Dressed to Die: A Lindsay Chamberlain Novel (29 page)

Irene shook her head. "I don't know. I don't believe it,
but she does. I know Lila Poole. She's eccentric, but she's
never been known to be a liar and never been in any trouble. The only complaint about her has been from Georgina
Sothesby about her poaching. And frankly, nobody cared
but Georgina." Irene took out a cigarette and searched her
desk drawer for matches. "Maybe Ferris threw something
at her. Maybe Ferris's folks talked Lila into telling that
story, but I can't imagine Lila going for that. I'll talk to the
district attorney. You got a match?"

"No, I'm sorry."

Irene looked around in the drawers of the other desks in
the office, finally finding a book of matches. She lit her cigarette and took several drags. She shook her head. "That's a
strange story."

Lindsay didn't return to the department but stopped by the
library, the photo shop, a frame shop, and the grocery store
before she went home.

"I'll make us dinner," she said as she came in the door,
carrying sacks of groceries. "I hope you don't mind steaks
and salad again."

Sinjin took the sacks from her. "Sounds good. I'll fire up
your grill."

Lindsay busied herself with making dinner, washing the
baking potatoes and salad fixings, cutting the vegetables,
all the while forcing Derrick's news about the department
reorganization to the back of her mind. She mentally cate gorized recent events, matching clues with their respective
mysteries. When she got to Sally's attack, she realized she
didn't really know where to put it. She had assumed it had
to do with the missing artifacts, but it might just as easily
have had to do with the murder of Shirley Foster. It was
very inconsiderate, she thought, of the attacker not to mention which investigation she was to abandon.

"Think that salad's tossed enough?" asked Sinjin.

"What? Oh, I was just thinking."

"Want to tell me about it?"

"I was just-I'm going to lose my job, and I love my
home out here in the woods so much," she blurted, as tears
ran down her cheeks.

"What? Because of the artifacts? Lindsay, I'm sorry. Is it
because of the artifact mess?" He reached out and pulled
her to him, stroking her hair.

Lindsay cried into his shirt, then pulled away, wiping
her eyes with a paper towel. "It's not the artifacts. It's a
political reorganization thing," she said.

Lindsay took the salad to the table, tossed the potatoes
in the microwave, put the steaks on the grill, and sat down
with Sinjin before she told him about Derrick's call.

"Is he sure?" asked Sinjin. "It might be just a rumor."

"Derrick's pretty connected. He was sure that Lewis is
coming."

"It doesn't necessarily mean you'll lose your job. I
mean, they can't just fire you for no reason, can they?"

"They can just not renew my contract for next year. I
don't have tenure, and none of us nontenured faculty have
gotten our contract renewal letters."

"I tell you, the next time I visit you and Dad asks me to
bring anything, I'll make sure I toss it in the river on the
way out of town."

"You mean you were coming to visit me anyway?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I thought Dad had asked you to bring the crates and that's
why you came. I guess you had to go to Atlanta, though."

"No. I was mainly handling that by phone. I wanted to
come see you."

"I'm glad," was all Lindsay managed to say, but she felt
grateful to know that.

"Look, Lindsay. Things aren't over till they're over.
Don't give up."

"I won't. I'll see what my options are." Lindsay went
out to the deck to turn the steaks.

"Some detective named Kaufman called to talk to me,"
said Sinjin when she returned. "He's not the same one I
talked to at the station. Apparently, he's taken over the case."

"I've met him. That's another thing, someone from the
university sicced him on me. I don't know why, or who, or
what it has to do with. I think the sheriff of Dover County is
trying to find out who's behind it. I'm sorry you're in this
with me. What did Kaufman ask you?"

"About the artifacts found in my Jeep. I told him the
same thing that I told the others. Perhaps a little sharper."

Lindsay smiled. "I'm afraid I was a little sharp with him,
too. At least he knows it runs in the family." Lindsay put
down her fork. "Let me tell you what I heard today." Lindsay repeated Lila Poole's tale almost word for word. "It
was spooky."

"You don't believe it?" asked Sinjin.

"What do you think?"

"She's just superstitious. A more rational person would
have seen something different."

