Forever Road

by Catie Rhodes

  After all that, how exactly did she expect me to respond to her jaunty greeting? Her smile faded as she took in my less than thrilled countenance.

  “I saw you talking with Dean Turgeau.” Hannah stepped out of my personal space and shoved her hands into the pockets of her linen slacks.

  “That what you call it? Talking? And what business is it of yours?”

  She flushed. “Dean is one of those cops who genuinely wants to see justice served. Underneath the bluster, he’s pretty tenderhearted.” When I said nothing, she took another step away from me. “I’m the one who told him about the job opening at the sheriff’s office.”

  Still I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. Dean Turgeau wanted to charge my best friend with a murder he didn’t commit and see him sentenced to the death penalty. If possible, he would connect me to that crime and send me to prison, too.

  “I-I wanted to invite you up to my apartment for a drink…or whatever you’d like.” Hannah stood almost ten feet from me now. Her eyes darted between the museum and me. I could tell she really wanted to go back inside, leave this ugly scene behind her.

  “Not today,” I said. Excuses flitted through my mind, but I saw no need to give her any of them. Before she could recover and suggest an alternate plan, I turned and walked away.

  The entire drive home, I bitched to the empty car about Hannah Kessler. She pushed my buttons like nobody else. My tirade cut off in mid-sentence when I pulled into Memaw’s yard.

  Jolene’s SUV sat beside the carport. My throat tightened as my heart tried to crawl out of my chest. She might have news about Chase. With the police looking for him in connection to Rae’s murder, it couldn’t be anything but bad.

  I hurried into the living room to find Jolene sitting on the loveseat and Memaw in her recliner. Their silence scared me worse than finding them wailing and crying would have.

  “Sit down, baby.” Memaw didn’t look at me. The top of my head prickled. Memaw always made eye contact when she spoke to me. Whatever she had to say couldn’t be good.

  “What’s going on?” The old brocade covered wing chair squeaked as I sat down. I gripped the arm and watched as my fingers turned white.

  “Deputy Turgeau called after you left this morning. Your cousin’s remains are being released Friday.” Memaw grabbed the box of tissues on the end table and hugged them to her. I noticed for the first time she wore her Sunday clothes. “I talked to Hooty at the funeral home. Long as you’re fine with it, we’ll cremate her and have a memorial service here at the house on Friday or Saturday.”

  I nodded. “I’ll pay half the costs.”

  “You most certainly will not.” Memaw locked eyes with me, and we engaged in a short, silent battle. It was a sign of her grief that she surrendered first. “Hell. I’ll leave everything to you when I’m dead. Pay yourself back then.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” I said.

  Jolene took a crumpled tissue out of her purse and dabbed at her eyes with it. She couldn’t be this upset over Rae. It had to be something with Chase. The hush in the room added to my paranoia.

  “Where’s Chase?”

  Jolene shook her head and shrugged. Tears welled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks. The tension in my back let up, and I sat back in the chair. Chase hadn’t been apprehended. One less thing to worry about.

  “Well, what’s wrong then?”

  “Darren got into a fight today.” Jolene took a hitching breath.

  Chase’s father was not a fighting man. All the years I’d known him, he’d been quiet and easygoing.

  “Someone at Dottie’s told him they’d be cheering when Chase got the death penalty for murdering Rae.” Memaw spoke the words tonelessly. She had the glassy-eyed stare of someone at her wit’s end. I didn’t know what to do for her.

  “Who said that?” I directed the question at Jolene. She glanced at Memaw, who shook her head.

  “Let it drop, shug.” Jolene reached over and patted my knee. “We’ve got to worry about burying your cousin now.”

  My throat tightened. This signaled the end. I’d have to tell Rae goodbye, and we had so much unfinished business. I tried to swallow past the painful lump lodged in my throat.

  “Dean Turgeau said Rae bled to death and it took some time. Hours. . .” Memaw fiddled with a hole in the tissue box. “If someone had found her sooner, she might have…” Memaw’s face twisted. She wept into a handful of Kleenex.

