The Secrets She Kept

by Brenda Novak

  JADE HAD HIM wait in the car while she ran in. Keith watched through the window as she spoke with the woman behind the counter before disappearing into the back.

  It took longer than he’d expected, but when Jade finally came out, she hurried toward him with a coat draped over one arm. Thanks to a sudden gust of wind, he could see she had a file hidden underneath it, which was encouraging.

  “Everything go okay?” he asked as she climbed in.

  Tilting her head to peer into the lobby, she slid the file into view, careful to keep it below the dash. “Yeah, but let’s go before Violet realizes I wasn’t just picking up the coat I left here last week.”

  He put the car in Drive and pulled out of the parking lot. “That took a while.”

  “Violet was all worked up. Chief Underwood sent Les Scott over first thing this morning to get copies of the records, so she was kind of freaked out. ‘Do you think whoever killed Josephine Lazarow was staying here?’ That sort of thing.”

  “Were you working the night my mother was killed—or was she?”

  “She was. That’s partly why she’s so worked up. ‘Whoever it was could’ve killed me.’”

  “Did she say if Les found anything?”

  “She has no clue. She copied the records, put them in a manila envelope and he came by and picked them up.”

  Keith had tried to call Chief Underwood earlier, as soon as he’d heard from Landon. He’d wanted to ask if she’d found some piece of evidence he didn’t know about. But she hadn’t picked up. He was fairly certain she was avoiding his call. Now that she felt Rocki might be his mother’s killer, she didn’t fully trust him, or she would’ve said something about the search when he spoke with her last night. She must’ve been talking to him from a motel room in New Orleans or somewhere closer to Lafitte than South Carolina, since she’d arrived at Rocki’s house so early.

  “Tell me you got the records for Saturday and Wednesday.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you see anything that stuck out while you were making the copies?”

  She removed the sheets of paper from the envelope. “I didn’t even look. I was in too much of a hurry. But I can go through them now.” She frowned as she perused her own handwriting. “Okay, of the forty rooms we have available, we rented nineteen last Wednesday night.”

  “That’s more than I was expecting—for winter.”

  “We usually get forty to fifty percent occupancy on weekdays, which, during the winter, are busier than weekends.”

  “Do you recognize any of the people?”

  “Quite a few. Peter Mann was in town. He comes over to sell restaurant supplies every six months or so. Leland and Tina Hatch are hoping to open a B and B here in a year or two, when Leland retires. There were some biologists researching the marine fauna. They took two rooms. Leslie Harrison checked in.” She shot him a look. “But she only needed the room for a few hours.”

  Leslie Harrison ran the ice-cream parlor and could’ve been Dolly Parton’s twin sister. She’d been fooling around on her husband for years. “Leslie’s still cheating?”

  “She pretended she and Jeff were having an argument, so she needed the room all night because she wasn’t ‘about to stay under the same roof with him.’ But I wasn’t fooled. I saw her ‘guest’ sneak up to the second story. And I saw them both leave an hour later.”

  Keith was driving, so he couldn’t read the list, but he gestured to it. “And the others?”

  “We had a family—the Wilkersons. Mom, Dad and both kids. They have this goal of visiting one hundred lighthouses before the year is out and came to see ours.”

  “They don’t sound like suspicious characters.”

  “Definitely not. But neither are any of the others.”

  “Any women who were alone?”

  She lifted the top page to check the one underneath. “None.”

  “Were any of the people who stayed on Wednesday the same as those who were at the motel on Saturday?”

  She shook her head. “No. Completely new tenants. All of them.”

  Damn. He’d had such high hopes for those records.

  Once they reached Coldiron House, he’d look over what she had. Then he’d check to see who was staying at The Carriage Inn. That motel was smaller, and set on a back street, so he’d felt a stranger might not know about it. But there was always a chance.

  His phone buzzed. When he stopped to put the code in at the gate, he glanced down to see why. Rocki had sent him a text. They took my computer.

  He parked in the drive. It wasn’t raining, so he didn’t see any point in using the garage. He and Jade wouldn’t be at the house long enough to bother.

  “Holy shit,” Jade said. “This is gorgeous!”

  “You’ve never been here?” he asked as they climbed the steps to the porch.

  “I’m not exactly someone your mother would invite to tea. I saw her all over town, but I bet she only knew me as ‘that lesbian sister of Nancy’s.’”

  “That’s entirely possible.” He let her in the house. Then he texted Rocki back. What will they find?

  On my computer? My plane reservations to and from Fairham.

  Your phone already placed you on Fairham. Anything else?

  I don’t know. I have no idea what they’ll perceive as incriminating. My life is falling apart so fast I can’t even think straight.

  Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m doing all I can to find the real culprit.

  What if they charge me?

  They’re not going to charge you. But if they do, don’t say a word. Tell them you’d like a lawyer.

  You believe I didn’t do it, don’t you?

  Absolutely.

  He started to put his phone away, then pulled it out again. Did they find a wig?

