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  “Go terrorize some squirrels,” she said, kissing the top of the dog’s head. Then she drove to the hospital.

  * * *

  Branigan watched as two Georgia state patrol officers left Charlie’s room. The girl was stirring as she entered, her parents hovering over her bed.

  “Branigan,” said Liz, as if she’d been waiting for her. “I’m glad you’re here. Charlie woke up a few hours ago, asking for you. She said to tell you that a hearse ran her off the road.”

  Branigan stared. “A hearse? As in dead bodies?”

  Liz nodded. “And she said that Janie Rose was afraid. She seemed coherent, but she wasn’t making a lot of sense.”

  Charlie opened her eyes and looked around wildly. “Janie Rose?” She stared straight at her dad. “Where’s Janie Rose?”

  Liam took her good hand. “I’m sorry, Char,” he said. “But Janie Rose didn’t make it.”

  Charlie looked stricken for a moment. Then her eyes sought Branigan’s. “Aunt Brani, Janie Rose knew… something. She was scared. Even before the hearse… she was scared.” Charlie’s eyes pleaded for understanding.

  “And a hearse forced you off the road, honey? Do you know what mortuary it was from?”

  Charlie looked away for a moment, as if in thought. “No… not from… a mortuary,” she corrected. “An old black one. With those… curtains. Not like Dad uses.”

  Liam shrugged. “I guess she means when I perform funeral services.”

  Charlie’s eyes went to him gratefully. “Yeah… not like that. Like… the Ghostbusters drive.”

  The three laughed at the unexpected comment. Charlie closed her eyes. She was asleep again.

  “Did you tell the patrol officers?” Branigan asked the Delaneys. They nodded.

  “But not about Janie Rose being scared,” Liz said. “That was new. Also, the officers said that someone had gone through the girls’ luggage.”

  “What?”

  Liam nodded. “Charlie’s soccer bag was unzipped, and that wouldn’t have been caused by the impact.” A thoughtful look came over his face. “But Liz, could she have left it unzipped? Seems like I’ve seen her do that.”

  “Yeah, when she had it too full or was in a hurry. I guess it’s possible.”

  “So someone may or may not have gone through their luggage,” Liam said.

  Branigan gave Liz a hug. “I need to talk to Janie Rose’s parents. ‘Student killed on her way home from college.’ It’s a big story.” She looked at her friends, guilty at the thought that it could have been them she was interviewing.

  Liam was a former reporter, so he understood. Liz wasn’t. She shook her head silently.

  Branigan wasn’t sure where the Carltons would be. Funeral home, maybe. That might be a good place to ask about a hearse as well. There was no question which funeral home she’d head to. Collier was the one for Grambling’s well-to-do.

  On the way, Branigan phoned the newsroom to confer with Jody and make sure he hadn’t reached the Carltons yet. The reporters sure didn’t want to double-team them on this part of the story. Jody assured her he wasn’t anxious to talk to the parents, and gave her his blessing – with relief, she thought, as they disconnected. Branigan hated this part of her job.

  She reached Collier Funeral Home far too quickly and recognized the Carltons’ black Mercedes in the spot closest to the front door. She steeled herself and went in.

  Well, no, wait a minute. She could concentrate on the hearse first. She relaxed a little, unsure if she was being smart or cowardly.

  “I need to see Ranson, please,” she told the young woman at the receptionist’s desk. Fortunately, the funeral home owner was an old high school friend who was now running his family’s business. There were advantages to working in the city you grew up in, and this was one of them. “Tell him it’s Branigan Powers.”

  She’d barely had time to open a magazine in the waiting room that was more expensively furnished than most Grambling homes when Ranson Collier stuck his head out of his office. “Brani G,” he whispered with a broad grin. “Come on in.”

  Ranson had that salt-and-pepper hair that could look either old or distinguished. On him it looked distinguished. He was better looking at forty-one than he’d been at eighteen.

  He pulled Branigan close for a quick hug. “It’s good to see you. This isn’t about your folks, is it?”

