Doing It at the Dixie Dew (11 page)

I walked inside the wrought-iron gates and up the gravel drive, calling Sherman. That cat, I fussed. If he'd decided to take a nap somewhere he'd wait for me to find him and, when I did, he'd simply yawn, stretch himself out and allow me to pick him up and carry him home.

“Sherman!” I called. God, I hoped I wouldn't run into Miss Tempie. Surely she didn't come this time of day to put flowers on her dog's grave. Creepy, I decided. Verna might love Robert Redford, she might make a fuss over him, but she'd have enough sense not to put flowers on his grave when he died. And not to expect to bury him in a “people” cemetery.

The Merritt mausoleum stood dark in the shadows of cedars and dogwoods. I thought I saw something move behind it. I called again. I stood between the Merritts' mausoleum and the Lovingoods', wondering if it was too early for copperheads to be out. Leaves had piled up and decayed next to the side of the building. God, the things were spooky. I heard a noise, went around the corner and saw the brass door of the Merritt mausoleum was open. “Sherman!” I called. “Robert Redford!” I wrapped my arms around myself and felt utterly stupid. Here I stood in a cemetery in the almost dark trying to find a cat and a rabbit. No way was I going inside that thing to look. Besides, if it was dark out here, it would be pitch-dark in there. The cat, if he was in there, could just stay. He would come out when he got good and ready.

I turned to go back the way I had come, between the cedars and mausoleums, when I heard a scratching in the leaves. “Sher—” I started. Then I felt something hard and heavy on my head. Something that hurt like hell.

Who? Why? That was what I thought when I woke to the darkest dark, a zinger of a headache and a smell that nauseated me. A smell that was dank and cold. Basement? Was I in the basement? I felt the wall beside me. Cement. And under me, cement. I tried to stand and bumped my head hard … the ceiling was cement. This was no basement. I felt the wall on my left side. My God. It had to be the mausoleum. What was I doing in the dark inside a mausoleum? I remembered the door was open and I had called Sherman and heard a noise.

Door. Mausoleums had doors. I eased my way along the wall, feeling it with my fingers, not daring to feel or touch anything else. The door had slammed shut by mistake, surely, and I'd fallen. That's why my head hurt. I felt all around the door. Every crack and seam. I felt it top and bottom and in between. My heart hung tight in my chest, fluttering as frantic as a trapped bird. There had to be a catch somewhere I could trip with my hand. All I had to do was touch it and the door would open.

Calm down, I told myself. Think. Think logically. Pretend you are blind and you're feeling for the doorknob. Start at the top, go straight across, then move down. Measure with your fingers so you'll know you're covering the surface. Go slowly, slowly. You know it has a knob. It is a door. It will open. All you have to do is find the knob.

My fist found where the knob was on the outside. Inside there was a smooth plate. No one opened a mausoleum from the inside, I realized with dread. No one ever came out of these things. They were one-way. In forever. Forever.

A little ribbon of light lay in the corner and … eyes. The eyes moved closer. That was when I screamed.

Chapter Eleven

The eyes jumped back at my scream. Whatever it was, my scream had frightened it. An animal of some sort? Oh, that it was Sherman. If I had to die in this box, I'd at least have my arms around something familiar. That was the smallest of comforts … if there could be any in this situation. But if it was Sherman, he wouldn't have jumped back at my scream.

The animal crouched in the corner. I stayed very quiet, very still. Then I heard soft thuds on the floor. Thuds that had the rhythm of hopping. Rabbit hops. Robert Redford. That darn rabbit! I called and he came to me. I gathered him into my arms. He felt warm, as glad to be found as I was to find him. “You crazy rabbit,” I said, hugging him. “What are you doing here?” If only Robert Redford were a dog. He could bark. Someone might hear, come and let us out. But who? Few people ever came into this cemetery during the day and certainly no one at night. The wrought-iron gates had an automatic lock and timer on them. It might be days before anyone came. By then it would be too late. I tried to think if I'd even read in the paper of any funerals scheduled here this week. I couldn't think of any. Not many people used Littleboro anymore. Except for the older families in town, and there were fewer of them every year. Most funerals were held in the new memorial park on the other side of town. It looked like a golf course except for the statue of Jesus on a pedestal that stood in the middle.

