Dead Dancing Women (16 page)

I'd met Bill a few months after moving to northern Michigan. I'd gone into the busy paper one morning and brought a sheaf of stories I'd done. He'd read my stuff carefully and told me he didn't have a full-time job right then. Maybe in the future … I told him I only wanted occasional work. Stringer stuff. I said I needed to keep my hand in, that I was writing a book …

Bill had leaned back in his chair, pushed his glasses up his nose—which I didn't take personally—and said he was glad to have me with them. Since then I'd done stories on fires, on an airplane that came down and got stuck in a tree out near Arnold's Swamp, on a rabies scare, on a couple of new businesses, on the effects of a snow-free winter on Shanty Creek Ski Resort, on the White Pine Stampede out in Mancelona, and a couple of parades and things. I kept busy and I liked working for Bill. He was a nonchalant boss. Funny and earnest at the same time. Just the kind of hands-off guy I needed right then.

I handed Bill the notes Dolly and I had made, catching him up with what was going on in town, including the memorials at Murphy's and the funeral service at the Church of the Contented Flock.

We sat in the afternoon sun, flicking half-dead flies off our cheese and crackers, and downing the last of Jackson's Cabernet Sauvignon—which served him right since he and Jennifer hadn't bothered to return from their sightseeing tour of the countryside.

“Pastor Runcival,” Bill said, and he bit at his lip, deep in thought. “You said he preached against the women?”

I nodded. “But he said he was put up to it by some people in his church.”

“You know who?” Bill squinted at me and gave me the finger—or lifted his heavy glasses.

“He didn't seem to remember,” I said.

“Don't you think that's important? I mean, find out who had something against the ladies, maybe that's where you'll discover the murderer.”

“We've already got this Survivalist guy—Dave Rombart. They called the cops on him for snooping—Lucky Barnard says poaching—on the Henry property. Then there's my neighbor, Harry Mockerman. Mrs. Poet was mad at him for kiting the price of her firewood. She let a lot of people know she was unhappy. Harry's not especially … well … he's not ordinary. He could have gotten mad enough, I suppose, to do something to her. But why Mrs. Henry? Unless she'd figured out what he did. Maybe she went to see him.”

Bill hummed under his breath. “How far have the state police gotten? Are they telling you anything?”

“Just what I've passed on to you.”

“No snitches? Usually there's somebody noticed something, heard something. You know how folks are up here. They know more about each other than anybody wants to think.”

“Nothing yet,” Dolly finally spoke up, getting over being intimidated by Bill.

“To tell you the truth, Emily.” Bill was looking straight at me now, glasses firmly in place, his green eyes, behind the glasses, large. “I kind of came today to talk you out of following the story any further. I can get the briefings from Gaylord myself from here on in. It just isn't safe. I think what you've got here is a maniac. Somebody who looks harmless enough, who acts sane enough, but who goes nuts when there's a full moon, or when he drinks, or when his wife hollers at him. Whatever it is, this one's dangerous and you've been targeted twice.”

“I don't think … ,” I started to say, but he held his hand up to stop me.

“Not only that, you live right out here where the murders are happening.”

“We don't know where Mrs. Poet was killed,” I interrupted.

“Still, she was disposed of here in your woods. That has to tell you something.”

Dolly said nothing through all of this. I thought the least she could do was stand up for me, declare me a necessary part of her investigation. Something.

“You could be right,” she finally piped in, sucking at the inside of her left cheek. “Maybe I shouldn't let Emily get any more involved. If she were in law enforcement, well, that's different. We're trained for things like this. It was just because she wants to write mysteries. I thought maybe it'd help her to be on the inside of one.”

“Is that enough reason to get yourself killed?” he asked, looking straight at me, worry written in lines across his forehead. It felt good, his concern for my well-being.

“I appreciate what you're saying, Bill, but would you pull a male reporter off the story because you were worried about him?”

“I would,” he said, nodding hard. “Sure would. And I have.”

“And did that reporter listen?”

Bill shook his head, shook it again, then chuckled.

“There. If I give up now you'll always think it was because I got scared. That stinks. And I'm not afraid. Dolly, here, can't quit if she gets scared. It's her job. So, it's my job, too.”

“You've already been threatened—in a half-assed way,” he pressed on. “This guy's committed two murders. What's to stop him from committing more?”

“Me and Dolly,” I said.

“Oh.” Bill settled back in his chair, hands going up in a gesture of surrender.

We spent the rest of our time, before Jennifer and Jackson got back from their drive, in small talk about local politics and a couple of scandals. Bill had details that didn't make the paper and Dolly listened hard, eating up being on the inside of things, along with this newspaper man.

