Bodies & Buried Secrets: A Rosewood Place Mystery (Rosewood Place Mysteries Book 1) (6 page)

“Oh, poo and pshaw! Of course, it isn’t. If anything, it’s a sign that Suzy should have kept her nose out of our house. What on earth was she even doing in there anyway? Did she think she was just going to steal the keys and then wait for the ideal time to lock us all out?”

Bessie’s tirade was interrupted by Delbert, who carried a small plastic bag out in front of him like it was filled with something disgusting. “Annie, Mrs. Purdy, do either of y’all recognize this piece of jewelry? It appears to be a woman’s earring, but we only found the one, caught in the victim’s hair. She was already wearing earrings, so we don’t believe it’s hers, though we can’t rule that out yet.”

Annie peered at the round blue stone set in gold. It was pretty, but plain, and it didn’t seem like the type of jewelry that Suzy would wear. Annie shook her head. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t a clue where this came from. Maybe it was caught in her hair before she came to the house?”

“What about you, Mrs. Purdy?” Delbert shook the bag slightly. “Could this be one of yours?”

“Hmmph, not unless it’s a clip-on earring. I do not have pierced ears.” She gave him a look that could melt an iceberg. “Maybe you’d better get your fingerprint man to look at it, and see if you can get a clue.” She waited for him to reply, but he said nothing, his cheeks flushed pink for the umpteenth time that day. “When can we get back in the house?”

Delbert didn’t respond immediately. He looked as though he was weighing his answer very carefully, trying to avoid angering Bessie. “Well, I’m not sure how long they’ll be in the kitchen, but it looks like the rest of the house is clear. Whatever happened in there, it only happened in the kitchen,” he explained. “So you can go in and get your things if you want.”

“Get our things?” Annie raised one eyebrow. “Why would we want to do that?”

“Oh, well, I just thought that you might not want to stay here tonight, after what happened with Ms. Anderson, that’s all.” Delbert seemed surprised that Annie was even considering stepping foot back inside the house where a woman had been murdered.

“Well, now, don’t be foolish,” Bessie cried, dismissing Delbert with a wave. “It’s not like her ghost is gonna hang around, now, is it? And even if it did, I think I can handle Suzy Anderson’s dearly departed soul. Now, you just tell me how soon I can get my things put in my kitchen, Delbert Plemmons. I need a home-cooked meal, STAT.”

Annie watched as Bessie put her arm around the young deputy and walked him over to the other officers. Annie had a feeling that Bessie would have her kitchen sorted out in no time at all, but Annie wasn’t sure she’d be able to eat anything, at least not until someone could tell her who killed Suzy and promise her that they wouldn’t be stepping foot into her new home ever again.

Annie and Rory spent most of the rest of the day loading and unloading Annie’s truck with belongings from her mother’s house. Rory was mostly silent, nowhere near as friendly as he’d been the day before, and Annie was fine with that. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him anyway. His sketchy past made her a little uncomfortable, but the way he treated her mother and son with so much tenderness and respect made her feel that she should trust him. Still, there was the not-so-tiny matter of him breaking her heart, and that still managed to sting all these years later.

It took three trips, but they managed to get everything carted over to the new place. Annie was tired, sweaty, cranky and in need of that bubble bath worse than ever, but at least she’d only have to do this once. By the time they’d finished unloading the last box from the truck, the police were heading down her driveway. Delbert had reassured her that if she had any other problems, he was just a phone call away.

Annie didn’t feel too reassured by Delbert’s declaration that he’d “be there in a jiffy” if she needed anything, but she smiled and nodded, then sighed with relief when the last police officer in the world she’d ever trust in an emergency drove off into the sunset. It was a little after one in the afternoon, far earlier than Annie would have thought that they’d be let back into a place that had just that morning been a crime scene.

“Well, now, at least we can get started moving in properly,” Bessie chirped. “Those nice policemen said that we can even use the kitchen, we only have to call them if we see anything suspicious.”

Annie suspected that the only reason they were being allowed back into the kitchen so quickly was because her mother had pestered the heck out of the local police department. That, and the fact that the empty kitchen made looking for evidence a breeze were likely the reasons why Annie could look forward to a cold drink this evening and a hot breakfast in the morning.

The police had spoken to Annie for nearly an hour, going over every detail of her relationship to Suzy. At one point Annie wondered if she’d better get a lawyer, but the police officer that she’d been speaking to assured her that she wasn’t really a suspect.

“After all,” Officer Evans stated casually, “you did call us to report the body. If you’d murdered the woman, you could have just dumped her body in that pond back there and nobody’d ever be the wiser.”

This sent a chill down Annie’s spine. “Oh, my goodness, that’s an awful thing to say!”

The policeman, a tall, balding fellow with broad shoulders and a smile that revealed crooked teeth, replied. “Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were already bodies down in that pond. This place is old as the hills. I’m sure it’s seen its fair share of murders and whatnot.”

