Morning Glory Circle (24 page)

She felt so lonely and vulnerable right now, she wanted to put Jax and Wally in the truck and drive away. She considered it, thinking it might lift this huge weight that seemed to be pressing down on her, making her want to do something, anything, to relieve the pressure. There were the prisoners out in the kennel to think of, though. She couldn’t abandon them. The beagle brothers still needed a home, and when Sam was down, he couldn’t be counted on to take care of anyone or anything, not even himself.

“If I were a better Catholic,” she told the dogs, “I would go see Father Stephen.”

She thought she knew what the priest would advise her to do about Sam. It would be some version of what the dogs provided to her: patience, loyalty, and love. All those things she promised in the church at the wedding, including, “in sickness and in health.”

“Even when it sucks to be married,” she told the dogs. “That’s what they should make you say.”

Hannah splashed water on her tear-stained face and dried it with a dishtowel.

“I need help,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I can do this on my own.”

A thought popped into her head, one that she would have made fun of if anyone had dared suggest she try it. It was something their Aunt Delia often said, and when she did Hannah would always roll her eyes at Maggie. Hannah was desperate, though, at her wits’ end, to the point where letting go and letting something bigger than herself sort it all out for her sounded like the perfect plan. At least then maybe she could get some sleep.

“All right, big guy,” she said to the ceiling, “do your stuff.”

The dogs looked up at ceiling, and then at Hannah.

“C’mon boys,” she said to the dogs, who jumped up immediately, and waited to hear the next command. “Let’s go to bed.”

Ava Fitzpatrick was also spending time at the window watching the snow come down. She kept hearing things in the house, and although she knew it was just her guests moving around, getting up and going to the bathroom, making the floorboards creak, she was afraid to close her eyes and go to sleep, for fear that Brian would sneak in somehow and kidnap their children.

Sonny had changed the locks, and Scott’s team was patrolling the town, making sure to circle the bed and breakfast often. What she wanted, what would really make her feel safe, was to have Patrick or Scott in the house. She couldn’t have Patrick, and didn’t feel right imposing on Scott again, so instead she woke up both of her children and told them they could sleep with her. Drowsily, they made their way to her bedroom and got in her bed. After she locked the door and wedged a chair under the knob, they all snuggled down together. The children went back to sleep quickly. Ava did not close her eyes until much later.

Scott helped his deputies with the removal of all the purloined mail from the attic space in Enid Estep’s house to the break room at the station. He, Frank, and Skip put everything in file boxes, and those boxes, stacked six high in multiple rows filled the small room so it felt more like Rita and Matt Delvecchio’s kitchen. By the time they finished it was past midnight so he sent the deputies home, and then locked the station door behind them. There was a doorbell on the outside if anyone needed anything. He made some coffee and sat down at the break room table with the first box. It was going to be a long night.

Lily Crawford was wakened in the middle of the night by her basset hound Betty Lou howling, and what sounded like a catfight outside. She jumped out of bed, pulled on her robe, and stuffed her feet into slippers before hurrying downstairs. At the foot of the stairs she paused to listen. Betty Lou seemed to be down at the barn, and the cats, wherever they were, were yowling and carrying on nearby. Lily went to Simon’s study, unlocked the gun safe, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, and loaded it.

She found a flashlight, draped Betty Lou’s leash around her neck, and left the house with the shotgun broken down over the crook of her arm. The snow was flying so thick she couldn’t see very far ahead, and she kept walking off the stone path she couldn’t see beneath her feet. When Lily reached the barn, she found Betty Lou howling at the heavy barn door, which someone had unlatched and left open just a few inches. The yowling catfight seemed to be taking place in the barn, and she could hear Penny the pony snorting and moving around in agitation.

Lily pointed the flashlight into the barn through the narrow opening and saw Penny was out of her stall, which she also kept latched. Her flashlight reflected off many pairs of cat eyes, and then a pair of human ones. The hair stood up on the back of Lily’s neck, and she backed up. Betty Lou was howling and pawing at the door, but it was too heavy for her to move. Lily snapped the shotgun into one solid piece and cocked it, which made a sound no human being could mistake for anything else.

“You listen to me,” Lily called out, although her voice shook. “Whoever you are, you have five minutes to get the hell out of my barn and down the road before the police get here. I have a loaded shotgun in my hands and I’m a pretty fair shot, so don’t tempt me.”

She had a sudden thought, and added, “Brian, if that’s you, you better get out of town, son, before Mrs. Wells finds you.”

