“No, but I think your parents might have given a key to a neighbor in case they locked themselves out. That would be more likely after your father died and your mother lived there alone. She wouldn’t have a husband to call and let her in if her keys fell out of her purse and she didn’t notice or her purse was stolen or…” Eric huffed. “There are a dozen ways a perfectly competent person can lose keys. Whether there are lost keys, keys given to someone else, keys simply vaporized into space, we’re getting your locks changed tomorrow. I should have done it a couple of days ago so something like—” he gestured at the grave—“this couldn’t have happened.”
For a moment, everyone present simply stared at him, wondering what to expect next. Marissa didn’t give him a chance to speak, though. “There’s a photograph lying beside my dress. I can’t see clearly—my eyes are watery from the cold. May I pick it up? I’m wearing gloves.”
Eric nodded. Marissa leaned forward and retrieved a four-by-six-inch color close-up. “We must have been on the
Annemarie,
” she said absently. She guessed herself to be sixteen in the picture. She wore the white bikini her father had thought too daring but she loved against the fabulous tan she’d gotten that summer. Her hair had been longer than now, almost touching her waist. Her eyes had looked dazzling as Dillon Archer—tan, muscular, and handsome—wrapped his right arm tightly, possessively, around her shoulders and gazed at her with…affection? No, Marissa thought. Love.
On the back of the photograph was written:
M.G. & D.A.—Together Forever.
Chapter 15
1
“Good lord, Marissa, we’ve looked at every door and window in this house and I can’t see
any
sign that someone even tried to get in here, much less accomplished it.” Catherine and Marissa sprawled on the comfortable furniture of the family room, each drinking strong coffee. “I guess we were stupid to conduct a search as soon as we got home. Now it’s dawn, we’re exhausted, and Eric is going to send experts over here to go over the whole place.”
“Both of us were too horrified to get any sleep last night anyway, even with surveillance. Besides, if someone had gotten in and took the dress, I wanted to be able to say
we
found out how.” Marissa paused. “I know we’re getting new locks, but you don’t suppose they’re going to put in new windows in the middle of winter, do you?”
“God forbid,” Catherine groaned, then burst out, “Why did it take us so long to remember where the hell Mom stored our christening dresses?”
“I have a feeling my christening dress
has
been in hell the last few days,” Marissa said grimly.
“I don’t like to think about where it’s been lately. I’d rather think of it wrapped in tissue paper and lying in a labeled box in the cedar-lined storage closet with mine. Should I feel inferior because someone only wanted yours?”
“If you felt inferior because yours wasn’t stolen, I’ll be
very
worried about you, and I have enough on my mind,” Marissa murmured dolefully.
“No reason for worry. I think I’m taking everything very well, considering my reputation as the scaredy-cat sister.” Catherine stood and headed for the kitchen. “I’m going to take some fresh coffee out to Deputy Crane, who’s been sitting in front of the house most of the night for nothing.”
“You sound almost disappointed that he
was
here for nothing.”
Catherine stopped walking and frowned. After a moment, she said, “Maybe I am. At least if someone had tried to break in, the cop would have caught him and this nightmare would be over.”
Marissa smiled regretfully. “I have a weird feeling that even if the person who defiled Mom’s grave is the killer, the nightmare still won’t be over for a long time.”
“Marissa, you didn’t need to come in at the regular time this morning,” Pete Hagarty said when she arrived at the
Gazette
office. “You could have called and said you’d be in at noon. I know all about what happened last night.”
“Of course you do. You’re a first-rate newsman,” Marissa answered. “Catherine and I were awake all night, though. If I’d stayed at home even an extra couple of hours, I wouldn’t have slept.”
Pete leaned close to her, smelling strongly of Old Spice. “Is it true
your
christening gown lay in the grave with an ice pick stuck in it?”
“Yes. Catherine’s christening gown is still at our house.”
“You have no signs of a burglary?”
“No.”
“How about the photograph? I heard there was a photograph with the dress.”
Marissa thought of the picture. Yes, Pete, she almost said. It was a photograph of Dillon Archer holding me possessively, both of us looking radiantly happy. Eric wasn’t in the picture. Why? At sixteen, I already had a mad crush on Eric. Maybe he didn’t feel the same about me.
