by Nancy Gideon
* * *
Chapter 12
« ^ »
It was Bess's first time inside the Crandall home. When Faith answered her knock and issued her inside, her immediate response was to look at the floor. Is this where Sam Crandall lay dead?
After all the stories, all the grim admissions from Zach, all the supposition, she expected to see the Bates house out of Psycho, filled with tormented shadows and film noir grittiness. Yet even with the cheery slashes of color and frilly curtains, a certain chill of menace lingered like the stain of a bad memory never completely scrubbed away. Ghosts as frightening as the ones haunting the Crandall family weren't easily exorcized.
"How are things going?" Bess asked, trying to rid herself of the image of a brutish Sam Crandall nearly drowning his wife in the dishwater because she'd stopped to speak to her former beau, Pat McEnroy, while doing the grocery shopping.
"Great. Mrs. Crandall is a doll. She's had a lot of nice things to say about you," the teen called over her shoulder as she led the way upstairs.
"Really?" That surprised her, since she'd never had a conversation with the woman. What she knew must have been learned through Zach. If she had good things to say, they were based on his opinions.
Bess paused before following Faith around the bend in the landing. She studied the closed door at the top of the stairs. Zach's room, the one he'd shared with Retch, the oldest of his three brothers. She touched the smooth beige paint, noticing variations in the texture where the door had been patched; up high from the assault of a fist, down low by vicious kicks. She wondered how old he'd been, trapped inside, waiting for the protective barrier to give way. She'd seen the marks on him, old scars, bruises, but never had the horror of his childhood been brought so painfully into focus as now, with the evidence preserved within this house.
Trying not to be pulled into the sorrow-steeped shadows, Bess continued after Faith to Mary Crandall's bedside.
Greeting Mary held all the dread of confronting the sins of her past. The tiny, frail woman was propped up in bed, a colorful crocheted afghan tucked about her thin figure. Lines grooved every harsh experience into her wan face but the gaze rising to meet Bess's was warm with welcome.
"What a nice surprise. Come in, Bess."
Feeling like an awkward teen again, lacking every social grace, Bess approached the bed, forcing herself to smile with a confidence missing inside her. "Mrs. Crandall, welcome home."
"Call me Mary. I feel like we're old friends. Zach talked of nothing else while you were tutoring him."
The idea of tight-lipped Zach Crandall gushing about her virtues created an odd constriction within her chest.
While Faith spread out their deli feast, Bess searched for something to say to the woman who'd gone willingly to prison to protect her son from something he didn't do. She was awed by the sense of sacrifice, shamed by her own cowardice in the face of it. She'd been afraid to place her security on the line for Zach's sake. And she was sure Mary Crandall would know just by looking at her that she'd done more to harm than help her son.
"Faith, dear, I could use some of that cold lemonade down in the refrigerator, if it's no trouble."
When Faith sprang to do Mary's gentle bidding, both Bess and Mary looked after the girl fondly.
"A lovely child," Mary murmured.
"Yes, she is."
"Her mother must be very proud."
Bess nodded, picking the crusts off her rye bread.
"I remember your sister but must say Faith doesn't resemble her very much. She must look like her father's side of the family."
The innocent comment froze Bess up inside, but she forced a calm reply. "I don't know. I've never met them. She looks like the pictures I've seen of my father's relatives. I barely remember them. All I have to hold on to is the history."
"History is important," Mary agreed. "Almost as important as knowing your family."
Bess looked up then, her wide eyes studying Mary Crandalls weathered face for signs of any deeper meaning to those casually spoken words. Then Faith reentered the room, and the woman's attention shifted to the teen, her look going tender with the affection one would hold for a child … or a grandchild.
Pieces of bread crust scattered all over Bess's lap and onto the floor and bedspread as she jumped to her feet. Laying her paper plate on the braided rug, she swept up the crumbs with shaking hands.
