The Girls of Tonsil Lake

by Liz Flaherty

  “How did you get it, Scott?” asked Suzanne.

  “Rosie came to see me shortly after you all left for college.” He looked over at Andie. “She hadn’t been feeling well and she wanted to get right with the Lord as well as get everything in order.”

  Andie looked as startled as I felt. “You mean she knew?” she asked. “Rosie knew she was going to die?”

  “I’m not sure she knew that,” said Scott slowly, “but she was aware something was wrong. Her lifestyle changed drastically those last months. She even started attending church, though she sat at the back and left as soon as services were over.

  “When she chose her burial plot, she asked for one in the back. She explained that the person who sat on the back of the bus was the one who opened the emergency door in case of an accident and she thought maybe if she wasn’t good for anything else, she was good for that.”

  Oh, dear God, but she had been good for that. I felt a sharp niggle of shame, though, because I’d thought the church membership had consigned her to the remote gravesite.

  “I blamed the people of the church for putting her back there, saving the good spots for the Hendersons and the Arthurs and folks like that.” Andie gave mumbled voice to my thoughts.

  Scott laughed. “I imagine a lot of people looked at it like that. But Sheriff Arthur and Mr. Henderson even offered to pay extra so she could have a more choice final location.” He rolled his eyes heavenward. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have repeated that.” He cleared his throat. “Well, would you like to see what’s in the box?”

  We looked at each other. “You open it,” said Suzanne, pushing it toward him.

  “All right.” He reached for the hasp on the end of the box, but Jean’s voice stopped him.

  “Wait,” she said, and we all turned to look at her, our heads moving in unison as though we were spectators in a tennis match.

  “Why are we doing this?” she asked, color creeping up her cheeks and making her look healthy and strong. “We’re fifty-one years old and no one’s telling us what to do. Why are we sitting here scared to death something from our past is going to hurt us when we have the power to prevent it? It’s not as though we had this delightful childhood we want to revisit.”

  She rose from the table. “You can go ahead if it’s what you want to do, but I want no part of it.”

  “You’re right, Jean.” Suzanne got up, too. “Good heavens, guys, when I see that lock of hair, I might want to slit my throat because I can’t duplicate its color.”

  Andie and I exchanged glances. “We don’t need to have it opened,” I said, halting Jean and Suzanne’s flight from the room. “We can heave it into the lake this afternoon.”

  “All right.” Scott pushed the box aside. “But I’d like to talk to you anyway.” He folded his hands on the table before him and looked around at us. “About Rosie. And about the night—or more accurately—the morning Chuck Hardesty died.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Andie

  “You know about that night?” asked Vin. “All of it?” Her face was pale and set, and I don’t know whether it was by accident or design, but we all scooted our chairs a little closer to hers, to the point that Scott Parrish faced all of us.

  He nodded and took a deep breath. “I was there.”

  “There?” Jean echoed. “You got there when the sheriff did, right?”

  Scott was silent for a moment, then he said, “Before I met and fell in love with my wife, I met and fell in love with Rosie Bennett. She was ten years older than I, practiced a profession people of my calling would like to put out of business, and never gave me the time of day. But”—his face creased into a boyish smile that made me remember why Jean had had such a crush on him—“I thought she hung the moon. I’m not yet convinced she didn’t.”

  Rosie had been dead for over thirty years, but sometimes I still thought I heard her whiskey voice, smelled the too-sweet rose scent of her cologne, felt her hand light on my shoulder. She hadn’t been much for physical affection, but that touch had always let us know she cared. Scott Parrish’s words were about the Rosie we’d known. I felt a wave of longing.

  “Unrequited love plays havoc with one’s sleep,” he said. “I was going down to the lake to fish when I heard Vin scream, not that I knew it was her. By the time I got around there, the car was already in the lake and the sheriff was diving, trying to get him out. I dived, too, but neither of us could do anything.”

  “You and the sheriff dived?” said Vin. “I don’t remember that.”

