The Appearance of Death, Chapter Twenty-One

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Chapter 21

Karen was waiting for me on the front porch. She peered at me over the top of a package of Fudge/Marshmallow Pinwheels. I think she might've scowled at me and said something snarky, but the pinwheel currently stuffed into her mouth prevented her.

“Hiya!” I said. “Sorry to be gone so long.” I stepped onto the porch. “What do you want for dinner?”

“I don't feel so good,” she replied gloomily.

I took the half-empty package of pinwheels from her lap and laughed. “I wonder why?” I said. “Pinwheels are not a good precursor to a healthy dinner, you know.” I smiled down at her. “Salad? Stir fry? Fruit yogurt?”

Karen rolled her eyes. “I think Rick's picking up KFC on his way home. I'm eating all the mashed potatoes though.”

I laughed. “Well then!” I exclaimed, and went inside, slamming the screen door behind me.

“Grammy!” both boys squealed together. “Grammy Grammy! We missed you! Beau ran away again and we found him in the creek!”

The evening was delightful. I cut up some fruit salad to accompany our fried chicken. Since Rick declined to tell him what they were, Jeffrey tried chicken gizzards for the first time. Karen and I ate all the cole slaw. Then Rick pulled out the desserts – toffee sundaes for the boys, and Oreo Krushems for the adults. By 7:00 the boys were swinging on the tire hung from the oak tree in the front yard while Karen, Rick, and I rocked slowly on the porch. Rick was on his phone.

“I have to go back to the coffee shop,” he said, closing his phone. “We've got somebody coming to the B&B upstairs. I'm gonna go welcome them and make sure everything's good there.” He stood up. “Be back in a bit.”

Karen and I put Jimmie to bed, and I helped Jeffrey with his phonics. Karen was wiped out in bed by 8:00, so I returned to the porch and put Beau in my lap. His little body shuddered in relief at being with me again. “I'm sorry, big guy,” I whispered to him. “It's been a rough month, I know. But it'll be better now, don't worry.”

The scent of the blooming trees drifted past us on the porch on a fickle breeze. Beau fell sleep. A chorus of spring peepers in the creek added a dreamy, rhythmic feel to the evening, so I closed my eyes. I don't know how long I was asleep before Rick's feet clomped up the steps.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself.”

“Is Patty working tonight?” he asked.

“I don't think so. She doesn't stay at the office past 5:00. She's particular about overtime.”

He sat down and lifted a beer from a cooler behind his chair. “Well, I thought I saw somebody there. I couldn't tell who in the dark.”

“They put in a surveillance system this morning, because of the break-in before,” I told him. “I'm not going down there by myself. I'll call the police, and then we'll watch the video in the morning and see if there's anything on it.” I pulled out my cell phone. “Let's hope it was nothing.”

I told the police officer what Rick said and asked him not to call me back that night unless he found evidence of a break in – a bashed window or maybe a broken lock. I received no calls by 11:00, so I went to bed and slept well. A steady rain all night long helped my rest. The entire household seemed to sleep deeper, longer that night, waking up groggy and befuddled in the morning. Jimmy stumbled into my room rubbing his eyes. He collapsed onto my bed.

“Grammy,” he mumbled.

I rolled over. Thunder rumbled outside. Without bright morning light streaming through my south window I couldn't tell what time it was. I stroked Jimmy's tousled hair.

“What's up, buddy? You sleep okay?”

“I think it's late, Grammy.” He climbed into bed with me and curled up sleepily. “The bus drove by.”

My brain registered his words in about five seconds. The bus! It was late. If I were a younger woman, I would've leapt out of bed. As it was, I struggled with the bedclothes, cursed my arthritis, and tried to get my feet in my slippers. Bus or no bus, I had to visit the bathroom first.

“Jimmy! Get ready for school, honey!” I called to Karen on my way to the bathroom. “Karen! The boys are late! The bus has run already. Jeffrey's still in bed!”

The house erupted in its usual morning chaos. We were late for school more mornings that we were on time. Beau barked at us. Rick ran out the door to the coffee shop. Karen moaned with a head-ache while the boys shoveled Cheerios into their mouths.

“I'll drop them off,” I offered. “I'm heading to work anyway.”

The office was quiet when I arrived. Southern summer heat was beginning to work its way into the hours of the day, and I was glad for the air conditioning. I plopped Beau down by his food bowl and poured some Purina in. When I checked my phone, there was a message from Patty.

“Headache,” it said. “Be a little late.”

After Rick's warning the night before of an intruder on the premises, I carefully inspected Patty's office, my office, all the adjacent rooms and work rooms, the chapel, the crematory, and the morgue. Nothing looked disturbed. The locks were secure. Even the stoop at the back door, surrounded by cedar trees and deep shade, was as green and mossy as ever. No one seemed to have stepped there.

I opened the morgue and slid Anita's body from its positive temperature cabinet. Decomposition had proceeded, albeit slowly. She no longer looked like her sister. Changes in skin tone and tissue structure were significant. I would cremate the body later in the morning; this was my last chance to view it, to study it. It seemed, at last, to want to give nothing away. As I rolled Anita's body away from the cabinet, I glanced at the bottom of the feet, at the offending tattoo that had caused all this trouble. Such a simple thing – a heart, two letters. A loving symbol, but hidden where no one would see it. A secret symbol of affection between aunt and niece – why? Then I wondered, did Desiree have a matching tattoo on her foot? Wouldn't that make sense, especially for a secretive, private expression like this, that both parties would have one? I shrugged my shoulders and assumed that was one fact I'd never be able to find out.

It seemed a good time to cremate the body at last, to put an end to all the questions and frustrations. Anita Wagner had not specified the container she wished to be placed in for cremation, so I selected the simplest cardboard cremation container. Before placing the lid on the container I looked at the tattoo one last time, as if to imprint it on my mind. Ashes to ashes, they say. Dust to dust. What does one tattoo matter on a body, when we're all reduced to dirt sooner or later?

Anita Wagner's remains entered the flames at 9:45 that morning. I returned to my office and made a record of the event, adding it to all the notes I'd written on Anita Wagner's funeral arrangements from the beginning. I intended to add to it the photographs I took of the tattoo, once I had hard copies made at the local CVS. I closed the file. It was done. What had Emery said to me that day?

“Do not return until you have some sort of satisfaction concerning that tattoo.”

He also said, “You know that the only person who would've had cause to tamper with the body was Desiree Steele. She must be compelled to answer you on the subject.”

I looked at Emery's urn, sitting small and elegant on its ledge in its niche, glowing under a small recessed light that also fell beatifically on Beau's head.

