Penumbra

by Carolyn Haines

  The front door of the shop was open for ventilation, and Jade was busy with her call list when Mrs. McBane walked in. She strode to the counter where Jade sat.

  “You missed five appointments this morning.” She set her black patent leather handbag with the gold clasp on the counter with force.

  “Yes, ma’am, I know.” Jade put the pencil down. She reached for the telephone. “If you’ll have a seat, I need to call one more person.”

  “It’s ten-thirty.”

  Jade looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s ten-twenty-three. I just need to make this call.”

  Mrs. McBane didn’t move. “What’s Marlena Bramlett to you, anyway?”

  Jade knew perfectly well that Betsy McBane knew they were half-sisters. She wasn’t asking about a blood relationship; she was asking about something else, something that involved Jade’s right to care what happened to Marlena and her daughter.

  “I’m fond of Suzanna,” Jade said. “I may be the only person who is.”

  “She’s a brat. I’ll bet if someone did take her, they’ll pay Lucas good money to take her back.”

  Jade felt an unfamiliar flash of anger. She was so used to her clients that she seldom took anything they said to heart. She picked up the phone and began to dial.

  She completed the call with Betsy McBane standing over her. She put the phone down and stood up. “What would you like today, Mrs. McBane?” she asked, pointedly looking at the clock, which showed ten-thirty.

  Betsy took a seat in the beauty chair, Jade standing behind her. “Something special. I want to look good in case there’s a funeral.” Her smile was tight as she looked into the mirror and into Jade’s eyes. “If that little girl is dead, do you think you’ll work on her at the funeral home? I hear you did a fine job on Horace Bradshaw.” Her gaze in the mirror was eager.

  The idea of Suzanna, dead, made Jade step back.

  “I’m sorry, Jade. That was thoughtless of me.” Betsy held Jade’s gaze.

  “What makes you think Suzanna is dead?” Jade asked, not bothering to wonder if it was thoughtlessness or the opposite.

  “I happened by the hospital this morning. You know, Marlena is just the darling of the town, and I wanted to see how she was doing. Your father was waiting outside at the car, and he told me Lucille was terrified her granddaughter was dead. He looked right sick himself.”

  “Did you see Marlena?” Jade wondered if she’d come around and begun to talk. After the incident where Marlena had called her daughter’s name and tossed on the bed, the nurse had administered more morphine. Marlena hadn’t said anything helpful. At least not while Jade was there.

  “No. Those fool doctors won’t allow anyone but family members.” She watched the mirror as Jade picked up lank strands of brown hair and held them out. “Do you have an idea for a new style?”

  “What about something Olivia de Haviland-ish?” Jade asked.

  Disappointment crossed Betsy’s face. “Isn’t she sort of a secondary character?”

  Jade kept her face serious. “She was the one who got Ashley Wilkes, after all.”

  Betsy brightened. “That’s right.”

  Jade set to work. Once she started concentrating, she could shut out the sound of Betsy’s voice. All she had to do was nod and make an occasional sound of agreement. Betsy did the rest. In a few moments, Betsy would be under the dryer.

  “Huey’s gone up to Quincy to get some tracking dogs,” Betsy said. “He’s probably in the woods right now with them.”

  That caught Jade’s attention. So they were looking for Suzanna. “Uh-hum,” she said, hoping to encourage Betsy more.

  “Huey said those dogs can pick up a trail that’s three days old and follow it through water.”

  “Uh-hum.” She started cutting.

  “They didn’t call the FBI in yet. They said they have to be able to prove that Suzanna was carried across a state line for it to be a federal matter.”

  “How will they know whether she’s across a state line or not?” Jade asked.

  Betsy shrugged. “I personally think Huey wants all the credit. Frank Kimble was out at the crack of dawn. Heck, it’s a good thing Frank’s on the case. Huey couldn’t find his way out of a paper sack.”

  Jade realized that Betsy was staring into the mirror, watching her expression. “Frank’s a good detective,” she said.

  “Yes, he is. And a handsome man,” Betsy prompted. When Jade didn’t respond, she continued. “You sat with Marlena all night. What all happened to her? I’ve heard the most terrible things. That she’ll never be able to have a baby again. Is it true?”

  Jade cut faster, knowing that her only salvation would be the dryer.

