Family Skeletons: A Spunky Missouri Genealogist Traces A Family's Roots...And Digs Up A Deadly Secret (25 page)

Brooke stared at me for the longest time, and I knew what he was thinking before he even said it. Finally, when he could stand holding his tongue no longer, he said, “Please, tell me that you did not find this body.”

“No,” I said. “I didn't.”

“Ransford Dooley found the body, Sheriff,” Edwin said.

“Where were you?” I asked. “We wanted you to come riding up on your gallant steed and save the city.”

“I was at your house,” he answered me. “Having lunch with your mother.”

I glanced around nervously and could see Eleanore Murdoch with her stupid notepad and her stupid pen standing on the edge of the pavement. Just what I needed. Surprisingly, almost every face that I found in the crowd was a native of New Kassel. I couldn't see one tourist.

“You don't have to announce it to the whole town,” I said.

“Hey, everybody!” he yelled, as if he were going to shout it to the town.

I didn't find him amusing. I slugged him a good one just under his rib cage and he shut up, but not before having a really hearty laugh at my expense.

“Jerk,” I mumbled.

All the while, Edwin watched us, unsure of what to do. I wanted to tell him that the sheriff and I were basically teasing each other. Basically.

“Edwin,” he said. “Do not under any circumstances let Mrs. O'Shea know any of the details pertaining to the death of Ms. Dijon,” he said.

Edwin swallowed and looked at his feet.

“Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, of course.”

Too late now. But what the sheriff doesn't know won't hurt him. I decided to slip out of the circus quietly and walk home. From Marie's house all I had to do to get home was walk a few blocks east on Hanover, hang a left on River Point Road, and a few houses later I would be home.

I was happy that I had decided to walk home because it gave me time to think. So far in all of this mess, I hadn't thought about the one person who had lost her life on this day and that was Marie Dijon. I can't say that I knew Marie intimately, but I knew her as well as you could know an acquaintance in a couple of years' time. I had spoken to her on several occasions and I believe she was even at the opening of our museum this summer.

I did not know anything about her of a personal nature. She was not a native of New Kassel, and in a town where three-quarters of the population is native, the nonnatives stick out. I would go so far as to say that she was not from this region of the state at all, quite possibly not even Missouri.

I'd never seen a guest of any kind at her home and never heard her speak of a family member. That was the most tragic part of all, I thought. Nobody would mourn her passing.

Two

My husband, Rudy O'Shea, sat down on the edge of the bed and I studied him for a moment. He can be loud and obnoxious, but not nearly as much as I can be, so I try not to harp on it. He's naive and a genuine all-around good guy. He's only about five feet ten, which goes well with my five feet two, and he has chocolate brown eyes with a long face.

He's Irish, even though I know there is German in his family tree. I started tracing his lineage and his mother ordered me to stop. Any blood that's not Irish, they don't claim. Especially any blood that isn't Catholic Irish. Basically, my mother-in-law doesn't claim me because I'm neither of the two.

Rudy can tell anybody anything they want to know about holy days, holy weeks, how many candles to light for what, and any tidbit of information about saints and martyrs, especially if it's kind of gross. He can even name the popes in order.

But I'll be damned if he can tell you where the Battle of Jericho was fought.

He's not been to confession in several years and even longer since he went to church. I think the last time he went to confession was to confess that he hadn't been to church. Anyway, his mother of course blames this on me, along with our children's less-than-pure bloodline, of which I am wholeheartedly and completely innocent.

Rudy and I met in a hardware store, where I was working. I was standing on a ladder in the hardware aisle and he was buying a drill. He swears that he was so taken with my shapely legs that he didn't realize he was walking straight into the ladder. He knocked it over and I crashed. Our first date was in the hospital when he wheeled me down to the cafeteria for chicken-fried steak, which I detest, but it was the thought that counted. He insisted on paying for it, because after all he was responsible for my broken leg. I think I fell in love with him at that moment.

This morning, he had accompanied me to the funeral of Marie Dijon.

