One Foot in the Grave: Carly Moore #3

by Denise Grover Swank

He nodded with a grim expression. “I’m gonna take my own car. I don’t want to be calling attention to myself in my deputy vehicle.”

  I was parked behind his Explorer, so I tossed my bag into the back of my car and got in. After backing up and turning around, I got onto the county road leading to the highway.

  Marco followed, and I stopped about twenty feet from the stop sign at the highway and let him pass me. He headed toward town, but it wasn’t long before he turned off onto a county road. Several minutes later, he pulled off and parked in front of a pale yellow house set back about thirty feet from the road.

  I parked next to him and got out. My nerves were on edge as I walked toward him. Now that we were here, I wasn’t so sure I could go through with asking Hilde questions about her niece. She’d only just found out Heather had been murdered.

  Marco gave me a reassuring smile after I told him my concerns. “How about you let me take the lead at first? Then we can suss out how she’s feelin’ and go from there?” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Heather’s been missing for nine years. While I’m sure she’s upset, it’s not like her niece has been part of her everyday life. It might actually give her closure to know why she hasn’t heard from her.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. That’s true.”

  We walked toward the front door together, and Marco knocked, holding the flowers in his other hand.

  The door opened right away, and an older woman answered with a cautious look on her face. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Miss Hilde,” Marco said in his friendly voice. “I’m not sure if you remember me, but I’m Marco Roland, Beth Roland’s son.”

  She clasped a hand to her chest. “Beth? Oh, my word! How is she? I haven’t talked to her in years.”

  “She’s good,” Marco said. “After she heard about Heather, she wanted me to come by and offer condolences on her behalf.” He held up the bouquet.

  Tears filled her eyes. “Gerbera daisies. They’re my favorite.”

  “A little birdie told me,” I said. “A birdie named Thelma Tureen.”

  “You know Thelma?” she asked in surprise.

  “Carly likes to visit some of the residents at Greener Pastures,” Marco said. “And she wanted to come offer condolences on Thelma’s behalf.”

  Hilde turned her attention to me.

  “Hilde,” Marco said, “this is my friend, Carly Moore. I hope it’s okay I brought her along.”

  “Of course,” she said, backing up. “Where are my manners? Come in. Come in.”

  We followed Hilde inside, and she gestured to a worn sofa against a wood-paneled wall. Marco handed her the flowers and she took them into the small kitchen, opening a cabinet and pulling out a vase.

  “Is Beth still in Wilmington?”

  “Yep,” Marco said, resting his hands on his knees. “She got remarried. Did she mention that?”

  “She sent me an invitation to the wedding. I was sorry to miss it.” She put the flowers in the vase and filled it with water.

  “Well, it was pretty short notice,” Marco said, glancing around the room. “I had trouble getting time off work to go.”

  “Is she happy?” Hilde asked, setting the vase on the peninsula separating the kitchen from the living room.

  “Yes,” Marco said. “She and Herb are very happy.”

  “And your father?” she asked, sitting in a recliner across from us.

  “He’s got his head in the clouds in Knoxville. Just like when he was here in Drum.”

  She shook her head, clucking. “That man never realized what he had.”

  Marco didn’t respond, but his body tensed, and I wondered what had happened in his past to make him close up like that. He rarely talked about his childhood, and when he did, it was usually about Max.

  I covered his hand with mine, and he flipped his hand over and linked our fingers. He gave my hand a squeeze, then released it.

  “We were surprised to hear that Heather had been murdered,” Marco said. “Everyone thought she left town.”

  Hilde nodded. “Me too.”

  “You didn’t find it strange that she never contacted you after she left?”

  “That’s just it,” Hilde said. “She did contact me. She sent a postcard about a month later. She told me she was in Tulsa and had gotten a job at a Walmart.”

  “Did you keep the postcard?” Marco asked.

  “I did, but the sheriff’s deputy took it,” she said. “I told them about it when they came to tell me that they’d found her.” She sucked in a breath, as though struck anew by the news of her niece’s death.

  “You never suspected she’d been killed?” Marco asked.

  “No. Never. Not hearin’ from her wasn’t all that unusual. I never once heard from her directly after she left for college. Not until she showed up on my doorstep, askin’ to move back in.”

  “Thelma told me that Heather gave you trouble when she lived with you back in high school,” I said.

  She nodded. “That girl was as wild as a banshee and a compulsive liar. I can’t say I was sorry to see her go away to college. The only one of her friends who was ever respectful to me was that Drummond boy.”

  “Wyatt,” Marco volunteered.

  She nodded.

  “Who else did she spend time with?” I asked.

  “In high school or once she came back?” Hilde asked.

  “Both, I guess.”

  “Abby Atwood and Mitzi Ziegler were her closest friends, along with Wyatt. But she had a parade of boys and girls comin’ and goin’ in high school. There were fewer of them once she came back. I think many of the kids had moved out of town …the smart ones, anyway. Mitzi was still around though, and she added a few new friends. May McMurphy. Dick… I can’t remember his last name.”

  “Stinnett?” Marco asked.

  She nodded. “Yep. And a couple of others whose names escape me. Most of them never came here. She went to them.”

