Twenty-Five Years Ago Today (27 page)

"Please believe that my son wasn't involved,"
Michael said. "This was my secret. My mistake."

"Did you murder Diana?" Eric asked.

His father turned to the front door, his eyes
startled. "We have to-"

"Tell me. Did you murder Diana?"

"Yes," Michael whispered. "Yes, I killed
her."

"Michael, no."

Cheryl and Irene were frozen in the
entranceway, dangling their shopping bags by the handles. Kris
blinked. She hadn't heard a car engine. Then again, she'd been
distracted.

"No," Cheryl repeated, a single tear rolling
down her cheek.

"You heard me," Michael said. "I killed
her."

"No." Cheryl dropped her bags and faltered
toward them. "Michael didn't kill Diana. I did."

Chapter 24

25 Years Ago Today

The Rev. Brian J. Roy is ordained at Sacred
Heart Church in Fremont by Bishop Sherman Harrington.

K
ris stood transfixed
in the middle of the room. How could Cheryl be the murderer? It
didn't make sense. Not Diana's own sister.

Cheryl fell to her knees at the door.

"Honey, don't do this," Michael said.

Irene knelt beside her daughter. "You
couldn't have killed your sister. It's not possible."

"She came to see me that night," Cheryl said
in a hazy voice. "Michael was at work and Eric was asleep. I was
restless, so I was in the basement unpacking boxes. Then Diana
knocked on the door. I asked her to help me and we went downstairs.
But she'd come to tell me something bad."

"Honey, don't," Michael pleaded.

"She told me terrible things. Diana said that
a year before, she'd had an affair with my husband."

An affair. After Alex Thaddeus and before
Vince or Jared. Raquel was right, Diana did have a secret
relationship. One of betrayal.

Cheryl raised her head. "All those times she
was babysitting at our old apartment, Michael was coming home at
lunchtime and they were ..." Her eyes welled.

"What hurt the most was that I'd suspected
Michael was having an affair. I had confided in Diana, never
guessing the other woman was her. She lied to my face and told me I
was paranoid. I confronted Michael shortly after that, and he said
he was distant because of work stress. I accepted it. When Diana
confessed, I felt like the world's biggest fool. She apologized,
saying she had known it was a mistake, but that she'd been lonely
and he filled a vacuum in her life. She said she'd ended it after
we talked as she couldn't take the guilt."

Michael hunched forward on the bottom stair,
gripping the brass railing. Irene's elbows drooped. Cheryl held
them up, speaking faster.

"I felt myself getting angrier, like this red
hot fire was racing through my mind. Diana told me Michael had been
harassing her for months, long after she'd broken it off. She said
he'd flirt with her at family dinners, and come home while she was
babysitting. At the drugstore she found notes in her car, or he'd
be out there, urging her to start up with him again. She and
Michael worked in the same plaza, so she took the bar job to get
away."

Eric's mouth hung wide open. Kris wanted to
run out the door, away from this emotional chaos, but she was
paralyzed and fascinated at the same time.

"I couldn't believe what she was saying."
Cheryl choked out another sob. "She insisted that my husband was
obsessed with her. I knew Michael had been crazy about Diana, but I
thought he treated her like a kid sister. Michael and I fought a
lot back then, Mom, mostly about money. I never told you about the
arguments, or my fear that he was cheating on me, because I didn't
want to worry you.

"He resented that he had to give up his band
when I got pregnant with Eric. We weren't planning a baby so early,
but I wanted one so I skipped several birth control pills. When I
got pregnant again, the stress got to him and he started bothering
Diana more. It was Michael who was calling Diana at the bar, not
Jared. She lied because she was trapped. Caught in her own
deception. She felt so guilty about the affair, Michael was sure
she'd keep quiet."

Irene glared at her son-in-law with sudden
fury. "Why? Why did you hurt my girls?"

Michael slid his watch back and forth. He
studied the carpet, as if its concentric pattern held answers.
"Diana still hadn't gotten over Alex Thaddeus. She confided in me,
and that brought us closer. I loved Cheryl, too, I loved them
both."

Kris elevated an eyebrow.
Yeah, right
.
Michael probably had plenty of affairs over the years.

