The Opium Equation

by Lisa Wysocky

  It was an old cemetery. Many of the crumbling markers decorated graves that had been there for over a century. Old Nashville names such as Harding, McGavock, Robertson and Demonbreun were prominent on the larger stones. And even though the grass was meticulously mowed, the paths carefully swept, the entire graveyard had a desolate air. It had a feel of incurable shabbiness. Only in the far right corner did the feeling lift, giving way to newer marble headstones that you didn’t have to squint at to read the inscriptions.

  It was in this area that Glenda’s grave had been dug. And now she was about to be lowered into it, in a black lacquered coffin that was covered with a blanket of large, white roses. For obvious reasons, the coffin had been closed during this morning’s brief period of viewing, the heavy veil of prickly rose discouraging even the nosiest of neighbors from the tiniest urge to peek. I wondered about the choice of cemetery, but Adam said many generations of Duprees were buried here. I think if I had the Dupree money, I’d send a little over to spiff up their graves.

  Despite the short notice, the Hollywood contingent had turned out. Morgan Fairchild, a long-time friend of Glenda’s was there. She looked fabulously beautiful and blonde. Bill Royce, a writer and casting director I’d met at one of Glenda’s parties stood next to her as did Neville Johnson, Glenda’s entertainment attorney. Someone told me that Warren Beatty sent the huge spray of lilies that stood next to the grave.

  River Road residents had also turned out en masse for the event. Even though Glenda hadn’t quite fit in, and even though by virtue of her caustic personality she wasn’t well liked, she had been born in the Nashville area, and, like the prodigal son, had returned. When she was alive, neighbors alternately bragged about the fact that she was a star and moaned that she was the rudest person ever. But now that she had moved to the hereafter and wasn’t quite so likely to say something to piss anyone off, all the neighbors were willing to let bygones be bygones and sink any differences along with Glenda to the bottom of the grave.

  I had not wanted to come. Let’s get that straight right away. I don’t like funerals and prefer to do my mourning in private. In fact, I felt I had already done my grieving, what there was of it, Tuesday afternoon at the riverbank in the comforting fork of my favorite tree. But I knew my absence would be conspicuous, and ever after, had I not shown up, it would be added as a codicil to my name. I can just hear them now, “Oh, yes dear, this is Cat Enright, the one who didn’t show up for Glenda Dupree’s funeral.”

  I tried to imagine Glenda peacefully at rest inside the plush coffin, but couldn’t quite pull it off. It was easier to imagine her screeching in protest, banging on the gates of heaven, yelling for someone to return her to her living earthly body. I could just see St. Peter grabbing Glenda by the waist and dragging her, kicking and screaming, to her life review with the Creator. The thought almost made me giggle.

  Instead, I clenched my fists and hugged myself tightly. Glenda was dead. Even though I had found her body, it was hard to imagine. A weak midday sun reflected off the spray of roses on the coffin. On the other side of the grave, Deputy Giles stood, looking solemn in his tan-and-brown county uniform. He hadn’t worn a coat, even though the temperature was hovering at forty, but you’d never know by looking at him that he might be cold.

  Adam stepped forward and dropped a few clumps of dirt symbolically over the coffin. The priest said a few words. Two minutes later I remembered none of them. Then people were leaving.

  Dickson journalist Chuck Dauphin walked next to Morgan Fairchild, as did Buffy Thorndyke from the Ashland City Times. I’d called Buffy earlier that morning to ask about the time of Glenda’s phone call to her on Monday. Buffy said it had come right before she went to lunch at noon. Buffy wasn’t carrying a notebook, but I was sure I’d read about the funeral in next week’s paper.

  Carole Carson was there with her husband, Keith. He must have flown in early this morning. I knew he’d been out on the road yesterday. I wondered if it was sinful to have lustful thoughts about your neighbor’s husband while at a funeral, and decided I didn’t care. There was no way around it. He was hot.

