Dust to Dust

Ellie Rose Carruthers-forever young, with long, wavy blond hair and blue eyes.

“Mrs. Carruthers.” Kingsley held out a hand to a woman seated in one of the leather chairs. She didn’t reach out to take it and Kingsley let it drop.

She had blond hair-bleached, but bleached well. She was too thin. Diane thought she probably had been too thin for several years now. She didn’t smile at them. Her face, strained, lined, looked like carved stone. She sat in the brown leather chair wearing a brown dress with brass buttons. She made Diane think of a chameleon, as if she could easily blend in with the chair and disappear altogether.

“Thank you for seeing us,” said Kingsley.

He and Diane stood waiting for an offer to sit, which never came.

“Why have you come to dig in my wounds?” she said. Her voice sounded like pieces of gravel rubbing together. The other woman, the neighbor, stood at her chair like a handmaiden. She put a hand on Marsha Carruthers’ shoulder. Marsha reached up and touched it.

“We haven’t come to cause pain,” said Kingsley. “We’re investigating the murder of Stacy Dance. We wanted to talk with you about her visit.”

“Why do you say she came here?” said Marsha Carruthers.

Diane noted that they weren’t surprised at the word murder.

“We are retracing her steps,” said Kingsley. “Can you tell us what she talked about?”

“Do you think her death had anything to do with her investigation?” asked Mrs. Carruthers.

They weren’t getting anywhere. They were answering each other’s questions with questions. As they sparred, Diane had been observing the room. The chair Marsha Carruthers sat in seemed out of place in relation to the rest of the furniture. Then she saw the indentations on the Persian rug. The chair usually sat facing the fireplace. They had swung it around to face outward. It usually sat where someone could sit and look at the painting of Ellie Rose. Was that how Marsha filled her days, sitting in front of her daughter’s painting? Or perhaps it was Ellie Rose’s father who sat and looked at his daughter when he came home from work. Diane wanted to cry.

“That’s our best working theory at the moment,” said Kingsley.

“So you’re thinking that wretched excuse for a human sitting in prison is an innocent victim?” Her mouth curled into an ugly shape.

“No, I don’t think that,” said Kingsley. “We are investigating Stacy Dance’s death. Will you tell me what you talked about?”

“You don’t know that her death had anything to do with-with this,” she said. “You know where those people lived. How do you know the sister wasn’t like the brother-into God knows what, probably drugs or something just as vile? That’s the life they lived, and I resent your implying that she died because she discovered that piece of human garbage is innocent,” she said.

“Mrs. Carruthers, Stacy Dance was a very nice girl. She took care of her neighbors, drove the elderly to their doctor’s appointments. She was in college-”

“College? The University of Georgia is a college. Bartrum is a college. That place she went to is just a glorified tech school. She was nothing like my Ellie Rose.”

Marsha looked back and forth from Kingsley to Diane as if daring them to defend Stacy again. The grief had sucked all kindness and love from her. She was empty of everything but hate.

“You’re wrong about Stacy,” said Diane. “And about Gainesville Community College for that matter, but especially about Stacy. She was kind. I understand-”

“Don’t!” Marsha Carruthers’ face hardened to granite. “Don’t you say you understand how I feel. You can’t possibly imagine!”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” said Diane, trying to keep calm in her own voice. “And no, I don’t know how you feel, but I know how I felt. My daughter was murdered. She was the best part of me. She was my heart. I know how I felt when she was murdered, and it is indescribable. I live every moment with her loss and the knowledge that I failed to protect her. I also know that if I lose my humanity, I lose her again, I fail her again, and I couldn’t bear that. Ariel was not yet six years old when she was killed, but she was a bright shining soul and I cherish every single memory of her. So don’t tell me I can’t possibly imagine.” Diane unconsciously put her hand on her neck where she wore a locket with Ariel’s photograph.

All of them fell into a shocked silence. The neighbor had a tear running down her cheek. She looked away and wiped it with her hand. Diane was sure this was more than she bargained for when she came over to give her friend moral support.

“I’ll give you some unasked-for advice,” said Diane. “You are in danger of losing the love you felt for your daughter. You are so overwhelmed with anger and grief that that special feeling you had for Ellie Rose is going to get lost in the abyss. Stacy was Harmon Dance’s daughter and he loved her too. We just want to know what she talked about and if she said where she was going afterward.”

Marsha sat very still. Her face hadn’t changed, but there wasn’t an angry comeback on her lips and Diane thought she saw them quiver. The neighbor squeezed Marsha’s shoulder.

“I was here when Miss Dance came by,” the neighbor said. “My name is Wendy. I live next door. She asked about whom Ellie was dating at the time, who her friends were. I told her we weren’t going to tell her people’s names so she could go pester them. I don’t know where she went when she left here. Neither of us does,” she said. “Honestly, we didn’t tell her much. Do we look particularly cooperative to you?”

There was a rustling in the entryway and a young woman bounced in. She looked to be seventeen or eighteen. She was dressed in pink bell-bottoms with a wide white belt. Her pink T-shirt had a picture of an electric guitar outlined in rhinestones. Her long hair was black with a lock of pink on one side going from her forehead to her shoulders. Her eyes were outlined with black liner and she wore false eyelashes and bright pink lipstick. She had a diamondlike jewel on the side of her nose.

“Mom. Oh. Sorry,” she said.

She stood still and looked into the living room. Diane and Kingsley turned to look at her. She looked so very much like Ellie Rose in the face that it startled Diane.

“Samantha, dear, why don’t you fix your mother a glass of tea?” said Wendy.

Samantha looked at her mother. “Do you want some tea, Mom?” she asked.

“That would be nice, hon,” she said.

Samantha skipped off to another part of the house.

“You have a very pretty daughter,” said Diane.

“At least she likes pink,” said her mother.

Diane thought she saw a hint that at one time Marsha Carruthers may have had a sense of humor.

“It was not our intention to cause you more pain,” said Diane, “but it is important to find out what happened to Stacy.”

She took a card from her pocket. She had brought the cards that identified her as director of the Aidan Kavanagh Forensic Anthropology Lab, the osteology lab she ran at the museum. It seemed a much better choice of card to give out with her name on it. Museum director would have been cnfusing, and director of the crime lab would be awkward, since she wasn’t representing Rosewood. In her capacity as forensic anthropologist, she had much more freedom. Sometimes she felt like a con artist with all the different cards she had with different professions.

Kingsley handed her his card along with Diane’s. “Please call if you remember anything that might help,” Kingsley said. He nodded to Wendy. “We can show ourselves out.” They turned to leave.

“Why haven’t the police contacted us?” asked Marsha.

So they finally thought to ask, thought Diane.

Kingsley turned back to her. “I’m sure they will. Right now they may not know where Stacy’s investigation led her,” he said.

“I didn’t think private investigators could investigate an open case,” said Wendy.

Samantha came in with her mother’s tea and gave it to her. Marsha gave it to Wendy, who took it to the liquor cabinet and set it on top, turned, and looked at Kingsley for an answer.

“That’s a popular misconception,” he said. “We just can’t get in their way.” Kingsley looked at each of them and nodded. He and Diane left.

“You finessed that well,” said Diane when they reached the car.