by JOAN HESSS
“The two police officers would like to speak to you,” I said, unimpressed by his emotionalism and dismayed by the knowledge Caron and I were stuck in Greedy Gulch for another forty-eight hours:
“They do? What about?” He moved toward me, his eyes narrowed. “I understand from Ellie that you disappeared in downtown LaRue this morning. I’d like to hope you didn’t go to the police station and try to persuade them to reconsider their report, Claire. It’d be like poking a hornets’ nest with a short stick.” He loomed over me until his face was inches from mine. “A real short stick.”
He brushed past me and went into the foyer. I listened to him slapping backs and welcoming the two, but I was too unnerved to follow immediately. Peter had warned me that if my instincts were wrong, I would stir up trouble—and if they were right, I’d put myself and Caron in danger. At that moment, I regretted possessing any instincts, except for those concerned with survival. They were likely to come in handy.
As I came to the doorway, Dewberry was saying, “I am sorry to have to disturb you all, but the captain wanted me to let you know what the acting coroner said in his report.”
Maxie nudged Pauline aside to vent her outrage on Dewberry. After a series of huffs and puffs that would have leveled a subdivision, she said, “Are you telling us that poor Miss Justicia was subjected to an autopsy?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said unhappily.
Puccoon attempted to save him. “But you’ll be comforted to know we had Fred Spies do it, rather than our regular coroner, on account of he was out of town visiting kinfolk in Mississippi. The regular coroner—not Fred.”
“And why are we to find comfort in that?” demanded Maxie, giving each word maximum impact.
“At least Fred’s an anesthesiologist Gordie’s…well, he’s what you might call an animal doctor.”
“A veterinarian? If this person had not been out of town, he would have conducted the autopsy on Miss Justicia?” Maxie sat down heavily on the bottom step and began to fan herself with her hand. “Pauline, see if there are smelling salts in the bathroom cabinet. I’m feeling quite dizzy.”
Pauline hesitated, then went upstairs.
“Why, Dewey,” said Stanford, “I must say I’m a might disappointed, particularly after our conversation last night, that you’d involve the coroner in this sad, sad business. I thought we’d agreed that a substantial donation to the police benevolent fund in Miss Justicia’s honor might suffice?”
“Cap’n Plantain didn’t see it that way, Mr. Stanford. He’s been in a bad mood since he started his sessions with a proctologist, and he ordered me to hunt up somebody to do the autopsy. None of us thought Spies would find anything. I didn’t think it would matter much, to tell the truth, and I’d like to let you know Cap’n Plantain says he’ll be most grateful for that donation you mentioned.”
Stanford stalked into the parlor. A bottle clinked against a glass as he said, “You tell Plantain I’ll send a check about ten minutes after the bayou freezes over. You can use it to buy yourselves some ice skates.”
Maxie struggled to her feet. “And what, Officer Dewberry, did this small-town doctor have to say about Miss Justicia Malloy, a leading lady of the parish for eighty years?”
“It wasn’t as bad as you think, ma’am,” he said, blanching under her beady gaze. “In fact, it’ll probably help you through this terrible time to know Miss Justicia didn’t suffer while drowning. Fred said in the report that the back of the wheelchair must have busted her on the head hard enough to crack her skull, which was as thin as parchment paper due to her advanced age and all. There wasn’t any water in her lungs.”
“‘Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,’” Pauline chanted from over the banister at the top of the stairs. With a giggle, she disappeared into the shadowy recesses of the hallway.
“She is still feeling the shock,” Maxie said in the ensuing silence.
Puccoon shook his head. “Most understandable. We’ll send you a copy of the report, but basically we can say the investigation is completed. You can commence with the funeral arrangements whenever you want.” He thrust a plastic bag at me. “We don’t need these anymore.”
I took the bag, which contained my white terry-cloth bedroom slippers. The mortal remains of them, anyway. Not only were they stained and muddy, they were also badly frayed, as if I’d shuffled through low-lying thorns. They were deserving of a few kind words and a decent burial, but in a trash can rather than a marble vault. “Thanks,” I said unenthusiastically.
