Not Quite Clear (A Lowcountry Mystery)

by Lyla Payne

  The three of us sit at the table. Our happy moods join the filtered early-evening sun and surround us. I sit in the middle, basking while the conversation that needs to be had creeps closer and closer, slipping in under the crack at the bottom of the sliding glass doors. It sits beside the table like a dog begging for scraps, impossible to ignore.

  We’re halfway through our plates of spaghetti and meat sauce when the dog finally wins. I put down my fork and meet Amelia’s eyes. She understands the warning in a blink, swallowing a piece of bread that looks as though it might be stuck in her throat. The nod she gives me is sure, though. Maybe proud.

  “Beau, Amelia and I have something to tell you.” He responds to the dread in my tone, putting down his own fork to look me in the face. Waiting, patient. Like always. “When we met with Phoebe the other day she made it clear that while she’s doing everything she can to win Amelia’s case, it’s not going to be enough unless we can come up with some way to discredit the Middletons.”

  “Like, prove they were abusers, or that they have drinking or drug problems, earned or spent money illegally,” Amelia pipes up, clarifying. Hyper. “We need to be able to say they’re morally corrupt.”

  Beau stays silent, sipping his beer a couple of times while the wheels turn in his head. He figures out what we’re saying without my having to outline it, the same way Leo did at the bar, and it strikes me how similar they are sometimes.

  He doesn’t give in to a response for a long time and when he does, there’s no judgment in his posture. Only concern. “And knowing my beautiful, headstrong, loyal girlfriend as well as I’ve come to, I can only assume that means the two of you are going to try to get something on them yourselves.”

  He smiles, but it’s sad. Like he knows.

  I meet his gaze, unafraid. Wanting him to see how much he means to me, how hard all this is, but also how necessary. “Phoebe pretty much said we’re the last resort. I’m going to see if Clete has anyone in the city offices that can check records for us. Mel offered to help, but I don’t want her to get involved unless we don’t have another choice.”

  Amelia’s mouth falls open, but she closes it fast. It’s the first time I’ve admitted that we might have to involve Mel, despite my protestations. Our friend is right about this being more important than anything else. If we have to, I’ll ask her for help. Last resort.

  Beau’s frowning now, the concern deepening into lines around his eyes. “You know I don’t like you messing around with those guys. Last time we asked them for help Will lost his job. What’s it going to cost us this time?”

  Every time he uses the word we or us it’s like a dagger straight through my chest. I breathe through it, knowing in my soul that after I get into bed with Mama Lottie, this conversation is going to seem like a walk along the river at sunset.

  “I don’t know, but we are sure what it’s going to cost us if we do nothing.” I shoot a pointed glance at Amelia, let it linger on her belly. “This is family, Beau. It means as much to you as it does to me, and I’m not giving up without a fight.”

  He drains the rest of his beer. “Let me guess. You don’t want my help.”

  “I want your help, handsome. I want to be able to talk to you, to have you to work things through with when they don’t make sense. I want you to make me laugh, to sit and watch the World Series with me and a plate of hot wings.” It’s hard to talk as the lump in my throat grows. How much longer would he be willing to do those things for me? “I want you to be my normal.”

  “And that’s important because Grace has very little normal of her own.” My cousin tries to lighten the heavy, dark clouds that have swirled in, pressing against us like suffocating cotton over our mouths.

  I feel it the moment my boyfriend gives in. His shoulders relax. His frown disappears. The love in his face pushes the darkness away—not until it’s gone, but to the edges of the room, where we can continue to pretend it’s not there.

  “I think, for the two of us, a little bit of normal would be like a slice of heaven.”

  The next morning, I get up early to see Daria before Amelia and I have to open the library. It’s easier now that sleep has broken up with me, and Beau barely stirs when I slip from between the sheets, get dressed, and close the bedroom door behind me. He’s alone, since Henry—like all my ghosts since Anne—only hangs around when we’re alone.

