by Jeff Abbott
He tore off a chunk of muffin and rolled it into a doughy ball between his fingers. “I think I know who killed Dad,” he said.
I found my voice after a brief search. “Excuse me? Who?”
“Well, Scott told me he overheard something his mama and her uncle Dwight were saying. She’d been talking about how she hadn’t wanted to come back to live in Mirabeau.”
“Well, I would think not, what with all of Trey’s family here and—”
“Listen again, Uncle Jordy. She said come back to Mirabeau. She’d been here before.”
“Her uncle’s from here, Mark,” I explained patiently. “I’m sure she visited here before.”
“Yeah, she did,” Mark said. “She said that she didn’t want to be here because of Ed Dickensheets.”
“Ed? Good Lord, what does he have to do with it? And why didn’t you say something before?”
Mark shuffled his feet under the table, avoiding my stare. “Me and Scott don’t got no proof, and Ed’s a friend of yours and a friend of Mom’s. I don’t think he could kill anybody. But Scott sure thinks he did.”
I breathed deep. “Did Scott say what had gone on between his mom and Ed?”
Mark shook his head. “But I bet he was her boyfriend. She looks like she might have been pretty once.”
I tried to jog down memory lane. I’d thought Nola Kinnard’s face was familiar for the most fleeting of instants when she’d introduced herself in the library. “I sure don’t remember Ed dating a girl named Nola.”
“Maybe it was when you were at Rice. Did he go off to school?”
“He stayed here and took some courses over at Bavary Junior College,” I said slowly. “Then he went to St. Edward’s over in Austin, but he got thrown out. He partied too much and his grades bottomed out. So he came back and started working at KBAV.” I looked at Mark again, the earnestness in his face. This was clutching at shadows.
“Mark, this is ridiculous. I’ve known Ed Dickensheets my whole life and he wouldn’t ever kill a soul, much less your father. Besides, Ed wouldn’t have a motive.” Right, I told myself. Happily married to a bossy Elvis impersonator and her Colonel Parker mother. Wanda and Ivalou were a potent combination to set a man straying to an old girlfriend. Why hadn’t Ed mentioned to me that he knew Nola Kinnard?
Mark’s jaw set. “All’s I’m saying is what Scott said. He thinks Ed killed Dad.” He shook his dark head. “Scott hasn’t thought it out, though. I mean, if he thinks Ed killed Dad to be with Nola, it hasn’t occurred to him that Nola could have killed Dad to be with Ed.”
I did not get to see Junebug. The doctors didn’t want many visitors, and I wasn’t about to try to usurp Barbara Moncrief or my sister. I left a message for Sister that I was headed home and left.
I took Mark home, turned him over to Clo, and ordered him to bed for some badly needed sleep. Tomorrow was his father’s funeral, and he’d need his strength. I sorely ached for a nap myself, but I knew rest would be elusive.
Stopping by the Sit-a-Spell, I ate with Candace. The breakfast bachelor-and-widower crowd was sparse; she’d get much more business at lunch. Smudges darkened the skin beneath her pretty eyes. She didn’t mention my breakdown last night and I was grateful. She’d already eaten and she sipped coffee while I wolfed down a cheese omelette, hash browns, grits, and toast smeared with plum preserves.
I slurped coffee and made a face. “Good Lord. Flavored coffee? I don’t think Mirabeau’s quite ready for that.”
“It’s hazelnut and they’ll develop a taste for it.” I could see Candace was still on her diversify-the-cuisine crusade. If Sister didn’t get back to work at the cafe soon, it’d be the Sit-a-Spell Sushi Bar (or bait shop, depending on your opinion of raw fish as an entree).
“Candace, you are not going to get a fellow in a fishing cap to quaff down hazelnut coffee.”
“Oh, really? What’s that on your head, ace?”
I removed my Mirabeau Bees baseball cap with a smile. We were bantering like it was a normal morning. I tried to remind myself it was only seventy-two hours since I’d sat in this same booth, watching Wanda do her Elvis impersonation in the street while poor Ed hung their pitiable sign. It seemed a decade ago.