“There was no indication of a heart attack?” came another voice from the top of the stairs. Ellie was leaning over the banister at a perilous angle.
“No, ma’am,” Dewberry said. “Just the one blow from the back of the wheelchair. The damn thing’s heavy enough to knock the socks off a full-sized man. It took us better than half an hour to drag it out of the water.”
“Thank heavens,” Maxie said, now recovered enough to light a cigarette and send a stream of smoke into Dewberry’s face. “I speak for all of us when I say it is a great comfort to know that Miss Justicia did not suffer the indignity of drowning in her own bayou. Don’t you agree, Stanford?”
“A great comfort,” he rumbled from the parlor.
She raised her voice but not her face. “And, Ellie, aren’t you heartened to know that your grandmother felt no moment of panic, and that it was over in a single moment?”
“Very heartened,” she answered.
“As am I,” Phoebe said from farther down the banister. “So is Cousin Pauline, who’s gone to lie down for a while.”
Maxie had found her rhythm. “And even you, Cousin Claire, must be relieved that you can put aside your silly ideas and join the family in our time of mutual grief and mourning.”
I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorsill. “Oh, absolutely, Cousin Maxie. Absolutely.”
The two officers might have intended to ask about the taxi driver, but this unified front was too much for them, and they left with a few mumbles. The rest of us stayed put like garden statuary.
At last, Maxie dropped her cigarette in a vase, and said, “I do believe I’ll lie down for a few minutes. Like poor Cousin Pauline, this whole thing has simply twisted me inside out and left me as limp as last night’s salad. I shall see you all in the parlor at four o’clock.” She began to ascend the stairs.
“What’s happening at four?” I asked.
She turned back, and her elevation allowed her to make it clear she was looking down at me in more ways than one. “Phoebe has arranged for Rodney Spikenard to come to Malloy Manor to provide us with information about the dispersal of the estate. You’re more than welcome to sit in on the discussion, but if you’d prefer to remain in your room, I’m sure none of us will object too strongly.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for all the fish in the refrigerator,” I said sweetly.
Shortly thereafter, I was alone in the foyer. I could hear clinks and curses in the parlor, but I would have crawled into Keith’s hole before I joined Stanford. The presence of Maxie, Ellie, Pauline, and Phoebe on the second floor made my bedroom seem less a haven.
It occurred to me that Caron had missed this latest familial meeting. I was till clutching the sack from the café, although its having been squashed, dragged through the dirt, toted all over LaRue, and even taken for a drive in a police car had diminished its visual appeal. On the other hand, it might be more edible than anything she might have encountered thus far.
I darted upstairs, tiptoed to our room, and ascertained that she was not there. I dropped the bag containing my bedroom slippers in a corner and went back down to the foyer. Yesterday Caron had vanished, and her story of wandering around the yard had not rung true. I finally went down the hallway to the dining room to see if she had materialized at the table.
Crumbs were scattered on the tablecloth, but the table itself had been cleared, and not even the ghost of Miss Justicia presided over it. In that Caron’s prime motivation
was self-gratification, I continued into the kitchen.
She was perched on a stool, listening to the cook with all the wide-eyed amazement of a child half her age. She must have suspected as much, because she sniffed at me and said, “I’ve decided to do a paper for social studies on the folklore of the region. This woman has been providing me with some of the more infamous legends.”
The cook stood in front of the sink, her hands buried in soapy water. “That’s right,” she murmured.
“Did you know, Mother,” Caron continued, “that this woman’s great-great-grandmother was a femme de couleur libre and was chosen at a quadroon ball by General Richmond Malloy to be his placée? Before the Civil War, she kept a boardinghouse in New Orleans, but afterward, during Reconstruction, she had to come back here and live in a shack on the bayou? Isn’t that the most tragic thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Except maybe getting herself murdered,” the cook inserted dryly.
