Something About Sophie

by Mary Kay McComas

  Sophie’s hand shook as she relinquished the cell. Her gaze passed from her savior to her captor and back again. Was it too late to ask for a do-over? As repulsive as he was, Frank was beginning to look like a lesser threat.

  “Nice hotshot.”

  “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?” Elizabeth smiled happily—insanely so—and gave it a whirl. “If I’d known how handy they were, I’d have gotten one long ago. And let me tell you this: the social hour at the Clearfield Service Committee meetings would no longer exceed the length of the business discussions.” Her eyes widened. “And Maxine Pollock would think twice about spreading lies about Botox injections around town.” She gave it a neat little snap like a whip master and sobered abruptly. “It’s not a toy, though. That’s important to remember.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” They heard Frank move, disturbing his cushion of brittle dry leaves. The ladies looked at him. Sophie narrowed her eyes. “I bet it hurts like the dickens.”

  “Yes, indeed, it seems quite painful—and it can be quite deadly under certain circumstances.” Sophie’s heart shuddered before it sank deeper into her abdomen. Part of her wished Elizabeth would just stop talking. The more she said, the more insane she sounded. “It’s the electricity, of course, and I feel positively foolish for not making that connection.”

  “What connection?”

  Elizabeth made a cheeky grimace. “I had a bit of an accident with it recently. I should have Googled it for more information before I used it but, of course, everything is clearer in hindsight, isn’t it?” Sophie had to agree. “You see, theoretically, the high voltage/low current combination isn’t supposed to be strong enough to kill a human or a large animal such as a cow or a goat with short-term exposure—no more than cause incapacitating pain. But it isn’t until you get to the small print that you find it isn’t recommended for people with heart conditions or pacemakers.” Her shrug was graceful. “Forgetting that Maury Weims had both is a mixed blessing, I suppose.”

  “Had?”

  “Oh, yes. For years. I believe my husband treated him when he had his first coronary . . . in his thirties. Quite young.”

  “Oh. So . . . And why is that a mixed blessing?” She needed to hear the words out loud to accept it.

  “Well, I see now that it was for the best, of course, but I didn’t intend to kill Maury. I only meant to scare him. I thought that by putting Cliff down—cutting the head off the snake, so to speak—that the others would fall into line and leave you be. The secret would be safe. I needed Maury to keep his mouth shut. The man had no spine, Sophie. Cliff Palmeroy, a foul man start to finish, led him around like a trained monkey. He did everything Cliff told him to do, even back then. This one, too.” She set the flashlight on the ground, aimed the blinding beam straight into Frank’s face. He scooted to one side. She didn’t bother to bend over again, but simply tapped the battery box with the toe of her expensive summer flats to pin him again. Lanyard covered his eyes. “Maury Weims was pitiful and inept, but nowhere near as dangerous as Cliff. And I’ll tell you this: as much as I like Phil Kerski, and admire his dedication to his family—hiring his sister’s husband when no one else in town would—I was compelled to switch to the Rite Aid pharmacy for my prescriptions because simply seeing Maury Weims nauseated me. Truth. If I wasn’t ill when I went in there, I was when I left. Running into either of them could trigger one of my migraines . . . I keep my Celebrex in my purse for that exact reason.”

  Sophie glanced around for something to sit down on—she was feeling a bit sick herself.

  For even beyond the gradual awareness of the two murdering maniacs in her presence, there was a numbing exhaustion creeping deep into her bones, anesthetizing her wounds and clearly blunting her normal reactions because she detected an irrational sense of safety with Drew’s mother. For the moment anyway—for as long as Elizabeth felt safe, felt no threat coming from her. And once again, paramount, was her need for time—to recoup her strength, reassemble her mind, and to request that God arrange for an official police rescue this time.

  She must have looked ready to drop, too, because Elizabeth picked up the flashlight, took her arm, and led her gingerly over to a fallen tree a few yards away, saying, “You poor thing. What you’ve been through . . . let me help you. There, that’s better isn’t it?”

  Sophie nodded, huddling inside Frank’s shirt. She wasn’t that cold but she was shivering.

