Blackberry Crumble

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Thank you, Bertie,” she said, noting the stiffness in her voice but not expecting that Bertie would. “I appreciate your thinking so well of me. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She turned, pretending not to see Bertie’s bony hand reaching for her arm as she headed for the chapel doors. Bertie’s fingers barely brushed her elbow, but Sadie didn’t stop.

  She usually sat in a front pew next to Sister Ruth and Sister Leanne—other women who came to church by themselves—but today she sat on the back row for fear that her friends would expect a rehashing of all that had happened. She pretended to study the church newsletter in order to avoid making eye contact as people filled in the empty spaces. Bertie patted her head—her head!—when she walked by, and Sadie fought the urge to slap her hand away. She’d always found Bertie to be a nuisance—even if she was the most amazing seamstress in town—but had never been on the wrong end of information with her before. As much as she didn’t like the comparison, Sadie couldn’t help but think of the times she had imparted information about people. She wasn’t hurtful about it and always categorized it as a “healthy interest in other people’s lives,” but had she made someone feel the way she felt now? She sincerely hoped not.

  Pastor Donald stood at the pulpit as the prelude music ended, allowing Sadie to breathe normally again. No one would try to converse with her during the sermon. How long am I going to feel like I’m beneath Garrison’s microscope? she wondered as she turned to the opening hymn.

  Sunday School was better; she taught the nine-year-olds, and as long as she gave them treats—miniature candy bars this week—they were putty in her hands. After all the meetings, she hurried to her car, not wanting to be caught by anyone else. It was perhaps the first time she’d ever not stayed to help put up chairs or visit with her friends. The heat outside was intense, and the seat of her car burned the backs of her legs when she slid inside, causing her to gasp. She couldn’t wait until this heat spell was over. As she drove through the parking lot, she read the marquee on the front lawn: “For by grace are ye saved through faith—Ephesians 2:8.”

  Something rushed through Sadie, and she stopped to read the marquee again. Grace, of course, always impressed her—the concept of someone else making up for all that she lacked was one she loved—but the numbers were what held her attention. Two and eight. Something was familiar about that sequence. She closed her eyes and pictured the two numbers, then tried to imagine the numbers May Sanderson had written on that ill-fated newspaper. Had it been the same sequence?

  She was sure that it had.

  But what came after the eight? she asked herself, really digging into the recesses of her gray matter. What was the third number?

  Someone honked behind her, reminding her that she’d stopped in the middle of the parking lot. She lifted her foot from the brake while going through the possible number combinations in her head.

  281.

  282.

  283.

  It clicked.

  “Two eighty-three,” Sadie said under her breath and felt herself sincerely smile for the first time in several hours. She repeated the number in her head. Two eighty-three. Two eighty-three. Two eighty-three. That was it! That was May’s area code. She pressed too hard on the gas, squealing the tires as she left the parking lot, but she didn’t even glance behind her to see how many people had looked up, wondering who was hot-rodding it out of church.

  She had to get back to her computer. She had to find May Sanderson, and she had the area code. She needed the success of discovery more than ever.

  Grace—that was the pastor’s message on the marquee this week. Interesting.

  Chapter 8

  Sadie was so excited to get to her computer that she didn’t bother pulling all the way into her driveway. As she stepped out of her car and headed toward her front porch, she noticed a little red sports car parked across the street. The driver’s door on the car opened, and Sadie’s steps slowed as a tall woman with blonde hair spiked at the crown of her head unfolded herself from the front seat. She smiled at Sadie, her red lipstick too bright for her plain features.

  Jane Seeley.

  The hair was a different color, but it was still Jane: tall and thin, but almost masculine-looking in the angles of her face and shoulders. She was dressed in black, skinny jeans that hugged her already slim legs and a charcoal-gray T-shirt featuring some band Sadie had never heard of. She wore Converse sneakers, and a few inches’ worth of rubber bracelets trailed up her arm. The dark ensemble drew the eye to Jane’s long, bright green fingernails. It was an odd color combination, but nothing less than Sadie would have expected. Jane was weird. And she was the reason Sadie was uncomfortable at church, the reason she hadn’t gotten her tires rotated yesterday, the reason May Sanderson offered the possibility of redemption.

  “Sadie,” Jane said in her low voice as she crossed the cul-de-sac and adjusted her sunglasses. Her long nails reflected the sunlight. “I was hoping I’d catch you.”

  The bad name Shawn had used yesterday for this woman came to Sadie’s mind, and she nearly said it out loud but pressed her lips together instead. Afraid that opening her mouth would release the offending word, Sadie turned away and headed toward her front steps again.

  Jane ran the last few steps and grabbed Sadie’s arm.

  Sadie immediately pulled out of her grip, glaring at Jane. “How dare you come here,” she said, taking another step away, which put her at the bottom of her stairs. All she had to do was keep going and disappear inside her house, but she couldn’t walk away from this opportunity to have her say. “How dare you say those things about me and then show up at my home. What more do you want? Was humiliation and false accusations not enough for you?”

