by Jana Zinser
The next morning, as the sun rose over the railroad tracks, Maggie called Ivy and told her through tears about the brutal murder of King, hung from his beloved mulberry tree with a rope around his neck. The great purple dog had met an undignified death.
Ivy called Nick and they hurried over to Maggie’s house.
Otis reported King’s murder to the deputy sheriff, but Charlie refused to investigate the dog’s death. Charlie said that if no one saw it, nothing could be done.
“Weston Thrasher did it. There’s no doubt about it. No one else could be that mean,” said Ivy as they all sat around the Norton’s kitchen table.
“You’re right. We’ve got to do something. We can’t let him get away with this.” Nick said with his head in his hands.
“I understand how you feel.” Otis rubbed his chin. “Uh huh. I certainly do. But the death of an old dog belonging to a black family will never stand as an excuse for revenge against the banker’s son. I understand the helpless feeling. But if you do something to Weston, it’ll be blamed on us. Our family will suffer even more. The score’ll never be even,”
“But it’s not right,” said Maggie.
Nick pounded the yellow Formica kitchen table. “It’s time somebody taught him a lesson.”
Pinky wrung her hands like a dishrag. “That Thrasher boy is dangerous. He’s got no limits.”
Otis put his arm around his petite wife.
Nick gritted his teeth. “What we need is some dog justice. Someday all the dogs and cats in Coffey are going to turn on Weston.”
Otis shook his head. “King was a good dog, and we loved him for a long time. But I don’t want anybody getting hurt over this. This can’t go any farther. King’s gone and there’s nothing we can do about that. Why don’t you kids go dig a grave in the field by the railroad tracks and bury him? Then go on home and try to forget this happened.”
Ivy knew they would never be able to forget. Maggie’s shoulders slumped as she walked out the kitchen door and kneeled beside the lifeless dog. Ivy and Nick followed her. Maggie stroked the dog’s head and buried her face in his fur.
“King never cared what color anybody’s skin was,” Maggie sobbed.
Ivy put her arm around Maggie.
Nick dug a hole down by the railroad tracks. Then he picked up King and carried him to his final resting place. When he had finished shoveling dirt on King’s grave, Nick threw back his head and raised his arms. He howled like a dog in mortal anguish, a final tribute to the great purple dog.
When she got home, Ivy’ anger expanded until she thought she would explode. She borrowed Grandma’s old Dodge Dart and drove out to the Thrasher’s farm. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the steering wheel. Her head pounded, like hail on a roof during an unexpected spring storm.
She found Weston sitting in the big white car in the barn next to the farmhouse with smoke wafting out the window. Weston used to spend his afternoons fiddling with the old car or playing basketball on the hoop nailed to the barn, but all he did now was smoke weed that he grew in a secret spot in the woods.
Ivy marched toward Weston. She kicked a basketball lying on the barn floor and it hit the wheel of the car. Weston sat up in the front seat and turned to her.
“What do you want?”
She fingered her heart necklace with one hand, while the other made a fist at her side. “Listen, Weston. Don’t think you got away with killing King. I know you did it.”
Weston shifted his weight. His long hair hung down in front of his face. “Prove it. Nobody saw me.”
Ivy took a step toward him. “Why do you hate Maggie so much?”
Weston took another drag. “I didn’t do it because I hate Maggie and her stupid mutt. I did it because I hate you. But you don’t have a dog.”
A cold charge swept through Ivy. “Me?” She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “You killed King because of me?”
Weston rolled his eyes. “Duh.”
“What have I ever done to you?” Her fingernails dug into her palms. “How would you feel if someone killed something you loved?”
For a moment Ivy recognized some trace of human feeling in Weston’s eyes, but then it dimmed and flickered out. Nothing could ever touch Weston Thrasher’s heart.
“There’s nothing left to take.” Weston’s eyes narrowed accusingly at Ivy. He stared at her with vacant, hazy eyes as the smoke swirled around his head. Grandma was right. Weston’s soul floated somewhere outside the boundaries of this world. “There’s something seriously wrong with you,” Ivy said.
