Chapter 41 Rachel #2
“Helen wanted her buried in the Millgate, but I knew we would run into trouble. Word had gotten around by then that poor Annie was in an asylum, and the congregation was even more conservative than it is now. Times were different then. I knew if anyone found out she’d taken her own life, well…
they wouldn’t have wanted her buried there. Not with any sort of ceremony, anyway.”
Rachel exhales a long breath of realization as the old man reaches out and hands her the last piece of the puzzle.
She looks up, though reluctantly, and finds his eyes on her.
“You understand now, don’t you, Rachel?” he asks.
“Detective. And yes, but I need to hear it from you.”
He keeps his eyes on her a moment, then nods.
“I didn’t think I could convince folks to allow a lunatic suicide to be buried there, even if she was—or had been—one of their own.
So Helen and I had her brought back here and buried in secret, as close as we could to Dick’s plot without a headstone, at the base of that big maple.
And then no one would have to know, or be offended.
I didn’t want to upset anyone, but Helen needed her daughter home, needed the family to all have the same final resting place.
I was glad to give her what she needed, after so much struggle for so long.
” He blinks hard. “I knew Annie. And I just never could really believe that she would take her own life. But if she did, I knew she must have had a good reason. One that God would understand.”
He’s visibly upset now.
“I never meant to cause any harm,” he says, looking at them each in turn, eyes red.
“We picked a spot so far off from the other headstones, I believed it would be ages before anyone wanted that plot, if we ever spread out that far at all.” He shrugs his stooped shoulders.
“I am sorry, Detectives. For the hubbub and confusion. But not for what I did. That girl deserved some peace beneath the shade of that tree. I know when Helen was in her decline, it soothed her to know they would all be together.”
Everyone is quiet.
“Do you know the address?” Rachel asks him finally. “Where the Sharrocks lived?” They’ll need it to cross-reference a birth certificate for Annie Sharrock, if there is one, and sort out all the paperwork for the case.
“Of course,” the reverend says. “Even with this rattled old brain.” He attempts a weak chuckle. “It’s 1879 Garden Street. Just a five-minute walk from the cemetery.”
Rachel jots down the address, then nods, folds up her writing pad. “Thank you for the information, Reverend,” she says mechanically. “We’ll be in touch if we require any follow-up.”
She looks to Stevens, and he follows her out of the room. When they get into the car, they both stare straight ahead out the windshield.
“How do you want to handle this?” Stevens finally asks.
Rachel shakes her head. She hates corrupt cops and those who skirt the lines, like Green, but his choices are often more to do with lazy police work than outright corruption.
But she’s been drilling into Stevens the importance of going by the book, checking your lists, covering your ass and dotting your i’s.
“Well,” she says. “We should be looking to charge him with indignity to a human body, for an improper burial.”
Stevens bobs his head until she meets his eyes. “I think intent needs to count for something, here, Mackenzie,” he says. “There was no foul play, just misplaced good intentions. And it’s hard to blame people for those.”
Even the reverend, Rachel thinks, with reluctance.
She nods. “I agree. A charge feels extreme for a man whose only real offence—in this case—was to help a grieving mother repatriate her daughter’s remains.
” She pauses. “ ‘Indignity’ to a body doesn’t fit here.
It’s the opposite. Annie Little’s burial near her parents in her hometown cemetery was far more dignified than a mass pauper’s grave somewhere on the outskirts of Toronto. Right?”
“Yup.” They sit for a while longer as Rachel’s mind wanders back to that winter with Mary and the reverend. She knows she’ll have to dig it up now in therapy, reconsider her perceptions of it at the time, and since. But the prospect is exhausting. She’s not ready yet.
“What’s next, then?” Stevens asks.
Rachel thuds her skull back against the headrest, feeling drained. All she wants right now is to go home, get into her sweatpants and eat pasta until Friends comes on at eight-thirty.
“It’s already late afternoon,” she says. “Let’s head back to the office, then tomorrow we can figure out what we need to do to tie this all up. I’d like to sleep on it.”
Stevens agrees, turns over the ignition and tosses the car into gear. They head northeast, away from the care home and back toward Clinton. After ten minutes, they pass the sign for Millgate, and Rachel somehow knows what Stevens is going to say before he even opens his mouth.
“Want to drive by it?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah. It’s just off the main road.”
He finds Garden Street, scans for the address, and eventually slows, rolling down his window.
It’s a small ranch-style home, red brick with an off-white door and matching shutters on the front windows.
Resilient peonies are in bloom in a slightly neglected-looking and overgrown front garden.
As they watch, a woman comes out to check the mailbox.
Her brow knits as she reaches in, eyes on their car.
Rachel almost smiles. No one can ever ignore a police car on their street.
“Can I help you?” the woman calls, absently withdrawing the newspaper and a pile of flyers that cascade out of her hands onto the porch.
“Just having a look at the street, ma’am,” Stevens replies.
She continues to look suspicious, and Rachel wonders if she’ll relax a little if she sees a woman officer. She gets out of the car. The woman stands with the flyers still littered at her feet as she watches Rachel approach.
“Is this your home, ma’am?” Rachel asks.
“Uh, ye—well, no, actually,” she stutters, stooping to gather the flyers. “We rent it.”
She stands again, some messy blond hair falling in her face. “Is everything okay? Is—”
“It’s fine,” Rachel says. “You have a good day, ma’am.” She’s turning to leave as the thought occurs to her. “Ma’am,” she calls to the woman, who throws a foot out to stop the screen door from shutting.
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask who your landlord is?”
“Why, is he in trouble or something?”
“No,” Rachel says, wishing the woman would just calm down. But she’s long since learned you never know what sort of experiences people have had with the police in the past that colours their interactions in the moment. For better or worse.
“Well, that’s good,” the woman says, though her shoulders relax a little. “ ’Cause he seems like an okay guy.”
Rachel’s instincts tingle. “What’s his name?”
“Greg,” the woman says. “Gregory Little.”