The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney

by Susan Van Kirk

  “Ah, now the real Grace Kimball, diehard optimist, joins us once again. I’d like to think you are right, my friend.” TJ took a deep breath and looked out again over the town of Endurance. “Unfortunately, my job has been getting me down lately.” She looked down at her hands resting in her lap.

  Grace leaned forward, focusing her attention on TJ. “How come? What does this have to do with your missing wife?”

  TJ slowly shook her head. “Monday I have to go break the heart of a woman who loved her stepmother without realizing the secret the woman kept. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a secret that killed her, broke her husband’s heart, and left a little girl motherless. Louise Rollins has not a clue about her mother’s past. Once again, DNA makes a huge difference in how people react to each other,” TJ said, her voice revealing a sarcastic edge.

  “Is this the woman you interviewed whose stepmother disappeared?”

  “Yes.” TJ shook her head and stared at Grace. “If you could have seen her tears when I talked to her about possibly finding out what happened to her stepmother, you would understand how this is going to be yet another blow. It might have been better if we’d never found those bones.

  “Different times and Louise would have had a mother to raise her, and her father might have had a happier life. I’m afraid that bigotry changed all of that. Rose Lattimore’s death was a hate crime. I know that now, and my role will be to explain it.” TJ added, under her breath, so quiet Grace could barely hear it, “Sometimes I hate my job.”

  “But TJ, how can you say that? You’re still putting something right. You can’t cause a movement to grow just by yourself. On the other hand, you can’t stand back and let something so wrong stand. We can only do the right thing one case at a time. You’re doing that.”

  “I hate to face that woman, Grace. I’m not sure this time ‘the truth will set her free.’ ”

  “You might be surprised. Things aren’t always as black and white as you think. Sorry for the pun; it just slipped out. People are much more complicated than we ever realize, and I find they often surprise me.”

  “I hope you’re right, Grace. It—life is getting me down at the moment: this case, Rick…” She didn’t add the arrival of Jeff Maitlin to Endurance, changing the amount of time her friend Grace had to spend with her.

  Chapter Eleven

  On Monday morning, TJ walked quietly down the hallway of And Give You Peace Hospice. Rounding a corner, she saw Louise Rollins in the hallway, and it made her wonder if she was too late.

  “Good morning, Louise. How is your uncle?”

  “Still hanging in there, Detective Sweeney. I came out in the hallway to take a break while the aide checks his oxygen tubing and changes his bed. He should be almost done now. Uncle Hugh’s doctor was in earlier and said it is only a matter of hours or maybe a day now. His children called and they’re an hour away.” Louise watched her curiously. “Why are you back here? Do you have news about the case?”

  TJ paused for a moment as she thought about what to say. She felt like a ghoul, disturbing an almost-dead man with more questions. She looked up at Louise and answered, “I need to check on a couple of things.”

  About that time the aide came out, leaving the door open. TJ followed Louise in, and the detective could see already that the old man breathed more shallowly, and his face was a pale white. TJ looked at Lattimore’s fingernails, which had a slight blueish tinge. Not a good sign. His eyes were closed, but he opened them when he heard people. Louise took a seat on the other side of his bed, and TJ stood up and waited for the elderly man to turn his head. Finally, his eyes fell on the detective.

  “You’re back? Why?”

  “I need the answers to a few more questions, Mr. Lattimore. Just have to ask you for some details that have me confused. You might call it unfinished business.”

  “Unfinished business?” He struggled with a breath. “What’s that?”

  TJ reached into her pocket and pulled out the locket, opening it so he would be able to see the words. She handed the locket to him, and watched him stare at it. He ran his finger over the inscription.

  “Where did this come from?”

  She said in a quiet voice, “I’m hoping you can tell me, Mr. Lattimore.”

  He stared at the locket again, then laid his hand down on the bedsheet. He looked out the windows and said nothing.

  “Might be wise to tell the truth. I understand that confession is good for the soul.”

