Family Skeletons: A Spunky Missouri Genealogist Traces A Family's Roots...And Digs Up A Deadly Secret (23 page)

“Victory!” he yelled from behind.

I stopped, afraid that the sloshing water would give away my location. It was nearly dark. I could see the outline of trees and abandoned buildings along with a few lights through the woods here and there.

My scalp bled from John nearly yanking me bald, and I had this incredible urge to cry. Gripping the letter opener, I looked diligently for a place to hide. All I could find was a house, half-flooded even on stilts. If I could get there without him seeing me, he might give up. Not likely, but I was trying desperately to be optimistic.

Water inched higher up on my body, just below my breasts. Putrid debris floated and clung to the trunks of the trees, tangled in their limbs. Mosquitoes buzzed all around my ears, and I resisted swatting at them for fear that John would hear me.

The ground was gone now. I had to swim. Finally, the house was before me, and I was on the bottom floor, which had two feet of water standing on it. Rotted furniture was strewn in no particular order. I felt something slither past my leg and I found myself less afraid of the snake than I was of John Murphy, and considered that a good sign.

“Mrs. O'Shea, I know you're here.”

He was right outside the house and coming in. I found the staircase and ran up it. The wood was rotted and my foot slipped down between the decayed planks. I winced in pain, knowing I'd been cut from it, gave a momentary thought to everything I could contract from that exposed flesh, and went on up the stairs.

When I reached the second floor, I realized that I had trapped myself.

“Why didn't you leave it alone? After I'd warned you,” he said. “She didn't deserve to live. She was weak.”

I could hear him as he found the stairs, and I knew that I had nowhere to hide. He'd find me in a closet, as I knew from experience, so I stood in the middle of the room and waited for him. It was dark, and only a vague outline of anything was visible.

“The woman never stood up to anything in her life. Never. She let her children walk all over her. She wouldn't marry me. She was always the diplomat.” He came into view just then, what I could make of him.

“You killed her for that?” I asked. I thought if I asked him enough questions, I'd buy some time. For what I didn't know. A rescue? My heart pounded over and over—I could feel it in my throat. I was dizzy, either from the bleeding on my scalp, or from the rush of blood from my heart pounding.

“She changed. Who would have guessed that she would grow a backbone?” he said. “I thought if I screwed her little girl enough times that I'd get a reaction from her. I'd force her to make a decision.”

“Only you didn't bargain for the decision she gave you.”

“She became enraged. Said she was going to leave me for good.”

“So if you couldn't have her nobody else could either?”

“Yes. I'd spent years with that woman. I suffered through those wacked-out children of hers, all her hang-ups, and in the end … she was going to dump me.”

He was holding something in his right hand. It was a good ten inches long, and I assumed that it was a knife. I knew that my letter opener was greatly inferior.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “This wasn't about love or adoration. This was about money. You can pretend that it was some higher reason, but it was just the money. You thought eventually she'd marry you, and then you'd have her money. Or you'd kill her then and inherit the money.”

“Very good, Mrs. O'Shea,” he said.

“What about the dog? Are you the one that gave Rita the dog?”

He took a few steps closer to me, and I stiffened instinctively.

“That dog was carrying on like it was rabid. All I could think to do with it was take it with me,” he said, “just so it would shut up. I didn't need the neighborhood alerted. I mean, I hadn't actually intended to kill her. I just got so angry.”

“I don't believe that for a minute.”

He came at me with a force full of hatred and vengeance. I stepped back and screamed. I gripped the letter opener. My palms sweated so badly that I nearly dropped it. I raised the opener as high as I could, shaking all the while. I shoved it into his shoulder. It shocked him more than it hurt him, but it bought me a precious few seconds. I went for the window, realizing that the water would break my fall. Why hadn't I thought of that before?

