An Ice Cold Grave (11 page)

“Tolliver,” I said, “we have to find a place to stay. They're not going to let us leave after all.” We should have taken off from the pharmacy, taken off and never looked back.

My brother was beside me instantly. He looked at Sheriff Rockwell for a long, long moment. “Then you have to find us a place to stay,” he said. “We gave up our motel room.”

With unexpected lucidity, Xylda said, “You can stay with us. It'll be cramped, but it's better than staying in the jail.”

I thought of squeezing in a bed with Xylda while Tolliver and Manfred slept two feet away. I thought of other possible sleeping arrangements. I thought the jail might be better. “Thanks so much,” I said, “but I'm sure the sheriff can help us find something.”

“I'm not your travel agent,” Rockwell said. She seemed to be glad to find something to be mad about. “But I realize you had planned on leaving, and I'll try to think of something. It's your fault the town's this crowded.”

There was a long moment of silence in the barn, as everyone within hearing range stared at her.

“Not exactly your fault,” she said.

“I think not,” I said.

“Everyone in town has rented out every room they've got,” a deputy said. His uniform said he was Tidmarsh—Rob Tidmarsh, the neighbor, then. “The only place I can think of is Twyla Cotton's lake house.”

The sheriff brightened. “Give her a call, Rob.” She turned back to us. “Thanks for coming here, and we'll figure out what to do with the juvenile delinquent here.”

“He won't go to jail?”

“Tom,” the sheriff said, raising her voice, “you and Chuck come here.”

The two looked relieved that someone was finally talking to them. I didn't want Chuck anywhere close to me, and I took a couple of steps back. I knew he was only thirteen. I knew he wasn't going to hurt me there and then. And I knew that his life was still full of choices and possibilities, and he could change himself if he saw the need to.

Sheriff Rockwell said, “Tom, we're not going to take Chuck away from you.”

Tom Almand's narrow shoulders slumped in relief. He was such a pleasant-looking man, the kind of guy who'd be glad to accept your UPS package from the carrier or to feed your cat while you were out of town. “So what will we need to do?” His voice caught on the words as though his mouth were dry.

“There'll be a hearing with the judge. We'll work it all out. What would help is you getting Chuck into some counseling—that should be easy, huh?—even before the hearing. And you gotta keep a watch on your kid.”

Sheriff Rockwell looked down at the boy, so I did, too. For God's sake, he had freckles. There'd never been an
Andy Griffith
episode called “Opie Skins a Cat.”

Chuck was looking at me with almost equal fascination. I don't know why most young men are so interested in me. I don't mean guys my own age, I mean younger. I sure don't intend to attract them. And I don't look like anybody's mom.

“Chuck, you look at
me
,” the sheriff said.

The boy did look toward Rockwell, with eyes as blue and clear as a mountain lake. “Yes'm.”

“Chuck, you've been having bad thoughts and doing bad things.”

He looked down hastily.

“Did any of your friends help you, or was this all your doing?”

There was a long pause while Chuck Almand tried to work out which answer would give him some advantage.

“It was just me, Sheriff,” Chuck said. “I just felt so bad after my mom…”

He paused artistically, as if he could not speak the word.

Tolliver and I knew lying when we heard it. We had lied convincingly to everyone in the school system in Texarkana to keep our family together as our parents circled the drain. We knew this boy was not telling the truth. I was ashamed of him hiding behind his mother's death. At least she'd died of something honorable. She hadn't wanted to leave her family.

The boy made the mistake of glancing back at me. He probably thought he could pull any adult female under with that little hitch in his voice. When my eyes met his, he twitched—not quite a flinch, but close.

“Maybe the psychic could tell us more,” Sheriff Rockwell suggested. “Such as whether he's telling the truth about working alone or not.” I don't think she meant it; I think she was looking for a reaction from the boy that would tell her what she wanted to know. But of course, the psychic in question took her quite seriously.

Xylda said from behind me, “I'm not going within a yard of the little bastard,” and Tom Almand said desperately, “This is my
son
. My child.” He put his arm around the boy, who made a visible effort not to throw it off.

