Disturbing the Dead

by Sandra Parshall

  “Oh.” After a moment’s consideration Holly added, “Okay then.” She pulled on the robe, which fell to her ankles, and stuck her feet into the too-big slippers.

  They sat at the kitchen table and ate graham crackers and drank milk, while Frank lapped up his own portion of milk from a saucer between them on the table. Rachel’s mind hummed with questions, but Holly seemed lost in some sad and private world. Rachel was afraid that pressing her to talk would stir up another whirlwind of emotion.

  When they returned to bed, Holly seemed exhausted and ready to sleep again. For a long time Rachel lay awake, alert for sounds of distress from the guest room, wondering about Holly’s life and about the dream that had terrified her. Had it been only a phantom of the night, or was it, like Rachel’s own nightmares, all too real a memory?

  Chapter Twelve

  Three reporters, their shoulders hunched against the cold wind, waited outside headquarters when Tom arrived at eight a.m. They surrounded him as he stepped out of his truck. One took pictures of Tom holding the door for Billy Bob to hop down.

  Figuring they must be desperate for material if they thought his dog was worth attention, Tom took pity on them and answered a few questions about the shooting. He assured them his arm, now in a sling, had suffered no permanent damage and Rudy O’Dell would soon be in custody.

  He called a halt when Darla Duncan pulled into the parking lot with her husband, Deputy Grady Duncan, and their grandson, Simon, in the car. “You’ve got your answers,” Tom told the reporters. “Now back off, okay?”

  Simon jumped out of the car and barrelled toward Tom before Grady got his door open. Tom stooped and caught the boy with his free arm.

  “You got shot!” Simon wailed, clinging fiercely to Tom. “I thought you were gonna die!”

  “Hey, now, don’t talk that way.” Tom pulled back to look into his nephew’s face. The boy’s eyes, puffy from crying, held a deep terror that Tom hadn’t seen since the months after Simon lost his parents and his Bridger grandparents. “It takes more than a little nick on the arm to bring me down. You know that, don’t you? Huh? You believe me?”

  Simon’s mouth screwed up and tears dribbled down his cheeks, but he bobbed his head. “Please don’t get shot again,” he said in a tremulous whisper.

  “I won’t, champ. I won’t.” Tom hugged the boy and hoped to God he could keep that promise. Looking over Simon’s head, he saw Darla staring at him from the car, her pitiless expression obvious even through the tinted glass.

  Grady walked up, touched Simon’s head briefly, then laid a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Glad you’re okay, son.”

  Tom didn’t think he could speak without blubbering. He swallowed hard and nodded. When he saw one of the reporters lift a camera, he shot the man a look that was enough to make him change his mind.

  “Uh, listen, Tom,” Grady said. “Darla was thinking, since school’s out Monday and Tuesday because of the teachers’ meeting, maybe she’d take Simon to her sister’s place in Charlottesville. That okay with you?”

  As if he had any say in the matter. But he appreciated Grady asking—and he understood why Darla wanted to get Simon out of the county. She was afraid Tom’s bad luck would slop over onto his family and Simon would be hurt. The same thought had occurred to Tom. “That’s a good idea.”

  “I want to stay with you.” Simon clung to Tom’s hand.

  “Hey, you always have a good time with your cousins in Charlottesville, don’t you? When you get back, maybe I won’t be so busy and we can go over to Mrs. McKendrick’s place and ride the horses. Okay?”

  “All right now,” Grady said to Simon. “Say goodbye to Tom and Billy Bob, then you go on to school and work hard today, make us proud of you.”

  Persuading Simon to let go of Tom and get back in the car with Darla took a few tearful minutes. When Darla drove out of the lot, Simon pressed his face to the window, his eyes on Tom until the car turned a corner.

  “The State Police have been helping us look for O’Dell since yesterday,” Grady said on their way into headquarters, “but he’s just vanished, like a goddamn rabbit down a hole. How can a man that’s half-crazy, and looks it and acts it, just disappear into thin air?”

