Death in Reel Time (23 page)

“Jack, could you give us a ride to my house?” I called, trotting toward him with Beth in tow.

He'd just climbed out of his truck and was clicking the lock on his key fob. “Can I get a cup of coffee first?” he asked, then took a closer look at my face and at Beth's unusual appearance.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, punching the key fob again.

“Don't ask any questions,” I whispered to him after I'd put Beth in the passenger side and closed the door. “I'll call you later.”

Jack raised his eyebrows, but nodded in agreement. I crawled into the jump seat and we rode in silence except for Beth's occasional keening noises. Jack dropped us off and as I got out of the truck he touched my shoulder lightly. “Good luck,” he said. “Call me later.”

This willingness to trust is one of the things I like about him. Okay, one of things I really
love
about him.

Once inside, I made Beth a cup of hot tea and got her a pair of my socks and one of Esme's sweaters. The sweater swamped her and we both burst out laughing like hyenas on uppers, though it wasn't that funny.

“This is crazy,” she said once she'd regained her composure. “The whole world's just gone crazy. Peyton has lost his mind. This is all my fault. Everything.”

I was dying to interrupt her to ask what it was she'd remembered, but I thought it was best to let her tell me when she was ready. I was afraid if I pressed her it would slip away from her again.

“I can't go home like this,” she said now, looking down at her ragtag outfit. “Mom is worried enough without seeing me like this, and this is the second day in a row I've run out on her. She'll be calling the guys in the white coats. I need to let her know where I am. And then could you take me up to my house, Sophreena? I want to get some clothes and things and I haven't been back there since, well, you know.”

I glanced at the clock. Plenty of time before we were due to meet Tony. “Sure, but are you sure you're ready to go back? Could I go get the things for you?”

“No,” Beth said. “I need to go there. I've remembered some things, but it's still coming in bits and pieces. Maybe
if I go there I can get it all. I'm afraid, but I've
got
to do this before Peyton does something idiotic that can't be undone.”

I feared it might be too late for that and I was beginning to entertain the idea that maybe Peyton had indeed done it. Not intentionally, but maybe a fight that got out of hand, like with Johnny and Riley. Peyton surely had something eating at him these days. Was it grief or guilt? Or maybe both?

Beth called Olivia, then we headed to Crescent Hill. I'd been to Beth's house lots of times, but I realized only now that it had always been for events with other people present, never as a lone visitor. Beth didn't have a key with her and had to retrieve the one she kept in a fake rock in the flower bed by her front door. The bed was planted with pansies that were still profuse with blossoms despite the cool temps lately. I commented on them while I waited.

“That's all Charlie's doing,” Beth said. “He's got the green thumb. I kill everything I touch.”

Her words seemed to echo back to her and she winced. Her hands were shaking and she had to make several tries to get the key into the lock. When she finally pushed the door open she backed away as if afraid to go in. I brushed past her and stepped inside. Everything was tidy, obsessively so.

Beth followed me in, then looked around as if she stumbled into an alien land. Maybe it was. “We built a life here,” she said, her voice dreamy. “I thought it was going to be a good life. For a long time I thought that.” She faced me, her eyes narrowing. “Sophreena, will I ever get myself back?”

“I don't know, Beth.” I figured I owed her honesty.

We headed down the hall to the bedroom she and Blaine had shared. Beth took a small suitcase out of the closet and
spread it open on the bed. She started going through drawers filled with meticulously folded clothes, then gathered a few more things from a closet where color-coordinated clothing hung on wooden hangers placed at precise intervals.

I am a huge fan of organized spaces and organized people, but this made me feel twitchy. It was a symptom of something very unhealthy.

Beth excused herself to the bathroom and changed into jeans, a shirt, and jacket. When she came out she sat in a chair by the window and pulled on a pair of boots. All the while her eyes were scanning the room as if some gremlin might jump out from behind a piece of furniture.

She stood abruptly. “Let's go out to the backyard. I want to remember. I need to remember.”

