Exhume (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 1) (17 page)

26

Charleston, South Carolina

Schwartzman felt as if she’d been on her way to Charleston for days. An extended delay in Minneapolis due to weather was followed by a mechanical issue. By the time the plane was ready to go, the pilots had been on the clock too long, so the flight was canceled. The last thing Schwartzman felt ready to contend with was idle time. She would have liked to walk through the terminal, but her body and head ached, the drugs still working their way out of her system. Even lifting her arms and arching her back felt like trying to shift in drying concrete.

Instead she sat, flooded by a storm of emotions.

Disbelief that Ava was gone followed by waves of cold, hollowing grief. She worried about the cancer, about leaving Hal with no explanation, about Ken, about missing the appointment with Dr. Fraser. Then the fear rose to the surface again. Fear of actually seeing Spencer, confronting him.

The thoughts trampled in circles until they were ruts she couldn’t escape.

She managed to catch the last flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta, but there was no way to get to Charleston until the morning. No travel items, no pajamas, she took the shuttle to the Hampton Inn at the airport, where she barely slept. Exhaustion had set into her bones. She’d kept her phone off throughout the trip, calling her mother from a pay phone and then later the hotel in Atlanta with her updated arrival times. She would listen to the messages once she arrived. She just had to get there first.

Closing her eyes to sleep on the short first morning flight to Charleston had brought a stream of memories. She’d last seen Ava at her graduation from medical school. Ava and her mother had both come, leaving her with the awkward role of negotiating whatever unspoken walls were between them and no opportunity to really talk to either. And since then? Occasional calls. Conversations that were loving but brief. Birthday cards. One year missed. Perhaps two.

Her sympathetic nervous system had her body locked into flight mode, leaving her shaky and short of breath. Grief spread like tentacles from her stomach and carved a painful path up into her chest and lungs. Her thinking was dull and foggy.

It was worse than losing her father. Because without Ava, nothing of him was left. Nothing of either of them.

She was haunted by visions of Spencer killing her. Had Ava seen his face? Did she watch Spencer while he did it? Look him in the eye? People always told Schwartzman that she took after her aunt. More so even—one of the reasons she suspected her mother resented Ava. While he was killing Ava, did Spencer imagine killing her instead?

The plane vibrated as the wheels lowered on their descent into Charleston, and Schwartzman focused on the runway just below. She had never flown into the Charleston airport. When she was a child, her father had always driven her up for the weeks she spent with her aunt. Occasionally her mother came, too, though that became less common the older she got. Ava didn’t drive. Living as she did in downtown Charleston, she’d never had a need for a car. Her law office was within walking distance, and though she loathed exercise of any kind, Ava was a dedicated walker.

Even in the heaviest of rains, Schwartzman recalled her aunt putting on a long black raincoat and tall yellow rain boots and tying a clear plastic bonnet over her head before stepping out onto the porch and popping open a giant black-and-gray umbrella. The plastic bonnet was the silliest-looking thing in the world. As a young child, it had made her giggle. As a teenager, it made her roll her eyes, but she never swayed Ava from wearing the thing. Ava, like Schwartzman herself, had the kind of hair that would frizz with moisture inside the house, so rain created havoc with the tidy bun that was Ava’s preferred hairstyle.

Ava also seemed to have a sixth sense for rain, impressive considering that Charleston’s weather was nothing if not unpredictable. In more than a decade of visits, Schwartzman could recall only one time when they had gotten caught without an umbrella. They were visiting the historic city market in the center of downtown, maybe ten or twelve reasonably short blocks from Ava’s home. The market, which was always a vibrant display of crafts and jewelry, was one of her favorite things about visiting Charleston as a child. She remembered she’d chosen a small silver bracelet with a turtle charm. It had taken her forever to decide between the turtle and the dolphin.

“The dolphin is quite smart,” the saleswoman weighed in.

“But the sea turtle is born on the sand and finds its way back to the sea by the light of the moon,” her aunt said, making the choice easy. Then, on what appeared to be a whim, Ava bought herself a silver necklace with a sea turtle pendant.

