Three May Keep a Secret (An Endurance Mystery)

by Susan Van Kirk

  She sat at her desk and looked at the medical examiner’s reports. Such a young age for Nick Lawler to die, and after such a crushing, heartbreaking life among a family that neither cared for him nor gave him any life. No wonder he spent time at the Kesslers’. What happened that night? Did Ted get angry with his parents? Nick? Did they discover Ted was setting fires? Grace was determined to sift through the rest of the boxes and try to figure out what Brenda was telling her, and she’d make a trip over to Deb’s Historical Society and investigate those yearbooks.

  She glanced at the scar on her hand and thought of her two college roommates who hadn’t been as lucky as she had. They had died in that fire. Their parents—and they were getting up in age now—and their brothers and sisters had to learn to spend the rest of their lives without their precious daughters or sisters. Every birthday, every Christmas, for thirty-six years, they relived that pain, as did Grace. She still got cards at Christmas from both Gail’s and Robin’s families. She still sent their parents a note on their daughters’ birthdays. Over those years, Grace had spent inexhaustible time questioning why she had lived and they had died at the age of twenty. And what of Nick Lawler’s family? Did they, too, experience the uncertainties, questions, and sadness of their son’s death way too early?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  * * *

  “So, we have everything under control. Big septaquintaquinquecentennial is only two weeks away. See, I can say it. I’ve been practicing,” Jill said. She looked at Deb and Grace with a smirk, as if she had done something wonderful.

  “Works for me,” Deb countered. “The planning hasn’t been without its glitches, however.”

  Lettie walked into Grace’s living room with some more ice and lemonade as well as another plate of gingerbread cookies. Putting them on the coffee table, she said, “I hear the mayor’s wife, Polly, will be in the lead car, standing up with a torch and dressed like the Statue of Liberty. Humph! It would be better if they put her at the end of the parade with a microphone so she’d remind people of the fat lady.” Grabbing one cookie for herself, she made a smooth exit.

  “Glad to see Lettie is that same old paragon of tolerance,” Deb whispered, reaching for a cookie.

  “The college is letting us use the football field for fireworks on Friday night and their athletic center for the huge dinner and dance on Saturday night. So this means Grace has the music for the dance to arrange, Deb has the line-up for the parade on Saturday morning, and I have the job of working on the decorations for the dance. See, Grace, we did manage to keep you off the shootout at the bank on Saturday.”

  Grace frowned for a moment. “My dad did teach me to shoot, you know, but it’s been decades since I went with him to the firing range back home.”

  Jill chimed in, “Did I hear we had some confusion with the parade route, Deb?”

  “Not exactly confusion, just decisions. Amos Tuckner is supposed to deal with the horses and the cleanup, and some people wanted the horses near the front of the parade. But horses being horses, I think they are now scheduled for the end of the parade with the street cleaner following. I am pleased to announce, however, that we have bands from both Cameron and Woodbury to supplement our own little high school and junior high bands. And we also have the winner and runners-up for Miss Pork Queen on a float. After her float come the politicians. Hmmm.” She put her hands up as if she were weighing two items. “Politicians. Pork. Seems to be a connection there. And after the politicians we’ll have at least a block of farm equipment ahead of the horses.”

  Grace looked at Jill, and they both burst into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Deb asked.

  “I’m thinking about what a proud parent I’d be if my daughter won the Miss Pork Queen title. Surely they can come up with something less . . . descriptive.” Grace giggled. She reached for her glass of lemonade and held it up. “Here’s to the new Miss Pork Queen, whoever she is.” And the three friends clicked their glasses together.

  “Grace, where’s your watch? You never go anywhere without it,” Deb asked.

  Grace looked down at the white mark that circled her wrist. “That’s my celebration of retirement. I shouldn’t have to wear a watch anymore. Besides, I always have my cell phone.”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  Jill looked up and her face became animated at the mention of “cell phone.”

  “Oh, do I have a great story for you,” she began.

  “How come you always hear these things? I never hear anything about anything going on around town,” said Deb.

