A MistY MourninG

by Rett MacPherson

Elliott stopped and looked at me. “We’re fine, Torie. Don’t obsess.”

  “I’m not obsessing,” I said. “Who’s obsessing? What are you doing anyway? Do we have to see inside to know that the mine is here? Isn’t this what we were after? Just to know that it was here.”

  “Yeah,” Elliott said. “I just want to look to see if any old equipment or anything is visible from the entrance.”

  “You’re not planning on going in there, are you?” I asked, hysteria rising in my voice.

  “No, no. I’m not stupid. That thing could cave in on me just like that,” he said and snapped his fingers. “I just can’t help myself. I want to look inside.”

  “Oh.” I supposed I could understand that. Just because creepy enclosed places were not the least bit interesting to me didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be to Elliott. In fact, there are some things that I would probably do that Elliott wouldn’t. So, I should just breathe and calm down over this. He just wanted to look inside. Curiosity. I knew all about that.

  Elliott stopped, frozen. One hand held a piece of vine and the other hand rested on a rotted piece of wood. His face turned ashen and all of the color drained from his lips. I’d never seen grey lips before. Except on a dead person.

  “Elliott, what is it?” I asked.

  “I think I found Phillips and MacLean,” he said.

  “What? No way, let me see,” I said and shoved him aside. Sure enough, there were two skeletons leaning up against the south wall of the mine. Their clothes were tattered and dusty, and the clothes looked two sizes too large for the skeletons, since there was no meat or muscle to fill the clothes out. I squealed as a rat ran out of the shirt on one of the skeletons and disappeared into the eye socket.

  “Oh, gross,” I said. I quickly put my head between my knees. Well, as close as I could get to my knees, anyway. “I’m gonna puke.”

  “Oh, don’t do that,” Elliott said all in a panic.

  “I can’t help it. I am. I’m gonna puke.”

  “Oh, Torie,” Elliott said, shaking his hands. “What. . . what do you want me to do?”

  “Hold my hair.”

  And then I puked.

  Ten minutes later as we walked along the snail’s trail, my hands were still shaking involuntarily. “Thanks for holding my hair back,” I said.

  “You owe me, big time,” Elliott said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just be happy I didn’t have anything particularly chunky for lunch.”

  He had to laugh.

  Just as we came back over the hill and could see the boardinghouse, I stopped. Elliott bumped into me, catching his balance and me as he did. “What is it?”

  I pointed down to the boardinghouse. “The sheriff is there,” I said.

  “Why does that bother you so much?”

  “Every time he’s been here lately it’s to tell me something more incriminating. I’m afraid of what he’s got to say.”

  “You’re obsessing again,” he said. “Do you do this all the time? Rudy must have a heck of a time with you.”

  “Why is it everybody assumes that Rudy has a tough time with me? Doesn’t anybody ever stop to think that maybe I have a tough time with him?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” Elliott said and shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve only met Rudy twice. I’ve not only seen you more, but I’ve had a heck of a lot more phone conversations with you. You’re obsessing.”

  “So what?” I asked as we came off the footpath. “Does that hurt something? Has a little bit of obsessing ever hurt anybody?”

  Elliott just looked at me. It was a look that I received often, so I knew I must have been feeling more like my old self.

  As we reached the boardinghouse, the door opened and out came Deputy Benjamin Russell. I hadn’t really thought about him since this morning. He hadn’t followed me back to the boardinghouse after running into me at the courthouse. I had assumed he had other things to do and would catch up with me later. Sure enough, there he was. I have to admit, I felt a slight bit of relief when I saw him and realized that he was not Sheriff Justice.

  “Are you here to see me, Deputy Russell?” I asked as we reached the porch.

  “Heard about your excitement here today,” he said.

  “I can tell you that I think everybody has an alibi except the immediate family. All of the staff were other places,” I said.

  “I’ll pass that along. I came out to fingerprint that attic window,” he said. “It must have slipped the sheriff’s mind because he didn’t tell me or any of the other deputies to do it, so I just came on out here and got it done.”

