Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
It began to rain as we left the cemetery after Ella’s funeral. “It’s almost as if God was crying because she had such a sad end to her life,” Burdette said as we drove back to the house. Neighbors were kind enough to look after their children and Josie so that the four of us could help Uncle Ernest greet friends who came to pay their respects at Bramblewood, and there was a steady procession throughout the afternoon.
The last caller had just left when Sheriff Yeager drove up, and I knew when I saw his face he had something important on his mind.
Uncle Ernest hurried to meet him. “Have they found her?”
The sheriff took off his hat and looked around for a place to put it. “Not yet, but we found out where she’d been before she came here.” He passed the dripping hat to Grady, who stuck it on the bust of Darwin the college had given my uncle upon his retirement. “It’s that same town in Pennsylvania where Beverly Briscoe was living.”
“I knew it, I just knew it!” Cousin Violet said. Her hunch about Casey had been right and she was reluctant to relinquish the limelight, but this time everybody ignored her, including me.
“Do you think they knew each other?” Grady asked.
“I’m sure they did.” The sheriff accepted a seat on the sofa and a cup of punch from Ma Maggie. “When we did a background check, we learned they’d worked at the same place—the Sow and Grow—some kind of gardening store, I think.”
Uncle Ernest started to sit, then changed his mind. “So . . . you think Rose had something to do with Beverly’s death?”
Sheriff Yeager nodded. “It certainly seems likely. The police up there spoke with some of the employees and they told them Beverly talked about Bishop’s Bridge a lot—you know, the people here and all. Couldn’t wait to get back here, they said.”
“I spoke with one of Beverly’s coworkers at her funeral,” Ma Maggie said. “Nice young woman—Debbie, I think her name was. She said they used to tease Bev about being from the South, but Bev just laughed and told them she was going to write a book some day about some of the more interesting people she knew.”
“Meaning me, I suppose.” Uncle Ernest finally decided to sit. “Only the word is eccentric, I believe.”
I could tell the sheriff was trying not to smile. “Actually, she had told some of them about you, but I—”
“And how I still kept up my wife’s garden even though she’d been gone almost forty years?” My uncle’s eyes were bleak.
Ma Maggie put a hand on his arm. “Ernest, it was no secret that you never got over loving Rose—not for a long time, anyway. Beverly knew that as well as anybody.”
“But why kill Beverly?” My husband stood behind me, his hand on my shoulder.
“Rose knew you had some valuable property that had become even more valuable over the years,” the sheriff said to my uncle. “And from what we’ve been able to piece together, once she learned you hadn’t remarried, that you obviously still cared about her, she must have thought she would inherit.”
“Imagine the conceit!” Violet, who was collecting empty cups, almost dropped the tray. “To think you’d leave anything to her!”
I don’t think I imagined this, but Uncle Ernest actually blushed! “To tell the truth, I never did get around to changing my will,” he said. “Guess I’d better make an appointment with Goat.”
“The sooner, the better!” my grandmother told him.
“But when Rose learned you’d started seeing Belinda, she knew she had to act fast,” Burdette pointed out.
“Right.” Sheriff Yeager finished his punch and gave the cup to Violet. “We’re speculating here, but I think it’s a given that Beverly told her you were interested in someone.”
Grady nodded. “She would. It made a good story, and Bev loved telling stories.” He smiled. “She really should’ve written a book.”
“But that meant Beverly had to go,” I said. “Rose knew Bev planned to come home, and would know immediately who she was.”
“Casey arrived here soon after Beverly was killed.” Uncle Ernest spoke softly. “My God! What kind of deranged person has she become?”
“A greedy one, I’m afraid,” the sheriff said.
He was getting ready to leave when he got a call on his cell phone informing him police had apprehended Rose Dutton at a rest stop near Wilmington, North Carolina.
“Has she admitted anything?” Uncle Lum asked.
“Not yet, but they haven’t had time to interrogate her,” the sheriff said. “They did say, though, she didn’t act surprised when they caught up with her.”
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While Ned and Burdette went to collect the children, Marge and I helped Leona in the kitchen.
“Can you believe Rose was posing as a caretaker to take care of her own garden?” Aunt Leona splashed detergent in the sink and turned the faucets on full force.
