Gabriel the angelfish swam to the front of the tank, wiggling excitedly in anticipation of a delicious fish flakes dinner.
“Are you hungry, Gabriel?” Cindy cooed, lifting the top of the tank. She sprinkled high-protein fish food liberally over the water and watched as Gabriel quickly rose to the top to snatch his food as soon as it hit the surface. “Do you want some dinner? Here you go, buddy. Good boy. So pretty.”
From atop the ladder where he was carefully faux painting the wall above the fireplace, Bede grinned at her, his teeth startlingly white in his dark face. At well over six feet and not a thin man, his figure on the ladder was imposing.
“I tell you what, young lady,” he said in his musical Jamaican lilt. “If you ever meet a mon, and you treat that mon even half as well as you treat that feesh, that will be one very lucky mon!”
Cindy grinned back—and up—at him. “You think so?”
“I know so.” His dark eyes twinkled.
“I don’t know why you say that. I’m just giving him his dinner.” Gabriel was still wigwagging around his tank. His little molly brothers and sisters darted under him trying to catch the flakes he’d missed as they floated to the bottom, where they covered a hodgepodge of colorful castles and chess pieces like snow, drifting pinkish-white against the shiny blue gravel.
Cindy cocked her head and admired her angelfish. “Still, he is gorgeous, isn’t he?” Gabriel swam about majestically as if sensing that the shadow who brought him food on a regular basis was talking about him. At least Cindy assumed Gabriel was a “him.” He was about five inches tall as well as long—not counting his flowing fins above, below, and behind—soft black with silver stripes, and the usual perky fish lips. Gabriel was a stunning example of piscine health.
Grinning, she told Bede exactly that. “I know he’s just a fish, Bede, but he’s so handsome. And so responsive. Don’t tell me fish can’t recognize their owners.”
Bede’s smile grew wider. “I’d pay attention to you, too, if you fed me twice a day like clockwork, hired someone to clean my house every week, and made sure I always had fresh water. And bought me castles.”
Cindy laughed. “Hey, that wall over the fireplace is looking good.” She hadn’t been sure about the faux brick design that her artsy cousin Bettina had talked her into trying, but Bede was turning her into a believer. “I might even build a fire next winter under a wall like that.”
“Oh, yes? Make sure you consult with young Gabriel here before you do,” Bede teased her. “You don’t want heem to be too warm, do you now?”
If Cindy consulted with anyone, it would be her brother, Geoff. She’d been housesitting his 1950s-style, split-level house in Northern Virginia while he was managing construction projects in California. Two years before, he’d been kind enough to take her in. She’d been looking for a job after grad school while at the same time coming off a bad breakup that didn’t bear thinking about. She’d landed her dream job at the Library of Congress the year before, and since her brother refused to charge her any rent, she was putting some of her income into his house, getting it rehabbed inside and out, as a thank you.
He’d given her his full blessing as long as anyone she hired came with a license and recommendation and, of course, a full background check. She was his only baby sister, he often reminded her. She was in her late thirties now, so that always made Cindy smile.
Bede had come highly recommended by the neighborhood homeowners association, and she was enjoying his company as well as the work he was doing. He’d been there every weekday for more than three weeks, and she was already dreading the time when he would complete the work and move on to the next lucky homeowner.
“Now that you’ve fed your gentleman feesh, you should get ready for your gentleman human date,” Bede told her, raising an eyebrow and flashing his infectious grin.
Cindy sighed. “I don’t know if I even want to go, Bede.”
“Why, what is it, young lady?”
“I don’t know. Doug’s nice and all, it’s just that, well…”
“No chemistry, perhaps?”
“Maybe. But it’s something else too. Something’s, I don’t know, off.”
“Ah.” Bede nodded wisely and patted himself on the stomach with the hand not holding a paintbrush. “It’s your gut. Always trust your gut, girl. Your gut instinct. It does not lie.”
And just like that, with a jolt, Cindy remembered Snowball, her pet bunny from childhood. She quickly brushed the memory aside; what on earth had brought Snowball to mind? There was barely time for a shower and to throw on a dress and sandals before Doug would come knocking at the door. She wasn’t looking forward to it.
She heard Bede’s voice behind her as she headed down the hall to her room. “Let him down easy, my young friend.” He paused. “Feesh aren’t the only creatures with feelings, you know.”
