Scraps of Paper (18 page)

“I wonder if Norma really committed suicide?” Frank mused aloud as if he’d had it on his mind for a while. “What do you think?”

“Lorna doesn’t think she did. Norma had been happy, her life good, except for her fears someone was watching her. She wasn’t suicidal. And she was only taking arthritis medicine. Lorna was positive about that.”

“More loose ends. It seems like someone wanted the police to believe Norma tossed herself down those stairs.” Frank fell into silence as they watched the rain. It was slackening off. “You know, rain’s let up and we’re still not that far from Norma’s house. We could take a short side trip back there and I could look over the accident scene. See what I can find.”

“And I could ask the neighbor to let us take a peek? She has a key and permission, of a sort, to enter Norma’s house.”

 “That’ll work. We won’t be breaking any laws, then.” Frank dug his cell phone out of his jacket’s pocket and handed it to Abigail. “Give her a call and see if she’ll let us borrow the key. Tell her we’ll just sneak in quietly, look at what we need to look at, and be out in a wink. No harm done to anyone. We won’t touch a thing.”

Abigail didn’t have to think about it. Frank would be able to ferret out clues she wouldn’t have seen. If there were any there. “Okay, I’m game. Let’s do it.” It took a minute on the phone with Lorna and they had their permission. They only had to wait for the rain to let up.

There were cows nearby, Abigail heard them calling to each other. The scent of wet hay was heavy on the night air and she felt like she was in an episode of
Murder, She Wrote
, without a script.

They waited another ten or so minutes until the rain was a light drizzle and got on the motorcycle. Abigail directed him to the street; they parked in Lorna’s driveway, and then got the key from her.

“I was just heading to bed,” Lorna told them after Abigail introduced Frank and they’d said a few words to each other. She was standing in the doorway with her robe on. “So when you’re done, drop the key in my mailbox and I’ll get it tomorrow. Call me if anything comes up.”

“We will,” Abigail promised and they said goodnight. Quietly, in the dark, Abigail and Frank made their way to the back of Norma’s house.

“We’re in luck,” Frank whispered. “Someone’s left the lights on inside. Probably to make it look occupied.”

“I still feel like a burglar, sneaking into an empty house in the middle of the night,” she whispered back as he gently shut the door.

“It’s not the middle of the night and we have a key. Show me the stairs.”

She led him to the basement door. The house appeared the same as when she’d been in it earlier that day. Still a mess. If the police had already been there, there weren’t any signs of it.

The basement light was on and Frank inspected the steps and the banister, saying nothing. “Before we leave, Abby, I’m going to take a quick look around the house.” He left her standing in the kitchen by the door and reappeared a few minutes later. “One of the bedroom windows had fresh scratches on the sill. Someone recently climbed in through it from the outside.”

“Someone who might have helped her fall down those steps?” Abigail kept her voice low.

“Maybe. From what I’ve seen I don’t think it was suicide at all. There’re scratches on the windowsill, and on the underside of the banisters. Scuffmarks a step or two down. Oscar told me they’d found splinters under Norma’s fingernails; attributed to accidental scraping as the body went down but, I think, doped up as she was, she fought her attacker and dug her fingernails into the wood trying to stop her fall. I noticed that list on the kitchen bulletin board of things Norma wanted and needed to do this week topped by the words:
My Maine Cruise…leaving Aug. 18!
That’s next Thursday. Hand drawn balloons and hearts all around it. Her closet, I checked, was filled with new dresses and handbags. Some still had the sales tags on them. There’s brand new luggage on the floor. All bought for her trip. She was excited to be going.”

Abigail got it. “If she was excited about going on vacation, had bought new clothes and all, why would she kill herself? But that doesn’t rule out it being an accident.”

“No it doesn’t. Time to go.” Frank grabbed her hand. They left the house, dropped the key into the neighbor’s mailbox, and trudged back to the bike, climbed on and headed for home. The rain had stopped but off in the distance there was a sky crowded with sheet lightning and booming thunder. “We’re in a lull between storms. Another front’s moving in. We should hurry.”

As she clung behind Frank, her arms tight around him, she spoke over the CB. “Are you going to tell Oscar you don’t think Norma’s death was a suicide; maybe not even an accident?”

“Now I will. I’ll call him tomorrow. Tell him what I think. I didn’t want to drag him into it until I was sure. But he should know. He should talk to the neighbor.”

At the cabin, Frank rolled the Gold Wing into the garage, as the second rainstorm roared in. They’d just made it. “Do you want to come in for coffee?” he asked as they were standing on the porch, protected from the rain.

“No, thanks. Snowball is probably wondering where I am. I need to feed her. So I’ll scoot on home before this rainstorm gets any worse. I can see the fog moving in. It’s going to be thick tonight.”

“I had so much fun today, Abby…how about one day next week we go on another ride? There’s this amazing scenic route I know. It winds around a lake and up through the hills.”

Abigail met Frank’s hopeful eyes. “Okay. I’d like that. I’ll bring a picnic lunch.”

As she drove away, backlighted with a distant halo of lightning, she could see Frank waving. She didn’t make it home before the full storm hit. The last stretch of rain and heavy wind shook her vehicle so badly she could hardly keep it on the road. When she pulled up into her driveway and tucked the car up close besides the house she was relieved, but had to fight the winds to get inside.

