Last Seen Alive

by Carlene Thompson

  What happened to her? Chyna wanted to shout. She glanced at the girl again. Nancy’s lips had been painted petal pink, and they didn’t move. Of course they didn’t move, Chyna thought They were sewn shut, a gruesome thought but the custom when the corpse lay in an open coffin. “She doesn’t look like she’d been ill,” Chyna ventured.

  “Oh, she wasn’t.” Rusty gazed over at the girl, a mixture of frustration and puzzlement in his eyes. “Nancy liked to run in the evenings. Tuesday evening, she went out later than usual. Her parents tried to stop her. They didn’t want her out alone after dark, but Nancy did as she pleased. Always. I suppose quite a few people would consider her spoiled.” Including you, Chyna thought, trying to keep her face blank.

  “Anyway, when she didn’t come back after an hour and a half, my aunt got worried,” Rusty continued. “She and Nancy’s father went looking down the trail Nancy usually took. After two hours, a couple of neighbors and their teenage son joined them. The boy went off on a different path and he found Nancy. Apparently, she’d stepped in a hole hidden by leaves, fell, and hit her head on a large rock. Her ankle was broken, a bone in her neck cracked, and she had a subdural hematoma. I’m told sometimes they can reduce those hematomas, but Nancy’s was extremely bad and she’d lain there around three hours.” He took a deep breath. “She died on her way into surgery.”

  So she wasn’t another lost girl, Chyna thought immediately, ashamed, but also relieved. Nancy had been gone for only about three hours when they found her dead because of an accident. She’d fallen. She hadn’t been spirited away and probably murdered. Rusty was looking at Nancy, and Chyna closed her eyes. But the girl had spoken …

  Or had she? Chyna would have sworn she heard a voice,

  Zoey’s voice, just like she’d heard at Lake Manicora, but she knew Zoey couldn’t have been speaking to her at the lake. And Chyna hadn’t seen Nancy’s lips moving as Zoey’s voice flowed from her. The dead girl had not been rattling out a child’s chant about stars. Chyna was simply imagining voices. She had to be.

  “My aunt is heartbroken,” Rusty was saying. “I’m afraid this will be the emotional end of her. And for the first time, I’m glad my grandfather died last year. Nancy was the apple of his eye. He loved her more than anything.”

  “Oh, how devastating …” Chyna said faintly.

  “Yes.” Rusty’s father appeared in the doorway, and Rusty suddenly became all business. “The service will begin soon. People will be arriving. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave, Dr. Greer,” he said coolly.

  “Oh, of course. Once again, I’m sorry …,” Chyna babbled as she moved toward the door of the “slumber room.” “So tragic. Such a shock….”

  “I’m sure you’ve said all that already,” Owen Burtram snapped. “Thank you.” Sunlight poured into the dark hall and Owen glanced at the open front door. “Here are the first of the mourners. Her parents. I wish you wouldn’t—”

  “I’m on my way out,” Chyna assured him.

  Owen had stepped forward to embrace a smaller, feminine version of himself, clearly his sister and Nancy’s mother, as Chyna fled down the hall and out the door before it had fully closed behind Nancy’s parents. Outside, Chyna leaned against the brick wall of the mortuary and tried to draw deep breaths, although her lungs felt shut off, as if they refused to accept air. For a moment, everything went dark and Chyna thought she was fainting. Then the crisp air hit her like a slap in the face and suddenly she became almost frighteningly alert.

  Dear God, she thought, what’s happening to me? Throughout the years, Chyna had heard voices before, but they’d always been gentle, warning voices: “Don’t step into the street” right before a drunk driver careened around the corner. “Read Chapter Sixteen again,” and sure enough, several important test questions would be drawn from Chapter 16. “Your

  earring dropped off three steps back,” and when she looked behind her she would see the earring sparkling in the sun. The voice was like a little guardian angel, never loud, never frightening. But rhymes? A rhyme seeming to come from a lake, and the same rhyme seeming to come from a dead girl?

  Panic shot through Chyna. Schizophrenics heard voices. Had she finally gone around the bend into schizophrenia? Could it come on so quickly? She hadn’t even heard the little warning voice for nearly a year, much less the voice of someone she had known, like Zoey. Chyna tried to remember if she’d heard the rhyme in both ears or in just one. True schizophrenics heard voices in both ears. What were some of the other symptoms of schizophrenia?

