The Girl at the End of the Line (4 page)

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Authors: Charles Mathes

BOOK: The Girl at the End of the Line
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Nell raised an eyebrow and scrunched her lips into one of her famous don't-be-an-idiot looks.
“But it just doesn't make any sense!” Molly exclaimed, as she turned the van into the driveway of Enchanted Cottage Antiques. “Grandma was about as sentimental as an Otis elevator. I don't care whether that ring was a family heirloom or party favor from the Shah of Iran, you know she would have sold it in a minute to feed herself and Mom unless there was one hell of a good reason why she shouldn't. And if it was so important that she shouldn't sell it, how can we?”
Nell wasn't paying attention, however. She was staring out the window at a white Mercury Sable that had turned down Porcupine Road behind them and now continued on, down the road in front of the store.
Molly caught only a glimpse of the man behind the wheel as the car sped away. He was wearing sunglasses. A red-haired man with a bushy mustache.
“There it is again!” exclaimed Molly, glancing out the front window. “A white Mercury Sable.”
Nell was sitting by the cash register, brushing epoxy onto the two halves of the broken foot of a nineteenth-century ironstone creamer. She didn't look up from her delicate work.
“Either they've got a white Mercury Sable convention around here somewhere,” said Molly, “or I've been seeing the same car all week. I just wish the road weren't so far away so I could see who's doing the driving. Do you think it's that same man with the red hair and the mustache?”
Molly instantly regretted her words. She hadn't meant to say so much. There was no point in troubling Nell with her irrational worries. Not Nell, of all people.
“Of course, it is a pretty common car. It's probably not him at all. I'll bet you think I'm nuts, don't you?”
This time Nell did look up—and nodded enthusiastically.
Molly and her sister hadn't been out of the shop for several
days now, trying to adjust to a world without their grandmother in it, living on the peach cobblers, country hams, and tuna-noodle casseroles that Margaret Jellinek's friends had thoughtfully dropped off.
Summertime was tourist time, and there was enough traffic heading toward Charlottesville on U.S. 29 to assure a small but steady stream of customers into Enchanted Cottage Antiques. A few people had actually bought things, mostly ten-dollar odds and ends, but Molly had also sold an American Empire mahogany chest of drawers with a heart inlay on the black splash. It had been in the shop for years and Molly had despaired that anyone would ever take it off her hands. Miraculously a Yuppie couple had left a four-hundred-dollar cash deposit on it yesterday and promised to return with the four-hundred-dollar balance when they picked it up tomorrow or the next day on their way back to Atlanta.
Despite the prospect of being a little ahead for a change, Molly had been having a hard time keeping her mind on business. Margaret Jellinek's emerald ring kept burning a hole in her pocket. What they could do with forty-five thousand dollars! But how could they sell something like that without knowing why Grandma had held on to it all these years?
The ring wasn't the only thing that was troubling Molly. She was also worried about the way they had found their grandmother at the nursing home. The picture of Margaret Jellinek in her bed, her pillow on her chest, kept flashing in Molly's brain like a neon question mark.
Why, Molly wondered, if Grandma were having another stroke, would she have taken her pillow out from beneath her head and placed it on her chest? It made no sense. Throw it on the floor, yes, but would she have had the strength to do even that if she were dying? Certainly no nurse would have put a pillow on a patient's
chest. If anything, a nurse would have plumped the pillow up and put it where it belonged.
So, why had Grandma's pillow been on her chest?
Of course, dying people did inexplicable things, Molly knew. Maybe Grandma had just wanted to lie flat. Maybe she had gotten the pillow out from under her head and rested it on her chest until she could decide what to do with it. That made sense.
But the image of Margaret Jellinek, cold and dead, with the pillow on her chest wouldn't go away. Molly couldn't stop thinking about it.
Other pictures kept springing into Molly's head, too, ones that were alive, almost like a little movie. Hands taking the pillow out from behind Margaret Jellinek's head and forcing it down over her face. A brief moment of struggle, then stillness. The hands discarding the pillow, its work done, and leaving it where it falls, there on Margaret Jellinek's chest.
