In the Event of My Death (16 page)

1

For the second time in the last week Laurel vowed to get a cell phone for the car as she pulled up at a curb and climbed from the car, sloshing through dirty road snow to reach a public phone. She called the store and told Norma and Penny she would be returning later than she’d expected. Then she headed out of town to the Howard house.

Laurel had only been to Faith’s house once although it was not too far from her own. Long ago Zeke insisted on meeting Faith’s new best friend. Even then his hair had been bushy and white and he’d looked at everyone accusingly as if they’d committed some horrible deed. Laurel had been scared to death of him, but apparently her sedate appearance and shy manner reassured Zeke. Laurel remembered Neil saying Zeke had only allowed Faith to date him because his parents were part of Zeke’s congregation and Zeke had considered him “safe.” She guessed Zeke had considered her safe, too.

The house was old, two-story, and covered with peeling white paint. One green shutter hung loose from an upstairs window. For the first time, Laurel thought about the Howards’ finances. Zeke used to be a handyman. He was quite skilled, but eventually he lost jobs because he couldn’t confine his preaching to his church meetings. Everyone he worked for was treated to a long sermon, and when he wasn’t preaching, he was belting out hymns at the top of his voice. Eventually no one would hire him. The Howards now subsisted solely on what Mary earned at Damron Floral, which wasn’t a generous salary. Laurel’s father hadn’t raised wages for four years, even though the store was doing better than it had in the past decade. As Laurel climbed the rickety front steps, she decided to change that situation, no matter what her father said. Everyone at Damron Floral deserved a raise.

She knocked on the door. In a moment Mary appeared. The bruise above her eye had turned a glorious mixture of purple and green. Her freckles stood out starkly from her parchment-colored skin, and her lips were colorless. Dark circles lay under her eyes. She wore an old blue chenille robe that had seen far too many washings.

“Hello, Laurel,” she said dully. “I’ve been expecting this visit.”

“You have?”

“Yes. You’ve thought it over and come to fire me after what Kurt told you about Papa the other night in the woods. You think he’s crazy and he might come back to the store and do more damage.”

“Mary, I won’t deny I think your father needs psychiatric help, but I certainly didn’t come here to fire you.” She paused. “I do need to talk with you, though. Privately.”

“Oh.” Mary seemed taken aback. “Then come in. Papa’s asleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. The doctor gave him something strong.”

Laurel stepped into a small, dreary room. She remembered the yellow wallpaper with little blue cornflowers. Twenty years ago she’d thought it was rather pretty. Now it was faded and bore water stains near the windows. The rug was worn bare in spots, the wooden tables scratched, the chairs and couch sagging.

“Can I get you some tea or something?” Mary asked as Laurel sat down in an armchair. A spring jabbed her in the right buttock and she tried to shift subtly so as not to insult Mary about the state of the furniture.

“Nothing to drink, thanks. I just need to ask you a few questions.”

“You sound like Kurt.”

“I’m not the police, Mary. Just your friend.”

Mary smiled slightly and sat down on the couch. “All right. Ask away.”

“When Kurt was here the other night, did he tell you what had happened at the Price party?”

“Yes.”

“Even about the locket on the doll?”

Mary looked away guiltily. “Yes. He made quite a point about the locket.”

“Well, last night I talked with Neil Kamrath.” Mary tensed. “He called me about the locket. He said you told him years ago the locket had been buried with Faith. Yet there it was on the doll. We both saw it.”

Mary drew a deep breath. “I lied to Neil. Faith wasn’t buried with the locket. Papa wouldn’t let her wear any jewelry, especially something from my mother. She always carried it in her purse, then put it on when she got away from home.”

“But she didn’t have it on the night she died.”

“It disappeared about a week earlier.”

“A week.”

Mary looked at her earnestly. “Yes, Laurel. It just disappeared. At first Faith thought Papa found it, but he never mentioned it. She was upset when she couldn’t find it. It meant so much to Faith.”

She looked like she was telling the truth, but if Faith were so upset, why hadn’t she mentioned the missing locket to Laurel? She wouldn’t keep pushing Mary, though. “All right. Will you talk about your mother with me?”

