by R. J. Lee
“I have to hope it goes that way for me, too. At least we won’t have to go it alone, you and I.”
“God forbid.”
After they’d hung up, Wendy made a halfhearted attempt to pick up where she’d left off with her article. But three words kept bugging her. Carly and Hollis. Coupled together just like that. What had triggered that combination in her brain? Yes, the two of them had been at the bridge table with her, but there was something more, and it simply would not surface yet. She decided to let it go for the time being. It was a matter of getting down to the business of her paying job.
CHAPTER 16
Down at the station the next day, Bax summoned Ross to his office and handed over several sheets of a document he had just printed out from his computer. “We finally heard from the ME’s office in Jackson. This report is a doozy, and it’s why you do autopsies under suspicious circumstances and never assume first impressions are always the correct ones.”
Ross took a seat and scanned the first page quickly while moving his lips here and there. When he finally finished, the look on his face was one of utter disbelief, and he said, “My money sure would’ve been on blunt force trauma as the COD just like Tommy Cantwell said.”
“And you would’ve lost big-time.”
Ross put the papers down in his lap and frowned. “But this says the blow from the pestle was postmortem. I didn’t see that coming.”
Bax managed a shrug. “Nope. I didn’t either. But when your lungs are full of water, the logical conclusion is that you drowned.”
Ross was still trying to think everything through. “So the deal is that Brent Ogle was dead when someone clubbed him with the pestle, then.”
“That’s how it reads.”
“Something about that sequence just creeps me out,” Ross said, unable to suppress a shudder.
“It doesn’t do anything for me, either. But I’ve run across even worse things in autopsies.”
“How could you not tell somebody was dead in the water, if you’ll excuse the expression?” Ross said. “Unless . . .” He paused, still trying to envision a scenario that would make sense.
But Bax beat him to the punch. “Unless somebody drowned Brent first, then pulled him up out of the water and laid his head back the way he was found by Wendy and Carly and Hollis. In the darkness under those circumstances, somebody could have come along and clubbed him without realizing he was already dead. That would mean one of our suspects thinks he or she committed murder when they actually didn’t. They would have been trying very hard all this time to disguise their guilt and hide all the turmoil going on inside. They would have been doing quite an acting job all this time.”
“We did consider the possibility that at least two people might be involved in this. Are we back to that, then?” Ross said.
“It seems we are. But I’m leaning toward the proposition that neither of these two people is aware of what the other did,” Bax added. “They weren’t actually a team in the usual sense of the word. That gives us an edge in that we are the only ones who know what the autopsy has revealed, and I think we’ll try to use that information to our advantage.”
“What are you thinking about doing?”
Bax leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully folded his arm on his chest. “Round ’em all up at the RCC and tell ’em about the autopsy. It could trigger relief in whoever used the pestle, and they just might give themselves up, knowing that they no longer committed murder. They’d still be guilty of mutilating a corpse and attempted murder, but either one of those would be better than having killed someone. I’ve seen people lose it before when they’re suddenly given a way out.”
“Sounds like it would be worth a try,” Ross said. “I do have a question, though. Are you gonna tell Wendy about the autopsy results? I know you always pick and choose what you leak to her.”
“I might,” Bax told him. “I’ll think about it.”
“You have to admit she’s been good about sharing things with us that she discovers in her interviews.”
“She has. By the way, do you know her schedule today? I might just drop by the Citizen a little later.”
“Yeah, we texted a little earlier. She’s going out to Brentwood to help Carly Ogle with something about the house. Hollis Hornesby is supposed to help out, too. She said Carly was gonna put it on the market and then leave.”
The news caught Bax by surprise. “Is she now?”
“She and her son David aren’t crazy about Brentwood. They think of it as Brent’s house and not theirs,” Ross explained. “Anyhow, I’m going out to the RCC today to talk to Mitzy Stone about her grandfather, who just happened to be none other than Coach P. J. Doughty. We have Wendy to thank for that bit of information, which she got out of her interview with Mitzy. She had obviously been holding that back all along, so it makes me wonder what else Miz Stone is holding back.”
Bax sat up straight in his chair and snapped his fingers. “Good move. And why don’t I go out there with you? We could round up most of our suspects who’re there and tell ’em all about the autopsy. We could very well catch somebody off guard, as I suggested before.”
After mulling it over a bit, Bax went with his gut and decided to text Wendy about the autopsy. What could it hurt? he figured.
* * *
“How about if I go out with you to Brentwood?” Lyndell was saying to Wendy in her office shortly before lunch break. “I think it would help me get a better feel for how the people of Rosalie think and behave. This town requires a bit of a learning curve, I must say, and I’m just not there yet. I’m fascinated by this idea of picking furniture to keep and let go, particularly letting someone else do it for you.”
“Don’t forget letting someone else pick the art on the walls to keep and toss,” Wendy reminded her. “Something tells me you’ve never met Hollis Hornesby, one of our resident artists, have you?”
“I’ve been meaning to drop by his gallery, but, no, I just haven’t been able to find the time.”
“Well, he’s a hoot and a half.”
