Corpse on the Cob

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “You must be fifty years old by now. You married? Got any kids?”

  She was trying to steer the conversation towards common pleasantries. Okay, I’d play her game, at least for a few minutes, but old woman or not, I wasn’t going to let her off that easy. As she said, I came to say what I had to say.

  “Wasn’t that on Google?” When she didn’t respond to my sass, I answered her questions. “I’ve been married almost two years. No children.”

  “Married kind of late, didn’t you?” When I didn’t reply, she studied me again. “How did you find me, Odelia? Did Horten finally tell you? He still married to that lunatic?”

  I swallowed hard. “Dad’s dead. He died just a few months ago.”

  “I’m—” she started, then hesitated before continuing. “I’m sorry.” The words squeaked out of her like air squeezed from a rubber ducky, and the emotion seemed genuine. “Though I’m not surprised. I have one foot in the grave myself, and he was older than me by several years.”

  “Gigi gave me a box of his things. There was an envelope inside the box with your name and an address in New Hampshire.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I remember. Wrote it while I was in that hospital up north. I was there a few months drying out. That was the first time I wrote him, and the last. He made it clear I wasn’t welcome.”

  “Welcome? Were you coming back?”

  She gave off a sad little laugh. “No, I wasn’t coming back. It was part of the process, asking people’s forgiveness.”

  I scanned my memory bank for information. Clark had said Mom had been sober for nearly twenty-five years, and the letter had been sent about that long ago.

  “You mean the twelve-step program?”

  She nodded without looking at me. “Yes, step nine, as I recall.” She turned to look directly at me. There was a glimmer of pride in her eyes. “I’ve been sober a very long time, Odelia. I want you to know that.”

  “Clark told me. I’m glad, Mom. Really, I am.” Still pissed, I said to myself, but glad.

  “I wrote to your father. I asked him to forgive me for disappearing and leaving you like I did.”

  My headache increased. My brain exploded into shards like dishes smashed at a Greek party.

  “And what about me, Mom? I don’t recall receiving a letter.” My voice rose a notch, jabbing the air like an ice pick. When she didn’t answer, I added with lower volume, “Wouldn’t Dad give you my address?”

  The little old lady with the frizzy hair and doughy body retreated into herself. For a moment, I feared she was going to up and die, simply expire on the spot, leaving me with the same unanswered questions and yet another dead body. This was my mother; the woman who gave me life. While I didn’t want to throw my arms around her neck and weep, neither did I want to kick her over the side of a building. After all these years, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted from her. Answers, yes, but what else? I rubbed my temples and waited. After a bit, she came out of herself, much like a turtle from its shell. She looked at me and braced herself, as if readying for a slap she was sure would come.

  “I never asked Horten for your address. I only asked his forgiveness.”

  It was an honest response and to the point, and so was my reply, which came back at her like a corresponding left jab. “I repeat, what about me? Didn’t I deserve an apology? Or wasn’t abandoning a sensitive, insecure teenage girl a worthy enough transgression?”

  Grace Littlejohn looked around the empty chapel. I couldn’t tell if she was stalling for time or looking for an escape. Without looking at me, she said, “Step nine is about making amends to people we’ve injured.” She turned her face back to me. “Except when such amends might hurt the other person.” She looked down at her hands, which I noticed for the first time were shaking. She clutched them together in an effort to control them. “I felt it would do you more harm to have me back in your life than to stay away.”

  Standing up from the pew, I positioned myself directly in front of her. I stared down at her. She looked up, recoiling slightly, but kept her eyes pinned to mine.

  “So you thought it best for me to remain in the dark? To keep wondering for thirty-four years what it was I did that drove you away? Never knowing if you were alive or dead?”

  “Your father could have told you I was alive.”

  “My father obviously thought it best to keep you away from me. Right or wrong, he was doing his job—protecting me.” I took a few steps back, afraid of the raw emotion spouting from me like bile. “Did Dad know why you left?”

