“Phoebe has her own car?” She hadn’t, the last time I’d seen her.
“Of course she has her own car. She’s over sixteen and she lives in First Colony. Everybody there over sixteen has a car. And if you live in Sweetwater, your dog has a car.”
Baby Bear’s ears pricked up but I told him to forget it.
“There’s no phone in her room. We’d very much like to have that phone. And there’s no letter. No last words. No message. Teenage girls always leave a message. They leave long, dramatic, romantic messages. They like to imagine the letters being read out loud, all their loved ones sobbing. But not Phoebe. No letter. Except for a cryptic message on Facebook, there was nothing.”
“What was the post?”
“Around eight last night, Phoebe Pickersley wrote ‘A mercy.’”
“Is that all?”
Wanderley nodded.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Wanderley looked like his patience was being tried. “Bear? You know what ‘cryptic’ means?”
I ignored the taunt. “You checked everywhere?”
“What? Yes, we checked everywhere, Bear, we’re detectives. We detect. What do you think? Did we look everywhere—hah. Except for those two words on Facebook, she didn’t tweet, no mystery e-mails.”
“Okay. It was a stupid question.”
“Yes, it was a stupid question.”
“Okay, then. Settle down. Climb off your high horse, cowboy. I get why you don’t like the situation. But Phoebe didn’t look like she’d been attacked. There was no overturned furniture, nothing like that when we got home. We didn’t touch anything except for Phoebe.”
“Oh, yeah, and can we talk about that for a minute?” Wanderley got up, still talking. He went into the kitchen and got himself some ice water. It’s interesting how at home he makes himself in my house. Not that it’s a problem. “What were you thinking moving that girl? Don’t you watch television? Your dog knows better than to move a dead body. The sandwich you had for lunch yesterday knows better than to move a dead body. The nutrias in the levee—”
“You want to rein that in, cowboy?”
“And what the hell is with all the ‘cowboy’ talk? It’s getting on my nerves.”
He’d started it the night before, telling me to “cowboy up,” but I told him okay. “Annie Laurie and I got a text from Jo telling us to come home and we come home to find our daughter on the floor, holding a girl who is clearly dead. What did you want us to say, ‘Don’t move a muscle, Jo, we don’t want to corrupt the scene’? Maybe that’s what you would do if it had been a fifteen-year-old Molly.”
“Watch it, Bear.”
“It’s a legitimate point.”
“I took it, Bear. I don’t want to talk about Molly in this context.”
“No? Well I don’t want to talk about Jo in this context. I don’t want her a part of this. I want this to never have happened. How is she ever going to sleep in her room again? I don’t want to sleep in that room!”
Wanderley nodded. “I hear you. I’m sorry.” He crunched on his ice, the sound of which had the pugs lined up at his feet, looking at him expectantly.
“I’ll tell you what I know,” I said, “about the Pickersley-Smythes. Do you want only what I know firsthand, or do you want what I’ve heard, too?”
“Everything, Bear. Every rumor, every bit of gossip, the hearsay, the scuttlebutt, and what the pot told the pan. Start with Liz and Phoebe. Not that I’m on about the wicked stepmother—stepfathers are the lethal ones. But tell me how the two of them got on. Did Liz welcome the addition of a new stepdaughter?”
“That’s going to be a no. Liz tries hard at the happy family picture—Phoebe didn’t fit in that picture and she didn’t have any interest in trying to.”
I went on and told Wanderley about Liz’s frustration with Phoebe—the conversation we’d had months ago in the church hall. I told him about how shortly after that conversation, Phoebe had made a visit to my office, wanting a “private” consultation. And how, when she learned that the consultation could be no more private than what could be managed either with Rebecca present or in an all-glass conference room, she left in a huff. I added the story of the New Braunfels overnighter and the subsequent scene with the elders. I told him about Phoebe accusing Liz of trapping her dad into marriage. I told him about Liz slapping Phoebe. Everything I could think of, I told him.
He listened carefully, even after Mr. Wiggles began a loud, cement-grinding snore.
