CHAPTER 26

Imogene

Lola took two steps to Imogene’s one. Imogene could feel her friend darting nervous, sideways glances at her as they strode down the sidewalk toward the corner drugstore. The drugstore where Harry Schneider worked the soda bar.

He’s just a kid.

Imogene could hear Lola’s argument in her head.

He couldn’t have done anything to hurt Hazel.

The Schneiders were lifelong neighbors and friends to the Graysons. Besides, Harry didn’t have a vindictive bone in his body—just like Ollie.

Just like Ollie.

Imogene pursed her red lips tighter as she marched toward the door with the cream-painted words spanning the top of the store’s windows that bordered it.

Cigars. Candy. Prescriptions.

And on the other window: Cosmetics. Films. Aspirin.

She reached for the long brass door handle. Lola’s hand on her bare arm stopped her. Imogene met her friend’s concerned eyes.

“Let’s think about this first, Genie.” Lola’s words were almost a whisper.

Imogene shook her head. “There’s nothing to think about. Ida saw them together.”

“Talking. That’s all she said they were doing was talking—if it was even Harry! Heck, Genie, I talked to Hazel the day before she died! That doesn’t mean she said something to make me mad enough to—” Lola cut her sentence off sharply.

Imogene sucked in a breath. All right then. She’d think about it. In an effort to waste time, Imogene glanced at the toothpaste sign in the window, 1 cent. What a waste. They’d used baking soda for most of the war. There was no reason to waste money on paste.

Was a fifteen-second hesitation long enough?

Imogene swiveled her head back to look at Lola, her hand still clutching the door handle. “Well, I thought about it.”

Lola’s expression fell into one of exasperation mingled with worry. “Genie” was all she could get out before Imogene tugged the door open.

The bells tinkled their welcome as the ladies stepped into the drugstore. The long soda bar was the first thing to their left. Stools lined the bar, with only two occupants. Children. Their mouths puckered over paper straws sucking in chocolate malts topped with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Harry’s back was to them. From behind, he looked almost identical to Ollie. When he turned, the warmth in his eyes startled Imogene. She’d conjured him into a ruthless killer. A jealous, thwarted lover. Gosh. Lola was right. He was just a kid. A nineteen-year-old kid like Hazel.

His eyes dimmed a bit as he recognized her. Sadness reflected in them. Not the lingering, soulful kind like Ollie’s, but the kind that hinted he’d lost out on some possibility in his future and had also lost a friend.

“Genie.” He motioned to the stools. “Lola. Have a seat.”

Gentlemanly. Pretty fine for a farm boy.

Lola slid onto a padded stool, adjusted her dress so it fell modestly around her shins, brushing her stockings. Imogene stood beside her but couldn’t sit. If she did, somehow she felt less confident. Less sure of herself. It was already waning fast beneath the questioning look of Harry Schneider.

Cold-blooded murderer?

Imogene exchanged glances with Lola. Okay. Fine. Lola was right. She needed to think first.

“How well did you know my sister?”

Lola’s shoulders sagged as Imogene blurted out the question. So much for thinking.

Harry’s eyes widened. He glanced around and leaned forward on the counter. “Did you want me to step outside for a second?”

“No. Just answer the question.” Imogene rested her hands at her hips and cocked her carefully curled and pinned head of raven-black hair. She summoned her best Hedy Lamarr savvy yet sultry look and softened her demand. “C’mon, Harry, it’s just a question.”

Harry cleared his throat. “I’ve known Hazel since we were kids, Genie, you know that.”

Imogene couldn’t glean any signs that he was nervous, outside of being flustered by her assertive nature.

“Harry, we’re just trying to figure out what happened to her,” Lola interjected.

Harry glanced at her. “I’m s’posed to know? Don’tcha think I’d say somethin’ if I knew?”

Imogene leaned against the bar. “You were seen several times in deep conversation with my sister. At the plant.”

“Yeah? So?” Friendliness fled from Harry’s eyes, but his answer affirmed Ida’s observation that it had been him. “Gosh, Genie, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but just ’cause I talked to Hazel don’t mean I know why she—she was killed!”

The children’s heads popped up from their malts, and their eyes widened. Harry shot them a reassuring grin before returning his attention to Imogene and Lola, lowering his voice now.

“Listen. Hazel was a good girl. You know that. What happened to her—well, she didn’t deserve it. But we were just friends, and I was only trying to help her.”

Imogene pulled back. “Help her?”

Harry glanced at the children again, then nodded. “Yeah. You know? It’s what neighbors do, right?”

Lola reached out and rested her hand over Harry’s in an almost sisterly-like reassuring gesture. “It is, Harry.”

Imogene bit her tongue. Maybe Lola would draw more bees with honey.

“What did Hazel need help with?” Lola asked the same question Imogene wanted to ask, only her voice was gentle, prodding, and far less forceful.

