Carlene Thompson

by Black for Remembrance (epub)

  Really, Caroline Corday's visit had ruined her whole week. Any minute, though, the Valium would take effect, washing through her like a warm, tranquil wave. Then she'd have another glass of wine, maybe watch The Tonight Show. But in the meantime, where the hell was her robe?

  Hangers grated against the metal rod as she thrust a mass of clothing to one side, furious she couldn't find the robe that always got in her way when she was looking for something else. Then she heard the rustling sound again, only this time it was much closer. Something is in this closet with me, she thought in one frozen instant before her hair was grabbed and her head snapped back with brutal force. Her scream was cut off as a knife sliced smoothly across her throat from ear to ear. Blood spurted forward onto her beautiful clothes. She gazed at the huge red splotches, horrified. Suddenly her hair was released and she fell forward, a puppet without strings. She tried to scream again, but nothing came out. Nothing but blood, gushing all over her hands. Instinctively she struggled to her knees, fighting to escape. She was surprised there was no pain, only shock. Swaying, she slowly turned around, facing the bedroom. She could feel something behind her, waiting to strike again if necessary. Her legs pumped weakly as she crawled while the attacker watched. She toppled sideways, her face scraping against the carpet. God, the blood! It was splashing all around her, and she was getting dizzy.

  Ironically, the phone began to ring. She rolled and clambered back up on one knee. Lifting her head slightly she could hazily see the brown phone on the nightstand, shrilling urgently. She dragged herself forward, willing herself across the Bahama Tan carpeted floor that now looked as vast and shimmering as the desert. Maybe by some miracle the receiver would fall off and someone could hear her gurgling through the blood. But of course miracles never happened to her. She didn't deserve them.

  At last the phone stopped ringing, but she was hardly aware of it. Her fingers tore into the carpet as very slowly her mind dimmed, finally blocking out the vision of Hayley Corday bound and gagged in the backseat of a maniac's car.

  Chapter 4

  "MOMMY, ARE YOU awake?" Melinda whispered in her ear.

  Caroline opened swollen eyes to see the little girl holding a tray bearing a cinnamon roll, a thermos, and a yellow chrysanthemum stuck in a clean jelly jar. "Breakfast in bed?"

  "That's right. Daddy said you didn't feel so good."

  Caroline sat up, taking the dangerously slanting tray from Melinda. "This looks yummy. What's in the thermos?"

  "Coffee. Daddy made it. I knew I'd spill it if I didn't put it in a thermos."

  "That was very smart of you."

  Melinda beamed and circuited the bed to crawl in beside her. "Doesn't that cinnamon roll look good?"

  "It sure does." Caroline glanced at the child's dark green eyes fastened longingly on the roll. "Why don't you share it with me? I can't eat all of it."

  "Well, okay, if you're sure," Melinda said graciously.

  Caroline poured coffee from the thermos into the plastic cup. "Where's Daddy?"

  "Gone to give someone a baby." Melinda always used this phrase, and Caroline smiled, thinking it sounded as if David went around town fathering children. "He said to tell you to take it easy and he loves you."

  "That's nice." She sipped the coffee, which had obviously been made a couple of hours ago. Then she glanced at the bedside clock. 9:30. She hadn't slept this late in years. "Why aren't you in school?"

  "Last night someone broke out all the windows in my classroom. It's cold in there." Melinda hugged her arms to her chest and shivered dramatically. "Brrrr!"

  "I get the idea. Too bad." Caroline paused. "Was it only the windows in your classroom?"

  "Yep." This time it was Caroline who shivered, remembering cold air blowing through a broken window and ruffling Twinkle's dirty orange hair. Melinda's bedroom, Melinda’s classroom.

  Melinda's forehead was puckering. "Do you think the person that broke the school windows is the same one that broke my window?"

  "I'm sure it was someone else," Caroline said firmly, hearing the edge of fright in Melinda's voice.

  "Maybe it was a poultry gust."

  "A what?"

  "You know, a ghost."

  "Oh, a poltergeist." Caroline frowned. "Melinda, do you believe in ghosts?"

  Melinda's eyes widened. "Well, of course," she said, as if Caroline had asked if she lived in this house. "Don't you?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "There were lots of ghosts out last night."

