by Jessica Beck
“I just wish I had one,” I said.
The rest of the drive went much better, and after passing the town limit sign for Gateway Lake, I felt the butterflies in my stomach doing belly flops. I was about to connect with my mother’s sister, a link that I’d nearly lost forever. There were banners draped across the main road proclaiming something called the Winter Wonderland, and I could see different decorations still up from what must have been a fairly recent event. Plastic snowflakes hung down from the light posts, and eight-foot-tall wooden snowmen were placed everywhere. Most of them had been painted the traditional white, but some sported colors as different as psychedelic tie-dye all the way to flannel patterns to ones draped with old Christmas lights. It appeared that we’d just missed the festivities, but that was fine with me.
My hands began to tighten on the steering wheel. I was surprised to find that I was nervous about the coming encounter. I glanced over at my brother, who was chewing his bottom lip. “Are you anxious about seeing her again?”
“Not particularly,” Pat said absently, and then he must have realized how callous it must have sounded. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just that we’ve got a pretty daunting task in front of us. Back in Maple Crest, we know just about everybody in town. We’re strangers here, and no one has any reason to answer our questions, let alone trust us.”
“Don’t you think the fact that we’re Aunt Della’s family will count for something?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “Then again, if someone’s trying to kill her and she can’t even figure out who it is, it may mean that she’s made herself some enemies here.”
I patted his leg. “Don’t worry, Pat. There’s two of us and only one person trying to kill her. Whoever wants her dead doesn’t stand a chance.”
“I hope you’re right. How much farther is it?”
“Based on the instructions Aunt Della gave me, it should just be a few minutes now,” I said.
CHAPTER 3: PAT
“Remember to smile,” Annie told me as she pulled up in front of a dated cottage in bad need of a fresh coat of paint. A streetlight in front of the place illuminated it brighter than it should have been for that time of evening during winter, at least as far as I was concerned. There was an old Volkswagen Beetle parked in the driveway, but I wasn’t even sure it still ran based on its outward appearance. I could see several weeds poking out of the flower beds in front, the annuals that had been killed by the first frost serving as dreary reminders that spring was still a lifetime away.
“She’s not even out here waiting for us,” I said. “She does know we’re coming, right?”
“What do you want, a sign and a handful of balloons?” Annie asked me brightly.
“Fine. Let’s go knock on the front door.”
“Should we grab our bags first?” Annie asked me.
“Why don’t we wait and see how it goes?” I suggested.
“Pat, we’re staying here with her. I’ve already worked that out.”
“Are you sure she has the room?” I asked, looking around the small space. “She wants us to stay with her, right?”
“Why wouldn’t she? After all, we’re both quite charming. I happen to come by it naturally, but with you it takes a little effort.”
“But worth it all the same, right?” I asked her. My sister’s good humor was infectious. If she didn’t hold a grudge over what had happened so long ago, then how could I? I resolved to stop paying lip service to my promise to behave and actually try to mean it. I’d had a friend once who believed in faking it until you made it, and he’d managed to get ahead with an extraordinarily short supply of talent, but it had taken a great deal of audacity to overcome its absence.
“Let’s go say hi,” Annie said, and I followed her to the door.
When we got there, my sister didn’t knock at first.
“Any time is fine with me,” I said after a few moments of delay.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious about what we’re going to find on the other side of that door?” Annie asked me.
“I don’t have to be. In twenty seconds, we’re going to find out for ourselves.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Annie replied. It was uncharacteristic for her to be nervous about anything. I looked over to see that she was physically shaking.
“Sis, no matter how this turns out, we’ve got each other, and Kathleen, too. Remember that and you’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep gulp of breath, letting it out slowly, and then reaching out and rapping at the door.
An older woman who looked remarkably like my late mother threw the door open and embraced us both at the same time. It was clear that she’d been crying just before we’d arrived. Was everyone getting overly emotional about this little reunion but me?
“Pat, Annie, it’s awful, but I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, dabbing at her eyes.
“What’s going on, Della?” I asked her. “Has something happened?”
“It’s Cheryl Simmons. She’s dead. Someone must have thought she was me, and they killed her.”
CHAPTER 4: PAT (CONTINUED)
“Hang on. Slow down and back up a little bit,” I said. “Start at the beginning.”
Instead of explaining, Della began crying again in full force. “I’m starting to realize that I should never have brought you both here. It’s not safe for you to be in Gateway Lake. I’ve risked your lives for mine, something my sister never would have forgiven me for.”
“May we discuss this inside?” I asked, looking around to see a few neighbors peering out their windows, watching us all intently.
“Of course,” she said. “It’s just so awful, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
We walked into a space that I wasn’t expecting. Instead of doilies and old wallpaper, the interior was sleek and modern, though compact. Stainless steel was everywhere, and the light fixtures had a decidedly industrial tone to them. The furniture was ultramodern as well, and I hoped she had bed space for us both; the couch looked like a ready-made back killer.