“I failed, Emery,” I said aloud. “You would've been tougher. I let her hide behind her mother, and I got no answers.”

“You did not fail, Ivy,” he answered clearly. “You were fabulously successful. You returned with something better than answers from those recalcitrant women.”

I was baffled. What had I returned with? I'd brought back nothing and the body was in the crematory. The tattoo had disappeared, and I'm sure Angela and Desiree would be thrilled to know it.

“The stone,” he said softy. The stone.

Where had I put that tiny gemstone? I'd forgotten all about it. Instinctively I felt my pocket, but of course I'd changed clothes this morning. Where had I put it? I'd worn my green slacks the day before. They were in the laundry now, which I knew Karen had not thought of, much less made an attempt on. I stood up, about to return home upon Emery's suggestion when I remembered: I'd put the stone in the car, in the change holder in the console between the seats. It should be there now, where I'd parked out front.

“Go,” he said. “Go now.”

I'd locked the car, a habit I'd yet to change from all my years in Atlanta, although no one else in Peace Valley ever seemed to lock their cars. The stone was still there, and I held it in my palm again. This little gem stone had stunned Angela Steele as she stood by my car window. This stone had canceled her anger and made her afraid. I turned it over in my palm. Anita Wagner's personal effects remained in a plastic bag in a storage closet near my office. No one had come to claim them. I returned to my office with the stone in one hand, the bag in the other. I opened it and dug through her clothes – the black leggings and orange shirt, and found the shoes. I set them both on my desk. A double row of fake, clear gem stones ran in a band across the top of each shoe. The right shoe was missing the last stone on the outside, the prongs that would have held it in place pried open and splayed out. I placed the gem stone from my hand in the middle of those prongs. It was a perfect fit.

I disliked this development intensely, as I'd just congratulated myself on finishing this distasteful death. “This means nothing,” I told myself. “I'll forget it.” I dropped the gem stone into the pencil tray in my desk, slid Anita's shoes into the bag, and put it back in its dark storage closet, from whence it would be tossed into the trash dumpster next Friday by Patty, never to be considered by me again. I wanted badly to dust my hands together in a movement of finality and self-congratulation.

“Ivy,” he said.

“Shut up, Emery,” I replied.

Patty had left the instructions for the surveillance system on my desk, so I spent the next hour reading its headache-inducing complications. This seemed a good activity while Patty was recovering from her head-ache. She'd written a note to me about my responsibility, which was simply to view the tape on my desktop computer when I needed to. The software had been installed and it was ready to go. I made a cup of coffee, dug into Patty's snack stash, and settled into some light morning viewing of nothing at all – nothing at the back door, and nothing in the morgue.

The surveillance cameras were set up with motion-sensing technology also, which assisted by noting on the video stream the moments when motion occurred. In the morgue – hopefully – this was not an issue, as nothing at all should be moving in there. But by the back door, in the dark of a summer night by the trash dumpster, the activity was higher than in day time. I saw a few raccoons, a few possums, and one feral cat creeping across the steps.

Bored to tears by this activity at 10:30 a.m. in a quiet office, I drank three cups of coffee and listened to Led Zeppelin while the footage kept rolling. I don't listen to Led Zeppelin in front of other people because it destroys their perception of me as a ditsy old grandma. But the truth is that Led Zeppelin was important in the music of my youth, and in moments of private boredom, it keeps me going. I was returning to my desk with my fourth cup of coffee doused with vanilla creamer, rounding the desk corner to view my computer screen, when something caught my eye. A shadowy figure was crouched over the back door, fiddling with the lock. He was there a long time, his entire body obscured by a huge black hoodie, long pants, and dark gloves. After several minutes in that position, finally he stood up, gingerly opened the back door to my funeral home, and stepped in. It was 10:02 p.m. the night before.

I stood there, cup in hand, shocked. I felt invaded, violated. I was instantly angry and slammed the coffee cup on the desk, causing a horrible mess. This was too much! This would try the nerves of the calmest funeral director on the planet! My hands were trembling, but I sat in the chair and switched to the second camera, the one in the morgue. I had to know. I forwarded the time to 10:05, assuming the intruder would need a couple of minutes to finagle the lock on the morgue door. Sure enough, at 10:08, the same dark figure entered the windowless room, switching on the light. He walked to the wall of cabinets and tried one after another, searching for Anita's body. Was this Myron, I wondered. Was he enraged that he was prevented from managing his wife's remains? What would he do?

The intruder found Anita's cabinet at last. He unlatched it, rolled the stretcher out, and tenderly lowered the plastic sheet from her face. From the gentleness of movement I felt it could not be Myron, not from what I'd heard of him. Was this someone from the Gillespie family? His hands moved down slowly and then lifted the plastic from Anita's feet. He lifted the plastic there as well and cradled her right foot in his hands, the foot with the tattoo. This was what he came to find, to see, to touch. His hands were small, delicate, and then I realized it was a woman. It must be Desiree, come to say good-bye one last time.

Her shoulders began to shake in weeping, and she put her hands to her face. Even on a surveillance video, the wrecking emotion in the woman's form was painful to observe. She leaned forward against the cabinet wall, placed her hand on the body, and then jerked them away. She covered Anita's body again in its plastic sheeting and, covering her mouth with one hand, slid the stretcher in and closed the cabinet. She lay one hand on the door in a gesture of good-bye. Then she cried much more, and the hood fell from her head. The bright auburn hair was unmistakable. It was Angela Steele.

I gasped. This, I had not expected. The hardened woman, the angry woman, had been weeping in my morgue only twelve hours before. She followed me here – drove those miles simply to see her sister's body. Why didn't she come before? Why didn't she come with Desiree and take charge of the funeral, plan a memorial, pay her respects in a proper way? Why this breaking-and-entering in the dark, this private grieving in a cold morgue? It made no sense to me. As with all this family's behavior, it made no sense at all.

On my computer screen, Angela Steele turned around, her face red and swollen with crying. She wiped it with her hoodie sleeves and stood clearly in front of the camera lens, unaware I would be watching her. Her shoulders and chest shuddered with grief and loss that had in no way been assuaged by viewing the body moments before. Her expression – how can I describe it? – was not what I expected. It was the face, not of a woman ending something, but of a woman only beginning. She was beginning something long, exhausting, unwanted, but necessary. She was setting her stubborn self to the terrible task and moving forward. I recognized that face; I'd worn it myself after I left Sam, after I'd decided to start a new life for myself away from him, away from Atlanta.

