by Nene Adams
“‘And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?’” Veronica read from Proverbs. “‘For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.’”
“Adultery Ronnie,” Mackenzie said, feeling somewhat satisfied with her theory. “If we’re right, then when he was preaching in the bandstand one day, Wyland must have caught Kelly and Dearborn together in the Hollow—the sinners in the bush. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars they weren’t playing Scrabble. Oh sure, Tucker and Kelly aren’t married yet, but do you suppose Tucker would just laugh it off if he found out his father was diddling his fiancée behind his back? In a public park, no less. If you ask Wyland directly, I’m sure he’ll tell you exactly who and what he saw that day.”
Veronica laid the Bible on the table. “Detective Davis needs this information, Mac,” she said earnestly. “It’s an important lead. You should go into the station and tell him.”
“You tell him. I can’t talk to a man nicknamed Pee Wee.”
“Nobody uses that nickname. His first name is Robert.”
“Everybody calls him Pee Wee, even his own mother. I ought to know. I’ve heard deaf, old Mrs. Davis shouting for him at the grocery store.”
“You’re being silly. I can’t make an official statement about events I didn’t witness myself.”
“I hate this,” Mackenzie whispered harshly. “What if Kelly Collier tells Davis lies about me to protect herself? Who will Davis believe? Pretty cheerleader Kelly, daughter of a respected church minister, or me, the lesbian, loud-mouthed bitch?”
“Mac! You shouldn’t talk like that.” Veronica rose, only to squat next to Mackenzie’s chair and put a comforting hand on her thigh. “I’ll go with you. Your cousin Maynard is on your side. You’re not alone. It’ll be fine.”
Mackenzie set down her glass. How could she explain when Veronica gazed up at her with infinite patience, waiting for her to make the right decision? She just didn’t trust the police—present company excepted. But she wasn’t prepared to go into her reasons yet. Someday, perhaps. Not today. “All right, all right, call Davis and tell him I’ve got some information for him,” she said with grudging acceptance of her fate. She let out a muffled, “Oof!” when Veronica sprang up to give her a soft kiss, sweet with ginger and warm with emotion.
She leaned into the embrace, but Veronica released her, too quickly in her opinion.
“Everything will be fine,” Veronica said.
“Hope you’re right,” Mackenzie said, the last word ending on a gasp when Veronica suddenly took her face between both hands and stared down into her eyes. The devotion in Veronica’s expression nearly undid her.
“Mac, it will be fine,” Veronica said, leaning down to brush their mouths together a second time before she straightened and headed toward the living room.
Mackenzie listened to Veronica talking on the phone. Now that she wasn’t mesmerized by the woman’s presence, a cold sensation began stealing through her belly at the thought of sitting in that uncomfortable orange plastic chair in the interview room with a suspicious Pee Wee Davis giving her the stink-eye. She’d rather eat tacks.
Speaking of which, she hadn’t had a meal since last night.
For once, Mackenzie had little appetite. After rummaging through the cabinets and finding nothing more inspiring than cereal or oatmeal, she tried the refrigerator. Not even eggs stirred her interest. As she scanned the shelves looking in vain for inspiration, her father’s voice echoed in her head: For God’s sake, girl, quit standing there and shut that fridge! I’m not paying good money to air condition the rest of Antioch!
Mackenzie closed the refrigerator when Veronica, now wearing her uniform shirt buttoned to the throat and tucked into her pants, her duty belt securely in place, came into the kitchen. She had even tidied her hair.
Looks like the deputy is on duty, Mackenzie thought gloomily.
“Detective Davis is waiting for us,” Veronica announced, skewering the knot of hair at the nape of her neck with a final bobby pin. “Are you ready to go?”
“No,” Mackenzie answered, but she moved to accompany Veronica to the front door.
“And please, Mac, don’t call him Pee Wee.”
“No promises.” Mackenzie gestured for Veronica to precede her out of the apartment.
Veronica paused on the way down the steps and turned to face her. “Is your leg bothering you? Do you need a pain pill?”
