5 Death, Bones, and Stately Homes

by Valerie S. Malmont

  The layout of the house was similar to jenny's, but the similarity ended there. It was filthy where Jenny's living room was spotless, or at least it had been spotless before her husband had rampaged through it. Despite the summer heat, the windows were all closed, and the hot air reeked of dirty diapers and spoiled formula.

  "Sorry'bout the mess," she said, vaguely waving one arm in the air. "I wasn't expecting company."

  "I am not company. I'm only here because Jenny's in danger."

  The woman's eyes avoided mine as she busied herself with moving toys off the couch. She knew something, I was sure.

  "What happened over there?" I demanded.

  "I heard him yelling for her to open up. Then he kicked the door in. There wasn't nothing I could do to help her."

  "You could have called for the police."

  "I tried, but all I got was the answering machine. Vonzell's a real nut case. Always has been. I was scared he'd come here and hurt my kids, so I herded them all upstairs and shut them in the bathroom. Then I got on my knees and watched Jenny's front door through my bedroom window. After a little bit, I saw him drive away with her, but when I heard you knocking, I thought maybe it was him come back."

  "You saw them leave the house? Was Jenny walking or was he carrying her?" Maybe he hadn't killed her after all.

  "He half dragged her out the door and shoved her into the van, but she was on her own two feet."

  "Can you describe the van?"

  She nodded. "Dark green. Not real new but not a clunker, either. Had those dark windows you can't see into."

  "What about the federal agents that were out there? Did you see them?"

  "They've been gone for a coupla days. Jenny told me they had to get back to Washington. Guess they thought it was safe to leave since he hadn't showed up."

  I dropped onto the orange-and-brown velour sofa, ignoring the dust cloud that arose from it, and buried my head in my hands. Gone. I'd been too late.

  "Try the police station again," I said. She went into the kitchen, and after a moment I heard her leaving a message. I decided right then I was going to the next borough council meeting to protest the budget restraints that kept Lickin Creek from getting a real emergency phone system.

  Where were they? Where would Vonzell take his wife? And as I asked myself these questions, the answer came to me. His log cabin in the forest. The police had checked the cabin throughly after I'd been there and found no signs of him. He'd feel safe going there now that the feds had left the area.

  "Keep trying to call the police," I ordered. "Tell Luscious I think they've headed to Vonzell's cabin. If you can't get him, call the state police. I'm going up there."

  Her eyes bulged with fear. "I wish you wouldn't," she whispered. "You don't know what he might try to do to you. The word on the street goes, he done killed his own mother when he was a teenager. Only the family made it look like an accident so he wouldn't get arrested or nothing." She added, unnecessarily, "He's one crazy man."

  I figured there must be a road through the forest to the Varner cabin, but I also didn't want to waste time trying to find it, so I drove around the barricade and straight down the Appalachian Trail. Within a few minutes, I saw the cabin. There was no sign of the green van Vonzell was supposed to be driving. I tore across the meadow and was out of the truck almost before it came to a stop. The front door of the cabin was open, revealing a few inches of dark interior. I fingered the Swiss Army knife as I shoved the door open. After listening for a minute or two and hearing nothing, I worked up my courage and entered the cabin.

  Someone had been here since my last visit. Things had been dislocated ever so slightly, and one of the beds was rumpled. I moved into the kitchen where I saw several open cabinet doors and some bottles and cans of food on the counter.

  Neither Vonzell nor Jenny was there. Where had they gone? What was the point of coming here and then leaving suddenly? Had Vonzell been interrupted by something or someone? I moved back into the kitchen and tried to figure out what he'd been up to. A bottle had been knocked to the floor, and without thinking I stooped and retrieved it and identified it as a maple syrup bottle with about an inch of liquid left in the bottom. Just as I started to lift the lid of the metal trash basket to discard the bottle, I noticed a few ants on it and stopped. An unpleasant association had just popped into my mind. Syrup. Sugar. Sugary substances attract insects. Especially ants. Ants. Anthills.

