Invisible (26 page)

I put the two photographs together, and we studied them side by side. Yes, if I mentally blocked out the dark hair, there just might be a family resemblance between the two.

Beth nodded agreement. “It could be her.”

“What was the sister’s name?”

“Um, I’m not sure . . . Oh, I remember. Debbie.”

“I’d really appreciate anything more you could tell me about either Debbie or Ray.”

“I remember Debbie was supposed to be a real computer whiz—”

A phone rang somewhere back in the house. Beth looked that way but didn’t move. “Ray was majoring in some kind of engineering. I don’t think they had any family. Ray had insurance money from when their folks died to pay his way through college, so I suppose Debbie did too. But Ray was no goof-off, taking it easy. He was a great guy,” she added, as if she wanted to be certain I understood that.

My thoughts were more on Debbie. A college-educated computer whiz. With insurance money paying for a college education. But if Debbie Etheridge and my Kendra were one and the same, why would such a person use someone else’s identity and work at sleazy Bottom-Buck Barney’s? Had Ray perhaps bought a used car at Barney’s, and she thought some defect in it had caused his accident?

“Hey, Beth, where’d you go?” a male voice yelled from somewhere back in the house. “Your mom’s on the phone.”

“Do you have any idea where I might get in touch with Ray or Debbie, in case one or both of them isn’t dead?”

“The Alexanders might know.”

“I talked with Marcy Alexander, but . . .”

Beth nodded understandingly. “I know. They’ve stopped going to church, and they won’t talk about Kendra at all. I don’t remember where Debbie was going to college, but Arkansas State might have an old address for Ray.”

“Which they undoubtedly wouldn’t give
me.
”

“That’s probably true.”

From somewhere in the house, “Beth! Are you coming?”

Beth rolled her eyes, and I got the gist. Husband and mother-in-law were not friendly chitchatters.

“I won’t keep you,” I said. I pulled out my notebook and scribbled my name and phone number on a page. “But if you think of anything, give me a call. Collect,” I added, since the modest house and car and pregnancy suggested they hadn’t funds to spare.

“Aren’t the police handling the murder investigation and the identity theft and everything?” she asked, obviously puzzled by my involvement.

“Oh yes. I just . . .” I floundered for a reasonable explanation of my being here. I couldn’t think of any, maybe because my involvement wasn’t all that reasonable. So all I said was, “The Kendra I knew was my friend, even though there were . . . puzzling circumstances in her life.”

“I hope you find out what happened to her.”

* * *

I hadn’t been worrying that my house might be vandalized again, but I was relieved to find everything safe and normal when I got home the following day.

First item on the agenda, I decided, was to figure out what to do with my new information about Kendra. I was certain I might have something important here. So, steeling myself for the reaction, I dialed Dix’s number.

24

I tried to ease into the situation diplomatically. I asked how he was feeling and what the doctors had to say. To which I got skimpy answers of “Okay” and “Not much.” So then, very casually, I slid into, “Has Kendra’s body been identified yet?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“The body is still in the morgue?”

“All I know is what’s in the newspaper.”

“What’s in the newspaper?”

“Nothing.”

The strong, silent . . . grumpy . . . male.

“Is Haley still helping you out?”

“She cooks. She cleans. She runs errands and chauffeurs. I have to go for physical therapy now. She drives me. I’m supposed to exercise with my walker. She nags me.”

“You don’t sound particularly grateful for the help.”

“She’s always sermonizing at me.”

“About exercising?”

“About God. Jesus. The whole enchilada.”

“Haley preaches at you?”

“Well, not out loud. But she wears those T-shirts with all their God messages.”

The man was complaining about T-shirts. “You really ought to work on your attitude, Detective Dixon,” I snapped. “If I were Haley, I’d be inclined to wrap one of those T-shirts around your neck—tightly—and shove you off that balcony.”

Silence big as some black hole in space.

“Maybe you’re right,” he muttered finally. My next thought was that if the T-shirt messages were getting to him, maybe they were doing their job.

“Okay, look, I’ve just acquired some information that may be helpful.” I told him that the guy’s photo was definitely identified as the real Kendra’s fiancé, Ray Etheridge, and that the girl I knew as Kendra was possibly Ray’s sister.

“Identified by whom?” Dix growled skeptically.

Now we were down to the nitty-gritty, and to give the information credibility I had to tell him where and how I’d acquired it. So I told him about Clancy and then held the phone away from my ear for the blast I knew was coming.

“Mrs. M., I told you to stay out of this! What have you got anyway, some mutant curiosity gene? Why don’t you just sit around and knit or play pinochle or gossip like other little old ladies? This isn’t your job, and it could be dangerous. You’ve already been vandalized once.”

A mutant curiosity gene! Well, maybe I did have one. But I wasn’t about to admit it. “That was cemetery business, nothing to do with Kendra and murder. But I guess you’re not the person I should be giving this information to anyway, are you? You can’t do anything with it or find out anything more anyway.” A blatant challenge to his blue funk, of course.

“I’m still on the payroll. I still have friends in the department. I’m not completely out of the loop.”

“Oh?” I deliberately painted the word with my own skepticism.

“You say someone says this Ray Etheridge may have been killed in an accident, maybe around here?”

“Possibly.”

“Car accident?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible he committed suicide.” Then I added a possibility of my own that no one in Clancy had mentioned. “Or maybe he was murdered, just as Kendra was.”

Another silence. Detective Matt Dixon, I suspected, might have been reluctant to encourage my thinking along these lines, but he had a curiosity gene of his own. Finally he said, “I might be able to talk to a guy. Or look through some records myself. I may take a desk job before long anyway.
Temporarily,
” he added, though I wasn’t certain if the emphasis was for my benefit or his own.

