Scrapbook of the Dead (22 page)

After handing out candy in the early evening to a parade of little ghosts, goblins, and fairy princesses, DeeAnn, Jacob, and Tracy headed over to the fire hall where the community gathering was being held. DeeAnn's new pills seemed to be doing the trick and since Tracy and Karen hadn't taken away the second prescription of pills she'd gotten, she was able to take as many as she wanted.

Usually DeeAnn would walk to the fire hall, but she didn't want to overexert herself, for fear of stopping whatever healing had already taken place so they'd driven. Her friends had saved a space for her at a table. Jacob gravitated toward the men in the corner, all looking a bit out of place. Tracy sat next to her.

Long card tables were set end to end, making rows of tables extending from one end of the room to the next. Orange and black paper covered the tables. A centerpiece stood in the middle of each—pumpkins with fall flowers, orange, yellow, gold, and crimson. Black and orange streamers were strewn across the room, with orange and black balloons in each of the four corners. It was Halloween, all right, and the Cumberland Creek fire hall was decorated to the hilt.

Spider-Man sauntered up next to DeeAnn.

“Well, hello there, Sam,” she said.

“How did you know it was me?” asked Annie's son, who evidently at the last minute had decided he wasn't too cool or too old to celebrate Halloween.

“It was a good guess,” DeeAnn said, looking over at the little boy next to him who was dressed as an old man. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Mozart, of course,” Ben said.

“Mozart?” Who ever heard of a Mozart costume? “Well, I guess you know what you're doing,” she said. “I wouldn't know him if I tripped over him.”

“But he's already dead,” Ben said, deadpan.

“I know that,” DeeAnn laughed. “I meant, if he were alive, I still wouldn't know who he was. Or what he'd look like. Are you certain he looked like you, with the fancy hair, and such?”

Annie grinned. “Oh yes. He researched it.”

“Very nice,” Tracy said. “Maybe you'll win the contest tonight.”

A large man dressed as a clown walked by the table and Sheila gasped. “I just find them so creepy!”

Annie did a double take and a questioning look came over her face, but then she appeared to shrug it off.

“Clowns?” DeeAnn asked.

“Yes, and that one is so big! A grown man dressed as a clown!” said Sheila.

“A lot of people here are dressed up,” Paige said. “I wish Randy were here to see it. I bet him that there would be some adults in costumes. But he had to work tonight. He's trying out some new recipes.”

“Yeah, so did Karen,” DeeAnn said. “Halloween can be a nightmare in the ER.”

Beatrice chortled. “Sound likes a title for one of those campy horror movies.”

Jon was sitting next to Bea with Elizabeth on his lap. She was dressed as a giraffe—a costume her grandmother had made for her.

“It's time for the contest, young lady,” Jon said, guiding her out of his lap.

The children began to line up for the costume competition and then so did the teenagers, and then finally the adults—the few of them that were participating. The clown was nowhere in sight, much to Sheila's contentment.

Elizabeth ended up winning the competition in her age group for most original costume.

“Beatrice, you are such a talented seamstress,” DeeAnn said after Elizabeth came back to the table with her trophy.

“Well, now don't make a big deal of it. I've been making costumes for many years. When I was growing up we all learned to sew. I'm not sure what the kids are learning these days.”

“I'm sure you don't want to know, Mama,” Vera said. “I don't think I do, either.”

Detective Bryant paraded by the table. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, off duty. DeeAnn wanted to grab him, shake him, and tell him to back off her daughter. Instead, she smiled and nodded politely . . . but it was killing her.

“Don't look now,” Paige said. “He's heading toward your husband.”

DeeAnn's heart lurched in her chest. “Ohmigoodness!” She covered her face with her hands. “I can't look,” she said as the others around her laughed. “What's happening?”

“He shook Jacob's hand and is smiling at him,” Paige said in a low voice. “Jacob is not smiling back.”

“Oh Lordy, what should I do?” DeeAnn's eyes were still closed, her face hot, pulse racing.

“Oh c'mon,” Bea said. “They're polite adults. It's going to be fine.”

“They are going outside,” Paige whispered in a horrified tone.

“Okay. I take that
polite adults
thing back,” Bea said.

“Let me go and check out the situation,” Jon said, rising from his chair.

“What? No, it's none of your business,” Bea said. “I don't want you getting hurt.”

“I'm a man. This is man's business,” he said and left.

