A Witch In Time (32 page)

Think, Margaret, If it does not make sense, it cannot be true
...

I tried again. Fact: Nunzio and Frannie had been having an affair.

Frannie and Nunzio. Nunzio and ...

One other fact did present itself to me, but I was having a hard time going there. There
was
someone at the Watkins residence last night who definitely knew Nunzio, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Frannie. Oh, but that wouldn’t make sense either, would it?

Would it?

Not once in all the conjecture and supposition had I allowed myself to explore Frannie as a possibility. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that as a new mother fresh from delivering her bundle of joy, she was supposed to be caught up in the heady, heartfelt throes of maternal love. Could that joyous state be put aside for something as ruthless as inviting Nunzio to her home with the intention of shooting him in cold blood? My head was spinning, trying to make the connections.

Because Frannie was the only other possibility, and she was the last one I would have suspected.

Slowly, laboriously, I opened my memory of the last few days, trying to see where my intuition had gone wrong, why I had leapt to seeing guilt where it did not lie—in the laps of Harold Sr., and then, by default, Harry Jr.

Harold Sr. had been the obvious, of course. His confession had effectively guaranteed that he was the first to come to mind, which was just what he had intended. To deflect from the truth.

That it was Frannie who had decided to eliminate the threat of her former lover; Frannie who had wielded the gun.

Marcus was writing on the pad of paper again. I glanced over.
Frannie,
he wrote, followed by three question marks. Then,
Could it have been?
Funny, that we had both hit on her as a possibility at the same time. The universe works in mysterious ways.

The argument I had overheard ... is that when she decided to do it? When she realized he was serious about wanting to be a part of her son’s life? Was Nunzio really that much of a threat to her happy little family?

I guess the answer to that question was a resounding yes. At least in Frannie’s mind.

The word that Marcus had channeled floated back into my head one more time, only this time it had another meaning that I was suddenly able to perceive, a meaning my mind previously could not grasp. The word was not relevant only because Nunzio had been shot. But also because blood is thicker than water, and blood is what tied the baby to Nunzio, and blood is what Frannie was afraid might have given her secret away?

She hadn’t lost the baby’s bassinet card in the magazine Joyce had misplaced and my mother had inadvertently brought into Mel’s hospital room. She had purposely tucked it away. That’s why she had been worried about finding the magazine. That’s why she had crumpled the card when we brought it to their house that day. The card listed the baby’s blood type. Hadn’t Harold Sr. also mentioned something about the baby’s blood type being different from Harry Jr.’s? I racked my brain, thinking back. I was almost positive he had.
Another thing he must have gotten from his mother ...
Dollars to doughnuts, I was betting that the baby’s blood type didn’t match Frannie’s, either. My money was on the odds that it matched Nunzio’s.

Blood,
I wrote on the pad.
Baby’s blood type? Nunzio’s, not Harry’s?

Maybe?
Marcus wrote back.

Only Frannie knew what really went down. But Frannie had remained silent, all the while watching her father-in-law take the blame for a death she had caused. How had she convinced Harold Sr. to do that? Why had he been willing to step in, rather than let her deal with the situation herself? Was it because he believed in her relative innocence? If he truly thought her innocent, surely he would have believed in the judicial system enough to let the police work through the details.

Or was it more likely that he recognized the true depths of her guilt?

Why else would he have stepped up to the plate?

Or maybe he thought his son was guilty. Harry would have told him the truth ... but what if he couldn’t be sure?

What exactly happened that night?

What should we do?
Marcus wrote.

One thing was for sure. There was no way I was going to be finding myself in the middle of this situation. No way, no how. I was more than willing to let the police do their jobs. Except ... what if no one told Tom and his team about Frannie’s relationship with Nunzio? What if no one put those clues together? Would Harold Sr. live out his days in the county jail, waiting for a trial that would send him to prison? Was that fair to him? To Harry Jr. and Joyce? And was it any more fair that Frannie pay the piper for what she had done, thereby stripping Harry Jr. of his wife and Little Harry of his mother?

