Absence of Grace

by Ann Warner

  It felt like he was deliberately changing the subject. Perplexed, Clen let him get away with it.

  The next day, Clen went back to ZimoviArt. The gallery was open and Hailey was sitting behind the counter staring out the window. As always, Hailey was beautifully dressed and her lovely hair was smoothed into a sophisticated French braid. She looked, Clen judged, exactly the way Stella McClendon wished her daughter looked. Clen cleared her throat.

  “Oh. Clen. Sorry, I guess I was woolgathering. It’s a nice day, isn’t it.”

  “It is. Are you feeling better?”

  Hailey appeared puzzled.

  “Marian came home from sewing circle with a report you’ve been ill.”

  “Oh. No. Well, just a touch of summer flu. Left me feeling tired, so I took time off. But I’m fine, now.”

  “Did you know Gerrum was looking for you yesterday?”

  Hailey turned away, blushing. “Hey, I sold another one of your paintings. End of last week. You’re turning into one of my best sellers.”

  “Maybe we can squeeze in another picnic to celebrate?”

  “Sure. Absolutely. Let me check the ferry and cruise schedules and let you know.”

  Hailey always had the schedules memorized. And what about that blush and the trouble she was having meeting Clen’s eyes? Something was definitely going on, but it beat Clen what it might be. Baffled, she walked to the grocery store to check on the shipment of strawberries two people had stopped her in the street to tell her had arrived.

  Maude was already picking through the pile of berries. Clen preferred to avoid the woman, but fresh strawberries were a rare treat in Wrangell.

  Maude looked up. “Oh, Clen, just the person I was hoping to run into. You really need to make sure of that man of yours, dearie.”

  Clen favored Maude with a blank stare.

  “So you know about Gerrum and Hailey?”

  Clen continued to stare. Maude, undeterred, shuffled her feet as she continued to talk. Polka, two-step, gossip gallop.

  “He and Hailey come regular to the café. Together. And when they think nobody’s looking, they hold hands. I thought you and he were an item, so I remarked it as being awful strange.”

  The image of a woman wearing a tight red dress with Paul’s hand resting on her back blanked Clen’s vision. When it cleared, she realized Maude was giving her a triumphant look.

  How dare the old biddy insinuate such a thing about Gerrum. Besides, didn’t she realize anyone having an affair in Wrangell would know enough not to conduct it in the full morning light of her voracious scrutiny? Clen turned and walked away.

  But in the days that followed the encounter with Maude, others began to make teasing remarks about her keeping an eye on Gerrum.

  “Hey, I was you, I’d make sure my claim was staked real good,” was how one of them put it.

  “I seen him going into her house. Evening time it were,” another said.

  She brushed the remarks off. Gerrum had every right to meet with friends, when and how he wished, even if the friend in question was a beautiful young woman. Clen had friends, too. In fact, most mornings, after the guests left for the day, she had coffee with John Jeffers. Sometimes Marian or someone from town joined them, and sometimes it was just the two of them. For all she knew, not only was she being regaled with stories of Gerrum’s coffee breaks with Hailey, Gerrum might be hearing tales of her morning coffees with John.

  Except...she and John didn’t hold hands.

  Annoyed with herself, she pushed the thought away. Planting doubt was what Maude and her cohorts were hoping to accomplish. Clen was not falling for it.

  “The jet boat’s been running a bit rough lately,” Gerrum told Clen as they finished lunch. “I plan to spend the afternoon doing maintenance. May take awhile. Doubt I’ll make it to dinner.”

  She tried out a come-hither look that made him grin. “I’m serving fried chicken. Sure you don’t want to change your mind?”

  He swooped her into an embrace. “Of course I do, but I’ve been putting this job off, and I need to get it done.”

  “The old carpe diem approach, hmm?”

  He kissed her neck, waking up nerve endings that responded only to him. She knew she could do it. Derail his plans, and hers for that matter. But it was even better when they waited. Anticipation. She would think about him as she cooked, and it would make her mouth water.

  “Don’t get too tired this afternoon.” Her voice was hoarse. “I have plans for later.”

  “Umm. Dare I hope they include me?” he asked.

  They laughed together until he stopped it with a kiss.

  She pulled away and smiled. “You’re very tempting today, Mr. Kirsey. But I need to go.” Thank God for tonight.

  She left for the lodge to start dinner preparations, but halfway there, she realized she’d forgotten the sketch of John she was working on for Marian. She turned and walked back. Stepping onto Gerrum’s porch, she glanced through the window beside the door and froze.

  When they think nobody’s looking, they hold hands.

  Hey, I was you, I’d make sure my claim was staked real good.

  Don’t think you’re the only woman he’s stringing along.

