twelve

Francine and Jonathan attended church the next morning at Calvary United Methodist Church. Since she was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of person, Francine preferred to go to the early service at nine o’clock. It was also a more traditional service, and that suited her just fine. Contemporary services felt more like a performance to her than a worship service.

But this Sunday, even the nine o’clock service didn’t feel right. There was a pall hanging over the congregation. Camille Ledfelter hadn’t been a member of Calvary, but so many people knew her that it was still a shock. Several people had come up to Francine to talk about it, knowing she had been there. After deflecting questions for what felt like an hour, she took a worship folder from an usher and found a seat next to Jonathan in their usual pew. It had only been ten minutes.

He leaned into her and whispered in her ear, “Lots of curiosity, I would say.”

“Why are people so fascinated by dead bodies?”

“Why do they keep turning up when you’re around?”

She elbowed him in the gut. “You’re not helping.”

He grinned from ear to ear. “Sorry.”

The head pastor no sooner started the service when Francine heard her cell phone buzz in her bag. Fortunately, she had remembered to set it to silent.

Charlotte had sent her a text. Charlotte was technology-challenged and didn’t often send texts, but when she got up the will to figure it out, she made up for her infrequency with length.

Police showed up at Camille’s house. Carried out documents, a computer, and sacks of stuff I couldn’t determine. Eric was not there. I’m pretty sure Jud had a search warrant, but no one to serve it on so they just went in. I laid low. I didn’t want to be there if he found something Camille might have had on me. Why make myself readily available for questioning?

It was a rhetorical question, and didn’t need an answer. She slipped the cell phone back in her purse. A few minutes later, during the first song, it buzzed again.

Francine, did you get my text? This is Francine, isn’t it? I’m never sure if I’m doing this right. It has your name on the conversation, though.

Am in church, she texted back.

I figured that. I’m going to the later service.

Are the police gone now?

Yes, took them about an hour.

You sat there for an entire hour and didn’t text me anything about it until they were gone? Francine marveled at Charlotte’s restraint.

Would it have mattered? You were getting ready for church.

Francine didn’t want to get into a text conversation with Charlotte. She was already missing the Call to Worship while texting and would soon miss the Scripture Reading if she didn’t end this thing with Charlotte quickly. Anything new?

No.

Since you’ll be at the later service, I’ll go by on my way home to see if anything has changed. Over and out.

She didn’t wait for Charlotte to respond. She turned off her cell phone. The liturgist asked them to be seated and read a passage from Isaiah 55, verses 8 and 9.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are my ways higher than your ways,

And my thoughts than your thoughts.

Francine found the passage comforting. She often wondered what to make of the extraordinary things that had come into their lives: the notoriety, the inheritance from Zed, the spring in Parke County, her amazing friends. And yet they had been too often surrounded by death. The one thing she knew for sure was that there was a sense of joy and of grace in their lives that she could only account for through God. She found reassurance that the divine Mind had so much greater capacity than hers, that a greater Wisdom was in control.

Charlotte appeared at the end of the service. She was waiting in the lobby for everyone to file out of church. She made her way toward Francine and Jonathan through the exiting crowd like a salmon swimming upstream during spawning season. Francine was pleased to see her doing it without her cane, which she tended to use in crowds.

“Eric’s back,” she said, a bit breathless. “At least I think so. Toby turned his car into the driveway of Camille’s house just as I was leaving. He opened the garage door and pulled in. Eric couldn’t be seen, but then, he crouched in the back seat of your car yesterday when he didn’t want to be seen. I stopped and knocked on the door—pounded actually—but no one would answer.”

Francine didn’t like that they were discussing this openly. She took Charlotte’s arm and steered her over to a nook that had only a few people in it. Jonathan took the opportunity to find someone else to talk to. “Maybe Eric sent Toby over to pick up some items,” she told Charlotte. “Maybe Eric still isn’t there.”

“Trust me, my intuition tells me he’s there. You should go by and try to see him.”

“I will, after Sunday School.”

“But he might be gone by then!”

“And if he isn’t, we know he’s staying at Mary Ruth’s house. I can try over there.”

Charlotte was exasperated. “But don’t you want to see Camille’s house now that it’s been searched by the police? Aren’t you curious to see what they took?”

“You texted me a list! And besides, I haven’t been in Camille’s house for so long I wouldn’t know what they took versus what they didn’t. The long and short of it is, you want to get in there.”

Charlotte tapped her foot. “I suppose I do.”

“I can’t make that happen. But I promise I’ll go over there after Sunday School and see what’s going on.”

 

After Sunday School, she and Jonathan bid farewell to Charlotte, who stayed behind for the later service. They drove back to their house so Francine could change clothes before she headed over to Camille’s in hopes of finding Eric at home and being allowed to come in. If nothing else, she wanted to check to make sure he did go to the police.

It was a frosty morning. She zipped up her winter down coat, wrapped the scarf around her neck, and turned up the coat collar so it rode close to her ears. Reaching the sidewalk, she faced the cold wind and sped walked over to Camille’s house.

Camille lived on North Ridge Court, which was an afterthought to the subdivision of Summer Ridge Estates. The court wasn’t internally connected to the main drag, so Francine had to use the sidewalk that ran along Hornaday Road to get to North Ridge. Traffic buzzed by her as she hurried.