  She shook her head slowly back and forth. “I never told him.”

  I turned away from Grace Littlejohn and inhaled deeply, blowing it out in one big gush of air like a punctured tire. I repeated the process a few times and felt my headache subside a little. A part of me wanted to leave. It would be easy, I told myself. Just go back to the inn, grab my things, and let Willie drive me to whichever airport offered the next flight back to California. Isn’t that why I came to the hospital—to determine if I was going to take a flight today or wait until my scheduled flight tomorrow? Although at this minute, I couldn’t see what good staying one more day would do.

  I took another deep breath. Go ahead, Odelia, I told myself, ask her the question you’ve been wanting to ask since you were sixteen years old. Do it now, and get it over with. Shit or get off the pot.

  Turning back around, I said, “So, Mom, the fifty-million-dollar question: why did you leave?”

  “No, Odelia, absolutely not.”

  Willie and I were seated in a booth at the restaurant Cathy had recommended. In front of us were large, empty salad bowls. I’d had a mixed vegetable chopped salad with chicken, and Willie had devoured a Cobb salad. We were settling in with mugs of decaf coffee and discussing the day.

  “Yes, Willie, it’s what I have to do.”

  “You’re going back to the inn and packing your stuff,” he ordered. “If you don’t, I’ll pack it for you.”

  I could tell he was serious.

  “I have to do this, Willie.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t owe that woman anything, Odelia. Not a damn thing. And I’m sure your husband would agree with me on this. Not to mention Dev Frye.”

  “It’s not about owing anyone anything.” I struggled to keep my voice down. “It’s about doing what’s right in my gut. And my gut is saying to stay and help her.”

  “Did she ask you for help?”

  I looked away. “No, she didn’t.”

  “Did she ask you to stay?”

  My eyes were bulging like strained levees, fighting to hold back the tears. “No, she didn’t.” I felt a chill and covered my shoulders with my sweater.

  “Did she at least tell you why she left all those years ago? Did she have any sort of explanation for her behavior?”

  “Yes.” My voice was small, as if coming from someone else—a stranger whispering to me from the other side of a closed window.

  When I’d asked my mother why she’d left thirty-four years ago, she answered me without a single hesitation.

  “I was pregnant and ran off with the baby’s father.” Her words were clipped and sharp, like cut fingernails that still needed filing.

  “Pregnant? With Grady?”

  Without confirmation, she’d moved forward with her story. “I didn’t want to bring shame on you, Odelia.” My mother straightened herself in the wheelchair and pulled the lap blanket closer. “What young woman needs a drunk mother with an illegitimate baby?”

  “You cold, Mom?” I started to tuck her blanket up a little higher across her chest.

  With a trembling hand, she waved me off and continued. “I thought you’d be better off without me. And a long, teary goodbye wouldn’t have helped either of us. I thought it best to simply disappear.”

  “Best for whom?”

  She gave me a hard look. “Best for all, Odelia. And I still feel that way, so don’t go trying to make me feel sorrier than I already am. I’m not the nurturing
, guilt-ridden, motherly type. Never was.”

  I gave her my own steely stare. “And don’t I know it.”

  Clark had said that Grady’s birth certificate didn’t name a father, that Grace had given him the surname of Grey until Leland Littlejohn adopted him.

  “What happened to the guy, Mom? Did you love him?”

  “Thought I did.” Her voice retreated until it became small and shaky. “For a while, I thought I might be able to start fresh, but he dumped me in Missouri. I knew I couldn’t go back to California, so I came here to Leland. I knew he’d at least take Grady in, though I wasn’t sure he’d do the same for me.”

  “But he did. Clark’s father took you back, right?”

  My mother nodded. “Yes, seems he … well, he had a purpose for me. And he fell in love with Grady at first sight. We remarried.”

