Killing Cousins

by Rett MacPherson

  I never said a word. I tried not even to breathe because I didn’t want to bring her back to the present. I just sat there and listened.

  “So, we picked Byron up, blanket and all, and headed out to the woods. It was the woods between Aunt Catherine’s house and the town limits. We found the spot that we’d picked out days before on another visit, and laid him down on the ground. It was a clearing, a meadow. There was one solitary tree in the meadow. We put him under it. We thought he’d be safer there because we could see him. And we’d be able to see the fairies when they came,” she said. More tears rolled down her face. “The storm came up fast. When we realized that it was a new front coming through, we all ran into the clearing to get Byron. Before we could get to him…the…light…lightning—”

  She broke down into a fit of sobs. For a full minute she just sobbed and heaved, her body racked by every one of them. I was imagining a lone tree in a meadow, with the wind blowing and the lightning licking across the sky. And six scared children. I shivered.

  “It was horrible,” she said finally. “The smell…”

  I hadn’t thought about there being a smell. I didn’t want to think about a smell.

  “We didn’t know what to do. We panicked. We were standing in the middle of a field with a storm raging all around us. Hugh was yelling above the storm. ‘We have to get rid of him. We have to get rid of him.’”

  “Oh, God,” I managed.

  “Aurora was screaming, ‘You killed my brother.’ Over and over. Hugh didn’t really kill him but to Aurora he may as well have. Finally, Hugh just picked him up and carried him toward New Kassel. Aurora was screaming the whole way. She was totally against it. Totally against putting him in the wall. But what else were we going to do? We were all afraid that we’d go to jail. We were too young and too naive to know any better. Plus, then Cecily reminded us that Byron was her mother’s favorite child. And that life in our family would be hell if Aunt Catherine knew that all of her nieces and nephews, and her two daughters, were responsible for the death of her favorite child.”

  I sat there stupefied. Hearing the story from her was more horrifying than anything I could have conjured up.

  “Patrick and Aurora were totally against putting Byron in that wall. But Hugh and Cecily insisted. Hope and I were at the point where we didn’t care. We just wanted it over with. We were petrified that we were going to be hit by lightning, too,” she said. “Then, on the way back through the woods, Aurora found Byron’s blanket. We were all afraid to leave it there. So, Aurora picked it up and took it home. She hid it under her mattress.”

  But that wasn’t where I found it, I thought to myself.

  “Hugh and Cecily came up with this idea that we heard nothing, we saw nothing. We were in our beds the whole time. Hope said that it was a pretty smart thing to do because the authorities would assume that Byron was kidnapped. Which is exactly what happened,” she said, staring down at her hands.

  “So,” I began, “what about the blanket?”

  “Aurora and Cecily had every intention of getting rid of the blanket, but they couldn’t find a time when their house wasn’t crawling with the authorities. Finally, on a day when they thought they could get rid of it, when they went to get it, it was gone,” she said.

  “Catherine found it?”

  “That’s what we assumed. Only she never, ever spoke of it,” she said. “I think she was waiting for her daughters to admit to her what they’d done.”

  “That makes no sense,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because later, when Hector Castanza came along, she believed so completely that he was her son. If she’d found the blanket, how could she have believed that Hector was her son?” I asked.

  Lanna wiped at her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “All these years we assumed Aunt Catherine had found it and hid it.”

  “So, who killed your brother?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Torie, you have no idea what you’ve done.”

  “I didn’t write that article in the Post, nor did I leak the information,” I said. “I’ve done nothing.”

  “But you have. Even if you didn’t leak anything. You’re the one who found the blanket and turned it over to the authorities. We all knew that someday, when the Yates house came down, they’d find Byron and that most people would assume it was Byron. We kept hoping it wouldn’t come down until after we were dead. Or that the floodwaters would just wash the house away. That I don’t blame you for. What I blame you for is finding the blanket and giving it to the sheriff. And for confronting Hope on television about the whole ordeal. My children and grandchildren all want answers. My neighbors are looking at me differently. I think people are talking about me when I go shopping or to church,” she said. “It’s awful.”

  “Well, what happened to Byron was pretty awful.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” she screamed. Her voice echoed off the walls of the church. “Every single day, I have thought about that poor beautiful baby rotting in those walls. Every day. I have paid more dearly than if we had just admitted it the night it happened. People would have talked for a while, but then they would have gone on to something else. But having to think about him every day and not being able to talk about it has been a sentence much worse than anything anybody could have done to me back then. And now, having it come out when I’m an old and respectable woman—”

  She sobbed again. “I’m very sorry,” I said. “It must have been horrible to live with that.”

  “You have to do something,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have to make a retraction or something. You have to do something,” she said, panicked.

  “Lanna, I don’t think there is anything I can do. The damage is done,” I said. “I don’t mean to sound pompous, but everything we do we have to answer for. Eventually.”

  “I was just a child.”

  “I know,” I said. “But you grew up eventually, and still did nothing about it.”

  She just stared up at the crucifix. She didn’t blink, but the tears still ran down her face, dropping off her cheeks.