* * * *
That night, after taking Bede’s advice and gently breaking things off with Doug, Cindy slept restlessly and dreamed about long-forgotten events. A vivid and disturbing dream woke her. It was about the time her white rabbit, Snowball, had gotten out of her hutch, and Cindy had gone searching for her beloved pet when she wasn’t supposed to leave the house. About a man with a gold tooth who helped her. And a man named George Ramsey, who had gone missing the same day Snowball did. And about George Ramsey’s distraught wife, who’d been a friend of Cindy’s mom. Cindy remembered how much she had liked her.
There was no more sleeping for Cindy. Drenched in sweat, but entirely awake, she lay in bed long before her alarm went off, thinking, remembering.
* * * *
“Snowball! Where are you? Come home!” A skinny eight-year-old in shorts and a Boston Celtics jersey dragged the toe of her sneakered foot across the asphalt on the driveway. Cindy had already caught Frisky Bunny, who never strayed too far from home but still managed to chew his way out of the hutch occasionally. He had paused under the sweet gum tree in the backyard just long enough for her to scoop him up and deposit him inside the garage next to a bowl of raw carrots.
But Snowball Bunny, his sister, had made a beeline down the driveway and into the road. The previous month she’d made it all the way down the street to the park, but Daddy had been there and they’d found Snowball in the undergrowth among the crocuses, having a fine time exploring and eating green plants. Together they’d cornered Snowball and borne her, reluctant and wiggling, back to the safety of the backyard hutch.
Cindy sighed. Daddy had sworn he’d gotten the hutch door back on tight, too. And she’d been careful to latch it just right. But Frisky the escape artist had sharp teeth, strong back legs, and a lot of spare time. And now his sweet, pink-eyed sister was missing.
Cindy sniffed, the tears starting. Daddy was at work and Mom had started back to school. Cindy wasn’t supposed to leave the yard by herself for any reason. If only her brother Geoff were here, but he’d gone off to college again. She didn’t understand why anyone would want to be an engineer, especially if it meant leaving her behind.
There were cats and dogs in the neighborhood, and Daddy had warned her about hawks, too. Snowball’s rescue was more important than getting in trouble, she reasoned. Besides, she would have the bunny back home eating carrots before Mom or Daddy got home. Nobody would be the wiser, not even the horrible babysitter who lounged around inside the house eating doughnuts and watching soaps.
Just a few minutes, Cindy promised herself, deciding. She took off at a dead run toward the forested paths that made up little Mastenbrook Park.
Cindy was almost to the park when she heard the scream. She speeded up, almost choking on her tears. Rabbits screamed like people, she knew. Frisky had once been cornered by a big gold dog; the poor rabbit had screamed so loudly she’d dreamed about it for weeks.
“Snowball!” She ran deep into the park, down the paved path where the brush had grown so thick you couldn’t see far.
She heard the screaming again and this time something worse—dogs snarling and barking.
She dodged right, off the path and into a thicket of shrubs, tripping over a stump. She struggled to her feet, crawled over the trunk of a fallen tree and a pile of rocks, and stopped short. Poor Snowball was stuck in a bush, struggling, caught in the crotch of a branch near the ground. Four dogs had surrounded the bush, barking, growling, lunging. Snowball fought to escape and screamed again.
It was too much to bear. Legs bleeding from her struggle through the undergrowth, Cindy dashed forward to save her pet, only to be stopped in her tracks when something grabbed her from behind, catching her shirt and practically lifting her off the ground. Now her own screams joined Snowball’s.
“No!” A man’s voice behind her. “Stay here! Stay back! I’ll get him!”
She could smell him now. Mothballs and sweat and stale beer. “Let me go!” she screamed. “The dogs are murdering Snowball! Let me go!”
He shook her, turned her around, and bent down to her face. “Stay still. I’ll get him. Stay here! I mean it!”
She sniffled, nodded, and stepped back. He let go of her shirt and waded into the fray, snatching up a large branch as he went. He swung at the dogs, connecting with the largest two, normally friendly black labs Cindy knew belonged to the Ramseys, her neighbors on the next block. Chastened, the labs whimpered and backed off. A little tan-and-white mixed breed that Cindy didn’t recognize backed away as well, but continued to bark. The man reached in and snatched Snowball by the scruff of her neck, but not before Benji, the little yappy terrier from down the street, dashed in and bit the stranger deeply on the hand.
