by Kathi Daley
Chapter 7
Saturday dawned with a fresh layer of snow covering the foot of snow that had already fallen. At least last night’s snow had only added an inch or so to the overall depth. I figured the roads would melt off quickly since it appeared that the sun might make a brief appearance, so I called Pamela and arranged for Lacy and me to meet with her at ten. That only left time for a quick shower and breakfast, but I knew that on most weekend days. Georgia had the breakfast buffet set up by eight, so I figured I’d just grab something and then head out to pick up Lacy.
“Good morning, everyone.” Georgia, Jeremy, Annabelle, Mylie, Christy, and Haley were sitting around the dining table eating and sharing their plans for the day.
“Good morning,” everyone responded as I headed toward the sideboard to make a plate.
“It looks like it might be a nice day today,” I added conversationally after sitting down across from Christy.
“I was happy to see that we were going to get some sunshine since I’m taking a group sledding this morning,” Jeremy commented.
“Do you want to come?” Haley asked. “Mommy and me are going to ride the toboggan.”
“I’d love to come, but I have an appointment this morning.” I looked at Jeremy. “Did you call Lonnie? I know he wanted to meet up with you.”
“I did call him,” Jeremy confirmed. “He’s going to meet us at the sledding hill.”
“Be sure to take lots of photos,” I instructed.
“Did you see ours from yesterday?” Annabelle asked.
I indicated that I hadn’t, so she ran to her room to get her copies of the photos she’d given Georgia to put on the photo board in the parlor.
“These are really great,” I said as I thumbed through them after she returned to the table. “I especially love the ones taken during the snowman building event.”
“The one of Jeremy dumping snow on Mylie’s head is so funny,” Haley giggled.
It was funny. As was the one of Jeremy tossing Annabelle into a large pile of snow and the one of Mylie dumping a fistful of snow down Jeremy’s shirt. In all, the group had built six very awesome snowmen, each with its own personality.
There were shots from the cookie decorating, tree decorating, and marshmallow roast in the stack of photos, as well. Every single photo showed guests and staff smiling and having a wonderful time. This really was going to be the best Christmas.
“These are really special,” I said. “I’m very sorry I’m going to miss the sledding.”
“We’ll take photos,” Christy promised.
“Are you going to be back from your meeting in time to come to my pageant?” Annabelle asked.
“I will absolutely be back in time to come to your pageant. In fact, I should be back by lunch. If not, then shortly after.” I cut into my slice of egg casserole and took a bite. “So, is everyone going sledding?”
Everyone other than Georgia, who planned to stay behind and work on her cookie recipes, agreed that they were planning to go with Jeremy.
“I haven’t seen Riley this morning,” I said.
“I think he needed to work on his blog,” Mylie answered. “I guess he’s continuing to publish two blogs during his time in Holiday Bay.”
“Do you think he is going to write about us?” Haley asked.
“Maybe,” Mylie answered. “I guess we’ll have to wait until it comes out and then read it.”
I really enjoyed these informal mornings and would have stayed to chat for a bit longer, but Lacy was expecting me, so I ate quickly, made my excuses, and left. Lacy was watching for me and met me at the curb, so we arrived at Pamela’s about five minutes early. I didn’t have a clear plan for our conversation with Pamela. I guess I figured we would just go over the information in the file and take it from there.
“So, do you have the file with you?” Pamela asked once she’d given us coffee and invited us to have a seat in her cheery kitchen.
I nodded. “It’s on my computer, which I’ve brought with me.” I pulled the laptop from my bag. It had a good battery, so I wasn’t going to mess with plugging it in.
“And?” she asked. “Is there anything in the file that will help to prove my father’s innocence?”
“Not really,” I answered, “but based on what I’ve read to date, it doesn’t seem that there is anything in the file that proves his guilt either.”
“I didn’t think there would be.” She narrowed her gaze. “So, where do we start?”
“I know we have discussed the timeline before, but it seems important, so I want to go over it again,” I jumped right in.
“Okay. What do you want to know?” Pamela asked.
“Based on the investigator’s notes, it seems that you had a piano lesson the morning your mother was murdered.”
She nodded. “Yes. That is correct.”
“Did it seem odd to you that you had a lesson on Christmas Eve?” I asked.
She frowned. “At the time, not really. I guess I never stopped to think about it, but now that you ask, it does seem odd. My parents had just gotten home after a very long time away. I wonder why they sent me to my lesson. I also wonder why Mrs. Vance was even having a lesson on Christmas Eve. She was a busy woman with three children of her own. She had taken off two full weeks over the holidays the previous year.”
“Do you think your parents might have made a special request that you have a lesson?”
She looked confused. “Why would they do that?”
“Maybe they were planning a surprise for you and needed you out of the way for a while,” Lacy suggested.
She didn’t respond nor did she look convinced.
