Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (14 page)

When Esther didn’t answer right away, Sam turned her attention to her. She was intently watching a rerun of Law & Order on a cable channel. Sam glanced at the television set. The sound was muted, but the scene of several police cars coming to a stop at the scene of the crime, played out before her.
“Esther, is April already in bed?” Sam said again.

Esther turned up the volume and then looked from the television program to Sam and nodded. “She still isn’t feeling well, so I put her to bed early tonight. At seven-thirty. I’d rather you not wake her now, but wait
’til the morning to see her.”

Sam snorted under her breath. What she wanted to say was, “How could anyone possibly be asleep with all this noise?” But that wouldn’t set too well with Esther. And Sam knew it. It was just the beginning of the long weekend. It wouldn’t be wise to get started on the wrong foot, which would, no doubt, set a sour tone for the duration of her stay.
“Did you tell her I was coming?” Sam asked, looking intently at Esther. She could see the flicker of the television set reflecting in Esther’s glasses.

Esther watched the set a moment, ignoring Sam. A nasty habit that Esther had, which drove Sam nearly insane.
“Esther, does April know I’m here?”

Esther gave Sam a brief moment of her attention. “Of course,” she said stiffly before she went back to watching the tube. “Didn’t you ask me to tell her you were coming?”

A commercial had come on announcing a new and improved formula for a carpet fresh product.
Perfect,
Sam thought.
Just what this place needs.
She stretched her arms above her head as high as she could. “Well, it’s been a long day,” she said, feigning a yawn. “Guess I’ll get my bags out of the car and go to bed, too.”

“There are towels in the guest bathroom,” Esther said, her eyes still on the TV. “Use whatever you like.”

None of the dogs followed Sam as she left the study. The closer Sam got to the doggie room and the garage the heavier the scent of wet dog became. She tried breathing through her mouth. The smell in the study didn’t seem as bad, which Sam guessed was due to the ionizers that were positioned high on kitchen counters and just outside the study. Sam returned moments later with her purse and travel bag in hand. “Thanks for picking me up at the ferry, Esther. See you in the morning.”

“Do you need the hall light on?” Esther asked.

“No thanks,” Sam said as she turned and headed for the gate. “There’s enough light coming from here that I can find my way. G’night.”

“Night,” Esther called from the study.

Sam pushed the gate open and walked quietly through the great room, thankful to be away from the dogs and Esther. She stopped at her bedroom door next to April’s. She put her hand on the knob, but stopped before turning it. It was all she could do to stay where she was. There wasn’t any way, however, that Sam would let the
entire night pass without seeing her daughter. She had come too far and the visit would be too short not to see April tonight. In an hour or so Esther would come down the hallway and go to bed. Sam would wait and listen. Then she would slip quietly into April’s bedroom and do what she had been aching to do the moment she got off the plane, crawl in her bed and lay beside her.

There was no reason to fight the tears of frustration and sadness she felt rolling down her face as she let herself into her own bedroom. She flicked on the overhead light. The room was small and the same heavy wooden blinds covered her bedroom window. A single twin bed was positioned against the wall beneath the window. There was a small nightstand with a clock radio and lamp on top, next to the bed. The blinds were open and Sam set her bags on the bed. Before she closed them she looked out into the yard. The moon was shining overhead
, completely filling the perimeter with its distinct light. The tall trees looked like giant sentinels that stood perfectly still in the distance. Sam closed the blinds and switched on the light on the nightstand. She turned out the one overhead. There was a tall dresser that matched the nightstand and a generous closet. As Sam expected, the print on the wall was a limited edition by an artist with a name that she did not recognize.

Nothing had changed with respect to the prints Esther had in her house. Most were limited edition prints that had been expensively framed. The only photograph of any one person in her house was a photo of Jonathan when he graduated from the police academy. There was another of Jonathan and his siblings taken on a picnic, the weekend before his father was shot in the line of duty. Sam knew that Esther kept both of them on the nightstand in her bedroom.

