The Family Plot (40 page)

“What made you think that?” Dahlia asked.

“Dear, you wore it like a suit. But she picked you, that's my point. The time may come when you want someone, somewhere, to understand. So, here, take the camera. I don't know much about these things, with their little memory chips and whatnot, but it was recording the night … the night that everything happened. Someday, you may want to see what it caught.”

Then she rose from her seat, and closed her purse.

“Ms. Withrow?”

“Yes?”

“You knew they were buried there, didn't you? In the little family plot that wasn't supposed to be a plot at all.”

She frowned, and for a second Dahlia thought she'd guessed incorrectly. “They? What do you mean,
they
?”

“Abigail and her boyfriend, the one she killed. Your grandfather buried them there, and he never said a thing.”

Either Augusta Withrow was a world-class actress, or she was genuinely confused, and more than a touch appalled. “Good God, no. So that's where she went? Right down into the ground, next to the house?” She shuddered, and Dahlia caught a whiff of her hair spray. “No, darling. I only knew about the baby. She threw it in a ravine in the woods, but my father went and got it. He buried it in the fake cemetery, beneath a rosebush.”

“I thought you said…”

“I know what I said. You didn't need to know every damn thing.”

Dahlia turned that image over and over in her head after Augusta was gone. A boy who'd seen something terrible—and tried to do the right thing. Part of the right thing? Well, he did
some
thing. The overgrown plot was where everything secret went to disappear, so why not the poor little corpse. Why not his sister. Why not her lover.

Put them all in the ground. Plant the seeds, and harvest the ghosts.

*   *   *

In the morning, her father arrived as promised—with open arms and a big bouquet from everyone at Music City. She accepted the flowers and then the hug, and she returned it gently. She sniffed the flowers deeply, declaring them perfect.

Bobby and Gabe had already headed north to start sorting the inventory, and Brad was driving the other truck—so it was just Dahlia and Chuck on the way back to Nashville. They talked about safe things: the loot they'd acquired, and what the price tags would look like.

“My insurance premiums will surely rise like Easter morning, but this was still a good pick.” Chuck's head bobbed heartily. “The copper on that roof alone, and the chestnut, and those mantels … and I saw the rose transom you pulled out. That thing'll go for a fortune!”

“It ought to. It hasn't got a crack, and that's a miracle.”

“The big scene from the dining area, the one with the orchard, and the birds, and all that … it's got some damage—but it shouldn't cost more than a few hundred bucks to repair. Once it's fixed, I'm going to list it for about thirty-five hundred. We can get that easy, I think.”

“List it for four,” she suggested. “It's right up Teddy Milson's avenue, and he always tries to jack you down a few bucks.”

“Good call, good call. I'll drop him an e-mail with a picture when we get it off the truck.”

He said that like it'd happen with a click of ruby heels, or a snap of fingers. But back in Nashville, it took almost as long to unload the trucks and catalog the haul as it had to collect it from the estate. Dahlia insisted on participating, and her dad insisted that she stay home for at least another day or two—but when she came back, she still had a leisurely week of labeling boxes, calling some of their usual clients, and taking pictures for the Internet.

But not with Brad's old camera.

She kept that in her messenger bag, untouched. She didn't want to watch whatever it'd caught—not yet—but she couldn't bring herself to throw it away, either, and Brad had never asked about it. Maybe he'd assumed it was lost. Maybe he was glad it was gone.

Hard to blame him. Hard to blame anyone.

*   *   *

“Now, I don't know what happened back there,” Chuck told her, as they sat in his office and finished off a pair of sandwiches from a nearby takeout place. “I don't expect you all to tell me, if you don't want to go into it.”

“Good, then I won't. One of us needs to sleep at night, and you're the boss, so it'd better be you.” She popped a potato chip into her mouth and chewed it slowly. She swallowed, and asked, “The um … the cemetery, though.”

“What about it?”

“Daddy, come on. You saw the tarp. Brad or Bobby would've told you, I'm sure.”

“About the soldier?” He took a big bite of his BLT and almost killed it off. “They told me.”

“So what did you do about it? Did you report it to anybody?”

“Nope!” He shook his head. “Not our problem. Leave it for the wrecking crew, or the park service. We got the truck in past the closest grave—it was a squeak, but we didn't run anything over. Or anybody. I told Bobby to go throw some dirt down there, cover the hole back up again, but that was the full extent of my involvement. As far as you know, we never found a thing in that fake cemetery, or in the house, either.”

“Just rats and bugs and bats.”

“That's right, Dolly-girl, my Snow White child. Plausible deniability.”

She toasted him with another chip. “To plausible deniability.”

He toasted back with a bit of bacon. “I'm just sorry it got so crazy for you, so fast. In all seriousness, Dahl—if I'd known, I never would've taken the offer. I'd have sent that old lady packing so fast…”

No, he wouldn't have. He was too happy to assume the best, and ignore the worst. But hindsight is 20/20, and it's a goddamn liar.

“Then it's just as well you didn't know.” She held up a tablet and showed him their eBay page. “Because Teddy's loss is some other dude's gain. A couple of guys got bidding on the orchard glass. It went for almost five grand.”

Chuck whistled. “It hasn't been a week, and we're already on the verge of breaking even—with a third of the stock still sitting on the floor, and another third waiting in the storeroom. I'd list it now, but we don't have anyplace to put it! You know,” he said, more quietly, less joyfully. “We really needed this. The way Nashville Erections screwed the pooch, if the Withrow place hadn't come through … I don't know.”

“Yeah, Daddy. You
do
know.” She scratched at the edge of her left-hand bandage, and stopped herself. “It doesn't matter, now. It may have been the worst job ever, but Gabe will be back on his feet in another few weeks, and once these wraps come off, I'll have some sexy-ass scars. Chicks dig scars.”

