“Maybe you could take a look, in case you remember seeing her that night? Maybe who she left with?”
I pulled the photo Fran had given me from my pocket.
He respectfully studied it for a time before shaking his head.
“No-o. I can’t say’s’t I do remember her.” He gave Fran a smile full of teeth too bright in his sun-damaged face. A golfer? Probably. I couldn’t picture him as a hiker or a hunter, but I could see a younger incarnation at the Myrtle Beach Pavilion. He’d probably shagged away some long-ago summer nights—the South Carolina beach dance, not the euphemism for what the sexy, slow swing-step conjured up.
“Everybody leaves with somebody,” he said.
He handed the picture to me and avoided meeting Fran’s narrowed eyes. Fran’s jaw muscles knotted as she gritted her teeth, but she didn’t let his insensitive comment distract her from her mission.
“Is there anyone else around who might have seen her that night?”
“Not right now. Later, of course. Folks start coming in after they get off work. Mondays aren’t big nights. You girls are welcome to stick around. A beer on the house? Maybe some white wine?”
Fran bit her lip again. I’d better get her out of here before she snickered in his face or her lip started bleeding.
“That’s very sweet of you,” I said. “We’ll take a rain check.”
He fumbled in the pocket of his wild print rayon shirt. “Make sure you look me up. Here’s some drink coupons. To help get the party started.”
“Thanks.” I accepted for both of us, not trusting Fran’s reaction. My mama had raised me to be gracious, no matter what—which I’d found went a long way in getting help or information when I needed it. The part of me related to Aunt Letha wanted to braid poor Ash’s remaining strands of hair into a knot on top of his head. Hence the source of many a Southerner’s schizophrenia: Should I fight or be polite?
“Could you by any chance tell us where Nut Case is playing now?”
He shrugged. “Not right off the top of my head. Edmonds might know. He’ll be in later.”
I got the full benefit of his expensive dental work. Someone should have told him years ago that sunscreen is the fountain of youth.
“You talking to me?” A voice came from the kitchen, followed by the creaking of the double-swing door.
Ash licked his lips. “Lenn. There you are. Didn’t know you were here.” His voice grew loud with hollow welcome. “Meet our guests.”
I extended my hand to the tall newcomer. “Avery Andrews. This is Fran French.”
“Lenn Edmonds. Nice to meet you.” His melted chocolatebrown eyes warmed with his smile.
I could see why Ash might not be anxious for us to meet his partner.
“The Lenn Edmonds who played football at the University of South Carolina?”
He ducked his head with practiced modesty, pleased that I knew.
“Long time ago.” He patted his slightly padded midsection. “Sure can’t run like that now.”
“Um, they’re looking for Fran’s sister,” Ash said. “She was supposed to be here Friday.”
I held out Neanna’s photo. As he studied it, I noticed a middleaged woman in a tight T-shirt pass by the other side of the galley window. Probably a waitress getting ready for a slow tip night.
“You remember seeing her?” Fran asked.
Lenn stared at the photo and slowly shook his head. “No. Not Friday. She sure looks familiar, but I don’t think I’ve seen her here. What did you say her name was?”
“Neanna Lyles.”
He shook his head again. “No. That doesn’t ring a bell. She’s awfully pretty.” He handed Fran the photo.
“You didn’t see her, Ash? Ash works the crowd, usually,” he explained.
“No.” Ash slid his hands in the pockets of his too-tight jeans. “Not that I remember. Big night, Friday.”
“Whew, it sure was. Which means tonight’ll be dead.”
“Excuse me.” Fran had just spotted the woman at the far end of the bar. “Excuse me, ma’am.” She strode toward her, holding out the photo. “Did you happen to see this woman last Friday night?”
The waitress met Fran halfway, reaching for the photo but studying Fran. Her brassy blond hair was brittle, and her makeup only emphasized the deep wrinkles and sags.
“No-o.” She shook her head. “Can’t say that I did.”
