Promises of Home jp-3

by Jeff Abbott

  I leaned back, rubbing my chin. How-and why-had that girl’s death come back to haunt us?

  What if I was entirely off track? What if Rennie’s death had nothing to do with the carnage visited on our lives? I closed my eyes, casting back into my memories for someone who might have a terrible grudge against our group of friends. I sat in silence. Had we been unthinkingly cruel to some kid that harbored the deepest of grudges? Had we done some innocent act to nurture hatred in a hidden heart? No rogue or villain presented themselves for inspection. Our lives had been delightfully dull, free of ill-wishers. Best, I thought, to concentrate on the strongest possibility than to idly search for nonsensical explanations.

  I began sorting through papers from the weeks previous and subsequent to Rennie’s death. Mirabeau was just as boring then as it is now. I perused articles on the city council’s eternal squabbles, the drowning of a skier on Lake Bonaparte, a picture of Hart Quadlander with a prize-winning horse, and the visit of a jowly congressman to give a speech.

  I was reading a paper dated three weeks after Rennie’s death when I turned a page and a twenty-years-younger version of Steven Teague stared back at me, his lips splayed into the same half smile he’d given me and Eula Mae and Mark when we spoke to him. There was a short article underneath: FREE CLINIC CLOSES Dr. Edward Barent and Steven Teague announce the closing of the Mirabeau Free Clinic on Mayne Street, effective September 31. Dr. Barent, a general practitioner, said that federal cutbacks are forcing the clinic’s closure. The Mirabeau Free Clinic opened barely two months ago, funded primarily through private donations and government grants. Dr. Barent refused to comment on any further reason why the clinic could not remain in budget. Mr. Teague, a psychotherapist with a social-work background, was unavailable for comment.

  The rest of the article went on about how rural areas suffered the most in federal cutbacks, but that since indigent services were already available at Mirabeau Memorial, residents should not expect much curtailment of free care, I didn’t care much about curtailment of free services at the moment. I was just remembering when I’d met Steven Teague at Clevey’s mom’s house and he’d said he’d just moved to Mirabeau. Not that he’d lived and worked here before, but new to town. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to mention that he’d worked for a failed enterprise-or perhaps he had something to hide. He’d been living here when Rennie died. He’d come back and we had two murders.

  I started folding the paper when I heard a loud tapping at the window and I nearly jumped out of my skin. (Having three friends shot since Friday morning will do that to you.) I was suddenly conscious of how very alone I was in the library.

  12

  If I’d been Mark, I’d have been scared to death. Ed Dickensheets stood at the library doors, haggard and tired. I paused on the other side of the glass. I was alone with someone my nephew alleged had a motive to kill Trey. I felt a little tremor of fear, then dismissed it. I’d known Ed my whole life. I’d be damned if I’d let myself be scared by a friend. A sudden thought occurred that maybe Ed had come straight from the hospital-with bad news. I forgot my fears, unlocked the door, and yanked it open.

  “Junebug?” I asked.

  “No change. Can I come in?”

  I stepped aside and regarded Ed, who was not a regular library patron. “We’re closed, and if you ever gave me any business, you’d know that,” I said with a teasing tone. Another quaver of uncertainty had hit me as soon as I opened my mouth and I was determined to banish it with banter. I also felt sick relief that he wasn’t the bearer of bad tidings.

  Ed forced a smile to his worn face. He’d always been the smallest of us and now he was bent with fatigue. I didn’t think it was just the exhausting effect of recent days. Ed lived a life I couldn’t endure; dealing with Wanda’s eccentricities and odd schemes; enduring a mother-in-law like Ivalou who could test the patience of several saints; trying to launch a business that had the life expectancy of ice on a warm summer day. And people say I have a tough home life. It’s nothing compared with Ed’s.

  “I know the library’s closed, butthead, but you got a minute for a friend?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “You want some coffee?” I considered locking the doors behind us, but decided against it. No reason to, really, I told myself. Ed nodded and I went to the little kitchen in the back and revved up the pot.

