Paging the Dead (28 page)

“I was just wondering if you wanted me to make an announcement about the scrapbooks in case people don't know they're out there.”

She looked at me like I'd crawled from beneath a rock. “I cannot believe you are suggesting you use this occasion to promote your business. This is Dorothy's memorial, for heaven's sake, not a trade fair.”

“Vivian,” I protested, keeping my voice low. “I meant no disrespect to Dorothy, just the opposite. I know how much pride she took in her family and I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to see that. That's all I intended.”

Vivian's shoulders relaxed but only slightly. She fingered the single strand of pearls at her neck and struggled to speak. “Fine, but I'll make the announcement. Family meant everything to Dorothy. She and I were like family. She was the sister I never had and I was the sister she never had.” She sniffled and wiped at her nose with an embroidered hanky.

I didn't think now was the time to point out that Dorothy actually had a sister so I just murmured, “I know, I know,” and patted Vivian on the shoulder.

That small bit of kindness seemed to undo her. She turned and instead of returning to her group she hurried out onto the lawn. I watched as she walked all the way over to the edge of the property and stood by herself with her back to the crowd.

“Don't take it personally,” Linda said. “She's been on edge all week. I mean even more than usual. I'm afraid she's due for a meltdown.”

I watched as Vivian stood mopping at her face and staring off into the valley below. It occurred to me that had Vivian had her way there would be a row of port-a-potties along that area of the lawn. I couldn't imagine what could have been going through her head when she proposed that to Dorothy. Maybe she was trying to illustrate how Harrison Pritchett had risen from humble beginnings. But surely she must have known that would hit a sour note with Dorothy, who liked to pretend she was descended from gentility all the way back to some manor house in England, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Linda returned to her work and I spotted Vivian's sketchbook still sitting on the end of the counter. Something was still ticking in the back of my mind and I wanted to see what Vivian had proposed that had caused such an argument between her and Dorothy.

“You think Vivian would mind if I look at her sketches?” I asked.

Linda shrugged. “She can't expect much privacy if she's going to leave that thing sitting around here—in the way,
all
the time.”

I opened the front cover where Vivian had written her
name, Vivian Pearce Evans, in a flowing script I would have been proud to use on a scrapbook page. The sketches were very good and even the one with the port-a-johns had a certain rustic charm. Off to the side on one page Vivian had scribbled an agenda for the originally planned Founders' Day open house. It looked familiar but I knew I'd never seen it before. It read:
welcome/cocktails on the lawn, heavy hors d'oeuvres in the living room, short family history presented by Dorothy, tour of High Ground, introduction of newest Pritchett family member.
Beside the last item Vivian had drawn a schoolgirlish heart followed by a row of exclamation points. I closed the book and sighed.

So sad. As it had turned out, instead of being introduced, Cassidy—the newest member of the Pritchett family—was being virtually ignored while Jeremy and Ingrid talked with people and attended to their bereavement duties. Esme was still sitting with Cassidy in the window seat and I went back in to join them.

I still wanted to get Esme aside to tell her what I'd overheard between Jeremy and Ingrid, but I'd lost the sense of urgency after I'd thought it over. Their words had raised goose bumps on my arms but it wasn't like they'd actually said anything incriminating.

“You still like the box, huh?” I asked Cassidy absently. “Even though you already solved it and you'll get your secret wish?”

“That's not what Auntie Dot said. Not a wish, your
dream
. That's different. And Daddy says we don't keep secrets. Him and Gigi and me tell each other everything. Except Sherry, that's a secret.”

Cassidy looked up, her mouth flying open. “Oh no, I'm not supposed to say that. Daddy will be mad at me.”

I put my finger across my lips. “We won't tell,” I whispered.

I wanted desperately to find out the exact nature of the secret we were agreeing to harbor, but I didn't want to cause Cassidy any more anxiety.

“Okay, so you solved the box and that means you'll get your dream, right? Do you want to share what that would be?”

