Hung Out to Die (10 page)

There were what looked like two sets of footprints, partially filled in with the new snow, that imprinted the snow from the opposite direction, along the boundary of the orphanage property.

Had someone cut across the orphanage property to the path, or come to it from Mamaw Toadfern's? I couldn't see that far, especially through the swirling snow.

Besides, I was more intrigued by the fact that the footprints went off the path and into the woods, right where the better-preserved telegraph pole was.

I looked back at the path, squinted at the footprints. The duo that had gone off the path at that spot hadn't returned on it. Whoever it was must have cut through the woods and picked up the path elsewhere, which didn't make sense unless they were hunters. Hunting was prohibited this close to the path and private property, but that didn't mean laws were always obeyed.

On the other hand, I knew my uncles—and Daddy—were supposed to go hunting the next day. That was the most popular time for hunting around Paradise—the Friday and weekend after Thanksgiving. It was unlikely anyone would be hunting at twilight on Thanksgiving evening, so I felt safe stepping off the path into the woods, to see the old telegraph pole.

But the minute I saw it, I stopped short, my mind and body going cold with shock.

There was the telegraph pole . . . and Uncle Fenwick. A length of clothesline looped around the lowest rung on the telegraph pole, and then around his neck. The old rung had given way under his weight, and the bottom of his boots just brushed the frozen ground. The ladder, which I'd remembered always being on the side of the Burkette's shed, lay on the ground nearby, as if Uncle Fenwick had kicked it away in his suicide attempt.

But it was clear that this was not suicide. Someone had wanted to make it look like Uncle Fenwick had tried to kill himself, and when the rung broke, must have realized this wasn't going to work, because Uncle Fenwick had also been stabbed.

His winter jacket was open, revealing his undershirt and several stab wounds, from which blood bloomed and spread into the thin cloth of his undershirt, like grotesque flowers.

On the heels of that realization came the awareness that Rachel was behind me, stammering “Oh my God, oh my God,” repeatedly; that I was shaking and it had nothing to do with the cold; and that I was about to throw up.

I couldn't do a thing about Rachel or the shaking. I whirled around, let myself get sick, and then dug my cell phone out of my pocket and called the police.

7

She came, seemingly, from out of nowhere.

One minute I was blissfully floating in gray nothingness. At least, I think I was. Ever notice how you never really remember dreamless sleep? Anyway, the next moment I was aware, in my dream state, of being in fog, which for me is a sure sign that I'm just about to ease into a dream.

Usually—even on nights when I fall asleep concentrating on a name or image that I hope will generate a pleasant dream (George Clooney, George Clooney . . .)—my dreams are anxiety driven. I'm back in high school, late for a French test, unable to find the classroom because I've only just remembered I signed up for French in the first place.

Or I'm in my laundromat, and I'm trying my best to help Purdey Whitlock, the Baptist minister's wife who is complaining that the washer door is stuck, and when I finally open it, dozens of her husband's white dress shirts spring forth, stained with red lipstick, and Mrs. Whitlock starts screaming, because her sole shade of lipstick is tangerine.

Or . . . and this is when I know I'm really troubled deep down . . . Mrs. Oglevee appears from out of nowhere.

Mrs. Oglevee was my junior high history teacher. Theoretically, she retired on the day I graduated junior high school. But to earn extra money, she became a substitute, and showed up with alarming frequency in my high school classes—everything from gym to English lit to home ec. And French.

She was saving money to go on a Mediterranean cruise and had just purchased tickets when she keeled over dead of a heart attack. This did not make Mrs. Oglevee a very happy ghost—or whatever she was—when she showed up in my dreams.

Tonight, she was in an exact copy of my Mamaw Toadfern's Thanksgiving outfit—the black pants and the turkey-Pilgrim-motif sweatshirt and the high-heeled mules. She had a drum strapped around her neck and was hitting it, but not with drum drumsticks. With turkey-leg drumsticks.

I moaned.

This did not cause Mrs. Oglevee to stop, or even pause, in her drumming with the turkey-leg drumsticks. In fact, she drummed so hard, grease flew everywhere.

I groaned.