Candace surprised me with a kiss on my forehead and I updated her on Junebug’s condition. She frowned. “The shootings are all anyone in the cafe’s been talking about.”
“Speaking of gossip …” Quietly, I told her of Mark’s suspicions of Ed Dickensheets.
“Oh, that’s crazy,” she said. “Ed’s devoted to that wife of his. I don’t see what he sees in Wanda, but if he’s willing to keep that witch Ivalou as a mother-in-law, it must be love. And even if Ed killed Trey, why would he kill Clevey? Maybe we’re dealing with two killers.”
I shook my head. “That occurred to me, but then how do you explain what Scott overheard—the heated discussion between Clevey and Trey? There was something going on between those two, and now they’re both dead. You can’t dismiss what Scott heard and the message written in Trey’s blood.”
“So how do you explain Junebug’s shooting?”
“He’s been investigating Clevey’s death while Franklin Bedloe investigates Trey’s death. Maybe Junebug got too close—found some information the killer didn’t want him to have. The killer decided to eliminate him.”
Candace ran a hand through her thick mane of hair. “Now what?”
“Franklin’ll find out who the hell’s behind this and lock him up forever. Junebug’ll get better. We’ll bury Clevey and Trey and try to get on with our lives.” I poured milk in my too fancy coffee and watched the white cloudy swirl. “And then maybe you and I can take a nice, long trip far away from all this. I’m worn-out and I want to be alone with you.”
Her smile was tender and sly. “Get me alone and you will be worn-out, that’s a promise. Maybe the Bahamas?”
“Out of my wallet’s league. What about Galveston?”
“We’ll talk. I could foot a trip to the Bahamas.”
Candace had money aplenty from her family, but I didn’t want her doling out cash for us. Foolish male pride, I suppose, but no one ever accused me of lacking that particular virtue. “We’ll talk,” I said, smiling at her. Galveston wasn’t at all bad. I’d just convince her of that.
I got to the library and savored the quiet of a Monday morning. Since we’re open Saturdays, we’re closed Mondays. I like when it’s just the books and me. I headed for the back issues of The Mirabeau Mirror. We haven’t gone to microfilm yet (although I have repeatedly begged the city council for the money), and so the chronicle of life in Mirabeau still exists in paper form. I decided to start my search in August, two decades back.
The Mirror comes out once a week, but I remembered they’d done a special edition in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Althea. I started with that yellowing issue. Three dead in Corpus Christi, one dead in Victoria, two dead in Mirabeau, one dead in La Grange: all due to twisters or flash flooding, those merciless twin bridesmaids of hurricanes. Althea had cut a brutal swath up from the defenseless Gulf coast through the river lands between Houston and Austin.
There was a main article on the aftermath of the killer storm, then separate articles on each of the Mirabeau dead. The first casualty had been an elderly man on the outskirts of town, killed when his ramshackle trailer disintegrated in a smaller twister’s path. The second article was longer, possibly because the death was more tragic. Rennie Clifton was only sixteen.
A school picture of her smiled out from the newsprint, her hair straightened and dark, her smile wide and appealing, her eyes beautiful and compelling and intelligent I had never seen Rennie alive, so the picture was the only fragment of her days I could compare against the empty shell we’d found in the woods. The county coroner ruled she’d been killed by a blow to the head, probably from flying debris propelled at God’s own speed by the violent winds. The article outlined how she had been found in the woods near the Foradory farm. A somber picture of us six bo
ys was below the text, since we’d found the body. We all look like we’ve had the stuffing scared out of us, except Trey, who always maintained a cool demeanor anywhere near a camera. Clevey ranked a quote on how frightened he’d been. “You see scary things out in a storm like that, but we never dreamed we’d find a body.”
I kept reading the story. Rennie had been a student at Mirabeau High, where she participated in 4-H and the student yearbook. Her teachers described her as quiet, intense about the subjects she was interested in, a girl with a future. She worked part-time at the Mirabeau Florist and was described as a good worker by her employer, Ivalou Purcell—
My eyes froze on the last two words. Ivalou Purcell, who I have mentioned I don’t care much for, was Ed’s mother-in-law. She’s bossy, nosy, man-hungry, and just generally unpleasant. I remembered the avid interest she’d shown during Sister’s fight with Trey at the Shivers house. I’d never had any idea that Rennie Clifton worked for Ivalou Purcell.
