Dead Man Talking

by TM Simmons

  Chapter 30

  I uncovered my head and opened my eyes. Gabe and Sue Ann were beside me, Gabe protectively covering his wife. Twila lay in front of the settee, Miss Molly cuddled close, Trucker standing over the two of them. A red-hot poker stab of pain made me gasp, and I stared at a wet spot on my T-shirt. I’d been drenched outside, but this looked different. It spread, and I inched my hand up, pulling it away smeared with red and stifling a groan. Twila’s eyes flew to mine. Miss Molly wiggled out of her hold and raced over, sniffing at my hand, then trying to crawl closer.

  “My God!” Twila gasped. “You’ve been shot!”

  “I guess so." I fainted dead away.

  I couldn’t have been out very long. When I opened my eyes again, Gabe and Twila were dragging me behind the settee. Sue Ann had retrieved the phone and was punching in numbers.

  “We need an ambulance at Esprit d’Chene. Now!” she shouted. “Someone’s been shot!”

  Twila and Gabe laid me down, and Twila grabbed a pillow from the settee, sliding it under my head. Fully conscious, I probed at my wound, but Twila slapped my hand away. “Let me see how bad it is!”

  “I don’t think it’s that bad,” I replied. “It hurts, but not that much.”

  “It’s sure as hell bleeding like it’s bad!" She grabbed my T-shirt collar and ripped the shirt down the front.

  “Granny,” I reminded Twila. “She’s out there!" The gunfire had ceased, and I eased to a sitting position, despite Twila’s restraining hands. “It’s just a minor flesh wound. Granny’s the one in danger now. The guards don’t know she’s in the car! Stray gunfire might hit her!”

  Twila thinned her lips. “I can go. You stay here.”

  When I moved to disobey her, she glanced at Sue Ann. The housekeeper crawled away from the phone. “You go ahead. She tries to move, I’ll whap her on the other arm.”

  Sighing, I leaned against the settee. Miss Molly whimpered a concerned cat sound and placed her front paws on my uninjured shoulder. She gazed at me with those blue eyes, and I gave in. “I’ll stay quiet. I promise,” I said, stroking the cat.

  Twila started out of the room in a crouching crawl, but Granny appeared in the doorway. Her wrinkled face reflected her horror and concern when her gaze fell on me, and she hobbled toward me as fast as she could. Twila met her halfway and Granny took her arm as she crossed the remaining distance.

  “We should stay down,” I reminded everyone.

  “Damn shooter’s gone,” Granny said in a tight voice. “Cops are chasin’ him. But I heard a car peel off out on the road, so they ain’t gonna catch him." She let go of Twila’s arm and continued, “Get her up on the couch, so I can see better.”

  With their help, I stood and wobbled around to the front of the settee. “Someone shot me,” I mused in an empty voice.

  “Go get me some first aid stuff,” Granny ordered Sue Ann, who hurried out of the room, Gabe on her heels. “An’ bring her a shot of whiskey!”

  That sounded like the best thing to me. “I hope she brings the bottle,” I muttered.

  Then I heard Jack’s voice in the hallway, Sue Ann’s in reply. Jack rushed in even before Sue Ann finished, face white with strain. He was at the settee in two strides. He didn’t say a word, just sat down and gently brushed my hair back from my shoulder. Then he pulled a handkerchief from his jeans pocket and laid it over the wound.

  “It’s clean,” he muttered distractedly, keeping a slight pressure on it. “How are you feeling? Sue Ann said the ambulance is on the way.”

  “Call them on the radio and tell them they aren’t needed,” I insisted. He glared that bull-headed look I’d seen dozens of times before, indicating that he’d do no such thing. “Look, it’s nothing worse than a small cut. I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

  He ignored me, and I glanced at Twila for support. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot, the mulish look on her face mirroring Jack’s.

  I hadn’t really looked at the wound, so I steeled myself. I don’t like blood, especially my own. I have trouble even writing about it. But I pushed Jack’s hand away, lifted the handkerchief, and gazed at my shoulder. There was a small furrow, but the bullet hadn’t penetrated too deeply. Surely not deeply enough to merit a trip to the hospital. Besides, there were things that needed to be done here. Now, not later.

  “See?" I shot both of my jailers an exasperated look. “It’s nothing that a Band-Aid and a little antibiotic salve won’t take care of.”

  “The bastard who did this isn’t gonna care how bad he hit you when I catch him,” Jack snarled.

