THERE WAS SOMETHING PJ wanted to pursue but never seemed to find the time for it. She was determined to make some progress now that she’d been left alone in her office.
Call Thomas? She had her hand on the phone, but took it off. He’s probably asleep. Poor kid used up his whole Friday night on a book report.
It was the rumor of the third sister that June mentioned that kept sticking in PJ’s mind. Just because May dismissed it out of hand didn’t mean there was nothing to it. She may have reason to lie.
It was hard to believe anything one sister said about the other. As hard as that was for PJ to imagine, she knew from her work as a psychologist that it wasn’t uncommon. Sisters often saw each other as rivals for their parents’ attention, for the clothes they sometimes were made to share, for the boys in a small pool of eligible dates. Thinking about that brought a smile to her face.
PJ grew up with a sister less than two years older than she was. She and Mandy did everything together, shared lipsticks, squealed over the same rock stars, competed against each other in academics and volleyball, and gave each other surprise birthday parties. Then along came Vince.
Vince Sellerman’s family moved into Newton, Iowa, from Los Angeles. They might as well have landed in a starship for all the attention handsome, worldly Vince got from the local girls. He was seventeen, a year older than Mandy. Both sisters had a crush on him. Who didn’t, in their crowd? He was the most exciting thing that had happened at Newton Senior High School since the Kolson brothers blew up the toilet in the teachers’ restroom. But at fourteen, PJ was too young to even exist as far as Vince was concerned.
Mandy had a date with Vince and she and her friends were swooning with delight. PJ was feeling shut out, probably because she was shut out, told by the giggling girls to go play with the little kids. She started a rumor that Mandy had gone all the way with the football quarterback. In their circle, such things were the province of whispers and shock, something not done by nice girls. The rumor swept through the school and caused terrific hurt when Mandy not only heard it but also learned the source. PJ could still feel the shame that had overwhelmed her when Mandy confronted her. There was no such thing as an anti-rumor that would annihilate the rumor, or a magic undo command. Until Mandy graduated, kids still snickered behind her back.
For having been through it, the sisters were closer than ever.
Vince and Mandy married and had four children. Mandy had latent Earth Mother qualities, and was a wonderful, warm-hearted mother who managed her rambunctious family with love and a great sense of humor. Mandy confided that after hearing the rumor, Vince was particularly eager to go out with her. Standards in Los Angeles weren’t quite the same as in the heart of the Midwest. Inadvertently, PJ may have been a matchmaker.
The things May and June said about each other had the same vicious elements as PJ’s rumor about going all the way did twenty-five years ago. Juvenile and hurtful. But these sisters were still doing it to each other years after their adolescence, and neither of them seemed to feel any shame about it.
PJ shuddered to think what a trio of such sisters would be like. The duo was bad enough.
The parents were Henry Winter and Virginia Crane, married in 1956. The Crane family was very wealthy, very high society. The Winters weren’t on any social register; they clung to the underside of the middle class like barnacles on a hull. Henry Winter was a hard-working dynamo of a man who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty all the way up to the shoulders to build his manufacturing business. Virginia Crane was raised as a debutante whose idea of hard work was having a French lesson and a tennis lesson on the same day.
In PJ’s opinion, there were two reasons a young woman like Virginia would marry Henry Winter. One was blind love. The other was defiance of her parents. Regardless of the reason, the offspring of the marriage had ended up with a thinly masked dislike and suspicion of each other.
There were records of the births of two daughters, May Flower Winter in 1967 and June Moon Winter in 1975. PJ wondered how June had suffered with a middle name like that. Parents could be so inconsiderate when it came to naming children.
No indication of a third daughter.
Death records revealed that both parents died in a light plane accident in 1997, while on their way to a political fundraising event in Jefferson City.
Survived by daughters May F. Simmons of St. Louis and June M. Merrett of St. Louis; John T. Winter of Denver, Colorado; Jasmine C. Singer of Hannibal, Missouri; and numerous friends.
Death records revealed that Virginia Crane had a brother who had lived only a year.
What was it June said? Virginia had a brother who died at the age of one and maybe he was murdered. A family secret.
The existence of the brother who died at a young age lent credibility to what June revealed. If there was one secret on such a scale, perhaps there was another. It might be interesting to talk to the surviving aunt and uncle, do a little prying. PJ made note of their names.
It was 1:30 a.m. when Schultz came in. She’d run over her time estimate, but apparently he’d been busy.
“Brush those crumbs off your shirt and take me home,” she said.
“Your wish is my command. Sometimes.”