Part 3 (2/2)
Edward nodded. ”So you see, we didn't have to make any elaborate excuses.”
”What did happen?” Vanessa asked. ”Mr. Fairfield, how did Edith die?”
Edward sat back in his high wingback chair, looking like an ancient statue carved in stone. ”We talked. We remembered. Then she said, 'I want to go back to our place.'”
Vanessa c.o.c.ked her head. ”'Our place'? Where was that?”
He looked over our heads, into the distant past. ”We met in summer, and the gra.s.s was high. We used to climb the hill there and admire the view. Which has changed very little, I must say. And then we would hide ourselves in the tall gra.s.s and . . . I think you can fill in the rest. Our daughter was conceived there.”
”How could you take a frail old woman on a hike in the snow? She'd had a hip replaced, for G.o.d's sake!” Vanessa said.
”She didn't tell me. And she would have been angry if I had fussed. She was the one who proposed going up there. As you may well know, she was a strong-willed woman.”
He was right about that. ”So you went up the hill. And?” I prompted.
”We went up there-a bit more slowly than in the past, I must admit. We admired the view, after we'd caught our breath. We talked a bit. And then she sort of crumpled, and she was gone.”
”How could you know she was dead? Couldn't you have gone for help? Or called someone?” Vanessa demanded.
”My dear officer, I don't possess one of those cell phone things. I knew it would take me some time to make my way down the hill, and I knew there was no one home in any case. I came back to the house and took a moment to catch my breath, and by then I could see someone up on the hill, and shortly after that you appeared. I certainly didn't intend to just leave her there, but by the time I was in a position to call for someone to do anything about it, I could tell it was already in your capable hands. In any case, at my age I've seen death often enough. It would have made no difference. She didn't suffer.”
Of course that was the moment Vanessa's cell phone rang. I think we all jumped, so absorbed were we in Edward's story. Van fished it out of her pocket impatiently and looked at it, then stood up quickly. ”I have to take this.” She stalked off into the hallway, lifting the phone to her ear. No one spoke in her absence; what was there to say?
Van was back in under two minutes, and dropped into her chair. ”That was the coroner's office. Turns out the guy on duty had Edith as his teacher, so he put her at the head of the line.” She turned to face Edward. ”She died of a blood clot in her heart. Even with blood thinners, it happens with people who've had a joint replaced. Could have happened anytime, even while she was sitting in her own living room. So it wasn't the climb that caused it.” Vanessa paused to let Edward digest this fact before going on. ”Just for the record, what did you do next?”
Edward's gaze looked past us all. ”I sat with Edith for a time, remembering her as she was. It had been so long . . . and the time we had together was so short. Then I tried to decide what I should do. I went back down the hill, but by then I was exhausted-it was snowing just a bit, if you recall-and by the time I felt strong enough to call, I saw your vehicle's flas.h.i.+ng lights on the road in front of the house, and I knew that someone had found Edith.” Then he turned to me. ”I'm very sorry, Sarabeth, that you had to find her like that. It never occurred to me that anyone else would pa.s.s by so soon, and I didn't see you coming.”
Vanessa insisted on following through. ”What did you tell your great-grandson here? Didn't he ask where she was?” Philip looked startled by Van's attention, and glanced at his great-grandfather again.
”When Philip returned, I said only that Edith had gone home. I gather your crew had left by then, so he didn't see them.”
”Mr. Fairfield, you should have told me!” Philip looked like he was trying not to cry.
”You're right, Philip. But I wasn't sure how you'd take the news, and I hadn't made up my mind how I would handle the whole situation.”
”Were you planning to talk to the police, or were you just going to walk away?” Vanessa demanded.
”To be honest, I don't know. I must have been more shaken than I realized. As you might imagine, it's been a rather stressful few weeks-I had not had time to properly absorb all that had happened. Philip finding me, learning of our daughter, and that Edith was still living in Strathmere. I had hoped to make amends, but I was not granted time to do so. I'm sorry if that caused you trouble, Chief Hutchins. Laura, I apologize that I inadvertently brought you and your family into this unfortunate situation.”
We sat in silence for a few moments. Edith had lived among us for decades, and as far as I knew, no one in town had known about her baby. Then nearly seventy years later, a teacher in another state a.s.signed a school project which ended in Edith's death on a snowy hill. Had she finally achieved closure for that long-ago episode, and, knowing that her child had prospered and the family had gone on, had Edith felt she could finally let go? I felt bad for Edward and Philip: the elder having just learned the story, only to see Edith die; the younger to be thrown late into an unexpected drama with tragic consequences. I wondered how much he would include when he turned in his project report.
”What happened to Edith's purse?” the ever-practical Vanessa asked.
”It's here-she left it behind when we climbed the hill. I was going to turn it over to you,” Edward said.
”And the library book?” I asked gently.
”I found it in the car,” Philip answered. ”It must have fallen out of her bag. I tried to take it back to Mrs. Hathaway's house, but she didn't answer, and I didn't want to leave it in front of the door in case it got wet. I figured it'd be safer at the library, and I knew where that was.”
I smiled at him. ”Edith did always want to have something to read on hand. Thank you for returning it. And thank you both for your explanation.”
”Do we face any charges?” Edward looked at Vanessa.
”No, I don't think so,” she said. ”The coroner said it was natural causes, and he's not going to make a fuss.” She hesitated before adding the standard phrase, ”I'm sorry for your loss.”
”You're very kind,” Edward replied.
Vanessa stood up. ”We should go so I can write all this up. You two driving back to Ohio?”
”I wondered if perhaps there would be a service of some kind for Edith?” Edward said. ”If so, I would like to attend.”
”I can't imagine there wouldn't be,” I answered. ”If n.o.body else steps up, I'll see that there's something planned. I'm sure it would be well attended. I'll give you a call and let you know.”
He smiled at me. ”Thank you.”
Laura, recognizing that the conversation had finally run its course, came to her feet. ”I'll see you out.” She followed us to the front door, then asked in a low voice, ”Is Uncle Edward in any trouble?”
”I don't think so,” Van said. ”I'm not going to make things difficult for him.”
”That's good. I'm sorry we didn't know anything about it-you could have wrapped this up faster if we'd only come home a little earlier.”
We'd made it out the door when Philip came out and ran to catch up. He thrust a piece of paper toward me, and I saw a phone number on it. I let Vanessa go ahead of me before I spoke to him. ”Was there anything else, Philip?” I asked.
”Well, yeah, kind of. You knew Mrs. Hathaway pretty well, didn't you?”
”As well as anyone else in town these days, I suppose.” She'd kept all of us in the dark about some rather important things, but I would have called her a friend. ”Why?”
”Well, you know, I only just found out she existed, and now she's gone. You think maybe I could get in touch with you sometime and you could tell me more about her?”
”I'd be happy to, Philip. She was quite a lady. You let me know and I'll be happy to talk with you, or email, or whatever you prefer.”
”Thanks,” he said shyly, then retreated back into the house.
Poor Laura-unknown relatives showing up on her doorstep, followed by a body up on the hill and police coming to call? And people thought that life in a small town was so peaceful. Little did they know!
Vanessa and I drove back toward town. I thought for a while about how to go about planning a memorial service for Edith, and then another thought struck me. ”I wonder if Edith left a will.”
”Probably. I was going to track down that lawyer on Monday. Why?”
”I wonder if she'd made any provision for the heirs of her daughter.”
”Huh, I hadn't even thought of that. It's a long shot, but you never know. Funny about how the things you do early in your life come back to bite you in the b.u.t.t,” Vanessa said.
”Does that mean you're hiding any deep, dark secrets in your past?”
”No, not me. You?”
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