  “He didn’t need to tell you that.” My irritation with Deputy Dean went up a few notches. He had no right to talk that way to my grandmother.

  “He was angry,” Jolene said to me, tears streaking down her face. “He said he would nail the ass of whoever did this.”

  That explained some of Turgeau’s fury outside Dottie’s. He had an unpleasant job. I didn’t forgive him, but I understood.

  I pushed myself out of the old wing chair, knelt beside Memaw’s cracked old recliner, and wrapped my arms around her thin body. She seemed to be nothing more than skin and bones. When had she gotten so skinny?

  Memaw and I put our heads together and cried. Rae had been a turd, but she’d been our turd. There would be no replacing her. Feeling Jolene’s gaze on me, I glanced up. Her son—and my best friend—was missing. She had to be near a breakdown.

  “Honey,” Jolene said, “if you do hear from Chase, please get him to come home. We’ve already talked to Rainey Bruce, and she says she can do plenty for him.”

  Major ouch on the Fischer checkbook. I cleaned Rainey’s office and did light filing when she needed it. Her invoices were staggering, but she was the best attorney in this part of Texas. If I wanted to confess I’d seen Chase, I needed to do it now. But I couldn’t make myself. It would put Jolene and Memaw at risk of legal trouble. If anybody got in trouble, it would be me and me alone. I slumped into the loveseat, ignoring the desire to spill my guts.

  The atmosphere in the room stilled, the hum of the electric lights and the ticking clock suddenly strident. A shadow flew across the room, and Rae materialized behind Jolene’s chair. The ghost looked even worse than before, her eyes sunken and dark-ringed. Defensive wounds on her hands and arms gaped open. Her hands rested on the chair’s back, showing her blackened nail beds. A chill enveloped the room.

  “Must be a cool front coming through.” Jolene shivered. She gave her arms a brisk rub and stood. “I need to go anyway, let you two get some rest.”

  As Jolene gathered her things, Memaw rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a foil-covered dish off the counter. She came back into the living room and pushed it at Jolene, who immediately began to argue.

  “Peri Jean,” Memaw said, “get the chocolate pie Elaine Watson brought.”

  I jumped up to obey, only half-listening to Jolene’s protests and Memaw’s convincing Jolene she should take some food. I grabbed a jug of store-bought sweet tea for good measure and exited the kitchen carrying both items.

  Rae’s ghost remained behind the chair where Jolene sat a few seconds earlier. Fear tingled at the base of my spine. I couldn’t handle Rae’s continued presence in the house. Aside from her appearance, she no longer belonged in this world. I had to solve her murder so she could move on. I had to save my best friend from being framed for a murder he didn’t commit. My life had gone from status quo to shitstorm in less than a week.

  “I’ll help you carry this stuff out,” I said. Memaw held open the door. Jolene led the way to her SUV. We set the food inside the cavernous vehicle.

  “Thank you for always being there for my son.” Jolene didn’t look at me as she arranged the food in the back of her SUV.

  Guilt for not giving Jolene the comfort of knowing I had seen Chase ate at me, twisting my guts.

  “I’m gonna tell you something.” Jolene’s voice lost its usual twang. “I saw something the Saturday morning before Rae’s murder.”

  Jolene’s nearly accent free words raised the hair on the back of my neck. Though highly educated, she enjoyed playing the part of Ea
st Texas good old girl to the hilt. She wore her Texas pride like a favorite dress.

  “Darren got up Saturday morning with heartburn. I ran up to Thomas’s Git and Go to buy some antacids. An older model black car sat in the parking lot. I noticed it because Darren wants to buy something like it to take around to these antique car shows.

  “When I got out of the SUV, I heard two people arguing inside the car. It had tinted windows, and the sun was barely up, so I couldn’t tell who was in there. I went in the store and bought what I wanted. When I came back out, Rae had gotten out of the car. She was all beat to hell and crying. She walked around the side of the building and went in the bathroom.” Jolene clasped her hands in front of her and stared at them.

  “What did you do?” Remembering the black car passing Chase and I as we stood talking on the roadside, I shivered. It had to be the same one.

