Uniformly Dead

by Greta McKennan

  “Where is Pete, Daria? What does he have to do with this?” Jim said.

  “Nothing,” I whispered, pulling myself out of Jim’s embrace. Whatever he’d done, he was my brother—I had to cover for him. “I guess I freaked out. Pete’s trying to deal with some thugs who threatened him. I thought they might have killed him.” I started shivering uncontrollably. Who knew what those thugs might be doing to Pete right now? Maybe they forced him to kill Emmett. Or maybe—I almost cried out in relief—maybe they killed Emmett and planted Pete’s cap next to the body to incriminate him. Kinney would approve of that.

  Jim shook his head. “Your brother’s sure making your life miserable, isn’t he?”

  A charge of protective anger shot through me. What Jim said was true—one hundred percent true—but I was the only one who could say it. I crossed my arms and snapped, “That’s what brothers do best.”

  Jim sighed.

  McCarthy stood up and walked away from the body. He wiped his hands repeatedly on his jeans, his face grim. “He’s dead.” He tucked his phone back into his pocket. “The cops are on their way. It’s Emmett McDowell, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. McCarthy pulled out a slimy piece of paper. “This was twisted into the cord wrapped around his neck.” He unfolded the paper and held it out so Jim and I could see it. It was a handwritten note, signed with Emmett McDowell’s pretentious flourishing signature. “I want seventy percent of the haul—those jewels are rightfully mine. Hand over my share, today, or I’ll turn you in for murder. Diamonds can’t buy your way off death row!” Scrawled across the words in a furious bold script was a single expletive.

  McCarthy pulled his notebook out of his pocket. “Torey Brand told you about jewels and diamonds,” he said to me. “Looks like McDowell was killed for them as well.”

  Before I could reply, the cops burst into the tiny janitor’s closet, swarming over the crime scene like the ants on the Cramer’s Pond sidewalk. A young detective who introduced himself as Hastings cornered me as I tried to slip out of the room. He made me tell him exactly what I’d seen and heard, and everything I’d done. I told him everything—all except for the damning presence of Pete’s baseball cap at the murder scene. Images from TV shows flitted through my mind. Was I obstructing a murder investigation? Did that make me an accessory after the fact? I shivered again as a wave of exhaustion washed over me. I wanted to go home, away from this insane place where men died in garbage cans with cords wrapped around their necks, back to the normal world of howling rock bands in my basement and Aileen in full black leather running interference. I needed Aileen in the worst way, to cut through all the crap, look Detective Hastings in the eye and say, “I think we’re done.” I’d never have the guts to say that.

  But apparently we were done. Hastings told me I was free to go, then moved on to question McCarthy. As I turned to leave, McCarthy said, “I took a picture, before we dumped over the can.”

  I froze, then reluctantly turned around. McCarthy held his camera out to Hastings, pointing at the screen. I leaned over his shoulder to look. He’d captured Emmett’s hand—along with Pete’s distinctive baseball cap.

  “Is that the victim’s hat?” Hastings said, pointing at Pete’s cap.

  McCarthy shrugged. “He’s still wearing his Confederate uniform. He wouldn’t wear a hat like that with it.”

  “The murderer’s, then?” Hastings looked around the room.

  Jim leaned closer to look at the camera’s display. His eyes darted to me. He knew exactly whose cap that was. I dropped my gaze, holding my breath, willing him to stay silent. Against all odds, he did.

  Hastings grabbed the camera and held it out to the team of investigators combing the refuse for evidence. “Find this Phillies hat in this mess,” he said. “We can run DNA tests on it, see if we can pinpoint the murderer.”

  I turned my back on the crime scene, wishing I had a flamethrower to torch the whole pile of trash and destroy Pete’s cap forever. I stumbled out of the tiny room.

  “Daria!” Jim followed me out into the dressing room. “Are you going to be all right?”

  I nodded, biting my lip to hold back the tears that threatened to overwhelm me.