Who would do such a thing?
There was only one candidate. The man who had been with her right before she died. The redheaded stranger with the bushy mustache—the man who may have shown up again at the cemetery driving a Mercury Sable and who might have driven by the house a dozen times over the last few days. Had he somehow found out about the emerald ring worth forty-five thousand dollars that was supposed to be on a chain around Margaret Jellinek's neck? People had been murdered for much less; nothing at all had been taken from Molly's mother by her killer. Except her life.
“I can't believe I'm being so paranoid,” muttered Molly to herself, glancing out the window again. The road was empty. The afternoon heat rose off the pavement in waves, making the trees across the street shimmer like a mirage.
“Where's that program you found?” Molly asked, walking over to her sister. “The one with Grandma's picture?”
Nell nodded toward the counter. She had finished her repair and was bracing the creamer with pieces of Styrofoam so it could dry. Her hands were sure and steady.
Molly reached under the counter for the “Playbill,” wishing she had her sister's patience, and stared at the picture of the young Margaret Jellinek on the cover.
“I've got to do something to get my mind off Mercury Sables,” she announced. “I need a project, something to do with my idle little brain, or I'm going to crack up. What do you say we find out about Grandma? About the ring, maybe, and about her being on the stage?”
Nell rolled her eyes. She'd been down this road with Molly's projects before. Once they had spent an entire day mixing snails, quicklime, and Gruyère cheese to test out a glass-mending recipe that Molly had found in an old book. Another time Molly had dragged Nell off in the middle of lunch and driven all the way to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, just to learn more about the Amish name, Zook, which she had found impressed on a spoon.
“You know who might know something? Clyde, that's who. I'm going to call him.”
Calling Clyde was just the sort of mad, impulsive thing that would make her feel better, more in control. Nell, however, scrambled off her chair and intercepted Molly before she could pick up the receiver. She shook her head furiously.
“It's okay,” said Molly. “He can't do anything to hurt us anymore.”
Nell shook her head again and clenched her fingers around Molly's hand. Molly had to pry them off.
“Will you cut it out? You're just being silly. There's nothing to be afraid of. I can handle Clyde, I promise. You want to find out about Grandma, don't you?”
Nell stared at Molly for a few more seconds, then returned to
her chair. The fear was still evident in Nell's face, mixed with unconcealed anger at Molly, who paid it no mind. Sometimes you just had to act, and this was one of those times. She looked up Clyde's work number in the phone book and dialed.
“Pelletreau Fuel and Lumber,” answered a voice on the seventh ring.
“Clyde Cole, please,” said Molly. Did he still work there? Was he even still alive? She hadn't spoken with Clyde for years.
“Who wants him?”
“His stepdaughter. Molly O'Hara.”
A few minutes later a gruff, too-familiar voice came on the line.
“Well, if it ain't little miss antique dealer. To what do I owe this honor?”
The palm of Molly's hand was suddenly damp against the telephone receiver. She fought down a wave of disgust. Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea, after all.
“Hello, Clyde. How have you been?”
“What's it to you?”
“I'm just being polite,” she said.
“Save it. What do you want?”
Clyde had been the main suspect that terrible Saturday afternoon seventeen years ago. Molly had come home from the movies and had found her mother sprawled on their living room floor, a thirty-eight-caliber hole in the center of her forehead.
Clyde's alibi was unshakable, however: he had been at Cousin Hecker's American Tarheel Bar and Grill, drinking with the boys. Six drunkards and Cousin Hecker himself had sworn to it. So had a pair of off-duty cops who had gone to the bar to watch a baseball game on TV.
Hearing the perpetual sneer in his voice, Molly once again felt the same revulsion and helplessness she had experienced as a
child. When she asked him to turn down the television so she could study, he would laugh and order her to fetch him another beer or just blow cigarette smoke in her face. If she ever expressed excitement over anything, he would make fun of her and call her names.
