Scraps of Paper (19 page)

She followed them through the night woods to the tree house as the thunder rocked the ground. The children ran to her, their grasp soft as a cloud; their touch made her smile. They were like her own children she’d come to know them so well. Their eyes were melancholy and happy all at once.

“Watch and remember,” they spoke together. Lightning spiraled down from the churning ebony sky, through the branches, and hit the ground around the tree house. The girl ran to the base of the tree, dug around in the muddy dirt, snatched up a glass jar and showed it to Abigail as the rain cascaded around her. She smiled a ghostly smile. In the jar there were pieces of paper. The girl’s form wavered in the misty air and evaporated. The glass jar fell and burst into a hundred pieces of glass and the scraps of paper rose into the wet night and fluttered off like rain birds.

Christopher put something tiny and lumpy into her hand, smiled and vanished into his grave again. When she looked she saw one of his tiny green dinosaur toys lying in her palm. She closed her eyes for a moment, two.

When Abigail opened them she was in her bed and it was morning. No storm, no rain. The sun was bright above. She got up, made coffee and drank a fast cup; dressed, pulled boots on and headed into the wet woods. She had no trouble finding the tree house in the daylight. Lightning had struck and it was split down the center. She’d brought a shovel and begun to dig where her dream Jenny had dug. It took a while, but she found a buried jar with the missing diary pages in it. Hurrying home, she washed the jar off and opened it over the kitchen sink.

Inside there were the missing pages covering the last two weeks from the diary and a tiny green toy dinosaur. She read the pages. Reread certain parts of them:

I caught mom on phone with a new boyfriend. They were fighting. She’s afraid of him.

Aunt Edna and mom had awful fight about

money mom said belonged to us that our Aunt stole. She’s gonna call the Sheriff. Mom shouted at her and said we were leaving soon as we could. She was gonna sell this house. Aunt Edna would be broke. No place to live. Aunt Edna was so mad.

Late last night I heard mom and someone, a man, I think, fighting outside. I went to the window, but saw nothing.

This morning Aunt Edna said mom went out of town. Don’t know when she will be back. Mom out of town? Mom would never do that without telling me and Chris.

Mom has been gone three days. Aunt Edna says she’s with our dad. That’s strange. They hate each other. Chris has been sick and is worse today. He’s throwing up and everything. Aunt Edna wont take him to the doctor or the hospital. Says she cant afford it. The phone has been turned off. She watches us all the time or I would get some help. Something is not right.

Mom has been gone over a week. I ask Aunt Edna when mom is coming home but she wont tell me. I cant believe mom would leave us alone so long with her.

Chris is really sick and cant eat now at all. He is so skinnie. His bones stick out. Last night he was crying because of the pain in his belly, so I snuck out of the house to get help from Mrs. Vogt. Aunt Edna caught me and locked me in the basement all night and wouldn’t let me out until I promised not to do it again. She said us being sick is nobodys business but ours. We are proud. We don’t need help from noone. We will get better soon. I cried and cried. Grandma sang to me and keep me company.

I am sick to my stomach again today. So tired. I think I have what Chris has.

Aunt Edna was talking to someone on the phone and she was real upset. I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, sometimes I don’t hear too good.

Mom still not home…Sheriff comes over to see aunt a lot. But he won’t talk to us.

Today Chris wont wake up. I am going to sneak out of house when Aunt Edna goes to get groceries and try to make it to Mrs. Vogt again. But I am sick, too… so if I do not make it I will put these pages in a jar and bury it on the way in this hole we have under our tree house for mom to find when she comes home. She knows our hiding places.

And that was the last message. Obviously Jenny must not have made it to Mrs. Vogt’s.

Abigail phoned Frank and agreed to meet him at Stella’s in an hour and hand the pages over to someone who could protect them. Frank had a safe and lots of guns. Let that thief try to get into
his
house.

Chapter 15

Munching on an apple, Abigail walked into town. She needed exercise and the weather person swore it wasn’t going to rain. She was going to meet Frank at Stella’s for lunch. She was carrying a canvas bag full of paperbacks because she wanted to go to the town’s bookstore first, Tattered Corners. Martha had said it had a large collection of used paperbacks she could trade her old ones for. Which fit into Abigail’s budget perfectly.

It was the first time she was visiting the bookstore. It wasn’t much to look at from the outside. A narrow framed building squeezed between two larger businesses and two doors down from the general store. She ducked into Tattered Corners stealthily, her eyes on Mason’s window. She didn’t want to see or deal with him right now. She couldn’t look at him without thinking of Emily Summers and afraid she’d give her feelings over it away if she saw him. A few days ago she’d driven all the way to Chalmers to do her shopping.

Inside the bookstore she made herself stop fretting about the Summers, the diary pages and the hate letter. There was more to life than the past. The walls were crowded with wooden shelves of books from floor to ceiling and the air was filled with the aromas of polish and old paper. There was a table stacked high with old paperbacks of all kinds. Abigail lost herself looking through them and had four or five picked out when a woman came up to her.

