“I would think they’d find us a popular topic of conversation. On the other hand, maybe there’s some confidentiality code of ethics among process servers. Then again, I imagine their religious differences are a more hot topic of conversation between them.”
“Why do you say that? They’re both Baptists, aren’t they? Didn’t I hear him say his brother goes to . . . what . . . Kingswell Baptist?”
“Broach is Baptist, Timon is Primitive Baptist. They don’t hold the same beliefs by a long shot.” She stood up, brushing her hands together. “I’m not sure we’re going to find out as much as I’d hoped from these graves. Most of the stones are unreadable.”
“Are there other cemeteries in the area with graves this old?” Lewis asked.
“The survey found none in the immediate area. There are old ones in the Smoky Mountain Park, but they’re connected with settlements there. The survey doesn’t say where in the cove the Foutes lived, or any of the other families, for that matter. This cove has really gone unnoticed. I think it would be fun to survey the entire cove, not just the Gallows farmstead.”
Lindsay and Lewis went from stone to stone, writing down as many names and dates as they could make out from the years of weathering. Before driving away, Lindsay stopped and thanked Elder Moore and asked him if there were any other old cemeteries in the cove. He knew of none.
“Let’s stop and eat before we go back to the site,” Lewis said, “or does Mrs. Laurens make lunch as well?”
“Nope. We’re on our own at lunch. We usually fix ourselves a sandwich, grab an apple.” Lindsay drove in the direction of the diner.
“Did we learn anything this morning?” asked Lewis.
“I don’t know. Nothing I saw on the stones struck me. I wonder if there are other private cemeteries in the cove, similar to the one at the Gallows farmstead. I’ll ask Drew if the survey team found any other homesteads. I’ll be a little surprised if they didn’t. Hope Foute’s diary mentioned several families.”
They stopped at Ellie’s Diner and ate a quick lunch. Lindsay looked over the list of names from the gravestones as they ate. Still, nothing stood out. Something, though, tugged at the back of her mind. Lewis paid for the meal and they climbed into Lindsay’s Explorer.
“I may have wasted our time,” she said, turning the key in the ignition. “I’m not sure what I thought . . .”
She looked at the blue-green digital display as the tape player activated. Just as the engine started, a tape began to play—Every Breath You Take, by the Police. Lindsay stared at the tape player, unmoving. When Sting came to the words “I’ll be watching you,” she hit the eject button.
“I don’t remember that being on when we stopped.” Lewis looked at the dash and over at Lindsay. “Lindsay, are you all right? Lindsay?”
She didn’t move. Her eyes were fixed on the tape, half out of the tape slot, like someone sticking his tongue out at her. She felt Lewis shake her shoulder.
“Lindsay, are you all right?”
“They did this.” Her words came out a tearful whimper.
“Who?”
“I don’t know who. If I knew, I would . . . I don’t know who.”
“Are you saying this isn’t your tape? Someone put this here while we were eating? Could it be a prank?”
A prank. That’s what she thought about the torn page. Who would do such a thing? Claire? She had been acting a little strange the last day or two. It was subtle, but something had changed in the new rapport they shared. Trent? He was gone. Wasn’t he? She thought of the whiff of marijuana at the party. Could that have been Trent? What would he be doing lurking around?
She was overcome with nausea. “I’m going to be sick.”
She opened her door, jumped out of her truck and leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the vehicle, trying to breathe normally.
“Here.” Lewis handed her a glass of water. She hadn’t noticed that he had gone inside. He had left her alone and gone inside.
“Thanks.” Her hand shook as she took a sip.
Lewis scanned the parking lot, the woods, the highway. “I don’t see anyone,” he said.
After a minute, the nausea passed and she climbed back into the driver’s seat. Lewis returned the glass to the diner and got back in.
“You want to go to the sheriff’s office?”
“Yes. Maybe there are prints on the tape.”
“I can drive if you want.”
