Secrets Never Told Page 16

  Unlike the rest of the shop, Tom’s office area was a jumble of falling stacks of paper, fat loose-leaf notebooks crammed with paper, and the obligatory coffee maker on a metal table.

  “I’d offer you some coffee, but I’m out. Got to make a run to the IGA today.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” Enid pulled a printout from her tote that showed Lillian’s payment for work on the inn’s kitchen. She handed it to Tom. “Do you remember doing this work at the Glitter Lake Inn?”

  Tom glanced briefly at the paper. “Where did you get this?”

  “I’m sure you know Sheriff Waters was shot dead. These papers belonged to his wife, Lillian. I think you did some work for her. Do you remember it?”

  Tom put his hands to his face, covering his eyes. He seemed to be deep in thought. When he lowered his hands, his smile was gone. “Miss Lillian was a good woman. I had some hard times back then. Some days, the only meal I got was from her kitchen. She tried to send work my way as often as she could.” He paused and looked up at the ceiling, as if looking for a script to guide him. “When she started getting sick, she’d forget what day it was. Some days she was perfectly normal. Other days, she got confused a lot.”

  “When you did this work on the storage area for her, did she seem to know what she was doing? Did you find anything odd about this particular job?”

  Tom put his face in his hands again. This time he sobbed. “I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t say no to her.”

  Enid wanted to let Tom tell the story at his own pace, so she tried not to rush him. His emotional pain was palpable.

  He pulled a big, white cotton handkerchief from his overall pocket and blew his nose. He sounded like an angry goose. “I’m sorry. It’s just that . . . I knew this day would come. And when they found them bones, I prayed it would all go away.”

  “Why don’t you start from the beginning. I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll help you talk to the authorities.”

  Tom nodded and gasped, as if breathing air for the first time after being nearly suffocated. “Okay. I need to talk about it anyway. My late wife tried to get me to go to the police, but I was afraid they might arrest me, and then what would happen to her? She was frail and couldn’t have made it on her own.”

  “What did you do?” Enid paused. “Did you kill someone and hide the person in that secret room?”

  Tom’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, ma’am. I didn’t hurt nobody. I swear.” Sweat popped out on his forehead.

  “It’s alright. Just take your time and tell me what you and Lillian did.”

  He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “When I got to the inn that day to do some work, Miss Lillian was agitated. She kept saying, ‘I got to protect her.’”

  “Who was she talking about?”

  “I asked her that, but she just kept saying the same thing over and over again.”

  “Who did you think she was talking about?”

  “Honestly, I figured she was just ranting about something in her memory—or what was left of it. But then she asked me to drive her to Pinewood.”

  “You mean the old cemetery?” The memory of Enid’s past encounter there a couple years ago with a biker gang made her hand tremble as she took notes.

  Tom nodded. “So I took her there, to Pinewood, late one afternoon.” He paused to look up at the ceiling again. “Oh, Lord, this is tough.”

  “Take your time.”

  He sighed. “She told me I had to bring her back to the inn. I didn’t know who or what she was talking about, but it was creepy being in that old cemetery that late, with her talking about bringing somebody back.” A brief pause. “Then she pointed to a fresh grave that was on the edge of the property. There wasn’t no headstone or marker, just a patch of dirt.”

  “Did she mention the person’s name at all while you were there?”

  Tom shook his head. “I didn’t want to know. Honestly, I was hoping someone had buried a dog or some kind of animal there. Like I said, she was confused about a lot of things.”

  Enid waited for Tom to collect his thoughts and continue.

  “I had brought a shovel, like Miss Lillian asked me to. She pointed at the patch of dirt and said, ‘I need to take her to the inn where I can protect her.’” Tom shook his head, as if trying to rid his memory of the past. “I dug. It wasn’t too deep. I hit something and threw the shovel aside, finished uncovering the thing with my hands. I didn’t know what it was, so I didn’t want to damage it.” Tom stood up. “I got to get some water. Would you like some?”

  “No, thanks.” Enid waited for Tom to get a small bottle of water from the mini fridge.

  Tom took several gulps and then continued. “Turned out to be a body. I could tell from the long hair it was a woman. I turned to Miss Lillian and asked her who it was. She just asked me to wrap the body back up and put it in the truck.” He paused to take another sip of water. “It was dark by the time we got back to the inn. We went in the back door. I had already started walling up the hole in the room off the kitchen because Miss Lillian said the inn’s owner didn’t want her to build a storage room. She wasn’t happy about that. She pointed toward the room and said, ‘In there.’”

  “Why didn’t you tell her what you were doing was illegal?”

  “I wanted to, but like I said, Miss Lillian fed me when I was hungry, and she never asked anything in return. I just couldn’t say no. And it wouldn’t have mattered, at least not that day. She just wasn’t herself.”

  “Do you recall any clothing or wrapping being found with the remains?”

  Tom nodded. “After I put the body in the room, I removed the clothes and tarp when she wasn’t looking. I didn’t want to leave any more evidence than I had to.” Tom wiped his forehead again.

  “Did you keep any of it?”

  Tom shook his head. “Oh, no. I burned it all right when I got back home. It was heavy canvas and had paint drippings on it. The clothes looked like a dress, but it was torn and falling apart.”