Lenn looked disappointed. He gave Fran a consoling smile. “I hope you find her soon. You must be terribly worried.”
Having Lenn Edmonds working the crowd would be good for business, I thought.
“Oh, we’ve already found her,” Fran said. The barb in her voice wasn’t lost on either Ash, Lenn, or the waitress.
“She’s dead. The police found her body early Saturday.”
I tried to watch the two men for their reaction, but found my gaze darting back to Fran. She was too close to the edge and she worried me.
“Oh, my. I’m so sorry.” The sun wrinkles around Lenn’s eyes softened in concern, and he raised his hand as if he wanted to hug her but then thought better of it. The tip of Ash’s tongue flicked out as he glanced at Lenn. He rocked up on his toes, his hands still jammed in his pockets.
Fran looked from one to the other without really seeing them. Her anger over the reality of her words had taken over.
Lenn looked as though he wanted to ask what had happened, but he was astute enough to read the tight set of Fran’s jaw and the tears pooled around her eyelashes.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
I stepped to Fran’s side and put my arm around her waist.
“Thank you,” I said. “If you think of anything, please give me a call. We sure appreciate your time.”
I handed both Lenn and Ash one of my business cards and steered Fran toward the door.
A car and a small pickup truck crunched into the lot as we climbed into my car. Probably the hired help. Even though the sun was setting, this place wasn’t somewhere people came for an early supper after work. They came here to meet other needs; judging from the jangle of odors inside, eating would not be high on the list.
Fran slumped in the front seat of my vintage Mustang.
“The inn’s on the way back into town,” I said. “I’ll just drop you off and meet you early tomorrow for breakfast. You can get your car from my office then.”
She nodded.
I was grateful she hadn’t argued about leaving her car. I didn’t want her wandering around alone playing Nancy Drew in the middle of the night. Maybe it was her grief. Maybe it was because she felt she could count on me to be the adult so she could take a break from that role, after being the adult for both herself and Neanna—and perhaps for Neanna’s Gran. Or maybe she was used to being the pampered, headstrong child. Whatever the reason, her inner child ran the risk of interfering with what she’d hired me to do. I needed to do what I could to prevent that.
I turned onto the winding two-lane road toward Dacus. We passed scattered brick ranch houses and house trailers, some with roadside mailboxes bearing familiar family names. A few cars met us, headlights on now as full dark fell among the hardwoods and pines lining the rural road.
“Avery?”
Fran stared straight ahead. “I want you to understand something. Neanna didn’t kill herself.”
I didn’t reply.
“She didn’t. I know you think that’s just nutty denial. It’s not. I knew Neanna. Sometimes better than she knew herself. I knew the good and the bad. She didn’t, Avery.”
We drove in silence the last few miles to the inn. I pulled slowly into the rutted drive and stopped at the bottom of the front steps.
“I want you to find out what happened. I want you to find out why she’s gone. It doesn’t matter what it costs.”
Now I knew she was talking crazy. No client ever said, “No matter what it costs,” not even the well-heeled corporate ones.
“Fran, don’t worry. I know the officer who’ll be in cha
rge. He’s good. We’ll find out all there is to know.” I patted her on the forearm and studied her profile in the dim light.
When she offered no response, I said, “I’ll see you for breakfast in the morning. We can talk about what else needs to be done.”
She unlatched and pushed open the long, heavy car door.
“Call me if you need anything tonight, Fran. Promise?”
She leaned down to look in the car and nodded, solemn, before she closed the door and climbed the steps between the gargantuan white porch columns fronting the inn. I hoped she’d find tea, cookies, and comfort inside—something more genteel and less sticky than the Pasture.
Tuesday Morning
The next morning, I parked my car in the area tucked discreetly at the side of the inn and followed the gravel drive around to the grand front entrance.
Fran hadn’t come downstairs yet, so I picked up a paper from the stack of Monday’s Dacus Clarion, dropped some coins in the jar, and sat on a bench in the hall leading to the dining room. At the bottom of the front page, I found the two-paragraph story about the discovery of the body at the overlook.
