A Lie for a Lie (32 page)

Her smile was relaxed and genuine. “Enough for you? I could go on. But the theme? I finally realized Grady did me a favor. I didn’t need him. In fact through the years when I’d see an article about his failed marriages or his mediocre career, I felt nothing but gratitude. I learned a lot about myself. I learned to judge men on more than looks and empty words. I learned to work for myself and the people who really loved me. It’s been a good, good life.”

Why was my suspect list falling apart? Was I at fault for believing every good story they told me? Maybe Fred sent a twin brother to Big Sur while he doubled back to kill Grady. Maybe while May talked to Madison at her house the night of the finals, Tammy sneaked out and killed Grady, just for something to do while she waited. Maybe Rob Taylor paid off the whole staff at Sweeney’s to claim he was there, and left his credit card so they could pretend to give him receipts. Maybe Winona Unger carried a torch into middle age for one Grady Barber and murdered him when he dismissed her as an unwelcome reminder of his unhappy past.

But truthfully, I didn’t think so.

“Okay. You had almost no motive to kill him,” I said. “I hear you.”

“
No
motive, and no alibi—so you don’t have to ask. Jerry took the kids to the movies that night, and I stayed home all alone and took a long bath and thought about the week. I hate to say this because it sounds so petty, but I enjoyed watching Grady make enemies here. I had no reason to want that to end precipitously. He was soiling his own nest with ill will and tantrums and slights. I’m ashamed to say I was enjoying the show. I am sorry he was killed, because nobody deserves to die the way he did. And I do feel sorry for Veronica. She worked so hard to bring him back here, and look what she got for her trouble. But that’s the sum total of my emotion.”

“Apparently from what Veronica told me, Grady had a history of putting both you
and
her to a lot of trouble.”

“Yeah, high school. She and I had that in common, if not much else. She tried to make him a star. I just tried to help him pass his classes. Especially English. It’s hard for me to figure out how Grady managed to write those lovely songs. He could hardly string four words together and write them down. Mrs. Wilkinson despaired of him. She worked harder than any of the rest of us combined, but a time or two she just gave up and passed him, even when he didn’t deserve it.”

“Mrs. Wilkinson?”

“Our junior English teacher. She was a character. Still is. But a truly dedicated teacher. A lot of people in Emerald Springs owe her everything. After Grady left, she propped me up and got me through graduation, although barely.”

“Would that be
Daisy
Wilkinson?”

“It would. You know her?”

“I’ve only met her. My husband knows her well.” Daisy Wilkinson was a member of our church, but too infirm to attend Sunday services very often. She lived in an assisted living facility near the police station, Old Mill Manor. Ed visited regularly, as did members of our Women’s Society.

“I bring her here for Sunday dinner whenever she’s feeling up to it,” Winona said. “She’s a little slip of a thing, and Jerry lifts her in and out of our car. The kids love to push her wheelchair.”

“Maybe she’d like some company today.”

“If you still want to know more about Grady, she’ll enjoy talking about him, although she was quite upset when he was killed. Do you know, after everything she did for him, he couldn’t find the time to go and visit her when he came back? I made sure he knew where to find her, but he couldn’t be bothered.” She shook her head, not as if she was angry, but just amazed anyone could be that selfish.

“I won’t upset her more?”

“No, she forgets a lot of what’s happening now, but she enjoys recounting her days as his English teacher.”

I liked Winona. I told her so and wished her well.

“Then you’ve crossed me off your list of suspects?”

“You’re free to move about your life.”

“I hope you figure this out, but honestly? There are just too many things that point to Nora Nelson.”

“You aren’t the first person to say so.”

She went inside, and I went back to my van. I wasn’t sure a trip to Old Mill Manor would be helpful, but I was about to find out. I had enough time before I needed to go home and check on my girls to make a trip out there. I wondered what they were having for lunch.

 

 

They were having cold turkey sandwiches, as it turned out. And fruit salad to go with it. Residents could choose between a selection with melons and another made with bananas and grapes. Daisy Wilkinson was a cantaloupe fiend and I managed to sneak her a second helping right before I carried her tray out to the shady patio where she wanted to have lunch.

