A couple of hours later, Nina stood up and stretched. “I’m going to look for the bathroom. Need anything?”
“Not yet, I’m making a list of documents I want, but there’s more to go. What time is it?”
“It’s nearly 3 o’clock. They close at 4:30 right?”
“Crap. Yes. I’ll hurry.”
Nina stood outside the glass walled room and tentatively called out, “Cora?”
“Coming,” came from across the room.
Cora directed Nina over to the courthouse where there was a public restroom. The courthouse was very close, down a short path and across a parking lot. When Nina returned, she stood for a moment inside the doorway and was deciding whether or not to announce her presence or just head back to the document room when she heard a jumble of voices talking with some urgency.
“What the heck?” “No way! What happened?” “Does anyone know anything?” said unfamiliar voices.
“No! They don’t!” came an answer, from someone slightly out of breath. “Well…apparently…” the voice paused and Nina could hear the sound of someone sitting in an office chair and rolling it across a mat. The voice launched into a story, “William Parker, from the feed store, found her this afternoon. He told Emily, the dispatcher over at the Sheriff’s office, that he went out to the graveyard to walk his dog.” There was another pause and the listeners immediately cajoled the storyteller to continue.
“Ok, ok!. Had to catch my breath. I practically ran over here you know. I’m not used to runnin’. Ok, so anyway, Will said he was walking Brownie in the cemetery. He went in the south entrance, where the mausoleums are. When he was still a ways out from the big Clay mausoleum, he saw what he thought was a pile of clothes someone dumped in the lot” Quick responses of “Yes, yes” and “Go on!” rose up during any lapse of narrative.
“Will said he kept on walking past that and followed the road around the street side end of the cemetery. Before he got to the row of trees, he was kind of looking around where that pile of clothes were and figuring to himself that he’d mosey over there to pick them up on his way out and throw them away. He followed the road all the way around until he was coming back to where the road T’s and he took the turn toward the old wall that goes around the mausoleum plots. As soon as he made that turn by all the big cedar trees, he could see a car all wrecked up against the stone wall just past the left-hand turn in the road. He sped up a little in case someone was hurt in it, but when he got there the car was empty. Now he was afraid that the pile of clothes wasn’t just a pile of rags. He walked further down the road to go around the wall and headed over to the bundle. He said Brownie started straining on the leash. Brownie doesn’t do that normally. He said he had a hard time holding on to the leash. It sure wasn’t a pile of clothes when he got there…” The voice stopped for effect.
“What, what??” came the response, in unison.
“I’ll be darned if it wasn’t Amy Barrow, face down in the muddy grass and dead as a doornail! And Will says she sure didn’t keel over of anything natural. That girl was just on about thirty and she wasn’t sick. But that’s all he’d say.” Nina could hear gasps and whispering by at least a couple people besides Cora.
“Of course it wasn’t natural, she was probably badly hurt in the wreck and died trying to find help! That’s so awful. Poor Amy! Why didn’t she call someone?” said one of the listeners.
“Will said it wasn’t from the wreck.”
There was some shuffling around and encouragement to continue by the eager listeners.
“So,” continued the storyteller, still a little winded, “William high-tailed it out of there and reported it to the police. He said he practically ran home, best he could, he was afraid someone might still be hanging around the cemetery. There had to be another car; he said the damage wasn’t from just hitting the wall because Amy’s car was wrecked at both ends. He was afraid someone might still be hanging around. He wouldn’t say any more, said they told him not to talk about it right now. He went home to have a pick-me-up beverage, I would imagine.”
Silence as the information sank in.
Nina tiptoed back to the document room and then zipped in through the door. She bumped against the table just as Perri was standing up. Papers on the table scattered out of their neat stacks. “What’s gotten in to you? They have an open bar over at the courthouse?”
Nina leaned toward her, took her elbow in hand, and whispered breathlessly. “Perri, you gotta hear this!”
“What?” Perri stopped gathering her belongings and looked at Nina, wondering what caused her dramatic entry.
“I heard them talking in the office just now. I mean, here, this office, Cora and a few others. One of them was telling about someone being murdered in a cemetery. Someone they know, it sounds like.”
“What are you talking about? A murder? Here?”
“Yes! They were talking about how a guy from the feed store found the body in a cemetery this morning while he was walking Brownie. Brownie is his dog. William is the guy. The body was in a plot and her smashed up car was on the cemetery road. No other car was there. They don’t know much else. But the guy who found the body was told not to say anything.” Nina and Perri looked at each other.
“Well,” Perri said, “that beats my probate record research. Let’s go find out what we can.”