Just before midnight Sam heard Esther coming down the hallway. Sam listened and wondered if she would check on April. She listened a few moments more and could tell that Esther had not opened the door to April’s room.

Within minutes the house was quiet and dark. Sam waited until the red numbers on the clock radio showed 12:30 a.m. She threw her covers back and was hit by the chill of the late winter night. She shivered and wished she had brought a warmer nightgown.
Quietly she opened her bedroom door. She had not turned on the light in her bedroom, so her eyes were well adjusted to the darkness. She walked on cat’s feet toward April’s door. Her heart was beating fast.

Sam reached her daughter’s door. She put her hand on the knob and her ear against the door to listen a moment. Silence. Sam turned the knob and quietly pushed the door open. She held her breath, hoping that it wouldn’t creak on its hinges or that April wouldn’t call out when she opened the door. The room smelled faintly of shampoo and lotion. Sam closed her eyes, drew a deep breath and held it. It was the scent of her daughter and she wanted nothing more
than simply to bathe in it.

The soft sounds of the rise and fall of April’s breathing filled the darkened spaces. Sam could feel tears well in her eyes. She bit her bottom lip to keep from crying. She entered the room and closed the door softly. The room was utterly dark. She felt for the edge of the bed and followed along the side until she felt the tenderness of flesh from her daughter’s arm. She let her hand stay gently on April’s arm a moment to let the feel of her daughter run through her. Her skin was soft and Sam squeezed lightly. Her bones felt slight, still fragile, still forming, s
till soft. “Oh baby,” Sam whispered. Her voice quivered with emotion.

Sam bit her bottom lip again, determined that her emotions would not get the better of her. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to take her daughter in her arms and run away from here.

April stirred and Sam drew her hand away. She wanted desperately to turn on the light and see her daughter’s face, but that she could not do. Instead, she quietly pulled the covers down and got into the bed. It was warm with April’s body heat. And this time, Sam could not or would not stop the tears that fell on her daughter’s pillowcase. “Sweetie, Mommie loves you so much,” Sam said into her daughter’s hair. “I love you so, so much and I am so, so sorry that you have to be here.”

Sam’s remorse was deep and it made her chest hurt. This was all too much for a nine-year-old to endure and she was the cause of all of it.
“Can you forgive me, sweetie?” Sam’s voice had risen to just above a whisper. “Mommie’s so sorry.”

“Mommie?” April said. Her voice was filled with sleep, but it carried well in the darkness.

Sam said, “Hush! Sweetie. Mommie’s right here next to you. Whisper and I can hear you.”

“Is it morning yet?” April asked.

Sam smiled and realized how much she had missed hearing the sweetness and softness of her little girl’s voice. Life could stop right here, right now as far as Sam was concerned. She could stay frozen in time right here now and forever.

“Pretty soon, sweetie,” Sam whispered back. “But we can’t get up now, ’cause it is late and Grandma Church is already in bed and we don’t want to disturb her, but Mommie will take you out to breakfast in the morning. I hope you are feeling better.”

“I’m thirsty,” April said in a low quiet tone.

“Sweetie, Mommie will go out to the kitchen and get you a glass of milk.”

“You can’t do that,” April said.

“Why not?” Sam asked.

“’Cause when Grandma puts the dogs to bed at night, she puts them into the doggie room and closes the door. Then she doesn’t want anyone to go into the kitchen after she turns out the light to go to bed.”

“Why?”

“’Cause she doesn’t want to bother the dogs.” Sam was stunned into a moment of silence. She had never heard
of anything so ridiculous.

“That’s why Grandma Church always makes sure I have some hot chocolate before I go to bed.”

It was quiet enough for a moment that Sam could hear a car coming down the gravel road next to the window. Someone heading to the safety, the warmth of home.

“’Cept I don’t like her hot cocoa,” April said and her voice was soft and light.

“Why not?”

“’Cause she makes it with water and the mix that comes from the store. It tastes icky.”