Noah Lakefield, the Clarions’s new—and only—field reporter, quoted a sheriff’s department spokesperson saying the death was under investigation. I’d been skeptical when Noah had first accepted the job in Dacus, and amazed when he’d seen the business that brought him to town finished and decided to stay. With his exuberant hair and his lithe build, he had equal amounts of charm and bluster, depending on which he needed to get a story. His talent and drive should have taken him on to a larger, more prosperous paper, but he also had a boyish naivete that could be contagious—and seemed unusual for someone who had been a fire-breathing investigative reporter.
The paper comes out midday on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so Noah would be hard at work on tomorrow’s edition. With the death listed as a suicide, he wouldn’t be chasing after Fran. That would violate the editorial policy for both Walter, the editor, and my dad, the paper’s new owner. The thin ten-page paper was filled with high school sports, elementary school science projects, civic group meetings, and yard-of-the-week photos. In a small town, embarrassing personal stories were told elsewhere.
I folded the newspaper when I heard footsteps descending the creaky staircase.
“Avery, I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”
Fran looked fresh, as though she’d managed to sleep. She saw the paper in my hand, and her mouth tightened. “Is there any mention?”
“Just a small piece about finding her.”
She nodded, her face solemn. After a pause, she held out her hand. I turned the paper so she could see the article, discreet and innocuous at the bottom of the page. She seemed relieved.
“What’s this?” She pointed to another small article in the space above the two paragraphs about Neanna. Before I could read the headline, one of the B and B’s owners greeted us with a cheerful, “Good morning. Two for breakfast?”
I followed Fran to our table, biting the inside of my lip to keep from laughing at the news article she’d pointed out:
ARE YOU HAUNTED?
A group of paranormal investigators from Charlotte, North Carolina, needs your help.
Does your house exhibit signs of paranormal activity? Do you know places in Camden County where evidence of such activity may be investigated? The group will be conducting investigations in Dacus and Camden County in the coming weeks. Please contact Colin “Mumler” Gaines for information.
The article included a phone number and an e-mail address.
Fran and I sat, listened to the instructions about breakfast, and ordered tea to drink—iced for me, hot for Fran.
“That’s odd, isn’t it?” Fran said, indicating the article.
I didn’t want to laugh, out of respect for her and her grief, but the ghost-hunter plea struck me as ludicrously funny.
“I wouldn’t want to be answering Colin Gaines’s cell phone for the next several days,” I said. “This will draw out every nut in the tri-county area.” What kind of nickname was Mumler?
Fran nodded with a faint smile. I was glad to see her smile, though it did little to ease the tightness around her eyes. She headed toward the table filled with fresh fruit and berries while I went for the hot food.
I spooned buttered grits onto my plate and chuckled at the thought of what Mumler would find in his voice mailbox. The lady standing across from me shot a glance through her heavily mascaraed eyelashes as if she feared my lithium had worn off. Probably visiting from a big city, where crazy people were scary because she didn’t know them, and only crazy people chuckled to themselves. In bigger cities, maybe the nuts feel they have to straighten up and fit in because all they have is a first impression. In small towns, nuttiness can just hang out in plain view.
I ate my eggs Benedict and let Fran guide the conversation. She talked about the weather and how she hated driving in the traffic on I-85. Maybe she wanted to avoid eavesdroppers in the crowded dining room, or maybe she just needed to pretend life was normal for a while. I couldn’t imagine how much her heart must hurt.
All day yesterday and this morning—and likely in my dreams—Neanna had stayed at the edge of thought, coloring my mood with a sadness I couldn’t shake. I hadn’t known Neanna, but I kept trying to imagine what had been in her head. What drives someone to kill herself? How impotent and angry Fran must feel, thinking she could have done something. How would I feel if I lost my sister Lydia under any circumstances? Especially if I was left wondering what I should have done to stop it.
