Blackberry Crumble

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Her phone rang as she was driving, and she picked it up long enough to see that it was Richard, making her wonder why Keith had come to the restaurant instead of Richard. As much as she wanted to talk to him, there was no time; May deserved to know what she’d learned before anyone else did.

  Ten minutes later, Sadie pulled up to Jim Sanderson’s house and immediately noted that May’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Apparently she’d beaten May home.

  “Oh, biscuits,” Sadie said, letting herself out of the car anyway. The wind had picked up even more, and she noted that the clouds were dark. The coming storm was taking the edge off the summer heat instead of trapping it, but the wind required Sadie to continually brush her hair from her face. She nearly put her keys in her purse before catching herself and slipping them in her pocket instead. It hadn’t done her any favors to keep them on her person, but it made her feel better to know she was following proper etiquette. She’d determined that a lot of police and investigative technique was based in paranoia. The collar of her shirt blew up against her cheek as she climbed the steps to the side door, and she smoothed it down, trying to turn into the wind so that it didn’t wreak so much havoc with her toilette.

  At the top of the steps, she tried the door handle; it was locked. Her pick set was in her purse, and she reached for it but then paused. Was she really going to break into Jim’s house? It was illegal, unethical, and . . . wrong. Pete had made a point of telling her not to do this very thing. Sadie had assured him she wouldn’t, and she’d already picked the filing cabinet. Sadie clenched her teeth and made a fist with the hand inside her purse.

  Reviewing the trust document would help her gain confidence in the conclusions rushing through her head. She wanted to know more about Jolene and more about the lunch date with Keith. What if Jim had some notes about his plan to sell the company that she could use to help prove what she had learned from Keith? She wanted to call Providence and ask about Jolene’s treatments to verify her prognosis.

  Sadie’s stomach sank when she thought about Jolene. What if Jolene was part of this? What if it wasn’t just Gary who was after the money? Jolene had stuck by him through his jail time and judgments. She’d given her father the silent treatment like a petulant teenager because he couldn’t finance a final vacation. Would she have been a part of her father’s death in order to secure her inheritance for her husband? The thought made Sadie ill, but also increased her desire to try to get inside the house.

  On top of everything else demanding her attention, Sadie wondered about Jim. He had done what he thought was best for his children. Did he somehow know what was happening now? What would he say if he did? What would he want Sadie to do about it?

  Surely all the missing pieces were just beyond that door, and now that she knew more about what she was looking for, she would know better where to look. But she couldn’t break in. She couldn’t. She took her hand out of her purse and let out a breath, both proud and disappointed in herself for lacking the determination to do whatever it took to get the answers she wanted. Who’d have thought a moral compass could be so aggravating?

  “Hello there.”

  Sadie turned, tucking her hair behind her ear again as she looked across the street. Lois waved at her, then looked both ways and crossed the street, heading toward her. Sadie moved down the steps, grateful she hadn’t gone in with Lois watching. Maybe having a moral compass wasn’t so bad. She met Lois at the end of the driveway.

  “How are you, Lois?” Sadie said politely, wondering if May had told her about their confrontation at the hotel. Lois’s face was kind and open, however, and Sadie tried to make herself relax. Unfortunately, she was so tightly wound that it was nearly impossible to let go of the tension.

  “May’s out,” Lois said. A gust of wind pushed her hair flat on the side, showing her pink scalp beneath her fluffy black hair. Lois raised a hand and attempted to coax her hair back to its former shape.

  Sadie looked at the door again, her anxiety rising. “She texted me to come and meet her.”

  “She’s been gone for some time,” Lois said.

  “She did say I might beat her here.” Sadie let out a breath. “I just hoped I wouldn’t.”

  “Tell you what—why don’t you come over,” Lois said, nodding toward her house as the wind gusted past them again. Sadie squinted against the dust that came with it. “My living room gives me a bird’s-eye view of the house. It’s unusual for us to get a storm like this in August, but all the more reason to hide indoors for a few minutes.”

  Sadie wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Then again, Lois had given her some good information last night, and Sadie did need to talk to May as soon as she arrived. The wind blew up some dirt, hitting Sadie’s legs with dozens of painful pings. “Actually, that would be really nice.”

  Chapter 44

  Make yourself comfortable,” Lois said as they entered through the front door of her meticulous home. She waved Sadie toward the living room while she crossed to the entryway of the kitchen situated toward the back of the white-and-peach decorated house. Sadie could see into the doorway enough to make out some cabinets and a microwave. “I’ll be but a minute. Do you like lemon tea?”

  “Lemon sounds wonderful,” Sadie said, taking inventory of the room. Everything was micro-coordinated, down to the tiniest detail. There was a velvety-looking sofa made of a darker orange upholstery, and a floral arrangement on the coffee table with a glass top that must be murder to keep clean.

  “So, what was it May wanted to talk to you about?” Lois asked, pulling open a cupboard.