  “No, no, they’re fine,” she said, belatedly realizing that Ranson would never allow a reporter, even her, to question customers on his property. “I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “As you know, Ina Rose and Harry Carlton lost their daughter yesterday.”

  Ranson nodded. “They’re planning her service right now.”

  “Well, you probably know from this morning’s Rambler that she was riding with Liam and Liz Delaney’s daughter, Charlie. Charlie is pretty banged up, but when she woke, she told us she’d been forced off the road by a hearse. An old-fashioned kind with curtains. She actually said it was one like the Ghostbusters drove. Only black.”

  Ranson strode to his laptop and with a few clicks brought up a picture of Ecto-1 from the popular Ghostbusters movies. Branigan recognized the long white car with guns on top and the red slashed circles indicating “no ghosts allowed”.

  “It was a 1959 Cadillac,” Ranson read, “which sort of doubled as a hearse and ambulance.”

  “When’s the last time you saw that model?”

  Ranson shrugged. “Decades, I’d guess. A collector bought our last one when I was a boy. I remember my Uncle Jasper talking about it. But I don’t remember the car itself.”

  “Would any funeral homes still have one?”

  Ranson rubbed his jaw. “I wouldn’t think so. Your best bet is going to be antique car collectors. I can call my dad and Jasper and see if they know any.”

  “Please do.” Branigan handed him her business card. “Here’s my email address if you can get that ASAP.” She looked out of Ranson’s window and saw the Carltons’ car still in the parking lot.

  She said her goodbyes and refrained from telling him she needed to catch the Carltons. No funeral director wanted to hear that.

  Musing in the parking lot, Branigan decided she might have better luck with Ina Rose Carlton alone than with her husband. She called the switchboard of Rutherford Lee College and was connected to the secretary of the religion department. When she asked if Ina Rose Carlton was expected, the secretary put her on hold. Seconds later she was back.

  “Apparently we do expect Dr Carlton this afternoon,” she said. “I wasn’t sure. Do you want to leave a message?”

  Branigan hesitated. She feared Ina Rose might not return a call. “Tell her I’ll drop by her office at one, please.”

  “I’ll leave the message.”

  Branigan checked her watch. That gave her nearly two hours. Plenty of time to drive to the site of the accident and back.

  Collier Funeral Home was two blocks off Main Street, in a former residential area. Most of the august houses and porch-wrapped cottages had been converted to law offices, with the exception of the funeral home and a stately bed and breakfast. She pointed her taupe Honda Civic toward Main, then turned left to head to the interstate. Standing on the corner, waiting for the light to change, was Malachi Martin, his black dreadlocks framing a thin face, his faded olive fatigues topped by a gray hoodie. The sweatshirt’s hood was thrown back in favor of a nylon do-rag, added since last summer.

  On an impulse, she lowered her car window. “Malachi!” she called. “Want to help me on a story?”

  Malachi’s face didn’t change, as if a professional white woman offering a ride to a homeless black man happened every day in Grambling. He nodded solemnly and hopped in the passenger side. “This have anythin’ to do with Miz Charlie?”

  Branigan turned to stare at hi
m. “How did you know?”

  “Saw you an’ Pastor Liam an’ Miz Liz at the hospital.”

  “You’re an observant man, my friend.” Branigan knew from experience just how observant Malachi was. He had figured out the summer murderer of homeless people when she and the Grambling police could not. “Charlie was in an accident on her way home from the University of Georgia yesterday,” she said. “The friend riding with her was killed. Charlie says a hearse forced them off the road. I’m going out to look at the wreck site, and I’d love another pair of eyes.”

  Malachi nodded, as if this made all the sense in the world. He had nothing more pressing to do.

  Forty minutes later, Branigan eased off US 441 near an embankment where Malachi pointed out yellow Georgia state patrol tape encircling several trees.

  They walked down the hill through the mild December sunshine, a car passing on the road above them only sporadically. They could see the divots the rolling Jeep had cut.