  “And Wyatt?” Marco asked.

  “Yeah, and her other boyfriend. The one at the end before she left.”

  My brow shot up. “She had another boyfriend? Todd Bingham?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’m pretty sure she was sleepin’ with that Bingham boy during one of her breakups with Wyatt, but no, not at the end. She claimed he was from Ewing.”

  “You don’t have a name?” Marco asked.

  “No. She was secretive about him. I think she met him at her job.”

  “What was she doin’?” Marco asked.

  “After she flunked out of college, she lived with her parents and went to beauty school in Virginia. When she moved back, she got a job as a nail technician at Carolyn’s House of Style in Ewing.”

  “What makes you think she met him at work?” I asked. Ewing didn’t seem progressive enough for men to get mani-pedis, especially nearly a decade ago.

  “She was still with Wyatt when she first mentioned him. One of the beauticians cut his hair, and Heather talked to him while he was waitin’. She got a kick out of flirtin’ with him. She said he flirted back. Honestly, I think she was foolin’ around on Wyatt before they broke up. I caught her wearing low-cut shirts the days she mentioned that he came in, and sometimes her clothes would smell like men’s cologne. Wyatt never wore cologne.”

  He still didn’t.

  Marco shifted on the sofa. “Did the detective who came to talk to you ask you about her other boyfriend?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “He never asked anything about that. He only wanted to know about the last time I saw her, whether I’d talked to her after she left, and whether she felt threatened by Wyatt.”

  “And when was the last time you spoke to her?” I asked. Part of me wondered if we were being too obvious in our approach, but I felt the pressure of time bearing down on us. With that warrant out for Wyatt, we needed to move fast.

  “The night before she was supposed to leave. When she went to her goin’-away party at Mitzi’s.”

  “She didn’t
come by to get her things?” Marco asked.

  “I suppose she did, because they were gone. She must have grabbed them after the party and then just left without sayin’ goodbye.”

  Marco’s chin lifted slightly. “Is it safe to say you’re not sure who picked up her things?”

  She shuddered. “I guess you’re right. It gives me the creeps to think a murderer might have been in my home.”

  “We don’t know that they were,” Marco assured her. “Heather could have picked up her belongings and then encountered the person who killed her.”

  Hilde nodded.

  “Did Heather feel threatened by Wyatt?” I asked.

  She snorted. “No, and I told the detective that. She thought she was playin’ him. I heard her tellin’ someone on the phone right before Wyatt was arrested for drivin’ drunk and breakin’ into Earl Cartwright’s garage.”

  “Do you know who she was talking to?” I asked.

  She gave me a penetrating look, as if to determine why I was asking her, then said, “I told the detective I wasn’t sure, but after he left, I spent a good amount of time thinkin’ about it, and now I suspect it was her other boyfriend.”

  “And you don’t remember his name?” I asked. “Maybe a nickname?”

  “Sometimes she would call him Peep. But never a given name.”

  I glance at Marco. I wasn’t sure whether that would help us or not, and judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t either.

  “Did Heather leave anything behind?” Marco asked. “Anything we could look through?”

  Her body stilled. “Are you trying to find who killed her?”

  Neither one of us answered at first. Then Marco finally said, “The sheriff’s department is convinced that Wyatt killed her, but we think someone else is guilty. We’re trying to figure out who.”

  I turned to him in surprise. He wasn’t supposed to be any part of this. He was only here because he’d insisted on offering his condolences.

  He gave me a grim look. “I’m in this now.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Marco turned back to Hilde. “But I have to tell you that even though I’m a deputy, I’m not lookin’ into this in an official capacity. That means you’re under no obligation to tell us anything.”

  “I’ve got nothin’ to hide,” she said. “And I’m not sold on the theory that Wyatt killed her either. I’ll help you however I can.”

  I pushed out a sigh of relief.

  “Did she leave anything behind that we can look over?” Marco asked.

  “She took most everything—” she made a face, “—or at least someone did, but there’s still a box of odds and ends in the closet in her old room. You’re welcome to look through it.” She got out of the chair and led us to the first doorway of several down a long hall, flipping on an overhead light as she walked into the room—what appeared to be a guest room with no personal ornamentation. Just some framed cross-stitch samplers hanging on the walls.

  “Let me just get it out of the closet,” Hilde said, crossing the room and opening a sliding closet door. She started to reach for a cardboard box over her head, but Marco made his way inside and pulled it down for her.

  “Just put it on the bed,” she said, pointing to a solid peach comforter.

  He set it down, and she opened the tucked flaps and rifled through a couple of items at the top before standing upright.

  “Yep. That’s it. Mostly a bunch of papers and letters and such. Feel free to dig through it.” She walked back to the wall and leaned against it, giving Marco an expectant look.

  Marco and I exchanged a glance, and then we both sat down on the bed, one on either side of the box. He reached in and pulled out a small framed photo. He glanced at it, then handed it over. It was a photo of a smiling younger Wyatt and a woman with brown hair that hung slightly past her shoulders. His arm was slung around her, and she was leaning into him in a way that spoke of possession. She was pretty—very pretty—and I tried to not let Emily’s comment about my own looks burn. Both of them seemed happy. They were standing at the overlook with the valley behind them.