Then she caught herself. Had she forgotten she was a news-woman? She was spilling information the police probably didn’t want released. “It was an old photograph of me on Dad’s boat. It seemed everyone was taking pictures on those boat rides, though. There must be a hundred of them.”
They just weren’t enlarged, pristine, and titled “Together Forever.”
All day Marissa worked on obituaries and small, unimportant stories. She even wrote a couple of fillers. She knew an article about the grave desecration would appear in the evening paper, but she didn’t know who was writing it and she knew she wouldn’t be reading it tonight.
At one o’clock, Eric called to let her know he’d ordered new locks for her house, which would be installed during the afternoon, and that a basement window latch showed signs of tampering. “No footprints in the dirt, though, and no fingerprints.”
“We went over
everything.
I can’t believe we missed it,” Marissa said.
“The latch wasn’t broken and you could only see the damage from outside. Also, it should make you feel better to know the red liquid on the dress wasn’t blood,” Eric told her. “It was red food coloring and water. We also didn’t find any prints on the ice pick. We might find something just under the hilt edge, but I doubt it.” He sounded tired and disappointed. “I heard you and Catherine stayed up all night.”
“Randall Crane told you, didn’t he? Aside from looking for a way a burglar could have gotten in, we were also looking for our baby things—Catherine’s christening dress, special little Easter and Christmas dresses, our baby books. We found Catherine’s dress in the big cedar closet. Mom had wrapped it in tissue paper. I suppose she’d done the same with mine.”
Eric frowned. “The dress doesn’t smell of cedar.”
“Then it’s been out of the cabinet for quite a while or someone took it to the dry cleaner’s before putting it in the grave.”
“I don’t understand why our guy would do that, but we’ll check local dry cleaners and see if they remember a christening gown.” Eric sighed. “What about that photograph, Marissa? Was it yours?”
“No,” she said definitely. “I mean, it might have been in the house, but I don’t remember even seeing it before last night.”
“How old were you in that picture?”
“Sixteen.”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about the photograph.”
“I remember my bikini. I loved it. Dad thought it was too revealing and didn’t want me to wear it. He gave in rather than get in an argument with me. At the end of the summer, I spilled chocolate sauce from a sundae on it and the stains wouldn’t come out. I thought losing that bikini was a tragedy.”
“I’m sure Dillon did, too. In the picture he was looking at you like he loved you
and
your bikini.”
“I don’t know what that look was about, Eric,” Marissa said honestly. “Maybe he
was
just attracted by the bikini, because he never touched me inappropriately, kissed me, or even asked me on a date. He was always nice to me. Very nice but nothing else.”
“Nice.” Eric sounded unconvinced. “Well, we have to keep the photo as evidence.”
“Fine. I don’t care if I ever see it again.”
“Don’t sound so put out. At least you found Catherine’s dress. You don’t have to spend this evening searching.”
“I have to search for an answer about why
my
dress was taken but not Catherine’s. I have to spend this
afternoon
searching for answers about Gretchen. I’m going to your parents’ house at two, remember? If I make it to Gretchen’s room, I’ll be looking for anything that might tell me what was bothering her that summer, and it’s not going to be as easy as looking for my baby clothes.”
2
Susan Montgomery was a stickler about punctuality, so Marissa made certain she pulled her car into Susan’s double driveway at one fifty-nine. Susan opened the front door almost immediately, hesitated for a moment, then gave Marissa a cool smile. “Hello, Marissa. It’s been a long time. Please come in.”
Marissa stepped into the foyer with its shining hardwood floor, curving stairs, beige brocade settee sitting beneath a large oil painting of an autumn landscape, and a bronze ten-light chandelier. Sun shone brightly through the sidelights and Marissa saw that half of Susan’s curly blond hair, so much like Eric’s, had turned silver. Horizontal lines creased her forehead and she’d developed nasal-labial folds. Even her brown eyes seemed to have lightened a couple of shades. Her short hair had been perfectly styled, though, and she wore a touch of tan eye shadow, mascara, blush, and a muted pink lipstick.
Susan said with her cool smile, “You look nice on this cold day.”
