He didn’t bite.
Of course, he didn’t just fall off the watermelon truck last week either. Before he and Jonna split, Dwight was with the D.C. police force and before that with Army Intelligence. I had the feeling he was holding something back, but he could keep his mouth shut when it suited him.
“The sexton was found in the choir loft, too,” I mused. “Wonder what they were both doing there? Hunt did die of smoke inhalation, didn’t he?”
“So the ME says.” Dwight yawned again.
“But he could have been hit over the head first.”
“Not according to the ME. Alcohol level was point-nineteen. Probably just passed out there,” he said sleepily.
His own eyes were half-closed. Another minute and he’d be gone.
I was ready to go see if the rain had let up enough to get to my car when Cyl DeGraffenried suddenly appeared in the doorway. She wore a tailored rose-colored dress today with a string of white beads and low-heeled white pumps.
“I just got a call that a skeleton’s been found at Mount Olive,” she said. “Is that true?”
A skeleton?
I kicked the desk drawer shut and Dwight lurched forward so abruptly that the chair almost slid out from under him. “You didn’t say skeleton. You said body.”
“A skeleton is a body,” he protested, wide awake now.
Cyl had no patience for a battle of semantics. “How long?”
He didn’t give her the runaround. But then she’s an ADA, with more right to ask.
“At least three years. Probably a lot more. Near as we can tell, it was lying directly on the ground underneath the church. No burned material under it, but parts of both the original floor and the false floor had caved in on top of it. There was no flesh left. Not much clothing either, but that section was pretty badly burned. All we got were some half-charred shoes and part of a belt with a corroded steel buckle.”
“In the shape of an M?” she asked harshly.
“M? We thought it was a W You know who it is, ma’am?”
“Oh, Cyl,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
She whirled around so fast that her string of beads swung out in an arc, then fell back into place with faint clicks as she half ran from the office.
I hurried down the hall after her.
“Hey wait!” Dwight called. “You know, too, Deb’rah? Who is it?”
His turn to wonder, I thought. Serves him right.
I caught up with Cyl at the elevator.
“You okay?” I asked, stepping into the car with her.
“No, but I will be soon as I talk to that lying s.o.b. Snake.” She punched the button for the DA’s office on the second floor. “I
Her voice wobbled and she shook her head, denying the tears that wanted to come.
On the second floor, I followed her down the deserted hallway to the equally deserted District Attorney’s quarters. She hauled out a phone book, turned to the motel listing and dialed the number for the Holiday Inn out at the bypass where she asked to be connected with Wallace Adderly’s room.
I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, of course, but it was easy enough to follow.
“Well, do you know when he’ll be back?... Is he registered for tonight?... Thank you very much… No, no message.”
She hung up with a muttered, “Damn!” and then tried the Reverend Ligon’s number.
Answering machine.
Another frustrated hangup.
Hesitant to play devil’s advocate, I said, “When you talked with Adderly Saturday, he didn’t actually say Isaac went to Boston with him, you know. You’re the one mentioned Boston.”
“You didn’t hear him deny it, did you?”
“Well, no, but coming out of the blue like that? He’s a political animal. He wouldn’t speak without weighing all the ramifications.”
She continued to riffle through the phone book, then slammed it down on her desk. “I can’t think where he’d be in this one-horse town. Maybe Raleigh?”
Angrily, she reached for the book again.
I glanced at my watch. 5:45.
“You up for more barbecue?” (In the North, it’s the chicken and hot dog circuit; in the South, it’s barbecue— endless plates of hushpuppies, coleslaw and vinegar-laced barbecue.)
My question caught Cyl off balance. “Barbecue?”
