So, the coffee stain that had embarrassed her had also quite potentially saved her from a life behind prison bars, Rain thought inwardly. How’s that for irony?
Nick turned to Jace, “In any event, bro, it looks like you’re going to have a long list of suspects, there buddy.” He said out of the side of his mouth as he teasingly pounded the officer’s shoulder. “Two sitting right here at this very table,” he added with a laugh, wagging his finger between his wife and Marge. “How about you cuff ’em right now? Boy wouldn’t that be fun.” He slapped his knee and threw his head back in laughter. Julia’s response was to swat her husband with the back of her hand, but she barely attempted to hide her smile.
Jace instead cornered the women by pointing each one of them out and saying, “In all seriousness, all three of you were on the property and found the deceased. “Who do you think killed Thornton Hughes?”
Rain didn’t want to utter a word regarding the horror that had been going on in her head. Thinking either one of her parents, and their mess, could provide potential motive was bad enough. Saying it aloud to an officer of the law was another thing.
“Now isn’t that the million-dollar question?” Julia asked, puckering her lips and setting her empty wine glass back on the table. She looked into the empty glass longingly as if already ready for a refill.
Marge straightened in her chair, turned to Jace, and said, “I certainly hope I’m not on your suspect list. It’s a known fact that the person who discovered the body is usually considered a suspect, no?”
“You mean Rex?” Jace cracked a smile. “Didn’t your dog find our victim? You don’t have anything to worry about Marge. You have two women sitting at this table who I’m sure would provide a tight alibi, right ladies?” He grinned as his eyes traveled between Rain and Julia who nodded in agreement.
“Officer Lowe, if you share the evidence with us, maybe we can help you solve this crime. We’re all readers here. All three of us love a good mystery novel.” Marge pointed to herself and added, “I for one can usually figure out who the guilty party is despite any red herrings the author tries to mystify me with. Share with us what you have so far for evidence, and we’ll assist you.” The older woman leaned in eagerly and expectantly.
Jace pushed his plate aside and lifted from his chair and then turned to Nick. “I think we can still get a few hours of fishing in before dusk. Yeah? Whaddaya say partner?”
Rain piped up, “Wait, you’re ignoring her? Marge has a good idea here.” She flung a hand in the direction of the older woman. “Us girls, if we put our heads together, could probably provide valuable insight to your case.”
Jace turned to Nick and held out his hands in defense, seemingly looking for a way out.
Nick caught on, mirrored Jace, and leapt from the chair with newfound enthusiasm. “Fishing? Now, your speaking my language!” He turned to his wife for permission with puppy dog eyes and his hands out like drooping paws. “Pleeease, honey?”
“Get outta here, boys.” Julia whisked the men away with her hands before gathering the littered plates around the table and stacking them.
Jace and Nick shared a happy exchange when Rain added, “Go fellas, we got this. We’ll clean up.”
The two men exited faster than Road Runner before anyone could change their minds. Their behavior morphed from adults to childlike excitement before their very eyes. Like two underage boys heading for their first drink, they rushed down the stairs. “Thanks again for supper!” Trailed after them in unison.
“Men!” Julia huffed as she gathered the plates, Rain collected the glasses, and Marge opened the sliding glass door, leading back into the cabin with Rex at their heels.
“Just throw it all in the sink,” Rain directed when they reached the kitchen. “I’ll clean it up later. While we have a few minutes let’s unload Marge’s trunk and start planning the reopening of the library.”
“If you gals unload my trunk of books, I’ll load the dishwasher. How about that?” Marge was already handing Julia the car keys before Rain could argue with the plan. Marge shooed Julia away with her hands. “Go on now. And don’t you listen to what those boys had to say.” Marge shook her finger in annoyance. “We’re gonna solve this crime.” She added with determination. “Those boys know nothing when it comes to women and a good mystery.” She uttered under her breath. “Nope, they have no idea what they’re in for.”
And they didn’t either.
