The Ugly Truth

by Jill Orr

  I felt a sudden stab of guilt. The article I posted contained all that information. Anyone could have read that piece and used the information to pretend to be Sofia Scheiner. I wasn’t sure if Ash realized that yet, and I wasn’t about to enlighten him, but when he did, he would not be happy with me. This would not bode well for his already deep dislike for the press.

  “Wait,” I said, trying to think if this was all what it appeared to be. “How do you know it wasn’t the real Sofia Scheiner?”

  Ash took out his phone and handed it to me. It was an article from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with the headline “Local Lady Awarded Best Buns,” and there was a photo of a woman with stringy gray hair, a wide nose, and brown eyes holding a tray of what looked like sticky buns. I took the phone for a closer look and saw that the photo caption read “Sofia Scheiner, 58, of Morrilton, wins ‘Best Buns’ contest for Grandma Balzichek’s caramel sticky buns recipe.”

  Ash waited as I read before saying, “That was not the woman who came here tonight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. The woman who showed up here about an hour ago had dark hair and was younger looking than this person.” He held up the phone in his hand. “And besides, I know it wasn’t the real Sofia Scheiner because when I realized I forgot to have her sign the form she was supposed to sign, I called her to ask her if she could come back by…”

  I closed my eyes against what I knew he was going to say next.

  “She had no idea what I was talking about,” he said grimly.

  “Oh gosh…”

  “I covered, of course. Told her I had the wrong number. And then she asked if we were still on for Saturday, and I said yes. What else could I do?”

  I had no answer for that. “So when the fake Sofia came in, I take it you didn’t ask for ID?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. She seemed upset, I felt badly for her…hell, I’ve never done this before and I didn’t think anyone would actually try to steal a dead guy’s worthless stuff.”

  This was not good. “What did she take?”

  “That’s the thing,” he said and grabbed a piece of paper off his desk and handed it to me. “Nothing really—at least nothing of value. This is the personal property inventory. It has two dimes, a nickel, three pennies, and a set of rosary beads. The sheriff kept everything valuable or that might be needed for the investigation—wallet, keys to his apartment, stuff like that.”

  I tried to think of a reason why someone would want that stuff, but I couldn’t come up with anything.

  “It doesn’t matter, though,” Ash said, despondent. “It’s my fault and once word gets out—and it will get out with as high-profile as this particular corpse is—no one will ever trust Campbell & Sons again, certainly not with me running things.”

  He had a point. People in Tuttle Corner weren’t particularly forgiving of newcomers. And, ultimately, he had screwed up. Not asking for identification before releasing Balzichek’s things was a Grade A mistake. I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit responsible for the situation, however, because if Ash hadn’t done me a favor by sharing the information about Aunt Scheiner, it never would have appeared in the newspaper and the imposter wouldn’t have been able to so convincingly pretend to be her. I felt a responsibility to help make things right.

  Ash was still sitting on the edge of the desk, despondent, his eyes fuzzed out and staring at the floor. Lord knows what kind of dark thoughts were rolling around inside that pretty little head of his. I stood up and took hold of his forearm. “Listen,” I said firmly. “We can fix this—” And when he started to argue, I amended my statement, “—or at least make it better. We need to figure out who came here tonight and more importantly, why.”

  “But how?”

  “I’m a reporter, remember? We never quit till we get what we’re after.”

  CHAPTER 30

  I called Holman and told him I’d be another thirty minutes to an hour. He said that was fine and didn’t even ask where I was. I took that to mean that he was in the zone writing the article. Or he trusted me. Or possibly both.

  If I was going to help Ash figure out who came in pretending to be Justin Balzichek’s next of kin, I was going to have to go into full-on list-making mode. It was a trait I got from my mother, who made lists for everything, from what groceries to buy to what books she wanted to read to which clothes she was going to bring on vacation. I got out my notebook and turned to a new page and wrote “Things We Know about Justin Balzichek” at the top.

  Ash took another approach. He pulled a bottle of bourbon from the bottom drawer of Franklin’s desk. “Drink?”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Is that yours or PopPop’s?”

  “PopPop knew there are some times when ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ doesn’t cut it,” Ash said and looked down. “I remember being here once after a service—this man had just buried his wife of fifty-seven years and he just couldn’t bring himself to go home. All the mourners were gone, the service was long over, and this man just sort of wandered around the place looking for last-minute things he could do. He read through the guest book, collected the leftover leaflets, brought the flowers into the entryway. PopPop knew he was lost, that he didn’t want to go home, and so he brought the man in here and the two of them finished an entire bottle of Bowman’s while the man told stories about his wife. It was such a compassionate thing to do.” His eyes glistened at the memory.

  “Franklin sure has a way about him, doesn’t he?” I lifted the glass he’d poured for me. “To PopPop.”

  Ash tilted his glass toward mine, then drained it in one long swallow.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said. I knew this wasn’t a particularly helpful or insightful comment, but sometimes it helped just to hear someone say it. I thought now might be one of those times for Ash.

