“I’m so sorry.”
“It never seemed real to me,” Garnet said. “There was no body, you see, on account of it was never found. His folks had a funeral, but there was no casket.”
“That must have been awful.”
“Everybody said I was so young I’d get over it, but I never did,” she said. “For a long time I thought maybe he’d survived somehow and would make his way back to me. I didn’t care if he was crippled or blind; I was always ready to welcome him home.”
“That’s so sad.”
“We’d been so happy and in love, you see, and we had all these plans: the house we’d build, the children we’d have. He was going to work in the mill at Lumberton. His daddy worked there and would get him on, no problem.”
Garnet seemed lost in her reverie.
“I lived on those memories for so many years,” she finally said. “I had a whole life with him in my daydreams that seemed more real than the one I was living.”
Claire couldn’t think of anything to say.
Garnet looked up at her.
“You ever lose someone?”
“Yes,” Claire said.
“I bet you cried your eyes out good and hard for a month straight, and then got on with things,” Garnet said. “Life is for the living. I wish I’d understood that then. Now look at me. I’m an old lady about to lose my closest relative and I have no children and no family to turn to.”
“I’m so sorry,” Claire said.
“Don’t be too sorry,” she said. “I’ll be with him soon. That’s my comfort. Of course, he’ll be young and strong and I’ll be this old bag of bones.”
“Maybe you’ll be young, too.”
“Oh, I hope so,” Garnet said. “I would love so much to be young again and feel his arms around me.”
She was looking ahead but Claire could tell she was seeing something beyond the spa room in the hospice house. Her eyes shone.
She came to herself, smiled up at her, and Claire could see the young woman she once was. So in love, so optimistic, so sure life was going to bring all for which she’d hoped.
Claire wrapped her tiny head in a towel, helped her up and over to the hydraulic chair.
“Nowadays,” Garnet said, “there’s the internet you can use to meet people. You ever do that?”
“Oh, no,” Claire said. “There are too many scary people out there on the internet.”
“That’s what Gladdie always says,” Garnet said. “Me, if I were a little younger, I might try it. Not too many elderly serial killers about, I reckon.”
“You still could,” Claire said.
“That’s sweet of you to say,” Garnet said, and patted Claire’s arm. “You ever married?”
“I was once,” Claire said. “Divorced.”
“Then at least you know what it’s like,” Garnet said and then sighed. “Still, I think it would be nice to have somebody to hold hands with at the movies.”
“It is,” Claire said. “It’s also nice not to be married to someone you don’t like or respect.”
“You have a beau now?”
“I do,” Claire said. “He’s a very nice man.”
“Do you have a picture?”
Claire retrieved her phone and showed Garnet a picture of Ed, with his new beard.
“Oh, I like whiskers on a man,” Garnet said. “Gladdie never did; she said they tickled too much.”
It didn’t take long to finish the woman’s hair; there just wasn’t much to work with.
“Now, you must let me pay you,” Garnet said, as she opened her purse.
“I wouldn’t accept it,” Claire said. “It was pleasure to talk to you.”
“I enjoyed it, too,” Garnet said. “I’ll tell Gladdie all about it.”
Claire knew that Gladys had slipped into a coma the day before, but she didn’t mention it.
“Come back anytime,” Claire said. “I’ll be back on Monday.”
“I don’t think Gladdie will last the weekend,” Garnet said. “At least that’s what the doctor thinks.”
Garnet took a floral, lace-edged hankie out of her purse and dabbed at her eyes.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Claire said. “It will be hard.”
Garnet took Claire’s hand, patted it, and then held it up to her cheek.
“You’re a dear girl,” she said. “You tell Mr. Whiskers he’s a lucky man.”
Claire watched the little woman walk out, and then restarted her cleaning efforts. She couldn’t stop thinking about Garnet, however, and what it would be like for her to go home after her sister died, to the empty house they had shared.
She wondered again if Laurie was with his first wife. Then she had a thought that stabbed her in the heart: what if Laurie had been able to see her little brother, Liam, and give him a message? What if Liam had a message for her? Why hadn’t she thought to ask? It was too late now. She’d never know.
That started her crying, so she sat down and let the tears roll.
Once she’d worn herself out from crying, she texted Maggie.
“I love you,” she texted.
Maggie texted back, “Are you drunk?”
Claire laughed.
Next, she texted Hannah.
“I love you,” she texted.
“I luv u 2,” Hannah texted back, and then: “Who is this?”
Claire laughed.
Lastly, she texted Ed.
“I love you,” she texted.
He texted right back.
“Glad my evil plan is working. See you tonight.”
Claire smiled.
Out in the garden, Reverend Taylor was seated on the same bench they had shared two days before, reading texts on his phone.
“Sorry I’m late,” Claire told him. “I cried all my make-up off and had to start over.”
“No worries,” he said. “I looked for you after the funeral but you’d gone.”
“After I embarrassed myself and interrupted your wonderful eulogy,” she said, “I hid in the bathroom until most everyone left.”
