by Sofie Kelly
“He wasn’t a good person,” a voice said. Sam’s voice. He was standing just a few feet away. He shook his head emphatically. “He was a lousy husband and a lousy father, Pearl. Don’t make Tom out to be some kind of saint just because he’s dead.”
Pearl got to her feet and I did as well.
Sam came and stood in front of us, ignoring me, focusing only on Pearl. “Whatever happened to him has nothing to do with you. You did the right thing for you and for Roma. If Tom had been a good man, you wouldn’t have had to sneak away with the supper dishes on the table and just the clothes on your back. You wouldn’t have had to depend on Anna’s kindness.”
“We know what Anna and the other women were doing,” I said quietly.
Something flashed quickly across Sam’s face. “Okay,” he said. “That doesn’t change anything.”
Pearl kept her eyes fixed on Sam, one hand clenched into a tight fist at her side. “You told me it would be all right Sam, but you lied, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t,” Sam said. His focus was completely on Pearl. “It was all right. You’ve had a good life.”
“That night, he threatened to take Roma, trying to scare me,” Pearl said. “He twisted her arm, she was crying and I…I told him I’d do whatever he wanted.” Her voice gained strength. “I made his favorite meal—liver and onions—when it was ready he said it tasted like an old boot, and he went out looking for beer because Idris wouldn’t sell any to him anymore.”
Roma had come up behind Sam and she stood there, arms wrapped tightly around her body again, one hand pressed against her mouth.
“I grabbed Roma and I ran,” Pearl continued. “I knew Anna would help us so that’s where I went. You were there. You said it was over, Sam. But it isn’t.”
She seemed to be aware of only Sam, towering over her, his mouth pulled into a thin, tight line.
He swallowed and gave her a smile of sorts. “It’s been over for a long time, Pearl.” He reached toward her and then abruptly pulled his hand back.
“Turquoise bucket seats,” Roma said then, to no one in particular.
We all looked at her. She was shaking. I pulled off my sweater and put it around her shoulders. She looked at me. “The car had turquoise bucket seats. I was in the driver’s seat turning the steering wheel, driving the car. I remember. Then my dad came and he sat me on his lap and I was still driving the car. He smelled like cinnamon gum.”
Her hands were clenched into tight, knotted fists. She took a couple of steps closer to Sam. “It was you. You let me sit on your lap and drive. It wasn’t Tom. It was you.”
32
Sam acted like Roma hadn’t even spoken. All of his attention was concentrated on Pearl.
“Just leave this all be, and trust me,” he said. “You didn’t kill Tom. You couldn’t.” His body language didn’t give anything away but I could hear an edge of desperation in his voice.
“You helped Anna, didn’t you, Sam?” I asked.
His gaze flicked in my direction.
“I don’t know why,” I went on. “Maybe your father hurt your mother. Maybe you stumbled onto what Anna and the other women were doing and it made you feel good to help. Really it doesn’t matter why you were helping. You were doing it.”
“So what if I was?” Sam said. He made a dismissive gesture like he was shooing away a fly. “Pearl didn’t kill Tom.”
“No, she didn’t,” I said.
Pearl was shaking her head. “I just wanted to get Roma away from him.” She reached for her daughter, putting a protective arm around her shoulders. It made my chest hurt, thinking about a young Pearl, all those years ago, desperate to keep her child safe.
“I know,” I said. I kept the emotion out of my voice as much as I could and I didn’t take my eyes off of Sam, who met my gaze with no problem.
Roma was still staring at Sam. “I remember the car,” she said. “It was parked over there, by the carriage house. I remember you.”
Sam’s eyes flicked over to her. “I know you do. It just wasn’t that night,” he said, gently.
“Tom talked with his fists, didn’t he?” I said.
“That he did,” Sam agreed. He stood with his arms loosely at his sides. He was a big man, strong. More than forty years ago he would have been more than a match for Tom Karlsson.
