Dead Body Language (17 page)

“Everyone’s dancing, Connor. How about it? You can follow my lead.”

I glanced around the large room. It was true; people were actually dancing near, if not on, her grave. I declined, claiming a deadline I had to work on, and used the
break in conversation to escape the sheriff and his pending interrogation.

I scooted away and searched the crowd for Dan. I found him flirting with some tart in a dress two sizes too small for her.

“Dan, darling,” I said, batting my eyelashes the way I practiced in junior high. “The children will be wondering where we are. We’d better get home. Are you ready to go?”

“F
ive thousand dollars!”

I was sure Dan was shouting.

We were standing in a corner at Lacy’s funeral party collecting our things when I casually mentioned that a nominal sum of money was waiting for me at Croaky Wheeler’s office. I thought it might distract him from my wicked interruption moments ago.

“Shhh!” I said, glancing around the room for reactions from mourners, but no one appeared to be concerned with anything other than their drinks, snacks, and personal conversations.

“I’m whispering!” he said.

“Well, your face is shouting. Try not to look so … loud.”

He closed his mouth, pulled his head back a little, and then took a sip of his pink drink. “All right. So why are you getting five thousand dollars from this Froggy Whositz guy? What did you do? A little extortion? Some blackmail? Were you in Lacy’s will or something?”

“That’s just it! I honestly don’t know. She wanted to place an ad to locate her lost sister. I told her not to
announce the amount of the reward in the paper because she’d get all kinds of kooks. But I didn’t bill her for five thousand dollars—the ad only cost about ten bucks. And she didn’t ask me to hold onto the reward money for her.”

“Maybe she wanted you to have it when it came time to deliver. That way she wouldn’t be directly associated with the ad. Maybe she wanted to keep the whole thing anonymous, even after finding her sister. Odd that it’s the same amount that I found in Boone’s office.”

It was odd, her leaving me a check for five thousand dollars. Very odd. Now that she lay dead, what was to become of that money? It clearly didn’t belong to me.

“Dan, there’s a rumor going around that she was seeing someone. Did you know about that?” I still wondered if he knew more than he let on.

“Who—Lacy?”

“She was talking to her lawyer about a prenuptial agreement. That usually means a marriage is on the horizon. It’s pretty common for people with a lot of money to write up these things. Maybe it was someone she didn’t fully trust.”

“Hey, I’m new in town. I don’t know everything yet. I only hear the big news. If she was seeing someone, wouldn’t everybody know about it? Have you asked around?”

“The sheriff didn’t know anything about it. Lacy was apparently keeping it very quiet. I wonder why?”

“Maybe because her husband had only been dead six months. Maybe she thought people around here would talk, which of course they do. It’s a small town. And she looked like a very proper lady from her picture in the paper.”

“True. Maybe it wouldn’t have looked good. But here’s the big question. If she was about to marry someone else, suicide seems unlikely. Yet the alternative is even more puzzling. And what’s the connection with her search for her sister? I don’t get it.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. Of course, I’m always sitting in silence, in a manner of speaking. But it
seemed to be something new for Dan. He was getting squirmy.

“So, who do you think she was seeing?” Dan said finally.

“I don’t suppose it was you?” I asked, trying to sound casual. But it had crossed my mind. Even though they didn’t seem alike, opposites do attract.

He smiled and shook his head. “Not my type.”

I was tempted to ask what his type was, but I didn’t.

“You know, I think she’d been reupholstered recently.”

“What?” Dan looked half puzzled and half amused.

“A face lift, you know. She had some fading bruises under her eyes and around her jaw. I thought for a moment someone might have hit her or she’d been in a car accident or something. But the bruises were symmetrical. When she pulled her hair back, there were tiny scars along her hairline.”

“What’s that go to do with this?”

I ran a finger lightly under my eyes. “She was getting older. Maybe she was worried about her looks. Or maybe having a new man in her life made her to want to be more attractive and youthful again. I don’t know. She had the money. The sheriff said she’d spent a few weeks in Europe a couple of months after Reuben’s death. She could have had it done there and no one would be the wiser. Unless you know where to look for the scars.”

“Do you know where to look?”

I pulled my hair back. “Right here, see?” I made sure he saw the pristine, albeit slightly graying temples. I let my hair down. “Actually, you look pretty good, for your age,” I said. “Boone looks a lot older—and a lot different. Sure you haven’t gone under the knife?”

“Ha! No way. I told you, Boone is ten years older than me—and we have different fathers.” He paused, then went on. “You know, I’ve got a funny feeling my brother got himself into some serious trouble this time. Sitting around doing nothing is driving me crazy. I can’t just wait for him to show up—or not.” He pulled on his leather jacket. “You staying a while?” he asked.

I nodded. “Got some thinking to do, so I might as well do it here.”

“How can you think with all this racket—” he stopped, looked at me, blushed. “Sorry. I keep forgetting. You just don’t seem …”

“Deaf. That’s what I hear, so to speak. Keep in touch,” I said, as he sipped the last of his champagne. He gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. It was a disconcerting feeling.

I sat stirring my pink drink, watching the tiny bubbles appear and disappear. The stirrer was a little plastic arrow, about the length of a skinny pencil, with a tiny heart at the tip. I stuck the tip in my mouth and sucked off the drops of liquid.

As I held it up to read the fine print along one side, Mickey Arnold’s face came into my line of vision. He was standing a few feet away talking with Sheriff Mercer, frowning, gesturing, and looking as if he was discussing something very important. I couldn’t see the sheriff’s face but his body language was clear. He alternately nodded and shook his head as he spoke and listened to the deputy.

