He played with two tire irons and moved, when he played, with a grace that belied his bulk. He was carried on wings of music. Each piece on his line was a perfectly tuned musical note; combined, they made almost two octaves. And he prided himself on his ability to play just about any song requested. I tried to stump him the first time I met him by suggesting he play Bach's “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,” and he only had to thump out the first three bars or so before I conceded that he was playing the melody line perfectly, if a little slower than the norm.
“You'll have to do better than that, college boy,” he'd taunted me. “I got a education in music from my childhood piano teacher, Miss Phelps. Can't nobody take that away from me.”
Occupation and accent are not always indications of mental content.
I had to remember not to be startled by the sound of Eppie's voice. For reasons no one knew, it had never changed. Despite that he was over forty, past six feet tall, and weighed nearly three hundred pounds, he had a voice like Shirley Temple's.
I'd interviewed him twice as a kind of lunatic-fringe/primitive genius, a musical Howard Finster. Both times we'd had a good laugh at what his voice sounded like on tape. He seemed to have a sense of humor about everything in life, his own foibles included. I thought we liked each other in a casual way, and I was hoping he would tell me things that Skidmore might not, under the circumstances.
I approached the armchair gingerly. If you woke up Eppie too quickly, he was liable to swing something at you or call his dog on you, which was worse. The dog, Bruno, was nowhere to be seen, but I knew it was lurking.
I stopped five feet from the sleeping giant.
“Professor Waldrup,” I announced.
He smiled, eyes still closed.
“Doc,” he squeaked. “That you?”
“I'm afraid so.”
“Christ.” He looked me up and down. “You look tired. Up all night?”
The boys at the Mustang stopped talking so they could listen to us, but were still pretending to look at the car.
“I came to see you,” I told him.
I knew what a figure I must have cut, over six feet tall, hair prematurely white, skin pale from too much indoor thinking, and dressed in black. I always tried to give the illusion of having casually thrown on whatever it was I wore, but the truth was more embarrassing. I enjoyed presenting a strange image. The details and origins of that enjoyment provided a lifetime of introspective analysis.
“You come to tape-record me playing something again?” He sat up and blinked hard three times.
“Sadly, no,” I said slowly.
“Oh.” He sniffed, looked away, and shifted in his seat. “You come to see that Volkswagen I got back there.”
I was always surprised at the leaps Eppie's logic took, and the accuracy he enjoyed with them. He surmised that I was helping Skidmore with the accident investigation, as I had been known to do in the past.
“Don't get up,” I suggested, “just point.”
“Naw,” he told me, twisting sideways in preparation to throw his bulk forward. “You gonna have some questions.”
“You saw something questionable?”
“Me?” He laughed. “No. But I know you. You can't shut up with them questions.”
“I have a lot to learnâ” I grinnedâ“so I have to ask.”
“That's the damn truth,” he groaned, leaning forward.
His hands strained on the arms of the chair, turned white as he pushed himself up and away, launching himself in my direction.
I followed behind him as we rounded the office. The boys allowed themselves to watch us, silent.
I cleared the corner and was stopped in my tracks by the gnarl of
orange metal that sat in cleared space with police tape around it. It looked like a giant, crumpled autumn leaf.
The next thing that struck me was that one of the doors was completely ripped in half, as if a chain saw had torn into it.
Eppie leaned against the back side of the shack and I approached the wreck, a little light-headed.
“Train ripped the door like that?” I managed.
“The police did that, or fire department, one,” he said softly, “to get the bodies out.”
The bodies. How could there have been anything left to get out? The car was a concave orange C, nearly two-dimensional. The engine had been ejected out the back end and was lying on the ground behind the wreck. The steering wheel had popped through the windshield. I couldn't even image how that had happened.
“Took 'em two hours to get the bodies out,” Eppie said, anticipating my line of thinking. “The good thing is, that curve in the tracks had the train slowed a little bit, I guess, and the direction of the hit pushed the car off the tracks so the train didn't carry it all the way until it stopped.”
“Where did the train stop, did they say?” I asked.
“It didn't completely come to a halt until it was past the old station.” He took a deep breath and started my way. “They told me it would have been a whole lot worse if the train had been going at full speed.”
I turned toward him, glad to take my eyes off the wreck.
“First, I don't know how it could have been worse, but second, the train wasn't going full speed when it hit? Who said that?”