I heard a whish by my ear. It was his knife. He missed and I stepped farther away from him. He lunged for me, and grabbed my hurt ankle. It stung more than it actually hurt. The force of him falling to the floor was more than the rotted wood could take. It split and we fell to the first floor with such force, it took my breath away for a few seconds, the water stinging my back.

Each of us was splashing, trying to be the first to stand. I still hadn't gotten my breathing back to normal from the fall, and I felt fairly ragged. He grabbed me from behind, and I rolled to my back and saw the letter opener still lodged in his shoulder. I broke a foot free and kicked it, sending new pain racing through him.

This time, he punched me in the face, and I cried out in pain. The room spun. I felt a tooth pop and tasted blood, mixed with disgusting river water. He must have lost his knife somewhere in the fall, because he was intent upon drowning me. And he would have succeeded.

I tried to get to my feet to get away from him. He pushed me down into the water, his hands around my throat. I fought him with every ounce of energy I could muster. My feet kicked, my hands were on his face. I dug what fingernails I had into his face, hoping to hit an eye.

I pushed up with my stomach muscles, my body shaking from the strain. It was enough to get my face out of the water, but I still couldn't get a breath. I had shifted positions enough that I could bring my knee up. I shoved it into his groin as hard as I could. His hands came loose, and I breathed too soon, sucking in river water.

I choked and sputtered on the water caught in my windpipe. I was sitting up now. There was no way that I could fight a grown man and win, and I knew it. Instinctively I scooted away from him. I felt a board crack beneath me. When he lunged this time, I leaned back on the board. It popped from my weight, the end of it shooting up out of the water. And right into the stomach of John Murphy.

 

 

NEW KASSEL GAZETTE

T
HE
N
EWS
Y
OU
M
IGHT
M
ISS

by Eleanore Murdoch

Tobias Thorley wants everybody to know that he takes his garden seriously. Now his statue of General Custer is missing. He plans to install motion detectors. This is a warning.

The New Kassel Bowlers did terribly poorly this year in the regional tournament. We will not even say where they placed. Bowlers are needed! Please sign up to replace the ones we have.

Also, the most exciting piece of news … Torie O'Shea has become our resident Terminator. She not only solved the murder of Norah Zumwalt, but actually fought the murderer and lost a tooth! It's like the movies!

Good news. The floodwater has receded by two feet. It is going down! Let's hope that it doesn't deter the people from attending the opening of our new museum, which has already been put off a week.

Until next time. Torie, I await anxiously your next adventure.

Eleanore

Twenty-two

Somewhere, an accordion played.

It was the opening of the museum, which had been put off a week so that I could recuperate.

I stood in the New Kassel Museum, which was a two-hundred-year-old cabin relocated on the Gaheimer House grounds. I was in a re-created gown of 1889. It was a purple paisley gown with a slim skirt and smocking. It had a high neck, with wide lapels and slightly puffed sleeves. I even had an open lace parasol and large hat that Carmen Miranda would have died for except it was topped with flowers and feathers instead of fruit.

I had finished the flood display, complete with photographs of then and now. Wilma thought it was in dreadful taste, but Sylvia thought it most enlightening.

Sylvia stood next to me as I watched the first of the patrons file through the front door. I had said nothing to her about my discovery of Gaheimer's will, and so far she hadn't asked.

“Did you get all the information from the newspaper filing cabinet?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Did you happen to look in the other filing cabinet on the opposite side of the room?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed. She wore a huckleberry silk dress, and pearl earrings. She looked quite lovely. Except for the suspicious look on her face.

“If I did, Sylvia, I would never tell anybody anything that I had seen.”

She blushed. “Did I say that I was worried about that? I simply want to know if you were snooping where you weren't supposed to be.”

She was determined to make me give her a straight answer.

“Yes. I looked.”

“And what did you see?” she asked me.

“Nothing of importance.”

“You've ruined everything, you know.” She didn't look at me now; she looked around the room. “Hermann did not want me to be scarred by the scandal. I can't expect you to understand,” she said finally.

