Sweet Jiminy

by Kristin Gore

  “Where’d you come from?” she asked it, wondering whether it was really as healthy as it appeared. The dump had to be an incubator for all kinds of disease.

  “Maybe I’ll call you Cholera,” Jiminy said.

  The kitten turned over and rubbed its chin on her hand.

  In Jiminy’s opinion, Cholera was the most lyrically named of the deadly diseases. Jiminy opened her bag and took out her grandfather’s diary, along with another book her grandmother had given her upon her return from Texarkana. It was an old ledger detailing the business details of Henry Hunt’s Carpentry. Willa hadn’t said much when she handed it over, just that she hoped it might help.

  The kitten was now purring in the grass beside Jiminy’s leg, a furry little motor humming against her skin. Jiminy was envious of how little it had taken for the creature to attain a level of contentment that caused it to physically vibrate. She found this amazing.

  She flipped open the ledger, which appeared to be a fairly straightforward account of the woodworking business run by Henry and Edward. They’d sold handcrafted cradles, cabinets, beds, bureaus, doors, chairs, tables, and shelves in the first year alone. Jiminy knew that Edward had been the craftsman and her grandfather the sales agent, but this breakdown wasn’t reflected in the ledger. Along the left-hand side of the page was a list of all the paying customers, along with what they’d purchased and how they’d paid. Jiminy recognized many of the names. The Hatcherts had ordered a hand-carved chessboard. The Brayers had commissioned a table and chairs. The Connors had paid for a decorated front gate. All kinds of orders had been accepted, large and small.

  After checking out each and every entry in the ledger, Jiminy turned her attention once more to her grandpa’s diary. With Carlos due to arrive in two days, she wanted to revisit all that she already knew. She wanted to feel as prepared as possible.

  Looking at the June 24, 1966, entry gave her chills, just as it had before. “Edward and Jiminy found, buried.” Now that she knew more, she could better imagine how distraught her grandfather must have been as he’d written this. Henry and Edward had grown up together. They’d worked side by side in the carpentry business and on the farm, along with their wives and daughters. They’d been as close as family, according to Walton Trawler. The rest of Fayeville had apparently looked askance at the intimacy of their relationship, but that hadn’t stopped them from living their lives on their own terms. Only untimely death had stopped this, inflicted by a hatred that hunted and stalked and, finally, brutally pounced. What a world where that happened. Jiminy felt a searing anguish flash through her chest. She shut the diary and sank into the grass, laying her arm across her eyes to block the glare. There were times in her life, and this was one of them, when she wished she could just grow straight into the ground.

  Chapter 11

  Willa knelt on her knees by her bed, aware that this would be the proper position to take if she prayed. It was also the best position for fishing something out from underneath her mattress. She rooted around for a moment, grateful that she still had the flexibility for such a maneuver, and conscious that she was more than a little sore from her virtual tennis matches. Her hand finally found its target, which she slowly extracted.

  She hadn’t looked at the album in years and she’d never shown it to anyone else. But now that Jiminy had brought Carlos here, and they were prying into what Willa had previously thought might stay buried forever, it seemed important to share its contents.

  Henry had taken all the photos in the album, so when Willa looked at them, she imagined seeing the subjects live, from his perspective. There was a shot of Edward with a whittling knife. There was a shot of the house, which Henry and Edward had built by themselves. There was the big rock by the river, where they’d lain in the sun, warming themselves after plunges into the cold water. She imagined Henry capturing these moments in his careful way, determined to memorialize the people and places he loved best.

  There was a photo of her, pregnant, with her arms around her stomach, standing in the kitchen doorway. Behind her was Lyn, rolling something on the counter. Biscuit dough, most likely. They’d always eaten a lot of biscuits, but Willa had craved them incessantly when she was pregnant. Willa was ostensibly the focus of the photo, featured in the center, but she’d come out slightly fuzzy. It was Lyn whose profile was sharp and clear. She wasn’t looking at the camera, but she was still turned slightly toward it, illuminated by the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. Covered in a fine dusting of flour, she looked like an angel.

