by Laura McHugh
The front door rattled, and what sounded like a herd of animals clomped toward the kitchen.
“Ma, look.” A cluster of boys burst into the room. “Daniel got a fish.”
They noticed me then, and the three older boys stopped and stared. The smallest one—Daniel, I assumed—toddled over with a bucket, showing off his catch. He handed the bucket to Sarah and turned to place his hands on my exposed belly, no doubt imitating what he’d seen his mother do to other women. He smiled up at me, and Sarah gently pulled him away. “Get cleaned up for supper, boys,” she said, giving Daniel a quick squeeze. “Take this one with you.”
It wasn’t how I planned to tell Carl. Not that I had a better plan. He was standing in the bathroom doorway when I got up from the floor, and the look on his face was panicked, like he’d thought I was almost better and now something had gone wrong and he blamed himself. In that moment I wanted to comfort him. “I’m not sick,” I said, my hand over my mouth. “I’m pregnant, that’s all.”
He looked shocked, and we stared at each other in uncomfortable silence. Finally, he pulled me to him, his face in my hair, and held me awhile, and then he left the house. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said as I watched him from the top of the stairs. “Stay right there.”
I lay on the bed and waited. I didn’t know what he would do, but Gabby was right, he didn’t sound mad. It was almost dusk when he returned, and fireflies hovered at the edge of the yard.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he said, leading me to the porch swing. “I had to get something first.” I sat down and he knelt in front of me, taking my hand. “I wanted to do this a while ago, so I don’t want you to think it’s just because of the baby. That first night, when I met you at Dane’s, it was like I’d been walking in there every night of my life waiting for you to show up, and you finally did. You’re the one I’ve been looking for. Everything about you is different from the other girls here. You don’t pretend to be anything you’re not. You don’t care what anybody thinks of you. And I only care what you think of me. Because I love you. I want to be with you.” He smiled up at me. “I was coming to talk to you about it that day at the garage, but …”
He cleared his throat. I knew what he was about to do, and I felt like I was slowly suffocating. Air seeped out of my body, and I couldn’t coax it back in. Carl let go of my hand and dug in his pocket for the ring, a plain gold band.
“I promise to make a home for you and the baby if you’ll just stay with me,” he murmured. “Will you marry me?”
Those last four words. They fell like stones dropped in a well, disappearing into the dark. It would be a crazy thing to do, to marry Carl. I was eighteen years old, and I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to do with my life. Now I had this other little life putting pressure on all my decisions. There was no doubt by now that I loved Carl. But I didn’t know if love outweighed everything else, if it was enough to tip the scale. Because choosing him meant staying in Henbane with Crete.
I paused. I don’t know how long. Long enough for him to worry. His fingers curled around the ring.
“Yes,” I breathed. I said it like I was trying it out. I wanted to see how it felt, and I knew right away that I meant it. I’d chosen to make a family, a home, with Carl and the baby, and after so many years without roots, I’d found what I’d always been looking for. A place where I was wanted and loved. Relief made me giddy and I stood, pulling him to his feet. “Yes.”
“You’ll marry me.”
“Yes.”
An enormous grin broke out on his face, and he whooped like a cowboy. He lifted me down the steps into the yard and danced me around in circles, stopping just long enough to slide the ring on my finger.
I took in the thick night air, the sweet smell of honeysuckle, the chirping of frogs, to impress the moment in the folds of my memory, preserve it like a flower between pages of a book. To remember: This is how it feels to be happy.
Chapter 24
Lucy
My next day off, I went down to the courthouse to see Ray Walker. Almost a year ago I’d gone to see him to tell him that Cheri couldn’t have run away, that something must have happened to her. I didn’t know it for a fact, but it was hard for me to accept that she’d leave without telling me. I thought Ray would spring into action, pull together search teams and investigators and bring her back home. Instead, he’d said that we never knew people as well as we thought we did. That they could surprise us. It’s quite possible that you’re right, he said. But you can’t claim to know.