  No kidding, Caroline thought. "But not real ones."

  "No, but there are real ones, Mommy. It's a true fact." Melinda smiled. "Aurora's downstairs."

  "Aurora?"

  "My bean sprout. Why can't anybody remember? When Daddy drove me to school this morning and someone told us about the windows, he started to come straight home, but I made him wait till I went in to get Aurora. She's in the kitchen keeping warm."

  "You've had an awful time keeping your possessions from catching cold lately, haven't you?"

  "Well, if somebody would just stop breaking windows!"

  "When Aurora realizes how much you love her, she's sure to grow."

  "I hope." Melinda licked the cinnamon off her fingers and pointed at the chrysanthemum. "Isn't that pretty?"

  "Sure is. Are you going to eat it, too?"

  Melinda giggled. "Nope. I'm too full." She looked at her mother. "When Greg and me got home last night you were crying. I heard you. And your eyes are all funny today. What was wrong?"

  Caroline's mind flew, searching for an answer. She couldn't tell Melinda she thought she had seen Hayley because Melinda had no idea who Hayley was. Greg knew the story, but she and David had decided it was wise to wait until Melinda was older before they told her about the little girl who had been kidnapped and murdered. She might become fearful of suffering the same fate, and Caroline didn't want her childhood blighted by anxiety.

  She was saved from inventing an answer by the ringing of the telephone next to the bed. "Probably Daddy," she said to Melinda. But it was Lucy.

  "Caroline, have you heard about Pamela Burke?"

  Lucy's voice was too loud and Caroline heard the tremor in it. "No. Has she been in an accident?"

  "There was a fire at the house and she's dead."

  "Oh, no!" Caroline drew in her breath, thinking. "How did the fire start?"

  "Arson. They're sure of it. You see, the automatic sprinkler system kicked on and put out the fire before it really got going. But Caro, that's not the worst of it. Tom was called in on the case," Lucy went on, referring to her lover of two years, homicide detective Tom Jerome. "Pamela was found in the bedroom with her throat slit."

  "Good lord! Then she was murdered!" Caroline exclaimed and could have bitten her tongue when Melinda squealed and began tugging at her arm.

  "Who got murdered? What's going on?"

  Caroline put her hand over the receiver. "No one you know was hurt. I'll explain it all in a few minutes." Then to Lucy. "Do they have any idea who might be responsible?"

  "Not yet. Larry was down at the construction company office with his father. He got home to find the house smoldering. He called the fire department from his car phone, but by the time they got there, the fire was mostly out. It didn't take them long to find Pamela."

  "What an awful way to die."

  "Yeah. But at least she died quickly."

  "I'm sure that's not much consolation to Larry."

  "I know. I didn't mean to sound flippant." Lucy sighed. "Well, I'd better go. I knew you'd want to hear about this, and I was feeling so guilty I had to talk to someone."

  "Guilty about what?"

  "About not liking her."

  "Just because she's dead doesn't mean she was a wonderful person. Listen, why don't you come over for lunch? Melinda's home. All the windows were broken out of her classroom by some Halloween prankster and the three of us could have grilled-cheese sandwiches and soup."

  "Please come, Aunt Lucy," Melinda chimed in
the background.

  "Okay. See you around twelve-thirty, if that's all right."

  "Great. We'll look forward to it, Lucy."

  As soon as Caroline hung up, Melinda's huge eyes grew even rounder. "Tell me, tell me!"

  "A young woman of around twenty-five, a woman I used to know when she was a child, was killed last night."

  "And it was murder," Melinda breathed.

  "Looks like it."

  "How?"

  Caroline hesitated. She knew children saw so much violence on TV, but having it happen in your hometown was different. Still, Melinda would hear about it on the news. "Her throat was cut. Then her house was set on fire."

  "Wow," Melinda murmured. "Has Tom found the killer?"

  Melinda stubbornly believed Tom Jerome was the only real policeman in the city and handled all important cases, no matter what their nature. "Actually, Tom is working on Pamela's murder. But he hasn't had any luck yet."