  Though I appreciated his concern and had my own craving for retribution, I snapped back, “This should prove you’ve got the wrong person in jail! Someone’s still out there!”

  “It doesn’t necessarily prove anything, Chère,” he admonished. “But you let me worry about that. You need to — ”

  “I need to correct a mistake law enforcement’s made!" I battled the weakness even the slight wound had fostered and tried to sit up. I didn’t resist very hard when Jack gently pushed me back onto the settee.

  Sue Ann hurried in with the first aid kit, and I was glad to see she hadn’t forgotten the whiskey. It wasn’t Crown Royal, but I didn’t care. She opened the first aid kit beside me on the couch and as Granny pawed through it, Sue Ann said, “Gabe’s getting some plywood outta the storage shed to cover the window.”

  “Go ahead and give her a drink." Granny picked up gauze and tape. Then she laid that back down and lifted a bottle of alcohol. I stiffened, and she relented and exchanged it for some peroxide.

  Sue Ann poured me a shot of whiskey in the glass she carried on the bottle neck and I drank it down in one fiery gulp before Granny uncapped the peroxide. Sirens sounded in the distance, and I shot Jack a pleading glance. He looked at Granny, though, as did Twila.

  Granny confirmed, “I can handle this.”

  Reluctantly, Jack rose. “I’ll send them back.”

  He left the room as Sue Ann handed Granny a spotless kitchen towel, and she held it in her gnarled fingers to catch the overflow as she poured the peroxide on my shoulder. It bubbled and foamed, easing the pain somewhat as it worked out any infectious residue from the gunpowder. When Granny was satisfied, she pulled out salve and smoothed it over the wound, then taped a soft piece of gauze in place.

  Sue Ann gathered up the first aid kit and set the whiskey bottle on a side table. “I’m going out to see if I can do anything to help Gabe.”

  Granny sat back. “We gotta find that head.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “But first I need to make some phone calls. Try to get Katy a lawyer.”

  Jack came back in just then, his cell phone in his hand. “I called Smitty and he gave me a local lawyer’s name. He’s on his way to the jail. I figured that was the least I could do, given that you ladies seem determined to ignore my orders to keep out of this investigation. So tell me. What’s so damned important about the head?”

  We gaped at him, shaking our own heads. “We need to calm Bucky down so we can ask him who killed him,” I explained in a reasonable tone. “Since the cops don’t seem to be able to find out who the real killer is.”

  Jack snorted in disbelief. “You’re going to ask the murder victim who committed the murder.”

  “Of course,” Twila said. “Who better?”

  I rose, wincing at the stab of pain, then headed for the door. “First I’m changing my shirt,” I said as I passed Jack. Miss Molly stayed close to me, nearly under my feet, but I didn’t chastise her. Granny grunted to her feet, and her step-thump followed me.

  Trucker sat on his haunches in the hallway, and he whined when I appeared. He fell in on the opposite side from Miss Molly, alert, brown eyes gleaming. I started up the stairwell and glanced behind me. Twila and Granny were first, but Jack was right after them. “Can you make the stairs, Granny?” I asked in concern.

  “You bet your booties,” she said with an emphatic nod and grabbed the railing.


  I waited for all of them at the top. It took Granny a few seconds longer, but she made it with the help of the railing and the walking stick. As soon as Jack and Twila hit the last step, I led the parade of animals and people down the hallway to the Peach Room.

  Twila accompanied me into the bathroom. We threw my T-shirt in the trash and she unsnapped my bra. She ran some warm water into the basin and washed away the blood residue on my arm and chest — with quince soap.

  “I’ll get you another shirt,” she murmured. “No sense bothering with a bra. The strap’s too near your wound.”

  I stared at my ravaged face in the mirror. Shot. I’d actually been shot! Had the shooter been aiming directly at me? Or was it a scare-tactic attack? It damned sure wasn’t a random assault — some poacher out night-hunting, not watching where he aimed. The second and third shots confirmed the Great Room was the shooter’s target. But who was he shooting at?

  Jack brought the T-shirt back, and I grabbed a towel to cover myself, frowning at him. He grinned, a quick twitch of his lips, but the amusement at my discomfort in his presence didn’t reach his brown eyes. At least he didn’t make any smart-ass remark about having seen me naked before. He just handed me the shirt, and I turned my back and dropped the towel.

  When I tried to raise my right arm, though, I stifled a groan. Even the slight wound would give me trouble for a while. Jack reached in front of me and took the shirt, pulling it over my head and helping me get my arms through the sleeves.