“Thanks.” Marissa used to call the woman Susan. After all that had happened, though, she feared Eric’s mother would take offense at informality. “And thank you for agreeing to the interview, Mrs. Montgomery.”
“My pleasure. I’m devoted to this project and appreciate the publicity.”
Susan Montgomery’s remarkable composure rattled an already-jittery Marissa. The woman had rarely shown Annemarie’s joie de vivre, but she’d never seemed carved from ice.
“We haven’t seen each other for a while….” Marissa stepped into the foyer, dropped her tote bag, which she’d forgotten to fasten, and sent items skittering all over the gleaming wood floor. “Oh…dear. I’m sorry,” she muttered as she began chasing pens, a steno pad, tubes of lip gloss, car keys, a portable tape recorder, a cell phone, and her wallet.
“It’s all right.” Susan picked up a large Snickers candy bar. “Still an addiction?”
Marissa blushed. Her love of Snickers bars used to be a joke with the family. “Yes. I wish they had support groups for Snickers addicts, but I’ve never found one.” Marissa grabbed a wide-toothed comb lying by a wall. “I’m hopeless anyway.”
“I believe there are worse addictions. I doubt if they’re doing your health any harm, and from what I can see under that gorgeous faux fur coat they aren’t hurting your figure, either.”
Marissa realized her laugh sounded stiff. “I’m glad you like the coat. I’m also addicted to faux fur.” Certain she’d gathered everything she’d spilled, Marissa stood up and swept back her hair from her face. “Coats, vests. Faux fur, I mean.”
“I knew what you meant. I’ll hang up your coat and we’ll sit in the living room. Would you like something to drink?”
Yes, a boilermaker, Marissa thought. Maybe two. She’d seen Eric’s parents at Gretchen’s funeral and not again until her parents’ funerals, where they’d each murmured, “Sorry for your loss,” but they hadn’t come to the house afterward. Marissa had known she would be nervous actually talking to Susan for the first time in over four years, but she hadn’t guessed exactly
how
nervous she would be. The woman—dressed in beige slacks and a powder blue sweater set—seemed like an eerily composed, washed-out version of the slightly shy but warm Susan Montgomery Marissa had once known. She wanted to turn and run out the door. “No thank you. I’m not thirsty now, but I might be later,” Marissa finally managed. “Or you might be. You’ll be the one doing most of the talking.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee I’ll do much talking.” Susan hung up the coat. “I’ve never been interviewed before today. I hope I don’t let down the other members of the auction committee.”
“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Marissa said as they walked into a living room filled with winter light shining through sheer draperies. A beautiful subdued blue and gold patterned rug dominated the center of the room, and Marissa guessed that an interior designer had strategically placed new burnished gold and rose-colored furniture. Marissa retrieved her notebook and pen and set her tape recorder on the coffee table. “First I should get the names of the other people on the committee,” Marissa said.
Susan rattled off eight names, only that of Irene Hagarty, Pete’s wife, familiar to Marissa. “They made me president of the committee,” Susan said. “I think that’s because no one else would do it.”
Marissa smiled. “I understand the auction is to help get funds for a new library.”
For the first time, Susan laughed. “Heavens, no! We’d never get a new library if we depended on little events like this. We’d like to build an additional room to the library, one devoted to children. The shelves would all be low; we’d have colorful tables and chairs; every Saturday we’d invite a guest reader; later we might even hold a creative-writing class for the second-through-sixth-graders, although we’d be careful not to call it a
class.
That would sound like work. For now, we’ve been fortunate enough to have many authors donate their signed, first-edition books to be auctioned….”
Marissa devoted full attention to every word Susan said. Although shorthand was out of style, Marissa had learned it as a teenager, and what she missed she knew the tape recorder would catch. She conscientiously made eye contact with Eric’s mother, but all Marissa could think about was Gretchen. Marissa knew across the hall from them a grand piano sat in a special music room—a space always called “Gretchen’s Room.” She remembered sprawling on the couch in the room, listening to Gretchen practice intricate and what had seemed to Marissa at the time endless classical pieces. Then Gretchen would burst into something by Jerry Lee Lewis and from somewhere in the house Susan would call out a reprimand edged with laughter. What good times those had been, Marissa thought.