CHAPTER 32

Aggie

She’d slept for twelve hours. On awakening, Aggie made a frantic grab for her phone. Two missed calls. One from Mrs. Donahue, one from the police station. She made fast work of checking her voicemail. Mrs. Donahue’s reassurance that nothing had changed, and that a handsome young man named Collin had come to “keep vigil” didn’t necessarily bring Aggie much relief. The next voicemail was in response to the inquiry she’d made earlier regarding finding and accessing the cold case file on Hazel Grayson.

Maybe they still had it.

The evidence would need to be searched for in storage.

No, a civilian would not be able to attain access to the evidence.

The case would need to be reopened and a detective assigned to it.

Please let them know if there were new developments such as witnesses or evidence that might influence reopening a seventy-year-old case.

Aggie deleted the message and tossed her phone on the bed. Well, that was that. New witnesses? She let out a wry laugh that echoed in her otherwise empty bedroom. Outside of Mumsie, potential witnesses were more than likely deceased.

She slipped out of bed and jammed her feet into a pair of slippers. She needed a hot shower, some coffee, and then she’d head over to the hospital to relieve Collin, who had promised her he’d stay all night with Mumsie. But she was antsy now. She needed to see Mumsie. To touch her hand and push her hair back from her forehead, feeling the warmth of her skin and reassuring herself that Mumsie was still alive.

Aggie grabbed a few things and headed toward the bath. She paused outside of the room with the dollhouse. A vague recollection nagged at her. Honestly, it was something she’d seen on a TV crime drama once. She veered off course from the shower and reentered the room, beelining for the dollhouse.

The rookie detective on the case in the drama had been so focused on the forensic evidence from the crime scene itself, he’d ended up getting shown up by a fellow detective who cracked the case when he took a broader view and found evidence in a completely different room.

Aggie positioned herself in front of the dollhouse, only this time she ignored the gruesome, re-created crime scene and studied the other rooms in the dollhouse instead. If Mumsie had created this after the murder, then her intent was to add detail from the day of the crime. Had she focused only on the room where Hazel had been killed, or had she . . . ?

Her fingers snapped in exclamation, and Aggie pointed to the model kitchen as though someone stood beside her.

“There you are,” she muttered. She leaned closer, studying the room. At one point, it looked to have been carefully arranged to replicate the actual Grayson farmhouse kitchen. A tiny hand-sewn eyelet valance over the kitchen window was only one of the minute details. But what wasn’t customary were the objects in the room that seemed to imitate a photograph. The instant a picture had been snapped to freeze time and capture exactly what the room looked like in a precise moment.

A miniature mixing bowl sat on the counter.

On the kitchen table was a delicate teacup. Someone had been sipping tea, it appeared. Aggie’s eyes roved from the kitchen into the hallway. She noticed the lineup of black-and-white photographs on the wall. Sketches really, created by the dollhouse’s designer, but drawn beautifully to show the actual photographs that had hung in the farmhouse. Aggie narrowed her eyes. There were eight picture frames. Five had people posing from different eras. Older ancestors, she assumed, and impossible to make out the specifics in their minuscule features. Three of the photographs were landscapes. One of the farm, one of a valley, and the other a rather depressing sketch of field grasses around gravestones. Not a typical picture someone would wish to hang on the wall.

Aggie fumbled for the magnifying glass Mumsie kept on the table by the dollhouse. She held it up to the imitation photograph. The markers on the graves were sketched in pencil or maybe charcoal, and the artist had taken the time to etch in pinpoint letters, the names that must have been on the actual stones.

Billy

Tom

Aggie lowered the magnifying glass. Children maybe? Siblings of Mumsie? She’d heard of graves being significant enough to capture in a photograph or sketch. Specifically if they were children. She couldn’t put a finger on why it felt important, but it did. Not to mention, that photograph was the only one out of the eight tilted and hanging at an extreme angle to the others.

“Why?” Aggie tapped the picture frame glued to the dollhouse wall. “Why would Mumsie deliberately hang this out of sorts to the others?”

It must have been out of sorts the day of the murder.

