So Livermore and Opal had been lovers, Tish mused. But what bearing did that have on the murder case, unless, perhaps, Binnie was also involved with the good doctor and Opal killed them both out of jealousy? The theory made Tish slightly nauseous.
The bigger question was whether Binnie had been experiencing memory issues before her passing. The unexpected downturn in the quality of her bread-and-butter pickles sounded highly suspicious. For a cook to suddenly tweak or change a recipe she’d been making for years seemed unlikely, especially when that cook was as conservative as Binnie Broderick. Memory loss would, indeed, explain the pickles as well as the modifications to Binnie’s will, but it still did nothing to explain her murder or that of Dr Livermore.
Tish pulled the Matrix into the familiar toy-littered driveway of the Rufus’ home. This time Celestine did not greet her at the door. Standing on the weathered wooden deck, Tish could hear the whir of a vacuum cleaner working its magic on a carpet or piece of upholstery somewhere deep within the house.
Tish pressed hard on the doorbell for several seconds. The vacuum switched off, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps. Celestine, dressed in flip-flops, denim capris, and an oversized World’s Best Grandma T-shirt, appeared behind the screen door. ‘Why, hey there, Tish. I wasn’t expecting to see you today. Come on in.’
Tish thanked Celestine for her welcome as she stepped behind the screen door and followed her into the kitchen.
‘Tea?’ Celestine offered and extracted a pitcher from the refrigerator.
‘No, thanks,’ Tish declined. She felt self-conscious accepting the hospitality of the woman she would soon be questioning for the second time in three days.
‘What’s on your mind, girlfriend? Got more questions?’ Celestine poured herself a large glass of tea with ice and plopped down in the chair at the head of the table, same as she had during their last chat.
Tish assumed the same seat as well. ‘Yes, I do …’
‘Well, don’t pick at it, honey. Rip the Band-Aid off.’
‘Did you happen to see Daryl Dufour at the police station yesterday?’
Celestine’s face registered surprise, but she quickly collected herself. ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’
‘Because he showed up at the café last night.’
‘Oh, brother.’ She sighed. ‘He’d been drinking, hadn’t he?’
‘He had,’ Tish confirmed. ‘He was also extremely anxious about something he told me when I spoke with him at the library on Saturday.’
‘Never could hold his liquor.’ Celestine clicked her tongue. ‘So what was he so upset about?’
‘I have no idea. He mentioned several things that afternoon.’ Tish looked Celestine squarely in the eyes. ‘You were one of them.’
‘Me?’ Celestine laughed.
‘Yes. It would appear that Mr Dufour admires you a great deal.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t pay that no mind. Daryl and I were just childhood sweethearts.’ Celestine dismissed the topic with a wave of her hand.
Tish would have nothing of it. ‘That may have been many years ago, but I don’t think his affection for you has dissipated much.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that …’
‘It sounds as though he was quite worried about you after Cynthia Thompson died.’
‘Yeah, well, lots of folks were concerned. My family most of all. Like I told you, I wasn’t myself for a long time.’
‘I think Mr Dufour is still rather concerned about you. Knocking on my café door at nine o’clock on a Sunday night to ask a woman he barely knows if she spoke to the police?’
‘Is that what he did? Oh.’ Celestine covered her face with her hands.
‘Yes, he did. I found it rather odd at the time.’
Celestine uncovered her face and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry if Daryl scared you, but he’s harmless. And I wouldn’t listen to a word he says if he’s had a tipple.’
‘Oh, but I did take Daryl’s words to heart. If he had doubts about anyone else in this town, he’d have gone directly to Sheriff Reade and told him everything he knows. Coming to me means he’s not just afraid of being implicated in the murders but he’s looking to shield someone from the sheriff.’
After a lengthy pause, Celestine finally spoke. ‘I don’t know why you’re so afraid of your café not taking off, honey. You’re certainly clever enough to pull off just about anything.’ Celestine guffawed and shuffled off to the refrigerator.
‘Where are you headed?’ Tish asked.