“After that scene with the elders—you’re telling me the Pickersley-Smythes kept coming to your church?”
“Yep. Not Phoebe but Liz and Mark and the boys did.”
Wanderley whistled. I’d been surprised, too. I had been humiliated by the scene and no one had called me a slut.
“That Lizabeth Pickersley-Smythe is one ballsy woman, Bear.”
I agreed that she was. I would never have told Wanderley if it hadn’t been for Phoebe’s death and the questions he was asking. Neither the elders nor the youth ministers would have dreamed of discussing the particulars with anyone who hadn’t been at the meeting. So if Liz was assuming we wouldn’t have spread the story around, she was assuming correctly. But it would have been nearly impossible for Liz to come to church and not bump into at least one of us who had been there. I don’t know what went down with the others, but when she next met me, she acted as if nothing untoward had ever passed between us. I, on the other hand, blushed so deeply I could feel it in my hair follicles though I kept my preacher smile on and shook hands with Mark and Liz and asked about Phoebe who, they told me, was home with a cold.
Wanderley asked, “What happened between Jo and Phoebe?”
“They had a fight, is all. They’re girls. Girls fight.”
Wanderley let the silence go on long enough to make me uncomfortable. I knew what he was doing. I wasn’t going to fall for it.
Tommy added his own whiffling snore to Mr. Wiggles’s. Baby Bear paddled in his sleep.
“What?” I said. “You want me to tell you the whole fight?”
“Please.”
I told him. “The last time Phoebe was our guest, Jo was not her most welcoming. Phoebe left on bad terms and Annie Laurie and I couldn’t get Jo to apologize.”
Wanderley gave a snort through his nose. “Why not?”
“We said surely she was sorry that she had hurt Phoebe’s feelings, and she said she wasn’t. But a little while after that, Phoebe asked Jo to go to the movies and spend the night. Jo felt manipulated into accepting but she did anyway. Turned out it was payback.”
“Can I have one of those rolls in the kitchen?” Wanderley indicated the bag with Gina Redman’s homemade rolls.
I said he could, and he found the butter, got himself a plate and made himself a pile of butter and roll sandwiches. He poured himself a glass of milk and settled back into my chair. At the sight of food, the pugs were instantly awake and on full alert.
“Go on,” he said.
“That’s it. That’s why they weren’t friends anymore.”
“The payback. That part. How did Phoebe pay Jo back?”
“You’re making too big a deal out of it, Wanderley. Sometimes girls fall out with each other.”
Wanderley sat up straight, briefly losing control of his plate and tipping one roll to the ground. The pugs were on it like red-bellied piranha. Before Baby Bear could so much as raise his head, that roll was a memory. “Listen. Here’s what I can’t get around, Bear. You tell me, and Jo tells me, that Jo and Phoebe weren’t friends, hadn’t been friends for months—that’s a long time when you’re a kid. But last night Phoebe was in your house. This is where she died. And Jo was with her, either right before or right after she died. I’m trying to understand that. That’s why you’re getting the questions.” Tommy stood on his hind legs to see if Wanderley h
ad any more rolls that could be persuaded onto the floor. The detective held his plate up higher.
“So could you tell me how Phoebe worked her ‘payback’?”
I told him all about Jo’s terrible night—about Phoebe humiliating Jo and implying that I had hit on her, and the blender drink and making her look young in front of Alex . . . I gave him the whole blow-by-blow. Took about half an hour.
Wanderley heard me out, fingers steepled between his thighs.
“Let me tell you how I would have told that story,” he said when I was finished. “I’d’ve said, ‘Phoebe claimed I hit on her and Jo gave Phoebe a smack in the face and that was the end of the friendship.’”
I thought on that. “I gave you more than you needed?”
Wanderley stood up and held his thumb and forefinger out, an inch apart. “A leetle bit more.”
“Okay.”
We shook hands and I got the door for him. As he stepped out he handed me a baby-blue envelope with a princess sticker keeping the flap closed.
