Sophie pulled a chair up close and sat down.

  “Why did you come?” asked Viola, still looking at the picture of Zazu.

  “Actually, you’ve already brought up the subject I’d like to talk to you about. Your husband.”

  “Jim?” She searched Sophie’s face. “He’s all right, isn’t he? I haven’t seen or heard from him in almost a month. I was starting to get worried.”

  “He visits you?”

  “Every week. He only lives an hour away, in Rose Hill. Jim is thirteen years younger than me, but he’s getting up there in years. Thankfully, he still drives, still takes care of me.”

  Sophie had expected anger, hatred, even rage. She could work with those emotions, use them to get the information she wanted, but she’d never anticipated this.

  “Do you know him? Is he all right?”

  “Yes, I . . . know him,” said Sophie, not sure how to handle this turn of events.

  Viola studied her. With her small black eyes, she resembled a bird eyeing a worm. Whatever she was thinking, she was making Sophie uncomfortable. “You know about Jim, don’t you?” she said finally. “About us, his wives.”

  Haltingly, Sophie replied, “Yes . . . I do.”

  “Thought so.” She winked.

  “But I don’t . . . know everything. That’s why I came. I was hoping you could fill in some details.”

  “First, how do you know Jim?”

  “I’m a friend of Bernice Washburn’s.”

  “Oh, yes, Bernice.” She nodded knowingly. “Such a fine girl. I’ve never met her, but Jim’s told me so much about her over the years, shown me so many pictures, I feel like we’re related. In a way, if you count love as a connection, we are.” She smiled. “I can see I’ve surprised you.”

  “And then some.”

  “If you’re a friend of the family, then you’re not here to hurt Jim, or his loved ones. Go ahead and ask your questions. If I can answer them, I will. Actually, you’re not the first person to come to me wanting information. A woman named Katherine Lang visited me about five years ago. She was a niece of one of his other wives— Joan Marie Harrison of Storm Creek, Iowa.”

  This wasn’t one of the wives on Sophie’s list, which meant there were more than she’d originally suspected. “How did she find out about you?”

  “As I understand it, Jim must have left a letter lying around the house with my name and address on it. Somehow, she got hold of it and located me. I don’t recall all the details, but she must have gone to a lot of trouble.”

  “What did she want?”

  “The same as you. She discovered that Jim had a secret life—many secret lives, I should say.”

  “Was she angry?”

  “Yes. Especially when she arrived. But I think I helped her to understand a bit better. At least, she wasn’t breathing fire when she left. She thought Jim was dead. I let her go on believing that, just in case she wanted to make trouble for him.”

  Sophie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You mean, you approve of what he did?”

  “Approve?” She thought about that. “No. But I understood.”

  “But Bliss Taylor was murdered! Some people think Laura Walters was, too.”

  Viola seemed horrified. “Yes, Bliss died violently, horribly, and Laura committed suicide. Jim may have blamed himself for both deaths, but he wasn’t responsible. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Sophie wondered if the woman had ever seen the movie Psycho . “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know him. I know his heart. Oh, he could be wayward and willful at times, but he’s a kind man.”

  “Were you aware that he and another man had robbed a bank when they were young? A guard was killed.”

  She nodded, and kept on nodding. “Yes, I know all about that. Jim had nothing to do with the guard’s death. And frankly, Sophie, you hit right at the core of the matter. That incident is what started Jim on the road he eventually chose to travel. Ever since that time, he’s been trying to change his life for the good, to make amends.”

  Sophie had the urge to fire questions at her, but she had the sense that Viola wouldn’t respond well to pressure. If Sophie didn’t pass the patience test, her motives would look suspect. She knew her reasons for the visit couldn’t stand close scrutiny. Viola appeared to be a kindly, slightly sentimental old woman who liked to see the good in people. That penchant had led her to draw the wrong conclusion about Sophie. Sophie might be a friend of the family, but she wasn’t here to find proof of Jim Newman’s goodness. She wanted the dirt. Or more accurately, she wanted the truth, without the patina of sympathy and compassion Viola attached to the story. But Sophie could read between the lines. From the look on the old woman’s face, she could see that Viola was eager to tell her tale. The best thing Sophie could do now was offer a willing ear.

