One of the women was doubtful. “Dragged?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Everyone knows how weak Ralph is.” Mildred sighed and took a sip of her tea. “It is only because of my strength that our family has turned out so well.”
“Mother,” Gail’s voice snapped when she came in with Joshua, Cameron, and Sheriff Curt Sawyer behind her. “Some people are here to see you.”
Seeing the visitors, Mildred’s eyes widened. “What has Ralph done now?”
Gasps were uttered from around the kitchen table.
“May we speak to you in the other room?” Joshua asked in a steady voice.
“Is Ralph okay?” the woman in purple asked.
“Ralph is fine,” Curt answered. ”He’s waiting for us in the living room.” He gestured at Mildred. “Can you please join us?”
Gail turned to the ladies. “I think it’s best if you all go home now.”
With questioning glances to each other, the three ladies got up and slowly made their way out the door. They all stopped in the foyer to peer into the living room where Ralph was waiting on the sofa. After shooting him shameful glances, they left.
Once they were gone, Mildred marched into the room and up to her husband. “Ralph, what have you done now?”
“Nothing,” Ralph said. “I swear. I haven’t even gone to the hospital to see Doris.”
“And you have better not.” Mildred wagged a finger at him. “I have friends at that hospital. If I so much as—”
“Mrs. Hildebrand, sit down,” Cameron ordered.
“Mom, do what she says.”
Mildred turned to the detective. “You can’t come into my home and tell me—”
“Sit down!” Joshua snapped.
Mildred plopped down onto the sofa next to Ralph.
“Your reputation is very important to you, isn’t it, Mrs. Hildebrand?” Joshua strolled around the living room, which contained a wide assortment of family pictures and a trophy case filled with certificates and awards.
“You are your reputation,” she said. “Isn’t your reputation important to you, Joshua?”
“Yes, I admit it is,” he said. “But I also believe that who I am inside, who I see myself as being is more important than what others think of me.”
Mildred cocked her head at him. “What are you trying to tell me, Joshua?” She gasped. “You’re not giving me the elder position.” She jumped up and whirled around at Ralph. “This is all your fault, you bastard! Because of your sneaking around!” She slapped him. “Look at what you’ve done to me!” She slapped him repeatedly until Curt and Joshua pulled her off him. “I’ll kill you for this, Ralph! I’ll kill you! You’ve ruined this family for the last time with your whoring around!”
The sheriff was surprised to discover that the older, heavyset woman was rather strong. Intent on finishing off her husband, she fought against them with everything she had, which included a knee to Curt’s groin with such force that he buckled down to his knees.
“Are you okay?” Gail knelt to ask him.
Curt sucked in a breath. Unable to speak, he only nodded his head.
With his arms around her waist, Joshua dragged Mildred, still kicking and screaming, across the room and shoved her down into the recliner. “This is not about the elder position at the church!” he yelled at her. “Hell! I haven’t even thought about it in over a week!” Catching himself swearing, he covered his mouth while Cameron smiled. “I’m talking about Angie Sullivan.”
Mildred’s face grew pale. She cleared her throat. “Doris’s sister?”
“Mom, you know damn well that she was Doris’s daughter and Dad was her father.” Tears in her eyes, Gail shook her head. “What’s wrong with you?”
With a groan, Curt slowly stood up.
“Even I felt that,” Cameron whispered.
“Mildred, what did you do?” Ralph hissed at his wife from across the room.
“Shut up, Ralph,” Mildred ordered. “Just shut your mouth.”
“I think Ralph has plenty of right to speak,” Joshua said, “considering that you tried to kill him and Doris Sullivan the other night.”
“Ralph, I remember you telling me that you felt like you were being followed that day,” Cameron said. “You thought it was Peggy. Actually, it was your wife following you. She must have heard that Peggy was back, but you weren’t. Suspecting you had gone running back to Doris, she went looking for you—and when she found you with Doris, she decided she had enough.”
“Mom,” Gail wailed, “how could you?” Tears spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks.
