Chapter 39
“Annie!” Vera said, when she finished telling the scrapbookers about her evening with Robert Dasher. “Unbelievable!”
Annie was digging in Maggie Rae’s boxes of photos, organizing them in piles, hoping to find a photo of Zeb. “I just really want to see what this guy looks like.”
“He’s beautiful. Didn’t you see him at the funeral?” Vera said. “He looks like John Travolta.”
“Interesting. A John Travolta look-alike married to Tina Sue?” Annie said. “And no, I didn’t see him at the funeral. I think I’d have remembered. Is this Zeb?” Annie showed a picture to Vera. “He kind of looks like Travolta.”
“Yes! But that’s not a good picture of him,” Vera said. “In person, well—”
“Almost as handsome as Bryant,” DeeAnn chimed in. She was at the die-cut machine, feeding in paper, which the machine then spit out as perforated designs. She began to gently punch out the tree shapes.
“What an ass,” Annie said.
“Who, Bryant?” DeeAnn asked.
“Yes. I saw him at the station. They wanted me to answer questions about Robert and Leo. I couldn’t be much help. I was looking out the window when it first happened. Bryant was really cocky with me, wanted to know what I was doing with Robert, why wasn’t I home at that time of night. What the hell? It’s none of his business what I do.”
“Hmm,” Sheila said while pouring a glass of wine. “Sounds like he either really likes you or has it in for you.”
“The police generally think of reporters as pains,” Annie said. “So I’m betting it’s not that he likes me. I mean, what is this? Second grade?” She laughed.
“But why?” Sheila wondered. “Aren’t you both trying to do some good?”
“Yes, but sometimes there’s a conflict between the public’s right to know and the police wanting to protect them. I’ve known some really wonderful cops in my day, but I’ve also known some lousy ones,” Annie said, sifting through photos.
She found three photos of Zeb: The first one was kind of blurry. He was sitting on a porch in a rocking chair—his shirt was off, showing well-sculpted abs and arms. The other picture was of him at a picnic, eating a watermelon. The last picture she found was a wedding picture. He and Tina Sue, dressed in a traditional white wedding dress, were standing at the altar, looking into each other’s eyes.
She set them down on the table, one beside the other.
“He’s at a church here,” she said out loud, almost talking to herself.
“Well, of course,” DeeAnn said. “That’s their wedding photo.”
“Yes, I see that, DeeAnn,” she said, and looked at her, with her eyebrows lifted. “But Robert said that Zeb thinks of himself as some kind of prophet. I’m not sure how that jibes with being a churchgoer.”
Sheila almost choked on her wine. “Zeb? He’s just a bone-stupid redneck.”
“Sheila!” Vera said. “Honestly, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were a Yankee. No offense, Annie.”
“None taken,” she said, even though she was a bit startled to hear the word “Yankee” in this day and time. Besides, many Marylanders considered themselves Southern, even though Virginians did not. That was a subject she didn’t want to broach.
“Now, listen, I’ve heard that Zeb gets visions,” Paige said, finishing her glass of wine. “One of my students is a cousin or something. They say he believes these visions are from God.”
“And we have a postcard from him, along with photos. How many of you keep pictures of your brother-in-law?” Annie asked.
“I certainly don’t,” Sheila replied. “Anybody want more popcorn?”
“I have a few wedding pictures of my brother-in-law and sister,” Paige said, “but I don’t think I’d keep any of just him. That is kind of strange. But Maggie Rae didn’t seem to be very organized. Maybe she’d meant to give them to Tina Sue.”
“I think Zeb and Maggie Rae had an affair,” Annie said. “Imagine, with your own sister’s husband.”
“He killed her,” Sheila said. “I know he did. I can feel it in my bones.”
“Sheila, dear, you’ve said that about three men now,” Vera said, and laughed.
“I just want them to find the murderer. I want them to find who stabbed your mother, too. This is getting a little ridiculous. The more we dig into her life, the more I wonder how one woman could really be with all these men. Most of them have issues. I mean, gee, look at that Leo.”