‘If I’m gonna tell you the whole story of Daryl and me, you’re gonna need refreshment.’ Celestine poured Tish a glass of iced tea and topped up her own, then eased her heavy frame back into the seat at the head of the table. ‘So …’
‘So?’ Tish volleyed.
‘Daryl Dufour and I were, as I said, childhood sweethearts. He was a year older than me. Still is, I suppose,’ she chuckled. ‘From the time I could crawl and Daryl could walk, we were thick as thieves. All through our toddler days and on into grade school we were the closest of friends and confidants. I don’t think we spent more than a day or two apart, and that was usually only because one of us had been dragged somewhere by our parents. We even came down with the same illnesses at the same time, most likely because one of us had given it to the other or our mothers wanted us to catch something – like chicken pox. I remember being sent to Daryl’s house so I could catch it and get it done. It was a good way to get sick because you still had someone to play with.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ Tish remarked and took a sip of tea.
‘When high school rolled along and Daryl and I came of age, it seemed only natural that he and I should become boyfriend and girlfriend. My mother loved Daryl and Daryl’s mother had taken a liking to me. We went steady a full three years before Daryl went off to college. It was understood by both our folks that we’d be married just as soon as Daryl got out of school.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Lloyd Rufus. That’s what happened. Six feet tall, curly brown hair, brown eyes, and a boyish grin capable of giving a girl goosebumps.’
‘And he swept you off your feet with his youthful good looks,’ Tish presumed.
‘It was more than that. He was a loner, who had just arrived from West Virginia, and even though he was only two years older than I was, he had a car, a job with a plumbing and heating company, and a pack-a-day cigarette habit. For a girl of eighteen who’d rarely traveled outside her home town and never been – save for a weekend trip to Washington, DC, with her parents – outside the state of Virginia, Lloyd was an adult. To me, he was worldly, exciting.’ Celestine shook her head and laughed. ‘Worldly. Hard to believe that now, to look at him here on a Saturday night. Stained white T-shirt and boxer shorts, snoring in his recliner, watching the NASCAR he’s saved on the DVR.
‘But back then,’ Celestine continued as the smile ran away from her face, ‘back then Lloyd was like a breath of fresh air in my very limited world. First time I saw him, he was at the gas station filling up his car, a dark-green 1977 Oldsmobile Toronado. He’d bought it second hand but it was still new enough to be impressive. It was just before Christmas and I was across the street at the Foodland market picking up whatever my mother had asked me to fetch on the way home from school. I never expected Lloyd or any other fella to ever notice me. I’d only really known one boy my entire life and that was Daryl Dufour. Everyone in town knew I was with Daryl and that we were fixing on getting married, so I’d never encountered anyone wanting to ask me out on a date. Besides, as I told you when we met, I take after my daddy’s side of the family, which my mother made clear would never win any beauty contests.’
Tish cringed at Celestine’s mother’s rather harsh condemnation of her daughter’s physical appearance. Why were some parents so critical of their own children? Even her own mother – who was otherwise supportive and kind – had been known to pass the odd comment about Tish having gained a few pounds over the holidays, or her hair being too l
ight or too dark, or her taste in clothing being inappropriate for her age. Why her mother felt the need to criticize her only child, Tish never knew, but it was a personality trait that only worsened as her illness progressed.
‘You could just imagine my surprise when the boy at the gas station looked up to see me watching him and then smiled,’ Celestine went on with her story. ‘And my complete and utter shock when he gave a whistle as I walked away.’
‘He wolf-whistled at you?’ Tish raised an eyebrow.
‘Yeah, I know it wasn’t proper. Still isn’t. If some guy was to do that to my granddaughters, I’d smack ’em senseless with my mama’s cast-iron skillet. But I was young and naïve and he was beautiful,’ Celestine rationalized. ‘I didn’t see Lloyd again until well into the new year. Daryl had come home from college for the Christmas break and it was glorious. Dinner with both sets of folks, time with family, my first beer – this was before they raised the drinking age – outings with friends. Looking back, it was my last childhood Christmas and it was magical, but part of me wondered from time to time about the boy at the gas station. Not for very long, mind you, because I was too busy having fun and, quite frankly, I never thought I’d see him again.
