Heat Lightning

by Michaela Thompson

  Leo stared at the page. Go away. She should just go away.

  – 23 –

  “Did you know Clara Trent was in town, Aaron?” demanded Patsy Orr.

  It was way too early in the morning for this. Patsy had turned up at the Department with no warning, and to Aaron’s chagrin the door of his office had been open. Without invitation, Patsy had walked in and planted herself in his visitor’s chair, where she sat radiating righteous indignation. She was wearing a pink blouse with a design of kittens chasing balls of yarn and an assortment of charm bracelets. Her glasses glinted at Aaron with what looked to him like ferocity.

  Aaron had known this would happen, hadn’t he? He had known Clara coming here was a bad idea, and he had told her exactly that. So why did he have to be on the firing line? “I heard,” he said.

  Patsy bristled, sitting up a little straighter. Aaron figured she was disappointed that she didn’t get to break the news to him. “Well, have you heard where she’s staying?” she asked.

  Aaron wasn’t going to tell her he’d heard that, too. He said, simply, “Where?”

  Patsy leaned forward. “She— is— staying— at— the— Villas!” she said. After a moment to let it sink in she said, “Aaron, that’s insulting to Vickie Ann and Jim. It’s an outright slap in the face, and on top of that, it’s weird.”

  Aaron agreed with Patsy that Clara staying at the Villas was weird, but he said, “It’s a free country. She can stay where she wants to, as long as she pays the bill.”

  There was an ominous silence as Patsy sat back in her chair and stared at Aaron. “So you’re all right with Clara Trent being in town,” she said in a toneless voice.

  Aaron shrugged. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m all right with it. She hasn’t broken the law.”

  “Well, what do you think she’s doing here? Do you want to take a guess?”

  Aaron was getting fed up with Patsy, which was fairly easy to do. “I don’t know what she’s doing here, and I don’t want to take a guess,” he said. “Anyway, Patsy, I’m kind of busy—”

  “Think about this,” Patsy said. “What if Clara Trent starts making a fuss? What if she says her husband is innocent? That the DNA was wrong? What about that?”

  “What if she builds a rocket and flies off to the moon?” Aaron said. “The DNA wasn’t wrong, OK? If she makes a fuss, I’ll deal with it when it happens. I’m not going to waste time speculating.”

  “You should talk to her, Aaron,” Patsy said. “Tell her that coming to St. Elmo was a mistake, and she’s going to get people upset.”

  Aaron was not about to mention the fact that he had already done exactly what she was suggesting. He said, “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea for her to come here. I’ll give you that. But I didn’t bring her here, and it’s not up to me to make her leave, either.”

  Patsy’s bracelets jangled as she folded her hands in her lap. She said, “Well, I’m surprised at you, Aaron. Your mother has always been so proud of you. Solving crimes, standing up for victims. But this time, you’re leaving us in the lurch. Poor Vickie Ann lost her mother in the most horrible possible way. And I had to go through finding the body. It gives me nightmares, even today. And you’re saying this woman has a right to come in and ask questions and cause us pain.”

  Aaron blinked the sting from his eyes. The remark about his mother had hit home. His mother had looked shrunken and weak when he saw her. He would’ve been happy if she’d asked him about Stacey, but she didn’t. He said, “I feel for Vickie Ann and Jim. And yes, you had a tough time, too. But try to remember one thing, Patsy. Clara Trent didn’t kill Alice Rhodes. That’s an important point.”

  Patsy gave him a look of disappointment. Or maybe it was contempt. She gathered her handbag and stood up. “If that’s the way you feel about it,” she said.

  Aaron also stood. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  Patsy didn’t answer, but gave him another long stare, turned, and walked out.

  Aaron sat down again. By the time Patsy was out the door he had forgotten her. He was thinking about his mother.

  – 24 –

  Clara had slept badly, and she woke up late. Not that it mattered, she thought wearily. What was her plan for today? She would try once again to get somebody to talk with her about the killing of Alice Rhodes. And, she probably would be rejected again, and vilified on top of it for attempting to understand what her husband had done— or what people believed he had done.

