Motherhood Is Murder

by Carolyn Hart

  “What you fussin’ about? Who you need to call on fishing day? Everyone in town is right here.” Granny sat on a blanket sewing on a doll dress while little Robert slept, sprawled on a pillow beside her. Lacie June was off playing with some other toddlers, under the supervision of their mothers, who were happy for a chance to visit. Florie Mae didn’t want to explain to Granny about Rebecca’s missing cat showing up. The fact that it might have gone clear up to the lake gave her a mighty strange feeling that she wasn’t ready to share.

  But when Martha said she’d call, you could depend on her. And Idola McPherson was alone up there in that lonely cabin, with Dave gone off to Habersham County and her mama at work. Florie Mae sat absently stroking little Robert’s forehead, looking up the mountain toward Goose Lake, feeling guilty already. Fishing day was near as exciting for the children as Christmas. She oughtn’t leave them, she ought to be here to admire the fish Bobbie Lee caught.

  But she was already, in her mind, up the mountain. She might as well go on and go. She’d be gone just for a little while. The McPherson place was just ’round on the back side of the lake, other side of where Cody Creek flowed out of Goose Lake meandering down toward the old quarry. Florie Mae glanced at Granny, and looked down to the stream where James and Bobbie Lee were fishing. They were so happy together. Likely neither would miss her. “Granny, I’ll just hop in the truck, run up to the lake. Martha’s up there at Idola’s. Just while the baby’s napping?”

  Granny looked back at her, scowling. “Somethin’ to do with that tomcat. I’ll say, girl, I’m proud you an Martha caught that thing.” Granny glanced away, then looked at her sideways. “But what you up to, now?”

  “I really need to do this, Gran.”

  “You oughtn’t go by yourself, girl. It’s lonely up there.”

  “It’s Saturday, Gran.” She didn’t tell Granny that Rick McPherson wasn’t to home as he usually would be, that Idola was by herself. “You be okay with the children?”

  “Ain’t I always? Go on, girl. The babies’re fine. Lacie June right over there pounding little Willy Damen on the head with her Pokey doll.”

  Florie Mae didn’t think Willy was in much danger from a rag doll. Snatching up the keys, she kissed Granny on the cheek and flew for the truck while James’s back was turned, while he was helping Bobbie Lee bait his hook.

  Along the road that climbed to the lake, the wild azaleas were finished with their deep pinks and reds. Patches of rhododendron covered the mountain now, paler pink and white, and the dogwood trees showed white clouds of blossom. The flowering trees and bushes softened the harsh roughness of the mountain shacks, of the wire chicken pens and the dog runs and the old rusted cars that were parked in near every yard. The blackberry blooms had fallen, leaving tiny green berries. Florie Mae skirted Goose Lake through thick pine woods, passing an occasional cabin set between the little road and the quiet water. On the backside of the lake she turned off the two-lane gravel road up a steep drive that served the McPherson place and five empty lots on beyond, all facing the lake. This was the narrow side road that had washed out so bad last winter.

  The other lots, on beyond McPherson’s, out on the point, had never seemed much to build on, dropping down to the water like they did, even steeper than McPherson’s. The steps that led down to McPherson’s dock made four long zigzags—easy enough going down, but a right smart climb in the heat after a day of lying on the dock soaking up sun, cooling off ever’ now and then in the lake, the way she and Idola and Martha and Rebecca had done as kids. Ever’ time she thought of Rebecca, that wave of sickness took her. She had a quick flash of the four of them, all tanned and sleek in their bathing suits, Rebecca so golden, Martha’s black hair gleaming like a blackbird’s wing. Idola’s kinky red hair was the butt of teasing, from the boys. The way she’d tie it back real tight with a rubber band to make it seem straight, the way she wanted to dye it black like Martha’s, but her mama never would let her. And Florie Mae herself, the plain one with her ordinary brown hair and brown eyes. Most times they’d bring a picnic down, cake and a thermos of tea, potato salad and sandwiches. They’d giggle and gossip all day, come home climbin’ up that eighty-foot stairs wore out from pleasurin’, and sore with sunburn. Young ones wasting their time, Granny said. Maybe. And maybe not. Those were good memories.

