“Scratches?” Jesse said, looking closer.
Annie was hoping to avoid looking closely at the actual body. Although she’d seen way too many dead bodies during her tenure as a reporter, it was never any easier. And she thought she’d left this behind her when she left Washington. She’d somehow been sucked back into reporting during the Maggie Rae case. She was just beginning to get some breathing space—her book sent off to the publisher, nothing much else to report on in Cumberland Creek—and now this. She hoped it was an accident and not a murder.
“No,” Detective Bryant said. “Look closer. They are little markings of some kind. I can’t quite make them out. Where’s the coroner?”
Annie forced herself to look at the gray-blue arm the detective was holding gingerly in his hand. Okay, it’s just an arm, she told herself. But she could see the markings.
“It looks like Hebrew,” she blurted.
“Really?” Jesse said.
“Look again, that’s not Hebrew,” Detective Bryant said.
Annie leaned in closer. She had to admit—now that she looked closer at it, it didn’t look like Hebrew at all. The detective dropped the arm as the coroner came up to the group. “I want close-up photos of these markings. Photos from all angles.”
“Must be a recent drowning,” he said. “If that’s the cause of death.”
“What makes you say that?” Annie asked.
“You can still recognize the body as a person. If it goes too long, it’s difficult.”
Annie’s stomach twisted.
As Detective Bryant dropped the arm, she viewed the face of the victim between the clusters of shoulders of the police as they backed away. Young. Blue eyes staring blankly. Tangled red hair. Her face showed no sign of struggle—like a grimace or a look of anger or regret. The woman looked like a gray-blue rubber doll. Of course, what expression would a dead person have but none?
“Who found her?” Annie asked.
“It was a runner this morning—a Josh Brandt,” Detective Bryant answered. “He’s home now. I’d appreciate it if you gave him some time before you zoom in for the kill,” he said and grinned, his blue eyes sparked.
Annie refused to engage with his taunting. She watched as he brushed away a strand of red hair from the girl’s face. It was the gentlest gesture she’d ever seen him make.
“So what do you think the markings are?” Annie asked the detective.
“I really have no idea,” he said. “But I’m going to find out. I have a friend that specializes in symbols—if that is what these markings are.”
“Will you let me know?”
“Sure. I’ve got nothing better to do,” he said and smirked.
“Any idea who she is?”
“None,” he said. “Check back with us tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” she said and walked away.
It was a beautiful fall day—so much color—gold, red, crimson, orange, yellow. The fall in Cumberland Creek looked like it had been taken right out of a painting. Annie looked off into the distance at the mountains. Bryant would probably not let her know about those symbols, Annie decided. She would have to research them herself. She was sure of it. She stood on the dirt path and quickly sketched some of the symbols—if that is indeed what they were and not some strange scratches from a struggle with rocks or the limb of a tree that sort of had a symbolic look to them. If they were simply scratches, though, the markings were weirdly smooth. Her stomach twisted, again. Another murder. They just needed to confirm the cause of death and call it one—but Annie felt that it was a murder. That the body was in a sack made her more certain, and she had to wonder if it had been weighted before the river’s rocks and current slashed it to pieces.
She walked along the riverside path toward Cumberland Creek proper, where she lived. She walked right passed Vera’s dancing school, closed, as were all of the town businesses, because today was Sunday. It wouldn’t do anybody any good to open on Sunday. There would be no customers. Most of the population in Cumberland Creek spent Sundays in church and at home—except for Annie, Vera, and their friends, who were usually nursing mild hangovers from a Saturday night crop, when they gathered to scrapbook in Sheila’s basement.
Annie reached the sidewalk which veered toward Vera’s house. When she talked with Vera that morning, Vera said Cookie was coming over and was planning to watch Vera’s daughter, Elizabeth, and make her special pumpkin soup, while Vera went to the grocery store. Annie’s mouth began to water. The woman could cook.
