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WHEN VIRGINIA OPENED her front door, I blurted out, “You knew I would come, that I would ask about Frank.”
Virginia seemed resigned to my being there and stepped back to usher me into her beautiful home. But this time, I’d brought Officer Maguire with me.
She attempted a smile. “Burke Maguire. I remember you from middle school. Welcome back to Forman Falls.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Crane.”
“Call me Virginia. I believe this day calls for informalities.”
The large picture window drew Burke as it had me my first visit to this place. But Virginia didn’t tell him about the leaves turning colors or the coming of the first frost in late October. She stood quietly behind us. What in life had taught her to have such reserves of serenity and poise just before she knew the boom would drop?
“It’s beautiful.” Burke turned to look at her.
Her half-attempt at a smile revealed the tension in the room rather than eased it. “Please have a seat.” This time she rang no bell for a maid. She primly sat, crossed her ankles, put her hands in her lap, and leveled her gaze on Burke.
“What was or is your relationship with Frank Zagorsky, ma’am?”
“I haven’t admitted to knowing him.”
“Do you?”
“No. He looks remarkably like a man I once knew.”
“Laura Caldwell’s first husband?”
“No. My first husband. Clarke Zalensky.”
Virginia was married to the Clarke of ‘Laura and Clarke’?
Burke wrote down the name. “A relative of Frank’s?”
“I’m not sure. The resemblance between him and Frank is extreme. They could be the same person except for the nose, the chin. It was certainly a shock to see him tonight. My Clarke died years ago.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Oh! I wanted to slap myself. Where had that question come from? I could just imagine my mother sighing at me, rolling her eyes, and signaling me to keep my big mouth shut.
“The car exploded, Sophie. There was a body. Is that dead enough for you?”
“I’m sorry, Virginia. I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, she did.” Burke scooted to the edge of the sofa, his firm gaze aimed at Virginia. “Sophie is under investigation right now, and she’s desperate to know the truth about some people connected to Herman Farnsberry. You’re one of them. You lied to her about Clarke Zalensky. You told her you didn’t know the man in the picture.”
“I didn’t want any of this to get out.” She sighed and seemed to search for a good way to start her story. “Laura met Herman Farnsberry on a double date with me and Clarke in Austin at the university. Clarke was immediately smitten with Laura, but she was never that interested in him. He was older than the rest of us, by about five years. After leaving the university, Laura and Herman met again in Chicago and married after a couple years of dating. Clarke and I eventually married, too. He was killed three months after our wedding. A car explosion. I was heartbroken.”
“But you didn’t mention to me that you even knew Clarke.”
“It was too complicated, Sophie. Laura and I were friends. Sharon and I were friends. Herman and I were friends. We all went to school together and went our separate ways, only to be re-connected when Sharon and Herman married and moved here. First, there was Clarke and Laura. Then, Clarke and I. Laura and Herman. Then, Sharon and Herman and, illicitly, Selma and Herman. I always seemed to be stuck in the middle of all those relationships.”
I saw a different take on it. “You received the leftovers.”
Her gaze sliced to me.
“Did it bother you to be Clarke’s second choice?”
Virginia plucked a tissue from a glass box and dabbed under her left eye. “At first, but I think Clarke grew to love me.”
“Where does Crane come in?”
“It was my maiden name.”
“You didn’t marry again after Clarke’s death?”
“No.” The tissue disappeared into her fist.
What was I missing? There was more, but I couldn’t see it. “You haven’t mentioned Edna Conroy. She was sitting with Frank Zagorsky at the memorial for Jonas. Didn’t she go to the same school?”
“Yes, we were both chemistry majors, but she wasn’t coupled with any of the parties we’ve talked about. She didn’t date much, so I didn’t mention her.”
Burke had sat quietly while I questioned Virginia, then he leaned toward her and asked, “Did you love Herman Farnsberry, Ms. Crane?”
Tears filled her eyes, and I instantly felt sorry for her. The answer was yes. Yes, she had loved Herman Farnsberry, desperately. She’d received the leftovers but not all of them. Not the one she wanted the most.
“I think it’s time you both left. I’m tired. I need to rest.”
Burke stood. “One more question. Where were you on the day Laura went missing?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know when she went missing.”
“Thank you for your time.” Burke put out his hand to stop Virginia from rising. “We’ll see ourselves out, ma’am.”
We walked in silence to his patrol car. I stared at the late-model Cadillac that we had parked behind. It was a beautiful frosty gold color. I reached for the door handle of the patrol car and got in.
“Are you thinking she loved Herman enough to kill both his wives, so she could have him for herself?”
