Dead Dancing Women (14 page)

“Hmmp,” I said to the phone as I put the receiver down. That fixed her.

TWENTY

Jackson called just after
one o'clock, cheerful and hyped about being up north, smelling the fresh air, feeling invigorated already. I gave him directions from Grayling. It would take him about half an hour. Half an hour to scrub the dirt from my hands and face, comb my hair into my fancy new “do,” and slap on a little of Dolly's makeup. I figured jeans and a sweater would be fine. After all, this wasn't one of Thoreau's occasions requiring new clothes. It was Jackson. And while he intimidated others, he couldn't do it to me. Not anymore. We were equals and it was my house, my dog, my garden, my lake, my furniture, my dishes …

I was getting myself worked up. I took a couple of gulps of “my” fresh air, then stood decorously in the garden, leaning on a leaf rake, pretending I'd been working in my white cable-stitched sweater and pressed jeans.

Sorrow was my early warning system. He barked and whirled in circles when the car came down the drive. I waved. A white Jaguar. White, of course, I thought, for purity of thought and action …

Enough of that, I told myself and pasted on a smile as I set my rake aside and strolled rube-like, dog bounding ahead of me, around through the arbor to greet Jackson.

Both car doors opened. Jackson got out, bent to pat Sorrow's head, then leaned in to speak to his passenger. He stood, stretched, waved. Dark hair, long enough to be fashionable but not scruffy, enough of a Pierce Brosnan five o'clock shadow to be sexy, and wearing the perfect, blue cashmere sweater over precisely tailored trousers. Awful, but despite everything, he still looked good to me. I might have been immune to being conned by him, but not immune to how damned well put together Jackson always was.

He shouted, “My God, Emily, how on earth did you ever find this place? This is the end of nowhere. I didn't for a moment think I was on the right road.”

He chuckled, held his arms wide, and walked toward me. I was more interested in the long pair of very female legs coming out of the other side of the car, then the head, with big sunglasses and long blond hair, that jutted above the car door. All of this was followed by a long body, and then a bare arm stuck up in the air, waving at me.

Jackson hugged hard though I had my hands out, against his chest, pushing him away.

“You didn't bring one of your students with you?” I hissed at him.

Jackson held me, then leaned back, and looked down into my face, astonished. He smelled of mint. Aftershave, maybe, or mouthwash. “Emily, Jennifer's my assistant. Her family lives up here. She knows people. She's going to find a place for me, and help later. With the typing. You know what a project like mine entails. She's not staying. You don't imagine … well, of course not.” He looked hurt, and then bemused. “I'm driving her to her parents in Northport this afternoon. I could have stayed there, too, but I thought this might give us the opportunity to, well, mend a few fences.”

I nodded through all of this, taking in what he was saying, and also the gorgeous, model-cum-beauty queen who walked toward me with her hand stuck out like a rudder and a big smile stuck on her perfect face.

“Emily!” she said. “Jack's been telling me so much about you. For goodness sakes.” She pulled off her sunglasses, exposing wide, round blue eyes. She dropped her mouth open and took in my garden and the woods beyond in one direction, the lake in the other. “No wonder you moved up here. This is so very beautiful. I grew up in Northport and I miss it so.”

Hmm. I took the hand—a wily, live thing—in mine, and decided she couldn't be too bad. Very young. Too pretty. Just Jackson's type, but with a glimmer of intelligence. Could be a friend after all; an assistant, or an eager grad student helping out. Looking from her to Jackson, who the last three years hadn't been kind to, I began to hope, for her sake, that was all she was.

Up close, I noticed Jackson's hair had lost the black sheen it used to have, like something dimming without the proper light. His skin was pocked, rougher than I remembered, tanned but splotched with red patches, like healing sunburn. Dark pouches sagged beneath his eyes. He was forty-three, but looking older, unless he'd lied to me to begin with, back when we met at that party in Ann Arbor.
“Well, well,”
he'd said sometime during that evening.
“A true journalist. I've read you often though I have to take you to task …”
And we'd been off, arguing local politics, wrangling over university policy, eventually disagreeing on sexual politics. Why on earth, I wondered as I stood with his arm around me, keeping me in place, had we thought disagreement forged a marriage bond?

“You're certainly looking well,” Jackson said as I reveled in how crappy he appeared. He took in my hair, my makeup, assessing what his advantage was here. Had I fixed myself up for him? Did this give him some kind of power over me? A true man to play the angles, Jackson was sizing me up. But I was only imagining, being sulky because this lovely Jennifer had appeared when I'd expected a walk down a memory lane that never existed.