On the walk back to her house, Ava had said, “Now every time you look at your bracelet, you’ll know I’m wearing my turtle, too. It’ll be like we’re together even when we’re not together.”

Schwartzman wore that turtle bracelet day and night for months until the silver had worn off and it left a black ring around her wrist. That first day, with her new turtle bracelet, the two of them got caught in a rainstorm. In the distance of only a few blocks, they were drenched. Charleston had few cabs to begin with, and finding one in the rain would have been impossible.

With total confidence, Ava took her niece’s wet hand, walked right into the lobby of a fancy hotel, lifted an umbrella from a stand that held ten or twelve for hotel guests, turned around, and walked out again. Schwartzman was certain they were going to be arrested on the way out the door, but Ava had assured her that she had borrowed umbrellas from them before.

On the walk home, the two huddled under the one umbrella. Schwartzman remembered the smell of the rain. Dirt, leaves, seawater, magnolia, hydrangea, every living thing was reaching upward as the rain came down, and the smell of Ava—a mixture of gardenia and something earthy like tea leaves—and the feeling of being tucked in beside her, warm, dry . . . loved. They were almost home when, without any reason that Schwartzman could recall, Ava stopped on the sidewalk and folded the umbrella. They continued down the street slowly, their faces turned up to the sky, and let the rain fall on them in fat droplets. The rain slid down the back of her collar and behind her ear, and when she raised her hands, it rolled off her palms and into her sleeves, then down her arms in a cold, wet tickle.

They arrived at the house drenched. Ava stood on the porch, unpinned her bun, and shook out her wet hair, casting droplets across the front windows and door. She shook and shook, and while Schwartzman watched her, Ava began laughing a low, girlish giggle. Schwartzman joined her, shaking her head and laughing until she was dizzy and her belly ached.

That night, after a hot bath for Schwartzman and a shower for Ava, the two of them sat by the fireplace and drank hot chocolate and made s’mores. “I haven’t had so much fun in ages,” Ava told her later as she tucked her in. “Or maybe ever.”

The next day, her neat bun restored, Ava took Annabelle to return the borrowed umbrella, bringing along with it a box of local artisan chocolates as a thank-you for the front desk clerks.

“Ma’am.”

Someone touched her shoulder. She flinched and saw the man seated by the window motioning to the aisle. People were exiting the plane. Schwartzman rose quickly but paused in the aisle before remembering that she didn’t have a bag. She hitched her purse onto her shoulder and walked down the aisle. Though the Jetway was covered, she could smell the South even as she stepped off the plane. The scents of overheated coffee, a woman’s perfume, the warm plastic of the floor mats, the musty odor of recently cleaned carpet, sweat only partially masked by deodorant.

Humidity increased molecular volatility, meaning odor molecules bounced around more, striking the human nose more often than in dryer climates. Good or bad, everything smelled more in the South.

Inside the terminal, she switched her phone back on and made her way to the street. As she walked, it buzzed in her pocket. Once. Twice. Three times. And then on and on until she lost count.
Hal.
How many times had Hal tried to reach her? Hesitant, she drew it out.

Thumbed through text messages from Hal. Saw the word
Macy
and her knees grew weak.

But her eyes found a text from her mother.
I can’t make it to the airport. I will meet you at the funeral home. A. G. Woodward.
The address followed in a separate text.

Her mother was only sixty. Was driving to the airport so overwhelming? Or was she struggling with Ava’s death?

Her mother had a weaker constitution than Ava.

And yet she was surprising, too. Her skill in the kitchen; her dedication to her charities with or without the support of the latest trend . . . there was a lot to her mother that Schwartzman didn’t know or understand. It was almost as if something a decade ago—or more—had set them off on separate tracks that crossed too rarely to develop any real relationship, any familiarity.

The only thing the two had in common, in her mother’s mind at least, was making sure Schwartzman was taken care of . . . by someone like Spencer.

Schwartzman gave the cab driver the address of the funeral home. He tried to make polite small talk on the drive, but Schwartzman focused on her phone. Reading Hal’s messages made her feel both guilty and resolved.

