Grave Surprise

Page 3

He hadn't expected such a matter-of-fact reply. He looked at me, leaning forward on the other side of the table. His own cup of coffee was forgotten in front of him. "Why would anyone believe that?" Lacey asked wonderingly.
"Because I produce results," I said.
"Don't you think it's quite a coincidence? That you were called in by the Morgensterns when they were looking for their little girl, and now, months later, in a different city, you say you've found her? How do you think those poor folks are going to feel when the area's dug and there's nothing there? You should be ashamed of yourself." The detective regarded me with profound disgust.
"That's not going to happen." I shrugged. "I'm not ashamed of anything. She's there." I glanced at my watch. "They should have reached her by now."
Detective Laceys cell phone rang. He answered, "Yeah?" As he listened, his face changed. He looked harder and older. His eyes fell on me with a look I've seen often--a stare compounded of distaste, fear, and a dawning belief.
"They've reached some bones in a garbage bag," he said heavily. "Too small to be an adult's."
I tried very hard to look neutral.
"A foot below the garbage bag bones, there are wood remnants. Probably a coffin. So there may be another set of bones." He breathed heavily. "There's no trace of a coffin around the upper bones."
I nodded. Tolliver squeezed my hand.
"We'll get a very preliminary identification in a couple hours, if it's the Morgenstern girl. The dental records have been faxed from Nashville. Of course, a solid ID will have to wait on a full exam of the body. Well, what's left of the body." Detective Lacey set his own personal coffee mug on the battered table with unnecessary force. "Nashville police are sending the X-rays by car, and the car should be here in a couple of hours. The local FBI office is sending someone to witness the full autopsy. The Fibbies are offering their lab for the trace stuff. You are not to say anything about this to anyone until we've talked to the family."
I nodded again.
"Good," Tolliver said, just to goose the silence.
Corbett Lacey gave us a steady glare. "We've had to call her parents, and if this isn't her, I don't even like to think about what they'll feel. If you hadn't broadcast her name to the whole group standing there, we could have kept this quiet until we had something solid to tell them. Now, we've had to talk to them because it looks like the damn television will have it on the air soon."
"I'm sorry about that. I just wasn't thinking." I should have kept my mouth shut. He had a good point.
"Why do you even do this, anyway?" He gave me a puzzled face, as if he really couldn't figure me out. I didn't think he was completely sincere, but I was.
"It's always better to know. That's why I do it."
"You seem to make quite a bit of money, too," Corbett Lacey observed.
"I have to make a living, same as anybody else." I wasn't going to act ashamed of that. But, truly, I sometimes wished I worked at Wal-Mart, or Starbucks, and let the dead lie un-found.
"So, I guess Joel and Diane started out right away," Tolliver said. He was right; a change of subject was in order. "It'll take them how long to get here?"
Detective Lacey looked puzzled.
"The Morgensterns. How long a drive is it, Nashville to Memphis?" I said.
He gave us an unreadable look. "Like you didn't know."
Okay, I wasn't getting this at all. "Know... ?" I looked at Tolliver. He shrugged, as bewildered as I was. A possibility occurred to me. "Tell me they're not dead!" I said. I'd liked them, and I didn't often have feelings for clients.
It was Lacey's turn to look uncertain. "You really don't know?"
"We don't understand what you're talking about," Tolliver said. "Just tell us."
"The Morgensterns left Nashville about a year after the little girl was abducted," Lacey said. He ran a hand over his thinning blond hair. "They live here in Memphis now. He manages the Memphis branch of the same accounting firm, and his wife's pregnant again. Maybe you didn't know that he and his first wife were both from Memphis, and since Diane Morgensterns family lives overseas, back here was where they needed to be if they wanted the support of family during the pregnancy and birth."
I suspected my mouth was hanging open, but for the moment I didn't care. I had so many thoughts I couldn't a minute. "It's only a matter of time before they come up to the room and knock on the door."