Old Mill Manor was a facility with several levels of care. Some of the residents cooked their own meals and came and went as they pleased. Others, like Daisy, needed more help and took meals together. I noted a calendar filled with activities and hallways filled with smiling personnel. The building was clean and cheerful, and Daisy said she guessed it was an okay place to live if you had to get old and couldn’t remember when to take your medicine or turn off the stove.

“My memory’s about this long,” she said, snapping her fingers. “What did you say your name is?”

I told her again.

“Oh, that’s right. I know who you are.” She waved a hand at me. “That husband of yours comes in pretty often to see how I’m doing. I was on the board of trustees back in my heyday, and I ran the religious education program for a year or two. Did some other jobs, too, but I don’t remember what. Maybe I’m just forgetting the ones that weren’t fun.”

Daisy was only about five feet tall, and I could see how Winona’s husband or any strong man could simply pick her up to move her around. She had tightly curled white hair and bright pink cheeks. Despite her age and slight stature, she still had a commanding presence. I imagined she’d had to develop one to survive teaching high school.

We settled at a small table in the corner, although we had our pick of seats. Most people were inside taking advantage of the air-conditioning, but Daisy had told me she was always cold and liked to be outdoors when she could.

“I’ll share my sandwich, dear,” she said. “But not my cantaloupe.”

“I promised my girls I’d head home and make lunch in a little while,” I said. “So I’d better save my appetite.”

“Good, turkey’s my favorite.” She dug right in and seemed to enjoy every bite. After a swallow or two she looked at me. “Tell me again why you’re here?”

When I arrived I had explained my presence, but I explained once more. “Winona Unger told me you worked with Grady Barber, and I’m trying to learn about his years in Emerald Springs.”

“Are you going to write his biography? He wrote one himself, you know, only it was filled with the most dreadful lies. And, of course, he didn’t really write it, although that’s what it said on the cover. He couldn’t have. That boy couldn’t write a sentence without outside help.”

That boy hadn’t been a boy for a very long time. I approached her information with caution. “I know Winona said he needed a lot of your help to get through English class.”

“Grady Barber’s problem was his birth date.”

I was beginning to wonder how smart it had been to come here for information. Daisy Wilkinson was delightful, but I didn’t think I was going to discover anything about Grady I could count on.

“What was wrong with his birth date?” I asked.

“Much too early.” She took another bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “You see, a decade later, we knew a lot more about how to help somebody like Grady. We knew about learning disabilities back then, of course. I did my homework. How to diagnose. How to treat. But what we understood was only a drop compared to what came later. Of course these days teachers are so busy filling out forms when they have a special student, they don’t have much time to use what they know. But at least they know what they’re up against.”

“What are they up against?”

“In Grady’s case it was probably dyseidetic dyslexia. Poor visual memory, you see. His symptoms were classic. He would learn a word and then not recognize it later in the same sentence. Letters got popped in anywhere they seemed to fit, and certainly not in places you or I would put them. He told me once that when he looked at a page, the letters jumped all around, and he just couldn’t make them behave.”

My mind was twirling back to the man I’d known. Grady had refused to do any of his paperwork. After Fred left he’d insisted Veronica find him an assistant or else. Now I understood the real reason. Not because he was lazy or too important to do his own dirty work—although that might have been true as well—but because the tasks of reading and writing were so difficult he preferred not to do them. Or worse, he
couldn’t
do them.

I wondered if Grady had ever really overcome his disability.

“How did he get through school?” I asked.

She was smiling now, and had even put down her sandwich. This was something she remembered.

“Well, he could read a little, although it took him five times as long to finish a paragraph as it would you or me. But he had a fabulous memory. So we worked on listening in class and paying attention. When he did that, and he was tested on what was said in lectures, he was okay if the written questions weren’t too long or complex. Of course complicated essay questions were next to impossible. I talked to most of his teachers and explained, and they would read questions out loud to give him a head start, and not take off as many points for grammar or spelling. Some of them would even question him in private and score his tests on verbal information. At least the good teachers would do it that way. Some thought all this was nonsense, of course, and that he just had to work harder and adjust.”

