by P. N. Elrod
Back roads named “maybe” were bad, too.
Whatever her reasons, she could never have anticipated a jealous fifteen-year-old girl would murder her.
The men lighted a few kerosene lanterns rather than using more efficient flashlights. I liked that. The glow from the flames softened and warmed things, though the shadows seemed to get darker. The big bare trees looked forlorn now, but in summer their shade would make things cool and peaceful.
“Barrett . . . is Laura here?”
His eyes sharpened for an instant. This was the first time I’d mentioned her. “No. She was taken to Connecticut. The Franchers have a family plot someplace. I’ve not been. I couldn’t stand to go.”
“Don’t blame you. This is a good place for Maureen.”
She was in a part of the cemetery so old that I didn’t see how they’d found room for her. I noticed headstones going back to the 1700s, and saw the name BARRETT on some of them.
“The place picked itself. She’s . . . she’s in my grave.”
“Wha—?”
“That spot was mine. Once. For a day, until sunset when I woke. I never went back. It’s been empty all these years. I didn’t think she’d mind being with my family since hers was so disagreeable.”
He was the pip. He was also right. Maureen wouldn’t have minded.
Every so often Barrett took a deep breath of the chill air and released it as a long, slow sigh. I didn’t think he was aware of doing it. Then he spoke, his voice soft, “If only I had not been so blind about Laura . . . Maureen might still be alive.”
This was new. I’d never thought he might blame himself for her death. There was bitterness in his tone. He’d been mulling it over for a very long time.
“You’d have done something if you’d known,” I said. “You weren’t blind—Laura was just too good at hiding herself. Who in the world could have expected it? Not even Einstein could have figured her out.”
He shook his head a little. “Don’t you mean Freud?”
“I meant Einstein. Freud might have, but you’re not him. It’s no one’s fault but Laura’s, and she’s gone now.”
“Yes. And just as well. She was an appallingly clever girl . . . I suppose it was for the best she took those pills.” He let that one hang in the air.
I’d worked on my poker face, but was glad he wasn’t looking at me. If my heart could still beat, it would have hammered hard for a moment. Barrett had figured things out. But was he going to do anything?
He drew another deep breath, then cleared his throat. “We’re here for Maureen, not the one who took her from us.”
Maybe not.
Or just maybe not here and now.
Or I could try kicking myself and stop being so damned paranoid.
Unexpectedly he dropped a hand on my shoulder. “Mr. Fleming, don’t ask me why, but Maureen loved us both, each in our own time. You are right: her death wasn’t my fault or yours. We’re better men for her life touching ours, however brief a moment. We can best honor her memory by never forgetting her.”
I mumbled something or other in agreement. He’d abruptly reminded me of my grandfather. The feeling I got was the same: that of an old man dealing with his pain by offering consolation to a much younger one.
“They’re ready,” he said. “One more walk.”
Thus did I find out I was to be a pallbearer. It wasn’t my first time, and I’d have just as soon shirked the honor. Hat in my off hand, I shared the weight of Maureen’s casket with three other men—Barrett paced slowly next to me, supporting his side—but it was a hard and heavy burden.
We set it down on the two-by-fours bridging the grave, and I was glad to back away from that gaping hole. Barrett caught my arm, preventing me from tripping over one of his relative’s stone markers. I grunted a thanks and composed myself to listen to the service.
Since the pastor hadn’t known Maureen, he limited himself to appropriate scripture with an emphasis on comfort for her two mourners. No hymns were sung, but we bowed heads in prayer, and I murmured along with the others. It was the bare basics, but done well. The pastor had an easy, sonorous voice, and read sincerely from his book. I liked what he read, and at the end I did feel comforted.
They lowered the casket; I picked up a bunch of roses and dropped it in after. Barrett did the same. The pastor said the ashes to ashes part. I had no idea what denomination he belonged to, not that it mattered. He’d done well by her.
Barrett cleared his throat again with a slight jerk of his head. I followed him from the grave.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“They’ll finish things when we’ve gone. Believe me, the sound of the earth falling in is not something you want in your memory.”
