by Laura McHugh
Birdie went to see Lila the next day, to help pack Althea’s things. Lila looked tired and didn’t say much. As they carried boxes down the upstairs hall, Birdie noticed that one of the bedrooms had been cleared out and painted lavender. “Is this the baby’s room?” she asked. Lila nodded, and they peered into the cozy space. “I can do grandma things,” Birdie said. She’d been thinking about it all night, how this was one little way she could help. She had four grandsons of her own, two by her preacher son who lived over in the Bootheel, and two by her son in Oklahoma, but she didn’t get to see them near enough. “For the baby. I can make cookies. Read books. Tell long boring stories.”
Lila dropped the box of Althea’s clothes and hugged her, her thin arms stronger than Birdie expected, her full belly pressed to Birdie’s empty one.
Chapter 28
Lucy
Uncle Crete had an Elks club meeting the first Friday night of every month, and I figured that would be a good time for me to sneak into his house. Crete didn’t particularly like the Elks. He’d joined mostly to spite some local businessmen who would have preferred to exclude him, and he rarely missed a meeting if he was in town. I told Bess I’d call her when I got back home, and that if I hadn’t called her by morning, to worry.
“Worry like call the police?” she asked.
I shook my head, thinking of Ray Walker’s advice. “Worry like call my dad. I don’t expect anything to happen, though. I’m just going out there to see if I can find anything useful. I’ll be in and out before he gets home.”
It was a long walk to Crete’s, and the August heat was stifling even in the dark, but I didn’t want to borrow Bess’s car and risk being seen. In my backpack, I carried a flashlight, the Swiss army knife Dad had given me for Christmas, and a bottle of water. I thought it might be smart to have some sort of weapon, just in case, but I wasn’t going to haul a shotgun along. The knife would have to do. I started thinking through scenarios in which I might need a weapon, and they were all ridiculous. I was overthinking things. It couldn’t be that dangerous to sneak into my uncle’s house. We were family, after all. He’d never treated me poorly a day in my life. I shook out my arms, tried to clear my head. I was going to Crete’s house. No big deal.
But it was sort of a big deal, because even though we were family and he came to our house any time he wanted, I hadn’t been to Crete’s place in years. The house was a smaller version of ours, built for Grandpa Dane’s spinster sister. It sat empty after she died, until Crete inherited it with his chunk of land and decided to move in. When I was in grade school, Crete built a more modern addition onto the back of the house, including a deck and aboveground pool, and even though woods surrounded the place on all sides, he’d installed a privacy fence around the backyard. One day when Dad and I went over to swim, we found a bare-naked woman sprawled facedown on the deck. Dad told me to cover my eyes, but of course I didn’t. He rolled the woman over and felt for a pulse. Blood streaked from her nostrils down into her mouth, and I wondered if the blood was from snorting something or falling on her face. Dad leaned over her to listen for breath, and she came to, laughing and coughing and throwing her arms around him. As soon as Dad untangled himself, he dragged me straight back to the truck, and we left. Later that night, I heard him tell Crete on the phone that we wouldn’t be coming over to swim anymore. He added that Crete was always welcome at our house, so long as he didn’t bring a date.
When I came up on it through the woods, the house looked much as I remembered, except there was now a chain-link dog run bordering the privacy fence. Two pit bulls lunged at the walls of the pen, barking. The front door was locked, which was strange for anyone living so far out in the woods but not surprising for Crete. The windows along the porch wouldn’t budge. I climbed on top of the dog run, further aggravating the dogs, to get high enough to boost myself over the fence and into the backyard. The sliding-glass door off the deck was locked, but it looked like one of the windows upstairs was open. I let myself out of the backyard through the gate, and there, on the side of the toolshed, hung the extension ladder that had been there for as long as I could remember. I carried it to the house and ratcheted it up until I could reach the window. Luckily, the screen was flimsier than the old-fashioned kind at our house, and I was able to push the frame in with a little effort.
