Meredith sighed. “When that never happened, I was beginning to think I was too subtle or worse yet for a writer, that maybe no one was reading my poetry. But when you two came here to try and find answers about Anna and started asking questions about Ben’s death I knew it wouldn’t be very long before you clued in.”
“Did you send that photograph to Jared?’ Elizabeth asked. If Meredith was looking to be found out maybe she used that as a means of getting Jared here and asking questions.
“You’re smarter than I thought. Yes, I sent it.”
“So you really know that Anna was murdered.”
“I don’t know for certain but I strongly suspect she was.”
“Why? What makes you think so?” Could they finally be getting somewhere?
“Because, when she brought me that note, she said she wished he would understand why she had done it. That she was trying to do the best for her son.”
“Who did she mean?” Jared asked eagerly.
“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“Do you know what it was that she did?
Meredith shook her head. “Sorry, no.
Jared sat back dejected.
“Why didn’t you tell us this before when we asked?” Elizabeth thought it would have saved them a lot of time.
“I didn’t have my last poems ready yet for Jared to read.” Meredith looked at Jared fondly. “We’ve become good friends during our poetry sessions together. The few times you spoke of your mother I realized how much you had missed in your childhood and how terrible it must have been to grow up not only without a mother but also with her suicide hanging over you.”
Why didn’t you just tell me what you knew?” Jared asked.
“I needed time to finish the last book. I didn’t want to scoop myself too much before publication...” Meredith smiled.
* * * *
“Well, I never thought it would end that way,” Elizabeth said, as they left Meredith’s place. “So Christine thought all this time that she was protecting Graham. I wonder what made her think it was he who hit her.”
“Probably only she can answer that.”
“I guess the question now is do you want to go see Paul or do you want to let it rest a while?”
Elizabeth had asked him this question before and he had opted to continue. But now they had uncovered things that might be better left alone.
“I thought about it all night,” Jared said. “I guess I have to know.”
On the way Elizabeth told him it was going to be her last trip. She was going back to Edmonton tomorrow. “You’ll have to decide if you want to stay longer.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “Thank you for spending this much time with me on this. I don’t know what I would have done without your support.”
When they got to the farm Jared got right to the point. “We’ve heard the rumours that Nick is my father,” he said.
He’s given up trying to be diplomatic about the whole thing, Elizabeth thought.
Paul put his head in his hands. His shoulders drooped. He looked defeated.
“Is he?” Jared asked, leaning forward.
Elizabeth watched him as he tried to prepare himself for the answer.
Paul looked up at him. “I really don’t know. All I do know is that you are not my son.”
Elizabeth watched as Jared slumped back in his chair. He closed his eyes then put his hands over his face. When he pulled them away there were tears in his eyes.
“Could I have a drink of water?” he whispered.
Susie hurried to the sink and returned with a glass. She handed it to him. His hands shook as he took it. After a couple of sips he set it on the table.
“Are you okay?” Elizabeth asked bending over him.
He lifted his head and looked at them.
There was silence. Elizabeth realized everyone was waiting for Jared to make the next move.
Jared took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” his voice faltered. “In spite of all that I’ve learned, deep down I really wasn’t expecting that for an answer.”
“And I’m sorry that I couldn’t have said it in a gentler way.”
Did she hear right? Did Paul just apologize?
“Knowing you were someone else’s kid kind of messed with my mind,” Paul continued. “I began to drink and carouse and, God forgive me, I hit her. Then when she committed suicide I began to feel guilty that I had driven her to it. I tried to be a good father to you. I just couldn’t love you.”
“What about the unborn child?” Elizabeth asked. “Was it yours?”
“I thought so until she began hinting to people that it was Nicks. Then I think I lost it. I didn’t come home for days, spending my time at my mother’s. When I did come back it was all I could do not to punch her.”
“What about ...” Oh, how to ask this? Elizabeth tried again. “Did you ...?” She held her breath and was surprised when there was no outburst at her unspoken question.
“No,” Paul said, slowly. “I may be a lot of things but I’m not a murderer.”
* * * *
“How do you feel?” Elizabeth asked, on their way to the van. “Do you think you can drive?”
Elizabeth watched as Jared did his best to smile at her. “Yes.”
“Do you believe him?” Elizabeth asked.
“About him not being my father, yes,” Jared said, quietly.
“What about whether he killed your mother? He certainly admitted he had good reason to.”
“I don’t know what to believe on that. It’s as if my life is not my life anymore. It’s all surreal. They feel like strangers to me now. Paul isn’t my father, Willy isn’t my half-brother, Susie isn’t my step-mom. I know them, yet, I don’t know them. I’ve effectively lost my past.”
Elizabeth put her arm on his shoulder. She wished now she had never agreed to do this for him. The pain he was going through was hard on her. She hated to see him suffer like that.
“At least I now understand the parental distance while I was growing up.”
