by Brynn Bonner
I took a quick photo of the page in question with my phone camera since I didn’t have time to get copies made, and we gathered up our things.
As Esme and I waited for the ancient elevator I started to worry again about what might be happening back in Morningside.
“What’s gonna happen is gonna happen,” Esme said, staring at the smeared elevator doors. “Troubling yourself about it won’t change a thing.”
“How do you know I’m troubled?” I asked. “I think I’ve been pretty chill, all things considered.”
“Honey, you’re so agitated folks might mistake you for a washing machine. I’m gonna start calling you Miss Maytag.”
* * *
We rejoined a happy Tony. “Wow, I’ve never been so psyched about a lack of progress,” he said. “Some of these places haven’t changed much at all.”
“Maybe they’d prefer to call it preservation,” I said.
“Whatever,” Tony said with a shrug. “I call it good footage.”
But despite Tony’s assessment of Crawford as we drove out to the Hargett farm, I was taken aback by the modernity of the place. I had a picture in my mind from reading Celestine’s diaries and had half expected it to appear in sepia tone.
We walked around the property with Tony filming from every conceivable angle, then used the keys Olivia had given us to get inside to film the rooms of both houses. As time wore on Esme started to get flustered, muttering and occasionally putting her hand across her forehead.
“Who’s Miss Maytag now?” I asked, when Tony was out of earshot.
“Shush, it’s Celestine,” Esme said. “She’s getting all riled up again. It’s this place. I need to get out of here and take a walk.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said, glancing over to where Tony was absorbed in panning across the living room’s fireplace wall.
“No, you stay here and supervise Mr. Spielberg over there,” Esme insisted. “I just need some air.”
I was concerned about Esme, but I knew better than to argue. I waited for Tony to finish filming the rooms, then checked the list on my phone and followed Olivia’s directions on where to find meaningful family artifacts for Tony to film. This is one facet of family history documentation people sometimes neglect. We live our lives among things. Even when we were cave dwellers we had our favorite rock for breaking open nuts or a long limb that made a good walking stick. It often takes me by surprise how a seemingly insignificant thing, like a cookie jar with a broken lid, or lamp with a tattered shade, can be imbued with so many memories.
Tony and I worked well together. I put a white tablecloth on the long farmhouse table where Tony could film each artifact in panorama. I carried each back to storage as Tony finished filming. There was the biscuit bowl, a big crockery bowl with blue stripes around it, and a glass vase in which Celestine had proudly displayed the wildflowers Olivia picked for her, always including the stinky bitterweed little Olivia found beautiful, despite the vile smell. Then more objects, more furniture, and finally some architectural features of the houses.
When we’d finished I went in search of Esme while Tony packed up his gear. I called out and could hear her answering voice coming from somewhere far away. I followed it to the back side of the property, which sloped gradually downhill, past what I assumed had once been a thriving garden plot and was now a patch of rutted, fallow ground. I hiked past dilapidated outbuildings that were once chicken coops and corncribs and through a copse of trees along a narrow, snaking trail. I brushed aside bushes, picking at my jeans, until I came to a clearing. As I stepped out, the wind freshened and I could hear rushing water. I spotted Esme standing by a wide river gazing up at the old railroad trestle that still spanned the water. The rusting hulk looked as if it had been abandoned for decades.
I walked down to where Esme stood. “You okay?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m not. Poor Celestine. She is weary and restless and I can’t help her. Look at this place.” She made a sweeping gesture of the picturesque scene. Water tumbled over the rocks, some smooth, some craggy, that formed a stepping-stone path out almost to the middle of the river. The trees along the far bank were all decked out in autumn oranges and golds; dying shafts of sunlight the color of the inside of a lemon muted it all and gave it a faded soft-focus look. The river was fast moving and the susurration of water sluicing around rock should have been a soothing sound, but instead it seemed an ominous sound track to the story we had burned into our brains of how Johnny Hargett had died here. The bleak skeleton of the trestle silhouetted against the dying light of the sky seemed to harbinger despair and ruin to anyone who came close.
