Penumbra

by Carolyn Haines

  Taking the sheet in both hands, she pulled it back to reveal what had once been Horace Bradshaw. As she watched, several ants staggered out of his left nostril. Or what remained of the nostril. She knew the odor then. She’d smelled it during the summer when she cut across Billy Dee’s cow pasture. It was the smell of the rags Billy Dee hung from trees for the cows to walk under to kill the flies that tormented them. Insecticide. Junior Clements, the county coroner, must have doused the body in something to kill the ants.

  She brushed the insects away, assessing the ruin. The eyes were gone, the swollen lids sunk into the skull. The tender flesh of the lips had also been eaten, revealing yellowed teeth below a partially consumed nose. The remaining flesh was blotched and swollen. Even the top of the head, visible through thinning gray hair, was bitten and ravaged. She’d heard talk that Mr. Bradshaw had lost his mind, that he’d taken to wandering over to his daughter’s neighbors in only his boxer shorts, touching himself and shouting obscenities. Sometimes the old got cranky. It was part of the cycle. Age changed everyone, even bankers.

  Jade heard the door to the embalming room open. Expecting Elwood Lavallette, she looked up. Instead of the man she worked for, she saw Junior Clements. Her gaze dropped to his hands. They were always blistered and covered in scabs and sores, a reflection of his soul, and she struggled not to show her disgust. She tried to stay out of Junior’s way, especially when she was alone.

  “Mr. Elwood says the family wants an open casket.”

  Jade could hear her own slow breathing. She lowered the sheet, shielding the dead man from Junior’s curious gaze. “I see.”

  Junior stepped deeper into the room, closing the door behind him. The smell of the insecticide was suddenly unbearable. Jade backed away from the table.

  “Folks say you talk to the dead,” Junior said. A thin string of spittle moved between his lips when he talked. “They say that late at night, the dead come back here to help you. Is that true?”

  Jade directed her gaze to the floor. She’d learned long ago not to show her feelings to men like Junior. Her contempt triggered their fear, and their cruelty. “The dead don’t always leave this earth right away,” she said. “Sometimes they linger. When their hearts are heavy.”

  “Are you trying to spook me?” Junior asked angrily.

  “Not me,” Jade said. “No, sir.”

  “Sh-it,” Junior said. “I’m not afraid of no corpse.” He took three strides to the table. His crusty hands pulled back the sheet. “Look at that mess. Poor bastard laid out in that ant bed at least three days. His hip’s broke so he couldn’t get up. Now the family’s all cryin’ ‘poor daddy, poor daddy.’ Poor daddy my ass. They more likely afraid of a charge of criminal neglect.” He shifted so that his gaze lingered on her breasts. “How you gonna make him look human in his casket?”

  Jade didn’t answer. She turned away. “I’ll need some marbles. Some wax. Some putty.” She would work with the corpse after she finished at her beauty shop, after her clients had gone. “It’d be best if we could get a hat.” Through the thinning gray hair, the red eruptions of ant bites were too obvious. “And a pair of gloves. Whatever kind the family thinks he would have worn. Or we can cover the hands with some kind of floral arrangement.” She spoke to the floor. “Could you tell Mr. Lavallette those are the things I’ll need?” If Junior had an errand that gave him importance, he would leave.

  “Sure. I’ll tell him.” Junior walked to the door and opened it. “You wait right here.”

  She didn’t look up. “Mr. Clements, the thing you have to remember is that the dead see. They look and they know. They remember.” She lifted her face, her green eyes bright in her pale face. “And they come back to visit sometimes when they got a score to settle.”

  Junior vanished out the door. Jade was smiling when she stepped out of the room and into the hallway. Junior wouldn’t bother her anymore that day. The fright would wear off in a day or two and he’d be back, but for a while she’d bought some peace. She had to get back to the beauty salon and tend her customers, but first she had to speak to Mr. Lavallette, reassure him that she’d be back in the evening and do her best for the dead man.