Mary drew back. “My mother! What does she have to do with anything besides the locket?”

“I’d just like to know more about her.”

Mary’s fingers twitched on a ragged lace doily on the arm of the couch. “I’m not comfortable talking about her. Papa never let us mention her.”

“You’re twenty-six, Mary. You may talk about anything you want. Please. I have a really good reason for asking.”

“Well…she was only a teenager when she got married. She and Papa lived in Pennsylvania then. Her name was Genevra. She had Faith when she was eighteen. Me four years later. When I was two, she ran away. After that, we moved here.”

“Why did your father choose Wheeling?”

Mary’s foot jiggled. “He lived here when he was a boy. He liked it and knew some people.”

“Tell me more about your mother.”

“She was lots younger than him. She was very beautiful, like Faith. I found a picture of her a long time ago.”

“May I see it?”

“When Papa found out I had it, he burned it.”

“Has your mother ever contacted you in all these years?”

“N…no.”

“Which means yes.”

“Well, it was a
long
time ago. I was only five or six.”

“Where was she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t the letter have a return address or a postmark?”

“I don’t remember. I told you, I was really young.”

“Did she contact Faith?”

“Yes.”

“More than once?”

“I don’t know.” Mary nibbed a hand across her forehead. “That’s a lie. They wrote to each other all the time. Faith begged me to write to her, but I wouldn’t. Papa said she was a sinner. I always tried to do what Papa wanted me to, but I never told him that Faith wrote to her. I wanted to please both of them.”

“How did Faith keep your father from intercepting the letters?”

“Someone here in town rented a post office box for Faith. I don’t know who it was.”

“Really? When did the communication stop?”

Mary looked at her as if she were stupid. “When Faith died.”

“Not until then!” Laurel exclaimed. Mary nodded. “Faith never told me anything about her mother except that she had run off with another man and she didn’t blame her.”

“You know how Faith was about men. I guess she
would
understand.”

It was the first time Laurel had ever heard Mary sound critical of her sister. Yes, Faith liked boys, maybe too much. But as far as she knew, Mary had never even been on a date. Did she isolate herself from men because her father had spoken so harshly of Genevra all these years? And before his mind began to slip and he’d decided Faith was some kind of angel, he’d probably said the same things about her, or even worse. After all, she was pregnant when she died. Had he convinced Mary that Faith and Genevra were two of a kind? “Mary,” Laurel asked softly, “where
was
your mother when Faith died?”

“Why are you asking me all these questions about my mother?” Mary flared. “She doesn’t have anything to do with anything! She’s probably dead by now.”

“Oh, no.”

Mary frowned. “What do you mean? How could you possibly know anything about my mother?”

“Because I’m almost certain I saw her at Faith’s grave today.”

2

“I think we should go home,” Denise said. “The snow is getting heavier.”

“Oh, Mommy, no!” Audra wailed. “I see the lights every year!”

Denise turned up the windshield wipers a notch. Traffic crawled toward Oglebay Park. She was still furious with Laurel, still shaken by the funeral, and she was catching a cold. The last thing she wanted to do was drag through the park, but she and Wayne had been going out of their way to please Audra after her awful experience less than forty-eight hours ago. She still had to sleep with her light on and wanted Denise to stay with her until she drifted off. Tonight, while Wayne was at the hospital with an emergency, Audra had insisted she wanted to see the Festival of Lights at Oglebay Park as Denise had promised.

“Did you come up here every year when you were a little girl?” Audra asked.

“They didn’t have the light show then.”

“Gosh,” Audra breathed. “There
were
Christmas trees back then, weren’t there?”

“Yes, dear,” Denise said dryly. “The celebration of Christmas began shortly before my birth.”

“That’s good.”

Denise gave her a sidelong look to see if she were kidding. She wasn’t. “Are you cold?”

“Nope.”

“I’m freezing. If we wait until tomorrow night, Daddy can come with us.”

“He’ll prob’ly have another emergency. Besides, we’re almost there.”

Denise sighed. An hour, she thought. In an hour I’ll be back in my nice warm house with my cold pills and my spearmint tea. Maybe there will even be something good on television.

