“I was home the night Martin came looking for Patrick.” Pearl took a breath, then continued. “They were supposed to meet at Bud’s, but Martin had gotten the day wrong and had come looking for Patrick at his house instead. I was seated on the porch, finishing a novel for book club when I saw him knocking on Patrick’s front door.
“I never would have known it was him. Goodness, he was so unrecognizable with all of the scars, nothing like he was when I knew him as a young man. I called across the yard and asked if I could be of any help to him, and that’s when he recognized me. You see, he remembered me from when Susan lived with us.
“Oh, the timing couldn’t have been more horrible. Just as Michael had returned to Notchey Creek, had established himself at Briarcliffe, Martin Evans had to appear. I wanted to kill him right then and there.
“But that’s not how one gets things done, is it? So I feigned to Martin that I was so very happy to see him again and wouldn’t he please come inside for a cup of hot tea, to catch up on old times. I’d already decided at that point what I was going do, what I had to do … and with Arthur out with one of his floozies that night, there was little to deter me.
“Martin accepted my invitation for tea and joined me in the living room, and over a few cups of Darjeeling, he told me everything. How Patrick Middleton had confessed to him that he killed Susan in that car accident all those years ago, that his son was still alive somewhere, that he hoped to reunite the two.
“But then Martin noticed Michael’s photograph on the mantel, recognized the strong likeness between them, and asked if Michael was the long-lost son Patrick hoped to reunite him with. I told him absolutely not, that the young man’s name was Michael Sutcliffe, and he was James Sutcliffe’s only son. But he didn’t believe me, pointing out that Michael had the same heart-shaped birthmark on his neck that his son had had.
“By that time the drugs had taken effect, thankfully, and I decided to just confess and admit the truth, that yes, he was right, Michael was his son, and wasn’t it good that I had saved the child from being raised by a useless, derelict father like himself.
“Martin was downright stumbling, asking what had happened to the real Michael Sutcliffe, what we had done with him, saying that the boy was innocent. He said he was going to go to the police, tell them the truth, that the world needed to know what I had done. When he left, his speech was slurring, no longer making any sense. So I just let him go. I knew it wouldn’t take very long for the drugs to kill him, and it didn’t. I predicted the police would find him in a day or two and rule his death an overdose.
“Then I just had Patrick to deal with. I knew I would have to kill him too, of course, and do it quickly. I wasn’t sure how much he knew already, and how much he was bound to find out. He was too much of a liability. And with all of the controversy swarming around the new history museum, there would be a multitude of suspects with a motive to kill him. I would use that angle.
“So that night, at the historical society meeting, I was the one who threw that rock through Patrick’s living room window with the note STOP NOW OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.”
“When you excused yourself to go to the restroom,” Harley said.
“Yes. It was quite easy, really. I typed up the note beforehand, placed the rock in my pocket, and once Tina was distracted in the kitchen, I sneaked out the back door, crept around front, and broke the window. I knew everyone would think one of the museum protestors had done it.
“Then I asked Patrick if I could please stop by his house after the meeting for a chat. There was something important I needed to speak with him about, and it couldn’t wait. Of course, since it was me, he accepted. I knew Arthur had a date with one of his women that night, so there would be no interference on his part.
“When I arrived at Patrick’s house later that evening, he invited me into his den, and offered me a seat in the leather chair across from his. There was a bottle of your whiskey on the side table by his chair and two glasses. He poured himself a glass then offered one to me.
“We began talking, and I told him the purpose of my visit was to tell him that I supported his plans for the living history museum in Briarwood Park, and that I was glad he’d thwarted Arthur’s plans to develop the land into a shopping center. Arthur needed to slow down, I told him. He was getting older, and the shopping complex would require too much of his time and energy and wasn’t good for the town’s posterity. This was all nonsense, of course. The history museum was a piece of idiocy, I thought, and I wanted Arthur to have his shopping center if it would keep him out of my hair and put more money into our retirement fund. But Patrick wasn’t to know this, and he would never know it after I drugged him.
“Then I asked Patrick if I could please borrow a copy of his meeting agenda. I said I had misplaced mine, and I wanted to make sure that my meeting minutes lined up with the agenda. When he went to his office to get it, I reached over and poured Ambien in his glass, and topped it off with more whiskey. He never suspected a thing.
“I placed the whiskey glass he’d given to me in my purse, and wished Patrick a good evening, promising I’d smooth things over with Arthur for him. Then I went home to my still-empty house, destroyed the whiskey glass, and watched Patrick’s house from my bedroom window.
“All was quiet over there until about midnight when his bedroom lights came on, then the lights to his outdoor kitchen. He should have been dead by then, I thought, and I was worried I hadn’t put enough of the sleeping pills in his drink, or he hadn’t drunk enough.
“I dressed in black from head-to-toe and crept into his backyard. He was holding one of those outdoor lanterns, and he was walking along the creek bank, searching for something or someone in the water. Then he started calling for her. He started calling for Susan! He was begging her to forgive him, saying her death had haunted him all those years, would haunt him until the day he died. I think he really believed that silly Samhain legend Iris had shared at the meeting earlier that night, and with the drugs making him see and hear things, he thought he’d somehow been reunited with Susan.
“I crept up behind him as he stood there, searching for Susan’s ghost in the water, and I placed my hand on his shoulder. I wanted to be the last person he saw before he died, for him to realize the hurt and pain he’d caused me over the years. He turned around, and when he saw me, he gasped, and I pushed him in the creek. He fell on his back and was thrashing in the water, so I held him down until he lay still, staring up at the night sky in horror.
“I returned to my house, removed and washed the damp clothes, and waited for Arthur to come home a little while after. I was done with both of them. Patrick and Martin. Our secret was safe.”
“But Martin didn’t die,” Harley said, “not as you planned it anyway. He made it to Briarwood Park, and Tina and I found him the next morning. He was disoriented, yes, but he was still very much alive until somebody beat him to death.”
“What?”
“Yes, someone killed Martin Evans in the woods.”
“But no,” she said, her voice growing desperate, “no one knew about Martin besides me, no one knew but Patrick.”
“You’re wrong about that,” a male voice said.