Promise Not to Tell: A Novel (10 page)

“So, how are you?” I asked.

“I reckon I’m surviving. It’s sure good to see you, too.”

“What are you up to these days?” I thought of what I’d overheard at the general store—that he’d been picked up for questioning regarding the latest murder, but had a bar fight as an alibi.

“A little of this, little of that. I work part-time at Chuck’s as a mechanic, do some small engine repairs on the side. I mow a few lawns in the summer, plow in the winter. Whatever it takes to pay the bills. Got a place over near the Meadows—not much, just a trailer, but it’s mine and it’s home.” He gave a smile. “What about you?”

“Not much to tell. Still living in Seattle. Working as a school nurse.”

“Heard you got married.”

“Divorced about five years now.”

He nodded. “Kids?”

“No.” I looked away. “No kids.”

He was silent a minute, then nodded toward the house. “How’s your mom doing?”

“Not great.”

“I heard she was going to a home.”

“I don’t know yet. That’s where she probably belongs, but I don’t know if it’s the right thing. She’s really against it. It seems like her life is in my hands now and I have just a little over two weeks left to make the right decisions, then my leave is up at work and I’ve gotta go back to Seattle.”

“You’ll do right by her.”

We were quiet another minute, smoking our cigarettes, passing the bottle, and listening as the few leaves left rattled on the trees, speaking papery whispers.

“You hear about that girl they found in the woods?”

I took another deep sip from the bottle of Wild Turkey and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Of course. Pretty unsettling, I’d say. I guess it happened just on the other side of the hill, near where the old deer camp used to be.”

“Camp’s still there,” he said.

“No way.” The surprise in my voice seemed to please Nicky, who nodded and smiled. “I thought for sure it would have fallen in years ago.”

“No, she’s leanin’, but she’s still standing. Kinda like me, huh?” He gave a wink.

My face flushed and I looked away.

“I’ll be damned.”

Maybe it was the bourbon, but I found myself remembering how, when things started to go bad with Jamie, I used to wonder what it would have been like to have married Nicky. Not that he ever asked. Not that we even knew each other as adults. But in my mind, he’d grown into this idealized man, no-nonsense, a bit rough around the edges, someone who’d never do me wrong.

Nicky was quiet a moment and took a good slug of Wild Turkey before he spoke again.

“Kate, do you know anything about that girl who was killed?”

“Not much. Just what I read in the paper: she was thirteen, her name was Victoria Miller, her friends called her Tori. Opal and the other kids she was out there with didn’t hear a sound.”

“Her mother is Ellie Bushey—married one of the Millers. Ellie and her husband, Josh, kinda took over the antique store after Mr. Miller had his stroke. It was too much for the old lady alone.”

“Ellie. That’s someone I haven’t thought of in a long time.” A knot formed in my throat, a thick, painful knot in the shape of an
E
, for little Ellie Bushey and all her popular-girl promises.

“Well, I remembered the name,” Nicky went on, lighting a second cigarette. “I remembered that something went on with you girls and Del. Just like I remembered about Artie Paris.”

Jesus, there was another name I’d just as soon forget. Nicky was dragging all of the skeletons out of the closet.

“What about him?”

“That he used to be real mean to Del. That he was the one who everyone said had her down in the dirt that last day at school. He was the one teasing, singing those stupid one potato, two potato songs.”

No,
I thought to myself.
We all sang
. The knot in my throat tightened.

“Yeah, he was quite the charmer,” I said out loud. “I’m sure he still is.”

“That’s just it, Kate. He’s not. He’s dead. Happened just a few months ago.”

I let this sink in a minute. It’s always unsettling to hear someone you know has died, and when it’s someone your age it seems even more personal, even if it’s someone you never liked. I wondered what he’d died of—heart attack? Car accident? Cirrhosis of the liver? It didn’t really matter though—however he died, as far as I was concerned, it was good riddance. God, being back home was turning me into a regular saint.

“Really?” I asked. “Wish I could say I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you want to know how he died?”

I shrugged my shoulders and he continued.

“Folks say Artie choked to death on a potato. A piece of raw potato.”

I tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a laugh. This sounded suspiciously like the latest Potato Girl yarn. Town legend in the making.

