by Jeff Abbott
Candace stayed-but she stayed away from me. Every now and then she caught my eye and I saw the forgiving concern in her face. I always broke contact first. I felt bad I couldn’t react the way she thought I was supposed to, but she was presuming I sustained some kind of affection for Trey Slocum. I knew she meant well. I knew she loved me. I just wanted her to let me be for a while.
My father, Bob Don, was in Las Vegas at an automobile conference. I missed him. I thought he, at least, would understand; he wouldn’t expect me to shed tears over a man I loathed.
Finally, the bearers of food and succor departed, leaving me, Clo, Eula Mae, and Candace sitting at a table overflowing with pies, casseroles, and sandwich makings. I made myself eat, but nothing had taste, not even Eula Mae’s Mirabeau-famous plum-and-whiskey cake. Clo took trays to Sister and Mark; she came back and told me they were sitting together in Mama’s room, talking quietly. Mama did not appear to be participating in the conversation; she, according to Clo, kept asking when Hawaii Five-O, her favorite show, would be on.
“Was Mark crying?” I asked Clo. She shook her head.
“That’s not natural,” I muttered. Candace coughed, but I ignored her.
“I’ll be glad to stay tonight, Jordy,” Clo offered. I nodded as Candace spoke.
“Clo, you’ve already been here all day. You must be exhausted, and I know you’ve got your granddaughter to look after. Why don’t I stay, and you can spell me tomorrow when I have to go to the cafe?”
I smiled at her. I did want her here; I just wasn’t going to get dragged into an argument over whether or not I was dealing normally with Trey’s death.
“Thank you,” I said. “Candace, if you’re going to stay, why don’t you run home and get whatever you need for tonight?” I checked my watch. “Junebug is expecting me.”
“Junebug?” Eula Mae demanded. “Ed’s going there. And Cayla mentioned that Davis was, too.” Her eyes shone bright with curiosity, only vaguely muted by the pall that hung over my house. “Excuse me, ladies,” I said quietly.
“Boys, we have to talk,” Junebug said.
He poured me a whiskey-not my first of the evening- and resumed his place on the sofa. The four of us gathered around the squat coffee table in Junebug’s den, as uneasy a group of mourners as I’d ever seen. Davis downed Jack Daniel’s into his big, football player’s frame, looking morose; Junebug frowned, funereally solemn; and Ed Dickensheets walked restlessly, his shock and grief propelling him like a ceiling fan turned up a notch too high. He paced around the table, crossing and uncrossing his arms.
“Goddamn it, Ed, you’re making me dizzy. Sit down!” Davis insisted. He rolled whiskey in his mouth and for one moment I thought Davis was going to spew the booze at Ed on his next orbit.
“I can’t,” Ed retorted. “If I sit down I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”
“Let him be, he’s not bothering you,” Junebug said quietly. Davis shrugged and sipped some more of his whiskey.
I held a glass of bourbon and water in my hand, but I’d left it untasted. I felt bone weary.
Junebug stood, glass aloft. “Here’s to Clevey Shivers and Trey Slocum, boys. May they rest in peace and meet us in heaven.”
The others stood, and for one brief moment I thought of not joining in. But it was for Clevey, too, and I felt heartsick that I seemed to be forgetting about him. I saw his easy smile, his laugh, the noticeable gap between his front teeth that would have kept him looking boyish at forty. I stood and clinked my glass against my friends’, the ringing of crystal brief and discordant. We sipped at varying speeds: Davis quaffing his in a gulp, his eyes averted, Junebug sipping slowly, Ed and I barely tasting ours. Davis was a little drunk and wasn’t done toasting.
“Clevey, our friend and a fine reporter,” he said. “He’ll dig up all the secrets, even if it sends him to hell.”
“Damn old Clevey,” Ed said, his pug face puckering up in a frown. “I always thought he was gonna be the meanest old fart in the nursing home.”
“He would’ve been the ugliest,” Davis muttered.
“I feel bad for Trey,” Ed said suddenly. “He’d just gotten to see us all again.” Silence fell and we sat in its shadow.
