You'll Never Know Dear: A Novel of Suspense Page 13

  “About broke our hearts,” Evelyn said. “Of course we helped with the search. Everyone did. Frank, you were there. Remember?”

  “All too well,” he said.

  “We still have Abby’s doll, don’t we, Evelyn?” Miss Sorrel said.

  Evelyn winced. “We did.”

  “Oh.” Miss Sorrel’s voice was tinged with dismay. “Of course. Stolen.”

  Lis knew how Abby Verner’s story ended. Just like Janey’s. But . . . “No one told me about the connection,” she said. She looked at Frank. Her friend and lover for the last fifteen years. He’d never thought to mention it? Not once? And now he couldn’t meet her gaze.

  Evelyn said, “We . . . I . . .”

  “That little girl disappearing just about finished me off,” Miss Sorrel said. “The least I could do was protect you, darlin’. There’d already been enough guilt and woe piled on your little shoulders.”

  “Why open old wounds?” Evelyn added. “And for all anyone knew, there was no connection. Just a sad coincidence.”

  Miss Sorrel sank back against the pillows. “Long story short, that’s why we stopped making dolls. Because what if my dolls were somehow connected with that little girl’s disappearance? What if my hobby—that’s all it was, really—was drawing some pervert’s attention to vulnerable children? I couldn’t risk it happening again.”

  “Did the police ever find that little girl?” Vanessa asked.

  “No,” Miss Sorrel said. “Not a trace.”

  “No one was arrested?”

  “No. But . . .” Miss Sorrel looked across at Evelyn. Some message passed between them, a mutual understanding. “Let’s just say the person responsible isn’t going to do it again.” She reached for the damaged doll that was lying facedown on the bed. But before she could pick it up, there was a knock at the open door, and then Maggie and Jenny Richards stepped into the already crowded room.

  25

  Lis barely recognized Jenny Richards. She had on a white T-shirt and drawstring pants that hung loose from her gaunt frame. The purple bruise on her forehead was yellowing at the edges, and black stitches marred the flesh beneath her lower lip. She seemed so much less formidable than she had when she’d been waving that shotgun around.

  Jenny’s gaze swept the room, pausing at Frank and coming to a full stop at Miss Sorrel. The two of them looked long and hard at each other.

  “Sorrel, dear,” Evelyn said, “this is Jenny Richards. You’ve already met Maggie. The doll belongs to Jenny. Her parents gave it to her when she was little.”

  Miss Sorrel extended her hand to Jenny. Lis could imagine her using the same gesture to lure a feral cat. “You don’t know me, do you?” Miss Sorrel said.

  Jenny furrowed her brow and tipped her head to the side. Her head shake seemed more like indecision than an outright no.

  “Go ahead, dear,” Evelyn said, nudging Jenny forward. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  Vanessa got up and Jenny took her chair.

  “Evelyn told me that you made my doll,” Jenny said to Miss Sorrel.

  “I did. Do you remember how you got it?”

  “I’ve just always had it.”

  “You don’t remember sitting for it?”

  Jenny shook her head, puzzled.

  “It’s a portrait doll. I’d have taken some pictures of you and drawn a few sketches. You would have been very young. Or maybe your parents brought me your photograph and I worked from that.”

  “That doll is supposed to be me?”

  “Unless your parents picked it up somewhere.”

  “Picked it up? As if my mother would have been caught dead shopping at flea markets or rummage sales. She didn’t buy used.”

  “Well then, she must have asked me to make it for you. Did you grow up nearby?”

  With a shaking hand Jenny brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead. “Mount Royal.”

  Lis had often seen the highway turnoff for Mount Royal but she’d never been there, only seen billboards on the highway advertising its gated communities and golf courses. Girls who grew up there still had coming-out parties, although no one called them that anymore.

  Miss Sorrel said, “What did your parents do?”

  “My father was a doctor. My mother called herself a homemaker, only we had help with most of that.”

  Maggie was leaning forward, listening intently as if she were hearing this for the first time.

  “Evelyn and I knew most of the families we made dolls for, especially the early ones. But I don’t remember making a doll for a family in Mount Royal. Way back then, wasn’t it still mostly farmland? An old cotton plantation that they turned into a tomato farm—”

  “That was near our house. It’s got a little country store where they sell candy and Coke. I used to ride my bike over.”

