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Chapter 10
I drove home, took a nap, made lunch for Karen and drew her a bath, snuggled with Beau on the front porch, and returned to work. That afternoon Patty Goyle and I proceeded with the cremation of Emery Plott's remains. He wore two rings, the first a high school class ring from 1954 and the second a nugget of gold inscribed from his uncle, Holden Plott. These we reserved for his family. Into the lovely mahogany box Emery went, and there I determined that he would stay. It was his request. Now I could have private conversations with him in our office any time I wanted.
London broil and hash brown casserole were on the menu for dinner, followed by watermelon on the porch and a nightcap with Karen and Rick. Karen's visit to the doctor that morning revealed that she was coming down with the flu. She required rest and fluids, so her drink was iced green tea. I sipped my Amaretto Sour guiltily.
My visit with Desiree Steele niggled in my brain oppressively until 1:00 a.m., when I fell asleep at last. At 5:30 Rick tripped over a toy in the dark, knocking a chair over in the kitchen below my bedroom. My eyes hurt if I opened them, so I lay on the bed fingering the worn fabric of Karen's old Laura Ashley comforter from 11th grade. Desiree's face floated in my mind and her words lingered. What was it about my conversation with that girl that bothered me?
“Me and my aunt weren't that close …” she said.
“I put Desiree Steele entirely in charge of my funeral arrangements,” Anita wrote.
“I always walk from the bus station if my aunt can't come get me,” Desiree told me.
“Ms. Steele will provide an urn for my ashes,” the aunt wrote.
These statements didn't cooperate in my mind. If the two women were not close, why did Desiree visit her aunt so often? Why would Anita put her in charge of all her burial funeral arrangements if they weren't close?
“She's lying,” I thought. “I know she's lying.”
I hesitated to go to the Stop-and-Go Diner at 6:00 a.m. after my last run-in with Lottie, but I wanted even less to engage my son-in-law and discuss family matters. I needed to get out of the house. This time the diner door was open, and Lottie didn't grouch at me from behind the counter. She also didn't greet me with a cheery “Hello!” I chose a booth in the far corner and felt guilty for making her walk.
Lottie Andrews was a person worth studying. Thin, wiry, brown, short, she'd damaged both her skin and her voice with years of smoking. Her face screamed intelligence and defensiveness. Mostly she looked chronically exhausted. Her cigarette dangled from her bottom lip in spite of the “No Smoking” sign behind the counter.
“Whatcha want?” she asked.
“Coffee. Cream. Toast, butter, strawberry jelly. Thank you.”
She paused for a fraction of second longer than I expected, giving me the impression she wanted something. I did not look up. Instead I ran my fingers through my hair over and over again, studying the pattern on the linoleum table in front of my face. My trouble was this: I knew I should cremate Anita Wagner's remains that afternoon, but something in my mind told me not to do it. Not yet. But what reason could I possibly give for delaying? I shook my head.
“Here ya go,” Lottie said, and slid the steaming cup across to me. She set a bowl of many creamers down next to it.
“You look worse than the first time you came in here,” she said.
I looked up, surprised at her honesty. “Yep. I feel worse too.”
Her blue head scarf wound around her head like a turban. She put one hand on her hip. “You the new funeral home lady, right?”
“Yes.”
“You handlin' Anita Wagner's funeral, are yeh?”
“Yes, we are.” I paused. I could tell she had something to say. “Did you know her?”
“Well,” she began, and glanced at the door. “I did years ago. Lived next door to her, back before she married that slug.” She peered at me. “You met Myron the Monster?”
“I've spoken to him on the phone, just once.”
“He ruined her life, I'll say that.”
“Her niece is in town,” I told her. “She's handling the arrangements for the family.”
“Niece?” Lottie asked. “Don't remember --” She broke off. “Oh, yeah. There was a baby. I forgot. They were both mighty young, Anita and her twin sister. Not yet twenty, I bet.”
“Twin? Anita Wagner has a twin sister?” I asked. Desiree hadn't mentioned her mother.
“Oh, yeah. She moved in with Anita for just a bit when the baby was little. Then she left again.” The bell above the diner door tinkled insistently and Lottie left. A few minutes later she brought my toast and generously rewarmed my coffee.
Before she left again she added, “They was split up, you see,” referring to the twins. “As babies. Anita told me one night when we was drinkin'. Their mama kept the other one, the sister. But she give Anita away because she was sickly and needed medical care, expensive stuff.” Lottie took out her table rag and mindlessly wiped at my table, lengthening her stay. “Anita was a nice girl, very nice, would give ya the shirt off her back. But I do think that troubled her, about her mother. She went into foster care as a baby and settled down with a family here in Peace Valley, stayed here all her life mostly. Had a real good life until Myron.” She frowned and shook her head. “And now this. Very sad.”
