Life Sentences (25 page)

A
S
C
ELESTE PLACED THE
single red rose on Pilar’s coffin, she imagined a little girl skipping across their front lawn, Bud jumping and trying to grab one of those iridescent, pink tennis balls from Pilar’s hand.

That happy memory was erased when the casket was lowered into the dark cave. As Celeste watched it disappear, she was reminded of the words from the play,
I Never Sang for My Father
, “Death ends a life. But it doesn’t end a relationship.”

Marcus stood to Celeste’s left. They didn’t touch or speak to each other. Julie, the single comfort for Celeste on that grim day, was at Celeste’s right. Though he said little, Detective Patterson lingered at the back of the group. Was it compassion, or investigative curiosity that brought him?

A quirky, anorexic-looking character hovered on the other side of Julie. She had introduced herself earlier as Lorrie and said, “I knew Pilar from work.” Lorrie had placed her hand on the coffin. “I told her something badwould happen.”

Celeste didn’t have the where-with-all at that moment to press her for an explanation. But she was overwhelmed with an ominous vision, which was quickly suppressed when Emmett Carson suddenly appeared. He confessed to Celeste he had stalked Pilar. He claimed he had to blame someone for Jane running away with an escapee. Carson fell to his knees before Celeste. He sobbed, “I had no one else to accuse. She had to know about Jane and that convict and didn’t do anything. But, I didn’t think it would come to this.” He pulled up a handful of loose dirt and threw it at the coffin. “Tommy and Jane took my kids away. I have no one now.”

Other mourners gasped. Celeste leaned over to help Jane’s husband up. “Perhaps none of us did what we should have done,” she said. “Perhaps we all missed the clues.” And there they stood, Celeste comforting the conspirator’s husband rather than him consoling her.

W
HEN THE LAST GLINT
of brass on Pilar’s casket passed from view, Celeste vowed, “I will find your murderer if it is the last thing I do.” She threw Emma, Pilar’s stuffed toy rabbit on top of the casket.

Everything smelled damp and woodsy from the humid summer air and newly disturbed earth. Celeste dropped to her knees. Marcus bent down. “Get up,” he ordered. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

Celeste stayed put and begged, “Forgive me, Pilar, for not helping you.”

Marcus seized her arm. Celeste wrenched it free. She got up and faced him, her jaw jutted upward. “You will never change.”

Celeste turned and walked to the mortuary’s limousine without brushing the dirt from her knees. A gang of reporters followed close behind shouting questions, while cameras flashed. “Do you have any idea who may have killed your daughter?” one voice rang out.

“Was she having an affair?”

“Mrs. Brookstone, what are you going to do now?” another voice bellowed over the din from the crowd.

“Mrs. Brookstone.”

“Mrs. Brookstone.”

Their lack of any common decency was staggering. Celeste reached the limousine though she had no idea how she managed to get through the reporters. She told the driver to take her home.

“What about Doctor Brookstone?” the chauffeur asked as he opened the rear door.

“She’s dead.”

“Oh, I mean,” the driver stumbled over his words, “uh, your husband.”

A shameful smile formed across Celeste’s face. “He’s dead, too.”

The confused driver got in and sped away.

After the chauffeur dropped her off, Celeste drove herself to the scene of Pilar’s murder. She laid a bouquet of spring flowers on the roadside where the police found her body. “I will find the person who did this, Pilar, no matter how long it takes.” Celeste knelt on the dusty tire tracks. “Why didn’t you ask for my help?” she asked as though Pilar could hear. She placed her hand on an invisible image. The ground shuddered as though taking its last breath.

Too late to think about that. Celeste got in her car and pulled into the heavy freeway traffic. She was anxious to get back to the gathered mourners and get that part of her obligation over.

While she drove, Celeste went over her schedule: As soon as all the friends and family left the Gross Pointe house, she planned to drive to Marquette. She had no intention of spending another night in the cheerless mausoleum. Marcus could wither away by himself in his parents’ legacy.

Julie held Celeste close in a sympathetic farewell. “I’ll miss Pilar. Though she often seemed to be troubled, she was such a good friend,” she asserted. “Take care of yourself, Mrs. Brookstone.” Julie raced off in tears.

“Keep in touch,” Celeste called out as Julie got into her car.

