasn’t even sure she knew what it was—what Communists were—and she wasn’t sure she cared.

  “Nah. Why blow up the U.S. Mail?”

  Why indeed? That was the question on everyone’s minds. What was worse, it was also the foremost question on Chet’s mind. Which meant the foretelling of Hazel’s death becoming less of an urgency was coming true.

  “Genie?” The voice nudged her from her mental puzzle solving.

  “Oh! Ollie.” She worked a warm but fake smile to her face. He was so . . . unsettling. Even now his eyes drove into her, but somehow the blue of them still reminded her of a gentle summer sky and not the sharp point of an icicle. It was a stark contrast—the meekness of the man and the decisive command of Ollie the day of the explosion.

  “I was thinkin’ maybe I could stroll by later tonight and we could take a walk?”

  Imogene stilled and drew back. She blinked a few times, completely taken aback that he was asking her to walk with him. As a date? Or for other reasons? To assess her well-being?

  “Well, Oliver Schneider, you do beat all!” She mustered her best flirty smile that covered the unease settling in her stomach. Unease or anticipation or maybe a bit of both.

  “It’s just a walk.” His bland response made Imogene’s smile droop.

  “Never ‘just a walk’ when it’s a pretty gal next to a man.” The voice that interrupted them was one Imogene had heard in her mind several times. Sam Pickett’s voice. Somehow these two men seemed to show up near each other, and the pattern made her raise her eyebrow. Knowing full well the effect of her winged, upward swoop of one black brow matched to the geometry of her high cheekbones and red lips, Imogene cocked a hand on her hip and looked between the men.

  “Now, now. One of you asked, and the other interrupted. So, are we planning another war, only this time it’s over me?”

  It was tactless. That much was apparent by the way Ollie’s gaze dropped to the floor. He wasn’t embarrassed or disappointed in her toying with the two men. He was disappointed in her.

  But Sam laughed. His smile took over his entire face. A mix of Cary Grant’s Hollywood brooding charm and just the good ol’ hometown wit of a local boy. A local boy with a family name that meant trouble. Reckless trouble. Somehow the temptation of throwing caution to the wind was juxtaposed with the caution in her heart since Hazel’s death. Imogene hadn’t one story to pin Sam to anyway. It wasn’t as though he had a rap sheet to match John Dillinger’s, who, rumor had it, had been spotted not far from Mill Creek ten or so years ago. Sam Pickett was—well, he was a stranger to her, a distraction, with the exclamation point of danger that might have intrigued her before Hazel’s death, but now . . . well, she had to admit, she was still intrigued.

  “Ida!” Sam spotted his sister across the room and waved her over. A timid smile stretched across her simple face, which had hints of Sam matching in the shape of her eyes and mouth. “Get on over here!”

  His joviality did something to Imogene’s insides. It took everything dark and made it light—if even for just a moment. She caught Ollie’s careful study of her. She chose to ignore it.

  “Who would you choose?” Sam gestured between himself and Ollie as he addressed his sister.

  “Choose for what?” Ida’s response was almost mousy in comparison to her brother’s friendliness. But the kindness in her eyes when they met Imogene’s once again warmed Imogene. Hazel had found a friend in Ida. A friend . . .

  Imogene’s conversation with Lola had never been far from her mind. Ida was a friend. But no. That was ridiculous. She was a petite little thing and had the gumption of a church mouse.

  “To take a stroll down Lovers’ Lane, arm in arm and all that.” Sam’s voice interrupted Imogene’s sudden suspicion. She swung her attention to Sam. Had Hazel been friends with Sam?

  “Lovers’ Lane?” Ida’s smile quirked up on the side as she began to catch on to the drift of the conversation. She crossed her arms over her uniformed chest, the cotton coveralls not doing much to enhance her appearance. “We don’t have a Lovers’ Lane in Mill Creek, do we?”

  “So literal.” Sam biffed the curl on the side of her head, and Ida ducked, giving a little laugh. Her face had brightened under her brother’s attention.

  “Well . . .” Ida looked between him and Ollie, whose only expression now seemed to suggest he was looking for a way to excuse himself from the awkwardness of the conversation. “I’d not trust you alone with a girl, Samuel.” Ida’s laugh was quiet but teasing. “So I’d have to pick Ollie.”

  Ollie glanced at her. Disinterested in all of them, Imogene could tell. Something inside her compelled her to make it up to Ollie. Her insensitive comment about another war . . . no one wanted to think about war for at least a hundred years.

  “Yes, Oliver Schneider.
I’d be happy to take a walk with you.”

  He lifted those sky-blue eyes, yet there was no hope or joy or even excitement in them. They were dull and resigned. Still, he gave her a nod. “I’ll see ya around eight.” And then he moved on, as if content that he could do so now without appearing rude.

  Imogene watched him walk away. His tall, thin frame so familiar. They’d known the Schneiders their entire lives. Ollie was their friend. Hazel’s friend . . .

  Holy Joe! Imogene blinked several times to clear her thoughts. Any more of this and she’d have accused all of Mill Creek for murdering Hazel. She needed to narrow it down—find more clues and signs that she could piece together. Just casting suspicion on everyone who’d crossed paths with Hazel was unfair.

  Sam shot Imogene a wink. “He ain’t no Casanova.”

  “He’s my friend,” she retorted, still not sure why she felt the need to defend Ollie to Sam.

  “Sam, are you riding the bus tonight?” Ida’s simple question slipped into the banter with a naïve inquiry. “I think Glen would love it if we could pick him up from Auntie’s early.”

  Sam’s smile waned as fast as it had brightened his face. “Glen can wait,” he muttered. Then he gave a fast nod to Imogene before moving away almost as fast as Ollie had.

  There was an awkward pause as both women watched Sam crisscross the canteen and head for the door. The shift whistle blew, and everyone stood in a mass flurry to return to their positions on the lines. Ida cast Imogene an apologetic smile that touched her brown eyes with sincerity.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize.” Imogene waved it off, although every ounce of her wanted to know who Glen was.

  Ida was quick to supply an answer to the question that must have reflected in Imogene’s eyes. “Glen is my nephew. Sam lost Bonnie—his wife—a few years ago. They married, quick-like, before he shipped out. You know . . .”

  Yes. Imogene nodded. It hadn’t been uncommon. Quick marriages threatened by war, death, a future that might never be. Many had found their way down the aisles at young ages to spit in the face of a dark future and believe for a moment that dreams could come true.