Chapter 39
Beatrice was eating lunch when the phone rang. It was Detective Bryant.
“Well, twice in one day. Aren’t I a lucky woman?” she said after answering the phone.
The detective laughed. “I need to ask you some questions.”
“Shoot.”
“What do you remember about Sharon Milhouse? About that time in Vera’s and Sheila’s lives?”
“Not much really,” she said after a moment. “It was such a busy time, with the girls graduating and so on. And I’m sure you know I didn’t know half of what went on. But I do remember Sheila getting death threats and thinking they were from Sharon.”
“Did anybody prove that?”
“Not that I know of. But then again, Sharon was carted off to the Richmond Institution. So it was dropped. Ever find out what happened to her?”
“She’s out,” he said after a minute. “I was trying to place her in Cumberland Creek, thinking maybe she left the postcard in Sheila’s mailbox. You know, maybe she was trying to settle an old score.”
A chill traveled up Beatrice’s spine. “Where’s the woman now?”
“I’m working on that. She’s not easy to find, which troubles me. I have no idea if this Sharon Milhouse on the cruise is the same one or not. I’m waiting to hear back from their security team,” he said. “Hell, she may be right here in Cumberland Creek for all we know.”
“Let’s hope not,” Bea said. “Very few people have scared me in my life. But I remember the vacant, strange look on that woman’s face and it frightened me.”
“If she’s on the cruise, it could be a coincidence, right?” Bryant said, as if he was talking to himself.
“I’m not sure I believe in coincidence—or at least not as most people seem to see it,” Beatrice said after a momentary pause. She was reminded of what Albert Einstein said: “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
Does the unexpected only seem like a coincidence because we are unaware of the complex order behind it? Beatrice often pondered the “coincidence of a higher order,” which was based on connections that science was now beginning to discover.
“I believe in a certain order behind most events,” Beatrice said.
“We’re in agreement about that,” the detective replied. “But every once in a while, something does happen that appears to be unexplainable.”
“In the short term, perhaps,” Beatrice said. She took a long sigh. So many questions to be answered in the universe and she was running out of time. She’d never answer all of them by herself. “So will you let me know what you find out?”
“It depends, due to the nature of privacy acts and investigations and so on. We’ll see. But I appreciate your help. When you talked to Steve, was he able to think of anybody who doesn’t like Sheila?”
“No. Sheila is well liked. But I can’t imagine that everybody likes her. There has to be someone . . . besides that Sharon from so long ago. That’s a long shot.”
“But it’s all we have on the note,” Bryant said. “A long shot.”
Beatrice finished her sandwich after they hung up. From time to time, she really liked Bryant. But other times he was nothing but a pain in the ass and seemed like he had no compassion.
But when she had been poisoned, he’d helped her out—and thank goodness for that or else she might be dead right now. But he hadn’t been very polite when he was questioning her about Cookie. In fact, he was downright rude. Hmmm. But maybe he had been frustrated. He knew something was going on and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. She smiled. He was right—even though she still had no idea what was actually going on with Cookie and her escape. The more the detective tried to understand it all, the more it confounded him. She knew how he felt.
She checked out her Christmas tree and noticed a gap in the trimming. She rose from where she was sitting and moved some ornaments around. Flipping on the stereo, she slid in a Christmas CD. It was Christmas, damn it! And she was going to get into the spirit of things and not dwell on Cookie. Nor did she want to dwell on what had happened on that cruise ship—or what could still happen. There was nothing she could do about it from here.
Maybe all she needed was a few cookies. That should do it; nothing like gingerbread cookies to bring on the Christmas spirit. She resisted smacking her lips together.