CHAPTER 39

With a quick twist, she could grab the old man’s ankles and yank. He’d come down fast and hard, and she could run. He’d probably break a hip. Aggie wasn’t sure if she cared—or if she should care.

“Get up.” The old man nudged her leg with his cane.

Aggie complied, holding the car as she limped to her feet. Though her knees throbbed, she found she could stand.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?” Aggie adjusted her grip on the door handle.

“Your grandmother’s room.”

Aggie had no desire to take this crazy old man to Mumsie’s room. The last thing Mumsie needed was another stroke. She’d tolerated far more than enough.

“No. No, we’re not going to see Mumsie. You’re telling me right here and right now who the heck you are—and who this Ida is—or I’m calling the cops.”

The man gave her a thin smile. “I’ll use my cane again.”

Aggie glowered at him. “And I’ll fight you for it and return the favor. If you want to go up against a younger woman, feel free, but I’m afraid my bones are tougher than yours.”

He blanched, lowering his cane and leaning on it. The fight appeared to be seeping from him. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and shook his head. “I didn’t want you to find Ida’s grave. I just wanted my daddy’s name cleared from Hazel’s death.”

“Who’s your father?” Aggie demanded.

“Sam Pickett.” He heaved a sigh. “I’m Sam’s son. Glen.”

Aggie leaned against her car, crossing her arms, tendering the knee that had taken the brunt of the old man’s strike. “Glen Pickett?”

“Yes.” Glen nodded. “My aunt Ida is the dead woman your archaeologist friend is trying to get identified.”

“How do you know this?” Aggie narrowed her eyes at him.

Glen shifted his weight again.

She raised an eyebrow. Don’t make me hit you, old man.

He seemed to get the unspoken message. “Can we sit down?” he asked.

As if they were going to exchange pleasantries and forget the caning incident? Aggie shook her head. “You sit.” She motioned to the cast-iron bench on a small strip of grass by the sidewalk. “I’ll stand.”

He hobbled to the bench and eased onto it. Aggie stood over him. Her knees continued to throb in pain. Stupid old man. He was lucky she hadn’t called the cops—yet.

“Start from the beginning. No riddles. I still hold you responsible for Mumsie’s condition.”

Glen nodded. Aggie noticed a smattering of age spots on his sagging cheeks. Standing over him, he was far less threatening and more pathetic. A pathetic, sad old man with a spiteful streak.

“My father, Sam, was in love with Hazel Grayson. They were gonna get married. I still remember Hazel. Sweetest thing ever. She used to bring me lollipops. Never told anyone they were courting. My daddy didn’t have a nice reputation around town.”

“Shocking,” Aggie muttered.

Glen shot her a look. “They had a mutual interest, my daddy and Hazel.”

“Their properties the ammunition plant bought out?”

“Figured that much out, did ya?” Glen raised his brows.

“But I can’t figure out why Sam’s buried in my family cemetery.”

“Your grandmother,” Glen supplied frankly. “She knew my daddy and Hazel loved each other. I don’t know how she knew, but she did. Years ago, when Daddy died, I realized for the first time that maybe he wasn’t guilty of everything they accused him of. Maybe he didn’t kill Hazel Grayson. ’Cause, see, that never made any sense to me. Even as a five-year-old lad, I knew they loved each other. Hazel had given him a ring even. I heard her tell Daddy that it was backward—her givin’ him a ring—but she didn’t dare wear an engagement ring. Not yet. Not until her family understood.”

Aggie adjusted her weight onto her other foot, crossing her arms and glaring down at Glen. “So he killed her? And what does your aunt Ida have to do with all this?”

Glen reached for the deep pocket of his coat.

Aggie took a step back, holding out her palm. “Hold on.”

The man lifted aged eyes, a hefty amount of exasperation in them. “I don’t have a gun.”

Aggie glowered at him. “You cracked me on the knees.”

Glen nodded as he pulled a phone from his pocket. “That I did.”

“And you left roses on Hazel’s grave.”

Glen’s eyes had a nostalgic film over them. “I did that too. It’s not over. My daddy’s name needed cleared.”

“But he blew up the post office and burned down the town hall,” Aggie argued.

Glen shrugged his bony shoulders and readjusted his grip on his cane propped between his knees. “But he didn’t kill Hazel. She didn’t deserve to die. My daddy didn’t deserve to do life in prison.”

Aggie leaned forward and stared directly into the old man’s eyes. “He blew up the post office.” What couldn’t the man understand? Even if Sam hadn’t killed Hazel, he certainly didn’t deserve to walk away free after that. “Well, what about the pig bones? Why send my grandmother those bone fragments?”

Glen gave her a narrow-eyed look from behind his thick lenses. Studying her. Thinking. “Your grandmother’s getting old. She’s gonna die one of these days, and she’s the only person left who believes my daddy didn’t do it. I needed to shake her up. Get her to talk. And she wasn’t doing a thing. Just sitting in that old house waiting to die.”

“So you tried to scare the life out of her? Whatever happened to an old-fashioned house call and a conversation?” Aggie wasn’t sure she’d ever sensed such a fierce protectiveness course through her.

