A Distant Murder

by Donna McLean

  Addie chose the golden yellow pound cake from the smorgasbord of goodies before beginning the tale of her morning’s misadventure in the bookshop. The softly lemon flavored cake seemed to melt into sugar at first bite. “This cake is delicious!” she said, to Tilda’s obvious delight.

  “That’s my Granny’s recipe. A family secret handed down from her granny before her,” Tilda responded with pride. “Now do go on with your story.”

  Addie continued, “Well, I thought a book store in a small town like this one would be a good place to start looking for you. And I love to read, of course, being a writer and all that. But I hardly had time to browse. As soon as I walked in and asked the gentleman behind the counter where I could find you, these three old ladies practically cornered me, shooting all kinds of questions at me and making nosy comments about my hair and things like that.”

  “Oh, no! There were three of them.” Tilda put her glass of iced tea down in a snap and began counting on her fingers. Her voice was righteously indignant. “I’ll bet one was tall and scrawny, one was short and dumpy, and one was just plain mousy. What did they say to you?” the little lady demanded.

  Addie nodded, surprised at both Tilda’s accurate description and the change in the lady’s previously genteel manner. She swallowed another bite of the wonderfully light pound cake before replying to the question. “Well, almost as soon as I walked in, the tall skinny one with the loud voice said, ‘You look just like that poor dead girl.’ I mean, that is exactly what she said to me!”

  Tilda MacArdan gasped at the rudeness of it. “Good gracious! Delcie Needles didn’t really say that to you? But it sounds just like her.”

  The pretty young woman nodded and the loose curls of her strawberry blond hair bounced defiantly. The golden highlights in her green eyes flashed as she continued the story.

  “Oh yes she did say that to me! And then the short dumpy one with the big glasses said my hair wasn’t quite as pretty as the dead girl’s hair had been!”

  A wry smile crossed Tilda’s lips. “That’s Magda Moseley. Magda the Magpie, that’s what we call her, but not to her face, of course. Bless her heart, she tries to be kind but the words always seem to come out wrong.” She looked wistfully at Addie’s curls as she remembered her own fading locks. “You really do have the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thank you.” Addie sipped the iced tea, nice and cool against the growing humidity of the summer’s day. “And then the other one, the little one with the frumpy clothes—”

  “Peggy McAlister. She never had any taste in clothes at all,” Tilda interjected.

  Addie gulped the delicious drink and nodded. “Well, she said that the girl had been murdered, and they never found out who did it, and wasn’t I afraid to come here after all these years and looking just like her the way I do!” Addie put down the glass of tea forcefully and it splashed onto the painted tea tray and wooden table. She quickly dabbed at the puddle with her napkin. “Oh no! Your pretty tea tray. I’m sorry about that, Ms. MacArdan, but they did upset me so much. I had no idea she’d been murdered!”

  “Don’t worry about the mess. This is my outdoor table and I can wash the tray. I get it dirty myself sometimes. It’s just an old tray, not worth anything to anyone but me. And call me Tilda, not Ms. MacArdan. Your granddaddy was my friend, and so are you.”

  A smile of relief and thankfulness appeared upon the young woman’s face. Her eyes fell upon the Christmas card, still in its envelope, that had been sent to her grandfather many years before by the same woman who was now serving her homemade cookies and cake and iced tea in tall old fashioned glasses. The Christmas card had been the only link that connected her grandfather with Sparrow Falls, North Carolina, and this middle aged lady who had lived a lifetime in the same cottage was now the only link to her family’s past.

  “Thank goodness Granddad kept this card and the envelope with your address on it. I never even knew he had lived in this place. I just happened to find this Christmas card tucked away with some other things after he died. That’s when I found out about her—his first wife—the one they say I look like. The one who . . .” She faltered.

