Close to the Broken Hearted

by Michael Hiebert

  “Gonna be a helluva storm,” Sylvie said, her voice matching her face.

  “Sylvie?” Leah asked. “What happened? You told Chris someone’s been inside your house.”

  She nodded. “Someone has been. Come in.”

  Leah came in. She went to take off her shoes but Sylvie stopped her. “Don’t. I don’t care ’bout a little mud. This is too important. You have to see this while it’s still here.”

  What did she mean by that? While it’s still here? “Okay . . . ,” Leah said. She followed Sylvie into the kitchen where the shotgun still leaned against the door like it always did. Leah was just about to ask her what the hell she was supposed to be looking at, when she saw it: five 12-gauge shotgun shells lined up in a straight row along the top of the kitchen table.

  Leah’s eyes quickly went straight to Sylvie’s. “Where did they come from?”

  “They was in the shotgun.”

  “Who took ’em out?”

  “Whoever was in my house.”

  Sylvie’s eyes were still locked on Leah’s. If the girl had blinked, Leah missed it.

  “Okay, you need to tell me more. What the hell’s goin’ on?”

  “Me and the baby were out shoppin’. We just went down to Finnegan’s at Finley’s.”

  Finnegan’s at Finley’s was Finnegan’s Five and Dime. It was located at Finley’s Crossing about a half mile from where Sylvie lived, so it got the nickname Finnegan’s at Finley’s. “You walk down?” Leah asked.

  “Yeah, I ain’t got no car.”

  “You carry the baby?”

  “No, I brought the stroller.”

  “Didn’t know you had one.”

  “I got one. Salvation Army donated it. It ain’t the greatest, but it works well enough.”

  “Okay, so you walked to Finnegan’s. Then what? Wait, did you lock the door before you left?”

  Frustration flickered in Sylvie’s eyes. “Of course I locked the door ’fore I left. I always lock my door. And my windows. I checked every one an’ they was all locked. An’ when I got home, they was still all locked. Every door and every window.”

  Concern fell over Leah. “Okay, so you walked to Finnegan’s. Continue your story.”

  “I bought some milk and some juice and some eggs. Then we walked back.”

  A pocket of silence followed. “And then . . . ?” Leah asked.

  “And then I came home and found the shells sittin’ here just like this. I was careful not to touch nothin’. I called the police station right away.”

  “You sure you didn’t touch anything?”

  “I searched the goddamn house and made sure nobody was still here. That’s what I did as soon as I hung up. I’m not stayin’ in no house with my baby that might have some killer in it!”

  Leah held up her hand. “Good,” she said calmly. “That’s good. You did the right thing. Now I want you to think back. Are you absolutely sure you didn’t touch any of these shells or the gun or the table or nothin’?”

  “Yeah,” Sylvie said. “Of course I’m sure. Why? You think I did this and I’m lyin’ ’bout it?”

  “No, Sylvie. Not at all. I think we might be able to get prints off the shells.”

  “Oh.” Sylvie finally broke her stare and looked away. “As long as you don’t think I’m lyin’.”

  “Where is the baby?” Leah asked.

  “Still in the stroller. She’s in the bedroom. I checked the window. It’s locked with a stick in it. Nobody is comin’ in there. She was up all mornin’. Just fell asleep on the way home. She needs to nap.”

  “Go check on her.”

  “Why?” Sylvie asked, suddenly losing any trace of calmness from her face.

  “Just to make me happy.”

  While she was gone, Leah took the opportunity to look around the rest of the house, making sure that Sylvie was right, and if anyone had been inside they weren’t here any longer. She checked the pantry in the kitchen and the closet in the hall. Everything looked deserted. The rooms were all empty. The back door was locked.

  Sylvie came back a few minutes later. “She’s still sleepin’. You had me scared outta my wits.”

  “Sorry. Just my mother’s instinct kickin’ in. I have to go out to my car and radio Chris to come with the fingerprintin’ kit. You okay here by yourself a few minutes?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you think I am?”