Weston got out of the car. “You always act like you’re so special, but you’re not. Your mother left you behind.”
Ivy put her hands on her hips. A torrent of anger surged inside her. “My mother didn’t have a choice. She died, just like your mother.”
Weston spat on the ground with hatred in his eyes. “Ivy, you’re so stupid. People have been lying to you all your life. Your mother’s not dead. She just didn’t want you.”
Blood rushed to Ivy’s head, and the tempest brewing in her heart for years began to rage. “That’s not true. Anyway, your mother didn’t drown. Your father murdered her.” Ivy stood stunned for a moment by her own cruelty. Then she turned and fled out of the barn.
Weston’s words echoed inside Ivy’s head, like words shouted in a rock quarry. Could he be right? Her mother’s death notification was missing from Dr. Kelsey’s medical files and Grandma didn’t know where she was buried. Could her mother still be alive?
Luther had been right about the dead talking through their gravestones. Maybe he was right about the death records at the county courthouse, too.
Chapter 23
THE RAIN STOPPED
The late afternoon sun felt good on her face as Ivy crossed Main Street and entered the county courthouse on the town square. Ruth waved to Ivy as she entered.
“Hey, Ivy, what’s going on?”
“I need copies of my parents’ death records.”
Ruth tapped her hands on the counter. “Sure. Listen, Ivy, I’m sorry you didn’t get to go to Europe. I should have kept my big mouth shut about your uncle’s knee surgery.”
“It’s okay. There’s plenty of time. What’s a few weeks?”
Ruth patted Ivy’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”
A few minutes later, Ruth returned, shaking her head. Her heels clicked against the black and white tile floor. “Here’s your father’s file, but I couldn’t find one for your mother.”
Ivy’s heart raced. She broke out in a cold sweat. “How come?”
“I don’t know. Could be misfiled. Particularly since it was so long ago.”
“She died in the accident with my father, and you’ve got his.” Ivy played with her silver heart necklace, running it back and forth along its chain. Goosebumps crept along her skin. Luther was right—sometimes what was missing was more important than what was there.
“This whole thing doesn’t make any sense.”
Ivy glanced at the death certificate, signed by Dr. Kelsey. It was the same as the one in her father’s medical file at the clinic. Ruth looked around.
“You know, accident reports are filed in the sheriff’s office.”
“That’s a good idea. Thanks, Ruth,” said Ivy, but she knew Charlie would never show her the report. She’d seen his padlocked file cabinet.
Ivy walked out of the courthouse and paused for a moment at the top of the steps. Across the street, Bertha and Edna Jean stood close together talking outside the library. Bertha knew everybody’s business. She loved to talk. Ivy stopped at the bottom of the step. Bertha. She’d ask Bertha. Bertha would know what happened the night of the accident and if her mother was still alive.
Early the next morning as Uncle Walter was delivering his Saturday mail route, Ivy knocked on the door of Bertha Tuttle’s trailer. The town gossip opened her door wearing a leopard-print robe and black bristly curlers in her hair. The angle of the plastic picks in the curlers gave the illusi
on that they were sticking straight into her head.
“What do you want? Did you come by to see my nose stuck to the window?”
Ivy couldn’t help but glance at Bertha’s round nose. “I just wanted to talk to you for a minute.”
Bertha opened the door and waved Ivy toward a chair. “Since you’re here, you might as well come in. I could use the company.”
Ivy sat down. “Bertha, I need to know what happened the night of my parents’ accident. I know you know something.”
Without her usual mask of makeup, Bertha’s face had lost its clownish-plastic severity and almost looked pleasant. She took out her curlers and lined them up in a neat row on the table next to the couch.
“Well, that was a long time ago,” she said, running her fingers through her dyed red hair.
Ivy took a deep breath. “There was no obituary in the paper and there’s no death record for my mother at the courthouse.” She fingered the lace doily on the arm of the chair and noticed her hands trembled. “What really happened to my mother?”