The man swung his branch at the dog, hard, and connected. Benji yelped and ran, limping.
Suddenly everything was quiet and the smelly man was putting Snowball into her arms. She could feel Snowball’s heart beating impossibly hard, her pink eyes wide, her mouth open, gasping for breath. Her white fur was filthy.
“Just hold him still for a minute,” the man told her. “Till he figures out he’s safe.” He dropped the stick and pulled a grubby handkerchief out of his coat pocket, wrapping his bloody hand in it.
Cindy tried not to clutch the panting bunny too hard even though her instinct was to hold Snowball tight. “Thank you,” she managed to whisper through grateful tears. “Snowball’s a she, though.”
“Not a problem, little lady.”
Cindy stared up at his dirty, wrinkled face into the brightest pair of blue eyes she’d ever seen.
“Are you the homeless?” she asked the old man.
He smiled, then threw his head back and laughed. “The homeless? Yes, I guess I am at that. Oh, well. It beats being called a tramp.”
“Like Lady and the Tramp?”
He smiled again, and a single gold tooth flashed in the sunlight. “That’s right, honey, exactly like that. Now you get that she-bunny home and give her some food and water. Tomorrow she’ll be right as rain.”
Cindy had never seen a gold tooth before, nor stood next to someone quite so smelly, but she wasn’t afraid of the man at all. She adjusted Snowball in her arms. “Thanks again, mister.” She looked again at his hand wrapped in the dirty handkerchief. “I’m sorry Benji bit you.”
“It was my pleasure to help. And I’ll be fine. Keep her locked up tight, you hear?”
“I will. Promise.”
“Oh, and little girl? Don’t blame the dogs or be mad at them. It’s their nature.”
Cindy, thinking that over, nodded reluctantly. Then she turned and headed for home without stopping.
Hoping none of the neighborhood busybodies were watching, Cindy lugged her heavy but calmer pet home and put her in the garage with Frisky. After a bit, she went into the house—ignoring the snoring babysitter on the couch—and grabbed a roll of paper towels. She filled a saucepan full of warm, sudsy water to take to the garage. Snowball was going to have a bath, and that was that.
Although she worried that someone might question her absence or ask how her pet got so dirty, it turned out the town had more important things to worry about that night than an eight-year-old truant and her pet rabbit. Mr. Ramsey, the man who owned the black labs, had gone missing and it looked like someone had broken into his house. He hadn’t returned to work after his lunch hour and no one, not even his wife, knew where he’d gone. Even though it was too soon to file a missing persons report, a uniformed policeman showed up at their door in typical small-town fashion, asking neighbors when they had seen Mr. Ramsey last. Cindy, holding Daddy’s hand, told the policeman she didn’t remember the last time she saw Mr. Ramsey.
“But I visit Mrs. Ramsey every Saturday,” she volunteered. “She gives me cake. Then we watch TV and talk while she’s ironing. She irons all the time.” Cindy wrinkled her nose at the thought of being cooped up inside with a hot iron. “I get to play with the dogs, too. She lets me throw balls for them in the living room.”
The young blond policeman smiled at her.
“The Ramseys don’t have any children,” Mom explained. “Mrs. Ramsey is always telling me how much she enjoys Cindy’s visits because Mr. Ramsey works at his car dealership all weekend.”
Cindy knew her parents would never allow her to visit the Ramseys if Mr. Ramsey was in the house. Cindy’s instincts told her he was not a good man. She didn’t understand why gentle Mrs. Ramsey had such a mean husband. One day Mr. Ramsey had come home early from work, yelled at his wife for having company, and scowled at her with his dark eyes. Mrs. Ramsey, who seemed frightened, had sent Cindy straight home. She hadn’t even gotten cake or played with the dogs, and she didn’t like leaving Mrs. Ramsey, but she went.
And now mean Mr. Ramsey had disappeared. And Cindy wasn’t the least bit sorry.
Despite what Daddy thought, Cindy was old enough to understand what was going on. Between sneaking peeks at the newspaper and overhearing what her parents discussed in hushed voices, she knew Mr. Ramsey was still missing several days later, and on the day he disappeared blood had been found in the Ramseys’ kitchen. Money was missing from its hiding place in the cookie jar. Chairs were overturned. Mrs. Ramsey had been questioned at length.