  I wonder if I’m avoiding solving Henry’s mystery because he’s so unhelpful with directions or because his presence has gotten so familiar the thought of losing it rattles my moorings. Things that ground me are few and far between in my life now, with my mother turning out to be a huge liar, Gramps gone, and everyone in town starting to see me as a functioning member of society. It’s all off.

  It’s going to be a busy day, too, with Daria this morning, work, then going out to see Clete with Leo later tonight. But like my cousin, newfound energy shoots through my blood like a drug. The thrumming pulse keeps my eyes open half the night, pushes my feet to the floor early in the morning, makes me want to throw up if I sit still too long. I recognize it for what it is: I’m anxious to move. To get started, so we can get finished.

  The neighborhood is quiet when I close the heavy front door behind me and breathe in deep as I stand on the front porch. Life in Heron Creek should be like this. Coffee on the porch swing before work, the crisp scent of a new season on the air. A stroll into town, maybe a stop for those pancakes before work, where I spend my time researching new articles instead of checking out books. Go out on a date with my boyfriend after work.

  Mrs. Walters schleps into view, pausing on the sidewalk in front of my grandparents’ house and squinting toward me as though she’s wishing I were a ghost. “Graciela.”

  I suppose it’s too much to ask that Heron Creek not include run-ins with my nosy neighbor even in a daydream.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Walters. How are you?”

  Her lips twist, suspicion heavy as she lobs it my direction. “You just now gettin’ in? Been out boozin’ it up all night, maybe out there in the woods with your criminal friends?”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes. “No one says ‘boozing it up’ anymore, and I certainly have no idea who you’re talking about.”

  Her gaze strays to Beau’s black sedan in the driveway, then her frown deepens. “I see you’re continuing to corrupt our young mayor.”

  “I see that finding a dead body hasn’t stopped you from snooping.”

  That startles her, and it takes her several moments of opening and closing her mouth to sputter out a reply. “Your grandparents would be ashamed of you, Graciela. Just like they were of your mother.”

  This time her barb hits hard, tucks into my skin, and snags. She’s gone before a retort forms, and whatever I was going to say dies on my tongue.

  The truth is, some days she’s probably right, but not most of them. Not anymore.

  If there’s one thing my grandparents would have approved of, it’s our family coming together again, fighting for one another. Whether they would approve of using outlaws to do it, or helping to place a curse on the family of the “nice young mayor”… That’s harder to say. I suspect Gramps would level me with one of his rare, serious gazes, his blue eyes sinking into mine as though he’s trying to share thoughts without speaking. He would remind me that there’s always another way out if you look hard enough.

  It’s not bad advice, but I’m not sure it applies to the realm of the lingering dead.

  The drive to Daria’s is pleasant once the bad juju left over from my encounter with our neighbor lets go of me, catching on the wind howling by my open windows. It plops on the side of the road somewhere. Hopefully it will get smashed to smithereens.

  This is maybe my fifth or sixth visit to Daria’s place, a building in the middle of nowhere between Heron Creek and Charleston, but each time I visit my nerves about this part of my life settle a bit more. Daria’s everything I’m not yet, but perhaps what I was born to be and never knew it. Sh
e’s been aware of her gift for communicating with the other side of…whatever we want to call it…since childhood. She talks to ghosts on purpose—something I’m still working on, takes on their pain and grief and hopes, and helps them to move on.

  “You’re here early,” she grumbles when she answers my knock. The sign out front says she doesn’t open until noon, which based on her Alfalfa bedhead, hot pink bike shorts, and braless state, might even be pushing it.

  She lets me in, though, and we traipse through the front reception area—which has never been manned on one of my visits—and into the space that feels mostly like her living room. There are two dusty love seats, a coffee table spotted with sticky rings left behind by glasses, a desk piled two feet high with paperwork, and a wet bar.

  Despite the fact that it’s not yet eight in the morning, Daria’s at the bar.

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “Isn’t it a bit early?” Before I can register the fact that I’m officially turning in my young-cool-person card, the words are out of my mouth. I cringe.

