Shadow of Doubt (26 page)

T
he sting was set up by the following day, and Aunt Aggie was told that her time had come. Jill had hoped to have her drop dead in a private place, where she could be pronounced dead without the aid of firemen, police officers, and paramedics, who could tell in a moment that there was nothing wrong with the old woman, who had more strength and energy than the average thirty-year-old.

Jill had visions of calling the funeral director and telling him that they needed a coffin and funeral arrangements, but that she would take care of the body herself, thank you very much. It almost seemed funny now that she had ever believed she could pull this off. Finally, Sid Ford convinced her to bring the funeral director in on the sting. There was just no way around it. Otherwise, Aunt Aggie would be found out the moment the mortician found a pulse.

To make matters worse, the private death that Jill had envisioned threatened to go no further than her imagination, for Aunt Aggie had visions of much grander things. She wanted to drop dead in the town square, on the corner of Jacquard and Purchase Streets, have a huge fuss made over her, and have all the protective services show up on the scene. She wanted to go out with red and blue lights flashing around her, sirens blaring, and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It had taken some doing for Jill to convince her that they could never pull that off.

“You can't will your heart to stop beating for show, Aunt Aggie,” Jill reminded her. “The paramedics will know you're not in arrest.”

“Aw, I could die on the way to the hospital,” Aunt Aggie said. “Nobody'd know no different.”

“The paramedics would know,” Jill insisted. “You really can't fool them.”

“I can die in the hospital, then!”

“Aunt Aggie, you'll be surrounded by doctors. They're not stupid. They know when somebody's dead!”

Aunt Aggie looked as if Jill was spoiling all her fun. “Well, then, what you wanna do? Jes' have me die quiet without nobody knowin' about it?”

“Aunt Aggie,
everybody
will know about it. That's the point!”

At long last, she had convinced Aunt Aggie to die in Slidell, presumably on her way to a doctor's appointment regarding the chest pains she'd been having. That way, the paramedics of Newpointe couldn't ream Jill about not calling them in to help. They could all assume they
had
called an ambulance and tried to revive her. Sid even managed to bring a discreet Slidell surgeon in on the scam to pronounce her dead. The mortician, who served as the town's medical examiner as well, took care of the death certificate. No one knew any better, and they had managed to evade any direct questions about the death. Now it was time to tell Celia.

Jill went to the police station and paced in front of the door down to the jail, trying to think of the words she would use, the level of emotion she would muster. How could she spare Celia any more pain than necessary? She shook her head. It just wasn't possible. She tried to think of the realistic order in which they would have done things, had Aunt Aggie really died. She would have told David, first of all. He was the one staying in her home, expecting her to return. She hadn't done that. She caught her breath and decided that she was messing this up already. Quickly, she started back up the stairs and across the police room to the front door.

Sid stopped her. “You done it already?”

“No,” she whispered. “I just remembered that I haven't told David. I've got to do this right or it won't look real.”

“You ain't wimpin' out, are you?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “I'll be back shortly.”

He nodded and looked toward the door to the basement jail cells. “Man, I don't know about you, but I'm a little nervous.”

“Yeah, I am, too,” Jill said. “This feels really wrong, even though it was my idea.”

“Yeah, and pretty soon you got to lie to the preacher.”

Jill felt nauseous. “Look, I'm gonna go tell David, and then I'll bring him back here with me, to break the news to Celia, all right?”

“Okay,” he said.

“Hopefully we can hold off letting anyone else know until they've been told.”

Jill hurried out to her car, cranked it. Dan Nichols was outside washing the pumper, and he looked over at her and waved. She gave a distracted wave back.

He ambled over to the car, but she cranked it anyway, too preoccupied to talk.

“What's goin' on?” he asked.

She couldn't look him in the eye.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Look, I've got some stuff I've got to take care of. I'm kind of in a hurry.”

He looked crestfallen, then quickly rallied and that prideful look passed over his face as though he couldn't care less. “Sure, whatever. Talk to you later.”

She rolled up the window and pulled out of her parking space, her heart sinking further. How many lies would she have to tell before this weekend was over? She didn't know if setting Celia free was going to be worth it all. Was it ever right to lie?

She headed to Aunt Aggie's house and pulled into the driveway. The old woman's Cadillac was still parked in the parking lot at Jill's office. David was here, though, probably waiting for Aunt Aggie to get home. Again, she felt nauseous, but she pushed it away. A lawyer's job was never easy, never cut and dried, never particularly clean. It had been her idea, after all. Whispering under her breath, “Lord forgive me,” she got out of the car and headed to the door. Tears were coming to her eyes already, and it was no act. She couldn't believe she was about to hurt so many people.

