Dead Body Language (18 page)

T
here’s nothing lonelier than a funeral party with no live guests. At the end, it was just me and the corpse, commiserating in silence in the chapel. Lacy looked peaceful, lying there with her hands crossed on her chest—ironically, they were posed in the ASL sign for “rest.” I wished that peaceful feeling would brush off on me, but my anxiety wouldn’t abate.

I recalled the photographs of Lacy’s body on the grave, spread-eagle. It wasn’t the kind of body language she would present willingly, even in death. She looked more composed after her fall than in those snapshots. I scanned her emotionless face. The tiny face-lift scars had been covered expertly with makeup.

I glanced down at her hands, her fingers laden with ornate gold rings, three on each hand. The wedding ring was intricately molded, and featured a large diamond. I reached over to straighten the ring, which had twisted slightly, and felt the chill of her lifeless finger. And the dampness. I looked at my fingertips; a residue of creamy beige liquid.

Makeup, even on her hands. I guess it wasn’t so
strange, except that it was so thick, it hadn’t dried completely. I touched her finger again and gently rubbed the knuckle, removing the layer of makeup. Rough, jagged scratches appeared on the knuckle ridges.

I lifted her icy hand, examined the fingers closely, and replaced the hand, tucking it beneath the other one to hide the discovery I’d made. I wiped the excess makeup from my fingertips on the inside of her skirt. Puzzled, I stood there looking at her for several more minutes before I left the chapel.

Hoping he’d gone straight back to the office, I stopped by the sheriff’s on my way home from the funeral. I’d seen him leave soon after his talk with Mickey, and I wondered what his next step would be in the investigation.

I found him hunched over a pink paper plate filled with pinkish-brown appetizers from the funeral party, studying a sheet of pink paper.

“Hi, Sheriff,” I said, plopping into a chair near the desk. He nodded with his mouth full. He may have even said something. Tough to tell with that wad in his mouth.

“Some funeral, eh?” I said. “More like a nice cocktail party. Maybe the mortuary business would pick up a little if funerals were more festive and less depressing. Of course, you probably don’t want business to pick up too much, eh? You’ve already got your hands full.”

The sheriff nodded again. He seemed uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe there was still too much food in his mouth.

“So what’s new?” I waited for a response. He lifted his eyes briefly from the sheet of paper, not really looking at me, but acknowledging my presence. He swallowed what looked like something whole.

“It’s a curious case, Connor. And it gets curiouser by the moment.”

I picked a slightly squished canapé from the pink plate and popped it into my mouth. “What do you think happened to her?”

“I don’t know. I keep reading her note over and over. And the more I read it, the more cryptic it becomes. I know she wrote it—I verified her handwriting. And the
contents fit the notion of suicide. She was unhappy about losing her husband, and that’s pretty much what she wrote. But there’s something missing here. I just can’t put my finger on what it is.”

“What do you mean, something’s missing?”

“I don’t know. I don’t mean just the jewelry. I mean some part of the puzzle.”

I perked up. “Some of her jewelry is missing?”

He popped three puffy-looking things into his mouth and nodded.

“Yeah, a few things,” he said with some difficulty. “A couple of gold necklaces, a few bracelets, some rings, and a gold pin. The maid called this morning. Said she checked Lacy’s jewelry box and noticed the stuff was gone. She’s coming down to fill out a report.”

“Any chance the maid took them and is claiming theft after the fact?”

The sheriff shrugged, “It’s possible. But if she did, she’s a fool. We’ll be watching her closely and we’ll catch her quickly if she did.”

The sheriff was right. This Lacy Penzance thing was becoming curiouser by the minute. A check for five thousand dollars for a missing sister. A visit to a sister who wasn’t a sister. A faked suicide. A bizarre murder with a strange weapon and an odd murder site. And now missing jewelry?

“Sheriff, could I read the note?” I thought it might be a good time to ask. He seemed in the mood to share. After a moment’s hesitation, he handed it over.

“This doesn’t go in the paper, Connor, understand?”

I nodded absently, already absorbed in the haunting document.

