No Way Home (8 page)

Ordinarily he would not have stopped to ask a white girl for directions. It was the kind of thing that could start trouble. He knew better, but he was tired, and there was no one else around, so he pulled over and called to her, politely.

What he remembered most was that she smiled and didn’t flinch when she saw that she was smiling at a black man on a lonely road. He was wearing his collar, and he was old. But that wouldn’t matter to some. He explained quickly that he was lost and looking for Route 31. She told him to go up and turn in at the road to Three Arches Bridge and head back the way he came until he passed three lefts and then turn. He remembered that she leaned on the window of the car in a friendly, easy way, and he was struck by her eyes. They were calm and wise in the way of one who has known some suffering. He recalled thinking that about her.

Ephraim Davis shuddered. Maybe it had been a premonition about her. She had been murdered that very night. Even now it was hard to believe. She had been walking along, alone, in the direction of this very road, down to the bridge. Ephraim had thanked her for her help and he remembered that she said, “Good night, Reverend,” and that had gladdened his heart. He was an optimistic man by nature and he found comfort in the ordinary, courteous exchanges between black and white people.

He had driven the car up to the entrance to this very road and turned in. As he was backing out, his headlights swept over a figure alongside the bridge, and he caught a glimpse of a startled face. A fellow taking a piss, he thought. He pulled out quickly and drove away, leaving the man to his privacy. Now, in retrospect, that brief moment took on a much more sinister meaning. She was a nice girl, a friendly girl, and someone had killed her that night, by that bridge.

A sharp rap on his car window made him jump and cry out. He looked up and saw a young deputy peering at him with narrowed eyes, preparing to rap again on the glass with the butt of his service revolver. The Reverend Davis stared wide-eyed at the man, who indicated that he should roll down his window. Reluctantly the reverend complied.

H^ stared at the deputy as sweat beaded in the folds of his coffee-colored forehead.

“Get out of the car,” the deputy demanded.

The reverend licked his lips and opened the car door.

“Slowly,” the deputy ordered him.

Ephraim Davis struggled out from behind the wheel and stood on the gravel beside the car.

“What’s your business here?” asked the deputy, Wallace Reynolds. “You have some reason to be hanging around here?”

“Nosir,” Ephraim replied automatically. “Just passing by.”

“It looked like you were parked there to me.”

Ephraim could feel his heart thudding arrhythmically. “I was just curious. Like these other folks,” he said.

“If you’ve got no business, you just move along,” said Wallace, ignoring the reference to the other onlookers, who seemed to be coming and going undisturbed.

The reverend immediately got back into the car and turned the key in the ignition. It did not surprise him. It was what had held him back so long in the first place. The reverend loved the South. He loved the people, and the weather and the beautiful, fruitful land. It was his home and he would never leave it. But he was not a naive man. He knew how things were here. People got along fine as long as everybody followed the unwritten rules. If he spoke up about this girl, he was crossing the line. He knew, with a sickening certainty, what they would think. He was a black man who had accosted a white girl on a lonely, country road. That was all they would need to hear.

The Reverend Davis pulled away from the side of the road and did not look back, even though he caught the glint of the deputy’s badge in his rearview mirror as he made his escape.

Jordan Hill pulled his rental car up onto the gravelly patch just being vacated by the two-tone green Ford. He could see that the deputy, Wallace Reynolds, was writing down the number of the station wagon’s license plate as it pulled away. Jordan got out of his car and walked to the top of the dirt road. He hadn’t expected to find all these cops and rubberneckers. Seeing it angered him. He had a sudden impulse to go up to people and shove them back, tell them to stop staring at the place where his daughter had been killed. At the same time he realized that he had become too used to New York, where murder came and went with the frequency of a newspaper. You cleaned up after them quickly, to make room for the next. People did not stop to linger and consider such a thing as a young girl’s murder for long.

The deputy who had been copying the license number shoved his pad in his pocket and started past Jordan down toward the bridge. He glanced over at Jordan.

“Is the sheriff here?” Jordan asked.

Wallace nodded. “Down yonder.”

Jordan thanked him and walked down the road. In the clearing near the bridge he saw Royce Ansley and Bomar Flood. Both men looked up at his approach. Bomar reached a skinny hand out and Jordan shook it.

“Well, Jordan Hill,” Bomar said as he pumped Jordan’s hand. “It’s been a long time.”