Sam did not know what to say. Instead she just lay next to her daughter with the darkness between them so she could not see her face. Within minutes Sam could hear the deep sounds of April’s breathing. She had fallen back to sleep, but Sam continued to hold her. And she whispered. “I know, sweetie. Hot chocolate from the store does taste icky. You like the way Howard makes his hot cocoa just as much as I do. We know he makes his with love and lots of whole milk.”

Sam stared up into the darkness. She held her daughter a little tighter and wondered how this had ever happened. She could feel the tears falling freely along the sides of her head. She did nothing to stop them. The pain in her chest was deeper than she had ever felt before.

Sam had been awake long before the first light of morning started to show through the heavy wooden blinds. She thought she would have trouble falling asleep last night after her brief time with April, but when she crawled into the twin bed in her own room, she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Sam glanced at the clock. It surprised her that it was almost 8 a.m. and only now just beginning to get light. Morning was a little more stubborn about showing its face in the Pacific Northwest in winter. Sam rose and steadied herself on her elbow as she lifted a corner of the blinds slightly for a peek at the weather. She
’d guessed right. That’s why it seemed so quiet beyond her window. The sky, what she could see of it through the tall trees, was a dull gray, completely covered in flat, nondescript clouds.

She looked at the redwood deck expecting it to be slick with rain, but it was dry. She scanned the perimeter of the yard. The deck was long, wide and large enough to hold a swing for two and two green lawn chairs with a matching table between them. Sam counted three large terra cotta pots, all of them a deep emerald green, which held small pine-type trees. They were stubby trees that looked healthy. Beyond the deck the grass, lush and green, stretched out a short distance until it came to a stop at a grove of trees, a collection of alders, cedars, maples and firs. Fern, moss and an abundance of shrubs filled in the rest of the landscape between the trees. Sam remembered what the man on the ferry had said last night, about how rich and
full the area looks in winter; nothing seemingly dead about winter here. It’s the summers here, he made a point of telling her, when the rain stops and nobody waters their yards that the grass turns dry and brown.

The front yard was tiny compared to the back, where Sam guessed that the remaining two acres of the plot must be. The dogs, of course, had all the room they needed to run around and bark, roll in the dirt and whatever else it is that a pack of dogs does with the freedom to roam.

The house was quiet with the dogs, Esther and April probably still asleep. The only thing that seemed busy at work was Sam’s thoughts, which had been churning since she woke. She couldn’t help replaying the events of last night.

The dogs. Sam wondered if instead of finding new
homes for the dogs Esther just kept them. In fact, Esther told her last night that though all of them had been rescued in some way or another, four dogs of the current pack she liked enough to keep. All the others were available for adoption. “And not to just any home, mind you,” Esther said, pointing a stern finger in Sam’s direction.

Sam hoped that Esther wouldn’t reiterate how the dogs had come to her and the adoption process that followed their arrival. Any time Esther had a chance to jump on her soapbox, she didn’t like to miss a beat.
And Esther went through the entire process with her last night, as she always did. When Esther began her litany, Sam did as she had always done, tuned out Esther’s voice until she heard her say … “I find homes for dogs not pets for people.”

Esther said that phrase the same way each time as thought it were some sort of slogan. Sam felt given the way Esther emphasized everything that it should be all caps, bold, italicized and underlined.

Still, Sam had to give Esther credit. She had, after all, found something meaningful to do with her life. She thought of how Esther’s house and the car were equipped for handling a large number of dogs. The leather on the furniture and the interior of the car made whatever the dogs tracked in easily wiped away.

With the exception of the area rug in the study and a couple of old floor mats by the door, there was no other carpeting in the front part of the house. It would be easy for the housekeeper to pull dog hair up in the vacuum and then mop. Still, it must be a constant, never-ending job to keep the house presentable with that many dogs having run of the place.

