Another, they only had a two-bedroom house, just wasn’t big enough to add three youngsters. But that wasn’t the problem. Apparently the social worker at the time-that’d be Samantha LaFitte, she retired around five years back, died last year-anyhow, she was the one who handled the case. Seems the sheriff’s opinion was the one that pulled the weight.”
“Why?” Lily repeated, feeling as if her world was being upended yet again.
All these years, her sisters could have been together? And Herman Conner, who she’d talked to over and over, had hidden that information all this time?”
Loreen finally looked up again with a frown. “You need to understand. I’m no mighty fan of the law. I see injustice done to women and children every day. But I do think a lot of Sheriff Conner. He’s never been the brightest knife in the drawer, but he had trouble with his own kids, never judged other people that I could see. He’ll turn his back if he thinks it’s the right thing. At least sometimes.”
“I hear you. I thought he was a good guy, too.”
“Apparently, he felt it was just the wrong thing for you three to stay in this town. He knew from personal experience that it was mighty hard for a child to live down a reputation. That an event or a problem could come back to haunt them. He thought it best if you three went somewhere where you’d make a completely clean start, forget about Pecan Valley altogether.”
Loreen paged through to the end of the document, added, “Samantha LaFitte, she didn’t agree. She apparently argued for you three to be together, wherever you landed. But the judge took the sheriff’s advice. There’s some comment here I can’t quite read, but it refers to the sheriff having good reasons to understand problems with children.”
Lily still had the oddest sinking sensation in her stomach. “What problems was that referring to?”
“I don’t know, honey. Problems in his personal life, maybe, with his own kids? Or with kids in town? I wasn’t in this job then. I always heard two of his girls were wild as teenagers, but really, I just don’t know. Everybody always said he’d die for his kids. Was a great dad, a family man all the way. But that’s all I know.”
When Lily left the office, she walked out to a blaze of heat, immediately lifted the hair off her nape and hoped she’d survive walking the hundred feet to the rental car. For once though, her mind wasn’t on whining about the Georgia summer. She was just plain confused.
There was nothing exactly wrong with the sheriff’s play in the Campbell girls’ future back then. It was the exact opposite of what the three sisters had wanted, but that didn’t mean anything sinister or wrong or weird was involved. It just
She opened the car door, almost fell over from the blast of cooped up heat, and climbed in anyway. She dialed Griff on her cell, didn’t reach him, left him a short message that she’d left social services and was headed for somewhere she could track down old high school yearbooks.
Surprisingly, Louella came up with that answer. Lily only popped back at the B and B to grab a notebook and change shoes, but Louella got talking, claimed that Susannah Danwell, who lived just three doors down-“She’s over eighty, if she’s a day, but still dressing like she’s sixty-five, bless her heart, thinking she’s fooling anyone. But she’s been keeping the high school yearbooks forever. Wants to think of herself as a historian, she does, but the real truth is, her Herbert died, and she had nobody, so people come to visit her sometimes, to see the yearbooks, and she gets to talk then. She gets the company. I do wish she’d dress her age, but it’s nothing to me, of course. Anyway, sugar, I’ll call her and set it up, and you can take some of my caramel brownies over there, and it’ll work like a charm. She’ll be happy and you’ll be happy, and it couldn’t possibly work out any better…”
Lily knew Louella better than to interrupt-or to try arguing until Louella had finally run out of steam. Normally, Lily wouldn’t have wanted to impose on a stranger, but Louella had dialed the number before she could stop her, told the infamous Susannah Danwell that Lily would be ambling over there in just a bit, and that she was a peach and a half.
“There now, honey, that’s done. And you don’t need to worry about a thing. I’ll just call over there if there’s any messages. That way, you can hole up and nobody’ll know where you are, and you can just put your feet up with Susannah, bless her heart…”
Susannah, it turned out, lived in another of the city-styled antebellum homes. The veranda was long enough to bowl in, with a double screen door leading to a Scarlett O’Hara central staircase that gleamed with fresh polish. Her mother used to take in boarders, Susannah told her. She was dressed-as warned-with an I Love Vegas T-shirt and matching capris. Her neck, ears, wrists and arms glittered with rhinestones and bangles. “I do like a touch of elegance, honey, and oh, you have no idea how glad I am to meet you. The whole town’s talking about what a wicked, wicked girl you are, and here, all I see is a little darling. Why, you’re no bigger than a minute, are you? And you know what? I met your mama. And I was here when that fire happened, when the mill closed, all of it. Why, these caramel brownies are probably the best Louella ever baked. She dresses way too old for her years, bless her heart, but…”
Lily figured she’d never escape here until 2014-maybe-but as much as the older lady talked, she moved just as fast. Before much time passed, they were both sitting on a horsehair sofa, a lazy fan whirling overhead, and three high school year books opened on the crowded coffee table in front of them. Susannah had asked the year when her parents died, and picked that year and the two earlier ones to “peruse,” as she put it.
“I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for,” Lily admitted. “I’ve picked up all kinds of new information, but nothing that pulls it all together.”
“You want a ‘bottom line,’ as you young people like to say.” Susannah licked her thumb, started peeling through pages. “You want proof your father didn’t set the fire.”
“Yes.”
“And the proof would be if you found who
“Exactly. The person was never found, but all the evidence points to someone of high school age. A girl.”
“Well, that only narrows it down by half,” Susannah said wryly. “I think we need a glass of sherry, don’t you?”
Personally, Lily was no fan of sweet wines, but she couldn’t turn down the older woman. Susannah was having a great time. She produced wineglasses “from a pawn shop in Reno.”
“Real Irish crystal. Not that I’m a snob about such things. Oh, my…”
Lily scanned face after face, feeling increasingly foolish. She didn’t know anyone, couldn’t make any connection. But Susannah could, on every page.
“Oh, my heavens. Margo-you’ve met her, haven’t you, the insurance agent? She had two nieces in high school, one after the other, both of them brighter than sunshine. The one made it all the way to her Ph.D., but sorry to say, the youngest got herself in the family way…never married, I hear…
“And there’s Larry Wilson. Oh, what a heartthrob he was to the girls, every father’s nightmare…Cashner Warden, I know you know him, the fire chief, he graduated a year ahead. He was another heartthrob back then, believe it or not. Quarterback of the football team. They lost every game. They were that bad. But he still looked good in that uniform, and there was always talk of the girls he was getting in trouble…oh my, oh my…”
Susannah clutched her chest with one hand-and reached over for the decanter of sherry with the other. Poured both of them another glass. “I’d forgotten. Our Herman Conner had five kids, you know, but there was one pair of twins, girls. He lost the one to a car accident when she was around fifteen. The whole family went to pieces, but especially her twin. Mary Belle ran around like a wild thing…you recognize her, don’t you?”
“I do.” The hairdresser with the wild, red hair.
“Well, the scandals about the girl near broke Herman’s heart, but you know how it is. Some have to make mistakes their own way. She’s turned into a good mama. Still hasn’t got a lick of sense for men. But I think she still misses her sister, that something’s always been missing for her…and oh, my, you know Debbie of Debbie’s Diner? Well, her older brother…”
Lily sat straight.
She smelled it first. Just the barest whiff of smoke.
Followed by the distant scream of a fire truck engine.
