Murder Under the Covered Bridge (11 page)

“Is that true?” Francine asked Stockton.

“We don't know yet that it was arson. We haven't gotten that far yet.”

“For heaven's sake, Roy, you'll never get anywhere with Joy McQueen if you're going to be that
tight-lipped
,” Charlotte said.

Stockton seemed bemused by her statement. “What makes you think I need to get anywhere with Ms. McQueen?”

Charlotte rolled her eyes at him. “Be that way, then. But what else do you think it would be but arson? First the bridge, now this house. And Francine just testified there was a
pop
. I'm willing to bet you'll find evidence that the fire was unleashed by remote control.”

“For the moment, the fires are of undetermined origin, and it is only a coincidence they happened on the same day and so close together. I would recommend you keep yourselves out of trouble by not speculating.”

“And I bet you'd like for us to keep this information to ourselves too.”

“In fact, I'd like for you not to discuss that you were here at all. Do you think you can do that, for the moment?”

“Depends,” Charlotte answered. “For example, suppose that we agree to keep quiet in exchange for a
free-flow
of information.”

“It won't be a
free-flow
. I can guarantee that. But let's say that I'll let you in on what I know, when I can reveal it.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I don't think that will work, Roy. If we're going to help you break this case, we're going to need to know sooner rather than later. And keeping us informed will simply mean you'll get to visit Ms. McQueen more often.”

Stockton appeared to consider her words, but Francine thought he was just humoring her. “Well, there's that,” he said eventually.

He let them go.

Dusk had settled in as they left the scene. Francine turned on the light inside the car and checked her cell phone. Still no cell reception, as expected. “I bet Jonathan is frantic,” she said. “I was supposed to call when we left.”

“Then we need to get back to civilization as soon as possible.”

Before she gave up staring at the phone trying to will it to connect with the network, three bars lit up. She saw her phone was receiving a message.

Meet me tomorrow in Bridgeton.

Francine looked at who it was from. She took in a sharp breathe.

Charlotte fed off her reaction. “What?” she asked.

Francine didn't answered. She immediately typed back.

You're alive?

Yes.

Bridgeton will be packed with people.

Perfect place to hide in plain sight. Come alone.

Francine took two seconds to think about that.

Can't promise that. I need a cover too. When?

Afternoon. Can you bring clothes? I need to disappear.

How will I find you?

I will find you.

Then the number of bars faded like a light being turned off at a switch.

twelve

Francine didn't want to
tell Charlotte whom she'd texted with and what their conversation was about, but there was really no way around it. Charlotte had witnessed her doing something, and she couldn't bear to lie to her best friend. Although she had in the past. But only when she felt she had to do so to avoid hurt feelings or when she did so for her own privacy's sake. Charlotte could be a very prying person.

“He's alive?”

Francine didn't look over at Charlotte because she was driving back to Rockville in the fading light on country roads, but she could detect the amazement in her voice.

“I don't know how else I would have gotten a text. How he got the cell signal to go on and off like he did is a mystery to me, but for those brief moments, we were texting and interacting. So he must be alive.”

“And he wants to meet us at Bridgeton tomorrow?”

“No, he wants to meet
me
at Bridgeton tomorrow. I only said I wouldn't come alone.”

“Who else are you going to bring along? You said this is a mystery to you. Who else do you know who solves mysteries?”

Francine let that pass.

I need to disappear
, he'd written. Why?

“Hold on to my cell phone,” she told Charlotte. “When you see that we're in range to receive calls, let me know. I need to get hold of Jonathan.”

Francine slowed as she went by the Rock Run Café, which was full of people. The charred remains of the Roseville Bridge were off to her right. She saw that the area was draped with crime scene tape. Gawkers skittered across the busy county road from the Rock Run to where they could view the bridge and then back, which is why she had to go slow. “Good thing this area has street lights,” she said.

When they reached US 41, Charlotte announced cell coverage was back. The phone buzzed angrily in Charlotte's hand. “Text coming in,” she said. “It's from Jonathan. He says, ‘Where are you? Call me right away.'”

Francine pulled over to the side. Charlotte gave her the phone. Francine called Jonathan.

He sounded frantic. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. I'm fine. Have you heard about the Roseville Bridge?”

“It's impossible to escape it. It's all over the news. Joy seems to be everywhere.”

“Well, we now have a second case of arson. Zed's house.”

“And you were just there.”

“We were there when it happened. We were out in the greenhouse.” Francine told him the story. “And now Detective Stockton thinks we are somehow involved, just because we were at the bridge this morning when William came running out of the cornfield and then ended up in a coma, and then subsequently the bridge burned down, and then we were at Zed's house when the other fire started.”