  In her slow, deliberate way, Viola continued. “Jim should never have gotten mixed up with that Gilbert Struthers. He was a bad man. If Gilbert hadn’t been caught and sent to prison, there’s no telling what mischief he would have cooked up. I’m not saying Jim was weak-minded. He was just young. And he came from a family where there was very little love. Gilbert was his best friend. Jim’s always been loyal to a fault, and it was no different with Gilbert.”

  “How many wives did Jim have?”

  “I knew of six, including me. There may have been more. Jim didn’t tell me everything, I suppose, although, of all his wives, he said I was his best friend. I was the only one who knew about the others. He confessed everything to me before we got married. It just slipped out one evening while we were sitting on the piano bench. I think he was feeling guilty. He was starving for someone to confide in. And also, he wanted to give me a chance to back out.”

  “But he was a bigamist, Viola. That’s against the law. Didn’t that bother you?”

  Viola gave a grudging nod. “But with each marriage, he not only loved the woman, but he tried to help her answer the hard questions in her life. His motives were pure. His weak spot was that he’d get caught up in other people’s problems and see himself as the solution. With me, I suppose he felt a kind of pity. I was considered an old maid when Jim came along. I was the town librarian, a confirmed old biddy in most people’s eyes. Jim and I met because he loved to read. When he was in town, he’d always stop by the library. Eventually, we struck up a friendship. He was on the road and lonely, and he recognized that same loneliness in me. We were friends for many years before he asked me to marry him. I didn’t find out until much later what prompted the proposal. You see, it seems that one night he was in a local tavern and he heard a couple of guys laughing about me. They must have made some pretty nasty comments because Jim threw a punch at one of them and knocked him out. I imagine it was the usual. Viola May Little was the town old maid. She was either frigid or a lesbian. Look at the way she dressed. What she needed was to smoke a little weed, take an acid trip, loosen up. It was the sixties, man. Nobody was wearing sensible shoes and Peter Pan collars in the sixties.”

  Sophie found herself laughing along with Viola.

  “Jim hated ignorant attitudes like that. His solution was to pop the question. At first, I turned him down. I was so much older, it didn’t make sense to me. I thought he should be with someone younger. I couldn’t believe some woman hadn’t already snapped him up. But I was greedy and I loved him, God forgive me, so a week later I said yes. Jim had left town by then, but he came back right away and gave me a ring. That was the night we sat on the piano bench and talked late into the evening. He told me everything.”

  “And you still married him.”

  “Yes. I’ve never regretted my decision. I believe I helped anchor him when Bliss died. It almost killed him, you know. He’d married her because he saw how talented she was, but also how scattered and undisciplined. Without nurturing and direction, he felt she’d never have a chance at her dream. He worked so hard to help her realize it. Her parents wanted her to become a nurse. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. But they offered to put her through school on the condition that she stop wasting her time on art. I guess they didn’t feel that painting would get her anywhere in life. By the time she was in her early thirties, she’d finally hit her stride. She was beginning to produce a genuinely impressive body of work. And then she was killed. It was a traumatic time for Jim. He was very much in love with her. Not only that, but the police were hounding him. They thought he was responsible. He’d called me the night Bliss died. He was in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I had the phone records to prove it, but he refused to bring me into it. He was terrified the police would find out about his other wives, about his real identity, that he’d go to prison.”

  “What was his real name?” asked Sophie.

  “Why, I thought you knew. John Washburn. But he’ll always be my Jim.”

  Sophie shivered at the revelation. “Who was his first wife? His legal wife?”

  “Why, Mary Washburn, of course. But she wasn’t his first love. He’d fallen for a girl up north the year before. Laura was her first name. I don’t recall the last. But she was a real beauty, dark hair, dark eyes. Jim could see right away that she had a problem with alcohol and depression. He tried to spend as much time with her as he could. His eyes just glowed when he talked about her.”

