Divine Evil (17 page)

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

“They brought him in around the back. Oscar was
working on a toilet inside. That's all it took. Old fart couldn't wait to get his tongue wagging.” Mick stuffed the plug in his cheek. “They were just curious is all. I'd've had them on their way in a minute or two.”

“I know. Is my mother inside?”

“That's what I heard.”

“Do me a favor and keep an eye on the office for a while.”

“Sure thing.” He used his tongue to settle the chaw more cozily. “Ah…mighty sorry about your trouble, Cam. If you want to take a couple days off, stay with your mom, Bud and me can double up.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it. But I don't think she'll need me.” Wearily, he walked up to the door with its discreet brass knocker.

He stepped inside to the overwhelming scent of gladiolas and Lemon Pledge. There was a churchlike hush in the red-draped hallway. Why in the hell did funeral parlors always use red? he wondered. Was that the color of comfort?

Red plush, dark paneling, thick carpet, and ornate candlesticks. A bunch of plucky glads and lilies sat in a tall vase on a glossy table. Beside them was a stack of printed business cards.

Charles W. Griffith and Sons Emmitsboro, Maryland established 1839

It pays to advertise, Cam thought.

There was a carpeted stairway leading to the second floor. The viewing rooms. An entertaining term for a morbid tradition, he thought. Why the hell people wanted to
stare at corpses he couldn't figure. But maybe that was because he'd had to look at more than his share.

He remembered climbing those steps as a child, to look at the dead face of his father. His mother had been weeping, walking ahead of him with Biff Stokey's beefy arm around her. He hadn't wasted any time moving in, Cam thought now. Mike Rafferty hadn't even been in the ground before Stokey put his hands on the widow.

Now they were full circle.

His hands jammed in his pockets, Cam started down the hallway. The double doors to the main parlor were shut. He hesitated, then pulled a hand free to knock. Within moments, the door opened silently.

Standing somber-eyed in one of his five black suits was Chuck Griffith. For more than a hundred and fifty years the Griffiths had been undertakers in Emmitsboro. Chuck's son was already in training to take over the family business, but at forty, Chuck was in his prime.

As a boy he'd been as comfortable in the embalming room as on the baseball field, where he'd been the star pitcher. To the Griffiths, death was a business, a steady one. Chuck could afford to take his family on a two-week vacation every year and buy his wife a new car every third one.

They had a pretty house on the edge of town and an inground swimming pool, heated. People often joked about it being the pool that death built.

In his capacity as coach for Emmitsboro's Little League, Chuck was loud, boisterous, and competitive. As the town's only funeral director, he was somber, soft-spoken, and sympathetic. Immediately he extended one of his wide, capable hands to Cam.

“It's good you're here, Sheriff.”

“Is my mother inside?”

“Yes.” Chuck cast a quick glance behind him. “I'm having some trouble convincing her that, under the circumstances, a closed casket service would be advisable.”

Cam had an instant and uncomfortable flash of what had been left of Biff's face. “I'll talk to her.”

“Please, come in.” He gestured Cam inside the dimly lit, flower-filled room. There was music playing quietly from hidden speakers. Something soft and soothing. “We're having some tea. I'll just get another cup.”

Cam nodded, then walked toward his mother. She was sitting stiffly on the high-back sofa, a box of tissues within arm's reach. She was wearing a black dress, one he didn't recognize. He imagined she had borrowed it or had one of her lady friends buy it for her. She held the teacup in a white-knuckled grip. Her knees were pressed so tightly together, Cam thought they must ache with the pressure of bone to bone. At her feet was a small hard-sided suitcase with a broken strap.

“Mom.” Cam sat beside her and after a moment put a hand awkwardly on her shoulder. She didn't look at him.

“Did you come to see him?”

“No, I came to stay with you.”

“There's no need.” Her voice was cold and steady as stone. “I've buried a husband before.”

He took his hand away and had to fight the need to ball it into a fist and bash it against the glossy coffee table. “I'd like to help you make the arrangements. It's hard to make decisions at a time like this. And it's expensive. I'd like to take care of whatever bills there are.”

“Why?” Her hand was rock steady as she lifted it, sipped her tea, then lowered it again. “You hated him.”

“I'm offering to help you.”