“I could see how he would think that,” Jonathan said dryly.

“You're not helping.”

“So how can I help?”

“For starters, you can come back to Rockville. I need you.” She told him about Zed still being alive and wanting to meet her in Bridgeton. She didn't mention the clothes or the fact that Zed needed to disappear, not in front of Charlotte. Not yet. She wanted to think about that.

He came back with a low whistle. “Why meet you?”

“That's what I'd like to find out.”

“Do you feel safe tonight?”

Did she?
She knew the house in Rockville had a security alarm system. If Jonathan wasn't there she would share a room with Charlotte so she wouldn't be alone.
Am I a target?
She didn't think so. After all, she didn't know anything. The people who seemed to know something, like Zed or William, were the targets.

“Yes, I'll be fine.”

“As long as you feel safe, I'll finish my work here and be there first thing in the morning. Before eight o'clock. Tell Mary Ruth I'll be there in time for breakfast.”

“You'll be disappointed. She's not fixing anything special. We've all got plenty of work to do just getting her dessert booth ready.”

He said he'd still be there in time for breakfast. They hung up.

“I've been thinking,” Charlotte said. “Shouldn't we look for your cousin William's car?”

“Charlotte, we've been up since six o'clock this morning, and since then I've had a photo shoot, witnessed my cousin fall down a creek bank and into a coma, been interviewed by the police, helped Mary Ruth at the festival, visited my cousin in the hospital in Clinton, seen the Roseville Bridge burn, seen Zed's house burn, and been interviewed by the police a second time.”

“You left out the séance and the fact you told Dolly you would find William's car, which you did and then lost it again.”

“The point is, I'm kind of tired. That would make a
thirty-year
-old tired, and we're way past that.”

“I'm only saying it won't look good to wait until morning since you lost the car.”

Francine had to agree Charlotte had a point, even though she knew Charlotte was not interested in the car for the sake of her relationship with Dolly. She found the number for the OnStar people. “What am I going to tell them, that I've lost the car again?”

“I'm sure it's nothing they haven't seen before.”

Francine steeled herself for the embarrassment she would feel, then called the number. She explained the situation.

“Give me a moment to look up that information.” The voice went offline for fifteen seconds or so, then came back on. “Let me just ask you a couple of questions. Did you call about three hours ago for help in locating it?”

In Francine's opinion, the male voice on the other end was neutral. He didn't express skepticism, but neither did he sound like he was buying her story.

Charlotte, however, took offense. “You don't sound like you believe her. Don't you get calls from people who lose their vehicles more than once? I should tell you we're elderly. We lose things all the time.”

“I didn't say—”

“You ever meet a group of retirees at the mall for lunch? Afterwards, we're all wandering around the parking lot looking for our cars. It's like a scene out of
The Walking Dead
, except we're not dead yet. This isn't a whole lot different.”

“Except we lost it on a country road in the middle of nowhere,” Francine whispered to her.

“What?” the male voice said. “I didn't catch that.”

“I said, this car has a history of getting lost. It's always wandering off.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I've located it.”

“Where is it?”

The OnStar rep gave Francine directions. “I know where that is,” she said. “Thanks.” She closed out the call, restarted the car, and drove north.

“You know where it is?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes, and we're headed there now.”

“Where is it?”

“At William and Dolly's house in Montezuma.”

“How'd it get there?”

“That's what I'm hoping to find out.”

A short time later they drove the long, narrow, maple-tree-lined drive into William and Dolly's estate outside of the tiny town of Montezuma. The setting sun was now obliterated by dark clouds, and a wind had picked up. Francine sensed a storm was brewing. With it came the feeling what they were doing was somehow illegal. As the house came into view, Charlotte took in a sharp breath.

Francine was already creeping along in the Prius, but now she stomped on the brakes. “What is it?”

“The house,” Charlotte said, “looks like something out of
The Munsters
.”

Francine took a second look. She'd never thought of it in those terms, but then she'd almost always been there in the daylight. They were about a hundred yards from it. The Victorian house had a
three-story
tower on one end and a
two-story
addition on the other. It had been successfully designed to look like it'd been built at the turn of the century. Outside spotlights lit the front, but because the house was in a wooded area, shadows covered much of the upper story windows, giving it a foreboding look. The front porch light highlighted ivy growing up the side of the house as though it were going to devour the place.

“It's not that creepy,” Francine insisted, her voice a little unsteady.

“Yes it is. It looks exactly like the kind of home a funeral director would own.”

“He's not a funeral director. He owns a string of
assisted-living
facilities.”