“The first lesson in attempted murder is to wear gloves. Don’t you ever watch television, Mrs. Hildebrand?” Cameron asked.
Mildred’s face turned red. “I did wear gloves.”
“When you drove Peggy Lawson’s car,” the detective said. “Not when you filled up the gas cans. Your fingerprints are all over them.”
“You tried to kill me?” Ralph yelled. “Mildred, why? Why did you try to kill me?”
“Because you’re a cheating son of a bitch, that’s why?”
“But I always come back,” he said.
“Maybe that’s why she wanted you dead,” Cameron said. “Did you ever think of that, Ralph?”
The old man looked confused.
“Appearances are very important to you, aren’t they, Mildred?” Joshua asked. “Your status as an older church lady? A leader among your friends? That’s why you killed Angie Sullivan. You were afraid that if Ralph left you for the mother of his child, that you would lose your status as a bigwig in this little town.” He cocked his head at her. “Even worse, become an object of pity.”
“I never knew Angie was Ralph’s daughter,” Mildred said. “I’d heard rumors. Hurtful rumors, most of them started by Doris.”
“Doris wouldn’t have done that,” Cameron said. “It was a family secret. She never have told anyone about it.”
“I didn’t even know until Angie was a teenager,” Ralph said, “when she started asking about her father.”
“You must have suspected,” Joshua said. “Angie was so much younger than Doris. You know what type of man Ralph is. Then, when she started baring a resemblance to your children, your suspicions grew stronger. And then, Cheryl Smith started spreading the word.”
“Suddenly, Angie Sullivan was a threat to you and the image that you had created in this little town,” Cameron said. “She was reality personified.”
“Angie was living proof of your husband’s infidelity,” Joshua said. “With her gone, you could continue living the lie that you had built.”
“You can’t prove any of that,” Mildred said.
“In 1978, you drove a royal blue Cadillac,” Cameron said.
“I always drive a royal blue Cadillac.” Mildred smoothed the front of her skirt with her hands. “Every year, I buy the latest year’s model.”
“We know,” Joshua said.
“As a matter of fact,” Curt said, “back then, you were the only one in town who drove a 1978 royal blue caddie.”
“It’s what you used to push Angie’s car into the river,” Cameron said. “When you pushed it off the pier, you left your car’s paint on hers. Forensics traced that paint back to the type of car you were driving back then.”
Gail gasped. “I remember around the time Angie disappeared that your car’s front end had been smashed. You said you hit a deer.”
“Mildred,” Ralph hissed. “Why? Angie was a sweet, sweet girl. She never did anything to you.”
“Yes, she was a sweet girl,” Mildred said. “Do you really think I didn’t know that I was your second choice? You have always been in love with her mother.” She looked up at Gail. “I’m not in denial. I’ve know the truth since day one. But I’ve always done what I needed to do to keep my family and my position as a leader in this community held in the highest regard.” She smoothed her hair.
“Even if what needed to be done meant murder,” Joshua said.
“You were out stalking Angie that night, weren’t you?” Cameron said. “After she dropped Kyle off at his house, you got her to pull over off the road and slugged her with a tire iron.”
Pleased with herself, Mildred smiled. “I waited until she had gotten out on Route 30 across the state line, where no one was around, and then I rear ended her—hard. I almost put her in a ditch. We pulled over, but she didn’t want to get out of the car at first . . . until she saw it was me. Then she got out of the car all sweetness and light.” She giggled. “She even called me Mrs. Hildebrand. She went back to look at the damage, and that was when I let her have it.”
She frowned. “The hardest part was dragging her to get her back into the car. For a little girl, she was so heavy. I drove her car back to the yacht club. I parked it on the pier. And then I walked over to one of the bars and called a cab to take me back to my car. I started to tell him some story that I had made up about my daughter breaking down, but I saw he didn’t care at all. He dropped me off at my car, and I drove back to the pier, put her car in neutral, and pushed it off the pier.” She shrugged with a grin. “Within a few weeks, people stopped speculating about Ralph’s illegitimate daughter, and my problem was gone. Everything went back to the way it was—the way it’s supposed to be.”