  “He can’t. I doubt he’s got money or transportation. And his relatives can’t protect him forever. We’ll get him.” Tom shifted his wounded arm in its sling, trying to find a more comfortable position, but only succeeded in ratcheting up the pain. He felt groggy from a big dose of medication the night before, and he’d had a hell of a time getting into his uniform and driving his truck to town.

  In the squad room, Dennis Murray and the Blackwood twins hit him with good-natured jibes about guys who use Kotex. The sheriff’s bellow from his office doorway cut them off. “What the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay home today.”

  “I can’t sit at home and do nothing,” Tom said.

  “Stubborn as a damned mule. Just like your dad.” Despite the gruff words, Willingham’s lips twitched in a barely suppressed grin. “Well, come on. Since you’re here, let’s talk about this.”

  In his office, Willingham leaned on the windowsill and stared out as if he hoped to locate O’Dell in the parking lot. “Our guys went around to all of his relatives, and they’ll keep going back till they get a lead.” Turning, Willingham pointed a finger. “If you’re bound and determined to work, you’re not gonna waste your energy running after O’Dell. Interviewing people, that’s the best use of your time. Whether it’s us or the State Police, somebody’ll bring O’Dell in. And the son of a bitch is looking at attempted murder for what he did to you, on top of two murder charges.”

  “We don’t have any evidence tying him to those women’s deaths.”

  “An innocent man wouldn’t shoot a cop.”

  “Unless he’s gone a little nuts from living like a hermit for too many years,” Tom said. “Whether he killed those women or not, Pauline’s relatives are scared to death of him. And he’s out there with a gun he’s not afraid to use. I want him caught before he shoots somebody else.”

  ***

  Rachel had brought Holly to work an hour before opening time so she could show the girl around and teach her a few routine tasks, but she felt as if she were operating on autopilot while worry over Tom claimed her mind. The newspaper story said the wound was minor. Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him?

  After a tour of the building they returned to the reception desk, where Rachel showed Holly how to enter information in the big appointment book. Rachel didn’t trust the hospital’s aging computer system enough to use it exclusively for keeping records.

  “I can’t wait to get started,” Holly said. “I’m gonna do the best job I can for you.”

  “I have no doubt about that.” Rachel looked forward to proving Tom wrong about Holly.

  At the thought of Tom, anxiety gripped Rachel again. He’s perfectly fine, she told herself. Stop worrying about him.

  She picked up a manila envelope with a small square bulge in the middle. Somebody had put it through the mail slot, and she’d found it on the floor when she came in. No postmark. On the front was written Dr. Goddard—this belongs to you. She couldn’t think of anything she’d lost.

  Puzzled, she ripped tape from the envelope’s flap, reached in and pulled out a little white box. The lid was taped on.

  “Somebody send you a present?” Holly asked.

  “I don’t know what it is.” Rachel slit the tape with a fingernail.

  She lifted the lid and a black spider crawled out onto her fingers. She yelped and shook her hand wildly. The box and lid went flying and the spider landed on the appointment book.

  “It’s a black widow,” Holly said, pronouncing the word widder.

  “Good grief,” Rachel gasped, her pulse thundering in her head. She stared down at the creature. It moved sluggishly across the open appointment book, stopped, changed directions, slowly crawled another couple of inches
and stopped again. The thing was hideous and awakened a deep, primal fear in her. Spiders were the only animals she found truly revolting.

  Wide-eyed, Holly looked at Rachel. “Why would somebody send you a black widow spider?”

  Rachel pressed a hand to her chest and tried to catch her breath. “Keep your eye on it while I find something to put it in.”

  The first thing she spotted when she looked around was a glass vase that held a pink hothouse rose Shannon had brought in the day before. Rachel grabbed the vase, dumped water and flower in the wastebasket under the desk, and clamped the vase over the spider.

  The glossy black creature was still for a moment, as if surprised. Then it stirred, tentatively touched long legs to the glass, rearing up so the bright red spot on its globular abdomen was visible. Either the damp glass wouldn’t give it purchase or it was too weak to climb. It fell back and lay motionless.

