Dead Voices (12 page)

“Maybe,” Junia said, smiling. “Life is such a ... a mystery. I tell you, sometimes I’m not even sure whether I’m alive or dreaming or dead myself. How do we know — with certainty — what’s real or not? But I’ll tell you one thing.” She leaned closer to Elizabeth and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I could introduce you to someone who would be able to contact her for you so you could talk to her yourself.”

“What — with Caroline?” Elizabeth said, almost a shout. Her first impulse was to laugh aloud and tell her aunt that maybe she was the one who needed to see a shrink. But the longer she looked into Junia’s eyes, the more she saw the love and concern her aunt felt for her. It helped soften her reaction, and she finished, rather lamely, “I just don’t — I can’t believe anything like that is even possible.”

Elizabeth raised her hands to her face and, shutting her eyes, roughly rubbed her palms against her forehead. The sudden darkness exploded with spirals of color. She watched with mounting horror as the rapidly unfolding designs expanded.

“I think my explanation makes a whole helluva lot more sense,” Elizabeth said, her voice muffled by her hands. Uncovering her eyes, she looked pleadingly at Junia. “I think it’s because I’m losing my mind because I’m so . . —”

“Come now!” Junia said, harshly. “We’ll have no talk like
that
in this house!”

“It’ s true, though,” Elizabeth said. Her voice shattered, and tears blurred her vision. “There wasn’t anything in the mirror except my own face. What I saw there, and the feeling I had all day that there was someone behind me, no matter where I turned, someone was watching me ... It’s all just my imagination, just honest-to-God, going-crazy hallucinations.”

She raised her hands in front of her and shook them wildly as if she were desperately trying to restore the circulation. “And if I don’t get some help, real soon, I ... I don’t know what I’ll do!”

Saying that, she leaned forward and, covering her face with her hands again, began to sob deeply. She was distantly aware that Junia was patting her gently on the back; and her numbed senses barely heard her aunt as she crooned, “There, there dear. There, there. You may not believe me, but I
do
know someone who can contact Caroline for you.”

2.

Detective Harris looked up from his desk as Frank walked into his office, and pointedly asked, “What the fuck are you doing, Melrose — bucking for a gold shield or something?”

Frank smiled and shook his head. He still had a few hours before his shift began, but he excused his early arrival at the station by mentioning some paperwork that needed his attention. The Styrofoam coffee cup he was holding didn’t fully protect his fingers from the near-boiling coffee, and he had to pass it from hand to hand as he stood in the doorway.

“I was just wondering if you had any leads with the Payne case?” he asked, trying to sound casual before taking a slurping sip of coffee.

Harris frowned and shook his head with disgust before slapping his beefy hand onto the stack of reports he had been sifting through. ‘‘I’m awash in a raging sea of paperwork and madness,” he mumbled.

“Hey, if you ever get tired of detective work, you could always become a poet,” Frank said with a laugh.

“And you could become a fucking comedian,” Harris said, almost snarling. “But to answer your question — bluntly — no. We don’t have any leads. We conducted an area interview, but hey! On that stretch of road, there aren’t all that many houses near the cemetery. Anyone out there at that time of night either was doing the digging or shouldn’t have been there in the first place and is never gonna come forward. “

“Can’t understand why,” Frank said. “You’re such a nice guy, and so easy to talk to.”

“Christ, you’re regular David Lettemmn material, you know that?” Harris said, scowling.

“I always figured that show was on way past your bedtime,” Frank snapped.

“Don’t let the doorknob bump your ass on the way out, all right?” Harris said, looking back down at his work.

“Seriously, though,” Frank said. “Nobody was passing by and saw anything, or remembers seeing anything suspicious out there that night?”

“Only one neighbor,” Harris said with thinly veiled disgust as he riffled through the papers on his desk. “Dan Wood’s house is about a quarter mile down the road. He said he
thinks
he saw a truck go into the cemetery that night just as he was coming home from work at the jetport. ‘Least he thinks it was that night. He said he’s so used to seeing teenagers go in there at all hours to drink or park or whatever the fuck they do for kicks these days that he stopped taking notice years ago.”

