by Karen White
Have a holly jolly Christmas . . . The thin strains of music seeped under the kitchen door. Edith’s purse sat on the counter, and inside it was a copy of the passenger list she’d finally managed to obtain from the police chief—one more piece to a puzzle that seemed to have an infinite number of pieces. She took some consolation in the fact that she’d already figured out so much about the plane and the crash, much more than the police had. They still thought it had been an accident.
She reached into a drawer and pulled out a cigarette and lighter, taking a drag until she could feel the nicotine replacing her doubts. She hoped she could use the passenger list to determine who the letter writer had been, maybe reach out to her in ways Edith hadn’t been able to with her own daughter-in-law. Maybe there was justice in the world, perhaps even a divine reason the suitcase had fallen in her garden.
Edith opened the refrigerator and stared inside. She wondered how Cal’s clear vision of justice would interpret her actions, how judges and lawyers would argue against the biblical “eye for an eye” method of righteousness. It was too early to decide, anyway. She knew little more at this point than that the crash hadn’t been an accident, and that the anonymous letter writer knew it, too.
Edith took another drag on her cigarette and began pulling out the ingredients to make cookies, seeing the bold black letters on the letter each time she opened the refrigerator door. Beloved.
chapter 22
LORALEE
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Merritt slapped another mosquito on her arm, her face red with heat under the floppy brim of her straw hat. She stood inside the towering arches and columned brick walls of the old Sheldon church ruins, the missing roof and doors making it no less grand than before the fire that had destroyed it.
Loralee looked up at the open sky, wondering whether prayers might get to heaven faster without interference from a roof. “It’s important that children don’t forget everything over the summer that they learned in school the previous year. And field trips like this make history come alive. It’s so much more fun and interesting than reading about it in a book.”
Merritt slapped at her ankle and glared up at Loralee. “Yes, so much more fun.”
Loralee turned away to hide her smile. She’d doubted Merritt would enjoy today’s outing, but she’d been sure she would come once Loralee asked. When they’d managed to coerce Merritt onto the boat ride through the marsh, Loralee had realized that Merritt’s usual motivation was not to disappoint anybody. She just wasn’t sure whether she’d been that way as a girl, or it was something she’d learned during her marriage.
Owen turned from where he’d been studying the charred bricks on a segment of the wall, his backpack loaded with waxed-paper rolls and gold and silver crayons. “This place is so cool. Is it haunted?”
“There’s no such thing,” Merritt said quickly.
That was the second time Loralee had heard Merritt say that, making her think about what she was so afraid of. Or maybe Loralee already knew. It’s not only ghosts who haunt us. Our memories follow us through life, surprising us now and again when we are forced to turn around and look behind us. She’d written that on the back of a drugstore receipt as she’d waited in line at the pharmacy, reminding herself that she still needed to transfer it into her pink journal.
“Yes, there is,” Owen said. “Maris says there’s an old man at the stables where she rides who rattles the horse harnesses in the middle of the night.”
Merritt straightened from scratching at her calves. “Then how does anybody know that if it only happens in the middle of the night? Aren’t people usually asleep? Seems to me somebody made up the story to keep burglars away.”
Owen considered this. “You might have a point.”
Loralee stared at the two of them, wondering whether she was the only one who saw how similar they were in the way they viewed the world. How much like Robert they were.
“There are some really old graves over there,” Owen said, tramping across the tall grass and through what might have once been a window. “Can I do a rubbing now?”
“Not yet,” said Loralee. “Not until you tell me the significance of this building. Did you read the historical marker near the road?”
Owen and Merritt shook their heads in unison, and if Loralee hadn’t been so exasperated, she would have laughed. “The original church was built in 1745, but was burned by the British during the revolution in 1779. It was rebuilt, only to be burned again in 1865.”
