Sam was sitting on the bed, holding a pillow in front of him. Pavlik had pulled up the desk chair and was sitting opposite Sam. Sarah was standing back a ways.
“Sam. I’m really sorry to have to tell you this.” Pavlik sounded genuine, even empathetic. He looked like he was going to put his hand on Sam’s shoulder, but then thought better of it. “Your stepfather is dead. He—”
Sam lost it right there. He started sobbing, great choking sobs, and rocking back and forth on the bed, still clutching the pillow. Sarah and I froze.
Pavlik took the boy’s shoulders. “Sam, listen to me. Look at me.”
Sam’s sobbing quieted down a little and he seemed to finally see Pavlik’s face in front of him.
Pavlik kept his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I want you to know something, Sam. Listen, I want to tell you something. Do you hear me?”
Sam nodded.
“I know you told your dad about your mom and Mr. Karsten.”
Sam’s gaze shifted toward Sarah and me.
Pavlik gave him a gentle little shake to make him look back at him. “I want you to know that I was going to tell your father today, Sam. Do you hear me?”
The boy nodded mutely.
“I was going to tell your father about your mom and Mr. Karsten. It was all going to come out, and it would have been even harder for him to hear it from me. But he had to be told, Sam.”
“He...did he...”
Pavlik answered the unarticulated question honestly. “We don’t know. He was found in Poplar Creek. The water’s running fast at this time of year. Maybe he fell—”
Sam was shaking his head, starting to rock again. “No, it’s my fault. He did it ’cause I said—”
“Sam!” Pavlik barked like a drill sergeant. A deputy in the hallway stuck his head in to see what was going on and hurriedly pulled back out. “Your father had to be told. Either by you or by me. Do you think it would have been better for him to find out from me? Do you?”
Sam shook his head no.
“Your father was an adult. Your mother was an adult. Whatever they did or didn’t do is not your fault. You understand?”
Sam nodded again.
“Okay.” Pavlik stood up. “I have to go in and talk to your sister. I think she’ll need you there.”
Sam looked down at his lap, struggling to get his breathing under control. Finally, he stood up, setting the pillow carefully aside on the bed.
“Thank you.” Pavlik said. He put his arm around the boy’s shoulders and they walked out of the room and down the hall. We heard another door open and close. Then a cry. Then gentle sobbing. Sarah and I finally moved, finally left Sam’s room and went into the hall.
Pavlik was coming out of Courtney’s room, his face drawn. As he closed the door gently behind him, I caught a glimpse of Sam, holding his sister while she cried.
“What’s going to happen to them?” I whispered. “Who will take care of them?”
“I will, for now,” Sarah spoke up.
Pavlik looked at her with new appreciation and nodded. “Good. We’ll need some time to locate next of kin.”
“David’s parents are dead,” Sarah said, “but he has a brother who moved away from Brookhills years ago. Not that it matters,” she said grimly, “since David never got around to adopting Sam and Courtney. I told Patricia they should have—”
She interrupted herself. “Anyway, David’s family would have no legal standing when it comes to the kids’ custody.”
“What about their real father’s family?” I asked. “Or Patri-cia’s?”
“Patricia’s father died a couple of years ago and I don’t think she’s seen her mother for years. The old lady has been married a number of times, I gathered, and loses track of how many kids she has and from what marriage. I don’t know anything about Sam and Courtney’s biological father except he’s dead.”
Sarah started down the steps. “I’m going home to pack my things. I’ll be back in a half hour and stay until you find someone.” She stopped and looked back. “Sheriff Pavlik?”
Pavlik was already heading back down the hall. “Yes?”
“I don’t know what kind of sheriff you’re going to be and I don’t really care. But the way you handled that boy up there? Well, you’re a good man.”
She turned and went down the steps toward the door. Pavlik, looking bemused and a little less weary, continued toward the master bedroom. Realizing I had arrived in Sa-rah’s car, I ran down the stairs and followed her out the door.
Sarah was right, I thought as she and I drove back to her house. We had underestimated Pavlik. He’d handled Sam just right, trying to dispel his guilt, while directing his energy into helping Courtney deal with what had happened.