Chapter Fifteen
Rain’s mind was churning like butter. While she and Julia unloaded the trunk of books, she couldn’t help but reflect on what Marge had mentioned around the dinner table about everyone in Lofty Pines having a beef with Thornton. She, too, loved a good mystery novel. Maybe it was up to the three of them to solve the murder of Thornton Hughes.
“What? I can tell something is going on in that noggin of yours.” Julia followed Rain in the direction of the library with her arms stacked with so many books it looked as if she might topple over with a strong wind.
Rain was piloting her own large stack, being careful not to drop any books herself. She didn’t want one precious novel to fall in the dirt and get soiled, nor did she wanted to damage a brand new cover. Getting new release books for the library felt like a Christmas morning of her childhood. She couldn’t wait to escape in one of them, with multitudes to choose from.
“Come on, tell me. Gosh, you remind me of my brother. You get all up in your head sometimes!” Julia teased. “Spill it or I’ll nag you until you do. Don’t worry, I’ll wear you down, I’ll wear Jace down, too.” She grinned. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”
Rain remained silent, deep in her own thoughts.
When they arrived at the entrance to the library, Rain set the stack of books carefully by the door before returning to the cabin for the key. “Hang on a sec,” she said as she doubled back after retrieving it and slipped the key into the lock. She held the door for Julia to enter. The smell of aged books—a faint mix of grass and vanilla, was a welcome scent. She really needed to spend more time in here.
Julia set the stack of books on a side table directly inside the library door and waited for Rain to fully enter with hers. “Come on … I can tell, you have a lot on your mind. Will you please just spill it?” she ordered. “You’re driving me crazy.”
Rain retrieved the books, two by two, and stacked them neatly atop Julia’s pile. Then she turned to her friend and whispered. “I can’t get this potential affair between the victim and my mother out of my head. Is that really what you want to hear?”
Julia sat down in the nearby loveseat adjacent to the bookshelf and tapped the seat beside her. “Drop the books and come over here for a second, will you please?”
Rain placed a book atop the stack and then acquiesced to her friend’s bidding. After taking a seat, her shoulders drooped and she leaned forward, putting her head in her hands.
“I hesitate to even talk to you about this. I should’ve mentioned it when you first brought it up over lunch, but I couldn’t. I needed to ask Nick’s permission before we came over for the barbeque, if it was okay to share this with you. It’s private between us, not another soul knows.”
Ran sat upright and turned to face Julia. She tucked one leg beneath her and picked up one of the throw pillows and held it on her lap.
“I feel like if I share this with you, maybe it’ll help somehow.” Julia picked on the thread of her shirt and then her gaze fell to the floor. “Here goes, I’m just gonna say it.” She took a breath. “I almost cheated on Nick once,” she said quietly. So quietly, Rain wasn’t sure if she’d heard her friend correctly.
Rain didn’t know what to say, but the words she thought Julia had uttered made her grip the throw pillow tighter, causing the anchor pictured on it to skew.
“It was before we were married, but Nick and I were engaged. That still doesn’t make it right but …”
“With who?” Rain asked.
Julia rolled her
eyes and chuckled. “Actually, it was the father of one of my students. He was much older than me, but we had this weird connection, I can’t explain it …” Her voice trailed off.
“And he almost cheated on his wife with you?” Rain could feel herself twisting harder at the pillow. She’d never heard firsthand this side of an account. She hoped she was ready for it.
“No … he wasn’t married. At least that’s what he’d told me.” Julia waved a hand airily. “He’d recently divorced. Honestly, I felt bad for the guy, which was probably part of the draw at the time.” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Honestly, I don’t know. There was just something about him …”
“And you wanted to sleep with him? Because you felt bad for the guy?” Rain was incredulous. “Why are you telling me this, Julia?”
Julia reached out a hand to touch her leg. “Because I want you to understand the other side of it. I want you to understand that despite me being sooo in love with Nick, this almost still happened. Sometimes these weird universal connections happen. But that doesn’t negate the fact that you still love your spouse or fiancé as was my case.”