  “Well, thank you, Deputy Russell.” It was nice to see that somebody was thinking of me and my guilty-looking hide.

  Deputy Russell walked down the porch steps and around his patrol car to the driver’s side. He opened the door, and just as he was about to get in, he said, “What were you guys doing up in the woods?”

  Elliott and I both looked at each other with momentary panic. We hadn’t discussed what we were going to tell people. We’d only just found the bodies and we hadn’t really decided what to do. Obviously, we would tell the authorities eventually. I cast my eyes downward, hoping that Elliott would read my mind.

  “Looking over the property that Mrs. O’Shea just inherited,” he said. “She’d never seen the whole thing.”

  It must have sounded plausible to the deputy because he nodded and disappeared into the patrol car. Within a minute he had backed out of the drive and onto the road.

  “What do you think?” Elliott asked.

  “About what?”

  “About the bodies. If they truly are Phillips and MacLean?”

  “You want my honest opinion?”

  “Yes,” he said and nodded.

  “I think that they lynched Gainsborough and I think Clarissa invited them back to the boardinghouse that night to kill them. I don’t know how, poison probably. And I think somehow our great-grandmother Bridie either found out about it, or walked in on it. They hid the bodies in the mine shaft and Clarissa went off to have Gainsborough’s baby in Charleston. And Bridie never breathed a word of it. That’s what I believe.”

  “What about the two men who were arrested for Gainsborough’s murder?” he asked.

  “I think they were wrongly accused. There was a lot of pressure put on the authorities by the coal company to find his murderer,” I said. “I think the fact that the two bodies are in the mine shaft is a pretty good indication that the other two men were patsies.”

  “That was pretty much what I was thinking, too. It makes sense. All that talk about Bridie being able to keep a secret. And how she’d done Clarissa a favor and all. I think you’re probably right on the money. Although we will probably never know exactly. Why do you think Bridie made the quilt?”

  “I think her conscience was bothering her. I think she had to leave it for somebody to find out. She knew as long as Clarissa lived nobody would set foot in that mine shaft,” I said.

  “Do you think Clarissa was going to confess all of this to you?” he asked.

  “Yes. Yes, I do,” I said.

  “So what does any of this have to do with who killed her?”

  “I hate to admit it, but I’m thinking about Sherise Tyler,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “If she is the granddaughter or great-granddaughter of Doyle Phillips, maybe she somehow suspected that Clarissa murdered him. Think about it. If Phillips’s child was raised fatherless. . . maybe they suffered terrible hardships,” I said.

  “Why not kill her sooner?” he asked.

  “Maybe it was only when Clarissa changed her will that Sherise felt she needed to get rid of the old lady. So she killed her and then tried to destroy the current will, thinking that Mr. Jett had not yet received the new one,” I explained.

  “How are you going to find out?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Thirty-seven

  The next day I went back to the library. Elliott had to work t
hat day, having taken two vacation days already this week. I’d checked the 1920 census for Doyle Phillips, but I hadn’t checked it for his widow, Amanda Sherise Reynolds Phillips. She was in Huntingdon with one child, Rosemary Sherise Phillips.

  Several hours later, I learned from the obituaries that Rosemary Sherise Phillips had married a man named Jack Henry. In the obituary for Amanda Phillips, who never remarried, they listed one of her survivors as her daughter, Mrs. Jack Henry. For some reason, the women lose all identity. They didn’t list her daughter by name. They didn’t list her as Rosemary Henry. No, it was Mrs. Jack Henry. Also surviving Amanda Phillips were her grandsons, Phillip and Michael, and her granddaughter, Susan. Susan Henry.

  Susan Henry, the cook.

  “Elliott!” I whispered loudly. He was working behind the counter and looked up to see me at the microfilm machine. He excused himself and made his way toward me.

  “What is it?”

  “Susan Henry is the great-granddaughter of Doyle Phillips,” I said. “Susan, the cook at the boardinghouse.”

