that—and I interrupted him.
"I thought you'd like to know that a dead man named something like Chess, or Chester, is in the burned laundromat on Florida Street, about five blocks off the square."
"What?" There was a long moment of silence while Harvey Branscom let that soak in. "Darryl Chesswood? He's at home in his daughter's house. They added on a room for him last year when he began to forget where he lived. How dare you say such a thing?" He sounded honestly, righteously, offended.
"That's what I do," I said, and laid the receiver gently on its cradle.
The town of Sarne had just gotten a freebie.
I lay back on the slippery green bedspread and crossed my hands over my ribs. I didn't need to be a psychic to predict what would happen now. The sheriff would call Chesswood's daughter. She would go to check on her dad, and she'd find he was gone. The sheriff would probably go to the site himself, since he'd be embarrassed to send a deputy on such an errand. He'd find Darryl Chesswood's body.
The old man had died of natural causes—a cerebral hemorrhage, I thought.
It was always refreshing to find someone who hadn't been murdered.
T HE next morning, when Tolliver and I entered the coffee shop (Kountry Good Eats) that was conveniently by the motel, the whole group was there, ensconced in a little private room. The doors to the room were open, so they couldn't miss our entrance. The dirty plates on the table in front of them, the two empty chairs, and the pot of coffee all indicated we were anticipated. Tolliver nudged me, and we exchanged looks.
I was glad I'd already put on my makeup. Usually, I don't bother until I've had my coffee.
It would have been too coy to pick another table, so I led the way to the open doors of the meeting room, the newspaper I'd bought from a vending machine tucked under my arm. The cramped room was almost filled with a big round table. Sarne's movers and shakers sat around that table, staring at us. I tried to remember if I'd combed my hair that morning. Tolliver would've told me if I'd looked really bed-headed, I told myself. I keep my hair short. It has lots of body, and it's curly, so if I let it grow, I have a black bush to deal with. Tolliver is lucky; his is straight, and he lets it grow until he can tie it back. Then he'll get tired of it and whack it off. Right now, it was short.
"Sheriff," I said, nodding. "Mr. Edwards, Ms. Teague, Mr. Vale. How are you all this morning?" Tolliver held out my chair and I sat. This was an extra, for-show courtesy. He figures the more honor he shows me publicly, the more the public will feel I'm entitled to. Sometimes it works that way.
The waitress had filled my coffee cup and taken my first swallow before the sheriff spoke. I tore my gaze away from my paper, still folded by my plate. I really, really like to read the paper while I drink my coffee.
"He was there," Harvey Branscom said heavily. The man's face was ten years older than it'd been the night before, and there was white stubble on his cheeks.
"Mr. Chesswood, you mean." I ordered the fruit plate and some yogurt from a waitress who seemed to think that was a strange choice. Tolliver got French toast and bacon and a flirtatious look. He's hell on waitresses.
"Yeah," the sheriff said. "Mr. Chesswood. Darryl Chesswood. He was a good friend of my father's." He said this with a heavy emphasis, as if the fact that I'd told him where the old man's body was had laid the responsibility for the death at my door.
"Sorry for your loss," Tolliver said, as a matter of form. I nodded. After that, I let the silence expand. With a gesture, Tolliver offered to refill my coffee cup, but I raised my hand to show him how steady it was today. I took another deep sip gratefully, and I topped the cup off. I touched Tolliver's mug to ask if he was ready for more, but he shook his head.
Under the furtive scrutiny of all those eyes, I wasn't able to open the newspaper I had folded in front of me. I had to wait on these yahoos to make up their minds to something they'd already agreed to do. I'd felt optimistic when I'd seen them waiting for us, but that optimism was rapidly deteriorating.
A lot of eye signaling was going on among the Sarnites (Sarnians?). Paul Edwards leaned forward to deliver the result of all this conferencing. He was a handsome man, and he was used to being noticed.
"How did Mr. Chesswood die?" he asked, as if it were the bonus question.
"Cerebral hemorrhage." God, these people. I looked at my paper longingly.
Edwards leaned back as though I'd socked him in the mouth. They all did some more eye signaling. My fruit arrived—sliced cantaloupe that was hard and tasteless, canned pineapple, a banana in the peel, and some grapes. Well, after all, it was fall. When Tolliver had been served his eggs and toast, we began to eat.
