Promises of Home

by Jeff Abbott

  Of course, Glenn wouldn’t be available to confirm that claim. I watched Ivalou, who had gone a shade of plum in her cheeks, her eyes narrowed to slits. “And where were you, Ivalou?”

  “That’s none of your business, you asshole. Get out of my daughter’s store.”

  “Fine. I’m just asking what Franklin Bedloe’s bound to ask. I heard that he’s reopening Rennie Clifton’s file as a murder case.” I hadn’t heard any such gossip, but the beauty of rumor is that you can invent it on the spot. “Since you were her employer, I’m sure he’ll be questioning you. But, of course, if you’ve got something to hide—”

  “I was stuck at home, waiting for Wanda to come back from wherever she was. I didn’t know she was off gallivanting in the storm with Glenn.” She calmed herself with a long gift of breath. “Make you happy now, Jordy? Not that either of us have to answer to you.”

  “You didn’t go to where your family was meeting, Ivalou? If you were so worried about Wanda, I’d think you’d make a beeline to the most likely place she’d be.”

  “Fine, Mr. Smart-ass, I wasn’t at home the whole time.” She squared her shoulders. “I went out to the Quadlander farm. I was worried about Hart, wanted to be sure he was okay.”

  “Yes, you’ve taken a lot of interest in Hart over the years,” I parried.

  “But he wasn’t there. Just that disgusting Louis Slocum, getting drunk on cheap whiskey. Smelled like he’d bathed in it. When I asked him where Hart was, he just started crying and said he’d gone.”

  “Where?”

  “That old drunk didn’t know. He leered at me—Louis Slocum always was a leering thing, and I never could see why Hart kept that good-for-nothing about—so I turned around and went home.” Ivalou Purcell glared at me with utter loathing. “You think you’re smart, don’t you, Jordan? You’re not.” She shook her head, smiling meanly to emphasize her point. “You come in here, making snide accusations against my family. You have no call, speaking badly of decent people. Not when I know what you are.” She took a step forward, as though to herd me out of the store. “You’re nothing but Bob Don Goertz’s bastard.”

  I froze. How did she know? It was known only to me and a few close friends. But then, keeping secrets is often hard in a little town. Not impossible, just hard.

  I wasn’t going to insult Bob Don by ignoring the charge. I couldn’t ignore the hot flush in my neck and the disdain in her voice and face. “I don’t see what that has to do with Rennie or Ed.”

  “Nothing but a common bastard,” Ivalou began, her voice a taunting singsong, ignoring Wanda’s shocked pleas that she stop. “My daughter at least grew up knowing her daddy was really her daddy. I didn’t sleep around on her father, and I maintained myself as a respectable widow.”

  “Only because,” I retorted hotly, “Hart Quadlander wouldn’t give you the time of day, much less a poke. How many years have you chased him without results, Ivalou?” I pulled myself into my raincoat. “I’m sorry, Wanda. I’m sorry that you have to put up with this woman. Tell Ed I’ll talk to him soon.” Wanda acted like she hadn’t heard me, staring at her mother with a dazed expression. I don’t generally insult my elders, but I wasn’t about to let her slur me—or my parents.

  I turned and started to walk out. “Bastard!” Ivalou Purcell screeched at my back. “Bastard, bastard, bastard!”

  I consoled myself as I stormed out into the rain that there were much worse things to be called.

  I was cussing at myself by the time I got my Blazer started. I’d totally mishandled Ivalou and Wanda, and now getting them to talk about Rennie Clifton would be impossible. I didn’t like that I’d let myself be a blunderbuss when subtlety might have worked. I prided myself on being a gentleman and I’d let a trashmouth like Ivalou Purcell egg me into being a jackass. I felt a sick pang that somehow the gossip chains of Mirabeau had told Ivalou my parental secret. Now that I was firmly etched on her shit list, I supposed she’d broadcast it all over town.

  I had no plans to be ashamed—my birth was beyond my control. Bob Don was so inordinately proud of me that no amount of vicious rumormongering would cow him. I felt queasy relief that Mama was beyond caring what anyone said about her. However, I was likely to deal with any fool stupid enough to reproach my mother to me with a sharp tongue—or a sharp jab to the jaw (depending on mood and reproacher).