Suddenly the room went black and I heard the morgue door shut and lock. The remainder of the video was blank. I sat at my desk pondering this woman's actions: her anger in Maude's room at the nursing home, her rage at my car window, the sudden deflating of anger when she noticed the gem stone in my car, the long drive to Peace Valley, the risky breaking-and-entering at the morgue, the overwhelming passion of grief at her sister's body. There was one more emotion I'd seen in her face, simmering low under the rest. She felt guilt. Somehow, she felt guilty about Anita. There was a look of weary responsibility in her eyes that was misplaced for a woman who had nothing to do with Anita's death and was not responsible for the funeral arrangements.

A tiny thought struck me then, as I sat musing in my office. Why exactly did Anita Wagner leave her niece in charge of her funeral? If she had a sister, a sister that devoted to her, why choose the niece? Why had Angela Steele been so absent in the entire event, until last night in the morgue? Had Anita Wagner considered her twin sister so inept as to overlook her for the task, choosing instead a niece who was utterly negligent? Again, I felt frustration rising inside me.

The front door opened. I heard Plato meow. He scurried into my office to sniff Beau and say good morning. He ignored me, of course, as cats always do because I wish they wouldn't.

“Good morning, Patty,” I called. “I hope you're feeling better?”

She coughed. “Not much. That Myron Wagner gave me this headache yesterday.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. I walked to her desk. “Pull up the surveillance video from last night, Patty. I've got something to show you. Put it around 10:00 last night.” I perched on the edge of her desk. It groaned a little and I shifted my weight. “We had a visitor.”

Patty shot me a look and quickly pulled up the video. We watched together as Angela Steele jimmied the back door lock. Patty was stunned. “We're gonna need an alarm system next!” she exclaimed.

“Switch to the morgue camera now,” I said, “and watch this.”

Patty was silent as Angela Steele broke into our morgue, handled a dead body, and wept her agony all over again against the hard metal of the cold chamber. I could feel the resentment and disgust wafting off my secretary's body as I hovered over her shoulder. Then Angela turned to face the camera, wiping her face again, looking up. For a few moments her face was clear on the screen. Patty gasped. She clicked the keyboard to pause the video, and Angela's face froze on the screen.

“That's not --” Patty said, startled. “That's – I don't know.” She shook her head. “That's not what I expected.”

“I know!” I responded. “I thought it would be Desiree! But it's Angela, the twin sister! She never even came up here after Anita's death, and now she shows up on our surveillance video!”

Patty swiveled her chair around and looked at me. “No,” she said. “That's not what I meant.” She pointed to the screen. “I can't be sure, I really can't be sure,” she said, “but that woman in the video, the woman who broke into the morgue, I think that's Anita Wagner!”

To read the next chapter, please click here.

Copyrighted by M.K. Christiansen

The Appearance of Death, Chapter Twenty

 (To read all previous chapters, please click on the title in the header bar above.)

Chapter 20

I packed my little bag and checked out, utterly dissatisfied. It was useless to stay here, useless to engage Angela Steele again. She was hard as iron and unwilling to open up, even the smallest bit. All funeral directors know that some families will be uncooperative, some funerals will not go well, some situations will be unpleasant. To be honest, I was professionally affronted by their reticence, their lying. What would Emery Plott have done in my place? I wish I were in the office to have another quiet conversation with him.

As I approached the interstate I saw a sign for the road where Maude Prescott's nursing home was located. I had nothing in particular to ask her and no reason to revisit our conversation, but I found myself driving in that direction. My heart was pounding. I felt resentment. I knew I was going to see her again simply because her daughter had told me not too. It was a bit early to show up at a nursing home, but the girl at the front desk remembered me from the day before and smiled, waving me down the hall. So I went.

She was asleep. Slits of light filtered into the room as before. The clock ticked on the bedside table. One of her hands twitched and rustled on the sheet but otherwise she lay still. I approached the bed slowly, observing her troubled, sunken face, so riddled with the scars of a life of fear and sorrow. How many regrets did she rehearse in her mind each day? Did she now wish, after so many years, that she'd never given Anita away? I bent over her head and wondered who had ever comforted her.

Then I heard a movement behind me in the dark, a step coming from the shadow behind the door. “What are you doing here?” the woman hissed. “I thought I told you to leave my mother alone!” Angela Steele's form appeared before me and even in the dimness of that room I could see – I could feel – the fury in her face. I was afraid and backed away from her. “Get out!” she said fiercely.

Her mother stirred. She struggled to sit up in the bed. Then behind Angela I saw Desiree appear as well. They'd both been there, hidden across the room from the bed, before I came in. Maude Prescott's body shook with the effort to right herself and see what was happening in her room.

“Anita?” she said, shakily. “Anita? Is that you?!” She peered at the woman at the foot of her bed. Then she fell back and began to weep. “I thought you was dead, Anita!” The sobs shook her body. “I thought you was dead!”

Angela struggled past me to her mother's side. “Mom, it's Ange. It's me, Ange. Anita's not here, Mom. She's not here. She died up in South Carolina weeks ago.” And the daughter stroked her mother's head with such gentleness I would not have recognized her as the same woman. Whispers of tenderness and comfort issued from one woman to the other.

Desiree Steele gripped me by the elbow. “I think it's time you left, lady,” she said. Her voice was like ice. “We don't need none of yer help here anymore.” She pulled me toward the door. “You need t' go back up to yer town and take care of what my aunt asked you t' do, and stop causin' more grief here than you know.”

The mother's sobs and the daughter's soothing whispers made me wonder if Desiree's words were true, and I found my way outside. It was time to go home, time to give up this charade, time to cremate the body and move on. I sat in the car, my hands trembling on the steering wheel. I didn't trust myself to drive yet. I needed to calm myself, to make sure I would not cry in frustration while 18-wheelers barreled past me on I-85. I tried the breathing exercises I'd used ever since childbirth classes all those years ago. Breath in for four seconds. Hold. Breath out long and fully for four seconds. Hold and relax.

Tap! Tap Tap! My eyes flew open and I looked up at the driver's side window. Angela Steele was there, her face still red with fury. I didn't want to hear what she had to say. I certainly didn't want her that close to me, angry as she was.

“What?” I asked, putting on a face of assertive confidence that I didn't feel.

“Roll down the window!” she yelled. She'd wanted to yell inside the nursing home, and now she could. “I want to talk to you!” In the brilliance of the morning sun her auburn hair was shimmering and only a thin thread of gray shone along her part. Her blue eyes were livid with rage just inches away from me.

I frowned and shook my head. “This will do just fine. You're too angry,” I replied through the glass.