I eased my fingers along the crack of light that was the door's edge. It was a faint light now and fading fast. Soon all would be dark. I held the rabbit close. He nuzzled my cheek, nipped at my hair.

The door was solid metal. And this one would probably be sealed even tighter except it was old and the ground around it had probably settled over the years. How much air did I have? How long could I last? And how long would it be before someone found me? What if they never did? There were no more Merritts left to bury. The mausoleum might not be opened for a hundred years and only then to move it, build a superhighway or shopping mall. Not a lot of chance of Littleboro growing to that anytime soon. Who'd even care whose bones were here in the mausoleum? If only I'd called to Scott I was going to look for Sherman, that I was going to the cemetery. Scott would never think to come here. He'd report me missing, as in kidnapped. I was an adult, or at least I thought I was most of the time. I wouldn't even get my picture on the post office bulletin board, or on a milk carton. My features and my bones would fade to dust in this cement box.

I felt moisture on the walls. If I had to lick the walls to stay alive, I'd do it. I'd do anything to stay alive until somebody found me … if I couldn't get out.

I put the rabbit down. He hopped back to his corner, probably settled down to sleep. He didn't know where he was. I wished I didn't.

I felt under the door. Dirt. Could I dig my way out? Maybe if I dug under the base it would be enough to unsettle the rest of the concrete. Maybe the walls were so old they'd crumble. Why couldn't they have been brick instead of cement? Why couldn't the Merritts have built a cheap mausoleum? Why couldn't they have used cheap materials that would age and crumble with time? No, this stuff was probably better built than a bomb shelter. “Sealed tight as a tomb” was no cliché. It was true.

I dug until my wrists ached, all my nails felt broken and my fingers felt raw. I couldn't tell if I had made any progress. That was when I began to bang the door. In desperation I screamed, cried, then fell exhausted in the dirt. Dirt that smelled rank and moldy, old as death.

Then I thought I heard something. I didn't know what … something. Or someone?

A small, tinny sound. Closer.

A faint voice.

“Help!” I screamed. “Help me! I'm locked in here.”

The voice stopped. Oh God, I thought, I've scared them away. They'll think it's a ghost. I yelled the wrong thing. “It's Beth,” I yelled again as I pounded the door. “Can you help me?”

Finally a small voice said, “Who? Little Beth McKenzie?”

Verna Crowell.

“Yes!” I called. “It's me and I'm locked in the Merritt mausoleum. I'm locked in. Go get help!”

“I don't know how,” Verna said.

“Call the emergency number in the phone book,” I said. “Call the police; call Scott; call anybody who can get me out.”

“Be calm, be calm,” Verna mumbled. “I want to find Robert Redford.”

“He's with me,” I said. “Get help. We're both locked in here.”

“Don't cry,” Verna said.

I didn't know if she meant me or Robert Redford.

“Stay right there,” Verna said. “It's too late to be out. People shouldn't be running around in the dark.”

She sounded addled and strange.

Surely she would bring help, I thought. Verna is old and her mind gets fuzzy sometimes, but she can still function. I hoped.

I leaned against the door. What if Verna had been the one to push me in here? What if she had been the one who locked the door? No, she wouldn't do a thing like that. Not Verna. But who? There had been two murders in Littleboro in a week and almost a third. Mine. I wrapped my arms around my knees, drew myself up small and tight.

Danger was too close to me now to be called anything but real. “Danger” was a
d
word. Like “death and “divorce.” And “done-in.”

*   *   *

Later Verna would say it was such a lucky thing she happened to be out looking for Robert Redford and found me. She'd say, “Why, Beth McKenzie and the rabbit could have died in there.” Add that it was so odd how that door accidentally slammed shut and locked. It never happened before and how on earth did it ever get left open in the first place? She'd say, “Robert Redford saved Beth's life.”

I didn't see it quite that way. I knew someone hit me on the head. I could touch the swollen spot, feel the scab forming where my scalp had been torn. I didn't fall. I was hit and pushed.

