The Lillian Byrd Crime Series

by Elizabeth Sims

  “There was something about Genie then,” Coach Handy went on, “It was like a world opened up to her. She took to the game. The other kids didn’t have the patience for it, or if they did, they weren’t interested in playing for the school. This is the heartland, Theresa, you know.”

  “Football country.”

  “Right. Golf is sissy to boys, and girls would rather play team sports.”

  “Or lead cheers,” I put in.

  “Ufh! Yeah. It’s a short season here, too, of course. In the spring you get some pretty raw weather.”

  “But it didn’t bother Genie.”

  Coach Handy said, “No, she had gumption.”

  “I like that word.” She smiled in agreement. I asked, “What was Genie like before she picked up that club?”

  The coach took a big long breath, then let it out. She leaned forward and cupped her chin in her hand. For a while she gazed at the tabletop. I waited.

  She looked up. “May this be off the record?”

  I hesitated, pretended to consider, then put down my pencil. “Of course.”

  “I felt there were problems at home. I have to tell you, the teachers at the school—you know, when a girl is as—as marginal as Genie was—I say marginal—I—I mean, it was as if she was invisible. She wasn’t attractive; she wasn’t bright. I don’t mean she was actually stupid, I mean she didn’t appear bright. Never spoke up. She was shy in gym, and she was fat, big belly. Still, she could move.” She paused. “I got away from what I was trying to say. When a girl is like that, it’s usually the gym teacher who tries with her. The other teachers don’t even know she’s there.”

  “What kind of problems were there at home?”

  “Theresa, I don’t know for sure. She never talked about her home, her family, at all. To this day I’ve never met her parents. There were a couple of older kids, I heard, who lived someplace else—Minnesota? I wondered about—are we really off the record here?”

  “Yes. More than you know.”

  She looked at me. I shouldn’t have said that. Too cute.

  But she went on. “I wondered about incest. But—but that’s not the kind of thing you talk about. Is it?”

  I shrugged sympathetically.

  “Not the kind of thing you bring up,” Coach Handy asserted. “You sit and you wonder at night, you know. You ask yourself questions. Finally, I decided that if something’s buried, it ought probably to stay buried.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Is Genie’s dad dead?”

  “I don’t know. He’s as good as dead to Genie.”

  “What about friends? Did Genie have any?”

  “The way Genie’s life went was, nobody paid her any attention when she was a nobody, except, I suppose, to tease her. You know how young people can be—my God, they can be cruel.”

  “Yes, they can.”

  “And then, when Genie’s confidence went up, when she became fanatical about golf, she was practicing and working out four and five hours a day, then I think other girls and boys came around her, but by that point she didn’t need them. Didn’t want them.”

  “Sounds like she went from needy to entirely self-sufficient, all at once.”

  Coach Handy bit a cookie. “Well, she had me.”

  “You really took her under your wing.”

  “Yes.” She put the cookie on her saucer and lifted her eyes to the kitchen window and the tree limbs beyond it. “Aside from teaching her the game, I taught her about diet and nutrition. I taught her the kind of physical regimen a golfer needs for strength, I taught her about clothes, even, and her hair.” Coach Handy looked at me. “She was like a thirsty plant. She lost the extra weight, gained muscle, and became...beautiful.”

  She smiled a funny smile: one of those fake-modest smiles that indicate a deep, wide pride and the attempt to cover it up.

  I said, “I know you devoted a lot of time to Genie. She’s said you practically gave her the shirt off your back.”

  Marian Handistock said, with sudden tension, “I would have done anything for that girl.”

  Oddly, my heart began to pound. I was getting jealous. Pushing it down, I said, “It’s that way sometimes between mentor and student.”

  “She gave me her Open trophy.”

  Whoa, I thought. “I didn’t know that. So she was like a daughter to you. Do you have children of your own?”

  She just watched me from across the table. Suddenly, the whole situation felt very uncomfortable. The look in her eyes was like, I could take you any day, you fraudulent bitch. Everything was wrong. The little ceramic bluebirds seemed menacing. The dog stirred under the table.

