Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Mercer yard sale had the end-of-day look. The good tables were down to the dregs — a single candlestick, a box of mismatched mugs, three encyclopedias. Browsers drifted between what was left with the unfocused energy of people who hadn’t found what they wanted but hadn’t quite given up yet.
June was at the far end of the driveway, packing unsold items into a cardboard box with efficient resignation. Kyle was nowhere visible, which was consistent with every other time something needed doing.
Margo was folding a tablecloth. She said something that made June laugh.
“What exactly are we doing here?” Ida asked, keeping her voice low with the focused effort of someone who found this unnatural.
“Getting a confession,” Nans said.
Margo looked over at them, wary.
“Margo,” Nans said.
“Ladies.” Margo set down the folded tablecloth. Her voice was perfectly even.
June saw them and came over, wiping her hands on her jeans. “We’re pretty picked over, but if you see something you need, take fifty percent off.”
“That’s not why we’re here,” Nans said. She looked at Margo. “Is it.”
It wasn’t a question.
Margo took a slow breath. “I suppose not.”
June looked between them. “What’s going on?”
“The cat Everett bought here,” Nans said. “It had a decades-old secret hidden inside it, didn’t it, Margo?”
“What are you talking about?” June turned to Margo. “What secret?”
Margo said nothing.
“I wasn’t entirely sure myself,” Nans said, “until I took another look at the list of things in Everett’s bag.
Everett was pushy and annoying and a lot of things, but he was a picker.
He knew enough not to buy an old high school ring, especially one with initials on it.
Unless something about that ring made him stop and look twice. ”
“What does a ring have to do with any of this?” Margo said. “June, let’s go inside. These ladies have clearly been at this too long.”
“No.” June’s voice was quiet but firm. “I want to hear what she’s saying.” She turned to Nans. “What ring?”
Nans looked at her with something close to sympathy. “An old one. Class of ’96. Blue stone, Initials DS.”
June went very still. “That sounds like—”
"So what?" Margo cut in. "Everett bought all kinds of things. He picked up rings everywhere he went. Are you saying a class ring has something to do with who killed him?"
"Yes," Nans said. "Because the killer wasn't after the cat. They were after what was inside it. Something hidden in that base a very long time ago."
"And what does that have to do with the ring?" Margo asked, impatient now.
"That's the thing," Nans said. "It wasn't just a ring. There was a note in there too, wasn't there?"
The color left Margo's face so fast it was like watching a light go out.
"Why are you asking me?" she said.
"You can stop pretending," Nans said, not unkindly. "What I can't quite figure out is why you left the ring behind."
June stared at her oldest friend. "Margo. What is she talking about?"
Nans said gently, "We saw you leaving the Cup and Cake this morning with a very heavy bag. Later, that bag wasn't heavy anymore."
Margo's chin lifted. "I was donating things to the church rummage sale. That's hardly evidence of anything."
"Oh!" Ida said, with the brightness of someone solving a puzzle at a dinner party. "What an interesting way to get rid of a murder weapon."
Margo turned to run.
She made it exactly one step before Ruth and Ida closed in from either side, each taking an arm with the calm efficiency of women who had been waiting for precisely this moment.
"Admit it, Margo," Nans said. "Tell us what happened. You owe June that much, don't you?"
June's voice came out barely above a whisper. "Margo? What is she talking about?"
Margo’s eyes filled. When she spoke, her voice was steady, but only just.
“Daniel Shaw came to me,” she said. “The night before he left. He had a letter he’d written her, and he had his ring.
He asked me to give them to her.” She stopped.
“He said he was going to Nashville. He said he wanted her to come with him. Drop out of school, pack a bag, follow him.” A small, precise shake of her head.
“He had forty dollars in his pocket and a borrowed guitar and a plan that wasn’t a plan.
He was going to take June away from everything she had and he wasn’t going to look back. ”
“So you read the note,” Nans said.
“I read the note.” No apology in it. “And I knew. I knew if June saw that letter she’d go.
She’d have been on a bus by morning. June was seventeen and she loved him completely and she had absolutely no sense where he was concerned.
” A pause. “She had a full scholarship. She had a life here, a real one — a family, everything she’s built since.
” Margo looked up the driveway to where Helen was still standing with a box of kitchen things, and then back at June.
“He would have burned through all of it in two years and left her somewhere with nothing.”
“So you hid the note,” Lexy said. “And the ring.”
“I put them in the cat,” Margo said. “Up in the attic. I thought I’d deal with it later, decide later.
And then later kept being later, and eventually it was thirty years ago and June had a whole life and Daniel Shaw hadn’t amounted to anything anyway — which I’d always known he wouldn’t.
” She straightened her jacket. “And that was that.”
“Until today,” Ruth said.
“Until today,” Margo agreed, quietly. “When I saw Everett with that cat in the Cup and Cake, I knew it was only a matter of time before he found the compartment in the base and read the letter.” She looked at Nans.
“June would have read it. After thirty years, she’d have read that letter and known that he tried.
That he wanted her to come. That she missed it. ” A pause. “That I took it from her.”
“You could have just taken the cat,” Lexy said. “You didn’t have to—”
“He wouldn’t give it up.” Margo’s voice cracked on the last word. “I tried. I didn’t mean to kill him. I only meant to knock him out long enough to get the cat and go.”
“Then why leave the ring?” Nans asked.
“I didn’t mean to. It must have fallen out — the compartment opened during the struggle and I didn’t have time to find it. The letter was still inside, and I thought that was the important part.” She pressed her lips together. “So I ran.”
June had gone quiet in the way that means something is breaking rather than bending. She was looking at Margo the way you look at something when you’re realizing you never really saw it before. Confusion first, then understanding, then something worse.
“June,” Margo said.
June didn’t answer.
A car pulled to the curb. Jack got out and read the scene in two seconds flat — the way he always did — his eyes moving once around the group before settling on Margo with quiet certainty.
Margo looked at June. “It was always you I was thinking of,” she said. “I need you to know that. Every single time. It was always you.”
June looked at her for a long moment. Then she turned away, out toward the street, at nothing in particular.
Margo went with Jack without any resistance.