No one spoke for several minutes. I gazed into the amber shallows of my glass for a while and then looked up. Junebug, like me, was hypnotized by the eddies of liquor around ice; Davis, slumped in his chair, examined the ceiling for points of interest; Ed stared at his feet.
This is how men grieve, I thought. We feel this terrible, heavy sadness, but we pretend it’s not there. We don’t look into each other’s face for fear we’ll see another man’s tears, or worse, he will see ours. We talk about the things that mattered least in the lost life, and when words fail us, we down our drinks and turn glazed eyes to the carpet. Our laments are silent. I sipped at my whiskey.
“You know what kind of guns killed ’em?” Davis asked, his tone distant and solemn.
Junebug looked up from his drink. “Both shot with thirty-eights, but we haven’t determined yet if it was the same gun. Trey had a thirty-eight registered to him, and it’s missing.” No one spoke.
“Did Trey say anything before he died, Jordan?” Davis wanted to know.
“Jordan can’t talk about that,” Junebug interjected.
I shrugged. “I don’t see what difference it could possibly make. He told Mark he loved him. He didn’t say anything else. He just looked at me. Then he died.” I put my glass to my mouth but didn’t sip.
“Damn it, Jordan, you were told not to say anything about the case!” Junebug slammed his glass down on the table.
I’m already hiding evidence. Surely that’s worse than running off at the mouth. I didn’t share my ruminations with the group. “Why are you having a fit? You took yourself off Trey’s case.”
“That true, Junebug?” Ed asked, the ice rattling in his glass.
“I’d really prefer not to discuss it, Ed,” Junebug said. “Especially with the media.”
Ed coughed. “Hey, I just sell airtime for the station. I don’t fill it with news reports. You’d have to talk to Mr. Boss Man Foradory here about getting on the airwaves.”
Davis shrugged. “Let it go, Ed. Let’s change the subject.” His voice sounded weary.
Anger kept Ed going. “Hell, no. Our friends are dead, and now you’re not investigatin’? What the hell is that?”
I leaned forward. “Ed. Junebug had to take himself off the investigation of Trey’s murder because my sister is a suspect.” There, I said it.
Ed raised his chin slightly, looking at me with his dark eyes. A half smile played along his face, and he eased back in his chair. “You’re kidding, right? Junebug surely can’t believe Arlene shot anyone.”
“Why not?” Davis ventured. “Sorry to say it, y’all, but Arlene looked like she was in a killing mood last night.”
“Mood and action are two different things, Davis,” I retorted. “The idea of my sister murdering anyone is ridiculous.”
“Regardless”-Junebug kept his voice measuredly calm-“I felt it best to turn over Trey’s case to Franklin Bedloe. He’ll be the lead officer.”
Ed shook his head. “I bet ol’ Arlene really appreciates that vote of confidence, Junebug. You won’t be getting any more free coffee down at the Sit-a-Spell.”
“You’re not funny,” Junebug said in a low gravelly voice. He glared at me for having ventured into topics he didn’t want to discuss.
“Don’t get mad at Ed for pointing out the obvious,” I snapped. “You said a minute ago we had to talk. So let’s talk.” I felt a warm flush of frustration redden my face. “Whether or not my sister is an automatic suspect in Trey’s death, you think that the same person’s responsible for shooting Trey and Clevey. Why don’t you share your reasoning with everyone?”
Junebug stood, went to the bar, and refilled his drink. “I don’t want what’s discussed here leaving this room. Is that understood? I’m speaking as an officer of the law, not a
s your friend. Y’all hear me?” Silent assent greeted this statement, and he sat down again. He then told the others about the peculiar evidence: the newspaper clippings about Rennie Clifton and the 2 DOWN written in blood on Trey’s wall.
My lifelong friends traded uneasy glances. Finally Ed said, “I don’t understand. If Clevey knew something about that girl’s death, why hadn’t he told? I mean, he was a newspaper reporter. He would have written about it.”
Davis wet his lips. “Maybe he didn’t have enough evidence. You can’t just write an article without having all the facts. Papers get sued for inaccurate reporting. Clevey might have discovered something about Rennie Clifton’s death but not had enough to go to press with.”
