Caught in the Middle (16 page)

I nodded. But there was something about Curt that made me give weight to his words. Of course, I was the one who wanted to think Andy Gershowitz innocent, a fact that shouldn’t make me feel too confident in the character-analysis department.

“I don’t know, Merry!” I jumped as Curt suddenly erupted from his chair and began pacing. “I’ve never said this to any person before tonight, and it’s been gnawing at me for years, but I think Don abused Joan.”

My jaw dropped in absolute surprise.

“I know, I know,” he said, looking absolutely miserable. “Sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it? Don, Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Responsible, Mr. Community, Mr. Wonderful Husband. But I’ve struggled with this for years. And the truth is…well…” He paused, obviously unwilling to go on.

“Well, what?” I prompted, almost wishing he wouldn’t continue. “What is it you don’t want to say?”

“The truth is,” he said quietly, “I honestly think he killed her.”

FOURTEEN

I
spent a wakeful night in Maddie and Doug’s newly painted guest room, tossing restlessly beneath their new teal-and-lavender quilt.

“Go right to bed,” Curt had told me when he dropped me off. “You need a good, solid night’s sleep.”

“I’ll probably read or watch TV for a while to unwind,” I said.

“But not for too long,” he said with that exasperating I-know-what’s-best look. “You need a good night’s sleep.”

And I said snippily to the man who had chased a murderer all over town for me, “Curt, I think I’m old enough to know when I need to go to sleep.” And I’d climbed out of his car, pulling my overnight bag behind me.

I finally fell asleep for a few minutes just before the alarm sounded. I pulled myself from bed, feeling punch-drunk and woozy and crabby.

See, Curt? I turned my light out, and a lot of good it did me.

My humor didn’t improve when I discovered I’d forgotten my toothbrush. I went down to breakfast feeling like one of those people in the mouthwash commercials, the ones whose greetings cause everyone else to faint at the halitosis. I didn’t say good morning from behind my raised hand, but I felt I should. The upside is that orange juice tastes much better without Crest breath.

Curt picked me up, and I smiled sweetly around the Life Saver I had found in the bottom of my purse. He drove me to the car rental dealer, who blanched when he saw me coming.

“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “Your car’s okay. I just lost the keys.”

“I don’t think I’ll ask how,” the man said. “I don’t think I want to know.”

He was right. “I just dropped them in the snow,” I said, and left it at that.

“Now, Merry,” Curt said as he dropped me at
The News
with the extra set of car keys clutched in my hand. “Don’t wander off by yourself today. Promise?”

I hesitated. He wasn’t asking anything unreasonable, especially for the man who had been acting as my keeper. So why were my hackles up?

Ah! He wasn’t asking anything. He was telling, and I didn’t want any man to tell me what to do, not ever again.

“Merry!” Curt was clearly exasperated by my lack of response. “You’ve used up several of your nine lives these last few days. Someone’s still trying to kill you! Don’t take irresponsible risks.”

I could feel the stubborn set of my mouth. Who did he think he was? Jack?

“Merry.” He placed his hand on my arm. “Don’t go anywhere by yourself. I mean it.”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” I snapped before I realized I was going to.

He looked like I’d had the bad taste to burp out loud in church.

“I just broke up with a guy who always told me what to do,” I said. “I’m very sensitive on that topic.

“
Touchy
might be a better word,” he said coldly.

“Whatever.” I stared stubbornly at him, knowing I was being ridiculous, knowing he was just being nice. Pushy, intense, overwhelming—true—but nice. We stared at each other, the temperature between us as chill as the air.

Finally I said, “I’ve got to cover both Trudy’s and Pat’s funerals today. Certainly nothing’s going to happen to me in broad daylight among lots of people.”

He nodded and smiled. “Okay. My exhibit closes at five. I’ll come for you then, and you can watch me tear everything down. You can be in on the really glamorous part of being an artist and help lug paintings and paraphernalia to the car.”

I was ready to say, “That sounds fine to me,” but he continued. “I mean it, though, when I say just don’t go off alone, especially after dark. Now promise me.”

I didn’t slam the car door, but I came awfully close. And I didn’t promise.

