Beverly Connor - Dust to Dust

“Don’t!” Marsha Carruthers’ face hardened to granite. “Don’t you say you understand how I feel. You can’t possibly imagine!”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” said Diane, trying to keep calm in her own voice. “And no, I don’t know how you feel, but I know how I felt. My daughter was murdered. She was the best part of me. She was my heart. I know how I felt when she was murdered, and it is indescribable. I live every moment with her loss and the knowledge that I failed to protect her. I also know that if I lose my humanity, I lose her again, I fail her again, and I couldn’t bear that. Ariel was not yet six years old when she was killed, but she was a bright shining soul and I cherish every single memory of her. So don’t tell me I can’t possibly imagine.” Diane unconsciously put her hand on her neck where she wore a locket with Ariel’s photograph.

All of them fell into a shocked silence. The neighbor had a tear running down her cheek. She looked away and wiped it with her hand. Diane was sure this was more than she bargained for when she came over to give her friend moral support.

“I’ll give you some unasked-for advice,” said Diane. “You are in danger of losing the love you felt for your daughter. You are so overwhelmed with anger and grief that that special feeling you had for Ellie Rose is going to get lost in the abyss. Stacy was Harmon Dance’s daughter and he loved her too. We just want to know what she talked about and if she said where she was going afterward.”

Marsha sat very still. Her face hadn’t changed, but there wasn’t an angry comeback on her lips and Diane thought she saw them quiver. The neighbor squeezed Marsha’s shoulder.

“I was here when Miss Dance came by,” the neighbor said. “My name is Wendy. I live next door. She asked about whom Ellie was dating at the time, who her friends were. I told her we weren’t going to tell her people’s names so she could go pester them. I don’t know where she went when she left here. Neither of us does,” she said. “Honestly, we didn’t tell her much. Do we look particularly cooperative to you?”

There was a rustling in the entryway and a young woman bounced in. She looked to be seventeen or eighteen. She was dressed in pink bell-bottoms with a wide white belt. Her pink T-shirt had a picture of an electric guitar outlined in rhinestones. Her long hair was black with a lock of pink on one side going from her forehead to her shoulders. Her eyes were outlined with black liner and she wore false eyelashes and bright pink lipstick. She had a diamondlike jewel on the side of her nose.

“Mom. Oh. Sorry,” she said.

She stood still and looked into the living room. Diane and Kingsley turned to look at her. She looked so very much like Ellie Rose in the face that it startled Diane.

“Samantha, dear, why don’t you fix your mother a glass of tea?” said Wendy.

Samantha looked at her mother. “Do you want some tea, Mom?” she asked.

“That would be nice, hon,” she said.

Samantha skipped off to another part of the house.

“You have a very pretty daughter,” said Diane.

“At least she likes pink,” said her mother.

Diane thought she saw a hint that at one time Marsha Carruthers may have had a sense of humor.

“It was not our intention to cause you more pain,” said Diane, “but it is important to find out what happened to Stacy.”

She took a card from her pocket. She had brought the cards that identified her as director of the Aidan Kavanagh Forensic Anthropology Lab, the osteology lab she ran at the museum. It seemed a much better choice of card to give out with her name on it. Museum director would have been cnfusing, and director of the crime lab would be awkward, since she wasn’t representing Rosewood. In her capacity as forensic anthropologist, she had much more freedom. Sometimes she felt like a con artist with all the different cards she had with different professions.

Kingsley handed her his card along with Diane’s. “Please call if you remember anything that might help,” Kingsley said. He nodded to Wendy. “We can show ourselves out.” They turned to leave.

“Why haven’t the police contacted us?” asked Marsha.

So they finally thought to ask, thought Diane.

Kingsley turned back to her. “I’m sure they will. Right now they may not know where Stacy’s investigation led her,” he said.

“I didn’t think private investigators could investigate an open case,” said Wendy.

Samantha came in with her mother’s tea and gave it to her. Marsha gave it to Wendy, who took it to the liquor cabinet and set it on top, turned, and looked at Kingsley for an answer.

“That’s a popular misconception,” he said. “We just can’t get in their way.” Kingsley looked at each of them and nodded. He and Diane left.

“You finessed that well,” said Diane when they reached the car.

“It wouldn’t have done to tell them that, at the moment, the police are calling her death an accident,” Kingsley said, almost absently.

He frowned and looked back at the house. Diane got in and closed the door.

“There’s a note on your seat,” she said when he opened his door to get in.

Kingsley picked it up and read it out loud. “ Lakeshore Mall. Cookie Company. Now. Please. Thanks. ”

“Not signed?” said Diane.

“It’s from Samantha,” said Kingsley. “Of course, when I met her, she was the drummer’s cousin.”

Diane looked at him, perplexed. “She’s Stacy’s drummer’s cousin?”

“She told the police she was. I think we need to go to the mall,” he said.

He started to pull out of the drive just as a blue Volks wagen Phaeton pulled up, blocking them. A man jumped out, slammed his car door, and came marching up to the driver’s side of their car. He looked in his late forties or early fifties. A slight bulge hung over his belt. He wore dark blue suit pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a light blue tie, loosened. He banged on the roof of Kingsley’s car with his palms.

Diane got out of the car and looked over the roof at him. Kingsley got out on the other side. They stood face-to-face.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, coming around here harassing my family?” he said.

“We were not harassing,” said Kingsley. “We were asking questions about a young woman who visited here about four weeks ago.”

“You have no business here. I called the police to see what this was about, and they said the woman’s death was an accident,” he said. “So what are you playing at?”

His face was so red Diane was a little concerned. His comb-over fell into his face and he pushed it back.

“It wasn’t an accident,” said Kingsley. “But as to your complaint, we were not harassing your family. We were speaking with your wife in the presence of your neighbor.”

“You aren’t to set foot on my property again. Is that clear?” he said.

“We won’t need to,” said Kingsley. “The police will be handling it from here.”

“If it wasn’t an accident, the police would have told me. You think you know something they don’t?” he asked.

“Dad, I need to go to the library.” Samantha stood a few feet from him. A book bag hung on her arm.

A candy-apple red hardtop convertible, not there when Diane and Kingsley drove up, was parked in a small parking space just off the driveway. Diane assumed it was Samantha’s.

“I can’t get out,” she said. “You’re blocking the drive.”

“Just a minute, Sam, honey.” He turned to her. “Did these people upset your mother?”

“How could I tell?” she said. Her face looked both sad and a little angry.