by Jill Orr
“It’s in there,” she nodded toward a long walnut-paneled hallway, at the end of which was a door that stood halfway open. The “it” she referred to was the lifeless body of Dr. Arthur Davenport, a prominent local cardiologist and her fiancé Thad’s father. I walked down the hallway and peered into the room. Seeing him lying on the rug made me feel a little like I’d eaten a bad shrimp myself, so we walked back to the foyer to wait for the sheriff, whom I’d convinced her to call as soon as we had hung up.
Tabitha told me on the phone that she’d come over to get some measurements that the wedding planner needed—some crisis about the antler arch possibly being too wide for the terrace doors. And since Thad was out of town at a conference and Arthur was supposed to be at work, Thad told her to just run over and get what she needed. She heard the family dog howling from Arthur’s office when she got there, which was weird, so she went to go see what was the matter. And the matter was Dr. Davenport lying dead on the floor.
“Do you know what happened?” I asked.
“I have no idea. Maybe a stroke? Heart attack?”
“Is there a reason you didn’t call 911 right away?”
Tabitha paused before speaking, as if it was difficult for her to remember what she’d been thinking. “When I saw him lying there like that . . . completely still, eyes open . . . it was very unnatural-looking, you know? I felt his neck for a pulse and his skin was cold and stiff like leather.” She shuddered. “It was obvious he was already gone. I didn’t know what to do, so I called you.” She looked up at me, her eyes shining with emotion.
She looked so vulnerable in that moment, I was actually rather touched. Maybe I was more important to Tabitha than I realized. Maybe after all these years of working together we were forming a friendship, despite her outward hostility toward me? I moved to give her a hug, but she took a step back.
“Besides, a dead body doesn’t need an ambulance. It needs an obituary. You do write obituaries, don’t you?”
Okay. So maybe she didn’t call me for support.
“Why don’t we go sit down?” I said. I was a bit stung, but more than that I was eager to change the subject. I may have slightly exaggerated the level of my responsibility in the obits department to Tabitha. But when she kept pressing me to cover more and more of her shifts at the library, I felt it sounded better to refuse because I’m swamped at the paper, rather than I just want more time to hang out with my hot new boyfriend Jay. And besides, it wasn’t my fault that I wasn’t writing obits yet. That was on Flick.
“Don’t worry about the obit,” I added. “I’m sure we can get it in for this Sunday, or worst case, next week’s edition.”
“Next week?” Tabitha rounded on me like a cage fighter. “Do you know what is happening here exactly twelve days from tomorrow?”
Of course I knew, but I wasn’t about to answer her when she asked me like that.
“The wedding event of the season is going to be held in this very house. Have you ever planned a wedding for 450 guests, Riley? I doubt it very much. So let me tell you, it doesn’t just happen. It takes time, precision, and decisive action.” She spoke of it more like a military operation than a wedding. “And it’s not like I’m getting a lot of help or anything. So I’m sorry that Arthur is dead, I really am, but you will excuse me if I’m being proactive in getting the ball rolling on his obituary. If it doesn’t get in this Sunday’s paper, there is no way we can have the funeral by next Thursday, which needs to happen because the antler artists will need to get in here by the following Monday, latest.” Her face was flushed, eyes wild. “The arch takes four days to be constructed, which only leaves us a one-day cushion for contingencies. Not to mention the flagstone path that needs to be finished up, final alterations on my dress, confirming the musicians, the caterers, and the florists”—she was really working herself into a lather—“so as sad as it is, you’ll understand the importance of getting the show on the road so-to-speak. Life doesn’t just stop because someone dies!”
“Okay, just calm down, Tabith—”
“Why am I even explaining this to you?” She turned away, cutting me off like a boil. A second later we heard the sound of sirens screaming up the long, winding stone driveway. It was acting-Sheriff Carl Haight and his deputy Chip Churner, who everyone called Butter.