“Biff wouldn't want your help.”

“Is he running your life now, too?”

Her head snapped around, and her eyes, reddened from hours and hours of weeping, burned into him. “Don't you speak ill of him. The man is dead, beaten to death. Beaten to death,” she repeated in a harsh whisper. “You're the law here. If you want to help, then you find out who did this to my husband. You find out who killed him.”

Chuck cleared his throat as he walked back into the room. “Mrs. Stokey, perhaps you'd like to-”

“I don't need any more tea.” She rose and picked up the suitcase. “I don't need anything. I brought the clothes I want him buried in. Now you take me to see my husband.”

“Mrs. Stokey, he hasn't been prepared.”

“I lived with him for twenty years. I'll see him as he is.”

“Mom-”

She whirled on her son. “I don't want you here now. Do you think I could stand and look at him with you beside me, knowing how you felt? Since you were ten years old, you made me stand between you, choose between you. Now he's dead, and I'm choosing him.”

You always did, Cam thought, and let her go.

Alone, he sat again. It would do no good to wait for her, he knew, but he needed a moment before he went outside again to face the stares and whispers.

There was a Bible on the table, its leather cover worn smooth by countless hands. He wondered if his mother had found any verses inside to comfort her. Cameron.

He looked up and saw the mayor in the parlor doorway. “Mr. Atherton.”

“I don't want to intrude during this difficult time. My wife called. She seemed to think your mother might need some support.”

“She's with Chuck.”

“I see.” He started to back away, then changed his mind. “Is there anything I can do for you? I know people always say that at times like this, but …” He moved his thin shoulders and looked uncomfortable.

“Actually, my mother might need someone to drive her home when she's finished here. She doesn't want it to be me.”

“I'd be glad to take her. Cameron, people react to grief in different ways.”

“So I'm told.” He rose then. “I have the autopsy report. I'll have a copy for you and the rest of my paperwork by tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes.” Atherton gave a weak smile. “I have to admit I'm out of my element.”

“All you have to do is file them. Mayor, are there any gangs at school? Any of the tougher elements fusing together?”

Atherton's scholarly face creased as his brows drew together. “No. We have the usual troublemakers, of course, and the misfits, some brawls in the hallway and fights over girls or ball games.” His thoughtful eyes widened. “Surely you can't believe that Biff was killed by children?”

“I have to start somewhere.”

“Sheriff-Cameron-we don't even have a drug problem at Emmitsboro High. You know that. We may have boys bloodying noses once in a while and girls pulling out some hair, but nothing that would lead to murder.” He pulled out a carefully pressed handkerchief and dabbed at his upper lip. The thought of murder made him sweat. “I'm sure you're going to discover that someone out of town, a stranger, was responsible.”

“Funny that a stranger would know to dump the body where kids have been sneaking down to wade for years.
And that a stranger would push the car halfway off the road just where Bud Hewitt drives by every night.”

“But-whoever… I mean, doesn't that make my point? They couldn't have wanted the body found so quickly.”

“I wonder,” Cam murmured. “I appreciate your seeing my mother home, Mayor.”

“What? Oh, yes. I'm happy to help.” With his handkerchief still pressed to his lips, Atherton stared after Cam with fear dawning in his eyes.

Crazy Annie stood in front of Cam's car and patted the hood as though it were the family dog. She crooned to it, pleased with its shiny blue surface. If she looked close, she could see her face reflected in the wax. It made her giggle.

Mick Morgan spotted her through the window of the sheriff's office. Shaking his head, he opened the door.

“Hey there, Annie, you'll get Cam pissed if you put fingerprints all over his car.”

“It's pretty.” But she rubbed the hood with her dirty sleeve to remove the smudges. “I won't hurt it.”

“Why don't you go down to Martha's for some supper?”

“I got a sandwich. Alice gave me a sandwich. A BLT on wheat toast, hold the mayo.”

“She's all right.” Cam stepped off the sidewalk. The walk back from the funeral parlor hadn't mellowed his mood. But seeing Annie stroking his car had his lips curving. “How's it going, Annie?”

She focused on him. Her bracelets jingled as she fussed with the buttons of her blouse. “Can I have a ride on your motorcycle?”