When Jennifer and Jackson returned, extolling the virtues of a ten-mile run up a small cliff they'd come across in the Jordan Valley, I left them to entertain my two guests and drove in to the IGA in town for Italian sausage I could grill, the best bread I could find, plenty of salad, a big sponge cake, and fresh strawberries. I was going to cook—an unusual occurrence in my house.

Jennifer and Dolly helped in the kitchen, cutting up cheese cubes and tomatoes, and bread to grill for croutons. Jennifer nudged me. “He's cute, Emily. Your friend.”

I let her think what she wanted about my journalist “boyfriend.” Dolly rolled her eyes and asked Jennifer when she was going home to her parents' house. Nothing if not direct, I thought.

“I don't know. Emily's made it such fun right here. I thought,” she smiled a winning smile at me, “well, I thought maybe I'd stay a few days. Just to get Jack settled.”

Dolly's face went from slightly pink to deep crimson. “You going to help Jackson look for a place of his own, aren't you? He can't stay here with Emily, you know. She's got a book she's working on. She needs a lot of peace and quiet.”

“Oh, we wouldn't think of intruding. We'll be busy. Jack definitely wants his own place. This house is much too small. His work requires space.”

I thanked God for my negligible quarters.

“I'll just hang out until he gets settled. Wherever that is,” she added. She gave me a wide smile with a territorial gleam behind it.

Dolly made a noise deep in her throat. A kind of Sorrow sound. I busied myself slicing strawberries in half.

Bill stayed for dinner, grilling the sausages while Jackson and Jennifer disappeared into their bedroom to change for dinner. I looked down at my jeans and my red cotton sweater and decided I was dressed enough. Sorrow kept Bill company at the grill, receiving a few sausage snippets I was sure would make him throw up about midnight. The two of them seemed to like each other. I didn't bother questioning Sorrow's loyalty anymore. He didn't have any.

Dinner went well, though I'd forgotten the onions and peppers that usually accompany grilled Italian sausage. I made a good salad. Jackson graciously had to admit my salads were what he missed most about me. Bill left soon after dinner, stopping long enough in the driveway to suggest I think over what he'd said.

Dolly drove out right behind him. I was left alone with Jackson and Jennifer, huddled together at one end of my sofa. I remembered I had some writing to do—that article for the magazine was due by Wednesday, my novel … anything. Sorrow looked from me to Jackson and Jennifer snuggled together on my couch, watching television. He flopped down on the rug in front of them, winked at me, and left me—my disloyal friend—to make my way alone, in the dark, out to my studio.

TWENTY-THREE

Early the next morning,
I awoke to thumping in the next room. And to Sorrow growling from the foot of my bed, where he'd decided he must sleep, draped over my legs. The growling was like a low motor in my ears, a vibration through the mattress. I whispered to him to be quiet. I didn't want them to know we were awake—me and my dog. It was terrible, lying there listening to the two of them—their occasional whispers, laughter, the squeaking of that infernal bed.

Stupid—that I'd tried to be so civilized, so sanguine about having him back in my house, now with one of his “girls.” It was the “Jennifers” that had broken my life into bits. It was the “Jennifers”—no, that was too neurotic: blame the other women, exonerate the asshole. It was Jackson and his unconscionable lust, now his almost pathetic need to prove himself young by feeding off youth. He had to believe deep inside his head that to fuck a young woman was his only way to immortality. I didn't know who I felt sorriest for: Jennifer, Jackson, or me.

I didn't have a choice but to stick my head between two pillows and try to keep their noises out of my mind. I kicked at Sorrow, who then yipped and jumped down to lie on the rug where he could sulk in peace.

I fell back to sleep and didn't hear the phone when it rang. Jennifer came in, lifted the pillow from my head, and yelled in my ear, “Emily, the phone's ringing. It's three o'clock in the morning. You want me to answer? I didn't know …”

I mumbled something nasty and swung my feet around to the floor. It wasn't easy to get up. I'd had dreams earlier of a hanging, so though I was happy to be awake, I was also disoriented enough to have trouble placing myself in my home.

The phone on the living room desk kept ringing. I found it, finally, and answered. Dolly, her voice angry, then insistent, yelled at me to wake up.

“Murphy's Funeral Home is on fire!” she screamed. “You hear me? Completely on fire. One end to the other. They think Mary Margaret's in there. They don't know anything yet. Come on into town, Emily. Get here quick. This is awful. Just awful.”

“Where'll I meet you?” I asked, still dim, blinking, trying to think.

“Where the hell you think I'll be?”

“Give me a little time …”

“I'm not giving you anything. Get in here. It looks like another one of our women has just gone up in smoke.”

