two

I’D been standing on two murder victims, one ancient (at least to me), and one modern. There were differences in the reading I got from the older one, in addition to the shock of finding Tabitha. I stowed Josiah Poundstone away to ponder later. No one here in St. Margaret’s cemetery was concerned with him today.

“You got some explaining to do,” the detective said. He was putting it mildly. We were at Homicide, and the carpeted partitions and the ringing phones and the flag tacked to the wall made the floor seem more like a modest company with a burgeoning business than a cop facility.

Sometimes I faint when I find a body that has passed in a violent way. It would have been good if I’d fainted this time. But I hadn’t. I’d been all too conscious of the disbelief and outrage on the faces of the police, uniformed and plainclothes. The initial skepticism and anger on the part of the two uniforms who’d rolled up on the scene had been understandable and predictable. They didn’t imagine anyone would dig up a centuries-old grave on the say-so of a lunatic woman who made her living as a con artist.

But the more Clyde Nunley explained, the more they began to look uneasy. After a lot of comparison of the grave’s surface with the others around it, the larger black cop finally radioed in, calling a detective to the scene.

We’d gone over the whole sequence of events again. This took a lot of time. Tolliver and I were leaning against our car, getting progressively colder and wearier, while the slow and repetitive questioning went on and on. Everyone was angry with us. Everyone thought we were frauds. Clyde Nunley grew more defensive and loud with each amazed reaction he got from the cops. Yes, he conducted a course during which students “experienced” people who claimed they could communicate with the dead: ghost hunters, mediums, psychics, tarot readers, and other paranormal practitioners. Yes, people actually sent their kids to college to learn stuff like that, and yes, they paid a rather high tuition for it. Yes, the papers about the old cemetery had been kept quite secure, and Harper Connelly had had no chance to examine them. Yes, the box containing the papers had been sealed when the library staff had discovered it. No, neither Tolliver nor I had ever been a student at the college. (We had to smile when we heard that one.)

To no one’s surprise, we were “asked” to come to the police station. And there we sat, answering all the same questions over and over again, until we were left to vegetate in an interview room. The garbage can was full of snack wrappers and stained Styrofoam coffee cups, and the walls needed a new coat of paint. In the past, someone had thrown the chair I was sitting on. I could tell, because one of the metal legs was slightly bowed. At least the room was warm enough. I’d gotten chilled down to my bones in the cemetery.

“You think it would look bad if I read?” Tolliver asked. Tolliver is twenty-eight now, and he likes to grow his black hair out, wear it long for a while, and then cut it drastically. At the moment, it was long enough to pull back into a short ponytail. He has a mustache and acne-scarred cheeks. He’s a runner, like me. We spend a lot of hours in cars, and running is a good way to counteract that.

“Yes, I think it would look callous,” I said. He glowered at me. “Well, you asked me,” I said. We sat in dreary silence for a minute or two.

“I wonder if we’ll have to see the Morgensterns again?” I said.

“You know we will,” he said. “I bet they’ve already called them, and they’re driving over from Nashville right now.”

His cell phone rang.

He checked who was calling, looked as blank as a man can look, and answered it. “Hey,” he said. “Yeah, it’s true. Yes, we’re here in Memphis. I was going to call you tonight. I’m sure we’ll see each other. Yes. Yes. All right, goodbye.”

He didn’t look happy as he snapped the phone shut. Of course I wanted to know who his caller had been, but I didn’t say anything. If anything could have made me gloomier, it was the idea that sooner or later we’d have to see Joel and Diane Morgenstern again.

When I’d realized whom the bones belonged to, my dismay was more overwhelming than my feeling of triumph. I’d failed the Morgensterns eighteen months ago, though I’d tried as hard as I could to find their daughter. Now I’d finally come through for them, but the success was bitter.

“How’d she die?” Tolliver asked very quietly. You never knew who was listening, in a police station. I guess we’re the suspicious sort.

“Suffocated,” I said. Another silence. “With a blue pillow.” We’d seen so many pictures of Tabitha alive: on the news broadcasts, pinned to the walls of her room, in her parents’ hands, blown up to illustrate the fliers they’d given us. She’d been a very average girl of eleven, to everyone but her parents. Tabitha had had bushy reddish-brown hair she hadn’t yet learned to deal with. She’d had big brown eyes, and braces, and she hadn’t begun to mature physically. She’d liked gymnastics, and art lessons, and she’d hated making her bed and taking out the trash. I remembered all this from talking to her parents; or more accurately, listening to their monologues. Joel and Diane had seemed to believe that if they made Tabitha real to me, I would work harder at finding her.

“You think she’s been down there since she was missing?” Tolliver asked, finally.