“Miss St. Simon. Miss Ellison,” Carl said as he stepped out of his cruiser. Even though I had known Carl Haight since I was four years old and we used to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles together at preschool, he preferred that we keep things professional while on the job.
“Acting-Sheriff Haight,” I said. “Hey, Butter.” Butter didn’t stand on ceremony.
Carl tipped the corner of his hat toward Tabitha. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am. Coroner’s on the way.”
Tabitha’s arms were crossed tightly across her chest. “I’ll show you to the, um, body.” She led the two officers toward the back, leaving me alone in the foyer. “Riley, don’t go anywhere,” she called over her shoulder.
As I watched them walk away, I couldn’t help but wonder why Tabitha had called me before she called the sheriff. I wasn’t buying her obituary story, and it wasn’t like we were exactly friends. We were more like frenemies, if anything. And it’s not like a girl with nine bridesmaids would call a former co-worker-slash-frenemy for support. There was something weird going on with Tabitha.
I heard the click-clack of shoes coming back down the long hallway as she walked back toward me holding a neat manila file. “This should get you started. If you need any interviews, I’ve listed family names and numbers on top. The theme we’re going for is understated heroism, okay? And we want maximum number of inches allowed—at least a half page; a full one, if possible. This will need to run in Sunday’s paper. Got it?”
I looked at her, stunned by the businesslike way in which she was handling all of this. I knew Tabitha wasn’t the dissolve-into-tears sort, but she had just found her future father-in-law dead. You would have thought at least a short period of mourning or shock would have been in order.
“Does Thad know yet?”
She looked away; emotion rolled across her face briefly. “Yes. I called him before you got here. He’s on his way home from a meeting in Richmond.”
The front door was still standing open and the sound of another car pulling into the circle drive drifted in. We turned to see the red pickup truck of the county coroner roll into the Davenport driveway.
The Tuttle County government was like many other rural communities in the United States: economically disadvantaged. So they had to make some concessions. For example, we didn’t have a medical examiner; we had a coroner. The difference is that while a medical examiner has to be a physician trained in forensic pathology, a coroner simply has to be elected, like a member of the school board or the president of the PTA.
Tuttle County’s coroner was Tiffany Peters, a former beauty queen (five-time Miss Junior Johnnycake) and the current owner of the county’s only dance studio, Jitterbugs. She ran for coroner in a surprise move after Tuttle’s longtime coroner (also our longtime veterinarian), Willem Graham Suppes, died last August. No one ran against her. I guess people figured someone was better than no one. And after all, the only thing she really had to do was show up at the scene when someone died and say, “Yup, he’s dead.” So far, she’d been right almost one hundred percent of the time.
“Hey, y’all!” Tiffany called to us as she stepped inside the house, a huge grin on her heavily made-up face. She never tried to hide her excitement at being called out on a job. “Thanks for calling me! Sorry I’m late, but the junior bugs had their dress rehearsal for the Halloween Spooktacular and I had to make sure all the little ghosts and goblins were scary enough.” She laughed and the tinkling sound echoed through the entry. As Tiffany followed Tabitha back to examine the body, I heard her say with barely contained glee, “I’m so glad you called, I was beginning to think nobody was going to die this week!”
But befor
e they got to the office, Carl and Butter walked out of it. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Carl said to Tabitha, who by the look on her face did not appreciate being called ma’am. “I’m going to have to seal off this space. Ms. Peters, you can go on in, as you are official county personnel, but everyone else is going to have to stay clear of the area.”
Tiffany preened at her VIP status and scooted past Carl into the room.
“Carl, what the hell—” But Tabitha’s rant dried up as she turned toward a sound in the entryway. Her eyes went wide with shock.
“What’s going on here?” It was Thad Davenport wearing a brown leather messenger bag and a confused expression. “Tab?”
Tabitha’s face instantly drained of color. “Thad, honey . . .” she started to say, but then stopped, as though she suddenly forgot how to speak.
“Mr. Davenport,” Carl said. “I’m very sorry for your loss. I’d like to—”
“What loss?” Thad asked.