  “Lanna, it’s very important. Why do you think your brother went to that house the night he died?”

  “I think he went there to remove the skeleton,” she said. “Somehow he found out that Bill was going to tear down the Yates house, and he wanted to get the skeleton out of the wall so that nobody would ever know what had happened.”

  “And if he hadn’t died there, it would have worked,” I said. “But how did he know the house was going to be torn down? Did you tell him?”

  “No.”

  “Anybody else in New Kassel that Patrick kept in contact with?”

  “Our family. Umm…Elmer Kolbe,” she said. “And the Pershings.”

  Thirty-Four

  After leaving the Santa Lucia Church, I felt a little overwhelmed. It was as if the world were different when I stepped out into the sunshine. Lanna Petrovic’s words haunted me. Every time I closed my eyes I saw that lone tree standing in the meadow, with the lightning snaking across the sky. And then I’d see the window with the fairies dancing and playing. An innocent childhood adventure that turned horribly tragic.

  Sheriff Brooke had arrived. Only he came as a civilian today. Tomorrow was his day to be on duty. He was standing by Tobias, ordering some kettle popcorn. I made a beeline straight for him and barely noticed when somebody said, “Hey, Torie.” I waved to whoever it was and kept the sheriff in my view.

  “Sheriff!” I called out.

  “Torie,” he said. “What’s up? You look upset.”

  “I am upset,” I said. “And since when did you start noticing when I’m upset?”

  “Jalena says I need to be more in tune to others,” he said.

  I couldn’t help it. I cracked up laughing. Tobias gave a smirk, but wiped it off his face as soon as the sheriff looked at him. Our eyes had connected, though, so I know what Tob
ias was thinking. The same thing I was thinking—what the hell?

  “Did my mother also tell you that you’re an insensitive cad?”

  “No, she neglected to mention that,” he said. “Don’t push it, Torie. What’s up?”

  “I just had a long talk with Lanna Petrovic,” I said. “She confessed everything to me.”

  “Why? I didn’t realize that you knew her that well.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “She thought I was the one responsible for the leak. And since I found the baby blanket, she’s sort of holding me responsible for the fact that her neighbors are freaking out because they’re living next door to a possible killer.”

  “Yeah, well, that’ll do it,” he said. “Funny thing. I just had a conversation with Hope Danvers and she admitted everything to me.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes. She said that she had talked to Patrick on the phone and that he was going over to the Yates house to remove the skeleton. He wasn’t trying to blackmail her,” he said. “It seems at least the two of them had stuck together. Patrick knew that, out of the six cousins, Hope had the most to lose if the wall-baby story came out. He was watching her back, that’s all.”

  “If you can believe her story,” I said.

  “Well, there is that,” he said.

  “So what about the Finch sisters?” I asked.

  “It looks to me like they both have an alibi for the night Patrick Ward was killed as well,” he said.

  “But then that just leaves Lanna and Hugh Danvers,” I said. “Call me gullible, but I don’t think Lanna killed her own brother. I just don’t.”

  “I’m waiting for Deputy Miller to call me right now,” he said. “He’s supposed to have the alibi information on Hugh Danvers. So we’ll see what he comes up with.”

  “Okay,” I said. Rudy walked over to us and planted a kiss on my forehead. He had Matthew in the backpack carrier. Matthew was sound asleep and drooling all over Rudy’s shoulders. It didn’t seem to bother Rudy, which sort of made me feel really lucky that I had such a great guy. I mean, think about it. He doesn’t care if his son drools on his shoulder. I know that may seem minor, but at that moment in time, it was a big deal to me.

  “So, you guys talking murder and mayhem and all that morbid stuff?” he asked.

  “You got it,” I said.

  “Your wife is seriously disturbed,” Colin said. I jabbed him a good one. “Oof.”

  “I do have one thing that’s bothering me,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Colin asked and rolled his eyes. He saw the look on my face and immediately knew I was serious. “Sorry.”

  “The blanket.”

  “What about it?” he asked and finally took his kettle popcorn from Tobias. He shoved a handful in his mouth.

  “Lanna says that Aurora brought the blanket home and hid it under her mattress. They were going to dispose of it, but couldn’t get the chance because the place was crawling with the authorities,” I said.

  “Okay. So what?”

  “So, when Aurora went back to finally dispose of it, it was gone. Lanna swears that Catherine took the blanket and hid it.”

  “Why would she do that?” Rudy asked. The sheriff and I both looked at him suddenly, because we had forgotten he was standing there.

  “That’s what I want to know,” I said. “If she found the blanket hidden underneath her daughter’s mattress, then she had to have known that Hector Castanza was an impostor. But she didn’t.”

  In the distance we heard the next band come onstage and start playing. I scanned the crowd quickly, and found that Chuck Velasco had helped my grandmother back to her lawn chair. And my mother was seated next to her this time, instead of me.

  “It can only mean one thing,” I said to the sheriff.

  “That Catherine isn’t the one who found or hid the blanket,” he said.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “So, then who did?” Rudy asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “All six of the cousins thought that Catherine had done it all these years. They’ve all been holding their breaths, waiting for her to drop the bomb.”

