The Grave Soul (7 page)

Walking into the kitchen, Guthrie switched on the overhead light. Scanning the kitchen counter, he spied a handwritten note propped up against a open can of Coke. He dropped his keys next to the sink, picked it up and read:.

Guthrie—Tried calling you, but was put through to your voice mail. Blah. Gram phoned. She asked me to drive to New Dresden today. Family meeting called for this afternoon. I've never been included in one of those before, not that they happen often. She said she had some good news and some bad news. Sounded important. She didn't want to get into it on the phone. Anyway, so I'm leaving. It's just after ten. I'm planning to spend the night with her. Will be home tomorrow. I didn't eat the leftover pizza, so you can have that for dinner if you're hungry. Love you, sweetheart. Miss me.

K.

Guthrie sank down on one of the kitchen chairs. For many reasons, this new turn of events made him uneasy. He supposed he was overreacting. He did that sometimes, especially when it came to Kira. She'd be back tomorrow, and that meant tomorrow night he'd tell her about what he'd received in the mail. He had no idea what her reaction would be, but he did believe one thing firmly: she needed to know what he'd been sent, wherever it might lead.

*   *   *

Late the next morning, Guthrie sat at his desk in the back room of the teahouse, working on ordering, when he felt his cell phone rumble inside the front pocket of his flannel shirt. Switching it on, he saw that it was a text from Kira:

H
EY BABE.
C
HANGE OF PLANS.
N
O GO FOR MEETING
YESTERDAY.
T
RY AGAIN TODAY.
H
ERE 1 MORE
NIGHT.
W
ILL CALL LATER.

LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE

“Damn it,” he said under his breath. A winter storm watch was in effect for the entire region beginning this evening. He'd been hoping she'd get on the road and be back before anything hit. Predictions were for three to eight inches. He punched her preset, then waited through six rings until her voice mail picked up. What the hell, he thought, as her message played in his ear. If she'd just texted him, why wasn't she answering? After the beep, he said, “Kira, it's me. There's a winter storm watch. You need to check your weather app. Do you really have to be at the meeting? If you leave now, you'd beat the storm. Call me back. I need to talk to you.” He didn't doubt that she could hear the frustration in his voice, and he didn't care. He set the phone next to him on the desk and then tried like hell to concentrate on tea prices.

*   *   *

By ten that evening, as snow began to pile up outside his apartment, Guthrie was still waiting for a call from Kira. He'd left her half a dozen texts, all unanswered. She'd never been this out of touch before. He couldn't understand it. He'd left her two more voice-mail messages, both of which she'd ignored. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his bones.

Scooping his phone up off the coffee table, he called her again.

“Kira, I'm really getting worried. Why haven't you texted or called? What the hell's going on? If I don't hear from you tonight, I don't care if we get three feet of snow. First thing in the morning, I'm driving to New Dresden. Call me,” he said, all but growling.

*   *   *

The red numbers on Guthrie's digital clock read 3:18
A.M.
when the call finally came.

“Hey, sweetheart, it's me,” said Kira.

She sounded weird, her voice tight.

“Where have you been?” Guthrie struggled out of the blankets and rubbed a hand across his eyes.

“Don't be angry.”

“Why didn't you call me back?”

“That's what I'm doing.”

“It's the middle of the night.”

“I needed to hear your voice.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

Her tone seemed unusually strained. “Did you have the goddamn meeting?”

“We did.”

“And?”

“It's too long to get into over the phone.”

“When are you coming home? The storm mainly hit south of here. You should be okay in the morning to drive.”

“Honey, I think I'm going to stay through the weekend.”

“What? Why?”

“Just … a lot going on.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“I don't want to wake Gram.”

“This feels so incredibly weird.”

“I love you. I miss you.”

“You'll be home for Christmas Eve on Monday night, right? Promise?”

“I'll be there.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Everything's fine, Guthrie. It's just some family stuff. Nothing I can't handle.”