  I seen him going into her house. Evening time, it were.

  Clen had been so certain of Gerrum and the love growing between them, she’d refused to consider the gossip and teasing remarks could be rooted in any sort of reality. But reality was right in front of her.

  Hailey. In Gerrum’s arms.

  “Hailey and I are friends,” he’d said the one time she’d asked him about directly Hailey, but the question made him uncomfortable, at a time it shouldn’t have mattered, and he never did define what he meant by friend.

  Numbness. Thank God for numbness. But it never lasted, and then pain replaced it, stabbing, spreading. No blood, although it hurt so much there ought to be blood.

  Dammit, Gerrum. This time, I held nothing back. This time, I believed in happiness...in you. How could I have been so blind? So stupid.

  A frenetic giggle threatened to break free. No need to step back on the porch she couldn’t remember abandoning. No need to look again. The image of those two embracing was seared into her memory.

  Strange, but her legs seemed to be working normally, in spite of the rest of her being so frozen she had to remind herself to breathe. She walked past large trees and small houses with blank facades and dripping shrubbery, the street solid beneath her, although she felt as if she were inching along a high wire hundreds of feet above the ground. But if she was doing that, she would simply step off into space and end it.

  Kody stood and stretched as Clen stepped on the lodge’s porch. He rubbed against her, whining a greeting, and she knelt and took his head between her hands, sinking icy fingers into his warm coat. He licked her cheek, a brief touch of warmth, then cold again.

  Too bad she couldn’t take Kody with her. She bent her head, blinking away tears, then stood and went inside.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Gerrum bumped into Hailey as he came out of the Visitors’ Center. Hailey’s face tightened as she stepped back and saw whom she’d run into.

  He dropped the hands he’d automatically placed on her arms to steady her. “Hailey. Hey, where’s the fire?”

  She blinked rapidly, without speaking, and his gut contracted with guilt. Since he and Clen had gotten together, he hadn’t talked to Hailey. “How about coffee? I’m just on my way.”

  Her head moved in a quick shake. “No. Oh. I...yes. I could use coffee.”

  She could use more than that. She didn’t look a bit good. Her eyes shadowed, her hair, usually carefully arranged, shoved back in a careless ponytail.

  At Maude’s Café, they settled across from each other in one of the booths and Hailey asked him a question about the aftermath of the sabotage. She wasn’t paying attention to his answer, though. He stopped talking and waited until she looked up.

  “What’s wrong, Hailey?”r />
  At first, he didn’t think she was going to respond. Then, “I’m...well...I guess I need to ask you something.”

  His mind scuttled in search of what topic could be making her look so strained, wishing he didn’t have a damned good idea what it might be. “Won’t hurt to ask. I can always refuse to answer.”

  “Since you aren’t practicing law anymore, does that mean you don’t have to keep information confidential, like questions people ask you?”

  That had to mean it was a legal rather than personal issue, and he was enough of a coward it was a relief. “I don’t spread around information people don’t want spread around.”

  “Not even to Clen?” Hailey gave him an intent look.

  He met her gaze, wondering at the oddity of the request, then nodded in agreement. “Not even to Clen.”

  “Promise?”

  He had no intention of sharing Hailey’s business with anyone else, with or without going through a song and dance about it. “I promise.”

  She picked up one of the empty sugar packets and began pleating and unpleating it. Finally, she looked up and gave him another searching appraisal. He sat back, sipping coffee, allowing her whatever time she needed to make up her mind.

  When she finally spoke it was with obvious reluctance. “I need to know how to get hold of a trial transcript.”

  “What type of trial?”

  “Murder.”

  With the one word, her reluctance began to make sense.

  “Was it first degree murder?”

  She lifted her coffee cup and hid behind it. “Yes.”

  “And the verdict?”

  “Guilty.”

  “How long ago was the trial?”

  “Eighteen years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  She put the cup down, lips tightening, and in that instant, he saw what she would look like as an old woman.

  “Would you be willing to help me get the transcript, Gerrum?”

  “I’ll need more information.”

  She pulled out a pen, picked up a spare place mat, turned it over, and started writing. When she finished, she turned the mat around and pushed it toward him. He glanced at her then began to read.

  Defendant: Kenneth Connelly

  Defense attorney: Mr. Dillon

  Trial Date: February 1968

  Trial Location: Olathe (Kansas City), Kansas

  His thoughts spun, quickly offering up the most likely explanation for the desperation and grief he read in the lines of Hailey’s face. Kenneth Connelly had to be someone close to her, perhaps her father, because eighteen years ago she would have been a young child.

  “Does Kenneth have a middle name.”

  “It’s James.”

  “Do you know his birth date?”

  “I’m not sure of the year, but his birthday is April sixth.”

