Tressed to Kill (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

I RETURNED TO MOM’S HALF AN HOUR LATER TO find her and Althea heading out. “We’re off to Walter’s,” Mom said as I parked. “He wants to show Althea his plans for the renovations.”
I got out of the car and joined the women on the sidewalk.
“I told him he can do whatever he wants,” Althea said grumpily, “but he insists I approve his plan as his new landlady. He says if he does some of the work himself, it won’t cost much at all. I can’t imagine why Constance left the building to me. I can see it’s going to be a big, fat pain in the patootie. Maybe Walter would like to buy it.” Her face brightened.
“Want to come with us?” Mom asked. “Then we can pick up some sandwiches at Doralynn’s and hit the road.”
There was no easy way to say what I’d come to say. “I think I know where Carl Rowan and William are,” I said baldly.
Althea staggered and dropped her purse. Coins and a lipstick rolled across the sidewalk. Mom steadied her while I bent to retrieve the purse’s contents.
“Grace Ann, you can’t throw ideas like that around without preparing a body for them,” Mom said. Althea stayed uncharacteristically silent.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break it to you that way. But after I got knocked into that grave last night, it came to me. The last time a Rothmere was buried at that cemetery was in 1983, about the time Carl and William went missing. I saw it in an old issue of the newspaper. I think whoever killed them put their bodies in the grave and let them get buried under the casket.”
The other women were silent for a moment. Althea pinched at her lips with her thumb and fingers and then said, “I guess it could have happened like that. How do we find out for sure?”
“I’ve already talked to Lucy Mortimer, and she’s going to get an okay from the Rothmere Board of Directors to dig up the casket and look beneath it. Since we’re not actually opening the casket, she doesn’t think we need to notify anyone else, like the health authorities or anything. And since the grave diggers are already there today because of Nathan Philpott’s interment, she figures they can do the work this afternoon.”
“I need to sit down,” Althea announced.
Mom led her to the veranda and disappeared inside to get some water.
“I’m sorry, Althea,” I said, worried by the dazed look in her eyes. “Would it have been better if I hadn’t said anything, if I’d just let it be?”
“No. If there’s a chance that I could finally know . . .”
Mom returned and handed her friend a glass of water. Althea’s hands were shaking so hard the glass clinked against her teeth as she drained it. A young mom went by on the other side of the street, pulling two toddlers in a red wagon. We waved.
“Better?” Mom asked.
Althea nodded. “I think Walter’s going to have to wait a bit. Let’s go out to Rothmere.”
Mom sighed, resigned. “I guess this means we’re not getting to Flora’s today.”
THE ROTHMERE CEMETERY BASKED PEACEFULLY IN the early afternoon sun. The sun, directly overhead, warmed my arms bared by a sleeveless yellow blouse and banished shadows, leaving the terrain, so seemingly uneven and dark the night before, a swathe of emerald. The marble angel gleamed. Dozens of small white butterflies flitted from dandelion to dandelion in the spaces between the graves. A blanket of carnations, lilies, and honeysuckle draped the newly turned mound of earth where Nathan Philpott had been laid to rest, sending out a sweet scent. With the grave filled in, my adventures of last night seemed unreal, something I’d seen in a movie or read about in a book.
Mom and Althea stood beside me outside the wrought iron fence, watching the backhoe maneuver into position. Lucy Mortimer, wearing a broad-brimmed sun hat, stood an arm’s length away. A cluster of crime scene technicians armed with baggies, brushes, and small spades, like an archeological team ready to dig up one of King Tut’s relatives or a T. rex, stood in a knot under the big oak tree. Special Agent Dillon, jacket off, squinted his eyes against the sun’s glare and tracked the backhoe’s movements. I’d expected skepticism when I told him what I thought about Carl’s and William’s final resting place, but after I’d explained my reasoning and he’d called the paper to have them fax over the article about the 1983 burial, he’d said, “Interesting possibility. I’ll get the appropriate permissions. We’ll have to treat it like a crime scene.”
I’d called Marty Shears, too, but his cell phone went directly to voicemail. I was getting worried about him. I’d try calling his paper to see if they’d heard from him when we finished at Rothmere.
