Digging Up The Dirt

CHAPTER 5

An’gel went numb with horror. Lottie’s words began to sink in. Sarinda Hetherington was dead. She didn’t want to believe it. Surely Lottie, who got hysterical over the least little thing, was mistaken. An’gel felt her common sense return. Lottie had got it wrong.

She spoke sharply into the phone. “Listen to me, Lottie. Have you called 911 yet? Sarinda may need help.”

“She’s dead, I tell you. Dead, dead, dead.” Lottie chanted the last three words, and An’gel would have given anything to be able to shake the woman back to reality at that moment.

“Did you call 911?” An’gel noticed that Dickce looked alarmed. “Sarinda fell down the stairs,” she said in an aside. Dickce sank into a chair and stared at her sister.

An’gel repeated her question again, and finally Lottie answered in the affirmative. “The ambulance is on the way. I checked her pulse, and she’s dead. I swear she is.”

“Hang on. Sister and I will be on our way there as soon as we can.” An’gel mimed cranking the car, and Dickce stood and hurried out of the room in search of her purse. “Lottie, did you hear me?” She waited, but no response came.

“Drat the woman,” An’gel muttered when she realized Lottie had ended the call. She debated calling back but figured it would be a waste of time.

Dickce hurried in with her purse and brandished the car keys. “Let’s go. Fill me in on the way.”

Two minutes later the Lexus headed down the driveway, Dickce at the wheel. An’gel shared the gist of Lottie’s call with Dickce.

“I never realized Sarinda had a drinking problem,” Dickce said when An’gel finished. “Had you?”

An’gel stared intently through the windshield into the dark night. “Don’t forget to be on the lookout for deer.”

“I won’t,” Dickce said. “Did you hear what I said about Sarinda?”

“I heard.” An’gel scowled. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it. Either Sarinda was incredibly adept at hiding it, or Lottie has things mixed up. Wouldn’t be the first time she’s gotten carried away on little evidence. I hardly believe Sarinda was reeking of bourbon.”

“Doesn’t sound like her,” Dickce said as she guided the car at top speed down the highway into Athena.

“We’ll find out,” An’gel said as she braced her feet against the floorboards. “If we get there alive ourselves, that is. That was a stop sign back there, or didn’t you notice?”

“I noticed,” Dickce replied. “I could see there was no other traffic, so I didn’t think there was any reason to stop.”

An’gel uttered a prayer under her breath. If they didn’t get killed, they ought to arrive at Sarinda’s house in record time.

Sure enough, five minutes later Dickce screeched into a spot by the curb a couple of houses down from Sarinda’s lot. An’gel caught her breath while she surveyed the scene.

The rotating lights of the ambulance and two police cruisers flashed against the white facade of Sarinda’s large three-story Greek Revival–style house. The house, known as Fairleigh, stood well back from the street in one of the oldest residential areas in Athena. The large lawn, though not as generous in proportion as the one at Riverhill, was nevertheless spacious at an acre and a half. The houses on either side had been built within a few years of Fairleigh, but those across the street dated from the late nineteenth century. Sarinda had inherited the house upon her parents’ deaths in an accident when she was in her twenties and had lived there alone ever since.

A group of people milled about in the street. Neighbors come out to gawk, An’gel thought grimly. She opened the door and stepped outside. She shivered. The night was chilly, and neither she nor Dickce had thought to bring a coat with her.

An’gel strode down the sidewalk, aware that Dickce walked barely two paces behind her. They approached a police officer, Pete Peterson, a grizzled veteran they had known since he was born. They had funded the scholarships that put his younger brother through college and medical school after their father died when they were teenagers. He smiled when he recognized the two new spectators.

“Good evening, Miss An’gel, Miss Dickce.” Peterson nodded. “What are y’all doing out tonight? This lady here a friend of yours?”

An’gel and Dickce returned the officer’s greeting. Then An’gel said, “Yes, Pete, she is a good friend of ours. Another friend, Lottie MacLeod, called us. She said she’d found Miss Hetherington and that she was dead. Can you tell us, is that true? Is Miss Hetherington really dead?”

Peterson looked uncomfortable. He glanced around and, evidently satisfied that no one would overhear, he said, “Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid so. EMTs tried to revive her, but she was gone. I sure am sorry.”

An’gel felt Dickce’s arm slip around her waist, and the sisters leaned against each other for comfort. After a moment An’gel pulled away and said, “Thank you for telling us, Pete. This is terrible. We were truly hoping that Lottie was wrong.”