Burke actually chuckled, but it was smirky, not funny. “Come on, Sophie. You can’t possibly think she killed Laura and Sharon.”
“Love’s a powerful motive.”
“And opportunity? Herman and Laura didn’t live in Forman Falls. I don’t even know where Virginia lived at the time of Laura’s disappearance. You’re saying she flew to wherever they lived and killed Laura? Then killed Sharon? At the supermarket? Over the cantaloupes?”
“If not Virginia, who then?”
“Garrett Flint. Herman Farnsberry. It’s a stretch to think that someone would follow him and kill both his wives. I think Farnsberry’s our man.”
I nodded. “Let’s go to my neighborhood and take a long walk. I’m all tensed up.”
“You’re ready for people to see us together?”
I wanted to laugh at the naiveté of my newest friend. “Any one person on my street can tell you how many times you’ve been to my house in the last few weeks, when you arrived, when you departed, and your mode of transportation.”
A nudge to my arm produced a stick of gum. The man made me smile.
“How about some ice cream with that walk, Soph? It’ll do us both some good.”
♦
“SZZZZTTT! SZZZZTTT!”
The last of my ice cream dripped down my fingers, and I needed a napkin in a serious, for-heaven’s-sake-wipe-that-baby’s-drooling-mouth way. I nudged Burke. “That’s our resident Hobbit signaling us, Vivian Blake.”
“Hobbit?” Burke offered me his wadded napkin, and I gladly took it.
“Well, if not a Hobbit, then our resident good witch. Do you remember her from when we were kids?”
“Not at all.”
“Szzzzttt! Szzzzttt!”
I called out, “Hey, Vivian! How are you? It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” To Burke, I said, “She’s a recluse and, uh.” I lifted a shoulder. “She’s, uh, well, just be prepared.”
“For what?”
“You’ll see.”
It wasn’t uncommon for my friend Vivian to ignore people offering her a friendly wave or two as they passed by. Most people didn’t know she was standing there. But if the light from her open back door was just right, a person could make out her silhouette in the black metal screen door. When she disregarded my friendly greeting, I continued walking with Burke, assuming she was in her usual get-out-of-my-sight-and-leave-me-be mode.
When she Szzzzttt’ed me again, her screen door opened with the help of a broom handle.
“And there’s the broom she uses.” I sent Burke a see-I-told-you-so smile. “We’ve been invited inside, Burke. A rare treat.”
We walked up the path to her house. No flowers graced any of the old plant boxes flanking her front porch. No bushes hugged her walls. No rocking chairs or any chairs sat on her wide porch welcoming neighbors or friends to stop by and enjoy the evening with her.
And the statue of a snarling dog at the top of the stairs? A reminder to anyone thinking of approaching her house that she could probably turn that statue into the real thing.
We walked up the steps. “I got it, ma’am”, Burke said as he grabbed the door and held it open for me. The broom and Vivian disappeared.
We stepped inside.
The windows were covered with black curtains. Two candles were placed on either side of a large ornate mirror hanging on a wall. Under the mirror, a thin woman wearing a spaghetti-strap gown more appropriate for a Hollywood starlet than a forty-eight-year-old bony woman sat on a black sofa.
And, of course, she was barefoot.
“Please, have a seat.” Vivian squinted one dark-brown eye up at Burke and then shifted her attention to me.
I watched for Burke’s reaction.
Yep, I saw his eyes widen a fraction when his gaze slid to me. He was polite and didn’t gawk. I appreciated that he was a gentleman to my friend.
I’d felt so sorry for Vivian through the years. Too many of the area children had taunted and teased her about her nose. The whispers of her neighbors had hurt her. No man had ever asked her out, because they couldn’t get past her hook nose.
I promised myself a long time ago that I would write a strong heroine just like her in one of my books, but I’d never followed through for fear of hurting her. I wanted to be her friend. She was intelligent and nosy, pun intended—a combination I couldn’t help but admire.
“It might interest you to know, Officer,” she spoke quietly, “that Sophie’s next-door neighbor, Jonas Whitworth, and Miss Edna were married briefly years ago.”
“I didn’t know that.” I turned to Burke. “You remember Miss Edna was at the memorial for Jonas, sitting with Frank Zagorsky.”
Vivian nodded. “Bad blood between Jonas and Edna. I well remember the nasty divorce, the fight over their possessions, their dogs. No children, thank the good Lord. Seemed to take forever for them to stop clashing. But they did, finally, and moved to opposite corners, never to speak to each other again—until they met two days before Jonas’ death.”
“Did you see them, ma’am?”