"How clumsy of me. I don't mean to eat and run, but I just remembered I have to get a delivery ready for pickup." Mess cleaned up, she stood, careful to evade the other two's eyes. "Faith, if you have any problems, call me at the store. You have the number."
"Sure, Aunt B." The teen was frowning slightly, alerted by the frazzled sound of Bess's voice. "I never asked if you needed help with anything at the store. Is everything all—"
"Everything's fine. I just have to get back. I'm not a high-volume retailer so no sale is too small not to be missed."
"It was good to see you, Bess," Mary extended graciously. "I heard about your mother, and I'm sorry for your loss. I never got to know her, but I'd like the two of us to be friends. I hope you can find the time to come visit again, soon."
She held out her veined hand. Bess couldn't not take it. Once the fragile fingers closed about her cold ones, the press of reassurance was unmistakable. Bess risked a glance at the other woman's expression. Kindness, forgiveness, understanding reflected in those sad eyes. Everything Bess had hoped for, had the timing been right, had she been prepared. She withdrew her hand rather quickly to say, "I will. Don't let Faith wear you out."
"I'm enjoying our chance to get acquainted."
And the way she smiled at the girl set panic careening madly inside the staid bookseller.
Once outside the Crandall home, Bess swayed with dizziness, reaching out blindly to catch hold of one of the porch posts before her strengthless legs gave way. She leaned into the freshly painted wood, her eyes squeezed shut, her emotions roiling in sickening cycles of fear.
She knew. Mary Crandall knew.
What would she do with the knowledge? Whom had she told?
"Bess, are you all right?"
She gazed up anxiously to see Fred Meirs coming down the walk. Imagining how she must look to put such concern in the doctor's voice, Bess scrambled for an explanation.
"I was just visiting Mrs.—Mary. It's so sad, all the things she and her family have been through."
Doc Meirs came up on the porch to place a caring hand upon her shoulder. "I know. This town and the folk in it haven't been exactly neighborly in the past, and now they're running scared."
"Scared? Scared of what?"
"The truth." He set down his medical satchel and began to polish his glasses. "The Crandalls were a handy scapegoat for all that was sour in this town. Having the facts come out that none of us are as righteous as we'd like to believe is leaving a bad taste in certain mouths. There's talk—"
"What kind of talk?" Bess prompted, her attention riveted.
"That Mary went to jail for the wrong reason. That someone else killed Sam and that someone else is one of us."
Bess's heart beat faster. "You believe that?"
The doctor sighed. "I got to know Zach, as well as he'd let anyone get to know him. He was a hothead but he wasn't a killer. Whoever struck Sam Crandall down wasn't acting out of self-preservation. The force of that blow was meant to kill, not discourage him."
"I wasn't here for the trial, but I don't remember hearing anything like that come out."
The doctor grimaced. "I was told not to mention it. The trial was supposed to be quick and neat, wrapped up and out of mind."
"Told by whom?"
"Sheriff Baines. The town council. And Mary, herself."
Bess could understand Mary's wish for a speedy verdict. She was protecting Zach and feared evidence might turn up to implicate him. But the sheriff? What motive would he have to sweep the crime under a rug? Especially when he made no bones about believing Zach guilty.
The doctor's ruminating sparked Bess's curiosity.
"Why is that?"
"It was a very specifically shaped object. Triangular. Like a pyramid. I've been to the Crandalls' hundreds of times over the years and I don't recall ever seeing anything like that in their house. If I could have matched the source to the site of injury, and that source to its owner, I think we'd have had the real killer."
"You think there's a chance it could turn up?"
"After all this time?" He shrugged. "I doubt it. If it did, I don't know that it would prove any more than circumstantial."
Bess frowned, considering this new slant on the old crime.
"Well," Doc muttered, shaking off the guilt of ages past, "I've got a patient to see. You take care of yourself, Bess."
"You too, Doc. My best to your family."