Mom and Daddy talked quietly at night about homeless vagrants. Surely a stranger had done this horrible thing, Mother said.
Cindy knew she wasn’t supposed to know about the blood so she didn’t talk about it. And she didn’t dare admit that she’d been in the park near the Ramseys’ house and talked to a homeless man with a gold tooth on the same day Mr. Ramsey disappeared. She knew how much trouble she’d be in. Somehow she knew the smelly man was a good man, even if he did need a bath and a haircut—and maybe a better dentist. She wondered if he’d taken care of his hand where Benji had bit him. Her grandmother had read Old Yeller to her and she knew about rabies. It worried her.
The following Saturday, Mom and Cindy took a casserole over to Mrs. Ramsey. “Oh, Margaret!” Mom said, hugging her friend. While Mom comforted her, Cindy hugged the dogs, who couldn’t help their nature.
There was no ironing board in sight.
After that, the weekly visits to Mrs. Ramsey tapered off. Cindy still saw her at the market, out walking the dogs, and at church. Mrs. Ramsey’s footsteps seemed lighter, Cindy noticed, and she smiled more often.
Then something happened to make Cindy forget all about the Ramseys. Something that changed her life forever in the saddest of ways. That fall, Daddy was killed on the way home from work when a truck overturned right in front of him. With Daddy gone, Geoff took the semester off from college and came home.
Her brother helped Mom sell the house, and they all moved to a smaller place nearby, but the ache of missing Daddy went on. Cindy tried not to let Mom and Geoff see how sad she was, especially when there was no room for Snowball and Frisky in their new home. Her beloved pets went to live at a farm owned by one of Geoff’s college friends, and he reported they had settled in fine. Mom let Cindy get an aquarium for her bedroom, though, and thus began her lifelong affair with owning—and pampering—all kinds of small fish. Two years later, Mom married the new minister at their church. Life was good for the family. Slowly the memories faded.
* * * *
Until last night. Tired of tossing and turning in bed, racked by nightmares, Cindy got up, made a pot of coffee, and switched on her computer. Wondering what had happened to George Ramsey, she powered up Google. He had never turned up, she learned. His body had never been found, and the blood on the kitchen floor of his house was the last evidence that he had ever existed. Thirty years later it was a case so cold she could find no articles about the crime in the last ten years. Mr. Ramsey was all but forgotten.
Searching county real-estate records online, she learned that the Ramsey house hadn’t changed hands since the time Mr. Ramsey went missing. She wondered if Mrs. Ramsey was still there. Mrs. Ramsey was so nice, and the cake was always good, and the dogs were fun to play with. But something nagged at Cindy. Something about Mastenbrook Park. She felt uneasy, haunted by the image of a pile of rocks at one end of a fallen tree, near where the man with the gold tooth had saved Snowball. Why were rocks stacked up there at all? Was the rock pile real, or had she dreamed it?
“Trust your gut, girl,” Bede had said.
Cindy got up from her computer, took a shower, and dressed quickly in jeans and an old blouse she normally wore only when she did housework. She brewed a fresh pot of coffee, washed last night’s dishes, and put some food in the fish tank, greeted as always by the wriggling and appreciative Gabriel. Just before eight a.m. she poured two cups of coffee and got out sugar and half and half, and when Bede arrived, she invited him to join her at the kitchen table to tell him, from an adult’s viewpoint, and from her gut, about her childhood memory. All about Snowball, the park, the man with the gold tooth, and her old friend Mrs. Ramsey.
The coffee was long gone, and the rehab work forgotten, when Cindy and Bede left the house and drove away in her car.
* * * *
“So you don’t think your gold-toothed friend did thees.” Bede was sweating. He’d just helped her move a backbreaking pile of very real rocks from underneath the root end of a fallen tree. They never would have seen the rocks if they hadn’t been looking for them, almost hidden in old undergrowth and new trees.
Cindy had a sense that she had stepped back in time. She remembered the look and smell of the strange man, the stains on his coat, and, mostly, the amount of blood on his hand as he wrapped it in his dirty handkerchief. Way too much blood, it occurred to her suddenly, for a little yappy dog to have drawn with a single bite.
“No, I don’t think the gold-toothed man did this. But I blame you for my even being here,” she said to Bede. “You woke something inside me last night. You said to always go with my gut, and my gut said to come back here. Now I know the rock pile from my dream is real.”
