Paging the Dead (19 page)

“Jeremy told me where you were,” Vivian said, strolling along the tables and examining the pages we were working on. She looked like an instructor checking the work of underachieving students. “I had some questions about the guest list for the memorial. There are a couple of names I think you should add.”

“Guest list?” Ingrid said. “I thought it would just be open to anyone who wants to pay respects to Dorothy.”

“Oh, Ingrid,” Vivian said, looking at her as if she felt sorry for the poor ignorant woman, “that's just asking for trouble. You need to control the numbers so you don't run out of food or be overrun by people who are there out of some morbid curiosity or something. That would be so unseemly and you know that's the last thing Dorothy would've wanted.”

“Still,” Ingrid said firmly. “I wouldn't want to turn away anybody who wants to honor Dorothy. I'll talk with Joe about it, but I'm sure he'll feel the same way.”

“Whatever you want,” Vivian said, though she made it evident she felt that was the wrong decision. “I'll do my best to deal with whatever challenges you throw at me.”

“I appreciate that, Vivian,” Ingrid said. “Here, come look at this picture of us at the High Ground summer party.”

Vivian seemed impatient, but she came over and I slipped the pages into a protective sleeve and handed them to her.

“I think this was the year Grandpa Harry died,” Ingrid said, “so it must have been the summer of 1957. I would have been almost six, so that means you would have been what? Three?”

“Almost four,” Vivian said. “That's me there in that one as well, the one with William Pritchett bending down to talk to me. I know you had your issues with him, Ingrid, but he was always very nice to me at these events. Over all the years he never failed to ask me how school was going and things like that. He seemed really interested in hearing about my life.”

“Well, he sure didn't care to hear about mine,” Ingrid said. “But yes, he could be nice—unless you dared cross him. Then you were dead to him. With William Pritchett it was one strike and you're out.”

“I don't even remember you being at the Fourth parties,” Vivian said, frowning. “I was there every year until I went off to college.”

Ingrid sighed. “After our grandparents died and we moved into High Ground the big bash seemed less about fun and more about appearances. We had to be there, it was mandatory. And Father expected Dorothy and me to be perfect in front of the townspeople. Any little misstep and there was a price to pay. It was a test, and I frequently failed. I'd beg off claiming a stomachache and if that didn't work I'd go to the attic or the guest house and hide.”

“Sad,” Vivian said then looked around the room. “Well,
anyway, you know Sophreena and Esme are being paid to do this. You don't need to be over here helping out.”

Ingrid smiled. “I think Cassidy and I have been more a hindrance than a help and Sophreena and Esme have been great to let us hang around. I'm learning things about my family I never knew.”

“Dorothy always said family was everything,” Vivian said, reaching over to pat Ingrid's arm. “Too bad you're learning that so late.” She gave the rest of us a perfunctory nod. “Y'all carry on. I'll show myself out.”

Cassidy came back inside with the dogs at her heels. “I think they're tired,” she said.

“They probably are,” Marydale said. “Honey, could you fix their little beds for them?”

Both pups immediately wound themselves into little balls and fell into an untroubled sleep. Cassidy retrieved her bag and curled up on the futon couch we use for guests. She took out her stuffed dog, a book and finally the puzzle box. She picked up the box and started to manipulate the moving parts and pry at the cracks with her fingernails.

I went back to working on my pages and when I looked over a few minutes later, Cassidy was fast asleep. Ingrid followed my eyes and saw the sleeping child.

“I need to get her home,” she said. “She has enough trouble sleeping at night as it is.” She gently shook Cassidy awake and helped the groggy child gather up her things.

We worked on for another half hour before Jack stood and stretched. “I need to get going, too,” he said, glancing at his watch.

“Thanks for your help,” I said.

He came over to my table and leaned down. “Do me a favor, Soph. If you get any other leads about Dorothy's case, just pass them on to the cops, okay?”

“Sure thing,” I said, making a shooing motion. “Now, go, you're going to be late for your dinner date.” I tried to force out a “Say hi to Julie,” but my lips refused to make the words.