The conversation wouldn't leave her. All afternoon, as she did the store's operation by rote and tended the handful of customers, Bess's mind was busy processing what Doc Meirs had told her. It helped distract her from the precarious edge her own secrets teetered upon.
The longer Zach dug into the details, thought buried along with his father, the greater the danger that her own involvement would surface. To protect herself and those innocent others who would suffer for what she did, her only recourse was to help Zach uncover the identity of the killer as quickly as possible.
Amateur sleuthing wasn't a skill she'd ever thought to cultivate, but she'd read enough pulp mysteries under the covers as a youth to consider herself familiar if not well versed in the process—at least by Dashiell Hammett's standards of investigation. If Doc Meirs believed the truth hinged upon the murder weapon, that's where she'd concentrate. Perhaps one step ahead of Zach with the information the doctor gave her, she knew where to start.
* * *
Melody Crandall was cleaning off the counter in preparation for the dinner crowd. A few regulars loitered over coffee and conversation as Bess slipped into one of the corner booths. After a moment Melody came over, order pad out as she drew a pencil from behind her ear.
"Hi, Bess. I didn't expect you again so soon. What can I get you?"
"Answers to a couple of questions, if you have a minute." Melody glanced around to see that all the customers were tended, then smiled at Bess. "What can I tell you? The ingredients of the meat loaf surprise?"
Bess's smile strained to conceal her anxiety. She wasn't good at subterfuge so she came right out with it. "Mel, I need to ask some things about the time your father … died."
Color bleached out of the other woman's face. "Oh."
Bess gripped one work-roughened hand for a supportive squeeze. "I know this is hard. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."
Melody sucked a shaky breath. "Okay. What do you want to know?"
"Can you remember if you ever had an object in your house shaped like a pyramid? A paperweight, a piece of statuary, something like that?"
Melody's brow furrowed. "I can't think of anything. Why? What does that have to do with what happened?"
"It might be the murder weapon," she confided in a low tone. "If it didn't belong to your family, and we can find out where it came from, maybe we'll be closer to discovering who killed your father."
"It wasn't Zach," came her instantaneous claim, edged in an uncharacteristic toughness.
"I know. I know it wasn't. And it wasn't your mother. Someone else—"
"Someone else in Sweetheart let us take the blame for something they did," Melody concluded. Her serene features hardened in outrage. "No wonder Zach's been so preoccupied. I thought it was because you—" She broke off, flushing darkly as Bess went still in shock. "I'm sorry. That's none of my business. I shouldn't have said anything."
"Melody, can we have some more coffee over here?"
She glanced over her shoulder. "Be right there." Then to Bess she promised, "I'll keep thinking about that pyramid. Maybe something will jolt a memory."
"Thanks, Melody."
As Bess sat recovering from the hurt spearing from her link to Zach and romance, another nearby customer was just as immersed in thought.
A killer thinking of ways to cover a trail thought cold.
* * *
As usual, Bess went from the diner to the bank to deposit the day's receipts. It took her several minutes to escape Lorraine Freemiere's grilling on her personal life, or rather, the lack thereof, and was duly warned that Herb meant to call her soon.
Five o'clock chimed on the courthouse clock by the time she started across the square with the intention of going home for a lonely supper for one. Surprising how little time it took to get used to the company of someone else under the same roof. Quickly, in self-defense, she blocked out the internal clock that warned of summer's eventual demise. The time when Faith would go back to her sister's and the family she knew.
And she'd have to prepare herself for the heartache of loss all over again.
Again she reminded herself she was doing the right thing, the best thing for all concerned. Every year, especially since her mother's death, that reminder became less and less effective in forestalling her silent yearnings. Was it fair for her to have to suffer the rest of her life for a mistake made by a naive teen? Would it be fair for her to reveal the truth now, after holding it in for so long. Too long. More damage would be done in the telling than with the hiding. Her head ached with potential unpleasantness. Far easier to carry her own burden of pain than to wish it upon another.