  I realized that Marian Handistock and I were both deeply in love with Genie Maychild. I pressed to the end. “Did Genie have a boyfriend that you knew of?”

  “No.” That was the shortest answer she’d given.

  “Did you know a kid named Dominic Dengel?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Well, I’ll be catching up with Genie this weekend. She’s agreed to an interview on Sunday.”

  “I see.”

  When you ask somebody if they know a certain name, you can tell things. A person answering honestly will stop and think, say the name over, and at least run a brief scan of the old brain cells. But Coach Handy had that No ready for me.

  “Do you see Genie these days?”

  “Oh, yes. Not often, I mean, she doesn’t come back to Pearl Center very often.” She gave a frosty laugh. “But now that I’m retired I like to go to her tournaments.”

  “Do you give her advice?”

  “She has another coach now.”

  Man, it was getting cold in that kitchen.

  “How come you’re not at Mission Hills this week?” I asked.

  She stared at the tabletop for a minute. “I’ve learned that I have a heart condition. My doctor said I should avoid extremes of heat and cold. The desert, well.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, glancing at the snowshoes.

  She didn’t reply, and the interview was over.

  21

  Skip Doots was editing a pile of junk copy when I popped back in to talk to him. He looked at me with a little gleam; I didn’t know why.

  “Skip, my man, my time in Pearl Center runs short. I’ve got just one more question for you.”

  “I didn’t find any shots that show that pig-mask person,” he said.

  “Thank you for checking anyway. Skip, if a girl gets pregnant in Pearl Center, where does she go for an abortion?”

  “You know, they don’t know you over at Sports Illustrated.”

  “And I don’t know them, so we’re even. Look, man, we’re in the same business, you and I. I’m trying to help someone. You can take me at that or not. I wish I hadn’t lied to you.”

  “It’s all right.” He sat there thinking. “That wasn’t supposed to be a pig, right? That person?”

  “No.”

  “Somebody was trying to mess with her.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they’re still doing it?”

  “Yes.” I glanced at my watch.

  “These days, if you want an abortion, you go to the women’s clinic in East Horton. Next town over.”

  “How long’s it been there?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Only about, um, five years. In that event...she wouldn’t have gone to Dr. Carlsborg here. She would’ve gone to Dr. Fischell, the old G.P.”

  “Where’s he?”

  “East Horton, too.”

  “All right. You don’t happen to know a guy named Dominic Dengel, do you?”

  “Yeah, I know Dom Dengel. Why?”

  I waited for it to click.

  “Oh. Oh, man. Oh, man.” He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I serve as an escort at that clinic I just mentioned.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know Dom from there.”

  “You mean he works there? I’m looking for him.”
r />   “No, he—well, I guess he feels he works there, in a way. He’s a regular protester there.”

  “God! Really?”

  “Yeah, he’s—he’s, you know...”

  “Is he one of those quiet sincere ones,” I wanted to know, “or one of those loud nasty ones?”

  “He tends to the nasty. He’s likely to be there now, in fact.”

  “Yeah? You mean right now?”

  “Yeah, he likes the afternoon shift.” Skip picked up a pencil and rolled it between his palms. “The place was bombed last year.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “I’m certain he did. It was a screwed-up job. It didn’t destroy the place, but somewhere he’d learned how to make a bomb. The investigation didn’t really go anywhere, so he’s free.”

  “I see. You know, Skip, I wouldn’t have pegged you as a guy who’d run the gauntlet at an abortion clinic.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, you seem like such a straight arrow. You wear a religious symbol.”

  He fingered the small cross that hung inside the V of his shirt. “Well,” he said, “I’ve seen more than you might think. Things aren’t so simple as people want them to be.”

  “You said it, friend.” Skip Doots was about the swellest guy I’d ever met.

  “Would you like some help?”

