by Howard Owen
The rut road leading to the trailer park was so narrow that two cars meeting would naturally slow and move as close to the trees as possible to avoid colliding.
The fourth time Kenny Locklear went to Lumberton, he had a shotgun with him.
The night was overcast. Kenny drove down the rut road to the trailer park at 11:00, then turned around and headed back out. In his two previous trips, no one had come down the road except Cam Jacobs between 11:00 and 11:30. There were only a dozen trailers there, and half of those looked unoccupied.
It was not risk-free, he knew, but it would be worth it. Even if he got caught, it would be worth it.
He was on the stretch between the trailer park and the paved road with only his parking lights on, waiting. When he heard the car slow and then saw the headlights swing toward him, he started edging forward.
He managed to reach a particularly tight bend just as Cam Jacobs got there from the other direction. They were almost stopped when Kenny, with his window rolled down, motioned for Cam to roll his down as well.
“He might have recognized me. I think maybe he did. I’d kind of like to think he did.”
The blast more or less blew Cam Jacobs’ head off. It was impossible to mask such a sound. Kenny didn’t think anyone at the trailer park had seen him, though, and when he pulled out on the highway, no one was coming. He could only hope Cam Jacobs was as dead as he appeared in the second he’d had to observe him.
“I threw the gun in the river, down by the old bridge. I got back home 40 minutes later, and there was nobody to see me. You weren’t renting your daddy’s place yet, Teresa and I hadn’t moved in together. I was living in a trailer myself, while this house was being built.”
It was, he said, about the last possible time he could have done such a thing. A year later, he was married and would have had to bring his wife into it.
Georgia is sitting up now.
“And did anybody ever suspect you?”
“Oh, one time a detective from Lumberton came by and asked me some questions. But Cam Jacobs had a lot of enemies, and was dealing drugs. If push had come to shove, they couldn’t have proved I did it, and I couldn’t have proved that I didn’t.”
“Did anyone suspect?”
“It’s funny. When my family gets together, we’ll talk about Rose sometimes, but nobody ever mentions Cam Jacobs, how he might have done it, how he got what he deserved. And I have this spooky feeling they do that for my benefit, and maybe they have a little more to say when I’m not around.”
It’s been 10 years since Kenny Locklear killed Cam Jacobs. When he tells Georgia he has never, ever told anyone about it until now, she believes him. She puts her head on top of his bare chest and can hear his heart pounding as she hugs him. She feels a shudder but doesn’t look up to see if he’s crying.
She doesn’t go back home until after 4. She has showered and tries not to look quite so much as if she is in shock. She doesn’t know if she has been affected more by the indecently wonderful sex or Kenny’s revelation.
Justin and Leeza seem not to notice.
“I was worried about you,” he says. “You ought to let us know when you’re gone like that, even if it is next door. I mean, with that nut Pooh out there somewhere.”
“So,” Georgia tells him, already starting to make dinner, her face averted, “you going to ground me?”
Sometime after 8, the phone rings. Georgia picks up. She can hear heavy breathing on the other end, but no one speaks. She stays like that for a good 10 seconds before hanging up.
Justin looks over at her.
“Again?”
She nods.
“I didn’t want to mention it, but I’m pretty sure I saw that big red truck, the one that Pooh drove, parked on the side of the road when we were coming back from town this afternoon. I didn’t see him, but where he parked wasn’t a quarter mile from the back property line.”
Georgia doesn’t respond. If he has put two and two together concerning the dead cat, he isn’t admitting it, and she sees no reason to enlighten him, especially with Leeza in the room.
“Georgia,” Leeza says, “do you think we should go see the sheriff or something?”
She shakes her head.
“No, probably not. They’d just want some evidence of some kind of wrongdoing, and I can’t seem to give them any.”
All I’ve got, she thinks, is ghosts and theories, a shoe, a missing ring, and a dream that’s stuck in my head like a bad song.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
December 7
What a week, Georgia tells her journal.
In the last seven days, she has taken a secret lover, given a baby shower, celebrated a birthday, and fired a real-estate agent.
Peace has been declared. Blue, Kenny, and Justin have come to an agreement. With, she writes, no small assist from me. It was her idea, pitched to Kenny on Friday, when he was somewhat vulnerable after a second session of love making had proved at least as satisfying as the first.
“What about the right-of-way?” she asked him as she teased the almost non-existent hair on his right leg. “What if we give Annabelle and Blue the right-of-way? You know, the egress.”
The way the will worked out, she owns the easement containing the clay road that is their only access to a paved highway. The old rut path that used to provide a back way in, connecting with the Ammon Road, has been cut off by the new interstate.
Kenny’s land touches the paved road that goes into East Geddie, as does Georgia’s, so access is no problem, but Blue and Annabelle’s part is essentially landlocked. The other two parties made it clear that the road always would be shared, but the Geddies have a genetic distrust of promises.
Georgia became aware that this was still a worry when Annabelle mentioned it at the baby shower.
She and Sharita did come, and Leeza seemed so thrilled that they were there. She took great pains to introduce them both to everyone else, especially her friends from Virginia. The older women from Geddie Presbyterian knew Annabelle, having lived side-by-side in sometimes separate, sometimes shared worlds for their entire lives.
