Disturbing the Dead (25 page)

Chapter Forty-three

“What a gorgeous morning!” Rachel stepped out of Tom’s truck into two inches of fresh snow. Soaring spruces and pines around the church parking lot looked like a Christmas card with their dusting of white and decorations of red cardinals and blue jays. “It’s wonderful to feel free again.”

Tom rounded the rear of the truck. “Thanks for coming with me. I drive out this way all the time, but I haven’t been to their graves since they were buried.”

They walked past rows of headstones, their boots laying down the first footprints in the new snow. The Bridger family plot was on the far side of the cemetery.

During the drive, Tom had stayed quiet, and his hands had gripped the steering wheel as if he were bracing for an ordeal. Rachel was bursting with questions, but she’d allowed him his silence. Now, walking with him toward his family’s graves, she was relieved when he spoke.

“You’ll be glad to know Jack Watford admitted setting the fire at the animal hospital. You don’t have to worry that somebody else is still running around free.”

“Good. I’d love to put all these crazy people out of my mind forever.” Rachel knew, though, that a long time would pass before she stopped thinking about the real Mary Lee, who’d grown up not knowing who she was. What had the girl felt in the last moments of her life, when the truth was so brutally laid out for her? The echoes of Rachel’s own past stirred up memories that ambushed her at odd moments and left her aching and empty. At times she was tempted to tell Tom about her life, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She might never allow him that close.

She had to focus on getting through the immediate future. Perry Nelson’s hearing loomed ahead, only a few days away, and she would have to be strong to confront him in court. She also had to prepare herself to face Luke again, because she knew he would seek her out when she went home for the hearing. Until she saw him, she couldn’t be certain whether she would let herself be drawn back into her old life or resist and keep moving forward, away from the past.

A gust of wind swept snow off the nearby trees and it fell over them in a wet, cold shower. Rachel tugged her coat collar around her neck. “Would you believe Shackleford called and asked Holly to visit him in jail? She said no.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Tom said. “I’ve told the jailer to restrict his phone privileges. He says he wants to be sure his daughter knows he didn’t kill anybody.”

“Oh, right, Mr. Innocent Bystander.”

“He helped hide Pauline and Mary Lee’s bodies, but Bonnie killed Mary Lee and Jack killed Pauline and Jean. Jack hasn’t admitted to killing O’Dell, but we found O’Dell’s rifle hidden in the Watford house and it had Jack’s prints on it. Mrs. Turner says after O’Dell shot me, he went to Jack for help, and he was so out of control that Jack was afraid he’d crack and spill everything if he got caught.”

“So Jack killed him with his own gun.”

“Right. He used the same gun to shoot at you and Holly, and he probably left the shells at the site so we’d think O’Dell did it.”

They paused and watched a mockingbird, with a red berry in its beak, land on a headstone in a flurry of scattered snow. The bird gulped and its throat bulged as the berry went down.

“Why did Shackleford help hide the bodies?” Rachel asked. “Why didn’t he turn Bonnie and Jack in?”

“Jack knew about the deal with Natalie McClure and threatened to pin the murders on Shackleford and Natalie. I think Shackleford was glad to see Pauline dead, but to hear him tell it, he ought to get a medal for trying to stop the killing. He claims he pulled Bonnie off Mary Lee, but it was too late, the girl was already dead. Then Pauline ran out the back door screaming for help, with Jack right behind her. Being the noble fellow he is, Shackleford tried to go to her rescue. She grabbed the ax from the woodpile to protect herself from Jack, but she was shaking so much she couldn’t hold onto it. Jack snatched it, Pauline ran into the woods, Jack went after her…You can imagine the rest.”

All too well. Rachel shuddered at the image of an ax coming down on the woman’s head.

“How’s Holly doing?” Tom asked.

“She’s completely adrift right now,” Rachel said. “She can’t stop wondering whether her grandmother knew Jean was dead all along and covered up for Jack.”

Tom shook his head. “No, I’m convinced Mrs. Turner believed Jean was alive. She told me she was scared to death of both Jack and Shackleford. We’re not charging her with anything. She did what she had to do to stay alive and keep Holly safe. By the way, Reed Durham and the prosecutor want to have a meeting with Holly. I told them I’d arrange for you to bring her in.”

“For heaven’s sake, hasn’t she given enough statements? Why does she have to go through that again?”

When Rachel glanced up at Tom, his lips twitched as if he were suppressing a smile. “It won’t be too rough this time. They need to clear up one more thing.”

Rachel stepped in front of him to make him stop and look at her. “What thing? What’s going on?”

“Oh, it’s nothing much.” Tom absently studied the treetops before bringing his gaze back to Rachel and allowing his smile to break through. “Just a little matter of Holly’s multi-million-dollar inheritance.”

Stunned, Rachel stared at him for a moment. Then she gave a short laugh and said, “You’re joking, right? It’s not very funny, Tom.”

“It’s true. Holly’s getting Pauline’s estate, once the courts get it away from Amy.”

“But how?” Rachel said as she tried to sort through the various inheritance possibilities in an insane situation like this one.

“It’s in Pauline’s will. Everything was supposed to go to Mary Lee. But if they died at the same time, and they did, it would all go to Pauline’s sister, Jean, and her daughter, Holly. Jean’s dead too. Holly gets it all.”

“Oh, my god,” Rachel said, beginning to believe it. “That’s fantastic.” Tom, grinning at her excitement, took her arm and they moved on. “Think what this will mean to her. She can go to college— She can do anything she wants to. She can have the kind of life she deserves.”

Rachel laughed out loud with pleasure of this surprise, but she fell silent when she saw that Tom had stopped at a double headstone. He crouched and brushed away drifted snow to reveal the names of his parents, John and Anne. Next to this site were the graves of Tom’s older brother, Chris, and his wife, Carol.

Rising, Tom slapped snow from his gloves. He looked down at his parents’ graves for a long time before he spoke in a voice hoarsened by unshed tears. “I guess I’ll never know the whole truth about Dad and Pauline. I want to believe Reed Durham, but I keep thinking that he’s got plenty of reason to lie about it.”

“You can choose to believe the best of your father,” Rachel said. “For your own sake.”

Tom nodded. “I know he loved my mother, to the day they died. And he was a great dad to Chris and me.”

“That’s all you need to know. That’s all you’ll ever need.”

They stood in silence for a moment longer, then turned and walked back to the truck, retracing their footsteps in the snow.