  From the embalming room she took a corridor that ended in a huge wooden door. She cracked the door and listened. Most folks in Jebediah County knew she tended the dead. Some folks asked for her special, wanting her to use her skills to roll back the years or soften the agonies of illness and death on a loved one. There were others, though, who wouldn’t feel right that a Negro had touched their dead. Mr. Elwood was good to her, and she didn’t want to make trouble for him. Folks could be mighty superstitious when it came to the dead.

  In the front parlor, she heard voices. There was the low, gentle cadence of Elwood Lavallette. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she knew it by heart. It was the language of release. It was Elwood Lavallette’s job to help those who remained on this side of the River Jordan to let go of those who had passed over.

  She tiptoed across the hardwood floor to the expensive wool rug that whirled in burgundies and golds. Now her footsteps were absorbed by the thick carpeting and she could make better time. She started toward the front door, thinking she’d call Elwood later on. She had to get back to the beauty shop. She heard what sounded like a screen door, rusted and ill used, being wrenched open. The sound fell down the scale, back to human register, before it turned into a sob.

  “Daddy!” The woman screamed the word. “Daddy! Where’s my daddy!” There was the sound of a chair overturning.

  “Miss Cora, you don’t want to see him like he is.” Elwood’s voice was soothing, kind.

  “I have to see him. Junior told me he was eat up by ants!” The voice rose high, quivering, then broke. “By ants! My daddy laid out in an ant bed, Mr. Lavallette. He died in a bed of fire ants.”

  “Now, Miss Cora, that’s not the way to remember your daddy. Think on the time when you got that brand new Ford. Remember? I saw you driving through town like queen of the parade. Your smile was bright enough to blind me. Your daddy was so proud that he could get that car for you.”

  The keening moans of the woman had begun to settle down. Jade stepped into one of the visitation rooms. Mr. Lavallette and the woman were between her and the front door. She hesitated, not wanting to intrude on the woman’s grief.

  “I think you were dating Duke Farley, weren’t you? Yes, that’s right.” Elwood’s voice shifted up and down, lulling. “Duke was such a bright boy. I hear he’s doing real well up at Canton.”

  “Who’s gone fix Daddy up for the casket?” The question was asked with a few hiccups of emotion. “I want him to look like himself. Like he did before he lost his mind.”

  “Miss Dupree is with him right now,” Elwood said. “She’s the best in the Southeast. You just rest easy on that question, Miss Cora, and let us handle this situation.”

  Jade heard the scraping of chairs. Mr. Elwood was seating Cora in the front parlor. Jade was about to retreat when she heard Cora speak again. “Jade can fix him. That nigger gal can work miracles. If she lived in New Orleans or some big city, she’d be rich.”

  The words were a spell, binding Jade to the floor. But she didn’t live in a city. She lived in Drexel, Mississippi, a crossroads town in the heart of the pine barrens. Her life was a straw house of ifs. If she’d been born in a big city, she could pass for white. If she moved to a big city, she could start over as a white woman with dark hair and eyes the color of the most expensive jade. If her mother’s husband hadn’t forced a pact of silence on the community, Jade would have been the acknowledged heir to a timber fortune, a fortune now lost at the gaming tables. If frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their asses on the ground. “If” was a tiny word with the power to destroy. “If only” were two words that could corrupt a soul.

  Jade needed to move, to walk, to put Cora Bradshaw and her summation of Jade’s life far behind her. Junior was undoubtedly at the rear exit near the ramp where they rolled the bo
dies into the back of the funeral home. Mr. Elwood was near the front door. She’d have to try the side exit. She made her way there and slipped out the door under the portico where the hearse parked during services. Trumpet vine, thick with leaves and flowers, covered the portico and created dense shade. A dozen of the orange flowers had fallen to the shell drive. Jade stepped around the flowers, thinking how much they look like splotches of blood on the dry bones of the shells.

  She stepped out of the shade and into the August heat. The salon was only four blocks away. She’d walked because her car had been blocked in the alley by some of her customers, but it was going to be a long four blocks back in the afternoon humidity. The hour between three and four was the hottest of the day.

