“So you didn’t come by to see what I was doing, then?” Nora asked. May was a terrible liar, she thought.
May turned red. Her lips trembled.
Nora gave her a few seconds of silence. She was about to change the topic, when May crumbled.
“All right. Fine. I came here because I wanted to check if Selena had a particular book she’d borrowed from me. It’s a copy of Steinbeck’s For Whom The Bell Tolls.”
“Hemingway wrote that,” Nora said.
This seemed to undo May completely. “Fine. I just… I was curious. I came to see what her house looked like.”
“May, it’s all right.” Nora shrugged. “Now that you’re here, why don’t we both lock up and leave? I think I’ve found a few good quotes from Selena.”
“Oh. Good. Good.” May nodded her head enthusiastically. “That’s why we’re here after all. That’s why I came too. I thought I could look up a few quotes myself. Yes. I felt guilty making you do it alone, what with Grant at the hospital.”
“May.” Nora was very stern. “Give it up.”
“What?”
“Stop making up excuses,” Nora said. “We both know they aren’t true.”
“Wow,” May said. “You’re very rude.”
Nora tapped her foot but stared into May’s eyes, until May looked away. Realizing May wasn’t going to talk, Nora bluffed. “You’re too late anyway, I found what you’re looking for.”
“The manuscript!” May shouted. “Give it to me! Right now!”
Nora smiled. So it was Selena’s manuscript that May was interested in.
“What are you hoping to achieve, May?” Nora asked. “I’m sure Selena had ten back ups on her computer.”
“She didn’t,” May said. “She told us that once in our Arts Council meeting. She was superstitious and believe that until it was done, a book should have only one copy. Stupid girl.”
“Oh and I’m the one who’s rude?” Nora scoffed. “So here you are, May. Afraid that the secrets you’ve been keeping for so long will leak out? Poor, tragic Helen.”
“Helen?” May looked confused. “Who’s Helen?”
“Oh.” Nora was taken aback. Whatever secret May wanted to hide, she clearly had no idea about Brett’s long ago love.
“Selena…” May gulped. “Selena knew that I’ve done some things I’m not very proud of. I was afraid it might be in that manuscript of hers. I only wanted to take out any references to me. That was all. Honestly.”
“Honestly?” Nora laughed. “I haven’t seen much honesty out of you May. Here’s a question. Where were you that night when Selena was murdered?”
May turned white. Her hands began to shake.
Nora pressed harder. “Well? You were with Grant when he overheard Selena talking to Robert. My guess is you heard too, didn’t you?”
“No!” May protested, turning away.
“The Mayor was at Harvey’s party that night,” Nora said. “He didn’t come home until about 3 or 4am, did he?”
May’s hands were clasped to her mouth, and she shook her head mutely.
“So where were you?”
“I…”
“You were at the library, weren’t you?” Nora asked. “You wanted to talk to Selena yourself.”
“How do you know this?” May cried.
“Your body told me even if you didn’t,” Nora said. “You quaked with fear the second I mentioned you overhearing that call. I should have guessed at Anna’s Pancake house when Grant first talked about how he’d overheard. Grant gave you a very puzzled look when you pretended not to have overheard Selena talking that night. He knew you had, or perhaps he’d mentioned it to you. Is that why you tried to kill him, May? Because he knew that you had the chance to be at the library? Working in the arts council probably gave you access to the key too, didn’t it? You might have made yourself a spare!”
“No!”
“And Selena. What secret did she know? What was worth killing her?”
“I didn’t!” May cried. “It’s a horrible, horrible lie!”
“Be straight with me,” Nora said. “Before I march out of here and show Sean the manuscript.”
“Nora please, have pity!”
“The truth, May!” Nora thundered. “That’s the only way you’ll get my pity.”
“All right!” She said. “I’ll confess to everything I’ve done. I’ll throw myself to your mercy.”
*****
Chapter 17
Nora was a little stunned. She hadn’t quite expected a confession from May. Deciding to wait, she discreetly switched on the recording device on her phone, and said, “You can go ahead with your story now.”
“I… some time ago, I did something out of character. It was a moment of weakness,” May said. “I would never in my right mind have done this. I just… I was weak.” She sighed. “Selena knew about it. She would taunt me about it over and over, discreetly. It was unbearable. She told me she enjoyed seeing me quiver. She told me she was even planning to put it in her book about Milburn. I begged her and threatened her to no avail.”
“Selena didn’t like you much, did she?”
“Like me?” May laughed. “Selena would have happily skipped all the way to town if she saw me lying dead on the street. Selena hated me. She thought I was a hypocrite. I’m not. Selena was just too mean.”
“Oh sure.” Nora rolled her eyes. “So what happened?”
“After I’d begged, she told me that the only way I could be rid of her taunts was if I resigned from the Town Arts Council. She said she had almost prepared a mutiny against me anyway.”
“Ah.” Nora smiled. So she had been right about the mutiny.
“Selena and I never got along. On the council, we were both natural leaders, with the rest split between following us. The night in question, when Grant and I overheard her speaking about Robert, I decided to follow her to the library. If you want to know why – well, I’m ashamed to admit it - I wanted something that I could blackmail her back with!”