I turned to look at the old psychic. Xylda and I exchanged a long gaze. Manfred looked down at his grandmother and shook his head. “You don't have to, Grandmother,” he said. “They wouldn't believe you anyway. Not the law.”

“I know.” She looked sadder and older in that moment.

“Lady,” said Chuck Almand. His voice was very young and very urgent, and I found he was talking to me. “It's true that you can find bodies?”

“Yes.”

“They have to be dead?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, as if confirming a suspicion. “Thanks for telling me,” he said, and then his father drew him away to talk to a few more people.

After that, the day was out of our hands. After a lot of chatter right out of our range of hearing, Sheriff Rockwell told us that Twyla had said we could use her lake house.

“It's at Pine Landing Lake,” Sandra Rockwell said. “Parker, Twyla's son, is coming to lead you there.”

It was a huge relief to have a place to stay, though if no one had supplied a bed, they would simply have had to let us leave town. I was definitely feeling just like a person who'd been released from the hospital that morning; not seriously ill, but tired and a little shaky. The police were digging for the animal corpses, I suppose to make sure there weren't any human remains mixed in. We were shunted over to the side of the barn where the earth was clearly undisturbed. Tolliver and I, Manfred, and Xylda stood in a silent row. Every now and then someone in uniform would dart a curious glance in our direction.

By the time Parker McGraw got there to take us to his mother's lake house, the media had discovered the police were at the old barn and were swarming around like flies on a carcass, though they were kept at a distance by the town cops. They were yelling my name from time to time.

After a handshake with Tolliver, Manfred led Xylda out to draw them off us. “Grandmother loves the photographers,” he said. “Just watch.” We did. Xylda, her flaming red hair outlining her creased round face like a scarf, strode off across the empty meadow with Manfred in colorful attendance. She paused by her car, with a reluctance so fake it was almost funny, to give the eager reporters a few well-chosen words. “She's ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille,” Manfred said. He leaned over to kiss my cheek and followed her.

While Xylda was enjoying her moment, Tolliver and I did an end run around the mob to reach Parker's truck. Though I had only a faint recollection of what the truck looked like, Tolliver had admired it when we'd seen it in Twyla's driveway and he led me right to it.

Twyla's son was big and burly, dressed in the usual jeans and flannel shirt and down vest. His boots were huge and streaked with dirt. His mom hadn't had enough money when he was young to take him to the orthodontist.

He shook Tolliver's hand heartily. He was a little more tentative about shaking mine, as if women in his milieu didn't often offer to shake.

“Let's get out of here while the getting's good,” he said, and we slid into his truck as quickly as we could. Tolliver had to give me a boost. We were really jammed in, since Parker had brought his son Carson. He introduced us, and even under the circumstances, Parker's pride in the boy shone through.

Carson was a dark boy, with a husky build. He was short; he hadn't gotten his growth yet. He had a broad face like his grandmother, and his eyes were clear and brown. He was subdued and silent, which I guess was no wonder, since the body of his brother had been discovered.

“Our car's at the back of the police station,” Tolliver said, and Parker nodded. He seemed friendly enough, but he was a man of few words.

However, once we were clear of the media traffic Parker said, “I didn't get a chance to thank you the other day. We didn't show you any hospitality, either, but I guess you can understand why.”

“Yes,” I said, and Tolliver nodded. “Don't think twice about it. We did the job we came here to do.”

“Yes, you did it. You didn't take my mama's money and run for the hills with it. She's a woman who's always done what she thought was right, and she thought calling you two in was right. I don't mind telling you, I disagreed with her real strong, and I told her so. But she knew her own mind, and she was right. Them other two…” He shook his head. “We didn't know how lucky we was with you-all until we saw those two.”

He meant Manfred and Xylda. I glanced to my side to see how Carson was taking all this. He was certainly listening, but he didn't seem upset.

“I'm glad you have a high opinion of us,” I said, struggling to find a way to express myself tactfully. “But you really can't judge a book by its cover, at least in Xylda Bernardo's case. She's the real deal. I do realize that the way she looks and acts does put some people off.” I hoped I'd been conciliatory enough to coax him into listening to me.

