Colder Than Death

Outside

Alton Held (Head Groundskeeper)

Vaughn Larkin (Night Watchman)

Will Polk (Gravedigger)

Nat Jaspers (Gravedigger)

Tim Wallach (Gravedigger)

Henderson’s Funeral Home

Del Coltrane (FD)

Lew Henderson (FD)

Clint Tristler

Nolan Fowler (Embalmer)

Elaine Whorley (Hair)

Digregorio’s Funeral Home

Tyler DiGregorio (FD)

Alphonse DiGregorio (FD)

Wilton Ging (Embalmer)

Elaine Whorley (Hair)

“Why do you have Vaughn’s name on the list?” I asked.

“Don’t get your balls in an uproar. I just put his name there when I listed all the cemetery employees. Far as I’m concerned, Vaughn’s the only person in this town who’s above suspicion. What about the other names? You know them all. Does any strike you as having a dark side?”

I looked at the names. Precisely because I did know them all I didn’t put much stock in the idea that one was a killer, but as I stared at the names one thing began to alarm me. If the killer was someone on the list, it meant that I knew him. And despite Perry’s refusal to consider the possibility that Brandy Parker had been murdered by the same person who killed Virginia Thistle and Alyssa, if the killer was on that list, it meant that someone I knew had killed the only woman I’d ever love.

“I can’t believe any of them are capable of it,” I said.

“My father never trusted Alton Held.”

“Alton’s a pussycat. What was not to trust?”

“His white trash southern accent bothered my father. He always had a hard on for people with any kind of accent. He did some checking up on Alton when he moved to town and found out he had a record back in Louisiana.”

“What was the crime?”

“Burglary, breaking and entering, passing bad checks, a bunch of drunk and disorderlies and assault and batteries.”

I wondered if Vaughn knew about Alton’s record. “Was he arrested for any serious crimes?”

Perry smirked. “No. But coincidentally, Alton’s been living here for twenty-five years.” I said nothing. “The guy comes out of nowhere with a record and hires on as a gravedigger, one of life’s great career moves.” He rolled his eyes. “Gets to know his way around the cemetery pretty well. Could even be a cemetery buff… and even if he wasn’t he probably sees some now and then. I’m thinking on my feet here, Del, so this might not be totally clear yet, but if your notion about one killer murdering three woman is right, the guy had to be around for all these years. Alton was and Lew, Alphonse, Mel Abernathy, Nolan Fowler and Wilt Ging.”

He leaned back looking satisfied with himself. “They were all around and they’re all suspects. All of ’em!”

Chapter 18

“But there’s one guy who wasn’t around?” I said. “Kyle Thistle. He was in the institution when Alyssa was killed.”

“If she was killed,” said Perry.

“If. But under my theory, Kyle is eliminated. And obviously most of the names on your list aren’t serious suspects. Like Vaughn and the women. And I can’t believe you put Lew Henderson as a serious suspect?”

“Go back nine years. Lew would’ve been fifty-five. And old man DiGregerio would’ve been in his early Sixties. And interestingly enough, both men have always looked younger and stayed in good shape, especially Alphonse. And it was common knowledge that he was a pussy hound all his life. And based on what the girl just told us about her Aunt being turned off to young guys and maybe seeing an older man/father figure type, who would be more natural than Alphonse?”

“You’re reaching, Perry.”

“It’d be convenient for everybody if he was the one. Not only would a nice deathbed confession have taken the heat off me to solve the damn murder, but it would save the County a fortune in court costs. I wish I could’ve talked to him before he died.”

“The man isn’t even in the ground yet. I think a little respect for the dead is called for.”

“Screw the dead! I know what people are saying. I’m an asshole and I don’t have a shot at finding the killer. I don’t need a murder case in my life, Del. I’ll take a lifetime of chicken-shit misdemeanors. I don’t want to have to prove anything to anybody. And I don’t want this to slip into the wind. And I most assuredly don’t want to spend the rest of my life being haunted by a case like my old man.”

“Which case was your father haunted by?”

“Whattya think?” he snarled. “Not finding the body of Virginia Thistle.”

“But you said as far as your Dad was concerned, it was closed.”

“Only reason it got closed was because Kyle Thistle lost his mind. Sticking him in the nuthouse made things easy for everybody, especially my father. But he had his pride. No easy answer ever does anything for your pride. That case nearly drove him off the deep end. It’s hard enough to find evidence for even the simplest of crimes, but when it’s murder, not to have a friggin’ body? My Dad worked his ass off trying to figure what happened to that woman.” Perry shook his head with heaviness. “Goddamn Pete Dinwiddy!”

“Who?”

“The so-called witness who claimed he saw Kyle Thistle dropping garbage in a couple of cans. Dinwiddy was a lush, but it was the only thing my father had to go on. There was pressure from the County DA so my Dad made an arrest. But he never believed him. As for the body being in the lake, it’s standard procedure to make a search. You comb the area around the missing person’s house. You scour the wooded areas. You drag Lake Dankworth. Ho-hum. But Thistle got put away and everybody was satisfied except my father. He wanted Kyle to be tried. Figured a jury wouldn’t put much stock in the testimony of Dinwiddy because of his drinking. Dad was counting on a not guilty verdict. He figured people would’ve thought he tried to find justice.”

“Did he have a theory of what really happened?”

“He thought Virginia Thistle was kidnapped. Statistically, in kidnappings of adults, it’s almost always a stranger. And the victim is almost always a woman. And the perpetrator is almost always a man. Or men. Seldom the husband. If the motive isn’t a ransom, it’s usually sex. Or sex and murder. They may not want to kill the woman, but they have to because she can connect them with the crime. And because it’s usually a stranger, the officer investigating the case has to assume that some drifter did it, some psycho passing through, whether it’s a big city or a small town. With all that in mind, you’d think that it would apply to the Virginia Thistle case, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s what my father assumed when he began the investigation. But he kept having these gut reactions. Dad was always big on gut reactions, whether it was concerning somebody breaking into a feed store, me lying