“Wait,” called Susie, coming up behind them as Jared wheeled onto the lift. “I’m so sorry about all of this. I know it’s a lot for you to grasp in such a short time.” She bit her lip. “I may have come late into your life but I just want you to know that you and Willy are the only children I have. I really don’t want to lose you and I don’t think Paul and Willy do either. Give them time.”
Elizabeth felt the prick of tears in her eyes and she could see that Jared was just as moved.
“Thank you,” Jared said, wiping his eyes.
Susie leaned over and gave him a hug. “I love you.”
Paul came up behind Susie and put his arm around her. Elizabeth waited expectantly. What was he going to tell Jared?
“We have a lot to talk about once you’ve had time to absorb this. But right now, I just thought you should know that Nick has terminal lung cancer. If you want to do anything about finding out if he’s your father, you should start soon.”
Chapter 41
“Do you want to go and talk to Nick?” Elizabeth asked as they headed to the B&B.
“No. I just want to go home and hide for a long time.” He drove into the B&B yard and undid his seat belt. “I want you to put me to bed, draw the curtains, turn out the light and leave me there.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I don’t think that would be very ethical of me, a care giver, to do that to you.”
“But it might make me feel better.”
Jared suddenly went still. “Some of it’s coming back to me.”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure what he was talking about. She waited.
He turned to her excited. “I saw someone. I saw someone at the well with Mom on the day she died. I knew it. There’s no way she committed suicide. After all we’ve been finding out these past few days, and in my own gut, I know my mother did love me. She wouldn’t have left me.”
“Can you tell who it was?” Elizabeth asked. This was a definite break through. “A
man, a woman?”
Jared shook his head. “But I’m sure I would have known if the person was someone familiar to me like Paul or Willy.”
“What are you going to do?” Elizabeth asked.
“I have to tell the police,” he said, doing up his belt. “I have to get them to open the case again.”
They drove to the RCMP detachment in Redwater. Elizabeth could see the excitement on his face. Could the police just ignore them? After all, he was an eyewitness, even if he was only four at the time, even if he didn’t actually see her get pushed. Surely the fact that someone else had been there with her immediately before her death must count for something. Nobody had admitted to it at the time, so someone obviously had something to hide. As far as she could see, this was practically proof that someone had killed his mother.
However, once they were in front of an officer, try as he might Jared could not get the words to come out right as he described everything up until this moment. Elizabeth did her best to fill in the blanks but between them she could tell that the officer was totally confused.
“Just one person, please.”
Elizabeth waited while Jared told the officer of his mother’s death thirty years ago and then showed him the photograph with the message on the back. The officer listened intently as Jared explained about remembering seeing someone with his mother out by the well just before she died.
“How old were you?”
“Four.”
“Can you describe the person? Was it a man or woman?”
Jared shook his head. “I only know he or she didn’t seem to be as big as my dad,” Jared stopped. “Uh, as Paul Jones.”
The officer looked at Jared. “That really doesn’t give us much to go on. If you could recall more about this person, hair colour, anything like that, it would greatly assist us.”
Jared shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Well, if you do, come back and see us.”
Their excitement quickly died as they comprehended that the officer wasn’t going to help. Jared wheeled out of the building, Elizabeth behind him.
“What more did they want,” he asked angrily. “An outright confession from the murderer?”
“So we know the person wasn’t Paul or Willy, right?” Elizabeth said, when they were in the van.
“Right,” he nodded. “From where I was I could tell the person was too small to be either of them.”
“We’ve met lot of people who are smaller than them,” Elizabeth said. “In fact, I think everyone has been.”
Jared nodded again. “I see your point.”
“You know, the one who has been willing to talk to us is Sarah,” Elizabeth said. “I wonder if there’s more we can learn from her. It also might also be an opportunity for you to approach Nick.”
* * * *
“We know that Meredith sent the photograph,” Elizabeth said to Sarah when they were seated in the gazebo.
Sarah nodded. “I guessed it would be her.”
“She also admitted to killing Ben.”
“She killed him?” Sarah asked. Her eyes widened. “It wasn’t Christine?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
“She confessed to us. She was the one who hit Christine over the head.”
“I didn’t expect that,” Sarah said, thoughtfully. “So that’s one of your mysteries solved.”
Elizabeth nodded. She wondered if she should mention that they also knew about Nick’s condition.
“I don’t imagine that’s the reason you came to see me.”
“We actually came to see Nick,” Jared said.
“He’s not here right now.”
“We’ve heard he has cancer,” Elizabeth said.
Sarah nodded slowly. Was there a tear in her eye, Elizabeth wondered.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “The doctor gives him six months. He’s gone to the drug store to renew his painkillers.” She waited for them to say more.
“Anna told you that Jared was Nick’s son and that she was pregnant with another of his children,” Elizabeth said.
