A Veiled Antiquity (Torie O'Shea Mysteries) (7 page)

“Somebody dug up Marie Dijon’s grave, and it had better not have been you.”

“What?” I felt sick. I felt sick because the thought of somebody digging up that poor woman’s grave gave me the creeps. I also felt sick because the sheriff thought I had done it. “Do you really think that I could do something like that?”

“Well, no, not really,” Sheriff Brooke said into the phone.

“Then why are you treating me like I did? What made you think such a horrible thing?” I asked.

Both men simultaneously answered, “Eleanore Murdoch.”

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” I stomped my feet a few times and took a deep breath.

“I bet you can tell me why her grave was dug up,” the sheriff said.

“Why would somebody dig up her grave?” Bill asked. He was beginning to panic.

“Bill! Take a pill,” I said. “Why would either one of you think that I would be able to tell you something about a person digging up Marie’s body?”

“Because,” the sheriff began, “I think the night you were in her house, you found something that you didn’t tell me about. Remember how you told me to listen with an open mind? You gave me your nice little well-thought-out, hokey bunch of bullshit!” he yelled. I pulled the phone away from my ear.

“You don’t have to yell at me,” I said. “Where are you?”

“I’m standing in the middle of the godforsaken rectory, for Christ’s sake—oh, excuse me, Father—and I’m thinking to myself: This smells like Torie O’Shea.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“No! Don’t you dare come down—”

I hung up on him. “Bill, you can either drive yourself or you can ride with me,” I said to him. He decided to drive.

*   *   *

I pulled my station wagon in behind the mayor’s car at the Santa Lucia Cemetery on Jefferson Street and New Bavaria Boulevard. It was dark by now, about eight-thirty in the evening. The mayor didn’t want to ride in my car, which was fine with me, because I talked to myself the whole way there and he wouldn’t have appreciated anything that I had to say.

The mayor’s property backs up to mine, and I have every animal known to mankind living back there. Chickens, rabbits, cats, fifteen species of birds, squirrels. Therefore, he hates me. He’s tried to create a city ordinance to get rid of my chickens, but so far he hasn’t succeeded. He fancies himself King of New Kassel, not just mayor. When election times roll around his slogan is “Bill
Kassel
reagh for Mayor of New Kassel.” It didn’t help our relationship too much when Eleanore Murdoch had a poll one week as to who was New Kassel’s most recognized face and I won.

I jumped out of my car almost before it stopped. Sheriff Brooke was standing next to his Festiva with his hands on his hips, looking menacing as hell. Deputy Duran was there as well, including several other CSU personnel.

“If you touch one thing, these men have orders to arrest you on the spot.”

“Nice to see you, too, Sheriff. So, you gonna get up to Marie’s house and start looking at this like it was a homicide now?” I asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

I walked over to where Marie’s grave was just as the clouds broke into a downpour. I was careful not to step where the yellow police tape was that revealed where the evidence was. The dirt was in a pile off to the right. Her casket was open, her body all humped at one end of the casket, as if the perpetrator had moved her body, searching for something.

“Oh, my God,” I said.

“It’s not pretty, is it?” Sheriff Brooke said from behind me.

“No,” I said. The rain dripped off of my nose. I didn’t wipe at it.

“Get a tarp over here,” Sheriff Brooke yelled out to the CSU. “The evidence is getting soaked, you morons.”

“What did Eleanore Murdoch say about me?”

“She and Bill were both in the library, as was I, when Duran came in and said that somebody had dug up Marie’s grave. Your Aunt Bethany asked who could have done such a thing and Eleanore said you seemed obsessed with Marie and that she had reason to believe—”

“So you just believed her? You didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt?”

“If I had stopped and thought about it, I would have realized that it was just Eleanore being vicious. But after you going in Marie’s house the other night, well, I just jumped the gun.”

“As did the mayor,” I added.

Sheriff Brooke nodded.

I noticed where the footsteps of the perpetrator were. The person had dug from the foot of the grave, toes pointed toward the place where the headstone would eventually go. I stood there and tried to mimic what their actions would have been.

“What the heck are you doing?” Sheriff Brooke said.

“Digging a grave.” In went my imaginary shovel, feet in the same position.