It had been the spring of the preceding year when we’d been summoned to Nashville by the Morgenstern family. By then, Tabitha had been gone a month. The police had just cut back on their search, since they’d looked everywhere they could. The FBI had scaled back its presence, also. The extra equipment that had been installed to trace phone calls had been removed, because there hadn’t been any ransom demands. By then, no one was expecting such a demand.

“No,” I said. “The ground was too freshly disturbed. But I think she’s been dead the whole time. I really hope so.” The only thing more awful than a murdered child was a murdered child who’d been subjected to prolonged torture or sexual abuse.

“There was no way you could have found her,” Tolliver said. “Back then.”

“No,” I agreed. “There wasn’t.”

But it hadn’t been for lack of trying. The Morgensterns had called me when they’d exhausted all the traditional methods of finding their lost child.

Yes, I had failed; but I had given it my all. I’d been over the house, the yard, the neighborhood, into the yards of anyone with a police record who lived in the surrounding area. Some I’d done at night because the homeowner wouldn’t consent. Not only was I risking arrest, but injury. A dog had almost gotten me the second night.

I’d toured nearby junkyards, ponds, parks, landfills, and cemeteries, in the process finding one other murder victim in the trunk of a junked car (a freebie for the Nashville police—they’d been so pleased to have another murder victim on the books), and one natural death, a homeless man in a park. But I hadn’t found any eleven-year-old girls. For nine days I’d searched, until the time came when I’d had to tell Diane and Joel Morgenstern that I could not find their child.

Tabitha had been snatched from her yard in an upscale Nashville suburb while she was watering the flowers in the beds around the front door of the house on a warm morning during spring break. When Diane had come out to go to the grocery, she’d discovered Tabitha was nowhere to be found. The hose was still running.

Daughter of a senior accountant with a firm that handled lots of Nashville singers and record people, Tabitha had had a blessed childhood. Though she had a stepbrother because Joel had been married and widowed previously, Tabitha had obviously enjoyed a well-regulated home life centered on maintaining her health and happiness, and incidentally that of Victor, her half sib.

My childhood, and Tolliver’s, had not been like that—at least, after a certain point. That was the point where our lawyer parents began using drugs and drinking with their clients. After a while, the clients had ceased to be clients, and had become peers. That downward slide had brought me to the moment in time when I’d been standing in the bathroom in that trailer in Texarkana and the lightning had come through the window.

Trips down memory lane aren’t happy jaunts for me.

I was almost glad when the detective—Corbett Lacey was his name—came back with cups of coffee for both of us. He was trying the soft approach. Sooner or later (probably later) someone else would try the hard approach.

“Tell me how you came to be here this morning,” suggested Corbett Lacey. He was a burly man with receding blond hair, a large belly, and quick blue eyes like restless marbles.

“We were invited by Dr. Nunley to come to the old cemetery. I was supposed to show the students what I do.”

“What exactly do you do?” He looked so sincere, as if he would believe any answer I gave him.

“I find the dead.”

“You track people?”

“No, I find corpses. People call me in, and I find the bodies of those who’ve passed on.” That was my favorite euphemism. I have quite a repertoire. “If the location of the corpse is already known, I can tell you the cause of death. That was what I was doing at the cemetery today.”

“What’s your success rate?”

Okay, that was unexpected. I’d assumed he’d sneer, at this point. “If the relatives or the police can give me a bead on the location, I can find the body,” I said matter-of-factly. “When I find the body, I know the cause of death. In the case of Tabitha Morgenstern, when the family called me in, I could never find her. She’d been taken from her yard and put in a car pretty quick, I guess, and her corpse just wasn’t there for me to sense.”

“How does this work?”

Another unexpected question. “I feel them, like a buzz in my head,” I said. “The closer I get, the more intense the buzz, the vibration, is. When I’m on top of them, I can reach down and tell how they died. I’m not a psychic. I’m not a precognate, or a telepath. I don’t see who killed them. I only see the death when I’m near the bones.”

He hadn’t expected such a matter-of-fact reply. He looked at me, leaning forward on the other side of the table. His own cup of coffee was forgotten in front of him. “Why would anyone believe that?” Lacey asked wonderingly.

“Because I produce results,” I said.

“Don’t you think it’s quite a coincidence? That you were called in by the Morgensterns when they were looking for their little girl, and now, months later, in a different city, you say you’ve found her? How do you think those poor folks are going to feel when the area’s dug and there’s nothing there? You should be ashamed of yourself.” The detective regarded me with profound disgust.

“That’s not going to happen.” I shrugged. “I’m not ashamed of anything. She’s there.” I glanced at my watch. “They should have reached her by now.”

Detective Lacey’s cell phone rang. He answered, “Yeah?” As he listened, his face changed. He looked harder and older. His eyes fell on me with a look I’ve seen often—a stare compounded of distaste, fear, and a dawning belief.

“They’ve reached some bones in a garbage bag,” he said heavily. “Too small to be an adult’s.”

