Raveled

by McAneny, Anne

  Fury boiled beneath my skin.

  The third picture showed a clump of hay and the toe of a scuffed white tennis shoe. Must have been Jasper’s foot when he first found the camera and tested it out. The fourth was taken from far below, with Jasper aiming the camera above his head, disbelieving of the disrobed, floating seraph soaring above him. Maybe the angle or the cheapness of the camera had enhanced Shelby’s precarious altitude, but a chill shot through me when I saw how high up she was. Christ, boys, have a heart. Even with the distance between lens and subject, it was obvious Shelby had removed her bra by the time this photo was snapped. She couldn’t have appeared more vulnerable than if they’d bound and gagged her.

  The next two photos confirmed the content of Jasper’s letter. Smitty, in three-quarter face, and Bobby, oblivious to the camera with a half-empty vodka bottle upside down on his lips. What a pair. Smitty’s youth shocked me, having just seen him as a weary father holding down a stressful job. But if you added in a few wrinkles from carrying a heavy burden of guilt, plus the dull sheen of a man with little imagination and a murderous inclination, you’d get present-day Smitty.

  Bobby, on the other hand, looked exactly as he’d been preserved and mounted in Lavitte’s memory. Youthful, carefree, strong, touched by the light of the gods. No doubt taken from the world at the height of his physicality. And the Kettricks would have him no other way for all eternity. Forget the path of destruction left in his wake, the simmering hate of those who’d felt his wrath, and the girls on whose hearts he’d trampled. Forget the real Bobby Kettrick. Lavitte’s legendary, ethereal Bobby Kettrick would live on forever in his falsely earned, elevated status, far higher than the loft on which he’d stranded a little girl.

  Sadly, even with proof positive, Lavitte was not one to let go of its legends without a fight, be they praiseworthy or horrid. I needed more. I checked the envelope one last time. That was it. This was all I had to go on. No more photos.

  Or so I thought until my phone rang.

  Chapter 46

  Allison… present

  Before I could even get in a courtesy hello, Ray found himself halfway through his second sentence. I slowed him down and made him start over.

  “Okay, okay, sorry,” he said. “I’m just excited. Or maybe that’s rude. I mean, Jasper’s dead and here I am feeling excited. Smart guy, that Jasper.”

  Now I’d regressed Ray too much. He’d started off saying something about a photo.

  “Okay, so here’s the story,” he said. “Remember I told you how I had to file a warranty claim today?”

  “Yes. Sort of. For what?”

  “The automatic front door! Remember how it wasn’t working when you first came here?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “Well, we don’t know if it was faulty installation or a defective door, but we have to submit all this paperwork to get a replacement.”

  Couldn’t imagine the relevance, but I knew Ray well enough now to let him go on.

  “So Julia started filling out this ridiculous, ten-page claim the other day and it required photos of the door from the outside and inside. Well, it takes Julia forever to do anything. She finally got out her phone on Thursday and took the photos. Had to do it a few times because of glare and whatnot. Then last night, she hooked up her phone at home where she has a printer with photo paper—ours here is terrible—and she brought the photos in this morning. I was stapling them on just now when I noticed a driver pulling into the Ravine parking lot in the background of one of the photos. Driving right past the door as Julia took the picture.”

  My eyes went wide and my ears zoomed in. Was Ray about to say he had a photo of Smitty pulling into Ravine?

  “I checked the time stamp and it was four minutes before—”

  “Was it a green Jeep Grand Cherokee?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Ray said. I could hear the disappointment in his voice. Like he’d raised his hand to answer the tough question and blurted out the wrong response in front of the whole class.

  “Okay, sorry,” I said. “Go on.”

  “Well, I hope this is helpful. Maybe not.” His voice deflated like a sliced tire.

  “Please, Ray, continue. This is very exciting.”

  “Okay. Turns out the photo was taken four minutes before that Shawn Smart person signed in. I’m thinking it might be his car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “Hard to tell because it’s blocked by the bottom half of the door where we have that frosted glass. Some kind of SUV, I guess. Not green like you’d hoped. But here’s the thing. If you look hard, you can see the driver.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Impossible to tell from the photo in my hand.”