Bertha sighed deeply. She leaned back in her chair. “There wasn’t an obituary or a death record for your mother because your father was alone in that car when it crashed. Your mother didn’t die.”
Ivy jumped up. “I knew it!”
Bertha held up her hands. “Now, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. But I figure you should know. Don’t tell anyone or I’ll be run out of town.”
Ivy sat back down on the edge of the chair. “My family’s good at keeping secrets. I won’t tell.” Her mind raced with questions. “So, what really happened?”
Bertha adjusted her cat-eye glasses. “It was a rainy night. You know the kind of cold when the rain freezes as it hits the ground. Your mother was on the bench outside the Coffey Shop, waiting for the 9:18 Greyhound bus going north.”
Ivy gasped. “Rosie was right.”
“What?”
“Nothing. How do you know all this?”
“I lived in the apartment above the Coffey Shop with my husband before he left me for that dime-store tramp. The same apartment Russell lives in now that overlooks the street. It was a really dark night with the heavy rain and all. We could hear your mother hollering when your father pulled up. She said that she needed to get out of Coffey that night. It was a matter of life or death.”
Ivy gripped the arms of the well-worn chair. “So, my mother got on the bus?”
Bertha pulled at the stiff round humps of hair left from the curlers. “When the Greyhound came, she left your father standing there in the rain without so much as a howdy-do. She followed another passenger on board. Your father got back in his car and sped after the bus. But that’s all I know.”
“Why won’t anyone talk about it?”
Bertha leaned forward. “Your grandma knows a lot of secrets around here. She can be very persuasive.” Her voice changed to a whisper, and she put a finger to her mouth. “It was all very hush-hush. I guess she thought she was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“Well, from your mother, I guess.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Ivy pushed her hair behind her ears. “Why are you telling me now?”
Bertha bit her lip and looked over the top of her cat-eye glasses. “I guess because, although you were a sassy little girl, I know what it’s like to be left behind.”
Ivy stood up, and her legs quivered. Bertha had given Ivy back her mother. Ivy hesitated, then she hugged Bertha. Her robe smelled faintly of cheap perfume and pancakes.
Bertha grabbed Ivy’s shoulders. “Listen, Ivy, if you’ve got a notion to try and find your mother, you’d better think twice. I’ve seen what it can do when you hang onto useless hope. Edna Jean’s hair never grew back after her boyfriend ran away with her best friend. Your mother’s been gone a long time. People usually leave for a reason. Some people don’t want to be found.”
“She’ll want to see me, I know. She may not be perfect but she’s my mother. Nothing can change that.” Ivy reached out and held Bertha’s hands. “Thanks, Bertha. Listen, I’m really sorry about the nose thing.”
Bertha cleared her throat. “That’s okay. I’m by myself a lot and sometimes I’m just curious.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
Grandma was sitting on the back porch when Ivy got home.
“I’m glad you’re here. Luther needs you to help him unload Rosie’s winter wood.”
“Isn’t it time you stopped bossing me around and let me make my own decisions? You don’t always know what’s best for me.”
Ivy stomped off with Grandma looking after her with a confused expression on her face. Ivy paced her room in agitated frustration for a while, then she put on her sweats and jogged out to the old hermit lady’s place to meet Luther like Grandma had asked. The run calmed her down and she thought maybe that was what the fast night-walking did for Nick’s mother, Ellen.
As Ivy jogged toward Rosie’s house, she saw a dark cloud of smoke. Why would she have a fire in the summer? As she got closer, she saw smoke billowing out of Rosie’s tiny windows. Ivy sprinted to the front door and pounded on it.
“Miss Rosie, are you in there? Rosie?”
A flash of movement caught her eye. She turned around to see Weston creeping around the back of Rosie’s ramshackle house. Rosie suddenly opened her door and the wild dogs ran out of the shack, growling and slinking low to the ground. They knew Weston’s smell.
He stepped back as the dogs approached. In his hand was a twisted rag wrapped around a large stick. He flicked his lighter under the rag until it blazed. The dogs stopped their pursuit, barking at the flames in front of them.