“You bet I'm angry!” she retorted, and slapped the car with her palm. “I'm telling the nursing home staff to prohibit you from visiting my mother. And I'm contacting your professional organization to lodge an official complaint!” Her voice rose with each sentence and her wild eyes flitted from my face to the trees overhead to the inside of my car. “If you ever --” she railed again, but her voice broke off. Her eyes had fallen on something in my car, and seeing it had stopped her in mid-sentence. Her face fell, softened, and all intensity drained from it. Her lips came together, and slowly she backed away from the car. But still she looked at me, differently now, a wash of fear coming over her face. She backed further away, at last folding her arms across her chest and around each other like a child protecting itself. One hand gave a small flip as if to dismiss me. I stared at her, trying to understand what had just happened. Finally, I drove away.

Five hours of driving alone through Georgia is a long time to think. Concerning Anita Wagner's case, my mind was a blur of confusion and chaos, and I could not order my thoughts. After breathing deeply and listening to some James Taylor on the CD player, I attempted to rid my brain of her death, her family, her tattoo, anything about her. I turned my thoughts instead to Karen and Rick, Jeffrey and Jimmy. Of Beau and how he must be missing me. Of the meals I should be cooking for them and the cleaning and chauffeuring and playing and long talks on the porch at twilight I should be enjoying with them. Why had I allowed my work to consume me so? As I drove along, whenever the tiniest wisp of thought concerning the funeral home tried to wiggle its way into my mind, I'd beat it back, focusing on my family, my life, my own dear concerns. Who cared about Anita Wagner? Why should I care more for her than her own family did?

By the time I'd reached Atlanta my heart rate had calmed itself a little. I stopped at the Dwarf House Chick-Fil-A, always a comfort. Instead of a chicken sandwich, I got a Hot Brown and some sweet tea. North of Atlanta I stopped for a Krispy Kreme jelly-filled donut to top off my sugar intake. By the time I reached the South Carolina line, I had ordered my head again and righted my world. I decided that, first thing in the morning, I would proceed with the cremation of Anita Wagner's remains and be done with that huge headache. Patty Goyle and I would find a new normal at the office, and all would proceed in Peace Valley, at least with the care of the deceased, unruffled and boring. I needed boring. I wanted desperately to sit quietly in my office with Beau whiffling quietly on his chair and Patty gently scraping away at her fingernails with a file. I wanted to sit with Karen on her bed and eat ice cream. I wanted never to see Angela Steele again. I wanted to be done with Anita Wagner's death.

I got to the office about 3:00. Patty looked up as I came through the door.

“So,” she said. “How'd it go? Find any skeletons lurkin' in any closets?”

I groaned loudly. “I don't even want to talk about it!” I moaned at her. “Those people in Opelika are crazier than anybody I've ever known!”

“That bad, eh?” She smacked her gum in such a way that demonstrated decades of practice. It had just the right amount of sassy crack in the back of her mouth. “Well, it ain't nuthin',” she went on, “compared to the hullabaloo we had here yesterday.” She gazed at me from eyes narrowed into slits. “Myron Wagner's back in town. And he's hell-bent on destruction, lemme tell yoo.” She nodded. “He's gonna have sombody's head, and I think it might be yours.” She swiveled her chair around and crossed one scrawny knee over another.

“Whatever!” I replied. “I don't care. I've just been two rounds with Angela Steele, and he can't have anything on her. That lady's wackadoodle!”

Patty, whose face had been grim the moment before, burst into peals of laughter. She slapped her desk and had to take her reading glasses off her nose before they fell on the floor. She guffawed until Beau, who must've been sleeping soundly in my office, stumbled from the hallway and gazed at me lovingly. I think he was surprised at Patty's uncharacteristic silliness.

“Beau!” I exclaimed, and held out my arms to him. He grinned for a moment and then remembered that he was supposed to be grumpy at me for leaving him, at which point his face turned sour, his mouth turned down, his tail drooped, and he slunk back into my office.

“Oh, good grief,” I said. “Even my dog's treating me bad.”

“He don't like it when yer gone,” Patty noted. “And that girl of yer's been callin' me this mornin' too, wonderin' when yer comin' home.”

“I've got a cell phone,” I replied. “Why didn't she just call me?”

“She don't want to disturb you, I 'magine,” Patty answered. “She knows this case is driving you near crazy. Although why, I can't imagine.” Patty returned her focus to her fingernails and looked away. “You just outa forget that there tattoo, cremate that body, and move on. Ain't no sense in disturbin' yer life over it.”

“I agree, Patty,” I said. “That's exactly what I'm gonna do, first thing in the morning.” I walked to my office, put my purse on my desk, and took off my shoes. Emery's urn sat on the shelf. “I'll get back to you later,” I said to him. “We have things to talk about, you and I.” Why oh why couldn't Emery Plott have lived just a few weeks longer, and handled all this?

Patty appeared in the doorway. “Yeh talkin' to somebody?” she asked. “Y'know, he'd a been mystified by this one too, Ivy. He would.” She picked Beau up and sat in his chair, setting him delicately in her lap. “By the way, yesterday after you left, Herbert Plott came by. He sat and visited the longest time. I told him we'd had a break-in, so he went right out and got a security camera and had 'em put in this mornin'.” She pointed with a polished aqua-colored nail out my office door. “One's in the morgue, and one's over top o' the back door.”

I nodded. That was a good idea, although it did us little good now.

“And he installed a better dead-bolt on the front door. It was busted and I hadn't been usin' it in the longest time.”

At 5:00 we closed up shop and I drove home with Beau nestled in my lap under the steering wheel. I decided then and there that I'd never travel out of town again to hunt down information concerning a funeral, no matter what. If the family did not care to fully inform the funeral home on any matter, I would tell them to have the body transferred to a different facility, and I'd send them a bill for whatever services I'd already rendered. I sighed deeply, smiled a little, and tapped the steering wheel along with “Copacabana” on the oldies station. My stress was ever so slowly subsiding as I neared home.

To read chapter 21, please click here.

Copyrighted by M.K. Christiansen

The Appearance of Death, Chapter Nineteen

 (To read all previous chapters, please click on the book title in the header bar above.)

Chapter 19

I'd made a reservation at the Opelika Holiday Inn Express for the night, but after the stressful, quiet aggression of my conversation with Angela Steele, I felt a need for better spoilage. I went instead to a lovely Bed and Breakfast on College Street in Auburn. There a mild-voiced hostess soothed my distress, and I laid down my bulging overnight bag and my quivering anxiety in a small cottage on the back of the property. I stretched out on the bed, closed my eyes, and pondered what to do next. If anything, my intuitive suspicions of the Prescott family were more intense, my inner warning buzzers going off – something was awry, somebody was deceptive. But what? And who?