“There’s more to it than that, Kate. He was home alone. His wife was working the night shift at the shoe factory.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, rolling my eyes a little, unable to believe that Nicky had fallen for such a story.

“Just listen, will you?” He eyed me impatiently. satisfied by my silence, he leaned forward and continued, his voice low and secretive.

“There were no potatoes in the house. Not a single one. Artie hated them. Wouldn’t let his wife buy ’em. But when the coroner did the autopsy, he found a chunk of raw potato lodged in Artie’s windpipe.”

I laughed again. “And I suppose you saw the coroner’s report? Or better yet, you talked to him yourself?”

Nicky’s face reddened a little.

“Nicky, he probably had a heart attack. But that doesn’t make for good storytelling, so little by little, the tale of his death got embellished. That’s the way it is in this town. Even the craziest rumor becomes fact by the time it gets to the third set of ears.”

“No, it wasn’t a heart attack,” Nicky affirmed. “He choked to death. His wife even said so. They ruled it an accident, but a lot of folks know better. I know better. The son of a bitch was murdered.”

“Murdered by whom exactly?” I asked.

“Oh, come on, Kate. Do I have to spell it out? First Artie and the potato, now Ellie’s daughter in the woods, killed the exact same way Del was. It’s her, Kate. It’s got to be her.”

I wasn’t following. Or maybe I didn’t want to follow. Not going down that road, no sir. Not me.

“What are you talking about, Nicky? Her who?”

“Del.”

I paused a moment before saying anything. I thought about the stories I’d grown up hearing, how they got more tangled every year. Through her murder, Del took on mythic status. Three decades of kids had grown up not being able to say when New Canaan had been incorporated, or the name of the tribe of Native Americans who called the whole valley home first, but they all knew the Potato Girl stories. The jump rope rhymes. The jokes. Kids at slumber parties would sit in front of a mirror in a darkened room, chanting
Potato Girl, Potato Girl
until she appeared, sending them screaming for the light of day.

Del would have loved it, of course. Relished her power to inspire fear. But to propose that these stories were real? That there really was a Potato Girl—Del back from the grave—who haunted the woods, seeking revenge, actually killing people. Did they believe in the Headless Horseman, too?

It was one thing for a twelve-year-old kid like Opal to entertain such ideas, but a grown man?

The Nicky I saw before me was no longer the tall beautiful boy of my childhood, but he seemed no less sincere. It struck me how heavily his grief and guilt weighed on him. It would almost be a comfort to believe that his little sister, so sly and brave, had outwitted even death. But not me. I wasn’t going there. The only ghost I believed in was sweet little Casper, and I planned on keeping it that way.

“Nicky,” I began with my best ex–psych ward aide smile, placing my hand gently on his knee, “I think that Wild Turkey is getting to you. Halloween was a week and a half ago.”

He shook his head, frustrated.

“I know it sounds crazy, but just think for a minute. Just ask yourself, what if I’m right? If it is Del then she might come after us, too. I mean, think about it. Remember how angry she was the day before she was killed? If she’s going around picking off people she’s pissed at, we’re on the list.” He sloshed the liquor in his bottle, looked down at the splintery wood between his big work boots. “You better believe we’re on the list.”

The front door to the house opened behind us and we both turned our heads, startled. I jerked my hand away from his knee, guilty as a schoolgirl.

“Who are you?” my mother asked, leaning down to see Nicky’s face in dim evening light. She looked at me with a touch of panic. “Who is he?”

She was covered with bright smears of acrylic paint. She’d rubbed it on her clothes, her face. The bandages on her hands were like smeary rainbows. She’d told me earlier she was going to work on a painting, but I’d assumed she’d forget this idea before it went anywhere. Raven had said my mother hadn’t painted in months. And with the amount of medication I’d pumped into her that day, I was amazed she was standing, much less working on her latest masterpiece.

“I’m Nicky Griswold, ma’am.”

“You live at the bottom of the hill.” She gestured with her bandaged hands.

“I used to.”

“I’m so sorry about your sister. Poor thing. When’s the funeral?”

Nicky looked from my mother to me. Now he was the one looking panicked.

“Uh, we had it, ma’am.”

“She’s at peace then?”

