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“Check all you want. Stephanie is at the top of her field in New York and, as a result of being in demand in a number of high-profile cases across the country, she happens to be licensed to practice law in several states—Montana among them. Were she and I not friends I doubt she’d bother with something like this. But since we are, she took the case. So our friendship is working in Celeste’s favor, not against her.”
Friends again. But were they more? That was what Mara really wanted to know.
“Is there something about Stephanie’s handling of things today that’s made you more suspicious?” Jared asked.
“No,” Mara had to admit. “She spent a long time on the phone with Celeste this morning, and afterward Celeste seemed much less nervous about the questioning. We were both happy to learn that there was no reason I shouldn’t be able to sit in—and you, too, since it’s what you wanted. Apparently, at this point, the attor—Stephanie is insisting Celeste be treated strictly as a potential witness to a long-ago crime—”
“A witness—that’s a good way to look at this,” he said, sounding impressed with the attorney’s point of view.
It served to remind Mara that whether or not he was involved with Stephanie, he and the attorney were in a different league, one in which she couldn’t compete. He was never likely to be impressed by a small-town dry cleaner. And that was something she had to keep in mind whenever his cologne went to her head.
“I hear cars outside,” he said then, pointing his chin in the direction of the apartment’s entrance.
Mara returned to the window she’d used all day to watch for Jared. But, unlike the rest of the time, when there had been nothing for her to see, now one of Northbridge’s police SUVs was parked below, in front of an unmarked black sedan.
“Looks like the show’s about to begin,” Mara announced as she watched people—one of them her brother—getting out of the vehicles. “Cam is—”
“I know. He a local cop and will be in on this. I spoke to your brother today when I tried to do what I could to get this postponed,” Jared said.
“Well, you’re right, he’s here with the rest of them.”
Celeste must have heard the arrival, too, because she came out of the bedroom carrying the handset of a cordless telephone with her.
“Stephanie wants to speak to you, Jared,” the older woman announced in lieu of a greeting.
He accepted the phone and took it into the kitchen to talk.
Mara’s gaze trailed along; she was consumed with interest in that conversation. Was it all business or were they saying how much they missed each other? How much they couldn’t wait to be together again?
And why should it make the slightest difference to me? she asked herself.
The guy was here today and would be gone forever shortly after this. He was completely inconsequential to her life and so was everything about him. Especially anything he had to do personally or otherwise with Stephanie-the-lawyer.
“Here we go,” Celeste said in a hushed voice.
Mara forced her eyes from the man at the other end of the apartment and looked again through the window just as a number of men and women headed for the narrow wooden stairs that led up to the apartment.
Glancing back at Celeste, Mara said, “Are you okay?”
The older woman nodded and settled herself regally in her recliner, feet flat on the floor, head held high, hands resting primly in what there was of her lap.
Jared rejoined them, leaving the phone on the small table beside Celeste’s chair. “Stephanie has arranged for the public defender to call her as soon as things get started,” he explained just as the sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs made it clear the authorities were drawing nearer.
Mara moved toward the door, but with one hand on the knob, she suddenly couldn’t make herself turn it.
She’d been protecting Celeste from reporters and newshounds and gossip seekers all week, but never had the sense that she needed to protect the older woman been as strong as it was at that moment. She felt as though she as about to unleash something that could well be disastrous for someone who had been as important to her, as close to her, as her own mother.
Mara just froze, unable to do what she knew she had to do, even when there was a knock on the door.
“Mara?” Celeste said from behind her.
Still Mara couldn’t budge. She just kept thinking, This could be so awful….
Without her being aware of his approach, Jared was suddenly there beside her.
She could smell his crisp, bracing cologne. She could feel the heat of his body. The strength of his presence. And when he placed a big hand gently on her arm she absorbed it all like a sponge.
“It’ll be okay. There’s nothing you can do to keep this from happening,” he said quietly, for her ears alone. It was as if he knew exactly what she was going through right then.
Mara managed to look up into his eyes, pale but also warm and kind now.
“It’ll be okay,” he repeated.
Mara nodded, somehow believing him.
Then he took her hand from the doorknob as if he understood, too, that she couldn’t be the one to let in the people who might bring harm to Celeste.
“Go sit with her,” he advised. “I’ll do this.”
Mara swallowed hard. “Thanks,” she whispered.
