“Blackmailed the college?” I liked his style. “How?”
“I found the syllabus of a class he was teaching that semester—I think it was called ‘The Literature of Despair.’ Every single writer on the reading list was someone who had committed suicide. Thomas Chatterton, Hart Crane, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Richard Brautigan, Carolyn Heilbrun, James Tiptree Jr., Virginia Woolf—I forget who else, but you get the idea.”
“Sounds like a cry for help,” I said.
“And one the college completely ignored. So I talked to the dean of the English Department and implied that I’d be talking to an attorney about the possibility of legal action. They managed to find the money to bury him properly and pay off his debts so his family wouldn’t have to.”
He smiled beatifically.
“How did you ever think of that?” I asked.
“I didn’t, actually. A friend of Jeff’s did.”
“Let me guess—Professor James Donovan.”
“How did you know?” Dr. Womble beamed. “Such a loyal friend. Of course we had to keep his part in it secret. He was working to get tenure, you see.”
Yes, I could see. And even today Donovan might not be all that crazy about having his part in it revealed. Well, his secret would be safe with me.
“Look,” I said. “You need to tell the chief about all this.”
Dr. Womble looked stricken.
“Why?” he asked. “It’s all ancient history. How can any of it have anything to do with poor Mr. Hagley’s murder?”
“It may not,” I said. “But what you’ve just told me could clear up a lot of the chief’s unanswered questions. Questions that he’s spending valuable time to answer when he could be spending that time on things that are related to the murder.”
There was also the possibility that some of it might have everything to do with the murder. I couldn’t see how, but then I wasn’t the chief.
Dr. Womble still looked unhappy.
“How about if you let me tell him?” I suggested. “I could explain that it all came up in our discussion over what to do about everybody’s ashes, and you had no idea any of it might be related to the murder.”
“I suppose that would do,” he said.
“And if Archie gets in touch with you, please see if you can get an address or a phone number for him,” I said. “Or at least tell him we’re trying to reach him. I need to confirm what he wants done about his mother’s ashes, and the chief wants to talk to him so he can clear him of any suspicion in the murder.”
Or see if he was implicated in the murder, but no sense worrying Dr. Womble about that.
“I’ll try,” he said. “Did I hear correctly that they found some of the missing jewelry in the crypt?”
“We found a ring,” I said. “No idea if it’s one of Mrs. Van der Lynden’s jewels or a piece of costume jewelry someone dropped, but I suspect the chief’s eager to talk to Archie about that, too.”
Dr. Womble nodded.
“And I’ll let Dad know you’re eager to talk about the Bounty.” Probably a good idea to distract him before he had second thoughts about sharing information.
So I endured twenty minutes or so of Dr. Womble’s new enthusiasm. Under any other circumstances I’d have said enjoyed rather than endured, but I was impatient to share what I’d learned with the chief. So, fascinating as I found Dr. Womble’s thoughts on the difference between jackfruit and breadfruit, the sinister connection between the Bounty’s mission and the slave economy in the West Indies, and his assertion that the mutineers who escaped hanging appeared to have done so less by proving their innocence than by hiring persuasive attorneys and using their aristocratic contacts—I was relieved when Emma Womble appeared to announce that Father Shakespeare had arrived to see him.
“I’ll dash right out to welcome him.” Dr. Womble suited the action to the words, and would have overturned the lemonade pitcher if both Mrs. Womble and I hadn’t reached out to steady it.
“Father Shakespeare?” I queried. “Is that a real name?”
“Seems to be,” she said. “He’s tomorrow’s supply priest—and an old friend of Rufus’s. He’s going to stay the night with us. They’ll be up all night, talking over their exciting days in Selma and Montgomery.”
“Wow,” I said. “I remember hearing that Dr. Womble was active in the Civil Rights movement. I didn’t know how active. He didn’t tell me a thing about it when I tried to interview him for the parish newsletter a few months ago. Maybe I could get enough out of Father Shakespeare for another article.”
