If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance (25 page)

It was all circumstantial and hearsay, though. No one else could corroborate that Sally had been in the pharmacy, and the only person who said her parents were ill was Jane. There was no written record of the purchase, just the pharmacist’s word. At least according to the notes. It was with this information that I realized there must be an official transcript of the trial somewhere. I was surprised the transcript hadn’t gotten more attention, especially considering a mention of the skulls must have been part of it.

The more notes I read, the more I began to dislike and distrust Jane. It seemed like she conveniently said things that made Sally look guilty: the dress, the stomach issues. Sure, the simple explanation for that could be that Sally
was
, in fact, guilty, but Jane’s convenient knowledge didn’t sit right with me. Teddy and I didn’t always get along, but I was sure I’d lie for him, maybe even on the stand.

However, forming those opinions based upon a long-dead reporter’s notes was just as ill-advised as assuming the
pharmacist was telling the truth. More evidence would be very helpful.

I grabbed the book from the kitchen table and only grazed one small toe on a chair leg as I turned back toward the bedroom.

Sally had assumed the position she’d become accustomed to, seated at the end of my bed, but this time without the ax in between us. It
was
gone, at least for now.

As I fluffed my pillows and then sat with my legs crossed, I realized that other than me, Sally had spent more time in my bedroom than anyone had in years. I briefly wondered if Cliff and I would ever be able to take our relationship far enough that he’d become a frequent visitor. Time would tell, I supposed, and the idea did sound appealing.

The trip to the kitchen and thoughts about Cliff were enough to give me a decent level of coherence even without coffee.

“Can I ask if you remember something else first?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Do you remember attempting to buy prussic acid from the local pharmacy a week or so before the murders?”

Sally tapped her finger on her lips. She was tapping with the hand that used to hold the ax.

“I don’t remember exactly, but something is familiar about…the pharmacy.”

“What?”

“This is what I kind of remember: I used to go to the pharmacy almost weekly. The pharmacist mixed a medication for Daddy. It was for his heart. I was at the pharmacy often,” Sally said as though she had just become certain of it herself.

I nodded. “I have another question, but you won’t like it.”

She nodded.

“Is there a chance your sister Jane wanted to make sure you were blamed for your parents’ murder? Maybe not because she did the deed herself…but maybe.”

“No!” Sally reacted as I thought she would, but I remained silent and let her think about it a moment. “No,” she said again, less adamantly. She waved away the idea. “What I do remember, though, is something that might be very helpful.”

“Okay. Tell me.”

“My father had another child.”

If I hadn’t been coherent yet, I was now. “What?”

“A boy, with someone other than our mother.”

“That’s…that’s not something I’ve ever heard about before,” I said.

“I know. He told Jane and me about the child, a grown man by the time he told us; this was a week or so before he was killed. ‘A deal’s a deal’ is what made me start to remember. It’s what Daddy said the boy said.”

“I’m not following.”

“A week before he and Momma were killed, he told Jane and me about how he was going to revise his will so his fortune—which wasn’t much of a fortune, but he’d saved a little bit—would be split three ways instead of two. He told us about his son, who held Daddy to a deal he’d made with the mother who was apparently dead by that time. ‘A deal’s a deal.’ I remember him saying it, so clearly that I can almost hear his voice now when I think about it. He was putting his affairs in order a week before he was killed. Is that all coincidence? I wonder.”

“I wonder, too,” I said. “What’s your half brother’s name?”

Sally slapped her leg, but it didn’t make a sound. “I can’t remember. Maybe it’s in the notes.”

I’d folded over the corner of the page that I’d stopped at
earlier, which was only about halfway through the book. I hadn’t come across anything that hinted at another Swarthmore offspring, I was sure of that.

But the notes were cryptic enough that skimming the rest of them wouldn’t be easy. To know what was on each page, I had to read all of the words thoroughly and either translate or guess what they meant. The notes about the pharmacist had been somewhat clearer than the earlier notes, but they had still taken me time and effort to understand.

“Would the information about your father’s son have come out in the trial?”

Sally shook her head. “Probably not. My father told Jane and me that we weren’t to tell anyone about him, that it would ruin the family’s reputation. I expect that Jane and I would have obeyed his wish even after he was dead. I don’t think he had time to change the will officially, but I could be wrong. I just wonder if the reporter was able to uncover information outside of the trial. Maybe he researched and somehow found out about Daddy’s son.”

I shook my head and looked at the book on my lap. “There’s a lot of book left to read, but after the spot I was reading earlier tonight, about the pharmacist, the notes mention the barn. This is what it says: ‘Dust in barn undisturbed. No footprints. Sally claimed to have been there, but no footprints. Pigeons gone? Why?’”

“Betts! I remember that! I said I was in the barn.”

“Were you?”

“No, I was at the Monroe House. I told you, it was some place I went to get away. It was where I escaped.”

“Why did you have to escape, Sally?” I closed the book, leaving my thumb in the pages. “What were you escaping from?”

I was silent as Sally’s memory switched into gear. I knew she was looking back, trying hard to remember.

Her voice sounded almost mechanical as she spoke. “That house, my parents, my sister, everyone. I used to go to the barn, to the pigeons because I liked my time away from people. The house just wasn’t very big. Jane and I had the front part of the top floor, but we were all so close together. Only one person lived at the Monroe House at the time. An old lady, and she said I could spend time in the attic away from everyone else. I didn’t even have to knock. I could go in anytime. I was probably there that day, and chances are pretty good that I just went in without her knowing I was there.”