Frank sniffed and said, “Yeah, well, if I know Dan, I’ll bet he was using the butt end of a whiskey bottle as a telescope, too.”

“We get leads, we check ‘em all out, all right? You got any other suggestions on how I should conduct this investigation?” Harris asked, smiling thinly.

“That’s it so far, then, huh?” Frank went on. “You didn’t get anything back from the lab on those tire tracks or anything yet?”

Harris’s chair made a ferocious squeak as he leaned back and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. His sports coat hung open, exposing his shoulder holster. Glaring at Frank, he snarled, “Do you mind if I ask why the fuck you’re so damned interested in all of this?”

“I dunno,” Frank said as he looked down at the floor and scratched behind his ear. “I mean, you know — finding something like that kind of did a number on me and my partner.”

Harris frowned and, glancing quickly over his shoulder, said, “I don’t see no Goddarnned psychiatrist diploma on my walls. If you’re looking for someone to tell your troubles to, I ain’t the guy.” He paused, then sniffed loudly and ran his hand back over his scalp. Suddenly pointing at Frank, he said, “Wait a fucking minute-the fact that you and the stiffs niece were high school honeys wouldn’t have anything to do with this, now, would it?’

The bluntness of the detective’s manner had always impressed Frank; but for the first time ever, being on the receiving end of it wasn’t the least bit comfortable.

“Oh, no — not at all,” Frank replied, sensing the transparency of his lie. “It’s just — you’ve got to admit, this isn’t your typical everyday small-town crime. I was just ... you know, wondering if you were any closer to a suspect. “

Harris shook his head and, jabbing his forefinger at Frank, said, “No, and shooting the shit with you all Goddamned morning isn’t going to get me any closer, either. Tell you what, though, Melrose — if I come up with some hot lead, you’ll be the first to know. All right?”

Frank knew he had already pushed Harris too far, so he accepted the kiss-off, backed out of the detective’s office, and went down the hallway to the conference room. He couldn’t help but wonder how Harris, when he had gone to notify Junia and Elspeth Payne as well as Elizabeth’s parents yesterday about what had happened at Oak Grove, had handled something that required even a modicum of delicacy.

“Paperwork be damned,” Frank said aloud as he got up and poured what remained of his coffee down the drain and tossed the cup into the trash. He knew all along that he had just been looking for an excuse to go out to Elizabeth’s aunts’ house and talk with them. If Harris or anyone else asked him why he was going out there, he’d tell them it was to smooth over what, in Harris’s hands, might have been a fairly rough delivery of the news. But he was honest enough with himself to realize that, if nothing else, this would start to prepare him for his first face-to-face meeting with Elizabeth in nearly twenty years.

3.

Elizabeth was still wrung out and drawn from her emotional outburst when she heard a car pull into the aunts’ driveway. Tires crunched on the loose gravel as the car stopped. The sound set her already overworked nerves on edge. When she looked up over the edge of the porch and saw that it was a police cruiser, and that Frank Melrose was stepping out, she almost stopped breathing. Feeling a wave of dizzy nervousness, she sat heavily back into the chair and hastily wiped her face with her hands.

Junia was in the house checking on Elspeth. She apparently hadn’t heard the car drive in when she came to the screen door and reported to Elizabeth that Elspeth was fine, still snoozing in her chair by the window.

“Oh, my,” Junia said, once she noticed the cruiser. She came out onto the porch, letting the screen door slam behind her as she started down the steps to the gravel walkway. “I certainly hope nothing else has happened,” she muttered under her breath.

Elizabeth was shrinking back into the shadows of the porch, earnestly hoping Frank wouldn’t look up and see her. She wondered if she still had time to zip into the house and pretend she hadn’t seen him. It was just a matter of time until they met, but she wasn’t ready to talk with him today; she would at least need a few minutes to compose herself.

All of her frantic planning instantly evaporated when she heard Junia say, “What a pleasant surprise, Frank. There’s someone here who would love to see you.”

Elizabeth’s hands went cold, and a sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead as she listened to Frank’s footsteps approach the house and start up the porch steps. After sucking in a breath of air, she forced a wide smile onto her face as she stood up and held out her right hand in greeting.