“I don't have it with me today.” He watched her bottom lip poke out, a little girl gesture that was pathetic on the
aged face. “How about a ride in the car? Want me to take you home?”

“I can sit in the front?” Sure.

When he bent to pick up her sack, she grabbed it and pressed it against her. “I can carry it. It's mine. I can carry it.”

“Okay. Climb on in. Do you know how to put your seat belt on?”

“You showed me last time. You showed me.” Hefting her bag and her hips into the car, she set her tongue between her teeth and went to work on the seat belt. She gave a little cry of pleasure when it snapped into place. “See? I did it myself. All by myself.”

“That's good.” Once inside, Cam let the windows down. Since Annie had skipped a few baths, he had to be grateful the evening was warm and breezy.

“The radio.”

He pulled away from the sidewalk. “It's this button.” He pointed, knowing she wanted to turn it on herself. When Billy Joel rocked out, Annie clapped her hands. Bracelets slid up and down her arms. “I know this one.” The wind ruffled her gray hair as she sang along.

He turned down Oak Leaf Lane. When they passed the Kimball house, he slowed automatically, but he didn't see Clare in the garage.

Annie stopped singing and craned her neck to keep the Kimball house in view. “I saw a light in the attic.”

“There wasn't a light in the attic, Annie.”

“Before there was. I couldn't sleep. Can't walk in the woods at night. It's bad at night in the woods. Walked into town. There was a light way up in the attic.” She screwed her face tight, as one memory lapped over another. Had someone screamed? No, no, not this time. This time she hadn't hidden in the bushes and seen men hurry out and
drive away. Hurry out and drive. She liked the rhythm of those words and began to hum them to herself.

“When did you see a light, Annie?”

“Don't remember.” She began to play with the power window. “Do you think Mr. Kimball was working late? He works late sometimes. But he's dead,” she remembered, pleased with herself for not getting mixed up. “Dead and buried, so he wasn't working. The girl's back. The girl with the pretty red hair.”

“Clare?”

“Clare,” Annie repeated. “Pretty hair.” She twined her own around her finger. “She went away to New York, but she came back. Alice told me. Maybe she went up to the attic to look for her daddy. But he's not there.”

“No, he's not.”

“I used to look for my mama.” She sighed and began to play with her bracelets, tracing the engraved letters on the silver one. “I like to walk. Sometimes I walk all the livelong day. I find things. Pretty things.” She held up her arm. “See?”

“Mmm-hmm.” But he was thinking of Clare and didn't look at the silver-plated bracelet with
Carly
engraved on it.

Clare felt foolishly shy as she walked around to the side entrance of the Cramptons′ neat two-story brick house. The patient entrance, she thought sourly, then sighed. But she wasn't going to see Doc for a simple checkup, or a case of the sniffles. She just needed to see him, to hook one more link in the chain that led back to her father.

Still the memories came sneaking back, those childhood images of sitting in Doc's lemony-smelling waiting room with its paintings of ducks and flowers, reading tattered Golden Books, then ancient copies of
Seventeen.
Going into the examining room to sit on the padded bench and say “ah.” Being rewarded with a balloon regardless of whether or not she'd cried at the prick of a needle.

There was comfort here, in the smell of freshly cut grass, in the gleam of new spring paint on the window trim, and in the quiet voice she heard singing, off key.

She saw him bent over his lilies of the valley, patiently weeding. Gardening was the obsession Doc Crampton had shared with her father-an obsession that had cemented their friendship in spite of Doc's being a good deal older than Jack Kimball.

“Hey, Doc.”

He straightened quickly, wincing a little at the creak in his back. His round face brightened. Beneath a battered old hat, his white hair flowed, making her think of Mark Twain.

“Clare, I wondered when you were going to come by for a visit. We didn't have much time to get reacquainted the other day at Jane's.”

“Alice told me you take a half day off now and then during the week. I was hoping to catch you when you weren't busy.”

“You did. Just tending my ladies.”

“Your flowers are lovely.” It hurt a little to look at them and remember Doc and her father discussing pruning and fertilizer. “Just as always.”

Though she was smiling, he saw trouble in her eyes. A general practitioner in a small town learned to listen to problems as well as pulse rates. He patted the stone wall and sat. “Keep an old man company. I want to hear all about what you've been up to.”