Dodging and Burning

by John Copenhaver

  4

  A DATE WITH

  DEATH

  The Photo Album

  Sheila made the final leg of her trip into the wilds of New Hampshire by car. The tangled, curvy road took her through deep, misty valleys, only widening briefly for the small community of Berlin, then narrowed again as it followed a rocky stream into an overgrown meadow at the end of which stood Brimblevine House.

  As she got out of her car and walked the stone path to the front door, Sheila took in its gothic architecture—its four impressive three-story stone turrets, its ornate ironwork along the faux battlements, its line of shadowy arches across its northern façade, not to mention the pine-covered inclines surrounding it like waves of black water on the verge of cresting. All it needed was a strike of lightning slicing the sky in two and a banshee wailing in the distance, and it would be the perfect setting for a haunted house matinee.

  After fiddling with the keys, she entered the house and switched on the lights. The mammoth wood-paneled interior seemed to burst into existence. She dropped her suitcase and coat and began wandering the house. She found herself mesmerized in each new room by expensive bric-a-brac: bronze statues, bone china, silver platters, and on and on. Dark oil paintings of gloomy landscapes in gold-leaf frames hung from walls papered in dark velveteen patterns. Most of the furniture was hand-carved hardwood, decorated with laughing cherubs and stern angels. Polished black granite framed every fireplace, thick Turkish carpets spread across the floors, and heavy silk window treatments covered the panes.

  This was hers. It was all hers.

  At the end of her tour, she found her aunt’s bedroom. Over the fireplace hung an oil portrait of Majestica. A rose-tinted silk turban framed her opalescent face, which shimmered like a Chinese mask in the dark room, and her flowing, sea-green dress matched the green gleam in her eyes. Her expression—a sort of half-smile, half-smirk—was a little off-putting. In the center of the room was a canopy bed draped in purple, and under a large three-quarters bay window sat a crystal ball displayed on a decorative brass stand. It glowed in the late-afternoon sunlight. Sheila touched it with her finger, and the filtered light flickered out like a candle. A cloud had passed over the sun.

  She remembered her aunt’s note: “Do not tamper with ACTUS DEI. Fate is cruelest to those who don’t respect her power.” But she respected its power and understood that her destiny, with all its promise and potential, lay in this house. She was a new gal already, and she deeply appreciated Majestica’s gift. She would honor her legacy by living richly and fully, by grabbing life by the heels and not letting go.

  Sheila went to her aunt’s bedside. The bed looked inviting. She felt suddenly chilled and tired from her long journey. She sat on the edge of the bed and, after a moment of awkwardness—she wondered if her aunt had died in this bed—she was compelled to lie down and shut her eyes, the soft pillow molding itself around her head, the down cover cupping her body.

  She woke up gasping for air, her heart pounding, tears streaming down her cheeks. She threw her legs over the side of the bed and steadied herself. The room came into focus. Her throat hurt, stinging when she touched it. She’d had a horrible nightmare. She still felt the fear, the grip of adrenaline, but she couldn’t remember what she had dreamed.

  She made her way to the bathroom and inspected her neck. It was raw and chafed; a hot scarlet blotch ran across her throat, as if someone had been trying to choke her with something large and rough. Was it an allergic reaction to something on the bed? Or had she done it herself?

  Loneliness fell over her. She sat on the edge of the marble tub and began to cry. She remembered how safe Kenneth had made her feel, his hand on her shoulder, pulling her toward him, kissing her. But then she also remembered coming home midday—she hadn’t been feeling well—and catching him in bed with that tramp, their bodies tangled in the sheets that Sheila had smoothed and folded into place that morning. She had loved him so much. She still loved him—no, it had turned to hate! Bitter hatred.

  She collected herself, stood in front of the mirror, and gave herself a pep talk. She told herself she really was a doll, admiring the fullness of her blond curls and her thin, perfectly straight nose and her full, pink lips—lips some girls would die for! She would be fine, she told herself. No, she would be wonderful! She had so much to look forward to. She fantasized about her future happiness—expensive clothes, exotic vacation spots, foreign lovers. She thought about the man she might marry one day. Dashing, muscular, perched on the bow of a yacht with the warm breeze glancing off his twice-bronzed skin. A living magazine ad. It was all there for her now. All possible.

