Love Me If You Must

28

“Not one to gossip,” Dorothy said. She shifted in her seat. “All I know is what I see and hear for myself. Don’t pay no mind to rumors.”

“I understand. I’m not looking for rumors. I’m looking for facts. Did Dietz have family? Friends?” I leaned toward Dorothy on the love seat, eager for information that might clear my name.

“Heard he’s got family over in Jackson. That’s where the funeral is, the paper said. Far as friends go, I don’t think there’s a soul in town that liked the man. Even Sandra eventually saw through him. Everyone else just paid him due homage.”

“How long did Sandra and Martin know each other?”

“Can’t say for sure. They’d been dating quite awhile before he popped the question. Saw the ring when she first got it. She’d been over to the Ramseys’. Showed me on her way home.”

“Sandra knew Rebecca and David Ramsey?”

“Small town, dear. For a good number of years, they were pretty tight. Sandra loved watching the renovations. David teased that she was Martin’s spy.”

Dorothy rubbed her eye with a bony knuckle. “Then long about a year ago last April, Sandra quit hanging around the jet setters that had made her career, the Ramseys included.”

I remembered Tammy saying Sandra had helped with the church youth group. I assumed that activity took up Sandra’s former big-shooter schmooze time.

“And let me guess,” I said. “That’s when she broke up with Martin.”

“She didn’t want to call it off. Said she just wanted to get her life together. Martin harassed her for trying to change. Mocked her for wanting to do the right thing. When she jumped in the race for commissioner against him, that’s when he showed his true colors. She held her head up as long as she could. But he intimidated and embarrassed her in front of everyone. She had to throw in the towel.” Dorothy shook her head. “Never thought she’d just up and leave like that, though.”

“How was Martin after she left?”

“Think she broke his heart. He bad-mouthed her every chance he could, promising she’d never be able to come back to Rawlings. But men only do that when they’ve got their hearts broken. Don’t know why he thought he could be mean to her and she’d stick with him. A woman can only take so much.”

Control freak. That was Dietz. Sandra was okay as long as she toed the line, but do something for herself, and she was toast. Maybe all that bad-mouthing Dietz did was designed to wrap a smoke screen around the facts.

Sandra Jones was dead in my basement. And Martin Dietz put her there. I was almost sure of it.

That got me back to the important question: who killed Martin Dietz?

It had to be someone who knew and loved Sandra. Someone loyal to her memory. Someone who knew what Dietz had done and was just waiting for the right time to take revenge. Waiting for the day when some schleppy renovator chick could take the rap.

I leaned toward Dorothy, feeling as if the answers were somehow mingled with the ganglia in her brain and all I had to do was ask the right questions. “Tell me about the waterproofing project last year. What part did Martin Dietz play in that?”

“He had to approve it. Saw him there a couple times while it was going on. He was always one to keep a close eye on things.”

“Did you ever see him down there after business hours? You know, a time maybe when he shouldn’t have been?”

Dorothy looked at the floor in front of her. “Can’t think of one.”

“What about Jack? Do you think he might know of a time?”

“Might, I suppose.” She glanced up quickly. “But he doesn’t like to talk to strangers. I’ll ask him for you.”

Yeah, right. By the way he’d plopped his bottom into the love seat, Jack had wanted to stay and visit.

Dorothy stood. “Promised you soup, didn’t I?” She headed to the front door. “Best get to it.”

I wasn’t done digging for clues, but I didn’t want to push her. I’d hit a nerve somehow asking about Jack.

“Thank you for the love seat,” I said as she walked out.

Half an hour ago, I’d been ready to burn the plaid atrocity. But having cuddled up in it, I was hooked on its sink-down-to-my-toes comfort. I stood back and looked. The shape softened the angles of the open stairwell. Between the love seat and new paint job, the parlor seemed cozy. And free was always better than renting.

I curled into the curved arm, almost giddy to own a stick of real furniture.

I closed my eyes. Lucky for me there were Officer Brads in the world. Instead of freezing, I was toasty in my usually drafty Victorian.

I must have dozed off.

Clang, clang, clang. Prison guards were opening and closing my cell door. Behind me, Verna was telling me how to make coffee. “Three scoops in the top. But don’t you use that nasty water.” I was only half listening to her. Mostly I was wondering why the guards kept banging the door. “Am I in, or am I out?” I asked.

“You’re in,” the guard said and stuck his face up to the bars. It was David.

I stumbled backward to get away from him and fell across Verna. But it wasn’t Verna anymore. It was a dead, decaying body.

Teeth without lips smiled up at me. “I’m waiting, Tish.”

I screamed myself awake, scrambling upright on the love seat. My heart pounded.

Night had fallen while I’d napped. Streetlights sent a dim glow to the parlor. I stood and groped my way to the kitchen.

I turned on the light and waited for the fluorescent bulb to reach full intensity. I eased toward the kitchen sink and looked over at the cellar door. Yellow police tape draped across it, most likely forgotten after the brief and unrevealing investigation. Crime scene, the black letters warned.

I could only hope that Martin Dietz had made amends with his Maker. I didn’t need another ghost wandering the halls. As it was, his death was enough of a curse. A picture of my house plastered all the area papers, along with details of the murder in the basement. I crossed my fingers that no one would recognize the Victorian once I transformed it with a fresh coat of paint come spring.

I opened the fridge and scrounged around.

An onion bagel and some low-fat cream cheese fit the bill.

I leaned against the counter as I ate and thought about breaking through the police tape. If I had a speck of courage, I would throw a private grave-digging party and have the case wrapped up in thirty minutes or less. And without Dietz around to stop me, no one could comment on the excavation of my cistern.

I brushed a crumb off my lip. I was stuck in limbo between knowing the right thing to do and having the gumption to actually do it.

And it wasn’t like I had anybody to come to my rescue. Officer Brad probably choked down a chuckle every time he remembered the body I thought was in my cistern. And I couldn’t invite a police officer to join me in wrecking a crime scene, even if it was already abandoned.

David remained a possibility. But I shuddered to imagine his reaction if I asked him to help exhume a body. He might think I was a little on the loony side now, but after that, he’d be convinced I’d lost my marbles.

That left Jack Fitch as the most likely White Knight in the neighborhood. I could tell him I just wanted to redo the concrete job in the cistern. No offense, Jack, it’s just too bumpy. Can’t you help me take out the old concrete and smooth in some new? And if we happen to find a body under there, oh well. You never know what you’ll uncover in these old homes.

I scraped the bottom of the cream cheese container with my last chunk of bagel. There was always the off chance that my basement was devoid of a body. No Sandra. No Rebecca. No Jan in residence. Just plain soil under that chunk of mortar.

I swallowed a lump of dough.

I was betting on a body. Of course, with Dietz getting so carelessly clunked in my cellar, I might end up back in the slammer.

A thunk came from outside the back window. My heart did a double flip-flop.

I froze against the counter, then pitched the cream cheese container in the trash and dusted off my hands.