“We should go, Esme,” I said. “This isn’t doing you any good and apparently it’s not helping Celestine, either.”
“A few more minutes,” Esme said, gazing out across the rushing water. “Abiding with her a while is the least I can do for her. I understand, now that I see the place, how it could be they never found the body. Look at that tree limb over there in the water,” she said. “That thing’s big around as my leg.” She stopped and looked at me over her sunglasses. “Okay, big as your leg. And see how fast the current’s carrying it. And look how wild it is along these riverbanks, even now. I expect it would’ve been even more overgrown back then.”
“Yeah,” I said, imagining Celestine and Riley walking these riverbanks, searching in vain for something they desperately wanted to find yet had a dread of finding.
Esme started a rhythmic nod of her head. “I know, I know,” she said aloud, though she wasn’t talking to me. “I know you say it’s not right, but there was no evil in what happened here. It was a terrible thing but not an evil thing.”
I sat down on the grass and waited as Esme continued to stare out across the water. After a while I heard Tony calling to us, and a few minutes later he emerged from the tree line. He stopped in his tracks and looked up at the trestle. “Oh, man! Is this the one?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but pulled out a small camera. “I doubt Olivia will want this right now, but maybe generations from now somebody will.” He panned across the river and up to the trestle, then put the camera back in his bag. “That’s it, lost the light.”
He turned and started back up the hill. When he had moved a ways ahead I turned to Esme. “You ready?”
Esme heaved a big sigh. “Ah well, I tried. She’s still unsettled and completely dissatisfied with me, but I don’t know what more I can do. Let’s go home.”
As we neared the tree line I looked back to the river. The limb that had been floating downstream had vanished.
twenty
WE WERE QUIET ON THE drive back to Morningside, each of us lost in our own thoughts. As Esme drove her SUV along the two-laned road the headlights probed the inky darkness, only reaching a little way into what lay ahead. I could identify.
I hadn’t realized how deep the silence was until about halfway home, when Tony burst out. “Are you two mad at me or something? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Tony,” I said. “It’s not you. We’ve just got a lot on our minds.” And since I couldn’t list for him all the things actually consuming our thoughts, I said, “We need to get Olivia’s project wrapped up and turned over to her—and you. Then we’ve got to prepare for the job down in Wilmington.”
“Not to mention being neck-deep in Blaine’s murder investigation,” Tony said dryly. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “And since we’re on that subject, I need to tell you something, Tony: The police are probably going to want to talk to you again.”
“But I’ve already told them everything I know,” he said.
“I think they may have some questions about what you saw when you went over that night looking for Beth.”
“But I only went because you all asked me to,” he protested. “And I didn’t see anything. We’ve been over this. I showed you the footage from that day.”
“And that’s what
you tell them so you can clear this up once and for all,” I said, encouragingly, though the thought of those gaps in his timeline worried me. “And if it’s Jennifer Jeffers you talk to, and you start feeling the least bit uncomfortable, you ask to be represented by a lawyer. I can give you a name.”
“I can’t afford a lawyer,” Tony said flatly.
“No worries. She’s a friend of ours and she owes us a favor,” Esme said, which was big news to me. Crystal Conners was a friend of ours, but as far as I knew she wasn’t beholden to us in any way.
We were tired and hungry when we got home. “I’m gonna fix us grilled cheese and soup,” Esme said as she climbed out of the car. “Tony, you want to stay?”
“Thanks, but I’ll fix myself a sandwich back at Olivia’s. I want to get this footage set to render so I can do some cutting tomorrow. I think we got some good stuff today. Thanks for going out with me.”
As we watched him get on his bike and ride away, I turned to Esme. “What favor does Crystal Conners owe us exactly?”
Esme raised an eyebrow. “I’m not gonna have Jennifer Jeffers jamming that kid up. I’ll pay the fee myself if need be.”