  “You think?” he asked, his light brown eyes glassy from emotion or the bourbon, or both. Either way, it triggered my empathy response. I found myself wanting to comfort him, but we didn’t have the luxury of time for comfort. And I figured the best way to help him was to focus on solving his current problem.

  I went into work mode. “Okay. Let’s talk theories. Why would someone want to take Balzichek’s seemingly worthless personal effects?”

  “Hell if I know,” Ash said, running a finger along the rim of his glass. “He’s been dead for almost two weeks and we haven’t been able to get anyone to even acknowledge they knew him, let alone claim him. I can’t figure it out.”

  “Let’s start with what we know. His parents are both deceased, correct?”

  Ash nodded. I jotted this down. “And his only sister is currently serving a lifetime prison term in Fluvanna for drug charges, right?”

  He nodded again. I made another note, and as I wrote, I noticed Ash’s eyes were starting to fuzz out a little as he absently lifted a second shot of bourbon and knocked it back. Then he said, “The sheriff’s office kept all of his personal effects as evidence. Javier said Justin came in naked as a jaybird. He put him in some of the extra clothes we keep for these kinds of situations.”

  “All right,” I said, making more notes. Out of my peripheral vision I saw Ash lift the bottle and pour himself a third shot.

  “Listen,” I said, trying to keep any prickliness from my tone. “I don’t mean to judge, but you might want to keep a clear head if we’re going to solve this.”

  He raised his lion eyes to mine and without breaking eye contact, Ash drained his glass.

  “Okay, I guess not,” I murmured. I wasn’t his mother. If he wanted to get drunk, I supposed that was his business, but there was something unsettling about the way he flip-flopped between a sensitive soul asking for my help to an arrogant jerk who doesn’t care. I pushed my irritation aside; I had my own reasons for wanting to break this story. Not only would it make me feel less guilty for printing the details that helped whoever did it, but the person who came here tonight must have had a damn good reason for it—and that
reason was almost certainly tied to why Balzichek and Greer Mountbatten were killed.

  “Let’s think of who it could have possibly been,” I said, mentally ticking through everyone who had a stake in this case. Rosalee was the obvious answer as far as females were concerned. And she had been missing for the past twenty-four hours. It occurred to me that Ash had probably never seen her. She could have easily walked into Campbell & Sons and pretended to be Sofia.

  I took out my phone and scrolled through until I found an old picture of Ryan and me with Rosalee from the summer before our senior year in college. It was the day Rosalee taught me to make a croissant, and the picture was of the three of us proudly showing off my slightly lumpy creation. I held the phone out to him. “Does she look familiar?”

  Ash leaned forward to get a better look. “Nope. Never seen her before.”

  Damn. That would have been the perfect kind of proof to show Holman that Rosalee wasn’t the angel he thought she was.

  Ash sighed and leaned forward in his chair. The bourbon had clearly begun to take effect and he was noticeably more relaxed. “The timing is suspicious too…”

  “How so?”

  Ash stood up and walked over to the file cabinet at the back of the room and pulled out a manila folder. He moved like molasses, slow and unhurried. He walked back over and threw the file onto the desk in front of me. “Take a look. See anything odd?”

  I opened the folder and saw the Proclamation of Death signed by the Richmond medical examiner, the death registration form, signed by the Tuttle County recorder. The cause of death was respiratory failure due to cyanide poisoning, like Carl had said. I continued to flip through the paperwork in the folder but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

  He walked up behind me and leaned over my shoulder. I could smell the bourbon on his breath and feel the heat coming off his skin. The sensation wasn’t altogether unpleasant. He flipped through the folder to a blank form that was bracketed inside the back cover of the file. “Here.”

  I read it out loud. “Cremation Authorization Form.” I scanned the document. “Signed by Sheriff Haight.”

  “Like I said, the cremation was scheduled in the morning,” he said, straightening up. “Standard procedure in cases like this is to bury or burn religious items along with the body. It’s why the sheriff’s department gave us the rosary instead of keeping it like they did with the other things.”

  “So,” I said, turning to face Ash, “the person who came here was after the rosary?”

  “I guess it’s possible.”

  It was a bizarre theory, but it made as much sense as anything else. Somebody was clearly after something of Balzichek’s; I supposed it could be his rosary. But then a thought hit me like a smack to the face.

  “What?” Ash said, reading my expression.

  “I just remembered something…” I said slowly. “I interviewed Balzichek’s childhood pastor for the profile I’m writing about him.”

  “So?”

  “Pastor,” I said, emphasizing the word. “Not priest. Balzichek wasn’t Catholic.”

  Ash’s face went slack. We looked at each other silently until he finally spoke the question we were both thinking, “Then what was he doing with a rosary?”

  CHAPTER 31

  Ash and I decided we needed to go straight to Sheriff Haight with this new information. For one thing, it was definitely connected to the murder investigation. For another thing, his people would have inspected the rosary beads when they came in and might be able to venture a guess why someone would want them badly enough to commit a crime to get them.

  We gathered our things and were heading out of Franklin’s office when we heard a loud thud come from the front of the building. We both stopped moving. There was another thud and the sound of glass breaking. My heart leaped into my throat. Ash put a finger over his lips and moved silently to the desk. He opened the third drawer and pulled out a handgun. Seeing my eyes widen, he signaled again for me to be quiet, calm.