  “I think you are. I just did a search of the premises. There ain’t nobody here no more.”

  “I know. I already told you, I checked.”

  Outside, the storm had grown. Fork lightning cracked open the sky above Leah’s head just as her foot hit the top step leading down the porch. It was followed quickly by the clap of thunder before she even made it to the car. Then the sky opened up and rain began washing down in one big wave. She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up tight, but it was already too late. She could feel how wet her hair was underneath.

  Inside her car, she radioed Chris back at the station and told him what she’d found at the scene.

  “Are you serious?” Chris asked. “Is there any chance Sylvie did this and just doesn’t remember?”

  “Chris, she’s never done things and not remembered before. I think we have to take this seriously. I want you to bring the printing kit. She says she hasn’t touched anything. We might be able to lift somethin’ from those shells.”

  “All right. Have you looked outside? It’s crazy.”

  “I’m out in it now.”

  “All hell’s breaking loose.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Back in the house, Leah did remove her shoes this time. They were completely covered in mud dredged up from all the rain splatter. Lightning spiked so brightly, Leah would catch it out of the corner of her eye, illuminating things in an iridescent glow. Thunder continued booming, at times so loud it felt like the house would shake apart.

  Sylvie’s hands trembled. She was pacing. Leah hoped this incident wasn’t going to set her back years of development. She wondered how fragile the girl really was. Sometimes she seemed as breakable as a ceramic doll.

  “You okay?” Leah asked her.

  Sylvie nodded, and then said quietly, “It’s just the storm. I’ve never liked lightning storms ever since what happened.”

  “I understand,” Leah said. She could imagine that each time that thunder boomed it echoed in Sylvie’s mind the way that gunshot had rung out in her kitchen right before supper that evening. Leah needed to take Sylvie’s mind off the storm. Luckily, she still had some questions that needed answering.

  “So, how did they get in?” Leah asked.

  “Who?”

  “Whoever emptied the shotgun.”

  “I’m assumin’ through the door.”

  “You said you locked it when you left.”

  “I always lock my doors. And my windows. But there were no windows busted when I got home, so I assume they somehow got in through a door.”

  “Was the door still locked when you came back?”

  “Yeah. I already told you that, too.”

  Leah thought about this. “Get your locks changed tomorrow. If you need some money, I can lend it to you.” But her thoughts continued lingering on who could get into a locked building. Picking locks seemed like the sort of skill you might learn after seventeen-odd years in prison.

  “How’s that gonna help if they didn’t need keys this time?”

  “I dunno,” Leah said honestly, “but it certainly won’t hurt.”

  “I don’t feel safe,” Sylvie said. Her eyes had widened. Leah could now see that fear had replaced most of the panic.

  Leah gave Sylvie a hug. “Listen. So far, it’s all been harassment. If they can get into the house, then they could’ve already hurt you if they wanted to, so obviously they don’t want to. Someone’s just out to scare you.”

  “Well, they’re doin’ a fine job o’ it.”

  Sylvie began to quietly sob into Leah’s shoulder
. Leah considered what she had just told her and wondered how true it was. The harassment (if it all had been harassment) was ramping up. Was she really not in any danger? Leah didn’t honestly know. “Is there . . . do you have anywhere you and the baby could go? A friend’s place, maybe? The home of a relative? Just until things simmer down a bit for you?”

  Panic rose in Sylvie’s eyes. “You really think I’m in danger.”

  “No, I’m just tryin’ to err on the side of caution, is all,” Leah lied.

  Sylvie scanned the floor. “I ain’t got no place to go. All my relatives are dead, and I ain’t got no friends.”

  Once again, Sylvie had managed to break Leah’s heart. It seemed to happen more often than not lately. And as much as Leah hated to admit it, her gut feeling was starting to shift. Things were beginning to feel more and more like Eli Brown might be behind something after all.

