Hush My Mouth (28 page)

Melvin’s comments about ghosts slipping away if you don’t believe kept playing in my head, which brought to mind Gran and how hard she’d fought to keep her family from slipping away. Just by caring, by believing, she’d kept the investigation into Wenda’s death alive.

Love could make the difference between investigators staying hot on the trail and a case gone cold. Someone who cared enough to keep the heat on probably kept a file folder out of the cold-case bin more often than law enforcement statistics admitted.

Gran’s love had kept Wenda alive in Vince Ingum’s mind—until someone had scared her off. That struck me as the coldest cruelty, forcing her own mother to let her go, to let her slip away.

Gran had held on to Neanna, though, for as long as she had mortal hands to hold her, until she was no longer around to see her slip away. The thought of the orbs around me made me smile.
If Gran was trying to tell me something, lead me somewhere, she was going to have to get her ectoplasmic act together.

Something about the tragedy that enveloped Neanna’s whole family made me believe in the abyss. Who was that old New England preacher who spoke of God dangling sinners over the pit of hell? That preaching tradition lived on in plenty of Primitive Baptist churches in these hills. No wonder Gran feared the abyss. She’d watched her girls dangle. She hadn’t been able to call any of them back from the edge, not her daughters Wenda and Marie, not granddaughter Neanna.

Emma charged up the bleachers to grab my hand, the music and chatter too loud for conversation. She’d found a camper her same size, one she could boss around the floor now that she was an expert clogger, so Melvin and I danced one last set.

Emma protested leaving early, but then fell asleep dangling in her seat belt before we’d driven more than a mile down the road.

Even with my melancholy ruminations about Neanna’s family, I still felt a warm wash of nostalgia as well as pinging reminders from muscles and joints that I was neither as young nor as fit as I’d been when I first learned to clog.

When we pulled into their drive, Emma’s dad Frank came out to carry her inside.

“Haven’t seen her that pooped in a while.” Lydia smiled as dad and daughter passed us on the front porch, Emma’s thick plaited hair draped over her dad’s shoulder.

“Our work here is done, then,” I said and waved good-bye.

Some nights, I wished I had somebody to carry me in from the car. Heck, I really wished I could still sleep that sleep of the dead that comes so blissfully to little kids.

Melvin dropped me off in front of our office.

“I’m meeting my brother and we’re driving out to his lake house. Going to get in some fishing tomorrow early.”

“You should’ve said something! We could’ve left earlier.”

“No, this is perfect. He wasn’t going to be able to drive out there until ten anyway.”

“Have fun. And thanks. You made Emma feel like quite the princess.”

He ducked his head in acknowledgment, looking a bit embarrassed by the compliment. I closed the truck door.

The streetlights along Main lit up the front sidewalk, highlighting my eight-foot praying angel statue with a wash of white and shadow.

The deep porch lay dark on both sides of the massive leaded-glass-and-oak door. I seldom use this door, especially at night. Small-town living had dulled some of the caution I’d brought home from living in an urban condo and apartments, so I felt nothing more than mild frustration as I fumbled to get the key in the lock.

I felt the movement to my left before I saw anything. I spun toward the movement, my dance-tired muscles suddenly charged with adrenaline, my brain searching for and discarding defensive options. No gun. Rocking chair too heavy to lift. Door too temperamental to unlock quickly. Street deserted but well lit. Run into the street.

Facing the shadow, I leapt back toward the steps, not wanting to turn my back.

“Who’s there?” The huskiness and threat in my voice surprised me. In a flash, I thought,
If this is the ghosters or another stunt, I’m going to stomp the mud out of somebody
.

“Don’t—” The voice—a female voice—quavered. “Please come back. Please don’t—he’ll know I’m here. He’ll kill me.”

Saturday Night

I climbed back to the top of the porch steps, keeping myself in the streetlight as if that would keep me safe.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw her. Huddled behind one of the rocking chairs, I couldn’t make out her features, her size, not even her hair color.

Her breathing was ragged. She knelt against the wall, halfway between curling up in a defensive ball and bolting in mad flight. She was scared. Very scared.

“Who? Who might see you?”

“Please don’t stand there.” She was crying. “He might drive by looking for me. He might see you. Please—”

Her voice melted into a strangled plaint.

I stepped into the porch shadow, my keys in hand. I kept my eye on her as I unlocked the door.

“Don’t turn on the light.” The strength in her voice came from fear, not command.

I pushed open the door and stepped to the side.

“You first,” I said. “Go straight ahead and sit on the stairs. No one can see you there. Hurry.”

In a crouch, her arms clutched at her waist, she darted in the doorway. I waited until she had crossed the entry hall. I wanted her far enough away that I had a fighting chance if she jumped me.

I followed her through the door and locked it, my movements fed by the adrenaline-inducing thought that an accomplice may yet lurk on the porch. Pretty elaborate ruse if they wanted to steal something, the calmer part of my brain chided me—especially given how easy it would be to smash one of the floor-length windows with one of the porch rockers and stroll right in. Except for computers, the pickings were slim, but burglars have to play the odds like everybody else.

I unlocked the French doors into my office and again stepped aside.

“Go to the right, into the back office.”

The lights from outside illuminated the front rooms of the house so that even a stranger could easily avoid bumping into furniture. With no window coverings, any interior lights would create a tableau easily viewed from Main Street and the Burger Hut lot on the opposite side of the street.

She scuttled past me, still trying to keep herself invisible. She disappeared into the dark of my office.

“Wait there. I’ll be right back.”

I heard something akin to a whimper. Part of me wanted to go comfort her, find out what caused such palpable fear. The pragmatic part of me bounded up the stairs to my apartment and, moving easily in the familiar dark, unlocked the gun safe and
slipped my .38 revolver into my waistband, leaving my shirttail out to cover it. No sense being stupid.

