Charlotte leaned against the sink she was laughing so hard. “You fool. That’s not a dead girl. It’s a mannequin. Someone dressed up a mannequin and left it on my porch. Those fool deputies called it in that it was that dead girl that was stolen from her grave.”
Jackie felt the sweat slip down her back and into the waistband of the jeans that hung on her hips. Mannequin. Someone had left a mannequin in a rocking chair. She went outside and pulled the sheet off the body. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to paint the mannequin’s face and dress her in a red, sheer nighty that looked like it came from Frederick’s of Hollywood.
She took the photos, capturing the glassy-eyed stare of the plastic woman. When she looked down the driveway, Sheriff Hilbun and all the deputies were clustered, watching her.
“I heard you thought it was the body of that girl someone dug up,” Hilbun said.
“Yeah, that was the call that came in to the paper.”
“Must have been old home week with Charlotte Rush for you,” Hilbun said.
Jackie sensed the ground had shifted. “Why should it?”
“Your daddy was sweet on Charlotte. He never mentioned that, did he?”
Jackie rubbed the back of her neck beneath her long blond hair. “No, he didn’t. I guess he figured his love life was none of my affair. He’d be right about that.” She picked up her equipment and left the men standing in the driveway.
Jackie sat on her own front porch with a glass of whiskey on the rocks. She sipped her drink and smoked a cigarette. She thought back on the evenings her daddy came home late, smelling of perfume and drink. She’d never asked him. She’d never wanted to think of him with anyone other than her mother, who’d died when she was thirteen. Cancer. A long, ugly death that stole everything from Tilda. First her health, then her looks, then her joy in living, until she’d finally had enough.
Jackson had seen her through it all, feeding, washing, cleaning, bathing, loving. Jackie had never begrudged her dad the solace of another woman after Tilda was gone. But she didn’t want to know the details or the woman. But Charlotte Rush?
She threw her cigarette butt into the dying flower bed and went inside to sleep.
She was up early the next morning, long before dawn. As she headed downtown, she watched the colors of the sky shift from indigo to peachy shades of gold and finally the blue-white of fair weather.
She parked in the newspaper lot and locked her car. When Jet Swanson appeared from behind the corner of a building, she couldn’t stop herself from reacting. She uttered a cry and stepped back.
“You shouldn’t have made that picture of my daughter’s grave.” His eyes were flat but alert.
“I get an assignment from my boss and I do what I’m told to do.”
“Somehow I don’t believe that, Jackie. I know you.”
She’d recovered her balance. “And I know you. Why do you think I’d do something like that?”
“That’s what I’ve come to ask. Why? And to tell you I want my daughter’s body back. I want her back in the ground and left alone. Now, you’ve got till midnight tomorrow to put her right back in that coffin. You call me when it’s done and I’ll send some boys around to fill in the dirt.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
“Folks said you’re smarter than your daddy. Prove it. This is your get-out-of-jail-free card, Jackie. Put her back. That’ll be the end of it.”
“And if I don’t — assuming I have a dead body hidden somewhere?”
“I can put you in that coffin and cover you up. One way or the other, I’m telling my wife that a dead girl is in the cemetery. You get me?”
“Why would I take your girl like that? What have you done that makes you think I’d even attempt it?”
“You’re smart, but you aren’t right, Jackie. Obsessed with vengeance. That’s the word. It’s no secret you think I killed your daddy.”
“I do. Are you denying it?” Her body was trembling.
“You’re not such a fool that you think I’d admit it even if I had done it.” He leaned in and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Midnight tomorrow. I’ll be waiting at the cemetery.”
He brushed past her and walked away, disappearing down the gray street in the pale light of dawn, leaving her to face a long day of questions and anxiety.
Jackie woke from a troubled sleep to the sound of gunshots. Just as she sat up in bed, the window of her room shattered. Glass blew in toward her, and she ducked and rolled. Two bullets smacked into the bedroom wall.
When her breathing finally settled back to normal, she crawled up and got a rifle from her father’s closet. She went to the back door and slipped into the night. She couldn’t see, but neither could they.
A milky film of fog covered the stars and moon, dripping steadily from the trees onto the dying leaves. She knew the woods and moved through the trees without hesitation, making her way to the narrow road. When she saw the sandy lane, she found a place tucked near a fallen scrub oak and set up the rifle, braced on the tree. A hoot owl cried into the night, and she was glad for the company. Whoever had taken a shot at her house was gone. The wild creatures told her that much.
She went back to her house and examined the damage. It was more warning than threat. Not worth involving the law, who’d been eager for an invite onto her property since Jackson had died. She’d handle this herself.
Her phone rang, startling her to the point that she almost dropped the rifle. She put it away, convinced the danger had passed. For the moment. She answered the phone, expecting to hear Jet Swanson’s voice. Instead, there was only the sound of breathing, and in the background, a sweet chorus of young women singing “Softly and Tenderly.” She realized it was a recording. A train whistle shrilled in the distance, but she couldn’t tell if it was on the recording or from the location of the caller.
“Who is this?” She waited. “Who is this?” She was hanging up when she heard what she thought was a sob. The line went dead.
Jackie held the phone for a long moment before she put it back in the cradle. She pulled on her clothes, grabbed the rifle, and headed to the still. Long before she got there, she saw the fire. Someone had torched her still. The blaze danced above the treetops. An explosion that literally rocked the car told her there was nothing to salvage.
She swung the car so the headlights illuminated the path through the woods and stopped. A white dress had been draped over a set of shrubs. The Empire waist and longer skirt told her exactly what kind of dress it was. She slammed on the brakes and froze. “Angels in White.” She whispered the words aloud before she leaped out of the car and snatched the white dress. She completed her U-turn and headed away from the still, going as fast as she dared.
There was nothing she could do to save the operation. Someone had put her out of business. Destroyed the thing her father took pride in. And left her a message. Angels in White.
Her certainty that Jet Swanson was the man responsible for her father’s death was shaken. Jet would kill a man, no doubt about it. He would kill a woman. But he would not dig up his daughter or use her church clothes to make a threat. Fire trucks passed on the main road. She gave the police another fifteen minutes to get to the scene, then grabbed her camera and drove to the still. Taking photos for the newspaper gave her a reason to be at the scene. An empty gas can had been left fifty feet back from the still. Hardly necessary with that much alcohol right at hand.
To her surprise, Deputy Stewart was the man in charge. “Any clues as to what happened?” she asked.
He scoffed. “I thought you might be able to tell me.”
“I was home, asleep. Heard the sirens.” The flames had died down considerably, and the volunteer firemen were spraying the surrounding trees to prevent sparks from jumping.