  Maybe, in the end, Clara was going to have to believe it, too.

  But maybe not quite yet. She stared at the shifting patterns of light on the bedroom wall. Everybody pointed to the DNA as proof that Ronan had killed Alice Rhodes. And nobody, certainly not Clara, would deny that Ronan’s DNA match proved he had been at the scene of the murder. But did it prove he was the murderer? His guilt, as far as Clara could see, had been assumed because he acted guilty, lied, changed his story, and claimed at the last minute to have seen somebody else lurking around Alice’s place. Only one sample had been kept from the murder scene, and that one had Ronan’s DNA on it. But nobody knew about DNA evidence back then. No other samples were retained. Clara wasn’t ready to give up her doubts.

  She got up, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. The air conditioner rattled on, but still the air seemed stale. She was already sick of this place, with its beach-themed bric-a-brac, its dingy walls. And yet, Ronan had been here. That was enough to keep her here. She would know when it was time to leave.

  The Book of Alice lay on the dining table, where she had left it last night. Preparing to make toast and tea, she picked the book up to move it to an end table. Instead of putting it down, though, she sat on the sofa to glance through it again.

  She turned the pages, already familiar after close study, perusing the depictions of Alice. Clara could feel Ronan in every line. Here was the page with studies of Alice’s hands. In one of them she was wearing the ring with twining leaves and berries and a carved rose. Below it was Alice’s pencil notation, “My pretty ring!!!!” The ring, Clara thought, was very much the same style as the box Ronan had given Clara long ago, the wooden box that now held her pills. It, too, had a pattern of twining vines and leaves. It was the type of thing Ronan liked. After a moment Clara blinked, and thought: Ronan gave Alice this ring.

  Immediately, she believed it was true. Alice’s “pretty ring” had been a gift from Ronan. He loved Alice, Clara thought. He loved Alice more than he ever loved me.

  Clara recognized this idea for the exercise in futility it was. How much Ronan had loved anybody was an unanswerable question, now that he was dead. To continue down this path was to fall into a pit, and so it was time to do something else— like make toast and tea. She started to put down the sketchbook, and found that it would not close as it should.

  The book, of course, was old, and both the cover and the pages were yellowed and swollen with damp. Still, she had not had trouble closing it before. She examined it. There seemed to be an obstacle in the spine.

  She examined the spine and the cover, which were somewhat tattered. It looked as if something, a piece of paper, had been dislodged from the interior of the spine, and was slipping into the crack where it connected to the cover. If she removed the paper, the book could close.

  The space was too narrow for her fingers, so Clara got a pair of tweezers from the bathroom and fished out the obstructing paper. When she had it in her hand, she realized that it had never been part of the binding. It was a piece of white paper, obviously much newer than the sketchbook paper, folded into a small oblong. She unfolded it and spread it out.

  Printed on the paper were the words: Warning from a friend. They are going to come after you for the murder of Alice Rhodes.

  Clara looked at the paper. The words were printed, perhaps on a printer, rather than handwritten. There was no signature, no salutation, no address. Clara searched in the spine and through all the pages, but she didn’t find an envelo
pe. Had this note, this warning, been sent to Ronan, or handed to him? He, or someone, folded it up and concealed it in the spine of The Book of Alice. When had this happened? And the bigger question— who wrote the words? And why?

  She had no answers. She had no idea. She stared at the paper. Eventually, the words lost their meaning. They had become as indecipherable as hieroglyphics.

  PART THREE

  – 25 –

  About half an hour after sundown, when the afterglow had faded and the sky was darkening fast, a man walked along the edge of the vacant lot behind the house where Vickie Ann and Jim lived. He crossed the alley and lingered in the shadow of the garage for a while, as if waiting for the darkness to thicken. Arms folded, he watched the sky turn a uniform dark gray. In the fast-waning light, he walked around the corner and slipped into the open door of the garage.

  The interior was dim, the meager light from a window on the back wall revealing the outlines of an assortment of junk— furniture, lamps, stacks of newspapers, rolled-up rugs, cardboard boxes stacked unevenly. There was a rusted lawn mower, a refrigerator with no door, an old sewing machine.

