Letter From Home

by Carolyn Hart

  “Didn’t you have breakfast?” Gretchen’s voice was sharp. Why hadn’t the Bradys offered Barb anything to eat? And last night Barb had scarcely touched her dinner.

  Barb shook her head. “I left real early. I didn’t want to be there. I told them I’d promised to come back here for breakfast.”

  “Come on.” Gretchen hurried toward the kitchen, dropping Barb’s bag next to the sofa.

  The white curtains at the kitchen window were freshly washed and ironed. They fluttered in the gentle breeze. The drainboard was clean, the sink empty, the dish cloth draped over the faucet. The kitchen table was bare except for a plate of cinnamon rolls, covered with wax paper.

  Gretchen pointed at the plate of rolls. “I’ll get some milk and butter.” She brought a plate and silverware and the pitcher filled to the brim with fresh milk from Cousin Ernst and Cousin Hilda’s farm.

  Barb slipped into the chair, ate quickly. She didn’t speak. She looked sad and drained.

  Gretchen looked away. She knew she could make Barb feel better. She could tell Barb her father was safe, that he was hiding in the Purdy cabin. She could tell Barb that he had said he was innocent. Gretchen moved to the sink. She picked up the dish cloth, scrubbed at the clean sink. But if the police ever found out that Grandmother had gone to the cabin, that she knew where a wanted man was hiding, she would be in terrible trouble. They would question her and she would be frightened. Gretchen couldn’t do that to Grandmother, no matter how unhappy Barb was. It wasn’t—Gretchen struggled to understand a nebulous thought—Grandmother’s fault that Mr. Tatum had run away.

  “. . . Gretchen? Won’t you help me?” Barb’s voice was uncertain. “Of course if you don’t want to . . .”

  Gretchen jerked around. “What did you say? I was scrubbing”—she held up the dish cloth—“and I didn’t hear you.”

  Barb got up. She picked up her plate and glass, came to the sink. She avoided looking at Gretchen. “You said the chief wants me to look through my house, see if anything’s missing. Will you come in the house with me?”

  “Sure.” Gretchen took the plate and silverware, turned on the water. She busied herself with the small wash. This was what Mr. Dennis had wanted. Gretchen wished she didn’t feel as if she were cheating Barb. After all, Barb needed someone with her. But didn’t she have a right to know that Gretchen would be there for the Gazette too?

  Gretchen squeezed the dish cloth. Fair was fair. And somehow, she thought Mr. Dennis would understand if Barb said no. Gretchen slowly turned. “Barb, listen, I don’t mind going with you. But whatever the chief finds, I’ll have to write a story about it for the Gazette.” There. She’d probably lost her chance to get a good story. But now she didn’t have a sick feeling in her stomach.

  Barb’s shoulders lifted, fell. “Everything else is in the paper.” Her mouth twisted. “Why not that? I don’t care. And besides, I don’t think it will amount to anything.” Her gaze burned into Gretchen’s. “It wasn’t Daddy. I know it wasn’t Daddy.”

  THE OLD GREEN Packard rumbled into the Tatum drive. Gretchen and Barb stood near the front steps. It was already hot. Today would be a scorcher, likely reaching a hundred by afternoon. Cicadas whirred.

  Chief Fraser walked slowly, his boots striking up little puffs of dust from the dry ground. Barb waited, her face bleak. Crows cawed, lifting in a black swarm from the elm tree nearest the house. The Kaufmans’ German shepherd barked, lunging against his chain.

  “’Morning, Miss Barb, Miss Gretchen. Appreciate your help.” He held a tagged key in his right hand. “You know about last night, Miss Barb?” He tilted his big head to one side, looked at her with somber eyes.

  “Gretchen said somebody broke in.” Barb glanced toward the closed front door. “Do you know who it was?”

  “No. But maybe we’ll figure something out when we look around inside.” The chief moved past them. He banged back the screen, unlocked the front door, held it open.

  Barb gripped Gretchen’s arm, her fingernails sharp as little knives. They stepped into the living room. Chief Fraser clicked on the light. Barb leaned against Gretchen and turned her face away from the center of the room where they’d found her mother’s body. Gretchen couldn’t pull her eyes away from the rumpled rug. They’d taken Mrs. Tatum away, but no one had straightened the rug. The house was hot and still with all the windows shut. There was a faint smell of paint and turpentine and a lingering scent of old tobacco smoke.

  “Miss Barb,” Chief Fraser said briskly, “please look around the room. Do you see anything missing, anything out of place?”

