Close to Home

by Jenna Bennett

  Chapter 18

  The funeral was well-attended. The whole family was there, of course, with Abigail and Hannah looking lost enough to break my heart in their little black velvet dresses and with black ribbons in their blonde curls. Dix had tears running down his cheeks throughout most of the service. The girls didn’t, but were big-eyed and solemn. I wasn’t sure they really understood what had happened, and that was probably best, but they did seem to know that something was wrong. Hannah had taken to sucking her thumb again, a habit Sheila had spent several months trying to break last year.

  “I’ve tried to tell her that her mama wouldn’t want her to suck her thumb,” my mother confided in me, “but she just looks at me with those big eyes, and I don’t have the heart to say anything else.”

  I shook my head. “She’ll stop on her own when she’s ready. If it gives her comfort right now, just let her do it. No girl ever graduated from finishing school sucking her thumb.”

  Mother looked at me in silence for a moment before she said, “You’ll make a good mother, Savannah.”

  I had to swallow back tears at that, wondering if I’d ever get the chance. Two miscarriages with two different men must mean there was something wrong with me, I figured, and if so, I might never be able to have children.

  Physically I was feeling pretty much back to normal, without a lot of pain or fatigue. I had taken a pill before the funeral, because I knew I’d be doing more standing and walking than I’d been used to. Of course, emotional health was a different issue altogether. I still cried easily, without much provocation, I had bursts of anger if anything rubbed me the wrong way—usually followed by more tears—and I went into deep pits of despair and doubt. I still felt guilty, too: although everyone said the enthusiastic sex hadn’t contributed to the miscarriage, I couldn’t help thinking that if we hadn’t indulged, maybe none of this would have happened.

  Rafe hadn’t called. Not that I’d expected him to. He hadn’t called me in the two months prior to knocking on my door in the early hours of Wednesday morning, either. Tamara Grimaldi assured me he was all right, that she’d spoken to Wendell and Rafe both, and that they were just focused on wrapping up the investigation in Atlanta. Apparently things were once again hairy, coming to a head, and Rafe was in the not unfamiliar position of walking around with a target on his back. I was too exhausted to worry as much about it as perhaps I should. But, “He can take care of himself,” Tamara Grimaldi told me, “he’ll be fine,” and I lacked the energy to fret.

  She drove down for the funeral, dressed in her usual boxy, black suit. I’d seen it in a few funerals already, as the detective had a habit of attending ‘her’ victims’ services. She’d been at both Brenda’s and Lila’s, and here she was at Sheila’s.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said when she walked through the door to chapel. “Any news?”

  “Not much since I spoke to you yesterday. The autopsy confirmed Emil Rushing’s TOD around seven PM Wednesday night.”

  A couple of hours after business ended. “Took him long enough to decide to do away with himself. It isn’t likely he’d have any appointments that late.”

  The detective shook her head. “The last legitimate appointment was at four thirty, and the doctor was alive and well when the patient left. The desk nurse saw him afterwards.”

  “Did you talk to Rafe? Did he go back to St. Jerome’s after the first time?”

  “He says not,” Grimaldi said.

  “Well, what did he do during those couple of hours? He had to go somewhere.”

  “He won’t say. Says it isn’t any of my business.”

  “Can’t you make him tell you?”

  “No,” Grimaldi said, with heavy patience, “I can’t. He isn’t a suspect, and he knows I can’t arrest him. I don’t have a whole lot of leverage, Ms. Martin.”

  In her frustration she’d raised her voice, and mother sent us a look from the other side of the entrance, where she was greeting guests. I smiled apologetically and drew the detective a few steps back. Lowering my voice, I asked, “Did he remember the photograph, at least? The one that’s missing?”

  “He did.” She sounded slightly more pleased about that. “A boy, maybe two. Blond hair, brown eyes, dressed in a Halloween costume, complete with pony. That’s the only reason he remembered. That pony.”

  “Some people spare no expense,” I said.

  “I had tech support do a search of photo studios that offered Halloween pictures with horses this year, and lucked out. There was a place in Mt. Juliet that did.”