I
FOUND
E
SME AT THE KITCHEN TABLE THE NEXT MORNING
looking downright frowsy. I looked equally bedraggled, but for me that's not rare. We'd worked late into the night and when I'd finally fallen into bed I couldn't get to sleep. Thoughts had chased one another around in my head as I lay there in the darkness.

I kept recalling the party photos of the Fourth of July celebration at Harrison and Sarah Pritchett's and contrasting that festive event with the sterile and rigid home life Ingrid Garrison had described with her father.

Dorothy had always spoken of her grandparents with warmth and deep affection. In contrast, though she'd never said a negative word about her father through all the months we'd worked with her, there had been code words:
exacting, high standards, unrelenting, assured
. At one point she'd said that a person would flout William Pritchett's advice at her peril and I'd found that pronoun telling, though I didn't know if she'd meant Ingrid or herself.

And I kept getting flashes of pitiful little Cassidy every
time I closed my eyes. I wondered what lasting effects Dorothy's murder would have on the child.

Then there was the Jack issue. I had to face the fact that I was just plain old garden variety jealous. But that was
my
issue. He'd done nothing wrong and he'd been nothing but a friend to me. Which was, I had to admit,
exactly
the problem.

“I know why I didn't sleep, what about you?” I asked Esme as I poured myself a tankard of coffee.

“Sarah Malone,” Esme answered. “The poor woman is not going gentle into that good night. She's restless as the wind and apparently she enjoys my company.”

“What are you getting?” I asked.

“Oh, paradoxes, Catch-22s, enigmas inside conundrums wrapped up in perplexities and tied with Gordian knots.” She set down the newspaper and rubbed at her eyes. “I sense great joy and great pain coming from the same place. And I get a strong feeling that ring is at the crux of it all somehow, at least as a symbol.”

“If the story Hank Spencer told us is true I can't think how Sarah Malone might have felt about being given a ring that her suitor won in a poker game. Doesn't that seem, I don't know, a little less than romantic?”

“It's a spectacular ring,” Esme said. “And Harrison Pritchett put it on her finger after taking it from a woman who'd treated her shabbily. That payback had to feel a
little
good to Sarah. It's got kind of a knight-in-shining-armor feel to it, don't you think?”

“True,” I said. “You know, Sarah never passed the ring on. Maybe she didn't much like her daughter-in-law either.”

“No, that wasn't it,” Esme said.

“Well, what do you suppose it was, then?”

“Don't know—yet,” Esme said. “But it had nothing to do with her daughter-in-law. I think she liked her. Or at least she didn't dislike her.”

“You know, everyone we interviewed who knew Harrison and Sarah described their marriage as happy, unusually so. No one had an ill word to say about them as individuals either. But their son, William? Nobody had a
good
word to say about him, unless you count Dorothy, which I don't because even her praise sounded forced. How could Harrison and Sarah Pritchett, two such good, caring people, have produced a family legacy like the one that filtered down to Dorothy and Ingrid?”

“Hard to know,” Esme said. “Anyhow, Sarah's what kept me sleepless all night. What set you tossin' and turnin'?”

“Just this whole situation.”

“So, not about Jack, then? And before you get all spluttery and deny it, remember who you're talkin' to.”

I sighed. “Okay, I'm a little put out with him. And I know that's unreasonable. He's got a right to date whomever he pleases. I just don't think she's right for him, that's all.”

“And you base this on what, exactly?”

“I met her,” I said, enunciating each word. “And she isn't Jack's type.”

“So you and Julie had a long heartfelt conversation and you got to know what kind of person she is? Her hopes and her dreams? Her beliefs and her ways?”

“Well, no. We only talked for a minute or two. But she's just—she's really pretty, okay? She can't possibly be a serious person and be that pretty.”

“Um-hm,” Esme murmured. “Well, I can tell you one thing, she's got good sources,” she said, handing over the newspaper.

