Absence of Grace (35 page)

Hailey took a careful breath. “Sometimes it seems more like a chess game than justice.”

“Hey, why do you think I’m now a grubby Alaskan fisherman?” He looked at her over the rim of his mug.

“I thought it was because you know how good you look in flannel shirts.”

That startled him, but then he decided she was teasing, a sign she’d caught her emotional balance. At least for the moment.

“Can you come by my place this afternoon, Gerrum?” Hailey said two days later. “I have more questions, but I hate asking them in front of Maude.”

By then, he was spending most of his free time with Clen, so he suggested meeting Hailey in the early evening while Clen was busy with dinner at the lodge. At Hailey’s, he found the transcript now sat divided into two unequal piles.

Hailey poured him a beer without asking and sat kitty-corner from him, sipping a glass of iced tea. “I’d forgotten a lot of it, but as I read, I keep remembering things.”

“Is that what this is about? You trying to remember?”

“God no. I wish I never had to think about any of it again, but my brother left me no choice.”

Gerrum raised his eyebrows in question and Hailey sighed. “It’s a long story, but the gist is after Mom was killed, Adam and I went to live with our grandmother. Adam left Edgington when he was sixteen, and we never heard from him or about him again. Until a couple of weeks ago. I got a letter. From Adam’s...widow.” She stopped and chewed on her lip. “For years, I had no idea if Adam was even alive.” She took a deep breath. “It surprised me how much it hurt to find out he isn’t. His...Sally found me through Tess. She’s the one who does the quilt squares. Sally wrote because she and Adam have a son and she wants him to know his dad’s family. It made me realize I don’t know for sure what happened to my mom, and I need to know. I thought the transcript would help.”

“Has it?”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m reading about two strangers who just happen to have the same names as my parents. And I’m discovering things I didn’t know. My dad’s I.Q. is seventy-six. Borderline retarded. My I.Q. is nearly twice his. How can that be?”

“Maybe your mom was really smart.”

“If she was so smart, why did she marry him and let him abuse her?” She rubbed her forehead. “Although, I don’t really remember that, but after I read about it, I had a dream. I don’t know. Maybe none of it’s real, what I think I remember.” She stopped and shuddered. “How do people do it? Make it their life’s work to deal with this sort of thing? And then to talk about it as if it’s a picture in a book, a setting on a stage.”

“I don’t know.”

“Mom was shot in our apartment. In the bedroom. After it happened, Dad kept the door closed. One afternoon, I snuck in to get Mom’s photograph out of the drawer where it was kept. I tried not to look, but as I turned to leave, I saw the bed. It had a huge brown stain. And there was this smell...unlike anything I’d smelled before. Dark, moldy, sweet. It made my stomach heave. I got out and pulled the door shut, but I couldn’t get away from the smell.” She stared at her hands, clenched in her lap.

Gerrum sat without moving, waiting to see if there was anything else she needed to say.

“A month after it happened, the police came. They brought Mom’s sister with them, and they took Dad away. Aunt Iris helped us put our clothes and toys into grocery bags. She was rushing us, and I almost forgot the photo of Mom.” Hailey propped her head on her hands.

“She took us to Grammie’s with our stuff still in those paper bags. Grammie lived in a house that wasn’t much more than a cabin. Edgington wasn’t much of a place, either, but it was such a relief to get away from Kansas City, I didn’t care.

“The first thing Grammie did was hug us and pat us and murmur sounds that weren’t even words, but they were so much better than any of the words we’d heard since Mom died. Then she fed us a big meal. I ate so much I thought I’d burst.

“After dinner, she had us bathe, and while our hair was still wet, she sat us in the middle of the kitchen. First, she cut Adam’s hair short. When she finished, she gave Adam’s head a rub, and he ducked and smiled. When I saw that, something tight inside me started to loosen.”

Gerrum didn’t try to comment on what Hailey was saying. He thought what she mostly needed was to know someone was listening.

“Grammie combed my hair and I leaned back against her. She told me, ‘You know, Hailey darling, I used to do the same thing for your momma when she wasn’t no bigger than you are. My, your momma had pretty hair. Just like yours.’”

Hailey’s gaze was unfocused. Her words slowed and took on a Southern lilt, and she had just a hint of a smile on her face. “Grammie made us feel safe. She fed us and kept us clothed and warm. Every day we went to school and did chores and our homework, ate and slept. And then we repeated it the next day. Eventually, we put away the memories of that time, just like Grammie put away our toys when we weren’t playing with them anymore. Or at least I thought we did.”

