Secret Keepers and Skinny Shadows: Lee and Miranda (24 page)

“When and why did your dad tell you that?” Lee said

“My parents were as afraid of him as I was. Dad told me that information about a year before he died.”

Lee turned toward Miranda.

“Now what do we do, Miranda?” Lee looked at Miranda and back at Chuck. They all knew what they had to do.

“I think we need to go to the office of the FBI and tell them the story. After all, the threat is gone now,” Lee said.

Lee and Miranda looked at Chuck.

“What do you say, Chuck?”

“But Uncle Leslie’s second wife doesn’t know any of this, and his children will never believe it. It will break their hearts.”

Lee told him, “It’s up to you, Chuck. You can go on living with this. We won’t expose you. Or you can go to the FBI and tell them what you told us. I’m sure Bert’s family would like to have this solved. I’ll write my book, but the way it ends will depend on what you do.”

               
CHAPTER 44

                                 Present Day

T
hat afternoon Lee and Miranda walked with Chuck up the steps of the FBI office in Bridgetown. Lee held the door open for Chuck and Miranda, then Lee walked in behind them. The agent standing at the front desk looked at Chuck.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, my name is Chuck Curry.”

Then Chuck told his story to the FBI.

It took them six months, but they cleaned up the remaining mafia types in Bridgetown and put the rest of the corrupt officials and police into prison, where they still are today. Chuck turned states witness with what he knew about the murder and was only given a six months sentence for concealing evidence.

Robert Mason was found dead from a heart attack in his hotel room the morning after he met with Miranda at the coffee shop. After his estate was settled, the NSA bought his satellite company and is putting it to good use around the world. After talking with Mason’s secretary they learned that he hired someone to shoot at them in the cemetery to scare them off the investigation.

Darrell’s wife and family were heart-broken by the story that had to be told. Through sources, the FBI also found out that Bert’s niece was in Bridgetown the night of the murder and hired Darrell to kill Bert. She knew Darrell hated Bert for beating up his mother.

Bert’s family was relieved to have closure on this murder fifty years later and relieved that the town had been cleaned up of corruption.

Lee thought it was sad that Lillian didn’t live to see that she was proven to be right all along. She would have liked that. Why did Lillian say she could have prevented the murder?

Through careful reading of the letters, they pieced together she believed if she had married Bert, he would still be alive.

                                
CHAPTER 45

Present Day

L
ee drifted close to Miranda, reached out, and pulled her next to him. This time she hugged him back, he kissed her cheek and released her.

“Goodbye, Kid. Maybe we’ll get together again to work on another case.”

He looked at Adrian, “it was nice to meet you. Take care of our girl.”

“It was nice to meet you. Don’t worry. She’s my number one priority. Have a safe trip home.”

Miranda looked into his eyes. “Goodbye, Lee. Maybe I don’t mind being called Kid after all. You never know, we might work together again soon.”

Lee drove down the winding driveway and stopped at the wrought-iron gates. He got out and looked at them one last time.

“Yep, they’re classic Miranda.”

Nine hours later Lee pulled into the docks. A calming peace washed over him at the sight of his houseboat. It seemed like he had been gone for a year. That night he fell into a deep sleep in his own bed.

Early the next morning he was standing outside on the deck leaning on the railing just before dawn, sipping a cup of steaming coffee waiting for the sunrise. As the light splashed across the water his phone rang.

“Hello, this is Lee.”

“Lee, this is Clint. How are you, old buddy? It’s been a couple of months since we last spoke. We need to get together and catch up.”

“Clint, it’s good to hear from you. I would like to get together.”

“Thanks, buddy. Glad to hear you say that. I’m calling because I need your help if you’re available. I’m working on a hard to solve case and I was wondering if you’d have the time to work on it with me? I have bad news about an old friend of ours.”

“Clint, I now have all the time in the world. What’s the bad news and who is it about?”

                            
CHAPTER 46

Present Day

Lee wrote his book. It became a number one
New York Times
best seller. He titled it
For Joan and Lillian
.

END

LETTER 1

March 1962

Dearest Elizabeth,

You may think that is an odd way for one woman to start a letter to another, especially when it is doubtful if they have ever seen each other. I wasn’t going to write this, but last Saturday I went to Dr. Denny and he told me to do whatever I felt I had to do. I thought I was losing my mind, but he said I was sane enough. He said I was just grief-stricken.

You see, Elizabeth, I should have been your sister-in-law. I should have married Bert, but I didn’t, and the reason was plain to me. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him; it was because I thought I wasn’t good enough for him. I wanted him to have the best, and I knew what I had done. I thought he didn’t know about it at the time, and I could never marry a man I couldn’t tell what a tramp I had been. I know now that he knew all there was to know about me and it didn’t matter. He felt about me the way I feel about him. If he did something bad, it wasn’t wrong. Not if he did it.

I didn’t know about his death until that Sunday night, the 11th. My husband came home from work and told me. I had to make him stop. I couldn’t bear to hear it. I cried so hard I almost forgot to send flowers. I hope they came in time.

I think all of Appleton and parts of Bridgetown knew we were in love. I was never out with him, but it wasn’t because I was afraid of him; I was afraid of myself. I couldn’t even let him hold my hand. My brother had told me Bert had gotten drunk and roughed up a couple of girls on several occasions, and I had made up my mind years before I even met Bert that I would never marry a man who would do a thing like that. I had seen my father beat my mother.

