Pecked to Death

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  “Yes, well, Luke’s pretty stupid when it comes to women,” Sadie said. Case in point: me.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t disagree with you. Why is it that men can be so book smart and so people dumb? There was this lovely girl in college, but it didn’t work out.” She sighed.

  Sadie squirmed in her chair and cleared her throat. “When was that?”

  “Oh, they dated for a couple of years, until around the time that your mom passed.”

  “And you don’t know what happened?” Sadie pressed.

  Maddie shook her head. “One day Luke said he was going to marry her, and the next thing you know they had broken up.” She paused, toying with her milk cup. “If you want the honest truth, I think he took your marriage pretty hard.”

  “So did I,” Sadie said.

  Maddie smiled again, but it was sad this time. “I’m sorry that didn’t work out for you.”

  “I was very young and very stupid,” Sadie said.

  “And very lost,” Maddie added.

  Sadie reached out and clutched her hand. “Maddie, you’ve always shown me far more grace than I deserve. What would I do without you?”

  Maddie returned the pressure of her hand and gave her a wink. “I always hoped that you and Luke…Well, foolish dreams that moms have. I talked about it with your mom once.” Her smile faded.

  “Let me guess: mom wasn’t gung ho on the idea.”

  “Not so much,” Maddie said in her kind way that was probably covering for a whole lot of hurt feelings. After all, what mother wouldn’t be hurt if another woman thought your son wasn’t good enough for her daughter?

  “Mom wanted me to go away, be famous, marry a millionaire, and live the life she never got to. She loved Luke, you know that, but she didn’t want me to end up like her—stuck in our tiny hometown and resenting every minute of it.”

  “I know,” Maddie said. “I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of that. It was too much pressure for one so little. I wish I had done more to help, but hindsight is so much clearer.”

  “Maddie, you’ve done more for me than I could ever imagine. You’ve always been a soft place to fall and a good friend. And you’ve never judged me for my mistakes.”

  “I wish I could say the same for my son,” Maddie admitted.

  “Luke has his reasons to hate me, and they’re valid,” Sadie admitted.

  “Maybe so, but his unforgiveness is ugly; it’s not the way Tom and I raised him.”

  Sadie couldn’t help but smile. The fact that his mother was on Sadie’s side was an added factor in Luke’s lingering resentment. Sadie thought it was a good idea to change the subject. “So tell me about Abby. What was going on with her in her final weeks? Did you have any clue that she was sick?”

  “No, you can’t believe our shock. We saw her every day, or thereabouts. She seemed as healthy as always.”

  “Physically, mentally, or both?”

  “What do you mean?” Maddie asked. She snatched another cookie from the plate and dunked it in her milk.

  “You said she didn’t seem sick. What was her mental state like toward the end? Any confusion, memory loss?”

  “Do you think Abby had dementia?”

  “I’m trying to get a clear picture of her last days,” Sadie said.

  “Let me think,” Maddie said. She took another bite of cookie and chewed. She swallowed and spoke. “I didn’t sense any confusion, but now that you mention it, she seemed agitated and a bit reserved.”

  “Reserved? Abby?”

  Maddie nodded. “Standoffish, like maybe she had something on her mind and didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Agitated, can you explain that?”

  “It wasn’t as if she were angry, it was more like I said, like she had something on her mind and it was bothering her. You know when you have a problem that’s weighing on you and you want to find alone time to think of a solution in peace? That’s how she was.”

  “Do you have any idea what it might have been?”

  “Who knows? With Abby, it could have been anything. You know how it was; she got riled up about things.”

  “Was she riled up about anything in particular lately?” Sadie asked.

  “Her hair salon increased their prices. She threatened to find a new stylist. The grocery store started selling liquor on Sundays. She wrote a letter to our senator about restoring the old blue laws.”

  Although the description of Abby sounded like more of an angry old lady than Sadie liked to admit, it didn’t smack of dementia. “Anything else?”

  “Just Shady Acres, but she had been angry about that place for years.”

  Sadie’s ears perked up because it was the second time in one day that the place was mentioned. “Why was she angry about it?”

  “Because she said old people were sent there by families who didn’t want them and left to rot. She called it a prison for seniors.”

  “I can see why she would be angry at the families who did that to their loved ones, but why would she be angry at the nursing home?” Sadie mused.

  Maddie shrugged. “Abby wasn’t always an easy one to figure.”

  “Maddie, do you have any idea why Abby said she was murdered?”

  “No, Sadie, I don’t have any idea why she would say such a thing.”

  “Then you don’t think it’s true.”

  She shook her head. “You know I loved Abby, but I just don’t see any way it could be true. Who would do such a thing?”

