Sleep Like a Baby

by Charlaine Harris

  “I don’t understand?”

  “Well … do you teach her to defend herself, or do you teach her that striking other people is wrong? Do you teach her to keep her thoughts to herself, or do you teach her to speak up for her beliefs, and maybe get hurt in consequence? If Sophie is gay, do we teach her to be open about it? Or do we warn her that some people will want to beat her or kill her for being who she is?”

  Aubrey looked a little taken aback. “I haven’t ever thought about the world in those either/or terms.”

  “Though I’m simplifying, those are the choices. You can raise your child to be strong and outspoken … which is brave and honest. But the consequences of being brave and honest can be dire.”

  Aubrey smiled in a wry way. “Or you can teach your daughter to keep her own counsel and lay low. She’ll live a life that may be unhappy and untrue. But probably she’ll be safe.”

  “Exactly. So that’s the kind of thing I worry about now. Before I held Sophie for the first time, I’d never thought about any of that.”

  “So your biggest surprise is how much thinking you have to do—about the effect of your words on Sophie?”

  “No. My biggest surprise is how primal I feel about her. I would die for her. I would kill for her. Without a doubt. Without hesitation.”

  “Strong statement,” Aubrey said, trying to sound less startled than he was.

  “You adopted Liza, but it’s like she’s your own,” I said. “Don’t you feel that way, too?”

  “Well … no. I would defend her to the death.” Aubrey spoke deliberately and carefully. “Aside from that, I let her know what my faith tells me I should do, what every Christian should do.”

  “And then you just see what happens?”

  He nodded. “Liza has already had a lot to contend with. Emily says she told you about her first husband.”

  I nodded. “I had no idea. It’s great that she survived it, and she’s still a good person.”

  “Emily’s a very strong woman. We’re not sure how much Liza remembers, but she saw some things she shouldn’t have seen. Then there was the problem with Liza’s reading disability, which she overcame…”

  I hadn’t known about that.

  “And then the bullying at school. I knew, at least theoretically, how cruel children can be, but I have to say at first I found their inhumanity beyond belief.”

  “Did you want to whop them one?”

  “Yes,” he said, without hesitation. “Some days. But I couldn’t decide if the venom came from their parents or was … well, natural to them.”

  When I’d talked to Liza’s bullies and their parents, it had disturbed me, too. I wondered how a mother could bear to realize that her child was naturally cruel.

  I couldn’t even imagine.

  In contrast to that black pit, visiting Virginia Mitchell’s mother didn’t seem so bad.

  Marcy Mitchell owned a neat, small house on a street filled with similar houses. It was located in one of the older neighborhoods outside Truman, once a little town located in what had been open country between Lawrenceton and Atlanta. “Older” is a relative term in this vast conglomeration of bedroom communities. The house had been built fifteen to twenty years ago.

  Maybe Truman had once had a character of its own, but now it was homogenized. We had passed a Chili’s and a Napa Valley Auto Parts and a CVS Pharmacy before we turned in to the subdivision. It was full of curb-parked cars, basketball goals, tricycles discarded in the yard, and the other signals indicating Americans were going about their lives in a normal way.

  Mrs. Mitchell’s house was different. There was one car parked in her driveway. The one-car garage was closed. The curtains were closed, giving the house a blind look.

  “She expects us?” I said dubiously. “Maybe she went to work or something.”

  “She said she was staying home this week, in case news came about Virginia,” Aubrey said. “I told her I might drop by.”

  “Might drop by?” I may have sounded a little sarcastic.

  Aubrey looked uncomfortable. “I told her I’d come today, and I might bring you with me.”

  “Aubrey, what’s going on here?”

  He looked even more uncomfortable. “We’ll see,” Aubrey said, and then he crossed the little yard to the front door.

  I felt obliged to follow—he was my friend and my priest—but to say I was unhappy would be a huge understatement.

