Cold Feet

by Brenda Novak

  Fortunately, she didn’t have to deal with any memories of her father’s funeral. They hadn’t given him one. She, her mother, Tye and Johnny had simply sent out notices of his death to the few friends and family who’d remained supportive, and buried him without any type of viewing or wake. Because of the ongoing investigation, and the damage he’d done with his old rifle, it seemed prudent to handle things as quickly and quietly as possible.

  Lawrence Howell, the manager of Sunset Lawn Funeral Home and Memorial Park, had helped make the arrangements. He sat across from Madison and her mother now, his short blond hair neatly combed, his face wearing the same somber expression he always wore.

  Fortunately, Madison had been able to reach Joanna Stapley, a senior at South Whidbey High School who often baby-sat for her, in time to have her pick up Brianna from school, so she didn’t have to cope with a wriggling six-year-old during such a difficult meeting.

  “How could this have happened?” she asked when Mr. Howell had finished explaining what he’d told her on the phone when he’d reached her at her office earlier—that someone had dug up her father’s coffin last night. “How could anyone have figured out where he was buried?”

  Howell rested his elbows on his mahogany desk and clasped long white fingers in front of him. “As I told the gentleman who called me this morning—”

  “What gentleman?” Annette demanded.

  Madison put a comforting hand on her mother’s arm. “Tye, Mom. I phoned him as soon as Mr. Howell contacted me. I thought he might want to be part of this.”

  “Is he coming?” she asked, obviously not pleased that Madison had included him.

  “No, he said he has to work.”

  “What about his wife? Is she going to be here?”

  “Sharon and the kids are visiting her mother in Spokane.”

  “Ellis never could count on his boys,” Annette said, her lips compressed in disapproval. She didn’t want Tye or his wife involved, yet she sounded affronted by their lack of support.

  Mr. Howell, who’d waited politely through their exchange, cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I have no way of knowing how this happened. There was no headstone or anything else to mark your father’s grave, Ms. Lieberman, just as you requested. Our files are kept private and are always locked up at night. There was no sign of forced entry into the mortuary here, where we keep the files. And it’s been a year since the burial—a year in which we’ve had no hint of trouble.”

  “That’s what I don’t understand,” Annette said, her eyes filling with tears. “Why now? What would anyone want with Ellis’s body after all this time?”

  “A year’s not so long, Mom,” Madison said before Howell could respond. “Whoever it was wants the same thing we’ve encountered before, to express their anger and contempt for…for what happened.”

  “I just want my husband to be able to rest in peace,” her mother said. “Ellis was innocent. He never hurt those women.”

  Madison wished her mother’s words didn’t sound so hollow to her. She still wanted to believe them. But the locket she’d discovered under the house yesterday threatened the last of her faith, was leaching away the righteous anger that had sustained her so far. Without a strong conviction that her father was innocent, she had nothing to cling to, except the desire to protect her mother and Brianna from what was, most probably, the truth.

  “Of course he was innocent,” Howell said, his tone placating.

  Madison was willing to bet Howell believed more in the extra money they’d paid him to keep her father’s burial place a secret than he did in her father’s innocence. Just as she thought the call he’d made to them this morning, and what he might shortly suggest for her father’s reburial, would come with a hefty price tag. They should’ve gone ahead with the cremation Madison had suggested from the first. But her mother wouldn’t hear of it. Annette had never known anyone who’d been cremated. It seemed foreign to her—certainly nothing she was willing to do with her beloved husband’s body.

  “Fortunately, our security guard frightened the culprit away before he could open the casket,” Howell added.

  Madison rummaged through her purse to get her mother a tissue. Annette didn’t used to cry so easily, but the past twelve years had taken quite a toll. “Why didn’t the security guard catch him sooner?” she asked.

  Howell politely turned his attention her way. “As you know, this is a big cemetery, Ms. Lieberman. Anthony, our security guard, circles the entire area several times a night, but he focuses mostly on the outer reaches. We buried your father close to the mortuary here, to throw off the media and anyone who might be looking for a fresh grave. Most folks buried near the mortuary have been dead sixty or seventy years, which means they’re pretty well forgotten.” He propped his fingertips together. “The lights on the building also serve as a deterrent.”

  “Did your security guard get a look at this guy?” Madison asked, handing the tissue to her mother.

  “Anthony said he was wearing jeans and a blue jacket with a red Chinese dragon on the back, and he looked small, maybe a hundred and sixty pounds. But that’s all he could see. As soon as Anthony started toward him in the security cart, he threw down his shovel and ran off.” Howell bent to one side to cover a small cough. “We gave these details to the police this morning, of course.”

  “So this…guy, he—he just unearthed the coffin?” Madison asked, her muscles aching with anxiety. How many other people had to deal with such a parade of unsettling incidents? “That’s it?”

  “He made a few pry marks on the coffin, but Anthony came along before he was able to get it open. We could have reburied your father easily enough, but I thought I’d better check with you and your mother to see if you’d like him moved now that…well, now that the media and everyone else seem to have taken a renewed interest.”

  “The media? How did the media find out?” Annette asked, her eyes wide with panic.

