Without even looking up from her music, Geneva had hurled a Broadman Hymnal at him. He had to duck to avoid a concussion. “You wanna pick that up?” was all she said.
Never again did the college boy question Geneva’s judgment.
“Are we doing this interrogation with or without the hot lights?” Lila asked her now.
“Oh, hush,” Geneva said. “Now, tell me about that man. I mean!”
Lila sighed. “You’ve known him for years.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t seen him since he was a teenager. And believe me when I tell you he did not look like that when he was a kid. He could be an Italian movie star, for heaven’s sake!”
“We’re just friends, Neva. I wanted something besides volunteer work to occupy my time, so I started helping him sell the furniture he makes. It was a lot of fun, and I’m actually good at it, so now we’re . . . partners, I guess. And friends. That’s all.”
“Friends? Have you lost your mind, Lila? You need to be making him dinner every night and picking out your trousseau.”
“Geneva!” Lila laughed.
“Oh, come on!”
“Look, Neva, he was Jack’s best friend. And our kids are gonna be married. It’s just too weird. Think about it. If we got married, my daughter-in-law would also be my stepdaughter. That is just . . . abnormal.”
“Oh, it is not. These are the 1960s, not the 1860s,” Geneva insisted. “Really, though, honey, you honestly don’t think . . .”
“We just don’t see each other that way. There’s something there—a really special something, I think. But it’s not some big romance. Not yet, anyway.”
“Aha! You admit you’ve thought about it.”
Lila shook her head. “Okay, yes—I do catch myself thinking about him a lot. And I trust him. I feel safe with him.”
“I worry about you,” Geneva said with a sigh.
“You don’t need to.”
“Oh no? Sweetheart, you’re young! Jack’s been gone for a long time now. And here you’ve found this lovely man. Judging by the way he looked at you in that parking lot, I think ole Cupid already fired off a few arrows. If you can keep company with a man like John Pickett and not picture yourself smooching in the moonlight, honey, that worries me.”
“Neva, can’t we just please—”
“Sweetie, I know you. In your head, you’ve probably already taken this thing to the part where you tell him you can’t have any more children and he breaks it off and breaks your heart, but I imagine he already knows. Men talk just like we do—don’t think they don’t. And he and Jack were close—you said so yourself.”
“Neva, I can truthfully say to you that I have given absolutely no thought to telling John Pickett I can’t bear his children. But next time we’re picking up a load of hickory wood, I’ll be sure and break the news.”
“I’m sorry, honey. No, really, I mean it. I shouldn’t have brought it up—not like that. I’d clobber anybody else who tried it.”
That much was true. Lila had seen her do it. The very idea was just so baffling. Why on earth would anyone presume to question a woman about the children she didn’t have, to stand there demanding an answer while she gaped in horror at the question? Could there be anything more personal, more private, than the children you had carried—or longed to carry—inside your very own body?
The worst was that horrible Byford Crestwell at the bank. He didn’t actually work there, but he was chairman of the board emeritus—whatever that meant—and insisted on keeping an office, though he never seemed to do anything in it. He was among that peculiar breed of older men who assume that their help is always needed, their advice highly valued, their attention gratefully welcomed. Pete had still been a toddler when Crestwell, who happened by as Lila waited in line for a teller, greeted her with that weird, crooked grin of his—part smile, part smirk—and said loudly enough for anybody to hear, “When you gonna give that husband o’ yours some more kids so we can start ’em some savings accounts?” He actually thought he was being witty and charming, but she saw the shocked faces of several women in earshot.
For months, Lila’s family knew nothing about the banker’s outrageous comments—which he made repeatedly—because she was too humiliated to tell them. But then one day he made the mistake of coming at her with Geneva at her side. Unlike Lila, Geneva was never at a loss for words, and when she was angry, she threw propriety out the window. She had whirled on Crestwell like a tornado: “Just how stupid are you? My sister’s childbearing is none of your business, and if you ever so much as look in her direction again, I will HURT you.” Geneva saw to it that their father moved all the family banking elsewhere.