Harry directed his attention to Lola. “That’s just it. I’m not quite sure. She kept talking to me almost in riddles, you know? Kept saying stuff like, ‘If I say something, people I care about will be hurt, and if I don’t say something, people I don’t know will be hurt.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Imogene snapped.

Harry shot her a glance. “Heck if I know. I kept trying to get her to tell me what was bothering her so. She said she couldn’t, but she kept asking me what I’d do. Like she was in some big moral dilemma, and whatever she did, well, the outcome didn’t suit her.”

“So why talk to you?” Imogene pressed, not able to ignore the hurt that Hazel hadn’t just come to her if she was hiding something, or knew something about someone, or whatever the case might have been.

Harry ran his fingers through his hair. The look on his face was not unlike the resigned expression Ollie seemed to tender often. “Probably ’cause I was familiar. Someone she trusted. She didn’t do too much with folks at the plant. She just did her job and went home, you know? I don’t even know what she might have stumbled on to put her into such a tizzy.”

“She worked in laundry,” Imogene mumbled, her mind searching for something—anything—that might help to move her forward.

Harry nodded. “Yeah. The only thing I could gather was that she learned somethin’ about someone. And it pained her—a lot.”

“But what was it?” The question slipped from Imogene’s lips, even though she knew there wasn’t going to be a satisfactory response.

Harry shrugged as he grabbed a washrag to wipe off sticky drips of soda syrup from the bar. “I’ve no idea.” He stopped wiping and looked up for a moment, directly into Imogene’s eyes. “Funny thing is, she mentioned once she never thought the war would come home after it ended. I mean, I lost family and she knew that too, but that wasn’t what she was meaning. It was as though, for Hazel, the war wasn’t over yet.”

Imogene bid Lola farewell at the front door of Lola’s house in town. It was a subdued farewell. Both had expressed theories, conjecture, and Lola had made sure to bring up again the fact the post office had been blown apart. But outside of Harry’s vague account of his conversation with Hazel, there was nothing to take to the police to investigate, outside of what they would already think was a “wild theory.” Still, she’d share it with Chet later, when he came for dinner. If nothing else, maybe it would trigger something in Chet. Something he knew that she didn’t.

Besides, Imogene argued with Lola, while it seemed plausible to them in theory, it wasn’t consistent with Hazel. If she’d known someone was going to plant a homemade bomb at the post office, she surely would have told Chet straightaway. She would have been too concerned for the citizens who so easily could have been seriously wounded or killed.

Such thoughts were swarming in Imogene’s mind as she walked along the road toward the family farm. A robin swooped in front of her and pecked at the gravel. It fluttered away as Imogene’s toe kicked a pebble in its direction.

“Yes. Fly away.” Imogene wished she could too. She needed to work on the dollhouse tonight. But her insides revolted against the idea of once again visiting the scene of Hazel’s death in her mind. But with the little bit Harry had told her, maybe she could see things differently if she looked at them again. Perhaps she could remember what had been in the empty picture frame. Or maybe that was of no importance and something else would surface that would trigger a more logical theory.

She walked faster, but her body felt as though someone had hold of the back of her dress and was tugging her away from the dollhouse at the same time.

There’s something I didn’t tell Harry. Hazel’s voice resounded in Imogene’s mind. She glanced behind her. No one was there, no one pulling on her. It was a vacant, imagined feeling.

“Then what was it, Hazel?” Imogene asked aloud, her voice startling a few sparrows in the long grasses by the road.

Keep asking. You’ll find out.

“I can’t right now. I told Mother I’d make dinner tonight.” But she didn’t want to return to the farmhouse. She didn’t want to force herself to work on the dollhouse, to remember sweeping up the shards of Hazel’s teacup Chet had launched against the wall. She didn’t want to try to stop her mind from spinning, asking why had the teacup been on the table in the first place? Worse, she didn’t want to admit that the only person she could think of angry enough to blow up a government building and potentially even take Hazel’s life was . . .

Ivan.

Hazel’s voice stopped Imogene in her tracks. Her shoes crunched on the gravel. She covered her mouth with her palm, stifling a gasp. Clear as day. She’d heard Hazel’s voice clear as day. She was going crazy. Losing her marbles!

Imogene turned to look behind her again. All she saw was the long stretch of country road, the distant rooftops of town rising in the distance over a wide hill bordered by cornfields and trees. She twisted back and looked ahead of her. She could see the Schneider barn peeking over the knoll ahead. Beyond that would be their farm. But now? The road was empty. It was only her and the voice of her sister accusing their older brother Ivan of horrible, terrible things.

But it made sense.

If what Harry had implied was true, she would hurt someone either way if Hazel had known about the plan to blow up the post office and told or didn’t tell. If she didn’t tell, civilians could be horribly affected. If she did tell . . . and if it were Ivan . . .

