“Herbert,” I whispered, putting my hand on his shoulder as I came to a stop. There was no mistaking that it was Calla in the casket. I was less than eight feet away from her, and she looked just like herself, not a waxy, unrecognizable, embalmed face.
“Marjorie.” Herbert reached up and clasped my hand on his shoulder. It was like ice jamming into ice. It was a miracle that we both didn’t shatter. “How’s Hank?”
“Getting better,” I said. Only this time it wasn’t a lie to placate curiosity. It was the truth, and what I fully believed. “I hope to have him home in a few days.”
“That’d be good.” Herbert’s voice echoed up into the rafters and then mixed with the hymn, “Awake, My Heart, with Gladness.” Even though I hadn’t been to church in ages, I figured I would remember the Lutheran hymns in any circumstance. They were engrained in me, wedged deep in a part of myself that I barely knew any longer. I still thought the hymn was inappropriate, but I supposed Pete didn’t have a record for suicides to trumpet through the oversized speakers in each corner of the room, just records for a death that promised hope and eternal life, streets paved of gold and the reunion of souls who had passed the test of time and faith.
Herbert looked up at me. “It looks just like her, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, then leaned down and whispered, “Why is it open?”
Herbert looked at me, so that we were eye to eye. “I asked Pete to do that. I wanted to see her one last time. He didn’t figure it’d be a problem since there was no one here and it wasn’t like her head was . . .” He stopped and looked down again. “Broken open,” he said with a quiver. “He’ll close it if I ask him to, if people start to come.” He hesitated and said, “It’ll be closed for the funeral, so you best go see her now.”
“Okay,” I said. He looked on the verge of tears, but restrained himself. I sighed, patted his shoulder, and stood up at the sound of voices coming in the door. Truth was, I wanted to see her, too, say goodbye one last time.
I took a deep breath, ignored the incoming visitors the best I could, and made my way to the casket alone. An unannounced shiver trembled up my spine, and I suddenly realized how cold it was in the parlor. I wanted to stop and run to the nearest fire to warm myself, to feel alive, to be warm, but I couldn’t. I had to see her.
Tears flowed down my cheeks, obscured my vision, and Calla looked distant, asleep, at peace, which I had not expected. Her hands were clasped over an old book bound in worn brown leather—Poems, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. More of Herbert’s doing, I was sure. Browning was Calla’s favorite poet. She had on a soft pink sweater, a color I’d never seen her in before—she wore mostly grays, blacks, and browns—and figured she would balk if she could. It probably wasn’t even her sweater, but a piece of spare clothing out of Pete’s wardrobe for the dead.
I cleared my eyes and stood over Calla as Why? Why? Why? circulated through my mind and heart. I studied her face, looking for an answer that I knew would never come. I had to accept that she had had her reasons for doing what she did, and no matter how much I protested she wasn’t ever going to be able to answer my questions.
Slowly, with shame and curiosity, my vision drifted to her right temple, expecting to see something of note, something that would look like a cake of makeup to cover up a scar, or a bullet hole in this case. But nothing was there.
A quick glance at her left temple gave me what I was looking for, and at that moment I knew something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.
CHAPTER 21
I had to consider that my immediate perception of the truth was completely wrong. But first I had to catch my breath, slow my heart from jumping out of my chest. I felt like all of the blood in my head had drained to my feet. I couldn’t move. Each toe felt chained to the soft carpeted floor. I was a prisoner of my vision, to the horror of the sudden reality that I was certain of: Calla Eltmore had not committed suicide. If I fully understood what I had seen, then I had been right all along. I had never believed that Calla could do such a thing, and now that I had seen her, I was almost certain that I knew that to be true. As true as the sun rose in the east and set in the west.
I looked at Calla again and what I saw made sense—or made no sense at all. Calla had been right-handed. The bullet wound should have been at her right temple, not her left. Calla had been right-handed, damn it.