“So, you’re convinced he didn’t do it?”
“Didn’t say that. Let’s just say I accept this is a complicated situation, and I know that kid has two strikes against him already in some people’s minds.”
“You old softy,” I said, giving her a nudge.
“Yeah, I’m a regular marshmallow. But if Tony screws up I’ll kick his behind.”
We went into the kitchen and started our supper with the practiced ease of two people who’ve prepped many meals together in a small kitchen. I thought back to how it had been when I moved back here after graduate school. I love my house and it is filled with glorious memories, but it was a lonely place with my parents gone. Everywhere I looked there was a reminder of what I’d lost. But since Esme moved in it’s become a home again and we’re making new memories to add to the old ones.
Esme had just turned up the heat under her trusty cast-iron skillet when Denny called, wanting to know if he could stop by on his supper break.
She told him that would be fine and as she was putting the receiver back in the phone’s base the front door opened and Denny called out a hello. “I was out front,” he said. “I took a chance you’d be here, but I did call.”
“Letter of the law if not the spirit,” Esme said. “Have you actually had any supper on your supper break?”
“No, I decided I’d rather see your smiling face,” he said. “And I brought you some presents.” He pulled his hands from behind his back, a book in one and a to-go cup in the other. “Latest mystery from your favorite writer and a chai tea from Top o’ the Morning. I know that’s not as romantic as flowers and chocolates, but I thought you’d like these better.”
“You know me,” Esme said with a smile. “Now sit down and I’ll have you a grilled cheese in a jiffy.”
“Okay, this is all great and wonderful,” I said, unable to contain myself a second longer, “but, Denny, what’s up with Peyton?”
“Peyton,” Denny said, shaking his head as he sat down. “That lunkhead. I took his statement and sent him home.”
“Just like that? So he came to his senses and didn’t confess to killing Blaine.”
“Oh no, he did,” Denny said. “And for such a savvy coach that was about the worst call ever made. The school board gets a whiff of this and he’ll be out of a job.”
“But you don’t think he actually did it?” Esme asked.
“Let me put it this way,” Denny said. “I was born in the morning, but it wasn’t yesterday morning. I know how to work a timeline same as you two.” He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and opened it so we could see his scribbled diagram. “I know where Peyton was practically every minute of that day. There’s a small gap right here in our window and he would have had the time if he was quick about it, but the problem is he overconfessed. He got nearly ’bout every particular of the crime wrong. So either he was gaslighting us or he didn’t do it.”
“Why did he claim he did it?” I asked.
“Oh, you know, the usual Cain and Abel stuff. He trotted out a few things, like he was auditioning motives to see which one would fly. First it was just general jealousy between the two. Then it was the fight they were in about their folks letting Madison come back home. But my favorite was that he killed his brother because he reneged on a promise to fund new uniforms for the football team.”
“That’s ridiculous! Who would kill somebody over that?” I said.
“Sadly, people have killed for less,” Denny said. “But I don’t buy it in this case.”
“Did you talk with Beth today?” I asked.
“I did,” Denny said, smiling up at Esme as she set a gloriously gooey cheese sandwich in front of him. “She’s remembering bits and pieces, but I suspect you already know that.” He gave me a sly look, which I ignored.
“Anything helpful?” I asked, wondering how much she’d revealed.
“Some,” Denny said, sawing the sandwich in half. “What she told me helped solidify our determination that their house was the scene of the crime, and late this afternoon we got the DNA back from the blood samples we took from the yard. Some was Beth’s; some was Blaine’s. That’s compelling. But I know Beth’s holding back. I’m not getting the whole story. She remembers Blaine being there and she remembers falling and being knocked out, but she can’t remember how it happened. She says she thinks maybe she tripped over the rake and hit her head on the rock border.”
