Slow Dancing (27 page)

“No, I believe she’s lying. Your momma never kept any information about her past secret. She was honest with me.” She’d said it nearly the first date;
she’d had a child out of wedlock, what was there to hide?

“Then what was it? Why would she say such a thing?”

“I don’t know, sister. But I do know you shouldn’t be worryin’ about it.” Not wanting to upset Ellen further, Frank’s brain was exploding with ideas of what might have happened to his wife, who might want her dead and why, but he’d keep those things from Ellen.

Mary may have taken advantage of Margaret, but she might have done much worse. He wanted to take a ride up to Beauregard and visit the hospital. Mary made the accusation herself; the nurses left them alone so they could be together. She was there on the day Margaret died. It was too much for him. Margaret was dead, and it didn’t make much difference who or what took her life. The finality of her death hit him just then.

“Boy, I’m sorry about everythin’. Sorry you had to lose your mother; sorry you had to hear what Mary had to say. We should be gettin’ on with life, not moving backward.”

“I’m ready to move on,” Ellen said.

They walked back to the house. “Let’s have our picnic, okay? We got the day off, although it seems like some people want to ruin it for us. Let’s not let ‘em.”

“Okay, Frank.” But Ellen’s teenage mind was processing Mary’s words, trying not to visualize her mother in the arms of another woman.

Chapter 25

While Margo waited for Boyd to contact her, she stayed busy preparing for the next workweek. She’d navigate between the office in Seymour and the clinic at Hallowsbrook where patient physicals and updating charts would keep her mind busy. It was the most favorite part of her job; taking care of patients with mental health issues was challenging but rewarding.

Margaret McPherson’s death still haunted her. Margaret petitioned the hospital board to have her involuntary commitment reversed; all the paperwork filed was in her favor. But privately, Margo wasn’t sure it was in the family’s best interest for Margaret’s release and documented the facts in her report. The week of Margaret’s death, the judge ruled in Margaret’s favor, after her next doctor visit the following week, she’d be released to go home. Margo saw her the morning she died.

“I’m going home!” Margaret was excited, pacing in her room and wringing her hands. Memories disturbed, Margo heard the telephone in the kitchen ringing and ran to answer. “Hello?” she said, out of breath.

“I’m headed your way in a while,” Boyd said.

“Is that right?” she answered, smiling. “Well come on over.”

“I need to make one stop,” he said. Margo knew what it was; he was going to say goodbye to Carol.

“Okay, well I’ll see you later. Love you,” she said before hanging up, but he was already gone.

Busily ironing the last few items, putting the board away before he arrived, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror. She was always ready for Boyd, just in case he could find time for her. Being involved with a married man forced her to rethink the way she lived, to make room for him in her life in ways she’d never thought she’d succumb. Spur of the moment requests, cancelations, outright standups were all part of the package. Putting up with it meant relinquishing that part of herself that hoped for a marriage and a family. Maybe now, if he was going to leave Carol, she’d have that chance for a real life with him. She’d been alone for so long with no eligible men in town except Frank. Frank, just thinking about him increased her heart rate. But he was hopeless. Even with his wife dead, he still wasn’t free.

***

Dave found Mary Cook before she made it home. Just as her foot came out between two trees; she’d run through the woods from Frank’s house, the officers were waiting to catch her. Boyd had called them after he left Frank’s, admitting she’d punched him in the gut. They didn’t think it was funny and he was grateful for it. Now he had to excuse himself from questioning her because charges would most likely be leveled against her for the assault.

“We’re you been, Mary?” Dave asked.

“Don’t you two have
anything
better to do?” She asked, exasperated seeing them waiting for her.

“We hear you’ve done the unthinkable. Assaulting an officer of the law is no laughing matter. It’s an automatic sentence of thirty days for a physical assault.”

“Poor Boyd, got soft in the middle,” she whined.

“So you admit it?” Dave asked, getting out of the car. “Put your hands behind your back, Mary Cook. You have the right to remain silent…” he read her rights and while Henry opened the back door, putting hand cuffs on her. She complained the entire time.

