Emma's second story was about Mel's and Mary's auto trip, following a couple of very vague clues, in search of Mel's kidnapper. It was a good tale - Mel, who couldn't remember if she'd ever driven (Mary thought it doubtful), and Mary, a pretty good driver but only 14 years old, in the car of Mary's deceased sister, covering close to 1,000 miles of mountain and desert.
The other tale was of Jules, the Labrador retriever - rescued from a man who was getting him ready to participate in a dog fight - taken to a crooked veterinarian, who claimed dogs died, and then took them to the dog rink - then rescued again from the dog fight, itself. With the vet out of business, the dog fights shut down, and Jules safely home with Mary, it was a good upbeat narrative.
Episode two concluded with Mel actually meeting her molester, him admitting he might have "taken advantage of her," then telling her obvious lies about who she was and where she came from. He was killed before Mel could learn anything true from him (Emma didn't elaborate on how he died), leaving Mel no more knowledgeable than she had been at the start, and entirely without any new clues to follow. Emma left her with winter coming on, waitressing in a diner.
***
When Emma wasn't working on her next story, and when Dwayne wasn't actually doing some master mechanicing at his garage, they were planning their upcoming "First Night" (or maybe, Day) performance. Emma went out and bought herself some underthings that had clearly been designed with romance in mind. She also bought a soft, filmy, white negligee. She'd never had any "adult" clothes like them, and loved the look and the feel. She thought Dwayne would appreciate them, also. Dwayne didn't have anything new to buy, but made sure he had some fresh jockey shorts that didn't look like they'd been worn for 100 years. Since this was going to be a "first" for both of them, they did a little experimenting. For instance, did a kiss shared when lying on Dwayne's bed feel different that a similar kiss shared standing up? (Yes.) Once they were on the bed, how long could they kiss before they wanted to do other things? (Not long.) It was all fun and sexy, and they were glad they were waiting a little while before the "real thing."
That came on Saturday. Dwayne closed the garage at noon. They met at his house, he unplugged the phone, and locked the door. They spent a long, long time getting to know one another better. They both concluded that, as interesting as Dwayne's therapy session had been, this was even better.
***
Getting back to story-telling, Emma had been concerned about how to present Mel's first walk after running out of clues to her identity. There was a lot to tell, but it was pretty site-specific, and she didn't want to give clues as to where the events had actually happened. She couldn't bring in sinister stalkers, or assassins, and any of her somewhat less than legal acts. She ended up devoting half the article to her time on the horse ranch, knowing absolutely nothing about horses. The other half she used to introduce the evils of factory farming. Her descriptions couldn't have been tied to Klavan's, but they were similarly disgustingly horrible. She didn't think it was her best work, but her fans at both La Porte and Cold Flat Junction seemed to appreciate it.
When Emma left the Windy Run after talking about the story with the usual crew, it was still early, and she had a long wait for her train home. She might have time to visit somebody else, if they lived fairly close She sat down at the railway station to consider it.
As usual, when she sat on the bench at the station, her thoughts went to The Girl. Who was she? Clearly, she was related to Rose Queen - that look would have been impossible to duplicate any other way. The fact that Emma had seen her twice at the Devereau house was also confirmation that she was somehow part of the family. Finally, Ben Queen either knew her, or suspected who she was.
Well, that was the final unanswered question from her summer of crime. But then she stopped herself. Was it really? She began to review the murders, and planned murder, in her head.
First, the drowning of Mary-Evelyn Devereau: Well, she had Isabel Devereau's confession of that. Except, Mary-Evelyn didn't drown. Isabel's sister, Elizabeth, had strangled her before they put her body in the leaky boat. Emma had been thinking that the motive - although twisted by a good deal of family insanity - was clear. Mary-Evelyn was Elizabeth's illegitimate child by a man that Isabel had badly wanted. Neither had ended up with the man, and Mary-Evelyn had been a constant reminder to both of them. That was all true, but now Emma began to wonder if they had really intended to murder Mary-Evelyn. Maybe the most likely answer was that the death was an accident, when Elizabeth let her rage get out of control. Then, the sisters would have tried to cover it up.