  I was afraid I knew what Vonzell was up to. I drove too quickly down the trail until I reached the area where the anthills were located. The hills near the trail were undisturbed, but, of course, he wouldn't have done anything where he might be seen by hikers. I'd have to go deeper into the pine forest to look for what I hoped I wouldn't find. I left the truck on the dirt trail and hiked into the woods, marveling at how quickly it became dark once I was beneath the trees.

  A faint noise stopped me. An animal? A bird? I stood still and listened. Nothing. I began to walk again, trying to keep quiet, but the leaves and pine needles beneath my feet crunched with every step. There it was again. A mewling sound. Coming from my left, where the undergrowth was thick and treacherous with thorns.

  The branches caught my clothes, scratched my arms and legs, and threatened to blind me, but I forced my way through the thicket until I came to a small clearing. And there I saw what I had dreaded seeing. A shapeless bundle, enshrouded by a moving blanket of ants, lay between two of the largest anthills. I knew immediately that this frightening black lump must be Jenny Varner, although it was nearly impossible to recognize a human form beneath the insects. The shape shifted and a low moan drifted toward me. That was all I needed. She was alive. I crossed quickly to her side and began to brush ants from her face with my bare hands. The pain was excruciating, so I grabbed a fallen tree branch and began to swat them away with one end.

  Someone approached from behind me. I heard the rustle of leaves, but I didn't dare take the time to turn around. I only hoped it wasn't Vonzell.

  Thankfully, it was a woman's voice that said, "Stand aside. I have gloves on."

  I spun around and recognized Brunhilda, the ant expert, who immediately took charge of the rescue operation. She had dropped her backpack and told me to find another pair of gloves in there. With them on, I was able to help her brush enough ants away from Jenny to see bare skin. Her hands and ankles were bound with duct tape.

  "Help me get her on my back," Brunhilda ordered. She knelt down, and I grabbed Jenny by the arms and swung her over Brunhilda's shoulders. The Amazon stood up as if Jenny weighed nothing at all.

  "Come on," she yelled, heading off in a direction that didn't involve brambles and thorny thickets. We soon reached the trail, and I saw the truck about fifty yards ahead of us.

  Brunhilda gently laid jenny in the truck bed and climbed in next to her. "Turn around and drive to the ranger station," she said. "It's near the entrance to the trail. I'll keep working on getting the ants off her. My God, she's all covered with something sticky."

  "Maple syrup," I said, running toward the driver's-side door.

  The ranger assessed the situation quickly and called for an emergency rescue vehicle. While we waited, he gently hosed the rest of the insects from Jenny's now-still body, and I used the Swiss Army knife to cut the silver tape away from her ankles and wrists. I feared she was dead, but Brunhilda found a weak pulse.

  The ambulance arrived quickly, and the pair of Emergency Medical Technicians had Jenny on a stretcher in a blink of an eye. While one EMT received instructions on the radio from a hospital emergency room somewhere, her partner deftly started an IV in Jenny's arm. Soon they had her stabilized and took off down the gravel driveway with jenny in the back of the ambulance.

  And as they disappeared in a cloud of dust, the Lickin Creek police cruiser pulled into the parking lot and Luscious leaped out. "Car radio's broke," he yelled. "I just heard about this when I stopped for coffee."

  "Day late, dollar short," I muttered, but luckily he did
n't hear me. His face was flushed as he grabbed me in a tight bear hug. "Thank God, you're okay," he said with a catch in his voice. "Please don't take off like that again. You could have been killed."

  "But I wasn't." I extracted myself from his grip. "And if I hadn't come up here when I did, Jenny Varner would probably have been dead in a few more minutes."

  Brunhilda nodded in agreement.

  "We've got to catch him," Luscious muttered, his face now a dangerous-looking purple. "He can't get away with this."

  "People say he's invisible," Brunhilda said.

  "I'm beginning to wonder...." Luscious said, his voice dangerously quiet.