My throat was dry and I swallowed a couple of times. “I’m guessing you drove by that little house a lot.”
“We had work in the area. I drove by a few times.”
“But not that night.”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“That night, by some accident of timing—good or bad—you saw Tom come back. Idris Blackthorne wouldn’t sell to him, but someone else in town did. And you could see Pearl walking up the side of the road. You knew what would happen when Tom found her.”
“I was delivering a load of railroad ties at Wisteria Hill.”
“No,” I said. “You did that earlier. You were in your car, the one with the turquoise bucket seats, on your way to check on Pearl. You’d probably heard they were going to be evicted. Maybe you knew Tom was drinking. Or you guessed he would be. You knew there’d be trouble.”
“I don’t remember seeing the one-ton that night,” Pearl said, slowly. “I remember that pile of railroad ties, but not the truck.”
I kept looking at Sam thinking, say the words, but he didn’t. And I knew I was going to have to.
Except Pearl beat me to it.
“You didn’t have to kill him, Sammy,” she said.
I looked at Roma and Pearl. Then I looked back at Sam. He gave his head a little shake.
“I couldn’t figure out how you did it,” I said, “because your foot was injured, and I didn’t see how you could get around, but you didn’t go see Tom after Pearl showed up out here, you were there before she got here.
“You saw Tom before you put that spike through your foot,” I continued. “In fact, I think that’s where you did it. Not here.”
His jaw tightened, but that was the only visible reaction.
“I can’t blame you, Sam. I don’t know what I would have done in your place.”
Pearl’s face was still drained of color. Her back was straight and she held tight to Roma. She was strong enough to get through this. And so was Roma.
“I didn’t tell anyone that I walked out and left supper on the table,” Pearl said. “You were there at the house, after we were gone. That’s the only way you could have known the dishes were still there.”
Sam and I continued to lock eyes. “Has there ever been a time that you didn’t love Pearl?” I asked gently.
Sam smiled then, giving me a glimpse of the young man who’d carried a torch for a pretty girl who thought of him only as a friend.
“No,” he said. “There hasn’t.” He looked at Pearl. “He didn’t deserve you or Roma. I know, I know you were leaving him, but do you really think he would have ever let you go, let you be?”
He held out his hand to her and she took it, giving it a squeeze. “He’d banged your head so hard against the wall you probably had a concussion. And the marks of his fingers were on Roma’s little arm.”
He looked at me. “The nail through my foot did happen out here. I came the long way around. Got here just before they did. I wasn’t looking where I was walking. I dumped the load earlier. That’s what I was doing on the road that night, coming back here to stack it all up.” He turned to Roma. “You were in my car that night, ‘driving’ it while Anna took a look at your mother’s head.”
I shifted from one foot to the other, wishing I’d wrapped my ankle this morning. “You told Ellen what happened, didn’t you?” I said to Sam.
He didn’t answer.
“She bandaged your foot and she helped you make it look like Tom had just walked away from Pearl and Roma. I’m guessing it was her idea.”
Sam’s mouth moved but he still didn’t say anything. Pearl never took her eyes off of him.
&
nbsp; “There’s no way you could have driven Tom’s car out to the highway. You couldn’t have managed the clutch with your foot bandaged. Ellen drove and she helped you clean up and bury the body…here. I’m guessing sometime in the middle of the night. So you both knew where it was. So you could both make sure no one found it. The women couldn’t have carried Tom. But you could. Ellen knew this whole area. You probably brought the body in through the woods some way. I know there was a road back there.”
“Why, Sam?” Pearl asked. “Why did you kill Tom?”
He looked at her and all the years fell away. All I could see was a young man looking at his first love. Maybe his only love really.
He smiled. “So you’d be safe. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I’m sorry you had to find out at all. But I can’t be sorry Tom’s dead.”
33
“Call Marcus Gordon,” Sam said to me without turning his head, but before I’d punched the number into my phone, Marcus had arrived anyway.
