CHAPTER 40

Aggie

Mumsie sat up in the hospital bed. The blush had returned to her cheeks. Her eyes were aware, and she lifted her own cup of coffee to her lips. “Honestly—” she paused to swallow the brew—“one would think I almost died. All this attention and fuss.”

“You did almost die.” Aggie ignored Mumsie’s veiled complaint and adjusted the ties of her grandmother’s hospital gown.

“For pity’s sake.” Mumsie batted Aggie’s hand away, but there was a sheen over her eyes. The unspoken affection and gratefulness that Aggie knew Mumsie simply didn’t know how to voice.

“Well, Cricket,” Collin said from the other side of the bed, his eyes connecting with Aggie’s before meeting Mumsie’s soft smile at the newest moniker to be bestowed on her by Collin, “you have enough sass to live for another twenty years.”

Mumsie gave a curt nod, and her smile at Aggie insinuated that at least Collin understood she was all right. “I will. I plan to make it to one hundred and ten, and then if I keel over, so be it.”

“Why one hundred and ten?” Aggie couldn’t help but ask.

“Well, by then the game-show host of my word puzzles show will have retired—or died—and then it won’t be worth watching anymore.”

Of course.

Aggie exchanged amused glances with Collin, but then the seriousness of what had occurred earlier that morning returned. She’d called Collin from her phone the minute Glen Pickett had walked away. After telling Collin of Glen’s claim that the dead woman in the mystery grave was his aunt Ida, Collin had made some fast calls to follow up on that story. She wasn’t sure who he’d called—didn’t even know what, if anything, he’d uncovered. She certainly didn’t understand what Glen’s aunt Ida had to do with any of it, or why Glen had been so quick to leave his phone with Aggie after going to all the trouble of dropping a trail of threats to gain attention.

Aggie had yet to watch Sam Pickett’s video. Mumsie needed to be with her when she did so. If it was a confession of Hazel’s murder, Mumsie should hear it. Aggie was glad they were in the hospital. The idea of inducing another stroke was a real concern of hers.

“What is it?” Mumsie looked between them. “Someone die while I was asleep?”

“No.” Aggie shook her head. “Your friends were here, though, to be sure you didn’t.”

“The Three Stooges?” Mumsie squeaked, lifting her brows.

Aggie laughed. More evidence she and Mumsie were so similar. They’d even attributed the same title to Mumsie’s friends.

“Oh, they’re good sorts.” Mumsie’s smile was a satisfied one. She handed her coffee to Collin and adjusted her blanket. “A person needs family—even church family.”

Aggie fingered the phone in her pocket that Glen had left behind. She should call the police. But her knees felt better now, though bruised, and somehow calling the cops on old Glen Pickett seemed . . . cruel. She didn’t like the man, but at the same time, something about him just seemed so defeated. If anyone called the police on him, it would be Collin’s right. Glen’s admission to striking Collin at the cemetery still made no sense as far as motive, but it was enough to have him arrested.

“Mumsie?” Aggie started, pulling the phone from her pocket. “Glen Pickett visited me this morning.”

“That boy?” Mumsie scowled. “Trouble in a handbasket.”

“Like his father?” Aggie led.

Mumsie gave her a quick look. “Sam Pickett was troubled. He did some bad things, but—”

“But he loved Hazel,” Aggie finished for Mumsie.

Mumsie’s expression confirmed Glen’s story. “Sometimes a person can’t help who they love.” There was a wistfulness in her voice, and a faraway look entered her eyes. Then she blinked and it disappeared as fast as it came.

Aggie glanced at Collin, who was eyeing her from across the bed. She dropped her gaze.

“Glen gave me this.” Aggie showed the phone screen to Mumsie.

Mumsie’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened in a small o. “Sam,” she breathed. Her eyes locked with Aggie’s. “People said he killed my sister. But he didn’t. I’ve always believed him.”

“Is that why you allowed him to be buried in the Grayson cemetery?” Aggie reached for a chair and scooted it next to the bed. She lowered onto it. Collin followed her lead and leaned onto the sill of the window that overlooked the parking lot.

Mumsie’s lips tightened. “Yes. No one seemed to care about Sam Pickett after he was sent away. Everyone thought it was all over, though he never once confessed to killing Hazel. That dollhouse? I’ve spent seventy years looking at it. Pondering it. No matter how I studied it, how I try to remember, I can’t fit the pieces together. I know he loved Hazel, and . . . and I believe she loved him too.”

Collin adjusted his weight on the broad windowsill, his hands bracing on either side of him. “Did you notice anything missing from Hazel’s room after she died?”

