by Jeff Abbott
“Thank you,” she said.
Sipping at the punch, I tried to keep from making a face. It tasted disgustingly sweet, as though it had more sugar than powdered mix in it. I forced myself to swallow.
“I-” I didn’t know where to begin. “I guess you’re surprised to see me.” I took a deep breath, as if I were diving for the cool bottom of Lake Bonaparte, and plunged in. Thomasina Clifton watched me, her head tilted to one side with curiosity.
“I wanted to discuss Rennie. Her death.”
“Why?”
“Have you heard about the two murders in town since Friday?”
Thomasina Clifton nodded. “Yeah, on the radio.”
“Those murdered men were also two of the boys who found your daughter’s body.”
Her eyes narrowed in the folds of flesh, but she remained silent.
“Clevey Shivers and Trey Slocum. Clevey was on the staff of The Mirabeau Mirror. I suspect he was writing a story on Rennie. After he was killed, the police found notes on Rennie’s case. Old newspaper clippings. He’d hidden them behind his toilet.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“I don’t know. Did Clevey Shivers ever come and talk to you about your daughter?”
She didn’t answer at first and I took another gulp of the dreadful Kool-Aid, wondering if it’d rot my teeth.
“He came by a couple of months ago. He was writing an anniversary piece on the hurricane. He asked me all about how much I missed Rennie.” She offered the box of chocolates to me; I declined. She popped one in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Ain’t that the stupidest thing you ever heard? Asking a mother if she misses her child? That Clevey fellow just kept saying how sorry he was about her dying.”
“Did you ever think that maybe her death wasn’t an accident?” I asked. “I know the coroner said it was.”
“I know what that coroner man said,” she answered gruffly. She glanced at the pitcher. “Pour me some more, would you? My throat’s dry.”
I refilled her glass. She sipped. “Rennie was trouble then and she’s trouble now.”
That seemed a heartless way to refer to your dead child, but Mrs. Clifton’s voice was anything but callous. Mournful and bitter. I sat again.
“Do you know why on earth she would have been out in the middle of a hurricane?”
Thomasina Clifton didn’t answer me right away. When she did, her voice was lower in pitch, like she’d chalked her throat. “I don’t know. Finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? She was gone a lot of the time without explanation. I couldn’t control her easy.”
It wasn’t an answer; it was her own grief speaking. I stayed silent.
“Maybe she was gatherin’ flowers for that lady she worked for.” Mrs. Clifton shifted in her chair.
The premise was ridiculous, but it was an opening, and I went for it. “Ivalou Purcell? How did Rennie get along with her?”
“Not well. That Purcell woman was jealous of Rennie. Jealous of how young and pretty a girl she was.”
I thought of Ivalou’s sour face, the pinched way she looked at people. Envy seemed right up her alley.
“Could you be more specific?”
“You got to understand what kind of girl Rennie was,” Mrs. Clifton said, sipping from her sugared drink. “Headstrong. Did what she pleased and ever-body else be damned. Lord, she was a handful to me. Willful at times, if she didn’t get what she wanted.”
“And what did she want?”
“I shouldn’t-I shouldn’t talk about my child this way.” She stared up at a picture on the TV, an old, grainy color photo of herself with three young girls. “That’s Rennie in the middle. My other girls still live here in town. They’se married with they own kids now. I don’t want to talk about Rennie.”
I knelt by her and took her hand. “Mrs. Clifton. I don’t want to dredge up unpleasant memories for you. I’m sorry if I have. But two men have died, a third’s been shot, and I think it might have to do with your daughter’s death. Please, won’t you help me, before someone else gets hurt?”
Her ample fingers closed convulsively over mine. Her bottom lip trembled. “She was pregnant when she died,” Mrs. Clifton whispered. “I begged them to keep it out of the papers. I used to clean for old Dud Schiller, who was the editor then. He kept it out of the news. She was only six weeks along. My baby was pregnant.” She began to cry, short heaving sobs. I held her hand and rubbed her shoulder till she was still.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “It must’ve been a horrible shock.”
