"I thought you'd like to know, we found a witness who was there on the evening Shirley Foster died," she said.
"Really, someone saw what happened?"
"Yes. I thought you would like to hear her story."
Chapter 18
"THE FOG SETTLED itself above the water like a low ceiling, and the moon shined on it, making it blue gray and everything else bright shades of black and gray. It was raining earlier and the water still dripped off the trees. There weren't no wind, and the water on the lake was still, like a black mirror, a good night for fishing."
Mrs. Lila Poole looked to be in her late sixties, with a head of white hair and a lean, wrinkled face. She sat in the sheriff's office drinking a cup of hot coffee, wearing a pink-checkered house dress. Mrs. Poole moved like a much younger woman. She had sat down in the chair the sheriff brought for her with an ease that showed she still had strength in her legs.
"You were there fishing?" asked Irene.
"Who's she?" Lila pointed a wrinkled finger at Lindsay.
"Dr. Chamberlain. She found Shirley Foster for us. I'd like her to hear your story if you don't mind."
"You want me to tell it again? I told it to your deputy."
"I want you to take your time and tell me everything you remember."
"You going to record it?"
"Yes. Then I'll have it typed up and you can sign it."
"Fair enough. You asked me if I was fishing. What else would I be doing out there in the dead of night? Yes, I was fishing. That missy what thinks she owns the land-"
"Tom Foster's cousin, Georgina Sothesby?"
"Yes, her. She calls it poaching. Poaching! Who does she think she is? By my thinking, if they can't figure out who owns it, it don't belong to nobody." She nodded with a jerk of her head. "Like I said, I was fishing. Done caught me a whole stringer full when Mrs. Foster came. I was about to go, but I didn't want to get caught, so I just stayed in my place."
"Your place?" asked Irene.
"My favorite fishing spot down by the lake. Now, we're going to be here all night if you keep interrupting me."
Irene smiled. "Sorry. Go ahead."
"She came, Mrs. Foster, parked her car in the road, and walked down to the lake. She don't mind me fishing. She knows I gotta eat. But I stayed where I was, just the same. People out by themselves don't want to be bothered. She just stood there looking at the lake. Sometimes pacing back and forth, with it getting darker and darker. It wasn't long before another car come up and parked behind her. This feller got out. He left his headlights on, and they was like a spotlight.
"He come walking down to the lake. She turned and saw him and started walking toward him. Once, she held out her arms and said something. I didn't hear what it was. Then her arms dropped to her sides." Lila Poole started shaking her head back and forth. "I will remember what happened next for the rest of my life, and as God is my witness, it's the truth.
"That poor woman burst into flames right before my eyes. There weren't nobody around her. The feller who drove up was still a ways off. There weren't nobody there but the three of us, and she just caught fire. I thought at first it was God what done it, but I knew Mrs. Foster, and she weren't no worse than others in this world, and a lot better than most. It had to be the devil's work. It was like a piece of hell got a'holt of her.
"She screamed. Oh, how she screamed." Mrs. Poole put her hands to her ears. "I didn't know what to do, I sat there in the bushes with my mouth open, scared to move, afraid that fire and brimstone would start coming out all over. The feller came running, yelling for her to `drop the rolls, drop the rolls.' I don't know why he was worrying about some bread burning when she herself was burning like she was. She weren't carrying nothing, she didn't have no bread. She run and jumped in the water." Mrs. Poole raised her hand as if taking an oath. "And I swear to you this is the truth, she burned brighter in the water. She was close to where I was, and I looked at her glowing in the water, and I knew it was a demon that got her. I put my hand over my mouth. I was afraid I'd attract whatever it was that had a'holt of her.
"The feller got him a stick and fished her out of the water. It was hard, but he done it and he started beating her with his coat, trying to put out the fire. I thought he was a brave feller. He kept yelling, `Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!' over and over. But God wasn't having none of it that night."
Irene looked over at Lindsay. Each raised their eyebrows at the other.
"I knowed you wouldn't believe me. I don't blame you. I wouldn't if someone told it to me and I didn't see it with my own eyes. But it's the truth."
