On Emma's Bluff by Sara Elizabeth Rice, edited by davebccanada (audio ebook reader txt) 📕

"No, it's okay." She straightened her friend's collar. "Now is perfect. Now is when I need to talk to you."

"Okay," Cindy said slowly clearly a bit bewildered.

"It's really a long story Cin, but I think I killed Barbara Lee."

Bill Simmons had not been listening to a word of the lecture. His mind was mulling over all that he had been hearing that day. Barbara Lee Wilson had been murdered just like all the others. This time there had been little delay after the previous murder of Sheriff Red. The town had been given no time to settle it's jagged nerves. In two days time two brutal murders. It just happened to be to Bill's fortune that one of them had been Barbara Lee.

He had been itching all day to give Emma a call. Even more so he wanted to rush over to her house and be the one to comfort and console her. "But what if Barbara had already told the Wilsons about catching the two of them together?" he kept asking himself.

The teacher had sat down and his fellow students were stirring around him. "Must be about time for the bell," he realized. Joy leaned across the aisle and placed a light hand on his thigh.

"What cha thinking, lover?" He could smell her familiar shampoo as she leaned toward him.

"Nothing." He tried to smile at her, but found that he couldn't.

"You've been acting strange all day."

"It's nothing, Joy. I am just in a quiet mood." The bell rang and the students bounded from their desks. School was over for the day.

"Want to go straight home or shall we ride into Rolling Fork. You said there was a CD..."

"Joy, would you mind too terribly catching a ride with Jeff today?"

She looked as if she had been slapped. "Why?"

"I don't feel well, stomach flu or something. I need to go straight home." Now his stomach did hurt and he felt sweaty all over.

"Oh," her face softened in concern, "Poor baby, wouldn't you rather have me take care of you?" She felt his forehead.

"No, no." He stepped back from her. "Please Joy, I 'v got to go. Please understand." Without waiting for an answer he took off down the hallway away from her.

The funeral seemed like a blur. The week seemed like a blur. Her whole life seemed like a blur. Once the intense guilt and grasping sickness had left Emma, she found herself feeling lost and empty.

Cindy had listened to her story, her head never turning on the stem of her neck, riveted to what she was hearing. Emma had talked and talked. She could no longer remember what all she had said. Did she really speak of monsters and ghosts and evil?

Had she made it clear to Cindy why she felt to blame for Barbara Lee's death? She just could no longer remember. Cindy had remained so silent, Emma wondered if her friend was in shock. Maybe Cindy was scared; maybe her heart was breaking over the obvious fact that her best friend had gone hopelessly insane. But Emma did remember Cindy coming to her after all the words had ceased and pulling her close and whispering into her hair "It will be all right, it will be all right." She had let Cindy hold her then, two near grown girls, wrapped in each other's arms, stretched across Emma's bed.  

Emma had no way of knowing that Bill sat in his car just down the road from her house. He had been there for over an hour, fighting with himself about continuing down that road to see her. He felt slightly uncomfortable as cars passed him, staring to see who he was on this dead end road. They for their part were clearly guests going to see the bereaved Wilsons. His own fears and anxieties immobilized him.

"Oh geez, I have got to see her," he told himself. "But maybe this is not the right time and place for her," he argued back. He could not understand his own obsession. Why did he not just turn around and go. There would be time to see Emma later. But every time he reached for the ignition to crank the car and leave a gut level heat seared through him. He was angry at himself for what he was plainly getting to see as a weakness on his part.

It was almost dark before he was able to crank his car and resolve to leave. He had just sat there shaking his head back and forth frantically trying to clear his thoughts. As he made his way back up the road he hit his brakes once sharply. He thought he saw a dark figure emerging from the trees on the opposite side of the road from him. But in one quick blink he realized he had been mistaken. There was no one and nothing there. The road was clear. Clenching the gearshift tightly he forced himself to drive home.

The funeral was a packed service. The compounded deaths of that Halloween weekend had the rural folks on pins and needles. The atmosphere in the small church was thick with sorrow and fear. Who knew who could be the next victim? Even though Barbara Lee had spent her short lifetime in The Bluff she had never had many close girlfriends there. Those who came to mourn her came mostly for her family and their own peace of mind.

