Promises of Home

by Jeff Abbott

  “I haven’t really,” I said, remorse tingeing my voice. I’d been weighed down with my own problems and I hadn’t made much time for Clevey in the past months. Had he wanted to turn to his old friends for help?

  The hearsay of his last days presented a confusing collage: seeking help from Steven Teague, bitterly telling Trey that revenge would be sweet, claiming financial independence to Ed. I paused. Was there a connection between whatever revenge scheme he’d tried to get Trey involved in and this alleged windfall of money? But who on earth would Trey or Clevey want revenge on? His life was like a coin flipping in the air, the dual sides of head and tails flashing in the sunlight. His vicious demands to Trey, his announced charity donation to Ed. His lying about where this alleged money came from, his seeking help for his problems.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Ed. I thought I knew Clevey. I can’t claim that anymore.” I repeated what Scott Kinnard had told me about Clevey’s heated discussion with Trey. Ed shook his head, and I saw a flicker of fear in his eyes.

  “And they both end up dead.” Ed shivered and massaged his temples. “That scares the piss out of me.”

  “Scott claimed Trey was resisting whatever Clevey was proposing. Trey didn’t want to get involved.” I leaned down toward Ed. “What does that suggest to you? Who could he have been getting money from? How could Trey have been involved? Did Clevey ever mention anything about being in touch with Trey to you?”

  “No, I—” Puzzlement made him frown. “Well, not that he was in touch with Trey. But he and I went to have beers a few weeks back and Trey’s name came up. I don’t remember how—some old story we were dusting off. Clevey said he’d been the last person in town to see Trey before he left. He laughed about it.”

  “Laughed about it? What was so funny?”

  Embarrassment colored his cheeks; I suspected he’d wandered onto ground he’d just as soon surrender. “I don’t know. I asked and he got tight-lipped. He just said Trey’d left and blown his chance to live easy the rest of his life.”

  I felt cold in the fluorescent flicker of the library lights. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “It never came up. Jesus, he was drunk! And you know what Clevey was like—”

  “Ed, no, I don’t. Neither do you. He was more of a stranger than any of us are ready to admit.”

  “Look, I just told you what he’d told me. I thought you might be able to make sense of it. If you can’t, that’s fine, I’d just as soon not discuss Clevey and Trey anymore.” He picked up his scruffy denim jacket, prepared to leave.

  I grabbed his arm. “Have you been by to see Nola Kinnard yet?”

  He jerked as though I’d poked him in the ribs. “No.”

  “I heard she was an old girlfriend of yours. That came as quite a surprise. You certainly hadn’t mentioned it.”

  Ed slipped into salesman mode, unruffled by my blitzkreig. “So? I haven’t seen her in years. I didn’t even know she was back in town.”

  I recalled what Mark had said regarding Nola: she didn’t want to be back in Mirabeau because of Ed Dickensheets. Why was Nola afraid of him? Or was that merely a cover? (Maybe she was afraid of Wanda—always a distinct possibility.) Too many questions. My head was starting to spin. I needed sleep.

  “Okay, Ed.” I shrugged. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  He softened. “Nola and I were a hot item once, but that was years ago. I’ve wanted to go by and visit, pay my respects about Trey, but I—things didn’t end well between us. I didn’t know how to see her—how to say I was sorry for everything she went through. And I don’t think Wanda would take too kindly to me calling on ex-girlfriends.”

  “Whatever, Ed.” I stood and stretched. “But we still don’t know where Clevey was planning on getting this money.”

  “Well, Jordy”—he fidgeted again—“if he’s left the money to his mama, do you think we could talk to her? Maybe she’d be interested in investing in the station … or maybe in my Elvis shop.”

  Now I saw why I was Ed’s new confidante. I’d always been closest to Mrs. Shivers; she and I had a rapport that went back decades. Ed wanted me in his corner to get his hands on Clevey’s alleged fortune.

  “Oh, Ed, for God’s sake. Her boy’s just been murdered. This isn’t the time to hit up the poor woman about investments. Leave me out.”

  “Okay, okay.” His smile was immediate and conciliatory. “But think about it, all right? Maybe you can suggest when a good time would be? I’m sure she’d listen to you, Jordy.”