“I told you. I want to be a doctor and have a husband and two boy babies and two girl babies and live in a good house. I haven't decided about the purple on the house yet, maybe it will be yellow.”

She slid the last piece of the puzzle box into place and took out the object again, but this time she pinched it between her fingers and held it up so the light from the window struck it. A bead. The luster made the bead appear illuminated from within and I almost gasped.

Esme had seen it, too, and we exchanged looks.

“Cassidy, where'd you get that bead?” Esme asked casually.

“Found it,” Cassidy said, quickly pinching up the bead and depositing it back in the hidey-hole.

“Oh? Where'd you find it?” I asked.

“I didn't steal it,” Cassidy said, pulling her feet up under her and turning away from us to face the window.

“Nobody's saying you stole it,” Esme said. “We think it's pretty, that's all.”

Cassidy turned her face toward us, looking as if she might
cry. “Is taking something without permission the same as stealing?”

“That depends, I guess,” Esme said softly. “Let's see if we can figure that out. Where did you find the bead? Here in the house somewhere?”

“Nuh-uh, in the car,” Cassidy said. “It was stuck in the crack part of the safety buckle. So it was already lost and I just found it. Finders keepers, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “So you found it in the seat belt buckle of your dad's car? That's a strange place for it, isn't it?”

“Not Daddy's car,” Cassidy said, as if I were slow witted, “Miss Vivian's car. Is hers a car or a truck? It's like in-between, I guess. I helped her bring in lots of bags from her car this morning. That's when I found the bead. I didn't think she wanted it anymore.”

“Probably not,” Esme said, her eyes locked on mine.

My brain was firing so rapidly it gave me a headache. It was like Cassidy's puzzle box. As one thing slid out of the way another thing was revealed and when that was lifted, another thing had to be pushed aside to find out more. I searched the room for Denny Carlson. I spotted him by the fireplace talking with the mayor and headed straight for him, parting the crowd with my arms as if I were swimming in a people-pool. I cut right into their conversation and Mayor Hudgins, a courtly older gentleman I'd known all my life, gave me a where-are-your-manners-young-lady look, which I totally ignored. I pulled Denny along through the crowd and onto the unoccupied front porch. While I was still catching my breath Esme came out, shutting the door behind her.

“Okay,” I said, “just listen. I don't know what any of this
means and I'm still trying to put it all together.” I launched into a series of seemingly unconnected information and to Denny's credit he listened raptly though I knew I sounded totally manic.

“First off, Vivian is wearing a string of pearls. One string. Second, Vivian's birth name is Pearce. Not rare, but not common with that spelling. I've seen that name in the Pritchett family papers somewhere, I just can't think where.” I banged my head with the flat of my palm a couple of times hoping it would dislodge the information and dispense it like a vending machine, but no such luck. “Third,” I went on, “Jeremy's got a secret, but I don't think it has anything to do with Dorothy's murder. Fourth, Vivian and Linda both drive dark-colored SUVs. And they both have dark hair and similar builds. I think maybe it was Vivian that Hank Spencer saw taking bags out of an SUV that afternoon. That alters the timeline. Vivian and Dorothy had argued the night before about the decorations for the open house and Dorothy had sent Vivian back to the drawing board—I mean literally. She sent her back to do new sketches. But Linda remembers Vivian's sketchbook being in the kitchen when she came back from her errands that next evening—the evening when it happened.”

“Maybe she used a different sketchbook?” Denny offered.

Esme held up a hand. “Let her go,” she said, “Sophreena's on a roll. We'll sort out the details later.”

I prattled on a while longer, recalling some of the weird exchanges I'd had with Vivian over the past week. “Something is off here,” I said. “I'm not accusing Vivian of anything, but something's just not right.”

“Even if I agree,” Denny said, “that's not enough to warrant questioning her here and now.”

“I'll talk to her then,” I said.

“No,” he answered. “You can't do that.”

“Why not? I'm not the police.”

“But you'd be acting as an agent of the police if I asked you to do it, and that could taint the case.”