"Why didn't you come forward when Shirley Foster was missing?" asked the sheriff.
"What? And tell that story, and me being there where I ain't supposed to be? Besides, she was gone. They should have found her, but she was gone. I didn't know what took her and didn't want none of it."
"Why did you come forward now?" asked Irene.
"She was found. That poor boy got hisself arrested and, unless he's the devil, he didn't do it. Couldn't have."
"What do you make of it?" asked Irene after the deputy left to take Lila Poole home.
"I don't know. I've never heard anything like it," said Lindsay. "What are you going to do?"
Irene shook her head. "I don't know. I don't believe it, but she does. I know Lila Poole. She's eccentric, but she's never been known to be a liar and never been in any trouble. The only complaint about her has been from Georgina Sothesby about her poaching. And frankly, nobody cared but Georgina." Irene took out a cigarette and searched her desk drawer for matches. "Maybe Ferris threw something at her. Maybe Ferris's folks talked Lila into telling that story, but I can't imagine Lila going for that. I'll talk to the district attorney. You got a match?"
"No, I'm sorry."
Irene looked around in the drawers of the other desks in the office, finally finding a book of matches. She lit her cigarette and took several drags. She shook her head. "That's a strange story."
Lindsay didn't return to the department but stopped by the library, the photo shop, a frame shop, and the grocery store before she went home.
"I'll make us dinner," she said as she came in the door, carrying sacks of groceries. "I hope you don't mind steaks and salad again."
Sinjin took the sacks from her. "Sounds good. I'll fire up your grill."
Lindsay busied herself with making dinner, washing the baking potatoes and salad fixings, cutting the vegetables, all the while forcing Derrick's news about the department reorganization to the back of her mind. She mentally cate gorized recent events, matching clues with their respective mysteries. When she got to Sally's attack, she realized she didn't really know where to put it. She had assumed it had to do with the missing artifacts, but it might just as easily have had to do with the murder of Shirley Foster. It was very inconsiderate, she thought, of the attacker not to mention which investigation she was to abandon.
"Think that salad's tossed enough?" asked Sinjin.
"What? Oh, I was just thinking."
"Want to tell me about it?"
"I was just-I'm going to lose my job, and I love my home out here in the woods so much," she blurted, as tears ran down her cheeks.
"What? Because of the artifacts? Lindsay, I'm sorry. Is it because of the artifact mess?" He reached out and pulled her to him, stroking her hair.
Lindsay cried into his shirt, then pulled away, wiping her eyes with a paper towel. "It's not the artifacts. It's a political reorganization thing," she said.
Lindsay took the salad to the table, tossed the potatoes in the microwave, put the steaks on the grill, and sat down with Sinjin before she told him about Derrick's call.
"Is he sure?" asked Sinjin. "It might be just a rumor."
"Derrick's pretty connected. He was sure that Lewis is coming."
"It doesn't necessarily mean you'll lose your job. I mean, they can't just fire you for no reason, can they?"
"They can just not renew my contract for next year. I
don't have tenure, and none of us nontenured faculty have gotten our contract renewal letters."
"I tell you, the next time I visit you and Dad asks me to bring anything, I'll make sure I toss it in the river on the way out of town."
"You mean you were coming to visit me anyway?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I thought Dad had asked you to bring the crates and that's why you came. I guess you had to go to Atlanta, though."
"No. I was mainly handling that by phone. I wanted to come see you."
"I'm glad," was all Lindsay managed to say, but she felt grateful to know that.
"Look, Lindsay. Things aren't over till they're over. Don't give up."
"I won't. I'll see what my options are." Lindsay went out to the deck to turn the steaks.
"Some detective named Kaufman called to talk to me," said Sinjin when she returned. "He's not the same one I talked to at the station. Apparently, he's taken over the case."
"I've met him. That's another thing, someone from the university sicced him on me. I don't know why, or who, or what it has to do with. I think the sheriff of Dover County is trying to find out who's behind it. I'm sorry you're in this with me. What did Kaufman ask you?"
