Last Seen Alive (8 page)

Chyna glanced at her watch and saw that she’d spent more time looking at the album than she’d realized. The morning was almost gone and she had errands to do in the afternoon.

She began moving around briskly, found the blow dryer, finished her hair, pulled it back into a long ponytail, and slid into brown slacks and a red sweater. At least she’d remembered to bring the jacket that matched the pants. After all, she wanted to look presentable at the funeral home. Some blue-gray powder on her eyelids, bronze blush, and matching lipstick brightened her face. She stood back and studied the result. She decided she looked almost normal. Almost if you didn’t know she wasn’t usually so pale or cursed with mauve shadows beneath her eyes.

When Chyna took the blow dryer back to her mother’s room, she heard scraping against the back of the house—not

the gentle scraping of leaves in the breeze but the definite scrape of wood or metal against the stone. She also heard a voice. Someone singing. She froze, listening. The melody was something she’d never heard before. The notes were flat. There was no real rhythm or timing. Michelle, standing beside her, perked up her ears. Oh God, no, Chyna thought. Not another voice out of nowhere. Not another voice telling her …

“Satisfaction … oh no, no, no! I can’t get no …”

Was she hearing a voice from the “netherworld” mangling with loving gusto “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones? No, it couldn’t be. Chyna had heard many odd and frightening things through her sixth sense before, but nothing quite this wacky.

She went to her bedroom window, glanced out, then raised the window. A slim, brown-haired man stood on a towering ladder, his gloved hands raking at leaves in the gutters as he sang with passion, bobbing his head to a beat that was unfathomable to anyone but himself. Chyna looked at him for at least a minute as his voice grew louder and his head bobbed faster. He finally came to the end of the song, whooped in ecstasy, looked over at her, and almost fell off the ladder.

“Good God!” he shouted.

“Sorry to scare you,” Chyna said, trying not to burst into laughter. “I was drawn by the music.”

His good-looking face flamed, his ears so red they looked like they were going to catch on fire. “I didn’t think anyone was home. I clean out Mrs. Greer’s gutters every year and I didn’t think this year should be any different. I know she’s passed on, but people will be coming to the house and she’d want everything to look perfect.” Then he squinted through the bright sun at her with clear green eyes. “Chyna? Is that you?”

“Yes. I flew in yesterday. My rental car is in the garage.”

“Well, geez. I gave us both a fright. I haven’t seen you for at least ten years. Gage Ridgeway.”

“Oh, I remember you, Gage,” Chyna said, still smiling. In

fact, I just read about you in a newspaper article, she thought You were the boyfriend of Edie Larson, one of the girls who vanished. He would be about Chyna’s age, now, and he’d grown into a striking-looking man. But then, he’d also been a striking-looking teenager, with no shortage of girlfriends. She continued to smile.

“How are tilings with you, Gage?”

“Fine. Still working at the construction company. Grand-pa’s dead, so it belongs to Dad and me now. My grandfather built this house, you know. That’s why I do the handy work around here. Grandpa thought a lot of your grandfather and of this house. He said it was the best one he ever built and as long as there was a Ridgeway alive,
we
were going to take care of it, not some amateur who’d cobble up the place and do more harm than good.” Gage removed one of his gloved hands from the gutter and brushed at some leaf flakes on his face and hair. “I’m really sorry about your mother, Chyna.”

“So am I. Her death was a complete surprise”

“No kidding. I saw her last Saturday. That storm we had nearly demolished your brother’s old clubhouse. He was in Pennsylvania at his sister-in-law’s wedding and your mom had me come out here and finish tearing down the place and haul off the scraps. She acted okay that day. Oh, maybe a little pale and quiet, but I put that down to her being shook up over the storm and worrying about tearing down Ned’s clubhouse without asking him first. You know how he was about the place.”

“He was ridiculously possessive of that stupid building. It should have been torn down years ago—it was a ramshackle eyesore on an otherwise beautiful back lawn.” Chyna sighed. “I’m glad to know Mom didn’t look sick earlier in the week. I’ve been beating myself up for not being here when she died, but I didn’t even know she was sick.”

“I don’t think anybody did.” Gage looked away awkwardly and added, “Considering the circumstances, I’m sorry I was out here bellowing, too. Grandpa would slap my face for that show of disrespect.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want him to slap you for singing

while you work.” Chyna tried to smile. “It’s just that I’ve never heard that particular rendition of ’Satisfaction.’”