She stopped and blew her nose. “God, I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”

“It’s okay. Sounds like your grandmother was a wonderful woman.”

“She was. I miss her a lot.”

He pointed with the nearly full beer at the transcript. “You said you had some more questions?”

“Actually...I want you to look and tell me what’s in here.” She handed him the brown envelope that came with the transcript.

He undid the twine and pulled out the contents, a series of photographs. He glanced at Hailey who was focused on her glass of tea.

The first photo was of a bed with a huge dark stain in the middle and a gun lying to the side like a question mark. He turned it over without showing it to Hailey.

The second photo was worse—taken from above and to the side by a photographer looking through a small lens, framing and focusing carefully, so no detail would be lost. The same bed, but with Hailey’s mother lying there, hair in a cloud, obscuring the source of the blood that had formed a dark pool under her head.

It wasn’t a picture Hailey should see.

“Do you ever notice,” Hailey said, “how this time of day the sun slants through the window and the dust motes look like tiny specks of gold. Dancing like angels are supposed to dance on the head of a pin.” Her voice was dreamy. “Do you believe in angels, Gerrum?”

“I believe people can play that role.”

She shook herself. “Yeah, I don’t believe in them either.”

The next photo had to be Hailey’s dad. He was a small, almost frail-looking man with hair pulled into a wispy ponytail. He was wearing a T-shirt with a logo Gerrum didn’t recognize. It had several dark smudges on the front and one sleeve. His face was smudged as well, and he had a startled look, as if the camera flash awakened him from a nightmare.

Gerrum turned the photo toward Hailey. “Is this your dad?”

She stared at it, then she nodded. “I’d mostly forgotten what he looked like. The last time I saw him was after the trial. Neither of us could think of anything to say.”

“Is he still in prison?”

“I don’t even know if he’s alive. Although someone would have told me, right? If he wasn’t.”

“I expect so.”

She looked again at the picture of her dad. “You know, there’s something wrong with that picture.”

“What?”

She shook her head, looking frustrated. “It’s like when you know a word is misspelled because it looks odd, but you don’t know how to change it to make it right.”

“Is something missing? Or is something there that shouldn’t be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you’ll figure it out if you sleep on it.”

“Maybe.” She set the photo down. “I need to let you go. I’ve imposed on you long enough.”

“Hey, isn’t that what friends are for? To help when they can. I’m happy to do it.” He slipped the two crime scene photos back in the envelope. “I don’t think you should look at these.”

“Could you just...dispose of them for me?”

“Of course.”

They both stood. At the door, she put her arms around him in a brief hug. “Thank you, Gerrum. I don’t know how I’d manage this without your help.”

Gerrum began stopping by Hailey’s house every couple of days. Often she asked him questions about how the trial was being conducted, or she would give him a section of the transcript and ask him to read it and tell her what he thought.

Tonight she answered the door, looking wan.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m not sleeping very well. I need to finish the transcript.”

“How much more do you have to go?”

“About a hundred pages. There’s something else I want you to read.”

“Sure, be happy to.”

In the kitchen, Hailey handed him a cluster of pages. He started to read, then looked up at her in surprise. “Mr. Dillon called you to testify?”

She nodded. “That’s another reason I wanted to see the transcript.”

Gerrum began reading the back and forth between Dillon and Hailey.

Q: Now, Hailey, you remember when I came to your grandma’s and we talked about your dad and your mom?

A: Yes.

Q: Well, we’re going to chat, just like we did then. I’ll ask you questions, and all you have to do is tell me what you told me when we were sitting in your grandma’s kitchen.

A: Okay.

Q: Hailey, did you ever see your dad threaten your mom in any way?

A: No.

Q: Did you ever see your dad hit your mom?

A: No.

Q: Did your mom and dad ever have fights?

A: Not exactly. Well, they yelled sometimes.

Q: Now, the week before your mom died, you two had a conversation about life and death, is that right?

A: Yes.

Q: Can you tell us what she said?

A: Mom told me it don’t pay to fall in love with no man. She said she ain’t happy and she don’t know what she’s going to do. And she started in to crying.

Q: Did your mom ever say she wanted to die?

A: Sometimes she said she wished she was dead. But I know she didn’t mean it. She loved us.