Haunting Refrain (8 page)

“Thanks anyway,
Venice
. I’ll call you later. Tell Ramses hello for me.”

She went to the living room and sifted through a stack of papers on her desk, looking for a map, but found only
Alabama
and
Virginia
.
Nothing on
South Carolina
or the Piedmont area.

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she had skipped supper last night. A survey of the cabinets turned up a box of Grape-Nuts, a jar of peanut butter, and some canned soup. She opted for the cereal and hoped she had milk. In the refrigerator she found a half-empty carton and a loaf of stale bread. The milk had a few suspicious swirls, but it smelled all right. She poured it over the cereal and carried it back to the table. As she ate, she planned what she would say to Josephine
Wardlaw
.

Maybe Jo?
Jodie? Josie?

She scraped the mold off the corner of a slice of bread, toasted it, and smeared it with peanut butter, thinking about the image she would need to present to approach Kelly’s roommate. The girl had surely been besieged—by the police, the press, friends, and the merely curious.

Kate finished the toast, rinsed the peanut butter and crumbs off her fingers, and ran upstairs to rummage through her closet. Pushing aside one hanger after the other, she rejected her clothing—too dressy, too sophisticated, too this, too that.
 
The girl would have had enough of authority figures, but Kate supposed that she had also been overwhelmed by other students. Definitely no
weirdos
—she was likely to be frightened. Maybe someone conservative and solicitous, like a Sunday
School
teacher or a missionary type, could get in to see her.

A navy blue dress caught her eye. She usually wore it with a bold scarf and heavy gold jewelry, but if it had a white collar, it could look very sensible. A thorough search yielded only an old white blouse. Kate ruthlessly cut out the collar and yoke,
then
snipped off the cuffs a few inches from the elbow. She put the severed collar around her neck and pulled the cuffs on, then pulled the dress over her head. The effect was demure if boring, she decided. Too bad she hadn’t thought of this outfit while she was married. J. B. would have loved it.

Maybe a little makeup—she wasn’t aiming for dead. She looked longingly at her mascara. No, it would spoil the picture. She got out the glasses again.

Standing in front of the mirror, she twisted her hair into a tight knot on top of her head. “Wow. Miss Prim. All I need is a pulpit.”

* * *

The RX-7 didn't fit with her new missionary image; Kate left it at the far end of the parking lot and walked to Reed Hall, where she supposed Kelly's roommate still lived. She hoped the poor girl hadn't left college and gone home. In a suitably docile voice, she asked a young woman clad in red and white striped tights and a star-studded blue T-shirt for directions to Josephine
Wardlaw's
room.

The flag-wearer looked at Kate strangely.
“Upstairs, first door on the right.”

“I'm from her church,” Kate explained in what she hoped was a sweetly sincere manner, and ran up the stairs. She dismissed the laughter that followed her, thinking that visiting missionaries probably didn't run.

The door had no identification, but Kate knocked anyway, wondering if she should call the roommate Miss
Wardlaw
.

The door opened so quickly that Kate jumped. A large, muscular woman with chopped-off brown hair glared down at her. A baseball bat hung from her hand.

“Whatever it is, I'm not interested, and the answer is no,” the
amazon
barked, slamming the door.

For a second, Kate stood speechless. She almost left,
then
decided she wouldn't be put off so easily. She knocked again.

“Are you deaf, dumb, or both?” Josephine yelled, jerking the door back and waving the bat.

“My name is—” Kate stopped short as the door swung toward her again. She needed to get Josephine’s attention, fast. She flung her purse at the woman. “Listen,
dammit
. I need to talk to you.”

Josephine, startled, let go of the door to catch the purse, and Kate, with one hand on the door and the other on the bat, shoved past her into the room. “Sit down, Jo.”

“Who are you? You just go around throwing things at people or what?”

Kate took the purse out of the woman’s hand.
“One thing at a time.
I need to talk to you about your roommate.”

“You and the rest of the world.”

“I hope you can answer some questions for me.” She softened her tone. “Please, I only want to help Kelly.”

“Why?
You a friend of hers?”

“No. I just can't explain right now. I need to know if Kelly went to a lake near here for any reason.
Maybe to run?
Walk?”

“Are you a cop?”

“No.” Kate sighed. “Please, just tell me if there was a lake, or even a pond, where she often went.”

“
Went
? I don't know what you're getting at, but you had better ask the police. Now get out.” Josephine took Kate's arm and pushed her into the hall.

Kate heard the click of the lock. “Damn!” She thumped the door once with the side of her fist.
“Now what?”

A chiming clock made her decision.
“Nine-thirty!
Mrs. Armstrong!” A couple of students watched curiously as she raced down the stairs and back to her car. She had visions of the bank president's wife, a nice commission, making the perilous journey in the freight elevator only to find the studio locked and empty. Maybe she'll like my dress.

