Page 37 of Deeper Than the Dead

Eve scrutinized Mrs. Kaufman again, then shifted her consideration back to Vera. “Well, she’s right there. It’s not like I can ignore her. You did interrupt my work.”

Mrs. Kaufman’s once brown eyes were gray and opaque with death. Admittedly, having the deceased lying on the table, eyes open, was hard to ignore. But the real trouble was that Eve just kept glancing down at her while she and Vera were having this very important conversation. It was unsettling.

“Why haven’t you set her eyes?” Vera turned back to her sister. “Having this discussion with her lying there that way is a little distracting.”

“I do the eyes last.” Eve shrugged. “I wouldn’t want my eyes closed while I was still being worked on.”

Dear God, her sister had the strangest ideas about dead people. Always had.

“And no,” Eve continued, “I do not know of anyone ever hunting on or exploring our farm. I can’t say for an absolute certainty that it hasn’t happened, because I’ve heard hunting dogs a time or two, but they may have been on the Jennings farm. Sound carries at night, you know.”

A reasonable explanation.

“Did you,” Vera continued, “ever go back into the cave after that day?”

This was the biggest question, looming like a black cloud. Bent hadn’t mentioned discovering any trace evidence, but she couldn’t be sure that he would share his findings at this point. Just because they had once been lovers didn’t mean he felt he owed her anything. Least of all information related to an ongoing investigation.

Eve made a face. “Why would I go back to the cave?”

“I don’t know, maybe because,” Vera glanced down at Mrs. Kaufman, “you have a morbid fascination with death.”

Eve had always, always liked watching things die and hanging out with the dead. Not that she’d gone around injuring animals or birds or even insects, but whenever they had come upon something fatally injured, she had insisted on watching until it was over. Then there would be the burial. Vera had never understood that creepy need.

For a moment Eve said nothing. Finally, she looked to her sister and responded. “I always hated the thought of anything dying alone. It’s too sad.”

“I’m sorry,” Vera offered. “I never considered that you might feel compelled in that way.” Maybe she was the creepy one for not being more sympathetic. “But I need to know if you ever went back. If you saw anything that looked out of place from when we were there last.”

Eve stared at her a moment. “Yes. I did. Twice, just to see how she was doing, and then I left.”

Vera groaned. She knew it! Damn it. “How she was doing? For God’s sake! She was decomposing. What’d you think? That she’d gotten up and left? Gotten a new hairdo?”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say any of that. But, for your information, my visits were a really long time ago,” Eve argued. “Like only a few months after. I never went back to see her after that.”

Vera gave herself a mental scolding. So much for calm and understanding. “Thank you for telling me.”

“By the way, I’ll probably stay with Suri until my car is repaired,” Eve said, dragging Vera to a different topic. “It’s just easier for getting to work.”

“Sure,” Vera agreed. She opted not to mention that this would leave her at home alone with Luna. She’d already been more than a little insensitive to Eve’s feelings during this conversation. The idea that she could have been killed in that accident still twisted Vera’s stomach into knots.

But what if it wasn’t an accident? Could someone know what they had done and have been waiting all this time to take action? The possibility didn’t make sense. Why not come after one or both of them twenty-two years ago? Fifteen or even ten years ago?

“Do we know who these people are?” Eve asked.

Vera shook off the other thoughts and frowned. “People?”

“The remains,” Eve explained. “Have they ID’d them yet?”

“If they have, Bent didn’t tell me.” She and Eve had put Sheree’s handbag and a suitcase with some of her things inside in the cave with her. At the time it had felt like the right thing to do. The missing items went along with the scenario that she’d run off.

Vera tried to remember what on earth had given her such an idea. Had she seen it on television, or had sheer desperation prompted a plan that had been completely her own? Poor Eve had been far too distraught.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what they learn,” Eve noted. She returned her focus to Mrs. Kaufman.

“I suppose so,” Vera agreed. “I should go. I’ll touch base with Bent and see if he knows anything more.”

Eve was smiling down at Mrs. Kaufman now. She’d done the necessary massaging to loosen the muscles of her face and lips. A quick application of glue, and then the final step of adjusting the lips into a smile. A far more pleasant expression than the woman had ever worn when she was alive.

“Do you still talk to them?” Vera ventured. Their parents had caught Eve more than once talking to the deceased at a viewing when no one else was looking. She had insisted that she wanted to be nice, since they were so lonely and no one else would talk to them.

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