“No. I can drive.” She started the engine and put it in reverse. “You know what really makes me mad? I like that song. When we were competing, Derrick choreographed a dance to it. It was fun, and we won. I have good memories about it. Damn them, damn them to hell. It wasn’t enough for them to take away all my memories for a time, now they’re corrupting the ones I have.”
She backed out of the parking place and headed toward Kelley’s Chase. Lewis sat in silence as she drove, his brow knitted in a worried frown.
“I wonder why they’re doing this,” he said when they were almost to the sheriff’s office.
“What do you mean?”
“Why frighten you and not try and not . . . finish what they started? This exposes them. Someone could have seen them in the parking lot at the diner, or ripping the page from the library book.”
Lindsay slowed down. “I should have asked at the diner.”
“I asked when I went to get the water. No one saw anything,” said Lewis.
Lindsay pulled up to the sheriff’s office and delivered the tape in a sandwich baggie she found in her trash bag.
“You say someone put this in your SUV while you were in Ellie’s?”
“Yes. And no one there saw anything.”
“It may be just a prank, but I’ll have it fingerprinted. Maybe something will turn up. In the meantime, do you think anyone you work with could be doing this?”
Lindsay shrugged, reluctant to accuse. She wished she had an answer. She wished he had an answer.
“Perhaps this Drew woman?” suggested the sheriff.
“We’ll see if anyone left the site,” said Lewis. Neither mentioned Trent. To mention Trent would be to mention his drugs, and that was a can of worms both of them wanted to stay closed.
“I don’t have enough deputies to give you protection,” said the sheriff.
“We’ll be having people from the army come to the site tomorrow,” said Lewis. “I’ll see that she gets protection.”
“I’ll see what I can do with this. Don’t get your hopes up.”
On the way out, Lindsay saw a partial headline in the newspaper. Nigel had identified his two hikers. Perhaps she should go home and allow Nigel to examine the bones. That might be best. Maybe that’s what they wanted, why they were scaring her and not trying to kill her. Maybe if she went home, she’d be safe.
Lindsay started to let Lewis drive back. She felt defeated, tired, and depressed. But she climbed into the driver’s side—more from force of habit.
“You can’t let them win,” said Lewis.
“They are winning.”
“No, they aren’t.”
“You’ve spoken with Drew. Do you think she could be involved?” Lindsay asked.
“I don’t know. Then again, I’m not a particularly good judge of murderer personality types. Do you think she may be behind this, to get you to stop investigating the Tidwell thing?”
Lewis looked tired, too, Lindsay noticed. He ran his fingers through his windblown black hair to get it out of his face. Was he worried, too?
“Or, maybe they don’t want me to clear her. Or, it may be something else—Trent or Claire getting even for whatever, and just using what happened to me because they know they can scare me with it. Claire’s away from the site today.”
Lewis raised his eyebrows. “So she is. I’ll talk with her when we get back.”
“I’ll talk with her. You’d probably just make her break down in tears. Do you know Drew’s husband?”
“No. Drew hasn’t said much about
him. Why?”
“I don’t know. He called this morning, and I answered the phone. I didn’t like him.”
“Any particular reason?”
“No, not really. He just seemed self-important. I was just thinking. Maybe I should go back to Georgia. You can get Nigel to examine the bones. Get Kerwin to come up here. Historical archaeology is his field, anyway.”
“The people are coming tomorrow. You can do it. Didn’t your mother teach you to get back on your horse after you fall off?”
Lindsay looked over at him, made a face, and started the Explorer.
The crew were still working at the site. When Lindsay stopped to let Lewis out, she counted heads—they were all there, except Claire. Even Marina, who usually worked in the tent on the artifacts, was helping out with the preparations.
She drove up to the house and parked her SUV. As she got out, seeing the crew’s cars, she had an idea. She went to each one and touched the hood to see if any were warm. They were all cold, even Bill and Sharon’s, who had driven from their motel early that morning—all except Adam’s. His had a faint lingering warmth. Adam was one of the last persons she would suspect of a prank, or worse. It very well could have been innocent, probably was. There wasn’t a law against leaving the site. She could ask him. And say what: Adam, I couldn’t help noticing that your engine was warm—where’ve you been? Lose any tapes?”
