January 1, Friday
Happy New Year! There’s no school, but it’s dullsville around here because Ruth and Mary are both stuck at home sick, and I have nothing to do and no one to do it with. I wish I had a sister!
She read straight through to the beginning of March before she had to rest her eyes and her brain for a minute. The faded handwriting was childishly rounded and marked with happy little hearts dotting i’s and smiley faces drawn inside o’s. It was also liberally sprinkled with a heavy dose of 1960s slang.
March 21, Sunday
Mom and Dad still don’t know that Jack is in town. He made me promise not to tell. He’s been renting a room from an old lady, and has a job down by the dock cleaning fish. He even lies about his name. Tells everyone his last name is Finn. He always loved that book by Mark Twain. I hoped he’d take me for a drive after church, but when I snuck out of Sunday school to ask him, he made some lame excuse about meeting an old friend in Ashland for the afternoon. I knew he was lying when I found a note in his car from some chick named, Evie. He’s meeting her at 2:00. I don’t know who that is, but I’m going to find out!
Shelby skimmed the next few entries. Twelve-year-old Clara wrote about tests at school, how much snow had fallen the night before, and whether some boy named Bo liked her. Finally, she found an entry that seemed promising.
April 1, Thursday
It’s April Fool’s Day! I’m going to play the biggest prank on Jack when I see him. He usually gets me good, but this time I’ll be the one laughing.
Clara went on to tell how she snuck into his room to scare him when he got home, but ended up being in the wrong place at the worst time. Jack didn’t come home alone. He had a woman with him.
Jack wigged out. He said, “How could you embarrass me like that? You’re a little sneak! What are you doing here?” I tried to tell him it was a joke, but he wouldn’t listen. Said I would ruin everything, but I’m not a fink! I’d never tell anyone he was making out with old Mrs. Jones. Even if it is way gross!
Shelby gasped. “No way!”
“Did you say something,” Blake mumbled, stretched out on the bed with his eyes closed. He’d been sleeping for at least thirty minutes. He hadn’t even bothered to get out of his clothes or take a shower. He rolled over, and opened one eye.
“Never mind,” she said, turning the page. “I’ll fill you in tomorrow morning.”
By the time she picked up the second journal, her eyes were drooping. She got up to get a drink of water at the sink in the bathroom, and hopefully wake up a little. Blake was snoring softly, and she stopped by the bed to pull a quilt over him. When she straightened, her glance fell on the bedside table. Alice had left the plastic bag with Jack’s letter inside, and a Post-It note on top asking Blake to return it to Jack when he saw him. She glanced quickly at her husband, and back at the letter. It couldn’t hurt to read it, could it?
Chapter Twenty-One
Shelby woke to the smell of eggs and frying bacon wafting up the stairs and under their door. She heard water running in the next room, and Blake singing in the shower. The curtains were still closed, the room lit only by filtered rays of sunlight slipping around the edges. She pushed the quilt off and sat up. One glance at the desk where she’d left the journals and it all came back.
Late in the night, after going through both journals cover to cover looking for tidbits of information about Jack and Evie’s affair, and finding so much more, she’d finally climbed into bed next to Blake and fallen into an exhausted but restless sleep. She’d thought about waking him and telling him everything, but it was something that had already waited decades to be told. It could certainly wait a few more hours.
The door to the bathroom opened, and Blake stepped out wearing shorts and a smile. His hair was damp and flattened against his scalp, but he was cleanly shaven and smelled like Ivory soap and mint toothpaste when he kissed her lightly on the lips. “Good morning, gorgeous.”
“Morning.”
“How late were you up?” he asked, moving toward the desk.
She’d left slips of paper between the pages where Jack’s secrets were revealed by a young girl’s innocent words. The second journal was 1967, the year Jack came back from Vietnam, and it revealed a soul-wrenching change in her brother that Clara had witnessed first-hand. Many of the entries were hard to read, even for her. She wasn’t sure if Blake was ready yet.
