Sofie Kelly - Copycat Killing - A Magical Cats Mystery

Rebecca looked at me, clearly surprised. “Sam? Sam Ingstrom?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?” Everett said.

I nodded.

I could see Everett relax, just slightly. “I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “For Roma and for Pearl.”

I could hear my heart pounding in both my ears and for a moment I thought about just drinking my coffee and going home. Then I thought about how Wisteria Hill’s secrets had hurt Roma.

Sam, Ellen, Anna, and who knows how many others had kept the secret of what happened to Tom to protect Roma and her mother. But it had hurt Roma when the truth was uncovered. The truth had a way of working itself to the surface, no matter how carefully it was buried, just like those bones had.

“What your mother was doing is going to come out,” I said to Everett. I had to put my hands in my lap because suddenly they were shaking.

I was never going to play poker with Everett Henderson, I promised myself. He had no tells. “You know about the knitting circle,” he said, picking up his coffee.

Rebecca looked from me to Everett. “What are you two talking about?”

He gestured at the diary, on the table between us. “I think Kathleen figured out that my mother was doing more than running the house and knitting blankets for the orphanage.”

“She was helping women whose husbands were hurting them,” I said.

Rebecca smiled again. “Oh that sounds like your mother,” she said. “And it explains some things my own mother did.” She looked at Everett. “She was involved, wasn’t she? She had to have been.”

“Yes,” I said, before he could answer.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Rebecca asked, her smile fading.

I waited for Everett to speak. To say no. To say yes. To say anything. But he didn’t. It seemed as though I was the one doing all the talking today.

I swallowed because there was suddenly a lump in my throat. “Rebecca, your mother helped Sam. She helped him bury Tom’s body and clean up. And she drove Tom’s car up to the highway. Sam had put a nail through his foot and he couldn’t manage the clutch.”

“I’ll talk to the county attorney,” Everett said immediately. “And Sam’s lawyer. It doesn’t have to come out.”

Rebecca shifted to look at him, her head on one side. “I want it to come out,” she said.

Everett’s mouth tightened and she reached across the table for his hand. “I’m proud of my mother,” she said. “Not that she broke the law, but for trying to help the people she cared about: Pearl, Roma, Sam.” She turned to face me. “There were no women’s shelters then. If your husband hit you, that was just part of life.”

She patted Everett’s hand. “I don’t need to be protected from what my mother did—good or bad.” She gestured at the journal. “I’m looking forward to reading what she wrote about it all.” She turned her attention to me again. “She did write about it, didn’t she?”

I didn’t look at Everett, but I could feel his eyes on me. “There are some pages missing,” I said.

“How did that happen?”

When I didn’t answer right away, Rebecca repeated her question.

“I cut them out,” Everett said.

She looked at him across the table. “Why?” There was nothing but curiosity in her voice.

He hesitated and I realized his reasons, even though I was pretty sure I knew what they were, were none of my business. I pushed my chair back from the table. “I’ll let you talk,” I said.

Rebecca touched my arm. “You don’t have to go anywhere, Kathleen,” she said. “I don’t have any secrets. Not anymore.”

Everett took a deep breath and let it out. “I found the journals after my mother died. I read them.” He pulled a hand over his face. “I missed you,” he added softly. “I’d heard rumors about my mother and I knew that she’d never said no to anyone in need, so it wasn’t that hard to figure out what she’d been doing and that she’d gotten your mother involved.” He stared down into his coffee, running one finger around the rim of the cup. “It took me a long time to read them all.” He looked up at Rebecca. “Ellen loved you.”

“You thought my mother killed Tom,” Rebecca said.

He nodded. “She wrote about burying the body, but nothing about Sam being involved. I was going to burn the journals, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. They were my connection to you. I put them back in the attic. I thought if I left everything the way it was, you wouldn’t ever have to know.”

“Were you going to leave Wisteria Hill empty forever? So no one would find Tom’s body?” she asked.

“If I had to,” he said.

“You could have told me the truth.”

Everett pushed his cup away and shook his head. “Tell you your mother killed someone? No. I wouldn’t hurt you that way.”

“No more secrets,” Rebecca said. “Do you understand? A secret kept us apart for a long, long time. I’m not ever going to let that happen again.”

She covered the hand on his coffee mug with hers and she turned her head toward me. “No more secrets, Kathleen,” she said. “Tell the whole story.”

“All right,” I said. “We’ll go through the journals together. I’ll call you later.”

“Thank you,” she said.

I nodded, touching her shoulder as I left.

I walked back across the yard to my house. Everett and Rebecca had looked at each other with so much love I couldn’t help feeling just a tiny pinch of envy.

34

I called Maggie when I got home to let her know what had happened at Wisteria Hill.

“Roma’s really okay?” she asked.

“She is,” I said.

“So I was wrong about Sam?”

“Not completely,” I said. “He was downplaying his feelings for Pearl, just not for the reasons you thought.” I was sitting on the footstool and I stretched my legs out in front of me and scissored them up and down. My ankle felt pretty good this morning. “Did Abigail call you?” I asked.

“She did,” Maggie said. “We’re going to get together next week. Do you think Rebecca would talk to me about her mother?”

“I know she would,” I said. “And that reminds me, could you take a look at Ellen’s drawings? I want to display some of them but I’m not exactly sure how.”

“Absolutely,” she said.

Marcus had gotten his search warrant and the police had collected Maggie’s boxes and the ones that belonged to Jaeger. “Do you still want to talk to Ray this morning?” I asked.

“I do,” she said. “And you’re not going to believe this. ARTnews is going to do a piece on his work. Do you know who Galen Lee is? Or I should say, was?”

“He was a pop artist, wasn’t he? Like Roy Lichtenstein only with kind of neon bright colors.”

“That’s him. Turns out he mentioned Ray in a letter he wrote just before he died. It’s generated some interest in Ray’s work.”

“That’s good,” I said.

She exhaled slowly. “It is—for Ray and maybe even for the co-op.”

“Except you think they’re going to ask questions about Jaeger.”

“I guess I’d like to ask the questions first.”

There were two furry faces peeking at me around the kitchen doorway. “Do you still want some company?” I asked.

“Please,” she said. “Have you had breakfast?”

“Very early this morning, over at Fern’s with Burtis Chapman—sausage, eggs, the works. But I wouldn’t say no to another cup of coffee.”

“You never say no to a cup of coffee,” Maggie said, dryly. “And I do want to hear why you had breakfast with Burtis.”

“Half an hour?”

“Yes. Ray should be here by then.”

“You’re at River Arts?” The cats were still staring at me.