“Well, when you’re finished, get home. You’ve got no business being out here,” he said. “Duran, get over to the Dijon house and get it taped. I don’t want anybody in there,” he yelled over the roar of the rain.

Duran nodded, got in his patrol car, and took off.

“I think you should check the guest list at her funeral,” I said.

“What?”

“There were six or seven people there that were not New Kasselonians. I think those are your suspects. It was one of those people.”

“Does Rudy hate it when you act like you know everything?” Sheriff Brooke asked me.

“Despises it. Look, anybody that lives around here for any length of time would know better than to dig up a grave at Santa Lucia at … what time was it exactly that this occurred?”

“About seven forty-five. Father Bingham interrupted him.”

“Exactly. Seven forty-five on a Wednesday evening. Father Bingham is playing bingo at the bowling alley, which always lets out at seven-thirty. After he cashes in his chips—he always wins something—and after he blesses everybody, he pulls into the rectory at seven forty-five. Everybody knows that,” I said.

That shut him up. It was a wonderful sight to behold. So, while I was at it, I thought I’d just go for the jugular and get it over with.

“Also, he was left-handed.”

“How…”

“From where his feet were positioned, and where the pile of dirt fell, he had to be shoveling left-handed.”

He said nothing, so I thought I’d demonstrate.

“See, the shovel goes in at this angle, when you come up with the dirt, where’s the easiest place to pile it? Kinda over your shoulder. If you’re digging left-handed, that would be to your right. See?”

He smiled at me. “I don’t know how Rudy stays sane.”

“I suppose he’s just a much bigger man than you,” I said, and I walked away, totally drenched. I began veering off toward the rectory instead of my car. I should have known that Sheriff Brooke would notice.

“Hey, Torie. Car’s that way.”

“I know. I want to see how Father Bingham is.”

I was wondering if God finds out about the lies that you tell on sacred ground faster than he finds out about the normal lies?

The church was a white sandstone with arched windows all down the side plus one on each side of the wooden door. They were stained glass, as was the one round window directly above the door. I walked around the church and up the steps of the rectory, opened the door, and walked in. A photograph of the Archbishop of St. Louis smiled down at me. I noticed that the rectory smelled like Rachel’s classroom. I’m not real sure what that odor is, and it isn’t necessarily an unpleasant odor. It’s just a classroomy smell. It’s distinct.

“Father Bingham?”

“In here.”

He was in his office. I walked in and he sat behind his desk with his head bent over, studying something. He was about sixty, with splotchy skin and sky-blue eyes. His white hair was thin, and he parted it in the middle, of all things. The office was painted in pale blue and it was sparsely decorated with a few biblical paintings and a crucifix.

“Torie, hello,” he said. He arose and motioned toward a chair. “Sit down, sit down.”

“Oh, no. I’m soaking wet. I just wanted to see how you were. I suppose it was quite a shock coming home to find a grave robber.”

“I am just sick over this. Just sick. How’s Rudy?”

“Fine.”

“And your girls?”

“Fine.”

“Haven’t seen Rudy in church, since … 1986.”

“Yes, it was for our wedding.”

He only smiled.

“Look, Father. I don’t want to take too much of your time. See, I have this problem. A nice gentleman let me borrow his … umbrella the other day, and I need to return it to him.”

“Yes?”

“It was at Marie Dijon’s funeral, and I’m afraid I don’t remember his name. Do you think that I could have a look at the guest registry?”

“Well, normally the family gets the registry, but there wasn’t anybody to give it to. I think Sister Mary Lucy kept it. She and Marie were good friends. She is quite shook up over this … atrocity. Let me ask her.”

He picked up the phone, dialed the nunnery, spoke a few seconds, and hung up. “Yes, she has it, I’ll be right back,” he said.

According to Marie’s family charts she had two sisters. I assumed that they were dead, otherwise they would have been at the funeral and there would have been somebody to take the registry.

Father Bingham was gone maybe five minutes, during which time I took a peek to see who had been paying their tithes like they were supposed to. He came in the back door and handed me the registry, a cream-colored book.

“Do you have a pen and paper?” I asked.

He handed me a pen along with a pad of paper and clasped his hands behind his back as I skimmed the pages for names I did not recognize. Andrew Wheaton, Paul Garland …

“So, where’s the umbrella?” Father Bingham said.

