Silver Threads

by Bette Lee Crosby

  He stepped back into the hall and said to Mathews, “I’ve got a bit of an emergency going on here. Can I call you back in a few minutes?”

  Matthews was a short man with a Napoleon complex and an even shorter fuse. What he lacked in stature he more than made up for in aggressiveness, and the one thing he could not tolerate was being pushed aside for someone else.

  “What kind of emergency?” he demanded.

  With his back to the wall, Drew explained what had happened to Jennifer.

  “It’s only been four months,” he said, “and Brooke is having difficulty adjusting.”

  For a moment Mathews said nothing, and Drew could almost picture him giving an intolerant glare over the half-size glasses he wore.

  “Yeah,” Mathews said. “Call me back. But this better not be an ongoing problem.”

  More hopeful than certain, Drew assured him it wouldn’t be.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Once we start the print runs I’ll be right there, on top of every last detail.”

  “You’d better be,” Mathews said and hung up.

  When Drew returned to Brooke’s room she was still sobbing. He lifted her from the floor and sat on the bed with her in his lap.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  For a few minutes she kept sobbing even as he held her head to his chest and kept a firm grip on her back. In time the sobbing slowed to sniffles and he again asked what happened.

  “The garage door on my Barbie house was stuck so I tried to fix it, and it broke.”

  Drew eyed the pieces of plastic scattered across the floor. “It looks like more than the garage door is broken.”

  She nodded and sniffled through her words. “They got broke when I was trying to fix it.”

  “Did you maybe knock the Barbie house over because you were angry?”

  Brooke sat there with her face tilted to the floor and said nothing.

  “Didn’t we talk about this?” Drew’s voice was soft, gentle and understanding. “Didn’t we talk about how sometimes when things don’t go the way we want, we have to be patient?”

  Without taking her eyes from the floor she gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “Now that you’ve made this big mess, what do you think you should do?”

  With her chin tucked into her chest she mumbled, “Pick everything up and put it back where it belongs.”

  “Okay then.” Drew eased her off his lap and stood. “Get to it.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “Not right now. I’m busy working.”

  “You’re always busy working,” she replied bitterly.

  Drew knew that was the crux of the problem. He was her security blanket. With him right there beside her she was fine, but when he turned away to work she became needy.

  He’d tried a dozen different strategies to overcome the problem, and so far none of them had worked. When he suggested she sit across from him and color or read as he worked, she’d talk, hum, sing or swing her legs back and forth banging her feet against the table while he was on the phone.

  “Can’t you be quieter?” he asked, but that only resulted in pouting and more tears.

  Inviting her little friends, Ava and Emily, over for a playdate was somewhat helpful, but even then there were constant interruptions because they needed help with one thing or another. Or they were hungry for snacks or it was time to get ready for parent pickups.

  The one advantage was that after he’d had her friends to the house for a playdate, the moms would call and invite Brooke to spend the afternoon at their house. On afternoons like that Drew could get in four, sometimes five hours of work with no interruptions.

  And there were a few other occasions when Marta would take Brooke shopping or invited her over to bake cookies. Marta would have been happy to have her there every afternoon, but Brooke wouldn’t hear of it. In her mind she associated poor Marta with the loss of her mama. Although Drew had explained a dozen or more times that one thing had nothing to do with the other, Brooke persisted in saying, “When I stayed with Miss Marta, Mama got killed.”

  In early July Drew was searching the Internet for a weekly cleaning service when he spotted an ad for a day camp. He clicked on it and watched the video of happy little campers scrambling on and off a bus that was painted with a jungle theme. There was video of rainy-day lunches with a clown entertaining the kids, craft classes, games, story time, sing-alongs and even a small pond for swimming and canoeing. At the end of the video he clicked on “More Information” and learned that it was a door-to-door service with kids picked up between seven-thirty and eight AM and returned home between four-thirty and five.

  The price was $300 a week. It would be a stretch for his budget, but he could more than make up for it by beefing up his clientele.

  He called for Brooke to come and see the video. With her standing beside him, he clicked Start and allowed it to play through. He noticed the smile on her face and said, “Doesn’t this look like fun?”

  She gave an apprehensive nod.

  With each new scene he had a comment. The pond was lovely, the crafts looked like such fun, the kids seemed to be enjoying story time. When the video ended he turned to Brooke.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  In the past few months she had developed a manner of pulling her features together into a tight little knot expressing doubt, concern or displeasure. With her face arranged in just such a manner, she asked, “Are we going there?”

  “This isn’t a camp for grownups. It’s just for kids. You get picked up in the morning and brought back home in time for supper. That sounds good, doesn’t it?”

  The expression on her face tightened a bit more.

  “I thought maybe you’d like to go there this summer.”

  “By myself?” she exclaimed.

  “You wouldn’t be by yourself. You’d be with all the other kids.”

  “They’re strangers.”

  “Well, they wouldn’t be for long. Once you got to know them—”

  Drew saw the tears welling in Brooke’s eyes.

