Hush My Mouth (23 page)

Worried about the same thing happening to Neanna
. Had the photo arrived with an explicit threat? Had the murderer finally, twenty-three years later, made good on it? What if these weren’t his only victims? Had other families received sick mementoes from him? A chilling thought.

“Thanks, Rowly. Send me a bill. This has been a lot of help. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Sure you can—just let me know how it comes out.”

“Will do.”

I shuddered at the words “how it comes out.” So far, I had a murderer with a long memory and a long reach, one who didn’t mind threatening little old ladies with macabre memento mori. One who was close to getting away with murder—for a second time?

Friday Afternoon
and Evening

I finished drafting a simple will for a couple, friends of my parents—and hoped they hadn’t sought me out thinking they needed to help a charity case. They’d be in Monday to have it signed and notarized. That’s something I needed to put in motion for Shamanique. Having her serve as notary would be more professional than paying a teller from the bank to come on her lunch hour.

The rest of the afternoon, I worked upstairs cleaning my two-room apartment. I still hadn’t unpacked many of my boxes, unsure whether this home would be permanent and worth the effort.

My summer clothes hung in the closet or were folded carefully in a few of the drawers in the dresser I’d first hauled out of
my grandfather’s attic when I was in high school. A few books sat on the built-in shelves that ran under the large windows in both rooms. The packed boxes sat stacked in the corner of what would ideally be my sitting room. What a genteel concept: a sitting room.

Years before, someone had put a doorway between these two rooms, so I didn’t have to go into the hallway to move from one room to the other. The luminous marble bathroom, complete with a decadently deep, claw-footed tub and shower, opened off the bedroom.

My rooms sat at one end of the second floor, opposite Melvin’s suite of rooms. Like our offices below, mine were on the left of the stairs and Melvin’s were on the right. The stairway continued to a third floor of smaller, cluttered rooms—perhaps once the children’s rooms—and on to the attics.

Had Melvin’s grandmother and grandfather used these suites as separate bedrooms? Maybe they’d filled the third-floor rooms with children, then wisely decided to stay away from each other. I’d never asked Melvin how many siblings his father had.

It struck me, as I squirted tub cleaner around, that Melvin’s grandfather and mine would’ve known each other. They’d lived blocks apart. Had they served in civic clubs together? Did they like each other?

My cell phone rang, Shamanique calling to say I had a phone call downstairs. I needed a better phone system than this—but originally I hadn’t had a receptionist or an assistant. I also hadn’t wanted—still didn’t want—the office phone ringing upstairs. I was determined these rooms would be a haven, a place where I could forget that my office and my work were literally under my feet, beneath my pillow, all the time.

I thundered down the wide oak stairs and into my office.

Rudy said, “It’s official. No file on Wenda Sims.”

I groaned and flopped into one of the armchairs, trailing the extra-long phone cord across the floor from my desk.

“Thank the County Council who wouldn’t cough up the money for secure storage until the old courthouse was crowded and crumbling at the seams.”

“So that’s it, huh? Somebody gets away with murder, because the evidence was thrown into a Dumpster full of sodden, moldy papers and photos.”

“Not exactly.”

“So? What’d you find, Mr. Brilliant Detective?”

“Not what. Who. Vince Ingum. The guy who retired to Myrtle Beach. He returned my phone call.”

He waited in vain for an admiring murmur of appreciation. Then he sprang his biggest surprise.

“He has copies of the file, along with the crime-scene photos.”

“You’re kidding?” Now I was awed and admiring.

“Talked to him this morning. Said that case was his one regret. Forty years in law enforcement, that’s the only murder he never solved.”

“So what’s next?”

“I’m going to see him tomorrow. Said he’d meet me in Columbia. You game?”

“Sure.” I immediately craved a chicken-fried steak at Yesterday’s, but it was their meeting; I figured they had their own favorite spots, maybe one featuring barbecue and rebel flags.