  Sadie decided not to confess her suspicions about Doctor Jones. Maddie was trustworthy, but things had a way of slipping out sometimes without permission. Better not to rock the neighborhood boat with baseless speculation.

  “Thanks for the talk,” Sadie said.

  Now it was Maddie’s turn to squirm. “Sadie, there’s one more thing, and I think you should hear it from me before you hear it from anyone else. There was something strange that happened a couple of weeks before Abby died.”

  “What is it?” Sadie asked, a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

  “She had a huge, raging fight. With Gideon.”

  “Dad and Abby fought?” Sadie said. “About what?” she asked, although she already suspected the answer.

  “You. Maybe Abby knew the end was near and wanted to make sure you were taken care of after. Whatever the reason, I think all the things that had been building between them for years finally overflowed. It was ugly, and it was public.”

  “Public, what do you mean by public?”

  “I mean it carried out into the yard. They stood between the two houses and yelled some pretty awful things at each other. I hope they found forgiveness before the end, but I don’t know.”

  “They argued in front of other people? About me?” Sadie clarified. Both Abby and Gideon were private people. Neither believed in airing their dirty laundry in front of others.

  “It started in Abby’s house, and continued outside when Gideon stormed out. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to hear, and I’m sort of glad I did because it cleared up a lot of things about your adolescence, things you kept hidden from us. I wish you had felt more comfortable confiding in us.”

  Sadie didn’t tell her that she hadn’t confided in them because she hadn’t wanted them to take her side any more than they already had. Luke had needed them then; she didn’t want to take them away from him.

  “I shouldn’t have told you,” Maddie said. Remorse filled her tone as she took in Sadie’s stunned expression.

  “No, I’m glad you did. And if you think of anything else about Abby, anything at all, then I want you to tell me, okay? Promise, Maddie.”

  “I promise,” Maddie agreed. She hugged Sadie tightly and kissed her cheek. Sadie had nowhere to go but home. She walked into the kitchen and saw her father still sitting at the table. He glanced pointedly at the clock as if she were an errant teenager who was pushing curfew. Sadie pictured him standing in the yard screaming at Abby, and it was all she could do n
ot to shove him off the stool.

  She stormed around the kitchen gathering another tray of cookies, and then she sped off in the opposite direction, intent on finding another neighbor and more gossip.

  Chapter 12

  Sadie crossed the street and headed to the home of Misty and Johnny Robbins. Sadie had always thought it odd that an adult was called Johnny. Was he ever tempted to switch to the more dignified John? Then again, her given name was Sarah. Other than a brief span in fourth grade when she tried to make Luke use her birth name, Sadie had never been tempted to switch monikers.

  She knocked on the door, and it was opened by their other neighbor, Penelope Warren, from down the street. The Warrens and Robbins were close in the way that the Sawyers and Coopers were close, more like family than neighbors.

  “Hi, Sadie, how are you?” Penelope asked. “It’s so nice to see you and, oh, you brought cookies. Is that your mother’s recipe?”

  “Yes,” Sadie said. She handed the plate to Penelope, knowing it was as good as handing them to Misty, the home’s actual owner. “I’m glad I caught you here, Penelope; I was planning on making the rounds to talk to everyone.” She followed Penelope to the kitchen where she found Misty sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee. The two women had raised their children together and were almost interchangeable. One was rarely seen without the other.

  “Sadie dropped by for a visit,” Penelope explained unnecessarily to Misty as they entered the kitchen.

  “How nice,” Misty said. “And you brought cookies. Is that your Mom’s recipe?”

  Sadie nodded and took a seat between the two women. First she asked about their kids. She had babysat for each of them over the years, so she had a vested interest in catching up. They talked for a long time before she was able to transition the topic to Abby.

  “We were shocked,” Misty said.

  “We thought Abby would live forever,” Penelope agreed.

  “One day she was here, the next she was gone, and no one even heard the ambulance,” Misty added.

  “No one heard the ambulance,” Sadie repeated.

  The women shook their heads. “It must have come in the middle of the night, and if she was already gone then there would be no need to run their lights and sirens, I guess. Still, it was a little surreal until the funeral. Then there was the will.” The women leaned forward and focused more intently on Sadie. “Do you really think she was murdered, Sadie? Is that what this is about?”

  “I can’t imagine how that was possible,” Sadie conceded. “But she asked me to look into things, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to get all the facts before I move on. Anything you could tell me would be helpful. How did Abby seem the last few weeks? What was her mental state and physical condition, was she having problems with anyone—things like that.”

  Penelope looked around in the way people do to make sure the coast is clear before they impart secret information. “I feel disloyal saying this, but Abby did ask you to look into things, so I guess it’s okay. About a month or so ago, I was at the bank at the same time as Abby. She was clearly agitated while talking to the clerk. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I did hear Abby yell, ‘Then go get the manager.’ Then the manager came and ushered her into his office.”