“I usually wear these
after
someone’s paid for my dinner. I have a business to run, and the weekend is my busiest time. You’ll be responsible for loss of income.”

“Oh, is that right,” Dave said. “Story is, your
last
boarder was murdered after you threw him out of your house.”

“Who said I threw him out?” she asked, sarcastically.

“When’s the last time you were at Miss Logan’s? Anyway, get in the car will you please? I don’t want to use force.”

“Has that bitch been talking about me again? Honestly, she’s the biggest liar.” Mary tried to get in the car with her hands bound behind her back but fell backward into the car. Dave picked up her legs and helped her get in.

“Actually, story is Johnson himself told everyone over at Towering Pines what had happened.” That revelation shut her up, and they made the rest of the ride to the station in silence.

***

After Boyd filled out the necessary paperwork and the physician at the clinic examined him, a large red welt on his abdomen obvious where Mary had punched him, and after he called Margo, he went home to say goodbye to Carol. Pulling into the driveway of his modest house, he noticed the peeling paint, a gutter swinging in the breeze, duct tape holding a screen in place. His neglect of the exterior screamed
divorced mother.
But they were still married. Guilt flooded his thoughts. He made a mental note to call a handyman and someone to cut the grass. But the inside of the house was neat and tidy, thanks to Carol. She liked order, and the house reflected it. He smelled basil and tomato, beef and garlic. She was fixing his favorite; Italian food. She always tried to please him, cooking the food he liked, trying to make the house an oasis for him.

Their boys ran to him and hugged his legs, screaming, “Daddy, you’re home!” He put his hat down and pulled them both up to his chest by their arms, hugging them, kissing their necks. He thought of Frank, taking care of Ellen, loving her, devoted. Frank would kill himself before he abandoned Ellen. These boys were depending on him to set an example, and he was preparing to leave their mother, and ostensibly, the children as well.

“Let’s go see mommy, okay?” They were still as could be, resting their heads on his shoulders. He walked through the dining room, noticing the table set for dinner as usual, the piles of neatly folded laundry on the buffet, waiting for her to take up stairs to the bedrooms. She was lifting a pot of boiling water with spaghetti, taking it to the sink to pour into the colander when she slipped, gasping and dropped it, splashing boiling water down the front of her legs and onto her feet.

“Mommy!” the boys screamed. Boyd put them down in the dining room, saying firmly to stay put and ran to her, picking her up and running to the bathroom with her.

“You’re home,” she said, tears running down her cheeks, in shock and in pain as the burn was just beginning to take hold. He put her in the shower and turned cold water on her.

“Stay here, I’m calling for an ambulance.” He ran back out to the hallway and called dispatch, telling them what happened. The operator said a unit was on the way.

Carol was sitting on the floor of the shower when he got back, leaning against the tiles, letting the freezing water run over her body. “Where are the girls?” he asked, their two daughters, old enough to watch the boys.

“Next door,” she said, her eyes closed. Boyd went back out to the dining room, his sons frozen with fear.

“Mommy will be okay,” he told them. “Go next door and get Marisa and Gayle and tell them to come home right away. Tell Mrs. Anderson mommy is going in the ambulance.” The boys left the house together, and he watched them running to the neighbor’s house. He went back to the bathroom to wait with Carol, wrapping her upper body in a towel, letting the water splash on him so that he was soon wet, too.

“I feel like a dope,” she said, softly. “Thank you for coming home.”

“Of course, I’m home,” he replied, kissing the top of her head.

“I don’t know why, but I had the strongest feeling you weren’t coming home tonight, like you were going to leave me.”

“I’m not leaving, Carol,” he said.

“I love you, Boyd,” she said, looking up at him, water running down her face. The siren in the distance got louder. The screams of the girls entering the house blended with the siren, each holding onto a brother, echoing into the bathroom, their neighbor running along with them, frightened for what she might find.

“I love you, too,” Boyd said, meaning it. “I love you, too.”

Delicious grilled chicken with barbeque sauce, potato salad, cold slaw, biscuits, corn on the cob, tomato salad, watermelon, and strawberry sundaes rounded out the picnic meal Ellen and Frank treated themselves.