“May I get you something?” Annie asked her as she guided our aunt to the sofa in question.
“Some water from the fridge would be nice,” she said.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like something a little stronger?” I offered. I didn’t know what her liquor situation was, but if she needed a drink of something stronger than water, I was going to go get it for her. After all, she’d just lost someone.
“No, water is all I need.”
While Annie was taking care of that, I said, “Take a deep breath, and then tell us what happened to Cheryl.”
“I can’t get over how grown up you both look,” Aunt Della replied instead of answering my question as she studied me. Then she glanced at Annie and added, “Your sister looks a great deal like her mother did at that age.”
I couldn’t resist, despite my earlier promise and the woman’s obvious duress. “I don’t know. I kind of think she looks like Dad.”
“Patrick Marsh,” Annie scolded me from the kitchen, proving that she’d been listening in to our conversation.
“It’s all right, Annie. I can see him in her, too. I know my apology isn’t worth much to you both, but I am truly sorry for the way I behaved.”
“It’s fine, Aunt Della,” Annie said as she hurried back with the water.
“It’s not, but it’s sweet of you to say so,” Aunt Della answered.
I refrained from commenting altogether. “Tell us about your friend.”
Della took a long sip of water, and then she set it aside. “Very well.”
“If you need a minute to compose yourself, we can wait,” Annie said.
It took nearly all I had not to glare at my twin sister. I knew she was right, but I wanted to find out what had happened. If the murderer had indeed meant to kill our aunt, the more we knew and the faster we knew it, the better.
“She was here with me last night,” Del
la started to explain. “I shared my concerns with her about the incidents that have been happening to me lately, and she did her best to reassure me that everything would be all right. Cheryl must have been here three hours, because by the time she left, it was dark outside, and the wind had begun to blow something fierce. There are some real benefits to living on the lake, but it isn’t all sunshine and roses. I knew she would be freezing on her walk back, so I loaned her my long coat. It’s quite distinctive, and everyone in town has seen me in it dozens of times.”
“Funny, I didn’t even see the lake on the drive in,” I said.
“That’s because it skirts the back of all of our properties,” she explained. “You really can’t see it very well from here at night, but during the day, it’s spectacular. Anyway, Cheryl lives, or lived, half a mile down from me, and she must have taken the lake walk instead of going on the road. They found her body right after we spoke. I know I should have called you, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“Do you happen to know how she died?” I asked.
“It’s too painful for me to talk about,” Della said, and I could see that she was on the edge of tears again.
I expected Annie to offer to console her instead of push on with the questioning, but to my relief, my sister said, “It’s important, Aunt Della.”
“All I know is that someone found her body in the water,” she said. “You’d have to ask the police chief for more than that.”
“Do you know him very well?” I asked.
“We dated for several months,” she said. “I’d say that qualifies, even if it was ten years ago.”
“Will he cooperate with us?” Annie asked.
“I doubt it. He hasn’t been all that fond of me ever since I broke his heart again.”
Again? What did that mean? I didn’t want to get into it then and there. I had more important questions to ask her. “Is there anyone else who might be able to tell us what happened?” I asked her.
“Davis would know,” she said. “He knows everything.”
I doubted that were true, but if he could help us, I was all for calling him in. “Can you get him on the phone?”
“It would be easier just going next door. He bought the house next to mine three months ago,” she said. “I don’t know if I can bear going with you, though. Would you two mind terribly going over there without me?”
“He doesn’t know us, Della,” I said, again omitting the ‘aunt’ honorific from her name. She was going to have to earn that designation back, I decided.
“I’ll call him and let him know that you’re on your way,” she said.
As Della went for her phone, Annie asked softly, “Are you seriously not going to call her ‘aunt’ the entire time that we’re here?”
“Trust me, it’s less complicated this way,” I said.
“For you or for her?”
“Annie, I need some distance if I’m going to work on this case. Just give me this one, okay?”
She frowned a moment, and then she nodded. “Fine, but we’re not finished talking about this.”
“Oh, goody,” I said. “I can hardly wait.”
She punched my arm lightly, and then Della came back.
“He’s next door. Go on over. You might want to take the front way out, though.”
“Actually, the lake walk might be more helpful to us,” I said.
“Pat, are you trying to be disagreeable?” Annie asked me.
“Don’t you want to see the path that leads to where Cheryl was killed?” I asked.
“It’s fine, Annie,” Della said.
“Okay, I suppose that makes sense,” Annie conceded. “Aunt Della, do you have a strong flashlight we could use?”
“Oh, dear. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that I gave that to Cheryl last night when I loaned her my coat.”
“That’s okay. I have one in my car,” my sister said. “Come on, Pat. Let’s go.”
I nodded as I grabbed my coat after Annie did the same with hers. My sister turned back to Della before we left and said, “Don’t worry. We won’t be long.”
“Please don’t. I’m terrified of being alone right now.”
Annie patted her shoulder softly. “We’ll be next door if you need us.”
