Twenty-Two

Mrs. Boggs was in the hospital bed hooked up to tubes and beeping machines. Sara was old enough to know not to ask the woman what was wrong with her and what her prognosis was. That was what young people did. Sara might not know the details but she knew the woman was near her end.

Sara said that she and her two friends were investigating the deaths of Verna and Cheryl Morris and wondered if she could tell her anything.

Mrs. Boggs seemed glad to think of something other than her own pain. She even scooted up in the bed a bit. "I remember all of it." Her voice was raspy but clear.

"The rent check didn't come in Saturday's mail, so Lester went over there on Sunday morning to get it. He came back in a rage. He said they were moving out without paying. The house was empty, and the doors and windows were open. He closed the place up and put padlocks on the doors, then he took the van he'd traded to them. It was full of household goods and he said he'd give it back to them when they showed up with the rent."

"But they didn't show up," Sara said.

"No. We never saw them again. The van was parked beside the garage for months. Lester was so mad that he was going to take everything to the dump, but I liked Verna. I thought she got a raw deal in town. I never could figure out who spread all the gossip about her. I never saw any man at their house except that cranky old Arthur Niederman. He used to brag to everybody that he and Verna were lovers but nobody believed him. One time I saw that she was giving him a massage."

Mrs. Boggs's energy was fading. "Somebody was that poor woman's enemy. I don't understand why she stayed in Lachlan."

"Your son sold us the contents of the garage."

"Did he?" She gave a smile of irony. "Couldn't wait, could he? He always was like his father."

"Is what we bought from the Morris house?"

"Yes. Everything that was in the van is in there. I wouldn't let Lester throw it away because I knew he'd fill up the garage with more rubbish anyway. At least what those girls had was clean." She closed her eyes. "I think that now I need to..."

"Of course. I wish you well."

Mrs. Boggs didn't open her eyes. "I just hope that those books about Heaven are wrong. I don't want the first person I see to be Lester Boggs."

"I know what you mean." Sara squeezed her hand, then left the room...

For a while, they were quiet after Sara finished her story.

Kate looked at the other two. "I guess we should get some sleep. We can make decisions about what to do in the morning."

No one moved.

"The sheriff's department wouldn't let Gil take the stand lights. They're still there."

Kate looked at the tray full of food. Only Jack had eaten any. There was no question in her mind as to what they were going to do. They were going to start going through the garage contents now. "I'll put this food in bags. Aunt Sara, you get us water."

"Jack," Sara said, "get the box of gloves from under the sink. Kate, put on some solid shoes."

As the two women got up, Jack sat there smiling. "Am I allowed to make a remark about women changing their minds?"

"No!" Kate and Sara yelled.

"It was just a thought." He heaved himself up. "Do you really think Flynn sent Mrs. Bruebaker to us?"

"Oh, yes," Kate said from the kitchen.

"Definitely," Sara said.

At the Morris house, they were solemn as they entered. Maybe this was when they would find out the truth.

Jack went in first. He turned on one of the big lights and aimed it toward the corner where Dan had been hanging. Kate knew he wanted to make sure she saw that there was no longer a body there.

The image, still vivid in her mind, flashed in and out, but then it settled to show the empty corner. Sara and Jack were staring at her, waiting for her to reassure them she was all right.

With a small smile, she nodded and they let out their breaths. "Where should we start?"

"In Cheryl's ‘haven of peace' as she called it." Jack opened the door of the smaller bedroom.

The room was filled with packages: sealed boxes, bulging shopping bags, a plastic laundry basket, a bucket, a big leaf bag. Everything had been stuffed with household and personal items.

The sight of it reminded them of how the two women had hurriedly thrown their belongings together so they could make a fast getaway. Why? Kate wondered. Because Cheryl had finally told her mother she was pregnant? By whom? The town bad boy?

That thought made her look at Jack. He was eleven then, but his father... When Jack glanced her way, Kate turned away in fear that he'd read her thoughts.

"Do we work separately or together?" Sara asked.

"Together," Kate said.

