The Sisters Hemingway

by Annie England Noblin

  Hadley looked down at the dog slobbering and panting next to Lucy. “That’s a dog?”

  Lucy nodded. “He’s an English bulldog.”

  “More bull than anything else,” Brody said. “He had terrible allergies as a puppy, and the family who owned him brought him in to Amanda to be put down. Amanda gave him to us instead.”

  “Why would you put a dog down for allergies?” Hadley asked.

  “His allergy pills cost a hundred a month. He has to eat grain-free food, and he also has to have drops in his eyes every day. And with that short muzzle he’s got, he can’t be outside for very long in the summer or he gets too hot,” Brody explained. “It’s basically like having another child.”

  Hadley walked over to Lucy and squatted down in front of the dog. “He’s so ugly he’s cute,” she said.

  “That’s what I think, too,” Lucy replied.

  “Are you guys coming inside?” Martha called. “Those jerks are bound to come back. I don’t want them getting any pictures they don’t have to work for.”

  Hadley followed Brody, Lucy, and Ollie inside, picking up Martha’s forgotten guitar as she went. “I thought I heard music coming from the porch when I was in the bathroom this morning,” she said, handing her sister the guitar. “It sounded nice.”

  “Thanks,” Martha muttered. “Too bad I can’t remember a damn chord of what I played.”

  “It’ll come to you,” Hadley replied. “I also found this bottle of whiskey by the coffeepot.”

  “I think that’s our cue to go into the living room,” Brody said, taking Lucy by the shoulders and steering her away from the two women.

  “I didn’t drink any,” Martha said, sticking out her chin.

  “I didn’t say you did,” Hadley replied.

  “You want to smell my breath?”

  “No,” Hadley said. “I believe you.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you do.”

  “I do.”

  Martha narrowed her eyes at Hadley. “Why would you even say anything, then?”

  Hadley shrugged. “I just wondered why it was out, was all.”

  “I thought about it, okay?” Martha replied, lifting her hands up into the air. “I thought about it, but then I saw the guitar that you left out, and I took it outside on the porch to play instead.”

  “I didn’t leave the guitar out,” Hadley replied.

  “Must’ve been Pfeiffer.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Pfeiffer said, wandering into the kitchen, Lafayette following close behind.

  Martha crossed her arms on her chest. “I suppose it was the dog, then?”

  Pfeiffer stopped smiling when she saw the bulldog at Hadley’s feet. “What is that?”

  “It’s a dog,” Hadley replied. “I wasn’t sure at first either.”

  “It better not bother Lafayette,” Pfeiffer said. “She’s had a rough night.”

  “Don’t worry,” Brody called from the living room. “He’s a lover, not a fighter.”

  Pfeiffer rolled her eyes and pulled a small tube from one of the cabinets. The minute Lafayette saw the tube, she began to back up, waddling her way underneath the kitchen table, making the same noises she had in the bathtub the night before.

  “Come on out of there,” Pfeiffer said, dropping to her knees in front of the table. “I promise it hurts me more than it does you.”

  “What’s wrong with your dog?” Lucy asked, sitting down next to Pfeiffer.

  “She’s still mad about her bath,” Pfeiffer replied. “She’s clean now, but I need to put these flea and tick drops on her now that she’s dry. I couldn’t do it last night.”

  “I don’t blame her. Ollie does the same thing when he sees his drops,” Lucy replied. Then, rolling onto her knees and elbows, she peered underneath the table. “Come on out, pup. We won’t hurt you.”

  “I can’t believe this is my life,” Pfeiffer muttered. “Sitting on a dingy farmhouse floor, trying to keep fleas and ticks off of a hound dog.”

  After a few moments, Lucy wrangled her way underneath the table. “I’ll hold her, and you put the drops in,” she said. “Quick, before she gets loose.”

  Pfeiffer did as she was told, and within seconds, the ordeal was over. “Thanks,” she said.

  “No problem,” Lucy replied. “I help my aunt Amanda sometimes at the clinic.”

