“How old was Agnes when your aunt died?” I asked.
She didn’t answer for a moment, mired in an ancient battle. “College,” she finally said. “The one in Eau Claire.”
There it was. The timing explained the first, very short marriage. Poor Agnes. I wondered how much money he’d taken from her. No wonder she hadn’t married again. No wonder she kept her distance from people.
And then, with the certainty of a celestial voice from on high, I knew that Agnes herself had donated the money for the school addition. The Tarver Foundation was Agnes.
“Did you know she was sick?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“She was a patient at a cancer clinic. The prognosis wasn’t good.”
Gloria stared at the flames. “Seems a good time to give her sisters and brothers some of Aunt’s money. But all she cared about was that stupid foundation. That’s all she’s cared about for years. Who the heck is Ezekiel Tarver, anyway?”
“Maybe she intended to give something to her family,” I said, “but was killed first.”
Gloria watched the fire. “Maybe.”
I got up, touched her shoulder, and left. Before I’d backed all the way out of the driveway, I’d started punching buttons on my cell phone.
“Hey, pest,” my sister Darlene said. “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to hear your dulcet tones.” Though I spoke lightly, I meant it as sincerely as I’d ever meant anything I’d ever said.
“Aren’t you the funny one? Have I told you about the stunt your oldest nephew pulled the other day? You’d think he’d have more sense at age twenty-five.” She went on, telling a tale of pumpkins and white sheets and toilet paper. I pushed the phone against my ear until the skin burned, pulling the comfort of my sister’s amused voice into my heart.
Early the next afternoon, I parked in Marina’s sunny driveway. The day was as warm as mid-September. After leaving Gloria’s house, I’d driven south until just before Oliver’s bedtime; then I’d stopped and found a place to sleep. In the motel room’s weak light, I’d spoken to the kids, then told Marina about my afternoon.
“Wow,” Marina had said. “So Agnes was loaded. Who would have guessed? And it was bucks from Agnes that were paying for the addition. No wonder she was pushing it so hard.”
“We don’t know for sure,” I’d cautioned. “It’s just a guess.”
“Guess, schmess,” she’d said. “The puzzle pieces are fitting together. I can feel it.”
Now I knocked on her back door and walked in. Maybe Marina could feel things fitting together, but what I felt was a gnawing sense of failure. I didn’t feel any closer to identifying the killer than I had the night Marina had sat in my kitchen, pleading for help.
“Mom’s here!” Oliver thudded into me, his small arms wrapping around my waist.
I kissed the top of his head. “Hi, handsome. Are you and Jenna ready to go?”
“Hi, Mom.” Jenna sauntered into the kitchen, too cool to hug me. “Mrs. Neff made us pack an hour ago.” She kicked the bottom of her backpack, which lay near the door.
“Beth!” Marina swept into the room, carrying her laptop like a platter, her hands palm up. “Your timing is impeccable.” She thrust the computer at me.
A crawling sense of dread wiggled its way into my stomach. She wouldn’t have, would she? I read the title on the screen.
“Jenna? Oliver?” I asked quietly. “Please get your coats, get the dog, take your bags, and wait for me in the car.”
“But, Mom—”
“Now,” I said, and they went.
Marina, however, was oblivious. “I posted this about nine this morning, and just look at the comments!” She plopped the laptop on the counter and scrolled down. “Almost fifty already. Okay, some of them are mine, but there must be at least forty.”
“What’s the original post?” My voice was still quiet.
“Well, duh. What you told me last night, about Agnes. Here.” Marina scrolled to the top of the page. Again I saw the title: “A Secret Life Revealed?”
My hands turned into dry fists and my throat grew tight. I made one brief attempt to think calm thoughts, then let myself go. “Are you nuts?” I yelled. “That was private information. I didn’t go up there so you could blog about it.”
She frowned. “You didn’t?”
“No, I did it to help you. To find out who killed Agnes. To find out who sent you death threats.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t use it on WisconSINs.”
My whole body felt hot. “I didn’t spend my weekend driving to Superior and back so you could get fifty comments on your blog.”
A small ding diverted Marina’s attention. “Fifty-one,” she said, smiling.
“Listen to me!” I pounded my fist on the table. “Some things should stay private. Not everything needs to be broadcast to the world. I gave you that information in confidence.”
“You didn’t say so.” Marina crossed her arms.
I stared at her. “What is wrong with you? Should I get a flag to hold up when something I tell you is off-blog? Put a flower in my lapel?”
She tapped her lips with her index finger. “Not a bad idea.”
Cold anger flowed through me. “I have an even better idea—one that would be even easier. How about I never tell you anything ever again?”
She laughed, but her laugh fell away when I picked up my purse. “Beth, come on. Don’t be so sensitive, okay? Maybe I went a little far, but there’s no harm done. We’re trying to find the killer, right? This has to help. I’m sure of it.”
I put my hand on the kitchen doorknob, as I had countless times before. “I’d say good-bye, but it might show up on your blog.” I shut the door behind me with a quiet thump.
“Are we going home, Mom?” Jenna asked from the backseat. Her arms were full of wriggling dog.
I dragged my thoughts away from I just had a huge fight with Marina; I just had a huge fight with my best friend and concentrated on my children. “What do you two want to do?”
“Play!” Oliver giggled.
The sun was shining bright, and I had no compulsion to go home and do housework. “Play it is.” In a short minute, we were parked at the school and I was opening the trunk to get out the Frisbee I hadn’t put away since our last summer trip to the lake.
“Think we can teach Spot to catch this?” I waggled the plastic disc in front of the dog, and he bounced up and down like a kid on a pogo stick.
“Throw it!” Jenna ran into the empty playground, brother and dog chasing after her.
For a laughing, breathless hour, we were a family, bound together by those invisible cords that can be thinned and loosened, but never broken. “Throw it to me!” Oliver shouted, his small body leaping into the air with wild abandon, the dog at his feet barking with the joy of being able to bark.
“Here!” Jenna held up her arms.
I threw the Frisbee halfway between them. They ran pell-mell toward each other, their gazes locked on the spinning disc, but before either one reached it, a brown streak of dog snatched it out of the air.
“Hey!” Jenna started laughing. “He really can catch them! Look at him go!”
Frisbee in teeth, Spot was galloping into the wild blue yonder.
“Don’t let him run off,” I called, and the three of us started chasing the dog. He thought it a great game, and we chased the canine from one side of the playground to the other. I grew tired, the kids grew tired, but Spot ran on.
“He’s getting away!” Oliver shrieked as the dog darted under a post-and-rail fence that delineated a backyard.