A cloud passed over Cheral’s face. She was no beauty, didn’t look as if she had ever been. Late middle age had scored her mouth with dry lines, and her hair was bleached and brittle. But surely that wasn’t jealousy I detected? Not after all these years.
“She sounds like she must have been a handful. I thought so. I thought she must have been feisty. Keeping her maiden name, and all.”
Cheral looked confused. “No, she went by Smith.”
“Right, but Sadie Rawson Smith. Like Hillary Rodham Clinton. That must have been progressive, for Georgia in the 1970s.”
“No, no, it wasn’t a Hillary Rodham thing. Sadie Rawson was her first name. You know, like . . . Mary Belle. Or Georgia Ruth. Lots of girls down here used double-barreled names. Still do.”
“Oh. Quite a mouthful.”
She shrugged. “Sadie Rawson has the same number of syllables as Elizabeth, if you think about it. And nobody thinks that’s too long a name.”
We fell silent.
“It must be very upsetting for you,” she ventured after a bit. “Learning about all this now.” I’d told her the broad outlines of what I knew and when I’d come to know it, on the phone this morning. I left out the bullet details.
“It’s been strange. It’s good to meet you, though. I love hearing what the Smiths were like. My parents—the Cashions—don’t seem to know much. And the newspaper accounts about what happened are pretty bare-bones. The paper ran four stories and then . . . it seemed to fall off the radar.”
She nodded.
“The police must have talked to you. Did they ever let anything slip? I mean, could you tell if they ever had a good lead?”
“They interviewed us twice. Rick and me. We hadn’t heard or seen anything out of the ordinary that day. We told them everything we could. To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with the efforts of the Atlanta police. They were convinced from day one that it must have been a burglar who got surprised by your parents and started shooting. But they never did catch him.”
“I don’t understand how that happens. A burglar breaks in, kills two people, and the police just . . . let it drop.”
“Well, it was an unusual case. No physical evidence, at least not that I could gather. There weren’t any fingerprints in the house that weren’t supposed to be there. And they never found a murder weapon. All they had was an eyewitness.”
“There was an eyewitness?”
“Of course, honey. You.”
Fifteen
* * *
Before I left, Cheral Rooney pressed a pair of gold earrings into my hands. “They were your mom’s. Only thing I have of hers. They’ve been sitting in my jewelry box all these years—I never could bring myself to wear them.”
The earrings were enormous, finely braided hoops. They had a vaguely Gypsy quality to them, delicate and gaudy at once. Not the kind of thing I would ever wear. But then, I hadn’t been a fashionable young woman in the 1970s.
“They were the height of fashion back then,” said Cheral, reading my mind. “I’d borrowed them to wear to a party, only reason I have them. After your parents died the whole house was a crime scene. Police tape everywhere. I wasn’t allowed in to try to scoop up anything else of hers. Then one day, movers appeared. Boxed everything up and the house was sold.”
“Thank you for keeping these.”
“She had beautiful jewelry. And clothes. With her figure, she could wear anything. She had this green coat, so chic, with matching green suede boots. . . .” Cheral smiled sadly. “You’d have loved her taste.”
I nodded.
“I would have come to visit you. I would have liked to stay in touch. Your mother would have wanted that. But afterwards the doctors wouldn’t let me see you. You were in intensive care for weeks. And I assume the police were trying to question you during that time.”
“Do you know if I—if I saw anything? Was I able to tell them anything that helped?”
She shook her head. “I’ve no idea. You don’t remember?”
“No. Not anything.”
“Probably for the best. You were a baby, Caroline, barely more than a baby. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise when I said that, about you being an eyewitness. Who knows what you saw or didn’t?” She patted my shoulder. “Anyway, after a time the social services must have gotten involved. Next thing I heard, you’d been adopted by a new family. We never had word again; it was like you’d just been spirited away. I hope they were kind to you. The couple that adopted you, I mean.”
“Very kind.” I felt my voice tighten with love. “The kindest family ever. I couldn’t have asked for a more loving home.”
“I’m glad.” Cheral touched my shoulder again. “Mercy, it’s brought back some memories, seeing you. To think that you’re older now than Sadie Rawson and Boone when they died. Such a nice man, your daddy. Didn’t deserve what he got.”
“Neither of them did.”
She blinked, then nodded. Tears were in her eyes as she closed the door. Tears, and something else. A hint of jealousy again? Or some other emotion? I couldn’t tell, could only sense it twitching, a sour under-current beneath the surface.
? ? ?
SOMETHING CHERAL ROONEY had said was nagging at me. Something, some detail, didn’t sit right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and the more I tried to catch it, the more it eluded me, like a kitten batting at a piece of yarn.