DeeAnn opened her eyes and noted that other men around the room were also moving toward the door.
Poor Bryant
, she thought.

“This is the biggest bunch of crap I've ever seen,” Tracy said and got up from the table. “I'm going to put a stop to this. Karen is a grown woman. It's nobody's business what she's doing with Adam. I don't like it, either; he's so old. But it's none of our business. Dad just needs to back off.”

DeeAnn sat back in her chair. She felt frozen and couldn't move even if she wanted to.

“You stay put,” Vera said to DeeAnn. “You don't need to hurt yourself over this. I'm sure it will be fine.”

But DeeAnn was not so sure. Tracy was right. On the one hand, it was nobody's business. But on the other hand, what Tracy didn't understand was that both she and her sister would always be their parents' business. And in a small community like Cumberland Creek, dating a man like Adam Bryant—no matter what age you were—was going to set tongues wagging. That's just the way it was.

Oh yes, many folks in Cumberland Creek had come a long way. The murmurs about a Jewish family living in town had faded—or at least gone behind closed doors, and one of their own had come back to live here as an openly gay man. That never would have happened ten years ago.

But DeeAnn knew that if you scratched beneath the surface, all of the prejudices were lurking beyond the picket fences and the neatly trimmed lawns. Paige and Earl had yet to be welcomed back into their church community. Annie and her family were always running up against bumps and ignorance. Her own twenty-five-year-old daughter dating a local detective who was almost twice her age? Well, people were talking. The more DeeAnn thought about it, the more it pissed her off. The more she wanted to tell people to back off. But she couldn't, because she didn't like it, either. So she sucked in her breath. Karen was old enough to know actions led to consequences. It was her life, not DeeAnn's.

The door flung open and one of the men hightailed it into the fire hall kitchen and quickly came back out with some ice. If DeeAnn's intuition was correct, a man was down.

Jon slinked back into the room and came to their table in a midst of a crowd of middle schoolers roaming around. “Well, that's that.”

DeeAnn couldn't speak. Had Bryant hurt her husband?

“What happened?” Bea asked.

“Bryant is bleeding a bit. I think he's going to have a black eye,” Jon said.

“What?”

All of the women at the table turned to look at him.

“It's all over now. I think he went home. It was only one punch, but Jacob made it a good one.” Jon grinned.

After all the fuss at the Halloween party, the scrapbookers plus Beatrice got together in Vera's basement. They moved a bunch of furniture around and created a circular space in which to hold the Halloween ritual.

The women gathered around. Cookie stood next to a decorated table. She was dressed in the same blue dress she had worn the first time they held the ritual. It was made of a deep blue velvet with large, flowing sleeves and hemline. Annie's stomach tightened as she remembered the night that Cookie first wore it—the night she was arrested for murder based on some flimsy evidence that had never added up and a botched investigation that never made sense.

Paige was in charge. She and Cookie had come up with the ritual based on what Paige remembered and by looking over some books on Wicca. Each one of them had brought pictures of people they had lost. The photos of deceased people adorned the table, along with a huge seashell, a statue of Mary, candles, a wooden bowl of water, flowers, and silk scarves.

Once again, Annie was struck that although each item on the table was not usually pretty by itself, gathered together they had a simple beauty. “This reminds me of the Day of the Dead celebration over at the Drummond place last night.”

Cookie smiled. “So many cultures have similar celebrations and rituals.”

Annie reached for Cookie's hand. “I remember the first time we did this like it was yesterday. You said something about women have been meeting like this for generations, gathering around the fire or the altar. Some of the things here represent some deep connections we have and always will.”

Paige grabbed Cookie's other hand. “We are safe here.”

“Can we get on with it?” Beatrice said, but she held onto Vera and DeeAnn's hands. They were all in a circle, holding hands.

“Okay, first I'll call quarters,” Paige said, letting go of Cookie and DeeAnn's hands and placing herself in the center of the circle. “Hail to the North,” she said with her arms out, palms up, facing Sheila's fireplace. “Place of patience, endurance, stability, and earth.” She dipped her hand into a bowl of dirt and let it fall back into the bowl. “Hail to the East.” She picked up a feather and placed it in the bowl. “Place of wisdom, intellect, perception, and inspiration. Air,” she added with a flourish of the feather.

She struck a match and lit the black candles on the table. “Hail to the South, place of passion, strength, energy, and willpower. Place of fire.”