Clyde had been the girl's legal guardian after their mother's death. Until Nell turned sixteen and Molly was able to get them their own place he had insisted on “raising” them himself. That he hadn't any talent or feeling for the job didn't matter—all he knew was that Molly and Nell were his property.
“Grandma died,” she said simply.
“Yeah, I heard. Can't say I'm really sorry. She was always a mean old bat. You gonna tell me what you want?”
“I wanted to ask you some questions about her,” said Molly, ignoring the insult.
“About the old lady? What would I know?”
“Did she ever say anything to you about her career on the stage?”
“Her what?”
“Her stage career,” said Molly. “She was a big Broadway actress.”
“Yeah, right,” snickered Clyde. “What are you, nuts?”
“No, really. Did she ever—”
“Come on,” barked the cruel voice. “That worthless old lady never did nothin' in her whole life. I'm in the middle of a job here, for Crissakes. Anything else you want to know?”
“No, that's all,” whispered Molly.
The line went dead.
Molly slowly placed the phone back in the cradle. Nell shot her a look that at the same time said both, “I told you so” and “what now?”
Molly knew that she deserved the I told you so, and she already had an answer to the what now?
“We're going to see Daddy,” she said simply.
 
 
Molly's mother had thrown Tim O'Hara out of the house shortly before Nell's fourth birthday. A month after the divorce became final he had married a woman whose family owned a candy company in the Moorehaven suburb on the east side of Pelletreau.
Molly had not seen her father since then, but she knew where he lived. Moorehaven was the wealthiest part of town, and Molly often came here to yard and garage sales—rich people were the ones most likely to be selling quality things, and surprisingly often they didn't understand the value of what they had. Molly had made it a point to find his big white house on Daisy Hill Lane long ago. She and Nell had driven past many times, but had never had the courage to knock on the door.
Today was different.
Even Nell, normally so shy, didn't hesitate to get out after Molly drove up the long driveway and parked the van in front of the big, beautiful house.
Molly straightened her clothes. Nell reached into her pocket for a comb, which she ran nonchalantly through her hair, as if she did so on a regular basis. They looked briefly at each other and shared a pair of nervous smiles. Then Molly knocked three times on the frame of the screen door at the same time that Nell pressed the bell.
After a moment a woman came out.
She was about Nell's height, an attractive brunette with full lips and an athletic figure. She wore spotless tennis whites and two-hundred-dollar
running shoes. Her wristwatch was a gold Rolex.
“Yes?” she asked with a smile perfect enough to persuade people to change their brand of toothpaste to hers.
“Hi,” said Molly. “I'm Molly O'Hara. This is my sister, Nell. We'd like to speak with our father, please.”
The woman stepped back as if hit in the face. Her smile never wavered, however. It seemed actually to grow even wider if that were possible. And whiter.
“Certainly,” she said after a moment, barely moving her lips. “I'll tell him you're here.”
The woman went back inside. After a moment Molly could hear raised voices, sounds of a man and woman arguing. After another moment a man came out and closed the front door behind him.
He looked almost exactly as he did in her memories and in the snapshots of a smiling teenager that Molly had found in a shoebox after Evangeline O'Hara Cole had been murdered: a thin man, about five feet ten inches tall, with a weak chin and a scraggly mustache. He was dressed in khaki pants, a yellow polo shirt, and brown loafers without socks. He didn't look exactly thrilled to see them.
“Hi,” he said in a cautious tenor, his eyes darting from Molly to Nell. Then he glanced over his shoulder back at the house. “I'm Tim O'Hara.”
“I'm Molly. This is Nell.”
“Yeah, my wife told me. You're Angie's girls.”
“That's right,” said Molly softly, too proud to point out the fact that he had had something to do with their existence as well.
“So what can I do for you?” he said, trying to find a suitable place to park his hands. He tried several combinations of under his armpits and behind his neck before settling for the pockets of his pants. “I'm sorry I can't invite you in, but Susan is just making dinner now. That's my wife. Susan.”

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