The pain they were going to feel was already welling inside of her. Again, she pushed it down and knocked on the front door.

 

D
avid was stunned by the news. For a moment, he just stared at Jill, his face a portrait of shock. He looked around him, as if he didn't know what to do with himself. “I can't believe this.”

“I know. It was a shock to us all.” Jill hated herself as she muttered the words, but decided she was going to join the Newpointe theater as soon as all this was over. She was a natural.

“They didn't try to revive her? Give her CPR? Anything?”

“They did,” Jill said. “David, her death was instant. She didn't respond.”

“But they could have defibrillated her. They could have done something!”

She looked at her feet. “It was too late.”

David sank back into his chair, his eyes glazing over.

“David, I really hated to come and tell you this,” she said. “I guess since Celia's in jail, you're the one who's going to have to make all the arrangements.”

He just looked at her, his eyes vacantly searching her face. Did he suspect that she was lying? If he did, she would have to confess, tell him the truth. But that could be a mistake. The fewer people who knew about the sting, the better it would work out.

“Look, I'd be happy to handle all the funeral arrangements for you.”

“No,” he said. “No, I can do it.” He shook his head and looked at the telephone. “I guess I need to call my parents.”

“Of course,” she said.

He got up. “So many things to do. Where should I begin?”

“I guess with the funeral.”

“All right. Do they have her…her…”

He struggled with the word “body,” and Jill relieved him of it. “Yes, they have her there now.”

He closed his eyes. He was getting pale. She wondered if he could manage this alone. “Well, I guess I'll call them, make an appointment. I guess that's what you do when this kind of thing happens.” He sank back into his chair again. “I never thought Aunt Aggie would die. She seemed so invincible.”

“None of us is invincible,” she said.

He glanced over at her. “Have you told Celia?”

“No, actually, I was hoping you would go with me to do that.”

He rubbed his face with both hands, then his eyes, and looked at her over his fingertips. “Yeah, I guess that would be best, wouldn't it?”

He drew in a deep breath and got to this feet. “It was all that rich cooking, you know. That's what did it.”

“Aunt Aggie seemed healthy.”

“But that rich cooking. I've tried to tell her for years.”

Jill looked down at her hands.

He shook his head, then slapped his hands on his thighs. “Well, I guess we'd better tell Celia before somebody else does.”

“Yeah. I don't think too many people know yet, but we don't want her to hear it from anyone else.”

“She won't even be able to come to the funeral. This is just too much.”

“I've already spoken to the judge. He's going to let her have a weekend pass,” she said. “They often do that in the case of a funeral.”

“Yeah, but with a murder charge?”

“I convinced him.”

“Well, that's something.” He looked around the room as if trying to collect his thoughts, then shook his head sadly. “Let's go and get this over with.”

J
ill saw the look of apprehension on Celia's face as she and David waited for the jail door to be unlocked. So far, her performance had been Oscar caliber, she told herself. David had bought into it, and already Celia looked as if she were fighting Armageddon in her heart. Did she think she'd brought her news of the end of the world?

Tears were already welling in Celia's eyes, and she took a step back.

“Celia, we have something to tell you,” Jill said.

“No,” she said, sucking in a sob. “No, don't.”

“Celia—”

“It's Stan, isn't it?” Celia blurted.

Relieved that the news at least wasn't as bad as that, depending on one's perspective, Jill shook her head. “No, honey, of course not. Stan's doing fine. In fact, they can't keep him in bed.”

It was as if a black cloud suddenly floated away and the sun shone through again. She let out a huge breath of relief and the tears began to roll down her cheeks. “From the looks on your faces, I thought you were going to tell me he's dead. I just don't know what I'd do…”

Jill hated to bring that cloud back, so she focused on the floor, trying to find the words she had rehearsed earlier today. Somehow, they seemed inadequate and cruel.

The shadow passed back over Celia's face. “What is it?” She turned her eyes from Jill to David. “David, something's wrong. What?”

David drew in a deep breath. “Celia, I don't know how to tell you this.”

“Just say it,” she said, almost angrily. “Spit it out. What's going on?”

“It's Aunt Aggie,” Jill said.

“Aunt Aggie?” Celia repeated. “What—”

“Aunt Aggie died this morning.”

“NO!” The word came out of her with such power that Jill took a step backward. Celia covered her head with her arms and began to wail as she fell down on her bed.

Tears burst into Jill's eyes. She had never hated herself so much. She went to the bed and tried to put her arms around Celia, but the small woman was moaning and sobbing and curling up into a ball, as if stretching to her full height was just too painful after such a blow.

“I'm sorry, Celia,” Jill said over the moans. “So sorry.”

