Vultures At Twilight Part 19

'Too quaint,' her friend agreed as she focused her camera on the bell-topped school.

I didn't slow. Quaint? A lovely town where people are murdered and young girls go mad and kill themselves. Yes, I know people are flawed, my life as the GP's wife took care of any illusions. I'd sit in church with people I knew were cheating on their wives, or were addicted to pain pills. I knew who was alcoholic, who suffered with depression, and who despite being wealthy never paid their bills. 'It's just human nature,' Bradley would say as he'd write off thousands of dollars in unpaid fees.

What would he say to this? Could he write off the murders and the accusations? Sure it's human nature, but that doesn't make it OK.

I now stood in front of our house. It was still white, and the climbing pink roses and pale-blue hydrangea I had planted over thirty years ago were at their exuberant best; the last gasp of color before the first frost. The current residents had done little to change the exterior, and, secretly, I was grateful. The only notable differences were a new screened-in porch off the back and the gravel driveway was now asphalt.

I didn't really know the new family the Jensens a young doctor and his wife. I had met them at the closing and once or twice after that. I occasionally saw her in the grocery store and we would exchange h.e.l.los. I didn't like to think of them in our house. But there again, Bradley had been pragmatic. 'They're almost rented, these old homes. Think of all the families that have come before us and those still to come.' We had collected the records, our home's genealogy back to before the Revolution. I gave it to the Jensens at the closing.

And then I pa.s.sed the eyebrow colonial where I had been born. For the past twenty years it had been an antique store. Occasionally, I would go in to pick up the scents of my childhood. Unfortunately, the current owners were p.r.o.ne to potpourri and I would find myself fleeing the noxious fumes. Now, in the front window what used to be the living room was a display of wrought-iron fireplace tools and rustic salt-glazed stoneware filled with dried leaves and flowers. I stared up at the tiny half window of my childhood bedroom. So small, like a doll's house carefully polished and preserved.

It's all a facade, I thought as I turned and counted the antique shops, one after another. These had been homes. I could still remember the names of the families; many were still in town, just not in their original houses.

Then, out of the corner of my eye I caught someone crossing the street. I turned and saw Mattie Perez, coming toward me. I tried to work the corners of my face into a smile; it didn't work.

'Lil, are you OK?' she asked as she hurried toward me. Her expression showed more concern than was warranted by my mid-afternoon walk.

'I'm fine, why?'

She looked at me, trying to decide whether or not to say what was on her mind.

'Just go ahead,' I said. 'I'm a big girl.'

'Well, for starters,' she said, looking down at my feet, 'there's that.'

I followed her gaze and realized I had just walked three and a half miles in my pink bedroom slippers.

TWENTY-SIX.

Bacon sizzled in the Brown Bear Diner, filling the air with a smoky tang as late-afternoon diners, most of them older, sat around bottomless cups of coffee and talked about the weather, the news, and of course the murders.

I looked up as the pretty young waitress, possibly a high-school student, filled our mugs.

'It's good to see you, Mrs Campbell,' she said as she turned over the cups.

'Thank you,' I said, searching for a name. 'Joanie, isn't it?'

'You remembered.'

'Yes, but it gets harder and harder.'

She laughed politely and headed back to the kitchen of the Brown Bear.

'It must be nice,' Mattie said, 'living where you know pretty much everyone.'

'You'd think so,' I offered as I watched the waitress.

'What is it, Lil?'

'What do you mean?' I tried to focus on Mattie, but my thoughts ran in a dozen directions. For instance, the waitress was about the same age as Wendy, at least the age I remembered. She had the same blonde-haired blue-eyed features.

'Lil,' Mattie interrupted. 'Are you OK?'

'You asked me that before.'

'Yes, and you didn't answer.'

'I got some news today . . . I'm just distracted.' Noticing a local reporter at the table across from the pa.s.s-through kitchen interviewing an antique dealer over coffee and pecan pie. And two tables down from them were three men and a beautiful dark-skinned woman who I recognized from the Channel Eight news.

'About Ada?'

'No.'

'Could you tell me what it is? I might be able to help.'

'Thanks . . . but I don't think so.' I stared at my knife and fork, trying to focus on the paper placemat with its advertis.e.m.e.nts for local merchants: the well digger, two realtors with old Grenville names, the travel agent, the health food store, the blacksmith; and how many towns still have one of those?

'Is it something physical?' she persisted.

'No, and please . . . no twenty questions.' My voice sounded harsher than I had intended. 'I'm sorry; I didn't mean to be rude. It's just . . . someone I care about has had very disturbing accusations made about him.'

'Accusations?'

You idiot, Lil! What a stupid thing to say to a detective. Oh well, in for a penny . . . 'Child abuse.'

'That is serious. What sort of abuse?'

's.e.xual.'

'And he's denying it?'

'He doesn't have to. I know he's innocent.'

'That can happen,' she offered, her words carefully chosen. 'And when it does, the damage from the accusation can be as bad as if it were true.'

