by Erica Waters
“I’m raising Jim’s ghost tonight,” I say, “whether you like it or not.” It sounds brutal, bare, said like that, but I can’t afford to hold back any longer, not with Jesse’s safety and freedom on the line. “I know how to do it now. So either you can tell me why you lied about being at the construction site that morning, or your daddy will.”
Kenneth looks like he’s going to be sick, all his anger dropping away. “Okay, I’ll talk to you, but not here. Come on.”
He leads me out of the parking lot and around the side of the building, watching for teachers. We walk out toward a utility shed and then sit on empty paint buckets behind it. Kenneth pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one with a shaking hand. There are cigarette butts all over the ground, so this must be a regular smoking spot.
“Shady, you can’t tell anyone. I’ll get in so much trouble. Please,” he says around the cigarette.
Fear squirms in my stomach. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. That’s the problem. I was there that morning. Dad called and asked me to meet him and Jesse at the construction site. He wanted to talk about the pills and the fight and all that.”
“That doesn’t sound like Jim,” I say. “When has he ever wanted to talk about anything?”
“I know. I thought it was weird too. But I went because . . . because it’s the kind of thing I’ve always wanted him to do. Be my dad. Lecture me about drugs. Whatever. And, I mean, he came to see me at the open mic night, didn’t he? I thought he was trying.”
“Okay, so what happened when you got there?”
“Nothing. He went off on me about how I was following in his bad footsteps and yelled at Jesse a lot. Jesse was pissed and went downstairs for a smoke or something. I left. That’s it. That’s all that happened.”
I gaze back at him, not even trying to pretend I believe him. “So why were you hiding it then?”
“My stepdad. He’s a police officer, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. He arrested Jesse.”
“Shit. Yeah. Well, he didn’t want me to say I was there. He said it would make me a suspect. So my mom lied for me and said I was home all morning.”
I shake my head, and a bitter laugh leaves my mouth. “But you were fine with making Jesse the only suspect, I guess. You could have given evidence in Jesse’s favor, you know. You still can.” Wouldn’t Jim’s son’s evidence count for more than some stranger’s?
But Kenneth’s eyes are bright with fear. “Gary would be so pissed if he knew I was telling you. Please don’t tell anyone else. Please. He could lose his job. And he and my mom are already having problems.”
I’m still not convinced. This sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. “But how did you know Jesse wouldn’t say you were there?”
Kenneth looks down, shame in his eyes. “My stepdad said not to worry about it because no one would believe Jesse after he beat me up the night before.”
I’d like to beat him up myself. “Did Jesse tell anyone you were there?”
Kenneth shakes his head. “You believe me, don’t you, Shady?” he asks, his eyes pleading.
“Do you—do you believe Jesse killed Jim?” I say, lifting my chin. “You were there that morning. Did Jesse seem like someone who was about to murder his stepfather?”
“Maybe nobody ever looks like who they are,” Kenneth says, and there’s so much sadness in his voice it makes my heart contract, no matter how mad I am at him right now, no matter how much I doubt him. “But if I thought he was going to kill my dad, I wouldn’t have left them there alone together. I keep thinking that if I’d stayed, if I’d helped them work on the house like Dad wanted me to, he’d still be alive.”
Or maybe Kenneth would’ve gotten killed too. Jim’s the only person who can answer that question.
I don’t try to offer Kenneth any comfort—nothing I say will make his what-ifs easier to bear. But my voice grows gentler as I turn the conversation to the specifics of the house where Jim died. We talk for another five minutes, and Kenneth seems relieved to be hiding his secret from one less person.
Once he has told me what he knows, I realize I’ve gotten all the information I can from the living—now it’s time to ask the dead.
Nineteen
“You sure you’re ready for this?” Cedar asks, glancing at me for the millionth time in ten minutes. “This is really what you want to do?” He grips the steering wheel so tight his knuckles are white.
“Yes, I’m sure. If you don’t want to—”
“I said I would. I don’t want you to do this alone, but I still think you should have asked Sarah and Orlando to come too.” He glances at me again, hesitant, anxious, trying to pretend he’s not scared out of his mind that we’re about to raise Jim’s ghost.