As we stepped outside we both squinted against the light and Beth made a noise like a dry heave. She put her hands to her face and stood for a moment, then began, her tone flat. “I remember getting the tools from the shed to start the yard work,” she said, nodding toward a small structure in the corner of the yard. “I like yard work. I find it soothing. Most everything between that time and when I woke up in the hospital the next day is either a vague notion or a flash that I can't hold on to. But this morning I remembered that we had an argument. Blaine was here and we had a fight.”

“Let's try walking through it,” I said, guiding her toward the garden shed. It had been recently painted and, as with the house, it was in apple-pie order inside. Every tool had its place and supplies were labeled and efficiently arranged on shelves.

“I've never seen a toolshed like this,” I marveled.

“Blaine likes things tidy,” she said. “Liked. Not just tidy, but organized with military precision. Life was easier if I kept things that way.”

I scanned the walls and shelves. “Where did you store the tarp?” I asked.

“There,” she said, pointing to an empty space on a bottom shelf. “I used it that day. I remember that. I raked leaves onto it and dragged them down past the gate. At least I
think
that's a clear memory, but it's possible I'm confusing it with some other time. I always did it that way.”

“Is everything else accounted for?” I asked.

“The rake is missing, but it's probably still out in the yard.” She placed her hand on an empty spot on the shed wall. “And the pruning loppers go here and the shears. And there's a short shovel that usually hangs on that peg over there, but I lent it to Charlie a while back and I think he still has it. Everything else is here.” She turned from side to side, studying the shed's contents.

As we went back outside I looked up, shielding my eyes against the sun, and noticed a hunk of wood splintered out of the side of the shed. The raw wood stood out in stark contrast to the fresh red paint.

“What happened here?” I asked, reaching up to touch the spot. I pulled at the splinter and it gave way, revealing a hole that went straight through the board.

“I don't know,” Beth said, studying the spot. “A rock from the lawn mower maybe? I never noticed it before.” She walked around reenacting the steps she usually went through to ready for yard work. When she spotted the long-handled loppers on the patio she gasped. “That's what I remembered
this morning,” she said, her hands starting to shake again. “That's the flash I got but couldn't hold on to. Oh, Sophreena, we had a terrible fight. It was my fault. I was standing right over there, pruning that azalea. Blaine came out of the house and he was furious. It was something bad I'd done. But what was it?”

She bent over and held both sides of her head as if in pain. I moved toward her but she waved me away. “No, I have to remember. Now. Sterling and Madeline can't lose another son.”

I backed away and Beth gasped. “He was angry because he'd found my birth control pills. That was it. He thought we were trying for a baby. He insisted and I let him think I was going along with it. That was wrong of me. But I couldn't bring a child into this,” she said, staring at the back of the house. “Not the way things were.”

I didn't reply, afraid she'd lose the thread again.

“He came toward me and I saw it,” Beth said. “I saw it in his eyes. He wasn't the man I knew anymore. He was going to hurt me. And not like before, not just control me; he meant to end me. He came so fast and before I could move he hit me on the side of my head, very hard. I somehow managed to stay on my feet and then I did the thing I never thought I could do. I hit back. I had those loppers in my hand and I swung them as hard as I could at him. He was so shocked he didn't react right away. He jumped back but the blade nicked him. He touched his cheek and when he saw the blood on his fingers he went into a rage. He came at me again and I remember pain and I remember falling to the ground but after that everything's mostly blank. But
Sophreena, I
was
trying to hit him again. Maybe I connected as I was going down. Maybe he was hurt and stumbled off down to the lake while I was unconscious. Maybe I killed him.”

“Beth,” I said. “First off, you can't make an intentional move like that when you're blacking out, and secondly—” I hesitated, fashioning my words carefully. “I think it took more force than a swipe with glorified pruning shears by someone stunned and passing out. What's the next thing you remember?”