There were six messages and two voicemails. All urged her to call him.

Where r u? We need to get ahead of the questions on last night. We’ll sort this out together,
the first text said.
U have to trust me.

Each was increasingly more threatening, more alarmed. The last one read:
S, running means you’re guilty. Even if ur not. It’s what everyone’s thinking. U gotta help me here.

Guilty.
But she was guilty, wasn’t she? Perhaps not of wielding the knife, but certainly of luring Spencer to Macy. She started to power down the phone when another text popped onto the screen.

An unknown caller.
So nice to have you in town.

A knob in her throat made it difficult to swallow. She started to respond but stopped. That’s what he wanted. She navigated back to Hal’s messages.

Not guilty,
she wrote.
In SC.

Hal must have been watching his phone as the response appeared within a few seconds.

South Carolina?! What r u doing?

She was dealing with the problem. She was confronting her demons. Her one demon. Reclaiming her life. Avenging Ava and Ken Macy and Sarah Feld. Hal would say it was not her place. She couldn’t be judge and jury. She might get herself killed.

She decided on the one thing to refute any argument from Hal.
My aunt was murdered,
she wrote. And shut off the phone.

27

Charleston, South Carolina

Schwartzman entered a room filled with caskets.

“Oh, there you are,” her mother said with a glance in her direction, then turned back to the man in the dark suit who stood beside her. “Mr. Woodward, this is my daughter, Annabelle. Ava’s niece.”

Woodward crossed the room and offered her a dry, cool handshake. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Annabelle.”

Schwartzman thanked him and went to stand beside her mother. “I’m so happy to see you, Mom.”

“Oh yes, dear.” Her mother touched her daughter’s arm and offered her cheek to be kissed. Schwartzman kissed it dutifully and scanned the line of caskets.

“This one is lovely,” said her mother, waving at a glossy white casket.

A white casket made her think of the baby. The nurse who had taken her tiny body had promised. “We have to take her now,” the nurse said, prying the bundle from her arms. “But you can take her and have her buried; I promise.” By the time Schwartzman woke the next morning, her daughter’s remains had already been destroyed. At Spencer’s orders. She didn’t count as a live birth until twenty weeks’ gestation. She made it only to sixteen.

Schwartzman wanted to be cremated. But cremation was against the Jewish religion. Her father was buried, as were his parents. Surely Ava would want a burial. Jewish tradition held that the burial should happen in the first twenty-four hours after death. A homicide made that impossible. They would be lucky if they could bury Ava within a week of her death. Schwartzman had been a restless nine-year-old when her father and Ava sat for their mother. There would be no sitting Shiva for Ava. Schwartzman could not stay here any longer than necessary. Ava would understand. Her father would understand.

“Do you like the white?”

The white casket was so Southern, so belle-like; it was a terrible choice for Ava. And yet Schwartzman believed that everything that was truly Ava no longer resided inside the body being stored somewhere in this building or down at the morgue. Ava was gone. Long gone. Which meant the casket was for the family, not the deceased.

“Annabelle?” her mother pressed.

“Sure,” she said. “Yes.”

Woodward slid in. “So, it’s this one, then?”

Schwartzman nodded.

“And for the inside? We can do silk crepe or cotton, velvet, suede.”

“Silk would be fine,” Schwartzman said.

“Silk crepe it is. And do you have a color in mind? Perhaps a more vibrant shade to accompany the white? Pink or something in the yellow tones?”

Her mother’s eyes brightened at the suggestion of color, but Schwartzman only shook her head. “White, please.”

“Yes,” her mother agreed. “White is very nice.”

“Fine, then,” Woodward told them. “I’ll get the paperwork started.”