The thought of dead bodies in her pond stayed with Annie long after the police were gone, and she tried to put it out of her mind. She reminded herself that she had other things to worry about, and unless one of her family was being accused of killing Suzy, she’d simply focus on getting the house ready to earn her livelihood.

Devon skulked around the truck, reluctantly carried boxes for his mother, and finally annoyed Annie enough with his moodiness that she sent him up to his room to start unpacking his stuff. She thought he’d be excited about this at least, but he wasn’t. She could tell that he still had his heart set on moving into the attic, but that didn’t seem very practical to her. After all, they’d yet to even look in the attic, and if it had been neglected as badly as other parts of the house, she didn’t think it was the safest place for him to be.

She promised herself that she’d at least take a look up there, maybe have Rory check the electrics and make sure the floor was solid. If it was in any kind of shape for living in, she’d find a way to give Devon his attic bedroom.

Annie wiped her grimy forehead with the hem of her shirt and headed into the kitchen. Rory was already there, setting up Bessie’s beloved oven so she could cook. He gave her a cursory nod and kept working. Annie grabbed a cold can of soda from the cooler they’d brought in, and she sat in one of the wooden chairs her mother had put in the kitchen. She surveyed the room and wondered why on earth Suzy would have bothered coming here. Yes, the house was historical, but there were other plantations in South Carolina in far better shape than this one. That was mostly why Annie had wanted this one because the others were far out of her price range.

She wished that she’d known why Suzy was so determined to get her hands on the house, but she figured that the police would find out the answer to that question when they interviewed her boss. Delbert told Annie that Suzy was a realtor working for one of the largest real estate agencies in the state. She tried to imagine what Suzy’s coworkers would say when the police broke the news to them. Had they liked Suzy? Did she leave behind any close friends, lovers, or even, god forbid, children? This bothered Annie worse than anything.

“Do either of you know if Suzy was married?” Annie asked, wiping the condensation from her can of soda. “Did she have kids?”

Rory cleared his throat. “You really shouldn’t be worrying about her, Annie. It’s not your fault she’s dead.”

“I know that,” Annie replied, surprised by his choice of words. She hadn’t even thought about the possibility that anyone could think she’d killed Suzy. “But still, she was somebody’s daughter, maybe somebody’s mom.”

Rory sighed. “No, she wasn’t married. And, no, she didn’t have kids.”

“How do you know?” Annie leveled her question at him as she sat her can on the kitchen counter. “When she came here yesterday, you seemed to have some bad blood between you. How did you know Suzy?”

Rory’s eyes darkened. “Just leave it, Annie. I knew her, but that was a long time ago. She wasn’t a nice person, and she probably wasn’t here to bring you a housewarming present.” He stood up, and shifted the stove into place, effectively ending the conversation. “I think that’s taken care of you, Mrs. Purdy. You ought to be able to cook now, and the refrigerator should be nice and cold in no time. I’d leave it until the morning to put your food in, though, give it time to get to the right temperature.”

“Oh, thank you, Rory! You are my hero!” Bessie pulled him into an awkward hug, and Annie knew that it wasn’t worth pushing him on the subject of Suzy, at least not right now. Whatever was bothering him wasn’t exactly making him want to sit down and have a cozy chat about his past.

Annie managed to avoid the subject until dinner time when Bessie insisted on making dinner for them all. “I don’t have much in the way of real food,” she apologized, “but I can’t go buy groceries until the refrigerator is ready, so I’ll just have to scrape something together. We can at least go to bed tonight with a little hot grub in our bellies.”

No one minded, but Rory disappeared once he’d finished helping Bessie unpack a few boxes in the kitchen. Bessie insisted that he join them for dinner, so she sent Annie looking for him. She found him by the barn, jiggling the door gently and trying to slip it back onto its sliding track. He jumped when Annie called his name, he’d been so engrossed in what he was doing that he hadn’t heard her mouselike footsteps across the soft grass.

“Crap, Annie, you scared the pants off me,” he admitted. “Sorry, but I guess I’m still a little shaken up by all that stuff with Suzy,” he said with reluctance. “I’d like to apologize for being so short with you earlier, but I just didn’t want to talk about it.” He wiped his hands on the back of his jeans and picked up a hammer from the grass at his feet. “My past is just, well, it’s old history, and I want it to stay that way.”

Annie wanted to respect his wishes, but she also needed to be sure that she could trust Rory. A man who kept secrets might not be the best influence on her little family. “I can understand that Rory, I really can. But, I need to know that your history isn’t going to be a problem for you or for us.” She hesitated, then asked him again about his relationship with Suzy.

He handed her the hammer, ignoring her question. “Come over here and help me lift this. I think if you give the corner down there a good whack when I get it lifted high enough, we can slot it back into place and get this barn door open.”

