“Shooting the back of someone’s vehicle is vandalism. Shooting into their door can give us a case for attempted murder.” Greg stepped closer to LJ. “This isn’t a prank, LJ. Not this time. This is jail time, when we find those responsible. Do you hear me?”
LJ nodded, the fight gone out of him. “She had it coming. But I had nothing to do with it.”
Bird and Leland exchanged a long look, then Leland nodded. Bird turned to face Molly. He took a deep breath and braced both feet in a wide stance. “Look, I won’t lie. I want you gone, and I’ll do anything I can to make that happen. You have no right here, and no right to inherit. Liz had no right to do what she did. I’m next of kin. That house is full of our stuff—”
“Daddy …”
“—but you’re blood.” He held up a hand to stop any further protest, even though Molly had not moved. “Now I know what we did to Mickey, but he shouldn’t have tried to stop us—”
Molly stiffened, and Bird pushed on, talking over her. “—but we never would have seriously hurt any of you. We certainly never would have shot you.”
Molly crossed her arms, and her words were tight, forced. “You forced us out of our home.”
“This house was rightfully mine. I’m the boy. Daddy had no cause to—”
“Molly, we didn’t do this,” Leland interrupted. He stood and took careful steps to the edge of the porch, although it clearly required a major effort. He wrapped an arm around one of the posts, leaning heavily on it. “Isn’t there some compromise here?”
Greg looked at Molly. The ball was in her court. She looked at each of the Morrows in turn, still marveling that she’d come out of the same bloodline. Was there a compromise? There were certainly a lot of things in the house no one would have any use for. Finally, she settled her gaze on Leland.
“Maybe there is. Maybe.” She uncrossed her arms. “Look, I’m sick of this fight. You say you don’t want to hurt me. I don’t want to constantly be on guard and angry with you. Can we call a truce?” She looked from Leland to Bird.
Bird hesitated, then nodded. “Go on.”
“What’s done is done. No going back. Let’s go forward. I’m going to follow Liz’s instructions as best I can—” This time it was Molly who put up a hand to stop protests. “But her specific bequests don’t cover everything in the house, as far as I can tell. Let’s start this way. Y’all be patient, and you get Kitty on board with that.”
“Lyric could be an issue,” muttered LJ.
“Lyric’s in Birmingham with her father,” responded Greg. At their startled looks, he shook his head. “Lyric is out of the picture for now. We have addressed her concerns.”
LJ and his grandmother stared at each other a moment, then Nina shook her head once, an indication that this would be a topic for later discussion.
Molly went on. “I’ve set up four pavilions in front of the house. Once the tenting is done and taken away Tuesday morning, we’ll start dragging everything out of the house for cleaning, sorting, and tossing. I’m also having a dumpster delivered. A lot of what’s in that house is just trash.” When Nina started to protest, Molly talked over her. “That’s not an opinion. I’m not convinced Lyric ever threw away a McDonald’s container.”
Molly stood a little straighter, not entirely sure what she was about to say was wise or prudent. But they did have to find a way to get through this. “You want to come by every day, see what we’re doing, that’s fine. You can take anything in the ‘Free’ pavilion or the dumpster, and you can make a case for anything else you want. But you don’t take anything else until the will is probated, and we’ve gotten through what Liz wanted me to do. When we’re done and I put the house on the market, you make any reasonable offer. I won’t turn it down.”
“What about the restraining orders?” Bird asked.
Molly glanced at Greg, then back at Bird. “You keep the truce—nor more attempted thefts, no more shotgun blasts in the middle of the night—I’ll ask the judge to waive them.”
Bird chewed his toothpick. “Y’know, some of that stuff is ours. Ya got no right to give it away.”
Molly shrugged. “Then you shouldn’t have left it with her. Should have brought it over here. If you’ve got a bill of sale, I’ll hand it over. But I’m not taking any of you at your word. You’ve given me no reason to trust you beyond what I’ve already laid out. You gotta list? Bring it to the probate hearing.”