As Woodward left the room, Schwartzman turned to her mother. A few inches shorter than Schwartzman, she had an ample chest and rounded hips and bottom. She wouldn’t be considered heavy although she probably had fifteen pounds on many of the anorexic-looking women who were her friends and contemporaries in Greenville. Schwartzman remembered her father was always very complimentary of her mother’s fuller figure, which Schwartzman envied as she herself was built long and boyish like her father and Ava. The weight had always made her mother look younger than her counterparts. Today she was thinner, her cheeks and eyes more hollowed than the last time Schwartzman had seen her. “Are you okay, Mom?”

“Not really, Bella,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“What do you mean?” Schwartzman asked.

“The travel is very difficult.”

The drive from Greenville to Charleston followed Interstate 26 from the outskirts of Greenville all the way to Charleston and took exactly three hours. As a child, she had made the trip a half-dozen times every year. “The drive, you mean?”

“Yes. I think it was a mistake to come.” She turned to her daughter. “I’m afraid I need to get back home, Annabelle.”

“Of course,” Schwartzman said in response to the panic in her mother’s voice. “I’ll push to get her remains released so that we can hold the services on Sunday. That gives us four days to talk to the attorneys and sort out Ava’s affairs.”

Her mother’s lips closed in the thin, narrow line that meant she had made a decision.

“What is it?” Schwartzman asked. “Are you thinking we should hold the services sooner?”

“I’m driving back home first thing in the morning.”

“Tomorrow?”

Her mother waved at the ceiling. “It’s too late in the afternoon now. It’ll be dark in a few hours. I can’t drive in the dark.”

“You can’t leave tomorrow. You have to be here. We need a couple of days to sort everything out.”

“I don’t have a choice, Annabelle,” she said, and Schwartzman noticed the tremor in her hands. “I need to be at home.”

“I want to be home, too. It’s just a few days.”

Her mother walked to the door.

Schwartzman went after her. “Mama.”

Her mother’s movements were unsteady as she crossed the threshold.

“I’ll drive you back home,” Schwartzman told her. “I’ll take you first thing after the services.”

Her mother was shaking her head.

“It’s only a few days, Mama. I need you here. I can’t do this alone.”

“You should know . . . I’m not well, Annabelle.”

Schwartzman took her mother’s hand in both of hers. Was she sick? Cancer was her first thought. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with you? Cancer?”

“Cancer?” she balked. “No. It’s nothing so clean as cancer.”

“Clean?”

Her mother lifted her chin in the air. “I’ve got all sorts of symptoms but no diagnosis. A total mystery.”

“You’ve seen doctors?”

“All I do is see doctors.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her mother waved her hand, dismissing the idea that she would share her medical issues with her daughter.

“What sort of symptoms?” Schwartzman eyed the street and saw a bench. “Come. Sit down.” She led her mother to the bench. As they walked, her mother leaned heavily on Schwartzman’s arm. The biopsy site under her right arm ached as they moved. When they reached the bench, her mother sat slowly, her face in a grimace.

“Tell me about the symptoms.”

“Annabelle, it’s of no use. The doctors can’t sort out what’s wrong.”

“I’m a doctor, Mama.”

“For dead people. I can assure you I haven’t been murdered.” Her mother extricated her hand from Schwartzman’s and gave her daughter a cursory pat on the knee.

Hands in her lap, Schwartzman sat back against the bench. “But you’re sure it’s not cancer.”

“I’m not sure of anything,” she said. “But there is no sign of any cancer.”

“Have you ever had cancer?”

“No, no.”

Nothing as clean as cancer, her mother had said. So Schwartzman had the “clean” disease. The two women sat together on the bench. Her mother had visited Seattle one summer for some big garden show. Was that three years ago? Or four? “Well, humor me, then,” she told her mother. “Tell me what is going on. What do the doctors say?”

“They tell me there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me. That it’s all in my head.”

“What’s in your head?”

“It changes all the time. I’ve got vertigo. Some days my vision is blurred. I shake.” Her mother raised her hand, and as soon as it was at eye level, it began to tremble.

“Have you seen the eye doctor?”

“Yes. The doctor adjusted my prescription and said my vision is quite good for someone my age. My age.” She shuddered.

Schwartzman remembered how her father used to tell her mother how young she looked. “Not a day over twenty,” he always said. Her mother reveled in that attention. All these years after his death, who was there to tell her she looked great? And now she was burying Ava.