“That was real Christian of you,” Parker McGraw said after he'd thought over my words for a few minutes. Just when I was beginning to think the subject was closed he added, “But I guess we'll be coming to you for all our supernatural needs.” He had a sense of humor after all. But it went back behind the cloud of his grief as soon as I'd glimpsed it. “It don't seem right, enjoying anything, when our son is gone from this earth.” In a gesture that just about broke my heart, Carson laid his head on his dad's shoulder just for a second.

“I'm so sorry,” I said. “I wish I could tell you who did it.”

“Oh, we're going to find out who done it,” he said, without a shadow of a doubt in his voice. “Me and Bethalynn, we got to. We got Carson here, he deserves to grow up without being afraid.”

Carson's eyes met mine. He didn't seem afraid right now, but he had his dad beside him. The boy's calm eyes told me that Carson had been brought up in the expectation that adults would protect him from harm. Nothing had happened to shake that expectation. Even though his brother had been taken, Carson was sure he would not be. I hoped he was right.

Parker seemed to think that Doraville would be safe if he discovered and eliminated the man who'd killed his son. He seemed to think it would be easy to do this. For a moment, I jeered at him in my head; but then I reminded myself of what this man had gone through. He had a right to any fantasy he chose if it would help him get through this life.

We all have our fantasies.

THE
cabin at the lake had been used by the Cotton family for forty years or more. In recent years, the McGraw family had enjoyed it. Parker said that at first they'd felt like intruders, but the surviving children of Archie Cotton were well into their sixties and had no children of their own living in Doraville any longer. They seemed content to let the children of their dad's wife enjoy the old place.

“Jeff loved it out there,” Parker said. “Me and Carson, we'll stay out there and go fishing in the spring, won't we, Carson?”

“Sure,” Carson said. “We'll catch some fish for Mom to clean. She loves to clean fish
so much.
” That startled a smile out of his dad.

The deputy on duty had buzzed us into the fenced parking lot behind the police station. Tolliver and I scrambled out of the truck and got in our car. We followed Parker out of the parking lot.

Pine Landing Lake was about ten miles out of Doraville in a northeastern direction, and those ten miles were up a twisting, narrow two-lane road. We had met light traffic along the way. The lake seemed to be close to a community much smaller than Doraville, a dot on the map called Harmony. We didn't drive all the way around the lake, but at some points I could see its farther shore quite clearly. There were dwellings scattered around the lake, ranging from homes that looked year-round habitable to structures that were little more than open-air pavilions.

“This would be beautiful in summer,” I said, and Tolliver nodded.

We followed Parker's truck at a respectful distance, and when he turned into a narrow driveway we followed, going sharply downhill for a few yards until we could park beside the truck at a broad flat spot by the shore.

The Cotton property was on one of the larger lots. It was a two-story building of very modest size, and you could tell it had been there a lot longer than some of the others because of the huge trees around it. Maybe it had just been built with more landscaping care than the others. Appropriately rustic, with cedar shingles on the roof and cedar siding, it blended into its surroundings better than most of the others we could see.

The bottom level appeared to be a storage area for the boats and other recreational miscellany. There was a heavy padlocked set of doors on this ground-level entrance, facing the lake. Stairs went up the south side of the building to a landing outside the main door. The outer door was screen, of course, the inner a heavy wooden door. Parker unlocked this door and gestured us in.

“Lots of the cabins out here don't have heating or cooling,” he said, “but this one does. Mr. Archie did things right. Now, if the electricity goes off, which it does out here with some regularity, you've got your fireplace there, should be in working order. We had the guy clean it out last month.”

I looked around. The interior was pretty much one big room. There were two double beds set up with their heads against the west wall, and there were several folding beds rolled up against the wall by them, covered with plastic cases. The air in the cabin felt musty, but not unpleasant. The smell of old cedar was strong. The fireplace was in the east wall, and it was faced with natural rock. The walls were unpainted cedar boards, adding to the feel that we were really roughing it. There was a small stove, an ancient refrigerator, and a couple of cabinets by the door where we'd entered, and a walled-off west corner indicated a tiny bathroom. Besides the fireplace, the east wall facing the lake was almost all glass, and through the glass we could see a screened-in porch inhabited by a few heavy wooden rocking chairs.