On her front porch she found a cardboard box and lugged it inside.

The note on top said:
More correspondence from the Summers story.

 So it was from Samantha and full of letters. Oh boy.

After a shower and making hot chocolate, with the kitten asleep in her lap, she spent the rest of the evening reading the letters as the storm raged outside.

Dear Abigail Sutton,

I knew Jenny Summers and her brother, Chris. My mother worked at the bakery (it was called The Chocolate Donut back then) and I helped her that summer. I remember those kids. I was older but Jenny and Chris came in most mornings and bought day old donuts, with pennies they’d found on the side of the road, in parking lots, or from empty soda bottles. Jenny bought glazed donuts and Chris, jelly. Sometimes I’d give them the donuts free. They never had much money and we felt sorry for them. Jenny asked me if I liked horses and I said I did. The next time she came in she gave me this picture she’d drawn of a horse as a present. It was really good. They were sweet kids. Often I’d see bruises on them. When I’d ask what had happened, they would say they’d fallen climbing trees, or skating. I knew that wasn’t true.

Another letter said:

Dear Mrs. Sutton,

Jenny and Chris Summers were friends of mine. I used to see them out at Cooper’s Pond on hot days and we’d swim together. Their Mom was usually gone working. Their Aunt Edna was mean to them. I saw her hit Jenny once. Jenny didn’t cry. Nighttime, they’d sneak out their upstairs window and climb down the Elm tree to get away from her and a bunch of us kids would play hide and seek in the dark in the field next to the house. Jenny had horse statues on a shelf. All kinds, colors and sizes. She loved horses. Chris loved those colored plastic dinosaurs and they were all over his bed. He carried the smaller ones in his pockets. He also liked spiders. Real ones. Jenny was scared to death of spiders. They were close and were together a lot.

And one read:

Dear Abigail Sutton,

I was a nurse at Chalmers Hospital and I recall those two Summers kids. I remember them because they were brought in with bruises, cuts and, once, a broken bone. Even though the woman, their aunt, I believe, maintained the injuries were caused by accidents of one kind or another, I never swallowed that. And those kids were sick all the time. Stomachaches, headaches; not being able to hold food down. Malnourished. It wasn’t normal. Before they left, or disappeared, or died (as the graves now show) I wanted their mother to come in so I could talk to her about the children’s worsening conditions. I called twice in a week. The aunt said her sister couldn’t come in and gave me some ridiculous story as to why. Said Emily was out of town for a time. I never saw any of them again after that. I’ve thought about those kids a lot over the years. It was so sad. I was a young, inexperienced nurse back then and didn’t realize what was going on. I’ve seen enough now to know those kids were probably being mistreated. I’ve often felt guilty as if I should have done more, but didn’t. I regret it more than ever, knowing they died that summer.

And there was a strange angry one, hand written in thick red letters:

A. Sutton,

You’d better keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you, lady! Leave what happened to the Summers in the past and stop dragging up what you have no business in. You don’t know what you’re doing. I’m warning you this time. Next time you won’t be so lucky. Pets can die. Houses can burn. Cars can have no brakes. Get the message? They’re dead. Let it go.

When Abigail examined the envelope, there was no stamp, post date or return address. Just a plain white envelope with her name on the front. Someone had hand delivered it or dumped it in with the others.

Great. Now she was getting threats. She called Frank.

“Made it home all right?” The storm as loud on his end of the phone as on hers.

“Yep. I got wet getting in the door, but now I’m snug and dry. Just me and my cat lounging on the couch, sipping hot cocoa.”

“You give your cat hot cocoa?”

“Sure, she loves it,” her voice mocking. “I called because Samantha left me letters on the porch. Fan mail from the newspaper stories. I just got done reading one that wasn’t so nice.” She gave him a quick rundown on what the letter had said.

“I was afraid of that. It was only a matter of time before the weirdos came out of the shadows, or maybe one certain dangerous weirdo. Need company? Want one of my guns?”

“No, no. Anyway, no one’s going to be out in this tempest.”

“Well, don’t take chances. Get that wooden club of yours out and keep it with you. I’ll talk to the sheriff about having his men keep an extra eye on your place for a while. Let him know about the hate letter. He’ll want to see it.”

Abigail released a weary sigh. “Tell him to stop by tomorrow. I’m going to bed in about ten minutes. And, Frank, I can take care of myself.”

 “Of course, Abby, tomorrow. Goodnight. Call me if you need anything. Promise?”

“I promise, Frank. Good night.” She hung up, put the letters away, took the wooden stick from the closet, and went to bed, Snowball at her heels. The house was shaking and the rain was a steady roar coming down. Every few seconds the house lit up from the lightning. It felt so good to be home, warm, dry and safe.

She dreamed she was walking in the woods behind her house through the storm and her nightgown wasn’t getting wet. Her hair flew wildly about her head and her hands came up to push the strands away from her face so she could see. Limbs tumbled around and past her and the lightning illuminated her way. Her feet were taking her somewhere she didn’t know. She heard childish laughter and when she looked over her shoulder there were two children dancing around her in the rain, their flaxen hair a corona around their small heads, their eyes sapphires in the dark. Their feet were bare and clothes translucent. Beautiful fairy children. Jenny and Christopher.