  We shook our heads. “I know he got there fast,” I said, “but I didn’t realize he’d gone into the water.”

  “He was with Rosie.”

  Suzanne frowned. “That can’t be. We’d have seen his car.”

  “Not if he parked behind the trailer,” said Jean.

  Scott nodded. “Which is what he did.”

  “They all did,” I remembered. “Even ones who didn’t hold elected office didn’t want it known that they were visiting Rosie.”

  “After it was all over, the sheriff was praised for arriving so quickly,” said Scott. “His wife knew where he’d been, and eventually his family did, but they didn’t find it out from Rosie. Mr. Arthur remained sheriff for many more years, a good and popular one.”

  That explained why the sheriff’s son helped care for Rosie’s grave.

  Only one question remained unanswered. I reached for the ammo box. “I have to know,” I said.

  “It’s not in there.”

  We all looked at Scott. “Where is it?”

  “In Chuck Hardesty’s car.”

  “But that went to the junkyard. It was compacted and crushed and…well, whatever they do with cars after they do that,” said Vin.

  The minister nodded. “Yes.”

  “So it was all illegal,” said Jean, her voice subdued. “It was hushed up that one of us killed Chuck Hardesty so the sheriff’s reputation would stay intact. Rosie did that for us.”

  Scott’s face went so white I thought he was having a heart attack.

  We exchanged looks of concern, and Jean got up to get him a glass of water.

  “Are you all right?” said Vin.

  “Yes,” he said, “but I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?” We looked at each other. Didn’t we know enough, for God’s sake? What little gem of horror did he have to hand down to us now?

  “An autopsy was performed, as the law decrees in cases such as this was, but the results were never made public. It was reported that he was drunk and drove into the lake and drowned. As it turned out, that’s exactly what happened. The gunshot was to his shoulder and only incidental. You girls didn’t kill him any more than I did.”

  Vin frowned. “If that’s true, why didn’t we know?”

  Scott looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps you should talk to your mother about this.”

  “She won’t tell me anything. You probably remember her well enough to know that,” Vin snapped. “If we’re to know the truth, it’s got to come from you or the sheriff.”

  “Mrs. Hardesty filed a wrongful death suit against Rosie. She dropped it on the advice of her lawyer when she found out the results of the autopsy.”

  I wasn’t surprised that Mrs. Hardesty had never told her daughter about that particular incident. I knew she’d hated Rosie and hadn’t been too fond of us girls, either. But if she had known, I realized, so had Rosie.

  Why hadn’t she told us?

  Jean

  We were relieved to know we hadn’t committed murder after all. Yes, I know self-defense made it something less than murder anyway, but I also knew the shooting of Chuck Hardesty had bothered us all.

  But why hadn’t Rosie told us? I could see the question written clearly on Andie’s face and in Suzanne’s eyes. Only Vin seemed undisturbed by the betrayal of the one person we’d all trusted.

  The ammo box still sat on the kitchen table two hours after Scott had left. One by one, we sat down. We looked
at it, at each other, then Suzanne shrugged and drew it toward her. “We know the gun’s not in here. That was the only thing I was afraid of.”

  We nodded agreement, and she lifted the hasp.

  The contents of the box were the items Scott had listed and we had remembered. The dreams we’d spelled out on lined paper were the ones I’d written about in my new book. Wealth for Vin. Fame and beauty for Suzanne. Family and true love for me. Andie’s dream for life was summed up in one word: Survival.

  We laughed over the BeeGees trading card and the awful story I’d written, sighed over the locks of hair. We sniffed, grimacing, at the nearly empty bottle of dime store cologne and tried to remember whose plaid ribbon was tied around an envelope of snapshots taken with the point-and-shoot camera Andie’d gotten for Christmas one year.

  “Why didn’t she tell us?” Andie muttered as we neared the bottom of the box.

