Scraps of Paper (12 page)

“Okay,” Martha conceded. “So what you’re saying is Edna could have killed her own sister and the kids. Who knows anyone really, that’s what you’re telling us?”

“You got it.” Snowball had jumped into Frank’s lap. He petted her and she scampered off into the rain. “Kitten’s grown like crazy,” he remarked. “Doesn’t look anything like that mud ball I brought to your door that stormy night.”

“Yeah, I can’t get rid of her. I tried. She loves water and sneaks in the bathroom when I’m taking a bath, jumps right in with me. I have to fish her out quickly because I like hot baths and she starts yowling right away. When I wash dishes, she plops into the dishwater, soap suds and all. I’m always rescuing her. And if I don’t feed her by a certain time, she bites me on the ankle until I do.”

Frank laughed. “No worse than my dogs. They’ll grab their dog food bag and drag it–all twenty-five pounds–right to my feet. Hint. Feed us now.”

“Abigail?” Martha reached over and tapped her knee. “I wanted to tell you again how much I love your watercolor of my house. The picture’s hanging in my downstairs living room. I kept it in my office a few days before it was framed and everyone who saw it complimented it and wanted your telephone number. You did a great job. Hopefully you’ll get more business from it.”

“I hope so, too,” Abigail said. “My savings will only stretch so far, as frugal as I am, and if I can’t make money freelancing eventually I’ll have to look for a real job. And the very thought of going back to advertising depresses me. I’d scream if I had to do one more newspaper ad.”

“Right now you won’t have to. My picture’s next,” Frank reminded her. “And I’ll pay cash.”

 “Well, being a person on the clock, as you two aren’t, I’d better get in to work, rain or no.” Martha left the swing. “I need to sell a house today or a garage. Something. I’ll see you both later.” Then she was driving away in her car, waving through the window.

Abigail waited for Frank to leave, but he continued to sit on her porch steps. She wanted to read the diary, didn’t want to be inhospitable, but he didn’t act as if he wanted to leave.

“I was thinking, Abby,” he muttered after a few minutes. “If you really want to find out who killed Emily and her kids why don’t you take a trip with me to Chicago? We’ll talk to someone who might shed some light on what happened thirty summers ago. One of the only ones left who can. Todd Brown, Emily’s ex-husband. He lives four hours away and we can do it in a day, if we leave early.”

She didn’t have to think about it long. “When do you want to go? We’ll split the gas.”

“Tomorrow? And my treat. It’ll be a field trip. Get me out of the house cause I’m growing roots. It’ll be like old times, investigating something again. Besides I’d like to know the truth as much as you do. And I know all the good truck stops along the way with the best food and souvenirs.”

“You got a deal. After this last week I’m ready for a road trip. I can’t think of anything better than traveling the highway looking for adventure with a friend and getting answers to our riddles to boot.”

“We’ll leave about nine a.m.? Being the weekend, there’s a better chance of catching Brown at home.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Frank came to his feet and looked at her. “I’ve been dying to see this new movie with Tom Hanks. Stanley, the next town over, has a theater with eight screens and mouth-watering popcorn. I hate to go alone. Would you go with me tonight, Abby? We could get a pizza afterwards. Just friends going to a movie together.”

She thought of saying no, then changed her mind. She was lonely and tired of it. Frank was lonely. She of all people knew what it was like being one left over from a pair. And he was helping her to solve her mystery.

“Sounds fun, Frank. I’d love to. You’re right, it’s no fun going alone. No one to share the buttered popcorn with. You pick up weirdos and they never want to discuss the film. Safer to go with an ex-police officer. Weirdos never bother a woman with a cop besides her.”

“There should be a showing around seven or so,” Frank said. “So I’ll see you around six?”

She nodded and Frank left whistling. Abigail went straight to where she’d hidden Jenny’s diary. She read it sitting on the sofa. It didn’t take long. The entries began on June 18 and ended three months later on August 13, 1970. It was in cursive, with the handwriting neater as if the child had been trying hard to make it pretty. Most of the pages were filled with little girl fluff. What she was thinking or feeling about things. Who and what she liked, what she and her brother did on their bike rides and thoughts on being a kid looking forward to summer vacation. In the beginning the entries were carefree and happy, but as the summer went on, and the adult world intruded, they became darker. Some of them, misspellings and all, made Abigail smile, while others made her sad.

June 18

Today was Chris and mine’s 10th birthday! Had a party, ice cream and cake. I got this neat diary, a box of chalk pastels, colored pencils, sketch pads and a huge bag of cashews (my favorite) and a Polaroid camera. Chris got the same. Except he got a put-together airplane instead of a camera. Dad sent us bicycles but couldn’t come because he had to work. I miss him. I hate divorces.

June 23

Mom has a new boyfriend. Saw him today while looking out my window. Don’t like HIM. He drinks too much and he pushes Mom around like Dad used to and she takes it. He is a bad man. I told Mom but she won’t listen. Mom says we can’t tell nobody who he is. It is a secret. Why? She won’t say. Chris doesn’t like HIM either. Once Chris saw HIM hit her and Chris kicked him and ran home. HE was so mad.