  A wig? Like for Halloween costumes? I’m sure we have a few—one for a witch, that kind of thing.

  The fact that she didn’t immediately know what he was talking about encouraged him. I’m asking about a regular brown wig.

  No. I’ve never bought a wig in my life. They can check anything, anywhere. I wouldn’t even know where to get a decent one.

  That’s good news. It’s going to be okay, like I said. How are you and Landon getting along?

  We’re not. We’re like strangers. We barely talk. I heard two cops whispering about that naked picture Landon sent Mom. They said, “Who could blame her? My wife would probably do the same thing.” Everyone thinks I did it.

  We’re going to prove you didn’t.

  She didn’t reply, so he tried calling her, but she wouldn’t pick up.

  “Everything okay?” Jade asked.

  “No,” he said. “But let’s see what we can do to fix it.”

  After slipping his phone in his pocket, he led her to the dining room, where they spread the papers she’d copied at the motel on the table. He recognized the names she’d mentioned in the car and asked about the rest. As she’d told him before, there were no women who’d rented a room alone. But he didn’t believe the woman who had stopped Marcus on the road that night had been alone. Someone had been inside his house...

  “Could any of the females who were there be in their thirties?”

  “No. They were all older.”

  He made his way down the list, eventually pointing to a name three-quarters down. “What about this guy? Did he have a wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you remember her?”

  “Not really. I never actually saw her. But she called the front office later that night, asking for an extra blanket. I was shocked that she’d need one. We have the big feather comforters on the beds at this time of year. They’re so warm. But she said she wasn’t used to the cold weather. Said it was summer where she live
d.”

  An uneasy feeling prickled Keith’s spine. “She said it was summer where she lived?”

  “Yeah. They were from Australia. She and her husband had the coolest accents.”

  Now Keith’s whole body was tingling. “Did she give you her name?”

  “She might have. I don’t remember it, though. And her husband didn’t put her on the room, so...”

  “How long did they stay?”

  “Just the one night. Checked out early the next morning.”

  He stared at the name “Harry Middleton” again. Was it merely a coincidence that there’d been a man from Australia staying at the Drift Inn on the night there’d been an intruder at Coldiron House?

  It could easily be a coincidence. Keith had to acknowledge that. But “Harry Middleton” bothered him as much as the Australian accent. He couldn’t help wondering if it’d been fabricated by meshing the first name of England’s Prince Harry with Kate Middleton’s last. Some lies went that way—they sort of evolved from easy associations. “Did you check his ID?”

  “I always check ID, but I admit I didn’t check his very carefully. He was totally credible, and he’d already paid for the room online, so I wasn’t worried that we’d get stiffed.”

  “Was it a driver’s license or...”

  “It was a passport with a blurry picture, which didn’t do him justice. He had to be sixty or so, but he was handsome in a polished sort of way. Reminded me of George Clooney.”

  Keith rubbed his chin. Could this be who he thought it was? The age and accent certainly fit...

  “Did you get his license plate number?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “A lot of hotels ask for a license plate number, even with a rental.”

  “Maybe in the big city, where parking’s a problem. Not out here, especially in the winter when the lot’s half empty.”

  “Hang on a sec,” he said and went upstairs to get his mother’s phone. Fortunately, Chief Underwood had returned it to him when she’d brought it over, along with Josephine’s computer.

  When he found it, he searched through his mother’s pictures until he came to one that showed her with a George Clooney type, as Jade had indicated. This had to be Hugh Pointer. Josephine had a lot of pictures of him and with him—especially over the past year.

  Taking the phone, he hurried back downstairs to find Jade wandering around the house, admiring the furnishings.

  “What’s it like to be so rich?” she asked.

  “I’m not going to lie. It has its benefits.” He held out his mother’s phone to show her the picture he’d pulled up. “This isn’t Harry Middleton, the ‘credible’ older guy who checked in last Wednesday night, is it?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “Yes!” she cried. “How’d you know?”

  * * *

  Landon could hear Rocki cleaning up in the bedroom. The kids were at school. He’d gotten them there late but, after the initial disruption of having the cops show up first thing, they were out of the house. He’d wanted Rocki to take them, to spare her the humiliation of watching the police search the house, but she was too upset to go anywhere. He sensed that by staying, she somehow felt she was protecting her belongings.

  After dropping off Zac and Chloe, however, he’d come home to find that the police weren’t taking much care with the house, in spite of her presence. He couldn’t do anything to change that, either. He and Rocki could only stand by as half a dozen men, along with Fairham’s chief of police, ransacked every drawer, cupboard and closet and inspected every nook and cranny. They even rummaged through their underwear and the shoebox hidden in the closet where they kept their sex toys so the kids wouldn’t find them.

  After the initial shock of being invaded by police officers, Rocki had watched in silence, tears streaming down her face.