They looked at each other, none of them wanting to acquiesce, but seeing few options. Nina stepped forward, her voice whispery. “If you find any pill bottles, don’t throw them in the trash. I use them in craft projects at the kids’ Sunday school. Can always use more.”
Molly kept her face impassive. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She focused on Bird. “Do we have a deal?”
Bird sniffed. “As long as you keep your side of it.”
Greg took another step toward LJ. “This does not get the shooter off the hook. If you know who did this, it would be better for them to come down and talk to me about it.”
LJ shrugged one shoulder, but kept his eyes focused on his hands. Molly and Greg returned to the cruiser but said nothing as he backed the car away from the house. Finally, as they headed down the road, Molly cleared her throat. “What do you mean, there are already rumors about us?”
10
The tent coming down wasn’t quite as much a circus as it was going up. Good to his word, Taylor Eaton and his crew opened the tent Monday evening, installing huge fans to begin moving out any remaining chemicals. Although no odor came from the chemicals, the smell of the sealed-up house created a perimeter of decayed reek that stretched over several houses. Molly apologized to her neighbors, but they waved her off with some goodnatured ribbing. Finn even commented that it was worse than when old man McNally fertilized his fields with chicken manure … but not by much.
Still … they all kept their distance, and most left for school or work about the time that Taylor’s trucks rolled in the next day. Molly wandered about, documenting everything with her Canon. But Tuesday morning by ten, the sides had fluttered to the ground, and the boys had begun the meticulous task of rolling up and packing away all the tarps. Taylor took a few final readings, then gave her a checklist to follow, and with an awkward sideways hug and good wishes, he and his team boarded their trucks and rumbled away.
Molly stood in the yard, again looking up at the house. Every time she did, she saw something else that needed to be repaired or replaced. Liz too had been dismayed by the condition of the house, listing in her letters all the ails that she had no energy to address: My painted lady has withered and wrinkled. She needs a facelift and a makeover.
“Indeed she does,” muttered Molly, turning the camera on problem areas. The vines covering the porch’s latticework had shriveled and faded from the pesticide, accentuating the house’s sad, wounded look. “Better days,” she promised. “We’ll see that you have better days coming.”
The signs on the pavilions swayed in a light breeze that also caused some of Molly’s curls to bounce and whisk about her face. It was a good day to begin such an endeavor, with sun reflecting off high cirrus wisps. April could be unpredictable in Alabama, so she was glad that the forecast gave hope of almost a week of sun, light breezes, and mild temperatures. Another Tyvek suit from Greg waited in the Explorer, but for now, she just stood and took it all in, occasionally letting her sharp artisan’s eye aim her camera.
Memories flooded over her, most from before the Great Rift, as Aunt Liz called it. While the old farmhouse no longer held happy memories for her, the Victorian certainly did. Molly and her cousins tearing through the house, which rang with squeals and shouts. Aunt Liz’s laughter and her “Now, children, slow down,” delivered in a completely nonserious and teasing voice. Liz loved having people over, even on rainy days when the kids would roughhouse upstairs or invade the attic while the adults talked downstairs. Although if there was a whiff of secrecy from the adults, the kids knew how to gather on
the stairs at just the right spot where they could hear but not be seen.
That’s how Molly had found out about Bird’s greedy antics, which had started in his teens. She heard the news about at least four pregnancies among the cousins, and that Leland’s younger brother Bobby would be joining the army. Those babies were all grown with kids of their own now … and Bobby stayed overseas after his time in the service. He’d seen too much of the world outside Carterton. He’d married a Frenchwoman, and his family lived in Paris. Bird had, of course, disowned him.
Then, another memory peeked through, making Molly’s eyes widen. She must have been seventeen, after the rift, spending the night with Liz during one of her mother’s night shifts. Liz had thought Molly asleep, but an unexpected visitor had come to the house, and Molly snuck out to eavesdrop. Soft voices had remained indistinct, but when Aunt Liz walked him to the door, Molly caught a glimpse of the handsome black man in a three-piece suit. Molly had been shocked by their kiss.
