Cemetery Silk (11 page)

I was still very nervous and scared; amazed at the way my daughter and mother were handling the situation. I was in “fight or flight” mode and throbbing with adrenaline. I still had bad memories of the abuses of men in uniform in San Romero. Sallie's marvelous salad dressing was doing a t'our jete in my stomach.

“Now, Bert,” smiled Mother, trying to reduce his power by using his first name. “Tell us what brings you here at this very late hour when we should all be.…”

The big man cut in, “We're investigating a woman's death, Miz Sterling. You were known—you and these other ladies,” he turned and glared at me and Cassie, “to be the last ones to see her alive.”

Now Mother was flustered. “Why, who in the world?”

Her hand fluttered to her mouth with the same jerky motion my stomach was making.

Atkins took a small notepad out of his pocket and thumbed through it.

“A Miss Rae Ann Cooledge was found dead on Highway 128, in Carlsberg County, at nine nineteen PM, on the night of October twenty-two. Miss Cooledge was seen leaving your cottage at the Lanierville Motel on the night in question at approximately eight o'clock PM. The night clerk at the motel says she left alone. She drove off in an older model Monte Carlo, dark blue in color.”

I heard Cassie whisper hoarsely, “Deep!”

“What's that, young lady?” barked Atkins.

Cassie looked at me imploringly. My motherly instinct kicked in and overcame my fear.

“My daughter really doesn't know anything about this, officer.”

“Chief,” he corrected as he glared at me with narrowed eyes. “Then who does, because I intend to get some answers?”

“I do,” I answered bravely.

Mother started to speak. I motioned for her to let me take over.

“Okay, Ma'am, you can start by telling me who you are.”

“I am Paisley Sterling DeLeon, Mrs. Sterling's oldest daughter.”

“Do you reside here in Rowan Springs?”

“My home is in New York. My daughter and I are visiting.”

Cassie had relaxed back into her chair now that she was off the hook. She was smiling tentatively at the younger officer who was falling rapidly under her spell.

“Andy here tells me you've been here several weeks. That's kind of a long visit.”

Mother looked at Chief Joiner with raised eyebrows. “Andy, have you been spying on me?”

Andy smiled back sheepishly. “No, Miz Sterling. My youngest works at the Rainbow Bakery. She told my wife that your daughter has been coming in the past few weeks for that dark bread nobody else likes.”

“Pumpernickel,” said Mother with a smile. “She loves pumpernickel.”

“Ahumm! May I interrupt here to finish my investigation?”

Wow, I thought, if Atkins could finish the investigation by asking a few questions, he must not think we had anything to do with poor Deep's death. I began to relax a little, too.

“Now, Miz DeLeon, may I ask what you were doing in Lanierville?”

I thought as fast as I could and decided to go with at least some of the truth.

“I'm a writer. I'm working on a family history. My mother's cousins lived in Lanierville and I went up there to get some local color.”

“And I suppose Rae Ann Cooledge was local color?”

“No, she is the niece of.…”

“I know who she is. I want to know what she was doing with you.”

Man, this was getting difficult. Cassie was looking stricken again, and Mother was dying to pull the Grande Dame act and throw them out. I felt that we really should be as cooperative as possible.

“Officer.…”

“Chief,” he grumped.

“Chief, the truth is, she was just telling us about some of the funny things that happened in her aunt's coffee shop.”

“Yeah, pie stories,” offered Cassie lamely then found something very interesting in one of the buttonholes on her sweater.

“I've been in Molly's plenty of times and never saw anything funny. Runs the place like a drill sergeant, Molly does. Can't much funny happen there.”

“I guess young people have more of a sense of humor than we older folk, Chief,” offered Mother with one of her best smiles.

“Well, Rae Ann sure ain't laughin' now.”

Mother's smile drooped at one corner as she turned pale.

“Please ask the rest of your questions, sir. We are all tired, and I would like very much to retire for the night.”

