Blackberry Crumble (6 page)

“What?” Sadie asked, though her voice was almost a whisper.

Gayle didn’t say anything as she stepped aside, showing the television screen. The weekend anchorman for the noon news sat at his desk with a small picture of Eric Burton, the ill-fated companion of Sadie’s now-legendary trip to Miami, hovering above his left shoulder.

“Turn it up,” Pete said, pushing away from the table and striding into the living room. He planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. Sadie stayed in her chair, hiding behind her potato salad bowl as the newscaster continued talking.

“While details are sketchy, pending ongoing investigation, the involvement of not one but two Garrison, Colorado, residents has been confirmed by the Miami police department. Hillary Martin has more.”

The screen flashed to Eric’s face, and Sadie felt herself sinking in her chair as though she could hide from whatever was coming next.

“It was a very difficult time,” Eric said, sounding sympathetic before saying a few sentences about his daughter’s disappearance three years earlier and how that had factored into his coming to Florida.

“And the other Garrison resident—Sadie Hoffmiller—how did she get involved?”

“Well, Sadie and I had been . . . close for quite some time, and when push came to shove, she was there for me. She was a real asset, no matter what that article said.”

“It’s been reported that she told friends she was visiting a roommate that weekend. Were you aware of that cover story?”

Eric shrugged and smiled like it was no big deal. “Sometimes the ends justify the means. Sadie is a phenomenal and . . .
passionate
woman.”

Sadie clenched her eyes shut and let her head drop to the table with a thunk as Eric went on to basically confirm everything Jane had said.

She should never have gotten out of bed after all.

Gayle’s Potato Salad

10 fist-sized red potatoes

10 eggs

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

11⁄2 cups chopped dill pickles

13⁄4 cups mayonnaise

11⁄2 tablespoons to 2 tablespoons mustard (to taste and consistency)

2 tablespoons to 1⁄4 cup pickle juice (to taste and consistency)

1⁄2 cup finely diced green or white onions (optional; Jack insists that the onions are NOT optional)

Salt (to taste)

Pepper (to taste)

Wash potatoes well and boil (with skins on) until a knife cuts through the potato easily. Drain, refill pan with cool water, and set aside. Potatoes can be cooked the night before, drained, and refrigerated.*

Put eggs in a 2-quart saucepan. Cover with water and add 1⁄4 teaspoon salt. Cook eggs on high heat until the water comes to a boil. Boil eggs one minute. Remove pan from heat, cover, and let sit for 9 minutes. Drain pan and refill with cool water. Repeat after two minutes. (This will cool the eggs quickly and keep them from getting the green layer around the yolk, which is due to overcooking.) When cool, peel the eggs. (Eggs can be boiled in advance and refrigerated, but don’t peel them until ready to use.)

Mix pickles, mayonnaise, mustard, pickle juice, onions, salt, and pepper together in a small bowl.

Dice the cooled, unpeeled potatoes and place in a large bowl. (Use a small knife and cut them carefully in your hand over the bowl; boiled potatoes are messy on a cutting board). Dice the cooled, peeled eggs and add to the potatoes. Add pickle and mayo mixture. Use a large spoon or rubber scraper to mix potatoes, eggs, and mayo mixture together.

Adjust flavors and thickness of sauce by adding more pickle juice (don’t be shy with the pickle juice if the sauce needs it). Salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until serving. Serves 10 to 14.

*Gayle always flavors her potatoes first: Drain the potatoes on a dish towel to absorb most of the water. After dicing the potatoes, pour additional pickle juice directly on them so they absorb the juice and have an even better flavor.

Chapter 5

Neither Pete nor Gayle said anything about Eric’s interview; instead, they insisted Sadie make herself presentable and go to dinner and a movie with them. Sadie tried not to cast glances around the restaurant, but it was so hard. When the lights went down for the movie—something with Sandra Bullock in it—she felt herself relax for the first time. No one would know she was there. She could hide for at least ninety minutes.

Sadie had talked to both of her children between the news and the dinner, but Breanna texted her halfway through the movie. Sadie stepped out into the lobby and spent another twenty minutes reassuring her daughter and pretending that everything was fine. She wished she believed it herself.

When they returned to the house, Gayle gave Sadie a parting hug and left Pete and Sadie together on the front steps. The night was still warm, but significantly cooler than it had been during the day. Pete walked her inside and left her with a goodnight kiss that went a long way to repairing her still-crumpled self-confidence.

“Call me in the morning,” Pete said, squeezing her hand before heading out the front door.

“I will,” Sadie said, stepping out after him. She watched as he got into his car, drove around the cul-de-sac, and disappeared. She wondered if there would ever be a point where he wouldn’t go home at night. They’d be married by then, of course. Despite Jane’s accusations, Sadie really was a woman of virtue. But thinking about the future of her relationship with Pete made her worry a little bit. Despite all he’d done for her today, she worried about what effect this situation might have on their relationship long-term. She thought of what he’d said about being upset about the article rather than mad:
“You would have been too if there had been an article like that about me.”
Pete was right; she
would
be upset. Would she also distrust him a little bit?

She locked the door behind her and was beginning her nightly routine when Shawn called. Sadie loved her mountain of a baby boy, but she was exhausted and wished she could put off this conversation another day. But it was her son, and he was worried about her. She answered the phone.

“Hey, sweetie.”

“I found the online version of that article. Jane Seely is such a—”

“Reporter,” Sadie cut in, saving both of them from whatever word Shawn was about to use. She went on to repeat Gayle’s opinion that it was only a matter of time before someone like Jane capitalized on the sensational nature of the last ten months of Sadie’s life. Like she’d done with Breanna, she tried to pretend it was no big deal, but the more they talked about it, the harder it was to keep up the pretense.

