“Laney?” Glennifer said.
“Glenny, think about it. Nicholas did not run from the dog. The owner did not call off the dog. Nicholas is standing here. What do you think happened to the dog?”
“Oh, my,” Glennifer said. But it wasn’t with the same tone she’d playfully used when I was unbuttoning my shirt.
“I think I could be frightened of you,” Elaine said to me. Quietly.
“You shouldn’t be,” I said.
“Once, when Glennifer and I were much younger, we witnessed Lorimar Barrett at a beach party.” Elaine spoke as if I hadn’t answered her. “Another young man had crossed him—I can’t recall the reason, nor does it matter to this story—and Lorimar knocked this man down with three blows to the face. When the man was down in the sand, Lorimar kicked him brutally again and again and again. Two others had to tackle Lorimar to stop the beating. Charges should have been laid. Your uncle should have spent time in prison. But the chief of police who arrived after the ambulance had departed was Edgar Layton. The Barretts had other connections, of course. Still, I believe it was Edgar Layton who helped Lorimar the most. It didn’t surprise me when in the years that followed, I heard they did business together.”
She paused. “Though he’s dead, I’ve never forgotten Lorimar’s ruthlessness.”
**
The September after my mother ran from Charleston,
I bicycled to the police station after school.
I was short. I could hardly look over the counter to ask my question. I pulled myself up, my knees rubbing against the varnished wood of the counter.
“I want to speak to the chief of police,” I said to the police officer on the other side, sitting behind a typewriter.
I couldn’t remember the chief of police’s name. I remembered he had asked me questions about my mother.
I remembered his large, ugly head. I remembered the menace in his eyes.
I was terrified of my memories of the chief of police, terrified at the thought of seeing him again.
I was more terrified my mother might never return.
No one in the Barrett mansion wanted to discuss my mother.
So I was here.
The officer came around the counter and squatted down slightly so that I could look him in the eyes. Middle-aged, he had a lightly freckled face that gave him a young, trustworthy appearance.
“What is it, son?” This police officer didn’t sneer at me as he spoke. Not like the chief of police had. Instead, this police officer smiled. “Broken window? Lost dog?”
“I want to know about my mother. She’s lost. I want to know why no one can find her.”
His smile flickered. His eyes shifted, as if he suddenly recognized me. “Sheriff Layton isn’t here, son. I’m sorry.” The police officer straightened.
“I need to speak to the chief of police,” I said. “I’ll wait.”
I sat on a bench at the side of the office and waited.
I listened to methodical clacking of a typewriter, to static hissing of a police radio.
Chief Layton didn’t arrive. But my uncle Lorimar Barrett did.
He stormed in, hurling the door shut behind him. He wore a dark suit. The jacket was unbuttoned, giving me a glimpse of the familiar suspenders. He grabbed me by the arm and shook me. “What are you doing here?”
“I want to know about my mother.”
He shook me harder. “You do not, I repeat, you do not embarrass me like this again. The Barrett family has suffered enough humiliation because of her.”
“I want to know about my mother.”
He slapped me. The only reason I did not yelp was because shock sucked all the breath from me. He slapped me again. “You impudent little illegitimate stray. You—”
“Mr. Barrett,” the police officer said. He’d stepped away from his typewriter and stood beside us. “He’s only a boy.”
Lorimar spun on the man and shoved him against the counter. “You stay out of this. Remember who owns you.”
The officer blinked several times. Stayed silent.
Lorimar spun on me. Slapped me again. “Am I understood?”
“I want to know about my mother.”
“Shut your mouth.” Again, he slapped me. Harder yet.
I felt my lip split.
“I want to know about my mother.” All my frustrations and fear and guilt were summed up in those few words.
His next blow drove me to my knees.
“I want to know about my mother.” I pushed my tears inside. I would not cry in front of these men. “I want to know about my mother.”
Another blow. Now I was on my hands and knees, staring at the dull wax of the yellowed floor.
“I want to know about my mother.” From my mouth and nose, blood and saliva dribbled onto the floor. I could hardly form the words. It felt like something inside me was breaking. “I want to know about my mother.”
“Shut up.”
A boot in my ribs. Another.
“I want to know about my mother. I want to know about my mother.”
“Shut up. Shut your mouth before I kill you.”
I waited to be struck again. Instead, I heard another man speak. “Enough, Lorimar. You’ve made your point. I called you here to take him away, not to kill him.”
Chief Edgar Layton. Had the police officer lied to me? Had he been here the entire time?
Layton’s massive hand grabbed the back of my shirt collar. He yanked me to my feet. “Stupid boy,” he said. “Don’t come here again.”
Layton barked an order at the officer now behind the counter. “Lou, get a towel and give it to this boy. And, Lou, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Won’t you?”
Layton spoke to Lorimar. “Take this boy home. Make sure he does not come back.”
Lou, the police officer who returned with a towel, had been kind enough to soak it in cold water first. I pressed it against my face and stumbled along as Lorimar Barrett shoved me step-by-step toward his car.