  “Do you know the date the murder occurred?”

  “September eighth, 1967.” Her tone was bleak.

  “And the victim’s name?”

  “Rose Connelly.”

  “What was her relationship to Kenneth?”

  “His wife.”

  Damn. He glanced up from his notes to find Hailey was barely holding it together. Her hands desperately pleated a sugar packet. He took those restless hands in his, held on for a moment, then squeezed lightly before releasing her and asking the last of the necessary questions.

  “How about Connelly’s address in sixty-five?”

  She closed her eyes briefly and pulled in a deep breath, and when she spoke, she’d regained most of her composure. “Martha Street, in Kansas City. I don’t know the number.”

  From her reactions, it was clear he didn’t dare ask the two questions he most wanted to ask. Were Kenny and Rose Connelly her parents? And why did she want to see the trial transcript now, so many years after the fact? Instead, he kept the interaction as businesslike as possible, given the subject was murder.

  “I’ll need to find out from the appropriate district court how long they hold transcripts and how to go about getting a copy. Might take awhile.”

  “It’s already been awhile.” She sounded resigned. “I guess no biggie if it takes more time.”

  Clen entered the lodge’s kitchen after seeing Gerrum embracing Hailey and found it as deserted as the street. Automatically, she began pulling together ingredients for dinner. If she was forgetting anything, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She was simply filling time. Doing whatever it took to keep herself from thinking.

  “Oh, Clen, there you are.” Marian.

  After a moment to arrange her face, she turned around.

  “Clen? Are you okay?”

  She clamped tight on a sob, agony spreading through her chest into her head. An excuse. She needed an excuse...her head, throbbing with a steady pain. “Migraine. I need to lie down.”

  “You go right ahead. I can finish this up.”

  Thank God she hadn’t yet moved out of her room at the lodge, although she rarely slept there anymore. She tipped two acetaminophen tablets into her hand, swallowed them with a gulp of water, then stood with her forehead against the cool of the windowpane.

  Dear God, what am I going to do?

  She undressed and lay down, pulling a pillow over her face to block out the light, but it couldn’t block the images in her mind. Gerrum and Hailey locked in each other’s arms, Gerrum’s hand smoothing Hailey’s hair which was loose and wild. Hailey’s hair, the color of amber...Amber, the woman Paul took to St. Thomas. The four figures twined together, Amber and Paul, Hailey and Gerrum, their faces staring, their mouths open, laughing at her. Except Gerrum wasn’t like Paul. She would have bet her life on it.

  Good thing she hadn’t.

  She stopped trying to hold back the sobs, just muffled them with the pillow. Eventually, she drifted into exhausted slumber and awoke to the weight of the pillow on her face. She pulled it tight against her nose and mouth, an older, darker memory taking hold.

  Eventually, she slept again and had a dream, one where she felt wide awake. She couldn’t be, though, because Thomasina was sitting in the corner by the window.

  “I remember the first time I met you, Clen. Your hair was sticking up in random cowlicks and, of all the horrors, you were wearing slacks.”

  No question, Thomasina was in one of her tongue-in-cheek moods.

  “Why did we stop talking?” In the disembodied way of dreams, Clen felt she could say anything to Thomasina and the nun would answer.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I was busy. You weren’t getting demerits anymore. Perhaps that was why.” Thomasina spoke quietly, her voice calm and uninflected, the kind of voice one might use to pray routine prayers.

  “It was after the garden sister died.”

  “Garden sister?”

  “I called her Sister Gladiolus.”

  “Ah. Sister Gladys...Glad. Yes. You may be right.” A faint thread of sorrow began to color Thomasina’s even tones.

  “You loved her more than you loved me.”

  “Was it a competition, Clen?”

  “Of course. It always is.” She wished she could see Thomasina’s face, but she couldn’t seem to raise her head off the pillow.

  “I did love Glad. We were supposed to love without holding on.” Thomasina sighed softly. “Glad was the only one who understood why I picked the name Thomasina.”

  “Not because of the cat?”

  If this weren’t a dream, Thomasina would snort. Instead, her voice remained pensive. “Of course not.”

  “Then why?”

  “For Thomas, the apostle. Doubting Thomas.”

  “You had doubts?”

  “Oh my, yes.”

  “I thought you had all the answers.”

  “You were so young, my dear.”

  For a time, Clen lay silent, the night quiet bestowing its gift of peace. She knew without turning her head, Thomasina was still there. “I have to leave Wrangell.”

  “Why?”


  “It hurts too much to stay.”

  “Will leaving make it hurt less?”

  “It’s a start.”

  “You should know by now, Clen, it doesn’t work that way. Our past always comes with us. It shakes us up, no matter where we try to hide.”