‘Daryl went back to school the second week of January and we had a great big tearful romantic send-off. I was already back in school – my senior year – and wouldn’t see him again until the term ended in May. Weeks dragged on. It was an unusually cold winter and my girlfriends all had boyfriends, which made me feel something like a third wheel, so instead of hanging out, I stayed in and read books and baked with my sisters.’
‘And Daryl?’
‘We’d talk on the phone once a week. Sunday was our day since he worked at the campus bookstore part-time,’ Celestine replied.
‘Preparing for his librarian job,’ Tish remarked.
‘Yes, he’s always loved books. Me too, but not as much as he does. Thing is, though, when you’re eighteen and looking to explore the world, books only incite you to move forward rather than stand still. Does that make sense?’
Tish nodded as she thought about her café. ‘It does.’
‘It was an odd snowy Friday in February when I saw Lloyd again – not that I knew that was his name at the time. I was running another shopping errand for my mama and he was at the gas station again, filling the giant tank of that Coronado. This time, however, he didn’t just smile or whistle at me. Nope, he stopped what he was doing and ran across the road to greet me. He said he’d been admirin’ me and asked me if I had a boyfriend. God help me, I don’t know what came over me that day. I don’t know if I was missing Daryl or it was the loneliness of being cooped up in the house with family, or seeing my friends have fun while I stayed home, or the excitement that a boy I didn’t know thought I was wonderful, or the deep brown of his eyes, or that I’m just a terribly wicked woman and always have been, but I said no, I didn’t. Me, the girl who’d had a boyfriend before she could even crawl, said she was available. See? Wicked.’
‘I don’t think you were wicked at all. You were young and had lived a sheltered life. The boy at the gas station was something different,’ Tish allowed. ‘Also, what about you and what you wanted? What about college instead of getting married right away?’
Celestine shook her head. ‘Never was very good at school, so my parents thought it a waste of money to try to send me. We didn’t have much money at all and Evangeline, the older of my two sisters, was smart as a whip. She’s the one my folks were saving for. It was best for me to go out and get a job to help the family or to leave the nest and get fed elsewhere.’
‘What about a student loan? They mustn’t have been as difficult to pay off as they are now,’ Tish suggested, as if Celestine could somehow go back in time.
‘Nah. To be honest, I didn’t like school very much. Only thing I’ve ever loved to do is bake, so I figured I’d get a job after school, get married, and maybe open up a little bake shop once we got enough money tucked away. Still, it was scary to think that Daryl was it. I cared about him, sure, but he – our marriage, kids, Hobson Glen – was going to be it for the rest of my life.’
Tish leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. ‘Daunting thought for an eighteen-year-old.’ She sighed.
Celestine nodded and took a sip of tea. ‘So, after telling Lloyd that I didn’t have a boyfriend, he asked me if I would join him for coffee. I said yes, but I had to get the groceries back home. Honestly, I didn’t even drink coffee at the time, but I wanted to seem older and more mature than I was. Lloyd followed in his car as I walked home and then parked down one of the side streets while I dropped off the groceries. I put away the shopping and then went back out, telling Mama that I was meeting some friends and would be home for dinner. Then I got in Lloyd’s car and we went to a diner on the edge of town where I didn’t know too many folks.’
‘You got in his car?’ Tish was incredulous, especially after hearing Augusta’s heart-wrenching tale. ‘You’d only just met him.’
‘Things were different back then, honey.’ Celestine laughed.
‘Not that different. I’ve heard stories.’
‘Those stories weren’t as common as they are now.’
‘That’s not true. I was – what? Six years old. I was told never to get in a car with a stranger.’
Celestine laughed even harder. ‘Hush yourself. OK, I know I was reckless, foolish, and all those other things, but I obviously survived. Now, will you let me finish telling you about all my past sins before you start criticizing me for one or two of the minor ones?’
Celestine was right. Tish needed to decide whether she was questioning Celestine about a murder or listening to a good friend share a secret. The problem was, deep down in her gut, she still couldn’t believe that Celestine might be guilty. ‘Sorry.’