Verna had called the number listed for the cemetery. She got the caretaker, who rattled up in his truck and unlocked the mausoleum door, grumbling all the time that nothing like this ever had happened before and if this was a prank he'd like to find the person who pulled it. When he did he would give them the back of his hand. And then some.

Scott went to the cemetery the next morning looking for anything that might have been used to hit me. He came back with a smooth, blunt stone smeared with blood on one side. “I feel better doing my own detective work,” he said. “I don't trust Ossie DelGardo as far as I can throw this rock.”

I discussed with Scott whether to report it to Ossie DelGardo. This had been an attempt on my life. But somehow I felt Ossie would accuse me of hitting myself, crawling in the mausoleum and pulling the door shut after. And worst of all, he might report it to
The Mess
and there it would appear in black and white for the whole county to read: Beth McKenzie Henry, owner of the newly established Dixie Dew Bed-and-Breakfast, reported that she had been attacked …by a rock? What? What would it be called? Assault with a deadly rock? Confinement in a mausoleum? Great publicity for a new business. Plus I could just imagine Ossie and Bruce laughing their heads off down at the police station, asking, “What's that idiot girl gone and done now?” The less I saw of Ossie the better I felt.

Had the rock been used to kill Sherman? My head felt heavy and aching. Even my arms felt weighted. I drank coffee on the sunporch, thought how yesterday my big job was to steam off the rest of the wallpaper and see how many chairs I could paint. Today it was to stay alive and try to find out who wanted me otherwise and, most of all, why?

I couldn't think why I'd be in danger. Sure, there had been two murders in Littleboro, but I'd never seen Miss Lavinia before last Sunday night. As for Father Roderick, I had visited his church. I'd seen him cut across the corner sometimes when he came from the tennis courts over at the high school. That was the extent of my knowledge of Father Joe Roderick.

“There's something rotten in this town,” said Scott. “Somebody has got to find out what and who's causing it. I don't think it's going to be Ossie. He didn't sign on for this.”

“There's a connection,” I said. “Somewhere a thread, a link … and it isn't me. It can't be me.”

“The only link I see,” said Scott, “is that Miss Lavinia left everything to Father Roderick's church.”

“But what about her jewelry?” I tried to eat a slice of toast, instead buttered it once, twice, set it aside, then broke off a corner and chewed it absentmindedly.

“Mr. Polyester, the crazy cousin,” said Scott. “He must get the jewelry or he and the lawyer wouldn't be hanging around.”

“None of it makes sense.”

“Does murder ever make sense?” Scott poured me a cup of coffee.

I hoped it would be enough to get through the day, though I felt like it would take the whole pot.

“Think it's safe for me to go to the supermarket?” I asked at about four o'clock.

“If you don't go near any cemeteries,” said Ida Plum, who had heard of my escape and stopped by to see the remains. “Sometimes I think you need one of those Lifelines around your neck. You get in more trouble. Where was your cell phone?”

“On the kitchen counter, of course. But I don't plan to ever go near another cemetery,” I said, taking car keys from my purse. Until I'm carried to one. But I didn't say that aloud. It was closer to the truth than I wanted to think.

Chapter Twelve

“They stripped it,” Verna said. She stood next to the produce counter and balanced a cabbage like a head in her hand. “Weight,” she said, and lifted it as if she wanted to look it in the eye. “That's what you feel for. Solid for its size.” She held the cabbage out, then palmed it like a bowling ball before putting it in her cart.

“Stripped?” I rolled a dozen apples into a bag. I didn't have my mind on shopping or on Verna. That morning I had found Sherman asleep on the backseat of my car. He had probably been there all the time, knew a good place when he found it and decided to stay. He'd only yawned when I lifted him out and hugged him.

“The housekeeper and that leather-jacket boyfriend of hers. Joe Roderick didn't have any sense about people. Took in anybody off the streets.” Verna leaned close into my face, her breath smelling dry as oats, heavy as molasses. “If you ask me, and nobody has yet, but they will, that housekeeper was up to something.” She broke two bananas off a clump and laid them in her cart. “Poor man. Too innocent for his own good.”

Verna pointed to the remaining bananas. “Honey,” she said, “I hope you cut the tips off your bananas when you get home and wash them good with soap and water. You don't know where they might have been.”