by Jeff Abbott
Peggy stared down into her coffee. “His work had become substandard. He was missing deadlines more and more. We’re a small paper, Jordan, and everyone’s got to pull their weight. I don’t have the resources to keep a layabout on the payroll. Clevey was irresponsible.” She shook her head and ran her hand along the pale streak in her hair. “I didn’t understand his attitude. He was so enthusiastic about journalism for so long, and he was talented. Was. ”
“When did this downhill slide start?”
She shrugged. “Last summer. My patience was at an end.”
“I want to ask you some questions, but off the record,” I said.
Peggy leaned forward. “What a change. I’m usually the one conducting the interview. I’ll answer your questions if you’ll answer mine.”
“Deal. Did you ever hear Clevey mention a girl named Rennie Clifton?”
Her brow furrowed. “Sounds familiar, but I can’t place the name.”
“And you never heard him mention anything about Trey?”
“No, never. That for sure I would have remembered, after the awful way Trey left your family.”
I leaned back. “Damn.”
“Who’s Rennie Clifton?” Peggy asked.
It was no point in telling her to forget it; I’d rather have Peggy Godkin on my side than snooping on her own and plastering a story across the front page. I told her about the long-ago hurricane and the girl who died. Peggy propped her face in her hands.
“I remember that now. Hurricane Althea. Clevey wrote the twentieth-anniversary special report we did last August.”
“Weren’t you writing for the Mirror when Althea hit?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “Unfortunately that was the week I took a vacation and visited my college roommate in Dallas. Biggest story to hit Mirabeau in years and I missed it.”
“Did you ever hear anything unusual regarding the hurricane? Or Rennie Clifton’s death?”
She closed her eyes in concentration, her reporter’s mind flipping through the enormous Rolodex of facts that resided in her brain. “No, sorry. Nearly everyone was busy picking up the pieces, thanking God they were alive.”
“Rennie wasn’t,” I said. “Clevey had developed a new interest in the case. I thought maybe he was writing a story about her.”
She shook her head. “He wrote the retrospective on Hurricane Althea. And he wrote a brief piece on the Clifton girl.”
“I wonder why he got interested again in that case.”
Peggy shrugged. “Newsfolk love to write about themselves. Maybe he wanted to revisit the great trauma of his childhood.”
“Speaking of trauma, did you know that he was seeing a psychotherapist? A man named Steven Teague.”
“Lord, no, I didn’t know he was getting counseling.” She tapped her nail against her lip, a meditative gesture I’d seen her use while covering library board meetings. “Steven Teague. I know that name.”
I frowned. “He just moved here recently. Very urbane, polished-looking fellow. He said-” I stopped for a moment, feeling I was breaking a rule by discussing what I’d overheard. If it got back to Junebug or Steven, I’d be in serious trouble. But Clevey was dead and his murderer walked free. “Steven says that Clevey was troubled. That he’d done serious wrong and was trying to find ways to rectify it.”
“What kind of wrong?”
“He won’t elaborate. But he does say that Clevey was determined to do better for himself.”
“Clevey’s work didn’t reflect that,” Peggy said. “God’s gonna slap me for speaking ill of the dead.” She sighed. “Clevey must’ve been performing his good deeds elsewhere. You said this therapist is named Steven Teague?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he probably took out an ad and that’s how I know his name. I wonder if he’d give me a group therapy rate for my family. Now for my questions, like you agreed. Are you sticking your nose into police business again?”
“Yes. And it’s my own business now. It has been since Trey died in front of me and Mark.”
Peggy leaned back. “You know, Jordan, some people criticize private citizens who take it on themselves to investigate crimes. I’m one of them. I only answered your questions because you’re an old friend of Clevey’s.”
“Most private citizens don’t have three friends shot in as many days.” I kept my voice low. “I don’t care if people in Mirabeau think I’m a magnet for trouble. I didn’t ask to find a body in the library last spring or nearly get blown up last summer. But I will no longer stand idly by while my friends are picked off like targets in a shooting gallery.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would. Maybe that’s why I like you, you sorry fool.” Peggy finished her coffee and patted my hand. “I better see if I can get one of Junebug’s doctors to talk to me, then head on over to the police station. And see if I can just say a hello to Barbara.” She gathered her satchel close to her. “Terrible business, isn’t it, Jordan?”