  She turns halfway, one pale blond eyebrow raised. “Ever hear of a mimosa? A Bloody Mary?”

  “I’ll take a Bloody Mary, sure.” This is what desperation to hang on to one’s youth sounds like, but my manic energy might benefit from a depressant.

  “That’s more like it.”

  Daria tinkers for several minutes, then comes over with her hands full of drinks—a Bloody Mary for me that’s so spicy my eyes water after a single sip, and a glass of what appears to be gin or vodka mixed with water for her. So much for morning-appropriate beverages.

  “So what brings you to my door at this cotton-pickin’ hour? You do know that I work late, right?”

  “I know. But I ran into an invisible, yet not metaphorical wall yesterday, busted up my face, and then received a message scrawled in my own blood. Forgive me if I’m having trouble sleeping.”

  “They make booze for that, too,” she grumbles before peering closer into my face. She downs half her drink, then shrugs. “I wasn’t going to mention the damage in case you didn’t want to discuss it, but yeah. You’ve looked prettier.”

  “Thanks,” I manage, half-appalled, half-unsurprised that even Daria employs a very Southern look-the-other-way policy. “It was Mama Lottie. She’s tired of waiting for her answer.”

  “I’m surprised she waited this long. Did she do what she said? Prove her good faith?”

  I wince. “You might say that. The woman who has been the carrier of the curse, the one harassing my cousin for the past several months, turned up dead in the river behind our house.”

  “Foul play?”

  “They don’t know. Nothing obvious, but the autopsy results aren’t back yet.” I make a mental note to check in with Travis and Will on that. The autopsy was a couple of days ago now; they should have heard something.

  Daria nods slowly. “It had to be her. That woman is powerful, Graciela. I don’t know how to impress upon you how much she can control. I’ve never encountered a spirit like her.”

  “I’ll have to take your word on that.”

  “So you’re going to tell her no thanks, right?”

  I shake my head, and all the blood drains from Daria’s face. “No. I have to take the deal. It’s the only way to save my cousin and her baby.”

  We still have the court case to worry about, but with the curse hanging over our heads, none of the rest of it matters.

  “I doubt that, and think it’s a mistake, besides,” Daria says. She looks defeated, as though she expected my choice and doesn’t believe she has any chance of changing my mind but has to try. “She’s not…she’s not on your side, not really. I think she set this whole thing up to suck you in, to bind you up, make you need her. Or believe you do.”

  “I do, though. Unless you can help me break a two-hundred-year-old voodoo curse?”

  By the time she answers, her glass is drained and her hands are shaking. “No, I can’t. I know some things about witchcraft, but this is out of my league.”

  Her reaction combines with my own discomfort over this decision, fear breaking out nausea in my stomach and sweat on my palms.

  “I’m not happy about this, either. You don’t have to tell me Mama Lottie is dangerous. I can smell it on her. She scares the donkey snot out of me, but I don’t know what else to do. And nothing isn’t an option. Not anymore.”

  “Okay. Okay, Graciela. I’ll go out there with you to tell her what you decided, just in case you have trouble communicating, but then I’m out of this. No more help.”

  Her decision isn’t unexpected, but it does nothing to make me feel better about this whole thing. Daria is a link to knowledge. She’s a lifeline, of sorts, and to remove her as a resource sets me further adrift in these foreign waters than ever.

  But I can’t force her. I would be taking off like a pelican, too, if I had the option.

  “I don’t like it, but it’s your choice. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me and taught me until now.”

  “Don’t think this means you and I are done, Miss Priss. You owe me more than a couple of favors at this point, and I’ll call them in when it suits me.” She holds up her glass in a toast, a maniacal smile stretching her lips.

  “Are you deranged?” I can’t help but ask, an answering smile twitching my mouth.

  “You know, you won’t believe it but this is not the first time someone has asked me that question.”