I tried very hard to look neutral.

“A foot below the garbage bag bones, there are wood remnants. Probably a coffin. So there may be another set of bones.” He breathed heavily. “There’s no trace of a coffin around the upper bones.”

I nodded. Tolliver squeezed my hand.

“We’ll get a very preliminary identification in a couple hours, if it’s the Morgenstern girl. The dental records have been faxed from Nashville. Of course, a solid ID will have to wait on a full exam of the body. Well, what’s left of the body.” Detective Lacey set his own personal coffee mug on the battered table with unnecessary force. “Nashville police are sending the X-rays by car, and the car should be here in a couple of hours. The local FBI office is sending someone to witness the full autopsy. The Fibbies are offering their lab for the trace stuff. You are not to say anything about this to anyone until we’ve talked to the family.”

I nodded again.

“Good,” Tolliver said, just to goose the silence.

Corbett Lacey gave us a steady glare. “We’ve had to call her parents, and if this isn’t her, I don’t even like to think about what they’ll feel. If you hadn’t broadcast her name to the whole group standing there, we could have kept this quiet until we had something solid to tell them. Now, we’ve had to talk to them because it looks like the damn television will have it on the air soon.”

“I’m sorry about that. I just wasn’t thinking.” I should have kept my mouth shut. He had a good point.

“Why do you even do this, anyway?” He gave me a puzzled face, as if he really couldn’t figure me out. I didn’t think he was completely sincere, but I was.

“It’s always better to know. That’s why I do it.”

“You seem to make quite a bit of money, too,” Corbett Lacey observed.

“I have to make a living, same as anybody else.” I wasn’t going to act ashamed of that. But, truly, I sometimes wished I worked at Wal-Mart, or Starbucks, and let the dead lie unfound.

“So, I guess Joel and Diane started out right away,” Tolliver said. He was right; a change of subject was in order. “It’ll take them how long to get here?”

Detective Lacey looked puzzled.

“The Morgensterns. How long a drive is it, Nashville to Memphis?” I said.

He gave us an unreadable look. “Like you didn’t know.”

Okay, I wasn’t getting this at all. “Know…?” I looked at Tolliver. He shrugged, as bewildered as I was. A possibility occurred to me. “Tell me they’re not dead!” I said. I’d liked them, and I didn’t often have feelings for clients.

It was Lacey’s turn to look uncertain. “You really don’t know?”

“We don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Tolliver said. “Just tell us.”

“The Morgensterns left Nashville about a year after the little girl was abducted,” Lacey said. He ran a hand over his thinning blond hair. “They live here in Memphis now. He manages the Memphis branch of the same accounting firm, and his wife’s pregnant again. Maybe you didn’t know that he and his first wife were both from Memphis, and since Diane Morgenstern’s family lives overseas, back here was where they needed to be if they wanted the support of family during the pregnancy and birth.”

I suspected my mouth was hanging open, but for the moment I didn’t care. I had so many thoughts I couldn’t process them all at once. The Morgensterns being here turned everything upside down. If I’d thought we were placed in a bad situation, ours was nothing compared to theirs. It looked so bad for them, Tabitha’s body being found here. And their presence here in Memphis made the fact that I’d been the one to finally find her even fishier, since they’d employed me before.

I simply couldn’t think of any explanation that cleared the couple of some involvement in their daughter’s death.

My stunned reaction struck true to the detective, and Tolliver’s was even more obvious. Lacey nodded sharply, as if he were reluctantly convinced of something.

After that, there weren’t any more questions. We were released to go back to our motel, an absolutely typical airport motel in a medium-range chain that we’d picked because it was right off the interstate and not too far from the college. On our way back, we’d gone through a Wendy’s drive-through to pick up sandwiches, and before we went up to our room we each pulled a soft drink from the ice chest in the back seat. Our room was wonderfully quiet and warm. I gulped my soda down right away, because I needed the sugar after our experience in the cemetery. (We’ve found, by trial and error, that sugar really helps get me up and running after a job.) Sure enough, after the sugar hit me, I was able to eat my sandwich at a calm pace. I felt much better. After we’d cleared away the debris, Tolliver stood and looked down from our second-story window.

“There are reporters already gathering,” Tolliver said, after a minute. “It’s only a matter of time before they come up to the room and knock on the door.”

I should have thought of that already. “This will generate a lot of publicity,” I said, and the ambivalence was clear in Tolliver’s face, as I’m sure it was in mine.

“You think we need to call Art?” Art Barfield was our attorney, and his firm was based in Atlanta.

“That might be a good idea,” I said. “Would you talk to him?”

“Sure.” Tolliver pulled out his cell phone and dialed, while I went to the sink to wash my face. After I turned off the water, I could hear him talking. I was combing my hair in the mirror—my hair was almost as dark as Tolliver’s—when he hung up.