“I did get a chance to look at him really closely, and I say there is something wrong with him. Robert said he was on drugs—maybe that’s it,” Annie said. “And Maggie Rae had a few issues of her own. I mean the S and M is one thing, but the sex drive is another. Maybe she was an addict.”
Vera turned the page on her scrapbook—the style of which was frilly, with a lot of floral stickers and feminine colors. DeeAnn was back at the die-cut machine; she preferred a simple, but colorful, country flavor to her scrapbooks. Paige, who used a lot of funky embellishments in her scrapbooks, was cutting photos. Sheila, Annie mused, was a scrapbook artist, leaning back and surveying her page.
Annie stared at the photos in front of her. She was mentally leafing through the scrapbooks she’d already made of Maggie Rae’s life. She had been more than piecing together a life in those pages. She’d been piecing together an illness and a murder. Who would have thought that scrapbooking would lead Annie and the others into such murky depths? S&M, open marriage, perhaps sexual addiction, murder? Scrapbooking was a lot like piecing a news story together, except with just images—and it also had a good deal in common with investigating murder, it turned out. Gathering information, digging into the past, putting the pieces together, checking out the research, coming to a hypothesis, and proving or disproving it. Interesting.
Okay, maybe that was a stretch, and maybe it didn’t happen often—but it was absolutely happening now. Annie wondered if she died tomorrow, what would her pictures and papers say about her?
Chapter 40
Annie sat back in her chair and looked at the words on her computer screen. Robert Dasher’s gaunt face played in her mind. Her boys were sleeping, finally. She glanced at the clock—eleven forty-five, too late for her to be awake. Mike was gone for the night—a short business trip. It was so quiet—she stopped keying in her transcript and reveled in the silence. The glow of one light on her desk, while the rest of the house was dark. Just then, she swore that she heard a noise in her yard. Like the soft thumping of a foot against the grass at the front of her house.
A chill ran up her spine and her heart lurched as she heard the sound again. Someone was in her front yard. Why would someone be there this late at night?
She sat for a moment, completely paralyzed, trying to catch her breath. She then rose and walked quietly through her hallway. She slowly pulled the boys’ door shut.
Click.
The door closed. She walked into the kitchen, where she could see out the sheer-curtained window—perhaps without someone noticing her.
She could hear her pulse rushing through her ears as she tried to see out her window. Was she being silly? Was this in her imagination? All of this writing about murder and sex might just be getting to her. The streetlights shone on her front stoop as she heard the footfall again.
Suddenly an arm swung into her view and a flash of blond hair. Nobody else she knew had that exact color of hair: it was Robert Dasher.
He knocked on her door.
She stood quietly, not moving. Why would he be at her house this late? Should she answer? Tell him to go home?
“Ms. Annie? Please, Ms. Annie. Open the door. I know you’re awake. I saw your light on.”
That doesn’t mean I’m taking visitors, idiot.
No. No good can come of this.
He knocked louder. “Annie!” he said louder. “I need to talk to you.”
“Robert?” she said through the door. “You need to go home. My children are sleeping in here.”
“Okay,” he said with a lower voice. “I just don’t want you to think I killed Maggie Rae. We can talk, can’t we?”
“It’s late, Robert,” she said sternly. “You need to go home.”
She could hear him press his body into the door and turn the knob. Oh, God, please—had she remembered to lock the door? Yes!
“Annie ... Annie ... you have no idea about Maggie ... the things she did ... ,” he mumbled. “I don’t want a decent and pretty woman like you to get the wrong idea. You’re so pretty, you know that ... don’t you?”
Okay. That did it. “If you don’t leave now, I’m calling the police,” she said. Right afterward, Ben cried out into the night, a night that would prove to be sleepless for Annie, even after she got Ben back to sleep. Like a madwoman, she went through their home, making sure all of the doors and the windows were secure. And then she did it again.
When she was done, she called Beatrice.