  Tilda interrupted her visitor with a warm smile. “I’m sorry you had to meet those nosy old hens right off. They’re not typical of our townsfolk. Our town really is a lovely little place, filled with kind people.” She tossed Puddin’ a cookie and picked up the empty glasses, continuing the conversation thoughtfully while she cleared the table. “And I think the gossipy trio, as I tend to call them, is kind at heart. They just get carried away, talking about things that are none of their business. They’ve nothing better to do than to stick their noses into other folks’ business, and when they see a new person in a small town like this one, especially someone who is young and pretty, well, they just can’t resist hopping on you like mice on cheese. People do gossip a lot in a small town, you know. Everybody knows everyone else, and we all grew up together so we know everybody’s families, too. We know all their pasts and can see most of their futures. Those who stay here, that is. Some, like your grandfather, choose to find a way out and don’t come back.” She sighed with the remembrance of things long past, and Addie noticed the sudden sadness that flickered across Tilda’s kind face.

  “Did you know her? My grandmother?” she asked.

  Ms. MacArdan nodded. “Yes, I remember her, although I was very young at the time. She was shy, and sweet, and a bit delicate, I think. She wasn’t from around here. Your grandfather married her and brought her back here to live. I don’t know who her people were.”

  Addie sighed. “I don’t know, either. I don’t know anything about them. Granddad and Grandmom, as I called her, were so happy together, and I never knew that she was actually his second wife, or that his first wife had died young, here in Sparrow Falls. Dad doesn’t remember any of it, of course. He was just a baby at the time and Granddad never told him anything about Sparrow Falls. Granddad never told anyone.” Addie looked down at the glass of iced tea gripped between two hands, and both women were silent for a long moment. Then Addie looked up and asked, “I don’t know anything at all. Will you tell me what happened, Tilda?”

  The little lady tilted her head to one side like a curious bird studying a worm. Tilda MacArdan did not believe in coincidence. She wondered why Dr. McRae had kept that Christmas card tucked away for many long years, and she wondered about the quest that had brought the young woman to her cottage. This young woman was now sitting anxiously before her. She had a face that was eager but also sad, a face that was curious but also afraid to uncover the truth. That face was nearly a mirror reflection of the face of her grandmother, who had lived and died so long ago, a grandmother the young woman had never known.

  Tilda thought long and hard, gathering her thoughts. She believed in helping the helpless whenever possible, and at this particular moment on this particular day, she believed it was possible. “Well, I’ll tell you as much as I can. I was only about, oh, seven or eight years old at the time, but I remember it vividly. Something that is so sad and shocking isn’t easily forgotten, even after fifty odd years. Bless my heart, it’s hard to believe I’ll be sixty four years old in November. Time sure does fly.”

  She shook her head in disbelief and her fingers absentmindedly found the top of Puddin’s head. Tilda began to scratch gently behind the little terrier’s ear as she reflected back on that sad day of long ago.

  “It happened at the Town Picnic, 1953, I believe it was. Every spring the whole town turns out for a community picnic over at Ambrose Lake. Nothing fancy, everybody brings a picnic lunch and all the ladies bring a pie or cake for the dessert table, so there is plenty to go around and people can have any kind of dessert they like. Homemade ice cream too. Back then there was a band concert to wrap things up in the evening, everyone gathering on the lawn at the big gazebo to listen to the music or talk or dance. Nowadays it’s more likely to be some kind of rock band or country singers, not a whole orchestra like it use
d to be.”

  “Anyhow, we’d done all the eating and the grownups were talking while the young’uns were playing tag or spitting watermelon seeds or just chasing each other around the way young’uns do. I remember Dr. McRae asking my Mama if she had seen Ada recently, and he seemed a bit worried. I guess she’d been missing awhile by that time. There was quite a crowd at the picnic, like usual, the whole town turns out for it every year and he was asking just about everybody if they knew where she was.”

  “Turns out that no one had seen or talked to her for ages, and then some boy remembered seeing her walking towards the other side of the lake, all by herself. The baby, that would be your daddy, had been put down on a quilt with some of the other babies at naptime, and he was just sleeping away so sweetly under a shade tree while the other young mothers watched the little ones and talked.”