Nora nodded. “You thought you could catch her in a compromising position with Robert?”
“I did,” May said. “I followed her there, planning to… oh, I don’t know what I was going to do. I wasn’t thinking right! I was planning to leave anyway.”
“What happened then?”
“Helen,” May said suddenly. “You mentioned Helen right now, Nora. Why did you?”
Nora shrugged.
“I think that’s who she and Robert were talking about,” May said. “I heard her say something about…” May’s voice trailed off. She held her head in her hands, concentrating furiously. “What was it about?”
“Take your time,” Nora said. Internally, she wondered if May was being honest. There was something about the way she spoke, that made Nora think she was still hiding a lot.
“Well, now I remember, they were talking about Helen. Well, Selena was talking about Helen. She was saying something about Helen being the Princess of Troy?”
“Helen of Troy?” Nora asked. “Was she comparing Helen with Helen of Troy?”
“Yes, well, I wasn’t sure if she and Robert were talking about a person or a fictional character. Selena said that Helen could cause a war even in this day and age.”
So Nora’s suspicions had been right. She felt gleeful. Selena had been focussed on finding out what happened to Helen. That had to be the reason she was killed.
“Then what?” Nora asked eagerly.
“Robert didn’t care much about Helen. He kept changing the topic back to him and Selena. He started a huge fight with her. He told her he had as much right as she did to write about Milburn. She got angrier and angrier, telling him he was copying her work all over again, that he hadn’t changed since college,” May said. “That made Robert really angry. He started saying, You know, back in college, I thought the world revolved around you. It doesn’t. Stop thinking that way, Selena. I’ll admit though, that when I first decided to write this book it was all ab
out you, but not because I was copying you. Because I wanted to be closer to you. It’s more than that now. I love the project. I love researching about this fascinating town. As for you, I’d love if you co-authored with me on this project. I know it’s been years, I know you might have forgotten that I even exist. But I still love you. I want to be with you. You’ve never left my heart.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. I was taken aback, and so was Selena. She told him she couldn’t possibly answer him right now. That college was years ago. He began to push her, pressing for an answer, and she kept getting angrier, saying she needed time. Finally, when he’d pushed her a little too much, she angrily told him that she would never consider getting back with him, even if he won the Nobel Prize. Robert told her that she’d get back with him, sooner or later. He’d see to it.”
“Wow.” Nora whistled. That was a very different account from the almost peaceful story Robert had tried to feed her.
“What then?”
“Robert left,” May said. “He stalked out of there muttering threats and abuses.”
“He clearly had issues with his temper,” Nora said. “Even all these years later.”
“It sounded to me like Selena made the right decision getting rid of him,” May said. “Oh, well, poor Selena.”
“But you said Robert left,” Nora pointed out. “That’s what he claims too. You’re his alibi. What time was this?”
“I don’t remember,” May said. “But close to midnight, I’m sure.”
“What happened then?”
“I… I tried to talk to Selena,” May said. “I came out from where I was hiding, and told her she had to stop writing her book about Milburn.”
“Oh.”
“Selena flew into a rage,” May said. “She accused me of being an eavesdropper. She accused me of trying to censor her. I told her I didn’t care what she wrote as long as she left me out of it. I threatened her. I told her, If you put my name in that book, I’ll come at you with an entire New York Firm’s worth of Lawyers, see if I don’t. She said, she didn’t care, that liars and hypocrites deserved to be exposed. She said that time shouldn’t be able to erase evil deeds. They still deserve punishment. We fought for maybe fifteen minutes- before I gave up and walked away.”
“Just like that?” Nora asked. “You just gave up and walked away?”
“Brett had said he’d be home by midnight,” May said. “I couldn’t afford to stay out too long. I didn’t want him finding out about my… misdeed.”
“What was this misdeed?” Nora asked. “What was Selena blackmailing you about?”
“Never mind that,” May said, blushing.
“You need to tell me, May. The matter’s too serious for you to keep hiding. A woman’s been murdered. Grant’s still in a coma.”
“It was…” May shuddered. “It was stupid, I tell you.”
“Did you cheat on Brett? Is that what Selena knew?”
“What!” May had two bright red spots on her cheek. “What impertinence! Mind your place, girl! Just because you think you… how dare you even imply--”
“What was it?”
“I cheated!” May cried. “I cheated alright.”
“Ah!”
“But not on Brett! I cheated on my high school exam. I only graduated because I cheated. I don’t know how Selena even knew. But she did. She knew and she teased me about it all the time.”
Nora stared at May, stunned. “What?” she said softly.
“I admit it,” May said. “It’s the kind of thing that could, it could create a huge scandal for Brett if the constituency found out. I was only a child, and math was tough for me. It always has been. I hated it. I cheated off my neighbor in the test. I don’t know how Selena found out.”
“There’s no official record of it,” Nora said. “So there’s only one way Selena could have found out. Someone told her.”
“But who?” May asked. “There’s no one in the world who knows, except me.”
“How about the person whose notes you copied?”