"No," said Lindsay, shaking her head. "She wasn't
superstitious. Just the opposite. She expects things to make
sense. When she saw something that had no natural explanation she could think of, the only alternative was to go to
the supernatural."

"Lindsay, people don't catch fire. The human body's not prone to spontaneous combustion like oily rags." He took
one of the candles on the table and passed a hand through
the flame several times. Lindsay winced. "See"-he held
out his hand to her-"not even red. I would have to hold it
over a flame for quite a while for my skin to actually catch
fire. People just don't burn that easily."

"Some people have," she said. "I've read-"

"Lindsay, in every reported case of so-called spontaneous combustion, there is a logical explanation."

"But I saw a picture of a woman burned in a chair. The
chair was ashes, but nothing around the chair was burned,"
Lindsay persisted.

"So? Look, Lindsay, a stuffed chair can smolder for
hours, reduce the chair to ashes, and hardly flame up.
Someone probably dropped a cigarette in the cushions, the
chair smoldered, and caught her clothes on fire."

Lindsay took the steaks off the grill and retrieved the
baked potatoes from the microwave. She dressed her potato
with butter and the steak with ketchup and took a few bites
before she spoke again. "The body is made up of, what, 60
percent water? What if the water broke down, through
some mechanism, into hydrogen and oxygen, which somehow helped cause a reaction between static electricity and
hydrogen in the body? Couldn't the body catch fire then?"

Sinjin was about to cut a piece of steak; instead, he put
down his fork and stared at her for a long moment. "What do
you do up in your room all evening, watch X-Files videos?"

"It's not possible?"

"No. Where did you get such an idea?"

"I went to the library and looked up a couple of articles
on spontaneous human combustion."

"I'm surprised they carry the National Enquirer."

Lindsay made a face. "What about Mrs. Poole's story?"

"Luke or someone could have threatened her, or she's
mistaken in what she saw. Seeing a person burn to death is a very traumatic experience. I can tell you that. It's not surprising that it left a disturbing impression. Besides, if she
had burst into flames through some kind of spontaneous
combustion, wouldn't the inside of her ribs show signs of
burning? Did you find that?"

Lindsay had to admit that all signs of burning were on
the outside of the ribs. But she wasn't willing to dismiss
Mrs. Poole's testimony. "What about the burning underwater part? Doesn't napalm, for instance, burn underwater?"

"Yes, many things burn underwater. I'll give you that.
The kid could have thrown something like napalm at her.
Maybe the woman didn't see him do that. It was getting
dark, remember."

"She said the car lights were on."

"That still wouldn't necessarily give enough light to see
everything going on. There would be strong shadows and
unlighted areas."

"Where do you get napalm? Is it something someone
could make?" Lindsay asked.

"Yes, it's very easy. I could make it probably from the
things you have around here."

Lindsay grimaced. "Could someone like Luke make it?
Don't you have to be some kind of expert?"

"No, you just need the recipe and enough sense not to
burn yourself up."

"But why would someone like Luke do that? That's such
a mean way to kill someone. Luke doesn't strike me as someone who would do anything that mean to another person."

"Lindsay, a lot of antisocial people appear to be nice
guys. Didn't the medical examiner take tissue and fabric
samples?" Sinjin asked. "A chemical like napalm would
show up, wouldn't it?"

"I'll give him a call and see if the results are in."

"Do that. You'll find out there was some outside ignition
source that caught her clothes on fire."

"The fire was very hot. It's hard to burn bone, but three
of her distal phalanxes were missing, and others were
burned white. That's a very hot fire."

"Do you mind if we quit talking about burned bodies
while I'm eating red meat?" Sinjin asked.

Lindsay grinned at him. "Sorry."

"That guy, Hank Roy Whatsit. His photo a match with the
skull?" asked Sinjin after a few moments of silent chewing.

"Yes, he was. I meant to tell you. I asked Derrick to look
for him in the newspaper archives in Kentucky. I looked
him up in the local papers but didn't find anything."

