Missing Isaac

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  “We didn’t call you for that, Mr. Ballard—just wanted your advice on what to do about the truck,” Adam explained.

  “I know. But you don’t have time to order seed, and I’ve got plenty in my barn, so let’s just not worry about the particulars.”

  “Much obliged.”

  “Paul know anything about this?”

  “No, sir. We thought it best.”

  “I agree. Now let’s talk about the hole in that tire. Unless I miss my guess, one o’ you put it there, and I don’t blame you one bit.”

  All the Picketts were unreadable except for Joseph, who kept absently adjusting his hat and looking off into the distance.

  “If I know Highland,” Ned went on, “he’ll try to turn this around on you. So here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m goin’ back to the house and callin’ that private investigator I hired awhile back. He can lift fingerprints offa that steering wheel and driver’s door—if we’re sure none of ’em will be yours?”

  They all shook their heads. Joseph especially looked relieved.

  Ned looked up at the sky as if he were merely speculating about the possibilities. “If there’s no way Highland can bribe the good sheriff into sayin’ any of you had any contact with that truck—and if the shell casings and the gun that fired ’em were nowhere to be found—you all can’t be blamed for anything, no matter what they try to pull.”

  He looked squarely at John, who nodded in agreement. His younger brother was likely too rattled to pick up on what was being decided.

  Ned said his goodbyes. “Gentlemen, I’ll leave you to it. Look for my fingerprint man in a couple of hours. He drives a bright yellow Ford—you can’t miss him. In the meantime, I’m gonna pay the Highlands a visit.”

  “You want company?” John asked.

  “No. I ’preciate it, but the farther away from this you all can stay, the better.”

  “What are you doing here?” Whit Highland’s greeting was hardly warm as he stepped onto his front porch with Ned.

  “I’m here about your truck,” Ned answered.

  “What about it?”

  “I’m just wonderin’ how it came to tear up a cotton field over in the hollow before it got stuck there with a flat tire,” Ned said, studying Highland’s face.

  The man’s expression didn’t change, but his hands, which were hanging at his sides, balled into fists. There was a brief silence before he said, “I’m sure I have no idea.”

  “Well, if you have no idea, I imagine Judd does. Maybe he wasn’t payin’ attention when the principal told him to stay away from the Picketts. Doesn’t look real good for the football team if they all get suspended for three games—doesn’t look too good for Judd either, once those linebackers get through with him.”

  “You shut your mouth!” Highland was beet-red, yelling, and pointing his finger in Ned’s face, which he had to reach up to do.

  “Get your finger out of my face,” Ned said.

  Highland took a step back. He was shaking all over. “Why would Judd take my truck when he has his own car?”

  “I imagine he didn’t want to scratch it up—but he had no problem ruinin’ your truck,” Ned countered. “If you didn’t drive that truck over there and Judd didn’t do it, are you tellin’ me your wife tore up that cotton field?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! What I’m trying to tell you, if you’d stop making these far-fetched accusations, is that—that—the truck was stolen last night. I was just about to report it when you came here creating trouble for my family.”

  “Stolen.”

  “Yes.”

  Ned glanced at the garage door. “How you reckon that thief got into your garage?”

  “Didn’t have to. I forgot and left the truck in the driveway last night.”

  “You don’t say. Well, that was mighty convenient for your thief. You go on and report it.” Ned made his way off the porch but turned at the foot of the steps and said, “You know, Highland, that boy ain’t never gonna amount to anything if you don’t teach him to take responsibility for his actions.”

  “I’m sure I don’t need child-rearing advice from you of all people.” Highland went inside and slammed the door behind him.

  Twenty-two

  APRIL 25, 1967

  True to form, Whit Highland did exactly as Ned had predicted. He persuaded the sheriff to focus on the Picketts—not the vandal who had tried to destroy their crop. Already Harley Flowers and a couple of deputies had searched all their houses but found no incriminating gun. The deputy sent to dust for fingerprints reported back that printing dust was already on the steering wheel, and Adam Pickett told them about the investigator who had come and gone.

