Paging the Dead Read online

  He shrugged and seemed to resign himself to the exercise. He started in with the familiar narrative again, but this time he added a few details he’d left out before as I asked some guiding questions. Yes, he’d had coffee with her, yes in the fancy cups, but someone else was coming over after him.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  Hank opened his eyes, looking a little dazed. “Because she said so,” he said. “When she invited me to leave she said I had to get out because she was expecting someone shortly and she wanted me and my scurrilous tales gone by then. Is that the word, scurrilous? What does that even mean? She was nattering on about how she had to make this person realize some hard truths and how she’d spent half her life defending and upholding the Pritchett family name. Yadda, yadda. She was rantin’ like she was off her meds or something.”

  “You never mentioned this before.”

  “I forgot. Honestly, I forgot she said all that. I was so shocked when she wigged out everything went out of my head. I didn’t remember ’til just now. Wow, that closing your eyes thing really works, huh?”

  “Yeah, it works,” I said with a sigh. “Unfortunately in this case it informs without enlightening.”

  twenty-one

  THE FRIDAY OF DOROTHY’S MEMORIAL DAWNED CLEAR AND cooler, as if she’d arranged pleasant weather for the comfort of her guests. But I was filled with dread at the prospect of going up to High Ground.

  It made me ill to even consider that Cassidy could lose her father, but every snippet of evidence that bubbled up seemed to be pointing directly at Jeremy. And he wasn’t helping himself by being evasive, if not outright lying. Why did he feel the need to do that if he hadn’t done anything wrong?

  And what Hank Spencer had supposedly remembered last night didn’t help matters. I’d heard Dorothy use that phrase, “hard truths,” with Jeremy many times.

  When I came downstairs I found Esme sitting at the kitchen table, hand across her forehead, staring down into her coffee cup.

  “Another rough night?” I asked.

  She nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Sometimes I truly wish those who’ve passed on would stop looking back over their shoulders, or their wings or whatever they’ve got now. I feel like stamping all messages from Sarah Malone RETURN TO SENDER. Every time I close my eyes here comes that quilt.”

  “Must be something important to Sarah, but maybe we’ll never know what it means.”

  “Oh, I’ll eventually know. She’s got no intention of leaving me alone until I figure it out. And one thing that comes through loud and clear is she’s frustrated I’m being so thickheaded. So now she’s not only haunting me, she’s trash talkin’, too.”

  • • •

  I recognized several dignitaries sprinkled in with the regular Morningsiders at High Ground. As Esme and I threaded our way through the crowd I overheard remnants of conversation here and there, most glowing tributes to Dorothy for her public service.

  Joe Porter was standing near the entrance to the kitchen talking with a group of men. I nodded to him as I went by and he reached out and pulled me aside.

  “Sophreena, I want you to meet Rick Medlin,” he said. “He’s one of my managers. He tells me he thinks maybe he owes you an apology.”

  I looked up at the man expectantly, but didn’t have a clue what this was all about.

  “I was rude when you came to see Joe the other day,” the man said, and only then did I look beyond the suit and recognize the guy as the wrench-wielding mechanic. “The reporters had been swarming the place trying to get to Joe and I was getting sick of it,” he said. “Just before you came there’d been this tall, blond woman snooping around. She was way too pushy and I guess I took my frustration out on the next person to come along. I’m sorry about that.”

  “No problem,” I assured him, thinking the reporter must have been Julie.

  I liked Rick Medlin.

  Esme had gone on out to the lawn where most of the regular folks were assembled. I’d seen Marydale and Coco out there clucking over Winston. I started out to join them, but then caught sight of Jack chatting with Julie and decided I couldn’t deal with that today.

  I went into the dining room to check on the scrapbooks and found Jeremy and Ingrid both leafing through the pages. We made a little stilted conversation, then I excused myself and got out of the room.

  I’d gotten halfway down the hall before remembering I should have asked Ingrid about where she wanted the boxes of archives put. I was eager to get them out of our workroom and even more eager to turn over responsibility for them to someone else.

