The Secrets We Bury

by Debra Webb

  At the door he spotted Freud stretched out on his belly on the floor, his nose pointed at the writing desk in the bay window.

  “What’s up, boy?”

  When Billy entered the room, Freud got to his feet and trotted toward the window. He sat down next to the desk. Billy followed him. Rowan had been going through her mother’s journals and some old photos. He smiled and picked up one of her as a child. Raven sat next to her. They couldn’t have been older than seven or eight. Pigtails and pink dresses.

  Billy put down the picture and scratched Freud on the head. “Come on, boy. I’m supposed to be letting you out to do your business.”

  As if he’d understood exactly what Billy said, the dog trotted out of the room. Billy followed him. He closed the door, decided not to lock it just in case Rowan didn’t have her key. Downstairs, he opened the back door and Freud raced out into the yard.

  Billy sat on the back porch and made follow-up calls for the next hour. He checked in with Detective Lincoln. Lincoln hadn’t been able to catch Luther. The former chief was on a fishing trip. Since he’d retired, the man refused to carry a cell phone. According to the note on his door, he would be back on Thursday. Talking to him would be a priority for Billy tomorrow.

  The notes to Rowan confirmed the Wilburn and Miller cases were connected to Addington. Billy had viewed enough of Julian Addington’s handwriting in the mounds of evidence related to his case to recognize the man’s scrawl when he saw it. Rowan could confirm, but he was pretty damned certain already. As soon as he had gone over the details with Rowan he would fax a copy to the task force and one directly to Dressler.

  Four murders, all somehow related to Addington.

  Finally, Rowan appeared, without the apron, gloves and face shield.

  “You left the door upstairs unlocked,” he scolded her.

  She frowned. “I thought I locked it.”

  He shook his head. “You did not.”

  Rowan shrugged. “I’ve been forgetting a lot lately.”

  “You have a damned good excuse to be forgetful these days,” he reminded her as he stood. She looked tired and he would bet she hadn’t taken the time to eat breakfast. “Are we going up for lunch?”

  “We are. Freud can stay out for a while. He likes chasing the rabbits and the birds.”

  Billy locked the back door and followed her upstairs and into the kitchen that could have been a kitchen in any other old house. He peered out the window over the sink and watched Freud frolic. One would never know that Mr. Charlie Hall was wearing nothing but a sheet and chilling in the basement.

  “Peanut butter sandwich okay with you? I haven’t had a chance to do any shopping.”

  He turned back to her. “Sure. It’s the mainstay of my diet.”

  She smiled. “We certainly ate our share growing up.”

  Rowan’s mother had not exactly been a gourmet cook. She’d loved the idea of gourmet cooking so she’d purchased lots of cookbooks but she usually ended up throwing out what she prepared. Pizza and peanut butter sandwiches were generally on the menu.

  “You finally started going through your mom’s journals.”

  She glanced up from spreading peanut butter on the bread. “I did.” She frowned then. “Did I tell you that already?”

  “You said you were going to and then I saw things out.” He gestured toward the other end of the second floor. “I found Freud in your parents’ bedroom.”

  She reached for the refrigerator door but paused. “The door was open and Freud was in there? How strange. I thought I put everything away and closed the door.”

  “A couple of journals and a few photos were lying on her desk.”

  Rowan poured the iced tea. “I swear, I don’t know where my head is.” She pushed a plate across the counter toward him and then a glass of iced tea. “And the dreams.” She shook her head again and scooted up onto a bar stool. “The dreams are worse than ever.”

  “You still dreaming of Raven?” He took the second of the two stools. Set his hat on the counter and picked up his sandwich.

  “I am.” She chewed for a while. “It’s really weird. Now I’m dreaming about Norah, too. Right before Daddy died was the first time I ever dreamed about her.”

  Billy sipped his tea. “Anything specific about the dreams?”

  She shrugged and reached for her sweating glass. “Nothing a good shrink couldn’t turn into a reason to commit me.”

  Billy laughed. “Well, in that case, I think it’s best if you don’t tell any shrinks. But you can always tell me, Ro.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes weary with uncertainty. “I know and that means a great deal to me.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. He was not looking forward to telling her the latest bad news. Maybe it could wait a few minutes more.

  “So—” he tore off another bite of his sandwich “—you and Dressler have a thing?”

  Rowan laughed, whether from the question or from him eating while he talked, he couldn’t be sure. Either way it was good to hear her laugh. She’d had very little reason to do so lately.

  “Dressler and I have never had a thing,” she said. “Not for his lack of trying, but because I have always been focused on work. I just never had the time to devote to a personal relationship that complicated.”

  Billy wanted to be glad about her reasoning but he also felt sad. “You were in Nashville for a really long time, Ro. Surely there was someone.”

  “I dated off and on but no one I cared to see more than once or twice. I was always so busy. Hyperfocused on work. You know me.” She finished off her sandwich.

  He did know her and chances were she was telling it like it was. Rowan had never focused on her own needs. She was far too engrossed in what everyone else needed.

  “We have to change that, Ro. You should start taking time for you.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “You mean the way you do.”