  The two hounds lunged on their leather leashes, pulling Nathan Ryan forward a step at a time. He held them, the corded muscles in his arms showing the strain as he waited on Huey to give the word to turn the dogs loose on Marlena’s trail in the hopes that it would lead to Suzanna. Frank knew the trail was empty. He’d backtracked it from the point where he’d recovered Marlena, up the river, and finally to the place where he’d found the Cadillac. Now he waited for Huey to make a decision. The sheriff had shown up with Ryan, the dogs, and five volunteers, among them Junior Clements and Pet Wilkinson. Several of the volunteers stood smoking under one of the oaks.

  If they found Suzanna Bramlett, Huey would have money to run his campaign for sheriff for the rest of his life. Frank could almost see the dollar signs in Huey’s eyes as he pointed down the trail and talked to Ryan.

  “The dogs’ll be trailin Marlena,” Huey repeated what Frank had told him. He waved Frank over. “The little girl could be anywhere in these woods. What we’re hoping is that Marlena’s trail will bring us to Suzanna. Should we show the blouse to the dogs?”

  Lucas had dropped one of Marlena’s blouses by the sheriff’s office, an unnecessary gesture because the dogs would strike a trail where they found it. But it was also a telling gesture, and one that made Frank consider what Lucas Bramlett truly hoped the outcome of the search would be.

  The blouse was navy blue with a sailor collar and white tie, expensive. Marlena had worn it at the Fourth of July picnic. Now it was lying on the front seat of the patrol car. The vague scent of a light perfume still clung to the cotton fabric and filled the car with a whisper of Marlena.

  “The dogs don’t need the blouse,” Frank said. Twenty yards away, the two bloodhounds were desperate to follow the scent. They lunged and bayed, acting as if the quarry they sought was in immediate danger.

  “Frank?” Huey said.

  Frank nodded. “Let them go.”

  Ryan allowed the dogs to drag him forward at a fast jog, their noses to the ground and tails pointed out behind them. Huey and the volunteers took off in pursuit. The sheriff looked over his shoulder. “Frank, are you coming?”

  “There’s something here I want to look at,” Frank said. He nodded reassuringly. “I’ll be along directly.” Frank did not mention the chips, not in front of Junior and Pet and the other volunteers. He would tell the sheriff later, when they were alone. Aside from the chips, Frank had found something else, a different trail, one that led to the south. This was a trail Frank wanted to follow on his own.

  The array of chips wasn’t proof, but they had led his thoughts to a certain conclusion. The second trail belonged, he believed, to the third member of Marlena’s picnic and the owner of the Chevy that had been towed to a Drexel garage. John Hubbard. If his assumptions were correct, Frank had to try and understand why Hubbard had run in a different direction than Marlena.

  In his methodical investigation, Frank had found some interesting facts about the Big Sun salesman. He’d been arrested once in Hattiesburg for drunk and disorderly involving a bar fight. He’d pled guilty and paid a fine. He lived at 2121 Kenner Street off West Fourth in a modest shingle house with a one-car garage. Lieutenant Lloyd Hafner of the Hattiesburg P.D. had been very helpful. The Hattiesburg officer had done a little digging and found out that H
ubbard was a single man who lived alone. He drove a two-tone green Chevy. His neighbors said he was quiet and gone a lot. He spent a lot of time polishing his car, and for a single man he led a solitary life. He hadn’t been home for the past few days.

  John Hubbard was missing in action with Big Sun. Frank had spoken to an irritable man whom he visualized pulling a beard as he talked. The Big Sun manager had told Frank that Johnny, as he called him, had covered a route for another salesman during the first of the week, and that he’d taken up his regular route to New Augusta, Beaumont, McLain, Lucedale, State Line, Leakesville, and Drexel. John Hubbard should have reported in Thursday afternoon. He had not.

  Frank moved slowly, carefully along the trail. Whoever had gone this way had been in a hurry. Leaves were stripped from limbs and there were places where a shoe heel had dug deep into the soft ground. He carne upon a footprint and knew he had the best evidence of the case so far. What troubled him was that he couldn’t even form a supposition as to why John Hubbard, if this was indeed his trail, had run in a different direction from Marlena. Why hadn’t he gone to help her? And why had Suzanna left no trail?