“I’m sorry to wake you, but can you please come over and stay with the boys? I need to go to the police station.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Be careful. Robert Dasher is out there somewhere.”
“Hmph. I hear you,” she said groggily.
When Beatrice arrived at Annie’s door, she was dressed in her robe. She held her pistol in her hand. When she saw Annie raise her eyebrows, she casually slipped the gun into the pocket of her blue fuzzy robe.
“That bastard best not come back,” Beatrice said.
“The boys are asleep. Please make yourself at home,” Annie told her.
“Erratic behavior,” Beatrice said, almost to herself.
“My thoughts, exactly. It was almost as if he were a different man.”
“Careful, dear,” Beatrice said as Annie walked out the door.
When Annie walked into the police station, she was surprised to see Detective Bryant holding the arm of a very drunk Robert Dasher. The detective looked up at Annie; Robert did not. It looked as though he was having a hard time staying awake.
“I’ll be right with you, Mrs. Chamovitz,” Bryant said.
She sat on the hard wooden chair in the waiting room and folded her arms. Robert was drunk, which explained a lot. Or maybe not—maybe it just muddled things even more. She’d seen drunks in her day—and even knew some alcoholics. As she thought about Robert—the redness to his face—it was the way a lot of alcoholics looked. Did he have a problem?
“Sorry, Mrs. Chamovitz,” the detective said as he walked back into the room. “How can I help you?”
“I think you just did.”
“What?”
“Robert Dasher was at my house tonight.”
“What?”
“Trying to get inside. He was concerned that I thought he killed his wife.”
“And?” Bryant was on the move again and gestured for her to follow him.
“And he said I was such a pretty and decent woman that he didn’t want me to think bad of him,” she replied, walking into his office.
He smiled, sat down on his chair, then leaned back in it. “The poor schmuck. He probably didn’t kill her. But he really acts like he did.”
“‘He
probably
didn’t kill her’?”
“He does have a sound alibi. He was working.”
“It doesn’t take too long to get from Richmond to Cumberland Creek, especially when there’s no traffic in the middle of the night.”
“Yes, I know that. Thank you very much,” he said sarcastically. “But Bill says he was there around two, left at three. Robert has a witness that saw him at four in the hotel in Richmond, which is about the time she was murdered.”
“Oh.”
“And we have evidence that someone else was there.”
Annie noted the college degree framed on his wall. Harvard.
What is he doing in Cumberland Creek?
She’d be damned if she’d ask him.
“The missing link?” she asked.
“Indeed.”
“Care to share?”
“With you? No. I’ve been patient with you, helping you out with your stories. But I think it’s time for you to back off.”
“Why?”
“It could get dangerous. I warned you. Look at what happened tonight.”
“Yeah, but you said he probably—”
“I know what I said,” the detective said harshly. “Even if he didn’t kill his wife, he is a man with a temper, and he could have hurt you tonight. Last time I checked, you have two little boys who need you at home. Maybe you should concentrate on them.”
Annie’s face heated with rage and humiliation.
He rose from the chair.
“Excuse me,” Annie said. “My children are none of your concern. And I’ll have you know they are well tended.”
“Yeah, well, whatever,” he said, walking away, leaving Annie burning with fury.
Chapter 41
Vera finished loading the dishwasher and poured the soap into the dispenser. She felt the baby flutter in her again. Strong. She flipped the on switch and heard the doorbell. Who could it be at nine in the morning?
She opened the door to her soon-to-be ex-husband and mother. Boxes filled their arms.
“What on earth?”
Bill shrugged.
“I’ve been cleaning,” Beatrice said. “These are yours. I’ve been hanging on to them for all these years.”
“C’mon in and set them down on the table. What’s in them?”
“There’s more,” Bill said as he headed for the door. “I’ll get them, Beatrice. You sit down.”
Beatrice smiled at him. “Thanks, Bill.”
She sat down. “What does a person have to do to get a cup of coffee around here?”
