“Was there another murder? I need to know for the paper,” she said as the officer nearly pushed her back toward her car.
“Yes, ma’am, but you don’t want to see what’s over there. It’s gruesome.”
Annie noted the officer’s tone. She was serious. Annie wasn’t certain that she wanted to push on this.
“Any details you can give me?”
“Details?”
“Anything about the body? Who is it?”
“I can’t tell you anything right now. They are not letting me get close enough to it. They’ve called in the CDC.”
“The CDC?”
“Centers for Disease Control.”
“I know what it stands for,” Annie said. “But why?”
“Evidently, there’s a potentially dangerous substance surrounding the body. Like I said.”
Annie looked at the group of people standing around the body. No wonder they were still. It was dark, the only illumination coming from flashing red lights and a few flashlights cutting light into the dark. But Annie could still see the worry in Detective Bryant’s face. Wait. Did he say he hadn’t called her?
She tried to remember the voice on the phone. It had sounded enough like him. But at 3:00 a.m., who knew what anybody sounded like? One thing was clear: someone wanted to make sure she was here. And she was going to stay put. She leaned on her car and folded her arms, shivered slightly in the brisk air, watching the clouds of breath in the soft peach light.
Did she want to see what the officers were getting sick over? No. Did she want to breathe in a potentially hazardous chemical? No. She’d stay right where she was and wait.
It wasn’t long until a white van came along the slanted road to the parking lot and people dressed in white suits and masks came tumbling out. That gave her heart a start. Nothing like the CDC to make your heart race. Why would they be so interested in this particular case? It didn’t make sense—unless this situation was already on their radar. She watched as the group approached the crime scene and one person fell back, pulling off his mask just as vomit spewed from him, which made Annie’s stomach wrench.
A few minutes later Detective Bryant and several police left the area and walked toward their car.
“All clear,” he said. “It’s not anthrax.”
“Anthrax? God, is that what you thought it was?” Annie said.
He nodded. “You look like hell,” he said and smiled.
“You’re no Prince Charming, either,” Annie said and smiled back. “I guess I need to check out the crime scene.”
“I don’t think you should,” he said, his blue eyes heavy but still sparkling as the sun began to rise over the mountains. “It’s . . . ghastly.”
“Ghastly?”
“A dismemberment.”
“What?”
“The worst thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, looking away from her, his voice cracking.
Good God, he was human, after all.
She swallowed. “Any similarities with Sarah?”
He nodded. “Red hair. Young woman,” he said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping his sweaty forehead. “Those same symbols carved . . .”
“Serial killer?”
He nodded. “Hard to say, but it could be. But let’s not set off a panic in the community. Okay?”
Annie nodded and turned toward her car door.
“Annie?” he said, getting between her and the door. “I, ah, want you to be careful.”
“Of course,” she said, not knowing whether to be touched or pissed because of his patronizing tone. “I can take care of myself, Bryant.”
“If you’re getting phone calls from someone in the middle of the night who claims to be me, and you believe them, I have to wonder if you can.”
Chapter 9
“Sarah Carpenter,” Vera said over her omelet. “What do you know about that family?”
“Not much,” Beatrice said. “What’s the paper say?”
Vera shook the paper out, folded it over, and placed it beside her cheese-coated plate.
“Eighteen-year-old Sarah Carpenter—”
“Eighteen? Lawd, have mercy.”
“Eighteen-year-old Sarah Carpenter,” Vera said, starting again, “was found in Cumberland Creek, in the middle of Cumberland Creek Park. The daughter of Rachel and Paul Carpenter, Sarah was a homeschool graduate and a member of the local Divinity Homeschooling Cooperative, where she played piano and taught preschool. According to local officials, the cause of death is inconclusive, though an accidental drowning has been ruled out. ‘The investigation is under way, and we’ll endeavor to keep the public informed as it progresses, ’ said Detective Bryant, Cumberland Creek Police Department. ‘We have nothing else to report right now.’”