  I became the tire, flat and limp on the ground. “Major bummer, Ray. You really had my hopes up.”

  “Allison, don’t you watch the good crime shows?”

  “Not really. I work nights.”

  “Ever heard of a DVR? Videostreaming?”

  “Yes. What about them?”

  “In the shows, the cops are always able to enhance the photos and zoom in on people who appear blurry in the original.”

  “You think we can enhance this one?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “You’ve got to send me that photo, Ray. The digital copy from Julia’s camera.”

  “I hope she didn’t erase it. She’s not here right now.”

  “Can you call her? I have just the place to get it analyzed.”

  Looked like I’d be a repeat customer at VideoMagic today.

  Ray agreed to drop everything and have the hard-to-reach Julia send me the photo as soon as possible. I stared at young Smitty in my hand. Perhaps I’d have an updated photo of him in a few minutes. Only one glitch—he was probably headed out of town. Should I confront him now and give him a chance to come clean? Go straight to the police? Call Kevin? Tell my mother everything first?

  No, there was one other stop I had to make first. It was only a mile away.

  Chapter 47

  Allison… present

  The unintended face on the headstone stared back at me, the capital A’s of Arthur and Andrew having filled with dark mold to form eyes that matched the intensity of the man lying beneath them. Below the A’s, the lichen-filled O of Fennimore formed a nose. And where the dates of my father’s birth and death should have represented the face’s mouth, the word KILLER had been scratched in, but only with a key or a rock. That label was beginning to fade.

  At least two dozen people milled about the cemetery in their dresses and suits, having come straight from church, while others arrived in jeans. Most of them brought flowers or plants while my hands seemed woefully empty. Not even a bag of leftover coffee beans to offer. Normally, I wouldn’t visit on such a crowded day, or for that matter, ever. But the unlocking of Jasper’s letter had opened a heavy gate in my mind, one behind which I’d stowed memories of my father, memories that didn’t involve the two or three times he’d hit my mom, or the grunting and indifference that had defined our interactions. Instead, they contained remnants of happier times, the respect I’d felt for his work ethic and the hints of changes to come, apparent at the end.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said, staring at the face, “listen, I don’t want to get too profound or mushy here, but I thought you’d want to know. I found some stuff out and I’m going to try to make things right for you.” I longed for a bar rag to occupy my hands or a bottle to pour. Instead, I rubbed my fingers along my well-worn purse, giving them something to do and perhaps providing comfort to the images of the helpless, young girl hidden inside.

  “Anyway, I, uh, I guess I want to apologize.”

  I could almost hear his soft voice, muttering: Apologize, Allie? You got nothing to apologize for.

  I continued anyway. “I haven’t always given you the benefit of the doubt and I sure haven’t given your memory a fair shake.” I harrumphed and leaned down confidentially. “Tell yo
u the truth, we’re probably more alike than you’d believe. Things between us might’ve turned out okay.”

  I waited in silence as an elderly couple with matching canes passed behind me. The slow, matching rhythm of the clicking metal tips hit home as I realized my parents never had the chance to grow old together, never got to experience the empty nest syndrome or mellow into the rediscovery of each other with the passing of each decade. They’d missed out on as much of a life together as Shelby had alone.

  “Why’d you give up so easily, Dad? What if you had just waited these sixteen years? Sure, you’d be older, grayer, and a good deal more bitter, but you’d be here now, for Mom and for Kevin. Heck, even for me. Would you have fought harder if the lies weren’t so thick? ‘Cuz I’m trying, Dad. I’m trying to peel them away for you, one by one.”

  A dead vine loped about my feet. It had reached down years ago from the long, lonely branch shading my dad’s torso. I kicked it gently. “Okay, then. I’ve gotta go. But I’ll come back.” I clutched my purse tightly, trying to reassure him that its contents represented his chance for redemption. “And I’ll clean this stone for you when I do.”

