Blood Wounds (11 page)

He didn't seem to mind, though. Except for Crystal, he was the only person in the picture who seemed genuinely happy. He was a younger, happier version of Budge, and he looked so much like me that I knew he had to be my brother.

I put the picture back. There was nothing else in the living room with any meaning for me. Now that I'd seen the photographs, I would always remember what Budge and Granny Coffey looked like, and what they'd been like to Mom and me.

I went to the kitchen next. It was a small house, probably no more than four rooms. I wasn't ready for the bedrooms yet.

There were unwashed dishes in the sink. A glass half full of soda sat on the table, a couple of dead flies floating in it.

Budge had left through the back door, most likely carrying Krissi. He had to have washed the blood, or most of it, off himself first. He couldn't have cleaned himself in the bathroom, not with Kelli Marie lying there in the tub.

I forced myself to walk to the kitchen sink. There was blood on the dishes, on the faucets, on the walls of the sink. It was week-old blood, and some effort had been made to clean it, but I still could see it.

Why had Faye brought me here? These people had no money, no jewelry. There was nothing of sentimental value for me, and she had to have known there wouldn't be.

It was some form of shock treatment, I thought. I was left alone in this house so I could finally understand what Budge had done. To make sure I realized this wasn't some cable news stranger but my daddy.

It sounded cruel, but I knew it wasn't. Faye was no Granny Coffey. Jack would never have okayed this, but Jack wanted all of us to believe in happy families.

Mom needed me to understand why she'd run away, what she'd been so frightened of for so long. But I still wasn't sure she'd want me in this house, and even if she did, I knew she'd want Faye here by my side.

I couldn't tell her Faye had left me. Faye was the only part of Pryor that Mom still had. Mom would never forgive her for leaving me here alone.

We were a family of secrets. I'd kept my share. One more wouldn't hurt.

There was no reason to stay in the kitchen. Crystal might have been the type to keep a few dollars hidden in the sugar bowl, but I wasn't about to dig around and find out.

The problem was where I would go if I left the kitchen. As best I could tell, the only rooms left were the girls' room, the master bedroom, and the bath.

I knew I couldn't leave without going to Budge and Crystal's bedroom. Faye would be certain to ask me, and she'd catch me if I lied. I could skip the bathroom, I told myself. But I had to go to the bedroom, and if I wanted Faye to shut up about it, I'd better find Crystal's jewelry box and take something from it.

I went to the girls' room first, where no one had died. It was painted pink and had white cotton curtains. Most of the girls' toys seemed to be in the living room, but there were a couple of dolls strewn around here, and a well-chewed teddy bear in the corner.

There were two beds with identical pink flowered sheets and quilts. Kelli Marie must have had her own, and the twins shared another. Neither bed was made.

I looked across the tiny room and saw the remains of bloody fingerprints on the chest of drawers and closet. Budge needed clothes for Krissi. The people who'd seen her in Ohio had described her outfit, blue jeans and a yellow cotton shirt. If she'd been in bed when Budge went on his rampage, he must have dressed her before they left.

It didn't help that I was in the room where no one had died. This bedroom was as filled with ghosts as anywhere else in the house.

I went to the master bedroom.

I knew there'd be blood there, but I hadn't expected quite so much. There was no headboard and the walls were splattered. The mattress had been torn to shreds from Budge's ceaseless stabbing.

I knew I couldn't stay in the room very long.
Just find something, anything,
I told myself,
and then you can go back to Faye's spare room with its patchwork quilt and sleeping cat.

Bloody footprints covered the carpet. There were pale but discernible bloodstains on the furniture and closet, showing what Budge had touched after he'd washed himself off in the kitchen.

Crystal's jewelry box was on top of the chest of drawers. I stood as far away as I could, reached out, and grabbed it. As I opened it, the sound of a tinkling music box song shocked me. I screamed and dropped the box, Crystal's earrings and pendants scattering on the carpet.

"Who's there? Whoever you are, you've got no business being here!"

I screamed again.

"G
ET OUT OF THAT
room right now! Do you hear me? Get out!"

I couldn't move. The music box kept tinkling "Edelweiss." The footsteps got louder and closer to the door.

"Out! You got no right being here."

I stared, paralyzed with fear, at a young man, not much more than a boy, really, in tight jeans and a white T-shirt, a tattoo of a dragon reaching from his neck all the way down his left arm. In confusion, I thought, Budge didn't have a tattoo, not when he was that age, when my mother loved him enough to make his baby.

Then I understood. "Trace?" I choked out. "You're Trace?"

He looked at me, Budge's daughter, his sister. As much a Coffey as he was.

"Willa?" he asked.