Peterson shook his head, his expression one of sympathy. “I sure am sorry,” he said again. “I think it’s best if you ladies go on back home. It’s getting chilly out here, and you need to be somewhere warm. There’s nothing you can do here.”

An’gel appreciated the officer’s concern and said so. “We’ll go in a moment. First, though, did you go inside the house? Did you see?” She couldn’t quite say the words the body aloud.

Peterson glanced around again before he replied. “Yes, ma’am, I did. You sure you want me to tell you what I saw?”

“Yes, Pete, I’m sure,” An’gel said. “I know this could get you in trouble, but I promise we won’t tell anyone.”

“I know, Miss An’gel, I know,” Peterson said. “Well, the lady was lying at the bottom of the stairs. Looked like she fell headfirst and landed on her front.” He hesitated. “There was a broken bottle of bourbon on the floor by her.”

An’gel swallowed. She hated the picture of Sarinda that now lodged in her mind. “Thank you, Pete. I think you’re right. Sister and I had better go home now.”

Dickce thanked the officer also before they turned to walk back to their car. Peterson offered to accompany them, but they declined.

Before they had taken more than a few steps, however, a voice hailed them. An’gel tensed. She recognized the voice. She and Dickce halted and turned. They looked at each other and grimaced.

“Martin, what are you doing here?” An’gel eyed Reba Dalrymple’s forty-five-year-old son warily.

Martin, who always made An’gel think of Ichabod Crane, wasn’t quite the goofy old scarecrow described by Washington Irving, but he came close. He shambled to a stop about two feet from the sisters and stared at them, his eyes large with excitement.

“Mother sent me.” Martin shoved his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket, a habit with him. All of his jackets sagged on the sides. An’gel had never seen him in one that didn’t.

“How did Reba know anything had happened?” An’gel asked. Martin might be a wiz with computers, she thought, but he had no more social skills than a sock monkey. Talking to him always wore her patience thin.

“Miz Gross called her.” Martin blinked at her.

Because Lottie called Barbie first, as she always did. Lottie made few moves without Barbie’s knowledge and approval. The two were as close as she and Dickce, but Lottie did not have nearly as forceful a personality as her best friend.

“Did your mother send you for any particular reason?” Dickce asked after a sideways glance at An’gel.

“She wanted to know what’s going on.” Martin giggled. “You know how she is. Nosy Rosy.” He giggled again. “Looks like Mother isn’t the only Nosy Rosy.”

An’gel ignored that. “Did you find out anything?” She doubted he had, but she might as well ask.

Martin shrugged. “Not really.” He stepped back. “Better get home. Mother is waiting.” With that he turned and loped off.

“He is so aggravating,” Dickce said. “Sometimes you just want to jerk that knot in his tail.”

“Dickce, why do you have to use that awful expression?” An’gel shook her head. “I agree, though. He can be mighty exasperating. I think he did find out something but he’s going home to tell Reba first. Come now, let’s go home.”

An’gel didn’t feel like talking during the drive back to Riverhill, and apparently neither did Dickce. An’gel pondered Sarinda’s sudden and rather odd death. How could they have all missed the fact that Sarinda had a drinking problem?

An’gel knew that many alcoholics were adept at disguising their addiction, and perhaps Sarinda had been among their number. An’gel found it sad. Sarinda had never married, though An’gel was never certain why. She wondered whether Sarinda had been carrying a torch all these years for Hadley Partridge. Seeing him today might have been a shock, although An’gel would have supposed it to be a pleasant one.

But for Sarinda, it might have been a bitter reminder of forty lonely years. Could Hadley’s sudden return—and show of pointed interest in her, rather than in Sarinda or any of the other women—have had anything to do with Sarinda’s getting so drunk she fell down the stairs?

Another, more sinister interpretation of Sarinda’s death occurred to her. Sarinda had asked the odd question, “What if Callie never left Athena?”

They had all thought it was merely a bid for attention this afternoon. In light of Sarinda’s sudden demise, however, An’gel found herself reconsidering the idea that Sarinda had had another purpose in mind when she posed the question. If she had known more than she let on about what happened to Callie all those years ago, and if what happened to Callie was the result of foul play, could someone in that room today have been responsible? Not only for Sarinda’s death, but also for Callie’s disappearance?

Had both women been murdered?