Rain didn’t know what to say.
“And I know you don’t think there’s room for forgiveness, but Nick has forgiven me, and it’s actually made our relationship stronger. We talk about things we often avoided in the past. Instead, we’re head on in our conversations … we’re candid … I love him, Rain, and I’d never intentionally hurt him that way again.”
Rain buried her head in her hands.
“I know Max hurt you deeply, Rain. I can see it on your face when you talk about what may or may not be going on with your parents. But you’re gonna have to try to keep those things separate, or you’ll drive yourself nuts. You’re gonna have to find a way to forgive Max, even though he’s no longer here. Forgiveness is for you,” Julia added gently. “It’s not for the person who wronged you.”
“How do you expect me to do that? Huh?” Rain squeezed the pillow tighter. “I loved him, and he cheated on me. Me. He did it to me. All while I was trying to get pregnant with his child.” Her voice began to quake. “I was going through infertility treatments for him! He wanted a baby even more than I did!”
“I hear you. I do. And in no way am I negating your feelings or saying that you can’t feel them. No way.” She flung out her hands like an umpire calling safe. “I guess what I’m trying to say, after being on the other side of this, and Nick and I having worked it out … I learned you can still love someone deeply and do something incredibly selfish and wrong. But it doesn’t change the fact that I love Nick and I always have, and I know Max loved you. He just made a very bad judgment. He fragdaggle’d up.”
“Fragdaggle’d?” Rain felt a chuckle bubble to the surface unbidden.
“You know the word. I still can’t swear because of my students, otherwise I’ll go back to work in the fall like a drunken sailor and nobody wants that.” Julia grinned.
“What ever happened to him.”
“To who?”
“The guy, the student.” Rain rolled her hand in the air looking for more information.
“They moved. He took a new job, so the student was transferred out of my classroom. I was very happy about that actually. I didn’t know how I would face my kids every day otherwise. It was a painful time. Do you think differently about me, after sharing this with you?”
“Not at all. I love that you’re so transparent. It’s another thing I’ve missed about you and I appreciate it. I do.” Rain reached out and squeezed Julia’s hand.
“Do you think differently about you?” Julia asked.
“How so?”
“Can you see how Max still loved you. Or how Willow may still love Stuart very much?”
“Yeah, but what if my mother was having an affair. And what if it made my dad crazy? What if all of this got taken a little too far?”
“I don’t think so—”
“What do you mean, you don’t think so? What about the owner of the hardware store adding to this mess, saying that he saw my father?” Rain threw up her hands, tossing the throw pillow to hit the floor. “I can’t even believe I’m saying this out loud, but what if my father isn’t in Japan? What if he’s here in Lofty Pines? And what if he had something to do with this?” She covered her mouth with her hand as if she’d made a mistake by sharing the deepest chasm of what had been plaguing her head. Somehow Julia’s confession made it easier. Julia had a way of making her unload all the dirty truth from her own skull. It was an unusual gift.
“You really believe that?” Julia rose from the seat and placed her hands firmly on her hips and leaned away from her.
“No!” Rain rose to her feet, mimicking her. “But I need to prove otherwise, because I can’t help but think ONE of my parents could be the prime suspect!” Rain hissed in a whisper.
“Well, what about the Chicago Cubs jacket? Surely, finding that would ease your mind. I told you—”
“I never found it.” Rain’s shoulders slumped and she sighed deeply. “I never found any of my fathers’ clothes. Remember I told you? The master bedroom closet is void of anything belonging to him.”
“It has to be in the cabin somewhere else, besides the master closet. It didn’t just disappear! Maybe your dad has it packed away somewhere. Or maybe all his clothes are in a spare room closet somewhere.”
“It’s not. Trust me. I’ve looked everywhere. Yes, as I mentioned to you on the boat, I found some clothes in the spare room closet, but no Cubs jacket.” Rain shook her head.
