Promise Not to Tell: A Novel (17 page)

“Buried it in the root cellar,” I answered drowsily. “I did it just last night.” My fingers traced their way from his throat to his sternum. I didn’t want to think about the star. It felt good to be with a man again. Too good. Now here he was, about to ruin it.

“You know what we have to do, don’t you?”

I didn’t respond. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the answer. Sure enough:

“We have to go get it. We have to give the star back to her.”

I jerked my hand from his chest and sat up, irritated.

“Jesus, Nicky. We’re talking about a girl who’s been dead more than thirty years. How are we supposed to give her an actual, tangible thing? You want to dig up her grave and throw it in?”

He shook his head. “I think we have to give it to your mother. I think she’ll know what to do.”

This was great. My sexy hero and his brilliant suggestions.

“My mother! Oh Christ, this is perfect.” My words came out with a slight bourbon slur. “My mother—in case you don’t recall—is just a step away from being stuck in a nursing home. I’m taking her to visit one in the morning, as a matter of fact. You’ve seen her. Her mind is mush. She’s not going to know what the hell is going on if we go handing her some rusted-up old star. It’ll just confuse her even more.”

“Maybe so. But she seems to be communicating with Del in some way. The painting sure shows that. And what about the way she talked to you in Del’s voice, asking for the star back?”

“I could have imagined that. It was a voice that didn’t sound like hers—that’s all. It didn’t have to be Del’s. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, Nicky. She’s sick.”

Now he sat up.

“Whatever, Kate. You can backpedal all you want. I’m just saying I think we should go get the star. You don’t have to give it to Jean tonight, or ever even. Let’s just go find it. What harm can that do?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t remind him that I’d ditched the star in a desperate attempt to keep myself out of jail. That Del’s old badge was what the police would consider crucial evidence and whoever was caught with it would have an awful lot of explaining to do.

“No harm, that’s what,” he said, giving me his sly, flirtatious grin as he leaped up from the cot and began dressing. “It can’t do no harm at all. Now come on, Desert Rose, put on some clothes and let’s go.”

Reluctantly, I obeyed. As I was buttoning my blouse, my gaze fell upon the painting and the figure within it. The eyes—
her
eyes—seemed to bore into mine.

Caught again.

I
RAN THE BEAM OF THE FLASHLIGHT
over the shelves, then down to the dirt floor. There was no trace that I could see of last night’s activity—I had done a good job covering my tracks. And in my drunken state, I didn’t have the faintest notion where I’d buried the star. Nothing to do but start digging. Just pick a place and begin.
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho.

Nicky took a swig from the bottle he’d carried with him, then set it on a shelf. I picked a spot toward the back—I had been near that candle in the jelly jar, right?—stepped back, then stomped the metal spade into the ground, nearly tumbling over.

I was good and drunk. This had sunk in on the walk through the woods and down the path on the hill. By the time we got to the old pea field, I was clinging to Nicky, asking him questions that all started with the word
remember
.

 

Remember when you were Billy the Kid?

Remember when you taught me to shoot that old BB gun?

Remember the way our teeth banged together when we kissed?

Such force. Like an accident.

 

Nicky helped steady me as we walked, though he stumbled now and then over a tree root or a clump of weeds.
Yes
, he told me.
I remember
. I leaned into him, felt his heat, yearned to be back on the cot.

Then we were at the root cellar and he was pulling the door open and I was feeling my way down the steps, smelling Del all around me. I missed the last step, twisted my ankle, landed on my knees in the dirt. I looked around with the flashlight. Nicky put the shovel in my hands. He held the small trowel in his own.

“Let’s do it,” he told me. “Dig it up.” Only it sounded almost like he said
her
. Dig
her
up.

Digging. Digging. Digging to China. Grave digging. Digging potatoes. One potato, two potato. I started to hum it, then felt bile rising in my throat.

“Gonna be sick,” I said.

“Keep digging,” he told me. “It’ll pass.”

This too shall pass. I dug like an old dog trying to find the tasty bone she’d just buried. Teeth are bones, I remembered. What are Del’s bones like now, deep inside their metal coffin? I wondered. Metal. Metal shovel. Metal star. My mouth tasted like tin.

The star wasn’t in the place I thought it should be. The place I’d just buried it.

“We need a metal detector,” I complained.

“We’ll find it,” he promised. “You just have to remember.”

He stabbed the trowel into the earth floor.