  “One big happy family, huh? And what about Clark? According to him, you left him behind when he was not much more than a toddler. Bet he has some resentment he’s never worked out. Seems to be a pattern here, don’t you think?”

  “That was different, Odelia. Leland didn’t want me, he only wanted Clark. I was a baby machine and housekeeper to him, nothing more.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Her voice changed from that of an old woman with regrets to one of defense. “Leland Littlejohn was a homosexual living in the closet. They had to back then. He was an engineer with a large company and didn’t want to jeopardize his career. He also wanted children, plain and simple. We had a deal. He’d marry me. I’d have a baby for him. After, I was free to divorce him, as long as I gave custody of the child to him. In return, he’d provide me with a settlement that would give me a new start.”

  I reeled back, never expecting this. Growing up, my mother had never told me anything about her past, and questions about it were met with growls. I’d finally stopped asking. I knew my father’s parents were from England and came to the States via Canada. They were older when they had him and had no other family that he knew of. Both had died when he was a young man. Dad had settled in California after being discharged from the Army. Mom, on the other hand, had refused to say anything about her people or her origins. It was as if she’d been left behind by aliens—like E.T., but not as wise or as entertaining.

  “So you popped Clark out on demand, then hit the trail with cash in your pocket.”

  “Don’t be so crass, Odelia.” My mother’s eyes sparked with a flash of indignation. “I stayed for a couple of years. I didn’t have the best upbringing, and Leland was a kind, decent man, a lot like your father. I thought maybe I could make a home with him, be safe and secure for once, but, quite frankly, I was much younger than Leland and far too restless for life here in the sticks. I left before I did something that might jeopardize him and Clark.”

  “Does Clark know about his father? About his being gay?”

  “Yes, both he and Grady finally figured it out, but I don’t think anyone outside the house knew. To everyone else, we appeared to be a normal family.” My mother laughed. It came out as a cackle worthy of a Halloween witch. “To the town, I was the prodigal wife who’d finally come to her senses, returning to her loving, long-suffering husband with a bastard child in tow.”

  “That must have been difficult for you.”

  “Better than living on the street. And I did have a secure life with Leland, although hardly a conventional marriage. We even became close over the years.”

  As I readied to approach the next topic, I wrapped my arms around myself, more for protection than for warmth. “I understand you told your sons about me—but you also told them I was dead.”

  I didn’t want to ride the slippery slope to whiney bitch, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. “How convenient.”

  “I never told the boys you were dead.”

  “But you led them down the path to believing it, didn’t you?”

  She said nothing but at least had the decency to look down.

  Putting my hands on the back of a pew, I stared at the large cross hanging behind the altar. After thirty-four years, I finally had the answer to the question that had haunted me. Now I had to ask myself a difficult question: Was it enough? Could I return to California and not look back? I still wasn’t sure.

  A glance at my watch told me our fifteen minutes were long gone. The orderly would be returning any moment. I turned back to the waiting Grace Littlejohn. “And what about the murder, Mom?”

  My mother looked at me, her jaw set, her eyes watery. “You know, you and Clark are a lot alike—single-minded, like a broken record. Not Grady, though; I’m not sure any solid thoughts go through that good-looking head of his.”

  I kept my broken record of a brain on track. “The murder, Mom.”

  “Whatever you think of me, Odelia, I’m no murderer.”

  “I believe you. But I’ll bet those six boxes of Thin Mints back in California that you know who did it.”

  “Nonsense. How could I possibly know that?”

  “What were you doing in the corn maze? Weren’t you supposed to be running the food booths across the street?”

  “I was just trying to help that poor man. See if he was still alive.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Mom. Why were you in the corn maze to begin with?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be there? Lots of folks go through the maze.”

  “By yourself?”

  She kept her weak eyes on me. “You were alone in the thing, weren’t you? At least that’s what I remember.”