  “I’m not sure,” Sadie said, nervous about that very thing. “How long has she been gone?”

  “She left about an hour ago,” Lois said, opening and shutting another cupboard somewhere in the kitchen. “I expect she’ll be home any minute, especially if she told you to meet her. May’s a very reliable person that way.”

  Sadie nodded. “I’m sure she is.”

  She walked to the picture window, verifying that she did indeed have a full view of Jim Sanderson’s house. She’d make sure to keep it in her line of vision for the duration of her visit. The first few raindrops streaked against the glass. They’d come inside just in time.

  As she turned away from the window, a flash of red outside caught her eye, and she turned back to get a better look. A red car was parked a few houses down the street. She squinted, but it was too far away for her to see anything but the color, which stood out against the gray sky behind it. Something about that car bothered her, but she didn’t know why. Yes, it was the only car other than Sadie’s parked on the street, but was that enough reason for Sadie to be so interested? She looked at the car again before realizing that her anxiety was transitioning into paranoia. She forced her attention away.

  “Do you have grandchildren, Lois?” Sadie asked, moving toward a wall of pictures and trying to keep her nerves in check.

  “Seventeen, if you can believe it,” Lois called back from the kitchen. “Three of them live in Astoria; the rest are out of state. I’ve got eight great-grandchildren as well. Thank goodness for webcams and Skype.”

  Sadie nodded, looking at the matching frames that reflected back numerous smiling faces of people whom Sadie assumed were Lois’s children and their families. She pulled her phone from her purse and quickly texted May to tell her that she was waiting for her at Lois’s house. “I bet you’re a wonderful grandma,” Sadie said after she put the phone away. She hoped May hurried home.

  “The best,” Lois answered, laughing at her comment. “And I make sure to remind them of that fact as often as possible.”

  Sadie scanned the photos, starting at the top left of the fifty-year march through Lois’s life. There was a sepia-toned wedding photo of a young woman with her hair in a bouffant hairdo and curls beside each ear, pressed up against a young man in uniform. The next photo was a headshot of the same girl with a nurse’s cap on her head, the hair not quite so flamboyant.

  “You�
��re a nurse?” Sadie asked.

  “I was,” Lois called from the kitchen. “I haven’t had a license for several years now. I don’t want anyone making me work. I still help out friends now and then, though. At my age, acquaintances are dying all the time.” Sadie heard tea cups clink against saucers and glanced out the window again. The car was still there. But why wouldn’t it be? It probably belonged to whoever lived at the house it was parked in front of.

  Her phone dinged, alerting her to a new message. May had texted her back.

  I’m on my way.

  Sadie hoped she wasn’t texting and driving, that wasn’t safe—not to mention possibly illegal. She didn’t respond in order to be sure she wasn’t part of the distraction.

  Sadie thought about what Lois had said about being a nurse. She was ready to see if she could fill in some of the blanks without tipping her hand too much. It was just Lois, but Sadie wanted to make sure she didn’t betray May’s trust any more than she already had by giving up too much information. “You know,” she said carefully, glancing into the kitchen, “Jolene was looking into hospice care yesterday.”

  Lois was framed in the doorway. She poured tea into the cups.

  “Was she?” Lois asked.

  She didn’t sound very surprised to hear the news.

  “May seemed convinced Jolene was getting better,” Sadie said.

  “People are entitled to their secrets,” Lois said. “I’m sure Jolene had her reasons for keeping it to herself.”

  “But she told you?”

  Lois glanced up at Sadie. “Those Sanderson kids needed more of their mother than they got, and I’ve done my best to make up for that. They all come to me with their troubles.”

  “I don’t know how May will handle Jolene’s death,” Sadie said, her heart heavy with the confirmation that Jolene wasn’t going to beat her cancer like her mother had.

  “She’ll handle it like we all do,” Lois answered. “It will be hard, but eventually she’ll come to terms with it. I’ll help.”

  But was an elderly family friend enough? Without Jolene, May was left with Hugh—and he was in no position to take care of his baby sister. Another wave of trepidation washed through Sadie, and she turned back to the window. Talking to May about all of this might be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

  The rain had turned from a sprinkle to a downpour, and she watched the droplets bounce up as they hit the asphalt. Sadie looked through the blur of rain which had dropped a curtain over the view outside the window and found herself staring at the red car again.

  Red.

  Red.

  Did she know someone who drove a red car?

  Gayle drove one, but hers was more of a burgundy color. Then she remembered that Jane had a red car.

  Instantly Sadie’s eyes went wide, and she leaned forward. It couldn’t be! There was no way Jane drove all the way up here. But she did have a cute little red compact that looked an awful lot like the car parked on the street. The rain prevented Sadie from being able to see whether anyone was inside, but her stomach tightened. Of course Jane would come to Jim’s house after Sadie blew her off this morning. She’d have suspected that Sadie would end up here eventually. The tightening sensation turned to steel.