  Chyna was aware of people trickling into the mortuary, some looking at her curiously, some warily, but she absolutely could not move. She kept her hands pressed against the brick wall, feeling as if it were the only thing holding her up. Certainly her legs weren’t. They felt as if they were vibrating under her brown slacks. I can’t stand here forever, she thought, plastered to the wall like a mashed bug on a windshield. I have to pull myself together. At least I have to make it to the car.

  She briefly closed her eyes, telling herself there was nothing wrong with her legs and she could move if she’d just try it, when a deep male voice asked, “Chyna?” She opened her eyes and looked up into the dark, penetrating gaze of Scott Kendrick. “Chyna, are you all right?”

  Chyna ran shaking fingers over her upper lip and forehead and felt a sheen of moisture. “I guess making arrangements for Mom’s funeral was harder than I thought it would be,” she said lightly, then slumped. If Scott hadn’t reached out strong arms, she would have dropped to the pavement.

  “Where’s your walking stick?” she asked vaguely, aware of mourners looking at them, then quickly turning away their gazes, obviously believing they were seeing an extreme reaction to grief and embarrassed by it.

  “I was only walking to and from the car,” Scott was saying to Chyna. “I don’t need the walking stick for that. Do you want me to help you inside?”

  “No!” Chyna nearly shouted.

  More surreptitious glances, more blushing and shifts of heads away from Chyna. “I think it’s that Greer girl,” Chyna heard someone mutter. “You know how strange she is.”

  Chyna turned her gaze to Scott. “I’m sorry,” she said in the most even voice she could manage. “I’m making a fool of myself and causing you to feel awkward.”

  “Coming here alone was too much stress after your mother’s death.” Scott sounded certain. Then he asked in faint annoyance, “Where’s Ned?”

  “Ned is at his car dealership. I didn’t ask him to come with me because … well, it’s not important.” Chyna slowly drew back from Scott, noticing how handsome he looked in his charcoal suit and burgundy tie. “He has his reasons for letting me handle this part of the ordeal.”

  “I think your mother would have something to say to him for pushing this entirely off on you,” Scott said sternly. “You’re a mess.”

  Chyna tried to smile. “Thanks, Scott.”

  “I just meant—”

  “I know what you meant. I am a mess.” Chyna still worked at a convincing smile. “You’re obviously here for Nancy Tierney’s funeral. I’m okay now and the service will be starting soon. You should go in.”

  Scott shook his head. “I barely know the Tierneys and I didn’t know Nancy at all. Mom asked me to come, but I’m sure Nancy’s parents won’t notice if I’m here or not. There’s a gourmet coffee and pastry cafe on the next block. Want to get something to eat and drink, take a little time to pull yourself together before you go home?”

  Suddenly the thought of coffee and pastry sounded irresistible to Chyna. She knew she shouldn’t drag Scott away from a funeral his mother wanted him to attend, but Chyna still felt too shaken to go to the cafe herself. “All right, if you’re sure you don’t want to attend the funeral.”

  “I am very sure a funeral is not what I need these days,” Scott said firmly. “Oh God, I see Irma Vogel coming. Let’s just walk away. Fast.”

  Scott took Chyna’s arm. As he led her away from the mortuary,
they heard Irma calling, “Yoo-hoo! Scott!”

  “She sounds like she’s yodeling,” Scott grumbled. “I wonder if she practiced that dulcet tone.”

  Chyna smiled. “Let’s hope so. If she was born with it, her mother must have gone insane by the time Irma was three years old.”

  Scott burst out laughing. It was the first time Chyna had heard him laugh since she’d come home, and she’d forgotten how charming that deep mixture of rumble and chuckle could be. Irma glared at them. “Guess she knows we’re talking about her. Let’s go before she comes over here and does us bodily harm.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1

  They walked to the relatively new, fashionable cafe L’Etoile, owned by one of Scott’s best friends growing up, Ben May-hew. The noon crowd hadn’t arrived yet, and only two other couples were seated. Still, Scott picked a table in a corner under a print of Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party, one of Chyna’s favorite paintings. Sun shone on the print, the cafe was bright and cheerful, and she felt better almost immediately. Almost.

