Authors: Sharyn McCrumb
“He was consulting me about a case,” said Elizabeth in her grandest manner. “Forensic anthropology.”
“Wesley Rountree has a
case?
What is it? Chicken thieves?”
“No, Geoffrey. It involves fraud and people pretending to be dead. I had to identify cremated remains.”
Geoffrey snickered. “I assure you, cousin, that anyone who has been cremated is not merely
pretending
to be dead.”
Elizabeth was so stung by this mocking interruption
of her serious (and self-congratulatory) discussion that she explained the entire case to him in the haughty tones of an expert witness. She told him about Emmet Mason’s second demise, and about the mixture of bodies in the cremation urn, emphasizing her own skills as a forensic anthropologist in identifying the mysterious remains. “I told Miss Grey about it on the telephone when I called about my dress. She had read the engagement announcement in the paper, and so she knew that I was an anthropologist. She said that it was wonderful how clever girls of my generation are. She’s quite right! I was brilliant,” she assured him. “But of course, I shan’t take any further interest in the matter,” she declared. “Because I’m getting married next week, which is much more important.”
Geoffrey looked thoughtful. “It is an interesting case, though,” he murmured.
Wesley Rountree supposed that there could be worse names for a crematorium than Elijah’s Chariot, Inc. Other biblical titles might be even more unfortunate: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s, for example, which would be an oblique reference to the fiery furnace of Old Testament fame. Or maybe Lot’s Wife and Company—after the lady in Genesis who was turned into a pillar of salt in a sort of divine and instantaneous cremation. Wesley felt that names could be a tricky matter in a business like that. Any suggestion of the flames of hell and your business would go right up in smoke.
Still, it made him suspicious, and he was very interested in meeting the joker who had given such an unusual name to a most uncommon business. He had thought about it all morning as he sat in court waiting to testify in the reckless-driving case. Strictly speaking, he supposed that he ought to notify
the law enforcement agency of the county he was going to, but he doubted that they’d want to be bothered. There was not as yet any evidence that a crime involving their jurisdiction had taken place. At this point Wesley figured that he was just on a fishing trip: questioning a witness who might or might not be involved. If it turned out later that he was involved, then Wesley would tip off Wayne Dupree, sheriff of Roan County, and turn the case over to him. Right now he just wanted some answers.
He enjoyed the drive on the corkscrew county roads, and the view of rolling meadows and the green mountains thick with hardwoods. He was far enough back in the hills now so that there weren’t any cute subdivisions with names like Brook Valley edging out the pastureland. He wondered why a crematorium should be so far out in the country.
So as not to make the neighbors nervous
, he told himself. He slipped a Statler Brothers cassette into the tape deck and sang along, enjoying the sunshine and the beauty of a June day in the hills of Georgia; but in the back of his mind a list of questions was forming.
Clarine Mason fingered the crystal pendant around her neck and took three deep breaths. She really
was
feeling better. It was quite amazing. The pendant was absorbing all her negative feelings, just like they said it would. Perhaps the herbal tea had been a help, too. She resolved to buy more of it; after all, they had been kind to her and they needed the business, and after all, ginseng really might be an antidepressant.
Clarine poured hot water into the teapot and waited for the herbs to steep. The kitchen was sunny and comforting in the morning light. She felt happy to be on her own among her plants and her
cross-stitched samplers. She was all right in the kitchen; it was the parlor that bothered her, with that blatant bare spot on the mantel that used to be a memorial to Emmet.
She had wanted to talk to somebody about her anger and her sense of humiliation at Emmet’s betrayal, but as she considered her friends one by one, she could find no one in whom she wanted to confide. Most of her friends were older women like herself, and although they would never admit it, her plight would make them uncomfortable. Somewhere, she thought, under their professions of sympathy, there would be a spark of satisfaction that this had happened to her. That the humiliation had been meted out to her, and not to them. That she was gullible to have believed in Emmet’s death in the first place with only a blue jar for proof.
Clarine had thought she’d go crazy that afternoon, pacing around the big empty house with all that rage building up inside her. But then as she was tidying up the kitchen, she’d noticed an old edition of the
Chandler Grove Scout
under a pile of vegetable peelings, and there had been an ad at the bottom of the page.