  We laugh, but underneath it runs a current of understanding. This is a woman who has been through what I’m going through now, who has felt crazy, been given the side-eye on the street, but she came out the other side confident and happy with who she is. Maybe Daria has more to teach me than how to better communicate with the spirits who show up at my door.

  “So when do you want to go face your doom, Graciela Harper?”

  “A few days, maybe. I need to call Jenna out at the property and find out if she’s willing to help us do this without getting arrested. Again.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t mind if we could request that good-looking black cop from Charleston. He and I could maybe figure out a better use for those handcuffs.”

  “If I didn’t have a boyfriend, I’d totally fight you for him.”

  Daria kicks me out a minute later, and we agree that I’ll text her when I’m ready to go. She does warn me that after what happened in the library, waiting too long isn’t going to be in anyone’s best interest.

  Her parting words ring in my ears all the way back to Heron Creek, refusing to be drowned out by the awful top-forty radio station blasting from the speakers.

  You don’t keep women like that waiting, Graciela. Not dead, not alive, not anywhere in between. Which is where you are, in case you were wondering.

  Chapter Nine

  “Hey, sugar pie! I’m so glad you called me!”

  It’s impossible to be in Jenna Lee’s presence and not feel my spirits lift. She looks different in jeans instead of shorts, and without a tool belt hanging off her slender hips, but other than that, she’s the same Jenna. Her sleek black hair is tied up in a messy bun, and she’s wearing a T-shirt with a bust of Andrew Jackson on it—very anti-Charleston of her, since Jackson and the city’s “savior,” John C. Calhoun, weren’t the best of friends. Despite sharing the White House.

  “Hi, Jenna. Thanks for meeting me.”

  “Of course! Not only is it great timing—I just turned in a huge project and need to celebrate—but things have been sort of boring at the Hall since you took off.”

  “I didn’t take off. I completed my assignment.”

  “Right. Nice try, sweet cheeks, but everyone knows by now how you told off Mrs. Drayton on your way out the door. Pretty fucking boss, if you ask me.”

  “Thanks.” A waiter drops by our patio table—we’re back at Pearlz—and asks for our order. I go for an Oktoberfest local brew.

  “Martini, straight-up, extra dirty,” Jenna orders, making eye contac
t with the young waitress as though trying to impress upon her the importance of getting the order correct.

  Once she’s gone, we study each other for a few seconds, clearly deciding who will show her hand first at the end of a poker game. Which doesn’t make a ton of sense since I’m the one who called her. Jenna has no idea what she’s doing here. She’s just a good sport.

  It crosses my mind to make small talk, to ask how grad school is going or whether she’s come up with any ingenious restoration techniques lately, but Jenna won’t be satisfied with that. She’ll want to know why we’re here, and has surely guessed that I need a favor. Maybe we can catch up after that.

  “I want to know if you can work it out so I can come out to the property undetected again,” I say bluntly.

  Her facial expression doesn’t change, though she does tip her head to one side. This is not unexpected. “I figured as much. Same spot by the river?”

  I nod, sitting on my hands to stop myself from gnawing on my fingernails. It’s a habit I broke a long time ago, but it’s resurfaced in this new, extra stressful version of my life.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. In fact, we’ve got a wedding out there Saturday night, so we wouldn’t even have to worry about security cams if you want to pretend to be a guest. The Draytons turn the interior ones off during events and only watch the perimeter.”

  “Will that work?”

  She shrugs, pausing while the waitress returns long enough to set down our drinks. The girl loiters, earning an exasperated sigh from Jenna. “What?”

  “Those guys at the bar say your drinks are on them.” The waitress points to a crop of overgrown frat boys grinning and saluting like morons at the end of the bar.

  Jenna raises her glass, gives them a perfunctory smile, and nudges me to do the same. The waitress takes off, the guys look disappointed when we ignore them, and I’m grateful they take the hint and don’t come over.

  “I’ve perfected that little move,” Jenna confides. “You don’t want to turn down free drinks, but you also don’t want to get stuck talking to a douche bag who sends over a drink.”