Rituals (9 page)

Amande nodded her head at the work spread across her desk, but Ennis didn't take the hint.

“I'm grateful to my aunt. Really, I am. You saw me lose my patience with her once. Just once. How many meals do you think I've fed her? For all you know, that was the only time. If you were in my shoes, maybe you'd crack, too.”

Amande had heard the waitress say that it
wasn't
the only time, but she'd also heard her say that no one had ever seen Ennis mistreat his aunt physically. Sister Mama didn't look neglected. In Amande's mind, Ennis had two strikes against him, but not three.

She decided she was willing to listen to what he had to say. Nevertheless, she intended to hang onto the rock in her hand until he was gone.

***

Faye found it hard to look at the burnt hulk of Tilda's house, across the street from where she stood on Myrna's doorstep. Virginia Armistead's historic letter, still fresh in her mind, reminded her of the history consumed by flames. When had Elizabeth Cady Stanton visited Tilda's house? Was it before or after she added the right to vote to the list of women's demands that spilled out of Seneca Falls in 1848, then stood her ground against the delegates who thought the notion was too radical?

She could hear Myrna's heavy footsteps approaching the door. How long would Myrna and her memories be here?

Time passes, and people are temporary. Human memory is ephemeral. Even physical remnants of the past eventually succumb to flames and rust. Somebody needed to find out what Myrna knew about her remarkable family, so that her memories could be preserved. It occurred to Faye that this someone was her.

Samuel had contracted her to organize his museum and develop a plan to display its contents. These days, the public expected a museum to entertain as well as educate. A professional approach went further than that, seeking to engage the community in an exchange that went beyond linear transmission of prepackaged facts. Multi-media displays weren't just fashionable. They were expected.

A video display of Myrna Armistead talking about women's rights and Spiritualism would be a killer exhibit. All Faye needed to do was convince Samuel that he wanted to pay a little extra for video production.

And photography. Side-by-side photographs of Tilda's house after the fire and Myrna's house, still standing, would make an arresting display. People would love to look at those photos while listening to a recording of Myrna's voice saying something like, “Frederick A. Douglass slept in the front upstairs bedroom of my sister's house, but he took his meals in the dining room of my house while he was in town. My great-great-grandmother was known far and wide for her cooking and Mr. Douglass was partial to her roasted onions.” Myrna could help her bring history back to life.

Myrna's stories of visiting activists could be illustrated by photos of the burned remains of the chairs that had once supported the derrieres of two heroines of women's rights—Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Faye had no doubt that Myrna owned photos of both chairs before they burned. Finally, she was excited about this project.

The door creaked open slowly and Myrna greeted Faye with an endearing smile. It broke Faye's heart to see that smile light a face sagging with fatigue. She loved the idea of working with Myrna to record her family's stories but, from the looks of things, Myrna might not be around long enough to tell them.

Chapter Eleven

Three cubic centimeters is not a great deal of fluid, not when one considers that there are seven hundred and fifty cubic centimeters in a bottle of wine. Three hundred and fifty-five cubic centimeters fit into a measly can of Coca-Cola. Even a teaspoon will hold three cubic centimeters, with room to spare.

It doesn't take long to draw that much fluid into a syringe, and it doesn't take long to inject it someplace where it can do some good. Neither does it take long to inject it someplace where it can do some harm. And there is no arguing the fact that small quantities of liquid have the potential to do great harm. For example, a half-teaspoon of water, barely noticeable in a cocktail, can kill a cell phone stone cold dead.

A medical syringe might be a tortoise-slow way to deliver a deadly something that is assuredly not water, but it is capable of getting the job done, three cubic centimeters at a time.

The needle jabbed its way home, injecting its dark payload yet again.

***

Faye had enjoyed her cup of tea with Myrna, but it was time to get back to work. She had successfully dodged all offers of licorice. Its fragrance followed her out the front door, where the scent of smoke still hovered. A single rainstorm would wash away even the last odor of a house that had stood for nearly two hundred years.

She saw Avery sitting across the street from Faye, in the side yard of Tilda's burned house. The woman sat in a folding chair strategically placed in the shade of a spreading oak, where she looked like someone who was more comfortable being outside than in. Hard at work tapping notes into her tablet computer, the arson investigator started when Faye spoke.

“I'm sorry if I scared you. I just wanted to ask what will happen to what's left of Tilda's house.”

Avery looked up at the burned house, squinting like someone who needed a minute to refocus after doing too much up-close work. “It'll have to come down, and soon. Obviously. Myrna's been in touch with Tilda's insurance company.”

“It's a shame. Every day, I learn something new about the historical significance of that old house.”

Avery nodded, looking up and down a street lined with homes almost as old and fine as Tilda's had been. “I hate to see houses like these go. You should see what goes into them. When they come down, I get a really good look at how they were built. When there are bricks, they're handmade, perfectly laid in beautiful patterns. Masons worked cheap in those days. And the carpentry…”

“Mortise-and-tenon joints? And hand-whittled pegs instead of nails?”

