Chapter 78 2025
The sheriff’s laptop is open with the image of Meryl Fairbanks kneeling in the snow beside the reverend, the gun beside her.
He never really considered her as a suspect.
She has Parkinson’s, and when he interviewed her, she could barely walk.
And she’s too short. And she had an airtight alibi.
Every year, directly after Thanksgiving, she goes to Chicago to do her Christmas shopping, and this past year was no exception.
She checked into her hotel on Friday, the same hotel where she always stays, and checked out the following Tuesday.
Which obviously wasn’t the case. In the middle of that, she’d gone back to Moosewood and killed the reverend.
The shot was not dumb luck. Meryl Fairbanks held the gun like a pro, with a two-handed grip and her feet planted the way they teach cadets at the police academy.
She stood on the rock, which explains why Belinda believed the reverend had been shot by a taller person.
The reverend stepped toward her, and she didn’t hesitate.
She fired a single, perfectly aimed round to his heart.
She tried to turn the body over but wasn’t strong enough, so she left him there, face down in the snow.
Watching Vivien Kendall was another thing altogether.
His body tensed with sympathy as he watched her go through the grisly task of gutting the reverend, then dragging him into the water.
It was clear how difficult it was, physically and emotionally.
She was shaking so violently when she got back to the shore she needed to crawl up the beach on her hands and knees.
She sat there a long time rubbing the feeling back into her legs and sobbing before finally staggering through the blizzard back up the knoll.
A hero.
Meryl Fairbanks as well.
Both of them doing what they did for each other. Not that any of that matters in the name of the law. Meryl Fairbanks shot a man in premeditated cold blood, and Vivien Kendall concealed evidence and covered up a crime.
Neither of them searched the reverend’s pockets, which can only mean the rabbit’s foot was already in their possession. The sheriff’s guess is the reverend delivered it to them as another veiled threat.
His whole professional life, the sheriff’s had the misfortune of crossing paths with men like the reverend, men with darkness in them so black there’s no hope of changing them.
Like great white sharks, somewhere along the way, they got a taste of blood and grew a craving for it.
You’d think once they hurt someone, witnessed the pain they caused, their humanity would kick in.
But that’s not how it works. The more they hurt, the more they yearn to cause that sort of pain again.
And he knows, had Meryl Fairbanks not done what she did, the reverend would have done something to Vivien Kendall, or worse, to Ivy.
Had the body been found at the scene, it’s far more likely Meryl Fairbanks would have been a suspect.
There would have been so much more evidence—the position of the body, the bullet, the eagle camera footage stored in the camera’s memory.
Vivien Kendall knew that, so she drove to Moosewood and made it far less likely the body would be discovered and that, if it was, the evidence would point to her.
The piece of the puzzle that makes no sense is why Meryl Fairbanks allowed Vivien Kendall to take the blame. It doesn’t seem like something she would do.
For love, he thinks as soon as he asks the question.
For love, Meryl Fairbanks became a murderer. For love, Vivien Kendall pointed the finger at herself. And for love, everyone from the major to the librarian to Elwood did what they could to protect Vivien and Meryl, thinking only of what was best for Ivy.
With a sigh, he closes the video so he can search the internet for the number of the police department in Bonn, Germany. He will ask them to arrest Meryl Fairbanks and hold her for extradition back to the States.
As he moves the mouse toward the menu bar, he notices the file at the top of the iCloud list: “Letter to Ivy.” It’s dated three days before Vivien Kendall’s death.
My Dearest Ivy,
You are my greatest accomplishment and my greatest treasure. Now that you are twelve, I imagine you are curious about where you come from. I know, when I was your age, I certainly was. So I will do my best to tell you everything as honestly as I can, from beginning to end.
As is often the case with destiny, every incident has two possible outcomes: the one where inertia rights the course and leaves things mostly as they were, the proverbial bump in the road; and the one that derails the train completely and ends up changing everything.
My life’s undoing came when I was six . . .
When Grace pops her head in to ask if the sheriff needs anything, he asks if she can take Poppy for her walk. Hours later, when she returns to tell him it’s time for dinner, he is so immersed in Vivien Kendall’s telling of her life story, he doesn’t hear her.
She brings him a plate, and it sits untouched as he continues to read.
It’s close to midnight when he finishes, the moon casting a soft sheen through the window and painting the room blue.
He sits back and laces his hands on his lap as he stares at the glowing screen.
Poppy lifts her head, then returns to sleep.
The last paragraph of Vivien Kendall’s letter to her daughter glows on the screen:
. . . Profe once told me people are most afraid of things they don’t understand, which is why, if something frightens you, you should get closer to it.
That doesn’t mean it won’t be awful, but the awful thing you know is easier to deal with than the awful thing you imagine.
Which makes sense, since sometimes people were afraid of me, and I wasn’t scary at all.
I suppose what I’m trying to say, Chicken, is to live bravely.
Miss me, but don’t mourn for me. I am not scared of dying.
I have lived a remarkable life. I am only sad not to see you grow into the wonderful person I know you are destined to become.
And though I’m no longer with you in this life, my spirit flame lives on within you.
You carry it in your soul, and so long as it exists, we exist, and it cannot be taken away.
Always and forever,
Mom
The sheriff glances at the clock in the upper right corner of the screen. It’s a little after midnight, which means it’s a little after seven in the morning in Bonn. Leaning forward, he picks up his phone.
His text to Meryl Fairbanks reads:
I thought you might want to know that the investigation into the reverend’s death is officially closed. Please give my regards to Ivy and let her know Poppy is doing well. Grace and I hope to see you the next time you are in Moosewood.