Disturbing the Dead

by Sandra Parshall

  “Pauline and Adam’s daughter?”

  Robert’s short laugh held bitterness and derision. “Well, she was Pauline’s daughter, anyway.”

  Tom frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Draw your own conclusions.”

  “Consider me dense, Mr. McClure. You’ll have to spell it out.”

  “My mother accepted Mary Lee as her granddaughter, but I never believed she was Adam’s child. And no, I don’t have any proof, if you’re about to ask. Maybe you should be looking for Mary Lee’s real father. There’s probably quite a tale to be told about Pauline’s secret life. You might find her killer if you take the trouble to find out what kind of woman she really was.”

  “Did you tell my father you believed Adam wasn’t Mary Lee’s father?”

  “Of course I did.”

  Tom couldn’t have overlooked or forgotten something as explosive as Robert McClure’s allegation. The information simply wasn’t in the case records. Why would his father leave it out? Whom had he been protecting?

  Chapter Thirteen

  If anybody knew the truth about Pauline’s daughter, Reed Durham would.

  After leaving the bank, Tom turned left and walked up Main Street through swirling snow flurries to the law office of Durham & McCullough. Durham had been Pauline’s attorney and confidant and he still represented Mary Lee in a limited way.

  He had also been a good friend to Tom’s father and was Tom’s boss for a few weeks, ten years before. During the last summer of Pauline McClure’s life, Tom was a University of Virginia student between his sophomore and junior years, undecided about his future. Law seemed the most attractive possibility, and he’d taken a job with Durham & McCullough to learn more about the profession. Never before or since had he endured such unrelieved tedium. When he headed back to school in early September, his biggest worry had been the choice of a career alternative. His father, at the same time, was falling into the grip of an obsession with Pauline’s disappearance.

  Hoping the exercise would clear the painkiller fog from his head, Tom passed up the office building’s ancient elevator in favor of four flights of stairs.

  When he walked in, the three female employees greeted him with a chorus of concern. Tom held up his free hand to silence them. “I’m okay, I’m fine.” He turned to Debbie Schiller, the pretty receptionist with long wheat-colored hair. She was Brandon’s fiancée. “I’m glad Brandon wasn’t hurt.”

  To Tom’s dismay, her blue eyes filled with tears and her lower lip quivered. “Me too. When he told me about it, I nearly fainted.” Forcing a smile, she added, “I guess I have to grow some backbone if I’m going to be a policeman’s wife.”

  Tom was trying to come up with something reassuring to say when Reed Durham threw open his office door. “Hey, Tommy. Come on in, son.” Despite the early hour, he already looked a mess. The tail of his blue shirt ballooned from his waistband and emphasized a spreading middle, his sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and his gray-streaked brown hair spilled across his forehead. “How’re you feeling? You caught the bastard yet?”

  “Not yet. But we will.”

  Durham ushered him into a room that looked more like a sportsman’s den than an office. Durham’s grandest trophy, a mounted marlin his wife wouldn’t allow in their home, took up most of one wall. Smaller mounted fish swam across the opposite wall, next to framed degrees and the same sort of civic association awards Robert McClure displayed. Among the family photos on the credenza behind the desk was an eight-by-ten shot of Durham and Tom’s father, grinning with fake pride as they held up two tiny bass.

  “Here you go.” Durham snagged a set of keys from his cluttered desktop and tossed them to Tom. “I’ll leave it to you to figure out which key fits which lock. The house has been broken into a couple of times, and I’ve had enough extra locks installed to keep out squatters. I hope and pray Mary Lee will finally sell it now. I never thought I’d still be looking after the place at this late date.”

  Tom jingled the ring of keys. Eight or nine, at least. He stashed them in his pants pocket.

  Durham scooped a handful of darts from a drawer, walked around the desk and took aim at the target on the inside of his door. He scored a bull’s-eye.

  Tom took a few darts from Durham. His own shot landed outside the center of the target. “You’re better at this than I’ll ever be.”