“Oh, my goodness,” she said, using a tone of voice that seemed high and unnatural for her. “Well if it isn’t Frank Melrose.” Her first impulse was to give him a hug and kiss, as if that was the natural thing to do.

She felt thankful when Frank looked almost as confounded as she was as he took her extended hand and awkwardly but gently shook it. She wished it hadn’t, but just the touch of his hand sent a pleasant tingle through her.

“My God — after all this time,” Frank said. His voice sounded a bit tight and wistful. “You’re looking ... terrific, Elizabeth.”

He held her hand a moment longer than she thought necessary, then released it. Elizabeth let it fall to her side as she stood there, feeling numb and awkward. “You look as though you haven’t changed a bit,” Elizabeth replied. As soon as the words were out of her mouth she cringed, realizing they could be taken either as a compliment or as a subtle put-down.

“You’re in uniform,” Junia said somewhat tightly, “so I take it this isn’t a social call.”

Frank was still looking squarely at Elizabeth, an urgent intensity in his eyes, but he shook his head and glanced over at Junia, his expression hardening. “Not serious business.” he said. “Nothing like the visit you had yesterday morning from Detectives Harris and Jeffries. I —” Words failed him for a moment, so he simply shrugged and slapped his hands helplessly against his thighs. His right hand hit his holstered revolver. “I don’t know exactly what I wanted to say except ... I’m sorry something like that had to happen.”

“I appreciate your concern.” Junia said, her face warmed by a gentle smile.

“I wanted to let you know that, if there was anything I could do to help you out, you just let me know, all right?” Frank said. His eyes kept flicking in Elizabeth’s direction. “And I wanted to reassure you that we’re doing everything possible to find out who did it.” It wasn’t necessary to mention any of the details of the investigation, considering how little Harris had told him. He figured that dwelling on it too much might be counterproductive, anyway.

“You must’ve heard what happened ... out at the cemetery the other night,” Frank said, turning to Elizabeth. Elizabeth nodded tightly, all the while thinking that if whoever had done that foul act had moved just one grave to the side, he would have exhumed Caroline. How would she have handled something like that, she wondered, especially on her first day back home after leaving Doug?

“Can I offer you something to drink, Frank?” Junia asked. “Some coffee or lemonade? Elizabeth and I were just about to have something. “

“Coffee’d be nice,” Frank replied, glancing at his watch. He looked over at Elizabeth, trying to gauge her reaction to the invitation.

“Have a seat right there,” Junia said, pointing to where she had been sitting. “You and Elizabeth must have a million things to catch up on.” With that, she disappeared into the kitchen, letting the screen door swing shut behind her.

The slamming door echoed in Elizabeth’s ears like a gunshot as she went back to her chair and sat down. A heated flush raced over her skin as she wondered what in the hell she could say to Frank. As much as she wanted to resist the feeling, she had to admit that it was good-no, it was great-to see him again. Old flames, she told herself, probably never do die out entirely, but she was determined not to let this one even begin to be fanned into life. Things were confusing enough for her as it was.

“I’d heard you were back in town,” Frank said, after clearing his throat. He came over and sat down in the chair Junia had indicated, but he didn’t lean back or appear at all comfortable. “I was hoping I’d have a chance to see you. You’re looking good.”

“Thanks. So are you,” Elizabeth said, thinking,
We already said this
.

“So how long do you think you’ll be staying?” Frank asked.

Elizabeth shrugged. She could see that he was feeling as uncomfortable as she was, but that didn’t make it any easier. She found herself remembering all those days and nights together, and the fun they’d had. Did he have such fond memories? she wondered.

“I don’t know, for sure,” she said. “It might be for a while. I’ve even been thinking about looking for work ... at least until I get a few things sorted out.”

Frank nodded as if he knew and understood everything she had to deal with. His face suddenly brightened. “Hey, you know, now that you mention it, Jake Hardy said something a couple of days ago about needing some more help at the hardware store. You might want to talk to him.”

Elizabeth shook her head and laughed nervously. “I don’t think I could work there. I mean, I don’t know the first thing about carpentry and plumbing and stuff.”

Frank shrugged. “Just a suggestion,” he said. He didn’t want her to bristle the way she used to, back before they broke up, and start accusing him of always telling her what to do.