This only caused her to start tapping her right foot in rhythm with her drumming.

I finally found my voice. “Could you please just go away, Mrs. Oglevee? I've had a rough night.”

To my amazement, Mrs. Oglevee stopped drumming and tapping. Usually, she never listened to my requests. But her drum disappeared, a rocking chair appeared behind her, and she plopped down into it, still holding the turkey drumsticks. She bit into the one she held in her left hand.

“Sorry,” she said around a mouthful of turkey. “Long day. First chance I've had to enjoy Thanksgiving.”

I stared at her as she took another bite, this time from the drumstick in her right hand.

“What?” she said, around another mouthful, glaring back at me. See? I annoyed her, even in my dreams. “Thanksgiving is always a time of great stress and drama for lots of people. Family get-togethers, you know. I don't understand why people who usually don't get together—or get along—congregate once a year and then are surprised when things don't go well. So, this is really my busiest season.”

She stopped suddenly, looking like she wished she hadn't made that last comment, and lit back into the drumstick with gusto.

I gaped at her. “What? You mean to tell me you show up in other people's dreams, too?”

She didn't say anything, finished off her drumsticks and tossed the bones over her shoulder, where they disappeared into the fog. I decided this was a good opportunity to ask her as directly as I dared about whether or not she was really a ghost.

“Or . . . or . . . for some people do you actually show up when they're awake?”

Mrs. Oglevee licked off her fingers. Then she said, “I really can't say. Confidentiality issues. Part of my agreement.”

I rolled my eyes. No one had ever felt comfortable confiding in Mrs. Oglevee when she was alive. I couldn't imagine what the Almighty would have been thinking, assigning her to some afterlife counseling role. Assuming she was with the Almighty. I'd never been quite sure where Mrs. Oglevee was residing in the afterlife.

But then, Mrs. Oglevee adjusted her glasses, started rocking, and gave me a piercing look. “Start talking,” she said. “I'm on a schedule.”

And so . . . I started telling her about the reunion with my parents and Toadfern kin. The surreal visit at the Burkettes. The conversation with Rachel Burkette about our childhoods, and our meetings at the shed, years ago.

I told her about Uncle Fenwick, stabbed, but also made to look as though he'd tried to commit suicide, with the clothesline and the ladder nearby. I told her my theory, that someone had threatened or forced Uncle Fenwick into hanging himself, and then Uncle Fenwick had fought back at the last minute, and the killer stabbed him, left him to die from a combination of bleeding to death and hanging, then panicked and ran off.

I told her how Rachel had started screaming hysterically, how I'd fumbled with my cell phone and finally managed to call 911, how the snow had really picked up. How finally officers from both the Paradise Police Department and the Mason County Sheriff's Department showed up.

I told Mrs. Oglevee about answering the questions of John Worthy, Paradise's chief of police, and about going with him to Mamaw Toadfern's house to break the news to her and Aunt Nora, and how both women had been shocked and hysterical and how, somehow, it didn't surprise me that for all their goofiness, the members of the Toadfern clan rallied around and calmed and comforted Mamaw and Aunt Nora. Even my mama and daddy.

And I told her about them, too.

And then I told her how, finally, I'd driven home, and discovered my apartment smelled of burned turkey—the roast had been in there far too long—and how I'd thrown the wasted turkey out, run the kitchen fan, and put away the other side-dish fixings I'd left out on the counter.

Then I took a quick, hot shower, stumbled into bed and a blessed dreamless slumber . . . until Mrs. Oglevee showed up.

“And it's a good thing I did, too,” she said, annoyed again. Which disappointed me. I thought I'd woven a moving tale, well told. I thought Mrs. Oglevee had been wiping a tear from her eye—but maybe it was just turkey drumstick grease.

“I can see,” she went on, twisting her mouth into a prim little line, as she always did when she thought I wasn't paying attention in class, “that you are just going to walk away from this murder of your poor Uncle Fenwick.”

“Well, yeah,” I sputtered. “It's . . . it's not any of my business.”

“That's not like you. Whatever happened to Nosey Josie?”

I shuddered at her use of my hated, old nickname and used my favorite line for defending my proclivity for interest in news: “I prefer to think of myself as curiosity-gifted.”