  “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just thought it would be—”

  Before he could get to the word “fun,” she said she didn’t want to go. He heaved a weighted sigh and said she didn’t have to do it if she didn’t want to, but by then she was already on her way back to her room.

  Rethinking Alisha

  After two nights of sleeping in the Lincoln, Eddie decided he needed to get a room. He wasn’t anxious to stay in the town where Tom had been killed, but neither was he ready to leave it behind. He couldn’t shake the feeling there was something more to the story, something that he hadn’t yet heard.

  This need to know what happened was like an ache that kept growing inside of him. Maybe it would have been smart to set it aside, but he couldn’t. It was the same feeling of needing another cigarette or another drink but a hundred times worse.

  That afternoon he drove through Clarksburg again. He slowed the car to a near crawl, inching along streets that might offer up the feeling he sought, but there was nothing. After one last run down Commerce Street, he turned back toward the highway. On Route 20 he made a quick stop at the liquor store, grabbed some snacks and a half-gallon of Jim Beam, then started looking for a motel.

  The Sleepway Inn was eighteen miles from Clarksburg, and it looked like a place where they didn’t ask a whole lot of questions. Trying to err on the side of caution he wore the baseball cap and sunglasses then checked in as Bruce Kersey, the owner of the Lincoln Town Car. His signature on the register was scribbled in such a way that it would have been unrecognizable anyway.

  The room was only marginally better than the cell he’d occupied for the past three years. The bed, although wider, was just as lumpy, and the lamp gave less light than the jailhouse overheads. He unwrapped one of the disposable plastic cups, poured himself a shot then snapped on the television. One station came in clearly; the rest were mostly snow.
>
  The news was on, and a reporter was telling how the Martinsville Zoo was scheduled to get a new zebra.

  “Exciting news for Martinsville,” the newscaster said with a wide grin.

  “A friggin’ zebra?” Eddie grumbled. “You got news about a zebra and nothing about my brother getting killed?”

  He poured himself another drink and watched while they showed clips from the Independence Day parade. Each new segment was another source of agitation. Although Tom’s death had supposedly taken place over four months ago, it felt recent to Eddie, still new, still raw. The more he drank, the more the feeling of anger and resentment swelled inside of him.

  It was near eleven when he picked up the phone and dialed the number Alisha had given him.

  “I’m gonna need your help,” he said.

  “Who is this?” Alisha’s voice was thick and groggy.

  “Eddie. Tom’s brother.”

  “Oh. Ain’t it kinda late?” she asked.

  Eddie had planned to come right out and say he needed her to help him find the story of Tom’s death in the newspapers at the library, but she didn’t seem all that glad to hear from him so he figured he’d better go at it easy.

  “I got a room and a bottle of Jimmy B,” he said. “I was thinking maybe you’d like to come over for a drink.”

  “I don’t know,” she drawled. “Seems kind of funny you weren’t too interested in me yesterday, and now you’re wanting me to come over.”

  “I had to get warmed up to the idea,” Eddie replied. “You know, with you being Tom’s girlfriend and all.”

  “Whoa there,” Alisha cut in. “I wasn’t never Tommy’s girlfriend. We was friends with benefits. We hung out and had some laughs. Tommy never had no expectations from me, and I never had none from him.”

  There was a bit of back and forth kibitzing about what Eddie might or might not expect from her, but in the end she agreed to come.

  “Park in the back,” he said, “and just come to room one twenty-seven. Don’t bother stopping at the desk.”

  Forty-five minutes later there was a knock on the door, and when Eddie opened it Alisha was standing there in a thong and lacy bra. Her skirt and tee shirt were dangling from her fingertip.

  Eddie grabbed her by the arm and yanked her inside. “Are you crazy or something?”

  She gave a husky laugh. “I figured I’d go ahead and get you started.”

  “Idiot! That ain’t what I wanted you here for—”

  “Hey, watch what you’re saying. I don’t gotta—”

  “Sorry.” Eddie tried to sound apologetic. “It’s just that I’m keeping a low profile until I find what I’m looking for.”

  “So if it ain’t a roll in the sheets, what do you want from me?”

  Eddie caught the curtness in her tone and held back from speaking his mind. Alisha was a bit like Cassidy, the kind of woman who’d walk off unless there was something in it for her. He grinned and slid his fingers along her neck and down toward her bosom.

  “I figured we could have a few drinks, get to know one another.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” This time she gave him a look that reeked of skepticism.

  “I think you’re misjudging me.” Eddie unwrapped the second plastic glass, poured two inches of bourbon into both glasses and handed one to her. He gave her what he hoped was his most charming smile then said, “Cheers” and gulped down a sizeable swallow. She did the same.

  Once Alisha got started drinking, it didn’t take a whole lot of convincing to get her to stay. By the time the bottle was down to the halfway mark she was ready to either make love or go dancing, but Eddie, who was never a happy drunk to begin with, had started getting teary eyed over thoughts of his brother.

  “We was twins,” he said as he cried. “Twins, that’s the same as two halves of the same person.”

  Alisha rolled her eyes. “You gonna keep this crap up all night? I come here for a good time and ain’t interested in listening to you moan and cry.”

