by Anne Hagan
"Oh!" I cried out.
Her fingers made circles around my labia and pressed slightly into my slit. She kept at that for only a few moments and then she moved them higher on my pussy. I felt her wet fingers circling around my aching clit and I arched my back pulling me slightly up off of her. My mind was racing.
I looked down into Mel’s eyes. I could see her own need. I dropped my head back down and kissed her deeply. At the same time, my right hand dropped down fully onto her boxers. I pressed them down into her wet mound and I listened as she groaned.
I started to move my fingers in tight circles, just like she’d started with me. My fingers circled around, sliding the slick, wet fabric against her clit. Mel shuddered and her fingers moved faster against me.
One hand was still behind Mel’s neck while the other moved furiously between legs, slipping around on the wet cotton and lycra blend of her tomboy boxers.
I felt her finger tips slide again across my clit. We both moaned into one another's mouths and I could feel her shaking underneath me. The smell of our arousal was heady in the room. I wanted more.
Moving quickly, I slipped my fingers out from between Mel’s legs and retreated down the bed. She tried to sit up but I mustered a little strength and, with a firm push against her chest, I got her to ease back down. She smiled then, apparently enjoying me taking control.
From a crouched position on my knees, between her legs, I reached forward and grabbed the waistband of her boxers. She lifted her hips up off of the bed and I removed them, tossing them down to the foot of the bed where they landed in a heap with the rest of our clothes.
After scooting back a little bit farther, I dropped down onto my elbows placing my face just a few inches from Mel's pussy. It glistened with her juices. Bending forward slightly, I closed the gap and pressed my lips against her slit.
My lips sunk into her wetness. I could feel the intense heat radiating out from her as I licked at her gently. The taste was incredible.
I’d tasted Mel before but it wasn’t something she let me do often. I stuck my tongue out then, making it flat, and pressed it gently against her labia. She trembled. I moved it up and down her slit slowly.
She writhed against my face and her hands shot down to the bed, her fingers sinking into the blankets, clinging. I grinned to myself and kept going doing to her what she’d done so many times to me.
My tongue rolled to the top of her pussy. I pressed it firmly against the hard nub of her clit. At that, her body went completely tense. She sucked in a deep breath and held it. I knew exactly how she was feeling.
I wrapped my lips gently around her clit, kissing it lightly. She let out the breath and made mewling noised that she tried to suppress. When she started to wiggle about, I took an arm and wrapped it around one of her thighs so I could hold her close while she squirmed.
I stayed between Mel's legs for a long time. I wanted to desperately to give her pleasure. With each flick of my tongue, I could feel her jump. Her eyes were closed now and she was biting down on her lower lip, making very little sound but certainly lost in the feeling.
Soon, her muscles tightened and her legs squeezed in around my head. I didn’t let up; I kept licking and teasing, pushing her farther and farther.
Finally, she exhaled hard and her body tensed so much that her muscles locked. She shook and then went limp and sank into the bed.
Chapter 5
Tuesday, November 3rd
Tuesday’s at the bakery are usually slower days. I called over there around 11:00 and invited Faye over for lunch so she could spend time with Jef and to get off her feet for an hour.
She came right over. I have to say that my mother-in-law isn’t stupid by any stretch of imagination. She knew what I was really up to.
While I made our sandwiches she bounced Jef on her lap at the table and asked, “So, you’re going to write about our most notorious mystery, are you?”
I couldn’t look at her as I answered. “It wasn’t my plan when I walked in there yesterday.”
“But now?”
“I don’t honestly know.” I blew out a heavy breath before I continued. “When I got back here, I tried to look it up and see what I could find out about it but there isn’t much out there to work with.”
“I was only 16 when it happened,” Faye said. “I was dating Jesse then though. We were high school sweethearts but he went to a different school. We met at a bonfire before a big football game. He played for the other team. I never talked about what happened back then very much because it was a part of my family history that I wasn’t proud of and I was afraid to lose Jesse. Everything was about appearances back then.”
As I set her food down in front of her, I just nodded while, in my head, I willed her to talk more. I took Jef off her lap and put him in his high chair and then took my own seat.
“We wanted to get married right after high school. We both graduated in ’74 but his parents were dead set against it then.”
“Because of what happened?”
She shook her head. “No, at least, I don’t think so. No, they wanted Jesse to go to college and get an ag degree. He did try. He went to two years of JuCo but dropped out before the end of his second year. He was all about farming but school just wasn’t for him. We got married in the spring of ’76, right after he left school...right after my 20th birthday, in fact.”
I was curious. “Did his family even know about it...about the murder?”
Faye took a bite of her sandwich and chewed while she thought. “You know,” she said, “TV and the news media weren’t in the 1970’s like they are today. The murder of Mathis seemed like it rocked this little village but it didn’t seem to make many waves outside of it, at least not from my perspective. They lived up closer to Dresden; what seemed like a million miles away. They may have known a man died down this way but I’m not sure they knew any of the details.”
“What was the talk around...around the village? I mean, I don’t really know how to ask this...”