  Chris showed up at the door carrying the fingerprinting kit and looking like a drowned rat. His eyes were glued skyward when Sylvie opened the door. Thunder rattled the house as he came inside. Leah showed him the shells lined up on the kitchen table.

  “That’s so weird,” he said.

  “Wanna hear somethin’ weirder?” Leah asked. “No sign of forcible entry. No broken windows. Doors were locked when Miss Sylvie left and they was still locked when she returned.”

  He looked at her. “So the lock was picked?”

  “That’s what I’m thinkin’.”

  “Who would go to all the trouble of pickin’ her lock just to empty her shotgun and leave the shells all tidy like this on the table?”

  Leah let out a big sigh. “When we get back to the station I want you to get as much information on Preacher Eli Brown as you can. If that man so much as took an unscheduled crap in the woods while he was in prison, I want to know ’bout it.”

  Lightning lit up the backyard as, right behind it, another thunderous roar shook the world.

  “Shouldn’t we try to lift any prints before jumpin’ to conclusions like that?” Chris asked.

  “You’re right. Get the prints. But I have serious doubts anything’s gonna show up.”

  Turned out Officer Chris Jackson was able to lift a set of prints from the shells on Sylvie Carson’s table. Each shell had one and only one set of prints on it and the same ones were on each shell—and they all belonged to Miss Sylvie.

  “Figured as much,” Leah said. Her and Chris were back at the station. “Anyone knowin’ enough to get in and out of that house without showin’ any sign of physical entry ain’t ’bout to leave behind stupid evidence like fingerprints.”

  “Guess you were right,” Chris said. “I suppose it’s time for plan B?”

  “If plan B involves seeing how Eli Brown fits into all this, then you’re absolutely right in tune with my way of thinking,” Leah said.

  CHAPTER 21

  I had been checking the mail before my mother could get to it every single day since me and Dewey went to the records office on our own and the lady made the call to her friend for more information about my family’s history records. Mainly I was doing it on account of I didn’t know how my mother would react to me going there behind her back. Her temper could be a mite unpredictable at times.

  It wasn’t always easy getting to the mail first. There were days the mail lady practically drove up and handed the mail right to my mother because my mother happened to be outside in the driveway. In fact, on two occasions when that happened I just braced myself and prayed that those weren’t the days my information decided to arrive.

  I got lucky. They weren’t.

  When my records finally did come, they turned up on a day my mother was at work. This made everything really simple and allowed me lots of time. As soon as I saw it, I knew the big yellow envelope was for me. Stuffed in our mailbox, it didn’t even fit without the mail lady having to nearly bend it in half to get it in.

  Sure enough, when I pulled it out, there was my name right on the front: Abe Teal. And, in the top left corner, was the name and address of the historian lady: Miss Dixie Spinner with an address in Chickasaw, Alabama. Excited, I rushed inside, happy my mother would be at work at least another four hours. This gave me a ton of time to go through all the information without even having to be sneaky about it.

  I carefully opened the envelope using the silver letter opener my mother got as a gift from my uncle Henry one year for Christmas. She rarely used it, but I wanted to be sure not to rip any of the papers inside.

  I pulled out a bundle of pages. There were some loose sheets on top and then some stapled together. I looked at the top one. On a small card, paper-clipped to the corner, was a note:

  Dear Abe,

  I hope you find this information useful.

  It’s nice to know young people are taking

  an interest in their family histories.

  If there’s anything else I can do for you,

  please give me a call.

  Miss Dixie Spinner

  She even gave me her phone number. I couldn’t believe how nice some people could be. Historians seemed especially nice to me.

  Unclipping the card, I set it aside and started looking through the top sheets that were not stapled together. They had been put in separate. There were quite a few. At least a half a dozen.

  I got really excited then. I wondered what kind of information I was about to find out. Obviously, there was a lot more here than just the names and birthdays of my parents and my grandparents like they had at the records office downtown.

