Fatal Deduction (19 page)

He gave a quick smile in recognition of my attempt to lighten the mood, but he wasn’t finished unburdening himself yet.

“She actually asked me to move Jenna’s things out of that wonderful third-floor room so she could have it, like she was planning to move in long term. I lost my temper on that one. ‘Are you nuts? You don’t live here. She does!’ “He ran a hand through his hair. “She just looked at me and cried, then went back into the little bedroom on the second floor and shut the door.”

“She’s trying to make you feel guilty.”

“She’s succeeding. And I was planning on working at home today.” He shuddered.

Poor guy. Talk about a rock and a hard place. “Want to come to New Jersey with Chloe and Jenna and me?” I knew it wasn’t much, but it was all I had to offer.

His face lit up like a kid given a new Webkinz. “Can I? You have no idea what a reprieve that would be.”

I rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher. The girls clamored downstairs, Chloe with the shoebox under her arm.

“Dad, you should see the beautiful pins and stuff in this box.” Jenna pulled the lid off the box and picked out the little box with the dog in it. “I got to wear this one.” She held it out for Drew to see. “It’s worth three thousand dollars.”

Drew looked skeptical.

“Tell him, Ms. Keating,” Jenna said.

“It is and she did,” I confirmed as the girls showed him more of
the jewelry. “I got the pieces at an estate sale Saturday morning. Surprisingly valuable stuff. We’re taking it to the jeweler Madge and I use, and he’s going to keep it in his safe for us until we sell it.”

It was a good thing Drew was impressed with the jewelry, because my van had the opposite effect. He took one look and said, “Uh, why don’t I drive?” He pointed to a nifty red Honda CR-V.

I was content to let him drive. Maneuvering in the city made me nervous. Everyone but me seemed to know where they were going, and they believed in getting there as quickly as they could by squeezing through spaces barely big enough for a baby stroller. And there were the issues of one-way streets and signs too small to read until you were on top of them and then it was too late to get in the appropriate lane or make the correct turn. I followed him happily to his car.

“Let me pay for the gas and bridge tolls,” I said.

“Forget it. You’re saving me from a day of agony.” He pushed the unlock button on the car key, and the doors clicked and the lights flashed. The girls climbed in the backseat, and I took the passenger seat.

Drew had just thrown the car into reverse when there was a loud thump against the side of the car, followed by several more. My first thought was that we’d hit something, but we hadn’t moved. Then Ruthie’s angry face appeared beside Drew.

“You knew!” she screamed at him. “You knew! And you didn’t say a thing!”

Drew lowered the window. “Ruthie, what’s wrong?”

“You knew! You were there!”

“Where?”

Then she saw me. “And you!” She pointed at me.

I drew back against the passenger door. “Me what?”

“He was killed at your house! I bet you’re the one who killed him!” She was so distressed she could hardly get the words out.

Drew put it together before I did. “The man on Libby’s doorstep was Mick?”

“What?” I squeaked. This was taking coincidence too far.

“And now I know why you seem so familiar.” Ruthie’s look was full of venom. “You hang around with Mick’s guy, Luke, in Atlantic City.” She turned to Drew. “Did you know that your good little Christian fiancée works for a casino and has a boyfriend on the side?” Spite curdled the words.

“Not Libby,” Drew said with amazing calm. “That’s her sister, Tori.”

“Right.” Clearly Ruthie didn’t believe him. “What is she, an identical twin or something?”

“She is.”

His quiet, steady answer merely slowed Ruthie, and only for a couple of seconds. In that tiny break, I glanced into the backseat. Chloe and Jenna sat transfixed, staring at Ruthie. Jenna had tears coursing down her cheeks.

“Well, twin or not, she’s probably a murderer!”

I sputtered in angry disbelief. It was bad enough being the daughter of a crooked cop. I wasn’t going to be called a murderer too. “I had nothing to do with his death! I just found him. And I never saw him before in my life.”

Ruthie grabbed the car door with both hands and leaned in, forcing Drew to pull back. “That’s what you say,” she spit out. “But I bet the cops know better.”

Drew put a hand over Ruthie’s. “Stop it.” Again his voice was
steady and calm. “You mustn’t make unfounded accusations like that.”

She pulled away from him like he’d burned her. “I should have known you’d side with her. No one ever sides with me.” Just like that the anger was gone and she began to weep.

