The Heat of the Moon: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (26 page)

So much loss, such a horrifying waste. I wished I could hate her, with a sharp cleansing wrath. I wished I could crush the pity I felt for this woman who tried to fill her empty heart and life with her husband’s other child.

***

I called Luke and talked for an hour, telling him everything I’d learned and put together.

“What now?” he asked when I finished.

“I’m going to see her.”

“Oh, God, Rachel, I hate the thought of you going through this alone. Why don’t I fly out? Tomorrow’s Saturday, I don’t have to worry about appointments—”

“No, don’t. I need to do this by myself.” But I had to smile at his protectiveness. “Thanks for wanting to help, but I’ll be fine.”

“Promise you’ll come back to me soon?”

“I’ll come back to you soon.”

“I love you,” he said. “Whoever you are.”

I laughed, even though tears had sprung to my eyes. “I love you too,” I said for the first time, and meant it.

***

I wouldn’t think about how I was going to tell her who I was. I wouldn’t think about my sister’s part in this, or about our other sister and brother, our grandparents and aunts and uncles, a whole large family that I sensed lurking in the background of my memory. All I cared about now was seeing the woman who had given birth to me.

My fingers shook as I put through the call to the number Steckling had given me. A woman’s husky voice answered on the second ring, and I was momentarily unable to speak.

“Hello?” she said again.

Somehow I got the words out. “May I speak to Barbara Olsson, please?”

“Speaking.”

“This—” I cleared my throat. “My name is Rachel Campbell—”

“Oh, right.” Her voice lifted, became warm and friendly. “Jack Steckling called and said you’d be getting in touch. I’d be glad to talk to you. When do you want to come over?”

My throat threatened to close off speech. The voice that came out sounded high and very young, not like my own. “Tomorrow morning? Around eleven? Would that be okay?”

“Sure. Fine. I’ll give you directions. Got a pencil and paper?”

A minute later I put down the receiver, leaned my face into my hands and let the tears come.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I thought I wouldn’t sleep, but I did, heavily and blessedly free of dreams. When I woke to the buzz of my travel alarm, I didn’t know at first where I was. I lay staring at the sliver of dawn between the curtains, remembering.

Today I would see my real mother for the first time in twenty-one years.

***

I had two houses to find when I got to Minneapolis. The first was in a neighborhood where homes were far enough apart to allow privacy, and each had an attached garage and a large lawn. Mature oaks and maples, already changing into their gaudy fall costumes, lined the broad streets with orange, gold and green. The house that had belonged to Michael and Judith Goddard at the time of his death was white with dark blue roof shingles, colonial blue front door and shutters.

It looked familiar only because I’d seen it in the photos hidden in Mother’s study. I doubted I’d ever had a fully conscious look at the exterior during the time—how long? a day or two at the most?—before Judith took us east.

I remembered being wrapped in a big soft robe, and seeing stacks of boxes, little else.

The door opened and a middle-aged man in tee shirt and chinos ambled out, yawning and rubbing at his unshaven face, to pluck the rolled newspaper from the driveway. He glanced at me where I’d stopped in the middle of the quiet street. I drove on. It was Saturday, and all along the block papers still lay on driveways and lawns, draperies were still drawn against the morning sun.

Barbara Dawson, now Barbara Olsson, lived several miles away, in a smaller two-story house with faded green shutters. Mounds of marigolds and blue petunias bloomed profusely in flower beds skirting the foundation shrubs.

An old blue car and a red mini-van sat on the asphalt driveway. Who else was at home? Oh, God, would I have to encounter the whole family?

I parked across the street and sat taking deep breaths. My heart would not slow down. It was almost eleven, the time we’d agreed on, but I couldn’t make myself get out and walk across the street. And I couldn’t drive away. Paralyzed by indecision, I sat watching the house.

After a few minutes a boy drove up the street in a battered green car, pulled to a stop in front of the house and tooted his horn. In response the front door opened and a teenage girl bounded out, long red hair swinging around her face and shimmering in the sun. She wore jeans and a yellow sweatshirt, and had a big blue canvas bag slung over one shoulder.

Caroline? My other sister.

She turned and looked back at the door, throwing up her arms in a gesture that could only mean impatience.

I shifted my gaze to the doorway, and gasped as a shock went through me. For a moment I thought I was seeing Mother, Judith, standing there. The woman, wearing black slacks and a blue blouse, was tall and slender. Straight auburn hair fell to her shoulders. She looked like Judith. And she looked like me.