“Nobody.” Eppie shrugged. “But the train's got to cut to near half speed to make that curve, don't it?” He let his eyes drift in the direction of the wreck. “Still.”
“Exactly.” I followed his gaze. “What made it slow down?”
“They saw the car on the tracks?” Eppie ventured, roughing his curly brown hair with a thick hand.
“No. I was just there. The way the tracks slope down in that direction,
the engineer wouldn't have seen anything until he was nearly into the crossing. But the girls would have heard the train coming.”
“Or the crossing bell.”
“Right,” I agreed. “It's loud.”
I tried to make myself go closer to the car, but couldn't seem to get my legs to work. I was afraid I might see something inside that I wouldn't want to see.
Reading my mind or my face, Eppie cleared his throat.
“The police had me wash out the car after they did all the technical crap,” he said. “Washed it out good. And when they left, I did the same thing. It's pretty clean now.”
“That's an old VW,” I began slowly.
“It is.”
“It wouldn't have a CD player.”
“No,” he answered. “I don't think it even had a radio. But definitely no CD.”
“You wouldn't know when the accident happened, would you?”
“Well,” he offered, “let me see. They called me to come haul the wreck around one thirty. They said it took nearly two hours to get the girls out. But how long before the accident was reported and everybody got there, I have no idea.”
I forced myself closer to the wreckage.
Upon closer inspection, the interior of the car was battered but not entirely crushed. I could see the seats were folded but not destroyed, their springs poking out. There was, indeed, no radio in the car. The simple dashboard sported a primitive heating system based on blowing hot air from the engine into the car, and there was a cigarette lighter. Otherwise, it was bare. The gearshift had been bent in the direction of the driver's seat, the steering wheel jutted at an odd angle out the front windshield. What caught my eye was the ignition, because it made me think of something.
I backed away from the wreck.
“No keys in the ignition?” I asked.
“What?” he said, taking a step my way. “Keys?”
“They're not in the ignition.” I looked down. “Wouldn't, ordinarily, the police leave the keys in the car, in case you needed them?”
“Ain't much I can do for this car,” Eppie said slowly. “Maybe the cops took them, or maybe the keys got knocked out when the train hit. You see what it did to the steering column.”
“I do see,” I told him, though I wasn't looking.
I didn't feel I could look at the wreckage for one more second, and I still had to go to the morgue.
“Thanks, Eppie,” I sighed. “I'll be back.”
He was still cocking his head at the orange mass when I left the yard. The boys had gone; the rain was starting up again. The sky was bruised with rain clouds, and a cold wind snapped hair across my forehead.
The last thing in the world I wanted to do was visit the county morgue.
Morgue
might be too strong a word for the loose arrangement between the county and the Deveroe Brothers' Funeral Parlor. All three brothers were barely smarter, collectively, than a butter knife. Still, they had taken over the town mortuary after the previous owner had been indicted on hundreds of counts of illegal improprieties including “misuse of a corpse,” a charge that would not bear much scrutiny on my part.
The boys had managed to pass all their classes at mortuarial school, or wherever a person learns such a business. They'd been registered, certified, and bona fide for nearly six months, and their business seemed to be running smoothly.
I remembered them only as wild boys whose main occupation was capturing feral swine and rounding up poisonous snakes for our more primitive church services. Still, the county allowed bodies to be taken to their one examination room for autopsy and for study to determine the cause of death in any questionable circumstance.
The cause of the girls' death was not in question, but because of the nature of the accident, a certificate from the county coroner had to be issued. So the girls were lying in state at the Deveroe Brothers' Funeral Parlor in Blue Mountain.
As my old green truck rattled over the highway toward the place, I tried to distract my mind. Was Skidmore really having an affair with his secretary? Would he really participate in such a cliché? Had I really
told Lucinda that I loved her? Would that obligate me to accelerate the relationship? Alas, none of these thoughts worked as a distraction. The only image in my brain was a picture of two mangled bodies.
It was close to noon when I finally pulled up to the parking area on the side of the yard at the Deveroes'. I was so reluctant to go in that I could barely find the strength to turn off the engine. Rain was thumping frenzied syncopations on the roof and hood of the truck, and I could just make out the funeral home through the downpour. I decided to sit a moment, hoping the rain would abate.