“I can't thank you enough for going to Marie's funeral with me,” I said to Rudy. He took off his tie and placed it neatly on his chest of drawers, next to the 5×7 photograph of our two daughters.

“Well, I wish I hadn't,” he declared.

“Why?”

“That was the weirdest funeral I've ever been to. Nobody cried,” he said.

“Well, none of us knew her that well. I'm sure we're all sad to see her go, but I didn't know her well enough to cry.”

“Yeah, but no family members cried,” he said.

“I didn't see any family members. I only saw about six or seven people that I didn't recognize. It was weird. And if you hadn't gone with me, Bernice Thorley would have insisted that I attend the funeral luncheon.”

Rudy sat on the bed and pulled off his shoes. He reminded me of a child because he didn't untie them first. Instead he pulled and yanked and tugged until the shoe came flying off. I could have told him to untie his shoes first, but after ten years of marriage if he wanted to keep his shoes tied when he took them off, so be it.

“What were you and Bernice Thorley discussing during the funeral, anyway?” he asked.

“I wasn't talking,” I said. “I was listening. She went on and on about how unusual Marie's will was.”

I took my right high-heeled shoe off with the help of my left foot, and then did the reverse with the left shoe. “How so?”

“Well, everything is to be auctioned. Only a citizen or business owner of New Kassel will be allowed to bid on it. No outsiders.”

I was sitting at my dressing table. I took off my small silver earrings and noticed that Rudy watched me from the other side of the room. “What?” I said.

“You should wear that dress more often,” he answered.

“It's too short,” I said. “But I had nothing else in black.”

“I know it's too short,” he said. He smiled like a schoolboy. “That's why you should wear it more often.”

“Oh, no,” I said. I laughed and jumped up from the dressing table. “Rudy, I have to get to the Gaheimer House and get some work done, before Sylvia has a fit. And you know Sylvia having a fit is one of the scariest sights ever recorded by modern man.”

“The kids are with your grandmother,” he said with a mischievous grin. He came toward me, a growl starting low in his throat. When he gets like that, I may as well just give up. He grabbed me and kissed me on the neck, tickling my ribs in the process. I giggled and squirmed and he tickled all the more.

“Rudy! I mean it, I have to get some work … done. Stop it!” I yelled, but it did no good. All of my protestations turned into giggles and it's damn hard to take somebody seriously when they're giggling.

We landed on the bed, him on top. I wrestled a hand free and gave him some of his own medicine. I counted his ribs, up and down and up and down, until I thought he'd get sick from laughing. I love it when men are ticklish. It's so unmacho.

“You have the most gorgeous green eyes, mademoiselle,” he said to me. I think he was trying to do a French accent, but somehow it sounded Hungarian. He jumped up off of the bed and took off running. I, of course, had to follow. He headed toward my office, which is the only other room upstairs, besides our bedroom and our bathroom. There we stood poised on the steps, him jabbing and I returning with jabs to his ribs. It was sort of like a sword fight without weapons. We circled each other, laughing.

I had the advantage. His back was to the steps.

“Okay, give up,” I said. “I have the advantage. You've got nowhere to go. No retreat.”

“Never!” he yelled. “Death first!” he shouted. He laughed wildly and pretended to lose his balance.

“If you think you'll scare me, you're sadly mistaken. I've been waiting for you to fall down a flight of stairs. That way I can be rid of you and it will be an accident,” I said through laughter. I was joking and he knew it. This was something we did on a fairly regular basis.

This time it triggered something. Instead of the usual finale where we collapse on the bed, almost too tired for the sex we were playing at in the first place, I stopped.

“What?” he said at my sudden soberness.

“I can be rid of you and it will be an accident,” I repeated, almost to myself. “It will
look
like an accident.”

“What?” he asked. He followed me as I headed back into the bedroom.

“I'm beginning to wonder if Marie Dijon's death was really an accident.”

“Oh, for Pete's sake!” he yelled. “You ruined my afternoon roll in the hay for that?” He was truly exasperated.

“I'm serious. She could have been pushed down those steps and nobody would ever know the difference.”