  Aubrey rang the doorbell, and in just a few seconds it opened. Through the glass storm door, we looked at a woman I assumed was Marcy Mitchell. She was wearing blue jeans and a flowered blouse. Her hair had been straightened and had a glossy sheen, unlike her daughter’s short and natural do. But I could see the resemblance of daughter to mother: the shape of the face and mouth, the way the eyes were set.

  “Come in, please,” our hostess said, opening the storm door. “You must be that preacher?”

  “Yes, I’m Aubrey Scott.”

  “They call you Father?”

  “Some people do,” Aubrey said, smiling. “You can call me Aubrey, or whatever makes you comfortable. This is Aurora Teagarden, Mrs. Mitchell.” He said that with a kind of heavy significance. I could practically hear a “Ta-DAH!”

  “You’re the lady with the baby.” Since she was holding the glass door open, we had to step past her into the living room. It was dark after the bright day outside. I could barely make out the silhouette of someone else sitting in the room.

  “Yes,” I said, belatedly. “Sophie’s two months old.”

  “How is Sophie?” said the person on the couch.

  It was like having a bucket of cold water thrown on my face. I adjusted to the gloom and my eyes confirmed what my ears had already told me.

  In front of me, very much alive and not visibly hurt, was Virginia Mitchell.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I’d had some shocks in my life, but this certainly ranked as one of the most severe. I had so many things to say to Virginia—and her mother, and Aubrey—that the words clogged up in my throat, like too many people trying to get through a doorway at the same time.

  Probably just as well. I was very angry.

  “Aubrey,” I said. “Tell me you didn’t know about this.”

  “I give you my word I had no idea she’d be here.”

  He sounded shaken, too, more than a little.

  I took two steps to position myself right in front of Virginia, who stood. Maybe she wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I wasn’t sure, either. I took a couple of deep breaths before I spoke. “I’m relieved you’re alive, Virginia. And you look like you’re okay. But you should have told me earlier.”

  “We didn’t want you to call the police,” Marcy Mitchell said. “Can I get you a drink? Tea? Sweet or unsweet?”

  This was just nuts. I closed my eyes and took another moment. When I opened them, all three were staring at me hopefully.

  “You realize that my husband and I are under suspicion for having killed Tracy Beal? And possibly you?” I asked Virginia directly. Her eyes shifted away. Not looking at me directly.

  “I’m really sorry,” Virginia said, and she did sound as if she regretted it. But she didn’t continue, I’m going to explain all of that to the police as soon as I clear up a few things.

  “Tell me what happened,” I said. Even to my own ears, I sounded angry.

  “Please sit,” Marcy said. “We’ll just talk about it. Virginia’s been so upset. You’ll understand.”

  I very much doubted that.

  But okay.

  I sat in a very uncomfortable chair, clearly the one an unlucky family member got when all the others had been taken. It was a church chair, the folding metal kind. Aubrey was enveloped by an ancient recliner. Marcy perched by Virginia on the rusty-brown couch.

  Marcy repeated her offer of a drink. She was determined to observe the ritual of courtesy, no matter how grotesque it seemed in this context. After Aubrey accepted a glass of unsweet, Marcy relaxed. This meet
ing had turned into something she could handle.

  I was too furious with the Mitchells to want anything of theirs.

  Once Aubrey had his damn tea, I raised my hand, palm up. “Let’s hear it,” I said.

  “Before I even start telling you, I don’t know the whole story,” Virginia said. “I don’t know who killed that girl.”

  “Um-hum. Talk.”

  Virginia sighed, and looked as though she wished she were miles away. “You were so sick, and Sophie was sound asleep, so I called my ex-boyfriend.”

  “Is his name Harrison?” Amina had said it was a movie-star name.

  “Ford Harrison,” Virginia said, looking at me with some surprise.

  I nodded. “Okay. What happened then?”

  “Ford had called me the night before to say he was sorry for the burglary, for about the millionth time. Ford got arrested a few months ago.” She looked at me questioningly.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I heard something about that.”