  “Skip, you’re an absolute dreamboat, but I have to say no. I want to get friendly with Dom.”

  “I understand.”

  “How do I get to this clinic?”

  He told me. “So it’s just maybe five miles. And the doctor’s office, Dr. Fischell’s, is out farther, maybe three miles more, out from town. It’s all by itself next to the road. You can’t miss it.”

  “Is there a Salvation Army store in Pearl Center?”

  “Uh, Salvation Army? As a matter of fact there is. On Redbud Street, three blocks, I think, south of Center.”

  “That’s great. Thanks. I think I’ll be leaving town tonight.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “You kidding me?”

  “No.” Looking down, he pulled on his upper lip. “Theresa, I don’t see any ring on your finger.”

  My heart began ripping itself into shreds. Oh, hell. Hell, hell, hell. “Skip, oh. I wish we could go steady.”

  “Me too.”

  “But I gotta go.”

  He looked at me. “One of those things, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  _____

  When Truby and I were at Wayne State, we bought our housewares and clothes—except for underwear—at thrift stores, mostly Salvation Army and St. Vincent De Paul. We called them “Sally Ann’s” and “Paulette’s.” It was fun to shop at those places; you were always surprised. Truby became a connoisseur of bowling shirts and cocktail dresses; I once found a pure-wool bathrobe for a dollar. Someday I’ll tell you about my flamingo mirror.

  The Sally Ann’s in Pearl Center was just the place for what I needed. It had that up-from-the-basement smell they all have. I zeroed in quickly and picked out a navy blue polyester twill skirt and a long-sleeved blouse in mauve polyester with a pattern of dark red and gold tulips on it. I added a thick acrylic cardigan in a sort of avocado shade, and found a pair of beige service oxfords that fit.

  At the last second I ran back and grabbed a head scarf, a Vera design involving fish shapes in varying shades of turquoise. I cashed out for just under ten dollars.

  Color me gorgeous, no?

  I found the abortion clinic easily, and parked around the corner. Two sentinels, a man and a woman, were on duty, sitting in lawn chairs on the sidewalk across the street from the clinic. The man was talking; both of them had a glazed look, as if they’d been sitting there forever and had no plans for later. He droned on. Whatever he was saying, she’d probably heard it a thousand times.

  I used my First Communion glide to approach the protesters. “Peace be with you,” I said, interrupting.

  “You too,” said Dominic Dengel, whom I recognized from the yearbook. He looked exactly the same, as raw and young and uncomprehending, but with a certain rigidity. Yes, it was that frustrated-guy anger, that hardness you see in guys whose lives have turned out drearily different from what they had expected.

  The woman said nothing. She was a farm-wife type with an impressive fluffy hairdo like a cluster of fine gold wire. She had on a white zip-up jacket with black and brown insets at the shoulders, which made her look like a linebacker. Her face was a linebacker’s face, too.

  Dom Dengel slowly got up from his chair. It was a cold day but he only wore a ratty sweatshirt and jeans. The gray sky above us was equally ratty.

  The two of them looked at me with somnolent curiosity.

  I peered across the street at the clinic: a grim little office with fake-rock siding and a caduceus decal on the glass door. PRAIRIE WOMEN’S HEALTH AND FAMILY PLANNING, said the sign. Little abortion center on the prairie.

  “That’s where they do it, is it?” I said.

  “Yep, that’s the place,” said Dengel. “The only one left in the county.” He smiled thinly and offered his hand. “I’m Dom.”

  “Sister Mary Theresa. How do you do, Dom?” I turned to the woman. “And how do you do? I’m Sister Mary Theresa.”

  “Hi,” she responded, still linebacker-faced. She held a dog-eared placard of a bloody fetus in her lap.

  “What a lovely jacket,” I said.

  That got a little smile from her. “Oh! Thank you! I got it in Dayton when I went to visit my—”

  “Are you a nun, then?” said Dengel.

  “Yes, with the Little Sisters of the Catechism. Our mother house is in Green Bay.”