“Was it your friend talking to you in your head?”
Claire nodded.
“I thought as much.”
“He’s gone now, though,” Claire said. “While I was hiding in the bathroom, I told him it was time for him to leave me alone. Apparently, he believed me.”
“Now, nothing?”
“Not a peep.”
“And how is that?”
“I miss him,” Claire said. “I feel the lack of him now.”
“It’s probably for the best,” he said. “It was keeping you from moving on with your life.”
“I’m so tired of feeling like this,” she said. “How do you tell where grief ends and depression begins?”
“I would say if you’re worried about it, it might be a good idea to see a doctor. You may just need temporary support, and not long-term therapy.”
“Anything would be better than this,” she said.
“Do you need the name of a doctor?”
“No,” Claire said. “When I came back to live with my parents, our family doctor warned me that living with someone who has dementia can make you depressed. He told me if it ever became too much to call him and he’d prescribe something.”
“It might help to talk to someone on a regular basis,” he said. “I would be glad to see you at my office, or I can give you some names of counselors who are good.”
“I’ll see the doctor first and then call you,” Claire said. “Actually, it feels good just to have made the decision.”
“Asking for help can be difficult,” he said. “Once you do, though, you can begin the journey back to feeling well again.”
“I understand now why they call it mental illness,” Claire said. “Mentally, I am not feeling well.”
“Everyone could use some help getting through difficult times,” he said. “There’s no reason to be ashamed. We’re human beings; we’re all subject to the emotional turmoil that co
mes with just being alive. Sometimes it overwhelms us, and we need a helping hand, a caring listener, or a renewal of faith.”
“I liked what you said at the funeral about the world being a school,” she said. “I can’t imagine your parishioners all go for that, though.”
“What’s true for me isn’t true for everyone,” he said. “The best thing we can do is peacefully coexist.”
“I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to me, and for talking me through this,” Claire said. “It really has helped.”
“I’m glad,” Ben said. “Always remember, everyone can teach us something. Sometimes, when you need to learn something, the teacher you need shows up, and if you pay attention, it can change everything.”
After Claire left Hospice, she stopped at the depot farmer’s market to pick up some vegetables for her mother. She found herself wanting to buy from each stand because she felt sorry for the people who didn’t seem to be selling very much. She was buying way more tomatoes than she needed from a forlorn-looking old man when she ran into Sophie Dean.
“Let’s have lunch,” Sophie said. “I’ve got some hot gossip to tell you.”
Sophie’s pickup truck was parked underneath the wide-spread leafy limbs of a maple tree, so they sat in the back of the truck on a quilt and had a picnic. Sophie sliced a huge, red, juicy tomato into fat slices and they ate them with salt.
“What’s up?” Claire asked.
“I heard more about the day Gigi O’Hare died,” Sophie said. “Jillian was there that day and the police interrogated her.”
“Hmm,” Claire said. “Is that right?”
“Apparently, they think she might have had something to do with it.”
“Really?”
“Gigi was just about to disinherit Chip,” Sophie said. “I think Jillian killed Gigi before she could change her will.”
“How do you think she did it?”
Sophie shrugged.
“Jillian’s clever,” she said. “She’ll probably get away with it, like everything else she’s done.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Claire said.
“I heard Gigi died of an allergic reaction,” Sophie said. “That’s what clinched it for me. Jillian’s a psychopath, but nobody believes me.”
“How could she have done it, though? Jillian was locked outside the house when it happened.”
“That’s what she wanted everyone to think,” Sophie said. “She was part of the family. You know at some point she had access to Gigi’s house keys and probably had one made.”
“That’s pretty evil.”
“When we were working together at Pineville General, Jillian once played a prank on a coworker who made her mad. The woman was known for eating the other nurses’ food and borrowing their bath products out of their lockers while they were on shift. Jillian put oil of poison ivy in her body spray. The woman went into anaphylactic shock and could have died.”
“How did she know Jillian did it?”
“She didn’t. I figured it out. Unfortunately, no one believed me, and Jillian threw away the body spray before I could have it analyzed.”
“Sorry I can’t stay,” Claire said, and jumped down from the bed of the truck. “I promised my mother I’d look after my dad this afternoon.”
“Well, call me if you hear anything,” Sophie said. “And watch your back!”
Claire found Candy at home, where she was out back, skimming their swimming pool with a long-handled net.
“There was no one at the gate house and the gate was open,” Claire said. “I saw your car out front so I thought I’d take a chance you were home.”
Candy rolled her eyes.
“I can complain to the Home Owners’ Association until I’m blue in the face and nothing will be done about it,” she said. “The kid who is supposed to be working the gate this summer is the son of the HOA president.”
“Still, it feels pretty safe here,” Claire said. “Speed bumps and video cameras.”
“We do have real security that patrols the perimeter at night, and they are armed,” she said.
“Is there a lot of crime up here?”
“Nope,” Candy said. “And that’s why we pay the guys with the guns. Between the hillbilly meth-heads and drunken college kids, no one’s safe anymore.”