“I tried. A couple of times about two years ago. She knew me well enough to understand who I was. She didn’t want to talk to me. She’d hang up on me when I called.” Glen shook his head. “I never meant to hurt her, but I had to get her attention. I figured she’d see I was serious. The roses—Hazel’s favorite pink ones. The note. The bones—sort of like an unsolved crime, you know? She should’ve got the message. But she chose to turn a blind eye. Maybe it was all too painful, I don’t know! But she finally answered her phone the other night when I tried the ‘old-fashioned way,’ as you put it. She kept telling me it was over. But it’s not! My daddy doesn’t deserve to be tagged with that girl’s death!”

“And you’re not sorry,” Aggie surmised. “About any of it? You’re unhinged.”

Glen looked up at her and shrugged. “Sometimes it’s too late for ‘I’m sorry.’”

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

He swiped at his phone screen, tapped it, tapped it again, then held it out to Aggie. “Watch.”

She reached for the phone, shooting a cautious look at him.

It was a paused video of a TV screen. The image on the set was blurry, but she could make out an elderly man’s profile, blued by the coloring of the video.

“Who is it?”

“Press play.” Glen was picking at his thumbnail.

Aggie braved the bench and eased down at the far end of it, away from Glen. She tapped the phone screen. The video was a bit shaky. Someone had held up the phone and recorded another video playing on the TV.

The man on the screen was speaking. It was garbled. Difficult to hear. Aggie drew the phone closer to her face.

“My name is Sam Pickett . . .”

Aggie gave Glen a startled look.

He was gone.

She surged to her feet, his phone still in her hand, Sam’s voice playing in the background. “Glen!” Aggie shouted. She spun in a circle, scanning the sidewalk. There he was. Moving fast for an old man with a cane. “Glen!” she shouted again. But he ignored her. Payback for being ignored the last many months? Perhaps. Aggie had no intention of launching bones at him to regain his attention, though.

Besides, Glen had left behind answers. Maybe all the answers even. In the voice of a man who seemed to connect them all.

Imogene

Imogene had rung Lola. Their chat was brief. Lola said that the entire town was subdued since Sam Pickett’s arrest. She told Imogene she’d gone to visit Sam’s aunt and Ida—to take them a loaf of bread and some muffins—but Sam’s aunt said Ida hadn’t been home since before Sam had been arrested. She’d found a note from Ida saying she was hopping a train and going to New York City.

“What about Sam’s son?” Imogene asked her friend.

“He’s with their aunt,” Lola responded.

“I hate everything about this,” Imogene mumbled into the phone.

“You and me both,” Lola said.

Imogene hung up the phone. She found Mother sitting at the table. She looked up at Imogene and pushed a teapot toward her.

“Have some,” said Mother.

Imogene nodded and sat down. Pouring the lemon tea—Hazel’s favorite—Imogene watched the honey-brown liquid slosh into the blue cup.

“I did it.” Mother’s declaration was soft but firm.

Imogene glanced up, setting the teapot down with a thud. “You did what?”

Mother met her eyes. “I poured Hazel’s tea. That night Daddy shot the raccoon? I’d been up just minutes before. Made tea. Poured it. I was drinking it on the front porch. Then I heard the raccoon and figured Daddy would hear it rustling around out there. One of the dogs was sure to bark. So I came back in. ’Course, I didn’t latch the door, so the wind blew it and scared you silly, but I hightailed it back to bed. I’m so sorry I never said anything.”

“Why?” Imogene remembered the steaming cup of tea. That feeling that Hazel had been there—but wasn’t. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Why not just tell me? Or tell Chet? So we didn’t wonder?”

“Because . . .” Mother’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I missed her. I just—missed her. I wanted to remember.”

Imogene reached across the table and took her mother’s hand in hers. Their eyes locked in mutual understanding. “I’ll never stop missing her,” Imogene murmured. Because it was true.

“Red in the mornin’ . . .”

The words knifed her heart as Imogene stared across the valley, the brilliance of the sunrise stretching over Wisconsin farmland like a wash of blood reminding the world what had been shed in recent times. Reminding Imogene what she had lost.

She gave Ollie a sad smile as he strode up beside her on the hillside, hands buried in his overall pockets. His hair was damp, like he’d just showered.

“They all want me to say goodbye to her.” Imogene’s admission was quiet and drifted into the morning air. She watched as Daddy strode across the yard toward the barn, his frame small from their vantage point on the hill. The dog bounded beside him and then paused, catching sight of a cat. He barked and took off after the feline. The tabby scurried under the fence and toward the cows, dodging the Holsteins’ hooves and escaping the playful dog.

Ollie cleared his throat. “I never found sayin’ goodbye to be worth the while.”

Imogene tugged her hand-knitted sweater around her dress as the breeze brushed a ghostly reminder over them, as if Hazel had swept by hoping they’d take notice.

It’d been days since Imogene had heard Hazel’s voice. She knew it was her own heart that kept Hazel alive. She knew Hazel didn’t really talk to her, that Hazel was dead. Still, everything in Imogene wanted to converse with her sister. Somehow see Hazel just as she had the day she’d escaped from Sam. Beautiful, gentle, soft, sweet Hazel.