  What had Henry seen when he’d looked through that lens?

  Because Willa was in the middle of it, he’d certainly seen a wife. One that he’d loved in a quiet, deliberate way. Willa had adored him, particularly in the early years of their marriage. And Henry had made her feel, if not adored, then certainly cherished, which had seemed permanent and holy.

  And when he’d looked at Lyn, consciously or subconsciously focused on Lyn? He’d also seen a wife, certainly. The wife of his employee, partner, and friend. He’d seen a tenant and a servant and a parent. Willa couldn’t be sure what else Henry had seen in that moment. She’d never fully understood it, especially back then.

  The only thing that had seemed certain was that Henry didn’t care for Lyn, which had always distressed Willa. Henry had mentioned early on in their marriage that he felt Edward had made a bad match. By that point, Edward and Lyn had already been married for years and were raising their daughter in the little house on the edge of the farm. Willa had liked Lyn immediately and was touched by how deeply Lyn and Edward evidently loved each other. Their affection was a palpable thing, something that sat alongside them in the room, constantly present. Because of this, Willa had argued with Henry when he’d made his “bad match” comment. She’d spoken up for Lyn, defended her, said she seemed like a very good wife.

  But Henry had shook his head and told her sharply not to feel such familiarity. Not to feel such familiarity! They were closer with the Waters family than they were with anyone else, including relatives. But she’d stayed quiet, sensing that for some reason Henry needed to feel this way, and that she needed to let him. She’d bit her tongue when Henry had suggested Lyn spend her workdays elsewhere, and missed her silently when Lyn found employment at Brayer Plantation. But Willa had felt strongly all along that Lyn belonged with them on the farm. If only Henry had let her be.

  Willa and Henry had tried for a baby for five years before they had their daughter. So when Henry was looking through the lens of his camera, partly at his pregnant wife and partly at a woman he couldn’t stand, was he feeling victorious? Or finally trapped?

  The photos at the very end of the album were not pleasant to look at. They were in a separate envelope, tucked into a pocket on the inside of the back cover. The ones of the bodies were understandably gruesome, but even the still shots of the survivors had a pathos that repelled the eye. Some grief draws people in, but the kind Henry had captured was as harsh as a flashing hazard light. One look told a viewer it was best to steer clear.

  Willa forced herself to look at the photos of Edward and Jiminy for a full second. They were battered. They didn’t look like themselves, much less each other, which was always the thing Willa naturally looked for. She wished she had more photos of them unharmed and alive, to help her shape happier memories.

  She moved on to the others. There was her daughter standing on the porch, holding a kitten. Willa hadn’t let her keep the kitten in the house. She’d banished it to the barn, and it wasn’t long before it disappeared. It was still alive in this photograph, but her daughter’s seven-year-old face was creased and crinkled in concern. She looked precious and wounded, and this was what made Willa question her assumption that she’d been oblivious and resilient. This was the evidence that proved her wrong—that showed a soul in quiet crisis. Had Henry left it for her, to help her know their daughter better, as a parting gift?

  The next photo was of Lyn, the only one Willa had ever se
en that was taken with Lyn’s knowledge and presumed cooperation. In any of the others, Lyn was always in the background or on the periphery, engaged in some other task, unattuned to the camera’s presence. But in this one, she was facing the lens head-on, aware exactly of what was going on.

  She was wearing an old overcoat that had belonged to Edward. She was simply standing, arms at her side, staring into the camera. And her face was blank. There was no evident emotion—no fury or sadness or irritation. None of the tension that usually appeared when she was in close proximity to Henry. In its place was a hollowness that hinted at a level of pain unknown to most. Her whole presence gave the impression that her heart had an open wound.