  “Ah, but you’re a better marksman. I wish I could handle a gun the way you do.” As soon as the words were out, Durham grimaced. “Oops. Sorry.”

  Tom laughed. “I wish I could say you oughta see the other guy, but I never got a shot off.” He unbuttoned his uniform jacket to lessen the pressure on his throbbing wound. The jacket, which he’d dug out of a storage box, had originally belonged to his brother and was a little tight around Tom’s more muscular shoulders and upper arms.

  Durham hit the bull’s-eye again. Tom’s second dart landed closer, on the center ring but not inside it. Durham collected all the darts from the board and offered half to Tom.

  “I had an interesting talk with Robert McClure before I came here,” Tom said.

  “Oh, man. I can imagine.” This time Durham’s aim was off, and his shot landed in one of the outer rings. “I don’t get the stink of bile coming off you, so I guess you managed to duck when he started spewing it out.”

  “He told me Mary Lee isn’t Adam’s daughter.”

  Durham grunted. “Singing his favorite refrain.”

  Tom struck the bull’s-eye with his dart, and laughed in surprise. “Do you believe she’s Adam’s daughter?”

  “Of course she is.” Durham’s next shot missed the board and the dart struck the door with a thunk. “Well, damn,” he muttered. “Robert thought a woman like Pauline, from her background, well, she had to be the kind who’d run around on her husband. It was all lies. Robert was trying to get something he wasn’t entitled to.”

  Tom tended to believe Durham, but he needed more information before making up his mind about the kind of woman Pauline was. “Adam never had any doubt that Mary Lee was his daughter?”

  “No. He was crazy about her, called her his little princess. The child made his mother ecstatic. Adam was her favorite son, and before Pauline came along she’d just about despaired of him ever settling down and having kids. Too bad she died so soon after Adam did. The two of them kept Robert in check. With her gone, Robert went after Pauline like a cat after a bird.”

  “Tell me about the challenge to Adam’s will.”

  “It was the worst thing I’ve ever been through as a lawyer. I’m not cut out for nasty court fights.” Durham turned away from the dart board and moved to his desk. He plopped into his capacious chair, the black leather squeaking under his weight.

  Leaning against an oak file cabinet, Tom asked, “How did Ed feel about what Robert was doing?”

  “Totally against it.”

  “How close were Ed and Pauline?”

  Durham’s jaw tensed and his gaze shifted to the sky beyond the window. “They were friendly.”

  The same uninformative statement Tom had heard from Mary Lee, with the same undercurrent of something unspoken. He debated whether to pursue the subject and decided to save his questions about a possible affair for Ed McClure. He wandered to the big marlin on the wall and gazed into one of its glass eyes. “Robert became president of the bank when Adam died, right?”

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t satisfied. He wanted everything—the money and land their parents left to Adam, the very house Pauline lived in.”

  Tom turned away from the fish. “What made him think he could keep Pauline from inheriting her husband’s estate?”

  “Robert claimed she was drugging Adam right from the start, so he wasn’t responsible for his actions when he married her or when he wrote his will.”

  “What?” Tom said with a startled laugh. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh, yeah. Robert even suggested, never came right out and sa
id it, but suggested real strongly that she might’ve killed Adam.”

  Tom’s amusement faded. None of this was in the case record either. He stepped over to the window and watched snowflakes blow against the glass and melt into rivulets. What else had his father left out of the file? And why? He looked back at Durham. “How was she supposed to have killed him?”

  “Oh…” Durham waggled his hands. “Some poison that could cause a heart attack, but no test could detect it. It was crazy. Adam had a plain old garden-variety coronary, like his father before him. They both died fairly young.” He laughed. “With any luck, Robert will too.”

  Tom sat in a burgundy leather chair facing the desk. “Robert says Pauline was Melungeon trash, and she dragged Adam down to her level. He claims their house was a pigsty, with all those animals in it.”