  The first page was more or less all about me. It said Vital Statistics at the top and listed things like my birthday and exactly where I was born and even had the time of my birth. I wondered if my mother even remembered that. I thought it was pretty neat that I now knew exactly when I was born right down to the minute.

  Farther on, it showed that I’d lived in Alvin in this same house all my life and it showed the address. I began to realize that if they showed this much information for everyone, there might not be any more people listed in this package other than my parents and grandparents on all these pages after all.

  Then it displayed my immediate family. Unlike the records office on Main Street, it had Carry (along with her birth date) included, and my mother and my pa. It not only showed my pa’s birthday, but also said Deceased after his name and had the date he died and a small explanation: Death due to motor vehicle accident.

  Then, at the bottom of the page, it said: Teal and Fowler references supplied under separate cover.

  I didn’t quite know what that meant, but I put down the first page and was surprised by the second. It was a listing of all the Teals, going back about one hundred and fifty years. And each one had extra information, like children and birthdays and how they died, and anything else pertinent. Right at the top of the list was me!

  Teal, Abe

  Born: March 26, 1976

  Sister: Caroline Josephine

  Mother: Leah Marie Fowler

  Teal, William Robert

  Born: May 7, 1955

  Sister: Addison May

  Mother: Sara Lynn Harris

  Deceased: July 3, 1978

  Death due to motor vehicle accident.

  Teal, Jeremiah

  Born: September 1, 1936

  Son: William Robert (Deceased)

  Mother: Rebekah Davis (Deceased. Heart failure)

  Teal, John Owen

  Born: February 24, 1912

  Son: Jeremiah

  Daughter: Francine (Deceased)

  Brother(s): Mark Lee (Deceased)

  Paul Adam (Deceased)

  Sister: Lily Jude (Deceased)

  Mother: Lily Anne Kendricks (Deceased)

  And so the list went on, going back to 1842. Everyone from John Owen Teal down was dead. Some had up to nine brothers and sisters, and some had none. I read them all, fascinated to find out I was related to so many people I had known nothing about.

  And this was just on my daddy’s side.
>
  I came to the last one, right at the bottom:

  Teal, Isaac Jacob Lee

  Born: June 12, 1842

  Son: Jacob Lee (Deceased)

  Brother: Joseph Matthew Isaiah (Deceased)

  Mother: Martha Christina Franklin (Deceased)

  Then it had two words beneath that, before several paragraphs of stuff. And those two words were:

 

  Historical Significance.

  It turns out I was related to somebody really important after all! My great-great-great-great-great-grandpa won a major Medal of Honor for freeing a bunch of slaves during the Civil War.

  I had to call Dewey and tell him.

  “What did he do?” Dewey asked after answering the phone. He only seemed half interested, which bothered the heck out of me.

  “He freed slaves, Dewey. There ain’t much that’s more important than that. Remember all that stuff my mom told us about racism? My great-great-great-great-great-grandpa fought against racism a hundred an’ fifty years ago.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Well, accordin’ to this paper in front of me he did lots. There’s so much information ’bout it that it runs onto the next page. You want me to read it to you?”

  “Can you just give me the general idea?”

  “Well, it happened up in Georgia, right after the Union navy took over some port.”

  “Which port?”

  “Doesn’t say, but some port close to Fort Pulaski.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A fort, Dewey. What do you think it is?”

  “What kind of fort?”

  “The kind you fight from. This was during the Civil War.”

  “Oh, you didn’t tell me that part.”

  “I reckoned you could figure that out for yourself. Anyway, I guess Fort Pulaski was an important target, but the Union hadn’t hit it yet; they’d only taken the port. That’s when my great-great-great-great-great-”—I was running out of breath sayin’ all them greats—“grandpa walked right up to the door of one of those old plantations. He was carryin’ nothin’ but a couple of pistols and, I suppose, he just let himself in.”