Grave Sight Page 0,52
a huge map of Colleton County right there. He nodded, understanding that I'd meant, "If it had been a snake, it would have bit us." I tried to orient myself by following the two main roads that formed a waggly X through Sarne, but I was still working it out when Tolliver pinpointed the area where we'd gotten out of our car when we'd been searching for Teenie's body.
After some cross-referencing, we decided which parcel of land that was, and the clerk handed us the appropriate ledger. According to the ledger, Colleton County Land Development was the owner of the property, and of several other parcels on both sides of that road. I couldn't see that we were any further along than we had been. Tolliver asked the county clerk if she knew who was actually behind Colleton County Land Development.
"Oh," she said, smiling. "That's Paul Edwards, Terence Vale, and Dick Teague. They bought up quite a bit of property over the years, thinking that someday we'd become another Branson. I don't think that's ever going to happen."
"The same names keep showing up over and over," I said when we were alone in the car.
"That's going to happen in a small town with a long history," Tolliver said, logically enough. "I'm not sure it means anything. Where next?"
We got to the newspaper office about nine forty-five, where we discovered that all the past issues of the Colleton Mountain Gazette (at least for the past ten years) were on computer. We were free to look through the computer archives, all we wanted, right there at the newspaper. This unexpectedly enthusiastic reception was due to a woman about my age, a brand-new reporter, who hoped we might be good for some kind of story. She was plump and dark-haired and wearing a color I'd call mustard. I am no clotheshorse, and fashion trends aren't of much interest to me, but even I could tell it was maybe the worst color she could have picked. But she was a person who liked bright things, as attested by her gold chain and gold bracelet and shiny bronze lipstick, so maybe the mustard was part of the same syndrome. Her name was Dinah Trout, according to the plate on her desk. She offered us coffee, she strode past us about eleven more times than was necessary, and she eavesdropped on every word we said to each other. Today was our day for meeting challenging women.
In self-defense, Tolliver and I took turns sitting at the computer. The one who was not reading had the job of deflecting the extremely curious Ms. Trout. If some of the people of Sarne knew about my unusual career, they apparently hadn't shared it with Ms. Trout, and I was really grateful.
In about an hour, I was sure we'd read every article that dealt with the death of Dell Teague, the disappearance of Teenie Hopkins, and the "tragic accident" of Sally Hopkins Boxleitner. I was fascinated by pictures of the Hopkins sisters. It was a shock to see them living.
I'd been so overwhelmed by the multiplicity of pictures in Helen's living room that I hadn't taken any time to examine the subjects.
The sisters didn't look alike. Sally, Hollis's wife, had been light in coloring, with reddish-blonde hair and freckles. She had a broad face and broad shoulders and a pleasant look about her. I couldn't see anything lurking in her eyes - no hidden misery in her stance, nothing that hinted she knew she was going to die. I tracked down her wedding picture (it was eerie to see a much younger Hollis feeding her wedding cake) and an employee photograph taken at Wal-Mart, where she'd been the manager of the baby department.
Her younger sister Teenie was shown in her school picture, the saddest accompaniment to an obituary. She'd been a little over made-up for the occasion, and her hair was dramatically combed in two solid falls of darkness on either side of her face. She had her mother's narrow features and small build, and she had a sharp nose, perfectly straight. It was hard to extrapolate anything about her character from a class picture. She was smiling, of course, but it was just an arrangement of her lips. There wasn't anything genuinely happy about it. She was a deep well, and I wasn't surprised Dell Teague had been intrigued.
Dell Teague was blond like his mother. I found a shot of Dell on an old sports page, where he was shown