He considered telling her about the note. He wanted to shock her, to get her to open up to him. “I've got nothing better to do than talk to you. Tell me what you learned—your grandmother's good news and bad news.”

“I will. When I get home.”

“On Monday.”

“Right. I've gotta go now, sweetheart.”

“No … don't hang up.”

“I love you so much. Don't ever doubt that. Give me this time, Guthrie. Don't call or text. Just let me have these few days. Okay?”

“I don't know. Kira, I'm scared.”

“Why? That's crazy. I'll see you very soon.”

 

11

Jane found Guthrie sitting alone at a back table in the Hewitt & Hewitt Tearoom, staring intently at his laptop. This was her first visit, although after seeing the place, it wouldn't be her last. She counted fourteen tables scattered around the room, all but three filled with customers enjoying tea and baskets of fresh bread as they talked to their companions or lingered over the morning paper.

The bold, eclectic decor was what impressed her most. Indian and Asian elements had been mixed together, though the Indian detail, especially the wall art and the hand-loomed, block-printed tablecloths, predominated. For a moment she had the sense that she'd stepped into an Indian curio shop during the British Raj. A large statue of Siddhartha Gautama had been given pride of place near the front. The sitar music floating through the air was soft and soothing, making her wish she had the time to sit, relax, and enjoy a cup of tea herself. Alas, this initial visit would have to be short. She had information to deliver, and then she needed to get over to the restaurant for that interview with
City Pages
.

As she approached Guthrie's table, he looked up.

“Oh, Jane. Hi.” He started to rise.

She motioned for him to stay seated. Folding herself into a chair across from him, she removed the photos he'd given her from her pocket. Since she wouldn't be taking the case, she needed to give them back. She also felt he deserved to hear Nolan's conclusions. “Did you get a chance to talk to Kira about your concerns?”

He shook his head. “Her grandmother called Wednesday morning and asked her to drive to New Dresden for a family meeting. I didn't find out about it until I got home that night. She won't be back until Monday.”

“How far away did you say New Dresden was?”

“Two and a half hours, give or take.”

She handed him the photos. “I showed these to my partner. He used a loupe to look at them and then he asked me to do the same.”

“And?”

“What you see with the help of magnification is the extensive bruising around Delia Adler's neck. Nolan thought it was clear evidence of strangulation.”

Guthrie's startled eyes took a moment to focus. “Then … it's true. Kira's dream. Her mother was murdered.”

“You mentioned that there was a police officer present the day her body was found.”

“That's what Kira remembers.”

“If that's true and he saw the marks on Delia's neck, then the next question is, why wasn't the death ruled a homicide? Since it was an unattended death, a medical examiner would also have been called to the scene. There's no way he could have missed those marks. Whoever helped remove her body from the side of the ravine, whether it was family or the authorities, they had to know it was a murder. The funeral director, the one who prepared her body for viewing, would also have known.”

“Her body was cremated,” said Guthrie.

“Why doesn't that surprise me? I'm stating the obvious here. You've stumbled into one major cover up. Probably includes not only the family, but public officials.”

Guthrie stared at his laptop screen. “Jane, you've got to help me. I can't handle this alone. I don't have a lot of money, but I could pay you in installments. I don't care anymore if Kira's on board or not. Every minute she spends in that town, I feel like her life's in danger. I mean, I know her family loves her. But what if she stumbles across something … inadvertently. Something that proves someone in her family murdered her mother. Remember, I just asked a couple of simple questions at Thanksgiving and her dad and uncle acted like I was performing a military-style interrogation. Am I overreacting? Do you think I'm blowing this all out of proportion?”

“I wish I did,” said Jane, feeling sorry for him, but also feeling torn. She wanted to help, she really did. But taking this case went against a solemn promise she'd made to herself in early November to spend the remainder of the year concentrating solely on the Lyme House. She'd seen the kind of toll her way of life—the constant pressure she put on herself to work two jobs, always overextending, agreeing to do too much, saying yes when she should've said no—had taken on both her restaurant, the main source of her income, and her health. Neither were small matters.

