The Memory of All That (23 page)

Chapter 48

David shook his head. “I’ve talked enough. She’ll never change her attitude.” He looked at Martie. “I started to say ‘toward you,’ but I guess I mean toward both you and Marnie.”

“I can’t get over it,” said Alice. “I’ve known Marnie since she was a little tyke, and I never guessed you weren’t her.”

“I guess you didn’t know she had an identical twin, then, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. Neither she nor Pamela ever mentioned such a thing.”

“When my parents divorced, each took one of us. My father in Phoenix raised me. I didn’t find out about having a twin until after my father died. He left a letter telling me about her.”

Mrs. Grady started polishing the granite countertop. “You must have been a little thing if you don’t remember that.”

“Yes, I think we were about three when they separated.”

David spoke up. “I brought Martie back here because she has established a relationship with Jonathan, and I didn’t want him to think she had deserted him.”

“That should’ve made me realize something was real different about you. Miss Marnie would never have spent so much time with Jonathan. She would never have spent so much time at home. Period,” said Alice.

Just then the telephone rang. Mrs. Grady answered it and handed the receiver to David. After a brief conversation, he hung up.

“That was the sheriff,” he said to Martie. “He was checking to see if I was here and if he could come by and talk to me. He said he has something important to tell me. He’ll be right over.”

“I’ll wait here in the kitchen,” Martie told him.

“No. I want you with me. After all, Marnie is your sister. You deserve to be informed of whatever he has found.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I want you there to hear what he has to say.”

“Do you suppose they have found her and Ray?”

“Either that or they have a clue about where they went.”

A few minutes later David ushered the sheriff into the formal living room. He gave Martie a double take, but David introduced her as Marnie’s twin sister who was there helping care for Jonathan in Marnie’s absence. He didn’t go into her kidnapping and amnesia. That could come out later, if it was necessary.

“My gosh! I didn’t know Mrs. Barrett had a twin. You been here all along?” Sheriff Clark asked Martie.

“I’ve been here a little over a month,” she answered. “I live in Phoenix.”

“Well, sir,” the portly sheriff started, “I surely do hate to be bringing bad news, but that’s the way of it.”

“Tell me, Sheriff,” David said. “What is it?”

“With this spring weather we been having, the snow’s been melting. A little higher up in the mountains a pilot saw some wreckage of a plane. That last snowfall had covered it over, and no one had reported a plane missing, so it just sat there until now. The sheriff’s office up there sent in a team to see about it, and, well, sir, it’s Mr. Boling’s plane—the one he kept out at Higgins’ Airfield. You know, the one you were asking about.”

“Yes, Sheriff. Ray Boling stole something from the plant. I was and am looking for him.”

“I remember you telling me that, yes sir, I do. Mr. Barrett, Mr. Boling was in the plane. He’s dead, killed instantly, I reckon. And that thing you’re looking for, I imagine it’s there, along with a briefcase full of papers.”

David tried to absorb what the sheriff was telling him.

“There’s more, Mr. Barrett, and this is the hard part. Mrs. Barrett’s body was there, too. Looks like she was killed at the same time as Mr. Boling. Likely they got caught in that last snowstorm and just flew into the side of the mountain.

“I’m so sorry to have to bring news like this, sir. It’s never easy going through something like this.

“We’ll get your property back to you as soon as the sheriff’s office up there releases it back to us. We have the paperwork from when you reported it stolen, so it shouldn’t be any trouble to get it.”

David finally found his voice. “When will my wife’s body be released, Sheriff Clark? I need to make plans for a service.”

“Of course, sir, of course. I’ll let you know as soon as I get word.” He stood up and held his hat to his chest. “My condolences, Mr. Barrett and . . .” He looked at Martie.

“Kelley, Sheriff. My name is Martha Kelley,” Martie said as she wiped her eyes with a tissue. Although she had only met her sister that one fateful time, the thoughts of her life and death touched her heart in an odd, regretful way.

THREE MONTHS LATER

“What about it, Sport? Think you’ll like living in this house?”

“Sure, Daddy. I like my room, and I like the big backyard. Do you suppose I could have a dog now, since there’s a fence?”

“I think that might be a possibility, but we have to get settled first.”

“And the park is just down the street. Can we go there sometimes, Mommy? Can we?”

“I’m sure we can. Maybe we can even get some playground equipment to go in our own backyard so you can swing and slide anytime you want to.”

“Oh boy! Maybe I can even find a friend to teeter-totter with me.”

“You’ll be starting school in a few months. I imagine there will be lots of kids from this neighborhood in your kindergarten class. You’ll make lots of new friends,” David said.

He and Martie held hands as they walked through their new home, talking about what kind of furniture to buy to fill the rooms.

“How is your mother taking all these changes?” Martie asked.

“As well as you could expect. She had to accept the fact that Marnie is dead when she went to the funeral. Even my mother can’t deny reality like that. And when we married, she had to accept that I marry who I want to, not whom she chooses for me.”

“Is she settled into her new place?”

“Yes, that was the easy part. Although she said she wanted to keep the big house, she had lived in only a small portion of it for years. It was too big for one person, and having three employees for one woman was ridiculous. She’ll get by fine with Mary coming a couple of times a week to clean for her. The condo is as big as she needs, and her friends are calling on her more often now.

“I have a feeling she’ll change when we give her a grandchild she knows for sure is hers,” David said. They strolled down the hall, looking into the bedrooms, smiling at Jonathan in his new room, singing and playing with the stuffed dinosaur that went everywhere with him.

As they reached the bedroom next to Jonathan’s, which was across the hall from the master suite, David put his hand on her belly and smiled. “Everything will be different in about six months.”