Upstate Uproar (34 page)

V
ivian grabbed her
oh-shit handle and held on tight as Kate picked up the pace of
their SUV. “Scooter what?”

Kate turned down the lane for Turlington
Farms, again too quickly, leaning everyone to the left. “Tracy
called Brandon that a couple of times, and now I remember where I
saw that carving. It’s on the dock behind their house. One of the
boards isn’t flush with the others, and I tripped on it when we
went out on Larson’s boat. I looked down and there it was. A heart
with SB+T scratched inside. It looks almost identical to the
carving on the tree.”

Vivian’s head spun, and not only from Kate’s
driving. “Scooter Bill plus Tracy. My gosh, it’s Brandon!”

“He left a mark at each spot where he
murdered his wives,” Lucy said. “The tree for Rebecca and the dock
for Mary Beth. Have y’all seen that marking in the house anywhere?
Is Tracy next?”

“He’s a serial killer and we saw him burning
the leaves, he’s good with fire,” Wendy said. “You think he tried
to kill April by burning down her house?”

“But why after all this time?” Kate asked.
“That doesn’t make sense. Maybe her fire is unrelated.”

Vivian looked out the windshield as they
pulled up the drive. The normally cheery yellow house with white
gingerbread trim now looked foreboding. “I really don’t know if we
should stay here tonight.”

“We have to get our bags,” Kate said and
smoothed her hair. “We need to remain calm so Tracy and Brandon
won’t know anything is off.”

“What are we going to do with this
information?” Wendy asked. “We don’t have any proof Brandon is the
murderer, and the police never found any wrongdoing on his part in
either death. It might be a hard sell.”

Kate tapped her fingertips together in her
lap. “Pierre, you go find Brandon and keep him away from the house.
We need to look around.”

“Where are we going to start?” Vivian
asked.

“Where all secrets are kept, of course, in
the attic,” Kate said.

“The access door to the attic is at the end
of our hallway, but…” Lucy hesitated. “Don’t we need to leave this
to the cops? What do we expect to find?”

Kate opened her door and got out. “I’m not
sure, but we’ve got to start somewhere. These women are counting on
us.”

The group got out of the SUV and walked into
the house. The smell of baked goods greeted them as they walked to
the dining room. A three-tier cake covered in white fondant icing
and decorated with yellow, orange and red icing leaves sat in the
center of the table. Chocolate cupcakes topped with orange frosting
and two plates of cookies completed the spread.

The water stopped running in the kitchen and
Tracy walked into the room drying her hands on a towel. Her apron
was splattered with red food dye, and she had flour on her face.
Her eyes were bloodshot. “Welcome back. You have a nice drive
today?”

Vivian tried not to let the shock of Tracy’s
appearance show. “We sure did.” She gestured to the table. “I see
you’ve been busy.”

Tracy shrugged. “Since it’s your last night I
wanted to show our appreciation for having you as guests. Your stay
hasn’t been the most relaxing, and I wanted to try and end it on a
better note.”

Kate picked up a cupcake. “Mmmm, thank you,
we appreciate that.”

“Is Brandon around?” Pierre asked. “I have an
old radial arm saw at home and wanted his thoughts on what I should
do to fix it, or if I should just give up and buy a new one.”

“He’s chopping wood behind the garage.” Tracy
picked up a knife and cake server. “Anyone like a piece of Italian
cream cake?”

“I hate to mess up your cake, it’s so
pretty,” Vivian said.

Tracy sliced into the top tier.

“But since you’ve started, I’d love a
piece.”

Tracy smiled as she gently set a huge piece
on a plate.

Maybe it was Tracy’s bloodshot eyes, or maybe
it was the splatter of red dye on the apron, but something in her
smile sent a chill down Vivian’s spine. “I think I’ll take mine to
our room if you don’t mind.” She looked at the girls, imploring
them to get the message.

Wendy looked at her, then at Tracy. “Me, too.
Being in the car all day makes me tired. Whew!”

“I’ll stick with the cupcake for now,” Kate
said, then headed toward the stairs.

Lucy passed on the baked goods and went
upstairs while Pierre went outside in search of Brandon.

Vivian walked in as Kate pitched the cupcake
in the trash. “You think she’s the one who got Nicole sick with the
E. coli?” Kate asked.