“What a lying bastard,” Beatrice said. “What about those markings? Maybe somebody knows something about them. What an ass. What’s the point in keeping that a secret?”
“I think everybody knows by this point, but maybe he wanted to keep it out of the paper for some reason. I’m surprised that Annie didn’t report it. She never lets him stop her.”
“Speaking of Annie, her husband called and wants me to sit with the kids this morning. You mind if I take Lizzie over there?”
“Not at all. Where’s Annie?”
“She was called out on a story in the middle of the night. Mike didn’t seem to know much. Believe me, I grilled him.”
“Humph,” Vera said. “I bet you did.”
Vera scooped up their plates and placed them in the sink, turned around, and looked at Lizzie. “Done?”
“Done,” she said, nodding emphatically, and raised her arms for her mother to lift her out of the high chair.
Beatrice reached for the paper and glanced over the article. “Hmm. It says where the funeral is on Wednesday.”
“Where?” Vera asked, smoothing back Lizzie’s hair. The child gave a little squeal. “Lizzie doesn’t like people messing with her hair.”
“Neither do I,” Beatrice said and chortled. “Just like her gram.”
“Don’t wish that on her, Mama.”
“Now, would it be so bad to have another bright, beautiful woman in this family?”
Vera couldn’t help herself and laughed. Her mother was one of the most intelligent women in Cumberland Creek. Of course, that didn’t say much. But at one time, she was also one of the smartest women in the world—some breakthrough with her physics research. Vera didn’t understand a thing about it. Nor did she understand the other part—the quantum physics. Beatrice fell in love with it later in her career and received international recognition for her work. Vera sighed. She, the daughter of a physicist and a physician, had struggled all the way through school with math, then science, especially chemistry. Which reminded her. Her mother had stopped talking so much about him.
“You haven’t mentioned Daddy in a long time,” Vera said.
Beatrice’s back was to her. She was at the sink, rinsing off the dishes. But it looked like she stiffened. Well, Vera might not be a physicist, but she was a dancer, had studied movement her whole life, and could read anybody’s body—even a person like Beatrice, who was astute at keeping the personal to herself.
“What is it, Mama?”
Beatrice loaded up the dishwasher, grabbed a black-and-white checked towel from the drawer. “Vera, your father is gone. When I was in Paris, well, he finally left me,” she said, her voice cracking ever so slightly. Jaw firm.
Vera searched her mother’s lined face, bright blue eyes, slightly pursed lips for an answer. She had never believed that her father was haunting her mother. There were no such things as ghosts. But she knew Beatrice believed it with all of her heart. Nobody had questioned Beatrice Matthews too thoroughly about it. After all, she was a brilliant, formidable woman. Still walking to get her groceries, still reading good books, helping to take care of a small child. And her mind was as good as—if not better than—it was when she was thirty. So, Vera had always conceded,
if her mother wanted to believe her father was hanging around, what was the harm? But now this, this had her concerned. It was not like her mother.
“Just like that?” Vera said. “He left?”
“Yes, Vera. Just like that. Now, give me the baby, and don’t get your panties in a cinch over it. I need to get over to Annie’s place. “
Vera put Elizabeth in the stroller, which she kept in the foyer, with a diaper bag ready to go. “Okay, Mama,” she said. “Whatever you say.”
“Well, now,” Beatrice said. “Forty-one years old and you’re finally learning to listen to me. Ain’t that remarkable!”
Vera kissed Lizzie, then Beatrice, and watched her mother walk down the sidewalk with Lizzie in the stroller. She glanced around. The sidewalks were empty; she was pleased to note there were no suspicious characters hanging around. She suddenly wondered what the hell happened to her mom in Paris—and she planned to get to the bottom of it.
Chapter 10
Beatrice had it all under control. Annie’s boys were off to school, Mike was off to work, and Elizabeth was napping in her portable crib in Annie’s living room. She rinsed off the last of the Chamovitzes’ breakfast dishes and was thinking about going home as soon as Elizabeth awakened when Annie walked in the door.