  But on one count, the sheriff was successful. Even he picked up on Joseph’s nervous fidgeting and quizzed him more than all the others about his whereabouts the night of “the incident.” Somehow the younger Pickett maintained enough composure to stick to his brothers’ agreed-upon story.

  “So if the only prints on that steering wheel belong to the owners, what will you do?” John asked.

  “You let me worry ’bout that,” the sheriff said. “You deputies push the truck outta that field and up here by the road.”

  “Shouldn’t we wear gloves?” one of them asked.

  “Nah,” the sheriff said.

  John ushered Joseph toward home as the deputies removed a rich man’s truck from a poor family’s cotton field, knowing full well that nothing would ever be done about it.

  Twenty-three

  AUGUST 5, 1967

  Just a year ago, if anybody had told John Pickett that his best friend in the world would be a woman—and a Ballard woman to boot—he would’ve laughed out loud at the foolishness of such a notion. But here he was, on his way to pick up Lila for yet another Saturday morning run to Birmingham to sell some of his furniture. She went with him every time now, provided he promised to take her to a place called Carlile’s afterward and buy her a hamburger. Everybody and their brother, it seemed, went to Carlile’s for barbecue, but Lila preferred the burgers—medium well, no onion, with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise (no mustard or ketchup), extra dill pickles on the side (none on the burger, which Carlile’s had a tendency to forget), a side of French fries (which she would salt to death), and peach cobbler with ice cream served with two spoons (because she could only eat a little of it and hated to see it go to waste, so she would just feel better if he ate the rest).

  Being with Lila was so easy, and that made no sense at all. But ever since that day in her kitchen when she had just asked him outright to be her friend, it was like a window had opened up and a whole lot of sunlight came flooding in.

  They both knew, without having to talk about it, that they weren’t a couple. They had two children and two ghosts standing between them. So they had relaxed into a comfortable friendship, unencumbered by complications. No one had been more surprised by it than Pete and Dovey, but they were grateful because it seemed to make their parents happy—and made it easier for the two of them to be together.

  John pulled into Lila’s backyard and took a cypress screen door from the back of his truck as she came outside to meet him. “Oh my goodness!” she cried when she saw it. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

  He pointed to the hopelessly tattered door at her kitchen, tilted to one side and barely hanging on to its bottom hinge. “It’s time, Lila. It’s past time.” And he switched out the old door for the new one he had made.

  They stepped back to have a look. “That is just . . . perfect!” she said, shaking her head. “I love it. I absolutely love it. Thank you so much.”

  “Since I made you a door, have I still gotta buy you a hamburger?” he asked.

  “You better believe it. I’ll get my purse.”

  John enjoyed her company on these trips, but she had also been a big help. The first time she went with him, she had listened as Mr. Franklin quoted him a price on a meticulously crafted cherry tilt table. Lila had gi
ven the furniture dealer her warmest church-hostess smile and said, “Mr. Franklin, would you mind double-checking your price list, because I believe I paid three times that for one of these tables down at Huffman’s a couple of years ago. We could always give them a call to make sure—I’d just hate to tell you wrong.”

  With that, John’s furniture business suddenly became a lot more lucrative. Lila somehow knew the dealer couldn’t get pieces like these anywhere else, and he sure didn’t want them going to his competitor down the street. John’s work had been luring rich customers from the suburbs who liked the idea of having something nobody else could get. So Mr. Franklin would pay more if he had to. And Lila, with her pretty smile and genteel manners, let him know he had to.

  “I don’t remember ever seein’ a tilt table at your house,” John had said on the way to Carlile’s afterward.

  “That’s because I don’t have one,” she said.