She looked around at the faces in the room. Gail’s face was tear-soaked. Ralph’s mouth was hanging open.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Curt Sawyer ordered Mildred to stand up. “Mildred Hildebrand, you’re under arrest for the murder of Angelina Sullivan.”
“We’ll also be filing charges in Pennsylvania for arson and two counts of attempted murder,” Cameron said.
“I was doing what I had to do to protect my family. It’s the job of every matriarch. You understand that, don’t you?” Mildred said.
“Actually, I don’t,” Cameron said.
Epilogue
When Joshua offered to take Cameron anywhere she wanted for dinner that night, he was pleased, and not surprised, when she picked Cricksters. He wasn’t disappointed, until they walked in for their date to find everyone they knew already there. Jan and Tad, Donny and his date, Kaden, who all happened to arrive at the same place for their Saturday night dates. The table was filled with food in various stages of being consumed. Tad and Jan were halfway through with their salads. Donny and Kaden were eating ice cream for a treat.
In spite of his efforts to tell Cameron that he wanted to be alone with her, Joshua discovered after ordering their sundae at the counter that she had pulled two chairs up to the table and joined the crowd.
Jan was still cringing about the news of who had killed sweet Angie Sulllivan. “Knowing Mildred all these years, I never would have known how insane she was.”
“She was always a very proud woman, but I admit I never suspected she was capable of killing a young girl just to protect her own status and reputation,” said Tad.
“Did Ralph Hildebrand have any idea about what his wife had done?” Donny asked.
“I doubt it,” Cameron said.
“He doesn’t play much of a role in any one’s lives but his own,” Joshua said.
“I feel sorry for Doris,” Jan said. “She’s been an innocent victim in all this. I guess she’s out of the running for elder.”
“Not so fast,” Joshua said. “Doris has gotten a lot of sympathy from a lot of members of the board. It’s all but official that she’ll be taking Albert’s place.”
Donny, Jan, and Tad exchanged grins.
“Ned Carter kicked Brianne to the curb. He’s moved out of the Davenport mansion and in with Gail Hildebrand,” said Cameron.
Jan smiled. “I’m glad. Gail really needs a shoulder to cry on right now. She deserves someone who loves her.”
“I have to admit, I’m surprised,” Joshua said. “I thought Ned was superficial, but when I saw him with Gail, I could see that he loved her.”
“You can see that they have a connection,” Cameron said.
“Speaking of Brianne Davenport,” Jan said, “what’s happening in Hookstown, Pennsylvania, in regards to our prosecuting attorney shooting and killing Brianne’s toy?”
“We had dinner with prosecutor Frank Ballister last night,” Joshua told her.
“Oh,” Jan said with a sarcastic laugh, “you had dinner with their prosecutor? I can see there’s no old boy club stuff happening here.”
“How many murder suspects have you had dinner with?” Tad asked Joshua.
“It wasn’t murder,” Joshua argued. “It was justifiable homicide. They had five witnesses to back up my statement. Tell them, Donny.”
“Yeah, like he said,” Donny replied with a wicked grin, which made Jan and Tad laugh even harder.
The clerk arrived with Joshua and Cameron’s sundae built for two.
With the cock of an eyebrow in his father’s direction, Donny glanced at his watch. “Look at the time, we have to go.”
“Where are you going?” Cameron asked.
Casting a glance at his father, Donny stood up. “Kaden and I are meeting some friends.”
“Really?” Kaden replied.
“Didn’t I tell you?”
Joshua looked across the table at Tad. “Don’t you and Jan have some place to go?”
Jan was puzzled. “Where’s that?”
Catching Joshua’s glare, Tad said, “Jan and I are going to the mall.” He stood up. “We need to go pick out wallpaper for the nursery.”
“We already picked out wallpaper.” Jan glanced over at Joshua while Tad took her arm to pull her up to her feet.