Ray looked the same as he had at that last visit: starched shirt, bow tie, slicked-back hair. He plucked a can of Coke from his mini-fridge, cracked it open, and split it between two glasses.
“I need some advice,” I said. “And I need you to not tell my dad.”
Ray groaned and tilted his glass, waiting for the fizz to die down. “That’s never a good way to start things, my dear.”
I smiled, because he hadn’t said no. “It’s legal advice, sort of,” I said. “How much evidence do you need for the police to look into something? Will they do anything based on hearsay? Is that what you call it?”
“Oh, Lucy.” He set down his drink, and his pale eyes filled with worry. “What’s this about? Is it Cheri again?”
“Yes. I’ve actually heard some things, seen some things. I don’t have any real evidence yet, but I think I can get some. I just wondered what would happen if I told the police now, told them what I know without being able to back it up.”
Ray ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “What you’ve got to consider is who you’re telling it to. The sheriff and his boys are related to hundreds of people here in the county, and if you’re making accusations against their kin, they might not take it so well. Even if they’re not related, who’s to say they’re not in bed with your suspect, so to speak. Taking bribes. Buying drugs. I’m not saying our law is corrupt, but you never know how it might be compromised. You’ve got to be sure you can trust whomever you’re telling, that it won’t come back on you.”
“How can I be sure?” I asked.
He smirked. “You can’t be, in Henbane. Therefore, I wouldn’t try anything on word alone. When you have something solid—and in saying this, I do not by any means imply that you should go out investigating, because you shouldn’t—but if you do have some real evidence, you can go over their heads and contact the state police. In fact, I’d be happy to do it for you.”
I considered asking him if the necklace alone was enough, without the trailer or proof of who rented it, but I kept it to myself.
“It’s noble of you, Lucy, trying to help your friend. I’d love nothing more than to see this case solved, to bring her killer to justice. But Cheri’s gone. And in another year you’ll be out of this town, making a life for yourself. Whatever mess Cheri was in, you don’t want to get stuck in it. Nothing you do will put her back together.”
So I was supposed to forget about Cheri now that she’d been laid to rest. Was I supposed to bury my mother, too, since I couldn’t bring her back?
“Do you ever think about Lila?” I asked.
His expression stiffened. “I do,” he said. “Every time I see your face.”
“Did you believe she killed herself? Did you try to figure out what happened to her?”
He rubbed his forehead. “Losing her was hard on everyone who knew her. Myself included. I never wanted to believe she killed herself. But like I said before, people surprise you. I did have my own ideas about what happened. And I did talk to the sheriff about them. Nothing came of it.”
“Because you were wrong or because they didn’t listen?”
“I had no proof,” he said. “Just things she’d implied. But the dead don’t bear witness.” Dead. He sounded so sure. And still pained by it.
“What did she tell you?”
“Why does it matter now?”
“Why wouldn’t it matter?”
“You’re still a child, Lucy,” he said. “You’re not old enough to understand that there are things you’d rather not know. Knowing won’t make it easier. You think you can set wrong things right, but it’s rarely so simple.”
“I just want to know what happened to her,” I said, slumping on Ray’s desk. He watched me with a mixture of longing and sadness, and I knew, looking at me, he was seeing her. Goose bumps pebbled my skin.
He sighed, fixing his gaze on the datebook spread out before him, each line adorned with his graceful, curled script. “I don’t suppose anyone knows the whole truth, dear. We’re all missing pieces of the puzzle. All I can tell you is to open your eyes. Look at whom you know and think about how well you know them. Open your mind to the possibilities; rethink things you’ve taken for granted. Like we tell the kids in Sunday school: Just because you don’t see the devil doesn’t mean he isn’t there. He doesn’t carry a pitchfork. He hides in plain sight.”
Ray’s words disturbed me. Question everyone, everything. I went home and opened my journal to “People Who Knew My Mother” and put asterisks next to all the names.
