Blackberry Crumble

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Chapter 5

  Neither Pete nor Gayle said anything about Eric’s interview; instead, they insisted Sadie make herself presentable and go to dinner and a movie with them. Sadie tried not to cast glances around the restaurant, but it was so hard. When the lights went down for the movie—something with Sandra Bullock in it—she felt herself relax for the first time. No one would know she was there. She could hide for at least ninety minutes.

  Sadie had talked to both of her children between the news and the dinner, but Breanna texted her halfway through the movie. Sadie stepped out into the lobby and spent another twenty minutes reassuring her daughter and pretending that everything was fine. She wished she believed it herself.

  When they returned to the house, Gayle gave Sadie a parting hug and left Pete and Sadie together on the front steps. The night was still warm, but significantly cooler than it had been during the day. Pete walked her inside and left her with a goodnight kiss that went a long way to repairing her still-crumpled self-confidence.

  “Call me in the morning,” Pete said, squeezing her hand before heading out the front door.

  “I will,” Sadie said, stepping out after him. She watched as he got into his car, drove around the cul-de-sac, and disappeared. She wondered if there would ever be a point where he wouldn’t go home at night. They’d be married by then, of course. Despite Jane’s accusations, Sadie really was a woman of virtue. But thinking about the future of her relationship with Pete made her worry a little bit. Despite all he’d done for her today, she worried about what effect this situation might have on their relationship long-term. She thought of what he’d said about being upset about the article rather than mad: “You would have been too if there had been an article like that about me.” Pete was right; she would be upset. Would she also distrust him a little bit?

  She locked the door behind her and was beginning her nightly routine when Shawn called. Sadie loved her mountain of a baby boy, but she was exhausted and wished she could put off this conversation another day. But it was her son, and he was worried about her. She answered the phone.

  “Hey, sweetie.”

  “I found the online version of that article. Jane Seely is such a—”

  “Reporter,” Sadie cut in, saving both of them from whatever word Shawn was about to use. She went on to repeat Gayle’s opinion that it was only a matter of time before someone like Jane capitalized on the sensational nature of the last ten months of Sadie’s life. Like she’d done with Breanna, she tried to pretend it was no big deal, but the more they talked about it, the harder it was to keep up the pretense.

  “So, you’re not mad about this?”

  “I’m totally mad,” Sadie said before remembering she was supposed to be taking the high road—or at least giving that impression to her children. Too late now. “She twisted things to make the story more exciting, and I can’t even properly defend myself because of the pending trial.” It felt good to vent.

  “I think I should slash her tires,” Shawn said. “Or sneak into her house and put limburger cheese on all her light bulbs—that stuff stinks to high heaven when the heat starts cooking it.”

  Sadie chose not to ask how he knew that particular fact and changed the subject. “So, are you ready for school?” Fall semester started in about two weeks. Shawn was on probation in regards to his scholarship; he seemed to be losing interest in the academic side of the sports medicine program, despite having completed two years of it already. He’d stayed in Michigan for the summer because he’d gotten a job working with the city parks and recreation last fall and didn’t want to give it up. He loved the job. School? Not so much.

  “Aw, man, do we have to talk about this?”

  Within five minutes, Shawn managed to end the call, and Sadie had something new to worry about while she washed her face and finished up the day’s dishes. She usually watched the ten o’clock news, but now she looked at the dark television screen warily. Did she trust it? Her eyes went to the phone still holding her messages and blinking to tell her people had been trying to reach her. She decided she wasn’t ready for either of them.

  Instead, she took a long, hot shower, put on her polka-dotted pajamas, and climbed into bed with a heavy sigh. What. A. Day. Tomorrow she had a Sunday School lesson to teach and had offered to bring appetizers for the Woman’s Group meeting that afternoon. Should she act like nothing happened, or should she try to explain herself? She fell asleep amid attempts to visualize a positive result that, despite herself, seemed rather unrealistic.

  A little after three o’clock in the morning, her eyes snapped open, the name May Sanderson heavy in her still dream-drugged mind. She searched her brain for why May’s name had come to mind right now, but whatever the dream had been, it had slipped away from her. But the name stayed.

  For hours.

  All the questions she’d started to ask herself after she’d met May Sanderson came back, and she added more to the list. Why had such a negative article caught May’s attention? What made the woman think her father was murdered? Sadie remembered May had written her phone number on the newspaper that minutes later had been drenched in punch and then thrown in the garbage.

  At five-thirty, Sadie finally got up, put her feet into her slippers, and shuffled into the kitchen. The sun was coming up over the eastern mountains, and the morning was peachy-pink. Gayle had left some potato salad in the fridge, and Sadie smiled to herself as she dished up a bowl. It was potatoes and eggs—people ate that for breakfast all the time. She sat down at the table to eat while the house began absorbing the morning light, but her eyes were drawn to the computer across the room. She had learned a lot about the World Wide Web in the past few months. And wouldn’t finding May Sanderson be the polite thing to do? If only to let her know Sadie hadn’t ignored her situation. May had said something about fate and cosmic forces. Sadie didn’t want to interfere with May’s spirituality by ignoring her impressions completely.