“Can you leave about eight? That’ll give us plenty of time, in case we want to stop for breakfast or something.”

In other words, Rudy knew he’d be hungry and knew a good place to eat on the way.

“See you then.”

Melvin met me in the hallway as I headed back upstairs.

“You just missed our new best friends,” he said.

“The ghosters?”

He nodded. “They came by to thank us for rescuing them last night from, as they said, that witchy little crazy woman. I told them I couldn’t take credit for that.”

He eyed me with suspicion, as if he hadn’t quite believed my story about not foreseeing the collision until it was too late.

“They also came to issue a very gracious invitation to the two of us for this evening.”

“Uh-oh.”

He chuckled. “Well said. They’re going to film a campfire storytelling session at Yellow Fork Camp. Ghost stories, of course. For background.”

“Yellow Fork?”

“Somebody’s rented it for the summer, to host a series of summer camps for kids. Unfortunately, a prior commitment prevents me from attending the evening’s festivities.”

I started to decline, but the possibilities for both hilarity and disaster struck me at almost the same time.

“I reckon somebody ought to go keep an eye on things.” And I did like bonfires and storytelling.

“Who better?” he said, his arms open, palms up. “If that witchy little crazy woman should materialize, for instance, you’ll have the proper counterincantation.”

“Seems to me your charms are what enchanted her.” Edna wasn’t what I was worried about. A bunch of screaming kids with whittle-pointed marshmallow sticks and the ghosters—who needed anything else to fret over?

“The festivities commence at nine o’clock,” he said.

“Isn’t that past the crumb-crunchers’ bedtime?” It would push up on mine, if I was heading out with Rudy in the morning, but the more I thought about it, the more I was both repelled and intrigued. “I’ll let you know what you missed.”

He smiled. “Take good notes.”

“You can wait for the movie version.”

I went back upstairs to finish my bathroom cleaning, dusting, and vacuuming. The nice thing about a small abode: It allowed a quick trip to a sense of order. I left the unpacked boxes pushed close against the wall. Those could stay put for a while longer—mostly winter clothes and a few books. Easier to dust without all that stuff anyway.

The mugginess persisted, hinting at either rain or more heat. I reminded myself, as I dressed in a short-sleeved knit top and shorts, that this weather was tame compared to the humidity and heat we’d find in Columbia tomorrow. I laced my walking shoes, grabbed my purse, and, at the last minute, grabbed my camera, though I didn’t know why. After supper at my parents’ house, I headed up the mountain as the air began to cool slightly.

The rutted dirt road to Yellow Fork turned off the two-lane and wound through the woods to a jumble of weathered gray buildings looking much as they had when I’d come in March to visit what I’d hoped would become a corporate client. They’d decided to pack up and move on. The place now teemed with kids, running and tagging each other and jumping and chattering. The counselors—identifiable only because they were taller than their charges and slightly less red-mud-tinged—seemed remarkably immune to the chaos.

I walked over to the closest counselor, her dark silk hair braided into a pigtail, her arms and legs bark-brown with the kind of tan my Scots-Irish genes can only covet.

“Hi. I’m Avery Andrews. I was invited up to the bonfire and storytelling?” With an earnest smile, I hoped to convey not only my purpose in coming but that I wasn’t a pervert or someone with evil designs on her campers. Her tired expression said she couldn’t care less. In fact, she might have paid me to cart off two
wildly screaming boys practicing their best cartoon ninja kicks on each other.

The counselor waved absently toward the picnic tables at the edge of the woods, close to the mess hall. I nodded my thanks—no opening for conversation with the banshees wailing—and strolled toward the shelter and tables. I’d come early, wanting to get here before dusk made it difficult to find my way.

Two male counselors, both lanky and thin with the loose-jointedness and slouch that serves as a uniform for guys their age, paid me no heed as I slid onto a picnic bench and watched them put the finishing touches on the wood stacked for the bonfire.

