If You Ever Tell (13 page)

“My hair?” Emma’s hands lifted from the bowl to her silver curls. “Yes, I did get my hair done. It’s an extravagance—”

“No, it isn’t. What’s the latest gossip at the beauty shop?”

“Oh, nothing that would interest you. Anyway, the girl who did my hair was jabbering away about her boyfriend and not paying attention to what she was doing. She fixed my hair
completely
wrong this time!”

Mac stifled a smile. His mother’s hair, which had turned pure silver over a course of six months after the disappearance of Marielle Farr, looked exactly as it always did. “I think it looks fine,” Mac said heartily. “So many older women have wispy hair, but yours is as thick as it was in photos I’ve seen of you when you were twenty!”

Emma blushed and smiled, picking up the bowl and assaulting the batter again. “Do you think so? Your father always loved my hair.” Her smile faded. “He just didn’t love it enough.”

“You mean he loved drinking and gambling more,” Mac said bitterly. “He didn’t have the brains to know a good woman is worth more than all the alcohol and gambling money in the world.”

Emma stopped thrashing the muffin batter and looked into his eyes. “Just like Hugh Farr and all of his other women when he had Marielle.” Her voice turned brittle. “I know why you’re here. First Celeste started talking about the murders and saying something about Teresa; then that awful Byrnes person went on TV and said he didn’t kill Hugh and that slut Wendy. Why can’t this horror ever end? Will someone give me an answer?” Emma suddenly began to tremble. “Will
you
give me an answer?”

Mac rose and strode to his mother, taking her shaking body into his arms. “That’s why I’m here, Mom. I was afraid you’d heard about Byrnes and you’d be upset.”

“Well, I did and I am!” Emma’s throat worked as she swallowed sobs. She jerked herself away from Mac, set down her mixing bowl on the kitchen counter again, then turned back to him. “That’s why I started baking. Baking usually calms me down, but not today.” She looked up at him, tears standing in her eyes. “Did you hear what Celeste said? She accused Teresa of the murders. How
could
she? Teresa loved that child so much!”

“Last night a few of my customers told me about the scene with Celeste in Bennigan’s. I don’t think Celeste accused Teri of anything. She just mentioned Teri.”

“She
chanted
!” Emma sounded as if the girl had thrown fireballs from her bare hands. “She chanted like some kind of demon! I
never
thought she was any better than her mother, even if she was just a little girl when I knew her. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, you know. Wendy was evil and maybe Celeste has turned out just like her!”

Mac always worried when his mother started using language that seemed more suited to Puritans than a modern woman. She’d always been highly religious, but her faith had begun leaning toward the extreme ever since Hugh Farr had divorced Marielle, and the Farr home had become a maelstrom of tension and unhappiness.

Even then Mac worried about it, although he’d been barely out of his teens and more concerned with plans for his future—plans he hoped would make him a success and better able to care for his family financially—than by the alteration he’d noticed in his mother’s spirituality. She’d no longer talked of her belief in the goodness and gentleness of God. Instead, she’d begun to believe in a God of vengeance, and she no longer urged her children to “turn the other cheek” as she’d done throughout their lives.

“Mom, Celeste isn’t evil,” Mac said gently. “She endured a horrible ordeal when she was a kid, and as for what she said in Bennigan’s… well, we don’t really know exactly what she said, now do we? Can’t we give her the benefit of the doubt?”

Emma still trembled in his arms. “I guess so, although like I said—”

“‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ Does that mean I’m like my father?”

Emma looked appalled. “You are
nothing
like that man!”

“Then maybe Celeste isn’t anything like Wendy. She’s probably more like her father, Jason, and I’ve heard he’s a pretty nice guy.” Mac forced a smile although his mother’s agitation upset him. “Why don’t you try to calm down for now, Mom? We’ll find out what Celeste really said. And I can’t think anyone would believe Roscoe Byrnes.”

“They might. They just might, Son.” She whirled away from him and picked up her bowl of muffin batter. “Eight years ago, so many people were determined to believe that Teresa killed her father and his paramour they didn’t want to even consider some stranger did it!” With a shaking hand, Emma grabbed up a dipper, filled it with batter, and dumped too much into a muffin cup, making it overflow onto the spotless counter. “Now look what I’ve done!”

