Maddie Cochere - Two Sisters and a Journalist 01 - Murder Under Construction (11 page)

When we were back in the car, Kelly exclaimed, “That was so cool! You really did know where to go, Aunt Jo, and I think you really are psychic. All you have to do is keep dreaming, and you’ll find out everything.”

“I’d rather follow real leads,” I said. “I’m not exactly happy about the dreaming thing.”

And that was no joke. Now that Margie had helped me, I wondered if I would be hearing from Ruby again soon.

Squatting was a killer on the inner thighs. The shaking machine I was standing on was set to high, and I was holding on for dear life as I squatted over and over again.

“Jo, get off of there. You’re not going to be able to walk tomorrow,” Pepper said. “Get on a treadmill and slow down.”

I ignored her and kept squatting. I was going to get rid of this butt one way or another. I didn’t want a husband someday who referred to me as Big Bertha. To top it all off, Kelly did some more taping on the ride home from the salon and referred to Pepper and me as The Butt Sisters. Pepper was swift to mete out punishment for her words, and Kelly was probably rubbing Mama’s feet right now.

It felt good to work up a sweat. I hadn’t had anything to eat since the salad at McDonald’s earlier in the day, and now I was burning calories to the max. I’d eat a light supper when I got home and probably be down five pounds by morning.

“How long will it take to lose sixty pounds?” I asked Pepper.

“You don’t need to lose sixty pounds. You’ll be emaciated, and you’ll look old.”

“I’m losing fifty. How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. Ask Suzy.”

Jackie burst through the door. She rushed toward us waving newspapers.

“I have them! The Carol Bristol announcements.”

That was enough to get me off the shaking squats machine.

She had two papers already folded to show the articles. She gave the engagement announcement to Pepper and the wedding announcement to me. Both were headed with Bristol-Meyers.

“Carol Bristol engaged to Craig Meyers,” Pepper said.

I read from my article. “They were married on the twenty-fourth of June. The bride’s sister was the maid of honor. Bridesmaids were …”

My voice trailed off. A chill went up my spine.

“What?” Pepper asked while smacking me on the arm with her paper. “What does it say?”

Jackie answered for me. “It says one of the bridesmaids was Paula Radford.”

Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a private investigator. Seeing what was probably Ruby’s real name in print made her death more disturbing. I felt lightheaded and sick to my stomach.

“You don’t look so good,” Jackie said. “Sit down.”

I dropped to the floor and sat cross-legged with my head down. The vision of Ruby in the strip club, peering down at me and saying her name was Paula, was vivid in my mind. This had to be her. Paula Radford.

“Did you find out anything about her?” I asked.

“Not a thing. I ran all of my usual searches, but her name didn’t come up in any database. Not even a driver’s license.”

“What time are we going to Marietta tomorrow?” I asked Pepper.

“I thought we’d leave at ten. It’ll only take us about an hour and a half to get there. We can have lunch before we look around town.”

I wanted to go to Marietta with Pepper, because I believed there was a clue to Paula’s death there, but I also wanted to track down Carol Bristol-Meyers and ask her how well she knew one of her bridesmaids.

Jackie read my mind. She grabbed the paper from Pepper. “This says Carol works for Telcor Corporation. I’ve never heard of them. I’ll see what I can find out about the company tomorrow, and I’ll try to find out where the newlyweds are living. You guys go have fun. If I find anything, we can follow up on it over the weekend.”

~ ~ ~

“Get your stinky hands off of me! Mom, Kelly’s touching me again!”

Pepper sighed. The kids had been fussing and arguing ever since we left home an hour ago. “Kelly, doggone it all to Homer and back! Quit teasing your brother.”

“I’m not teasing him. I never touched him.”

“Did too! And your hands smell like Grandmama’s feet. I’m gonna be sick.” He made gagging sounds.

“Still want to homeschool the little darlings?” I asked. I didn’t even try to conceal my humor at the situation.

Pepper looked like she wanted to strangle me, too. “I can see we’ll have to ease into it, but I still think it will work out just fine.”