Then, sorry to leave behind the touch of his hand or the strength of his nearness, she did as he’d said and went to sit on the ottoman beside Celeste’s chair.
And as Jared did what Mara hadn’t been able to bring herself to do—as he opened the door—it occurred to her that regardless of what was or wasn’t going on with the Stephanie-the-lawyer, regardless of what Jared Perry’s reputation was, she was glad he was there.
Chapter Three
With Celeste’s small apartment full of police and FBI, as well as Mara’s brother Cam, Mara stayed firmly planted on the ottoman to Celeste’s left. Jared stood behind Celeste’s recliner, and the public defender sat on Celeste’s right, his cell phone on Speaker and positioned so that Celeste’s attorney could participate in the proceedings long-distance.
“My lawyer says I should just tell you what happened from the beginning,” Celeste said when the video camera was in place to record her statement.
“Go ahead,” Cam encouraged.
Mara didn’t know if it had been a formal decision for her brother to take the lead with Celeste, but that was what he was doing. It made Mara feel slightly better because she trusted her brother—who she knew thought of Celeste the same way Mara did—to be kind to the older woman.
“I married Armand out of desperation,” Celeste began. “My parents had died when I was seventeen, I had no other family, I was working a low-paying retail job that barely afforded me a room at a boarding house, and I had no idea what the future had in store for me. But Armand…” Celeste shook her head as if a hint of awe about the Reverend Armand Perry still existed. “Armand knew exactly who he was, where he was going and what should be done to get there. Armand knew what should be done about everything. He always had all the answers. And I guess that certainty, that stability, was what I wanted at the time.”
“This was when? What year?” one of the strangers in the room asked.
“We were married in 1951. Before our first anniversary Carl was born and eleven months after that I had Jack, and there I was—in almost the blink of an eye—a minister’s wife with two babies, and I was barely twenty years old. Of course that was how things were done back then—marriage and family, that was the best course for most women. And at first I was grateful to have found that for myself, even if my feelings for Armand weren’t of a passionate nature and Armand’s feelings for me—well, Armand never let emotion rule.”
Something about that caused a small, secret, sad smile.
“Go on,” someone ordered.
Celeste took a breath and did as she’d been told. “I found being a clergyman’s wife just awful. There were so many expectations of me. From the congregation, from whatever community we were in, from Armand. And then, on top of it all, there were Armand’s expectations of me at home—I began to think I would have to be superhuman to live up to it all.”
The memory of how daunting it had been made Celeste’s eyes widen and her brows arch forlornly.
Mara reached over the arm of the recliner to squeeze the older woman’s hand, and for that Celeste gave her an appreciative look before she went on.
“No matter which way I turned, I was just never good enough,” Celeste said. “I couldn’t meet the demands or reach the high standards imposed on me, from both outside and at home. I loved my boys dearly and I wanted them to love me. I wanted to play with them and make them happy, I didn’t want to enforce hundreds of rules and regulations like some kind of tyrant—”
“Which, take it from me, is how the Reverend thinks kids should be raised,” Jared contributed.
“I wanted to enjoy my children,” Celeste continued after a soft glance upward at her grandson. “But it’s Armand’s nature to believe that his way is right, and anything different is wrong. And he can be very harsh if his way isn’t followed. He convinced me that I was a horrible mother. The worst mother ever. And about the time I was distressed to distraction by his criticisms and the criticism of his congregation, and feeling lower than I’d ever felt in my life, Mickey Rider and Frank Dorian came to town.”
Celeste said that fatalistically, covering Mara’s hand on hers with her other hand and holding on tightly.
“I went crazy,” the older woman said quietly, her tone full of shame. “I didn’t even understand myself or what I was doing, but there I was, doing it anyway—slipping out of my marriage bed to meet Frank, drinking at the bar with Frank and Mickey, dancing to jukebox music, kicking up my heels. And falling in love—or at least what seemed like love at the time—with Frank.”
Celeste was holding on to Mara’s hand so fiercely it was almost painful, but Mara simply endured it, knowing—seeing for herself—how difficult this was for the woman she cared about so much.