“Oh, her? Cindy something? She left town after high school. She got a scholarship to Harvard and is a professor of Statistics now.”
“So maybe she told someone.”
“I doubt it,” May said. “Cindy was more scared than I was. If she got caught, she’d get thrown out of Harvard. There’s no way she talked.”
“Well, who else knew?”
“Brett did,” May said. “But he wouldn’t talk either. After all, he would be more affected by the scandal than I would.”
Nora didn’t comment. “Coming back to Selena… What time did you leave her?”
“Midnight,” May said. “I left the library at midnight.”
“She was alive and well when you did? What was she doing?”
“She was going through old newspapers,” May said. “I… I wish I hadn’t left her alone the way I did. I was clearly the last person to see her alive.”
“Second last,” Nora said. “You were the second last person to see her alive. The murderer was the last person.”
May shut her eyes, and shook her head. “I can’t bear the thought.”
“Aren’t you ashamed?” Nora asked. “You let an innocent man be framed for this crime. You let the police chase the wrong suspect. All because of a high school test!”
“What are you talking about?” May asked.
“Robert,” Nora said. “Robert didn’t murder her.”
“Well, he must have,” May said. “The police think he did it.”
“May, you just said that you saw him leave. That you talked to Selena after. That Selena was perfectly healthy and normal when you left.”
“Well, she was,” May insisted.
“So Robert couldn’t be the murderer.”
“He must be,” May said. “He must have waited for me to leave before killing her. He must have hidden in the library somewhere.”
“That makes absolutely no sense!” Nora exploded. “What is wrong with you? You’re suggesting that Robert met Selena that night, had a huge fight with her. Keep in mind he didn’t know you were eavesdropping. Then he randomly decided to pretend to leave, hid somewhere, came back and killed Selena?”
“That sounds ridiculous,” May said.
“Because it is ridiculous!”
“But there are so many ways it could have happened,” May said. “He could have found out that I was eavesdropping somehow. He could have been in a rage, gone somewhere, found the letter opener, come back to kill her, seen me, hidden till I left, and then killed her. Or maybe he...”
“Or maybe you killed Selena,” Nora said. “That’s seeming more and more likely to me.”
“I didn’t,” May said. “I vow I didn’t!”
“Well, I’d say that the sheriff will be interested in all this,” Nora said. “Why don’t you make your vows to him instead.”
“Oh you can’t tell him!” May cried. “You can’t, Nora, you can’t! I’ll be ruined!”
“Do you think I care?” Nora said. “You’re either the murderer or you’re giving the murderer a chance to escape. Either way, I’m not letting this go unpunished. You and I are going to see the sheriff right now.”
“Please don’t do this,” May pleaded. “All I wanted was that manuscript.”
“Which I don’t have,” Nora said. “The police were here before me. They searched the place already. Sean probably has the manuscript anyway.”
May looked appalled. “You lied about finding it?”
“I’m a good liar.” Nora smiled. “Comes in handy when dealing with murderers.”
*****
Chapter 18
Sean entered the room behind Dr. Neil, his hat tucked under his arm. Grant was still connected to many tubes. The flowers that surrounded his bed were now wilting. He opened his eyes when Sean entered, and took a breath.
“Well, Grant,” Dr. Neil smiled. “You’re looking good enough to run a marathon!”
Grant gave a we
ak smile.
“Grant and I eat breakfast together once in awhile,” Dr. Neil said. “It’s tradition, since we were in the town Arts council together. Isn’t that right, Grant? I’d have felt quite bad if something happened to you.”
“Oh please,” Grant said, some strength returning to his voice. “You’ve longed to hit me on the head many a times.”
“Well, I can’t deny that,” Dr. Neil grinned. “Good to see the blow hasn’t affected your sense of humor.” With a serious look, Dr. Neil said, “I don’t think this town would be the same without you. You’re as much a part of it as the statue on the fountain.”
“And just as ancient, is it?” Grant asked. “You’re the same age as I am, Neil, don’t forget. I’m still young.”
“Oh, I’m about ten years older than you, actually,” Dr. Neil laughed. “You were still in high school when I started practicing. Going out with some pretty girl who saw an Adonis in your pimply face.”
Sean smiled. “I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask you, Grant, if that’s all right.”
“I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask myself,” Grant said.
“We’ll do mine first,” Sean said. “What’s the last thing you remember, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Grant frowned. “Robert,” he said. “Robert and Nora. But I’m not sure if that’s a memory or a dream.”
Sean nodded, and wrote it down. “Describe it anyway.”
“I was with them at the library? Then it gets dark.” Grant looked away as he tried to recall. “Something about… something about Robert needing to talk? He kept saying it was urgent. He had to meet Nora at the library and I had to open up for him. I was scared, but I was also intrigued. I decided to open up the library against my better judgement.”
“What then?”
“There’s a blank space in my memory after,” Grant said. “I’m trying to remember but for some reason all I can think of is a…” He paused. “All I can think of is Brett?”
“Brett Almand?” Sean raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Grant said apologetically. “Of course, that’s probably because I was planning the memorial with May, so I’ve seen Brett around.”
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