Dead Dancing Women (24 page)

Dolly shook her head.

Sullivan, his plate filled with ham and macaroni and cheese, passed behind us on his way to a seat at the main table. I stepped back, almost knocking his plate from his hands.

“I hear you used to live down in Saginaw,” I said, keeping my voice low, putting a hand on his arm to hold him in place.

He nodded, then decided he could be a little friendlier than that, and almost smiled. “Used to,” he said, his jowly face quivering, his red eyes taking in the people with me. He nodded to everyone and pointed to his plate. “Great food Amanda's got here. Why don't you folks get on into that line before everything's gone?”

“Weren't you with the police department in Saginaw? I thought I heard that,” I said.

Sullivan looked taken back, as if he hadn't given a thought to such a thing in years. He nodded after giving me a long, slow look. “I was. Four years. Then Mother needed me up here to help run the business.”

“Well, I was just wondering. You don't still have your old uniform, do you?”

By this time Dolly's face was perking up and the others nearby were standing at attention.

Sullivan looked as if he was thinking hard, then moved his neck uncomfortably inside his too-tight shirt. He looked around as if searching for the nearest place he might grab a drink. “Somewhere. We had to buy 'em. No sense in leaving it behind. Burned up with everything else, I suppose.”

“I'm asking because of what Eugenia saw the night of the fire.”

Sullivan looked suspicious, then sad. “Yeah. Somebody running out.” He turned on Dolly. “I heard that was you, Office Wakowski. I wondered why you were here today, if that was the case. I mean, not that I think you set the fire but until everything gets cleared up …”

“It wasn't me,” Dolly said loud and clear, puffing herself to old Dollyesque proportions.

“That's why I was wondering about your uniform,” I said. “Wouldn't have been you, would it, Sullivan? You wouldn't've been wearing it that night? Or maybe grabbed it when you jumped out the window, wrapped yourself in the jacket. Anything like that.”

“Are you asking did I put on my old uniform then set fire to the funeral home?” Now he was mad. He stepped away from us and squared off his shoulders. “Don't try to shift blame to me. If it wasn't Dolly, you'd all better get busy finding out who it was. If I get 'em first they won't be alive long. If I get 'em first you may never hear who it was either. All I want is that person dead.”

He walked off calling a last, firm “That's all” over his shoulder. Maybe I shouldn't have accosted him at his mother's funeral. I felt bad until Gilbert wandered over while we were eating, and leaned in and warned in a low voice, “I wouldn't be botherin' my brother if I were you, Miss Kincaid. It's our families affected and none of us wants you sticking your nose in. Not you and not Dolly Wakowski either. We don't need two silly women mucking around, making people think there's wrong where there isn't.”

He leaned back, uneasy on his feet. Nobody at our table said a word. Gilbert went directly to where Sullivan sat, leaned down and whispered something in his ear.

Lucky Barnard was halfway down the stairs, bending forward to look around. Dolly waved to let him know where she was. The tall man made his way through people at the dessert table, eyeing the elaborate funeral cake Amanda had ordered, with white and black icing and a huge black cross standing upright at the middle.

Lucky nodded to everyone at the table then crouched down between me and Dolly. I knew more than a few eyes around the room were on him. He looked at the faces turned his way, then at each of us. “Might be all over, ladies.”

First, being called a lady, in that tone of voice, always got my back up. Made me feel as if I should be wearing a hoop skirt or a couple of crinolines. Second, his face looked as if the news he was bringing wasn't what we'd want to hear.

“What do you mean?” Dolly demanded, her look as mistrustful as I was feeling. “What is it, Chief?”

“I got a letter this morning,” he said, trying to keep his voice low. “From Mary Margaret, herself.”

“What do you mean, ‘from Mary Margaret'? The woman's dead.”

Lucky moved around on his haunches, uncomfortable in his squatting position. “Sent it before she died. Sunday night. Maybe sometime Sunday afternoon. Went out Monday, Dorothy at the post office said. I didn't get it until today.”

Flora heard and leaned around Dolly. “Sent to you?” she demanded. “Mary Margaret sent you a letter before she died?”

He nodded, then put a finger to his lips, signaling her to lower her voice. People were already craning their necks our way.

“What'd she say in the letter?” Dolly hissed in a half whisper.

“Well, this is hard. Maybe you don't want to hear, Miz Coy.” He raised his eyebrows at Flora.

“What more can there be, Chief? I can't think of a thing Mary Margaret would have written to you that could hurt me.”

He was well aware that people around us were listening. He took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and held it out. Dolly took the paper. Flora and I leaned in as close as we could get.

“That's not her handwriting.” Flora dismissed the letter with a flick of her hand.

“I know,” Lucky said. “It's mine. I made a copy. The original went to the state for fingerprinting.”

“Was hers handwritten?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Typewritten.”

“Do you have the envelope?”

He nodded. “I already turned it over to the state.”

“What color was it?” Dolly asked, squinting hard at him.

