by John J. Lamb
The house was a three-storied neo-gothic castle constructed from the same bleak stone as the perimeter fortifications and it bore a vague resemblance to the Tower of London. There were turrets at each of the house’s four corners, leering gargoyles for rain gutter spouts, and a low crenellated wall running just beneath the roofline. The place was such a grim burlesque of a medieval stronghold that I half-expected to see John Cleese from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, dressed in armor up on that topmost battlement, shouting that I was an empty-headed animal-food trough wiper.
I parked the Xterra near the massive oaken front doors and slowly made my way up the broad stone steps. There was a wrought-iron doorknocker fashioned in the shape of a lion’s head with a ring in his mouth—another deliciously kitschy touch. I rapped on the door with the ring and waited for perhaps a minute, suspecting the delay in answering was deliberate. That didn’t bother me, because I’m an expert at mind games myself and now I could employ some of my own with a clean conscience.
At last, the door swung inward and a woman appeared in the opening, blocking entry into the house. She was nearly my height, with a lithe form, a tiny waist, nicely shaped calves, and a small bust—sorry, but being a guy and, by definition, shallow, I notice those things first. I’d have guessed her as being in her mid-twenties, but the dowdy beige-colored knee-length skirt, matching jacket, and the stark white cotton blouse she wore made her look much older. Her hair was dark brunette, long and straight, and framed a reasonably attractive face distinguished by eyes the same color and luster of smoky quartz and marred by a thin-lipped expression of either anger or worry or both.
“Hi, like I said back at the road, I’m Bradley Lyon and I’m here to see Ms. Ewell.”
“Where did you find Robert?” Her voice was resigned. “At that casino down in Charles Town, I’ll bet. What does he owe this time?”
“I’m not connected with any casino. I live right here in town.”
“Then what do you know about Robert?”
I took my sunglasses off. “That’s information I’d prefer to tell Ms. Ewell in person. It’s very important I talk to her right now.”
“Is he all right?”
“No, he’s not. Can I please come inside?”
“Oh, God.” She seemed to wilt slightly and stepped away from the door.
Entering the foyer, my footfalls and cane tip echoed hollowly on the pale-gray marble tile floor. I wasn’t surprised that the interior of the house was even more funereal than the yard. The foyer walls were papered in murky plum, there were two tiny and uncomfortable looking chairs upholstered in dull eggplant-colored jacquard, and the stairway and second-floor landing woodwork were varnished in a dark muddy color that should have been called “black hole” because it absorbed all light and reflected none. Overhead, six faux candlelight bulbs flickered inside a large cagelike black metal light fixture decorated with protruding spikes that looked as if it had been modeled after a gibbet. I wondered if whoever had done the interior design for the house had been on suicide watch at the time.
Noticing the wheelchair lift on the stairway, I asked, “Are you Ms. Ewell’s nurse?”
“Not her nurse—her live-in physical therapist. She had a minor stroke about eighteen months ago and, well . . . I guess I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”
“I can keep a secret. Are you okay? You looked bad there for a second.”
“I’m fine. Robert just has a way of wearing you out. Is he in jail?”
“I don’t really want to get into details until Ms. Ewell is here, but I’m sorry this has upset you, Ms . . . ?”
“Audett. Miss Meredith Audett and I should warn you: Don’t call Miss Ewell, Ms.—she doesn’t like it.”
I extended my hand. “It’s good to meet you and thanks for the guidance.”
Her skin was soft and her grip strong. “Let’s go into the parlor and you can wait there while I go get Miss Ewell.”
She led me through a doorway that led to the left and into a room decorated in various coordinating and depressing shades of blue. The stucco walls were painted the chilly pallid hue of cyanotic skin, the matching wingchairs and sofa were melancholy cobalt, and the area rug covering the polished hardwood floor was dingy sapphire with a perimeter of faded flowers. Another light fixture purchased from Dungeons R Us hung from the ceiling, and the window curtains were made of white damask that reminded me of burial shrouds. Above the marble fireplace mantle was an age-darkened oil portrait of a stern-faced man with muttonchop whiskers and steely gray eyes, attired in what looked to me like a businessman’s suit from the late nineteenth century.