“Why wouldn’t you just say that’s where you were?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think my family approved, and they didn’t like hearing that I needed time alone.”

“But your parents were dead. Their disapproval wasn’t in consideration any longer. Think about it. Why wouldn’t you say where you were to save your own hide? There has to be something more.”

It took her a long time to look up at me. When she did, she said, “I know you might think I’m just saying this to get you to find a way into that house, but the only reason I can think of is because that’s where I hid my diary and I wrote everything in that diary: family secrets, my secrets, good things, bad things. I was honest and maybe I thought there was something in it that, if discovered, would be worse than being convicted of murder. Also, Betts, you have to understand, and I remember this clearly, I didn’t think I’d be convicted. I thought I would walk out of that courthouse a free woman. But I don’t know if that means I’m innocent or not. I was just sure I wouldn’t be convicted.”

I couldn’t say I had a sudden urge to throw on some clothes
and explore a presumably haunted house in the middle of the night, but my curiosity had certainly been piqued more than it had been before.

The house was not only creepy, it was also in bad shape and potentially dangerous. I wished I’d remembered to talk to Cliff about its condemnation. Maybe he could help. Maybe he would have the authority to send someone inside with a sturdy hard hat and other protective gear to look in the window boxes in the attic.

“I’ll try to get someone in there, Sally,” I said. “I’ll push Cliff tomorrow, or I guess that would be later today.”

“Oh, Betts, thank you.” She smiled, but it was a sad smile this time. That curse again, as Gram called it. Sometimes remembering things isn’t always good; sometimes not remembering is bad, too. It must not be easy being a ghost. “Now, how are we going to find out who my half brother was?”

“Well, Edgar was very into your case. Maybe he tracked him down.” I opened the book again. Just as I did, my cell phone dinged quietly. Had I been asleep, I wouldn’t have heard it. I knew who had just texted me. Our agreement to text or call each other no matter the time had been well tested over the past few days.

I grabbed the phone off my nightstand.

It was definitely a text from Jake. It said:
Damon Rim spotted in town. Call me as soon as you wake up.

I must have made a noise because Sally said, “What’s wrong?”

I fumbled as I tried to hit Jake’s speed-dial button.

Broken Rope at four in the morning is a rare quiet time for
the town. Before I met the real ghosts, I always thought it was Jake’s middle–of–the-night moments that made him think the town was haunted. At four, when there were no people marching up and down the streets or boardwalks, things would settle and creak on their own and echo memories of past lives and events.

At one time Broken Rope was a legitimate Old West town. Though I wasn’t as sentimental about it as Jake, I was certain that somehow, someway the memories of gun battles, of cowboys, of late-night drunks, of hangings, of working women resonated from the walls and wood planks of the boardwalk. Sometimes, I would get the feeling someone was close to me or I would think I heard a strange voice, but when I’d turn to look, no one would be there. Before I started meeting ghosts,
I always assumed my imagination was playing tricks on me, but now I wondered.

There wasn’t time to notice the quiet this morning, though. With Sally in the passenger seat, I hurried to Jake’s. I parked the Nova in one of the now-available prime spots in the back. Jake’s VW Bug was the only other car in sight. The back door to the archive room was open, and he’d run to Bunny’s for some coffee for both of us, one cup of which he handed me before shutting and locking the door.

I informed him that Sally was with me for the purpose of asking him some questions as soon as we got the Damon Rim business out of the way.

“It was totally by chance that I saw him,” Jake said as we each scooted onto a stool. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came down here to do…something, anything. I came in through the back, but I thought I’d check outside the front. After finding the body”—he shook his head—“I check out front every time I come in now.”

I sipped the coffee as Jake shook off the recent memory of finding Greg Carlisle.

“Anyway,” he said, “there were more people outside the jail than normal. At first I chalked it up to the investigation, and I wondered when and if Jim and Cliff were getting any sleep—they were both outside, sipping their own coffees, when another car pulled up. It was another police car with flashing lights, but it wasn’t one of Broken Rope’s. I didn’t pay attention to where it was from because I was so curious about what they were doing here that I was trying to see if I knew the officers. An officer I didn’t recognize got out and then opened the back door. He reached in and pulled out a man in a bright orange prison uniform. It was Damon, I’m sure of it.
He didn’t have any hair, shaved bald it looked like, but I’d know his profile anywhere. Remember he had a funny crooked nose?” I nodded. “It was him. His hands were cuffed behind his back, but he went into the jail without a struggle. I was shocked to see him and stood there with my mouth open. I have no idea if Jim or Cliff saw me, but only a moment later, they’d all gone inside. That’s when I texted you.”

Jake was right, Damon did have a funny and kind of crooked nose, but had the man in handcuffs really been him? If so, was he the kidnapper and killer?

“Would you call Cliff?” Jake said. “Ask him what’s going on?”

It was the best way to get the information as quickly as possible if he could take the time to answer, but I had another idea.

“How about I text?”

On the small keyboard, I typed:
I’m with Jake across the street. What’s going on? Was that Damon Rim?

We stared at my phone, Jake and I hoping for a quick response, Sally was baffled by what we were doing and how this form of communication worked.

The response didn’t come right away.

“Ask him please,” Sally said when the phone proved to be a disappointment.

“Jake, Sally says that she had a half brother, that her father had a son with another woman, and that the son came to him about a week before he was killed and staked a claim to part of Sally’s father’s meager fortune. Do you know anything about that?”

Jake sat up straight and blinked. “No, not a thing, but if it’s true, that could be a huge addition to Sally Swarthmore’s story. Does she have a name or any other information?”