  The man looked out toward the back yard and the house. There was a light burning on the sun porch, but the glass louvers were closed. He took a tentative step forward, as if trying to decide whether to approach the house or not.

  A voice from the back of the garage said, “Hey, Daddy.”

  The man turned. He craned his neck toward the sound, but in the back corner where the voice had come from, it was too dark to distinguish anything. He cleared his throat and said, “Is that you, Vickie Ann?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s me.”

  “Well, come on out, then, why don’t you?” said Coby Rhodes.

  A shape detached itself from the jumble in the back corner, and Vickie Ann stepped into the more open space of the interior. “I wondered if you’d come again. I thought you might,” she said.

  “What do you mean, ‘again’?” said Coby.

  “You’ve been here before. Daddy Jim— my grandpa— saw you.”

  “You call him ‘Daddy’?” Coby said.

  “Daddy Jim.”

  “He ain’t your daddy, honey. You only got one daddy, and that’s me. All right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Coby took a look at Vickie Ann. He said, “You grew up fine, didn’t you? How old are you now?”

  “Forty-three.”

  “Naw! Really? We got some catching up to do, don’t we?”

  Vickie Ann didn’t answer. After a moment she said, “Why have you been coming around here?”

  “Why do you think?” Coby said. “I’ve got a daughter, don’t I? I came to see you, see how you were getting along.”

  “But— you didn’t come for a long time,” Vickie Ann said. “Years and years. Didn’t you ever think about me?”

  “Of course I thought about you,” Coby said. “I wanted to come back, Vickie. But I had so many things to take care of, and it wasn’t easy for me to get away. And your grandma and grandpa didn’t like me at all. There was no reason for it, but they flat-out hated me, seemed like.”

  “My grandpa said you stole money from him.”

  “What?” Coby shook his head sorrowfully. “That is so wrong. That is not true at all. You don’t have to believe me, but I will tell you that Jim Tuttle hated me from the minute he set eyes on me, and he poisoned Alice against me, and he poisoned Donnie against me, and now it sure looks like he’s poisoned you.”

  Vickie Ann took a step closer. “He hasn’t poisoned me against you, Daddy. But he doesn’t like you. And he keeps saying you killed Mama.”

  “Oh, my God. No,” said Coby. He sank down and sat on a cardboard box. “I am innocent of that. I never killed Alice. Don’t you and Jim know the case is closed? They identified the killer, and it’s not me.”

  “I know it,” Vickie Ann said, “but Daddy Jim— Grandpa— won’t believe it. He gets confused.”

  “Yeah, well, he dern sure does,” Coby said. He looked up at her. “You believe me, though. Don’t you, baby?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s all that matters to me,” Coby said. “That’s what I came to hear. That I’ve got a clean slate with my very own daughter.”

  Vickie Ann blotted her eyes with her knuckles. “Yes. You do,” she said. “I’m glad you came to see me.”

  “Well, sure I did, baby. Soon as I ever could. Once the murder case was finally put to rest, I could come back a little easier. You know old Jim tried to pin it on me way back then, and even now I don’t want to show my face around here too much.” After a pause, he said, “Listen, Vickie. I want to ask you— are the bank accounts—”

  “A lady called me,” Vickie Ann said.

  “That’s nice. Now listen—”

  “She wants to talk to me about Mama getting murdered.”

  Coby was still for a moment. He said, “Who might that lady be?”

  “Her name is Clara Trent.”

  “Clara Trent,” Coby repeated slowly.

  “She was married to Ronan Trent, the airman that killed Mama.”

  “I see,” Coby said. “And what does she want exactly?”

  “She says she’s trying to understand what happened, and she’d like to meet me and talk.”

  “And what did you tell her?”

  Vickie Ann shrugged. “I told her I didn’t know. And she said she understood, and she left her number for me to call if I decided to meet her.” She paused. “If I do meet her, Patsy will be real mad.”

