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“So you killed him to protect your daughter?” Sam asked.
“No.” She shook her tightly bound hair. Glancing up, her eyes softened slightly as she looked upon Ivy. “I prayed they would be lenient on you.”
“I didn’t kill him, Stella.”
She looked away and Ivy was certain she saw a troubling look in her eyes. She knew.
“Why are ye doing this to me?”
“Ivy, you have no one. No family. No one who cares. No one to miss you.”
Ivy had always known that. The loneliness of her world had always been very apparent to her. Hearing Stella, a woman she had come to care for her like her own sister, deny her outright hurt more than she wanted it to.
“I couldn’t let them take her. She’s all I have.”
Becky spun on her mother, her eyes round with fear. “Shut up, Mother!”
Sam became alert, his eyes darting immediately to the younger Taylor. “What exactly did you witness that night?”
“I don’t need to answer your questions,” she barked, backing away from them all.
Ivy blinked, confusion clouding her mind. Thankfully, that problem did not affect Sam. “Was Phillip Hendrickson still alive when you entered his room?”
“She was manipulating him,” she suddenly cried out, pointing an accusing finger at Ivy. “He couldn’t see it.”
“So you helped him to see it?”
Her constrained posture eased at Sam’s question, as if she was finding a sympathetic ear. “I tried. But he told me I was being stupid and jealous.”
“Did you get into an argument?”
She looked slightly confused as if trying to recall that night. “Yes. He told me if I didn’t stop acting like an idiotic child he’d not love me again. Said I was too thick-headed to see the truth for what it was. I became angry and slapped him.”
Stella came to stand next to her, laying a comforting arm across her shoulders. Becky looked up at her mother with such huge and vulnerable eyes. “He hit me back and told me he could never love a whore like me. Told me I was easy. That he had been only using me.”
“Is that when you reached for the iron poker?”
She blinked blindly at Sam. “Yes. I was so angry. I think I must have blacked out for several minutes because the next thing I knew, I was standing over his body. Blood was gushing from his head. His eyes. They were horrible—they just stared up at me. I found a handkerchief lying on the floor and used it to cover his face.”
Her words fell like a thick, dreary cloud over the room, casting a hush into the kitchen. It was out, Ivy thought. The truth was finally revealed.
The silence was shattered by the prison’s loud siren resounding suddenly from the distance. Sam’s gaze slid to Ivy. She released the breath she was unaware she was holding, and momentarily closed her eyes, grateful they were able to force the truth out before she was dragged back to prison. Even with Becky’s confession, it was their word against hers and Sam’s.
She opened her eyes when she heard Sam continue his interrogation. “Did she ask you to cover the crime?” His question directed at Stella.
“No. When she came to my room, she was covered in blood and crying hysterically. When I asked her what happened, she told she got into an argument with Mr. Hendrickson and thought she might have killed him in a fit of rage. I suppose I saw this coming. I knew she was becoming too fond of him and knew it couldn’t end well. I asked her if anyone had seen her go into his bedchamber.” Her gaze fell on Ivy. “She told me Ivy had emerged from Mr. Hendrickson’s room just before her, apparently from just having illicit relations.”
Her sad eyes pleaded with Ivy. “I thought this whole mess was my doing because I had forced you to sleep with him. I never suspected Becky would fly into a rage or that she would—”
She broke off, dropping her chin in shame. “I had to act fast. I removed her dress and hid it in the laundry bin. We agreed Becky would only admit to seeing Ivy leave his room.”
Mother and daughter exchanged looks, so full of sorrow and grief, before Becky buried her face in her mother’s bosom. “When the authorities searched the premises and discovered the bloody dress, I lied and said it belonged to Ivy. I didn’t sincerely think they would find her guilty. There wasn’t enough evidence. At the most I thought she may receive prison time.”
“But Becky changed her story?” Sam asked.
“Yes. She panicked when they pushed her for answers. To my horror, I heard her tell them she witnessed the actual killing.”
“Why didn’t ye deny it?” Ivy cried out, her voice a little too sharp to her own ears. “How could ye allow her to set me up? Make me hang for her crime?”
