A Killer Read (27 page)

“Do you think we should call Jacob Smith?” Andie asked after about ten minutes.

Lizzie had been pondering the same thing. Would it help
or make Stephanie look guilty of something? Only Officer Craig knew the answer to that. She stood and asked Kenny if he would tell Officer Craig she wanted to have a quick word with her. Officer Craig glared at her when she got the message but walked over anyway.

“This doesn’t concern you, Ms. Turner,” she snarled.

“Oh, but it does. She’s my student, and she doesn’t have any family around. She’s young and vulnerable, so I’d just like to ask you if maybe I should contact a lawyer to sit in on the questioning?” Lizzie tried to sound pleasant, like she was asking a totally innocent question.

“It sounds like a waste of money, unless she has something to hide. And it sure appears like she does.”

“Oh, she doesn’t, I’m sure, and he’s a friend. He wouldn’t charge.” She hoped.

Officer Craig shrugged her shoulders, but Lizzie could see the effort it took to make it look like she was unconcerned. “Maybe next time. I have no further questions right now. But there will be a next time.”

She abruptly walked back to her desk and told Stephanie she could go. Stephanie left swiftly, not saying anything until all three were out of the station.

“Oh my God. That was so awful. Thank you so much for coming, you two. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.” She removed her scrunchie, regathered the loose strands of hair and retied her ponytail. Her eyes, normally done up in mascara and eye shadow, were instead rimmed in red. She began running her hands over her belly and a moment later, she started crying. Andie threw her arms around her, shushing her.

Lizzie said, “She’s not the most pleasant person. Come on, we’ll take you home and fix a nice cup of sweet tea and just relax.”

Stephanie let herself be led to the car. She was silent the entire way to her apartment. Once inside, she sank onto
the couch. Andie sat beside her while Lizzie checked the cupboard for tea makings. She wanted to let Stephanie relax and quiet down, but on the other hand, this might be the best time to get some answers from her. She was grateful to them for having rescued her from Officer Craig’s clutches, after all. Lizzie felt a tinge of guilt, thinking that way, but she really did want to help the girl.

“Here, try this.” Lizzie handed both girls a glass, then got her own and pulled over a chair so she was in front of them. “Now, Stephanie, I know it’s been a trying afternoon for you, and Officer Craig is just going to keep at it until she gets the answers she’s looking for. I think it would be far better if you just opened up to us. We’re your friends. We don’t want to hurt you or put you in danger, but we can’t help you unless we know what’s going on in your life— why you seem to be so scared, for instance.”

Lizzie held her breath, hoping she hadn’t made things worse.

Stephanie drank the entire glass of tea, then sat looking at the floor for a few minutes. Finally, she looked up at Lizzie. “I guess I’d better tell you. I do trust you and all. It’s just, I’m just so confused about everything.”

Lizzie nodded encouragingly. Andie reached out and grabbed Stephanie’s hand.

It took her several minutes of chewing on her lips and looking around the room before she finally cleared her throat and spoke.

“I keep getting phone calls, and I’m sure they’re from the daddy of my baby. But I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see anyone from back home. I came to Ashton Corners to start a new life, to try to stand on my own two feet and bring up my child.” She placed her hand on her belly and sniffled.

“Are you afraid of him?” Lizzie asked softly.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. He’s got a fierce temper, but he’s
never hit me or anything. Just yells a lot. Like my daddy. Everyone back home thinks I should marry Trip— that’s his name— but I know we’d end up just like my parents and be fighting all the time, and I’d be crying in my room a whole lot, and the kids would all be miserable.

“My grandpa and grandma, they’re the ones I’ve lived with since I was six, they want me to marry him. They wouldn’t hear of my getting an abortion, although I didn’t really want one either. I just thought I did at first. But they’re talking about disowning me if I don’t marry Trip. But that’s not the life I want for me or my baby. I may not be very smart, but I will work hard and make a life for us.”

Lizzie’s heart ached. She could hear the pain in Stephanie’s voice and the determination. But she had chosen a really rough road. Being a single mama without much education meant long hours and a hard life.

“What would you like to do with your life, if you could be anything you wanted?” Lizzie asked.

Stephanie closed her eyes and thought. “I’d want to finish my schooling and maybe go on to college and become a nurse’s aide.”

It sounded so simple. Lizzie sighed. And wondered. Something to think about. “And I need to know if you know Frank Telford. That’s what’s at the bottom of all this police questioning, after all.”
That plus the fact you won’t tell them where you’re from or anything about your past life.

Stephanie stared wide-eyed at her and shook her head. “No, I don’t know him. But when I first saw him he looked so much like a real close friend of my grandpa, that I thought he’d sent him here to track me down. I was so scared they’d found me out. I didn’t take a closer look, so’s I didn’t realize it wasn’t him.” She shuddered. “I can’t go back,” she whispered, and started crying.

Andie patted her arm, shushing her while Lizzie went to get her some water. It was that simple. And complicated. At
least she was relieved Stephanie had no connection to Telford. Now she had to make the police back off, and then maybe they could all figure out what to do in case Stephanie’s past managed to track her down.

L
izzie checked the bedside clock, hoping she’d finally fallen asleep and it was almost morning. Two
A. M.
That would be only ten minutes since she last checked it. The cats had long since given up on her tossing and turning, choosing to snuggle together for the rest of their sleep on the far edge of her queen bed.

She couldn’t seem to switch off her brain. At times she’d be at Stephanie’s apartment, listening to her pain. Then she’d be puzzling about the manuscript and the phone calls. Then, for good measure, she spent some time worrying about Andie, hoping the day would come when she would read just for the joy of reading.