My mind kept returning to the two women, standing in a semi-dark house in full cleaning gear. It didn't look like a house that was habitually deep-cleaned. Why were they both cleaning house on a Monday afternoon? Do neither of them work? And why was Angela Steele adamant that I not speak to her mother? What was she afraid I would be told?

My room dimmed as the afternoon progressed and the shade of the live oak trees deepened. I drifted into sleep. I woke at nearly 6:00 p.m., hungry and wondering what to do next. I knew I wanted to talk with Mrs. Prescott again; her daughter's warning had only peaked my interest. And although it made me scared to think it, I wanted to see inside that house, to roam around and find out more about Angela and Desiree, who together were preventing me from doing my job and putting the woman they said they both loved, to rest.

I stopped in Sonic and ordered a burger and fries and a lovely, creamy Chocolate Hazelnut milkshake for supper. Loud college students buzzed around the place, lively and fun-loving. I wondered about somber Desiree. Did she ever have this fun life? She seemed only to have been at her mother's beck and call, and perhaps her aunt's. Did she long to escape, as Anita had failed to do, to get away from the despair of such a sad family? And why – oh, why – did a family feel so compelled to lie to me, a funeral home director whose only desire was to help them?

A stubbornness grew in me as I nibbled on my French fries. I would not let them win, would not let them conceal and deceive. I wrapped the remaining hamburger in its foil cover, tucked it into a bag on the passenger seat, mourned the melting of my shake, and backed out of Sonic. Only the fries were finished one at a time as I drove out to Angela Steele's home once more. Perhaps I needed to be more direct. Perhaps I should be more aggressive, even accusatory.

But there was no need. When I arrived at the house no one was there. The Toyota Camry was gone. After parking Simone two blocks away under a spreading pecan tree, I returned and approached house. I walked around the house boldly, knocking on each door. I peered into some of the windows. Nobody was home. When I found the front door locked, I went around to the back again. There must be a key hiding somewhere. I tried all the flower pots, most of which were broken and cradling dead vegetation. A few loose bricks revealed nothing when overturned. Then my eye glanced on the windowsill beside the porch where I was standing. It was a bit of a reach, but I could just touch the key lying there. I inserted it in the lock and turned. The door opened silently.

As I entered the porch and laundry room a memory flashed into my mind, a memory of Desiree Steele's words to me on the phone. “I ain't got no car.” She's used that as the reason she couldn't come to the funeral home to speak with me. “I ain't got no car.” But certainly her aunt's car had been at the house in Peace Valley. The Toyota Camry was there, and then it was gone, and I'd assumed Desiree had driven it away. Then it appeared here, behind the house in Opelika. Did she drive it or didn't she? Was it her car or Anita's? Why tell me she has no car to drive, and then proceed to drive it all the way to Alabama?

The Steele women were frustrating me more and more. I stumbled my way through the dark kitchen, afraid to turn on any lights. Why were they cleaning today? What would two women want to clean the most? I examined the kitchen first. Angela Steele was nothing like her tidy sister. This home was disheveled and neglected. Most of the cabinet shelves were bare of food, with only a scattering of canned goods and plastic dishes. The refrigerator contained spoiled milk, a tub of hummus, some shriveled garlic and onions that had turned soft and begun to grow, a plate of hard pizza, and some mayonnaise. The milk smelled. But from the light of the open refrigerator I could discern the food crumbs and dirt in the corners and under the cabinets, the filthy dish rag hanging on the stove, the splatters of food encrusted on the counters, the sink full of days' old dirty dishes.

This was not a house that had been been deep-cleaned that day. What were those women cleaning? Certainly not the kitchen. I walked through the shadowed living room, past the front door, and down the dark hall. As I entered the bathroom on my right the aroma of bleach overwhelmed me. If Karen hadn't taught me how to transform my cell phone into a flashlight, I'd have seen nothing in this room. I held the beam of light in front of me and began a slow inspection. New towels hung straight and fluffy on two racks on the wall. The shower was pristine – not a stain, not a hair, its curtain scoured white. The toilet had been scrubbed, a new roll of paper hung unused, and the entire unit wiped down, although no cleaning wipes were in the trash can, which held a new plastic bag but no trash at all. The floor in particular was utterly unsoiled, as if someone had scrubbed every grout line with a toothbrush. I leaned over and shone my phone light in the crevices and had to admire the cleaning skills of Angela and Desiree Steele.

The sink and mirror were the same. There was nothing to find here, and everything. A bathroom this clean must have needed it, and badly. A woman who kept a bathroom this clean and a kitchen that dirty was either deranged or had something in her bathroom to hide from prying eyes. I was more determined, more intrigued.

The hallway was lit somewhat by ebbing sunlight shining through the windows in the front door. I walked its length, past one messy bedroom, another tidier one, and a third at the end used for storage. This seemed promising, so I roamed around, reading the hand-written labels on the boxes and bags. Clothing, out-grown clothing, linens, yard-sale items, Mrs. Prescott's belongings and childhood keepsakes were bagged and boxed in this room. Tired now from my adventure in crime, I sat on a large plastic tub and foraged through a box of family photos.

Maude Prescott was easy to spot; she looked much the same. She smiled nervously holding a baby, helping a toddler ride a bike, tying a sash on a prom dress, then holding a grandbaby. The family didn't have many photos, and most were Polaroid or Instamatic shots, faded and curling around the edges. I found no pictures of Desiree past infancy, with a few photos of Angela, who looked much younger but thin and anxiety-ridden like her mother, holding the baby awkwardly on her bony hip. She couldn't have been older than fifteen. The backgrounds of these shots were always weedy lots, decrepit cars, or falling-down trailers. It showed a family life full of hardship and stress.

In the bottom of the box, which I had to inspect using my phone light, I found at last a small booklet of photographs, including a few of the twin girls about thirty-five years earlier. They were identical with curly blond hair and round faces. In the photo, they'd been propped on a brown, tattered couch, one baby leaning on the other. They wore red bibbed rompers frilled around the thigh, and chunky leather Mary Janes. Scribbled under their feet on the photo's edge were “Anita” and “Angela.” Angela, whose face was wrinkled in anxiety and anger, was leaning against Anita and clutching at her romper. Anita's face was placid. She was the bigger of the two, but a thin plastic tube ran from her nose, across her cheek, and disappeared into her hair. I remembered that Maude Prescott had given away this baby because her medical needs were beyond the family's ability to cope.

Other photos of the twins showed them swaddled together in a metal bassinet, cuddled in a stroller on a brilliant, sunny day, sleeping on a hospital baby blanket laid on matted shag carpet. Maude's hands were always on the girls, holding them, keeping them together. In one photo Anita, whom I could now recognize by her larger size, was noticeably blue and languid. She looked unwell.