She would recognize me. She would see my face and know me in an instant. Any choices I had would vanish as everything spun out of control. I gripped the steering wheel with one hand, fumbling the keys back into the ignition with the other.

Then I let my hands drop. Of course she wouldn’t recognize me. She wouldn’t know anything unless I told her. I’d come this far. I couldn’t leave now.

She talked to her teenage daughter, using the same gesture the girl had, hands flung out, palms up, fingers splayed. Something made the girl laugh, run to the door and plant a quick kiss on her mother’s cheek.

I watched them, spellbound. Barbara Dawson Olsson smiled at her daughter, waved to her retreating back. My attention turned to the girl again. I tried to absorb every detail of her appearance and demeanor as she moved to the car with a bouncy step, flung open the passenger door, jumped into the seat beside the boy and greeted him with a flash of a grin. A happy girl, filled with the simple joy of being alive on a bright September morning.

What would she think of me, a dead half-sister suddenly claiming a place in her life?

After the girl and boy drove away, I looked back at the house and saw Barbara still in the doorway, watching me. Over the distance, our eyes met.

Now. It was time, whether I was ready or not. Fighting down panic, I opened the car door and stepped out. She expected a stranger. I would be that stranger. I would play the part until I knew enough to make a decision.

As I crossed the street, my bag slung over my shoulder just as Caroline had carried hers, Barbara came forward onto the lawn. She was smiling.

“Are you Rachel?” she asked in the husky voice I’d heard on the phone last night. She offered a hand.

“Yes, I’m Rachel Campbell.” My voice rose a note higher than normal. “Thank you for letting me come.”

I reached out and touched my mother, slipped my hand into hers, felt a gentle warm pressure before she broke the contact. A wash of regret made me realize I’d expected to feel an immediate connection. But she was just a middle-aged woman, no one I knew.

Up close I could never have mistaken her for Judith. Her face, beginning its surrender to the downward tug of age, was fuller, without Judith’s high cheekbones, and her eyes were a clear blue. But there were striking similarities between the two women’s coloring and lithe figures. Obviously Michael Goddard had liked this type.

A shadow suddenly dimmed her eyes, and I felt the clutch of alarm.
She does recognize me
. Then she brightened again and widened her smile.

“Another redhead,” she said. “Did you see my daughter leaving just now? Red hair runs in our family. My grandfather, my father, my brothers and me.”

I could only smile and nod. In my mind rose a vague image of a man with red hair who hoisted both my sister and me onto his knees, so that our feet dangled together. Our grandfather, an uncle?

Thrown off-balance by this slice of memory, I barely heard Barbara’s remarks about the beautiful autumn weather, the warm sunshine. I followed her up two broad concrete steps, across a black rubber welcome mat, and into the house.

“Have a seat,” she said. “I just made a fresh pot of coffee for us. I’ll be right back.”

She vanished through a doorway, leaving me in a living room with periwinkle blue walls and carpet. The fireplace, its mantel painted white to match the rest of the woodwork, was the focal point, with the flowered chintz sofa and chairs angled in front of it. A pleasant but bland space, utterly lacking the individuality and elegance of Judith’s living room.

I shook my head.
Don’t think about Mother.
 

Listening, I tried to determine whether anyone else was in the house. The only sounds I heard were faint clinks, no doubt Barbara gathering things in the kitchen. We were probably alone, thank God.

I studied the framed photographs that crowded the mantel. Caroline with a flute in her hands. A blond boy who must be Mark, my half-brother, holding a soccer ball and wearing a tee shirt with Little Devils printed on it. In other pictures they posed in dress-up clothes, or romped in deep snow with a mixed breed dog that resembled an Irish setter. At the end of the row of photos sat a large one of Barbara herself with a blond man, arm in arm, smiling.

This was her second life. Where in these captured moments of family happiness did Michelle and I belong?

I was startled by Barbara’s sudden presence at my side, a touch on my elbow and a drift of floral perfume.

“That’s my husband Mark with me,” she said, nodding at the photo. “On our last anniversary. And that’s Mark Junior.” She gestured at the boy with the soccer ball. “I’d introduce you, but they’re both off fishing with some of my husband’s buddies. That’s our daughter Caroline, you saw her.”

My smile felt stiff. “You have a beautiful family.”

“Oh, don’t I?” she said, laughing with pleasure. “I’m so blessed. I thank God every day.”

A cold fear traveled down my spine and lodged in the pit of my stomach, a dread of revealing myself and seeing not joy but consternation in my mother’s face.

