“What about grapes?”
“Got them in ‘fore the rains. Be real sweet ‘cause of the light drought this summer.”
“Do you recognize that corpse?”
“How would I?”
“Odd though it may seem, if that body belonged to someone you knew, you would probably recognize it even in its current condition. Nine times out of ten people do.”
“You mean, you show people something like that?”
“Only if we can’t make an identification by any other means. Naturally, you try to spare the family as much pain as possible.”
“I don’t know that”—he gesticulated—“don’t know the car. Don’t know why she came down this lane. Don’t know nothing.”
“George, I’m sorry this has happened to you. Why don’t you go on home? If I need you, I’ll call or come by.”
“You gonna take that outta here, aren’t you?”
“As soon as we finish dusting the car and taking photos.”
“Something in the air, Sheriff.”
“I beg pardon?” Rick leaned forward as if to draw closer to George’s meaning.
“Evil. Something in the air. The headmaster fella at the rich kids’ school and then that Hollywood blowhard stabbed by Kendrick Miller. Sometimes I think a door to the underworld opens and bad spirits fly out.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Rick, who thought George was slightly demented: nice but tilted.
“I was saying to Hilary the other day, evil flowing down the mountain with that cold wind. Life is an endless struggle between good and evil.”
“I expect it is.” Rick patted him on the back. “You go on home, now.”
George nodded good-bye. The dogs tagged at his heels. George, not more than thirty-five, thought and acted like a man in his sixties.
“Boss, we’re finished down here. You want a look before we wrap up?”
“Yeah.” Rick ambled over. There were no weapons in the car or in the trunk, which ruled out a self-inflicted wound. There was no purse. Usually if someone committed suicide by drug overdose, the vial would be around. Given the body’s state of decay, how she died would have to be determined by the coroner. “You satisfied?”
“Yes,” Cooper replied, holding out the car registration. “Winifred Thalman.”
“Okay.” He nodded to the rescue squad.
Diana Robb moved forward with a net. When a body was decomposed, they placed a net around it to keep bones and disintegrating flesh together as much as possible.
“I’m going back to the office,” Rick told Cynthia. “I’ll call New York Department of Motor Vehicles and start from there. If there’s a super at her address, I’ll call him, too. I want you to make the rounds.”
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yeah.”
“She would have been killed close to the time of Roscoe’s death.”
He picked up a brittle leaf, pulling away the drying upper epidermis, exposing the veins. “Could have.” He released the leaf to fall dizzily back to earth. “It’s the why.”
They looked at each other a long time. “Boss, how we gonna prove it?”
He shrugged. “Wait for a mistake.”
69
The drive back from Richmond, hypnotic in its boredom, found Irene and Jody silent. Irene swung onto the exit at Manakin-Sabot.
“Why are you getting off sixty-four?”
“I’ll stay more alert on two-fifty. More to see.”
“Oh.” Jody slumped back in her seat.
“Do you feel all right?”
“Tired.”
“That’s natural after what your body has just been through.”
“Mom, did you ever have an abortion?”
Irene cleared her throat. “No.”
“Would you?”
“I don’t know. I was never in your position. Your father thinks it’s murder.” Her brow furrowed. “How are you going to break this to him?”
“He should talk.”
“Don’t start, today. He’s a flawed man but he’s not a killer. Now, I’m going to tell him you had a miscarriage. Leave it to me.”
“We’re lucky he’s in jail.” Jody smiled weakly, adding, “If he was home he’d kill us!”
“Jody!”
“I’m sorry, but, Mom, he’s confused. People do have secret lives, and Dad is weird.”
Irene raised her voice. “You think he did it, don’t you? You think he killed Roscoe and McKinchie. I don’t know why. You ought to give your father more support.”
“Dad’s got an evil temper.”
“Not that evil.”
“You were going to divorce him. All of a sudden he’s this great guy. He’s not so great. Even in jail he’s not much different from when he was out of jail.”
A strangled silence followed. Then Irene said, “Everyone can change and learn. I know your pregnancy shocked him into looking at himself. He can’t change the past, but he can certainly improve the future.”
“Not if he gets convicted, he can’t.”
“Jody, shut up. I don’t want to hear another word about your father getting convicted.”
“It’s better to be prepared for the worst.”
“I’m taking this a day at a time. I can’t handle any more than I’m handling now, and you aren’t helping. You know your father is innocent.”
“I almost don’t care.” Jody sat up straight. “Just let me have what’s left of this year, Mom, please.”
Irene considered what her daughter said. Jody could seem so controlled on the outside, like her father, but her moods could also shift violently and quickly. Her outburst at the field hockey game, which now seemed years away, was proof of how unhappy Jody had been. She hadn’t seen her daughter’s problems because she was too wrapped up in her own. A wave of guilt engulfed her. A tear trickled down Irene’s pale cheek.
Jody noticed. “We’ll be okay.”
“Yes, but we’ll never be the same.”
“Good.”
Irene breathed in deeply. “I guess things were worse than I realized. The lack of affection at home sent you looking for it from other people . . . Sean in particular.”
“It was nice being”—she considered the next word—“important.”
They swooped right into the Crozet exit. As they decelerated to the stop sign, Irene asked, “Did you tell anyone else you were pregnant?”
“No!”
“I don’t believe you. You can’t resist talking to your girlfriends.”
“And you never talk to anyone.”
“Not about family secrets.”
“Maybe you should have, Mother. What’s the big deal about keeping up appearances? It didn’t work, did it?”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“No.”
“You told Karen Jensen.”
“I did not.”
“You two are as thick as thieves.”
“She hangs out with Brooks Tucker as much as she hangs out with me.” A thin edge of jealousy lined Jody’s voice. “Mom, hang it up.”
Irene burst into tears. “This will come back to haunt you. You’ll feel so guilty.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“It violates everything we’ve been taught. Oh, why did I agree to this? I am so ashamed of myself.”
“Mother, get a grip.” Icy control and icy fury were in Jody’s young face. “Dad’s accused of murder. You’re going to run the business. I’m going to college so I can come home and run the business. You can’t take care of a baby. I can’t take care of a baby.”
“You should have thought of that in the first place,” Irene, a hard edge now in her voice, too, shot back.
“Maybe you should have thought about your actions, too.” Jody’s glacial tone frosted the interior of the car.
“What do you mean?” Irene paused. “That silly idea you had that I was sleeping with Samson Coles. Where do you get those ideas? And then to accuse the poor man in the post office.”
“To cover your ass.”
“What!” Irene’s eyes bugged out of her head.
“You heard what I said—to cover your ass. You’d been sleeping with Roscoe. You thought I didn’t know.”
Irene sputtered, her hands gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. “How dare you.”