“I understand that you were very young and in love. I don't think Mr. Gaheimer was as worried as you think. He would not have written his will with such affection.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“‘My beloved Sylvia,'” I said. “I think you were the one more concerned with what people would think. It's okay, Sylvia. I won't tell a soul. And for what it's worth, I don't condemn you in the least.” In fact, it had actually shown me that Sylvia had been human. She had felt the most human of all emotions.

“You can't possibly know,” was all she said. Evidently there was much more to it than I knew, or would ever know.

Just then Sheriff Brooke came in the building with my mother, my husband, and my daughters. I was relieved that nobody had been hurt in this adventure. All of my family and friends were safe. John Murphy, however, was very much dead.

I had listened to the sheriff give me a forty-minute lecture on the dangers of crime fighting. If I didn't know better, I would swear that he was reading off of cue cards written by my mother and Rudy. He was right, of course. But I had also caught a murderer. I felt … well, I'm not sure how I felt.

The state was building a case against Michael Ortlander, at this moment, for the murders of Gwen Geise, Stella McClellan, Dorothy Davis, and the real Eugene Counts. It was quite possible that due to the age of these cases, he would never even go to trial. The case was old, and the trail cold. And I was going to have to appear in court to testify as to how I figured out his true identity. If this went to court, I would be needing the advice of my friend Colette more than ever.

I took great pride in telling Louise Shenk that her brother had not abandoned them. I wasn't very thrilled to tell her that he'd been murdered by his friend. But the knowledge that he had not betrayed them made up for it. John Murphy had actually gone through with signing over the insurance money to Louise, I'm sure in an effort to proclaim his innocence all the more. Part of the money that she received was going to move Eugene Counts's body to rest next to his mother, and for the first time in fifty years, put his correct name on the tombstone. When I visited her she cried, and was able to truly mourn her brother.

I had received a call from the Hill Top Nursing Home in yet another twist to this tale. Florence Ortlander had died in her sleep, at peace. The shocking thing was that she had left me that beautiful mauve Lone Star quilt that she had made. It now graces my bed, as it should, in a home full of love. I said a silent thank-you to God that I didn't have to face her. She would have been able to read my face, and I just couldn't destroy the fantasy of her only son.

My father walked in the door behind the rest of my family, looked around the room, and smiled at me. They all descended on me at the same time.

“Mom, you look so pretty,” Rachel said.

“Well, thank you.”

Dad came up next to me and hit me on the chin as he usually does, only this time, it hurt, thanks to the molar that I lost in the struggle with John Murphy.

“So,” he said. “Haven't talked to you in a while. What's new?”

Rudy laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “You need to come out of your shell a little more, Pop.”

Mary tried to hug my leg through all of the skirts and undergarments. I hugged her back as best as I could.

“Sheriff,” I said. “Have you spoken to Rita?”

“Yes,” he said.

“What did she say?” I asked. I had been wondering why she had not said anything about seeing John Murphy on Friday when he had dropped off Sparky.

“She said that it never occurred to her that anything was suspicious because John did take the dog to the groomers and to the vet once in a while, if Jeff was busy. It wasn't until much later, when she realized that John was supposed to be out of town from Thursday night through the whole weekend, that she realized something wasn't right. She mentioned it to her brother Jeff and never gave it any more thought,” he said. “I believe her. It never occurred to her that John would be capable of murder. So she just dismissed it.”

It would be a horrible thing to know that you'd been sleeping with a man capable of murder. Capable of murdering your mother. Maybe that would be punishment enough for her sins.

Jeff, on the other hand, had not dismissed it. He confronted John Murphy with the discrepancy in time. John passed him some lie, but he knew if Jeff could figure out the discrepancy it would only be a matter of time until I did. Which was why he came after me when he did. Jeff had actually called to thank me for everything and even called his newfound aunt Louise to see if she needed anything. I suppose people can change.