  I turned around, and Jack said, “I wanted a minute with you. This changes everything. I’m calling in some more guards, and I want one of them with you at all times.”

  “Jack, I appreciate your concern. But I’m not about to have some cowboy riding herd on me every minute. We don’t know the person was aiming for me.”

  He gently placed a finger to my lips. “I’m not takin’ any chances with your life. Or Twila’s or Granny’s. And when I phoned the jail, I had Smitty call in an extra officer, just in case someone’s after Katy. Someone who didn’t know she was already under arrest.”

  Renewed horror crawled through my mind. “Someone who figures if they kill Katy, at least that part of the investigation will grind to a halt. The cops will figure Bucky’s killer’s dead.”

  “If that’s what’s goin’ through that sonuvabitch’s mind, he’s wrong. We won’t stop until we’ve got every end of this case tied up. He won’t — ”

  “Or she,” I broke in. “Jack, if the police believe Katy could kill someone, why do you keep referring to the shooter as he? This is Texas. East Texas. Plenty of women around here can handle a rifle.”

  “I haven’t ruled that out. But I also came in here to ask you for one huge favor.”

  “I’m not going to quit trying to clear Katy, Jack, so don’t even ask.”

  His face told me that I’d grasped his unvoiced request. “I need to get out there and spearhead things,” he said. “But I don’t want to leave you ladies alone. Will you at least wait until the guard reinforcements get here?”

  “No,” I said flatly. “Katy’s languishing in that horrible jail cell. Every minute counts. The fastest way to clear her is to get Bucky calmed down and see if he’s got some evidence that you can use to ferret out the real killer!”

  “Alice, this ghost business — ”

  I pushed past him and walked out the bathroom door. I didn’t feel like arguing that route with him right now. He had his ideas about what needed done; I had mine. Never the twain shall meet. I knew that from past experience.

  Twila and Granny waited in the bedroom, Twila with her satchel of protections. Which we damned sure might need before this night was over. I heard Jack’s voice in the bathroom and decided he was on his cell phone to somebody. Twila, Granny, and I stared at each other.

  “What next?” Twila asked.

  “I think we should search the manor house again,” I said. “Like you said, Bucky’s hanging around here for some reason. Maybe somehow he realizes his head is nearby." Jack strolled out of the bathroom and stood silently, listening. “We’ll need flashlights,” I continued. “I want to search the hidden passageways.”

  “No one told my men about any hidden passageways,” Jack said.

  “I assumed Katy had." I looked around to gather my forces and nodded at Miss Molly and Trucker, stretched out over by the fireplace. “We’ll want them with us.”

  “You should be in bed resting,” Jack insisted. “A bullet wound’s nothin’ to — ”

  “I think Katy keeps a flashlight in each bedroom, for times when the power goes out." I opened a drawer in the lady’s boudoir desk and revealed a flashlight. After a test for battery strength and satisfied when the beam glowed brightly, I marshaled my troops with a hand wave and headed for the door.

  “Wait a minute." Twila set the satchel on the bed and removed some necklaces made of the same quince seed we wore as bracelets. She handed Granny and me one and hung one around her neck. Then she took out a plastic bag, and I wrinkled my nose in distaste as I recognized the asafetida bags on leather throngs. But we all put one of those around our necks, also. Twila even tried to get Trucker and Miss Molly to wear one, but both my pets scrambled under the bed when she got within two feet of them.

  “We’ll have to rely on the white light and baths you gave them,” I said. “Let’s get the other flashlights.”

  Jack followed into the hallway, but instead of turning toward the stairwell, he dogged our footsteps as we stopped at the Blue Room first. “I thought you had an investigation to spearhead,” I reminded him in Twila’s room.

  “I called the chief out of bed. Told him I was tied up on another end of this and gave him my cell phone number.”

  Shrugging, I waited while Twila found her flashlight. Then she cast Jack a considering look, laid her satchel on the bed and pulled out two necklaces for him. Jack shot back a stubborn look. “I’m not — ”

  “You are, if you’re going with us." Twila dangled the quince seed and asafetida necklaces in his direction. “Or we’ll just sit here and wait until you give up. We’ve got more time than you do. Suppose the chief comes out here and finds you sitting like a tea party guest with three ladies in this bedroom. You’re lucky I don’t insist you take a quince soap shower before we start out, so consider wearing the necklaces the minimum we’ll accept.”

  “This is our ball game, Jack,” I added. “You don’t mess around in this business without protection.”