Beth frowned. “Things get really fuzzy after that. I think I must have been in and out for a while. When all that happened it was still light, but when I came to it was dark. During that time I think I had some awareness. I'm pretty sure I heard voices, and caught a glimpse of somebody moving around, but I could have imagined it, or been hallucinating or dreaming.”

“Well, for now let's say you did,” I said. “What did the voices sound like?”

Beth frowned. “A man's,” she said, “or else a woman with a deep voice. Some shouting I think. Anger, or maybe I'm confusing that with Blaine yelling at me. Was Tony here?” she asked. “I think I heard his motorcycle backfire.”

“He came over looking for you that night when we were getting ready for dinner at your mother's house. Was it that late? Could you have been hearing the voices then?”

“I don't think so. It was quiet when I woke up and it was full dark. I wouldn't have been able to see anything if somebody had been there then.” She bent over again as if in pain and this time I pulled her by the arm, guiding her to a chair
on the patio. She sat down heavily and looked as if she might be sick.

I went inside and got her a glass of water, which she chugged down like a woman who'd been in the desert for weeks.

“I have no idea how long I was out,” she said. “But I'm pretty sure Blaine wasn't here when I woke up. I only have a hazy impression, not a real memory, of going inside to take a shower and clean myself up. And I guess I went to Mom's house, but I don't remember driving there or what I did when I got there. You'd know more about that than me.”

I didn't want to plant ideas in Beth's head or skew her memories, so I decided not to push her anymore. “This is good, Beth,” I said. “This will be very helpful. You need to talk with Denny about this.”

She nodded. “The sooner the better, before it all slips away again. Just because Peyton's lost his mind, that's no reason he should lose his life.”

I wasn't sure if any of this would help Peyton or if it would seal his fate. Now I was the one feeling sick.

I took Beth home and she put up a good front, looking and sounding more like the old Beth in front of her mother and Esme. I feigned being in a rush, telling Esme we needed to get ready for our filming session with Tony. Esme puckered her lips and looked at her watch, and I could see she was about to say we had plenty of time. I put my arm across the back of her chair and gave her shoulder a little pinch and she allowed as how we certainly did need to get a move on.

We headed home so I could change out of my walking togs, and I spilled to Esme as fast as my lips could move. She
listened silently, other than some surprised grunts, gasps, and an occasional minced oath, ending with “Well, dog my cats!”

“I have no idea what that means. Translate.”

“Means I'm thunderstruck,” Esme said. “Do you think Peyton actually did it?”

“I've got to admit I considered it might be true there for a little while. There are some things that make it look bad for him. You know, like him
confessing
. But no, I don't think he did it. Peyton and Blaine had their troubles, but despite all that they were still brothers.”

“Johnny and Riley Hargett were brothers, too. But all the same one of them ended up causing the other's death.”

“Yes, but Riley was trying to protect Renny,” I said.

Esme didn't say anything and when I stopped at a light she was looking at me over her sunglasses. “Mm-hm,” she said. “He was protecting his sister-in-law who was being mistreated. Does that ring a bell?”

“Yes, but that's not the case here. In fact Peyton and Beth are at odds about something. They don't even seem to like each other very much; they've argued every time I've seen them together. What I can't figure out is why Peyton would say he did it if he didn't.”

“Got me there,” Esme said. “I hardly know the man. Before all this came up the only time I'd set eyes on him was when he was coaching from the sidelines at the football games. He always seemed cool and collected. Not the type you'd think would flip out and do something like kill his own brother.”

“Something else,” I said, talking fast as we turned the corner to our street. “When she was telling me what she
remembered, Beth asked if Tony was at her house that day. She thinks she has some recollection of hearing his motorcycle backfire while she was passed out and maybe his voice, too. Now she's pretty sure it was still daylight out then and it was well after dark when Tony went over to check on her for the dinner at Olivia's. And he swears he didn't actually see her. But if what Beth remembers is right, I think we have to consider it's possible he did go over there at some point during the day, despite his denials.”