“Very well, did you, any one of you,” he glared at all of us in turn, “give Miss Cooledge anything of an alcoholic nature to drink?”

“Of course not! All she had was a Perrier,” I replied heatedly.

I couldn't figure out where in the hell this was headed? What had happened to Deep?

“A what?”

Cassie jumped up, opened the refrigerator door and took out a cold bottle. “This is a Perrier.”

She extended the bottle to the Chief and sat down again. Danny Hall watched her with a silly, smitten grin on his face.

Atkins turned the bottle around in his big hands and looked carefully at the label. I could tell from the way he was squinting that he needed to put on his glasses.

“Looks like one of those wine coolers to me. You sure this doesn't have any alcohol?”

“Try it. See for yourself. Here, let me get you a glass.”

I got up and took a fruit juice glass from the cupboard. I noticed that Cassie had given him one of the flavored drinks that she likes and I could not abide. I wondered how the Chief would like it.

He unscrewed the top and poured about half a glass. He sniffed it tentatively before he downed it all.

“Ugh! Jeesus! How in the world do they get the horse to stand still long enough to pee in that little bottle?”

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and made a face. Then he realized what he had said and in front of whom and turned bright red.

I felt sorry for him, and besides, I was getting over my fear and becoming intensely curious about what had happened to Deep.

“As you can see, Perrier has no alcohol whatsoever. And as a matter of fact, Rae Ann had much the same opinion about the taste as you do. Why did you ask the question?”

Andy Joiner decided this scene was going on too long and took over.

“Miss Cooledge was found dead last night—a hit and run. Apparently she got a flat tire and pulled over to change it. She'd been drinking heavily and passed out in the right lane of the two lane road. Somebody came along going too fast to stop, or maybe didn't see her at all. It's pretty dark out there at night,” he explained. “Anyway, they ran flat over her. Broke her neck. She had massive head injuries. Died instantly.”

I heard Cassie moaned softly, like a lost kitten. Poor Deep. I felt like crying, too.

“The thing is,” said the Chief, “she was underage. Anybody that gave her, or sold her, alcohol contributed to her death. We'll never catch the driver of the car. There won't be any damage to the vehicle because she was lying flat. If it was a pickup truck, or something bigger, like your vehicle maybe, the driver might have thought he'd only run over a dog or a possum. That's probably why he didn't stop. But if we catch the sumbitch that made her drunk, we can put him in jail.”

Mother had a steely smile on her face now, nothing droopy about it.

“I can assure you that we neither had in our possession, nor did we purchase any alcoholic beverages. We did not offer anything to Miss Cooledge other than that which you yourself just tasted. But I must admit I am surprised to hear that she was underage. She seemed so mature. How old was she?”

“She had a fake driver's license that made her out to be twenty-two, but Molly says she was only seventeen,” answered Danny Hall.

My God, she was younger than Cass!

“Have you interviewed her husband? Maybe he knows something,” I asked.

The Chief started to say something nasty about not needing to be told how to handle his investigation, but he sagged back in his chair. I could tell he was just as tired as we were.

“Well, Ma'am, the boy she was living with is not her husband. His name is Steve Wolzinsky. He's from Detroit. Met her on the road when she picked him up hitchhiking on the way to her aunt's. They decided to pretend they was married so Molly wouldn't kick him out and they could both work at the restaurant. He's no good, a punk. Not even very broken up about her death, but I don't think he had anything to do with it.”

“How did you know Rae Ann had been drinking? Have you already done a autopsy?”

“No, I don't imagine there will be an autopsy. Our medical examiner is in the hospital himself right now. Besides, the cause of death is pretty cut and dried.”

Deputy Hall spoke up for the second time. “Rae Ann smelled like a moonshine still, Ma'am.”

He ignored a baleful look from his superior and went on to explain.

“And there was an empty pint of Jack Daniels in the front seat of her car. She'd been drinking, all right. If she hadn't gotten run over, she might have killed somebody else. That is, if she could have fixed that flat and driven off.”

