by McNay, Dan
“Oh.” She felt cheated. The other half was her great-grandmother’s. She was there a lot when she was a little kid. “Well, let’s go look at the ten acres.”
She remembered the mantle clock after she turned on the highway.
“You have Sean’s number?” she asked.
“Your mother had it somewhere I’m sure.”
“You have been a real help, Winston. What’s in it for you?”
He looked out the window.
“You turn off up here, at the next right.”
The dirt road led them down to a large grove of cypress trees and to a lake just beyond. There was a frozen and darkly-rusted oil pumping station surrounded by chain link and a little shed beside it. A second one stood across the lake and was pumping away.
“It’s about ten acres, I think,” Winston said. “The rabbit hunting down here is great.”
They got out.
“She struck oil?”
“Not exactly.” He laughed but it cracked in the middle like he wasn’t used to making that kind of sound. “The oil is over there, across the property line. She got taken to court for this too. She lost this one.”
“It would be a pretty place without the pump. You could put a trailer out here to use as a summer cottage. If you liked that sort of thing,” Daydee said.
“I don’t think I’d want to watch that pump station over there from my front porch,” Winston said. “I loved your mother most of my life. We were married to other people and had other lives. There were in between times. The last few years she needed my help. She couldn’t get around much.”
“Back when I was still here?”
Winston nodded.
“My father knew about you.”
“What?”
“He called you the dismal donkey in the swamp. The one that loved my mother.”
“You were little when he disappeared.”
“Not that little.”
Winston rubbed his face with both hands.
“I’ve got an errand to run. You can drop me back to my car if you want.”
“I can take you. You want lunch after?”
“Ok.”
He directed her back into town. Her driving was improving and she had given up on the speeding. They pulled up in front of a convalescent home. All brick and phony shutters. She followed inside without being invited. A nurse greeted him by name. They went to a lounge area where several of the patients in wheelchairs were parked in front of a television. One guy was wearing a football helmet. Winston pulled over a couple of chairs to a frail elderly woman with white hair.
“Deidre, this is my wife. Martha.”
The woman didn’t respond or look at either of them. He sat down beside her.
“I’m going to find a restroom, be right back,” Daydee said. She took her time and tried to get some of the tangles out of her hair. The scene was the same when she returned. He stood.
“She’s been here a long, long time. They are about to have lunch. You want to stay? The food isn’t anything special but it’s free.”
“Sure.”
He wheeled her into the cafeteria and set her up at a table near the window and they went and got trays. He opened everything for her and she ate slowly, absentmindedly. Little lunchmeat sandwiches and orange slices and pudding. Iced tea. Outside the sky was becoming overcast. Thick clouds were moving in over the trees. Rain. It gave her goosebumps. No one went out on the lawn here. No one stood in the rain.
“She still eats. The problem comes when she forgets how to do that,” he said. “We have lunch almost every day. I’m not sure who she thinks I am.”
“You’re a good husband.”
He laughed that cracked laugh again.
“We’ll go see Edward next?” he asked.
“Sure.”
* * *
They drove downtown and parked in front of an old limestone bank building. His office was upstairs through a side entrance. It all looked too well-to-do. The suite office had double smoked glass doors with his name engraved in the glass. No partners. The reception area inside was walnut with law books and potted plants and a large oriental rug. And a very stern looking secretary. Winston seemed awfully apologetic about calling on someone he knew. He gave her their names and sat on the couch. If he had had a hat in hand, he would have fidgeted with it. Daydee wondered why the receptionist acted like she didn’t know him. There was a Currier & Ives print of a steeplechase on the wall. The secretary disappeared and then came out to tell them that Mr. Stills could see them now. She held the door for them.
Mr. Stills didn’t get up. He was behind a very large desk, with his suitcoat on. His square jaw looked familiar. He was as handsome as he was in high school, but he seemed pudgy around the edges, like he didn’t move around enough. Definitely the stuffed shirt look. The frown was permanent, she decided. He motioned them to the chair in front of him.
“You don’t mind. I have a legal responsibility,” he said. “Can I see some identification?”
She took out her Louisiana Driver’s License and handed it over.
“It expires in a week,” he said. He gave it back.
“You plan to be in town a while?”
“Looks like,” she said.
He handed her a document. It was two pages stapled together. It looked like it was her mother’s will.
“You can read through it and call me if you have any questions. It all has to go through probate court. You get everything. There’s a trust your great uncle set up that goes to you as well, but I don’t have those documents. It was for his farm and the house in town. I know your mother sold the house and deposited the money into the trust account about five years ago.”
“How much was that?”
“I don’t really know. She had an accountant, he would be able to tell you.”
Edward Stills had an awkward way of rubbing his nose often. One finger and then later with a finger and thumb. She found herself imagining him with a full white handkerchief, blowing it regularly.
“My aunt’s farm?”
“That was quick deeded to me for legal fees.”
