Sing It to Her Bones

4

We eluded the press by the simple expedient of taking Dennis’s unmarked Taurus and driving it hell-bent for leather in the opposite direction. We whizzed past the folks from Channel 13 as they rounded the curve near the pond, sending ducks and chickens squawking and flapping from the grassy berm and into the muddy water.

Twenty minutes later I was standing in Connie’s kitchen, holding the lid on the teakettle with one finger while I poured hot water into Dennis’s cup. “What was that you were saying earlier about the Lambert boy?” He ignored my question, and Connie shot me a sudden sideways glance that said, plain as day, “Hannah, do shut up.”

I tried to act grateful. Lieutenant Rutherford had, after all, saved me and my butt from a cold, hard plastic chair in the Chesapeake County Eastern District Police Station by deciding to interview us late that same afternoon in Connie’s bright kitchen, where the sun, low in the sky, slanted through the decorative shutters Paul had installed for her last winter.

Connie served butter cookies out of a Tupperware container she kept on top of the refrigerator. Dennis held a cookie between this thumb and forefinger, dipped it into his cup, let it soak for a few seconds, shook it slightly to make sure it wouldn’t drip, then popped the cookie, whole, in his mouth.

He watched me watching him and seemed amused. “I learned to drink tea in England,” he explained. “On a Fulbright scholarship.”

I wrapped my hands around a mug of Earl Grey and watched while Dennis stirred milk into his tea. I like that in a man.

The good lieutenant seemed in no hurry to leave.

I repeated my story-I was getting good at it by now-while Dennis listened thoughtfully and jotted down bits of what I said in a pocket-size notebook.

Dennis must have regretted his earlier burst of candor because he volunteered no more information about Lambert. In fact, he seemed more interested in what Connie could tell him about recent activity at the Nichols farm than anything I had said about finding the body.

“The Nicholses moved to Florida years ago, Dennis. Long before I came home.” She rested an elbow on the table and stirred her tea absentmindedly while holding the spoon loosely between her thumb and forefinger. “If the body turns out to be that of the Dunbar girl, though, I realize I must have been here when… whoever… dumped her in the well. It gives me the creeps.”

Connie licked her spoon, then waved it in the general direction of the window. “You can see that although we share a fence, I’m not exactly within sight and hearing distance of that house.”

Dennis studied her, his greenish brown eyes intent. “Have you seen anything recently? Trucks or cars going by? People who don’t live here or have business out here?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Someone may have attempted to repair that cracked cistern cover or come back to check on the body, just to make sure it stayed hidden.”

“No, nothing like that, Dennis.” She poured more hot water into his cup. “I’m not sure I would have noticed anyway. I’m usually engrossed in my work.”

Dennis stood, pushing his chair back with his knees. In three long strides he covered the length of the hallway leading into Connie’s studio, still carrying his cup. He ducked slightly to keep from hitting his head on the doorframe. When he spoke again, his voice was slightly muffled. “You’ve always had a good view of the road from here.”

“True, but I’ve usually got my back to it.”

I stood in the doorway and watched while Dennis wandered around the studio for a few more minutes, looking but not touching. When he returned to the kitchen, Connie said, “I’d ask you to stay for supper, Dennis, but I don’t feel much like cooking tonight.”

“I couldn’t stay anyway, Connie. I have to get home to Maggie. She’ll be wondering where I am.” He peeked under his cuff to check the time.

“Whew. It’s later than I thought.” He extended his hand. “I’ll be in touch.” For Connie he had a hug. “Take care.”

While Connie stood at the sink with her back to me, rattling the crockery, I watched from the window as Dennis backed up his Taurus, eased it skillfully around my Toyota, turned, then headed down the drive. It was with considerable self-restraint that I waited until he reached the road before I pounced. “Okay, Connie. Out with it! What’s the story with you and Dennis?”

“We’re friends. Just friends.”

“Ha!”

She turned to face me. “No, really! Wipe that cynical, suspicious look off your face! Dennis was very supportive when Craig died.”

I thought about the way Dennis had moved about Connie’s house with easy familiarity. He knew where Connie kept the cups and that she stored sugar in the refrigerator. I was betting he knew where the toothpaste was, too, and which side of the bed she slept on.