  When I came back, he was ambling around the library like a tourist in a museum, pausing to examine the shelves, the posters, the magazines on the shelves on the periodical table. I froze. I hadn’t put up the paper I’d been perusing; it was still laid out on a table. Ed didn’t seem inclined to notice it much, though, as he took the plastic-encased latest issue of Sports Illustrated down and began idling through it.

  “Don’t suppose you have Playboy? ” he asked while reading.

  “Sorry, the city council just won’t approve every request I make.” I folded the paper, without hurry, and tucked it back in a desk. For some instinctual reason I didn’t want Ed to know I was casting an eye back twenty years. I headed to the back to check on the progress of the coffee.

  When I returned with two steaming cups, Ed collapsed in one of the easy chairs in the magazine section, his legs splayed out. He was rubbing his forehead.

  “I’m tired, Jordy.” He took the offered cup and sipped cautiously at it. “Not bad. We got the worst coffee in creation down at KBAV.”

  “What’s up, Ed?”

  “Geez, can’t a fellow come see an old buddy?” he answered rather sharply. “I seem to be running short on friends with each passing day.”

  Hot anger flushed my face. “That’s not funny, Ed.”

  “I don’t mean to be funny. I told you I wanted to talk at Clevey’s mama’s house, but your sister came and made that scene and I didn’t get my chance.”

  He was right-he had mentioned he wanted a private chat. I’d forgotten in the avalanche of events the past two days had brought.

  “I forgot. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  “You ain’t the only one,” Ed said, slurping his coffee again. “It’s about Clevey.”

  I eased down onto the ratty couch (the city council doesn’t believe in buying new couches until the old ones disintegrate). “What about Clevey?”

  “This stays between you and me, okay? You always had more sense than the rest of us, and I need some advice. But I don’t want this blabbed all over town.”

  “Okay, Ed.”

  He took a fortifying breath. “I don’t wanna say this, but I think Clevey was a crook.”

  “Excuse me?” The cup stopped halfway to my mouth.

  Ed, despite his fatigue, got up and paced. “He was planning on buying into KBAV. As a partner. You know how much money that takes?”

  I set my cup down, the steam still roiling past the rim. “How’d you know this?”

  “He told me about a week ago. Said once he had a vote in station business, he’d see about making me general manager.” Ed shrugged. “I didn’t buy it at first-you know how he was one for fibbing and joking-but he insisted he was serious. When I asked him where he was gonna get the money, he said he’d had an uncle die out in Louisiana and leave him a ton of loot. But he didn’t want anyone to know. He was going to give some to local charities and use the rest to buy his partnership.”

  I didn’t say anything immediately. Clevey had a windfall of money? Good and bad, Steven had said. Giving some of the money to charity and the rest for himself. I suddenly wondered who stood to inherit Clevey’s money now that he was gone. He probably hadn’t made a will. He had an ex-wife who lived in Little Rock now, but no children.

  Ed continued: “But there never was an uncle in Louisiana. I asked-diplomatically, mind you-Clevey’s relatives when we were all at his mama’s house. That story of his was pure fiction. So where was he getting the money from?”

  “Why are you telling me all this, Ed?”

  He studied his coffee cup. “Look, I told Junebug all this when he started his investigat
ion. It bugs me, that money coming out of nowhere, I thought you’d maybe know since you spent so much more time around him than I did.”

  “I haven’t really,” I said, remorse tingeing my voice. I’d been weighed down with my own problems and I hadn’t made much time for Clevey in the past months. Had he wanted to turn to his old friends for help?

  The hearsay of his last days presented a confusing collage: seeking help from Steven Teague, bitterly telling Trey that revenge would be sweet, claiming financial independence to Ed. I paused. Was there a connection between whatever revenge scheme he’d tried to get Trey involved in and this alleged windfall of money? But who on earth would Trey or Clevey want revenge on? His life was like a coin flipping in the air, the dual sides of head and tails flashing in the sunlight. His vicious demands to Trey, his announced charity donation to Ed. His lying about where this alleged money came from, his seeking help for his problems.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Ed. I thought I knew Clevey. I can’t claim that anymore.” I repeated what Scott Kinnard had told me about Clevey’s heated discussion with Trey. Ed shook his head, and I saw a flicker of fear in his eyes.

