murder wouldn’t go unsolved like Uncle Winston’s had. Despite her irritation with the detective for locking her up in the patrol car and baking answers out of her, she respected that he’d been willing to do that. And that he’d not backed down from her and her name. With his strong hands and his intelligent eyes, Detective Howie Berry seemed like the kind of man who would get the job done.
There was kindness there, too. Whatever his reasons for giving her the squashed energy bar, it had ultimately been a kind gesture. Intelligent eyes, messy hair and kind gestures probably went a long way to keeping people from noticing that he was roasting them alive.
Not that the detective’s eyes or hair mattered in the end, because Julianne would dog the man’s feet to make sure he didn’t lose focus, ignoring the way her heart beat a little harder at the memory of his hand on the back of her head.
Better to think about the money she could put up for a reward.
Despite the blasting air-conditioning and her pep talk about the detective, Julianne flushed with fear of the consequences of this murder investigation. The Somersets, Aunt Binnie included, had entire cemeteries of secrets and some of them held nothing but shallow graves. No matter how much everyone would want her aunt’s killer found, the thought of those secrets crawling out of their graves was probably enough to scare many of her family members’ mouths shut.
Wasn’t that one of the reasons Uncle Winston’s murderer had never been caught? He’d been shot in the warehouse Julianne was presently converting into a start-up incubator. The cops had been certain Uncle Winston had known his killer and that he had been taken by surprise, but not a single person had come forward with any useful information.
Not even when Aunt Binnie had begged. Secrets and protecting their own had been more important than the tears of a widow. Even Julianne’s mother had lied to the cops about that night thirty years ago.
In the driveway, Julianne stopped her car and rested her forehead on the steering wheel, hoping to regain her composure. But the sun’s rays blinded her through a break in the trees and drove her out. Perhaps she could pretend the sun was responsible for the redness in her eyes. Once inside the house, the extreme air-conditioning nearly knocked her flat before she could store her purse in the coat closet. Then she went in search of her mother.
Her mother sat on a bar stool in the kitchen and didn’t seem to hear Julianne walk into the room. The radio was on in the background with a brief report of a murder in Duke Park. Aunt Binnie’s murder. Julianne waited in the doorway until her mother glanced up, her cell phone pressed against her ear, one pair of glasses on the counter and another perched on top of her head.
“Did you hear on the radio? There’s been a murder over by Binnie’s and she won’t answer my calls. She’s probably on the phone with the Juneau Police Department with a tip.” The frustration in her mother’s voice stabbed wildly into the air. “Didn’t you just come from there? You should have stayed and cut the old woman’s phone lines.”
Julianne slid onto a bar stool next to her mom. “Mom, can you put down the phone?”
“Not until Bin answers.” Her mom lowered the phone long enough to redial, irritation on her face as she lifted it back to her ear. “If I keep calling, I’ll catch her before she calls every police department she can look up online. A murder, so close by. It’s only going to make her worse.” Worry seeped through the exasperation. “It’s not possible to put more locks and alarms on that house. Maybe we can use the danger of living by herself to get her to move into a retirement home. Security will be at the top of my list when I talk with her about it. She’s never been willing to give up her independence, but there’s also never been a murder in her neighborhood before.”
Then her mother turned her face, put on the pair of glasses that had been on the counter and looked, really looked, at Julianne. And she didn’t say anything about the pit stains or the mascara. “Maybe she would come live with me. It’s not as if I don’t have the space, and I would feel better knowing she wasn’t living alone.”
Julianne tossed the knowledge that she’d underestimated her mother onto the pile of painful feelings in her chest.
“Mom, you’re not going to get through to her.” Was there a part of her mom that—like Julianne—would be a tiny bit relieved to know Aunt Binnie was dead? Not that her mom would wish a violent death on her aunt, but her mom didn’t want Aunt Binnie living in this house any more than Aunt Binnie had wanted to live here. And once, when Aunt Binnie had been having a bad day, calling every phone number she knew looking for Julianne because some crook needed twenty thousand dollars for a home-protection scheme, her mother had openly wished Aunt Binnie out of existence.
Love had added a sharp, hurtful edge to the anxiety they had all felt about Aunt Binnie’s occasionally erratic behavior.
Her mother lowered her hand to look at the screen and dial again. Taking advantage of the moment, Julianne grabbed the phone out of her hand.
Her mother added the second pair of glasses to the top of her head. “That was rude.” Ah, hidden there in the snap of her voice was the woman who had raised Julianne.
“Mom, you can’t call Aunt Binnie. Aunt Binnie was murdered.” She regretted the bluntness of her words as soon as they were out, but she didn’t know how to get through to her mom any other way.
Her mother snatched the phone back. “She’s probably just not answering the door. Mrs. Carr is a terrible gossip and almost always wrong.”
Her mother dialed Aunt Binnie’s number again, this time waiting through her aunt’s long voice-mail message before finally saying, “Binnie, pick up. It’s Ruthie. Binnie, pick up.”
Sorrow settled in Julianne’s stomach, pushing an acidic taste up her throat and onto her tongue. Her mom wasn’t ignoring her or dismissing her news. She was trying to pretend it wasn’t real. The strain at the corner of her mother’s eyes—which had the wise, evenly spaced crow’s feet someone would add into a digitally enhanced picture of a mature, attractive woman—gave away the incredible effort her denial was costing her. Sometimes the truth was too horrible to accept.
The phone made a soft thud when Julianne’s mother set it on the countertop. They stared at it together in silence until the sound of soft weeping echoed through the large kitchen. Teardrops landed on the granite. When her mom stood and wrapped her arms around her, Julianne leaned into the softness. Together they sobbed, even her mother. Not the uncertain, fearful tears Julianne had cried in the patrol car, but the snotty weeping that elbows its way through crowds, leaving bruises and sore muscles behind. The kind of hot, heavy grief Julianne hadn’t been certain her mom was even capable of.
After their sobs quieted to simple tears, Julianne pulled away just enough to breathe some fresh air. Her mom kept her arms around her, her manicured fingernails skipping over Julianne’s scalp as her hands caressed her hair. Soft strokes lulled Julianne into believing in safety, and she closed her eyes, hoping to fall deeper into the lie. To land in a place where nothing horrific could have happened to Aunt Binnie. To a time before Lewis, before Uncle Winston’s death, to when she still believed that a hug from her mother could erase all hurts.
Her mom’s hand got slower and the hand got heavier, but the movements were still comforting. Her mother’s shoulders relaxed under Julianne’s head.
When her mother finally pulled away, cool dry air filled the void between them, raising goose bumps on Julianne’s arms. All good things end. Soft, gentle pats. Mother’s hugs. The lives of loved ones.
“And
