by Jackie Lynn
“We’ll get you home soon,” Rose assured her. “Just not today and not with her,” she said, gesturing toward the senator as she was being led toward the line of police cars.
“Senator Dilliard was being blackmailed by the drug dealer, Robert Lincoln,” Sheriff Montgomery reported. “She, not Lincoln, had Jason and the others killed,” he added.
“What?” Chariot asked. “But why?”
“Jason must have found a photo card when they broke into Lincoln’s place,” Rose said, filling in a few of the details. “We think that they broke into the storage facility to steal drug money. They knew Lincoln kept a big stash in one of his buildings. But Jason must have found the card and kept it.” She reached over and squeezed Chariot on the arm.
“Lincoln confessed to the drugs and the blackmail attempt on the senator this morning. He was tired of her ‘tough on drugs’ soapbox so he got something to make her leave him and the other dealers alone.”
Montgomery had talked to the police in Pierre after they made the arrest of the dealer. “He knew who stole his money, but he wasn’t the one to have them killed.”
“That was the senator’s doing. She found out the card had been taken from Lincoln.” Rose nodded at the sheriff. She could tell that they had discovered the same things in their research. Rose also knew that Ms. Lou Ellen had told him about the photographs. “The senator knew that Jason had the memory card because she knew that Jason had been with the group that had stolen from the drug dealer. Somehow, she found out everything.”
“But what … ?” Chariot asked, still not following the logic of what the two were explaining. “What was on the card? And how did Jason know to take it?” she asked.
“We don’t know why Jason took it. I think it was in the camera and he just took it when the others took the money. Then he must have looked at the files and tried to make a deal or something. We’re not sure. But he obviously found out who wanted it.”
“The president,” Chariot noted. “Lincoln, the drug dealer.” She had heard that theory, too.
“Not the president as in Lincoln, but the president as in a senator who had those aspirations. She was trying to get her party’s nomination.” Rose remembered reading about Dilliard’s campaign in the small article found in the paper Chariot had brought with her, the one that also had the picture of her daughter on the front page, the same daughter featured on the memory card.
“The senator’s daughter was apparently more than just a scholarship beauty queen,” Rose replied. “She had also been involved in a kind of ‘porn for drugs’ exchange.”
Chariot shook her head. “What?” she asked, still sounding as if she didn’t understand.
“Mommy dearest didn’t want her little girl’s future or her own political career ruined. Lincoln compromised the senator’s daughter because he wanted her mother backing off of her drug raids. She didn’t care who stood in her way, she was going to get that card.”
Rose glanced behind them to see the middle-aged senator being placed in the back of the squad car. “It turns out that she had her associate take Lincoln’s cell phone. She had to frame him to silence him. And we know that she was counting on your testimony against Lincoln,” Rose said. “She didn’t want him to be believed.”
Chariot closed her eyes.
Rose noticed that it seemed as if Chariot had something to hide.
“Sheriff, could you go and make sure that Willie is okay?” Rose asked. She wanted him to leave the two women alone for the rest of the conversation that they needed to have. “He slammed through the fence with his truck. I think he may have hurt himself.”
“Yeah, sure,” the sheriff responded. He sensed that Rose wanted to ask the young woman something personal.
Rose waited until Montgomery had walked away. She glanced up at the nurses and they moved away from the gurney as well. They needed to go inside anyway and report to the other medical staff what was happening.
“You never saw the man who called me, did you?” Rose asked.
Chariot waited a minute and then shook her head. “I was blindfolded the whole time, too,” she confessed. “I never saw either of the men who had us. I only heard their voices.”
“So, what did the senator tell you to make you say that it was Lincoln?” Rose asked, finally piecing everything together.
Chariot turned away. A tear rolled down her cheek. “She said he was a bad guy who had killed Jason and that if I identified him as the man who kidnapped me from the jail then she would be able to have him locked up for the rest of his life.”
Rose nodded. She knew, however, that there was more than what Chariot was saying. She understood that there was more at stake than just getting back at the man who had murdered her boyfriend. She waited, watching as Chariot tried to find the words to explain what she already knew.
“And she said that she would get you back your little girl.”
Chariot did not respond. Rose took her by the hand.
“It’s okay,” Rose said softly, suddenly understanding everything that had happened. “If I were a mother, I would have done the same thing.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
You look amazing!” Thomas had come over to Ms. Lou Ellen’s cabin to pick up Rose for the Spring Fling dance.