The hum of the mourners’ sad discussions and offered condolences finally ended. Celeste thought Julie was the last to leave. But once she turned from the closed door she spotted Cleo, a nurse from Scott Women’s Facility. She cornered Celeste and disclosed that she and Pilar had become friends because they shared the same concerns about inmate welfare. “Neither one of us was popular.” She wiped a tear away. “Our colleagues thought we coddled felons.” Cleo’s nose was red from crying.

“Pilar was always caring for the underdog.” Celeste forced a feeble smile and recalled that other nurse, Jane, who was on the run. “Pilar believed she was lucky to be raised with privilege,” Celeste went on. “Even as a child she wanted to give back to the community, to share her good fortune with those who had less.”

“That characteristic probably got her killed,” Cleo blurted without a thought as to how that would pierce Celeste’s heart and feed her guilt.

Celeste placed a hand on the door jamb to steady herself. She didn’t want to go any further in this conversation. She was sure Cleo meant well, but then …

The decision wasn’t Celeste’s to make. Cleo confided in her whether Celeste wished it or not. “The day before Pilar was murdered, she told me she feared for her life.” She enunciated each word as though each one formed a separate sentence.

The nurse’s words tore at Celeste’s flesh. “Did she say why she was afraid?” Celeste asked. Despite that anguished question, Celeste really wanted to tell Cleo to get out. But she knew the more information she had about Pilar, the better chance she had at coming to terms with everythingthat had happened over the past year.

Cleo leaned closer so as not to attract the attention of the servants. “Pilar said she was in a dangerous and precarious position, but it wasn’t her job she was worried about.” This time she spoke in a low clip.

How could Pilar confide in this woman, but not in her? Celeste faulted herself for Pilar’s perception of her lack of understanding.

Celeste’s attempt to close the door wasn’t a good enough hint for Cleo. “Pilar wasn’t afraid of the women prisoners. She wasn’t afraid of anything at that prison. She was really dedicated to her work. It was something or someone else.” Cleo wept as though she deserved the sympathy and not Celeste. “I knew her well. I can’t go back to that prison now. Not after this.”

Cleo placed her hand over her lips and closed her eyes, then suddenly hugged Celeste and dashed away. For an instant Celeste allowed herself the consolation that perhaps Pilar hadn’t told her everything because she didn’t want her to worry.

As Celeste watched Cleo drive away, she realized the Lorrie person hadn’t come to the house. Celeste needed an answer to Lorrie’s queer comment that she knew something bad would happen to Pilar, but she didn’t even know her last name or how to find her. Celeste would have to let that go for the time being. Maybe forever.

Glad Cleo left without making a scene, Celesteretrieved her suitcase and raced to her car, thankful it was parked behind the house, away from the hungry reporters. Fortunately, Marcus got a long distance phone call and was sequestered in his office. In the past, such secrecy would have upset Celeste. Today, it made her getaway easier. No questions. No fuss. And she had to get away. She needed to get to the bottom of Pilar’s mysterious life. It would be the only way she’d get through her grief.

T
HOUGH
C
ELESTE CHOKED BACK
tears every time she visualized Pilar’s face, the ride along I-75 was emancipating. “Tomorrow, Pilar,” she spoke to the road ahead, “I will meet Warden Whitefeather. I’m determined to get to the bottom of all this.” Still, she was uncertain what she’d achieve in meetings with the warden and Pilar’s lover. Closure?

When Celeste passed a billboard advertising a McDonald’s restaurant, her tears flowed freely. “Thanks to you, Marcus, we spent what should have been one of Pilar’s most joyous moments in that hamburger hell.” If anyone had to die, why couldn’t it have been Marcus? For a fleeting moment, she despised herself.

L
AKES
M
ICHIGAN AND
H
URON
merged to form the straits that flowed like rapids under the Mackinac Bridge. The churning water rolled into an unlit shoreline and disappeared into an almost invisible horizon. Celeste was terrified to cross the bridge, so seeing the blankness more thansix hundred feet below only made her five-mile trek over the water more frightening. Thankfully, there was no wind to either close the bridge or blow a small car over the railing, as had once happened. Though daunted at first, her self-assurance grew with each click of the tires hitting the metal grate.