  Barb stepped away from Gretchen. She folded her arms tight across her front. Her gaze moved from the easy chairs to the fireplace. Silver candlesticks flanked a pink Dresden china clock on the white mantel. A small green hat with an orange feather dangled from one candlestick. Two balls of yarn were tucked next to the clock.

  The coffee table was just as it had been when Gretchen stopped by the house on Tuesday afternoon, magazines in a disorderly stack, the open box of graham crackers, the overflowing ashtray, the bottles of nail polish and used cotton balls.

  “Nothing’s changed.” Barb took a deep breath.

  The chief led the way to the narrow hall. “This first room . . .” He looked at Barb inquiringly.

  “Mama and Daddy’s room.” Barb walked slowly inside. Chief Fraser was close behind.

  Gretchen stood in the doorway. The bed was unmade. A cotton nightgown was tossed over a rocking chair. Faye’s clothing lay on chairs, hung from the bedpost, poked from open drawers.

  “Were her things usually strewn around?” Chief Fraser frowned at the disarray.

  Barb fingered the lace edge to the collar of a blouse. “Mama was always in a hurry. There was never enough time to do everything she wanted to do. She wanted to be with people, me or Daddy or friends, and talk and laugh. Or she wanted to paint. Clothes”—Barb waved her hand—“she’d straighten everything up every so often and she’d be real proud of how tidy it was—and then the next minute she’d toss something down and not give it a thought.”

  “So I guess there’s no way to tell if anybody looked for something.” He rubbed his face. “Though what in time anybody’d look for, I don’t know.”

  Barb pointed across the room. “Look! There’s Daddy’s duffel bag.” The brown bag lay in a heap on the floor next to the closet. “And there on the dresser”—she ran across the room—“there’s his hairbrush and comb. So it wasn’t Daddy who came. He’d take his things, wouldn’t he?”

  The chief frowned. “You’d think so, if it was him. But tell me this, Miss Barb, where’s your daddy’s gun? Where does he keep it?”

  Barb turned to the closet. The door stood open. She stepped inside and reached up on the shelf. “He keeps it up here. . . .” She paused, stood on tiptoe, swept her hand back and forth. “Why, it’s gone. Daddy’s gun is gone!”

  . . . I got a cot out of the shed and set it up back in the woods. I thought Daddy might come home, but I couldn’t make myself stay in the house. I didn’t think I’d fall asleep but I did. A shot woke me up. I climbed a big cottonwood. Flashlights swung everywhere. One swept toward the trees. I saw a man in dark clothes running on the path to Creek Road. I couldn’t tell who it was. I didn’t come out. I didn’t want to tell what I’d seen. I mean, it could have been Daddy. I didn’t know. I snuck up and heard everything the police said. That’s why I came to your house in the morning. Anyway, I’d told Amelia I was staying with you. When the chief came and we went to my house, I couldn’t believe it when I looked in the closet and Daddy’s gun was gone. . . .

  CHAPTER 6

  . . . AND FELT FOR a shining incalculable instant that Grandmother was beside me, her faith and goodness a bastion and a beacon. The feeling passed and I was alone in the chill world of the dead, surrounded by souls, jostled by memories. The last time Mother came home, we didn’t bring flowers for Daddy. I’d resented it then. How hard-hearted I’d been. I’d not realized, nev
er for a moment recognized, that Mother was still young that summer day in 1944. So very young. In her late thirties, impulsive, open to emotion, ready for laughter and love and happy days. Shiny blond hair frizzed around her eager bony face. She moved fast. She was too thin, as if her energy and enthusiasm had refined her body to a minimum of flesh. She loved bright colors. Pink and purple were her favorites. To me, she always appeared elegant and stylish. I would never forget the yearning look . . .

  THE TELETYPE CLATTERED. Gretchen worked fast, sorting the stories, the continuing siege at Cherbourg, updated casualty figures from Saipan, Red troops at Viborg, V-1 rocket attacks in London, U.S. bombers hitting robot roosts in Pas de Calais, the signing of the G.I. Bill. It was already hot in the newsroom. The ceiling fans creaked, stirring the steamy air. Ralph Cooley, his hat tipped to the back of his head, a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, sat hunched at his typewriter. His wrinkled suit coat hung from the back of his chair. He had a pack of cigarettes tucked in the pocket of his short-sleeve white shirt. Mr. Dennis stood behind him, round face puckered in a frown beneath a green eyeshade, pipe clenched in his teeth, arms folded.