The message was written on a pink sheet of paper decorated with little hearts. It appeared to have been cropped with a smooth but slightly uneven edge along one side. The script was curly, careful, and romantic. The paper was expensive, scented, and unsigned. It read:

That was all.

Inconclusive, to say the least. But perhaps significant when connected to the night of her death.

“Sheriff, do you know yet what kind of weapon killed her? It wasn’t the knife?” I knew it wasn’t. Mickey had blabbed. But I didn’t want to get my source in trouble.

“The M.E. says it was something long and sharp. That’s all he can tell us.”

“Could it be something like one of those instruments they use at the mortuary? You know, like a trocar?” I asked innocently.

He looked at me, definitely surprised. “Yeah, a trocar could do it. How do you know about that?”

“Oh, I took a tour of the mortuary with Celeste this morning. They have all kinds of embalming tools on view for the public. Some of them would make great murder weapons.”

The sheriff raised one eyebrow. “You took a tour of the mortuary? Now why is that, C.W.?”

I ignored his innuendo. “Sheriff, no other weapon besides the knife was found in or near the body, was it?”

He blinked; the eyebrow arched a little higher.

“And you’re fairly certain she didn’t kill herself with the knife even though there was a note, right?”

“So.”

“So what do you think happened?”

The eyebrows fell, along with his shoulders. “All’s I can figure is, this thing, whatever it was, was probably inserted into the body first, then removed. Why, I don’t know. Then most likely the knife was stuck in her. She lost a lot of blood, that’s for sure. There wasn’t much left.”

“So someone may have killed her with this thing, let’s say this trocar or something like it, then stuck in the knife
to make it look like she killed herself. Is that a possible explanation?”

That eyebrow again. It was getting a workout.

I continued before he could think beyond my suppositions. “And they moved her to the cemetery and planted that note?”

He pressed his lips together tightly. That face was a mask of growing tension.

“It just seems awfully … arranged, don’t you think?”

He said nothing. At least I didn’t see his lips move.

I went on. “Almost dramatized, really. Or ritualistic, because of the loss of blood?”

He still said nothing. His face did all the talking.

“Any idea why she was killed?” I asked.

He pushed the plate of leftovers away, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and pinched the frown lines between his eyebrows.

After a moment I picked myself up out of the chair and said I had to be going. Newspaper to print and all that. When I reached the door, I caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye. The sheriff was waving his arms, trying to get my attention.

“Connor, you’re not snooping around on this thing, are you? Someone’s been murdered, and that’s nothing to make into a mystery puzzle for your paper.”

“No, Sheriff. I’m just trying to do a story for my newspaper, that’s all. I want it to be a thorough job. Which reminds me, did you ever get over to my place to check it out? With this Lacy thing—”

The sheriff held up his hands to stop me. “Yeah, yeah, I looked over your place. Found the key under the dog dish like you told me. Couldn’t find anything. Tried to take a few prints but your diner is covered in them, probably all yours. I had Mickey brush the doors and windows but he hasn’t come up with much. Did you ever find anything missing?”

“No. Wait—yes! In my medicine chest.”

“What’d they take? Drugs of some kind?”

Now I was really going to look like a flake. “I’m not
sure. I can’t remember what was there. Something I never use, I guess.”

“Then how do you know anything’s missing?”

“I just know.”

“You know, Connor, you might not be as safe as you thought you were around here, what with the murder and all. You might want to get some new locks on your doors and make sure your windows are secured. I’ll have Mickey cruise your house for the next few days. But lock up.”

“I always do,” I said, then waved him thanks and left the office feeling more than a little uncomfortable about the goings on in quiet old Flat Skunk.

The sounds of darkness were approaching. I don’t really know what sounds of darkness are, but the impending blackness of night must make some kind of sound. After all, you can see it, smell it, feel it, nearly taste it. I’ll bet you can hear it, too.

I swung by my office to whip up new phony letterheads and business cards, since “Arson Investigation,” “Amway Distributor,” and “Census Taker” wouldn’t do, then hopped back in my slightly injured Chevy and headed the two miles out of town to a Spanish-style villa up on the hill. Parking my car in the driveway, I took the clay tile path to the front entrance of the house and knocked on the metal-covered door.