Merritt stood with her hands on her hips as she studied the shifting shadows on the old brick walls made by the branches of encroaching oak trees and their sweeping shawls of moss. It seemed to Loralee as if the oaks had grown close to the church over the years to protect it with their long arms, like a mother shielding her child.
“Who burned it in 1865?” Merritt asked.
“The damned Yankees,” Loralee said, trying not to grin.
“Really, Loralee?” Despite her trying to look stern, Merritt’s lips trembled as they fought a smile. “Not just the Yankees, but ‘damned’ ones?”
“Daddy said that the only time I was ever to use the word damned was in front of the word Yankees. But I think he meant the baseball team,” Owen pointed out.
Loralee smiled at her son. “Yes, well, and when people talk about General Sherman’s march to the sea, they’re expected to use it, too. It was his troops who burned the church, although, as you can see, the exterior walls refused to fall.” She lifted her face to the sun, feeling its warmth on her bare skin. “I like that, how even a fire couldn’t completely destroy this place. I think it’s still beautiful. Maybe even more so, because you can see its scars. It tells you the story of where it’s been.”
Merritt stared at her for a long moment, as if she wanted to say something. Instead she slapped at another mosquito on her leg.
Loralee shook her head. “You were the one who insisted on wearing a skirt instead of the nice pair of jeans I gave you. I’ll give you some calamine lotion later, but don’t expect any sympathy.”
“They were too tight. I couldn’t wear those out in public.”
“Oh, honey, they fit you real good. You’ve got such a cute figure, and it’s not a sin to show it off. Whoever told you that you look better in the clothes you’ve got had something wrong in their heads or needed to have their eyes examined. Or maybe both.”
She’d said it as a joke, but Merritt’s face seemed to close in on itself, like a person pulling the blinds on a window. She turned without a word and headed toward the old cemetery behind the ruins, bending over to examine one of the stones, a stone where Loralee could see that all the words had been washed away by time.
Loralee began walking toward her, wanting to know more, to find out what had happened to the Merritt whom Robert had talked so much about. Loralee was usually a lot more restrained, especially with people like Merritt, who created an imaginary bubble around them at all times, but she didn’t have time for gentle persuasion.
She stopped suddenly, a groan making its way halfway up her throat. She pressed down on her abdomen, willing the ache to go away, hoping it was something she’d eaten for breakfast that wasn’t agreeing with her. Her hand kneaded the spot as she took deep breaths. Remembering what her mama had told her, she made her mouth smile and waited. Smiling makes everything seem better, and makes other people think you’re up to something. She wasn’t sure that was going in her journal, not completely convinced that the first part was true.
“Mama? Are you okay?”
“Yes, baby. I’m fine. Just a stitch in my side. Let’s go find a good stone with lots of words and maybe a picture for you to work on.”
With deep breaths, she followed Owen into the cemetery, where old and new stones seemed to be arranged in a haphazard pattern, like a gambler’s dice that had been tossed on the sandy soil.
“Why is Merritt staring at that empty stone?” Owen asked quietly.
Loralee bent over, tryi
ng to ease the pain, pretending to study the dates on the stone in front of her, much as Merritt was doing. “Because she’s working out something in her head. Just because somebody’s being quiet doesn’t mean they don’t have something to say.”
“Are you going to write that in your journal?” Owen asked.
Loralee took off his glasses and cleaned them on the edge of her blouse. “Yes, I expect I will.”
She placed the glasses back on his nose and watched him dash off toward two large aboveground tombs. One had the roots of a giant oak nudging the base of it, as if in a contest to see which one could claim the ground the longest. Loralee was about to point it out to Owen when she felt a sharp pain, taking her breath away.
“Loralee?”
Merritt’s face seemed blurred.
“What’s wrong?”
She swallowed the saliva pooling in her mouth. “I might have food poisoning. If I could just sit down . . .” She slid to the ground, leaning against the tombstone of a woman who’d died in 1832.
“Mama? Are there dead people in here?” Owen gently patted the horizontal stone over one of the large tombs.
