Sarah looked across the fields and could see Hal’s farmhouse and outbuildings. Just like Celia had mentioned, the two farms were close, about a fifteen-minute walk through the cornfield. She imagined a young Jack and Amy dashing through the corn, back and forth between home and their aunt and uncle’s house.
She wondered if Jack had brought Celia here when they were teenagers, made love in the straw. Sarah could imagine what Celia was like as a teenager. Smart, beautiful and in love with Jack, the boy Celia thought she might marry.
“Sarah,” came Jack’s voice from down below. “Are you up there?”
Sarah wanted to stay hidden, didn’t want to face Jack. Again, she had discovered more secrets. He and Celia had planned to run away together. His mother found out and a week later she was dead?
She wanted to get out of here. She wanted to leave Penny Gate that morning. She wasn’t staying for the wake or the funeral. She was going back home to her children, far away from Jack, far away from here.
“Sarah,” Jack called again. Sarah took a deep breath. She would have to come down sometime.
“Coming,” Sarah called back. She put the Walkman back into her purse and cautiously climbed down from the hayloft.
“What are you doing out here all by yourself?” Jack asked, examining her face carefully.
“I needed some space to think,” she answered, pulling off the barn jacket and replacing it on the hook. “I’m leaving today,” she said matter-of-factly. “The first flight out I can get.”
“Sarah,” Jack said, a note of desperation creeping into his voice.
“No. End of discussion. I’m leaving.” She tried to step past him, but he slid in front of her, blocking her way. Her breath constricted in her throat. If she screamed would anyone hear her? Would anyone come running? The house seemed a thousand miles away. “Jack, let me by,” she said firmly, trying to keep the panic from her voice.
“I know you’re frustrated and confused. I don’t want you to go, Sarah.” He looked pleadingly into her eyes. “And if I could, I would leave with you, but we can’t.”
“What do you mean we can’t?” Sarah asked in confusion, for a moment forgetting to be afraid.
“The sheriff just called. They found something at Hal’s house during the search. Neither one of us is leaving Penny Gate. At least not for a few days.”
“What did they find at Hal’s?” Sarah asked, thinking about the bloodstains she’d seen on the steps.
“He won’t say,” Jack said, pushing open the barn door. “He wanted to make sure we both knew that we couldn’t leave yet. He had a few more questions for us.”
“Why would he have more questions for me?” Sarah asked heatedly. “Jesus, Jack, I did not sign up for this. All I want to do is go home.”
“I know, I do, too,” Jack said with a raspy voice. Sarah noticed that though freshly showered and shaved, exhaustion pulled Jack’s face downward. Sarah wondered if he got any sleep the night before. “The wake’s tonight. Will you come?” he asked, looking at her hopefully.
Sarah didn’t answer right away. She cringed at the thought of being forced to stay in Penny Gate for even one more day. She was beyond caring what the townspeople would say if she didn’t make an appearance, but she did care about Hal and knew he would be hurt and confused if she didn’t attend the services. Besides, she needed to return the evidence box to Margaret and she was curious as to what the forensic team discovered at Hal’s home. “I’ll go,” she said, walking toward the house. “But I want you to know I’m doing this for Hal and for Julia. You lied to me one too many times, Jack.”
Jack opened up his mouth to protest, but Sarah moved ahead of him toward the house and his words didn’t quite reach her ears. Sarah stepped into the house to find Dean and Hal sitting at the kitchen table and Celia washing dishes in the sink.
“Good morning,” Hal said, pulling out a chair for Sarah to join them. He was dressed for the day, but his pants were wrinkled and his shirt was untucked; dark circles ringed his eyes. A plate of scrambled eggs sat in front of him, untouched. In just the four days they had been there, he appeared to have lost weight.
Sarah rested her hands on the back of the chair but didn’t sit. She felt Celia’s covert glances on her back and Sarah wondered if Jack had told her about their argument the night before. “Jack said that the sheriff found something in the search of the house. Do you have any idea what it is?”