“Maybe your parents needed to discuss an issue having to do with the dig and wanted some privacy,” I said. “You told me yesterday that an anonymous source called the police and told them that your father had removed items from the dig your parents had been working to protect his theory. The prosecutor used that fact as part of the story he told the jury to determine your father’s motive. Let’s just assume for a moment that your father did not kill your mother during an argument relating to his actions. If we take the murder part out of the equation, do you think the rest is true? Could your father have stolen artifacts that disproved his theory to protect his status in the academic community?”
Pamela slowly moved her head from left to right, paused briefly, and then moved it slightly up and down. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I was eight when my mother was murdered and my father arrested. Before that, I spent maybe three or four months a year with them. They didn’t discuss work when we were together.” She paused and then continued. “When I got older and showed some interest in what had occurred on the day my mother was murdered, Nanny Emmy discouraged me from looking into things, but at times she was willing to answer questions about my parents.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I’d asked her from time to time if she remembered them. I was curious about how they seemed to her. She was often vague in her replies, but I do remember her saying that my father was a proud man, a hardworking man who sought recognition from his peers. Based on that, I would say yes, it might be possible that my father had removed and hidden artifacts from the dig if he thought they would destroy the reputation he spent a lifetime building.”
“It sounds like you were close to Nanny Emmy,” Lacy said.
“We were. Very close. She is the one who actually raised me. My parents hired her when I was just an infant, and she was the one who was always there. I loved my parents and was always so happy when they came home, but it was Nanny Emmy I depended on. After my dad was arrested, she took me in and raised me. She eventually married and had children of her own, but she never treated me any differently than she treated her own daughters. I think I mentioned that she died a few years ago. I miss her every day.”
I paused to allow Pamela to gather her emotions, and then I continued. “According to the report filed at the time of the murder, the staff, other
than the nanny, had all left for their time off the previous day.”
She nodded. “Yes. That is correct. My parents arrived home on the morning of the twenty-third. They handed out bonuses and everyone, except Nanny Emmy, left to have Christmas with their families.”
“Why didn’t Nanny Emmy leave at this point as well?” I asked.
“The others had homes of their own, but she lived in the house with us. I seem to remember that she had plans to visit her sister, but didn’t fly out the twenty-fourth.”
“Was the nanny still at the house when you and your father left for your lesson?” I asked.
She nodded. “She was still there. She hugged me and told me she would miss me. She gave me a gift, the doll I’d wanted so badly, and had been talking about for weeks, and then she wished me Merry Christmas. She told me she would be gone by the time I got back from my lesson, but that she’d see me in about a week.”
I took a moment to look at the notes I’d jotted down while chatting with Lonnie and Lacy the previous evening. “The police report states that your father dropped you off at your lesson, which lasted two hours, and then he picked you up and took you home. When the two of you arrived at the house, your father found your mother dead on the floor, and he called the police.”
Pamela’s complexion took on a pale hew.
I continued. “Were you with your father when he found your mother?”
She nodded. “I was a few steps ahead of him. I remember being excited about being home. I remember that I was so happy to start our holiday together. I ran into the house, calling out my mother’s name, and then I saw her lying there on the floor.”
“And your father?” I asked. “Where was he?”
“Right behind me. He was only a few steps behind me.”
“And what did he do when he saw your mother?” I asked.
“He ran over to her and checked to see if she was dead. She was. Then he took me by the shoulders and pulled me out of the room. I was crying. He was crying. He told me to wait in my room. He told me that he had to call the police and that I should stay in my room until he came for me.”
“And what did you do?”
“I went up the stairs, but I didn’t go into my room. I sat on the top of the stairs and watched.”
“Could you see your mother’s body from the top of the stairs?” I asked.
She nodded.
“And what did your father do after you went upstairs?”
“He put a sheet over her body and then he went into the office. There was a phone in there, so I guess he called the police. I waited and waited, but he didn’t come out for a long time. Not until the police arrived.”
“And then?” I wondered.
“And then the police came in, and one man pulled the sheet away while another man asked my dad a bunch of questions. They were there for a long time. A really long time. I remember feeling like I was dreaming as I watched what was going on in the living room. It didn’t feel real. Eventually, someone came and took the body away. After that, the police left.” She frowned. “Actually, one man stayed behind. I don’t know why. My dad came upstairs and told me we were going to a hotel. I never returned to that house again.”
“Never?” Lacy asked.
She shook her head. “At first, it was just dad and me at the hotel, but after about a week, Nanny Emmy came for me. She took me to a small house she told me she’d rented. She told me that my dad had some things to get cleared up, and I was going to live with her for a while. I thought my dad was going to come and live with us, but he didn’t. I found out later that he’d been arrested. I only saw him once after that. Nanny Emmy took me to the jail to see him. He told me he loved me and that he hadn’t killed my mother. He told me I would hear a lot of things that would suggest otherwise, but I shouldn’t believe them since he was innocent.”
