A Long Time Gone (21 page)

I crawled to her, noticing that her dress was torn and she was holding it up over her chest. I helped her sit up, then made her put on John's jacket. She protested at first, but I told her it was okay. It was like I was
somebody else who suddenly knew all the answers and what to do, but I didn't stop to think about how or why.

I helped her stand, my mind somehow managing to think clearly and start planning how I was going to get her into her room near the kitchen without anybody seeing us. I placed my arm around her and began leading her forward, but she stopped and looked at me with wide eyes.

“You can't tell nobody, Miss Adelaide. Nobody, you hear? Robert can't find out nohow.” She hiccuped, her eyes clenched tight. In a loud whisper, she said, “Robert will kill him, and there be hell to pay. You understand, Miss Adelaide? You understand what I say?”

I wanted to argue, but I knew that she was right almost as much as I knew that she wasn't going to let either one of us leave those woods without my agreeing. “All right. I won't tell anybody. I promise.” My lips trembled into a little smile. “It'll be our secret.”

She didn't return the smile, but nodded solemnly. Then she allowed me to lead her out of the woods. As we paused in the shadows at the edge of the trees and I planned our path back to the kitchen, I became aware of a lone figure standing at the side of the house. A match flared, and as he raised it to his face to light a cigar, I inhaled quickly. It was the man I'd met in the jewelry store, the man John said wasn't somebody he wanted me to associate with. As I stared across the moonlit yard, I realized that he had recognized me, too. He tipped his hat toward me in acknowledgment.

Looking away quickly, I squeezed Mathilda closer to me and began running toward the back door of the kitchen, feeling the man's eyes on my back, just like I imagined I'd feel somebody walking on my grave.

Vivien Walker Moise

INDIAN
MOUND,
MISSISSIPPI
APRIL
2013

I
parked in front of the midcentury ranch that hadn't changed much in the decade since I'd last seen it. Rocking chairs still sat on the front porch, and an old tire swing still hung from the ancient oak tree in the front of the house that shaded the structure from the hot summer sun. The house wore a coat of fresh white paint, and the lawn had been meticulously manicured with a mower and an edger. Yet there were no flowers in pots or in beds, and no seasonal wreath on the front door. It was like looking at a magazine cover where everything was perfect except for the absence of life.

Tripp answered the door and smiled without showing any surprise, as if we were still in high school and I was coming over so he could help me with my math homework. He wore old jeans that were slung low on his hips, and a Duke University T-shirt. I remembered the day he'd received his acceptance letter, and how I'd let him kiss me. He filled out his shirt and jeans a lot better than he had in high school, and I blushed when he caught me looking. He clutched a napkin in his hand and I could hear a baseball game on television inside.

“I can come back later if you're busy. . . .”

He pulled the door open wider. “I was just finishing up my supper, although I think there's plenty left if you're hungry.”

I stepped inside, shaking my head. “No, but thank you. Carol Lynne and Chloe are setting the table in the dining room, so I'd better show up. I won't take up too much of your time.”

I looked around the small foyer, recognizing the same furniture and faux-oil landscape paintings on the walls, the same doilies on the backs of chairs in the living room, a triple frame of a toddler Tripp spread out on top of an old-fashioned stereo console that most likely had a turntable and cassette player inside. Everything was dated and tired, a pale memory of the warmth and welcome I'd once felt here. Before I'd even opened my mouth to ask the question, a ball of dread fell thickly into the bottom of my stomach.

“How are your parents?” I asked, my eyes darting around for a pair of slippers or a stray pink hair curler.

“They passed a little over two years ago. Drunk driver hit them on Highway Sixty-one. They were coming back from a big crafts fair in Hollandale. Mama had gotten it in her head that she wanted to start making dollhouses.” He grimaced. “I got the call on my radio about the accident and was at the scene to examine the two fatalities when I recognized their car. Not something you forget in a hurry.”

I felt sick, remembering Mr. Montgomery's bad jokes that always made me laugh, and his wife's string of hobbies that changed almost as often as a teenage girl changed clothes. They'd been the closest thing I'd had to parents next to Bootsie and Emmett, and they'd loved me like a daughter. It hadn't occurred to me that I'd never see them again.

“I'm so sorry, Tripp. I didn't know.”

“You didn't ask,” he said, closing the door behind me.

I felt my chest cave with shame at his words. I'd been so lost in my fog that I hadn't even lifted my head to see past my own troubles. As if mine were the only ones worth seeing. “They were good people,” I said, Bootsie's words coming back to me without prodding.