“Look,” said Jane. “I asked Nolan if he could work on this for you. Unfortunately, he's going out of town for the holidays. And I'm buried at the restaurant. I just can't take on anything new.” She pulled a paper napkin in front of her and pointed at the pen resting next to Guthrie's computer. When he handed it to her, she wrote down
Thomas Foxworthy Investigations.
“Give him a try. You can look up his number online.”

Guthrie seemed deflated by her response. “Okay. If you can't you can't. I get it. You've already helped me a lot, and for that I'm grateful.”

“Call Tom,” said Jane. She wished she could offer more, but under the circumstances, this was the best she could do.

*   *   *

After locking up the back office, Guthrie left a message for his brother. He pleaded with him to take his afternoon shift at the teahouse. The counter guy could handle it until he arrived. “And if you can't make it,” said Guthrie, struggling into his coat, “I guess all we can do is close the place. I'm sorry, but something really important's come up. I'll explain later.”

Guthrie rushed out to his car. Kira's safety was the only thing that mattered to him. He vowed to set a new speed record on his way to New Dresden.

*   *   *

Flying down Main Street, stuffing the last bite of a burger into his mouth, Guthrie drove straight to Evangeline's farmhouse. He wished he'd asked Kira last night what she had planned for today. His heart sank when he rolled up to the house over the unplowed drive and saw no other cars. There weren't even any tracks in the snow.

He jumped out and made straight for the front door, where he rang the bell and then looked around, blowing on his hands, wishing he'd thought to bring gloves and a scarf. Then again, when he'd left his apartment this morning, he never thought he'd end up here. Banging on the door, he called, “Kira? Are you in there?” He peered through the glass, hands cupped around his eyes. Inside, the house looked quiet. No lights were on. No fire in the fireplace. The TV was off. No grandmother bustling about. No dogs. No nothing.

It was the lack of car tracks in the fresh snow that gave him the biggest pause. He had to think it through. If nobody was home, and it seemed clear that nobody was—unless they were hiding, which seemed extreme, even in Guthrie's current state of mind—that meant they had to have left before the snow came through last night. Evangeline parked her Jeep in the two-stall garage next to the barn. If snow was coming, Kira had probably parked her old Chevy Cobalt inside, too. Since there were no windows in the garage, and there was a heavy padlock on the door, Guthrie had no way to know if either car was gone.

Kira had called Guthrie from her grandmother's house in the middle of the night. She'd whispered because she said she didn't want to wake Evangeline. That meant they were both inside at three in the morning. The snow would have stopped falling well before that. If Kira and her grandmother had gone out today, where were the car tracks? The footprints? “What the hell?” he said, surveying the property.

Think it through, he told himself. Logically, Kira and her grandmother were either still in the house and were ignoring him, which he didn't believe, or they'd left before the snow arrived last night—and that meant when Kira called him, it wasn't from the farmhouse.

Rushing back to his car, he gunned the motor and fishtailed out of the drive back onto the county highway. If anyone knew where Kira was, it would be her dad.

When Guthrie had come for Thanksgiving, Kira had taken him into town, to her dad's bar. She'd walked him through the apartment on the second floor that had been her home from the time she was six until she left for college. Her father still lived there. Feeling a surge of hope, Guthrie felt certain he knew where she was.

The Sportsman's Tavern was one of six bars in town. Kira had casually mentioned once that her home state had more bars than any other state in the union, with the exception of Montana and North Dakota. She described her dad's place as blue collar, with the occasional fistfight, but also with a loyal group of regulars. A large flat-screen TV hung above the back bar, always tuned to a game—any kind of game. A back room accommodated monthly meetings, everything from the Lions Club to the local horticulture society.