  There were a few older women dressed in varying shades of gray that I assumed were contemporaries of Opal Dupree. Hill Henley was there too, looking white as a sheet, no doubt realizing that the next funeral he attended could be that of his son. I smiled at Jon and at Darcy. Darcy was inappropriately dressed in an old pair of chinos and a navy down-filled jacket, but she either didn’t see me, or wasn’t up to conversation.

  Jon ignored me, which was a disturbing sign for our ongoing working relationship. Okay. I have not been communicating well lately. I should have told Jon about the funeral in person, rather than leaving a message for him. I could tell by his studious indifference that I would have to be the one to take the first step. But not here. Now was not the time.

  Adam and Opal, of course, had ringside seats. I had worried that Opal would be so overwhelmed with the funeral proceedings that she’d have one of her spells, but she sat still as stone throughout the entire service. Most likely she was heavily sedated.

  I, too, began to walk toward the parking lot, which was divided from the rest of the cemetery by an even lower stone wall. It was so low, in fact, that you could step over it in places where the top stones had fallen away.

  The media vultures, whose cameras had been relegated to the parking area, jumped into action as the mourners began to make their way to their cars. Interest from national press remained high, as I knew it would. I watched as one cameraman approached Keith Carson and I felt a twinge of sorrow for Carole. The life of a celebrity did have its downfalls.

  Deputy Giles caught up with me, having agreed last night to take me to and from the service. While a civilian shouldn’t be in a county car without reason, the deputy said if he got any flack about it he could call my presence “close surveillance.” It was either that or have Jon take me, and Jon was mad enough at me right now to bash my head in himself.

  My truck had been towed to a garage near Verna Mae’s and wouldn’t be ready for another few hours. Goose’s branch had done a number on my oil pan.

  Deputy Giles exhaled loudly as we got into the patrol car. “You know, Miz Cat, I should have taken my dad up on that job at the co-op. Life would be a lot simpler. Find the right bag of feed, load it up, make change and you’re done.”

  “Can I take that to mean a new development has taken place?”

  The deputy made a wry face as he pulled the patrol car onto Highway 100 and headed west, toward Fairview.

  “What happened is that after I left your place last night, I arrested a student of yours. Griggs. He was over to that catfish restaurant there on Highway 12. Drunk and disorderly, and hotter than a lit match. Didn’t realize he had such a temper. Seems he got upset when the other diners wouldn’t believe his story.”

  “I see. His story. And what story would that be, Deputy?”

  “Seems Griggs was insisting the lady wasn’t beaten to death. Said he knew it for a fact. Had it from a good source that she died from asphyxiation and not from head wounds.”

  Why would Robert say that, I wondered. Could he have killed Glenda? Maybe. But I just could not fathom it. There had to be another explanation.

  “Poor Robert,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know him well but he’s always so remote. I’m not surprised he snapped. He keeps everything locked up inside.”

  “Yeah,” said the deputy. “There’s only one thing… . ”

  I looked at him. “You can’t mean that Glenda… .”

  He nodded. “Bingo. Miz Dupree choked to death on her own blood. Time of death was late Monday afternoon, give or take a couple hours either way. Her head wounds were messy and were inflicted some time earlier than the death, but she didn’t die from them. She might have, eventually, but she suffocated on all that blood first.”

  “Oh my God. How awful.” I couldn’t imagine the horror of Glenda’s death. As much as I had disliked her, I wouldn’t wis
h that kind of abuse on anybody.

  Then I realized that late Monday afternoon was when I pounded on her door. If I hadn’t slipped on Bubba’s cap and gone off to look for him, would I have gone around to Glenda’s back door? And could it have been open then as it was the next morning? If it had happened that way, then maybe I would have found Glenda alive. Maybe she could even have been saved! My mind was swimming with the possibilities. I mentioned my thoughts to the deputy, but he shook his head.

  “Don’t go playing ‘what if.’ That won’t get you nowhere. From what I can tell from the medical report, even though she might technically have been alive late that afternoon, her brain was toast. She wouldn’t have made it even if you’d found her at two o’clock.

  “Thing is, Miz Cat,” he continued, bringing us both back to more productive thought, “we haven’t let the report from the medical examiner’s office out to anyone. So how did Griggs know? You think he’s been talking to your psychic horse?”

