Family Skeletons (9 page)

“Tom,” Sunny asked, backing away as she worked on
cleaning her hands, “could you do that as soon as possible? Check the attic, I
mean. If there’s a body up there, I...”

“I understand,” he said without looking at her, his
attention on the task at hand. “I’ll follow you out there as soon as I get that
bag of evidence over there documented.”

When Sunny and Jonathan stepped outside, the sun
glared at them as if it thought it were still August instead of close to the
end of September. Though her hands appeared clean, her fingers felt like they
carried residue. Whether it was from the towelette, ink, or her imagination,
she wasn’t sure.

Turning away from the sun’s glare, she spoke to
Jonathan as she looked along the sidewalk. “I don’t want to go back with you.
I’ll walk home along the beach.” She didn’t think she could face what else
might be in that attic. Not right now.

“Sure,” he said, as if reading her mood and
responding to it. Then he added, earning even more intuitive points, “Take your
time. I don’t know how long we’ll need.”

She wandered the town, even remembered to check the
diminutive library for tide times so she wouldn’t get surprised when hiking out
to the cove. She considered calling her mother but didn’t want to give her the
same stuck-in-limbo feeling she had, so decided to wait until she knew
something. It’d be rougher on Roberta anyway. At one time, she’d actually loved
the man.

At a yogurt and ice cream place on the short pier
she bought a strawberry ice cream cone. As she walked away from the service
window, she spied Mavis inside at a table, so she backtracked and joined her.

In greeting, Mavis said wryly, “Would you believe
this is lunch?” Guiltily, she looked at the half-eaten dish of ice cream. “I
love this place. They make the best banana split I ever had.”

Sunny said nothing.

As Mavis worked on her ice cream, she gave Sunny
glances that ranged from casual to puzzled to concerned. Then when Mavis pushed
the empty dish aside, she asked quietly, “What’s the matter?”

Sunny explained today’s find.

“I see,” Mavis said. The lines in her face deepened.
“You thought—hoped—it was all behind you. Yet here it is again rearing up its
ugly head. Franklin just won’t go away peacefully.”

“Contrary to the end,” Sunny agreed wryly. “Do you
know anything about the Bowers family? Langley and Louise?”

The question seemed to surprise Mavis, but she
answered readily. “Yes. Louise left him about, oh, maybe eight years ago. She
remarried and is living in Arizona, I think. Her marriage with Langley wasn’t a
good one. She wore a lot of bruises for a lot of years.”

“Did she have an affair with Franklin?”

“Oh, so that’s it. Yes, I think so. It wasn’t the
first time for him, but it was the first time for her, and she wasn’t very good
at covering up. In fact, I thought that was what had given her the courage to
finally break away from Langley. Or it may have been what forced the break. He
might’ve killed her once he found out.”

“He found out. But maybe it wasn’t his wife he
killed.”

Mavis turned away. She stared out the window, but it
didn’t appear she was looking at anything in particular. “What a can of worms
this is going to open up,” she murmured. She had the appearance of one looking
at something she didn’t want to see.

Sunny assumed Mavis was grappling with memories, so
she let the silence ride.

“Yes.” The older woman sighed, and when she looked
back her eyes held something akin to pain. “Franklin had a wandering eye, and
it lit upon a lot of women between here and Castleton. Since he lived in Reno
for much of the year, someone could’ve even followed him from there.”

“Who else around here was he linked with?”

“He was discreet.” Her gaze drifted away. “That was
one of the few redeeming characteristics he had. Even after he and your mom
split, he didn’t flaunt his affairs.”

“Nevertheless, it seems the list of suspects will be
a long one. My mom and I will be on it, right along with Langley Bowers and his
ex-wife. And I wonder how many others.” Her half-eaten cone was melting and
she’d lost her taste for it. She rose and deposited it in the trash receptacle
at the door. “See you around, Mavis.”

“Sunny, wait.”

She looked back.