  As I got to the doorway I overheard Ingrid and Jeremy in what sounded like an argument. I could only make out snatches of the conversation since they were both whispering furtively. “Careful what you say . . . told her too much already . . . your life we’re talking about . . . your future . . . not much longer . . . sick of the lies . . . Cassidy’s future . . . we’ve come this far . . . not much longer . . . the consequences . . .”

  I crept away on my tippy toes, thinking I might be sick. I walked out to the kitchen where the drone of murmured voices and the clinking of glasses and silverware drifted in from the formal rooms.

  “Sophreena? You okay?” a voice asked.

  I was looking to the outside, searching for Esme. “Yes, Vivian, I’m fine,” I lied.

  “Vivian? That’s about the tenth time I’ve gotten that today.”

  I turned for a closer look. “Linda, I’m sorry. I just glanced . . .”

  “It’s the suit,” Linda said, pulling on the lapels of her stylish black business jacket. “I had to go out and buy it since I didn’t have anything decent to wear. Dorothy’s lawyer, Mr. Conover, is going to make an announcement later about High Ground being left to the town and he’s going to introduce me as the manager, so I have to look respectable.”

  “You look very professional,” I said.

  “I must. People keep mistaking me for Vivian, which is okay by me; she’s a pretty woman. But I don’t think she’s too thrilled with the comparison.”

  “She should be flattered,” I said, which earned a smile from Linda, perhaps her first of the day. “Listen, have you seen Esme? I can’t seem to find her.”

  Linda jerked her head toward the living room. “Last time I saw her she was in there with Cassidy.”

  I worked my way through a throng of adults who were juggling food plates and talking in low, respectful voices until I got to the front part of the living room where a window seat was nestled in the large bay window. Esme was sitting with Cassidy, who was cross-legged on the window seat with the puzzle box on her lap. She still kept it with her, even though she’d solved the puzzle. She seemed to find comfort in it.

  She was busying herself by putting some small object into the hidden compartment, closing the box up, manipulating the pieces to reveal the object, taking it out, then doing the whole thing over again.

  “Hi, Cassidy,” I said.

  She turned her sad eyes up to me and I felt heartsick. “Hi, Miss Sophreena,” she murmured, then went back to her business.

  I wanted to tell Esme what I’d overheard between Jeremy and Ingrid, but I couldn’t very well do that in front of Cassidy. So I sat in a chair nearby and tried to give Esme eye signals that I needed to talk. But she was focused on Cassidy.

  “That sure was nice of your Aunt Dot to give you her special ring,” Esme said.

  “Daddy took the ring and put it at the bank in a safe box so no one can steal it,” Cassidy said, working the latches and sliders quickly now that she’d gotten the hang of it. “He says if I absolutely need to sell it for money to go to college that would be okay but we should try to keep it in our family if we can.”

  “I think either way would make your Aunt Dot happy,” Esme said.

  Cassidy shrugged, not much cheered.

  I could see I wasn’t going to get Esme aside anytime soon so I went off in search of Vivian. I found her ushering a group through the house, giv
ing a running commentary on the architecture and history of the home as if she were the lady of the manor, or perhaps a well-trained docent. She seemed keyed up, even for Vivian.

  I told her I had a quick question and she gave me a scowl. I had to resist the impulse to feel my face to see if the look she’d drilled me with had left a mark. She was reluctant to leave her audience but she excused herself and took my elbow, guiding me into the kitchen where Linda was supervising the caterers. “What is it, Sophreena?” Vivian asked, looking back to make sure her little group wasn’t about to escape.

  “I was just wondering if you wanted me to make an announcement about the scrapbooks in case people don’t know they’re out there.”

  She looked at me like I’d crawled from beneath a rock. “I cannot believe you are suggesting you use this occasion to promote your business. This is Dorothy’s memorial, for heaven’s sake, not a trade fair.”

  “Vivian,” I protested, keeping my voice low. “I meant no disrespect to Dorothy, just the opposite. I know how much pride she took in her family and I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to see that. That’s all I intended.”