“You want to know who everyone around suspected.” It wasn’t a question.
I just nodded.
Faye sat back and crossed her arms as she gave me a long look. Finally, she seemed to decide something and she began speaking again. “There was a lot more speculation, I guess, than there were any facts to go around. The county Sheriff at the time investigated everything and he and his deputies questioned a lot of people that Thanksgiving Day and for days...probably weeks after that, I don’t know, but he just couldn’t seem to narrow down the list of suspects that might have wanted that man dead.”
“I admit, my dad Drew was one of the suspects. There was no love lost between him and Tanner Mathis. But,” she was quick to put in, “he wasn’t the only suspect, not by a longshot. Several other people were there that day too including a lot of the extended family on my dad’s side, my dad’s cohorts and a lot of family friends. It was a big party.” She spread her hands wide. “We weren’t just having Thanksgiving but we were celebrating the fact that dad and a couple of his business partners struck a new well.”
“That Tanner Mathis was crowing most of the early afternoon as he drank more and more of the beer dad bought about how it couldn’t have been done without him and his bankroll and on and on. At least, that’s how dad told the story later on. I didn’t actually hear a lot of anything because I was mostly helping in the kitchen. The men were all in the living room and outside on the front porch.”
“So Mathis funded their...their strike?”
“Partly yes. Dad put some in – probably the most. It was us having the party, after all.”
“Was Mathis already in the oil business then?”
Faye shrugged. “I don’t know for sure but I don’t think so.”
“Then where might his money have come from? Was he wealthy?”
Faye scoffed at the question. “Dad said he made most of it playing cards. He took it from the other, actual oil men in back room poker games. Dad also said
people were convinced he cheated, they just didn’t know how he was doing it. But no, I don’t think he owned any wells by himself and he rarely worked, that I would know about. He had a more than a few years on me, mind you so he wasn’t one that I paid a lot of attention to.”
Her eyes grew wistful and I knew she’d gone back in her head to those early days with Jesse.
“Did your father play poker with him?”
“Sometimes. That’s what everyone says got him killed was the card cheating and most of the guys that played were the guys that got questioned back then.”
“Do you know the names of any of the other men that would have played cards with Mathis?”
“Mama never let them play at our house so I don’t know all of them, exactly.”
“Well, who were some of the men questioned that day who...who might have played in the games.”
Faye unfolded her arms and started ticking off fingers as she named some names. “Let’s see, besides dad and Mathis, there was Chuck Knox...”
“Knox?” I interrupted. I thought he was more your and Jesse’s age. Jesse fishes at his ponds sometimes.”
“He’s only a few years older than me and Jesse. Maybe four or five.”
“Let’s see, who else?” she said as she scratched the top of her head. “Maybe you ought to write these names down as I think of them.”
I got up, swiped a napkin at Jef’s chin and then rummaged in the junk drawer for a pen and notepad. If she was offering to let me make a record of even a part of our conversation, I wasn’t about to turn her down.
“So, you have Dad, Mathis and Chuck Knox. There was also Horace Bailey who was a good friend of dad’s, and my dad’s oldest brother Owen.”
“Lafferty, right?” The ladies had mentioned him but I wanted to make sure I had all the players straight.
She nodded.
“Those would have been the regulars that my dad hung around with or worked at trying to strike oil with and who he probably played with; at least, that’s what I think. Those guys were all interviewed by the police at least once, or so I heard told back in the day.”
“What about Marsha Pugh’s husband?”
“What about him?”
“She mentioned him losing money to Mathis. Did he play with your dad and those guys too?”
“I don’t think so,” She shrugged again, “ but I don’t really know that for sure. I do know that none of the Pugh’s were there that day. They were older oil money. Not Brietland or Quinn wealthy from the stuff, you understand, but comfortable.”
She sighed. I’m sure there were others who were in and out of the games as their funds allowed but those are the ones who I know were at Thanksgiving and who the Sheriff talked to at least once.”
“There were so many people there that day...in and out. Family. The families of all of those guys...just lots of people.”
“Can you tell me where these men you’ve named are now?”
“You know most of them dear or, at least, you know of them. My dad’s gone, of course and Mathis is gone.”
I just bobbed my head her way and let her keep going.
“All of the others are still very much alive. You’ve met Chuck. He’s still in the area but he’s long been retired. He mostly hunts and fishes now. Old Horace Bailey is the one that lived next door to the cat lady that was killed, Ginny?”
I could picture him in my minds eye and I nodded. While I didn’t know him personally, I knew he liked to go into the store when my dad was working and pass a little time talking with him.
“He doesn’t do a lot these days,” Faye continued. “No reason to, I suppose. He’s been retired for a half dozen years or more now.”
“What about Owen? I, uh, I don’t remember ever meeting him. Was he at Kris’s wedding?” I tried to recall the wedding out at the farm for Kris and Lance and the people that I met at the reception that followed for them and for Mel and me but I was drawing a blank.
“They lived just outside of the village back then and not long after...well, anyway, they moved further away. We aren’t close and we don’t keep in touch.” She pursed her lips.