She could also do some yoga, twisting her body into all sorts of poses as if it were nothing at all. Annie loved Cookie’s Friday evening yoga class. Because of her class, Annie was keeping a yoga journal. Cookie explained to them one evening how she kept a yoga journal as a beginner and how it helped for her to see how much she’d progressed. Now, Annie was working on an actual yoga scrapbook or dream book of sorts—very mundane, with ordinary beginning scrapbook techniques interspersed with writing about a pose or thought. She was using self-portraits—this was a different kind of scrapbooking than what Annie first learned from the Cumberland Creek Crop—it was more like art journaling.
Annie took yoga classes when she lived in the DC area, but none were like this. Cookie created a safe environment in which you could explore and reach out for new poses—but she was not a teacher who pushed you to do anything painful.
Annie thought about stopping by for a few minutes before heading home—but she really should be getting home to Mike and the boys. But it would be nice to see her friends after witnessing the disturbing events at the park. Of course, she’d have to fill them all in.
“Oh God, there you are!” Sheila came around the corner, nearly knocking Annie over. Her hair need brushing, her glasses looked crooked, and her t-shirt was a wrinkled mess.
“What’s going on?” Annie said, steadying herself. Why was she so tired today?
“Did you hear? They found a dead body in the river,” Sheila said, panting.
“Man, this place is amazing,” Annie said. “News travels so fast.”
“What?” Sheila said.
“I was just there,” Annie said.
“Well, for heaven’s sake,” Sheila said, taking her by the other arm. “Are you heading to Vera’s place?”
Annie nodded. Okay, so she wouldn’t stay long.
When Vera opened the door, smiling, the smell of pumpkin, cinnamon, and cumin met Annie with its promise of warmth—the image of young drowned woman fresh on her mind.
Chapter 2
“Well, if it isn’t the scrapbook queen, looking like hell on a Sunday afternoon,” Beatrice said to Sheila as she walked in the kitchen, where they were all gathered.
Sheila waved her off and walked by her. Vera just shook her head. Sheila and Vera were best friends from childhood and Beatrice loved to pick on Sheila, just for the fun of it.
“Nice to see you, Bea,” Annie said.
“At least someone around here has some manners,” Bea said.
“What are you doing here?” Annie asked.
“I came to see my grandbaby and was just on my way out. The child is sound asleep.”
“I went to the store, came back, Mom was here, and Cookie had things under control,” Vera said.
Cookie poked her head in from around the corner. “Yes, Elizabeth went straight down after you left. I made soup and tried to get your mother to stay.”
“I will now,” Beatrice said. “If everybody else is going to eat the vegetarian organic stuff she calls food, I guess it can’t but be so bad.”
Beatrice hated to admit it, but the pumpkin soup did smell heavenly. All of this vegetarian, back-to-the-earth nonsense. She had enough of that to last a lifetime. She suspected if any of these young, flighty types really had to survive from the earth, they wouldn’t know the first thing about it. But, she couldn’t help but like this Cookie—even though she had many of the characteristics Beatrice would have despised in anybody else.
First, she w
as too damned thin—even thinner than Annie. The woman looked like she needed a big, thick, bloody steak. She was pale and wispy, with long black hair that she sometimes pulled off her face with a thick, colorful headband. Strange, eastern-looking silver jewelry always dangled from her. Her eyes were almost unnaturally green and she carefully applied a bit too much eye makeup. Meanwhile, Vera, her own daughter, changed hair color more frequently than anybody she ever knew. Beatrice always preferred the natural look.
Cookie was a yoga teacher and began teaching classes in Vera’s dance studio. Yoga was a good thing, Beatrice knew, but this woman took herself a bit too seriously with all the “namaste’s” and “peace be with you’s.” Who did she think she was—a divine messenger?
Ah well, she chalked it up to youth. Basically, Cookie was a good sort—very good with Elizabeth, Bea’s one and only granddaughter. She sat down at the kitchen table with the other women. God knows what they were chattering about. She wasn’t paying a bit of attention. She was suddenly thinking of going upstairs and waking up Elizabeth just so she could hold her, play with her. Of course, she’d never do that—well, not in front of Vera, anyway.
“Did you hear me?” Vera was suddenly sitting next to her. “A drowned person washed up in the park today.”
“What? In Cumberland Creek?” Beatrice said, clutching her chest. Cumberland Creek, population 12,000, going on 20,000, or something. When Beatrice was a girl, there was a fuss about the population reaching 750. It was 2,000 for twenty years or so. She lost count a few years back with all the new housing developments on the west side of town. McMansions.