  “. . . the chief won’t say Tatum’s armed and dangerous, but hell”—Cooley’s bony shoulders rose and fell—“anybody can figure it out. Holliman admits he didn’t see much. He heard a noise from inside the house and went up to the back porch to take a look. Somebody came busting out the kitchen door and whammed him on the head. Holliman said he thought he was a dead man because his head hurt like hell and he heard a shot and smelled the gunpowder. The chief thinks whoever it was”—Cooley drawled the indefinite phrase—“Bugs Bunny maybe”—the reporter gave a snort of laughter—“cracked Holliman on the head with a gun and the gun went off. So . . .” Cooley’s tone was mildly regretful. “It doesn’t look like Tatum tried to shoot Holliman. Anyway, with what she got this morning”—Cooley jerked his head toward Gretchen—“it seems pretty clear the gun belongs to Tatum. I mean, we got a gun going off and Tatum’s gun is missing from his house. One plus one . . .”

  Mr. Dennis took his pipe, held a match to the tobacco, drew hard. “The chief says an unidentified prowler broke into the house and a gun appears to be missing.”

  Cooley swiveled his chair, looked up at the editor. “So—” It was a challenge. “What’s the chief thinking? Some stranger broke in and went straight to the place Clyde kept his gun?”

  Mr. Dennis puffed on his pipe. “You got a gun, Ralph?”

  Cooley looked startled. “Me? Hell, no. Damn things go off.”

  The editor’s eyes glinted with disdain. “A lot of people do. Including me. You know where I keep my gun? On the shelf in the closet of the bedroom. Unless you live on Hickory Hill . . .”

  The town’s big houses sat on the crest of a wooded hill.

  “. . . and have a gun room with racks or a case, you keep your gun on a high shelf in the closet, away from the kids.”

  Cooley’s eyebrows shot up. “So Bugs Bunny decides he needs a gun and why not try the Tatum house?”

  “Shit.” Mr. Dennis turned away, walked to his desk.

  “Face it, Walt.” Cooley’s raspy voice was a taunt. “Your Boy Scout is looking for trouble. If I were the guy who was screw—” Cooley glanced toward Gretchen and continued, “fooling with Faye, I’d get the hell out of town for now. Anyway, I’ve got a quote from the sheriff.” Cooley cleared his throat.“‘Sheriff Paul Moore Thursday advised county residents that fugitive from justice Sgt. Clyde Tatum, wanted for questioning in the murder of his wife, is believed to be armed and dangerous.’” Cooley took a deep puff on his cigarette. “And that’s my lead.”

  JESSOP’S FIVE AND Dime at the corner of Main and Crawford was four doors down from Victory Café. Gilt gingerbread topped the brick wall above the plate glass windows. The fire engine red entrance framed double doors. Gretchen pushed inside. The coffee shop counter with six leatherette swivel seats was on the left. The menu included hamburgers (the ground beef mixed with oatmeal to stretch the meat), grilled cheese sandwiches, and soups. Everybody knew the food couldn’t compare to Victory Café’s. Shelving filled the middle of the store. Glass-topped counters ran along the wall to Gretchen’s right and the rear wall. Jessop’s sold cosmetics, utensils, dishes, toys, jewelry, fine candies, everything that wasn’t carried at Thompson’s Drugs or Miller’s Hardware.

  Gretchen said good morning to Mrs. Jessop, who taught the junior high Sunday school class, and hurried down the central aisle. The jewelry counter was at the back. Lucille Winters wiped a cloth reeking of ammonia on the glass above the watch display. She looked up at Gretchen’s quick steps on the wooden floor. Lucille’s dark hair swept up in a high pompadour above a broad, open face, the cheeks bright with rouge. Big dark eyes, the lashes loaded with mascara, widened. “Oh, Gretchen,” she cried. “You were with Barb when she found her mama. Was it awful?” She peeked past Gretchen’s shoulder, gestured for Gretchen to come close, and whispered, “Mrs. Jessop doesn’t want us to talk about it. I’ve felt so bad ever since I heard. How is Barb?”

  Gretchen came close to the case, which was filled with Benrus and Orvin watches. She carefully didn’t lean on the sparkling glass top though she bent near and spoke softly. “Sad. Scared. Worried about her dad. Furious over what they’re saying about her mom. That’s why I came to see you. I want to write a story about what Mrs. Tatum was really like.”

  Lucille put down the cloth. She reached down, opened the back of the case, picked up a tray of lapel watches. “Pretend you’re looking. Mrs. Jessop’s coming this way.” She unloosed a bow knot-style pin with the small watch dangling. “This is ten-carat rolled gold plate. It would be lovely for your mother. Is this what you’re looking for?”