  “A deathbed confession?” The old man’s voice croaked, and his question ended in a fit of coughing.

  “Whatever you want to call it.”

  Louise took his hand and started to talk, but her uncle’s actions stopped her. He lifted up the locket and stared at it again with his clouded eyes. Then, he blurted out, “I broke his heart. I’ve regretted it all of my life.”

  “What are you saying, Uncle Hugh?” Louise asked, her face a study in shock.

  “It was my fault—but I swear before God that it was an accident. I didn’t mean to see her hurt. I just wanted her out of my brother’s life.”

  “Uncle Hugh—” TJ could hear and see the distress in Louise’s voice, and she had risen from her chair, staring at her uncle.

  “How did you know?” he asked the detective.

  TJ walked closer to the foot of the bed. “I checked your military records, Mr. Lattimore. You said you had been overseas when your sister-in-law died, and your brother Harry had been back here in Endurance. But the ‘H. Lattimore’ the detectives questioned back then wasn’t Harry, was it? It was you.”

  Hugh Lattimore started to say something and instead turned his head to the side and began coughing. Louise looked up at TJ, still shocked. She began to speak, but the old man put his hand up in the air and managed to get out, “Wait…” He started another fit of coughing and tried to catch his breath. TJ hated this, but she kept saying to herself that it was part of her job. Tomorrow would be too late.

  Once Lattimore caught his breath again, he said softly, “You’re right. I’ve kept this on my conscience for years, and watched my brother fade and wither. And poor Louise—” He turned his head toward his niece, and to TJ’s astonishment, Louise didn’t turn away. The detective waited for him to get his breath back under control.

  “What happened that night, Mr. Lattimore? It’s time to tell us the truth and let your conscience rest easier.”

  The old man said, “Louise, raise the head of my bed up a little. Maybe it will help me get my breath in.” After his niece raised the bed and plumped up his pillow, he looked a little less peaked. He handed the locket back to TJ.

  “You have to understand. James and I were like two peas in a pod. We finished each other’s sentences, watched each other’s backs. It had always been that way. You’re right, Detective Sweeney. I was home on leave that weekend. James and that woman were celebrating their first anniversary, and we all went to the Roof Garden. They may have been happy, but not me.

  “Earlier that afternoon, I had taken the car out and driven around town. It was a treat to drive because I didn’t get to in the service. Kinda missed it. But I happened to drive past James’s and Rose’s house, and I saw her talking in the back yard to some black man in a uniform. Looked like they were in an intense conversation. I parked the car at a distance and watched. Finally, she hugged him.” Lattimore coughed briefly. “I tell you, she hugged him—some black man. I decided I had to get to the bottom of that.”

  TJ checked Louise, whose face was a mask of horror. The detective told Lattimore to take some breaths and try to relax for a moment before he went on. They stood or sat like statues in the uncomfortable silence.

  “That night, at the Roof Garden, I watched for the opportunity to talk to her alone. Never came. I could feel my blood pressure rising, and I wanted an explanation. I rehearsed over and over what I would say. I wanted to know who that black man was, and why the hell would she hug someone like that?

  “I never had the c
hance. We were celebrating, and James gave her that locket and hooked it around her neck. I was sure that she was fooling my brother or lying to him. I watched them, and became increasingly angry. He was so obviously in love with her, and she was lying to him because she had some other man in her life. I wasn’t going to let my brother be fooled by such disgrace. Later that evening, after we went home, I took the car out. Told Helen I had to buy some cigarettes. I drove past their house because I knew she always walked their poodle at night. I saw her with Rascal at the small park about a block from their home.”

  TJ listened quietly without interruption. The old man seemed to make his breathing work because he had been able to talk without coughing for several minutes. It was as if he had to get out this story, and he would do it no matter what. TJ watched him rest for a moment, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and then he spoke again.

