Dead Dancing Women (9 page)

“And you know what else?” Gloria leaned in close to whisper. “I heard that Amanda Poet stands to inherit a sum of money. Seems her mom had property that had been in the family a hundred years and she just recently signed oil leases on it. Lots of people doing that now, on what everybody thought was worthless land. Could be a lot of money. That's a reason to do a poor old soul in.”

“Where'd you hear that?” I wanted to know, envying those with access to the jungle drumming.

“Oh, it's just going around. And some are saying that those Survivalists, down the road here, had a run-in with Miz Henry because they were doing something on her property, where the women have their little meetings. Maybe they took it out on poor Miz Poet.”

“Hmm,” was all I said. These two had picked up more than Dolly and I, just by gossiping around town. So much for our logical and ordered investigation.

“Anything else you come across?” I asked.

“Well there's old Harry. He had a fight about some wood with Miz Poet last winter.”

“I heard that one.”

“And,” Simon leaned in close. “To tell you the truth, I don't trust Ernie Henry so much. There's been stories about him. Things I don't like to say …”

I waited, knowing he would “say” soon enough.

“He makes these trips out of town. Nobody knows where he goes and who he sees, though there's talk that it's some CIA thing he's got himself into. He knows a lot about machines and motors and there's been some speculation that Ernie's helping the government.”

I kind of dismissed that one.

“Do you know anything about Mrs. Murphy and her sons?” I was being shameless.

“You know that Gilbert gambles away everything he can get his hands on? Poor Mrs. Murphy is at her wits' end, Eugenia told me, with him losing every dime to the Indians, up there at the casino in Petoskey. It's not like he wins or anything. That's why she can't make repairs to the funeral home. Roof's leaking. Basement's sinking. The front porch needs shoring up.”

“What about the other one? Sullivan.”

Gloria rolled her eyes. “That one. He's a drinker. What his brother doesn't lose at the casino, Sullivan pours down his throat.”

“None of that gives anybody a reason to kill Mrs. Poet.”

Gloria shrugged. “You never know. Soon as I heard there was money involved I told Simon, ‘Could be anybody who thought there was a chance of doing poor Amanda out of some cash.' You just watch Gilbert and Sullivan go after her now. Or Ernie—for that matter. Ernie's so cheap he squeaks when he's got to pull out a dollar. He talks about expanding that small-engine repair shop of his, but I can't see him taking anything out of his own pocket. Gives him a reason. Or even Pastor Runcival—though I'd hate to think it. I know Amanda's been a devout church member, doing more than a little to help the pastor out. Maybe he was mad about the old lady. She wasn't into organized religion, you know. And Miz Henry, well, she used to be a librarian so you can guess what she's been saying about the pastor. People who read get funny ideas. And the pastor's dead set against reading and such.”

I didn't buy into Simon and Gloria's dramatic scenarios. A little too much overheated imagination going on here. What I needed most, I realized, was to talk to Joslyn Henry. Dolly was talking to Flora Coy, who I didn't know at all, and Mary Margaret Murphy. When we learned what went on out there in the woods, maybe we'd understand what had happened to Ruby Poet, and why.

In the meantime, I had to get back into town for dog food, some dog toys, and get Dog to Doc Crimson. And I had to come up with a name other than Dog. Then I had to put some questions together for my Survivalist story. Work had to come into my life somewhere in here.

On his way out the door, Simon stopped long enough to run a new plot he'd thought up by me. “How about this?” he asked. “Seems there's this bunch of people on a fancy train somewhere in Europe.” His eyes wandered as he thought. “Somebody turns up dead and come to find out everybody on the train hated him. It'll turn out that he was murdered by all of them. Sound good?”

I assured Simon I would think about it. I said it had possibilities. Distinct possibilities. Agatha Christie hadn't done badly with it. Why not me?