I hoisted myself into a sparsely furnished bedroom and popped the screen back in place before stepping out into the hall. I was looking for an office or storage room but didn’t find one on the second floor. I crept downstairs and poked around and didn’t see anything useful. I opened the door to the basement and flicked on the light. There was another, heavier door at the bottom of the stairs that closed behind me when I passed through it. I was in the new part of the basement, which was completely unfamiliar to me, so I started opening doors until I found a storage room filled with neat stacks of boxes. I immediately started prying open the boxes; they were crammed with notebooks and files. I allowed myself to believe that I would find what I’d been looking for. Somewhere in these papers, I’d discover who had rented the trailer. I just had to hurry.
I skimmed through several boxes, scanning the tabs on the file folders and peeking inside the few that looked promising. The papers were old, and I hurried from box to box, worried that they were all out of date. I was down to the last stack of boxes when one of the tabs caught my eye. Petrovich, L. Petrovich was my mother’s maiden name. In that moment, I didn’t care about the rental contracts. I didn’t care that the clock was ticking and Crete would be on his way home. I opened the folder and sat down to sort through the pages. Clipped inside the cover was a black-and-white picture of my mother, a photocopy. After a lifetime of studying the same few pictures of her, I was shocked to see a new one. She looked different. Still beautiful, of course, but missing the smile from all her other pictures. Her expression was mischievous, and her hair fell around her face in a messy, seductive way. She wore a bikini, and for the first time, I saw how she looked beneath her clothes. Seeing her that way felt almost unbearably intimate. Someone had been cropped out of the photo, leaving a phantom hand at my mother’s waist.
I had to tear myself away from the picture. There were some magazine clippings, the little ads you find in the back. Agencies that placed nannies, housekeepers, models. I unfolded a sheet of paper, some sort of questionnaire. My mother’s name was at the top, but the form was filled out in someone else’s handwriting, and I quickly realized this wasn’t an ordinary job application or medical form. Hair color: Dark brown. Hair length: Long. Eyes: Green. Height: 5’6”. Weight: 120. Chest: 34D. It was noted that she was an English-speaking American with no STDs or tattoos. A section for additional information read No family/Orphan/EXOTIC 10+.
I knew Crete had hired my mother through an agency. He freely admitted that he couldn’t find a local willing to do all the work he wanted for the wage he offered to pay. My uncle was always looking to save money. But he hadn’t been seeking a typical hired hand. He’d chosen the most beautiful, the most exotic. An orphan. Was that part a coincidence, or had he wanted to make sure no one would come for her, that she had nowhere else to go? I spread out the rest of the papers and had started to read what looked to be her employment contract when I heard a muffled thud.
I tensed, trying to home in on the direction of the sound, and stepped into the hall. I heard the sound again; it was definitely coming from somewhere in the basement, not overhead. I checked my watch, estimating that I had at least an hour before Crete returned. “Hello?” I said. I had no idea what I would do if I came across someone in Crete’s basement, but if there was anyone here, I hoped it was one of his drunk girlfriends—someone I could easily lie to and escape from. Maybe it was Becky Castle, if she and Crete were still seeing each other. I could make small talk about her daughter, Holly, and ask if she was still raising rabbits.
“Hello.” I said it louder and waited through the silence until I heard another thum
p, then another. I followed the hall until it ended in a shadowy storage area, the shelves lined with cases of beer and soda, plastic barrels of pretzels, jugs of bleach, rolls of paper towels. Had it been better lit, it could have passed for an aisle at Walmart.
More pounding came from behind the shelves, and after deciding that was impossible, I realized the original basement lay on the other side of the wall. I started pulling down bulk packages of toilet paper and detergent, and as I did, the middle section of shelving began to roll. It was set on casters. I swung it out of the way to reveal a steel door with a keypad.