  “Well, we’re not going to worry about Patsy,” Coby said. “I’m telling you now to call that woman— Clara— and set it up to talk to her. All right?”

  “I don’t know,” Vickie Ann said in a small voice.

  Coby leaned closer. “Vickie Ann, this is your daddy telling you. You set it up to talk to her, and you find out exactly what she’s doing here, and where she’s staying at—”

  “She’s staying at the Villas,” Vickie Ann said. “Patsy says that’s awful, that she’s staying there.”

  Coby shook his head in apparent wonderment. “At the Villas. Damn,” he said. He went on, “You meet with her, and you find out every single thing you can about what she’s up to. Can you do that for your daddy?”

  “I guess so,” Vickie Ann said.

  Coby dug into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a piece of paper. He gave it to Vickie Ann and said, “This is my cell phone number, all right? You call me when you’ve talked to her, and we’ll set up a place to meet. I know I can’t come in the house, because of old Jim.” He hesitated, then said, “Where’s he at right now, by the way?”

  “Sleeping,” Vickie Ann said. “I had a feeling you’d be here tonight, so I gave him an extra pill.”

  “Good girl.” Coby patted her arm. “Now, we’ve got that to discuss, and there’s some other things I want to talk to you about. So are you going to call me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Make it soon, all right?”

  Vickie Ann nodded. “Soon as I can.”

  “All right, then.” Coby patted her arm again. “I got to go, baby.”

  “Daddy?” Vickie Ann said.

  “What?”

  “You never came back, all those years.”

  Coby shook his head sorrowfully. “Aw, Vickie, I told you I couldn’t. Don’t you think I would’ve been here if I could?”

  “But you thought about me? During all that time?”

  “I thought about you every single day. Every single day. Now, I got to go. You talk to that lady, Clara Trent, and then you call me.”

  “I will.”

  Coby left and moved rapidly around the side of the garage toward the alley. Vickie Ann followed him out and stood watching as he crossed the alley and disappeared into the shadow of the trees that lined the vacant lot.

  – 26 –

  Clara turned left on the highway and drove toward town. It was an overcast day, gray waves unfurling on the beach, th
e heaving water the color of steel, clouds scudding across the sky. She was on her way to meet and talk with Vickie Ann Rhodes, Alice’s daughter. And perhaps she would meet Jim Tuttle, Alice’s father, too, although Vickie Ann had seemed hesitant on that score.

  Clara had been so stunned by finding the Warning from a Friend yesterday morning that she couldn’t decide how to proceed. Should she show it to Aaron? If she showed Aaron the Warning from a Friend she would also have to show him The Book of Alice, and Clara expected that Aaron would see The Book of Alice as further proof of Ronan’s guilt. Ronan, Clara believed, had been sent or given the message, and he had concealed it in The Book of Alice. Was this an indication of his guilt? Of his fear of having this episode in his life uncovered at last? Until her own thinking was clear, she wasn’t ready to have that discussion with Aaron.

  Yesterday, after trying to assess the situation and getting nowhere, Clara had done what she often did when she needed to escape. She had gone out to do some sketching. With her sketchbook and pencils she had walked down to the beach, where she spent time drawing the dunes, palm trees, driftwood, shells, seagulls. The concentration it required took some of the pressure away from her other problems. When, somewhat refreshed, she returned to the Villas, she had decided to call Vickie Ann Rhodes.

  On the phone, Vickie Ann had sounded withdrawn, uncertain, and shy. Although she wasn’t hostile, as Merle Evans had been, she was not encouraging about the possibility of a meeting and had taken Clara’s number with obvious reluctance. Clara had been very surprised this morning when Vickie Ann, still sounding unenthusiastic, had called and invited her to come over at ten a.m. Clara was on her way there now.

  Fifteen minutes later she was pulling into the driveway of a modest brick bungalow, and it was ten o’clock on the dot when she rang the bell. The woman who opened the door was stocky, with limp brown hair and small brown eyes, wearing a loose shirt and a drab gray skirt. She did not look anything like her mother, Alice. She said, “Hello,” and stepped back to let Clara in.