  “And they both end up dead.” Ed shivered and massaged his temples. “That scares the piss out of me.”

  “Scott claimed Trey was resisting whatever Clevey was proposing. Trey didn’t want to get involved.” I leaned down toward Ed. “What does that suggest to you? Who could he have been getting money from? How could Trey have been involved? Did Clevey ever mention anything about being in touch with Trey to you?”

  “No, I-” Puzzlement made him frown. “Well, not that he was in touch with Trey. But he and I went to have beers a few weeks back and Trey’s name came up. I don’t remember how-some old story we were dusting off. Clevey said he’d been the last person in town to see Trey before he left. He laughed about it.”

  “Laughed about it? What was so funny?”

  Embarrassment colored his cheeks; I suspected he’d wandered onto ground he’d just as soon surrender. “I don’t know. I asked and he got tight-lipped. He just said Trey’d left and blown his chance to live easy the rest of his life.”

  I felt cold in the fluorescent flicker of the library lights. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “It never came up. Jesus, he was drunk! And you know what Clevey was like-”

  “Ed, no, I don’t. Neither do you. He was more of a stranger than any of us are ready to admit.”

  “Look, I just told you what he’d told me. I thought you might be able to make sense of it. If you can’t, that’s fine, I’d just as soon not discuss Clevey and Trey anymore.” He picked up his scruffy denim jacket, prepared to leave.

  I grabbed his arm. “Have you been by to see Nola Kinnard yet?”

  He jerked as though I’d poked him in the ribs. “No.”

  “I heard she was an old girlfriend of yours. That came as quite a surprise. You certainly hadn’t mentioned it.”

  Ed slipped into salesman mode, unruffled by my blitzkreig. “So? I haven’t seen her in years. I didn’t even know she was back in town.”

  I recalled what Mark had said regarding Nola: she didn’t want to be back in Mirabeau because of Ed Dickensheets. Why was Nola afraid of him? Or was that merely a cover? (Maybe she was afraid of Wanda-always a distinct possibility.) Too many questions. My head was starting to spin. I needed sleep.

  “Okay, Ed.” I shrugged. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  He softened. “Nola and I were a hot item once, but that was years ago. I’ve wanted to go by and visit, pay my respects about Trey, but I-things didn’t end well between us. I didn’t know how to see her-how to say I was sorry for everything she went through. And I don’t think Wanda would take too kindly to me calling on ex-girlfriends.”

  “Whatever, Ed.” I stood and stretched. “But we still don’t know where Clevey was planning on getting this money.”

  “Well, Jordy”-he fidgeted again-“if he’s left the money to his mama, do you think we could talk to her? Maybe she’d be interested in investing in the station… or maybe in my Elvis shop.”

  Now I saw why I was Ed’s new confidante. I’d always been closest to Mrs. Shivers; she and I had a rapport that went back decades. Ed wanted me in his corner to get his hands on Clevey’s alleged fortune.

  “Oh, Ed, for God’s sake. Her boy’s just been murdered. This isn’t the time to hit up the poor woman about investments. Leave me out.”

  “Okay, okay.” His smile was immediate and conciliatory. “But think about it, all right? Maybe you can suggest when a good time would be? I’m sure she’d listen to you, Jordy.”

  An acrid distaste permeated my mouth. Suddenly I just wanted Ed out of the library, out of my sight. “Okay. Fine. I’ll talk to her with you.” I’d say anything now to get him to go.

  He saw the dislike in my tone, the turning away of my face. His own countenance set in stone. “Fine. Talk to you later. Call me if you hear any news.” And he was gone.

  I sank down in the chair, staring down at my feet, feeling dirty, as though Ed had spat on my shoes in leaving. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Clevey. Or Trey. He was only worried about the money Clevey had claimed to have. I wondered if those were crocodile tears he shed at Clevey’s wake.

  So much for friendship, choked by the root of all evil.

  Some old white folks still call the far south side of the railroad tracks in Mirabeau “the colored part of town.” I don’t bother to correct them because they aren’t going to edit their language. And although the name may offend, for the most part the unofficial segregation still holds true. A few blacks have moved riverward into the more prosperous north side of town, but most descendants of slave and sharecropper that call Mirabeau home still live in the flat-lands. Trailer homes and small houses dot the landscape; some homes immaculately maintained, others choking in weedy neglect.