  Had Perry Nelson sent it, hoping she’d be bitten? No. It was hand-delivered. Rachel doubted he could get anybody to do that for him.

  This little gift had come from someone right here in Mason County.

  ***

  Tom was about to enter Mason County Bank & Trust when he stopped in his tracks on the sidewalk to watch the scene playing out in the bank president’s ground floor office. Through the slats of the blinds, Tom saw Pauline McClure’s brothers-in-law, Robert and Ed McClure, stalk back and forth and fling out their arms in angry gestures. He couldn’t hear a thing, but he knew they were yelling at each other. Ed’s wife, Natalie, sat in a chair facing the desk, head lowered and sleek blonde hair falling forward to hide most of her face.

  Meeting with Tom was Robert’s idea—“Let’s get it over with, then you won’t have to bother us again,” the banker had said when he called to set it up—and Tom had doubted anything illuminating would come of talking to all of them at once. Now he had more hope. He pushed open the bank’s mahogany door, eager to get inside before the brothers cooled down and started watching their words.

  When Tom entered Robert’s office, Ed still looked flustered and pink-cheeked, riding the crest of his anger, but he summoned the composure to shake Tom’s hand. “How are you? Have you met my wife, Natalie?”

  Tom had met her at a charity event, but he didn’t expect her to remember him, and apparently she didn’t. Without rising, Natalie McClure extended a pale hand.

  He walked over to her, but the brief, limp touch of her fingers hardly seemed worth the trip. Her little smile disappeared as she shifted position and faced forward. She was still cheerleader-pretty, with golden hair and blue eyes, but she was over fifty now and Tom doubted she maintained her drum-taut skin without a surgeon’s help.

  “All right, ask your questions and be done with it,” Robert McClure said as he crossed the room to his desk. He made Tom think of a rooster, with his beaky nose and shock of reddish brown hair that bobbed like a cockscomb when he moved. Some genetic quirk had denied the middle McClure brother the boyish good looks bestowed on Adam, the oldest, and Ed, the youngest.

  Robert stood straight and stiff behind the desk, his fingertips pressed to the blotter. A handshake wouldn’t be forthcoming.

  Refusing to be hurried, Tom said, “This must be a rough time for you folks.”

  He took a seat next to Natalie. The wooden chair’s knobby spindles dug into his back. Maybe McClure had chosen the seating deliberately to make supplicants miserable. The rest of his office was equally uninviting, with brown tweed industrial carpeting, beige vinyl wallpaper, and beige draperies flanking the window Tom had looked through a few minutes before. Only framed citations from civic organizations hung on the walls.

  Robert sat down and clasped his hands on the blotter. “This doesn’t involve me or interest me. Frankly, I couldn’t care less that you’ve found her.”

  “For God’s sake, Robert,” Ed muttered. He moved to the window and stared out at the street.

  Tom studied Ed’s tall, youthful figure, the thick dark hair with no trace of gray. Mary Lee had said that Ed and Pauline were friends, they’d had things in common. But Pauline had been a beautiful widow and Ed a married man. Tom glanced at Natalie and found her watching him without expression. When their eyes met, she looked away.

  To Robert, Tom said, “Pauline was a member of your family.”

  “Technically.”

  Jesus Christ, the man was cold. “She was murdered, Mr. McClure. And I’m afraid the investigation does involve you—all of you—and everyone else who knew her.”

  “We’ll cooperate any way we can,” Ed said, turning from the window. “We want her killer punished.”

  “Of course we do,” Natalie said. “I didn’t know Pauline very well, we weren’t what you’d call friends, but…” Her voice trailed off.

  No, I don’t imagine you were, Tom thought.

  Robert’s knuckles had turned white. When Tom looked at them, Robert seemed to realize he was betraying a reaction and hid his hands under the desk. An unpleasant smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “The paper said you identified her with dental records. I’m glad her dental work’s finally served a useful purpose. God knows it cost enough.”