  “You’re just lookin’ for the damned head,” Jack said.

  “We’re looking for a ghost’s head,” Twila said. “A newly-dead, confused ghost. Sir Gary may be able to keep Bucky occupied for a while, but we can’t count on how long. Any minute Bucky could be on the prowl again. He’s unpredictable, despite the fact he seems to be trying to bond with Sir Gary. Wear the necklaces or forget about coming with us.”

  “I can search those passageways myself,” he said. “I don’t need you ladies.”

  I laughed wryly. “You’ll never find them. I’m the only one here who knows how to get to them. Where they run. And I swear, if you don’t cooperate...if you try to get a search warrant and wreck the walls in this house to find the passageways, I’ll fight you every step of the way.”

  Granny, silent until now, added with an evil grin, “I’ll bet them TV news folks would like t’have a ghost story. I ain’t never been on TV. Might be fun to look back on in old age.”

  “The judge has slapped a gag order on this investigation,” Jack reminded us.

  “So what’s he gonna do?” Granny threw back. “Stick some nice little old lady like me in that there jail with Katy for openin’ my toothless mouth?”

  Jack actually glared at the dear old elderly woman for a long second before he muttered, “Shit." He swiped the necklaces from Twila’s hand and hung them around his neck, grimacing at the smell. Maybe not only the smell, but also — probably — at being demoted to participant rather than head honcho by three civilians.
<
br />   Twila held out her hands, one toward Jack, one toward Granny. Even though we’d called down the white light at the manor house door, we needed to reinforce and strengthen its power now. I took Granny’s hand and moved into the circle, catching hold of Jack and pulling him with me. Twila clasped his free hand, and we bent our heads.

  Except for Jack, who continued to stare at us. I nudged him with a sideways kick, and he finally bowed his head. Clearing my mind — as well as I could — I joined Twila and Granny in three deep, cleansing inhales and exhales. Jack joined in on the last one.

  “I want all of you to imagine a white light inside your minds,” Twila began in a slow, hypnotic voice. “Close your eyes and see it there...in your mind’s eye." She waited a brief instant, then continued, “Now, brighten that light. Expand it. Let it engulf your body. Feel its soothing presence, its warmth." A pause. “Now, let the light flow through your body. Feel the warmth and protection. Then expand it to encompass the person on your right...the person on your left." Pause. “Let it fill this room...move out through the manor house, the grounds around it. Even beyond, until it covers everything and reaches skyward, to the powers of the Universe, seeking their blessing and protection for our quest.”

  We stood silently for a few moments. I’d felt the power of the white light from the very first time Twila showed it to me. Whether I called on it in a brief request or a more powerful ceremony as we were using now, it gave me confidence and courage, but also reminded me of the dangers I needed to heed.

  We all marched into the hallway and down to Granny’s room, where she found a flashlight for herself in a bureau drawer. That left Jack without a light, but I didn’t wait for him to ask to retrieve one from the patrol car. I led the way back into the Peach Room and over to the marble fireplace. Trucker and Miss Molly crawled out from under the bed.

  There was a light switch beside the fireplace, but it didn’t operate any lights. I flicked the switch up, then slid the small plastic panel aside. Behind it was a knob, and I turned it. It was rusty from neglect and I had to twist it hard, but it finally moved. I pushed the right place on the fireplace — back, then a release. After a small click, the fireplace fell away from the wall a few inches. Grasping the side, I opened the door to the passageway and shone my light inside.

  It was dark, of course. Spooky. Cobwebs fluttered in the interior in the slight breeze from the fireplace swinging open. The rest of my crew crowded around, Twila and Granny adding their flickering flashlight beams to mine.

  The landing was about five-foot square, just large enough for two people. Wooden steps both ascended and descended. Timbers lined the walls, old and decaying. I played my beam on the steps to see if they were safe. Once in a while Katy and I had run across a rotten board that broke under us. They’d mostly been near the ground level, though, where moisture heightened the rotting process.

  I wasn’t sure how many people knew about the passageways. There were rumors, of course, in family history, but Katy and I had found our clues to the secreted hallways and tunnels in one of Grandmere Alicia’s diaries, which we poured over late one night while visiting Miss Emmajean. We made our first entrance into the hidden secret of the manor house right here in the Peach Room and explored the passageways, mapping them in our young minds so we wouldn’t get lost. We even ventured into the underground tunnel, but found it collapsed about fifty feet or so inside. We’d jealously guarded our knowledge from the slew of other family offsprings. Katy kept the diaries on a bookshelf in the library.

