“Of course,” Jenny said, nodding solemnly. Then she added innocently, “Aren’t you the one who picked her body up at Dr. Kitterell’s office?”
Insall colored and began to fidget with his tie. “Why, yes,” he said. “Yes, I was, but with the loved ones present, I did not examine the body. The deceased was covered with a sheet when I arrived. Is there anything else I can do for you, Jennifer?”
Jenny knew a brush-off line when she heard one. She thanked Insall and started out of the office, only to stop when she heard him mutter to himself, “Such a waste of a lovely casket.”
She turned back toward the man seated at the desk. “What did you say, Harold?”
Insall’s eyes went round behind his glasses. “I . . . I . . . the casket,” he stammered. “It was a model with a . . . with a . . . lovely watered silk lining. I was just remembering what a shame it was that the casket lid was closed.”
Jenny knew instantly that he was not telling the truth. She had no idea why or about what exactly, but she did know that Harold Insall was arguably the worst liar she’d ever seen.
The information that the right side of Alice’s face was injured would certainly explain why her father only drew the woman in profile from the left after she died, but why was she removed from the doctor’s office so covertly? And why on earth was Harold Insall so evasive about the subject all these years later?
“Harold,” Jenny said, “do you remember anything about Alice’s parents? How they took her death?”
“They were quite shattered,” he said, sniffing with mild indignation as if the question was absurd. “They were understandably anxious to complete the services with proper dignity and to be left alone by the community to grieve in private. I’m sorry Jennifer, but I have arrangements to make for Mrs. Saucedo’s service. Good day.”
Jenny stepped back into the bright afternoon sun, grateful to be out of the cold, clammy mortuary. She knew perfectly well why the air conditioning was always turned up in funeral parlors, which only made the places creepier in her book.
She’d come here for answers, and in keeping with the overall family theme, was leaving with more questions. Now what? Old Doc Kitterell had been dead for years. But what about his nurse? Wilma Something? Was she still alive?
Jenny fished her cell phone out of her pocket and called Kate. “Hey,” she said. “I saw George Fisk.”
“And?” Kate asked, her voice rising over a clanging sound in the background.
“Where are you?” Jenny asked.
“In the pasture with Josh working on a trough.”
The answer was set against the unmistakable sound of Josh cursing profusely. “Doesn’t sound like it’s going well,” Jenny observed, laughing.
“It’s not. What’s up?”
“Is old Doc Kitterell’s nurse still alive?” she asked. “Wasn’t her name Wilma?”
“Wilma Schneider,” Kate said. “Yeah. She’s still alive. She lives at the hotel, too. Why?”
Jenny briefly described her conversations with George and with Harold Insall, including a description of the mortician’s elusive responses. “I might as well have been talking to dead Mrs. Saucedo,” she grumbled. “She would have been more forthcoming.”
“Did you sign the book for her?” Kate asked automatically.
“Why would I sign the book?” Jenny asked. “I didn’t know the woman.”
“Sure you did,” Kate said. “Mrs. Saucedo was the cafeteria lady. The one with the hairnet.”
“Katie, really? They all had hairnets.”
“The one with the hairnet who sold us tamales after school.”
“Oh, no,” Jenny said. “Really? She made the best tamales I’ve ever eaten and she was nice.”
“Which is why you have to sign the book,” Kate said. “Quit acting like you were raised in the barn.
“God, do you mean I have to go back in there?” Jenny groaned. “And I would have liked being raised in the barn. The horses were easier to get along with than Daddy.”
“Quit your stalling,” Kate said. “I’m pulling big-sister rank. Go back inside and sign for us all before you leave.”
“Okay, fine, fine. I’ll do it,” Jenny said, “but what did you think about what Harold had to say?”
“If the impact from the wreck was on Alice’s side of the car, it makes sense that she would have been cut up, especially if her face went into the window,” Kate reasoned. “Do you really need to know anything more than that?”