Remember. Yes, I remembered. Remembered the way that letter
M
looked on Del’s chest. Puffy. Infected. Her secret. A good kind of hurt. I stopped digging and reached for the bottle, polished it off, rinsing the metallic taste from my mouth. Said, “Gobble, gobble,” then went back to work. A dwarf in a mine.
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho
.

“What were the seven dwarves digging for anyway?” I asked Nicky, laughing, nearly falling over. “Fucking dwarves,” I said. “Made it look so easy.”

I forced my spade into the earth once more, a foot over to the right, knowing the star had to be there. Star of wonder. Star of light. Star with royal beauty bright.

“Remember,” I started to ask, “that first day? How you threw open the cellar door and there was Del with her shirt off and there I was looking and none of us knew what was coming. None of us knew it was all an accident we were getting on board, a fucking derailing train. Remember how none of us knew?”

There was the click of my shovel hitting something metal. I bent down and felt around in the dirt. There it was once again. Rusty and pointed. Heavy in my hand. More like a burden than a wish come true.

“Christ,” I said. “The deputy found it.”

Then I leaned over and threw up.

I’
M NOT STAYING HERE
!”

“No one said you had to, Ma. We’re just here to look.”

My mother’s eyes were blank and wild, focused on a spot above my right shoulder. “I’m not staying here!”

I turned to give an apologetic look to the woman giving us the tour—a Mrs. Shrewsbury, who did, in sad fact, resemble a small, beady-eyed rodent.

“Perhaps,” said the shrew, as she peered over the top of her glasses, “your mother would be more comfortable sitting in on an art class while we finish the tour.”

I nodded and we sat my mother down at a long table where several old people were set up with fat brushes, huge sheets of newsprint, and cups of tempera paint in primary colors. I helped my mother into a plastic smock and watched the art teacher get her started.

“I’m not staying here,” she repeated, but some of the intensity had gone out of her voice. Once she had the brush held clumsily in her bandaged hand, she settled right down, forgetting her surroundings.

Mrs. Shrewsbury showed me the residents’ rooms, dining hall, visiting lounge, and a calendar of events. I nodded vaguely at everything, too hungover to do much else. My ankle throbbed and I walked with a slight limp. I was eager to end the tour and escape the terrible smell of the place—a sickening combination of antiseptic and boiled peas.

The events of the night before were a blur. I knew Nicky and I had gone to the root cellar to dig up the star and that we’d been successful—the rusted sheriff ’s badge was under my pillow in the morning, dirt from the root cellar floor still clinging to it. I didn’t remember getting home, or into bed. I didn’t remember Nicky leaving, but knew it must have been near dawn. When Raven stopped by on her way to work to drop off some bran muffins, she commented on it.
I see you had an overnight guest
, she said. When I explained that we’d just been talking she only raised her eyebrows and said,
Mmm
. It was clear that Raven didn’t believe a word I said anymore. And I didn’t exactly have warm and fuzzy feelings toward her after my visit from Zack. If she didn’t want me to see her daughter, so be it, but come on—she should have at least had the guts to come and tell me herself. Was she really that afraid of me?

I
KNOW HOW HARD THIS CAN BE
,” Mrs. Shrewsbury was saying. “It’s a big decision and your mother may seem…resistant. As a nurse though, you know the level of care a person in your mother’s condition requires. It’s just too much for one person, twenty-four hours a day.” I nodded, thinking of my mother’s painting, her new habit of speaking in Del’s voice.
You don’t know the half of it, Shrew.

“There’s always a lot of guilt involved,” Mrs. Shrewsbury continued. “But in time, you’ll see you did the right thing. She’ll settle in. Honestly, people in your mother’s condition don’t hold grudges. After a few weeks, it will be like she was always here.”

And that’s supposed to be a comfort?

Then I thought of how easily distracted my mother had been by the paints in the art room. Maybe it wouldn’t be that hard for her to settle in after all.

“She’ll be safe here. Well taken care of. As I said on the phone, we have two vacant rooms. She could move in this week if you wanted.”

I nodded, said it wasn’t a decision I wanted to rush into. Though in truth, I was more than a little eager to be done with the whole mess and get on a plane back to Seattle. Safely ensconced in a nursing home, my mother could paint whatever she wanted, speak in Del’s voice to her heart’s content. But as I thought of leaving, I felt a little tap on my shoulder:
The killer’s still out there. And what if Opal really is in danger?

Mrs. Shrewsbury patted me on the arm and said again that she knew how hard it was.

