“She didn’t even stay for graduation,” Denise added. “Just up and left one day. Without even a good-bye. They had to mail her diploma, didn’t they, Mrs. White?”
She looked at Linda. I blinked, surprised. Whoa, not much family resemblance there between the lovely and svelte creature from the photograph, in her shimmery gown and tiara, and her mother, overweight and boozy, in a wrinkled house dress and with rollers in her hair.
“You’re Holly’s mother?” slipped out of my mouth.
“For my sins.”
“Surely she can’t have been that bad?”
Linda didn’t answer. “She wasn’t bad,” Denise said. “Just… different, I guess. Waterfield was too small for her. She was always talking about how she needed to get out, to see places and do things. Exciting things. Because nothing exciting ever happens here.” She shrugged.
I looked around at the hustle and bustle of police cruisers and K-9 vehicles, cops and TV cameras. There was nothing slow and sleepy about what was going on in their quiet subdivision these days.
“Looks like something exciting has happened now,” I said.
13
I was pretty much stuck where I was for the time being, a fact that hadn’t occurred to me until now. But with Derek’s truck in the shop, and Derek off with Brandon, and Melissa long gone, and with Wayne stuck here processing and keeping watch over the new crime scene, I had no way to get back to Waterfield unless I wanted to walk. Which I didn’t.
Luckily, a ride arrived shortly in the form of Josh Rasmussen and Shannon McGillicutty.
Wayne wasn’t happy to see them, something the look on his face made abundantly clear as he stalked across the grass toward the blue Honda. “Listening to the secure channels again?” I heard him inquire tightly as Josh rolled down his window.
“Actually, dad,” his son responded, “it’s all over the news. Tony the Tiger on channel eight has been broadcasting live for the past two hours. Talking to the neighbors, giving updates of the cadaver dog, stuff like that. When he reported a second body twenty minutes ago, we figured we’d come see if there was anything we could do.”
“You did, huh?” Wayne said, ominously. Josh shrugged. “I’m paying fifteen grand a year for you to cut class, is that it?”
“Relax, dad.” Josh rolled his eyes. “I’m between classes, OK? I’ve been helping the anthropology department process the bones from the crawlspace. Dr. Hardiman said he’d be calling you this afternoon.” I’d heard Wayne and Josh mention Dr. Hardiman. He was a forensic anthropologist who had joined Barnham’s faculty a few years ago but still worked on a freelance basis for the Portland medical examiner. He’d probably never expected to have a case so close to home. “The dentist, Dr. Whitaker, stopped by this morning. He made a record of the teeth-marked which teeth had fillings and which didn’t-and said he’d check his records and notify you if he could identify the skeleton. Also, it is Professor Hardiman’s educated opinion that the skeleton is that of a young woman, and that she’s been in the ground no more than six years and no less than two.”
“So Derek was right,” I said.
Josh continued, “I took a photograph of the skull. I figure I’ll try to use a facial reconstruction program on the computer to see what I can come up with.”
“Facial approximation,” his father corrected. “You know how unreliable it is.”
“It’s mostly just for fun,” Josh said calmly. “You’ll probably get a hit on the dental records long before I get any results on the facial reconstruction, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.”
“As long as you let me know what you find,” Wayne said. “In fact, why don’t you go get started right now? I have work to do.”
“Can you give me a ride back to town?” I shot in. “Derek’s car is in the shop somewhere on Broad Street.”
“Sure,” Josh said. “Get in.”
I crawled into the back seat while the kids pestered Wayne for details on what was going on. He was circumspect, but a lot of what they’d discovered was public knowledge, thanks to Tony the Tiger. Wayne summarized what had happened this morning.
“Murdered?” Josh asked, eyes alight behind the glasses, after Wayne had finished. His father shrugged.
“Wow,” Shannon said. “I wonder why.”
“She probably knew something,” Josh answered. “Something she didn’t realize she knew. She was old. She’s probably been sitting behind her curtains for twenty years, looking out, seeing everybody coming and going. She probably saw the murderer as well as the victim-the woman in the basement-and just didn’t realize it.”
“Or maybe she did realize it,” Shannon responded. “Yesterday. Maybe she didn’t know that the woman was dead until then, but when she heard about the bones, she realized who it had to be, and also who killed her. And maybe she told the killer that she was going to turn him or her in.”
Josh nodded eagerly. “That’d work. Maybe she asked him or her-the murderer-to stop by, because she was old and couldn’t get around well.”
“She could get around just fine,” I said, remembering Venetia stomping across the grass toward me. “She may have been old, but she wasn’t frail. Or weak, either.” Venetia had been bigger and taller than me, and she had carried both Maine coon cats at the same time, from her yard to our front door, the other day. I sometimes had a problem trying to lift just one, especially if he-Jemmy-didn’t want to be lifted. He weighed almost twenty pounds and could make himself seem twice as heavy when he wanted to. It was like trying to hoist a sandbag.
“OK, then,” Josh said gamely, “so maybe the murderer worried that she’d seen him and knew who he was, and so he decided to pay Miss Rudolph a visit to find out how much she knew. And when she told him she had seen him with the victim-or maybe he tipped her off, just by coming-he had to kill her before she could tell anyone else.”
“Makes sense,” I admitted. Shannon nodded. Josh looked at his dad for approval.
“I’ll look into it,” Wayne said. “As soon as you push off and let me get back to work.”
“Yessah!” Josh dashed off a salute and a cocky grin before putting the car back into gear and rolling sedately down the road away from the house.
“Where’s Paige today?” I asked after we had turned the corner and all the hoopla on Becklea was behind us. “And Ricky?” Every time I’d seen them lately, Ricky Swanson had been with them, so it was almost strange not to see him today.
“They’re at school,” Josh said. “I asked them if they wanted to come, but they said no.”
“Are they going out?”
Paige had been recovering from a rather unfortunate love affair last winter, one that had ended tragically, but I thought I had noticed signs that she might be developing an interest in Ricky. It would explain why he was always hanging out with the three of them, anyway, when they didn’t seem to have a whole lot in common, personality-wise. Then again, Paige had never seemed to have much in common with Josh and Shannon, either; it was more a matter of a life-long friendship between her and Josh, which had grown to include Shannon when the latter moved to Waterfield six years ago.
“Who knows?” Shannon said with a shrug.
“Hard to know what Ricky’s thinking,” Josh added, “though Paige seems to like him.”
“Do you like him?” I looked from one to the other of them.
Josh shrugged. “Don’t know him very well yet.”
“I’m reserving judgment,” Shannon said. “So far, so good. Just as long as he doesn’t hurt her. She’s been through enough lately.”
I nodded. Couldn’t argue with that.
“What’s wrong with Derek’s car?” Josh changed the subject.
“The brakes gave out.” I gave them an abbreviated version of what had happened this morning and listened to their exclamations.