She stepped close and wrapped her arms around him, laying her head on his shoulder. “You better get dressed. Smells like Alice is cooking up a feast. She’s probably hoping we’re leaving today.” She was a little sad her new friend was angry with them.
He turned around to look her in the eye. “You don’t want to tell me what you read last night, huh. Did Clara mention my father?”
“There was nothing about your father in those two journals,” she said, happy to state the truth. “Believe me. I read them cover to cover.”
“That’s actually a relief. If Oliver read all of his wife’s journals, and these are the only two he thought would help…” His eyes narrowed and he scratched at his wet scalp.
“You should let your father off the hook. He may have been a lousy husband and a crummy father, but I don’t think there’s much chance he killed Clara. After all, he died the same day.”
“You’re right. Helen’s act got me all tied up in knots. She’s an old woman, but she still knows how to play to an audience.” He dug through his suitcase and pulled on his last pair of clean jeans. “Aren’t you taking a shower before breakfast?”
“Actually, I’m not very hungry. My throat feels a little raw this morning. Why don’t you go down and eat without me.”
“Do you want me to bring something up?”
She kissed his cheek. “You’re sweet, but don’t worry about it. I want to stop over and see Luanne before we leave town, so while I’m there I’ll just pick up a couple of her caramel rolls for the drive home.”
“All right. I’m expecting a call from Don this morning anyway. I asked him to look up the medical examiners reports on both Clara and my father. I want to put this coincidence thing behind us as soon as possible. I can’t leave town until I do.”
“I know. You don’t believe in coincidence.” Shelby stepped out of her clothes and turned on the shower. She slanted him a smile. “If our first meeting wasn’t a happy coincidence, it must have been a diabolical plan. Are you going to own up to that?”
He laughed, buttoning the cuffs on his shirt. “I can’t help it if you showed up at the exact moment I was cuffing your deadbeat boyfriend and hauling him out of his mother’s basement. He was a potential witness in the homicide I was working.”
“So you’re saying it was my diabolical plan to seduce you when I went there to break up with Rick.” She stepped into the shower, and let the hot pulsing spray relax the muscles between her shoulder blades.
He followed her into the bathroom, stopping in front of the mirror to run the brush through his hair, then pulled back the corner of the shower curtain, and smiled at her. “Truce? Let’s agree that there was no diabolical plan, but that our meeting was personally planned by God…” he took her hand and raised it to his lips, ignoring the water soaking the sleeve of his shirt, and slowly kissed the tips of her fingers one by one, “…because I married an angel.”
<<>>
Shelby made record time drying her hair and getting dressed. She took the journals and stuffed them down in her big shoulder bag. At the door, she listened. Voices floated up from the dining room. They were still busy chatting over coffee. She practically tiptoed down the stairs, careful to be as quiet as possible. Not wanting to explain why she was sneaking out without saying goodbye, she slipped out the front door and raced straight to the Bronco.
She was in the truck and turning onto the county road, before she even allowed herself to breathe freely. Early morning dew covered the windshield and she turned on the wipers for a second or two. Few cars were out this early but she knew Luanne would be in the c
afé already preparing pies and rolls for the day.
The closed sign was still on the front door, so she drove around back and parked. She looked around, half expecting to see Jack hanging out by the dumpster, but there was no sign of him. A cool breeze blew up from the lake, sending a chill down her spine. She knocked on the metal security door and waited.
Luanne looked surprised to see her, but waved her in. “Thought it might be Jack. What’s going on?” She peeked back out the door and glanced around. “You ditched Blake?”
“It was for his own good. I need to talk to you in private.”
She shut and locked the door, then waggled her fingers. “Follow me. I’ve been here for two hours already. It’s time for my coffee break.”
Shelby opened her purse and took out the little bag of tealeaves Fanny had given her. It was time to nip this cold in the bud. “Mind if I have tea?”
They sat at a booth with a fresh carafe of coffee, a tiny pot of fragrant tea, and a plate of cinnamon rolls between them. The calming scent of bubbling peach pie with just a hint of cinnamon wafted on the air. Luanne picked up her cup and took a sip. “What’s going on?”
