know all of our secrets and threatened to pull us out of bed by our toes if we refused? That Alucard?”
“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “That’s him. Er, me, I mean. I’m him.”
“I’ve been in therapy my whole adult life over Alucard, you sick devil!” She lunged for him, but was restrained by her best friend, Honey Smythe.
“I ran over my in-law’s dog and replaced it with a new one,” Bill Donnelly confessed.
“Chewie?” Marie Flanders gasped. “Chewie’s not . . . Chewie?”
Norm rose, head bowed, Maggie’s eyes widening with what looked like panic. “I buy my secret-recipe potato salad by the tub at the Costco off the interstate.” There was a collective gasp as Norm sank back down in his chair. “It’s the best,” he muttered defensively.
“Well now you’ll have to retire. In shame,” I heard Maggie hiss accusingly.
Cricket stood up. “I killed Betty’s husband and I’m not sorry about it.” My head, along with Archer’s and Bree’s swiveled in unison. There was another collective gasp as the entire crowd turned her way. She reached down, took Betty’s hand, and looked around. “He beat her. He knocked her in the head so many times, it’s a wonder she held on to any words at all. And so I killed him. It was only an accident that I killed his cat, Bob Smitherman. He walked in front of the shovel I was swinging. But I do feel sorry about that. I bought him the biggest headstone I could afford, but it doesn’t feel like enough.”
Betty stood up, her hand still gripped in Burt’s who sat beside her. “I should have been the one to go to prison for letting the abuse go on as long as I did. It’s my fault you were . . .” Her brow dipped. Her fingers drummed on her skull as she struggled.
“Jailed,” Cricket said.
“Imprisoned,” Burt said.
“Incarcerated,” I offered, leaning in to the microphone.
“Yes!” She breathed out a sigh of relief, smiling at me. “It was my fault you were incarcerated.”
But Cricket shook her head. “No. It wasn’t. I would have done it even if you had left and I still wouldn’t have been sorry. Family is everything. I think Chief Hale has learned a lot about that recently if I’m not mistaken.” She shot me a kind smile.
“Okay, okay,” Bree said. “Point made. Um, thank you?” She looked around. “The thing is, we all have other lists too. Travis Hale answered the call that day in the diner that saved my husband’s life, and most likely my own. He rushed in without a moment’s hesitation.” She looked at me, taking my hand in hers and giving it a gentle squeeze before letting go. “He’s one of the reasons those two little boys and little girl are here.” She focused back out to all the watching eyes. “He’s answered countless calls over the years. I bet he’s helped each of you, even in some small way.”
The murmuring rose again, but this one sounded agreeable, several heads nodding. “He’s a wonderful uncle who showers his nephews with love and too much ice cream,” Bree said, sending a smile in my direction. “There are lots of other items on your list of good and heroic deeds, and that’s the one we all hope you’ll add to over the years, addendum after addendum. We’re counting on it.”
The community members nodded or shook heads, and chattered in unison, apparently too stirred to stop things now.
“There still might need to be a reckoning,” someone to my left said. “Do we really need a public official who did what’s on page fifty-three? And in a church?”
“To be specific, it was in the graveyard,” another voice chimed in.
“That’s worse!” came a shout.
In my peripheral vision, Lucinda Rogers made the sign of the cross.
My head buzzed. Someone stood near the back and shouted another confession of their own that someone on the other side of the room responded to. My vision blurred even while a laugh bubbled up my chest. Yes, there might still be a reckoning, and I had a stack of checks to distribute that represented my entire life savings, but for a minute, I just had to sit, overwhelmed, and shaken with too many competing emotions to name. I breathed out, taking a few steps to the plastic chair nearby and sinking down, turning as someone else rose, then another. Shouts ricocheted around the room and I sat there watching as the whole place broke out in utter mayhem.