  The last photograph in this final group was a self-portrait of Henry. Henry never let anyone else touch his camera, so he must’ve set the camera on some surface across from him. It had been cold out, to judge by the flush in his cheeks and at the tip of his nose. He, too, stared straight into the camera, unsmiling, a questioning expression on his prematurely aged face. He looked as though he’d just asked the camera something and had been waiting, hoping, for an answer. And that the timer had gone off at the exact second he’d realized he wasn’t going to get one.

  Willa stared at this last photo the longest, her head filled with her own questions. In the final round of pictures Henry shot before he died, he hadn’t taken one of her. Was this because they were all for her? Had he intended her to be the viewer, and thus purposely trained his camera on those she’d need to understand? Willa wanted to think of it this way. She didn’t want to contemplate the alternative, that she just hadn’t made his final cut. That none of the moments he’d felt compelled to capture and memorialize had involved her.

  Of course he hadn’t known he was going to die. Maybe she’d been next on his list.

  Chapter 12

  Lyn gazed across her kitchen table at the stranger sitting calmly in one of the chairs that Edward had carved. Jiminy hovered nearby, leaning in and out of the doorway like she was caught up in a current. The sheaf of onionskin paper lay on the table, flimsy against the wood.

  “Do you recognize that report?” the man asked Lyn.

  His name was Carlos, Lyn knew, and he was from Texas. Willa’s granddaughter had explained why she’d wanted to get him involved, touting his history of successful prosecution of unsolved civil rights crimes. Before the run-in with Roy and Randy Tomlins near the interstate junction, Lyn never would have been persuaded to cooperate. But that night had proven that the hatred that had stolen her husband and daughter was now actively threatening another loved one in the here and now. It wasn’t just about Lyn and her painful past. It was now about Bo—who looked so much like Edward—and a still-forming future. As the force of that realization struck her, Lyn had felt something stirring within, almost as though she was shifting out of neutral and into gear. She’d understood clearly that what had happened so long ago lived on, and she’d suddenly decided that she’d be damned if it outlived her. For the first time in forty years, she’d felt a compelling reason to stick around.

  “No, I never saw this,” Lyn answered.

  “Does it seem accurate, though?”

  Lyn looked again at the first page of the onionskin pile. It was a yellowed transcript of her visit to the police station on June 24, 1966. She’d gone in two weeks previous to this visit in order to report that her husband and daughter were missing, but she’d been told that they’d probably just run off without her, and that it wasn’t the practice of the Fayeville sheriff’s office to get caught up in domestic disagreements.

  Fourteen days later, the bodies of Edward and Jiminy were found, and Lyn returned to report their murder. The sheriff was dismissive, telling her that he didn’t have resources to waste on a silly woman’s delusions. According to him, it seemed likely that Edward and Jiminy had stopped to cool off in the river and gotten in over their heads. They didn’t know how to swim that well, did they? Did they? He pressed Lyn. He raised his voice to intimidate her, suggesting with his jabbing finger that she might be getting in over her head herself.

  Lyn had stayed very calm and pointed out that bruises and bullet wounds suggested something other than drowning. She said they had been driving home from a town upstate, and someone had run them down and killed them. But the sheriff waved her off, lamenting her “overhyperactive imagination.”

  Lyn remembered all this as she read the transcript in front of her:

  Lyn Waters made unsubstantiated claim that her husband, Edward Waters, and her daughter, Jiminy Waters, were murdered. All evidence points to accidental drowning. No charges will be filed.

  Lyn looked up at the man across her table.

  “Does it seem accurate?” she repeated. “That’s what you asked?”

  “I meant, does it accurately describe their attitude. Did you try to talk to the sheriff and was he that dismissive.”

  “Yes,” Lyn answered.

  Carlos nodded. Lyn reminded him of an olive tree, stately and gnarled. He was used to the resignation she emanated. He had seen her brand of empty expression on others, in previous cases. So much of the time the surviving relatives he encountered seemed defined less by the presence of ongoing life than by the absence of loved ones whose lives were cut too short.

  “Do you remember it well? Do you mind talking about it?”

