Holly Grove Homecoming (6 page)

Even now Trooper didn’t like to remember the next few hours. Everyone kept telling him how lucky he was that Mr. Graham had been the one to find the bodies rather than him. Mr. Graham had given up waiting for Trooper at school and had stopped by to see if he was back from Millertown with the banner yet. The front door had been standing open, he said. He’d called out, asking if anyone was home, and when nobody had answered, he’d gone on in.

The sheriff’s deputies had held Trooper back from entering the house that afternoon, but there was no keeping the news from him. His parents’ bodies were not alone in the living room of their home. Larry Abbott was there also, shot through the temple. The gun was in his right hand, and the note was in his left.

The note said his English teacher, Trooper’s mother, had had an affair with him, had led him on, and then had wanted to dump him. He’d decided the night before that he didn’t want to live without her, and he didn’t want her to continue living if he was gone.

Everyone assumed that Trooper’s dad had just happened to come home at the wrong time and Larry had been forced to shoot him too. Wrong time, wrong place, people said.

Trooper hadn’t believed any of it, but what could he do? The sheriff accepted the note as proof that Larry had killed Mary and Jimmy Myers, then shot himself.

Trooper had never gone back into the house again. He supposed some of his cousins had retrieved his personal belongings. Someone had taken them to Myrna’s for him, because that’s where he’d stayed until he could leave town.

It hadn’t taken all that long to settle affairs. Since he’d been an only child, the house came to him, and he immediately put it in the hands of a real estate agent. Just a few weeks before, his parents had added his name to their checking and savings accounts, and their will made clear that all their worldly possessions came to him.

He’d told family members to take anything they wanted out of the house. His only request had been that Myrna get the family Bible and his parents’ photograph albums, along with any other personal items she wanted. He’d never asked her what she’d taken.

In less than four weeks after the death of his parents, Trooper had packed his clothes, along with a checkbook so he could access his money, and he’d driven out of Holly Grove in the pickup his parents had given him.

This was the first time he’d visited his parents’ grave since that day.

Trooper set his teeth and allowed his memory to take him back to the last time he’d stood here. Just barely eighteen years old, he had made sure this was his last stop on his way out of town. Fake grass had covered the mounds of fresh dirt.

With tears rolling down his face, Trooper had vowed to find some way to prove the innocence of his mother. He had known her too well to think she’d have an affair with anyone, let alone a student, a young man who looked up to her as an authority figure.

But he’d had a long row to hoe before he could come back and visit the place where he’d once said goodbye to his mom and dad. Now the earth had settled and the grass was real, but Trooper’s pain remained fresh. He stared at the graves. His folks weren’t there anymore. He could pretty much feel that. But he couldn’t keep from trying to talk to them anyway, just in case.

“I’m sorry, Mom and Dad, that I’ve not been back sooner. You know, I guess, what I’ve been doing all these years. I’ve enjoyed being an FBI agent for the most part, except… Well, you know what happened in April. No sense in me revisiting that now. Besides, as bad as that was, it gives me some time to look into what happened to the two of you.”

He paused, hoping for some sense that their spirits were there and listening, but not even a breeze fluttered the petals of the silk flowers in the marble vases on the base of the marker.

He sighed. “I’ve learned a lot in the Bureau, you know, and I have a lot of investigative skills I didn’t have when I was eighteen years old. I’m going to try to clear your name, Mom. I guess you’re way past caring about that now. But I still have to try for Aunt Myrna and for me. I hope you’ll understand why I’m going to bring it all up again.

“And I hope, wherever you are, that you’re at peace. And that you forgive me for everything I haven’t done for you over the years.”

A car door slammed somewhere behind him. Trooper turned just in time to see a silver SUV pulling out of the cemetery parking lot. Someone besides him had been visiting the dead, which wasn’t unusual for a Sunday.

But the SUV made him think of Carly Morrison, which reminded him that he was supposed to be taking his aunt’s dinner to her. He’d better get a move on before the diner sold out of fried chicken and he got in trouble with Myrna.

He took one last look at the graves. “Bye folks. I’ll be back, and it won’t take me so long the next time.”

He turned and walked back to his car.

T
rooper and Myrna
ate their fried chicken dinner with trimmings at the table in her kitchen. The food was good, plain cooking, the kind that people in Tennessee especially enjoyed, and Trooper realized he’d missed this while living in Philadelphia.

Myrna’s iced tea, to which she’d added some mint leaves from her backyard, topped off the meal. They sat sipping their tea for a while, but as his meal settled, Trooper got restless. The day was too far gone for him to begin any of his investigations, but he certainly had a good excuse to visit Carly Morrison and see if he could unearth any more information about who she was and what she was up to.

He pushed back from the table. “I need to move around a little bit and work off some of these calories or I’m going to drop off to sleep. If you’ve finished with that recipe you wanted me to deliver, I’ll take it across the street for you.”

“It’s all ready to go. I wonder if Carly’s at home. Did you happen to notice?”

“Yes, she’s home. Or at least her car’s there.”

“Well, I’d guess she’s home then. I wish I’d had you get her a chicken dinner when you picked ours up.”