“Yes, I forgot about him for a moment. Anyway, when we get back, I’ll treat us to lunch—your choice of restaurant.”
Wendy offered up her brightest smile as Lyndell rose from her chair, grabbed her coat off the nearby rack, and the two of them headed out to the parking lot.
The traffic was unusually heavy as they drove through town in Wendy’s car, particularly at the intersection of Locust and Fort Streets. Perhaps the light was stuck, because it seemed they ended up staring at red for the longest time.
“I absolutely hate this intersection,” Wendy said, nervously tapping the steering wheel with the fingers of her right hand. “It seems like something hairy is always going on here.”
“I’ve noticed that, too. I seriously try to avoid coming this way, if possible,” Lyndell added.
The light finally changed to green, but during the long wait something that had been eluding Wendy bubbled up from deep within her brain. Carly and Hollis. From the day before. She suddenly knew what had finally triggered the interpretation she had been seeking.
Intersection.
Not in the traffic sense. Not in the sense of the one that had just been holding them up for so long and making them antsy and frustrated. The mathematical version. All those higher math courses Wendy had taken at Mizzou while also majoring in journalism were speaking to her now. Particularly the ones that had appealed to her penchant for abstract problem solving. Finite math, specifically.
Unions and sets. It had not been all that long since Wendy had savored such knowledge in a university setting the way other people savored a finely brewed cup of coffee or an after-dinner liqueur. Now her brain was shifting through various gears as she remembered the essence of that kind of intersection:
the union of two sets is a new set . . . new set contains all the elements in both sets . . . called an intersection.
So how did that apply to Carly and Hollis? Why were they such a sour
ce of fascination to her right now?
As she drove along Highway 61 South in silence while Lyndell was enjoying the leaf-turning scenery passing by at a clipped pace, it gradually began to fall into place for Wendy:
Carly and Hollis were two of the four people at the bridge table who had participated in her preempting lesson.
Carly and Hollis were the first two people to discover the body, within a minute of each other, so it seemed.
Carly and Hollis went out to the portico together and had time to discuss whatever was on their minds. Had Brent Ogle been on their minds?
And now Carly and Hollis would be awaiting her—and Lyndell as a tagalong—at Brentwood. Those two, and those two only, comprised the intersection. No one else fit into it that way. And even though it was mathematically correct, something about it all did not feel right to her. Suddenly, Wendy began to feel very grateful that Lyndell had offered to come with her. That sleuthing gift of hers was working overtime. Was she being paranoid or merely cautious? Perhaps a bit of both?
Lyndell finally turned away from viewing the scenery and said, “How much farther is it?”
“Just a few miles. I can picture Brent Ogle insisting his property needed to be a certain distance from town to be referred to as a ‘house in the country,’ though. That would be so gentrified of him, of course. Everything always had to be about him, what he wanted, and nothing else.”
Lyndell adjusted her visor because of the way the sun was slanting in on her face, causing her to squint. Then she said, “I’ve been thinking about your article, of course, and this business about waiting for the case to get solved first does make sense. But I have to ask again, do you really think Deedah Hornesby or Mitzy Stone could have actually murdered Brent Ogle?”
“At this point, I don’t. I have to confess, I’m much more interested in Carly Ogle and Hollis Hornesby right now.”
A hint of concern registered in Lyndell’s face. “Are you implying that we’re on some kind of investigative mission, rather than just helping someone sort out their belongings?”
“I don’t know just yet. It’s this feeling I have, all of a sudden. I may be close to figuring this thing out once and for all, but I’m not sure what’ll come of it.”
Wendy considered the possibility that she might be overreacting to hypothetical and circumstantial factors, but she had rarely gone wrong paying attention to her instincts. She needed to apply the full force of her sleuthing gifts to come up with the solution, and be done with it. Meanwhile, they weren’t very far from turning off onto the gravel road and then down the fledgling alley of immature oaks that led to Brentwood—less than a quarter of a mile away, in fact.
“I have something to tell you,” Lyndell said, turning her way. There was no smile on her face. “I have a permit to carry, and I have a loaded gun right here inside my purse.” She gently patted the cool gray suede of her stylish accessory a couple of times. “My father taught me how to shoot, and I’m quite a good shot, if I do say so myself. I don’t mean to frighten you by saying that, either. I’ve used my gun only once to put a bullet in anything besides at target practice, and it was an armadillo that was digging up my beautiful azaleas when I was living in Little Rock. Still, I keep up my skills by going to the shooting range regularly here in Rosalie.”
The revelation calmed Wendy somewhat, her stomach muscles relaxing a bit, while she lessened her tight grip on the steering wheel; but her knuckles were still on the white side. “I never figured you for an ‘Annie, Get Your Gun’ type. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“I don’t fit stereotypes, that’s for sure. But I’m only going by the sense of urgency I’m getting from you all of a sudden in telling you about it.”