“Just made a fresh pot. It’s decaf, Mom. I’ll get you some. What on earth got into you?” Vera asked, pouring her mother a cup of coffee.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I mean, with the boxes and everything.”
“I talked to Annie this morning—she’s pretty shaken up. You may want to give her a call. But, anyway, about last night, after I got home and into bed, I was awakened by that Maggie Rae again. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. I told it to leave me alone and closed my eyes, and then I heard this crash in the attic,” she said, slurping her coffee. “Bill heard it, too, so we went up to investigate.”
“And?”
Bill was dropping off the last of the boxes and piling them into the corner of the dining room.
“He saw Maggie Rae, too.”
“What?”
“Now, Beatrice,” he said, walking into the kitchen. “I’m not sure what I saw. It was dark and whirling around the attic, like a little tornado. You could barely see it because the moon only half shines in that room. And it left very quickly, shattering your mother’s attic window when we turned on the lights.” He leaned against the door frame, still wearing his pajama shirt.
Vera’s mouth fell open. She was used to her mother talking like that—but Bill? So steady? So intelligent?
“So Bill taped up the window with some cardboard until we can get replacement glass. And I made some coffee and thought I’d keep him company and go through some things. I found all of your scrapbooks—since the time you were a baby. And I’ve been going through them.”
“Me too.” Bill smiled. “I hope our baby looks like you did. You were so cute.”
Vera warmed. “Have a seat, Bill. Coffee?”
He nodded.
She poured his coffee. “I’ve got some peach cobbler in the fridge. Who wants some?”
“Who doesn’t?” Beatrice replied.
The three of them sat at Vera’s table talking about how good the peaches were this year.
“I think you’re showing a bit,” Bill interjected.
Vera nodded. “Maybe. You saw a ghost,” she replied. “What the hell is that about?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Vera. I really don’t know. But it scared the shit out of me, I can tell you. Your mom’s not the crazy old fool I always thought she was.”
Beatrice laughed. “And you are not the boring fart I always thought you were.”
“Well, now. Isn’t this just a big love fest?” Vera said. “Just as our divorce is to be final, you two hit it off like two peas in a pod.”
“Your divorce has nothing to do with me,” Beatrice said.
“I really wish there were another way, Vera, if you could find it in your heart to forgive me,” he said, reaching for her hand.
For the first time in years, Vera felt a stirring in her heart as she looked at Bill. She didn’t know if she was capable of forgiving him—a forty-five-year-old man acting a fool with a young woman, whose body was firm and ripe, while her own was beginning to show signs of age. It felt cruel. A woman had her pride, after all.
“I’m leaving,” Beatrice said. “You two need to talk.”
“I’m not sure there’s much to say,” Vera said, but Beatrice left, anyway.
Bill was still holding her hand.
“I love you, Vera, with everything in me,” he said. “We’ve been together forever. Can we just give it one more chance?”
“I don’t know, Bill.... I ... the whole Maggie Rae thing.”
“Can you understand that I never felt for her anything near what I felt for you? She hired me to look over some contracts. I was intrigued by her writing and stopped by the house one day, and the next thing you know ... I don’t know. I suppose I was behaving in that clichéd midlife way. I was so flattered by this young woman’s attention. So stupid of me.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it tenderly, then bit it gently, sending shivers through her. God, it had been a long time, and the pregnancy left her hormones in such a state. He pulled her to his lap as she sighed.
“Bill, I don’t know... .”
But he kissed her then, and she drew away from him. He kissed her again, pulling her closer to him. Her heart began to race and her resolve melted. She tried to squirm her way out of his arms—but he held her steady as he gently bit and sucked at her neck. His breath sent tingles through her. Was this really happening?
His hands began to wander all over her—she tried to stop herself from responding—but it was no good. She found herself hungering for more, hungering for her husband.
The next thing she knew, she was pulling him closer as she lay back on the kitchen table. Her cotton nightgown was above her waist, and the coffee cups rattled as plates, forks, and knives fell to the floor.