Disturbing the Dead (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

Lila Barker might not be up this early on a Sunday morning, but Tom couldn’t wait any longer. He set off before dawn. Sooty clouds clotted the sky and as the sun came up drifting fog smudged the outlines of trees and hills. Tom could smell more snow in the air.

Pauline’s former housekeeper lived on a dirt road in the far southeast corner of the
county, an area that was mostly woods and weed-choked fields and rocky hills. Her white clapboard bungalow looked as old as the massive trees surrounding it.

Tom pulled into the gravel driveway and parked his truck behind Mrs. Barker’s yellow Plymouth
.
She stood in the yard amid a forest of birdfeeders perched on poles and hanging from tree limbs. Fat-soled athletic shoes added another two inches to her already impressive height. The rest of her ensemble included purple sweat pants and a puffy red down jacket with a chickadee sitting on the right shoulder.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said as Tom got out of his car. Cardinals, titmice, and blue jays fluttered around her on their way to and from the feeders. The chickadee flew off when Tom approached. “I awakened this morning feeling certain you would be along soon. I embarked a bit earlier than usual on my morning constitutional so that I would be back when you arrived.”

Christ, not this mumbo-jumbo again. “Can we go inside and talk?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Barker said. “I’ll answer your questions honestly and fully.”

She led him up the steps to the front porch. “How are you?” she asked as she unlocked the door. “Is your arm healing?”

“It’s a lot better, thanks.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow, as if she knew it hurt like hell.

A kitchen timer began chirping as they
stepped into her living room. The fragrance of something warm and sweet made Tom’s mouth water
and reminded him that he hadn’t eaten breakfast.

Mrs. Barker disappeared down a narrow hall, and in seconds the timer was silenced.

Tom unzipped his jacket as he circled the living room. The furniture was old and mismatched, but wooden surfaces gleamed and a multicolored afghan of geometric design draped the couch. Bookshelves, crammed full, covered two walls from floor to ceiling. On one shelf, in front of the books, stood a row of framed photos, most of black people, but two featuring Pauline: a formal portrait with her husband and small daughter, and a casual outdoor shot of her with a teenage Mary Lee.

With a start Tom realized that the two cat statuettes on another shelf were living animals, both solid black, sitting motionless and watching him.

Mrs. Barker returned, sailing regally into the room despite her sweat shirt and pants. “Take off your coat and make yourself comfortable.” She’d already removed her jacket. “Will you share coffee and blueberry muffins with
me?”

“That sounds great, thanks.” Tom wrestled out of his jacket, trying not to show the pain it cost him, and dropped it onto a chair. “Is your husband at home?”

“I don’t have a husband, Captain.” Mrs. Barker’s lips twitched with a tiny smile.
“I’ve never been married.”

“Then why—”

“Do I call myself Mrs.?” Her smile broadened. “I’ve found that I am accorded greater respect if I use that title. In a community where people of color are looked down on, I have to engender respect in any way I can.”

“Why do you stay here if you don’t feel comfortable?”

“I didn’t say I’m uncomfortable. This is my home.”

Tom considered the books on her shelves: biography, history, social and political commentary, many volumes on birds and other wildlife. “You’re an intelligent woman. You could have had a career, a better life.”

Her smile turned indulgent. “I hope you’re not always this quick to reach conclusions about people. That doesn’t bode well for your work.”

“I’m sorry. I—”

“Don’t worry about me and my life. I’ve always done what I pleased, said yes or no to any offer of employment according to my own desires. Now I don’t work at all. I spend my time pursuing my passion—reading. On occasion I assist those who need answers about the future or about the people in their lives
.”

“You tell fortunes,” Tom said. That round table in the corner, with its lacy cloth, was probably where she sat for those sessions. He wondered if she used a crystal ball.

“I give life readings, Captain. I know you’re a skeptic. You are allowed your beliefs. And I am allowed mine.” She gave a little laugh. “Incidentally, I’m not running a business without a license
.
I don’t
charge a fee. If someone wants to leave a small cash gift, that’s entirely up to them.”

“And I’m sure it always comes as a surprise to you.” Tom couldn’t help grinning any more than he could help liking this unusual woman.

“Generosity never fails to surprise me,” she said. “I’ll make our coffee now.”

Tom followed her to the kitchen and lingered in the doorway while she placed a kettle on a burner and spooned ground coffee into the cone on a glass pot. A pan of muffins sat cooling on the counter.

He asked, “Who’s Mary Lee’s real father?”

A tremor in Mrs. Barker’s wrist caused tiny brown granules to spill from the measuring spoon and scatter on the counter. She recovered quickly and finished her task before she faced Tom. “Adam McClure was Mary Lee’s father. If you’ll look at her birth certificate, I’m certain you’ll find verification of that fact.”

“You said you were going to be honest with me. I know Adam wasn’t her father. But I’m betting you know who was. Who is.”

“I don’t know any such thing.” Her expression was complicated, mixing wariness, resistance, sadness. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m trying to solve Pauline’s murder. And maybe a second murder. The truth about Mary Lee’s real father might lead me to the killer.”

“If you let people know the police don’t believe Adam was her father, you’ll give Robert McClure an opening to go after everything Mary Lee has. The man is merciless.”

“Why do you care so much about Mary Lee? You don’t really know her, do you? She hasn’t lived in Mason County since she was twelve years old.”

“Of course I know her. She came home from school for vacations and holidays. And we keep in touch.”

“Oh, really?”

“I’m not implying that we’re close friends, Captain. I receive Christmas cards from her, and—” Mrs. Barker hesitated, wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “She provides me with a modest pension. In recognition of my years of service to her mother.”

Mary Lee hadn’t struck Tom as the sort who would give a second thought to her mother’s former housekeeper. “Is that all she pays you for? Or is she paying you to keep quiet? Does she know she’s not Adam’s daughter?”