I could agree with that. I shook hands with the pastor and thanked him. Barrett took his turn, discreetly slipping the man a more tangible expression of appreciation, then we trudged off to our respective cars.
Barrett drove as before. Neither of us talked, but it was an oddly companionable silence.
The service was over, and I felt strangely lighter for it. Funerals are indeed for the living. I’d had that internal catharsis of saying good-bye; it was done. I’d spend the day in my room at the Francher house and leave at sunset tomorrow, taking the train back to Chicago and Bobbi. All I wanted was to be with her, and I was sure Maureen would understand.
We pulled in through the estate gates; Barrett didn’t bother to shut them. Perhaps he wasn’t as reclusive as Emily.
He followed the drive up to a point, then veered off, the Studie’s wheels churning uncertainly over the snow-caked lawn toward the site of the old house’s excavation. What the hell?
He cut the motor, shrugging a little in response to my look. “I’ll explain. If you would come with me . . . ?”
The deepest night is like daylight to us, but he dug a flashlight from the trunk. Skirting the big piles of raw earth and mud-smeared trash, we moved closer to the pit, the heavy digging equipment looming like snoozing elephants. The wind had picked up and whistled a freezing note in my ears. I hunched futilely against its annoyance.
“This was dreadful work,” he said. “Brought back such a lot of unpleasant memories.”
All I could think was, that despite what he’d said earlier, he might have some archaic debt of honor to settle with me about Laura. Guys from his century fought duels for less. He could be planning to cosh me on the noggin and drop what was left into the deep end. A few minutes with the bulldozer would finish the job.
“I need your advice.”
So he’d said earlier. At the first sudden move I’d vanish.
“I left it here.”
In a broad space between the big machines was a roughly folded tarp with the remains of cut rope dangling from its eyelets. That must have come from the back porch where it previously covered the summer furniture. When I drew breath to ask a question the stink of decomposition from the excavation hit me between the eyes. Damn, why had he brought me here?
He pulled the tarp away, revealing an oblong wooden tool box. He squatted next to the box and opened it. The inside was packed to the top with snow. It being so cold and with the tarp for shade, there wasn’t much melting.
Barrett brushed snow from something about the size of a loaf of bread. With thumb and forefinger and no small distaste, he picked out the mud-smeared object from its icy nest and set it down across one corner of the box. Just so there was no doubt about what he wanted to show, he played the flashlight’s beam over the thing.
It was a man’s shoe—with the foot still in it.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
I’d seen death before, but had to turn away, fighting the urge to heave.
“Jeeze, you could warn a guy can’t you?” The stink got worse. I moved upwind.
“How?” he asked dryly.
“Whose is it?”
“I don’t know. I found it down there, of course. The mechanical shovel separated it f
rom the rest of the body. I’d have missed it completely but for the reek. I thought it was—”
“Yeah,” I said, not wanting him to finish.
“I can assume that this person came to be buried at the same time as Maureen. Whether it was by misadventure or was intentional is yet unknown.”
“Laura had to do with this one too?”
“I don’t think so. She did not mention anything the night I questioned her.”
I’d questioned her, too, thoroughly. She’d only spoken of killing two people, not three. “Hand me that light.”
He passed it over, and I gave the grisly thing a closer look. Part of an argyle sock remained, the rest had torn off. I also used my thumb and forefinger to turn it over, checking the sole and heel.
“He didn’t buy this at Macy’s. Handmade. Might be able to track down who if there’s a maker’s mark inside.” I dropped the shoe back in the tool box and shut the lid. “But I’m not looking for it.”
“I do not fault you for that, but—”
“But nothing. You give this to the cops.”
“Out of the question.”
“You wanted my advice about this?”
“Yes. I need to decide what to do next.”
“You call the cops.”
“But they will want to know why I was digging. Such labor is not something a gentleman does. They’ll hardly be satisfied that I was planning to build a guest house and doing the work myself.”
“Then give them the evil-eye whammy and make them accept it.”
“The what?”
“Hypnotize ’em.”