“Well, you do whatever you think is right.”

“I thought going after that crook at the house was right. And look where that got me. A leg full of more metal than a junkyard, Haley on my case, and Harmon running my murder investigation.”

“Feeling sorry for ourself, are we?”

“Ivy Malone, you can be a thoroughly aggravating woman.”

“I’ll decide later if that’s a compliment or an insult.” Along with considering whether Mac’s temporary suspicion about my having a midnight rendezvous with some man was flattering or insulting, a matter I still hadn’t settled.

Dix warned that I should consider the information I’d gathered confidential and not discuss it with anyone.

“But you’ll tell me what you find out? We had a deal, you remember,” I reminded.

“I’ll see.” A silent P.S.:
Don’t hold your breath.

* * *

After hanging up with Dix, I unloaded the car and put a load of wash in the machine. The phone rang just as I was closing the lid. Magnolia, of course. Mindful of Dix’s admonition, I skirted around the edges of what I’d learned in Clancy. I had something else with which to divert Magnolia’s attention, anyway.

“I ran into Mac MacPherson there.”

“Mac!”

“The town was having a meteor celebration. He was covering it for a travel magazine article.”

“Well, well, well.” I could almost see her squashing the phone closer to her ear in gleeful anticipation of juicy details.

Even if I’d been willing to share juicy details, I hadn’t any to offer, so all I said was, “We had a nice time at the flea market and carnival and bluegrass festival. And watching the shooting stars, of course.”

I left out my two nights in the motor home bedroom, afraid she might give that some erroneously juicy interpretation. Even holding that back, she pounced on what I’d told her.

“I’m getting vibrations of romance!”

“Just a casual friendship.” Quite casual, in fact, considering how fast Mac had zipped out of there.

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed, but then she took a philosophical view. “That’s how the best romances start.”

I’d barely hung up when the phone rang again. This time it was the deacon, Charley Mason, whom I’d talked with at the church.

“I didn’t see you at church yesterday, so I thought I’d call and bring you up to date on the cemetery matter.”

“I appreciate that. I was out of town for the weekend.”

“I talked with the pastor and other deacons and the board about the possibility of the church taking over restoration at Country Peace. They’d read in the newspaper about the vandalism there, of course, and everyone is interested.”

“Great!”

“Several of us drove out to look the situation over, and a couple of our members have been looking into details. Brad Englebretson works for the county, and he’s been checking up on ownership, who’s buried there, county regulations, et cetera.”

“Does it look possible?”

“We think so. It’s a murky situation, with all the officers listed on the Country Peace Association papers being deceased. But using information Brad gave me, and the Internet, I’ve personally located family members of several people buried there, distant relatives in most cases, but they’ve all been concerned and cooperative. I think we can count on some donations. It’s going to take a fair amount of money, of course. Getting those big headstones back in place will require heavy equipment.”

“Perhaps that Mr. Braxton would help. Even though his subdivision is some distance away, he was concerned about vandalism spreading to his equipment. Maybe he’d even contribute funds, since he was so generous with his offer of moving the graves and providing land for a new cemetery.”

“Actually . . .”

“Actually?” I prompted, sensing a bit of wariness here.

“Jordan Kaine, our other member looking into this, is a retired lawyer who’s had some courtroom dealings with Mr. Braxton. Jordan is a bit—” Charley Mason broke off, as if trying to come up with a proper word.

Surprised, I filled in the one that Charley’s reluctant tone suggested. “Suspicious?”

“Concerned,” Charley corrected carefully. “The reputation of Braxton Building and Development is not altogether savory. There have been lawsuits against them concerning shoddy construction and loan irregularities. Jordan thinks Mr. Braxton’s generosity may be motivated by a certain amount of self-interest.”

“If what he means by self-interest is that Mr. Braxton would benefit from favorable publicity, that may be true. But I’d think a generous donation would entitle the company to some publicity.”

Actually, I felt rather indignant about this attitude toward Mr. Braxton. Anybody could sue anybody over the most trivial of matters, and lawyers were sometimes all too eager to help them. Harley had even been sued once, by some woman who claimed he hadn’t put the pill bottle lid on tightly enough, so her expensive pills spilled, causing her both loss of pills and mental anguish. It came to nothing, of course, but the trouble it put us through . . .

“It’s just that there are some peculiarities about the cemetery and nearby property that Jordan is looking into,” Charley said.

“I see.” Although I didn’t, of course. “Will Mr. Kaine’s doubts about Mr. Braxton affect whether or not the church is willing to take over restoration of the cemetery?”

A moment of silence. “No, I don’t think so.”

That was all I considered important. Although Charley’s next cautious words were less reassuring. “Although it depends, of course, on how many roadblocks we run into.”

* * *

I didn’t hear anything from Dix the next day about Ray Etheridge’s accident. Or the following day. I decided maybe he was right. I should take up some age-appropriate hobby instead of muddling around in murder. I wasn’t enamored with knitting, pinochle, or gossip, but those quilts at Meteor Daze had looked interesting. I got a bunch of old scraps of fabric out of a sack in the closet and started cutting and fitting them together in a crazy-quilt design like the one I’d seen at the quilt show.

But by Thursday morning my eyes felt dizzy from all the different shapes and patterns of fabric, I’d stabbed myself with a sewing machine needle, and I started an allergic sneezing. My bird-track stitches looked more like drunken turkey trompings, and I was bored. I could admire the results of dedicated quilting, but doing it personally was about as interesting as counting beans. Another day and it would be me, not the fabric, that was crazy-quilted.