“That she was pregnant? Not so much as you think. She was always stringin’ some boy along.” Thomasina Clifton mopped at her tears. “That was part of the reason that Ivalou Purcell hated her so. She thought Rennie was after her daughter’s beau.”
“Wanda’s boyfriend?” It didn’t make sense until I remembered that Wanda was about four years older than Ed. That distinction hardly matters in your thirties, but when Ed and I were twelve, Wanda would have been Rennie’s age.
“Yeah. A football player that Wanda was sweet on named Glenn Wilson. He died a few years back in a car wreck. He was seeing Rennie, secret like. She thought I didn’t know, but I did.” She sniffed. “A white boy and a black girl couldn’t really have dated out in the open then, but I saw ’em kissin’ on the porch one night. God, it made me mad. I tried to tell her she had no business datin’ a white boy, but she didn’t pay me no heed. She always went for fellows she thought she couldn’t have.”
I remembered Glenn Wilson. He’d been a big, likable guy, easygoing, popular in town. He’d played football for Sam Houston State and married a college sweetheart. I even remembered hearing about when he and his wife had been killed three years ago, driving back to Houston after the Labor Day weekend. Everyone said what a terrible shame it was.
Had he gotten Rennie Clifton pregnant? Had Wanda or Ivalou found out? How would they? And why, still, was she out in the middle of that storm?
“Did you know Rennie was pregnant before she died?”
Mrs. Clifton shook her head. “No. She didn’t tell me. I guess she knew, though. Her period was always real regular.”
Maybe she’d seen a doctor. Maybe-I remembered the clinic. “Did she ever mention a fellow named Steven Teague?”
Mrs. Clifton furrowed her face in thought. “Not that I recall. Who’s he?”
“A psychotherapist who lived here around the time Rennie died.”
She shook her head. “Don’t recognize the name. Rennie was a handful, but she sure weren’t crazy.”
I knelt by her again. “Did you ever think that Rennie was murdered, Mrs. Clifton?”
She took several deep breaths. “I didn’t want to. I wanted to believe it was just God callin’ her home. When they told me she was with child, I thought that Glenn had killed her when he’d found out… but that didn’t seem right. He wasn’t the kind of boy to kill. That Wanda, though…” She left her sentence unfinished. “There wasn’t no evidence she’d been murdered. The coroner said it was an accident. I couldn’t argue. I didn’t.”
“Was there anyone else you suspected?” I asked.
“No. No one else wanted to hurt my girl. She didn’t have many friends, she kept to herself, she worked at Miz Purcell’s, and she helped me out some with my work.”
“She helped you with your housecleaning?”
“Yeah, she sometimes helped if I had a big house to clean.”
“Who were you working for when Rennie died?” She scratched her chins, and began rattling off names. Grayson, Kucerak, Hubbert, Montgomery-names that didn’t connect to the case. I didn’t bite my lip till she mentioned Hart Quadlander.
I parked the car in my driveway, noting automatically that Sister’s car was still gone and neither Candace’s nor Clo’s car was there. I only hoped that Mama hadn’t been left to her own devices.
I rubbed my eyes. I’d left Thomasina Clifton forlorn with her oversweet Kool-Aid and a load of terrible memories to mull over. I w
as a jerk, no doubt about it. The limp body of Rennie Clifton rose through the currents of my memory, as clearly as when I’d first seen her corpse, and I tried to force her out of my mind. Trey’s body replaced hers, and then Clevey’s face, smiling in a rictus of death. The gagging cherry taste of the Kool-Aid came back into my mouth and I swallowed hard. I needed food and sleep and some quiet to think.
I thought I’d get those restoratives right away. Until I opened the front door and saw my house had been ransacked.
13
“Your tie is crooked,” I said, straightening the dark knot at Mark’s throat.
“Does it matter?” He squirmed under my ministrations.
“Yes, it does matter. You want to look nice for your father’s funeral.”