  His face blurred as his voice faded away, and I suddenly turned ice-cold and began to shake. Luscious and Brunhilda realized before I did that I had gone into mild shock from the pain of the ant stings and the deep scratches I'd garnered while pushing my way through the bramble thicket.

  I spent several hours that afternoon and evening in an emergency room cubicle being treated for shock, separated by a blue drape from Jenny Varner.

  "I'm sorry about your uncle," I managed to say to Brunhilda before she left the hospital. In the excitement, I'd forgotten she had been related to Wilbur Eshelman.

  She squeezed my hand gently, so as not to irritate it any more, and thanked me. "My uncle was a good man," she said. "I'll miss him."

  Luscious insisted on waiting while the ER doctor checked me out. "You'll need a ride home sooner or later," he said.

  "I think they'll want to admit me," I moaned pitifully.

  "No they won't," Luscious said almost cheerfully, ducking under the curtain. "You'll be ready to go in fifteen, twenty minutes."

  I was sure I was too ill to go home, especially when the doctor told a nurse to give me antibiotics in an IV, so while she was plugging it into my arm, I asked her if I would be staying.

  She smiled. "You'll be sleeping in your own bed tonight. I'll be back in a few minutes to check on you."

  After she was gone, I whispered, "Jenny? Jenny, can you hear me?"

  A groan issued from behind the drape on my right.

  "How are you feeling?"

  "Awful."

  "Who did this to you? Was it your husband?"

  I could barely hear her reply. "Yeah."

  "Jenny, did he say anything? Anything at all that can help the police find him?"

  "He said ...he had his eye on me... that he'd be back."

  "Where were the federal agents who were supposed to be protecting you?"

  The nurse had entered sometime during our exchange and now glared disapprovingly at me. "The poor woman needs to rest."

  Luscious drove slowly all the way back to Lickin Creek, so as not to "jostle" me. I'd taken a couple of pills for pain and probably wouldn't have been uncomfortable on a roller coaster, but I did enjoy the attention. I took advantage of our time together to ask him why the federal agents hadn't been protecting Jenny.

  He told me they'd been called off the case because there was no evidence that Vonzell was in the area. "There's a lot of hot spots in the country these days that need protection."

  "Didn't anybody but me see the stolen van he's been driving around town?"

  "Apparently not, Tori. Least not till today."

  "Do you think they'll come back, now?"

  "I don't know. Nobody's talked to me about it. I'll bet they would have been in touch with Garnet if he was still here."

  "You're doing a fine job, Luscious," I said.

  "You really think so?" He managed to sound both astonished and pleased.

  "Of course you are. I've heard lots of good things about you."

  "Who from?"

  "Oh... you know... around town."

  His naturally stooped shoulders squared and he seemed to grow a couple of inches taller. "It would be nice if you could mention that to Garnet when he's back here for the wedding. I'm scared he thinks I'm goofing off on the job."

  I think he continued to talk, but after he mentioned Garnet's name I didn't hear another word. Until that moment I had given no thought to Greta's wedding or the fact that Garnet would be here for it, although now that Luscious had brought it up, it did seem perfectly reasonable. The time was fast approaching when all of Lickin Creek would know that Garnet and I were no longer a couple. My position in local society was precarious already, and I knew I was tolerated only because of my relationship with a member of one of Lickin Creek's oldest families. I'd be persona non grata once the word got out.

  It was the noise the cruiser's tires made on Ethelind's gravel driveway that brought me out of my thoughts and back to the moment.

  "Are you okay?" Luscious asked. "You look kind of odd."

  "Must be the pain medication. I'm fine."

  With a hand under one elbow, he walked me to the back door and guided me into the kitchen, where Ethelind looked up from her lipstick-smeared sherry glass. Her mouth fell open as she caught sight of me.

  "You poor dear," she gushed. "You sit right down here and let me get you a sherry." She disappeared through the archway into the dining room where she kept her liquor in a mahogany sideboard.

  "Scotch, please. I'd rather have Scotch."

  But she must not have heard me because she returned with a huge glass full of thick brown liquid. "You sip that slowly, dear, while I fix us a nice cup of tea."