She sat in one of the wing-back chairs in the bay window of my office. I crossed behind her to adjust the drapes on the eight-foot windows, then switched on the floor lamp beside her.

The pool of light glinted on brassy highlights tinting her hair. She looked familiar. Dark roots, a tallow complexion, a too-tight blouse stretching over her heavy breasts, and a skirt too high on heavy legs. She was the picture of somebody still partying like it was 1975. Where had I seen her before?

I could smell the acrid odor of fear, the panicked sweat that I’d only encountered in the holding cell with novice offenders. Her red-rimmed eyes were framed with smeared mascara, her breathing jagged. Her cheek was red, the skin taut, and her throat showed angry red marks.

I pulled my desk chair around and sat to face her. I still wanted to keep some distance. Until I had this figured out.

“You’ve got to help me.”

“I’m Avery.” Best to lull her with the niceties.

She took another rough breath. “Cela Newlyn.”

A battered gold cardboard box, like a treasured Christmas gift might once have arrived in, took up her whole lap. I still couldn’t place her. The courthouse? Maylene’s? No. Maybe just around, one of those faces.

“My boyfriend, he’s going to kill me.”

On their own, the words alone would have been melodramatic, even corny. Delivered with her shaky whisper, her hands trembling, the words made me look over my shoulder to make sure we weren’t visible from outside.

“Have you called the police?”
Why the heck come here?

She shook her head, wincing a bit as she moved her bruised
neck. “I was afraid he’d look for me there, wait for me outside. I passed your office, saw your angel outside. I remembered you.”

I cocked my head, my eyebrow raised in a question. I didn’t admit that I didn’t remember her.

“At the Pasture. You came in early one afternoon.”

Now I remembered. The waitress who’d been getting ready for her shift when Fran and I visited. The woman near the rear office with Lenn Edmonds.

“The guy you were with in the kitchen. He’s your boyfriend?”

Her mouth and eyes wrinkled in a frown. At first, I thought she’d had a sudden spasm of pain, but when she spoke, I knew it was a look of confusion.

“No-o. You mean Lenn. No. Gawd, no. Lenn is egotistical, but he’s a sweetheart. Too much a soft touch, you know? Lets women take advantage of him. Just my luck, never could get him to look twice at me.”

She was thawing, so I let her keep talking.

“He’s hit me before. This was different. I was really afraid he was going to kill me this time. He was—”

She started shaking uncontrollably.

I crossed to her and pulled an afghan off the ottoman beside her chair. She kept a fearful eye on my every move, but leaned forward and let me drape the wrap around her shoulders.

“Can I get you some water or something?”

She shook her head, short little jerks.

“How did you get away?” Maybe reminding her of her own strength would calm her.

“He got a call. He said he’d be right back and told me not to move. That’s when I knew.”

Her breath came in dry sobs. “I knew he kept his gun in this box. I was afraid he’d use it, before he had a chance to calm down. So I took it. I climbed out the window and ran.”

“We need to call the police.”

She shook her head, wincing openly with this more vigorous movement. “No, I got to think. I can’t think clear.”

She grabbed the box as it threatened to slide off her lap.

“Here. Let me take that for you.”

She lifted it, offering it to me without hesitation.

Despite its battered appearance, it was sturdier and heavier than I’d expected. I balanced it on my lap and lifted the lid. No gun.

“Did you look in here?”

She gave an abbreviated shake of her head. “I hate guns.”

Five bullets rolled around in the box, the metal catching the lamplight. Shiny and fresh. Wherever her boyfriend was, he had his gun, and probably plenty of bullets.

What I saw underneath the loose bullets chilled me more than the missing gun.

I carried the box to my desk, feeling the weight of my own revolver hidden under my shirt, tugging the waistband of my pants. I tipped the box and let the bullets roll onto the desk.

In the box lay a cream-colored book with a faux-marbled vinyl cover, bound along the spine with frayed cords. Old English gilt embossed a single word:
Scrapbook
. On top of the book, cracked and worn, lay a photograph. A duplicate of the crime-scene photo we’d found hidden in Neanna’s car. This one, though, lacked the tiny blood spatters that decorated Neanna’s copy.

In sharp focus, I saw it. The artistic angle of the shot and the wash of lighting, uncharacteristic for crime scene or newspaper photographers. The photos lining the walls at the Pasture.

“Your boyfriend is Ash Carter.”

She gave me a panicked glance.

“He’s a photographer.” I wasn’t asking her. I was reminding myself.

She looked flustered by my sudden change in topic. “Why?”

“He took the photos on the walls in the bar.”

“Uh-huh.”

I used a pen to open the edge of the scrapbook. Just as I expected. Yellowed newspaper clippings. I let the cover fall closed. No need risking fingerprints or other trace evidence.

Ash Carter took all kinds of pictures, including bikini-clad girls at Myrtle Beach. The same man whose photography trip to the beach had supplied Lenn Edmonds’s alibi had a photo of a dead woman, some shiny bullets, and a scrapbook.

I stood staring down at my desk, at the battered gold box, the cracked photograph, the scrapbook. The same man had handily provided an alibi for himself.

I turned the phone around on my desk and dialed Rudy’s familiar cell phone number. I glanced at my watch and felt a tiny ripple of guilt at calling so late. Until I remembered he was on patrol.

Rudy barked into his phone—his tough-cop-in-charge voice. He listened without interrupting to my rapid
Reader’s Digest
version.

“So he’s probably carrying the gun,” Rudy said.

“That would be my guess.” I didn’t want to further panic Cela by letting her know about the missing gun. She thought she’d brought with her some security. I stared at the faded gilt letters. Security was the last thing she’d brought with her in this box.

“His girlfriend’s got bruises and he caused ‘em?”