I held up the funeral program and feigned reading it while I peeked around the side to read the deputy’s lips.

“It just came in.” The deputy was breathing hard. He had one hand on his radio, the other on his gun.

The sheriff said something and Mickey gave a sharp, official nod.

“Confirmed. Definitely a homicide. The body was completely—” He turned his head a fraction and I lost his words.

The sheriff rubbed his forehead and spoke.

Mickey replied with two “Yes, sirs” and one “No, sir.”

The sheriff held him on the shoulder and said something up close and personal.

The deputy nearly saluted. “I’ll check on it,” I thought he said.

The sheriff massaged his temples with a clawed hand. I was worried he’d get a rug burn from all the rubbing. He walked over to talk with Lacy’s attorney. Mickey took a
half-empty pink drink from the table, downed it, and caught me looking at him. I waved the program at him.

He moved over solemnly, set his empty glass on my table, and plopped into a nearby chair as if he carried the weight of the funeral on his shoulders. “Hey, Connor.”

“Hi, Mickey. You look tired. Long day?” I stirred my drink again. I hated myself for being coy. “Is something wrong?”

He looked around for the sheriff, who was busy with the attorney, then leaned in. “Well, it’s definite. Lacy Penzance did not kill herself.” He checked again for eavesdroppers.

“Really?” I said. Although the revelation was no longer a surprise to me, the thought that Lacy might have been murdered caused the little hairs on my body to prickle and stand at attention.

“Yep, she was killed, just like I figured. The M.E. confirmed it. I told the sheriff. He said keep it quiet until the funeral is over.”

“What did the medical examiner say?”

“Well, here’s what’s really weird. He said Lacy was stabbed with that knife
after
another weapon was used to kill her. We haven’t found the weapon yet, but it was definitely not the knife. The M.E. said it was something long and thin. And get this—during the autopsy, they discovered there was hardly any blood left in her body.”

“Oh, my God. What happened?” I could feel my arms tingle with goose bumps.

Mickey folded his arms across his stomach. “We don’t know much yet. Still checking on it. I have some ideas, but I can’t say anything right now. I’ll let you know later, but I gotta keep it quiet until the sheriff says it’s okay to release to the public. You understand. Now don’t go publishing this in your newspaper.” He glanced again at the sheriff for a moment, then back at me. “Oops, Sheriff wants me. Hey, how about dinner tonight? Maybe we can thrash this thing through and come up with something.”

I nodded vaguely but was so engrossed in my own thoughts I didn’t even say good-bye. Lacy was murdered. Someone had actually killed her.

I swirled my drink again and pulled out the stirrer. This time, when I licked the tip, I stabbed myself in the tongue.

“Ouch!” I said, catching the attention of a few people standing nearby.

I looked at the weapon I had just poked myself with.

The weapon.

Something long, slim, sharp.

And, perhaps, missing from the mortuary? What was that thing they used to embalm the bodies? A trowel? A trucker? A trocar … that was it. The thing with a hollow needle. That pierces the flesh, then the artery. Then siphons out the blood.

It was long and slim and sharp. And missing.

I was jumping to conclusions. But what the hell. It made some sense. Still, why use a trocar? It wasn’t exactly the kind of weapon available at your local Wal-Mart. Only a select few would be able to get hold of one—and know how to use it.

French knew how of course. He owned the mortuary. But why would he kill Lacy? Maybe he was Lacy’s new secret lover, and he didn’t want Jilda to find out. He and Jilda had been seeing each other ever since I’d arrived in Flat Skunk.

Celeste? She knew the place intimately. She’d probably know how to use one of those things. Maybe she was Lacy’s new lover. You never could tell these days.

Any of the mortuary staff could have done it. Sluice Jackson cleaned up the grounds, did custodial work—he probably saw a lot. The guy was strange. And what was all that stuff he was mumbling at the mortuary this afternoon?

What about Wolf Quick? He seemed to have some kind of an association with Celeste. How easily could he get hold of a trocar?

Then there was Jilda. Maybe she was jealous. Maybe she—

Hell. I was jumping a little too far, even for a conclusion. I’d plotted too many mystery puzzles for my newspaper.

Still, a trocar would make a great weapon. There were no locked doors to the sterile room—I walked right in.
Anyone could have “borrowed” it for a while, if no one was around.

Maybe it wasn’t such a select group after all.

I looked around. The once-crowded room was rapidly emptying. Most of the food was gone, some of the decorations had been pulled down, either stuffed in purses or trampled by the guests. I assumed the music was still playing—a few dancers were bobbing their heads and moving their bodies to a silent rhythm.

Lacy had been murdered. There was a check for five thousand dollars waiting for me at her lawyer’s office. I had to find out what happened, not just for the newspaper, but because I still felt an obligation to her. After all, she’d essentially made her last request for help to me.

It wouldn’t be difficult to think up reasons for talking with people who might have had a motive, or a special interest in Lacy Penzance—or even an opportunity to take the trocar. And most folks would probably overlook me if I snooped around a little. That’s the way it is being deaf. Because we’re sometimes silent, we’re often invisible.

The whole thing was a long shot. Maybe Lacy wasn’t murdered with an embalming tool. Nevertheless it gave me the creeps to think a killer was lurking around our little town. That, coupled with the fact that someone had been poking around in my diner, made my skin crawl.

Surely, I thought, it wouldn’t take a whole lot of investigating to find out the whys and then the who. Not in a small town like Skunk.

Naïveté can be a wonderful thing. I didn’t know half of what was in store for me.

But the key, I was certain, was Risa Longo.