  “God help me, I left.” Jolene’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I know the Christian thing would have been to follow that girl into the bathroom and call the police for her. But I didn’t. She scared me. I resented her influence in my son’s life. And so I left.”

  “Did you tell Deputy Turgeau about this?” I asked. This could only help me prove someone other than Chase needed investigating.

  “I did. He wrote it down on his notebook, but then he went right back to acting like Chase murdered Rae.” Jolene bared her teeth as she remembered. The flinty-eyed woman in front of me might chew up Dean Turgeau and spit him out for messing with her son.

  Jolene’s seeing that black car bothered me. I flashed back on the argument I had with Dean Turgeau on the sidewalk a few hours earlier. Parked cars had lined the street. Intent on giving Deputy Dean a piece of my mind, I paid them no attention. Now that I thought about it, I remembered the black GTO had been one of the parked cars.

  7

  Back at the house, I found Memaw warming up funeral food for our lunch. She heaped each plate with a large variety. Covered dishes crammed both the refrigerator and the counter. Most of it would likely spoil before we could finish it.

  “Have you called Barbie to see if she’d like to fly out for the funeral?” Memaw asked as soon as we sat down to eat.

  I kept my eyes on my plate as a tornado of emotion raged inside. I didn’t understand why Memaw would ask such a thing. We rarely discussed the woman who gave birth to me. Her lack of interest in having a daughter ached like nothing else ever had.

  “No.” I hoped my terse answer would satisfy Memaw. I didn’t want to talk about Barbie. She made me feel worthless, as though nobody could ever possibly want me. The feelings of worthlessness pissed me off. If I got angry, Memaw would too.

  “Why not?”

  “She won’t be interested, and she’ll manage to make me mad.” I ate a forkful of pasta salad, barely tasting it, and chewed carefully, forcing myself to swallow.

  “You need to call her. She should know what happened.” Memaw said this as though it settled the matter. It did not.

  “If you want her to know, you call her.” The rage from Barbie’s years of rejecting me tightened my voice, made it harsh and defensive.

  “Don’t use that tone with me, Peri Jean Mace. You’re not too big to switch.” Memaw thrust her jaw out and stabbed a dumpling with her fork.

  “She’s not interested in anything down here.” I struggled to keep my voice even. Memaw’s bullheadedness on this subject baffled me. She never talked bad about Barbie, but she didn’t need to. Her feelings on the matter were obvious.

  “Well, you need to make an effort.” Memaw nearly shouted, not her usual approach. “Once I’m gone, she’s the only close family you’ll have.”

  “That’s the same as having none.” I gulped down my food and took my plate to the sink. Memaw huffed and puffed after me, red-faced and mad. Once Leticia Gregson Mace’s temper was out of the bottle, bad stuff happened. But I was mad, too, dammit. My mother doesn’t care if I drop off the face of the earth. Memaw knows that. Why pressure me to contact Barbara?

  “Why are you so insistent on me calling her? This is something you could do if you want it done. But I can save you the time and effort. She’s going to blow you off.” I said all this in a breezy tone of voice, which I knew would only stoke Memaw’s anger.

  “Because the call has to come from you or it won’t mean anything to her.”

  “It won’t mean anything no matter which of us calls her.” I shrugged and went into the laundry room. I shut the door behind me out of habit. The machines heated up the house, and we kept the door shut to combat their effect.

  “Don’t you walk off from me, young lady.” Memaw stomped after me and slammed the door open. The force of her anger surprised and confused me. She had always shown sympathy when I spoke to her about the way my mother’s indifference hurt me. “You can’t just ignore your connection to her.”

  Without another word, she slammed the door closed. Her footsteps pounded through the house. I finished loading the washer, started it, and returned to the kitchen to clean up our lunch. Nobody stuck by me other than Memaw, and I did everything I could to make things easy for her because I wanted to. Could I do this? It would only cost me some pride. And isn’t Memaw worth a little pride?

  Memaw’s footsteps thumped down the hallway. She had changed clothes and now wore khaki pants and a t-shirt. To my surprise, she seemed calm. She set about making coffee.

