bad eyesight and her vanity making it impossible for her to put on the tortoiseshell bifocals Bessie Jean now regretted she’d ever told her made her look plumb bug-eyed. Certainly no one else was going to help look for evidence of foul play because no one else cared a hoot, not even that no-good Sheriff Lloyd MacGovern. He hadn’t liked Daddy much, not since he’d gotten away from her and taken a bite out of Sheriff Lloyd’s ample ass. But, even so, you’d think he would have had the decency to stop house and offer his condolences on Daddy’s passing when he and Sister were, sitting just one short block away from the square where his office was located. Shame on him, Bessie Jean told Sister. It didn’t matter if he liked Daddy or not, he should still do his duty and find out who murdered him.
Not everyone in Holy Oaks was being callous, Sister reminded her Others living in the valley were being very thoughtful and sensitive They knew how much Daddy meant to Bessie Jean. That uppity next door neighbor of theirs with her fancy French name, Laurant, had turned out to be the most thoughtful and sensitive of all Why, what would they have done if she hadn’t heard Bessie Jean wailing and come running lickety-split to help? Bessie Jean had been down on her knees, leaning over poor dead Daddy, and Laurant had helped her to her feet and put her and Sister in her car, then had run back, unchained Daddy and scooped him up in her arms, real gentle like, and put him in the trunk. Daddy was already stiff and as cold as a stone, but Laurant still had sped all the way to Doctor Basham’s offices and had run Daddy inside as quick as she could on the hope that maybe the doctor could perform a miracle.
Since there weren’t any miracles being dispensed that dark day, the doctor had put Daddy in the freezer to await the autopsy Bessie Jean insisted on. Then Laurant had driven her and Sister over to Doctor Sweeney’s office to get their blood pressure checked because Bessie Jean was still terribly distraught, and Sister was feeling lightheaded.
Laurant turned out not to be so uppity after all. In all her eighty-two years, Bessie Jean wasn’t one to ever change her mind after she’d made it up, but in this instance she did just that. After she’d gotten past her initial shock and hysterics over losing Daddy, she realized what a kind-hearted soul Laurant was. She was still a foreigner, of course. She came to Holy Oaks from that city of sin and debauchery, Chicago, but that was all right. The city hadn’t rubbed off on her. She was still a good girl. The nuns who had raised her at that fancy boarding school in Switzerland had instilled strong values. Bessie Jean, as rigid and set in her ways as she liked to think she was, decided that she could stand to have one or two foreigners for friends. She surely could.
Sister suggested they stop mourning Daddy’s passing long enough to bake a tart apple pie for Laurant-it was the neighborly thing to do-but Bessie Jean chided her for having such a poor memory and forgetting that the Winston twins were looking after Laurant’s corner drugstore while she drove all the way down to Kansas City. She’d said she wanted to surprise her brother, that good-looking priest with such nice thick hair that the young girls at Holy Oaks College were always drooling over. They would have to wait until Monday to bake because that was the day Laurant was expected home.
Once both sisters had decided that Laurant was no longer an outsider, they naturally felt it was their business to interfere in her life whenever possible and to worry about her, just like they would if they had married and had had daughters of their own. Bessie Jean hoped Laurant remembered to lock her car doors. She was young, and in their estimation, that meant she was also naive, whereas they were older and wiser and knew all about the sorry ways of the world. Granted, neither one of them had been any farther away from Holy Oaks than Des Moines to visit their cousins, Ida and James Perkins, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know all about the terrible things happening today. They weren’t ignorant. They read the papers and knew there were serial killers out there waiting at all the rest stops to prey on beautiful young women who were foolish enough to stop, or who had unfortunate car troubles that put them in harm’s way. As lovely as Laurant was, she would certainly catch any man’s eye. Why, just look at all the high school boys hanging around that store that wasn’t even open yet in hopes she’d come outside to have a word with them. Still, Bessie Jean reminded Sister, Laurant was every bit as smart as she was pretty.
