By Shari Held

She answered the door on my first knock as though she’d been expecting my visit. Without a word, she marched me and my deputy through the living room, where the TV was blaring an episode of As the World Turns, and into the farmhouse kitchen.

“You realize why we’re here, Mrs. Pembrook?”

The stick-straight figure with hair pulled tight into a thin bun licked her lips and stared straight through me. “Yes, Sheriff Clay, I know exactly why you’re here. To get information that will put that good for nothing husband of mine right where he belongs. In the slammer.”

My deputy covered a snicker with a cough when I gave him the stink eye.

“He’s working in the far pasture today, so he won’t be back until suppertime. You boys want some coffee?”

I declined for us both and pulled my notebook and pen from my pocket.

“Tell me about your daughter’s relationship to her stepfather, your husband.”

I assumed she’d clam up then and there. Many women did when reality set in and they realized that what they revealed under questioning had consequences. Especially when it came to the breadwinner of the family, their major, if not only, source of financial security. Others couldn’t wait to spill the beans on their spouses. 

“Well, sir, I came to the marriage with baggage—a young daughter. She was whip-smart, that kid. Got her birth dad’s brains. But she wasn’t smart enough to outwit a six-foot-four man with evil in his heart.”

“Can you elaborate?”

She nodded and sped up her delivery, talking to an empty chair at the other side of the table. I wondered if that was her husband’s chair. Maybe she derived some sick sense of humor from talking to it while blasting his reputation all to Hell.

“He never did like her, and the feeling was mutual. Why, when we first started dating, she told me he was a mean man. Only four years old, and she begged me not to marry him. But what was I to do? I was a single mom. My deadbeat ex didn’t pay me any child support. Figured it was my maternal duty to marry someone who would give us both a home. Right?”

I nodded. It was an all too familiar story. A man with a regular paycheck trumped scrounging out a substandard existence.

“The dislike was mutual. To him, she was living proof that I’d once belonged to a man who’d enjoyed my company before him. Made him livid.”

Her lips moved in what I suppose was her version of a smile and her eyes softened around the edges.

“I used to be beautiful, you know. Was wined and dined in the big city. Never thought I’d end up back on a farm.” She emitted a broken laugh. “Joke’s on me, I guess.”

“You were telling me there was no love lost between your husband and your daughter.. .”

“Sorry. I got sidetracked.” She turned her eyes back toward the empty chair. “When she was young, he’d pin her down and tickle her so hard she’d pee herself. Then he’d get angry, yank her off the floor, and push her away. Tell her to clean herself up. Rant about how disgusting she was.

“He beat her bad only twice that I know of. Once with a belt when he accused her of stealing a candy bar. She was about seven then. She couldn’t sit in a chair without cringing for a week. Another time when she maybe twelve, he broke a plastic whiffle ball bat over her kneecap because his children by his first marriage—nasty little brats, always wanting something—left the gate to the chicken coop open, and the chickens scattered all over creation. The girl hadn’t been anywhere near there, but he beat her as a warning of what he’d do to them if they did it again.”

She drifted off for a moment. Before I prodded her to get back on track, she started up again.

“Her knee puffed up and turned every color of the rainbow. I figured she’d have a permanent limp. It was summer, so the nosy parkers at the school would never find out, and he kept her home until it was healed. Couldn’t have the churchgoers getting wind of it. Ruin his sterling reputation. He fed and clothed another man’s child, and everyone—especially those old biddies at the Baptist Church—praised him for going above and beyond.” She turned her gaze to me. “Isn’t that something? People are basically stupid. They’ll believe anything you tell them if it’s wrapped in a pretty package.

“From age ten, she scrubbed floors, washed dishes, cooked meals, ironed, tended garden, mowed the lawn, and fed the chickens. Was a real help. Never a complaint. She was tough, that girl. Had a lot of me in her.”

She puffed her chest out a little. “My stepdad didn’t like me either. Didn’t beat me or anything. Just put me in my place. The girl got that treatment from my husband, too. He was always telling her how fat or ugly or stupid she was. That girl needed someone to bring her down. Once she became a teenager, she pranced around here like she was the Queen of Sheba. Didn’t want to tend garden. Afraid she’d ruin her nails. Wanted to wash her hair twice a week. Thought she was too pretty and too good for the likes of us.”

I was having a difficult time listening to this. Mrs. Pembrook’s monotone delivery, lack of emotion, and her avoidance of mentioning her daughter by name made it even worse. But I had to hear her through. I owed it to her daughter.

Her eyes focused on the chair again. “You know, this wasn’t the first time. He tried to kill her when she was only about six or seven. Early one morning, when there was about a foot or so of snow on the ground and more coming down, he pulled her out of bed. Didn’t even give her time to change into clothes. All she could do was put her coat on over her bedclothes, tie her tennis shoes, and grab her hat and gloves. The cows had gotten out and he didn’t want them loose in this weather. He drove her to the far end of the property and dumped her there, telling her not to come home until she’d rounded them up. If you’d been sheriff then, you would have heard the story.”

I felt the Big Whopper I’d snarfed down before coming here rise in my throat. Turning a kid out in that kind of weather was practically a death sentence. When Sandra Vechii had gone missing two days ago, more than one of our concerned citizens had been quick to give me their version of this story.