Second, the brutal murder of Rose Queen, Isabel's and Elizabeth's younger half-sister: Ben Queen, Rose's husband, had confessed to the murder. It seemed like everybody in Cold Flat Junction knew he was innocent, and that his daughter, Fern Queen, had killed her mother. If the police had asked, they would have been told that Ben had an alibi, and that Fern was with her mother just before the murder. They didn't ask, and just accepted Ben's "confession."
Presumably, the murder had occurred following an argument that Ben and Rose had about Fern's mental state. Supposedly, Rose had wanted to put her in an institution, and Ben had objected. That seemed unlikely to Emma, as everybody agreed the Ben and Rose were about as loving a couple as you could get, and (although nobody would tell the details to a 12-year old) the murder was especially vicious and bloody. That seemed to Emma more likely to be the work of a disturbed daughter than a husband. Presumably, Ben confessed, rather than lose both his wife and daughter. That seemed like a pretty poor choice to Emma, even for a father, if the daughter really was unstable enough to be considered for an institution. Also, Emma had some questions in her mind if the threat of being institutionalized was enough to precipitate such violence. Well, for one reason or another, she felt sure that it was Fern who murdered her mother.
Third, there was Fern's murder. She had been shot, her body found in Mirror Pond. Ben Queen had just been released from prison, and for Sam, he became an immediate "person of interest." That seemed pretty stupid to Emma. Why would a man, who had just served a long prison term to protect his daughter, get out of prison and immediately kill her? For that matter, why would anybody kill her at that particular time?
As far as she could remember, there never had been any other suspects identified, and the case had gone unsolved. She'd have to check on that, because her memory was still a little hazy for those years. She made a mental note to ask Abner Gumbrel, or check old issues of the "Conservative." She found she was reluctant to ask Sam. Their arguments about such things were a long time in the past, and she loved Sam, but the way he had ignored her ideas at the time still rankled a little bit.
Okay, number four was the planned murder of Morris Slade's baby. It was supposed to look like a kidnapping, but then the baby was to be left out in the woods to die. There was a car accident, and the one who had taken him was killed. The baby was eventually adopted by a couple in Philadelphia.
Morris said that he wasn't involved in the murder plot, and Emma believed him. The baby grew up to be Fey Diggs, and that led to the final killing. Fey learned he was adopted, and that he had been abandoned by his biological parents. He became obsessed with killing them, and almost accomplished it with Morris. They arranged to meet, and Fey's plan to kill Morris was only thwarted by Ben Queen shooting him. Both Morris and Ben "confessed" to the shooting, Morris pleading self-defense and Ben doing it to save Morris. Emma didn't think Sam had fully believed either of them, but Ben had received a jail sentence for manslaughter, and Morris had apparently been cleared.
Ben had told Emma the true story - that he had killed Fey to save Morris' life - but Emma still had questions. She wondered why Fey hadn't gone after Imogen, Morris' wife. She had decided (but she couldn't remember why) that Imogen wasn't Fey's mother. Ben had confirmed it, but that left the question of who was Fey's mother, and why did Imogen agree to pretend to be? From what Emma had heard about Imogen, it seemed very unlikely she would pretend to be the mother of someone else's child.
So, there were a few questions left in Emma's mind. Maybe they had been answered, and she didn't remember. One way or another, she needed to bring this story to an end.
As she sat there, she suddenly thought of a possible source of the information she wanted: Louise Landis. She hadn't been to see Louise yet, and she'd really like to see her just for old time's sake. An added bonus might be that Louise knew something about "Tragedy Town" that nobody else locally knew. After all, she had been Ben Queen's girlfriend before he met Rose, and Emma had always suspected that she was secretly seeing Ben while he was hiding at the Devereau house at the time of Fern's murder.
She made up her mind. If she missed the train, maybe Louise would give her a ride to La Porte. If not, maybe she could call Dwayne. Flyback Hollow, where Louise lived in the house her parents had built, was a fairly long walk from the station, but Emma knew the way, and made quick time getting there.
Louise must have seen her coming, and was out on her porch by the time Emma approached the house. "Emma Graham! I wondered if I'd see you soon. I've been reading your articles in the paper. They're wonderful. Come on in."