"About the artifacts found in my Jeep. I told him the same thing that I told the others. Perhaps a little sharper."
Lindsay smiled. "I'm afraid I was a little sharp with him, too. At least he knows it runs in the family." Lindsay put down her fork. "Let me tell you what I heard today." Lindsay repeated Lila Poole's tale almost word for word. "It was spooky."
"You don't believe it?" asked Sinjin.
"What do you think?"
"She's just superstitious. A more rational person would have seen something different."
"No," said Lindsay, shaking her head. "She wasn't superstitious. Just the opposite. She expects things to make sense. When she saw something that had no natural explanation she could think of, the only alternative was to go to the supernatural."
"Lindsay, people don't catch fire. The human body's not prone to spontaneous combustion like oily rags." He took one of the candles on the table and passed a hand through the flame several times. Lindsay winced. "See"-he held out his hand to her-"not even red. I would have to hold it over a flame for quite a while for my skin to actually catch fire. People just don't burn that easily."
"Some people have," she said. "I've read-"
"Lindsay, in every reported case of so-called spontaneous combustion, there is a logical explanation."
"But I saw a picture of a woman burned in a chair. The chair was ashes, but nothing around the chair was burned," Lindsay persisted.
"So? Look, Lindsay, a stuffed chair can smolder for hours, reduce the chair to ashes, and hardly flame up. Someone probably dropped a cigarette in the cushions, the chair smoldered, and caught her clothes on fire."
Lindsay took the steaks off the grill and retrieved the baked potatoes from the microwave. She dressed her potato with butter and the steak with ketchup and took a few bites before she spoke again. "The body is made up of, what, 60 percent water? What if the water broke down, through some mechanism, into hydrogen and oxygen, which somehow helped cause a reaction between static electricity and hydrogen in the body? Couldn't the body catch fire then?"
Sinjin was about to cut a piece of steak; instead, he put down his fork and stared at her for a long moment. "What do you do up in your room all evening, watch X-Files videos?"
"It's not possible?"
"No. Where did you get such an idea?"
"I went to the library and looked up a couple of articles on spontaneous human combustion."
"I'm surprised they carry the National Enquirer."
Lindsay made a face. "What about Mrs. Poole's story?"
"Luke or someone could have threatened her, or she's mistaken in what she saw. Seeing a person burn to death is a very traumatic experience. I can tell you that. It's not surprising that it left a disturbing impression. Besides, if she had burst into flames through some kind of spontaneous combustion, wouldn't the inside of her ribs show signs of burning? Did you find that?"
Lindsay had to admit that all signs of burning were on the outside of the ribs. But she wasn't willing to dismiss Mrs. Poole's testimony. "What about the burning underwater part? Doesn't napalm, for instance, burn underwater?"
"Yes, many things burn underwater. I'll give you that. The kid could have thrown something like napalm at her. Maybe the woman didn't see him do that. It was getting dark, remember."
"She said the car lights were on."
"That still wouldn't necessarily give enough light to see everything going on. There would be strong shadows and unlighted areas."
"Where do you get napalm? Is it something someone could make?" Lindsay asked.
"Yes, it's very easy. I could make it probably from the things you have around here."
Lindsay grimaced. "Could someone like Luke make it? Don't you have to be some kind of expert?"
"No, you just need the recipe and enough sense not to burn yourself up."
"But why would someone like Luke do that? That's such a mean way to kill someone. Luke doesn't strike me as someone who would do anything that mean to another person."
"Lindsay, a lot of antisocial people appear to be nice guys. Didn't the medical examiner take tissue and fabric samples?" Sinjin asked. "A chemical like napalm would show up, wouldn't it?"
"I'll give him a call and see if the results are in."
"Do that. You'll find out there was some outside ignition source that caught her clothes on fire."
"The fire was very hot. It's hard to burn bone, but three of her distal phalanxes were missing, and others were burned white. That's a very hot fire."
"Do you mind if we quit talking about burned bodies while I'm eating red meat?" Sinjin asked.
Lindsay grinned at him. "Sorry."
