by Paisley Ray
NOTE TO SELF
Lock-down?! Sheriff may find more bodies in the morning.
CHAPTER 12
Laying Down a Trick
A tacky heat began to settle itself in, and I rushed to shut the last of the windows and draw the curtains and blinds. Temperaments inside the Larkin kitchen were sweltering. The Mr. Coffee machine had been going full bore and again percolated while Francine dug around in the refrigerator. “Where’s my Manda sausage?”
Trudy held a hand over her mouth and one on her stomach. “How can you think about sausage at a time like this?”
I made wide eyes at Mom.
“Oh, that was yours? The expiration date loomed, and I cooked it up. Lovely flavor. I’ve never quite tasted anything like it. Betts, Rachael, and Forrest gobbled it up. I’ll buy you a replacement as soon as this lock-down business is lifted.”
“Manda brand is sought after by locals in Louisiana. The butcher in Beaufort had to special-order it for my gumbo.”
“That was nice of him,” Mom said.
“Took nearly a week to arrive,” Francine said under her breath.
“Bowl of gumbo sure sounds nice,” Rilda said.
Betts poured herself a cup of coffee. “Substitute Jimmy Dean. I’m sure it’ll taste just as good.”
Francine face reddened, and she huffed into the pantry to unleash her fury on my stockpile of Pop Tarts and tins of ravioli.
Trudy busted out a toothy smile and, in a feat of ventriloquism puppetry, spoke in a high singsong octave, without moving her lips. “Why not make the soup vegetarian?”
Campbell had retrieved a newspaper from the front drive and spread it out near the sofa in the next room. “Fran, don’t go to any trouble. You need to relax.”
“We got a house full of people to feed. Without sausage, it’s gazpacho, not gumbo. I guess I’ll deep fry chicken with a side of. Now where are those potatoes?”
Betts slipped away and settled onto a porch chair. Removing a satin box, she began tinkering with her pendulum. Clanking pots and lids from cabinets—Francine’s rattling—overpowered Betts’s chant. I wasn’t finished interrogating her, but Officer Wilkes’s visit had me sidetracked. I wondered if her meditation was to ask for guidance on how to peddle a painting and a fine silver dinner knife. She’d probably had plans to swipe the whole set. I was onto her and decided there was no time like the present to get to the bottom of her real profession. Thievery.
“What dat Officer Wilkes says is a shame. But how he know it wasn’t no accident?” Rilda asked.
“Maybe he thinks that one of us did it,” Trudy said as she made a motion of slicing her hand across her neck and accompanying the gesture with a gurgling sound effect. “Why else would the police have us on lock-down?”
“We aren’t bound to stay here. He didn’t produce a warrant,” Campbell said.
Mom moved to the front of the house and peered out the window through the woods. “He might not have a warrant, but he’s got a police car in the driveway.”
“How long they been there?” Francine asked.
“We’re trapped,” Trudy said.
Campbell scurried to the front door to have a look for himself. “I’m making a call to the office. I can have some pressure applied to the police department to stop this nonsense. Where’s the phone?”
“Use the one in my bedroom,” Francine said. “Give you some privacy.”
“You’d better come along in case there’s questions.”
Francine hustled up the steps. “Fine mess, all this. Sleepy island living is more complicated than Chinese arithmetic.”
Back in the kitchen, Trudy zoned in on Rilda. “Root doctor is a funny name.”
“There are lots of ways to describe what I do. Fetisher, witchcraft woman, hoochie-coochie, wangatuer, voodoo…”
Mom had the spice drawer open and was reorganizing. “Priestess. It’s an older word, of course, but has such an authoritative ring, don’t you think.”
“Oh, so that’s what you do on this tiny island? Do you talk to the dead? Can you see the future?” Trudy asked.
“I aid people ta forgettin’ what ails ’em.”
Perhaps she had a smarter business plan than I’d originally thought. I wished Francine and Campbell would return with news so I could clear the house of some annoying earthly types.