“Honey, I think maybe you’re conjuring up roadblocks because you’re scared,” Geneva was saying as they made their way to Birmingham. “Losing Jack—it took something out of you. Anybody could understand that. But remember when we were kids and Daddy would carry us up to McAdoo’s—way back when old Mr. Mc was still alive? Daddy could barely get the car parked before you’d be flying to that high-diving platform. You’d get a running start and come sailing off of that thing before I could even get up the ladder.”
“Guess I’m not much of a diver anymore.” Lila sighed.
“That’s not true. You’ve just got to work up the courage to jump one more time. Even if you do a big ole belly flop, at least you’ll be back in the water where you belong. Listen, I don’t blame you for getting aggravated at those silly women in town who thought you should be grateful to date any man with a pulse. And if you don’t care a thing in the world about John Pickett, that’s all well and good too. But if you do . . . I just don’t want you to miss out because you’re afraid.”
Lila smiled. The sisters could have their differences, but when push came to shove, Geneva was in her corner all the way. And she was one mean mama bear when it came to protecting the people she loved.
“So it didn’t work out with Garland,” Geneva went on. “Big deal. Personally, I always thought he was too much of a suit for you. But honey, you can’t give up. Jack was—well, they just didn’t make but one of him. And if you keep comparing every other man to somebody like that . . .”
“Tall talk coming from you, Neva.”
“What do you mean?”
“You fell stupid-silly for Glenn Masters the first time you saw him, and God forbid if anything should happen to him, you wouldn’t dream of being with any man who couldn’t make you feel the way he does—and you know it.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” Geneva conceded.
When the girls were dating, most boys had been intimidated by Geneva. She had a show-me-what-you-got way of staring down hopeful suitors that turned them into Jell-O. But when Glenn came along, he had just stared right back and said, “I ain’t scared o’ you, hot potato.” She had eloped to New Orleans with him the following week. Glenn was the only man alive who could turn Geneva to pure mush.
“Sweetie, I just want you to be happy,” she said.
“I know,” Lila said. “And I love you for it. I want me to be happy too. I just haven’t figured out what that means right now. Whatever comes next—it doesn’t have to be the same as what I had, but it has to be as good, doesn’t it? Is that too much to ask?”
“Will you promise to talk to me about it—let me help if I can?”
Lila smiled. “It’s so sweet of you to pretend I have a choice.” Then she added, “Neva, I’m sure Daddy told you, but just to make sure . . . That land I asked him to deed to the Picketts—it’s coming out of whatever I inherit. I didn’t do anything that would take away from you and your boys.”
“Like I need you or Daddy to tell me that,” Geneva said, turning on the radio.
“Oh, and don’t let me forget—I want to buy Dovey a bottle of Chanel No. 5. She loves my perfume, and I think it’s time she had her very own bottle of the good stuff. Remember when Mama gave us ours?”
Geneva laughed. “‘Great Scots!’ as she used to say. We must’ve smell
ed to high heaven the way we took turns spritzing each other. Ole Coco woulda been scandalized.”
They laughed together as they drove up the highway, wondering what they’d find together in the city.
“Afternoon, Mr. Ballard. Thank you for coming in.”
“Glad to do it.” Ned had begun to feel at home in the FBI office in Birmingham. He liked Agent Davenport. The man had some sense. The two of them had been in constant contact over the past year. A three-year-old disappearance couldn’t be the FBI’s priority, Agent Davenport had told him, but as long as Ned was willing to bankroll an investigator, they would do what they could to follow up on any leads that turned up. He had been true to his word.
“It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve finally got some good news for you,” the agent said as the two men sat down at a small conference table in his office. “We’ve found the car that Isaac was jumping off the night he disappeared.” He opened a manila folder and pulled out an 8 x 10 photograph. Everything was exactly the way Frank Wheeler, the car salesman from Huntsville, had described it, with one exception—the hood was a completely different color, as if it had come from another car.
