Charlotte’s Story (10 page)

“Yes, ma’am.”

As we walked to the front door, Rachel kept her hand around my waist. We embraced on the front step and exchanged kisses. Before I turned away, I lifted the little bag. “Maybe I’ll let Michael have a bite of one. They smell wonderful. Thank you.”

We parted, but she called out to me just as I reached the car. “Wait. I meant to ask you what you thought about Halloween. Isn’t Press brilliant for suggesting it?”

I must have looked puzzled, because she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Press is such an idiot. He told you about the memorial for
Helen and Zion, yes? He said we’d do it in your theater on Halloween. They would’ve loved that.”

There is nowhere on earth more beautiful in the fall than the hills around Old Gate, the colors of the trees violent against the dulling earth beneath them. But I didn’t see them as I drove back to Bliss House. They could’ve been purple or black as night or in flames, as much impression as they made on me.

I wove through town, past the library and the courthouse, past the new furniture store that had opened in May with a celebration that had included a brass band and a clown handing out balloons. I had driven Nonie and Eva into town to hear the band, and Eva had gone right up to the clown who, truth be told, was not a very good one, with makeup that didn’t completely hide his day-old beard, and a thin piece of rope binding one of his giant red shoes. The other children hung back, wary. But not Eva. She challenged the clown with her smile and asked for a second balloon for Michael, who bounced in my arms, excited by the music.

The memory of how Eva had looked up at the clown, her arm lifted to reach the balloon’s string (Had the balloon been yellow or red? It seemed critical that I remember, and I could not.), was so strong that I also drove past the stop sign on Market Street without stopping.

With the great blaring of another car’s horn, I came to myself in time to keep from rear-ending a car that had stopped on the other side of the intersection. My window was open and I hadn’t turned on the radio, so I heard the man who had almost hit me yelling at me as he continued through the intersection. My mouth went dry.

Carefully, with a small wave, I drove around the stopped car. Just as I reached the edge of town, I heard a police siren behind me.

The sidewalks and curbs had run out, so I pulled over to the shoulder in front of a lot where a new Baptist church was being built.

Not all the county deputies were known to me, but in my sideview mirror I saw Dennis Mueller, the son of Karla Mueller who did my hair every Thursday, get out of the black-and-white patrol car. He had his mother’s squarish face and light-brown hair. My vanity hadn’t yet returned, but I touched the ends of my own hair where it brushed my ear. I hadn’t been to see her in weeks. At least it was Dennis, and not his boss, Sheriff Hugh Walters, who was a close friend of both Press’s and mine. I hadn’t seen him since the funeral, and although he’d been kind, I hoped not to see him again anytime soon.

I rolled down my window.

“I’m so sorry, Dennis. I don’t know why I didn’t stop. I must have been thinking about getting home.” My second lie of the afternoon.

“It was dangerous the way you went through that intersection, Mrs. Bliss. Someone might have been hurt.”

He was so young, only out of high school three or four years.

“I understand. Of course. What do you need?” I fumbled in my purse for my license.

When I gave it to him, he only glanced at it before returning it to me. The rain had stopped, but there were still a few drops scattered over his midnight-blue cap.

“That’s all right, Mrs. Bliss. I’m not going to give you a ticket today. Just be more careful. We’ve had more than our share of wrecks in the county lately.”

“That’s very nice of you. I promise to be more careful.”

We fell silent for a moment. I was about to ask him to say hello to his mother for me when he spoke again. He pushed his hat back just a bit on his head.

“I sure was sorry to hear about your daughter, ma’am. My mother was very upset, too. She said she was a sweet little girl.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “She gave Eva her first haircut. I don’t think anyone else could have done it as well.”

Dennis Mueller nodded. He looked sad and uncomfortable.

“She’s given a lot of kids their first haircut. Sometimes the little girls’ daddies come in, complaining that their wives brought the girls in without telling them first. You’d be surprised how many of them don’t want their daughters’ hair cut at all.”

I didn’t know quite what to say, but knew he was trying to be friendly.

“I know this isn’t any of my business, ma’am, but everyone says you were at home that Monday it happened.”

As his words sank in, my heart started to pound. Were they thinking of prosecuting me, after all? Hugh had told us not to worry. He considered it an accident and didn’t see any reason for there to be an inquest.

“I. . . .” The words wouldn’t come. As I sat there, several cars passed by, but I was oblivious as to who was inside.

He spoke hurriedly. “I only ask, Mrs. Bliss, because I thought I saw you and your husband turn up your driveway in a hurry that afternoon. I was on my way out of town to a welfare check at the other end of the county, and your husband’s car went by pretty fast. Not so fast as I would’ve necessarily pulled him over, but pretty fast. But, pardon me, everyone was saying that you were home by yourself when it happened.”

“I don’t understand.”