Driving into town along US 131, I could see the sky above Leetsville lighted like a winter sunset, all burnt umber and bloody red. Above the brilliant color hung a mushroom-shaped cloud. As I got to the place where houses began and the woods ended, I could see embers shooting into the air, settling slowly down on rooftops. People were out with hoses, wetting down their homes. People stood along the sidewalk. One man fought a small blaze in his yard. It was a vision straight out of hell: the fires, the shadowy figures. I had to drive carefully. The dogs were frantic, running into the street and back. Children stood on the sidewalks in their pajamas, holding on to their parents who gathered in knots, straining toward the fiery horizon, leaning close to talk.

I was stopped by Lucky Barnard waving me down on Main Street. Mitchell Street, leading over to Griffith, where the funeral home stood, was closed. I pulled up and asked Lucky where Dolly was. He pointed toward the fire, and let me make a left turn.

The smoke and heat were thick before I got to Griffith Street. I had to park two blocks beyond and make my way back through crowds of people and standing fire engines, red lights flashing like sparks from hell. Hoses snaked everywhere, leading toward clouds of black smoke billowing from the listing funeral home. Flames shot up through the roof and outlined the windows. The sound was a terrible roaring from the fire, and the shouts of men, calling orders all around. There was no getting close. I looked for Dolly and finally spotted her at the other corner, directing traffic coming down Divinity Drive from the north.

She looked efficient and in control, using her flashlight to wave cars back out of town, yelling when she had to give information. I ran closer and hollered for her attention. She yelled back over her shoulder. “Nobody's seen Mary Margaret. They think she's still in there.”

“She's not coming out of that alive!” I yelled back.

“I think that's the point, don't you?” She waved as a car crept toward her.

“Where's Gilbert and Sullivan?” I called. The noise behind me grew deafening. It sounded like the crashing and creaking and bellowing after a bomb. I turned to face a shower of sparks and smoke.

“My God!” I shouted. “The roof fell in!”

We had to hunch down. The air filled with hot cinders, with lighter-than-air ash, with terrible, choking smoke. She made her way over to me, bent and small. “Think the whole town's going to go up. I've got to get around and see who needs help.”

She ran a yellow police tape across the road and shouted that it would have to do until some of the county or state police got there. We leaned forward and scurried, not away from the fire, but toward it, though the smoke grew so thick I had to pull my shirt over my mouth and nose in order to breathe. We found the fire chief, Ben Hamilton, with his arms waving as he yelled orders left and right.

“It's got Gertie's beauty shop!” the tall man shouted at us. “Maybe you should make sure everybody in the houses beyond there is out. Never know where this thing is going to go now. We're working on the adjacent buildings. Firemen keeping them dampened down. Praying the wind doesn't pick up.”

Crouched and gagging, we made our way around the fire trucks, over the hoses, through the running men, to the other side of Mitchell Street, rushing past Bob's Barber Shop to the houses beyond, up porches, knocking, yelling. No one could have slept through the thundering noise, the sirens, the shouts. Everybody was out on the sidewalk, all watching in horror as a piece of their town went up in flames. When we could finally stop to stand with the others and watch the building burn, I leaned close to Dolly and asked again, “Where are Gilbert and Sullivan? I thought they were staying close, to watch her?”

She shook her head, her face sorrowful. “Nobody knows if they're in there, too, or if they went out tonight. Just like both of them to sneak off, with those bad habits of theirs. Hell, now I hope they did.”

“Why are they so sure Mary Margaret's still in there?”

“You see her anywhere around? Where else would she have been in the middle of the night?”

“That means …” The horrible thought hit me. “Joslyn Henry and Ruby Poet—their bodies were in there, too.”

“All of them, together. Like some joint cremation.” She nodded.

“But not Flora Coy.”

Dolly shook her head. “I saw Flora a little while ago.”

I couldn't help but think how lucky for Flora, and wonder what we knew about her. The last woman standing. Hmm, Agatha Christie:
And Then There Were None
.

We watched as morning came on. First the trees stood out in black relief, then the smoldering buildings: the funeral home, Gertie's shop behind it. As the light grew, the buildings darkened, becoming smoking piles of unrecognizable rubble. I couldn't bear to think of Mary Margaret in there. Why hadn't she awoken? I'd heard that people died of smoke inhalation before the flames ever got to them. The thought of her in there, dying, with her two friends in the basement, or maybe off to the crematorium. I hoped it was that—they were already gone. One more insult to those poor women was almost too much to think about.

Dolly, standing beside me, was silent and tired. She had smudges under her eyes and across her cheeks, as if she'd been in the fire, too. Her walkie-talkie crackled at her waist. She stepped away from all of us, who stood and stared at nothing, then came back and whispered, “We've got to go. The chief wants to see us over at the station.”

I nodded and followed her, walking through deep mud puddles left behind by the streams of water that had showered the funeral home. The air was filled with the stink of fire. I didn't dare think of what else was mixed into that stench. There were times, I found, when thinking too deeply only hurt.

