CHAPTER 18

Imogene

There were good outcomes and bad ones when frightening circumstances struck. Imogene was trying desperately to focus on the good—one being positioned against Ollie on her right while jostling against Sam Pickett on her left as he transported her home in his truck. But the bad was so difficult to ignore as they passed another car with a concerned driver apparent behind the wheel.

“How many were hurt?” She couldn’t ask how many were killed. The idea of the post office exploding into smithereens was awful, but made horrifying when considering potential loss of life.

Sam shot her a glance. She noticed his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as he gripped it tighter. “I’m not sure. Hopefully no one.”

Ollie shifted, and it caused Imogene to lean further into him. He’d removed his soiled shirt at some point, and now his overalls were rolled down to his waist, and his white T-shirt was all that was between Imogene and his skin. While her head was pounding, she wasn’t going to show squeamishness even if she was aching to crawl into bed and sleep off the headache.

“Reminds me of . . .” Sam’s mouth tightened, and he didn’t finish his sentence.

Silence filled the truck’s cab as cornfields whisked by on either side. The window was down on Sam’s side, and Imogene drew in a deep breath of warm country air, touched with hints of manure and cornstalks.

“The war?” Imogene finished for Sam.

His fingers adjusted on the steering wheel. She sensed Ollie stiffen.

“Aw, shucks,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry.” Imogene knew Ollie never spoke of his experiences overseas. Having just met Sam, she couldn’t decipher whether he was one who would revel in the retelling of stories or turn into himself. But today it’d be poor taste to find any glory in war. Not when the explosion of the post office was a grim reminder of what the boys had faced every day for years.

“Who would do such a thing?” Sam craned his neck to see the road and steer around a pothole.

“Blow up the post office?” Imogene inserted.

Sam nodded.

Ollie braced his elbow on the open window and rubbed his nose as he looked at the passing fields. But Imogene also noted with vague and painful curiosity that his left arm had wrapped around her body, holding her more firmly. It felt better. Her head hurt so badly, and the stabilization made a difference. She ignored propriety or appearances and allowed herself to rest her head against his shoulder. Though Ollie didn’t acknowledge her, she noticed Sam’s sideways glance.

“Some meatball, I’m sure,” Sam offered. It was his explanation as to who the culprit might be.

“Sure, but why?” Imogene was always asking why lately. Disorder had followed the boys home from the war. Whoever thought they could all move on with their lives needed to take a trip to the loony bin.

“Your brother will figure it out.” Ollie’s voice silenced Sam’s. Imogene felt the bony thinness of Ollie’s shoulder. He’d lost a lot of weight overseas.

“Chet?” Imogene mumbled against Ollie’s shirt. A light-headed feeling washed over her, and she closed her eyes. “Chet’s got other things to do.”

“He’s gonna be busy now, though.” Ollie’s observation knifed into Imogene. She tried to lift her woozy head and glare daggers at Ollie, but it didn’t work.

“Nothing’s more important than Hazel.” Her words were muffled by Ollie’s shirt.

“You’re right,” Sam reassured her. His statement held an indefinable edge to it, and if her eyes weren’t closed, Imogene wondered if Sam was shooting Ollie warning glances to shut it.

“We don’t always get justice for the ones we lose.” Ollie’s observation was so quiet, it was almost swallowed by the truck’s noisy muffler and the breeze whipping through the open windows.

This time, Imogene did muster the energy to lift her head and open her eyes. She narrowed them at Ollie, irritated by his lack of sensitivity. “You wouldn’t know what it’s like to have someone you love murdered. That kind of talk is ignorant.”

Ollie turned his head from the view out the window, and the blue of his eyes pierced Imogene’s soul. There was such sadness in them, such beaten-down determination, that Imogene wanted to apologize for snapping at him—even if she was right in what she’d said.

“I know what it’s like.” He didn’t blink, and there was such honesty in his expression, Imogene felt more pain, this time in her very soul. “I had buddies blown to bits, and what justice did they get? War isn’t fair, Genie.” Ollie turned back to the window, but she caught his words just before she drifted off into oblivion. “It isn’t fair abroad or at home.”