A canvas screen around the gravesite provided some privacy for the exhumation. The grassy sod had been removed from the grave earlier and stacked to one side. A simple granite tombstone, engraved “Gemma Rothmere Lackland, January 16, 1903-February 3, 1983, Beloved Wife and Mother,” stood sentinel over the barren rectangle of earth. Now, the backhoe bit into the soil. I winced, then steadied myself, hoping no one had noticed. The bucket swung around and tipped the dirt into a trailer positioned nearby. Pebbles rattled against the metal sides. The machine’s engine growled and
beep-beep-beeps
sounded every time the backhoe reversed. A puff of diesel exhaust drifted my way. Another piece of equipment, like a small crane, was poised nearby, to lift the casket out, I presumed.
After five minutes of watching the backhoe work, Lucy approached Althea and Mom. “This is going to take quite a while,” she said gently. “Don’t you think we’d be more comfortable waiting inside? They can let us know when the casket’s been removed.”
After a brief hesitation, Althea nodded, and we crossed the broad lawn to the mansion. Dillon remained behind and shook his head at me when I gave him an enquiring glance. Two cups of tea later, he appeared in the doorway of the small sitting room where we sat, mostly quiet. The sun had burnished the tip of his nose and his cheekbones, and sweat damped his temples. His expression fit the task. “The casket’s out,” he said. We filed back to the cemetery after him, Mom and Althea holding hands.
Since the grave was potentially a crime scene, a technician from the crime lab lowered himself into the hole to finish the excavation while the rest of us waited outside the iron fence once again. It took a long time, since he first laid out a grid with twine and then stopped frequently to put soil samples in baggies. The backhoe operator slumped on the seat of his machine, reading a paperback copy of a Barry Eisler thriller. Just business as usual for him, I guessed. A few clouds scudded the blue sky now and a fitful breeze kicked up dirt and blew it in our faces. Dusty grains stuck to the film of sweat on my skin. As the first shovelful of dirt plopped over the lip of the grave, we held our breaths. With each succeeding mound of dirt, the tension ratcheted up a notch until my jaw ached from clenching my teeth.
When the technician’s head popped into view, hovering disembodied over the rim of the grave, Althea gasped and Lucy giggled from the sudden release of tension. He summoned Special Agent Dillon over with a wave of his hand. We crowded against the fence, trying to hear their low-voiced conversation. After a moment, Dillon straightened and returned to us.
He shook his head. “There’s nothing there.” His gaze, full of compassion, fell on Althea. “I’m sorry.” Looking at me, he said, “It was a good idea, Grace. I’m sorry it didn’t pan out.” He patted my shoulder and turned to speak to the technician, who had hoisted himself out of the grave and was shucking off his gloves.
Disappointment caved in Althea’s face. “I was hoping . . .”
“I’m so sorry I got your hopes up for nothing,” I said. “I really thought—”
“It’s okay, Grace,” Althea said. “Maybe I’m not meant to know. Maybe my William is meant to lie undisturbed, wherever he is.” Her brown eyes clouded with regret. She turned her back on the cemetery and walked toward the house, moving much more stiffly than earlier. My mom caught up with her easily, and Lucy and I trailed behind, caught up in our own thoughts. I’d spent enough time in a cemetery over the last twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime.
WHEN WE GOT BACK TO MOM’S HOUSE LATE THAT afternoon, I phoned
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, using the number on Marty’s card. When I asked to speak to Martin Shears, the operator transferred me. The phone rang and rang. Just when I thought I was going to end up with voice mail again, a man picked up. “Martin Shears’s desk.” He sounded impatient.
When I asked for Marty, he said, “Don’t you read the paper, for God’s sake? He was in a car accident yesterday afternoon. Coming back from the airport.”
I felt my windpipe close up. “Is he—?” I choked out. “In the ICU,” he said. “But I hear he’s doing better this morning. You a friend of his?”
I said I was, and he told me what hospital Marty was in. “But I think they’re only letting family visit,” he warned me. “Check back in a couple of days.”
I hung up with trembling hands. This couldn’t be coincidence, could it? I gave myself a shake. Of course it could. People had car accidents all the time, going to work, on their way to tennis lessons, coming back from the grocery store. Just because the timing was weird didn’t mean anything. My logic didn’t keep my skin from feeling clammy as I fished a diet root beer out of the fridge and returned to the salon.
Althea had recovered some of her usual spunk by the time I rejoined her and Mom. “I want y’all to see the design I’ve come up with for the label for my beauty products,” she said, marching straight into the salon.
Mom and I glanced at each other but accepted her tacit request not to talk any more about William’s fate.
“I’m thinking about calling my line Althea’s Organic Skin Solutions,” she said, plunking her purse down on the counter. “What do you think?”