  Okay, so they were both guilty of the same offense. “Touché.”

  Billy took his plate and glass to the sink. He couldn’t put off what had to be done any longer. “I have some news and an update.”

  Rowan put her plate atop his and looked at him expectantly. “All right, let’s hear it.”

  Her tone warned that she was braced for the worst. “Juanita Wilburn is dead.”

  She made a face. “What happened?”

  “She swallowed a bottle full of her meds, but I’m fairly confident it wasn’t because she wanted to. There’s a message, They’re all going to know what you did, written in what we believe is blood on the wall above her bed.” He drew in a big breath. “There was a note tucked into a sandwich bag and left in her throat, as well.”

  He reached into his shirt pocket and removed the folded evidence bag. She took it and read the note, You should have watched this one more closely, Rowan, before meeting his gaze once more. “This is definitely his handwriting.”

  She didn’t have to clarify who she meant. Billy nodded. “You said Juanita was part of the cleaning team that takes care of the funeral home.”

  Rowan nodded. “For about three years now.”

  “Does the team clean the living quarters, as well?”

  “No, but my keys are usually lying on the table near the door. She could have made a copy.”

  “Juanita had access to the new keys?”

  “The whole team does if you consider that I rarely locked my door until now. I never had any reason to worry.”

  “So we’ll change the locks again.” Billy refolded the bag and tucked it back into his pocket. “I’d like to talk to the cleaning team, if that’s okay with you.”

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  “No prints other than yours were found on the mirror,” he went on. He might as well get the rest of this said. “The writing on the mirro
r wasn’t a match for Addington’s.”

  “It wasn’t his,” she agreed. “I guess that means he has at least one person working with him.”

  “Looks that way.” Billy pressed his lips together for a moment before passing along the final bit of news on the case. “I guess Miller had fallen asleep.”

  Rowan’s blue gaze searched his, hers full of regret.

  “They found a note in his throat, too. Who’s going to protect you, Rowan, while he sleeps?”

  She looked away.

  Enough was enough, but, oh hell, he’d almost forgotten about the other. “One more thing.”

  Her attention swung to him once more. “Tell me it doesn’t get worse.”

  “Not worse,” he promised. He wished there was something he could say to make some aspect of this a little easier, but there were no words. “I saw Woody today.”

  Rowan frowned. “I thought he was in Panama City or someplace beachy and touristy like that.”

  “So did I, but he was over at the hospital when I was leaving after checking on the Juanita Wilburn situation.”

  “Is he ill? Maybe his mother is sick.”

  Billy shook his head. “Neither of the above. He was wheeling a body out to load into a Gardner’s Funeral Home van.”

  “Is that a fact?” Rowan placed her glass in the sink and then crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I guess I won’t need an excuse to be rid of him, after all.”

  “Maybe he’s in a financial bind and picking up extra work?” Billy shrugged. “There could be an explanation.”

  “When I ask him I guess I’ll know.”

  Fourteen

  Once Mr. Hall was rolled into refrigeration and the remaining list of to-do’s for his visitation were done, Rowan decided she would call Woody and see what he had to say for himself before she cleaned up. From the moment Billy told her about seeing her assistant at the hospital, she’d been seething. Where was the man’s sense of professionalism?

  Since she’d been in the mortuary room for hours, it was time to give Freud another break. As the call went through she walked up the stairs. She never allowed Freud into the mortuary room with her since he had a terrible habit of licking at anything she dropped on the floor. Though she tried hard not to drip or drop anything, it did happen occasionally. Thank goodness for the floor drain that allowed her to hose out the room after each service.

  About the same time she opened the door to her living room and Freud strolled out with a wag of his tail, Woody answered the phone.

  “I hope you’re enjoying your vacation at the beach.” She couldn’t help herself. She had to know if he would lie to her a second time.

  A huge breath whistled across the line. “I guess I should just tell you the truth and get it over with.”

  She started back down the stairs, Freud trotting ahead of her. “Oh my, this sounds serious.”

  “I was offered a director’s position at Gardner’s. I couldn’t turn it down, and after what’s happened to you recently, I didn’t have the heart to tell you. I’ve actually been working part-time as an assistant for them since before I hired on with your father. He knew about it and was cool with it. I wanted to give you time to find someone else so I thought I’d try to handle both for as long as you needed me to.”

  She rolled her eyes and opened the back door to allow Freud outside. He shot out like a bullet—as if Billy hadn’t let him out a mere three hours ago. “That’s great, Woody, really great. So I’ll cut your final paycheck for this vacation week and you can pick it up at your convenience. I’m sure Herman can help me out until I find someone else.”

  He stuttered, looking for the right response, but Rowan ended the call. She had no interest in anything else he had to say. Her father had put up with him too long. She had no intention of continuing that management style. Her father had gotten a little soft in his later years. Rowan smiled as she headed back down the stairs to the mortuary. It would be nice to have Herman around more often for a while.

  Seeing instruments spread over the mortuary table stopped her. When she’d walked out of the room, all the instruments she’d used on Mr. Hall had been stacked on the tray, ready for sterilizing. Her gloves and apron had already been cleaned and put away. But now, they lay across the table as if she’d only just taken them off.