Mavis massaged the bridge of her nose, disturbing
the set of her brown-rimmed glasses. Then she straightened them and met Sunny’s
gaze. Because Sunny knew her so well, she sensed the older woman’s discomfort.

But when Mavis spoke, there was no waver in her eyes
or voice. “If there’s going to be an investigation, which there’s bound to be,
you’ll hear about this anyway. And I’d rather it came from me. I can add two
more names to that list. One is Bev Wilkes. The other is mine.”

Chapter Nine

Sunny’s body jerked as if she’d been physically sucker
punched.

Then she found herself once more seated in the chair
but couldn’t recall actually walking back and sitting down.

Mavis jerked to her feet. “I need a cigarette.” She
led the way outside, fumbling in her oversized shoulder bag. After coming up
with a brightly-colored pack of cigarettes, she started rifling again.

“Damned thing. Lighter’s always at the bottom.” Her
speech rambled while her fingers searched. “Should have one of those cigarette
purses, pouches, whatever you call it. Keep putting off buying one ’cause I’m
gonna quit, but then I keep putting that off, too.”

Once she found a pack of matches, she couldn’t get
the match ignited. She seemed close to tears. Sunny took the pack and struck a
match into life and held it to light the woman’s cigarette. Mavis took a deep
drag, as if her life depended on how much of the carcinogenic substance she
could get into her lungs. She held the smoke for a long moment before exhaling.

Appearing calmer, she walked a short way onto the
sand. She wore medium-heeled pumps, not the easiest shoes to roam around the
beach in, but that didn’t seem to bother her. She took another drag, blew smoke
out, and then faced Sunny.

“Okay. Shoot. You’ve got questions and you deserve
answers.”

Sunny simply looked at her, then dropped down to sit
on the sand. The action was appropriate to her jeans and sneakers, but Mavis
wore a skirt and jacket combo in light-green linen. Her attire didn’t stop her
from following suit, however.

Near the water’s edge, a woman and young child were
building castles in the damp sand. An older couple, possibly in their fifties,
walked hand in hand. Further down the beach a man and a dog played with a
Frisbee.

Sunny remained quiet for a long moment, staring at
the ocean but barely aware of it. She asked, “Did my mother know?”

“I don’t know. I never told her and doubt that
Franklin would have. It was after their divorce, a long time after. But that
doesn’t excuse anything,” she added. She stubbed the cigarette out in the sand,
put it in her cupped left hand and closed her fist over it. “It was the last
time he was up here.”

“How about Tom? Does he know?”

Still looking at her closed fist, Mavis nodded. “I
told him. I had to.” Her gaze moved to a trash receptacle sitting where the
sand met the cement walk. She got up and walked over to discard the cigarette
butt. Before returning, she slipped her shoes off to carry back, one in each
hand. She sat down, leaning on her left hip, and her arm and hand supported her
weight. Though she faced Sunny, she was looking beyond her. She didn’t appear
to be looking at anything in particular, however, just staring into space.

“It was a bad time,” Mavis said, speaking in a
monotone. “I was at a really low point. I can’t explain it, even to myself, so
I don’t expect anyone else to understand. Tom was...furious. And not just hurt.
Injured. So much so that I wondered if I was only adding to the wrong by
telling him. But I thought then, and still do, that hiding unfaithfulness only
compounds it. I had to face up to it, be honest with him.”

The Frisbee sailed by and careened away in an arc.
The blond lab snagged it in the air and loped back to its master. Mavis watched
with incurious eyes. She picked up a handful of sand, let it run through her
fingers, and looked out over the water. “For a while it looked like I might
lose Tom. But he accepted it. In time he even forgave me. I know what kind of
man I’ve got. If I didn’t before, I learned then. But I don’t know if I’ll ever
be able to forgive myself. It wasn’t exactly an affair. It was...” She stopped
and looked down at the sand. “A one-night stand,” she finished in a near
whisper.