Evidently Cheryl hadn’t been much farther away herself when she’d been murdered, but I chose not to bring that up. “Let’s go,” I told Annie.
It was getting colder all right. The temperature must have dropped five degrees since we’d arrived, and the wind had picked up quite a bit as well. “I can see why she needed to borrow Della’s coat,” I said as we walked to Annie’s Subaru. My sister opened the hatchback and retrieved a long and stout-looking flashlight that would easily substitute as a cudgel.
“That should do,” she said as she flipped it on and a bright beam of light suddenly appeared. “Would you like to lead the way, Pat?”
“Are you actually offering to give up control of the flashlight?” I asked her with a laugh.
“No, I wasn’t really serious.”
“Then why did you make the offer?” I asked as I followed her around the house to the lake path in back.
“Just think how generous I would have looked if you’d been gracious and refused,” my sister said.
I chuckled, completely understanding her logic. Some folks thought Annie’s sense of humor was a little off, but I’d grown up with it, so it made perfect sense to me. As we headed toward the backyard, I could see the lake or, more truthfully, a large black hole in the landscape. Maybe stars would have reflected off it if it hadn’t been so overcast, but at the moment, there was only a vast span of darkness out there, swallowing up every bit of light within its reach.
Annie’s flashlight beam quickly found the worn dirt path that skirted along the lake.
“Could she have tripped and fallen on one of these?” I asked as I almost did as I’d posited, narrowly avoiding taking a spill from a tree root poking up from the middle of the path.
“I don’t know. I suppose that depends on how she died.”
“This has to be Davis’s house,” Annie said as we neared the next place. There was a light on the back deck, probably turned on for us. My sister started up that way when I noticed that there were other lights coming from just around the bend.
“Keep going,” I said.
“We can’t do that. He’s waiting for us,” she protested.
“Yes, but the cops appear to still be at the crime scene. How can we not check that out? He’ll wait.”
Annie reluctantly started back toward me, and as we rounded the bend, I saw four police officers scouring the area. There was crime scene tape stretched around a fifty-foot perimeter, including blocking the path we were on, and if we were going to get any closer, we were going to have to climb up the bank to get to them, which was what we did. A pair of plywood snowmen paid silent vigil to the scene, and they suddenly made me uneasy, judging the scene with their painted black stares. At least all of these had been painted mostly white.
I was suddenly blinded by an intensely bright light shining in my face.
“Who goes there?” a commanding voice rang out into the night.
“It’s Pat and Annie Marsh,” I said as I put my hand in front of the beam, trying to stop the light from searing my retinas.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said suspiciously.
“We just got into town,” Annie said. “We’re Della Mahoney’s family.”
That news didn’t seem to appease him at all, so maybe Della had been right in her assessment of their relationship. “It’s common knowledge that she doesn’t have any family. Her sister died in a car wreck a long time ago.”
“That was our mother,” Annie said.
Finally, the flashlight beam lowered, though I knew I wouldn’t be seeing clearly again for quite some time. At the moment, all I could see was the afterimage of that blinding light. I was going to have to follow Annie to make sure that I didn’t slip on
the steep terrain and fall into the lake.
“What are you doing here?” he asked us as he came up to the tape, but didn’t cross it.
“It’s nice to meet you, Sheriff…” Annie said, extending her hand.
“It’s chief, actually,” he corrected her as he took it. “Chief Cameron.”
“Chief, what happened? Did Cheryl Simmons drown?” I asked him after he shook my hand as well.
“That’s yet to be determined,” he asked as he eyed me suspiciously. “What concern is that of yours? Did you know her?”
“No, but clearly our aunt is upset about what happened to her friend,” Annie said, smoothing things over. “We heard that she drowned.”
The chief shook his head. “That’s what you get for listening to gossip.”
“Do you mean they didn’t find her in the water?” Annie asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Chief Cameron said.
This man was clearly not a fan of sharing what he knew with strangers. Imagine that. “It might help Aunt Della to know that what happened to her friend wasn’t her fault,” I said.
“Why would she think that it ever was?” he asked, looking oddly at me.
“Think about it from her point of view. Cheryl Simmons left Della’s place in the dark wearing our aunt’s hooded jacket. Della is under the impression that someone killed Cheryl by mistake. Does that fit in with what you know so far?” I asked him.
Instead of answering, he laughed softly. “That’s Della for you, all right. She wants to be the bride at every wedding and the body at every funeral. Nothing but being the center of attention would ever be enough for her.”
“So then you think that someone meant to kill Cheryl?” Annie asked.
“And succeeded pretty well at that,” he replied. After a moment, he asked, “What are you doing here?”
“We already told you,” I said. Had the man already forgotten? Then I realized that he was talking to someone who’d crept up in the dark behind us. It was an older man with a full head of gray hair that seemed to shine on its own in the night.
“Davis, I’ve told you twice. I don’t have any comment,” the police chief said testily.