Then she led me into the dayroom where a television blared. Three old women with their walkers parked nearby stared at a game show. An old man sat on an orange plastic chair in the corner, smacking his gums and singing a song. The tune was familiar to me, but I couldn’t make it out—something childish, singsongy. I got a little closer so I could hear him over the applause on the television.

“Potato Girl, Potato Girl, smells so rotten she’ll make your nose curl,”
he sang.

Jesus. My mouth went dry. I wondered if I had misheard him.

“What did you say?” I asked, leaning down so that I was at eye level with this toothless old man in stained pajamas. His blue eyes were watery and pale. He smelled like spoiled milk.

“Oh that’s just Mr. Mackenzie,” said Mrs. Shrewsbury. “He’s quite the singer, aren’t you, Ron?”

“One potato, two potato, three potato, four—she’s coming after you now, better lock your door.” He was chanting now, not singing, his cloudy wet eyes fixed on mine.

“Ron Mackenzie? Did you used to drive a school bus?” I asked.

The old man only grinned, smacked his lips. A little drool trickled down his stubbled chin.

“Sure you drove the bus, didn’t you, Ron?” asked Mrs. Shrewsbury. “Drove until you retired. You were a mechanic, too, down at the town garage, weren’t you?”

“She’s coming after
you
now, better lock your door,” Ron repeated, his eyes on me, his gummy smile wide.

“Do you remember Del Griswold?” My voice was squeaky and desperate. “The Potato Girl? She used to ride your bus.” I had my hand on his sleeve and was holding back the impulse to shake the answer out of him.

He grinned. Drooled a little more.

“She was a monkey,” he finally said. “Dirty little monkey. Her brother, too.”

“Which brother? You mean Nicky?”

“Potato Girl, Potato Girl, she smells so rotten she’ll make your nose curl.” He was muttering now.

I stared down at the old man, leaning in so that his hot, sour breath was on my face.

“
M
is for monkey,” he whispered. “She was a monkey.”

A terrible possibility dawned on me then under the fluorescent lights of the day room, some studio audience laughing behind me, the shrew by my side, her head cocked with mild curiosity. It was there in the sour milky heat of this old man’s breath—a possibility equally as rancid.

“Did you give her the
M
, Mr. Mackenzie? Did you give Del her
M
?” I forced the words from my mouth, dreading to know what his answer might be. Was it possible that I was face-to-face with Del’s killer, a senile old man in soiled pajamas?

Ron Mackenzie smiled, began to rock back and forth in his chair, humming. The hum turned into a low moaning howl. My old bus driver was howling like a coyote, getting louder and louder each time he drew a breath. Mrs. Shrewsbury clutched my arm to lead me away, saying we should go before he got much more wound up. We turned to leave the room, but then his howling stopped and he gently called out to me, his voice shaky now, worn out.

“Hey, Deputy!” he said. I stopped in my tracks. Cold crept up my spine. “You better give that monkey what she wants. You better give her back her star. Better give her back her sta-ar!”

I turned back to look at the old man who once had worked for NASA in time to see a dark stain spreading across his lap. He looked at me and laughed as the urine trickled over the edge of the plastic chair, pooling on the checkered floor.

I
WANT TO GO HOME
,” my mother said when we joined her at the art table. “You can’t leave me here.”

Believe me, we’re getting the hell out of here as fast as our little legs will carry us.

I turned and glanced back down the hall, sure I’d see that old Ron Mackenzie had followed me. There was only an aide in a pink uniform pushing a mop and bucket.

“I’m not leaving you, Ma. We’re going now.” My voice was as shaky as my hands as I fumbled to get the smock off her. It took all the control I had not to grab her hand and run screaming from the place, dragging her behind me.

“I made a painting,” my mother said. “It’s for Opal.”

“That’s nice, Ma.”

One potato, two potato, three potato, four

She’s coming after you now, better lock the door.

Was someone else singing the words now, or were they only in my head?

“I’d hoped you’d stay for lunch,” Mrs. Shrewsbury said. “We could look over some of the paperwork.”

“I want to go home,” my mother repeated.

“I know, Ma. Me, too. Come on, put your coat on.”

I apologized to the shrew, saying we had to leave but that I would call her as soon as we made a decision.

I turned back to help my mother get her coat around her shoulders and glanced down at her painting. Once again, I found myself having to stifle a scream.

There, on the large sheet of newsprint, was a giant sheriff ’s star carefully painted in shades of gray.

“Ma? Why’s this for Opal?”