I wasn’t swayed to let her off the hook quite so easily. “Since that day?” I prodded her.
“More or less.”
She crossed her arms again then and leaned back a little in her chair. “I want to believe, in my heart, that Mathis wasn’t killed by a Lafferty but I’m just not sure. The only thing I am sure of is that Dad didn’t do it. He was too much of a gentle man...too gentle, I mean.”
She sighed then and gave up her closed off position.. Leaning forward again she confided, “I’ve always thought that happening in our house...that was the beginning of the end for him. He seemed to lose something after that. He died not long after the twins were born to me and Jesse. I know that was a half dozen years or so later but it was a struggle for him all that time.”
“Then, my mother struggled through life without him by her side until she finally gave it up and gave into one of her illnesses back in the late ‘90s when she was only in her late 50’s. That’s when she went into a group home. She’s been in full nursing care since about 2003 or so...she’s just slid down and down and down. She’s alive but only that, That man’s murder killed my parents.”
She looked past me then, over my shoulder, a faraway look in her eyes.
I waited patiently while she sorted through her thoughts.
Finally she came back to the present and said, “The more I think about it, the more I’d like to see a resolution that would resolve everything in my mother’s mind before she’s too far gone to understand that the murder of Tanner Mathis had nothing to do with Dad.”
Chapter 6
Thursday Afternoon, November 5th
The Shady Rest
Adamsville, Ohio
Every time I hear the name, ‘Shady Rest’ I think of an old ‘70s TV show my dad would watch...probably still does. These days, it’s a real place that Eunice Lafferty calls home, a nursing home just outside of the village of Adamsville, northeast of Zanesville and, really, in the middle of nowhere just like the ‘Petticoat Junction’ of the television program.
I smiled to myself as I buckled Jef into his car seat for the ride north to see Mel’s Grandmother. We were going from one middle of nowhere place to another. I wondered what secrets Adamsville might hold.
Once Hannah had the stroller in the trunk, we were off. She was excited to see the old woman again. When Jef’s adoption had been finalized, Faye took her and the baby up to meet her mother, for reasons only Faye knows for sure.
“Do you think she’ll remember us?” Hannah asked.
I half shrugged as I backed the car out. “I don’t know but she might. Jef is pretty hard to forget.” I smiled into the rearview mirror at the toddler and both he and Hannah grinned at me in return.
“He’s starting to walk now. That might throw her but a nurse there told me she loves seeing babies no matter whose they are.”
“She has her good days and her bad,” the nurse that led us from the visitor’s desk told us. “She’ll be happy for the company but she may not know who you are.”
I nodded silently but the nurse missed it as she knocked lightly and then opened the suite door without waiting for a response. “Eunice, you have visitors today, dear.”
Motioning for Hannah to enter ahead of me with the stroller, I was caught off guard by the sight of the old woman rising and moving as quickly as her legs would carry her toward Jef.
“Well who’s this?” she called as she teetered toward him.
“Hello again Mrs. Lafferty, it’s Hannah Yoder and my son Jef. Your daughter brought us here to meet you a few months...er, or so ago.”
“My daughter?” Eunice looked puzzled.
“Faye Crane,” I supplied. “And I’m Dana, Mrs. Lafferty. We’ve met before too.”
She looked me up and down and I caught a tinge of recognition in her eye. “You’re Kris’s friend, aren’t you?�
��
I’d been forewarned when we’d visited before that Kris was the favorite twin but, with Hannah present, I didn’t want to mislead the old woman and muck the whole thing up. “Kris and I are friends, yes, but I’m...I’m with Mel ma’am.”
At that, she gave a slight nod and turned her attention back to the baby. “Aren’t you just the cutest thing! What did you say his name was?” she asked Hannah.
The nurse turned back to me. “I’ll just leave you all to get reacquainted. Buzz one of her assistance lights if you need anything.” She let herself out, closing the door gently behind her.
“Let me just get him out of this thing,” Hannah was saying. “He’s walking a bit now; he wasn’t the last time we were here.”
Eunice backed off a bit as Hannah stood Jef on the area rug covering the center part of the tile floor.
I glanced around. Faye, or perhaps Brian, had done what they could to make their mother’s unit in the facility look more homey and inviting but it was still very noticeably a hospital room and not the ideal place for a toddler just getting his legs. I started second guessing my decision to invite the boy and his mother along.
Jef didn’t have any such fears. Once he’d steadied himself, he glanced back at his mother and then headed toward the elderly ladies open arms.
She tried to stoop to him but she was only slightly steadier on her feet than he was. Hannah, recognizing the problem, moved to her side and guided her to a calico covered arm chair. “Here,” she said, “why don’t you go ahead and have a seat. He’ll probably explore a little but then he’ll come to you.”
“Here;” I said as I reached into the diaper bag, “he’s teething a little and he loves these cookies.” After extracting one from one of the little two-packs, I handed it to Eunice.
Eunice waved the cookie at Jef, who was happy to wander over and gum it for a few moments.
“Do you remember me?” I asked then. “Dana Rossi-Crane, Mrs. Lafferty.”