I scanned, fuming as I read. “She knows about Hank Spencer? She doesn't mention him by name; she calls him a distant relative, but that's who she means. Okay, first off, she got that wrong. Hank and Dorothy are not blood relations. Agnes Pritchett was related to Dorothy's grandmother, Sarah, but even that kinship was distant. Dorothy and Hank weren't related at all, not by blood. She got that
completely
wrong.”

“So you said,” Esme mumbled.

“Wow, she says here sources close to the investigation say robbery is thought to be the motive for the murder and that police are close to making an arrest.”

“That's sure news to Detective Carlson,” Esme said.

“Well, I think I can guess where she's getting her information,” I said, slamming the newspaper down on the table.

“You know Jack didn't tell her any of this. Has he ever betrayed a confidence?”

“Maybe he didn't realize. She's trained to get information out of people. And did I mention she's extremely pretty, and flirty, and all sparkly?” I shuddered.

Esme shook her head. “Regardless, you know Jack didn't spill anything.” She laughed softly. “Sophreena, Mama used to say, ‘You can get glad the same way you got mad.' Jack was worried about you and maybe he got a little bossy, but you know it's only because he's concerned. Now, you can make up your mind to be mad at him and be miserable, or you can decide you're glad he cares.”

“You're right,” I said, blowing out a breath. “He's a good
friend. I should support his choices. I should be happy for him. I hope he'd be happy for me if I found someone.”

“Um-hm,” Esme said again. “ 'Nother thing Mama always said was ‘Don't go crossing the creek to find water.' ”

“What does
that
mean?”

“You'll figure it out,” Esme said.

•   •   •

Esme took over trimming and mounting photos and I continued with labeling. I wasn't happy with the mechanical precision of the computer font. I love the authenticity of hand calligraphy, but that wasn't an option with the deadline looming. I was hoping Marydale would volunteer to help again. With her practiced eye for the details she could make a page beautiful without distracting from its documentary value.

“Vivian was not kidding when she said she went to that High Ground Fourth of July party every year,” Esme said. “You can watch her grow up in these pictures.”

“That must have been where she got her first glimpse into the world of the rich. She seems to covet that.”

“Yes, and don't you wonder at that?” Esme said. “With her and Dorothy so close she had to see money and a prominent family didn't guarantee happiness. I don't get people who think money will solve all their problems and who want to get close to it, like little kids pressing their noses up against the candy store window.”

“Esme, do you think Hank Spencer could be one of those people?”

“I don't know what to make of him. I agree he seems like a regular guy who's pretty content with his life—maybe a
little cowed by his wife, but other than that. But what it boils down to is how could it have been anybody else?”

“But he seemed so shocked to hear Dorothy was dead. And he didn't appear to be hiding anything. Maybe I'm gullible, but I totally bought it.”

“And maybe I'm too cynical,” Esme said. “But what better way to throw everybody off than to 'fess up to what he knows will be discovered anyway? Look, no matter what either of us thinks of him, it's hard to argue with the timing. And anyway, it's out of our hands now.”

I pulled over the next two-page layout and consulted my notes. “Ah, 1956. Dwight David Eisenhower's president, Elvis hits the charts for the first time with ‘Heartbreak Hotel,'
My Fair Lady
opens on Broadway and the
King and I
and
Around the World in Eighty Days
are smash movie hits. Gas is around 22 cents a gallon, coffee 85 cents a pound and the average monthly rent $88. School kids get sugar cubes doused with Sabin oral polio vaccine, transistor radios hit the market, the
Andrea Doria
sinks, Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier, Castro brings revolution to Cuba, and Rosa Parks sparks a bus boycott in Montgomery. What a time it was.”

“You're gonna sprain your brain doing that one of these days,” Esme mumbled.

“And in our little corner of the world the Fourth of July party at High Ground rolls around again,” I mused. “Look at Harrison and Sarah. They were elderly when this picture was taken and they're still holding hands.”

“Yeah, they're cute oldies,” Esme said, “but I can
not
look at another picture of Sarah Malone Pritchett right now. I'm
hoping she'll give me a break tonight and if I've been staring at her face all day it's just like putting out the welcome mat. Now, I'm going in to fix us some lunch.”