Missed Connections (20 page)

"I'm from a tiny little town in Alabama right outside Auburn. My mama was a witch, or at least she used to cast spells or read palms and the cards for a living. My dad was a drunk who sold insurance when he could and gambled when he couldn't. They reformed at some point and now they're televangelists, they have a show on early Sunday mornings on a little local station. Of course that means the rest of my family totally disowned them."

"Why would they do that?"

"My whole family is sort of notorious for being… different. I grew up in a giant old house that everyone, including my family, swore was haunted and going to Auburn meant I could stay close to home but it also meant that everyone knew me as a devil-worshipping freak who lived with ghosts. I used to get notes on my door, 'go home Satan', things like that. In hindsight it was juvenile and silly but then it was hurtful and I could not take it."

"Was your house really haunted?" Genuine curiosity drove Marie to ask. Anne gave her a startled look and then a peal of laughter broke from her lips, true and heartfelt. "Yes, it was. It still is. It's a great big caving-in of a house complete with columns and a spiral staircase. The staircase is falling apart faster than the house itself. It creaks and squeals and collapses at times, you can see the patch boards on it."

"It sounds amazing." It really did. "No wonder you are so interested in ghosts."

"I'm interested in one ghost."

Ryan Holloway gave a low whistle that made the hair at the back of Marie's neck stand up. She refused to turn around because she knew it was what he wanted. "Which ghost? There are probably a dozen that haunt this lake from the stories I have heard."

"Jessie Larkin. She died here back in 1964. She was my grandmother's sister."

"I just heard about her from the woman whose house I am staying in. She drowned by accident, swimming in a storm."

"She was murdered."

Marie stared at Anne's unyielding expression. She had no doubt that Anne believed that, but what evidence was she basing that on?

You wondered yourself why a lifeguard that lived around this lake would go swimming in it during a storm, she knew the water, she knew it could drown them and probably would.

"Do you think the girl that was with her drowned them both on purpose?"

"No. I think Ryan killed her because she would not sleep with him. She would not have since she was a lesbian. Given that she died along with another girl, I am guessing he caught the two of them together and his ego could not take it.

"Speaking of Ryan, he is still staring at us."

Marie wanted to laugh but there was something about the way that Anne spoke that kept the mirth locked deep within her. "I'm a lesbian." Her heart pounded as she made the admission. "Do you think he might kill me?" As soon as she spoke a stray cloud, darkly gray and heavy with rain, blotted out the sun and she shivered, her arms wrapping around her waist.

"If looks could kill, you would already be dead."

Marie regretted speaking. "I'm not hitting on you."

"Is it because you think I'm straight?" Anne's smile was even warmer. Marie had the urge to kiss her, to simply touch her lips to Anne's full mouth and allow the kiss she had wished for so many years before to happen.

Marie could not help saying, "Yes. I mean I do not want to scare you away if you are straight. Are you?"
Wow, what a way to be smooth. Did I just say that to her?

"I'm totally gay. So now that that is out of the way would you like to go get some food or something?"

"Yeah. Let's get out of here. That place is giving me the creeps." It was. The sun had come back out, but Marie could not shake the feeling that something dark and malevolent was behind her, almost touching her back.

Anne picked up a pair of denim shorts and slid them over her lean hips. The hem came down to the very tops of her golden thighs, an unraveled thread lying across that flesh and Marie had to stop her fingers midair. She had leaned forward, ready to pluck away that hanging string. She yearned to touch Anne, to feel her skin below her fingertips.

Anne's tee shirt clung to her curves, she slid her narrow feet into floppy little sandals that had nonsensical little flowers woven into their straps and plopped a floppy hat down on her head. She looked both stunningly pretty and heartbreakingly young all at once.

Ryan was no longer on the porch; the door had banged shut as they turned to walk past it. Marie relaxed and she felt Anne do the same as they headed for a low building that sat at the end of the clearing. The warmth of the day felt good on their skins, the grass was dotted with wildflowers. The conical little steeple tops and Queen's Anne lace nodded in the breeze while sun-hued dandelions brightened up the landscape.