“His secretary says he’s with a client, but he’ll call soonest possible. Of course, he’ll charge an arm and a leg if we ask him to come. That is, if he can get away.”

“He’ll come, or he’ll recommend someone local. We’ve only asked him once before, and we’re his most…lurid clients,” I said practically. “If he doesn’t come, we’ll be swamped.”

Art called us back about an hour later. From Tolliver’s end of the conversation, you could tell Art was not too excited about the prospect of leaving home—Art was not young, and he liked his home comforts—but when Tolliver told Art about the reporters gathered at the police station, the lawyer allowed himself to be persuaded to get on a plane right away.

“Corinne’ll call you with my plane information,” Art said to Tolliver, but I could hear him clearly. Art has one of those carrying voices, which is really useful if you’re a trial lawyer.

Art likes publicity almost as much as he loves his remote control and his wife’s cooking. He’s had a taste of it since he became our lawyer, and his practice has increased exponentially. His secretary, the middle-aged Corinne, called us within minutes to give us Art’s flight number and his ETA.

“I don’t think we’d better meet Art at the airport,” I told Corinne. I watched another news van enter the parking lot. “I think we’re going to have to go to a hotel, one with more security than this.”

“You’d better make the change now, and I’ll book Mr. Barfield a room at the same place,” Corinne said practically. “I’ll call him on his cell when he lands. In fact, I’ll make a phone call or two, find the right place, and book the reservation for all of you. One room or two, for you and Mr. Lang?”

The hotel was sure to be very expensive. Normally I’d be inclined to share one room with Tolliver, as we were doing now. But if the newspapers were checking, better to err on the side of the Goddess of Rightness.

“Two,” I said. “Adjacent. Or if we can get a suite, that would be good.”

“I’ll do some quick research, and then I’ll confirm with you,” the efficient Corinne said.

She called back to tell us we were booked into the Cleveland. It was, as I’d feared, way too expensive for my taste, but I’d pay the money to ensure the privacy. I didn’t like being on television. Publicity was good for business, but only the right kind of publicity.

We left our motel, as disguised as we could be without looking ludicrous. Before strolling out one of the side doors and making a beeline to our car, we had bundled to the teeth. Because we looked so humble, Tolliver lugging the ice chest and me carrying our overnight bags, we managed to escape the attention of the news crew until we were pulling out of the parking lot. The newswoman, whose lips were so shiny they looked polyurethaned, made a flying leap to land right beside the driver’s window. Tolliver couldn’t see to turn left into the traffic flowing the way we needed to go, so we were more or less trapped. He rolled down the window and put on an agreeable smile.

“Shellie Quail from Channel Thirteen,” the shiny woman said. She was the color of hot chocolate, and her black hair gleamed like it had been polished. It was in a smooth helmet style. Shellie Quail’s makeup was equally warlike, lots of bright colors and definite lines. I wondered how long it took her to get ready to leave her house in the morning. She was wearing a tight pantsuit in a brownish, tweedy material, flecked with orange. The little flecks made her skin glow. “Mr. Lang, are you Miss Connelly’s manager? Have I got that right?” the shining woman said.

“Yes, you do,” Tolliver said agreeably. I knew the camera was rolling. But I had faith in my brother. He has a lot of charm when the occasion arises, especially if it arises in the presence of a pretty woman.

“Can you comment on this morning’s happenings in the old St. Margaret’s cemetery at Bingham College?” she asked. The microphone she’d been clutching was thrust at Tolliver’s chin in what I considered a very aggressive way.

“Yes,” he said. “We’re waiting to hear if the body we discovered can be identified.” I admired the way he kept his voice so level and calm—but serious, and worthy of being taken seriously.

“Is it true the police are considering the possibility that the skeleton may be that of Tabitha Morgenstern?”

Well, that hadn’t taken long to leak out.

“Our thoughts and our prayers are with the Morgenstern family. Of course, like everyone else here, we’re very anxious to hear some news,” Tolliver said neutrally.

“Mr. Lang, is it true your sister stated that the body just exhumed from the cemetery is definitely that of the missing girl?”

We weren’t going to get by with anything. “We believe that to be true,” he said, indirectly.

“How do you explain the coincidence?”

“What coincidence?” Tolliver asked, which I thought was maybe a little over the top.

Even Shellie Quail looked disconcerted. But she got back on her roll. “That your sister was hired to look for Tabitha Morgenstern months ago in Nashville, and then hired to look at the graves in the old St. Margaret’s cemetery here in Memphis. And that a body reported to be that of Tabitha Morgenstern is found in that cemetery.”

“We have no idea how this came about, and we’re looking forward to hearing the explanation,” Tolliver said sternly, as if we’d been mightily put-upon. Baffled, Shellie Quail paused to think of another question, and we took the opportunity to make our left turn.