  What if Jane confronted May about what she knew, and what if May thought Sadie was trying to sell a story? What if another article popped up next week about Sadie and her murder-magnetic personality? What if Jane found out Sadie had been fired from her first job? What if May suddenly found her tragic circumstances in the public domain? Sadie almost couldn’t breathe for the anger and fear that gripped her as the possibilities rushed through her mind.

  Why couldn’t Jane just leave well enough alone?

  Sadie had no sooner thought the words than she realized May felt exactly the same way about her. She’d told Sadie not to look into her family matters, and Sadie hadn’t left well enough alone either. Sadie was being a hypocrite to judge Jane so harshly for doing what Sadie herself had done. Would she learn her lesson this time? Would Jane?

  Sadie let out a deep breath, reminding herself to stay focused, and looked back at the photos, desperate for distraction.

  The next two rows of photographs showed the march of life: from newlyweds to young parents to harried adults with four teenagers either smiling or scowling at the camera. When the youngest child looked to be sixteen or so, Lois was suddenly a single parent. The smiles looked heavier, and two of the older children had been joined by spouses. A single grandchild sat on Lois’s lap, and Sadie remembered that Lois had said she’d been widowed twice.

  Her eyes went back to that first wedding picture. Those two young people in the frame had no idea what was in store for them. Sadie’s heart was heavy from all the loss she’d heard about over the last couple of days. No one is spared heartache, she thought, but she still had no explanation for why some people experienced more than others.

  The distraction wasn’t working, and she felt her gaze pulled back to the car, despite the fact that she stubbornly refused to move her head. What was Jane doing out there? Was it really Jane at all?

  “Bart,” Lois said from behind Sadie, causing her to startle. She hadn’t heard Lois approach.

  “Your first husband?” Sadie asked after overcoming her surprise. She looked back at the sepia-toned wedding photograph. The more she looked at it, the more the young woman looked like Lois. Even the groom, Bart, looked familiar somehow.

  “Here’s your tea,” Lois said.

  Sadie accepted the dainty tea cup from Lois and put her purse down on the coffee table behind them so that she could use both hands for the tea. Lois moved the purse from the table to one of the chairs placed nearby; Sadie wondered if she’d missed a rule of etiquette that suggested purses weren’t meant to go on tables. But Lois didn’t seem offended and just smiled at Sadie.

  “I put extra sugar in it. I figured you were probably having an extra-sugar kind of day.”

  Sadie smiled and nodded, but as soon as she looked out the window again, her eyes locked on the car. Had it moved closer? The rain was heavier, and it was hard to tell for sure, but it looked like the car had moved up a car length along the curb. She felt her heartbeat increase in anticipation of Jane’s next move. And then she told herself, again, that there were millions of little red compact cars in the world and that she was jumping to conclusions.

  Sadie turned back to the photos and raised the tea to her lips, taking a sip that startled her with its zing. A little bitter, but well-compensated by the extra sugar Lois had added. It heated her whole body as it traveled down her throat, and she felt herself relax—finally. She needed this. She needed to take a step back from the tension she’d been drowning in since facing May last night.

  “Wasn’t he cute?” Lois said, sipping her own tea. “We were married twenty-seven years.”

  “He was a good husband?” Sadie asked, thinking of Gary Tracey, who seemed ambiguous about the fact that his wife was dying, and who may also have had motive to kill Jim Sanderson.

  “The best,” Lois said. She went on to describe the kind of man Bart had been: kind, hardworking, and generous. They’d traveled to Cannon Beach every summer with the kids and loved to sail—something Lois still enjoyed with friends. Sadie continued sipping her tea while trying to keep her mind away from the red car.

  “I guess my only complaint,” Lois said a couple minutes later, “would be that he never could understand what a hamper was for when the floor was so much easier.”

  “They’re never quite perfect, are they?” Sadie smiled, noting a funny feeling in her stomach. She hadn’t eaten well today. That, coupled with her current state of anxiety, must not be agreeing with the tea. When she looked out the window again, the little red car was definitely closer. Now it was parked in front of the house just east of Jim Sanderson’s. There was someone in the driver’s seat, but the only detail Sadie could make out was a spiky-haired silhouette.

  It was enough.

  The
driver was Jane, and she was slowly moving closer and closer. Did she know Sadie was in Lois’s house? Sadie clenched her teeth together and wondered what she should do.

  “No, they aren’t perfect,” Lois continued while Sadie tried to keep herself calm. “But he was a good man overall. A good husband and father. He died of Lou Gehrig’s disease two days after his fiftieth birthday.”

  Sadie turned to look at the other woman, her heart brimming with sympathy as she tuned back into their conversation. A man from her church had died of Lou Gehrig’s disease a few years ago. Sadie had brought in meals once a week for the last few months of his life to help ease the burden on his wife who had to watch him slowly lose all of his faculties week by week.

  “I’m so sorry,” Sadie said. “It’s a horrible disease.”