"He has a six-year-old daughter."
Susanna was silent.
"I slept in his guest room last night," Tess added.
"And?"
"There's a certain attraction at work between us."
"No kidding. Davey already told me, you know."
"Davey? He saw us together for maybe three seconds-"
"All it takes."
Tess gave up. Even Susanna's clients knew not to expect false comfort from her, just her bald assessment of the facts. Her reality checks could leave clients teetering, but they knew where they stood, what they had to do. Often, they knew it before they sat down with her, but needed that blunt back-and-forth with her to admit it.
"Tell me what you know about dead bodies," Tess said.
Susanna cast her a calculating look, vivid green eyes narrowed. "What makes you think I know anything about dead bodies? I know money."
"Your ex-husband's a Texas Ranger. You must have picked up a few things."
"My ex-husband's a snake in the grass," she said calmly.
Tess judiciously remained silent.
Susanna groaned. "Okay, okay. I suppose you want to know how long it takes a corpse to turn into a skeleton?"
"Pretty much."
"For this, I deserve a walk on the beach. Shall we?"
Susanna refused to say another word until they'd crossed the main road, climbed over the rocks and were walking along the cold, wet sand in their bare feet. She breathed in the salt air. "Best to talk about dead bodies when the air is good."
"I took anatomy in art school, but we didn't get into this sort of detail."
"Flesh rotting off bones, you mean? It didn't come up in my money classes, either." She stopped a moment, curling up her toes in the sand. "I missed the ocean in San Antonio, I have to say, although there's nothing quite like a Texas sunset. All right. Dead bodies. Conditions make a difference. A body left out in the open in hot, wet conditions would decompose rapidly. Cool, dry conditions delay decomposition. Usually. Take Ben Franklin and company down in Old Granary."
"Ben Franklin's buried in Philadelphia," Tess said. "His parents are buried in Old Granary."
"Whatever. Point is, the ground there was wet and spongy. That would speed things up."
Tess grimaced. "Gross."
"You asked."
"I know. What else?"
"An unclothed body tends to decompose faster than one that's clothed, especially if it's tight clothing."
"The mummy effect."
"Was your body-"
"I didn't see any clothes," Tess said quickly. "That doesn't mean there weren't any."
"If I buried a body in a cellar and wanted to hurry up decomposition, I'd strip it. It'd be a pain in the neck, but you have to figure the whole business wouldn't be much fun. I'd take the time."
And unclothed remains might take longer to identify, buying time for whoever had-what? Tess shuddered at the thought-the real possibility-that she'd stumbled on a murder victim.
"Most of this is common sense," Susanna went on. "We've all seen dead deer and skunks and such on the side of the road. It's a different picture in summer than in winter, in Florida than in Wyoming. You follow?"
"Oh, yes. I follow."
"As I recall, children and diseased bodies tend to decompose faster than healthy adults." She let the tide wash over her ankles, yelped at the cold water and dashed back to the warm, dry sand, then went back for more. "Also, fat people go faster than skinny people."
"I don't even want to think about that one. It's disgusting."
"Think of it as natural. Mutilated bodies also decompose faster. Makes sense, don't you think?"
Tess walked along the sand, the cold water lapping at her feet as she thought about the natural process of decomposition occurring on a corpse buried in a shallow grave in the carriage house cellar. What she saw the other night had to be her imagination. "What would slow decomposition?" she asked quietly.
"Dry, cool conditions, as I said. And bogs. If you get dumped in a bog, your body can last for ages." She shrugged, matter-of-fact. "Anthropologists love bogs."
Tess breathed out. "Charming."
"A lot of people think lime speeds decomposition, and it can, but only if the body's wet. Otherwise it can slow the process. And arsenic. Arsenic slows decomposition."
"There's lime in the cellar. For the lilacs."
"I noticed."
"Could a body buried in the carriage house cellar last March, when Ike took off, decompose between then and now?"
"Yes."
Tess couldn't speak, felt her head spinning. She was so cold that the seawater seemed warm under her feet.
"Are you going to barf?" Susanna asked.
"No. I'll be okay."
"You want me to throw water on your face?"
"I'm fine."
"Tess, I want you to listen to me. Whatever you saw the other night is dead or nonexistent. If they're dead, they know how they died, and they know how they ended up in that cellar. You don't need to know." Susanna grabbed Tess by the shoulders, her thick, black curls hanging down her shoulders, her eyes bright, intense. "Nobody gets buried in a cellar for a good reason."
Tess nodded grimly. "I know."
"Chances are there's no truth to be found out and justice to be served here. Even if there is, it's not your job."
"That's what I keep telling myself." Her voice was quiet, calmer than she'd anticipated. "Right now, I'm ending up looking like some hysterical nut."
Susanna gave her a pointed look. "Better than ending up buried in someone else's cellar."
Tess managed a smile. "True."
"Now, are you feeling better? You're not going to throw up or faint?"
"I'm fine."
"Good, because Ahab's walking across the rocks."
"You're thinking of Ishmael. Ahab's the one with the missing leg."
Susanna grimaced at the approaching figure of Andrew Thorne. "If this guy favors his ancestors, I can see why Moby Dick wanted a piece of Ahab. Talk about your take-no-prisoners type. Can't you see him on deck with a harpoon?"
"The whaling industry did incredible damage-"
"Tess. I'm not talking about endangered species. I'm talking about your neighbor. You've seen him with his daughter. I haven't."
"What are you saying?"
Her expression turned serious, less animated. "I'm saying you should be careful before you end up way over your head in very deep, cold water."
Andrew arrived, squinting at the two women in the bright sun. "Am I interrupting?"
Susanna Galway gave him her brightest, prettiest smile, which Tess had seen melt even Davey Ahearn and Jim Haviland. "We were just discussing nine-teenth-century American literature. Doesn't this place make you think of Herman Melville?"
Tess could see Andrew didn't believe Susanna. He knew they'd been talking about him. But he said, "I can see how it would." Then he turned to Tess. "Word's out about last night. Lauren Montague's here."
Susanna dropped her shoes onto the sand and tucked one foot in at a time. "Time I headed back to Boston. Tess?"
"Later," she said, aware, as Susanna would be, of Andrew's eyes on her.
"You'll call me?"
Tess nodded and slipped on her own shoes, remembering running on the beach as a child, flying a kite, listening to her mother tell tales of New England history, her father watching her every move, knowing that their time together was short. She felt as she did then, aware of what was going on, yet determined to pretend as if her life were normal and nothing bad would happen.
Fifteen
In daylight, Lauren was even more impressed with what she'd done last night. It was a miracle she hadn't been caught. She breathed in the scent of lilacs, now, forever, mingled with the stench of death. Of Ike. Her brother. Dear God, if only he'd let Joanna Thorne find her own way out of her restlessness and depression. If only he'd left Beacon-by-the-Sea after her death instead of hanging around, cheerful, dreaming big dreams, on the prowl for someone else to idolize him.
For a while, Lauren had been sure it was Tess Haviland her brother had chosen as his new project. Yet, as the young graphic designer walked up the carriage house driveway, Andrew Thorne beside her, the hem of her jeans damp and sandy, her short blond curls whipped by the wind and her cheeks decidedly pale, Lauren knew it couldn't be so. Ike went for the vulnerable, the depressed, the ones who wouldn't act on their own dreams without him. That wasn't this woman. It might not have been Joanna, if he'd left well enough alone.