  Jim lifted my chin to gaze into my eyes. “The cops will find the murderer, Daria. This whole nightmare will be over soon.” His tone wasn’t as reassuring as his words. Jim knew what I was hiding.

  As he put his arms around me, I leaned onto his chest, sinking into the reassuring warmth of his embrace. “It wasn’t Pete,” I whispered. He squeezed me in response, but he didn’t say a word.

  I took a shaky breath and lifted my head to look at him. “Are you still having the battle tomorrow, Jim? After all this?”

  He sighed and let go of me. “I’m sure the general will go ahead with the dramatization. Will you still come and watch? It’ll be fun.”

  I forced a smile. “It had better be good.”

  He smiled in return. “It’ll be a blast.”

  As I walked out, I looked over my shoulder for one last glimpse of the crime scene. I drew in my breath at the sight of McCarthy crouching over the sea of garbage, a yardstick gripped in his hand. From the other end of the yardstick dangled a battered, dripping Phillies cap. Curse his overzealous photographer’s ethic! I could almost hear the clang of a jail door slamming shut on Pete. I shuddered and turned away.

  * * *

  I didn’t dare sleep that night. The image of Emmett’s hand in the garbage was burned onto my retinas—even a long blink would bring up the horrible vision. If I tried to think about something else, all I could see was Pete’s baseball cap floating on the surface of the garbage.

  I huddled under the covers, trying to calm down. The hotel room was small, with two double beds and a hideous painting of a deserted Ferris wheel hanging on the wall. Even without my mental turmoil, I couldn’t have slept peacefully beneath that forlorn image.

  In the dark, I clutched my cell phone and called Pete again and again. I knew he wouldn’t pick up—I just wanted to hear his voice mail message: “It’s Pete. Leave a message or call me back—up to you.” I did both, repeatedly.

  Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I turned on the light and rooted in my shoulder bag for something to read. I pulled out my change of clothing and fished out an untidy pile of papers—the papers I had been looking through in Emmett’s car! I had shoved them into my bag when his phone rang, and then had forgotten all about them in my anxiety over Kinney. I should turn them over to the police, but it was well after midnight. I could call them in the morning. I spread the pages out on the bed.

  I sorted through the papers systematically. I made one pile for his notes on historical events . . . research for his writing, perhaps. Another pile was fan letters, of all things. And there were plenty of them. Maybe I should read Emmett’s book, since so many people seemed to love it. Some other time—or not.

  A manila envelope fell into my hands. Written across the top, in Emmett’s flowing script: Angeline.

  My hands trembled as I shook out the contents. There were a few photographs, including a copy of the family portrait I’d seen at the museum and one of little Virginia cradling Angeline in her lap. A number of letters, neatly folded up in their envelopes, came next. Several of them were addressed to Emmett at a Hollywood address.

  I held the little pile in my lap. Could I read Emmett’s letters without feeling guilty? True, I’d answered the man’s phone and impersonated his secretary, but for some reason reading his mail took invasion of privacy to a whole new level.

  Of course, he would never know. He’d been strangled and stuffed into a garbage can. His privacy wasn’t nearly as important as bringing his killer to justice. Plus, he displayed his own diary in the museum exhibit for the whole town to read. Clearly this issue was mine alone. I slipped the first letter out of its envelope.

  The cover letter, printed on stiff bond paper, bore the letterhead of Sanford, Mitmand and Rosenthal, atto
rneys at law from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its few terse sentences identified the contents of the envelope as the “last will and testament of Mrs. Virgil McDowell, of Reading, Pennsylvania, dated the fifth of September, 1897.”

  I let the letter drop from my fingers. Mrs. Virgil McDowell, aka Elizabeth McDowell, mother of little Virginia, was Emmett’s ancestor. Maybe her will bequeathed him something worth killing for. I smoothed the folded sheets of paper.

  There were two copies of the will: one handwritten and the other typed on an old typewriter. I admired the nineteenth-century handwriting, then turned to the typewritten pages.