  She took her bowl with her across the room and settled into the computer chair, fully aware that losing herself in this task could help her block out everything else that was still rubbing her raw inside. She was hungry for the distraction.

  First, she went to Google and simply typed in May Sanderson. Within seconds, she had 621,000 links to sift through. On another day, at another time, it might have seemed rather daunting to begin a search for one woman with only a name to go on. But it was five-thirty in the morning on a day Sadie was dreading. What else did she have to do?

  Chapter 6

  After clicking on random Google links for ten minutes, Sadie got serious. She logged on to Peoplefinder.com, a website she’d learned about from her daughter months earlier. She had her own account for it, though she’d told no one that she used it. So far, she’d only played around with it, mostly looking up family members to see how much information was available through the program and researching the City Council members just for fun. She hadn’t really discovered anything she didn’t already know—other than the fact that Jeffrey Headstrom had been married three times, not the two he claimed—but researching people was more fun than playing Solitaire. Unfortunately, she needed more than a name in order to get additional information about a person. Just knowing the state May was from would help, but she didn’t even have that.

  The area code! Sadie had glanced at May’s number on the newspaper and remembered it wasn’t from Colorado. But she couldn’t remember what the numbers were. She closed her eyes and squinched her brow. It started with a two—Sadie was pretty sure about that, but the rest of the numbers wouldn’t come. She Googled area codes that started with a two, but nearly every number between 201 and 299 was an area code somewhere, and as she scanned the list, none of them stood out right away. So much had happened in the last thirty-six hours since she’d glanced at that phone number, it wasn’t surprising that she couldn’t recall it. Still, it was disappointing. She imagined that real investigators had impeccable memories.

  Border states. Lots
of towns close to the border between states offered news from both the state they were in as well as the state close by. Garrison was in northern Colorado, so their news, for instance, often overlapped with news from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Unfortunately, not a single state that bordered Colorado had an area code starting with the number two. Undaunted, Sadie pulled a notebook out of the top drawer of the computer desk and opened an Internet browser window with a map of the United States. Researching the bordering states of Colorado’s bordering states didn’t make as much sense—they wouldn’t have Colorado newspapers—and yet she had to start with some kind of criteria. She looked at the map and started making a list.

  After crossing off the states without an area code beginning with two, Sadie began the tedious task of looking for May Sanderson in the white pages of the first few area codes. It crossed her mind an hour and a half later, as she began searching Modesto, California—she could imagine May being a California girl, even though there were two full states between California and Colorado—that she ought to plan out what she was going to say to Ms. Sanderson if she found her. Was she going to ask questions about the things May had told Sadie about her father being murdered? After the way Sadie’s last case had just exploded all over the media, she wanted nothing more than to hide in her closet for a few months. Getting involved in another murder mystery was not high on her list of priorities. So why was she putting so much effort into this?

  I’m just going to explain why I can’t help her, Sadie told herself as she stared at the results on the computer—no May Sanderson in the Modesto area. She changed “May” to “M.” There was the chance that May was married, but she hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring.

  A new listing came up, and Sadie felt her jaw drop. There were more than three hundred listings for M. Sanderson in Modesto, California.

  “This is crazy,” Sadie said, pushing herself away from the desk. Three hundred listings! And that was in only one of dozens of area codes. “You’re being ridiculous,” she told herself as she stood and turned her back on the computer, irritated at both the time she’d wasted and the impossibility of the task.

  Sadie glanced at the clock; it was after eight o’clock. She’d just wasted almost three hours on a futile task. Church didn’t start until ten, but she needed to get ready and at least work on the cream-cheese layer of the crab dip she was taking to the Women’s Group afternoon meeting. She pulled the cream cheese out of the fridge and left it to warm up on the counter while she showered for the third time in twenty-four hours, annoyed and not looking forward to going to church. She couldn’t stop reviewing the looks and whispers from the dinner on Friday, the humiliation of it all. She could only hope church would be better than that. It was church, after all. The thought of attending the women’s meeting was even less appealing, but it was imperative that she stick to her routine and act as though nothing were bothering her. Besides, she’d said she would attend, and they were counting on her being there. Now more than ever she needed to keep her word.

  She was ready to go by 9:30, even though she’d been even more meticulous of her appearance today, worried that people would be paying her extra attention. She called Pete and they chatted for a few minutes. He seemed distracted, which reminded Sadie that she’d totally hijacked his Saturday. She felt bad and ended the call earlier than she’d planned to so that she wouldn’t ruin his entire weekend.