  She sighed. Addie waited tensely, bracing herself for what she had come to Sparrows Fall to hear, the fate of her grandfather’s first wife, Ada McRae.

  “Well, some of the menfolk took off around the water, Dr. McRae out in front. And they found her on the other side, in a brackish part of the lake that was kind of tucked under some trees out of sight, not out in the open like most of the shoreline. She was laying face down in it, and at first everyone thought she must have stumbled and fallen in and drowned. But it turned out later that she’d been struck in the back of the head with something. Apparently whoever did it pushed her into the lake to make it look like she drowned.”

  She paused and glanced at Addie. The young woman still stared at the glass of iced tea, seemingly calm, but Tilda noticed that the fingers around the glass gripped it tightly. She cleared her throat and continued the story in a softer tone of voice.

  “Your granddaddy was just devastated. Not long married, and a wee little baby to care for, that would be your daddy, it just broke his heart and his spirit too, I think. He took the baby and left town, and we never heard from him ever again.”

  Tilda picked up the old Christmas card and opened it with a fond smile on her face. “My Mama found out where he was and she never stopped sending these cards to him. But he never replied. I just kept up the tradition after Mama died because it had always meant a lot to her. It does my heart good to see that he did keep some of the cards, after all. Maybe he still remembered that there were people in Sparrow Falls who loved him.”

  “The whole town was sorrowful over his leaving the way he did. And poor Miss Dowd, bless her heart, she absolutely went all to pieces over it. She always adored your granddaddy and he treated her just like a little sister. Her own brother’s not quite right in the head, you know. Frank was always a nice boy but just a little bit off somehow. So when James McRae came back here with Ada, why, those two girls just hit it off right away and became the best of friends. I guess she felt like she’d lost a sister when Ada died.”

  She stopped talking and the two women rocked slowly, silently, each of them thinking back to that dreadful day long past, each feeling the sadness of it. Tilda fanned herself against the humid warmth. Puddin’ lay flat on the porch with his belly pressed against the cool shaded boards, and dozed.

  Addie spoke abruptly into the silence. “And they never found out who did it, or why?”

  Tilda shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not. There was some talk of another man, a tryst and a crime of passion, but that was just gossip fueled by some people seeing a stranger in town. I don’t even remember a name or know if that really had anything to do with it. There were so many rumors going around at the time, and stories have grown up around it ever since. I’m afraid you’ll have a hard time getting to the truth about the unpleasant incident after all these years.”

  Addie asked, “The unpleasant incident? One of those nosy women said that to me at the book store. Is that what people call it?”

  Tilda nodded. “Well, yes, I believe most people do refer to it that way. It’s so much nicer than saying it was a murder, even though it was, don’t you think so? I mean that we’ve never had anything like that happen before in this little village, not before or since. And to such a nice, sweet girl that everyone knew and liked.”

  Addie reflected on the woman’s comment. “I suppose calling it an unpleasant incident takes some of the personal edge off such a tragedy, in a small town like this one where people know each other so well.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right about that. Now let’s see.” Tilda MacArdan crossed her arms and put one finger to her lips, thinking. The old rocking chair creaked against the wooden floorboards as it swayed to and fro in a slow rhythm. “There are a couple of people here you should talk to about your family. I suppose we can talk to Delcie Needles, and I’m sure that Magda will be wherever Delcie is so we can talk to her, too. They were teenagers at the time, I believe, and they probably can tell you more than anyone else. It may not all be accurate, of course, but at least you’ll have a starting point.”

  “You’ve already met Frances Dowd, our unofficial town historian. She can probably tell you just about anything about your family and the, um, unpleasant incident. And the other is Morwenna Goss, our story keeper. You should definitely meet Morwenna.”

  “Story keeper?” Addie sounded puzzled.