  An acrid distaste permeated my mouth. Suddenly I just wanted Ed out of the library, out of my sight. “Okay. Fine. I’ll talk to her with you.” I’d say anything now to get him to go.

  He saw the dislike in my tone, the turning away of my face. His own countenance set in stone. “Fine. Talk to you later. Call me if you hear any news.” And he was gone.

  I sank down in the chair, staring down at my feet, feeling dirty, as though Ed had spat on my shoes in leaving. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Clevey. Or Trey. He was only worried about the money Clevey had claimed to have. I wondered if those were crocodile tears he shed at Clevey’s wake.

  So much for friendship, choked by the root of all evil.

  Some old white folks still call the far south side of the railroad tracks in Mirabeau “the colored part of town.” I don’t bother to correct them because they aren’t going to edit their language. And although the name may offend, for the most part the unofficial segregation still holds true. A few blacks have moved riverward into the more prosperous north side of town, but most descendants of slave and sharecropper that call Mirabeau home still live in the flat-lands. Trailer homes and small houses dot the landscape; some homes immaculately maintained, others choking in weedy neglect.

  The cottage I pulled up to was tidy and neat, the small lawn freshly raked and a mound of damp leaves waiting to be bagged by the porch. A giant live oak towered above the eaves like a sentinel. A tire swing rotated slowly in the wind. A rusted flamingo, leaning precariously in a winter-sere flower bed, gawked at me.

  I stared at the painted name on the mailbox: CLIFTON. I’d come here on a whim and now I was feeling like an intruder. These people had already suffered agony once; I had no desire to reopen the old wound of having lost a daughter. But this, I told myself, was where it all started. Rennie Clifton was the key, quite possibly, to why Clevey and Trey had died. And for the attack on Junebug.

  I forced myself out of the car and up to the porch. I could hear the tinny rattle of television applause on the other side of the screen door. Someone was home, presumably. I knocked.

  Silence for a moment, then a high-pitched, creaky voice beckoned: “Come in.”

  The door was unlocked and I opened it gingerly. “Mrs. Clifton?”

  The room was dark, small, and cluttered. The dim, late-morning sky wasn’t offering much additional illumination, but the glow of the TV lit the room in staticky, bone-colored light. I could see a worn blue sofa, draped with a colorful crocheted afghan; a scattering of newspaper across the carpeted floor; walls decorated with painted Bible scenes; and a large, dark woman, nestled in an easy chair. Not large—huge. Her girth wedged her into the cushions, her clothes stretched taut across a globe of a stomach. Her fingers, pudgy with fat, rustled idly in the emptied papers of a box of chocolates. Her eyes regarded me without the slightest bit of fear.

  “Who you?” she asked, her voice a squeak. “I don’t want no magazine subscriptions….”

  “I’m not a salesman, Mrs. Clifton. My name is Jordan Poteet. Do you remember me?” I flipped on the overhead light.

  She squinted against the sudden brightness like a mole venturing out after a winter’s nap. In the ceiling light’s glare I could see she was well over two hundred pounds, her face a melon shape of tissue. Smears of chocolate outlined her lips. She blinked at me.

  “Name’s familiar,” she said, her voice shifting in slow recognition.

  “I haven’t
seen you in many years—” I started, but she didn’t let me finish.

  “Yes. I remember you. You were one of those boys that found my girl.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I wondered if I could talk with you for a minute.”

  She wasn’t looking at me, but at the boy I’d been. “Yes. You were the pretty blond one. Gave me a flower at Rennie’s funeral. And ain’t you grown up to be a handsome fellow?”

  I felt a hot blush creep up my neck. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Take a seat.” She gestured toward an afghan-shrouded rocking chair, saw the candy stains on her hands, and coughing, pulled a tissue from the crevice of her cleavage and wiped her hands and her mouth. “Pardon me, I was just having a little snack while watching my show.” She pointed to the TV. “You ever watch the Reverend Coleman?”

  I glanced at the television and the strutting, high-haired evangelist that shone on the screen. A number at the bottom promised prayer in return for a donation. “No, I haven’t.”

  “He’s a good man. I don’t send him any money, but I sure enjoy hearing him preach.” Her eyes, intelligently shrewd, were back on me. “What can I do you for, Mr. Poteet? You like something to drink?”

