Finally David was out the door, and Tolliver said, 'We're getting food right now.' He called room service and placed an order, and though we'd called at a strange time, our food arrived quickly.
As we ate silently, I thought. We have a lot of thinking time, since we're on the road so much. Somehow when we're in a town, when we're not moving, we do anything but think.
I went back over everything I knew.
Tabitha Morgenstern. Eleven. The much-loved child, as far as I could tell, of upper-class professional Jewish parents. Abducted in Nashville, to end up interred in an old Christian cemetery in Memphis. Neither of her parents, the papers had told me, had ever been arrested for anything. Her older half brother, either. But that half brother thought he'd seen his father's car close to the house the day Tabitha had disappeared.
Tabitha had grandparents who lived in Memphis, but had visited in Nashville frequently. Her grandfather and grandmother Morgenstern seemed to adore her. In fact, Victor had told us her grandfather often took her places by himself. Did I have to suspect Ben Morgenstern of fooling with the child? I sighed. And Tabitha had a sort of step- grandfather, Fred Hart, who seemed to have remained close to his former son-in-law. Fred Hart, a Bingham alumnus, owned a pearl Lexus, like the one that Victor had seen in the neighborhood the morning of the abduction. Victor had assumed he was seeing his dad, because it would have been reasonable to see his dad in that location, but what if he'd seen his grandfather's Lexus instead?
Tabitha had a step-aunt, too, Felicia Hart, and an uncle, David Morgenstern. Both had gone to Bingham. David seemed to resent his brother's successes, though as far as I could tell he also seemed to have cared for his niece. The attractive Felicia seemed to have quite an appetite for the male gender. There was nothing wrong with that. She was also very protective of her nephew, and there was nothing wrong with that, either.
I rubbed my face with both hands. There had to be something I could glean from this information, something that would help me lay Tabitha to rest. Being shut up with Tolliver, now that I'd had so many thoughts I shouldn't have had, was becoming intolerable. I dropped my hands to the table and looked over at him. He happened to look up at that moment, and our eyes locked. He put down his fork.
'What are you thinking?' he asked. His voice was very serious. 'Whatever it is, I think you'd better tell me.'
'No,' I said, equally seriously.
'Then what are you willing to talk about?'
'We have to find out who did this, and we have to leave this place,' I said. Movement would bring relief, being on the road again. 'Don't you think a random stranger is completely ruled out?'
'Yes, because of where the body was found,' Tolliver said. 'It's impossible that it was a random act.'
'Do you think I was meant to find the body?'
'Yes, I think that was why you were called here.'
'Then it has to follow that Clyde Nunley was killed because he knew who'd suggested I be the next guest in the series.'
'Maybe,' Tolliver said slowly, 'the key was finding of the priest's records.'
I mulled that over.
'After all, it was the finding of the records that made St. Margaret's such a good subject for a reading. It was a controlled experiment.'
'Sure. Dr. Nunley had to know if I was getting it right or not, and there was a way to prove that. There usually isn't.'
'So she was put there for me to find. Maybe months ago, when the records were discovered.' I groped my way through the thought. 'Someone wanted her to be found.'
'And that someone had to be the killer.'
I combed over that one, too.
'No,' I said at last. 'Why would that have to follow?'
Tolliver was taken aback. 'Who would know and do nothing?'
'Someone you loved. You might not do anything, if the killer was someone you loved.'
'Not just someone you loved. A member of your family.' Tolliver's face was very grim. 'Your mom or dad or wife or husband or sister or brother… that's the only way you'd hide it.'
'So we have a couple of ways to go,' I said. 'We can sit here and wait for the police to work their way around to the solution. They'll probably get it, sooner or later. Or we can skip out on this.'
'Let's try to find out who could have put your name in Clyde Nunley's ear,' Tolliver said.
seventeen
MRS. Clyde Nunley was certainly not Jewish. She was aggressively Christian. There were crosses and crucifixes in every room in the Nunley home, and a painting of a saint on every other wall. Anne Nunley was thin and dry and hollow, and she had few friends. She was even glad to see us.
We thought the professor's widow might not be willing to talk, especially after we saw all the crosses. Anne might not have wanted to talk to another faculty wife, or a neighbor, but she sure wanted to talk to us. Anne was a True Believer in spiritualism.
I've met all kinds of true believers: Christian, Jewish, Wiccan, atheist. I don't think I've ever met an Islamic true believer, because I don't think I've ever met a follower of Islam. What I'm trying to say is, your basic religion doesn't seem to make much of a difference to your belief (or lack of it) in the things that are more in my bailiwick, which is any kind of contact with the dead. You wouldn't think atheists would believe in the spirit surviving death, but some of them do. It's like people just can't help believing in something.