“You have a copy of that?” she asked. She was feeling lied to.
“Your mother has copies. I lost money, that farm is almost useless. Too much K fertilizer.”
“I told her the story,” Winston volunteered.
“I’m sorry,” Edward suddenly said to her. “I lost my father in an accident a few years ago. I know what it must be like to suddenly find out.”
“Well,” Winston interrupted. “Thanks for your time.”
He started to get up.
“You think she did it?” Daydee asked the lawyer, ignoring Winston.
He leaned away from them and put his hands behind his head. Then the nose rubbing again.
“Your mother brought me something that if admitted as evidence would have sent her away for life. I told her to get rid of it. I do not recall what it was.”
“She didn’t kill anybody,” Winston said.
“Your father probably had it coming,” Edward said.
“He was just crazy,” she heard herself say. It was time to go.
“The first thing is to file everything with the probate court. My rate is $35.00 an hour, but I can defer payment until final resolution.”
If he were a john, she would have turned him down.
“I’m not sure I’m selling anything,” Daydee said.
“Most liquidate and leave.”
“I might just stay.” She didn’t like the little girl voice coming out of her mouth. She stood up.
“It’s a little town. It’s not easy to fit in here.”
“Everybody has been real friendly until now.”
She walked out with the will in hand. She took his card from the receptionist’s desk. Winston was not following her. He seemed to be in a whispering, hissing discussion with the lawyer. She was getting pissed now. She went out and downstairs. She sat in the truck for a moment before startin
g it. Winston came rushing out. She waited for him to climb in.
“Sorry,” he said.
“So, you want to tell me what’s going on?” she asked.
“I… I was trying to convince him to give you a break. He’s been angry about everything lately.”
“I think I need another lawyer.”
“I can help you find one if you want.”
“I think there’s a lot you are not telling me.”
“I can’t talk about it,” he stammered.
“I hope you are not trying to screw me,” Daydee said. “I’ve been straight with you!”
Sort of.
“Where is my uncle’s house?”
“I can show you where it used to be,” he said.
“Fine!”
Winston gave her directions and she soon pulled up in front of a modern one story office building. A big front entrance and a sign declaring ‘The Paris Clinic & Medical Offices’. More new brick with larger windows. The house that had stood there had been an old money mansion. Six or seven bedrooms upstairs, a big grand staircase, a parlor with a huge fancy fireplace and chandelier. A huge front porch with stone columns. When she had run away, her great-uncle was still living there, in two of the rooms: the dining room and the kitchen. The rest of the house was empty. Your footsteps would echo. To a child it was a little scary. What had happened to the family that had lived there once? Her great-grandmother and great uncle were once brother and sister in this big house when it had furniture and people coming and going. Daydee’s mother had talked about fixing it up when Uncle Alec passed away. Instead she sold it off, even though it wasn’t hers to sell. She probably needed the money for her latest scheme. Daydee hadn’t been inside too often, but just enough for it to leave an impression. There had been dreams of a secret room there piled high with gold. There was a little doll’s chair that sat empty on her uncle’s window sill in the dining room. She wasn’t allowed to touch it. He wanted to keep it as a place for the doll to sit and rest if the doll should ever return? The two of them, her great-grandmother and her great uncle, never visited each other, never spoke about the other. They were in their late eighties when she took off. Alec spent most of his days on his tractor out in his fields. Her great-grandmother was bedridden, mostly blind and deaf. On good days, Daydee’s spinster aunt would help her great-grandmother out to a chair in the living room of the farm house that belonged to that lawyer now.
Daydee had thought of this house on the bus up from New Orleans. It was a ghost now, like all of her family. And the ghost of Uncle Alec’s doll that never came home.
“When your uncle died,” Winston said, “your great-grandmother sent your aunt over to tear apart the house for hidden treasure. Your mother told me that Eunice took a crowbar to the tiles in the big fireplace and pretty much destroyed it.”
“They were all crazy. Cracked.”
“Your mother was practical.”
“She kept her habit to the very end?”
“What do you mean?” Winston asked.
Daydee looked at him.
“Yes,” he finally said.
"There’s a hole in daddy’s arm, where all the money goes,” she said. “It’s from a song. So, the accountant?”
* * *
He directed her to the office. It was in a mall, next to a drugstore. It really felt like a real estate office. There were a couple of cubicles with low walls. Some plastic plants in pots. He was a slender man with very blonde hair. He was the only one in the office. And Daydee knew him.
“Mat,” she said.
“I’m happy you remember me.”
“Mat took me to one of your football games once,” she told Winston.
“And ran into you on Royal Street in The French Quarter,” Mat said.
The birthmark on her collarbone had given her away. It was the size and now the faded shade of a penny. His wedding ring was still on his finger.
“You never mentioned you cooked my mother’s books.”
“That’s not fair. I don’t cook books. And she wasn’t a client back then.”