I scanned the rest of the article. Rennie was survived by her mother, Thomasina Clifton, who cleaned houses. Her father, Ernest Clifton, had been killed in Vietnam. The final sentence mentioned services at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on Aldrus Street.
Her funeral. A sharp memory made me wince. My mother had insisted that we go. I’d felt like an interloper, a blond-headed, green-eyed boy amidst all those dark faces. The church smelled of flowers and sweat. The fury of Althea had scraped the sky clean, and the day they buried Rennie was cloudless and clear. I remembered Mrs. Clifton as a large woman who bore her sorrow in silence. I remembered my mother making me hand a flower to Mrs. Clifton and her nearly crushing me in a kind embrace. Another woman, apparently one of Rennie’s grandmothers, had wailed lamentations like a woman possessed. I didn’t try to give her a flower.
I leaned back, rubbing my chin. How—and why—had that girl’s death come back to haunt us?
What if I was entirely off track? What if Rennie’s death had nothing to do with the carnage visited on our lives? I closed my eyes, casting back into my memories for someone who might have a terrible grudge against our group of friends. I sat in silence. Had we been unthinkingly cruel to some kid that harbored the deepest of grudges? Had we done some innocent act to nurture hatred in a hidden heart? No rogue or villain presented themselves for inspection. Our lives had been delightfully dull, free of ill-wishers. Best, I thought, to concentrate on the strongest possibility than to idly search for nonsensical explanations.
I began sorting through papers from the weeks previous and subsequent to Rennie’s death. Mirabeau was just as boring then as it is now. I perused articles on the city council’s eternal squabbles, the drowning of a skier on Lake Bonaparte, a picture of Hart Quadlander with a prize-winning horse, and the visit of a jowly congressman to give a speech.
I was reading a paper dated three weeks after Rennie’s death when I turned a page and a twenty-years-younger version of Steven Teague stared back at me, his lips splayed into the same half smile he’d given me and Eula Mae and Mark when we spoke to him. There was a short article underneath:
FREE CLINIC CLOSES
Dr. Edward Barent and Steven Teague announce the closing of the Mirabeau Free Clinic on Mayne Street, effective September 31. Dr. Barent, a general practitioner, said that federal cutbacks are forcing the clinic’s closure. The Mirabeau Free Clinic opened barely two months ago, funded primarily through private donations and government grants. Dr. Barent refused to comment on any further reason why the clinic could not remain in budget. Mr. Teague, a psychotherapist with a social-work background, was unavailable for comment.
The rest of the article went on about how rural areas suffered the most in federal cutbacks, but that since indigent services were already available at Mirabeau Memorial, residents should not expect much curtailment of free care, I didn’t care much about curtailment of free services at the moment. I was just remembering when I’d met Steven Teague at Clevey’s mom’s house and he’d said he’d just moved to Mirabeau. Not that he’d lived and worked here before, but new to town. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to mention that he’d worked for a failed enterprise—or perhaps he had something to hide. He’d been living here when Rennie died. He’d come back and we had two murders.
I started folding the paper when I heard a loud tapping at the window and I nearly jumped out of my skin. (Having three friends shot since Friday morning will do that to you.) I was suddenly conscious of how very alone I was in the library.
IF I’D BEEN MARK, I’D HAVE BEEN SCARED TO death. Ed Dickensheets stood at the library doors, haggard and tired. I paused on the other side of the glass. I was alone with someone my nephew alleged had a motive to kill Trey. I felt a little tremor of fear, then dismissed it. I’d known Ed my whole life. I’d be damned if I’d let myself be scared by a friend. A sudden thought occurred that maybe Ed had come straight from the hospital—with bad news. I forgot my fears, unlocked the door, and yanked it open.
“Junebug?” I asked.
“No change. Can I come in?”
