The Three Miss Margarets

by Louise Shaffer

  Again, it was the right thing to say. “That was what I wanted,” he said eagerly. “To make this town self-sufficient and give a man a chance to earn a living for his family. It was never just to make money for myself.”

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with making as much money as you can,” said Peggy. “If I could, I’d make tons of it.”

  He stared at her for a second and then he laughed. “Haven’t you ever heard that money is the root of all evil?”

  “Yes, and people who think that should try being poor.”

  He stopped laughing. “What would you do with tons of money, Miss Peggy?”

  There was a time when she could have given him a list of the pretty clothes she wanted, and the perfume and makeup. But she hadn’t bought any of those things since his son taught her what fear was.

  “I’d be safe,” she said.

  After a moment he said, “Are you sure you don’t want to go inside my daddy’s chapel?”

  And now she knew what he wanted to hear, so she shook her head. “I’d rather see the Gardens and the beach you built.”

  He took her through the Gardens and the beach, and all the guests who were lined up had to stand back and wait for them to go first, and all the employees turned themselves inside out for them. And she enjoyed every minute of it.

  But she decided not to tell Li’l Bit and Maggie.

  Myrtis got worse, and a professional nurse was brought in to care for her. But even though she couldn’t play cards anymore and she never left her bed, Myrtis still liked to have Peggy there. So Peggy stayed at her job. She read to Myrtis when she was up to it, and arranged the flowers that still came in from the cutting garden, and sometimes she just sat with the sick woman and held her hand until she fell asleep. And in the evenings she listened to Dalton Garrison tell her stories about the great accomplishments of his forebears, and she told him he was better than all of them as if she knew what she was talking about. And what they were both really doing was helping each other get through his wife’s death. But she didn’t tell Maggie and Li’l Bit that either.

  Then finally the fight was over. There was a heart attack in the middle of the night and Myrtis went to the hospital for the last time. Grady flew home from Montana, but his mother was already in a coma and she died before he could get there.

  At first Peggy tried to get out of going to the funeral. She had managed to avoid Grady through all the years she worked for his mother, and the one thing in life she knew for sure was that she wanted to go on avoiding Grady; and she couldn’t very well do that at a funeral. But Dalton asked her to come to the ceremony and the private reception afterward. And when she tried to get out of it, he was so hurt she couldn’t refuse. Besides, the little flames of anger inside her said she belonged at that funeral, she had earned her place there.

  She was alone in the kitchen when Grady walked in. He hadn’t changed much. He was still lean and tan, maybe even more tan than he had been. His hair was still sandy gold. His eyes were still bright blue, and the look in them was still evil.

  “You little bitch,” he said. “You lied to my mother and she believed you. And now you run around this house like you own the place. But that’s over. Mama’s gone and I’m coming back home. And if you’re smart you’ll make sure I never set eyes on you again.” Then he walked out.

  Peggy looked around the shiny kitchen that was bigger than the entire ground floor of the shabby house she and her mother rented. She walked into the living room and looked at the people eating the little rolled sandwiches and tiny cakes that had been made specially in the Lodge kitchen and sent over on huge silver trays covered with starched white linen napkins. She saw people sitting on the matching custom-made couches that cost more than a year’s worth of the Social Security checks she and her mother would go back to living on after her salary stopped. And she watched Grady Garrison stand at his father’s side while people came up to them in an informal receiving line. She watched him accept condolences for the death of the mother who had forced him out of town. From the look of joy on Dalton’s face, she knew Grady was telling everyone that he was coming back, and she watched people who were not delighted pretend they were. She picked up her purse and left the house she had come to love and think of as home.

  The next day Grady flew back to Montana to wrap up his business and come home for good. For the first time in years, Peggy went to Krasden’s drugstore and bought herself a light-pink lipstick and a perfume that smelled gently of flowers. She went through her closet and found the last dress her mother had bought her before she started wearing old-lady blouses that were two sizes too big. She put the dress on and draped a cardigan over her shoulders. She still looked demure, but there was a hint of the old sparkle Mama had been pining for.

  She found Dalt in the bedroom at the log cabin, trying to sort through Myrtis’s things. When she offered to help him, he said she was an angel of mercy.

  By the time Grady was ready to come back from Montana, Dalton and Peggy had eloped.

  PEGGY DROVE HER CAR up Li’l Bit’s driveway and stopped behind Maggie’s elderly Volvo. She picked up her trusty thermos from the front seat of her car and started up the lawn. Then she looked at Li’l Bit and Maggie sitting on the front porch, and she started to laugh.