“Can I help you?” She was dressed in a soft cotton dress a watery shade of mauve. A silk scarf was tied loosely around her neck. She wore her hair long and loose and clasped in a blue barrette. Her eyes were brown and expressive, her skin light and mostly unlined. Her teeth were perfect and white. Lot of money in that mouth, Abigail thought. The woman took care of herself. She had style, class and money and looked to be close to sixty if she was a day. But well preserved.

“I’ve been meaning to come in for weeks. I bought the old Summers house.”

“Abigail Sutton, I know who you are. I read the
Journal
every week and recognize you from that first Summers’ story when they ran your photo. And what a mystery it’s turned out to be,” the woman purred in her husky voice, as she extended her ringed hand to shake Abigail’s. “I’m Claudia Mathis, proprietor. Nice to meet you. I wondered if you were a book person or not. Most artists are.”

“I love books. It’s just that I’ve been so busy fixing up the house and working on commissions I’ve had no time to come in until now. I’ve picked out a few books.” Abigail lifted up the paperbacks in her hands. “And I brought in some of my own paperbacks. Can I trade them for these?”

“Of Course. That’s how it works.”

A boy in a Harry Potter T-shirt skipped into the store and scanned the shelf of comic books by the door. He cocked his chin at Claudia and she acknowledged his presence by waving her fingers at him.

“How long have you owned the store?” Abigail inquired, after the exchange had been made and she’d tucked the paperback replacements in her bag.

“Over three decades and I’ve lived in Spookie my whole life. Third generation. And yes, I knew Emily Summers and her family. Come back to the rear of the store and have refreshments and we’ll talk.”

Claudia led and Abigail tagged behind as she paused before a wooden cart laid out with a silver tea set, china cups, saucers and a plate of cookies from the bakery down the street. Abigail recognized the empty bakery box on the corner table. They made excellent cookies.

“Please, sit down, Abigail, have some tea and civilized conversation.” Claudia lowered herself onto a plush chair. “I think we have a lot to talk about, you and me.”

Abigail liked Claudia right away. She made her feel at ease as they talked about the town and its people. Claudia was happily married to a local carpenter, had raised five children, all of whom had grown up and moved away to bigger towns and bigger jobs. She wasn’t bitter her children lived in other places. Her life, she said, was full the way it was with her husband, the bookstore and their traveling. She’d seen most of the States and some of Europe. Something Abigail had always wanted to do. Claudia was educated, intuitive and had read every book in the shop. She loved to garden and had an orchard of apple trees.

 “You know, Abigail, you’re the talk of the town with this mystery of yours. It’s time I tell what I know.” Claudia evaded looking at her, and admitted, “I know who Emily’s married lover was. I’ve always known. That and more.”

“John Mason?” Abigail supplied softly, though they were the only ones in the store. The boy hadn’t found what he’d wanted and had left. The bell above the door had tinkled as he went out. “But we didn’t feel it was necessary to put it in the newspaper.”

“Oh, no. Well, I mean, he was one of Emily’s conquests, but not the one she was afraid of. I was talking about Sheriff Cal Brewster. Emily and I were friends and she’d confided in me. She didn’t have much money so she helped me here at the store after hours sometimes for cash or trade. I was just starting out. My bookstore was new. She’d taken accounting classes in high school and helped me set up my books. Emily was a lot smarter than people gave her credit for, she taught me so much. Cal was crazy in love, obsessed, with her and I think he killed her. I can’t be sure, but in my gut I feel it. Everyone wants what he or she can’t have. Some will destroy what they can’t have.”

“But he was married.”

“He was, but that didn’t stop him from wanting Emily. She fought it, of course. She wasn’t like that. She was a good woman. Just lonely and way too beautiful for this small town. And…Emily loved someone else. She never told me who, I just knew she did.

 “And yes, now that you mention it, John Mason was involved with her, a little, as well. But then most of us women were involved or in love with John back in those days.” Her laugh was gentle. “You wouldn’t know it from the way John is now, life has embittered him, but he was handsome and exciting once. Charismatically passionate. He used to read three books a week. And he wrote
poetry
. Every eligible woman in the county had her hat set for him. But he was trouble in capital letters. He drank too much, drag raced his cherry-red mustang into countless accidents, desired every pretty woman he saw, and he was the most ruthlessly ambitious man I’d ever met. Back then, anyway.

“Heck, even I’d loved John for years when Emily showed up that summer. I’d done everything I could think of to get him to marry me. That was before my husband, you see. But I was nothing. I had no beauty or money. John and I dated, but he’d moved on to other women after me. Always looking for something he couldn’t seem to find. Oh, he wanted it all, John did. Adoration, wealth and respect. He played his women against each other, liked to see blood. It was sport to him.

“Until he met Emily.