  “Granny’s going to have trouble with these stairs,” Twila mused.

  “No, I ain’t." Granny grabbed Jack’s arm. “Got me a nice strong man here to help me along. I ain’t stayin’ behind.”

  “We wouldn’t think of it, Granny,” I said. “You’re one of us. Shall we go up first...or down?”

  “Up, I believe,” Twila said after a moment’s concentration. “To the attic.”

  “There are some rooms in the basement, where the runaways were hidden. But there’s also a small area up in the attic. Katy and I used to hide things we didn’t want our parents to catch us with up there. We weren’t real enthused about that dank basement.”

  Twila shone her flashlight beam up the stairwell. More spider webs, a lot of dust — but something was fishy.

  “Give me that light!" Jack grabbed Twila’s flashlight and played the beam on the steps. The dust that should have covered them like on the walls was missing in the middle of the steps. It lay fairly thick on the edges of the boards, but someone had very obviously brushed out something in the middle. Footsteps?

  Twila picked up a bright orange feather near her feet. “This looks like it’s from one of those feather dusters people use to clean hard-to-get-at places.”

  Jack took the feather. I expect he wanted to put it in an evidence bag, but he wasn’t prepared for something like that. He thought we were on a wild goose chase — probably hoped we were. Still, I flickered my flashlight beam across his face and noticed a distinct change in his expression. His cop mode. I’d seen it before.

  “You ladies are gonna have to go back. I’m declaring this area part of the crime scene.”

  We laughed, actually laughed at him. “I mean it,” he said. “All three of you get back into the bedroom.”

  A silent glance passed between Twila, Granny, and me. Jack was still standing in the fireplace opening, although Granny had edged onto the platform. Her tiny body didn’t take up much room, but it was a little crowded. No room for Jack. Trucker stood beside Jack, Miss Molly under his belly. From the looks of the cat, I doubted very much she’d follow us up those stairs, even with her huge friend to shelter her. In fact, she inched out to peer up the stairwell, then backtracked between Trucker’s rear legs and skittered beneath the bed. Trucker whined after her, but stayed in the doorway.

  Granny sighed. “Guess we best do what he says. The cat figures he’s right." She turned slightly, as though to go back into the bedroom, but instead, she stuck her walking stick behind Jack’s legs. I shoved him — hard — on the chest, surprising him. He tumbled into the bedroom with a growl of outrage, but before he could scramble to his feet, I swung the fireplace closed. There was another latch on the inside, and I barely got it shut before Jack pounded on the wall. Outraged at being left behind, Trucker howled one long, eerie warning before he subsided.

  We waited for a few seconds, listening to Jack fumble with the switch, but he couldn’t open the fireplace as long as we had it locked from this side. Katy and I had tried that.

  “Open this damn thing! Right now!” Jack shouted, hammering on the wall. The thumps echoed in the confined area, but the fireplace held firm.

  Twila put her foot on the first step.

  “Stay close to the edges,” I cautioned. “The steps are stronger there.”

  She eased her foot over against the wall. There was a railing, but I didn’t really trust it. I urged Granny in front of me and brought up the rear as she steadied herself against the wall on one side and used her walking stick in her right hand.

  It took us a while to climb — we didn’t hurry, given Granny’s presence. The passageway smelled old...dusty and moldy, disused and dank. I kept an ear out for scurrying sounds; I don’t like rats or even mice. Spiders or snakes, either, for that matter. We came to the next landing without running across any tiny four-, eight-legged, or legless intruders.

  I had to bypass my two companions to reach the wall, and found the latch on my first try. Like the one on the fireplace, it was rusty with neglect, but I forced it open as Twila illuminated it with her flashlight beam. The door swung inward with a squawk of hinges, revealing a fairly large room lined with shelves on one side. The Hollow Room, Katy and I had always called it.

  I played my beam around. It appeared much the same as the last time I’d been in here, more years back than I wanted to count. In a corner stood an old pie cabinet, pin holes in the metal on the front to allow air in but keep ants and flies out of the pies
or other food stored in years gone by. There was even a pile of musty old blankets against the other wall, and a couple of feather ticks rolled up. History. So much history in this room. How many people had passed through? Families, children, people with dreams of freedom and fulfilling lives. Mothers and fathers who weren’t afraid of hard work, but wanted decent lives for their children despite the dangers associated with their journey. Despite the risks to their own lives if they were caught.

