What She Deserved

by A. L. Jambor

  "My grandfather was a son of a bitch. My mother was sixteen when the war broke out. She had a boyfriend, and when he graduated from high school, he was drafted and sent overseas, but not before he made my mom pregnant. Mom told me she felt like she had to, you know, like if he had died a virgin, it would be her fault. Anyway, he went to Fort Dix and she discovered she was pregnant. When my grandfather found out, he waited until the boy came home on leave before being sent overseas and met him at the train station. They were married that night."

  "Those were the days," Constance said.

  Cheryl put the tissue to her nose and took it away. "He survived the war, but he wasn't the same when he came home. My mom was so young, and she had a little kid, it was just the perfect storm of shit, you know?" She wiped her nose again. "He had PTSD, only they didn't call it that then, and he was abusive. One night, it got real bad, and he cut off my mother's thumb."

  "Oh, my God," Mari said.

  Cheryl grabbed another tissue.

  "Mom went to my grandparent's house after she was released from the hospital, but my grandfather made her go back. He said she'd made her bed and had to lie in it. When she went back, her husband was gone. He never came back."

  "What happened to him?" Mari asked.

  "She never found out. She got a divorce, and after that my grandfather wouldn't speak to her." She blew her nose. "I never knew him and I'm glad I didn't. Mom married my dad and he was real nice to us." She looked at the box on Mari's lap. "I don't want anything from that son of a bitch, neither does my brother, so if you want anything, you can come over to my house and look through his crap before I burn it."

  After that story, Mari knew it would be rude to clap for joy, so she tried to control her excitement. A whole room of stuff that might hold the answers she was looking for!

  "I'm sorry for your mom," Mari said. "She must have been some woman."

  "She was."

  "That's not all, Cheryl," Constance said.

  "Oh, yeah, my mom was in school with Isabelle Morton."

  Again, Mari tried to contain her joy. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but they were all a jumble in her mind. As the seconds passed, Constance and Cheryl watched Mari's face, and the strange smile she was trying to suppress.

  "Mari," Constance said. "Do you have any questions for Cheryl?"

  "Mom kept a diary. I'm willing to let you read it, but you have to promise me you'll keep it private."

  "Absolutely. Like I said -- with your permission only."

  "She mentions Charlotte in the diary because at the time...my mom liked a boy named Joshua Jackson. He was the lighthouse keeper's eldest son."

  "I've heard of him," Mari said.

  "Mom hoped he'd ask her out, but he never did. She was just a teenager, you know, so she followed him home one day and her plan was to casually sit on the beach hoping he'd notice her, but then she saw him go to Charlotte's cottage. He went in but he didn't come out. It got late and mom had to go home, so she got up and left. She wrote about how mad she was, and couldn't understand why he'd spend so much time with 'that old slut.'"

  "You remember Charlie coming here the day you visited me?" Constance asked.

  "Yeah."

  "He asked me to stop you from investigating Charlotte."

  "Really," Mari said. "Why does it matter so much to him?"

  "He seemed nervous," Constance said. "Maybe he knows something about the murder. He lived in the lighthouse when it happened. He would have been old enough at the time to remember."

  "And now we know his brother was seeing Charlotte," Mari said. "Boy, that makes things much more interesting, doesn't it?"

  Constance tapped her fingers on the desk.

  "He used to be a powerful man in this town. He might still have some friends who would want to protect him. Be careful, Mari."

  Or dead people who might want to expose him.

  "And there are people who still think my grandfather was a saint." Cheryl put her hand on Mari's. "Like I said, you're welcome to look through his crap anytime, but I want to get rid of it soon."

  "Got it. I'll call you before I come over."

  Cheryl looked at the metal box and sighed.

  "That son of a bitch. Well, I gotta go home." Cheryl stood. "I gotta get dinner started."

  "Thanks, Cheryl," Constance said.

  "Yes, thank you very much." Mari looked through the box while Constance saw her friend to the door.

  "Thank you, Constance," Mari said as the older woman returned to her seat.

  "I didn't like the way he came in here, acting as if I should kowtow to his wishes. I never liked him. He was always too solicitous for me. I don't know why people are taken in by that phony crap."