"We're sorry there may have been some hesitation last night," Sybil Teague said. "Especially since it seems you, ah, interpreted it as us backing out on our agreement."
"Yes, I did take it that way. Tolliver?"
"I took it that way, too," he said solemnly. Tolliver has acne-scarred cheeks and dark eyes and a deep, resonant voice. Whatever he says sounds significant.
"I just got cold feet, I guess." She tried to look charmingly apologetic, but it didn't work for me. "When Terry told me what he'd heard about you, and Harvey agreed to contact you, we had no idea what we were getting into. Hiring someone like you is not something I've ever done before."
"There is no one like Harper," Tolliver said flatly. He was looking up from his plate, meeting their eyes.
He'd thrown Sylvia Teague off her stride. She had to pause and regroup. "I am sure you're right," she said insincerely. "Now, Miss Connelly, to get back to the job we're all hoping you'll do."
"First of all," Tolliver said, patting his mustache with his napkin, "Who's paying Harper?"
They stared at him as if that were a foreign concept.
"You all are obviously the town officials, though I'm not real sure what Mr. Edwards here does. Ms. Teague, are you paying Harper privately, or is she on the town payroll?"
"I'm paying Miss Connelly," Sybil Teague said. There was a lot more starch in her voice now that money had been mentioned. "Paul's here as my lawyer. Harvey's my brother." Evidently, Terry Vale wasn't her anything. "Now, let me tell you what I want you to do." Sybil met my eyes.
I glanced back at my plate while I took the grapes off the stem. "You want me to look for a missing person," I said flatly. "Like always." They like it better when you say "missing person" rather than the more accurate "missing corpse."
"Yes, but she was a wild girl. Maybe she ran away. We're not entirely sure... not all of us are sure... that she is actually dead."
As if I hadn't heard
"And that is?" She was getting impatient—not used to much discussion of her agenda, I figured.
"I only find dead people."
"T HEY knew that," I told Tolliver in an undertone, as we walked back to our rooms. "They
I was getting upset, and that was dumb.
"Sure, they know," he said calmly. "Maybe they just don't want to admit she's dead. People are funny like that. It's like—if they pretend there's hope, there
"It's a waste of my time—hope," I said.
"I know it is," Tolliver said. "They can't help it, though."
R OUND three.
Paul Edwards, Sybil Teague's attorney, had drawn the short straw. So here he was in my room. The others, I assumed, had scattered to step back into their daily routine.
Tolliver and I had gotten settled into the two chairs at the standard cheap-motel table. I had finally begun reading the paper. Tolliver was working on a science fiction sword-and-sorcery paperback he'd found discarded in the last motel. We glanced at each other when we heard the knock at the door.
"My money's on Edwards," I said.
"Branscom," Tolliver said.
I grinned at him from behind the lawyer's back as I shut the door.
"If you would agree, after all our discussion," the lawyer said apologetically, "I've been asked to take you to the site." I glanced at the clock. It was now nine o'clock. They'd taken about forty-five minutes to arrive at a consensus.
"And this is the site of... ?" I let my words hang in the air.
"The probable murder of Teenie—Monteen—Hopkins. The murder, or maybe suicide, of Dell Teague, Sybil's son."
"Am I supposed to be finding one body, or two?" Two would cost them more.
"We know where Dell is," Edwards said, startled. "He's in the cemetery. You just need to find Teenie."
"Are we talking woods? What kind of terrain?" Tolliver asked practically.
"Woods. Steep terrain, in places."
Knowing we were on our way to the Ozarks, we'd brought the right gear. I changed to my hiking boots, put on a bright blue padded jacket, and stuck a candy bar, a compass, a small bottle of water, and a fully charged cell phone in my pockets. Tolliver went through the connecting door into his own room, and when he returned he was togged out in a similar manner. Paul Edwards watched us with a peculiar fascination. He was interested enough to forget how handsome he was, just for a few minutes.
"I guess you do this all the time," he said.
I tightened my bootlaces to the right degree of snugness. I double-knotted them. I grabbed a pair of gloves. "Yep," I said. "That's what I do." I tossed a bright red knitted scarf around my neck. I'd tuck it in properly when I got really cold. The scarf was not only warm, but highly visible. I glanced in the mirror. Good enough.
"Don't you find it depressing?" Edwards asked, as if he just couldn't help himself. There was a subtle warmth in his eyes that hadn't been there before. He'd remembered he was handsome, and that I was a young woman.
I almost
