Unspeakable (31 page)

Well, no they weren't, because Anna mouthed good-bye and turned toward the limousine where a chauffeur was holding the door for her.

An image of Connaught's scowling face wavered in front of Emory, as real to him as the heat waves that shimmied up from the pavement. He began to sweat inside his dark suit.

"Uh, Mrs. Corbett," he said to forestall her. Then, realizing that he was addressing the back of a deaf person, he reached out and grabbed her arm, which she immediately pulled free.

"Forgive me for detaining you any longer. It's hot out here, and your boy is hungry, and I know this is already a stressful day for you, but, well, some matters take precedence even over... uh..." He nodded back toward the grave.

Anna had impatience stamped all over her.

Emory blurted out, "I know who poisoned your cattle."

CHAPTER THIRTY–ONE

J
ack was heating a can of tamales on the small butane-powered range in the trailer when David knocked on his door, "Mom says we have enough food to feed an army and it'll ruin if we don't eat it and do you want to eat with us. You do, don't you, Jack?"

Jack removed the pan of tamales from the burner. "Sure, thanks. Tell your mom I'll be there."

"Aren't you coming right now?"

"Five minutes."

Jack used the time to run a brush through his hair and change his shirt. He even splashed on some aftershave. The primping was silly, but, well, he couldn't remember the last time anybody had invited him to supper.

When Anna and David returned from the funeral, Jack had been on a ladder knocking down the dirt dauber nests beneath the eaves of the house. With enviable resilience. David exploded from the passenger door of the car as soon as it came to a stop. "Jack, Jack, wha'cha doin'? Can I help?

We went to McDonald's."

Jack came down the ladder. "Good, huh?"

"Yeah. Can I climb up?"

"A few rungs. Not too high. Be careful."

Anna hadn't been as sprightly as her son. She had alighted slowly and moved as though the black mourning dress were made of chain mail. It had looked too heavy and hot for the season and too large for her small frame. Dark sunglasses had concealed her eyes, but beneath them her face was drawn and pale.

"How are you?" he asked.

She signed that she was okay.

"You haven't had any real rest since leaving for the hospital two days ago. Why don't you go inside and lie down? Take the whole afternoon for yourself. I'll watch David." She signed something that Jack asked David to translate. Hanging on to the ladder with one hand, the boy had shaded his eyes against the glaring sun with the other. "She says that's nice of you, but before anything else I gotta go inside and change my clothes."

"Good idea." Catching the boy around the waist, Jack swung him down. "You do that, then meet me back out here, ready to go to work. Okay?"

"Okay, Jack!"

"Don't leave your clothes scattered all over your room. Put them away for your mom."

"I will." He dashed inside, letting the door bang shut behind him.

"It would be nice to have that much energy," Jack had remarked as he came back around to Anna.

Smiling after her son, she nodded.

He removed his hat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. "This heat is something else, isn't it? Sure could use some rain."

Banalities. But he hadn't known what else to say. He had wanted to console her about Delray, but, as he had learned, those were treacherous waters. He had wanted to ask how the funeral had gone, but she could have come back by saying that if he had wanted to know, he should have attended. Best not to wade into that, either. That narrowed it down to lame comments about the weather.

All morning as he went about his chores, he had mulled over what he should do. The conclusion he reached was that he should be gone by the time they returned from the funeral. He could make a clean break. No good-byes. No explanations for why he was leaving or why he had come in the first place. Maybe a brief note wishing them well and adios.

That would have been the smart thing to do. But, dammit, he just couldn't disappear on the day they buried Delray. The Herbolds held a grudge against their stepfather, but Delray's dying didn't necessarily mean that Anna and David were out of danger. Jack couldn't leave. Not until Cecil and Carl were safely behind bars again.

But you've still got no business slathering on the Old Spice and going to supper at her invitation, he told himself as he let himself in through the back door, damn near breaking his neck by tripping over the threshold.

In the kitchen, David was setting the table. Anna, looking a little flustered herself; was scurrying around setting bowls and platters of food on the antique sideboard. She indicated to Jack that he should serve himself buffet-style and handed him a dinner plate.

He was amazed at the outpouring of generosity by the people to whom Delray hadn't even been friendly. Jack had never experienced anything like this abundance of neighborly sympathy. As he spooned up potato salad and marinated cucumbers, baked beans, and honey-glazed ham spiked with cloves, he thought back to his mother's death.

He had grown up in Baytown, across the bay from Galveston. His mother had supported them by working in a dry cleaner's ten or more hours a day. When she got home from work, she ate a quick meal and went to bed, sometimes crying herself to sleep. One of Jack's earliest memories was of feeling helpless to relieve his mother's apparent misery.

On Sundays, her only day off, she had slept late, then did limited housekeeping and grocery shopping and retired early to get a head start on the coming week. The grueling routine didn't leave much time for anything else. They rarely did anything frivolous or fun. Surviving consumed the majority of their time.

Jack woke up one morning and found her dead in her bed. He'd called the police, who'd called the coroner, who'd made arrangements to take away the body. A routine autopsy revealed that a brain aneurysm had burst, killing her instantly. Without fuss or muss, she was laid to rest. His old man had shown up about a week later.

Jack hadn't known where to reach him to notify him of his wife's death. He hadn't been at the last address Jack's mother had for him, so he was there by chance for one of his periodic visits. His father was only fifteen years older than Jack, younger than his wife by ten years, and much more handsome than she, was pretty. He had derived cruel delight in pointing that out to her often. Jack was told that he had been the harvest of a wild oat. "Sown one Saturday night when I was shit-faced and looking at her through whiskey goggles," his father had told him. When informed of her pregnancy, his father had married his mother, but that was where he felt his obligation ended.