“Same category. Let's find the car.”

The driveway wound around the back. Security lights came on as they approached the detached
two-car
garage. The light blue Lucerne was parked in the middle of the driveway about twenty feet from the garage doors, which were closed.

“How do you suppose it got here?” Charlotte asked.

Francine pulled up behind it. “Dolly said her sister was coming up from Memphis. Maybe she retrieved it since I hadn't gotten the job done yet.”

“Was she by herself ? Someone had to have driven her there.”

Francine said nothing and peered out the car windows, hoping to see signs of life in the house, but all the windows were dark.

“Why wasn't it pulled into the garage? Surely there was a garage-
door opener in the Buick.”

“I don't know.”

“It doesn't look to me like anyone's home,” Charlotte said impatiently.

Francine studied the house. There were no lights on anywhere. It did look unoccupied. “I'm going to ring the doorbell first.”

Charlotte opened her door. “Go ahead. I'm going to crack this baby open.”

“I'm not sure we should do this. However it happened, the car found its way home.”

“Quit waffling and get the keys out.”

“Just a minute.” Francine dug through her purse. She didn't think of herself as the kind of person who kept a lot of stuff in her purse, but it still took her a good twenty seconds to find William's key. She tried not to think about how it would look if they got caught searching the car when she handed it over to Charlotte.

Charlotte eased herself out of the Prius. She unlocked all the doors to the Buick with a
double-click
. She made her way to the driver's door and scooted in.

Francine finally got out of the Prius and joined Charlotte. Together they checked the front and back seats, took everything out of the glove compartment, and probed the pockets on the back of the front seats. They found William's car registration, the Buick manual for the Lucerne, his car insurance information, and trash. William apparently frequented Burger King. The only odd thing was a sheet of notebook paper from William's company, Warm Memories Retirement Communities. William had written the number 17 on it. Francine recognized William's neat block lettering. She tucked it in her pocket.

Charlotte still had the key. She held it up. “Let's check the trunk.”

The idea of opening the trunk put Francine just a little on edge. Big things could be hidden in a trunk.
Like dead bodies
, she thought. But she shook it off.
Just Charlotte's influence
. Everything with her played out like a mystery novel. Still, she held her breath as Charlotte pushed the button on the remote entry and the trunk popped open.

There was no dead body. For that Francine was grateful. But there were a pair of muddy boots, a small hand shovel, a bigger shovel, and a flashlight with extra batteries. Both of the shovels had dirt on them.

Francine moved the shovels and the boots out of the way so she could make certain there was nothing behind them. A quart mason jar, the type she'd seen in the curio cabinet in the greenhouse at Zed's house, sat behind them. Francine lifted it from the truck and held it up, examining it from all sides. Clear liquid sloshed slightly.

“What's that?” Charlotte asked. “Hooch?”

Francine rotated the glass container in her hand. “Water?” She unscrewed the cap, looked inside, and took a sniff. “Yes, I'd have to say water.” She held it out to Charlotte, who also sniffed it.

“Has a kind of metallic smell,” Charlotte said.

“It reminds me of the water I used to drink at my grandmother's house. We pulled it straight out of a well she had on her property. Hard as rocks. I felt like I could never get my hair clean when I showered at her place.”

“Are you going to taste it?”

Francine held it up, looking at it through the bottom of the jar and rotating it again. “I don't think so. We don't know where it came from or if William added anything to it. Or even if it is water.”

Charlotte reached out her hand and Francine let her take the jar. For a moment, she thought Charlotte might take a swig out of it, but then her friend seemed to think better of the idea. “You remember that William had a vial of something when he came running out of the woods,” Charlotte said.

“Dolly had one in her purse too. I saw it when I visited William in the hospital.”

“You didn't tell me that.”

“So far it hadn't come up in the conversation.” Francine began to rearrange the trunk so it looked like it did before.

Charlotte clutched the jar. “You're not going to put it back in there, are you? Without testing it?”

Francine thought a moment. With William in the hospital, would anyone really notice it was gone? Dolly might. “I don't feel right taking it. When will we have the opportunity to put it back? If Dolly knows it was here, then she discovered we have it, it would look bad.” She pried the container out of Charlotte's hand and put it back where it came from.

Charlotte pushed out her lower lip.

“Look, I would love to test it to determine it is indeed water and not some kind of accelerant used to start fires. But if I'm proved wrong … well, I don't want to go there.” She was relieved there weren't matches or gasoline or anything to indicate William might have wanted to set a fire. Not that William could have set the fire at Zed's house or at the bridge. As far as she knew, he was still in the coma.