“Gentlemen, I think we can let these ladies go to bed now.” Andy Joiner stood up and carried his cup and saucer over to the sink like his wife had trained him to do.

“You're finished, aren't you, Bert?”

The big man pushed his chair away from the table. “I reckon so. I guess I need to apologize to you ladies for comin' in on you like this. I suppose we'll never know who gave that poor girl enough booze to fell an ox, but I sure would like to string ‘em up. I get awful tired of people mixing alcohol and gasoline, especially the young ones.”

Atkins stood up and pulled his short uniform jacket back down over his lean belted waist. He was younger than I had originally thought. In spite of his weathered and craggy face, he was probably no more than five years older than I. He definitely lacked Rafe's refined and handsome elegance, but somehow I felt drawn to him. I could tell that he had been there, done that, and seen it all. It had aged him before his time. He was a tired, gruff, old warrior who was sick of the fight. I had a sudden desire to put my arms around him and make it better. Fortunately, I controlled myself.

We accompanied the police to the porch door and watched them walk back to their cars. Chief Atkins turned at the edge of the driveway to ask one more question. His face glowed an eerie green in the reflection of the light from the mercury lamp.

“I don't suppose you know where Rae Ann Cooledge got a new fifty dollar bill, do you?”

“What do you mean?” My quivering voice sounded like it was coming out of a kazoo.

“One of the doctors in the emergency room found a fifty dollar bill tucked in her, umm, in some of her underclothes. Do you know anything about it?”

Mother spoke up in a clear firm voice, “I'm afraid we know nothing about a fifty dollar bill, Officer.”

“Chief!”

“Good night, Chief. Have a safe drive back to Lanierville.”

He made a harsh sound that might have meant “farewell” and climbed in his cruiser. Deputy Hall waved vigorously at a tired, dispirited Cassie, who did not even notice. Then they were gone.

Mother locked the screen door and the kitchen door behind us as we trooped back inside. I turned to face her.

“I hope your lie about the fifty dollars doesn't come back to haunt us.”

“Well, it's too late now, so stop worrying. I just wanted them out of here. And besides, how in the world could we explain it?”

She looked tired and drawn. I decided to drop it. I could not have done any better. I did not do any better!

“You're right, of course,” I agreed. “Damn! What a mess.”

She sat back down at the table. “There's really no mess, Paisley. Don't make a mountain out of a mole hill. It's unfortunate that Rae Ann is dead. I am really sorry, believe me, but it has nothing to do with us. She didn't even buy the liquor with our money.”

“That's right! You're right! Thank God for that.” I sank down in my chair. I was tired to the bone. “And it was just a strange coincidence that we saw her that same night.”

“That's right, dear.”

Cassie had been drawing absent-mindedly in some spilled sugar on the tabletop.

“What I don't understand is how she could have gotten falling down drunk in just a little over an hour.” Cassie must have been really tired because she went on to confide, “The few times I've gotten that plastered it's taken me all night.” She looked up, “I really mean a few times, one or two at the most, honestly, Mom.”

“Never mind that, Cassie, you're right. No wonder they thought we offered her a drink. It is hard to get drunk in an hour without getting sick.”

Mother got up, opened the refrigerator, and took out some milk.

“Look, we could stay up all night, discuss this sad event ad infinitum, and make ourselves sick.” She poured the milk in a pan on the stove. “Or we can have a glass of warm milk, get a good night's sleep in our own little beds, and feel like human beings in the morning. I'm for the milk. What'll it be for you, Paisley?”

“Milk.”

“Cassie.”

“Milk.”

“Good.”

Chapter Eleven

The warm milk relaxed me not at all. That night after learning of Rae Ann's death, I lay awake in my soft, warm, cozy bed and shed a river of tears for one poor lost little soul lying on a cold hard slab in the morgue. Someone named Betty had borne her but she was really nobody's daughter. A daughter is someone's beloved child. She has ribbons in her hair and shiny patent leather shoes on her feet. She is tucked in bed each and every night with her Pooh bear to keep her company. She has braces on her teeth and takes piano lessons. And she stays in touch with home all the rest of her life because she is loved.