“Party invitation,” he said, and he was off.
I’d forgotten about Molly’s third birthday party. I slid my thumb under the flap and pulled the invitation out. Next to a pretty princess in a green-and-white dress were the words, “Come be a princess for a day!” Inside were the details. It would be held at the Heights Playground in Donovan Park, from ten in the morning until twelve thirty on Saturday, October twenty-seventh. There was a number to call “Chloe” to RSVP. The specifics were written in a beautiful script. That would be Chloe’s handwriting, I guessed. Underneath, in a different hand, was written, “Thanks for coming, Bear and Annie.”
Aughhh. I didn’t want to go to that kiddie party. It was all the way across town, and Annie and I wouldn’t know anyone there except for Wanderley, and we’d be nearly as old as Molly’s grandparents. Why did Wanderley want us there? I like Wanderley, but we don’t have a social relationship. It took Phoebe dying to get us together this time. I sighed.
Twelve
The dogs and I had some lunch. There was a container of homemade chili and beans in the fridge, enough for all of us so I shared it out. We were finishing as Annie Laurie and Jo walked in from the garage. Annie Laurie looked whipped and Jo had dark circles under her eyes.
Having the pugs over had been a good call. Jo dropped her purse and a bright-yellow Forever 21 bag on the island and got on her knees to receive the frenzied greeting the pugs were offering. She let them kiss her face all over and Baby Bear stood for this misappropriation of attention as long as he could before he used his bulk to push the pugs aside and get his fair share of attention. Jo nuzzled and stroked Baby Bear until his eyes rolled up into his head and he about wagged his tail right off.
“What’s this?” Annie asked, picking up the three dog bowls. “You didn’t feed those dogs chili and beans, did you?”
“There wasn’t that much left—did you want some?”
“I can’t think it’s a good idea to feed dogs chili and beans, Bear.”
“Oh, they loved it.” I pulled Jo to her feet and gave her a hug. “How’s my girl?”
That brought it back to Jo and she shook her head and her eyes filled.
“I know, baby. Not a good night. I’m so sorry.”
Another head shake. Annie tried to communicate something to me with her eyes, but I didn’t get the message.
I said, “Detective Wanderley was here earlier. He wants to talk to you. Is that going to be okay?”
Jo pulled away and went to the cabinet for a glass. She filled it with ice and water and drank standing over the sink.
“I guess,” she said after drinking.
“Could you tell me and Mom about last night?”
She shook her head.
“Come here, Jo.” I took a reluctant hand in mine and drew Jo over to the couch. Annie sat on the coffee table across from us and put her hand on Jo’s knee.
“Tell us, Jo.”
And the story stumbled out. Jo had been at her friend Cara’s with another girl, Ashley—we knew that part of the story. Alex and some other boys had also apparently been over—we hadn’t known about that, but it was okay. We know Cara’s parents and they’re good people. Jo came home and—
Annie Laurie asked, “Why did you come home, Jo? Didn’t you and Ashley plan to spend the night?”
A slow nod.
“So what made you decide to come home, then?”
“I just did, that’s all.” The tears were gone and that last came out a little grit-toothed. I couldn’t decipher what was behind it. Annie Laurie touched Jo’s arm to get her back on track. “All right, Jo, you decided to walk home. Then what?”
There had been a tiny shift in Jo’s eyes. I didn’t think Jo had walked home. I let it pass. For now.
“I came inside and Baby Bear didn’t come meet me. I heard him whimpering, so I called him, and he ran to the head of the stairs and barked and then he ran back to my room. I . . . I didn’t want to go upstairs. The house was dark . . .”
That kind of thing had never bothered Jo before. My girls are gutsy. They’ve never been squealy.
“I went upstairs. Baby Bear was crying for me but I was still really slow and I felt it more every step I took.”
“Felt what, Jo?” Annie kept her voice low. She took Jo’s hand in her own.
“I don’t know! Only, my heart was beating faster and faster and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”
“You were frightened.” Annie bent her head and kissed Jo’s knuckles.