  “How did she know where to find the body at the cemetery?” Enid asked.

  “I asked her that myself. All she said was it was supposed to be a secret, but she found out.”

  “How? Whose secret?” Enid asked.

  “She said she overheard a conversation.”

  “At the inn?” Enid asked.

  “I guess so. Miss Lillian said they didn’t know she could hear them.”

  “Who was she talking about?” Enid asked.

  “I’m not sure, but she was really upset about it. She said, ‘You can’t trust anybody.’ She repeated that several times until I agreed with her. Like I said, she wasn’t herself, so it was hard to know what was real and what she imagined.”

  “And she never told you whose remains you dug up or why she wanted the bones at the inn?”

  “All she kept saying was, ‘I need to protect her.’ So that night, I finished the wall and put drywall on it. The next day, I went back and skim coated it with plaster to match the rest of the old walls in the inn.”

  Enid glanced at her notes. “If you were trying to destroy evidence, why did you give her a receipt for the work you did? I thought you said you did it as a favor to her.”

  Tom smiled slightly. “I did, but the next day, when I went to the inn to finish the work, she acted like nothing had happened. She gave me coffee and cookies and thanked me for finishing the room. She insisted that I give her a bill for the work. So I gave her one, but I told her she had already paid me. She said, ‘Oh, alright’ and it was never mentioned again.” Tom pointed to the old cash receipt. “I can’t believe she kept that.”

  “It must have had some emotional significance to her.” Enid recalled finding a receipt in her mother’s papers after she died for a dress purchased twenty years prior to her mother’s passing. Enid often wondered why her mother had kept that memento.

  “Not long after that, Miss Lillian left the inn and went to the nursing home.”

  “Did you ever see her
again?”

  “No.” Tom wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I guess I was foolish enough to think that if I forgot it and went on about my life, everyone else would, too.”

  Enid put her notepad in her tote. “I’ll talk to my friend in law enforcement. He’ll know what to do about all this.”

  Tom walked Enid back to her car. “Thank you.”

  Enid turned to look at Tom. “For what? I’m sure you were not happy to see me.”

  “Deep inside, I knew somebody would show up one day. Secrets don’t stay buried forever. At least it was a nice lady like you.” Tom put his baseball cap on. “‘Bye, Miss Enid. Guess I’d better get back to work and finish up a few things before they come for me.”

  CHAPTER 41

  While Josh had been gone, Pete continued to work from the front desk, so nothing had been disturbed in the police chief’s office. A layer of fine dust on the old desk was proof no one had disturbed it. Josh was nervous about seeing Enid again. He wanted to hold her and tell her he was home for good and that everything had been handled in New Mexico. But neither was true. He would likely have at least one more conversation with his brother Troy. His thoughts were interrupted by Pete.

  “Hey, Chief. It’s good to have you back. I mean it was fun being boss for a little while, but I’m not ready for your job.”

  Josh grinned. “Good to know you’re not ready to take over just yet. But you will be. Soon.” He looked down at his clutter-free desk. “What? No phone messages or emergencies to handle?”

  Pete blushed slightly. “No, I’ve handled everything. You back for good now?”

  Josh sat down at his desk and sighed. “I’m not sure just yet. I’m trying to wrap up everything back home.” But New Mexico wasn’t home any longer. His life and heart were here, in Madden.

  ◆◆◆

  Enid walked into the police station as Pete was walking back to the front desk. “Hi, Pete. So our wandering police chief has returned, I see.”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s in his office. You can go on back. I’m sure he’s anxious to see you.” Pete focused on his computer screen. “I’m just out here doing some searches, so don’t mind me, if you know what I mean.”

  Enid smiled. “Thanks.”

  When she walked into Josh’s office and saw him sitting at his desk, her first impulse was to rush in and hold him tight. But despite Pete’s thinly veiled assurance of privacy, she and Josh had a firm rule about not touching in either of their workplaces. Josh appeared thinner, and he looked tired. “Hey, you. I missed you.”

  Josh stood up and glanced toward Pete at the front before planting a kiss on her lips. “Rules are made to be broken, right?” He held Enid tightly for a few seconds before releasing her.

  “I’m glad you’re home. You are home now, right?”

  “I need to go back in a day or so and finish up, but I wanted to come back for Boogie’s memorial service, so I could say a few words. He was good to me, helped me understand this job.”

  Enid couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under Josh’s eyes. He looked like he had not been sleeping well. “There’s so much I have to tell you. Do you have time?”

  Josh made a sweeping gesture across his desk. “Pete took care of everything. No messages to return, no lonely widows calling about imaginary stalkers. So, I’m good.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Enid filled Josh in on all that had happened while he was gone. She stopped short of telling him about Tom and the bones he moved to the inn.

  “Wow. That’s quite a story. So the bones belong to Angel, after all?”

  “Well, the DNA hasn’t been matched to anyone yet, and they haven’t turned up any dental records to compare. But the circumstantial evidence points to it being her.”

  “I sure didn’t know Boogie had a daughter. She sounds like an amazing woman.”