I didn't know how much time had passed since I entered the house, and a sudden dread of panic overwhelmed me that I might be caught here by the women. I closed the box, stood up, and exited the room. The setting sun shone even more strongly down the hallway from the front door as I walked its length. Something – I don't know what – caused me to turn around one last time and look at the hall. That's when I saw my footsteps quite distinctly on the carpet there, my paces as I returned from the back room, only those returning steps. They were darker than the surrounding carpet. I stood and studied them, mystified. What could that mean? I walked slowly back down the hallway, avoiding the dark footprints. They started just outside that storage room, in the middle of the carpeting. I stood and looked at that first footprint I'd made. Then I bent over and touched it. I touched all the carpet around it and found that a portion of it, right in the middle of the hallway carpet, was wet.

This was something to ponder, but I felt I had no time to ponder. Anyone could look in the front door of the house and see me, standing there, staring at the floor. Why was it wet? On my knees, I inspected with my hands and found a round portion of the carpet, about eighteen inches by twelve inches, to be damp but not soggy. It was carpet that had been cleaned and blotted dry, but not spilled on and forgotten. At last, in addition to the pristine bathroom, I'd found another place in the house the women had cleaned. But why? What stain was here?

My knees hurt, so I sat my bottom on the carpet and rested for a moment. Getting back up would be a challenge, as it always was. I'm 5'6” tall, and comfortably over 200 lbs., and getting my body up or down any distance, for any reason, is quickly becoming a least-favorite activity. I put my hands behind me on the carpet, rolled my head around to stretch out my neck, and found myself looking up. Above me was the familiar rectangular panel of a pull-down attic staircase, its string dangling far over my head.

The damp carpet circle was exactly where the bottom of the attic stairs would be, when lowered down. I sighed. Something had come down those stairs, something requiring cleaning. I couldn't turn back now; I knew what I had to do. I clutched the pull-string in my hand and lowered the stairs. They made the metallic, musical creaking that such stairs do as I lowered the bottom set of rungs down to the hallway floor. As I studied the carpet now, it was clear the soiled portion was at the base of the stairs. Again, I pulled out my phone light and examined them before I ascended.

The thin wooden treads were scraped and scuffed and several had splinters ripped from them as if heavy trunks had been hauled up and down. Probably, they had. I didn't know what I was looking for as I crept up the stairs one at a time. Blood? Hair? Skin? A weapon? I rolled my eyes at myself at that thought – why would there be a weapon here, when Anita Wagner's body was found unassaulted two states away? My mind was running away with me! I placed one hand on the rickety railing and then the other on the upper ledge of the attic opening, slowly raising my line of sight into the pitch black heat of the space overhead. I raised my phone light to illuminate all my fears, but there were none. The attic was nearly empty. A battered plastic Christmas tree leaned drunkenly against the sloping roof line. Its tinsel trailed across the floor to me. Several smashed glass decorations lay around, along with stacks of newspapers and a few old magazines. I climbed through the opening and sat on the edge of the floor, my feet dangling onto the steps below. What had fallen from this space, down these stairs, and caused a stain on the hallway carpet?

I turned slightly and noticed a cardboard box behind me, positioned perfectly for someone who might sit just where I sat, legs dangling just as mine were. The box was full of partially empty liquor bottles: gin, vodka, rum, a little whiskey, and a small glass. I reached behind me and picked up the rum. Cruzan Black Strap Molasses. I unscrewed the cap. A fine sweet aroma wafted out. So – someone sat here, drinking privately. Angela? Who was she hiding from? Desiree? Or perhaps it was the other way around? That seemed more likely. What had caused the stain? A bottle, fallen down the stairs and smashed at the bottom? That answer was within reason, but then why were both of them cleaning it up, if one had wanted to hide the drinking from the other?

I sighed and looked down. On the end of one of the stair treads, wedged next to the metal hinge that allowed the stairs to lower, something flashed at me as my phone light passed near it. I reached down and felt an object, small and hard. It was a rough, clear gem stone. I held it in my hand, turning it over like a coin. It was cheap, a decoration on a tiara perhaps, or a dance costume. Or even a dress or shirt, I thought, as I weighed it in my palm. A bit heavy for a bodice. But, I mused, it would be perfect on a shoe. Then my mind raced back to another house, another set of stairs, and a shoe perched jauntily at the top of those stairs just as I sat perched here. Only at that house a dead body had lain at the bottom of the stairs instead of a smashed bottle of liquor.

A meaningless coincidence, I thought. My mind was racing into illogic and drama again. I gazed at the simple piece of cheap plastic in my hand. How could it be significant? It wasn't. But … but, I thought. I can't be sure. I can't be absolutely sure until I compare it to Anita Wagner's shoes back at the funeral home in Peace Valley. The gem stone slipped into my skirt pocket. I went down the stairs one at a time on my bottom, closed the contraption up again into the ceiling, flipped off my phone light, and turned to leave. On a whim, I crouched down again to look at the damp area. I leaned over as far as I could and smelled it. They'd done an amazing job. Liquor is a strong aroma, but it was entirely gone. Rather I detected only a scented rug cleaner, probably Resolve. I pressed my fingers into the pile and a few faint bubbles rose to the surface. They hadn't quite completed the rinse. And as I knelt there at the foot of the stairs a strange, disconcerting feeling twinged in the pit of my stomach, a tingle, a feeling I was beginning to recognize in myself that I disliked intensely. A hidden, native instinct in me knew that this was a place of death – this little spot in a hallway. I drew my hand away quickly and stood up. If the soul could smell, there was a whiff of spiritual decay in that place.

I made my way gingerly through the house, onto the porch, and out the door, replacing the key in its hiding spot. There seemed nothing else to see. The back yard was vacant of trees or shrubs or flower beds, a sagging chain-link fence the only ornament along a far border. The only other object in the back yard was a battered trash can next to the stairs where I stood. The thought then occurred to me that people throw away things they intend to conceal, assuming that when the item is in the trash it has then effectively disappeared. I looked around; no one looking out a neighbor's windows could see me here. I lifted the lid of the trash can and untied the bag on the top.

The first thing I found was a can of Resolve carpet cleaning spray. Under it was an empty bottle of bleach, some Pine Sol, a worn-down scrub brush, and many wet paper towels. Beneath that was another plastic grocery bag, tied closed. I worked the knot open and revealed the contents. Under more wet paper towels, stained brown and red, was a box and some plastic containers. The box read: Clairol. Natural Looking. Nice 'n' Easy. Light Warm Auburn.