Mackenzie opened her mouth to protest. As though the question had triggered a sympathetic response, her calf suddenly throbbed. “No. The pain medication takes the edge off and I need to be sharp for this interview.”
She managed to walk down the steps, hissing under her teeth each time her leg was jarred. Still, she got to the bottom without bursting into tears, which she considered a triumph.
Outside on the pavement, Veronica said with a pained expression, “My personal time’s been canceled. I have to pick up Kelly Collier and Rev. Wyland and bring them to the station. Detective Davis’s orders. Are you okay to go to the station by yourself?”
Mackenzie nodded. “I’ll manage.”
Veronica smiled and squeezed her arm before striding away.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Let’s make sure I haven’t made any mistakes,” Detective Davis said. He began reading her statement aloud, stopping now and then to cock an eyebrow at her.
Mackenzie nodded each time he paused. So did Maynard, she noticed, who had silently brought another chair into the interview room and sat behind Davis. Her cousin might be off the case, but he was clearly keeping an eye on her.
At last, Davis finished his recitation and looked at her.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Mackenzie said on cue. She took the pen Davis offered and signed and initialed the statement. “Are we done?”
“You can go,” he said neutrally, his face expressionless.
She rose and left the room, followed by Maynard.
“Why the hell didn’t you say anything when I asked you about Dearborn before?” he asked in a furious whisper, grabbing her arm when she ignored him and continued walking.
“Because I hadn’t put it together yet,” Mackenzie replied. She resisted his grip, which tightened until the bone in her arm began to ache. It was worth the bruise to see him rattled. “You’re hurting me. Keep it up and I’ll sock you in the eye.”
He let go. “Kenzie—”
“Jimmy, I told you everything I know,” she interrupted. “I’m going home now.”
“Fine, but do me a favor…next time somebody asks you to do them a favor, say no!” He appeared equally exasperated and relieved. Ruffling his dark hair with a hand, he sighed. “I don’t want to fight, Kenzie. Just so you know, Rev. Wyland has already given us a statement that corroborates yours.”
“And Kelly Collier?”
“Not a word, but I suspect your statement and Wyland’s will have some effect. At this point, her credibility’s shot, which won’t help her much at all.”
“She’s a suspect.”
“Her and Tucker. Deputy Buzzard is bringing him in now.”
Mackenzie turned to leave the station, happy that she wouldn’t have to deal with Kelly or the whole Dearborn mess any longer. She halted in her tracks when she recognized James Larkin standing at the front desk, chatting with the sergeant.
“Crap.” She ducked back around the corner. “Larkin’s here.”
She owed Larkin for the information he’d had dug up on her behalf and intended to repay him someday, but now wasn’t the best time for a chat. After a quick glance around showed Maynard talking to a couple of deputies down the hall, she opened a nearby door and went into the room, which turned out to be an office. Maynard’s office, she realized, recognizing a framed photograph of Aunt
Ida Love and Uncle Anse—her cousin’s parents.
Given the opportunity to snoop, Mackenzie resisted the temptation for a full minute before sitting down behind Maynard’s desk. His computer was off, so she concentrated on the manila folders stacked neatly beside it.
The first folder had the name “Jacob Dearborn” on it. She bypassed that one. The next few files were disappointingly mundane. Another sighting of the mythical Bear-Man—Mitford County’s answer to Bigfoot. A third citation for drunk and disorderly by Ella “Minnow” Pease. Marvin Beanblossom had started a fight at the Get-R-Done Roadhouse on Saturday night. However, the fourth folder was marked, “Coffin, Annabel.”
Mackenzie debated a split second with her better half, but the argument was short-lived. Curiosity won. She opened the folder.
Inside, she found photographs of the skeletal remains in situ and in the morgue. To her amazement, Maynard had also dug up a black-and-white picture of Annabel Coffin from when she’d been alive in the fifties, her black hair in a ponytail, her black eyes dancing, her pretty face animated as she laughed with someone off-camera.
She was so happy here, Mackenzie thought.