Rae Ann had a cheap, black plastic trench coat and dreams fueled by daytime television. She longed for love and romance but was forced to substitute a quick and ugly grope from a stranger for a loving caress. My heart ached for her and what she never knew. I was sorry that I had been repulsed by her behavior. As long as there are children alone and lost in the world, we are all responsible for them.

Most of all, I was ashamed that I felt such an overwhelming sense of relief that she had not used my fifty dollars to buy the liquor that killed her.

I got up around three AM to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water. I started crying all over again when I used my Wonder Woman glass. I wondered foolishly if Rae Ann had ever had one. Did she have Bugs Bunny bedroom slippers or a Mickey Mouse hat? I blew my nose hard and forced myself to quit being maudlin.

I turned off the bathroom light and looked out the window at the autumn night. I stood there shivering for a moment. A thought was skirting the edges of my mind trying to get noticed.

Last night at the motel I had known something was wrong, but I had been thinking egocentrically. I had thought that someone would harm us by damaging Watson, when all the time it was Deep who was in harm's way. I tried to shrug the feeling off. It was too close to Halloween to play witch. Cassie would go off the deep end if I told her. She was way too interested in all that New Age, crystal gazing, Tarot reading, Wicca stuff in the first place. I certainly didn't want to encourage her by admitting to any precognitive knowledge of Rae Ann's death. It was not that anyway. It was just a feeling. What I was feeling now was frozen. I ran and jumped into bed like I was ten years old. Some time later, I fell asleep and mercifully, did not dream.

The next morning I woke up at ten o'clock, rested and raring to go. I grabbed an apple and some grapes from the bowl on the kitchen counter and a Coke from the fridge and headed to the library.

I had on jeans and a big sweater but it was frost on the pumpkin weather, just the day for a nice warm fire. Dad had some amazingly real looking gas logs installed the year before he died, after forty years of totin' logs and haulin' ashes. All I had to do to make a big beautiful fire was push the magic button. Thanks, Dad!

I had left my wonderful little Toshiba laptop computer on his desk when I first arrived. It sat there, still patiently waiting for my literary input. I would need some more floppy discs and maybe even a laser printer before I was done, but the Toshiba and an extension cord were all I needed today.

A “Do Not Disturb” sign from the Excelsior Hotel in Rome always hung on the inside of the library door. I draped the cord over the outside knob and sat down to work.

Four hours passed before I moved a muscle, and then I could hardly stand up. I hobbled to the door and opened it to find Cassie and Mother sitting cross-legged on the floor in the hallway, a half-eaten plate of sandwiches between them.

“Wow, are those for me? Thanks, I'm starving.”

“There's a price,” said Mother.

“Yeh!” Cassie grunted as she uncrossed her legs and stood up in one motion.

I had always wanted to be able to do that.

“You have to let us read,” she continued.

As she and Mother pushed past me into the library, I heard Cassie say, “You sit and I'll read. I know how to use Mom's computer and you might mess things up.”

Surprisingly, there was no sharp retort. Mother must be really dying to know what I had written.

I sat by myself on the floor in the hall and munched on the sandwiches they had passed over. No roast beef or chicken salad left, only tuna and cheese. Mother had made some very good potato salad which Cassie did not like, so I had plenty of that; but I had no fork, and I wanted something to drink. I tried to get up with the same graceful motion that Cassie had used and fell like a lump back down on the plate. I finished off the potato salad and the last tuna sandwich with one blow of my behind.

“Damn and double damn!”

Mother called from her toasty spot in front of the fire, “What's that, dear? Your book seems very interesting, dear.”

“Rats!”

I scraped what messy potato, mayonnaise, and tuna glop, I could off of my jeans and picked the rest up from the floor. Too bad we didn't have a dog. I would have to mop.

