Back to Lazarus (Sydney Brennan)

by Judy K. Walker

  “Fuck!” I screamed, recovering my grip on the bowl and bringing it down hard on the counter. Nothing but pain shooting up through my arm. I threw the bowl on the floor. The painful action of my arm was met with a satisfying breaking of ceramic, and I screamed again, a wordless shriek until my breath ran out and my throat felt bloody. I left the shards on the floor and went back to bed.

  My sleep was deep and undisturbed, and when I woke up I was feeling more like my self. I seemed to have finally slept myself out of my lethargy and into restlessness. Monday was my follow-up appointment where I hoped for a reprieve from my local doctor, but I couldn’t drive before then. Mike and Richard had made doubly sure of that by taking my car keys. They had called a couple of times to check in, and when they said they were coming to Tallahassee Friday evening—this evening—it was one of the few things that had managed to penetrate my haze. Now I was looking forward to their visit, for the car keys and the company. I’d been hiding long enough, and to butcher my metaphors it was time to get back on the horse before I became equine-phobic. It was time to focus on Isaac again, and it was time to tell Noel what I’d learned about her family.

  Mike and Richard were meeting me for coffee when they got in town Friday evening. The coffee house I’d chosen is sort of hippie/suburban bucolic, hippie because a lot of the alternative types hang out there, and suburban bucolic because it adjoins a park frequented by yuppie families feeding the ducks. I was looking forward to getting out of the house, to caffeine in familiar friendly surroundings. Noel was taking me there after she got off work. That gave me some time alone with her, time to get her up to speed before the guys arrived for a strategy session. In hindsight, my cabin fever and temporary drug-free euphoria made me look forward to the outing with unjustified naïve optimism.

  This was my first sojourn into public since the accident (attack, Syd, it was an attack) and I was going bandageless and hatless. A scarf over my hair and big sunglasses hid some of the fading minor bruises, but most were still easily visible to the most casual observer. I didn’t care. The more furtive you are about anything, injuries or your relationships or your finances, the more interested people become. If you’re hiding something, it must be because you’ve something to hide. I put on lipstick but no other make-up, and my short-sleeved blouse and knee-length skirt exposed more healing bruises and scratches. Nosy parkers be damned.

  Ready half an hour before Noel was supposed to arrive, I decided to unpack my motel bag before I tripped over it. It was on my bedroom floor, and only my tentative, aching baby steps had saved me tripping so far. I put the clothes away first, then moved on to toiletries and the manila envelope from Mrs. Waters. In it was a printed itemized bill, but I was surprised to also find a short handwritten note paper-clipped to a sealed envelope.

  According to Mrs. Waters’ note, she’d found the envelope under a chair by the door when tidying my room. “S. Brennan” was scrawled on the outside of the envelope in an uncertain hand. It appeared those fingers had trembled as much in addressing the envelope as my own were in trying to open it. I took it to the kitchen, sidestepping the remains of my ceramic bowl, and slit the top open carefully with a knife. Then I got a pair of latex gloves from under the sink, nearly toppling over, before realizing I didn’t need a whole pair. My right hand still wasn’t that consistently functional (as my attempts at sliding a glove over my left hand demonstrated) and good luck getting a size “small” glove over the awkward splint.

  I settled in a bum-numbing kitchen chair and took a deep breath, letting the residual spots and blotches fade from my eyes before sliding the single sheet of paper from the envelope. It was plain paper, the kind you’d find in any printer or copier, folded three times. The words were printed clumsily, as if the writer knew he or she should disguise her handwriting but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. The message itself was unexpected.

  Please go home—its not safe here and your not helping anyone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The misspellings could be deliberate, like the clumsy handwriting. I didn’t think so, though I couldn’t say why. The letters were big—masculine? Feminine? I could guess, but it would be only that. The sound of Noel’s car in the driveway interrupted my thoughts. Rising from my chair more quickly than I thought I was able, I tucked the letter away in a book in the living room, then threw the glove in the trash. I was still trying to wash the powdery rubbery smell from my hand when Noel walked in.

  “What happened here?” she asked, as the kitchen door shut behind her.

  I felt trapped. My heart pounded and my vision went dark from the top down. I leaned forward slightly until I could feel the reassuring solidity of the sink in front of me. When I spoke I could make out Noel’s figure again.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This.” She pointed at the mess on the floor.

  “Oh, that!” I realized too late how relieved my voice sounded. “I dropped a bowl.”

  Noel looked at me askance, perhaps wondering why I’d left it long enough for the remnants of oatmeal to dry on the fragments. “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I just need to get my bag.”

  “I’ll clean this up while you do.” I thanked her and went to get my things.

  Noel was just finishing up when I returned to the kitchen. I watched her. I could feel my anxiety festering, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her about the letter. We drove to the coffee house in silence.

  There was a nice breeze that evening, and the raised wooden deck was shaded by a live oak, so we sat outside with our heavily iced drinks. The university students and legislators were gone for the season. We had our pick of tables and chose the far corner. The few people braving the heat were quiet, reading, typing on laptops, or talking in hushed tones. Although public, it seemed very private.