It wasn’t certain until the day of the event that she was going to be able to attend because of her injuries from the wreck. Ms. Lou Ellen, however, had done her astrological readings for Rose and decided that it was perfectly fine for her to be out in public. Rose, feeling quite cheerful on that day, agreed. She wanted to be seen with the man she loved. She wanted to celebrate.
Ms. Lou Ellen had taken Rhonda shopping in Memphis. They had gone without their friend, surprising her with the most beautiful yellow spring dress Rose had ever seen. It was perfect and she loved it. Even Rhonda enjoyed the activity so much that she had bought herself a new blouse. Much to her mother’s surprise, it wasn’t even black, instead it was a lovely shade of pink.
“And doesn’t Thomas look handsome?” Ms. Lou Ellen was standing behind Rose as he entered. “Well, it’s just a perfect night for new beginnings.”
Rose rolled her eyes. She knew that her friend still thought she should get pregnant. She hadn’t had a chance to tell Ms. Lou Ellen that she had decided for sure not to pursue motherhood.
Since Rose had been recovering from her injuries, being cared for by Thomas, she realized that she was happy with the way things were in her life. She was fulfilled as she was. She had been right in her decision not to have children. She was fine with the choices she had made in her life, including the choice not to be a parent. She would have that conversation with Ms. Lou Ellen at a later time, however. This night, Rose decided, was for dancing.
Thomas had a flower for both of the women. He handed them their boxes. Rose opened hers and found a beautiful yellow rose placed on a wrist corsage with tiny blossoms of baby’s breath.
Ms. Lou Ellen opened her box and found a lovely pink orchid that was a perfect match with her dusky pink spring suit. Rose helped her pin it on.
“Well, aren’t we just a perfect threesome?” Ms. Lou Ellen asked, smiling.
“You don’t have a date?” Thomas asked. He thought his friend had arranged for some man from town to escort her.
“Of course, I have a date.” She glanced out the window. “He is approaching us now,” she announced.
Rose and Thomas watched as Willie walked in their direction.
Rose was shocked to see the old man dressed so well. His hair was slicked back to the side and it appeared as if he had bought a new suit.
“I had to go to Memphis twice,” Ms. Lou Ellen noted. “But I’d say it was well worth the trouble, wouldn’t you?” She smiled.
All of a sudden, Lester Earl started to bark.
“It’s too late for that,” she said to her pet as the dog stuck its tail between its legs and headed to the back of the house.
Ms. Lou Ellen’s caller lightly tapped on the door and Thom
as opened it.
“Hello, Willie,” Thomas said, gesturing for him to come inside.
“My goodness, Mr. Willie,” Rose said with a bow. “You look very handsome indeed.”
The man blushed and nodded. He had always been a man of few words. “Thomas,” he said with a nod. “Ms. Rose.” He smiled at her.
And then, he looked up at his date. “Lou Ellen,” he said, shaking his head. “You are a vision of loveliness.”
“Well, my goodness,” the older woman said, clutching her hand to her chest. “Who knew you would be such the charmer?”
“Shall we go?” Thomas asked, noticing the time on the kitchen clock. The dance had already been going on for at least thirty minutes.
A truck pulled into the campground. Rose looked out the window and knew that it was the couple from Texas, the husband and wife who were searching for the woman’s birth family. They had called earlier in the day to say that they were coming back to West Memphis later that evening. They had just wanted to let the office personnel know their plans.
Rose smiled when she remembered the conversation she had on the phone with the man. He had told her that through their granddaughter’s research they had found his wife’s half sister and that it had been quite a sweet reunion. The woman had told them that she had always thought their mother had given birth to another child. All her life, she had told them, she had thought someone was missing from their family and that her mother had always longed for another child.
His wife had cried when she heard that, the man said. And even though both of her birth parents were dead, she had found a peace that she had never had. She had finally felt as if she had, in some odd and inexplicable way, come home. After such a long life of never knowing anything for sure about where she came from or who she really was, she had been given a chance to go home.
Rose watched the truck pull down the driveway and out to their fifth-wheel trailer by the river. She was glad that they, like she, had found what they were looking for. She was glad answers somehow flowed with the Mississippi and that peace settled along its banks.
“Let’s go dance!” Rose announced and the four of them headed for the door. They all stopped, however, when they saw who was standing on the front porch. Lucas and Rhonda were waiting right outside the door.
“Did you come to take pictures of us?” Thomas asked. He noticed the camera in Rhonda’s hand.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” she replied. She walked in with her husband following behind her. “Mary let me borrow her fancy new camera.” She held up the digital camera that Mary had bought for her visit with her sister.
“She just got home a little while ago. She’s been sleeping most of the evening. I think all that family reunion time wore her out!”