The housekeeper, no doubt, had to work without conditions, and with the patience, empathy and understanding of Mother Teresa. Esther’s coldness also wasn’t hard to miss. It descended on Sam like an air mass from Alaska. April had mumbled something before she fell back to sleep last night that Esther was disappointed that Sam was coming on Friday. That meant she had to miss playing Bingo at the local casino on the peninsula. Friday nights were big Bingo nights and Esther would go every chance she could.

Sam would have given Esther more credit for her work in animal rescue, if only she treated and cared for the people in her life as well as she did her animals. Jonathan had often complained to Sam that his mother had forgotten what it meant to have human compassion. Perhaps it came with being married too many years to a cop and then having her worst fears realized when he was killed in the line of duty. Whatever it was, somewhere along the way, something in his mother had changed.

“Mother,” Sam would hear Jonathan say often into the phone, “You treat people the way some people treat animals.” It wasn’t necessary to see Esther’s face to know that there was a small smug smile spreading across her lips at her son’s words, as if it was something she was proud of.

Sam didn’t want to ruin the peacefulness of the morning thinking anymore about how or why Esther had gone off the deep end. Her thoughts shifted like clouds, onto other things more pleasant.

April. Sweet little April. Always so full of goodness and light. Sam woke feeling happy and satisfied knowing that April was in the other room. She thought about lying next to her in the darkness. When April woke last night, she seemed genuinely happy that she had come. At least that’s what Sam wanted to believe. She hoped it was truly happiness talking and not words from a tired little girl just pulled from a deep sleep. Morning would tell. When April was fully awake, Sam would know then how happy she was that her mother was here. Or not.

Sam thought about waking up with April at Nona’s ranch. By 6 a.m. the house would already be bustling with activity. Howard would be busy doing chores. Nona, if she wasn’t doing laundry, would be in the kitchen. Fresh coffee would be brewing on the stovetop, and of course, her grandmother would be making her homemade pancakes or baking, most likely her homemade bread. The smells of butter and yeast and maple syrup would permeate the air.

Sam got up to go to the bathroom. She put on a pair of sweats and a sweat top and opened the door, pulling it slowly so that the hinges wouldn’t creak. Esther’s door was still closed, keeping the hallway in semi-darkness.

To her surprise, April’s bedroom door was already open. She poked her head into the room, but April’s unmade bed was cold. Sam looked down the hallway. A light in the dining room was on. She wondered how long she had been up. Sam had been awake for what seemed hours and had heard nothing beyond her bedroom door.

She went into the bathroom and then walked down the hallway toward the dining room on the balls of her feet. In the silence she heard sounds of water bubbling coming from the living room from a water fountain, the kind that people buy for their homes that provide soothing, tranquil sounds of nature.

She stopped just short of the dining room. There she saw April sitting at a large round dining table of dark wood. She could hear April humming softly to herself, perfectly content to be sitting and coloring. When Sam opened her mouth to call her daughter’s name, she realized she’d been holding her breath. She took a step back. She felt a sense of apprehension bubble. She wondered what April might do when she saw her mother now.

Sam desperately wanted last night to be real. And she desperately wanted to spend quality time with her daughter. It had been months since Sam could remember spending any real time with her. She had been with Esther now just over a month. Given everything that had happened especially throughout the last six months, Sam had hardly spent an hour alone with her daughter. They needed to reconnect.

Sam couldn’t help returning to an afternoon in January,
the week of April’s ninth birthday and shortly before everything came to a head with the drug smuggling operation. Sam had been at the Grandview Police department in Jonathan’s office.

“She wants to have friends over,” she remembered him saying. “So if you were planning to stop b
y…” His voice had trailed off as he considered what to say.

Of course,
I was, what was he thinking.

“I wish
you’d wait and do it later in the week,” he said finally. The words came spilling out of his mouth all at once.

“Jonathan, please don’t do this to me.” Sam said feeling the weight of his words. They had brought her down then, just as they were now. “It’s her birthday. I have presents and I want to spend a little time with her. I’m not asking for much. At least give me that, please.”