“No one’ll care. He wouldn’t have.” Mark twisted away from me, knocking his tie further askew. I surrendered and watched him storm off. He’d passed from pretending that he hadn’t seen his father’s life leak away on that cold kitchen floor to anger toward Trey-and toward the world. And I, friend to his father, bore the brunt of most of Mark’s wrath.
The back door slapped against the frame as he bolted onto the porch. I settled on the couch. The house had returned to a semblance of order after I’d found it in disarray yesterday afternoon. At first I’d figured we’d been burglarized, but nothing was missing. Drawers were pulled out, papers scattered, books yanked from shelves, pictures wrenched off the wall. A hurried, frantic search had been made.
Mama, first in my thoughts, turned out to be enjoying a visit to Candace’s cafe with Clo. Mark had been out for a long walk with Scott Kinnard. (I found that highly interesting, but Mark volunteered no details. I didn’t pry. If those boys could be friends, share memories of the man they’d both wanted for a father, I wouldn’t interfere.) No one had been home, no one had been hurt. I’d called the police and reported the break-in (apparently accomplished by knocking out a pane of the backdoor window) and had started a desultory cleanup by the time Sister got home. A good night’s sleep had done wonders for my constitution.
Now I reclined on the couch, watching Mark stare out at the yard. Sister came downstairs, dressed in a black skirt, a white blouse, and a black jacket (she didn’t have a proper black dress, and I felt a pang that maybe I don’t provide enough for her), and putting in her earrings. Her eye remained discolored. She’d applied makeup to the bruise, but a purplish half circle still shone beneath the cream.
“Not much makeup is going to do for that shiner,” I observed.
She didn’t break stride as she went to the window to watch Mark. “I tried to hide it, but I’m stuck with it. I’ll wear dark glasses.”
“Who hit you, Sister?” I might as well try again.
“I told you, no one.” She glanced at me in irritation.
“I know you’re lying. And I know you were at Trey’s house the morning of the murder.” I stood. I wasn’t going to stand there and smile like a wimp at her prevarication.
Her jaw worked. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“I found a shred of fabric on a nail on the Kinnards’ back steps right after Trey died. It was from those batik print pants I gave you. You were wearing them that morning.”
Her shoulders gave a slow heave, as if creaking out from under a heavy burden.
Sister turned away from me to look out at Mark. “And what did you do with this scrap? Give it to Junebug? Is that why he took himself off the case?”
“No. I hid it.”
“Maybe that’s what our burglar was looking for.”
“I don’t think so. No one knows I have it.”
“And what are you going to do with it? When were you planning on giving it to the police?”
My throat felt dry. I thought when I confronted her with my shred of evidence that there would be protestations of innocence, pleadings, denials, possibly a full explanation-anything except this calm discussion. She was implacably set on her own unknown course, and nothing I said swayed her. “For God’s sake, tell me. Did you kill him?” With quivering hands she put on her sunglasses. “It’s nice to know your own brother thinks you’re capable of murdering someone.” She turned away and went outside on the porch, putting her arms around her boy. They held each other, lost in their own world of bereavement and betrayal. I stood and watched them until it was time to go.
Like nearly everyone, I don’t like funerals, although for some reason I find the Mirabeau cemetery peaceful and oddly reassuring. Perhaps I take comfort in knowing where my bones will lie.
Mirabeau’s new Episcopal church, St-George’s-on-the-River, had been finished just a few months ago to much fanfare. It was the first new church in town in fifteen years. (We local Anglicans, who’d been raised in churches in Bavary and La Grange, took great pleasure in its opening.) Although Clevey had strayed from the flock, Truda Shivers had remained a steadfast Episcopalian. Trey, although baptized, did not have a steady faith, according to Nola. Since he’d been married in the Episcopal church, a service at St. George’s seemed appropriate for him as well.