“I’ll clean it up.”

“No!” Emma attacked the spilled batter with paper towels. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just can’t stand that all of this has come up again just when Teresa has been making such a good life for herself. She calls me sometimes, you know,” Emma went on. “She even came to see me twice. She told me not to tell you.”

And she’d acted so innocently surprised at the club last night when he’d told her his mother was well and living in an apartment. So she hadn’t lost interest in the MacKenzie family after all, Mac thought, pleased in spite of Teresa’s secrecy. “So Teri’s been to see you. That’s nice,” he said indifferently.

Emma tossed away the paper towels and took a deep breath. Relieved, he could almost feel the rush of fear and anger beginning to settle within her. She ran cold water over her hands, dried them endlessly on a dishcloth, then turned and looked at Mac cannily. “You have been smitten with Teresa since she was just a little girl.”

“God, Mom, you make me sound like a pedophile. She was sixteen when I first met her.”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Jedediah Abraham! Teresa was too young for you even if she was sixteen.”

“I know it. I knew it then. I didn’t start seeing her until she was seventeen and then we just went for walks and talked. She seemed older than seventeen.”

“And you fell in love with her. I knew it and Hugh Farr knew it, too.”

“Yes, he knew and tried to keep us apart, but Teri would always sneak out to see me. Hugh thought we were… well, doing things we shouldn’t—but as I said, we mostly just talked. We’d get Cokes or ice-cream cones and go sit in that little park about a block away from her house. After her mother was sent to the mental institution, then to her aunt Beulah’s, and Hugh got the restraining order to keep Marielle away from Teri, she said I was the only one she could talk to who really understood her.

“She cried a lot about her mother and said as soon as she was eighteen she was leaving the Farr house and ‘rescuing’ her mother. Teri didn’t like Marielle’s aunt Beulah any more than she liked her father.” A wave of sadness crossed over Mac’s face. “But Teri never got the chance to rescue her mother. She didn’t even get a chance to
see
her mother alone before Marielle disappeared.”

Emma immediately began slopping batter into the muffin cups. Mac knew her nervousness was returning. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, dear,” she said with sweet vagueness.

“I know you. Something I just said upset you.” Emma slopped more batter in the direction of the pan. “You know you can’t keep a secret from me.”

Emma’s head whipped around. “Oh, all right! You never could mind your own business. Ever since you were a child, you had to know
everything
that was going on. You can be quite annoying.”

“I enjoy being annoying,” Mac said evenly, hoping to calm his agitated mother. “Now tell me why you’re so upset.”

Emma sighed gustily, gave up on the muffins, and led him back to the living room. She pushed him back onto the chair and seated herself primly on her chintz-covered couch. “Teresa
did
see her mother one last time before Marielle… went away.”

Mac sat up straight on the rock-hard chair. “Teri saw her mother! She never told me!”

“It was a secret. Teresa knows how to keep a secret!”

“Yeah, I know. And so do you, apparently.” Mac leaned forward and gently took his mother’s heavily veined hand in his. “Now tell me how and when Teri saw her mother.”

Emma looked resigned. “Marielle came to the Farr house the day after Wendy’s big party announcing she was pregnant. Marielle thought Hugh and Wendy were gone. Hugh
was
gone and not supposed to be back until evening. Wendy was home, but her car was at a garage being fixed. Anyway, I heard this little tapping on the front door, and when I opened it, there was Marielle. I was so surprised I just stared at her.”

“Marielle’s aunt Beulah’s house is three miles from the Farr house. Did someone drive her?”

“No. She’d walked all that way. She was so tired, poor thing. Her health was poor.”

“Her mental health?”

“Her physical health. That Beulah!” Emma jerked her hand out of Mac’s and waved it angrily. “She didn’t care anything about Marielle even if they were blood kin. She just took in Marielle because Hugh paid her. She never really looked after Marielle. I know because Beulah let me visit two or three times. Marielle was too thin—not being fed properly—and Beulah never even offered us a cup of coffee. One time I marched right into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee myself. I fixed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Marielle, too. Just about all Beulah had was junk food. At least peanuts have protein, and poor little Marielle certainly needed some healthy food.”