  She made her way to her aunt’s study. Mr. Morgan and Mr. Ayres had told her that several of her aunt’s most valuable possessions, including the deed to the property, were in a safe in that room. They had given her a sealed envelope containing the combination.

  She opened the safe as in-structed. The air inside smelled stale and metallic. She scanned old stock certificates and popped open jewelry boxes full of necklaces and earrings dripping with precious and semiprecious stones. Were they paste or the real deal? She found gold coins and an envelope stuffed with cash. At the bottom of the safe was an object wrapped in a black cloth. It was some sort of book. It was too heavy to hold comfortably in her arms, so she set it on her aunt’s large mahogany desk. She carefully removed the cloth, revealing a large, flat, leather-bound photo album. On the cover, stamped in dim gold, it said simply: “Photographs.”

  “Oh,” she said aloud. She was excited by the prospect of getting to know her aunt better, if only after her death. She cracked its cover, and in her aunt’s handwriting on the first page was:

  ACTUS DEI

  SEEK NOT THE FUTURE TO ESCAPE THE PAST

  Sheila slapped the album closed, wrapped it in the cloth, and placed it back in the safe. She would heed her aunt’s warning: “Fate is cruelest to those who don’t respect her power.”

  8

  BUNNY

  Jay left this bit of intrigue in the tree:

  17.9.9.24 5.24 24.22.9.9 5.24 23.9.26.9.18 20.17 24.19.17.19.22.22.19.1

  A=5

  I saw no point in having elaborate codes. We weren’t spies. No one was going to discover the rendezvous spot. No one was stumbling around in the woods but us. In truth, I didn’t appreciate being subjected to Jay’s fancies, because he had been so cagey the last time I saw him. But in a few minutes, I had the translation:

  MEET AT TREE AT SEVEN PM

  TOMORROW

  And so I was there the next day by the dead tree. While I waited, I peeled some of the dry bark from the trunk with my fingernails and flicked it across the clearing. The tree itself was rather large, its dead branches stretching irregularly toward the sky. It was an appropriately melodramatic hiding place for encoded notes.

  I considered everything we knew. The body. Lily. Her father, who was carrying on with Bernice Hersh. And Lily’s bloody shoes. But why was Jay being so evasive about Robbie’s journal? What was he hiding?

  I thought about defying Jay and going to the police, but two things stopped me. First, Jay was so enthusiastic about solving the mystery that it was keeping his mind off the war, a welcome distraction that felt cruel to me to remove. Second, Lily Vellum was missing. That was a fact.

  The day was clear and dry for the first week of August, making it easy to see Ceola trudging through the tall grass. She was scowling when she approached me. Her legs were covered with a pink calamine crust.

  “Poison ivy?” I said.

  She nodded.

  “Somehow I avoided it. Not a bump.”

  “It’s going away.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes, not knowing what to say to each other, both of us resting on the same log and studying the fading tinctures of the afternoon sky.

  I speculated, as I studied her profile, if she would grow into a beautiful woman. The oval of her face was elongating, her cheeks sharpening, her lips reddening and fleshing out, and even
her nose, if a bit hooked, seemed to be softening as her features filled in. Her sloppy ponytail, dirty fingernails, and legs caked with calamine were signs of her childish lack of self-consciousness, but I could detect the woman growing underneath, breasts shadowing under her blue sailor middy and hips pressing out at the fabric of her skirt. With time, she would transform into a striking woman—but about those nails, I had to bite my tongue.

  “You may not have known this,” I said, fumbling for something to break the silence, “but I thought your brother was a nice fellow.”

  I was lying. I had formed only a vague opinion of Robbie, and it wasn’t good. He seemed to me to be a touch churlish and certainly disrespectful. He had been rude to me the night of my party.

  “Yeah?” she responded, but wasn’t hooked.

  “I had a conversation with him before he went away.”

  She didn’t respond. Her eyes were focused on a pale butterfly that had landed on a rock in front of her.

  “He didn’t want to leave home,” I continued. “He seemed sad about it.”

  “Is that what he said?” She scratched at the raw sores on her leg.

  “He was especially sad about leaving you.” He had never said that to me, but I needed a way in.

  “Why would he tell you that? You hardly even knew him.”