  Vivian’s shoulders relaxed but only slightly. She fingered the single strand of pearls at her neck and struggled to speak. “Fine, but I’ll make the announcement. Family meant everything to Dorothy. She and I were like family. She was the sister I never had and I was the sister she never had.” She sniffled and wiped at her nose with an embroidered hanky.

  I didn’t think now was the time to point out that Dorothy actually had a sister so I just murmured, “I know, I know,” and patted Vivian on the shoulder.

  That small bit of kindness seemed to undo her. She turned and instead of returning to her group she hurried out onto the lawn. I watched as she walked all the way over to the edge of the property and stood by herself with her back to the crowd.

  “Don’t take it personally,” Linda said. “She’s been on edge all week. I mean even more than usual. I’m afraid she’s due for a meltdown.”

  I watched as Vivian stood mopping at her face and staring off into the valley below. It occurred to me that had Vivian had her way there would be a row of port-a-potties along that area of the lawn. I couldn’t imagine what could have been going through her head when she proposed that to Dorothy. Maybe she was trying to illustrate how Harrison Pritchett had risen from humble beginnings. But surely she must have known that would hit a sour note with Dorothy, who liked to pretend she was descended from gentility all the way back to some manor house in England, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

  Linda returned to her work and I spotted Vivian’s sketchbook still sitting on the end of the counter. Something was still ticking in the back of my mind and I wanted to see what Vivian had proposed that had caused such an argument between her and Dorothy.

  “You think Vivian would mind if I look at her sketches?” I asked.

  Linda shrugged. “She can’t expect much privacy if she’s going to leave that thing sitting around here—in the way, all the time.”

  I opened the front cover where Vivian had written her name, Vivian Pearce Evans, in a flowing script I would have been proud to use on a scrapbook page. The sketches were very good and even the one with the port-a-johns had a certain rustic charm. Off to the side on one page Vivian had scribbled an agenda for the originally planned Founders’ Day open house. It looked familiar but I knew I’d never seen it before. It read: welcome/cocktails on the lawn, heavy hors d’oeuvres in the living room, short family history presented by Dorothy, tour of High Ground, introduction of newest Pritchett family member. Beside the last item Vivian had drawn a schoolgirlish heart followed by a row of exclamation points. I closed the book and sighed.

  So sad. As it had turned out, instead of being introduced, Cassidy—the newest member of the Pritchett family—was being virtually ignored while Jeremy and Ingrid talked with people and attended to their bereavement duties. Esme was still sitting with Cassidy in the window seat and I went back in to join them.

  I still wanted to get Esme aside to tell her what I’d overheard between Jeremy and Ingrid, but I’d lost the sense of urgency after I’d thought it over. Their words had raised goose bumps on my arms but it wasn’t like they’d actually said anything incriminating.

  “You still like the box, huh?” I asked Cassidy absently. “Even though you already solved it and you’ll get your secret wish?”

  “That’s not what Auntie Dot said. Not a wish, your dream. That’s different. And Daddy says we don’t keep secrets. Him and Gigi and me tell each other everything. Except Sherry, that’s a secret.”

  Cassidy looked up, her mouth flying open. “Oh no, I’m not supposed to say that. Daddy will be mad at me.”

  I put my finger across my lips. “We won’t tell,” I whispered.

  I wanted desperately to find out the exact nature of the secret we were agreeing to harbor, but I didn’t want to cause Cassidy any more anxiety.

  “Okay, so you solved the box and that means you’ll get your dream, right? Do you want to share what that would be?”

  “I told you. I want to be a doctor and have a husband and two boy babies and two girl babies and live in a good house. I haven’t decided about the purple on the house yet, maybe it will be yellow.”

  She slid the last piece of the puzzle box into place and took out the object again, but this time she pinched it between her fingers and held it up so the light from the window struck it. A bead. The luster made the bead appear illuminated from within and I almost gasped.

  Esme had seen it, too, and we exchanged looks.

  “Cassidy, where’d you get that bead?” Esme asked casually.