“Yes.”
I squeezed my girl up close to me.
“When I walked into my room, my heart was thumping so hard I thought I’d pass out and Baby Bear came to me and then I saw Phoebe just sitting there.”
I said, “Phoebe was alive?”
“I thought so. I mean, she was sitting there, cross-legged, bent way forward with her arms loose in front of her and her hair covering her face and I said, ‘Phoebe?’ and she didn’t answer me, I was standing two feet away from her and I said her name and she didn’t even move and then I touched her arm and she fell over and her eyes were wide open and I think I screamed!”
I didn’t blame her. I think I would have screamed, too.
“I called you to come home—” That would have been the text. “And then you finally came home.” There was rebuke in her tone, but we had gotten there as soon as we could.
“Why didn’t you call nine-one-one?” asked Annie, which amazed me. I’m usually the one who says the wrong thing.
Jo’s mouth dropped open and she said, an ocean of horror opening up in front of her, “Could she have lived?”
“No,” I said quickly. “She could not have. Phoebe was gone before you got here.”
But it was too late. Annie had released the evil djinn of doubt and guilt and now we couldn’t get him back in the bottle. “I don’t know why I didn’t call nine-one-one! I don’t know! Why didn’t I?” Jo sobbed and stormed and paced and questioned herself and refused to be consoled.
The pugs picked up on her distress and trumped her with their shrieking. Baby Bear followed at her heels, whining his anxiety. I gave up trying to reason with Jo and appealed to her instead. I said, “Jo! You’re scaring Baby Bear. And the pugs are going to wee in the house if you can’t get them calmed down. Make sure the gates are closed and take them in the backyard. They need a break. They’re picking up all this tension and Rebecca told me that when Mr. Wiggles gets upset, he barfs.”
Jo stopped the noise. She blew her nose on the tissue Annie handed her and went into the backyard to check the gates. When she came back to the door, three muzzles were pressed up against the glass. It made her laugh, thank you, God.
After Jo took the dogs outside, Annie touched my arm. “Oh, goodness, Bear! What was I thinking?”
Heaven knows I’ve been there,
saying the wrong thing, so I didn’t have anything to offer her. I put the kettle on for tea, because the English have that right. A cup of sweet, milky tea is better than Prozac. I mean, I haven’t had Prozac, but tea is a good, calming, soothing alternative.
Jo had herself back under control when the four of them came back in. There was even some color in her cheeks from the cool October weather. All the clouds had been swept from the dogs’ eyes, leaving sparkling, sunny, happyhappy, joyjoy. One of the nice things about having almost no short-term memory.
Jo’s mug was waiting for her on the kitchen table. I’d added extra sugar and even heated the milk before pouring it in and I could tell she felt better when she sipped it and that made us feel better, too. I picked up her shopping bag.
“Let’s see what you got, Jo,” I said. It was a shopping ritual. After you go shopping, you come home and show Dad what you bought. My girls, including Annie, like to show me, and, at least where Merrie and Jo are concerned, it gives me an opportunity to register a complaint if the article is too suggestive. Annie Laurie is more liberal about how the girls dress than I am. She says that’s because I’ve never been a girl. I say that’s because she’s never been a boy.
Jo got to her feet and dumped out a bag of black lace and chains and two huge, clunky black shoes. The stuff didn’t look like anything Jo usually wore. It looked like stuff Phoebe wore.
She held up the fall of black lace. It looked like a skirt with a wide waistband, but of course, it couldn’t be. You could see right through it.
“What is it?”
Jo looked at me. “It’s a skirt.”
I said, “How can it be a skirt? You can see through it.”
“No you can’t, Dad. It’s got an underskirt.”
That wide waistband? Yeah. That was the underskirt. I kept my mouth shut.
The jangle of chains, it turned out, was a bracelet. It consisted of a ring to be worn on the middle finger attached to a multichain bracelet. Looked exactly like the slave bracelets girls used to wear when I was a kid.
Safe from Harm (9781101619629) Page 15