“The boys in school?” Annie said immediately to Beatrice when she saw her standing at the sink.
“Well, how do to you, too,” Beatrice said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Bea,” Annie said and dropped her bag on the table. “I’m a bit off this morning.”
When Annie dropped the bag, Beatrice saw her tremble.
“Here now,” Beatrice said, pulling out a chair and gently guiding Annie to it. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Annie looked directly into her eyes and smirked.
“Okay, okay, the irony’s not lost on me. Me and my ghosts,” Beatrice said.
“Oh God, my neck feels like a tightrope. Maybe I’m getting a headache.”
“Coffee?” Beatrice said, noticing the circles around Annie’s dark eyes.
“I was not thinking.”
“I know. You look like hell.”
“Thanks, Bea,” she said, taking the full hot cup from Beatrice’s hands. “I’ve been up since about three.”
“What on earth is going on?”
“Another murder,” Annie said hoarsely.
Beatrice clutched her chest and sat down. “Who?” she finally said, fingering her disheveled sweater.
“I don’t know yet.”
“What do you know?”
“I know . . . some incredibly sick and scary stuff.”
Just then a baby’s cry interrupted them.
Beatrice rushed to her granddaughter, pulled her from the crib, and sat down on the rocking chair. “Hey, Lizzie. Granny’s here.”
Beatrice felt her only grandchild’s weight on her, and she loved the warmth of it. The tenderness and reverence. Maybe it was true that being a grandparent was better than being a parent. She appreciated each step of Elizabeth’s life—in a way that she couldn’t have done as a young mom herself. When you were in the thick of it, it just wasn’t easy. Still, there were moments she would never forget with Vera, and sometimes she wished she could go back and freeze those moments. Sometimes she looked at Elizabeth and remembered those days with a startling freshness.
Poor Annie. Now that both boys were in school all day, she had a whole new set of worries. The local Weekly Religious Education program was just one of those worries that Annie had expressed to Beatrice. It was “Bible” education given by the local church—really they were proselytizing. If it were an “education,” she’d have no problem with it. But her two Jewish boys had no reason to attend Bible studies at the church. It was just beginning, Beatrice feared.
Annie sipped her coffee and watched Beatrice rock Elizabeth on the well-worn glider rocker.
“So?” Beatrice finally said. “Are you going to make me wait and read it in the paper?”
“Another young woman. Arms were cut off. There was a white powder all over the place. The CDC came. Thought it was anthrax, but it wasn’t. It was just a very fine specialty flour.”
“Jesus. You did have quite a morning.” Beatrice took a deep breath. Was this really happening in her sleepy little town?
“A couple more things, Bea.”
“Yes?” Did she want to hear more?
“She had those same markings. And she was a redhead.”
“You don’t say,” Beatrice said, eyes widening. “Are we talking serial killer, then?”
“It looks like it. And there’s another interesting piece to it,” Annie said, getting up to fix herself a bowl of cereal.
“God, what else could there be?” Beatrice looked at her with her eyebrows lifted.
“It seems to be getting personal.”
“What do you mean, personal? Personal for who?”
“For me. The phone call I received in the middle of the night? It wasn’t from the detective. It was from someone else, someone who wanted to make sure I was there.”
“You told the police that, didn’t you?”
“Bryant knows. They are going to put a device on my phone,” she said, opening the refrigerator, grabbing the milk. “It was a compromise. He wanted to post guards at my house. I don’t need Cumberland Creek’s finest hanging around my house. I want some time to unravel this before my life gets completely turned upside down.”
“That’s foolish,” Beatrice said. “C’mon.”
Annie had just started to speak when the doorbell rang.
“Yoo-hoo,” came Cookie’s voice as she entered. She looked from Beatrice to Annie. “What’s going on? I feel like I’ve walked into a hornet’s nest.”