I walked across the yard to meet him. All I said was that Sam wanted to talk to him about what had happened the night Tom Karlsson disappeared. Sam should be able to tell the story his own way, I figured. I owed him at least that.
I stayed where I was, out of the way, as Marcus walked over to Sam and Pearl. Roma had moved a few steps away from them. Pearl stood with one hand on Sam’s arm. They were talking. I had no idea about what.
Marcus stopped to say something to Roma. He looked back at me for a second. Roma turned as well and then she came across the grass to me.
“I can’t believe Sam killed my father,” she said.
I put my arm around her shoulders, the same way Pearl had. “I’m not making excuses for Sam,” I said. “But he was young. He loved your mother.” I tipped my head to look at her. “And you.”
After Marcus had talked to Sam and Pearl for a couple of minutes, he moved away from them and pulled out his phone. Roma went back across the yard to her mother and they walked back to me, arm in arm.
“Wait here with Kathleen for just a minute,” Roma said to Pearl. “I’ll be right back.”
I assumed she was going to speak to Marcus, but instead she returned to Sam, who was half turned, staring out at the field behind the carriage house. Roma touched his arm and he swung around to look at her.
“How did you figure it all out?” Pearl said to me.
“Roma told me about ‘driving’ with Tom,” I said. “It was one of the few memories she had of him. She was so specific: turquoise bucket seats. I’d seen a picture of Tom’s car. I was thinking about what Roma had said and I remembered that Tom’s car didn’t have bucket seats.”
Pearl nodded. “No it didn’t.” She held her hands out, studying them as though she was looking for answers in the fine web of lines on her skin. “How could I not know, Kathleen?” she asked.
“You had no reason to think Tom was dead,” I said, gently. “Let alone that Sam had killed him. And you most likely had some kind of a concussion that night that mixed up your memory a little.”
She looked over at Sam and Roma, just as Roma put her arms around the older man and gave him an awkward hug. “I wonder how things would have been different if I’d returned Sam’s feelings.” Pearl said.
I reached for her hand and enfolded it in mine. “I don’t know,” I said. “My mother always says that doing one thing differently isn’t like pulling a single thread on a sweater and having the whole thing unravel. Our lives are a little more complicated than that. And if you’d done things differently there would be no Roma.” She was headed back to us, shoulders squared, head held high. “I like the world a whole lot better with Roma in it.”
Pearl smiled at me. “So do I.”
Roma and Pearl drove down to the police station and I followed them, mostly because it made me feel better. Roma hugged me in the parking lot and I told her I’d be at the library later if she needed me.
Hercules was waiting for me in the porch when I got home. I picked him up. “I feel bad about Sam,” I said. “He shouldn’t have killed Tom, or covered it up, but it makes me sad that he never got past his first love.” The cat nuzzled my neck. Across the backyard I could see Everett’s car in Rebecca’s driveway. Susan was covering for me at the library so I had time to fit the last piece of the puzzle into place.
I went upstairs and found the journal I wanted. Owen was in the kitchen when I came down. “I’m going to Rebecca’s,” I said. “Want to walk me over?” He made a beeline for the back door. Hercules decided to stay inside the porch on the bench where he could look out the window. He didn’t like a lot of “out” in his outdoors.
Owen led the way across the grass, making noise all the way. I said, “Uh huh,” at intervals just in case he was talking to me, although it occurred to me that I could have been agreeing to a month’s worth of catnip chickens or wild salmon for breakfast instead of cat food.
Owen headed for a spot in the sunshine in Rebecca’s gazebo and I knocked on the back door. She smiled when she saw me. “Hello Kathleen,” she said. “Everett and I were just having coffee. Do you have time to join us?”
“I do,” I said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” she said. Then she noticed the diary I was carrying. “Did you find something you want to use?”