I sipped on my coffee and nodded. Lottie tapped my table with her fingertips. “Let me know if there's a service of some kind. Just stick yer head in here and tell me. I'd like to come.”
“I'll do that,” I said.
It was increasingly difficult to find a place to clear my head. At home, there were Karen's and Rick's troubles. At work, there was the professional pressure of Patty Goyle. Even the local diner added to the weight of this case. A case – that's what it felt like, an investigation. Something was hidden under the surface of Anita Wagner's death, and I could not let it rest until I knew what that something was. This, I suddenly realized, was the reason I was hesitating to proceed with the cremation.
I added eggs over-easy, bacon, and grits to my breakfast and reached the office at 8:15, having read the county paper.
Patty Goyle greeted me. “You been to Lottie's,” she said. Her attitude seemed brighter.
“How can you tell?” I asked, amazed yet again at her skills of detection.
“The smell,” she said with a slight sneer in her voice. “It sticks on yeh.”
“Well, she makes a creamy bowl of grits and fabulous coffee,” I rebutted. “Anything new this morning?”
“Not yet. Just that body chillin' in the morgue. When you firin' up the crematory?”
I frowned. I did not like her tone. “I'm not sure. Her instructions for arrangements were hand-written and notarized. Can you get that document for me?”
Patty rolled out her massive file drawer, picked through the tabs with her nimble one-inch nails, and retrieved the paper with Anita's handwriting on it.
“Thanks,” I said. “Patty, do you know where this notary is from? Do you recognize the name?”
She perched her reading glasses on her nose and stared at the bottom of the page. “Willard Riggins.” She looked up at me. “He's over in the courthouse in Newberry.”
I removed the paper from between her fingers and turned back to the door. “I'll drive over and give Mr. Riggins a visit this morning, Patty. See you later.”
“Um – But --”
I let the door close on her voice and rushed to my car.
I took the back roads to Newberry, the county seat. In late April, the rural South is a glorious place – perfect temperatures, blue skies, no mosquitoes, and the endless quiet of farm fields and tiny communities. This is what I needed, a good drive in the country. With the windows down on Simone, my blue Volvo, all that was missing was Beau, curled up on the seat next to me. This was his favorite kind of ride too, but I didn't want to take him into Willard Riggins's office with me.
Newberry, South Carolina is a lovely Southern town with a large red brick courthouse sitting squarely in the center of its old downtown . I passed a quaint Japanese garden, open to the public, on my way into town, and was tempted by a cute coffee shop on Main Street as I drove around, wondering where Mr. Riggins's office might be. I parked in front of the courthouse. A kind elderly lady greeted me when I walked inside the old building. I must've looked lost.
“May I help you?”
I smiled thankfully. “Yes. I'm looking for Mr. Willard Riggins. I believe he's a notary here in the courthouse?”
She laughed and smiled at me. “Willard Riggins. Well, yes, I suppose he can notarize something for you. But Mr. Riggins is a retired lawyer here in Newberry. He doesn't keep an office in the courthouse anymore, not for years. He has a little office over on Friend Street, a couple of blocks over. Can't miss it.”
I thanked her, but I was more puzzled still. Anita Wagner could have found a notary at the bank in Peace Valley. Why come to Newberry? And why choose an elderly, retired lawyer with a little office off the beaten path to notarize your funeral plans instead of asking for one in the courthouse? Did she know Willard Riggins? Did he know her?
On Friend Street, I parked Simone in front of a pretty clapboard home-cum-office with a striped blue awning under towering pecan trees. Mr. Riggins himself answered the door. He was tall and large, but not fat. He wore a blue bowtie and linen trousers and jacket. A broad smile spread across his face. He was a tidy, manicured man, a clever man, a man used to handling people. He took my hand in one of his large paws and then placed the other one on top of it in an affectionate way.
“Come in, young lady, come in! Willard Riggins at your service.” He almost seemed flirtatious.
I felt creepily as if I were stepping back a hundred years, as if I were an antebellum lady in a sweeping skirt and he were courting me. I put this concept out of my mind.
“Hello, Mr. Riggins. I'm Ivy Monson from Peace Valley.”