  “That isn’t too far from here.” Or from Nashville, more specifically. At least an hour and a half from Sweetwater, but no more than thirty or forty minutes from anywhere in Nashville. “So you know who the child is?”

  Grimaldi nodded. “It took a lot of cross checking—there were a lot of people who had their kids photographed on top of that pony—but I have an appointment with the parents this afternoon, when I’m finished here. We’ll see how it goes.”

  “Bet you anything the boy is adopted,” I said. “But you’ll find no records of it.”

  She shook her head. “Here’s what we’re thinking right now. You and Mr. Collier put the wind up Dr. Rushing by questioning him about David. Dr. Rushing stayed late at the office to warn the other families whose adoptions he’d facilitated that something ugly might be coming down. This particular family decided to take matters into their own hands, and one of the parents took a drive to St. Jerome’s. Let’s assume, for the sake of ease, that it was the father. That way I can call him ‘he.’”

  I grinned, quite possibly my first since Wednesday night.

  “He went to Dr. Rushing’s office, removed the photograph from the wall and the file from the filing cabinet, and maybe he even killed Dr. Rushing, or maybe Dr. Rushing did that himself. Then our guy went back home and destroyed the paperwork. Or tossed it in a dumpster on the way. Husband and wife alibi each other, of course, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I like it.”

  “I do too. But it’s just a theory. I’ll know more this afternoon after I’ve spoken to them.”

  She looked around. “Guess I should find a seat.”

  “I appreciate your coming down. I know you’re busy. I’m sure Dix will appreciate it, too. He’s over there.” I pointed to where Dix was talking to Aunt Regina. The next time I looked in that direction, Grimaldi was squatting on the floor in front of Abigail and Hannah, engaged in what seemed to be a serious conversation, while Dix was watching all three of them from a few yards away.

  She left after the service, rather than following the procession to the cemetery. “She had an appointment this afternoon,” I told Dix when he asked after her. “With someone who might have a connection to the case.”

  He nodded distractedly. “She talked to Hannah and Abby.”

  “I noticed.”

  “I think whatever she said made them feel better.”

  “That’s great.” Now, if she’d only solve the murder so Dix could feel better, too. Or so he might at least achieve a sense of closure from the knowledge that whoever had killed his wife would pay for it. Actually feeling better would probably take longer than just six days.

  Apart from the detective, most everyone else who had been in the chapel came along to the graveside, and from there to the mansion, for the catered funeral food that mother had laid on. Dr. Seaver was there, as promised. So were a lot of women who must be friends of Sheila’s. And—surprisingly—Yvonne McCoy.

  Or maybe her presence wasn’t so surprising. She’d told me once that she used to have a crush on Dix in high school. Not that she had the bad taste to flirt with him at his wife’s funeral, of course. In fact, Yvonne looked quite decorous, in black slacks and a striped shirt, under a dark coat. A far cry from the last funeral where we’d crossed paths: Marquita’s. Yvonne had come straight from work in a skimpy skirt and a stretchy top that dipped dangerously low over her Double D breasts, and she had kissed Rafe and made
me want to hurt her.

  Now she came over and expressed her condolences to Dix before dragging me into a bone-crushing hug, squashing my face against her wool coat and heavily sprayed hair. “Thank you!”

  “What for?” I asked, fighting my way free.

  There were tears in her eyes. “The sheriff said it was you who found me the morning after Elspeth tried to kill me. If you hadn’t, I would have died before anyone else came by the house.”

  “Oh,” I said. “It was... I mean, you’re welcome.”

  She stepped a little closer and lowered her voice, squeezing my hand. “I’m so sorry about Rafe.”

  This time it was my eyes filling with tears. Not, as she thought, because he was dead, but because of everything that had happened. And because she was squeezing too hard. “Me too.”

  Dix glanced at me, but didn’t comment. “How are you feeling, Yvonne?” he asked instead.

  Yvonne smiled and let go of me. “Better. Almost back to normal. Other than that I have to give up low cut shirts and navel rings because of the scars. But it’s a small price to pay compared to being dead.”

