Guaranteed to Bleed

by Mulhern, Julie

  “And Donna?”

  “Donna too.” I picked up the stack of messages and flipped through them.

  “What does India Hess have to say about all of this?”

  “I haven’t spoken with her.” Three messages from India. One from CeCe Lowell. Four from Mother. Two from Hunter Tafft.

  “You didn’t call her?” The judgment in his voice made my fingers itch to end our conversation the easy way.

  Hanging up on Hunter would be rude. Rather like leaving someone sitting on a stoop in the middle of the night. “India didn’t believe me when I told her about her husband and Donna. She loved him. What was I supposed to do? Call and say now that Jonathan’s dead in my hostas I thought I’d let you know I’ve been hiding your daughter?”

  “The woman must be beside herself with worry.”

  “Presumably Hess told her where they were before he got himself murdered. He knew they weren’t out on the streets.”

  “What if he didn’t tell her?” Hunter asked. “What if he just drove up there?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Damn. I dropped the messages back onto the countertop. “I’ll call her now.”

  “Ellison, I—”

  “You’re absolutely right, Hunter. I should call India. Now. Goodbye.” I hung up the phone.

  The blasted man with his reasoned arguments and half-assed apologies. I’d had enough.

  I studied one of the messages, written in Aggie’s exuberant script, and dialed.

  India answered with a quaver in her voice. I probably should have told her how sorry I was about her husband, but I’d lied to her enough already. Instead I told her Donna was on her way home.

  “Thank God.” She sounded so relieved that the guilt Hunter dredged up raised its finger and poked me in the solar plexus.

  Then she made it worse. “She’s with Grace? They’re both all right?”

  Poke? Ha. More like a breath-stealing jab. “Fine.”

  “How did you find them?”

  Hess hadn’t told her. I swallowed. Twice. “They were at my parents’ farm. In Daddy’s hunting cabin.”

  A full moment of silence ticked by. I tracked each second on the clock. Five seconds into minute number two I said, “India?” Had she fainted? Put the phone down and gone to pour a martini?

  “You knew the whole time?” Her voice was faint.

  “No.”

  “You knew when you met me at the café?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” More silence. “People say your mother is a force of nature, that the worst thing anyone could do in this city is get on her bad side.”

  I didn’t argue. Instead I cleared my throat.

  “You’re worse.”

  I raised my hand to my cheek as if she’d slapped me. Her words stung. “I was protecting Donna.”

  “Not. Your. Job.”

  India wasn’t the only mother who’d worried. “You’re right,” I snapped. “That’s your job. Only you weren’t doing it.”

  She exhaled. The expulsion of breath from her lungs carried down the phone lines. A simple breath that told a complicated story. She’d paced. She’d worried. She’d sobbed until she’d run out of tears. She was the victim. I should feel guilty.

  I gritted my teeth. She could try to make me feel guilty. She could even enlist Ma Bell’s aid in delivering poor, poor, pitiful me sighs. Didn’t matter. Donna was the victim and I’d protect Donna again in a minute. India had failed her daughter in myriad ways. “I’ll bring her home as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She hung up without so much as a goodbye. I stared at the receiver in my hand. Slowly, I put it back in the cradle.

  I poured myself another cup of coffee and peeked out the window at Libba. She’d put her feet up on my empty chair and tilted her face toward the sun. She was wrong about me. I was cold.

  If nothing else, Frances had given me the ability to compartmentalize. Infidelity? Stick it in a box, lock said box and store it on a back shelf of my brain. Dead husband? Another box, another lock, another shelf. Dead man in the backyard? Box. Lock. Shelf. Those boxes stayed locked on their shelves unless I stood in front of a canvas with a paintbrush in my hand. It was a fabulous system. For me, it worked like a charm—until it didn’t. Until my unwillingness to feel hurt Grace.

  Unbridled emotion made me squirm. There’d never been any on display during my childhood. If Mother and Daddy disagreed—even slightly—she treated Marjorie to a day of shopping and Daddy and I played a round of golf. They’d both come home happy.

  Some of my best talks with Daddy happened on the golf course. Driving down the cart path, our eyes on the hole ahead, freed us to say things we’d never utter across a table. Perhaps Grace and I should play. It was Thursday. Women were allowed to book tee times. We might as well take advantage.

  I turned away from the window, picked up the phone, dialed the club and reserved a time for later in the afternoon.

  “You’re still on the phone?” Libba asked. She refilled her coffee cup. Apparently Mr. Coffee had charms my sunny patio did not.

  I dropped the receiver into the cradle. “Hunter suggested I call India.” I didn’t tell Libba about the tee time. She might reassess her opinions of my coldness if she knew I planned on playing golf less than twenty-four hours after a man died in my backyard. As a dedicated tennis player, she didn’t understand golf as therapy.

  Outside on the patio, Max barked then stood, his stubby tail wagging madly.

  “Grace is home.” A heretofore undetected constriction near my heart loosened.

  “How do you know?” Libba asked.

  “Just look at Max.”