“Catch him after services tomorrow,” she said. “Right now he’s taking Rufus fishing. And I’d better get a casserole ready, in case they spend so much time talking that they forget to bait their hooks.”
I thanked her for the lemonade, and made only a token protest when she gave me a tin containing several dozen cookies for the boys.
Then I hurried back to my car. I picked up my phone to call the chief—but no. This merited an in-person visit. I called Michael to warn him I’d be a little later than planned.
“No problem,” he said. “Ferreting out the town’s most sensational secrets is bound to take a little time.”
“Yes, and maybe not even possible, considering that most of the people who might know anything are dead.”
“True—what was it Ben Franklin said? ‘Two can keep a secret only if one of them is dead.’”
“Actually, what he said was, ‘Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.’ Trust me; I once won a family trivia competition with that, and it’s stuck with me.”
“‘Two can keep a secret’ is catchier. Although not all that apropos, I suppose—you’ve run into way more than two people keeping secrets, and most of them are dead now. Besides—no Josh, we’re not talking about the toucan. We’re talking about Benjamin Franklin.… No, that’s Ulysses S. Grant. Franklin is on the hundred-dollar bill … Okay, I’ll show you, the next time I have both a fifty- and a hundred-dollar bill in my wallet.”
“You might warn him not to hold his breath,” I said with a chuckle. “I should go—I want to catch the chief. See you soon.”
I drove back to town and dropped by the police station. I found Vern Shiffley sitting behind the front desk.
“Is the chief in?” I asked. “I wanted to share what I learned from Dr. Womble.”
“He’s in,” Vern said. “And in a pretty cheerful mood for a change. Guess who our John Doe is probably going to turn out to be?”
I shook my head.
“Aaron Hempel,” he said. “Younger brother of Bart Hempel, who in case you don’t recognize the name was the ringleader of the jewel thieves.”
“The one who’s still in prison for the murder of Fitz Marshall?”
“He got out about six weeks ago,” Vern said. “There’s a statewide BOLO out on him. In fact, weirdly enough, we’d already put out a BOLO on Bart before we knew the John Doe was his brother.”
“Because he got out of prison just before Mr. Hagley was murdered?” I asked.
“No, although we were kind of interested in talking to him for that reason. But we got really interested after Horace entered one of the bullets he recovered from your van into IBIS. The Integrated Ballistic Identification System,” he added, remembering that I was a civilian.
“He got a match?”
“To a bullet recovered from a 1977 drug case down in Richmond,” Vern said. “A case in which Bart Hempel was one of the major suspects.”
He beamed as if he’d shared some fabulous news. Yeah, right. Was it supposed to cheer me, knowing that the person who’d taken a potshot at me was a convicted murderer, a known drug dealer, and a hardened ex-con?
“Fascinating,” I managed to say aloud.
“I’ll let the chief know you’re here,” Vern said.
The chief was indeed in a good mood, and my account of my conversation with Dr. Womble only seemed to improve it.
“It’s coming together,” he said. “In no small part thanks to the information you’ve shared. I’ve already been in contact with the Lee County Sheriff’s Department. This Inchness place may be prohibited by HIPAA from talking about their patients, but if Archie’s an employee, the door’s wide open. I wish Dr. Womble had been more forthcoming at the time about Archie’s encounter with his assailant in the graveyard, but I can understand his reluctance. Because yes, from what I know of how the department functioned in 1994, Archie might not have gotten a very fair hearing.”
“Then again, if they’d known Archie was involved, they might have thought to show the John Doe’s picture to Bart Hempel.”
“Actually, according to the case file, they made a special trip up to Culpeper to do just that, because the part of the churchyard where they found the body was right outside the columbarium that contained Mrs. Van der Lynden’s ashes, and they were still gung ho to solve the jewel robbery,” the chief said. “And the picture they’d have shown him looked almost identical to his brother’s mug shot picture from a DUI arrest a few months earlier, so I’ll be interested in hearing why Mr. Hempel failed to recognize it.”