“You said you told him,” I whispered to Tabitha.
“Babe,” she said, rushing to his side, “I was . . . I just came over here and . . .”
Just then, Tiffany walked out of Dr. Davenport’s office, pulling off her blue latex gloves. “Yup, he’s dead all right. Poor Artie.”
“What?” Thad’s face was now as white as Tabitha’s. He charged through our group, but before he could get into his father’s office, Carl grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t go in there.”
“The hell I can’t—” Thad struggled to free himself from Carl’s grasp as Butter grabbed his other arm. “Let go of me. . . Dad! Dad!” Thad’s anguished cries reverberated throughout the cavernous house.
“Let him go!” Tabitha ordered.
“If you’ll both just calm down a moment,” Carl said. “I can explain.”
Thad stopped fighting and yanked his arm back from Carl’s grasp. “What happened? Why can’t I see my father?” His voice cracked, anguish radiating off of him in waves.
“I’m afraid it looks as though your father has been the victim of a homicide.”
“A homicide?” I couldn’t stop myself from voicing the question out loud.
Carl’s mouth hardened into a thin line. He nodded once.
Tiffany broke the silence. “Stabbed. Right in the ticker.” She pantomimed sticking a knife through her own heart. “I didn’t realize it at first, but then—”
“Thank you, Ms. Peters,” Carl cut her off.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I forget with murder cases you have to follow certain protocols, like not telling all the details. You see, I took this online course called Death Scene Investigation? And I learned that—”
“Thank you, Ms. Peters,” Carl said again.
Thad looked like he might be sick. “Murder?” His voice was almost a whisper. “No—I just saw him last night and . . . I . . . he was fine.”
“Thad, Tabitha, I’m going to need you both to come down to the sheriff’s office and answer some questions, fill out paperwork, that kind of thing.” He turned to Tiffany. “Can you call Dr. Mendez? I think we’re going to need to loop in Forensics on this one.” Dr. Mendez was the medical examiner from Richmond. Then Carl turned to me. “Riley, we do not have a statement for the press at this time.”
I’ll admit I had almost forgotten I worked for the newspaper until he said that.
“Sheriff, do you mind if I call my brother first?” Thad asked. “He needs to know.”
I snuck a glance at Tabitha, who stood completely still except for her eyes, which floated between Thad, Carl, and the office where Dr. Davenport lay dead. Something was going on with her; she looked upset, but not surprised. And she should have been, especially since she told me earlier that she thought Arthur had died of a heart attack or stroke. She never mentioned the whole “stabbed in the heart” thing.
“Can we meet you down there, Carl?” Tabitha said. “My fiancé needs time to call his family and gather his thoughts.”
Carl was already shaking his head before she finished. “I’m sorry, but procedure is, we have to take statements right away.”
“I just . . . don’t understand . . .” Thad was saying, more to himself than anyone else.
“Please, Carl,” Tabitha said, more firmly this time. “He’s had quite a shock. Can’t you just let him absorb this for one hot minute?”
Carl wouldn’t budge. “We need you both to come along now.”
Tabitha St. Simon did not like being told what to do. Which is why it was even stranger when her voice softened and she instantly replaced her look of outrage with one of contrition. “Okay, then. We’ll just take my car and see you down there.”
“No ma’am.”
Tabitha’s nostrils flared at the second ma’am in as many minutes.
“Mr. Davenport will have to ride with me,” Butter said.
Struggling to maintain her composure, Tabitha said through clenched teeth, “Why on earth would he have to ride with you, Butter?”
“Oh, I know!” Tiffany said, her hand shooting up into the air like she was answering a question in class. “Murder suspects must be transported in official vehicles, alone, so as not to allow them the opportunity to collude with another suspect or suspects.”
“Suspects?” Tabitha lost any control she had had over her anger, and her sharp tone reverberated against all the stone in the large foyer. “Are you freaking kidding me with this, Carl?”