I led them up the brick path to my house and offered coffee. Jackson brought in his bags while I got the coffee going. I heard him trying to push the door to the bedroom open and banging into the dresser. I didn't care. Jennifer smiled down at Sorrow, who melted, falling with a plop right over on his back. She giggled at my love-struck dog, patted his head, and cooed at him.

I shot Sorrow a dirty look, thinking of all I'd been through with him, and how easily he was seduced from me. I excused myself and went into the bathroom where I took a swipe at my lipstick with a tissue and tried to gather my hair into a pony tail. Too short to gather, I settled for a clean face.

“Well, well, well.” Jackson was back, straddling a kitchen counter stool and grinning. “So this is where you've gone to hide? Writing going well, is it?”

I nodded.

“I'll soon be deep into Middle English,” he smirked at me and then at Jennifer. “I'll need a quiet place, like this one. But one closer to a city, I think. Traverse City, if I remember, is a big town. Maybe closer to Traverse. What do you think, Jennifer? I will need a decent library. And restaurants, of course, since I won't have time for cooking.”

“Sounds like Ann Arbor. Maybe you should've stayed there,” I said, and smiled to show I wasn't being mean.

“You know how it is, Emily. Too many friends. Phone always ringing. Students who keep calling, even when you ask them not to.”

“Ah yes,” I said. “I remember it well.”

His smile grew strained. Jennifer leaned down to pat Sorrow, then asked if she could take him for a walk. I got his leash, reluctantly, as this meant being left alone with Jackson—what I'd expected to begin with, but now dreaded.

Jackson leaped up to hold her stool as she got down. He took her arm familiarly and warned her not to go too far, not to get lost.

I'd been had yet again, I realized. There was, in his concern and in her body language, signals of intimacy. What made me angriest was that he felt he had to hide it from me, as if some old reflex had kicked in. And even worse—this woman, this “Jennifer,” was going along with it.
Let's all fool the little ex-wifey …

But Sorrow liked her and I reminded myself that who Jackson slept with now was none of my business.

I smiled at Jennifer after attaching the leash to Sorrow's collar.

“You don't have to leave today,” I said, out to prove I knew what was going on, that they weren't fooling me, that I was a great deal smarter than both of them. And wasn't I just the best sport in the world? “Jackson and I aren't married. You don't have to pretend anything with me. I really couldn't care less.”

I got a brilliant smile in return. I took back the “intelligent” assessment; even that tiny glimmer I'd credited to her. Maybe there was something to that “blond” thing, I thought, grateful for my all-brown hair.

“That's really … eh … understanding of you. Jack was afraid that you might harbor some feelings for …”

I laughed hard. “He's always had a tendency to flatter himself,” I said, giving Jackson a forgiving look.

“Then, if you really don't mind,” Jennifer turned from me to Jackson, who looked a little sick, “I don't see why I can't stay a few days. What do you think, Jack? Emily's a terrific person. I mean, not jealous at all …”

She looked at me again. “I'll bet you've got someone of your own. Am I right? I'll bet anything that's it. Why, you could have him over, if you like.”

Smiling was getting harder. Oh Lord, I'd backed myself into a corner. How to get out of all of this?

“He's away,” I said. “Some other time.”

“See,” she crowed. “I told you.”

“Well, well,” Jackson said, leaning over his coffee, blowing though the coffee had to be cold by that time. “A country boy, Emily? How lucky for you.”

“Actually, a journalist,” I said.

“Oh? Another writer? You do go for writers, don't you?”

My stomach took a bounce.

“You must tell me about England?” I changed the subject, hoping to get him off into one of his long self-aggrandizing ruminations. “I thought I detected a bit of an accent on the phone. You must have been there a long time.”

“Well, yes,” he said. “A month. Hardly enough time to pick up an accent. Though you know what a good ear I have.”

Jennifer excused herself and took off with Sorrow. I was left to endure two hours of
Jackson in England
and the places his research took him and the people he met who encouraged him to certainly write yet another scholarly work on Chaucer. An American, after all. Who better? Just what the British would embrace. He went on with no inkling of the irony to his tales. Nothing made a dent in his self-satisfaction. After a while I settled back, put my interested smile in place, and let my mind wander to where Dolly and I should begin later, who to see, and then back to a part of the puzzle we'd been missing: why had I been brought into it? Why were pieces of Ruby Poet dropped into my world? Was it because I was a journalist? What would that have to do with anything? Was there something we were missing here? A murderer who wanted it known that Mrs. Poet was dead?