  A hundred yards away, the presence of Shelby Anderson’s gravesite weighed on my conscience. I couldn’t go over. Years of carrying the guilt-via-relation—and my lack of sympathy about it—could not simply fall away with one letter and a few photos. The thought of anyone, even a dead person, casting aside their deeply embedded loathing of the Fennimores would take some getting used to. Besides, in close proximity to Shelby’s corpse, the photos would ring of disrespect. I chose a path to my car that allowed me a view of her delicately carved marble and granite marker. It was as pristine as the morning my mother and I laid white roses there, the day after she was buried and three days before my father was charged with her murder.

  I stopped for a quiet moment as a breeze blew through the cemetery. It wiggled the baby’s breath that intermingled with the pot of white carnations in front of her stone. Both flowers symbolized innocence and it heartened me that Shelby was still so loved and revered.

  “Moonshine Rodriguez told me not to talk to you,” said a twangy voice that often made Lavitte the subject of neighboring counties’ mockery. It came from just behind me. “I told him to go suck an egg.”

  I turned slowly, reluctantly. A small, tattered redhead stood there, two bottomless crevices running vertically from her hairline to her brows, echoed by two more along her cheeks, as if tears and worry had etched permanent tracks in her gaunt face. Her frailty almost repulsed me. She offered a worried emaciation to the world, as if her nerves had rebelled against her body and eaten her flesh to keep themselves firing. Involuntary tics in her neck and foot evidenced their success. Her shoulders caved in on themselves, barely holding up the purple, sleeveless tank she wore above faded khaki pants cinched tight at her waist. Her sallow skin spit out so many age spots, she almost appeared tan, while her hair, pushed behind her ears on one side, couldn’t decide on its texture. Some strands lay as lifeless as cooked spaghetti while others displayed the only hint of hope for the poor woman—a playful waviness that teased with suggestions of a more carefree life, a potential to be pretty. The bones were good, as they say. And the eyes. They shined an appealing shade of misty emerald but looked out at the world through lids that remained at half-mast, two headlights in search of a lost cause. Or a lost daughter.

  In her small hands, she held an oversized, hardbound book with a cover photo of an angry man in jodhpurs whipping a beleaguered horse. He stared out at me from sometime in the 1920’s, but the pain of the horse felt current and real.

  “Mrs. Anderson?” Although I was certain of her identity, we’d never met and it seemed rude to assume. I, on the other hand, was accustomed to folks recognizing me for all the wrong reasons.

  “I imagine you and me, we’re usually better identified by our relatives,” she said. “Shelby Anderson’s mom, Artie Fennimore’s daughter.”

  My cheerless grin acknowledged her observation.

  “I visit every Sunday.” She held the book out about an inch in my direction and the effort seemed to exhaust her. “Shelby liked to draw animals, ‘specially horses. Pretty good at it, too.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Not many people did.”

  I took a small step in her direction. “Mrs. Anderson, why did Enzo’s uncle tell you not to talk to me?”

  “Don’t do that, darlin’. It won’t get you nowhere.”

  I feared she could see through some outer layer I’d donned, some cloak of phoniness where sympathy and feelings were supposed to exist but mine had gone missing. “Don’t do what?”

  “Ask why. About anything. It never does no good.” Her head flitted about as she spoke, from the paved path to the surrounding trees to the sky, as if her neck couldn’t find its comfort zone but her eyes were determined to do the job anyway. “Never should have been invented, you ask me. Never helped anyone figure a thing out. Why did my husband suffer with arthritis so bad he wanted to saw off his own fingers? Why did my three youngest make it out of here and get good jobs while the two oldest can’t cross the road without runnin’ afoul of the law? Why was I born in Lavitte? Why did someone see fit to kill my baby girl?”

  My body recoiled, a contraction from head to toe. Even my hair follicles snapped shut. I pulled back but I had nowhere to go. Should I tell her what I knew? No, not yet, not here, where pictures of an exposed daughter lay like unwanted answers within an arm’s reach of the mother. And not before I had solid proof. Rock solid. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Anderson. I know my sentiments are years late, but I—”

  “Feels late to some,” she said, “but it’s still fresh to me. Every day. It’s like, you’d think it would get dulled, maybe lose its shine or edge, but it don’t. She’d be about your age now, I s’pose.”