“Oliver gave me a couple of Clara’s journals to read last night. One from 1965 and another from 1967.”
“Okay.” There was an unspoken question in her drawn out word, but she was patient. She sipped her coffee and broke off a piece of roll.
“Do you know Mrs. Jones’ first name?”
“Evelyn, I think.”
“Jack called her Evie. In 1965, before he was drafted and shipped out to Vietnam, Jack and Evelyn had an affair… right here in Port Scuttlebutt.”
Luanne choked on the piece of roll and started coughing. After another sip of coffee, she took a breath and tried again. “Jack lived here in 1965? I’ll have to take your word for it. I was just a kid.” She did some quick calculations in her head, mouthing numbers silently. “He must have been early twenties.”
“Twenty-two.”
“But Evelyn Jones has to be at least ten or eleven years older. Why would he…” she trailed off. “What am I thinking? A thirty-three-year-old woman is in the prime of her life. What I wouldn’t give to be back there again.”
Shelby reached out and patted her hand. “You’re still prime, Luanne. I saw the way that Ronnie Evans fellow was checking you out the other day.”
“I get that a lot. That’s pure love for my coffee,” she said, refilling her cup. She rubbed her fingers over her temple. “Why did you come to me with this?”
“Because I need to see what’s inside Jack’s box of mementos.”
She shook her head. “I can’t let you do that. Trust is a big thing with Jack. I won’t break it by…”
“Jack is Blake’s grandfather.”
“What?” She stared open-mouthed for a moment, and Shelby could see the wheels turning behind her eyes as she worked it all out. “That would make Jess Jack’s daughter.”
The oven timer went off.
Luanne went to check on her pies. While she was in the kitchen, she hurriedly mixed up a batch of biscuits and started another pot of coffee brewing. Finally, she came back and sat across from Shelby, folding her hands on the table. “Okay. What can you tell me?” she asked, obviously not expecting all the details, but needing something more before she would open that box and break Jack’s trust.
“Evelyn was pregnant when Jack left.” Shelby reached in her purse and took out the letter in the plastic bag. “This is the Dear John letter she wrote him when he was already in Vietnam.”
Luanne carefully extracted the folded sheet of pale pink writing paper, and read the words that had crossed miles of ocean to break the heart of a young man in love for the first time. When she was done she sat back and rubbed gooseflesh from her arms. “That’s heartless. What that woman did to Jack. And then giving away their child… pretending she died…” She shook her head, lips pressed tight.
Shelby tried to still her trembling fingers. She clenched them in her lap, silent.
“How did he find out that Jess was his daughter? She didn’t grow up here. I think she lived in Houghton before she married Bobby. Do you think Evelyn kept track of her somehow, and told Jack when he came back from Vietnam?”
“I don’t know.” She reached in her bag and pulled out the journal from 1967. “Clara was fourteen when Jack came home from the war. She said he was angry and moody, and asked her lots of questions about Evelyn Jones that she couldn’t answer. She told him what she’d heard through local gossip. That Mrs. Jones had gone down to stay with relatives in Green Bay for the last month of her pregnancy, so she’d be closer to a big hospital. But that the baby died at birth.” Shelby felt like she was reeling off facts in a newspaper when they were actually talking about the birth of Blake’s mother. Strange. She opened the journal to the entry she was referring to, and showed it to Luanne.
“How could she possibly get away with something like that?”
“I don’t know. It was the sixties. Maybe giving your baby away and pretending it died was easier back then,” she said, her voice droll. “Right now, I’m more worried about what this will do to Blake.” She placed the palms of her hands together in a prayerful petition. “Please. I need to know what Jack took from Evelyn the other night. He’s protecting someone. That someone could be a murderer.”
Luanne closed the journal and slipped reluctantly out of the booth, nervously biting at her lower lip. “Come on then before I change my mind. It’s in the back.”
She took a stool and climbed up to reach a cupboard high above the big industrial sized sinks. Jack’s box was a small hand-made cedar chest about twenty-four inches long and twelve-inches deep, with a metal clasp. She handed it down.