Sarah held up her hand. “Let me explain. Anna told me that Nick dated a lot of girls when they were in high school even when he was seeing her. Then she told me about Jared and the baby she was expecting. I didn’t believe her. When I confronted Nick, he denied the baby was his but he couldn’t deny that Jared might be his son. He did say that Anna had other boyfriends in school, like Graham Dearden, that he’d found out she had slept with, so Jared could have been someone else’s for all he knew.”
“Oh, my God,” Jared groaned.
Elizabeth knew there was nothing more she could do to help Jared, other than just be there for him. They had opened Pandora’s Box and he had to deal with the dreadful picture that was slowly being drawn of his mother.
She did file away the name Graham Dearden. The man kept cropping up in conversations. He’d been in the graduation photo with Anna too, she remembered.
“Well, knowing that Nick may have had a son in the past by another woman was okay,” Sarah continued. “Those things happen. But thinking that he had been fooling around with her again just before we married and that she was pregnant with his child totally ruined my fledgling marriage.”
“But you remained here.”
“There wasn’t much I could do. I was too embarrassed to go back to the city and tell everyone. So I acted like I didn’t believe what she had said, that I believed in my husband. But it has eaten at me every day of my life since,” she said harshly. “Look at me. I was a slim child. I was a slim bride. I used to walk a lot when I first came here. Knowing has made me into this.”
She glared at them. “But I made him pay. I wouldn’t have his kids even though he really wanted some.” Then she laughed, mirthlessly. “And he didn’t want to give me half the farm so he had to stick it out with me.”
A vehicle drove into the yard.
“There he is now,” Sarah said.
Elizabeth didn’t know if they should talk to him in front of Sarah.
“Nick,” Sarah called.
Elizabeth watched Nick come towards them. He didn’t seem sick, but then again her mother hadn’t looked sick until the final few months.
“I told them that you think you could be Jared’s dad,” Sarah said.
Nick didn’t show any reaction to that. He just sat down on the gazebo bench. “I do admit that I could be your father,” he said to Jared. “Your mother and I had a relationship of sorts during high school but I know she did see other guys to spite me because I wouldn’t be faithful to her. She had always wanted us to get married as soon as we graduated and I didn’t. I left here not knowing she was pregnant.”
Elizabeth expected Jared to ask if Nick would have stayed if he’d known. She agreed with his choice to keep silent.
“I also told them that you were the baby’s father, too.”
This time he did react waving his arms in the air. “I was not! How many times do I have to tell you, I didn’t have an affair with her before we were married. I didn’t.” He fell silent and stared at the floor.
“It wasn’t mine,” he said again looking up. “Not that she didn’t try to get back together again after I moved back to farm. But I was already engaged and didn’t want anything to do with her.”
“What happened?” Elizabeth asked.
“She came to the farm and tried to seduce me, said that we would make a good couple.”
“When did she tell you about Jared?” Elizabeth asked.
“That same day. When I wouldn’t go along with her plans she brought Jared out of her truck and told me he was mine. She said that I would regret not getting back with her.”
“So, if it was just after you moved out here, it was before you were married.”
Nick looked at Sarah. “Yes.”
“You knew and you didn’t warn me,” Sarah spat out. “You let me find out at a dance with the whole neighbourhood listening in.”
“I didn’t think she would tell you,” Nick said lamely.
“Well, if you didn’t tell me that then maybe you’ve never told me the whole truth. Maybe you and Anna did go further for old time’s sake. The time frame was right for you to have fathered her second child.”
Nick turned to Elizabeth and Jared. “You know, we’ve had this conversation about once a month for our entire marriage. She has never believed me and she never will.”
“I was about to tell them that you killed Anna when you drove up,” Sarah said, suddenly.
“Oh, please.” Nick dropped his head into his hands. “Not that, too.”
“Yes, that too.”
Nick turned to Jared. “Don’t believe her. I didn’t kill your mother.”
Elizabeth noticed a smirk on Sarah’s face. It looked like she enjoyed pulling Nick’s strings. Was that what kept her here? Total and all out revenge. How far would she have gone?
“Did you kill Anna?” Elizabeth asked abruptly.
Sarah laughed, but there was no amusement in her voice. “No. I told you, Nick did.”
Nick just shook his head.
“And I turned Anna down because I was in love with my bride-to-be.”
Sarah stared at him. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she believed him or not then she noticed that Jared had a strange expression on his face.
He looked at her. “I think we should go.”
Something was definitely up. “Okay,” Elizabeth said.
When they were driving in the van she turned to him. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ve remembered something else.”
“What?”
“It’s what Nick said about Graham and my mom. I knew there was something familiar about Wayne’s place, that carport. I’m sure I’ve been there before. And Wayne, there’s something about him that makes me uneasy. I don’t know for sure but I have this feeling that something was going on between him and my mom, and it was bad. I remember them shouting...”
Elizabeth’s mind was going a mile a minute as she wondered what this could mean. What could Wayne possibly have against Anna? Surely they hadn’t been involved ... she was much too young for him, she had even been dating his son. There was just no way.
The Travelling Detective: Boxed Set Page 52