  “You’re joking,” he said. “Doyle Phillips. Does this mean she is Sherise’s mother?”

  “I think so. I’ve run out of ideas on how to get more information. Nobody is going to turn Sherise’s birth certificate over to us, since neither one of us is her. All I can do is come out and ask Susan,” I said. “Or Sherise.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I think that it clears things up. It explains why Sherise spent so much time at the boardinghouse. Her mother had worked there her whole life. It also explains why Sherise was so dramatic when telling me the history of the coal mining towns. She’d lived it. Her mother had lived it,” I said, swiping my hair behind my ears. “It would also explain why Clarissa had left Sherise something in her will. She felt guilty for Sherise’s and Susan’s lives being the way they were. Because she’d started it all by taking Doyle Phillips’s life.”

  “Yes, but chances are if Phillips and MacLean had seen a jury, they’d have been sentenced to life in prison or worse. You do remember what the Gainsborough body looked like, don’t you?” Elliott said. “Phillips is responsible for all of this. Not Clarissa.”

  “Yes, but you know Clarissa’s sense of guilt and loyalty. She would have felt guilty.”

  “Yes, but why change the will, then? Why did she renege and give the money to Norville Gross?” he asked.

  “I’m assuming, in her mind, her sin against Norville was bigger than her sin against Sherise.”

  “But then why not give Sherise the boardinghouse? Why cut her out completely? It makes no sense,” he said.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Something must have happened to change Clarissa’s mind.”

  “Do you have any idea what it was?” he asked.

  “No. Not a clue.”

  “You know,” he said. “Susan Henry could be the murderess. Maybe she found out that Sherise was being cut out of the will, and in her anger, she killed Clarissa. She did have access to the food that Clarissa would eat.”

  I thought about it a minute. “You know what, though? Who’s to say one of Clarissa’s own kids didn’t get ticked off because of the will and kill her? Maybe one of them learned who Norville Gross was and feared him suing for more than fifty thousand? Edwin is always in debt—”

  “And Susan has an alibi for what happened yesterday to your grandmother,” he said.

  “If that was done by one and the same person,” I said. “It’s all too confusing.”

  “I fear we may never know who killed Clarissa,” he said.

  “I could live with that as long as I knew I wasn’t going to be blamed for it,” I said. “I’m not prepared to breast-feed behind bars.”

  “Go talk to Susan,” Elliott said. “I’m going to try and find something on Sherise.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like anything.”

  “She went to school in Illinois. Just across the river from St. Louis. Maybe there is something there,” I said.

  I looked around the room, noticing that people were looking at us funny. We were, after all, having a fairly intense and animated discussion. At least it would seem that way to anybody seated halfway across the room. I smiled sheepishly and lowered my voice. “I don’t see how you’ll have time. It could take you weeks to come up with something.”

  “I’m on it,” he whispered.

  Thirty-eight

  You ever notice how, when there’s something that you really don’t want to do, your stomach gets those little jittery things that feel like they are going to fly up your esophagus and out of your mouth? It sort of reminded me of how I felt when I had to explain to Rachel what a condom was for. I tell you, I nearly buckled and told her it was a swimming cap for her Barbies. I didn’t, though. I was the good mother and bit the bullet.

  Well, I sort of felt that way right now.

  Susan Henry stood in front of me with flour up to her elbows and a hair net on. “I understand you’re not going to be here for dinner any longer,” she said.

  “Yes, that’s correct. I took my grandmother to my aunt’s house. Considering what happened to her, I thought it would be best.”

  “What do you want, then?” she asked

  “First of all, I’d like your opinion on who you think did that to my grandmother. You have an airtight alibi,” I said.

  “Nice to know, after years of service, I’m still trusted,” she said.

  “Don’t take it personally, Ms. Henry. I don’t know you from Adam,” I said.

  She smiled slightly and tilted her head. “Of course,” she said.

