Not Quite Clear (A Lowcountry Mystery)

by Lyla Payne

  We don’t talk about Amelia’s idea of having them help, not with Beau in the room. We won’t have to at all, if the reunion this weekend at the Hall ends up playing host to all the pertinent DNA strands. After a while the conversation turns to mundane things. Grant entertains us the way only a three-year-old can and we eat our meal, enjoying one another’s company, time passing quickly.

  It’s late now. Mel and Will carted off a sleeping Grant a couple of hours ago, and Amelia crashed sometime in the last third of the National League Championship game between the Cardinals and the Mets. Beau and I are naked, lying on top of the covers as the breeze whooshes in off the river, filling my bedroom with the scents of salt and night-blooming jasmine.

  I roll onto my elbow and take another step into the quagmire this curse is laying beneath the foundations of our relationship. “Jenna Lee told me there’s a Drayton reunion this weekend. Are you not planning on going?”

  Beau closes those beautiful hazel eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath, then tips his head to the side to look at me. He’s calm, a sweet expression hanging on his face. “I hadn’t decided.”

  “I can’t imagine your mother is okay with that.”

  “Yes, well, as you seem to have noticed, I am a grown man. I can make my own decisions.”

  “Mmm. I’m quite enjoying the perks of you as a grown man, that’s true.” I pause, biting my lip. Wondering how I would handle this chat if I didn’t need to get into that party. “Do you want to go?”

  He thinks for a second. “I’d like to see my cousins. They’re not all terrible. And Birdie will throw a fit if I bail and she has to play silly games all night without being able to make sarcastic remarks to anyone.”

  “I like games.”

  His eyebrows go up, genuine surprise in his gaze. “You want to go with me?”

  Be honest. It’s all you have left.

  “I want things to be easier between us, and that means getting along with your family. If your mom won’t flip out, then I’d love to meet your cousins. Will your little brother be there?”

  He snorts. “I doubt it.”

  “I thought maybe you didn’t tell me because you don’t want to introduce me. After what happened when I was working for your mom.”

  Beau’s fingers brush my cheek, smoothing long chunks of hair back over my shoulder. “That’s not it, Gracie Anne. It’s more… Things have been so rocky for us, and it’s mostly because of my family. I didn’t want to shove you into another bad situation if you weren’t ready, but of course, I want you by my side. Always.”

  I smile, tugging the sheet up over my shoulder to thwart a chill. “So we’re going?”

  “How are you at croquet? Because I can’t have you dragging down my winning streak.” He jerks away, unsuccessful at dodging my sharp swat at his shoulder.

  “You know I’m good at everything.”

  “Except cleaning. And sometimes walking.”

  “How about you shut up, Mr. Mayor?”

  “How about you shut me up?” he asks in a silky voice, tugging at the thin sheet separating our bodies.

  And that’s the end of the talking.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Cletus Raynard strolls into the Heron Creek Public Library a few minutes before story time on Tuesday afternoon, no one is more surprised than I am. Of course, the moms and kids are with Amelia in the children’s area, so the only people who see him are LeighAnn and me. She stands up, looking desperate to stay and eavesdrop but has enough good manners to scoot away. Probably helped that she got a whiff of him.

  Clete never smells like roses but this afternoon he stinks of literal shit, along with sweat and stale alcohol. The last thing I want is to find out why, especially when he’s decided to come for a visit in broad daylight. If Travis was sure the moonshiner and I aren’t in cahoots over these breakins, he’s going to think again if he sees Clete here.

  I’m out of my seat so fast it spins behind me as if the roadrunner leaped out of it, and I hurry toward Clete. My feet carry me past him, but he follows, catching the hint. There’s nowhere to go that’s out of sight other than toward Mr. Freedman’s office, but the break room should be abandoned. Freedman never comes in here, and Amelia and I usually eat our lunches out, so aside from a few of those damned tiny ants no one can seem to get rid of, we’re alone.

  “What are you doing here?” I hiss, trying to keep my voice down, regardless.