  She scrubbed at her forehead. Okay, think, Rowan. Did she actually pile the instruments onto the tray or had she just intended to? Her head hurt with confusion. In medical school she’d gone through a time when she felt as if she couldn’t rely on her memory. She had been so overwhelmed that she’d often forgotten what she had done two minutes before.

  The past few weeks had been traumatizing. It was more than possible that she simply needed to slow down and stop fixating on Julian and her father’s death. She couldn’t change any of what had happened in the past. But she could keep moving forward. She owed it to herself to do so. Still, this didn’t feel like just her forgetting. This felt exactly like someone trying to make her believe she couldn’t remember her own actions.

  But what was the point? If Julian or his cohort were going to all the trouble to break into her home, why not take her or try to kill her? Why the games?

  Was this part of the agony he wanted her to feel?

  When the locks were changed again, she would know. This time she intended to ensure the few people who had the keys were ones she trusted completely.

  Frustrated, she began the cleanup. Sterilizing and scrubbing, draining and cleaning the pump. Wiping down the equipment and tables. The task was a good forty-five-minute physical workout.

  When the cleansing task was complete, she climbed the narrow stairs to the first floor. She should drag Freud in and head upstairs for a shower and dinner. She was spent. There was pizza left over from the one she’d ordered last night. A glass or two of wine would be nice.

  At the top of the stairs she stalled.

  The back door stood open.

  Fear whipped through her. Her hand went instinctively into her pocket, her fingers wrapping around her cell phone.

  Had she locked the door? Had she even closed it?

  Maybe she’d only pushed it and the latch didn’t catch, allowing the breeze to send it swinging open.

  Freud suddenly appeared from the lobby end of the corridor.

  “Jesus, boy, you scared the hell out of me.” She understood now. It was possible she had failed to push the door hard enough for the latch to catch and Freud had pushed it open when he was ready to come inside. Okay. Okay. No problem. She exhaled a big breath.

  Considering the Miller and Wilburn murders, she chose not to just let it go. She’d done that several times already. Instead, she walked out front and found the first of the two officers on protection detail. She explained the situation and the two were quick to do a thorough search of the building and yards, front and back. Since one of the two completed a full walk around the property every half hour, it was reasonable to assume if anyone had come into her house it would have been right after the last security check. He’d likely used her decision to come outside and talk to the officers as the perfect time to escape out the back.

  Someone knew her every move.

  Billy arrived in the midst of the fray. The locksmith, Houston Smith, was in tow.

  Rowan stood in the lobby while the locksmith did his work and Billy and the two officers had another look around. All the windows were checked and every single entry into the building was scrutinized for any indication of tampering. Rowan called an emergency meeting with the staff: Herman, Charlotte Kinsley and Rhonda McCord, the head of the cleaning team. Everyone received new keys and Billy reminded them of their security obligations, particularly under the circumstances. Rowan ordered Asian food from a local favorite restaurant on the boulevard and had dinner delivered for everyone, including the locksmith.

  By the time th
e funeral home had cleared save Billy, Rowan was dead on her feet.

  “The company will be here tomorrow to install the security system,” she promised him. Her father had always waved off the idea of having a security system. Rowan had one in Nashville, but she hadn’t felt the need here...until now. Now there was no ignoring the pressing necessity. She should have done it days ago.

  “Good.” Billy nodded. “Call me if you need me.”

  “Thanks for everything, Billy. I’m certain I don’t say that often enough.”

  He searched her eyes for a long moment before he moved. When he did, his arms went around her and he hugged her close. Warmth spread through her and she rested against him, felt protected and cared for.

  “I just want you safe, Ro.”

  She hugged him back. “I know. Thank you for being a good friend.”

  When he was gone, she closed and locked the door and turned out the lights as she and Freud made their way up the stairs. “Come on, boy.”

  She climbed the stairs to the second floor. Freud’s nails clicked along behind her. Upstairs, she took a quick shower and poured herself a glass of wine. She placed the wine on the coffee table and decided to dig around in her mother’s things again. When she reached her parents’ bedroom, Rowan frowned. The photos and journals Billy had noticed were spread over the desk.

  Hadn’t she put those away?

  Beyond the idea that something was going wrong inside her head, it was time to stop with the denial and to admit that someone—possibly Julian himself—had been toying with her, up close and personal. She could not pretend any longer that this was mere forgetfulness.

  “Not any more, you bastard.” New locks, new rules and a two-man protection detail.

  With a weary sigh, she gathered another journal and another box of photos. Her mother never bothered with albums except for special occasions. She preferred the shoebox organization system. The year or years the photos were taken were marked on the box. Tonight Rowan had selected the year Raven and their mother died as well as the year before.

  The journal was more of her random musings about story ideas and brainstorming. Rowan turned a page and read a different style of entry. This one was written in block print, not her mother’s airy, flamboyant style. The emotion in the words was evidenced by the way the pen had furrowed into the paper, leaving vivid indentations. This wasn’t about a research trip or a story she was considering. This was an event that occurred at home.