Lucky nodded. “Just what you're thinking. Pink, like the envelopes the threatening letters came in.”

We leaned in to read.

Chief Barnard,

When you read this letter I'll be dead. I've got too much on my conscience to live. It all started because I needed money to fix up the funeral home or I'd have to shut it down and have no income left for me and my boys. When Ruby told us about her good luck with those oil wells I just thought I'd ask her for a loan since we'd always sworn to help each other out. Ruby didn't want anything to do with it. She said there wasn't enough for doing things like making loans. At first I was just surprised. Then I got mad. We always vowed to help each other when we needed it and here I was asking a favor and being turned down. She was at the funeral home because I called and asked her to come on over. I don't know what happened. I must have hit her with something because the next thing she was laying dead on the floor of the viewing room. All I could think to do was get her downstairs. There was no problem after that. I've taken care of dead bodies all my life. The only thing I could think of was to get her out to Joslyn's woods and bury her. I did that in parts. Taking a few pieces at a time. But Joslyn found out. She accused me when we were out at our fire place where we'd gathered in happier times. What could I do but silence Joslyn too? I don't know how this all began but I'm going to finish it tonight. I'm going to kill myself because that's the best I can do for my boys, now that I've ruined their lives. I hope everybody can forgive me or at least pity me. Something evil just crawled into my soul. I hope it had nothing to do with our ceremonies out there at Joslyn's, in the woods. I hope we didn't let loose things we didn't know how to control. Tell everybody how sorry I am for everything I've done.

Signed,

Mary Margaret Murphy

THIRTY-TWO

“She never did any
such thing,” Flora Coy said in her deepest, angriest voice. She was loud and looked about to lose her grip. “Look at that letter, will you? Doesn't sound a thing like her. Why, you all knew Mary Margaret. Does that sound right?”

“She sign it?” Dolly asked, as bewildered as the rest of us.

“Signature was typed.”

“There, that proves Mary Margaret didn't write that thing,” Flora said, dropped her hands in her lap, and fell back in her chair. “You think if a word of that was true she wouldn't have signed it herself? That's crazy.” Tears filled her eyes. “Imagine saying Mary Margaret murdered Ruby and Joslyn. As if she had one mean bone in her whole body. I can't imagine. Why, I just can't imagine …”

Flora dissolved in tears. Others sprang up around her immediately. It was bad timing. The wrong place. I wished Lucky would have called us outside. Anything but this. Flora was sputtering mad. She looked into the faces of her neighbors and demanded if any one of them thought Mary Margaret did any of this herself? People began shushing her, patting her back. They were caring, but curious, looking to Lucky, demanding what that paper was he'd shown to poor Flora. Gilbert and Sullivan were there; asking to see what they'd heard was a letter from their mother. Amanda hurried over to shush everyone, telling them to go back, have more of the macaroni and cheese, then demanding in an urgent voice to know what on earth was going on
now
. Lucky looked from me to Dolly but we were no help. He'd gotten himself into this, I thought. Let him disentangle.

Dolly and I got out of there as Sullivan sputtered that the letter was a pack of lies, how his sainted mother never hurt a soul in her life. The only reason she was in the funeral business at all—despite her soft heart—was that their daddy'd started it long ago and when he died she had no other way to make a living. He staggered as he made his points, red face almost purple with anger.

Gilbert was silent, standing behind all of the others, glowering.

“Well,” Dolly said once we were outside, away from everyone. She glanced around the packed parking lot, so full that cars had spilled out along Divinity Drive. “You'd have to admit Mary Margaret was one who could take care of a dead body.”

“Yeah,” I found myself agreeing reluctantly. “But would she dismember one friend and strangle another?”

“And why'd she search Joslyn's house?”

“Maybe looking for a letter? Something Joslyn had written to implicate her in Ruby's murder?”

“What about Flora's house? That was after the fire.” She shook her head, bewildered.

“Right,” I said, feeling the same. “Somebody was looking for something and it wasn't a random robbery. Couldn't have been Mary Margaret. She was dead. This doesn't make sense.”

We weren't outside long before people began pouring from the church. I guessed the luncheon was over. Amanda stomped out with her face dark and angry. She kept going, across the street to her house. We could hear her front door slam from where we stood. Evidently Amanda didn't like having her festive occasions ruined by bad news, especially when she'd sunk so much money into a really elegant buffet.

Gilbert and Sullivan weren't far behind Amanda. Sullivan spotted me and Dolly and thumped over with his arms out at his sides, his shoulders tight. Sullivan had gotten ahold of something to drink in the church. He was unsteady and looking for trouble.

“You two better not take this any further, you hear me!” He shouted before he even got close. Dolly moved in front of me, her hands patting the air, trying to calm him.

“We only want to get at the truth here. Same as you,” Dolly said in her best authoritative voice. Sullivan wasn't having any of it.