“Except Uncle Ernest wouldn’t let her in there,” Marge said. “But Rose knew about taking care of lawns and liked being outside, and Uncle Ernest says she was always good with flowers, so I guess it was a natural idea for a cover-up.”
I snatched a dishtowel from the drawer and started on the punch cups. “Sounds like she kept her distance from Uncle Ernest as much as possible. I think Ella was the one she dealt with mostly.”
“Yeah, she dealt with her all right!” Marge scraped food scraps into a trash can—no garbage disposal here. “I guess she thought Ella wouldn’t recognize her or had forgotten all about her by now.”
“I don’t think Ella forgot much of anything,” Leona said. “She could still quote some of those long epic poems she memorized in high school.” She smiled. “You didn’t want to encourage her.”
“Ella must have said something to make Rose suspect that she knew who she was, and—oh, my Lord, it makes my blood run cold!” Marge shivered. “I guess Rose felt she had to get Ella out of the way before everyone got here for the reunion and she confided in somebody.
“Thank God Hartley found Belinda’s purse before she ended up the same way! And to think I scolded him for playing with it.” Marge took a broom to the kitchen floor as if she were walloping Rose herself.
“And I felt sorry for Casey when Uncle Ernest tore into him for not getting rid of those yellow jackets,” I said. “But that was when Violet says she first began to suspect.”
Aunt Leona passed me a dripping plate. “Well . . . Violet says a lot of things. Of course, she was right this time, but did she really think it was Casey?”
“Says she did, and that’s why she came up with the idea to throw that out about evidence being hidden in the toolshed,” I said. I stacked the plate with the rest and tackled the silverware. “I had no idea Casey was a woman, but for a while I thought he might be the hippie, Shamrock, come back to look for valuables—money or something—he hid here years ago.”
Marge hesitated with her broom in midsweep. “It just occurred to me we’re not suspects anymore! We can go anywhere we like.”
“Oh, bosh, Marjorie! We never were suspects,” Aunt Leona told her. “I don’t think the police even seriously considered Ernest. How could anyone think he’d have a hand in killing somebody?”
I didn’t want to admit the thought had crossed my mind.
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For the first time in weeks, my husband, daughter and myself spent the night alone together as a family. The next day we planned to leave for home, and home had a different meaning now. A sweet word. Somebody should write a song about it.
The three of us grilled hamburgers in my parents’ backyard while Josie and I caught Ned up on the events of the last few days, including the birth of my nephew. I watched his face when I told him about the new baby and saw a flicker of something akin to regret, but it didn’t linger. “We’ll probably all fight over holding him when they come for Christmas,” he said, laughing.
The mosquitoes soon drove us inside, and after Josie went to bed, Ned and I sat quietly together with a glass of wine in the family room. “We can try again, you know,” I told him, touching my glass to his.
“Try? Oh, you mean—” My husband laughed. “How about tonight?” He drew me to him. “Kate, I won’t pretend that having another child wouldn’t be wonderful, but if it doesn’t ever happen, I’ll still be happy. You and Josie are the most important people in the world to me.”
“You’re different.” I pulled away to look at him. “What changed you? Why did you decide to come home?”
“I told you. We rearranged the schedule, and—”
I stroked his hand. “And what else?”
My husband sighed. “I really don’t know how to describe it,” he said, “but I had the strangest experience—almost surreal, I guess you could say.”
Ned sat up to face me. “I was on the elevator hurrying to some meeting or other, and not in the best of moods because I’d spilled coffee on my shirt at breakfast and had to rush back to the room and change. There was no one on the elevator but me until this woman got on. She didn’t say anything—just smiled—and I honestly don’t remember much of anything else except that I thought about you and Josie—the home we had together, and it dawned on me that I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life!”
“What did she look like?” I asked.
“The woman on the elevator?” He frowned. “Fair—not plump by any means, but not skinny, either, and she had the most beautiful hair! It almost glowed. Must’ve been going to some kind of costume affair because she wore this floaty thing—all purple and gold—and a necklace that reached almost to her waist.”
“And that’s when you decided to come home?”
“Right. And the funniest thing, Kate—she smelled like strawberries.”