Lily used one hand to hook Betty Lou’s leash to her collar, and pulled the protesting dog back to the porch of the farmhouse. Once inside her kitchen, Lily released the dog but confined her to that room. She took the shotgun back to the study and looked out the window, toward the barn. The snow had lightened up a bit, and a spotlight on a pole by the driveway shone on the figure who left the barn, closed the door behind him, and walked quickly down the drive away from the farm.

Lily considered calling the police but was conflicted. If it was Brian, and they arrested him, he could tell the police things that would hurt her, and she could lose everything. She couldn’t call Mrs. Wells; that would be just as bad as shooting him herself. Instead, she made her way back down to the barn, shotgun in hand, to check that Penny was okay. Betty Lou howled from inside the kitchen, furious at being left behind.

One of the milk house heaters had fallen over, so it had automatically shut off. Lily righted it, reset it, and turned it back on. Someone had gone through the cabinets as well, leaving all the doors open and a mess on the floor. Lily lay the shotgun down on the workbench, and went to work cleaning up the mess. Penny shuffled over and nuzzled her pocket, looking for a carrot or apple. Lily rubbed the pony’s velvety muzzle and apologized for the intrusion. She gave Penny a cup of pony chow, drizzled some thick molasses over it, and the shaggy pony happily munched away. She put some cat food out on the workbench for the barn cats, and while the others stayed hidden, Betty Lou’s little kitten came out and greedily began to eat, purring deep in its throat as it did so. The small kitten had something snagged on its claw, and Lily recognized some long red curly hairs.

“Snicklefritz,” Lily said to the kitten, “I have revised my opinion of you. You are better than a security system.”

Lily imagined Brian had some deep scratches to show for his poor judgment in trying to bed down in her warm barn.

‘Or maybe he was looking for something,’ she thought.

She shone the flashlight at the trapdoor at the top of the ladder that led to the loft, but it was still fastened with a padlock on a strong metal clasp. That was a relief, at least. She hated to think what Brian would have done with what was up there.

Lily knew she could no longer ignore the events that were taking place in Rose Hill, or pretend they had nothing to do with her. She would have to make some difficult decisions, and soon. The lives of the people she cared most about were at risk, and old secrets were being revealed. It was just a matter of time before a trail of blood led right back to her door.

When Scott first surveyed the mountain of stolen mail cluttering the break room, he wondered how to even begin to examine it all. He felt sure the key to Margie’s disappearance was in there somewhere. He put aside the magazines and boxes of mail order merchandise, and decided to concentrate only on looking in envelopes that Margie had already opened. He put on some latex gloves, took a long sip of hot coffee, and began.

At 3:30 in the morning, a third of the way through his examination of Margie Estep’s stash of stolen mail, Scott found what would have been a very powerful motive for blackmail and murder. They were the kind of photos that would send a person to jail for a very long time; the same kind of photos Margie had used to ruin Willy Neff’s life a few years previously.

The envelope they were in was newer and plain, with no writing or postmark of any kind on the outside. Scott wondered if the original envelope, with the original recipient’s name and address, had been used to threaten the perpetrator, with the photos kept in reserve as a kind of insurance. There was no proof that any of this had happened, of course, but it was the kind of thing Scott was looking for. He carefully sealed the envelope of photographs in a plastic bag, put them in the station safe, and kept going.

At 4:30 he made another pot of coffee, and took a headache pill. Throughout the night Scott read many letters, and learned many things about the citizens of Rose Hill that he immediately wished he hadn’t. His list of potential suspects just got longer, and the growing stack of evidence shattered any illusions he may have had about what a quiet, peaceful town Rose Hill was. He finally had to designate a whole box for potential suspects, and everything that was potential blackmail fodder went into it.

At 5:30 in the morning Scott found a letter addressed to Maggie Fitzpatrick from her ex-boyfriend Gabe, postmarked a few months after he’d left her, almost seven years previously. This was a letter she had obviously never received. He sat holding it for a few minutes, deliberating whether to read it or not. He imagined handing it to Maggie, not knowing if its contents would blow apart all hope he had of a relationship with her. He stared at it until his vision blurred, and he felt additional twinges in his head. Finally, he tucked it inside the interior pocket of his jacket and went back to sorting. He was determined to look at every piece of mail now, not only in case there was more blackmail evidence, but also in case there were any more letters addressed to Maggie.

At 7:45 a.m. Scott looked at the last open envelope in the last box, his head throbbing from both lack of sleep and thinking too hard. He took the file box full of the most incendiary information and locked it in his office. When Skip came in to work at 8:00 Scott assigned him the daunting task of sorting and inventorying everything else.