  I scanned the dry paragraphs for some mention of future descendants, trying not to let myself become engrossed in the story of Elizabeth McDowell’s life. If she was thirty in the museum photo from 1864, then she was sixty-three when she made her will in 1897. She lived through the Civil War, but missed the carnage of World War I. What wisdom did she hold for me?

  The final paragraph began: And now my wishes concerning the doll, Angeline.

  My attention quickened. I read on:

  I decree that the doll shall pass to the eldest female McDowell of each generation. It may never be sold or gifted outside the McDowell family. It may never be tampered with or altered in any way, to include clothing, hair and the original stitching of body and head. It shall be treasured throughout the generations of the McDowell family as a remembrance of my dear little Virginia, gone too soon.

  I put down the will with a lump in my throat. Even after thirty years, she mourned for her lost daughter and wanted her descendants to remember her. I pictured the sweet little girl with the blond ringlets cradling her beloved doll. But what did that doll mean to Emmett, and why was she stolen and left in my brother’s closet? Was Angeline somehow responsible for Emmett’s death, like in a horror movie where a doll comes to life and kills its owner?

  Shaking the thought away, I leafed through the pile of letters. The first page was a copy of an email from Stella Comstock to Emmett:

  Drop dead, cuz. You’ll never get your filthy paws on Angeline. Sure, I’ll put her in Gramma’s exhibit—with explicit orders that you not be allowed to touch her. Your only hope is to have a daughter of your own. Oh, wait, to do that you’d have to find someone to marry you. What’s the chance of that? Absolute Zero!

  Cousin Stella must be the current owner of Angeline. Apparently she had no love lost for Emmett. Maybe he stole the doll himself, to get her away from his snide cousin?

  I glanced at the clock—three-twenty a.m. Another ten minutes and I’d stop for the night. I picked up another envelope. It was hand-addressed to Mrs. William Claremont of Maysville, Kentucky, from Mrs. V. McDowell. I slipped the thin paper out of the fragile envelope and marveled at the close-written lines that took up every inch of the precious paper. The letter began, “My Dear Charlotte . . .”

  After all these long years of searching, my quest is at an end. I have found Angeline. She was lost in an attic in Columbus, Ohio, and came to light at the estate sale when the old gentleman died. My Ohio contact purchased her for the sum of five dollars, and forwarded her on to me. Can you imagine my emotions when I held that precious doll once more? Alas, too late for my dear Virginia, who cried so piteously for her playmate before she passed out of this world. As I held the doll, Charlotte, I wept for the soul of my dear little daughter, and for the grace to forgive myself for allowing Virgil to take the doll for a conduit. Oh, I knew it was the right thing to do at the time—our troops needed money so badly and no one would ever look for riches in the head of a doll. But to think of the sacrifice my poor Virginia made at the age of ten to benefit the Union! No soldier living or dead was ever as brave or noble as my own little angel!

  I don’t know if Angeline’s head is full or empty at this point. Was she lost on the mission or on the return journey? No one will ever know. I pray you won’t judge me harshly, dear Charlotte, but I refuse to look. Enough for me that Virginia’s doll has come back to her family, where she will stay, forever.

  The next few words were blurred a bit, as if a tear had fallen on the thin paper. I was blinking back tears of my own. I folded up the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. I had read enough. The pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. Elizabeth refused to look, but clearly Angeline’s head had been full of something from her mission. Emmett’s cousin Stella wouldn’t allow him to touch the doll, so he stole it from the exhibit and snipped those clumsy stitches on the back of her head to remove what was inside—most likely diamonds and jewels. Then Emmett killed Colonel Windstrom when he saw the jewels in the isolation tent. It fit together as neatly as the pieces of a patchwork quilt.

  Only it didn’t. Emmett didn’t steal Angeline. He never left the museum. I remembered how he stood around during the police questioning, making snarky comments about wanting to press charges against Pete. There was nowhere he could have hidden a doll in that room. He must have teamed up with someone else to steal the doll. According to the note on Emmett’s body, there was a second person involved. It sounded like his partner had double-crossed Emmett, and kept all of the diamonds and jewels for himself . . . after killing Colonel Windstrom, who saw them. Then when Emmett tried to recover the treasure through a bit of blackmail, his partner killed him.

