"Very." We weren't passing a cemetery, and I wasn't getting the feel of a newly embalmed corpse, which might indicate a funeral home. This impression was too fresh, the pull too strong.
They want to be found, you know.
Instead of going straight, which would've gotten us to the motel, I turned left, following the mental "scent." I pulled over into the parking lot of a small gas station. My head jerked again as I listened to the voice calling to me from the overgrown lot on the other side of the street. I say "scent" and "voice," but what draws me is not really something as clear-cut as those words indicate.
About three yards into the lot was the facade of a building. From what I could read of the scorched and dangling sign, this was the former site of Evercleen Laundromat. Judging by the state of the remains of the building, Evercleen had burned halfway to the ground some years before.
"In the ruin, over there," I told Tolliver.
"Want me to check?"
"Nah. I'll call Branscom when I get in the room." We gave each other brief smiles. There's nothing like a concrete example to establish my bona fides. Tolliver gave me an approving nod.
I put the car into drive again. This time we reached our motel and checked into our respective rooms with no interruption. We need a break from each other after being together all day; that's the reason for the separate rooms. I don't think either of us is excessively modest.
My room was like all the others I've slept in over the past few years. The bedspread was green and quilted and slick, and the picture above the bed was a bridge somewhere in Europe, looked like. Other than those little identifiers, I could have been in any cheap motel room, anywhere in America. At least it smelled clean. I pulled out my makeup-and-medicine bag and put it in the little bathroom. Then I went and sat on the bed, leaning over to peer at the dial-out instructions on the ancient telephone. After I'd looked up the right number in the little area phone book, I called the law enforcement building and asked for the sheriff. Branscom's voice came on in less than a minute, and he was clearly less than happy to talk to me a second time. He started in again on how I'd been misrepresented—as if I'd had anything to do with that—and I interrupted him.
"I thought you'd like to know that a dead man named something like Chess, or Chester, is in the burned laundromat on Florida Street, about five blocks off the square."
"What?" There was a long moment of silence while Harvey Branscom let that soak in. "Darryl Chesswood? He's at home in his daughter's house. They added on a room for him last year when he began to forget where he lived. How dare you say such a thing?" He sounded honestly, righteously, offended.
"That's what I do," I said, and laid the receiver gently on its cradle.
The town of Sarne had just gotten a freebie.
I lay back on the slippery green bedspread and crossed my hands over my ribs. I didn't need to be a psychic to predict what would happen now. The sheriff would call Chesswood's daughter. She would go to check on her dad, and she'd find he was gone. The sheriff would probably go to the site himself, since he'd be embarrassed to send a deputy on such an errand. He'd find Darryl Chesswood's body.
The old man had died of natural causes—a cerebral hemorrhage, I thought.
It was always refreshing to find someone who hadn't been murdered.
T HE next morning, when Tolliver and I entered the coffee shop (Kountry Good Eats) that was conveniently by the motel, the whole group was there, ensconced in a little private room. The doors to the room were open, so they couldn't miss our entrance. The dirty plates on the table in front of them, the two empty chairs, and the pot of coffee all indicated we were anticipated. Tolliver nudged me, and we exchanged looks.
I was glad I'd already put on my makeup. Usually, I don't bother until I've had my coffee.
It would have been too coy to pick another table, so I led the way to the open doors of the meeting room, the newspaper I'd bought from a vending machine tucked under my arm. The cramped room was almost filled with a big round table. Sarne's movers and shakers sat around that table, staring at us. I tried to remember if I'd combed my hair that morning. Tolliver would've told me if I'd looked really bed-headed, I told myself. I keep my hair short. It has lots of body, and it's curly, so if I let it grow, I have a black bush to deal with. Tolliver is lucky; his is straight, and he lets it grow until he can tie it back. Then he'll get tired of it and whack it off. Right now, it was short.
"Sheriff," I said, nodding. "Mr. Edwards, Ms. Teague, Mr. Vale. How are you all this morning?" Tolliver held out my chair and I sat. This was an extra, for-show courtesy. He figures the more honor he shows me publicly, the more the public will feel I'm entitled to. Sometimes it works that way.
The waitress had filled my coffee cup and taken my first swallow before the sheriff spoke. I tore my gaze away from my paper, still folded by my plate. I really, really like to read the paper while I drink my coffee.
"He was there," Harvey Branscom said heavily. The man's face was ten years older than it'd been the night before, and there was white stubble on his cheeks.
"Mr. Chesswood, you mean." I ordered the fruit plate and some yogurt from a waitress who seemed to think that was a strange choice. Tolliver got French toast and bacon and a flirtatious look. He's hell on waitresses.
"Yeah," the sheriff said. "Mr. Chesswood. Darryl Chesswood. He was a good friend of my father's." He said this with a heavy emphasis, as if the fact that I'd told him where the old man's body was had laid the responsibility for the death at my door.
"Sorry for your loss," Tolliver said, as a matter of form. I nodded. After that, I let the silence expand. With a gesture, Tolliver offered to refill my coffee cup, but I raised my hand to show him how steady it was today. I took another deep sip gratefully, and I topped the cup off. I touched Tolliver's mug to ask if he was ready for more, but he shook his head.
Under the furtive scrutiny of all those eyes, I wasn't able to open the newspaper I had folded in front of me. I had to wait on these yahoos to make up their minds to something they'd already agreed to do. I'd felt optimistic when I'd seen them waiting for us, but that optimism was rapidly deteriorating.
A lot of eye signaling was going on among the Sarnites (Sarnians?). Paul Edwards leaned forward to deliver the result of all this conferencing. He was a handsome man, and he was used to being noticed.
"How did Mr. Chesswood die?" he asked, as if it were the bonus question.
"Cerebral hemorrhage." God, these people. I looked at my paper longingly.
Edwards leaned back as though I'd socked him in the mouth. They all did some more eye signaling. My fruit arrived—sliced cantaloupe that was hard and tasteless, canned pineapple, a banana in the peel, and some grapes. Well, after all, it was fall. When Tolliver had been served his eggs and toast, we began to eat.
"We're sorry there may have been some hesitation last night," Sybil Teague said. "Especially since it seems you, ah, interpreted it as us backing out on our agreement."
"Yes, I did take it that way. Tolliver?"
"I took it that way, too," he said solemnly. Tolliver has acne-scarred cheeks and dark eyes and a deep, resonant voice. Whatever he says sounds significant.
"I just got cold feet, I guess." She tried to look charmingly apologetic, but it didn't work for me. "When Terry told me what he'd heard about you, and Harvey agreed to contact you, we had no idea what we were getting into. Hiring someone like you is not something I've ever done before."
"There is no one like Harper," Tolliver said flatly. He was looking up from his plate, meeting their eyes.