  Clete looks so out of place. It’s like glancing into the car next to me at a stoplight and seeing a fish behind the wheel. He doesn’t seem to realize it, though, opening and closing cabinets before peering into the microwave as though he’s never seen one before today.

  Maybe he hasn’t, what the hell do I know?

  “Yuck. Dontcha never take a rag ta this thing?”

  Even from here, I can see there’s some kind of yellow gunk—cheese?—stuck to the inside of the door. “First of all, you smell like you’ve been rubbing manure all over you, and second, focus. Why. Are. You. Here?”

  He shrugs, sitting down in a chair. We really are going to have to clean in here after this. “I was in town, thought I’d drop by ta see how tha other half lives. Ya really sold out ta the man, huh, Crazy Gracie? Workin’ fer the gov’ment?”

  “Yes, well, some of us desire paychecks that don’t have to be buried in the backyard.” I wait now, sensing that pushing won’t get me anywhere. He probably came here knowing it would throw me for a loop, so I take a deep breath, determined to stop giving him the reaction he wants.

  Instead, I sit across from him and breathe through my mouth, trying not to gag. It will be a miracle if Mr. Freedman doesn’t smell him from all the way down the hall and come out to investigate. That would, at least, answer Amelia’s and my rhetorical question about what exactly it will take to get Freedman to come out of his office.

  Clete blinks first, giving me some satisfaction to go with my anxiety. “Came by tah tell ya that I ain’t comin’ up with much on those Middletons yah asked me ’bout. Got a few feelers out that ain’t come back yet, but so far just got whispers, nuthin’ more.”

  My stomach sinks. Without a record or files, what kind of proof can we get?

  “What do you mean, whispers?” I ask, clinging to the tiniest shred of potential in the news.

  “Well, there’s a couple a teachers long time ago, when their boy was knee high to a horsefly, said they thought he was bein’ beat. They reported it, but ya ask me ain’t ’nough parents willin’ ta raise their kids with respect, ya know?” He pauses, cocking his head at my expression. “Whatcha lookin’ at me like that fer?”

  “Focus, Clete. Now is not the time to discuss millennial parenting techniques. What happened with the reports? There must have been investigations.”

  He shakes his head, picking at something green in his teeth. “Nope. The same teachers retracted their ’ccusations when push came ta shove. No charges, no record.”

  Desperation claws at my belly. “Nothing else? Nothing with his business dealings, or financial stuff, nothing on Jake?”

  The Middletons must have paid them off. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it makes holding back a screech of frustration an epic battle.

  “They ain’t squeaky clean, I can tell ya that, but they got ’nough power to make people pretend they are, and that ain’t news.” He pins me with a hard gaze. “Don’ mean yer outta yer part of tha deal. Whatcha found out ’bout your detective?”

  “Not much, but I’m still working on it. He had some drug arrests as a kid but no felonies. Changed jobs a lot, and no one seems to know why he took a pay cut to take the job here in Heron Creek.” I shrug. “I should know more soon.”

  Hopefully. If his parents e-mail me back. Truthfully, if Clete’s going blank on his side of the research deal, then there’s not too much incentive for me to try very hard. I could claim the same thing he just did and not be lying. Nothing had turned up for me, either.

  “I’ll wait, but yah know it won’ be f
orever.”

  I give him my sweetest smile, more confident on my own turf, if nothing else. “I wouldn’t dream of keeping you waiting, Clete.”

  That makes him snort, and he’s still shaking his head when he and his stink finally exit through the front doors. It seems as though I got rid of Clete with only LeighAnn being the wiser, which relieves a smidgen of my anxiety. I spend the rest of the day helping Amelia clean, and we keep Leo’s niece, Marcella, after story time until Lindsay picks her up on her way home from work because Leo has—apparently—a job interview he failed to mention. Lindsay looks pretty upset that she spilled the beans, but she kind of looks upset any time she’s forced to hold any sort of conversation with me, so it’s par for the course.