"We're making more progress than I figured," Sinjin
said, taking his last bite of steak. "We know who the poor
beggar was. If we can locate his next of kin, at least we can
tell them that he died standing in a cornfield wearing his
Sunday best." He put down his fork and knife. "I'll do the
dishes. Sally said she's coming over after dinner and bringing a movie, Double Indemnity. You don't mind, do you?"

"I'd like that." Lindsay helped Sinjin clear the table.
"You and Sally seem to be getting along."

"Like you said, we have a lot in common. She's a lot of
fun. I'd forgotten about fun. Kathy and I hadn't been getting along for quite a while. I hadn't noticed, because it got
to seem natural."

Lindsay left Sinjin to finish up in the kitchen while she
straightened the living room. She was taking the silverframed photograph of Sinjin with his father and mother out
of the bag when he walked into the living room.

"I got this for you," she said.

Sinjin gingerly took the photograph from her hands, sat
down in a chair and looked at it, touching it with his fingertips as if he could feel his mother's face through the glass.

"I made an enlargement for me, too. I hope you don't
mind," she said.

"Mind? No, I don't mind," he said. He looked up at her and smiled. "Thanks, baby sister. This is ... this is really nice."

"It just seemed ...... she began and stopped. "I think I
hear Sally's car driving up." Lindsay went to the door.

"Hi," Sally greeted, a video in one hand and a large tin
of three different flavors of popcorn in the other. "Sinjin
told you I was coming, didn't he? I hope that's okay."

"Come in. I need a diversion."

Lindsay had Sinjin bring the television from her room.
"I didn't realize it would be this much trouble," Sally said.
"I'm sorry."

"It's no trouble. I have hookups down here. I had two
TVs, but one burned out."

Sinjin connected the TV to the VCR and sat on the
couch. Sally sat cross-legged beside him. Lindsay sat in her
favorite chair, curled up with her feet under her. They
watched Barbara Stanwyck talk Fred MacMurray into
killing her husband-how easy it was for her. Lindsay wondered if there were women with that kind of power in real
life. She couldn't imagine it. She also wondered if people in
the forties really talked that way-tossing clever lines back
and forth so casually and with such deadly accuracy. Fred
MacMurray lit matches with his thumbnail, the way Sinjin
did. Lindsay smiled and scooped up a handful of popcorn.

"That is such a good movie," Sally said. "I don't know
why they don't make them like that anymore."

"What about Body Heat?" said Sinjin. "Corruptible nice
guy and simmering broad."

"Body Heat?" said Sally. "No."

"Yeah, that was almost as good," said Lindsay. "And
Chinatown, and LA Confidential."

"Okay, they can make movies like they used to when
they try," conceded Sally. "I'd never noticed it before, but
did you see how much the young Fred MacMurray looked
like Pierce Brosnan?

Lindsay rose and stretched. "It's those dark Irish good looks. Very nice. I'm going to turn in and leave you two to
discuss film noir. We'll have to do it again. It's been the
most relaxing time I've had in a long while."

"I need to get home. Thanks for having me out," Sally
said.

"I'll walk you to your car." Sinjin gathered up her popcorn tin and walked with her out the door, just as Lindsay's
phone rang.

"Lindsay, this is Irene Varnadore. I hope I didn't wake
you."

"No, not at all."

"I'm sorry to call so late, but I just got back from a date
with that friend I told you about. Davis Kaufman and his
wife went with us. Davis told me a little about who put the
bug in his ear, and for what it's worth, I told him that I
thought he had you pegged wrong."

"Thanks. I really appreciate that. Who is it?"

"Some bigwig in the administration. All Davis would
say was that it was an associate dean."

"Lindsay, you have nothing whatsoever to link Dr. Einer
with the thefts. This isn't like you," Frank said, scowling at
her from behind his desk. "Do you know how many associate deans there are on campus?"

The next morning Lindsay had marched into Frank's
office first thing. She stood in front of his desk now, looking down at him. "It's slim, I know, but there's a connection. And why would whoever it was tell Detective
Kaufman that he had suspected me of stealing antiquities
for a long time?"

"It was probably a miscommunication. Lindsay, I don't
need this, and you don't either."

"I have nothing to lose. I believe my fate is sealed," she
retorted.

He was silent for a long moment. "So, you've heard."