If You Ever Tell (6 page)

Teresa turned on the radio she kept in the bathroom. Steve Winwood’s “Back in the High Life Again” came on, an upbeat song that for once did nothing for Teri’s downbeat mood. She couldn’t stop thinking about her mother, Marielle. After a breakdown and stint in a psychiatric clinic precipitated by the divorce, Marielle had gone to stay with her Aunt Beulah who lived just north of town. Doctors had pronounced Marielle unfit to care for a teenage girl, causing her to lose not only Hugh but also custody of Teresa.

Marielle’s aunt told police that on the day of the Farr deaths Marielle had seemed calm, even somewhat cheerful, and said she was going for an afternoon walk on her favorite path in the woods. Encouraged by her improved mood and unusual energy, Beulah claimed that for the first time since Marielle’s release from the hospital, she had let the younger woman go out of the house alone.

Teresa’s eyes filled with tears. Her beautiful, gentle mother had never returned to Beulah’s house. There had been a massive police search for Marielle, especially because of the murders, but the investigation had revealed absolutely nothing. As far as Teresa knew, no one had seen or heard from her mother for eight years. Marielle Farr simply seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth the beautiful day in April that had ended so grotesquely for Hugh, Wendy, and Celeste.

Teri impatiently wiped at her tears, then splashed cold water on her face, hoping she could whisk herself away from the ghastly trip down memory lane, but it didn’t work. As she briskly tried to rub some color into her wet skin with a towel, she remembered the day after the murders when her bewilderment over her mother’s disappearance, along with her horror over the brutal killings, was suddenly magnified when she realized the police thought that if Marielle hadn’t stabbed Hugh and Wendy to death, then Teresa had. Her father and stepmother, both of whom everyone knew Teresa hated, had been murdered. Celeste, whom people mistakenly assumed Teresa also hated, had been stabbed in the abdomen. Teresa, however, had suffered only a shallow cut on the arm.

She hadn’t been arrested, but not because local law enforcement believed her innocent. She’d remained free simply because of lack of evidence—the police never found the murder weapon, which according to the medical examiner was a long, razor-sharp serrated knife—and while Teresa’s nightgown bore some blood from the victims, the gown would have been soaked if she’d violently stabbed three people. No other bloody clothes had been found in the house, nor had blood been found in the drains as it would have been if Teresa had stripped naked to stab her victims, showered, then put on a nightgown merely smeared with blood.

In addition, Teresa had also agreed to take a lie detector test, which she had passed. Some local students of crime remained unconvinced, though, ominously pointing out that “certain kinds” of people were capable of beating the machine. That, they added triumphantly, was why lie detector results were not allowed as evidence in court.

Most people, though, didn’t care to look at evidence appearing to rule out Teresa. They seemed to find the idea of a seventeen-year-old girl going on a killing spree much more entertaining. During the next two weeks, the looks of alarm and disgust Teresa saw in people’s eyes, and the long, intense police interrogations she’d undergone had frightened her nearly senseless. Even eight years later, Teresa remembered back then only four people in the world loudly proclaiming her innocence—her brother, Kent; her mother’s best friend, Carmen; the housekeeper, Emma MacKenzie; and especially Emma’s son, Mac.

Sunlight poured into the bathroom on this glorious first day of July, but Teresa shivered as if a chilly breeze were washing over her when she remembered that unbelievable, terrifying time—a time when she’d kept hoping she was having a nightmare from which any minute she would awaken. “But I didn’t wake up,” she murmured to herself as she stripped off her nightgown and turned on the shower, making the water hotter than usual. She had spent seemingly endless days and nights in a haze of disbelief, knowing that almost everyone in town thought she’d killed two people and critically wounded a child.

Teresa was shaking as she stepped into the shower stall, letting the water stream over her hair, her face, and down her body that actually bore chill bumps. Teri hadn’t experienced a bout of the old, recurring panic for a long time, but the note had brought it rushing back. Once again she felt as if she were a seventeen-year-old girl with a murdered father, a lost mother, and a town half-full of people who thought she was a deranged killer, a town half-full of people who felt they had to be sure to lock their doors at night because Teresa Farr was on the loose. It had seemed ludicrous, and at times she’d even laughed at the idea. Then she would realize that people really were afraid of her, and she’d choked on her laughter and burst into tears—tears of grief, disbelief, and overwhelming fear.