“What do y’all make of that hood?” Ned asked. “Frank Wheeler didn’t say anything about that.”
“We think it might’ve happened after,” Agent Davenport said. “But this is the car.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Well, we got a call on one of those ads we asked you to place. It came from Georgia—a fellow right over the state line. Said he’d seen my ad in the Atlanta paper and had just the car I was looking for.”
Once the FBI got the car salesman’s description of the Chevy, they’d had agents in four or five states keeping an eye out for it, but they also suggested that Ned take out classified ads in the biggest newspapers in those states: Wanted: 1956 Chevy Bel Air Hard Top; will pay top dollar if original red and white; call after 5 p.m. The ad had Agent Davenport’s home phone number on it so nobody would connect it to Isaac—or to the FBI.
“This man’s in Georgia?” Ned said. “And y’all think he’s connected to Isaac?”
“Indirectly,” Agent Davenport said. “His name is Bobby Earl Bobo.”
“Bobo?”
“Thought you’d find that interesting, Glory being such a small town. At first Bobby Earl pretended that he didn’t know the man who sold him the car, but when our agents explained how hard the FBI would take it if he should lie to us—and how long his prison sentence would be if he impeded a federal investigation—he sang like a canary. Said the car belonged to his brother, who lives in Glory. The brother told Bobby Earl that his wife had gotten into some kind of scrape in the Chevy, but he left out the part about a possible homicide. The Bobos are on vacation down in Panama City, and I’ve already called the Tallahassee office to get a couple of men over there and pick them up. I’ve also assured Bobby Earl that if he should tip them off and they should run before we get there, why, I’ll take that personally—and take it out of his hide.”
“When do you expect them?” Ned asked.
“With the weekend coming up, Tallahassee offered to hold them there till Monday, but I don’t want to wait that long. Soon as I find another agent to travel with me, we’ll go get them and see if we can’t get to the bottom of this thing once and for all.”
“If you just need somebody to go with you, I’ll be glad to.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Ballard, but it has to be another agent.”
“I understand. Well, guess there’s nothing to do but wait, and we’re gettin’ pretty good at that, you and me.”
“Yes, we are. But I hope to have some answers for you very soon.”
Ned wondered if he would pass Geneva and Lila on the highway going home. He knew his girls had been shopping in Birmingham all day. He wished they were here right now so he could tell them what Agent Davenport had said and see if they could make sense of it. For three years he had been trying to fathom what on earth had happened to Isaac. And now that he knew who the witness was, it just got stranger. Bobo. He did indeed know that name. He had seen it many times—on the name tag of a very nervous waitress at the Tomahawk Café.
Twenty-five
MARCH 9, 1968
On a steamy Saturday morning, Paul Pickett stepped off her porch and looked up at the sky. A blazing summer sun shone down from the blue, but there were signs: long, narrow streaks of white—mare’s tails—and blankets of rippling, coddled clouds—a buttermilk sky. Both meant rain was coming, but Paul sensed something more. She would wait and watch before summoning the men. The women, though, should make ready.
She tugged at a knotted rope and rang the iron bell hanging from a frame made of railroad cross ties. Three rings—that was the signal. Right away she heard them coming. Whap! Whap! One by one, screen doors slammed as the women of her clan heeded her call. The five of them gathered around her—Lydia, Selah, Delphine, Aleene, and Ruby. They were close-knit save for one.
“Come into the kitchen,” Paul said. The women followed her inside and took their seats at her farm table. It stood at the center of a spotless and meticulously organized kitchen that took up the whole back third of her shotgun house.
When they were all settled in, Paul began. “Danger is coming, though I have yet to divine its nature.”
“Danger?” Ruby asked as she sawed back and forth with her nail file, smacking her chewing gum and kicking her foot up and down on crossed legs. “I mean, danger could be anything from a stirred-up hornet’s nest to a mad dog. Why, it could be a—”
“Hush, Ruby,” Lydia said without raising her voice.