“What?”

“Well, you could sure use it now, couldn’t you?”

“Uh, forgot it.”

Sally Reuben, Ransford Dooley …

“I don’t remember it raining the day Marie was buried,” he declared.

“No? Hmph.”

Of all the things, I had to pick an umbrella.

Lanny Lockhart …

Just then I heard the bell buzz and I knew it was Sheriff Brooke. I shoved the piece of paper in my bra, as it was the driest place I could find, and handed the book back to him.

“Well, thanks. I’ve got to go.”

I opened the door to a soaked Sheriff Brooke, smiled at him, and passed on by to my car.

Eight

I decided to drive by the cemetery once before going home to give the whole scene a look from the car. Sometimes you see something from far away that you don’t see up close. I had intended to drive by at a crawling speed when I noticed there was somebody behind me. So, I pulled over to let him by, only he pulled over behind me as well. That was odd.

When I pulled away from the curb, so did he. I use the term
he
loosely. In fact, I had no idea if it was a man, woman, or kangaroo driving. It was too dark and the rain only made things worse.

I didn’t want to drive home, because then he would know where I lived, providing of course that he didn’t already know. I was probably jumping to conclusions anyway, so I thought I’d just drive around town to see if he followed me.

It was at this point that I considered investing in a car phone or one of those cellular thingamajigs. I don’t even own a cordless phone. It’s times like these that I really feel as though I live during prehistoric times.

I made a quick right on Jefferson and then a quick left onto New Kassel Outer Road, which the car behind me did also. My skin began to tingle. Somebody had just dug up Marie Dijon’s grave and now there was a car following me. I was scared. New Kassel Outer Road is just a two-lane blacktop without any streetlights except at junctions or where somebody’s driveway was.

I decided to drive to Wisteria and pull into the sheriff’s station. Whoever was following me would not follow me into the sheriff’s office. Of course, that meant that if I got out of this unscathed, I was going to be in big trouble. Sheriff Brooke would probably arrest me, again. My mother would probably try to ground me for the first time in fifteen years.

God, what a humiliating thought.

In a few minutes I’d be passing my Aunt Emily’s farm. I wanted to stop, but knew I couldn’t. What if he had a gun and he’d kill us both? No, I had to keep driving. It was amazing to me how the familiar things I saw on this road every day now seemed to take me by surprise and look alien. I never seemed to notice that the log fence on my left was as run-down or as close to the road as it now appeared. I checked the rearview mirror. So far the driver hadn’t made any aggressive moves, he just followed with the headlights on low beam.

I turned on the radio and flipped the stations. I needed some music to calm me down. I continued to turn the dial, trying to find something that fit the mood. Beethoven? Too dark for a lonely, deserted stretch of two-lane country road. Huey Lewis? Too happy. Was this really Adam Ant? Wow, too—I don’t know, too
something.
Now some girl kept screaming the word
zombie.
No. Definitely don’t want to be reminded of dead things that go bump in the night. What was this? U2? Perfect.

So, I drove along singing the words to “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” thinking it rather apropos. I had not found what I was looking for. I wasn’t even sure what it was that I was looking for.

Suddenly the car behind me flashed its brights. He sped up and came within a millimeter of hitting the back of my car. It was so close that I actually prepared myself for the impact and was shaken when it never occurred.

The driver brought the car parallel with mine, which by the way meant that he was in the oncoming traffic’s lane. When I glanced over, I could not see who it was. It was too dark, as there were no streetlights at this spot. The driver looked like a male.

We had just passed my Aunt Emily’s farm. Her light had been on in the kitchen, and as usual the moon gleamed off the top of her silo. There was only one more marker on the Outer Road before arriving in Wisteria, and that was the intersection with Highway P, which is another two-lane country road leading down to Progress, Missouri. I had about seven more minutes before reaching the Wisteria city limits.

I sped up, not wanting to give the driver the opportunity to sideswipe me, if that was his intention. The car pulled in behind me again. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. He wasn’t hurting me, and yet he obviously wanted something. If he thought I was going to pull over, he must have his brain in a vise because I’m not that stupid. He was riding my bumper so close that I could barely see the headlights.