  “Miz Charlie drive an old Jeep Cherokee,” Malachi said. “I seen it at Jericho Road.”

  “It was totaled, Liam said.”

  Malachi pointed to a thick maple trunk, scraped and scarred. “Look like she hit this one pretty good.”

  “But a hearse,” Branigan mused, looking around at the bare trees and the largely empty roadway. “Why would a hearse force two college girls off the road?”

  Malachi didn’t answer. He walked around the copse of trees cordoned off by the state patrol, and pushed further into the woods. Branigan could hear him tramping through the underbrush, but she couldn’t make him out. His clothing blended in with the bark and the evergreens, the brush and cedars and pines of these northeast Georgia woods. Twenty minutes later, he emerged forty feet away, and walked, head down, back along the roadside grass.

  “Maybe,” he said, as if twenty minutes had not passed, “it ain’t so much what we seein’.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I mean it looks like a hearse drove two college girls off the road. But what else was Miz Charlie and her friend?”

  Branigan looked at Malachi, a possibility dawning. “Like maybe they are daughters? And maybe someone wanted to send a message to their parents?” She thought for a moment. “Probably not a message for a preacher and an interior designer,” she added, referring to the Delaneys. “But maybe for a steel company CEO.”

  After Branigan had dropped Malachi at the Cannon County public library – at his request – it was time to head to the college. Rutherford Lee was a sprawling, beautifully landscaped campus a few miles east of downtown. Branigan was pretty sure that the founder Rutherford Lee was not in Robert E.’s family tree, but in the heart of Georgia, the Confederate general’s surname didn’t hurt.

  The college’s dorms were built around a man-made lake, complete with ducks and swans; woods surrounded it on three sides. In the century since its founding, fountains and flower beds, playing fields and state-of-the-art classroom buildings had been added. The private school was quite good, and quite expensive. Ironically, wealthy students from Atlanta and other parts of Georgia enrolled in droves, while Grambling’s own students, like Charlie and Janie Rose, favored the state university in Athens.

  Branigan drove through the arched brick entrance. Her paternal grandfather had taught economics here in the 1970s and 80s, so she’d visited the campus often. The religion department, she remembered, was housed in the same building as economics. She parked in a large lot near the student center, and stopped to order two coffees before walking to the classroom building next door.

  Once inside, she sought out the glass-encased directory and saw that Dr Ina Rose Carlton had an office on the second floor. In previous visits, she’d met her in lecture halls. Branigan drew a deep breath and headed up the stairs holding the coffee before her, a grief offering.

  Ina Rose’s office door was open, and she was on the phone accepting condolences with mechanical murmurs. Her long brown hair was clipped neatly in an old-fashioned clasp at the back of her neck. Her skin was pale, paler even than the ivory blouse she wore. Her brown eyes, normally her best feature, showed broken blood vessels, and circles underneath revealed a sleepless night.

  She motioned with her head for Branigan to sit down in the chair opposite her desk. Branigan breathed an inward sigh of relief: Ina Rose’s Southern manners had her on automatic pilot, and she wouldn’t throw the reporter out of her office.

  When Ina Rose hung up, she pressed a button on her phone that Branigan assumed would send callers to voicemail. She came around her desk and took a seat in a second chair, shifting it to face Branigan. Unsmiling, seemingly braced, she faced the reporter she’d once prevailed upon to cover lectures and seminars sponsored by the religion department.

  Branigan began with condolences – and an apology. Before she could finish, Ina Rose interrupted. “I appreciate that, Branigan. But I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday, and I’ve decided you’re right. I do want people to know who Janie Rose was. That’s why I’m here when everybody is telling me to go home.” She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “TV is coming too. I didn’t want them in our home, in Janie Rose’s room.” She paused for a moment, accepted a coffee, and swallowed hard. “So tell me what you need.”

  Branigan started with questions about Janie Rose’s childhood, leading her mother through memories of the girl’s gymnastics, water skiing, cheerleading. Pausing to grab a tissue to wipe her eyes, Ina Rose smiled. “You’re asking the same things I’ll need to tell our pastor for her eulogy.” She clenched her eyes and sat silently for a moment. Branigan waited, handing her another tissue.