“Was Laurel at the funeral today?” Audra asked abruptly.

“Yes.”

“I know she didn’t bring April and Alex, but she said I could go over and play with them at her house.”

“Yes,” Denise said neutrally. At the moment she couldn’t imagine paying Laurel a visit under any circumstances.

“Mom, she said I could come over.”

“I
know
.” Denise felt a headache forming behind her eyes and her neck stiffening. “We’ll just have to pick a good day.” Which won’t be soon, she thought.

Audra leaned forward and turned on the radio. A rap song blasted through the car. Denise winced and turned off the radio. “
Mommy!
” Audra wailed.

“I can’t stand that stuff.”

“I want to hear music.”

Denise pushed in a CD. In a moment the Carpenters were singing Christmas songs.

“Oh,
wow
,” Audra grumbled. “That’s about a hundred years old.”

“Not quite and it’s very pretty. Quit complaining.” Audra began fumbling with things on the seat. “What are you looking for?”

“My camera.” Wayne had bought her a disposable camera for her trip to the light show.

“Audra, you can’t get any good pictures with all this snow.”

“We always take pictures.”

“Not in the snow. You’ll just get a blur. For heaven’s sake, we have a videotape of the light show.”

“It’s not the same.
Where
is my camera?”

She began rummaging again. Denise clenched her teeth. This wasn’t going to be a good evening. Audra was still in high gear after the Christmas party scare. Denise herself felt terrible. Nevertheless, she’d come this far. She wouldn’t turn back for home now. Audra would have a fit.

Who’s the parent here? Denise could hear her mother saying. Be quiet, Mom, she answered mentally. You have no idea what I’m going through. It won’t kill me to indulge her for a couple of days, especially since I’m the one responsible for her being terrorized.

They passed through Ornament Way, where on either side of the road giant Christmas tree ornaments hung suspended from towering candy canes. Audra was already squealing with delight as Denise stopped at the donation booth.

“I’m gonna take every picture on the roll of film,” Audra announced. “How many is that?”

“Twenty-seven. And if you insist on photographing everything, roll down the window before you take a shot. Otherwise all you’ll get is splatters of snow on the glass.”

“I know,” Audra said in the beleaguered tone she’d recently adopted that indicated Denise was always stating the obvious. Denise’s teeth clenched. She knew children had to grow up and assert their independence, and that she’d probably used the same tone with her own mother, but Audra was only eight. It was too soon.

“Audra, I want you to
stop
talking to me that way,” she snapped.

“What way?”

“You know.”

Audra sighed gustily. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive, Denise thought. My nerves are strung tight. I’d better cool it.

“Are you cold?” Denise asked again.

“No, I’m
fine
. But how come you keep rubbing your neck?”

“It’s a little stiff.” Actually, it was rigid. “Look, honey, there’s the Christmas Express.”

The display featured a full-sized train that seemed to be moving along.

“It’s beautiful!” Audra cried, rolling down the window. Cold air and snowflakes poured into the car as Audra snapped a picture.

“Okay, we’re past it. Roll up the window. It’s freezing.”

Audra closed the window. “Mommy, can we listen to other music?”

“No, I like this.” Audra sighed again. “I’m sorry. I just can’t stand that stuff you listen to.”

“Okay,” Audra said in a deflated tone.

“Look, here’s the Waving Snowman.”

Audra rolled down the window again. More cold air. More snow. Denise sneezed and her nose started to run. Her throat was beginning to hurt. “Audra—”

“I know, I know, roll up the window.”

They passed the little girl with the hobby horse, then the animated equestrian.

“That guy with the horse is Buzzy’s favorite,” Audra informed her.

“Who’s Buzzy?”

“Buzzy
Harris
. My boyfriend. I
told
you.”

“And I told you that you are too young for a boyfriend.” Denise felt rather than saw Audra roll her eyes again. “He hasn’t been kissing you, has he?”

“Mommy!”

“You told me he tried to kiss you. I will not have some little boy slobbering all over you—”

“He doesn’t kiss me and he doesn’t slobber. What’s wrong with you, Mommy? How come you’re being so mean tonight?”

“I’m not mean. I just don’t feel well—”