Lorimar left the bicycle behind at the police station. It was never returned to me. It was one of the last objects in my possession that had been given to me by my mother. Nor was I given another bicycle by the Barretts, although Pendleton received a new one each birthday.
Lorimar Barrett did not speak to me as he drove me home. Behind the cold wet towel pressed to my face, I was resolute. I would show no pain again. Not to him. Not to the world. Not about my mother. I muffled my sobs with the cold wet towel.
The bruises and cuts on my face were ignored by the rest of the household over the next two weeks, dinner conversation flowing around me as it always did.
When the bruises and cuts were finally gone, when my face showed no signs of the beating, I was permitted to go back to school. The other injury, my cracked ribs that stabbed me with each breath for another month, was invisible to the teachers, who expressed sympathy that such a bad flu at such an unseasonable time of year had kept me home for so long.
I didn’t ask about my mother again.
**
“Someone really tried to kill you?” Glennifer asked, her tea virtually untouched. “It was deliberate, this dog set upon you?”
“It was deliberate.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Obviously, someone is desperate to keep you silent,” Glennifer said. “Will you quit asking questions because
of it?”
Not this time, I thought.
“He won’t,” Elaine answered for me. “Not this man, Glenny. He’s not the innocent little boy who once came in here with his mother anymore.” She faced me squarely. “You don’t care that someone might get hurt as you try to uncover something so long buried?”
“I’ve already been hurt,” I said. “I’m not afraid.”
“I didn’t mean you,” she said. “I meant others.”
Chapter 22
Just before noon, I returned to the bed-and-breakfast.
What I had discovered i
n the cool quiet of the church profoundly changed what
I understood about my mother and added heavily to the burden of guilt I had carried since the day she stepped out of my life.
I was on the porch of the bed-and-breakfast, waiting for Amelia to meet me as we’d agreed upon the day before, lost in those sad, dark thoughts, when Claire’s daughter, Michelle, walked up the brick path from the sidewalk. I watched her approach, thinking that she, too, was lost in sad, dark thoughts.
I gave her a small smile that I’m sure reflected the sad emptiness inside me.
Michelle was in retro fashion—platform shoes, bell-bottom jeans, and a tie-dyed T-shirt—and it made her look like a little woman. Once again, I was struck at how little childishness she allowed the world to see.
“Helen said I could find you here,” Michelle said. “I need to talk to you.”
Such directness was disconcerting for someone so young. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I call in sick whenever I want. Mother signs whatever note I ask her to write.”
“Oh.”
“I need to talk to you,” she reminded me with no sign of impatience.
“I’ll listen.” I looked out through the tress of the park toward the harbor. It seemed everybody I saw strolling past were couples, holding hands.
Michelle sat on a nearby bench. She handed me a photo that she pulled from her back pocket. “I knew I had seen you before. This was in Helen’s photo album.”
Claire, with me, on the beach. During our honeymoon. We’d asked an old man in swimming trunks to take the photo. I handed it back to Michelle.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Really, who are you?”
I turned my eyes back on her and finally saw signs of the ten-year-old in her. She was hunched forward with worry lines on her crinkled forehead.
“Ask your mother,” I said, not unkindly. “If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”
“She won’t. That’s why I’m here.”
“I wouldn’t feel good about breaking her trust, then.”
“And you’ll feel good about getting her beaten?”
My turn to lurch forward in surprise.
“Pendleton showed up at the carriage house sometime this morning. I was in the bathroom, getting ready to go out. He didn’t know I was in the house. He began shouting at Mother, demanding to know what you had told her.”
I held up a hand, stopping her quick bursts of words. “He knew I’d visited?”
Michelle took a deep breath. “From me. Last night. After you left. He called to see how I was doing and I asked if he knew someone named Nick. I told him about your visit. I didn’t know he’d go ballistic on Mother.”
She hugged herself and shivered. “He slapped her in the face. Two or three times. I heard it from the bathroom. That’s when I came out. He didn’t apologize. Not to me. Not to her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Very sorry.”
“Your fault my father hits my mother?”
“I’m sorry I put you and your mother into the situation. I’ll call Pendleton and—”
“No!”
I waited, surprised at her alarm.
“He must hate you real bad. If you call Pendleton, he’ll know I told you. Or maybe that Mother told you. And you haven’t seen him when he really loses his temper.”
“I’m not sure I can make that promise,” I said.
She stared at my face. “You’re ready to kill Pendleton, aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Will you tell me about you and Mother?”
I shook my head.
“Will you tell me about the police report?”
I frowned.
“Pendleton shouted over and over again, demanding that Mother tell him what she knew about the police report. She didn’t answer. That’s when he began to slap her. He must be really worried about it.”
“Walk with me,” I said. “I need to talk to Claire.”
Chapter 23
There was an awkward moment as Michelle and I approached the carriage house.
Helen stepped completely out of the doorway. She immediately averted her face from me and walked past both of us as if we didn’t exist.
It didn’t bother me. At least now, unlike during my childhood years, I had given her good reason to be cold and angry with me.
**
Michelle had been correct when she’d warned me during our walk that Claire would be drunk. Not yet noon.