  “Then why did he propose to Mary first?”

  “Because she was pregnant and desperate. Plato isn’t John’s child. The biological father took off right after he found out Mary was in the family way, as we used to say. Jim cared about Mary a lot. He knew how scared she was. So he married her. And he loved her, but not the way he loved Laura. Laura committed suicide several years before I met Jim, but she was still very much on his mind. She was his true grande passion.” She gave it the French pronunciation.

  “But Bernice—”

  “Yes, Bernice is Jim’s child. His only child. He adores her, and she him. Plato was more of a problem. It isn’t that Jim doesn’t love him, but they’re so very different. Plato is a passive man. He allows life to happen to him, doesn’t try to change what doesn’t work. Bernice is more like Jim. If she sees a problem, she wants to fix it. But then, you’re her friend. You must know all about her.”

  Sophie wasn’t sure what she knew anymore. “Yes, she’s a fine woman. What about Jim’s brother?”

  “Milton? I met him once. He didn’t know I was married to Jim. He thought I was just a friend. I liked him. He and Jim were very funny together. And Milton was a real success story, thanks to his brother.”

  “What did Jim have to do with it?”

  Viola shrugged out of her shawl. “Would you open the window? It’s getting a bit stuffy in here.”

  Sophie stood and rolled the casement window away from the screen, allowing the cool breeze inside.

  “That’s better,” said Viola, folding the shawl into a neat rectangle as Sophie sat back down. “About Milton. After Jim and Gilbert Struthers robbed that bank back in the mid-fifties, Jim ended up with the money. Two hundred thousand dollars. He carried it around in a big suitcase for a few months, but he couldn’t bring himself to spend any of it. It felt like blood money to him. His brother, Milton, was kicking around St. Louis at the time. He was working as a salesman for Lee Broom and Mop, and so he traveled a lot, too, but he and a pal of his had this bee in their bonnet to develop a new kind of trailer home. Jim decided to give Milton the money. He refused to tell Milton where he got it, and Milton didn’t care. He wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was just the break he and his pal had been waiting for. They patented their design, then started constructing the homes. By the mid-sixties, they’d built up a nice little business. And by the mid-seventies, they’d gone national and made their first million. Milton sent his brother money every month, as a way of paying him back. That’s how Jim could afford the extra mouths to feed. And when the company went public in the early eighties, Milton made Jim a major stockholder. Milton’s company made them both rich.”

  So that’s what happened to the money, thought Sophie. “Does Milton know about his brother’s secret life?”

  “Heavens, no. And you mustn’t tell him.”

  “Did Jim ever refer to himself as J. D.”

  Viola frowned, shaking her head. “Not that I recall. You know, Sophie, as I think of it, I heard someone repeat a wonderful quote the other day on public radio. I liked it so much, I wrote it down. It’s in that novel by Gore Vidal. Right inside the front cover. Pick it up and read it to me.”

  Sophie turned around and lifted the book off the nightstand. Opening the cover she found the quote scrawled in red pencil.

  We believe at once in evil. We only believe in good upon reflection. Is this not sad?

  —MADAM DOROTHEE DELUZY Actress, (1747–1830)

  Gazing thoughtfully at a Mason jar of wilting daises, Viola continued, “In the end, everyone’s life is a puzzle. Perhaps it’s best not to try to decode motives. Our decisions are far more random than we like to think. Very little on this earth begins clearly, or ends neatly. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that every person’s story needs a preface and an epilogue. Maybe that’s the librarian in me talking, but I believe it’s more than that. I hope you understand Jim a little better now. He told me once that his wives were easy to please, but hard to protect. He may have broken some rules, but he has a good heart. In the end, that’s what counts.”

  Sophie was touched by the old woman’s words. Perhaps she had misjudged John Washburn, at least partially. “I’m driving to Rose Hill tonight as soon as I’m done here.”