“Yeah. It's really something to see. You sound like you know something about historic buildings. But I guess you would. You're an archaeologist.”

“And I live in a house older than this one was. I know quite a bit about leaky roofs and very old plumbing.” Faye felt an idea bubble up. “Can I take pictures while the house is coming down? And maybe collect a few bricks and pegs for the museum?”

“It's Dara's house now. The bricks and pegs belong to her, so you can have them if she says so. You'll have to stay a safe distance away during demolition, but there's nothing to keep you from taking pictures.”

The notion of being able to display something in Samuel's museum that was actually interesting made Faye ready to go right back to work, but Avery wasn't finished talking.

Avery looked her in the face, and Faye realized that it was the first time she'd seen the investigator's eyes without their customary professional veil. They were an unusual color of hazel, flecked with light and dark shades of amber, but the noteworthy thing about Avery's eyes was their forthright expression.

“You were in the séance room with Tilda, Myrna, and your daughter, not long before the fire.”

“Yes. You and I talked about that yesterday morning.” Faye had a thought so unexpected that it came out of her mouth before she'd fully examined it. “Did we talk about the fact that Myrna and Tilda communed with the dead in that very same room after dinner every single night?”

Avery couldn't hide her surprise. “No, we didn't, and Myrna hasn't told me.”

“She probably didn't think to mention it. Nightly séances aren't abnormal in Rosebower.”

Avery was making notes. “You're right. I need to remember that I'm working in the Downtown of the Departed.”

She looked up again. Faye saw concern on her freckled face, but she couldn't read the woman well enough to suss out its source.

“I've been thinking through the sequence of events leading up to the fire.” Avery paused, as if to give Faye a chance to do the same thing. “It seems obvious that someone barred the door to the séance room and set the house on fire.”

“By throwing the burning lamps at the door?”

“Yes. You saw the evidence. And then the killer threw some more accelerant around, just to make sure the fire was big enough to do its job. I took samples to identify the accelerant and to confirm my suspicions, but the burn patterns are pretty clear.”

“So the accelerant means that an arsonist intended to burn the house down. And the barred door says that the arsonist thought someone—presumably Tilda, since it was her house—was still in there. It also says that the arsonist thought she should stay there while the house burned. That's premeditated murder.”

As Avery nodded, another thought struck Faye. “Anybody who lives in Rosebower would know that the Armistead sisters went in that room every night and closed the door behind them. Do you think the killer thought they were both in there? Myrna told me she went home early, because their time with us had been all the spiritual communion she needed for the day. She blames herself for Tilda's death, thinking that she could have helped her sister if she'd been there.”

“Look at her. She can barely help herself.”

“I know, but I'd feel the same way in her shoes. Do you think it's possible that someone wanted them
both
dead?”

Avery gestured at the folding camp chair beneath her. It looked insubstantial under her powerful legs and trunk. “I could type up my notes a lot easier if I went back to my office and worked on a computer with a real keyboard. But you see that I'm sitting here. Also, my house is a lot closer to Rosebower than that place where you and your daughter are staying, yet you're commuting in every day and I'm not. There's no logical reason I can't drive home when I finish working this afternoon. Why do you think I'm sleeping over there again tonight?” She pointed at Rosebower's overpriced inn.

“So you can keep an eye on Myrna?”

Avery nodded. “I've spent the last couple of days sitting here, watching who walks up and down these sidewalks. When I checked into the inn, I asked for a corner room that overlooks Walnut and Main. It gives me a view of everything that goes on late at night in metropolitan Rosebower.”

“I'm guessing that nothing goes on here late at night. Look at the demographics. There's no work for young people, so they're all gone. This is, for all intents, a retirement community.”

“That makes my job easy.” Avery extended her hands slightly to the left and right, encompassing the length of the sleepy little street in front of her. “If I see any activity at all on this street late at night—in this neighborhood, actually—it's automatically suspect. I didn't sleep a lot last night. I saw exactly nothing.”

“Thank you for looking out after Myrna. She's special.”

Avery nodded again, but held her silence. She seemed to be waiting for Faye. Faye must have looked as clueless as she felt, because Avery prompted her. “There
was
one unusual thing happening in Rosebower this week, even before the fire.”

It took a second for Faye's cluelessness to fall away. “
We're
unusual. Amande and me.”

Avery still didn't speak, so Faye knew she needed to dig deeper. “In this town…on this street…everything we do is noticeable.”
What was the link Avery wanted her to find?
“We stick out. People know who we are and they notice what we're doing. Someone almost certainly saw us go to dinner at Tilda's, and maybe they told somebody else. Maybe that somebody told somebody else.”