The enormity of the situation, especially for the kids, was just beginning to sink in. Sam and Courtney had lost three parents in their short lifetimes.
I turned toward Sarah, who was hanging onto the steering wheel with both white-knuckled hands. “What can I do?” I asked. “How can I help?”
She pulled the car into her driveway and turned off the engine before answering me. When she turned, her face was ashen. “You can find out how David died, Maggy. Because if there’s anything I would bet my life on, it’s that David Harper did not commit suicide.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You’re sure of that?”
“David wasn’t like you or me or so many other people these days. He didn’t go to church and pick and choose which rules he would live by and which he wouldn’t. God’s laws were not subject to interpretation for him. Suicide is a sin.”
“But, Sarah,” I said gently, “his wife had been killed. He had just found out she had been seeing another man. Don’t you think that in his grief and anger he might have—”
“No!” she exploded, and I backed off as far as the confines of the Firebird would let me.
Sarah sat silently for a moment, looking up at the ceiling of the car, shoulders drooping. She shook her head finally and turned back to me. “You don’t understand. To David, suicide would have been the ultimate sin. The final sin, the one that would place him beyond God’s mercy, with no chance of repentance or forgiveness.”
“Maybe he didn’t think he deserved forgiveness,” I said softly, thinking about the possibility that David had killed Patricia.
“No! He didn’t leave those two kids alone on purpose.” She went to get out of the car. I did the same and our eyes met over the roof of the Firebird. “Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was murder. But David did not commit suicide. I know it and those kids need to know it.”
“What can I do?” I asked again, my voice sounding small to me.
“I told you. You can find out how he died.” She had the keys out and was heading up the walk now.
“Are you—”
She turned at the door. “I have to be with Sam and Courtney. You’ll have to do this.” She unlocked the door and went in, closing it firmly behind her.
Since Sarah’s house was less than a mile from downtown Brookhills, I decided to walk into town. Not that I had much choice. My car was at home, which was another mile past downtown. Anyway, the walk would give me a chance to think.
Sarah was sure David hadn’t committed suicide. I understood her logic, but maybe David had simply snapped. He certainly had reason. Maybe Sarah didn’t know him—or his faith—as well as she thought.
As for my suspicion that David had killed Patricia, I decided to bury that along with David. Two sugar packets do not a theory make. Besides, it was obvious now that he hadn’t known about his wife’s affair, so what motive would he have had? Thank God I hadn’t told Pavlik what I’d been thinking. The Harper kids didn’t need any more pain.
The Harper kids. Funny how we all referred to them that way, even though Sarah had said David never adopted them. I wondered what their real father’s last name was, and what names they would go by now.
I had reached the corner of Civic and Brookhill Road. I turned down Civic toward the police station.
Gary was working at the Department’s aging PC when I got there. The computer had been donated and resembled Sarah’s in brand name only.
He closed out of what he was doing. “You okay?” he asked.
“No. I’m sad, and I’m angry, and I’m confused. And,” I added, “I’m ashamed for ever suspecting David of killing Patricia. I was playing detective. I don’t know what got into me.”
I had been sitting forward on my chair, elbows resting on the desk, hands clutching my hair. Now, I raised my head to rest my chin on my hands. “You didn’t say anything to Pavlik about what I said, did you?”
I wasn’t making a lot of sense, but Gary understood. “No, but—”
“Good, because I found out that David didn’t know about Patricia and Roger until yesterday. He had no motive.”
“Well, you—”
“Sam is a mess, you saw that. Besides both Patricia and David being dead, he feels responsible because he told David about the affair.”
“I know, he told me.”
I sat up a little straighter and brushed back my hair. “You know, Pavlik surprised me. He was really, really good with Sam. Said he wasn’t responsible for anything David did.”
“Pavlik doesn’t seem the type to take time with a kid.”
I shook my head. “I know. People surprise me. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.” I thought about Caron and Roger, and about Bernie’s reaction to the affair. You just never knew what human beings were capable of. And on that subject: “Sarah swears David would never have committed suicide.”
“That’s what everyone says when something like this happens, Maggy. ‘So-and-so would never commit suicide for this reason or that.’ ” He shrugged. “People don’t want to believe that a person they loved chose to die, chose to leave them.”
