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REEBOK GRINNED AT the wall above the phone. The detective on the anonymous bones case had promised to call him right back, as soon as he got into the station and had a chance to pull the file.
Reebok loved it when the pieces came together like this. He’d described that photo of the Charlotte Ellis they had on this end. The guy on the other end was going to compare that to the college yearbook photo of Tricia Moody.
"Hurry up," Reebok muttered at the phone. "Ring."
Like it could hear him.
Meanwhile, he could do some reasoning. Let’s say this Charlotte Ellis is who she says she is, he thought. If so, why has she changed so much? Maybe she had her arm operated on. New advances in medicine, and such. Maybe she honestly couldn’t recall a lot of her childhood. Reebok thought Miss Sadie was pretty much unforgettable, but a little kid—maybe other things had come up after she moved, and an elderly woman in a town the child never saw again, maybe she just forgot all that. It was possible, he had to admit.
But her height—tall when all the Ellis Girls were short. Right-handed when she’d started out left-handed. Dyed hair maybe to cover up the fact that it wasn’t red the way it was supposed to be, according to Miss Sadie. And a strong arm when Miss Sadie said the problem had been inoperable back twenty years before. Okay, so, if this woman was an imposter, what was she getting out of it? There had to be a reason she’d taken on Charlotte’s name.
Reebok didn’t have any answers yet, but he was well on his way. If only the phone would ring.
~ ~ ~
"OKAY," IDA SAID. "HOLD your horses. I’ll read it." She didn’t sound happy, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t the reading she was upset about. It was Charlie Ellis. The nerve of that woman ordering her around like that.
Day of Thanksgiving November 1800
Sitting beside Louetta, partaking of the feast today, I felt my heart overflowing with gratitude for my family, my friends, and this life I have around me. How appropriate that I am ending these last pages and this last entry of my precious five volumes with such feelings of thankfulness. Despite the losses throughout my life, I feel that on the balance it has been a good one. I can say that mostly because of the joy my grandchildren bring to me on a daily basis. Louetta Tarkington Martin here beside me, Jane Elizabeth Benton Hastings across the plank table from me, my sister Constance Garner Breeton and her large family. We four women are widows, and none of us has chosen to remarry, but we keep company with the larger community. I must say, though, that the times I feel the greatest joy in others is when the four of us commune among ourselves, for we understand each other so well after all these years of friendship.
I looked around the circle. I felt the same way about most of these women, who had over the years become such dear friends.
I like them, too.
This was almost like Mary Frances had a gratitude list the same way I did, except I listed my gratitudes every night.
Me, too.
I well wish our small circle of women could be increased by only two—my dear Myra Sue Russell Martin and Miss Julia Gilman, who became so like a mother to me. And, of course, my dear son John whose death two years ago was so like the passing of his father, for his heart seemed simply to give out.
"Oh," Ida breathed. "John died."
I felt more than saw Easton begin to open her mouth, but Sadie put a restraining hand on Easton’s arm. "I hope Mary Frances was with him," I said. "Does she say?"
"No." Ida ran her gaze across a paragraph or two. "But I’d be willing to bet she was."
"Of course she was," Maddy said. "She says his death was like the passing of his father, and she was right there with him, so why wouldn’t she be with John, too?"
Poor Maddy. She’d taken that whole family to heart. No wonder she was so defensive. I was doubly glad Sadie had stopped Easton from saying anything.
Down the well-laden table from me, my grandson Jerrod beams with pride at his son, my first great-grandson. His wife Betsey Surratt Martin looks to me as if she is with child for a second time, but it is perhaps too early to be sure. In the meantime, Marella’s daughter Catharina, my first great-granddaughter, who is six years of age and began studying at the village school this year, helps her Aunt Betsey with the baby. Little Ketchum was born in a swirl of snow and ice last February, and the weather then reminded me so of the birth of the babe’s grandfather, my John, on the bleak midwinter trail in 1742.
"There’s Ketchum," Carol said. "I love that name so much, it’s good to know just when he came along."