“But enough to get killed over,” I pointed out.
“What could Trey have known? What connection would he have?” Davis asked.
“Well, he was with all of us when that storm hit…” Ed murmured. “All of us…”
“Did y’all know Clevey was in therapy?” I asked suddenly. The looks on Davis and Ed’s faces said no.
“What for?” Davis asked, helping himself to another dollop of whiskey.
“I don’t know. Do y’all have any idea what his problem was?”
Ed scratched his chin. “Aside from his mean streak?”
Junebug frowned. “That’s not treatable, Ed.”
Davis swished whiskey in his mouth. “Clevey seemed perfectly healthy. But I don’t think he would have confided a personal problem to me.”
I abandoned that tack. “Okay, then, back to the newspaper. Let’s say Clevey was working on a story about Rennie Clifton and it got him killed. Why would anyone then kill Trey? He hadn’t been in town in years. As far as we know, he and Clevey hadn’t been in touch for years. What would Trey know that Clevey knew?”
“We don’t know for certain that Clevey and Trey hadn’t been in contact. Trey’d already been here a day before Clevey died, right?” Davis said slowly. “They could have met. Maybe the two of them did know something. Maybe that’s why Trey came back to town after all these years.”
“He came home to recuperate,” I said tonelessly.
“So he said.” Davis shrugged.
“We better hope that it’s something only the two of them knew,” Ed added. “Because what if… the killer thinks that the rest of us know it, too?”
“If any of you boys know something you ain’t telling,” Junebug said softly, “now would be a real good time to spill the beans.”
No one answered.
I sipped again at my whiskey, letting the smoky taste fill my mouth. “I got a question. Why would Clevey even start digging into the past?”
“He wrote that article last summer. The twenty-year anniversary of Hurricane Althea,” Ed said slowly. “Remember, it came out last August. Maybe in writing that, he found out something about Rennie Clifton’s death. And now he’s dead.”
No one spoke for a long moment.
“Maybe we should all get out of town,” Ed blurted. “I mean, if someone’s knocking off our circle of friends, I say we all take our money, get the hell out of Dodge, and go party in Vegas or something.”
Davis snorted. “I’m not about to be chased away on a whim, Ed, and leave my radio station, my law practice, and my family. Get real. You got a business to worry about, too.”
“I don’t think it’s worth dying over!” Ed squeaked.
Davis laughed. “I agree, Ed, I wouldn’t die over Wanda. And I don’t expect you’ll have your ridiculous Elvis emporium much longer. So if you want to vamoose like a scared rabbit, go ahead.”
“The Institute of Elvisology is not ridiculous! Celebrity collectibles are a growth industry!”
“Ed, shut up!” I snapped. I pressed fingers against my aching temples. I wasn’t in the mood to discuss the comparative economic gains of peddling Elvis trinkets. “Look, none of us knows anything that Clevey or Trey knew, right? We’d admit it, right?” Nods of assent went around the room. “So we’re not in any danger, right?”
“Unless the killer thinks we know,” Davis said. “Then it doesn’t matter what the truth is.” God, sometimes I don’t like lawyers.
Sister was curled in a fetal position on her bed when I got home. Her quiet “come in” was barely above a whisper. I sat on the corner of her bed, afraid to touch her, nearly afraid to speak.
“I just got back from Junebug’s,” I said. “He sure is worried about you.”
The clouds didn’t let much moonlight through her window, but there was enough where I could see fresh tears on her face. “Junebug. God, he thinks I did it. He thinks I killed Trey in cold blood.”
“Of course he doesn’t. He has to take himself off any case where he’s got a personal connection.”
“Crap! He’s got personal connections with half the town. He did it so he won’t be the one to arrest me when they finally issue the wairant. He doesn’t want to put the handcuffs on the woman he claims to love.”
“Where were you today, Sister?”
“I told you, I told him. I needed quiet time, so I went for a long drive, out on the roads between here and La Grange and Bavary. I went down to Mears Creek. You know that’s where Trey proposed to me, don’t you? That was… our place.”
“Who gave you the black eye, then?”
