Page 29 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)
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D oreen had to admit she’d more or less raced home then, all to avoid having to answer any questions.
Not that she had answers, and that was the problem.
What she had was a whole lot more in the way of questions.
Yet she still felt fairly strongly about what was going on.
Still, she just didn’t have any way to prove it, and, without proof, she had nothing.
She had nothing but her instincts, and that wouldn’t get her very far.
Particularly if people still living knew about this crime.
And potentially the ones who had been heavily involved.
She went home, waited until she thought the park would be empty, and then returned with Mugs and Goliath both trotting happily on leashes.
Thaddeus was tucked under the fall of her hair.
She wandered around the grave, staring at it, trying to figure out everything about it, letting all the information roll around in the back of her mind.
Then the same woman she’d seen before stopped to ask, “Are you all right?”
Doreen looked over at Meghan, then smiled and nodded. “I could be all right,” Doreen shared, “but it’s also been a pretty rough day here.”
“Why is that?” Meghan asked. She looked over at the grave and gasped. “Oh no, did somebody desecrate it?”
“No, not really,” Doreen clarified. “I found a second body in there today.”
Meghan stared at her in shock. “What?” she whispered.
Doreen nodded. “I know that’s not what any of us expected, but unfortunately that’s what happened.”
Meghan shook her head. “No way.”
But another note filled her tone, with a little bit of a fearful edge. Doreen nodded. “And, of course, that just means I am even more than a little curious as to what happened.”
Meghan shook her head. “We’ll never know, since it’s been so long ago.”
“I don’t agree with that,” Doreen argued. “I’m hoping that we’ll find out exactly what happened to poor Eli.”
“You think it was Eli?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Doreen looked at her for a long moment. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me all about it?”
Meghan shook her head. “I don’t know anything,” she cried out, as she backed up quickly. “I don’t know anything at all.” And, with that, she tried to run away, but Goliath and Mugs cornered her.
Doreen smiled and said, “They won’t hurt you.”
“That’s not what it looks like,” Meghan snapped, as she glared down at the animals. “You shouldn’t be allowed to have animals out here,” she bellowed, as they circled her.
“The problem is that the animals know you have something you’re withholding, and, because of that, they’re very interested in what you have to say.”
Meghan stared at her and then at the animals. “They can’t know that.”
“Sure they can. They’re animals. They sense these things, knowing a whole lot more about the things that happen in life than we ever give animals credit for,” Doreen explained. “I’m not saying that you have anything to do with these deaths.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t,” she exclaimed. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Oh, but I think you do know something.”
“No, I don’t,” she snapped. “I won’t say anything.”
“Right, because you might know whoever did have something to do with these deaths. I have to admit I’ve been pretty thin on facts when it comes to clues in this case.”
“So why are you bugging me?”
“Because you’re one of the clues.”
“No, I’m not. I just gave you information about Eli.”
“And the fact that you did is wonderful,” Doreen noted, “because, with any luck, we will prove who this young man is who was buried here, discarded like garbage for so long. And I’m also hoping we can also now identify who the second body is.
The fact that there is a second body,” she added, “is maybe something you wondered about too?”
“No, no, no, no, I don’t know nothing. I only ever wondered about Eli, and that’s because you asked me.”
“Sure, I asked you here at this park, which is how a lot of people ended up thinking about who could be here.”
“I didn’t know it was Eli,” she stated, looking at her. “You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know.”
Doreen studied her face for what seemed to be an interminably long moment, and then she nodded.
Meghan cried out, “You have to believe me. I didn’t know.”
“I’m glad to hear that because I would hate to think that you did know and that you were okay to let him stay here for so long.”
“Do you even know if it’s him?” she asked, staring back at the grave and then turning away. “Do we have proof that it’s even him? I need to know.”
“Proof? No, not yet, but again… we’re trying to find DNA in order to test the remains.” When Meghan’s lips trembled, Doreen added, “Unless, of course, you know somebody who might share that DNA.”
She turned to Doreen and shook her head. “No, not really.”
“Not really?”
“No, I don’t know any family members.”
“With the genealogy websites, it probably wouldn’t take too much to sort it out,” Doreen suggested. “Of course, it’ll be faster and easier if we could find somebody local—or at least somebody who knows about this body found here.”
“I doubt that anybody will talk,” Meghan said. “I mean, why would they? They’ve gotten away with this for so long.”
“Yeah, they may have,” Doreen admitted, “but then a lot of people don’t want to take these kinds of crimes to their deaths, where they may or may not have to face somebody and be held accountable for it.”
Meghan bit her lip.
“And withholding the truth is definitely part of that.” Doreen had no clue if it was or it wasn’t, and she wasn’t sure if she should feel bad for assuming it or not. However, she wanted answers. Right now, all she had was hearsay. “When did she approach you?” Doreen asked her.
Meghan looked at her in shock, then stumbled back a step and asked, “Who, who are you talking about?”
Doreen sighed, patted the bench beside her, and said, “Come on. Let’s just sit.”
Meghan collapsed more than sat, as she shook her head. “You can’t know. You just can’t.”
“Why not?” Doreen asked, studying Meghan curiously. “Only so many scenarios work.”
She blinked and said, “Really?”
“Yes,” Doreen replied. “People always think they are the only ones caught up in a mess, or the only ones who know about something, but unfortunately that’s often not true.”
Meghan slowly sagged in place. “I don’t really know anything.”
“I understand,” Doreen muttered. “But I do think you know more than you are allowing yourself to consider.”
“Because I don’t want to consider it,” she stated, facing her. “There’s no way.”
“No way what?”
“No way he would have done this,” she declared. Doreen just waited. Meghan bounced to her feet. “I have to go,” she said, looking around frantically. “I have to think about this.” And she bolted.
Doreen called back, “Don’t talk to him directly.” Meghan stopped, slowly looked at her, and Doreen shook her head. “Just think about it.… If it’s him, he’s already killed twice.”
Meghan’s face turned pure white, and she literally ran away.
Doreen sat here for a long moment, before realizing that Meghan had left her purse behind.
Doreen stared down at it, opened it, found her wallet, and pulled out her ID.
The photo matched Meghan’s face, so it was definitely the same woman.
Doreen quickly wrote down her address, returned the ID to its slot.
She saw something else as she did this. A business card, noting an upcoming appointment for Meghan.
To see her oncologist. With a sigh, Doreen got up.
“Come on, Mugs and Goliath. We have to return this.”
Her home was only a few blocks away. As Doreen and her animals walked slowly along, she wondered at the sense of having pushed the poor woman.
Meghan certainly seemed beyond upset. As Doreen got closer and closer to the address, she realized they were coming up to the same block they had walked multiple times already.
Up ahead, she heard somebody yelling and screaming. Mugs started to cry out and whine, pulling on the leash.
She picked up the pace and raced toward the noise, but suddenly all went quiet.
She frowned, then turned and looked around, but she heard nothing, absolutely nothing.
She saw no people, no sign of anything. She looked down at Mugs.
He sniffed the air, then sniffed the ground around him, as if looking for a place to pee.
Sure enough, he lifted his leg and emptied his bladder on some poor dandelion that was still probably frozen from the winter weather.
She stared down at Mugs and shook her head. “If only you could talk, buddy.”
He gave a woof , as if to say it was a good thing he couldn’t. Then she led him back to the car. He may not be able to talk, but something was going on, and that something would be beyond ugly. All she had to do was figure it out before someone else died.