June 29

Aunt Edna is a wicked witch. She locked Chris in the dark basement all nite (without supper) cause he sassed her. I snuck food down to him after she went to bed and she caught me, shook me and I ran away to Mrs. Vogt’s house. Mom was out all nite with that man again. I am writing a letter to Dad to come get us. Aunt Edna is mean and she and Mom fight all the time over this money they keep talking about. What money? Mom, Chris and me are so broke.

July 4

the picnic and fireworks were great. Ate tons of cotton candy. Chris and I rode the Ferris Wheel and the Whip and spent all our allowance, empty soda bottle money and money we found along the road on the way to Tinker’s General Store whenever we bought penny candy. Mr. Mason asked me about Mom, but I wouldn’t answer his questions.

The sheriff followed us home that night pestering Mom again. But she wouldn’t even talk to him. Mom told me that his wife would break her face if she did. I don’t trust the sheriff. I don’t tell Mom this, but lots of nights he watches our house in his squad car. Creepy. Good thing not all police are as crooked as he is. There is one that is real nice. He brings us food. Plays with Chris and me. Talks nice to Mom.

July 14

Someone tried to run over Chris when he was on his bike. With a car. Chris had to go to the emergency room to have stitches. Mom cried and said it was because of her. I don’t know what she means. Mom let us call Dad and he said he was really coming this time. He promised.

August 3

Dad came and had a terrible fight with Mom in the diner, and Dad left town right away, didn’t even say goodbye to us. Chris hid in the tree house all nite and never came home. Next day Mom had a black eye and a chipped tooth. Bruises. I think her boyfriend did it, but Chris said it was the sheriff. Mom said Dad did it. Don’t believe that. I think Mom was fibbing.

August 9

Mom says we’re going to sell the house and move far away from here and start all over where no one will find us. Mom and Aunt Edna screamed at each other all nite. Chris threw up. He’s sick.

August 10

Mom didn’t come home last night and Aunt Edna is acting very strange. I snuck on the phone and called Dad, but he wasn’t there. Chris is still sick.

August 13

I am sick, too, now. My stomach hurts. I’m scared. Mom has been gone four days. I asked Aunt Edna where she was. Aunt Edna said she don’t know. I think she does. The phone doesn’t work. Maybe Aunt Edna didn’t pay the bill. Now I cant call Dad or anybody. Chris hasn’t left our room in three days and Aunt Edna won’t get a doctor for him or me. Says we’ll be fine sooner or later.

August 13 had been the final entry. Pages had been torn out after that and the rest were blank.

Who had been Emily’s secret abusive boyfriend? What had happened with Emily and the sheriff? Where were those missing pages? And was the Mr. Mason mentioned at the General Store the same John Mason who owned the store now? Mason had told her to her face that day in the store he’d never known Emily or her kids. Had he lied…and why?

But it was what Abigail found tucked in the last pages of the diary that touched her most. Faded black and white Polaroids of Emily, Chris and Jenny at the twin’s birthday party and at the Fourth of July picnic. They were blurry photos of smiling children on bikes. Playing with their hula-hoops. Swinging on swings. Pictures of their Mom smiling and, someone who must have been Aunt Edna, scowling. She’d been a plain woman and that was being kind. She’d looked like an old crone even back then. Emily had been so pretty with her long light hair and her Cleopatra eyes. Abigail didn’t think she looked like her in the least.

Abigail reread the diary and laid it on the coffee table. Her mind churning over the glimpses of Jenny’s life and what they’d meant. The pictures were burned into her subconscious. She couldn’t stop thinking about Emily, Jenny and Christopher. These dead people that had taken over her life.

That night at six she was ready to go when Frank arrived. Dressed in jeans, a cotton top and carrying a sweater because air-conditioned theaters were too cold for her, she met him on the porch and the two climbed into his truck. She’d show the diary to Frank later after the movie.

She wanted to keep its contents secret, to herself, for a little bit longer. A piece of the living past.

The theater was fifteen minutes away. It’d been years since she’d been in one without Joel. After buying their tickets, they were in line for popcorn and soda when Abigail glanced past her shoulder and spied John Mason. He was dressed in tan slacks and shirt and his silver hair was tucked under a blue baseball cap. Of all the people in the world to have to run into, she had to bump into him. Now of all times after having just read his name in Jenny’s diary–in an entry that made him a liar if it was true. No one could say fate didn’t have a sense of humor.

She glanced away but he’d seen her and bee-lined it over. Her skin flushed as they made eye contact and exchanged the usual civilities, Frank giving her an amused look because he could tell she didn’t want to talk to the man. She’d told him how Mason flirted with her every time she saw him at the store and how uncomfortable it made her.

“Imagine meeting you two here,” John Mason exclaimed. His eyes on Abigail. “I’d thought you’d be home digging up the back yard or something looking for more messages from people long dead, or helping Ms. Westerly invent more nonsense about a woman who’s probably living in retirement in Florida somewhere. Her kids both middle aged with kids of their own.”

Abigail said nothing about the graves–not to Mason. He’d find out soon enough, but not from her. She felt uneasy being so close to him. Maybe because he’d known Emily and the kids and had lied…maybe he’d been Emily’s secret boyfriend, who knew. Now there was a strange thought.

“I hardly think so, John,” Frank spoke up. “This morning Abigail found all three of them.”

Any pretense of casualness drained from Mason’s expression. “Where?”