Page 8 of One Last Breath

The pull weakens considerably. She’s relating a scandal to me that took place decades ago, perhaps even before I was born. I might fancy myself an occasional champion of justice, but I’m not going to harass an old woman over a conspiracy from fifty years ago related to me by a nosy neighbor.

“I see,” I reply noncommittally.

“Deirdre was just beautiful, just beautiful! When I tell you that you have to have seen her to understand, believe me. Hers was the kind of beauty that comes along once a generation. All of the men in town wanted her. Poor little thing.”

“Yes, that sounds terrible.” I hope she doesn’t pick up on the sarcasm in my voice.

“Now Violet was… well she was pretty too, of course, and her family had money to make her look even prettier, what with fancy silks from Europe and makeup from Japan and all of that, but she wasn’t the sort of beauty that Deirdre was. No one was.

“Violet, however, was smart. I’ll give her that much. She was smart as a whip, and I’m afraid to say that intelligence did little to raise her stock among the traditionally minded men of Savannah. She was forced to watch all of those men fawn over vapid, gorgeous little Deirdre while ignoring her. Now me? I was never very pretty or very smart, so I just accepted that I would have to trap some poor unsuspecting man from outside of Savannah. I didn’t need to be jealous, or else I’d have to be jealous of the whole city.

“But Violet… Violet was jealous. She befriended Deirdre, and the poor little thing was too foolish to see that Violet was only manipulating her. We all saw it, but of course, no one expected her to disappear.”

I still have no intention of harassing the senile Violet over an alleged event from before I was born, but my eyes widen in surprise nonetheless. “Violet killed her?”

“You didn’t hear that from me,” Clara insists. “But let’s just say that had Violet not been engaged to Johnathan Henrickson, they would have asked far more questions than they did.”

“About what?”

Clara’s smile widens. “Well, Johnathan was engaged to Violet, but quite a few people observed the lovely Deirdre giving Johnathan some… shall we say, attention?”

“Goodness!”

“To quote a famous thespian, goodness had nothing to do with it. It seems that they weren’t particularly careful with the affair. Let’s just say…”

She stops herself here, and this time instead of waiting for me to probe further, her smile fades, and her eyes widen, as though she’s realized that this time, she really has gone too far.

“Anyway, I should let you walk the rest of the way. I’m welcome at the Greenwood Estate, but it’s best I only come when invited so they have a chance to keep Violet out of the way.”

I look up and realize that we’ve walked all the way back to the estate. I blink in surprise. I wasn’t aware she had talked for that long.

“Oh, and if you don’t mind, please keep this to yourself. Violet gets confused these days. She probably doesn’t even remember poor Deirdre.”

I manage a smile. “Of course. Thank you for the conversation.”

She gives me a shark-toothed grin and replies. “Thank you. I’ll see you around, Mary.”

“I’ll see you, Clara.”

I head up to the house and try to make sense of my thoughts. Clara is almost certainly lying. Violet is senile, but senility tends to reach such memories as the murder of a classmate last. Violet would be more likely to reveal her guilt than to conceal it, were she guilty at all, which I very much doubt.

And anyway, if her mind is compromised, there’s no justice for me to pursue. She won’t fully understand why she’s being punished if she’s punished now. There’s no mystery for me to solve.

Still, as I walk hurriedly past the vengeful eyes of Moses, I can’t help but wonder if the existence of that secret is a sign that others lurk in the dark corners of the Greenwood estate. Perhaps I should look a little more closely at the secrets this family hides. Perhaps Moses’ wrath isn’t for my meddling but for the victims buried under his gaze who have yet to receive justice.

CHAPTER FIVE

I consider myself to be a practical woman. I don’t believe in fate, and I don’t believe that spiritual powers manipulate Earthly events to bring about some predetermined end. I believe that people—whether they realize it or not—are fully responsible for everything that happens in this world.

But there are moments when I can’t help but wonder if something beyond myself has decreed that I will be unable to escape the mysteries that surround me. Perhaps I truly am doomed to pull the thread of every scandal I stumble across until I either solve those mysteries or finally encounter a foe I can’t overcome.

I experience one of those moments the evening after meeting Clara. I am in my room preparing for bed after a long day of work when I notice a corner of paper sticking out from underneath my bedroom’s dresser. I pick it up, and when I unfold it, a chill comes over me.

There is something odd about Elizabeth. Not madness. Something more sinister than that. Something rotten hides in the shadows here.

The handwriting on the note appears familiar. It takes me a moment to place it, but then I recall the lesson books I discover in the chest in my closet. I hurry to the chest and compare the handwriting to that on the front page of the book.

It matches. Lila Benson wrote this note.

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