  As I stared at the photo, it occurred to me that I’d rarely seen Wyatt smile. Had he been happy back then? I knew from Ruth that he’d always had a tendency to keep secrets, but surely it had become more pronounced after his arrest.

  Marco’s gaze held mine as though asking if I was okay, and I gave him a soft smile.

  He grabbed a handful of papers next and started to sort through them.

  Hilde had given Marco permission to look through the box, but I wasn’t sure if I was included in that invitation, so I turned to her and said, “You were very kind to take in your high school niece when her parents moved away.”

  She made a face. “I was young once, and she seemed so happy here, especially since she was datin’ Wyatt. She was devastated when her father announced he’d found a new job. And I was all alone, so I figured it might be nice to have the company. My Artie had died a couple of years before and we never had kids. I think some small part of me hoped she’d be like a daughter.”

  The disappointment in her eyes let me know that had never happened.

  “Her parents were okay with her staying?” I asked.

  “At first they put up a fuss, which I’d expected, but they came around before too long. In hindsight, I suspect they realized their lives would be a lot more drama-free if she stayed behind.”

  “Did Heather realize they felt that way?”

  “She never said, but how could she not? She rarely talked to them on the phone, and she didn’t want to go spend the summer between her junior and senior year with them. Or the summer she graduated. She went from here directly to college.”

  “Did you consider sending her back to her parents?” I asked.

  “Sure, I considered it, and even threatened it, but she’d cry and plead with me to give her another chance. And then she’d follow my rules and do her chores and come home before curfew, and I’d soften, but soon it would all start all over again.”

  “So you were relieved when she went away to college?” I asked.

  “It seems wrong to admit to such a thing, but yeah. But then she showed up on my doorstep several years later, completely unannounced. She said she’d had a fight with her parents and asked if she could stay with me for a few days until she figured out what to do. So what could I say? I let her stay, and days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Only I’d married Phil by then, and he wasn’t too keen on Heather bein’ here. He was never so happy as the day she said she was leavin’.”

  “Can we talk to Phil?” Marco asked as he handed me his stack and grabbed another.

  “He died last year,” she said in a subdued tone. “Heart attack.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  She frowned. “We got six good years. I can’t complain.”

  I started leafing through the pile Marco had handed over. There were several receipts and birthday cards, one of which was from Wyatt. It was a cheesy, sentimental card, which he’d signed, “Love, Wyatt,” and nothing else. There was a warranty for new tires for a Toyota and an invoice for nail supplies. Nothing of use.

  Marco went through the next pile even quicker before he handed it over. It proved as benign as the first pile—a few credit card bills, a receipt from a dentist. Marco was going through the last pile when he went still.

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe nothin’…”

  “But maybe something?”

  “It’s a receipt for the Mountain View Lodge. It’s dated the week before Wyatt’s arrest.”

  I squinted in confusion. “Do you think Wyatt and Heather spent the night there?”

  “I can’t see Wyatt doin’ that,” Marco scoffed. “You’ve seen those rooms.”

  “So she went there with her boyfriend?”

  “Maybe.”

  I glanced up at Hilde. “Do you think Heather sometimes spent the night with
her other boyfriend?”

  “She was gone a lot. She never moved in with Wyatt, and I’m sure it was because she was meeting her boyfriend on the side. Kept Wyatt from noticing.”

  We needed to talk to someone who was close enough to Heather to possibly know who her side boyfriend had been. Since Mitzi was out of the question, I wondered how well Dick Stinnett knew her. Or May McMurphy.

  Marco put everything back into the box with the exception of the hotel receipt. “Would you mind if I hold onto this?”

  “You can keep the whole box for all I care,” Hilde said. “It ain’t like she’s comin’ back to get it.” Her voice cracked, the first sign that she was upset. “I guess I could ask her momma and daddy if they want it, but it’s just a box of paper. Can’t see why they’d care.”

  “Thank you,” Marco said. “The receipt is all we need for now. But I’d appreciate it if you’d let me take a picture of the photo.”

  “Of course,” she said with a wave of her hand. “You can take it if you like. Maybe Wyatt wants it. I’ll probably just end up throwing it away. I can’t imagine her folks will want all that junk.”

  I was pretty sure Wyatt wouldn’t want it either, so I said, “I think this will do for now.”

  Marco took the picture out of the frame and set it on the bed, then snapped several photos before tucking it back into the frame.

  “Will you let me know if you find anything?” Hilde asked.

  “Of course,” Marco said, getting to his feet and putting the box back on the shelf. “Thank you for answering our questions. If you think of anything else, could you call and leave a message?” He closed the door, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card to hand to her. “My personal number is written on the back.”

  She took it and looked it over, then nodded. When she glanced back up, her eyes were full of tears. “Heather had her flaws, but she didn’t deserve to be killed and buried like that. I hope you find the monster who did this.”

  “We’re definitely going to try,” I said.

  Marco and I walked outside and stopped in front of my car.

  “We need to figure out who this second boyfriend was,” Marco said.