“Yes, in the river at the park,” Vera said. “Scary.”
“I imagine. Who was it?” She asked Annie, who was sitting down at the table next to Vera.
“I have no idea. Detective Bryant said they might know her name by tomorrow.”
“Her?”
“Well, it was sort of hard to tell, but there was a lot of long red hair,” Annie said, twisting her own wavy black hair behind her ear.
“Hmmm. I don’t know of many redheads around here. Do you? Of course, sometimes I feel like I don’t know half the people here anymore.”
“Could be from somewhere else,” Annie said, just as bowls of steaming pumpkin soup were being passed around the table.
The scent of the spiced pumpkin reached out and grabbed Beatrice. The scent of pumpkin, spiced with cinnamon and cumin, filled the room. Suddenly she was nearly salivating in anticipation. She reached for the crusty whole wheat bread and spread butter on it—still warm from the oven. Goodness, Cookie had gone to a lot of trouble—she had even baked bread.
“Great soup, Cookie,” Vera said and sighed. “You really didn’t have to do this. I wasn’t expecting you to bake bread, just watch Lizzie while I went out for a bit of exercise.”
“Now, don’t worry about it,” Cookie said. “Since she went right to sleep, I had some time on my hands. I just wanted to help out. I know how hard it can be. I was raised by a single mom.”
Beatrice grimaced at the phrase “single mom,” which was not what she wanted for her daughter, who had not been able to get over her husband’s cheating on her and wouldn’t let him move back in. Thank the universe he moved out of Bea’s house and into his own apartment, finally. Bea hoped that she could forgive him—for the baby’s sake—but Vera couldn’t. Beatrice couldn’t really blame her for that. Also, Vera was seeing a man in New York. They rarely saw each other and Vera had yet to bring him home to Cumberland Creek. Though she stole away to New York when she could. Beatrice doubted that it was serious. Bill, however, was seething. Served him right. Any man who cheated on his wife for years with a woman almost half his age who was also married, well, what could you say about that?
So there was another strange death in the small, but growing, town of Cumberland Creek. It seemed to Beatrice that things had just calmed down from the Maggie Rae case. Just what the town needed: more media attention, more outsiders, as if the new McMansion dwellers on the outskirts of town weren’t enough for her and the other locals to manage. Beatrice hated to generalize about folks—but they all thought they were mighty important.
“So, does the death look suspicious?” Bea asked.
“I hate to say it,” Annie said, dipping her bread into the orange creamy soup. “But it does to me. It looks like she was placed in a sack—I’m not sure she could have put herself in it. And there were these weird markings on her arm.”
“Markings?” Vera said. “Like scratches?”
“Sort of,” Annie said. “It might not mean anything,” She turned back to her soup. “Man, this is good Cookie.”
A smile spread across Cookie’s face. “Thanks.”
Cookie didn’t smile like that often, Beatrice mused, not that she was gloomy. She always had a look of bemused happiness. But it was in her eyes and the way she spoke.
Red hair. Drowning. Gray blue body. A sack. Weird scratches on her upper arm. Beatrice tuned out the chitchatting. Until they knew it was a murder, what was the point in speculating? She didn’t want to believe there was another murder in this community.
Damn, the soup and bread were just what she needed today. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. It was Detective Bryant, who walked into the kitchen. “I heard you were at the park this morning,” he said to Sheila. “Did you see anything suspicious?”
He looked happy, like a man with a mission, energetic. Bea looked at Annie, who was enjoying her soup and not looking at him at all. Annie looked tired, run down. Poor thing. Those boys of hers kept her busy while trying to manage a freelance career. It couldn’t be easy.
Sheila thought for a moment. “No. It was pretty quiet. But if I remember anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Oh my God it smells heavenly in here,” he said, stretching his arms, then turned around to see Beatrice. “But look what the devil brought in.”
Beatrice swallowed her soup. “Bite me, Bryant.”
He chortled.
The detective sure could hold a grudge. But then again, so could Beatrice.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2012 by Mollie Cox Bryan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-7764-0
Scrapbook of Secrets Page 24