In the background of the photo she recognized some of the other people including her father and mother, standing so close together, she assumed they must be dancing. Since Maynard had a copier wedged in the corner of his office, she ran off a copy of the photo, folded it into a small square and stuck it in her pants pocket. Perhaps Sarah Grace would remember where and when the picture had been taken.
In Maynard’s report, she read that he was aware of the Annabel Coffin-Billy Wakefield affair. His efforts to trace Billy’s current whereabouts hadn’t been much more successful than Larkin’s. However, as a law enforcement officer, he had access to Billy’s criminal records. From his notes, she learned Billy had found religion during his time in Fulton County Jail, eventually joining a Christian organization, the Love Jesus Foundation, that ministered to convicts. According to the warden, Billy’s conversion seemed genuine.
Also, prior to his release from prison in ’85, the last time he’d surfaced on the official radar, Billy had told another convict—whom Maynard had interviewed—about his plan to visit his sweetheart, identity unknown.
Coming to the end of the file, Mackenzie closed the folder and leaned back in the chair, propping her feet on the desk to ease the ache in her leg.
After Annabel’s death, who was Billy Wakefield’s sweetheart? she wondered. Must be some woman he met between prison stints.
The temperature inside the office chilled, though she hadn’t touched the thermostat.
Goose bumps pebbled her arms as a silver-gray face formed in midair on the other side of the desk. Annabel’s familiar form quickly followed. She looked like the photograph in the file except for her expression—cold, hard, angry, and somehow also sad.
Billy, the ghost whispered.
Something rattled inside the closed desk drawer.
Startled, Mackenzie nearly fell off the chair. She put her feet on the floor. “Quit that,” she complained even as she grasped the drawer pull. “It’s locked. Now what?”
She heard a click. The drawer opened a few inches.
“Remind me to call you if I ever need to break in somewhere,” Mackenzie said, sticking her hand in the drawer.
When something slithered under her questing fingers, she snatched her hand back, her heart thumping. A vision of the rattlesnake in the church filled her mind. Her calf muscle spasmed. She gritted her teeth and massaged the cramp away. Telling herself not to be a coward, she reached inside the drawer again and felt around among the papers and miscellaneous objects.
She pulled out an evidence bag with a heavy silver charm bracelet inside. She’d seen Annabel wearing the bracelet in her fevered dream after she’d been bitten by the rattlesnake.
Billy, Annabel whispered.
Through the plastic bag, Mackenzie studied the bracelet with its array of charms. An ice cream cone, a hamburger, a tiny movie ticket, a roller skate—she thought the charms might represent Annabel and Billy’s dates. There’d been a roller rink in Antioch until the end of the seventies, so it was conceivable the two lovebirds had gone out for an evening at the Roll ‘R’ Rock when it had been new.
The four-leafed clover, horseshoe and “wheel of fortune” were self-explanatory, as were the little moonshine jug marked with triple Xs, the tiny diary with key, a red enameled heart, mini cigarette lighter and the hourglass filled with pink sand. The final charm was a three-quarter inch square picture frame holding Annabel’s photo.
Mackenzie squinted at the three lines of tiny letters on the photo charm’s flip side, hard to make out through the bag. A. Cross, Burton Lemoyne Class of ’57. Poor Annabel. She’d never graduated, of course.
The photo was protected by a minute sheet of glass covered with a spider’s web of cracks. While Mackenzie studied the picture, she heard a crackling sound and something gave under her fingertips. Tiny bits of glass fell to the bottom of the bag. Alarmed, she shoved the bag into the desk drawer. If Maynard returned and found she’d messed with his evidence, he’d skin her alive and sell the rest to science.
Billy, Billy, Billy, Annabel repeated.
The drawer jerked open. Mackenzie slammed it shut.
“Goddamn it, do you want me to end up in jail?” she snapped.
Hearing the doorknob turn, Mackenzie jumped up and ran around the desk. When Maynard entered, she stood at the window, looking at the parking lot.
“You’re free to go, Kenzie,” he said pointedly.