  Elizabeth sat next to her and reset the beam of her flashlight on their prisoner. She set the hotshot on the log and brought the gun out. Sophie nodded again. Their mutual loathing of Frank Lanyard made the gun the more plausible weapon if he was foolish enough to attempt an escape. And there wasn’t a doubt in the air, anywhere, that she’d miss her mark.

  Elizabeth settled primly and sighed softly. “Filthy business this. I’m sorry Arthur dragged you into it, Sophie. I told him, more than once, that it was a bad idea to send for you. As an old and dear friend, I felt that the least I could do for him was to ease his conscience and let him die in peace. I promised him that I would protect and care for you when you arrived.” There was a soft laugh. “I never dreamed it would become this complicated. Lord, that man and his ridiculous will. Who knew what would be in it?” She rubbed her forehead with the back of her gun hand, clearly vexed. “I was sick with worry. It wouldn’t have been nearly so nerve-racking had I been able to count on Arthur, just this once, not to be rash. It was one thing to break the promise we made to Lonny Campbell when you were born, but we both knew that pulling on one little thread would unravel everything so we agreed to leave none exposed. It was best for everyone. But he was so remorseful at the end . . . and so unpredictable.”

  “What promise?”

  “Well, you see, by the time it was discovered that little Lonora was pregnant, Lonny simply couldn’t bear the idea of everyone knowing the whole truth of what happened to his baby. He said he wouldn’t give whoever did it the satisfaction. And who could blame him?”

  “I didn’t get her pregnant,” Frank shouted to them. “My sister gave me the mumps.”

  Elizabeth angled her gun at him, limp wristed. “Don’t make me come back over there. I will bring the cattle prod and I will make you wiggle like a fish out of water if you open that mouth of yours again. Nod if you understand what I’m saying.”

  Nodding, he muttered something about a crazy bitch.

  “Now, where was I . . . Oh, yes. As Lonny’s minister and as president of Clearfield General Hospital’s Charitable Foundation that year, Arthur and I decided we could safely step in and help Lonny by finding a better home for her and arranging private medical care for her during that last trimester of her pregnancy.”

  Safely? An odd adverb to use, but not the question uppermost in Sophie’s mind. “A better home than Lonny’s? I’m surprised he let her go anywhere else.”

  “Oh. Yes. How could you know . . . ?” She paused and was thoughtful. “I suppose, in light of what you and William already know, there’s no point in keeping the truth from you. I may as well tell the whole of it—since he’s bound to figure out the rest anyway.”

  Bound to figure out the rest? There was more? More than Lonora being her birth mother? More than her rape? More than Elizabeth killing those responsible? Sophie felt something shriveling inside her—it felt like the last of her hope.

  “That sweet child was extremely traumatized,” Elizabeth said—soft, gentle, and full of compassion. “Anyone would be, but she was so mentally fragile to begin with—she suffered an acute stress reaction to the incident. She was dazed and disoriented and combative initially, when they first found her. But she rapidly deteriorated to a dissociative stupor as she became more and more depressed and detached—she wouldn’t . . . or couldn’t respond to any sort of stimulus. Lonny was lost. They tried drugs and electroshock therapy.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “No one could say how long her stupor would last, so Lonny was forced to admit her to a long-term convalescent center.”

  A pare
nt who has been declared incompetent and for some reason it’s determined that restoration of competency is improbable would need a guardian, Daniel Biggs had said. Lonora had always needed one.

  Sophie’s groan was involuntary.

  “Oh my goodness, you’re not thinking of those gruesome old asylums, are you?”

  No. She was thinking of the horror Lonora endured—physically but more permanently in her mind. She was thinking of the misery Lonny suffered from that day to this one. She was thinking she must be stuck in a nightmare that would end when the alarm went off and she woke up back in Marion, the summer sun shining bright and warm through her bedroom window.

  “They aren’t like that anymore.” Elizabeth made a face. “Even the state facilities aren’t so bad anymore. But they are state hospitals, so when Arthur and I stepped in we pushed for a nicer, private long-term care facility. At least until after the baby was born.” A soft giggle. “That would be you, of course. She was going to need the extra care for a while.”