Two weeks later, what seemed to her a miracle happened—Roscoe Lee Byrnes confessed to the murders. Townspeople had been stunned. A few seemed disappointed. Many refused to believe him, tenaciously arguing that people sometimes confessed to crimes they hadn’t committed. Everyone knew that was true—everyone who watched television and saw movies, that is. They dismissed law enforcement’s reminder that people offering false confessions were usually harmless nuts seeking attention, men who’d probably never done anything more vicious than yell at the neighbor’s cat. Imagining Teresa Farr stabbing three people in the deep, dark night was much more exciting.

Nevertheless, because of the certainty of the FBI that Byrnes’s confession was genuine, the local population’s distrust of Teresa gradually faded. After all, Byrnes was a
serial
killer, they said to one another in obsessive discussions of the case that had kept people preoccupied for months. Teresa had been out late that night and Byrnes probably was, too, hunting for victims. He’d also raped three of his female victims, girls in their teens. He’d probably seen Teresa, followed her home and waited—waited for that unlocked door, that sleeping family and the pretty teenager he’d planned to enjoy before he killed her, too. Also, newspaper articles and even a story about the crime in a national magazine informed the public that Roscoe Lee Byrnes always killed viciously at night and always used a serrated knife, repeatedly stabbing his victims.

Adding to evidence about Byrnes being the killer was a clerk at a convenience store two miles away from the Farr home who unequivocally identified Byrnes as being a customer the evening before the murders. The clerk said that after seeing pictures of the confessed murderer, he was certain he’d waited on the guy, claiming he’d never forget those weird, pale, bulging eyes and large, bullet-shaped head. The guy had bought barbecue potato chips and beer, the clerk had said in a news clip. Cheap beer, he’d added disdainfully in his two minutes of television fame, beer Byrnes had paid for in dirty, wadded-up dollar bills. The clerk’s story had been backed up by a couple of unmistakable images of Byrnes caught on tape by the store’s surveillance camera.

So, by summer’s end most people had absolved Teresa, who’d gone to live with her missing mother’s friend Carmen until she turned eighteen the last week of June, then went away to college in September. All the while, Teresa had tried fervently to believe in Byrnes’s guilt. She’d even pretended to believe it, but because of the killer’s leisurely departure from the home, not to mention his happening to be wearing a scent similar to her mother’s perfume, Teresa had never felt certain Byrnes was really the murderer who had struck at the Farr house on Mourning Dove Lane. For eight years, she’d been waiting for the appearance of evidence that would erase her doubts.

Teresa stepped from the shower and reached for a big, fluffy bath towel, noting with a smile that Sierra had finally arisen and come in to supervise her morning routine. She bent down and petted the dog’s head as she sat patiently about a foot away from the shower stall. “Hey, girl, afraid I’ll go down the drain if you’re not here to look after me? Or are you just wondering if I’ve gone crazy, hanging around in here talking to myself?”

Sierra emitted one of her habitual snorts and stood up. As she looked at the dog, cheerfully wagging her tail and gazing at Teresa with trusting amber eyes, she felt a strange but welcome sense of relief. The time for Byrnes’s execution had finally come, she thought. His appeals had ended and so would the life of Byrnes in a matter of days. Everything pointed to him being the killer. He had even admitted to the murders. Her doubts were silly and she thought that as soon as he was executed, she’d feel as if that hideous chapter in her life was finally over.

Then another thought struck Teri as she bent at the waist and wrapped the towel around her length of wet hair. Through all the years, no one had revealed fresh evidence to absolve Byrnes of the Farr murders, so what did the note left in her car mean? Was someone asking her if after the execution, she’d feel safe from a psychopathic killer? Possibly. Probably. Especially because they’d said Celeste was talking again. If that was true, Teresa was thrilled. She had longed for the day when Celeste would speak once more, when she would become “normal” and emerge from her almost trancelike state.