  "Constance, language." Mari smiled broadly. A small smile crept across Constance's lips, too.

  "I swear now and then, when the occasion calls for it."

  "I guess I have way too many occasions, then."

  "I meant what I said," Constance said. "Be careful."

  Mari looked at the clock on the wall behind Constance.

  "I better get going. I'm meeting Phil at six."

  "Phil?"

  "Philip Curry. We're working on the case together."

  Constance smiled. "Is that all you're doing?"

  "Uh, yeah, I mean I like Phil, but he's too nice for me." She went to the door and looked at Constance before leaving. "Thanks again."

  Constance smiled as she thought about Mari and Phil. Ah, to be young again.

  Lorraine Biggins

  After his ship went aground a few miles offshore in 1820, Caleb Alden rowed to the beach with several members of his crew. Caleb and his crew looked around and saw one lonely cabin about a mile inland. It was deserted, so Caleb claimed it and the acreage surrounding it, filed the proper paperwork in Mays Landing, and named the place Cape Alden.

  As the town grew, streets appeared as tiny offshoots of the road running from the main highway east to the sea. Lorraine Biggins lived in a large cottage with dormer windows and pink shutters. It was the first house built on Baker Street, one of those tiny offshoots. Her husband's family had lived in Cape Alden for almost two hundred years before she married him, and the cottage had been refurbished many times over.

  Mari and Phil arrived at Lorraine's shortly after seven. Lorraine wore her long white hair in an elaborate twist and her blue eyes were bright and inquisitive. She smiled when she greeted them and led them to her parlor. Chintz slipcovers and curtains in large, cabbage rose patterns gave the feel of an English garden on a sunny day in June, and potpourri lent the scent of roses to the air.

  The TV, a model retired over fifteen years ago was on, and the picture was hazy. Mari and Phil sat on the loveseat as Lorraine turned off the TV.

  "Can I get you some tea?" she asked.

  "I'm fine," Mari said, and Phil shook his head.

  "Cookies?"

  Mari's eyes lit up. "I would like some cookies."

  When Lorraine went to the kitchen, Mari looked around the room while Phil flicked imaginary lint off his pants.

  "I like this room," Mari said. "It's comfortable."

  Phil glanced at it. "It's like my mother's house."

  "Did you grow up there?"

  Phil nodded.

  "I grew up in an apartment. I always wanted a back yard."

  "I didn't like going outside. I was allergic to almost everything."

  She suppressed a smile. She imagined him as a six-year-old with horn-rimmed glasses, a pocket protector, a perpetually red nose, and thinning light blond hair.

  Lorraine brought in a plate of cookies and set it down on the coffee table.

  "I made those cookies," she said. "Shortbread. Just three ingredients."

  Mari took one from the plate and shoved it into her mouth. The cookie melted on her tongue. The taste was indescribably wonderful, and when she took another, instead of shoving it into her mouth, she savored it. She couldn't remember her mother making anything like th
is. She always bought cookie dough wrapped in plastic. There was no comparison.

  "These are so good," Mari said.

  Lorraine smiled. "People don't have time to bake anymore. I find it relaxing."

  Mari took another cookie and sighed as she savored it, causing both Phil and Lorraine to smile.

  "When we spoke the other night," Phil said, "you said you remembered Isabelle Morton."

  Lorraine nodded. "We were in the same classes growing up. She was a lovely girl." The crinkles in her forehead deepened as she thought. "Why the sudden interest in that old story?"

  "I...work for a television network and we're doing a show about the Charlotte Johnson murder."

  "Is this interview for the TV show they told us about at the town meeting?"

  Mari glanced at Phil, who glanced at her, and then Mari looked at Lorraine and nodded.

  "Yes, it is."

  "Oh," Lorraine said. She ran her hand over a wrinkle in her skirt and tilted her head. "Well, I don't think I'm breaking any confidences if I talk about Isabelle. She's been dead for a while now. She was my friend in school, not my best friend, but we talked now and then."

  "Do you remember her dating a man named Jack Womack?"