  “Your cell phone remark reminded me. You know Judy Winkler,” Jill began.

  “Sure,” Grace said. “She works for some company out of her home. Some kind of place where she does writing about directions for their products—you know, puts them in ‘real people language.’ ”

  “Right. So she walks to the library pretty regularly—about a mile—and she always sticks her cell phone in her pocket—only this time she got halfway there and had to kneel down to tie her tennis shoe. The phone falls out of her pocket and she doesn’t realize it. She gets home and no phone. But she has a message on her answering machine from Jim Allison. He’d found a phone in the street and checked to see which number had been called last. He called the number and it was Suzanne Edwards’s number, a friend of Judy’s. Jim knew Suzanne so he asked her whose phone had called her with this number and, of course, it was Judy. Presto! He called Judy’s house phone and left a message that he had her phone and would give it back to her if she brought a ransom in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. And all this before she even got home.”

  “Amazing,” said Grace. “No one stole it and it wasn’t smashed to smithereens by all the traffic in Endurance.”

  “Exactly,” said Deb. “I guess we do have some honest people—and very little traffic.”

  “Somebody should send that story into one of those morning talk shows on TV,” said Deb. “You know, the ones that are billed as ‘news shows’ but mostly spend hours on some guy who has a hatchet through his head and survived, or the fifteenth rendition of a story about how someone’s pet dog was accidently left in their old house and miraculously travelled thousands of miles to find them again.”

  Jill nodded at Deb. “Great idea. Send it in.” She glanced at Grace. “So, to change the subject, what are the float themes?”

  “The committee came to the Historical Society a couple of weeks ago and made a list of scenes from the town’s history to reenact,” Deb said. “I think they decided that one would be the suffragettes breaking kegs of liquor, like Carrie Nation, and carrying axes and Bibles. They are going to have one woman carrying a sign that says, ‘Lips that Touch Liquor Shall Not Touch Ours.’ ”

  “That would eliminate the entire male population of the town,” Jill quipped.

  “Then there’s the float about the Underground Railroad. It will have Emmeline Folger standing up on the footboard of her carriage with a whip aimed toward a slave hunter. And in the back of the carriage you’ll see the famous secret door and someone dressed as Zacharias Butler, his wife Rebecca, and their two small children, who will look out the opened door. You know the story about ole Emmeline hiding slaves on the Underground Railroad.”

  “That’s a great idea,” said Grace. “I also heard a rumor they plan to use Charlie Sims’s Model T Ford.”

  “Yes, that’s for the story of Emmeline Folger’s son, Nathaniel, who had the first Model T Ford in town, and before he learned how to run it well, he drove it through the window of Silas Rountree’s hardware store. I think the title of that one is Silas’s quote, ‘Never Happened with Horses’.”

  “The last one they chose was the rescue of little Sally Aberdine from the river back in 1905 when she fell through the ice while skating. They tried to figure out how they could do ice when it’s eighty-seven degrees in July. I think they decided to eliminate that one.”

  “We about done here?” asked Grace.

  Jill glanced
through her papers and looked for any last-minute details. “Just a minute. Let me double-check.” She straightened the papers and examined each quickly. “Yes. Finished and everything looks to be in good shape.” She turned to Grace. “So, what’s happening with the murder investigation, Grace?”

  Before she could answer, each of them noticed as Lettie tiptoed in and sat down to listen. But Lettie couldn’t resist. “So, will you put Polly Blandford ahead of or behind the horses? I know where I’d put her.”

  “I think the parade order has already been determined,” Deb said, “and she’ll be kicking things off. If she has her way she’ll sing ‘God Bless America’ like Ethel Merman.” Audible groans filled the room.

  “A great reason to arrive fifteen minutes late,” said Lettie.

  “Back to my original question,” said Jill. She turned to Grace. “Murder investigation?”