  Drunk as he was, Eddie had enough presence of mind to know it would be a lot easier if he had her help.

  “Looks like you’d be interested in helping me find what happened to Tom, ’specially since he had all that money hidden away.”

  Alisha, who had a good tolerance for liquor, wasn’t nearly as drunk as Eddie. She raised an eyebrow and asked, “What money?”

  “Money from the bank job we did back in Tennessee. Tom stashed it ’cause we planned to split it once I got out.”

  Eddie considered this a mere stretch of the truth. In actuality it was a convenience store not a bank, and they’d split the money the night he and Tom parted ways.

  She still had that doubtful look stuck to her face. “That don’t sound right. Last time I saw Tommy he was hurting for money. If he had all that money why wouldn’t he dip into it?”

  “I told you. ’Cause we’re twins we got this special—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Connection.”

  Eddie nodded. “So you in or out?”

  She hesitated then gave a huge yawn and fell back onto the bed. “In, I guess. But I better not find out you’re just screwing with my head.”

  Eddie spent another hour trying to pry something new from Alisha, but there was nothing. She said again that Tommy was doing drugs, but she had no idea who his dealer was.

  “Someone big up the line,” she said. “Someone Tommy was afraid of.”

  When it came to his murder, she could only remember parts of what she’d read in the newspaper.

  “Tomorrow we’ll go to the library and look it up,” she said. “I told you, they keep newspapers like forever.”

  “Yeah, but from four or five months ago, they’d still have them?”

  “The library’s got papers a hundred years back, maybe longer.”

  “They got room for that much shit?”

  “Don’t be a dummy,” Alisha said. “They don’t keep the real newspaper, they keep copies of it on microfiche.” She explained how they took pictures of each page of the newspaper and stored the film.

  “You look at the film through a viewing machine and once you find what you’re looking for click print and bingo, you get a copy of it. Looking at the film is free, but if you print something you gotta pay for it.”

  This whole set up was new to Eddie. There had been a library in the West Tennessee jail but it contained nothing but books, and a good number of them had some of the pages torn out.

  “Sounds good,” he said and snapped off the lamp.

  As they lay there side by side in the darkness, there was not an iota of passion between them. Alisha was wondering just how much money there might be, and Eddie was thinking of Tom lying dead in his grave with no one else caring.

  I care. I’ll make sure somebody pays.

  The Trip

  After nearly six months of calling Ed Mathews, Drew finally got him to agree to a test run. He had cut his commission to the bone and given Mathews rock bottom pricing, but if the test run went well Southfield would get the printing contract for a year. That meant twenty-four thousand full-color flyers plus bounce-back cards and scratch-offs. It was an account that would dwarf the Meecham account he’d lost and one that would put things right between him and Brian Carson, Southfield’s CEO.

  The run for 500,000 magazine insert cards was set to go to press on the last Thursday of July.

  “Let’s schedule this for an early morning press run,” Mathews said. “I’ll fly in the night before so we can have dinner and talk details of the contract.”

  “I think that’s doable,” Drew said, although he had no idea how he was going to manage it from his end. Although Marta would have been more than happy to keep the child overnight, Brooke would have panicked at the thought. Desperate to find a solution, Drew called Lara Stone, Ava’s mom.

  “I’m kind of stuck,” he said and explained the situation. “The printing plant is in Troy. It’s only a four-hour drive, so I’d be back by early afternoon.”


  “I’d be more than happy to take her,” Lara said, “and I know Ava will be thrilled to have her here for a sleepover.”

  “Brooke worries about me going anywhere without her,” Drew said, “so if you wouldn’t mind, can you have Ava call and invite her?”

  Laura laughed. “I know what you mean. Our little ladies like to think they’re the ones in charge.”

  “Exactly,” he replied.

  That same afternoon the phone jingled and Drew called upstairs, “Brooke, it’s your friend, Ava.”

  He handed her the phone and watched as she chatted with Ava. There were a few whispered secrets and a peal of laughter. Then Brooke said, “Wait a minute, I’ll ask my dad.”

  She turned to Drew, “Daddy, can I go to Ava’s house for a sleepover?”

  He knew if he made it too easy she’d be wary, so he hesitated then asked, “Is this something you really, really want to do?”

  She nodded and gave a happy-looking grin. “Please?”

  “Okay,” he said, returning her smile. And that was it.

  On Wednesday afternoon he helped her pack a small overnight case, which along with the toothbrush and pajamas included two candy bars, a package of cookies and Sammy the Sleepy Bear. Sammy had one button eye missing and a small hole in his right ear, but he’d been Brooke’s nighttime companion since she was two and he went wherever she went.

  When they arrived at Ava’s house Drew went in with her, and to make it look as though he had nowhere else to go he stayed long enough to sit down and enjoy a glass of wine with Lara. By the time he left Brooke had disappeared up the stairs with Ava, and there were shrieks of laughter coming from the room.

  “See?” Lara said. “Nothing to worry about.”

  He answered with an apprehensive smile. “Well, just in case, you have my cell phone number.”