  Seeing her so devastated had nearly killed Landon. He wasn’t sure if Chief Underwood found anything she deemed “telling” or important. She hadn’t been particularly friendly to him, and he could understand why. She identified with the pain his actions had caused Rocki. That seemed to hold true even for the men on the Lafitte force, most of whom he knew from school, sports or business.

  He’d destroyed his wife and created the worst experience of his life...

  In the end, the police had taken Rocki’s hairbrush, her computer and a wig that she’d purchased with a Disney costume for Chloe some years ago. But at least it was over, and they hadn’t taken more. Although the search seemed to have lasted for days, the officers and Underwood were gone.

  He called his mother to see if she’d get the kids and take them to her place after school, said he and Rocki were dealing with some “problems” and was grateful when she agreed. He hoped that brief respite would give him and his wife a chance to regroup before they had to face Chloe and Zac. If they could pretend that what had happened this morning was just some big misunderstanding, maybe the kids wouldn’t have to suffer along with them.

  But he wasn’t convinced Rocki would be able to bounce back. The invasion of their privacy, especially at such a difficult time, had been hard on her.

  Closing his eyes, he let his head fall against the couch, where he’d dropped a few seconds earlier. If only he’d never gotten involved with Josephine. Then he wouldn’t have had any reason to go to Fairham instead of Vegas, and Rocki wouldn’t have followed him there and this would never have happened.

  But, bad as it was, he feared the worst was yet to come...

  What if she went to prison? That wasn’t unheard of, even with people who were innocent.

  His phone pinged, signaling a text.

  Daddy, what’s going on? Chloe texted me that the police came to the house this morning! I’d call, but I’m in class.

  Thank God for small favors, because he couldn’t bear to talk to Brooklyn right now, feared she’d see right through his “everything’s okay” act. It’s nothing, babe, he wrote back. A misunderstanding about Grandma Josephine. When someone’s been murdered they have to look at everyone who was close to her.

  I knew she didn’t commit suicide!

  You were right. I think we all felt pretty strongly about that. Anyone who knew her would have a hard time believing she’d do something like that.

  But why would they bother you guys? You live in Louisiana!

  They’re just being thorough. We have nothing to worry about. But please don’t bother Mom right now. It’s been a hard morning.

  I won’t. I have to put my phone away before I get in trouble. But call me later, okay?

  I will.

  He sat on the couch, listening to the oppressive silence in the house for another fifteen minutes. Then, unable to endure the strain between him and Rocki any longer, he got up and walked down the hall.

  When he opened the door, she turned from putting her jewelry back in its box. But her eyes didn’t light up the way they used to when she saw him. They shifted dully back to her task, as if he wasn’t standing in the doorway.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  “I tried talking to you—for days. All you wanted to do was get defensive and yell, and then you went to New Orleans.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair, which was already standing on end from the number of times he’d done that before. “Where I got drunk because I couldn’t face what I’d done. I was...trying to cope with the disappointment I felt in myself, with the truth that I wasn’t the man I thought I was—that you thought I was. I couldn’t bear how badly my actions would hurt you.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I realize that running from it will get me nowhere. In the end, there’s no changing what I did, and there’s no hiding from it, either. All I can do is take responsibility and tell you how sorry I am.”

  “I don’t understand how
or why it even happened,” she said, looking shell-shocked.

  He let his breath go in a long sigh and bumped his head repeatedly against the door frame. The impact hurt, but he didn’t care. He wanted to do a lot worse. “I don’t, either. But I know everything I want is still right here. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  She quit working and sat on the bed. “Why did she do it?” she asked. “To prove I was nothing next to her? To show everyone that she could take the one thing I loved more than anything else?”

  He couldn’t help wincing at the past tense of “love.”

  “I don’t think that was it at all. I believe she was lonely, and because I made you happy, she thought maybe I could make her happy, too.”

  “What did she say when you told her you didn’t want to...to carry on the affair?”

  “She said she had never wanted me, anyway. That I wasn’t worth her time. That Hugh loved her and that eventually they’d be together.”

  “She was in denial. I don’t think he ever planned on leaving his wife.”

  “Which was why she was so lonely, I guess.”

  “She really loved him.”

  “That’s my take. Like Gretchen said, he was the one she’s always wanted.”

  “But she couldn’t have him, and she wasn’t used to being denied. He wouldn’t do what he needed to do in order for them to be together.”

  He shoved away from the door frame and sat on the end of the bed, facing her. “I believe that all her life, she’s been looking for something or someone to make her feel whole. Malcolm, as good a man as he was, didn’t satisfy her, or she wouldn’t have been looking elsewhere. Hugh might have done it for her, but she was never able to have all of him.”

  Rocki closed her eyes. “I still can’t believe she chose you.”

  “She was going through a bad time, losing everything—her money, her status, maybe even Coldiron House—and Hugh, the man she loved, wasn’t coming to her rescue the way she wanted him to. I’m guessing she thought that after waiting so long and with his daughter getting older, he’d finally leave his wife and marry her. The more she had to settle for ‘same old, same old,’ the more upset she got.”