“I can’t ask Sarah; I can’t even talk to Sarah right now.”
“But Orlando’s your best friend, right? I can’t believe he won’t help you,” Cedar says.
“He is. But he was pretty clear that he didn’t want to get involved with this.” I lean back in my seat and close my eyes. I do wish Orlando were here. And Sarah. As much as I’m trying to pretend otherwise, I’m scared. I’m scared of what will happen, scared of what I might learn from Jim’s ghost.
Cedar’s quiet for a few minutes, but then he starts up again. “Are you sure Kenneth didn’t want to come? I mean, it’s his dad.”
“No, he was totally freaked out by the idea,” I say, “and I don’t blame him after what happened with Sarah.” The memory of her sobs is still too sharp in my mind. Plus, ever since I found out Kenneth was there the day Jim was killed, I can’t rule him out as a suspect. However unlikely it is that he could kill his dad, I can’t let myself trust him until I hear what Jim has to say.
“Now stop talking and let me think.” I turn the radio back up. Jason Isbell’s music fills the cab, his familiar voice settling my nerves.
We drive past the dark woods and the shuttered houses, past the convenience stores blazing their light into the blackness, past the silent, sleeping churches. Finally, we near the road that leads to the place Jim’s life ended.
“Turn here,” I say, pointing at the sign for the new neighborhood.
It’s past midnight when we approach the half-built house where Kenneth said Jim was working the morning he died. Cedar’s about to turn into the driveway when his headlights illuminate another truck parked there. A big, shiny blue truck.
“Shit, keep going,” I hiss. We coast past the house and stop at the cul-de-sac several lots down. “That’s Frank’s truck. Jim’s brother. He’s going to notice if we park here. Turn around and go back the way you came. Maybe if he saw us, he’ll think we got lost.”
“What’s he doing here at midnight?”
“I don’t know. It’s weird.”
We go back the way we came. I try to peer inside Frank’s truck, but I don’t see Frank. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t seen us, though. We turn onto the main road and park on the shoulder after a few yards. There’s nowhere else around here to leave the truck.
Cedar pulls the key from the ignition, plunging us into darkness. Even though I can barely see him, I feel his eyes on me, and I swear I can hear the beat of his heart.
“Let’s come back tomorrow night, when he’s not here,” Cedar says.
“No, it has to be now. I need to do this while I’ve got my nerve up.” Before Jesse really gets hurt. Before he’s been sentenced and it’s too late. “And Frank might not even be here. Maybe he just left his truck or something. Let’s at least go see. It’ll be all right.”
Cedar hesitates, but then he opens his door and climbs out.
A few cars blow past us as we walk back toward the neighborhood, but no one stops. The moon is full tonight, though it’s almost completely hidden by clouds, casting the world in gloom. We keep to the shadows once we get closer to the construction site, both of us watchful, almost holding our breath.
The whole neighborhood is deserted, littered with the usual tr
ash of an active construction site. Tractors loom up out of the darkness, promising holes for unwary bodies to fall into. Even the finished houses are still empty. Nobody has moved into the new subdivision yet, and there’s no other houses for at least half a mile. Based on all of Jim’s complaining at home—about how hard Frank was driving them—this should all be much closer to done by now. The site seems not to have been worked on since Jim died.
I brought a flashlight, but I don’t dare use it. Instead, I grip Cedar’s hand and walk carefully along the newly paved street, grateful to have another warm body beside me, especially one as steady as Cedar’s. His hand is sweaty, but it’s warm and firm.
As we near the house, a man’s voice punctures the silence. He swears loudly, his words slurred and angry. We both duck, thinking he’s seen us. But then he swears again, his voice fainter. He’s not yelling at us, but no one else responds.
I wait for my heart rate to slow before I start to creep along again. I wish there were more places to hide. I feel exposed and vulnerable out here.