  Frank considered the possibility that he was following the trail of Suzanna’s abductor, and that he had carried the child in his arms, but Frank didn’t think so. This way led to the river and the swamps. Someone carrying a child would have gone to the road to be picked up in a vehicle. That assumption was based on an abductor who wanted to keep Suzanna alive. If John Hubbard had killed the child, or if she’d been taken by some deviant, some sick pervert who had other plans for the child… . He stopped that thought before it could go further. There was sickness in the world, that much he knew. He’d come from a family of it, and he’d seen it across the United States and Europe, most especially in the POW camp in Germany where he’d been held. There, he’d come to accept that human beings were capable of inflicting terrible pain for the pleasure of it. That knowledge darkened his hopes for Suzanna. And for Marlena, too. She would pay with guilt and grief for whatever happened to her child.

  The trail he was following came to a swamp where yellow flies swarmed him in a cloud. The footprints he’d been following disappeared in a mud slick covered with a half-inch layer of rancid water. Frank hesitated. He did not believe the man who went this way could have carried the weight of a child, and pursuing the fleeing man through the swamp would take all the resources of the Jebediah County sheriff’s department and a host of volunteers. As interesting as it would be to find Hubbard and question him, Frank knew that finding Suzanna was his primary goal. Punishment could come after Suzanna was found.

  8

  The hospital room was small and smelled vaguely of pine cleaner and Clorox. Dotty felt a headache begin at her temples. In another half hour it would be pounding, and there was nothing she could do about it. Walking out of the hospital and into the fresh air was the only thing that would help, and she couldn’t do that. She’d promised Lucas she would sit with Marlena and listen, on the chance that Marlena might say something that would help the searchers find Suzanna.

  The little girl was dead, and that’s all there was to it. Dotty knew that. If a ransom request were coming, it would have arrived by now. And what was Marlena doing out in the middle of the woods with Suzanna anyway? Marlena wasn’t some tomboy. She’d never hunted or fished, to Dotty’s knowledge, and Dotty pretty much knew everything there was to know about Marlena. What Marlena was was a spoiled rich woman who didn’t know which side her bread was buttered on. Dotty had told her that again and again. Told it to her face, not behind her back. She’d done everything she could to help Marlena see how lucky she was.

  Dotty shifted in the wooden chair and felt the soreness in her bottom. Lucas had put it to her with force and a hint of savagery that she’d found more than exciting. He’d taken her from behind the first time, right there on the dining room table. He’d leaned his weight down on top of her, pinning her to the cool wood. When he’d entered her, he’d been brutal and punishing, acting like he wouldn’t be satisfied until she begged for mercy. He had no restraint. Her hand went automatically to her right shoulder, and she pressed until the pain made her gasp. He’d bitten her so hard she had a bruise in the shape of his teeth. What would Betsy McBane and Sharon Bosworth think about that? She giggled softly to herself as she thought of their scandalized reactions. Of course, that only hid the fact that they really wanted rough sex themselves. Whenever anyone talked about sex in front of Betsy and Sharon, they pruned up and acted horrified, but Dotty could see how much they wanted it. And feared it. What would they reveal about their secret selves if they dropped the shackles of propriety? They were terrified of that answer.

  Marlena’s head shifted on the pillow, and Dotty stood up, causing a delicious little pull throughout her pelvic region.

  “Suzanna,” Marlena mumbled.

  Dotty listened with a tingle of horror. The bones around one of Marlena’s eyes had been damaged, and the doctors had done something to her mouth to stabilize that side of her face. “What happened to Suzanna?” she asked, leaning forward and putting her hand on the sick woman’s forehead. “Tell me.” Marlena was hot, burning to the touch. The doctor said infection was a probability. There had been dirt in her internal wounds.

  “Two men,” Marlena said, tears leaking out of her swollen-shut right eye. “Took her.”

  Dotty’s hand slipped beneath the pillow and found the nurse call and pressed it six times as hard as she could. Someone else had to hear this. Something Marlena said might lead to Suzanna’s recovery, and Dotty wanted to be sure she got it straight. She didn’t want Lucas to waste time grieving for his lost daughter, though he hadn’t seemed overly upset this morning.