“Mom, Kelly’s putting Grandmama’s fungus feet smell on me. Make her stop.”

“Dammit! You kids knock it off, or I’m grounding you both for the rest of the summer.”

Both kids gasped. It was unheard of for a swear word to roll out of Pepper’s mouth. It was my contention she should swear more often, and the kids proved it by promptly zipping it, folding their arms across their chests, and sulking.

“Twenty more minutes,” I said. “What’s first on our agenda? What are we learning today?”

“Lunch is first. Maybe they’ll stop being so cranky after we eat. Then we’re going to the Ohio River Museum before we take a ride on a sternwheeler.”

“What’s a sternwheeler?” I asked.

“It’s a boat.”

“I know it’s a boat, but what makes it a sternwheeler? What does that mean?”

Pepper was visibly annoyed. “Jo, you can’t be serious. It’s one of those big paddlewheel boats. You know, with the wheel in the back of the boat – the stern.”

“Well, why didn’t you say a paddlewheeler? I know what those are.”

Pepper looked as though she was ready to pull her hair out. We were all making her crazy this morning.

“You know,” I said, “you’re going to need a lot more patience if you’re going to homeschool. Wait until you have to teach them the Pythagorean theorem or the quadratic formula. What if they don’t get it?”

“If I get stuck, I’ll call you,” she said with heavy sarcasm.

Pepper had always struggled with math and had to study for hours on end for her grades. To me, math was like solving mysteries. Algebra was exciting, and I loved filling pages and pages of notebook paper with equations. It was my easiest subject.

The rest of the drive into the city was made in silence. The kids continued to sulk, while I chose to keep my thoughts to myself and allow Pepper to drive without aggravation for a while.

Crankiness lifted for everyone when Pepper turned onto a brick road and parked along the Ohio River. Across the street was The Levee House, a restaurant situated in a lovely, historic, brick building.

We were seated on the outdoor patio at the front of the restaurant. It was hot, but we were in shade, and it was pleasant and comfortable. The kids were quick to order burgers while Pepper and I ordered salads.

“Have you had any more dreams, Aunt Jo?” Kelly asked.

“Not since the one about Margie at the nail salon.”

“What are you dreaming about?” Keith asked.

“She’s talking to a dead girl in her dreams,” Kelly said.

Keith screwed up his face. “Gross.”

Pepper pulled a piece of paper out of her purse. “Ok, everybody, pay attention. We’re at the Levee House. This building was built in eighteen twenty-six, and it was the first dry goods store in the Northwest Territory.”

“What’s a dry good?” Keith asked.

“This isn’t the Northwest,” Kelly said.

Pepper answered the questions in her best teacher voice. “In 1826, the land northwest of the Ohio River was called the Northwest Territory, and dry goods are things that are dry - like fabric, ribbon, lace, coffee and tea.”

“Bo-rrr-ing,” said Keith.

I smiled. Pepper shoved the paper back into her purse and said, “Well, I think it’s interesting. This building was built before the Civil War. It’s the last original riverfront structure in the city.”

Keith was disinterested and changed the subject. “Aunt Jo, I want to know about the dead girl. Why are you dreaming about her?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but the dreams seem important. I even had one about Marietta. She showed me a newspaper headline for some ancient burial grounds with a record number of visitors this year. I have no idea why she wanted me to see that.”

Keith thought for a moment before saying, “Maybe she wants to be buried here. Maybe she’s from here, and she lived next door to a burial ground.”

Kelly added to the conjecture. “Maybe she visited graves here. At midnight. She might have been a vampire. Was the knife in her chest wooden?”

Our waitress delivered our food, and talk of Ruby stopped, but only for a few minutes.

“Let’s not take the boat ride,” Kelly said. “Let’s find the burial ground and look for clues about Ruby.”

“Yeah! I don’t want to ride the boat either,” Keith chimed in. “There’s nothing to see but water, and I want to look for clues, too.”

