Paging the Dead (3 page)

“And you told me on the phone earlier,” Denton Carlson interjected, “that you did locate the ring and that you handed it over to Mrs. Porter earlier today?”

“Yes,” I said, “she put it on her finger. You didn't see it?”

Jeffers ignored the question. “Could you describe this ring?” she asked. She might as well have said,
Could you describe this unicorn?
She eyed me suspiciously. So much for our moment of solidarity.

I tried not to be insulted. These two didn't know us and they were simply doing their jobs. I closed my eyes and
pictured the ring. “A center ruby, quite large, and faceted. I'm not a gem expert, but I think they call it a brilliant cut. There were rows of diamonds surrounding it, two rows, maybe three.”

“How large would you say the ruby was?” Jeffers asked, holding her thumb and forefinger to form a circle.

“Big enough to be considered a weapon in some states,” Esme cut in, clearly growing impatient with both the pace and the focus of the interview.

Detective Carlson either registered a fleeting smile or he had a facial tic, I couldn't tell which. He turned his attention to Esme and took the lead in the interview. Jeffers didn't seem to mind that he'd hijacked the conversation and I figured this must be their regular routine. Esme and I do that sometimes when interviewing clients. It helps keep things moving.

“So you two spent a lot of time with Mrs. Porter?” Carlson asked, pulling a small notebook from his pocket and clicking a ballpoint pen as if it were a starter's pistol.

“Too much,” Esme said, with characteristic, if ill-advised, candor. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but a little bit of the woman went a long way.”

“You didn't get on well with her?” Carlson asked, staring at his little pad.

“Oh, we got on fine,” Esme said. “I get along with everybody. It's just she was a rich woman with a rich woman's expectations. Used to calling the shots.” Esme drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, dear Lord, that was a bad choice of words. Was she shot? Is that how she died?”

“We'll get to that,” Carlson said, his eyes glued on Esme. “Now, is there anyone you can think of who might have a
grudge against Mrs. Porter? Any bad blood in this family you investigated?”

“Oh, honey,” Esme said, turning sideways to put her arm along the back of her chair, “you're gonna need a bigger notebook.” She wiggled her finger at his small tablet.

“Yeah?” he said. “Tell me about it.”

“Where do we start?” Esme said. “First there's her nephew, Jeremy Garrison. He talked her into some investments a few months back and they tanked. He's been in the doghouse ever since, probably even before that just on general principle. And believe me, she got off on making him lick her boots.”

Jeffers showed Carlson something in her own notepad. “Her sister's son, she's trying to reach him.”

“Uh-huh,” Esme said. “And there's you another one.” She motioned for Carlson to write. “Her sister, Ingrid. She and Dorothy were always gettin' into it. I never heard such caterwaulin'.”

I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with how free Esme was being with both information and her opinions.

“Mrs. Porter and her sister had a strained relationship,” I cut in, trying to tamp down the tone. “Ingrid only recently moved back here after years away. There were some hard feelings over the distribution of their parents' estate. But Mrs. Porter told us she was eager to heal those old wounds. She and her sister were trying to work things out.”

“It was a workout, all right,” Esme mumbled.

“Anybody else we might want to talk with?” Carlson asked, turning back to Esme, who was obviously a more interesting interview subject than me.

“Let me see,” Esme said, staring up at the ceiling. “I guess you'll want to speak with her soon-would've-been-ex-husband. Isn't that the first person you people suspect?”

Carlson ignored the question. “Anyone else who should be on our radar?” he asked and this time he made no attempt to hide a wry smile.

Esme sighed. I could tell she'd about spent her anger. “Well, I understand she was tough on all her service people: handymen, gardeners, like that. And I happen to know she blackballed a couple trying to get into the country club and they were pretty cheesed off at her; you might want to check that out.”

I heard rumblings from the living room and knew Marydale was taking credit for having brought us that tidbit of gossip.

Carlson heard it too, and raised an eyebrow.