There was the morbid relief that it could have been their daughters or even themselves.   The enemy was unknown and the small tight knit community had taken to moving in swarms and looking cautiously at their own friends. Only the families that had lost someone were considered above suspect. The Wilsons were soaked in love and sympathy.

Elizabeth Wilson had become a shell of her former self. It was as if her troubled mind had freed her soul. She smiled sweetly at those ladies who stood close by and patted her hand. She would mouth back answers in their inane, her eyes barely even focusing on those about her. "She is taking this well," the ladies would whisper among themselves. But they secretly wondered when or if the old Liz would return to them.

Vera Humphries had encountered Liz at the funeral home just before the long procession to the church. She had flung herself into Liz's arms and had wept bitterly for them all. "We'll be okay, honey," she sniffed and held the older woman's' face in her hands, "God 's gonna watch out after us."

"I don't understand why He wasn't watching out after us before," Liz replied in vague innocence. This broke Vera into more sobs and she was lead from the funeral home by her eldest son.

Roy appeared the most normal. He actually stood among the mourners.   He walked among his peers and friends voicing thanks for their support. More than one neighbor broke down at the sight of him. When this occurred it was Roy who would console the weeping funeral guest. Roy Wilson had accepted his daughter's death.

He had also accepted something else. He knew he would not, could not rest until this murderer had been caught and destroyed. And he knew that no matter what it took he would be the one to do this. The stubby delta man, who had once always carried a twinkle of mirth in his eyes had become an avenger. It was this thought that gave him his power to cope. This was why he could walk determinedly and speak encouragingly to those around him. He would be the avenger and he would be their savior.

Only Emma was saved from the majority of the crushing condolences.   She was the latecomer in the community, the transplanted 'new' member of the Wilson family. She managed to hang near the back of the crowded funeral parlor. Few approached her as she paced a section of the dark carpet.

Cindy had come with her, but Cindy had spoken little on the way and had left Emma to her thoughts as soon as they reached the funeral. A few of Emma's classmates eyed her from across the room, but none come near. Her eyes must have warned them away. Only one person there kept a steady gaze on her.  

Bill Simmons had arrived with his family and upon sighting Emma had moved close to her. He hadn't actually spoken to her nor had he tried to get too close, but she could feel his eyes watching her. Occasionally he would flicker his eyes toward another part of the room when she looked up at him, but more often than not he kept up the eye contact. He never flinched nor spoke. As the crowd began to make their way to their cars to form the funeral procession, Emma glanced up to find him at her elbow. A clear sign of pain marked his expression.

At that same moment Roy Wilson broke through the crowd to guide Emma and Liz to the funeral car. Just as she stepped away the words caught her ear. Bill had bent over ever so slightly to whisper to her. She jerked back to study his face. He had said, "Why did you do it?"

Emma was back in school the week following. Roy had gone back to the river sooner than that. Liz never returned to ‘The Sewing Needle’. Her remorse had sat in her like a heavy stone for the rest of her existence. It was not that she was unbearably morose or even consistently sad, she just never was quite herself again. People who had never known her before would think nothing strange about her meek thin voice or her overly dainty ways. But those who had known her most of her life would miss her boisterousness way, her gawky cackle, and her booming greetings. All of what had once been thought of as her most obnoxious characteristics had vanished and there were many who found they missed these.

Patrice Pee was overheard saying to her, "You let old Mrs. Hardacre get away with talking uppity to you like that? I can't believe you didn't give her a tongue-lashing and set her in her place."

But these words were lost on Liz, who merely smiled demurely and made a light clucking sound with her teeth. "No reason to get upset, Patrice." No Liz would not be getting upset, nor hysterical: nor even gleeful ever again.

In a way it was if Liz had found religion, not that she wouldn't have argued with you before that she was a devout Christian. It was just that she would not longer argue at all. She immediately forgave everyone their trespasses now. She could be heard on her happier mornings in the kitchen singing in a listless voice, "I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided..."

Roy never mentioned his wife's changed behavior. Now she clung to him more and seemed more gentle in his embrace. Liz Wilson had become a model wife.

Emma was not fairing so well in the wake of Barbara Lee's death.

"He thinks I did it. He thinks I God Damn did it." She could hardly control her hysteria in the car on the way home from the funeral. "Oh God Cindy, maybe