  Jane’s eyebrows lifted from behind her dark lenses. Sadie couldn’t see, but thought Jane looked amused more than anything else. Typical. “You’re mad?”

  Sadie felt her hands balling into fists involuntarily. “Yes, I’m mad! You lied about me to the whole city, the whole state.” She flung her arm up to emphasize the vastness of her ruined reputation.

  “Lied?” Jane said, giving Sadie a mocking grin. “Are you saying it’s untrue?”

  Sadie clamped her mouth shut. Jane had gone for the jugular. Was it true? Could Sadie honestly say that it wasn’t?

  Sadie realized she should have gone inside instead of saying anything at all. She was simply feeding this woman’s fire just as she’d fed Bertie’s at church. She stepped up onto the bottom stair as Jane grabbed her arm again. This time Sadie twisted away fast enough that Jane stepped back in surprise.

  “You are not welcome here,” Sadie said with as much calmness as she could force into her tone. “And you’re not to touch me, talk to me, or write about me anymore, is that understood?” Remaining on the bottom step put her at eye level with the other woman. “I’ll be filing an official complaint with the Post in the morning. I want you off my property.”

  “Sheesh,” Jane said, shaking her head as though Sadie were being silly. “I just came to see if you wanted to explain things better, lay any assumptions to rest.” She lifted her shoulders in a patronizing shrug. “But have it your way, if you insist.”

  Sadie’s jaw hurt from clenching it so hard, and she forced herself to relax. “As if I can trust you to print what I say,” she said, her eyes narrowing. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead and upper lip; she needed to cut this short and get out of the sun. “You forget that I know how you work, Jane. You’ve thrown me under the bus before. Why on earth would I stand next to you on the curb now and wait for the next bus to come into view?” Sadie turned and headed up the steps, fishing for her keys in her purse, hyperaware of Jane watching her every move. Could she call the police when she got inside and charge Jane with trespassing? Sadie liked the image of Jane behind bars.

  “Has a woman by the name of Sharla-May Sanderson contacted you?”

  Sadie’s hand touched her keys and she froze. Sharla-May? It was a few seconds before Sadie realized sh
e still hadn’t moved, which would certainly catch Jane’s attention. She moved her hand around inside her purse, pretending to still look for her keys and hoping Jane would add more information.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sadie said.

  “She called me,” Jane said. “Friday morning. She asked a lot of questions about you. Said she’d called your house and needed to get in touch with you.”

  Sadie didn’t know what to say, so she settled for a shrug. It was time to go inside. She had the area code and May’s real name. Jackpot. But her mind was spinning. It had been nearly six o’clock in the evening when May had found her at the Latham dinner. And, Sadie realized with a jolt, she’d been gone most of that morning and afternoon setting up. Could May have tried to call before she had found Sadie in person? Would she have called Jane when she couldn’t get a hold of Sadie by phone? She thought of the blinking “new call” light on her home phone that she’d been ignoring all weekend.

  “She seemed quite intent on reaching you and was irritated when I wouldn’t give her your cell phone number,” Jane continued.

  Sadie inserted her key into the lock, thinking about her caller ID and the fact that May’s number might be on it.

  “Who is she, Sadie?” Jane said. Her voice sounded a little more frantic, desperate for answers. Of course, Sadie was all the more determined not to give her anything. “Is she a client? Are you doing investigations on the side?”

  Sadie looked over her shoulder as she twisted the doorknob, liking the annoyance in Jane’s voice. She kept her own voice properly schooled. “You give me far too much credit, Jane. I’m not a detective, a private investigator, or a woman of easy virtue. I’m afraid your story is nothing but a fairy tale. Now get off my lawn before I call the police.”

  She stepped inside before Jane could respond and shut the door with a snap, ensuring she got the last word. Jane’s words rang back to her: “Are you doing investigations on the side?” Sadie couldn’t help but smile. It was just Jane—someone Sadie respected little and trusted less—but she obviously thought Sadie capable of investigation work. Sadie liked that a lot.

  Before going to the phone, she closed the blinds on the living room window and pulled the curtains closed in the kitchen, not wanting to give Jane any opportunity to see what she was doing. Then she hurried to the phone in the kitchen, took a deep breath to calm her tingling nerves, and began reviewing all the incoming calls her caller ID had recorded over the last three days.

  When she saw the 283 area code, she gasped out loud and covered her mouth. May’s number had been there all along, only a phone call away. Sadie picked up the handset, the patterned dial tone alerting her to new messages. What on earth was she going to say to this woman? Why was she trying so hard to find her if she was simply going to tell her no?

  Chapter 9

  Sadie found herself in the middle of a full-fledged quandary as she paced back and forth across the living room, glancing at the phone every few seconds. She’d called her voice mail and written down May’s number. May had left messages Friday morning and afternoon, asking Sadie to call her. The other messages were mostly from friends, though two different reporters had called, making Sadie cringe. How would this all go away if people kept writing articles about it? She pushed everything but May from her mind and considered her options.