Molly grinned. “Russell. Did you know I was there? Is that why she sent you away so quickly?”
The low rumble of car engines and the sound of tires on gravel pulled Molly from her reveries. She turned and her eyebrows arched as three sheriff’s cruisers pulled up, and six officers got out, including Greg. He sauntered over to her with a cocky grin on his face.
“What are y’all doing here?” Molly asked.
“My day off, and I told the boys I was coming over to help.” He motioned toward the others. “They volunteered. We even brought our own Tyvek suits.”
She snorted a laugh. “Haven’t they put in enough hours at this house?”
He leaned closer and stage-whispered, “They also recognize that the faster the house is cleaned up, the quicker they can stop the extra patrols. And who knows? They may wind up on a viral video.”
Now Molly’s laughter was genuine. “Okay! I get it.” She turned to the others. “I need to do a quick walk-through first, take some pictures, then I’ll start divvying up the tasks. I’ll make sure we get lunch.” She looked back at Greg. “There’s a case of water in the back of the Explorer. We can set it out under a tree so it won’t get too hot.” She motioned at the SUV stationed out of the way under one of the ancient oaks. “I’ll order pizza, sandwiches, and drinks from Bailey’s in an hour or so.”
She gestured for him to follow her to the Explorer, where she pulled out her Tyvek suit and tore open the package. As she stepped into the suit, she asked, “Have you heard anything about the bike or the shooters?”
Greg shook his head. “No. We’ve looked at surveillance recordings from a couple of stores in the area, where their cameras pick up the road, but nothing yet.” He paused to help Molly shrug the suit up over her shoulders. “And I suspect we won’t until someone who knows them steps up.”
She paused to pull the bottle of Vicks out of a pocket in her shorts. She wagged it at him. “Thanks for this, by the way. I’m hoping I won’t need it much longer.”
“Keep it. We keep one in our cars at all times.”
“Thanks.” She smeared the ointment under her nose, dropped the bottle back in her pocket, and zipped up the suit. “So you think we may never know who the shooter was.”
He paused and studied the house for a moment. “I wouldn’t go that far. A lot of folks in this town loved Liz, and they love this house. And they aren’t all that fond of Bird and his ilk. The comments on those videos of you put an exclamation point on that. My guess is someone will overhear something whispered to someone else, and the whispers will fly around town like a crow looking for corn. Some secrets are just too sweet to keep.”
Molly grinned. “Life in a small town.”
“It has its good points and its bad.” He paused. “And LJ is not the only grandchild.”
“I thought Bobby was still overseas.”
Greg sniffed. “He is. But remember RuthAnn and Tommie Jane are still here. They have seven kids between them, and all of them idolize Bird. Their patriarch.”
“Ah. I forgot about the girls. They were still in elementary school when I left.” Molly’s heart ached. She hated to admit she’d had hope for the girls. “I had thought that after watching what happened with Mama they might have escaped the family curse.”
“Tommie Jane tried. She got a scholarship to Alabama, but Bird made her turn it down. Told her she’d be disloyal to the family to leave. She and her husband run a Dollar General in Attalla. The kids stay with Nina and Bird during the summer. RuthAnn’s boy Eddie is as bad as LJ ever thought about being. They hang out a lot together.”
“You think it might have been Eddie on the bike?”
“Maybe. He’d certainly know where LJ keeps the keys. And he’d feel loyal enough to him that he might take revenge for what you did. Young men and humiliation aren’t a good mix.” Greg straightened as if the subject were closed. “Is there anything you want us to do while you do the walk-through?”
She nodded toward the side of the house. “There are tables for the pavilions over there, along with three or four tarps. Could you get your guys to set up the tables and spread the tarps on the lawn close to the house? They’ll be the initial dumping area. And as soon as the dumpster gets here, anyone who doesn’t care to brave the house can start taking down all that latticework and the vines.”