“Ha!” I repeated. Connie’s mouth turned up slightly at the corners; then she returned her attention to the dirty dishes.

“And who’s Maggie?”

“Maggie is Dennis’s daughter.”

I was surprised. I’d assumed Maggie was his wife.

“She’s twenty-two but still lives at home. She hasn’t been very well lately, Hannah.”

Connie read my mind, which was thinking cancer. “No, not that! It’s bipolar disorder. Manic depression. Whatever we call it these days.”

Wet dishcloth in hand, Connie began to wipe down the stove top. “They’ve had her on lithium, Depakote, Wellbutrin, and something called norepinephrine, but nothing seems to work for long. One minute she’s chartering buses and organizing pro-life marches on the White House; the next she’s locked herself in the bathroom, threatening to commit suicide. It’s a big worry.”

“She must be a handful for her mother.”

Connie draped the dishcloth over the oven door handle to dry. “Dennis’s wife died suddenly last Christmas.”

Open mouth, insert foot. I was curious about how she died, but the look on Connie’s face said, Don’t go there, so I changed the subject.

“I wanted to ask Dennis more about ‘that Lambert boy,’ but you kept shooting daggers at me. What’s the big secret, Connie?”

Connie looked baffled. “No secret. I just sensed that Dennis thought he had spoken out of turn, and I didn’t want to put him on the spot.” She joined me at the table, where I was refolding the napkins-Connie always used big, checkered cloth ones-so we could use them again in the morning.

“I don’t remember much about the Lamberts. Dad was pretty sick, and I didn’t pay much attention to the news. I’d be so exhausted by the end of the day I’d just fall into bed. The Lamberts still live down on Princess Anne Street, though, right behind the nursing home. Their son, Chip, was a big athlete back in the late eighties. He went to the University of Maryland on a basketball scholarship, I think. He got married and moved to Baltimore, last I heard. He and Katie were high school sweethearts, so naturally he’d be asked about her disappearance.”

“I would certainly hope so!”

“Let it rest, Hannah! I can’t believe you’re still standing up asking silly questions after the day you’ve had. It makes me tired just to look at you. Do you want dinner?”

We agreed to let tea substitute for dinner; then I tried calling Paul. When I got the answering machine again, I left him a grumpy message, then collapsed in the living room to watch the seven o’clock news. After Tom Brokaw bade us good night, I let Connie have dibs on the tub because I was too weary to get up. I lay in front of the TV, like a lump, my feet propped up on the arm of the sofa and in sole, proud possession of the remote control. I used it to graze through the channels. Earlier Connie had poured us each a glass of heart medicine: red wine. The stem of my glass rested on my stomach so that the ruby liquid sloshed from side to side as I breathed.

Connie wasn’t much for modern gadgets; she had owned an answering machine once, but could never figure out how to program it. While she soaked in the tub, I lay on the sofa and grumbled to myself about Connie’s aversion to electronic devices. If she had had an answering machine, I complained, there might have been a message on it from Paul when we returned from the Nichols place. At eight-thirty I switched from a mindless network sitcom to a biography of Shirley Temple on A &E. Surely he’d be calling me soon. I drained my wineglass and settled in for the wait. The last thing I remember was Shirley and her bouncing sausage curls dancing up the steps with Stepin Fetchit.

How I got myself into bed is a mystery. I awoke to the sound of gravel crunching. Socks were still on my feet, and my mouth tasted like old navy soup spoons. I drew aside the lightweight chintz curtains and peered out the window. My green Toyota was rolling down the drive with Connie at the wheel. I had blocked her in. Downstairs a note stuck to the door of the refrigerator with a plastic magnet from Pizza John’s informed me that she’d gone to get a newspaper and that she’d be “back in a few.”

I took the opportunity to bathe. With the tub half full and steam already clouding the mirror, I settled into the water, first resting my back against the cool porcelain, then sliding down until I was lying almost flat. I adjusted the hot-water tap to a trickle and watched as the water level slowly rose to cover my thighs and arms, my feet, my chest, and finally, my breast. The right one had once been small, round, and perky like the left one until cancer and a surgeon’s knife had reduced it to a rough, red rope across my chest. I ran a finger gently along the knotted scar and thought about the reconstructive surgery I was considering.