She was exhausted when she finally made it to the Upper Peninsula side. It was as though she had been on the bridge for hours rather than the twenty minutes it took to cross. Her hands were so clammy they slipped from the steering wheel. Yet she was elated by her bravery. By the time she exited the mighty steel suspension, she wanted to give someone a high five. For twenty blessed minutes Celeste’s mind was taken off Pilar.

After winding along the incredibly dark highway, Celeste parked at the Landmark Inn, her base in Marquette. It was midnight and she was both exhausted, yet awake with anxiety. Though her room was refreshing and charming, it was no suite at the Ritz Carlton. She specifically asked for a lake view. Pilar would have liked that. Since her move to Ann Arbor the lake was the one thing Pilar missed from Marquette that Celeste knew about, until she discovered Chad.

The only thing lacking in the room was a fireplace. As Celeste unpacked, she chuckled at the memory of Pilar saying, “All the apartments have fireplaces because it’s so damn cold up here.”

A rush of other remembrances followed. Their weekly telephone chats. Pilar’s complaints about the bad and unpredictable UP weather. Hints about what it was like to work in a maximum security prison. Specific critical incidents such as prisoners’ fights and drug abuse. Celeste shuddered at the thought that her beautiful daughter wanted to work in that hostile environment.

Celeste stared at Lake Superior as she was sure Pilar had done many times. Pilar would be amazed at the person her mother was becoming. First, a victim counselor. Then, a woman of emerging independence, no longer seeking permission from Marcus. And now, more confident enough to confront the truths of Pilar’s life in Marquette. And most important, finding Pilar’s killer.

Though it had been difficult to sleep the past horrific week, in those seven days that forever changed Celeste’s life, she had to get rest if she was to think clearly when she met Chad Wilbanks and Warden Whitefeather. So she swallowed a sleeping pill and climbed into bed.

As she succumbed to the medication, Celeste mentally reviewed the letter Pilar sent to her the day she was murdered. It was delivered a few days after Celeste and Detective Patterson were at the bank. She hadn’t decided whether to share it with him or not. It was so personal. In it Pilar disclosed how she felt about Chad and that she fully believed the police used him as a scapegoat. She also explained Susan Mitchell’s murder as an accidental killingduring a lovers’ quarrel. Pilar had been totally taken in by that killer. The letter was her farewell to Celeste, because Pilar thought she and Chad would be living together in Africa. How had Pilar really believed that?

“Poor Pilar. I should have warned you.” Celeste brushed her hand across the framed photograph she had brought with her. But would her daughter have listened?

W
ARDEN
W
HITEFEATHER GREETED
C
ELESTE
at the entrance to the prison. How long had he been waiting for her?

While the two introduced themselves, Celeste saluted herself for taking a sleeping pill. As she anticipated, the intimidating surroundings did lessen her confidence. Without a good night’s sleep, she doubted she could face Chad Wilbanks.

Pilar had mentioned the prison looked like something out of a Gothic horror movie. That was an understatement. Celeste’s attention was drawn to the marigolds around the flag pole and impatiens lining the shaded front walls. They seemed out of place, frivolous and silly under the gun towers.

Whitefeather released Celeste’s hand and said, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Your daughter was a special and unique person.” He spoke with a brusque, yet quiet clip. Had that tone developed over his years in corrections?

Celeste was taken back by his un-Grosse Pointe-like frankness, but answered, “Thank you. I think so, too.” Herhands were frigid though it was rather hot for the Upper Peninsula. Had the warden noticed?

“I’m sorry to stare at you. But, you and Pilar look so much alike,” Whitefeather remarked without embarrassment.

“Looked so much alike.” Celeste couldn’t help correcting him. “Yes. I’ve often been told that.”

Without apologizing for his remark, the warden led Celeste past the prying glare of his secretary and into his office. “Please.” He pointed to a chair opposite his desk, which was practically obscured under mounds of files and stacks of paper. There were even files heaped on the floor. “Coffee?” He held up a full pot.

“No, thank you. I was hoping to meet with Chad Wilbanks this morning.”

“You will.” Whitefeather poured himself a cup. He sat in a chair near hers rather than behind his desk “He’s being brought up to the visiting booth as we speak, “Whitefeather assured. “It takes time to get him there.”