"That guy, Hank Roy Whatsit. His photo a match with the skull?" asked Sinjin after a few moments of silent chewing.
"Yes, he was. I meant to tell you. I asked Derrick to look for him in the newspaper archives in Kentucky. I looked him up in the local papers but didn't find anything."
"We're making more progress than I figured," Sinjin said, taking his last bite of steak. "We know who the poor beggar was. If we can locate his next of kin, at least we can tell them that he died standing in a cornfield wearing his Sunday best." He put down his fork and knife. "I'll do the dishes. Sally said she's coming over after dinner and bringing a movie, Double Indemnity. You don't mind, do you?"
"I'd like that." Lindsay helped Sinjin clear the table. "You and Sally seem to be getting along."
"Like you said, we have a lot in common. She's a lot of fun. I'd forgotten about fun. Kathy and I hadn't been getting along for quite a while. I hadn't noticed, because it got to seem natural."
Lindsay left Sinjin to finish up in the kitchen while she straightened the living room. She was taking the silverframed photograph of Sinjin with his father and mother out of the bag when he walked into the living room.
"I got this for you," she said.
Sinjin gingerly took the photograph from her hands, sat down in a chair and looked at it, touching it with his fingertips as if he could feel his mother's face through the glass.
"I made an enlargement for me, too. I hope you don't mind," she said.
"Mind? No, I don't mind," he said. He looked up at her and smiled. "Thanks, baby sister. This is ... this is really nice."
"It just seemed ...... she began and stopped. "I think I hear Sally's car driving up." Lindsay went to the door.
"Hi," Sally greeted, a video in one hand and a large tin of three different flavors of popcorn in the other. "Sinjin told you I was coming, didn't he? I hope that's okay."
"Come in. I need a diversion."
Lindsay had Sinjin bring the television from her room. "I didn't realize it would be this much trouble," Sally said. "I'm sorry."
"It's no trouble. I have hookups down here. I had two TVs, but
one burned out."
Sinjin connected the TV to the VCR and sat on the couch. Sally sat cross-legged beside him. Lindsay sat in her favorite chair, curled up with her feet under her. They watched Barbara Stanwyck talk Fred MacMurray into killing her husband-how easy it was for her. Lindsay wondered if there were women with that kind of power in real life. She couldn't imagine it. She also wondered if people in the forties really talked that way-tossing clever lines back and forth so casually and with such deadly accuracy. Fred MacMurray lit matches with his thumbnail, the way Sinjin did. Lindsay smiled and scooped up a handful of popcorn.
"That is such a good movie," Sally said. "I don't know why they don't make them like that anymore."
"What about Body Heat?" said Sinjin. "Corruptible nice guy and simmering broad."
"Body Heat?" said Sally. "No."
"Yeah, that was almost as good," said Lindsay. "And Chinatown, and LA Confidential."
"Okay, they can make movies like they used to when they try," conceded Sally. "I'd never noticed it before, but did you see how much the young Fred MacMurray looked like Pierce Brosnan?
Lindsay rose and stretched. "It's those dark Irish good looks. Very nice. I'm going to turn in and leave you two to discuss film noir. We'll have to do it again. It's been the most relaxing time I've had in a long while."
"I need to get home. Thanks for having me out," Sally said.
"I'll walk you to your car." Sinjin gathered up her popcorn tin and walked with her out the door, just as Lindsay's phone rang.
"Lindsay, this is Irene Varnadore. I hope I didn't wake you."
"No, not at all."
"I'm sorry to call so late, but I just got back from a date with that friend I told you about. Davis Kaufman and his wife went with us. Davis told me a little about who put the bug in his ear, and for what it's worth, I told him that I thought he had you pegged wrong."
"Thanks. I really appreciate that. Who is it?"
"Some bigwig in the administration. All Davis would say was that it was an associate dean."
"Lindsay, you have nothing whatsoever to link Dr. Einer with the thefts. This isn't like you," Frank said, scowling at her from behind his desk. "Do you know how many associate deans there are on campus?"
Dressed to Die: A Lindsay Chamberlain Novel Page 21