  Howell unclasped his hands. “They must’ve heard the call go out when Anthony phoned the police.”

  Madison was still thinking about the guy in the Chinese dragon jacket. “So the police are looking for whoever did this?”

  “We’ve made a report, as I said. Technically, there’s a chance this…disturbance would be classified as a felony. Individual plots are personal property. But…” he hesitated, and this time his glance seemed to hold real compassion “…if you want the truth, Ms. Lieberman, I can’t imagine the police will waste much time chasing down the crazy guy who did this when they’re already so overworked and understaffed. I think you and your mother would be better off to simply move the coffin and put this unfortunate incident behind you.”

  Along with everything else, Madison thought bitterly. Only nothing from the past ever seemed to stay there.

  CALEB STOOD AT THE ENTRANCE to Susan’s bedroom Monday evening, surveying the clothes littering the floor, the perfume bottles and makeup strewn across the dresser, and her unmade bed. The place smelled like the expensive perfume so typical of Susan, which brought her back to him more clearly than he’d remembered her so far, and caused worry to claw at his gut. She hadn’t been seen for a week, since last Monday. Where could she be?

  Crossing to the dresser, he smoothed out a crinkled piece of paper to see that it was only a quick thank-you from a friend at work, then rifled through some change. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Anything, really. Anything that might lead him to Susan.

  Holly hovered behind him. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Why aren’t you checking for pry marks on the window or something?”

  He caught his ex-wife’s eye in the mirror. It felt strange to be inside Susan’s apartment with everything so quiet, so motionless. Even when Susan wasn’t around, her dogs had always been here, barking and wagging a welcome. Now Holly had the schnauzers at her place, and other than a few visits from police, the apartment had been shut up. “I’m sure the detectives have done all that.”

  “So?”


  “I’m focusing on my personal knowledge of Susan’s behavior and habits.”

  “Which means…”

  “I’m trying to figure out what she might have been wearing and doing the night she disappeared. When I talked to Detective Lynch a few minutes ago, he said you were the last person to see her on Monday afternoon. But she wasn’t reported missing until Wednesday, when she didn’t show up for work. That’s a lot of time to change clothes.”

  Holly rearranged the slew of bottles and cosmetics on the dresser, putting them in some semblance of order. “There’s no way to tell what she was wearing. For all we know, she was abducted in the middle of the night dressed in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt.”

  “I doubt she was taken from here.”

  Holly gave up on the mess and raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Just because there was no forced entry? Maybe someone came to the door,” she said. “Maybe she knew who it was so she opened up. She might have even left with him. Detective Lynch seems to believe that’s most likely what happened.”

  “Except that her car’s gone,” Caleb said.

  Holly shrugged. “She and whoever she was with could have used her car.”

  “Susan wouldn’t have wanted to drive if she had a man at the door with his own transportation. This was a woman who spent every dime she had on clothes and makeup and—” He indicated the perfumes, body lotions, mascara and eye shadow that covered almost every horizontal surface “—judging by the looks of this place, that hasn’t changed over the past two years.”

  Holly pulled her hair into a ponytail. “I still don’t think we can figure out what she was wearing. When I saw her on Monday, she was telling me about some hot new outfit she was going to buy. How are we supposed to place her in something we might never have seen?”

  Caleb turned to study the room again, taking in the pajama bottoms draped over a chair, and noticing underwear on the floor near the bathroom. “Maybe we can’t. But to me it looks like she took a shower, got dressed up and left for an evening out.”

  Holly frowned at his assessment and toyed with the hem of her turtleneck sweater. “What makes you say that?”

  “I can still smell perfume in the air, as if she sprayed it last thing, and those panties look as though she just stepped out of them. If she was expecting someone, she would’ve at least tossed the underwear in the hamper, don’t you think?”

  “Susan was never much of a clean freak.”

  Caleb crossed to the closet, which was crammed full of blouses, slacks, suits, dresses, jackets, jeans and sweaters. There were even a few wigs and hairpieces on the shelf above. “Knowing Susan, she’d be anxious to wear the new clothes she told you about. Did she describe them to you?”

  “Of course, but I wasn’t really listening. She’s always telling me about some new shade of eye shadow or clothes bargain.”

  He fingered a black sweater with faux fur at the wrists and collar. “Have you looked through her closet for anything with the tags still on it?”

  “I haven’t looked specifically for tags, but I know there are a few new things.”

  “Where are they?”

  Holly started examining clothes at the back of the closet, but Caleb stopped her.

  “Forget it,” he said. “She wouldn’t shove a hot new outfit all the way to the back. If she’s got any new clothes that far back, she’s never found an occasion to wear them, and they’ve probably been there for some time.”

  “So now what?”

  “Maybe we could call Nordstrom to see what she’s purchased lately. She’d probably put it on her charge card, wouldn’t she?”

  Holly didn’t seem hopeful. “Except that her charge card’s been maxed out since her first two weeks at work.”

  Of course. He hadn’t taken Susan’s spending habits into account. Still, there had to be some way to figure out what she’d bought and whether or not she was wearing it….