  She wandered off without realizing what she’d said. “She didn’t mean it,” I told Dix as soon as she was out of ear shot.

  He managed a smile. “I know, sis. And I’m happy for her. I’m sorry to have lost Sheila, but I don’t want anyone else to suffer instead. Except maybe whoever did it to her.”

  “You don’t think it was Doctor Rushing?”

  “I hope not,” Dix said. “I want whoever it is to suffer.”

  I couldn’t blame him.

  “Detective Grimaldi will figure it out. She’s solved a lot of other murders; she’ll solve this one too.”

  Dix put an arm around me and pulled me in so he could kiss the top of my head. “I love you, sis.”

  “I love you too,” I said.

  The moment was interrupted when another woman came up to give Dix her condolences. She was a once-pretty brunette with thin cheeks and shadowed eyes, whose well-made clothes fit poorly, like they’d been made for someone fifteen pounds heavier, or someone else altogether. She spoke softly, too softly for me to hear. And she looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Some other old friend from high school I hadn’t seen in more than twelve years, maybe?

  When she walked off, I leaned closer to Dix and spoke out of the corner of my mouth. “Who was that?”

  He glanced at me. “Marley Cartwright.”

  “The woman who murdered her baby?” In my surprise, I neglected to keep my voice low, and my cheeks were hot as I craned my neck for another look.

  “That’s her.”

  She’d already been swallowed up by the crowd. I turned back to Dix. “She didn’t look like a murderer.”

  Then again, who was I to judge? Elspeth hadn’t looked like a murderer either, yet she’d killed Marquita and stabbed Yvonne and tried to shoot me. Looks can be deceiving.

  “Did you see her?” Dix asked Todd when the latter walked up to do his duty a little later.

  “Who?” Todd glanced around the room.

  “Marley Cartwright.”

  “No! She was here?” He gave the room another, more thorough look. There was still no sign of Marley.

  “She must have left,” I said. “It can’t be fun, being here with everyone staring at her.”

  Todd, who hadn’t met my eyes yet, avoided them yet again. He looked at me, but not at me; his gray-blue eyes hit somewhere around my hairline. “I imagine not.”

  “How is the trial going? Has it started yet?”

  “Monday,” Todd said and turned back to Dix. It was a clear dismissal. I met my brother’s eyes for a second. He shrugged. I smiled politely and took myself off so the two of them could talk in peace. The last thing I wanted was to come between my brother and his best friend. If there was ever a time when Dix needed his friends, it was now.

  So I wandered off, and left them alone. Truth be told, I was less concerned with Todd’s attitude toward me than I was about his attitude toward Dix. As long as Dix’s and my relationship survived unscathed, and Dix’s and Todd’s relationship didn’t suffer because of Todd’s and my relationship, I was satisfied.

  I found Denise Seaver, my mother, and Audrey sharing canapés on great aunt Marie’s velvet love seat in the front parlor. And they must have noticed Marley too, because when I walked up to them, Audrey was saying, “Can’t believe she’d have the nerve to show her face here!”

  Mother lifted a stuffed mushroom to her mouth, but before popping it in, she shook her head sadly. “Bless her heart, she looked awful.”

  “Well, wouldn’t you?” I asked. “If someone thought you had killed your child?”

  Mother looked like she thought strangling me at birth might not have been a bad idea. “Darling...!” she protested.

  “I’m sorry. I know it isn’t pleasant. But imagine what it must be like for her. What if she didn’t do it?”

  “I’m afraid she did, Savannah,” Dr. Seaver said seriously.

  “How do you know? Was she your patient too?” Along with practically every other woman in Columbia and Sweetwater?

  She nodded. “And I can tell you this now, since it all came out at the trial this week anyway. She was suffering from postpartum depression. The fact that her body was less firm, that she had stretch marks and couldn’t wear a bikini, that she was a mother instead of a young, attractive, adored wife... it all combined to make her resent the baby. She was so busy trying to regain her figure to be attractive for her husband that she neglected to take care of little Oliver.”

