She and Gretchen followed the voices through the trees until they became clearer. The mud sucked at their feet, making it difficult to move quickly. Each time their sneakers made a small popping sound, Josie expected the voices to stop, but they didn’t. Finally, they came to the place where the trees ended. A narrow dirt ledge stood between the tree line and the moat. More tree roots reached their gnarled arms from the earth. There had obviously been a small landslide in the area at some point. Probably when the flooding overtook and destroyed the barrier wall above them. From where they stood, Josie estimated that it was a twelve-foot drop from the ledge into the water. They paused behind a large oak tree and craned their necks to find the source of the voices.
About twenty feet upstream, Josie saw Connie Prather first, standing close to the trees. Her tiny dog was clutched to her chest. Bright pink rubber boots adorned her feet. A matching raincoat completed the ensemble even though it was no longer raining. “Come back from the ledge, Mar. Really. You’re scaring me.”
Marisol stood about three feet away, as close to the ledge as she could get before the ground would just disintegrate beneath her. One of her black rubber boots nudged at a mud-covered tree root. When she said nothing, Connie continued, “I don’t know why we had to talk out here.”
Marisol laughed but kept her back to Connie. “Because you’re going to accuse me of something very bad, and I don’t want to take the chance of anyone hearing it.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m telling you that with everything that’s come out about Kurt, there seem to be some… irregularities with your involvement in our foundation. I talked to Tara and she—”
Marisol whirled on her, eyes flashing. The swelling in her face had gone down but her skin was still various shades of purple and yellow from the faded bruising. “You talked to Tara? Are you out of your mind?”
Connie hugged her dog closer to her body and took a step back. “Tara didn’t even want to hear it. She told me to go to the police.”
Marisol seemed to calm down. Gone was the momentary flash of rage Josie had seen. In its place was a sardonic smile. “You want to go to the police because you let me choose a couple of students to give scholarships to for your foundation? Are you listening to yourself? Connie, I know your life is boring, maybe you’re looking to liven things up a little, but leave me out of it. I had to kill my husband last week. I’ve been through enough.”
“Then explain to me what you did with the applications?”
Marisol rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Con.”
“It was your idea—to use my foundation.”
“Use it for what?”
Connie’s voice rose. “You know damn well what!” Her little dog gave a squeak and Connie placed it on the ground, its leash loosely tied around her wrist. “The girls that you supposedly ‘selected’ for scholarships—you were the one who filled out their applications. Four different applications, four different names, many similar answers and all with the same handwriting in the signature part—yours.”
“You can’t prove that,” Marisol scoffed.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You didn’t select any girls. You made them up and filled out applications in their names and then you collected the money, didn’t you? What was it for?”
Marisol didn’t respond. Instead, she took another step back toward the ledge. Josie and Gretchen stepped out from behind the tree.
“She was supporting Vera Urban,” Josie said.
Connie jumped at the sound of Josie’s voice. Marisol looked up. Now that they were closer, Josie could see that her eyes were bloodshot. “Oh great,” Marisol said. “Connie, did you do this? Call the cops?”
Connie shook her head. “No. I didn’t call them.”
“Then why are they here?” Marisol said, her voice rising to a near-shout. The scent of alcohol wafted toward Josie and Gretchen.
Josie took another step closer, Gretchen right behind her. To their right, water stretched for miles, several empty houses rising from the muck in the distance, their windows like sightless eyes.
“We came here to ask you a few questions,” Gretchen said.
“Me?” Marisol asked. She took a small step backward and stumbled briefly before righting herself.
“Both of you,” Josie said.
Marisol started to walk back into the trees. “I don’t have to stay here for this bullshit.”
She had just passed Connie when Josie called out, “You don’t want to explain to your friend how you used her foundation to fund Vera Urban’s life for the last sixteen years?”
Marisol stopped in her tracks. She glared past Connie at Josie. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. All of you are crazy.”
Josie looked at Connie. “If Marisol hadn’t used the foundation, she wouldn’t have been able to explain to her husband what she was spending so much money on every year. The names of the applicants? They were real women. Vera chose them. Stole their licenses. The Foundation mailed Vera checks in the names of her aliases for years and no one was the wiser. She used her doctored IDs to cash the checks at the banks they were drawn on—probably traveling to a branch far from wherever she was living so she wouldn’t be remembered by anyone local.”
Connie’s head swiveled in Marisol’s direction. At Connie’s feet, her small dog whined. “Is this true, Mar? Why? Why would you do that?”
Marisol said nothing.
Josie continued, “Yeah, Mar, tell us, why did you need to support Vera all those years while she was in hiding? Why did she need to go into hiding in the first place?”
“You know why,” Marisol said. “I told you.”
Josie said, “After you shot Kurt you told us that Vera went into hiding because she witnessed Beverly’s murder. She was there the night Kurt killed Beverly, wasn’t she? What really happened?”
Marisol jammed both hands into the pockets of her black jacket. Slowly, she lifted her head to meet Josie’s eyes. “I already told you this.”
Gretchen said, “You told us a version of what happened. Now we want the truth.”
Connie stared at her friend, stricken. “Mar, what are they talking about? You said Vera tried to stop Kurt and then—”
Marisol made a noise of frustration in her throat. Then she cut Connie off. “Vera didn’t intervene. You think Vera could have stopped Kurt? She had a bad back. He had a foot and a half on her. He was terrifying. She hid. She came home, through the back door, and heard Kurt and Beverly arguing in the living room. Beverly wanted to keep the baby. She was going to expose him. Kurt killed her in cold blood. Vera told me that Beverly said there was nothing he could say to convince her to get rid of the baby. Beverly told him to leave. She turned away from him—to walk away—and Kurt took a gun out of his pocket, aimed and fired. Vera saw the whole thing. As soon as Kurt shot Beverly, Vera ran and hid in the hall closet. She was terrified that he’d do the same to her if he found her there. You saw what he did to me. He could get bad, and I never knew if he was going to kill me or not. He didn’t beat me often—only when I confronted him about his girls or when I talked about leaving—but when he did, it was very bad. He was a monster. Vera saw that side of him and she was afraid.”