One Bad Apple

by Sheila Connolly

  The chief nodded to Meg, with a notable lack of warmth. “You’re both free to go. Oh, Ms. Corey, I believe Collins is out on a call, but if you can wait a bit—”

  Seth broke in. “Listen, I can give Meg a ride, if you’re tied up.”

  Meg turned to him in surprise, just as Preston said, “Thanks, if you don’t mind.”

  “No problem. You ready, Meg?” Seth asked.

  “Yes. Just take me back to my car, will you? Then you can go on your merry way.” A wave of exhaustion washed over her.

  Seth led the way to the parking lot. They drove in silence back to the school, and Seth pulled up by her car. “Meg, I know you acted with the best of intentions. And this isn’t over yet.”

  Meg nodded, more to herself than to Seth. What choice had she, anyway? “Oh, don’t be nice to me. You think I’m crazy, too. Don’t worry, I haven’t got anything more to add.” Meg opened the door and got out. The parking lot was dark and empty, and a cold wind swept across the asphalt. She climbed quickly into her car and watched Seth pull away, then started her engine. She was in no rush to get back to her house, but she had nowhere else to go. At least she had bought some time for the town.

  Damn! Cinda was going to get away with it. And so was her shadowy accomplice, whoever that was. Meg was running out of answers.

  Time to go home and face the silence.

  28

  Meg drove the short distance home on autopilot. What now, Meg? You’ve managed to alienate just about everyone in Granford, from your few almost friends to total strangers. Worse, now you look like a fool, someone to be pitied. Time to go back to Plan A: sell the house as fast as possible and get out of town. And find a life somewhere else, because she doubted she would be welcome here.

  As she approached the old house, she looked at it dispassionately. In the winter dark, it was still lovely, strong and square. The few lights that she had left on were glowing gold. Meg pulled around to the side near the barn, turned off the engine, and slumped in her seat, unable to move. She was tired. No, worse, she was tired and depressed. She had tried to do the right thing, had talked to the state police, told the truth, but no one had wanted to listen. So she had stood up in public and made her case, but it still looked like no one wanted to believe her. She was the outsider, and the community would close ranks against her. Of course, Cinda was an outsider, too, but she came equipped with charm and with the promise of a venture that would bring money and new life to the town. How could she compete with that? All right, Meg. You can’t sit here all night. She smiled wryly at the image of someone coming by and finding her frozen corpse still sitting in the car.

  She hauled herself out of the car and walked toward the back door, jiggling her keys in her hand. Then she stopped: even in the dim light, it was clear that the storm door hung askew, the lock splintered in the jamb. Someone had broken into her house; someone might still be there. She fumbled in her bag for her cell phone and punched in 911. When the operator answered, she said in a low voice, “This is Meg Corey at 81 County Line Road in Granford. There’s an intruder in the house. Send somebody— now!” She waited while the operator repeated the information.

  “Please stay on the line, ma’am,” the operator’s tinny voice instructed.

  “Okay,” Meg answered, and then looked up to see Stephen Chapin looming in her doorway. He must have stopped somewhere between the meeting at the high school and her house, because he was obviously drunk—swaying, pig-eyed drunk. And angry. Why was he here? Her heart started racing, and she looked down at the phone still in her hand.

  “ ’Bout time you got here. We need to talk,” he slurred. He lurched down the steps, and only then did he see the phone in her hand. “Dammit!” he swore, and swatted it out of her hand. She heard it skitter into the foliage next to the house. He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the door, and she didn’t resist.

  Maybe if she started talking to him, she could calm him down. “Stephen,” she said, striving for a normal tone, “how did you get here? I didn’t see your car.”

  He shoved her into the kitchen, and she hit the counter hard. “Left it back at the office. Had to stop there for … for …”

  He appeared to have lost his train of thought, but Meg was willing to bet he had kept a bottle of something stashed there. And then he had walked over? Well, why not? It was less than a mile across the fields, and in his condition he probably hadn’t even noticed the cold.

  But she did, and now she was shivering. She straightened up and moved toward the sink, catching a waft of alcohol on his breath. “Can I get you some coffee?” How silly did that sound?