"That used to be a country club."

Marie looked at the place. It was a small restaurant as unpretentious outside as its menu was inside. The owner and his wife served up fried clams, fish, and scallops, steamed mussels and various salads: potato, macaroni, green and Greek, alongside heaping portions of fries and coleslaw.

"It does not look like it."

"I know, but it was. It even had silver tea sets and china dishes." There was amusement in Anne's voice."Back in the day the summer people used to take pride in what they considered to be plain living. Hence a ramshackle little country club with silver tea sets."

"How do you know?"

"Jessie wrote letters home to my grandmother every few days. The last one she wrote was about this place. She liked the lake but she was desperate to get away from Ryan."

"Why didn't she just leave?"

"She was on a scholarship, she was dead broke, and I doubt anyone who would have wanted to help had a dime to lend, and those who had money probably would not have lent a hand, much less train fare.

"Not to mention that she was in the closet. She knew what she was, but she was terrified to have anyone else know it. My grandmother was the only person she had ever told. She came up here so that nobody at school would know. She was afraid if anyone knew for certain she was a lesbian, they would bounce her off the swim team and she was desperate to keep her scholarship."

"Did you say she was on the swim team?"

"Yes. Makes it hard to believe she drowned, doesn't it?"

They drew up to the doors of the restaurant. Anne's eyes searched Marie's as she spoke, slowly but urgently. "I need to know what happened to her. It matters to me more than I can say. I know you won't understand it but I feel like I have to help her, that I have to make sure she rests. I need to know she had justice."

"I do understand."

The door opened. The scents of garlic, bubbling oil, and frying onions wafted out on an air- conditioned breeze. They did not speak as they stepped inside. The dimness met them and the cool air hit their overheated skins like a wall. Locals and summer people rubbed elbows along the gleaming chrome countertop. Families and groups of bored looking teenagers slurping down sticky ice cream concoctions or sodas filled the tables and booths.

The jukebox played out a lively tune and the walls boasted pictures of the lake and its residents over the years. Anne selected a small table near a bow window and they ordered food and drinks. Anne took her hat off and a small bar of sunlight picked out the gold strands in her hair. Marie rested her own hand, tanned a deep burnished copper, on the red checked tablecloth, admiring the contrast between her own skin and Anne's fairer complexion.

"You asked if my house was haunted. It is, but it is the living that haunts it, not the dead. I think the same could be said for this lake."

"I'm sorry, I don't think I understand." She did not. It was an odd statement to say the least.

"People die and they are no longer here. There's an absence, a void. Sometimes when people miss them, they fill it with their own sorrow. Sometimes, when someone has done something terrible, it is their hatred that stays behind. At least, that's my take on it. My family swears I have it wrong." She laughed but there was no humor in the sound. "Then again, when I became a cop, half of them disowned me and the other half came to me to ask me to try to fix their legal issues."

"You said you were researching a ghost story."

"I am. I want to find out who is haunting this lake. I need to know who killed Jessie. I work homicide and every time we solve a case, I think about her. She is the whole reason I became a cop."

"What about the girl that died with her?"

"If I know who killed Jessie, I know who killed her."

Marie could not argue that logic."And you think it was Ryan."

"Yes, I just need to find some kind of proof but so far nobody here is willing to talk or they just do not know anything. Everyone knew Cal, the other girl, but it seems Jessie is just a smudge in their memory. I think that is what bothers me the most. She was a person my family loved, someone I never got to know because she died here. I feel her absence. I know that sounds crazy but I feel like I missed a connection that would have mattered. Have you ever felt like that?"

"More than you could know."The sincerity in Marie's voice was undeniable.

Their food arrived and the conversation broke off as the pretty young waitress expertly slid the hot plates onto the table, asked if they needed anything else, and vanished again. Neither of them noticed Ryan Holloway at the window, staring in at them with a hardened look on his face.

