Missing Pieces. Heather Gudenkauf
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that Julia’s injuries weren’t entirely consistent with an accidental fall down the stairs.”
“What does that mean? Like someone pushed her down the steps?” Sarah asked. “Who would do that?”
“I don’t know.” Jack closed his eyes and brought his hands to his face, forming a tent with his fingers. “It has to be some kind of mistake.”
“A home invasion?” Sarah wondered out loud.
“That’s the only thing I can think of that makes any sense. But then why wasn’t there any mess? Why was nothing taken?”
What was it that Amy had told Sarah earlier? It’s all my fault. Amy had dismissed it, but now Sarah wondered what she meant. Did Amy know more than she was letting on?
“Hal is a mess,” Jack added. “I don’t know how he’s going to get through this.” He reached for Sarah’s hand. His skin was cold and damp, and Sarah’s first instinct was to pull away, but he held tight. “He can’t face going back to the house right now, so we’re all going to go back to Dean and Celia’s. Do you mind heading there with Celia now? I need to stay here to help with some of the arrangements.”
“Whatever you need,” she murmured. She knew she had to be there for Jack and his family, but all Sarah really wanted to do was get back to the newspaper article she had discovered.
“I have to talk to Amy. Do you have any idea where she went?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
Celia emerged from the hospital. Her face was blotchy and her eyes swollen from crying.
“Cel,” Jack began, “Sarah will go back to the house with you. We’ll be right behind.”
Cel. Such a familiar use of her name. Sarah wondered if that was what Jack called her when they were teenagers.
Celia nodded. “Thank you,” she said, blinking back tears. “I really don’t want to be alone right now.”
“Of course. Whatever I can do to help.”
“I’ll call you later,” Jack said, and kissed Sarah on the cheek. His lips were cold and dry.
Sarah and Celia made their way to the hospital parking lot. “I can’t believe she’s gone,” Celia said, her voice breaking with emotion. “One minute she’s just lying there and the next she’s having a seizure.” Celia shivered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Sarah stepped over a large puddle as she climbed into the passenger’s side of Celia’s truck. “Jack said that the doctor didn’t think Julia’s fall was an accident. How could she know that?”
“I don’t think anyone could know without an autopsy.” Celia started the car and then looked over her shoulder as she backed out of the parking spot. “It’s got to be a mistake.”
Celia offered a steady stream of commentary as she drove. “Our house is about a twenty-five-minute drive from here and Hal’s is just fifteen minutes farther. The funny thing is, you can walk through the cornfield right outside our door and end up in Hal’s yard in about the same amount of time. The town’s a little farther. I can’t believe you’ve never been here before.” She looked over at Sarah. “I’m prattling on and on. I think if I don’t keep talking I’ll start crying again and not be able to stop.”
“That’s okay,” Sarah said. “I was the same way when my dad died. If I kept moving, kept talking, I was okay. The minute things were quiet I fell apart.”
“I’m glad that Jack got here in time to see Julia before she died. I think he would have really regretted it, if he hadn’t. He’s always had such a soft heart.”
Sarah tried to ignore the flash of jealousy that sizzled in her chest. It was a long time ago, she told herself. Celia didn’t know him, the man he turned out to be. But then again, Sarah realized with a stab of regret, she wasn’t sure if she knew him as well as she thought she did, either.
“Hal said you and Jack dated when you were younger,” Sarah said, trying to keep her voice light. Conversational.
“Well, yeah.” Celia flashed a hint of a smile. “But that was ages ago. We went to school together. Jack and I were in the same class. Dean graduated four years before us. I got to know Dean through Jack. Didn’t Jack tell you that he and I dated through most of high school?”
“Well, yes,” Sarah fumbled. “Sorry, I didn’t make the connection.”
“That’s Jack for you, a man of few words.” Celia shook her head. “After Jack left for college I mooned around after him, hung around Julia and Hal’s house like a little lost puppy.” She gave a halfhearted laugh at the memory. “One evening, Julia had me over for dinner and Dean had just moved back to the farm. I hadn’t seen him in a few years and it was like the sun came out. A couple of years later we got married, and the rest is history.”
Celia turned onto a narrow two-lane highway that ribboned through the countryside, speeding past gold-and-green patchworks of cornstalks and soybeans, punctuated by an occasional farmhouse. Cattle gnawed languidly on grass, their tails flicking at unseen insects, their soft eyes barely glancing as they passed. It was beautiful, Sarah had to admit.
Once again, the sky had cleared and Sarah knew what Jack meant when he said the weather in Iowa changed on a dime. The air was clean and crisp like freshly starched laundry and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue that reminded Sarah of a time when the girls were four and Elizabeth described the sky as “so blue it hurts.” A blue so big and beautiful that it causes your heart to ache.
The thought made her miss her daughters more than she thought was possible.
Celia parked the truck and Sarah took in the view of the farmhouse and outbuildings that made up the Quinlan farm. Patches of the house were scraped clean of the paint that had once covered it, and the roof was badly in need of new shingles. The front porch was in disrepair, the steps leaning dangerously to the left. The barn and machine shed weren’t in much better shape. Long stalks of grass and weeds grew wildly, scorched and dry like hay from the hot Iowa sun. The property clearly hadn’t been well maintained over the years. The place looked like it was right out of a scary movie, and it made Sarah think about Amy’s “house of horrors” comment and the article she found earlier about the death of Jack’s mother. What other dark secrets was this house keeping?
“The outside isn’t all that much to look at, but the inside is great. Dean hopes to start working on the exterior next spring.”
Sarah smiled but didn’t respond. She wondered what Jack would think about the deterioration of his childhood home.
“Come. I’ll show you around,” Celia said as they stepped from the Bronco. “I know I need to start making phone calls, but I can’t bear to tell people the news about Julia yet. I feel like if I can put off telling them I can almost make myself believe she really hasn’t died.” Celia closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “But first things first,” she said, clapping her hands together. “I’ll get you a pair of boots. What are you, a size seven?”
“Eight, but really these are fine,” Sarah insisted.
“Oh, no. They don’t call them shit-kickers for nothing. Believe me, you’ll want to put on a pair of boots.” Celia walked off toward the house and Sarah surveyed the farmyard. A soft wind spun the blades of a tall galvanized-metal windmill that sat among the swaying switchgrass. There were three outbuildings: a midsize A-frame barn, a large prairie barn with a low-hanging, sloped roof, and a small shed.
The farmyard was overgrown and weedy in some spots, and brown and bald in others. Poking up from the weeds were riots of color just beginning to brown at the edges: purple and white aster, rose-colored sedum and cheery goldenrod. Tired browned remnants of once-spritely hollyhock slumped among the glossy green leaves of the bushes nestled against the foundation of the largest barn. The door to a small shed was open, revealing a cluttered