My skin prickled, just like it had when I discovered the safe hidden in the floor of Crete’s office at Dane’s. Unlike the safe, this locked room made no sense. What was he going to such great lengths to hide?
“Is somebody there?” I held my breath, listening, but there was no reply. I tried the door, which wouldn’t budge. Then I heard more thuds. It could have been something mechanical, like an old pump acting up. I hadn’t heard any voices. I was letting my imagination get the better of me.
I looked at the keypad, but it offered no hints. It didn’t seem likely that Crete would choose an easy code, but it couldn’t hurt to try. I punched in 1234. A tiny red light flashed on and off to let me know I was wrong. It would have been helpful to know how many numbers were in the code. I tried 12345, just in case. Again, the red light. My next guess was Crete’s birthday. On the third mistake, the keypad made a beeping noise, and the light turned red and stayed red. Whatever was on the other side of that wall, Crete didn’t want it found. That made me all the more determined to figure out what it was.
There had to be some way in. Then I remembered there was access to the old cellar from outside, two slanted doors set into the ground at the foundation. I ran upstairs and out the door, and the dogs started barking again. I made my way around to the side of the house. The cellar doors I remembered had been torn out, and in their place was a thick slab of concrete—an awkward porch adorned with empty flowerpots.
I was running out of time, and I had to accept that I wouldn’t be getting into the locked room tonight. I needed to get out of the house, replace the ladder, and leave before Crete came back. My search hadn’t accomplished anything except to make me more suspicious. It was creepy, the way he’d brought my mother here. I knew he was in some way, directly or not, involved with what had happened to Cheri. And now this sealed room. Whatever he was up to, it didn’t look good.
I returned to the basement and hastily cleaned up the evidence of my visit. When I was done, I grabbed my backpack and opened the door to the stairs. There, on his way down, was Crete. I tried not to panic. He had caught me, and there was nothing I could do.
“Lucy,” he growled. His face burned with anger and disbelief. “I half expected to find that Cole boy in here, after what he done at my office. I wouldn’t have pegged you to be setting off my alarm.”
An alarm? Maybe one had been triggered when I entered too many wrong codes in the keypad? Crete curled one hand into a fist, the muscles of his forearm tightening. He was my uncle, and he had never hurt me. I still wanted to believe that he wouldn’t. I repeated it over and over in my head, He won’t hurt you, but I was shaking.
“Why don’t you tell me what it is you’re looking for.”
I searched for a believable lie. “My mom … I know she worked for you. I thought you might have … mementos or something.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have anything of hers. But if that’s what you wanted, why didn’t you ask? Have I ever denied you a single goddamn thing?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was a dumb thing to do. I just wasn’t really thinking it through. I better get home.”
“Why were you trying to get into my locked room?”
I tried to sound casual, but my hands were trembling. “I thought maybe you kept your papers in there, something that would tell me more about her. Or just something with her handwriting on it.”
He looked me dead-on. He knew I was lying. “I keep valuables in there,” he said finally. “Nothing of interest to you.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t going to steal anything.”
He chuckled drily. “I know, you’re not that kind of kid.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”
“It won’t,” he said. I stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to move out of the way and let me by. Instead, he reached down and took my hand. “We got something to talk about.” My heart stumbled and then resumed its frenetic pace.
Uncle Crete’s grip was firm but not rough. He led me up to the kitchen and sat me down at the table. He got himself a beer out of the fridge and cracked open a soda for me. My throat was dry and I took a sip, holding the can with both hands to keep it from shaking.
“I know you been worried about that girl Cheri Stoddard,” he said, sitting down in the chair opposite me. “I remember back when she first left, you couldn’t believe she’d run away. And you were so upset when they found her. It hurts me to see you hurting, I hope you know that.” My limbs felt detached, like they didn’t belong to me. I wondered, if I got up to run, whether I’d be able to. “I never wanted you in that trailer. That was Judd’s fault, and I should have talked to you right after, cleared some things up. But I didn’t realize then what you were putting together. Not until you started asking around town about Cheri. From what I been hearing, you’re out there playing Nancy Drew.”