After we finished eating, I got another pot of tea, and we carried it to Fran’s room where we could talk in private.
Before I could sit the pot down, she said, “Avery, I’ve got to go back to Atlanta. To make arrangements.” She stopped, unsure of her voice.
I poured dark tea into a dainty rose-patterned china cup for her, to give her time.
“Avery, you’ll find out what happened to Neanna. She didn’t kill herself. I—know that. I know I keep repeating that, but I want you to believe it.”
With those last words, her reserve broke. She hid her face in her hands and sobbed.
Nothing I could say would ease her grief or save her from the hurt. This was just the next step: denial, anger, bargaining, depression. Before long, I hoped, some acceptance.
I sat on the arm of her overstuffed chair and put my arm around her. Her tears soaked through the shoulder of my shirt, and I thought the force of her sobs would crack one of her thin ribs.
Eventually, when her tears slowed, I went into the bathroom for the box of tissues and a warm washcloth.
“I’m—so—sorry.” She hiccuped each word as she wiped her nose.
“I’m glad to see you cry. You were worrying me.” She knew what I meant. Her hiccuping breaths slowed as she buried her face in the warm washcloth.
“I want to know what happened,” she said, her voice husky. “I can’t keep wondering, imagining things that. . .”
Imagining things neither of us could express, about what might have been.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I couldn’t put a name to the number, but it looked familiar. Someone I’d called recently. I stepped into the bathroom to answer it, using it as an excuse to give her some space.
“You need to get someone to staff your office.”
Edna Lynch, my demanding grandmama private eye.
“Before nine in the morning?” I returned her irritation with my get-serious tone.
It didn’t work. “Ever hear of an answering service? Sumbody can track you down? Get you to take your messages?”
She had me there. I hadn’t checked my answering machine since yesterday afternoon.
“You have something?”
“I’m standing in the church parking lot in my choir robe calling you, aren’t I? I found Skipper Hinson.”
“Already?” I didn’t ask what her choir was fixing to sing about on a Tuesday morning.
; “Yesterday.” She wasn’t letting up on my laxness. “He’s working maintenance and such at the state park this summer. He’ll be working in the gift shop today. It opens at ten.”
“Thanks, Edna. That was quick.”
She gave my compliment a derisive snort, her way of saying, Of course. You doubted me?
“The funeral’s starting. They’re waving us in the back door.” The phone clicked off.
She knew where to send the bill.
I stepped into the bedroom. “I know where her hitchhiker is. I can talk to him—”
“Where?” Fran sat up like a bird dog on point. “Can we talk to him now?”
“Um, in a while,” I said. “But don’t you have to go—”
“I can still make it to Atlanta by midafternoon. How far is it? I just need a few minutes to pack.”
“Not far—about twenty minutes. Um, I’ll let you pack. Be back in a few minutes to pick you up.”
“I’ll be ready.” She carried the mascara-stained washcloth into the bathroom.
I needed to change shirts. No need to wear a tear-soaked shirt around all day, and I’d just noticed an eggs Benedict blotch.
True to her word, she was pacing in the side yard when my Mustang tires pulled onto the gravel drive twenty minutes later.
I backtracked to Main Street and turned left. The road quickly began the climb into the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“You have any music?” Fran indicated my in-dash AM radio, standard equipment in 1964.
“Some bluegrass is all.” I had wired a portable CD player and updated the primitive speakers in my vintage Mustang—my grandfather’s late-life splurge pulled out of mothballs for me by my dad, when I’d left my large Columbia law firm and my leased BMW.
“That would be nice.”
Fortunately the song that came on was “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” a banjo number, lively and optimistic. Neither of us needed to dwell on a mournful mountain ballad. As a Texas friend of mine had once observed, mountain folk music is full of murder and dying. I tried to argue otherwise, offer a defense of my people. But after listening to some CDs with her ears, I had to admit she was right. Lots of murder and dying. Too much for Fran—or me, right now.
Hush My Mouth Page 5