Peggy accompanied me back to the waiting room, which was only a little less crowded than before. Davis had left; Ed sat with Mark and with Steven Teague. Sister wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Hello, Jordan,” Steven Teague said in his refined tone. He was well groomed and dapper in gray corduroys and a charcoal tweed jacket. “Your sister’s in with Chief Moncrief, so I offered to stay with Mark.”
“I don’t need nobody staying with me,” Mark announced crossly. He looked exhausted and I wondered what kind of gruesome toll the past couple of days was exacting.
I introduced Peggy to Steven, hoping she wouldn’t start a grilling session of her own. She simply said she was glad to make his acquaintance and shook his hand.
Franklin Bedloe came out of the men’s room down the hall and, excusing herself, Peggy headed toward him.
I turned back to my nephew. “Mark, let me take you home. There’s no point in you waiting here. You’re dead on your feet. We’ll call you as soon as we know anything.”
“No, Uncle Jordy,” he said with firmness, not petulance. “I want to stay. If I’m tired, I’ll take a nap. I’m not leaving till we hear about Junebug.”
I sat, too weary to argue with him. Steven Teague, however, was another story.
“How’d you know we were down here, Steven?” I asked.
He smiled tightly. “Your sister called me. She was concerned about how your family would handle this latest difficulty. I offered to come down and see if I could be of assistance.” He glanced at Mark, whose lips were pressed together in tension. “Mark doesn’t want to chat right now, though.”
“I appreciate your concern for Mark.”
“Mark’s been through a horrible ordeal.” Steven ruffled his patient’s hair.
Mark stood suddenly. “I want a doughnut. Or a muffin. Uncle Jordy, will you come down to the cafeteria with me?”
I lumbered to my feet, my body crying out for sleep. Time alone with Mark sounded good. For some reason, the tailored sureness of Steven Teague irritated the hell out of me. Especially since he’d refused to answer all of Junebug’s questions-and now Junebug might be the killer’s latest victim.
Mark ambled along beside me, quietly, until we got to the cafeteria. I offered to buy him breakfast; he got a glass of orange juice and an enormous muffin, studded with blueberries. He kept glancing toward the cafeteria entrance as he ate.
I watched him munch down the muffin and drain the glass of orange juice. “You’re handling all this well, Mark.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “I guess. I’m worried about Mom.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she love Dad or not?”
I’d expected a discussion about Junebug. Trey was still tender territory. “That’s a hard question.” I rubbed my chin. “It’s probably safe to say that she loved him-the him that she married-but she didn’t love what he did. She didn’t love the man that left her and left you.”
He was silent, and emboldened by exhaustion, I went on: “Your father was a very g
ood man in many ways. He was my closest friend growing up. But he left you, and your mother, and the rest of us, without a word or a reason. That’s cowardly, Mark, and I never understood it because I didn’t think your father was a coward.”
He looked up at me with ink-dark eyes, bloodshot with fatigue. For the first time in a long while I looked at Mark’s face. He stood on the verge of manhood now, the peachy sheen of whiskers starting along the jawline, his Adam’s apple becoming more prominent in his thin throat, his voice vaulting through fee gymnastics of change, and the first light in his eyes that perhaps he knew a vast and frightening world lay waiting.
He tore off a chunk of muffin and rolled it into a doughy ball between his fingers. “I think I know who killed Dad,” he said.
I found my voice after a brief search. “Excuse me? Who?”
“Well, Scott told me he overheard something his mama and her uncle Dwight were saying. She’d been talking about how she hadn’t wanted to come back to live in Mirabeau.”
“Well, I would think not, what with all of Trey’s family here and-”
“Listen again, Uncle Jordy. She said come back to Mirabeau. She’d been here before.”
“Her uncle’s from here, Mark,” I explained patiently. “I’m sure she visited here before.”
“Yeah, she did,” Mark said. “She said that she didn’t want to be here because of Ed Dickensheets.”
“Ed? Good Lord, what does he have to do with it? And why didn’t you say something before?”