  “You’ve come a long way from Mount Royal.”

  “As far away as I could get, and still it’s not far enough. And just so you know, I’m not a junkie.” Jenny’s voice sounded tired but defiant. “I had a prescription for the pills I was taking.”

  “That’s what I gather,” Miss Sorrel said.

  Evelyn sucked in her breath.

  “I want to apologize,” Miss Sorrel said. “I was unspeakably rude to your daughter, and I’m sorry for that.” She gave Maggie a tentative smile. “If I hadn’t run her off, we could have met in much more pleasant circumstances, without quite so much”—she gave a vague gesture around the room— “melodrama. And I’m truly sorry that you got frightened and hurt.”

  “I’ll recover,” Jenny said, gingerly touching her stitches.

  “If you want to take the doll back, I’ll understand. I gather that Maggie didn’t clear it with you when she brought it to us. Or we’ll keep it and give you the reward. You did know there’s a reward.”

  Jenny picked up the doll. Her face crumpled as she took in the doll’s cracked face. She fingered the hair. “What happened?” She looked across at Maggie. “What did you do to her?”

  “It’s my fault,” Maggie said, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. “They kept asking me questions about where you got it and I got mad. I’m sorry. I lost it and threw it at them.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Jenny looked around the room. “Is this some kind of joke?” She held out the doll. “This is not my doll.”

  Lis took a step back.

  “How could it not be?” Evelyn said.

  “Let me see.” Miss Sorrel patted the bed beside her and Jenny laid the doll down on its back. She gestured Evelyn over. Together they looked at the arm and legs, the soft body and dress. But most of all they examined the head. Smelled the hair.

  “She’s right,” Miss Sorrel said at last. “It’s not the same doll, is it, Evelyn? I might have made some of its parts. But look closely, and overall it’s not even close.”

  “You don’t think it’s Janey’s doll?” Evelyn said. She raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

  “I don’t think it’s the doll that Maggie brought over to us. That was Janey’s doll. At first glance this doll looks the same: the damage, the dress. But . . .” Miss Sorrel looked around the room. “For heaven’s sake, everyone stop looking at me like that. Lis, you saw it. Tell them.”

  Lis didn’t know what to say. This doll looked like the one Maggie had broken against their front steps. But she was the first to admit that she often missed what her mother’s sharp eyes saw. There was a reason her mother was a doll expert and she was not.

  Evelyn said, “Of course this is the same doll. I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but your eyesight’s not what it used to be and your memory’s playing tricks on you.” Her voice rose. “You want it to be Janey’s doll. I understand that. But it’s not. It never was.”

  “Oh, be quiet, Evelyn,” Miss Sorrel said.

  Evelyn recoiled, her chin receding into her neck. “Well, excuse me.”

  Miss Sorrel pushed herself straighter in the bed. “I saw what I saw. I know what I know. Shoutin
g at me’s not going to make a darned bit of difference. Jenny?” Miss Sorrel took a deep breath and sat up forward. “I have something to ask you, and I want you to think about it before you reject it out of hand. Okay?”

  She waited for Jenny to acknowledge with a nod.

  “I know we’re complete strangers, but would you consider staying with us? For a little while, maybe a week, maybe longer, until you’re completely recovered. We have plenty of room. You won’t be alone; Lis and Vanessa will be there and Evelyn is right next door. This way your daughter can start her job without worrying about you.”

  Evelyn folded her arms across her chest and shook her head in disbelief. For a change, Lis agreed with her, and Vanessa looked equally horrified. Miss Sorrel had barely begun to convalesce and she was opening their home to a woman who had a pathological fear of the police and threatened strangers with a shotgun?

  Jenny looked across at her daughter, clearly dumbfounded. “Maggie? What do you think?”

  Maggie took off her sunglasses and looked at Miss Sorrel. “Why would you do that?”