  Except that now, all her memories of Rebecca stabbed right through her, hurt like a sore inside herself. She’d hurt painful since they first got the news, it had left her waking at night shaky and sweating.

  Turning off the narrow one-car dirt road that went on up to the empty lots, she pulled the big truck onto the McPhersons’ drive, its gravel washed partly away or deeply embedded in the hard clay. The house was old, like most all the lake houses. Made of weathered cedar, its rough gray boards and gray roof blended right into the pine woods. The gray stone of its chimney had come from the local quarry, just down the road, a warren of caves where children were not allowed to play. She parked next to Martha’s pickup and got out. Martha’s jacket was thrown on the front seat. The cage-trap was in the back of the camper shell, with the camper’s rear door open, likely to give the cat air. When she stepped up to look, a hiss and a growl stopped her. Leaning in, she flipped back a corner of the towel.

  The cat hit the cage screaming with anger and striking at her, making her step back away and drop the towel over the wire. She guessed Dr. Mackay hadn’t had time to do the operation. Or he had used the same thing, the inhalant, that he’d used on her own cats. Well, Martha and Idola were here, Idola’s old Ford parked beyond Martha’s pickup. She guessed Martha had just forgot to call, though that sure wasn’t like Martha.

  As she crossed the garden and up the five steps to the deep front porch with its glider and rocking chairs, two cats jumped off the glider, looking suspiciously at her. Neither was Rebecca’s Nugget. Idola had half a dozen cats. The front door was tight closed. She pressed the bell and could hear it ringing inside. Waiting, then ringing again, she put her ear to the door. Listening for their voices or for footsteps, she pushed the button hard twice more. The silence from within was dense and complete. No smallest sound, no scuff of feet or creak of wood.

  Turning, glancing around the yard, she saw the two cats in the garden behind her, half-hiding, the dark brindle and the gray peering shyly out from the bushes. She rang again then tried the door. Folks seldom locked their doors. The McPhersons, living up here so far from everyone, hardly bothered to lock up even at night.

  When the latch gave, she pushed inside, calling out to Idola.

  Her voice echoed as she moved through the rooms. The house did feel empty. A tabby cat was on the couch, warily watching her. It leaped away when she approached. Why was it so skittish? Idola’s cats weren’t skittish. Calling out again, she circled through the big kitchen and the parlor, and Mrs. McPherson’s bedroom. Maybe Idola and Martha had walked up the newly graveled road looking for Rebecca’s cat, or down along the lake. She couldn’t see from the kitchen window down to the dock, the angle wasn’t right.

  She stood at the bottom of the stairs listening and calling, then went up. Climbing the bare, steep steps to the upper floor, a chill began to prickle along her arms. Suddenly she wanted to go down again.

  There were three bedrooms upstairs, and a bath that had been added long after the house was built. The back bedroom was the largest, looking out on the lake. Idola and Rick had no children yet, they’d been married only a year, so the two smaller rooms were empty, except for some storage boxes and Rick’s loading equipment for his hunting rifle, and some fishing gear.

  The big bedroom was furnished with antiques from Idola’s grandmother, a lovely old spool bed and a crocheted coverlet, a cherry dresser with a marble top, a pretty bentwood rocker; and a huge rag rug that Idola and her mother had made together. All the windows were open to the lake breeze. Looking down the back, down the wide swath that had been cleared between the dense trees for the zigzag steps, she could see the wooden dock eighty fe
et below.

  No one was there, no sun mat or towel lying on the dock, no one in the water swimming. The empty rowboat was tied to its mooring, a bucketful of rainwater in the bottom. She looked along the lake in both directions, as best she could among the pines. Three houses stood along the cove widely separated by the thick woods. To her left, where the hills dropped down to a little stream just at the end of the cove, stood the newest house on the lake, a two-story cedar with a wide porch overlooking the water, and a wide dock below skirting out over the marshy shore. Two rowboats were tied to the dock. These folks came up only on occasional weekends. She saw no one now, no one on the porch or the dock, and no figure behind the windows, the glass reflecting only lake and trees.