“Why the sudden interest in feeding Carly Morrison?”

“I just thought she might like to try the diner’s food. She may not even know the place exists.”

“I’ll mention it to her if you want. And if she’s interested in trying it, maybe the next time I go to the cemetery, I’ll stop at the diner again.”

“So you did go to the cemetery. I figured that was where you were headed. Did everything look all right?”

Trooper nodded. “I owe you a debt of thanks for taking care of their graves all these years.”

“No, child, you don’t owe me anything. Your momma was my sister, and as long as I’m able, I’ll take care of her grave. And Jimmy’s too, of course. He was a good man, and he made my sister a fine husband.”

“They were both good people,” Trooper agreed.

Myrna opened her mouth as though to ask him something but then shut it again. “They were,” was all she said. She stood and retrieved the recipe from a shelf above the stove, then handed it to him. “Tell Carly if she has any questions to feel free to call me.”

“I’ll tell her,” Trooper said.

As he approached Carly’s front door a few minutes later, he wondered if he should have called first. If Carly was engrossed in her writing, she might not appreciate the interruption.

But he wasn’t willing to turn around and go back without at least ringing the doorbell. Besides, he really did want to see her.

* * *

A
fter making
her usual Sunday morning call to her parents, Carly had settled down at the computer to tackle her writing again. After a short struggle with a difficult scene, she was able to complete it and move on to a part of the chapter where the words flowed easily. Soon she was totally immersed in the story.

Then the doorbell rang.

Glancing at the clock on the top of her screen, Carly saw that she hadn’t moved from the keyboard in hours. She was tired, and she was hungry. She quickly saved her work and put her computer to sleep.

The bell had rung a second time before she could get to the front door. This was unusual, her having company in the middle of the afternoon.

Then she remembered that Myrna had said she’d send Trooper over with the chicken salad recipe.

She paused to glance at herself in the mirror in the hall tree and stifled a groan. Why did she always look her worse when Trooper appeared at her front door?

She shrugged. It was too late to do anything about that now. She glanced through the sidelight to be sure it was Trooper, then opened the door.

He held up an index card. “I come bearing a recipe.”

“Great. Come in.” Carly stepped back and waited until he was in the hallway, then closed the door. “I appreciate your bringing that over. You didn’t have to, though. I told Myrna I’d come pick it up.”

“It was no trouble. Wow! Your house sure feels cool. Are you enjoying your air conditioners?”

“Immensely. It’s really nice and cool toward the back of the house. Would you like to sit in the breakfast nook and cool off for a while?”

“Sounds great.”

Delighted that he’d agreed, Carly motioned for him to follow her when she turned and led the way toward the kitchen. “Would you like to join me for a sandwich? I got immersed in my writing and didn’t realize until you rang the bell that I hadn’t eaten any lunch.”

“No thanks. I just finished a huge meal. I’ll have a glass of water with you if that’s okay.”

“Certainly. Have a seat and I’ll get your drink.” Carly pulled a water pitcher out of the refrigerator along with some sandwich makings. She poured Trooper a glass of water and carried it to him. “Did Myrna cook a big lunch today?”

“On the contrary. Since I was going to be out, she asked me to bring her lunch from Simpson Diner south of town. Have you eaten there?”

Carly paused to think a second. “No, I don’t think so. The name doesn’t ring a bell. What sort of food do they serve?”

“Fried,” Trooper said with a hint of a smile. “They serve fried food.”

Carly pulled a couple of slices of bread out of the bag and placed them on a plate, then looked at him with brows raised in a question. “Fried what?”

“Fried everything.” Then he laughed. “I exaggerate. Today’s lunch was country-fried chicken. The side items weren’t fried. They were only floating in butter.”

“Good grief.” Carly grinned at his expression. “So, do you eat there often?” Then she grimaced. “Sorry! I know you don’t. I mean, I know you haven’t been back in town long. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. You’re right. I haven’t been back very long. And you haven’t lived here long enough to know all the good restaurants obviously. Tell me again how you decided on Holly Grove when you needed a place to hide from your stalker. This town is a long way from Philadelphia.”

Carly knew she should have been prepared for that question. After all, Trooper was an FBI agent. He wasn’t in the habit of letting people shrug off his questions or dance around them as Carly had done with the townspeople. She turned her back to retrieve the lettuce keeper off the top shelf of her refrigerator and ordered her mind to work at warp speed.

One thing she knew for sure: She couldn’t tell the truth, that she’d come to Holly Grove because of Eric Duran, the runaway she’d tried to help when she worked in television, the boy who’d first told her about Holly Grove and the double murder/suicide that had taken place there twenty years earlier. She’d tried to get Eric to tell her what he knew about that incident, but he’d been terrified of the man still living in Holly Grove who’d abused him and then gotten him hooked on drugs. When Eric had disappeared, Carly had decided to move to Holly Grove in hopes she’d be able to find Eric or at least learn more about the man Eric believed was responsible for a triple murder.

But she couldn’t tell Trooper any of this. She’d given her word to Eric never to share the little bits of information he’d passed along to her. She didn’t like lying, but in this case, she had no choice. When she turned back around to face Trooper, she was smiling in hopes of portraying a nonchalant attitude.