She picked up another handful and watched the grains
dribble through her fingers, took in a long breath, let it out and then
tonelessly went on. “Tom was out of town. Had been for a long time. He’d called
that afternoon to tell me it would be at least another week, grew impatient
with me when I got impatient with him. I went out to dinner alone, feeling
sorry for myself, ran into Franklin, drank wine with him, walked the beach...”

Suddenly, angrily, she made a fist and struck the
sand. Grains spit out in an uneven, explosive design. “It happened, Sunny. I
don’t excuse it, don’t expect anyone else to, and I don’t want to talk about it
anymore. I can’t, really can’t.”

She jerked up to her feet and walked away, angry
regret and pain evident in every step she took. When she reached the sidewalk,
she balanced on one foot and then the other as she slipped the shoes back on.
She never turned to look behind her. Sunny watched her for as far as she could
see her, then she worked her way upright and began the trek for home.

It was nearing 4:00 p.m., and the relentless sun
bore down on Sunny as she approached the old Victorian. No official vehicle was
in sight, and the shade of the porch should have beckoned her, yet dread slowed
her steps. When she entered the house, the bathroom door was open, and she
heard a broom swishing across the floor. She stopped midway up the stairs and called
Jonathan’s name.

He came to the door, straw broom in hand. “Hi.”

Her gaze moved to the stepladder in the alcove.

“No,” he said. “No more grisly discoveries. You can
rest easy.”

She turned sideways to lean against the wall and
drew in a relieved, easier breath. But there was more to come. It would be a
long while before she or anyone else could write an end to the legacy of
Franklin Corday. Unzipping that duffel bag had been like opening Pandora’s box.

Jonathan stood still for a moment, watching her.
Then he leaned the broom against the doorjamb and started to descend the
stairs. She straightened to make room for him to pass, but he came to a stop
with one foot resting on the stair lower than hers so that his head angled only
slightly higher than hers. He put his knuckles beneath her chin to raise her
face to his.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “It really is okay.”

“Oh,” she said, incapable in that moment of uttering
any other word. The clear green eyes looking into hers were close to
mesmerizing. His nearness, and the touch of his hand on her chin, chased
everything else out of her mind. Franklin, adulterous affairs, the attic and
the bloody bat all wrapped together and floated away like a ball of dust in a
breeze. “Oh,” she repeated.

Leaning in, he brushed his mouth across hers. It
wasn’t exactly a kiss, more like a sweet, friendly gesture. Just one set of
lips barely touching the other, but it was incredibly sexy and arousing. When
he pulled back, her eyes searched his. Had he been as moved as she?

Tenderness and gentle concern were evident in his
return gaze...and something else. Surprise. Yes, that was it, almost a mirror
of what she was feeling. But was it pleasant surprise, or the kind that says
hey,
wait a minute. What’s going on here and how do I get out of it
?

She didn’t have a chance to figure it out before he
cleared his expression. He repeated, again in a whisper, “It’s okay.” And then
he climbed back up the stairs.

She drew in a breath, not realizing till then that
she’d forgotten to breathe. She wet her lips and tried to make her face relax.
As Jonathan reached for the broom, he looked back down at her. In the instant
that his eyes first met hers, she got the impression he was weighing something
in his mind. Then again his expression smoothed out. The man would make an
excellent poker player.

With one hand placed over the other atop the broom,
he rested his chin on his knuckles. “We opened every box and trunk, checked
every conceivable hiding place, and the only thing Tom discovered up there was
the exact allowable height in every corner.” His face creased into a smile. If
Jonathan had been thrown by that kiss, he’d quickly recovered. “That man is a
slow learner,” he went on. “He banged his head every time he moved. And his
vocabulary has even more color than yours.”

“So we wait for the results of the crime lab tests,”
she said, and he nodded. Their conversation seemed to clear the air of the
effect of the kiss. Almost. It had merely been a simple gesture of comfort
which had taken each of them by surprise, she told herself. She pushed away
from the wall.

“Sunny?”

She looked back.

“Ryan wanted to visit again when he had more time.
Now that we’ve got the TV, I was thinking about inviting him up for Sunday
football. He could stay over for the Monday night game, and he could help get
those heavier pieces down from the attic. Does that sound all right to you?”

