Just Plain Pickled to Death by Tamar Myers

that’s probably one of the versions you’ve heard, but it isn’t true.”
    “How can you be so positive? I mean, no one ever heard from her again.”
    Like many men of his generation, Aaron Senior prefers to wear suspenders. He hooked two claw-like thumbs under them and pulled hard. One slipped digit and his tummy would be in for quite a smack.
    “I just know.”
    “Yes, but Freni says she did. Lizzie, however—”
    “I’m positive because it was my Catherine who ran off with the accordion player.”
    My mouth opened and closed like a hungry baby bird. Fortunately I was given the grace not to put my foot into it.
    “I see. I’m so sorry.”
    “Don’t be. She came back the very next day—apparently that preacher fellow couldn’t practice what he preached. If you get my drift.”
    I did, and nodded. I am not as naive as Susannah thinks I am.
    “But by then Rebecca had disappeared. Of course everyone thought that it was she who ran off with the guy. I only wish she had. She might still be alive!”
    He choked back a sob. I waited until he motioned me to continue.
    “Pops, why didn’t you tell people what really happened?”
    “Because of my son. Catherine begged me not to tell anyone about her ‘mistake.’ She said it would destroy Aaron.”
    “Kids are tougher than you think,” I said stupidly. “Besides, Aaron was already a young man then.”
    “I know. Hindsight is always perfect, isn’t it? In the end our nasty little secret destroyed both Catherine and Rebecca, but not Aaron.”
    “He knows?”
    He looked startled. “No, of course not.”
    “I’d tell him if I were you. He’s bound to find out someday.”
    “You?”
    “No, not me. The truth always has a way of coming out—eventually. But tell me what you meant about Catherine and Rebecca both being destroyed by the secret.”
    “Yes, that. Rebecca was the first victim.” Even after twenty years I could hear the pain in his voice. “If we hadn’t been trying to protect my wife’s reputation, we could have stopped the rumors that it was Rebecca who ran off with the preacher. Then the police would have taken her disappearance more seriously. They might have found her before it was too late. As for Catherine, she wasn’t a wicked woman, she was—uh—”
    “Wanton?”
    “Yes. She felt horrible about what she had done, and what the consequences might have been for Rebecca. She died a year later. Influenza was only partly to blame.”
    “And then there was Catherine’s third victim,” I said.
    He looked at me, surprised.
    “Sarah. Your niece. I’d say it’s a sure thing that Rebecca’s disappearance and Sarah’s murder are related.”
    Huge tears welled in the corners of his eyes, wobbled there for a second, and then threaded their way through the maze of furrows that formed his cheeks.
    I turned discreetly away and studied the cornfield. We’d had a dry spring, and the crop was going to have to do some fancy growing if it was going to be knee-high by the Fourth of July.
    If only it was already the Fourth. Sarah would be buried, I’d be married, and the aunties would be out of the house. Everything would be on track again, and I could settle down for a life of married bliss—except for two very obvious flies in the pie of my dreams.
    Susannah, of course, was one of the flies. But she had been buzzing around the periphery of my happiness for as long as I could remember, and I was used to her. No, the fly that stood the greatest chance of tainting this pie was an eighty-year-old man with a guilty conscience and pockets full of nothing.
    “Damn,” I said. It was only the second time I’d ever used the word, so I didn’t deserve getting caught.
    “Pardon me?”
    “Uh—well, Pops, I’ve been thinking.”
    “You’ve changed your mind about taking me in, haven’t you? Well, I understand.”
    If only it was so simple. My Pooky Bear would never forgive me if I put his Pops out in the cold. The truth is, I would never forgive