  “You want to be a vet?” Pfeiffer asked.

  Lucy shook her head. “I want to be a country-music star like Martha,” she said. “Or maybe a writer. I haven’t decided yet.”

  “You can be both,” Hadley cut in. “Martha writes her own songs, you know.”

  “I thought Travis Tucker wrote them,” Lucy replied. “At least, that’s what I read.”

  “That’s what he’d like everybody to think,” Hadley said. “But it’s not true. My sister has been writing her own songs since she was eleven.”

  “I write songs sometimes,” Lucy said. “Well, it’s mostly poetry, but my friend Ava plays the guitar, and we put them to music once in a while.”

  “That’s the best way to start,” Martha said. “When I was your age, your aunt Amanda and I used to write songs together.”

  “Really?”

  Martha nodded. “Yep. She’s very talented on the piano. Did you know that?”

  Lucy looked to her father, who said, “It’s true. She took piano lessons through high school. But she stopped playing in college once she decided to go to veterinary school.”

  “She never told me that,” Lucy said. “There’s an open-mic night at that bar down by Aunt Amanda’s office this Friday. But Dad says Ava and I aren’t old enough to go.”

  “I don’t think they’d even let you through the door.” Martha laughed. “You’re a little young for a place like Mama’s.”

  “I go to school with the granddaughter of the lady who owns it,” Lucy said. “Her name is Geneva, but everybody calls her Gin, you know, like the liquor.”

  “Seems appropriate,” Martha replied.

  “Anyway, she says her mama and her mama’s mama don’t get along and one day the bar will be her mama’s and she’s going to close it down and turn it into a massage place for dogs.”

  Martha stifled a snort and looked to Brody, who only shrugged and said, “You know Gin’s mom, don’t you?”

  Martha nodded. “I do, and I guess it doesn’t surprise me.”

  All three of their heads turned when they heard a car crunching down the gravel path. The Ozark County coroner’s truck pulled into the driveway, followed by the sheriff and two deputies.

  “You stay in here,” Brody said to Lucy. “Sit on the couch and watch TV or something.”

  “But I want to go outside with you,” Lucy replied, crossing her skinny arms over her chest. “I want to see.”

  “No,” Brody replied. “Stay here.”

  “Ugh,” Lucy said. “Fine.” She flounced over to the couch and sat down, the dog at her heels. “This television doesn’t work!”

  Brody opened his mouth to respond, but Hadley held up her hand. “It does work,” she said. “But there isn’t any cable.”

  “Well, then, what am I supposed to watch?”

  Hadley walked over to the television and opened the double doors on the stand on which it was sitting. “There are a ton of tapes in here you can watch.”

  “Tapes?”

  “VHS tapes,” Hadley said. “For the VCR.”

  “VCR?”

  Hadley ran her fingers down the spines of the tapes and pulled one from the shelf. “What are you, twelve?” she asked. “Have you ever seen Sixteen Candles?”

  Lucy shook her head. “No.”

  “It’s my favorite,” Hadley replied. “It might be a bit old for you, but I think you’ll like it.”

  “Okay,” Lucy replied, turning her head slightly to look back at her father. “My dad thinks I should only watch cartoons. He thinks I’m still a baby.”

  “But you’re not,” Hadley said with a conspiratorial wink. “Now, here’s how
the VCR works. You turn it on and put the tape in and press play. That’s it.”

  Hadley started the movie and then sat down on the couch next to the bulldog, both she and Lucy petting him. On the outside, Hadley looked like a put-together socialite with her perfectly bobbed hair and ability to flawlessly match a pair of capri pants to a sweater. But Hadley still remembered the girl she’d once been with a tangled mass of hair and a sense of adventure that would put most men to shame. She still remembered the girl who wanted to travel everywhere, the girl who watched movies to escape their small town, and the girl who would never, ever be caught dead wearing pearls. And for this reason, Hadley suspected she and Lucy had much more in common than either of them realized.

  “Hadley?”

