Chapter 25 #2
A door slammed in the foyer. Pope pushed to his feet. “It sounds as if the errant offspring has returned.” He glanced at Sarah. “Excuse me.”
“It’s about time.” Lynda watched her husband go, then turned back to Sarah. “You were saying.”
Sarah decided to change her answer. “I think the most difficult case has been this one.”
Lynda looked surprised. “Really? You’ve only been here a couple of days. Has this one proven that unsolvable already? The police are equally puzzled, I hear.”
“Yes. This one has the police bewildered as well. I can’t explain it, but . . .” Sarah might as well say it. “Nothing is what it seems. I’m certain we’re missing something that’s right under our noses.”
“My, my,” Lynda noted, her tone amused but carefully so, “you’ve been in Youngstown a mere two and a half days and you’ve already found us out.”
“Don’t misunderstand me—”
“No. No.” Lynda held up a hand. “You’re correct in your conclusion.
” The polite, collected expression shifted, the change ever so subtle.
Her lips tightened. Eyes tapered in unconcealed derision.
“Our village is filled with good, decent people but they are very shortsighted and incredibly narrow-minded.”
“That’s a polite way to size it up.” Sarah had found the fire and she wanted to stoke the blaze. She could educate the lady in the ways of small-town America. The smaller the town, the smaller the minds.
“The kids are no different. They run in cliques. You’re either in or you’re not.” Lynda shook her head in something like disgust, then took a long swallow of her wine. “And if you’re not, you’re left out.”
There it was. The jealousy Sarah had expected. Honest human emotion from someone with the cojones to say it out loud.
“Jerri Lynn has never been accepted here.” Lynda stared at the glass in her hand. “I was so disappointed when she didn’t elect to go away to college. A change of venue would have done wonders for her.”
“Moving on to a new place with new faces can certainly do wonders for self-esteem.” Sarah had firsthand experience on the subject.
“That’s exactly my point,” Lynda agreed adamantly. “That’s what I tried to tell her father. She needs real friends. Tagging along after a group that is never going to invite you in or settling for less than what you deserve is self-defeating.”
Sounded as if Mommy wasn’t happy with her daughter’s choices in associates. But then, what mother of a teenager was?
Pope reentered the room, his tardy offspring at his side. “Sarah, this is Jerri Lynn.”
Sarah set her glass aside and stood. “It’s a pleasure, Jerri Lynn.” She offered her hand.
Jerri Lynn shook Sarah’s hand and managed a smile, but it was less than enthusiastic. Like her mother, she had the infinitely dark hair, but the eyes were more blue, like her father’s, than green.
“Our MIA daughter got caught up in a grief session at the high school auditorium with her friends.”
“It was too sad,” Jerri Lynn said, her expression downtrodden. “Alicia’s brothers were there.” She leaned into her dad. “It was just awful.”
“Are you all right?” Lynda asked, the frustration in her expression softening to concern.
“I suppose.” Jerri Lynn shrugged. “It was just awful, that’s all.”
Pope ushered his daughter to the sofa next to her mother. Sarah resumed her seat.
“As difficult as it was, showing your support was the right thing to do,” her father assured her.
Jerri Lynn abruptly turned to Sarah. “Is it true they were stabbed through the heart?”
Her parents both jumped to scold her for asking such a thing.
Sarah saw no reason to pretend she didn’t know the answer. “I believe that’s correct.” The news had reported that detail. The kids at school were likely talking about it.
“That would be a gross way to die,” the girl said with a shudder.
“I can’t imagine any parent recovering from losing a child,” Pope offered.
Lynda shivered visibly. “I can’t imagine what kind of nightmare this must be for those families.”
“Is it true your mother killed your father, Ms. Newton?” The question caught Sarah so off guard it took her a moment to realize Jerri Lynn had actually posed it aloud.
“Jerri Lynn,” Lynda chastised. “Why would you ask something so personal?”
Pope didn’t reprimand his daughter this time. Instead, he appeared equally interested.
“It’s true,” Sarah confessed. She couldn’t expect people to open up to her if she didn’t do the same, but she set the pace and boundaries. It wasn’t like Pope didn’t have a dossier with all the dirty details. “My mother killed my father as well as seven other people.”
“Why?” Jerri Lynn asked in spite of her mother’s obvious mortification.
“Because my father was unfaithful. Over and over again. When she’d had enough, she got even.”
“Wow.” Jerri Lynn scooted to the edge of her seat. “Did you see the bodies?”
“That’s quite enough,” her father cautioned. “Don’t be so forward.”
Sarah shook her head. “It’s all right. The truth is what it is.” She met Jerri Lynn’s curious gaze. “Yes. I saw several. I’ve seen more since. I guess my profession is a little gruesome, but it’s what I know better than I know anything else.”
Maybe that was a little more honest than she’d intended to be.
“Do the police have any clues about the killer?” Jerri Lynn wanted to know. “Everybody says they’re totally lost.”
“Unfortunately, no clues yet. But they’ll figure it out.” At least, not unless there was something Sarah didn’t know about yet. She’d been shut out of the Appleton briefing.
“I knew that curse stuff was crap.” Jerri Lynn scoffed at the idea. “The police are just too stupid to figure it out.” A pointed look from her father had her backpedaling. “Sorry. I guess they’re doing the best they can.”
“Do you think this case will go unsolved like the one from twenty years ago?” Lynda asked, her own curiosity showing.
Sarah weighed the question. “I think this case will go unsolved until they have some evidence or get extremely lucky.”
The evening dragged on another hour. Sarah used that time to further analyze the Popes. Jerald was difficult to read. Careful. Polite. The daughter was another story. Outspoken. Curious. The mother was a little jaded but honest. Sarah appreciated honesty.
When Sarah announced that it was time for her to go, Pope walked her to the door.
“You are a genuinely fascinating woman, Sarah Newton.” He helped her into her coat.
She’d worn the same black dress from dinner with the Conners. It was the only dress she’d brought on the trip. It was her stock packing item. Wrinkle-free, slinky material. No buttons, no zipper. Just stretchy, clingy material that looked elegant without maintenance.
“Thank you for dinner,” Sarah said to her host. “And for a pleasant distraction.”
“I would like to ask one last question,” Pope said before opening the door for her.
“Ask away.” Sarah looped her bag onto her shoulder.
“Do you believe that who we are is entirely genetic?”
That was easy. “Pretty much.”
“So you ultimately become some version of who your parents are or were?”
Sarah stiffened. She should have seen that one coming.
“To some degree,” she answered carefully. After all, she’d told him to ask. “Everyone does.” Her pulse reacted to an adrenaline charge. Her heart pounded. Her muscles tensed with the fight-or-flight response.
“If that’s true”—he pushed the issue when she was more than ready to let it go—“one with the misfortune of being born to parents who kill, could, in fact, become a killer simply by virtue of DNA.”
Sarah couldn’t respond for a pulse-pounding moment. She’d asked herself that question a million times. She’d researched the subject. Read every relevant published journal and book.
And the conclusions were always the same.
She could walk out the door and not answer the question. Instinct compelled her to play along. See where this went.
“Some say,” she ventured, “that we make our own choices regardless of DNA. Their opinion is that those who make the wrong choices use their genetic history as an excuse. Others insist that we do what we’re hardwired to do with no real free choice.
Bottom line, in my assessment, inheriting the DNA of a killer puts the potential into play. ”
He searched her eyes as if looking for her thoughts beyond her words. “That,” he said finally, “is a very heavy burden to wake up to each morning.”
Yes.
It was.