“Yes, they were.”

“And your sister, Claire? How is she?” Asking Tripp these questions was all wrong. I had grown up with his family, had considered his sister one of my best friends. I should have known that his parents were gone, should have been to the cemetery to see them placed in the ground. I
should know where Claire was. Of all that seemed lost to me, this was the hardest to accept. I felt my throat tightening, and the encroaching bleakness that usually sent me for a pill pulsed through me.

“She's in Michigan. Married a boy she met in vet school. They have their own practice in Lansing, and two kids—a boy and a girl.”

He regarded me in his nonjudgmental way that only made me feel worse. I wanted him to yell at me, to accuse me of being self-centered and a horrible friend, anything to deflect my own self-loathing.

Instead, he led me back to the kitchen, its fixtures of a more recent vintage than my own kitchen's. He saw me looking at the stainless-steel dishwasher with envy. “Claire paid to redo the kitchen for our parents' thirtieth wedding anniversary. Mama hated it, wanted her old sink and countertops back, but never told Claire. I don't think she knows to this day.”

A single plate and empty bottle of beer sat on a small table in the bay window. He switched off the television that sat on the counter, then moved the plate and bottle to the sink. “Can I get you something to drink? I made a pitcher of sweet tea. It's not as good as my mama used to make, but it's not too bad.”

“Sure,” I said, needing a distraction from the purpose of my visit. I sat down at the table, recognizing the scratches in the surface beneath more recent ones. I knew that if I looked closely, I could find my name in cursive where I'd forgotten to place a magazine under my homework paper when I'd signed it. I watched as he poured a glass for me, then pulled out a beer for himself. It didn't escape my notice that he hadn't offered one to me.

He set the glass in front of me before joining me at the table. I took a drink, my lips puckering from the sweetness. In the low-cal, low-sugar world of California, I'd forgotten all about real sweet tea. As I tried to adjust my taste buds, I looked around me. “It's a lot of house for a bachelor. You ever thought of selling?”

A peculiar light shone in his eyes. “Yeah, a couple of times. Being in the real estate business means I get to see a lot of available properties that might suit me better. But besides this house, there's only one other place I've ever wanted to live.”

Tripp had always loved my yellow house, had even called it Dr. Seuss's house when we were in kindergarten, because of its bright color
and refusal to adhere to any person's idea of what a home should look like. Since the day he'd found out that's where I lived, he'd resolutely claimed that he would live there one day, too. I would have thought it funny if he hadn't been so serious.

“Yeah, well, that house isn't for sale. If I decide to get rid of it, I'll sell it to Tommy for some nominal amount so he can live there as long as he wants.”

“Buying it has never been exactly what I had in mind.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the outer edges of panic begin to work through my veins. “Don't, Tripp. Please. I am not that girl you once thought you were in love with. She's so long gone I wouldn't even know how to find her. And to tell you the truth, she wasn't that great to begin with. So get over it, okay? We're not in high school. And don't tell me that you ignored all those Duke girls because of some misguided affection for somebody else.”

He leaned back in his chair and put his bare feet up on another one. After taking a long pull from his beer, he said, “Nope, can't say I ignored them. But let's just say there's no comparison.” What could only be described as a leer crossed his face. “You're still as fine as frog's hair, Vivi.”

“Gee, thanks. I can't say anybody's ever told me that before.” I leaned forward, my elbows on the table as my fingers skimmed the icy wetness of the glass. “I need a favor.”

His expression didn't change as he watched me from the other side of the table.

“Do you know anybody who does regular doctor stuff? You know, like send in a urine sample to a lab for analysis even if the patient isn't dead yet?”

He took another draw from his beer. “Yep.”

Knowing we would sit in silence for hours while I waited for him to ask me why, I explained. “Mark told me I could keep Chloe until the end of his honeymoon if I stopped taking the pills.”
I just know you can't do it
. I bit my lip, trying to erase Mark's harsh words. “I haven't had one since yesterday.”

He sat up, but his expression didn't change. “It's not good to go cold turkey, Vivi. It's doable, but not recommended. There can be some pretty serious side effects, including convulsions that could kill you. I've seen it more than once in my line of work.”

I stared at the slice of lemon bobbing along the top of my sweet tea like a life preserver. “I won't have convulsions. I'll feel sick and have insomnia, and when I sleep I'll have nightmares. And I'll probably shake and have bad headaches. But nothing that I can't handle.”