  Hadley turned around to see Brody standing in the doorway. “Hey, is everything all right?”

  “Would you mind coming out here for a second?”

  “Sure,” Hadley replied. “I’ll be right back,” she said to Lucy.

  “The sheriff has a few questions,” Brody said. “They’ve found more bones. He wants to talk to each of you, and he’s already talked to Pfeiffer, and Martha went upstairs to get dressed.”

  “More bones?”

  Brody nodded. “I reckon they’re going to find a whole body.”

  Hadley shuddered. “What could they want to talk to us about?” she asked. “Clearly, we couldn’t have had anything to do with this.”

  “I don’t know,” Brody replied. “But Pfeiffer was pretty pissed when she left.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “She went to see if she could get Crowley to come over and speak with the sheriff,” Brody replied. “I offered to go, but she said she’d prefer to go alone.”

  Hadley stepped out onto the porch. It was turning out to be a muggy day, with the heat hanging in the air like wet clothes on a line. She wondered if it might rain. What she didn’t have to wonder about, however, was which one of the men in uniform was the sheriff. Hadley knew he was the man wearing the ten-gallon cowboy hat and snakeskin boots. She knew this because, like most things in Cold River, the attire of the sheriff never changed.

  “Howdy,” the man said, tipping his hat to her, and Hadley had to stifle a giggle. “Mind if we have a word, ma’am?”

  “Sure,” Hadley replied. “Sheriff?”

  “Name’s Sheriff Tobias Driscoll.”

  Hadley squinted. “Are you any relation to Coy Driscoll?”

  The sheriff nodded. “That’s my nephew. But try not to judge me on account of him.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Hadley replied. “How can I help you?”

  “Now, I’ve got a few questions for ya,” Sheriff Driscoll said. “They may be a bit uncomfortable, but I’d appreciate ya not cursing at me for askin’ them like your sister did.”

  “I won’t judge you based on your nephew, if you won’t judge me based on my sister,” Hadley replied. She couldn’t imagine what kind of questions the sheriff asked that would have made Pfeiffer so upset, but it wasn’t unlike Pfeiffer to lose her temper when flustered.

  “Now, we don’t know how long the body has been buried on your property,” Sheriff Driscoll said. “We won’t know that for a while, but can you tell me the last time you lived on the property?”

  “It was 1998,” Hadley replied. “I left the summer after I graduated from high school.”

  “What month?”

  Hadley rolled her eyes back to try to remember. “I don’t know. It must’ve been June. I stayed with a friend in Columbia for a couple months, with her grandparents, until school started up.”

  “What prompted you to leave so early?”

  “I was just ready to leave,” Hadley replied.

  “But do you have a specific reason?” Sheriff Driscoll asked. “I need you to try to be as specific as you can.”

  Hadley took a deep breath. “Sir, my mother and sister had just died. I’m sure you remember that.”

  “I do.”

  “My boyfriend and I broke up, and I guess I thought anything was better than staying here.”

  The sheriff scribbled something onto his notepad. “And your boyfriend at the time was Brody Nichols?”

  “It was.”

  “Why did you break up, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I don’t really remember,” Hadley replied.

  “Seems to me that you and that Nichols boy was pretty steady. Wouldn’t you remember a thing like that?” Sheriff Driscoll asked.

  “A lot was happening at the time,” Hadley said. “And it was twenty years ago. We were kids, and kids break up. It happens.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Hadley looked over to see if she could read what the sheriff was writing, but it all looked like something Pfeiffer’s dog would have pecked out. “Is that all you have to ask me?”

  “No, just a few more questions,” Sheriff Driscoll replied. “All routine, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you think of anything strange happening while you lived here?” Sheriff Driscoll asked. “Anything—I don’t know—out of the ordinary?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did your mama or daddy have any disagreements with anybody? Was there any fightin’ that you can remember? Or someone who showed up one day at your house, and you never saw ’em again?”

  “I was eight when my father died,” Hadley replied. “He was sick for nearly a year before that. I don’t have too many memories that don’t involve happy times before he got sick.”