  A pretty, auburn-haired waitress around eighteen appeared at their table. “Hello, Mr. Kendrick,” she said, her amber eyes lingering on his face. She fumbled with a tablet and pencil.

  “Deirdre, you’ve known me all your life,” Scott teased. “It’s ’Scott’ and I’m fine.”

  Chyna remembered Ned talking about a Ben Mayhew, just a few years older than Ned was, getting married while he was still in high school because his girlfriend was pregnant. Ned had said a lot of people thought Ben was an idiot, because he could have had a great future with the football scholarship that was a sure thing until he’d quit school to get a job and support his new family. He was throwing away everything, they said, for this girl and their unborn baby, who could have so easily been made to vanish at an abortion clinic.

  Ten-year-old Chyna had thought those people must certainly be right until she’d seen Ben, his young wife, and their baby Christmas shopping a year later. His wife had tenderly carried the baby, swathed in a pink blanket and wearing a crocheted hat with a pom-pom on top. Ben had looked at both his wife and baby with such adoration, Chyna had known he hadn’t thrown away anything he cared about as much as those two. And now she was talking to that baby he’d loved so much.

  “How are you these days, kiddo?” Scott asked as he laid his walking stick on the chair beside him.

  “I’m doing great,” Deirdre said with what Chyna thought was forced enthusiasm. “Considering.”

  “Considering?” Scott asked.

  “Well, Nancy Tierney …” Tears rose in the girl’s beautiful eyes and she swallowed hard. “We were really good friends and you know what happened to her. Her funeral is going on right now, but I just couldn’t attend. I saw her last night, at the wake. She looked so pretty and so . . .” Dead. The girl’s thoughts seemed to scream into Chyna’s head. Nancy had looked lifeless as a mannequin, Deirdre was thinking. One of the tears in her eyes trickled down her cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “I just couldn’t go,” Deirdre ended flatly.

  Scott nodded. “I understand. One of my good friends died in high school—a car wreck—and I went to the funeral. I had nightmares about it for months. I wish I hadn’t gone. He would have understood.”

  “I hope Nancy does,” Deirdre answered dolefully. “Lynette Monroe is going. The three of us were good friends even when we were little. Lynette said Nancy would know she was attending for both of us.” Deirdre shrugged. “I guess it sounds childish.”

  Scott said softly, “Stop worrying about it, Deirdre. Life is too short for regrets over not attending things like funerals.” Then he smiled and said in what Chyna knew he meant to be a cheery voice, “Your dad told me you graduated with straight As.”

  Deirdre blushed. “Yes, but I had to attend summer school in order to finish this year because I needed to make up some credits. I wasn’t able to take a few classes during the school year because I had to help out with Mom.” Vivian had mentioned to Chyna that Anna Mayhew had died of cancer last March. “I didn’t finish in time to apply for college this year,” Deirdre went on. “Besides, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do, so Dad said I could work here this year since he only has Irma Vogel, who works part-time.”

  “Irma Vogel?” Chyna asked Scott. “Doesn’t she work for you, too?”

  “She’s at my place three days a week and here three.”

  “Busy woman,” Chyna said.

  “Yes. She’s a big help to Dad when she isn’t eating up all the pastry.” Deirdre blushed again. “Oh, that wasn’t nice.”

  “But true, if I know Irma,” Scott agreed, pulling a face.

  “Anyway, when I decide what I want to major in, I’m definitely going to college next year,” Deirdre said with a wide smile and a gay, sweeping gesture of her hand that brushed against Chyna’s long hair lying across the shoulder of her jacket.

  You’re not going to college, you know it, and it’s breaking your heart, Chyna thought with a jolt as she looked up at the fair-skinned girl with a small dimple in her chin who was apologizing profusely for messing Chyna’s hair.

  “You can’t mess up hair that’s just hanging limp as a rag,” Chyna laughed.

  “Oh no, it’s not!” Deirdre exclaimed. “Your hair is beautiful, so soft and shiny and …”

  Deirdre ran out of words, looking almost as if she were going to burst into tears. But your tears wouldn’t be over my hair, Chyna thought. They’d be over the future you’ve just been reminded you might not have.