Having made the decision not to fret about Laurant any longer, Bessie Jean sat down at the dining room table and opened the wooden stationary box her mama had given her when she was a young girl. She took out a sheet of pink, rose-scented paper embossed with her very own initials, and reached for her pen. Since Sheriff Lloyd wasn’t going to do anything about Daddy’s murder, Bessie Jean was matters into her own hands. She’d already written one letter to the FBI requesting that they send a man to Holy Oaks to investigate but her first letter must have gotten lost in the mail because a full eight days had passed and she still hadn’t heard a word from anyone She was going to make certain this letter didn’t get lost. This time she was going to address her request to the director himself, and as expensive as it was, she was going to spend the extra money to send it by certified mail.
Sister got busy cleaning house. After all, company was coming. Any day now, the FBI would be knocking on their door.
Chapter 4
The wait was making her nuts. When it came to her brother’s health, Laurant found it impossible to be patient, and sitting by the phone waiting for him to call her with the results of the blood tests required more stamina than she possessed. Tommy always called her on Friday evening between seven and nine, but he didn’t call this time, and the longer she waited, the more worried she became.
By Saturday afternoon she had convinced herself the news wasn’t good, and when Tommy still hadn’t called her by six that night, she got into her car and headed out. She knew her brother was going to be upset with her because she was following him to Kansas City, but while she was headed toward Des Moines, she came up with a good lie to tell him. Her background was art history, she would remind him, and the lure of the Degas exhibit on temporary loan to the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City was simply too appealing to resist. There had been a mention of the exhibit in the Holy Oaks Gazette, and she knew Tommy had read it. Granted, she had already seen the exhibit in Chicago, several times as a matter of fact, when she had worked at the art gallery there, but maybe Tommy wouldn’t remember that. Besides, there wasn’t a rule that you could see Degas’s wonderful ballerinas only once, was there? No, of course not.
She couldn’t tell Tommy the truth, even though they both knew that was, that she became consumed with panic every three months when he checked into the medical center for tests. She was terrified that the results weren’t going to be satisfactory this time and that the cancer, like a hibernating bear, was waking up again. Damn it, Tommy always had the results of his preliminary blood tests by Friday evening. Why hadn’t he called her? Not knowing was making her an emotional wreck. She was so scared inside she was sick. Before she had left Holy Oaks, she had called the rectory and had spoken to Monsignor McKindry, uncaring that she was acting like a neurotic mother hen. The monsignor had a kind, gentle voice, but his news wasn’t good. Tommy, he’d explained, was back at the hospital. And no, he’d told her, the doctors hadn’t been happy with the preliminary tests. Laurant was sure she knew what that meant. Her brother was undergoing another brutal round of chemotherapy.
Damned if she’d let him go through that ordeal without family by his side this time. Family… he was the only family she had. After their parents’ deaths, she and her brother, children at the time, had been forced to grow up on opposite sides of the ocean. So much had been lost over the years. But things were different now. They were adults. They could make their own choices, and that meant they could be there for each other when times got rough.
The alternator light went on just outside the town of Haverton. The filling station was closed, and she ended up spending the night at a no-frills motel there. Before leaving the next morning, she stopped by the motel office and picked up a map of Kansas City. The clerk gave her directions to the Fairmont which, he informed her, was close to the art museum.
She still got lost. She missed her exit off of I-435 and ended up too far south on the highway that circled the sprawling city. Clutching the soggy map she’d accidentally spilled Diet Coke all over, she stopped at a gas station for more directions.
Once she got her bearings, getting to the hotel wasn’t difficult at all. She followed the street marked State Line and headed back north.
Tommy had told her that Kansas City was pretty and clean, but his descriptions didn’t do the city justice. It was really quite lovely. The streets were lined with well-manicured lawns and old, two-story houses with flowers in bloom everywhere. Following the gas station attendant’s instructions, she cut over to Ward Parkway, the street that