“No idea,” Dean said, dropping his silverware onto his plate with a loud clatter. “He won’t tell us anything more than Dad can’t go back into the house yet. They’re still processing the scene.”
Jack came into the house and leaned against the kitchen counter. “I know it’s frustrating, but he’d tell us if he could. Any evidence that can help clear Amy is a good thing.”
Dean glowered into his coffee cup.
Celia turned from the kitchen sink and laid one hand on Dean’s shoulder as if to calm him. “Julia is being transported back to the funeral home this morning. Someone should be there to greet them.”
“I’m meeting with Amy’s lawyer at eight,” Jack said. Sarah avoided meeting his eyes. She had no intention of going anywhere with him.
“We don’t have time for this.” Dean frowned.
“Don’t have time for what?” Jack challenged. “Don’t have time to make sure that my sister, your cousin, has a good lawyer?”
“Hey, man.” Dean pushed back from the table, causing Celia to stumble backward. “We’re supposed to be planning my mother’s funeral. I can’t be worrying about Amy right now.”
Jack took a step toward Dean. “You know I feel terrible about Julia. I don’t know who did this to her, but I know it wasn’t Amy. She loved Julia.”
Dean stood and Sarah held her breath. “What? Loved her enough to knock her down a flight of stairs?” The room seemed to grow smaller suddenly. Sarah looked to Hal in hopes that he would tell them to knock it off, but he was poking at his eggs with a fork, lost in his own thoughts.
“Dean,” Celia warned and reached for his arm, and he shook her off.
“You want to know what I think, Dean?” Jack stepped close. Dean’s mouth twitched nervously but he didn’t retreat. “I think my sister is in trouble. I think she’s sad, scared and totally messed up.” Jack jabbed a finger into Dean’s chest with each word. “And I think Julia would want us to do whatever we could to make sure she’s okay.”
Dean knocked Jack’s hand away, his face flushed and twisted with anger. “I’ve spent the past twenty years making sure Amy was okay. Where the hell have you been?”
“Stop,” Hal said softly. “Just stop,” he repeated more loudly. Glowering, Dean and Jack shifted away from each other. “Julia wouldn’t want any of this, I’m sure of that.”
“Hal’s right,” Celia said soothingly. “More than ever, we all need to stick together. It’s the only way we’re going to get through the next few days. Dean, why don’t you and Hal go to the funeral home so someone is there when they come back with Julia, and I’ll go with Jack and Sarah to see Amy’s attorney.”
“Of course you will.” Dean glared at Celia.
“What?” Celia challenged. “Do you want to go with Jack?” Dean pressed his lips together but didn’t answer.
“I don’t think we need three of us to go see the attorney,” Sarah said, trying to keep the irritation from her voice. Somehow Celia always seemed to be able to insert herself in Jack’s path. “Jack, you and Celia go on ahead. I’ll catch up with you later. Excuse me,” she said, needing to escape, not caring that her exit was abrupt. The tension and anger in the room was overpowering.
Sarah went upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom, grateful for the quiet. Was Dean jealous of Jack and Celia? In all of this Sarah hadn’t thought of Dean and how he felt about Jack and Celia’s past relationship. H
ow would it feel to marry your cousin’s girlfriend, the girl Jack had plotted to run away with? Did he feel second best? Was he now comparing himself to his younger, fitter, more handsome cousin? Sarah could relate. Celia with her ethereal beauty. She exuded confidence and an elegance that Sarah wished to have. And if Sarah hadn’t witnessed that momentary lapse of anger when Celia had struck Dean, she would have thought she was the perfect wife.
Sarah stepped into the shower, turned on the tap and let the steady stream of hot water pour over her. She missed her girls, she missed her home and she missed her own large, beautifully tiled shower that Jack had spent hours constructing for her fortieth birthday gift. Now she stood beneath the meager spray of Celia’s showerhead until the hot water ran out.