  “Are we a sight or not?” she asked, as she climbed up the steps. “Look at us, three old biddies decked out in white after Labor Day.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  LAUREL OPENED THE DOOR to the newspaper office and let herself inside. Hank was nowhere in sight, praise be. She’d been playing hooky. After Josh had taken himself off she’d closed down the office, leaving Reverend Malbry’s journalistic effort unfinished, and gone off on what she planned to say, if asked, was a personal errand. Knowing full well that that wouldn’t cut it with Hank, and what she had done was really stupid. Still, she had a sense of mission accomplished, brilliantly, as it turned out. And if there was a part of her mind that was a little squeamish about the fact that she had risked Hank’s wrath for a total stranger who had made her talk about things she normally kept buried—well, to hell with it. She reached into her bag and pulled out a business-size envelope. On the back flap was the raised blue stamp of the sheriff’s department. She put it back in her bag. She could have dropped it off at the Lodge on her way back to the Gazette, but she wanted to deliver it in person after she finished work.

  Ten minutes later, she had her red pencil in hand and was slashing two pages of lovingly misspelled quotes from Scripture. She sensed that Josh was standing in front of her before she looked up and actually saw him. He was either excited or angry about something. His pale eyes were so alive they were practically giving off sparks.

  “Look, I told myself I wasn’t going to get into this, because it’s none of my business—and talk about complicated!—but I just can’t—”

  “Josh?”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why haven’t you gotten out of this dump?”

  “I work here.”

  “I mean, this town! You said your mother stuck around because she wasn’t smart. Baby, lack of smarts is not your problem. And anyplace in the world has got to be better for you than this—”

  “Really? You think I should have left?” It was amazing the way he could piss her off in an instant. “Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, yeah, I did think of it. I even did it. Got myself a scholarship. At Jacksonville State. It’s not Harvard, but it was out of town. But the thing about being the kind of drinker my ma was, eventually your liver goes and most of the rest of you follows, and somehow it just didn’t work for me to sit in my creative writing class while she was back here dying all by herself. We simple country folk are funny that way about family. And of course we never have health insurance, so when we die slow and hard the bills mount up. And another funny thing about us is we feel like we should pay them.”

  “Fine. Pay off your debts, but you don’t have to stay h
ere to do it.”

  It was what she’d told herself a hundred times. That didn’t mean she wanted to hear it from someone else.

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Anything’s got to be better than staying here with all that bullshit about your father and mother. For God’s sake, you’re young and beautiful and smart as—”

  She had to stop him, because he was getting to her again. And she hadn’t let that happen since the day Denny wrecked the pickup driving them out of town. “You know, you were right before; this is none of your damn business.”

  He stopped. “Sorry.”

  Of course that made her feel even worse. “Josh, I know you meant well, it’s just—”

  “No, I’ve got to watch the crusader thing. My problem, not yours. I’ll let you get back to work.”

  “Wait. I have something for you.”

  She grabbed her bag and started fishing around in it. “The thing about Ed is, he always underestimates people,” she said. “For instance, when the county made him hire a woman on the force, Ed swore she’d never see the inside of a squad car, even though the woman he took on came from a long line of law enforcement types, and her daddy used to be Ed’s boss. When he stuck her with all the paperwork the guys hate doing, Sherilynn was pissed. And she’s a chip off the old block.” She found the envelope and held it out to him. “So when I called and explained how I wanted that suicide note Ed wouldn’t let you see, Sherilynn sneaked it out of the file and made a copy for me.”

  “You got me a copy of Vashti’s suicide note?”

  She nodded, and even though she had skimmed it quickly, she came around her desk and stood next to him so she could read it again with him. It was dated almost three months earlier.

  Vashti’s note began in tiny precise handwriting:

  In the interests of efficiency, I address this document to the Sheriff’s Department of Lawson County and to the office of the medical examiner of Charles Valley. You will be reading this after I have ingested a lethal dose of secobarbital sodium. It is my intention to terminate my life. The choice is mine alone.

  Two years ago I was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a grade IV astrocytoma, or brain tumor. Surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy reduced tumor bulk, restoring acceptable levels of mental function and quality of life, although not a cure, for approximately twenty months. The initial symptoms then reappeared, and subsequent examination revealed the tumor had recurred as well as seeding of cancerous cells to previously healthy tissue. After discussion it was determined that further surgery would be ineffective. Radiation and chemotherapy were continued, but symptoms became more severe, and in spite of treatment some mental deterioration has already begun. It is not my wish to continue my life under such circumstances. Today, as per my instructions, all treatments will cease.

  They had come to the end of the first page. Josh looked off into space.

  “It’s like her,” he said. “I can imagine her writing it.”

  “Read on.”

  The next page was dated two months later. The change in the handwriting was dramatic. It was a large ragged scrawl; a few words covered half the page.

  Seizures now, Vashti had written. Headaches. Can’t remember.

  “She was losing her mind by inches,” Josh said.

  “Check out the last page.”

  He flipped it over. Vashti had managed to get a barely legible Fri night printed across the top. Underneath in large block letters, she had printed the last word she would ever write. SORRY, it said.

  “So she did know,” Josh said. “When she let me talk to her she knew. I guess that explains it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There were times when I had a feeling Vashti was covering something. It never occurred to me that she was sick. I figured it had something to do with that night. . . .”

  Laurel felt herself tighten. “The night my father was killed.”