“Sure.”

“Do you want to call him, or should I?”

Her laugh made her feel normal again. “If I invited
him up here to watch football, he’d think I was delirious and get worried.”

“I don’t have an objection to him inviting Marcus if
he wants to. But I don’t know how to tell him that.”

Sunny leaned against the wall, folded her arms and
grinned up at him. “Same way you just put it to me should work.”

A slow, sheepish smile spread across his face. “Yes.
We do build our own mountains out of mole hills, don’t we?”

When he started back to his chores, she remained on
the stairs, and he turned back and gave her a questioning look. “Something
else?”

“Just wondering about dinner. I’ve got a package of
ground round, but I don’t know what I want to do with it.”

“I like meat loaf.”

She looked up. “Baked potato? Mashed?”

“Mashed.”

“Vegetable preference?”

“Peas are good.”

“Thank you, Jonathan. It’s a treat cooking for
someone who knows what he wants.”

At the bottom of the stairs she realized what she’d
said, and she broke into a smile that lasted all the way to the kitchen. She’d
once thrown their breakfast into the garbage because he’d known what he wanted
and had told her. But if he’d also noticed the contradiction between then and
now, he’d said nothing about it.

Smart man.

And one hell of a kisser.

Stop it, Sunny.

* * *

The next morning Sunny sat alone at the kitchen
table and stared with growing irritation at the skillet on the stove, nothing
in it but a dab of margarine. She was making an omelet, one big one they’d
split between them, but she couldn’t pour the egg mixture into the pan until
Jonathan was up. And, instead of staying warm in the oven, the hash browns were
well on their way to drying out in there.

Yesterday’s search had left the attic in a mess. She
wanted to get back up there, but half the workforce was still in his bed, and
apparently he’d grown immune to the sound of her voice. Repeated hollering of his
name had gained her nothing but a tired throat.

She got up, walked the hall and mounted the stairs.
His snores grew louder as she neared his room. She opened the door without
bothering to knock. He was flat on his back, eyes closed and mouth open. She
dashed to the bed, jumped on it and straddled him, gripped his shoulders and
shook. His mouth closed and his eyes snapped open. She hopped off the bed as
quickly as she’d hopped on.

“Breakfast is ready.”

No longer irritated, she walked unhurriedly out of the
room and down the stairs.

The omelet slid neatly out of the pan onto a plate
the same moment he entered the kitchen. When she looked up she caught annoyance
in his eyes and the set of his shoulders. She also detected challenge, which
made her study him for an extra second. And he was unshaven, which made her
realize she liked him with beard stubble.
Hmm.

“I hope you appreciate my restraint,” she said with
a straight face. She replaced the skillet on the stove, walked around to her
chair, sat down and put the platter on the table. “I thought about adding
cheese to the eggs, but wasn’t sure you’d like it.” She helped herself to
potatoes, cut away a third of the omelet and put it on her plate, then half
rose out of her chair to put the platter next to his place setting. “Do you
like cheese omelets?”

He sat down without answering.

“As you’ll note, there’s no butter on your toast.”
She picked up her knife and proceeded to butter hers. “And we need to go
shopping. This is the last of the potatoes. We’re also out of bacon and I’d
like to get some sausage links. Do you like sausage?”

No answer. He picked up the egg platter.

She tested the omelet, found it a little plain, but
not bad.

“Sunny?”

“Yes?”

“It’s only fair to warn you.” He appeared to have
worked through his annoyance because his voice held a casual note. His manner
was precise, but not stiff, as he slid the remainder of omelet onto his plate.
“If you ever do that again, jump on top of me in bed, you need to understand
you will not be getting out of that bed until I’m ready to let you go.”

Well. That kind of plain speaking, from a man as
reserved as Jonathan, required some thought, especially because of the
unexpected yet undeniable dare. She took a bite of toast and chewed it as she
watched him. As composed and unruffled as ever, he cut into his omelet and
watched her right back.