Writ on Water (24 page)

“It's the lighting beneath these trees,” she answered firmly. “This green cast makes you look a bit like moldy cheese too. We'll need to set up the umbrellas and use the flash to get any decent photos. I hope the vines aren't too thick for seating the tripods. At least the ground will be soft.”

After a moment, Rory exhaled and let her go.

“You're the boss,” he answered. “I think we'll have to clear a space for the camera. Shall I start over here?”

“That's fine.”

But it wasn't fine, and Chloe knew that she wasn't the boss. She wasn't in control, and never had been. She was just riding the Riverview tiger and praying that she didn't fall off and get eaten by one of the Patrick males she was trying to protect.

I'm not afraid of death. It's the stakes
one puts up to play in the game of life.
—Jean Giraudaux

Rory watched carefully as Chloe worked on setting up her shots of the alchemist's tomb. Her expression remained closed and her instructions clipped, and she didn't make eye contact with him any more than was absolutely necessary for the sake of manners when he spoke to her.

The morning had started pleasantly enough, with their conversation returning to the nonsensical teasing that Chloe enjoyed, and that he was actually beginning to like too. But their short visit to look at the damning moss on tomb forty-six had shut her up tighter than a bank vault at closing time. Somehow, she had known he was lying about the moss. And the lie had hurt and frightened her into a full retreat. Rory found that he didn't care at all for this sudden reserve after their earlier camaraderie, and it annoyed him that beneath
the calm facade she was actually alarmed by him and determined to push him away.

He had to admit, so far she was managing to hold him off. She was certainly keeping her distance from him physically. If he got closer than an arm's length, she quickly moved away. Two days ago she had trusted him, had been easy to manage. Now he was a leper.

She was too damned intuitive. He'd had a bad feeling about her from the start. It frustrated him to know that his clumsiness was inadvertently liable for her new aloofness, and the possibility that he was responsible for causing her fear was enough to make him feel genuine pangs of guilt—something he had not previously had experience with, but recognized just the same.

Yet, what else could he have done but lie? They did not have the sort of relationship where one could simply assume absolute and unquestioning loyalty on the other's part. She was fond of MacGregor—and perhaps a little of Rory himself—and had promised to keep silent about the cemetery, but that was before she had found Isaac's body. A promise and vague affection wasn't enough to take on such a big risk. For her own sake, he had to keep her out of things. In these circumstances, the greatest safety for all of them was to be found in her continuing ignorance.

It might have been different if they had found their connection before Isaac's body was discovered, if they'd already been intimate. Lovers lost
in the euphoria of a new relationship often shared things, and that would have given him some acknowledged bond to make things easier. But time had been short before Claude's arrival, and they hadn't had the chance to become friends—let alone lovers. And now they probably never would. Once Chloe's bright little mind put all the bits and pieces together she would know everything that he did.

That would probably be the end of any hope for a future together.

Of course, it might be the end of even more than that if she decided that she had to go to the police with her suspicions. Rory's hands clenched as he considered the possibility.

He should send her away immediately, but that would probably only further arouse her reservations about him. She was extremely devoted to her work. For all their sakes, she needed to be allowed to remain at Riverview long enough to finish her job. If she did that, there might still be some questions in the back of her mind when she thought about Isaac's death, but she would have completed her task and would therefore likely be content to leave things alone.

And if she wasn't, Roland Lachaise could probably be counted on to see that she was kept very busy in some other state, especially if MacGregor put in a call for assistance from his old friend.

Things would probably also seem more normal to Chloe if MacGregor returned to the cemetery
and assisted her in Rory's stead. However, for her own sake, he'd have to keep her away from his father. The old man was drinking heavily these days and could not be trusted to remain discreet. His nerves were forsaking him. MacGregor felt horrible about her finding the body—guilt was consuming him. Above all, he longed for his wife—his friend and confessor—and Rory feared that his father saw in Chloe a reasonable substitute.

MacGregor would never tell the police about what had happened to Isaac, but he might very well tell Chloe, the woman he dreamed would be his daughter-in-law one day. That couldn't be allowed to happen. Not ever. MacGregor, unfortunately, did not understand that.

“I think this about does it,” Chloe said flatly, breaking the long silence as she began stowing her equipment. “The heat is really building now and I don't like to have the computer or cameras out in the damp air. Condensation is a real problem. I'll make an early start tomorrow morning and make up for lost time, and I'll leave the computer behind. Everything seems to be working so I don't need to keep uploading and checking the images on the screen.”

“Fine. I'll be available to play your beast of burden,” Rory answered, not offering the polite assurance that there was no need for her to hurry.

“That isn't necessary,” Chloe said, still not looking directly at him. Her lips in profile were pressed tight and flat.

“Of course it is. I don't want you working alone out here.”

“Why not?” Now she did look at him, a hint of challenge in her dark blue eyes. It was a real pity that the gaze she'd finally turned on him was not more affectionate. “MacGregor trusts me.”

“It isn't a matter of trust,” he lied. “It's simply too dangerous for you to be out here alone.”

Rory watched her eyelids widen slightly. “How so? Claude is surely long gone,” she remarked bluntly.

“True, but there are other snakes about. And a copperhead could be every bit as dangerous as my dear, departed cousin.”

“Oh.” Her eyes veiled before he could read them, and she turned away to zip up her bag. “Well, I plan to get started around seven tomorrow and work through to lunch. Will that suit you?”

“It will have to.”

“Then it's a date.”

It was foolish of him, given the bleak situation and her obvious annoyance, but Rory was obscurely pleased by her choice of words. “Yes, it's a date,” he echoed. Then he added in a lighter voice: “Look at that damned cat.”

Chloe turned and watched Roger leaping after a butterfly that fluttered through its floral
pas de deux
with an idiot poise even though his feline audience was about to eat him. The dance of life went on regardless. For the first time in hours, her face softened.