All too much for me. We needed more information. Maybe I could get something out of the state police.

“And then, of course, I went to Canterbury …” Jackson was well into his travels as I got down from my stool, excused myself, mumbled something about remembering a story I had to follow up on, and walked out to my studio as Jennifer came flying down the hill toward me, screaming at Sorrow to “Stop! Stop!”

The poor dog was struggling to get to me, his leash entangled around Jennifer's wrist. The two of them loped downward. A long stream of obscenities spewed from lovely Jennifer's pretty mouth. I let Sorrow leap into my arms and staggered under the weight of him. My sweet puppy. Jennifer fell full tilt into us and then indecorously to the ground, legs in the air. Unfortunately, there was no underwear in sight. I averted my eyes as I find nothing remotely interesting, or pretty, about that particular part of the female body—not even my own.

Jennifer's mouth hung open. Her eyes were huge. Having misplaced her charm while falling to her back, legs pumping the air, she screamed, “Get this fucking dog away from me. He's fucking nuts!”

Dear, sweet Sorrow looked behind him at the creature lying like a bug on its back and gave a single shocked, “Woof!”

TWENTY-ONE

The latest relative was
somebody named Martha Jane Cannary. Pretty name for an old aunt. I didn't take the time to read what havoc Aunt Martha had wreaked on the world, just made a note of the name in case she came up in Eugenia's conversation.

Gloria, with the sweet smell of cinnamon and cloves to her, brought our turkey dinners to the table and leaned in close, fussing with where she put the plates and where to set side dishes of canned, creamed corn.

“Everybody's getting worried,” she whispered, eyes huge. “Eugenia doesn't want me gossiping about it because she thinks maybe we better just calm people down from here on in. But I've got to tell you, word's around that Flora Coy's sure she's next. And Mary Margaret's keeping the boys as close as they'll stay to home, to protect her. Something awful's going on. A few of the folks have been thinking it's Harry Mockerman that's been doing this, killing the women. Some crazy idea in his head, who knows? And he did have a fight with Ruby Poet. You heard about that?”

Dolly and I nodded in unison.

“Well, from what's being said, he yelled at Ruby that he was going to kill her because she wouldn't pay him for a load of wood and …”

“That's not what happened,” I whispered up at her. “She didn't like the price and wasn't going to buy from him next year. That's all. People are talking way too much. They're getting worked up over the wrong things. Just because we don't know what happened yet doesn't mean they've got to make up stories.” I shook my head.

“Lord, lord.” Dolly rolled her eyes after Gloria was gone. “Next thing we'll have a lynch party.”

“Poor Harry,” I said, and dug into my mountain of mashed potatoes with thick yellow gravy.

Dolly was quiet during dinner. Over Strawberry Jell-O with bananas and Cool Whip, she wrinkled her nose at me. “You know, let's consider Harry. I mean, just between us. He lives out there by you, so that's handy for dropping body parts at your house. And none of these people have alibis. Nobody knows where they were on any particular day.”

“Because of a load of wood? He's going to murder the woman? What about Mrs. Henry? What reason did he have to kill her?”

“Now, just think about it,” she said, quieting me. “If you don't have a lot going on in your life, small things can get awfully big. We had a man shot his wife because she hung up on his mother. Another one we had was a father shot his son because the kid didn't bring back his circular saw when he said he would. I mean, small things can get you killed up here.”

“You notice you talk about people shooting other people? It seems to me people up here don't strangle each other, and they certainly don't try to hide the bodies, or get rid of them one piece at a time.”

“Miz Henry was in plain sight.”

“If you knew where to look. And she was strangled.”

Over coffee, we thought about that and came up with nothing.

On our way out, Eugenia stopped us in the vestibule where she was hanging a bright gold star near a new great-grand uncle she'd stumbled across, she said, while researching a group of thirteen men all hung on the same day in Abilene. I was beginning to have my doubts about Eugenia's family tree, but I didn't say anything while she kept us standing, listening to her ancestor's list of misdeeds.

“On another subject,” she cleared her throat, got awkwardly down off her step stool, and leaned close, “you ladies ever consider the Mitchell boys, out to Scykull Lake? There's a bad bunch if I ever saw one. Could be some of their work.”