She took her time dressing and as she was pulling her sweater over her head she caught sight of the closet door, slightly ajar. She thought of the shoe box with Jack’s name written on it on the closet’s upper shelf. Moving quickly, she pressed the button lock on the bedroom door. She opened the closet door, her eyes flying to the shelf. It was empty. Sarah pushed aside the heavy winter coats and checked the floor. Nothing. Someone had removed the box. Jack. She was sure of it. Had he known that she had come across the box the other day? Was there something inside it that he didn’t want her to see? Sarah shut the door in disgust. She quickly riffled through drawers filled with what looked like Celia’s old clothes and a tangle of discarded jewelry. No shoe box.
Reluctantly she went downstairs and was glad to see that no one was there, but annoyed that Jack hadn’t bothered to say goodbye. He had scrawled a note in his cramped handwriting explaining that he and Celia were going to see Amy’s attorney and then would go to the funeral home so they could be there when Julia’s remains arrived and finish up with the final funeral arrangements. A sudden surge of alarm flooded through her. The evidence box. She had left it in the trunk of the car. What if Jack and Celia had taken the rental car to see the attorney and for some reason opened the trunk? How would she explain how she came into possession of the documents?
She ran outside and with relief saw that the car was still where she parked it. She had to return the box to Margaret but wasn’t quite ready to. She felt that if she just had more time with the documents she could figure out what had happened, understand just why Jack had hidden so much from her. She dug through her purse in search of her keys, opened the trunk and peeked inside just to make sure the box was where she’d left it. She may not be able to hold on to the original documents any longer, but she could make copies of everything in the box if she hurried. Jack and the others would return from the funeral home soon to get ready for the wake, and she didn’t want to have to explain her absence.
She looked up the directions to the public library, climbed into the car and sped away from the farm, kicking up bits of gravel and dust, and leaving behind an opaque cloud in her rearview mirror.
Twenty minutes later she turned onto Franklin Street, a wide street lined with mature maples with leaves that had just begun to turn the jeweled tones of fall. By chance she passed the funeral home, a three-story structure painted white and trimmed in black. Such a large building for such a small town. She recognized Hal’s truck and pulled directly behind the battered white Ford. Sarah took a deep breath as the unmistakable silhouette of a low-slung black hearse crept slowly past. All of Sarah’s self-righteous anger trickled away, leaving her ashamed. There was a real person in that hearse. A wife, a mother, a beloved aunt. Sarah thought back to her own father’s funeral. At the time nothing else mattered, no one else mattered. She just wanted her father back, to see his face, to hear his voice one more time.
Sarah thought of the document she had spied in Gilmore’s office that mentioned the poison. If sodium fluoroacetate was the true cause of Julia’s death, how would Amy get access to it? It was a tightly regulated poison.
She pulled into a parking spot in front of the Sawyer County Public Library and looked through her purse for the thumb drive that she used to back up her Dear Astrid correspondence. If the library was up to twenty-first century standards, it would have a copy machine where she could scan all the documents to her thumb drive.
Unlike many of the buildings in Penny Gate, the library appeared to have been constructed in just the past few years. She stepped from the car and popped the trunk. Careful to make sure that the writing on the side of the cardboard box was hidden, Sarah entered the front entrance. She approached the circulation desk where a young man was bent over a stack of books.
“Hello,” Sarah said, and the librarian looked up. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty-five but wore a name tag that said Max Malik, Library Director.
“Good morning,” Max said warmly. “What can I help you with?”
“Do you have a copy machine where I can scan these papers and transfer them to a thumb drive?” Sarah asked.
Max came out from behind his workstation. “That looks heavy,” he said, nodding toward the box. “Can I carry it for you?”
“No, I’ve got it,” Sarah said, pulling the box more tightly to her. Max led her to the copy machine, showed her how to scan a document and save it to her thumb drive, and then how to delete the document from the copy machine’s memory.
“That’s a big box,” Max observed. “What are you copying?”
“My aunt recently passed away,” she said, which was technically true. “These are documents related to her estate.” She thanked him for his help and waited until he had returned to his desk before opening the box. It was slow, monotonous work. One by one, she pulled each item from the box, made a copy and then returned it to its original place. Periodically, another library patron would need to use the copy machine, so Sarah would step aside and try to wait patiently until they were finished, all the while keeping her eye on the front entrance, sure that Jack or Dean or even the sheriff would walk through the doors.
