“Whose bedroom?” asked Nick scornfully.
“The ghost’s. Elizabeth Morrow’s. That was her name and she was sixteen when she died. Cal said she would’ve been his great-great-great-great-aunt or something like that, only she went and died because her boyfriend got shot and killed. And he told me to smell and I did and it really was gardenias, Mom. Cal said that was her favorite flower and every time she walks, people can smell them, even in the middle of winter, and that was a little before Christmas.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Oh, right.”
The others laughed, but when the boys had returned to their movie, I said, “Did Jonna use gardenia perfume?”
Dwight looked blank and Sandy shrugged.
“You think she pretended to be Cal’s ghost?” asked Paul.
“Or brought the ghost home with her.” I told them about opening up the couch and finding used sheets that smelled faintly of either honeysuckle or gardenia. “Gardenia must be a fairly common scent though. Maybe a docent at the Morrow House? Assuming it has docents?”
“Only in the summertime, I think,” Sandy said doubtfully, looking at Paul for confirmation.
“Something else to check out tomorrow,” Dwight told me.
“Not you, hon?” asked Sandy.
“I’ve been told officially that this case belongs to the state guys,” Paul told her. “But Cal’s his son, so they can’t really shut Dwight down.”
We moved on to other topics, but later, when I helped Sandy clean up the kitchen, I asked about Jonna. Not directly of course. I didn’t have to. Sandy knew what I was angling for and she spoke candidly as she moved back and forth from the table to the refrigerator, putting away the food.
“Dwight and Paul were assigned to the D.C. area about the same time,” she said, “and we all wound up living on the same side of Arlington. We had them over to the house for cookouts and stuff, and we’d go there oc-17 casionally or to the O Club, but Michelle and Nick were little, so it was hard to get out much, and frankly, she made me uncomfortable. She was beautiful, but beautiful in a way that made me feel frumpy, and she was very class conscious, if you know what I mean? Very proper. One of those people who clobber you over the head with their own good manners? I always felt as if she was watching to catch me using the wrong fork or something, so I didn’t try very hard to make her my best friend even though Paul and Dwight clicked. Besides, from the first time we all got together, I could see that their marriage was with-ering on the vine. Especially after Dwight left the Army and joined the D.C. police.”
She began rearranging things in the dishwasher so as to fit in a final bowl, and I added a stray fork and serving spoon to the utensil basket.
“What about when she got pregnant with Cal?” I asked.
“Could’ve knocked me over with a feather,” Sandy said. “Frankly, I was surprised they were even sleeping together. I was still carrying Jimmy, and Dwight asked me to visit her. He was worried because she was having terrible morning sickness and she didn’t seem to have any friends. The day I dropped in, she was feeling so miserable that she was almost human. Her breasts were sore, her skin was blotchy, she felt bloated, she was throwing up every morning, yet she was so happy about being pregnant that for the first time I could understand why Dwight married her. It was a good visit and I felt as if we’d really connected. We went shopping for baby things a time or two and the four of us even got together for dinner about a week before Jimmy was born. Afterwards?
I don’t know. Maybe it was my fault for not trying harder, but with two kids and a new baby, I just didn’t have much time or energy to give to the friendship, and by the time I could put my head up and look around, she was gone. I never saw her again till Paul took this job and we moved to Shaysville. Even though Jimmy and Cal are Cubs together and they play on the same Pop Warner team, she ran in a different circle from mine—the town’s old money and old blood, women she was in playschool with.”
“No male friends?”
“Boyfriends? I wouldn’t know about that. Haven’t heard any gossip.”
She closed the dishwasher door and pushed the on button. “I’ll tell you one thing for sure, though: if there was anything going on in Jonna’s life that led to this, you can bet that Jill Edwards or Lou Cannady knew about it.”
C H A P T E R
19
Although we were tired and emotionally drained, sleep did not come easily. Part of it was sharing the couch with Bandit, who seemed bewildered by Cal’s absence; but an even bigger part was our fear and dread.
The night revived old memories of my eighteenth summer when I would wake from troubled dreams with a heart that was heavy even though my mind had tem-porarily forgotten why. There would be a two- or three-second disconnect between effect and cause and then the cause would come rushing back.
Back then, it was
Being together helped. We were too distraught to make love, but just holding on to each other was a comfort, and eventually we did drift off. We slept so lightly, though, that each time one of us stirred, the other would wake. Around two a.m., Dwight finally fell into a deeper sleep. At that point, I eased off the couch, thinking that he might continue to sleep for a couple of hours if I wasn’t there tossing and turning beside him. Bandit followed me out to the kitchen, where I switched on a light over the stove and poured myself a glass of orange juice.
Weird to know that Jonna had bought this juice only a few days ago. Had bought the eggs and butter and everything else in this refrigerator.