I wanted to call Daniel, but I didn’t have a number where I could reach him. He’d been gone for a few weeks, and I missed him. More than I’d thought I would. I’d lie in bed replaying the night he kissed me, imagining that things had gone further, trying to conjure the shared heat of our bare skin pressed together, the tangling of his fingers in my hair. I didn’t know why he wasn’t interested in being more than friends. The one time I’d caught his eyes roaming over my body, he’d quickly looked away. Was he holding back because he felt protective of me? Did he think I was too young?
Work was lonely despite the flow of tourists on the river. Occasionally, one of the float-tripping college guys would invite me to join him and his friends after work, sit by the campfire, drink a few beers. They were all the same, their shirts and hats advertising their allegiance to fraternities and sports teams, their intentions clearly visible in their flirtatious smiles and flexing biceps. I can’t say I wasn’t sometimes tempted to take them up on their offers. It was enticing in a way, an anonymous encounter with someone who knew nothing about me, who would require little conversation and be gone the next day. But I knew that any of them would be poor substitutes for Daniel, even if I closed my eyes and imagined him there instead.
Bess and I had started spending more time together again, like we used to. After her last encounter with Sorrel, she’d taken a more personal interest in Cheri. We sat on the porch swing one night in late July, drinking lemonade and trying to figure out a way to get Sorrel to talk.
“I haven’t seen him around town,” Bess said, “but I think he’s still here. If he took one of those other jobs and already moved, we’d have heard about it. So I could just call his house. I wouldn’t even have to see him.”
“What would you say to him?”
“I dunno. Too bad I couldn’t act like I was pregnant. Go for the blackmail.”
“That kind of thing wouldn’t work. He’d want proof. He’s not stupid. He wouldn’t do what you say just because you call up and threaten him.”
Bess’s nostrils flared. “I’m trying to help,” she said. “I don’t have any other ideas.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it for so long, and it’s all a bunch of dead ends. Nothing we do will make him tell us anything.” Bess started moving the swing sideways, like we did when we were kids. Birdie always warned us we’d go flying off the porch, but that just made us swing harder to see if she was right.
“Hey,” she said. “What if we record my conversation with him, like people do on TV? Maybe even if he doesn’t want to admit to anything, he might say something we can use. I can try to trip him up. He’s not that smart.”
I smiled at her, shifting my weight so I squished her as the swing went in her direction. She did the same when it swung back my way, and we giggled like little kids. “I like it,” I said. I couldn’t remember from all the crime shows I’d watched whether it was illegal to record a phone conversation or if you couldn’t use it in court. But I wasn’t worried about technicalities. We needed something. Enough to jump-start the investigation into Cheri’s murder.
Two days later, Bess worked up the nerve to call Sorrel. I sat next to her and listened in while she recorded the conversation on the answering machine. He was quiet as she unspooled a story about her mom finding her journal and reading about everything she and Sorrel had done together, including his mention of Cheri. Her mom, she said, wanted to take it to the police. There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Bess and I stared at each other, her hand latched on to my arm, and we waited.
Sorrel let out a long sigh, like he was deflating. “You’re obviously a troubled child,” he said carefully. “We both know how easily you could fake something like that, but I’m not sure you realize what a bad idea it is. You wouldn’t want to end up in juvie, would you? Or jail? That’s what happens when you falsely accuse people, falsify evidence.” Bess’s face flushed with anger. “I’ll give you time to think this over,” he said. “If you want to meet with me, discuss this in person, call me back next week.”
He hung up without revealing a single incriminating detail. And he’d twisted things around on Bess to make her feel like she was the one who should be worried. “He’s bluffing,” I said. “He wants to intimidate you into backing down.”
Bess sank into the couch, shaking her head.
“We’ll get him,” I said, squeezing her hand. I knew I didn’t sound convincing.
“We’re running out of time. School’s starting soon.”
I pulled the remote out of the crack in the couch and turned on the TV. “I’m going to Crete’s,” I said.
Bess grabbed the remote from me and pressed mute. “What’re you gonna do over there?”