At the station, the chief looked as tired as Dolly, his hair oddly singed at the front. He sat at his desk with his shoulders slumped, his head down. He looked up as we walked in and settled on metal chairs in front of his desk, and shook his head.

“The state police were here already. Seems they have reason to think the fire wasn't accidental. Their lab boys will be out in an hour. Somebody smelled accelerant when the firemen first got there. The fire chief's been in. Everybody's going to be looking into this.” He hesitated then ran a hand over his face. The man was exhausted.

“I've been just about ordered to keep you two out of it now,” he said. “For your own good.”

Dolly sputtered and sat forward on her chair. I slouched down. I didn't blame any of them. It was like I'd been playing, as if it were a game to keep my mind occupied, or a class in mystery writing. What I felt most was shame. Three women horribly dead. No game. No nice little diversion to keep my mind off failure and an ex-
husband
and his “Miss Thing.”

“Are they getting anywhere?” Dolly demanded, her little body up straight and tight. “Are we bothering them?”

The chief shook his head again. “It's not that, Dolly. They just think maybe you're stirring things up that shouldn't have been stirred. They work kind of quietly. Looking at things scientifically, making inquiries into backgrounds. You're right out there. Know what I mean? I'll tell you, what we're most worried about now is you and Emily becoming targets. You go talking around town, listening to gossip. You're making yourself the only visible law in town. That's not such a good thing when you've got a murdering lunatic running around.”

“That's my job, Chief,” Dolly complained. “I'm supposed to be the law around here.”

“Yes,” he said. “You and me. Together. I've been distracted with Charlie's trouble but he's back home in a few hours. I think I'd better handle things from now on. What I mean is we've got to back off and not get in the way. They're calling in guys from other departments to work on this. It's the most serious thing we've had happen since that kidnapping a few years ago. I'm telling you, Dolly—and you, too, Emily—you've got to stay out of it now. Stay away from the people involved …”

“Chief, when I was hired on you said I'd make a good officer, didn't you?”

“And you are a good officer, Dolly. Just those little accidents …”

“Then what's going on? You don't like the state police sticking their noses in our town any more than I do. Something else's happened.”

Lucky Barnard looked directly at Dolly, then at me. He hesitated. I hadn't picked up on what Dolly had gotten right away. Something more here. The man didn't want to come out and say what he obviously had to say.

“It's gotten worse than I thought it could get, Dolly.”

“You mean with the fire? I didn't see that coming either or I would have warned Mary Margaret somebody could be after her. I guess that means we'd better see to Flora Coy. Maybe she could stay at my house …”

“How would that help? You're gone most of the time. No better than staying at her own place.”

“Then Emily's. People there now, and Emily could keep an eye on her.”

I started to complain. I had a house full at the moment. Maybe it was better to find a safe place far away from Leetsville, with someone who wasn't known to be as involved as I'd gotten myself.

The chief interrupted. “That's not what I was talking about. Just be quiet a minute and let me get this out, OK?”

He was angry and way past losing his patience. “Somebody called and said they saw you running out of the funeral home just before the fire started.”

“Me?” Dolly clapped a hand at her chest. Her mouth dropped open. “I was home in bed. How could I have been at the funeral home? Why the heck would I have been there …”

Understanding dawned. “My God! Somebody's saying I set the fire! Who was it? That's who's doing this. Me and Emily are getting close. He wants me off the case. That's it, Chief. You've got to see that's it.”

He nodded. “I know that's what it looks like. But it was a woman who called me. Not a man. And Dolly, it wasn't anonymous. I know the person.” He nodded a couple of times and looked sad.

She sat back, stricken. “Was it Dave Rombart's wife? You wouldn't trust that woman would you? Take her word over mine? She's just …”

He shook his head. “Not her. Somebody who doesn't want it out that she called. Not a troublemaker either, Dolly. Sorry as I am about this, I have to look into it.”

“Was it somebody from Pastor Runcival's church?” I asked. “He's got women in his church who'd protect him. Even Amanda Poet carries on about ‘Pastor' this and ‘Pastor' that. Somebody here in town just wants Dolly and me to back off. That's obvious.”

“I can't tell you what's going on until I look into it. Anyway, the focus is on Officer Wakowski and I don't like it. I can't protect her. We're the whole police force. What's going to have to happen is that you take some time off, Dolly. I mean, you know this is going to get around town like lightning. People will be looking funny at you. These things tend to feed on themselves. Before you know it, I'm going to be getting calls from every crackpot saying they saw you doing this and that. As it is, Officer Brent wants to talk to you. I had to tell him about the call.”

“So now I'm supposed to leave you alone, when we've got all of this going on? What'd you hire me for in the first place? I'm either a police officer or I'm not.”