But the note did not have a reassuring tone. It had sounded threatening in a sickly gleeful way, especially when it said Celeste would finally tell the truth. What truth? That she’d seen the murderer? A tiny, cold finger seemed to run down Teresa’s spine as she realized why the note’s tone had been triumphant. The writer was elated because he was telling her that Celeste would soon identify the real killer of her mommy and Hugh and that murderer would be Teresa.

I am not going to think about that stupid note, Teresa thought. It had ruined the end of what had been a great day—her realization that she had not only emerged from the trauma of the murders but also accomplished her dream to have her very own riding school. And then she’d found the note. But it was just a note. A note couldn’t harm her, couldn’t take away her peace of mind, unless she let it, and she didn’t intend to be daunted so easily.

Feeling stronger, Teresa made herself smile at nothing, as if the old song lyrics “Put on a happy face” could make her uneasiness disappear. Just as she left her bedroom and headed for the stairs, her fax machine emitted an imperative beep alerting her to an incoming message. She walked into the small spare bedroom she used as an office, noting absently that she definitely needed to do some filing and general straightening, and went to the machine. Yesterday morning, she’d e-mailed a horse equipment company asking for their price list on particular tack items. She hadn’t expected an answer early Sunday morning, but she couldn’t think of who else might be sending her a fax.

Teri tapped her foot impatiently as the machine ground out the paper. Really, she needed a new one, she thought. She’d bought this machine when she started college, it had served her well for years, but now that she was in business and that business was nicely increasing, she really needed something faster, more updated—

Teresa’s wandering thoughts slammed to a halt as she picked up the paper, still warm from the machine, and read the message:

The paper shook in Teri’s hand, but she said aloud in a dry, unconcerned voice, “A prank. Just a stupid prank.” Then she looked at the top of the fax. As her vision wavered, the paper slipped between her suddenly cold fingers and fell to the floor.

According to the header, the sender was Hubert Farr.

Celeste Warner daintily cut a piece of her blueberry pancake, popped it into her small mouth, and began chewing, her big eyes seeming to smile although her facial expression was serious. “You sure do like pancakes, don’t you, darlin’?” her grandmother asked heartily. Fay had pulled her long light brown gray-streaked hair into a French twist decorated with three rhinestone-tipped hairpins, a style she usually saved for the few social events in her life. “You eat as many as you like. I made enough batter to feed the whole neighborhood!”

“Mom, you seem to think the more you feed her, the more she’ll talk,” Jason said half-jokingly. “You’ve been pushing food at her since we came home yesterday afternoon from Bennigan’s.”

“Well, food made her talk there. It only makes sense that food’s the trigger,” Fay answered as if with ultimate logic.

“She ate for years and she didn’t speak,” Jason returned patiently. “Why would food suddenly have been the trigger yesterday?”

Fay gave her son a deep look. “The mind is a mysterious thing, Jason Warner. It’s way beyond our understanding.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jason answered mildly. Fay seemed satisfied with her explanation and he didn’t care to mention Celeste’s referral to a “smell” that set off her talking spree. After all, he’d have to explain that smell is the strongest of the five senses and his mother would probably start an argument claiming that he had no way of knowing such a thing about the mysterious mind. “I just wish she’d speak again, Mom.”

“Celeste will talk when she has something to say, won’t you, darlin’?” Fay swooped by with the frying pan and placed another pancake on the girl’s plate almost like a bribe. “But you won’t talk about that terrible night so long ago. And you won’t say that awful rhyme again, will you? You’ll say something nice and pretty and sweet.”

Celeste raised her head and, smiling, looked into her grandmother’s hopeful blue eyes.

“Okay, honey, we heard you the first time.” Jason’s voice remained calm, but his mother stepped back, looking ready to drop the frying pan. After yesterday, he’d recovered from the shock of his daughter finally speaking and decided that he’d handle things more professionally this time instead of merely gaping at her. He began in a matter-of-fact voice. “In Bennigan’s you said that on the night of the murders, you ran into someone coming out of your mommy’s room and the person stabbed you.” Celeste nodded serenely. “Are you absolutely sure it wasn’t Teresa?”