“Well, ’scuse me,” Ruby replied, rolling her eyes. She was wearing skin-tight pink shorts with a clingy, low-cut pullover and shiny gold sandals that looked ridiculous on the farm. Paul had a sudden urge to hit her over the head with a rolling pin—or at least throw a sheet over her so nobody had to look at her.
“Tell us what you’ve seen, Mama Paul,” Delphine said.
“Mare’s tails and a buttermilk sky,” she said.
“Rain?”
“Yes. But something more. Something in the rise and fall. Something I cannot name.”
“What do you advise?” Delphine asked.
“I believe we have some time, but when it comes, it will be swift. Let the men keep working while we make ready. Bring the cows out of the pasture and into the barn in case of bad lightning, but don’t lock them in the stalls—something happens to the barn, they can run for shelter in the woods. Get all the laying hens into their coops. We can’t afford to lose them, so we must take them with us. We should ready the cave.”
“The cave?” Ruby was finally paying attention. “Are y’all crazy? Why, that cave ain’t for nothin’ but tornadoes, and it’s bright as Sunday mornin’ out there! I ain’t gettin’ in no cave when anybody can see ain’t nothin’ comin’ but sunshine. Ain’t gonna be no cave for me and Joey.” She kicked her foot faster and smacked her gum louder.
“Do as you please,” Paul said, “but Joseph will take shelter.”
“Now, Mama Paul, Joey is my husband, and when it comes to him and me—”
Paul held a hand up to Ruby’s face like a cop stopping traffic. Then she fixed her with a stare that struck fear even in the likes of Ruby. “Joseph will take shelter. If you die, so be it. But Joseph will take shelter.”
Ruby looked nervously around the table in search of a defender but found none. Aleene had bowed her head, staring intently at the table. The other women were sending Ruby the same burning stare as Paul, though none could match her subdued fury. Ruby went back to her nails.
“I imagine it would be best to divide the work?” Delphine suggested. “Maybe Selah and Lydia could gather supplies for the cave while Aleene and I tend to the livestock?”
“That is wise, Delphine,” Paul said.
“Well, you can count me out,” Ruby said, dusting the nail filings off her lap. “I’m just swamped with work back at the house.”
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“I imagine so,” Paul said. “Goodbye, Ruby.”
“Well, I didn’t mean I gotta go right this second.”
“Yes, you must go.”
Ruby glanced around the table and then hurried out of the house, her cheap sandals offending Paul’s freshly scrubbed floor with every step.
“When should we send for the men?” Selah asked.
“I don’t yet know,” Paul said. “I’ll keep watch and tell you when it’s time. Where’s Dovey?”
“I just saw Pete’s truck pulling up to the house,” Aleene said.
“And John?”
“He’s—” Aleene began.
“He’s not home, Mama Paul,” Delphine interrupted. “The fields are too wet to pick, so I imagine he’s . . . working on getting what he needs for his woodworking. I’ll go over and leave a note on the door in case Pete and Dovey need to leave before he gets back.”
“That’s good,” Paul said. “Be sure and tell Pete and Dovey to watch the weather. Let us make ready.”
The women left the table together, then scattered to begin preparing for a dangerous storm.
Dovey met Pete on the front porch of her house and gave him a good-morning kiss.
“Reporting for duty, ma’am.” He smiled, giving her a little salute. He was carrying a pickax. “I hear you’ve got some flower beds with my name on ’em.”
“Is that what you heard?” she said. “I think maybe you went and got yourself some bad information.”
He stepped back and checked her over from head to toe. “You’re not exactly dressed for gardening.”
Dovey had chosen an outfit that she knew was one of his favorites—white denim shorts and a bright blue spaghetti-strap top. She wore her hair down because she wanted to look pretty for him—no ponytail. And she had on his locket, which she never wore in the garden.
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