“My mother was as pure as the driven snow. Somebody's trying to sully her memory. I'll kill the son of a bitch if I get my hands on him. Mother no more sent that letter than she killed her two friends. I got money. I was gonna fix the place. It was just I needed a little time. Things were turning around for me. We were going to be fine. She never asked Ruby Poet for nothing. That's not the kind of person Mother was.”

Sullivan wiped at his mouth where spit had landed on his lower lip.

He faltered by the time he got to the end of his speech. He teetered in place. I felt sorry for him. Sullivan Murphy, like his brother, was a small, squat man who wanted people to think he was big, tall, impressive. He wasn't. Even less so now, with his hands clenched, his face contorted, eyes blurred and red, his bright cheeks shiny with tears.

Gilbert followed his brother out of the church, but stood apart while Sullivan yelled at us. Gilbert kept his head down, listening. He didn't come over, or try to get his brother to leave. He didn't make a move to join the tirade. He waited, like a bystander, for the show to end. Sullivan broke down completely and stood with his shoulders shaking, unable to say another word. Dolly helped him to his car, a rented van. Gilbert turned his back and walked to where his hearse stood at the front curb. He got in and drove off while his brother sat behind the wheel of his van, sobbing. Dolly talked to Sullivan through his open window and finally convinced him that Ernie had better take him back to Traverse City. He was in no shape to drive.

Lucky brought Flora out to us. Friends and neighbors were gathered around her, having their say over the letter, how nobody believed a word of it.

We went back to Flora's house. I made tea for all of us while Dolly sat with Flora and calmed her down. The old woman was as upset as I'd ever seen her. Even more than sadness, behind the tears was outrage.

“How could anybody do that to Mary Margaret's memory?” she asked me and Dolly again and again as we sat over tea and cookies, with the backdrop of squeaking parakeets. “Why, if she'd asked Ruby for money, Ruby would have moved heaven and earth to help. I know … knew … Ruby well enough for that. All poor Ruby talked about was helping people. That was her whole life. She offered to get me as many birds as I wanted but I told her I had all I could handle. She talked about helping the world by what we were learning out there in the woods. How you treat Mother Nature. I told you Ruby said she could see her, didn't I? When we were out there dancing? Ruby was the kindest …”

Flora wiped at a stray tear and looked up, beseeching us to understand what she and her friends had been about.

“Mary Margaret said something about an envelope she gave each of you …”

Flora blinked as she thought. “Well, my goodness, yes. I do have a note from Ruby. How nice. Now I've got something to remember her by. A nice poem, I'll bet. A few words against the dark days. Ruby was good at things like that. Better than me.”

She gave a sad smile.

“I remember when she gave it to us. One for each. And said to keep it and someday it would come in handy. It was important that we thought about what we were doing when we weren't together. Ruby's little notes would do that. Sometimes it was clippings from a newspaper or magazine. Sometimes even a secret letter about us. Said it was our connection to each other, to our humanity, to our womanliness, to what we stood for …”

Flora took a long, deep breath and sat with her head down. Dolly and I looked at each other and waited.

“Don't know where I put it now. But it'll surface. And I'll bet you it will be on just the right day, when I need an encouraging word from Ruby.”

Dolly and I exchanged a look. “Maybe you should look for it now, Flora. Whoever's after all of you, it's about something you were in together.”

She looked up, thought a moment, then stood. “Well, this might be the right time after all. I could stand a dose of Ruby's good sense about now.”

“You know where it is?” Dolly asked.

“Hmm.” Flora frowned. “Only one place I ever keep anything, I suppose. Put everything in my desk in the front room.”

“Or”—she hesitated—“it could be in the refrigerator. I read where burglars don't ever think to look for valuables in the refrigerator. That's where I keep my wedding ring when I'm not wearing it—in an ice tray. But I don't think I put Ruby's letter in an ice tray. I mean, it wasn't valuable. Just precious to me, you could say.”

“Why don't we take a look at it,” Dolly urged gently.

Flora looked over at me. I nodded, too.

“If you think so.” She sighed, got up, and left the kitchen.

While she was gone Dolly and I didn't say a word. Not a hope. Not a hint. Nothing about thinking it was time we got a break.

Flora was back, her hands empty. “I looked in the desk and it's not there. Then I looked in the bedroom dresser and it's not there either. You think I should check the refrigerator, just in case?”

Dolly nodded and offered to help but Flora waved her off. She searched shelf after shelf, then the freezer, ice trays, the crisper drawers.

“I didn't think so.” She straightened. Her shoulders fell. She looked her seventy-plus years. “They must've got it. I don't understand any of this. All just too much …”

“The people who robbed you? You think they took your letter?”

She nodded, miserable. “Who else?”

“You all had one? You're sure?”

Flora nodded, her flushed face sad.

“You. Joslyn Henry. Mary Margaret,” I said.

Finally, it looked as if we were onto something connecting the three dead women, beyond their moon cookies, beyond their dancing. A poem. A clipping. Not likely, but we didn't have anything else.