“Oh! Thanks!” she replied, keeping a sidelong eye on Annabel, who hadn’t vanished. She hesitated. What did the spirit want? Would Annabel attack Maynard?
“Well?” he finally prompted. “Do you need a map to the front door?”
Realizing he couldn’t see Annabel and the ghost didn’t seem inclined to pester him, Mackenzie fled his office.
As she rushed through the doorway, she imagined she heard a rattle from the desk.
Chapter Thirty-Two
On Monday morning as promised, following a quick breakfast sandwich from Miss Laverne’s Luncheonette—egg, sausage and cheddar cheese on a French toast bagel, pinned together with a Bible verse from Ephesians: “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath”—Mackenzie picked up her mother to drive her to the hospital in Trinity to visit Aunt Ida Love.
“And how’s your leg, baby?” Sarah Grace asked, settling into the passenger seat.
Mackenzie pulled the car away from the house and headed for the expressway. “Much better, Mama. The swelling’s gone down a lot and I don’t have nearly as much pain.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You should be more careful.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“My mother killed a rattlesnake. Did you know that? Longer than a man’s arm. She ran over it with the lawn mower.”
Mackenzie had heard the story many times before, but she just nodded.
“My, my, my, today’s a genuine scorcher!” Sarah Grace plucked at her flowery blouse, drawing the material away from her bosom. “Is the air-conditioning on?”
“Yes, Mama.” Thank God Daddy had paid extra for the factory A/C option back in the seventies, Mackenzie thought. Her mother’s irritation grew in direct proportion to the outside temperature. “Takes a few minutes to get really cool.”
Sarah Grace spent several moments fanning herself with one of the magazines she’d brought for Ida Love. “These chocolate turtles will melt in the heat,” she fretted, shifting the candy box from her lap to the dashboard and back.
“Mama, stop fussing.”
“I’ll thank you not to tell me what to do, missy, since I do believe I gave birth to you, not the other way around.”
Mackenzie sealed her mouth shut against a groan, which would only antagonize her mother further. Instead, she turned on the radio to an oldies station.
Sarah Grace craned her neck to squint at the speedometer and let out a dissatisfied harrumph. �
�Are you going over the speed limit?” she asked.
“Yes, Mama, just a little bit.”
“Well, you slow down ’cause I’m not in a hurry to go home to Jesus today.”
“Yes, Mama.”
At this rate, Mackenzie thought as she eased up on the gas pedal, they’d be in Trinity sometime tomorrow. To give her mother something to do, she took the photocopied picture of Annabel Coffin out of her pants pocket where she’d shoved it that morning.
“Hey, Mama,” she said. “Do you know where and when this was taken? I’m guessing nineteen fifty-seven or before.”
Sarah Grace unfolded the piece of paper and studied the picture, holding it close to her face, and then at arm’s length. Tutting in annoyance, she rummaged in her big black leather purse, finally locating her glasses in their needlepoint case. Her eyes were magnified a bit behind the lenses.
“That’s Anna Coffin all right,” she said at last. “Pretty girl. Such a tragic thing to happen. I felt sorry for her mother, God rest her soul.”
“Uh-huh. You and Daddy are in the background,” Mackenzie said, taking a hand off the steering wheel to point out the figures behind Annabel.
“Yes, I see that,” Sarah Grace replied tartly. “I’m not senile yet.”
“No, Mama.” Mackenzie waited for her mother to elaborate.
Sarah Grace peered at the picture. “Let me see…do you remember Axel Cushman?”
“Who?”
“Axel Cushman. He used to run the penny candy counter at the drugstore.”
“Mama, I have never in my life bought a piece of candy for a penny.”
“Oh, hush.” Sarah Grace flapped a hand in dismissal. “Maybe by the time you were old enough to have an allowance, the candy was five cents or something like that, but we’re talking about Axel Cushman. Sure you don’t remember him? Tall fellow. Had three long, long hairs. He used to grease them with Brylcreem and—”
“Comb them over the top of his bald, freckled head,” Mackenzie finished, chuckling at the mental image. “Us kids called him Mr. Shine.”