“My stomach won’t settle in the morning, and Saltine crackers aren’t working. What would you recommend?”
“I got me something for ’bout everything. Ginger root in warm water should calm da insides.”
“How do you know what to prescribe? Did you study somewhere?” Trudy asked.
“My craft been passed down. I use nature medicines. It ain’t no calling for the fainthearted.”
Trudy seemed mesmerized with the words Rilda spoke. “What do you mean?”
Removing a container from her purse, Rilda poured some brown powder into her coffee. With an ivory pick, she gave the drink a stir. “The spirits. Dem have a mind ’bout mischief. I tell um to quit botherin’, but theys don’t always listen.”
“Mom, can I have a word with you?”
“Of course. Let’s join Betts on the porch.”
I hadn’t brushed my teeth or eaten anything, and nothing, including asking to talk with my mom, went the way I intended.
As we walked away, Rilda told Trudy, “It’ll be a boy.”
Mom stopped and turned. Her eyes dropped to Trudy’s stomach. “Well, that explains everything. First you seduce John, and then you have the audacity to come down here and flaunt your illegitimate child in the face of our daughter.”
“It’s not like that. This,” she said as she cradled her stomach, “is a love child, and John and I couldn’t be happier.”
Really?
“Is that what he said?” Mom asked.
Betts rushed in and put a hand on Mom’s back. “Maeve, he’s in your past. You two are divorced.”
Uncomfortable with the word divorce, I winced. “No thanks to you. Everything was fine until you showed up.”
“Rachael!”
“Your girlfriend is a parasitic thief, and her masquerade as an aura reader is a front for her real business.”
“What’s that?” Trudy asked.
“Admit it. You’ve stolen the painting from my bedroom and took the knife that’s missing from the sideboard.”
“Rachael, why on earth would she do that?”
Wide-eyed, Rilda watched. She appeared embarrassed for us and fiddled with something in her front pocket.
“She’s a professional thief, maybe more. I wouldn’t be surprised if Betts was somehow involved with the body that’s been found up the creek.”
The corner of Betts’s eye spasmed. “You’re spinning a weak web of accusations.”
“That’s ridiculous. You need to apologize,” Mom said.
“I don’t apologize for the truth.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong. You have no proof of anything. You’re an immature, spoilt little kid who’s still pining for a fairytale life that doesn’t exist,” she said and stormed off. The back door slammed, and through the window above the sink I watched her march toward the water.
“Rachael, I’m disappointed in you.”
“Disappointed? In me?”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve wrongly accused Betts. I thought you accepted our simple existence.”
“Ever since you left, things haven’t been simple for Dad and me.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Am not. Dad’s girlfriend hasn’t told him she’s pregnant and shows up down here.”
“Rachael,” Trudy sniffled.
“You think you’re a psychic and have a girlfriend. The two of you coordinate cemetery tours to talk to gullible types’ loved ones. I have a grandmother I never knew existed living mere miles from Dad’s shop.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with your father and Geneva’s relationship falling apart. She had trust issues.”
We both knew she didn’t trust Mom.
“I keep telling myself that over time, our lives will get back to some normality. But things are far from normal. And the more I think about it, the only common denominator I can find in the lunacy that keeps getting shoveled my way is Betts.” My arm fired in the direction of the water. “She’s bad karma and not what she claims. I know it. Why can’t you see—”
“That’s enough,” Mom said, silencing me with “the hand” before walking out in the direction of Betts.
NOTE TO SELF
Trudy is pregnant. What was Dad thinking? Obviously he wasn’t. That’s it. Nothing else in life can surprise me.
My gut tells me Betts is involved with the missing household treasures and may have something to do with the body in the river. Why am I the only one who has a clue?