Aggie set the magnifying glass on the table and shook her head to clear her mind. She was grasping at straws for sure. Giving importance to things that more than likely had none.

Walking from the room, Aggie started the shower and made quick work of hopping in. She poured cherry-scented shampoo into her hand and worked it through her hair. Yet she couldn’t stop picturing the stalled baking scene, the tilted picture, the gravestones.

Gravestones!

Aggie stilled as the hot water beat against her head, sending streams of soap down her neck and body. If “Billy” and “Tom” were Grayson gravestones, then there was a family graveyard. Somewhere outside of the Mill Creek Cemetery. Outside of Fifteen Puzzle Row. But for some reason, only Hazel was buried there. The rest of the Grayson family—Chet, Mumsie’s other brother Ivan, even John Hayward, Mumsie’s husband and Mom’s father—they were all missing. She’d not even found evidence in the logs she’d half organized that any Grayson or relative thereof existed in the Mill Creek Cemetery.

She quickly rinsed her hair and shut off the water. Stepping out of the shower, Aggie wrapped a towel around her body and met her eyes in the reflection of the mirror. The librarian’s mention of a cemetery at the old powder plant acreage raced through her memory. It was the only other one she’d heard of in the area.

“An old family cemetery on government land?” Aggie asked her reflection. It felt key not only as to why Hazel was buried in Fifteen Puzzle Row, but also why Hazel had died in the first place.

“Of course, dear!” Mrs. Donahue patted Aggie’s arm. Jane stood sentinel next to her, with Mrs. Prentiss balancing three to-go cups of hot tea in a cardboard carrier. “We’re thrilled you called.”

Aggie glanced at Mumsie, who still rested in the hospital bed. She’d seemed a tad more responsive today. Her fingers had moved and at one point squeezed Aggie’s hand. The doctor indicated it was a good sign that Mumsie didn’t have paralysis. At least on that side. She still hadn’t awakened, and her awareness seemed nonexistent. Aggie was going to go stir-crazy sitting in the hospital. Now that she’d had a twenty-four-hour fix of reassuring herself Mumsie was still very much alive, she was aching to find out more about the gravestones. Added to that, Collin had sent her a text message saying exhumation of the mystery grave was starting this afternoon. Part of her wanted to be there for that as well.

“I’m so appreciative the three of you are willing to stay with Mumsie.” Aggie gave the elderly ladies a smile.

“Nonsense.” Mrs. Prentiss waved her off. “You can’t leave her here all alone.”

“Well, she could,” Jane interrupted pragmatically. “It’s not as though we’re adding to her physical well-being by being here.”

“We are to Aggie’s, though. She can rest in good conscience while she goes out and brings home the bacon.” Mrs. Donahue gave Aggie a reassuring smile.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say that,” Mrs. Prentiss frowned.

“What? Bring home the bacon?” Mrs. Donahue cocked her head and looked sideways at her friend.

“It’s offensive to animal rights activists and vegetarians,” Jane inserted.

Aggie bit her lip. The women were entertaining of their own right.

“Now, doesn’t that beat all!” Mrs. Donahue clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry.” She shot Aggie an apologetic look. “I just never know what I can say anymore these days.”

“It’s okay,” Aggie reassured. “I’m not a vegetarian, so no offense taken. And I haven’t taken a membership with my local animal rights organization.”

“Your what?” Confused, Mrs. Prentiss furrowed her brow.

“That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Donahue heaved a sigh of relief.

Jane rolled her eyes.

Aggie began gathering her purse and phone and a few other items when the thought crossed her mind. She hesitated, then decided to go for it. “Do any of you know anything about the cemetery on the old powder plant property?”

Mrs. Donahue shook her head.

Mrs. Prentiss was busy removing the cups from the carrier and setting them on the hospital table by the bed.

Jane nodded. “A little.”

“Could you share it with me?” Aggie asked.

“Of course! I was ten, I think—ohhh, maybe five or six—doesn’t matter. I was a young thing when the government erected the plant.” Jane tapped her chin with her finger. “I believe the government tended the cemetery, but after the plant was bulldozed several years ago, the cemetery was made available to the remaining relatives.”

“Do you know who’s buried there?” Aggie inquired.