“What’s under it is new to you, though, young Cindy.” Bede sounded sad.
Together, they had moved the rocks and dug beneath them. Several inches down, they unearthed a bundle the size of a duffle bag, sealed up in a triple layer of garbage bags. Bede used his utility knife to slice the bags open, and the dank, mildewy smell made Cindy wince. She watched, hardly daring to breathe, as Bede peeled back the layers to reveal an ancient, rust-covered steam iron whose cord had rotted to the bare wires; a wadded-up, soiled apron and a housedress; and darkly stained and soiled men’s pants, dress shirt, and underpants. Cindy wondered if the dark stains were blood, especially the splatters on the shirt collar. There were several similarly stained towels as well.
Cindy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sure this was the apron Mrs. Ramsey used to wear when she was ironing and baking,” she said. “It had little blue birds embroidered on the pockets, just like this one.”
She opened her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I feel eight years old again.”
Bede studied her carefully. “There’s no body, but I think we can assume there was one and that it was put elsewhere. Do you think your lady friend with the iron could have done thees?”
“I don’t see how. Her husband was big and strong and intimidating. Mrs. Ramsey was always so gentle, almost mousy.”
“Even the gentlest among us can be driven to great anger, Cindy.”
Cindy sighed. “You think we should go to the police, don’t you? I’m sorry I put you in this situation.” She straightened her spine. “I don’t want to do anything about this right now. I need to think. It’s been almost thirty years. A few more days won’t matter.” She paused and glanced up at his worried face. “Will you help me put the rocks back?”
“Child.” Bede patted her on the arm. “I’ve seen worse and dealt with worse.” Cindy saw untold sadness and wisdom in his eyes.
As carefully as possible, they returned the bundle to the hole and restacked the rocks on top. Together, they climbed through the underbrush back to the path. It was early in this bedroom community and they hadn’t encountered anyone, not even a solitary jogger, by the time they reached Cindy’s car.
Bede didn’t ask any questions when they pulled up in front of a neat brick ranch-style house not far from the park. Cindy sensed him behind her, following as she trudged up to the front door, each step propelling her forward feeling like a mile. When no one responded immediately to her knock, she rang the doorbell.
Mrs. Ramsey, looking sweet but decades older, answered the door, still in a robe, carrying an almost empty cup of coffee. Her soft white hair was in disarray. Her gentle brown eyes met Cindy’s, and recognition slowly dawned. Wordlessly, she opened her arms and Cindy walked into them. They held each other for some time before Mrs. Ramsey noticed Bede and opened the door wider.
“I’m Margaret Newman, although Cindy knows me as Margaret Ramsey,” she said. “And if you’re a friend of Cindy’s, you’re a friend of mine.” She stood back. “Won’t you come in? We’ll have coffee.”
Bede followed Cindy into the front hall.
Cindy went straight to the living room, feeling almost like it was a homecoming. “Where’s the ironing board, Mrs. Newman?” she called after their hostess, still adjusting to her old friend’s new name.
“I made sure my second husband was willing to take all his shirts to the dry cleaner,” came the answer from the kitchen. “I’m sorry you missed Fred, actually. He’s on the golf course today.” Mrs. Ramsey—regardless of her new last name, she’d always be Mrs. Ramsey to Cindy—entered the living room and carefully placed a loaded tray in the center of the coffee table. “Won’t you both sit down, and Cindy, you can introduce me.”
“This is my friend, Bede. He’s an artist.”
At that Bede grinned widely, reached out, and shook Mrs. Ramsey’s hand.
“Nice to meet you, Bede,” she said. “And Cindy, considering you’re all grown up now, why don’t you call me Margaret?”
Cindy smiled gently at her old friend. “Margaret it is. But I wish I’d come by for a more pleasant reason.”
Margaret set her coffee cup down carefully on the table. “Oh? Why is that?”
“When I was a child,” Cindy said, “I lost my pet rabbit, Snowball. I wasn’t supposed to go out of the yard, but the rabbit liked the park, and I sneaked down there to find her. She was being attacked by dogs, but a kind, homeless man with a gold tooth saved her. He might have been scary to other people, but he was a hero to me. I never told a soul. And I had pretty much forgotten all about it until last night when I dreamed about it as clear as if it was yesterday.” Cindy paused and took a deep breath. “It was the same day Mr. Ramsey disappeared.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears. “I always wondered if you’d come back to see me one day. You were always a bright, perceptive child, observing things other people didn’t see.”