  Luscious stood awkwardly in the doorway while all this was going on, and I wondered why Ethelind hadn't offered him a drink. This apparent lapse in manners was explained when she said, "You're needed downtown, Luscious. Maribell Morgan has disappeared from the Sigafoos Home. There's a search party out looking for her right now."

  Twenty

  On Monday morning I awoke early, sore and slightly puffy, but with no other side effects from yesterday's adventure. While Ethelind fixed my breakfast, I made a telephone call to the hospital in Gettysburg and learned that Jenny Varner was in serious but stable condition. After that I called P.J. and told her I'd be in late. She'd already heard what had happened, of course, and voiced her concern about me, but I noticed she didn't tell me to take the day off.

  Ethelind sat across from me and watched solicitously while I drank three cups of coffee in rapid succession. The painkillers I'd taken yesterday in combination with Ethelind's sweet, strong sherry had left me with a slight hangover.

  "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," she said gently once I'd eaten a platter of bacon, eggs, and fried tomatoes.

  I waited, coffee mug in hand, dreading what was to come.

  "According to the morning news, the embassy was entered by a Red Cross team yesterday" She didn't have to say which embassy. I knew it was my father's embassy.

  "They found bodies."

  Blood pounded in my head and blurred my vision. I heard my coffee mug shatter as it hit the floor.

  "But there was no sign of your family, Tori. That's good, isn't it?"

  I nodded, although I was thinking that there are times when death is preferable to the alternatives.

  "A man called from the State Department early this morning. Wants you to call him back. I thought it would be best if I told you what was going on before you talked to him."

  She pressed the phone into my hand, and I punched in the phone number. The voice from Washington repeated what Ethelind had already told me. "We believe they're being held for ransom in an undisclosed place," he said.

  "How much ransom?"

  "We haven't heard from anybody, yet."

  "Then what makes you think they're being held for ransom? They could be dead, lying in the bottom of a ravine, or even hacked up and fed to dogs. Maybe they've been sold for slaves. You really don't have any idea what's happened to them, do you?"

  "We will keep you informed of any developments as soon as we learn of them."

  "I can find out what's going on a lot faster from television than waiting for you guys to call," I snapped. "What the hell do you pay intelligence people for, anyway? Maybe you should start watching CNN."
A click told me he had hung up.

  I gladly accepted the two aspirins Ethelind offered, washed them down with a half glass of sour grapefruit juice, and then went upstairs to get dressed.

  I've always done some of my best thinking in the shower. After the initial shock of the water hitting my sore skin, I relaxed and let the needlelike spray pound away some of the pain and anxiety I felt. As yesterday's dirt went down the drain, the events of the day replayed themselves in my mind like a bad television commercial. When my thoughts finally went back to the part of the day I'd spent at Alice-Ann's house, I recalled that she'd said something to me that now struck me as odd. "It's not always about you, Tori." And then she'd said something else. What was it? I remembered: "You're turning paranoid."

  I turned off the water and wrapped one of Ethelind's luxurious English towels around me. Wasn't there a humorous saying about paranoia? "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you." No, that wasn't quite right. "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you." That was it. It really did seem like everyone had been out to get me lately.

  Ethelind looked questioningly at me as I came into the kitchen carrying my fanny pack. "I've got an errand to run, then I'm going to the office," I told her. "I need to keep busy"

  "Of course you do, dear. That's why I told Bruce Laughenslagger you'd go to Community Concert with him tonight."

  "You did what?"

  "He called while you were showering. I didn't want to disturb you."

  "I can't believe you did that."

  "He's quite a catch, Tori. Absolutely loaded. Do you have any idea how rich he is?"

  "I don't really care about a person's money."

  "He was a wonderful husband to his first wife. They married right out of high school. It was a real love affair."

  "What happened to her? Did one of his employees shoot her?"

  Ethelind looked aghast. "How could you say such a mean thing? She died of pancreatic cancer about ten years ago. Very tragic. He hasn't dated anybody since."