“Yes. They were in his back yard, under Jonas’ magnolia tree.”
Burke tugged out a little black book from his shirt pocket, flipped a few pages, and started writing. “What time?”
“Around midnight.”
Burke lifted his head and his brows. “Where were you?”
Here we go.
“In the magnolia. I have a favorite perch.”
Burke glanced at me.
I imagined few things could surprise Burke, but Vivian had just done it. I laughed out loud. “The only time she goes out is at night to climb trees. She’s part owl and part Hobbit.” I glanced down at her thin, bony feet. Her long toenails looked as if they could slice the bark right off a tree.
Burke opened his mouth to speak, but Vivian beat him to it. “I was in your yard the night someone placed that box on your porch, Sophie.”
Now I couldn’t stop my mouth from gaping. “You saw him?”
She chuckled. This woman had always amused me. She stayed in her house during the day for months at a time, with no contact with anyone but the grocer who delivered her food once a week.
“Were you there the night Jonas was killed?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Burke scooted to the edge of the sofa. “Can you identify this person in Sophie’s yard?”
“He was all covered up. Hoodie. Gloves. Black clothes. That’s all I have.”
Burke wrote quickly. “What was the meeting between Edna and Jonas about?”
“They were yelling—”
I didn’t hear the rest of her sentence. A casual glance through her kitchen and out her open back door revealed Garrett Flint looking between her privacy fence and the barbed wire above it. “Excuse me, Vivian. May I have a glass of water?”
“He’s there, is he? He’s late today. Usually comes in the morning to see me.” She rose to her feet like a double-jointed toad stretching to its full height and walked through the kitchen to her back porch just as Flint tried to sail over her tall fence, but his pants leg caught on the barbed wire. She cried, “Oh, no!” and covered her smile. Her gaze darted to me as if she was a little girl giggling too loud in church and the preacher was calling her out for it.
I spewed out a laugh as Burke scooted past us and did a little sailing himself out the door and down the back steps.
But Garrett Flint wasn’t going anywhere.
His short skinny body hung from the fence as if someone was planning to build a smokehouse around him.
Vivian and I caught up with Burke in time to hear him say, “Need a little help there, buddy?”
A bold shade of red tinted Flint’s face as he gritted his teeth and twisted and jerked his leg several times, but the barbed wire wouldn’t let go.
Burke, the giant, grabbed Flint’s ankles and lifted him as if he were a toddler instead of a grown man. “There ya go, sir.”
The red turned to white as Flint, the wanted man, stood in front of Morgan County’s newest police officer.
And then the strangest thing happened: Vivian turned a couple shades of red herself. Her gaze never left the feet of Garrett Flint. She was blushing. Vivian has a crush on Garrett Flint.
But in the split second that Burke turned to her, Flint did the flying ninja thing and sailed right back over the fence.
I gasped. Vivian giggled. Burke glared as he said, “No way am I going after him.”
Vivian looked relieved.
I took her elbow and walked companionably with her back into her house. We stopped in the kitchen and sat at her small table. “Did you know Sharon Farnsberry?”
“I did. The rumors weren’t true about her having an affair, just to let you know. Garrett Flint started those stories hoping Farnsberry would divorce her, but he killed her instead. Flint didn’t expect that, of course.”
Burke glanced at me and his look said, “Do you believe her?”
I nodded. She’d always been honest with me. But I’d have to ask Terri to talk to her mother again and get details. “Vivian, how do you know Sharon wasn’t having an affair?”
“I’m too nosy for my own good, that’s how I know.”
“You have the right equipment.”
She playfully smacked my arm and added, “God-given, girl.” She smiled at Burke. “A person can learn a lot sneaking around at night, Officer.”
I sent Burke an isn’t-she-great lift of my eyebrows. I’m sure he thought we were both a little on the kooky side, but of all my friends in Forman Falls, I knew I could be myself with two people, Vivian and Terri. “Who was Farnsberry’s lover?”
“I don’t know. He never had a woman in his home.”
And that was Vivian’s limitation: she only saw what happened in the neighborhood at night. “How can you be so positive about Sharon?”
“She stayed home nights, and she was my friend. I saw her in the middle of the night, when she felt the loneliness the most.” She looked at Burke. “I want to help with your investigation. Time is short before that car report comes back.”
“Is there anything you don’t know, Miss Vivian?”
“I keep my eyes and ears open, Officer. However, the one night that mattered, I was sick in bed. Sharon was killed, and I wasn’t there to help her. Maybe I can help clear Sophie’s name.” She fiddled with a fold in her gown and looked at Burke. “She talks to me and notices me.”