“Do you have a minute?” Claire asked.
“Please excuse my poor manners,” Candy said as she hung up the pool skimmer. “I needed to get this done before Bill gets home. He absolutely hates to find anything in the pool.”
“Remember when we used to swim in Frog Pond all summer? The bottom was so gross and squishy we wore our tennis shoes.”
“It’s full of venomous snakes, now, apparently,” Candy said. “Can I get you a cool drink? I have peach mint iced tea and lemonade.”
Claire accepted an icy glass of lemonade and they settled themselves in the cushy patio chairs.
“This is nice,” Claire said.
“We love it,” Candy said. “Everyone takes good care of their property, and there is none of that trailer trash drama like in town.”
“I heard there was some drama at Gigi’s the other day,” Claire said.
Candy visibly shuddered.
“That poor woman,” she said.
“I guess you saw her earlier in the day?”
Candy’s head whipped around.
“Who said that?”
“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I thought it was common knowledge. You hear so much gossip, of course, that I don’t remember who told me.”
“I went up earlier to talk to her about the pediatric hospital campaign,” Candy said. “No one answered the bell, and the door was unlocked. I just peeped in and called for her, but no one answered, so I went right back out. Unfortunately, those little dogs got out when I left. We had a time getting them rounded up, I’m telling you.”
“Wasn’t the door locked when Hannah went in?”
“Yes, it was,” Candy said. “Isn’t that interesting?”
“Why do you think that was?”
“I really couldn’t tell you,” Candy said. “Maybe it locked itself when I went out.”
“What were you going to talk to her about?”
“Well, there’s no point in being discreet now, is there?” she said. “Gigi had promised to give a very generous donation, big enough that it’s going to be named the Eugene O’Hare Children’s Hospital. We had the marketing people design the logo, and we needed to print our fundraising materials. I went there to get the check, whether I had to wrestle it out of her or not. Our entire campaign rested on her matching every donation. She had given me her word that she intended to make that donation.”
“And now?”
“Well, I guess you know better than anyone that she didn’t leave the hospital a dime in her will,” she said. “Turns out it wasn’t in the will because she planned to give me the check at the luncheon that day. I found the check, funnily enough, sitting on the table in the foyer. So luckily, her wishes are still being carried out.”
Claire remembered Gigi saying that morning that she didn’t intend to give Candy the amount of money she’d promised. The piece of paper Jillian had given Candy wasn’t a note after all; it was a check.
“Was it for the full amount she’d committed to?” Claire asked.
“It was for twice the amount,” Candy said with a smirk.
That facial expression struck Claire as inappropriate.
“You deposited it, even though she’d died?”
“Listen,” Candy said, as she turned hard eyes on Claire. “It took me months to convince her to underwrite this thing, and the check was just sitting there. I took it so it wouldn’t be left lying around, where someone could steal it. Later, it just seemed tacky to bring it up with Chip. I just let him think she’d given it to me before she died, and he seemed happy she fulfilled her commitment. Happy, that was, until after the will got read, and then he wasn’t a bit happy. But it was already in the b
ank by then. There was nothing he could do.”
“Lucky for you,” Claire said.
“Yep,” Candy said. “This has been fun, Claire, but Bill will be home soon and I need to get the house tidied up.”
They both stood.
“Do you ever spend much time with Sophie Dean these days?” Claire asked.
“No,” Candy said. “It’s almost impossible to be friends with someone from a different social class. It can be so awkward. You feel you have to make the effort, of course, not to seem like a snob, but it’s always harder on the lower class individual. It only reminds them of their station in life and makes them envious.”
“I see,” Claire said. “Well, I’ll let you get ready for Bill.”
“I didn’t mean, you, of course. You’ve lived such a glamorous life it’s all of us who should envy you.”
Her words were meant to seem flattering, but Claire could see the glint of the knife edge hidden in the compliment.
“What do you think about the check?” Claire asked Maggie and Hannah later, after she told them what Candy had said, and what Gigi had said about not giving as much as Candy anticipated.
“I think Jillian went in there, found Gigi dead, and helped herself to the checkbook,” Maggie said. “She and Candy are in cahoots.”
“Ditto,” Hannah said. “It’s a Cahootenanny.”
“With that much money involved you should be able to get a forensic expert to look at the check,” Maggie said. “If Candy forged it, they will be able to tell.”
“I’ll have to call Walter,” Claire said. “He’ll know what to do.”
Walter didn’t know about the check, but he told Claire he would make a few calls and get back to her.
“I know someone at the bank who will help us,” he said.
“What do we do now?” Claire asked her cousins.
“Somebody has got to tackle Jillian,” Hannah said. “I was there that day; I can’t do it.”
“Don’t look at me,” Maggie said. “I never donate anything to her silent auctions so she hates me.”
“That leaves me,” Claire said.
“Just don’t be alone with her,” Maggie said. “Do it in a public place. Do it in the bookstore.”
Sunflower Street (Rose Hill Mysteries Book 8) Page 18