“I heard about it from a friend in Philadelphia. He had come through here on his way back from a Florida vacation and thought it would be a good place for me to hide out until the police caught my stalker.”

Trooper wrapped his hand around his water glass and studied his fingers a second. “How’d the man end up coming through here on the way from Florida to Philadelphia. It’s not exactly on the main route.”

“He was a bargain hunter, someone who got off the beaten path looking for yard sales or auctions, that type of thing.”

“Ah,” Trooper said. Carly couldn’t tell whether he believed her or not. She wanted to change the subject but decided instead to try to beat him to the punch. “And I’ll bet you’re wondering why I stayed here after my stalker went to prison.”

“The question had occurred to me.”

“A lack of motivation to move on,” Carly replied. It was partly the truth. “I liked this house and I liked the area. It’s close enough to cities that I can get in my car and drive to a nice shopping mall if I want to. Or see the latest movie. Whatever.”

“Don’t you have family in Pennsylvania who would have preferred that you move back close to them?”

“No. I went to Philadelphia because that’s where I found a job when I graduated from college. I was born and raised in Indiana. Now my folks spend half the year in Florida, and my cousins are all scattered from the East coast to the West.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“Nope. What about you?” She almost bit her tongue. Probably she was supposed to know that. But if Trooper thought anything about it, he didn’t let on.

He shrugged, sort of a one-sided shrug, as though he was still favoring that left shoulder. “I’m an only child too. But I have lots and lots of cousins.”

“So do I. Fifteen to be exact. That’s on both Mom’s and Dad’s sides of the family. How about you?”

“Fifty-seven on Mom’s side.”

Carly grinned. “You don’t have to gloat about it.”

Trooper grinned back. “Believe me, there’s a lot to gloat about. When I was growing up and my mother’s family had a reunion, we took over the entire town park. But it was great fun. We could divide up and have our own softball teams.”

“What about on your dad’s side? Any cousins there?”

“Not a one. Dad was an only child.”

“What a shock it must have been for him, marrying into a family as large as your mother’s. I believe Myrna said there were eighteen children in your mother’s family.”

“Right. Myrna was the youngest and my mom was the next youngest girl. Fortunately, Dad fit in just fine with Mom’s family. Myrna has always told me that she came to love Dad like he was her brother.”

Carly put a top on her sandwich, cut it in two, and carried her plate to the table where she sat down across from Trooper. “Any idea how long you’ll be staying in Holly Grove?” she asked.

“Not really,” he said with a smile that appeared forced. “The Bureau says I should take some time off, not only to recover physically from my wound but also to come to terms with what happened. No one seems to know how long that should take, including me.”

Carly swallowed hurriedly. She’d just been making conversation, not trying to probe a sore spot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up an unpleasant memory for you.”

He lifted his right shoulder, then dropped it. “No problem. The shrinks say I should talk about it when I’m comfortable doing so. Of course I haven’t thought about much of anything else since that day.”

He looked down at his glass and tightened his fingers around it. Carly moistened her lips. She wanted so much to say the right thing to him, whatever the right thing might be. Should she encourage him to keep talking? Was it better for him to talk to someone like her, who was nearly a stranger, as opposed to a family member or a doctor?

“I don’t know what to say,” Carly admitted. “I don’t mind listening if you want to talk, but I don’t mind changing the subject if that’s your preference.”

He looked up and smiled. “You’re a nice person, Carly Morrison.”

She smiled back. “Thanks. Does that mean we’re changing the subject?”

“I guess it does. Why don’t we talk about you? You said you were immersed in your writing earlier today. How’s that coming?”

She felt blood rushing to her face. She was such a bad damn liar. “Okay.”

“So tell me a little about your research. Are you delving more deeply into the lives of your subjects in order to try to interpret their writings in ways that don’t deal with domesticity?”

“No, not at the moment.” She tried to smile but suspected she resembled someone who’d gone overboard with Botox shots. “I’m more into the writing.”

“You must really be into the writing if you’re so immersed that you didn’t realize you’d skipped lunch.” He looked deep into her eyes as though to hold her gaze against her will. Was this a tactic that agents used to deal with offenders?

She certainly felt like an offender at the moment, one who was in too deep with no way out. What did he suspect? What did he know? And if he didn’t know who she was, wouldn’t he be able to call some pal in the FBI and find out all her secrets in a matter of hours?

Better to fess up on her own, she decided. “Have you ever heard of Marcie Malone?”

His widened eyes and his sudden air of alertness told her that she’d surprised him.

“Marcie Malone, the writer?”

“Obviously you’ve heard of her.”

“Well, I see her books listed on best seller lists and displayed prominently in bookstores, so it would be hard not to have heard of her. I’ve never read any of her books though. Why?”

“I’m Marcie Malone.”

He didn’t react to that news, not visibly anyway. He just stared at her for a few seconds. “Does anyone else in town know?”

“No.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“Because you were just suspicious enough to look into my background. And while I’ve tried to keep my pseudonym quiet, I’ve never attempted to hide it so that an investigation wouldn’t make the connection in a short time.”