  “Will you give Jim a message for me? Will you tell him that I miss him? That I hope he’ll come by soon?”

  Sophie was torn. Should she explain that John had suffered a stroke? It seemed cruel to tell her, and equally cruel not to. When she looked back, the elderly woman was staring at her.

  “Is he dead?” asked Viola softly.

  “No,” said Sophie. She touched Viola’s arm. “He had a stroke several weeks ago. But he’s getting better every day.”

  Viola flinched, then closed her eyes. “Bless you for telling me.”

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.”

  “Don’t be. Now that I know, I can pray for him. I can do something useful. Will you give him my love?”

  “Yes,” said Sophie, feeling Viola squeeze her hand, “I will.”

  39

  The moon rose, the crickets sang in a deafening choir, and night closed in around him. Tucked deep into the boughs at the base of a spruce tree about ten yards from Melvin DuCharme’s cabin steps, Angelo waited. He’d spent the early part of the evening in Minneapolis, digging up a pair of night-vision goggles, handcuffs, and a bulletproof vest. Armed with a forty-five caliber Glock in a shoulder holster, Angelo had come prepared for a fight, one he intended to win.

  Just before sunset, Cora and Angelo arrived at the cabin in her car. As Cora climbed out of the front seat, Angelo remained in the back seat covered by a blanket. He watched through the open door as Cora stuffed the envelope containing the letters underneath the steps. He wanted to make sure that once she’d stashed the goods, she got away safely.

  On her way home, she let him off by the side of the road. He tramped a good mile through the woods, using a compass, and arrived back at the cabin just as the sun set over the Cottonwood River. Crawling slowly through the undergrowth toward the huge spruce, he took up his position, hoping he wouldn’t have long to wait. Ever since he’d talked to Cora at the coffee shop, he’d been a man in motion, rushing from one place to the next. He hadn’t had much time to think, only to act. But now the niggling worry he’d ignored earlier just about swallowed him whole. What if Bernice had put the bomb in Kirby Runbeck’s truck? If she showed up here tonight, instead of Milton or Plato or even Mary Washburn, what would he do?

  Angelo knew the answer. He’d wait for her to read the letters, then together they’d destroy them. He’d make her promise never to bother Cora again. Together, they’d wait it out. The police had no real proof that her father had murdered Kirby Runbeck. A confession given right after a major stroke would never hold up in court. Chances were, nothing legal would ever come of it and John would be free to live out the rest of his life in peace. The only matter that still bothered Angelo was the cold-blooded way Bernice had gone after Cora. That is, if she had. He still believed she had nothing to do with it. It was most likely Milton or Plato. Whatever the case, Angelo felt confident that whoever had stolen Cora’s cat, demanding the letters as ransom, wouldn’t wait long to pick them up.

  By three A.M., Angelo was beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong about the blackmailer’s impatience. It was possible that the letters could sit under the steps for days. Maybe the person he was waiting for was being ruthlessly careful, making sure no trap had been set. If so, Angelo would have to alter his plans accordingly. He’d been fighting sleep for the past two hours. Thank God for the mosquitoes. He couldn’t believe an intelligent human being would willingly live in a place infested with such vile bugs.

  Just before four in the morning, he heard grass rustle behind him. His body tensed and his senses switched to high alert. He turned his head carefully to the side, but saw nothing. Quiet returned. Except, this time, he could feel alien body heat right through the branches. At all costs, he couldn’t give his position away. He waited for what seemed like an eternity, controlling his breathing, eliminating even the smallest twitch. A mosquito landed on his nose. He could feel it boring into his skin, making a meal of his blood. He had an overwhelming urge to smack the life out of it, but he couldn’t move.

  Suddenly, a dark form burst past the pine tree headed for the cabin steps. Angelo assumed the person must have been waiting in the dark for a long time, creeping ever closer to the target. Through his night-vision goggles, he could see a long, hooded raincoat. Whether the form was a man or a woman, he couldn’t tell. But it definitely held a gun.