  I check my e-mail a thousand times but get nothing back from the Travises. The grad-student story might be a bust, or maybe they’re just those old people who don’t do the Internet. It doesn’t seem like it, though, because Travis’s mother still works as a teacher and her e-mail address was easy enough to find.

  Amelia and I are in the rattletrap Honda a couple of blocks from home when the car suddenly gets even more stinky. It’s not moldy nachos or something else I left rotting under the seat, either. It smells like salt and sea, unwashed body, and crusty ship.

  It smells like Anne Bonny.

  My foot slams on the brake at the same time Amelia whips around to check out the backseat. She sees what I see in the rearview mirror, which is our old friend, back from the dead. Or the undead, whatever.

  The seat belt tightens over my chest, refusing to let me turn all the way around. We can’t stay in the middle of the street, anyway, not with Mrs. Walters out fake-watering her lawn for the fourth time today, so I ease off the brake and steer the Honda into our driveway.

  Millie’s eyes meet mine, wide but not afraid. My heart pounds and my mouth hangs open, but I’m not scared, either. It’s sort of…good to see her? What’s making me nervous is why she’s here. It could be good news, but it seems just as likely that it’s the opposite.

  “Hi,” I choke out.

  She smiles in the reserved way she has, as though it’s been so long since she had a reason to smile that she’s unsure whether she’s allowed.

  “I don’t suppose my new talents will let you talk?”

  Anne cocks her head to one side, a confused look on her face. Apparently the ghosts don’t get together and gossip about which mediums are learning what new skills. There goes my theory that Anne’s the one who put out the word about my ability to solve ghostly problems.

  “Why do you think she’s here?” Amelia whispers, her seat belt off so she can turn all the way around in her seat.

  “I don’t know, but you don’t have to whisper. She can still hear you.” I reach for the door handle, figuring we should go in the house and hash all this out away from prying eyes, maybe introduce Henry to Anne since we’re all going to be hanging out, but the moment my fingers touch plastic the door locks slam shut. “Hey!”

  Anne folds her arms over her chest at my glare, shaking her head. There should be the swish of her long, nappy red hair against her tunic or the crinkle of leather as she shifts forward, but as always, there’s only silence. I think about trying to open the door in my head, doing what I do with Daria and trying to really see what Anne wants, but I’m scared to do it alone. What if my spirit guide decides to take a bathroom break and demons eat my soul or something?

  I make a mental note to ask Daria whether that’s possible, and also to make my own appointment with that therapist Brick recommended to Millie. Or maybe just go to church with Melanie, get reacquainted with the local pastor, just in case.

  “Okay, so apparently going in the house isn’t part of tonight’s plan. Could you maybe let us in on the secret?”

  Anne raises a finger, pointing toward the dashboard in front of Millie. The glove box.

  “Dammit,” I curse.

  “What? What does she want?”

  “The pointing, the glove box—it all adds up to a classic Anne Bonny road trip. Which, by the way, ended in me getting trapped in a rainstorm and having to dig up a diary on her father’s old property, the last time.”

  “That sounds fun.” Amelia pops open the glove box and digs around, then holds up a state map. “This?”

  “Yeah. Hand it to her.”

  Watching my cousin’s face go from unsure to enthralled as Anne’s almost transparent fingers grab the map and unfold it in her lap almost amuses me. And it would if we had any clue what’s happening right now.

  “I don’t think it’s good that she’s back, Grace. She’s not supposed to be back.” Amelia’s eyes are sad this time. Watery. “She spent all those years trying to warn someone in our family about the curse and then she found you. We were supposed to take it from there. Let her rest.”

  The sense of failure that follows her words burns in my gut. It’s true that Anne tried for centuries to find a way to warn her descendants about the curse she unwittingly left them with, and she had finally succeeded. Millie’s right. Anne should be able to rest now.

  Instead, she’s in the backseat of my car again. I don’t know whether to be relieved to have the help or apologize for being a failure. Or hug her, despite the smell.

  Anne’s ghost stares at the two of us with undisguised impatience, her finger stuck to a spot on the map. It’s easy enough to see that she’s pointing to Charleston. I back out of the driveway without arguing.