“Now, the bedding should be in here,” Parker said, opening the cabinet below the sink. “Yep, right where Bethalynn said it would be.” He pulled out a zippered plastic bag, plopped it on one of the beds. “Should be enough blankets in there. Sometimes we're out here in the spring and the nights are pretty cold. If you need to start a fire up, the wood is downstairs. You can go directly down to the boat room, now you're inside.” He pointed to a trapdoor in the floor. “We used to keep the wood outside, but people just aren't as honest as they used to be. They'll take anything we don't lock up, and even then we get broken into every two, three years.”

We all shook our heads over this evidence of modern slack morals.

Parker sighed from the toes of his boots, a gusty sound that was supposed to mask the grief that crossed his face. Carson silently patted his father's shoulder. “I'll see you two later at the church hall,” he said. “Mom's got your cell phone number.” And he was gone before we could see him cry. I guess it just got to him every now and then, and I wasn't surprised that was so. I wondered when they would get to bury what was left of their oldest son.

Tolliver opened the trapdoor and descended. “No windows down here!” he called. I heard a click and the rectangle in the floor illuminated. “I'm bringing up some firewood,” he said, his voice muffled. While I slung my suitcase on the bed closest to the bathroom, I heard a series of thunks and thuds, and then Tolliver's head appeared, the rest of him following along, his arms loaded with split oak.

I hadn't had much truck with fireplaces. While Tolliver dumped the wood on the hearth, I crouched down and looked up to see if the flue was open. Nope. I found a handle that looked promising and twisted it awkwardly with my good hand. Voila! With a great creak the flue opened and I could see the gray sky. There was a basket of pinecones on the hearth that I'd assumed were for rustic decoration, but Tolliver said he thought they were to help start the fire. Since they were absolutely ordinary pinecones and there were a million more where they came from, I let him put some in the hearth like the former Boy Scout he was. Since neither of us had matches or a lighter, we were relieved to find matches in a Ziploc bag on the mantel, and we were even more relieved when the first one Tolliver struck flared with a tiny flame.

The pinecones caught with gratifying speed, and Tolliver carefully put a few of the logs in the fireplace, crisscrossing them to allow the passage of air, I assumed.

Fire tending seemed to make him feel manly, so I left him to it. I had some granola bars in my suitcase, luckily, and I ate one while he brought up the ice chest, still fairly full of sodas and bottled water.

“We better get some groceries when we go into town tonight,” I said.

“Do you really want to go to the meeting at the church?”

“No, of course not, but if we're going to be here we might as well. I don't want the people here taking against us.” I glanced at my watch. “We have at least three hours. I'm going to lie down. I'm worn out.”

“You shouldn't have carried that bag upstairs.”

“It was on my good shoulder. No problem.” But I'd taken a pain pill while he was out rummaging in the car, and it was taking effect.

There was a knock on the door, and I jumped a mile. Tolliver jerked in surprise himself, which made me feel a little better. We glanced at each other. We hadn't noticed anyone following us out here, and we'd hoped to dodge the reporters altogether.

“Yes?” Tolliver asked. I moved to stand behind him, peering out from behind his shoulder. Our caller sure didn't look like any reporter I'd ever seen. He was a wizened old man wearing battered cold-weather gear and carrying a casserole dish.

“I'm Ted Hamilton from next door,” the old man said, smiling. “Me and my wife saw Parker pull up with you-all, and she could hardly wait to send you something. You friends of the family?”

“Please come in,” Tolliver said, because he had to. “I'm Tolliver Lang; this is my sister Harper.”

“Ms. Lang,” Ted Hamilton said, bobbing his head at me. “Let me just put this down on the counter here.” He set down the dish he'd been carrying.

“Actually, I'm Ms. Connelly, but please call me Harper,” I said. “You and your wife live out here year-round?”

“Yep, since I retired, that's what we do,” he said. The Hamiltons must live in the small white house next door, to the north. I'd seen the Hamiltons' house out the window and noted it was inhabited. Ordinarily the Hamiltons and the McGraws wouldn't really have to see each other a lot, since the McGraw parking was on the south side of the cabin. The Hamiltons' white frame house was a very ordinary little place that just happened to have been put down at the lakeside, with no concession made to setting or locale. It did boast a very nice pier, I'd noted.