  "I bet he could use some help. I always figure out the Nancy Drew stories before the end, and I watch Murder, She Wrote reruns all the time."

  Caroline looked at her gravely. "I'll pass that information along to him. Meanwhile, you can get your magnifying glass all polished up for detecting clues."

  Melinda looked stricken. "I don't have one!"

  "Then we'll go out shopping for one this afternoon. Would you like that?"

  "Fabulous." Melinda often imitated Lucy. "But now you'd better take a shower and put on your makeup. You don't look so good."

  "Thank you, darling," Caroline said dryly.

  When she looked at herself in the mirror, though, she had to agree with Melinda. Her eyes were still red and slightly swollen from crying, and she was unusually pale. Well, that was what makeup was for for bringing color to white cheeks cheeks almost as white as Hayley's had been last night.

  She closed her eyes. Of course Hayley had not been at the door. Was she losing her mind to have thought so for even an instant? But there was the child, and the doll, and the voice in the storeroom. Hayley's voice. She shook her head and opened her eyes. "You've already had one nervous breakdown, and you're not going to have another one," she said sternly to her reflection. "Hayley was not in that storeroom, but something's going on something I have to find the answer to."

  When Lucy arrived a few minutes later, Caroline was already grilling the sandwiches while Melinda stood on a chair to stir the vegetable soup Caroline had made the day before. "This smells extra, extra good," Melinda told her. The child had been knocking herself out all morning to cheer her up, and Caroline felt a violent rush of love for her. What would I do if I ever lost her, too? she wondered, then shook off the morbid thought.

  "I could eat a horse!" Lucy announced, hanging over the soup pan. "I was so upset about Pamela I didn't eat any breakfast."

  "Pamela is the girl that got murdered," Melinda said. "Mommy told me and I want you to tell Tom I'm real good at figuring out mysteries."

  "I didn't know that." Lucy's voice never held the slightest trace of condescension when she talked to Melinda. "I will tell Tom."

  "We're going shopping for a magnifying glass this afternoon," Caroline told her, "just in case Tom needs her services. All good detectives need a magnifying glass."

  "They certainly do," Lucy agreed. "I know Tom has one."

  "Why don't you go with us, Aunt Lucy?"

  Lucy frowned. "Well, I left the store one other afternoon this week. I'm not sure I ought to push all the work off on Tina."

  Caroline scooped up the first batch of cheese sandwiches. "We don't plan to make it an all-afternoon affair. I just need to get out for a while, and you look like you could use some entertainment, too. Do you think Tina would mind looking after things for a couple of hours?"

  Lucy laughed. "She'd probably prefer being alone. I think she finds my methods a bit haphazard. She's a very buttoned-up person."

  "She can't be all that buttoned-up if what you told me about her love life is true."

  "What about Tina's love life?" Melinda demanded. She had become both curious and proprietary about her idol. "Doesn't she have a nice boyfriend?"

  Lucy tried to look innocent. "She has a very nice boyfriend. It's just that she wants to keep him a secret."

  "Oh, he's married," Melinda said nonchalantly and turned back to the soup.

  Lucy gaped.

  "Soap operas," Caroline told her. "She knows more about life than I do."

  After they had eaten, Lucy called the store, telling Tina she would be back around three o'clock. "I'm going shopping with Caroline and Melinda. We don't have any appointments this afternoon, so I hope my being gone won't be a problem." Tina was obviously reassuring her because Lucy smiled. "The smartest move I ever made besides starting Elder's Interiors was hiring you. You're not only a genius, but also a sweetie pie." Caroline could just see Tina pulling a droll face over Lucy's effusiveness. "See you later, Ms. Morgan."

  Caroline didn't feel like fighting downtown traffic, so they went to a mall about five miles away. The first thing they did was buy Melinda's magnifying glass, which had been Caroline's excuse for getting away from the house. Next they went to an expensive dress shop where Lucy tried on a black-sequined evening jacket. "Wouldn't this look great with jeans?" she asked, and finally settled on a wide-brimmed red hat sporting a feather. Caroline chose a white angora sweater that Lucy pronounced "conservative, but striking," and at last, after much deliberation, Melinda decided on a pink ski jacket and matching mittens.

