Disturbing the Dead

by Sandra Parshall

  Laughing, most of the deputies filed out. Brandon hung back.

  Tom didn’t want anyone else to hear what he had to say to the sheriff. “Would you go call the lab for me?” he asked Brandon. “They promised this morning they’d put a rush on the bones, and I want to make sure they’re following through.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brandon barked, the words sounding like a salute. “I’ll get right on it.” Tom could see him fighting to hold back an ear-to-ear grin. Giving orders to the crime lab was a responsibility that hadn’t come his way before.

  “Don’t be too rough on them,” Tom said to his back. When Brandon was gone, Tom turned to Willingham. “Shackleford and O’Dell look pretty good as suspects, but I’m not going after them blindly and risk overlooking other people who had motives. Her own relatives, and the McClures—”

  “The McClures? Good lord. I grant you they’re snobs and Pauline had her problems with them, but kill her? I doubt it.”

  “I’m not ruling anybody out, and I don’t think my dad did either. He must have put together a lot of very personal information about all these people. But what’s happened to it? Why am I finding big gaps in the case file?”

  Willingham drew back, his jaw forming a rigid line, his eyes wary. He’d snapped into fight or flight mode and seemed to be leaning toward flight. If he tried to walk out without answering, Tom was ready to block the way. The old man was hiding something Tom needed to know, and Tom wanted to find out why even more than what.

  In the end, Willingham chose to stand his ground and bluster his way through. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What gaps? How can you tell something’s missing if you don’t know what it is?”

  “I do know. Some of it, anyway. Why can’t I find a single word in the records about Robert McClure claiming Mary Lee isn’t Adam’s child?”

  “Oh, God almighty.” Willingham sighed. “It’s got nothing to do with the case—”

  “The hell it doesn’t,” Tom said. “It gives more than one person a motive. And I don’t see anything in the file about Pauline’s relationships with other men. Ed McClure, for example.” He couldn’t bring himself to mention his father, and that made him feel as weak as the sheriff.

  “Nothing but nasty gossip,” Willingham protested.

  “No,” Tom said. “It’s what we call a lead in a homicide investigation.”

  Willingham’s face darkened to a dangerous shade of red. “You’d better let me hear a little more respect in your voice. I’m your superior officer, and don’t you forget it.”

  Tom choked back an angry reply. This wasn’t the way to get what he wanted. “If I’m going to solve Pauline’s murder, if I’m going to find out who the second woman was, I need to know everything. How much is missing from the file and what happened to it?”

  Willingham turned away, rubbing a hand across his mouth and jaw. From experience Tom knew the sheriff wanted to pull his thoughts together, formulate an answer. It drove Tom crazy, but all he could do was wait out the process and hope he’d get the truth.

  At last Willingham spoke, without looking at Tom. “I did it myself. After your dad died.”

  “What?” Tom stepped around to face the sheriff. “Why?”

  Willingham wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t want sensitive stuff laying around.”

  “It’s a criminal case file. It’s supposed to contain sensitive information. Why would you—” Tom searched for a word. “—cull it? You can’t erase what happened, what people said, by destroying a few pieces of paper.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you about it.” Willingham made for the door.

  In three quick strides Tom got between the sheriff and the doorway. “What did you take out?”

  Willingham threw up his hands in surrender. “You already guessed it. Robert McClure thinking Mary Lee wasn’t Adam’s daughter.”

  “A lot of people already know Robert believes that. What harm does it do to have it in the case file?”

  The sheriff looked back at him in stubborn silence.

  “Tell me, for God’s sake! Don’t you want those murders solved? What the hell are you holding back?”

  Willingham took a long moment to answer. “Robert’s right. She’s not Adam’s daughter.”

  “Then who— How did— What—” The words fell over each other as they tumbled out of Tom’s mouth.

  Willingham raised a hand to stop him. “I don’t know who her real father is—or was. All I know is what your dad wrote in his notes, and I didn’t read them till after he died.”

  “What else was in his notes that I haven’t seen?” Do I really want to know? Yes. He had to know.