  Tilda laughed. “That’s what the townsfolk call her. The Goss family has been here since before the town was a town, way back further than anybody can remember. They’ve always lived in that big red brick house next to the old churchyard, and she knows all about the people who are buried there.” She leaned back in the chair and a thoughtful look came into her eyes. “It’s like their calling, you see. The Goss family keeps the stories of all those who have gone before, all those who are buried in the old burying ground, so that no one ever forgets. Morwenna learned the stories from her parents, and they learned it from their parents, and on back as far as there’s been a burying ground or a town, maybe even longer. And so we call her our story keeper.” Her voice trailed off until it seemed to blend with the soothing drone of a bumblebee and the peacefulness of a small town, and the newly found friendship between the two different women settled into a relaxed silence, the one remembering bittersweet things long past, the other thinking of future things yet to be uncovered.

  Some minutes later Tilda MacArdan stood up and smiled brightly. “Yes, you should definitely talk to Morwenna Goss. If you have the time, I can take you over there right now.”

  three

  The land lay flat as far as the eye could see. Addie drove the blue convertible at a leisurely pace, exploring the landscape visually as she listened to Tilda’s rather digressive chatter about Sparrow Falls and its colorful residents, both past and present day. The car’s top was up to give them shade but the windows were rolled down, and the gentle breeze offered them good relief from the rising summer heat.

  Although they were only a few minutes from Tilda MacArdan’s cottage, the landscape had already changed from cozy small town to wide open country. It seemed that the fields on either side of the road rolled endlessly on toward the horizon line, knee high in crops of tobacco or higher still in corn, everything planted in fine white sandy soil and bordered all around with the bright cornflower blue sky of a Carolina landscape. This same view appeared to go on for miles as they rolled down the narrow two lane road that forged straight ahead determinedly with no curves or bends. The pretty landscape was occasionally broken by a solitary small white farmhouse or red barn or faded outbuilding, some gray with dilapidation, some neatly painted and maintained.

  “We’ll stay straight on this road until we come to a big old brick house right next to the old churchyard,” Tilda said. “It’s an odd little house. The original homeplace of the Goss family was a simple wooden structure and that house has been added to over the years with one odd shape after another, depending on the fashion of the time, I guess. So it’s kind of a plain farmhouse with some fancy Victorian type ornamentation, and even a round turret standing at one side like a castle straight out of the old country! Very odd loo
king for this neck of the woods. It’s only a few minutes from here, although it feels like we’re going back in time to a distant year.”

  “You know, I’ve felt that way ever since I got here. Sparrow Falls does seem like something from another century. But I love it! A very pretty little town,” the young writer remarked.

  “Oh, it is that. A purty town and a nice place to live, too. Most of the families here have lived on the same land for many generations.” Tilda sighed. “So many memories, so many friends who have come and gone. Sometimes it’s a bit sad to think about that. Oh well, that’s just the way life is. As I was telling you earlier back at the house, you should be able to find out all you want to know about the, well, unpleasant incident, from the newspaper archives at the library. Talk to Miss Dowd, talk to Morwenna Goss, and that should do very nicely for most of the things you want to know. She’s probably at the churchyard now so we’ll just skip the house and go straight to the church and see if we can find her. Slow down now, here we are!”

  Sitting back off the road an old chapel stood. It was a simple square of wood, the purity of its white clapboard walls given depth by brightly colored stained glass in gothic arches, the eaves beneath the roof capped by small wooden fish scale shingles in the carpenter’s gothic tradition. A wheeled cross atop the spire was a reminder of the Scottish heritage of the denizens of the old burying ground, as was the church sign with the Gaelic phrase cead me failte, WELCOME, inscribed beneath the name Sparrow Falls Chapel. The sign was made of wood painted white with black calligraphic letters and a scrolled top. It was attached to two wooden posts that had been turned on a lathe to give them an elegantly curved shape, and the posts sunk into the ground next to the little road. Addie imagined that the sign had probably stood in the same spot for at least a century and been crafted by a local woodcarver who now lay at rest in the old churchyard.