  “Found it,” Cassidy said, quickly pinching up the bead and depositing it back in the hidey-hole.

  “Oh? Where’d you find it?” I asked.

  “I didn’t steal it,” Cassidy said, pulling her feet up under her and turning away from us to face the window.

  “Nobody’s saying you stole it,” Esme said. “We think it’s pretty, that’s all.”

  Cassidy turned her face toward us, looking as if she might cry. “Is taking something without permission the same as stealing?”

  “That depends, I guess,” Esme said softly. “Let’s see if we can figure that out. Where did you find the bead? Here in the house somewhere?”

  “Nuh-uh, in the car,” Cassidy said. “It was stuck in the crack part of the safety buckle. So it was already lost and I just found it. Finders keepers, right?”

  “Sure,” I said. “So you found it in the seat belt buckle of your dad’s car? That’s a strange place for it, isn’t it?”

  “Not Daddy’s car,” Cassidy said, as if I were slow witted, “Miss Vivian’s car. Is hers a car or a truck? It’s like in-between, I guess. I helped her bring in lots of bags from her car this morning. That’s when I found the bead. I didn’t think she wanted it anymore.”

  “Probably not,” Esme said, her eyes locked on mine.

  My brain was firing so rapidly it gave me a headache. It was like Cassidy’s puzzle box. As one thing slid out of the way another thing was revealed and when that was lifted, another thing had to be pushed aside to find out more. I searched the room for Denny Carlson. I spotted him by the fireplace talking with the mayor and headed straight for him, parting the crowd with my arms as if I were swimming in a people-pool. I cut right into their conversation and Mayor Hudgins, a courtly older gentleman I’d known all my life, gave me a where-are-your-manners-young-lady look, which I totally ignored. I pulled Denny along through the crowd and onto the unoccupied front porch. While I was still catching my breath Esme came out, shutting the door behind her.

  “Okay,” I said, “just listen. I don’t know what any of this means and I’m still trying to put it all together.” I launched into a series of seemingly unconnected information and to Denny’s credit he listened raptly though I knew I sounded totally manic.

  “First off, Vivian is wearing a string of pearls. One
string. Second, Vivian’s birth name is Pearce. Not rare, but not common with that spelling. I’ve seen that name in the Pritchett family papers somewhere, I just can’t think where.” I banged my head with the flat of my palm a couple of times hoping it would dislodge the information and dispense it like a vending machine, but no such luck. “Third,” I went on, “Jeremy’s got a secret, but I don’t think it has anything to do with Dorothy’s murder. Fourth, Vivian and Linda both drive dark-colored SUVs. And they both have dark hair and similar builds. I think maybe it was Vivian that Hank Spencer saw taking bags out of an SUV that afternoon. That alters the timeline. Vivian and Dorothy had argued the night before about the decorations for the open house and Dorothy had sent Vivian back to the drawing board—I mean literally. She sent her back to do new sketches. But Linda remembers Vivian’s sketchbook being in the kitchen when she came back from her errands that next evening—the evening when it happened.”

  “Maybe she used a different sketchbook?” Denny offered.

  Esme held up a hand. “Let her go,” she said, “Sophreena’s on a roll. We’ll sort out the details later.”

  I prattled on a while longer, recalling some of the weird exchanges I’d had with Vivian over the past week. “Something is off here,” I said. “I’m not accusing Vivian of anything, but something’s just not right.”

  “Even if I agree,” Denny said, “that’s not enough to warrant questioning her here and now.”

  “I’ll talk to her then,” I said.

  “No,” he answered. “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not? I’m not the police.”

  “But you’d be acting as an agent of the police if I asked you to do it, and that could taint the case.”

  “So, you’re telling me not to talk to her?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Denny said.

  “Perfect,” I said, making for the door.

  twenty-two

  FOR THE SECOND TIME IN AN HOUR I WAS TAKING VIVIAN AWAY from her audience. She was not pleased and tried to blow me off, but I leaned in close and whispered, “Vivian, I know. And I have the evidence.”