"What did you do to my baby?" Irene asked
through clenched teeth.

"It was me, Mom, I told you." Cheryl peered
up at her. "When Diana said all this, something came over me.
Michael had a couple of 2 x 4s in the basement, to build a shed
when the weather got nicer. You know the shed in the backyard? I
grabbed a piece of wood and beat her over the head. I think she
struggled, but she was weakened from the blows. I don't remember it
clearly. Once I realized what I was doing, it was too late. Diana
was unconscious, and there was blood all over the place ..." She
sobbed again, shoulders rising between her hiccupping breaths. "I'm
sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry. I loved her, I really did."

Irene vigorously shook her head. "That's not
possible. You couldn't have killed your own sister. You couldn't
have lied all these years."

"I didn't know what to do. I thought about
calling an ambulance, but she was already dead. Michael came home
and found me crying over her body. He said we shouldn't go to the
police. I was in a daze, Mom." Cheryl touched her mother, who
blanched. "We didn't have neighbors, so he said no one would see us
carry Diana out. I couldn't bear looking at her. I wanted to cover
her in a blanket, but Michael said that could be traced. So I used
a garbage bag. I didn't want her to ... to be cold in case it
snowed. I wasn't thinking rationally.

"We waited till 1 a.m., when there would be
less people out." Cheryl swallowed. "Michael put her in our car,
and I drove Diana's Chevy. I wore gloves so I wouldn't leave
fingerprints. We dropped off the car at that old restaurant. We
didn't know what else to do with it. Then we brought Diana to the
woods near the college. She had told me how awful she felt about
pinning the phone calls on Jared, so we figured he'd be the best
suspect. We didn't know that he was the last person to see her
alive. Besides me.

"When you called looking for her, Mom, I
almost told you right then. Lying to you broke my heart. Then all
those hours until she was found ... I kept waiting for the police
to figure it out. When they questioned Michael and me, I was sure
we didn't sound convincing, but they didn't catch on. I half-hoped
they'd accuse us, so I wouldn't have to decide about turning myself
in. I might have spilled everything, but Michael was an accessory.
I was afraid of what would happen to Eric and the baby if we went
to prison. But the guilt ate away at me and I lost weight. Then I
had the miscarriage."

She whirled toward her son, beseeching him.
Eric had paled whiter than his grandmother.

"You were all I had left, and you were so
dependent on me," she said. "I pretended that it had happened
another way, that Jared killed Diana. I tried to block it out.
After awhile, no one mentioned Diana except Mom, and it got easier
to pretend. But I've thought about her every day of my life. Please
don't hate me, either of you."

Irene pushed Cheryl off her and staggered. "I
won't believe this. I won't. Dizzy. I feel dizzy."

Eric caught his grandmother before she fell.
Kris moved out of the way as he lowered Irene onto the couch.

"Couldn't have happened like that," Irene
mumbled, burying herself in a blanket. "Won't believe it."

"I'll get her a drink." Kris escaped to the
kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice and leaned against the
refrigerator.

Cheryl had killed Diana. For twenty-five
years, she and Michael had lived a lie. He couldn't love his wife,
not if he had cheated on her. How could Cheryl love him after his
obsession with her sister? Kris pressed at her deepening headache.
How could they have stayed together? Sentenced to a lifetime of
silence. Partners.

Cheryl didn't mean to kill her sister. She'd
been consumed by jealousy. Like Kris with Nicole. But it wasn't the
same.

Kris reeled toward the living room. Her hand
shook and the orange juice dribbled. She stopped to control
herself, then extended the glass to Eric. He helped his grandmother
sit and cupped the rim to her lips. Irene waved it away.

One mistake had ruined a family's lives
forever. Now Kris carried the burden on her own shoulders. Her mind
and heart twisted for some way out.

Michael eyed Kris. "What if we paid you to
keep quiet?"

His words stung like a slap. She could tell
the police, or she could leave and never look back. There was no in
between. Kris felt her stomach drop as if in an elevator. She
looked at Eric. He'd been uninvolved in the lies. She believed that
now. In the end, it didn't matter. He would side with his
family.

This was goodbye to love. But she had no
choice.