  “He said Robert was right but didn’t have the proof.” Willingham’s eyes held a weary sadness. “Your dad always wanted to protect the girl from Robert, but I didn’t understand till I read the file how much damage the s.o.b. could do to her. I’m not handing him any ammunition. That’s all I can tell you, I swear.”

  Tom stepped away, turned his back on the sheriff. Through the window he saw starlings swoop across the pewter sky, the massive flock expanding and contracting like an airborne school of fish. Why had his father cared so much about Mary Lee? Was she more to him than simply the daughter of a woman he…Tom stopped short of forming the words for what Pauline had been to his father. Mrs. Barker had said John Bridger visited Pauline during the last two or three years of her life. But had their relationship actually begun a long time before?

  ***

  Tom drove through the close-in neighborhoods south of Mountainview and into a landscape of pure country, fields and woods and occasional farmhouses set far back from the road. Ravens picked at the remains of a cornfield that would soon be buried under snow. He drove this route every day, from home to work and back, and he’d let Sheriff Willingham and Brandon believe he was headed home now. But he planned a detour to see Ed McClure. According to the maid he’d spoken to on the phone, “the missus” was at a Junior League committee meeting, but “the doctor” was at home, working with his plants.

  Ed and Natalie McClure’s property wasn’t far from Tom’s, but he lived on a ten-acre sheep farm and they owned a hundred acres of riverside land. Most of it was planted with the apple trees Ed used in his hybridizing projects. Pauline’s house was about five miles from Ed and Natalie’s place. Her body had ended up on a mountaintop at the opposite end of the county.

  A long driveway wound toward the McClure house. In summer, the oaks lining the drive would create an oasis of shade, but today leafless branches arched against a deep gray sky. Tom pulled into a brick-paved parking area that circled a fountain, now drained for winter and collecting snow. The spacious house was a classic plantation manor, built of white brick with columns along a low porch.

  At the front door the McClures’ maid, a middle-aged woman in a ridiculous blue uniform with frilly cuffs and collar, gave Tom directions to the orchard.

  He retrieved his hat from the cruiser to keep the increasingly heavy snow off his head. Pulling up his jacket collar against the wind, he walked around the house, passed a patio and a covered swimming pool, and struck off down a flagstone path through a screen of evergreens. He skirted a tennis court and a stable. These people, he was beginning to think, had too much money and too much leisure time. Beyond the stable loomed a massive greenhouse. Snow coated the roof, and the walls were so steamed-up Tom couldn’t see the plants inside.

  He found Ed McClure at the near end of the apple orchard, squinting at a thermometer mounted on a tree trunk. Beneath the tree sat a square, waist-high object swaddled in a blue blanket. More of these objects, all wrapped, were evenly spaced along the rows of trees. Bee hives? They looked the right shape and size. Tom had honeybees on his farm and he’d never noticed them needing blankets to survive winter.

  “Dr. McClure,” he said as he approached.

  Ed spun around. “My God,” he said, “I guess you really do have Indian blood. I didn’t e
ven hear you.” He could have been mistaken for a local farmer, in his old wool coat, tweed cap, and scuffed boots.

  Tom pulled off a glove and stuck out his hand. “How’re you doing?”

  In response, he got a gloved hand and an indifferent grip.

  “Your bees coming through okay?”

  “I hope so. I depend on them.” Ed cast a distracted glance at the nearest hive.

  “I’m hoping you can clear up a few things about your relationship with Pauline.”

  He expected a pretense of ignorance about his meaning, but Ed said, “I’ve been wondering when you’d show up.”

  Without altering his conversational tone, Tom asked, “Did you two have an affair?”

  No surprise at the question. “Our relationship ended long before she…went missing.” Ed’s sigh caused an eddy in the downward stream of snow. “I still want to think of it that way—she simply disappeared. I can’t believe she was murdered. And in such a vicious way.”

  If he was acting, he was good at it. “Murder’s always vicious,” Tom said. “No matter what the method is.”

  Ed nodded and stared into the distance, where the river flowed dark and wide. “This has been the saddest week of my life.”