  "He was quite a bit older than Isabelle. That's why he ended the relationship."

  "Jack ended it?" Mari asked.

  Lorraine nodded. "Now, all this is secondhand gossip from the girls I knew, but they said that Jack felt Isabelle was too young for him." Lorraine screwed her mouth up, and then it relaxed. "You know, I don't remember when she went out with him. Maybe it was just a rumor. You know how girls are; they like to talk."

  "Did Jack ever go out with Charlotte?" Mari asked.

  "I can't recall if he ever dated Charlotte." She screwed her mouth up again. "She didn't go to school with us. She was older, and we were all focused on school." She took a sip of her tea. "You know, I think Jack left town shortly after those rumors about him and Isabelle started."

  Mari and Phil looked at each other.

  "Where did he go?" Mari asked.

  "I'm not sure, but I know it was long before the murder." Lorraine sipped her tea. "When did Charlotte die?"

  "May of 1941."

  Lorraine nodded. "It had to be 1939. I remember it because I was excited about my aunt's wedding. Mama and I were shopping for dresses when we saw Isabelle's mother in the window above Morton's Inn and remembered what the girls all said about Celia. Isabelle took care of her mother." Lorraine seemed to drift for a moment. "Isabelle had a new boyfriend. That's right. He took her to the homecoming dance." She drifted again and sighed. "So many young men were lost in the war." She looked at Mari and Phil. "Sometimes I get the years jumbled in my head."

  Mari took another cookie from the plate on the coffee table.

  "What was Celia like?" Mari asked.

  Lorraine exhaled. "She was...difficult. She went away for a while, and when she came back, she just sat in that window."

  "Where did she go?" Mari asked.

  "I'm not sure. I remember Isabelle working at the inn because her mother was out of town. We all went to the beach, but she couldn't come with us." Lorraine glanced at the window to her left. "That fall, that's when the girls told me Isabelle had been dating Jack. I remember it now. It was a bit scandalous because she was just sixteen, which is why I don't believe it was more than a rumor. He liked to come to the bar, so they would see each other. I'll bet that's how that rumor started."

  "I wonder where Celia went." Mari looked at Phil, who looked like he was dozing off.

  "My mother thought Celia might have gone to the asylum in Oceanville for a rest. That's what they called it in those days."

  Mari took out her notepad and looked through it. "Did you know Joshua Jackson?"

  Lorraine smiled. "Everyone knew Josh. He was the star of the drama club. He was also a good athlete." She leaned forward. "To tell the truth, all the girls fell for Josh." A shadow passed over her face. "I haven't thought of him in years, not since he disappeared."

  "He disappeared?" Mari looked at Phil.

  "It was the oddest thing. It had to be 1941 because we were graduating. It was just before Memorial Day, maybe two weeks before, and one of my friends had a real crush on Josh. He hadn't come to school that day so she'd gone to the lighthouse to check up on him and found that the door was wide open and there was no one there."

  "You mean the door was standing open?"

  "Yes. The place was empty and Josh never returned to school."

  "And no one knew what had happened to him?" Mari asked.

  Lorraine shook her head. "I remember a girl, oh; I wish I could remember her name. She just cried like a baby when she found out he was gone."

  Mari looked at her notepad.

  "Do you think Celia could have killed Charlotte?"

  Lorraine sighed. "I remember when they arrested her. Mama and I thought it was wrong. She had been a little high-strung, but not for a long time, not since she'd gone away, and we just didn't think she could kill anyone, at least not the way they said it happened. People couldn't stop talking about it, how bloody it was, and I would put my hands to my ears. I couldn't stand to think about it."

  "It was pretty horrific," Mary said.

  "I'd seen Celia sitting in the window, and she was sad, but she didn't look mean, you know, like someone who could hurt another person that way."

  "She didn't look dangerous."

  "No, not at all, and she was a petite little thing. Charlotte was big, tall as a man. After they took her mama away, Isabelle came to school, but she would cry and would run out of the room. It was pitiful. She finally left school just before graduation and moved to Oceanville to be close to Celia. We never saw her again."