“Thank the Lord, you’re awake.” Lola’s worried voice filled Imogene’s senses. She opened her eyes against the light shining through her bedroom window. “Your mama’s downstairs making cookies. She’s just about mad with worry.”

Of course she was. She’d already lost one daughter, and now her other was blown into the side of the police station in an explosion. Imogene grimaced as she moved to sit up against the pillows.

“Ollie and Sam Pickett brought you home. Chet called ahead and let your mama know and then he called me. Of course, I already knew because Mrs. Nelson had heard on the party line, and she didn’t waste time rushing next door to tell me the news.” Lola helped adjust the pillows, then held a hand to Imogene’s forehead as if she were feverish. “What is this world coming to? Honestly, Genie, the blast put three people in the hospital. You’re the lucky one! Just lightly concussed, no doubt.”

“Was anyone killed?” Somehow, Imogene was able to push out the words.

“No. Not killed. Thank the Lord.”

Yes. The Lord. Imogene winced inwardly. Oh, for the old-time religion to be as sweet as it had seemed when she was a child. The church with its white clapboards and Sunday-happy bell ringing. A little bit of Jesus and Sunday afternoon potlucks were the memories she’d expected to carry her through her entire life.

Not anymore.

The church had become tarnished by war vigils, where the women had knitted socks for soldiers. It was the catchall for the donation of food to help those who didn’t have as much and were running out of rations. It was the doorway through which Imogene had ushered Hazel into her eternal rest, singing hymns over her casket as though somehow that “hope of Jesus” would shine down from heaven and relieve their weary souls.

It hadn’t.

He was silent.

“Why were you at the station anyway, Genie?” Lola’s question was soft but insinuating.

Aside from her pounding headache, the last thing Imogene was in the mood for was justifying her reasons for holding Chet accountable to solve their sister’s murder. Or the fact she was trying to do it for him.

“It doesn’t matter.” Imogene picked at a piece of lint stuck to the cotton sheet that covered her.

“Well”—Lola allowed Imogene her reasons—“they said they saw someone running away from the post office just after the blast.”

That snagged Imogene’s attention. Her eyes snapped up to meet Lola’s. “And?”

Lola shrugged. “No one could recognize him. And a few others said everyone was running away from the post office, so just ’cause some saw a man running doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” Lola crossed her legs at the ankles and tucked them behind the foot of the chair on which she sat. Her large brown eyes were inquisitive. “Rumors are already flying around that someone made a homemade bomb. They probably stole the powder for it from the plant.”

Imogene hadn’t expected that, and she knew surprise must have registered on her face. “How could anyone—?” She left her question hanging. Nothing made sense anymore. Peaceful Mill Creek had borne the shock of a murder and now the post office’s destruction.

“You’d best be cautious, Genie.” Lola’s eyes darkened with concern. “It’s not hard to figure out why you stopped working at the beauty salon and took a job at the plant. Now with this? Makes me wonder . . .”

“Wonder what?” Imogene leaned forward, reading her friend’s face in hopes someone else would justify her own thoughts and suspicions.

Lola crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips, raising an eyebrow and staring down her strong German-ancestral nose. “What did Hazel get mixed up in, Genie?”

The question hung between them like an omen—a bad one. Imogene locked eyes with her longtime friend. She couldn’t answer for the pounding in her head and her throat, which seemed clogged with tears of relief that she wasn’t the only one to harbor such questions.

“I don’t know,” Imogene finally admitted, “but I aim to find out.”

Lola shook her head and stood, her cotton dress falling around her shins. She crossed the room to look out Imogene’s bedroom window, keeping her arms wrapped around herself. She was a pretty silhouette, the white filmy curtains pushed back, the flowery print on her dress, her bobby socks at her ankles, and her sensible oxfords on her feet. Lola’s dark hair was permed and pinned on the sides, just like Imogene had taught her.