“Who’s that?” I jerked my head in the direction of the painting.
“Hosea Ewell—Miss Ewell’s great-grandfather. He built one of the first modern factories in this part of the Valley.”
“Right next to the river, I’ll bet,” I muttered.
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing. If you don’t mind me asking, just what do you do for Miss Ewell?” I motioned with the cane toward my bum leg. “I’m interested because, as you can see, I’m a little handicapped myself.”
“Well, I supervise her physical workouts, give massages, make sure she takes her medication, and I oversee her diet.”
“And you obviously work out. You look as if you’re in great physical shape—and I hope I’m not coming across like a dirty old man because that’s certainly not my intention.”
That elicited a shy smile from her. “Thank you for the compliment. There’s a weight-training room in the back of the house and I work out for a couple of hours every day.”
“I admire that sort of dedication.”
“I guess I’d better go up and get Miss Ewell now. Why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfortable until I get back.”
“Thanks.”
Meredith left the parlor and I heard her start up the staircase. I lowered myself into one of the wingchairs and stretched my leg out. There was an old clock on the mantle and its mellow tick was hypnotic. The house was so hushed, the day had already been long and taxing, and the atmosphere so soporific that it wasn’t long before I was trying to suppress a yawn.
I thought: Great! All I need now is to fall asleep, have my head slump forward, and begin drooling on my shirt.
I reached up intending to rub my eyes—something Ash says I should never do because it stretches the skin and I’ve already got bags the size of Samsonite luggage beneath my eyes—but paused to sniff my fingers when I detected a strange delicate aroma. My right hand smelled faintly of one of the perfumed hand lotions that Ash wore . . . but not the one she’d put on this morning. That had been scented with sweet pea. What I smelled now wasn’t floral but vaguely like a baked dessert.
From out in the foyer I heard a small electric motor begin to hum and I presumed it was the wheelchair lift bringing Miss Ewell downstairs. The hum stopped after about thirty seconds and was replaced by the sound of a higher-pitched motor. She rolled through the doorway at bumper car speed in a motorized wheelchair with Meredith a few steps to the rear, half-jogging to keep up with the old woman. I struggled to my feet because I knew that someone like Miss Ewell would expect someone like me to stand when royalty enters the room.
One of the first things a young rookie cop ideally learns after leaving the police academy is that bad people usually don’t look bad. For instance, serial killer Ted Bundy could have been considered handsome, personable, and intelligent . . . so long as you weren’t one of his many victims. Lifelong successfully bad people are chameleons; masters of improvisational acting for an audience of dupes—that’s all the rest of us, by the way. They wear the ultimate disguise: They look just like us. Still, I had to admit I was a little surprised when I finally got a look at Miss Ewell. Based on everything I’d heard about the woman, I was expecting someone dour and hatchet-faced like Carrie Nation; what I got was Mrs. Santa Claus.
She had a round cheerful face, Delft china-blue eyes, plump pink cheeks, and a cu
rly corona of glossy white hair. Other than the fact she was in a wheelchair, the only evidence of the stroke she’d suffered was an opaque plastic support brace that was tucked inside of her sensible left shoe and Velcro-strapped to her left calf. She wore a sweet, matronly pink dress and a tiny gold cross on a matching modest chain around her neck. The only props omitted in this archetypal grandmotherly persona were oven mitts and a metal baking sheet loaded down with oatmeal cookies.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Lyon. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. Please, sit back down.” Her voice was a strong contralto and although she was a Southerner, the accent struck me as sounding contrived. It was over the top—too musical and way too much Vivian Leigh Oh-Rhett-whatever-shall-become-of-me?
“Thank you for seeing me.” I sat down.