  “That’s a joke, right Deputy? Ha ha. You know, I know Robert’s kind of strange, but I don’t see him involved in this.”

  He cocked his head. “Maybe. Maybe not. By the way, whoever bashed the lady was right-handed. And you … are a lefty.”

  He glanced over and I noticed there was another slight lift at one corner of his mouth. Another smile. My heart gave a leap of relief.

  “In addition to that,” he added, “it rules Bubba out as well. Bubba is right-handed, but the medical examiner determined he probably wasn’t big enough or tall enough to get this job done. No, we’re looking at a right-handed adult here. And about Griggs. Well, I think he’s a talkative drunk who knows more than he’s told us. We’re going to hold him as long as we can.”

  “But how did Robert know?”

  “That, Miz Cat, I don’t know. It’s precisely the reason we’re holding him. So he can tell us.” He glanced at me again. “Just between you and me and the fence post, I’m having a heck of a time trying to figure it all out. You got time to take a little drive? My brother says it clears the head.”

  Considering the dismal scene we had just left, I thought a drive definitely was in order. We passed through Fairview, turned north on Highway 96, east on I-40, and took the Kingston Springs exit. But instead of turning right at the “T”––toward Highway 70 and Sam’s Creek Road, which would bring us back to River Road––we turned left and drove past the block long area that passes for “downtown” Kingston Springs. Then we took another left and headed into a wooded area. After a while, the reason for the drive became clear. The deputy wanted someone to bounce his ideas to. Someone who would not dismiss his ideas without thoroughly considering them. Someone, well, kind of like me.

  I was flattered. In several ways I was beginning to appreciate the slow-moving, quick-thinking deputy. The deputy was too young for me, but if his brother was anything like him, I just might give it a go. Maybe.

  “All right,” he said, holding up his hand. “We know the lady left your barn about ten forty-five Monday morning. We think she went directly home. No one admits to seeing her after she left the barn. So let’s say she did go home. She’s inside. The front door is locked, or so you say.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “That means the killer was either in the house waiting for her when she got back, or she let him in and locked the door after. We think he left via the rear door, the door you found open. My insides tell me she knew the guy.”

  I’d thought that all along. Glenda was not the type to let strangers into her house. She never scheduled an appliance to be serviced or the chimney to be cleaned unless Cinda Lu was there to deal with it. In fact, Glenda was not likely to even let friends into her house unless they had an appointment.

  I told him about Glenda’s call to Buffy just before noon.

  “And Bubba was seen,” I added, “by Frog at noon right outside the house.”

  “That reminds me,” he said. “I checked up on that Frog character and it turns out he was the one broke into Fairbanks. Said he was looking for Bubba, but I think he wanted to see all the gory details for himself. I’m not charging him with nothing, at least not yet. He may have more to tell. On the other hand, he may be like the rest of his family and turn out to be as useful as the goose pee I used to find on my granny’s pump handle.”

  Deputy Giles pulled the car onto a wide spot in the road, stopped and killed the engine. To our left a picnic table perched precariously on a wide ledge of scaly rock. Beyond the rock was a breathtaking view of stony cliffs and tall pine trees. I saw that a dozen or so industrial sawhorses cordoned off the rock slab. The sawhorses were all chained together and several were screwed into the ground.

  “Lover’s Leap,” said the deputy. “Ever been here?”

  I shook my head as we got out, passed between the wooden barriers and sat down at the picnic table.

  “Usual story. Young lovers come here for privacy, a romantic view. The guy somehow falls over the ledge. It’s one hundred and seventy-four feet to the bottom. A bunch of rock ledges along the way. He didn’t make it, of course, so the girl wrote a note and pinned it on that tree over there.” He indicated a sturdy oak with a nod of his head. “She threw herself off. They were both only sixteen. Happened in the twenties.”

  I asked about the sawhorse barriers and the deputy quirked his mouth in a smile.