Avery's meaning came clear, and it was so obvious that Faye knew she'd been hiding it from herself. “The arsonist thought Tilda was in the séance room. He or she had every reason to believe that Myrna was in there, too, because she's in there every night after dinner. And in a little town, gossip is a way of life. It's entirely possible that the arsonist thought Amande and I were still in that room, too.”

The image of someone nailing Amande into a room and trying to burn her alive drove reason away. “Somebody may have been trying to kill my daughter and me. Or maybe the arsonist just didn't care what happened to us, not if the goal of killing Tilda or Myrna or both of them was important enough.”

Finally, Avery's unveiled eyes said that Faye had reached the right conclusion. “How long have you two been in town? Hardly more than a week. That's not much time to make enemies, but I heard you got crosswise with Ennis yesterday. Do you make a habit of confronting strangers?”

“No! Well, sometimes…anyway, we've hardly spoken to anybody but Myrna and Tilda and Samuel. And that retired physics teacher, Toni, and the elder from the church and Dara and Willow. And yeah, Ennis and Sister Mama…which means that everybody who saw Amande stand up to Ennis knows who we are, but I think they're on our side. Everybody likes Sister Mama and nobody seems to like Ennis. So maybe we
have
met a lot of people, but it's not hard. These people are bored with each other, and there's no point in talking to a tourist who's going home tomorrow. Amande and I stand out.”

“It's just such a coincidence….” Avery mused.

“You're not thinking
we
had anything to do with the fire?”

Avery shook her head. “Myrna told me the clock was striking eight as you left, and that's such a poetically old lady thing for her to remember that it's gotta be true. We have you on video getting gas at 8:07. Julie remembered serving you and your beautiful daughter ice cream just after that, so we know you're telling the truth about what you did between the gas station and the hotel.”

Faye wasn't sure she remembered as much about her evening as Avery knew, even thought she had lived it. It was profoundly disconcerting to be interesting enough, in a law enforcement sense, for an investigator to compile a timeline of her activities. And knowing that video existed that showed her obliviously pumping gas creeped her out completely.

Avery continued cataloging Faye's activities. “So, let's figure fifteen minutes for ice cream and forty minutes for driving. Your 911 call came through at 8:59, so maybe you sped a little. There's no way you had enough time to burn down a house with somebody inside.”

“But somebody did. Where was everybody else in Rosebower at eight o'clock?”

“There's no doubt about where the tourists were. Dara and Willow start their show at seven sharp, and they finish at nine sharp every night. I'm told you can set a clock by the traffic leaving their parking lot.”

“That gives Dara and Willow an alibi.”

“Yes, it does.”

“I suppose I'm the alibi for the convenience store clerk. And for Julie. I don't remember whether we saw anybody else.”

“The convenience store clerk doesn't need your help. We have him on video for the entire evening. Julie's alibi is decent. I don't think she would have had time to run over to Tilda's and set the fire after you left. Even if she had, her boss has vouched for her.”

“And she's vouched for the boss?”

“Dwight? Yeah. Not airtight alibis for either of them but, like I said, decent.”

“Samuel told me he was home alone, so no alibi for him. I don't think Myrna could hold a hammer, much less nail the door shut, and no one could make me believe she would do anything to harm Tilda. Sister Mama couldn't get her wheelchair up Tilda's porch stairs if she tried, so she hardly needs an alibi. Ennis, on the other hand…”

“Ennis has no alibi. None. His aunt was asleep. I do give him credit for not trying to get his aunt to alibi him, though God only knows whether she can still keep track of time well enough to be a credible witness. He can't even show that he was on the Internet or on the phone at any time that evening. He says he was watching TV, and maybe he was.”

Faye started to speak, but Avery held up a hand to quiet her. “I'm going out on a limb to share these things with you, but you already knew everything you did that evening, and it's not hard to speculate about alibis in a town where most of the citizens were in bed when all hell broke loose. You're an important witness and you think like an investigator, so I may come back to you with questions, but I have to maintain the integrity of my investigation.”

“I understand. If there's any way I can help, I will. Tilda was my friend. But this is your job.”

“You seem to know your way around an arson investigation.” Avery held up a hand to shield her face from the bright sunshine. She and Faye had been talking so long that the sun had begun its afternoon dip, clearing the canopy of their shade tree. “Do you want to tell me why?”

“I survived a house fire a few years back, and I helped out informally in the investigation. Archaeology is a lot like arson detection, in some ways. You find clues, you take samples, you send the samples to a lab and hope they tell you what you want to know. In the process, you destroy a little piece of the evidence and you can never get it back.”

“I never thought about it that way. You're an investigator and, in my way, I'm an archaeologist. I dig through ashes, looking for the truth about the past.”

“That's why your work interests me so much,” Faye said. “Besides, the last time I watched an arson investigation, a friend of mine had died, so I was personally involved. That's true again this time. Helping with that other investigation helped me deal with my friend Carmen's death.”