Page 89 of The Night the Lights Went Out
He shook his head. “Nobody knew—not even Michael. It’s like somebody is intentionally stirring up trouble for Merilee and using Dan’s death as an excuse. But if she hasn’t told anybody, including her ex-husband, then who would know about it?” He picked up a cookie, then proceeded to crumble it between his fingers onto the table. Sugar frowned at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He looked up. “I bet that’s how Bill and I recognized her—from the newspaper stories around the time of her first husband’s death. Especially if there was some doubt about how he died. That kind of tragedy always makes the news. Her picture would have been all over the place, I’m sure. She said she was married right out of college, and he died on their honeymoon. Assuming she married Michael shortly afterward, and was married to him for eleven years, that would have been about the time I was living nearby, in Augusta. I probably saw it on the local news.
“I Googled her, you know—that means searched the Internet—that first time I saw her and thought she looked familiar. She just didn’t show up because I was using her maiden name, Talbot. Or maybe it did show up but I ignored it if it had her married name, too, and I had no idea she’d been married before Michael.”
Sugar closed her eyes for a moment, trying to recall something important. Something that had to do with Merilee and her first husband. She supposed she should be glad that her long-term memory was still so intact. Her short-term memory sometimes decided to become another vexation to her spirit.
“What is it?” Wade asked.
She closed her eyes tighter, trying to see a face. Nothing. Her eyes popped open and she was surprised to see Wade staring at her with a worried expression.
“I want to say that I met her first husband, that I know what he looks like, but that can’t be right, can it? Because I’m sure I didn’t know Merilee back then. But I could swear on a stack of Bibles that I know him...”
Lily came back into the room. “Can we have more cookies? Colin ate his so fast and then ate mine, so I only got one.”
Wade stood to get more from the tray on the counter while Sugar stared at Lily thoughtfully. Lily had been with her. Yes, that was right. She’d been with her... when? When they met... “The yearbook!” she said with more excitement than was probably necessary. It was always such a happy surprise when her memory worked. “His picture was in Merilee’s yearbook—at least I think it might have been him.” She smiled warmly at the little girl. “Lily, would you mind getting your mother’s yearbook—the one you and I were looking at—and bringing it here? We’re trying to help your mother, so I don’t think she’d mind if we took a look at it.”
“Sure.” Lily ran toward her mother’s bedroom and returned quickly with the book.
“Thank you, dear. Don’t forget the cookies.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lily said, taking the plate and hesitating just in case the adults asked her to stay, then walked slowly back to the front room.
Wade placed the book before Sugar and opened the cover, revealing signatures sprawled across the two pages. “She had a lot of friends.”
“Yes, she did,” Sugar said, remembering what Merilee had told her about her high school years and about the girl named Daisy. With fingers that didn’t move as nimbly as they once had, she flipped through pages until she reached the sports team section, past the cheerleading photos and then to the football team. “I’m thinking this must have been her first husband. She told me he died, but not that they were married at the time. I’m assuming there can’t be more than one.”
Wade turned the yearbook to face him. “Nothing would surprise me at this point.” He focused on the photo of the football captain with the heart drawn around his face. “John D. Cottswold,” he said out loud. “You think this is him?”
“Oh, yes. That’s the only photo of him in that entire book that doesn’t have his handwriting beneath the picture asking ‘Tallie’ to marry him.”
“Tallie?”
“Yes. Lily and I think that was her nickname in high school—a shorter name for Talbot. Although I can’t imagine why they thought they needed to abbreviate a two-syllable word with another two-syllable word. I’ve never understood teenagers. Even when I was one.”
Wade looked like he might say something but refrained. He picked up the laptop near where Lily had been sitting and carried it to the doorway. “Lily—would you mind if we used your laptop to look something up?” Facing Sugar, he said, “I need a bigger phone. I can hardly read this tiny screen anymore.”
“Welcome to my world, young man.”
Lily called out, “It’s not mine—it’s my mom’s. But I don’t think she’d mind. The password is eight ones. She wanted just four, but they needed eight.”
“Naturally,” Wade said as he settled himself back at the table, opened the laptop, and began to type. After only a few moments, he said, “Bingo.” He was silent for a long while, his eyes moving from side to side as he read from the screen, then returned to the top and read it again.
“Are you going to allow me to read it?” Sugar asked, growing impatient.
“I don’t know if I can make the font big enough. I could read it to you, or sum it up. Either way, it’s pretty awful.”
“I don’t know if I can focus that long without needing to powder my nose or take a nap, so just sum it up, please.” She was surprised to find she wasn’t nervous, although she’d thought she would be. If only because she was very, very sure that Merilee Dunlap hadn’t done anything that Sugar couldn’t understand or justify.
Wade studied the screen for a moment before speaking. “Merilee and her husband, John, went scuba diving on their honeymoon in Hawaii. They were both experienced divers, having been certified while in high school and then continued to take dive trips through their college years at UGA. According to police reports, during a dive John lost consciousness and sank to the bottom, about a hundred feet below the water’s surface. While trying to reach him, Merilee claimed she knocked off her mask and had to return to the surface. When she dove back down to try to reach him, the strong current had taken him away. They recovered the body the next day. Cause of death was drowning, although there were questions about a mechanical failure in his breathing apparatus, which may or may not have been tampered with.”
Their eyes met. “She must have been heartbroken.” Sugar stared back unblinking, as if daring him to say what they both were thinking.
“His family pushed to have her arrested for murder. They were well-off and fairly prominent in their hometown. Pretty influential, which is probably why their suspicions gained traction. It never went to trial—the case against her was dismissed.” He sat back in his chair, his brow furrowed. “It’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think? Her little brother, then her husband. And now Daniel Blackford.”
“I suppose so,” said Sugar, her voice not as firm as she’d have liked it to be. “Or Merilee is just very unlucky. Because I don’t believe for one moment that she was responsible for any of those horrible accidents. I have always prided myself on being a good judge of character. Remember how I disliked and distrusted Heather from the moment you introduced her? And I was right in my original assessment, which is why I never changed my opinion.”
He was still looking at her, but not really listening. “Either Merilee is very unlucky, or...”