  “But she was ill. Why didn’t they . . . you know . . .”

  “Terminate the pregnancy?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “Well, to be honest, there was talk of it. I, personally, encouraged the idea, thinking it would be the best solution for everyone involved. No offense, dear, but the girl was on this drug and that drug; she wasn’t eating or drinking; they were using a feeding tube and IVs and catheters and whatnot. Bearing a child is difficult enough under normal circumstances, and these were not.” She casually crossed her legs, like she was having a Sunday-afternoon chat. “But once Lonny saw that first sonogram—more than halfway through the pregnancy, mind you—well, he wasn’t sure what to do. Tests were done and he was persuaded to take it a day at a time and let her carry it as long as possible, if there was no threat to her health.”

  Lonny. Most of her life, she’d assumed that her existence was a gift . . . the ultimate gift from a woman who had other options. That the gift had come from her grandfather in the worst possible situation made her heart ache as it stretched to make a special place for him.

  “Arthur made the arrangements for the adoption—not everyone is willing to take a high-risk baby, you know. Lonny wanted the baby to go as far away as possible. He didn’t want Lonora to know, ever. He didn’t trust anyone in town anymore and couldn’t assume that no one would mention it to her. So, we three and the doctor and nurse who did the delivery and the judge who pushed through the paperwork—who was a friend of the lawyer who handled the adoption—well, we were the only people who knew about you.”

  “And Lonora?” Her voice was low with dread. “Lonny said she died but . . . but not when. Did she ever recover . . . or was it because of me?”

  The older woman bowed her head and didn’t speak for so long that Sophie wondered if she would. Her voice was soft and deeply aggrieved when she said, “No. A few months after you were born, she started to look better. She didn’t speak or smile the way we all knew her to, but her eyes lit up for Lonny and she’d watch people walk by or birds fly overhead if she was out in the garden. She was taking notice. They were trying to get her to use a walker and talking about different meds and psychotherapy—and then she was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “To heaven, I believe.” She stood, belted the gun, picked up the hotshot and took a few paces into the periphery of the beam of light to stare across at Frank Lanyard a few feet away. Conversationally, she added, “I don’t buy into that business about suicide ruining your chance at heaven, do you? One moment shouldn’t define your entire life. It’s ludicrous.”

  Sophie swallowed hard on the rock of emotion stuck in her throat and shook her head—no, she didn’t buy into it either, not anymore certainly. Sophie stood to follow Elizabeth but the ground rolled and she felt herself weaving like a drunk. Readjusting her stance helped but not by much. She knew the next, most logical question should be: How? But why introduce logic at this point?

  Also, she didn’t want to know.

  “And Mr. Cubeck . . .” she said. “When he found out he was dying, he decided I should know all this; that Lonora was my mother and what happened to her?”

  “The secret weighed heavily on him. Yes.”

  “Why?” Her mind felt thick and stiff; still, she sensed something was wrong, missing. “I mean, why would he think I’d want to know any of this? What good would it do me? And Lonny is still alive. Why would he betray him like that?” And come to think of it, “Why would he leave me BelleEllen? He knew the kind of dust that would stir up. He said he owed it to me, but it sounds more like we owed him for helping us—Lonny and Lonora and me. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Elizabeth tipped her head to the right as if trying to fathom an odd puzzle. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “It sure as shit doesn’t.” Sophie stared at Frank Lanyard—pictured a wiggling fish and cringed as he said, “Who the hell figured out it was us? That’s what I want to know. If she was crazy and not talkin’ to anyone, not even her old man, how’d you know it was us? How’d you know who did it? How’d you know to kill Cliff and Maury? How’d you know about me? Why didn’t you just call the cops?”

  Elizabeth took two steps and gave a jab at Frank’s leg that had him roaring out a curse and falling on his side. He jerked twice, and when he could pull his leg up, he rubbed out the cramp. Stubbornly, or stupidly, he asked again, “How’d you know?”

  The leaves in the trees stopped rustling in the wind to hear her answer. Crickets and toads took notice and went silent, listening for a response. Sophie wasn’t as quick to catch on, but the rhythmic roaring of her heartbeat inside her ears had her breathing deep and slow, calming herself for whatever came next. . . .