Unless Mary Crandall spoke her suspicions and took the decision from her.
"Bess? Bess?"
Realizing her name was being called, Bess jerked from her anxious thoughts to glance around. Bernie Sacks, the high school counselor, waited patiently for her response.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Bernie. I must have been on another planet there for a minute."
"Did that book I ordered on deviant behavior come in?"
"I—I'm not sure. We're a couple of hours ahead of them out there in California. Let me call and see if it's been shipped yet."
"If it's no trouble."
She waved it off as was expected. Everyone knew she had no life to get to after-hours. Making a U-turn, she headed back toward Rare Finds, musing uncharitably if the topic was work related or pleasure reading. She sometimes thought Bernie searched for problems in the quiet town to make himself sound important at the school board meetings.
Slipping the key into the antique lock plate, she gave it a turn and pushed the door open. It took her all of three steps into the dim interior to realize she stood in a vortex of utter chaos.
"What the—"
Her astonished gaze scanned the disaster. Shelves were emptied. Books lay heaped upon the floor, delicate spines broken, pages scattered indifferently in every direction as if a tornado had touched down in the center of aisle four. Stackable cases were knocked over like a wall of children's blocks. Her file cabinet stood with drawers yawning wide, their time-consuming data dumped indiscriminately as if someone had searched through them in a violent rush.
Dazed, she came farther into the store, moving numbly at first, then with quick agitation toward her desk, where each drawer had been similarly violated. Who would do such a thing and for what purpose? The pointless vandalism shocked through her like a personal attack. Immediately she thought of Web Baines and his pals, released on their own recognizance just two days prior.
Though it was a job for the town's sheriff, Bess's instinctive reaction was to call Zach.
She reached for the phone, when a rustle of sound distracted her from behind. Clarity came a second too late as brightness exploded through her brain, dropping her down into darkness.
* * *
She couldn't breathe.
Choking, coughing, Bess forced her eyes to open against the battering ache in her head, but she couldn't seem to focus. She blinked, her eyes tearing, squinting up. Smoke. The store was fill
ed with smoke. Thick, lung-clogging smoke already heavy at the ceiling and settling fast in a smothering blanket. Over the roar in her temples, she heard crackling, popping. Her books. Her books were on fire!
Groggily she swayed up to hands and knees, but the effort stole her strength, sucking it from her constricted chest. She couldn't see beyond the discarded desk drawers and the black cord snaking behind them. The phone cord.
Crawling forward, she fumbled for it, dragging the receiver end to her with increasing urgency. Coughs spasmed through her as she lifted the receiver to her ear and began to dial. Then she heard the damning silence on the line. No dial tone. Nothing.
Nothing.
She toppled over, her throat raw, her lungs on fire as they worked frantically for just a brief taste of oxygen.
Nothing.
She was about to become a sacrifice on the pyre of her mother's dreams.
* * *
Chapter 13
« ^ »
With Melody starting dinner, Zach walked Faith home along the main streets of Sweetheart. The knowledge that Bess stopped by to bring the girl and his mother lunch worked to mellow his mood, making him look upon his escort as a means of touching base with Bess again.
She'd avoided him. He knew why and didn't blame her as much as he blamed himself for giving her cause. He'd hurt her after promising he wouldn't, and all the noble intentions in the world wouldn't change that. The folk of Sweetheart, starting with her own mother, had taken ruthless advantage of her tender nature all her life, just as he'd been guilty of … at first. He'd grown dependent upon her accepting nature, dumping his problems, his woes onto her fragile yet tensile shoulders while selfishly forgetting to recognize the burden she already carried. Forgetting that she had needs and sorrows, too. And still did.
He'd come back to Sweetheart so focused on his own goals he'd ignored her frail feelings. There was no excuse, none. And if he didn't make it up to her soon, the chance would escape him forever.
His opportunity to close ground was at hand. Or rather, at his elbow.
"So, Faith, how do you like Sweetheart?"
