Becca stood there, staring down at that thing, knowing that at one time, whoever she was, she’d breathed and laughed and wondered what the future would bring. She was young, Becca realized. Who was she? What was she doing inside a wall in Jacob Marley’s basement?
Someone had put her there, on purpose, to hide her forever. And now she was just shattered bones, some of them covered with moldy white jeans and a pink tank top.
Slowly Becca walked back upstairs, covered with dust, her heart still pounding. In her mind’s eye the skeleton’s skull was still vivid, would probably remain terrifyingly vivid for the rest of her life. Those eye sockets were so empty. Becca knew she had no choice. She phoned the sheriff’s office on West Hemlock and asked to speak with the sheriff.
“This is Mrs. Ella,” came a voice that was deep as a man’s, and harsh—a smoker’s voice. “Tell me who you are and what you want and I’ll tell you whether or not you need Edgar.”
Becca stared at the phone. It certainly wasn’t New York City.
She cleared her throat. “Actually, my name is Becca Powell and I moved into Jacob Marley’s house about a week ago.”
“I know all about you, Miss Powell. I saw you at the Pollyanna with Tyler McBride. What’d you do with little Sam while you two were gallivanting around, enjoying yourselves at one of Riptide’s finest restaurants?”
Becca laughed, she couldn’t help herself, but it soon dissolved into a hiccup. She felt tears pool in her eyes. This was crazy. Still, she said only, “We left him with Mrs. Ryan. He’s very fond of her.”
“Well, that’s all right, then. Rachel and Ann—she’s the dead Mrs. McBride—well, they were best friends, now weren’t they? And Sam dearly loves Rachel, and she him, thank God, since his mama is dead, now isn’t she?”
“I thought that Ann McBride disappeared, that she just walked away from her family and from Riptide.”
“So he says, but nobody believes that. What do you want, Miss Powell? Be alert now, and concise, no more going off on tangents or feeding me gossip. This is an official office of the law.”
“There’s a skeleton in my basement.”
For the first time in this very strange conversation, Mrs. Ella was silent, but not for long. “This skeleton you’re telling me is in your basement, how did it get there?”
“It fell out of the wall in the middle of a whole lot of rubble when the wall collapsed just a while ago, probably weakened by the big storm last night.”
“I believe I will transfer you to Edgar now. That’s Sheriff Gaffney to you. He’s been very busy, a lot of storm damage, you know, a lot of people demanding his time, but a skeleton can’t be put off until tomorrow, now can it?”
“You’re right about that,” Becca said, and had an insane desire to laugh her head off. She wiped the tears out of her eyes. She realized she was shaking. It was the oddest thing.
A man came on the line and said, “Ella tells me you’ve got a skeleton in the basement. This don’t happen every day. Are you sure it’s a skeleton?”
“Yes, quite sure, although, to be honest, I’ve never seen one before, at least lying at my feet on the basement floor.”
“I’ll be right there, then. You stay put, ma’am.”
Becca was staring down at the phone when Mrs. Ella came back. “Edgar said I was to keep talking to you, not let you go all hysterical. Edgar tends to get tetchy around women who are crying and wailing and carrying on. I’m surprised that you fell apart on him, given the way you were talking to me about this and that.”
“I appreciate that, Mrs. Ella. I’m not really hysterical, at least not yet, but how could the sheriff have possibly known that I was wavering on the edge? I never said a word to him.”
“Edgar just knows these things,” Mrs. Ella said comfortably. “He’s very intuitive, now isn’t he? That’s why I’ll keep talking to you until he gets there, Miss Powell. I’m to help you keep your wits together.”
Becca didn’t mind a bit. For the next ten minutes, she heard how Ann McBride disappeared between one day and the next, no explanation at all, just as Tyler had told her. She learned that Tyler wasn’t Sam’s father but his stepfather. Sam’s real father had just up and disappeared from one day to the next, too. Odd, now wasn’t it, the both of them, just up and out of here? Of course, Sam’s father had been a rotter, whining and bitching about how hard life was, and he didn’t want to stay here, so his leaving made some sense, now didn’t it? But not Ann’s, no, she couldn’t have just up and left, not without Sam.