Skeletons in the Attic (A Marketville Mystery Book 1) (27 page)

So they had all been wrong. My father. Leith Hampton. Ella Cole. Reid and Melanie Ashford. Misty Rivers. Randi Tamarand. I should have suspected. No one had ever found a body. The simplest explanation was that there had been no body to find.

What I didn’t understand was why a mother—one who supposedly doted on her only child—could disappear without a word for thirty years. How she could let her husband and daughter believe she was dead. It was beyond cruel, even taking into account that the marriage had been in jeopardy.

My mother reached out to touch me. I flinched and drew back, one hand on the door. How dare she think she could turn up and pretend this was some sort of family reunion?

“May we come in before the neighbours come out?” Dwayne nodded in the direction of Ella’s house, a silent signal that spoke volumes.

He had a point. I stepped back.

We made our way into the living room. I didn’t bother playing hostess. If I had a glass in my hand I was likely to crush it. Or throw it. I certainly wasn’t going to offer them cookies.

“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, Calamity.”

“Callie.”

She bit her lower lip. “Callie.”

“What do you want from me?”

“It’s not what I want from you. It’s what I want to tell you. Where I’ve been, why I left. I don’t expect forgiveness.”

What was it Misty had said? Your mother received a phone call one day at the food bank. She said something along the lines of forgiveness coming at a high price.
“Why now?”

“I found out you were looking into the past. It was only a matter of time until you discovered I was alive. I thought that bit of news would be better coming from me.”

“It’s a bit late for true confessions, don’t you think? Besides, why should I believe anything you have to tell me?

“Because I no longer have any reason to lie. You see, once Jimmy died, the reason died with him.”

“It was all my fault,” my mother began. “I missed my parents. I wanted them to get to know their grandchild. More than that, I wanted you to have the opportunities they could offer. Jimmy was a hard worker, and a good man, but his vision for our future was limited. He was never going to be able to provide the finer things in life, or get you into the best schools.”

“I did just fine going through the public school system. I even managed to get a business degree in college. I graduated not owing a dime, thanks to dad and some part-time jobs.” Or was it? How much of Corbin’s money paid for my education?

“We’re not here to debate your upbringing,” Dwayne said. “Your father did a fine job of raising you. He loved you above and beyond anything or anyone. But if you want to hear the story, you have to be willing to listen.”

Did I want to hear the story? I did, if only to get closure. “I won’t interrupt again.”

My mother twisted her hands in her lap. “I desperately wanted to reconnect with my parents. Jimmy couldn’t understand it. He had no desire to see his own parents, and he couldn’t forgive mine for turning me out when I became pregnant. I kept telling him it was time to let go of the past, to at least try to make amends. It caused a serious rift in our relationship. We fought about it day and night.”

The affair with Reid probably didn’t help, either.
“Go on.”

“Things came to a head on my twenty-fifth birthday. I shared the date with Ella next door, and her husband, Eddie, threw us both a party. Just before going over there, my mother called. It was the first time I’d heard her voice in six years. I’ll have to admit it rattled me. All those years of waiting for absolution. I thought I was prepared for it. I wasn’t.”

I could relate.
“What did you do?”

“Before I could say or do anything, Jimmy grabbed the phone and demanded to speak to Corbin. My mother hung up. I never heard from her again.”

That explained why my mother was so twitchy on the night of her birthday party. It also went a long way in explaining the strengthening rift in my parents’ marriage. My mother’s next statement confirmed it.

“After that day, I could never love or look at Jimmy in the same way. There’s being proud, and then there’s being obstinate at the cost of everything else. Even so, I thought given enough time he would come to his senses. I suggested a trial separation. That’s when he finally agreed to pay a visit to your grandfather. I wanted to go with him, but he insisted on going alone.” My mother’s voice broke. “Not a day has gone by when I haven’t regretted that decision.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened,” Dwayne said, reaching for my mother’s hand.

I was getting tired of the drama. “Can we cut to the chase, Mother? Dad went to see Corbin. Something happened that made you decide to leave. What I want to know is who, what, and why.”

My mother nodded. “It was early February when Jimmy went to see my father. He waited down the street until my mother went out.” She shook her head. “I’ll never know what truly happened that day, but I do know that your grandfather has a temper. Years ago, he almost strangled Jimmy outside of Ben’s Convenience. That time, Jimmy didn’t fight back.”

“But this time, he did?”

Another nod. “All those years of hurt and betrayal had festered inside of him like a poison. He went crazy, nearly beat my father to death. If Dwayne hadn’t walked in on them, maybe he would have.”

Dwayne picked up the narrative. “I worked for Osgoode Construction at the time, and I had some paperwork to deliver. I heard someone fighting when I got to the door. What I saw when I opened it…let’s just say that a few more punches and Corbin might not have made it. I managed to pull Jimmy off of him and convinced him to get out of there while he still had a chance. The last time I saw him, he was driving his pickup down Moore Gate Manor.”

“What happened next?”

“Corbin picked up the phone. I thought he was calling the police. Instead, he called Abby.”

“He told me to get over there if I wanted to save Jimmy’s life,” my mother said. “I asked Ella Cole to look after you and drove to Lakeside as fast as our old station wagon would take me. When I got there, he gave me an ultimatum. If I didn’t leave Jimmy and his bastard child—his term, not mine—he would press charges for attempted murder.”

“Surely it wouldn’t have come to that?”