  “What do you mean?” Colin asked.

  “They all assumed that Catherine was going to use it at a later date for blackmail or to try and have them all thrown in the slammer,” I said. “The fact that she never did also confirms my suspicion that she wasn’t the one who hid it. She never knew it existed. Which is why Hector Castanza was able to play to her sympathies. She’d never seen any blanket that would indicate foul play within her house.”

  “Then which one of the six cousins hid the blanket?” he asked.

  “You’re assuming one of the cousins found it and hid it,” I said. “What if it was somebody else?”

  Thirty-Five

  The firehouse was nearly as old as the city of New Kassel itself. Made of red brick, it stood three stories tall and had originally been used as a boardinghouse for the railroad workers. Then, around 1910, they turned half of the building into a big garage for the fire vehicles. Out front was a fire wagon from the horse-drawn era, and a fire truck from about 1930 was next to it. They were on display year-round, and Elmer spent a great deal of time waxing and polishing them.

  Elmer Kolbe was the fire chief and had been since what seemed like the dawn of time. He’s been saying he’s going to retire, but he never does. For the past ten years at the annual Christmas Ball, he’s announced that this was his last year, and then the next year he’d say he had been drunk and hadn’t meant it.

  I went into the firehouse and was instantly mauled by Gretchen the Dalmatian. Gretchen seems to have more spots than most Dalmatians, but Rudy assures me that it is just my imagination. She is also a bucket of slobber, which isn’t my imagination. I petted her and laughed, because one cannot help but laugh when a big-spotted, slobbery dog is trying to lick one’s nose. “Down, girl.”

  Peter Holstein sat behind the desk with his sunglasses on top of his head, reading the latest issue of some NASCAR racing publication. He looked up at me and winked. “Hi, Torie.” Peter winked at everybody. He was built like a bodybuilder, but not the kind with those nasty veins sticking out all over the place. Just the kind with the huge muscles bulging beneath his shirt.

  “Hi, Peter,” I said. “Is Elmer around?”

  “Yeah, he’s out back watering his flowers,” Peter said and smiled.

  “Oh, okay,” I said. I petted Gretchen again, pried myself loose from her, and went back out the door and around the firehouse, rather than going through it. I felt weird about going through the place, unless I was on a tour. Elmer was in back watering his flowers, just as Peter had said. Elmer spent so much time at the firehouse that it was his home away from home. And one of the things Elmer loved was flowers.

  “Elmer,” I said.

  He turned around and nearly splashed me with the hose. “Why aren’t you at the Pickin’ and Grinnin’ Festival?” he asked. His gray eyes were small and beady, but they sparkled when he smiled. He was at least sixty, although I’ve never asked him his exact age.

  “I was,” I said. “I’m taking a break.”

  “Are you about ready to go back to doing the tours?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I think I can just about fit into at least one of my dresses.”

  “Good,” he said. “It hasn’t been the same without you.”

  “Aww, thanks,” I said.

  “So, what brings you over this way?” he asked.

  “Well…this is going to sound strange. But your dad was the sheriff when the Finch kidnapping occurred, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve had reporters calling me like crazy, all of ’em wanting to know what I thought my father would think about the skeleton in the wall. Stupid people. How do they think he would feel? The same as all of us would feel. Only probably a little worse.”

  “Because it was right under his nose?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I think so. That would just crush him, I think.”
Elmer said nothing more. He just raised the hose, causing a higher arc of water to splash down on his sunflowers. A rainbow appeared in a cloud of mist for just a second and then it was gone.

  “Well, I want to know about the night of the investigation. Do you have any memory of it at all? I mean, I’m not sure how old you are, so I’m not sure you can help me.”

  “I wasn’t born until the year after,” he said. “Momma used to tell me that my dad wouldn’t let me out of his sight until I was three.”

  “I can imagine how that would have made your father be over-protective. It certainly has made me look at Matthew in a different light,” I said. Actually, the whole situation was eerie. I had two older daughters, just like Catherine. And then I had a younger son, just like Catherine. I just couldn’t imagine my children doing something like what Aurora and Cecily had done and not telling me. It’s not that I couldn’t imagine some horrible accident happening because of something my children were involved in. That I could imagine. I couldn’t imagine how my children could keep it from me. Had Catherine been blind to the signs? Were the children that estranged from her because Byron was her favorite?

  Imagining Rachel, Mary and Matthew as Cecily, Aurora and Byron was what fueled me to find the truth. Talking to Elmer just made me realize it.

  “Well, I was curious; do you remember your father talking about it at all? I mean, what was his overall impression?”

  Elmer sort of smiled at me. Then shook his head. “You don’t want to know what Dad thought,” he said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  He paused a minute, internally weighing if he should tell me or not. I had to wonder if when he did tell me, it would be the complete truth or not. I always wonder about when people hesitate before telling me something. Finally he spoke. “Dad thought it was the kids. His gut feeling was that the kids either did it or knew who did it,” he said.