  “Forget it.” He slammed the door shut, then grabbed her arm. “Come on.” He hauled her into the dining room and thrust her into a chair. He stayed on his feet, pacing back and forth. “You talked to the cops,” he said belligerently. “You just couldn’t let it go, could you? Sticking your nose in it, and nagging, nagging. What’d she ever do to you?”

  Should she apologize, try to placate him? He was swaying on his feet, sorrow and anger battling on his face. Would he even listen to anything she had to say? “Stephen, what are you talking about?” she said with a calm she didn’t feel.

  “At the meeting. You said Lucy killed Chandler, or near enough to it.”

  Lucy?

  Stephen shook his head like a bull. “But she didn’t. She didn’t. I did.”

  Cinda. Lucinda. Lucy. Oh damn. Stephen was Cinda’s accomplice. “I don’t understand,” Meg said, stalling. The police were on their way. Weren’t they?

  She shrank back into the chair as Stephen roared, “Bitch! You don’t think I got the balls to do it? Nobody thinks I can do anything around here, starting with that big brother of mine. Always telling me what to do. Make an effort, Stephen. Get your act together. This is a good business, Stephen, if you’ll just work at it. Goddamn plumbing! Like I want to spend my life diggin’ through other people’s shit.” He approached her chair, leaned over her, bracing himself on the arms of the chair, his breath hot and sour in her face. “Well, I showed ’em. I killed Hale—me. Lucy didn’t even know about it, till after.”

  Meg almost forgot Stephen’s bulk hanging over her as she tried to digest what he had said. She’d been wrong; she’d been stupid. She’d been so focused on bringing Cinda down that she hadn’t looked any further. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to. But by standing up and making her declaration in public, she’d brought this confrontation on herself. Stephen could quite easily kill her, just as he claimed to have killed Chandler. One blow was all it would take, and he looked all too ready to do it.

  No. She was not going to let him kill her, not in her own house. He was hurt and angry, but he was sloppy drunk, and she knew the police were on their way. She had to stall, buy some time, just a few minutes …

  “Tell me what happened, Stephen,” Meg said quietly.

  Stephen lurched away from her, across the room, then turned again to face her. “Oh-ho, now you believe me? That’s just swell, now that you’ve told the cops, and she’s pretending she doesn’t know anything. She knew, all right.”

  “You mean Cinda?” Meg prompted.

  He shook his head. “No. Not Cinda. Lucy. She thinks Cinda sounds classier for business, but when it’s just the two of us, she’s Lucy. She’s the best thing that’s happened to me in years. We got plans—I was gonna get my part of the money when the town bought the land the business sits on, and then she was gonna make sure I was one of the contractors for the construction. I’d have people working for me. Me! No more Seth bossing me around.”

  What was she supposed to say? But apparently Stephen didn’t expect an answer, because he was still talking.

  “It woulda been fine if you’da kept your damn mouth shut. But no, you had to waltz in here and screw it all up. Why’ja have to do that?” He looked ready to cry.

  She had to keep him talking. What was taking the police so long? “How did Chandler die?”

  He ignored her question. “
Ha! Damn good thing he’s dead. Don’t know how he could have treated Lucy like he did—first he keeps her on a string just so she could do his work for him, and then he dumps her when he doesn’t need her anymore. Mr. High and Mighty. I was the one she came cryin’ to. So I told him to his face, he couldn’t treat people like that. Bastard laughed at me, told me to go home and sleep it off. I got the last laugh, didn’t I?”

  “You talked to him, Stephen?” Meg said.

  “I was at this Noho bar I go to, and I got to thinking about how he’d treated Lucy bad, and I decided to tell him off.”

  After quite a few drinks, no doubt. “But, Stephen, how’d you get into the hotel?”

  “Worked a job there a couple of years back—I know where the back doors are. I found his room, and I saw Lucy come out, but she didn’t see me. After she left, I banged on his door, told him I needed to talk to him. He tried to shut the door on me, but I was stronger. I told him he had to let Lucy work the project. Hell, what did he need with this penny-ante job? He was the Boston hotshot, right? But Lucy was gonna do a good job for Granford. He wanted to ship her back to Boston, now that he was done with her. After she’d done all the work. That wasn’t right. So I kind of threatened him.” Stephen looked at her, as if begging her to understand.