  I nodded. One year younger, to be exact.

  “It’s hell,” she said. “Truly. Like if the devil asked you the worst thing you could suffer and you told him that the two weeks your daughter went missin’ were pretty bad but then the day they found her made those days seem hopeful by comparison. Well that devil, he’d go and make you feel that way every single day, like it just happened. A bad smell you never get used to, or a spider that scares you to death and every hour feels like the first time you’re seein’ it.” She shrugged, her skeleton lifting the black bra straps that peeked out from beneath her tank and seemed to cut into her skin. “That’s what it’s like. The devil done cursed me with never gettin’ used to Shelby bein’ gone. But I don’t cry no more. No sir, it’s all inside now. All inside.”

  And it was eating her from the inside out. It made her nerves both raw and stimulated, a taser of reality zapping them every hour. “I’m so sorry,” I said, finding myself at an absurd loss over what to say.

  “Don’t do that to yourself, neither,” she said. “Can’t go around bein’ sorry for others’ actions. Even if it was your own daddy.”

  The temptation to blurt out the truth, to defend my father with conviction for the first time, made it all the way to my mouth before I sucked it back in, leaving it to throb angrily inside me like an infection that needed to be banished. I felt my lips twitch helplessly as the impulse died.

  “That’s why I’m in town, Mrs. Anderson.” My voice surprised me with its low key delivery. “I’m looking into things that happened that night.”

  “Can’t help you there, I’m afraid. No, ma’am. I was busy all day with the kids. Had one down with a temperature and another with a broken wrist complainin’ how itchy it was under his cast. Lucky he got a cast at all was what I kep’ tellin’ him. Now he plays tennis on Saturdays at some hoity-toity club in Florida. That cast worked out pretty well for him, I’d say.”

  “Mrs. Anderson, can I ask you… when you last saw—”

  “Took off on her bike,” she answered, although that wasn’t where my question was going. “Mighty hot that day, but I told her to get on out of
my hair or start scrubbin’ that kitchen floor. One of the boys had spilled chocolate milk and wiped it without gettin’ up the sticky stuff. Late afternoon, it was.”

  “Did Shelby mention where she was going or who she might be meeting?”

  “Nope. Off to find her friends, I figured. She made friends easy, even if she was on the shy side.”

  I smiled reflexively, not having known that Shelby and I shared that childhood trait.

  “She talked a big game. Sometimes made stuff up to impress her friends. I’d hear her on the porch talking about this boy or that but it was all in her head. Spent a lot of time in her head, she did, daydreamin’. Tried to tell her she didn’t need no boys to build herself up, but it was one of them little twists kids have, one of them little twists.”

  “Did she ever mention Bobby Kettrick?”

  “Bobby? Nah. But he’d ‘a been her dream type. Had posters of some Hollywood stars on her wall like girls do. Couldn’t tell you who they were, not a one.”

  I’d never had a poster crush. More of a Periodic Table type.

  “They say there were no signs of torture,” she said, “but you don’t end up dead without some torture goin’ on, do ya? You don’t get rope marks on your throat and a snapped neck from joyful times, that’s for sure. And if she was hanged like they think, well it’s not like she wouldn’t ‘a known it was comin’. Even if she was knocked out, you don’t usually get that way without some pain.”

  Poor Mrs. Anderson. She’d never stopped juggling possible scenarios, much like Kevin and me. We tried to manage them all in the air, never able to focus clearly on just one.

  She continued, relishing the chance to talk about her daughter. Surely, no one raised the topic anymore. “I guess what I mean is, unless you’re wantin’ it, death is torture,” she said, “but not for me, not back then. Death could have come for me, swept me off my feet, and I’d’a smiled. Only reason I stayed alive those two weeks was in case she came home. Kep’ picturin’ her surprisin’ me, walkin’ through that screen door and layin’ down some confounded explanation and we’d all have a good laugh.”