“What, Katydid?”

“The painting. You said it was for Opal.”

“Did I say that?” She mused for a moment, cocked her head. “Poor little Opal. Do you think she knows?”

“Knows what, Ma?”

“Who her father is?”

“What are you talking about? Who is he?” I was sure she was going to say Lazy Elk—she had Opal confused with Raven, of course, who she confused with Doe half the time. God, it was hard to keep up with her.

“Why, it’s Ralph Griswold, silly! The man with the eggs and pigs who lives down the hill. You knew that didn’t you, Katydid?” She eyed me quizzically, as if to say,
Is something wrong with your memory
?

L
ISTEN
K
ATE
, I talked to Jim today and asked him about Mike Shane. Can you guess what the fucker does up in Burlington?”

Nicky and I were sitting at the kitchen table eating tuna sandwiches. My mother was working on her painting. I’d called Nicky to invite him to lunch as soon as we got back from The Hollows Care Center. I wanted desperately to tell him what my mother had said about his dad’s being Opal’s father as well, but I decided to bite my tongue for the time being. It could have been some figment of her imagination.

But what if it wasn’t? What if Opal was really Del’s half sister? I knew if I wanted the truth, I’d have to go to the one person who was least likely to share it with me: Raven.

Nicky didn’t wait for me to guess about Mike. “You’re not gonna believe this. It’s perfect. Mike Shane is a fucking tattoo artist. He owns Dragon Mike’s Tattoo Emporium up in Burlington.”

I let this sink in, considering the possibilities this bit of news brought with it. Maybe Del’s tattoo was one of Mike’s first attempts. A more permanent gift than the silver star. Maybe I was on the wrong track with my hunch about old Ron Mackenzie.

“That’s quite a coincidence,” I admitted.

“A coincidence—hell, I’d say it’s evidence. Didn’t you say it was a letter
M
on Del’s chest?
M
for Mike. I bet it was him. He tattooed her, then killed her and had to cut off the tattoo so he couldn’t be linked to her.”

“It’s definitely worth checking into. But I can’t really see Mike Shane killing Del. He was like eleven or twelve years old. And he was in pretty bad shape that last day of school—I think he wound up in the hospital.”

“But Kate, the guy’s a fucking tattoo artist!”

“I know. It’s a hell of a coincidence. Like I said, we should check into it. But let me tell you what I found out today. What do you remember about Ron Mackenzie—the school bus driver?”

“Not much. The guy had a temper, but he kept it hidden. He called us monkeys. I remember that.”

I told him about my morning at The Hollows and what Ron had said.

“Jesus, the tattoo could have been a way of branding her,” Nicky said. “
M
is for monkey. Like the scarlet letter or some such shit. Dirty fucker.” Nicky’s face twitched.

“I don’t know…it was such a delicate and pretty
M
,” I said. “If it had been done in hatred by a guy like Ron, you’d think it would be crude, hurried. I’ve always had this idea that whoever did the
M
cared for Del.”

“Cared enough to choke the life out of her and carve her up like some piece of meat. I think we should talk to both Mackenzie and Shane. Hell, maybe we should go to the police,” Nicky suggested.

I shook my head.

“With what? On the basis of something a senile old man mumbled just before he wet himself? If he is Del’s killer, he got what he deserved. He’s in a prison of his own. I almost pity him. And we sure as hell know he didn’t sneak out and kill Tori. The only proof we have about Mike is the letter
M
I saw that no one else seems to know about. Hell, they’d probably make me their number-one suspect, if I’m not already. Especially if they found out I had that damn star.”

“What? The police never thought you were a suspect,” Nicky said.

“Not then, but now. Judging by the way they’ve been acting, I think I’m at the top of their list.”

“That’s just crazy! You had nothing to do with any of it.”

“Yeah, neither did you, but you’re a suspect, too, aren’t you? Weren’t you the first one they went looking for when Tori Miller was killed? It’s just shit luck, Nicky.”

He took this in a moment. I cleared the plates from the table.

“And what about the star?” Nicky asked. “Now that you’ve heard it from Ron, too, don’t you think you better do something with it? If, like I’ve been telling you, it is Del we’re dealing with, she knows you’ve got it.”

“Listen to yourself, will you? You sound almost as crazy as old Mr.
I used to work for NASA and now I just sit around wetting myself.
Yeah, I’ve got the star, but there’s nothing to do with it. We’d be better off if we’d left the damn thing in the ground. I never should have let you talk me into digging it up.”