I looked up to see Denny studying me, his brown eyes searching my face. I felt like I might be telegraphing everything running through my brain on a little screen on my forehead. And the more I tried to look impassive, the more involuntary tics and grimaces took over.
“Soup’s ready,” I said, jumping up to ladle the tomato-basil into mugs, thankful to get away from Denny’s mind probe. “Well, I’m glad about Peyton,” I said. “Though I still don’t understand why he would do something as stupid as confess to a murder he didn’t commit.”
“I’d say the only thing that makes sense is he’s protecting someone,” Denny said.
“Who?” Esme said, dealing out sandwiches to my plate and hers.
“No idea,” Denny said. “Must be somebody he cares a whole lot about to be willing to risk so much.”
“Madison?” I asked. “He’s very protective of his sister.”
“It’s a theory,” Denny said. He took another big bite of his grilled cheese. The thick slabs of sourdough looked like a canapé in his big hands. He let out a couple of appreciative hmmms and gave Esme a thumbs-up. “All I can tell you is somebody around here is protecting somebody. From who or from what I don’t know just yet.”
And there was that probing stare again, directed first at me, then at Esme.
I blinked, but Esme stared right back.
* * *
I slept late on Tuesday morning, so grateful I’d finally gotten to sleep I’d willed myself to prolong it. I’d tossed and turned for hours mulling over the situation with Beth, Peyton, Tony, and all the others impacted by, and maybe involved in, Blaine’s murder. Plus, the trip to Crawford had gotten under my skin. I kept having visions of Celestine and Riley walking that riverbank, of a human being hurtling off that train trestle and landing on the rocks below. I imagined I could hear the sickening thud, the rush of water, and the mournful whistle of a train off in the night.
When I finally fell asleep my worries skulked into my dreams. There was that foreboding trestle, except it was Blaine falling to his death as Olivia paddled a boat across the river below, the wind sculpture on the back of her boat making a clanging cacophony instead of a musical sound. Celestine Hargett stood on the shore, her hair frizzy from a recent home permanent. She clucked disapprovingly at the scene before her. “That’s not right,” she said, “not right at all.” Tony stepped out of the shadows. “Okay, cut!” he yelled. “The l
ight wasn’t right; we’re going to have to do another take.” Celestine protested. “But he’s dead. You can’t make him dead again.”
When I jolted awake from that one I turned on the white noise machine on the head of my bed. In the wee hours of the morning I finally fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.
The next morning I knew right off Esme must have had a bad night, too. I found her in the workroom, packing up the last vestiges of Olivia’s artifacts as she muttered to herself. “Mums, gladiolas, tulips. Okay, but I don’t get it.”
“You okay?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“No, I am not okay,” Esme said. “I am bothered. I am annoyed. I am pestered.” She looked to the ceiling. “And I cannot help.”
“Still Celestine, I take it?”
“Sweet Lord, yes. She’s showing me flowers, all kinds of flowers.”
“Hmm, you think maybe you’re riffing off what Denny said last night about flowers being more romantic than books?”
“No,” Esme said. “That’s not it. We’re not talking a vase of flowers; we’re talking flowers everywhere. Like at a funeral or something.”
“Maybe that’s what it means. Think about it: Johnny never had a proper funeral. She said in her diary that troubled her and Riley. Maybe that’s what she thinks is not right.”
Esme’s expression was hopeful. “I never thought of that. Oh, good night, I hope she’s not expecting me to throw him a wake after all these years.”
“Maybe it’s just a spirit world funeral?” I offered.
Esme smiled and held both hands out. “Well, come on then, Celestine, I’ll preach Johnny a funeral, though it’ll be a short eulogy. And I’ll admire all the pretty flowers with you, too.”
“While you’re playing preacher and florist, I’m going out to the kitchen for coffee and toast. Then I’ll help you pack the rest of this.”
The chore list Esme had started was on the kitchen table. There were several errands on the docket, plus tonight was the regular meeting of the genealogy club, so we needed to prepare snacks.