All around, sheets of gray rain painted a melancholy veneer over ruby leaves in the old oaks, obscuring their color, demanding a more muted hue to surround the old funeral parlor.
Before I could reach for the door handle, I heard someone call my name; I made out a black shape moving toward me. Before I could see who it was, I heard Donny Deveroe's voice.
“Stay right there, Doc,” he demanded. “I got you.”
A moment later he was beside the truck, huge black umbrella sprouted above his head, opening my cab door for me.
“Saw you pull up,” he said. “Thought you might like to stay a little dry.”
Donny was the size of a linebacker, but his face was scrubbed and cherubic, his brown hair slicked back, and he wore a clean black suit. I'd never seen him in anything but overalls, and for a moment I thought he might be a distant relative of the boy I knew, that I'd mistaken him for Donny.
“All part of the service,” Donny said cheerfully.
I managed to pocket my keys and climb out of the truck under the protection of the skillfully handled umbrella, keeping its wrangler amazingly dry in the torrent.
“Donny?” I finally asked.
“Yup,” he said as we headed for the front porch. “It's me, all right.”
“That suit looks good.”
“I know,” he said proudly. “Truvy picked it out.”
Truevine Deveroe was the only sister in the bunch, our local witch
until she and her husband, Able Carter, had moved away to Athens, Georgia, so that Truevine could get her GED and then go to the university there.
I climbed out of the truck and under the protection of Donny's umbrella; we headed for the porch of the funeral home.
“What do you hear from your sister?” I asked.
“She's good,” he said hesitantly. “But she and Able still ain't had no baby yet. That worries me.”
“They've only been married a year,” I reminded him.
“A whole year,” he said, shaking his head. “And still no baby.”
“Maybe they're waiting until she's done with college.”
The porch was dry and solid. Donny folded the umbrella, careful to keep it away from me, and shook it hard, ridding it of water.
“Maybe.” He leaned the umbrella against the wall. “I reckon you come to look at your friend Miss Lucinda's nieces.”
“Yes.”
“You helping out Sheriff Needle like you always do?” He was speaking uncharacteristically softly, something I felt he had learned in mortuarial school.
“Soft of,” I conceded. “But I have to tell you, I'm not looking forward to seeing the bodies. Lucinda was very close to those girls, and I knew them slightly myself.”
“Oh,” he said, opening the door for me, “don't worry about that. We took care of everything.”
We entered the quiet of the funeral parlor itself. The hallway was immaculate. Polished golden floors glistened in every direction. The room to our left was gleaming, a perfect Victorian sitting room. The staircase that led to the office upstairs had been given new black-and-white tapestry-like carpeting depicting, as far as I could tell, scenes from Shakespeare. The banister had been polished to a mirror's perfection. In front of us the spotless hallway was lined with old photographs framed in thick antique gold.
I didn't know what I'd expected, but the last time I had been inside the boys' own house, there had been dead, gutted animals in the kitchen, flies everywhere, and a stench that could have been used as
a military weapon. The funeral parlor was, on the other hand, cleaner than I'd ever seen it, still as a church, and softly lit, like an early sunrise.
“You boys surely have done a nice job with the place,” I said, trying to keep the amazement in my voice to a reasonable level.
“We take our work very serious, Dr. Devilin,” he said sweetly. “I know you remember what we was like in the old days, but we're all grown-up now.”
The old days
were barely more than a year before, but sometimes a great change engenders a rip in time. Donny did seem to have matured by a decade.
“I seeâ” I began.
“Come on back,” he interrupted. “I think you'll be pleased with our efforts.”
Our efforts.
I could barely contain myself.
The room at the end of the hall was lit by candles, outside light through a stained-glass window, and a snapping blaze from the small fireplace at the far end. The effect was soothing until I thought about what I might see in the two coffins on skirted tables at the center of the room.
“We worked all night,” Donny whispered, “all three of us, getting them ready in case someone came this morning.”
I slowed my walk. Donny obliged by moving away a step or two, surely another trick learned from his recent schooling.
The two chocolate-colored coffins rested side by side. The lids were open. The skirts around the tables were black, and in the soft light the coffins appeared to be floating on shadows.
I allowed a glance to creep over the rim of the one closest to me. My eyes were amazed; my heart was broken.
Rory lay sleeping, dressed in a white gown, one hand resting at her neck. She was made up for her high school prom: hair perfect, cheeks blushing, lips an immaculate natural gloss. I had the sensation that I could wake her if I took that hand.