As Paige welcomed each element, or called quarters as she put it, Annie watched Cookie as much as she could without making her uncomfortable. Cookie's spirituality had been so important to her before the accident. They were all hoping that going through this ritual struck a chord in her.

After Paige was done reciting, they all sat and ate a vegan feast prepared by her and Cookie.

“So do you remember anything?” Beatrice asked.

Cookie looked up at the women, who were all focused on her. “I can't say that I remember specific details. But it felt familiar and comforting.”

“Well, that's something,” Vera said. “That sounds like a good start.”

Everybody mumbled in agreement.

“I have to say, the first time we did the ritual, it felt that way to me as well,” Annie said. “I was surprised. I mean, I'm Jewish. Yet this felt comforting to me. From the first.”

“Well, it should be,” Beatrice said. “All of these rituals are based on ancient ways. These things, like the seashell, have symbolized the sacred feminine for generations. You sort of pick up on these things by osmosis.”

Cookie reached for the huge seashell on the table and held it in her hands.

Is she trying to remember again?
Annie wondered.

“Oh Mama, you're such a smarty-pants,” Vera said.

“Pshaw,” Beatrice said.

“False humility never got you anywhere, Bea,” Sheila pointed out.

“I still haven't been able to figure out what happened to the Martelino sisters,” Beatrice said. It felt fitting to talk about them tonight, on this feast of the dead.

“Sad,” Vera said.

“We're not very close to solving the cases,” Annie said.

DeeAnn cleared her throat. “That man from Hathaway cleared up a few things for me. I don't think they had anything to do with it.”

“Humph,” Beatrice said. “What makes you say that?”

“He told me about the problems they were having and how they might go out of business. He said the company has gotten too big to police and some of the employers and sponsors are taking advantage,” DeeAnn said.

“That makes sense,” Annie said. “The articles I've been reading about arrests and things all back that up. It was the intermediaries who were lax.”

“In this case, that would be . . . ?” Vera questioned.

“Pamela or the Kraft Corporation,” DeeAnn finished.

The room sat in silence.

“They seem on the up and up,” Annie finally said. “I've looked into them. They seem squeaky clean on the face of things.”

“Heck. It's a huge company. It could be someone that worksh for them that Pamela doeshn't even know.” DeeAnn was sweating profusely and slurring her words a bit.

“Are you okay?” Annie asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“You're sweating and slurring your words.”

“That's just the medicine,” DeeAnn said, waving her off. “I feel fine. I'm in no pain.”

Paige frowned. “DeeAnn—”

“Really?” DeeAnn said. “You're going to ashk me about my medishine
again
? Haven't I had enough drama for tonight, what with my idiot hushband punching Bryant in the nose?”

Paige held up her hand as if to say
You'll get nothing more from me.

“Well, on that note, I need to get going,” Annie said, standing up from the table.

“Early night?” Beatrice said.

“Not really,” Annie said. “I just have a little work to do.”

After everybody said their good-byes, she took off down the dark, empty street alone, her bag flung over her shoulder and her cell phone in her hand. She liked to keep her phone close when she traveled in the dark. Not all of the streets were well lit.

As she rounded the first corner, she felt as if someone were watching her.
Strange.
The Halloween festivities were over. Not many folks would be out or looking out their windows. A thump of a footfall sounded from somewhere behind her.

As Annie turned, things became a blur of color. The clown from the fire hall reached for her and pulled his face close to hers, opening his mouth. She twisted and kneed him in the crotch; he bent over, groaning, and she kneed him again in the head, ignoring the pain rippling through her knee. He went down.

“Help!” she yelled and saw Mrs. Green coming out of her house wielding a shotgun.

“Wait! Don't shoot! Please, just call 9-1-1,” Annie said, feeling her chest nearly explode with the pounding of her heart and her knee reeling with pain.

“I done that already, missy,” Mrs. Green said. “Figured you needed backup until the police get here.” She was in her robe, with curlers in her hair.

“Well, thank you,” Annie said, trying to catch her breath.

The police were there momentarily and Annie found the strength to face her attacker, who the medics were trying to awaken. Vera and the others had come running down the street as soon as the sirens sounded. Cookie's arm went around Annie as a police officer took off the clown mask.

“Jorge,” Annie said with a pang of disappointment traveling through her. “Oh Jorge, what have you done?”