By ten I sat in the largest church in Amhearst on one of many wooden chairs hastily placed along the back of the sanctuary to handle the overflow crowd. I felt like a soda left too long uncorked, slowly losing what little fizz I had left. I had to force myself to concentrate on what was going on around me.

Trudy McGilpin’s funeral had turned into An Event, Amhearst-style, with state congressional representatives, county commissioners and officeholders from the surrounding towns and townships sitting with local dignitaries in impressive ranks. All these illustrious folks sat directly behind the McGilpin family, who crowded together for comfort. There was no riderless horse with boots turned backward in the stirrups, but the funeral was a decidedly impressive acknowledgment of Trudy’s standing in the community.

It was a nice funeral as funerals go. Her brother, Stanton, told little stories about Trudy, the older sister and advice giver. Mr. Grassley, her law partner, told about Trudy, the charming woman, gifted lawyer and wily politician. The mourners laughed several times in a gentle, reverent, I-remember kind of way. A longtime friend from high school sang a couple of songs, and I marveled that she could do so without breaking down. I listened to Dr. Robison, the imposing cleric who led the service. His majestic voice swooped and soared about the sanctuary, by turns somber, then intimate, then full of urgency, his robes billowing with every movement of his arms.

“She’s not gone as long as she lives in your heart,” he assured, his hand placed on his chest. “She’s not gone as long as your memories unreel on the screen of your mind.” Hand to head.

I thought that he’d be great in community theater, declaiming Shakespeare like an American Richard Burton.

“She accomplished so much in her short life. Let her be an example to you of what you can do with dedication and hard work. Be all you can be!” He threw his arms wide at the magnificence of the thought. “It would be the ultimate tribute to Trudy.” His voice dropped dramatically to a whisper. “It would make her proud.”

Tripe,
I thought cynically.
Pure tripe. Lord, when I die, let them say something of more eternal significance at my funeral. Please.

Suddenly Dr. Robison looked less regal and more human as he said, “She always sat in the tenth pew on the aisle. I’m going to miss her smile every Sunday.”

His voice broke, and he had to pause and swallow his grief. In that moment I liked him very much.

Dr. Robison raised his arms for the benediction, and as the congregation bowed, suddenly I could see Don Eldredge. He was seated near the front of the church, head unbowed as he stared straight ahead.

Last night’s conversation with Curt leaped to my mind.

“I honestly think he killed her,” he had said.

“Curt!” I had cried. “You can’t be serious!” It was a foolish comment, but I couldn’t help it. It just popped out.

“I wish I weren’t,” he’d said. He slumped into his chair, all his fierceness gone. “I wish I weren’t.”

I stared at him in silence while he stared at the floor. I couldn’t put together enough coherent thoughts to come up with a reasonable question or comment. Finally I managed, “Do you mean that you think Don killed Joan—as in murder?”

He shook his head. “No. But I think maybe as in manslaughter. See, she died from hitting her head on the fireplace hearth.”

“And you think Don—what?” Obviously he couldn’t hit her with the hearth.

“I think Don pushed her. I think she fell as a result of his manhandling her.”

“What did he tell the police?”

“He told the police that he came home and found her dead.”

“And they believed him?”

“They saw no reason not to believe him.”

“Did he have an alibi?”

Curt nodded. “He was at Ferretti’s having coffee with one of his cronies.”

“Well, then…” I didn’t know what to say or think.

“But Joan had this unexplained bruise on her right upper arm,” Curt said. “The police think someone grabbed her hard enough to leave the mark, but there’s no way to know who that was or when it happened. Just sometime premortem.

“I think Don came home from work, and they got into an argument. He grabbed her arm and shook her, causing her to lose her balance and fall. Or maybe he pushed her away, causing her to lose her balance. It wasn’t premeditated. Nobody, including me, thinks that.”

I felt a wash of relief. “So it was an accident!”

“Yes. And no. When she fell and struck her head, she hit the area just behind the left temple. If she had hit anywhere else, she’d have had a bad headache, maybe even a fractured skull, but she probably wouldn’t have died. As it is, she didn’t die immediately. If Don was responsible for her fall, he left her there, and she died because of that desertion.”