“It's our genealogy group,” I explained. “We have a regular Tuesday meeting. They're waiting for us.”

“Well, I guess we need to wrap this up, then,” Carlson said, giving me a tight smile. It was quite unlike the one he'd bestowed on Esme. “Just a couple more questions. You're absolutely certain Mrs. Porter had this ring in her possession when you left her this afternoon?”

“Right there,” Esme said, holding up her right hand and pointing to her ring finger. “She had it in her possession, all right, and if it's gone you can be sure somebody had to fight her to get it.” Esme stopped again and her eyes widened. “Did they? Did they beat on her? Oh, Lord in heaven, nobody deserves that! How
did
she die?”

“I'm sorry,” Carlson said. “I can't release that information.”

Esme muttered under her breath and I didn't need a good grasp of French to get her meaning.

“And how did you ladies pass the rest of the afternoon?” Carlson asked casually, leaning back in his chair and making a ceremony of putting his notebook into his inside jacket pocket and clicking his ballpoint before he put it away.

He didn't say,
Can you account for your whereabouts
, but that's what I heard. It was only then that I realized he might consider us actual suspects in Dorothy's murder.

It must have occurred to Esme as well. When I looked over she was pulling her arm off the back of the chair and leaning forward, her eyes narrowed.

I piped up before she could speak and gave the man our itinerary for the afternoon, doing mental inventory about how we might prove it. We had time-stamped receipts from the big box store and from the plant nursery. And
maybe
Esme had the one from the service station. She's careless about receipts. Out of sheer habit I began to figure a timeline, then realized I had no idea what time Dorothy died, or how she died—or why. I felt tears welling up and was surprised. How was it that I cared more for Dorothy in death than I had in life? I pictured her radiant smile when she'd first seen the ring and remembered how tender she was with Cassidy. Who could have known those would be among the last moments of her life? And now who would mourn her? Who would miss her?

Losing my parents was horrific and it had left a big hole in my heart. I still miss them every day. My mother died a wasting death over many months. It was awful, but at least we'd had the chance to say everything we wanted to say to each
other. My dad died three years later in a car wreck. When last I'd seen him we'd tossed off a casual “See you later,” as if we had all the time in the world stretching out before us.

But we didn't.

“We may need to talk with you again,” Carlson was saying, and I realized they had stood to leave. “Will you be in town for the next few days?”

“We'll be right here, Detective Carlson,” I said, this time holding out a hand to quell Esme. “And we'll do anything we can to help.”

“D
ID YOU HEAR HIM
?” E
SME ASKED THE OTHERS INDIGNANTLY
after the detectives had gone and we'd all gathered back in the living room. “He told us not to leave town, just like in the cop shows.”

“Now, Esme,” Marydale said soothingly, “he didn't say that.”

“He might as well have,” Esme insisted. “I didn't like his attitude.”

“Esme,” I said, “you can bluster all you want; Dorothy Porter is still going to be dead. It's a terrible thing, but it's happened.”

Her face twisted into a pained expression and she sat down hard on the loveseat. “I know,” she said at last. “I'm sorry. This is no way to act. I don't handle bad news well. Plus I'm feeling guilty because I had so little patience with Dorothy Porter and now the poor woman's dead. I mean, she wasn't a
bad
woman.”

“That would be a sad thing to have on your tombstone, wouldn't it?” Coco said with a sigh. “ ‘She wasn't a bad woman.' ”

A silence fell over the room, the festive camaraderie of an hour ago smothered by a gloomy pall.

“Dorothy wasn't always like that, you know,” Winston said, a rueful smile on his rugged face. “I've known her all my life. When Dorothy was a girl she could charm the birds out of the trees. She was pretty and
so
cheerful. Had a laugh like a silver bell and lots of friends. All that despite growing up without a mama and with a daddy mean as a snake with a belly rash.”

“I can't even imagine her like that,” Marydale said. “Don't get me wrong, she was never unpleasant to me, but she wasn't what you'd call friendly, either. And it seemed like she crossed swords with a lot of people around town.”