Gage grinned. His skin was weathered and he looked older than his years, but Chyna didn’t believe anyone could say he wasn’t still ruggedly handsome. “Guess you know why I got kicked out of a garage band when I was sixteen and another one when I was eighteen,” he laughed. “Just because you’ve got music in your soul doesn’t mean it’s gonna come out of your mouth.”

Chyna laughed. “I’ll think of that every time I’m singing along with music in the car and wondering why the dog is howling.” Gage laughed, too. He looked so normal, so happy-go-lucky, so … innocent, she thought. It was almost impossible for her to think he had anything to do with the disappearance and possible murder of a girl.

And then Chyna remembered Zoey seeing him downtown the summer she disappeared and nearly swooning in teenage admiration when Gage smiled, winked, and said, “How’re you doin’, Zoe? Lookin’ good these days.” That final night Chyna had asked Zoey if on an earlier visit she’d met the guy with whom she was having her pathetic romantic rendezvous at the lake. “Yes, but this time is different,” Zoey had said. “Sometimes you just click with people.”

Chyna could easily believe that Zoey had been so taken with Gage, nothing could have stopped her from seeing him that night if he’d later called her and asked her to meet him. She could also believe that Zoey would have delightedly walked into the dark woods with Gage for a passionate kiss, Chyna thought in abrupt horror. “Well, I have business downtown,” she said sharply. “I’m late already.”

“Nice seeing you,” Gage got out before she slammed down the window. She might have just been bantering with the killer of three girls. Or you may have been talking to a perfectly nice man who now agrees with most of the town that you’re crazy, she thought. Oh well, too late to worry about her image. And who cared, anyway? She only came back to Black Willow for a few days once a year anyway.

Chyna had startled Gage out of singing, she thought as

she grabbed up her purse and raincoat and dashed from the room. When she pulled her car out of the garage, she rolled down her window. Complete silence. If Gage had felt like singing earlier, he didn’t anymore. He was probably up on his ladder pondering what could be wrong with the notorious Black Willow “seer.”

Driving toward town, Chyna called Ned on her cell phone. “I’m going to the undertaker’s to pick out an urn for Mom. Do you want to meet me there?”

“To pick out an
urn?
God, no,” Ned burst out.

“Well, don’t sound so horrified. It has to be done.”

“I know. I hate to push this off on you, but… well, you know Mom’s taste better than I do.”

Chyna rolled her eyes. “That’s about the weakest excuse I’ve ever heard.” Ned was silent. “Oh well, I understand. I’m not exactly looking forward to this particular type of shopping myself.”

“No one would be.” Chyna could tell Ned was walking outside the showroom of the Greer Lincoln-Mercury Agency and on to the car lot, his business that had been doing well for the last five years.

“Ned, I still can’t believe Mom didn’t want to be buried next to Dad or to not even have a funeral service. Was she acting weird lately?”

His voice grew louder as he talked to someone out on the lot looking at a car. “That’s a fine model there. Got every bell and whistle a person could want. We could probably work you out a good deal on that one.” His voice lowered to normal. “What do you mean, was Mom acting weird? Sick? Or crazy?”

“Not crazy. Unusual. Strange. I mean, I’m still floored by her insisting on not having a funeral service and wanting me to take her ashes back to New Mexico with me. It feels all wrong—”

Chyna slammed on the brakes at a red light. The old man in the crosswalk gave her the finger. I deserved that, she thought, her face growing warm. She hadn’t been paying enough attention to her driving.

“I know her final request seems out of character for her, but she gave that envelope to Bev months ago and never asked to have it returned. She wasn’t acting on impulse, Sis.” Ned yelled something unintelligible to another potential customer, then lowered his voice as he spoke into the phone. “Did you read the letter we gave you last night?”

“Yes. It seemed purely businesslike. Maybe I missed something peculiar about it, though. I was still fairly shaken by that call from Anita Simms.”

“It wasn’t Anita Simms,” Ned said flatly. “It was a hideous joke someone was playing on you and I want you to put it out of your mind, although I know that’s easier said than done.” He took a deep breath. “Chyna, I’m sorry to give you the dirty work at the funeral home this afternoon, but we’re having a big day. I’ve really got to go. I’ll talk to you this evening. And you’re a sugarplum for doing this.”