As they entered the house, Emma had the same reaction she had every time she visited. Outside of a library, she didn't think she had ever seen so many books in one place. Louise had a Master's degree in English, and loved books with a real passion. She had never married and - except for the years away at school - she had lived in this house all her life. She was the principal of the local school, which sounds more impressive than it is. The local school only went through Fifth Grade, then students had to bus into Coverly to attend the higher grades. A regular topic of discussion around Cold Flat Junction was why someone as "educated" as Louise would stay in Flyback Hollow. Louise's obvious answer was that she liked the job, she liked the kids, and this was - and always had been - "home."
Louise fetched some iced tea from the kitchen, and they sat down amongst the books. "I just read your third story this morning, Emma. You had quite an adventure."
Emma looked at her. "You mean Mel, the girl in my story."
"Emma, you wrote at the start of the first article that nobody could really know how it feels to have amnesia, unless they'd had it. You're writing very convincingly. No, wait before you protest. There were other things, too. You were going to California to see relatives, but nobody thought you'd be gone two years. Sam's mysterious trips seemed odd, and when I asked Maud, she acted quite vague about where he was and what he was doing. Finally, there were people like Dwayne Hayden, who couldn't believe that you wouldn't' get in touch with him."
"Dwayne was worried about me?"
"Emma, he's been in love with you forever. You must know that."
"I do now, but I didn't know then. I really knew nothing about boys or romance or sex or any of those things. He told me after I got back that he had been going to tell me when I turned 16, but then suddenly I was gone.
"Anyway, about the articles, you're right, of course. I really wanted to tell the story, but I didn't want to be remembered as the poor girl with amnesia. I convinced Mr. Gumbrel to let me do it anonymously. Actually, he didn't need any convincing. He thought I might feel freer to tell the story if it wasn't about me. Dwayne said the same thing."
"Dwayne, again. Well, he is quite the man."
"He's too young for you!"
Louise looked surprised, then grinned. "Emma Graham, that is a mean thing to say. What if I had said he was too old for you?"
"You would be wrong. He's just exactly the right age for me!"
"I'm beginning to think you're right about that. Now, getting back to the story, you said very little about the actual kidnapping, and what had happened. I assume you didn't want the readers to dwell on that?"
"That's true but, actually, when I wrote the article, I didn't know much more than that. Sam thinks that the trauma of the kidnapping and rape were the cause of the amnesia. My brain shut down before Andi - Andi Oliver is the name I adopted for my amnesic self - before she appeared on the scene, so to speak. Andi thought she'd been molested, just from the circumstances to which she woke up, but she didn't have any trauma about it. When she and Mary went off looking for her kidnapper, it wasn't about the rape. It was because he was probably the only one who could tell her anything about who she was."
"I hadn't thought of that. It makes sense. Now, you said you didn't know any more when you wrote the article. You do, now?"
"Yes, two days after the first article was in the paper. Sam had warned me that was a memory that could come back at any time. It did - with a vengeance! I remembered everything as if it was just happening. It was pretty horrible. I was alone at the time. I told Maud all the details when she got home from work, and she told Sam. Of course, they were almost as distraught as me, but they couldn't do anything except tough it out with me. The next day, I went to see Dwayne."
"And he helped?"
"A lot. He just held me for a couple hours, and talked quietly to me - mostly about how what had been done to me had sex involved, but really wasn't about sex. It was about sadism - about control, about making me feel just as helpless and violated as he could. Sex was just the final attack on my most personal areas, and that's what turned off my brain.
"He said that sex between lovers was the exact opposite of all that. It was meant to make both partners feel loved and cherished, in a way that can't really be shown any other way."
"I repeat, he's a good man."
"Yes, and there was another thing he showed me. I wondered why my reaction to the rape memory had been so strong and so detailed, considering that it had happened two years ago. He made me see that it wasn't two years ago for me - the two years were Andi's, and she didn't have any memory of the rape. My brain was awakening to it from where it shut down two years ago - I was actually experiencing the rape as the last thing my mind had remembered. It was sort of happening for me right at that very moment."
Louise didn't say anything for a while, taking in that idea. "I would never have thought of that, but I can see what you mean. So, Dwayne was a definite help?"
"He sure was. After he talked to me all that time, he carried me to his bed, covered me up, and called Maud to tell her where I was and what was going on. They decided to let me sleep through the night. I woke up in time to have breakfast with Dwayne before he left for work, then I walked home."
