In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [55]
Services for the Rogan family will be held at the Memorial Chapel on Saturday morning at 10 A.M. Mitch has invited all who knew his family to pay their last respects.
Michael Hains has stepped into the breach to offer the only surviving Rogan son, Mitch, a job in his company.
The Saturday newspaper had another photograph, this one of a crowd standing respectfully bareheaded next to a row of seven plain pine coffins. A huge bouquet of calla lilies rested atop each one, and the caption said that the flowers were courtesy of Michael Hains.
“Where are we heading now?” Mel asked, back once more in the Explorer. The rain had started again, long slashing drops that careened across the windshield, hard as buckshot. She shivered, remembering the night of the hurricane.
“To the Hainsville cemetery,” Camelia said. “Just to make sure they are all still there and Hains didn’t dig ’em up so he could resell the plot.”
“You think he was that bad?”
“Rotten to the core, I’d bet my life on it.”
“So what happened to Mitch? You think he had something to do with the deaths in his family?” Her eyes widened as a thought suddenly occurred to her. “Oh, God, you don’t think that Mitch is really Ed, and that he changed his name because . . .”
“Because he killed them?” Camelia lifted his shoulder in a shrug as he swung the Explorer through the ornate iron gates of the cemetery— or The Hainsville Resting Place, as it was euphemistically inscribed, in large gilt letters, on the twin stone pillars beside the gates. “What can I tell ya, baby? What do you want to hear? What I think might be the truth?”
Mel stared blankly in front of her. Ed? Her Ed, a possible killer? She slumped back in her seat. Her stomach churned at the thought; her mind pushed it away; her whole being resisted the concept. “No,” she cried, “dammit, Marco Camelia, you’ll never convince me of that.”
He nodded. “Okay, okay. Let’s just wait and see which way the cards fall.”
She was silent as she stood next to him, staring through the downpour at the plain black marble headstone. The names were engraved into the stone, but the gold had worn off long ago and now it was hardly possible to make them out. Only the ROGAN stood out boldly at the top.
“Seven names,” Mel said, sniffing back a tear and mopping her runny nose. “And not one of them is an Ed.” She felt terrible: cold, wet, hopeless. She wished she were anywhere but there. And anywhere but with Camelia, who was telling her things she didn’t want to know. The truth, her brain insisted, but again she denied it. No, no, no, never. My Ed is not a killer.
Back at the sheriff’s station, Duxbury was not thrilled to see them. However, he nodded when they asked about the Rogan family tragedy, and about the surviving son, Mitch.
“Everybody knew the Rogans. Nice family,” he said thoughtfully. “ ’Ceptin’ that son, Mitch. Quite a character he turned out to be. There was rumors around town he had some’n to do with it.”
“With his family’s deaths, y’mean?” Camelia was all ears.
“They was just rumors, y’know, but some said it had been murder. Nothin’ came of it and he went to work for Michael Hains. He was quite a boy, that Mitch. Ripped off Mr. Hains but good. Stole everything he could get his hands on. Lit out of here leaving Hains with the creditors. Served time, too, when they finally caught up to him, though I did hear he was soon back in business. And with money in his pocket. Yeah, quite a boy, that Mitch Rogan,” he repeated, half admiringly.
They were silent on the drive back to the Hainsville Inn, each busy with their own thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” Camelia said, as the inn’s lights loomed through the murk. “I didn’t mean to malign Ed. It’s just that right now, events are pointing in that direction. It’s only circumstantial, it could all be wrong.” He flung his arms wide with another shrug. “Then it’s my mistake, and I’ll apologize all over again.”
“That’s okay,” Mel said stiffly. But he knew it wasn’t and he sighed.
“Have a drink with me,” he said abruptly.