I Think I Love You (33 page)

She waved off his concern. "That was just a lost hunter, happens all the time to people who live near the creek. Pete said—"

"Pete was there?"

"He got a report about a trespasser and thought it might be Justine's stalker. He saw the guy, but he didn't chase him, so he could check on us."

"Did you see Pete before or after the shot?"

She frowned. "After. And it was two shots, actually. We hit the dirt because our first thought, too, was of the Crane woman. Justine yelled that she had a gun; then Pete called to us that it was just a hunter."

His eyes narrowed. "Did you see the hunter?"

"No. What are you implying?"

"That Pete might be involved somehow. He
was
involved with your aunt."

She shook her head. "Pete might have slept with her, but he didn't kill her. He and his girlfriend were parked at Lovers' Lane and left about twenty minutes before Lyla got there. We saw them."

"So maybe Pete was covering for someone else, didn't want his father's reputation called into question."

She gave a little laugh. "There's no way Pete would try to kill us."

"Maybe he was just trying to scare you."

"But that was before our story even came out."

"So Dean called ahead."

She considered his theory for a few seconds, then smiled and fanned herself, suddenly aware of their surroundings again. "I think we're getting carried away."

Mitchell frowned as he started the engine. "Still, it wouldn't hurt for you and your sisters to be on your guard."

He was overreacting, she knew, but the fact that he was making a fuss put a warm little wiggle in her stomach.

Macken Hollow was only a couple of miles away. A farmhand walking along the road with a hoe over his shoulder gave them directions to Mr. Calvin's place. It was a meager little house but neat, with a pretty yard. The garage sitting adjacent to the house was twice as nice and twice as large. She remembered that Pete had mentioned that Mr. Calvin also sold cars on the side.

They parked in front of the garage and left the van doors open so Sam would have plenty of air, then walked to the front door. There was no porch, just a concrete stoop jutting out and a clump of leggy yellow mums on either side.

"Looks like he's not home," Mitchell said.

"Maybe he's around back."

They followed brick stepping-stones along the side of the house, past a couple of apple trees, to the backyard. A molded plastic table and one matching chair sat on a little concrete pad next to a gas grill. Her heart went out to the old man who had lived by himself for so many years.

"Nice view," Mitchell remarked.

Indeed, Mr. Calvin's view was a study in depth—rolling hill behind rolling hill, crisscrossed with barbed-wire fences and countless rows of deep green tobacco plants. She inhaled and exhaled with pure appreciation.

"Look," he said, pointing to the right.

In the distance a big oak tree kept watch over two headstones.

She was drawn to the makeshift family graveyard, and Mitchell followed her down a well-worn path in the tough field grass. The shade of the sprawling tree offered a few degrees of coolness, but a chill had settled over her anyway. Flanking the neat plots and shining gray headstones was a little limestone bench. She could imagine Mr. Calvin sitting on the bench, communing with his dead daughter and wife. Catherine E. Calvin, age thirty-seven when she died, and Rebecca E. Calvin, age fifteen. Their likenesses had been captured in stone ovals that graced the fronts of the headstones, both red-haired and fair, both smiling.

Fresh-cut flowers lay on each grave, but Rebecca's grave had one additional adornment—a picture of Dean Haviland cut out of the newspaper, impaled with a knife driven into the earth.

Chapter 27

If you cry after he's gone, DO wear waterproof mascara.

Regina glanced up and down the row of folding chairs at the pitiful collection of mourners for Dean Haviland.

On her right sat Justine, impassive and dressed in go-to-hell red, muttering about no-smoking laws in funeral homes. On her left, Mica, teary and shrouded in black, her shorn hair covered with a dramatic hat—she'd sworn them all to secrecy until she and her agent could figure out what to do. Next to Justine was Pete Shadowen, scratching and sporting full deputy regalia. Next to Mica sat a local news reporter in a jumper who now looked as if she desperately wished she hadn't come, especially since they had all declined to speak to her. And on the other side of Jumper sat an elderly woman wearing huge spectacles and a silvery suit who, she'd told Regina, had come on the wrong night for a distant relative and decided that sitting in on a memorial for a cremated person was better than going home to watch
The Price Is Right.

Speaking of home, Cissy was still bedridden, now with a summer cold; real or manufactured, Regina wasn't sure. Uncle Lawrence was doing double duty by reading to his sister and posting his bodyguard in front of the house to thwart the throng of reporters that had descended upon the Metcalf home after their juicy story leaked and no other regional news had developed that was more titillating.

She and her sisters had endured the humiliation of taking a polygraph test at the sheriff's office this morning. Even though she had nothing to hide, her nervousness had bordered on hysteria for fear she would somehow incriminate her father when they asked her, "Do you know who killed Dean Haviland?" by hesitating a second too long. Less critical but nerve-racking nonetheless were her unreasonable fears that they were going to ask her trick questions like if she'd ever seen a porn flick or eaten an entire Pepperidge Farm cake in one sitting. They hadn't, but the results wouldn't be interpreted for several hours. By tomorrow, the girls would know if they were liars.

Mitchell had passed some of the day at the sheriff's office as well, trying to convince someone to follow up on the leads they'd uncovered. But since John was still missing, their jumbled theories seemed thin at best, even to her, now that she had a day's distance from the conversations. Only the questions about the pills Dean tried to give Justine seemed legit, and those had already been sent to a lab in Asheville.

Meanwhile, she hadn't slept at all last night, imagining her father ill or injured or... worse. Uncle Lawrence was worried sick, too, and bad spent hours on the phone calling people and hospitals and hotels, pulling in favors from police departments all over the state.