“Well, it might be a little wordy,” Mom said, twisting her mouth to one side.
“I like it.” Feeling as badly as I did about disappointing Althea today, I’d have waxed enthusiastic if she said she wanted to call it Althea’s Egg and Avocado Skin Glop. “And organic stuff is big right now . . . organic food, organic cosmetics, organic household cleansers. I’ve seen tons of articles about it.”
Althea gave me an approving look. “You’re right.” She pulled a line drawing from her purse and unfolded it. “This is what I was thinking about for the label. Of course, I’ll have to get a professional artist to do it up pretty, but this is the idea.”
Before we could examine the drawing, the front door slammed open, setting the bell clanging and the blinds swaying. Rachel burst in, her face alight with excitement. “I saw him!”
The three of us stared at her in silence. She wore black cutoff overalls over a tank top. Her black hair bobbed in a short ponytail at the crown of her head with her bangs straggling across her forehead.
“Who?” my mom finally asked.
“Him,” Rachel said. “The dude Constance argued with that day she came for her highlights.”
I’d almost forgotten about the mystery man, but now my pulse quickened. “You did? Where?”
“Outside Doralynn’s. I stopped in for an ice cream cone next door at the Friendly’s, and I left my scooter out back ’cause they don’t like it if I park it on the sidewalk. Anyway, when I went back to the alley to get my scooter, there he was, making out with some girl.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” Mom asked.
“I did better than that,” Rachel said. “I took his picture.” She raised her cell phone triumphantly.
“Let us see,” I said.
Mom and I crowded close to Rachel while Althea folded her sketch and tucked it into her purse. Rachel flipped open her phone and skimmed a forefinger across the screen. “There,” she said. She held the phone so we could see the tiny photo.
Angling the phone so glare didn’t obscure the screen, I studied the image. “But that’s—” I broke off, wanting to be sure before I opened my big mouth. A blond man faced the camera, eyes half closed, the bottom half of his face obscured by the head of the woman he was kissing.
“Isn’t that Simone’s young man?” Mom asked, peering over the top of her glasses.
“It’s Greg Hutchinson,” I said. I leaned back against the counter. Simone’s husband had argued with her mother hours before she was murdered. And, as far as I knew, he hadn’t said anything to the police or to Simone about it. To make things worse, the woman he was kissing wasn’t his new wife. I couldn’t see enough of her to tell who it was—if it mattered—but the mass of blonde hair told me it wasn’t Simone. I found myself feeling unbearably sorry for Simone, whose mother had been murdered a week ago and whose new husband was a cheating scuzzbucket . . . and maybe a murderer. Although I couldn’t think of a reason for him to murder Constance. Simone was well past eighteen—Constance couldn’t have kept her from marrying him, even if she’d wanted to. Maybe she’d seen him with this other woman and threatened to tell Simone about it.
“My, my,” Mom said. She shook her head. “What a . . . a louse to be kissing another woman not three days after he married Simone. So many young people these days don’t understand the importance of fidelity.”
“Let me see this Lothario,” Althea said. Rachel, pleased with the attention her discovery was getting, turned the phone so Althea could see. Althea squinted at the image. “I can’t see this—it’s too small. Where are my reading glasses?” she asked. She groped in her purse and pulled out the cheap magnifying glasses with the red rims. Sliding them up her nose, she peered at the photo again. She made a little choking noise and stuttered, “It can’t—” before her knees buckled and she collapsed, almost bringing Mom down with her.
Mom staggered but stayed upright, catching her friend under her armpits to keep her head from knocking against the floor. Rachel sprang back, startled, and retrieved her cell phone from under the chintz chair where it had skittered when Althea dropped it.
“Help me, Grace,” Mom commanded.
I didn’t think we could lift Althea onto the sofa, so I got a pillow and slid it under her head. Mom dampened a cloth with cold water and laid it gently across Althea’s forehead.
“Should I call 911?” Rachel asked. Worry creased her young forehead.
“I don’t think we need EMTs,” Mom said calmly, chafing her friend’s hands. “I think she’s just fainted.”
Althea’s eyelids fluttered and then popped open. “Do you believe in ghosts, Vi?” she asked.
I gave her a worried look, afraid she’d banged her head after all.
“Why?” Mom asked, helping Althea sit up.
“Because that’s Carl Rowan, big as life,” Althea announced, pointing at the cell phone in Rachel’s hand.