“Well, yeah, that was pretty tragic, too.” Caron stuck out her lower lip just enough to warn me not to think for one second that she’d been giving serious attention to a ghost story.
I valued my winsome looks too much for that. “I’m sure your social studies teacher will be impressed.” I held out the sack. “Cheeseburger and fries, if you’re interested. They’ve had a few adventures in the last couple of hours, but—”
“Where have you been? You told me you were going into whatever that town is with Ellie, but then Ellie came back and said you’d just gone poof! I had to hang around this dreary place all morning, and there was absolutely nothing to eat. I thought I would faint. I Really Did!”
“Do it now,” I suggested. “Make my day.”
“I fixed her up just fine,” the cook said. “I made her some biscuits and a nice cheese omelet.”
The teary-eyed martyr realized her case was weakening. “But that wasn’t until nearly noon, Mother.”
I found a biscuit in a pan on the corner and began to nibble on it. The cook had finished with the dishes and was now scouring a pan. Although she appeared to be engrossed in her work, I figured she wasn’t so engrossed that she was missing a single word. To Caron, I said, “Last night at dinner, I learned of the existence of an uncle of yours. He was your father’s oldest brother and his name was Miller.”
“Be still my heart. Speaking of which, we don’t have to stay for Miss Justicia’s funeral just because she died while we were here, do we? I heard Uncle Stanford say he didn’t think it would be until Monday. I promised Inez I’d be back tomorrow afternoon. She’s supposed to find out if Rhonda and that other dumpy cheerleader are really having a pool party, or if they were just saying that so we’d feel left out.”
My masterful ploy was doing no better than Caron’s essayed claim to martyrdom. “We’ll have to stay for the funeral. It might be useful for your social studies report. I went out to the local cemetery, and—”
“Mother, didn’t you hear what I said? Rhonda told Inez that Louis Wilderberry and some of the other guys were coming to swim, but she didn’t know”—Caron switched to a simper—“if her mother would let her have anybody else.”
I gave it one last try. “I found Miller Malloy’s vault, and later learned from his obituary that he was a highly decorated hero during the first years of the Vietnam involvement.”
“It’s not like Rhonda’s mother cares how many guests she has. On her birthday, she must have had a hundred people. Now she says”—resorting to the simper—“that her mother doesn’t want too many kids around because she’s worried that some of them might start groping each other in the pool.” Caron’s cynical laugh was so polished that she must have practiced for hours before the bathroom mirror. “Barracudas wouldn’t touch Rhonda, even though she’s a floating chunk of cellulite. Her thighs jiggle when she walks.”
“We’re staying for the funeral,” I said. “Why don’t you call the airlines and see what flights we can get on in the middle of the afternoon on Monday?”
“I cannot believe you’re Doing This to me.” She slid off the stool and left the room, although her words of condemnation seemed to hover like a haze of acid rain.
The cook’s head was lowered, but her shoulders were twitching and portions of her body were jiggling just a bit. I took Caron’s seat and said, “I don’t suppose you’re old enough to remember Miller, are you?”
“Oh, I remember him. He was a year or two older than me, and he used to come by my grandpa’s grocery store and drink beer. I liked to see him out there on the porch. He’d prop his feet on the rail just like the old men, and listen to their stories. Always seemed to have his share of jokes to tell.”
“He hung out at this place when he was a teenager?”
She chuckled. “The store was real popular with the white boys, because they could buy beer. Some of ’em were smart-mouthed and meaner than gators, but Mr. Miller was always respectful.”
We were making progress, although at this point it could be measured in millimeters rather than in leaps and bounds. “But then he enlisted in the army,” I prompted her.
“In a manner of speaking.” She removed a dripping pan from the water and reached for another. “I should have soaked these last night,” she grumbled. “I knew better than to leave them, but I wanted to get away early. Now I’m paying the price for the sin of slothfulness, and I got nobody to blame but myself.”