  “Yeah, right.” Spoken like a cat lover, one who couldn’t discern the difference between a warning, feed-me-now, and I-can’t-wait-to-lick-your-face bark.

  Max scratched at the back door and whined softly.

  The phone rang.

  “Would you please get that and let Max in?” I pushed open the door to the front hall.

  Grace stood in the foyer.

  I rushed to her, wrapped her in my arms, inhaled the scent of her hair. “Thank God you’re home safe.” The words were banal. The tone was fierce.

  She hugged me back.

  We didn’t move. A moment caught in amber. A mother. A daughter. Forgiveness.

  Max bounded down the hallway and sniffed Grace’s bottom.

  We laughed. Shaky at first, as if we feared the sound might destroy the moment. Max sniffed again, added a headbutt then somehow squeezed himself between her legs and mine for a hug that included him.

  We laughed harder and Grace released me, dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Max’s neck.

  He rubbed his head on her shoulder.

  “We’re both glad to see you home.”

  “I’m glad to be here. I missed you, Mom.”

  My throat swelled. My jaw ached. I blinked back a tear. “Where’s Donna?”

  “I dropped her at her house.”

  “Grace.” Libba’s heels clicked on the hardwoods. “It’s good to have you home.” She too claimed a hug.

  Libba turned to me. “That was CeCe Lowell on the phone.” She swiveled her head from side to side as if she feared eavesdroppers. “CeCe was going through Bobby’s things and found something she says you ought to see.”

  Twenty-Five

  Libba really ought to move to Hollywood and become a starlet in B movies. My foyer certainly wasn’t big enough for her emoting. She delivered her line with all the subtlety of an actress in a slasher film.

  Grace and I gawked. Even Max shifted his adoring amber gaze away from Grace.

  “And?” I asked.

  “And she’s coming over.”

  Oh dear Lord. “When?”


  “She’s on her way.”

  My runaway daughter was safely home. I wanted some time with her. “No.” As if my saying it could actually stop CeCe from arriving.

  “Yes. The woman lost her son. What would you do if Grace hadn’t come back?”

  She had come back. And I wanted a chance to process that before I had to deal with CeCe’s revelation. I wagged a mental finger in my own face. The woman had lost her son. The least I could do was see her when she needed me. I’d hardly thought of CeCe or Bobby when Grace was missing. “Fine.”

  Grace stared at her feet and mumbled.

  “What?”

  She raised her gaze. “I’m going to go shower.” She gave me a quick, fierce hug then climbed the front steps. Max followed her.

  I glared at Libba. She deserved it.

  “What?” She held out her hands, palms upturned, innocent expression on her guilty face. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “The messenger shouldn’t have said yes.”

  “You are cranky as hell today.” She lifted her nose. “The messenger is leaving.”

  “I thought you’d want to wait around for the big revelation.”

  She grinned. “You’ll tell me later.”

  I hate it when she’s right.

  I closed the front door behind my so-called friend, glanced at my watch, walked into the study and called Mother, safe in the knowledge she played bridge at the club over lunchtime on Thursdays.

  She answered the phone.

  Damn.

  “You’re home.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

  “You were expecting Flora?”

  Mother and Daddy’s long-suffering housekeeper hadn’t scolded me yet. “Don’t be silly, I’m delighted to catch you.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. I scratched my nose. “I just wanted to let you know that Grace is home.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. What about the other girl, the one who caused this whole mess?”

  Mother still blamed Donna for Grace’s disappearance.

  Donna had every reason in the world to leave home. Grace had made the decision to go with her. Donna couldn’t be blamed for Grace’s poor decision-making. But it wasn’t worth the attempt to explain. Mother saw the world through the Walford colored glasses. “Grace dropped her off.”

  “You really ought to do a better job helping Grace pick her friends.”

  That I answered with silence.

  “Are you there, Ellison?”

  My fingers hovered over the button that would end our call. Instead, I extended an olive branch. “I talked to Libba. She said you had a good meeting.” Extending an olive branch never hurt anyone.

  “It makes me look bad when my daughter can’t get herself to my meetings.”

  “Dead man in the hostas. Remember?”

  “So sordid.”

  I didn’t argue. She’d already put my olive branch through a chipper.

  “I presume this means that policeman will be hanging around again?”

  “He’s investigating a murder.”

  “I don’t like him. He’s too familiar and he looks at you as if you’re a piece of candy and he’s a man desperate for something sweet.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” I wrapped the phone cord around my ring finger. Candy?

  “Does he ever actually catch anyone?”

  “He has several leads.”

  “I bet they all lead to your door.”

  I wasn’t having this conversation. I closed my eyes and tightened my fingers around the receiver. “Please let Daddy know Grace is home. I don’t want him to worry.”

  “We were never worried. Grace will always land on her feet.”

  That was too much. “You just got done telling me Grace needs help picking her friends. You thought she’d be okay on the streets?”

  “She wasn’t on the streets. If you’d given it a half-second’s thought you’d have realized that immediately.”

  My grip on the phone tightened until my hand hurt. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”

  Mother sniffed.

  I’d had enough. “CeCe Lowell is on her way over. I have to go.”