  Lyn looked past him at Willa’s granddaughter, who stared back, suddenly self-conscious.

  “I’ll just wait outside,” she said, slipping out the screen door.

  Lyn was glad of this. She didn’t want her around while she talked about the real Jiminy.

  “You have something against her?” Carlos asked.

  His tone was completely dispassionate, suggesting it was fine by him if Lyn did. That he was just there to observe.

  Lyn shook her head dishonestly.

  “She shares your daughter’s name,” Carlos noted.

  “Mmmmhmmm,” Lyn replied.

  “Why does she?” he asked. “What’s the story there?”

  Lyn took her time answering, silently remembering the day she’d first found out.

  Willa’s daughter, Margaret, had called to let Willa know she was a grandmother. Lyn had been washing dishes, content to let the running water drown out the conversation. By the time Willa had hung up the phone and turned toward her, Lyn was drying plates with a freshly laundered towel. She couldn’t remember the year or the season, but because she was at Willa’s, it must have been a Tuesday or Thursday.

  “It’s a girl,” Willa had said, her voice an odd, strained pitch.

  Lyn looked up because of the tone. She wondered whether it meant that something was wrong with the baby, or if perhaps Willa was just being sensitive to the fact that Lyn would never have a grandchild of her own.

  “Congratulations,” she said evenly.

  Willa stood and took a few steps in Lyn’s direction. For a moment, Lyn thought she was going to touch her, and she braced herself. But Willa stopped, and rested one small hand on the counter.

  “She named her . . .”

  Lyn didn’t pause her drying. The fact that the baby had been named wasn’t earth-shattering news.

  “She named her Jiminy,” Willa finished.

  Lyn didn’t drop the towel, but it felt like something inside her was dropping things left and right.

  “I don’t know why she did, Lyn. I didn’t even think she remembered. But she did love Jiminy, and I guess the name stuck in her brain.”

  Lyn nodded, and kept drying. She set her posture and expression to communicate that she didn’t want to talk about it any further. Because Willa didn’t either, they’d never discussed it again.

  Now, twenty-five years later, this brown-skinned out-of-state investigator was watching her, waiting for her to speak.

  “Willa’s daughter loved Jiminy,” she finally offered. “And remembered her more than we thought she did.”

  “Your daughter obviously left a deep and lasting impression,” Carlos re
plied. “Even on the mind of a child.”

  “You have no idea,” Lyn replied.

  She was frustrated that she couldn’t convey just what Jiminy had meant to anyone who came into contact with her. She’d been a miracle, really. She’d always been the most alive, interesting personality in any room. She’d been curious and bold, exceptionally smart and utterly charming. People had fallen for Jiminy whether they’d wanted to or not.

  “Did you get along with Willa’s daughter, Margaret?” Carlos asked.

  “For the first seven years of her life, we did. Then I lost interest.”

  “After the murders.”

  “There wasn’t much point.”

  Carlos leaned back in his chair, so that its front two legs rose up in the air. Lyn winced, feeling the strain on the back two legs somewhere deep in her chest.

  Carlos noticed and righted himself.

  “Edward made them,” Lyn explained.

  “They’re beautiful. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

  Lyn nodded. She loved those chairs. She loved running her fingers over them. When she did, she felt almost like she was touching a part of Edward.

  “How did Henry and Willa react to the murders?” Carlos asked.

  Lyn closed her eyes for a moment. She saw Henry in the room with the doctor and the bodies. Saw him reaching for her, knew she’d stopped him with a stare. He and Willa might’ve wanted to give her comfort, but she’d moved beyond that by then.

  She opened her eyes and stared at the wall.

  “They were devastated, same as me,” she said. “They didn’t go with me to the police station, but they went separately. Equally,” she added with a wry half laugh. “They told the sheriff that there had been murders that needed to be prosecuted,” she finished, sober once more.

  Carlos’s face remained still.

  “Their report should be somewhere in here,” Lyn continued, shuffling the onionskin pile in front of her. “Find that one, too?”