Celia unfolded then and threw her arms around Jill, and clung to her as her body racked with pain.

“What happened?” she managed to squeak out.

David came closer to the bed, but looked awkward, inadequate. Jill realized that he, too, was grieving, and that this was probably just as hard for him. “She probably died the best way she could, Celia. She just had a heart attack and was dead instantly.”

Celia let go of Jill and turned on her side, pulling her knees up to her chest as her arms covered her head again. A sound like that of a wounded animal came from her throat, and Jill almost considered backing out of the charade. Could she really go through with this and cause Celia such pain?

Suddenly Celia sprang up and slid off the bed, rushed to the toilet behind the partition in the cell. Jill heard her heaving into the commode. She followed her in and tried to help her.

When Celia had stopped throwing up, she sat on the floor and leaned back against the cold concrete wall. “It's my fault,” she wept. “It's just as if I killed her myself.”

Jill got down on her knees next to Celia and put an arm around her. “What do you mean?”

“It was the stress of all this stupid stuff! She couldn't take it. We thought she could take anything, but all the stress…”

She might have known that Celia would blame herself, but she hadn't anticipated it. “Celia, you couldn't do anything about that. None of this is your fault.”

“She just…can't be gone! She…can't be!” Jill held her again for a long moment, and finally she got her to her feet and walked her back to the bed. David was leaned back against the wall now, hands in his pockets, looking as dismal as Celia seemed to feel.

“We've managed to get you a weekend pass for the funeral,” Jill said finally. “David's making all the arrangements, but they're letting you out tomorrow. You can go to the funeral, spend the night at Aunt Aggie's, then come back the next morning.”

The word
funeral
seemed to plunge Celia into deeper grief, and she lay back down and hugged her pillow to her face.

“You have to stay with me the whole time,” Jill went on. “I swore to Louis that I wouldn't let you out of my sight.”

Celia's shoulders shook as the pain rampaged through her.

Finally, she moved the pillow and turned on her back, looked up at the ceiling with wet, red eyes. “How's Stan taking it?” she whispered.

Jill looked at her vacantly for a moment. “I haven't told him yet. I wanted to tell you first.”

She nodded. “Just break it to him easy, okay? He loves her, too, and he's suffered so much…” She broke down again, and finally, David came closer to her cot, as if trying to find a way to comfort her. Celia raised up and met him halfway. The two hugged.

“It's gonna be okay,” he whispered.

“No, it's not,” Celia muttered as she wept against his shoulder. “Aunt Aggie wasn't a Christian.”

David didn't seem to know what to say to that.

After a moment, David let her go. “I have a funeral to arrange,” he said. “You have any special requests?”

Celia couldn't answer.

“Maybe some of the firemen could speak about her?” Jill suggested. “They loved her so much.”

“That's a good idea,” David said. “We'll do that. Any special music?”

Celia threw up her hands. “I don't know.”

“We'll think of something,” Jill said.

“I want Nick to do the funeral,” Celia offered suddenly. “She didn't have her own minister, and he knew her best.”

“That's what I was thinking, too,” Jill said.

She gazed at Celia, wishing she could ease some of the pain. But what would she say?
She'll only be dead a couple of days, Celia.
It was all ludicrous, yet it had to work.

As they left, Jill looked back over her shoulder through the bars that locked her friend in. Celia was on her side, clutching the pillow and weeping her heart out. Silently, Jill prayed that this cruel deception would somehow turn out for good.

 

W
hen they had gone, Celia buried her face in the pillow as great sobs tore through her. She tried to pray, but the despair was too great, the grief too intense. She felt as empty and limp as a rag doll with no stuffing as she approached the throne of God. She had nothing to give, and no words to say. What did one say to the Lord about a loved one who didn't believe? She had failed. She had let Aunt Aggie down.

Why hadn't she tried harder to lead Aunt Aggie to Christ? Why hadn't she convinced the old woman of what she needed to do before she died? Why had she believed there was plenty of time left? But at the foot of that cross where her Savior hung for her failings, she found no condemnation, no judgment, no accusation. Instead, she felt the warm arms of God around her, holding her, whispering soothing words in her ear, letting her weep out her heart, offering his comfort. It was a phenomenon she hadn't experienced many times in her life. Usually when she went to God, she had supplications, petitions. Usually, she had problems and urgent requests. Hardly ever had she come to him speechless, without a word that she could offer, without anything of herself to give, without anything to ask. It was too late; Aunt Aggie was gone. What more was there?

Miraculously, God's comfort led to sleep, and she dozed on the flat mattress, numbing herself to the pain of Aunt Aggie's death.