“I wouldn’t have if Harold hadn’t started acting like there was some big secret,” Jenny said. “I just wanted to find out about the closed casket because I thought it would explain why Daddy only drew Alice in profile. Now Harold has me thinking there’s more to the story.”
“Jesus, isn’t there always?” Kate said. “But really, honey, consider the source. Harold Insall is an odd duck.”
“Maybe,” Jenny said, “but I’m still going to see if I can talk to Wilma. I’m already in town, so I might as well.”
“Okay. Suit yourself,” Kate said. “I have to go. Josh is starting to wield that wrench like a weapon. See you at supper. And don’t forget to go back in and sign the book. We have to live in this town.”
“You did not just say that,” Jenny said.
“Sorry,” Kate said. “It’s a contagious disease.”
Jenny clicked the “end” button and started back up the walk to the front door, resigned to inking their names in the guest book as if the survival of civilization depended on a few flicks of a Bic pen. Only in small-town Texas would it be considered a social affront not to “sign the book” for the dead cafeteria lady — but damn, those were some good tamales.
60
Clara Wyler was having a good day — good enough to drive to the Dairy Queen for a hamburger and cherry Coke — two cherry Cokes, in fact, and several turns up and down Main Street. As she passed the church, she made a mental note to speak to someone about the condition of the planters. You can’t love the Lord and let weeds grow in the nasturtiums. Didn’t anyone have standards anymore?
When she returned to the parking lot of the Hotel Los Rios, Clara immediately spotted Jenny Lockwood coming out the front door. Rather than try to catch her on foot, which was impossible for Clara with her asthma, she pulled the car around the circular drive and rolled the window down as she neared Jenny.
“Hi, honey,” Clara called out. “Were you looking for me? I was being a wild woman and going to the Dairy Queen.”
Jenny laughed. “Hi, Clara. No, I was here to see someone else. Did you get yourself a Blizzard?”
“Lord no. Those things give me the headache,” Clara said. “Not to mention packing pounds on my backside. Who did you say you were visiting?”
Jenny laughed to herself. She hadn’t said, but nosiness was the stock and trade of bored old women. “Wilma Schneider,” she said.
“Oh, that’s so sweet, honey,” Clara said, smiling broadly. “Wilma’s always doing for other folks, but she doesn’t get a lot of visitors herself. You want to come back in for a bit?”
“I’m sorry, Clara,” Jenny said, “I’ve been in town all day and this is the night we all have supper together at Katie’s house. We do it once a week. I still have to get back to my place and make some cornbread or Mandy will have my head. She’s in charge of the menu tonight.”
“Well, you don’t want to get your little sister stirred up,” Clara said. “Go do your cooking, but come see me next time you’re in town. Give me some warning and I’ll bake a pie.”
“Pecan?” Jenny said, grinning.
“Is there any other kind?”
They said their good-byes and Clara pulled her Lincoln into the handicapped spot nearest the door. She hadn’t needed her oxygen today, so it didn’t take her long to get to her apartment, dump the remains of her soda in the kitchen sink, and pick up the phone.
“County Clerk’s Office,” Mae Ella’s voice answered promptly.
“Sister, we have anoth
er problem,” Clara said.
“You’re starting to sound like a broken record,” Mae Ella groused. “Now what?”
“I just got home from going to the Dairy Queen and I ran into Jenny Lockwood in the parking lot. She was visiting Wilma.”
Silence came over the line. “Mae Ella?” Clara asked. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here, and you’re right, we do have a problem. A big one. I’m gonna call Lenore down at the flower shop. We’re coming over.”
In less than 15 minutes, Clara opened her door and stood aside as Mae Ella and Lenore, worry creasing their faces, entered the apartment.
“Do you know what Jenny and Wilma talked about?” Lenore asked without preamble.
“No,” Clara said, going back to her seat in the recliner. “But if Jenny went to see Wilma, she has to be figuring things out. She didn’t just suddenly get an urge to go see ole Doc Kitterell’s nurse for old time’s sake. You think Elizabeth said something to Mandy that made her suspicious and maybe she talked to Jenny?”