"And you were all right by yourself?"
"No, not completely. I think Dwayne really helped me get the difference between rape and sex sorted out, and I didn't have any trouble with those kinds of thoughts. But I was pretty tired after the previous day, and I kept dozing off. Every time I did, I'd start to dream about being tied up. I'd wake up before there was anything more than just the idea of being tied up, but then I'd fall asleep again, and start to have the same dream. I think Dwayne was really surprised to come home from work and find me in his house again, but I didn't know what else to do.
"He listened to my problem, and then told me that the best cure might be to consider being tied up as sexy fun to have with your lover. I thought he was nuts, and told him so. But he insisted that husbands and wives often tied each other up, to make their romance a little more exciting. Did you ever hear of such a thing?"
Louise seemed to be thinking about something else, and took a minute to respond. "Yes, I have heard of it. I think it may be rather common."
"Well, it sounded crazy to me, particularly when Dwayne suggested that we repeat what had been done to me, but take it in a different direction. I was really worried about that, but he insisted there would be no actual tying up, or taking off clothes. He said it would just be pretend, role playing. I let him take me into the bedroom, but I really was kind of scared."
Emma then described the whole process, while Louise listened attentively. "The crazy thing is, Louise, that Dwayne didn't come near me after he had fake taken off my clothes and fake tied me up. He just talked to me while he walked around the room, describing what he was doing to me - kissing me, touching me... But by the time he stopped talking, I really felt like he was doing all those things. I didn't want him to stop!"
'My god," said Louise, maybe as much to herself as to Emma, "That's some man who can stand across the room, and by merely talking can take a girl all the way to..."
"That's pretty much what Maud said, when I told her. She also said that she didn't think Dwayne's therapy was included in any psychologist's manual."
Louise laughed. "I think she's right, about that! So, big question, did his therapy session work?
Emma looked at her a little strangely. "Yes and no. I haven't had any more bad dreams about being tied up. However..." Emma felt herself turning red. "I've had several very good dreams about being tied up."
Louise burst out laughing.
When they'd settled down again, Emma looked around for a clock. "I have something else I really want to talk to you about, but I don't want to miss my train. I think I can still make it if I leave now."
"Why don't you just tell me what you need to, and I'll take you to town when we're finished?"
"Really? Are you okay with that?"
"Sure. I don't like to drive at night, anymore, but I go in to La Porte regularly in the daytime. Let's just take as much time as you need."
"Okay, thanks. Do you remember 'Tragedy Town?' My stories about all the murders?"
"Sure, you were commenting on all the mysteries around the area, going way back to the Devereau girl's drowning.'
"Right. Well, I still had some questions about a few of them. I got some of my information from Ben Queen and, since you've known him a lot longer than I have, maybe he told you some other stuff."
Louise considered that. "He might have. That's all a long time ago, so I don't think there's anything I know that needs to be kept secret. Try some of your questions on me, and we'll see where we get."
"Okay, the first was Mary-Evelyn Devereau. I think that one's finished, except I don't think Isabel and Elizabeth planned to kill her. I think Elizabeth got mad about something, and ended up strangling Mary-Evelyn by mistake. All the business with making it look like she drowned was just to cover up an accident.
"Next was Rose Queen's death. Ben went to jail to protect Fern, who was the actual killer. The only part I don't understand is why Fern killed her. I know they felt Fern was unstable in some ways, but an argument about having her put in an institution never seemed to me to be enough reason. Was there more to it?"
"Yes, and if I tell you something I'm sure you don't know, it will help with that question, and maybe some of your others. Now, you know Morris Slade, right?"
"I talked to Morris twice, and he told me some things I didn't know."
"Something I'm sure he didn't tell you is that he wasn't Rose's brother. Rose was his mother."
Emma was so surprised she almost dropped her iced tea glass. It came down on the table with a crash. "His mother? How could that be?"
"You probably remember that Rose's father was Albert Souder. After Albert died, her mother married Ralph Slade - heaven knows why, because he was a disreputable drunk. Anyway, she did. Ralph molested Rose - she was only about 13! - got her pregnant, and she had Morris. To preserve the family name - what there was of it! - they claimed that Rose's mother bore him. However, when she divorced Ralph, she gave him custody of Morris, presumably because she couldn't stand to keep the child of her husband and raped daughter.
