I tossed it to Rolly, but I made my throw just a bit short, and he had to take half a step forward to catch it.
That’s when Cynthia got to her feet. “Sprung” would be a better word. She had something in her hand. Something long and black.
Grace’s piece-of-crap telescope.
Cynthia first swung it back over her own shoulder, giving her a chance to build up some speed, then she came at Rolly’s head with her famous backhand, putting everything she had into it, and a little bit more.
He turned, saw it coming, but he never had a chance to react. She caught him across the side of his skull and it didn’t sound much like something you’d hear at a tennis match. It was more like the crack of a bat hitting a fastball.
It was a home run.
Rolly Carruthers dropped like a stone. It was a wonder Cynthia didn’t kill him.
50
“Okay,” said Cynthia, “so you know the deal?”
Grace nodded. She had her backpack ready. Her lunch was in there, her homework, even a cell phone. A pink cell phone. Cynthia had insisted, and I put up no argument. When we first told Grace our plan, she said, “Will it have text messaging? It has to have text messaging.” I’d like to tell you Grace is the only kid in third grade with a cell phone, but I’d be lying. Such is the world today.
“So what do you do?”
“When I get to school, I call you.”
“That’s right,” said Cynthia. “What else?”
“I have to get the teacher to say hi, too.”
“That’s right. I’ve already set it up with her. She’ll be expecting it. And she’s not going to do it in the front of the class, so you won’t have to be embarrassed.”
“Am I going to have to do this every day?”
I said, “Let’s just take it a day at a time, okay?”
Grace smiled. That was fine with her. Being able to walk to school unescorted, even if you had to call home when you got there, made the deal pretty attractive to her. I don’t know which of the three of us was the most nervous, but we’d had a long talk about it a couple of nights earlier. There was a consensus that we all needed to move forward, to reclaim our lives.
Walking to school alone was at the top of Grace’s agenda. We were surprised, frankly. After what she’d been through, we thought she might actually be happy with an escort. The fact that she still wanted her independence seemed to me and Cynthia a hopeful sign.
We both gave her hugs goodbye, and we stood in the window watching her as long as we could, until she turned the corner.
It seemed like we were both holding our breath. We hovered over the phone in the kitchen.
Rolly was still recovering from one hell of a concussion. He was in the hospital. That made him easy to find when Rona Wedmore showed up to charge him in the deaths of Tess Berman and Denton Abagnall. The Connie Gormley case had been reopened, too, but that one was going to be a bit trickier to prove. The only witness, Clayton, was dead, and there was no physical evidence, like the car Rolly had been driving when he and Clayton staged the hit. It was probably rusting away in an automobile graveyard someplace.
His wife, Millicent, phoned and screamed at us, said we were liars, that her husband hadn’t done anything, that they were just getting ready to move to Florida, that she was going to get a lawyer and sue our asses off.
We had to get a new number. Unlisted.
It was just as well. Just before we did, we were getting several calls a day from Paula Malloy at Deadline, wanting to do a follow-up story. We never returned her calls, and when we saw her through the window standing on the front step, we didn’t answer the door.
I had to get my ribs all taped up, and the doctor says Cynthia will probably need plastic surgery on her cheek. As for emotional scars, well, who knows.
Clayton Sloan’s estate is still being sorted out. That could take a while, but that’s okay. Cynthia’s not even sure she wants the money. I’m working on her about that.
Vince Fleming was transferred from the hospital in Lewiston to the one here in Milford. He’s going to be okay. I visited him the other day and he said Jane better end up with straight As. I told him I was on it.
I promised him I’d keep tabs on Jane’s academic career, but I might be doing it from a different school. I’m thinking of putting in for a transfer. It’s not many teachers end up getting their principal charged in two murders. It can get a bit awkward in the staff room.
The phone rang. Cynthia had the receiver in her hand before the first ring finished.
“Okay…okay,” she said. “You’re okay? No problems? Okay…Let me talk to your teacher… Hi, Mrs. Enders. Yeah, no, she sounds fine… Thank you… Thank you so much… Yes, we have been through a lot, it’s true. I think I might still go over and meet her after school. At least today. Okay…Thanks. You too… Okay…Bye.”
She hung up. “She’s okay,” she said.
“That’s what I figured,” I said, and we both shed a couple of tears.
“You okay?” I said.
Cynthia grabbed a tissue, dabbed at her eyes. “Yeah. You want some coffee?”
“Sure,” I said. “Pour us some. I have to get something.”
I went to the front hall closet, dug into the pocket of the sport coat I’d been wearing that night when everything happened, and pulled out the envelope. I came back into the kitchen, where Cynthia was sitting with her coffee, a mug sitting across the table at my spot.
“I already put your sugar in,” she said, and then she saw the envelope. “What’s that?”
I sat down, holding on to it.
“I was waiting for the right time, and I think this is it,” I said. “Let me give you some background.”
Cynthia had the look you get when you’re expecting bad news from your doctor.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Clayton, your father, he explained this to me, wanted me to explain it to you.”
“What?”
“That night, after you had that big fight with your parents, and you went up to bed, I guess you kind of passed out. Anyway, your mom, Patricia, she felt bad. From what you’ve said, she didn’t like it when things were bad between the two of you.”
“No, she didn’t,” Cynthia whispered. “She liked to smooth things over as soon as she could.”
“Well, I guess that was what she wanted to do, so she wrote you…a note. She put it out in front of your door, before she left to take Todd to the drugstore, to buy some bristol board.”
Cynthia couldn’t take her eyes off the envelope in my hands.
“Anyway, your father, he wasn’t feeling quite so conciliatory, not yet. He was still pretty pissed, about having to go out and look for you, finding you in that car with Vince, dragging you home. He was thinking it was too soon to smooth things over. So after your mother left, he went back upstairs, and he took the note that she’d left for you, and stuffed it into his pocket.”
Cynthia was frozen.
“But then, given what happened over the next few hours, it turned out to be more than just some note. It was your mom’s last note to her daughter. It was the last thing she’d ever write.” I paused. “And so he saved it, put it in this envelope, hid it in his toolbox at home, taped under the tray. Just in case, someday, he’d be able to give it to you. Not a goodbye note, exactly, but worth having just the same.”
I handed the envelope, already torn open at one end, across the table to Cynthia.
She slid the paper out of the envelope, but didn’t unfold it right away. She held it a moment, steeling herself. Then, carefully, she opened it up.