"I agree."

"Gloves on," Sara said.

The first box they opened held old lawn-mower parts. They closed it. Next was half-empty jars of motor oil.

They moved to another part of the room. Jack slit the tape across the top of an old Clorox box. "Bingo."

Inside were worn paperback books and the three on top were Sara's. Jack pushed aside a rusty old garden tool, took out a book and opened it. Inside was an inscription.

To Cheryl,

Hope you enjoy it,

Sara Medlar

"Nice." He put back the book. He looked to see if anything else was inside but there were only more books by other authors. "Just trash."

They opened three more boxes and unloaded two shopping bags before they saw the box. They hadn't seen it at first because it was buried under eight cartons of old canning jars. It was one of those sold in craft stores: shiny surface with pictures of pink roses and white ribbons.

Kate held it up. "I bet this belonged to Cheryl."

It was growing lighter outside but they still needed the big bulbs. They moved closer to a lamp and Sara slit the tape that was all around the lid.

When Kate looked up, she saw that, like her, blood was pulsing in their throats. Slowly, she opened it. Inside was a gray metal box, the kind that was used for cash. It was closed with a lock that needed a key. On the top, in red nail polish, was painted Private. CAM.

"Cheryl Ann Morris," Jack said.

With glove-encased hands, Kate lifted out the cash box and held it reverently. "Is there a key in there?"

Sara pulled out the contents of the decorative box: dried wildflowers, pink tissue paper, a snippet of blue silk. "No key."

"So what do we do?" Kate asked. "Pry it open?"

"Sure," Jack said.

But Sara put out her hand. "Don't freak, but I think we should take it to the sheriff. Unopened."

Kate thought of the ramifications of their opening the box now. What proof would they have that they hadn't tampered with it? She looked at Jack.

"Agreed." He sounded reluctant.

Jack called Gil, who was getting ready to go to work, and asked him to get security put on the house. Now that they were sure the contents belonged to Cheryl and her mother, it needed to be protected.

Even though it was very early Sunday morning when they got to the sheriff's office, it was fully lit up. During the night, all calls were transferred to the Broward County offices, so the office should have been empty.

"Think he knows we're coming?" Sara was making a joke.

"I just pray that another body hasn't been found," Kate said.

Jack snorted. "The bastard killer saves those for us."

The front door was unlocked and at first they thought no one was there. But then Sara saw Sheriff Flynn sitting at his desk, arms across his chest, eyes on them. She nudged Kate, who elbowed Jack.

Silently, they went into his office. Jack put the flowered box on the desk and they sat down and waited.

"I've been expecting you," Sheriff Flynn said. "I got to wondering what all those big lights were doing at the Morris house, so I called Gil and asked him. He said you'd bought a whole garage full of trash. Said he offered to take it to the dump but you laughed at him." He paused, waiting for an explanation, but Jack said nothing.

"Anyway, I figured things out. Captain Edison's report of his visit to the Morris house with an eleven-year-old Jackson Wyatt mentions a missing van full of household goods. If the women died and it was left behind, it figured that a penny-pincher like Lester Boggs would be the one to take it. I called his son and was told of you busybodies buying all the junk in his mother's garage. I gathered it had something Morris-related in it."

He leaned back in his chair. "Since you know what you're looking for, I knew I just had to wait until you found it. I had to use poor Mrs. Bruebaker to nudge you along, but I had faith in you. My only worry was that you'd find something and keep it to yourselves."

Kate, Jack and Sara were blinking at him in silence.

"You got nothing to say?"

"What about the fight when Dan was found?" Sara asked. "You threatened us."

"In front of Cotilla? Of course I did. But since when did a Medlar ever take good advice? Randal would never—" He looked at Kate, then cleared his throat. "So what do you have for me?" He nodded at the box.

Kate spoke up. "Inside is a metal cash box that belonged to Cheryl. We're hoping to find out who her boyfriend was."

The sheriff stood up and started to lift the top, but Jack's question stopped him.

"When did you change to our side?"