“Meredith tells me that you may have some bad news about my nephew.” Miss Ewell glanced backwards at Meredith, who was standing behind the wheelchair. “Honey, please sit down. You aren’t a servant.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Meredith looked a little surprised and sat down.
Miss Ewell nodded at me to begin. I said, “Before I get started, I have to explain a few things. I used to work for the San Francisco Police Department as a homicide inspector, but my wife and I moved here a few months ago. You may have known my wife when she was young. Her name is Ashleigh and her maiden name was Remmelkemp.”
“Of course. Laurence’s daughter. I’m certain they’ve told you just dreadful things about me.”
“Actually, Lolly’s never said a word to me about you. Ash, on the other hand, loathes you.” I thought it wouldn’t hurt to find out sooner rather than later how she was going to react to unpleasant truths.
Meredith blinked nervously while Miss Ewell looked a little sad. “I suppose that’s understandable. She was very young when that unfortunate dispute over the land occurred and didn’t realize that it wasn’t personal—just business.”
“Children often have a great deal of trouble telling the difference between grand larceny and business.” I tried my best to sound reflective and not sarcastic.
Furthermore, I was fascinated with Ewell’s behavior. If someone came to my house hinting at possessing bad news about a relative who’d disappeared while in the possession of an item of great value, we wouldn’t have sat and chitchatted about what other people thought of me. We’d have gotten to the point immediately. It was possible this was an insight into how Ewell viewed herself and other people. On the other hand, it was also likely she assumed I bore terrible tidings and might have been trying to delay delivery of the news—I’d encountered that too. I didn’t know quite what to make of her yet, but I hoped to have a better idea in a moment.
I continued, “But, to get back to the reason for my visit. Yesterday morning I found a dead man in the river near our house.”
“We heard something about that after church today, Miss Ewell.”
“Hush, dear. Let the inspector talk.”
“Well, there’s no good way to say this, but I’m almost one-hundred-percent certain it’s your nephew.”
I’ve always hated making death notifications to next-of-kin. It’s almost always the same: You break the terrible news and there’s a second or two of tense silence not unlike the reaction of a stunned victim to an ugly practical joke. Both women’s faces revealed shock and then the customary swift denial.
Ewell said, “That can’t be. Are you sure?”
“I watched the body being pulled from the river. I’m as sure as I can be . . . under the circumstances.”
“Under what circumstances?”
“Before we get to that, I’d like to describe the man, just to make sure that we’re talking about the same person. He was about five-five, maybe thirty-five years old, thin build, had a shaved head, with a moustache and goatee. He was wearing jeans, an orange tee-shirt, a leather jacket, and tennis shoes.”
“Oh my God,” moaned Miss Ewell and she reached out for Meredith’s hand.
“I’m genuinely sorry for your loss and that you had to learn about it this way.”
“How? What was he doing in the river?” Ewell began to cry.
“Forgive me, but some of the things I have to say now are going to be graphic and probably very upsetting. Your nephew was in the river because someone threw his body in there. But he wasn’t drowned, he was strangled.”
“Oh my God, oh my God!” Ewell wailed.
Meredith wore a look of sick shock. “But the people at church told me that the sheriff said the man had drowned.”
“The sheriff was lying and we’ll get into his reasons for that in a little bit. But right now, I’d like to ask some other questions first, if you’re up to it.” Ewell seemed to gather herself up and nodded in assent. I continued, “On Saturday morning you knew he was missing. If you don’t mind me asking, why didn’t you call the sheriff when Robert disappeared with the Mourning Bear?”
“Robert’s been in his share of trouble over the years and I was just hoping . . .” Her voice trailed off and her body was wracked with a fresh spasm of pathetic sobs. After a few moments, she caught her breath and said, “Meredith, will you please get me a box of tissues?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Meredith slipped from the room.
I completed Ewell’s unfinished statement. “You were hoping that he hadn’t come to the point where he was going to begin victimizing you and that he’d come back.”