I sat in my car for a good half-hour pondering all I'd seen. I suppose it wasn't a stretch to assume both Anita and Angela might use the same hair color. But for them both to have colored their hair within a week of each other? Perhaps. And the gem stone? And the shoes? And what about the tattoo? Had anything I'd seen today helped me uncover my conundrum concerning the tattoo?

As I drove back to my Bed and Breakfast I discovered I was exhausted. I didn't even want to eat dinner, so I knew I felt awful. I returned to my snug cottage, drank a little can of V-8 juice from the mini-frig for dinner, and fell into a dead sleep on the bed. I did not wake until 6:30 the next morning.

To read chapter 20, please click here.

Copyrighted by M.K. Christiansen

The Appearance of Death, Chapter 18

 (To read all previous chapters, please click on the book title in the header banner above.)

Chapter 18

The drive to Opelika, Alabama, three days later was rainy. My windshield wipers slapped back and forth, and a few drivers pulled into the protection of the overpasses. The Deep South's pine forests seemed misty and brooding along miles of highway. I rolled down the passenger side window to let in the smell of rain. The morning was quiet and sleepy. I'd left Beau at home with Karen. Patty promised to take him to the funeral home most days to visit with Plato the philosopher cat, and steal his cat food.

I drove lovely country backroads from Peace Valley all the way to Athens, after which all roads lead to the horrible vortex of Atlanta's interstate insanity. It makes no difference if you take the loop or head through town; all is terrifying chaos. I stopped at Chick-Fil-A, fortified myself with a frosted coffee, and dove into the frantic drag race. Traffic like that feels like a deadly whirlwind, and merging into it is throwing yourself, eyes squeezed shut, into death. I know it's only driving through Atlanta, but every time I feel I will not survive.

From there it's a straight shot down I-85 to Opelika. I resisted the urge to detour to Callaway Gardens, a favorite day trip during my Atlanta years, instead setting my mind on my goal: the Prescott family. I would discover their secrets on this trip and not return home until I did. I arrived in Opelika around noon, grabbed a bite at a downtown pub, appreciated the attractive renovation work the city had done there, and headed south of town to the last address I had for Maude Prescott, Anita's biological mother. It was a trailer park off the highway.

The woman who answered the door was not Maude Prescott, of course. That would have been too easy. She scowled at me a bit, but when I mentioned that I knew Desiree Steele, and that I was tracking down family members because of a death in the family, her interest was peaked. She told me that the mother had been moved to a care facility in Auburn. This surprised me; Maude Prescott couldn't be much older than I was.

“She's in terr'ble health,” the woman said, shaking her head. “Smoked like a train. Riddled with cancer. I think it started on 'er skin and moved to her organs.” She leaned in and whispered then. “An' if you ask me, I think she did some drugs too. She was scrawny, looked like she was an old woman.” She paused, took a long drag on her cigarette, and coughed. “I'm down to just ten a day,” she said proudly. “Wait, I'm wrong. Maude was in Auburn, but they done moved her back to Opelika recently, t' that place on Pepperell, I think. Check there.” She tapped her ash onto the stoop and went back inside.

I had little trouble locating the nursing home, and when I presented my card from Peace Valley Funeral Home and told them I was looking for Maude Prescott regarding the death of her daughter, the nursing staff was helpful. I was warned she was in poor health, had breathing assistance, and was often confused, but that she'd be glad of a visitor.

Her room was dim and silent except for the gravelly rasp of her breathing. Thin slices of sunlight from the window blinds made lines across the wall and her bed, and a few dappled shadows played on the blanket. One hand held the sheet in a fist. She was a slip of a woman, her neck thin and taut, her arms fleshless, her skin dull, and patches of gray hair stuck to her cheek and temple. The room smelled of sweat and urine. In the corner and beside the sink counter the floor tiles were chipped and grimy. An orange ring stained the sink drain.

“Mrs. Prescott?” I spoke loud enough to rouse her. Her eyes flickered.

“Mrs. Prescott? I've come about Anita.”

Her eyes were clouded blue. They searched the room until they found me.

“Anita.” She gazed at me. “You're not Anita.”

“No, ma'am. I'm Ivy Monson. I've come about Anita's funeral.”

“Funeral?” Her eyes closed. Her forehead gathered into a cluster of lines. “Anita's funeral.”

“Yes, ma'am. I'd like to ask you a few questions if I can.”

She stirred then, her legs rustling under the bedclothes. She licked her dry lips and pointed. “Could you get me a cup a water?” she asked. Her voice was soft and slow. I handed her the cup. She pulled herself up in bed, spilling the water down her loose nightgown. “What can I he'p you with?” she asked.

“Mrs. Prescott, Anita left instructions for her cremation. I have not yet cremated the remains because none of the family is in Peace Valley. Her husband hasn't yet returned, and your granddaughter, Desiree Steele, left town without meeting with me.”

“Did you bring the ashes with you?” Her eyes began to fade as she looked at me.

“No, ma'am. I haven't cremated her yet,” I answered, pausing for that fact to sink in. “Do you know if there will be a service of any kind? Her instructions did not say.”

Maude Prescott said nothing. She licked her lips again and reached for the empty glass. I filled it again.

“Mrs. Prescott, your granddaughter was left in charge of all arrangements but she's not answered my phone calls. I've driven here all the way from South Carolina to find her and finalize the arrangements --”

“Yeh drove here from South Carolina? For Anita?” Her weary eyes searched mine.

“I – I, well, yes. Mrs. Prescott, I have one more question. Do you know if Anita had any tattoos?”

She was gazing toward the window now, and the slices of daylight from the blinds cast thin bands of white across her face. I wondered if she longed for the outdoors, for the world beyond this room, for the sunlight. Her eyes looked as thirsty as her lips had a moment before.

“Tattoos?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Anita didn't have no tattoos.”

“Are you sure?”

“She didn't have no tattoos that I knew of.” She looked down at her thin hands, sinewy and riddled with veins. “She weren't th' tattooin' sort, Anita. That's Ange. Anita didn't care for marrin' her body. She were right careful with herself.”

I sat in thought. This brief description matched what I'd heard of the women. I realized suddenly that this was why the tattoo bothered me – it seemed out of character with the woman who'd died, almost as if someone had tattooed her after her death, against her will. This desecration of a body was a horror to me – me, who could assist in an autopsy, embalm a corpse, dress the dead, stitch closed the gaping mouth, commit the body to flames and sort through its ashes. But our work was a sacred trust, and the idea of someone altering Anita Wagner's body after her death, of giving it a mark that she'd not have chosen for herself, offended me.

Maude Prescott turned to me. “Where was it?” she asked.

“On the bottom of her foot,” I answered.

She sat bolt upright in bed. “On the bottom of her foot?” she asked. “What was it?”