Maintaining an outward calm that had nothing to do with what I felt, I sat on the sofa as she indicated. She settled into a chair across from me. On the table between us she’d placed a painted wooden tray with a glass coffee pot and two mugs.

“Cream and sugar?” She lifted the coffee pot, filled a mug. “Just black?” She handed me the cup. “Tell me about this paper you’re writing.”

Avoiding her eyes, I gave her my rehearsed story.

She nodded and asked several questions. Like Steckling, she kept glancing at my scarred hand but didn’t mention it.

To cut her questions short, I said, “Would you mind if I use a tape recorder?”

“No, of course not.”

I removed it from my bag.

I set the recorder on the table, at the same time watching her pour cream from a tiny blue pitcher into her coffee mug. Her fingers were long and slender, the nails painted red. I could feel my real mother’s hands working with my hair, weaving long strands into a braid. But the memory refused to mesh with the reality of the stranger across from me.

With a spark of alarm I realized she was studying my face, her eyes slightly narrowed. I said quickly, “Thanks again for seeing me. It can’t be pleasant to talk about all this.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, dropping her gaze to her cup. A barely visible wisp of steam danced above the coffee. “It’s easier now than it used to be.”

I sipped strong black coffee from my own mug, using the moment to renew my courage. “What were your little girls like?”

Her smile was soft, wistful. “They were great kids. Smart, both of them. Cathy was a real tomboy, but Stephie was turning out to be a little lady. She was very feminine, even at that age.” Barbara stared into space and murmured, “Great kids.” 

“It must have been devastating to lose both of them at the same time.” I needed to hear her say how much she’d missed us, how much she still loved us, that we were irreplaceable.

All she said was, “Yes. It was.” She sipped her coffee.

I waited, but she said nothing more. “Detective Steckling told me a little about how it happened—”

“I can just imagine what he told you,” she broke in. She leaned forward and plopped her mug onto the tray. Milky brown liquid slopped out and splashed the side of the coffee pot. “That’s one reason I wanted to talk to you, to set the record straight after you heard the police version.”

“Oh? How do you mean?”

“What happened to my girls happened because the world’s full of loonies, just waiting for the chance to do something crazy. Their father had nothing to do with it, I can tell you that for damn sure.”

She gave her head an angry shake. The shining auburn hair slid against her cheeks.

“I appreciate how hard Jack Steckling worked on this case,” she said. “I know he was just doing his job. But he was wrong, putting so much pressure on my husband. John loved our girls more than anything in the world. We had a happy family.”

A string of angry words popped like gunfire in my memory.
He doesn’t want you…Hate you!…Slut…Hate you, hate you, hate you!
Then the voices faded and I saw my father smiling down at me. I’d felt safe with my hand in his, walking down a sunny street, escaping briefly from the misery of our home. Barbara Olsson couldn’t possibly believe what she said. She was giving me the version invented for strangers.

Groping among my jumbled emotions and roiling thoughts, I tried to find the right response, the logical next question for an outsider to ask. “Was your husband’s death an accident, or…” I trailed off, leaving the rest for her to fill in.

She gripped the chair arms, her body rigid. “I guess Steckling told you it was suicide. Well, it wasn’t. You can ask the insurance company. They sure as hell wouldn’t have paid out a claim if it was suicide. The police said he felt guilty because he hurt the girls, but that’s just crazy. I don’t believe for one minute he had anything to do with it. But it’s convenient for the police to blame him, so they don’t have to admit they never caught the person that did it.”

I knew I was venturing onto dangerous ground, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Do you have any idea who could have taken them? Maybe somebody with a grudge against you?”

“No. I’m sure it was a stranger.” She drew a deep breath and let it out, then ran both hands up under her heavy hair and lifted it off her collar. “God knows the police investigated everybody that ever came into contact with the girls. Relatives, neighbors, friends. People started hating us for it. But it wasn’t anybody we knew. I never thought it was. Some nut saw two pretty little girls, and he took them. Just took them.”

Memory threatened to overwhelm me, claim my mind and senses. I couldn’t let it. I had to stay in control. “You must have thought a lot about what might have happened to them.”

“Oh, God,” she said, and brought a hand up to her mouth.

With a wrench of guilt I watched tears fill her eyes. I had brought her to the brink of crying, forced her back into the midst of that agony. 

“I had nightmares for years,” she said after a moment. “I imagined every horrible thing that could have happened.” She expelled a sharp breath. “It was like poison in my head, I couldn’t get rid of it for a minute. It didn’t get better till I had Caroline. I had to put all my energy into taking care of her.”