  “Tell me,” Dotty said, picking up Marlena’s hand and holding it. “What did the men look like?”

  “Hoods.” Marlena’s first tears plopped on the starched pillow. Soon, there was a wet spot so large the tears no longer made a sound but were silently absorbed. “Help her.” Marlena pulled her hand free and made an effort to push herself into a sitting position.

  “Easy,” Dotty said, trying to help her. “Be easy, Marlena, you’ve got stitches everywhere.”

  Marlena frowned, finally focusing her one eye that would open on her friend. She slowly turned her head. “Where am I?”

  “At the Drexel Hospital. You’ve been hurt real bad.” Dotty felt the tears spring into her own eyes. Marlena would never have a child again. There would be no replacing Suzanna if she was gone.

  “Suzanna?” Marlena made fluttering motions with her hands on top of the white sheets.

  Dotty’s gaze was captured by the hands, the perfectly manicured nails and the huge diamond ring. The attackers hadn’t taken the ring! Dotty forced her gaze up to meet Marlena’s. “They’ve got tracking dogs in the woods now. They’ll find her.” There was no conviction in the last sentence. “Marlena, do you know who took her?”

  Before Marlena could answer, the nurse appeared in the door, a frown crossing her face when she saw Marlena half-sitting.

  “Lie back down. You’ll pull your stitches.”

  “My baby.” Marlena’s hands made bigger loops against the sheets, like something trying to escape. “Find her.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You aren’t fit to walk across this room. Now settle back down and try to heal. That’s the best thing you can do for your child and your husband.”

  Marlena blanched. “Lucas?”

  “He’s gone to help hunt,” Dotty lied, patting Marlena’s shoulder. “Calm down. I’ll try and get word to the searchers. You said there were two men? What did they look like?”

  “One big. One slender.” Marlena’s face crumpled. “Mean.” Her voice broke, and her face took on a look of terror. “He—” She hiccupped. “He hurt me.” She turned her face away. “Don’t tell Lucas.”

  Dotty’s tears were real. She lifted a shoulder to wipe her eye and felt again the pain of the bite. It would be a long time before Mar
lena could give Lucas the kind of loving he needed. It was a good thing that Dotty was around, available for Lucas to slake his lust on. A man had needs, and when a wife couldn’t fulfill them, a marriage sometimes fell apart. That couldn’t happen. No man would have Marlena after what had been done to her. Besides, Dotty knew that Lucas would never marry her. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man like him married. But he could help her financially. And he would. He had plenty. She would be rewarded for being a good friend to Marlena in her time of trouble.

  The Buick stopped beside the Cadillac, and Jonah Dupree got out. Frank watched as the light-skinned black man came toward him, his eyes direct and unflinching. “Miss Marlena’s come around,” he said. “They want the sheriff up at the hospital to see what she knows. From what Miss Strickland could tell, Marlena says there were two men who hurt her. They wore hoods.”

  Frank observed things about people, and what he saw in Jonah Dupree made him stop and consider. Jonah wasn’t simply delivering a message. He was emotional. That made a number of questions pop into Frank’s head. Frank knew that Jonah worked for Lucille Longier, and Lucille was Marlena’s mother. Jonah had known Marlena as a little girl. He’d been on the fringes of her life since the day she was born. Jonah had raised Marlena’s half-sister as his own child, and it was obvious he cared deeply for the brutalized woman and her missing child.

  “Sheriff Huey is following a trail,” Frank said. “I’ll go to the hospital and talk to Marlena.”

  Jonah nodded. “That would be for the best.”

  Frank didn’t press him on that statement. Even the black folks knew that Huey wasn’t a very good lawman. His forte was politics, shaking hands and kissing babies, and making the womenfolk feel safe when their husbands were out of town. Huey had a regular little route that he drove every evening, stopping by for a cup of coffee and a slice of apple pie or blackberry cobbler. He’d check the windows and doors for the widow women and those whose husbands were out of town on business. If it was necessary, he’d feed the cows and horses, slop the hogs, whatever it took. In many ways, Huey was a kind man, if not bright. Frank enjoyed working for him, because Huey most often left him alone to solve the pubic drunks, disorderly conducts, burglaries, and infrequent stabbings that were the crimes of Jebediah County. Huey was involved only so much as to appear involved in the actual investigations.