Royce just stared at him with tired gray eyes.

“I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at the funeral,”

Bomar went on. “How are things going for you up in New York?”

“Fine, thank you,” Jordan said grimly.

Bomar still gripped his hand. “Such sad, sad circumstances that bring you home, though,” he said. Bomar’s eyes twinkled with tears as he looked out across the shallow muddy river. Jordan had known Bomar all his life. He was a foolish, sentimental old busybody who was also one of the shrewdest, most capable businessmen in the county.

Jordan managed to free his hand and turned to Royce. “You found her,” he said in a flat voice to the sheriff.

“Over there,” said Royce. A huge weeping willow tree hung low over the bridge, its long slender fronds nearly touching the water’s surface. The sheriff indicated the space between the tree and the bridgehead. “She was lying there.”

Jordan looked at the spot. A deputy was squatted down there, using a flashlight to search the loamy riverbank beneath the willow.

“They’re still looking for the weapon,” Bomar offered helpfully.

“I see,” Jordan said evenly. “Have you found anything else? Sometimes fibers or hairs and such can be useful…”

“We know about lab analysis, Mr. Hill,” the sheriff said sarcastically. “The twentieth century has arrived down here in little old Cress County, Tennessee.”

“That Ronnie Lee Partin,” Bomar said nervously, shaking his head. “We knew he’d gone bad, but this…”

The sheriff looked sharply at the pharmacist. “Don’t be adding to these rumors about Ronnie Lee. People are getting all worked up and we’ve got nothing that says it was him that did it.”

Jordan looked at the sheriff in surprise. “You don’t think he did it?”

Wallace Reynolds ambled over to where they stood and looked out across the river. Beside the young deputy, Royce looked haggard and weary even though, Jordan calculated, he was only in his mid-fifties. He was a far cry from the clear-eyed, broad-shouldered lawman Jordan had romanticized in his youth.

“She wasn’t raped,” said the sheriff. “That’s the only reason I know of that a jailbird on the run would stop to bother about a young girl. Otherwise he’d just keep moving.”

“That makes sense,” said Jordan.

Wallace frowned at the sheriff’s words. Then he said in a quiet, stubborn voice, “Well, I think he did it.”

“A lot of folks agree with you on that, Wallace,” Bomar said.

Royce sighed. “One thing’s for sure. We better find that boy before he gets himself lynched.”

A silence fell over them. Bomar turned to Jordan. “So, how long are you staying around with us?”

“I’ll be here until next week,” said Jordan.

“I heard you’re going to give a little talk over at the high school,” Bomar said.

Jordan marveled to himself at the man’s ear for gossip. “Yes,” he said, “the music teacher cornered me after the funeral.”

“Oh, Miss Jones,” said Bomar. “She replaced Lulene.”

Lulene Ansley, the sheriff’s late wife, had taught English and drama at the county high when Jordan was a student there. She had been his favorite teacher, a quickwitted, worldly woman. She had been the first to tell Jordan he had talent, to encourage his ambitions. She was pregnant with Tyler the year Jordan graduated from high school. Miss Bessie had sent him the clippings when Lulene died of cancer some years back. It seemed far too late now to say to Royce how sorry he had been.

“There was no replacing Lulene,” he said sincerely.

Royce looked at him angrily, as if he alone knew that, and then he looked away. “I can’t stand around talking,” he said.

“Sheriff,” said Jordan. “I just want to know if there is anything I can do to help. About Michele.”

Royce looked at him coldly. “It’s a little late for that,” he said. “You should have thought of that years ago.”

Bomar Flood coughed nervously and looked away. Jordan stubbornly stood his ground. He hadn’t expected to be pelted with rose petals. “That’s as may be,” he said calmly. “But right now I am angry and I want to know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Nothing,” Royce said stiffly. “We’re doing all that can be done. Everyone in this town is angry today. Believe me, we’ll find the one.”

“LILLIE, NO,” SAID BRENDA,
physically forcing her friend down into a chair. “It’s too soon to start working. Loretta and I just stopped by to see how you were doing. It’s only been two days since the funeral, for God’s sakes.”

Lillie rubbed her forehead wearily. “Brenda, I thought you would understand. I can’t just sit here.”