  “I need to tell you what we assigned to you.”

  “Not now.”

  “But, Ellison—”

  “I’m not doing any committee work today.”

  Another sniff.

  “Goodbye, Mother.”

  I waited for her response.

  She answered with silence, using my own trick against me.

  Wow, was that annoying. “Goodbye.” I hung up the phone.

  Just as well. The doorbell rang.

  I hurried back to the foyer and opened the door to CeCe Lowell.

  Poor CeCe. Never a large woman, she seemed to have lost half her weight since Bobby’s death. Bones covered with skin. Her clothes hung on her. Her hair—well, nothing says defeat like a flattened bouffant.

  Any annoyance I had over missing time with Grace dissipated. “Come in.”

  I gave her an awkward hug. “Would you like some coffee? Maybe a cookie? I could make lunch. I think there’s some leftover quiche in the fridge.”

  “No, thank you. I couldn’t eat. I just came to give you this.” She held out a wad of paper. Someone had folded a sheet of loose leaf until it was roughly the size of a golf ball. CeCe put it in my hand slowly, reluctantly, as if letting go of one sheet of paper was the same as letting go of her son.

  “What is it?”

  “A note.”

  That much I’d guessed. I unfolded it and read.

  No one can know.

  We have to tell.

  We can’t!!! He’ll kill me…or you.

  I won’t let him hurt you.

  Please! Don’t tell anyone.

  This can’t go on.

  I stared at the paper in my hand—dog-eared, worn at the seams—and knew. Jonathan Hess killed Bobby Lowell. I knew it with the same certainty I knew my own name.

  He’d shot Bobby and left him for dead. If ever a man deserved to die in a perennial border, it was Jonathan.

  I’d been the fly in his ointment. Bobby hadn’t died right away and I found him. Talked to him. No wonder Jonathan Hess asked so many questions the morning he picked up Donna from sleeping over.

  CeCe cleared her throat then looked at me as if she expected an explanation. “Have you found the girl?”

  Had I ever. I swallowed. If I told CeCe about Donna, she’d want to know who the potential killer in the note was. I’d have to tell her about the abuse. Donna or India needed to tell her about that. Not me.

  “Not yet.” A blatant, painful lie.

  CeCe’s face crumpled. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.” Tears waterfalled down her cheeks.

  “Let me get you a tissue.” Of all the stupid, useless things I’ve ever said, offering a tissue to a woman disintegrating over the death of her son ranked high.

  She wrapped her arms around her body as if they could somehow hold her together.

  I forgot about the tissue. Poor woman. I draped my arm around her shoulders, led her to the kitchen and perched her on a stool at the counter. “I’ll make some tea.”

  “No, thank you.” She drew a wet breath. “That tissue would be nice.”

  I handed her the box.

  She daubed beneath her eyes, blew her nose and clutched the wadded tissue as if it was the only thing keeping her going. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make a scene.”

  “If anyone is allowed to make a scene, it’s you. Is your sister still here?”

  CeCe nodded. “She won’t leave.”

  There was a reason for that. If my sister looked as bad as CeCe, I wouldn’t leave her either.

  “If only I knew why. I lie awake at night wonderin
g.” She pulled a fresh Kleenex from the box and wadded it too. “Why is my son dead?”

  Bobby was dead because he interfered with Jonathan’s plans for Donna. I ought to just tell CeCe. Except it wasn’t my secret. Besides, the man who’d killed her son lay dead. He couldn’t go to prison for what he’d done. Justice wasn’t possible. I reached across the counter and patted her free hand. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

  CeCe lifted her fisted hand, Kleenex and all, to her face and covered her mouth. “Alice was madly in love with him.”

  “She was.”

  “Do you think she killed him?”

  “No.”

  “She could have. She could have stabbed him in a fit of jealousy.”

  I didn’t argue.

  “You must think I’m a complete fool.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  She shook her head. “Other women have lost their sons and they don’t fall apart. Think of all the women who sent sons to Vietnam. They’re not sobbing in your kitchen.” She stared at the painting of the salad, the same one Donna liked. “He’ll never get married.”

  “He’ll never deal with infidelity.”

  She shifted her gaze from the painting and offered me the bitter smile that all wives with cheating husbands master.

  I smiled the same smile.

  She unlatched her purse, stuffed the dirty Kleenex inside, and stood. “I won’t keep you.”

  “You’re welcome to stay.”

  “I…I can’t. I can’t seem to stay in any one place too long.” She used her fingers to wipe her red-rimmed eyes. “If you find anything…”

  What kind of woman was I? CeCe deserved the truth. The sordid, nasty, gut-wrenching truth. “If I find her and if revealing her identity would hurt her, do you think Bobby would want me to tell?”

  CeCe Lowell stood in my kitchen clutching her pocketbook. Her hair was askew. The hem of her rumpled dress hung at a jakey angle. Grief had devastated her pretty face. Yet she still possessed a certain dignity. She even managed a sad smile. “Bobby loved his secrets, and I’m sure he’d want to shield her, but I’d still like to know.”

  Perfect. Now what should I do?