“Snoop. He didn’t have anything about the trailer in his office, which means he must have that information at home. He writes everything down. It has to be somewhere.”
“Why don’t you wait and see if I get something out of Sorrel first?”
“You just said yourself that we’re running out of time. Summer’s almost over. We can’t let Sorrel go back to the junior high. And I can’t stop thinking of the guy Jamie told me about. Emory. If he really is selling girls, more of them could end up like Cheri. It could be happening every minute we’re not doing anything.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“No way. Then who’d come looking for me if something happens?”
Bess looked at me. “You’re serious, aren’t you.”
I shrugged. I’d meant it as a joke, but part of me knew it was true. I wasn’t sure what we were getting ourselves into.
Chapter 25
Birdie
Birdie was suspicious of Lila at first. Her own people had lived in Henbane since the 1800s, and after a while you forgot that your family was ever from anyplace else, that a hundred-odd years ago they were from Kentucky, and they were the new folks in town.
When Lila came, there weren’t many new folks, nothing to bring them in—certainly not jobs. Every once in a while retirees would show up, looking to live out their golden years in the Ozarks, but most of them figured out pretty quick that it was nothing like the brochures. They all seemed confused not to be welcomed with open arms, but it took time to let people in. Sometimes it took generations. There were people in Henbane who’d never seen a Negro or an Oriental. Back when she was little, before Birdie had seen anyone much different from herself, her uncle came home from a street fair in Arkansas and talked about seeing a real live black man on the Ferris wheel. Birdie and the other kids likened it to seeing the bogeyman. When Lila showed up in town, supposedly from Iowa, folks saw right away that she wasn’t any ordinary midwestern girl. Something about her looked exotic, that t
hick black hair and those unusual pale green eyes and what looked like more than a tan. It had folks guessing, was she one of those half-breeds? Part Indian? Arab? Some sort of Mexican? That was before they started in on the witch talk and worse. She was different; people gossiped. Birdie was one of them, and she wasn’t shy to admit it.
She’d heard Carl had been flirting with the new girl over at the restaurant, had seen him driving her over to his house, and she didn’t know what to think. Boys’ll be boys, for one—they see something pretty, they go on point. She didn’t guess it was more than that. She never thought a Dane would up and marry an outsider. And she sure as heck didn’t want the girl living right down the road from her.
Rumors had started up, witchcraft and all that. You only had to look at the girl to imagine something supernatural at work, like a spell to make herself irresistible. Hogwash, mostly, but Birdie had no plans of getting anywhere near her until Carl called and said she was in a bad way and needed doctoring. Birdie had never turned down a Dane’s request for help, and even though she wasn’t a real doctor and hadn’t taken any kind of oath to help people, she loaded her supplies in the truck and went on over. She wasn’t trying to be saintly. Part of it was plain old curiosity, not unlike her uncle staring at the Negro on the Ferris wheel.
Carl told her that Lila had been attacked, but he didn’t say who had done the attacking. Birdie shooed him out of the room while she examined the girl, who lay there limp as a flour sack. Though her bruises weren’t fresh, it was hard to say how old they were. Once Birdie got under her clothes, she saw a bigger problem. The bite on Lila’s breast—it had to be human, though that was a hard fact to swallow—hadn’t been cleaned up right. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it could get worse without care. Birdie set to work mixing a poultice of tobacco and mullein leaves and called her cousin for antibiotics. For nearly a week she tended to Lila, applying fresh poultices and doling out pills. Whenever Carl came in to see Lila, Birdie made sure she was covered up. As the swelling and redness eased, she could see more clearly the marks on Lila’s breast, the individual lines and points, and though she knew plenty of people with crooked teeth like the ones that had made those marks, she immediately thought of Crete. Some while later, when she heard that Joe Bill Sump had disappeared around the time she was called to treat Lila, she wondered if he’d been the attacker. Then she remembered he was missing teeth up front and couldn’t have been the one who had left the mark.