 

It was afternoon, hot and stuffy with the air conditioner turned off, but Chloe never noticed. She sat in her darkened bedroom and stared blankly at the wall, her thoughts tumbling over themselves as they sought to order the new information she had fed her brain.

Rory's lie in the cemetery had made her angry and supplied her with the impetus to finally face what she needed to do with her film. And now she had to accept the fact that the image glowing on her laptop was more disturbing than she had feared. It looked like the old saying was right—A little knowledge
was
a dangerous thing. And she hadn't one clue where to get any clarification, supposing she was daft enough to want it.

“Damn.” Chloe flopped back on the bed and laid an arm over her eyes.

It was not merely the subject of the photo that was distressing her; minus the smell and the crawling flesh at the base of the neck, which had tried to warn her that genuine death was near, the scene of Isaac's burial when reduced to screen size was not so bad that she couldn't look at it. But there was also the little matter of the thing that
wasn't
in the photograph, an important little thing about eight inches long and four inches wide, and its absence was cause for a new, ugly thought.

And probably alarm, too, though she had not yet reached a state of panic. Some part of her—no doubt hormone-driven—simply refused believe
that Rory could do something that seemed so bad without a very good reason.

Idiotically, she wanted more than ever to talk to him about what she'd found, to beg for an explanation and reassurance. But, of course, she wouldn't.

“Catch twenty-two.”

Only it was closer to that exchange in a Sherlock Holmes story she'd read. The detective had said something like: “
Remark the strange incident of the dog in the night
.” And Watson had said: “
But the dog did nothing in the night
.” And then the supercilious Holmes replied: “That
is the strange incident
.”

She now had her own strange incident to deal with, and she'd have to face it alone. There was no one to advise her.

Chloe looked again at the computer screen. Altogether, she had taken four clear shots of the body, and there wasn't a pistol to be seen in any of them. There were ropes and a crowbar—even the handle of a shovel thrown under some bushes—but no handgun. Admittedly, she had shot her images from an angle different from the ones the police photographer had used, and without a powerful flash. But still, unless the police placed the pistol in the open for clearer viewing during the crime-scene photographs—something they should not have done, and she would never have thought possible, but for her dislike of Sheriff Bell—the pistol should have been visible in at least two of her photographs.

It simply wasn't there. Isaac hadn't had a gun.

And things got worse.

After looking at the digital photos, she had followed a hunch and loaded up her thirty-five millimeter film into her little black box and developed the negatives. Normally, she wouldn't have touched the film until she was in a proper darkroom, but she had this portable box for field emergencies—which this certainly was—and it was perfectly adequate for simple processing jobs.

These thirty-five millimeter images were also revealing.

Admittedly, she had not been able to compare finished prints, but what she did have in the way of close-ups suggested that the moss of the tomb and the moss on the pots at Botanics were one and the same. She was certain that
weberi
was growing—and now dying—on tomb forty-six in the Patricks' graveyard.

So, what did this mean? Had Isaac broken into Botanics to steal some rope, shovels and crowbar, then gone out to Calvin and Edana's tomb to rob it—thus accidentally spreading the
weberi
spore to the graveyard? Chloe's brow wrinkled as she pursued this line of thought.

And then, perhaps, Claude had caught him there and that was where the murder had happened? Had there been any blood . . . ?

But no, that wasn't quite right. That moss hadn't grown accidentally. Someone had put growing medium on the door and deliberately planted
spores there. Why? To hide something? But what? Not the body . . .

Maybe chisel marks from where Isaac had tried to force open the tomb's door?

Chloe turned this thought over in her brain, examining it for flaws before embedding it to the known facts file. Things didn't fit together as tightly as she liked, but this seemed a possible thing to have happened, so she allowed herself to use this hypothesis as a base for her theory.

Determined to find an answer and restore order to her brain, Chloe sat up straight, and she applied herself to this progression of assumptions. Her instincts objected, but she ignored them. Was there any other evidence to support this idea? Anything else that wasn't actual evidence but was still suspiciously out of place and a good candidate as a missing puzzle piece?

“There was the key,” she murmured. There had been those funny rust stains on the gate's lock and key four mornings ago. She hadn't thought of it at the time, but could that have been blood—Isaac's blood—on her hands? She swallowed a few times and willed her stomach to remain calm while she thought this through.

MacGregor was usually very particular about who had the keys to the graveyard and would not tolerate their careless use. But he had also been very drunk that night. Had Isaac somehow lured him into a bout of hard drinking, perhaps slipping a little something extra into the Jack
Daniels, and then taken the key after MacGregor passed out?

Perhaps. But that still left Claude out of the picture. How did he fit into this? Had he come downstairs and found MacGregor passed out, and, guessing what was happening, taken a shotgun and gone out to the family cemetery to stop Isaac? It seemed a drastic course of action to take against a houseguest, but it was just within the realm of the possible, especially if all parties were drunk.

“Claude's an idiot,” she said persuasively to her roiling stomach. “It could have happened that way. Rory was gone, MacGregor was out cold—and Isaac was a lot bigger than Claude is. He might have taken a gun to back up his threats.”

She ventured a step further. The next one wasn't as large a leap of imagination as the last had been, and she took it easily. Faced with the same dilemma she presently had confronting her, and being worried about revealing the family cemetery to the outside world, Claude hadn't risked leaving the body there, or concealing it in one of the tombs where someone—maybe the Munsons, maybe MacGregor—might notice the smell and find it. Without proper interment in a vault, someone would notice the rotting body. When heat and bacteria got busy dissolving flesh and bones, the hard reality of what had happened to Isaac's corpse when the soul—or Claude—shuffled off his mortal coil would become evident. Death took an odorous form.