Mark shuffled his feet under the table, avoiding my stare. “Me and Scott don’t got no proof, and Ed’s a friend of yours and a friend of Mom’s. I don’t think he could kill anybody. But Scott sure thinks he did.”
I breathed deep. “Did Scott say what had gone on between his mom and Ed?”
Mark shook his head. “But I bet he was her boyfriend. She looks like she might have been pretty once.”
I tried to jog down memory lane. I’d thought Nola Kinnard’s face was familiar for the most fleeting of instants when she’d introduced herself in the library. “I sure don’t remember Ed dating a girl named Nola.”
“Maybe it was when you were at Rice. Did he go off to school?”
“He stayed here and took some courses over at Bavary Junior College,” I said slowly. “Then he went to St. Edward’s over in Austin, but he got thrown out. He partied too much and his grades bottomed out. So he came back and started working at KBAV.” I looked at Mark again, the earnestness in his face. This was clutching at shadows.
“Mark, this is ridiculous. I’ve known Ed Dickensheets my whole life and he wouldn’t ever kill a soul, much less your father. Besides, Ed wouldn’t have a motive.” Right, I told myself. Happily married to a bossy Elvis impersonator and her Colonel Parker mother. Wanda and Ivalou were a potent combination to set a man straying to an old girlfriend. Why hadn’t Ed mentioned to me that he knew Nola Kinnard?
Mark’s jaw set. “All’s I’m saying is what Scott said. He thinks Ed killed Dad.” He shook his dark head. “Scott hasn’t thought it out, though. I mean, if he thinks Ed killed Dad to be with Nola, it hasn’t occurred to him that Nola could have killed Dad to be with Ed.”
I did not get to see Junebug. The doctors didn’t want many visitors, and I wasn’t about to try to usurp Barbara Moncrief or my sister. I left a message for Sister that I was headed home and left.
I took Mark home, turned him over to Clo, and ordered him to bed for some badly needed sleep. Tomorrow was his father’s funeral, and he’d need his strength. I sorely ached for a nap myself, but I knew rest would be elusive.
Stopping by the Sit-a-Spell, I ate with Candace. The breakfast bachelor-and-widower crowd was sparse; she’d get much more business at lunch. Smudges darkened the skin beneath her pretty eyes. She didn’t mention my breakdown last night and I was grateful. She’d already eaten and she sipped coffee while I wolfed down a cheese omelette, hash browns, grits, and toast smeared with plum preserves.
I slurped coffee and made a face. “Good Lord. Flavored coffee? I don’t think Mirabeau’s quite ready for that.”
“It’s hazelnut and they’ll develop a taste for it.” I could see Candace was still on her diversify-the-cuisine crusade. If Sister didn’t get back to work at the cafe soon, it’d be the Sit-a-Spell Sushi Bar (or bait shop, depending on your opinion of raw fish as an entree).
“Candace, you are not going to get a fellow in a fishing cap to quaff down hazelnut coffee.”
“Oh, really? What’s that on your head, ace?”
I removed my Mirabeau Bees baseball cap with a smile. We were bantering like it was a normal morning. I tried to remind myself it was only seventy-two hours since I’d sat in this same booth, watching Wanda do her Elvis impersonation in the street while poor Ed hung their pitiable sign. It seemed a decade ago.
Candace surprised me with a kiss on my forehead and I updated her on Junebug’s condition. She frowned. “The shootings are all anyone in the cafe’s been talking about.”
“Speaking of gossip…” Quietly, I told her of Mark’s suspicions of Ed Dickensheets.
“Oh, that’s crazy,” she said. “Ed’s devoted to that wife of his. I don’t see what he sees in Wanda, but if he’s willing to keep that witch Ivalou as a mother-in-law, it must be love. And even if Ed killed Trey, why would he kill Clevey? Maybe we’re dealing with two killers.”
I shook my head. “That occurred to me, but then how do you explain what Scott overheard-the heated discussion between Clevey and Trey? There was something going on between those two, and now they’re both dead. You can’t dismiss what Scott heard and the message written in Trey’s blood.”
“So how do you explain Junebug’s shooting?”
“He’s been investigating Clevey’s death while Franklin Bedloe investigates Trey’s death. Maybe Junebug got too close-found some information the killer didn’t want him to have. The killer decided to eliminate him.”