When we’re as close as I dare go, I crouch behind a tractor at the edge of the yard, pulling Cedar down beside me. I peer around the tire and into the darkness. Frank slouches on the front stoop, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
“You sonofabitch,” he slurs. “Why would you stay here, why would you stay here, why would you stay? You knew, you knew. You goddamn sonofabitch.”
Beside me, Cedar’s hand grips mine more tightly.
There’s a brief silence while Frank drinks. Then he starts back in, ranting at the empty night. “It’s him—he’s the one. That lying, conniving worm. He was sorry—everyone knows that. He was a sorry waste of space. Let him rot! Let him rot in there. It’s his fault.”
I had hoped Frank might soften toward Jesse after seeing Honey and me that day he came to the house, but it sounds like he’s out to get my brother as much as ever. Fear opens up in me like a gaping black hole, but before I can give in to it and go home, Frank’s moving.
He climbs to his feet shakily. “No, I won’t—I won’t, God damn it,” he roars, throwing the whiskey bottle off into the darkness. It smashes against something. “I won’t,” he yells one more time, before stalking across the yard to his truck.
“What’s wrong with him?” Cedar whispers.
“I don’t know.” Mama said grief affects everyone differently. Maybe it’s turning Frank into a drunk. I almost feel sorry for him, despite how he acted at the funeral, despite how hard he’s working to send Jesse to prison.
We hunker down in the shadows until Frank’s headlights point away down the road. He weaves the truck along the empty street.
“We should call the police—he could kill someone driving like that,” Cedar says.
“Call if you want. But don’t give your name or say where you are. We could get in trouble for being here. And do it fast.” Being found in the place where my brother supposedly killed our stepdad won’t do me any favors, especially considering Kenneth’s stepdad and Frank’s friend works for the police department.
Cedar speaks to a dispatcher for a few minutes before hanging up. I doubt it will do any good. Frank could be anywhere by now. And even if they catch him, they’ll just slap his wrist and tell him to get his act together before the city council elections. Small-town good ol’ boys and all that.
As we approach the dark house, a horrible thought grips me. What if Frank wasn’t just drunk and raging at the night? What if he was raging at someone else? Someone only he could see?
A cold weight settles in the pit of my stomach, sending a painful shiver up my spine. Before the fear can paralyze me, I pull the flashlight from my pocket and use it to find our way to the front door, then let myself inside. Something small rustles in a corner, but I don’t have the energy to worry about what it might be. Cedar and I walk softly through the house, listening, but the only sound is the blood pumping in my temples. We climb the stairs and open the door to the master bedroom. It’s right where Kenneth said it would be. Just as we step inside, the moon comes out from behind the clouds, pouring its silver light into the windows.
This is the room where Jim died, where someone bashed in his head with a hammer and sent his blood spilling out on the floor. Thankfully, someone has cleared away the bloodstains.
Now, only moonlight puddles on the hardwood floor. I go and sit in it, let it wash over my skin. I feel a little safer sitting in its glow. Cedar hovers near the door, all his rodeo arrogance gone. Even he can probably feel that there’s a ghost here—one with ties to this earth so strong it might never get free. It makes my skin crawl.
“Come here,” I say. “It’s all right.” Cedar walks slowly toward me and sits, looking helpless and unsure what to do with himself. “Just stay with me,” I say. “That’s all I need.” And that’s all he can offer me now. Where I’m going, he can’t follow.
I’m pretending to be braver than I feel. I don’t know if I’ll fall into that dark, shadowy place again like I did after Sarah’s mom. But my hands shake as I take out the fiddle and start to tune it, flinching at every half note and squeak.
As I raise the bow above the strings, I hesitate. The fiddle is dangerous, but what I might learn from using it—that feels like a ticking time bomb. What if Frank’s right and it was Jesse? What do I do if I learn he—
“Just breathe, Shady,” Cedar says, like he’s coaching me through a recital. But he doesn’t know what’s required of me.