The porch light came on and the door was opened by the maid, her dark eyes red-rimmed and her mascara smeared. She was dressed in a black polyester dress with a matching shawl, and was wearing black nylons without shoes. I guessed she had recently returned from the funeral and hadn’t yet changed.

“Yes?” She smoothed her cheeks with her fingertips and held the door open cautiously.

“Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you so late. I’m Lana Lang. I’m an insurance adjuster for the Smallville Insurance Company. I’m here to take a report regarding some missing jewelry from Ms.…” I checked my notebook, “… Lacy Penzance’s estate. You are the one who called, are you not?” I handed her my business card. Perry
White would have been proud. I figured the timing was right. The real agents would be there in the morning.

She nodded and opened the door fully. I followed her past the Spanish marble foyer into a sitting room on the right. The area was filled with objects of Spanish art, crafts, and culture. I sat on a wrought iron chair covered with a bright woven pillow that looked Peruvian or Guatemalan. I’d seen similar ones at the import store.

“I understand some of Ms. Penzance’s jewelry is missing.” I flipped open my clipboard and showed off my new letterhead. The Tiffany font was impressive.

“Some jewelry is gone, yes,” she said, in slightly altered syntax. The “Yes,” looked like “Ches” or “Jes,” but I could understand her well enough. She spoke slowly and simply, which made up for the differences in pronunciation.

“A pin, you know, that look like a golden sun. Three bracelets, all gold, kind of chunky, like little gold nuggets. And three necklaces that matched the bracelets. Oh, and four gold rings, big ones. They were kind of, how you say, curvy and not matching?”

“Free-form?” I said.

She nodded. “Yes, free-form. You want to see?”

I followed her up the tile stairs to Lacy’s bedroom. It was pink, of course, with large rose-colored flower wallpaper and green accents. Tiny golden birds were carved into the four posts of the bed. The woman, who had introduced herself as Carmen, unlocked a cosmetic vanity, using a key on a ring that contained numerous other keys of varying sizes and shapes. She pulled a jewelry box from its hiding place.

“I did not take them, you know. That’s why I reported it right away. Do I still have to go talk with the sheriff
mañana
 … tomorrow?”

“Yes, my investigation is separate from his. I think he just wants you to fill out a report.” I was beginning to feel a little guilty about taking advantage of the maid’s naïveté. But I had my own agenda to serve. And I wasn’t doing anything terribly wrong.

I opened the box and fingered through the items. A few silver pieces were left, and other miscellaneous jewelry,
some with gems, pearls, or other stones embedded in them. But according to Carmen, most of the gold items were gone.

“Do you mind if I look around for a moment?” I asked. She shook her head and shrugged simultaneously, then sat down on the end of the bed, ostensibly to make sure I didn’t take anything while I snooped. I didn’t mind having her there. If I got caught investigating, at least I wouldn’t be accused of stealing something myself.

Carmen switched on the small bedside television while I dug around in the drawers of Lacy’s bureau, looking for something of value that the thief might have overlooked. I was especially puzzled as to why he had only taken the gold.

There were lots of used cosmetics tucked away in the drawers; a half-empty container of Retin-A, skin peelers, cover-ups, collagen creams, and vials of expensive makeup from the cosmetic boutiques at the better department stores. Bottles of antiseptics were the only odd items grouped with the makeup. I wondered what she needed antiseptics for. To keep germs out of her recent incisions, perhaps?

Underneath the dresser I found a drawer filled with boxes of Maxi pads. Odd. This woman should have been menopausal, unless she was on hormones. There was always the occasional need, I supposed. I pulled a box out to check behind it and realized it was heavier than I expected. I opened the floppy lid and removed the contents.

Journals. I checked the other three boxes. There were four journals in each box, the kind of notebooks that are covered in flowered fabric and sold at the stationery stores to make your writing seem more important, or at least prettier. I glanced at Carmen, engrossed in a
Roseanne
rerun. Spreading the four most recent journals on the floor, I opened the first one and read a few lines.