I sat up, soaked a washcloth in the hot water from the tap, wrung it out, and placed it over my face, covering it completely, breathing in the hot, moist air, breathing slowly, evenly, feeling my body melt into the water. Under the washcloth scenes from yesterday played and replayed behind my closed eyelids. I tried to clear my mind, but images of that white, floating thing kept swimming to the surface. I flung the washcloth aside and tried to concentrate on Connie’s elaborate floral wallpaper, following the wandering vines as they snaked over the medicine cabinet and curled around the light fixtures, but even that didn’t banish the visions. So I meditated, focusing on my mantra instead.

A knock on the bathroom door jolted me awake. “Hannah, are you all right?”

“Sorry, Connie. I must have fallen asleep. I’ll be right out.”

I emerged, wrapped in an oversize terry-cloth bathrobe I found hanging from a hook on the back of the bathroom door, my skin flushed with the heat. Connie sat at the kitchen table surrounded by paper cups of fresh coffee plus a box of assorted doughnuts she told me she had picked up at Ellie’s.

I peeked inside. “Crullers!” My favorite. I took a bite and mumbled, “You are a doll.”

Connie finished the last of a chocolate-covered doughnut, sipped her coffee, then wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Gawd, just think of the calories!”

“Crullers don’t have any calories,” I said. I showed her the hollow core. “See, they’re full of air.”

“Dream on, Hannah. You might as well just paste it on your thighs.”

Connie had purchased three newspapers and spread them out on the table. “I knew you’d be interested in seeing these.” The Washington Post didn’t mention our murder at all, at least not that we could find. The Baltimore Sun had a small article in the Maryland section, but we had made it big in the Chesapeake Times, with pictures. There it was, solidly occupying the treasured spot on the front page usually reserved for marijuana busts, boat fires, fatal traffic accidents, or farmers who had grown misshapened vegetables resembling Newt Gingrich. “Here.” Connie moved her mug aside and smoothed the paper out.

“What does it say?” I leaned forward, still licking the sticky glaze from my fingers.

In the Sun I was described as “a woman visiting from Annapolis,” but the Times mentioned my name and my hometown and had a small picture of me and Connie, talking to Ellie. I peered at it. “Connie, why didn’t you tell me I looked so dreadful? My wig is crooked.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s your imagination. You look fine.”

“Liar!” I tossed my empty cup into the trash. “Does it say anything about Chip Lambert?”

Connie adjusted her reading glasses and leaned over the page. “Let’s see. ‘The partially calcified body of a young woman’ blah-de-blah-de-blah. Oh, here we are. ‘Katherine Dunbar was last seen on October 13, 1990, leaving a dance at Jonas Green High School with her date, Charles “Chip” Lambert, also sixteen. Police are awaiting a positive identification of the body before reopening the case.’ ”

I turned the paper slightly toward me. BODY FOUND IN CISTERN, shouted the headline, and in smaller type below, FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED. Another photograph filled most of the page below the headline: Mrs. Dunbar gazed out from the window of her husband’s truck with sad, unfocused eyes. He stood outside the door, holding her hand.

“I think that image will haunt me forever, Connie. It’s the personification of grief. Even though it’s been a long time since Emily put us through hell on earth by running off after that rock band, one doesn’t easily forget. I know exactly what is running through that poor woman’s mind.” I pushed the newspaper back toward my sister-in-law. “It could have been Emily lying down there at the bottom of that cistern.” My eyes stung with tears. “Eight years she’s been living this nightmare, Connie. Eight years.” I touched the photograph of Mrs. Dunbar. “But by the time this is all over, at least she’ll know, one way or the other.”

While Connie did the laundry and painted, I spent the rest of the day trying to make sense out of her accounts, which consisted of a spiral-bound notebook full of nearly indecipherable scribbles and a shoe box stuffed full of invoices, check stubs, and receipts. I was so caught up alternately worrying about Connie’s slovenly bookkeeping habits and the poor Dunbar family that I forgot to worry about why Paul still hadn’t returned my call.