  She started across the parking lot, realizing too late that the heels of her shoes were sinking into the overheated asphalt. The shoes were expensive, her best pair. She considered walking barefoot, but if she were seen it would only add to the body of gossip about her. Folks would use it as proof that despite the fact that she looked white, she was a field hand in costume. It only took one drop of Negro blood to make a nigger. She stood, storklike, as the sheriff’s car pulled into the lot.

  Sheriff Huey Jones passed her as if she weren’t there. Deputy Frank Kimble, in the passenger seat, leaned into the window to watch her. She used her leg muscles to pull her heel free and started walking. Two car doors slammed behind her.

  “Miss Dupree, wait up,” Frank called out to her.

  She turned and watched the sheriff hurry up the brick steps and into the coolness of the funeral home. Frank came to her side and offered his arm. His black hair was thick, his gaze touched with worry.

  Jade hesitated, then put her hand on his arm and allowed him to help her across the asphalt. His large feet were in no danger of sinking. At the edge of the lot, she turned to him and smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Frank.” She wondered why he had come back to Drexel. He’d been a paratrooper during the war. On a secret mission in Germany he’d been captured. The women in the beauty shop talked about him, especially the young ones. They said he was haunted by dreams and visions of the dead, and for a split second, Jade thought she could see torment in the lines around his mouth.

  “You’re welcome, Miss Dupree, but please call me Frank.” He wiped sweat from his forehead. “If you can wait for a ride, the sheriff ‘11 let me take the patrol car.”

  She was surprised that he treated her like she was white. “Call me Jade,” she said. “What’s going on?” Her curiosity had been piqued by the sheriff’s rush as he strode into the funeral home.

  Frank looked beyond her and considered his answer. “I don’t want to upset you, but Mr. Bramlett called the sheriff and said his wife’s missing. The little girl, too.”

  Jade felt as if a wire had been inserted into her spine. “Marlena is missing?”

  Frank nodded. “I’m sorry. I know you’re … close. Lucas said Marlena took off with the kid after lunch. She was supposed to go to the church and help sort clothes for the poor. She never showed up, and she’s nowhere to be found.” His hand grasped her elbow. “You okay?”

  “Sure,” Jade said, but a nest of wasps was buzzing in her brain. She had never been Marlena’s confidante, but it was unlike Marlena to leave without telling her husband where she was going.

  “Do you have any idea where Marlena might have gone?” Frank stared into her eyes as if he could read the answer.

  Jade hesitated. There was something in his question. “I don’t know.”

  “You baby-sit the little girl sometimes. Folks say she’s a difficult child.”

  Jade was too aware of Frank’s hand on her flesh. She thought about the six-year-old girl with braids so long she could sit on them. Folks in town thought she was a brat. In truth, she was, but Jade had a special bond with her. “Folks in Drexel say a lot of things. Suzanna’s not so bad if she’s treated like a person.”

  “You care for her,” Frank said.

  Jade didn’t respond. She walked a careful line where Marlena and Suzanna Bramlett were concerned. Her affection was private.

  “Marlena’s new car is missing, too.” Frank wiped his forehead with his hand. “She probably went to visit a friend or took a long drive.”

  “Sure enough,” Jade agreed, though she didn’t believe it for a moment. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. In the back of her nostrils was the smell of burning. A bad omen.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Frank’s other hand moved to support her back.

  She’d known tragedy hung over the town. Doom. Not Horace Bradshaw but something more, something worse. “I have to get to the shop,” she said, remembering the hair dryer and Mrs. Moss’s curls. They’d be burned to a frizzy gray crisp. She pulled free of his grasp and walked hurriedly away, worried about her half-sister and niece and unsettled by Frank Kimble and the questions he had not asked.

  3

  The setting sun struck the two-tone Chevy, glinting in a red metallic gleam that spilled like angry blood onto the sandy road. The car was parked in the ditch. Two men stood beside it, black splinters against the western horizon. Frank Kimble heard the sheriff grunt as he pulled the patrol car into the ditch, like he intended to block the Chevy in case it decided, on its own, to make a getaway.