“Well, she did,” Winston allowed, “but some of that was for causes worth battling about. Thirty years ago this was a dying southern town, just like lots of other little burgs that dotted the railroad lines back in the day. Our little downtown was nothing but a cluster of rundown buildings. Lots has changed since those days thanks to Dorothy Porter. Without her, Morningside wouldn't be Morningside.”

“And the town wouldn't be here in the first place if it weren't for her grandfather starting up his company here,” I said.

“What was that company anyway?” Coco asked. “That was before my time.”

“It all started before any of our times, even mine,” Winston said. “Harrison Pritchett, Dorothy's grandfather, came here when this was nearly 'bout wilderness. He set up a sawmill down by the river that feeds our lake. Then he found out the lumber he was milling was good for tool handles and he
decided rather than becoming a supplier he'd manufacture them himself. He was successful in that and kept branching out. But the real money came when he started building comfort stations for construction sites.”

“Comfort stations? What's that?” Coco asked.

“You might know them better as port-a-johns,” I said. “Dorothy preferred we play down that particular detail of how the family empire was built.”

“I'm sure she did,” Winston said. “She got teased about it when we were kids in school.”

The silence fell again, all of us lost in our own thoughts, until Marydale spoke up. “Sophreena, do you and Esme want to skip tonight? Would you like us to clear out?”

“No, please, don't go,” I said. “I think we'd both welcome some distraction.”

“We're good at distraction,” Coco said. “But before we leave the subject, Esme, have you, you know,
heard
anything from Mrs. Porter?”

Esme, her ire exhausted, was patient in her answer. “It doesn't work that way, Coco, at least not for me. I hardly ever get anything from people who've died recently. Maybe it takes a while for them to process out or something. I don't think time works the same in that dimension. Maybe there's something they have to do before their spirits join the transcendence or whatever. But, in any case, I don't think Dorothy Porter would pick me as her tether to the temporal world.”

“Probably just as well,” Coco said. “I mean, even if she did tell you something that'd help with her case, how would you explain how you knew?”

“Good point,” Jack said, fiddling with his phone. “Listen, I've got a reporter friend over in Raleigh. We've been texting back and forth while you were talking with the cops. I wanted to see if I could find out anything.”

“And did you?” I asked.

Jack continued to stare at his phone's screen. “Apparently the cause of death was strangulation,” he said. “That's all for now.”

“Please, tell him if he finds out anything more to let us know,” Esme said.

“Her,” Jack said, and put his thumbs to work.

I felt a pang. What was it? Jealousy? I certainly had no right to feel that. Jack and I are just friends, pals, amigos. And while there's a part of me deep down that might like that to change, it never will. I care too much about the friendship to risk it. And anyway, he doesn't think of me that way.

“Okay, now,” Coco announced, uncurling from her end of the couch and starting to clear away the food. “We said we were going to move on to more pleasant things. Let's get this cleared and go to the shop to work.” She slipped on her sandals and headed for the kitchen, her bracelets and the tiny bells on her anklets tinkling like wind chimes for leprechauns. It was a happy sound.

•   •   •

We headed out our front door into the hot, muggy dusk for the four-block walk to Keepsake Corner. I hoped Marydale's niece, Roxie Mimms, who watches the shop for her a few hours a week, had remembered to leave the air-conditioning on this time. Last week we'd been miserable for the first half
hour as we worked in the small back room where motors from the dehumidifiers had pushed the temps into sauna range.

Morningside is a beautiful town. Except for my college and post-grad years this has been my home. I've traveled a lot for someone my age, but I'm always happy to come back again. I can't remember the dying town Winston described.

Morningside is technically an incorporated town. We have a council government, several churches and a compact commercial district. But during the revitalization campaign the town elders had taken to calling it Morningside Village and made sure all the literature and signage reflected that designation. It sounded quaint, though Morningside had long ago outgrown village status.