Lola sniffed and shook her head again, speaking over her shoulder. “I know Chet isn’t a numskull. He’ll figure this out without you putting yourself in harm’s way.”

Imogene bit her lip. She only ever truly second-guessed herself when it was Lola criticizing her. She respected her friend, wanted her approval, and more she saw Lola’s intuition for what it was—wisdom. But that didn’t mean Imogene always listened.

“It’s been almost a month, Lola.” Imogene shifted in the bed, pulling her knees up and dragging the blanket over them. “The longer it goes since the day I found Hazel, the more I believe every clue Chet won’t share with me is just getting colder. Pretty soon—” her voice hitched—“pretty soon they’re gonna box up all of Hazel’s files and put them away in a closet somewhere. That can’t happen. You know it isn’t right. No one would just—kill Hazel. It was someone she knew.”

Lola turned, a question on her face. “How do you know that?”

Imogene didn’t dispel her own theories with Chet’s arguments of earlier. She believed her theories. She had to or no one else would. “Because the screen door was unlocked. Because Hazel didn’t fight. She didn’t fight until she was in the attic.”

Lola blanched at the idea.

Imogene continued, bouncing her reasoning off her friend. “She wasn’t injured either. There wasn’t any blood downstairs. No smearing of it on the walls like she was fighting anyone off or . . . or that they dragged her upstairs. She just walked them up the stairs to her room. Hazel knew her killer, Lola. She trusted him.”

Lola walked back to her chair by Imogene’s bed and sat down, leaning forward and reaching for her friend’s hand. Her gaze was sincere and searching. “Or someone could have just come into the house. A stranger. A vagabond. They could have found her up in the attic and, well, you know . . .”

“No.” Imogene shook her head. “Nothing happened to Hazel outside of being bludgeoned to death.”

“Genie!” Lola flopped back in her chair and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Well?” Imogene snapped. “If no one is willing to say it aloud, then I shall! There was blood on the wall, Lola. The wall! They didn’t just hit her by accident and cause her death. They didn’t come with lust in their eyes. They intended to do away with her for a very specific reason. And they made their point over and over and over again until Hazel was good and dead.”

Lola’s throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. Her eyes were watery. But Lola was tough too, and the breath she drew in, while it shuddered, also bolstered her. “And you don’t think Chet sees the same story?”

“I don’t know if he does or not.” Imogene waved her hand dismissively. “He won’t tell me anything. And who did Hazel know enough to trust to take them to the attic? Family, most likely. That’s all she had was family. She didn’t have friends. At least not that she spoke of.”

“Which,” Lola mused, “I always thought a tad odd, didn’t you?”

Imogene frowned.

Lola held up her hand as if to beg for Imogene’s patience. “Hazel wasn’t shy, Genie. ’Course, she wasn’t outright flamboyant and a flirt like you—”

“Hey!”

Lola dipped her chin and looked down her nose at Imogene. “You know as well as I do that if you had three men hanging on your arms at the dance joint downtown, you’d be happier if there was a fourth to balance it out. But Hazel was . . .”

“Friendly.” Imogene nodded. She had to agree, for it was the truth.

“And doesn’t that inspire friendship? So why didn’t she have any close ones?” Lola asked.

Imogene drew in a contemplative breath. “Which is why I took a job at the plant. Hazel had acquaintances at church and in town. Of course, you were her friend, but what reason could you possibly have to kill Hazel?”

“Thank you,” Lola mumbled.

Imogene kept musing aloud. “So then, if everyone loved Hazel, but no one knew my sister, who did she know well enough to invite into her private room?”

Lola smiled a sad little smile. “What if Hazel’s death and the post office explosion are somehow related?”

Imogene frowned. She could see where Lola’s reasoning was taking them, although it didn’t make clear sense. “Powder.”

Lola nodded.

Imogene wrestled with the idea, because it was the only common factor between Hazel and today’s explosion. Yet Imogene was certain Hazel hadn’t been smuggling materials out of the plant in order to blow up the town of Mill Creek and then later murdered for it.

Well, almost certain.