Frozen in place, locked in my own imagination, I raised my right hand to my head. It instinctively went to the same side, to my right temple. My hand did not cross over to the left side of my head. But if she had done that, then why? What difference would it have made? Why not just take the path of least resistance and get it over with? Just get it over with—unless she hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger.
I hadn’t wanted to believe that Calla had killed herself from the very beginning. But maybe she did cross her hand and the gun over to her left temple. It was possible that she had done exactly that—and impossible to know for sure.
Questioning everything had always been a way of life for me. I questioned myself, but in that single moment I couldn’t come up with one reason why a right-handed person would shoot themselves on the left side of their head.
Somehow, I staggered backward, away from the casket and made my way to Herbert.
He reached out to steady me. “You alright, there, Marjorie? You look pale as a fresh bleached sheet hung on the line. It’s hard to take, I’ll tell you that. Sure is hard to take seein’ her like that.”
“I’m fine.” I welcomed Herbert’s touch, even though up close to him I realized he smelled of whiskey. The overwhelming fragrance of funeral flowers had completely hidden it when I’d spoken to him before. “I need to find Pete McClandon,” I said.
“I saw him leave.”
“What time is it?” I asked, befuddled that Pete had left the building, that he would leave his post at the door during a viewing.
Herbert looked down at his bare wrist. “It’s the funniest thing, Marjorie, I can’t seem to find my watch. I take it off every evening when I wash up after work. It’s not waterproof like those new-fangled ones. I must’ve left it on the sink, but when I reached for it, it was gone, like it had never been there.” He shook his head in disbelief. “But it’s hard to say; maybe I left it somewhere else. The last few days have been a blur. That was my Navy watch. I bought it in the Philippines when I was on leave the first time. I’ll never find another one like it. Nope, I sure won’t. I can’t believe it’s gone any more than I can believe Calla’s gone.”
“I’m sure it’ll turn up.” I tried to sound hopeful but I didn’t believe myself, and I was pretty sure that Herbert wasn’t comforted at all by my meager offering.
“Everything’s lost,” Herbert said, turning away from me, facing Calla’s presentation in the casket.
I didn’t know what else to say to that. He was right. Everything is lost. I felt exactly the same way.
My feet suddenly moved underneath me, away from the casket, away from my puzzling assumption as quickly as they could go. It felt like I wasn’t in control of any part of my body. I was being propelled out of the parlor by an unseen force: fear, dread, panic, and righteousness. I had to find Pete.
If I was right, that the bullet hole was on the wrong side of Calla’s head, then it meant there was a possibility that Calla Eltmore hadn’t killed herself at all. That would only mean one thing. Being right would mean that she had been murdered, killed in her office for some unknown reason, by some unknown person, who, as I thought about it, was still walking around free of any suspicion.
The killer could be anyone.
I shuddered at the thought and came to the quick conclusion that I hoped I was wrong. Now, I hoped that Calla had killed herself. I couldn’t bear the thought of another murderer loose in Dickinson. My stomach tied itself up in knots so tight I feared they would never be undone.
I was at the front door of the funeral home before I knew it. Pete had been replaced by his wife, Helen, a tall
thin woman with perfectly coifed hair the same color as Pete’s shoe-polish-black. Pete had an easier time hiding his age than she did; her face was a map of deep worry lines. She smelled like a garden of flowers, too, like the fragrance inside the funeral home was permanently housed inside every pore in her skin. But unlike Pete, Helen was a perpetually stoic woman. Her smiles took effort. The muscles in her face protested openly every time she smiled, making the map more canyons than roads. She wore a modest, knee-length, black skirt and a blouse and jacket the same color, with a red rose pinned to the right lapel. There was not one speck of lint on her anywhere to be seen. Her eyes were nearly as dark as her hair and outfit, and, if I had to guess, it was her steel spine that navigated the business side of things, while Pete was left to the politics of the coroner’s office and glad-handing at the front door. I had always preferred to deal with Pete. He was the gentler of the two. Helen always looked uncomfortable at her public post at the door—and at Pete’s side.