“That’s true.”
“Did Robert own a red Chevrolet pickup truck?”
“I bought it for him.”
Meredith returned with a box of tissue. I waited until Miss Ewell dabbed her eyes and blew her nose before I broke more bad news. “I found that truck abandoned upriver a little way. The windshield has two gouges from gunfire and there was no sign of the Mourning Bear.”
“Shot at?” squeaked Meredith.
“How do you know about the bear?” asked Ewell.
The cold incongruity of the old woman’s question caught me flatfooted. I’d just informed her that Thayer’s truck had been used for target practice and that the odds were good that the same person who’d done the shooting had also murdered her nephew. Yet for all her tears, she wasn’t as curious about that as she was the extent of my knowledge about the Mourning Bear.
I said, “My wife and I were at the teddy bear show yesterday. I happened to be talking to one of the auctioneers and he told me that Robert was supposed to have delivered the Mourning Bear on Friday night.”
“You said that you found Robert’s truck. Why isn’t the sheriff investigating?”
“Now we come to the interesting and very confusing part of the story. I hope you’ll bear with me. When we found the body we called the rescue squad. The fireman that pulled Robert from the river was Pastor Marc Poole.”
“Pastor Marc knew he was dead? But . . . this happened yesterday morning?” Miss Ewell looked at Meredith and back at me, her moist and reddened eyes sick with betrayal. “This morning he met us at the door, when services were finished, shook my hand, and wished us a good day and he knew.”
“Pastor Poole didn’t give us any indication either that he knew Robert. However, I’ve since learned that they were very well acquainted.” I didn’t think it was the right time to define Poole and Thayer’s relationship as co-conspirators in what was likely a statewide burglary ring. Things were bewildering enough already.
Miss Ewell frowned and her eyes became hard. “I should say they knew each other well. What’s more, they were supposed to meet Friday night! They were going into Harrisonburg together to deliver the Mourning Bear to the auctioneer.”
“Why would they have gone together?” I kept my voice nonchalant, as if the question was of minor interest.
“Because Pastor Marc was on the board of directors for the regional charity group that set up the auction.”
“So, I guess you would have called Pastor Poole when you learned that Robert had disappeared?”
“Meredith did. When she woke me up
to tell me that the young man from the auction house had come by to tell us that Robert had disappeared with the bear, I was too angry and embarrassed to talk to anyone.”
It was another major Twilight Zone moment—so much so that I half expected to see Rod Serling standing in the doorway, puffing on a coffin nail and delivering an ironic prologue to this episode into which I’d wandered. If everything I’d heard about the autocratic Miss Ewell was even partially accurate, the idea of her being embarrassed to talk to anyone was far stranger than the bizarre concept that Madonna can act. I added this anomaly to the growing list of things that didn’t make any sense and asked, “Why was that?”
“Because the biggest charity event in the Shenandoah Valley was ruined by my nephew, the thief. It was the last straw.” The flare of anger was replaced by mortification and she began to cry again. “Oh God, I’ve been thinking nothing but bad things about him ever since and all this time he’s been dead.”
I looked at Meredith. “When did you talk to Pastor Poole?”
“Yesterday around noon—right after I learned that nobody from the auction house knew where Robert was.”
“What did he say?”
“Actually, I don’t know if I should say this . . . but, he was kind of evasive.”
“He was what? Why didn’t you tell me that?” Miss Ewell peered at the younger woman accusingly over a wad of crumpled tissue.
“It was just a feeling, ma’am, and you were already so upset I couldn’t see any point in telling you.”
“What did the pastor say?” I asked.
Meredith’s gaze shifted upward and became momentarily unfocused. “Well, I told him that Robert hadn’t shown up at the teddy bear show and asked him if he’d seen Robert on Friday night, like they planned. Pastor Marc told me that Robert had called to say he was going into Harrisonburg by himself to make the delivery.”