“A heart,” I explained. “A red heart with the letters “A” and “D” inside.” I leaned toward her. “That's why I had to ask someone. Desiree didn't know anything about it. But --” I didn't want to tell it all. “But, the tattoo was not there the night we found her. Then the next morning, it was there.”

“What?”

I nodded. “I need an explanation for that, Mrs. Prescott, before I feel right in cremating your daughter.”

Something in those words caused her to cry. Perhaps it was the word, daughter. She slumped back on her pillows, folded her arms into her sunken chest, and closed her eyes. I heard no weeping, but her quivering shoulders showed it all. I knew there would be no more conversation with her, and I felt horrible for causing her such grief. I place a hand briefly, lightly, on her shoulder and turned to leave the room.

“You'll bring her to me,” she mumbled. “When yer done. You'll bring her back to me here. I want her ashes.”

I couldn't answer. I couldn't promise that.

Angela Steele's home was located between Opelika and Auburn near the Auburn Mall. It was a duplex. The adjoining half was boarded up, but her residence had a chair on the front porch, a battered upholstered lounge chair. An ashtray rested on the porch rail. Two thin cats lay on the chair seat. The screen door was broken and leaning against the wall. I knocked. When no one answered, I walked to the end of the porch and leaned over, looking down the side of the house. Anita Wagner's car , a Ford Focus, sat there in the back yard. Desiree Steele was here.

I knocked again. “Desiree, it's Ivy Monson. I need to speak with you. If you're here, please come to the door.” No one seemed to stir. “Ms. Steele, your aunt's car is here. Unless you possess the title to it in your name, I will have to call the police and report a car stolen from a deceased person whose body is still in my care.” All this I said clearly and loudly enough for anyone nearby to hear.

Footsteps. A bolt was drawn and the door opened. Desiree Steele stood before me, disheveled as before. Her t-shirt was wet. She wore dish gloves.

“Sorry. I'm cleanin' th' house.” She stepped aside to let me in. “Mom!” she yelled. “Mom, the funeral home lady's here!”

The house was hot, although I could hear the constant low hum of a window unit in a room somewhere. From the front door I could see the living room, the hallway, and part of the kitchen. It looked like the house was only barely lived in, as if someone had moved their furniture and half-emptied boxes into it, and then left for a few months. There were no refining touches, no pictures on the walls, no rugs on the floor. It had a barren look. Curtains covered all the windows completely, creating a dark, musty atmosphere. A woman came from the kitchen. It was Angela Steele.

“This is my mom,” Desiree said, “Angela Steele.”

“Mrs. Steele,” I said, turning to her. “It's good to meet you. I'm very sorry about your sister's sudden death.”

She came from the darkness of the kitchen into the semi-gloom of the living room. Her hair, spilling out of a head-scarf she'd been wearing for house-cleaning, was the same bright auburn red as her twin sister's. She was dressed in black yoga pants bagging at the knees, a pair of plastic flip-flops, and an Auburn University t-shirt. Her face, as far as I could tell, was identical to Anita's in its shape and features, but the look was different, even though I'd only seen the other woman in death. I'd expected this sister to be hard, calloused, guarded. Guarded she was, but calloused she was not. She stood like a nervous cat, ready to flee out the back door. She nodded at my condolences.

“What can we do for you?” she asked. Again, I'd expected a voice like her mother's, hoarse and deep from smoking. Instead it was soft, like a girl's.

“I'm trying to finalize your sister's arrangements,” I said.

“I thought she left instructions, notarized instructions.” I saw her head turn. She looked at Desiree.

“I give 'em to 'er,” the girl said quickly. “Just like --” She cleared her voice. “It was just like she wanted.”

The woman spoke again. “The body's been cremated?”

“No,” I replied. “First, I could not contact Miss Steele,” and I waved my hand toward her, “and second, I feel that the body was tampered with after we placed it in our morgue. Until I understand how and why that occurred, I'm reluctant to cremate the remains.”

The woman stepped forward. Her face was now in better light. Her eyes were crystal blue, intelligent, surprisingly assertive now as she spoke. “Aren't you obligated to perform the wishes of the dead person?” The corners of her mouth turned down. “I wouldn't think you'd have a right to delay.”

I returned her gaze. “Mrs. Steele, first of all, I had no indication that any family member would come either to claim the ashes and urn, nor to pay for the cremation, and your sister's instructions clearly stated that her husband – the only family member who I could reasonably expect to return to Peace Valley – should have nothing to do with it.” I stepped toward her. “That's why I've driven all the way here to find you. I've already spoken with your mother in the --”

“What?” she expostulated. “You spoke to my mother? You went to the nursing home?” Her face darkened and her body stiffened.

“Yes, it was the first contact information I had, and it seemed reasonable to contact Mrs. Wagner's mother first. Especially if I wanted explanations about her personal life.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. Her voice was clear now and full of anxiety.

“I mean the tampering I referred to,” I told her. “Miss Steele must have told you.” It was at this point, I think, that I realized in the back of my mind that Angela Steele's speech was so different from her family's. She had no accent of poverty, no cowering stoop. She possessed a clarity of speech that belied the life she must've lived in the trailer parks of Opelika. “The tattoo.”

She pursed her lips and glanced down. “Yes, the tattoo. Well, that means nothing.” Then she leveled her gaze at me again, and in an attempt at confidence she said, “You must've overlooked it that first night. It was late. You were tired.”

I sighed. I was weary of this game. “No, Mrs. Steele, I did not overlook it. I stood at the foot of the stretcher as the coroner first examined the body for at least fifteen minutes. I looked at the bottom of your sister's feet in the bright lights of the morgue.” Here, her eyes flickered in doubt. “I noticed her callouses, the bunion on her right foot, the chipping of her half-grown red toenail polish. I'd hardly have missed a heart-shaped tattoo.” I said the last sentence slowly, clearly, clipped. She flinched.

“What do you want from us?” Her voice was hushed again, and she receded into the shadows.

“An explanation of it.”

“We have none. How could we?”

My stomach turned in agitation. Frustration rose within me. I could tell – I simply could feel – that they were lying. They were withholding information that I'd driven five hours to discover. I clenched my fists around the straps of my purse.

“Mrs. Steele, I am unable to release the remains of your sister until this is explained. I'll be filing an official report of unknown misconduct with the medical examiner. There may be an investigation, until we discover what was done to that body.”

She was silent. Desiree, behind me, seemed to have melted into the darkness of the house. Then Angela said, “Do what you must. I have nothing more to say.”

I turned to leave. Then she added, “Except – stay away from my mother!”

To read Chapter 19, please click here.

Copyrighted by M.K. Christiansen