  “He came to my birthday party, right? You know that.”

  “Sure.”

  “That’s where we had our conversation.”

  “My parents hate your parents. Your dad only gave my papa a week off work after we heard about Robbie.”

  “I had no idea.” Again I wasn’t telling the truth.

  “Sure you didn’t.”

  “Look,” I said. “The other day, Jay’s grandmother came by. She saw me leaving the house the night we spied on Mr. Vellum. She warned me never to come around the house or visit Jay again. Believe me, she hates my family more than your parents do. Much more. She brought Lily’s shoes thinking they were mine, that I had left them, and when she showed them to me, I held them in my hands, and I noticed how big they were and that they were Italian.”

  “So?”

  “They’re very expensive shoes.”

  “So what?”

  “Italian shoes on a woman from Jitters Gap. Doesn’t that seem odd?”

  “I guess.”

  “May I confess something else to you?

  She flaked dry calamine off her right shin with a fingernail, making it clear I was boring her.

  “When I was leaving Jay’s the other night, I overheard him talking to you,” I said. “He said something about Robbie’s journal.”

  Her face turned bright red, and her hands curled into little fists. “Why were you spying on us?”

  “I felt left out. I knew you were keeping things from me.”

  “Jay doesn’t want you around. That’s why.”

  “He does.”

  “He doesn’t like you.”

  Her jealousy was too innocent and desperate to anger me, but I was tiring of her childishness. I wanted to put her in her place.

  “You don’t understand what he went through in Europe,” I said. “What he saw, what seeing something like that does to you—just seeing it. You’re too young to understand something like that.”

  “He doesn’t love you,” she said. The conviction in her voice pricked me.

  “I want to see Robbie’s journal.”

  “No way.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Jay’s not telling us something, Ceola.”

  Her grimace tightened, and then she was distracted by something behind me. I spun and saw Jay approaching quickly, using a walking stick to support his bad leg. His face was flushed and his hair feathery gold. His hectic, careless manner made him even more striking.

  “I’ve got news,” he said, out of breath. “I’ve found another clue.”

  “What is it?” Ceola said, standing back from him a little, her hands by her sides.

  “I found the keys to my grandmother’s car, just by luck. She wanted me to help her bake zucchini bread. We have a surplus of zucchinis this year, so she decided she’d make bread and take it to all the neighbors—the neighbors she doesn’t hate. So when I was preparing the batter, I scooped a cup of sugar from the canister, and lo and behold, there was the key. The old bat had hidden it in the sugar. Well, that’s what gave me the idea to go hunting for some clues on my own. I was worried I was involving both of you in too many dangerous things.”

  He was in a good mood, but it wasn’t rubbing off on Ceola. She seemed aloof, disenchanted. Something was going on between them.

  “I was flipping through a copy of Detective World,” he said, “and I came across an article about police procedures. When they can’t get a warrant for someone’s house, they’ll check the garbage. Since it’s on the street, it’s free game. That got me thinking—maybe I should check out Frank Vellum’s garbage. So last night, I went to Jitters Gap. His garbage can was on its side and empty, but when I inspected it more closely, I found a plastic bag stuck to the inside of the container. In the bag, there were a few pieces of trash, and this …”

  He produced a wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket. The paper had a blue tint and the feel and shape of stationery. “It’s the last page of a letter. That’s all there was, but it’s very interesting.”

  Ceola and I sat down to read it.

  I didn’t love him and I wanted nothing to do with him. Now I hate him so much it’s hard to write his name.

  Honestly, until I met George, I was so lost. If it weren’t hadn’t been for my stay with Aunt Kathy, I don’t think I would’ve ever figured things out. Of course, I couldn’t tell Kathy about my current state. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I can’t have his this baby. Please help me find a way out. I’ve written to George—but I need to know I can count on you too.

  Take good care of yourself and write soon.

  Love, Lily

  “She was pregnant,” I said.

  Ceola nodded her head slowly.

  “And?” Jay prompted.

  “And her boyfriend Billy Witherspoon got her pregnant,” Ceola said, her moodiness melting a little. “He’s the crossed out ‘his.’ Don’t you think? And she wants to give the baby away.”

  “That’s what I think,” he said, looking at me.