Georgia found herself in the kitchen, talking to Annabelle, who seemed to finally have accepted the fact that she was not ever going to try to take back the McCain land. She loosened up as much as she ever had in Georgia’s presence.
They talked about Justin’s idea, and what a shame it was that the three parties couldn’t seem to make it work.
“It’s just bothered Blue,” Annabelle said, after Georgia had rebuffed her efforts to help her cut and serve cake. “I know he ought to of been just grateful for that land, but then that interstate cut off the best part of it, down by the branch, and he felt like he was cheated somehow.”
She sighed, standing straight and tall while Georgia leaned against the kitchen counter.
“That and the easement thing, he seems like he worries about that all the time.”
And so Georgia found out, at last, how worried the Geddies were that they would wake up one day and have a farm no one could get into.
“Why didn’t you tell me that was still a problem?” Georgia asked Kenny as they lay on his bed. “I didn’t know they were still worried about it.”
“It’s such a silly-ass thing to fret about,” Kenny said. “Almost as silly as the mess with the interstate land. I guess I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.”
“But it could solve everything,” Georgia said.
Later, she, Justin and Kenny discussed her plan, and then they all went to see Blue.
He appeared unwilling to believe that such a solution was possible, and it occurred to Georgia that perhaps Blue was looking for some reason not to make this commitment.
“This is going to work, Blue,” Justin told him. “If you’ll give it a chance, I know it’ll work.”
Kenny nodded his head.
“I want to meet you halfway,” he said.
Blue was silent for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling. He look
ed over at Annabelle, who had come into the small den where they were talking. She nodded her head almost imperceptibly.
“OK,” Blue said. “Let’s all go broke together.”
“All for one,” Georgia said, smiling, “and one for all.”
And so it was agreed that the other two partners would give over the two-lane clay track known as Littlejohn McCain Road to Blue and Annabelle, forever, to help make up for the ruined bottom land. There was always something to worry about, Blue would say later to his wife, but now there’s a little bit less. Well-meaning promises were one thing, but a deed was something else entirely.
“You can even change the name of the road if you want to,” Georgia said.
“Miss … Georgia, why in the world would I want to do that?”
She called the real-estate woman that same afternoon. The woman showed more enthusiasm for selling the farm than Georgia could remember since she first let her put it on the market, but Georgia told her it was too late, that her son was going to take over the place and try his hand at farming.
The “Good luck” on the other end of the line sounded more snide than sincere.
She looks out her bedroom window, facing west, and sees a burst of red. The temperature is supposed to reach the high 50s today, and Kenny Locklear is out at his homemade golf course, whose grass is now the color of wheat.
She has been in a fog the past week. She replays their two afternoons together in her head, over and over, and she hasn’t yet gotten her mind around the fact that Kenny is truly capable of executing a man. Twice, Justin has had to repeat questions to her and ask her where her mind is. Sunday after church, she almost had an accident, backing the van out into the road beside the church without looking. Screeching brakes, a loud, angry horn, and scowls informed her of her mistake.
Yesterday, she forgot it was her birthday until Justin and Leeza came walking into the kitchen while she was still making breakfast. He was holding a flaming cake Leeza, the ever-improving cook, had baked the night before after Georgia went to bed.
The two of them are watching TV when she walks past. Justin looks up but doesn’t ask her where she’s going.
“Hi,” she calls out when she is close to Kenny, fearful of interrupting his swing on whatever imaginary course he’s playing. “I’ll bet Tiger Woods would be quaking in his boots if he knew you were working so hard on your game.”
He puts the nine-iron back into the bag and looks at her.
“I love golf. I wish it loved me back.”
He motions for her to come with him. It’s a bright, pleasant day, only chilly when the wind picks up.
She falls into step, and they head toward the Rock of Ages.
“Why?” she asks. She doesn’t know all the whys she wants to ask, so she lumps them all together.
He seems to understand.
“I’ve wanted you for a long time,” he says. “I remember the day I met you, more than 11 years ago now. I thought you were the prettiest, sexiest woman I’d ever seen. I thought if I could ever make love to that woman, my life would be complete. The way you smelled, your voice, everything turned me on.”
And I never knew, she thought. How much of life do you miss just because nobody ever tells you anything, or the important things anyhow, and you’re too dumb to pick up the signals?
“Have you noticed,” she asks him, “that I’m 11 years older now?” She kicks herself for saying it. Why belabor the obvious, especially when the obvious is not a positive thing?
“I don’t see it. You look the same to me. And I’m 11 years older, too.”
She doesn’t point out the extra pounds, the graying hair, the cellulite she can see when she turns the mirror just right. Not a bad 52, but 52 nonetheless.
Well, maybe it’s true, what he says. She can remember meeting old flames, decades later, and finding that, visual evidence notwithstanding, she could still “see” the boy she used to lust for. Maybe, imprinted in John Kennedy Locklear’s mind, is Georgia McCain the way she was when he first took that mental picture, when she was a mere child of 40, two years older than he is right now.