Burke nodded. “Who wouldn’t notice your beautiful eyes?”
Vivian blushed deeply.
We left shortly after that. It was good seeing my friend again. This was the longest visit we’d ever had. I felt closer to her and really wanted to get to know her better—and I wanted to find out what other secrets she was holding onto.
As we continued our walk, I glanced at Burke. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being so kind to Vivian.”
“It was the truth.”
Dark clouds were moving in. “We’d better turn around. It looks like it’s about to rain.”
♦
THE EARLY EVENING SHOWER hinted of a cooler night, but it didn’t materialize. The air was sticky, warm, and soft on my skin. The light rain lasted two minutes, enough for the ground to slurp up the moisture and completely dry out fifteen minutes later.
Humid air enveloped me as I sat on a blanket in my backyard and gazed up at the starry night streaked by lines of thin clouds. I couldn’t think about stars when zillions of bugs surrounded me. I hated bugs. Even though I was reeking of bug spray and dressed in long sleeves, jeans, long socks, a scarf around my head and neck, and a cap on my head, I hated sitting this close to that creepy-crawly world, knowing it would take a spider just three seconds to reach me once it discovered I was here.
I needed to find out from Vivian what Edna and Jonas had quarreled about. I get restless when I can’t figure something out. It’s a major character flaw at times, and at other times, this ‘need to know’ propels me into writing, to find out what mischief the characters in my head are up to.
Tonight, it was worth the risk of a few bug bites to talk to Vivian. I hadn’t been able to reach Burke since our meeting earlier with her. I hoped she’d come here tonight.
I sat on my blanket for a while. Then I rested on my elbow and tried to read a good book on my phone, but after a few minutes, I gave up and lay on my back. I imagined spiders making their way toward me, but I was pretty much armored up from head to toe. After reading for a few more minutes, I looked around, but Vivian wasn’t in the trees. I lay back down, couldn’t keep my eyes open, and slept, because a rustling noise woke me.
She was here.
In the tree near my hidden back gate.
The moon shed just enough light for me to see her and, I was sure, for her to see me. “Hey. Are you up there?”
The rustling stopped. Would she even acknowledge me? This was her world, and I didn’t know if she felt I was intruding on it. Maybe she’d grunt in answer to me or sit still and enjoy the night with me without talking.
She apparently chose the latter.
But I couldn’t. “Do you want to come down and join me on my blanket?”
“No, thanks. I’m pretty comfortable up here.”
“What were Edna and Jonas arguing about?”
“Jonas thought she was making a mistake by hanging out with Frank Zagorsky. I think he was jealous because he’d never stopped loving her.”
“Do you know Edna, Vivian?”
“Yes and no. I spent time at her house when I was a kid. Her mother and my mother were good friends. After Edna left for college, I saw her occasionally when she returned. She traveled Europe for several months after graduation. When she came back here, we’d speak when we passed each other, but that’s about it.”
“Except at night, when you visited her home?”
“Not much going on at that time either.”
“What about her and Frank Zagorsky, the man from Europe? Are they still seeing each other?”
“Yes, almost every day. He doesn’t seem that interested, but he doesn’t seem that interested in anything.”
“Do you think Edna had anything to do with Jonas’ death?”
“Not at all.”
A dog barked at my gate—probably Samson. That dog could sniff out two cockroaches having lunch in a barrel. “Any idea who did kill Jonas?”
“None.”
“You don’t think Garrett Flint offed him?”
“Garrett’s too idealistic. He believes justice will prevail, but not by his hand.”
We didn’t speak for a few moments, then I thought of Sharon. “Do you really believe Farnsberry killed Sharon?”
“He’s the only one I can come up with, but I don’t know that he did.”
“Who would be your second choice?”
“I don’t have a second choice. A drifting serial, maybe. Ted Bundy.”
We fell into silence. I’d asked every question I could think of, and she seemed content to let the conversation die. The quiet of night covered us, and I lay on the blanket with my head on my hand, and a cramp started on the left side of my neck.
The next thing I knew, I startled awake and found myself alone. It felt eerie being outside in my own back yard in the dark, listening to absolute silence. I wondered where Moocher and Samson were. I quickly gathered up my blanket and searched the trees for Vivian before I went in.
Just as I reached the back door and opened it to turn on the kitchen light, I looked over my shoulder and gasped.
A man was standing in my backyard!
Our gazes locked. It was Herman Farnsberry.
White lights burst through crushing pain, and my world swirled into blackness.
