Page 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Both women looked abashed.

“You’re right,” Linda said.

Violet nodded. “We’re more important than that, no matter what.” She circled one hand into a wide circle. “All of us.”

She placed that hand on Carol’s arm and left it there, conveying the connection, while also turning toward the other end of the table to join in that conversation, giving them a break.

Clara devoted her soothing attention to Linda.

In a low voice, Carol said to me, “Violet’s cousins with the Carnells. Not first cousins, but blood ties nonetheless. And Linda’s kids grew up with Derrick and none of them ever have accepted he could have killed Jaylynn.”

The waiter arrived with their meals, ending further details while they were distributed and, at our insistence, the others began eating.

The next thing I heard was Linda saying to Clara, but with a nod that included me, “Who you should talk to is Evan Ferguson.”

“The boyfriend,” Carol said. “He was a teacher at the same school where she taught.”

“Boyfriend?” Clara asked. “Oh. Is that who Jaylynn was supposed to be, you know... with?”

The one Dova brought up, then said she knew nothing more about.

“ Boyfriend , huh,” Linda scoffed. “We heard it described as an ob- sex -sion.”

While cringing at the provocation, I acknowledged the cleverness of the wordplay.

Violet’s eyebrows arched. “Not that I ever heard. What’s your source—”

Before that flared into another disagreement, I said, “So, who is this guy? How long did they know each other? Is he still around? Did he move away? Move on?”

Carol reinforced my efforts, saying, “He didn’t move away, but he must have moved on, because he’s married. Though only a few years ago. Three, I think.”

“She’s much younger,” murmured Linda, apparently drawn away from combatting Violet by such details. “And now she’s pregnant.”

Violet nodded. “Very pregnant. Saw her at Shep’s last week. Must be any time now.”

The delivery of food to Clara and me created a mild disruption.

Clara responded with “He only got married a few years ago? Gosh, you think he was mourning Jaylynn all that time?” Perhaps not the most politick approach to abandon the side issue that had temporarily united Linda and Violet.

Carol stepped in before that brushfire reignited.

First, her skeptical head tip didn’t give Evan Ferguson that much credit. Quickly followed by her speaking — before either of the other two women could.

“You know, I once had a fascinating discussion with Donna about that. And she told me some dogs, especially ones who start off with a nervous disposition, can initially be nervous of things that make sense — loud noises or big animals or such — but then they get in the habit of being nervous and they’ll shy off from things that make no sense at all. A gum wrapper or a leaf.

“That’s what Evan Ferguson makes me think of. For a long time, it was like he thought every female he met was going to be murdered any second. At least any female in the right age group, interested in men, and not running the opposite direction from him. Until Quebec.”

“Quebec?” I asked, wondering how this had traveled to Canada.

“His wife. That’s her name.”

“She’s been good for him?” Clara asked.

Carol chuckled dryly. “Donna had something to say about that, too. She called it an old-fashioned relationship.”

“Oh? What did she mean by that?”

“Old-fashioned like they portrayed lots of marriages on TV in those old sitcoms. She rules the roost by pretending to be delicate and withdrawing, when she’s anything but. But it makes him toe the line.”

“Maybe that’s what he needed,” Clara offered. “A strong woman. One who wouldn’t run away from him and wouldn’t let him run away from a relationship.”

Carol’s head tip this time was sharp enough to cut cheese. “The same way a cowboy roping a steer and throwing it to the ground — not letting it run away — is good for the steer.”

Chuckles from farther down the table proved that end had been listening in, as Clara and I finished our meals and the others moved onto dessert.

Now, Millie asked, “You talked to Rose Gleiner this morning?”

How had she heard about that? Donna? Or were we observed?

“Briefly,” Clara said with a slight smile.

Her not sharing more indicated she was prepared to leave Donna to work her magic and not invite this larger group into the details.

Millie nodded wisely. “That’s smart. Hospices have lots of drugs that could be used to kill somebody. Palliative care doesn’t mean the drugs can’t be dangerous.”

“That’s true. But they’re careful,” Linda said.

“So they claim,” Violet said.

“We have first-hand proof they’re careful,” Linda returned with a bit of a snap. It was gone when she turned to Clara to continue. “Remember I had that prescription after my back surgery—”

“Which you would not take.” Violet used an entirely different tone for that comment — one of fond scolding. “Despite the pain.”

“I got through it. But I knew if it got too bad, I had those pills, thanks to you getting the prescription filled for me. But the point is, I still had them after I healed from the surgery, the whole bottle, and I didn’t know what to do with them, especially considering... you know.”

Clara caught me up with the history the rest of them knew. “Linda had a neighbor, a teenager then, who had issues with drugs. He’d been in her house at least once looking for whatever he could find and she was concerned if he found those pain pills...”

“They were so potent,” the older woman picked up.

“The nurse impressed that on me quite forcefully. And if any harm had come to him because of my carelessness—” She pulled in a quick breath, then her expression changed, giving way to a smile.