The anguish in his voice broke my heart.

“I struggle with these facts all the time,” Curt said. “I know that, as a Christian, I’m to love my enemy and all that good stuff. And I take those concepts very seriously. So here I am suspecting a man of Joan’s death, not a particularly loving thing. And I suspect him with no proof, only my gut feeling, again not particularly loving.”

I made some small sound, wanting to be sympathetic and supportive. I hadn’t the foggiest idea how I’d feel if someone did something hurtful to my brother, Sam, but I knew it wouldn’t be especially loving.

Curt started stirring his coffee again, and I reached out once more to him. This time he dropped the spoon and grasped my hand. I felt like a lifeline he was holding on to for dear life. Maybe I was.

“I find I can leave the situation and its resolution in God’s hands if I don’t have to be around Don,” Curt said. “It’s hard for me because I’m a fixer, a problem solver. I like order. I like to have all the answers.”

“I’ve noticed,” I said drily.

He gave a weak nod. “But when I see him, I can’t act naturally. I find myself dealing with a seething anger that frightens me.”

We sat in silence for a while until suddenly he turned my hand over and kissed my palm. I jumped gently at the unexpectedness and the sensation.

“Sorry,” I said, blushing. “It tickled.”

He grinned halfheartedly, dropped my hand and said, “We’d better clean up and get to Reeders’. Doug will be wanting his beauty sleep.”

Hours later I lay in the guest room at Maddie and Doug’s and stared at the new floral border, aching on Curt’s behalf. I knew what it felt like to be alone in a new town, to feel like I was swinging in the breeze with my usual footing ripped from under me. But I also knew I had pulled the footing loose myself, and I had a loving family waiting back in Pittsburgh if I needed them. Curt was alone as only someone with no living family can be. His parents were dead, killed by a drunk driver, and his only sister had died not long after, perhaps because of deliberate negligence on the part of another.

That, my dear Jolene, is alone. And that is pressing on, in spite of loss and pain and unanswered questions.

I admired Curt, more than I wanted to admit.

But Don—a killer?

I knew that in the vast majority of murders and killings, family members and friends were responsible. I knew that the police knew this far better than I did. They hadn’t arrested Don. Had they questioned him? They must have for his alibi to have become known. Besides, they’d be negligent if they hadn’t.

But Don? Manslaughter?

Dr. Robison’s mighty voice boomed, “Amen!” and I dragged myself back to the business at hand. I had to write about this funeral, after all.

The line for the cemetery was long, long. Had the funeral director tried to observe political protocol in the order of cars in the procession? I imagined there were more than a few in attendance who actually cared who went before them—or more probably whom they went before. Petty people. They deserved to bring up the rear with the press.

It was overcast and cold by the grave, though the KYW weatherman had told me on the way over that things would warm way up by evening. For now, though, the baskets of flowers were already shriveling as they lay on the crusty snow.

The McGilpins sat on folding chairs by the open grave, eyes behind dark glasses. Mr. McGilpin grasped his wife’s hand, and Stanton had his arm around her shoulders. How does a mother cope with burying her daughter?

I looked at all the people standing with heads bowed against the nasty wind. What were they thinking? What did they feel?

“I am the resurrection and the life,” intoned Dr. Robison. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

Did the McGilpins believe in Jesus? Not simply the historical Jesus, but Jesus, the Son of God who died for their sins? That’s where the hope of life after death came from.

“Oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?” asked Dr. Robison, who didn’t answer the questions. After a short silence, he said, “Into Thy hands we commend her spirit. Amen.”

At the
amen,
the funeral director handed carnations to the family and those standing nearest the grave. One by one they walked to the coffin and placed the carnations on the lid. Mrs. McGilpin was led away by her husband and son, her hand pressed against her lips to hold back her sobs. As the rest of the mourners released their flowers, they, too, walked silently to their cars.

Standing to the side, I allowed the mourners to leave, my heart heavy for them. I shivered, and not from the wind wrapping its frigid arms about me or the cold pushing its way up through my boots. I glanced back at the grave.