*~*~*

It was late evening when they finished dinner. Anne was staying at one of the newer hotels on the other side of the lake. Marie asked to walk Anne there and Anne had answered yes. The lake was lambent and a soft rose-colored glow lay over the black and elderberry bushes. Marie popped a fat berry into her mouth, savoring its sweetness.

Anne picked one as well and held it out to her. Marie did not think, she reached for it with her mouth. Her lips closed around the berry, its warm and sticky juice spilling across her teeth and tongue and for one small moment, her lips touched Anne's fingertips in a tender little kiss.

That was all it took. The hunger that had been building inside her was answered by Anne's ripe and moist mouth on her own. They pressed close together, their skin touching and their tongues twisting against each other's. Crickets sang in the grass and a bat winged overhead. Stars and the moon began to prick through the multihued night sky, little points of white on vermillion and indigo.

The hotel sat behind them, its modern façade a stark contrast to the rest of the quaint little buildings that surrounded it. The parking lot was filled with cars and a family climbed out of one of them, their pale skins, and clothes announcing plainly that they had just arrived at the lake. The youngest child, a boy of about ten yelled out, "Hey, there's two women kissing!"

Marie and Anne pulled apart. The mother hushed him but the kids still stared as their parents herded them inside the building. Anne gave a tiny self-conscious little laugh. "I was going to ask you to come in. Do you think we will get treated to any more of that kid's mouth if we walk through the lobby?"

"I've heard worse." Marie prayed Anne would not change her mind. Marie's body was on fire and she wanted Anne so badly she could barely stand it.

"What the hell," Anne grinned. "So I have I. Being a lesbian in small-town Alabama made sure of that."

They entered the lobby a respectable distance from each other. The father was at the desk, the teenaged girl was on her cell phone and the two younger boys were squabbling over a tablet, yanking it back and forth between them. They never noticed Anne and Marie going past them but Marie began to tiptoe in exaggerated movements anyway and Anne giggled madly as she did the same. The elevator doors opened, disgorging two elderly women who gave them reproving stares and they fell into the small metal box, howling laughter until Anne kissed her again.

In the hotel room they stripped slowly. Marie's hands caressed Anne's curves, lingering on her satiny skin. Her mouth touched her nipples and her teeth grazed her navel before she moved lower to the thin strip of curls above the soft pink flesh that opened to reveal sweet inner folds.

It was a long, slow loving, and mutual. When, at long last, they lay together, covered in a fine sheen of sweat, Marie felt happier than she had in a long time.

"Was it worth waiting for?" Anne teased, nipping her gently on the shoulder.

Before Marie could answer Anne's phone let out an odd little series of chirps. Anne said, "I am sorry, I have to take this."

She spoke into the phone and when she turned back over her excitement was palpable. "That was a woman who said she has information for me about Jessie. I have to go meet her."

"I'll go with you."

Anne was already out of bed and dressing hastily. She tossed a distracted smile at Marie. Marie dressed as well and the two of them headed out. The night had turned cool; a little breeze ruffled the water and their hair. It did not take long for them to get to the place the woman had directed Anne to meet her, a small little inlet on the quieter side of the lake.

A woman rose and Marie stared at her. Her face was so seamed with wrinkles that it was hard to tell where her features ended and began, her mouth was turned down and her jaws sunken in a manner that said she had long ago lost her teeth and either did not or could not wear her dentures any longer.

Her thin hair clung to her spotted scalp and her eyes looked cloudy and confused but when she spoke her voice was as sharp as a well-honed blade. "You are the little bitch that is trying to get my son in trouble, aren't you?"

Denna Holloway, Marie thought and then darkness descended.

*~*~*

"Denna?" Marie's head ached and she could smell a rich coppery odor that frightened her. "Denna what are you doing?" her hands were bound but she could feel a slumped body next to hers. Her heartbeat accelerated as she felt Anne's warmth. It meant she was still alive.

There was no movement from her and when Marie managed to turn her head a bit she could see a dark maroon blot on Anne's face, running from below her hairline. Fear hit her, threatening to overwhelm her but she fought it back.