  “The goddamn son of a—” The rest of Durham’s words strangled in his throat. He drew a deep breath before he spoke again. “Pauline was the sweetest, most softhearted girl I ever met. And Robert’s a fussy little old lady. Pauline’s house was always clean. She had her housekeeper in to do the place top to bottom three times a week.”

  “Do you think Robert could’ve killed Pauline?” Tom asked, putting aside the mystery of the unidentified second victim for the moment. “Is he capable of it?”

  With a wry smile, Durham said, “I can’t see him getting his hands dirty. I doubt he takes out his own garbage.”

  “He could have hired somebody.”

  “Like O’Dell, you mean?” Durham shrugged. “It’s a thought.”

  “Her killing looks like something personal.” Tom absently rubbed his aching arm. “The house wasn’t robbed. I don’t see how anybody benefited financially except Mary Lee, and she had to wait seven years to inherit. The other skull we found makes me think there’s some angle nobody’s even considered.”

  “You’ll have a hell of a job running it down after all this time.” Durham shook his head and hair spilled across his brow again.

  “I’d better get going.” Tom rose. “I told Brandon to pick me up out front right about now. Pauline’s housekeeper’s meeting us at the house.”

  “Lila Barker? Oh, lord.” Durham frowned and laughed at the same time. “I doubt you’ll get anything useful out of her.”

  “She probably spent more time with Pauline than anybody else. She might remember something she didn’t tell my dad.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but…” Durham rubbed his face with both hands as if fighting sudden exhaustion. “Just don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “Somebody else told me the same thing. I still don’t know what I’m being warned about.”

  “Just be careful, Tom. You never know what’ll jump up and bite you on the ass if you turn over the wrong rock.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The little brown and white mutt trembled on the steel examining table. Rachel stroked his head and murmured, “It’s okay, Teddy, it’s okay.”

  He seemed oblivious to her reassuring touch. He looked neither at Rachel nor at Holly by her side, but fixed his eyes on his owner, an elderly man named Johnson.

  “He pees all over the house,” Johnson said. “Since my wife died, he won’t mind me at all.”

  At the sound of his master’s angry voice, the dog shuddered under Rachel’s hand and curled his tail between his legs.

  A faint whimper escaped Holly. When Rachel glanced at her, the girl’s eyes were filled with tears. Oh, no. Holly had done well all morning, observing silently, getting a feel for the work, helping in little ways when Rachel gave half a dozen cats and dogs routine exams and vaccines. But maybe exposing her to an animal in trouble was too much for her first day.

  The dog’s problem was obvious, but if Rachel stated it baldly the man would take offense. “He’s an old animal,” she said, “and he spent his entire life as your wife’s pet. I’m sure in his own way he misses her as much as you do.” Rachel imagined dog and man in an all-too-quiet house, each isolated in his grief.

  “She called him her baby.” Johnson’s voice thickened, and his eyes grew moist behind his glasses.

  “Are you disciplining him?”

  “I give him a little tap so he’ll know he’s done something wrong.”

  “You hit him?” Holly asked in a horrified voice. “No wonder he’s scared to death of you.”

  Johnson’s face went red with outrage.

  “Anybody who’d hit a little animal—”

  “Holly,” Rachel said, “please go wait for me in my office.”

  Holly clapped a hand over her mouth, threw Rachel a teary apologetic look, and fled from the room.

  “I’m just trying to make him behave,” Johnson protested.

  His harsh tone brought on wild tremors in the dog. Rachel pulled the animal against her, hoping the gentle contact would help. “He doesn’t understand why you’re punishing him. All he knows is that the person he loved all his life has disappeared. He has no one but you now, and he probably thinks you hate him.”

  Johnson’s expression shifted from indignation to confusion. He reached out to the dog. The animal pressed against Rachel and issued a string of frantic whines. “My lord,” Johnson said.

  Rachel suppressed a sigh and began her education of the dog’s owner. Johnson’s resistance melted and he began to listen to her. When he left she was satisfied the dog’s life would be better from now on.