“Did you know—” Cindy began.
Mrs. Ramsey raised a hand. “That homeless man was my grandfather. I never told anyone that either. I was ashamed of him. He’d always been unstable, and it got worse as the years went by. It was a huge point of contention in my first marriage. George was big on appearances. When he’d catch Grandfather coming to visit me during the day, he would blow his top. George was a tightwad, too. Didn’t like me sharing our food with bums, he said.”
She grimaced. “Remember the constant ironing? He wouldn’t let me spend the little bit of money it would have taken to have the dry cleaner launder his clothing, even though business at the car dealership was good. Besides, women were placed on this earth to serve their husbands, he always said. Cooking and cleaning were part of the job description.” She shuddered.
All of a sudden, Cindy couldn’t speak. She looked over at Bede pleadingly. Bede nodded, then reached out to take Margaret’s hand.
“In the park where Cindy lost her rabbit, we found a fallen tree with a hole under it. The hole was filled with rocks, but we dug them out and found a garbage bag.”
Margaret clutched his hand and closed her eyes. “Tell me. I need to know.”
“We found stained men’s clothing, towels, a housedress, an apron Cindy says she remembers you wearing, and a heavy steam iron.”
“George…?” her voice faltered.
Bede shook his head. “There was no body.”
Tears slipped down Margaret’s face. “I never knew what Grandfather did with the iron and the clothes. I never knew what he did with the body. I never saw him again after the day he saved my life.”
She opened her eyes, let go of Bede’s hand, and settled her hands carefully in her lap. “George liked to hit me. I tried to hide it in all the usual ways. Long-sleeved shirts, not leaving the house if the bruises were too bad, avoiding close friendships in case people asked too many questions. Your mother suspected, Cindy. She was always good to me. She knew that your visits meant the world to me because while you were with me, George wouldn’t come home and…” She let the thought die. “George and I couldn’t have children. Maybe that was just as well.”
“What happened that day, Mrs. Ramsey?” Cindy asked, forgetting to call Margaret by her first name or new last name.
“Grandfather stopped by unexpectedly at lunchtime. I never knew when I was going to see him. I put the dogs outside, made him a sandwich, and was sitting with him in the kitchen. Just sitting, talking, that’s all. George came home for lunch, walking over from the dealership like he did once in a blue moon. I hadn’t expected him either. He found Grandfather with me and lost his temper. He shoved me aside and threatened Grandfather with a knife.”
More tears ran down her face, and neither Cindy nor Bede moved or spoke.
“He cut Grandfather badly on one hand. That’s when I lost it. My grandfather never hurt a soul. I was afraid George was going to kill him. I rushed to the living room, got my iron, and hit George in the back of the head with it as hard as I could. And when he fell down, God help me, I kept hitting him—over and over and over—until Grandfather stopped me, pulled me away.
“Grandfather spread towels on the floor so I could step away from the body without leaving footprints. He sent me upstairs to shower and waited outside the bathroom door as I stripped, and handed my blood-splattered clothing out to him. After my shower, he sent me to bed, almost like a child. Told me to stay there while he ‘took care of things.’ He promised he was going to give me my life back.”
She sighed deeply. “I’d never seen him so lucid, so focused. When I came back downstairs, my clothes were gone, the iron was gone, the body was gone, and Grandfather was gone. In spite of our best efforts, there were still bloodstains on the floor. Earlier, I’d been working in the garden in the empty lot down the street, so I went back there, muddied up my shoes, and tracked dirt into the kitchen, especially on top of where the blood was, as if I’d come home and found the blood that way. Then I called 9-1-1, told the operator that there was blood and broken things in the kitchen, that there had definitely been someone in the house, and that I was frightened.” She paused. “I was frightened. That much was the truth. Then the operator told me to get out of the house right away and run to a neighbor’s, and I did. The rest you know.”
Margaret reached over, picked up her coffee cup, and took a sip. “I swore, Cindy, from that day on, if I didn’t go to jail, I was never going to iron another blessed shirt in my entire life. And I haven’t. And I have missed my grandfather to this very day.”