“Why would Ivan build a homemade bomb to destroy the post office? What’s in the post office he’d even care about?” Imogene’s questions floated away on the wind. She waited, lost in her thoughts, still paused on the side of the road. “Ivan wouldn’t do such a thing!”

Family loyalty warred against the nagging sense that Hazel’s voice might not be one hundred percent imagined. Maybe she was speaking from beyond the grave. Now. Too late to save her or the post office, but maybe now she’d found a way to speak so as to avoid any further trauma. Any more horrid mistakes that Ivan might make.

He’d know how to build a bomb.

Imogene put her hands over her ears, shaking her head back and forth as though Hazel stood next to her. “Stop it. Stop. It wasn’t Ivan!”

He’s angry. Ever since the war, he’s not the same person anymore.

“But he—” Imogene’s argument cut off as she heard a car engine behind her. She’d been so wrapped in her own world, she hadn’t heard it in the distance. Now it was directly behind her. She spun and screamed as the front bumper of a black pickup grazed her hip. The motion flung her to the ground, mixing her cry with the scraping of gravel against her arms and legs. She rolled a few times, her body tangling with grass and dirt.

The truck stopped. Imogene could hear the door open as she lay facedown, dazed. Blackness warred with her vision as she tried to lift her head. Her hip throbbed, but worse than that was the petrifying sensation of someone watching her. Someone glaring at her from the vehicle. Imogene could feel their eyes boring into her back. Hatred. Anger. She didn’t even need to look up to know they had intended to do more than simply catapult her body into the weeds.

They’d intended to kill her.

Imogene’s fingers dug into the dirt, desperately trying to shove her body upward. The world was a spinning carousel. Cornstalks just behind the ditch blurred together. She tried to roll over, but the pain in her side caused a moan to escape her lips.

She heard footsteps. The engine of another vehicle coming swift behind them. Shoes crunching on the gravel as the driver sprinted back to the truck.

Then, silence.

A door slammed.

Stones spit from the rear tires as the truck peeled away. Imogene lifted her head, trying to see the truck, its color, make note of the driver. Though her vision was blurry from tears and pain, she saw a hat pulled low over the driver’s face and nothing more. The truck was nondescript, not unlike many of the trucks she’d ridden in. Even Daddy owned a black truck like that.

A sob escaped Imogene. She tried to roll over on her other side and this time succeeded, her eyes connecting with the brilliant blue summer sky as she lay on her back. Puffy white clouds like balls of cotton mashed together floated above her.

“Genie?”

The voice came from just above and to the right of her, and the quiet rumble of a vehicle’s motor greeted her ears.

“Genie?” The voice again. Male.

She screamed.

A hand touched her shoulder.

Imogene screamed again, clawing at the offender. She’d be darned if she died without a fight. Vivid memories of Hazel’s blood spattered across the wallpaper, the bedspread, and pooled on the floor gave Imogene more energy. The pain in her hip became nonexistent as her fingers gripped the cotton of the man’s shirt.

“No!” she screamed again, the words ripping from her throat, mingling with sobs of horror and a desperate bid for her life. Her hair flew in front of her face, blinding her as she hit and scratched the man.

Large hands wrapped around her wrists, holding her away from him. His grasp was ironlike and it pinched her skin. “Genie, stop! It’s me!” The voice broke through her terror. “It’s me! Ollie!”

Imogene’s struggle weakened. She flipped her hair from her eyes and blinked several times. Her fingers were still curled into claws, ready to fight, like a cat that had been cornered. Then her eyes connected with Ollie’s, the gentle blue in them faded, matching the color of his old pair of overalls.

“What’n heck happened?” Ollie’s grip loosened on her wrists as he must have seen recognition flash in her eyes. “I saw a truck pull away, but can’t figure who was drivin’ it. Looked like your daddy’s truck.”

“It wasn’t Daddy,” Imogene mumbled. She knew that much. Daddy would never hurt her. Never. She looked down the road. There was no truck other than Ollie’s, which idled on the shoulder just beyond them.

“Someone tried to—someone hit me. They were going to kill me.” Imogene swallowed back a sob, not even attempting to hide the fact she was terrified. Not trying to cover her insecurity and fear with any façade.

Ollie released her. “Okay. Okay. Let’s get you to a doctor, and we’ll get the police.”

“No!” Imogene reared back. “No—I—Chet will be angry with me.”

Ollie reached for her, his touch gentle on her arm. “He won’t be,” Ollie reassured her like one would a child. “Genie, honey, he won’t be. Let’s get you help.”

Imogene felt the hot trails of tears running down her face. Her body began to shake, and she barely registered it in her mind when Ollie wrapped an arm around her shoulders and helped her to stand. All she recognized was his warmth and the security he provided. The way her unassuming neighbor held her against himself. It was necessity, it was need, it was familiarity that made Imogene melt into Oliver Schneider. She needed him to fight this war for her. Just today. Just this moment. For her strength had dissipated and left a chasm of fear behind.