I attempted to divert the digression. “Why in a manner of speaking? He did enlist, didn’t he? The draft wasn’t until 1968.”
She turned around and looked at me, not angrily but with a trace of coolness. “The truth is, Miz Malloy, my folks didn’t much mix with the white boys, partly because it wasn’t done and partly because we didn’t give a rat’s ass about ’em. We were more concerned with the poverty in our community, with the unemployment and piss-poor schoolhouse, with the occasional truck with drunken rednecks dressed in sheets. Mr. Miller bought beer from my grandpa, but not because of any deep friendship. He listened to the stories because he thought they were quaint. He sat on the porch late at night because he didn’t want to come back here and watch his family pretend they were living in middle of the nineteenth century, surrounded by loyal darkies singing spirituals by the light of the moon.”
Not for the first time in the last two days, I was at a loss for words. I wasn’t sure how I’d accomplished it, but somehow I’d managed to insult the woman. “I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “I was simply trying to get a picture of Miller. No one seems willing to talk about him, and I was beginning to wonder if he’d done something ghastly.”
“You want a picture of Mr. Miller? Go upstairs and look at the portrait of General Richmond Malloy. Mr. Miller was the spittin’ image of him.” She turned back and bent over the sink.
The conversation was over. I murmured a farewell and wandered back to the foyer, which was still unpopulated. There were no clinks from the parlor; Stanford either had departed or regained control of unsteady hands. No one peered over the banister from the second floor. No one scratched from inside the tiny closet.
Sunlight splashed through the narrow windows on either side of the front door, illuminating drifts of dust and exposing deep scratches on the hardwood floor. A fat fly settled on the lip of a vase and began to explore it; both of us were going in circles.
I heard a nervous laugh from behind the double doors of the library. It was difficult to imagine Caron enjoying a chat with an airline-reservations operator, but she was frantic enough to go home to have done what I’d asked her to do…for once. I went into the library and was not especially surprised to find Ellie on the telephone.
In contrast, she seemed very surprised to find me in the room. “Hold on,” she said, then covered the mouthpiece of the receiver with her hand. “It’s personal, if you don’t mind.” She hesitated, her forehead furrowing, and, as if in response to my nod, added, “I’m talking to my boyfriend in Atlanta. I promised him I’d call today.”
“Have you seen Caron?�
�
She shook her head and stared at me until I retreated, carefully closing the doors behind me. This time, I took a wicked pleasure in riding the elevator seat to the second floor. It lacked the exhilaration of a roller coaster, but in its staid way, it was modestly entertaining.
All the doors were closed. I found the portrait of General Malloy in his Confederate finery, but I doubted Miller Malloy was the “spittin’ image” of the old man with the dour face and button-popping belly. Maybe he would have become so, I thought as I went into our bedroom, but it would have required an additional forty years of overindulgence.
The bedroom and bathroom were empty. If I had unwittingly been invited to engage in a game of hide-and-seek, I was at a disadvantage, in that Caron had a half-hour’s head start on me. I looked out the window. The yard was a sea of weeks, bushes, and mossy branches, and the only activity came from indolent insects. The water of the bayou did not so much as ripple; if Caron had decided to follow Ophelia’s example, she’d left no telltale traces.
On this hot summer afternoon in the rural Deep South, it seemed as if everyone and everything had shut off. We weren’t talking slow motion; this was no motion. The urban areas weren’t gripped with this suffocating sense of lethargy, perhaps, but here, it was time to take to one’s bed with a fan and a glass of iced tea. In Miss Justicia’s case, it might well have been something more potent, but I could easily envision her on the plump mattress, plotting revisions in her will as she awaited the passing of the midday heat.
Resisting the urge to collapse on the bed, a victim of tradition, I took a shower and changed into clean clothes. Caron had not returned to further analyze the extent to which I had ruined her life forever. I was disappointed. Her flair for melodrama was rivaled only by her capacity for indignation, and even a recitation of Rhonda’s perfidy could have livened up what was closing in on me like a marble vault.