  Cold numbed Tom’s cheeks and earlobes but he didn’t want to break Ed’s mournful, reminiscent mood by suggesting they take shelter. “Were you in love with her?”

  “Yes.” The word carried a heavy burden of grief and loneliness.

  “When did you fall in love with her?”

  Ed didn’t answer for a long moment. The silence around them was complete. Snow fell on a darkening world without birdsong or the noises of human activity. At last Ed said, “I was in love with her the instant I first saw her. When she started working at the bank.”

  “Were you married then?”

  “Less than a year. Natalie was pregnant with our first son.”

  “And Pauline married your brother,” Tom said. “But your feelings for her never changed?”

  “No.”

  “You were a married man with two children.” And so was my father.

  “You don’t have to remind me of my obligations,” Ed said.

  “Was she in love with you?”

  “At one time I thought so, but— No. In the end she made it very clear that she didn’t feel the same way I did.”

  “You were hurt. Did you want to hurt her too?”

  Ed’s face went hard with anger. “I didn’t kill Pauline.”

  “If a person’s pushed far enough—”

  “I would never have harmed her in any way,” Ed said, his voice rising. “I’m not capable of it.”

  Tom stepped closer, hoping to see Ed’s face more clearly in the dusky light. “I know Mary Lee isn’t Adam’s daughter. Are you her father?”

  Ed took a step back.

  “A simple yes or no, Dr. McClure.”

  “None of that matters now,” Ed said. “Why are you bringing it up?”

  “I think it might matter a lot. We’ve got something we didn’t have when Mary Lee was a child—DNA testing. We could prove conclusively whether she’s your daughter. Whether she’s a McClure at all.”

  In the bad light, Tom couldn’t read any emotion on Ed’s face. “Are you planning to do tests?” Ed asked.

  “Would you be willing to give a blood sample?”

  “For God’s sake, leave Mary Lee alone! She doesn’t deserve to have this ugly mess dragged up again. I don’t give a damn about myself, but I won’t let you ruin her life. It’s a family matter. I’m telling you to let it be. Do you understand me?”

  He sounded like his obnoxious brother Robert now, spouting orders to a cop. Tom opened his mouth to fire back, but he swallowed the angry words before they escaped. He didn’t want Ed to shut down yet.

  Keeping his voice level, he changed tack. “Robert hated Pauline. He thought she conned Adam into marrying her, then had another man’s baby but ended up with all of Adam’s money. Maybe Robert hated her enough to kill her.”

  Ed’s laugh sounded bitter, scornful. “Robert’s a weakling. He makes a lot of noise, but he lets lawyers do his dirty work. He wouldn’t have killed Pauline because he’d be too afraid of getting caught.”

  Although Robert’s hatred of Pauline seemed to make him a solid suspect, Tom tended to agree with Ed. Robert didn’t have the guts to commit murder. Tom asked, “How did your wife feel about your affair with Pauline? She knew about it, didn’t she?”

  Ed paced several feet to the right and for a second Tom thought he was walking off. Tom followed and almost bumped into him when Ed turned.

  “Yes, Natalie knew. What are you getting at?”

  “I can understand how she might have felt. If you fathered Pauline’s child, then continued the affair for years— How much can a wife take, after all?”

  “This is utterly absurd,” Ed spat out. “You’ve seen my wife. Do you think she could— could—” He stuttered to a stop.

  “Split Pauline’s head open with an ax?”

  Groaning, Ed stumbled away.

  “Yeah, she could have done it,” Tom said. “Or hired somebody.”

  “I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “If you’re withholding information—”

  “I want you to leave.” Ed strode up the path, shouting back to Tom, “Get off my property.”

  Tom dogged his footsteps all the way to the house, but Ed didn’t speak another word before he entered through the patio door and slammed it in Tom’s face.

  Chapter Nineteen

  One second Holly was standing outside the paddock, watching the chestnut mare, and the next she hoisted herself onto the fence and dropped to the other side.