  “She is. I really like her. Did you know about Lillian?”

  “Boogie hinted at a relationship with a woman who was in a nursing home, but I had no idea who it was or that they had married. It’s amazing how much I didn’t know about him.”

  Enid took a deep breath. “There’s more I have to tell you. And I need your help.”

  Josh ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “There’s a man named Tom that runs a small construction company, actually more like a remodeling company.”

  “I know him, he’s over in the next town. He’s as good a finish carpenter as I’ve ever seen. How’s he involved in all this?”

  “He put those bones in the walled-up room at the inn.”

  Josh sat up straight. “What?”

  “Lillian asked him to dig up a body at the Pinewood Cemetery and put it at the inn. She kept saying she was protecting her.”

  “But why would Tom go along with that? Doesn’t he know grave robbing is a crime?”

  “From the way he described it, the body was stashed there, not exactly buried in a grave.”

  “Well, I guess there’s no better place to dump a body than in a cemetery. But even so, why would Tom go along with Lillian’s request?”

  Enid explained Tom’s rationale and his relationship with Lillian. “I told him I’d help him talk to the authorities.”

  “I assume you mean me, but you know this is out of my jurisdiction. I can talk to the new sheriff, though. I’m sure he, or perhaps she, will bring Tom in for questioning.”

  “He knows that. In fact, he’s anxious to talk about it. This secret has been festering in him a long time.”

  Josh crossed his arms across his chest and looked around the room. “I can’t help but wonder how much of this Boogie knew about. I hate to see his memory sullied. On the other hand, if he’s involved in all this, it needs to come out. Have you told Jean about what Tom and her mother did?”

  Enid shook her head. “No, Jean is the one who gave me the receipt that led me to Tom, but I haven’t told her about my conversation with him. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Aside from all this, don’t forget there’s a killer or two out there somewhere. Whoever killed Boogie hasn’t been apprehended. You’ve got to be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “I won’t lecture you, but please don’t take any chances.” The frown disappeared. “Dinner tomorrow after the memorial service? I’ll cook. And pack your toothbrush.”

  CHAPTER 42

  The small Baptist church was packed for Sheriff Bernard Waters’ memorial service. Jean had no idea what her father might have wanted, but she chose to cremate him and inter his urn in the church cemetery. She had talked to the minister first to be sure Lillian’s urn could be added to the grave when she passed. At first the minister hesitated, saying the church “rules” would require a second plot for Lillian when she passed. Jean explained that Bernard and Lillian Waters had been denied a life together, and Jean wanted them to be together eventually. She also offered a generous donation to the church, so the minister granted permission.

  Jean had been raised Catholic by her aunt, and the long, emotional service at the country church was more than Jean had envisioned when she asked for a simple service. But her father would have been pleased with the outpouring of well wishes from the attendees, especially the law enforcement officers, and with Josh’s eulogy. Mountains of flowers covered the front of the church.

  When the choir sang, “The Old Rugged Cross,” Jean wept softly. A dozen or more of Bernard Waters’ cousins, nieces, nephews, and other distant relatives sat with her in the family pews, but none of them put a comforting arm around Jean.

  ◆◆◆

  After the memorial service, Jean politely declined an invitation from Enid, as she wanted to return to Boogie’s house and to spend some time alone. She went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. It was mid-afternoon, so she didn’t turn the lights on. Since the kitchen was on the east side of the house, it got a full dose of morning light through its only window, the one over the sink. But in the afternoon, it was dar
k.

  When she first heard the noise, she was getting a pitcher of water from the refrigerator. She assumed it was the raccoon that routinely knocked over and raided the trash can outside the kitchen door. Being raised mostly in the city, Jean assumed raccoons came out to forage for food only at night, but one of the farmers at the diner told her they’d come out anytime they were hungry. She always put the cover on the metal trash can, but the clever raccoon figured out if he knocked it over, the lid usually came off. She smiled to herself at the instinctive resourcefulness of animals.

  When she heard the noise again, she wasn’t as sure this time that it was her four-legged intruder. She set the glass of water on the counter and instinctively reached for a butcher knife in the drawer beside the sink. Her phone was in the bedroom, so she held onto the knife as she turned to go retrieve it.

  At the sound of splintering wood, Jean put both hands on the knife handle and pointed it toward the kitchen door. Her heart was pounding, as she heard another loud thud and more splintering. Then the door lock gave way. A man in a baseball cap and sunglasses pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  In a split second, Jean had to decide between fight or flight, the most primal of human instincts. If she ran, could she get to the phone in time? Or would she simply trap herself further inside the house? If she tried to run past the man and out the kitchen door, he would surely grab her. In her flash vision of him, she had not seen a gun or knife, but he could have either. She secured the butcher knife in her right hand. With all her might, she rammed her body weight against the man and tried to push past him. When he tried to grab her arm, she slashed out at him, drawing blood. Jean the doctor wanted to be sure the man was okay, but Jean the victim took another swipe at his shoulder. She couldn’t bring herself to aim for his heart. She just wanted to slow him down and run out that door. Again, she put her full body weight against the bleeding man. She dropped the knife and ran out the back door, down the side of the house to the road. “Help! Please!”