Copycat Killing

31

The phone rang and I almost jumped out of my skin. It was Pearl.

“I need a favor from you, Kathleen, if you have time,” she said.

“What do you need?” I asked.

“I want to go out to Wisteria Hill before we go talk to Detective Gordon. Roma’s going to drive out there with me, but Neil has an appointment. Is there any chance you could join us?” She hesitated for a moment. “I think it would help Roma to have a friend.”

“Of course,” I said. There were things I needed to ask Pearl, and Wisteria Hill seemed like a good place to have that conversation. It was where everything had started and ended in many ways. We agreed to meet at the old estate in half an hour.

“Wish me luck,” I said to Owen and Hercules.

I tucked the truck in next to a muddy, nondescript SUV out at Wisteria Hill and Roma pulled in right beside me. I thought she looked tired. The past few days had been pretty horrible for her and I was impressed by how well she’d handled everything.

Pearl got out of the passenger side of the car. “Hello, Kathleen,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

Her attention was already being drawn to the carriage house and the field behind it. “I’m just going to look around a little,” Pearl said. “It’s been a long time since I was out here.”

I nodded and walked over to Roma.

“Thanks for coming out here,” she said. “She wouldn’t exactly take no for an answer.” She stood with her arms tightly wrapped around her body and for a moment I wondered if I should just keep what I suspected to myself. “I think she just wanted to see where…he was, all these years.”

I put a hand on her arm. “Why don’t you go check on Lucy and the others? I’ll walk around a bit with your mom. I don’t mind.”

She exhaled slowly. “I uh, thank you. I think I will.”

“Take your time,” I said.

Pearl was standing by the side steps to the old house. I walked over to her.

“It makes me sad,” she said without turning around. “This house used to be full of life and now it’s just…lonely.” We stood there in silence for a minute. “Show me where he was,” she said.

I hesitated.

“Please, Kathleen,” she said, softly.

I nodded. “All right.”

We made our way along the edge of the field. I could see that Dr. Abbott and her team had measured out a grid that covered most of the back end of the grassy area.

“There?” Pearl asked.

“Yes,” I said, pointing at the slope. “I was standing at the edge of the trees. The earth gave way. It was just so wet.” I remembered the feeling of the ground falling out from under me. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes for a moment.

When I looked at Pearl again her eyes were fixed on some distant spot across the grass. I glanced back over my shoulder for any sign of Roma. Sam Ingstrom and a man I recognized from Everett Henderson’s office were getting out of a town truck that had pulled up by the old house.

“Why don’t we go find Roma?” I said to Pearl.

She had a look in her eyes that I couldn’t decipher and all the color seemed to have drained out of her face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“All these years he was out here and I didn’t know. I walked around in those woods and Tom was …un-derneath my feet.”

My heart started to pound. “Let’s go sit down,” I said. I led Pearl over to the steps at the side of the old house. We both sat down. She folded her hands in her lap and I covered them with my own. “It’s not your fault,” I said.

She’d been staring past me, focused on nothing really, maybe the past, but she looked at me then. “He didn’t deserve that.” She gestured toward the embankment. “He wasn’t a bad person.”

“He wasn’t a good person,” a voice said. Sam’s voice. He was standing just a few feet away. He shook his head emphatically. “He was a lousy husband and a lousy father, Pearl. Don’t make Tom out to be some kind of saint just because he’s dead.”

Pearl got to her feet and I did as well.

Sam came and stood in front of us, ignoring me, focusing only on Pearl. “Whatever happened to him has nothing to do with you. You did the right thing for you and for Roma. If Tom had been a good man, you wouldn’t have had to sneak away with the supper dishes on the table and just the clothes on your back. You wouldn’t have had to depend on Anna’s kindness.”

“We know what Anna and the other women were doing,” I said quietly.

Something flashed quickly across Sam’s face. “Okay,” he said. “That doesn’t change anything.”

Pearl kept her eyes fixed on Sam, one hand clenched into a tight fist at her side. “You told me it would be all right Sam, but you lied, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Sam said. His focus was completely on Pearl. “It was all right. You’ve had a good life.”

“That night, he threatened to take Roma, trying to scare me,” Pearl said. “He twisted her arm, she was crying and I…I told him I’d do whatever he wanted.” Her voice gained strength. “I made his favorite meal—liver and onions—when it was ready he said it tasted like an old boot, and he went out looking for beer because Idris wouldn’t sell any to him anymore.”

Roma had come up behind Sam and she stood there, arms wrapped tightly around her body again, one hand pressed against her mouth.

“I grabbed Roma and I ran,” Pearl continued. “I knew Anna would help us so that’s where I went. You were there. You said it was over, Sam. But it isn’t.”

She seemed to be aware of only Sam, towering over her, his mouth pulled into a thin, tight line.

He swallowed and gave her a smile of sorts. “It’s been over for a long time, Pearl.” He reached toward her and then abruptly pulled his hand back.

“Turquoise bucket seats,” Roma said then, to no one in particular.

We all looked at her. She was shaking. I pulled off my sweater and put it around her shoulders. She looked at me. “The car had turquoise bucket seats. I was in the driver’s seat turning the steering wheel, driving the car. I remember. Then my dad came and he sat me on his lap and I was still driving the car. He smelled like cinnamon gum.”

Her hands were clenched into tight, knotted fists. She took a couple of steps closer to Sam. “It was you. You let me sit on your lap and drive. It wasn’t Tom. It was you.”