  “Take your time.”

  Ina Rose told about her daughter’s years at Montclair High on Grambling’s Eastside, a summer job in a popular pizza restaurant, volunteer work at the Cannon County Humane Society, her love for the mixed terrier, Cash, she brought home.

  “And then she went to the University of Georgia?” Branigan prompted.

  “Well, no, not at first. She came here her freshman year.”

  “Oh, I assumed she was a freshman. Like Charlie.”

  “No.”

  Branigan waited, but Ina Rose didn’t say anything more. “Dr Carlton?” She waited. “Can you tell me about Janie Rose’s time at Rutherford Lee?”

  Ina Rose was silent for another moment. “Can we go off the record?”

  “All right.”

  Ina Rose drew in a deep breath. “Janie Rose wasn’t happy here. In fact…” She stopped again. “In fact, she had a nervous breakdown.” Now that it was out, Ina Rose seemed relieved. She hurried on. “Her father and I were never exactly sure what happened. Janie wouldn’t say. Harry thought it was a boy. I’m not so sure.”

  Ina Rose twisted her fingers in her lap. “Her first semester was fine. She had good grades. She seemed happy during Christmas break. At the beginning of second semester, she pledged a sorority. She talked about going on spring break to Daytona with the sisters. She was dating a young man from Louisiana, I believe it was.

  “Then in mid-February I got a call from our counseling center. Janie Rose was crying hysterically, and the counselor convinced her to call me. Thank goodness she did. The counselor got Janie’s permission to share her concerns with me. She and I both suspected at first that Janie’d been raped. But after awhile, I didn’t think so.”

  Branigan allowed the pause to stretch out. When Ina Rose didn’t continue, she asked, “You didn’t think she’d been raped because…?”

  Ina Rose shook her head. “Because Janie Rose denied it, but she denied it without much interest, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t upset with the question. She was just dismissive. So then I started wondering if she’d gotten hold of bad drugs.” Ina Rose looked miserable, and Branigan wisely remained silent. “That’s how out of touch I was. I didn’t know if my own daughter was using drugs.” Her voice cracked on that
final statement, and she stopped talking. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer.

  “At any rate, Janie dropped out and came home. We put her in counseling, of course. But she never did tell us – or the counselor – what happened. I don’t even know if anything did happen, or if it was some… some…” Ina Rose threw up her hands. “I don’t even know what! But by May she was better and took make-up classes at Grambling Tech over the summer. She was able to enter the University of Georgia in August as a sophomore.”

  Ina Rose slumped. “We haven’t told anyone that,” she said tonelessly. “Harry would be very angry with me.”

  “You were off the record,” Branigan said. “I won’t use it unless you change your mind and tell me it’s okay.”

  Ina Rose nodded.

  “So tell me about her first semester at Georgia.”

  “She seemed fine.” Her mother shrugged helplessly. “Good mid-term grades. She wasn’t interested in pledging a sorority again. Of course, I was the anxious parent, calling every other day. She insisted that everything was fine and she was looking forward to being home for Christmas.”

  “Your husband seemed surprised that she didn’t drive her car home from school.”

  “I thought it was odd too. But Janie Rose told me the night before that she planned to ride home with Charlie Delaney and drive our Subaru while she was here. I honestly didn’t think much of it.”

  “Dr Carlton, when Charlie woke up, she told me that a car, a hearse actually, forced the girls off the road.”

  “What?” Ina Rose sounded bewildered. “A hearse? You mean someone speeding to a funeral?”

  “No, an antique-style hearse from the 1950s, with curtains over the windows.”

  Ina Rose looked mystified. “Like the Kappa Eps’?”

  Now it was Branigan’s turn to look puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “One of the sororities here has an old hearse they use on homecoming floats and such. Kind of their shtick. Never mind. Surely it wasn’t theirs. Did you tell the Georgia patrol officers what Charlie said?”