Were the symptoms just in her mother’s head? A person’s emotional state had a real impact on her physical health. Schwartzman considered the vertigo. “Are you having headaches? Or nausea?”

“Sometimes,” her mother said, nodding, and Schwartzman felt a rush of sympathy. Her mother was young, but she was burying her last contemporary family member. Surely that made her feel uncomfortably mortal, as if she was next in line.

“What are the other symptoms?”

“I’ve got pain in my knees and back . . .”

Schwartzman waited to hear something that suggested a disease. What her mother was describing were the pains of getting older. “Why don’t we go back to Ava’s? We’ll get you settled in, Mama, and we will talk about what’s going on. You can decide in the morning.”

“Oh no. You go on. I’m staying at the Embassy Suites.”

Schwartzman drew a sharp breath. “What? I thought we were staying at Ava’s. Together.”

Her mother began digging through her purse. A minute passed, and she pulled out a set of keys, pressed them into her daughter’s palm. “You stay there, Annabelle. It’s all yours anyway. But I can’t. There are too many memories. I’m just not well enough to go to that house.”

Schwartzman stared at her mother. Her mother had rarely come to Charleston when she was young. In fact, Schwartzman didn’t think she’d come at all after she was in elementary school. Ava had always come up to Greenville for the holidays. It would have been almost thirty years ago. “What memories?”

“Oh, did you know that your grandparents wanted us to have our wedding reception at the house? They wanted the services to be here, at the temple?”

“I thought the service was at our church in Greenville and the reception at Greenville Country Club.”

“Oh, it was. I would never have gotten married in any other church, but that was what Ava and your grandparents wanted.”

“And that upset you.” Schwartzman wondered when her mother had become so frail.

“Of course it upset me. It was awful.”

“Is that the reason you don’t want to stay there?”

Her mother dismissed the idea with another wave of her hand. “Plus the house will be terribly dusty. It was always so dusty and moist. I never felt comfortable there.”

“I don’t want to stay there without you,” Schwartzman admitted. “I could stay with you, at your hotel, if you would prefer.”

“That’s silly, Annabelle. You’ll be just fine. You can handle yourself.”

“Mama, Ava was murdered there.”

“But the police are letting us back in. If they aren’t worried, then why should we worry?”

Schwartzman stared at her mother. More than anything, she wanted to be mothered. A strong, reassuring hug. The one that said, “I will always be here for you. No matter what. You can always come home to me.” But her mother was not that person.

“Oh, Annabelle. I can see you’re disappointed in me.”

“No,” she said quickly, fighting off an uncomfortable rush of emotion and a desire to say yes.
“I’m not. I just want to—”
Be your daughter. Be with you. Tell you about my cancer.
“I just want to spend some time together.” Schwartzman blinked back the tears that stung her eyes.

“I’m afraid I have so little energy. I need to go lay down for a bit.” She patted Schwartzman’s leg. “You understand, dear. Don’t you?”

“Of course,” she said. She had to stop wishing her mother was someone she had never been. Ava had been that person for Schwartzman. Before that, it was her father.
Accept what she can offer,
she told herself. “What if I come to the hotel a little later? We can have dinner together?”

“All right,” her mother agreed. “That sounds lovely.”

“Six o’clock?”

“That works just fine,” she agreed. “But if you make other plans, don’t worry about me, dear.”

“I won’t have other plans. I’ll meet you at the hotel restaurant at six o’clock.”

“Good, good. That works just fine.” Her mother stood from the bench as a taxi pulled to the curb.

“Did you call a cab?”

“Mr. Woolworth called it for me,” she said as she made her way across the sidewalk.

Woodward. She was getting old. “I’ll see you in a few hours,” Schwartzman said.

“That sounds good, dear. See you later.”

“I love you, Mama.”

“Yes, dear. I know you do, and I love you.” Without a backward glance, her mother wrapped her veiny hand on the door handle and pulled it open to slowly lower herself into the cab.