  “Oh!”

  I saw comprehension in the faces of Dom and his companion, a shadow of understanding: Yes, this is how plainclothes nuns look. Yes, this is a nun.

  “I’m traveling around, to write a book of true stories. True stories about heroic Christians like you.”

  The woman, whose name I decided had to be something like Sherri, just stared into space; Dengel, though, looked uncomfortable.

  “Well, Sister,” he said, “that’s nice, but I’m not really religious.”

  I smiled in wonder and awe. “Why, how could you say that, Dom, when you’re doing the Lord’s work?”

  A car pulled into the parking lot across the street and a scrawny girl of about sixteen got out from the passenger side. Instantly, Dengel and Sherri moved to the edge of the curb and began shouting, “Murder! Bloody murder! Shame! Shame!” Sherri waved her placard.

  The girl walked stiffly to the door, eyes down. Whoever had driven her was staying in the car.

  Dengel and Sherri, still yelling, glanced my way.

  Oh, right. “Jesus loves you!” I called out. “He really does!”

  As the girl yanked open the clinic door she shrieked over her shoulder, “Fuck you! I’m just getting a Pap test!”

  Dengel turned away as she disappeared inside. “That’s what they all say.”

  “I gotta go pick up Tyler,” Sherri said.

  I said, “We took in one of those girls once at the convent.”

  “Disaster, right?” said Dengel.

  “Bless us, we didn’t realize how—well, how ‘street’ she was.”

  “Anything that wasn’t nailed down, right?” Dengel shook his head wisely. “Those situations always turn out wrong. Never take one in. Never take one in.”

  “I am so fed up,” I said. “I just get so fed up, you know?”

  “Wait a second.” Dengel went over to a derelict Chrysler Imperial parked nearby and got another folding chair out of the trunk. He carried it over for me.

  “Thank you so much, Dom.”

  “See, Sister,” he said, sitting carefully down, “I’m pretty much of an atheist. I’m just against the murder of little kids.”

  “I see. Well, then, we actually have a great deal in common, you and me.” I smiled sadly. “Do you mind if I ask how you came to be atheist?”

&nb
sp; He looked down silently.

  “Dom, you know—” I stopped when he looked up at me, his eyes searching mine. A car went by and honked, and without looking over he raised his hand in acknowledgment.

  “Bad things happened to me,” he finally said, “that destroyed what little faith I ever had.”

  “I’m very sorry, Dom. Sometimes I wonder...”

  “What?”

  “If there’s a place in this world after all for people like you and me. What I mean is, oh”—I pressed my fingers to my temples—”I just don’t feel like I fit in.”

  “Over at the convent?”

  “Most times, I agree, you know, the church says we should be loving all the time, turn the other cheek, but sometimes I get so mad—”

  “Yeah?”

  He was suspicious of me, I felt it, but his drive to tell his story to a virgin audience would win out over his reservations about a stranger. I don’t know how it came to me, but I have a knack for getting people to tell me things. I’ve never fully understood it, but there it is.

  I said, “I get so mad that I want to do things.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thoughts come into my head, and I get so darned angry...”

  He watched me closely, breathless.

  I closed my eyes. Softly, I said, “I want to kill these people. I want them to beg for their lives, and then I want them to die screaming, and I want them to descend into hell. I know it’s wrong, but sometimes it seems...so right. So very right. I don’t suppose you can relate to that.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Sometimes I feel my faith slipping. That’s why I’m writing this book.”

  “Mm-hmm. Yeah! I’ve heard of these rogue nuns. So you’re a rogue nun, huh?”

  “I learned that a brave soul bombed this clinic once.” I smiled a little tiny smile, a halfway kind of smile from beneath my eyelashes.

  “Well,” said Dengel, “see where that siding looks different around that window?”

  “Yes, yes, I do.”

  “Well, that’s where the bomb went in and then blew it out, that place there. They patched it. You can still see a little soot up high, see, by the rain gutter?”