I stopped before her almost like I would if I were a lesser human being. “Could I speak to Pete?” It was almost a whisper.
Helen flicked a quick smile at me. I shivered. “He’s been called out on business,” she said. There was no hint of emotion on her face. Just matter of fact, even though Pete’s business was death. I suppose she was accustomed to it. Someone’s bad news was good news for their coffers. I didn’t know how a person managed such a life, but it was not my place to consider it anything other than it was. I was only speculating anyway. I had no idea what Helen meant by “business,” and truth be told, I didn’t want to know.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Helen asked, at the same time glancing out the door, calculating, I was sure, how soon to open the door for a small crowd of incoming mourners.
“It’s just that . . . no, I suppose not. I’ll wait until I see Pete and ask him.”
“He’s a busy man. There’s nothing he knows that I don’t. We share everything.” Another quick smile, another quick shiver.
“No, that’s all right, I’ll wait, thank you.” And with that I moved toward the door.
Helen didn’t object or try to convince me any further. “Thank you for coming,” she said, as I was halfway out the door.
I hurried away from the funeral home as quickly as I could, ignoring the mourners walking up to the door. They could have been my best friends in the world and I wouldn’t have noticed. I wanted to get as far away from there as possible. I wanted the world to be right again, but I knew that wasn’t going to be possible, no matter how much I desired it. I was just going to have to figure out how to live in it, and with this new truth I thought I had discovered. If that were possible. How did you live with murder?
CHAPTER 22
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The foreign sound echoed down the hall like a siren out of place on a cloudless day. Hank’s laugh was as distinct and unmistakable as a returning meadowlark’s trill, celebrating spring, happy to be alive, relieved to be home on the breeding ground it had known and loved all of its life. I would have known that laugh anywhere, even though it had been ages—another lifetime—since I’d heard it.
The laugh nearly crumpled me to my knees. It was the most unexpected sound in the world. One I thought I would never ever hear again, and for a moment the joyousness of the sound lifted my spirits, made me forget the discovery that I’d made and the dire implications that came with it—if I was right.
I hurried down the long sterile hospital hall, propelled by curiosity and hope—but any of that gleeful emotion I felt disappeared the second I walked into the hospital room. Betty Walsh stood next to Hank’s bed, holding his hand, laughing just like he was.
“And then, Mrs. Gordon got all flustered when she realized that she’d picked up Lloyd Kramer’s pack of Trojans instead of her breath mints, which she was in serious need of. Heavens, you shoulda seen the look on her face. It was like she was going to go straight to hell right then and there,” Betty said, without detecting my entrance into the room.
They both laughed like eighth graders who had shared a private joke at someone else’s expense. In this case I assumed that someone had to be Charlotte Gordon, one of the most pious, persistently religious women I had ever met in my life. I would have given anything to have seen her mistakenly pick up a pack of prophylactics instead of breath mints.
I stood solemn as a flagpole, as quiet as possible. As surprised and annoyed as I was to find Betty Walsh in the hospital room sharing infantile gossip, I didn’t want to ruin Hank’s laugh.
Hank cleared his throat and nodded in my direction. He must have smelled me or heard me with his sharp as a tack sense of hearing—all of his senses had improved since the loss of his sight. It was no consolation.
Betty followed Hank’s lead and turned in my direction. The blood ran from her face as soon as she realized it was me she was looking at. “Oh, Mrs. Trumaine, I wasn’t expecting you to be back so soon.”
“I can see that.” I walked to the opposite side of the bed. My nose was pointed straight up at the ceiling as pious as Charlotte Gordon, but I didn’t care. Something about Betty Walsh set me on edge, and I couldn’t find it in myself to overcome whatever that something was.