  The house far to her right was hardly visible, sitting high on the hill among the heavy pines. It, too, would be empty; that couple both worked, she at the drugstore, he as a postal clerk. The third house, just across from her, sat low to the water where the shore was flat and muddy. Its narrow side deck, that led down from the road to the front door, was barely above the lake’s backwash; the house had stood empty for years, had been flooded so many times it was falling apart, the walls and carpet rotting and moldy. She knew, from exploring with Idola and Martha and Rebecca, that the floor inside was knee-high with beer cans and with trash not mentionable in polite company. She bet there wasn’t no one, all at that end of the lake. Moving to the side window to look up the gravel road, she caught a glimpse of gold and white among the piled-up dirt and leaves where the tractor had been working. But the next instant, it was gone. Nugget?

  She could just see the back of Albern’s backhoe, pulled beyond the gravel off to the side where he had been taking out trees and scraping the road; that road had been clean washed out in the storm last winter, and half a dozen pine trees had been uprooted. Hurrying downstairs again, she let herself out, listening for her friends’ voices. The silence was so complete that she was aware of the katydids, the constant buzz of summer that one seldom noticed. Moving up the one-car road, she paused by Martha’s open camper shell, wondering if she should close it. The cat needed air, but with the back full open he was sure prey to roving dogs or a bear. Either could bend and twist the thin wire of the cage. Black bears came down from the fancy tourist resort up on the mountain where the city folk fed them, bears that had forgot how to be afraid of humans. When they didn’t get enough handouts in the resort, they came snooping around the back roads looking for garbage, bears that would take a dog or cat apart in a minute; though they’d turn tail if you shouted.

  And the dogs that ran in packs were near as mean. Pet dogs, let to roam loose, would gather together killing calves all over the county. Big dogs. Dogs that came home again at night wore out from killing, to lie by the fire gentle as rabbits, playing with the children, the blood on their muzzles licked away. And not an owner among the lot who’d believe that his dogs killed livestock.

  Well, but this cat was so mean that likely no sensible hound or bear would bother him. Turning away from the pickup, she headed up the hill along the side road where the land jutted like a fist thrust out, high above the water. The lake shone far below, on her left and straight ahead. It would appear again around the next curves to her right. The new gravel was hard to walk on; she stayed to the edge on the pine needles.

  Just beyond the first curve in the rising hill, the big backhoe loomed, its dark green metal rusting along the bottom where the mud got to it, the whole tractor thick with dirt. The bucket attachment at one end, the big scraper at the other, it stood in shadow beneath the trees, waiting like some silent beast until Albern came, to work the earth with it. A man would leave his tractor on the job for weeks, until he finished up. Albern’s car wasn’t there. She guessed, after being up all night searching for Susan Slattery, he’d likely be asleeping. The pine trees that had fallen in the storm were tumbled against the hill, stripped of their branches, ready to be sawed into firewood. He had cut other pines, too, clearing for a building site, had left only the maples standing. The Ford dealer from Birmingham had bought the lot, meant to build a fishing cottage. The adjoining lots might could stay empty for years. Goose Lake had no golf course or tennis courts or fancy club to draw city folks.

  There was no sign of the cat. Softly Florie Mae called her, coaxing her. She was looking along the crest of the hill for Nugget or for Martha and Idola when she fixed on a pile of dead leaves just beyond the gravel. Dark red-brown maple leaves from last fall, left wet and rotting, pushed away in a heap during the work of the tractor.

  Stepping closer, and kneeling, she lifted a handful of leaves to which clung a dirty scrap of cloth. It was stained dark, but she could see the print of tiny daisies. Beneath where the scrap had lain, she glimpsed a tiny cloth hand.

  Digging into the dark, wet leaves, she picked out Rebecca’s doll, wet and soiled. Rebecca’s little cloth doll, its little faded, daisy-print dress stained dark from the leaves. Rebecca’s doll. The doll that had sat on Rebecca’s bed as a child, the doll Granny had made for her when she was a little girl, Rebecca’s good luck doll. The doll that since Rebecca bought her first car she’d carried on her dashboard, the doll Rebecca said would always ride with her.

  Dark, wet leaves still stuck to the doll’s dress. Picking them away, she looked closely at the marks they left—but there were darker stains, too. She drew her finger across these.

  Even though the cloth was wet, those marks were stiff and hard. When she put her face to the doll, the stains stunk like spoiled meat.