  Once off the phone, she opened the cream cheese and began humming while she spread it on her nicest crystal platter in hopes of brightening her mood. While she worked, however, she could feel the computer screen calling to her, tempting her to try again. The information she needed was somewhere online, she was sure of it, and just knowing that made it seem silly not to keep looking. It was all about finding the right questions to ask.

  When she finished spreading the cream cheese, she covered the platter with plastic wrap, put it in the fridge to finish later, and then turned to eye the computer—the screen yawning at her, sucking her in.

  Well, I have ten minutes. She smoothed her skirt beneath herself and sat back down at the computer. There was nothing else to do, right? She began scrolling through the listings and finally admitted to herself that if her intent was simply to apologize for being unable to help May, she wouldn’t be going to all this trouble. After everything that had happened this weekend, the thought of getting involved with another case should have been abhorrent. Instead, Sadie felt the same thrill run up her spine as when May had first mentioned her suspicions about her father’s death.

  Easy Crab Dip

  1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

  1⁄4 cup cocktail sauce

  1 (4.25-ounce) can lump crab meat

  Lemon juice (to taste)

  Crackers

  Celery sticks

  Place softened cream cheese in the middle of a medium-sized dinner plate or similarly sized platter. Using the back of a spoon, smooth cream cheese evenly across the surface of the plate. Spread a layer of cocktail sauce over the cream cheese.

  Open canned crab meat, drain, and use a fork to fluff the meat. Spread crab meat evenly over the cocktail sauce.* (Drizzle lemon juice over crab for additional yumminess—but use sparingly!)

  Use a firm cracker or celery stick to scoop up the layered dip.

  *Breanna likes this dip with a drained can of tiny shrimp instead of the crab.

  Chapter 7

  By the time Sadie left for church, she was once again telling herself she was crazy. One person among millions? How could she believe that finding May Sanderson was even possible? If only she could remember that area code.

  She pulled up to the gray stone church and parked her car. She sat for a minute, enjoying the car’s air conditioning before she had to step out into the heat.

  She really, really didn’t want to be here today.

  Eric’s words from the TV interview came back: “passionate woman.” Her cheeks burned all over again. How would people interpret that? What would she think of it, if it had been said about someone else? After another minute, she took a deep breath and headed inside while putting her best fake smile on her face. She made it through the parking lot and most of the hallway before her luck ran out.

  “Sadie!”

  She felt she had no choice but to stop and turn in the direction of the voice. She didn’t want people to believe she was immoral and rude. Her smile tightened as she recognized Bertie Mayer. There was a joke that circulated under the breath of many of her fellow parishioners that if anyone knew anything about anyone else, it was because a little Bertie told them about it. As far as Sadie knew, Bertie was unaware of such comments, and yet she seemed to take an unnatural amount of pride in being the holder of so much information. It was important that Sadie play this well. “Good morning, Bertie.”

  Bertie turned her head to the side, looking at Sadie with one eye—like a chicken. Her dusty gray hair was in a bob that ended in a sharp curl beneath each ear. Her body was long and thin, and she always leaned forward slightly, as though not wanting to miss a word someone might say in her presence. “There was an article about you in Friday’s paper, did you know?”

  “Yes, I knew,” Sadie said, hoping none of the tightness in her chest showed on her face.

  “It said some really . . . surprising things.”

  “Yes, it did,” Sadie returned in her super-polite voice. “Freedom of the press can be a double-edged sword.”

  Bertie nodded slowly, contemplating each word of Sadie’s answer. “I felt just awful for you,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “And I said, that poor Sadie—how unfair that she would have someone make up such things about her. I mean, a woman of such character, like yourself, must have taken that very hard.”

  Oh Bertie! Did she honestly think Sadie didn’t feel the barb behind her words? “It was quite a shock,” she said out loud.

  Bertie clicked her tongue and lowered her chin, looking at Sadie over the top of her glasses. “I’m surprised the paper
would print such obvious lies.”

  Sadie noticed Brother Leverage standing a few feet to the left. He was looking out the window, but Sadie couldn’t help wondering if he was standing close enough so that he could overhear what they were saying.

  “I was surprised as well,” Sadie said, looking longingly toward the chapel doors. She needed to make her escape. She was not up to sparring with the likes of Bertie Mayer after all.

  “Especially when they talked about that locksmith,” Bertie continued. “My cousin Faye lives by him, you know. She remembered seeing you there once or twice—rather late in the evening. Of course, I assured her you were the picture of virtue and that she must be mistaken.”

  Sister Maureen Morne walked by and gave Sadie a look Sadie couldn’t quite decipher. Was it sympathy for having been caught in Bertie’s net? Or was it something else? Would she pull Bertie aside after their congregational meeting to ask her what Sadie had said? Suddenly it felt as though everyone was talking about her or thinking about her—just like Friday night’s dinner. She should have stayed home, but it also made her angry that she wasn’t safe at the one place she should be.