  “What about after he got sick?” Sheriff Driscoll asked.

  “Well, he had cancer,” Hadley replied, feeling herself stiffen at the use of the word. “He was pretty weak after he got sick, and I don’t know what you’re getting at. Do you think my parents had something to do with this?”

  “What about your mama?” Sheriff Driscoll pressed. “What was her mental state after your daddy died?”

  Hadley’s nails dug into the palms of her hands. If these were the questions he’d asked Pfeiffer, it was no wonder she’d used colorful language. Hadley was tempted to do the same.

  “Ma’am?”

  “She just lost her husband and had four little kids to take care of,” Hadley said through gritted teeth. “How do you think her mental state was?”

  “Was it anything you would have thought to be concerned with?”

  “I was eight.”

  “What about later?” the sheriff asked. “Once you got a bit older?”

  “She was raising four kids,” Hadley repeated. “Alone. She didn’t have a lot of time for much else.”

  “Raising y’all must’ve been expensive all alone.”

  Hadley nodded, confused. “It was.”

  “I know that your aunt Beatrice James used to help your mama a bit here and there,” the sheriff said.

  “She did,” Hadley replied. “For a long time, it was how we got by.”

  “But then she quit just a few months before your mama passed.”

  “How did you know that?” Hadley asked.

  “It’s my job to know,” he replied. “Do you think leavin’ your mama all high and dry like that could’ve made your mama do something desperate?”

  “You mean like kill someone and bury them in the garden?” Hadley sputtered. “Of course not. My mother would never have hurt anyone.”

  “Money problems make people do crazy things sometimes,” Sheriff Driscoll said.

  “My mother didn’t kill anyone,” Hadley said. “We always had money problems. That wasn’t anything new.”

  “But how was she keeping up with the farm?” Sheriff Driscoll continued. “Without that money from your aunt?”

  “I don’t know,” Hadley replied.

  “I think you do,” Sheriff Driscoll said, matter-of-fact. “I think one of you knows something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that your mother was planning to move out after you graduated,” the sheriff said.

&nb
sp; “Where did you hear that?” Hadley demanded.

  “Like I said, it’s my job to know things.”

  “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything,” Hadley said. “My mother didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I’m not saying she did,” Sheriff Driscoll said.

  “But you aren’t saying she didn’t.”

  “I’m not saying that either.”

  “I think we’re done here,” Hadley said, taking a step back from the sheriff. “If you have any more questions, I’d be happy to give you the number of my lawyer.”

  “Oh, I don’t think there will be any reason for that,” Sheriff Driscoll said.

  “I don’t think there will be any reason for you to be talking to me again,” Hadley said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I will not stand here and listen to you suggest my mother, who died trying to save my sister, by the way, was a murderer. I just won’t.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” the sheriff said, extending his hands, palms up, for Hadley to see. “Ain’t no reason for you to get upset. It’s just like I told your sister. It’s my job to ask these questions.”

  “That may be,” Hadley said, turning on her heel and walking back toward the house, “but it ain’t my job to answer them.”

  Chapter 23

  Hadley

  HADLEY WAS FUMING BY THE TIME SHE GOT BACK INSIDE the house. She stopped Martha on her way outside and said, “Don’t go out there and talk to that man.”

  “Why not?” Martha wanted to know. “Brody said he had some questions for us.”

  “She has to go,” Brody said, lightly touching Hadley’s arm.

  “I know,” Hadley said, nodding to Martha and walking into the kitchen. “I just wish this wasn’t happening.”

  “What do you think is happening?” Brody asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hadley replied, “but it’s not good.”

  “What did the sheriff ask you?”

  Hadley pulled out one of the chairs from the kitchen table, surprising Lafayette, who’d been sleeping beneath it. “He seems to think that my mother or father may have had something to do with the body we found,” she said, sitting down. “I told him that he was wrong, but I don’t think he believed me.”

  “There is no way either of your parents would have killed anyone,” Brody replied.