“Your gift seems to be coming unwrapped,” she snapped.

“What? You've always told me to mind my own business, to stop poking my nose in where it shouldn't be. Now you think I should investigate Uncle Fenwick's murder?”

Mrs. Oglevee glared at me. I gave her a sly look, thinking of something that might get her to leave me alone. “Besides, Chief John Worthy is working with the sheriff's department on the investigation.”

As I'd expected, her look softened. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Chief John Worthy—my ex-high-school sweetheart and current nemesis—had always been Mrs. Oglevee's teacher's pet.

“Dear Johnny,” she said, wistfully. “He was always so sweet and respectful—”

“A suck-up,” I muttered.

“What was that?” Mrs. Oglevee snapped.

“Nothing, ma'am.”

“Hmmph. Don't back talk. Besides, I have a point of view you can't share, and I'm telling you, this is one time your natural nosiness is needed.”

“You don't think old Johnny's up to the job this time?”

“I think blood is thicker than water!”

This time I did roll my eyes. “Oh, please. This is the first time I've seen the Toadferns in years. Most of them except Sally—”

Mrs. Oglevee interrupted me with a grunt of disgust. If anyone could annoy her faster and more deeply than me, it was Sally. Of course, with Sally, it was intentional, because she found Mrs. Oglevee's reactions amusing.

“Most of them except
Sally,”
I repeated, emphasizing
Sally,
“have been downright rude and ignored me all these years. So why should I investigate Uncle Fenwick's murder when no one—least of all the officials—wants me to?”

“Because, my dear, you might just learn some things about your family—and yourself—that can help you personally.”

There was a shrill sound, and Mrs. Oglevee jumped. “Oh! I had more to tell you, but time's up.” A gigantic alarm clock—the old-fashioned antique kind with two bells on top—fell into her lap and shrilled again. She peered at it. “Yes, time for the next appointment.”

Mrs. Oglevee stood up, and the rocking chair and alarm clock disappeared. Mrs. Oglevee started fading into the mist that suddenly rolled in around her.

I frowned. “Wait—Mrs. Oglevee—wait, I don't understand why I should investigate Uncle Fenwick—wait—it's a bad idea—wait—”

But only Mrs. Oglevee's Chesire cat–like smile remained in the fog, and then there was that shrilling sound again, and I snapped to, and realized my phone was ringing.

Guy, I thought, suddenly wide awake. I sat up in bed, turned on my nightstand light, and stared at my digital clock: 1:16.

I grabbed up the phone. “Toadfern's Laundromat, I mean Toadfern residence, I mean Josie . . .”

“I woke you. I'll call tomorrow . . .”

Owen! I sat up straighter, but still wasn't fully awake. “No, now's fine,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “It's just that Mrs. Oglevee doesn't make sense . . .” I shook my head, trying to come fully awake. I looked at the time again, then felt a little chest squeeze of panic.

Owen's plan was to start driving home Friday morning after Thanksgiving, so we could spend some time together over the weekend. Had he decided to leave early—real early—for some reason? Was he stranded somewhere?

“Owen, are you okay?” I was wide awake by then, and straining to hear sounds of highway traffic in the background.

There was silence for a moment on his end. Not the sound of even a single eighteen-wheeler rushing by.

“I'm fine,” he said finally. “I actually had a great day—a really great day. How was yours?”

He asked the question hastily, as if he'd suddenly remembered that I would have had a day, also. There was so much I could tell him . . . but I suddenly went cold. Something didn't feel right. “It was fine,” I said.

“Oh, good,” Owen said, sounding relieved—not at the fact my day was fine, I realized, but that I wasn't going into great detail. He, of course, had no idea how I'd spent my Thanksgiving. When he'd left the previous weekend, I'd been as vague with him about my plans as I'd been with Sally before she manipulated me into going to Mamaw Toadfern's. He hadn't seemed overly concerned about how I'd spend the holiday.

“Listen, Josie, I really am sorry to call you so late—”

“Well, as long as it's to mutter sexy sweet nothings in my ear in the middle of the night,” I joked—and immediately regretted my interruption.