“I suppose so,” Nicky mumbled.

“Good. The dead need to be at peace.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, rising to his feet. “It was nice to see both you ladies. I’ll drop by again some time soon.” We watched him get in his truck and pull away. He unrolled the window and called out, “Think about what I said, Kate. Just think about it. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Who was that?” my mother asked as we watched his tail-lights go.

“A friend, Ma. Now what have you been up to in your studio?” She gave me a blank look. “Let’s go see what you’ve been working on, okay? Is it another still life?” I stood up and together we walked into the studio where my cot was. On the easel was a large three-by-four-foot canvas covered in smears of color—mostly reds, yellows, and oranges. There were a few flecks of blue and purple.

“Pretty colors,” I said, realizing it was something a mother would tell a four-year-old. My mother’s illness was giving us a serious case of role reversal.

“It’s the fire,” she told me. “The fire that gave me the stroke.”

“You didn’t have a stroke, Ma.” I let myself touch her bony shoulder, some gesture of comfort that seemed to go unnoticed. My mother stepped away from me and up to her painting.

“She’s in it.”

Jesus. That again.

“Who is?” I, too, moved closer, standing directly behind my mother’s small frame.

“Don’t you see her?”

I studied the canvas, saw only thick slashes of acrylic paint.

“No Ma, I don’t. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. It’s nearly time for dinner.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“You’ve got to eat.”

“Where’s Magpie?” She whipped her head around, abruptly desperate. “What have you done with my Magpie?”

A
FTER WE’D EATEN DINNER
and I’d given my mother her nightly sedatives and put her to bed, Opal came by.

“I saw Nicky Griswold’s truck here earlier,” she said.

“He stopped in to say hello,” I told her, my voice a little too defensive. Shit, there I was feeling like I had to explain myself to a twelve-year-old. How did that happen? And why was it that lately, whenever I saw Opal, she put me on edge? I guess it was all her questions about Del, the way they were bringing me back, making me remember a whole chapter of my life that I never wanted to open again. To say nothing of the fact that sometimes, when I looked at Opal, I was sure I was seeing Del. It was almost like, through her obsession, Opal was
becoming
the dead girl. Crazy, I know, but that’s how it seemed.

“Hey, how’s the biplane coming?” I asked.

“Great! I’ve finished the fuselage, which is the hardest part.”

She looked around the room a minute, then, rather pensively, brought up the real reason she’d stopped by.

“I’ve been wondering if maybe Del’s after me because of something having to do with my grandparents. If maybe they could have been connected to her murder somehow,” she said.

I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a nervous laugh, but a genuine one.

“Doe? She barely knew Del. And she was the biggest pacifist I ever knew. She cried when she hurt an earthworm with a spade in the garden. And your grandfather, well, you probably heard he was a suspect but was cleared.”

“Maybe they were wrong in clearing him,” she said.

“I don’t think so. He did a lot of things wrong, but he would never hurt someone like that. He had a good heart. And the so-called evidence they had linking him to her was totally faulty. It was just a big misunderstanding.”

“But how do you know?” she asked.

Because I was the cause of the misunderstanding.

“I just do. Trust me on this one.”

Opal left, dissatisfied, after asking me some pretty graphic questions about Del’s murder that I decided it was best not to answer. The kid was already having nightmares; no need to give them more fuel. She’d had enough of a horror finding her dead friend. And from her description, it sounded like exactly the same scene Nicky came upon the afternoon he found Del. But Opal didn’t need to hear that.

After she’d gone, I lay in bed and thought things over. Like it or not, it bothered me that Tori had been wearing Opal’s jacket. What if Opal was right? Not about the ghost part, but what if the killer, who I was sure was all too human, was really after her?

But who on earth would have any reason to want to hurt Opal?

L
ATER THAT NIGHT
, I woke up and heard my mother talking. My first thought was that the cat had come back and my mother was filling her in on all that she’d missed. The truth is, I never could manage to lock my mother in her room at night. Each evening I would try, standing before the door to her bedroom, my hand on the brass padlock, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt wrong, and I realized I wasn’t capable of being my mother’s jailer. So I slept with the door to my room open, thinking I’d hear her if she got up. That I was a light enough sleeper to catch her before she got out of the house.