  Not until they stopped for Cokes and Melinda had run over to look at the video games did Caroline tell Lucy about the child who had appeared at the door the night before. "Lucy, she was wearing a costume identical to the one I made for Hayley, and she said 'treats or tickles' just the way Hayley did."

  Lucy looked at her queerly. "I taught Hayley that phrase. It's what my father taught me."

  "I'm going outside to look for clues. I'm going to find out who broke my window," Melinda told Caroline. "They probably left footprints all over."

  As soon as she was safely engrossed in her investigation, guarded by the faithful George, Caroline took Lucy upstairs. "When you see the doll," she told Lucy, "you'll recognize it. You'll know it's Twinkle."

  Before going to bed the night she found it, Caroline had stashed the doll in an old hatbox on the shelf in her closet. When she pulled it down, Lucy smiled. "Caroline, you've had that box ever since I've known you. You used to hide presents for Hayley in there."

  "Well, there's no present in there now. There's only…"

  The box was empty.

  Caroline felt like crying in frustration. "I don't understand. I put Twinkle in here just two days ago. I didn't want Melinda to see it."

  Lucy gave her a sympathetic look. "Could David have taken it?"

  "I don't think so."

  "How about Melinda?"

  "If she'd come across the ratty old thing, she would have brought it to me. Besides, she never trawls through my closet."

  "Fidelia?"

  "How would she know where I hid it?"

  "Could someone have gotten in?"

  "The locks were changed the day after the break-in, and there haven't been any more broken windows." Caroline sank down on the bed beside Lucy. "I so wanted you to see it so you could verify that it was Twinkle."

  "Couldn't David do that? He was around during Hayley's childhood"

  "He was around me, not Hayley. He'd only seen her and Chris a few times."

  Lucy patted Caroline's leg. "Look, honey, I don't know what's going on, but you'll have to let it go for now. It's making you crazy."

  "Thanks."

  "You know what I mean. You're wire-tight."

  Caroline folded her arms across her chest. "I know I sound nuts, but how can I forget that child Halloween night, finding Twinkle, discovering that Hayley's angel had been destroyed?"

  Lucy's eyes widened. "The angel on her tombstone?"

  "Yes. I found it on her birthday."

  "I
t was all right that morning when I took my flowers."

  "That's what I figured, but by five o'clock the damage had been done." She looked into Lucy's eyes. "Its head had been hacked off."

  Lucy winced. "God."

  "And that's not all. There was a bouquet of black silk orchids on the grave with a card inscribed in childish printing reading, 'To Hayley, Black for remembrance.'"

  Lucy stared at her. "Are you sure about all this?"

  "Why do you keep asking me that? Of course I'm sure."

  "Do you have the bouquet?"

  "Well…no. It frightened me so much I bolted away from the cemetery. I went back the next day, but the bouquet was gone."

  "No doll, no bouquet."

  Caroline bristled. "Maybe the doll isn't here now, but David saw it, too."

  "He just couldn't identify it."

  "What about the tombstone?"

  "Look, Caro, I hate to sound harsh, but Hayley's murder was one of the most sensational news events in this town for the past twenty years. A lot of creeps are wandering around out there. One of them could have torn up the tombstone and put the bouquet on the grave."

  "I guess so. But I really don't think…"

  Lucy looked away, raking her hand through her shaggy hair the way she always did when she was upset. "Caroline, you've got to get this business off your mind. Let it rest for a while. Let Hayley rest."

  Caroline was stung. "Don't you think I want to let her rest?"

  "Frankly, no. You haven't let go of this thing for nineteen years. You even hired private investigators to look for her after her body was identified."

  Caroline's eyes dropped. "I couldn't believe she was dead."

  "Because you didn't want her to be. But she is. That's the cold, ugly truth. She's dead."

  For an instant Caroline felt like slapping her best friend of nearly twenty-three years. Then she felt her anger ebb away. "You're right, of course. She's dead. But there was a doll, and a bouquet, and a little girl at the door looking exactly like Hayley on her last Halloween. I'm scared."

  "Then we'll talk to Tom. Maybe he can help you."

  "Oh, Lucy, you don't know how much better that would make me feel."