Candace ran a hand through her thick mane of hair. “Now what?”
“Franklin’ll find out who the hell’s behind this and lock him up forever. Junebug’ll get better. We’ll bury Clevey and Trey and try to get on with our lives.” I poured milk in my too fancy coffee and watched the white cloudy swirl. “And then maybe you and I can take a nice, long trip far away from all this. I’m worn-out and I want to be alone with you.”
Her smile was tender and sly. “Get me alone and you will be worn-out, that’s a promise. Maybe the Bahamas?”
“Out of my wallet’s league. What about Galveston?”
“We’ll talk. I could foot a trip to the Bahamas.”
Candace had money aplenty from her family, but I didn’t want her doling out cash for us. Foolish male pride, I suppose, but no one ever accused me of lacking that particular virtue. “We’ll talk,” I said, smiling at her. Galveston wasn’t at all bad. I’d just convince her of that.
I got to the library and savored the quiet of a Monday morning. Since we’re open Saturdays, we’re closed Mondays. I like when it’s just the books and me. I headed for the back issues of The Mirabeau Mirror. We haven’t gone to microfilm yet (although I have repeatedly begged the city council for the money), and so the chronicle of life in Mirabeau still exists in paper form. I decided to start my search in August, two decades back.
The Mirror comes out once a week, but I remembered they’d done a special edition in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Althea. I started with that yellowing issue. Three dead in Corpus Christi, one dead in Victoria, two dead in Mirabeau, one dead in La Grange: all due to twisters or flash flooding, those merciless twin bridesmaids of hurricanes. Althea had cut a brutal swath up from the defenseless Gulf coast through the river lands between Houston and Austin.
There was a main article on the aftermath of the killer storm, then separate articles on each of the Mirabeau dead. The first casualty had been an elderly man on the outskirts of town, killed when his ramshackle trailer disintegrated in a smaller twister’s path. The second a
rticle was longer, possibly because the death was more tragic. Rennie Clifton was only sixteen.
A school picture of her smiled out from the newsprint, her hair straightened and dark, her smile wide and appealing, her eyes beautiful and compelling and intelligent I had never seen Rennie alive, so the picture was the only fragment of her days I could compare against the empty shell we’d found in the woods. The county coroner ruled she’d been killed by a blow to the head, probably from flying debris propelled at God’s own speed by the violent winds. The article outlined how she had been found in the woods near the Foradory farm. A somber picture of us six boys was below the text, since we’d found the body. We all look like we’ve had the stuffing scared out of us, except Trey, who always maintained a cool demeanor anywhere near a camera. Clevey ranked a quote on how frightened he’d been. “You see scary things out in a storm like that, but we never dreamed we’d find a body.”
I kept reading the story. Rennie had been a student at Mirabeau High, where she participated in 4-H and the student yearbook. Her teachers described her as quiet, intense about the subjects she was interested in, a girl with a future. She worked part-time at the Mirabeau Florist and was described as a good worker by her employer, Ivalou Purcell-
My eyes froze on the last two words. Ivalou Purcell, who I have mentioned I don’t care much for, was Ed’s mother-in-law. She’s bossy, nosy, man-hungry, and just generally unpleasant. I remembered the avid interest she’d shown during Sister’s fight with Trey at the Shivers house. I’d never had any idea that Rennie Clifton worked for Ivalou Purcell.
I scanned the rest of the article. Rennie was survived by her mother, Thomasina Clifton, who cleaned houses. Her father, Ernest Clifton, had been killed in Vietnam. The final sentence mentioned services at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on Aldrus Street.
Her funeral. A sharp memory made me wince. My mother had insisted that we go. I’d felt like an interloper, a blond-headed, green-eyed boy amidst all those dark faces. The church smelled of flowers and sweat. The fury of Althea had scraped the sky clean, and the day they buried Rennie was cloudless and clear. I remembered Mrs. Clifton as a large woman who bore her sorrow in silence. I remembered my mother making me hand a flower to Mrs. Clifton and her nearly crushing me in a kind embrace. Another woman, apparently one of Rennie’s grandmothers, had wailed lamentations like a woman possessed. I didn’t try to give her a flower.