I told Carl Winslow when I found out Bert was serious that I couldn’t go out with him because I knew I’d let him push me around and I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t think it was right for a girl to mess around with a man she knew she couldn’t marry.

I never knew until two weeks after Bert was dead what my brother told me. He said he had seen Bert pound his fist on the table and say he wouldn’t marry the best darned woman living, and I told him that Bert must have thought I was a little better than the best because he wanted to marry me.

My brother said I was the dumbest girl he had ever seen. He said Bert was only trying to make a pass.

It’s a long story, Elizabeth, far too long to put in a letter, and parts of it are sweet, but most of it is sad. I told the doctor only parts of it, and I told the police what I knew, about how Bert watched over me because he promised years ago that he would never let anyone hurt me and that I would never want for anything as long as he lived. But I never took a cent from him myself. I know that he gave Hap Mills money, and that he even gave him four hundred dollars to divorce me, and he even got someone else to help me give Hap the grounds for a divorce. When I asked why he didn’t do it himself, he said because he knew he couldn’t marry me until after I was divorced and he didn’t trust himself.

How honorable can a man be? They don’t come any better than Bert. No matter what he did?

I want to write a book. The doctor told me to go ahead. He thinks I can do it. I want to do something to make it right, and I can’t even ask Bert to forgive me now, but if I had known the night of February 10 what I know now, all this would never have happened. It wouldn’t have mattered that he was broke, or that he had been in a mental hospital, or that he had run around with the wrong kind of people. I could have saved his life and I didn’t, and I have to live with this knowledge as long as I live, and only God knows how much it hurts.

In the book I want to tell anyone who will read it about the Bert I knew. The good clean, descent, kind, and honorable man he was. Most of the readers will think its fiction, but it won’t be.

They won’t believe that a man could be as good as Bert was. But God will know and I will know, and perhaps a few of you who knew him and loved him will believe what I write.

You see, Elizabeth, a lot of years ago I told him to find someone else. Someone worthy of him, and he said he didn’t want anyone else. He knew I was in love with him. I had told him I was, and when I tried to deny it later I couldn’t look him in the eyes and do it. I had to look at the floor.

From all this I have learned a lot of things, but the most important one is this. When you really love someone, it’s forever, and you go on loving them as long as you live no matter what they do.

There are a lot of things I don’t know about Bert. I don’t know when he started to wear glasses or if he got bald or not. I remember his hair was a medium shade of brown, as if he might have been blond when he was younger, and I think his eyes were blue. I hadn’t seen him for a long while, until that night in the hot dog place. I remember I looked at him and he saluted me, but he didn’t say anything. I was married to someone else.

He was the only man I ever knew who meant every word he ever said to me. I didn’t know it then; I know it now. He said he would love me until the day he died, and he meant it. In all my life Bert Grayson was the only person who ever really loved me. My mother never forgave me for some of the things I did, but Bert forgave me. The doctor said when you love someone you don’t need to ask them to forgive you. If you do something you shouldn’t, it isn’t wrong in their eyes. I know he’s right, but I know, too, that no one ever hurt Bert the way I did. Not even at the very last.

I hadn’t even heard his name until last summer when he was in the mental hospital. Herman Heritage told me he was in bad shape, and I thought it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. I’m not referring to Bert as a dog—I mean I thought he had forgotten me, and I didn’t want to open an old wound. It only hurts worse than it did the first time, and I didn’t want to hurt him ever.

When I found out he was sick I shook until I couldn’t hold a cigarette. It fell right out of my fingers. We were going to Harrisburg and I never had such a miserable time in my life. I spent most of the trip in the ladies’ lounge crying. I told George I was carsick. I get that way sometimes, you know.

I hope this letter hasn’t hurt you. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone who was dear to Bert.

If there is ever anything I can do for you or the other members of your family, I’ll try my best to do it, if you let me know. Bert would want it that way.

George, my husband, knows all about this. He knows the only reason I came back was because I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. He knows I’m not in love with him. I’ve slept alone for fourteen years.

I don’t even sleep in the same room with him. He doesn’t mind. When I’m at myself I’m a fair housekeeper and a good cook.

I made him a home and that’s all he asked of me. He has known since long before we were married that I was in love with Bert. I told him.

I hope whoever has Bert’s flag will take good care of it. I think it’s sacred.

Please forgive me, Elizabeth, and if you can find it in your heart to do so, come and see me. I love you because you were Bert’s sister and you must be a little like him. I have cried for more than four weeks now. I don’t know where all the tears come from. The doctor said not to try to suppress them, but that Bert wouldn’t want me to grieve this way. He would want me to be happy the way he knew me. I ran out of writing paper. That’s why this page is written on both sides. I look like an old hag, and I’m ashamed to go to the store to get more.

Thank you for reading this, Elizabeth, and please try to forgive.

Bert’s Lilly

P.S. I still think Grayson is the prettiest name I ever heard. And something else you should know. I didn’t know Bert was shy until Herman told me. I knew he blushed easily, and I thought he was a little shy, but not the way he was. Herman said he never saw such a shy man in his life, and I knew then that when I told Bert I didn’t like men who drank I tied his tongue, and I thought it was too late. I didn’t see how Bert could even like me after all the things I had done, and since. I’m a little shy, too. I didn’t try to find out if he liked me or not. I didn’t think I had the right.