  Miss Sorrel was quiet for a few moments, and Lis could almost hear her arguing with herself. “To be honest, my reasons are entirely selfish. I’m hoping you’ll open up about where you got the doll. The other doll. Even if you don’t think you know, I hope you’ll help us find out. There’s no doubt in my mind that the doll your daughter brought us belonged to my daughter Janey. It disappeared the day she went missing, and now it’s disappeared again. We haven’t got a prayer of finding out how it got from her hands to yours without your help. And the fact that the doll you brought us has been replaced with a clumsy replica tells me that finally”—she sent a meaningful look in Frank’s direction—“we’re on the right track. You may not think you know anything, but odds are, you do.”

  26

  “I hope we’re not making a terrible mistake,” Vanessa said to Lis a short time later in the hospital cafeteria over cups of weak coffee. “We don’t really know who she is.”

  “Your grandma’s gone plumb crazy,” Evelyn said as she bumped past Vanessa and plunked down into a chair opposite them. Tea sloshed from her Styrofoam cup when she set it on the table. She mopped up the spill with a napkin. “Bless her, she’s blinded by wishful thinking.” She swirled her tea bag. “I saw the doll her daughter brought over. Trust me, this is the same doll, and it was never Janey’s doll.” She took the tea bag out, squeezed it against the rim of the cup, and parked it on her napkin. “And trust me, Jenny Richards is a junkie. She’s also a compulsive liar.”

  Lis said, “It sounded to me like she got addicted to painkillers prescribed for her by a doctor after she was in a car accident. That happens to lots of people who aren’t junkies. Now she’s clean.”

  Evelyn said, “People who take painkillers for a valid reason do not get addicted.”

  “That’s a myth,” Vanessa shot back. Also a myth, the belief that everyone who took painkillers for long enough got addicted. The cycle of addiction was complex, and for anyone coming out of detox, spending day after day isolated in a trailer was a recipe for disaster.

  “Well, Miss Smartypants,” Evelyn said, “you go right ahead and bury your head in your scholarly journals. I’ll tell you what I know from experience. She’s a druggie, and anyone can see that it’s left her a bit touched.”

  “Touched?” Was that her clinical diagnosis? Nothing in Jenny’s behavior convinced Vanessa that she’d gone over the edge or was beyond help. Still, Vanessa wasn’t convinced that help should come from them, though she’d never say so since it galled her to agree with Evelyn.

  Lis put her hand on Vanessa’s arm and said to Evelyn, quite a bit more calmly, “Oh? Touched in what way?”

  “She imagines insults and slights and even conspiracies. Thinks Vanessa is trying to turn Maggie against her. Told me I was spying on her. Trying to read her thoughts. It’s beyond me why your mother would invite a complete stranger—”

  “She needs help,” Lis said. “Anyone can see that. And Frank says she has no criminal record. It’s the Christian thing to do.”

  “No criminal record that they know of. And don’t you go telling me what’s Christian and what’s not. Y’all don’t even say grace. You want to invite a drug addict into your home, that’s your business. I’ll just mind my own.”

  Right, Vanessa thought. When pigs fly.

  Evelyn sniffed. “Do what you want, but keep an eye on her and be sure you count the spoons. Did Frank tell you that the woman’s been living under a stolen identity?”

  “You’re kidding,” Lis said.

  “I don’t,” Evelyn said, staring hard at Lis, “kid. Are you forgetting my husband was chief of police? I still have my sources.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “The real Jenny Richards died in a car accident. Miss I’m-Not-a-Junkie probably found her name on a gravestone. Probably stole her Social Security number. With a new identity”—Evelyn poured a stream of sugar into her tea and stirred it with a wooden stirrer—“you can walk away from a whole lot more than an unhappy childhood.” She picked up her tea and squinted at Vanessa through the steam. “Sometimes I wonder if either of you have even the slightest idea what Miss Sorrel went through, all because someone didn’t pay attention. And now you’re letting a viper into her garden.” She stood. “That’s all. I’ve said my piece.” She pretended to zip and lock her mouth, and then she marched off carrying her tea to the elevator.

  “A viper in the garden?” Vanessa said. She didn’t like to admit it, but Evelyn’s certainty was unnerving, and it echoed her own misgivings.