She walked up the steps and into the house. Passing the closed door to the guys’ room, she realized the house was empty; everyone was at the site. She made a sharp turn and tried the doorknob, then went in.
Chapter 26
Two Ghosts
THE ROOM WAS a mess. Four mattresses were arranged like the last four petals of a flower, using the four walls as headboards. The bedclothes were rumpled. One mattress, Byron’s, Lindsay guessed from the Grateful Dead T-shirt visible on top, had clothes heaped on it in a tangled pile. Each mattress had a suitcase or duffel bag nearby. There were few other possessions in the room. Like Lindsay, everyone kept their valuables locked in their vehicles.
She went to Byron’s mattress first. She took the ballpoint pen clipped to her T-shirt and gently rifled through the pile on the bed. She resisted the temptation to go through his pockets. She had to draw the line somewhere. She moved to each piece of luggage, going through its contents by lifting items with the pen, trying to leave things as she found them, feeling extremely ashamed of herself. Occasionally, she peeked out the one window that wasn’t boarded up to see if anyone was coming.
She found nothing. What did she expect? She wasn’t sure what she was even looking for—something incriminating, suggestive, what? Who had tapes? None that she remembered. When they had music it came from CDs on Powell’s player, which he kept locked in his trunk. Lindsay sighed and turned to leave the room. She gasped.
Someone was standing in the doorway. An explanation quivered on her lips when she recognized the man with honey-colored long hair she had seen on the porch. Behind him stood the woman she had seen in the mirror. A scream stuck in her throat, choking her. She started to sink to her knees, and the couple vanished.
She was motionless, half kneeling on the floor, breathing hard, heart pounding, shaking with fear. Slowly, she stood and made her way to the door, grasping the frame for support.
Oh, God. What was that? Ghosts? Insanity?
She ran up the stairs to her room and closed the door. A suffocating darkness sucking the warmth from her body. Cold, dizzy, and sick, she collapsed on her bed, gasping for air, lost in utter panic with nothing to hold on to. She felt her memory slipping away.
Grasp something. Get back on the horse. She barely heard her inner voice calling from a distance. Hold on to something before you’re whisked away. Hold on to what? Some strong anchor, a strong root to who you are.
She heard her father’s voice spring out of the darkness. The admonition that “perhaps you can’t control what you feel, but you damn well can control your behavior.”
On shaky legs she rose from the bed, feeling as if she had just run a marathon.
“This has to stop,” she said aloud.
This isn’t going to be my life.
She looked at her watch. Whatever kind of panic attack this was, it had lasted about five minutes. She looked out the window toward the site. The crew were still working. She couldn’t see the entire site, but she thought everyone was there.
Maybe she should just take a nap. Rest. She was so tired.
No. Rest later. Get back on the horse.
She looked around the room. Drew’s things. Her suitcase contained nothing but preppy-looking clothes and a couple of paperbacks. She flipped through them. Nothing. What did she expect? A secret message? Drew’s makeup case contained the expected personal items, nothing more.
She skipped Lewis’s room and went to the one that Marina, Kelsey, and Erin shared. Marina’s and Kelsey’s areas were tidy. Erin was a bit messy. Feeling less guilty—nothing like stark-raving fear to push guilt aside—she searched their luggage in the same manner she had the guys’. Nothing but clothes, books, stationery, makeup, perfume—normal stuff. In Kelsey’s she found a bottle of raspberry massage oil and felt her guilt coming back. What was she doing invading their privacy like this? She’d hate it if they did it to her.
The closet contained nothing but a couple of dresses on wire hangers. The top shelf was empty. Like the guys, they kept only the necessities in the house. She really needed to search the cars. Good luck trying to manage that, she told herself.