  “The same reason she didn’t make Cindy Hathaway leave you alone,” said Vin. “She had no reason to think those dreams were going to come true”—she pointed at the notes on the table—“but she had every reason to think we’d have a hard way to go. She wanted us to always be strong and to always have each other. As long as we shared knowing we’d killed someone, we’d maintain a connection, and knowing we’d killed for survival meant we were strong.”

  “I don’t know, Vin,” said Andie. “That’s a stretch.”

  “Is it?” Vin picked up the envelope of pictures. “Rosie bought you this camera when the rest of us were still counting on the Salvation Army for our Christmases. She saved your stories, Jean, when no one else gave them a second thought. Remember that binder full of them we found after she died? And you, Suzanne—who taught you to put on makeup and to make the best of what you had? Who took me to the doctor and convinced me life could go on after rape, when all I wanted to do was die?” She laughed as tears spurted from her eyes. “Who made sure we had care packages at college just like the other kids did? The last ones were waiting for us when we went back to school after her funeral.

  “Are we really going to wonder whether that person loved us or not? Are we going to question her judgment when hers was the only judgment that ever put our needs first?” She looked around the table at us. “Well, are we?”

  “No, we’re not,” said Suzanne.

  At last the relief felt real. Vin was right, of course. For the first time since that night, the four of us were completely free. “It feels good,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Andie. “But, you know, there’s a little part of me that’s disappointed we didn’t kill the forny bastard.”

  She looked so pseudo-wistful that I burst out laughing. Suzanne got to her feet. “Come on. Let’s go to the pub. I think it’s time the Tonsil Lake girls got drunk.”

  Suzanne

  It was snowing as we walked to the tavern, and even as we complained about the cold, we enjoyed the beauty of it.

  “Where will you build your house?” I asked Vin.

  “In the middle there,” she said, pointing, “backed up into the trees.” She looked between the three of us. “There are enough lots for all of us, you know, if you’d like to build houses.” She grinned. “Or park trailers. Of course, you’ll be living in the B and B, Suzanne, so you won’t want one.”

  “I can’t afford it,” I said regretfully, “but I could probably buy one of your lots and build a little house on it. I’d like that, I think.”

  “You could afford it if you had partners,” said Andie. “Jake left me a whole bunch of money I didn’t know was coming, over and above the bigger bunches he left the kids. I think he’d like it if I invested it in your spa.”

  “And I sold Mark’s mother’s jewelry. I offered it to his girls, but they didn’t want it and didn’t mind if I sold it. I’d like to invest that somewhere,” said Vin.

  “It might never make any money,” I cautioned. “I want it to be an ‘every woman’ type of place.”

  “Works for me,” said Vin with a shrug. “I’d just like knowing you were right up the road.”

  “I’d like to invest, too,” said Jean.

  We all stopped walking and looked at her. Jean never bought so much as a pair of earrings without consulting David.

  “I spend my book advances,” she said. “I put them into the family budget and feel proud of contributing. But when I started getting royalty checks, David told me to stuff them somewhere for a rainy day. We withdrew a few times when all three kids were in college at once, but for the most part, it hasn’t rained yet.”

  We reached the pub with our hair full of snowflakes and waved to the bartender, who called, “The usual?”

  “You bet,” said Andie, “and could you bring us some paper?”

  He brought us our drinks and a stenographer’s notepad, and we scrambled for pens.

  An hour later, we had drawn up a workable partnership, contingent on the Arthurs dropping the price of the house a few thousand, on David not going ballistic, and on the results of a home inspection.

  Two hours later, I was crying into my Margarita, Andie was telling me to stop being a ninny, and Jean and Vin were playing darts really badly.

  So why was I surprised when the door to the pub opened and David walked in, followed by Paul and Trent?

  Vin

  I tossed Jean an accusing look. “You called David because you were losing, you big whine-ass.”

  “I did not, though I thought about it when you wanted the drunk at the bar to play William Tell with us.” She shook her head seriously. “It could have gotten ugly if you’d missed, since all the bartender had was those pickled eggs in the big jar, which are even smaller than apples.”