  Meg nodded her encouragement. “Go on. Then what?”

  “He laughed at me. And I guess I kind of lost it then, ’cause the next thing I know, he’s lying on the floor and he’s not breathing.”

  Well, now she had a confession, even if it wasn’t the one she had expected. Too bad no one else had been around to hear it. Where the hell were the police? “Stephen, that sounds like an accident. You didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  He shook his head again, as if trying to clear it. He didn’t pay any attention to what she had said. “All I wanted was a job that doesn’t mean wallowing in shit. Enough money to make a new life. I want to be with Lucy. And now I can’t, because of you. Why’d you do it? You coulda kept your mouth shut and nobody woulda known.”

  No way Cinda had planned a future with this sodden plumber, Meg thought. Not that she was about to tell him that. But Meg was willing to bet that Cinda had used him, fed him a line about how Chandler was mistreating her, about how handy it would be if Chandler was out of the way. And then Stephen had decided to play hero and had nearly blown everything for Cinda, when he confronted Chandler and Chandler ended up dead. No doubt Cinda had masterminded the cleanup—which meant that she’d been concealing evidence, interfering with an investigation, whatever. Or maybe Stephen was lying; maybe Cinda had witnessed the scene when drunken Stephen barged in and hit Chandler. That might explain her silence. She had wanted to deflect attention from the fact that she had been there at all.

  But none of that mattered much at the moment. As Meg watched, horrified, she could almost see Stephen laboriously processing information in his liquor-fogged brain. All his dreams, crumbling—no land deal, no Lucy. And he blamed it all on her.

  The anger flared again in his eyes. “You … you had to go and mess it up, didn’t you? You couldn’t take it that your boyfriend liked Lucy better than you. And then maybe she could be happy with me, while you still didn’t have anybody. So you had to go blowing your mouth off, just to get back at her. But it didn’t work, did it? Betcha the police didn’t believe you. Nobody believes you. It’s time you shut up. ‘Poor Meg Corey, fell down her own cellar stairs.’ Gotta watch them dark basements—bad lighting and all. I should know—I see plenty of ’em. With you gone, who’s gonna point the finger at Lucy?”

  The cellar door was only a few feet away. Meg stood up from the chair where Stephen had shoved her and backed away slowly, trying to keep the table between her and Stephen as he stumbled toward her. He was large, he was drunk, and he was mad as hell. Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly; maybe he had no plan. But it made no difference. He’d already killed once, so he didn’t have much to lose. No way could she wrestle with him. Could she outrun him? God, Meg, you’re going to die here just because you wanted to clear your name and get to the bottom of this. She took another step back and bumped into the wall.

  Stephen kept coming.

  29

  “Stephen.” The sound of Seth’s voice halted Stephen in his tracks. Meg had been so focused on Stephen that she hadn’t heard Seth come in, but by God, he was there now, big as life, standing in the kitchen doorway, with Art Preston behind him. “What are you doing?”

  Stephen swung around to face him. “Well, if it ain’t my big brother. Mr. Perfect. Hey, I’m just takin’ care of business. Meg here’s been spreadin’ lies, and I had to set her straight.”

  “Back off, Stephen. We need to talk.” Seth stepped into the room. For a moment the two brothers faced off, and Meg was struck by their similarities—and their differences. Stephen was like a blurry photocopy of Seth, both larger and softer than his older brother. Stephen was the first to back down, in the face of Seth’s implacable stare, and he took a step back, then another, and his hands fell to his sides. Seth spared a quick glance for Meg. “You okay?”

  Meg nodded, not trusting her voice. Seth turned back to his brother.

  “Stephen, you’ve got to tell me straight: did you kill Hale?”

  Meg watched expressions shift across Stephen’s face. His defiance turned to fear, and then he morphed into a sulky little boy. “He was scum. He deserved to die, for what he wanted to do to Lucy.”