Shelby set it on the countertop and opened the lid, surprised there wasn’t a padlock of some kind. Maybe Jack had left it here intentionally to be discovered. If he didn’t want anyone to find his secrets, wouldn’t he destroy them? Or at least keep them locked up tight.
She picked up each item, one at a time, and set them aside. There was a baseball signed by the famous Dodger’s 1960s pitcher, Sandy Koufax, a worn copy of Huckleberry Finn with an inscription from Helen to follow your dreams, a stack of letters from his sister Clara, a jewelry box holding a shiny Navy Cross medal, a keychain with two keys, and a black and white photograph in a cardboard frame. A very pretty, dark-haired woman sat cross-legged in the middle of a bed, smiling brightly for the camera.
Luanne was pretending to be busy slicing homemade bread, but she stopped and pointed with the knife. “That’s Evelyn Jones! I recognize the sadistic gleam in her eye.”
Shelby set it aside. There wasn’t anything else. But there had to be. She picked up the book again and thumbed through the pages. Sure enough, a photograph slipped out and fell to the floor. She bent to pick it up, but Luanne got to it first.
“Oh, my gosh!” Her hand flew to cover her mouth.
“What?” Shelby grabbed it back. The colors had faded a bit from exposure and age, but the man looked so much like her husband, that she knew without confirmation. It had to be Blake’s father, Robert Gunner. But who was the woman in the water? A silly sense of relief washed over her, and she blew out the breath of a laugh. “I guess I can quit worrying. I don’t know who that is, but it’s definitely not Clara.”
Luanne didn’t respond, but she was giving off a bad vibe. Shelby frowned. “What? Was he having an affair or something? I think Blake can handle that. He already believes the worst of his father.”
She tapped a finger against the back of the photograph. Shelby flipped it around. In bold black print Farley had written,Bobby Gunner drowning Jess 08/13/1994.
Someone pounded on the front door of the café, interrupting the moment. Luanne flew to answer it. “Good heavens! I forgot to unlock the door and put the open sign out.”
Shelby tucked the photograph back inside the book, and replaced all the items in the trunk. Before Luanne returned from seating her first customers
of the day, the box was up in the cupboard again hidden from sight. She slipped out the back door, and climbed into the truck. Resting her arms and head on the steering wheel, she prayed that Blake would never have to know his father had murdered his mother.
<<>>
“I looked up those death records like you asked,” Don said, sounding completely out of breath. “Hold on a minute, will ya?”
Blake heard a loud whirring sound in the background. Was he out on an airstrip or something? He’d waited for Don to call all morning, but when it never happened he figured his partner had forgotten. Like when he used to forget to bring cash to pay for lunch, or forget Blake had weekend plans with Shelby and showed up Saturday afternoon at their front door with pizza and beer to watch the game.
“I’m back,” Don said a minute later, still huffing and puffing, but the loud noise had faded away. “I had to get my laptop out of the locker. Selena has me in this spin class at the gym. Did I ever tell you, I hate bicycles? But she says I’m a heart attack waiting to happen.”
Blake laughed. “You finally got someone who really cares about you, bud. That’s a good thing. Hard to believe, but…”
“Hardy har har. I know what you’re going to say. There’s someone for everyone.”
“Guess it’s true.”
“Anyway, about that info you requested. I’m pulling it up now. This Robert Gunner guy…” His voice went down an octave, and he cleared his throat like the conversation made him nervous, “…he’s your father, right?”
“Yep.” Blake braced himself for the worst. “How did he die?”
“Asphyxiation. He was found in his garage, with the door shut and the vehicle running. A neighbor called it in.”
Blake let that sink in. “Where did he live?”
“Some little bug splat on the map called, Toivola? Said it was near Misery Bay, if that means anything to ya.”
The name was appropriate. His father had dished out plenty of misery over the years. Guess he couldn’t live with what he’d become. There was still one thing that could change the facts of his death from pity party to guilt party. The timeline.
Roadkill (Double Barrel Mysteries Book 1) Page 24