She put the cup down and stood. “I’m ready to go to the police station with you.”
“Sit down, Margaret,” Cindy said. “We’re not going anywhere right this second.”
Margaret sat. “Why ever not?”
“Because when you grow up not everything is black and white,” Cindy said. “You’ve lived a good life. I know all about your work with the young people in your church because I read up on you last night online. You were always good to me. You were defending your grandfather. Your first husband, from what I understand, was a horrible, horrible man.”
Bede nodded. “A clear case of self-defense. I told Miss Cindy thees would be her call, no matter what. She and I, well, it turns out we operate on the same wavelength, especially where justice is concerned.”
Cindy managed a smile. “The only time I ever met your grandfather he waded into a pack of frantic dogs to save a beloved pet for a scared little girl.” She paused. “I lost my father later that same year. I’m glad, looking back, that your grandfather did that great kindness for me and kept me from losing my pet as well. Snowball was a stupid, fat rabbit with no sense at all.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But I loved her.”
Cindy gestured around the house. “It’s been thirty years, Margaret. Look at your home, at the life you’ve built with the man who loves you. Okay, so now I know. And Bede knows. But as far as I am concerned, it stays here and it ends here.”
Bede nodded and they both stood up.
“I don’t know what to say.” Margaret sat still on the couch, her hands in her lap, looking small and frail.
Cindy leaned over to hug her. “Sometimes you have to do the right thing. This is the right thing. Your husband was a cruel man. That was his nature. You killed him defending your grandfather. Try as I might, I just can’t see the crime in that.” She glanced over at Bede. “Call it gut instinct.”
“Will you be all right, mees?” Bede studied Margaret with concern.
“I’ll be fine, I think. Just fine,” Margaret answered. Cindy leaned over and hugged her once more, then she and Bede let themselves out.
They were quiet during the drive back to Cindy’s house. She didn’t know what to say. Somehow thanking Bede didn’t seem to cover it. But she knew in her heart he would never breathe a word about Margaret and her secret, and right now that was all that mattered.
Cindy jumped when Bede spoke. “You’ve met my wife?”
“Your wife? Yes, I’ve met your wife. What about her?”
“She’s Irish. Got herself a son with red hair. My redheaded stepchild.” Bede grinned. “She’s gotten it into her head that you two might like each other. She’s invented an excuse for the boy to come over with my lunch today, so he can check you out.”
“Dear God, Bede, how can you think of that at a time like this?” Cindy wanted the silence to continue. In a way, she felt like she was grieving. Not the loss of that horrid man, George Ramsey, but something different. Her father, maybe; her childhood, definitely; innocence, perhaps.
Bede patted her hand where it rested on the steering wheel. “Dear girl,” he said, “the living should go on living, take each day that is given to them, make the most of it. Suppose you like our redheaded boy. Suppose you go to dinner and a movie with him as a favor to your friend Bede, help keep peace at Bede’s house with his lovely wife. Suppose you find something new to think about.”
Cindy thought about it. She thought about going home, taking a shower, rubbing Neosporin into the scratches on her hands from the undergrowth at the park. She thought about watching Gabriel swim happily in his tank, living in this moment and anticipating that everything would be fine in the next. She thought about Margaret, wrestling with her ghosts, living with her new husband, and making regular visits to the neighborhood dry cleaner.
“We solved a cold case today, didn’t we, Bede?”
“We did. We dealt with a cold case, but you have a warm heart, my girl. Your feesh knows it, your family knows it, I know it, and Margaret always knew it. Now do an old man a favor, and go out with my boy.”
Slowly, without taking her eyes off the road, Cindy nodded. The past hadn’t been so bad, all in all. The future might be even better. She was ready to take a chance.
Eleanor Cawood Jones is the author of A Baker’s Dozen: 13 Tales of Murder and More and Death is Coming to Town: Four Murderous Holiday Tales. Her story “Killing Kippers” appears in Malice Domestic 11: Murder Most Conventional. She began writing in elementary school, using a Number 2 pencil to craft stories starring her stuffed animals. A former newspaper reporter, Eleanor is a travel consultant in Northern Virginia who spends her spare time telling people how to pronounce Cawood (Kay’-wood). She’s working on several crime-centered short stories and a cozy mystery series, and intends to write romances, but her characters won’t cooperate. Learn more at www.GirlsGoneChillin.com.