"No one told Morris about his parentage, and he grew up being very fond of his older 'sister' Rose. Rose, in turn, treated him like a loved brother. Ralph made Morris' childhood pretty awful, but somehow Morris grew up to be a real charmer. With Rose's looks, and his general boldness, he wasn't very far into his 'teens before he had most of the girls and a lot of the older women in the area eager to be with him. For Morris, being 'with him' involved a lot more than hugging and kissing, but there were a lot of willing females around.
"Well, skipping back to Rose. Her mother then married Isabel's and Elizabeth's father - I can't say his name right now - and Rose was suddenly a member of the Devereau family. It wasn't a happy relationship for her. I don't think the Devereau girls knew about Rose and Morris, but she was a lot younger than them, and with quite a different personality. Ben Queen took her away from there, and she and Ben eventually had their own child, Fern.
"I think Fern was always a little unstable, and would get very emotional. I don't know why. She was a handful for Rose at times and, when like every other girl in town, Fern went Morris-crazy, Rose and Ben saw trouble brewing. Fern, of course, didn't know that Morris was her brother, nor did Morris know about Fern. Ben and Rose didn't want to tell Fern the truth, but they also didn't want her getting involved with Morris. Rose talked pretty strongly to Fern about not attaching herself to Morris, and Ben thinks Rose denying Fern something she really wanted is what led up to the murder."
"That's really sad, but sounds more realistic to me that just the talk of sending her away."
"Yes, well, with Rose gone and Ben on his way to jail, Fern was pretty much on her own, and free to do what she wanted. Almost inevitably, Morris making his way through all the available and willing girls reached Fern. I'm sure Morris didn't know their relationship. He wasn't discriminating about who he had sex with, but I'm pretty sure he would have drawn the line at his sister. He didn't know they were brother and sister, they had their fling, and Fern had his baby."
"Fey!" Emma gasped, as she realized.
"That's right, Rafael Slade, after his grandfather. Morris was already married to Imogen Woodruff. I don't think Morris' philandering bothered Imogen. She just wanted to possess Morris. I doubt Morris ever cared for her. I think he was just interested in the Woodruff name and the Woodruff money,"
"Okay, that was as unexpected as Rose being Morris' mother, but it's also really sad, I think."
"Well, Morris was a charmer, but that's not the same as being a nice person. He didn't become a drunk, like his dad, but he did become selfish and calculating, and not really interested in anyone but himself. I doubt he would have even remembered Fern, if there hadn't been a baby involved."
"Okay, about the baby. Ben had told me that Imogen wasn't Fey's mother, but how did Imogen even end up with him?"
Louise gave an odd little laugh. "If you thought any of this was unbelievable up to this point, you're going to have an extra hard time with this one. So, Imogen and Fern were both delivering babies at about the same time. Fern didn't want hers, so Morris had to do something for her. Imogen's baby was stillborn. Rather than tell her that the baby died, Morris used his charm and the Woodruff name on some of the hospital staff, convincing them that Imogen would be heartbroken not to have a baby. Fern gladly relinquished Fey, and he was presented to Imogen as her own. She had no reason to question his identity, and he looked just like Morris, anyway. It was clearly unethical, just as clearly illegal, and just plain mean, but everybody was happy - for a little while, anyway."
"But Imogen found out?"
"Pretty quickly. I don't know how, but one of the hospital staff must have talked. Now, this next part is speculation, and was pretty much unproveable even then, but Ben thought it happened something like this. Imogen found out about the switch, and she wasn't about to raise one of Morris' bastard children as her own. She cooked up the whole kidnapping story at the Belle Rouen to cover her real plan. She convinced one of the hotel employees to take the baby, and just dump him in the woods, somewhere. The 'kidnapper' got paid, but he may have thought there was more in it for him than just the initial money. Imogen was pretty enough, could flirt with the best of them, and had her father's money behind her. She may have promised - or her helper may have assumed she was promising - more personal rewards. Anyway, baby Fey was left to die but, on the way back to the hotel, the so-called kidnapper was in an auto accident, and was killed. It was far enough from where he had left Fey that no one thought to link the abandoned baby to the car crash. As you know from your investigations, the whole kidnapping story got muddled up by Imogen's father, and the whole business just kind of went away. Morris and Imogen divorced, Morris got in some sort of theft trouble, and the Woodruffs were no longer of much interest to La Porte."