Wendy was feeling even more comfortable with Lyndell by the minute, and they had already bonded significantly in the relatively short time they had been working together. “I’ve never been able to get into guns. It’s the main reason I haven’t joined the police force, much to my father’s disappointment. I’ve told Daddy many times over the years that I like solving puzzles, but not with a gun in my hand—with my brain. At any rate, I’m where I’m supposed to be for the first time in my life—and that’s as an investigative reporter.”
Now they had reached the gravel road, and Wendy turned off onto it. Then she put the car in park and let the engine idle right beside the huge metal mailbox with BRENTWOOD painted red in all caps. “Let’s just wait a few minutes right here. I think I need to settle down before we go any farther.”
“I didn’t expect our outing would be this full of drama. I feel like I’m in one of those TV police shows,” Lyndell said.
“I trust it won’t turn out like that, but I can’t help the fact that my brain is working through a few things.”
During the tension-filled wait, Wendy continued to try to fit every piece of the puzzle that had been presented to her since the first meeting of the Bridge Bunch had begun on that fateful Saturday. She was trying to line everything up carefully—every concept, every supposition, every principle, from preempting to Occam’s Razor to teamwork to the intersection of two sets.
Then, she received a text from her father:
Brent Ogle’s autopsy in; COD not blunt force trauma; Ogle was drowned; blow from pestle postmortem; keep on down low for now; Daddy
Wendy sat stunned, unable to exercise her vocal cords. She needed time to digest it all.
Lyndell studied her face carefully and said, “What’s the matter? Did you get some bad news?”
Mindful of her father’s directive, Wendy thought quickly on her feet. “Nothing really . . . something from Daddy that’s work related. He’s having discipline problems down at the precinct, it seems. He likes to blow off steam from time to time by telling me about it.”
“Sorry to hear that. But I’m sure he’ll be able to handle it, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally meet your father next Saturday. I’ve really been neglecting my social life since I came to Rosalie,” Lyndell told her. “I’ve always been the type of woman where my job came first.”
“Now you know there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You and I, we’re two of a kind.”
But instead of more small talk, what Wendy really wanted to do was get out of the car and go for a long walk in the woods by herself, thinking about the implications of what her father had just texted her. Carly and Hollis were expecting her, however, and she would just have to multi-task, juggling her thoughts about the autopsy while giving the best advice she could on the subject of antiques and other pieces of furniture. Something about it all seemed wildly improbable and out of sync. The image of getting tangled up in an elaborate spider’s web flashed into her head. Was her subconscious trying to warn her?
Nevertheless, she fearlessly put the car in gear and forged ahead, saying nothing further to Lyndell. The sleuth inside was in complete possession of her now, preventing her from seriously considering the possibility that she might be acting in a foolhardy manner. She was driven by visions of solving the case all by herself and all the huzzahs that came with that. She continued to push danger out of her head. After all, she had her gun-toting editor by her side. But none of that stopped her from earnestly working through the puzzle moment by moment. Carly and Hollis had become her internal mantra.
* * *
Ross and Bax had no sooner pulled up into the parking lot of the RCC than Tip Jarvis and Connor James got out of a black SUV two spots to the right of them, dressed in their gaudiest golf duds. Never had so much plaid clashed with so many stripes. Never had bright colors refused to complement each other with such dedication. Then, Tip caught sight of the police car and stopped in his tracks, and Connor followed his lead.
Ross caught up with them first and said, “Much better weather for golf today than the last time you fellas were out here, I do believe.” Indeed, the November sun was out and doing the best it could; and though the air was on the slightly chilly side, there was no wind to speak of—
ideal golfing weather—and certainly nothing a sweater or windbreaker couldn’t solve.
“Yeah,” Tip said, just as Bax joined the group. “We thought we’d give it a shot and work off some leftover Halloween candy the trick-or-treaters left that we just couldn’t resist. You know how that goes.”
Connor spoke up next while absent-mindedly fiddling with the lapel of his windbreaker. “Are you guys still investigating out here? We haven’t read anything in the paper about Brent’s murderer being caught or anything. We . . . uh . . . thought you might’ve given up. Is this place still officially a crime scene? Aren’t we allowed to play some golf here today?”
“To answer your questions in order: no, it’s no longer a crime scene, and, yes, the RCC is open for all bid’ness as usual. But we would never give up our investigation that easily. The case is still unsolved,” Bax told them. “And we came out today to try a little experiment. Would you guys like to delay your game for a just a few minutes and participate? It’s a bit of luck running into you both like this, and I promise it won’t take long.”
Tip looked supremely uninterested. “Uh, we came out to play golf, though. I mean, why should we help you do your job? I don’t see you guys teaching us how to swing our clubs.”
Ross caught Tip’s gaze and then Connor’s in turn. “As Captain Bax said, it won’t take very long. Just a matter of being a good citizen is all.”
“If we don’t do this, are we breaking any law?” Tip said. “We certainly wouldn’t want to do that.”
Ross told him that they wouldn’t be.
Tip and Connor exchanged furtive glances, and Ross perceived that something significant might be passing between them.
“What is it exactly that you want us to do that’s so all-fired important?” Tip continued, narrowing his eyes.
“Just listen to something we have to tell you,” Ross told him. “Nothing more than that.”