FOURTEEN

You can doubt anything,
if you think about it long enough, 'cuz what happened always adjusts to fit what happened after that, and it's hard to feel like you are free, when all you seem to do is referee …
*

ani difranco's words kept
running through my head.

My best friend—though she doesn't know me from … well …
from anybody.

It's because I was there, in Chicago, at one of her amazing concerts. And when I'm feeling down, or lost, or feeling just about anything, I think of ani and what her life must have been like, and the battles she keeps on fighting and … well …

I was getting my brain revved to face the Survivalists. In order to do things I don't want to do, I think of things that make me happy and secure. Places and people in the world where I know everything's all right and not crazy and not out at some edge of anger.

I needed ani to get me through this interview. Maybe to get me through my life.

I'd had a bad night with Dog. He'd whined and scratched at the inside door when I put him in a box out on the porch, the way Doc Crimson told me to. I let him in, and he stood beside my bed barking at me. Then he peed and pooped. I stepped in it the first thing when I got up.

All in all, not a good start for a day when I had to do an interview I was dreading. Something would have to be done about Dog. Now that he'd had his shots he was really, officially, my dog, and deserved his own name. I would start there. And some kind of cage for him. A sleeping place. Or maybe we'd just get used to each other and things would all work out. But that was what I'd told myself when I married Jackson Rinaldi.

So I was driving down a very bad two-track—though my Jeep was taking it just fine—and thinking of all the strong female spirits, like ani, I kept around me and wondering if that made me strange. Druidic, as the pastor said of Ruby Poet. And if I was strange, why did it feel so good to call on living and dead predecessors in my time of moral and psychological need? Wasn't that like calling on a saint? Wasn't that like calling on your own family? Wasn't I, after all, of the family of women fighting their way through the world—big and small, short and tall, brave and … well … me.

And I was thinking about Dolly's phone call the night before. They'd found the rest of Mrs. Poet—out in a shallow grave in the woods. Her cut-up body had been dumped into a hole in the ground and covered over. The grave had been disturbed. Parts of her, as I well knew, were missing—but only those parts that had already turned up at my house.

I'd felt irrationally happy when she told me. No more pieces of Ruby Poet appearing in unexpected places. I could open my mailbox again without fear of finding a small body part.

“Do they know how she died?” I'd asked.

“Not yet. Doc said maybe we'd never know. No blunt trauma to the head, but can't tell if there was strangulation because the neck was severed. Maybe something in her system, or on the rest of the body. The lab at Grayling's going over everything they found out there.”

That was all I wanted to know. We made plans to meet at my house after she got off work and I was back from my interview. I'd called Gaylord to get official news of the body find. Then called Bill with the story. I was hoping, as I drove, that Dolly would come over late enough to let me work on my mystery before it dwindled off like quicksilver, and I'd never get it finished.

The two-track I was on ended at a wide metal gate with warning signs posted next to it and over it, and in the trees to each side of it. KEEP OUT was the nicest of the signs. Others warned that parts of my anatomy might be in danger if I didn't turn around and get going. I stopped my car and tested my belief in signs. Did I get out and open the gate? Or did I sit there, meekly, and wait for somebody to come get me?

I parked, got out to stand within the safety of my open door, and looked down the road on the other side of the gate. Nobody. “Oh well,” I was telling myself. “I tried,” I was thinking, when a square-bodied woman dressed in fatigues and a red hunting hat with ear flaps and with a gun held over her left arm stepped out from behind a tree and called to me.

“You Emily Kincaid, from that magazine?” she demanded and I nodded, not giving it much enthusiasm because I wasn't sure of my welcome.

She walked over and unlocked the gate; then unwound some protective wire from the bars and held the gate wide enough for me to barely get through.

“Sharon Rombart, Dave's wife.” She held her hand out for me to shake. I did. The hand was calloused, as I expected.