“He fell head over heels for her, real love for the first time, I think, he’d felt in his life. He even risked his engagement to Norma. And Norma was his ticket to success. His way out of the wretched poverty he’d been raised in.”

“Through the store and Norma’s trust fund, right?” Abigail cued.

“Ah, you know it all. John was a nobody, an orphan without a future when he came to town, who’d lived most of his life in foster homes. You have to understand that to understand why he was the way he was. Emily was so wrong for him. She was poor. But he met her and nothing else mattered. Not me, not Norma, nothing. But, here’s the irony, Emily didn’t love him. She dropped him just like that.” She snapped her slender fingers. “It drove John insane Emily didn’t want him anymore. It made him mean. He drank more, which made him meaner and crazier. But, in the end, he seemed to accept it. While Cal Brewster didn’t.”

“So you knew Emily really well, huh?”

“In the beginning I sought Emily’s friendship. Figuring if I got close to her, I’d stay close to John and find a way to get him back. I tried to be like her, copy her. Thinking that if he wanted a woman like Emily, I could become that. I went to night school and opened this bookstore. It made me what I am today.” Her slow smile was self-mocking.

“But when I got to know Emily I truly liked her. Emily’s friendship began to mean more to me than John. One day I’d woke up and thinking of John hadn’t hurt so much. I’d met my future husband by then and things had changed.” Claudia’s eyes went to the store’s front door. People were passing by in the sunlight. All in a hurry going somewhere or other.

“I knew about Emily’s stalker, too. I believed at the time it was Norma, John’s fiancée, trying to get rid of her…when she didn’t need to. Emily was no threat to her.

“And I knew about Emily’s sister, Edna, who’d been stealing Emily’s inheritance money from their bank account. Emily was going to sell the house, leave town, and put Edna out on the street.”

Abigail dropped cookie crumbs in her lap and brushed them off.

“Truth was Emily was also leaving to begin a new life with the man she truly loved–the one she wouldn’t talk about–somewhere else. Had her bags packed and everything. She came by one afternoon to say goodbye. Said she was sneaking away with the kids, fearful of what Cal, John or Edna would do if they found out. But coming into town was where she made her mistake. I watched her drive away and saw the Sheriff take out after her in his car. And that was the last time I ever saw Emily or her children.”

“You think the Sheriff caught up to her?”

“Now I do. You found their graves. I think John knew she was leaving, as well, because I saw him later that night and he was distraught. I assumed it was because Emily had left him. He was drunk, cursing, and breaking bottles in the street. I followed him to his rented room and tried to help. Not that I had designs on him, I was over him, only because I felt sorry for him. He was rude to me, ordered me to leave and told me never to bother him again. I left and that was the last time I talked to John for a long time. He avoided me. Still avoids me.”

Abigail thought as much as Claudia was talking about Mason, she might still have unfinished business of some kind with the man. Love and hate rode side by side.

“Anyway, John married Norma soon after that. I married a year later. End of story. The point is, I think either Sheriff Cal
had something to do with the murders, or Edna. She also had a crush on John, did you know that? She never had a chance; of course, she wasn’t near pretty, ambitious or smart enough for him. But she tried and she hated her sister, besides for the inheritance, even more for having him.”

A couple had come into the shop and were milling around, taking books off the shelves and paging through them. They looked like buyers.

“Just thought you’d like to know all this. I have to take care of business, now, but perhaps you’ll visit again and we can talk some more. On other subjects. It’s been nice finally meeting you, Abigail.” Claudia rose and excused herself.

Abigail stood up as well. It was time to meet Frank. “Thanks for the books, the tea and the interesting conversation, Claudia. Nice meeting you, too. And I will be back.” She grabbed her book bag, slung it over her shoulder, walked to the front of the store and out into the hot sun, chewing over her exchange with Claudia, not paying attention to anything around her.

She didn’t see Mason come out of his store until it was too late. “Abigail, I caught you!” he exclaimed, placing his hand on her arm.

He’d startled her. Unsettling to have been talking about him and there he was in the flesh. “Mr. Mason, what do you want?” She tugged her arm away and retreated a step.

 “Didn’t you see me waving my arms at you through the window?” He was staring at her, smiling. He seemed so happy to see her.

“No. I didn’t.” Plastering on her own smile, she made herself behave. So he’d been a player in his younger days. So what? So he’d known Emily and lied. She couldn’t meet his gaze.

She tried to imagine what he’d been like when he’d been young; she couldn’t. All she could see was an aging man who’d long ago lost his looks and himself.

“I wanted to tell you I’ve sold three of your watercolors. I bought one, the one I admired with my store in it, and two others sold as well. Townsfolk who really loved them. I have the money and was about to call you, then here you are. I thought you might need the seventy-five dollars.”

She looked up. Mason was trying so hard to be nice it made her feel guilty. “Thank you, Mr. Mason. I do appreciate it and I could use the money.”