He nodded and took the Tyvek package from her and pulled out the mask, booties, and gloves, holding them out. She pulled the hood up and pushed all her hair under it, then tucked the booties and gloves under her arm and draped the mask over her wrist by its elastic band. She snagged her camera and turned toward the house. Greg walked with her until she stopped on the steps. “Wish me luck.”
He shook his head once. “Between God and your sense of determination, you, my dear, do not need luck.”
Molly stared at him a moment, an odd twist of joy swelling in her stomach. She wasn’t sure about the God part, but she gladly recognized the blessing in not having to do all this alone. She pushed the thought—and the feeling—aside and nodded, whispering. “Thank you.”
On the porch, she double-checked the booties, then pulled on the gloves and mask to make sure she had no exposed skin. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door.
She half expected the ominous sound of skittering claws. Only a hot, oppressive silence surrounded her. No rats. That was a good sign. After a few steps, she checked her legs. No fleas. No roaches. Nothing.
But everything else remained the same. A stench that made her eyes water despite the ointment under her nose. The overwhelming, unending piles of memories and rubbish. Antiques stood alongside the broken remnants of dime-store furniture. Squaring her shoulders, Molly took the first pictures—left, right, down the hall, and up the stairs. Then she moved forward carefully. She had made a mental list of what she had to do first, and she would tackle them one by one.
Flip the main breaker to turn on the electricity so they could have lights and hot water, but keep the HVAC unit off. They would have windows and doors open for days. No need to waste power. The same with the fridge and freezer. Everything inside would need to go, and both appliances scrubbed and disinfected. Check Aunt Liz’s room for journals and pill bottles.
She took photographs of the kitchen and as far down the basement as she could poke the camera. She moved on to Aunt Liz’s room, taking several shots of every tableau in the room—the bed and shelves, Lyric’s nest on the couch, even the strewn containers where she suspected Finn had found her aunt.
The room felt eerier than it had before, although Molly wasn’t sure why. Maybe because she knew more about what had gone on in here. She picked her way to the bed. She paused, gazing over the shelves behind it, most of them stuffed with books, magazines, bills, file folders, and junk mail. But as Linda had said, in a clear spot near the head of the bed, one of the shelves held a raggedy and ancient teddy bear and a picture of Molly and the white shepherd, Jezebel.
They were both within easy reach of the bed, and Molly reached for the
bear. Ten inches tall, the bear had matted fur, a torn ear, and a missing eye. Its loose joints made it flop. She stroked it with affection.
“Good morning, Mr. Bromby. I didn’t expect to see you ever again.” Her muffled voice sounded flat.
In a weak attempt to mimic Mickey’s bear voice, she growled, “Me either, Miss Molly. It’s been too long.”
“It has. Any idea why Mickey made you an English butler kind of bear?”
“Too many reruns of Family Affair most likely.”
Molly laughed softly at the old family joke, that Mickey always identified with Mr. French, who was too proper and always put upon by a gaggle of children. Leland was the oldest of the cousins, but Mickey had come along only two years later. The rest of them had been closer to Molly’s age, and Mickey had too often gotten stuck babysitting.
Molly set Mr. Bromby back on the shelf. “I’ll pick you up later,” she whispered. “I promise.”
The picture, however, elicited a less tender reflection, a fleeting memory of the day it had been taken. A family gathering at the house where Bird now lived. A Sunday, blistering hot, maybe July or August. Mickey had taken the picture, trying out a camera he’d gotten for his birthday. Both of them had fled the arguments in the house, which tended to happen anytime Bird and their mother were under the same roof.
“Smile, Squirt!”
“No.”
“Don’t let them get to you. They been doing this since they were kids. Mama and Bird ain’t never got along.”
“How do you know?”
“’Cause I’m older and wiser than you. And I always will be.”
“So where are you now, Mickey?” she whispered. “I could really use some help here.”
Molly shook her head, pushing away any wishful thinking. Whatever. She’d done it on her own for a long time. Why should now be different?
She took a close-up of the picture and bear.
“Now, move on, Molly.”
Murder in the Family Page 13