“Oh, I am about ready to burst,” she said, leaning back as far as she could without falling off the picnic table. “That was really good.”

“I’m full, but I’m not getting up just yet, just in case I burp and make a little room for some more of that potato salad. Sister, you outdid yourself.” Ellen burst into laughter.

“Frank, you made that dish. All I did was peel potatoes and cut up celery.” Then she burped with her mouth closed, very lady-like.

“Excuse me! I believe I can eat a little more now,” she said, still laughing. She stretched her legs over the bench to get up. “You want a cup of coffee?”

“Okay, sounds good,” he said. He watched her walk around to the back of the house, could hear the sound of running water through the kitchen window. Completely satisfied, he shook his head. Here, he had so much at stake; if the law pressed charges against him, he could go to jail, and worse, he could lose Ellen. Monday was coming and he was expecting to learn something. He wondered what was happening with Mary, if they’d found her.

Ellen brought two cups of coffee out to the picnic table. “We need to practice a little bit before tonight,” she said.

“Thank you for reminding me. Between sheriff visits, interrogation and Mary, I forgot all about it.” He stood up and put his arms out, humming a tune. Slowly at first, they two-stepped away from the picnic table to a large, flat space in the yard, waltzing and the lindy hop, fox trot and samba. After ten minutes, they were both sweating and laughing out loud.

“The moral to this story is not to eat like a pig before dancing,” Frank said releasing her.

“We better clean up this mess and get ready to go. I’m getting nervous!” Ellen started stacking plates and covering dishes with foil, carrying what she could into the kitchen with Frank following.

“It will be good,” Frank replied. “You’ll do fine and make me look like I know what I’m doin’.”

***

Mary was sitting in the same chair Frank had sat in that morning, but instead of calmly tapping a foot, she was squirming in the chair, alternately crying and laughing, miserable. Dave and Faye watched her through the window as seasoned investigator Henry Cort entered the room to speak with her.

“Do you know why you were brought in to the station?” Henry asked.

“I have no idea, but harassment has somethin’ to do with it. I was minding my own business when you picked me up for no reason.”

“What were you doing last Monday night?” Mary screwed up her face and put her finger on her forehead, mockingly.

“You expect me to remember last Monday?” she asked sarcastically. “I can’t remember what happened yesterday.”

“Didn’t you just tell Frank McPherson you were out at his place? Spying on him and his kid through the living room window?” Henry picked up a piece of paper and began to read it out loud. “‘I was walking by the river when I saw you two.’”

“I never said such a thing. Those two are insane. It runs in the family.”

“What do you know about the family’s mental health?”

“Why Frank’s wife is,
was
insane. Committed for life up at Hallowsbrook.”

“Why do you say
was
?” Henry asked. “Did she have a healing?” Dave nudged Faye.

“Now it’s getting interesting.”

“Ha! No, she didn’t have any healing. She killed herself. I was there to visit her and she did it herself. She was acting all goofy and out of it. Kept falling asleep. It was horrible.”

“No one knew that,” Faye said, excited. “It wasn’t made public at the request of the family.” Everyone knew what the death certificate said because someone leaked it and the gossipmongers spread it around town like wildfire. Faye pressed a buzzer to get the investigator attention. He excused himself, leaving Mary alone in the room. She immediately began to primp in front of the mirror, and then examined it carefully to see if she could see through to the other side.

Henry entered the room. “What’s up?”

“Stop the interview. You just got her to admit to the coroners report. No one knew she might have done it herself.”

“Faye, everyone in town knew it.”

“Shut up, Henry. You’re talking gossip. We just needed someone to slip up in front of an officer of the law. Call Frank and tell him we have cause to question Margaret McPherson’s cause of death.”

There was a knock on the door and Rosalie the dispatcher opened the door. “Thought you guys should know, Boyd’s wife Carol was just admitted over at Beauregard Medical with second-degree burns on her legs and feet.” Faye and Dave exchanged looks.

“Thanks, Rosalie,” Dave said. “Let us know if you hear anything more.” She nodded her head and closed the door.