They reach the rock and step around to the west side, facing the sun and out of the wind.
He puts her hand in his. Georgia, who inherited her mother’s complexion, has noticed, when they are lying in bed together, that she is, top to bottom, the darker one. Only his hands and face, a farmer’s, are more deeply tanned.
“Do you think,” she asks, looking down at those hands and smiling, “that you might be too light-skinned for me? I never knew how pale you were, until …”
“I hope you weren’t disappointed.”
“I can’t think of anything that’s disappointed me when I’m with you.”
He tells her again how good she is, how wonderful, and she basks in it. Indian summer, she thinks, and laughs to herself. When they kiss, they don’t separate for five minutes.
“Can anyone see us here?” she asks Kenny, reaching for his zipper.
“Probably not,” he says, “unless Pooh Blackwell is hiding in those woods over there, watching us.”
“Let him watch,” Georgia says. “He might learn something.”
They make love standing up against the old Indian rock, her bottom pressed against the cold stone, one leg bent, as he thrusts against her with an urgency they never experienced inside. She has always been turned on by the prospect of danger, the chance of getting caught or being seen, and she hopes she hasn’t offended any Lumbee spirits with her conspicuous climax.
On the way back to the house, he asks her to come inside for a minute.
“OK, but just a minute. I’ve got to get back. People will talk.”
When they get inside, he hands her a box with a Talbots label on it.
Inside is a long wool scarf, bright red.
“Happy birthday. I didn’t know all your sizes, so I figured …”
“Oh, I think you know my sizes pretty well,” she says, grinning, delighted to see that he is blushing. “I think you’ve taken all my measurements. How did you know it was my birthday?”
“Justin told me.”
“So I guess you know how old I am now, too?”
“Georgia,” he says, “I’ve always known how old you were. I don’t give a shit.”
She goes out for groceries that night. Walking the aisles of the Food Lion, trying in vain to find some tahini because Leeza is suddenly craving hummus and she wouldn’t mind some herself, she literally runs into William Blackwell, their carts sideswiping at the end of an aisle.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, then looks up and sees who it is. “William. How’re you doing?”
His glare softens. He looks so out of place, pushing the grocery cart, so … domestic. He appears lost, peering over his glasses at her, as if he hasn’t done this very often.
“Well, hey, Georgia. Doin’ fine. And you?”
Georgia confirms that she’s doing fine, too. The way they’re shopping, though, they meet again on the next aisle, coming in opposite directions, and then they’re beside each other in the checkout lines.
“William,” she says, trying to seize the moment, “can I talk to you?”
He says he’s in kind of a hurry. His wife is sick with the flu, and he’s got to get home with some groceries. He’s worried about the ice cream melting.
“It won’t take long, I promise. Five minutes, tops.”
Her van and his car, a big Buick that makes the holy terror of her high school days seem sadly old, are parked near each other. Georgia loads her groceries into the trunk, parks the cart and walks over to where William Blackwell is waiting, leaning against the car.
Georgia knows she doesn’t have much time.
She doesn’t mention any of her suspicions about his son, just tells him that she was curious about Jenny’s drowning and wanted to figure out how it happened.
“I didn’t ever mean to imply that Pooh …”
Liar, the voice in her head whispers.
William holds his hands up, palms facing her.
“Georgia, if it wasn’t you, it’d be something else. Pooh’s always pissed off about something. I thought it might do him some good to get away from us a little ways, have to make do without his momma fixing half his meals, although she’ll do it now if I don’t stop her, and drive it over there.”
Looking past her own first perception of William Blackwell, she realizes she might be seeing a man who is tired of fighting but doesn’t really have another strategy.
“He’s twenty-nine years old,” he says. “Twenty-nine. My God, at twenty-nine, my fourth child had just been born. I was living in my own house, farming two hundred acres. I wasn’t exactly a model citizen, didn’t want to be, but I knew I had to be a man by a certain time, and that time sure as hell was well before I turned twenty-nine years old.”
“They grow up slower,” Georgia says, thinking of hers. “Every generation seems to.”
He gives her a sharp look, a glimpse of the boy who used to bully football and basketball players.
“Some of us don’t have the luxury,” he says. “I mean, Pooh ain’t got what you’d call a lot of options.”
He crosses his arms.
“I got to admit, I was a little upset with you, Georgia, when I was told you thought foul play might have been involved in Miss Jenny’s death. Not as upset as Pooh, but it did seem like you was pointing fingers.”
Georgia starts to protest, but she doesn’t feel like lying to appease William Blackwell.
“OK. When I realized the ring was gone, and later when I found that shoe …”
“Which you never should of been out there looking for in the first place. God knows what that boy would have done if he’d of caught you trespassing.”
“… I didn’t know what to think.”
“He’s been in some trouble,” William says. “I can’t deny that. But the idea that he might have had something to with Jenny falling in that pond, that really hurt.”
“I was making too much of it,” Georgia says. “I have trouble letting stuff go when I sink my teeth in.”
“Yeah,” William says, grinning, “you always was a stubborn little girl. I still remember you arguing with that ninth-grade science teacher, the one that didn’t want to hear about us coming from apes and such.”