I wanted to get up from the table and run out the door. I wondered if he would stop me.
“I have to tell you some things I didn’t ever wanna have to tell you. I been keeping ’em to myself so nobody’d get hurt, but it looks like I’m gonna have to let you in on it.”
I stared numbly. I was thinking of the saying I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. I glanced at my watch. Nowhere near late enough for Bess to call my dad.
“Your friend Cheri, she had it rough. Left home of her own free will. Somebody came to me to help her out a bit, and she did stay in that trailer. But I had nothing to do with anything that went on over there. I collected my rent and kept out of their business. From what my renter told me, that girl was as happy as a pig in mud to be out of her mama’s place. I didn’t ask details.”
I thought of what Jamie had told me, how Cheri had been running for her life down the river. Maybe she had decided to leave home on her own, but her decision-making skills were poor. She could have gotten talked into anything, even into a situation worse than the one she was trying to escape. I had a hard time distinguishing what part of Crete’s story was true, if any. He could have been lying about everything.
“Now, it kills me to say this, but I don’t see what choice I got.” He leaned in close and took my hand. “Your daddy was the last person to see Cheri before she was found in that tree. He’s the one who put her there.”
I was hollow inside, a gulf opening up. “That’s not true,” I said.
“Ask him,” he said. “See if he can lie to you.” He sat back and finished his beer. “So if you were planning on talking to anybody else about Cheri, you should know you could get your daddy in a whole lot of trouble. I reckon they’d take him away. Now, if that happens, you’re always welcome here. You’re family, and I’ll always take care of you, no matter what, just like I always done. But I sure would hate to see my baby brother locked up. Or worse.”
I stared at the soda can, struggling to form coherent thoughts. He could be lying to protect himself. That made the most sense. Dad couldn’t have been involved. But what would my dad say if I asked him? If he lied, would I know he was lying?
“This ain’t the first time I’ve had to cover up for him,” Crete continued. “He killed a man that fancied your mother. There were witnesses. Go ahead and ask him. There are all sorts of things that could send your daddy to prison if they came to light. I’m sorry I had to te
ll you, but you’re old enough to hear it now, and it’s better if you know. I’ve only ever tried to help.”
I sat in the chair for a long time. Crete cleaned the kitchen up a bit, throwing beer cans in the trash and moving dirty dishes to the sink. After a while it seemed that he wasn’t going to keep me from leaving. He’d already tethered me with his words. No noises came up from the basement to break the silence. At last I stood up and slung my backpack over my shoulder.
“You need a ride home?” he asked.
I stiffened.
“You ain’t gotta be scared of me,” he said. “Or your daddy, neither. He’d never do anything to hurt you. We’re blood, and we stick together. Now, you remember everything we talked about. I know you’ll do the right thing.” He ruffled my hair and walked me to the door. “Careful out there. I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”
I stumbled out into the night, and when I hit the trees, I started running. I ran until my breath seared my lungs and my side hurt enough to double me over, and when the pain subsided, I ran some more, all the way up the back steps of the house and into the kitchen, where Dad sat at the table with a beer, horribly reminiscent of the scene I’d just left. Crete’s accusations clamored in my head. Your dad killed a man. He put Cheri in that tree.
“Look who’s grounded,” he said. I stared at him, wheezing, trying to catch my breath. There were several crushed beer cans and a dwindling bottle of whiskey on the table. How long had he been sitting here, drinking, waiting for me? “I bet you’re wondering why I’m home.” I didn’t say anything, but he continued anyway. “I got a call from Daniel Cole today up in Springfield, and we got together to talk a bit. He’s worried about you. Said you’re trying to track down Cheri’s killer, and he’s afraid you’ll get yourself in trouble without one of us here to keep an eye on you.”