Perri and Nina crowded through the door at the same time and turned left out of the viewing room, toward the rear of the office rather than back toward the desk. They could hear the sounds of several voices, kept at a low tone but gabbling all at once. Perri peeped around the corner of the cubicle and softly said, “Excuse me.” Cora and two other women jumped up, startled. Cora rushed toward Perri, “Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry, do you need something?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt. I know it’s about time for you to close up.” Three pairs of wide eyes stared at her. “I am finished with the Nichols file and wondered if I could get copies of the documents I need? I laid them out on the table in the viewing room.” As Perri spoke, she gazed past Cora to the coworkers who had been discussing the exciting news a few moments ago. They both looked away and turned toward the desk, straightening papers and moving office supplies around.
“Sure, sure, you can, let me get right to that.” Cora bustled down the corridor formed by the partitions. Perri and Nina followed her to the viewing room. Cora stopped at the table, flustered, and stared at the documents.
“I would like to get copies of these,” Perri indicated a stack of papers.
“Ok,” replied Cora, clearly distracted, as she swept them off the table and took them to the front desk, behind which the copy machine was located against the far wall.
Perri and Nina glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. “Um, everything alright?” Perri asked tentatively.
Cora kept copying, “Well yes, I…”
“We caught part of the, uh, conversation as we walked through the office. Someone has been found dead?
Cora spun around, “Yes! Oh, my goodness, I just don’t know what to think. Susan works over in the court building. She came over to tell me and Jennifer, Jennifer works here with me, about Amy Barrow being found dead in the old cemetery. I guess they are saying she was killed, because the man who found her said it wasn’t natural. I just don’t know what to think. This is scary”
“Did you know her well?” asked Nina.
“Well enough to say hello and talk a bit when we saw each other. I know her mother better than I do Amy, but …” her voice trailed off, her brows knit tightly over her scrunched-up face. Then her face opened and her eyes grew large, “Margie is going to be upset! I should go by there. She shouldn’t be alone. This is awful!”
“I’m so sorry. I can imagine it is a shock to hear about someone you know being killed nearby. What cemetery was she found in?” inquired Perri. She could see Nina’s side-eyes.
“Oh, it was, um, shoot, we call it the Old Burial Ground, but its name is something like a bird, a bird name.” She puckered her mouth as she concentrated. “Whippoorwill Cemetery. That’s it. It’s down the road a good piece. It’s been there for a hundred and fifty years at least, probably longer. It isn’t really used much anymore. They say there are people buried there who first came to Logan County, way back.”
“Would Amy have gone there for some reason if it isn’t used much now?
As she thought about it, Cora stared straight into Perri’s eyes without seeing her. “Well, yes,” she said quietly.
After a few moments’ pause, Perri nudged, “Why do you think she might have gone there?”
Cora shook herself slightly and said, “She probably went to visit a grave. A friend of her was buried there recently.” Seeing Perri’s surprised look she said, “I know, the cemetery really isn’t used much, but a friend of Amy’s died last week, the burial was Monday of this week, and she…didn’t have any family left here and didn’t have a plot that anyone knew about.”
“So they buried her in Whippoorwill Cemetery?”
“Yes.” Cora turned and continued copying.
Nina ventured, “Is there an area of the cemetery for people without family or plots? I mean, there were plots available for someone who needed one?”
“Yes. To be truthful, plots there are available for people who can’t afford one anywhere else. Like a pauper’s section, I guess. That sounds really terrible. But, basically that’s what it is.”
Perri quietly asked, “Amy’s friend didn’t have money for a plot?”
“I guess not. No, I’m sure she didn’t. Her name was Patricia. She and Amy went to high school together and were pretty close friends for a while. They had a falling out and didn’t talk for several years. Patty didn’t get along with most people. Her family either died or moved away, I guess. I just know she didn’t have anyone here.”
“You say they went to school together? How old were they, Amy and Patricia?” asked Perri.
“They would be in their early or mid-thirties now, I guess. Margie, Amy’s mother, is my age. I really should go by there and see if she has someone with her or needs anything.” Cora seemed lost in thought as she handed the copies to Perri and turned off the copy machine. “Oh, was that all you needed, or…?”
“No, no, this is all I need, but I need to pay you for them.”
“Oh, darn it, yes. It’s a dollar a copy and there were, oh gosh, ten copies.”
“I think there might be more than….”
“No, I think it was ten. $10.”
Perri got the money out of her purse and handed it to Cora, who tossed it in the drawer. Perri said, “Thank you very much for your help today. I don’t want to keep you any longer. I’m really sorry for what’s happened. I wish we could help somehow.”
Cora looked at Perri with welling eyes and a reddening nose as she took the original documents and placed them in the Nichols folder. “Thanks. I don’t know what anyone can do right now, we don’t even know what happened yet.”
“Yes, of course. We’ll get going. Again, thank you so much for your help, Cora.”
Cora nodded and disappeared into the maze of partitions.