  Who could that partner be?

  I was so close to figuring it all out, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open another second. I snapped off the light. As I was dropping off to sleep, the image of Angeline standing on the table in the museum, her rose-colored ball gown shimmering after all those years, filled my mind.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I woke up late, with the image of Angeline still in my head. She was the key to everything that had happened.

  I thought back to the McDowell exhibit. Pete had come with me, but he had left before all hell broke loose. Colonel Windstrom was there, picking fights, first with Emmett and then McCarthy. Jim had talked with me about his impression. I tried to remember if Karl or Ivan had been there, but I couldn’t place them in the room. I remembered some older women, a young mother with her whiny child, and . . . a woman in a purple paisley dress. I’d seen that dress again, at Leanne’s in Oakland, on the same young woman with the sandy curls. Torey Brand had been at the museum when Angeline was stolen!

  Torey Brand, that enigmatic woman. What had she said? “All the parts fall short of the whole.” She was an art student whose work was trashed by Colonel Windstrom, a “friend” (and maybe more) of Chris Porter, a barista, a woman dressing up as a boy, a self-described “penniless” person who might be tempted by diamonds and jewels, an associate of Kinney’s thugs. Was “murderer” part of her identity as well?

  I looked at the clock. I barely had time to shower before catching the bus to Turner Run Park for the battle. Jim would kill me if I missed his epic battle. I didn’t check out of the hotel, since I’d heard nothing from Pete and didn’t know if it was safe to go home. I tried to call him one more time on the way to the bus stop, with no luck. Pete would laugh at me when he looked at his phone and saw thirty-five missed messages from me. I clung to the thought of his teasing to stop myself from picturing all the horrible things that could have happened to him.

  For a Saturday morning, the bus was crowded. I stood next to a family of small children sitting three to a seat. More people crowded in after me, until the aisle was full. The press of humanity prevented me from going through the rest of Emmett’s papers during the ride. I held my bag tightly, feeling guilty for even possessing the papers. I had a duty to turn them over to the police. This new evidence linking Angeline and the two murders could free Chris from jail. He had not been present at the museum, and he was locked up when Emmett was killed. He could be exonerated in time for his wedding next Saturday. Marsha would be forever grateful to me.

  I clutched the bag closer, feeling the bulk of the papers through the fabric. I couldn’t give them up. Not yet. The police would take that new evidence and use it again
st Pete. He was already in hiding over the discovery of Angeline in his bedroom. This connection between Angeline and two deaths would be enough to make him a murder suspect.

  I forced myself to consider the ghastly possibility that Pete actually was the killer. He had been filming at the camp when Colonel Windstrom died. I thought he had left before the murder, but unless someone saw him go, my memory didn’t count for anything. But he wasn’t at the dance! Never mind. No one knew where he was during the rehearsal. He could have easily snuck in to kill Emmett, whom he hated and had recently threatened to send straight to hell. Emmett was mixed up in Pete’s drug issues from Hollywood—I didn’t have to look any further for motive. Plus, Pete needed money to save his life, and I had already seen a bag stuffed full with cash in his hands. He even knew about the possibility of money being hidden inside a Civil War doll. But why would he have told me that, if he were about to steal the doll? It didn’t make sense. Still, he had left the museum shortly before Angeline was stolen—he could have slipped back in and grabbed her when the lights were out. His cap was next to Emmett’s body, the stolen doll was in his closet, and a pile of money was in a paper bag in his hands. And right now he was on the lam, hiding out from the cops.

  I closed my eyes, trying to keep it together under the watchful gaze of the little girl next to me. Pete was my brother, and I loved him, for what that was worth. I’d told him I believed him when he said he didn’t steal Angeline. I couldn’t abandon him to the cops now.

  “Sorry, Marsha,” I whispered aloud, “sorry, Chris.”

  “My name’s Tanisha, not Marsha,” the little girl proclaimed. “Get it right.”