  “You are right. I’ve talked to Lafayette and he said the whole family went into town for the funeral arrangements. Visitation starts tonight and the funeral will either be tomorrow or the next day.”

  “I didn’t ask that. I asked who you thought did it?”

  “I think it was Edwin,” she said bluntly. I was a little surprised that it didn’t take more coaxing.

  “Why?”

  “They’ve been looking for it for a long time.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “Their father told them that there was an antique, an heirloom that would reveal the location of something that would make them all very wealthy,” she said.

  “The entrance to the mine isn’t that hidden,” I said. “I’ve been to it.”

  Her smile only faltered slightly. “The mine? A coal mine?” She laughed and shook her head. “It was evident for you because that is what you were looking for. They haven’t a clue what it’s supposed to be. They were all just waiting for Clarissa to the so that they could begin searching all the antiques in the house for the map. Then Clarissa threw them a curve ball and left everything in the house to you. The only way they could search the stuff was to take it from you, or search while you were gone.”

  “Well, they are damned lucky all my grandmother had was a bump on her head.”

  “You don’t understand. I don’t believe they meant her any harm. I think they are just interested in money,” she said.

  “Yes, but the ironic part is that ‘thing’ that would make them all rich is located on my property. It can’t be removed. So they won’t be rich, after all. Well, no richer than they’ll be with all of the other things that she left them in her will.”

  “I’d like to see their faces,” she said. “When they find out it’s a mine and Clarissa has left it to you.”

  “What about your daughter?” I said. “What’s her alibi?”

  Her head snapped up, and I could see by the look in her eyes that I had guessed correctly. Sherise Tyler was her daughter. A slow smile played across her face, and she turned toward the stove and began dropping dumplings into the chicken broth. “Clarissa was right about you.”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “She said that you were the best choice to give the place to. You would set things straight. You cared about the past,” she said. “What she didn’t say was that you
care about everybody’s past. Not just your own.”

  “It is a fault of mine. I admit.”

  “Oh, don’t,” she said and turned back to me. “Don’t apologize for something that you’re good at. Don’t apologize for who you are.”

  “So, Sherise is your daughter. You’re the great-granddaughter of Doyle Phillips. One of the missing miners from 1917,” I said.

  “I’m amazed,” she said and held her hands up in exasperation.

  “Public domain. Freedom of Information Act. It is a wonderful thing,” I said.

  “Yes, Sherise is my daughter. I was never married. Her father died in a mine explosion before we had a chance to get married,” she said. “Clarissa felt personally responsible. She gave me this job. She paid me more than I earned. She was always trying to pay her debts.”

  A debt paid.

  “I could tell you why she felt that way,” I said.

  “You don’t have to. We all know. We all suspected for years. Just nobody ever came out and confirmed it,” she said. “Clarissa killed my great-grandfather and Thomas MacLean for what they did to Gainsborough. I’ve imagined it many times, her inviting them over for dinner and slipping poison in their food. Then she called upon your great-grandmother, Bridie, to help her dispose of the bodies. And then she tried to pay for her sins for the rest of her life.”

  “Did you know that she was pregnant?”

  “What?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

  “Just like you. She was pregnant with Gainsborough’s baby, but he was killed before they had a chance to get married. She surrendered that baby boy when he was four months old and moved back here to the boardinghouse,” I said.

  A tear welled up in Susan’s eye. “I never knew,” she whispered.

  “Norville Gross was that child’s descendant.”

  “Oh, that explains a lot,” she said.

  “So, Ms. Henry, I’m going to ask you this and I don’t want you to get angry. I just need to ask it. Did Sherise have an alibi for yesterday when my grandmother was attacked?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I imagine she did. My daughter did not kill Clarissa. Believe it or not, she admired Clarissa greatly. She tried to pretend that she didn’t. You see, Clarissa had two big mansions. One in Charleston and one up in Wheeling. She only lived in them for a few years back in the forties and fifties. Every other moment was spent here. In this boardinghouse. With her picture of Gainsborough in his casket.”