I should have thought of that already. "This will generate a lot of publicity," I said, and the ambivalence was clear in Tolliver's face, as I'm sure it was in mine.
"You think we need to call Art?" Art Barfield was our attorney, and his firm was based in Atlanta.
"That might be a good idea," I said. "Would you talk to him?"
"Sure." Tolliver pulled out his cell phone and dialed, while I went to the sink to wash my face. After I turned off the water, I could hear him talking. I was combing my hair in the mirror--my hair was almost as dark as Tolliver's--when he hung up.
"His secretary says he's with a client, but he'll call soonest possible. Of course, he'll charge an arm and a leg if we ask him to come. That is, if he can get away."
"He'll come, or he'll recommend someone local. We've only asked him once before, and we're his most... lurid clients," I said practically. "If he doesn't come, we'll be swamped."
Art called us back about an hour later. From Tolliver's end of the conversation, you could tell Art was not too excited about the prospect of leaving home--Art was not young, and he liked his home comforts--but when Tolliver told Art about the reporters gathered at the police station, the lawyer allowed himself to be persuaded to get on a plane right away.
"Corinne'll call you with my plane information," Art said to Tolliver, but I could hear him clearly. Art has one of those carrying voices, which is really useful if you're a trial lawyer.
Art likes publicity almost as much as he loves his remote control and his wife's cooking. He's had a taste of it since he became our lawyer, and his practice has increased exponentially. His secretary, the middle-aged Corinne, called us within minutes to give us Art's flight number and his ETA.
"I don't think we'd better meet Art at the airport," I told Corinne. I watched another news van enter the parking lot. "I think we're going to have to go to a hotel, one with more security than this."
"You'd better make the change now, and I'll book Mr. Barfield a room at the same place," Corinne said practically. "I'll call him on his cell when he lands. In fact, I'll make a phone call or two, find the right place, and book the reservation for all of you. One room or two, for you and Mr. Lang?"
The hotel was sure to be very expensive. Normally I'd be inclined to share one room with Tolliver, as we were doing now. But if the newspapers were checking, better to err on the side of the Goddess of Rightness.
"Two," I said. "Adjacent. Or if we can get a suite, that would be good."
"I'll do some quick research, and then I'll confirm with you," the efficient Corinne said.
She called back to tell us we were booked into the Cleveland. It was, as I'd feared, way too expensive for my taste, but I'd pay the money to ensure the privacy. I didn't like being on television. Publicity was good for business, but only the right kind of publicity.
We left our motel, as disguised as we could be without looking ludicrous. Before strolling out one of the side doors and making a beeline to our car, we had bundled to the teeth. Because we looked so humble, Tolliver lugging the ice chest and me carrying our overnight bags, we managed to escape the attention of the news crew until we were pulling out of the parking lot. The newswoman, whose lips were so shiny they looked polyurethaned, made a flying leap to land right beside the driver's window. Tolliver couldn't see to turn left into the traffic flowing the way we needed to go, so we were more or less trapped. He rolled down the window and put on an agreeable smile.
"Shellie Quail from Channel Thirteen," the shiny woman said. She was the color of hot chocolate, and her black hair gleamed like it had been polished. It was in a smooth helmet style. Shellie Quail's makeup was equally warlike, lots of bright colors and definite lines. I wondered how long it took her to get ready to leave her house in the morning. She was wearing a tight pantsuit in a brownish, tweedy material, flecked with orange. The little flecks made her skin glow. "Mr. Lang, are you Miss Connelly's manager? Have I got that right?" the shining woman said.
"Yes, you do," Tolliver said agreeably. I knew the camera was rolling. But I had faith in my brother. He has a lot of charm when the occasion arises, especially if it arises in the presence of a pretty woman.
"Can you comment on this morning's happenings in the old St. Margaret's cemetery at Bingham College?" she asked. The microphone she'd been clutching was thrust at Tolliver's chin in what I considered a very aggressive way.