Treat Your Worries with Nature’s Remedies
, the ad advised.
Spiritual and Nutritional Counselors at Earthling Will Help You Fight the Blues
. The directions in the ad described the old gristmill by the river as the headquarters of the health-food store and meditation center.
Clarine though to herself,
Well, why not?
She knew about Earthling from local gossip among the ladies’ church group. Everyone said that they were a bunch of hippies from out west who believed in eating peculiar food, and who took an interest in political causes that nobody else had ever heard of. Clarine knew all that. But their ad promised help
to people with worries. Clarine decided that in this case their being outsiders was a point in their favor. Telling her troubles to those crazy people would hardly count as disclosure. It wasn’t as if anybody who
mattered
would find out. In fact, she thought, considering the peculiarities of their own lifestyles, they were hardly in any position to look down on her for being a discarded wife.
The potions of Earthling, Inc., seemed to Clarine to be her best chance of consolation without confiding in her friends and neighbors, those whose esteem she valued. Heaven forbid that Dr. Chandler should learn about the shame of Emmet’s defection. She would much rather try the mumbo jumbo of a bunch of raggedy strangers than confide in her lifelong acquaintances.
In a mood of desperation, gambling on a long shot, Clarine had gone to visit Earthling. When she reached the old gristmill, she parked the car in the gravel lot. Inside the cluttered shop, she looked around as if she were a casual tourist, trying not to attract any undue attention. She was nervous, not knowing what to expect from these outlandish strangers, and she was bewildered by all the strange and unpronounceable items they sold.
Just as she was ready to dash from the shop and forget the whole thing, a dark-haired woman in braids and an Indian print dress appeared and asked her if she’d like some tea. She seemed so sincere about the offer that Clarine forgot to say no, and soon she was sitting in the back room telling her life story to Shanti, which is what the girl said to call her. Shanti had seemed most interested in Emmet’s return from the ashes, as it were. But she said that since death was only a state of mind anyway, that Clarine should feel perfectly free to count Emmet’s first death as the valid one for psychic
purposes. Just forget this little epilogue, she’d advised. After two more cups of tea, she and Shanti were in perfect agreement that Emmet had racked up enough bad karma to come back as a cockroach, and that Clarine was not to worry about any loose ends that Emmet had left in his new life. Shanti prescribed herbal tea and a healing crystal, and she urged Clarine to come back for meditation classes.
Clarine decided that she’d go to Earthling’s programs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That way, it wouldn’t conflict with ladies’ circle on Monday and Wednesday-night choir practice. She poured herself a cup of herbal tea and added two spoonfuls of sugar. She was feeling much better indeed now that she was busy. Emmet was already fading from her consciousness like a bad dream.
The telephone rang, startling her so much that she spilled a few drops of tea. Setting the cup down carefully in its saucer, she hurried to answer it.
“Mrs. Clarine Mason?” said another of those plastic West Coast voices.
“Oh, Lord God! What is it
this
time?” cried Clarine, completely out of patience with intrusions from California.
“I’m with the coroner’s office, ma’am, and I’m looking at this form here on your late husband Mr. Emmet J. Mason, and I see that the officer who called you has neglected to put down what you’d like us to do with your late husband’s remains—”
In words of one syllable, Clarine told him.
“I don’t care if you’re Wyatt Earp,” said Susan Davis in her sternest voice. “You can’t bring that Coca Cola in here. There are irreplaceable documents in this office. So you either dump it out, or you stay outside the railing until you finish it.”
“Aw, Sue,” moaned Clay Taylor. “Come on. I
have a couple of hours’ work to do, and I’ll probably even miss lunch. It’s police business,” he added for good measure.
Susan Davis was not impressed. “Parking tickets is police business,” she observed. “That don’t mean you get to break the rules in here and get me in trouble with Mrs. Home.” Her dark eyes flashed as she made her pronouncement and she went back to copying names in a record book.