♦
I WAS IN A FOG, SPIRALING, thick, and cold. I had no clue where I was or what had happened to me. I became aware of a sputtering hum. I recognized the noises of my refrigerator just before ice tumbles into the freezer bucket. I mentally clung to the sound. Ice fell. Then the fridge’s purr softened until I could barely hear it.
I tried to move my body, but pain—stabbing, blinding hurt—shot through my head. I couldn’t open my eyes or pull myself up or over. Nothing on my body seemed to work.
I kept thinking, “What happened? Why is my head on fire? Why can’t I move?” My skull pounded as if someone had his hands around it and was slamming it into concrete, again and again.
I must have passed out again, because I opened my eyes in a sleepy stupor and focused on my back door. It was wide open, and it was night and I was looking at the door from my floor.
I needed to clean under the cabinets.
Crumbs, lint, and flaxseeds hugged the back boards. Was that a cranberry? I studied the dried-up blob. It seemed really important that I figure out if it was a raisin or a cranberry. Yes, it was a raisin. Tuna salad with raisins and apples. My mother’s recipe. And there was the backing to my earring that had escaped me last week.
I groaned and lifted my numb hand—it felt like a dead fish. It started to come back to life, and I gritted my teeth against the pain and shook my hand but that made my head hurt worse and I thought I might be dying so I turned my head. OH! BIG MISTAKE!
For a moment, I saw pieces of glass behind me.
I simply couldn’t put this puzzle back together and needed to close my eyes. I was out again.
♦
I MANAGED TO DRAG MYSELF into a sitting position against my dishwasher. I thought the blazing firestorm in my head would be put out if I could just get my head above my heart. Funny, the things we think of in a crisis. Somehow, in all that haze and pain, I knew I was in real trouble.
I heard Samson whine, and then he began to lick my face. When I slipped toward the floor, he positioned himself between me and it, and he caught me. I landed in coarse hair. My face lay against his belly, and my head bobbed up and down with his quick breaths.
Good ol’ Samson.
I passed out again.
♦
MOOCHER BARKED. SAMSON joined him. I waited for a meow, but it didn’t come. Seemed Yoda hadn’t bonded yet with the boys.
They barked several more times, and I mumbled, “I’m awake already.” I just didn’t want to open my eyes. Both dogs licked my face, and I growled at them. They backed off and yelped again.
“Okay, guys, okay. I’m awake. You’re worse than my alarm snooze.” I dragged myself to a sitting position again. All my appendages seemed to be working now but standing seemed out of the question, and I sat against the cabinet door.
I reached for Samson, and he licked my hand. “No more licking, guys. Really. No telling where your tongues have been.” I wrinkled my nose at Samson. “I know where yours has been, you four-legged klepto.”
That brought another round of barks and growls, ecstatic jumping, tail wagging, and drive-by slobbery kisses. Just the motivation I needed to move to my knees. “Both of you, your breaths stink.” Shards of glass lay strewn across my floor.
Someone had hit me over the head.
But why? And who? What did he think I had in my house?
He?
She?
I patted my head and found a huge lump in back. I stuck my hand in front of my face and blinked furiously. Five digits. My vision seemed okay. I wasn’t dizzy, but my head ached. I glanced outside; the back gate was wide open.
I grabbed the broom by the back door and shoved the dogs out of the glass. How do they do that? Dance and prance in glass without getting cut, without looking down at their paws?
I glanced at the clock. Only 4:12. It felt as if I’d been hugging the floor for days.
And another thing: how do dogs know when a person’s in trouble?
Samson nudged my rear as if he knew what I was wondering.
“Hey. No nudging, remember? We don’t bend that rule one iota, buddy boy.”
He barked at me, which reminded me of the day he barked and saved Burke from the man in Farnsberry’s back yard. Which reminded me that I should be calling 9-1-1, but I didn’t know, I couldn’t remember, where I’d put my phone. Which made me think that Burke would be the one to respond to the call. I needed to let him in on the latest news: that I was the victim of a crime. Sheesh. Was I a magnet for this stuff or what?
Someone was after me.
I had no idea who he was or what he wanted.
I stood, and the room tilted. Okay, so maybe I was a little dizzy. I made my way to a guest bedroom and sat on the bed. A terrifying screech came from the kitchen, followed by scuttling feet, falling things, several growls, and more barking.
My blended family had lumps to work out but tonight—this morning—wasn’t the time to get out the mixer. I lay back, closed my eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed I was sinking in a stinky bog with prickly things gouging my ribs. I awoke to find Samson sprawled against me on my right, Moocher taking up most of my pillow, and Yoda settled comfortably in a knot at my feet. I smiled. The boogeyman didn’t stand a chance against this threesome.