  She had a point. “Yes, I was alone. I was curious about it and killing time before going back to the food booths to look for you again.” I sat down on the pew across from my mother. “But I had a flag. No one remembers signing you into the maze, Mom. If you had a flag, it could have been number one, and that flag was found stuck in a man’s chest.”

  “I had no damn flag.”

  “Who had number one, Mom?”

  “Quit badgering me. I’ve said all I’m going to on the matter.”

  When Willie and I met up at the restaurant, I’d told him about the whole ordeal. It only made him more determined to get me on a plane back to California. We both tried calling Greg—me to spring the news that I would be staying longer, and Willie to beg Greg to talk some sense into me. We both got voice mail and left messages.

  “You don’t have to stay, Odelia.” Willie took a drink of coffee. “They don’t need you.”

  His voice was low and controlled, like the warning growl of a lion before he strikes. I’d never heard this tone from him before, so unlike his usual joking manner. It was the voice of the fugitive that lurked beneath the surface … the voice of a man who had fleeced thousands of ordinary people out of their hard-earned nest eggs, seemingly without so much as a twinge of regret.

  “No, but my mother does.”

  “Your brothers are cops. CPAC is on the case. What services could you offer that they could not?”

  When I didn’t answer, he came in for the kill. “You’re not disposable, Odelia. This woman’s already cast you aside once like yesterday’s news for her beloved sons. Don’t let her use you and dump you again.”

  While intellectually I understood what Willie was saying, in my heart I felt the need to help my mother—even after everything she’d done, and even if she didn’t want my help. I was positive she knew who killed McKenna, and I told her so. When I begged her to at least talk to her lawyer about it, she again refused.

  “I don’t care what they do to me, Odelia,” my mother had said. “I told you, I’m not saying anything more.”

  “But Mom,” I’d reasoned, “there’s a killer out there still on the loose. They might kill again.”

  She’d shaken her head in disagreement. “I don’t think they will, Odelia.”

  Willie took both of my hands in his. He was still irritated by my decision, but he’d packed away his anger, trying a different tack to get me on a plane. “It sounds like your mother’s protecting someone, lit
tle mama. And if that’s the case, you’re not going to budge her.”

  “But maybe I could budge Troy. He might have seen something. When I asked my mother about Troy—whether or not she’d seen him prior to the rest of us getting there—that’s when she zipped her lip good and tight. I’ll bet he saw something important. I was told he’s been nervous and had a nightmare last night.”

  “He’s a kid. If he saw a murder in progress, you can bet your booty he’s having nightmares.”

  I pointed an index finger at Willie. “Especially if he saw who did it and knows them.”

  He nodded in agreement. “He might be frightened of that person finding out he knows something, or even frightened that someone else might find out who that person is. Depends on his relationship with whoever did it.”

  “Speaking of Troy, did you get a chance to check out his family’s produce stand?”

  “That I did. I sat on the porch of the Blue Lobster and nursed a beer while I did surveillance.”

  “Tough work, but I guess someone’s gotta do it.”

  Willie winked at me and took a sip of coffee. “And my hard-core investigation concludes that you are probably right, little mama. They are selling more than corn and tomatoes from that place. The drive-through traffic was far too high for a simple stand of that type. What’s more, Cathy had help today.”

  “Really? Maybe her sister-in-law, Tara Brown?”

  He shook his head. “No, a guy. Kind of brawny.”

  “Probably one of her brothers.”

  “Definitely one of the farmers. He drove a truck up to the stand and unloaded some things. A boy was with him. Kind of gangly but strong. Fair hair. Early teens, maybe a bit younger. Hard to tell. There was a dog, too. A shepherd.”

  “The man was probably Clem. He had a German shepherd with him last time I saw him. The boy could have been Troy or maybe a cousin. I don’t know much about the whole family situation.”

  “After he finished unloading his truck, the farmer helped service the drive-up customers. The way he was joking around with some of them, I’d say they were definitely long-time regulars. After helping unload, the kid disappeared into the stand.”