I was content to slip into the background. Before long, the frenetic activity and the decibel level calmed as though a mystical hand had passed over the campers. It took a moment for me to spot the cause.

A sheriff’s patrol car pulled slowly around the rough-paved drive. All the boys stood in awed attention, staring at the car. The girls kept chattering, I noticed, clustered in small bunches, heads together. But even they followed the patrol car’s progress.

The deputy rode with his window down, his arm resting on the window frame, offering a cool-hand wave to the kids as he drove past: Chief Deputy Rudy Mellin.

Who’d invited him?
I wondered.

As he parked, some of the more audacious kids ran over to his car, peered around him to study inside the car, and when he got out, stood with their heads cocked back listening to his every word and staring at his gun.

Two on the fringe of his groupie gathering mimed shooting at each other. One clutched his stomach and fell back in a puff of red dust, his legs straight up in the air before they thunked to earth.

Rudy chatted with his entourage as he made his way across
the large central yard to take a look down the slope toward the ball fields. He then strolled at a magisterial pace around the perimeter and sat at a picnic table twenty yards distance from mine, the kids still giving him their rapt attention.

No need to interrupt them. I kept my seat, my chin in my hand, listening to the chatter and laughter, smelled the pine tar and the lighter fluid, felt the air take on a clammy coolness as the sun began to disappear behind the thick trees. I hoped there’d be marshmallows.

About the same time the glow of the fireflies appeared, the ghosters pulled in, driving their honest-to-goodness Scooby-Doo van.

By the magic of an unseen hand, everyone began to drift together without an audible or visible signal. As dusk passed full into dark, the bonfire caught through the kindling and blazed, and the kids drew in around it, whether from the primitive mesmerism of fire or a conditioned response to the promise of scary stories and toasted marshmallows.

Trini saw me and waved, but Colin and Quint were too busy setting up their camera shots. Their handheld giant flashlight would scare the ghosts away if they weren’t careful.

As I followed their progress, I noticed other adults had gathered. A cluster of guys lounged at a picnic table on the opposite side of the bonfire from my perch. To my surprise, the motley assortment was soon joined by PeeVee Probert and Donlee Griggs. For the second time in two days, Donlee had appeared without his pumpkin-helmeted girlfriend. Even more surprising was seeing gigantic Donlee and his scrawny best buddy, PeeVee, up here partaking of wholesome family entertainment. Tap’s Pool Room was their usual haunt. Who’d been responsible for the guest list at this wingding?

PeeVee hitched his jeans up as he sauntered over to the crowd
of misfits. Something wasn’t right with that group. I wasn’t believing they’d driven up the mountain to listen to ghost stories. As I studied the half-dozen men, I got my first clue: they’d chosen seats facing the ghosters and their cameras, not the log where the storyteller would sit.

I winced. Word was surely out about the ghosters. Of course it was no surprise they’d attracted sightseers. I recognized several in the bunch as members of the Ghouly Boys, my pet name for the police-scanner addicts who rushed out at the first word of a bad wreck or other opportunity for gore. I’d seen the others around town or knew them from criminal court docket day at the courthouse. Unless this summer camp session was designed for the children of once and future convicts, I had a sneaking suspicion the ghosters had replaced car wrecks and drownings as the entertainment top bill in Camden County.

I couldn’t see what was so entertaining about watching the ghosters at work. Colin knelt in the dirt and climbed on picnic tables, studying his light meter and camera viewfinder. Trini stood around holding the hubcap-sized flashlight until Colin finally ordered her to switch off. Quint bristled with an assortment of straps and bags.

The kids weren’t paying any attention to Colin’s artistic posing. They were seated on the makeshift board-and-rock benches encircling the firepit or setting marshmallows on fire, watching flicks of sparks dance into the air like fireflies freed from the netherworld. I really wanted some marshmallows, but this wasn’t my party.