“How difficult for him. He was lucky he had your help.”

“My help. Yes. And Nonie. Have you met dear Nonie? She did everything she could to help him pass. You really should look her up and listen to what she has to say about him.”

There was no point in reminding Daisy that Nonie had sent me here. “I do know her, and she does have interesting things to say.”

“I can’t imagine anyone murdering a boy like Grady. Such a nice boy, although not everybody thought so. I always understood that when he acted out, he was just trying to cope with his disability and home life. It wasn’t easy being Grady Barber. Of course later, it must have been much easier.” She frowned and cocked her head. “Wasn’t it?”

“He certainly did make a success of himself.”

“I like to think I helped with that. But Nonie and Ronnie and of course Sandy Billings, the choir teacher, all did their share. Sandy was convinced that with his abilities he could get a scholarship to some little college looking for a tenor. She worked and worked with him to improve his voice and help him sing with confidence. Yes, he wasn’t a popular boy, but he did have his own cheering section.”

“Ronnie?”

“One of his little friends.”

I wondered if Ronnie was the boy with the limp, or maybe the one from the poorest home in town. Apparently I hadn’t paid enough attention to their names. Maybe Grady hadn’t even used them in the book. “Can you tell me more about him?”

She looked confused. “No . . . Him? I don’t remember, I guess. I’ve forgotten so much.”

I wondered if Grady’s choir teacher might have more helpful information, although at this point, I knew I was grasping at straws. I really didn’t think Winona had killed Grady, and no one else here seemed to have a motive. So many years had gone by since Grady had lived in Emerald Springs. Was I really planning to interview every single person he’d ever talked to?

I grasped anyway. “Does Mrs. Billings still live in Emerald Springs?”

“Oh, I can answer that one. She moved away right after she retired. Somewhere warm. Florida, maybe, although I don’t really know. We were never close.” She leaned toward me. “She had a man on the side. Her husband, poor fellow, never suspected.”

“Yikes.”

She nodded, then she winked. “Imagine that? Two men! I couldn’t hold on to one. My husband left me, but he was such a rascal I was better off without him. I had a fine life anyway. Do you know I once taught Grady Barber? The star of that movie about Noah and his family?”

I took her hand and squeezed it. “He was lucky to have you.”

She smiled. “Indeed he was.”

I do my best thinking in the middle of the night when the house is quiet and Ed is breathing deeply beside me. That’s when I remember where I put my favorite recipe for mushroom stroganoff, and why I circled yesterday’s date on the calendar. By then it’s too late to get up and saute mushrooms or call the friend whose birthday I missed, but at least I no longer have to probe the darkest recesses of my mind.

Tonight I lay awake sweating out the details of my conversations with Winona and Daisy. I hadn’t had time before this. After lunch I’d taken the girls to the pool, where I paid bills and caught up with the family paperwork. Next we made a trip to the pediatrician for their annual physicals, a stop for doughnuts to console them for being poked and prodded, then a visit to the grocery store. We’d had dinner; I’d helped Teddy with a crossword puzzle; I’d sneaked a quick look at Grady’s autobiography to see if he had happened to mention the names of his two childhood friends.

He hadn’t.

I was beginning to look forward to tearing out linoleum and choosing paint colors again.

“Go back to sleep,” Ed mumbled.

“If I do, I might not solve Grady’s murder.”

“It’ll keep.” He turned over, and in a moment he was dead to the world again, as if to demonstrate how it was done.

I tried to breathe evenly, in case some part of him was still aware. My interview with Daisy had been far from perfect. When I’d told Ed about our conversation, I learned that Daisy had suffered a mild stroke in the spring and her short-term memory had suffered. Still, from what I could tell, her long-term memory was good. The lecture on dyslexia had sounded like a pro’s. She’d remembered names, what she had done to help Grady, and so much about her past.