The church, not large to begin with, was packed. The celebrant, Father Greene, preceded the pallbearers wheeling the caskets into the church. The families of the dead men followed like hushed sheep. My arms around Mark and Sister, I walked down the aisle with them, faces leaping out at me from the crowd: Davis; his wife, Cayla; their son, Bradley, looking awkward and fidgety in a suit; Ed and Wanda (who had fortunately decided to bypass her Elvis regalia); Ivalou Purcell, frowning at us; Steven Teague, a look of professional sorrow on his face, standing with Eula Mae. One corner held my library contingent of Itasca, Florence, and even Gretchen, and I felt touched they were here. Candace’s parents sat in a row near the family reserve. Junebug’s clan was absent, still maintaining their ceaseless vigil at the hospital.
When we settled into our seats, the front left pews were full of Shiverses from near and far, while the right front pews held Sister, Mark, me, assorted relatives of ours, Candace, Hart Quadlander, and the Kinnards. I saw Nola shoot Sister a particularly venomous glance at one point, but Sister didn’t notice. Nola caught me looking and defiance crossed her face. She stared down into her lap, a lock of loose brown hair dangling over her forehead.
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord,” Father Greene began as we joined in, prayer books in hand, those not used to the service fumbling to the correct page. I mumbled along, trying to convince myself I was actually saying these words for Trey and Clevey. My throat felt molten-this was the beginning of goodbye.
“O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered. Accept our prayers on behalf of thy servants Clevey and Trey, and grant them an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of thy saints-” Father Greene implored, and I thought: Trey will find the fellowship of saints quite dull. A cousin of Clevey’s rose and stepped to the pulpit to read the usual passages from Isaiah and Lamentations. “The Lord is good unto them that wait for him,” he said, and I thought of minutes stretched into hours, into days, into years that we had waited for Trey.
Mark sat between Sister and me, my arm around him, my hand on her shoulder. She held her purse stiffly, staring straight ahead, ignoring both prayer book and Bible, her sunglasses hiding her marred face. I couldn’t see if tears moistened her eyes. Mark’s neck felt rigid against my arm. I watched Truda Shivers; she sat between her sisters, her head held high. She would see her son off in dignity.
I risked a glance over my shoulder. Hart Quadlander had a comforting arm around Nola Kinnard, who was dabbing at her tears with a wad of tissue and making snuffling noises. Scott held her hand and his eyes met mine. Oddly, he smiled shyly, then looked down again at his mother’s lap. It suddenly struck me that they had known an entirely different Trey than I had; a man with a family he’d abandoned, a past he’d just as soon not acknowledge. I wondered if he was happy with them, or if he was ever lonesome for his own child when he played with Scott, or missed the soft press of his wife’s arms when
he hugged Nola. They were probably decent enough folks, but I didn’t think they were worthy substitutes for Sister and Mark. I admit to personal bias.
Hart caught me looking and I turned back toward the pulpit. While psalms were read, I thought again about what Thomasina Clifton had told me: Hart Quadlander was one of her clients, and she remembered at least one time when Rennie had gone out to the Quadlander farm to help her clean. I wondered if he knew the girl, or remembered her. But then wouldn’t Trey have known her? He’d always maintained Rennie was a stranger to him.
We stood for the Gospel and were duly told that in our father’s house are many mansions. I didn’t pay much attention to the service, having gone through it by rote too many times. I felt guiltily glad Sister and the Shiverses had declined to have Communion at the service. Before I knew it, we were standing, ready to continue the service with the Committal at the grave sites. We stepped out into kind sunshine, a welcome break from the drizzly rains of the last several days.
Clevey’s burial came first. I hung back from the crowd, conscious of Davis and his family near me. I listened to the calming tones of Father Greene and tried not to think about the gap-toothed carrot-top I’d grown up with who would lie moldering in that casket. I started when the dirt hit the coffin. Slowly, people walked toward their cars, to head to the Quadlander farm. Louis Slocum, Trey’s father, was buried there and we’d arranged for Trey to be buried next to his father.
Louis Slocum had been interred near the creekside oaks where he’d gotten rip-roaring drunk so many nights. I sometimes wondered if he’d favored the quiet company of the leaves and the breeze and the trees more than of people, He had teen terribly neglectful of Trey, and I’d always thought him a low fellow because of it. Now Trey was coming home, and would share his father’s company forever. Death conducts every final reunion.