Lenore took the armchair opposite Clara while Mae Ella sat on the couch. “I don’t think so,” Lenore said. “Mama has been careful with what she says to Mandy.”
“How can you be sure about that?” Mae Ella asked. “You’re not there when they’re talking.”
“Hortencia listens in from the hallway. I pay her extra to do it,” Lenore said. “She loves Mama and she’s protective, but a little extra dinero as an added incentive doesn’t hurt. Hortencia says Mandy brings Mama books and magazines and shows her funny videos and pictures on her iPad. They talk about what they’re reading, what’s going on in the world. The girl isn’t as empty headed as she looks, and as much as I hate to admit it, Mama’s spirits have been much better these past few months.”
“Well,” Clara said, “I can tell you this. Jenny does know that Langston isn’t Mandy’s father.”
“Why in the hell did you tell her that?” Mae Ella demanded.
“Don’t you bark at me, little sister. I’m not too old to tan your backside,” Clara shot back. “I told her because I thought it would get her to quit asking questions. Besides, she had it figured out already. Better for me to tell her a version of the story I could control.”
“Thought you could control,” Mae Ella grumbled. “Sounds like to me it just got her to asking more questions. Did you tell her who the girl’s father really is?”
“Of course not,” Clara said. “If she finds that out, then she’s going to find out what Irene had on Langston.”
“This is all getting out of hand,” Lenore said. “What are we going to do?”
Clara picked up the phone. “For starters, we’re going to find out exactly what Wilma said to Jenny.”
After Clara called Wilma Schneider, the three women waited in silence until a knock sounded at the door. Lenore got up and answered it.
Wilma Schneider was a solid, compact woman with a professional bearing even though she had not worked as an RN for almost 20 years. She took in the assemblage and said, “Well, I was going to call you, Clara, but I see all the conspirators are present and accounted for.”
“The ones that are alive, anyway,” Clara said. “Sit down and tell us.”
“The girl wanted to know about the night Alice was killed and why the body was taken out the back and buried in a closed casket,” Wilma said, pulling one of the kitchen chairs into the small living room and joining them.
“How did she know the funeral was closed casket?” Mae Ella asked, scowling.
“Because she spent the morning talking to George and Pauline Fisk,” Wilma answered.
“Oh, dear God,” Lenore groaned. “You are not serious.”
“Wait, it gets better,” Wilma said. “When Jenny left them, she went and talked to Harold at the funeral parlor.”
“That slimy little weasel,” Clara snapped. “I’ll pickle him in his own embalming fluid.”
“Apparently Harold couldn’t help bemoaning the ‘waste’ of a lovely casket, and he raised the girl’s suspicions even more,” Wilma said. “So she remembered me from Doc’s old office and came to ask me about that night.”
“And you said what?” Lenore asked.
“I told her that Dora Browning was a rigid woman who put her family’s reputation above everything else. I said the injuries to the girl’s face were quite ugly and Dora didn’t want anyone seeing the child that way and talking, so she insisted on a closed casket.”
“Okay, good,” Lenore said. “That’s good. That all makes sense. Did that settle the matter?”
“Not exactly,” Wilma said.
“Why not?” Mae Ella asked. “It’s a perfectly reasonable story.”
“Yes,” Wilma said, “it is, but George told Jenny that Alice was carrying his child and that he proposed to her that night in the car.”
A collective groan went up from the three women. “Why in God’s name would he do that?”
“He’s dying,” Wilma said. “I take Meals on Wheels over there for him three days a week to give Pauline a break. She looks good, but she’s struggling with osteoporosis and fibromyalgia. Anyway, he has congestive heart failure and it’s getting worse. I imagine he’s trying to get things off his conscience before he meets his Maker.”
“Ladies,” Clara said, “I think we’re gonna have to admit we just can’t ride this bronc. We’re about to get pitched in the dirt hard if we don’t step off on our own.”