I looked at the hardbound journal. “There’s something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Come in, dear,” she said. She glanced past me, caught sight of Owen on the gazebo railing and waved at him. He bobbed his head in return.
Everett was sitting at Rebecca’s tiny kitchen table. His jacket was hanging on the back of the chair and his tie was loose. He got to his feet when I walked in.
“Hello, Kathleen,” he said. His eyes flicked to the journal.
Behind me Rebecca was pouring me a cup of coffee and cutting a piece of her cinnamon coffee cake; coffee at Rebecca’s never meant just coffee.
Once we were all seated at the table I turned to Everett. “I should tell you that Marcus Gordon will be in touch. In fact he may have already left a message with Lita. He knows what happened to Tom Karlsson, and how his body ended up out at Wisteria Hill.”
Everett’s eyes narrowed, but otherwise there was no change in his expression.
Rebecca’s face grew serious and she shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It turns out it was Sam.”
Rebecca looked at me, clearly surprised. “Sam? Sam Ingstrom?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?” Everett said.
I nodded.
I could see Everett relax, just slightly. “I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “For Roma and for Pearl.”
I could hear my heart pounding in both my ears and for a moment I thought about just drinking my coffee and going home. Then I thought about how Wisteria Hill’s secrets had hurt Roma.
Sam, Ellen, Anna, and who knows how many others had kept the secret of what happened to Tom to protect Roma and her mother. But it had hurt Roma when the truth was uncovered. The truth had a way of working itself to the surface, no matter how carefully it was buried, just like those bones had.
“What your mother was doing is going to come out,” I said to Everett. I had to put my hands in my lap because suddenly they were shaking.
I was never going to play poker with Everett Henderson, I promised myself. He had no tells. “You know about the knitting circle,” he said, picking up his coffee.
Rebecca looked from me to Everett. “What are you two talking about?”
He gestured at the diary, on the table between us. “I think Kathleen figured out that my mother was doing more than running the house and knitting blankets for the orphanage.”
“She was helping women whose husbands were hurting them,” I said.
Rebecca smiled again. “Oh that sounds like your mother,” she said. “And it explains some things my own mother did.” She looked at Everett. “She was involved, wasn’t she? She had to have been.”
>
“Yes,” I said, before he could answer.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Rebecca asked, her smile fading.
I waited for Everett to speak. To say no. To say yes. To say anything. But he didn’t. It seemed as though I was the one doing all the talking today.
I swallowed because there was suddenly a lump in my throat. “Rebecca, your mother helped Sam. She helped him bury Tom’s body and clean up. And she drove Tom’s car up to the highway. Sam had put a nail through his foot and he couldn’t manage the clutch.”
“I’ll talk to the county attorney,” Everett said immediately. “And Sam’s lawyer. It doesn’t have to come out.”
Rebecca shifted to look at him, her head on one side. “I want it to come out,” she said.
Everett’s mouth tightened and she reached across the table for his hand. “I’m proud of my mother,” she said. “Not that she broke the law, but for trying to help the people she cared about: Pearl, Roma, Sam.” She turned to face me. “There were no women’s shelters then. If your husband hit you, that was just part of life.”
She patted Everett’s hand. “I don’t need to be protected from what my mother did—good or bad.” She gestured at the journal. “I’m looking forward to reading what she wrote about it all.” She turned her attention to me again. “She did write about it, didn’t she?”
I didn’t look at Everett, but I could feel his eyes on me. “There are some pages missing,” I said.
“How did that happen?”
When I didn’t answer right away, Rebecca repeated her question.
“I cut them out,” Everett said.
She looked at him across the table. “Why?” There was nothing but curiosity in her voice.
He hesitated and I realized his reasons, even though I was pretty sure I knew what they were, were none of my business. I pushed my chair back from the table. “I’ll let you talk,” I said.
Rebecca touched my arm. “You don’t have to go anywhere, Kathleen,” she said. “I don’t have any secrets. Not anymore.”