“Well …” Julia blew out a frustrated breath. “What now?”
Rain looked to the ceiling and then faced her friend squarely. “I need to go over to Thornton’s place. The one he was renting—the Browns’ place. Maybe I’ll find something belonging to my mother that can help explain things. She tapped a finger to her lips. “… I need to find something. Or find nothing. Either way, I need to either confirm or deny my suspicions. I need to prove to myself that this town is just full of gossips.”
“I’m sure the police have already gone through everything over there,” Julia said flatly. “Don’t you think? They’ve probably gone through it with a fine-toothed comb.”
“Yeah, but they’re not looking for something belonging to my mother. I am,” Rain said, jutting a firm thumb to her chest.
“And that will help how exactly?” Julia shifted on her feet and then leaned her shoulder against the bookcase, careful not to shift any books by doing so.
“I don’t know,” Rain admitted. “Do you have any other suggestions? I need to do something. I can’t just sit around here and wait for a confession from someone. Besides, one way or another, I have to figure out what my mother’s connection was with the victim.”
Julia turned away from her and ran her hand against the spines of the books on the shelf contemplatively. She readjusted the books neatly on the shelf as she spoke. “I noticed that Jace brought back your grandfather Luis’s book. You guys didn’t tell me it was found out under the bush not far from Thornton. I knew Jace found a book, but not one written by your own grandfather. Do you think that has anything to do with all of this? Could it provide some sort of clue perhaps?”
“Like what?” Rain asked, smoothing her hair away from her eyes. “To me, it only proves that Thornton was deeply connected to my mother somehow. You know my mother wouldn’t let that book leave this room.” Rain gazed around the shelves of novels that surrounded them. “Unless a lot has changed since my childhood, she didn’t let anyone remove my grandfather’s work from this room. Ever. Am I right? Please correct me if I’m wrong.”
Julia confirmed with a nod of her head. “That’s right. Your grandfather’s books were under strict instruction not to leave the property. Maybe Willow would allow them to read one of them out on the deck, but honestly, I’m not even sure she allowed that. I know for sure she wouldn’t let anyone take one to the outhouse!” She giggled at an attempt to ease the tension.
&
nbsp; Rain smiled at the outhouse comment. “So, what does that tell us? To me, it tells me there was something in that written work that was important. Something in my grandfather Luis’s book …”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Rain sighed and then bit at her lip.
Julia moved over to the shelf where Rain’s grandfather’s books were stored. “Why that particular book? And not one of the others?” She began to sift through the small pile to view the titles.
“I left the one that was found by Thornton in the kitchen. The one Jace brought back from the police station. Should I go and grab it? So we can have a look?”
“Yeah. Let’s take a closer look. Maybe it’ll tell us something?” Julia suggested.
“Okay, wait here.”
Julia stepped away from the shelf, held a book to her heart, and spun around like Julie Andrews in the entrance song from the Sound of Music. “What? And leave me here among all this?”
Rain rolled her eyes and laughed as she turned out the library door.
Marge was wiping the last of the dishes with a towel and setting them alongside the sink but turned to greet Rain when she arrived.
“Dear, can you reach the glasses up there to put away? You have a few inches on me that would help, otherwise I’m going to need to find a stepstool.” Marge’s eyes darted around the floor seemingly looking for one.
“Don’t worry about this mess, I’ve got it!” Rain rushed to take over. “You’re doing too much. I thought you were going to just load them in the dishwasher?”
“Old habits die hard dear. I wasn’t raised on machinery; I was raised on these two hands doing the job.” Marge shook her head and smiled. “Boy, sometimes when I watch you it’s like you’re the spitting image of your mother.” She squinted. “Sometimes I can see the same mannerisms of your grandfather, Luis, too … it’s uncanny.” She smiled affectionately and watched as Rain loaded the glasses into the cabinet.
Murder at the Lakeside Library Page 13