  Dropping the doll, she backed away, stood staring down where it lay on the fresh gravel—but then she snatched it up again and stuffed it in her pocket. Afraid someone was there, afraid someone had seen her find Rebecca’s doll.

  She stood there on the gravel wanting to be sick. Wanting to run, to get away. For the first time in her life she realized how lonely the woods were. She longed to go back to her truck, lock herself in, and lie down on the seat, she was that faint and sick. She stood for a long moment with her head down, trying to breathe slower; cold with fear, wanting only to be away from there.

  When she looked up, Rebecca’s cat was there.

  The cat Martha and Idola must have walked up here to find. Had they not been able to catch her? Nugget sat on the gravel pile watching with grave golden eyes, the gold spot on her side round and bright.

  Florie Mae approached quietly talking softly to her. Nugget looked at her pleasantly enough, but she backed away, evading her when she followed, staring back at her but circling away. Letting her get within a few feet, then moving off again. Playing some solemn cat’s game with Florie Mae, just where the doll had lain. A game Florie Mae did not understand—did not want to understand.

  Where were Martha and Idola? Looking up past the cat, she searched the woods beyond the cut trees, looked all among the shadows.

  When she saw no one, she tried again to cajole Nugget. The cat wouldn’t let her get close, she kept moving away leading her round and round on the fresh gravel.

  Feeling totally cold inside, strange and still inside, Florie Mae left the cat at last, walking slowly up the new road, staying on the carpet of pine needles. Trying to make no sound, she was drawn ahead as if strings pulled her. Moving along above the lake she looked down at the dark, gleaming water, its ripples bitter green beneath the shadow of the land; and its chill breath rose up to her. And when she looked up at the woods that towered over her, she felt no sense of peace, none of the calm she most always knew in the woods’ still loneliness. Now, their dark silence only turned her colder. And she kept thinking about the cat back there, circling and circling on the new gravel.

  She had rounded two bends of the steep promontory when she caught her breath and drew back. A car was parked on the lip of the cliff, out of sight from the backhoe and the roadwork.

  Well, but that car had been there forever, rusting among the blackberry tangles. A half-wrecked old Dodge sedan, the left front fender missing, the body thick with rust, the drive
r’s window shattered in a thousand spidery cracks, the backseat decorated with rusted beer cans.

  But now it did not stand in the bushes, it had been moved to the lip of the cliff, its front wheels chinked with rocks to keep it from dropping straight down the cliff into Goose Lake.

  If you were to pull out the rocks and give it a push, it would be gone, thundering down into the lake with a splash as loud as when, last summer, she’d heard a pine tree fall. Gave way where its roots were bared at the cliff’s edge and crashed down and down into a hundred feet of dark water. Remembering that fall, she felt danger stab through her.

  Touching the doll in her pocket, she studied the woods above her. Nothing stirred, no shadow moved. Who would pull that old car out of the tangles and set it just so, at the cliff’s edge?

  Only when she looked back at the car did she see the gun, a dark, old fashioned shotgun lying in the dirt at the far side of the car, nearly hidden from her.

  Stepping around the car she snatched it up. She looked around again, then broke it open to see if it was loaded. She was scared enough to use it, scared enough to shoot someone if she had to.

  There was no shell in either chamber. From the stink of it, it had recently been fired. Quiet and afraid, still holding the gun, she approached the car.

  She could hardly see in for dirt. Something pale lay across the front seat. Dropping the gun, she snatched open the door, staring in at the two bodies sprawled together flung across the seat and jammed beneath the steering wheel. Idola lay half under Martha, Martha’s long black hair across both girls’ shoulders, their arms and legs tangled together and dangling over the seat—as if they had been tossed into the car like sticks of firewood. Idola’s curly red hair was still neatly tied back, but her face was bruised red and purple across her cheek and nose.

  Florie Mae reached out a shaking hand. Idola’s skin was warm, and when she took Idola’s wrist she could feel her pulse, faint and weak, but beating. Putting her face to Martha’s, avoiding her bloody wounds, she could feel her breathing. Florie Mae’s heart was pounding so hard and fast she could hardly breathe her ownself. Grabbing Martha under her arms, she was trying to pull her out when she heard someone coming down the hill, someone heavy dropping down from the top of the hill in giant steps tearing the undergrowth.