  So it seemed Jay was going to allow Ceola to interpret But I can’t have his this baby as Lily’s desire to put her unborn child up for adoption. I felt that if that had been the truth, then it should’ve read, But I can’t raise his this baby. Jay obviously wanted to protect Ceola, and it frustrated me. How dare he shove photos of a murdered woman under our noses and then shy away from the truth about Lily? It was a blatant contradiction. But Jay understood all too well which sins could be spoken of and which couldn’t. Murder, rape, blackmail, thievery—the black-and-white sins—were fine, but abortion was off-limits as a topic for twelve-year-old girls.

  “Who is the letter addressed to?” Jay said.

  “And who are Aunt Kathy and George?” Ceola said.

  “I’ve been checking The Times for news about Lily’s disappearance. The police haven’t come up with much—at least nothing that’s been published,” Jay replied. “But I did come across news of a plea from a Katherine Vellum of Washington, DC—Frank’s sister. She asked for anyone with any knowledge of Lily’s whereabouts to come forward. It was also in The Washington Post, which means that the police are looking for Lily in DC as well. If they’re focusing on her, maybe we should focus on Billy, the boyfriend.”

  “How do we find him?” Ceola said.

  “I don’t know. We have to assume he’ll communicate with Frank at some point. We’re going to have to follow Frank and wait to see what happens.”

  “When?” Ceola said.

  “Tomorrow,” Jay said. “But we need to use your mother’s car, Bunny. My grandmother’s going to be home all day, so we can’t take hers.”


  “You want me to lie to her again,” I said.

  “Tell her we’re going on a picnic.”

  “I won’t do that, Jay.”

  “You want to know what happened to Lily as much as we do.”

  He had me; I did want to know. But more than that, I wanted to know what Jay was up to.

  Jay and Ceola materialized at my house early the next morning. After grabbing the new picnic basket Mother had packed for us (I told her I’d dropped the old one on some rocks, not flung it against a tree), a pair of sunglasses, and my wide-brimmed straw hat, I joined the others in the car, and we made our journey across the mountain to Jitters Gap.

  It was midmorning when we parked down the street from the Vellum house and settled in. The day was sunny and humid, and the car was hot. The coal-mining town seemed grubbier in the daylight, all the flaking paint, dirty windows, and missing shingles exposed. I wasn’t as frightened as I had been when we snooped the first time. Perhaps it was the time of day, or perhaps I’d just grown bolder. I don’t know.

  For a long time, we waited in silence. I stared out at the empty street, bored and listless, and was thrilled when I saw movement of any sort—though it was usually only a haggard housewife on her way to do laundry or shop at the market, or the milk-and-egg truck making its rounds. Eventually, we ate our picnic lunch of soggy sandwiches and warm lemonade, then waited some more.

  I thought about Jay and Ceola, and about Robbie. He was their bond, their connection, but he was stifling me. I tried to remember him more clearly, but all I could conjure was the stilted conversation we had at my birthday party two years earlier. There he was—floppy brown hair and delicate features, his hands spinning in little circles while he was speaking. The boys in school called him a sissy, but that’s not what I saw. He was mild and a bit rarified—not at all prepared for war and certainly not enthusiastic about enlisting. Perhaps he knew instinctually, cosmically, he wouldn’t be returning. That would explain his hell-may-care sprint into the lake.

  “Bunny,” Jay said. “Look!”

  Frank Vellum emerged from his house dressed in a light brown suit and a chocolate fedora. He was groomed and professional, as if he were on his way to a business deal, but his face was sharp like a hawk’s, all directive. He walked to his truck and started the engine, and we followed him into downtown Jitters Gap. He parked in front of Glade’s Dine-In, its dingy, stain-streaked chrome siding catching the morning sun, the reflected light harsh and dull. I parked across the street, and we watched him enter Glade’s, disappear for a moment, then reappear through the diner’s wide plate-glass windows. I could see the heads of other customers, bobbing and dipping as they chatted and ate; it was clearly a popular place. A few moments passed, and then we saw Frank, hat in hand, cross the diner and, with an air of determination and undue speed, head to a young man with blond hair. The man stood up, the two exchanged words but didn’t shake, and then they both sat again, vanishing behind the glare of the sunlight.