He offered them seats. She was hoping that was the end of the conversation about New Orleans.
“I have been gathering all the reports and tax filings, but haven’t quite printed everything yet. I’ll have it ready by tomorrow.”
“What’s it look like?” she asked.
“Your mother was incorporated. She has operated at a loss the last five years. She was losing about ten thousand a year. I suggested she file for bankruptcy, but she wouldn’t do it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
“So she was making money some other way?”
“Nothing that she told me about. Everyone in town knows I’m honest.”
Daydee looked at Winston.
“I can talk to you later,” Winston said.
“That would be best for me too,” Mat said.
“Ok. What time do I come back tomorrow?”
“The office will be closed. I take one day to make house calls. There a lot of clients that want me to come see them. You staying at her apartment?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll bring everything over – about two?”
She nodded. Daydee got up. The quicker she got out of here, the less chance New Orleans would come up again.
“It was real good to see you again,” Mat said.
“It was. See you tomorrow.”
All of her johns were happy campers.
In the truck, Daydee was suddenly tired. Why was she trusting this old man? She had spent the day with him and he was guiding her around like he was a tugboat and she was an ocean liner. Her John was the only man she would ever spend an afternoon with these last few years. There was no one in New Orleans that she would have let herself hang out with like this. This was a good way to get screwed over.
“So your lawyer buddy run a background check on me?” she asked.
“If he did, he didn’t tell me.”
“Where was her money coming from?”
“Probably dealing drugs. I didn’t ask. Once a month, she would take a trip out of town. I never asked where.”
“I’ll take you back to your car. I’m done in for today.”
They rode back to the cemetery in silence. He climbed out, but asked about tomorrow before shutting his door. She really wanted to gun the engine and send him scrambling, but checked herself.
“I’ll call you. I may need to sleep in.”
After he closed the door, she did gun it and skidded gravel behind her. He was left in the dust. He probably thought she was crazy.
Chapter three
The telephone rang in the morning, waking her up. She was hesitant to answer. She figured it was Winston. It continued to ring. She should have brought her answering machine with her. She finally picked it up when she was sure it wasn’t going to stop any time soon. Little towns. They needed to let it ring, so you would have time to come in from your clothesline. Thankfully, it wasn’t the old man. It was a customer from the cemetery. A son wanting to make arrangements for his father. She arranged for him to meet her at the cemetery office in about an hour.
There wouldn’t be time for a shower. She dressed and put her mane into a ponytail, something she never did, this was a young girl or a mom look. She guessed she was too old for the girl look. Bare minimum makeup. She would go for the worn out tired look. The skirt was too short, but at least it was black. Just sit behind the desk. Making a piece of toast, she carried it out to the truck. She squinted into the glare. Getting used to the daylight was going to take some effort.
She had to drive back downtown to get her bearings. Winston’s car was in front of the café. At least he wasn’t a stalker. Food and a map would be good things to bring home. She beat the son to the cemetery. She looked up their last name and found three different folders. There was little that made sense. There were a couple of receipts with different names and no information about where the plots were. If this was what all the files looked li
ke, she was in deep shit. A car pulled up outside. She got up to greet them. The son was a tall string-bean of a farmer with a shaggy beard, about her own age. He had brought his aunt, a wizened skinny tiny lady with a patch over one eye under her glasses. And an odd colored pink jumpsuit. She had them sit.
“I’ve got to be honest with you both,” Daydee said. “I’m trying to figure this all out. Tell me what you’re expecting and I’ll try my best.”
They looked at each other.
“Well,” the aunt said. “The funeral is Saturday. Goshen’s Funeral Home is holding the service, so you can call them for the details. We are having an honor guard from the VFW come do a three-gun salute. He was in the South Pacific, you know.”
The son handed her receipts from his shirt pocket.
“My mother had purchased the marker along with two vaults and the plot. Our family is here.”
“Your mother was the most confused and distracted woman I ever saw. Everybody knows they have to bring receipts or she would make them pay a second time,” the aunt said.
Daydee wrote down the details from the papers and handed them back. This wasn’t going to be too bad. A grave opening and closing and the installation of the vault, all things that Jack could do for her. And ordering a marker.
“Can you show me where the plot is?” she asked the son.
He shook his head.
“I never come out here.”
“I’ll show you!” the aunt said.
They stood and the man offered his arm to the old lady and out they went. It was a slow journey over to the family plots. Daydee walked beside them.
“I try to come out at least once a month. My mommy and daddy are here. I bring decorations for every holiday,” the aunt was telling her. “But it’s getting harder to get around these days. Jack is wonderful! He will take care of anything you ask him to do.”
“I’m glad.”
“I’m so sorry about your mother. Did she suffer?”
Daydee didn’t have an answer. Winston hadn’t said a word.
“I’m sure she did. She’s in a better place now.”
“Betty’s Florist is who I always use. You should get to know her. She’s a wonderful person.”