I turned to Donny. “My God.”
“Yeah,” he said, a glimmer of the rougher boy I knew, “but I
wouldn't get too much closer if I was you. We had to put a lot of that face together.”
“Put it together?”
“Putty mostly,” he offered. “Some of it's wired plaster. What we got in here last night? You wouldn't have recognized it.”
“Oh.” I swallowed.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “That was unprofessional.”
“You certainly did work quickly.” I tried to pry my eyes away from the caskets, with no success.
“The family.” He shrugged. “They were in a hurry. We even had a sort of hassle with the new coroner. He seems to think there was more to all this than a train wreck. But in the end he let us do our work.”
“What's his name? The new coroner, I mean.”
“Millroy.”
“He thought this wasn't an accident?”
“I don't know what he thought,” Donny said softly. “Our first obligation is to the family.”
“Right.” I'd have to check in with our new coroner.
Donny folded his arms.
“I can't get clear in my head,” he began, “if you're here to pay respects, or you're doing an investigation.”
“Right,” I answered, looking down at my wet tennis shoes. “I can't get that straight either. Just trying to find out what happened to these girls.”
“They got hit by a train,” he said before he could stop himself.
“I know,” I said steadily, “but Lucy thinks there was something else. And now you tell me this Millroy has doubts.”
“Well,” Donny said, almost to himself, “it's not unusual, you know. I've found that lots and lots of folks come in here thinking that.”
“Thinking what?”
“That there must be some other explanation for the ⦔ He groped for words.
“Death of a loved one,” I ventured.
“Exactly.” He folded his arms. “It's not good enough to know it
was a heart attack that killed your husband, you want to know what caused the heart attack. I don't see how that matters once you're dead. Dead is dead, 'scuse me for saying so.”
“No,” I confirmed. “You're right. But what Lucy can't believe is that the girls wouldn't move the car when they heard the train coming.”
“Maybe the car stalled,” he said simply.
“Why didn't they get out, then?”
“That's a point,” he conceded. “Why didn't they?”
“I don't know, but
that's
not unusual. I tried to tell her: four hundred people a year are killed just like this. It happens.”
“Uh-huh,” he allowed, “but when it happens to someone you know, you want more than that.”
I looked up at Donny.
“You have grown up,” I said softly.
“Thanks, Doc.” He offered me a curt nod, still trying his best to play the part of the funeral parlor director.
I glanced back at the coffins, took a quick look at Tess. She was even more beautiful than I remembered, dressed in white too, and holding a small bouquet of dried lavender.
“Can we go somewhere else?” I asked quickly. “I don't think I can stay in here.”
“Of course,” Donny responded immediately. “Let's go back to the parlor.”
I don't remember walking back toward the front of the house, I may have had my eyes closed some of the way. I just remember finding myself seated in a soft leather chair, close to another fireplace. Donny was on the sofa opposite me, a practiced look of sympathy on his face.
“You boys did a great job with the bodies,” I said, collecting myself and struggling toward objectivity, an investigator's persona.
“We only had time to do the faces,” he corrected. “The rest of the bodies is still a great mess. Sorry.”
“They were in pretty bad shape when they came in, I suppose.” I leaned forward.
“Are you sure you want to hear about it?” he asked gently.
“I'm really wondering about a few things that maybe you can help me with. For example, did the girls have keys on them, or were any keys brought in?”
“Keys?”
“Car keys, house keys, a key ring,” I prompted.
“Nope. We put all the little effects together in a little basket, like an Easter basket. No keys at all. Why?”
“Just a nagging detail, probably. What
effects
were there?” I wondered. “I mean, what did you put in their basket?”
“Wallets,” he began, rolling his eyes upward, trying to remember, “a pack of Tic Tacs, some change. Not much.”
“How about a personal CD player?”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Sure, now that you bring it up. Rory sort of had on headphones, and the CD player was in her coat pocket.”
“Really? Is it still here? Could I see it?”
“It's in back.” He stood. “I think we put the headphones down in her coat pocket with the player.”
I followed him out the room and down the hall to another room at the back of the house. This one was gray, more clinical, lit by fluorescents, and antiseptic smelling. The two chrome tables in the center had drainage holes at the sloped bottom edge. I tried not to stare at them.