“So, you're telling me
not
to talk to her?” I asked.

“Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you,” Denny said.

“Perfect,” I said, making for the door.

F
OR THE SECOND TIME IN AN HOUR
I
WAS TAKING
V
IVIAN AWAY
from her audience. She was not pleased and tried to blow me off, but I leaned in close and whispered, “Vivian, I
know
. And I have the evidence.”

I knew squat, of course. I had tons of questions and few answers, but I figured this would get her attention.

She stared right into my eyes and I thought she was going to tell me—nicely, in deference to the dignitaries present—to bug off. But then a strange smile spread across her face. She excused herself and hustled me off to Dorothy's private study at the back of the house. I felt like I was being hauled into the principal's office.

When she'd closed the door she wheeled on me. “Okay, tell me. Tell me what you've found.”

That was the exact moment when I realized I'd acted in haste. Both Denny and Esme had tried to stop me, but I'd ignored them. I was still working my mental puzzle box and I hadn't gotten to the secret compartment that would reveal all just yet. I tried a stall.

“I know about
you
,” I said. “I finally found the evidence.”

And there was that odd smile again. “You did?” she said, sounding more amazed than scared. “Maybe I underestimated you. What did you find? Is it solid?”

“Solid enough,” I said, all bravado. “It'll hold up.”

“In court?” Vivian asked.

“Definitely,” I said. “If that's where it ends up.”

“Oh, I don't think it will,” she said. “What would be the point? You know, when Dorothy decided to hire you and Esme I was elated. You two had such good reputations. And Dorothy was convinced that would be the best way to do it. Or so she said. Now I think maybe it was a test.”

“A test?” I repeated, hoping my hair didn't catch fire from the friction in my brain.

“Yes. After all, if you two couldn't turn up the evidence when you were actually researching the family, what were the odds that anyone else would stumble across it?”

“Very slim, I suppose,” I said, still playing for time. Things were clicking into place: Vivian urging us repeatedly to be thorough in our research, her insistence that I,
of all people
, should have understood her relationship with Dorothy, her odd reaction when she'd overheard us talking about Winston's ancestor hiding his children in plain sight.

“Wow,” I said softly as things began to mesh.

Vivian didn't hear. She was pacing now, her blue eyes glinting like ice crystals in winter sunshine. “I'll admit I despaired,” she said, with a hiccup of a laugh. “I mean, I really, really despaired when you didn't find anything in all that time you were doing the research. That's when Dorothy insisted we go scientific about it. But in a way that was your doing, too.”

“Was it? How so?” I asked, figuring if I could keep shooting Vivian open-ended questions she'd paint me the whole picture.

“Dorothy got the idea when you showed her that Civil War scrapbook you found. The one Harrison Pritchett's mother kept. When she saw the envelope with the baby's hair in it she insisted that was how we needed to do it. She'd read somewhere that if you had hair with the root on it you could get DNA. Course, now we know that didn't work. Or maybe the lab wasn't any good. But, no matter, you've come through finally. I've tried to dig out the information myself. I searched through every inch of the attic trying to find something you two might have missed, but I had no luck at all.”

That explained the disheveled state of High Ground's attic. And now I realized why the list in Vivian's sketchbook had looked familiar. It was the same handwriting as the list from the small notebook Ingrid has assumed was mine. The one that read:
birth certificates, handwriting samples, bank statements, letters
. The tidbits were adding up and finally the secret compartment sprang open.

“So what's the evidence you found? Come on, tell me,” Vivian said, bouncing on the balls of her spike-heeled shoes.

“I will, I'll get to that,” I lied. “But first let me ask you, how long did your mother work for William Pritchett?”

Vivian fluttered her hands together. “You did find it!” she said, clapping like an excited kid. “Okay, well, obviously long enough for the two of them to fall in love,” she said, her voice taking on a dreamy tone. “I mean I know it was wrong, William was a married man, but only technically. His wife was
feeble and wasn't able to meet his needs. And anyway, the heart wants what it wants. And his heart wanted my mother.”