Mumsie shifted her gaze to him. “I did.” A swift nod followed. “Her shoes. A pair of short-heeled oxfords. And a picture—one of her art pieces. She had one by her bedside. Although, for all the details I recall, I’ve never been able to remember what it was of. I even asked my mother and daddy, and my best friend, Lola. None of us had ever paid it much mind.”

Collin cleared his throat, and the sound drew Aggie’s attention. He stood and returned to Mumsie’s side, taking her hand and easing down onto the bed. “Cricket, we found Hazel’s shoes. Well, the heel of one.”

Mumsie’s eyes widened. “You did? Where?”

“In a grave. Buried in Fifteen Puzzle Row,” Aggie supplied.

Collin nodded. “At least I think it’s hers. There was also this.” He pulled the man’s ring from his pocket and handed it to Mumsie.

Mumsie held up the ring, reading the inscription. She laid it in her palm, cupping it with her other hand, breathing in a deep sigh and closing her eyes. “Ohhh, my sweet Hazel. What did you do?”

Collin shot a glance at Aggie. “I’ve been doing some records searching. Hazel and Sam—they were married. About two months before Hazel died.”

Aggie clamped her hand over her mouth, biting back her cry of surprise.

Mumsie didn’t open her eyes. A sorrowful smile touched her lips, with hints of hurt at the corners. “Oh, Hazel,” she breathed, “you could’ve told me.” She slid the ring on her thumb and opened her brilliant green eyes framed in gray-black lashes. “I’m not surprised. I knew there was more to the story.”

“I think we should hear the rest from Sam.” Collin gave Aggie a meaningful look.

She didn’t want to upset Mumsie. She would throw the phone into the garbage and live her life with no answers if she had to.

Mumsie’s hand—the one with Hazel’s ring on her arthritic, curved thumb—reached out and felt for Aggie’s. She searched Aggie’s face and offered her a small smile. “I need to know, Agnes. I’ve waited . . . seventy years.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Aggie lifted the phone, swiped at the black screen, and hit play.

“My name is Sam Pickett. I spent most my life in prison, and now I s’pose I wasted most of it. Problem was, I was angry. A man gives his all for his country and comes home to find his country took it all . . . well, that’s not why I’m recording this. I want you, Glen, to know once and for all, and from my mouth for the thousandth time: I did not kill Hazel Grayson. When I came home from the war, my first wife, your mama, had died. I was alone and had no land. My sister Ida and I had to beg off my aunt for a place to live. But I loved Hazel. I did. We met at the plant. She was Ida’s friend. Young, pretty thing, with a smile that could light up heaven.”

Aggie glanced up from the phone to Mumsie. Mumsie nodded, agreeing with Sam. A lone tear trickled down her cheek.

“I told Hazel what I wanted to do. Make the government pay for movin’ in on our farm. On her family land and cemetery. Then, when Ida reminded me that the Graysons had been so kind as to let them bury your mama there—my Bonnie—I was doubly mad. But Hazel, she got a hit of conscience, said God wouldn’t approve, that we were raised better’n that. That God would bring somethin’ good out of it all.”

The image of Sam Pickett blurred, then came back into focus. Sam cleared his throat and rubbed his hands over his eyes. His wrinkled skin sagged, jowls on the sides of his chin. He looked directly into the camera.

“I still don’t see what good God brought of it. Hazel was killed. My new wife. Killed ’cause Hazel threatened to tell on me. Well, Hazel should have! She was right. What I did wasn’t worth wastin’ my life over! Wasn’t worth the hurt I caused you, Glen. But she was angry and scared . . . she killed Hazel.”

“Who?” Mumsie leaned forward, her voice shaking. “Who was angry at Hazel?”

Sam seemed to look past the camera. His voice became garbled.

“I’d do it all over again. She had no right. No right to take Hazel from me. A few weeks after Hazel died and Ida was suddenly wearing new shoes. We didn’t have much money between the two of us, and plain as they were, I recognized Hazel’s shoes. I knew. I knew right away what Ida had done and what she’d kept quiet all this time.”

Mumsie’s gasp was loud. She sagged against the pillows. Aggie reached to pause the video, but Collin’s hand stilled her. He gave his head a small shake.

“Ida told me she went to talk to Hazel. To tell Hazel she needed to let me do what I needed to do. Ida was so shy, I didn’t think she had it in her. She said Hazel took her up to her bedroom to talk. Ida said she got so mad that she hit her. Hit Hazel when she turned to go back downstairs and start supper for her family. When Ida told me Hazel begged her—begged her to stop—Ida didn’t. Then she had the guts to come runnin’ to me in Hazel’s shoes. Thinkin’ I’d somehow be thankful. Thinkin’ I’d understand. Well, I didn’t understand. I’ll never understand. I for sure had no intention of understandin’!”