"When I saw Dan's note. His mom and I are friends. I know the problems she's had with his schooling and he couldn't have written that." The sheriff took a breath. "When I saw that boy hanging there—" He looked to the side but they could see the tears in his eyes. Sheriff Flynn turned back and looked at Sara. "You got a camera with you?"

"Of course."

"It have video on it?"

"Four-K."

"I want opening this recorded."

"We couldn't find a key," Jack said, "so we're going to need a locksmith."

Sheriff Flynn looked at him. "You're Roy Wyatt's son and there's a lock you can't open? He didn't teach you anything?"

"I don't know how to—" Jack began, then sighed. "Get me some paper clips."

Jack opened the lock while Kate got the camera bag out of the truck. They turned on every light available before Sara began recording the opening.

Inside was everything they'd hoped for: a girl's diary that professed her love to be greater than anyone else had ever experienced. There were four photos of her boyfriend. Alastair Stewart was asleep in each of them, his head resting against a car seat.

Kate sat down on a wooden chair hard. Sara sat beside her and took her niece's hand.

Kate's voice was soft. "I know how charming Alastair can be. He says what you want to hear. He asked me about my plans for the future, the children I want, my dream job." Her head came up. "He told me I needed to put on weight, then fed me chocolate." She looked up at Jack, still standing there with the photos spread out on the desk. She expected him to say something snarky but he didn't.

"I'm glad he was nice to you," Jack said. "And if it helps any, he had me drooling over houses he wanted to buy. He suckered all of us in."

"Not me," Sara said. "I never thought he was good enough for my Kate."

She smiled at her aunt. "Thank—"

Sheriff Flynn's face was hard-looking. "I hate to interrupt your romantic ditherings, but none of this means anything."

They looked at him in confusion.

"The only ‘crime' this shows is that Alastair Stewart was this girl's love interest. She wrote about him, fantasized about him. She took photos of him while he was sleeping. The truth is that she could have stuck her camera in a car window when he was asleep after a basketball game."

Jack lifted a cheap locket on a chain with his gloved index finger. "Think there are fingerprints on this?"

Sheriff Flynn raised his hands. "I hope so. Pray that there are. But then what? He'll say he was in love with a girl and they kept it a secret because of her mother. That's not a crime."

"And his mother," Sara said. "Noreen wouldn't like her precious son dating Cheryl."

"A true Romeo and Juliet story," the sheriff said. "And that's all it is."

"You are going to arrest him, aren't you?" Kate asked. "Even if he is a Stewart?"

"Definitely," Sheriff Flynn said. "Stewarts should uphold the image. Impregnating a girl from the wrong side of town—" He looked at Sara. "Sorry, but it's true. I know he exploited that poor girl, used her, but that's not against the law. I have no proof that he did anything else."

"He killed them." Jack's voice was low.

"Maybe," the sheriff said. "But I don't know that. I need to question Alastair first. The only way he'll reveal anything is if he's trying to talk his way out of a murder charge."

He went to the door. "I want all of you to stop searching this out. I've got enough to reopen the case now, so the professionals will take over."

"They need to look into Evan's and Mrs. Ellerbee's deaths," Sara said.

"You better believe they will," the sheriff answered. "I'm going to hound them like it's the end of the world. I need the keys to the Morris house. They're going to go through everything in those boxes and analyze it. If there's anything in there, they'll find it."

Sara got up and went to the door. She handed the SD card that contained the video to the sheriff. "You'll let us know what you find out?"

"I will." As they left the office, he put his hand on Kate's arm. "Take care of them. And I'm sorry about you and Alastair. But then, he was probably just..."

"I know. Dating me to get information." She smiled. "At least I'll get to tell my grandkids that their decrepit old granny used to date a murderer."

For a moment the sheriff looked shocked, then he laughed. "You are so much like your father. Someday we'll have to have that lunch together. The stories I could tell you!" He squeezed her hand. "Make sure they stay out of trouble."

"I will do my best." Kate followed the others to the truck and they drove home in silence.