“So, you’re not mad about this?”

“I’m totally mad,” Sadie said before remembering she was supposed to be taking the high road—or at least giving that impression to her children. Too late now. “She twisted things to make the story more exciting, and I can’t even properly defend myself because of the pending trial.” It felt good to vent.

“I think I should slash her tires,” Shawn said. “Or sneak into her house and put limburger cheese on all her light bulbs—that stuff stinks to high heaven when the heat starts cooking it.”

Sadie chose not to ask how he knew that particular fact and changed the subject. “So, are you ready for school?” Fall semester started in about two weeks. Shawn was on probation in regards to his scholarship; he seemed to be losing interest in the academic side of the sports medicine program, despite having completed two years of it already. He’d stayed in Michigan for the summer because he’d gotten a job working with the city parks and recreation last fall and didn’t want to give it up. He loved the job. School? Not so much.

“Aw, man, do we have to talk about this?”

Within five minutes, Shawn managed to end the call, and Sadie had something new to worry about while she washed her face and finished up the day’s dishes. She usually watched the ten o’clock news, but now she looked at the dark television screen warily. Did she trust it? Her eyes went to the phone still holding her messages and blinking to tell her people had been trying to reach her. She decided she wasn’t ready for either of them.

Instead, she took a long, hot shower, put on her polka-dotted pajamas, and climbed into bed with a heavy sigh. What. A. Day. Tomorrow she had a Sunday School lesson to teach and had offered to bring appetizers for the Woman’s Group meeting that afternoon. Should she act like nothing happened, or should she try to explain herself? She fell asleep amid attempts to visualize a positive result that, despite herself, seemed rather unrealistic.

A little after three o’clock in the morning, her eyes snapped open, the name May Sanderson heavy in her still dream-drugged mind. She searched her brain for why May’s name had come to mind right now, but whatever the dream had been, it had slipped away from her. But the name stayed.

For hours.

All the questions she’d started to ask herself after she’d met May Sanderson came back, and she added more to the list. Why had such a negative article caught May’s attention? What made the woman think her father was murdered? Sadie remembered May had written her phone number on the newspaper that minutes later had been drenched in punch and then thrown in the garbage.

At five-thirty, Sadie finally got up, put her feet into her slippers, and shuffled into the kitchen. The sun was coming up over the eastern mountains, and the morning was peachy-pink. Gayle had left some potato salad in the fridge, and Sadie smiled to herself as she dished up a bowl. It was potatoes and eggs—people ate that for breakfast all the time. She sat down at the table to eat while the house began absorbing the morning light, but her eyes were drawn to the computer across the room. She had learned a lot about the World Wide Web in the past few months. And wouldn’t finding May Sanderson be the polite thing to do? If only to let her know Sadie hadn’t ignored her situation. May had said something about fate and cosmic forces. Sadie didn’t want to interfere with May’s spirituality by ignoring her impressions completely.

She took her bowl with her across the room and settled into the computer chair, fully aware that losing herself in this task could help her block out everything else that was still rubbing her raw inside. She was hungry for the distraction.

First, she went to Google and simply typed in
May Sanderson.
Within seconds, she had 621,000 links to sift through. On another day, at another time, it might have seemed rather daunting to begin a search for one woman with only a name to go on. But it was five-thirty in the morning on a day Sadie was dreading. What else did she have to do?

Chapter 6

After clicking on random Google links for ten minutes, Sadie got serious. She logged on to Peoplefinder.com, a website she’d learned about from her daughter months earlier. She had her own account for it, though she’d told no one that she used it. So far, she’d only played around with it, mostly looking up family members to see how much information was available through the program and researching the City Council members just for fun. She hadn’t really discovered anything she didn’t already know—other than the fact that Jeffrey Headstrom had been married three times, not the two he claimed—but researching people was more fun than playing Solitaire. Unfortunately, she needed more than a name in order to get additional information about a person. Just knowing the state May was from would help, but she didn’t even have that.

The area code! Sadie had glanced at May’s number on the newspaper and remembered it wasn’t from Colorado. But she couldn’t remember what the numbers were. She closed her eyes and squinched her brow. It started with a two—Sadie was pretty sure about that, but the rest of the numbers wouldn’t come. She Googled area codes that started with a two, but nearly every number between 201 and 299 was an area code somewhere, and as she scanned the list, none of them stood out right away. So much had happened in the last thirty-six hours since she’d glanced at that phone number, it wasn’t surprising that she couldn’t recall it. Still, it was disappointing. She imagined that real investigators had impeccable memories.

Border states. Lots of towns close to the border between states offered news from both the state they were in as well as the state close by. Garrison was in northern Colorado, so their news, for instance, often overlapped with news from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Unfortunately, not a single state that bordered Colorado had an area code starting with the number two. Undaunted, Sadie pulled a notebook out of the top drawer of the computer desk and opened an Internet browser window with a map of the United States. Researching the bordering states of Colorado’s bordering states didn’t make as much sense—they wouldn’t have Colorado newspapers—and yet she had to start with some kind of criteria. She looked at the map and started making a list.

After crossing off the states without an area code beginning with two, Sadie began the tedious task of looking for May Sanderson in the white pages of the first few area codes. It crossed her mind an hour and a half later, as she began searching Modesto, California—she could imagine May being a California girl, even though there were two full states between California and Colorado—that she ought to plan out what she was going to say to Ms. Sanderson if she found her. Was she going to ask questions about the things May had told Sadie about her father being murdered? After the way Sadie’s last case had just exploded all over the media, she wanted nothing more than to hide in her closet for a few months. Getting involved in another murder mystery was not high on her list of priorities. So why was she putting so much effort into this?