  A drink sounded agreeable; my throat had dried like an autumn leaf. “Yes, please, ma’am. That’d be nice.”

  “You don’t mind getting it yourself, do you? I got some Kool-Aid in the fridge. I don’t got no Cokes or tea ’cause my daughter ain’t doing my shopping till tomorrow. ’Less you want water to sip.”

  “No, Kool-Aid sounds fine.” I stood.

  “Cups are above the sink.” I stepped out of her den, around the corner to the kitchen. It was clean but cluttered, a stack of rinsed dishes in the sink, a fridge covered with vegetable-shaped magnets that pinned pictures of smiling grandchildren to the metal. I found two glasses and the pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid. I carried the glasses and pitcher back to the den and poured us each a drink.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Sipping at the punch, I tried to keep from making a face. It tasted disgustingly sweet, as though it had more sugar than powdered mix in it. I forced myself to swallow.

  “I—” I didn’t know where to begin. “I guess you’re surprised to see me.” I took a deep breath, as if I were diving for the cool bottom of Lake Bonaparte, and plunged in. Thomasina Clifton watched me, her head tilted to one side with curiosity.

  “I wanted to discuss Rennie. Her death.”

  “Why?”

  “Have you heard about the two murders in town since Friday?”

  Thomasina Clifton nodded. “Yeah, on the radio.”

  “Those murdered men were also two of the boys who found your daughter’s body.”

  Her eyes narrowed in the folds of flesh, but she remained silent.

  “Clevey Shivers and Trey Slocum. Clevey was on the staff of The Mirabeau Mirror. I suspect he was writing a story on Rennie. After he was killed, the police found notes on Rennie’s case. Old newspaper clippings. He’d hidden them behind his toilet.”

  “I don’t understand. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Did Clevey Shivers ever come and talk to you about your daughter?”

  She didn’t answer at first and I took another gulp of the dreadful Kool-Aid, wondering if it’d rot my teeth.

  “He came by a couple of months ago. He was writing an anniversary piece on the hurricane. He asked me all about how much I missed Rennie.” She offered the box of chocolates to me; I declined. She popped one in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Ain’t that the stupidest thing you ever heard? Asking a mother if she misses her child? That Clevey fellow just kept saying how sorry he was about her dying.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe her death wasn’t an accident?” I asked. “I know the coroner said it was.”

  “I know what that coroner man said,” she answered gruffly. She glanced at the pitcher. “Pour me some more, would you? My throat’s dry.”

  I refilled her glass. She sipped. “Rennie was trouble then and she’s trouble now.”

  That seemed a heartless way to refer to your dead child, but Mrs. Clifton’s voice was anything but callous. Mournful and bitter. I sat again.

  “Do you know why on earth she would have been out in the middle of a hurricane?”

  Thomasina Clifton didn’t answer me right away. When she did, her voice was lower in pitch, like she’d chalked her throat. “I don’t know. Finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? She was gone a lot of the time without explanation. I couldn’t control her easy.”

  It wasn’t an answer; it was her own grief speaking. I stayed silent.

  “Maybe she was gatherin’ flowers for that lady she worked for.” Mrs. Clifton shifted in her chair.

  The premise was ridiculous, but it was an opening, and I went for it. “Ivalou Purcell? How did Rennie get along with her?”

  “Not well. That Purcell woman was jealous of Rennie. Jealous of how young and pretty a girl she was.”

  I thought of Ivalou’s sour face, the pinched way she looked at people. Envy seemed right up her alley.

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “You got to understand what kind of girl Rennie was,” Mrs. Clifton said, sipping from her sugared drink. “Headstrong. Did what she pleased and ever-body else be damned. Lord, she was a handful to me. Willful at times, if she didn’t get what she wanted.”

  “And what did she want?”

  “I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t talk about my child this way.” She stared up at a picture on the TV, an old, grainy color photo of herself with three young girls. “That’s Rennie in the middle. My other girls still live here in town. They’se married with they own kids now. I don’t want to talk about Rennie.”