Carl tried without success to interrupt Tabitha’s rant. Tiffany stepped outside to call the Richmond medical examiner. Thad stared at the floor, looking shell-shocked from the events of the past few minutes. And Butter reached into his back pocket, pulled out an Oats ’n Honey granola bar, and ate it while the whole scene unfolded.
As for me, three thoughts flashed into my mind simultaneously: Tabitha is hiding something. Thad doesn’t look like someone who just killed his father. And, ready or not, I have some work to do . . .
CHAPTER 3
I raced back to the Times, hoping to catch Kay Jackson before she left for the day. On my way back I practiced my pitch, listing all the reasons why she should assign me this story. But as it turned out, I didn’t even have to plead my case. She agreed as soon as I asked.
“This would normally go to Holman,” she said. “But before he left he said you were ready to fly solo, so that’s good enough for me.”
All it took was that tiny measure of success, that small vote of confidence to convince me to push my luck. “Can I have the obit too?”
Kay arched her eyebrows. “You’ll still have to keep up with your other responsibilities, like covering the community and education pages. Think you can handle it all?”
“I do. And actually, I think the obit and crime story go hand-in-hand.”
She looked skeptical.
Now was my chance to use what I’d rehearsed. “No, really. Think about it: since I’ll be covering the developing story about how Arthur died, I’ll be in a good position to learn about his life, too. Most of the time the way someone dies has very little to do with the way they lived—but a murder turns that whole concept on its ear, right? Because unless Arthur was killed by a random act, which seems highly unlikely, something in his life led to his death—and our readers are going to want to know what that something was. I think I’ll be in the best position to write about it, given the reporting I’ll already be doing about the investigation.”
She thought about it for at least five seconds, which was a long time for her. Kay Jackson was not an indecisive woman. “All right,” she said. “File your stories electronically to the central database. We’ll run updates online as quickly as they occur, and do two separate print stories in Sunday’s edition.” She paused and then added, “If you get in over your head, I’m here.”
I felt like doing a victory dance. I’d done it! I’d asked for what I wanted and gotten it! This was a big moment. The old me would have been too scared to ask for this sort of opportunity, but I
was no longer that girl. Overcome with gratitude and emotion, I started to gush, “Kay, thank you so much for believing—”
“This isn’t charity,” she cut me off. “I’m giving it to you because I see talent and, quite honestly, I like the idea of having another female reporter around here. We’ve got something of a testosterone imbalance in case you haven’t noticed. But the guys aren’t going to be happy about it. So my advice to you is: don’t screw this up.”
Kay’s “pep talk” didn’t dampen my enthusiasm (even though I knew she was right about the guys not liking it) and I still felt excited as I gathered my things and headed over to the sheriff’s office to see if I could get any updates before heading home for the day.
Tuttle Corner was built on a square like so many of the colonial towns settled in the late 1700s. This meant that nearly all of our municipal buildings and most of our local businesses occupied a four-square-block area around the green space in the center, Memorial Park. Years earlier, my mother had been on the committee to spruce up the park, which included resurfacing the walkways that snaked corner to corner, installing black wrought-iron lamps along the paths, and offering residents the opportunity to sponsor a bench. I remember Janet Gradin and Charlotte Van Stone going nine rounds over whether the plaques on the benches would be black plastic or engraved metal. In the end, Mrs. Van Stone won out (as if there’d been any doubt), and as I wound my way from the Tuttle Times office on the northeast side of the park over toward the sheriff’s office on the southwest, I passed the bench my family had dedicated to my granddad. The golden plaque read, “In Loving Memory of Albert Christopher Ellison, beloved father, grandfather, and obituarist.” I probably passed this bench ten times a week, and never without feeling his loss deep down inside my soul. But as I walked past it that day, I couldn’t help but think Granddaddy would have been proud of me. He always encouraged me to consider a career in reporting, but I’d lost all interest in journalism, among other things, after he died under what I still considered suspicious circumstances.