  “No one else was around. I confronted her and demanded to know who the soldier was she’d been talking to earlier in the day. A lover? I grabbed her by the arms, and I think I scared her, because she confessed that he was her brother. I took a few steps backward, shocked. ‘Your brother?’ I said. ‘But he’s black. He’s a colored man. How can that be?’ And then she told me her father was black, but she looked more like her white mother. Well, that made her a black woman in my book!

  “She insisted she had told James about it and said they loved each other and little Louise. It was their secret. Well, I couldn’t believe that. Not my brother! But I’d had several beers that evening, and I was so angry that this woman acted like she was white. This black woman was lying to my brother, making a fool out of him. He’d never have crossed that line and married a black woman.” Lattimore almost spat the words out, as if he were back in 1943, confronting the lying woman and protecting his twin.

  “I walked toward her. She was a bitty thing, and I think my anger scared her. She backed up and stumbled on something—a rock or maybe a hole in the ground—and she fell backward, hitting her head on a rock border around some bushes.” He paused. “I was afraid to touch her. After she didn’t move, I finally checked for a pulse. The woman was dead, just like that.” He closed his eyes, as if he could still picture the terrible scene. Louise began to softly cry, and TJ continued to watch Hugh Lattimore’s face. His eyes revealed the fear of that night.

  “I was scared. Scared, I tell you. What could I do? I put her in my car and drove by my house. I just sat in the driveway trying to figure it out. In the garage I had a shovel, and Helen had already gone to bed. I took the body out into the country and buried her. She must have stopped at the house just long enough to get the dog, because she had a little purse with her, and I threw that in the hole with her. Then I covered her up and hoped no one would find her. I drove back into town, put the shovel in the garage, and never let on I knew anything about it. When I got home, Helen said James had called, frantic, so I changed clothes real quick and drove over to help search. But I knew they’d never find her.”

  Louise cried openly, and she looked at her uncle and sobbed, “Why? Why did you have to take her from us?”

  “I’ve asked myself that year after year. I didn’t mean to—it was an accident. I couldn’t have a black woman in the family.” He paused a moment, thoughtful. “Jimmy was never the same. I lived in fear I’d be found out. Better to spread the idea that she’d left. You were little, Louise, and I knew you’d get over it.” As if he’d spent his small breathing capacity, he began coughing again, his face turned red, and the aide came in the door, cleared them out, and went toward the bed to help.

  Louise turned to TJ in the hallway. She’d had a few moments to regain her composure. “What will you do now, Detective Sweeney?”

  “Considering how things are with your uncle, we’ll close the case since he doesn’t have much longer. When you told me your uncle had been at your stepmother’s funeral, I knew he’d lied to me about Harry being home instead of him. A call to the military confirmed that it was his leave and not your Uncle Harry’s as he’d said. Lies make me suspicious.”

  Louise thought about that for a moment. “I think your plan is much more humane than what he did to my stepmother. May I see that locket again?”

  “Absolutely.” TJ reached into her pocket and pulled out the lovely golden oval, considering how beautiful it must have looked around the neck of the young, attractive woman in the wedding photograph. She handed it carefully, almost reverently, to Rose’s stepdaughter.

  Louise Rollins turned it over and over, opened it, and looked at the inscription. “I always knew she didn’t leave us. So did my father. Thank you for finding her and this locket—at least it reminds me how happy they were. He truly did love her, Detective Sweeney.”

  “I’m sorry, Louise. Sorry you had to learn all this about your uncle, your stepmom.”

  “I never would have believed Uncle Hugh could do such a terrible thing. I suppose that explains why he never seemed too upset that she’d left. He always told my father, ‘good riddance.’ ”

  TJ looked at her swollen eyes, and suddenly she heard herself repeat the words she had heard in recent days, words she never thought she would ever say. “You have to remember, Louise, how different the times were. Your stepmother would have been considered African American back then, passing for white. I know it’s a shocking revelation, and I’m sorry you had to hear it this way. You—”

  Louise held a hand up and said, “It’s all right, Detective Sweeney. You don’t really know me. I was a circulation librarian at Endurance College, and that gave me lots of time to research. I learned that twenty percent of the Caucasian population in this country has some African blood in their DNA. I’m sure a lot of them don’t even realize it.”