“We're just going to be here a couple of days,” I said, pretending to be rueful. “This was awful nice of Mrs. Hamilton.”

“I guess you know Twyla, then?”

He was obviously dying to get the scoop on us, and I was just as determined not to spell it out for him. “Yes, we know her,” I said. “A very nice woman.”

“Just for a couple of days? Maybe we can persuade you to stay longer,” Mr. Hamilton said. “Though with the bad weather coming in, you may want to rethink staying out here. You'd be better off with a room in town. It takes them a while to get out here when the electricity goes out.”

“And you think that's gonna happen?”

“Oh, always does when we get a lot of ice and snow like they're predicting for tomorrow night,” Ted Hamilton said. “Me and the wife have been getting ready for it all day. Went to town, got our groceries, stocked up on water and got oil for our lanterns, and so on. Checked the first aid kit to make sure we can patch up cuts and so on.”

You could tell the oncoming bad weather was a big event for the Hamiltons, and I got the distinct impression they'd enjoyed themselves to the hilt preparing for it.

“We may be on our way tomorrow, with any luck,” I said. “Please tell your wife we appreciate her fixing us something. We'll get the dish back to you, of course.” We said all this a few more times, and then Ted Hamilton went back down the outside stairs and around our cabin to get back to his. Now that I was listening for it, I could hear his cabin door open and I thought I heard a snatch of his wife's voice raised in eager query.

I took the aluminum foil off the dish to reveal a chicken and rice casserole. I sniffed. Cheese and sour cream, a little onion. “Gosh,” I said, feeling respect for someone who could whip up a dish like that in the forty-five minutes Tolliver and I had been in residence in the cabin.

“If you had some leftover chicken,” Tolliver said, “it would only take twenty minutes for the rice to cook.”

“I'm still shocked,” I said. My stomach growled, demanding some of the casserole.

We found plastic forks and spoons and some paper plates, and we ate half the dish on the spot. It wasn't restaurant food. It smelled of home…a home, any home. After we'd put the aluminum foil back on and put the remainders in the old refrigerator, I lay down to take a nap, and Tolliver went out exploring. The fire was crackling in a very soothing way, and I wrapped myself in a blanket. We'd made the beds, working together, my rhythm all thrown off by my bad arm. There hadn't been any pillows here—presumably the family brought their own each time they camped out here—but Tolliver and I each had a small pillow in the car, and once I was swaddled in the blanket and warm and full, I drifted off to sleep feeling better than I had in days.

I didn't wake up until almost four o'clock. Tolliver was reading, lying stretched out on his bed. The fire was still going, and he'd brought more wood up. He'd positioned two wooden chairs close to the fire.

There wasn't a sound to be heard: no traffic, no birds, no people. Through the window above my head, I could see the bare branches of an oak tree motionless in the still air. I put my hand to the glass. It was warmer. That wasn't good. The ice would come, I was sure.

“Did you go fish?” I asked Tolliver, after moving around a little to let him know I was awake.

“I don't know if you're supposed to go fishing in the winter,” he said. He hadn't had a bubba upbringing; no hunting and fishing for Tolliver. His dad had been more interested in helping hard men dodge the law, and then in getting high with the same men, than in taking his sons out in the woods for some bonding time. Tolliver and his brother, Mark, had had to learn other skills to prove themselves at school.

“Good, because I have no idea how to clean 'em,” I said.

He rolled off his bed and sat on the edge of mine. “How's the arm?”

“Pretty good.” I moved it a little. “And my head feels a lot better.” I moved over to give him room and he stretched out beside me.

He said, “While you were asleep, I checked our messages on the phone at the apartment.”

“Mm-hm.”

“We had a few. Including one about a job in eastern Pennsylvania.”

“How long a drive from here?”

“I haven't worked it out yet, but I would guess about seven hours.”

“Not too bad. What's the job?”

“A cemetery reading. Parents want to be sure their daughter wasn't murdered. The coroner said the death was an accident. He said the girl slipped down some steps and fell. The parents heard from some friends that, instead, her boyfriend hit her on the head with a beer bottle. The friends are all too scared of the young man to tell the cops.”