“Maybe Bart Hempel was behind the attack on Archie,” I suggested. “And was afraid if he identified his brother they’d realize he was involved.”
“Although he was in no particular danger, as it turns out, since neither Archie nor Dr. Womble ever reported the attack.”
“Well, keep me posted if it looks as if I’ll have a chance to talk to Archie or Bart Hempel about their relatives’ ashes,” I said. “Meanwhile I’m going to see if I can keep Dad’s latest project from interfering in your investigation.”
“His latest project?” The chief’s face had taken on a wary look.
“He wants to do a reenactment of the 1987 robbery,” I said. “He thinks it will provide valuable clues to what really happened to the jewelry.”
“Is he serious? After thirty years, the possibility of substantial renovations by one or both of the two owners who followed Mrs. Van der Lynden, and Heaven knows how many freelance treasure hunters combing the grounds? Because Lacey wasn’t the only one, just the most obsessive. And do you really want to get involved?”
“I don’t want to get involved, but I figure he’s going to do it whether I help him or not, so I want to keep an eye on the whole thing. And try to prevent it from interfering in your murder investigation. If I can get him and Ragnar so involved in planning the reenactment that they don’t get around to having it for however many days it takes for you to wrap up your case, I figure that would be useful.”
“Very.”
“Also, I’m going to try to convince them that if you heard about their plan you would take a dim view of it.”
“I do take a dim view of it,” the chief said. “That doesn’t mean there’s anything I can do to stop them.”
“Yes, but if I imply that there is, it will be much easier to keep them out of your hair. Do you really want them to show up asking to see the case file?”
“Good point,” he said. “Although if it came to that, I’d refer them to Fred Singer, who should still have the complete copy of the case file we gave him when he wrote that article in December.”
“Duly noted.” I stood up and slung my tote over my shoulder. “And since Dad’s already in touch with Fred, he may already have it. So if you need me for anything, I’ll probably be out at Ragnar’s farm, trying to inject some small note of sanity into the reenactment plans.”
“Better you than me,” the chief said.
I paused at the door and turned around.
“Look, I gather you’re thinking it was probably Bart Hempel who took a shot at me last night,” I said. “Any chance you could let me know when you’ve got him in custody? I think I’ll feel more secure.”
“Absolutely,” the chief said. “In fact, check with Vern on the way out—we’re expecting news momentarily.”
When I reached the front desk, Vern was on the phone—with a police officer in another jurisdiction, I deduced. I tried to look as if I was merely waiting rather than actively eavesdropping.
“We appreciate it, Fred,” he was saying. “And if there’s ever anything we can do for you, just say the word. Well, no, we don’t get that many fugitives up here, but the ones we do get stick out like a sore thumb, so it’s pretty easy to catch ’em. You bet. Bye.”
“On the trail of Hempel?” I asked.
“Yup.” Vern beamed. “We asked the police down in Hampton and Newport News and nearby jurisdictions to check out his old haunts and known associates. We weren’t optimistic—after all, if you get yourself sent to prison for twenty-five or thirty years, when you come out you’re gonna find that your favorite haunts have fallen to the wrecking ball, and most of your known associates have either died or gone to prison themselves. But we lucked out—Virginia Beach just confirmed that they’ve picked him up.”
“Good news, then.”
“Yup.” Vern leaned back in his chair and let a broad grin cross his face. “Let’s hope it’s all over but the interrogating.”
“Congratulations.”
I went back to my car. And when I got there, I texted Dad.
“So when would you like to go to Ragnar’s?”
I slipped the phone into the compartment in the center console, hoping Dad was off doing something so absorbing that he wouldn’t even look at his phone for a few hours. Or that he’d lost interest in the idea of holding his reenactment. Or—
My phone buzzed.
“Can you pick me up now?”