  “Got so’s high school kids would drive up here and dare each other to see who’d drive closest to the ledge. One kid came so close the end of the ledge broke off. Took him and the car with it. That was in the fifties. Big, heavy car. Then there’ve been a few over the years who come up to party. The guys get themselves full of beer and go to the ledge to pee. Over the years, three or four of ’em lost their balance and took a quick trip to the bottom.”

  He looked out at the peaceful view. “The lady might even have been glad to see the guy who killed her, assuming she knew him … or her,” he said, switching mental gears with ease. I struggled to keep up.

  “Assuming it’s a he, why did he want to kill her?” I asked. “If we can figure out the why, maybe the who will follow.”

  Martin looked at me. He seemed to be taking my thoughts quite seriously.

  “Think, now,” I said. “Who would want to kill Glenda Dupree? It probably was someone that she made incredibly angry. Of course, that includes everyone in the riding class and at least half the county. Or maybe it was someone she had dirt on, a piece of information that would destroy a life if it got out. Maybe it was information that she stumbled across, something she didn’t set out to find, but she did, and she told whomever it was that she knew. So they killed her.”

  He nodded. “Could be, but you left out a big piece. Bubba Henley. What happened to Bubba? The murder weapon––the twitch––was his. It was covered with his clean, unsmudged prints. There were no other prints on it. You do realize that it’s all tied together, that Bubba somehow is mixed up in this?”

  A lightning bolt flashed through my head. “No other prints?”

  “None.”

  “No blood?”

  “A few drops on the far end, but it was enough for us to know the blood belonged to the lady.”

  “But,” I said slowly, my mind racing. “I grabbed the twitch away from Bubba that morning. I remember it feeling cold. I’d left my gloves in the truck. Shouldn’t my prints have been on there too, along with quite a bit of blood? Bubba’s cap was covered with blood and the fireplace mantle was liberally streaked with it.”

  He frowned. “You’re right. You can thank the good Lord that there wasn’t a trace of your prints, though. Left-handed or not, Burns would never let that slide. You’d be eating off the county by now.”

  “But Deputy, listen. If there was no blood to speak of, and Bubba’s fingerprints are on the twitch, and no one else’s are on it, why there’s only one way that could happen.”

  The deputy stared at me. “If the prints were placed on the twitch after it was used to bash in the lady’s head.�
��

  “Right,” I said. “The twitch was wiped clean and then given to Bubba to handle. Whoever wiped the twitch must have missed the few drops of blood on the end. Either that or some blood was intentionally left there.”

  He nodded, but still looked troubled. “As far as it goes, it’s reasonable,” he said. “But it ain’t enough. There are too many blanks to fill in.”

  “What about the Society Lady killer, the one who killed those women in Springfield and Dickson?”

  “No go. That guy was picked up on a drunk and disorderly in Arrington Sunday night. They had some good evidence and he confessed. He claimed the women were aliens from the planet Jupiter and he was protecting the world by killing them. I know you’re too busy to watch TV, but it’s been on the news.”

  “Hmmm. So it all goes back to who Bubba saw that Glenda had pissed off.”

  The deputy frowned. “Say that again?”

  “Deputy, didn’t you advise me to keep my nose out of events that don’t concern me?”

  His mouth quirked again. “I did. Several times. But not until this case is over and done with. So say it again.”

  That was another quality I found myself liking about Martin Giles. He wasn’t insecure. He didn’t care where ideas came from, or who did the work. He just cared that the job got done. He was a hard worker, but not above realizing that others could work hard, too.

  “Okay,” I said. “Someone killed Glenda. Then, bad luck. Bubba shows up. Maybe he was there when the murderer arrived and the killer didn’t know it. Maybe Bubba was heading over to my house for lunch, heard a noise and went in to check it out. Or, maybe Bubba saw someone leaving Glenda’s house. In any case, the killer saw him. Now that would be inconvenient for the killer, don’t you think, to have Bubba see him? Or her. So the only solution, as far as the killer can see, is to get rid of Bubba and rig the evidence to show that Bubba murdered Glenda.”

  The deputy sighed and stood up. I followed him to the car. The only words the deputy spoke all the way back to town were, “Not a bad thought at all. At least, not bad for a rookie.”