“We're going to go back by the Center and talk. Dave calls it Operations Center, but you don't have to pay a lot of attention to him.”
She turned, gun swinging along at her side, and took off down the overgrown trail at a slow lope. I stumbled to keep up, through dead Queen Anne's Lace, through bronzed joe-pye weed, through bowed mullein and faintly golden goldenrod. Burrs stuck to my jeans. I tripped in animal holes. All the while I bumbled after her, I tried to ask questions.

“So, you mean you don't go along with this Survivalist stuff?” I called out merrily at the back lumping up and down ahead of me.

She stopped and turned to face me squarely, the gun slipping through her hand to stand, stock down, in the dried weeds. Her feet were spread wide. Her face was cold, eyes the kind you might see just before they pulled the switch on the chair you were sitting in. “What the hell do you mean ‘stuff'? This ain't no ‘stuff' we're doing here. This is real. We know what's coming, even if you Liberals don't have the brains to see it. Don't come in here thinking you're going to laugh and call it ‘stuff.'”

I kept my eyes on the gun, then on her face, which was flat and empty. “You said not to pay attention to Dave …”

She turned and was off again, with me behind her. She called over her shoulder. “I just meant that Dave's not up on the latest information the way I am. If you really want to know what's going on, you ask me. If you want to know what Dave thinks, you ask him.”

We stepped from the trees into a wide clearing. Five men in ragtag camouflage ringed the perimeter of the clearing, leaning on guns, or squatting with their backs hunched, heads settled down into their camouflage jackets.

A few nodded. I nodded back.

“Don't mind them,” Sharon said, turning to me. “They didn't think it was a good idea, bringing the press out here. But Dave's a good man and wants to spread the word of Survival.”

I smiled the tightest smile I could force. Sure enough, I wouldn't talk to any of the bearded guys with suspicious eyes, as long as they didn't dare talk to me. I pulled out my notebook and made some notes.

There was no house to speak of, only a doorway built into the side of a hill. The door was painted khaki brown. Everything there seemed to be khaki brown. Just the feeling I got. Brown world. Brown people. Brown sky. Brown trees. Brown earth.

Sharon stopped dead in front of the hillside door. “I'm going to leave most of it for Dave to tell you.” She smiled a broad smile at me and turned to knock hard at the door.

I was beginning to like this little woman with the big attitude. I hadn't met Dave yet, but I thought maybe he was a lucky man.

“Hey Dave!” she called. “The lady from the magazine's here. You better come on out before I tell her all wrong.”

The brown door opened and a tall man with a long black beard stepped out, shrugging on a camouflage jacket over a white tee shirt.

“Mr. Rombart.” I walked toward him.

“Dave.” He dipped his head, fumbled for the hand I held toward him, shook it, then glanced at his wife. “Sharon taking care of you?”

“Yes, sir. But I've got a lot of questions.”

“Figures.” He grinned at Sharon, who grinned back. He chewed at his lower lip. “I'm going to show you some things. Hope you brought a good camera. These are things folks should know, and soon.” He motioned me to follow him and Sharon, and we set off.

We marched our way back into the woods and down another trail. We went through some wet places, picking our way carefully around rocks and fallen trees. I followed along, with Sharon bringing up the rear. I called questions after Dave Rombart, when I was sure I could take my eyes off the ground for a minute. I asked about the group and their philosophy, swallowing hard in order to catch my breath. Once, Dave stopped dead, turned, and launched into a long speech I tried my best to write down. When he turned away, he didn't say another word until we were in a large, round clearing, where something like a moonshine still stood.

Huge, round, made of stainless steel with pipes sticking out, it looked like a silo or a big whiskey maker. Dave stood next to it, cleared his throat, clasped his hands behind his back, and delivered his canned speech.

“We believe bad times are coming and people have forgotten how to take care of themselves. Always depending on grocery stores and 'lectric companies and gas companies. Relying on that foreign oil that turns us into hostages.” He shook his head and turned to give his big machine a few loving pats. “Government's trying to take our weapons away from us, while getting us into trouble everywhere around the world. There's threat of nuclear holocaust from all directions, and nobody's protecting us.” He stuck out his neck. His face turned a vague red shade. There were mumbles of approval from Sharon. “There's danger, Emily. That's what I want you to write. There's danger, and people have to get back to the basics. You know, women back to the kitchens. Men back to farmin'.”