  Caleb took another turn around the room, thinking. She would’ve carried her purchase inside from the car, possibly tried it on, admired herself in the mirror and cut off the tags.

  The tags…

  Moving to the small garbage can on the other side of the nightstand, he found a crumpled Nordstrom bag with two tags inside. “Bingo,” he said.

  Holly took the tags from him. “What’s so exciting about these?”

  “We can use the SKU numbers to find out what Susan bought. Maybe she was wearing it when she went missing.”

  “What if she wasn’t?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “We have to start somewhere. Susan always liked the unique and ultra-trendy. Maybe she was wearing an outfit that really stood out.”

  Holly smiled up at him. “I knew I was right to have you come out here, Caleb.”

  “Slow down, Holly. We don’t even know if this means anything.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to help me,” she said, and he hoped to God she was right.

  CALEB GOT HIS WISH—at least in one regard. The short, worn-looking denim skirt and leopard-print halter top the Nordstrom saleswoman draped across the counter thirty minutes later was certainly conspicuous. He doubted that scrap of fabric the saleswoman called a skirt would cover much, but he had more to worry about than Susan’s general lack of modesty.

  “You’re positive these items match the tags?” he asked.

  “Check for yourself,” the saleswoman—Deborah, according to her badge—held them up for comparison.

  “Did you see anything like this in her apartment?” he asked Holly.

  “No. I’ve never seen a halter top like this before in my life,” she told him. “And I’d definitely remember it.”

  “I know Susan bought this because I sold it to her,” Deborah insisted. “Just last week. She comes up here from cosmetics all the time or—” she looked slightly abashed “—she used to, anyway. And it was on clearance, so she got a great deal.”

  A great deal? Caleb touched the flimsy material. “Would someone really wear something like this in mid-September?” he asked. “Seattle doesn’t exactly have beach weather.”

  “She was going clubbing,” Deborah volunteered, trying to be helpful. “And it’s so hot in those places. Especially when you’re dancing, you know?”

  Caleb knew all about clubs, but not because he’d visited one recently. He’d quickly grown tired of them after his divorce.

  “It’s too much of a long shot,” Holly said. “Let’s go.”

  She started for the door, but Caleb pulled her back. “Not so fast. It’s better than nothing. I say we take a picture and add it to the flyers, just in case.”

  Holly studied the outfit with a critical eye, then sighed and shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “We’ll take it,” he told Deborah.

  While he was paying for it, Holly looped her arm through his the way she used to while they were married. “This is just like old times,” she murmured.

  Caleb carefully extricated himself. “I’m not going to be in Seattle long,” he said, and was determined to make sure she remembered that.

  MADISON WAS EXHAUSTED by the time she returned home, but she felt a definite sense of relief the moment she drove off the Mukilteo-Clinton Ferry, which had brought her across Puget Sound from the mainland. After the unwelcome media attention she’d received during the past twelve years, and the crushing disappointment she’d experienced for her daughter’s sake when Danny announced he was leaving her, she’d wanted to relocate as far from Seattle as possible. Start over. Forget. Or go into hiding until she was strong enough to face the world again.

  But her divorce agreement stipulated that she couldn’t move more than two hours away from Danny, who had joint custody of Brianna and lived on Mercer Island. And she felt too much responsibility toward her mother to leave without a backward glance. Annette was talking more favorably about moving than ever before, but she was still set in her ways and didn’t want to go very far from the city where she’d been born and raised.


  Whidbey became the compromise Madison had been searching for. With the island’s sandy, saltwater beaches, damp, green woods, towering bluffs and spectacular views of Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains, it felt remote. Yet it was still basically a suburb, with eateries and fast food, gas stations and convenience stores. And it was…familiar.

  “Brianna!” Madison called as she let herself into the small cottage she’d used her divorce settlement to buy, along with her new business, the South Whidbey Realty Company. Located just off Maxwelton Beach, tucked into a stand of thick pine trees, the house itself reminded Madison of something from a Thomas Kinkade painting—romantic to the point of being whimsical. Built of redbrick and almost completely covered in ivy, the house was more than fifty years old. But it had always been well-loved and well-maintained, and the previous owners had done a fabulous job with the garden. The garage, which was detached, resembled an old carriage house and had been converted some years ago into a sort of minicottage.

  “Hey? Where’s my girl?” she called again, putting her briefcase next to the hall tree.

  This time the television went off and Brianna came running, clutching Elizabeth, her stuffed rabbit, in one arm. “Mommy, you’re home!”

  “Yes, sweetie, I’m home.” Madison gave her daughter a tight squeeze. “I’m sorry I had to be away. Grandma needed me. And then I had to swing by the office to pick up all the paperwork I didn’t get around to today.”

  “Why couldn’t I go with you to see Grandma? She loves it when I come to visit. And Elizabeth misses her.”

  “You and Elizabeth see her at least once a week, kiddo, and you weren’t out of school yet,” Madison said. But she wouldn’t have taken Brianna to the Sunset Funeral Home and Memorial Park even if she’d been available. Madison tried to shield her daughter as much as possible from the taint of her grandfather’s legacy.