Betty was stuffed into her candy striper uniform, dressed red and white like a Christmas candy cane from head to toe, every perfect curve of her young body noticeable and demanding attention. Even her little nurse’s cap was striped and cocked a little to the side rebelliously. The truth was, Betty looked cute as a button, like the dress and its colors had been designed just for her. And maybe it had been, maybe her mother was an expert seamstress. Somebody was—though for some reason, I doubted it was Betty herself. I could see Jaeger’s attraction to her, and for a brief second I was relieved that Hank was blind. Even when Betty was being catty, she was delightful about it, not mean-spirited. Somehow she had got to know Hank quick enough to figure out that he liked to hear tales about people getting their comeuppances. It had been a long time since I’d been jealous of a woman around Hank. . . . There was that something. I was jealous of Betty Walsh, as silly as that is.
“Really, Mrs. Trumaine, I was just here spending time with Hank, checking on him and all. I’ve just been worried sick about him since me and Jaeger brought him in.”
“Relax, Betty,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here, and I’m not mad at you at all. Jaeger said you thought I was.” I looked down to Hank, who was watching me as intently as Shep ever did—even though he couldn’t see me, at least with his eyes. I was sure he saw me plain and clear in his mind, though. I could tell he was trying to gauge my mood, my reaction to Betty being in the room with him, but I couldn’t tell him why I was unsettled and out of sorts, at least not until we were alone. The last thing I wanted to do was tell him my theory about Calla in front of Betty. Lord, before sunset the whole town would think I’d gone off my rocker.
“Thank you, I’m glad to hear that Mrs. Trumaine.” Betty deflated, believing me, which I was glad of, mostly. I was still a little perturbed that she had been able to make Hank laugh and not me. The jealousy had not subsided. But I guess I hadn’t given Hank much to laugh at recently. I’d been stuck in the doldrums, and Calla’s death hadn’t helped me out of them one bit. If anything, I was worse off now than I had been in months.
“Are you all right?” Hank said, attempting to change the subject. He knew better than anyone that I wouldn’t say a word about what was troubling me until we were alone.
“I’m fine.”
“McClandon’s must have been packed,” Hank said.
Betty stepped away from the hospital bed, but she didn’t take her eyes off me.
“There was hardly anyone there.” I lowered my head, then turned my attention to Betty. “Did people talk about Calla, Betty?”
“I beg your pardon?” The question obviously took her by surprise. She stepped back and almost plastered herself against the wall.
Hank exhaled and turned his head from me, anno
yed.
“Did people talk about her? You know, in a bad way, or a good way as far as that goes?”
“She was the librarian, Mrs. Trumaine,” Betty said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She could be terse, shush you if you talked just a little loud, or be snobby about the books that you checked out, even though it wasn’t any of her business. You could tell if she liked you, and you sure knew it if she didn’t. Everybody knew that. But it was just the way of things. She was what she was supposed to be, I guess, just like we all are.”
I sighed. Betty was right on the money about Calla. I couldn’t dispute a word she said. “Is that what people said about her?” I persisted.
Betty shook her head. “People didn’t talk much about her at all, Mrs. Trumaine. There was really nothing to talk about. She was the same, day in and day out, for years. I mean, I always wondered if she ever changed clothes because they all looked alike every time I went in the library,” Betty said.
I wondered how often Betty actually visited the library, then batted the thought away and focused on what she’d said. Calla did always look the same. She would have been mortified if she’d known she was going to be buried in a pink sweater—that I was sure hadn’t belonged to her in the first place. That was a small tragedy in itself.
“I better go, Mrs. Trumaine,” Betty said, stepping forward.
I nodded and watched her move to the side of Hank’s bed. “You stay out of trouble now, Hank. I’ll check on you before I leave.”
Hank smiled. “I’ll look forward to it,” he said, his voice as strong as ever. That jealous streak shot down my back like a miniature bolt of lightning had exploded out of my cloudy, conflicted brain.
Betty walked away, but I stopped her as she met the door. “Betty,” I said.
She turned and faced me. “Yes, Mrs. Trumaine?”
“Thank you,” I offered.
“You’re welcome.” A slight smile flickered across Betty’s young face, then she disappeared out the door and down the hall. She didn’t bother to ask me what I meant, and to be honest, I was glad of that.
See Also Deception Page 10