Chapter 11
Annie was working on Ben’s soccer book. She was thrilled that Sheila had finally gotten in the soccer ball embellishments she’d ordered a couple of weeks ago. She placed the ball on the corner of the photo. Her oldest son with that grin on his face, holding a ball. She loved it. This was one way her boys were fitting in—with their athleticism.
Annie took a long sip of her beer and thought about this group of women who were her friends. Sheila, with her morning runs and scrapbooking business, everything in her home and life so precise, except for her own grooming; DeeAnn, with the hands and heart of a baker, always finding a reason to laugh; Paige, with her tie-dyed hippie clothes and decidedly un-hippie lifestyle; and Vera, always a little too made up, a butterfly stronger than stone. Cookie, the outsider that everybody adored, was caught up in some shimmery paper across the table.
“Oh, isn’t that beautiful!” DeeAnn exclaimed over a scrapbook page that Cookie was working on.
Annie glanced away from her boy’s photo on the page to Cookie’s white slender fingers holding the paper. It was just like DeeAnn to get excited over a shiny thing.
“It’s for my book of shadows,” Cookie explained.
“Your what?” Annie said.
“A book of shadows is a witch’s journal. I keep track of things and write about rituals and moon phases. My observations. Stuff like that,” she said. “My other one is getting kind of used and full. I thought I might start a new one, using some scrapbook techniques.”
“I love that glitter paper,” DeeAnn said, holding out some nachos with her homemade salsa. “Have you tried this?”
“Now, be careful. I don’t want salsa spilling. Take it over to the snack table, please,” Sheila said.
DeeAnn rolled her eyes but did what she was told. Food and precious photos didn’t mix well.
Annie went back to her soccer book, sipping her beer. Beer and scrapbooking had become synonymous with her Saturday nights. If her old friends in D.C. could see her now.
“I wonder what Vera is doing right now,” Sheila said and giggled.
“One thing she’s not doing is this,” DeeAnn said.
“Oh, it’s a good thing we have Vera and her sex life to talk about,” Paige said, fussin
g over the Cricut personal cutting machine. “None of the rest of us old married ladies get much sex.”
That’s what you think, Annie thought.
“That’s because our husbands are too tired from work. What does that Tony guy do with himself, anyway?” DeeAnn said, scooping up more salsa. Her large hands dwarfed the salsa jar.
“God only knows,” Sheila said. “He’s teaching dance somewhere, I suppose. Chelsea Dance?”
Again, it became very quiet. The spurts of quiet were probably what Annie liked the most about their gatherings. They could be quiet among themselves, and it wasn’t a problem. DeeAnn was working on a scrap cookbook; Paige was working on her niece’s wedding scrapbook; Sheila was scrapbooking her daughter Donna’s senior year of high school.
But tonight an air of fear seemed to permeate. The news that a second body had turned up had sent the town—especially the women—into a state of fear and shock. The victims were both young women from Jenkins Hollow, a place that seemed to be legendary for outcasts.
“I just can’t believe it,” Sheila suddenly said. “Another murder.”
“Did they ever find out who the second woman was?” DeeAnn asked Annie.
“Yes, Rebecca Collins,” Annie said, pushing back the images that came to her from her morning at the landfill a few days ago. “We’re going to her funeral.”
“Did you say that Bea went to Sarah’s funeral?” Sheila said, pushing her glasses back on her nose.
Paige piped up. “Bea’s not going to miss a funeral.”
The women laughed. It was true Beatrice Matthews didn’t miss a funeral within fifty miles of Cumberland Creek proper.
Paige was one of the few croppers who still had deep ties to Jenkins Hollow. But she was recently ostracized by her church because her son was gay and she’d just reconciled with him. She stood up for him one Sunday during the preacher’s antigay rant, and that was the end of her church relationship. It was the church she was raised in, the one her family had always gone to, and it held many memories of weddings, baptisms, funerals. Paige was devastated, but also angry.
“Of course, my mother wouldn’t miss one, either,” Paige said.
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