After a quick glance at Loralee, Merritt answered, “Yes. But if they’re really old, I imagine they’ve all turned to dust by now.”
“Can I do the wax rubbing on one of these?”
“Yes. But try to be fast, okay? Your mother isn’t feeling well.”
Loralee raised her hand in the air. “It’s all right, Owen. I’ll be fine after I rest a minute. Take your time.”
After a worried glance at his mother, Owen pulled out the supplies he needed from his backpack and got started.
Merritt frowned down at her. “Are you sure you’ll be fine? You don’t look well.”
Loralee could feel the sweat beading on her forehead. “If you’re going to be a proper Southerner, you’ve got to work on your conversational skills. I know I probably look like I’ve been rode hard and put up wet—or worse. You just need to learn how to say, ‘Bless your heart,’ when you tell somebody they don’t look well, or they won’t take you seriously.”
Merritt blinked at her a couple of times. “You look like you’ve been dragged for miles through the swamp and hit a few stumps, bless your heart.”
Loralee managed a smile. “Not bad.”
“Do you need some water? We’ve got those bottles in the cooler in your car.”
Loralee shook her head, then wished she hadn’t. “No. I just need to rest a bit. I wish I hadn’t forgotten my purse—I have a delicate stomach, and I always have pills in there for this kind of thing.” She paused, catching her breath. “I should be good to go by the time Owen is done.” She swallowed, forcing down the nausea. “He takes a little longer than most trying to get his wax crayon over every crevice, like the little perfectionist he is. He gets that from his daddy.”
Merritt’s face lit up with a smile, a sudden unplanned one that showed a dimple in her left cheek. It was the first time Loralee had seen it, and it made her feel a little better. She pointed at Merritt’s face. “Owen has a dimple there, too. The boys in his class used to tease him, so he tries really hard to hide it now, but every once in a while it comes out. I think it’s pretty cute.”
Merritt nodded, her smile fading. “Something else I guess we got from our dad. Mother used to love it, too. When I was little she would tickle me just so she could see it.”
Loralee shifted, pressing the side of her face against the cool stone, grateful for the shade from the gnarled trees above them. She wondered whether the woman buried beneath her thanked the trees on a daily basis for their shelter. Or whether, after death, any of it really mattered at all.
Closing her eyes, she thought of her mother and her long illness. It had always seemed to Loralee that death had come to Desiree in pieces, taking parts of her until there was nothing left but one last breath. She found herself thinking of Desiree more and more lately, especially about how she hadn’t been afraid at the end. Loralee knew her mother hadn’t had an easy life, but she’d left it with no regrets. She was rich, she said, because she’d loved deeply and knew how to laugh, and that was what life was about. Everybody dies. But not everybody lives. Loralee would write that down as soon as she got home. As soon as she was able to sit upright and hold a pen.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Merritt’s hand felt cool on her forehead.
Loralee opened her eyes and smiled. “I’ll be fine—really.” Thinking that talking might distract her from the more and more persistent pangs in her abdomen, she said, “I haven’t seen Gibbes in a couple of weeks.”
Merritt sat on the ground next to Loralee, avoiding the anthills, taking her time as she brought up her knees before folding her arms neatly around them. She fiddled with the hem of her skirt, looking at it as if seeing it for the first time. The hem had fallen out of it, and Loralee had helped her measure for a new one, subtracting an inch from the length Merritt had given her as she’d marked it with white chalk.
Loralee kept looking at her so Merritt wouldn’t think that she’d forgotten she’d asked a question.
“I’ve been busy with my new job. It’s been only a few days a week so far, but I make sure I’m available just in case they call me and need me to come in. I guess Gibbes has been busy, too. And the house has been full of neighbors dropping by to introduce themselves and bringing me casseroles for some reason—we won’t need to cook dinner for at least a year, I think—so it’s not like we need the company. Besides, now that Gibbes has retrieved all the items from the house that he wants, I don’t really expect him to come around anymore.”