The storeroom door was locked. She wished she had acquired lock-picking skills. So far she had found nothing.
She had left the attic and basement for last—if she were caught, it would be much easier to give a plausible reason for being there than if she were caught in someone’s room. She went back in her room for a flashlight and stood a long moment at the foot of the stairs to the attic before ascending.
Go. You can’t spend the rest of your life with hallucinations, flashbacks, panic attacks, and looking over your shoulder.
She forced her legs to carry her up the stairs and through the door. The attic was a large rectangular room situated over the mid-section of the house. Several doors led off the main room to storage areas where the slanted roof had reduced the useful headroom. The attic was completely empty, except for a brightly colored tropical-flowered curtain over the door to one of the storage rooms under the eave. She pulled back the curtain and revealed a mattress neatly made up with a white chenille bedspread. Kelsey and Powell. She smiled and dropped the curtain.
Out a front window of the attic she surveyed the site to see if the crew were still working. They were. She looked at her watch. They should be at it for another half hour. Probably longer if Lewis was there. He had a knack for getting overtime out of any crew.
Lindsay went down the stairs, heading straight for the basement. The door leading down to the basement was off the first-floor reception hall. She’d passed it many times but had never opened it, even to take a look. As she reached for the knob, her heart beat faster.
Now what? Calm down. It’s just the psychological reaction to the thought of entering a strange dark basement.
This was where Dillon had found Trent’s drug paraphernalia. Perhaps there were other things down there. She certainly hadn’t found anything in the rest of the house. She opened the door.
The stairs were the kind she hated. Why did builders skimp on basement stairs? They were steep, without solid risers, the kind of steps you might wedge a leg under if you slipped. The handrails were also missing. She shone her light into the darkness and started down, hoping she wouldn’t have a dizzy spell, hallucinate, or otherwise go berserk.
She stopped and sucked in a lungful of air at the bottom. The basement was pitch-black except for where she shone her flashlight. It was kind of like a cave. She shivered. Like most basements with dirt floors, it was earthy smelling. She stopped, stooped, and brushed the earth with her fingers. It was hard-packed
reddish-brown soil. She was glad someone hadn’t covered it over with flooring. Archaeologists can do a lot with dirt floors.
Just a few feet in front of her was the old furnace that once heated the house. Years earlier someone had converted the chimney of the fireplace in the main reception hall into a flu to vent the smoke and fumes from the basement cast-iron furnace. She examined the floor leading to it before she walked across the dirt. There was a vague muddle of tracks, probably Dillon’s and Trent’s, at least.
She walked to the furnace and opened the door, shining her light on the inside. If she expected anything like charred bones, she was disappointed. It was empty. Not even ash.
The basement was rather small, compared to the floor space of the house. She walked back and forth along it, looking at the ground. There were signs of activity, but nothing that suggested itself as a clue.
Several wooden skids leaned against the front wall next to a rickety door. Probably where fuel was brought in for the furnace from outside. She was reaching for the knob of the door when she heard voices. She jumped back and put a hand over her mouth, but the voices weren’t behind the door. They seemed all around her. Her heart raced. It’s going to wear out, she thought as she held her chest. She slowly turned and shone a beam of light around the room. It was empty.
Don’t let me be hearing things on top of everything else.
She heard the voices again. No words, but one sounded male and the other female. She wasn’t sure, but the quality of the tone sounded like Lewis. An oval of her light rested on the furnace. Of course. She walked back over and opened the door. If she remained very quiet she could just make out what sounded like Lewis making dinner arrangements with someone else. Next, she heard footfalls going up the stairs.
She shone the flashlight above her and saw the metal ducts that had carried the hot air from the furnace throughout the house. That’s where the voices were coming from. If voices could be heard down here, she bet they would carry from the basement upward. She thought of Sharon and the voices she had heard and wondered if the house had been empty that day after all. If someone, more than one someone, had been in the basement.
Airtight Case Page 24