Jane shook her head. “Not specifically—Graysons, I think. I’ll be in one soon enough. No need to go exploring there before my time.”

“You’ll be buried in Mill Creek Cemetery.” Mrs. Prentiss handed Jane her tea. “Not that old one out at the plant.”

“Very true.” Jane nodded, taking the tea.

“I remember, when I was in my twenties, there was a big to-do made by the Grayson family,” Mrs. Donahue mused aloud.

“Mumsie’s family?”

“Mm-hmm. Of course, Imogene wasn’t here then. She’d moved out of the area. It was later when she moved back. But her brother, Ivan, pitched a fit like none I’ve ever seen after their parents died. Died within days of each other, like two souls who couldn’t stand to be apart.”

“Oh, how romantic!” Mrs. Prentiss clapped her hand to her heart.

Aggie tossed her a glance but kept her attention riveted on Mrs. Donahue. “Ivan would have been my great-uncle. What did he pitch a fit about?”

“Well, he wasn’t a nice man, and I vaguely recall it had something to do with wanting to bury his parents at the old cemetery by the ammunition plant. I don’t know why. I think—he had a sister at Mill Creek Cemetery, so I’m not sure why his parents were too good to be buried there.” Mrs. Donahue took a sip of tea.

Jane’s small sigh of exasperation puffed out her round, powdery cheeks. “Well, of course anyone would want to be buried with family. If the Grayson family plots were on the plant property, they couldn’t have buried Hazel there when she died, because the plant was in full production. The government wouldn’t allow it.”

“Oh. Well, to be sure then.” Mrs. Donahue nodded.

“So, Uncle Ivan somehow obtained permission to bury Mumsie’s parents in the old family cemetery on government property?” Aggie ventured.

Mrs. Donahue nodded. “I think so? It’s amazing I even remember that much.”

“They probably didn’t want to be buried next to Hazel anyway,” Mrs. Prentiss said. “I remember my mother saying Hazel died and was a bit of a town pariah. Everyone tried to ignore the fact she’d existed.”

Aggie drew back, dropping her car keys on the table next to the tea and sinking onto the edge of the bed by Mumsie’s legs. “Mumsie never said anything about that.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t!” Jane said quickly. “Her life has been devoted to honoring her sister.”

“Then—why was Hazel a pariah?”

Mrs. Donahue coughed and drank her tea, making a pretense of looking out the hospital window. Mrs. Prentiss busied herself with breaking down the cardboard cup carrier so she could stuff it into the room’s recycling bin.

Jane looked between the two, narrowed her eyes, and then patted the side of her head as though she needed to remember clearly. She met Aggie’s eyes. “Rumor had it that Hazel helped with the destruction of the post office and the town hall. One was an explosion, the other a fire.”

Aggie recalled the newspaper articles she’d read at the library. “But—she was already dead? How could she have helped?”

Jane clicked her tongue. “No one knows. That’s why it’s just a rumor. They say Hazel got mixed up in some snafu against the United States and got killed for it.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Donahue protested, casting a corrective look at Jane. “No, no. She wasn’t involved in espionage!”

“I never said she was!” Jane snapped.

“That’s so exaggerated!” Mrs. Prentiss tapped her finger on her teacup. “It sounds like a spy novel. Next you’ll say she fell in love with a Nazi and they planned to rally the strong German population of our town and create a new society!”

“Careful.” Jane’s voice lowered. “Also not politically correct.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Mrs. Prentiss rolled her eyes at Jane and leveled a frank look at Aggie, who was about ready to shout at all of them to stop bantering in circles and speak only the facts.

“The fact is,” Mrs. Prentiss began to Aggie’s relief, “it was a local skirmish. They caught whoever it was. End of story. Whether Hazel was involved or not was simply part of town gossip. Nothing more.”

The hospital room was quiet for a moment, and then Mrs. Donahue cleared her throat. When she spoke, her voice sounded a bit wobbly, as though weepy at some distant memory. “My mother told me that when the boys came home from the war, people thought the world would go back to the way it was before. But it didn’t. The war lived on in souls for years after, and people were just never really the same again.”