  He snuck out the door, creeping silently down the corridor. My heart was beating so hard against my chest, I thought it might pop right out. I didn’t know what to do, so I followed Ash, careful to stay several steps behind him.

  He turned the corner into the chapel and I heard him shout, “Don’t move!” There was the sound of crunching glass under foot, another thud, and then a shot rang out. The sound was deafening.

  I ran toward the sound without thinking. “Ash?” I scanned the room for him, but it was dark. I first saw the outline of a person standing in the back corner of the room near the lectern where people stood to read tributes and eulogies. It was impossible to tell in that split second who the person was, or even if it was a man or a woman. They had a black hood over the top of their head, a black ski mask on their face, and wore baggy clothes. Ash, who was standing in the opposite corner of the room and had his gun drawn, trained on the stranger, turned at the sound of my voice. “Riley, stay back.”

  That second was all the person needed to turn and run out the emergency door, instantaneously setting off a blaring alarm. Ash followed out the door, as quick as lightning.

  “Ash! Wait!” I went to the door, trying to raise my voice over the screeching of the alarm bell.

  A few seconds later, he came back through panting heavily. His shoulders slumped as his chest heaved with breathlessness. “Damnit! He’s gone…” He pounded a fist, the one not holding the gun, against the open steel door frame.

  “Did you see who it was?”

  He shook his head as he limped over to a keypad on the wall near the door. He punched in a code and mercifully the alarm quieted.

  “Did they take anything?” I asked, looking around the room. There wasn’t much in there except pews, hymnals, and some fake floral arrangements.

  “I don’t think so.” Ash sounded thoroughly defeated. “What in the hell is going on here, Riley?”

  I had absolutely no idea. But I knew instead of going to see Sheriff Haight, he’d be coming to see us. Campbell & Sons was now officially a crime scene.

  As we waited for someone from Carl’s office to come out and take our statements, Ash gave me the grand tour of the funeral home in the hopes that we could figure out what the intruder was after. I knew it would be a while, as Carl was still probably taking Dale Mountbatten’s statement—or arresting him—and since it wasn’t a true emergency, we would be bumped to the end of the list.

  “Here’s where we keep the bodies.” Ash led me through a discreet door at the back of the chapel, beyond which was a concrete staircase leading to the morgue.

  I wasn’t particularly squeamish, but descending into a windowless basement full of dead people set me more on edge than I would have liked. I took a deep breath in and blew it out slowly.

  “It’s okay,” Ash said. “It used to freak me out too, but you get used to it.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, but as I looked around the room, I didn’t think I could ever get used to this. The morgue was basically a large concrete room. It was cold down there, like probably sixty-five degrees or less, and there was a distinctly chemical scent in the air, which to me smelled like a combination of rubbing alcohol and bleach. Along the back wall there was a large piece of metal furniture that would best be described as an oversized filing cabinet. It had six drawers, each with a chunky metal handle similar to the kind you’d find on a meat locker. Those must be the refrigeration units.

  In the center of the room there were two stainless steel tables that had shelves underneath with various equipment in powder blue plastic tubs. There was a tall steel cabinet on rollers with a lock on the outside, still in place.

  “Is there an entrance on this floor?” I asked.

  “Through here,” Ash said, and walked over to a door that I hadn’t noticed. It was along the side wall of the basement, directly opposite the stairs. He dug a key from his pocket and opened the door.

  “Is this door always lock
ed?” I asked.

  “Far as I know,” he said, pushing it open. The doorway led directly into a set of concrete steps that sloped up sharply to ground level. I walked out, taking a deep inhalation of fresh cool air while I had the chance. I went up a few steps until I could see out behind the building into the covered portico where the hearse was parked. It was dark outside, and without any lights in the parking lot I could barely make out the white headstones that dotted the cemetery just behind the building.

  Ash was right behind me on the steps and when I turned around to come back down, I almost ran straight into his chest. “Oh sorry.”

  He stepped up so we were on the same stair and pointed east into the darkness. “That’s Sterns right there.” He pointed toward the headstones. “To the right of the parking lot is First Baptist, and three doors down this way,” he said, his voice low, almost a whisper, “is St. Paul’s.”

  I nodded. My eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, and with his directions I realized where I was. “Got it. Obviously the thief couldn’t have gotten in this way because the door was locked, right?” I said, and then added a last-minute thought, “unless they had a key.”

  Ash’s mouth flattened into a thin line. Clearly, he didn’t like the idea of one of the funeral home employees being involved.

  I walked back down the steps and into the basement, the antiseptic smell hitting me with force as soon as I got inside. I could feel a stinging sensation behind my eyes. “How many people have a key to this door?”

  “Three. Me, Javier, and my grandparents.”

  “No one else? No one with the cleaning crew or graveyard staff?”

  Ash shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Hello?” We heard a voice calling from upstairs. “Tuttle County Sheriff’s Department. Anyone here?” It sounded like Butter.