  Lis said, “The Bible. It’s her go-to source for supporting her opinions. Besides, whether Jenny Richards comes home with us isn’t really up to you or me. Or Evelyn, for that matter. Your grandmother’s made up her mind. If all we lose is a few spoons, that’s fine by me.”

  But Vanessa didn’t feel as sanguine about dismissing Evelyn’s concerns. As she was driving Lis home, she said, “Has Frank mentioned anything about Jenny living under a stolen identity?”

  “Not a word,” Lis said. “Why?”

  “Because he got a fax when I was with him at the police station. All I saw was the heading. It was a death certificate. He seemed surprised when he read it. Then he sort of hid it. Folded it up and tucked it away. I didn’t think anything of it. But now—”

  “Why would he keep us in the dark?” Lis said. Then she added as an aside, almost to herself, “And why not tell me about Abby Verner?”

  Vanessa parked at the house. From the front, it looked as if nothing had happened. Inside it was getting there. Power to the workroom had been restored. The kiln had been carted away and the plumbers had been in to fix the gas, leaving behind a new carbon monoxide detector.

  As soon as they got back inside, Vanessa went to her computer. Lis came around to the screen as Vanessa opened up a death records website. There were plenty of search parameters. Name she knew. Location, she could guess. Date of birth, the system allowed her to enter a range.

  “Nineteen seventy-two,” Lis said. “That was the date of birth on Jenny’s insurance ID card.”

  First Vanessa tried looking up Jenny in Mount Royal. Nothing. But then she changed the location to Bonsecours, and there it was:

  NAME: Jennifer Ann Richards

  DATE OF BIRTH: September 9, 1972

  DATE OF DEATH: April 8, 1977

  MOTHER: Renata Fielding Richards

  FATHER: Clive Francis Richards

  DEATH PLACE: Bonsecours, SC

  27

  It was as cold and raw as it ever got in Bonsecours the next morning when Lis pulled into the hospital loading zone to pick up the woman who was calling herself Jenny Richards. Vanessa had come earlier for Miss Sorrel. Jenny was sitting in a wheelchair under an awning near the loading zone with Evelyn beside her, smiling benignly, her hand resting on Jenny’s shoulder.

  All night and on the drive over to the hospital, Lis had gone back and forth in her mind. One minute she ha
d herself convinced that they were dealing with a scam artist who’d stolen the identity of a dead girl and tarted up a doll to look like Janey’s, all so she could collect the reward. And when she’d found herself in deeper than she’d expected, she’d jumped at the chance to invade their lives. That was Evelyn’s viper scenario, and one that Vanessa supported.

  But then Lis would wonder if Jenny was Janey. Because if Janey had survived, she’d have to have been living all these years under an assumed name given to her by her new “parents.” And if she was Janey, Lis would never forgive herself if she turned her back on her a second time.

  When DNA test results came back, they’d know for sure. In the meantime, Lis would salute and march to her mother’s wishes, the way she always did.

  They arrived at the house and Jenny got out of the car. Sun had broken through the clouds and shone off the angular planes in her face, making the hollows under the cheekbones look even deeper. In all the family photographs, Janey’s face had still been padded with baby fat.

  “Is that where Evelyn lives?” Jenny asked, indicating the big pink house next door. Evelyn’s car wasn’t parked in the driveway.

  “It is,” Lis said. “Though I swear, half the time it feels like she’s living with us.”

  Miss Sorrel came out onto the porch. She was wrapped tightly in a shawl and looked as if a stiff wind could knock her over. Binty stood by her side, tail wagging furiously. Lis carried Jenny’s bag into the house, leaving Jenny with Miss Sorrel.

  When she came back out, Jenny was sitting on the porch swing, petting Binty. “I always wanted a dog,” Jenny said. “We had one when I was little. Until my mother got rid of it.” She bent close to nuzzle the dog and Binty licked her on the face. “The truth is I was too young for that much responsibility.”

  “Why don’t you take Jenny inside,” Miss Sorrel said to Lis. “Show her where she’ll be sleeping.”

  Lis led Jenny inside and up the stairs to the corner bedroom where she’d made up one of the twin beds with fresh sheets. On the maple bureau was a cardboard box filled with Jenny’s clothing and toiletries that Maggie had dropped off the night before. “Think you’ll be okay in here?”