Rose smiled. She had enjoyed meeting Mary’s sister. They made a great pair. She knew that her friend had hated to see her sibling leave. It wasn’t fatigue that took her to bed, she thought. It was probably sadness.
“So, get over there next to the window and let me see some big smiles.” The two couples stood together while Rhonda held up the camera and began snapping pictures. She took a shot and then studied it, then took another.
She took a couple with just Thomas and Rose and then a couple with her mother and Willie, and then a few with all four of them.
“Okay, one more,” Rhonda said, snapping another shot of the entire group.
“Hey, what did you find out from Chariot?” Rose asked. She knew that Rhonda had been in touch with the young woman since she had been taken back to Pierre and that the South Dakota senator was in jail, having confessed to being blackmailed and for conspiring to have the three thieves killed.
Rose also knew that the drug dealer, Robert Lincoln, was serving time for his trafficking and that the man who had gotten away from the park was an associate of the senator. He, along with the South Dakota policeman, were the ones who had actually murdered Jason and the others. He had been fingered by the senator.
“Chariot’s good,” Rhonda replied. “They’re letting her have supervised visits with Constance again,” she announced. “And the little girl is happy and healthy. Chariot is doing really well. Her injuries have all healed up and she seems to think that if everything goes like it should, she’ll get permanent custody of Constance in about three months.”
“That is so great,” Rose responded. She knew how much it had meant to Chariot to have the opportunity to be reunited with her daughter.
“There were never any perjury charges brought against her for lying about her identification of Lincoln. Nobody wanted to see her do jail time.” Lucas was standing closeby.
“She’s moving back to Mitchell for good. Her grandmother moved to an assisted living facility and Chariot is going to live in the house next to her mother. She said that Pierre was just too sad without Jason and she even thinks she and her mother will work out their differences.”
“Well, that’s something,” Ms. Lou Ellen noted.
“Chariot said that she thought the two of them were finding some peace between them,” Rhonda explained. “She said that now she had a better sense of what mothers do to protect their children. She said that she now understands that her mother killed her father not just in her own self-defense, but also in defense of Chariot. She understands now that her mother did what she did to protect her child.”
“Wow, that’s pretty heavy stuff,” said Rose.
“And Chariot is even thinking that she might like to be a foster mother, take in children like her Constance and give them a temporary home. She says she likes the idea of being a mother to lots of children.”
“Mothers, our band of angels,” Thomas commented.
There was a pause. Rhonda smiled and nodded at Ms. Lou Ellen. Everyone noticed the exchange and understood the deep love and appreciation that the two women shared.
“And friends,” Rose added. “Friends, too, are the band of angels helping to carry us home, helping us to find home, mothers and friends.”
Thomas squeezed her by the hand.
“So, you’re all going to the Spring Fling,” Rhonda said, changing the subject, looking over at her friends, how dressed up they were, how happy they all seemed.
“Looks that way,” Rose said.
“It’s not too late to join us, you know,” Thomas added. He was leading Rose toward the door. The other couple was following behind them.
“Well, I think my dancing days are going to be a bit limited for a while,” Rhonda said.
They all turned to her, wondering what she meant.
“Why, dear, are you sick?” Ms. Lou Ellen asked, looking very concerned about her daughter’s welfare.
“A little,” she replied. “Mostly in the mornings,” she added.
“What?” Rose asked. She was still a nurse at heart. And she was concerned about Rhonda’s health.
“Yes,” Rhonda replied. “Mother, your horoscope readings were, in fact, correct, just off a bit.”
“What do you mean?” Ms. Lou Ellen asked, not following her daughter’s line of conversation.
“I mean that you were right. New life is springing forth at Shady Grove.”
Everyone looked at Rhonda and then at Lucas, who was beaming like a proud father.
“I’m pregnant!”
The room fell silent and then exploded into a loud celebration. And even before they made it to the Elks Lodge, the dancing had already begun at Shady Grove.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge the wonderful editors at St. Martin’s with whom I work, Nichole Argyres, Kylah McNeill, and the fabulous copyeditor Sabrina Soares Roberts. And, as always, thank you, Sally. You are my bright and shining star.
ALSO IN THE SHADY GROVE
MYSTERY SERIES
Down by the Riverside
Jacob’s Ladder
ALSO BY JACKIE LYNN,
WRITING AS LYNNE HINTON
FICTION
Friendship Cake
Hope Spring
s
Forever Friends
The Things I Know Best
The Last Odd Day
The Arms of God
NONFICTION
Meditations for Walking