He continued to watch me in silence.

“I quit before. When I found out I was pregnant. I didn't want to hurt the baby.”

He said nothing, his eyes empty of reproach, as if he already knew what had made me start again.

“I don't want to see a shrink.”

His eyebrows lifted. “I didn't say you should.”

“Not out loud. I can do this on my own. If I couldn't do it for me, maybe I can do it for Chloe. Not because I think she'll want to stay here with me on a regular basis, but because I want to give her the option.”

“You're a good mother, Vivi.”

I shook my head. “Don't say that. It's not in my blood to be a good mother. And God must have agreed, because he didn't even let me carry a pregnancy to term. Chloe is just . . . She needs somebody in her life to look after her, and I didn't see anybody else standing in line,” I said, borrowing his own words so he couldn't contradict me.

“Did Chloe make that for you?” he asked.

I realized I'd been turning the wire-and-bead ring Chloe had made for me over and over on my finger. I'd worn the ring for so long that the gesture had become a habit, despite the green marks it left on my skin.

“Yeah. During her jewelry-making phase. The stuff I made was definitely uninspired, but she was pretty good at it. But then she discovered anime and we had to learn something new all over again.”

His silence unnerved me. “So will you help me?” I prompted.

“Have I ever said no to you, Vivi? Of course I'll help you. If only because it will give me the opportunity to see you regularly to make sure you're not having any out-of-body experiences because of the withdrawal.”

I drained my glass, then slid my chair back. “He wants it done every day—although that's a bit ridiculous, and I'm hoping I can convince him to go up to once a week—and we'll have to send the results to his office. Can you just make sure it doesn't say ‘coroner's office' on any of
the paperwork? I don't want him to think that your office is the hub of all lab-related activities in Indian Mound. He already thinks we're just a bunch of rednecks who hunt and drink all day.”

“Well, he's not too far off the mark, if you think about it. Actually, you'll have to go into a doctor's office to have a witness and then they'll send it to a lab.” He reached up to the counter and pulled off a pad and pen, then wrote something down on it. “Remember old Dr. Griffith? He still has his practice, although he doesn't do house calls anymore. He's been holding off on retirement, hoping I'll one day give in and go to medical school and then take over his practice. I keep telling him that dealing with dead people is a lot easier than dealing with the live ones.” He tore off the top piece of paper and slid it over to me. “I'll give him a call to let him know what's going on, and then you can call and set up a schedule.”

“Thanks,” I said, staring down at the paper. Without looking up, I said, “What's the real reason you didn't go to medical school?”

He didn't speak for a long moment, and I found myself wishing I hadn't said anything. “I did go. But halfway through, when I realized that you weren't coming back, I sort of reevaluated what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I wanted to do something that had no memories of you attached to it. Working with dead people sort of fit the bill.”

I slumped against the back of my chair. “Don't feel you always have to be so honest with me, okay? What happened to all that Southern politeness we're supposed to be so famous for?”

“You deserve better than that.” He stood and took my glass, putting it and his bottle in the sink. “I was headed toward your house this evening, but you saved me a trip. The crime lab was able to extract DNA from the remains. The lab supervisor owed me a favor and she pushed it up the priority list.”

I felt a little stab at the word “she,” but chose to ignore it. Judging by the calmness on Tripp's face, he had something dramatic to tell me. “It's a match, isn't it?” I didn't feel any surprise. In the medicated cloud in which I'd been living, I hadn't allowed myself to examine too deeply the implications of why a woman would be buried on my property. But now I felt the insidious fingers of real emotions nudge at my heart, and all I could do was wish I had a pill to take.

“Yes, it is. The mitochondrial DNA—that's the DNA passed down through the women in a family—was a match.”

I tried to think of what that meant, but my brain remained fuzzy. “So what do we do now?”

“Sheriff Adams will probably want to come over again and chat with you and Tommy, maybe even go see Mathilda—although she always wants to go to sleep when he gets there. I'd start digging in your attic, see if there are any old letters, newspaper articles, or diaries—anything that might mention a woman who went away and never came back. I saw Carrie Holmes the other day—she told me to remind you about the archives that are waiting to be sorted and organized. That might be a good place to start. Especially since Sheriff Adams is a little shorthanded, and this is definitely a cold case. I'm afraid if you want this case solved before you're in Sunset Acres, you'll have to do some of your own sleuthing.”

“Great,” I said, feeling a small tremor in my hands.

“You okay to drive?” he asked, and I realized he'd seen them shaking.