Breathing carefully in and out, I close my eyes and focus on the feel of the strings beneath my fingers, cast my mind back to the first time I felt them, to how Daddy laughed at my clumsy attempts. The memory of that laugh—deep and big and honest—is all it takes to send me spiraling into my grief. Will it be enough? Do I need to tap into my anger, too? That helpless rage I feel when I think about his truck crashing into the lake? The despair of seeing him lowered into the ground?
I can almost feel it when my grief’s power meets that of the fiddle—like to like. As I draw the bow over the strings, every hair on my arms stands on end. My scalp tingles. My heart beats so hard and fast I’m surprised it doesn’t overpower the sound of my fiddle.
I take a deep breath, and then I plunge into “Omie Wise,” a murder ballad about a man who tricks a woman into meeting him at a river and then drowns her there, leaving her body behind. Of course, I don’t sing it; my fiddle’s all the voice Jim’s ghost will need. Unlike a lot of other sad bluegrass songs, this one’s got a mournful tune to go with mournful lyrics.
As I draw my bow back and forth over the strings, I imagine Jim’s ghost materializing bit by bit, building itself up like an intricate Palm Sunday cross woven from palm fronds.
I play the song slow and low, sensing that Jim doesn’t need frenzy to call him forth. Since he’s been murdered, he’s probably simmering at the surface like a pot of water about to boil. This fiddle’s just a dash of salt to hurry him along.
I close my eyes, and the song’s story dances through my mind. I can see little Omie Wise, desperate and trusting, daring to hope, darting furtively through darkness to meet John Lewis, who waits by the spring on his tall, dark horse. Then the quick flight of the horse, its hooves pounding into the damp mud of the riverbed, Omie’s hair whipping behind her, her suspicions rising to equal her hopes. And then the boat, and the drowning, a strong hand pushing her down into the cold water. John Lewis’s strange, hateful face her last sight.
Despair and terror and betrayal mingle in my chest and flow from my fingertips. A cool breeze from nowhere rustles my hair. I swallow down my fear and open my eyes.
My stepfather’s ghost is staring back at me.
Twenty
“Jim.” My voice comes out weak, barely more than a whisper, so I clear my throat and try again, pitching my voice above the fiddle. “Hey, Jim.”
My stepfather, whose body I saw laid to rest in a coffin only days ago, blinks at me like I’m the ghost. As scared as I am, I’
ve never been more relieved to see him. Even after Sarah’s mom and the woman in the woods, I still wasn’t sure I could do it. But here he is. Triumph surges through me, tempering my fear.
“Shady,” he says, his voice a rasp. He looks puzzled, lost. He eyes Cedar uncertainly.
My heart pounds, and my hands have gone clammy. It takes all my effort to keep the bow moving over the strings. I don’t know how long Jim will stick around, so I get straight to the point.
“Who killed you, Jim?” I ask, gazing up at him. My whole body trembles, including my voice. Jim cocks his head at me, and I think maybe he didn’t understand, so I ask him again. “Who hit you with the hammer?”
Jim’s eyes clear slightly. “The hammer,” he says, licking his lips.
“Who was it? Who hit you?”
Jim’s lips start to form a name, but then he stops and studies me, like he’s taking my measure, deciding what I can handle. That lost look is gone.
Panic surges through my veins. “Tell me,” I say.
“How’s your mama?” he asks instead, and I’m wound so tight I want to cry and scream and throw my bow at him, but I keep playing—steady, steady—a power source that can’t spark or wane.
“I don’t have time for this,” I say. “Mama’s fine, Honey’s fine, Kenneth’s fine. But I need to know who killed you.” My throat goes dry, so I don’t say anything more. Instead, I stare at him, taking him in. He looks like the Jim I always knew, dressed in his company’s collared work shirt, jeans, and heavy boots. He’s too thin, unhealthy, scruffy. Jim’s all angles, no soft places. Even his eyes are sharp.
Sharp and considering, deliberating. I thought the truth would come bubbling out of him, irrepressible as the springs that bubble up from the ground, flowing into rivers. But I can see him working at it, cutting a little off here, sanding down an edge there. Making it into something—something that will fulfill a purpose. I hadn’t considered that his answer might not be the truth. Or at least not the whole truth.