“It won’t last and you know it. There will be an investigation, gossip, and heaven knows what else. They could connect it to Maureen’s funeral and take it straight back to Emily and Laura—I want to live here. I can’t do that in peace if a pack of sensation-seekers start tramping over the property poking into my business. What if one of them breaks into my room during the day and finds me?”
I waved the flashlight beam toward the hole. “The rest of him is still down there?”
“He is.”
“Then you put his foot back and bury him again.”
He looked ready to spit with outrage. “An unmarked, unsanctified grave? That’s indecent!”
“Then call the cops. You can whammy them into not talking to the press.”
“No. I won’t risk it.”
“Sounds like you didn’t need my advice after all.”
Barrett snarled something while I looked down into the pit. I sniffed, catching the stink again. There was more down there, all right. “What?”
“I said, you could help me find out who this poor devil is and how he came to be here.”
Which was exactly what I did not want to do. “You’re kidding.”
“You’ve more experience at this sort of thing than I.”
He had me there. “Have you told Escott?”
“This is not a subject one should mention in a telegram, and I don’t want to risk a letter. Once a tale is in writing, all sorts of mischief can ensue. Telephoning is out of the question; the long-distance operator might hear something she shouldn’t.”
Too right. “Why didn’t you say something sooner about this?”
“It would have been inappropriate. Seeing to Maureen was more important.”
An old-fashioned guy with old-fashioned manners. They must have their uses.
“Will you help me, Mr. Fleming? Please?”
I wanted to say no, but knew Maureen wouldn’t have liked it. Besides, he’d said the magic word. “Okay, but only up to a point.”
“What point?”
“I’ll let you know when I reach it.”
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
I’d been careful to not ask about or to imagine how Barrett had taken Maureen from that miserable hole. Unfortunately I found out firsthand as we spent the next few hours digging out the rest of body belonging to that detached foot.
I’ll skip the details.
We put the muddy, decomposed remains on the tarp in six pieces: legs (one with the foot still attached), trunk, arms, head, all of which were in gruesome condition and stinking despite the cold. Barrett and I had to inhale to talk, so we didn’t say much. I was positive I’d never get the stench out of my nostrils.
Back when I was a reporter I’d seen my share of bodies, but had never been part of the actual recovery. A body this far gone didn’t get a picture in the paper, not the rag I’d worked for, anyway. I’d never covered a story about one this bad.
Cops and reporters tend to ask the same questions, the first having to do with identity: who was this guy?
I had on borrowed work clothes and gloves, which didn’t make going through the pockets an easy task. I found loose change and nothing else. His wallet and the other things a man usually carries were gone.
He had no coat; we’d not found a hat or any other belongings. His shirt and summer weight trousers looked to be as expensive as his handmade shoes, but the labels had been cut away, which was significant. Barrett wanted to know why.
Backing well upwind from the corpse I breathed in cleaner air to talk. God, I could taste the stink. I hawked and spat. It didn’t help.
“Labels are a trail straight to a tailor, who might be able to identify the man,” I said.
“How?”
“The work some of those guys do is as individual as signing their name, but it would take a discouraging amount of legwork to track down which one just by this one pair of pants.”
“There must be hundreds.”
“More. It depends how exclusive the tailor is. The really good ones keep detailed records. If some bird went to the trouble of cutting off labels then chances are good it would have led to this guy’s name.”
“What about the shoes?”
I lifted a palm toward the deceased. “It’s your turn. Go ahead.”
He wasn’t pleased, but to give him credit, he went back to the leg that still had an attached foot, and somehow removed the shoe.
“Marnucci and Sons,” he read from the inside. “Manhattan.”
I’d heard of them. “Marnucci’s is the cream of the footwear crop. Not a lot of people can afford that kind of stuff. You hear of any rich guys around here going missing seven years ago?”
“No. That would have been in the papers.”
“You never know, maybe a family wants to keep it quiet that someone knocked off Uncle Moneybags and put out that he took a trip. Instead he winds up here. We might learn something if Marnucci keeps records going back that far. Be glad the killer overlooked the shoes.”
“I am inclined to think this fellow met with foul play, but what reason have you for that conclusion?”