“You mean you think we should tell them?” Mae Ella asked horrified. “After everything we’ve been through?”
“Why not?” Lenore asked quietly.
The question was greeted with shocked expressions. “I cannot believe you said that,” Mae Ella barked. “You of all people.”
Lenore sighed. “Langston is dead. Irene is dead. George is dying. The truth about Phillip can’t hurt the girls now. Why are we still doing this?”
No one had an answer for that, a realization that hit them all at the same time. They stared at each other and finally Clara said, “It’s not our decision to make.”
Lenore blinked back her tears. “I think it’s time to ask Mama what she wants to do.”
Elizabeth Jones sat in her tidy parlor and listened to everything Clara, Mae Ella, Wilma, and Lenore told her without comment. When the room fell silent, she looked at them all and said, “Is that it? Is there more that I should know?”
“No, Mama,” Lenore said. “That’s everything. I don’t have any idea what the girls have been finding out at the ranch and in that cave, but whatever it is Jenny, at least, can’t let it go.”
“I’m not surprised that she is the one looking for answers,” Elizabeth said. “Irene always said Jenny would be the one to uncover the truth in time, when all of Langston’s secrets came crashing down around him.”
“She told you that, too?” Clara asked.
“Yes, the last time she was able to come here to see me before she became bedridden,” Elizabeth said. “We talked for a long while about her girls. She had just put everything in place to secure their futures, but she hadn’t told Langston yet.”
“She didn’t until the very end,” Clara said. “She knew him well enough to know that even he wouldn’t deny a woman on her death bed, and besides, she had him by the short hairs over Baxter’s Draw and he knew it. Once she played that card, he didn’t have a choice but to go along with her. She had you to thank for that.”
“You know he wasn’t always like that Clara,” Elizabeth said. “I know you remember him when he was a boy.”
“I do, Elizabeth,” Clara said, “but that doesn’t excuse it. The five of us have spent the last 50 years cleaning up the messes men have made, and Langston Lockwood was the worst of the lot.”
“The six of us,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Irene is still very much a part of this. So much of what we have done, we did for her and her girls.”
“What do you want to do now, Mama?” Lenore asked.
“I do not want to hurt any of the g
irls, especially Mandy,” Elizabeth said. “She’s a sweet child and so conflicted about her father. I want her wedding to be lovely, but I also do not want the next generation to labor under the burden of all these secrets. That is not the legacy we should be passing on to them. I think we should speak to Kate and Jenny. They should have a say in how or if this information is given to Mandy.”
“Elizabeth,” Clara said, “I want to be danged certain I understand what you’re saying. You want to tell them everything, including the truth about yourself?”
The old woman turned her head to gaze out the window at the spring garden Lenore tended so faithfully for her. A single tear trickled down her check, following the torturous line of her scars. She raised her hand and wiped it away, lingering for a moment to touch the painful texture of her wounds.
“I hid myself away from the world for many reasons,” she said finally. “Things were different then, and Mother was quite good at cultivating shame and guilt. She placed conditions on me. My security and financial well being depended on my meeting those conditions. I was a dutiful daughter, complicit in my own imprisonment. By the time she was gone, I was accustomed to how I was living; I have been for many years. There has been safety and comfort in all this isolation, but now things have changed.”
“Because of Mandy?” Lenore asked, a hint of hurt in her voice.
Elizabeth turned toward her. “Life hasn’t been fair to you either, my darling daughter. You have shouldered responsibilities you should not have had been forced to face, from the time when you were just a little thing. Your grandmother provided for us, but she did nothing to help me give you a normal life. I’m sorry for that. You have been my miracle since the moment you were placed in my arms. I’m so proud of who and what you are. I think, perhaps, your own father has a right to know that.”
Lenore swallowed hard against the tears closing her throat. “That isn’t necessary, Mama.”
“Oh, but I think it is,” Elizabeth said. “I think it’s necessary for us all.”
The Lockwood Legacy - Books 1-6: Plus Bonus Short Stories Page 36