  I found Mark sitting on the porch steps, huddled against the rain, when I got back to Steven Teague’s office. He looked like a cold, miserable puppy in the fine mist.

  I walked up to him and he looked up at me with darkly haunted eyes. “I’m ready to go now, Uncle Jordy. Can we just go home?”

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  He clomped through a muddy puddle with total disregard. I caught up with him as he jumped in on the passenger side.

  “What the hell has spooked you?” I demanded, pulling his door open again.

  “You’re getting me wet,” he said. “I just want to go home, okay?”

  I shut his door and went around to the driver’s side. I forced my sour mood out of my face and my voice. Mark was burdened enough right now, and Ivalou Purcell’s snide attack on me wasn’t going to color the way I dealt with him.

  “How did your session go?” I asked, hoping he’d feel comfortable enough to talk about it. Lord only knew what I was going to do, though, if he wanted to have a real discussion about his therapy. I lived in mortal fear of sticking my foot in my mouth around him.

  He gave a tortured sigh. “Okay. But I don’t have to keep going to see Steven for very long if I don’t want to, do I?”

  “Mark, what you’ve been through—I think you have to give it some time, to see if you start feeling better. It’s like if you broke a leg and had to go through physical therapy. You wouldn’t quit that before it was done, because you wouldn’t be able to use your leg as well.” My metaphor sounded sorely strained, but I didn’t know what else to say. What was I suggesting, that he had a sprained heart and soul? “We can’t exactly pretend that you and I didn’t see your daddy die.”

  “You’re not going to therapy,” Mark said. I hate it when a teenager’s right.

  “No, I’m not. Not yet. Candace and your mother would no doubt maintain there’s not enough therapy in the world to make me normal.” I paused as I turned back onto our street. “Do you want me to go to your sessions with you?”

  “Nooooo,” he said, his tone uncertain. He abruptly changed subjects. “Davis was at Steven’s, too. After you left.”

  That was a surprise. But it was important, I considered, to make Mark feel that consulting Steven didn’t automatically qualify one for the Big Scarlet C. “Well, then, that’s good that Davis is getting help.”

  “Bradley was with him.”

  “Oh, how’s Bradley?” I asked.

  Mark didn’t answer right away. I pulled into the driveway and switched off the engine. As I reached for the door handle Mark’s fingers touched my arm.

  “I think his daddy beats him.”

  I froze. “What?”

  “I went to the bathroom after my session. I heard Davis come in the office. He was talking real loud at Steven. Saying that Steven had to help him, he couldn’t go on with how stuff was.”

  Mark shifted in his seat, avoiding my astonished gaze. “Steven tried to calm him, but Davis sounded really upset. His voice was all squeaky like. I waited till I heard Steven’s door shut, and then I opened the bathroom door. Bradley was sitting in the waiting room. He’d been crying, his eyes were all bloodshot. He was making this freaky groany noise and he looked at me like he didn’t know me.

  “Mark. You better not be joking. Why do you think Davis is beating him?” My throat felt scratchy with tightness.

  “I saw … the marks on his arms. Like someone had grabbed him really, really hard and squeezed. Thin bruises. And his face was red, like he’d been slapped. I tried to get him to come outside with me, but he just started moaning sort of and didn’t want to leave the couch
.”

  “Did you ask him specifically if his daddy had hit him?”

  “No, but I did ask him who’d done this. I told him I’d kick whoever’s butt it was for him, and he just started kind of whining and getting upset. He was having trouble not slobbering, and that always means he’s upset.” Mark ran a finger under his nose, looking miserable.

  My God. Davis upset, seeking a counselor, with a bruised Bradley in tow. I tried to picture Davis beating his son and the image came easily; Davis losing patience with his son that could never realize his dreams, striking Bradley perhaps even before he knew it.

  Bradley had let out a scream to chill blood at Trey’s burial. No, I amended, not at the burial, not at any given moment—but right after Nola Kinnard had double-slapped me. I felt a quiver in my stomach, wondering if Bradley’s cry was because he’d seen or felt slapping lately.

  “What are we gonna do?” Mark asked, clearing his throat.