"Yes," he said. "We're waiting to hear if the body we discovered can be identified." I admired the way he kept his voice so level and calm--but serious, and worthy of being taken seriously.
"Is it true the police are considering the possibility that the skeleton may be that of Tabitha Morgenstern?"
Well, that hadn't taken long to leak out.
"Our thoughts and our prayers are with the Morgenstern family. Of course, like everyone else here, we're very anxious to hear some news," Tolliver said neutrally.
"Mr. Lang, is it true your sister stated that the body just exhumed from the cemetery is definitely that of the missing girl?"
We weren't going to get by with anything. "We believe that to be true," he said, indirectly.
"How do you explain the coincidence?"
"What coincidence?" Tolliver asked, which I thought was maybe a little over the top.
Even Shellie Quail looked disconcerted. But she got back on her roll. "That your sister was hired to look for Tabitha Morgenstern months ago in Nashville, and then hired to look at the graves in the old St. Margaret's cemetery here in Memphis. And that a body reported to be that of Tabitha Morgenstern is found in that cemetery."
"We have no idea how this came about, and we're looking forward to hearing the explanation," Tolliver said sternly, as if we'd been mightily put-upon. Baffled, Shellie Quail paused to think of another question, and we took the opportunity to make our left turn.
Chapter three
THE Cleveland was beautiful. The Cleveland was discreet. I was not going to want to see our credit card bill when it came next month.
A valet took our car, and we rolled into the lobby in a flurry of baggage and desperation, anxious to get away from the reporters who'd actually followed us to the new hotel. The staff was as courteous as if we'd stayed at the Cleveland four times a year. We were upstairs and out of reach of anyone in the twinkling of an eye. I was so glad to have time to regroup in relative safety and privacy, I could have cried.
The suite had a central living room with a bedroom on each side. Going directly to the bedroom on the right, I took off my shoes, lay down on my very own king-size bed, and surrounded myself with pillows. That's something I love about really good hotels: the abundance of pillows.
Once I was padded and quiet and warm, I closed my eyes and let my thoughts drift. Of course, they drifted right to the little girl I'd found in the cemetery.
I'd assumed Tabitha was dead from the moment I'd read about her disappearance, weeks before the Morgensterns had asked me to find her body. Based on the information in the newspaper accounts and even more on my own experience, that was a logical assumption. In fact, I'd been fairly sure the child had been dead since scant hours after her disappearance.
That didn't mean I was happy to be right. I'm not callous about death; at least I don't think I am. I think of myself as more... matter-of-fact. And I'd seen the Morgensterns' anguish first-hand. Because of my sympathy for them, I'd persisted longer in the search than I'd thought was reasonable, and certainly long enough to cut into our profit very severely. Tolliver didn't even charge them the full amount; he didn't say anything to me, but when I went over our profits and expenses at the end of the year, I'd noticed.
Since Tabitha had been dead all this time, I thought it would be better for Joel and Diane to know what had happened to their daughter.
I could only hope that the sentiment I'd sprouted so glibly to the detective was valid. I could only hope that knowing for sure what had happened to Tabitha gave the Morgensterns some relief. At least they would know she wasn't in the hands of some madman, actively suffering.
I found myself wishing I'd had longer with the body. I'd been so startled at the identity of the grave's unauthorized inhabitant that I hadn't spent enough energy evaluating the girl's last moments. I'd only seen the blue cushion, a flash of the long seconds as Tabitha slipped into unconsciousness and then passed away--as she passed from the imitation of death to death itself.
I don't believe that death and life are two sides of the same coin. I think that's bullshit. I'm not going to say Tabitha was at peace with God, because God hasn't let me know on that one. And there'd been a strange feeling to my connection with the body; a sensation I'd seldom experienced before. I tried to analyze the difference, but I didn't come up with anything. That would bother me until I understood it.