  “Hey!” Rachel yelled. “What are you doing?” She made a grab for Holly, but the girl eluded her.

  “I’m okay.” Holly fixed her attention on the horse twenty feet away.

  The mare, Marcella, snorted and stamped in the snow.

  “She’ll be all right,” Joanna McKendrick said. Windblown tendrils of strawberry-blonde hair hugged her cheeks. “Just wait and see.”

  “Marcella has the nastiest disposition of any animal I’ve ever encountered,” Rachel said. “And Holly’s never been near a horse in her life.”

  Joanna poked her with an elbow. “Look at that.”

  Rachel watched the little drama in the paddock with amazement and a twinge of envy. Marcella had already abandoned her effort to terrorize Holly into retreat. Rachel could see that Holly was speaking as she approached the mare but couldn’t hear what she said. Three feet from the horse, she pulled off a mitten and extended her hand. Rachel held her breath, waiting for Marcella to chomp off those vulnerable fingers. Marcella snuffled, a curious rather than angry sound. Holly stroked the white blaze on the horse’s forehead.

  “Unbelievable,” Rachel said.

  “This girl has got the magic. She ought to be working with horses.” Joanna turned to Rachel with mischief in her blue eyes. “I could offer her more money.”

  “What kind of friend are you, stealing my staff?”

  Joanna laughed. “Yeah, I know how shorthanded you are. But I’m going to teach her horse care. Maybe she’ll work for me part-time. I could give her a permanent place to live too—I’ve got plenty of room, and I’d enjoy her company. I wouldn’t even mind having a goose in the house, with a few restrictions.”

  At their feet Holly’s goose, Penny, brushed aside snow with her beak to get at the grass underneath. Joanna’s beloved flock of gray geese browsed nearby, but Penny seemed to want nothing to do with them.

  “I don’t think the goose would be your biggest worry if Holly lived with you,” Rachel said. “She’s got some serious problems.”

  “What kind of problems?” Frowning, Joanna edged closer and lowered her voice, even though Holly couldn’t possibly hear her over the cawing of crows in a nearby pecan tree. “Emotional?”

  “Bo
th nights she’s been with me, she’s had awful nightmares. She wakes up screaming. And she talks in her sleep.”

  “About what?”

  “Something to do with her mother.” The night before, Holly’s agitated cries had again drawn Rachel to the door of the girl’s room. She’d stood in the hallway listening. Leave my mama alone! You’re hurtin’ her! Stop it! Unable to bear the panic in Holly’s voice, Rachel had gone in to wake her.

  “Well, if her mother abandoned her when she was little,” Joanna said, “I guess it would leave a mark. But nightmares about it at this late date—”

  “It’s more than that. I haven’t told you everything. Tom Bridger thinks Holly knows something about her aunt’s murder. I promised I’d try to find out what she remembers.”

  “For heaven’s sake, that’s not fair. Tell Tom to do his own work.”

  Rachel shook her head. “No, I’m glad he’s not trying to force anything out of her. She’s too fragile. And I doubt she was an eyewitness to the murder.” She watched Holly stroke Marcella’s neck. “Not her aunt’s murder, anyway.”

  Joanna grasped Rachel’s arm. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m afraid the second skull the police found might belong to Holly’s mother. And Holly’s father might have killed her.”

  ***

  The stale air in his parents’ bedroom reminded Tom of Pauline’s boarded-up house. His footsteps on the braided rug raised a swirl of dust motes. He wasn’t much of a housekeeper even in the rooms he used, and since he never used this one he always left it for his aunts to dust when they showed up for their periodic cleaning blitzes.

  If any evidence existed that his father had an affair with Pauline, Tom didn’t think he’d find it here in the room John Bridger had shared with his wife. He’d come to collect his father’s keys, which might get him into more likely hiding places.

  He wouldn’t take sly looks and innuendoes from people like the Turners and Mrs. Barker as proof of anything. The notion that they’d gotten together to decide on a strategy was too far-fetched to take seriously, but they were all holding something back, possibly trying to set him off on a personal mission so he’d be diverted from the murder investigation.