  Lila also wasn’t afraid to talk to Mr. Franklin’s customers, which John had never done. While he and the dealer settled their business, she would wander out to the parking lot and chat with the city women in their high heels and pearls. What appealed to them about this furniture? What was so special about it? What made them like this piece more than that one? What would they like to see that wasn’t here? On the way home, she would pull out a red spiral notebook that she kept under the truck seat and jot down everything she had learned.

  Truly, Lila had become John’s spirit guide—that’s what his mother would call it. He had never seen a dressing table till Mr. Franklin gave him a picture of one from a magazine and asked if he could make it. But when he showed the picture to Lila, she had turned up her nose and said, “This isn’t you.”

  “How come?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s just not. It’s cluttered up with a bunch of foolishness—the gilding around the mirror and the marble top and the gaudy gold drawer pulls. It’s like a woman wearing too much jewelry. Your work is clean and quiet. Why don’t you make your version of one of these? If that old miser Franklin won’t buy it, I will.”

  John had listened to her and made one from walnut, with curved sides, an unadorned oval mirror, and delicate carving on the center drawer, which had a narrow rounded lip across the bottom so that you could open it without pulls. Each side drawer had a curved indentation in the center—just deep enough for a woman’s fingers to grip and open it. He had fit those to Lila’s hands.

  When the dressing table was finished, Lila pronounced it “breathtaking,” but Mr. Franklin didn’t like it one bit. He called it “plain Jane” and wouldn’t even take it off the truck. But before John and Lila could get the tarp back over the table, a woman from Mountain Brook drove up and had a fit over it. She went on and on about the “understated elegance” and a bunch of other stuff John didn’t quite get. What he did understand was that she said she would pay double what anybody else had offered. Mr. Franklin called later in the week to say he had spoken hastily. So far he had sold six dressing tables, and John and Lila were on their way this Saturday morning to deliver two more.

  He opened the truck door for her, then backed out of her driveway and headed for the Birmingham highway. Just a mile or so from Glory, he did what he always did at this particular spot in the road—glanced in the direction of an old, vacant brick store. It had two floors and a solid-looking storage shed out back. Best of all, it was right on the highway.

  A “For Sale or Lease” sign had been propped in the window of the store for months. But today the sign was gone. And he couldn’t help slowing down to stare at that awful empty space where the sign and his secret dream used to be.

  “Something wrong?” Lila asked.

  “What? No—just lookin’ around.”

  They made their delivery and had their hamburgers, but without the usual lighthearted conversation. On the way home, they were about five miles from town when Lila asked him if he would mind making a stop on the way.

  “Sure,” he said. “Where?”

  “I’ll show you,” she said. When the empty store was in sight, she told him to slow down. “There.” She pointed to the gravel parking lot just off the highway. “Could you pull over right there?”

  He turned to look at her and almost ran into a ditch, recovering just in time to pull safely up to the store. “What’s this all about, Lila?”

  “Well . . . I have an idea, but I need a little time to explain it, so bear with me,” she said. “Listen, I look forward to these Saturdays so much. Part of it’s just the fun of getting out of town, but I also like feeling that I’m—I’m part of something. That hasn’t happened in such a long time. Daddy doesn’t need me to help run the farm the way Jack did—he’s got an accountant and a lawyer to handle the paperwork. Hattie takes care of him at home, so he doesn’t need me there either. Pete’s gonna be out of my house in a heartbeat. There’s only so much volunteering I can do at the church. What I’m trying to say is, I miss feeling . . . necessary. And from the first time I made one of these Birmingham runs with you . . . well, I’ve gotten some of that back. I feel like I’ve gotten some of myself back.”

  “I’d still be sellin’ to that crook for little or nothing if it wasn’t for you,” John said. “But what’s that got to do with this store?”