“I don’t think he did it, Ollie,” Imogene whispered.

She noticed Ollie’s face shadow at her words. He looked at her, his shoulder brushing hers as he stood beside her. “Still think Sam’s a good guy, huh?”

Imogene shot him a quick glance. “No,” she answered quickly. Maybe too quickly. Ollie didn’t look as though he believed her. She took a step away from Ollie. A little distance. A little distance might be helpful. The headiness of having him standing beside her caused a battle of emotions to swirl inside. She wanted to launch herself in his arms, have him hold her, kiss her, pretend that life was fairy tales and handsome soldiers returned heroic from war. But she also knew that life wasn’t like that. It was dark, empty, and all too often void of satisfactory answers.

“I just don’t think he killed Hazel,” she said belatedly.

Ollie grunted.

“Do you?” Imogene wanted to know. Needed to know what Ollie thought.

His shoulders rose in a shrug. “Reckon I don’t know. Makes sense he did, though. ’Specially if she was gonna blow the whistle on him. He tried to hurt you. Even admitted to hittin’ you with his truck. Tryin’ to get you out of his way. Get you to stop nosin’ around his business. He confessed to callin’ me to rush into the town hall to save you when you weren’t even there. Thought somehow even I was catchin’ on to him. So he tried to kill me too. Heck, he destroyed buildings out of revenge, Genie! I don’t see why anyone could think he ain’t capable of murder.”

“But why would he—?” She stopped, hesitated, then plunged forward, voicing her doubts to the one person she ached would understand her. “Why would Sam confess to all that and not to Hazel’s death? He’s already going away for the rest of his life. What does it matter if he admits to murder too?”

Ollie was quiet. He either didn’t have a response or simply knew Imogene wouldn’t agree with his response. No one would understand her reticence to blame Sam. Not really. Logic said all the evidence pointed to him. But other pieces—the dollhouse pieces—didn’t. The cockeyed photograph of the family cemetery. It should mean nothing to Sam, so why stop to look at it, touch it? Hazel’s missing shoes . . .

“We’re never going to agree,” Imogene admitted quietly. It was like an unscalable fence had suddenly risen between them.

Ollie glanced at her before refocusing on the horizon. “There ain’t always answers for everything. Sometimes you just gotta move on, even when you’re screamin’ Why? on the inside.”

His words were spoken from some deep place inside him. The wounds that festered and that he never spoke of. The agony that Ollie had packed within himself when he came home, like he’d packed his Army trunk when he first went to war.

“How do you move on?” Imogene took a step closer to him. The distance between them was painful, especially now as a tingling of worry rose that they wouldn’t be able to heal from their grief to start anew.

Ollie glanced at her.

Imogene filled in the blanks of his unspoken question. “War. Losing buddies. Watching people die.”

The only response was the breeze. Then the crooning warble of a mourning dove. The lonesome, guttural moo of a cow.

“I haven’t” was Ollie’s reply. “I just keep tryin’.”

She had no response. Keep trying. It wasn’t what Imogene wanted to hear. The closure she was aching for seemed so far away. Hazel’s death hung like a black flag draped over life, reminding her every day that someone had been stolen from her.

“But you brought me home.” Ollie’s quiet admission caused Imogene’s breath to stick. She looked up at him. He met her eyes and turned. “I remembered you. Every day. I needed a reason to make it home.”

What was her reason? Imogene couldn’t ask the question. It was remarkably selfish in light of the care and honesty that emanated from Ollie’s eyes.

“Ollie . . .” She didn’t know what to say. Two months ago, before Hazel had died, she might have laughed. Might have toyed with Ollie, flirted, maybe even melted a little under his brooding look. The loyalty there, the sincerity—a girl should love it. But it only caused more pain. A dull, aching sensation deep in her heart that told her she couldn’t climb the insurmountable agony of loss to get to the place of hope she wanted to be in.

A knowing look washed over Ollie’s face, replaced then with defeat. “I get it.” He nodded. “I know.”

Imogene reached out, laying her hand on his arm. “Ollie, I don’t . . .” She didn’t what? Didn’t love him? Didn’t at least have feelings for him? She did! Oh, she did, sure as shootin’, but . . . “I don’t have anything to give you right now.”

They were the whispered words of a broken heart. Flayed open in all their truth, painful and raw. A truth that ruined good things as the bad crept across the final remnants of optimism, suffocating her future along with her joy.

“Nothin’?” Ollie’s question pierced her.

Imogene’s eyes brimmed with tears. She let them spill over onto her cheeks. “Do you? Do you have anything to give?”

The way he blinked. The way his face winced. The way he looked over her shoulder and away from her eyes told Imogene all she needed to know.

Ollie was right. Saying goodbye wasn’t worthwhile. So, she wouldn’t. Not today. She wrapped her arm around his and leaned her head against his shoulder. But someday. Someday soon she would, and Ollie would live his life and she would live hers. Forever in the shadow of grief and a longing for what should have been.

Maybe one day a sunset would come, sweep the valley in its red delights, and promise a new beginning.

Today was not that day.