  “I hadn’t seen him in months. When he called, I told him what I thought of his behavior,” she said proudly. She was no pushover, she wanted us to know. “But we talked, and we talked. The next night, I thought I’d call him back. He sounded really sorry. I just … missed him.”

  Her mother scowled. I felt I knew the whole backstory from that one expression.

  But I had to hear the rest.

  “I had put up bail for him,” Virginia said, her back stiff, not meeting our eyes. “He did something wrong, I know, but it wasn’t violent or … I thought he could be an all right man. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Naturally.” I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I didn’t succeed.

  “So Saturday night we had another long talk. But I kept the monitor with me! So I could take care of Sophie. And you.”

  I gave a jerky nod, acknowledging her words.

  “The house was kind of still and muggy. I went in and out of the patio door a few times. I could tell a storm was blowing up. The wind and the change in the air. Getting out felt good.”

  “You left the patio door unlocked,” I said.

  “I left it unlocked.” She hung her head. “And I’d run out the front door to my car to grab my phone charger, and Ford pulled up just then, so I stood outside talking to him.”

  “Oh, Virginia,” her mother whispered, shaking her head.

  Virginia shot Marcy a furious look.

  “Let’s set that aside for the moment, shall we?” I said, making myself sound reasonable by a huge effort of will. “Please finish your story.”

  “I got the charger out of my car, and I came back to the doorstep. So the monitor would pick up any sound Sophie made.” See? I was responsible.

  That made me feel so much better. I bit the inside of my mouth so I wouldn’t snarl at her.

  “Ford was really upset about something that had just happened at a party. Maybe we were on the doorstep a little longer than I thought. That woman must have come in through the patio door then,” Virginia went on.

  Don’t tell me again you had the damn monitor, I thought. “And?” I was clean out of patience.

  “After Ford left, I went back inside. I saw this woman coming into the living room from your husband’s office. She was wearing Robin’s old sweater. For a minute, I thought it was you. I said, ‘Aurora? What are you doing out of bed?’ She kind of yelped, like I’d scared her, and she ran at me.” Virginia shuddered. “She knocked me down onto the carpet and then she ran out the back door.”

  I could see from her face how frightened she’d been. “Wait,” I said, what she’d told us just registering. “She was wearing Robin’s sweater?”

  Virginia nodded.

  A minor puzzle had been solved. Now I knew where the sweater had gone. But Tracy had not been wearing it when we’d found her. One puzzle had been replaced by another. I made a go-ahead gesture.

  “I guess it took me a little bit to get up, kind of check myself out, make sure I was okay. I hightailed it to Sophie’s room. Really quiet, because I didn’t know who else might be in the house. For all I knew, there was someone else. After I found out Sophie was okay, I prayed for a second.” Virginia said this quite unself-consciously. “Then I went in your room, and I could hear you breathing. You sounded awful, but normal-awful, you know? I could feel the heat coming from you, and I knew you had fever. I sat down on that chair in the corner of your room and I tried to get myself together. I didn’t know what to do.”

  How could she possibly have not known what to do? My hands were clenched in front of me. I was holding myself down.

  “I was about to call the police. But of a sudden I thought, Oh shit, what if she comes back in? Because the patio door and the front door were still unlocked. So I sort of crept out to the living room window. And I saw her on the ground. At least, I thought it was her.” Virginia gulped. “So I went out there. I used the flashlight on my phone. I didn’t go close. Even from a ways, I could see she’d been bleeding from the head. And she wasn’t moving. I’d never seen a dead person who wasn’t fixed up and in a coffin.” Virginia began to cry, and her mother put an arm around her.

  “So I called Ford,” Virginia sobbed.

  Sure. That was the first thing that had leapt to my mind, too. Call Ford. “When you went to look at the body, did you notice whether or not she was still wearing the sweater?”

  Virginia looked startled. “No, I never thought about it. Wasn’t she?”

  I said, “Not important. Then what happened?”