  She smiled brightly at David, though her eyes weren’t focusing too well, so the smile kind of slipped past him. “Hi, honey.”

  “Hi, babe.” He gave her a hug. “Got to missing you.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  I wished Lucas were there. This reminded me too much of high school days when part of us had boyfriends and part of us didn’t.

  “I talked to Lucas,” said David. “He sent you this.”

  He draped me over his arm and gave me a kiss, which would have worked out better if we hadn’t both been laughing so hard. “I hope he does better than that in real life,” David complained. “That could hurt a guy’s back.”

  “Hey, O’Toole, you weren’t supposed to do that,” called Paul, “because he’s…umph.” Trent’s elbow gouged his ribs.

  “He’s what?” I headed back toward the table, a dart still in my hand.

  “Leaving our stuff up at the B and B,” said Paul, keeping a watchful eye on my weaponry. “He said he’d walk down but we weren’t supposed to tell you.”

  “You mean he’s here?” I was already reaching for my coat. “He just went back to the island.” The dart wouldn’t go through my sleeve and I drew my hand back, looking down at it in consternation.

  Perhaps darts aren’t a good idea after several rounds of “the usual.”

  “Nope,” said David. “He went to the airport.” He looked wise. “I know that on account of I took him. Then he said, ‘What the hell am I doing this for when I haven’t taken a vacation in twenty goddamned years?’ And we came back to Lewis Point. He’s staying in Kelly’s room, Jean, but he’s not real messy.”

  “Unless you count his handwriting,” said Paul. “We were playing Pinochle and whenever he or Trent wrote down the score, no one could read what they wrote.”

  “So we started playing poker,” said Trent. He looked dolefully at Suzanne. “You know my house? I hope you weren’t real attached to it. I think I lost it to Paul.”

  Lucas came in then, and draped me over his arm much more convincingly than David had.

  We sat around the table in the tavern until after the bartender made last call. Then he sat down and had a drink with us before coaxing us out the door.

  We walked back to the B and B, our feet crunching and squeaking on the snow that had obliterated the
path.

  “ ’Night, Rosie,” we called as we passed the cemetery, then “See you in the morning,” as we passed the church.

  A glob of snow fell out of a tree and went straight down the back of Andie’s coat. We all stopped to brush her off, and turned back toward the lake.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful,” said Suzanne.

  It was. The sky had cleared when the snow stopped, and the moon turned the ripples of the lake to silver and cast a shade of blue over the snow. Stars shone overhead, and I picked out the ones we had allotted to those we’d loved and lost.

  “There’s Rosie’s,” said Jean, pointing, “and it’s no forny airplane.”

  We started walking again, our laughter falling soft against the snow rather than ringing out as it had earlier. We girls walked with our partners of choice, our arms linked with theirs, but close enough that we could reach out and grab each other. “Hey, wait,” we would say. “Remember this?”

  “Home,” Jake Logan had written to all of us, “is wherever you hang your heart.”

  We were home.

  Epilogue

  Archie

  I never come to Indiana when Vin and Lucas do. My new husband, who is a fisherman, doesn’t really like leaving the island, but he did this time. “It’s a family reunion,” Vin said firmly, “and you’re family.”

  It has been fun, putting faces with the names I’ve known all these many years. For sure, I would have known Jean and David in a heartbeat because even though they’re two separate entities, they’re near to being joined at the hip. Jean’s new book, which Vin edited and her employer published, is a hit. It’s way down on those bestseller lists writers set so much store by, but it’s there.

  Andie’s book was monstrous successful, but she doesn’t care for the notoriety that’s gone with it. She calls it “that book” and swears she won’t be writing another one. She says she’s not interested in getting married, either. She and Paul are together nearly all the time, and they seem content with that. I wouldn’t be, for sure, but I spent twenty-some years loving a married man, so what do I know?