'Exactly,' I agreed. 'Once the thought is planted in people's minds, that so-and-so is a pedophile, it doesn't matter if it's true. Your reputation is ruined.'

'How do you know he's innocent?'

'I know him too well. If that had been going on I would have known.'

'OK, let me play devil's advocate. I've been involved in a lot of child-abuse cases, and the last person to know, or to suspect, is the person closest to the perpetrator. Often the wife or mother . . .'

I met her dark-eyed gaze. She so reminded me of my oldest, Barbara, a tough-as-nails casting agent, brutally direct and honest. She'd say it was part of the job, I think it went the other way, it was part of her and the job fit like a glove.

'Was this something recent?' she continued. 'Or in the past?'

'Past.'

'And now someone's made an accusation?'

'Yes.'

'Have they filed a complaint?'

'No, and they won't.'

'Why not?' Gently prodding.

'Mattie, I really would like to confide in you, but I haven't thought this through and it's not like you're a disinterested party.'

'Lil, if a crime has been committed, and a child has been hurt, someone needs to know about it. Because the thing about child abuse is if the accusations are true, perpetrators repeat. So you may not be talking about one child, but many.'

I watched as the waitress returned with our sandwiches. She had been one of Bradley's patients when she'd been a little girl; they all had. I'm sure she'd played with the toys and read the picture books we had always kept in the kiddies' corner of the waiting room.

'Tell me about that,' I said. 'If someone were molesting children, how do you know? I mean, if you don't catch someone . . . where's the evidence? You have the child's word, but children can lie. And now you have all these people saying they were molested as children, but didn't remember it for years. Can that really happen?'

'Repressed memories. It's controversial. A few years back people took repressed memories at face value; now there's a lot more skepticism. Basically, you need some form of corroborative evidence to make a charge stick.'

'But if something took place fifteen or twenty years ago, that seems hard.'

'Almost impossible, unless evidence was taken, in which case you can run DNA and either confirm or rule out . . . Someone has made an accusation against your husband?'

I couldn't look at her. I had been deliberately dropping hints. She had picked them up and made the logical connections. 'Yes.'

'Have they asked for money?'

'No,' I said, surprised at the question. 'Why?'

'Just thinking through the options. If they haven't gone to the police and they haven't asked for money . . . Do they have a therapist putting them up to it?'

'No.' I'd gone too far to not tell her the whole thing. Granted we had promised Tolliver to keep the journals to ourselves, but this. .h.i.t too close and my allegiance to my husband and my family took precedence. 'The person is dead,' I said. 'She was a local girl who killed herself many years back.'

'So who made the accusation?'

'She kept diaries.'

'Who had the diaries?'

I paused, knowing that I had hit the point of no return.

She waited out my silence.

I stabbed my fork into a small hill of coleslaw. What business did I have going through Wendy Conroy's journals anyway? 'I'm torn,' I admitted. 'I was reading them as a favor, and now . . .'

'I can be discreet, Lil. But if there's a chance that they have some bearing on these cases, you have to tell me.'

'The diaries are Wendy Conroy's.'

She let the name sink in. 'Philip Conroy's sister?'

'Yes.'

'Why would he have given them to you?'

'He didn't. It was Tolliver.'

'OK,' she said. 'Why would Tolliver want you to see them?'

'He said that he couldn't bear to look at them. Apparently, Philip had read them and become depressed. Tolliver didn't think he could handle whatever was in them.'

'So that's what it was,' she said, coming to some conclusion that I couldn't follow. 'I'm going to need to get them, Lil.'

'I figured. Let me talk to Tolliver before you take them.' I didn't relish the thought of telling Tolliver that I had broken his confidence. Or worse, I was so frightened of having the journals scrutinized in the light of day. 'Mattie, there are things in those notebooks that could ruin my husband's reputation. There's no way he can defend himself.'

'I'll do what I can,' she said. 'But things come out in murder investigations that no one wants to see.'

I pushed my untouched sandwich to the edge of the table. I had no appet.i.te, and there was a weight in my chest that made it hard to breathe. 'What am I going to tell my daughters?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'Not yet. Trust me. I'll be as careful as I can.'

I wanted to believe her, to believe that the life I had lived for more than thirty years with Bradley had not been a lie. The room felt warm and close. 'I need air,' I said, getting to my feet. My head felt too light. I should have eaten something. The tightness in my chest worsening, like someone pressing in.

'Lil?' Mattie got up and put her hand on my shoulder. 'What's happening?'

'Nothing,' I muttered, loosening the collar of my dress. My skin felt hot, my tongue thick; I was sweating. 'It's so warm.'

'Sit down,' she said.

I tried to oblige, but 'Oh my' like a fist squeezing my ribs. The pain . . . I grabbed on to her but my balance was off and my slippers lost their grip on the waxed linoleum.

Mattie caught me and eased me to the floor. A crowd gathered.

'Someone dial nine one one,' Mattie barked, further loosening my dress.

I stared up into the waitress' cornflower blue eyes only, they weren't hers, they were Wendy's. And as I lost consciousness, she smiled.