When I finally cleaned myself and the floor and changed clothes, my erstwhile luncheon companions had finished what I had written. They were ready for a critique session.

“Paisley, I know you've been a writer for some time, but don't you think…?”

“Mom, you missed the point here. You have to be more specific.”

“Far be it from me to criticize your work, dear, but don't you think…?”

“Mom, you totally screwed.…”

“Don't you think…?”

“GET OUT!”

“Gee, Mom, you don't have to be so sensitive.”

“Yes, dear. We only want to help.”

“Then please fix me dinner in four hours and don't eat it before I get there.”

“Whatever do you mean?” asked my mother, innocently.

“PLEASE GET OUT!”

I sat back down to work, but my thoughts were scattered. I could not focus. What if Cassie and Mother were right, and I had screwed it up. A crime novel was a long way from sweet little morality tales told by charming mice to good little boys and girls.

I got up and lay down on the sofa in front of the fire. I thought and thought “like a bear of very little brain”: good old Winnie the Pooh. Finally, I came to the conclusion that my story was at heart a morality tale and needed to be told, not just to satisfy myself or my family, but to warn others of the wolf in the field. I had to send up a signal about the unscrupulous ones who were out there eager to take advantage of the aged unwary. The older population was growing as people were staying alive longer. There were countless of thousands like William. I had to warn them. I had a mission.

A tapping noise woke me up late in the afternoon. The sun had gone down. Only the light of the fire illuminated the room. The tapping started again. I had slept soundly and was too fuzzy-brained to tell where it was coming from until I heard,

“Mom, please, can I come in?”

It was too late to pretend that I had been working so I just uttered a hoarse, “Okay.”

Cassie opened the door, closed it behind her, and sat beside me on the sofa.

“Fell asleep, huh?”

“I guess I didn't sleep as well as I thought I did last night.”

“Me neither, but I don't want to talk about Deep, anymore, ever.”

“Okay, Hon.” I tried to clear the sleep from my voice.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Danny Hall called this morning and asked me to go out with him this weekend.”

“Who?”

I pulled myself up to sitting position and leaned back against a pillow.

“Oh, yeah, the deputy. What did you say?”

“I said that I was busy this weekend, but he could call again. That's my standard answer to a first time caller.”

I laughed with delight.

“Cassie, you are a heart breaking she-devil.”

“But that's not really what I want to talk about.”

“Well, then?”

“Mom, I think we need a dog.”

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing just this morning.”

“Really? That's terrific, because Mabel came by this afternoon and said her dog just had the cutest puppies. She'll give me one if you say it's okay.”

“Hold on. It's not really for me to say. Right now, we're living in your grandmother's house, a very particular grandmother I might add. I think it should be up to her whether or not you get a dog who might pee on her Kilems and chew up her Chippendale.”

“But it won't be for long. I'll finish school in a couple of years and get a job and my own apartment. I'll have my very own watchdog, so you won't have to worry about me. Until then he can live here and take care of you and Gran. That way I won't have to worry about any of you, including my dog.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” I laughed, “let's go see the puppies.”

“Hooray!”

Mother was much easier to win over to Cassie's new whim than I ever imagined. I was a little surprised that she agreed so quickly. The only thing she made Cassie promise was to crate train Sherlock—the name we chose—so he wouldn't ruin her floors.

Her famous last words were, “Oh yes, Gran, I promise.”

Mabel Jones and her husband, Apollo, lived in a doublewide trailer two miles out of town on the same road we lived on. The trailer was set back from the highway a half a mile and surrounded by a rolling green lawn and a white picket fence.

Apollo had fathered Mabel's three grown children, as well as the three younger ones still at home. He adored her and had done every job known to man to have the money to care for his family. He was five feet four inches tall, a little bantam rooster, as tough as they come.

As soon as we turned off the engine we were besieged by dogs, children, a guinea hen, two chickens, and a turkey. The noise was deafening.