I stepped aside and regarded Ed, who was not a regular library patron. “We’re closed, and if you ever gave me any business, you’d know that,” I said with a teasing tone. Another quaver of uncertainty had hit me as soon as I opened my mouth and I was determined to banish it with banter. I also felt sick relief that he wasn’t the bearer of bad tidings.
Ed forced a smile to his worn face. He’d always been the smallest of us and now he was bent with fatigue. I didn’t think it was just the exhausting effect of recent days. Ed lived a life I couldn’t endure; dealing with Wanda’s eccentricities and odd schemes; enduring a mother-in-law like Ivalou who could test the patience of several saints; trying to launch a business that had the life expectancy of ice on a warm summer day. And people say I have a tough home life. It’s nothing compared with Ed’s.
“I know the library’s closed, butthead, but you got a minute for a friend?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “You want some coffee?” I considered locking the doors behind us, but decided against it. No reason to, really, I told myself. Ed nodded and I went to the little kitchen in the back and revved up the pot.
When I came back, he was ambling around the library like a tourist in a museum, pausing to examine the shelves, the posters, the magazines on the shelves on the periodical table. I froze. I hadn’t put up the paper I’d been perusing; it was still laid out on a table. Ed didn’t seem inclined to notice it much, though, as he took the plastic-encased latest issue of Sports Illustrated down and began idling through it.
“Don’t suppose you have Playboy?” he asked while reading.
“Sorry, the city council just won’t approve every request I make.” I folded the paper, without hurry, and tucked it back in a desk. For some instinctual reason I didn’t want Ed to know I was casting an eye back twenty years. I headed to the back to check on the progress of the coffee.
When I returned with two steaming cups, Ed collapsed in one of the easy chairs in the magazine section, his legs splayed out. He was rubbing his forehead.
“I’m tired, Jordy.” He took the offered cup and sipped cautiously at it. “Not bad. We got the worst coffee in creation down at KBAV.”
“What’s up, Ed?”
“Geez, can’t a fellow come see an old buddy?” he answered rather sharply. “I seem to be running short on friends with each passing day.”
Hot anger flushed my face. “That’s not funny, Ed.”
“I don’t mean to be funny. I told you I wanted to talk at Clevey’s mama’s house, but your sister came and made that scene and I didn’t get my chance.”
He was right—he had mentioned he wanted a private chat. I’d forgotten in the avalanche of events the past two days had brought.
“I forgot. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“You ain’t the only one,” Ed said, slurping his coffee again. “It’s about Clevey.”
I eased down onto the ratty couch (the city council doesn’t believe in buyi
ng new couches until the old ones disintegrate). “What about Clevey?”
“This stays between you and me, okay? You always had more sense than the rest of us, and I need some advice. But I don’t want this blabbed all over town.”
“Okay, Ed.”
He took a fortifying breath. “I don’t wanna say this, but I think Clevey was a crook.”
“Excuse me?” The cup stopped halfway to my mouth.
Ed, despite his fatigue, got up and paced. “He was planning on buying into KBAV. As a partner. You know how much money that takes?”
I set my cup down, the steam still roiling past the rim. “How’d you know this?”
“He told me about a week ago. Said once he had a vote in station business, he’d see about making me general manager.” Ed shrugged. “I didn’t buy it at first—you know how he was one for fibbing and joking—but he insisted he was serious. When I asked him where he was gonna get the money, he said he’d had an uncle die out in Louisiana and leave him a ton of loot. But he didn’t want anyone to know. He was going to give some to local charities and use the rest to buy his partnership.”
I didn’t say anything immediately. Clevey had a windfall of money? Good and bad, Steven had said. Giving some of the money to charity and the rest for himself. I suddenly wondered who stood to inherit Clevey’s money now that he was gone. He probably hadn’t made a will. He had an ex-wife who lived in Little Rock now, but no children.
Ed continued: “But there never was an uncle in Louisiana. I asked—diplomatically, mind you—Clevey’s relatives when we were all at his mama’s house. That story of his was pure fiction. So where was he getting the money from?”
“Why are you telling me all this, Ed?”
He studied his coffee cup. “Look, I told Junebug all this when he started his investigation. It bugs me, that money coming out of nowhere, I thought you’d maybe know since you spent so much more time around him than I did.”