Wow. That was a heavy story. My throat tightened up, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I glanced at Lacy. She had tears running down her cheeks. Oddly enough, Pamela seemed calm. Almost at peace. Of course, she’d had a lot of years to process the whole thing. Based on the way she was staring into space, I had to assume she was right back there, reliving the past in her memory.
After a few minutes, I pulled myself together and asked the next question. “So, you lived with your nanny, Emily Garwood, until you became an adult?”
“Yes. As I already stated, at first, it was just the two of us in that little house she’d first taken me to. When I was thirteen, she met a man named Ernie. They married and had two daughters, Celeste and Serena. When I turned eighteen, I received the money that had been put in trust for me. I enjoyed my adopted family, but I sort of felt like an intruder by that point, so I went to college where I met and married my husband, God rest his soul. I stayed in contact with Nanny Emmy until she died. She really was more of a parent to me than either of my parents had been. I loved her, and I know she loved me.”
“Had you researched your mother’s death at all before our meeting on Thursday?” Lacy asked.
“Not really.” She exhaled slowly. “Well, I guess a bit. I tried to dig up some information after the reporter came by to speak to me, but I didn’t get anywhere. I did write down my thoughts, but I could never seem to achieve any cohesion. It was like my memories had been shattered and scattered across my mind. I’d have flashes, but I could never really put them into context.”
“You seem to remember what happened on the day your mother died and the days after,” Lacy pointed out.
“I have been working on piecing everything together for the past ten years, and, yes, I feel like I have a grip on some of my memories, but there are others that make no sense.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I remember Nanny Emmy giving me the doll I wanted so badly before I left for my piano lesson, but I also have a memory of finding the package on my bed after we’d gotten home. Both can’t be true, but both memories seem real. I suppose that she might have given it to me before I left for my lesson, and I hadn’t opened it as I remembered but had actually put the package on my bed, only to find it later. But I feel like I have really clear memories of opening the package while she watched and opening it by myself later.” She looked directly at me. “It has to be one or the other. Right?”
“It would seem that only one could be true,” I agreed.
“Maybe you are remembering two different gifts,” Lacy said.
She frowned. “Maybe. I feel like both memories are of opening the package that held the doll, but maybe the connectors in my brain are crossed, and I am remembering two different gifts.”
“What happened to the doll?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I remember opening it twice, but then I never saw it again. Someone packed a few clothes for me when my dad took me to the hotel, but I have no idea what happened to anything else that was left in the house.”
“I know the nutcracker was sold at auction,” I said. “I suppose the house and all the contents might have been sold after your father’s conviction.”
She shrugged. “I guess. I suppose given the fact that my mom was dead and my dad was serving a life sentence, there was no reason to keep the house or anything contained within the house.”
“You said you received a trust when you turned eighteen,” I said. “I suppose that the money earned from the sale might have gone into the trust.”
She shrugged again. “I guess. I never asked where the money came from.”
I wanted to ask additional questions, but I didn’t want to overdo it and send poor Pamela over the edge, although it seemed like she was doing better than either Lacy or I were. I decided to continue at least for a few more minutes. “Do you remember the ride home with your father after he picked you up from your piano lesson?”
She frowned. “Actually, no. Not really.” She furrowed her brow. “I remember my dad dropping me off for my lesson, and I remember walking in and finding my mom, but I don’t really remember much between the two. I
guess I was in shock. Everyone said I must have been. No one was surprised when I couldn’t remember everything that had happened, given the tragedy I’d been forced to deal with. Most people said my memory would return as time went by. And I guess it has, but there are gaps.”
“Do you remember being at your piano lesson?” Lacy asked.
She paused. “No. Not really. I know I’ve been told I was at my lesson during the time my mother was murdered, but I can’t say that I remember it. It has been a long time.” She took another minute. I decided to wait. “If I really stop to think about it, I’m not really sure where what I remember and what I’ve been told intersect.”
“What do you mean?” Lacy asked.
“One of the things I’ve been struggling with is how to determine which memories are real and which are the result of stories I’ve been told. If I try to bring up the memory of my piano lesson on that Christmas Eve, I can’t access it. Yet, I was told I was at a piano lesson, and I guess that has created a memory of sorts.” She looked at me. “Does that make sense?”
I nodded. “It does. I have very clear memories that seem real, but my older sister has assured me that they aren’t real.”
“What sort of memories?” Pamela asked.
“I distinctly remember living in a house I never lived in. I can see the entry and describe the floorplan, but my sister has gone through every single house we lived in growing up, and the house in my memory doesn’t resemble any of them. That is just one example. There are others. I’m not sure where those false memories came from. Perhaps a dream, a story I was told, or even just my imagination. I can imagine that during times of great stress, we are even more susceptible to fake memories. And you had gone through more stress than any kid ever should have to. Maybe there were people in your life who told you stories that helped fill in some of the blanks in your mind. Maybe that is why you remember opening the doll your nanny gave you in front of her before you left for your lesson, and you also remember finding the wrapped gift on your bed when you came home and found your mother dead, and opening it then.”