  Which was Elizabeth lunging her lance into Frank’s belly and holding it there while Sophie screamed, “Elizabeth! Stop. You’ll kill him. Stop it!” And no one was more surprised than she to find her hands clasped over the older woman’s, lowering the hotshot away and pleading, “Stop. Please, stop.”

  The flashlight cast eerie shadows in the night, but Sophie was still able to see the vagueness in Elizabeth’s face, like she’d only this moment arrived from another planet.

  “Actually, Mother, I’d like to hear your answer.”

  The women turned their heads and responded in unison. “Billy!” “William!”—one in relief, the other in stunned dismay.

  Somehow Sophie crossed the uneven terrain in seconds. “Oh my God, you’re alive!” She threw her arms around his neck, never so glad to see someone in all her life. She pulled back, squinted to see the wound deep inside his hairline that was clotted closed and discolored, then pulled him close again. There was an entire crying jag caught in her throat as she croaked in his ear. “I was so afraid you’d die. You were so pale. I didn’t know what to do.”

  His chest jerked with a silent half-laugh as he held her tight. “So you locked me in the car while you figured it out?” Sophie nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Your mother is . . .” What? Unwell? Acting oddly? Crazy as bat shit? A killer?

  “I know. I heard.”

  Exhaling heavily and setting her aside, he spoke in a less private voice. “You look like hell.” Startling a short laugh from her, he used her chin to tip her face to the light and check out her head and face. Exchanging small reassuring smiles—they both might live, it seemed—they gradually gravitated back to his mother and Frank Lanyard, who were staring at them.

  “Mother.”

  “William, what are you doing here?”

  “He brought me.” Frank hadn’t moved since Billy arrived, but his wide, panicky eyes and an occasional groan were proof of life. “I was with Sophie when he hijacked her. Looks like I slept through all the excitement after he knocked me out. See here?” he said, trying to distract her.

  However, once Elizabeth saw the laceration her instinctive reaction was to turn to Lanyard and inflict more pain for his newest crime, but when Billy’s voice grew louder, she stopped.

  “S
ophie locked her car and the honk woke me up. It took me a while to get untied.” He took a cautious step in her direction. “You could have helped me, you know.”

  “But I didn’t see you, sweetheart, or I would have.”

  Sophie admired how unruffled and rational she sounded, even as her insanity sparkled in her eyes.

  “You know that.”

  “I saw you drive up. No headlights. Very stealth, Mother. I was impressed. You probably didn’t see me because you had your I’m-on-a-mission face on.”

  “She rescued me, Billy,” Sophie said, stepping up behind him, not willing to let him get too far away from her.

  “I did. Just in time, too. This . . . animal had her on the ground with a rock in his hand. He was going to kill her. I took his gun.” She patted the weapon in her belt and then put her hands on her hips, hotshot jutting out behind. “I was thinking we could use it to make it look like he killed himself out here. Everyone would think he killed Palmeroy and Weims before he kidnapped Sophie . . . and you, too. You’d be a witness to that. And no one would think to question a McCarren’s word. After he knocked Sophie out, he took her for dead. But then he realized that he’d never get away with any of it, so he killed himself. That’s when you and I arrive on the scene.” She grinned over her shoulder at him. “After I discover you in Sophie’s car and untied you, of course.”

  “Of course.” Without looking back, his open palm connected with Sophie’s chest to hold her in place as he continued to slowly approach his mother. “Clever. It’s a good plan except for the why. The sheriff is going to need a motive, Mother? Why would he kill his friends and a young woman he doesn’t even know?”

  After a moment’s calculation: “But he does know her. Who she is, anyway, because she looks like her mother. That lovely red hair.” A benevolent smile for Sophie. “And he thought she knew about them. He thought she was killing them off. But he could just as easily be afraid the others would break down and confess when people started asking questions about her. Maybe blame him for instigating the attack on Lonora. . . . Which he didn’t because he’s a weak, spineless hanger-on who only does what he’s told.”