"I have to do right by Diana. I think Cheryl
should turn herself in." Kris was surprised at how quiet and firm
her voice sounded.

"No," Eric said.

"Yes," Cheryl replied. "I want to call the
police."

"Cheryl, you can't!" Michael paced, grabbing
the sides of his neck.

"Mom, no," Eric said. "You'll wind up in
prison."

"I need to do this. I won't tell them
everything. I'll say I covered it up by myself, so your dad won't
get in trouble."

"You're talking crazy," Michael said. "Do you
really think they’ll buy that? You can't go to the cops."

"Yes, I can." Cheryl turned to Kris. "When
you came into our lives, I didn't think you'd find out, but I told
myself that if you did, I'd accept the consequences."

"Hasn't the guilt been enough punishment?"
her husband demanded. "Think about the publicity. And a trial. Do
you want to go through that? What if they send us to jail? These
are our lives you're messing with, Cheryl."

"Have you ever wondered what we would have
done if Jared had been arrested twenty-five years ago? If he'd been
convicted of a crime he didn't commit? We would have let him take
the blame, and ruined an innocent man's life."

No one spoke. Irene shuddered on the couch.
Kris couldn't tell whether she was listening, or lost in her own
thoughts.

"But he wasn't arrested," Michael said.

"It could've happened. I'm tired of feeling
badly about myself every time I look in the mirror. Eric's grown
now, so I have to make amends." Cheryl let out a quavery breath.
"Can someone get me the phone?"

"Mom, no."

"Damn it, Cheryl, at least take time to think
about this. You don't have to call this minute. Think how it will
affect your mother, for God's sake. And your son."

"My mother hates me." Cheryl strode toward
the kitchen, her husband close behind. "I want her and Eric to know
that I did the right thing."

Kris had stood still. Now, she reached for
her jacket. She didn't belong here. She'd drive to her sister's
house and see if Holly or R.J. were home to evaluate her injuries.
If not, she'd go to the emergency room.

"Why did you have to dig this up?" Eric
asked. "Why couldn't you mind your own business?"

His face resembled the busts in Alex
Thaddeus' office, except chiseled with too many emotions, as if the
artist couldn't make up his mind. Shock, fear, sorrow, regret. Kris
saw them all. Except hope.

"I didn't know it would lead to this. I was
trying to help."

"You suspected my father was guilty, and you
didn't tell me. You thought I was guilty, too."

Hot tears glazed her eyes. "I didn't know
what to think. What to do."

"You can go."

"I'm sorry it turned out this way." Kris
paused at the door, looking back at him one last time. Eric turned
away. Her gaze lingered on Irene, balled into a fetal position on
the sofa.
Happy Birthday
.

Kris walked out of the house, out of their
lives.

Chapter 25

Feb. 12

By BRUCE PATRICK, Staff Writer

F
REMONT - Cheryl
Soares, a former teacher at Fremont Jr. Sr. High School, has been
arrested and charged with the murder of her sister, Diana Ferguson,
whose death has baffled authorities for 25 years.

A recent article written by this reporter
sparked the surprise confession. According to police, Soares turned
herself in Saturday afternoon. Her husband, Michael Soares, has
been arrested and charged as an accessory. Diana Ferguson, a
21-year-old cocktail waitress, was found bludgeoned to death in the
woods behind Fremont State College. Her body was wrapped in a
garbage bag.

For more than two decades, her murder has
remained an unsolved mystery. Now police have learned that Cheryl
Soares killed her sister in a fit of rage.

During a press conference yesterday,
Lieutenant Gerald Frank said that Diana had driven to her sister's
house and confessed to an affair with Michael Soares. According to
Frank, her sister grabbed a 2 X 4 in the basement and smashed it
over Diana's head. When Michael Soares arrived home from work, he
helped his wife cover up the crime, Frank said.

The couple allegedly dropped off Ferguson's
car at an abandoned restaurant, apparently hoping to confuse
police. When Cheryl Soares' worried mother, Irene Ferguson, called
her daughter around 2 a.m., Diana's body had already been dumped in
the woods, Frank said.

Although many suspects were questioned over
the years, primarily old boyfriends, police never had enough
evidence to make an arrest. Frank admitted that Soares' confession
came as a shock.