“I know the Mitchell boys,” Dolly said. “They spray-painted their names on buildings—not thinking we'd identify them that way. They were the ones stole from the five-and-ten, and Rodney, the oldest, dropped his driver's license in the store. They're the boys who were shooting out car windows last Halloween and shot out their own father's side window. He turned them in. Not the brightest bulbs in the bunch. I don't think this is their kind of thing.”

“Just offering it up as an idea.” Eugenia was a bit peeved with Dolly. She wasn't a woman who got put in her place often. She sniffed and drew herself up tall, working her shoulders back. Her wrinkled face drew in on itself. “I'm kind of a criminal expert, you might say. Considering what I come from. I consider blood to be a thing that makes you smarter than just schooling.

“Oh, and another thing you should know.” She tapped one finger on the end of her nose as if playing charades. Dolly wasn't going to get a word in and I could see her sputtering over the “smarter than just schooling” remark. “Flora and Mary Margaret are scared to death. Everybody in town's sure one of them's going to get it next. Don't you think they should have some kind of protection or something?”

“Wish we could do that.” Dolly shook her head slower than was called for. “It's just me and Lucky Barnard here in town. Sheriff's overextended. I don't know about the state police. I'll call 'em right away, but I don't think so. What if Flora Coy moved in with one of you?” Dolly looked at her out of the side of her eyes, as if delivering a knock-out punch.

“Hell's bells, Dolly, you expect me or Gloria to fight off somebody coming to kill one of them?” Eugenia made a face, then reached out to straighten a relative's sheet that had gone crooked.

“How about Simon? Isn't he staying over at Gloria's a lot of the time? He could keep an eye on the ladies.”

“Don't say that around Gloria. She thinks nobody knows Simon stays with her.”

Dolly nodded, promised to look into it, and we left. I was glad to get out of there before those two bristling women went after each other.

Amanda Poet answered the door but seemed reluctant to let us in. It was only Dolly pushing the door and stepping inside that got us into the living room where Ernie Henry sat at the edge of the recliner, a surprised look on his drawn-in face. Both of them seemed nervous, as if we'd interrupted something private. But then, I imagined death was a very private thing.

“Ernie's here to plan the funeral. We figured we might as well have a double,” Amanda said, and she waved at the couch, asking us to sit down. She was done up in a frilly pink robe, her tousled hair wrapped haphazardly in a pink turban. I noticed her nails had been done recently, bright pink. Odd, I thought, for a grieving daughter to care that much how her nails looked.

Dolly and I mumbled “Sorry” in Ernie's direction. He hung his head.

There were more newspapers spread around today—probably one for every day since we'd last visited. Pop cans had overpowered the tableau of apple-head dolls. Two of the dolls lay on the floor, their wizened faces smashed.

“Don't mind the mess,” Amanda said. “I've been too busy to give a thought to cleaning. So many kind people stopping by. Now the funeral. And poor Ernie here.”

Ernie nodded again and got up. I didn't know if it was a gentlemanly gesture or an urge to flee so many women in the same room at once.

“No, no, now you stay where you are, Ernie. These women won't be here long. I imagine they want to ask us a few questions.” She turned to me and Dolly. “Pastor wants us to get together the music we'd like for the funerals, and a few things we want him to say.”

She smirked. I swear, it was a smirk. Something told me Amanda Poet liked being at the center of a tragedy. She might be mourning, but there was a part of her that basked in limelight.

“You found Mother, eh?” Ernie shook his head at us. His long face was sad, his eyes rimmed with red. “Can't imagine who'd want to do something like that. Never hurt a flea. And if it's this stuff going around town, you know, about them worshipping the devil out at our place, or anything like that, well, that's crazy. They never did anything of the sort. If you ask me, you find out who's crazy enough to believe such stuff, and you'll find who did this.”

“When's the funeral, Ernie?” Dolly asked.

Amanda chirped right in, hands clasped at her chest, eyes slightly off, as if she was watching a future event unfold. “That's what we're planning right now. Looks like the memorials will be at Murphy's next week. They're being cremated, you know. Then the funerals will be on Wednesday morning. First at the funeral home, then over to our church.”

“I didn't think the women belonged to the Church of the Contented Flock,” I said, catching an unhappy look on Ernie Henry's face.

“Well, not technically, but Pastor is doing me and Ernie a favor. He's having the service there, and the ladies are doing a lovely luncheon afterward. It's the best we could think to do, under the circumstances.”