“Couldn’t it have been an accident?”
“Anything’s possible, I guess. But it looks like he went off Poplar Bridge. That rail is at least three feet high. It would be pretty tough to accidentally fall over it into the creek.”
The town storm sewers empty into Poplar Creek. Between that and run-off from the spring thaw, at this time of year the creek ran as deep and fast as a river. Eight to ten feet of muddy water and unpredictable currents, and a spring day didn’t go by when Brookhills parents didn’t warn their kids to stay away from it. And the kids didn’t ignore them. I thought about what Eric has said about Poplar Creek and Sam being caught with a girl there.
But Gary was still talking. “...so, like it or not, Maggy, I’m going to have to tell him.”
“Tell who? What?”
Gary was used to my lapses. “Tell Pavlik about your sugar packets,” he repeated patiently.
My sugar packets. Sure, it was our bomb and our robbery, but when it came to my hare-brained sugar packet theory, I wasonmyown.
“But we’ve already decided it wasn’t important,” I protested. “Why bring it up now? It’s not going to change anything. Patricia and David are dead.”
Gary looked uncomfortable, but he persisted. “But we don’t know why, and Pavlik won’t stop until he knows that. Since they were apparently short on money, David might have needed Patricia’s share of the store. Or maybe there’s an insurance policy on her.”
I was confused. “Wait. Who said Patricia and David were having money problems?”
“I just told you. Laurel Birmingham checked the records for me. The Harpers were in arrears on their property taxes. Two years in arrears.”
Boy, I had missed a lot when I tuned out. The Harpers were broke? I thought about the beautiful house and cars.
“There’s more.”
Great. “What?”
“Patricia was going to see Gene Diaz.”
“I heard. She probably wanted to talk about the election.” I didn’t mention my other theory.
He frowned. “Diaz and Patricia were friends. He said she called him and said she needed some advice. She was talking softly, seemed to be afraid someone would overhear.”
“So?”
“So, she was calling from home and evidently didn’t want David to hear. She wanted advice from a friend who is also an attorney. She was having an affair. What does that all add up to, Maggy?” He seemed to think I was being obtuse.
Maybe I was. “Divorce?”
“Bingo.” He stood up. “I’m sorry, but I have to talk to Pavlik.” He smiled wryly. “And believe me, that’s the last thing I want to do.”
I got up, too. “But Roger told me Patricia said she couldn’t divorce David. And, like I said, what does it matter now? They’re both dead. Wouldn’t it be better if we just let everyone keep thinking—”
Gary shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, Maggy. Pavlik won’t, and I can’t.” He picked up his hat. “Do you know who’s with the kids now?”
“Sarah. She’s going to stay with them at their house.”
“Good. I’m going over there now to see Pavlik. Maybe I can take them out to lunch or something.”
I nodded and he left me standing there in his office, trying to think what to do next. Since I couldn’t stop Gary or Pavlik, I supposed I should concentrate on Sarah’s “assignment” to prove that David’s death wasn’t a suicide. Before I did anything this time, though, I had to be sure of my facts.
I checked my watch—nearly 11:30. It seemed much later than that. I wasn’t sure what time the services were held at Christ Christian, but maybe if I hurried, I could still catch Langdon. And since my house was on the way, I could pick up my van.
I needn’t have worried about getting to church in time to see Langdon. According to the sign out front, he practically lived there. Christ Christian was “On God’s Side,” and had services at 7:30, 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. Sandwiched in-between were Sunday School and Bible Study.
Can’t make it on Sunday? Try Tuesday or Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. or Saturday at 6:00 p.m. Still not enough for you? The Salvation Women’s Club meets following Tues-day’s service and the Men’s Good News Bible Study, after the Thursday service. I didn’t know where Langdon got the energy.
He was shaking hands in the narthex of the church as I entered. I wasn’t sure if he knew about David, so I hovered on the fringes of the faithful until Langdon noticed me and held up one long bony finger, signaling me to wait.
After assuring a woman whose name badge read, “Hi! I’m Mrs. Cox” that he would speak to the organist to make sure no more New Age music crept into the selections played during the collection, he excused himself and swept over to me. His bony face and hands hanging out of the long black robe reminded me of The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.