“Are you switching teams?”

She laughed. “Hey, if the right girl came along and wanted to settle down, I'm sure we could work something out. If she's willing to look past my stitches, and she's handy with power tools, it might just be true love. For real, Daddy—next time I clean these cuts, I'm going to show you. It's gross as hell, but the swelling's gone down, and I've got some motion back already.”

“You're doing all right with that tablet and stylus. With your sleeves pulled down, no one would ever know you did a slice-and-dice through a window.”

“I'm just lucky that my left hand got the worst of it. The right one only got a couple dozen stitches. So long as I'm using those super-fat markers you keep around for labels, my handwriting looks just about normal … but the wraps do make for slow typing. Eh.” She shrugged. “I was never very fast, anyhow.”

“Atta girl. Look on the bright side.” Chuck's phone chimed with a message. He checked it, and beamed. “Scars, broken bones, and all—the Withrows are the gift that keeps on giving!”

“What now?”

“Mountain Town Construction has put in for the chestnut!”

“I thought Graystone Building was taking it…?”

Chuck vibrated with glee. “They made an offer. It was a good offer. But I wondered if Mountain Town wanted to make a better one.”

“You're a greedy old man,” she said with love. She got to her feet, wadded up her lunch trash, and tossed it into the can beside his desk. “And I'm a busy girl, so I'd better get back to it.”

“Back to what? You're not overexerting, are you? You aren't supposed to overexert. I thought we made that clear. If you're going to overexert, you can just go home.”

“I'm doing inventory, and stop saying ‘overexert.' I'm just counting up and measuring the windows that Bobby sorted in the back, and I've got my handy-dandy screen here to do all the hard stuff for me, I promise.”

“All right then. Hop to it.”

She returned to the inventory corner and called out, “Hey, Bobby? You back from lunch yet?”

“In body, or spirit?”

“Whichever one is more likely to move those doors for me, because we're almost done with the windows—at long last, praise Jesus—and the doors are next.”

He finished a bottle of beer with one long, drawn-out swallow and belched to punctuate the end. “Then my spirit is fucking useless, and my body will have to do. Gabe says it's not worth much—but he's one to talk right now.”

“Is he here? I thought he wasn't coming back until tomorrow.”

Bobby cocked his head toward the retail end of the warehouse. “He's manning the register, and playing Mr. Customer Service. So … mostly he's talking to girls and showing off his crutches. You should hear him.” He chuckled around another burp, and reached for the last of the windows. Paint flaked away under his gloves, dusting the floor as he moved them to the far wall. “Making up stories about how it happened. To hear him tell it, he's practically Indiana Jones.”

She grinned, and booted up the inventory program. “Yeah, I bet.”

They finished up the first round of doors, sorting the interior six-panels from the eight-panels and the four-panels, and measuring up the exterior doors, except for the big front jobbie with the sidelights. The rose transom hadn't been original to the set, so she didn't mind splitting it up.

When all the door management was done, Bobby declared yet another beer break. Dahlia thought about arguing, but she was tired. It turned out that when you lose a lot of blood, it doesn't all just magically come back. Sure, they give you some in the hospital, but beyond a certain point, your body is expected to pitch in and help.

She needed a little rest, but she didn't want to admit it. “Fine, take your beer—and I'll take a bathroom break. I could stand to disinfect anyway, after handling all that old shit.”

“
I
was the one doing most of the handling.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Whatever. See you in ten.”

*   *   *

Chuck Dutton pawed through one of the Withrow boxes, wondering where its contents ought to go. It looked like a bunch of vintage women's wear, and God knew he had no clue how to price it or where to sell it. Perhaps Dahlia had planned to list it all online. More likely she wanted to keep it for herself. His daughter had a vintage clothing collection that grew by the year, though she almost never wore a stitch of it. He didn't judge. He collected ridiculous shit of his own. It ran in the family.

“Bobby?” he called out. His nephew was on the other side of a shelving unit full of windows, doors, and stray panes of glass.

“Uncle Chuck?” came the reply.

“Where's Dolly at?”

“Bathroom, I think. Greasing up her stitches.”

“All right.” So he'd ask her about it when she got out.

While he waited, he shoved his fingers through the hats, feathers, and gloves, picking up a beaded bag and putting it down again. There was another one in there, more like a clutch. It was black and green, and the beads were good-quality glass—even a manly fashion know-nothing like him could see that at a glance, and feel it by the fabric's weight.

Something was inside it. Something stiff and crinkly.

He unfastened the clasp and found paper, folded over until it fit into the small hand purse. The paper was old … probably older than Chuck. It was brown at the edges, and along the seams.

“The hell is this?” he asked quietly, unfolding it with gentle fingers.

It was a set of sheet music, missing the cover. There were only three pages, printed front and back.

Chuck couldn't read music, but he knew a murder ballad when he saw one.

“THE FAMILY PLOT”

B. D. WITHROW

(1934)

Come all you wicked women,

And listen to this tale,

It's of a dreadful murder,

The truth I will reveal,

Near Lookout Mount in Tennessee,

A shocking deed I know,

It happened one September night

Not many years ago.

There was a young man, Greg'ry M.,

A soldier brisk and gay,

Likewise one Abby W.,

Fair as the rose of May.

This fighting lad and his fair maid,

Did close together dwell,

And soon in lust with this bright girl

Unwary Greg'ry fell.

It was the young man's folly,

He toyed with a heart so wild,

And soon, to her misfortune,

He got her quick with child.

Tongues wagged and people whispered,

Wondering if they ought to marry,

So she told her Greg'ry darling,

“They will soon know what I carry!”

It was one early autumn night,

When he to her did say,

“I like you true but love you not,