  "Wow," Mari said. "So you don't think Celia killed Charlotte."

  Lorraine shook her head. "To tell the truth, I don't think anyone thought she killed her. The people I knew, the kids in town, all thought it was a stranger. I guess we didn't want to believe it could be one of us, but like I said, Celia was tiny, and Charlotte was a tall woman. She could have easily overpowered Celia."

  "Did anyone ever suggest that Celia might have been framed?"

  "My mother didn't like her husband. She said once it wouldn't surprise her to find out that Carl Morton had finally found a way to get rid of his wife, but my father told her not to talk about it."

  "Why?"

  Lorraine hesitated. "Papa, Carl, and the sheriff, too, were in the Rotary Club. Papa didn't want my mother...well, he told us to keep our thoughts about the murder to ourselves." Lorraine realized she had been talking about the murder. "You don't think anyone would care about it now, do you? I mean, that I talked about it?"

  "No, not at all, they're all gone. Do they even have a Rotary Club anymore?"

  Lorraine looked relieved. "It was big in this town years ago. Papa joined because of his business. It helped being part of it."

  Mari flipped through her notes. "Do you remember Charlotte?"

  "Just to see her on the street." She smiled. "I know what people said about Charlotte, but you know she always smiled at me when I saw her. She seemed like a lost soul. She had no friends, she'd lost her husband, and then she was pregnant without a husband and the whole town made her feel like the whore of Babylon. I couldn't say this in front of my friends at the time, but I felt sorry for her. I think she did the best she could with what she had. Now she'd probably be on Maury Povich." Mari smiled and took another cookie. "You know, there is someone else you might want to talk to."

  "Really?"

  "Her name is Sarah Meade. She was my English teacher. She lives on Elm Street."

  "Your English teacher?" How the hell old is she? Mari thought.

  "She was only five years older than us." Lorraine must have seen the look on Mari's face. "I'm just ninety-two."

  Mari's eyebrows rose and she nodded her head. "Oh." She looked at Phil. "Well, I think that's it for now." She looked at Lorraine. "Can I call you if I need to
clarify anything?"

  "Of course, you can. I'm always here."

  "And you call if you remember anything."

  Mari wrote her number on a sheet from her notepad and handed it to Lorraine.

  "Thank you for seeing us," Phil said.

  "It's nice seeing you, Philip. How's Estelle?"

  "She passed away two years ago."

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I must have missed the obituary."

  Mari took another cookie, and Lorraine smiled.

  "Would you like to take them home?"

  "Can I?" Mari's eyes sparkled.

  "Of course you can. I'll put them in plastic for you."

  Mari and Phil walked away from the house with a bag of cookies and more questions than when they'd arrived. Mari took a cookie out of the bag and munched on it as they walked.

  Phil put his hands in his pockets. "Celia didn't kill her."

  Mari shook her head. "I know. I read the autopsy and it said the stab wounds were to her chest." Mari grabbed Phil's arm and faced him. Mari was five foot two and Phil six foot two. She pretended to stab his chest with a knife, and the "blade" hit him just above his naval. "Not her belly button."

  "How tall was Charlotte?"

  "Six feet. Everyone says that Celia was tiny. She might have been shorter than me."

  They walked in silence as they pondered the question.

  "Who are you thinking killed her?" he asked.

  "I'm leaning toward Joan."

  "Why Joan?"

  "It's just a feeling I have." She took another bite of cookie. "From what I've heard, Charlotte and Josh were seeing each other, and I doubt they used protection. That gave Joan a motive. She wouldn't want him to blow his chance at college."

  Phil stopped to look at the moon and rocked on his heels.

  "That doesn't make sense."

  "Why?" she asked.

  "She would have noticed that Charlotte was pregnant long before that night. Everyone in town knew Charlotte was pregnant. It was no secret. Besides, if I were Joan and wanted to save my son from a shotgun marriage, I would have let the baby die with Charlotte."

  "Unless she suddenly found out Josh was the father and freaked out. It was a crime of passion. She wouldn't have been aware of what she was doing. She stabs Charlotte in a fit of rage and then comes to her senses and cuts the baby out before it dies."