Mitchell had offered to come with her to the service, but she'd assured him there was no need, mostly because she was shaken by her desire to have him there. The last thing she needed was to start depending on him for emotional support when at this point she suspected he was only sticking around to satisfy a resurrected sense of judicial obligation.

She had hoped this memorial ceremony would provide them all a small measure of closure on the horrible events of the past few days, although she conceded that the service might have proved more therapeutic if they were actually viewing a body. It was almost impossible to believe that the incorrigible Dean Haviland was now contained in what resembled an oversized martini shaker.

The stainless-steel burial urn was presented atop a marble plant stand, surrounded by silk fern fronds, and backlit with a pinkish bulb meant to flatter flesh. It was, at best, tacky and, at worst, anticlimactic.

The cremation had been another point of contention between her sisters, but when the topic arose, she had simply left the room before the fur started flying. How it ended she wasn't sure, but they had all come to the service in the same car, so that was something.

Tate Williams, the shiny-suited owner and director of the funeral home, walked to the front of the room and coughed politely as a sign that the service was about to begin, in case anyone needed to hit the rest room. Since Mica had opted for a non-religious ceremony—probably for fear that they'd all be struck by lightning—Tate had agreed to deliver the eulogy. He was an odd-looking man with waxy skin and lacquered hair that made a person wonder if over the years he had absorbed too much formaldehyde through his hands.

"Welcome, friends," he began. "We're here today to celebrate the life of Dean Matthew Haviland, a life that was cut tragically short."

Mica started crying quietly, and Regina squeezed her hand. On her other side, Justine stared stonily ahead.

In solemn tones, Tate delivered a generic send-off speech suitable for a murder victim who had no family, no friends, and no real accomplishments. Tate compared life to a candle flame, an hourglass, and a marathon. He spoke of trials and tribulation and troubled waters. And when at last he'd run out of uplifting song lyrics from the seventies, he said the two words that everyone had been waiting to hear.

"And finally,"
he said, his voice ponderous, his expression wistful, "death is a lesson for the living." He left them to draw their own conclusions, but to Regina the moral of the story was that if you live your life as a cheating, conniving, manipulative parasite, you might get shot.

"Would anyone like to say a few words about Dean?" Tate asked.

At Justine's first muscle movement, Regina gave her sister's hand a bruising crush along with a warning shake of her head. Mica was still crying and in no shape to say anything, so in the wake of an awkward silence, Regina stood. Her mind raced for something soothing to say, but at the looks on her sisters' faces, all she could think was how this man had trampled on all of them, had pecked at their vulnerabilities until they were laid open, then laughed in their faces.

"Dean was a complex man," she began, hoping that one word might lead to another. She shifted from foot to foot "But... he was a liver of life." More like a bowel, actually. "And he left an impression on everyone he met." So far, so good. Her sisters were rapt and hungry for comfort. Oh, God. But in their profoundly sad expressions, she found her next words.

"Yet regardless of his human frailties," she said with a little smile, "Dean enjoyed an abundance of what every one of us hopes to have at some point in our lives. He was loved." She reclaimed her seat and was surprised when she received a hand squeeze from each side.

Tate Williams seemed enormously relieved for the unexpected assistance and, apparently recognizing the advantage of ending on a positive note, abruptly thanked everyone for coming and explained that coffee and pop and sausage balls were available in the lounge. He stepped forward to shake Mica's hand, then Justine's, then her own, and must have figured what the heck, because he shook Pete's, Jumper's, and Spectacles's hands, too.

Then he picked up the urn and held it out to Mica. "May he rest in peace."

Mica stared at the urn. "Do I just carry him out of here?"

Tate nodded encouragement and pressed the urn into her hands. "Are you going to scatter his ashes here or when you get back to LA?"

"I hadn't thought about where would be the best place."

Justine scoffed. "That's easy. Just think of the place where he'd get under our skin the most, and that's where he'd be the happiest."

"Mica?"

They all turned at the sound of a man's voice. He was a stranger. Fortyish, attractive, well-dressed.

Mica's face lit up. "Everett?" She handed the urn to Justine and ran to embrace him. "What are you doing here?"

Regina and Justine exchanged surprised looks; then Justine frowned down at the urn.

Mica pulled the man over and introduced him as her agent, Everett Collier.

He eyed Justine suspiciously, obviously aware that because of her, his million-dollar product was at home in a shoe box. "I apologize for being late," he said. "I had a little trouble finding the funeral home." He looked at Mica with sad eyes. "I wanted to be here for my favorite client."

"I'll just bet you did," Justine muttered. Regina nudged her, but she wondered if Mica was involved with the man or if he was simply concerned about the viability of her career.

Deputy Pete walked over, holding his hat in his hands. "I'm sorry, Mica, Justine, for..." He gestured toward the urn Justine held. "You know."

Justine seemed surprised to be lumped in with Mica but nodded her thanks.

He turned to Regina. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

She followed him to the end of the empty row of chairs. At his expression, her heart skipped a couple of beats. "Do you have news of Dad?"

He shook his head. "But
my
dad is pretty upset about you and that Cooke fellow poking around asking questions."

"Pete, we're all on the same side—we just want to get to the truth."

He frowned, looked away, then back. "I just can't figure out why you trust that Cooke clown more than you trust me. How much do you really know about him, other than what he's told you?"

She blinked. "Mitchell has been a good friend."

"Seems to me he's managed to involve himself in your family's problems mighty quick."

Anger sparked in her stomach at his implication that she was a needy little thing who would fall for a stranger's pickup line. She was
not
little.