“I told you! I stumbled against a tree.” She shifted her face into the pillow, and I knew this phase of the conversation was over.
“I want Mark to see Steven Teague,” I started, but she didn’t let me finish.
“Who?”
“He’s a therapist. A counselor. I think Mark needs help dealing with what he saw.”
“Jordy, I know you have good intentions. But I’d made it clear I didn’t want Mark to be around his father. You had no business interfering.”
“I’m sorry.” I felt miserable. “I’m sorry he saw what he did. I know you’re pissed at me, but, at least, he got to know that his father loved him.”
Sister gave a shuddering sob. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or despair that racked her body.
“Sister-”
“I’m sorry I hit him. I’m sorry he didn’t get to see Mark as Mark really is. Why? Why did he have to leave us?” she cried.
In the six years Trey had been gone, I’d never heard her ask that question. Of course I had no answer. Instead, I took her in my arms. She cried for a while, then pulled her face away from my shoulder.
“Stupid crybaby.” She sniffed, wiping her face with her robe’s sleeve. “I should know better.”
“His leaving never made sense to me.” I pushed an errant lock of hair out of her face.
“God. Now he’s gone, truly gone.” Sister stared at the moon-limned clouds in their dreary, dark parade southward. “A part of me always believed he’d come back. Isn’t that the most idiotic thing you ever heard?”
“No, it’s not.” Silence hung between us for a minute.
“Sister?”
“Yeah?”
“Did Trey send you money-support-for Mark?” Trey’d alluded to that twice, once at the library, once at Truda Shivers’s, but both times I’d been convinced it was a lie to salve his ego.
Sister lowered her eyes. “Yes. Every month for the past six years. Sometimes he’d miss a month, but he’d always make it up. And always with a money order. The letters were postmarked from all over.”
I let my breath out. And I’d called Trey a liar. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I don’t know. I put most of it in an account at the bank. I want Mark to go to college. Sometimes I had to tap it, when times were hard, but most of it’s in that account.”
“So Trey wasn’t entirely a deadbeat dad?”
Sister’s tone grew cold. “He wasn’t here. Money doesn’t replace a father’s love. That’s what I don’t understand. Okay, our marriage wasn’t perfect. There were times that we fought. But leave Mark? How could he abandon his own flesh and blood?”
In that last phone conversation
with Trey, I could hear the joy, the anticipation of seeing his son. “I don’t know. I only know that he loved Mark, even if he wasn’t here to show it.”
She threw herself on the pillows. “I don’t want to talk about him now! Go to bed, Jordan. We’ve both had horrible days.”
While she was in this state of honesty I wanted to ask about the batik scrap I’d found; but I couldn’t. Not without it sounding like an accusation I wasn’t ready to make. I got up and went back downstairs. Candace had gotten Mama down for the night and was sipping a ginger ale and watching the news from Austin.
“Thanks for staying over.” I went and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed back for a moment.
“You want me to sleep with you? Or in the guest room?” she asked softly. “I never stayed here since we’ve been dating.”
“It can’t make any nevermind to Mama, but, for Mark’s sake, it’d be best if you slept in the guest room.”
She didn’t take it as rejection. “All right, babe. You doing okay?”
I looked down into her cool blue eyes. I wanted to say no, I wasn’t doing okay. I was scared shitless by the two options that seemed to be looming before me; either my sister was a killer or my friends were being murdered for some hidden reason from boyhood days. Death has a long shadow, my grandfather used to say, and I never appreciated what he meant until now. I wanted to explain this to Candace, but instead I kissed her again and said I was going to bed.
It was only after I pulled myself between the cold, lonely sheets and lay back on my pillow that the most disturbing thought of the day came to me: what if Trey had been killed simply because he’d come home?
9
“Not like that,” Trey scolded me. “You always, always get on a horse from the left, not the right!” He yanked the reins out of my hand and patted the horse’s side.
“Well, excuuuse me,” I retorted. “I was on the left.”
“Not your left. The horse’s left.” Trey took me by the shoulder and led me around to the proper side.
“You didn’t say that,” I said indignantly.