Sometimes I wished the world was just a little more black and white. It would make decision-making that much easier, wouldn’t it?

“I think,” I said out loud to Marcus, “we have to make sure someone knows about this.”

“Make sure who knows about what?”

Mel had sat up on the sofa with a stretch that made her grimace. I jumped; I’d almost forgotten she was sitting there. There was no way I could tell her what we’d been talking about. No way, no how.

Grabbing the manila folder, I set it safely aside and stuffed the rest of the Watkins folder into Marcus’s hands for refiling. “Nothing, Mel,” I told her as I started grabbing Greg’s personal files by the handful, pulling them out and making a neat pile on the desk. “We’re just getting things together for you. I realized after I started looking at this stuff that I just don’t feel comfortable knowing what I’m looking for. You’d definitely have a much better idea. Best to just grab the files and get you back to your room at the hospital safe and sound where you can sort through things in peace and still get your rest.”

“Back to the hospital! Oh, but—”

I put up my hand. “No; for once, Mel, I insist. You need to get your strength back. Look at you, you’re exhausted. You’re emotionally at odds. You have a belly full of stitches, for God’s sake. And you have four little girls who need you at your best. You need to give yourself time to heal.”

She had opened her mouth halfway through my lecture, but by the end of it, she’d closed it, her expression contrite. “I guess you’re right. Fine, then.” She waved a hand at me, a shadow glimpse of the real Mel. “Gather the files into a box or a bag or something and we’ll take them with us.”

I was itching to speak with Marcus again, alone, but family always must come first. We made our way back to the hospital and took care of business, returning Mel to her room and checking in with the nurses, who promptly came to scold Mel for leaving. While they made her comfortable, I set Liss’s gift for the babies down by her handbag, just a little something for her to discover later. I spoke with the nurses quietly afterward, a word or two to let them know the situation Mel found herself in, just so they would know her emotional state was stretched a bit taut at present. As we were leaving, I caught sight of the babies being wheeled down to her room. Good. Mel needed the distraction just now. Anything to take her mind off Greg.

Marcus and I were silent as we rode the elevator down to the main floor, and I couldn’t help thinking, this is where it all began. Had it really been only a couple of days? So much had happened. Life—it could be surprisingly eventful.

What should we do?
I asked my Guides and the universe at large. The envelope was still tucked safely away in my bag. Had I been led to it for a reason? To ensure that justice was done?

The answer came, magically enough, the moment we stepped out of the elevator.

Supported between Harry Jr. and Julie Fielding, surprisingly enough, with a distraught-looking Joyce picking up the rear with the baby in her arms, Frannie did not look well. She looked ... catatonic. Her face appeared almost paralyzed into a mask of neutrality, frighteningly vacant. Her dark hair was a tousled mess around her shoulders. Her clothes hung loose from her body as though she had lost fifty pounds, and I don’t mean baby weight. Dark shadows haunted dark, unfocused eyes.

Marcus and I stopped in our tracks, transfixed by the scene unfolding before us. A word from Julie at the front desk, and a wheelchair was whisked up for Frannie, steered by a male orderly and a nurse in cheery, flower-covered scrubs in bright, happy colors.

“Let’s just get you to sit down here, hon,” the nurse was saying to Frannie, “and we’ll get everything taken care of.”

Frannie sat obediently but looked up at the nurse with a question in her eyes. “My baby can come with me?”

“No, dear,” the nurse said patiently, “it will be much better for him to stay with your husband. He’ll take good care of him, just like we’ll be taking good care of y—”

“No. No, he can’t!” Frannie said vehemently, trying to wriggle free. “He has to come with me. I’m his mother. He—”

“Help me out here, George, would you?” the nurse spoke over her. Together the two held Frannie down while they fastened her into the chair with soft straps. All the while the nurse spoke soothingly. “There we go, no harm done, dear. We’ll just get you taken to a nice room, and we’ll get you settled in, snug as a bug in a rug—”

“No, I don’t want to be here. My baby has to come with me. He has to!”