Apollo opened the front door of the trailer and whistled. Everybody, even the turkey, came to attention.

“Hi, Miz Sterling, welcome, welcome, come on in. Children, this here's Miz Sterling and her daughter Paisley, and her granddaughter, Cassandra. Mind your manners and say ‘hello' and then scat.”

There were three very soft, very shy greetings and a lot of giggles from the little ones. They were so bundled up in sweaters and scarves I could not tell if they were male or female. They ran off toward a tree house in the backyard. The animals followed the children, all gobbling or cackling joyfully.

We stood there for a moment in a vacuum of silence, then went inside. The whole place smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg. Mabel came bustling out of a small kitchen alcove wrapped in a big white apron and a smile.

“Sure glad you folks decided to let Cassie have one of Queenie's pups. I'd be awful sorry to see them all go to strangers. We'd never get to see how they turned out. This is her first litter, you know. Come on, Cassie, they're over here in the kitchen where it's warmer.”

Cassie tiptoed to the kitchen like she was walking into a nursery and knelt down by a big box on the floor.

“Ohhh, Mabel, they're sooo cute.”

“Aren't they just?”

“Come look, Mom, but be careful, don't scare them.”

Thus admonished, I tiptoed as well, and peeked in the box lined with clean newspaper and a big soft towel. The three little puppies were nursing but apparently had their fill because they found us more exciting. They pulled away from momma to examine us. Their mother was a very pretty, longhaired bitch that looked remarkably like a Lhasa Apso. The three puppies waddled towards Cassie's outstretched hand. All three started licking and nibbling her fingers. She was in love. If I were not careful, we would have three dogs instead of one. I would have to watch Mother, too.

“Oh my, they are pretty, Cassie. Which is which, Mabel? Are they all boys?”

“No, two boys and one girl; that little one with the tan ears, she's the girl.”

The female was the one Cassie had gone for immediately. Oh boy, a girl meant more puppies some day, or spaying and.…

“Oh, Mom, can I have this one, please?”

“I thought you wanted a boy? I mean ‘Sherlock,' and all.”

“Agatha! We can call her Agatha, for Agatha Christie, Aggie for short. Oh, isn't she just the sweetest thing?”

The puppy was nuzzling Cassie's neck. She was completely lost under her long hair.

Mother leaned over the kitchen counter and watched Cassie with interest.

“Paisley, a female is really easier to care for, isn't that so, Mabel?”

“Well, I guess you're right, Miz Sterling. They do tend to hang around the house more, and Queenie here is real affectionate.”

I was very curious about Queenie's provenance.

“Where did you get Queenie, Mabel? Do you know what kind of dog she is?”

Mabel called out to Apollo who had waited in the living room.

“Honey, what kind of dog did you say Queenie is?”

He got up and came back to the kitchen.

“An oriental name, I got it written down here.”

He pulled a notebook out of his pocket.

“Here it is, but I don't know how it's pronounced.”

I tried to decipher his hurried scrawl.

“Lhasa Apso! Well, I'll be. Where'd you get her, Apollo?”

“Miz Harrington gave her to me last summer. She has a fine dog like this, and Queenie was the runt of the litter. She thought the pup was gonna die and told me to take her away so she wouldn't have to watch it. I brought her home and me and Mabel took turns staying up all night for three weeks. We nursed her back to health. She's a pretty little thing.”

He caressed Queenie fondly as she licked his hand.

“She is indeed,” agreed Mother. “Do you know who the father is?”

Mabel and Apollo looked at other and laughed.

“No idea,” said Mabel. “This is pure potluck. We kept her in the first time she went in heat, but this last time she got out and, well, who knows. But they are cute.”

Oh boy, I thought, cute now, but Mabel was right, who knows. It was already too late. Cassie was totally and completely head-over-heels in love with Agatha. It was a done deal. She would be weaned in another week, and we could take her home then.