Celeste sighed. “Between that…infatuation…for Frank, the desperation I felt at home, and convinced by then that I was a horrible mother and my boys would be better off without me, when Frank asked me to run off with him…” Celeste shrugged as if she’d been helpless against the tides. “I not only wanted to go and be with him, I honestly believed that for the sake of my boys, I should remove my bad influence from their lives.”
“So you decided to leave with Frank Dorian and Mickey Rider,” Cam said.
“Yes. I had no idea Frank and Mickey were anything but itinerant farmhands, though, or that they were planning to rob the bank. I was shocked to the core when I met Frank at the bridge that night to leave town with him and found out what he and Mickey had done.”
There were a few questions to clarify that the bridge Celeste was referring to was the old north bridge that the town had been named after. The same bridge where, during reconstruction, Mickey Rider’s duffel bag had been found and near which his remains had also been discovered only recently.
“That night and what followed are important, Celeste,” Cam said, bringing her back to the story. “Tell us what happened.”
“I’ll tell you what didn’t happen—Mickey Rider wasn’t murdered the way the newspaper keeps saying he might have been. Mickey was mad when I met them at the bridge that night. At first I didn’t understand why he cared that Frank was going to take me with him. Then I saw the bank bags and Frank told me about the robbery. I didn’t want to go with them after that. But Frank wasn’t letting me out of it, and not even Mickey saying I would slow them down changed his mind. Frank said he wanted me with them whether either of us liked it or not. Then Frank and Mickey got into a big fight—like in the movies. There was punching and wrestling and bloody noses and cut faces and fists, and…” Celeste’s eyes were wide and tinged with the kind of fear she must have felt that night. “It was awful!”
“Why didn’t you run while they were fighting?” one of the female investigators asked.
“It was like my feet were frozen to the ground while my mind raced. I didn’t know if I should run, if I should go back to Armand, if Frank would come after me, what might happen if he told Armand what had been going on or even—seeing Frank fight with Mickey, I wondered if Frank might hurt Armand or the boys.”
Celeste shook her head as if she were reliving her own confusion. “Then, just when it looked like Mickey had the upper hand, Frank seemed to find a last burst of strength. He pushed Mickey off him. Hard. Mickey fell back and hit his head on a sharp rock. There was a shudder—” Celeste shuddered, but it didn’t seem like mimicry. It seemed involuntary, in response to the image in her mind, before she ended in barely more than a whisper. “That was how he died.”
“Do you need a glass of water?” Mara asked, seeing that Celeste’s face had gone gray.
It took the older woman a moment to answer. “No, thank you, honey. I just want to get this all out.”
Celeste looked back at Cam as though, if she focused on his familiar face, it would be easier to tell her story. “Frank dragged Mickey’s body into the woods to bury him and again I thought about running. But that was when Armand came out from behind the bushes.”
Mara’s shock was reflected in Jared’s expression when she glanced up at his handsome face.
“The Reverend was there?” Jared said.
“Yes. He said he’d followed me to the bridge when I’d left home.”
“If he saw that you weren’t guilty of anything, why the hell didn’t he speak up?” Jared demanded.
But before Celeste could respond to the anger-laced outburst, Cam kept things on a businesslike course. “You told me before that the Reverend recognized you a few years after you’d been living in Northbridge again, but—for the record—you’re saying that he was also at the bridge the night of the robbery and was a witness to what you’re telling us about that night?”
Celeste nodded. “Yes.”
“Did he know you weren’t involved in the robbery itself?” Cam asked, again to clarify things for the record.
“Yes. When he came out from the bushes it was to try to get me to go home with him. He said it wasn’t too late, that he’d been there to see for himself that I hadn’t had anything to do with the robbery. But that if I left with Frank the law would come after me too, the same as if I had been in on it, that I would be guilty by association. He even threatened to say I was guilty.”
“And you still left?” an FBI agent inquired.
“Before I could even think about it, Frank came up from behind us and grabbed Armand. Frank was in a state I’d never seen him in before—enraged and scared and I don’t even know what. He said he had to kill Armand and bury him with Mickey.”
“But obviously he didn’t kill the Reverend,” a skeptic in the crowd interjected.
“I begged on my knees for him not to,” Celeste said. “I told him if he didn’t hurt Armand I would go with him, I would do whatever he wanted.”
“So you saved his life,” Jared said.