  “TJ keeps that to herself.” Grace worked hard to keep a straight face on that statement. “Mostly what I know is what the town knows. Mike Sturgis was taken in for questioning and released, but he is being called ‘a person of interest.’ The state fire marshal ruled the fire at Brenda’s as ‘a suspicious fire, humanly induced,’ so they’re looking for the person who set it. Evidently Brenda’s life was filled with multiple possibilities for suspects, so I think TJ has her work cut out for her. I’ve boxed Brenda’s stuff and sent it on to her brother.”

  “Hmm.” Lettie sniffed. “If some homicidal maniac is still out there, we’d better keep a sharp eye out, especially you, Grace. Who knows what Brenda knew that might have gotten her killed?”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with her research of the town’s history. It seems rather innocuous at this point. My guess is she was killed for something she saw or did or knew in recent days,” Grace reasoned.

  “And what about your historical research? How’s that going?” asked Deb.

  “It’s awesome. I’ve learned so many things about what happened before we lived here,” Grace said. “I’ve researched stories on three cold cases, too. The police department let me borrow the evidence, probably because it’s really old.”

  Jill grabbed her papers. “Sounds interesting, Grace. I, for one, need to go. Errands call. It is Saturday,” Jill said as she stood up and headed for the door. Deb followed her. “Thanks, everyone.” Grace followed them out the front door and watched as they went their separate ways.

  “Yeah, Sturgis is lawyered up,” TJ said quietly, sitting on the swing on Grace’s front porch that evening. She took another swig from her bottle of beer. “Right now I’ve got plenty of leads and not a lot of connections between them. Darned if I can figure out some of the relationships.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Grace.

  “Well, although Sturgis is lawyered up, it’s obvious he’s hiding something. He doesn’t have an alibi for part of the night when Brenda was killed, and since he’s usually in trouble with Janice, I figure what he’s hiding has something to do with information he doesn’t want her to know. It might not have anything to do with the murder. On the other hand, he sure had one heck of a motive, and he had the means and the opportunity with no alibi for the time just before her death. Add to that the fact that he does stupid stuff when he’s drunk and then he forgets what he did.”

  “I know he had a really good reason to be angry with Brenda, but I find it hard to believe he’d set her house on fire.”

  “That’s exactly what he might have done. He had plenty of gasoline on his trucks. We’ve arrested him at times when he was out of his mind with anger. You have no idea, Grace.”

  Grace was silent since she knew TJ was right.

  “Then we have Shannon Shiveley. Something funny’s going on there. She knew about Brenda’s blackmail book, and when I questioned her about it she was her devious, evasive self. She did mention that guys are really stupid with letters, emails, and phone messages, leading me to believe that she may be involved somehow in Brenda’s blackmail schemes. Did she and Brenda have a falling out?”

  “Does she have an alibi for that night?”

  TJ laughed. “She thinks she does. But supposedly she was with her boyfriend, a thirty-five-year-old loser who mows lawns for a living. We checked his gasoline buys and he must have quite a stockpile but can’t account for it now. Shannon is uncooperative and the boyfriend went for a lawyer immediately since he has a cousin who’s a lawyer and won’t bill him.”

  “Shannon uncooperative? Can’t imagine that. But if she were in on some of Brenda’s schemes, wouldn’t someone have come after her too?”

  “Good question.”

  “And then we have the ‘unsub,’ the suspect out there who had a beef with Brenda and we don’t have him on our radar. What if Sturgis and Shiveley, or her boyfriend, have nothing to do with any of this? So I’m also checking Brenda’s newspaper stories and making a list of who else she might have pissed off.” She shook her head. “So how are your centennial stories going?”

  “Really well. I read about the fires we had back in 1965 through 1968. It’s fascinating stuff. The deputy fire marshal was someone named Richard White. Ever heard of him?”

  “Sure, he’s still around. He lives over in the newer subdivision with his wife.”

  “I think I’ll talk with him about the fire that killed three people in ’sixty-eight. They never solved it. Of course, it was before your time.”

  “I’ve read the details of those fires and heard people talk from time to time. Never caught the kid who did it. I’m curious, though. How come you can read those when you have this thing about fires?”