“That includes you,” he said.

I stuck my tongue out at him. I hate it when Rudy scores a point. “Okay, let me rephrase that. Nobody would know the difference, because nobody was looking for it. If I told the sheriff…”

“What?” he asked. “That you and your husband were tickling each other to death when you suddenly decided that Marie could have been pushed. Why? Why would somebody push her?”

“I don't know, but I just don't like the thought of somebody's life coming to an end because they tripped over their own house slipper or something.”

“So you'd rather they be murdered? Oh, now that's a more comforting thought.”

I suppose when put like that, it was rather ridiculous.

“All right, you win,” I said. “But I do have to get to work.”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“I never win. Especially not that easily. You could keep arguing until the cows come home. What gives?” he asked.

“Nothing. You win,” I said. “I was just being ridiculous.”

*   *   *

I was seated at the desk of my office in the Gaheimer House on Jefferson Street. The New Kassel Historical Society office and general headquarters are located at the Gaheimer House. The president is one Sylvia Pershing. She's about ninety-four. Nobody knows her exact age because nobody has asked her. She will never die simply because she's too mean. It's one of those situations where God won't have her and hell is afraid she'll take over.

The vice president of the historical society is her sister Wilma, who is for the most part Sylvia's exact opposite. She's quiet, happy, and remarkably prudish. Neither have ever been married.

Sylvia now owns the Gaheimer House, one of several historic homes in our town built by an early settler named Hermann Gaheimer. I'm not sure what my role is exactly, because I have no title. But I give the tours, which I get paid for, and I take care of records and transcribe original documents in the archives and courthouses. I've even hired out my genealogical services and traced family trees, including my own.

The lineage we get is completely random, by the way. There's nothing grand or glorious, there's no divine reason that one person has a better family tree than the next. I am a descendant of a Revolutionary War soldier who was at Valley Forge. I can lay claim to the Dukes of Abercorn, and Robert the Bruce. I also have a private in the Union Army of the Civil War, and a Confederate private as well, so I suppose that means that I'm at war with myself. I even have an Indian, and no, she isn't a Cherokee princess.

I also have my share of deserters, illegitimates, and even a murderer. No kidding, I have an ancestor who beat his wife to death with a piece of firewood because his dinner wasn't cooked right. They lynched him. Finding out who I am was so much fun.

I'm basically of Scottish and French stock, with a little English thrown in for good measure. But the French is the blood that comes through the most. I'm short, with green eyes, and I tan easily. I did not, however, inherit my French ancestors' dark hair. Mine can't decide if it wants to be blond or brown and thus changes with the seasons.

Sylvia came into the office, glared at me, and sat down. I didn't think anything of it. Sylvia always glares at me.

“Yes, Sylvia, what can I do for you?”

“That Sheriff Brooke of yours has cornered the Dijon market.”

“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “First off, Sheriff Brooke is not mine. He's your great stepnephew. Secondly, what the heck is a Dijon market?”

Sylvia wears her hair in twisted braids on top of her head, just as Wilma does. She's very thin, has silver gray eyes and entirely too much energy for somebody sixty-something years my senior.

“Marie Dijon. There will be an estate sale, and I've heard the sheriff is going to make a bid for everything in the woman's house. Nobody else in New Kassel can counter that offer.”

“Well, since he bought Norah's Antiques, he's been throwing everything he has into it. He's trying to set it up for his retirement,” I explained. Sylvia said nothing. She could more than afford to counter any offer that Sheriff Brooke wanted to make. I happen to know personally that Hermann Gaheimer left Sylvia a million and something dollars when he died in the 1930s.

It is knowledge that I should not possess.

Sylvia was single-handedly responsible for renovating the town and had loaned many people money to start businesses, interest free. She could counter his offer if she wanted. But she didn't want to draw too much attention to just how much money she was sitting on. She even made the town hold fundraisers for the historical society. Part of that was to cover up her wealth. The other was because she wanted the people of New Kassel to have to work for things. I understood that train of thought. Sylvia was such a complex person.