But Jonathan had refused to budge and she felt every ounce of his resistance. His plans with April would come first. If there was any time left over, it was Sam’s. Of course, he made his usual point about her drinking—how every time she raised a glass or a bottle to her lips, she should have considered the consequences it might bring with their daughter.

The dull ache in her heart over April pierced her a little more. She was doing everything she could to get her daughter back into to her life. Yet there were some days it seemed her efforts were as futile as a boat caught in a perfect storm.
What hurt Sam the most about April’s birthday wasn’t the present she bought, or didn’t buy. Jonathan had lied to her. He had told her April was sick on Sunday and it would be better for her to come later in the week. When Sam saw her daughter that week, she asked how she felt. It was then she learned that her daughter hadn’t been sick at all. When Esther said that April hadn’t been feeling well, Sam knew she had to see her daughter.

Sam took a deep breath and made the last step into the dining room. It was small, with the table and eight chairs taking up most of the space. A china hutch with matching wood was positioned against the back wall. A large potted tree-like plant on the opposite side
of the hutch gobbled up more space. The same peach-colored rug that covered the floor in the study was beneath the dining room table, only much cleaner. The sliding glass door provided a generous view of the backyard, a forest scene of trees, rocks and what looked like a path that the dogs had made to the fence at the back of the yard. Sam followed the path, which was hidden for a time in a small patch of moss and shrubs, but picked up again and continued until it reached the back fence. The skylights above added more natural light to the room. Even with the gray skies the room was bright.

“Hey, baby.”

April stopped humming and coloring, her crayon poised in mid air. She looked up from her coloring book. She was still wearing her pajamas, green and white ones with frogs all over them. The sight lifted Sam’s spirits. She bought that pair for April last Christmas, and they were her favorite.

Something at the sight of April made Sam slightly unsteady on her feet. She felt herself swaying and grabbed for the top of the chair closest to her. She grabbed it and held on so hard her knuckles turned white. It had not yet been six weeks since Jonathan had spirited April off to Canal Island. Sam could not get over how much she looked like Robin. Her eyes were wide and expressive and a deep blue. April’s hair, rich long flowing locks of chocolate brown had the tousled look of sleep. Her hair had grown some, now nearly down to the middle of her slender back.

No doubt April would be athletic like her aunt. She was only nine, but already showed an innate desire for sports. Her little body was wiry, thin and flexible just as Robin’s had been at that age. April loved to run, but she especially loved her girls’ softball team. Of course she was proud of the fact that she threw like her Aunt Robin and not like a girl, “the way Mommie did,” as April always had a way of saying.

April was in that coltish age of her young life, still straight as a board, but it wouldn’t be long before her figure would start to take shape. Sam had no doubt that April would be dark and winsome, tall and graceful
. She would turn heads, just as Robin had done.

“How’s my sweetie this morning?”

April put her crayon down and got up so fast from the table that she nearly stumbled over her chair. She fell against her mother’s body and wrapped her own arms so tightly around her mother’s stomach that it made Sam gasp. Her daughter’s eagerness took her by surprise. “Goodness, sweetie!” Sam said. “It’s a good thing I’ve got lots of extra padding!” She folded her arms around April. She bent down and kissed the top of her head, smelling the sweetness of her hair.

It wasn’t just sleep talking last night. It was April. For what seemed a long time Sam held her daughter in the middle of the dining room. The water coming from the fountain in the great room the only sound between them, breaking the stillness.

“Mommie?” April said and pulled away from her mother and looked up at her. Sam cupped her daughter’s smooth round face in her hands.
“Will you take me home?”

The innocence of her words and the softness in her voice melted Sam to tears. She pulled her close and kissed her forehead.

“Of course, sweetie, I am going to take you home, just as soon as I can.”

“Can we go to Nona’s ranch and see Howard? I miss riding in the little Scout and going to the lakes and building windmills. I miss my old room, and all my old stuff. Can we go?”

“Yes, of course, we can, sweetie.”