“Oh, you,” Claire said, wearily, when Michelle escorted me into the carriage house. “I imagine I should be grateful—” she stopped to collect her thoughts more fully—“for this diversion. Helen wanted a serious talk with me until she saw you stepping into the garden.”
“Thank you, Michelle,” I said.
“I want to stay,” Michelle answered.
I shook my head. Reluctantly, Michelle stepped back outside.
I sat on the sofa and spoke to Claire in a low voice. I wanted to reach out and gently touch the fresh bruise on her face.
“Why are you protecting him?” I asked. “Do you want to be mayor that badly?”
“Shut up.” She poured a glass of wine from the bottle on the table in front of her, emptying it. “Go away.”
“So you don’t deny you are protecting him.”
“Your hearing must be impaired. I’ve said quite distinctly—” she stumbled on the word distinctly, getting it out quite indistinctly—“that this is none of your business.”
“He beats you and from what I’ve heard, he cheats on you, takes your money. Does a political career demand that much of an illusion of a good marriage?”
“You should go now.” She focused dreamily on her
wineglass, swirling the liquid slowly. “You should leave Charleston. Please leave Charleston. Your return has made it very difficult on me. Go away. I’ll deal with my life.”
I grabbed her wineglass and set it down. “Like this?”
“I’ll take my pleasure whatever way I want.” She picked up the glass again, took several large gulps, and smiled. “Please, go away. Leave Charleston.”
“I need to know about my mother.”
“And you accuse—” Claire hiccuped—“you accuse me of being single-minded.”
“Helen knows something. I’m certain of it. I have been asking questions about her. Today I called an old school friend who is now a banker here in Charleston. Your stepmother’s financial situation is, let me say, precarious. Her credit is in shambles. I’ve heard she’s been selling antiques on King Street.”
“I have my own trust fund. She can’t touch that.”
“She had an affair with Lorimar Barrett.” I wanted to confirm some of the gossip I’d gotten from Elaine and Glennifer.
“Old news, Nick. Small city. They lived just down the street from each other. All the social gatherings are so inbred. People around here have affairs all the time.”
She paused for more wine. “Do I care that my husband’s father spent time with my stepmother? Besides, it’s not like either of them were having affairs on anyone. Pendleton’s mother was long dead. And Helen’s been a widow almost as long as I’ve been alive.”
She tossed more wine back. “Satisfied, Mr. Detective?”
“No. I don’t like it that you have to live like this.”
“Why start caring now after all these years? When you left me, it sent a clear message.”
“A message that you should marry Pendleton in less than two months?”
Claire started to laugh. A quiet, drunken laugh. She finished her glass of wine. “Just remember you started this. You’re the one who opened the lid to the . . . the . . . panorama’s box.”
She giggled. “The lid to the Pandora’s box. I’ve told you to go away and still you’re here. So now I’ll tell you, but you’re going to have to imagine what it was like back then here in Charleston. Remember? Proper society. When a single girl could not be pregnant?”
Claire
lapsed into silence. Her drunken laughter had drained her of energy. When she lifted her face to me, her eyes were filled with tears.
“I was desperate. No one knew that you and I had been married. We had only been gone four days. The marriage was annulled in secrecy, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone that you had abandoned me for a monthly payment from my stepmother.”
She put her hands into my hands. “I was not going to give up our baby. It was all that I had left of you, and at the time I was foolishly romantic about the love I’d thought we had. So I did the next best thing. Found someone I thought I could live with and married him. Pendleton always wanted us to be married. So did our families. I thought he was the best solution. I was wrong.”
Claire moved close to me, crying freely. She rested her head against my chest. “Why did you have to leave me?”
I hardly realized I’d put my arms around her shoulders.
I hardly felt the pain of her pressing against the lacerations on my chest. I was still trying to comprehend.
As she wept, Claire stroked my hair. My face. “Pendleton has a lot of things to hate you for. By the time he realized the due date was two months earlier than it should have been, it was too late. He and I were married.”
“Michelle,” I said. “Michelle is my daughter?”
“No.” I’d never heard a voice hold such tired sadness. “You and I, we had a son.”
“He’s . . . he’s . . .” I couldn’t finish my question.
“St. Michael’s.”
I didn’t understand.
“He was stillborn, Nick. The doctors . . . they said it sometimes happens. But in my heart, I know it was from the times Pendleton hit me in the last month before . . . before . . .”
I held Claire, conscious of the fact that I was holding another man’s wife. She continued to stroke my face, her fingertips gentle against my nose and my lips. “It was like I died inside, Nick. I know that’s a cliché, but I understand it because I lived it. All those hours of labor, knowing he would be born dead. All those hours, not knowing how hard it would hit me when I finally held that little baby with his perfectly formed fingers and toes and his quiet, beautiful face. I don’t remember much after. They tell me they had to give me drugs to calm me down. I was a zombie at the funeral service. A zombie for the next several months. Then I settled into a life of not caring. It was easy. We had money. We had our name. No one cared if I drank too much. All of us have our vices.”
Out of the Shadows (Nick Barrett Charleston series) Page 14