  The sensible decision was to tell May she was flattered, but she wasn’t an investigator and, due to her current circumstances, she was unable to help. Imagining those words coming from her mouth was a bitter fantasy. The other option was to agree to help May any way she could. Would that be misleading May, though? Would she be setting up the other woman to expect more of Sadie than Sadie might be able to give? The very idea of getting involved after the fallout of the last few days made Sadie question her own sanity. The argument and justifications were at a fever pitch in her head when the phone rang.

  She shot toward the phone. Was it May? If so, it was most definitely a sign that Sadie was meant to take this job. It could be the fate and cosmic forces May had talked about!

  “Hello?” she said, a little breathless. “This is Sadie,” she added.

  There was a pause. “Well, I hope so since I called your house.”

  Gayle.

  Sadie relaxed, feeling guilty for being disappointed that it was her friend on the phone instead of her first potential client. “Oh, hi. How are you?”

  “I’m good,” Gayle said. “How are you? You sound a little . . . intense.”

  “Jane Seeley was waiting for me when I got home from church,” Sadie said, happy to blame her mood on Jane.

  “What!” Gayle nearly yelled. “She came to your house?”

  Sadie launched into a play-by-play account of the entire exchange. She might have exaggerated Jane’s frustration a little bit, and she might have made herself sound a little more articulate than she really had been, but she knew Gayle practically expected that. In retelling the story, she got herself all worked up again—her heart rate increased and her head tingled.

  “That woman,” Gayle said in a huff when Sadie finished. “Is she still there?”

  Sadie turned toward the closed blinds. “Hang on, let me get the cordless phone so I can check.”

  She hurried to the bedroom for the cordless, then hung up the wall phone after verifying that Gayle was still on the line. Then she went to the living room and twisted the wand to open the slats. Her eyes were immediately drawn to Jane’s little red car still parked across the street.

  “You are kidding me,” she grumbled. “Her car is still there.”

  “Is she waiting for you to come out?” Gayle asked, and Sadie could picture her friend pacing back and forth in her living room.

  Sadie leaned forward to get a better look at the driver’s seat. “She’s not in her car,” she said, scanning the empty street. Where had she gone?

  She carefully opened her front door and peered around her yard. “I don’t see her anywhere,” she said into the phone, trying to make sense of what Jane was up to. “Oh, no,” Sadie said as she hurried back up her front steps, her neck sweaty from just the few minutes she’d spent outside. “What if she’s talking to the neighbors?”

  “What for?” Gayle said, but she sounded as upset as Sadie was.

  “I’ll call you later,” Sadie said. As soon as she’d hung up with Gayle, Sadie called her next-door neighbor and sister-in-law, Carrie. Their relationship had been strained since the murder of their neighbor, Anne, ten months earlier—not that it had ever been particularly good to begin with.

  “Hi, Sadie,” Carrie said automatically—caller ID.

  “Hi, Carrie.” Sadie looked through the kitchen window, scowling at the black walnut tree that blocked her view of the cul-de-sac. “I was just wondering if a reporter had come to your house.”

  “I sent her packing.”

  So Jane had gone to the neighbors. The woman was relentless!

  “Did she ask about me?” Sadie asked.

  “Yep,” Carrie said. “She’s the one who wrote that article in Friday’s paper, right?”

  “Yes, that’s her.”

  “She’s a viper.”

  For whatever reason, hearing Carrie call Jane names made Sadie feel better. “Thank you,” Sadie said, even though that wasn’t really what Carrie’s comment had invited. “Did you see where she went after she left your place?”

  Carrie was silent.

  “Carrie?”

  “Mindy’s,” Carrie said.

  Sadie’s heart was seized with instant panic at the mention of her motormouth of a neighbor, Mindy Bailey. If there was one person in the circle Sadie didn’t want talking to Jane, it was Mindy.

  “How long has she been there?” Sadie asked, horrified by the implications.

  “I think she’s been at Mindy’s since I told her to get lost.”

  Sadie was just about to hang up when she remembered something from her conversation with May. “Did another woman come looking
for me on Friday? With red hair?”

  Carrie was silent for a moment. “She wasn’t a reporter, too, was she?”

  Sadie was relieved. “No, she just said a neighbor had told her where I was.”

  “I hadn’t heard about the article yet,” Carrie said sheepishly. “If I had, I’d have been more suspicious.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Sadie said, feeling unexpected tenderness toward her sister-in-law. “Thanks for your help.” It was just one little mystery solved, but it gave Sadie confidence.

  She hung up the phone and reset her priorities. After a few seconds of thought, she marched straight to the cupboard, pulled out the Tupperware that served as her cookie jar, and began loading a plate with the leftover cherry chocolate chip cookies she’d made for the Latham Club dinner on Friday and had been saving for dessert tonight. This was serious stuff. It was time to act.