“By the way, Perry thinks of Alton as a suspect.”
“What?”
“Evidently Chester took a dislike to Alton when he came to town. Perry did some checking and it seems Alton moved here a year or so before Virginia Thistle disappeared. And he would’ve been here in all the years since… but most of all, Perry claims Alton’s got a criminal record. Did you know about that when you hired him?”
“Shit, Del, of course I knew about it. How the hell do you think Chester found out?”
“You told him?”
“Only to ease Chester’s mind. Whenever I hired a new gravedigger Chester got suspicious. Like most everybody else in the world, anybody who digs graves for a living has to be a psycho of some kind or another. Damn! I’m disappointed in Perry for thinking like that. Alton is good people. And he wouldn’t be dumb enough to hide a body where he works.” Vaughn looked at his watch, then glanced out the window to the left of the front entrance. “There’s Alton. I better go.” He continued talking as we went out the front door and walked to Alton’s car.
“One more thing Declass="underline" I don’t believe you’ll find another body in any mausoleum. In that Section alone there are twelve mausoleums. Seven of ’em got broken into before the punks stumbled onto the girl’s body. Odds are the killer would’ve hidden at least one of his other victims in one of them. My guess is that he hid her there as a fluke. I can’t tell you why. It’s just something I feel in my old bones.”
“So the bodies are hidden somewhere else?”
“I don’t know if ‘hidden’ is the right word. Anything could’ve happened to the other bodies… if there are other bodies.” We stopped a few feet from the car. “As for Alyssa, I remember how you felt when she broke off with you. You pined for her so bad it was enough to make a person cry. But I don’t ever remember you saying anything about her being murdered or kidnapped. So now, for you to dredge this all up and start to thinking she was killed by some mass murderer… it doesn’t make sense to me. Are you sure?”
“Like you always say, Vaughn… I feel it in my bones.”
Chapter 20
The last person left the afternoon viewing at a little before four. I was able to grab a couple of hours sleep before the evening viewing, which ran smoothly despite the constant influx of visitors.
I manned the front door and Clint handled the side entrance. I disliked large turnouts because of the problems of moving people and providing enough parking. Big crowds cost us money. I had to hire someone to supervise the comings and goings in the parking lot. On the other hand, the more people who came to pay their respects meant a less depressing two hours for the deceased’s family. One of the most heart-wrenching sights is three or four people sitting in a Viewing Room, alone with their thoughts and regrets.
Tyler stayed around for fifteen minutes to go over the logistics of the burial the next morning. It would be fairly standard, apart from the large crowd that was expected. Those who would be attending the funeral would arrive at the Home at 9:30 for the closing of the coffin. A procession would then drive the half-mile to Saint Richard’s Catholic Church for a requiem Mass, then head out to Elm Cross cemetery for the interment. The only difference between this and most other funerals would be the length of the procession. If they’re lucky, most people have four or five cars go to the cemetery. Tyler guessed that Alphonse would have three dozen.
As it turned out, there were thirty-eight cars and the most difficult part of the morning was keeping the procession together as it wound from the Home to the church to the cemetery. As always, I remained at gravesite until the burial was complete. From there I went to Nicola’s, an Italian restaurant in Dankworth that Tyler rented to receive visitors after the burial. There were so many people it was easy to get lost in the crowd. I seldom attended these gatherings, even if I knew the deceased or the family well. I thought of myself as a reminder of death and I felt strongly that the last time the survivors should see me was at the cemetery. The healing had to start immediately.
After about ten minutes I left and went back to the Home only to find Perry sitting in his cruiser. As I parked he got out and approached me.
“Let’s have a little chat.” He was arrying the box of Brandy Parker memorabilia that Quilla had given him.
“I’ve spent the last few hours going over this crap. Nothing more than the silly ramblings of a teenage girl. I hoped her notebooks might reveal something, ya know, but the stuff Brandy Parker wrote was ordinary things like ‘Kenny didn’t call me. It’s been ten days. I wonder what’s wrong.’ Or ‘I decided to stop wearing underwear when I go out at night.’ And there were some sections where she went into explicit detail about her sexual adventures.”
“Did she mention any names?”
“Not really. A first name. Like, ‘Bob wanted to screw me in the parking lot at K-Mart.’ Corny stuff. Stupid stuff. There was a lot of pages devoted to her feelings. The notebooks cover about four years. She died at nineteen, so she started writing in them at, say, fifteen. And the early stuff is random. Unfocused. One page will have references to ten different things. Music. Clothes. TV shows. Boys. Loneliness. Insomnia. She’ll talk about a teacher who she hates on one page. Then five months later, she has a crush on the same guy. In the last few months she seemed to change.”
“How so?”
“This might be the only thing I have to go on.” He picked up one of the journals and turned to a page he had marked. “It’s almost like a different person, but it’s definitely the same handwriting. Instead of describing guys she went out with or things she wanted to do she becomes serious, talking about self-esteem and being a worthwhile person and not being a victim anymore. She uses words like “entitlement” and expressions like “making a contribution” in the world. It’s like she suddenly found religion.”
“It wasn’t religion. What she found was Kyle Thistle’s daughter. Anything else?”
“That’s it. It’s all gonna come down to Gretchen Yearwood.” Perry sat down roughly in the Queen Anne style chair in front of my desk.
“And if she can’t give you anything to go on?”
“Then I’m flying blind. But I did have a notion about your girlfriend. If she didn’t send you the note and the postcard, obviously the killer did, right?”
“Right.”
“So the killer had to know that you and the girl were involved and where you lived. Which leads me to believe that he was extremely thorough or that he knew one or both of you. And on a strictly gut feeling, he probably knew you.”
“Why me?”
“If he knew her there’s a good chance he knew she broke up with you so there wouldn’t have been a reason for her to drop you a line. But if he knew you and didn’t know that you’d been dumped…logic dictates he’d cover his tracks by sending the note.” He leaned back in the chair, looking proud of himself. “When it happened fifteen years ago were you working at Henderson’s yet?”