by Kym Roberts
“I am,” I responded with a smile. “But my real name is Charli Rae Warren.”
“You’re the Princess who was working with Ava on the book drive?”
Her question caught me off guard. “You know—” I winced. “You knew Ava?”
I noticed the caution in her voice. I also saw a yellowing bruise on her cheek that I guessed to be about a week old as she got closer. “She lived behind us with her boyfriend.”
That was the last thing I’d expected her to say. For a moment, I’d thought that maybe her house was the address I was searching for, but it couldn’t be a coincidence that Ava lived in the same area as the address Isla had written down on a pad of paper in her nightstand.
I nodded, thankful I’d stopped to give the kids a couple books, but at the same time wishing I hadn’t. What did it mean that Isla had written down an address in Ava’s neighborhood?
The woman continued to walk toward me, and by the time she was ten feet away, I’d recovered enough to reach out to shake her hand. She stared at my palm as if it was a completely foreign gesture in her world, then she tentatively took it. Her grip was soft, limp and timid. It lacked confidence, the same way her posture did when she wasn’t protecting her kids. She introduced herself with her eyes on the ground.
“I’m Naomi.”
Scarlet’s car door shut and we both jumped, but it was Naomi’s expression that I found more disturbing. The noise hadn’t startled her, it’d scared her half to death.
“It’s nice to meet you. I was just going by Ava’s place to see if I could pick up some books she’d collected for our literacy drive,” I lied.
As Scarlet got closer, Naomi became more guarded and her eyes darted around the yard, looking for an escape she couldn’t find. Her fear was gone, hidden just below the surface of what appeared to be a severe case of embarrassment.
“Naomi?” Scarlet’s voice was full of shock. Her approach was full of anger.
“Scarlet . . .” Naomi breathed. She grimaced as her hand went up to her dull brown hair and pulled it over her bruised cheek.
“What happened—” I elbowed Scarlet before her shock could outweigh her manners. She cleared her throat and got control. “When did you come back? I thought you were off to college in California on a full scholarship?”
“Jimmy and I had a baby. We’re expecting our third.”
“Jimmy Shoemaker?”
Naomi nodded but didn’t meet Scarlet’s gaze. Instead she looked to me like I could save her from Scarlet’s questions. I wasn’t sure anyone could.
“But what about your scholarship?”
“My kids are more important.”
No one was denying that. The problem lay with how her kids looked. I didn’t want to judge, but little Lily and her brother didn’t appear to be anyone’s priority.
Chapter Twelve
It turned out Naomi was from Oak Grove and had been a customer of Scarlet’s when Naomi was still in high school. She’d received a full-ride scholarship to East Texas University for basketball. She was going to be their “itty-bitty” point guard, like Morgan William of Mississippi State, and bring the NCAA championship home to East Texas. Unlike Morgan, however, Naomi made the mistake of having unprotected sex with the wrong guy on prom night. It had been the first of a string of bad decisions by the young athlete. The worst one had been letting that no-good lily-livered piece of trash know she was pregnant in the first place. Unfortunately, Naomi knew that better than anyone. She just couldn’t get out of that bad relationship. Yet.
From the way Scarlet seemed determined to take her under her wing, I was betting Naomi would be free, if she wanted to be, within a couple months. Scarlet had already made plans to stop by and cut Naomi’s hair and treat them for lice on Monday when Jimmy was at work.
Naomi was the one to turn the conversation back to the reason we had ventured into her neighborhood. “I don’t know what I’ll do without Ava.” Naomi’s voice turned breathy, like the admission cost her more than I could possibly know. The confession hadn’t come easy to her.
“That makes two of us,” I admitted. “I’m kinda lost on this book drive.”
Her gaze skimmed my face before traveling up the street. “There ain’t no one there,” she said.
“At Ava’s?” I clarified.
She nodded in affirmation. “John Luke left the night—” Her sentence hung in the air between us. Naomi changed the subject. “I’ve got a key to her house, if you’d like to git the books. I know Ava would want the kids to have ’em.”
It was more than I expected, and I think Naomi was surprised by her own forwardness as well. If Scarlet hadn’t been there to fill a necessary void in Naomi’s world, I’m not sure she would have ever said a word about Ava. In fact, she looked like she wanted to take back what she’d already said, but I wasn’t going to give her the chance.
“Thank you. That means so much to me. We’re going forward with the literacy drive because we know Ava wouldn’t want anything to stop it from happening.” I added a little bit of my history with Ava. “She’s been coming to the Barn since I was a little kid to get books for the kids in the foster care system.”
A smidgeon of trust crept into her expression, and I took advantage. “I’ll drive around the block and meet you there, okay?” It wasn’t really a question since I’d turned toward the truck and opened the door.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”
Scarlet rested her hand on Naomi’s shoulder and said something that brought a faint smile to the woman’s face that I swore held a glimmer of hope as Scarlet turned toward her car as well.
I hopped in the truck and was leading Scarlet around the corner before Naomi could change her mind and tell us no. It wasn’t going to be hard to locate the right address now. There were no fences between the yards, and I could see Naomi’s trailer during the entire drive around the block.