Ivy came up behind them. “You did this, didn’t you?”
The smell of gasoline and rotting trash filled the air.
“No. I was just trying to help but these dogs wouldn’t let me.” Weston turned around and pointed the homemade torch at Ivy’s face. “I wonder if Poison Ivy burns.” Weston laughed and taunted her with the burning rag.
Luther’s truck sputtered into Rosie’s overgrown driveway with the back filled with winter wood. The truck door slammed.
“Luther, it’s Weston! I think he set Miss Rosie’s house on fire,” Ivy said.
Luther’s footsteps crunched the dry leaves and brush as he ran across the yard. He grabbed his hammer, Old Dan Tucker, from his tool belt. “Put that down, Weston.”
“Right, Gomer.”
Luther threw the hammer. It sailed in a spinning arc and knocked Weston’s burning torch to the ground. Ivy kicked dirt on the torch and it went out. Behind them, the trash in Rosie’s house fueled the smoldering fire and another blaze ignited. Standing in the doorway, Rosie’s raggedy skirt caught on fire. She rushed out of the house beating the flames with her hands. A few of Rosie’s dogs circled her, barking at the fire but unable to help.
Weston froze for a second before he sprinted through the woods toward his house and the safety of his father.
Luther took off his brown leather bomber jacket and flung it over Rosie as he pushed her to the ground.
“Roll, Rosie. Roll.”
Rosie rolled across her dirt yard, scratched bare from her animals. Ivy and Luther ran beside her. Rosie rolled to a stop when she hit the old tree stump. With a dazed look in her eyes, she lay panting as her clothing smoked.
Ivy reached out and pulled Rosie to her feet. She was remarkably light. Rosie swayed, still disoriented and bewildered. She poked her tangled hair with her stubby fingers.
“My family needs me.”
She turned and ran back into the burning shack to rescue her remaining dogs and cats from the fire blocking their escape.
“No, Miss Rosie!” Ivy called, as she reached out to stop her but Rosie, surprisingly agile, headed straight into the smoke and flames of her house. She appeared at the doorway every few seconds with another dog or cat in her arms. Luther and Ivy helped pull the animals to safety. But Rosie’s rescue attempt seemed en
dless.
Luther cupped his hands and yelled. “Rosie, come on out of there. You’ve done all you can.”
“I’ve got to save my babies,” she insisted and the fire raged behind her.
The town of Coffey didn’t have enough funds or enough fires to warrant a full-time paid fire department. But when a fire was reported, a low-pitched constant horn echoed across town, different in tone and pattern from the tornado siren.
The volunteer firefighters gathered at the fire station in response to the alarm. The location of the fire was written on a large blackboard hanging outside the station. Anyone could just check the blackboard to find out where the fire burned.
Ivy greeted the volunteer fire brigade at Rosie’s shack. They told her that Reuben had called in the fire, but by the time they got there, it was too late to save Rosie.
Charlie eventually showed up to investigate the arson, but Ivy knew Weston would not be prosecuted. There were, after all, no witnesses to speak against Weston’s lies and she hadn’t actually seen him light Rosie’s house on fire.
The firemen’s heavy spray of water put the fire out. They checked the smoldering remains of Rosie’s shack and then went home.
Luther stared at the charred house. “Everyone should have the right to die the way they want, I reckon.” He bent down and picked up his bomber jacket burned through in places from Rosie’s flames. He shook it and held it up, peering through a charred hole in the back. He shrugged and put it back on.
Dr. Kelsey arrived in his station wagon to place Rosie’s burned remains in a black zippered body bag and take her back to the clinic to make his coroner’s report.
Ivy helped Luther lift Rosie’s dogs and cats into the back of his pickup. The animals rode on top of the stacks of wood that Luther never got to unload.
“Get in. I’ll give you a lift home,” Luther said to Ivy.
His rusted pickup sputtered to a stop in Ivy’s driveway as the dogs barked frantically in the back of the truck. Ivy got out and walked around to Luther’s door. “You did good tonight.”