And to top it off, snippets of the Rutter the choir had practiced last week seemed to be playing on a tape loop in her brain. And, of course, her mama entered the thought pattern, and she worried about whether she was doing everything she could to make her life good. And Molly came into it. Until the murder was cleared up, Molly would remain
edgy, wondering when the police were coming to take her away.

She got up and padded in her bare feet down to the kitchen, pouring a glass of cold water from the filtered pitcher she kept in the fridge. She stayed, leaning against the kitchen sink, thinking for so long that Brie came down in hopes of a warm lap or some food, at the very least. She added some dry food to the cats’ dishes and went back up to bed.

“E
ither I’m going to have to give myself a serious talking to, Molly, or maybe I should get you to do it,” Lizzie said between bites of butterscotch pie, sitting at Molly’s banquette after school.

“Why’s that, honey?”

“Well, part of my brain is working with the kids, trying to unlock that desire or even just the ability to learn, while the other part is puzzling over this entire Telford thing. And now with Enid Hannaford in the mix, the entire puzzle is getting to that unwieldy state, rather than coming together. Have you had any further thoughts about our visit with Ms. Hannaford?”

“I’ve been thinking of nothing else all day, honey. That poor woman. I feel bad for her being in her state, but even more unfortunate is that wonderfully kind husband she has. And I can’t for the life of me think of how she might have known Claydon. I never met her, and he certainly never mentioned her, nor Frank Telford, to me. And, he usually talked about what was going on in his life. He was a bit of a braggart, you know. Now, don’t let on I said that.” She winked.

Lizzie nodded. “No construction projects he may have been thinking about investing in?”

“Sorry.”

“I’m hitting a whole lot of dead ends these days.” She sighed. “No leads on Frank Telford. I’ve got an anonymous manuscript being delivered to me, and I can’t find out
anything about the author. And those telephone calls about what story my daddy was working on when he died. I’ve asked George Havers to look into that, but he’s not had any luck either. It’s all so frustrating.”

Molly put her hand out to Lizzie. “You come with me, honey. We’re going to have us a nice cool drink and we’ll talk.”

They took their glasses of lemonade and wandered through the gardens, beside the pond and out to the swing. They got a comfortable rhythm going before Molly spoke again.

“I’ve been debating whether or not to tell you this, but I’m now thinking you probably should know, not that I believe a word of it, mind you.” She held up her hand to shush Lizzie, who had opened her mouth to talk.

“Now, I didn’t talk to your daddy about his trips to Stoney Mills, but I did talk to your mama and she had her own theory.” Molly took a deep breath. “She came over one night, about a week before he died, and brought you along. You came out here to play, and we sat inside, sharing a drink”—she tilted her glass at Lizzie—“and she said she’d come for my advice. She thought your daddy was having himself an affair with someone who lived in Stoney Mills and that’s why all the trips there. Especially since he wasn’t sharing any information about this story and that was highly unusual for him.”

“An affair! That can’t be true. He wouldn’t. Would he?” Lizzie stopped swinging. She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. How had her mama felt?

Molly shook her head in regret. “I told Evelyn that I highly doubted Monroe would have an affair, he was so devoted to the both of you. But she had it in her head and was wondering if she should confront him. I told her that suspicions were one thing, but she didn’t have any proof and if she accused him without any real knowledge, she’d do that marriage unmentionable damage.”

“So, what did she do?”

“Nothing. She fretted and she waited and then he had himself that accident. I think that’s part of the reason she started this journey to wherever she is: she never knew the truth, and she couldn’t forgive herself for the doubts that plagued their last weeks together.” Molly wiped a tear away from her cheek.

Lizzie sat totally still for a few moments.

“I hope I did the right thing in telling you, honey. It may or may not have a bearing on the phone calls, but you’re long overdue knowing what’s been going through your mama’s mind. I just kept putting off telling you because it’s like a violation of her privacy and not something a daughter ought to be hearing.”

Lizzie shook her head. “No, you did right, Molly. I just feel a bit off kilter right now. I’ll have to sort it all through and decide what, if anything, to do.” She glanced at her watch and took a deep breath. “Right now I’ve got to get home and get ready for choir tonight.” She hugged Molly hard.

“Thank you for telling me, Molly.” She left with tears in her eyes.

She managed to lose herself in the Rutter magic for a couple of hours. The choir director had emailed a list of the works they’d be focusing on each week, rotating them, honing sections of the night’s offerings until, when strung together, it actually sounded like a well-polished piece. Tonight, the Rutter “Nativity Carol” had gotten extra billing. Lizzie immersed herself in her line, emerging at the break for some pleasantries and a sugar cookie, all the while willing herself not to think about her earlier conversation with Molly.

She snapped to attention when she heard her name called out. Stanton Giles, the director, looked bemused as he repeated what he’d just said. “I’ve decided to add another short piece to the second half of the concert. Another Rutter,
‘The Christmas Lullaby,’ as a quartet, and I’d like you, Lizzie, to sing the soprano line. Is that all right with you? It shouldn’t require too much extra practice.”

Normally, Lizzie would have declined. In fact, she never volunteered for any of the extra, smaller pieces. But put on the spot, as she was, she felt she had no choice but to agree. A small clump of butterflies took flight in her stomach, and she inhaled deeply to dispel them. Plenty of time for that, closer to the concert. She determined to stay in the present for the remainder of the practice and not be caught off guard again.

But later that night, she had a hard time falling asleep. She didn’t think knowing about her mama’s suspicions could help in how she interacted with her, but whether it had anything to do with the phone calls was another matter. Was someone, maliciously, trying to imply that’s what Monroe Turner had been up to? If so, who was the caller? She didn’t believe for a moment there was another woman, but if by any slight chance there had been, could she be the caller? Or even a relative, trying to cause trouble for whatever reason. And what possible reason could there be?