How easy it would be for someone to breach the right-of-way and hit me, she thought. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but Camille’s gruesome stabbing and knowing from Charlotte that the police had searched Camille’s house had her thinking of conspiracies and cover-ups and other things one found in a Vince Flynn novel.

Camille’s death was grisly, and yes, it had been done at a public venue. No mistaking that. But it may well have been a singular thing. Someone wanted to get her out of the way. That reason could be related to the fact she was President of a contentious Town Council. It might have nothing to do with Eric or his presumed inheritance. Unless Eric knew something he wasn’t telling.

She reached the stoop of Camille’s single-story house and rang the doorbell. The house was closed up tight and the curtains were drawn, but she knew Eric wasn’t interested in announcing his presence in the house. She heard the clump, clump, clump of footsteps approaching the door as she pulled her coat tighter around her. She saw Toby peer out of the front window. He hurriedly unlocked the front door and then held it open for her. “Come in, come in. It’s cold out there.”

She stepped into the house. It may have been cold outside, but it was warm inside. Or at least Toby was warm. His black hair was matted to his head with perspiration, and he wore a damp, off-white hand towel draped over his shoulder like a stole. He used it to mop up sweat that poured off him. Dressed in a black short sleeve compression shirt, his tattoos were on full display and the tight fit showed off the results of his hard work in becoming a male stripper.

“Thanks, Toby. Is Eric here?” She tried looking past Toby but he was too bulky. “He asked me yesterday if I could help with the funeral arrangements since he’d never done that before. I thought I’d stop by.”

She didn’t know what she was looking for, maybe Eric, maybe a clue as to what Camille had done to get someone mad enough to stab her, but she took in everything she could.

“Eric’s downstairs doing cardio work. I was too, but then I heard the doorbell ring when the music stopped.”

Whatever had caused the music to stop resolved itself because Francine jumped when it suddenly came back on at full blast. “What is that?”

“That’s the Killers,” he said. “We’re almost done. Maybe ten minutes. Can you wait?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but dashed around a corner and disappeared. She heard his first footfalls on the steps to the downstairs but they were quickly muffled by the overpowering noise of whoever was singing at full volume. The Killers, she reminded herself. Creepy name for a rock band, especially with what’s going on.

Ten minutes. She slipped off her scarf, stuffed it into her pocket, and unzipped her coat. She took it off and looked for a closet. The house plan was almost identical to Charlotte’s. There was a door to her immediate left and she was certain it was a coat closet. She extracted a coat hanger and hung hers up.

Ten minutes, she thought again. Charlotte could get herself in a lot of trouble in a deceased person’s house in ten minutes.

The hallway leading to the bedrooms was on the opposite side of the room. Francine stared at it. The floor was wood, not carpet, and she worried that maybe someone would hear her if she crossed to the hallway and peered into the bedrooms. What if the floor creaked? Then she laughed at herself. The music was loud enough to cover a herd of elephants migrating across the Indian subcontinent.

She told herself she wouldn’t actually walk into the bedrooms. She was only looking for any obvious clues she could detect while simply looking for a restroom. Yes, that was it. She was looking for a restroom. Still, she tiptoed across the room and down the hall.

The first door she came to was the bathroom. Great, she thought. Now what will I say I’m looking for if Eric or Toby finds me down by the bedrooms? But it wasn’t enough to stop her. She kept walking.

The second door was closed. Closed meant she wouldn’t look in it, she told herself. She moved on to the next door and peered in. It was a nondescript beige room with matted photos of fall scenes that looked like they’d been taken at McCloud Nature Park, a park tucked away in the northwest corner of the county. She recognized the restored iron truss bridge that was over a century old, moved in from Pulaski County. It was clearly a guest bedroom, but it looked like a guest had just moved in, and she was fairly certain that someone was Toby.

There were two more doors. The next one was likely occupied by Eric, and the farthest bedroom would have been Camille’s.

How long had she been in the hall? Couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes. She surely had at least five minutes left. With the music still pounding out of the downstairs session, she advanced to the second doorway. It was Eric’s, as expected. Lots of clothes strewn around the room. She moved onto the last doorway. Its door was closed. She turned the knob and pushed on it, expecting it to open. It didn’t. She rattled the knob. It was locked.

Locked? Why was it locked?

On the face of it, the door was locked to keep people out. Like her. She took a step back and studied the situation. Probably had four minutes. Did she really want to go forward? She wasn’t sure how to get into locked rooms anyway.

No, she thought. I am not going in there. She’d only have three, maybe four minutes. That was if Toby was accurate with his time estimate.

She headed back down the hall toward the living room where she’d entered the house.

The first closed door she’d come to was right ahead of her. If it was a three-bedroom house, then what was behind that other door?

She put her hand on the handle and turned it like she had Camille’s bedroom, but this one gave way. She opened the door wide.

Inside was a treasure trove of information. This was Camille’s study, and file folders were stacked all over a desk on the far side of the room.

I can’t go in, she thought. I have only two minutes at the most.

The music stopped. Her head snapped toward the basement like she might get caught. But then the Killers started pounding out the same song.

Three more minutes, at least.

She advanced on the file-packed desk.