  Mother clicked her tongue. Audrey shook her head sadly. She’s as tall and angular as mother is short and soft. They were both wearing black and white: my mother elegant slacks and a silk shirt topped by a soft knit jacket with a belt, while Audrey had on a severe dress, black stockings, and four inch heels with polkadots. Her dark hair was cut in a crisp wedge and her lipstick was fire engine red, while mother’s champagne colored hair curled softly around her face and her makeup was understated and lovely. Mother has never worked a day in her life—outside the house—and Audrey owns and operates the most exclusive boutique in Sweetwater. They’ve been friends since childhood, and in their late fifties are still as close as ever, in spite of their differences.

  Denise Seaver by comparison still looked quite earth-motherly. She had tamed her long tangle of grayish hair with a barrette at the nape of her neck, and although the sack like dress still had the same waving hemline, it was a sober gray color, and was topped not by a white lab coat, but a nubby black cardigan. She’d exchanged the plastic clogs and ankle socks for black flats.

  “I feel for the young woman,” she said now; a little piously, I thought, “and I’m sure she didn’t plan to hurt little Oliver, but we all have to live with our actions, don’t we? Even the poor ones.” She shook her head sadly. Mother and Audrey murmured agreement. I excused myself and moved on.

  It had been a long day, and a longer week. With mother and Audrey occupied with Dr. Seaver, Dix still in conversation with Todd, Tamara Grimaldi back in Nashville, and Abigail and Hannah being entertained by Cole, Annie and Robert McCall, under the watchful eye of my sister and brother-in-law, there seemed to be nothing much I had to do. I felt a little disconnected from everything because of the pain killers, it was hot and crowded inside with so many people hanging around, and the atmosphere was depressing. I headed for the outside for some fresh air. And it was while I stood on the front steps, between the two-story white pillars, with my arms wrapped around myself against the chill in the air, that I saw Marley Cartwright again.

  She was down the circular drive a bit, leaning against the side of a white Jeep, smoking a cigarette.

  When I got closer, I saw that it wasn’t her first. The ground around her was practically littered with butts. Five or six, at least. Mother would have a fit when she saw them. Then again, several of the cars were parked half off the drive, tearing up the grass, and that would prob
ably make her even angrier than the cigarette butts.

  Marley Cartwright looked up when I stopped a few yards away. For a second we just looked at one another. She had tear tracks on her cheeks, I noticed.

  “Are you all right?”

  She shrugged thin shoulders inside the dark coat. Stupid question, I suppose. It was a funeral; most of us would probably say we weren’t all right.

  She dug in her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, which she held out to me. I shook my head. “No thanks. I don’t smoke.”

  “I didn’t used to.” Her voice was scratchy. “These days I do a lot of things I didn’t do before.”

  I could imagine. If she’d started smoking since her baby disappeared, she probably drank, too. She might abuse drugs, illegal or prescription. Chances were good she had a doctor who kept her liberally supplied with antidepressants and sleeping pills and medicine against panic attacks. If I’d killed my child and was on trial for murder, I’d need all of those, and more.

  “How did you know Sheila?” I asked. Dix had told me they’d had exercise classes together, but I wanted to talk to her, and it seemed an innocuous enough beginning to the conversation.

  She coughed and dropped what was left of the cigarette on the ground and put her foot on it. “I met her at the gym. She was pregnant with Hannah, I was pregnant with Oliver.”

  “I’m her sister-in-law, Savannah. She’s... she was married to my brother.”

  Marley nodded. “I know who you are. She talked about you.”

  “Really?” I blinked. “Why?”

  “Just about how you’d solved some kind of mystery up in Nashville this fall. That you found a dead body?”

  “I did, as a matter of fact. In early August. A colleague of mine.”

  “And you figured out what happened to her?”

  “I had help,” I said. “And I wasn’t really trying to figure it out. I just kept stumbling over information, you know?”

  Marley nodded. “Sheila thought a lot of you.”

  “She did? Wow. I had no idea.” I’d assumed Sheila shared mother’s opinion of me, that I was meddling in things that didn’t concern me and that were unbecoming a gently-bred Southern Belle. To learn now—when she was dead—that she’d valued the parts of me that I’d assumed she deplored, made the whole situation even sadder.