Aggie’s hand was shaking. Collin relieved her of the phone as Aggie crawled onto the bed next to Mumsie. Mumsie leaned into her, and Aggie held her. Held the woman who had raised Mom, who had lived alone all these years, who’d been accused of being persnickety and eccentric. The woman whose heart had been broken all those years before and never healed.

“I don’t remember much. Just remember going to Hazel’s grave after Ida and I had it out, and cryin’ in the rain. Then I dug a hole way down and threw in my ring. Then Ida. Burying my sister not far from Hazel, I just became numb. Been numb ever since. Left a note for my aunt from Ida sayin’ she went to New York. I got arrested after gettin’ in a tussle with Imogene Grayson. As for Ida’s grave, no one visited that section of the cemetery. It was old. Untended. I figured no one would spot the grave an’—well, if they did, so be it. It wasn’t where Hazel shoulda been buried. I shouldn’t have buried Ida there neither. God save me if I didn’t love them both, Hazel and my sister. And yet after all of it, they were both dead. Just dead. I couldn’t go back and change nothin’.”

The video bugged out for a brief moment, then came back.

One last glimpse of Sam’s face. One last thought. “It’ll never be over. Not till we choose to move on, and . . . and it’s too late for me.”

Collin had turned off the phone a few minutes before, but no one spoke. Mumsie reached for a tissue, her hand trembling. Aggie brushed a curl off Mumsie’s face.

“You okay?” A silly, inept question.

Mumsie drew in a shaky breath. “So much loss.”

Collin eased off the bed, setting the phone on the hospital table. He caught Aggie’s eyes. “I’ll leave you two to chat, all right?”

Aggie wanted to reach out for him, to ask him to stay, to hold his hand and insist he was one of them. Part of them. Somehow. But she couldn’t—she didn’t. She watched him lean over and give Mumsie a kiss on her cheek.

Mumsie patted his cheek in return. “Well. Chivalry isn’t dead then,” she quipped.

The creases in his cheeks deepened. “Not dead. Very much alive.”

“Thank the Lord.” Mumsie patted his cheek one more time. “You remind me of someone I once knew—he was a good man too.”

Collin smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should,” Mumsie stated.

Collin gave Aggie a lingering look, then exited the room, leaving behind a waft of spicy cologne and the memory of his soft eyes and caring warmth.

Aggie shook off the undefinable feelings and adjusted herself next to Mumsie. “It’s just you and me now, Mumsie. I won’t leave you. I promise. I should have come home after Mom died, but I—”

Mumsie squeezed Aggie’s hand. “Death deals a wicked hand. We all respond differently, and not always the way we should.”

Aggie pulled away so she could look down at Mumsie, who rested beside her. “What do you mean?”

Mumsie’s voice shook a little. Whether from age or emotion, Aggie wasn’t sure. “After Hazel died, I . . . I had a chance for happiness. I probably had the opportunity to heal, but I couldn’t. Hazel lived with me, both in my mind and my heart. It wasn’t resolved.” Her eyes drifted to Glen’s phone on the table. “I guess it wasn’t resolved for most of us.”

Aggie nodded. “Why do you suppose Glen did that? Left the flowers, the notes? Attacked Collin at the cemetery?”

“I should’ve listened to the boy. Let him in the house, taken his phone calls. He always was just a step away from crazy—the Picketts always were. I suppose poor Glen finally just gave up trying to talk to me, to get my attention, and just threw in the towel.”

Aggie shrugged. “It would’ve saved everyone a lot of hassle if he’d just brought you the phone in the first place and asked you to defend Sam’s name.”

Mumsie pursed her lips and sighed. “If only humankind would do things the simple, honest way. But we don’t. For whatever reason, we have to take the hard way.”

“What good is it for Glen to clear his father’s name anyway? The rest of the world wouldn’t care.” Aggie hated to be harsh, but the truth was the truth.

“Justice.” Mumsie’s response was quick. “Justice.”

“How is that justice?” Aggie felt restless. She sat up from beside Mumsie and eased herself onto the floor. She moved to the hospital window. “Is it justice to send an old woman into a stroke?”

“He wanted his daddy’s name cleared of Hazel’s murder,” Mumsie answered. “She wasn’t supposed to die. If you look at it from Glen’s point of view, Hazel was going to be his new mama.”

“A happily-ever-after,” Aggie said.

Mumsie nodded. “And then you and Collin started to dig around the cemetery. Well, that part didn’t need unburied. That’d only prove what Glen wanted to disprove—that his daddy was a killer. Just not who everyone thought he killed.”