By now Jenna was sobbing, her hand over her mouth, as if she was trying to hold the pain in. Chloe had her arm around Jenna’s shaking shoulders.

“We have to go, Ruthie.” Drew reached into his pocket and pulled out his house key. He handed it to her. “Go back to the house and sleep. You’ll feel better if you do. We’ll talk more when I get back.”

Hot fury replaced the tears. “That’s right! Run away! You’re a coward! And make her get rid of that blond streak. It looks stupid.”

Without a word Drew raised the window. Ruthie held on until the last second when it was let go or get her fingers pinched. Fixing his eyes on the rearview mirror, Drew backed out of his parking space. His lips were pressed together, and the nerve in his jaw was jumping.

My heart wept for him. He had had to deal with Ruthie’s uncertain and sometimes bizarre behavior for years. How did he do it? How did he keep his temper?

And poor Ruthie. Much as she made me angry, she also made me sad. She didn’t seem to realize that her belligerence and her demands would force him to choose between her and Jenna. He couldn’t care for both as long as Ruthie behaved as she did.

He’d choose his child over his wife, I knew, but he’d try and placate Ruthie too. Couldn’t be done, and the sooner he let Jenna know she was his priority, the better.

Her weeping was the only sound in the car. I reached back and put what I hoped was a comforting hand on her knee. She didn’t acknowledge me, but she didn’t pull away, so I left it there. I wished I felt free to do the same thing for Drew. He could use some comforting too.

It wasn’t until we had crossed the Walt Whitman Bridge into New Jersey that Drew pulled into a strip mall on the Black Horse Pike and parked. Without a word he climbed out of the car, opened the back door, and pulled Jenna into his arms.

“Shh, baby,” he murmured as he rocked her. “Shh. It’ll be all right.”

Chloe and I looked at each other, and she was crying too, not that I blamed her. I saw in her face that she knew Drew’s comforting
“It’ll be all right”
wasn’t going to be that easy and maybe not ever be true.

“What’s wrong with me, Daddy?” Jenna buried her face in his chest. “Why doesn’t she like me?”

My heart broke as I heard her questions and saw Drew’s face contort with pain.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, sweetheart.” He rested his cheek on the crown of her head. “Not one thing. You are a wonder. You’re beautiful and intelligent and all that’s hopeful. You’re the marvelous girl God made you to be, and I love you so much it hurts.” He choked on emotion and had to clear his throat to continue. “You are the best thing in my life.”

“But she hates my blond streak!”

“Your blond streak is beautiful.” His eyes met mine over Jenna’s head, and he gave a slight, rueful, and very sad smile.

They stood together for several moments while Chloe and I
waited in the car, both of us wallowing in silent tears. I don’t know about Chloe, but I kept praying over and over,
Oh, Lord, help that wonderful child realize how precious she is to her father and to You
.

When Jenna and Drew finally got back in the car, we drove in silence, the only words my directions. Jenna rested her head against the headrest, her eyes closed. Chloe stared out her side window. Drew drove, his eyes straight ahead, his expression stoic.

I wanted to make it better for all of them, and it hurt because I knew I couldn’t.

We pulled into the parking lot of the mall that housed Pierce’s Jewelry. Drew parked and I pulled out my wallet, handing Chloe a twenty.

“Why don’t you take Jenna over to the Magical Garden and get whatever you want to eat or drink?” I pointed to the restaurant at the opposite end of the mall.

Chloe took the money, tapped Jenna on the arm, and the girls walked away. I looked at Drew.

“You okay?”

He shrugged. “I’ll live. I just hate the hurt to Jenna.” He blinked rapidly lest he fall victim to that emotional outlet most hated by males, tears.

“Papa bear on duty.”

He caught the reference and nodded. “The thing I hate is that this problem won’t go away. Ruthie will always be there, upsetting Jenna, turning to me for help whenever she feels like it. There are all lengths of cycles for bipolar people from two to three years to two to three days. Ruthie’s cycles are short and seem to be getting shorter.”