“Ah! Peace Valley!” he said knowingly, and turned toward the reception area of his office. “Please, do have a seat, Mrs. Monson,” and he let me down gracefully into a sofa, finally releasing my hand.
He nodded at me and reached slowly for a decanter of some clear liquid, pouring himself a glass. “Would you care for a glass? Selzer water. Clears the mind.”
I thanked him, took my glass, and sat back for the entertainment that everyone who meets Willard Riggins was clearly in store for.
“Peace Valley! You know, Mrs. Monson, the origin of that name. No? Well, I'm sure you've noticed the lack of mountains or even significant hills around your town. So one must ask oneself, how can a town be in a valley without any corresponding rises around it?” He smiled at his cleverness. “The name originally was Pierce's Volley, after a skirmish fought there in the Revolution in which a number of settlers died. Time, and the mangling of the language, gradually gave us this mongrel pronunciation – Peace Valley. A quaint alteration, yes?”
“Yes, I'd say so.”
Willard Riggins sat back into his matching couch and crossed his legs. “How may I help you, Mrs. Monson?”
“Mr. Riggins, I'm the new director of the funeral home in Peace Valley. You may have heard that Emery Plott died recently.”
His face grew serious. “Yes, I did. Read it in the paper. A great loss for your town.”
“Yes, it is. Well, we had another death in Peace Valley, an Anita Wagner. Did you know her?”
Willard Riggins's normally soft and jovial appearance instantly stiffened. His brows lowered and his hand gripped the arm of the couch.
“What? Anita?” Real grief washed across his face. “I can't believe it! She was young – what, maybe thirty-five?”
“Thirty-seven. Yes, she was young, and she died unexpectedly of an accident. She fell down the stairs in her home.” I paused to allow him to process the information, but he was quicker than I.
“An accident?” He leaned forward. “Was her husband home?” His voice lowered. “Mrs. Monson, he is a brute of a man. Are you certain it was an accident?”
“Mr. Wagner was in Oklahoma at the time of her death. He had been out of town for nearly a month. There is no evidence of foul play, Mr. Riggins. The coroner called for an autopsy, which the medical examiner performed. They are satisfied with the findings. It's quite clear how she died and where she died.”
He sat back, disturbed and fidgeting. He tapped his index fingers together but said nothing.
“Mr. Riggins, I'm coming to you because of a document that you notarized for Anita Wagner only a few weeks ago.” I handed her instructions to him. “Did you notarize this?”
He looked at it. “Yes, yes, I did. She sat exactly where you are seated now. She wrote it out by hand on that coffee table there,” and he pointed to a low, glass-topped table with a scattering of pretty magazines on it. “She assured me that it was merely an assurance that, whenever she might die, her husband would be prevented from interfering with her wishes.” He shook his head. “He is such a beast of a man, and she was such a lovely woman.”
I hated to press him, but I continued, “And you're certain this document was written by Anita Wagner?”
“Mrs. Monson, I've known Anita Wagner since she was an infant. She was Anita Prescott then. Her foster family, the Gillespies, wanted to adopt her. They came to me, to pursue that option, but Anita's birth mother would not relinquish her. I tried so hard.” He looked out the window. “I lost track of Anita over the years, and the Gillespies are both dead now, but every once in a while she'd stop in here to say hello. Myron put an end to that when they married.” Willard looked at me severely. “He is a controlling man.”
“She mentions her niece, Desiree Steele. Did you ever meet her?”
He shook his head. “No. I knew she had a sister, and the sister had a baby. They were all rather close, I gather. For a while they lived together, and I suppose they had a falling out, because the sister left. But there was a bond there. Anita was so happy to find them again. Or rather, I think they found her. Either way, that was the happiest I ever saw her.”
We lapsed into silence as he sat brooding. I stood to go.
As he showed me to the door he asked, “You said she fell down the stairs in her home?”
“Yes, her niece says she sometimes drank too much. That, combined with the high heels she was wearing, probably caused the fall.”
“High heels?”
“Oh yes,” I replied. “Stilettos. One snagged the fabric on the steps."
His face was puzzled. "I never knew Anita to wear heels at all. She worked at the hospital and was on her feet most of the day. She wore nurses' shoes, and when she came to see me was invariably in tennis shoes. That seems strange.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps she was on her way out to a party?” Even as I said it, the words fell flat, untrue.
“Thank you, Mr. Riggins. I appreciate you help.”
He held my hand, but this time in sincerity. “If I can help any further, please don't hesitate to call. And let me know – let me know --”
“I will,” I answered.
Copyrighted by M.K. Christiansen