Annie moved into position by his side, acutely aware of the heat and sweat coming off his body. She realized with some embarrassment that she must be just as sweaty and wondered what he must think of her, then scolded herself for having noticed his smell at all. Something in his scent had triggered memories from her past that had no place in her present. Like Rory had said, some history needed to stay just that--ancient history.

He grunted with the effort of lifting the door, but with a few mighty shoves and a shower of dust he seemed satisfied that the door was in the right position to get it back on its track. “Whack that corner, Annie, and if that doesn’t work, whack the upper one.”

She did as she was asked, giving the wood a mighty wallop. The door didn’t budge. “Try again,” Rory suggested, “but harder. A lot harder.”

Annie changed the angle of her swing slightly, then pulled back and swung the hammer as hard as she could. She closed her eyes at the last second, imagining splintering wood and a broken door, but she never felt the hammer hit the wood. Instead, Rory let out a yelp, and the door lurched upward as he jumped up and out of the way of the errant hammer.

“What the heck are you trying to do to me?” He yelled incredulously. “For the love of all that is holy, woman why did you shut your eyes?”

Annie’s face went red. “I’m so sorry...I didn’t want to get splinters in my eyes! I didn’t mean to--”

Rory cut her off. “Well, would you look at this...I guess I knocked it back on the track when I jumped.” Annie looked up at the door, which now hung perfectly level. “I guess we can get in the barn now, but just remind me not to ask you to help me with any other jobs that require using a hammer.” He put his shoulder against the edge of the barn door and gave it a shove. It rolled open with a loud creak, exposing a gaping black interior and about a million dust particles.

Annie stepped backwards, instinctively raising her hand to cover her nose and mouth. The last thing she wanted was to suck in a lungful of dust or who knows what else. She could just imagine the mold that could be growing in the old barn. Who knows how long it had been since it was last used?

Rory gave the door a gentle wiggle. “Feels sturdy enough. I’m not sure when the barn was built, but it’s nowhere near as old as the house.” He studied the wood and the roller track carefully. “I think you’ll want to replace this, though. Maybe just put in a hanging door with hinges. This thing could come off its track again, and I wouldn’t want to be inside there if the door was closed and that happened.”

Annie shuddered at the thought, then turned to Rory and asked if he’d brought a flashlight. “Nope,” he chuckled. “Guess that might be a good idea, though.” They walked back towards the house in companionable silence until Annie spoke. “Where did you learn all this stuff about repairs and construction? I thought you were going to go to school to become a history teacher.”

Rory shook his head, a frown clouding his face. “I was, but that was before I became stupid.” Annie looked confused. He explained, “About a year after you went away to school I started seeing this girl, Karen Pettigo. Do you remember her?”

Annie shook her head. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but time had faded any real knowledge of it from her mind.

“Karen and Suzy were best friends,” he explained, his voice hesitating slightly. “Karen and I dated for a while, and then, well, we were young and stupid, so we got married.”

Annie’s eyes felt like they must have reached saucer-sized proportion. “You got married? Wow.” She realized that her incredulous reaction must have sounded slightly offensive. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just that you didn’t seem to be the marrying kind when we dated.”

Rory wiggled his jaw, trying to work out some unseen tension. “Yeah, well, like I said, we were young and stupid. I should have known it wouldn’t last. I mean, Karen was not like you--” he caught himself, and corrected himself. “I mean, she wasn’t what you’d call wife material. She cheated on me, more than once, I suspect.” He paused, and Annie could tell that he was about to disclose something important, something private. She felt both relieved and anxious if that was possible.

“The guy I went to jail for, he had been seeing her behind my back. I was down at the Pit, drowning my sorrows when he came in with some of his buddies.” Annie remembered the Pit from her youth. It was the town’s only bar back then, though there were surely others now. It was a place known for rowdiness and perfect for drowning out any memories you wanted to forget with its cheap booze and the cheaper women who hung around there.

“So he came in to antagonize you?” Annie guessed.

“No, he came in to start a fight. I was about to leave, especially when I saw Suzy walk in not five minutes after him. Karen and I had already split up by now, but I was still sore about it. Gah, I don’t know why,” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “I just wanted to believe that she was the one, that we were going to be one of those couples that just made it and got out of this town, you know?” Annie nodded. She did know. The funny thing was, although she made it out of Coopersville, she’d ended up right back where she began, with a dead, cheating husband and broken down house that was now a crime scene.

Rory continued. “I started to leave, but Chuck, that was his name, he grabbed me by my shirt and spun me around. Got right up in my face, but I still didn’t swing at him.”

“What made you hit him with the chair?”

“After I pulled away from him, somebody cracked me upside the head with a pool cue,” he explained. “I guess I just snapped after that. I picked up the nearest thing, which happened to be one of those heavy wooden chairs, and I swung a homerun hit right upside his head. One hit, and he hit the floor.” He paused. “I didn’t know that I’d fractured his skull. Heck, I didn’t even know I’d hit him that hard. I had blood pouring down my face from the pool cue.”