“But the girl outwitted him. She managed to walk to the road and was picked up by a neighbor who took her home and called the doctor. She was lucky. Lost only two toes.”

She hacked—half cough, half laugh—until she had tears in her eyes.

“He was hoping she’d turn into a giant ice cube, and he wouldn’t have to shell out any more money for her keep. But the girl put one over on him, didn’t she? Always was too smart for her own good.”

She wiped her eyes with a tissue from a box on the table next to her chair.

“And you didn’t do anything to stop him?” I watched her squirm as she tried to back pedal her way back to humanity.

“Hindsight is a great thing, Sheriff. How was I to know he’d drop her off so far away? Besides, if I’d tried to cross him, who knows what he would have done to me?”

I ignored the bad taste in my mouth. “Did you ever confide in anyone? Tell them what he’d done?”

She turned her head toward me and gave me a look that said I must be daft.

“In this town? Before I could close my trap, the gossip chain would have spread it all over town. He’d have heard I was besmirching his name. No good would come of that for me, now, would it?”

I wanted to shake her by the shoulders until her teeth rattled. Instead, I asked her to continue. One of the hardest parts of being in law enforcement was keeping your temper when faced with a person who nonchalantly dismisses cruelty directed against anyone but themselves.

“What I’m trying to tell you is the man is violent. I lived in fear of him for years. Now, I don’t know what he told you, but I’m giving you the god-awful truth.”

I didn’t doubt her for a minute. I’m sure her husband was guilty as charged for all the incidents she described. But it was the murder of fourteen-year-old Sandra that I was concerned with.

“Can you describe what happened the day Sandra disappeared?”

“School was out, so she finished her chores around the house and the farm. Then she headed through the woods to the pastures. She liked to read a book under the trees in the summer.”

“That was near the old well?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you that day?”

She looked at me as if I’d sprouted horns.

“Sheriff, you can’t think that I. . .” She smoothed a wrinkle from her housedress, then pulled a pack of Marlboro Menthols from her housedress pocket. “Mind if I have a smoke? I can’t do it when he’s in the house. Calls it a nasty, disgusting habit. That’s the only damn thing the two of them agreed on.”

Chivalry must have lightening-struck my deputy, who whipped out a matchbook and lit her cigarette. I didn’t mind her smoking. Smoking often loosened people’s tongues. There’s something in the process that invites intimacy. Maybe it’s just the act of sucking on something. Makes people feel safe and secure as when they suckled at their mother’s breast.

“I asked you where you were to get a clear picture of everyone’s whereabouts on that day. That’s all.”

“I was in the house all day except when I hung the laundry out to dry and picked some sweet corn from the garden.”

“What about your husband?”

A shrewd look replaced the concerned one she’d worn a minute earlier. “He milked the Holsteins and puttered around the barn a bit. Then he left for the pasture to check on the beef cows.”

“Was this after your daughter had left for the pastures?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head in affirmation. “Yes, it was.”

“What do you think happened?”

 “I’ve told you the man has a violent streak in him wider than Texas.” Her eyes glittered like glass shards. “I think he saw her near the well, got angry with her for god knows what, and threw her in.”

She stared at me, a triumphant look on her face. “Are you going to arrest him? Give the girl some justice?” She stubbed out her cigarette on a saucer, grabbed a fresh cigarette from the pack on the table, reached her hand inside her back pocket, and came out empty. “I keep forgetting. I misplaced my lighter a couple days ago. Would you mind giving me another light?

I stood up. “I’m going to give Sandra justice, all right. Mrs. Pembrook, you’re under arrest for the death of your daughter.” I turned to my deputy. “Henderson, cuff her and read the woman her rights.”

“What? Why are you arresting me? He did it. He’s a mean, evil man.”

“I don’t doubt your word one bit on that, Mrs. Pembrook. But I think you’re the one who shoved your daughter in the well, breaking her neck.”

“Well, I never.” For once, Mrs. Pembrook was at a loss for words.

“By your own admission, your daughter didn’t smoke. Neither did your husband. Both thought it was a nasty habit. And you just admitted your lighter is missing. I’d be willing to bet it’s a red Bic lighter. Just like the one we found clutched in your daughter’s hand when we retrieved her body from the well.”

She snarled something, not quite under her breath, that made my deputy blush.

“With both of them out of the way, you’d be free to sell the farm and move back to the big city.”

I nodded to my deputy. “Take her to the office and process her.”

“You’re wrong,” Mrs. Pembrook cried out as she struggled with my deputy. “It was my scumbag husband who killed the girl. What did he say when you talked to him? Whatever he said, it’s all lies.”

I turned my back so she couldn’t see the look of disgust on my face. Her husband had talked, all right. He’d said Mrs. Pembrook was insanely jealous of her brainy, beautiful daughter. That she berated her and devised all kinds of torments for her—chopping her hair off, trimming her nails as short as possible, not letting her attend school events. Nothing as serious as what her husband had done. But her petty behavior had turned deadly one sunny June afternoon.

Sandra’s mother, the one person she should have been able to trust above all others, killed her. And did her darndest to implicate her own husband. Sandra never had a chance living with this duo from Hell. Thank heaven they’d never procreated.

Mrs. Pembrook was right about one thing, though. Sandra had been whip-smart. Even in death, she left a clue that led me to her killer.

THE END