The Three Miss Margarets (25 page)

I
T WAS NOW PITCH BLACK
on the porch, but Laurel could see Miss Peggy rub her hands together for warmth.

“It won’t be much longer,” she said. “We’re almost at the end.

“We had to report the shooting. Maggie left for Atlanta with Lottie and Vashti. We were going to say they’d left late that afternoon to take Vashti there for a doctor’s appointment the next day. Then I drove past Grady’s villa to see if the lights were on. I’m not sure what we would have done if he wasn’t home. But we were lucky. I guess you could call it luck. I went back to the cabin, we wiped the fingerprints off the gun Vashti had used, and I took it home. I put it in Dalt’s gun cabinet. Then I waited.”

“I was the one who called the police,” Miss Li’l Bit said. “I told them I’d been in my bedroom, and I’d seen John’s car drive by, and since I’d seen Grady go by earlier I ran out to the top of the ridge to see what was going on. I told them Richard’s death had made me nervous, and I was afraid something else might happen.” She paused. “I said I got there in time to see John get out of the car, and Grady come out of the cabin, and then I saw Grady shoot John. I described it exactly the way Maggie said it happened. But I said it was Grady. I said he had the gun with him when he got into his car and drove away.”

Miss Peggy went on. “Later, when the police showed up to question me, I said I’d seen Grady sneak into the house and put the gun in the cabinet. When they tested it, of course it matched the bullets from John’s body.” She paused. “Things were going so fast I thought sure they’d catch us up on something we’d forgotten or didn’t know.”

Dr. Maggie said, “All I could think was, we had to protect Vashti.”

“We didn’t trust the sheriff or Dalton or the town to be fair,” said Miss Li’l Bit. “We had to take care of it ourselves.”

“I think what made it seem reasonable was, it fit with the other rumors,” said Dr. Maggie. “It explained what had happened earlier. The story was, Grady and John killed Richard, and then Grady killed John. And that was the story that stuck.”

It seemed at last that they were through. In the darkness they turned to Laurel.

“Grady had never paid for anything he’d done and he never would have if we hadn’t done what we did,” said Miss Li’l Bit.

“Lottie and Nella had been through so much, they didn’t deserve to lose Vashti too,” said Maggie.

“And Vashti didn’t deserve to have her life destroyed before it started,” said Miss Peggy.

“But my mother deserved what happened to her?” Laurel’s voice cracked through the night air. She’d stopped shivering. She hadn’t noticed when she started getting warm. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” said Dr. Maggie. “But Vashti’s need was so urgent.”

“And my ma’s wasn’t? What about me? What about my needs?”

“What we did was the lesser of two evils,” said Miss Li’l Bit.

“And you were the ones who got to decide that?”

“We didn’t know your mother was going to have a baby,” Dr. Maggie said.

“But the truth is,” said Miss Peggy, “we weren’t thinking about Sara Jayne. We were faced with a little girl who was in trouble—”

“I was a little girl. I spent most of my life in trouble.”

“We all tried to help your mother and you,” said Dr. Maggie. “Each of us tried.”

“Charity. When all my ma wanted was the truth.”

“We couldn’t,” said Dr. Maggie.

“She had a right to know, damn it! I had a right to know my father didn’t kill anyone.”

“Yes, you did,” Miss Peggy started to say, but Miss Li’l Bit interrupted. “Your father didn’t kill Richard,” she said, “but he went to the cabin to beat him into giving up his job. And he went back later to scare Richard’s family after I stupidly let him know we were suspicious of him. I’m sorry if it hurts you to hear this, but John Merrick was not a man for you to be proud of. I wish he hadn’t died, for all our sakes. I’m sorry it was so hard on your mother. But she didn’t have to let it ruin her life, and she didn’t have to do what she did to you. That was her choice. My choice was to save a little girl and punish a murderer. I’ll take full responsibility for that.”

She spoke with the authority Laurel had longed to hear from Sara Jayne when she was small, and that made her hate Miss Li’l Bit even more.

“Grady Garrison was killed in jail,” she said.

“Yes,” said Miss Li’l Bit. “He got into a fight and he was killed.”

Laurel turned to Peggy. “He was your stepson,” she said. “You sent a rich white boy to the state prison. You had to know what was going to happen.”

“He was a rich white
man,
not a boy,” said Dr. Maggie. “And he was guilty of murder. He killed Richard.”

“He belonged in jail,” said Miss Li’l Bit.

“And you got to judge that?” Laurel knew she was shouting, but she couldn’t stop. “You got to play judge and jury? No. You played God.”

“We took responsibility—” said Li’l Bit.

“You played God! You old—” But she stopped herself. And forced herself to look at them. They were sitting facing her, three tired women who had just admitted to more crimes than Laurel could count, and they still looked virtuous and respectable and . . . so goddamn
right.