  “I told Ford I was going to call the police, but he begged me not to. Someone might have seen him. He said they’d think he’d done it, because he had a record. He didn’t want anyone to know he’d been in Lawrenceton, because … well, because. Also, whoever had done it, that person might still be around. Ford wanted me to get out of there. He hadn’t gotten to his apartment, he was turning around to come back. He said to turn off the front light and wait outside. I put the monitor by your head so you’d wake up if Sophie cried. And I dropped my phone into my purse. Then I thought, I can’t leave the doors unlocked, so I grabbed Robin’s keys from the bowl to lock you in.”

  That actually made sense. The patio door could be locked from the inside, but the front door, once exited, required a key.

  “Ford told me I should leave my car. That would show I didn’t have anything to do with what happened. He wanted to see the body, see if he knew her. So I told him to go through the gate. He came back around and told me we needed to get out of there. But I was so flustered, and I was in such a hurry to get away…” Virginia came to a full stop.

  Aubrey said, “What am I missing, here?”

  “She took her purse but her phone wasn’t in it,” I said. “She’d dropped her phone in my purse.”

  “I didn’t find out until I got to Ford’s. He was really upset.”

  “Because the calls to him were on your phone,” I said.

  Virginia looked as though she would have liked to protest, but she really couldn’t. “I guess so,” she said.

  “So tell me,” I said. “Is Ford tall and thin?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking at me oddly.

  “And he came through the gate very late at night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our neighbor told the police he’d seen Robin coming in the gate.”

  Marcy said, “I’m so sorry.”

  I gave her a look I thought might very well be steely. Her words were simply inadequate.

  “But she’s told you what happened, and she didn’t have anything to do with that girl. You’re going to tell the police?” Marcy said anxiously.

  Even Aubrey looked astonished that she’d think anything else.

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “As quick as I can.”

  And a tall, thin man stepped in from the kitchen and said, “I can’t let you do that.”

  The two women gasped. They seemed genuinely shocked by his appearance.

  “I know you,” I said. “You’re Ar
nie’s assistant.” A lot of things dropped into place. “So you took our keys out of Virginia’s purse and went into our house. Looking for the phone. Because you didn’t know the police already had it.”

  Even Virginia’s jaw dropped. I believed, in that moment, that she hadn’t known about her boyfriend’s latest actions.

  “Ford, you didn’t tell me you were going to…” She faltered to a stop.

  “And I’m betting you’re the guy who stole my diaper bag from the ICU room,” I said remorselessly.

  Marcy gave a muted shriek. “Ford! Why?”

  “I had to get that phone back,” he said. “I had to. I can’t go back to jail again.”

  “Why would you?” Aubrey asked, the voice of reason. “At the most, when Virginia told you she’d found the body, all you did was help her out in a bad situation. You might get charged with not reporting a death. I can’t think of anything else.”

  Ford looked sullen, as if we were taking his drama away from him. “I’ve been in jail,” he said.

  “You stole some tools,” I said. “You think that’s the big time in the criminal world?”

  He didn’t seem to appreciate my sarcasm. “Tools aren’t a big deal,” he said. “But there was something the guy who owned the shed didn’t report.”

  One part of my mind was paying attention to the conversation, while the other was wondering how could anyone have mistaken Ford Harrison for Robin. He was tall and thin, so maybe his silhouette was similar. And at night, the darker cast of his skin might not be apparent. But Ford had a little goatee, close-clipped hair, and his arms were brawny and tattooed. His face was wider than Robin’s, his neck longer.

  Stupid Jonathan Cohen.

  “You used those keys again?” Virginia said. If I had to describe her expression, it would be “bewildered.” “You tried to steal Aurora’s purse? You went in her house?”

  “I tried to look around while I was helping Arnie. But that Robin caught me. And the next day, the security system would be done, and they’d arm it. So I had to get back in,” Ford said. Virginia’s ex-boyfriend was looking angrier by the minute. Abruptly, I realized we should rein in the blaming. We didn’t need to emphasize the man’s stupidity.