With a sigh of resignation, Clay Taylor returned to the basement hall of the courthouse and finished his drink. He wondered how anybody as pretty as Susan Davis could be in such a perpetually bad mood. She had beautiful dark hair, worn long, except for a bit at the front caught up in a barrette, and her features were cameo perfect. If it weren’t for the perpetual snarl, she could be lovely. Her face in repose was a frown of disapproval and she could wring vinegar out of the most sugary comments addressed to her. In the three years during which Clay had been a deputy, he had occasion to encounter Susan at least once a week on visits to the records office, and he had yet to observe her in a good mood. There wasn’t much point in arguing with her, though, he thought, taking another swallow of Coke. He just hoped that someday Miss Dragon Lady would do 56 m.p.h. when he was out with the radar gun.
In a few minutes he reappeared at the counter of the records office. “Will you let me in now?”
Susan’s expression suggested that he was still a nuisance, but that she would have to put up with him. She opened the wooden barrier and motioned him in. “What do you want?” she asked in tones suggesting complete indifference.
“I need to see the death records in the county for the last five or six years. Can I use your computer?”
Her frown deepened. “No, you can’t use my computer. I have work to do! And besides those records haven’t been put on disk yet.”
“Why not?” asked Clay without thinking.
“Because I’m too busy to get around to it, what with people coming in and wasting my time asking stupid questions!”
“Well, where are the records then?”
“In a drawer, of course! Come on, I’ll show you where it is.” Her expression suggested that this would involve a four-hour trek through a swamp. In fact they ended up no more than twenty feet from Susan’s desk. She jerked the file drawer open for him and started to stalk away.
“What if somebody lived in this county, but didn’t die here?”
She gave him a withering glare. “Then they won’t be here, will they?”
“But the obituaries would be in the newspaper,” said Clay, thinking aloud.
“That’s not my problem!” said Susan, going back to her desk.
“Okay, I’ll check here first, and then look in the archives at the
Scout
office.”
“Bully for you.”
Clay began to examine the death records for 1985. He wondered if Susan’s personality would change when she was no longer young and pretty, or if her nearest and dearest were already looking into untraceable poisons.
Elijah’s Chariot, Inc., was a modest-looking building of whitewashed cinder block set in a field among boxwood shrubs and cedar trees. One white Nissan hatchback was parked on the circular gravel driveway. There were no other cars in sight. Wesley supposed that the business would require only
part-time help, if that, and that one person would be sufficient to mind the store. They didn’t seem to be too busy today. He noted with relief that no smoke was issuing from the vent pipe in the roof.
Wesley parked his sheriff’s car behind the Nissan and went in search of the proprietor. Since it was a place of business, Wesley decided that it would be unnecessary to knock at the front door. He eased it open and went in, calling out, “Hello? Anybody here?”
The front room was an ordinary office. There was an old wooden desk and office fixtures on one side of the room, and the other side contained couches and Queen Anne chairs, much like a doctor’s waiting room. The waiting-room walls were decorated with landscapes in the Starving Artist school of hasty realism, while the office portion of the premises was adorned with framed travel posters. A brass plate on the desk announced it to be the domain of Jasper Willis, but Mr. Willis was not in any state to receive visitors. Judging from the amount of blood on the floor beside him, Mr. Willis had just become a prospective client for his own services.
“Well, damn!” said Wesley. He pulled out his handkerchief and draped it over the telephone receiver as he lifted it. “Now I’ve
got
to get Wayne Dupree in on this case, and he’ll probably make me come testify in court for him. Pigheaded so-and-so. Hello, this is Sheriff Wesley Rountree here, from over in Chandler Grove. Let me speak to your sheriff, please. Wayne? That you, good buddy? Great to talk to you!”
In the privacy of his bedroom, Charles Chandler stared at the letter as if he were afraid it might explode. Finally, after days of silence, the lovely
blonde from the
Highlander
ad had answered his letter. He was almost afraid to open it. He didn’t suppose that anyone would waste a twenty-five-cent stamp just to tell him to go to blazes. How odd, he thought, that even though this was an essentially financial transaction on his part, he still had the pounding heart and sweaty palms of a lovesick adolescent. There was barely a week left until the wedding.