My mother gave a thin-lipped smile. “Corbin Osgoode is a very powerful man. Back then, he all but owned Lakeside. He was very generous when it came to local initiatives, especially when it came to the police. The thought of leaving you behind broke my heart, but I couldn’t let you grow up with your father in jail.”

“So your solution was to give in to your father’s blackmail and disappear?”

“Not at first. I thought with some time and distance, my father would come to his senses. Instead, the delay only served to enrage him all the more. One day, he called me at the food bank where I’d been volunteering. This time he threatened to call the police on Jimmy and report us to Children’s Aid. He convinced me that they would take you away and put you in foster care.”

Dwayne picked up the narrative. “I’d been planning to move to Vancouver. I was trying to escape a rather destructive relationship and Vancouver seemed as good a place as any. I approached Corbin and told him that I would take care of Abby if he gave us enough money to start over. He laughed in my face and said he wouldn’t give her a dime. Then he said that time was running out for Jimmy Barnstable.”

“We left the next day,” my mother said. “Valentine’s Day. The only thing I took were the clothes on my back. I buried my wedding ring under the lilac tree. I’m sure it’s still there.”

“You make it all sound so simple,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.

“Simple? Is that what you think it was? Callie, leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I did it because I loved you with every fiber of my being. I thought we’d be back after a few months, but by then, you’d moved to Toronto.”

Corbin told me that he was sending your father money every month to make sure you were well looked after,” Dwayne said. “He said he’d keep sending it only if Abby stayed away. If she came back…”

“The threat of sending your dad to jail continued to loom large, even as time went by,” my mother said. “Was there a statute of limitation on attempted murder? Would my father make good on his promise to call Children’s Aid? I didn’t know. I only know that I truly believed I was doing the right thing. Your father was a free man, and you were being well looked after.”

My dad had led me to believe that my grandparents hadn’t cared about me. I’d since come to learn that Yvette had tried sending cards and letters, and that Corbin had tried to care for me in the only way he knew—with money. And still my father’s stubborn streak had stopped him from telling me.

“We hired a firm to give us an update on you and your dad,” Dwayne said, interrupting my thoughts. “Jimmy was having a hard time finding a job in Marketville, thanks to Corbin putting the word out that he was unreliable. I moved back to Toronto and started working for Southern Ontario Construction Company. I made sure that they hired your father, and I was able to keep tabs on you at the same time. Not that your dad ever invited me to your house. It was if he wanted to separate the past from the present. I respected that.”

“What about you, Mother? Did you stay in Vancouver?”

“No. I changed my name to Alison Lake. I moved around. A lot. Calgary. Winnipeg. Montreal. Halifax. Anywhere but
Marketville
or Toronto. I took odd jobs to make ends meet. Mostly I just drifted, although I stayed in touch with Dwayne.” She gave a sad smile. “I always knew how you were doing. Then one day Dwayne called to tell me that Jimmy had died. I might have stayed away, but you started looking into the past. It was only a matter of time until you figured it all out. I needed you to hear the true story from me.”

I leaned back in my chair. It was quite the story. It would take some time to process everything I’d learned. To decide whether I had it in me to forgive my mother. I hoped so, but I couldn’t be sure.

There were still two unanswered questions.

“Do you think my father’s death was an accident?”

“There is no reason to think otherwise,” Dwayne said.

I wasn’t about to tell them about my dad’s letter. Besides, whatever I found out would only be conjecture on my part. It wouldn’t bring him back.

I turned to face my mother. “Can I ask you one more question?”

Her face brightened. “Of course. Anything.”

“I know that the Calamity Jane movie poster is a recent reproduction. What I don’t know is how you managed to get it into the attic without anyone seeing you.”

My mother stared at me, her face a complete blank. “I don’t know anything about a movie poster.”

I thought about the signature, a backhand slant, sure, but a little bit spidery, just like my father’s handwriting. I looked up towards the ceiling and smiled. It seemed the skeleton in the attic wasn’t the only thing my father had left for me.

~ * ~

If you enjoyed this book, please consider writing a short review and posting it on your favorite review site. Reviews are very helpful to other readers and are greatly appreciated by authors, especially me. When you post a review, drop me an email and let me know and I may feature part of it on my blog/site. Thank you.

Judy

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Dear Reader,

I started writing Skeletons in the Attic while trying to find a publisher for my debut mystery novel,
The Hanged Man’s Noose
, the first book in the Glass Dolphin Mystery series. I didn’t want to stop writing, but I couldn’t bring myself to write the sequel to a novel that hadn’t yet found “a home.”

Just as the setting of Lount’s Landing is loosely based on my former community of Holland Landing, Ontario, Canada, so too is Marketville loosely based on the town of Newmarket, which is situated just south of Holland Landing. Of course, I have taken many liberties with both locations, as well as the surrounding area, and the characters are entirely fictitious, but therein lies the inspiration.

The idea for
Skeletons in the Attic
came to me while I waited with my husband, Mike, in our lawyer’s office. We were there to update our wills, and his goldendoodle kept us company while our lawyer was detained at court. The opening scenes of this book are culled directly from that experience. (Let that be your takeaway from this: everything that happens in a writer’s life may end up in one of their stories.)

Publication for the second book in the Marketville Mystery Series is tentatively scheduled for 2017 (of course, I do have to write it first). Stay tuned for updates, which will be posted on my website,
www.judypenzsheluk.com
. I welcome new followers to my blog, as well as my newsletter.

Finally, thank you for taking the time to read my story.

Judy Penz Sheluk