  Noel was dressed Friday bank casual in a fitted navy blue top and unwrinkled khaki capris. She sat straight in her seat, but she closed her eyes and tilted her head back to catch the breeze. “When do you expect Mike and Richard?” she asked.

  “Probably about an hour, maybe more, maybe less.”

  She lifted her head and sat even straighter, waiting.

  “I wanted some time to talk to you first, to let you know what I found out before I got… distracted by the hooligans.” I tried to smile when I said the word, but I wasn’t entirely successful.

  “I wondered, but I didn’t want to ask.” She looked down at her napkin coaster, straightening the edges. “Not until you were ready.”

  I started with the easier stuff. “I spoke to your father’s sister, Ida Pickett. Twice. I was actually leaving her house when, uh, when it happened. I like her. She’s a kind woman, someone I think you’ll want to meet.” Noel didn’t speak.

  “She said your father contacted her about six months before he died.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “She didn’t know, and he didn’t tell her. Ida’s husband was dying of cancer at the time. Maybe he didn’t want to burden her any more. I think it’s important though. She hadn’t heard from him since before your mother’s death. In fact, the last time she saw him was at their own mother’s funeral. She said she met you there. You must have been about five years old, and your father took you there for a few days. Do you remember that?”

  Noel shook her head without speaking. I went on to tell her an abbreviated version of her parents’ self-imposed exile from their families, glossing over the darker bits. She was going to need some time to assimilate everything.

  “Is Miss Johnson still alive?” she asked.

  “Yes. She still lives in Hainey.” I smiled at the recollection. “I do believe Claire Johnson had a thing for your dad, and no wonder. Ida showed me pictures. He was quite a handsome man.”

  “A handsome man and a wife beater.”

  I stifled my initial impulse to defend a man I’d never known. How could I? He’d killed his wife
, beaten and strangled her. Still, Noel had asked for the truth.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. There were no previous complaints against him, and you said yourself you didn’t remember it happening.”

  Someone knocked over a plastic chair a couple of tables away. We both turned to look, and if I flinched away from the sound Noel didn’t seem to notice.

  “I wouldn’t, would I? I don’t want to. But it happened. Grandmother told me about it. One time he beat my mother so badly the family had to go get her, to take her away from him.”

  Noel leaned forward and lowered her voice. “She lived with them for weeks until she’d healed, and they begged her not to go back to him. She wouldn’t listen, and he killed her.”

  Suddenly the conversations around us seemed louder, closer. My head kept turning involuntarily, listening, looking over my shoulder. I struggled to maintain my focus on this person who’d been so kind to me, this person whose heart I was about to rip out. “Noel, don’t take this the wrong way, but your grandmother is probably not the most unbiased observer of your parents’ lives.”

  “Are you saying she’s a liar?”

  “No. I’m just saying people often remember things the way they wish they were, the way they think it should have been. Or the way that’s least painful.”

  “Do you?”

  I didn’t answer her question. Below us a Black Lab mix harassed the ducks, and his barks reverberated in my ears. “I heard another version of that incident. In it, your father did get very angry. He did lose his temper, and he did throw your mother out. But he never struck her.”

  “According to whom?”

  I hesitated. “Miss Johnson. She heard the shouting, and she was worried about you. She witnessed the whole thing. She said she’d never seen your father so angry, and he dragged your mother out of the house, but he didn’t strike her.”

  Noel settled her arms across her chest, and her mouth tightened. “Why?”

  I waited for her to elaborate.

  “Why did he kick her out?”

  “Miss Johnson didn’t get there until the fight was already under way, and your father didn’t say. She heard him call your grandparents, but he didn’t tell them either.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Strictly speaking I was telling the truth. I never lie to a friend or a client unless I absolutely have to, so I decided it was a good time to keep my mouth shut. Noel wasn’t ready yet, or maybe I just wasn’t ready to tell her.

  “You know, Sydney, I have a picture of my father, and he was handsome, but I’ve seen many pictures of my mother. He wasn’t half as handsome as she was beautiful. He thought she having an affair, didn’t he? And that’s why he killed her.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “There’s more though, isn’t there?” Once again, I held my tongue. Her voice grew husky and blood sprang to her face.

  “Who the hell do you think you are? You work for me. You are my employee. Do you understand that? I’m paying you to get information for me. How dare you dole it out in bits as you please, like treats to a dog?”

  I closed my eyes against flashes of… something. Bits of something that kept pushing into my brain and made my ears roar. It felt like my airway was the size of a straw. My own voice was a husky whisper as I leaned forward.

  “Me? What about you? You tell me you can’t remember anything because you were six years old when your mother died, but you were eight. You tell me your father died four or five years ago, and it’s only been 18 months. Then you tell me this ridiculous story about a stranger in a grocery store breaking the news to you. Come on, Ben could do better than that, and he’s in high school. If you want results, you have to be straight with me.”

  “Results? Sydney, I admit you’ve had a good excuse for sitting on your ass for the past week, but what about before that? From what I’m hearing, you haven’t done a whole hell of a lot.”

  I tried to calm myself before I spoke, but it was getting more and more difficult. “Noel, your mother had a substance problem.”