Mrs. Barker opened a cabinet above the counter and removed a tin tray, cups, and small plates. Without looking at Tom, she said, “I can’t tell you what Mary Lee knows or doesn’t know.”

“Is Ed McClure her father?”

Mrs. Barker gave him a slant-eyed glance. “You’re implying that Pauline was unfaithful to her husband with his own brother quite early in their marriage.”

“Not all that early. They were married, what, four or five years before Pauline had the baby? You were working for her then, weren’t you?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Barker lifted the whistling kettle and doused the grounds in the pot’s cone. Coffee streamed into the pot and the rich aroma filled the kitchen. “I had no reason to believe she was ever unfaithful while her husband was alive.”

“But Mary Lee isn’t Adam’s child.”

Mrs. Barker plucked two muffins from their pan and placed them on the plates. “So you say.”

Tom wanted to grab her and shake her, and he was horrified at how strong the urge was. He jammed his fists into his pockets. He’d allowed Shackleford to get under his skin the night before, he’d lost control and done something he was ashamed of. Mrs. Barker was a woman, a damned infuriating one but a woman nevertheless, and he wouldn’t let himself touch her.

He changed tack and asked the question that had brought him here. “Do you remember a fight between Ed McClure and my father?”

She frowned. “A fistfight?”

“Yes.” He tasted sourness in the back of his throat. “I heard you witnessed it.”

A slow smile of understanding broke across her face. “Ah. And I can guess who told you. I’m afraid the report you heard was exaggerated. I never witnessed a fistfight. I did overhear a few angry words between those two gentlemen.”

Tom felt absurdly relieved. Why had he accepted Shackleford’s word? But still, Ed and his father had argued—at Pauline’s house. “What did you hear?” He steeled himself for Mrs. Barker’s answer.

“Pauline had asked her brother-in-law to stop visiting. He persisted, although she never admitted him to the house again. She called your father one day when Ed appeared and began banging on the door. Your father told him he was trespassing. Ed responded that he had a right to be there, because he cared about Pauline. Because he loved her.”

“And what did my father say?”

“He vowed to arrest Ed for trespassing if he ever set foot on Pauline’s property again. That was all I heard. I was in the house, and she had opened the front door. After she closed it and went out into the yard, I heard no more.”

“When was all this in relation to Pauline’s disappearance?”

“Several weeks earlier.” Mrs. Barker lifted the cone from the coffee pot and disposed of the paper filter in a trash can under the sink. Popping the lid onto the pot, she said, “Shall we go into the living room?”

The two black cats dropped without a sound from the bookshelves and padded over to join them at the round table. The animals leapt onto the table and sat side by side, their green eyes fixed on Tom. He admired cats, but he found these two unnerving. Like their owner, they seemed to know secrets he couldn’t even guess at.

“Ed McClure’s wife couldn’t have been happy about her husband’s attentions to Pauline,” Tom said. How much had his mother known about his father and Pauline? “Did you ever see Natalie McClure at Pauline’s house?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Mrs. Barker broke off bits of her muffin and placed them before the cats. “Queenie, Sadie, each of you eat your own and don’t squabble.” The cats sniffed the treats, then mouthed and swallowed them.

“So Natalie came to the house,” Tom said, trying to get her back on track. “What happened between her and Pauline?”

“Natalie came several times. The first time, I answered the door to her and she screamed at me,
Where is my husband?
He came out of the living room looking white as a ghost.
Natalie, what are you doing here?
She shoved me aside and marched right in and screamed the same question back at him. Pauline came into the foyer and Natalie proceeded to curse a blue streak at her.”

“How did it end?”

“With Ed dragging his wife outside by the arm and forcing her into her car. Then they both drove off.”

“When did that happen?”

“Oh, months before Pauline disappeared.” Mrs. Barker bit into her muffin.

“But he went on seeing Pauline even after his wife made an issue of it?”

Mrs. Barker chewed and swallowed. “Yes. As if it had never happened. However, Ed eventually became angry with Pauline for some reason. I heard them arguing one day. I didn’t catch all the words, but I did hear her say that she would not allow him to run her life, and she didn’t want to see him again. I believe I told you the other day, she instructed me not to let him into the house.”

That could have been the point when Ed had found out about Pauline and John Bridger. Tom picked up his muffin, discovered he didn’t have an appetite anymore, and set it back on the plate. “But Ed kept coming?”

“He stopped visiting for a while, but not long before Pauline disappeared, he began coming around again, begging for forgiveness. He would stand on the front porch and talk to the closed door, pleading with her to let him in.”

“Was that when Pauline asked my father to put a stop to it?”

“Yes. But Ed continued his visits, even after your father spoke to him. Natalie McClure must have been aware of what he was doing, because she showed up again. Twice. She accused Pauline of going after her husband, when the exact opposite was true.”

“Did this go on right up to the time Pauline disappeared?”

Mrs. Barker rubbed her eyes with fingers and thumb. “The last time—and the worst—was several days before she disappeared. Her sisters were at the house, then all the McClures descended, one after the other. It was utter madness.”

“Tell me. From the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.”

She sipped her coffee and seemed to gather her thoughts. “Pauline’s niece, Amy Watford, had been at the house all that morning. Pauline was very fond of Amy. With Mary Lee away so much, I think Amy filled a gap in Pauline’s life. She gave Amy clothes, instructed her on the proper use of makeup, and—”

“Who showed up next?”

“That afternoon, Pauline’s sisters arrived. Jean Turner and Bonnie Watford, Amy’s mother. Jean’s little girl, Holly, was with them. Pauline made a great fuss over Holly. Bonnie told Jean to be careful, or Pauline would take her child away from her too.”