  “I don’t know. We don’t know for sure that Davis is beating Bradley. I can’t imagine that Cayla would put up with it—unless he’s abusing her, too.” The rain pattered on the car roof while I gathered my thoughts. The air felt clammy and Mark’s suspicions made my stomach do clumsy somersaults. “I don’t know what we can do. Let’s say Davis is beating them. He’s asking for help by going to Steven.”

  “But what if it don’t work?” Mark demanded. “We got to get them out of there, Uncle Jordy.”

  “It’s not that simple, Mark.” I felt like a cornered lion tamer, sans chair and whip. I had enough of my own troubles to contend with, and selfishly, I didn’t want to tackle the problems of the Foradorys. “I don’t know what we can do without some proof. And if Davis tells Steven he’s beaten Bradley or Cayla, then Steven can contact the proper authorities.”

  “But what if he don’t?” Mark pressed. “We can’t leave him there, just for his daddy to whomp on him! It’s not right.”

  This couldn’t be happening, I thought. I’d cast my childhood friends into certain statues and now cracks crept up from their bases. Harmless, fun-loving Clevey as a vengeful, guilt-ridden manipulator who was never at peace. The unredeemable Trey as a man who’d perhaps been forced into a hellish choice. And now our rock of propriety, Davis, suggested as a man who couldn’t keep his fists off his own child. The thought of domestic violence happening with people I’d known for years was eerie and—

  Domestic violence. Suddenly I saw Peggy Godkin’s face, bleary in the cafeteria light on the morning Junebug had been shot, telling me about Clevey’s reporting assignments on the paper: He was working on his usual assignments—the city council, the book-review section. And he was researching a feature on domestic violence.

  And at Junebug’s, Davis hoisting a toast to our dead friend: Clevey, our friend and fine reporter. He’ll dig up all the secrets, even if it sends him to hell.

  No, it couldn’t be. If Clevey, in researching his story, uncovered battery right in the home of one of Mirabeau’s most prominent lawyers, he’d do something to help Cayla and Bradley, right?

  Ed’s voice whispered in my ear: Clevey was going to buy an interest in KBAV. Said he’d gotten the money from a Louisiana inheritance …

  “Uncle Jordy?” Mark’s voice sounded distant, as though I was fathoms away under the sea, drowning while staring up at the far glimmer of the sun.

  I found my voice. “We’ll call Cayla. See if everything is okay. You can call Bradley and see if he’s all right. But I don’t think we can do much else.”

  “Why not?” Mark insisted.

  Maybe because Davis’d kill us. Did he kill Clevey? My musings made my temper short. “Because you just can’t, Mark! Not without proof! You only have conjecture right now.”

  “Con-what?”

  “Conjecture. We don’t have any proof.”

  “His arms were bruised.”

  “That could have been an accident. Or another kid picking on him. I’ve known Davis my whole life and I’m not about to think he’s a batterer on the most circumstantial evidence.” I remembered when I’d called him about Clevey’s death—his voice was dulled, nearly stuporous. Why? Shock over what he’d done? Brains rattling due to firing a gun in an enclosed space? Seeing a boyhood friend’s lifeblood seep out?

  Okay, if he’d killed Clevey, why had he killed Trey? Had Trey known about Davis? How? Clevey had told Trey that revenge was sweet. What revenge was there to get on Davis?

  I lurched out of the car. I needed to talk to Candace, to Junebug, tell them this outrageous theory and let them dismiss it for me. I stumbled up the front steps. And saw Nola Kinnard sitting primly on our porch.

  “YOUR MAID WON’T LET ME IN,” NOLA SAID BY way of introduction. She stood, brushing dank bangs back from her forehead. She was dressed as I’d seen her at Steven Teague’s office: snug jeans, a blue, faded sweatshirt with a napping kitten on the front, a weathered, tan, down jacket splitting at the seams. Red rimmed her mascara-bare eyes.

  “I don’t have a maid,” I said. Mark tensed beside me.

  “The black lady, whatever she is. So I waited out here.”

  “Get out of here!” Mark suddenly demanded. He stepped forward. “We don’t want you around.”

  “I guess you don’t, honey.” Nola dug a pack of Marlboros out of her purse. “But I ain’t here to see you. I came to see your uncle.” She extracted a cigarette from the crumpled pack and delicately placed it in her mouth. “You gonna talk to me or tell me to hit the road?”