Pepper started to argue, but I interrupted. “It will keep us from coming back later if we look around today. Besides, isn’t there some kind of famous burial mound around here? Like the Great Serpent Mound?”

Our waitress was back to refill our drinks and said, “The Great Serpent Mound is between here and Cincinnati. It’ll take you a couple of hours to get there.”

“Are there any ancient burial grounds here in Marietta?” I asked.

“Most of the tourists go to Mound Cemetery on Fifth Street. Rufus Putnam and some other Revolutionary War soldiers are buried there. There’s one burial mound at the back of the cemetery. ”

“Let’s go there,” Keith said. “We’ll find a ghost or Aunt Jo will have a vision or something.”

“It’s worth taking a look,” I said to Pepper.

She looked doubtful, but pointed her finger at the kids and said, “We can go, but you’re going to learn something while we’re there, so you have to read tombstones and take notes.”

Keith rubbed his hands together with glee before shoving a handful of French fries into his mouth.

I continued to enjoy my salad. I rarely ate fresh greens, and the salad tasted wonderful – probably more so because we were eating outdoors. The air seemed fresher here by the water, and I was glad I had made the decision to come today. I was definitely looking forward to going to the cemetery. There would be something to find there. I was sure of it.

Half an hour later, we walked beneath the wrought iron archway and into Mound Cemetery.

“Daylight hours only,” Keith said, reading the sign. “Who would want to come here at night? There are probably ghost soldiers still battling it out.”

“You guys go ahead and do your thing,” I told Pepper. “I want to look around by myself for a while.”

She led the kids down the path through the middle of the cemetery. I stepped off to the right with the intention of walking the perimeter first.

The cemetery covered approximately two city blocks. Two-story century homes surrounded the plot of land on all four sides. Numerous trees within the cemetery provided patches of shade for relief from the hot sun.

Some of the headstones were modern, but most were very old with interesting carvings. Some were askew. A feeling of sadness came over me for all of the people here who had gone before. It was somber to read engravings and see the graves of soldiers who fought so long ago.

I thought about Ruby again. Was I in the right place? Was there something here at the cemetery I was supposed to see or find?

I was starting to get depressed. The headstone of a sixteen-year-old boy proclaimed he had died in the Ohio River. A woman who was the secretary of the Northwest Territory only lived to thirty-six years of age. What happened to her? There was a headstone for a Revolutionary War soldier who had been the foreman of the first grand jury in Ohio.

I gradually made my way to the back of the cemetery. Pepper and the kids were atop the burial mound. I considered walking up the stairs to catch up with them, but my legs were sore from too many squats last night. The more than thirty steep steps weren’t something I wanted to tackle today.

Keith and Kelly waved. I raised my hand to wave back but quickly retracted my arm and walked away when Keith threw himself down on the ground and rolled down the mound. Everyone in the cemetery could hear Pepper screeching at him. A sign by the steps clearly stated the fine for climbing the mound and not using the steps was fifty dollars.

I heard Keith yell, “I wasn’t climbing. The sign didn’t say anything about rolling.”

I laughed to myself. That kid had an answer for everything. I suspected if Pepper wasn’t getting her blonde hair out of a bottle, she’d be full gray by now. I kept on walking to the other side of the cemetery.

A small, open gate led to the sidewalk outside the wrought-iron fence. There was something in the middle of the sidewalk, but I couldn’t tell what it was. As I got closer, a creepy shiver came over my body like it used to in Mama’s basement. I whirled around so fast, I gave myself a tish of whiplash, but there was no one behind me.

I stepped onto the sidewalk and stared at the object. It took a second for me to realize it was a newspaper. It was slightly rumpled, and dirt had caused it to look almost black on the exposed side. It was certainly out of place in the clean and well-manicured surroundings.

I looked around to see if anyone was watching. Someone may have put it there as a joke, like the time I tried to pick up a quarter only to find it had been superglued to the sidewalk. The jerks in the Verizon office were entertained as they watched people bend over and try to pick up their stupid quarter.