I parked the truck and we met Naomi on the sidewalk leading up to the nicest trailer in the neighborhood. The yard was still plantless, yet it looked surprisingly quaint, adorned with several rock gardens of different shapes and sizes. The driveway was made of pea gravel, which was more than any of Ava’s neighbors had—they had nothing to differentiate the yard from the driveway at all. The trailer itself was gray with bright pink shutters and a matching front door. The color looked a lot like the shade of fuchsia the Book Barn had been before I’d had it whitewashed the year before. There were two empty window boxes hanging underneath with a large picture window that was bordered with real curtains on the inside. The most notable feature, however, was the plaque next to the front door with the address imprinted on it: 1257 Armadillo Drive.
The address I was searching for.
Naomi clutched a key chain with a pink puff ball that held one key. She looked a little uncertain with her two kids hanging onto the back of her dingy white T-shirt that didn’t quite cover her pregnant belly. I immediately sought to put her at ease.
“I can’t tell you how much this will mean to the literacy drive. We’re actually thinking about changing the name to the Ava James Drive for Literacy.”
Scarlet chimed in. “Would you like to come to the vigil tonight? You can ride with Charli and the kids can ride with me.”
“No.” Naomi’s response was fast and definite, catching Scarlet and me off guard, until she explained. “Jimmy will be home in an hour. I have to have dinner ready.”
There was a moment of silence as if we were mourning her fate.
Lily broke it. “Miss Ava treated us good. Her boyfriend threw a rock at my brother.”
“Hush, Lily. They don’t want to hear about that.”
I actually did want to hear all about Ava’s boyfriend. I wanted to know what he was like, but I didn’t want to disagree with Naomi or make her change her mind entirely. Naomi knocked on the door and waited a moment before inserting the
key and turning the handle.
Naomi called out as she opened the door. “John Luke, it’s Naomi. I just stopped by to feed Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum.”
Her announcement was met with silence and Naomi walked into the trailer with her kids on her heels, and me and Scarlet close behind them. The first thing I noticed was how nicely kept the trailer was. The second thing I observed was the broken chair that had been set to the side of the kitchen table with the broken armrest lying across the seat. Naomi and the kids ignored it and walked toward a birdcage that contained two small finches. They tweeted and flapped their wings as the kids approached.
In the living room, the couch and chair were older but in good condition. A horizontal crease in the shape of the letter Y marred the off-white lampshade on the floor lamp as if it had been knocked over. Its repair had been less than perfect. The picture on the table below it, however, caught my eye.
I picked up the silver-framed photo of Ava flanked by a man and woman. It wasn’t just any couple. It was Jacob and Isla Sperry. Each was kissing Ava’s cheek as a thirty-something-year-old Ava stood between them wearing a cap and gown and a glorious grin.
The picture was missing the glass and I stood staring at the image, not sure what it meant. Like the lampshade, the framed photo hadn’t escaped whatever had occurred in that room. It was the perfect symbol of how fragile the barrier between happiness and tragedy was. Violence had breached and shattered the perfect moment with a scratch across Ava’s graduation gown.
I wondered if John Luke had been the person who had smashed the frame. Had he been a good man once? Or had he worn a facade to fool these three people into thinking he was the perfect step in Ava’s road to happiness?
“I think she keeps the books in the spare bedroom,” Naomi said.
I set the photo down and said, “Thank you,” before I made my way toward the hallway, hoping to look in both bedrooms. Naomi saw me turn toward the master bedroom and immediately corrected me.
“It’s the door on the left.”
I smiled and turned toward the door on the opposite side of the hallway. “Thanks.”
Inside I found so many boxes of books, I stopped in my tracks.
“O.M.W. that’s enough books to fill three stalls at the Book Barn,” Scarlet said behind me.
I had to agree. It would take us well over an hour to load all those boxes. I glanced at my watch. I only had an hour before the vigil started.
Naomi entered the room and caught my mouth hanging open.
“I had no idea she had this many books,” I confessed.
“She collects all year round and hands out books for Christmas and at the beginning of summer. Every kid who enters the foster care system gets a new book to take with them to their first home. From then on, they can sign out from the library and their case worker will bring a book with them on their home visits.”
I had to clear the lump in my throat. “Ava did all that?”
“She was a saint,” Naomi said with conviction.
I had trouble reconciling the woman I knew who collected books year-round for the underprivileged with the woman who lived in this trailer. “Who lives with a man who throws rocks at babies?” I asked.
Naomi’s back stiffened. “We all have our flaws.”
I nodded in agreement even though I wasn’t sure who she was talking about, Ava or John Luke. I hoped it was Ava, ’cause John Luke was beyond flawed. He sounded like a depraved junkyard dog with no ability to turn off his savage nature.
“I won’t be able to load all of the books tonight,” I said. “The candlelight vigil at the Book Barn starts in an hour. Do you think I could come back with help on Monday to get the rest?”
“I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to let you in. If John Luke comes back . . .”
A desperate voice spoke up behind us. “He’ll kill Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum without Ava here to protect them.”