  A dusty volume lay on a shelf, and I frowned. It hadn’t been there before. Crossing to it, I opened the cover, sneezing but too interested in what it contained to do more than rub my nose.

  “It’s a list of the slaves who passed through Esprit d’Chene,” I said in awe. “Some of them wrote their own names. Some lines have an X, and the same handwriting throughout wrote the name for the person.”

  “I’d think something like that would have been rather dangerous to keep around,” Twila said. “If the room were discovered.”

  “Maybe they kept it hidden better back then. One of our relatives with a feeling for the fitness of it must have put the book up here in later years, since I’ve never seen it before.”

  “I feel a lot of pain in this room,” Twila said. “But also a lot of hope.”

  A thump sounded on a nearby wall in the attic area, and I jumped. The book slid to the floor, and I reverently picked it up as the noise moved closer to the Hollow Room.

  “Jack,” I explained as I replaced the book. “He came up the attic stairs, and he’s trying to find out where the area’s hollowed out. But there’s only one way into this room.”

  “Still, we better hurry,” Twila said. “The pie cabinet first?" She strode over and reached for the door handle, a tremble in her hand. She hesitated, then jerked the door open.

  I shone my flashlight beam on the empty shelves. “Whew. Nothing.”

  “Whew,” Granny also breathed. “Had me a pie cabinet just like that there one when I was first married. Didn’t look forward to finding a bloody head in it.”

  My beam floated over to the blankets and feather ticks. Jack continued to pound, his thumps more persistent as his temper probably erupted. The noise was moving away from us.

  Twila and I inched reluctantly toward the blankets and feather ticks. Granny remained where she was, leaning on her walking stick, her elderly body not meant for bending down and shaking out blankets. Which we had to do. I swallowed and reached for the top blanket. Held the edge for a long second. Swooshed it up and shook it.

  Nothing. Only a dust shower. I sneezed violently. And gave Jack an idea of where we were, since the next series of fist thuds pounded right beside us.

  “Damn it, Alice!” he called faintly. “Come out here!" The walls on the room were fairly thick, to enclose any inadvertent sounds that would betray the occupants. But they would have had to do their part and keep quiet.

  Twila picked up the next blanket and shook it. Nothing. We examined the last two with the same result, then turned our attention to the rolled-up feather ticks. One was a lot thicker than the other one — could just be the stuffing or perhaps something was rolled up inside. I grabbed for the thinner feather tick, but Twila beat me to the punch. She shook out hers — empty. I stared at the other one and tried to swallow again. My dry mouth and throat didn’t cooperate.

  “Want me to get that one?” Granny offered. Jack sounded like he was kicking the wall now with his western boots.

  “I’ll do it." I reached for a corner. When I pulled, it resisted, confirming there was something inside. Something fairly heavy. “Oh, God,” I burst out as I swung the feather tick high and shook.

  The baby doll thumped out onto the floor, and even Twila stifled a scream. It wasn’t the head we were looking for. The baby doll’s head was missing. We knew where it was — on Bucky’s shoulders.

  Granny said, “I s’pose some poor chile left her dolly behind.”

  I squatted by the doll, unable to touch it; my hands had enough trouble holding the flashlight. It was about two feet long, the body anyway. A four- or five-year-old toddler’s doll rather than an infant’s. It wore a white gown, tattered lace disintegrating. A pair of intricately laced ballet slippers covered tiny feet, one with a hole where a miniature toe peeked out. My light picked up something else on the dusty floor at about the same time as Twila’s and Granny’s.

  “Someone’s dusted this floor, too, like the steps. Hiding footsteps. Jack’s going to kill us for ruining evidence.”

  “Uh . . .” Twila put in. “Let’s don’t use the word ‘kill’ right now, if you please.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “But look.”

  The three beams converged and followed the smeared reddish brown spots across the floor, through the disturbed dust — to a foot-high space beneath the shelves. Neither Twila nor Granny could see what I could from where I squatted.

  I screamed — screeched to high heaven. Dropped my flashlight and scrambled backward, lunging to my feet and pointing, backing up until I hit the wall.

  “Alice!” Jack yelled. “Damn it, what’s going on?”

  “Him?” Twila asked.

  I could only nod and point. I couldn’t see the grisly horror now, but I could still see it in my mind’s eye: Bucky Wilson-Jones’ head, stuffed under the shelf, eyes wide, though opaque. A surprised look on his face, neck sliced clean. Dried blood pooled on a towel beneath his cheek.