  The floor creaked. Mrs. Jessop’s heavy steps came near, turned away. Her broad back in a stiff gray dress made Gretchen think of a battleship in the newsreels, overpowering, unstoppable, unyielding.

  Lucille’s fingers closed around the watch. “Mrs. Jessop said we wouldn’t mention Faye again. She said, ‘That kind of woman deserves what she gets,’” the clerk whispered. “None of it’s true. About Faye and another man. I know it’s not. Faye and I had a lot of time to talk.” She studied Gretchen. “You wouldn’t know . . . not yet . . . when you’re older you’ll understand. Women talk about men. Especially when a man is gone. Faye was crazy about Clyde. It was the way she said his name, the way she talked about him coming home and how they’d—” Her eyes fell. She opened her hand, carefully replaced the watch in the tray. She glanced around, checking for Mrs. Jessop, “Listen, it may get me in trouble. If you put it in the paper, she’ll know we were talking about Faye and she’ll say I was on company time. But I don’t care. I’ve been thinking about going to Tulsa. They’re always looking for somebody at the Douglas plant. Anyway, I’ll speak up for Faye and look everybody in the eye. I tell you, she loved Clyde and nobody else. Here’s what she told me and everybody who wants to think she was a bad woman can just put this in their pipe and smoke it. . . .”

  Shielding the fan of copy paper with her body, just in case Mrs. Jessop looked toward them, Gretchen wrote as fast as she could.

  JIM DAN PULLIAM rolled the tire toward the jacked-up car. He moved with muscular grace. Smears of oil streaked his hands and lower arms. The sleeves of his tee shirt were rolled to the shoulder. The thick mat of golden hairs on his arms glistened in the noon sun. His jeans hung low on his hips. He squatted and bounced the tire on the axle. As he slapped on the lug nuts with easy familiarity, he used the back of his hand to wipe sweat from his face, leaving an arrowhead-shaped splotch of black on one cheek. “Barb said her mother thought I was the best?” His voice was soft and he darted a shy look at Gretchen.

  Grasshoppers buzzed in the waist-high weeds behind the rutted, oil-stained patch of ground. Gretchen was intensely aware of Jim Dan, of his nearness, the smoky blue of his eyes, the thick tangle of chestnut hair that fell across his forehead, the way his jeans clung to his body. Sh
e dropped her eyes to the fan of copy paper. “Yes.” Her answer seemed to come from a far distance. “Barb said her mother was sure you’d be an artist. A wonderful artist.” She pushed away the sensations that had taken her by such surprise. She would think about them another time. Jim Dan, Tommy . . . Right now she needed to find out about Faye Tatum. She held fast to that thought, listened to Jim Dan’s tentative, gentle voice.

  “. . . she never laughed at anybody.” He picked up a wrench, tightened the nuts, one by one. “I mean, it was funny, she laughed a lot but when she looked at your work, she was serious as she could be. Funny thing is, I was in a lot of trouble at school but she didn’t care about that. She . . .”

  Gretchen nodded, her pencil flying.

  COUSIN HILDA SLAPPED tuna fish salad on thick white bread. Tall, angular, her steel gray hair drawn back in a skintight bun, she moved in quick jerks, her stiffly starched apron crackling. “I sent Lotte home and I put a sign out front: SANDWICHES TODAY. Chips and pickles.” Her thin voice was as remote as a dove’s cry. “I brought in four quarts of my own bread-and-butter pickles.” She used the wooden spoon to point at the long line of bread. “Tuna fish. Chicken salad. Egg salad. Bacon, lettuce, tomato. And plenty good enough, I say. I’ll thank you to see about the coffee and tea and take orders. That Mrs. Perkins is slower than a sinner coming to the altar. Too busy listening to everybody talk, if you ask me. Tried to tell me about Faye Tatum’s fingernails and I shut her up pretty quick, I can tell you. Do I want to know about things like that?” Her pale green eyes bulged, her lips pursed. “Now let me see . . . Lordy, that bacon’s crisp as peanut brittle. . . .”

  Gretchen checked the first order clipped to the line, swiftly fixed three plates. She loaded the tray. When she pushed through the door, Mrs. Perkins bustled toward her. “Gretchen, is Lotte all right? That woman”—she jerked her head toward the kitchen—“came in here like a Sherman tank and first thing I know, Lotte’s gone home and I’m supposed to race around like a greyhound and every time I open my mouth she shuts me up.”