“Well, you sure have been busy,” she said, more calmly. “Running around deciding who gets to live and who gets to go to jail and get their brains beat out. Maybe now it’s my turn. Maybe I’ll decide to make
you
pay.” And before she really lost it, she got herself off the porch and into her car and drove as fast as she could down Miss Li’l Bit’s perfect driveway.

On the porch, Peggy finally broke the silence. “That went well,” she said dryly.

“You shouldn’t have said that about her mother and father, Li’l Bit,” said Maggie.

“Her father was a coward and a bully. It’s not our fault her mother fell apart. Every one of us tried to help.”

Peggy poured the last drop out of her thermos. “How hard did we really try? I hate to say it, but I was glad when she turned me down. I just wanted her to go away.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Li’l Bit.

“No, it’s not,” said Maggie, “and we all know it.” She started to get up, wobbling a little from so many hours of sitting still. Peggy jumped up to help and found she had to steady herself. It wasn’t just the effects of Gentleman Jack; she was stiff too. Laurel had called them old. She wasn’t sure she was ready for that.

“What do you think she’ll do?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “I can’t begin to imagine what she’s thinking.” She smiled sadly. “I wonder if that girl knows how vulnerable we are now.”

As she said it, Peggy felt herself shiver a little and she saw Li’l Bit do the same.

“I’ll give you a lift home, Maggie,” she said. And for once Maggie just nodded. There were no arguments about walking home.

Chapter Twenty-six

L
I’L
B
IT WATCHED
P
EGGY AND
M
AGGIE
go down the driveway until Peggy’s taillights disappeared. Then she picked up the flashlight she kept by the front door for emergencies and walked around to the side of the house to the garden off her bedroom. In the middle of the high hedge that protected the bedroom from the side road to Lottie’s cabin was an empty space, a break in the thick boxwood that allowed an entrance into the garden from the outside. At least, that was what it looked like.

Li’l Bit bent as low as she could over the empty space in the hedge and scraped away the pine needles that were mounded at the base of the bushes. It took several minutes and she finally had to get down on her knees, but she found what she was looking for buried under years of mulch and dirt: the remains of two old boxwood stumps.

“Still there,” she said out loud.

She went into the garden and sat on the stone bench she’d recently purchased from a catalog that did medieval replicas. This night felt as endless as that night so long ago.

A
FTER
P
EGGY LEFT WITH THE GUN
, Maggie took Lottie and Vashti to Atlanta. Li’l Bit and Nella told their story to the police, who left with the body of the dead man. After that there was nothing left for Li’l Bit to do except pray to a God in whom she did not believe that they would get away with it. One thing they were all clear on: No one else must know. No family or friends. Before she left for Atlanta, Maggie, who seemed to have developed a brilliant criminal side, had insisted that everyone promise. Li’l Bit, Nella, Lottie, and Peggy had all agreed.

Nella swore she would be all right alone, and Li’l Bit went home to try to get some sleep. But every time she started to drift off, the memory of standing in front of the sheriff and telling her pack of lies pulled her back. Eventually she went into the living room, took
A Tale of Two Cities
down from the shelf, and read until she dozed off sitting upright in her chair. That was where Walter found her when he came over early the next morning.

“Heard there was a problem at old Lottie’s cabin last night,” he said. “You all right?” Anticipation of this moment had been one of the many things that had kept her awake. She had to lie to Walter, because she had promised the others. And because she didn’t know if she could trust him.

She looked at him standing in front of her, a worried frown on his sun-dark face. She worked with him and made love to him and after all the years she still couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have found him. He made her feel beautiful. She knew no one else would ever do that again.

But there were things she had never discussed with him because he was illiterate and poor and she had her own prejudices about the class he came from and she didn’t want to find out if she was right. Now she had no way of knowing how he would react if she told him what she’d done. Plus, she’d given her word. So she told him the lie she had told the police. After she finished, he gave her a strange look.

“You told the sheriff you were in the bedroom when you saw Merrick’s car drive by the house?” he asked.

“Yes, I was going to get ready for bed—”

He pulled her to her feet. “Has anyone from the sheriff’s office been back down that road since you said that?”

“I don’t think so. No one has come to the house.”

“We’ll have to take a chance,” he said, more to himself than to her.

“Walter, I don’t—” but she stopped because he was already heading out the door.

“Get into your car and park it crossways at the end of the road. Flood the engine or run it partway into the ditch on the side so you get the wheels stuck, do whatever you have to, but don’t let anyone drive up that road until I tell you.” He was racing to his truck. He got out an ax and headed for the hedge. And to her horror, she understood. There was no way she could have seen John’s car if she had been in her bedroom, because long ago it had seemed romantic to close in the garden outside her window by letting the boxwood grow high as a man’s shoulder. Too high to see a passing car on the other side of it.

“Go now, Margaret,” he said. And as she drove off she could hear the sound of an ax cutting wood. Seconds later the sound was drowned in music from the kitchen radio.