  Meg, leaning against the wall, saw Seth’s face age ten years as he heard his brother admit to murder, and her heart ached for him. Preston raised an eyebrow at her, and she mouthed, “Cinda. Lucinda.” She looked at Seth. “How’d you get here?”

  “Went back to talk to Art, after I dropped you off. I heard the call come in and figured maybe I should tag along.”

  Preston was still focused on Stephen. “Stephen, let’s take this down to the station.”

  “You arrestin’ me?” Stephen seemed to swell, even as he swayed on his feet.

  “Looks like it. Didn’t we just hear you admitting to murder? Right, Meg?”

  “Yes, Chief, Stephen told me that he killed Chandler Hale. But it sounded as though it might have been unintentional.”

  Preston nodded briefly. “I think we’ll let Stephen sleep off whatever he’s been drinking in a nice, cozy cell. We can sort out the details in the morning.”

  Preston put his hand under Stephen’s elbow. “Come on, Stephen. Do I need to cuff you?”

  Stephen rocked, confused, his gaze shifting from one person to another, and finally his shoulders slumped. “Nah. I’ll come.” He looked plaintively at Seth as the officer led him out, but Seth said nothing, his face stony.

  As Preston turned to follow, he said, “Sorry, Seth. You better get him a lawyer.”

  Seth roused himself. “Thanks, Art. I’ll do that. You going to have another talk with Cinda?”

  “Guess I’ll have to. I’ll be talking with you in the morning, Meg. Seth, you coming?”

  Seth didn’t move. “No.”

  Preston gave Seth a long look, then escorted his prisoner out the back door, leaving Meg and Seth alone.

  Meg remained frozen in place. It was over. She had been right about Cinda, but she’d also been wrong. She never would have pegged Stephen as Cinda’s accomplice.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, aware of Seth watching her. She started shaking, and tears came from nowhere. And then Seth’s arms were around her.

  She had no idea how long she stood in the circle of Seth’s arms, sobbing against his chest. She wasn’t even sure who was comforting whom—he had to be hurting even more than she was. But she didn’t want to move, and it was a long time before she could. Finally she disentangled a hand to wipe the tears off her face.

  “Sorry.”

  “Meg, don’t say that. You didn’t do anything. Stephen did, the damn idiot.”

  “But you have to hate me. If I’d just kept my mouth shut …”

  “No.” His breath was warm against
her hair. “If you hadn’t said anything, Stephen would still be guilty. Or you would have ended up in jail. It wouldn’t have fixed anything.” He drew back slightly. “We could sit down, you know. You look like you’re ready to fall over.”

  “I guess.” He was right, she was exhausted. Stephen’s invasion had been the last straw, and now she felt boneless, unable to think or to act. She let Seth lead her to the only remaining piece of furniture in the front parlor, a lumpy couch, and she fell onto it, leaning back against the cushions.

  “I’m going to make you some tea,” he said as he headed for the kitchen.

  Meg watched him go. She should be the one doing that, in her own kitchen, but it was nice to be taken care of. Despite what Seth had said, she still felt horribly guilty. Guilty about what, Meg? Well, it’s quite a list. About her long-ago decision to get involved with Chandler, when her heart really wasn’t in it? About the way she had dealt with the split, or avoided dealing with it? About her poorly planned move to Granford? About trying to solve a murder? About hurting a man she cared about?

  Whoa. Where had that come from?

  Seth appeared in the doorway juggling a mug, a sugar bowl, and a cream pitcher, which he set down quickly on the floor by the couch. “Watch it—that’s hot,” he cautioned as he handed her the mug.

  Meg grasped the mug and focused on adding sugar, happy to have an excuse not to speak for a few moments. But she couldn’t stall forever. “Seth, I’m so sorry about this whole mess. I didn’t think it through, I guess. I knew Cinda had to have had help if she killed Chandler, at least to get rid of the body, but I didn’t really look too hard for a candidate. I still can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. I think Stephen’s been looking for trouble for a long time. He doesn’t pull his own weight at work, and he’s got a huge chip on his shoulder—thinks I’ve had every advantage and he’s gotten the short end of the stick. I let him get away with it. And I’ve known about his drinking problem for a while, and so has Art. But it’s never gone past a couple of barroom brawls before this.”