Murder For Revenge

“No, down by the creek under a big tree. Tomorrow I’m going to dig it up and give you a chest filled with gold doubloons.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said, helping him on with his coat.

After they left, I settled Amy at the kitchen table with her geography workbook and a gnawed pencil. Most of the time I sat with her to make sure she didn’t start doodling, but that evening I was too distracted to stay put.

When my daughter finally came home, I went into my bedroom and lay down, wondering just what Sarah might have in mind.

Jem Wafford should have been doing the same.

What she did a few nights later was so peculiar I almost went across the street to make sure she wasn’t drunk. I was in the front room when I noticed Gerald was back. He was getting to be a familiar figure in his overcoat, his hands in his pockets, his bald head reminding me of a full moon. I glanced at the upstairs windows to see if Sarah was there, but the shades were drawn.

I stayed where I was, my fingers crossed in hopes she hadn’t gone out and bought a gun. Gerald may have frightened her, but she’d have a hard time convincing a jury she’d shot him in self-defence.

I was begi

My heart was pounding so hard that I sat down in the rocking chair and forced myself to take a couple of slow breaths. I’d been the one swearing that Gerald wouldn’t hurt anyone, but I had no way of knowing how his mother’s death might have affected him deep down inside. Staring at the house was one thing; actually being inside it might set off all kinds of raw emotions.

I waited twenty minutes, then broke down and dialled Sarah’s telephone number. I didn’t know what I was going to do if she didn’t answer, but she picked up the receiver.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice so Amy wouldn’t get alarmed.

“Everything’s fine, Dea

“I just thought I’d better…”

“I know,” she said. “I’d do the same thing if the situation was reversed. I need to get back to my guest now. Don’t worry about us.”

All the same, I stayed by the window until I saw Gerald leave, and I made sure I got a good look at Sarah standing in the doorway. Rather than scared, she had a fu

“I saw you and your mother had company last night,” I said to Cody the following afternoon after I’d softened him up with ice cream and cookies.

“Yeah,” he said without enthusiasm. “She made me turn off the television and go upstairs, even though I already did my homework.”

“So you didn’t hear what they were saying?”

“No. May I please have some more ice cream?”

Amy snickered. “Pirates don’t eat ice cream unless it’s got blood and bones mixed in it.”

“Says who?” he retorted, baring his teeth.

She obligingly squealed and ran out the back door, with Cody on her heels. My attempt to play private detective had flopped like a bad movie, I thought, as I set their bowls in the sink and turned on the water.

And I had a feeling I wouldn’t do much better with Sarah.

Gerald appeared several times over the next few weeks, and each time Sarah went outside and escorted him into the house. Cody let drop one afternoon that Gerald had eaten supper with them the previous night and, for some reason that he wouldn’t explain, solemnly swore that Gerald was descended from real pirates. Sarah smiled and waved when I saw her in her driveway, but she stopped coming over to have coffee before she fetched Cody. Some days I wanted to go across the street, grab her shoulders, and shake the truth out of her. I didn’t do anything, though, except weasel what I could out of Cody while we walked home from the bus stop.

One afternoon while I was waiting for them, Jem Wafford’s Cadillac swung around the corner and sped down the street. Years ago he’d given up trying to persuade me to sell, so he didn’t bother to nod at me. As soon as Cody and Amy climbed off the bus, I hustled them to the house. Wafford was sitting in his car in Sarah’s driveway. I told the children to make themselves peanut butter sandwiches, then crossed the street and waited until he climbed out.

“Mrs. James,” he said, pretending he hadn’t left me in a cloud of dust minutes earlier, “how are you doing? Your back any better these days?”

“My back is none of your business,” I said. “Are you looking for Sarah? She usually doesn’t get home till six o’clock.”

He took out a handkerchief and wiped his neck. “I dropped by on the chance I’d catch her on her day off.”

“She doesn’t have a day off. She’s a full-time student and puts in thirty hours a week at a preschool. Weekends, she studies and does housework.”

“You’ve got to admire that kind of determination,” he said, beaming at me like he and I were the proud parents of a prodigy. “A single woman with a child, struggling to put herself through school so she can-“

“What do you want, Wafford?” I said bluntly.

“Is she still having trouble with Gerald?”

“You’ll have to ask her yourself.”

Wafford leaned his bulk against the Cadillac and gazed up at the second-story windows. “What about you, Mrs. James? Have you talked to Gerald recently?”

My curiosity got the better of me, so instead of stomping off, I said, “Not that I recall. Why?”

“At his request, I stopped by the group home where he lives. We had a real interesting talk. I’m just wondering”-he tapped his temple-“how reliable he is.”

“I couldn’t say.”

“He’s been out here quite a bit, hasn’t he?”

“What if he has?” I shot back.

“He told me that his mother was a miser, that she squirreled away a good deal of cash before she died.” Wafford looked at me, his mouth curled in a smile but his eyes slitted like a snake’s. “You ever get the idea she was putting away cash for a rainy day?”

Something was going on. I didn’t know what, and if somebody’d offered me a million dollars, I couldn’t have come up with the right answer.

“Maybe,” I said cautiously. “She stayed to herself.”

“Gerald seems to think she did,” he said, “but he’s not the most reliable witness, considering.”

“Considering,” I echoed. To this day I can’t explain why I added, “But he’s not the kind who tells tales. His imagination was never a strong point.”

“No, it wouldn’t be,” Wafford said with a snicker. “Mr. Sticklema

“I don’t suppose so,” I said, still feeling like I had a role in a play. I could almost hear Sarah coaching me from the wings, but my script was too blurry to read. “Mrs. Sticklema

“That’s what I was thinking.” Wafford took another swipe at his neck, then stuffed his handkerchief in his pocket.

“She sure didn’t squander any of it. She had that ancient Pontiac when she died, and heaven knows she never took a vacation or had repairs done to the house.”