July 1989
CHAPTER 13
Stealing Sugar
It had been a week since the lock-down nightmare. Luckily it hadn’t lasted long. Shortly after Mom and Betts boated downstream, the police knocked on the door and said we were free to move about. Campbell took credit. Said that his phone call to the law firm stopped the police from using jurisdiction they didn’t have.
Braving the dust bunnies under the queen bed that Mom and Betts had occupied, I was over my mother, and I didn’t care if we never spoke again. Maybe that was what it would take to get life back on track. Holding the white quilted coverlet up, Trudy peered at me from across the underside of the bed. “Explain to me again what we’re looking for?”
“A painting. Civil War landscape scene with a Confederate soldier surrendering as he stands in front of plantation workers, and the missing knife from the dining room.”
“She wouldn’t keep them in the house, under her bed. She’d put them somewhere no one would think of. I mean, if she stole it.”
Amazingly, she had a point. I dropped the bed quilt I was clutching and flopped on the bed. “I’m sure she took it.”
“You’re sure or you’re hopeful?”
“Why would I be hopeful?”
Trudy settled next to me. “I know what hoping feels like. I keep telling myself that if I’m hopeful enough, John will accept our baby and even be happy about it.”
“I’m not the right person for you to be discussing your, err, physical state with. You need to tell Dad. Don’t you think he’s noticed you being gone?”
“I told him I was visiting Sky and that phone service was nonexistent.”
“How long did you say you’d be away?”
“Three, four weeks.”
“That’s a long time. What about your aerobics classes? Won’t you lose your edge? And the exercise types are going to miss their workouts.”
“Rachael, you and I are friends. And your dad, he listens to you.”
“Since when?”
“You’re the perfect daughter. You get good grades, never complain, and you stay out of trouble.”
She was clueless.
“Except for mouthing off to your mother and chasing her out of the house.”
“Trudy!”
“Well, it’s understandable with the duress you’ve been subjected to. I would’ve done the same. In a nicer tone.”
“Is this going anywhere?”
“There’s a reason I came down here. I want you to come back to Canton with me and help break the news to your dad.”
“Me? I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“That would be too weird. Him making babies. Last time I checked, that topic wasn’t on our chitchat list.”
Tears welled, and her sniffle strengthened the dam that held them back. “I thought that if you were with me when I tell him, that it would go down easier.”
This conversation was Francine’s fault. If she didn’t work such long hours and if she’d quit staying on Campbell’s sofa, I wouldn’t be in a one-on-one with Trudy. When the lock-down had been lifted, she and Campbell had driven Rilda to some prayer house down the road before heading into Beaufort. We’d spoken on the phone. She’d called to ask me to bring this outfit or some personal item from her toiletry supply in her bathroom to Campbell’s apartment, and in exchange, she’d hand me back a grocery bag of dirty laundry and a partially eaten cornbread loaf she’d cooked, but she hadn’t come to the house. It was weird how she always met me in the parking lot. Turns out, my AWOL roommate had been keeping a secret.
On my last visit, she wasn’t in the parking lot, and when I knocked on the apartment door, Campbell greeted me in jeans and no shirt. Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” played inside. I spied the flicker of candles and thought I noticed a path of rose petals on the floor that I swore led to his bed, but he closed the door gap between him and his pad. Peeking over his shoulder, I said, “Nice place.”
“It’s cozy, but works as temporary housing for the summer ’n’ all. We’ve been so busy, we’re barely here. Fran stopped by the corner mart for some ingredients. Should be back any minute.”
The sliver of his apartment that I glimpsed looked like an antique, with wide, polished floorboards that gleamed and aged brick walls. Everything was in place, a low dresser, a queen four-poster bed with carved headboard, and a fluffy feather down duvet that I would’ve liked to have leapt on. The moment became awkward, and I mumbled about being on the run. Outside I was halfway down a cement staircase when I heard his door click shut.
At ground level, Francine stared up at me. “Hey there, Rachael, what you doin’ here?”
I sauntered down the stairs. “Brought you the dangly earrings you wanted to borrow.”