  “See, you’re such a fine craftsman—an artist, really—but you don’t care for selling. As it turns out, I’m pretty good at it. And I enjoy it. So I’d like to propose a business partnership. I bought this building—”

  “Lila! You can’t—”

  “Just let me finish. You think doling out money is a big deal because you’ve had to work so hard for every dollar. But I’ve always had more of it than I could ever use. Nothing’s fair about that, but there it is, so we might as well own up to it. The money it took to buy this old store doesn’t mean a thing to me, and I won’t miss it one bit. But the way I feel when I’m able to get the beautiful things that you make into the hands of people who will pay you what they’re truly worth—I’ve never gotten to do anything like that.”

  “Ain’t you worried about what people will say?” he asked.

  “No. Are you?”

  “But what would you get out of it?”

  “I just want to be part of it—to be able to say I did something good.”

  “You do good all the time. You do more good than anybody I know.”

  “But this is different. You have this amazing talent—and power tools. I have an ideal location and a good read on your customers. Those things together make good business sense. If it would make you feel better to buy the building from me over time, that’s fine. I’d give it to you if you’d let me, but I know you won’t. And I’m not looking for a share of your profits. I imagine you’ve had your fill of working on halves.”

  He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, his hands resting on the bottom of the steering wheel as if he might need to make a fast retreat. “You don’t exactly drive a hard bargain,” he finally said, turning to look at her. “You’re pretty much tellin’ me you want to work for nothing.”

  “But that’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “Listen, I went from daughter to mama without much time to figure out who I was in between. I think that’s what I need to do now—figure out who I am in between. And I’m not sure I can do it without your help. Don’t you see? I wouldn’t be working for nothing. I’d be working for a chance to prove to myself that I can do something besides organize bake sales. I am unbelievably tired of organizing bake sales, John.”

  “You would have to agree to take a share of the money.”

  “Well . . . okay. We’ll put my share into some kind of savings account for Pete and Dovey. Heaven knows I don’t need it. So what do you say? Deal?” She held out her hand.

  At first the old doubts swirled in his head. He could hear them all in his mother’s voice. Shame of charity . . . Accept your lot . . . Courting disappointment . . . But when he looked at Lila so filled with excitement, that voice of hopelessness faded away. �
��Deal,” he said, and they shook on it.

  “Well, hallelujah!” she said as she handed him the keys. “Wanna look inside?”

  Twenty-four

  AUGUST 10, 1967

  Thursday had long been the traditional shopping day for Lila and Geneva. Once a month they would pick a Thursday, get to Birmingham right when the stores opened, and make a day of it. They would hit all their favorites—with extra time for Loveman’s—then enjoy a late, leisurely lunch before going home.

  They would do all those things today, but in between, Lila knew she could expect a grilling. Geneva had spotted her with John Pickett outside the empty store, and true to fashion, she had whipped her car into the parking lot to get the scoop. She “just wanted to say a quick hello,” she had said that day. But Lila knew better.

  She heard her sister’s Cougar in the driveway and went out to meet her.

  “Hey, baby sis,” Geneva said as Lila got in the car.

  “Ready to shop?” Lila smiled brightly, hoping to steer the conversation to retail.

  “Oh, I’m ready alright,” Geneva said. They had barely made it to the Birmingham highway when she set in. “So. Let’s talk.”

  Lila rolled her eyes. She adored her big sister, even if Geneva was a handful. Both girls were blue-eyed blondes, but that’s where the similarity ended. They had inherited the exact opposite traits from their parents. Lila had a petite frame like their mother, paired with their father’s easygoing disposition. Geneva was tall like Ned and had a double dose of Virginia’s fire.

  Geneva was somewhat famous among local choir directors. A natural musician, she could play the piano with such power that any congregation would feel compelled to sing their hearts out. But she didn’t take any guff from choir directors.

  Once during summer revival, the guest song leader, who was a persnickety music major from the University of Alabama, had spoken sharply to her during choir practice. He had been madly flailing his arms, trying to make her speed up to a tempo that she knew was too fast for the choir. (First Baptist had two sopranos who were just this side of the nursing home and a bass with emphysema. Geneva knew their limits.) Finally, in exasperation, the college boy had snapped, “Will you pick it up?”