“Good God!” Mac was genuinely surprised. “Did Teri know her mother wasn’t getting enough food?”

“I’m sure she didn’t. Marielle probably made some excuse for her weight loss or wore bulky clothes when Teresa visited. If that girl had known her mother wasn’t getting enough to eat, she would have done something.”

“She certainly would have, even if she was just seventeen.” Mac couldn’t keep the admiration out of his voice.

“Marielle told me Beulah spent most of her time reading or watching television up in her bedroom,” Emma went on. “Beulah never kept an eye on her. She took a nap every afternoon as if she’d done something to make her tired. Couldn’t have been housecleaning. That cramped little cottage looked like no one had dusted for weeks, and the kitchen—sticky floor, dirty counters. I saw a cockroach once walking around like he owned the place!”

Mac stared at his mother. “Mom, you never said anything to me about visiting Marielle.”

“I promised Marielle I wouldn’t tell
anyone
about my visits. She was so scared of Hugh, she thought if he found out, he’d fire me. She was also afraid he’d find out Teresa visited her more often than the judge had said she could. We didn’t worry about Beulah telling—Hugh would have taken away Marielle and Beulah would have lost the money he gave her for Marielle’s care.”

“Hugh probably knew how Marielle was being treated, but he didn’t do anything. He was a mean old bastard.” Mac’s mother gave him a steely, reproving glance and suddenly he felt like he was fourteen. “Sorry. I meant he was a mean old… man. Now tell me more about when Marielle came alone to the Farr house.”

Emma immediately looked away again. “I shouldn’t have let it happen, I guess, but for a mother not to be allowed to see her child… well, it was cruel! When Marielle turned up at the house, I told her she shouldn’t have come—there would be trouble. But she begged to see Teresa. She had tears running down her face and she looked so pale and thin and miserable, I just couldn’t stand it. I told her Wendy was home and she should stay outside, go to the side of the house where all the bushes were so she could hide, and I’d get Teresa.

“It was lucky that the girl was home and Wendy was watching television. Teresa sneaked outside. I was happy for those two, but I was a nervous wreck, scared Wendy would ask me where Teresa was—Hugh made her do that so he could keep tabs on Teresa—but she didn’t ask me, thank the Lord. At least I thanked him at the time.

“Then something worse happened. Hugh Farr came home about ten minutes later! He
dragged
Marielle into the house and threw such a fit I thought my heart would stop. Teresa came in screaming at him and he slapped that poor girl on the face so hard she nearly fell down. Wendy
laughed
! While he was busy slapping his child around, poor Marielle ran out of the house and vanished.

“Then Hugh turned on me. Wendy
had
seen me talking at the door to Marielle, and instead of saying anything, she just let our plan play out while she called Hugh. She was a sneaky little twit, not fit to be a mother to that little girl she was going to send off to some boarding school so she wouldn’t be bothered with her. Anyway, Hugh stood in front of me and nearly yelled the house down. I was so scared I dropped the glass bowl I was holding and he yelled even louder.” Emma paused, looking puzzled. “Son, I thought I told you part of this—at least that Hugh had slapped Teresa and that he’d shouted at me.”

“You told me he shouted at you when he fired you. That’s all.”

Emma’s expression turned to one of bewilderment. “But you were so angry—are you sure I didn’t say more to make you so mad?”

“Didn’t I have a right to be mad as hell that he’d yelled at you and fired you? You also said he threatened he’d make sure no one in this town would hire you again.”

Emma’s gaze seemed to turn inward in concentration. “Yes… yes, he did say that. Not that many places would have had me anyway. I wasn’t much good at anything by then.”

“You were wonderful—smart and hardworking. You’d certainly done more than your duties for the Farrs, even after Hugh divorced Marielle. Go on with your story, Mom.”

“Well, I begged him not to fire me and he came at me. I thought he was going to hit me, but Teresa grabbed his arm. The wicked man turned on her and slapped her across the face again! Celeste came into the room white-faced, but Hugh and Wendy didn’t pay any attention to her. Hugh told me to get out and I ran for the door, but not before I told that vixen Wendy she
should
laugh now and be happy with that fiendish excuse for a man she married, because soon God would vent his wrath on
both
of them!”