“We had a lady who lived down the street from us when I was growing up,” I said. “Mrs. Garborg was bipolar back when they called it manic depression. She’d go off the rails about every three years, leave home, fly to Florida, and buy a souvenir shop, always a souvenir shop. She’d run up all kinds of debt. Then the mania would wear off, and she’d come home, contrite, depressed, and oh so sorry. She’d take her medicine for a couple of years, feel so well she believed she didn’t need it anymore, and soon she was off to Florida again. Not that I realized what was going on as a kid. I just knew Mrs. Garborg disappeared every so often.”

“Poor Mr. Garborg,” Drew said with feeling.

“Slippery Mr. Garborg,” I corrected. “He put all their money in an account in his name, and the third time she left, so did he. When she came home, he wasn’t there. He’d filed for divorce and taken off with his girlfriend. What a scandal! Mom and Nan couldn’t talk of anything else for months.”

“What happened to her?”

“As I understand it, she became a street person in Philadelphia. Mom saw her once when she and Dad went to a play, a matinée. They were leaving the theater, and there was Mrs. Garborg, wearing a dirty skirt and sweater and terribly aged, all her belongings in the grocery store cart beside her. She was sitting on the steps of a building they passed on their way to the parking garage. She was changing her underpants, oblivious to the stream of people walking past her.”

He blinked. “What did your parents do?”

“Nothing. They were so shocked they just kept on walking.”

He swallowed. “I don’t want anything like that to happen to Ruthie.”

“Of course you don’t.”

He gave me a sad look. “It’s a good thing you aren’t my real fiancée. You’d be saddled with her for the rest of your life too, if you married me.”

I merely smiled, though I thought that Ruthie might be a small price to pay for a man like Drew.

“You’re a very nice person, Drew Canfield.” I patted his arm. “The Lord must be very pleased with your caring heart.”

He snorted. “My hypocritical heart. You have no idea how much I resent feeling responsible for her.”

“But you’re still kind.”

“It doesn’t feel kind; it feels like I have no choice. It’s what the Lord’s asking of me, and I have to do it whether I want to or not.”

“Then you aren’t a hypocrite at all. You’re an obedient servant of the Lord.”

He frowned, uncertain, like that was a new thought. He pondered it for a moment, then actually smiled. “Thank you.”

Oh my, but he had a wonderful smile.

“Now let’s take care of your shoebox. No more Ruthie.” He spread his arms like he was erasing her. “I’m Ruthie’d out.”

I clutched the box tightly as I led the way to the store door. I took hold of the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. I pulled again. Still nothing. I looked inside and realized there were no lights on at the same moment Drew said, “Uh-oh.”

“What?”

He pointed to the sign in the window: Closed Mondays in July and August.

I frowned at the sign. Why hadn’t Sam said something? I held a small fortune in my hands, and I’d have to keep it for another night in the big, bad city.

Drew and I were walking back to his car when the girls came running across the lot. Both were giggling. There was only one cause for that kind of noise: boys.

I held out my hand for any change from my twenty, and Chloe slapped a ten in my palm.

“What did you have?” I asked.

“We each got a Coke and a doughnut. Chocolate glazed.”

“And that cost ten dollars?”

Chloe grinned. “I knew you wouldn’t want to be bothered with all the small change.”

“Right. And what were their names?”

“Whose names?” Chloe looked innocently at Jenna, who looked innocently back.

“You keep forgetting that I was thirteen once, and I know a guy giggle when I hear one.”

Chloe and Jenna giggled.

“Aha! See?”

The girls glanced toward the Magical Garden just as two young guys in jeans and tees emerged, one carrying a ladder, the other a toolbox. They climbed into a truck that read Smollens Electrical on the side panels. Even to my jaundiced thirty-year-old eyes, they were cute, if a bit young.

The girls went scarlet at the sight of them, turned their backs, and fell to giggling all over again.

Drew eyed the guys with disfavor. “And I thought the kids next door were too old.”

Ignoring her father, Jenna pointed to the shoebox. “Haven’t you been to the store yet?”

“It’s not open.”

“What?” Chloe raced over and pulled on the door as if Drew and I had been too weak to handle its weight. She cupped her hands over her eyes and peered into the darkened store.

“You’re right.” She walked back to us. “It’s closed.”

I resisted the urge to look at Drew and roll my eyes.

“So what are you going to do with the jewelry?” she asked.

“Hold on to it real tight.”

She grinned. “At least Aunt Tori won’t be back until tomorrow. You won’t have to sleep with it tonight.”