  “You didn’t approve of her having her teeth fixed?” Amazing, the petty grudges people held onto for years, decades.

  Robert sniffed. “Thousands of dollars of my family’s money were poured into that woman’s mouth. So she could have a perfect smile. But it couldn’t disguise what she was.”

  “Robert, please.” Ed looked disgusted. “Think about what you’re saying.”

  Afraid Robert might have an attack of civility and yield to his brother’s plea, Tom goaded, “And what, exactly, was she?”

  Robert’s right hand reappeared and plucked a Bic pen from the desktop. Tapping the pen against the blotter, he said, “She married Adam for his money, and—”

  “She loved him,” Ed said.

  “And she spent it like there was no tomorrow,” Robert continued, raising his voice a decibel. “She went to work at the bank with every intention of ending up as Adam’s wife. She had him completely fooled, and he gave her anything she wanted.”

  “Damn it, Robert,” Ed said, “it was his money. And Pauline was his wife. I don’t complain when you let Christina—”

  “Don’t you dare compare my wife to that—”

  “I won’t stand here while you slander a kindhearted woman who always made our brother happy.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she made Adam happy, in one way at least.”

  “Stop this!” Natalie jumped up, her blonde hair swinging as she looked from her husband to her brother-in-law. “Don’t you realize what kind of impression you’re giving?”

  Tom wanted to wrestle her back into her chair and tape her mouth shut. He cursed silently when he saw that Ed was pulling himself together, damping down his anger.

  “Was money the only reason you didn’t like Pauline?” Tom asked Robert. “Did she do something to you personally?”

  “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

  “No, you don’t,” Tom said, “but I think you’d be wise to try. You’ve expressed a strong animosity toward Pauline. You had a reason to want her dead and out of the way.”

  Robert’s mouth fell open and a flush stained his cheeks a blotchy red. “You can’t come in here and accuse me of murder.”

  “Answer my questions and this’ll be easier on both of us.”

  Rigid in his chair, Robert expelled air through his nostrils in short bursts, like a bull revving up. For a moment he said nothing, then he blurted, “Pauline Turner was Melungeon trash, and she dragged my brother down with her.”

  “Good God, Robert,” Ed exclaimed, “remember who you’re talking to.”

  “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before,” Tom said, and he was surprised at how calmly he reacted to Robert’s ugly words. “I figure everybody needs somebody to look down on. For some, it’s Melungeons. For others, it’s bankers.”
>
  Robert drew back defensively. “I wasn’t talking about people like you and your father, who try to make something of themselves.”

  “That’s generous of you.”

  Tom’s tone was mild, but the sarcasm wasn’t lost on Robert, and his jaw set in a hard line. After a moment of silence, though, he seemed to abandon the idea of counterattack. “I was talking about parasites like the Turners.”

  “Let’s go, Natalie,” Ed said. “I’m not listening to this.”

  “I want you to stay,” Tom said. “I need to talk to you.”

  But Ed grabbed their coats from the brass rack and pulled the door open for his wife. “Come out to our house anytime,” he told Tom.

  Then they were gone.

  Damn it. He wasn’t likely to get the two brothers together again and mad enough to air the family’s dirty linen in front of a cop.

  But Robert was willing to keep talking. When the door closed, he went on, “She turned my grandparents’ fine old house into a pigsty. The yard was full of dog turds. You couldn’t walk through the door without gagging on the smell of cat piss. She was always dragging strays home with her. It got to the point where people were leaving boxes full of kittens and puppies on the doorstep.”

  Tom thought of Holly, Pauline’s niece, who obviously shared her aunt’s love of animals. “So you think Adam was forced to lower his standards?”

  “He certainly wasn’t raised to live that way. Our mother was appalled.”

  “She didn’t like Pauline either?”

  Robert’s mouth worked as if he were shifting around something too sour to swallow. “Not at first.”

  “Oh? You mean your mother changed her mind?”

  The words came out as a grudging admission. “She learned to tolerate the woman because of the child.”