“I know, Ernestine,” said Archer quietly.
She suddenly sat up straight and brushed away the tears. “I couldn’t believe it. I was so furious with them both. I didn’t care if my father told everyone what those men had done to me. I just wanted him to be with us. I... I didn’t want him to die on my account. And I said things to my mother, things I regretted.” She paused once more as her eyes filled with fresh tears. “And then she was gone, too.”
After she composed herself, Archer looked around and said, “So where’s the Royal typewriter?”
She glanced up and said quietly, “I... I have a little room in the back of the house.”
“For your scribblings?”
“She’s working on a novel, Archer,” said Jackie. “I’ve read parts of it. It’s really good.”
“‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,’” said Archer, quoting Virginia Woolf.
“Y-yes,” said Ernestine. “So I believe, too.”
“Maybe you can take everything you had to endure in life and put it on those pages, Ernestine. And I think you’ll have a fine book. Because sometimes, you just have to be rid of it, and move on.”
A few moments of silence passed.
And then Jackie took a letter from her pocket and held it up. “You wrote to me here and asked me to come back and testify.”
“And if you did, I said everything would be okay, for both of you, and me. I gave you my word.”
“But why was that so important? You had Marjorie Pittleman dead to rights with that recording. And my father, too. He confessed to killing Hank and Sid Duckett. You didn’t need me to win your freedom.”
“It wasn’t about my freedom, Jackie. It was about yours.”
He took out the onionskin carbon copy and handed it to her. “I found this curled up inside your father’s Remington. I don’t think this went through Desiree Lankford, or else she would have told you.”
She read quickly through it and then looked up at him in shock. “My father was accusing me of killing my mother. He said he had evidence and he wanted Brooks to prosecute me for murder. He wanted to see me hang.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Even after everything he did, he still wasn’t done hurting me.” She handed back the letter and said quietly, “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
“You left home because of what he did,” said Archer.
“I wanted to kill him. I wanted to throw him on that corn picker. But he just laughed at me. Said I was just a girl, no one would believe me.”
“He tried to make out to me that you were the crazy, violent one.”
She gazed at him with wide, probing eyes. “I guess with how I acted around you, you might have been justified in believing that.”
“You wear your heart on your sleeve, Jackie. I could see that. Nothing devious there. Your father, on the other hand, he was way too manipulative. Way too slick. Those are the ones you have to watch out for.”
“I guess your reading all those detective novels came in handy,” interjected Ernestine.
Archer said, “I wanted to put you on the stand and show Brooks that you didn’t kill your mother. I didn’t want you to have to worry about that ever again. And now you don’t. I confirmed that with him.”
Jackie looked shaken by this news and said, “Thank you, Archer. That was very kind of you.”
“But you didn’t know that was my reason. I didn’t put that in my letter to you.”
“And so I didn’t have to come back.”
“But you did, Jackie. Why’s that? It was risky for you. You had to trust me.” He paused. “And for a few seconds in the courtroom, I’m not sure you did.”
She looked away for a moment before focusing on him. “Remember I was asking you how it was in the war?”
He frowned. “You mean the killing part?”
“No, about being part of something bigger than yourself. Well, I guess that bigger something was you, Archer. I... I couldn’t leave you to fight that battle alone. That’s why I came back.”
Ernestine leaned forward and said, “We had no idea you were going to be implicated in what happened. With the evidence from the safe in the Nash and all. I had already left town, and Jackie soon followed. But we never meant to hurt you, Archer, never.”
“I believe you,” he said simply.
Jackie said, “When I was on the witness stand, my trust in you did waver at one point.”
“But?” said Archer.
“But in the end, I figured I had to count on a man at some point in my life. And it might as well be you. I think you earned that right.”
He nodded and said, “I thank you for that.”
A few moments of silence passed.
“Archer, how did you know I had seen my father kill my mother?”
“I didn’t know for sure. But in prison I hung around a lot of guilty people, so I know what that looks like. But I was innocent, so I know what that looks like, too. You loved your mother and you butted heads with her, nothing wrong with that. But Lucas Tuttle tried to convince me you had killed her, while you wouldn’t even talk about it, or got agitated when you did. And then you left home to be Pittleman’s chattel. You never struck me as the type that would do that unless you had a really good reason. And that reason was you couldn’t live with a man who had killed your mother, and you wanted to punish him in the only way you could, by being with Pittleman.”
“That was very perceptive of you, Archer,” she said quietly. “Because that’s exactly why I did it. I knew it would drive him crazy, and I wanted to hurt him for what he’d done.”
“I would have too, if I were you.” He paused. “But now it’s time to let it go, Jackie. You can’t let your hate for the man dictate the rest of your life. He’s gone now. You need to get on with living, on your own terms.”
Ernestine smiled and patted Jackie’s hand. “I’ve been telling her that ever since we got here.”
Jackie said, “But why did you really ask Marjorie all those questions on the witness stand? You could have just played what was on the recorder. That would have been enough.”
“I was lucky Tuttle had forgotten the machine was on. But sometimes people won’t believe what’s right in front of them. And Marjorie is a good liar. I wanted to lay out the reasons why she would kill your father and pin her down on the stand before I played what was on that recorder. Mr. Shaw would call that corroboration, of a sort.” He paused. “And I wanted to make that pious-looking woman squirm, after all the terrible things she’d done.”
“I can see that,” said Jackie.
“Now I got a question.”
She smiled and wearily shook her head. “You still like your questions.”
“I never figured out exactly why you needed that maid, Amy.”
“The man who ran the warehouse for Hank was sweet on her. He gave her a key to the building, so they could meet up there sometimes and be alone, and... you know.”
“Good to know I’m not the only man who got taken in by a pretty lady.”
“Trust me, Archer, you’ll never be alone in that regard.”
“Desiree tipped you off about Bobby Kent not being around to drive your father to town that night?”
Jackie nodded. “It’s why I picked that time. Desiree has always been a good friend. I gave her some of the money from my father’s repayment to Hank. I... I feel like I earned it more than he did.”
“I think you’re right about that. Now, you must’ve seen that contract that Marjorie signed that was in the safe?”
“We did. But we were moving so fast, Archer, we never looked at it. We just grabbed everything quick as we could. It took the both of us to carry each of those gold bars out. I was terrified my father was going to show up before we were finished.”