  TJ considered that idea. Then she repeated, “I didn’t know you were going to be here today, or I would have tried to break it to you a little more gently. I imagine it’s hard enough to find out about your stepmother’s death, but even harder to know she’d been living a lie.”

  Louise had been pacing in a circle, and she stopped and stared at TJ. She said, in a quiet voice, “But she hadn’t, Detective Sweeney. My father told me years ago about my stepmother and her family. It made no difference to him or to me. My parents had talked about her race because they considered the possibility of future children who might not look like me. The fact that they even had to discuss the subject tells you that it was less about them and more about what ‘people might think.’ Rose told him her lineage before they were married. But, Detective, as my father told me many times over the years, he fell in love with her the first night he met her. While their marriage was short, I always could tell, even at age five, that they loved each other. And he always believed she’d come back some day. He never stopped believing.” She swallowed and blinked her eyes. “Now we know why she didn’t. What a terrible thing that it mattered so much to everyone else—what her DNA said.” She looked down at the locket in her hand. “I loved her and I always will.”

  Louise started to hand the locket back to TJ, but the detective said, “No, keep it.” She closed Louise Lattimore’s fingers over the locket. Then she turned away and walked down the hallway before the woman could see her face.

  Chapter Twelve

  It doesn’t seem like a month has passed since Hugh Lattimore died, thought TJ, as she walked up the front porch steps to Grace Kimball’s house. Grace had called, emailed, and sent her invitations to stop in, but TJ had needed some time to find her smile again. She was about to knock on the front door when she remembered that she always went to the kitchen door in the back. How soon I forget, she thought.

  Grace swung the door open, saying, “It’s about time you showed up. Lettie has been baking blueberry pies for the last month—your favorite—and Jeff and I have been faithfully eating them. I don’t care if I never see another blueberry in my life!”

  “Really? Your sister-in-law, the master baker, did that for me? Why?”

  “You know Lettie. She has her finger on eve
rything that’s happening in this town. Too bad you can’t log into her highway of information. The fact that you’ve been deeply troubled by this case is just one of those pieces of gossip she’s heard. Hence, blueberry pie.” Grace gave TJ a hug, and they both settled into chairs in the kitchen.

  “I just needed time to think, Grace. Lettie’s right. That Lattimore case took a toll on me.”

  “I’ve seen you solve so many cases, TJ, but this time I was really worried about you. You still have some dark circles around your eyes, but they aren’t as bad as before. You must be sleeping better.”

  “I am,” she said.

  “All right. Blueberry pie, a glass of wine, and us.” Grace set about putting items on the table.

  “I did stop in and talk with Louise Rollins.”

  “Oh? How is she getting along?”

  “I think finding out about her stepmother has helped with the closure-thing, even if she lost her uncle recently, too. She’s a very forgiving woman—stayed with him and his children and eased him out all the way to the end. Not sure I could do that.”

  “Yes, you would, TJ.”

  The detective shook her head. “I don’t know, Grace. I’ve had a lot of cases since I came back here after college, but none of them hit me like this one. However, I did stop and see her, and she decided to go through several boxes of papers in her attic. The house where she lives belonged to her father, and she and her husband moved in after his death. When she went to the attic to get the birthday card for me, she discovered some boxes she hadn’t noticed before. She’s using the papers she found to try to trace her stepmother’s family.”

  “How is that going?”

  “Well,” said TJ, “it seems to be a task of joy, so who am I to say otherwise?”

  “See? What did I tell you? Good always comes out of dark places if you look for it. Despite the terrible nature of that case, you’ve spread happiness and put some lives at ease.”