‘No problem, honey. As I was sayin’, we went to the diner. As it would happen, Lloyd didn’t care much for coffee either. He said it just to impress me, so we both had a Coke and some nachos, and we talked about what we wanted to do with our lives. I told him I was finishing up school and dreamed of opening a bake shop. He liked that I wasn’t going to college. He’d dropped out of high school in favor of technical school training. After he graduated, he spent his time traveling through the South and picking up odd jobs along the way for food and gas money. He’d seen palm trees in Florida, beaches in the Carolinas, and hanging moss on the live oaks in Georgia. It sounded like the most exciting life in the world, traveling from place to place, seeing things, meeting new people.’
Celestine stared off into the distance, a smile upon her face. ‘I left the diner that evening completely smitten and with a promise from Lloyd that we would spend Valentine’s Day together. Valentine’s Day was on a Saturday, so our school held a dance. It was the perfect excuse for getting out of the house. I remember my mama was so pleased I was going out with friends instead of languishing in my room. If only she’d known I had gone for burgers and then the movies with Lloyd and that after … well, she soon found out about the “after,” didn’t she? It was the beginning of March that I found out I was expecting my eldest, Lacey.’
‘That’s her and her family, there.’ Celestine pointed to a Christmas photo card on the refrigerator depicting a pretty blonde, a dark, bearded man in a Santa hat, and three children ranging in age from approximately eleven years old to five.
‘Beautiful family,’ Tish admired.
‘They are. My Lacey’s done well for herself. Works part-time as a dental technician at the clinic on Main. Took some time off to start a family and just went back now that the little one is in school. Her husband’s a builder. He takes good care of her and the kids, and checks in on us too.’
‘That must be a great comfort.’ Tish paused. ‘Forgive me for being obtuse, but I don’t understand what any of this has to do with Daryl Dufour. I mean, you obviously dumped him for Lloyd and lived happily ever after, but aside from that …’
‘I’ll ma
ke it clearer for you. My night with Lloyd was just two weeks after Daryl left town and went back to school,’ Celestine remarked. ‘My Lacey – our Lacey – might be Daryl’s daughter.’
Tish caught her breath and then fortified herself with some cold tea. ‘Might? You mean you don’t know?’
The World’s Best Grandma gave a solemn shake of the head. ‘I was in love with Lloyd. My “bad boy,” as Mama called him. You ever fallen for a bad boy?’
‘Yes, once. And divorced him.’
‘Yeah, well, once I told my mama about Lloyd, my fate was sealed. He and I were married as soon as I graduated school. I was three months along and sick as a dog at our wedding. He and I still talked about traveling, even after the baby, but it never happened. He got a job here in Hobson Glen, and before you know it, three more kids came on the scene.’
‘Do you have any regrets?’
Celestine shrugged. ‘I regret that I caused the pain I did, but I have a loving family and I like to think I’ve learned my lessons the hard way. Aside from that, what’s the point of “if only”? Did Lloyd and I go through some tough times? Sure. Did I occasionally wonder what life would have been like if I had married Daryl? Yes. But I wasn’t going to undo everything and hurt my kids just to find out.’
‘What about Lacey? Didn’t you ever want a paternity test?’
‘Oh, I’d thought about it. And Daryl pressed me on it several times, but what good would it have done? I’d already hurt Daryl and both our folks. Wouldn’t have accomplished a damn thing hurting Lloyd too.’
‘So Daryl wanted a paternity test?’ Tish was surprised, given that if he were the father, Daryl would most likely have had to give up school.
‘Oh, yes, the minute he heard I was marrying Lloyd, and why, he insisted upon one. I begged him not to complicate things. By then Lloyd knew I’d had a boyfriend when we met and it didn’t bother him none, but I also never told Lloyd about the timing of my last farewell to Daryl either. In my mind, Lloyd was my baby’s father and that was that. To his credit, Daryl didn’t push the subject, but up until the day I married Lloyd, he told me he was still in love with me and offered to raise the baby – no matter who was the father – as his own.’
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