Morgan James - Promise McNeal 02 - Quiet Killing (13 page)

As I was hitting the off button, Brooks was saying, “See, that’s what I mean. You
are
in the throes of a serious midlife crisis. You’d
never
stand on your porch in Atlanta in your underwear.”

12

Susan took the porch steps two at a time and wrapped me in a bear hug. Her-six foot tall frame, plus the high-heeled boots she was wearing, meeting my five-foot-four meant my face was buried in a scratchy black waistcoat, and my chest poked by a wide silver belt buckle. “Mac called me. This is terrible, just terrible. Are you okay?” She released me and stepped back to look me over. “Oh my Lord, why are you standing out here in your underwear?”

“I took off my clothes out here to put them in a garbage bag. I’m okay. Just shaken up.” I had to ask. “Why are you wearing a mustache, and dressed like a pirate?”

“Oh this.” She reached up and pealed the black hair from her upper lip, leaving a pink abrasion behind. Ouch. That must have hurt. “I was at rehearsal. The Perry County Arts Council is doing The Pirates of Penzance…you know, Gilbert and Sullivan. Kind of a late 1800s Monty Python stick. Great parody.”

“Yes, I know. Your dad loves the music. Strange. A bluegrass fiddle player humming operetta tunes.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. But he does love the music. That’s why when the guy playing Frederic crapped out on them, I said I’d do it. Daddy’s going to hoot in the aisle when he sees me up there singing and dancing around as a pirate guy.”

No doubt Daniel would get a charge from Susan’s antics on stage. He adored everything she did, and I adored the fact that he did. She took off her jacket and wrapped it around my bare shoulders. I was lost in coarse boiled wool, gold braided sleeves hanging limp at my fingertips, and just a hint of a mothball fragrance. “Come on inside. It must be fifty degrees out here. I’ll start a fire for you.”

When I got out of the shower, Susan had changed into a pair of dark purple overalls. She had a fire going and was stirring something wonderfully garlic- smelling at the stove. “You always carry a change of clothes in your Jeep?”

“Yep.”

“Me too. You never know. Do you?”

“That’s for sure.” She handed me a glass of white wine and pointed to a kitchen chair. “Sit. Drink. I’m making you some veggies and pasta.”

“You really don’t have to do that. I could warm up some of the squash soup you made. It was delicious, by the way.”

“Yeah. That did turn out pretty good.” Tossing the mushrooms, onions, and zucchini in the hot olive oil, Susan chatted on. “Got to do this gently. Don’t want
to bruise the vegetables. I love to cook. I think I love cooking better than anything else I do.”

“Not better than singing and playing the banjo?”

“Well, probably not. But my music is like breathing to me. It’s another part of me, like my toes, or whatever, so it’s not really something I
do
. It’s me.” She turned away from the stove and pointed at me with her spatula. “Speaking of bruises. I guess you know you got a beauty creeping from your hairline to your eyebrow.”

My hand went up involuntarily to touch the tender spot over my left eye. “Yeah. I saw it in the bathroom mirror.” We sat in silence. I knew Susan wouldn’t press me to tell her what happened. She’d give me time to accumulate the courage. That’s one of the things I love about her.

Later, after the pasta was eaten, Alfie was fed, and the cats’ bowl was topped off, I poured my third glass of wine, and we moved into the great room where the fire promised warmth and security. I couldn’t help but think about the stone chimney on January’s mountain. “I found January McNeal’s cabin today.”

Firelight flecked in Susan’s eyes. “You did? That is totally awesome. It is still livable?”

“Only if you are a snake. It’s mostly in ruins. Burned down. Blackberries growing where the floor used to be. But the stone chimney is upright, charred, but upright.”

“Could you feel your kinfolk still there?”

I closed my eyes, concentrating on what I’d sensed up on the mountain before the Georgia man appeared.
I’d touched the stones. I’d pressed my hand against the door frame. I’d felt the sorrow. I’d seen the blue stuffed elephant. “Susan, the strangest thing happened up there.”

Susan held out her hands in a calming gesture. “It’s okay, Miz P. If you aren’t ready to talk about Fletcher Enloe shooting that guy, just don’t, not yet.”

I realized I was shaking my head, probably to clear the wine, as well as to try to tell her I was not talking about the Georgia man. “No, no. I don’t mean that. Listen. I know I told you yesterday that I couldn’t say for absolute sure that the little girl at Mrs. Allen’s house was a real person.”

“Yeah, I know, and you said you believed she was real, even though you didn’t actually see her.”

“That right. But today, I saw a blue stuffed elephant up there near the cabin. I’m sure it was the same one I saw yesterday in Mrs. Allen’s kitchen. And then, after the Georgia guy knocked me down, I’m sure I saw Mrs. Allen with a pale little girl standing off in the laurel bushes.”

Susan came over and sat beside me on the sofa. “What happened to you today was terrible, really terrible. You banged your head pretty badly. You might even have a concussion. Do you think maybe you just thought you saw her and the girl up there, on account of the trauma and all? Cause really, it doesn’t make sense that she’d be up on Fire Mountain with or without a little girl.”