“By last name of recipient, I think,” Scott told him. “Then anything we need will be easier to find later.”

He put on the jacket with Maggie’s letter in the pocket and went home. A hot shower helped his head a little, as did the pill he swallowed before setting the alarm clock and falling into bed. Gabe’s letter, still tucked inside his jacket, seemed to glow through the fabric, shine through the wall, and burn into his brain, until he wasn’t sure if he could sleep with it in the house.

He considered burning it, and wondered if he could live with that decision, just as he’d learned to live with the agonizing decision he made almost seven years ago, the night Gabe left Maggie behind in Rose Hill. It would be so easy to do, would take less than a minute, and then it would no longer be a threat. The only problem was the thought of destroying the letter felt so wrong he was nauseated by it.

Scott had come to realize that Maggie was emotionally stuck in the same place she was seven years ago. Over the intervening years, Maggie may have grown to love Scott a little more, and to grieve over Gabe a little less, but he knew she wouldn’t be free to begin anything with him until she finally let go of Gabe.

Meanwhile the truth had been waiting, ticking like a time bomb in the crawl space of Margie Estep’s attic bedroom. Only after Maggie knew what really happened and then made up her own mind, could Scott know for certain that she would choose him over Gabe. The only problem was she might not forgive him for his part in the events of that night. An envelope-shaped headache followed him into his dreams, where he met his old friend Gabriel, who had a lot to say.

Sean didn’t wake his sister before he left her place at 6:00 a.m., but she heard him go. Maggie turned over and covered her head with her pillow, willing herself to sleep a little longer and put off starting the day, but it was too late. Her mind was already running through the list of things she had to do, and a list of things she wanted to think about.

If her brother Brian was in Rose Hill, where was he staying? Who would hide him? Maggie knew Scott had his hands full with Margie’s murder investigation, so she would have to find Brian herself. If he really was stealing from the family and wanted to kidnap the kids, he must be on the run from someone or something. One good thing was, with all the festival tourists gone he would have a harder time hiding, especially with that long red hair and beard.

She also wanted to find out what Connie had done in 1984 that Margie had found out about. If Connie used to be a nurse, it may have had to do with something that happened to someone under her care. She would have to find out where Connie worked, and if anything bad had happened on her watch.

Maggie got up, took a shower, and then sat at the kitchen table, detangling her long red curls while waiting for the kettle to boil. At 7:00 she called downstairs to the bookstore and talked to Benjamin, who was working in the café. He checked the schedule and let her know that all the day’s shifts were covered so she didn’t have to come in. Maggie thought her staff would probably be relieved about that. She had a tendency to nitpick and nag when she worked the sales floor, when actually the staff was perfectly capable of running things without her there to supervise them.

Hannah called at 7:30.

“I’m relieved to find you home and not in jail,” she said.

“He really wasn’t mad,” Maggie said. “I think we’re wearing him down.”

“We are assets to his law enforcement team,” Hannah said. “He should really thank us.”

“I wouldn’t push it,” Maggie said.

“What are we doing today?” Hannah asked.

“I was just sitting here making a list. I thought we might pay Enid a visit.”

“Good idea. I think she knows more than she’s said.”

“We have to take Margie’s burial clothes to Peg at the funeral home.”

“You would dare to wake the undead in the light of day?” Hannah said. “I’ll bring my wooden stake.”

“Then I thought we might go door to door collecting money for the Humane Society, or investigating a lost dog report that you haven’t actually received.”

“But what will we really be doing?”

“Looking for Brian,” Maggie said, “and asking people when they saw Margie last.”

“You think the two are connected?”

“We know Brian’s been skulking around town at night, and we know Margie was doing a lot of walking around in the dark herself.”

“And if Margie saw him, he would know she would tell the whole town.”

“So if he’s on the run for some reason, and wanted to shut her up…”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Ed Harrison sat in the newspaper office and fiddled around with the web site he was building. His grandfather had started the newspaper, and then Ed’s father had run it until he died. The Sentinel’s subscribers were an aging population and it was not attracting any younger replacements. As papers all over the country were gobbled up or going under, replaced by tabloids and web sites, Ed had begun to feel more and more like a dinosaur pretending the air wasn’t turning cooler. He could no longer ignore the events that seemed to be leading to the demise of the business he was raised to believe was essential to daily life, like food and water. He didn’t know what he would do if the paper went under.