Louise paused to take a breath. So did Emma. "That is a horrible, crazy story. So, Fey got rescued - but was never associated with the Belle Rouen business - and Fey was eventually adopted by a couple in Philadelphia. And Morris never knew about any of this?"
"Ben didn't think so. Morris apparently thought there was a real kidnapping, but I guess he didn't try very hard to find Fey, afterward. He didn't know if Fey was dead or alive, until Fey contacted him around the time of Fern's murder.
"Well, the story switches to Fey for a long time. At some point, the couple who adopted him told him how he was found, and Fey presumably became obsessed with finding and punishing the parents who abandoned him. I don't know how he found them. Presumably, he saw a copy of his birth, and it listed his parents, but I don't understand how he was able to even find who to look for. There was absolutely nothing to link him to the Slade, Woodruff, or Queen families, but somehow he found both Morris and Fern. He made arrangements to meet with them, killed Fern, and was about to kill Morris when Ben intervened.
"There are plenty of sad stories in all of this, but in some ways I think the saddest is that the two people that Fey wanted to murder had nothing to do with his abandonment. In their twisted way, they had actually assured him a place in the Slade-Queen family. He must have found Imogen - his real enemy - but dismissed her when he found that Fern was his mother."
"That is sad," Emma agreed. "So, after the Fey shooting, Ben left the area for good?"
"Yes. I don't know where he went. Maybe Morris does. Morris didn't know about his connection to Ben until after Fern's death, but they parted as sort of stepson and step-father.
"You know that Ben and I were high school sweethearts before Rose. I was really sad at first, but it was clear that he and Rose really belonged together, and Rose and I actually became good friends. But I've always loved him, and - although nothing ever came of it - I think he's always considered me more than just a friend. If he'd ask me to go with him, I probably would have, but he didn't. He just had too many hurts in his life. He was a lovely, wonderful, broken man. I hope he's found a little peace, somewhere.
"Well, Emma, is that what you needed to know?"
"Much more than I ever expected, or guessed! Thanks. There is one other thing. Did Ben ever mention The Girl... Well, he wouldn't have called her that. Did he ever talk about a young woman who showed up in the area about the time of Fern's death, and was an amazing lookalike for Rose?"
"No, I don't recall anything about that? What's the story?"
"Well, I first saw this girl at the train station at Cold Flat. If you'd had photos of her and Rose at that same age, I don't think you'd have been able to tell them apart. Besides her being so similar to Rose, I saw her twice at the Devereau house, during the time that Ben was staying there. There had to be some connection. I asked Ben, and he said I must be imagining it. I wasn't sure if he meant I was imaging seeing her at all, or imagining her similarity to Rose, but what I thought he was really saying is that he didn't want her involved in the Fern business, and would I please forget I'd seen her. I did, as far as telling anybody else, but I still wondered. Before we knew that Baby Fay (F-A-Y) was really Fey, I thought she might be Fern's daughter. I even thought she might have killed Fern, although I couldn't think of any reason. There just weren't any other suspects - except Ben, and I knew it wasn't him."
Louise looked puzzled. "No, I don't remember anything about that. There aren't many family connections where she might have fit in."
"I know, and I guess that's why I keep wondering about her, and why she showed up when she did. My memory still has a few holes from back at that time, but I'm pretty sure I never saw her again, after Ben left."
Louise shook her head. "That is odd. Well, should I get you home? We've missed your train, but I don't mind driving to town. It's only 20 minutes."
"That would be great. Thanks. I was wondering - if Maud and Sam aren't busy, would you like to pick up some pizzas, and visit for a while? I might even get Dwayne to come over."
Louise thought for only a moment. "I think that would be very nice. I've been kind of a recluse lately, and a little company sounds just right."
"Okay, let me call Maud, and then Dwayne." She did, and both were available. Dwayne suggested he bring the pizza, as the source was just down the street from the garage. Sam was just arriving when they got to Maud's, and Dwayne was close behind with two pizzas, a six-pack of beer, and a bottle of nice burgundy wine.
They had a fun two hours, and Louise got home before dark.
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