  “You don’t have any idea what it was about?”

  Penelope shook her head. “I finished my transaction and left, and I didn’t think anything more about it. You know how Abby hated it when people messed up. She was such a perfectionist. I figured the poor girl probably wrote down her statement balance wrong or something.”

  Abby had been a perfectionist, and she did hate it when people messed up. But she would never yell at an employee over something so simple as a disagreement over a bank statement. In fact, Sadie couldn’t imagine any reason Abby would yell at anyone in public. She had a hard-and-fast rule about keeping private things private, and yet this was the second story Sadie had heard about her arguing in public. What had gotten Abby upset enough to break one of her own cardinal rules not once but twice?

  “Did she argue with anyone else recently?”

  Penelope and Misty gave each other a look.

  “Besides my dad,” Sadie added.

  They shook their heads. “But it was weird. I’ve never seen either of them act like that. It was like watching both of them have out of body experiences, like they were two other people arguing in the yard.”

  “Can you think of anything else, anything at all? Even if you don’t think it’s important.”

  “No, but you might want to check with the guys. They’re out back pretending to work on the mower while really gossiping as much as we are,” Misty said.

  “Thanks,” Sadie said. She let herself out the back door and went in search of the men. They weren’t hard to find. As Misty had predicted, there were mower parts scattered on a patch of lawn, but the two men seemed to be ignoring their work as they sat on lawn chairs and chewed the fat. They caught sight of Sadie and smiled as she approached.

  “Well, well, well, little Sadie Cooper all grown up,” Rex Warren said. He stood and gave her a hug. Sadie resisted the urge to throw him off. He gave her the creeps and always had. He had been one of those dads that teenage girls never wanted to be alone with, and the feeling only grew worse after he and his wife had a brief separation. In fact, Gideon hadn’t allowed her to babysit for them during that time, confirming that her instinct about Rex was spot on.

  Johnny stood to give her a hug, and she relaxed. She didn’t get the same lecherous vibe from him. Like their wives, the two men were good friends, often together, and practically interchangeable. They were each successful at different things. Rex was a pharmaceutical salesman, and Johnny was a financial planner. Neither of their wives worked, even now that their kids were out of the house. Johnny retrieved a lawn chair for her, and beckoned her to sit.

  “So, Sadie, to what do we owe this pleasure?” Rex asked. The way he scanned her body as he spoke put a whole new spin on the word pleasure. Sadie focused on Johnny as she spoke.

  “I’m here to shoot the breeze and catch up,” she said, smiling.

  “You’re here to talk about Aunt Abby,” Johnny said. He sat back and crossed his arms, returning her smile.

  She shrugged and aimed for self-deprecation. “I guess you guys know the assignment she gave me in her will. I want my conscience to be clear again when I leave, so that I can make sure her death was on the up and up.”

  “You don’t really believe she was murdered, do you?” Rex asked. “Come on, Sadie, everyone knew Abby was crazy.”

  With effort, Sadie held her temper in check. “What makes you say so, Rex?” she asked, her tone as pleasant as if they were discussing the weather and not her beloved mentor.

  “She was always eccentric,” Rex said. “But lately she was a mess of boiling temper. She had become paranoid, if you want the truth. She thought everyone was taking advantage of her in the end.”

  “What do you mean?” Sadie asked.

  “I mean just what I said. A friend who works at the bank told me she accused them of clearing out her account, then there was that fight with your dad, and I even heard her and Doc Jones arguing one day.”

  “They bickered a lot as I remember,” Sadie said.

  “Bickering is a lot different than what they were saying that day,” Rex said.

  “What were they saying?”

  “Well, I don’t know that it’s right to tell other people’s business,” Rex said. He sat up and inspected his perfectly manicured fingers. Sadie wanted to throttle him; he was as big a gossip as anyone she had ever known, and he was purposely torturing her to make her grovel. She decided to turn the tables and use a little reverse psychology on him.

  “You’re probably right,” she said, smiling sweetly. “It was probably nothing.”

  “It didn’t sound like nothing,” he flared.

  “What did it sound like?” she batted her guileless baby blues at him, and he blink
ed at her a couple of times until he regained his train of thought.

  “She accused him of not being a friend, of betraying her,” Rex said at last.

  “Betraying her, did she say why?”

  He shook his head. “But I got the feeling that he had done something to hurt her.”

  Sadie glanced at Johnny. “What about you, Johnny? Do you have anything to add? Did you notice anything odd about Aunt Abby’s behavior lately?”

  Johnny shifted in his chair and looked down at a mower part near his feet. “I feel disloyal discussing this with you, Sadie.”