  “He don’t want you here—” Mark sputtered, but I put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Mark, go inside.”

  He bristled at the order, but he didn’t argue with me. He stomped to the screen door and swung it open.

  “Mark?” Nola called. I saw him pause, not looking at her.

  “I understand you’ve been real kind to my boy, Scott.” She coughed, her throat raspy with smoke. “I appreciate that.”

  Mark wavered on the doorstep, torn between the manners his family had instilled in him and (I suspected) a strong desire to tell Nola to kiss his ass.

  “You’re welcome,” he muttered, and slammed the door.

  She sat back on the rocking chair that had once been Mama’s favorite place to sit, gossip, and snap green beans. Nola seemed out of place and she knew it. Fumbling in her purse, she didn’t look at me.

  “I don’t suppose apologizing to him would have done much good. He wouldn’t have listened.”

  “You don’t know that.” I sat next to her.

  “Sure I do. He looks like his daddy, don’t he? I figure he’s like him in mind. That man wasn’t one to listen to an I’m sorry.” She flicked her lighter, regarded me for a brief moment, then returned to contemplating her cigarette. “You want one?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t smoke.”

  “Used to, though, didn’t you? I saw the gleam in your eye when I lit up.” She drew on the cigarette and blew smoke out in a long and luxurious breath. “Tastes real good.”

  I was suddenly, shockingly, aware of sexual tension between us. The coy posture she leaned back in, the assured way she looked at me (as though I were an apple for her to pluck), the cool consciousness she showed of her own body, and under the wet smell of rain and the pungent smoke, the vaguest pull of an animal scent. On the basest level, I wanted her and I was unnerved that I did. She saw the truth and smirked. I gritted my teeth and crossed my legs.

  “What can I do for you, Nola? I take it you’re not here just because my porch is a scenic smoking spot.”

  “I wanted to talk to you. Say I’m sorry for the way I’ve behaved. I was pretty horrible at Trey’s funeral. I had no call to say the things I did about your sister, and I’m sorry I hit you.” She drew on the cigarette.

  “What should I say? Apology accepted?”

  “Aren’t you a gentleman? You sure look the part.” She laughed, a sandy sound. “I’m not used to men that fix up as nice as you.”

  I refused to play in this eat-and-mouse-in-heat ga
me of hers. “Really? Steven Teague dresses real well and you seem kind of used to him.”

  If I scored a hit, it didn’t show. She wore too much armor behind the veil of smoke. “What’d he tell you?”

  “Nothing. I saw you with him in his office parking lot this morning.”

  She laughed. “Pretty sad. He’s not a bad fellow, just doesn’t know how to treat a woman.”

  “He didn’t seem interested in what you had to offer.”

  Nola shrugged and contemplated the burning ember at the end of the cigarette. “Nope. He’s got too much on his mind for a little fun.”

  What did Trey see in you? I thought, and had my answer nearly immediately: sex. She was the kind of woman who would be a quick firecracker in bed, not perhaps the one you’d befriend for life and tell your deepest secrets to, but one that a man’d never forget, even when toothless and bald and blind. The memory of passionate moments with her would be easily found on your mind’s shelves. But maybe that wasn’t entirely fair to her. She’d stayed with Trey after he’d been hurt, probably unable to be her lover.

  Nola tilted her head back, regarding me. “I bug you, don’t I? You can’t quite put your finger on me.”

  “Look, your apology’s accepted. Maybe you just should go. I don’t think my sister would appreciate you being here.”

  “But you appreciate it. You’re sort of glad I came by.”

  I didn’t like having my response to her rubbed in my face. “I don’t fancy being anyone’s third choice, now that Ed Dickensheets and Steven Teague have declined your charms.”

  “Who said they have? Oh, I was curious to kiss Steven. That a crime?”

  “You looked more like you were arguing with him. You looked like you were crying.”

  Her eyes frosted. “He won’t do something for me. I sure wish he would. But that’s neither here nor there. Ed’s been very kind to me since I’ve come here.”

  “Frankly, he didn’t look like he was that enamored of you at the funeral. And neither did Wanda or her mother.”