  The cottage I pulled up to was tidy and neat, the small lawn freshly raked and a mound of damp leaves waiting to be bagged by the porch. A giant live oak towered above the eaves like a sentinel. A tire swing rotated slowly in the wind. A rusted flamingo, leaning precariously in a winter-sere flower bed, gawked at me.

  I stared at the painted name on the mailbox: CLIFTON. I’d come here on a whim and now I was feeling like an intruder. These people had already suffered agony once; I had no desire to reopen the old wound of having lost a daughter. But this, I told myself, was where it all started. Rennie Clifton was the key, quite possibly, to why Clevey and Trey had died. And for the attack on Junebug.

  I forced myself out of the car and up to the porch. I could hear the tinny rattle of television applause on the other side of the screen door. Someone was home, presumably. I knocked.

  Silence for a moment, then a high-pitched, creaky voice beckoned: “Come in.”

  The door was unlocked and I opened it gingerly. “Mrs. Clifton?”

  The room was dark, small, and cluttered. The dim, late-morning sky wasn’t offering much additional illumination, but the glow of the TV lit the room in staticky, bone-colored light. I could see a worn blue sofa, draped with a colorful crocheted afghan; a scattering of newspaper across the carpeted floor; walls decorated with painted Bible scenes; and a large, dark woman, nestled in an easy chair. Not large-huge. Her girth wedged her into the cushions, her clothes stretched taut across a globe of a stomach. Her fingers, pudgy with fat, rustled idly in the emptied papers of a box of chocolates. Her eyes regarded me without the slightest bit of fear.

  “Who you?” she asked, her voice a squeak. “I don’t want no magazine subscriptions…”

  “I’m not a salesman, Mrs. Clifton. My name is Jordan Poteet. Do you remember me?” I flipped on the overhead light.

  She squinted against the sudden brightness like a mole venturing out after a winter’s nap. In the ceiling light’s glare I could see she was well over two hundred pounds, her face a melon shape of tissue. Smears of chocolate outlined her lips. She blinked at me.
/>   “Name’s familiar,” she said, her voice shifting in slow recognition.

  “I haven’t seen you in many years-” I started, but she didn’t let me finish.

  “Yes. I remember you. You were one of those boys that found my girl.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I wondered if I could talk with you for a minute.”

  She wasn’t looking at me, but at the boy I’d been. “Yes. You were the pretty blond one. Gave me a flower at Rennie’s funeral. And ain’t you grown up to be a handsome fellow?”

  I felt a hot blush creep up my neck. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Take a seat.” She gestured toward an afghan-shrouded rocking chair, saw the candy stains on her hands, and coughing, pulled a tissue from the crevice of her cleavage and wiped her hands and her mouth. “Pardon me, I was just having a little snack while watching my show.” She pointed to the TV. “You ever watch the Reverend Coleman?”

  I glanced at the television and the strutting, high-haired evangelist that shone on the screen. A number at the bottom promised prayer in return for a donation. “No, I haven’t.”

  “He’s a good man. I don’t send him any money, but I sure enjoy hearing him preach.” Her eyes, intelligently shrewd, were back on me. “What can I do you for, Mr. Poteet? You like something to drink?”

  A drink sounded agreeable; my throat had dried like an autumn leaf. “Yes, please, ma’am. That’d be nice.”

  “You don’t mind getting it yourself, do you? I got some Kool-Aid in the fridge. I don’t got no Cokes or tea ’cause my daughter ain’t doing my shopping till tomorrow. ’Less you want water to sip.”

  “No, Kool-Aid sounds fine.” I stood.

  “Cups are above the sink.” I stepped out of her den, around the corner to the kitchen. It was clean but cluttered, a stack of rinsed dishes in the sink, a fridge covered with vegetable-shaped magnets that pinned pictures of smiling grandchildren to the metal. I found two glasses and the pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid. I carried the glasses and pitcher back to the den and poured us each a drink.