Whenever he did grace them with a visit, Jack hoped with a child's innocent optimism that he would stay. He took Jack places. He laughed. He made his mother smile. Jack could hear her giggling in the night and knew that she was happy his daddy was in bed with her. But the happiness was always short-lived. A few days into the visit, the inevitable fighting would start. His dad bragged about the women he slept with when he was away. It was no empty boast. He had girlfriends among the local women, too. They called the house asking for him after he left.

Sometimes he got drunk and yelled a lot. A few times irritated neighbors called the police, who came to settle him down. Jack wished for a father like other kids. He missed his dad when he was gone. But life was more peaceful and predictable when he was away.

Although his mother died young and unhappy, the only tears cried over her passing were Jack's. If his father ever visited her grave, Jack never knew about it. After coming home and finding Jack an orphan, he left again, telling his son, who was trying his damnedest to be brave and not to cry, that he had some business matters to finalize. "Then I'll be back for good. I promise." He didn't return for six months. By that time the state had placed Jack with foster parents. When his mother died, nobody had come around with home-baked cookies and coconut cakes like the ones on the Corbetts' sideboard. No one had lent a helping hand to Jack. The only hand extended to him was the open palm of the landlord demanding the rent, which he couldn't pay because his old man had taken all the money in the house with him when he left.

"I like this fluffy stuff with the baby oranges and the pineapples in it. Try some, Jack." Following David's recommendation, Jack tried the gelatin salad, and it was good. All of it was good—the home-cooked food, the homey ambience, the whole damn scene. There was only one thing wrong with this picture: him. No amount of grooming was going to change the fact that he didn't belong here. He didn't fit, and he was a damn fool for pretending even for one evening that he did.

This wasn't his house. This wasn't his boy. He wouldn't tuck him in and listen to his prayers, then go off to bed with the woman. Because she wasn't his either and never would be. He believed that.

And yet he just couldn't stop looking at her. His stare drew hers like a magnet so that it became a source of irritation to David, who several times thumped on the table to get her attention, whining, "Mom, I'm talking to you."

Her nap had done her a world of good. Her tired, teary eyes had their blue sparkle back. The sleep had restored some color in her cheeks. She had exchanged the unflattering mourning dress for a pair of blue jeans and a ribbed tank top. The top was tight, but her hair was loose, brushing her shoulders every time she moved her head. Some glossy pink stuff was making her lips shine. Bad idea to look at her mouth, though.

"May I be excused, Jack?"

"Hmm?" Distracted, he turned to David, who repeated his question. "Shouldn't you be asking your mom's permission?"

"I always asked Grandpa."

Jack looked toward Anna, who told David he could leave the table. He went into the living room to watch television. Over Anna's protests Jack helped her put away the leftovers and load the dishwasher. When the chores were done, he edged toward the back door, ready to thank her and leave.

But she motioned for him to follow her into the study, where she booted up the computer. Jack sat as he had before, straddling the chair seat backward and positioning it so he could see the computer screen and Anna could see his face.

She typed, "I need your advice."

"Okay. Shoot." The last word seemed to confuse her. He smiled, then said, "That means 'go ahead.'"

Delray had explained to him how the deaf must distinguish the appropriate usage when a word has several applications. In this case "shoot" could be used as a noun meaning the sprout of a plant. Or it could be the exclamation "Oh, shoot!" Or the verb to shoot. Or the idiom, as he'd used it. Anna had an excellent command of English. She was rarely stumped.

"Please read this and give me your opinion," Jack read off the computer screen. Having typed that, Anna pulled a letter from a file and handed it to him.

The letterhead belonged to a regional timber company. According to the letter, the outfit wanted to partially clear some of the Corbetts' wooded acreage. The company was offering to pay a competitive market price for the timber, which they estimated would amount to somewhere in the vicinity of fifteen thousand dollars. Jack whistled softly when he read that part. While he'd been reading the letter, Anna had been typing, "Delray wouldn't even consider it. He didn't want to change anything. He didn't want the forest thinned out, especially by someone else. What do you think?"

Jack massaged the back of his neck. "Well, it says here they'll plant seedlings to replace the trees they cut down, which is good for the ecology. They're going to pay you for the timber, and they do all the work. You should have a lawyer look at the contract before you sign, but what have you got to lose except the trees?"

She wrote, "I can live without the trees. I can't live without money. Lomax was at the funeral."

"The vulture."

"Exactly," she typed. "I'm afraid he'll call the note if I don't agree to sell to EastPark. I must start repaying the principal. With the beef market as it is..." She looked to see if Jack was following her thought.

"It supports you, but doesn't make any extra."

"This timber deal would give me some needed cash," she typed. "Delray turned down similar offers. But if I don't sell some of the timber, I might lose the whole property. To me it makes good business sense."

Jack smiled at her. "Lady, you don't need my advice. In fact, I should be asking for yours on how to handle my own financial affairs."

She laughed and it was a beautiful sound. "I'll call them tomorrow," she typed. Then her expression grew troubled, and she wrote, "Is it wrong of me to go against Delray's wishes the same day as his funeral? This letter is already weeks old. If I don't give them an answer they might withdraw the offer."

"You're the boss now, Anna. The last thing you should do is defend the way you manage the ranch. Especially to me. I'm no judge on how folks should manage their lives." She looked into his eyes for a long time, then turned back to her keyboard. "What is your story, Jack?"

He smiled wryly. "I don't have a story."

"Everybody has a story."

"Not me. And, anyhow, it's not very interesting."

Her expression told him that she didn't believe that. It told him something else, too—that even though they had met less than two weeks ago, she knew him pretty well. She had been compensated for her deafness with the perception of anyone who has lost one of his or her five senses. Whereas the blind usually have sharper hearing and sensitivity, Anna possessed incredible insight into an individual's thoughts.