Ed’s mind wandered. He couldn’t figure out how he had mislaid the letter from Margie, or who could have picked it up. There were people in and out of the paper office all day every day, and many people had access to his mail; he didn’t see any reason to lock it up. Mandy visited the most, probably, but if she didn’t know about the letter, she wouldn’t be looking for it. He hadn’t asked her about it, either. It was really none of his business, and their relationship was so new he didn’t think he had a right to demand to know all her secrets.  He had decided not to worry about what the information was, but he was still concerned as to where it ended up.

He also kept thinking about the man renting Phyllis’s trailer, and Tommy seeing an old lady with a baby living there. Abruptly, he decided to go down there and see if he could get someone to answer the door. When he got to the trailer the walk was shoveled clear, so there were no shoe prints visible, and no one answered the door. He decided to check in at the station and let Scott know about the new residents. When Skip informed him Scott was at home, sleeping off a 24-hour shift, Ed decided not to wake him, and went to the diner for some breakfast.

Ed took his usual seat at the end of the counter at Davis’s Diner near the coffee service station so he could help himself to refills. He could remember watching his father do the same thing for many years, and ruminated that he was not only sitting on the same stool, but was probably drinking out of the same mug his father once used. He ate the same specials, talked to the same people, and wrote about the same town events as his father. His father, he reflected, probably never had an affair with a much younger woman who had an adolescent son. After Ed’s mother ran off when Ed was still in grade school, Ed’s father hadn’t wanted anything to do with women, romance, or what he called “foolishness.”

The owner’s daughter Pauline nodded a greeting to Ed as she waited on a nearby customer, and then gave the order to her husband Phil through the high window to the kitchen. Ed sipped coffee until she brought his usual order.

“How you doin’, Ed?” she asked him.

“Just fine, Pauline. Yourself?”

“I’m down but not out, as they say.”

“Having trouble finding a new waitress?”

“We aren’t even looking. Mom’s selling the place.”

“Well, I’ll be darned. What will you do?”

“We’re moving to Florida. Phil’s got a brother down there who owns a fishing boat, and we’re going in with him. Mom’s not getting any younger, and the winters up here are hard on her.”

“I don’t know what we’ll do without you,” Ed said.

“Maybe you’d like to buy the diner,” Pauline teased him. “You and Mandy could run it.”

“No, no, no,” Ed protested. “That sounds like too much hard work for me.”

“I guess you heard about that Margie.”

“Yeah, it’s all very strange. She ever give you any trouble?”

“We got a post office box in Pendleton ten years ago on account of her. She once tangled with my mother over something my daughter did, and I guess Gladys tore a strip off her hide. She never bothered us again.”

“Gladys is tough as nails, isn’t she?”

“Her mother was a single mother back when that was a disgrace to a family,” Pauline said. “They both raised me to hold my head up high and not be afraid to spit in anyone’s eye. That came in handy with a daughter like Phyllis. And my grandson, may God forgive him.”

Her eyes filled with tears and Ed gripped her hand, gave it a squeeze.

“Well, I’m sorry to see you go. You’ll be sorely missed.”

“If you know anybody who would be interested, let us know.”

Pauline went around the counter to wait on some customers. Ed got himself a refill of coffee. He was trying to think of anyone he knew that might be interested in the diner. When Pauline came back by he stopped her.

“The Delvecchios may be interested,” he said.

“I already talked to Tony,” Pauline said. “So they know about it.”

“Who is renting Phyllis’s trailer?” Ed asked her.

Pauline shrugged.

“Beats me. We don’t see much of our daughter since she moved out to the Roadhouse. I hear she’s not doing well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I thought when I had a baby girl that she would grow up to be my best friend. Instead she fought me tooth and nail from the minute she saw daylight. It was like she resented us for having the nerve to bring her to life. She’s my daughter, and I love her, but Phil and I are ready to have some kind of life without all her drama and misery.”

Ed couldn’t think of any appropriate response, so he just shook his head, and said, “I am so sorry.”

Pauline had tears in her eyes again as she patted Ed’s arm.

“Be glad you don’t have any kids,” she said. “They just break your heart.”

Ava Fitzpatrick finished making out her grocery list, gathered up her purse and coat, and headed to the grocery store. Charlotte and Timmy were in school, under the protection of their teachers and principal, with Frank sitting in a squad car just outside the entrance. Her last B&B guests had checked out, and she was looking forward to a few days with no new guests. Her fridge was bare, so she was going to pick up some basic provisions, plus some special treats for the kids.