“I do understand,” Brenda said seriously. “It’s just like the goddamn curtains. You’re trying to keep busy, I know, but you’re exhausting yourself in the process. You need to rest.”

“I can’t rest,” Lillie cried. “When I try to rest I keep seeing her, lying there, on that riverbank…”

“Honey, you got to rest,” said Loretta Johnson, the black woman Brenda and Lillie employed part-time. “It’s too hard on you.”

“Pink is working. Grayson went back to school,” Lillie protested.

“Well, it’s a different thing,” Loretta said mildly. “You the mother.”

The three women were silent for a moment. Brenda’s eyes filled up with tears. Lillie gripped her old friend’s hand.

“I’m trying to think of what’s best for you, honey,” said Brenda.

Lillie looked away from Brenda, out the window, past the Home Cookin’ van, at the gloomy gray sky. The dampness outside seemed to be seeping through the walls of the house. “I know you are,” she said. “But you can’t know how lonely it is here.”

“I’ll come by and see you after we’re done this afternoon,” Brenda said.

“Thanks.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Brenda asked.

“I’ll be okay.”

Loretta put on her nubby green coat and buttoned it up. “I swear the weather turned just after Founders Day,” she said. “My bursitis is hurting me already.”

“That was the last nice day,” said Lillie. She held the door open for the two women and watched them depart. When the van was down the driveway and out of sight, she turned back to the house and tried to think what to do. She had cleaned all there was to clean. She went into Grayson’s room to see if any of his clothes needed sewing. She opened his closet door and looked in. New clothes she had never seen hung on hangers, the tags still on them. A tennis racket stood in the closet.

When did he buy this stuff? she wondered. When did he take up tennis? A buttery leather overnight bag was tossed carelessly on the closet floor and shirts still in plastic stuck out of it. He and Pink must have been shopping. She knew that Pink spoiled him, and it always annoyed her. He had treated both children alike in his love and concern for them. But he did tend to buy things for Grayson on impulse. Things the boy didn’t really need. Or he’d take him on an expensive shopping spree. It was something he would never do with Michele.

Still, looking at the new things in the closet, she wondered how she could have been so oblivious to it. Maybe between the business and Michele, she had not been paying enough attention to Grayson’s life. As if to confirm this, she noticed the pile of sewing in the corner of his closet. No wonder he had to get new clothes, she thought. Everything that he owns needs fixing. She thought guiltily of the long hours she had spent fixing the rose-colored gown so that Michele could wear it in the pageant. It had been fun to do that, mending the lace and enjoying the feeling of the masses of rustling fabric piled on her lap. She liked to picture Michele wearing the gown while she worked. It was much more enjoyable than replacing shirt buttons and darning socks. But there was no excuse for neglecting her son like that, she thought. She bent down and gathered up the pile of clothes in her arms. I’ll do better, she thought. It was just that he was so busy with his young life. He never seemed to notice whether she was taking care of him or not. Maybe that’s why Pink bought him all these new things. Because he did notice she was neglecting Grayson.

Not anymore, she vowed. She took the sewing to the living room and sat down with it. She was finishing the last of the missing shirt buttons when the call came from the hospital. For years now Lillie had volunteered some of her time to help out at the Cress County Hospital. She felt a deep debt to the strangers in the various hospitals they had known who had spelled her in the worst times, reading to a frightened child so that Lillie could get some sleep, bringing coffee or rolls or newspapers in those long, grim days. Still, when she heard Mary Dean Hesketh, the volunteer coordinator, on the other end of the phone, Lillie felt a shock of surprise. It almost seemed like a voice from another life.

“I know this is a terrible time for all of y’all,” Mary Dean began apologetically, “but I’ve got a gal here who needs your help, honey. She’s got a real sick baby, and she needs a little hope. And I thought of you.”

Lillie did not comment on the irony of it. When you spent a lot of time in a hospital, you learned to be matter-of-fact about life and death. Mary Dean was right. Lillie knew what it was to need a little hope. She was the right person to provide it. She told Mary Dean that she would come, and put on her clothes and drove to the hospital. It was not until she was in the hospital corridor, walking toward the volunteer office, that she realized she had not been out among people since the funeral. She felt unnerved by the way the world was going on with its business, as if nothing had happened. She felt suddenly ill, abnormal. She checked her buttons and zippers with fumbling fingers to be sure she had remembered to fasten herself into her clothes.