“I told Cam that last week. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’m not sure I should take the credit since it was my fault Armand was there in the first place. Because of me, his life was in jeopardy. If Frank had killed him, it would have been my fault, so it was my responsibility to get him out of that situation. But I did tell Frank that if he killed Armand, he would have to kill me, too, because if he didn’t, I’d turn him in myself.”
Celeste seemed to be tiring, but still she continued.
“It took a lot of begging and pleading and bargaining.I had to swear that I would leave with Frank if only he wouldn’t hurt Armand, and Armand had to promise that he wouldn’t even say which direction we went when we left. But finally Frank agreed not to harm Armand. He just tied him up in the woods and we took off.” Celeste lowered her voice. “And that was when the life I thought I’d wanted out of became something I wished every day that I’d hung on to.”
Celeste’s head dropped and she shook it back and forth, back and forth, in deep, deep regret.
“Go ahead,” Cam encouraged her.
After a moment Celeste said, “When we left Northbridge we went north and, after a few months, ended up in Alaska. By then I was an awful mess. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t stop crying, and when I’m upset, I eat. A lot.”
She laughed a mirthless laugh and motioned to her girth. “I guess you all can see just how upset I was. Frank didn’t like it, of course. The pretty, skinny young thing he’d met here had disappeared and I was…I was just a mess,” she repeated. “It wasn’t as if it was a relationship founded on anything real to begin with, and Frank got more and more disgusted and impatient with me. But still I didn’t expect him to steal the little bit of money I’d saved over the years and taken with me when I’d left Armand—”
“The man robbed you, too?” Cam asked, seeming shocked.
“One night while I was asleep,” Celeste said. “I don’t know why he had to do that. He had all the bank money—of course he’d taken Mickey’s share. He kept it in lockers in the bus terminal or train station of whatever city we were in to make sure it was locked away even from me. So it wasn’t as if I’d ever touched a penny of it, and my measly $167 couldn’t have mattered to him. But yes, he took that, too. And left me alone and penniless in a motel room in Alaska.”
Celeste took a deep breath and sighed. “After that there isn’t a lot to tell. I didn’t really know if the authorities were looking for me or not, but after what Armand had said I couldn’t take any chances. What I wanted more than anything was just to come back here and be with my boys again, and even though I knew that couldn’t happen, I started taking any job I could get—usually waiting tables—and every time I’d get enough money saved for a bus ticket, I’d come as far as I could toward Northbridge. I thought that if I couldn’t be with Carl and Jack, then maybe I could at least be near them. And that’s how I ultimately came home to Northbridge again. But I’ve already told that story and it probably isn’t what anyone wants to hear now.”
She had told the story—first to Cam when he’d discovered who she was, and later to Mara. She’d told them of living in several towns around North bridge, hungry for any gossip, any news whatsoever that might give her information about her sons. Then, one day, she’d tested her theory that the weight gain had left her unrecognizable, and she realized it was possible for her to be in the heart of North bridge without anyone knowing who she really was. So she’d moved back to the small town in order to at least be where she could see her sons—and eventually, her grandchildren—from a distance; she’d lived since 1970 on the sidelines of all but the Pratt family.
“The Reverend has been out of town since you initially talked to me,” Cam said then. “And because he’s been unreachable, we haven’t been able to speak to him—”
“Which will have to be done to see if he confirms your account,” one of the state police detectives added. “So if there’s anything you’d like to add, this would be the time.”
“There’s nothing to add. I’ve told you the simple truth,” Celeste said wearily.
From there more detailed questions were asked of Celeste, trying to pinpoint where Frank Dorian might have stashed the bank money before being caught by FBI agents and killed while trying to escape. But Celeste’s only answer to nearly every question from then on was that she didn’t know. She swore that she’d never seen Frank Dorian again after he’d abandoned her in Alaska, and she had no idea where he went or what he might have done with the money from the bank robbery. And regardless of how many times and in how many variations the questions were asked, she couldn’t tell them something she didn’t know.
“I only know that I was never the recipient of any of the money Frank and Mickey took,” she said, emphasizing each word after some less-than-subtle badgering.
“And, in fact, she was victimized herself by Frank Dorian robbing her of her own money,” Jared reminded, his own patience stretched thin.
There were other questions, as well, that Mara saw no purpose for, but Celeste endured each one until the authorities finally agreed, long after dark, that they had no more to ask her. For the time being.
