Sofie Kelly - Copycat Killing - A Magical Cats Mystery

When I looked at Pearl again her eyes were fixed on some distant spot across the grass. I glanced back over my shoulder for any sign of Roma. Sam Ingstrom and a man I recognized from Everett Henderson’s office were getting out of a town truck that had pulled up by the old house.

“Why don’t we go find Roma?” I said to Pearl.

She had a look in her eyes that I couldn’t decipher and all the color seemed to have drained out of her face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“All these years he was out here and I didn’t know. I walked around in those woods and Tom was …un-derneath my feet.”

My heart started to pound. “Let’s go sit down,” I said. I led Pearl over to the steps at the side of the old house. We both sat down. She folded her hands in her lap and I covered them with my own. “It’s not your fault,” I said.

She’d been staring past me, focused on nothing really, maybe the past, but she looked at me then. “He didn’t deserve that.” She gestured toward the embankment. “He wasn’t a bad person.”

“He wasn’t a good person,” a voice said. Sam’s voice. He was standing just a few feet away. He shook his head emphatically. “He was a lousy husband and a lousy father, Pearl. Don’t make Tom out to be some kind of saint just because he’s dead.”

Pearl got to her feet and I did as well.

Sam came and stood in front of us, ignoring me, focusing only on Pearl. “Whatever happened to him has nothing to do with you. You did the right thing for you and for Roma. If Tom had been a good man, you wouldn’t have had to sneak away with the supper dishes on the table and just the clothes on your back. You wouldn’t have had to depend on Anna’s kindness.”

“We know what Anna and the other women were doing,” I said quietly.

Something flashed quickly across Sam’s face. “Okay,” he said. “That doesn’t change anything.”

Pearl kept her eyes fixed on Sam, one hand clenched into a tight fist at her side. “You told me it would be all right Sam, but you lied, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Sam said. His focus was completely on Pearl. “It was all right. You’ve had a good life.”

“That night, he threatened to take Roma, trying to scare me,” Pearl said. “He twisted her arm, she was crying and I…I told him I’d do whatever he wanted.” Her voice gained strength. “I made his favorite meal—liver and onions—when it was ready he said it tasted like an old boot, and he went out looking for beer because Idris wouldn’t sell any to him anymore.”

Roma had come up behind Sam and she stood there, arms wrapped tightly around her body again, one hand pressed against her mouth.

“I grabbed Roma and I ran,” Pearl continued. “I knew Anna would help us so that’s where I went. You were there. You said it was over, Sam. But it isn’t.”

She seemed to be aware of only Sam, towering over her, his mouth pulled into a thin, tight line.

He swallowed and gave her a smile of sorts. “It’s been over for a long time, Pearl.” He reached toward her and then abruptly pulled his hand back.

“Turquoise bucket seats,” Roma said then, to no one in particular.

We all looked at her. She was shaking. I pulled off my sweater and put it around her shoulders. She looked at me. “The car had turquoise bucket seats. I was in the driver’s seat turning the steering wheel, driving the car. I remember. Then my dad came and he sat me on his lap and I was still driving the car. He smelled like cinnamon gum.”

Her hands were clenched into tight, knotted fists. She took a couple of steps closer to Sam. “It was you. You let me sit on your lap and drive. It wasn’t Tom. It was you.”

32

Sam acted like Roma hadn’t even spoken. All of his attention was concentrated on Pearl.

“Just leave this all be, and trust me,” he said. “You didn’t kill Tom. You couldn’t.” His body language didn’t give anything away but I could hear an edge of desperation in his voice.

“You helped Anna, didn’t you, Sam?” I asked.

His gaze flicked in my direction.

“I don’t know why,” I went on. “Maybe your father hurt your mother. Maybe you stumbled onto what Anna and the other women were doing and it made you feel good to help. Really it doesn’t matter why you were helping. You were doing it.”

“So what if I was?” Sam said. He made a dismissive gesture like he was shooing away a fly. “Pearl didn’t kill Tom.”

“No, she didn’t,” I said.

Pearl was shaking her head. “I just wanted to get Roma away from him.” She reached for her daughter, putting a protective arm around her shoulders. It made my chest hurt, thinking about a young Pearl, all those years ago, desperate to keep her child safe.

“I know,” I said. I kept the emotion out of my voice as much as I could and I didn’t take my eyes off of Sam, who met my gaze with no problem.

Roma was still staring at Sam. “I remember the car,” she said. “It was parked over there, by the carriage house. I remember you .”

Sam’s eyes flicked over to her. “I know you do. It just wasn’t that night,” he said, gently.

“Tom talked with his fists, didn’t he?” I said.

“That he did,” Sam agreed. He stood with his arms loosely at his sides. He was a big man, strong. More than forty years ago he would have been more than a match for Tom Karlsson.

My throat was dry and I swallowed a couple of times. “I’m guessing you drove by that little house a lot.”

“We had work in the area. I drove by a few times.”

“But not that night.”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“That night, by some accident of timing—good or bad—you saw Tom come back. Idris Blackthorne wouldn’t sell to him, but someone else in town did. And you could see Pearl walking up the side of the road. You knew what would happen when Tom found her.”

“I was delivering a load of railroad ties at Wisteria Hill.”

“No,” I said. “You did that earlier. You were in your car, the one with the turquoise bucket seats, on your way to check on Pearl. You’d probably heard they were going to be evicted. Maybe you knew Tom was drinking. Or you guessed he would be. You knew there’d be trouble.”

“I don’t remember seeing the one-ton that night,” Pearl said, slowly. “I remember that pile of railroad ties, but not the truck.”

I kept looking at Sam thinking, say the words , but he didn’t. And I knew I was going to have to.

Except Pearl beat me to it.

“You didn’t have to kill him, Sammy,” she said.

I looked at Roma and Pearl. Then I looked back at Sam. He gave his head a little shake.

“I couldn’t figure out how you did it,” I said, “because your foot was injured, and I didn’t see how you could get around, but you didn’t go see Tom after Pearl showed up out here, you were there before she got here.

“You saw Tom before you put that spike through your foot,” I continued. “In fact, I think that’s where you did it. Not here.”

His jaw tightened, but that was the only visible reaction.

“I can’t blame you, Sam. I don’t know what I would have done in your place.”

Pearl’s face was still drained of color. Her back was straight and she held tight to Roma. She was strong enough to get through this. And so was Roma.

“I didn’t tell anyone that I walked out and left supper on the table,” Pearl said. “You were there at the house, after we were gone. That’s the only way you could have known the dishes were still there.”

Sam and I continued to lock eyes. “Has there ever been a time that you didn’t love Pearl?” I asked gently.

Sam smiled then, giving me a glimpse of the young man who’d carried a torch for a pretty girl who thought of him only as a friend.