“Mighty kind of you. Hope you don’t think I’m rude, but I got me something to cook.”
At the bottom step I sat down. “Nice s-t-u-d-i-o he has. Very snug in there, not much room for furniture.” I inhaled deeply before standing up. After dropping the earrings in one of her bags, I cupped my palm and patted her shoulder. I felt brave and knew I was safe since her hands were busy balancing grocery bags. “Don’t want to keep you from, well, you know, the sofa,” I said and jangled my car keys.
As I moseyed across the parking lot, I detected her eyes searing my back. “De’pouille,” she rasped, then I heard the tromp of her feet climbing the stairs.
I wasn’t the crazy one.
AFTER HOPPING OFF THE GUEST BED, I moved to the front of the Larkin house and gazed out the window at the winding driveway. Through a maze of trees you could sparsely make out the main road that led on and off the island. It was time for an honest chat with Trudy. When I turned around, she was close by. “If you are going to be a mom, you’re going to have to be strong, and telling Dad your news is the first step. It’s personal, and if I were with you, he’d feel cornered.”
She moved at me with open arms before wrapping me in a hug. “Oh Rachael, you’re so smart.”
I loosely patted her back when I heard car tires crunch fallen twigs and pinecones. Unhinging from Trudy, I squatted beside her and watched as two police cars drove toward the house while a third stayed at the tip of the drive, blocking any vehicle from leaving.
“They’re back. This can’t be good.”
“Are they going to arrest you?”
“For what?”
She shrugged.
“Trudy, I haven’t done anything.”
“But this is the South. And you’re from the North.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They don’t like Yankees down here.”
I began to think her spandex was the culprit. Every time she wore her leotard and tights, lame-brain thoughts were transmitted out of her mouth. The restrictive fabric probably cut the circulation above her neck off. “Just because it’s the South doesn’t mean different rules apply. It’s still the United States.”
There was a knock on the door. “Beaufort police. Open up.”
“If we stay quiet, do you think they’ll go away?”
Even though I hadn’t done anything, anxiety ran through my limbs. “Our ca
rs are parked outside. It’s a pretty good indication that we’re in here.”
We peeked out the window again and watched three officers hustle around the side of the house.
Trudy gripped my arm. “Rachael, they’re surrounding us.”
There was a second round of knocks, and I didn’t waste any time hustling into the hallway and down the stairs. Last thing I needed was…and then I heard it. A boot or a shoulder, maybe a crowbar forcing its way inside.
Inches from my feet, Trudy babbled hysterical nonsense. “Don’t worry, I’ll call your dad. We’ll pull your bail money together. Take out a loan if we have to.”
There was a smash-clunk noise, and the door flung open. A blue-uniformed man, no taller than me, stepped over pieces of the shattered doorframe. What was previously the lockset now decorated the entry.I guess I’ll ask Hodge if he has room on his fix-it list. I halted on the bottom step, and Trudy crashed into the back of me.
“Do you have a warrant?” she asked.
I kicked her shin with my heel. “What’d you break the door in for?”
“I’m here to make sure you ladies are safe. We have an arrest to make.”
“Are you looking for something in the garden shed?”
“Not something, someone. We have a warrant for Hodge Johnson for the murder of Buell Blake.”
“Buell Blake? Who’s that?” I asked.
There was a scuffle and shouting outside. Hodge wore a white t-shirt and work pants but didn’t have any shoes on his feet. “You have the right to remain silent,” we heard a policeman saying as he attempted to handcuff Hodge.
“The body was found near the conflux of the Coosaw and the Bull River. The remains have been ID’d. Buell Blake slipped out of Tyger Correctional in the back of a laundry service truck a few months back.”
“What does Buell have to do with Hodge?”
Outside, Hodge’s voice was insistent. “I didn’t do nothin’.” A struggle ensued, and a policeman who had been standing nearby charged over, knocking him on the ground and administering a blow with his baton.