  “Wait, Charleston is a big place. How do you know where we’re going once we get there?”

  “Trust me, that woman has pointing down to a science.”

  We drive in silence, except for the devils on my shoulders. There’s not much to say once we’ve exhausted the obvious questions of why and what, but by the time we get off the highway in Charleston the air in the car is hard to breathe. I roll down my window despite the patter of rain on the windshield, which also helps relieve the overpowering smell of brine wafting from the backseat.

  It’s a good thing Amelia’s morning sickness finally passed or we could add vomit to the list of things ground into the floor mats.

  Anne sits up, paying closer attention as we drive into the city. As promised, she uses her finger to navigate. Also as expected, she points to some of them so late that I nearly kill us, a couple of pedestrians, and at least one dog before we pull into a parking space alongside Battery Park.

  The rain comes down harder, combining with wind to lash at the old trees obscuring our view of the harbor. It pings off the roof of the car, runs in rivulets down the windshield. For her part, our family ghost sits contentedly in the backseat as though all she wanted was a short drive down the coast to stare at the park.

  I’m tired. It’s been a long couple of days and nothing in my life is going right. I’m failing to come up with anything on Travis, which leaves Clete breathing down my neck. Millie and I are blanking on ways to prove the Middletons were crappy parents and unfit to raise Jack, and in a few days, I have to steal hair from my boyfriend’s cousins during friendly lawn games.

  Not to mention, I am a freaking archivist. Not Nancy Drew, no matter what Mel says. Not a professed and active medium like Daria. I came back to Heron Creek wanting nothing more than to find peace after my engagement to David ended, and maybe a way back to the simple world that made me feel as though anything was possible.

  But it feels like drowning, all this responsibility. The water keeps rising and rising, and all I’ve been doing is treading water, not making any headway toward the shore. If land doesn’t come into view soon, my strength is going to run out.

  “Grace,” Amelia pokes me, then points out the window once she has my attention.

  “Not you, too.”

  But I look and see that Anne’s out in the rain. No one else is in the park, probably because of the weather, which works in her favor. You never know when you’ll come across someone who can see ghosts. Apparently.

  Anne waits, radiating the kind of impatience th
at makes my muscles jump in response. A responsible adult might have an umbrella in the car, but clearly, that rule doesn’t apply to me. If we’re getting out, we’re getting wet, and Anne doesn’t seem to want to wait.

  Whatever she came back to show us, or tell us, it must be important. It had better be worth the pneumonia.

  “You don’t have to come if you don’t want,” I tell my cousin, who is squinting out at the rain with a resigned expression.

  She gives me a look. “Are you kidding? Anne Bonny’s back! She’s the only ghost I’ve ever seen, and if you think I’m going to miss the chance to see what your life is really like now, you’re even nuttier than I thought.”

  “Fine. Let’s get on with it, then.”

  Anne’s face lights up this time when I reach for the door. It’s unlocked, and she’s halfway across the park before Amelia and I make it onto the nearest concrete path. It’s raining harder now, and it’s chilly. My skin is a landscape of water and goose bumps as we hurry, trying not to lose sight of her wispy figure, though she definitely stands out with her pirate-style pants, pistol, and sword—never mind her cherry red hair.

  We pass the cannons that face out to sea and keep going, following her until there’s nowhere left to step. She’s led us to the southernmost tip of Charleston, with the city hunkered down at our backs and the sea lapping at her shores at our front. There’s nothing to see…until there is.

  On the edge of the seawall, wooden gallows sprout from the rocks. Half a dozen nooses swing in the storm, the wind and ocean spray twisting them this way and that. A story crawls from the recesses of my mind in fits and starts, covered in cobwebs and influenced by a hundred other tales told on dozens of historical tours through this city. It’s something about pirates, I think, and Charleston making an example out of a crew they captured off the coast. I don’t remember who they were, just they were hung here, their corpses left until they rotted so that other pirates would see and know this was not the place to drop anchor.