Vivian scraped her cake into the trash, too.
“I don’t know. She’s been feeding us for days and we haven’t had
any issues, but something isn’t right here.”

“She looked a little crazy,” Wendy said,
dropping her plate into the trash.

“She is a little crazy to cook and bake like
she did today,” Lucy said. “That cake looked like a wedding cake.
All that was missing was the bride and groom on top.”

Vivian looked out the window and could see
Pierre helping Brandon with the wood. “What if she’s in on this
with him and the abused spouse is just a front?”

Kate joined her at the window. “Let’s hold
off on that until we can look through the attic. I’m willing to bet
Brandon has more things hidden up there he doesn’t want Tracy to
find.”

Lucy opened the bedroom door and peeked out.
“Coast is clear, let me go try the attic door.” She crept down the
hallway and tried to turn the knob to the attic but it was locked.
She hurried back into the room. “Now what?”

“We’ve got to get in there,” Kate said.

Vivian smiled and pulled Jeremy’s lock pick
set out of her purse. “No problem!”

V
ivian walked as
quietly as she could down the dark hallway outside her bedroom to
the attic entrance. Lucy stationed herself near the top of the
stairs. Kate and Wendy stayed at their bedroom door looking ready
to dive inside if needed.

Vivian twisted and tugged on the attic door
handle. She had no idea how to use Jeremy’s lock pick set, but she
figured this old door couldn’t be too complicated. She opened a
blade that was as curved as a treacherous road. She pushed it into
the hole on the doorknob. She twisted it left and right, but
nothing happened. Jammed it in pretty hard. Still nothing.

“Tick tock, tick tock,” Lucy whispered.

“I’m working on it!” Vivian whispered back.
She tried the blade with the gradual curved tip and slid it through
the small hole in the door handle and started jiggling. She heard a
small click. “I think I got it!” She turned the handle. “Open
sesame,” she said and pulled the door open.

Lucy, Wendy and Kate tiptoed down the hall
toward her. Vivian clicked on the light and started up the narrow
staircase. The boards creaked under her feet, sounding like an
alarm going off with each step. She reached the landing and
couldn’t see much, given the dim, bare bulb in the middle of the
attic. The mustiness got to her, and she coughed several times.

Wendy popped up behind her. “Thank goodness I
brought this,” she said and clicked on her flashlight. “It’s small
but powerful.”

The attic was about the size of one of their
bedrooms except they could only stand up straight in the middle;
otherwise the pitch of the roof was in the way. The floor was
unfinished, and a small, dirt-caked window faced out toward the
garage. Dust floated through the beam of light as Wendy moved the
flashlight across the room, displaying the handiwork of generations
of spiders.

“Over there,” Lucy whispered, pointing to the
right.

Two sets of old suitcases shoved in a corner
had boxes stacked beside them. An old floor lamp, drapery rods and
a twin-sized mattress leaned against one wall. The only items not
completely covered in dust were five boxes in various sizes marked
Christmas decorations.

The girls crept over and Wendy handed the
flashlight to Kate, who peeked inside a long rectangular box.
“Christmas tree,” she whispered, then moved on. The other four
boxes were as marked, no surprises except the last box contained a
framed picture of Brandon and Mary Beth, arms around each other, in
front of the snow-covered house, which was decorated in white
Christmas lights.

“They could’ve used this as their card. Sad.”
Kate put everything back exactly as it was. “Now what?”

Lucy walked toward the mattress. “Think
there’s anything hiding behind it?”

“Let’s see,” Kate said and walked close to
it.

Lucy pulled the mattress from the wall, then
quickly set it back, kicking up a cloud of dust. Kate covered her
face, coughed and moved away. Lucy stepped back and ran into the
floor lamp, knocking it over.

Vivian held her breath, listening for
footsteps. After what felt like long enough, she turned to Lucy.
“Be careful!”

“Sorry!”

“Let’s hurry,” Kate said and picked up the
first of three small suitcases.

Nothing was found except an empty tube of
toothpaste, some bobby pins, a couple of hotel-sized complimentary
soaps and a white sock.

“That just leaves those,” Vivian said,
hunching over to get to the last stack of boxes. She pulled back
the flaps on a medium-sized one. The light from the bare bulb
wasn’t enough to see what was inside. “Kate, can you come over here
with the flashlight?”