He looked down at the ground like an abashed child. “It’s not like you’re someone who would leave a couple of little kids alone in that house. I wondered when the sheriff told us, that’s all. I told him, but he said I was wrong. I just wanted to be sure.”

“That she didn’t die alone?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It was like Karla Mueller to have a son who noticed things. She knew everything about everyone, and could tell if you were
having a bad day the moment you put your hand on the doorknob of her shop.

“No, Dennis. I was in the house. I’m the one who was responsible.”

“But I was sure I saw you late that afternoon, ma’am.”

“It must have been my friend, Rachel, coming to the house with my husband.” Though I had never thought to ask why she had already been there when I awoke. Of course it had been the farthest thing from my mind after I learned what had happened to Eva.

He watched me a moment as though trying to decide if I was telling the truth. If I hadn’t been in a mild state of shock from the suddenness of his question, I might have accused him of being rude. He had said “that house.” I realized that he wasn’t as concerned with what
I
had or hadn’t done as he was that it had happened at
that house
.

Chapter 9

Suspicions

As I came up the shadowy drive, my heart gave a little jump when I saw Nonie, head down and slightly bent at the waist, pulling Michael in Eva’s Radio Flyer wagon. Nonie’s coat, the color of a gold chrysanthemum, and the red wagon were cheerful splashes against the hay-colored grass and brown-red leaves of the oaks. Eva had liked to pull her dolls in the wagon while Michael rode in his stroller, but one day she had insisted that she be allowed to have Michael in the wagon instead of her dolls. Press and I had watched as she pulled the heavy wagon, her little face reddening beneath her curls, as she pretended it was no effort at all.

“See? It’s easy, Mommy.”

Press had laughed behind his hand, but I whispered for him to stop. It seemed so important to her that we be impressed.

Before reaching them, I stopped the car and turned off the ignition. When I rolled down the window, I heard raindrops falling from leaf to leaf as though it were still raining. Nonie wore a scarf
over her hair, and she’d put a cap and light jacket on Michael. She didn’t believe in keeping children indoors all day, no matter what the weather.

“He saw the wagon and would have absolutely nothing to do with his stroller. Fussed like a banshee.” Nonie glanced back at Michael, who was waving a giant yellow maple leaf that had blown over from beyond the driveway.

“You gave in? That’s not the Nonie I know.” But of course she knew he was missing Eva. Though she was always strict, she was also genuinely kind. “Doesn’t that hurt your back? The handle’s so short.”

“Not all of us are troubled with generous height, Lottie. Sometimes I think you forget that,” she teased. She looked down at Michael. “You’d better hope you have your mother’s height, Michael. Or she’ll make fun of you too, one day.”

I laughed, surprising myself. It felt natural, and I was momentarily grateful to her. Poor Michael had seen plenty of tears and sadness and was likely to see more.

“Your husband is home.”

“So early?”

“It’s not as though he keeps a schedule, is it? There was a decorator’s van here a little while ago. But it’s gone now.”

“Decorator?”

Nonie shrugged. “I have no idea.”

I blew Michael a kiss and reminded Nonie to come inside if it began to rain again. She nodded, humoring me, and they moved on. I waited until they were well past me before I restarted the car.

I parked in front of the house and left the keys in the ignition. There were some things that Terrance took care of that I very much appreciated, and parking the cars in the garage for us was
one of them. The original carriage house had burned around the turn of the century, and the inside of the new carriage house set off to the east of the house was a gray, grim place, with cinderblock bays for three cars and an unused apartment built above. But the bays themselves, though plain, had exposed beams and dark corners. I’d once looked up—I’m not sure what led me to do it—to see a copperhead curling along one of the beams, and I hadn’t wanted to go in there again.

As Terrance opened the front door of Bliss House for me, I suddenly remembered the black snake in the lane. Had that been what spooked the Heasters’ horse? It had to be. I wondered if anyone else had seen it, or if I was the only one. Only Zion and, perhaps, Helen would know. Helen would have been frightened of the snake. She was a woman of the city and, given the way she’d talked about the inadequacies of Old Gate, I had the impression that she was never truly comfortable here. Of course, they had lived in Old Gate proper, in a cluttered cottage with several cats. I doubted they had a snake problem.

“Good afternoon, Miss Charlotte.” Terrance nodded.

I turned back to look down the lane for Nonie and Michael, worried that they might come across the same snake. Certainly the black snake was harmless and would hurry into the grass if it weren’t already hiding there. If it didn’t hide, I would be more worried for it than I would for Michael and the very protective, stick-wielding Nonie.

“Hello, Terrance. Can you tell me where Mr. Preston is?”

There was a fire laid in the library, even though it was probably still over seventy degrees outside. Press stood at the desk, a Scotch in one hand. The ice cubes were still large, so he probably hadn’t had it very long. My father didn’t understand why a man would
put ice in a single malt, but then he still didn’t understand why some grown men didn’t bother to take their hats off when they went into buildings.