Three hours and about ninety dollars later, Sarah had scanned all the documents, including the photos and the transcripts of the audiotapes that Margaret had given her. She returned quickly to her car and was just placing the box back into the trunk when a sheriff’s car drove slowly past. Sarah made eye contact with the driver, the same deputy who had taken Amy into custody. Sarah gave a half wave and slid the box the rest of the way into the trunk. Had the deputy seen what she was loading into the trunk? Had he been able to read Lydia Tierney’s name written on the side of the box?
Sarah climbed into the car and closed her eyes, half expecting that he would turn his vehicle around and order her to open the trunk. When she was certain that he wasn’t going to return, she doubled-checked that the thumb drive was tucked safely inside her purse and then pulled out her phone to call Margaret.
“I’ve been trying to call you,” Margaret said by way of greeting. “Where are you?”
Sarah debated whether or not to tell Margaret that she had just scanned the contents of the evidence box that Margaret had stolen for her, but decided against it. She didn’t want to cause Margaret any more worry than she already had. “I’m in town,” she said vaguely. “What’s going on?”
Margaret lowered her voice to a low whisper. “I’m at work, so I can’t talk long. Something big has happened at Hal’s.”
“Jack said that the sheriff’s department wasn’t finished with their search and that we weren’t allowed to go back there just yet. Do you know what’s going on?” Sarah glanced at the clock on the console. It was twelve thirty and the wake was set to begin at three. She needed to get back to Celia’s house and change.
“No. The sheriff’s not saying, but I do know that they called in a state forensic team from Des Moines. They’re on the way over there now.”
“Why would they need a different forensic team?” Sarah asked, suddenly on alert. They must have found something more than the few droplets of blood that Sarah had seen on the steps. Did it have something
to do with the fluoroacetate? “Margaret, do you have access to Julia’s case file? I know the medical examiner released her remains back to the family. Is there any mention of the official cause of death?”
Margaret was quiet on the other end.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said in a rush. “I shouldn’t be asking you to do more than you already have.”
“No, no. I want to help, I really do,” she said, as if trying to convince herself. “Let me think a second. Hold on a minute,” Margaret said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Sarah heard Margaret set the receiver down and the click of a keyboard. Had they found the poison at the farm? That wouldn’t make sense if Amy had been the one to kill Julia. Wouldn’t the poison have been found at her house? Jack had made it sound as if Gilmore wouldn’t allow them to leave Penny Gate because of what they had found at Hal’s farm.
“Are you still there?” Margaret asked breathlessly a few minutes later.
“I’m here,” Sarah said.
“I can’t believe it,” Margaret said.
“What?” Sarah asked, urging her on but already sure she knew the answer. “What does it say?”
“It was poison. I can’t believe Amy would do that.”
“The sheriff is sure that it was Amy, then?” Sarah asked, wondering how Jack’s meeting with Amy’s attorney had gone.
“He must,” Margaret said. “He arrested her. She was arraigned this morning. No bail.”
That meant that Amy would miss Julia’s wake and funeral. As appalling as it was to think that someone would have beaten Julia at the top of the stairs in her own home, it seemed even more horrific that someone would deliberately poison her while she was lying in a hospital bed.
“I’ve got to go,” Margaret said in a hushed tone as if someone had come within earshot of her side of the conversation. “I’ll see you at the wake tonight.”
Sarah disconnected and began the drive back to Celia’s, trying to reconcile the fact that Amy had somehow poisoned Julia while they were at the hospital. Still, it didn’t quite make sense. No one, it seemed, except Dean, could provide a reason that Amy would kill her aunt. An argument over Amy’s drinking and lost job just didn’t seem like it would lead to such violence, but people were killed over much less all the time. Stranger yet was the idea that Amy would go to such lengths to poison Julia. Was Amy afraid that Julia would wake up and identify her as the one who attacked her?