  “Sure enough looks like a scene from hell,” Huey said, the folds of his neck hiding most of his collar. He spat tobacco juice out the car window. “Let’s see what we got.”

  Frank watched the sheriff push himself out of the car, spit again, and heft his gun belt from where it had sunk, along with his pants, to halfway down his ass. Looking through the windshield, Frank could now make out the features of the two men standing by the abandoned car. Junior Clements and Pet Wilkinson. Junior’s dust-coated pickup still ticked and knocked, showing that he had driven it hard and relentlessly so he could later say that he was the first man on the scene. The scene of what? An abandoned car? Casting an eye on the two men, Frank got out and followed the sheriff.

  Pet stood beside Junior, his hand on a holstered pistol. Pet was another wanna-be. He’d been given the ludicrous nickname by his mama, who Frank felt knew what she was doing the first time she’d uttered the one-syllable sobriquet. Pet had no legal authority to carry a gun and no criminal record to keep him from it. It made the skin between Frank’s shoulder blades itch when he looked at the gun and Pet’s dirty fingers tapping on the cross-grained butt.

  “What’s in the car?” the sheriff asked Junior, reaching for a door handle.

  Frank stepped in front of the sheriff. “Maybe we should see if there are any fingerprints,” he suggested. Huey was an elected lawman, not a trained one. The fingerprints were probably futile. More than likely Junior and Pet had touched every inch of the car, taking anything of value left lying around. On every scene where they were present, things went missing. Frank didn’t understand why folks continued to vote for Junior as coroner when everyone knew he was a petty thief. The joke around town was he robbed the gold fillings out of the corpses he transported to the funeral home.

  “Run the tag,” the sheriff said. “It’s Forrest County. Old man Eubanks said the car has been parked here since just after lunch. He didn’t see who was in it. He said when he went up to the high field to check his beans, the car wasn’t here. Coming back, it was in the road and nobody around it.”

  Frank walked back to the patrol car and pulled the radio up. He gave the tag number and car make and model to the dispatcher, who would call it in to Forrest County. It would take a little while, but if the tag on the car was valid, they’d know who owned it. It was only a hunch, but he figured this car somehow played into the disappearance of Marlena Bramlett and her daughter. Frank couldn’t say why he thought such a thing, but he’d learned to rely on his instincts. He was alive because he did.

  “Looks like some clothes hanging in the back.” Huey pointed to a suit and five laundered white shirts on hangers suspended from a metal pole in the back seat.

  “Yes, si
r.” Frank nodded. Huey was a master of the obvious. To Frank, the clothes told about the driver of the car. He was male, and he traveled for a living. The driver had a job where he needed to look pressed and clean. Probably a salesman of some sort.

  There was the sound of another car bumping over the washboard road. Frank recognized the big Lincoln. He wasn’t surprised that Lucas Bramlett had arrived; Huey reported every move he made to Lucas. Frank watched the subtle shift in the postures of the men around him. Huey stepped forward and waited for the car to stop and the tall man to get out from behind the wheel, red dust pooling around the legs of his black suit and his polished black wingtips.

  “We’re checking it, Mr. Bramlett,” Huey said.

  “Is my wife here?” Bramlett looked around, his hawklike gaze possessing everything it touched.

  “No, sir. Not so we can tell,” Huey said, his finger loosening his collar. “We’ll find her, Lucas. You’ve got my word on it.”

  “You think she’s somewhere around here?” Lucas asked, and Frank couldn’t tell if he had a better idea where his wife might be.

  “We’re just checking this here abandoned car. I’m sure Marlena’s just fine,” Huey said, his jowls going all jolly. “Probably got too far from home and maybe had car trouble or something. We’ll hear from her.”

  “The car is new,” Lucas said.

  Huey shut up. He looked at Frank. “Find some evidence,” he ordered.