  “Barbie—I mean Barbara—was still a teenager when she had you.” Memaw didn’t look at me as she scooped grounds into a filter and filled the carafe with water. “After your daddy died, she just didn’t know what to do with herself.”

  “So she ran off with a traveling country singer and dumped me on you to raise?”

  Memaw stomped her foot. “Why do you have to be so unforgiving? We all do stupid things when we’re young. People can change.” She raised her eyebrows at me.

  My face heated. I had my own history of idiotic choices. My short, first marriage. The reason I understood Chase’s romance with drugs and alcohol. All the times I raised my fists instead of letting insults roll off my shoulders. People can learn from mistakes and change. But not Barbara. Not in my experience, anyway.

  “Because,” I said, “all she has ever done is hurt me. I’m the one who is crazy if I keep giving her the chance to do it.”

  “But you’ll never know if you don’t try.”

  I didn’t argue any more. I’d call Barbara, and Memaw knew it. It was no secret between the two of us that I longed for a relationship with my mother. I wished I could change the thing about me she couldn’t stand, but I could no more stop seeing dead people than an elephant can un-grow his trunk.

  After we put the kitchen to rights, Memaw called a local homeless ministry. They agreed to take the surplus of food off our hands. Memaw said she’d have it to them within the hour.

  “I forgot to mention Deputy Turgeau said to go ahead and sell the trailer to Benny,” Memaw said as we loaded casserole after casserole into her old sedan. “While I’m out, I’ll stop by his office and see when he wants to pick it up.”

  “I’ll go ahead and clean it out this afternoon.” I didn’t look forward to the upcoming chore, but I owed it to Rae. “The obvious junk can just be thrown away, right? I’ll only put aside things we might want for keepsakes.”

  Memaw’s eyes filled with tears, and her chin trembled as she nodded. She drove away without another word. I waited until she pulled out of the driveway before I wiped my own tears off my cheeks. It helped my feelings to take care of this last piece of business for Rae. But that didn’t mean I looked forward to it.

  All that blood had been baking in the closed up trailer for two days. My hastily eaten lunch might come back for a sequel. I didn’t look forward to going in there, but I did look forward to seeing if I could find any clues to Low_Ryder’s identity.

  I went inside to change into work clothes and gather boxes and garbage bags. Just as I pulled on my bra, someone banged on the front door.

  �
��Just a second,” I yelled. Whoever was out front only knocked harder. I fastened my bra with shaking hands, pulled on a t-shirt, and stomped through the house. I opened the front door to a leathery-skinned blonde who had plenty of gray at her roots and a lot of tattoos on her arms.

  “Hi. You must be Peri Jean.” She grinned, showing me a mouthful of yellow, Chiclet shaped teeth. “I’m a friend of Rae’s.”

  “I’m Peri Jean.” I desperately brainstormed humane ways to tell this woman her friend was dead. She beat me to the punch.

  “I just heard about Rae and wanted to pay my respects. Sorry it took me so long to get over here. I had to work.”

  “That’s okay. She would have understood.” Sometimes the best thing to do was lie. Rae had been incapable of actually sympathizing with her fellow man’s plight.

  “That’s sweet of you to say, no matter how untrue it is.” The woman’s eyes crinkled into a smile.

  We shared a laugh.

  “Listen, girl, Rae had something of mine when she died. What can I do about getting it back?”

  “Tell me what it is and give me your phone number.” The laughter had me feeling good, and I wanted to help this friend of Rae’s. “I can meet you with it or you can come pick it up.”

  “I thought I’d just go back there and look for it.” Blondie gestured toward the back pasture, her smile gone.

  “I don’t think so.” Alarm bells went off in my head. A trembly feeling shook me, warned me to get rid of this woman fast. “She died back there, and I’d rather you didn’t see the mess.”

  “But she had one of my belongings. I want it back.” Blondie’s creased, smoker’s face came with a smoker’s voice to match. Eau de ashtray hung around her in a cloud. Looking at her and smelling her made me decide to quit smoking again as soon as I solved Rae’s murder.

  “Just tell me what it was and give me a way to reach you. I’ll be happy to return it to you.”