  She seemed to be holding her breath. When she spoke, it was nothing I expected. “Well, you should know.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, come on!”

  Our voices had gotten loud with emotion, but now Noel fought to control her voice, and it came out a whisper again.

  “Do you think I’m blind? You think I can’t see how out of it you’ve been all week, haven’t noticed the empty pill bottles? That shit’s not candy, Sydney.”

  I had to fight for control myself, fight not to be defensive because I knew she was right. “I know that, Noel, and I’m done.”

  “What—until you get a refill? How dare you judge my mother?”

  She paused to get her breath again, gripping her glass hard enough that I thought it would shatter. When she looked up at me, her eyes were so angry that my own heart began to pump faster, and I could feel my anger rising to meet Noel’s.

  “I didn’t judge your mother. I’m not judging your mother. You wanted to know what I found out, and I’m telling you.”

  “Because you’re taking prescription drugs, because you’re—“

  White, that was what she wanted to say. I could see it in her eyes. She could see it in mine as well and pulled back. Somehow I knew that Noel would slit her own wrists before saying anything that could be interpreted as “playing the race card.”

  “Because you’re middle class, you think it’s somehow different. But it’s not different. A drug addict is a drug addict.”

  “I am not a drug addict. I had one week—one week—of hiding from my bad dreams after someone beat the hell out of me and tried to rape me. That doesn’t make me an addict.”

  She flinched slightly when I said the word “rape,” but her anger had taken her too far to turn back now.

  “And how do you know my mother wasn’t hiding from the same? So she turned to drugs after my father beat the hell out of her. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t respond quickly enough. “Answer me, Sydney!”

  I don’t respond well to shouting, and I don’t respond well to ultimatums. In the end I told Noel what I did about her mother the way I did not because, as she said, she had the right to be answered, although she did. I told her for a lot of complex psychological reasons that I don’t quite understand, and because my blood was pounding and my nerves were jagged edges and I felt like someone was standing behind me with an axe. But I think in its simplest form it came down this: she’d pissed me off, and she’d hurt me. I wanted to hurt her back.

  “You want to know what happened? Fine. Your mother didn’t turn to drugs because your father beat her. She was already using. According to Mrs. Johnson, your parents fought because she was having sex with other men for money. To feed her drug habit. Your mother was a—“

  I stopped, my brain belatedly catching up with my mouth.

  Noel’s dark skin grew ashen and her lips paled. She stood up and left, without uttering a single word.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Mike and Richard arrived a few minutes later. I was still sitting in the same spot, staring at the melted ice water that had pooled on top of my coffee.

  “What’s wrong? Where’s Noel?” Richard asked.

  “She left. Do you mind if we get the coffee to go and head back to my house? I’m a little tired.”

  Of course they agreed. When neither of them offered to help me to the car, I surmised that no one could see my shaking but me.

  On the way home, Richard told what should have been a funny story about Mike trying to serve a subpoena for him earlier in the week at some down at heel strip club. I tried to laugh in all the right places, or any place at all, but I couldn’t. My mind was preoccupied with thoughts of Isaac and Vanda and Noel, and also (but less so) with men hiding behind masks. By the time we turned on my street, I knew what I had to do, and I knew I was going to need help.

/>   “I’m not sure why the two of you are here,” I said, once we’d settled in with our drinks. Mike and Richard both opened their mouths, but I went on.

  “Just let me finish. You’ve both been good friends to me, and I appreciate your support. What’s less clear is your position, your involvement, in my case.”

  This time they didn’t try to interrupt, so I went on. “At the risk of sounding like a Charles Bronson movie, this investigation has become personal for me. There are two reasons for this, one you know and one you don’t. First of all, somebody—or rather five or six somebodies—tried to scare the shit out of me a week ago, and did a damn fine job of it. Obviously it had something to do with my investigation, but I don’t have a clue what. They went to a lot of trouble to make sure my nightmares would keep me out of Stetler County for a long time. I don’t appreciate that.”

  “Second is the one you don’t know. Or at least I don’t think you do. Isaac Thomas’s daughter, my client, is Noel.”

  Mike seemed to take this revelation in stride, but when Isaac’s case was tried he was probably still playing kickball, blissfully unaware that such things happened in the world and that he would soon be a part of them. Richard, on the other hand, having lived through it, was clearly shaken. He ran his hands over his face a few times, up and down from forehead to chin and back.

  I considered stopping and making my pitch, but I couldn’t yet. If I was going to get anywhere, I needed to secure their help. Mike and Richard were friends, and I wouldn’t lie to them, but I wasn’t above resorting to some guilty manipulation in service of the greater good.

  “Noel and I had a bit of an argument this afternoon. That’s why she left. She doesn’t know what to think any more. With her mother dead and her father in prison for killing her, Noel was raised by her mother’s side of the family. Noel didn’t even know she had anyone left on her father’s side. In fact, that’s one of the lies her grandmother told her, that her father was an only child. She’s in a position where her grandmother is telling her one thing and I’m telling her something else. Yes, she knows they’ve lied to her, but they’re family, and I’m telling her things she doesn’t want to hear.”