  “Chyna’s hair is still intact and I’m sure you’ll get into any college you want next year,” Scott said to Deirdre, then nodded at Chyna. “Oh, sorry I didn’t introduce you. Chyna Greer, Deirdre Mayhew.” They said hello at the same time, although Chyna was certain Deirdre already knew who she

  was. Deirdre’s cheeks grew pinker. Young and bashful, Chyna thought. “Chyna is a medical resident,” Scott went on. “Maybe you’d like to talk to her about the medical profession.”

  Deirdre’s face turned redder. “I’ve always dreamed about being a doctor, but I’m probably not smart enough.”

  “Your grades say you are.” Scott grinned. “Your dad told me you were invaluable in helping out a lot with your mother when she was so ill.”

  “That’s not exactly the same as being a doctor, Mr. Kendrick—I mean Scott—and, well, I wasn’t able to do anything for Mom anyway.”

  “No one could have saved your mother, Deirdre,” Scott reassured her. “You’re good in chemistry, aren’t you?”

  “It was my favorite class.”

  “Wonderful. And I’ll bet you have a strong stomach, too.”

  Deirdre raised her eyebrows at Scott, clearly puzzled. “Is that important?”

  “If you’re going into medicine, it is,” Chyna interrupted. “Unfortunately, few med students don’t know until they’re actually faced with a cadaver. I remember the first time I was in an anatomy class where we were going to see an autopsy. Some of the guys were so patronizing, telling me not to be ashamed if I got sick and that I’d probably have to work hard at being able to watch an autopsy, but they’d try to ’help me through’ the ordeal. Meanwhile they bragged about how nothing gory bothered them.” She grinned. “I was unforgivably thrilled when three of them ran down the hall to the restroom with their hands up to their mouths fifteen minutes into the autopsy.”

  Scott and Deirdre laughed. “Consider medicine anyway, Deirdre,” Scott said. “I’m sure Chyna wouldn’t mind talking with you about it in more detail, would you, Chyna?”

  “Not at all,” she said, noticing the adoring look in Deirdre’s eyes as she looked at Scott before she dropped her pencil and order pad on the floor, her face turning even pinker as she retrieved them. I know exactly how you feel, Chyna thought. I blushed and fumbled around him all

  through my teenage years, too. And I still do, she thought in frustration. “If you’re really interested, Deirdre, give me your home phone number and
a good time to call. I’ll get back to you this week.”

  Deirdre smiled. “That would be great, but I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

  “You wouldn’t be. I’m always happy to talk about the medical profession.”

  The girl quickly wrote down her name, as if Chyna would forget it, a phone number, and “any time after 8:00 P.M.” on an order sheet. She tore the small piece of paper off the pad and was handing it to Chyna when a heavyset man behind the counter called, “Hey, Deirdre, you considering taking their order?”

  “Sorry, Dad,” Deirdre said over her shoulder, and turned back toward them with a face an even darker shade of red. There’s nothing like being yelled at by your father in front of the man of your dreams, Chyna mused in sympathy.

  “Give the girl a chance to be sociable, Ben,” Scott called. “You want to get a reputation for being a slave driver?”

  “Already got one,” Ben answered with a barely there smile.

  “Well, knock it off. It can’t be good for business.” Scott’s voice was light with a serious undertone. “With those extra pounds you’ve gained, you should be playing the jolly innkeeper.”

  Ben finally laughed. “Keep your remarks about my figure to yourself, Kendrick. I just look healthy.”

  “Who told you that? Someone wanting free food?”

  “Can you believe people used to think he was charming, honey?” Ben asked Deirdre, who giggled politely, clearly at a loss for something to add to the banter between men whose once-lively friendship had grown distant but certainly not dead.

  “Dad’s great,” Deirdre finally got out.

  “Yeah, he is,” Scott said. “And he adores you, no matter how cantankerous he sounds sometimes.”

  Chyna folded the sheet of paper Deirdre had given her

  and put it in her purse. “I won’t forget to call her; I promise,” she told Scott.

  He grinned. “Am I being accused of criticizing you when I haven’t said a word?”