With a quiet word from the nurse, George the orderly began to push the wheelchair toward the long hallway to the rear of the hospital. The nurse stayed behind a moment to speak with Harry.

“We’ll get her processed in and get her comfortable. Don’t worry, you did the right thing, bringing her in. Postpartum depression happens. Extreme cases are of course more rare, but we’ll take good care of her and keep her from trying to hurt herself. Once we get her settled in, you can come back and sit with her until she falls asleep, if you like.”

Harry and Joyce sat down woodenly in a matching pair of the kind of meagerly padded modern chairs found most often in hospitals and office lobbies. They looked shell-shocked. Joyce clung to the sleeping baby like a lifeline... and maybe he was.

Julie Fielding caught sight of us watching from our out-of-the-way corner and raised a hand in greeting. With a quiet word for Harry, she came over to say hello.

“More trauma for the Watkins family,” she said with a rueful shake of her head. “My cousin Frannie is having a hard time dealing with everything. Harry thought it best to bring her in.”

“Now,” the voice of Grandma Cora intoned in my ear.

Now? I asked back, my eyebrows raised. Here? Her?!

I put my hand on Marcus’s arm. He glanced down at me, but I had the feeling he already knew what I needed to tell him.

“Julie,” he said, “do you have a minute where we could go someplace quiet and talk? The three of us?”

Surprised, she hesitated only a moment before she said, “Um, sure. Just give me a sec while I let them know I’m going to get a cup of coffee.”

With the everyday bustling noises of the cafeteria surrounding us and keeping our conversation safe, Marcus and I explained everything to Julie over cups of really bad coffee. Everything I had overheard, everything I had experienced, everything I had witnessed, and as a final bit of information I slid the sealed report across the table.

“I see. And what’s this?” she asked, her eyes neutral in a way that completely hid her thoughts or emotions from being given away.

“A private investigator’s report relating to Frannie.”

“Ah. Hm. And you came across this... how?”

“We’d rather not say,” Marcus interjected. “But we think you should have it nonetheless. It may be important to the Nunzio guy’s death.”

Between the two of us, we managed to convey the main ideas of our “case” based on hearsay, speculation, and intuition, the evil banes of police investigations the world over.

“You know this is all speculation, right? An arrest cannot be made with only speculation to back it up.”

“We are fully aware of that. But speculation can lead to thinking in the right direction, which can then, in turn, lead to the discovery of the truth. And that is why we think you should have this.”

Julie looked at us. “And why me?”

Marcus allowed the first hint of a smile to quirk at the corner of his mouth. “Providence chose you for us. Consider it being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lucky you.”

 

 

If Tom was a known stickler for playing by the rules, his ex Julie proved far less driven by such stringent personal convictions. My Guides had been right to lead our paths to cross again in the way that they did.

Frannie’s arrest, and Harold Sr.’s subsequent release, was quietly reported in the
Stony Mill Gazette
less than a week later. A very beneficial “anonymous tip” led to the discovery of the truth of the matter, as stated by Special Task Force Investigator Tom Fielding. Further details of the investigation were still pending, but the sheriff’s department and the prosecutor’s office were certain they had the right man. Or woman, as this case had proven out.

Not that Frannie would be going to jail. Her spring, already tightly wound, had seemingly sprung as her psyche seemed incapable of dealing with the enormity of what she had done. Temporary insanity in the throes of postpartum depression might be her best defense... assuming she ever snapped out of it.

Sometimes, telling the truth can be freeing. I wondered if that was what Harry Jr. felt as he described what had happened leading up to that night at the Watkins residence.

Tony Nunzio had been carrying on an affair with Frannie during a time when the Watkinses’ marriage had been going through difficulties. Harry Jr. found out about the affair in the course of pursuing divorce proceedings—
without
the private investigator’s report, which he knew nothing about—but he’d never let on to anyone but his father. But when Frannie came to him and told him she was pregnant, Harry chose there and then to look the other way. He was getting what he’d wanted after all—a family—and the baby could have been his, he reasoned.