As a psychologist, I know about trauma and the way the human mind can bend reality. Alfie groaned and stretched in front of the fire, and I got up to prod
the oak logs with a poker. Cinders, like red and blue popcorn, exploded up the chimney.
Fire. Fire. January’s fire. My barn fire. Mrs. Allen’s kitchen chair on fire
. What was going on? What am I missing? Suddenly I was cold, very cold. I sat down on the hearth, my back to the fire, and welcomed the closeness of the flames.

“When I saw her, I was lying on the ground. She put her finger to her lips, as though to tell me not to call out to her. I think she was afraid the man would hurt her and the child. But here is the thing: I saw the stuffed elephant on the grass before all that. It was when I bent to pick it up that the Georgia man pushed me from behind, and I hit my head on the rock…”

Susan interrupted me. “Okay, I can hear you are getting upset. Don’t. Please. Maybe MaMa Allen was up there with a little girl. Tomorrow we’ll go over to MaMa’s and sort it all out.” Susan came over and wrapped me in the afghan from the back of the sofa. “You’re shivering. Let’s talk about something else.”

I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Allen’s burning chair, but she was determined to get my mind off the afternoon and began to set out a plan she’d hatched. “You see, next month I get the trust money from my mama’s insurance. It’s been earning interest since I was seven years old, so there is a fair amount. We all know Granny’s is pitiful as a general store, but I think it would be a crackerjack restaurant, what with it being on the river and all.

“I could buy you out, or we could be partners, whatever you want to do. I already talked it over with Daddy and he agrees that Mama’s car accident ought to count for something other than her dying. He says
I
should
do something lasting and productive with the money. I would be head chef, and we could have music down by the river on the weekends. I know the band would love to come and play. We could do hickory-smoked barbecue. What do you think? Don’t you love the idea?”

What in the world was Susan talking about? I know less about running a restaurant than I do about running a general store—which is nothing. A year ago she wanted us to start a detective agency. She’s off on a new tangent every four months. How could I possibly trust that she’d settle down and concentrate on making a go of the restaurant? Was Daniel really in favor of turning Granny’s into a restaurant? If he thought it was a good idea, why hadn’t he mentioned it to me before? The restaurant business seems like a hard way to make a living—long hours, terribly risky—I’m too old to go down that path. Course, if I let Susan buy me out, I wouldn’t have to worry about what happened with Granny’s.
Wouldn’t that be a joyous day?
Without the mortgage on the store, I could just about breathe without worrying how much it was going to cost me. I told Susan I really needed to go lie down, but I’d give her idea serious consideration.

March’s last days are fickle companions in Western North Carolina. Just like today. A skim frost in the morning, warm spring sunshine in the afternoon. I lay in bed thinking about the blooming forsythia bush on January’s mountain. Would the cold night wither all those exquisite yellow blossoms? Would a shiver dew render the stuffed blue elephant soggy and sad looking, as it waited in the grass for a child to claim it?

Susan stayed the night with me. I was glad for the company. It was comforting to hear her milling around in the great room stoking the fire, and getting snug on the sofa under a quilt. I don’t think I could have faced the heavy silence of darkness alone tonight. A muffled click, then a whooshing sound told me the furnace cut on, wrapping the house in warm air. Gratitude for the sanctuary of my own bed washed over me, and I recalled a prayer I hadn’t thought of in years: “We have grateful hearts, O Lord, for all Thy tender mercies.” And thank you Fletcher Enloe. I wiped tears away. No more crying. I’d cried this afternoon for Shane Long—for the senseless killing of a man who meant no harm. No more crying. I was safe and thankful for it. I wondered if Daniel was driving home from Raleigh and if Susan had let Alfie out one last time before he settled in for the night. Then the welcome sensation of sleep settled into my body, hushing my mind.

I don’t know how long I slept before I dreamt of the dark hallway where I felt my way along wood planked walls smelling of pine and chimney smoke. There was a closed room at the end of the hallway, light spilling under its rough-hewn door, and a voice drawing me closer. When at last I stood in the pool of light, I reached up and parted the door the width of my fingers, enough to see three figures outlined by the flickering of an oil lamp attached to the far wall. The man stood, his back to me, a Bible in his outstretched hand. Wild gray hair fell to his shoulders. He was dressed in black pants and coat. No shoes, no socks. His long boney feet skeleton white against the dark floor.

His voice was low—as calm as explaining to a child how to peel and core an apple. “Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?’ Hear what the Book says. God tells us belief, and belief alone, is the key to salvation.” A red haired woman, the collar of her plain brown dress trimmed with white lace, her face in the shadows, knelt facing him. She held a small child to her skirts. The child watched her face. She watched the face of the man. In slow motion, he lowered his arm letting the Bible rest against his thigh, and turned to face me— his electric blue eyes ignited by an inner light. “Ezekiel 37,” he said.

There must have been more, but his words melded into Susan’s, intruding from the next room, and I was drawn out of the dream. “No, I didn’t talk to him. Mac told me he figured Fletcher didn’t have much choice but to shoot. Mac also said not to talk about it to Miz P. until he got her signed statement.”

There was a soft rap on the bedroom door. “Babe, you awake?” Daniel was sitting on the side of the bed before I could clear my head enough to answer. “I should have been there for you today. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

I raised myself up on an elbow and reached for his hand. “You had no way of knowing. Don’t blame yourself.”

“If I’d been here, you wouldn’t have been alone up there…”