“But neither of them was religious, in that sense,” Dolly said. “Wouldn't they be happier having their ashes scattered out in the woods?”

“That's just awful, Dolly.” Amanda looked shocked, then saddened at Dolly's insensitivity. “Neither I, nor Ernie, would let such a thing happen. It was just that they were old, you know. People get confused when they get old. We're having a nice urn for each of them. Something tasteful.”

Dolly made a noise that could mean a storm to follow.

I turned to Amanda. “Mrs. Henry was here the day before she died. Remember? She seemed upset. Do you mind if I ask what that was all about?”

Amanda tucked her chin down into her robe, and hesitated. “Well, not if you're going to put it in the paper. Me and Ernie don't want publicity. Last thing we want is our mothers' names being besmirched.”

“I'm here helping the deputy for the most part,” I said. “We just want to put an end to whatever's going on, and get the guilty man in jail.”

“The state police officer already asked me a hundred questions.” She made a face and waved a limp hand at us.

“We're all looking into it,” Dolly stepped in. “We want this stopped, and whoever does that is fine with me and the chief.”

Amanda nodded, then sniffed. “Well.” She gave Ernie a look. “Mrs. Henry came over because she was mad as could be at me for letting my mother's garden go the way I did. Isn't that right, Ernie?” She gave a little giggle. Ernie shrugged and spread his hands. “Ernie here can tell you how they all take care of their gardens. Mother said it had something to do with her soul. She wouldn't go over to the church with me, but she'd put hours in that garden, even on Sunday mornings. It got to be a sore spot between us, that the garden came before God. After she went missing, I just took it as a sign that you don't put false gods before the real Lord, and I let it go kind of wild. It wasn't nice of me. Not the sort of thing a good Christian woman does, but I was angry. I thought for a while Mother had taken off to spite me. When Mrs. Coy and Mrs. Henry and Mary Margaret came over and wanted to work on it—and it was on a Sunday morning they came, too—well, I just said they should leave well enough alone. If God thought our garden was that important, I was sure he'd see to it. Just like I was sure he would bring Mother back to me safe and sound.”

Amanda rolled her eyes at Ernie Henry who sat with his head down, saying nothing.

“Of course, if I'd known how important it was to your mother, I would have let them come on in and weed away,” she said in Ernie's direction.

His face got red. He didn't look at Amanda or over at us. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his old corduroy jacket. A slightly oily rag dangled from one back pocket. The man must have come over from his repair shop or his oily rag was his security
blanket.

“I'll be going now.” He stood and headed for the door. “You go on and plan what you like for the funerals, Amanda. Whatever you choose will be fine with me. Just remember, I don't want to spend a whole lot of money. They're gone. That's that.”

Then he was gone, too. Amanda gave a couple of clucks of her tongue and tightened her narrow nostrils. “Poor man. He doesn't understand there are times you can't pinch pennies. People will expect something nice of us. I mean …” She sighed. “Well, our mothers were pillars of the community, despite what people say.”

She stopped and sighed again, then smiled and batted her eyelashes at us. “He doesn't have a clue how to act without a woman to tell 'im. That's the trouble when a boy doesn't leave his mother at the right time. They stay as dependent as babies. Now, a woman, on the other hand, why, I've never had trouble making a life for myself. Right now I have plans to move to a new place. You won't catch me staying here in Leetsville. Not with all these terrible memories.”

“Where you moving to, Amanda?” I asked.

“Oh, just up to Charlevoix, I think. I've been looking at some very pretty places …”

Dolly whistled. “That's money over there, Amanda.”

Amanda smirked. “I know. But with the life insurance and this oil money I just found out about, well, I figure it's something I should do to honor my mother's name.”

Dolly gave her an odd look. “Your mother loved this town. All her friends were here. How would you be honoring her by moving away?”

“Now, Dolly Wakowski.” She put on her hurt look. I was catching on to Amanda Poet. She had a set of faces she switched to for differing emotions. Seemed a good way to handle things, not having to think too much. Just push the button—new face. I kind of liked the idea of getting away with being on automatic pilot. But then I had to slide out of my self-satisfaction and smug criticism when I realized that was about the way I treated Jackson.

“You know very well my mother'd always hoped to move someplace else. There's gardening clubs over to Charlevoix and Elk Rapids. They'd have been thrilled to have a lady like my mother join them. She would've been so happy among people of her own kind.”