We turned to find Lily standing in the doorway holding her brother’s hand, the birds in question sitting on the boy’s head.
Naomi looked crestfallen. “We can’t take them home, Lily.”
I knew it was a conversation she’d already had with her daughter. Naomi already had her hands full with what I believed to be an abusive husband and two and a half children to take care of. The last thing she needed was two birds to care of when she couldn’t even protect herself.
“I can take them.” The words popped out before I even realized I’d said them.
Fuzz buckets.
Scarlet grinned.
The kids looked at me with more hope in their eyes than they’d probably had in the past year. Even Naomi’s eyes sparked with glimpse of a light at the end of a tunnel. I would be helping Ava and Naomi and letting the kids know there were good people out there in the world at the same time.
“Ava loved those two birds. She would love for her babies to go to a good home.”
I wasn’t sure I was the right home for the birds. I believed Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum would be better off with me than they would be with John Luke, but still . . . I didn’t particularly want a bird.
Except now, I had two.
Chapter Thirteen
By the time we made it back to Hazel Rock, people were beginning to gather in the courtyard. The crowd had taken every last parking spot around the Book Barn and forced me to park down the block in the parking lot of the Tool Shed Tavern. I made my way through the crowd with the birdcage in tow while Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum sang to their hearts’ content. We’d cleaned the cage prior to loading it in the truck, and Naomi had packed up the birds’ food before we locked up the house and left.
“An armadillo isn’t enough for you?” Betty Walker, the owner of the Bluebonnet Quilt Shop across the street from the Barn, crossed the street and joined me. Her helmet hair looked particularly hard with hair spray this evening. Instead of her usual overly potent perfume, however, tonight she wore bug spray as a fragrance.
“Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum belonged to Ava. I thought it was fitting for them to be here.”
Betty accepted my answer like it made sense. Maybe it did.
“I guess everyone is feeling a bit overwhelmed. The Judge was just in the store and asked me to make a photo quilt using a collection of photos he had of Isla with Ava.”
“Really? I had no idea they were that close.”
“At one time, they were inseparable.”
This was a piece of the town’s history I didn’t know. A lot had happened during the twelve years I’d lived in Colorado, well beyond the sheriff becoming a judge and a new sheriff being elected. I was slowly learning about the things I’d missed through the little snippets like what Betty had just told me. It was almost as if everyone in Hazel Rock felt the need to educate me about the past. Right now, that education would come in handy.
“What happened?”
Betty leaned in. “According to Isla, the Judge had an affair with Ava.”
“Do you believe that?”
Betty shrugged. “Who’s to say what the truth is? The Judge denied it, and Ava kept her lips sealed. It was like she didn’t want to take sides in a public argument between two people she looked up to as parents.”
“Did you see anything the night Ava was murdered?” I asked.
Betty shook her head. “Franz and I were watching a movie on television. We didn’t hear a thing until well after the police arrived.”
Before I could ask any more questions, we were interrupted as we made our way through a group of women I didn’t know. Then I saw Shirley Rishard, wearing a floral dress and flats, and recognized some of the faces around her as county employees I’d seen earlier that day. Shirley immediately homed in on the birds and rushed forward.
“Lordy, I forgot about these poor little dears. Are they okay?”
“A neighbor was taking care
of them.”
Both birds chirped in confirmation.
“What are you going to do with them?” Shirley asked as she stuck her finger in the cage and wiggled it up and down. I hoped the birds wouldn’t think it was a worm and bite it. “They can’t stay with him.”
Since that seemed to be a consensus of all the women in Ava’s life, it had to be true. “I’m not quite sure. Right now, I’m taking them home.”
Shirley’s eyes rimmed with unshed tears. “I’d take them in a heartbeat, but I’m afraid my cat wouldn’t see them as roommate material. He’d make sweet little Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum into dinner.”
I didn’t want the birds, but leaving defenseless animals in the hands of anyone with a cat . . . There had to be someone who would like to listen to the beautiful music they created.
“They’ll be fine at the Book Barn Princess. You can come visit them anytime,” I assured her.
Shirley’s brow wrinkled, and she hugged me, long and hard. “Thank you.” Then she told me I could bring the books by on the following Wednesday and Thursday, DFPS would have space cleared out of the storage room by then.
I lost Betty in the crush and worked my way through to the Barn with several “pardon mes” and “excuse mes.” The doors to the Barn opened with a swish and a ding that the birds seemed to like. They sang at the top of their lungs.
Princess was the first to react. She’d been eating up the attention of many people milling about in front of the register, and her head shot in my direction at the sound. She dropped her front legs down from the expensive pant leg they’d been resting on, snorted, and waddled to the back room with her tail sticking straight in the air.
Up until that moment, I didn’t know her tail was capable of standing up like that. It was as if she flipped me the bird as she walked away.
“Someone’s not happy with your new additions,” Cade said from his relaxed position leaning against the front counter. His legs were crossed at the ankles but his expensive suit looked like it’d just come from the dry cleaners. Considering he was the richest man in the county, it seemed fitting that he would be the one wearing the designer attire.