“And now he’s a wonderful young man who has worked so very hard on his sobriety and is doing marvelously. ”

Happy sighs came from around our end of the table. “You hear so much about the horrible overdose deaths, but there are successes, too,” Violet said.

“One day at a time. One day at a time,” Linda murmured. “Anyway, the point in rehashing this history you all know and that’s surely boring Sheila to tears—”

I made a sound of protest.

“—is to remind you that when I asked the hospice people working with Clara — though, really, she did almost everything—”

Clara’s turn for a sound of protest.

“—they said, no, they couldn’t take the medication to dispose of it. That they had a strict accounting of what came in and what went out.”

Violet clicked her tongue as she picked up pie crust crumbs between the tines of her fork. “I understood they’d have a problem if there were fewer drugs than there should have been, but how could it be a problem with disposing of more drugs?”

She put the crumb-holding fork in her mouth.

Linda raised a shoulder, agreeing with her, but moving on. “Anyway, the pharmacy wouldn’t take them, the doctor’s office wouldn’t take them, even though I guess they do in other places, and I had to wait for one of those special prescription turn-in days.”

Another tongue click from Violet. “Worrying the whole time about that neighbor boy.”

“It all turned out fine in the end,” Linda said, “but it does go to show how careful the hospices are about the drugs they handle.”

Violet wasn’t letting go of her point. “Just because that hospice, in fact, that individual, was exceedingly cautious about those drugs, doesn’t mean all hospices—”

The server brought me the bill, as I’d quietly requested earlier. But it didn’t go unnoticed.

“Sheila, you are not picking up the check for all of us,” scolded Millie from the far end.

“Of course she is,” Fern said airily.

I’d been used to picking up checks as the author of Abandon All .

Many people not involved with publishing think all published authors are rolling in money. That’s so far from the truth it would be laughable if it didn’t sting so sharply for most authors.

From Kit, I’d learned they were usually paid a small percentage of the cover price, while the publisher took the bulk. Publishers didn’t lavish money on their employees, either. But they did receive a regular, predictable paycheck, with benefits. Their authors didn’t have those luxuries.

Independent authors — also called self-published — get a larger portion of the purchase price (though frequently still less than half — don’t get Kit started on audiobook rates.) But corporations have a way of capturing money going to anyone other than themselves and indie authors get squeezed, too.

Why did I want to go into this business?

Oh, right, because thanks to Kit and Abandon All , I had financial security.

I wouldn’t face needing another job to support myself, while a tiny but vociferous minority of readers proclaimed it their right to read for free the books authors spent hard months writing. Sometimes I felt guilty about that.

So I picked up checks.

I wondered if this group would react the same way if they knew my background or my bank account.

Looking at the faces of the women hugging me and Clara good-bye, I decided they’d still be this appreciative.

Except maybe Fern.

As they left, I thought about the lunch discussion. They were right about the hospice having drugs, even if it meant agreeing with Berrie.

But had that served as a proxy for the core disagreement over whether Derrick deserved to be convicted of Jaylynn’s murder? That disagreement cut too close to the bone of their friendship, while hospices’ handling of drugs was no threat.

Either way, Linda and Violet found a way to mediate their difference in the short walk out of the Tavern. As I watched through the window, I saw them pause at the back of a vehicle, laugh together, then exchange a strong hug.

“I had no idea,” Clara’s gaze had followed the same path as mine.

Her tone tied her words to the friction at the table, not the hug.

“I mean, I knew there were disagreements — sides — in the community, but not within that group,” she said. “It all happened before I met them through my mother-in-law.”

“They handled it, though.”

“Yes, they did. They’re such good women,” she said with pride.

“Problem is, a lot of people won’t work as hard as they do to keep their differences from dividing them.

It’s not something people talk about much, so it’s like a fissure right under your feet, just below the surface, and you have no way of knowing if the next step’s going to take you right down into the gap between us and them . ”

“You think Derrick’s murder opened the fissure wider and deeper?”

“I’m afraid so.” Her intake of breath lifted her shoulders. Her exhale stirred flowers in a nearby vase. “What’s next?”

“How about Evan Ferguson?” I proposed.

“If he’s working—”

“But he’s a teacher and it’s the holidays. He won’t be working.”

“True. We could—”

The rest of Clara’s sentence evaporated as her phone rang.

She answered, as we gathered our things and stood.

“Oh, yes, hello.” Clara stopped abruptly, putting her hand on my arm to stop me, too. “Uh-huh... Okay... Yes... Not long.”

She added a few more unrevealing phrases, then clicked off.

“What—?”

“Outside,” she ordered, shifting her grip on my arm and propelling me toward the door that led to the central hallway. We shared cheery thanks and good-byes with Tavern staff as we passed them. Even after we descended the outside stairs and reached the sidewalk, she kept propelling.

In my car, with the doors closed, she finally said, “Mamie. She and Robbie are at Kentucky Manor. She wants us to get right over there.”