  I knelt by her and took her hand. “Mrs. Clifton. I don’t want to dredge up unpleasant memories for you. I’m sorry if I have. But two men have died, a third’s been shot, and I think it might have to do with your daughter’s death. Please, won’t you help me, before someone else gets hurt?”

  Her ample fingers closed convulsively over mine. Her bottom lip trembled. “She was pregnant when she died,” Mrs. Clifton whispered. “I begged them to keep it out of the papers. I used to clean for old Dud Schiller, who was the editor then. He kept it out of the news. She was only six weeks along. My baby was pregnant.” She began to cry, short heaving sobs. I held her hand and rubbed her shoulder till she was still.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “It must’ve been a horrible shock.”

  “That she was pregnant? Not so much as you think. She was always stringin’ some boy along.” Thomasina Clifton mopped at her tears. “That was part of the reason that Ivalou Purcell hated her so. She thought Rennie was after her daughter’s beau.”

  “Wanda’s boyfriend?” It didn’t make sense until I remembered that Wanda was about four years older than Ed. That distinction hardly matters in your thirties, but when Ed and I were twelve, Wanda would have been Rennie’s age.

  “Yeah. A football player that Wanda was sweet on named Glenn Wilson. He died a few years back in a car wreck. He was seeing Rennie, secret like. She thought I didn’t know, but I did.” She sniffed. “A white boy and a black girl couldn’t really have dated out in the open then, but I saw ’em kissin’ on the porch one night. God, it made me mad. I tried to tell her she had no business datin’ a white boy, but she didn’t pay me no heed. She always went for fellows she thought she couldn’t have.”

  I remembered Glenn Wilson. He’d been a big, likable guy, easygoing, popular in town. He’d played football for Sam Houston State and married a college sweetheart. I even remembered hearing about when he and his wife had been killed three years ago, driving back to Houston after the Labor Day weekend. Everyone said what a terrible shame it was.

  Had he gotten Rennie Clifton pregnant? Had Wanda or Ivalou found out? How would they? And why, still, was she out in the middle of that storm?

  “Did you know Rennie was pregnant before she died?”

  Mrs. Clifton s
hook her head. “No. She didn’t tell me. I guess she knew, though. Her period was always real regular.”

  Maybe she’d seen a doctor. Maybe—I remembered the clinic. “Did she ever mention a fellow named Steven Teague?”

  Mrs. Clifton furrowed her face in thought. “Not that I recall. Who’s he?”

  “A psychotherapist who lived here around the time Rennie died.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t recognize the name. Rennie was a handful, but she sure weren’t crazy.”

  I knelt by her again. “Did you ever think that Rennie was murdered, Mrs. Clifton?”

  She took several deep breaths. “I didn’t want to. I wanted to believe it was just God callin’ her home. When they told me she was with child, I thought that Glenn had killed her when he’d found out … but that didn’t seem right. He wasn’t the kind of boy to kill. That Wanda, though …” She left her sentence unfinished. “There wasn’t no evidence she’d been murdered. The coroner said it was an accident. I couldn’t argue. I didn’t.”

  “Was there anyone else you suspected?” I asked.

  “No. No one else wanted to hurt my girl. She didn’t have many friends, she kept to herself, she worked at Miz Purcell’s, and she helped me out some with my work.”

  “She helped you with your housecleaning?”

  “Yeah, she sometimes helped if I had a big house to clean.”

  “Who were you working for when Rennie died?” She scratched her chins, and began rattling off names. Grayson, Kucerak, Hubbert, Montgomery—names that didn’t connect to the case. I didn’t bite my lip till she mentioned Hart Quadlander.

  I parked the car in my driveway, noting automatically that Sister’s car was still gone and neither Candace’s nor Clo’s car was there. I only hoped that Mama hadn’t been left to her own devices.

  I rubbed my eyes. I’d left Thomasina Clifton forlorn with her oversweet Kool-Aid and a load of terrible memories to mull over. I was a jerk, no doubt about it. The limp body of Rennie Clifton rose through the currents of my memory, as clearly as when I’d first seen her corpse, and I tried to force her out of my mind. Trey’s body replaced hers, and then Clevey’s face, smiling in a rictus of death. The gagging cherry taste of the Kool-Aid came back into my mouth and I swallowed hard. I needed food and sleep and some quiet to think.