When Kate left the parking lot, she saw that a crowd had spilled into the street in front of the building where Martin Carver had an office. The road was blocked by two police cars. Kate slowed and rolled down her window, waving to a police officer. “What’s wrong? Can I get through here?”

“It’s the Prophet from the Mountains, Ma’am,” he said as if she should know the name. “He’s here because of the—”

“The sinner shall die.” A deep voice rolled over the officer’s words. A tall figure in a long, dirty robe strode out of the crowd, came toward Kate. “Thou
shalt
not hearken unto the dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God will smite you with thunder and stones.” He stopped a few feet from her car and raised a long wooden walking stick in the air. His dark eyes stared into hers, his face contorted in anger.

Kate quailed in the face of his fury. The man must be crazy!

“
And I shall not spare thee, sinner, neither will I have pity: thou
shalt
be punished in fire, according to thy false words and the evil in thy heart.” He sliced the air with the stick.

“Sir, you’re creating a disturbance here.” The policeman stepped in front of him, motioning Kate to drive on.

She did, as quickly as she dared through the crowd of students. Those words had been meant for her, she knew. She vaguely remembered hearing or reading something about the man, but it wouldn’t come to her
.
Dreamer of dreams?
Did he know who she was? His deep-set eyes stayed with her. Probably the same look Charles Manson had. Her skin crawled.

She had to put him out of her mind. Later she’d figure it out, but right now she had to get back to the studio and Mrs. Armstrong.

* * *

The phone rang for the third time as John jumped off the ladder. He dropped the paint roller into the tray, silenced Pavarotti in mid aria with his left hand, and grabbed the receiver. “Yeah,” he said, trapping the receiver between his chin and shoulder, trying to avoid transferring salmon-colored paint from his hands to the telephone.

“John,
it's
Susan. The police have found Kelly Landrum's body. She was in a lake called Joe Cassidy. If you want in on this, you’d better move.”
Susan, who monitored the police radio for the
Times Herald
, relayed pertinent information to the reporters.

“Where?
Do you mean
Jocassee
, the one in
Oconee
County
? That's a long way from home.” He had to spell the name before she understood him. She had moved here from
Iowa
recently, and both the language and the geography of
South Carolina
were foreign to her.

“Yeah, that must be it. Where did they get a name like that?”

“Supposedly from a Cherokee princess who killed herself there.
It's a long story—I'll tell you sometime.”

“Well, that's where the body is. Some fishermen found her at daybreak. The law from three counties is someplace called Devils Fork Landing.”

“Thanks,
Suse
. I owe you one.”

Ignoring the paint-laden roller and tray, he quickly washed his hands and arms in the kitchen sink. The story came first, always; the house might never be finished. What had possessed him to buy a place that needed this much remodeling?
 
Instead of being a hobby, it had taken over a large portion of his life.

But by the time he reached the car, he had focused entirely on Kelly Landrum. On the drive out, he thought about the lake where she had been found, a large, man-made lake high in the foothills. The water covered hills and valleys, the convergence of three rivers. Trees, cemeteries, even churches and small, rural houses had been flooded to make the lake—most still stood in the deep blue depths. He was amazed that she had been found.

When he reached Devils Fork, an ambulance was backing slowly down the boat ramp toward the water.
Suse
was right—cars and vans bearing law enforcement decals from three counties had the parking lot so crowded it looked like a midsummer Saturday afternoon. He parked between two black and whites, one from
Greenville
County
and one from Pickens. Stepping over the yellow tape barrier, he eased toward the crime scene crew, trying to stay behind Lynne Waite, out of her view.

She and a large, heavy-set man with an
Oconee
County
badge on his sleeve were listening to man in a plaid shirt and khakis, nodding together as he talked. John guessed he was the coroner. He edged up within hearing distance. Waite, with the sixth sense he was convinced she had, turned to face him.

“Beat it, Gerrard. We'll have something for you later,” Waite said, pointing to the barrier.
“Out.”

“Just one question, Waite.
How did she die? Can you tell?” He smiled at her. “I might have something new for you tomorrow.”

“Not good enough. You've used that one too many times. Do you need an escort to find your way out?”

“I can make it on my own, but thanks for the offer.” He held out his hands in mock surrender and grinned, knowing she wasn't bluffing. “See you, Detective.”

Out of the corner of his eye, John saw one of the divers sitting on a rock at the shore. He thought the van containing the diving equipment was parked closed enough to block Waite's view.

John approached cautiously, keeping out of the detective's line of sight. The young diver, holding his head in his hands, huddled between the big orange oxygen tanks that lay on the ground beside his fins. He looked sick. John squatted down beside him. “Pretty bad down there, huh?”

“Yeah.
Bad,” the diver said without raising his head.

“Anything different about this one?”

“Don't know—my first time when the body’s been down there for a while.” He swallowed hard.

“Could you tell how she died? Maybe she fell out of a boat and drowned.”