"And Catharina, too," Maddy said. "She’s the one who sat beside Mary Frances on her deathbed."
"Why on earth," Pat said, "does she insist on labeling everybody?"
"What do you mean?" I wasn’t the only one who asked that.
"Like she doesn’t think we’d know that Louetta was Louetta Tarkington before she married Silas and became a Martin? Or that Catharina was her first great-granddaughter?"
Ida rested the book in her lap, but didn’t say anything.
Glaze leaned her elbows on her knees. "I’m glad she does it. Sometimes I’m not too sure about these relationships."
"She’s not doing it for us," Rebecca Jo said. "She’s doing it for herself."
"She thinks she won’t remember?"
I was getting a little tired of Pat’s sarcasm.
"There could be a reason," Sadie said, and we all turned to look at her. "Particularly since this is the last entry in her book, and she knows it, maybe she’s honoring all these family connections by naming them in full. Homage, perhaps?"
There is but a scant inch left, and I needs must write my husband’s beloved name one more time.
Ida paused and took a quick look in Clara’s direction. I knew darn well what she was thinking. The big revelation would have to come eventually, and not a one of us knew how Clara would take it. Ida stretched her shoulders back, and I was reminded of that old-fashioned phrase about girding one’s loins for battle.
From downstairs, I heard a phone ring.
I do not long for death, for my family are too precious for me to miss any moment of their growing, but I hope a merciful God will allow me a glimpse of my dear Hubbard and will even perhaps forgive my long-ago sin so that I might join my husband, the father of my child, in heaven.
I end by writing my true name, Mary Frances Garner Brandt (Mistress Hubbard Brandt)
Clara’s head whipped up at that. "Brandt?" She stood and her voice rose half an octave. "Brandt?"
Most of us hemmed and hawed until Charlie jumped in with both feet. "Quit pussy footin’ around. You might as well tell her that all of you know about it."
Anita looked confused, but Clara looked wary, more than I would have expected her to.
The silence was charged for several moments. Nobody wanted to do it, but Rebecca Jo finally leaned forward in her chair. "You might want to sit back down, Clara."
Clara took a step backward, but stopped when Glaze spoke. "What do you mean, Charlie?"
"Huh?"
"It sounds like you’re saying Clara already knows about this. Do you, Clara?"
Charlie clamped her lips shut and narrowed her eyes.
Clara just looked confused, but still had that watchful deer-in-the-headlight look about her. "Know about what?"
"Sit down, first." Once Clara complied, Rebecca Jo said, "Homer Martin wasn’t the father of John Martin. Mary Frances wasn’t a Martin. She had been married secretly to Hubbard Brandt, and was expecting John when her father forced her to marry Homer, so all of the town chairs have been descended from Hubbard Brandt, not Homer Martin."
Clara whipped around in her seat and glared at Charlie. "You said it was one of the Endicotts!"
"I ... I thought it was. That’s what Charlotte’s papers say."
"We’ve been paying you all this time," Clara’s voice rose to a shriek, "and you didn’t even have the names right?"
"John Martin was still a bastard!"
"That’s not the point!"
"What’s going on up here?" Bob’s voice cut across the shouting between the two women.
"Arrest that woman!" Clara pointed a trembling finger. "She’s been blackmailing Hubbard and me for the past three years."
Bob walked forward. "Is that true Tricia?"
"Of course it isn’t! There’s no proof ..." But the woman stopped suddenly, as she realized the name she’d answered to.
"I’m arresting you, Patricia Moody, for the murder of Charlotte Ellis three years ago. You have the right to remain ..."
Even though I’d known it was coming, I was stopped as dead in my tracks as everybody else in the attack. Tricia Moody still had fight in her, though. She slammed her shoulder into Bob and bolted toward the top of the stairs before he could recover his balance.
He took off after her, but wasn’t fast enough to catch her.
That was okay. Reebok Garner was at the bottom of the attic stairs, and he collared Tricia Moody like a pro.
Then again, he was a pro.
As if the house itself were rejoicing, the electricity chose that moment to come back on.