I nodded and waited. I wasn't sensing menace here, more a man with a fixation, and a woman who loved him. He was interesting, and sincere, in an obsessed way. How could I say he was wrong? Or right? Only time would tell. In the meantime I decided maybe I'd write about some great ways people could save money by doing things for themselves. That kind of article always drew interest. Maybe it wouldn't be exactly what Dave and Sharon wanted, but, as I tried to do with most of the stories I wrote, everybody could get at least something from it.

“Got this water purifier, in case all the ground water's contaminated. Made it myself.” He patted the stainless steel machine again. “Got our own sawmill. We've got a grain mill to grind the millet we grow. We've got our vitamins, our food stocks. Could live out anything. Got stores, back where we came from, in the house. Rooms with water and food enough to last us three months.”

At that, the two of them tramped out of that clearing and on to another, where wide, cleared fields opened in two directions.

“Grow everything we eat. Kill the rest of what we need,” Dave bragged, pointing to two deer foraging at the far end of the field.

I took photographs. More photos at the sawmill. More inside a huge metal barn where hay was stored. Dave and Sharon, after the first half hour, weren't nearly as intimidating as I'd expected, maybe a little obsessive, but not bad people. They'd chosen a way they wanted to live, and found reasons to live in just that way. Many people were like that. Most, in fact. Some for not nearly as good a reason as Dave and Sharon had found.

Since I was here, and we'd gotten to the point of joking about the time Sharon's canning jars had exploded, and the time Dave fell off his horse-drawn tractor headfirst into the mud, I said I'd heard there was some trouble between them and their neighbor, Joslyn Henry. I asked if they thought she was against what they believed in.

We'd just come from a tour of an underground bunker with high shelves stacked with jars and cans and huge tanks for water. Dave shot me a look, then shook his head as if he wished I hadn't brought up trouble.

“That's not her they found dead … er … some part of her?” Dave
asked.

“No. That was a woman from town. But she was a friend of Mrs. Henry's.”

“Terrible thing,” Sharon said. “Just awful.”

Dave frowned. “That one. That Joslyn Henry.” He shook his head. “Crazy as a bedbug.”

“So, you did have trouble with her,” I said.

Dave shrugged. “Didn't exactly have trouble with Mrs. Henry. It was just that she thought I was peeping at them, I think—the old ladies dancing out there around a campfire they built. Mrs. Henry called the law from town and that police chief came out. He saw there was nothing to it. I didn't like she called the cops on me, though. That's not neighborly and there are times you don't want the law to take notice of what you're doing.” He winked at me. “You know, Emily, me and my people here, we stay above the law. I'm tellin' you, way above the law. Still, if people get it into their head I'm shooting deer outta season, or anything like that, well, it's just best not to have the law hanging around. If you know what I mean.”

I nodded, fully understanding.

“I didn't say nothing to anybody about what the women did out there. Just some dancing and singing. Kind of like old girl scouts, you know. But I sure didn't like her calling the cops on me.”

“So Mrs. Henry caught you … saw you over in your own woods and called the police on you?” I clucked my sympathy. “That's awful.”

He shook his head. “Still, I shouldn't of done what I did. I was mad, is all. Next time they was out there dancing and acting foolish I yelled right at 'em that if they ever tried a trick like calling the authorities on us again I'd be delivering a load of buckshot right where they didn't want to get it. That's what people are talkin' about.”

“Where did they have their bonfire? Out by the pond, or over by Mrs. Henry's house, or … ?”

“I said, right out by the pond. They've got some kind of place set up. Maybe it's an altar. I don't know what you'd call it.”

“That was all? No more trouble with the women after that one time?”