Kate stood beside her and shined the light in
the box. “What in the world?”

Vivian reached for an item wrapped in tissue
paper and carefully unwrapped it. A cow wearing a party hat and
covered in confetti was sitting on a birthday cake holding a little
sign that read Happy Birthday To Moo. “Cute.” She picked up the
next item wrapped in tissue and discovered a Hawaiian-themed cow
figurine with sunglasses, lei and grass skirt.

Wendy came around the other side of the box.
“My mom collects these Cow Parade things. They could probably sell
these on eBay for a little bit of cash.”

Vivian sifted through the rest of the box but
the only occupants were bovine. Vivian handed the box to Lucy, who
moved it out of the way. In the next box were old dishes. Lucy
moved that to the side and pulled at the shipping tape on the next
box, trying to open it. “I can’t get it.”

Kate reached into her pocket. “Here, I’ve got
the car keys.” She punctured the tape and put the key back.

Vivian opened box number three revealing four
royal blue books with Lake Placid High School on the spine spanning
1992 to 1995. “Yearbooks.”

She opened the front cover on 1992. The
inscriptions were to Brandon, and Vivian read them aloud. “Brandon,
I’ve had a crush on you since third grade and I’ll always love you,
signed Regina.”

Kate pointed to an inscription in the corner.
“Brandon, you suck, Mark.” She picked up the 1994 yearbook and
started flipping through.

Lucy grabbed 1993. “This was Brandon’s, too.”
She flipped through it, pausing and laughing at some of the
outfits.

Wendy picked up 1995. “This is weird.” She
held it up for the other girls to see. “No inscriptions.
Nothing.”

“Maybe since it was his senior year, he
didn’t want it signed?” Vivian said.

“That’s usually when you
do
want it
signed,” Lucy said.

Wendy flipped through the first few pages as
Kate peered over her shoulder, then went back to the junior
yearbook.

“Let’s check our key players,” Vivian said
and looked up Mary Beth Turlington under the freshman class.
Nothing written by her picture, so Vivian scanned the whole
freshman class for Tracy’s picture. It was a small class and didn’t
take long. One small heart was under Tracy’s name in blue ink. “I’m
guessing Brandon hearted Tracy. Y’all look them up, too.”

“What was Tracy’s maiden name?” Lucy
asked.

“Browne.”

Lucy quickly found the page. “Whoa, she had
some ’90s bad hair.”

Vivian looked over. “Indeed.”

“There’s a little heart under her picture,”
Lucy said, “so I guess he still ‘hearted her’ their sophomore year,
too.”

Vivian watched as she flipped to a smiling
Mary Beth, then Brandon.

In the middle of the book Lucy landed on the
football team’s page. “Aww, they were cute.” There was Brandon in
uniform and Tracy in a cheerleading uniform standing side by side,
holding hands. Lucy read the inscription. “ ‘I’ll love you forever,
Scooter Bill.’ ”

“So they were together their freshman and
sophomore year. That’s a long time when you’re that age, and a big
deal,” Kate said.

Vivian closed the book she was holding. “I’m
ready to get out of here. This is getting us nowhere.”

Wendy flipped to Tracy’s senior picture, but
there was no heart or anything written so she turned the page to
Brandon’s picture, but again, nothing. “Let’s check out Mary Beth,”
she said and turned the page, then gasped.

“What?” Vivian came over to see.

In the place that should have held Mary
Beth’s senior picture were deep, black, ballpoint pen scratches.
The page was deeply grooved. Her name had been scratched out and
“Bitch” was written in its place.

“I have the feeling this isn’t Brandon’s
book,” Wendy said as she turned to his picture. Surrounding it was
a giant heart inscribed with SB+T in red ink.

Kate drew in a quick breath. “Oh my god, it’s
not Brandon that’s the killer, it’s Tracy. We’ve got to get out of
here!”

They threw the books down, not bothering to
close anything up, and followed Kate down the steps.

She pushed on the attic door. “It won’t
open!”

“Let me try,” Vivian said.

Kate scooted out of the way. Though the
handle would turn, the door wouldn’t budge. “What the — oh my god,
is that smoke? It’s smoke!” Smoke billowed under the attic door and
crept around the edges. Vivian touched the handle again and could
feel it getting hotter. “Holy shit, the house is on fire!”