Loralee sighed, her exasperation almost overriding her pain. “Seriously, Merritt?”
Her chin stiffened just like Owen’s did when he was asked to do something he didn’t want to do. “I mean, we still have a few of the nutshell studies up in the attic that need to be brought over to the police department, and a couple for the Heritage Society, but I think Deborah Fuller is taking care of that, so I’m not involved at all.”
“Well, I know he’s called you a few times, so maybe there’s more he needs to talk to you about.”
Merritt narrowed her eyes, her sharp dark brows like bird’s wings. “How would you know he’s called? We don’t have a landline.”
Loralee closed her eyes and rubbed her abdomen, almost glad for the excuse not to have to meet Merritt’s eyes. “You leave your phone all over the place, and when it rings it’s just natural that I look at the screen. I was actually going to suggest you get a landline, so you can call your cell phone every time you misplace it. I’ve never seen a person spend so much time looking for her cell phone.”
Merritt didn’t say anything for a moment, as if trying to figure out when the conversation had become about her inability to keep track of her phone. “Yes, well, he was looking up that plane crash on the Internet and just wanted to share what he’d learned with me. He left a couple of voice mails that didn’t require a call back.”
If Loralee had the strength, she would have reached over and smacked Merritt on top of her head to knock some sense into her. “Well, I’d be interested in learning more. Maybe we should have him over for dinner.”
“There’s really no reason. Everything he found on the Internet and read in Owen’s newspapers was pretty much what we already knew from Deborah Fuller. Well, there was one thing he found in one of the newspapers—the debris field was in a twenty-five-mile radius, because the plane was at its cruising altitude when it exploded. That most likely means there was no prior warning to the pilots that something was wrong with the plane. No distress calls from the pilots, either. And, as Deborah pointed out, no cockpit recorders to shed any light on what was going on in the final minutes of the flight. Other than that, we still don’t know anything new. It’s a closed case.”
Loralee thought about the plane model Gibbes had brought down to Owen’s bedroom, all of the careful details that must have taken a very long time to get right. “If it were s
o cut-and-dried, then why did Edith feel the need to make a crime-scene analysis of it?”
Merritt studied her hands, her expression making it clear that she’d thought the exact same thing. “Well, regardless of what she believed, even the police thought it was a closed case. When Gibbes went to talk with the chief about the studies, he asked to see the case file. He flipped through it and said the only thing new in there was the passenger list. And it was definitely marked ‘closed.’”
“Edith must have been a very strong woman.”
Merritt looked at her. “Why do you say that?”
Loralee shrugged, the movement more painful than it should have been. “Just from what you’ve told me, it sounds like her husband didn’t treat her like she deserved, yet she still managed to have this important part of her life without him. It couldn’t have been easy. Mama always said that the easy road is usually the fastest way to hell.”
“Was your mother always that judgmental?”
“No. But she was usually right.” Loralee smiled but was afraid it might look more like a grimace, so she focused her attention on the gravestone next to her. “Poor Rebecca Saltus,” she said out loud. “She was only fifty-one when she died in 1832. That’s the only part of her tombstone you can still read.”
“That’s pretty young,” Merritt said softly. She picked at stray strands of grass that had managed to emerge from the ground despite the heavy tree shade. “My mother was only forty-four when she died. I remember at the time thinking that was old, but it’s really not, is it?”
“No,” Loralee answered. “It’s not old at all.”
“Mama—I’m done,” Owen called from across the cemetery. “Can we go now? It’s really hot.”
“Thank goodness,” Merritt said as she got to her feet, then slapped at another mosquito on her neck. “I think they mislabeled a can of mosquito food as repellent, because they can’t seem to stay away from me.”
Loralee tried to roll to her knees so she could stand, but the pain was red-hot now, shooting like fireworks up through her chest.