  “Yeah. She was inches away from telling me something big in that interview. I didn’t know what it was, but she’d put this town and that part of her life off limits, so I thought . . . but now I guess I know what she was hiding.”

  “The cancer.”

  “It makes sense. If you’re concealing the fact that you have a brain tumor, that would tend to make you a little secretive.”

  The tightness inside Laurel gave way to something close to a letdown. She pushed it aside. She didn’t need to go down the road of that night. She’d traveled it enough with Sara Jayne to last her a lifetime.

  Josh was folding the copy of the note and putting it back in the envelope. “Damn, I hate this,” he said.

  “You liked her.”

  “She gave me a run for my money but . . . she was so bright . . . and she’d had to fight so hard. . . .”

  “One of your angry smart girls?”

  “Shit, I never thought of that.” He laughed. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter. I just know she was special.” He leaned over and gave Laurel a peck on the check. “Thank you for getting this for me,” he said.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Not much more I can do. I’ll try to talk to a few people, but I don’t think I’m going to have much luck. I have a meeting in a little while with Ms. Banning.”

  It took her a moment. “You mean Miss Li’l Bit.”

  “I called her earlier. She said I could come over.”

  “Don’t be surprised if you find all three of them there.”

  “That would be interesting.”

  “Oh, yeah. In ways you can’t imagine.”

  “I’m just going to ask a few questions,” Josh said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was surprised she was willing to talk to me at all. Those three women could be in trouble if they actually helped Vashti in some way.”

  “Oh, no one is gonna touch the three Miss Margarets.”

  “Somebody will have to investigate what they were doing in the cabin. I’m not sure exactly what the legal ramifications are down here, but—”

  “I’m telling you, Yankee boy, it won’t happen.”

  “They get a free pass? Because they’re the three Miss Margarets?”

  “Because Dr. Maggie has probably taken care of just about everyone in the county at some point, and she still only charges fifteen bucks for an office visit. And Miss Peggy and Miss Li’l Bit pay for most of the charities. That’s not counting the times when Miss Li’l Bit gives someone money for the winter’s propane out of her own pocket. Or when Miss Peggy sees to it that their kid gets a scholarship to go to college. Ed would be out of office in a heartbeat if he messed with them.”

  “So they do get a free pass. Cozy.”

  “Don’t tell me this is the first time you’ve heard of someone getting a break from the law?”

  “Thugs and friends of politicians. Not little old ladies with pedigrees.”

  “That’s how things work down here.”

  “And you’re okay with it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you haven’t gone someplace with a more level playing field.”

  “Like New York City?”

  “Now you’re talking about God’s country.” She shot him a look. “Anyone who does not love my city is confused, disturbed, or a Republican.”

  “Not that you’re biased.”

  “Proudly.” He got serious. “I just think . . . anonymity’s a great leveler. All you need is whatever you’ve got going for you. And whatever you’re willing to put on the line.”

  “And you too can become a writer for Vanity Fair.”

  “If that’s the goal, why not?”

  She took a long pause. “I don’t know why I haven’t left here,” she said.

  He leaned over and brushed a wisp of hair out of her face. “You should figure it out.” Then he left to go see the Miss Margarets.

  THE WRITER FROM NEW YORK had gotten into his enormous car and crunched his way down Li’l Bit’s gravel drive to the h
ighway. Peggy decided to risk Maggie’s inevitable look of reproach, Li’l Bit’s inevitable grunt of disapproval, and the vagaries of her own still-dicey stomach and smoke a cigarette.

  It had been a rough few hours. First Ed had shown up to tell them that Laurel McCready had seen them at the cabin. After he’d danced around, using legal terms, they read between the lines and understood that he was going to let it go—which was a relief, but the whole thing had been uncomfortable. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the magazine writer who had been seen all over town with Laurel had come over to ask questions about the night John Merrick died. He already seemed to have a scary amount of information.

  They had gone into their act, although she doubted Maggie and Li’l Bit would ever admit that’s what it was. Li’l Bit served him her terrible coffee in the antique Limoges cups that were so delicate they intimidated anyone with hands larger than those of a five-year-old. Maggie wandered off with every question he asked and told long disconnected anecdotes about her early days as a female doctor and the problems of setting up her clinic. Li’l Bit firmly directed the conversation toward old roses and camellias. Peggy herself had contributed a great deal of information about the new program she was starting at her shelter, training strays to be service and companion dogs.

  To give him credit, the writer really wasn’t taken in all that much. He knew exactly what they were doing; there were even times when Peggy thought she saw a gleam of something like amusement in his oddly pale eyes. But there wasn’t much he could do to keep them on the subject unless he had been prepared to be very rude, which wouldn’t have done him any good either. So they’d gotten rid of him. But it had been nerve-racking.

  Peggy lit up. She inhaled and exhaled gingerly. No internal heaving registered: so far so good. Two voices immediately went into the duet of high and low she had listened to since she was fifteen.

  “Peggy, dear,” Maggie protested, in a low worried murmur to the air.

  “Filthy habit,” Li’l Bit announced, in outraged flute tones, waving away smoke.