  Grace sat quietly, biting her lip before she spoke. “That’s a good question. Maybe it’s because it’s more of an intellectual study and I didn’t know any of those people.”

  TJ nodded. “Could be.”

  “Actually, I have a way to find out. Tomorrow I plan to look back through the clippings from my college fire and see if I’m ready to deal with them.”

  “Grace, just remember you are a strong woman. They’re just clippings and if they start to bother you, grade the grammar.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  * * *

  After changing out of her church clothes and eating lunch, Grace grabbed a kitchen step stool and trudged to her office. She pulled open the door handle of a closet she seldom used. Tugging on an overhead light chain, she scanned multiple boxes on the upper shelf, labeled and neatly stacked. A handful of these boxes came from her childhood home after the deaths of her parents.

  She climbed on the step stool and pushed several cartons around until she saw the one she sought. It was marked “Grace’s Fire—1975” in her mother’s spidery handwriting. She must have used a fine black marker. Interesting that she wrote the label as if the fire belonged to me. It’s more like I have been possessed by it—for years, she thought.

  Her heart raced a little and she told herself, Stop it. You’re being silly. It was all so long ago. Think of something happy. Think of Roger. The year before the fire Grace had met a young attorney, Roger Kimball, when he came to speak at her college. She was assigned to escort him around the campus, and after that they began a long-distance courtship, with Roger visiting when he could and taking her to Endurance occasionally over holidays. By the time she was a senior they were engaged.

  Then came the fire. After the disaster, Roger took her back to Illinois to his parents’ home because he thought she would heal better if she were not in Indianapolis, the location of the fire. Her parents had visited—her mother staying for several weeks—and both mothers had nursed her back to health, but it wasn’t her body that needed nurturing. For weeks she was a zombie, her emotions fragile, her tears always close.

  Guilt.

  Eventually she was able to function normally, but the feeling that she too should have died in that fire never left her. Nor did she forget that she gave up, and only the actions of the fire department saved her. So much for being strong, Mother.

  The box. It was a
nightmare she’d never opened. But it was also a part of her past and she had been reluctant to destroy it. She’d brought it back from her parents’ house, tied with twine—her mother seemed to save vast amounts of twine.

  She considered the best place to examine it and decided to take the dreaded object out to the porch, a place of happy memories with both Roger and their children. Out here the sun was shining and the sky was blue with clouds that slowly swept past as if on their way to a pleasant destination, a rendezvous. She would do it today. She had a full stomach, plenty of sleep, and this sunshine. The sunny porch was a perfect place to pry open something dark and loathsome. She was stronger now and could deal with this.

  Sitting down on the rattan loveseat, she untied the twine and laid it aside on the table. Her hands still shook a little but she grasped the lid and pulled it off, laying it upside down on top of the twine. All she could see in the box was white tissue paper. Well, this isn’t so bad. She carefully pulled it aside, revealing an envelope with her name on it addressed in her mother’s familiar handwriting. Grace looked at it for a moment and brushed her fingers across the letters. Instantly, tears welled up in her eyes. Oh, Mother, I wish you were still here. But if you were, you’d want me to be strong. You would remind me again to put this awful mess aside once and for all.

  She opened the envelope and began reading. The world seemed to slow down, and tears ran down her cheeks at the sight of the familiar handwriting. Her mother’s note explained that she had saved these clippings so that someday Grace could read them when she wasn’t “so debilitated.” She admonished Grace to read the last couple of sentences of the inquest article. “You must understand, my lovely but fragile daughter, that none of this was your fault. And someday when you face this disaster as the strong woman I know you are, you will finally put it behind you.”

  Grace wiped her tears away before they fell on the spidery ink. Her mother was a believer in “facing things.” Grace looked up at the robin’s-egg sky and heard the buzzing of bees in the flowers near the porch. She could do anything on such a day. You were right, Mother, as always. I need to do this. She folded the letter and placed it carefully on the box lid and began hesitantly fingering her way through the tissue paper.