“Thank you. I’ve always wanted to be a sugarplum,” Chyna said drolly, but Ned had already hung up.

Chyna pulled into the parking lot of Burtram and Hodges Funeral Home. She remembered coming here with her mother when Edward had “passed away,” as the funeral directors kept saying. Edward Greer had died as he’d lived— quietly and with dignity. Vivian had simply awakened one morning and found Edward lying beside her, dead of a stroke. He had not made one sound loud enough to wake her.

Rex Greer, his younger brother, had been in France at the time, and for some reason Vivian had asked Chyna to help with the arrangements because Ned refused. Ned once shamefacedly confided to her that death terrified him. His actions seemed to prove his truthfulness. When people carried on conversations about the dead or dying, he quietly left the room. If he went to a wake, he signed the guest register but never looked at the body if the coffin was open, and left as soon as possible. When he attended a funeral, he stood far away from the proceedings and usually focused his gaze at a tree or flower arrangement near the funeral tent. Once Chyna had followed his line of sight closely and discovered he was watching a mole tunneling beneath the earth.

The day was bright and at least ten degrees warmer than yesterday. Chyna got out of the car, looked up at the baby blue sky and pale yellow sun, and drew in a deep breath of crisp air. Immediately she felt better, a little less heartbroken, a little bit cheerier. Then she opened the heavy door of the funeral home, stepped in, and her spirits seemed to hit the floor with a thud.

Mahogany walls. Navy blue carpet. Frosted glass over muted light fixtures. Mournful organ music floating through solemn halls. And a faint scent of once-fresh flowers now gone slightly stale. A slender man somewhere in his midthirties with sculpted features, medium brown hair, and slightly downcast eyes approached Chyna.

“How do you do?” he said with cool formality. “I’m Russell Burtram. May I be of assistance to you?”

Russell glanced up, seemed to catch a glimpse of her bright red turtleneck, then immediately looked down again, making Chyna immediately wish she’d dressed differently. Perhaps navy blue would have been advisable. She would have looked like Russell, whose suit matched the carpet. She noticed the sprinkling of gray at the temples in his brown hair and the hands clenched tightly, as if he were nervous or holding a pose that didn’t come naturally. Russell seemed aware of Chyna’s quick assessment of his looks and stiffened, looking up at her again with gray eyes.

“My mother died,” Chyna began. “Apparently she was suffering from heart trouble the family didn’t know about. She had a heart attack and fell down the stairs. Her neck was broken,” Chyna said in a rush before her throat tightened and the next words came out in an unintelligible bleat. “I have to make arrangements.”

“You don’t have to explain. I know all about Vivian Greer’s death.” Russell Bertram’s gaze softened in sympathy. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“What?” Chyna nearly choked past her tight throat.

“It’s Rusty Burtram, Chyna. I was in Ned’s class in school.”

Chyna swallowed and tried to hide her surprise. She took a deep breath. “Rusty! My goodness, I’m seeing all kinds of

people from the past today. You’ve … changed.”

“The acne cleared up; I got contacts, did a little bodybuilding.” He smiled almost apologetically. Chyna, having done a rotation in plastic surgery, also guessed he’d had a nose job and chin implant. “I hope it all helped.”

“Oh, it helped immensely!” Chyna burst out with unflattering enthusiasm, then realized how insulting she sounded. “I mean, you looked fine before—”

“I looked like a nerd and I was always self-conscious about it. The transformation came right after I graduated and decided I wouldn’t go off to college looking like I did.” Someone approached them and Rusty’s face immediately became sober again, his voice softer. “This is Dad’s business, but I guess you know that.” Chyna nodded. “We handled your father’s funeral.”

A tall black-haired man stopped in front of her, nearly pushing Rusty aside. “Owen Burtram, Miss—or should I say Doctor?—Greer.” Rusty’s father, Chyna thought. Vivian Greer had thought he was a ridiculous stuffed shirt. “Your mother talked about you a great deal.”

“She did?” Chyna wondered where Vivian had done all this talking to Owen. She didn’t like him and usually tried to avoid him at social functions. “Well, I miss Mom very much already,” Chyna said. “She was only fifty-two.”