  Glad to have the busy morning behind her, Rachel went looking for Holly. She found the girl in the office, standing at the window and watching Johnson cross the parking lot with his dog tucked under his arm. Holly turned reluctantly. Like the little mutt, she seemed to cringe in anticipation of a blow. “Are you gonna fire me?”

  “Of course not.”

  Holly’s shoulders slumped with relief. This job, and all it represented, meant so much to her. Rachel would find a way to help her thrive here, even if it meant giving her lessons in courtesy and self-restraint.

  “The dog’s going to be all right,” Rachel said. “But what would have happened to him if we’d made the owner mad enough to walk out without listening to me?”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Goddard.” Holly’s fingers plucked at the green polo shirt that was part of her employee uniform. “I couldn’t help myself. I can’t stand to see somebody hurtin’ a little animal.”

  “I understand.” Rachel leaned against her desk. “When I was a kid, I’d ring the neighbors’ doorbells and lecture them about keeping their cats indoors so they wouldn’t be killed by cars.”

  Holly’s laugh came out in a delighted gust. “I did stuff like that, too. But my grandma said—” Her face sobered. “She made me stop.”

  “My mother made me stop too,” Rachel said, smiling although the memory was a bitter one. “You’ve got the right instincts, but I’ve learned there are better ways to make people listen than by accusing them.”

  Holly nodded. “I won’t do anything like that again, I promise.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Rachel pushed away from the desk. “Will you clean the exam table so it’ll be ready when—”

  Raised voices from the outer office interrupted her. Shannon, at the front desk, said, “Sir, please, you’ll have to wait till—”

  “Get out of my way!” a man shouted. “I’ll find her myself.”

  Rachel froze. Fear hit her like a punch, took away her breath. She’d heard those same words so many times in her memory, in her nightmares, that for a moment she was thrown back into the past, where a wild-eyed young man with a pistol had come looking for her.

  “It’s Uncle Jack!” Holly cried, backing against a wall.

  Rachel forced her mind to the present and clenched her hands to stop their shaking. It was just another of Holly’s crazy relatives. She could deal with this. She could.

  Shannon cried, “Dr. Goddard!”

  Rachel raced out to the reception area. Shannon stood next to the desk, both hands raised to stop the
stocky man who leaned menacingly over her.

  “Can I help you, sir?” Rachel asked.

  He faced her, his hands curling into fists. He was probably in his fifties, with sun-weathered skin and graying black hair, but he looked fit enough to do some damage.

  “I come to get Holly and take her home,” he said. “This girl says she’s in the office. Where is it?”

  “What’s your name, please?”

  Shannon scooted back behind the desk.

  “Jack Watford. Holly’s uncle. Her grandma wants Holly back home right now.”

  What on earth was wrong with these people? Why were they so determined to hold on to Holly? “She’s an adult, Mr. Watford. She can make her own choices, and she’s chosen to work here.”

  “I’m takin’ her home. Now where’s the office?” Rachel was about to answer when Watford threw back his head and bellowed, “Holly! You come out here right now!”

  “Call the police,” Rachel told Shannon, “and tell them we have an intruder causing a disturbance.” The Mountainview City Police had only one officer, Lloyd Jarrett, on duty during weekdays, and he was probably nodding off at his desk right now.

  “You don’t have to call the police,” Holly said from the office doorway. “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  Oh, God. Why didn’t Holly have the sense to stay out of sight?

  “Come on,” Watford said, “let’s go home. I’ll come back and pick up your stuff.”

  Holly shuffled forward, arms wrapping her waist, her head down.

  Behind the desk, Shannon spoke into the phone, summoning help.

  “Holly,” Rachel said, “do you want to stay here or do you want to go back to your grandmother’s house? Tell me the truth.”

  When Holly raised her head, her cheeks were wet with tears. “You know I want to stay here. But—”

  “Then it’s settled.” She had to make Holly believe that her own wishes mattered, that she didn’t have to wait meekly for other people to decide her fate. Rachel told Watford, “You have your answer. I want you to leave.”