Mercifully, no one came to the house. When Walter finally brought her back to see the hedge, there was a break in the middle of it where he had cut down two bushes. “I couldn’t prune the boxwood back enough so you could have seen over them. The insides of the bushes would be too woody; any gardener would know you just did it,” he said. She nodded mutely. “This way you could have seen the car through the break. It looks like it’s an entrance to the garden. And with the pine-needle mulch I spread over the stumps, only someone who’s looking for them will find them.” She nodded again. The enormity of her near miss was just starting to hit her.

Walter was staring at her. He was waiting for her to tell him why she had suddenly started lying to the authorities. He wanted the truth. He had earned it; he had just put himself on the line for her. She wanted to tell him.

But images flashed in her mind. She saw the shame and agony on Nella’s face as she sat in front of the police and choked out the story of sleeping with two men while her husband was still alive. She saw Peggy take the hunting rifle after it had been wiped off and put it on the front seat of her car so she could take it home and betray her husband. She saw Lottie looking like she had just gotten a reprieve from a life sentence. She heard Maggie making them promise to keep the secret. And she saw Vashti’s face as they bundled her into the car and sent her away.

“Thank you,” she said to Walter.

It was like she’d slapped him. For a moment he was hurt and just looked at her. Then the anger started. He walked out without a word.

For the second time in her life she lost a man she loved. But Walter did it fast, in one night. Not like her father, slowly withdrawing. She never could decide which way was better.

But it took her a while to accept. At first she waited for him. She went back out to her gardens and worked and listened for the sound of his truck pulling up next to her house. But he never came. Her gardens were brown, dying in the cold of late fall. The chores she had to do, the mulching and the pruning, would not give her any rewards until spring. The gaping hole in the hedge outside her bedroom window was a constant reminder of everything she wanted to forget. She closed her little door to the garden and put a curtain over the glass so she couldn’t see it.

Finally she admitted that Walter was gone. She got up one morning, dressed herself, and started out. Then she stopped, turned around, and went back to her bedroom. She stayed there all day, fully dressed, lying on her bed in the dark.

She wasn’t sure how many days she did that. Millie came and went, leaving sandwich fixings on plates and in covered bowls. After she was gone, in the middle of the night, Li’l Bit got out of her bed and ate the food out of the containers in the kitchen by the light from the refrigerator.

Then one morning she was awakened by the sound of curtains being yanked back. Her bed covers were pulled off.

“Get up, or I’ll throw you on the floor!” a voice said. She opened her eyes to see Peggy leaning over her. “If I can get myself out of bed every morning and face another goddamn day, so can you!”

“You’ve been drinking,” Li’l Bit said.

“Yes,” said Peggy, “and I’m gonna keep on. Because it gets the makeup on my face and the clothes on my body and it gets me through breakfast, where I sit and watch Dalt want to die and know I caused it.” She looked years older than she had a few short weeks ago. “I don’t care what it takes to get you out of this damn bed and into some clean clothes. If you think a drink will help, just name your poison and I’ll bring you a bottle. But you don’t get to give up, damn it; you don’t!”

So Li’l Bit got out of bed and got dressed in her work clothes and gave Peggy a drink while she had her coffee. But when she had to go out to the garden, she hesitated. Until Peggy walked out ahead of her.

Peggy stayed all morning, watching while she cut back her roses. At noon they had lunch. Not in the kitchen, on the porch.

Three weeks went by. The sheriff never did send anyone to check out her hedge. Then Grady pled guilty, because Dalt threatened to stop paying for his lawyers if he kept on saying he was innocent. Dalt had finally given up on him, and without his father Grady’s resistance quickly collapsed. So Grady went to prison, even though right up to the day they took him away he was still telling his daddy he was innocent. And because there was no trial, no one had to lie in court. Nella left town to be with Vashti in Atlanta, and Lottie came back to Charles Valley alone. Nella and Vashti would not be coming home again. But the women had gotten away with their lie. They had won.

Li’l Bit saw Walter in the town every once in a while, although he knew her schedule and usually managed to avoid her. Once she saw him at the post office, and she had to keep herself from running to tell him about the new rose cuttings she’d mossed off and the new fruit trees she’d put in. She wanted to tell him how long it had taken her to go into the gardens again. And she wanted to tell him how the perfume from her gardenia still came into her room at night. Most of all she wanted to say she missed him. But she still couldn’t tell him why she had lied. So she let him go by without stopping him. And eventually she got used to passing by without speaking when she saw him. And she got used to being alone again.

For a while Peggy and Maggie tried to keep her company when she worked in her gardens. But Maggie had to work in the clinic and Peggy hated being in the sun, so that didn’t last very long. They took to staying later in the afternoons on the porch, the way they had before Walter started spending the nights with her. She never told them why he stopped coming, although she told them about the near escape with the boxwood hedge. They were smart, so she was pretty sure they put two and two together.