The puzzle pieces came together in Aggie’s mind. She spun from the window. “Glen wanted to instigate us into researching Hazel’s death. He wanted us to figure out that Sam didn’t do it, but he didn’t want us to uncover more of Sam’s grievances. And the fact he’d killed his own sister, Ida.”

“That’s what I’d guess.” Mumsie tapped the table with Glen’s phone on it. “And he’d have saved a lot of trouble if he’d taken the simple way. But then I can’t say a word, seeing as how I’ve never taken the simple way myself.”

“Didn’t you suspect Glen? With all the weird things happening lately?” Looking back, the pieces were falling so well into place that it all seemed obvious now, almost too obvious.

“Agnes, I’ve suspected so many people my entire life, I’ve learned to dismiss myself as much as I’ve believed myself.”

There was an eerie ring of truth to Mumsie’s words. Her sister’s murder had rested on her shoulders for decades, with every clue, every lead, every suspicion ending in nothing. It was no wonder she’d dismissed Glen’s advances. Foolish perhaps, but no wonder.

“We’ll have to get the police involved,” Aggie said.

“Of course,” Mumsie replied. “Sending an old woman pig bones and dropping a dummy skeleton into her backyard is a bit of an overstep.”

“You think he left the skeleton there too?” Aggie supposed it made sense.

Mumsie rubbed her eyes. “I think it’s likely. But then, like I said, the whole Pickett family has always been a little off.”

Aggie absently reached for her knees, rubbing them.

Mumsie picked up Glen’s phone and handed it to Aggie. “Go. File your police report.”

Aggie took the phone and rounded the bed. As she reached for her purse, a nagging thought pressed into her. She turned, studying Mumsie for a moment.

“Spit it out, Agnes,” Mumsie directed.

“John Hayward, my grandfather . . . did you bury him somewhere else?” While Aggie knew the answer was probably yes, the unresolved element of her grandfather’s missing grave irked her.

Mumsie’s smile dimmed, and she nodded. “I did. After Hazel died, I moved to California for many years. He died there, and after that I moved back home to Mill Creek.” She gave a sad laugh. “I thought if I kept moving . . . maybe I’d forget. Somehow.”

“But you didn’t?” Aggie sank into the chair she’d abandoned earlier.

Mumsie took a deep breath. “Never. I met and married John—your grandfather—not long after I moved to California.”

Aggie narrowed her eyes. There was something in the way Mumsie said it . . . “Did you—weren’t you happy?”

Mumsie looked down at her hands. “I was happy. As happy as I could be.”

Aggie sensed a big hesitation. “What is it?” She leaned forward in the chair.

Mumsie lifted her eyes. “Agnes, don’t let grief tie your years up into a lifetime of regrets. Let the good Lord take care of your aches and heal you. So that you don’t miss out on the good—on the blessings He hides in the middle of all that hurting.”

The lump in Aggie’s throat grew. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Mumsie reached out, and Aggie took her hand. Mumsie’s familiar green eyes crinkled at the corners as her lips shook with emotion. “Grief can become its own prison, Agnes. Once there, getting out is—nigh impossible.”

The image of Mom flooded Aggie’s memory. She swiped at her eyes as tears filled them. “I miss her. I hate cancer, Mumsie. I can’t—I don’t know how to move forward.”

Mumsie squeezed Aggie’s hand. A warmth Aggie had never seen in Mumsie spread over her face, consumed her eyes, and crossed the space between them, drawing her in.

“You stop moving,” she whispered. “You go ahead and let the grief consume you, because then it will heal you, free you, and the good Lord can move into its place and show you promise. Promise that there is so much more life to live. So many more people to love. And the footprints of those who’ve gone before you? They’ll still be there. Memories to warm you when you’re old.”

“Did you? Stop moving?” Aggie lifted Mumsie’s hand to her cheek.

Mumsie nodded. “Finally. After your mama passed. Saying goodbye to my daughter . . .” Mumsie choked up, pinching her lips together. “No mother wishes to have their baby go before them. But I was tired of living in that dark place all these years. And”—Mumsie met Aggie’s eyes—“I was done wasting my opportunities with the people I cherished. That’s when I wrote you and told you that little white lie.”

Aggie laughed. “That you broke your hip?”

“Heaven knows I had to bring you home somehow.” Mumsie’s eyes were shadowed, yet there was contentment in them. “I lost many chances, Aggie, but I still have you.”

“For always.” Aggie leaned into Mumsie’s hand.

“So long as you stop throwing away the plastic baggies and learn to wash them!” Mumsie scolded.

“I promise,” Aggie laughed.

“Now, go find your archaeologist and let him know.”

“Let him know what?”

Mumsie tilted her head and gave Aggie a knowing look. “If you don’t beat all, girl. Let the boy know you’re gonna stop moving.”