I managed to nod.

"I heard you was in town," he said. "Granny heard talk."

"I didn't know you were," I said. I took a deep breath, trying to stop my body from shaking. "I ... I'm sorry. I don't want to be here. I haven't taken anything."

"Not much to take, most likely," Trace said. "Except for his guitar. I came to get his guitar."

Everything was swirling. Out of nowhere, I remembered Daddy playing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" on his guitar, teaching me its words, laughing with me as I danced to the music.

"Oh, God," I said. "I'm going to be sick."

"Bathroom," Trace said.

"No," I said. "Not there." I raced through the hallway, the bloodstained kitchen, and out the back door. I made it to the tiny backyard just in time. The swing set swayed almost playfully in the tannery-scented breeze.

Trace followed me out. "You okay?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I mean, yes, I guess so. My heart's stopped pounding."

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't know it was you. Can you go back in? The living room's not bad."

I nodded. We walked down the driveway to the front of the house. Trace opened the door.

"Everybody's watching," he said. "The whole town probably knows by now that we're in here talking."

"I don't care," I said. "I'll be gone in a couple of days."

Trace laughed, and when he did, I heard another of Budge's echoes. "No one stays in Pryor if they don't have to," he said.

"You didn't," I said, sitting on the plaid sofa, the kindly face of Jesus staring down at me.

"Well, I don't know how much of a choice I had," Trace said. He sat on the easy chair, picked up the ashtray, then pushed it away. "Crystal and me had a big fight and Granny wouldn't let me stay with her neither. No one else was much interested, so I took off."

"To where?" I asked.

"Austin first," he said. "Then Memphis. I've been thinking maybe I'd try Nashville next. I could use a good guitar, so I figured I'd help myself to Budge's. You don't want it, do you?"

"I don't want anything," I said. "How did you find out?"

"About Crystal and the girls? I saw it on TV. How about you?"

"Faye Parker called the police," I said. "After Budge took Krissi. She was worried about Mom and me. Did Budge know where you were?"

Trace shook his head. "No one did," he said. "Crystal made it damn clear she didn't want any part of me, and Budge didn't care one way or the other. The twins were still in the hospital when I left. Kelli Marie used to follow me around, though. She couldn't say Trace. More like Twace." He paused. "I knew you was Willa right away. I could hear Momma Terri in your voice when you said my name."

"You called her that?" I asked. "Momma Terri?"

"Yeah," he said. "I was just a little kid when I lived with you folks. My momma had taken up with some guy—well, she was always doing that, still is probably—and she didn't want me around, so she sent me back to live with Budge and Momma Terri and you."

I tried to picture this, Daddy and Mommy and my big brother, Trace. A happy family, happy in its own fashion.

"What happened?" I asked.

Trace looked up, like he was trying to catch the memory. "I'm not sure," he said. "But my momma got me and I lived with her for a while, and then I lived with some other folks, and then Budge found Jesus and I came back here to live with him and Granny Coffey. I lived with Granny till she kicked me out, and then I lived with Budge and Crystal till she kicked me out, and you know the rest."

"I thought it was the other way around," I said. "Granny kicked you out last."

Trace laughed. It was an easy laugh and hearing it made me feel better. "Could be," he said. "I got kicked out so many times, I coulda lost the order of things. So what's your life been like since I stopped changing your diapers?"

"You changed my diapers?" I asked, trying hard not to blush.

He laughed again. "I don't know how much of a help I was," he said. "But Momma Terri always tried to make me feel like I was. She was real kind to me. Sometimes I'd wish she was my real momma. I'd wish she'd come and find me and we'd live together again, you and Momma Terri and Budge and me. You know. Kid stuff."

"I know," I said, although I really didn't. Had Brooke and Alyssa ever fantasized like that, that Jack and Val would miraculously get back together? I had no memories of wanting Budge back in my life, but then again, until today I'd had no memories of him at all.

And now I was sitting in his living room talking with his son. Swapping stories. Reminiscing. A blood-soaked family reunion.

"My life is pretty good," I said. "No, it's really good. Mom married this great guy. He would've adopted me, but Budge wouldn't let him."

"Sounds like Budge," Trace said. "Never give anything up, if someone else wants it."

"Anyway, I feel like Jack is my father," I said. "He has two daughters, and they live with us. We're happy. I mean, we fight and we don't always get along, but Mom and Jack love us and we love them. And each other." I sounded like an idiot. "I'm a junior in high school," I said. "And I sing in the choir."

"You sing?" Trace asked, and his face lit up. "Me too. Budge had a great voice, really great. He used to say if my momma hadn't had me, and then him meeting up with Momma Terri and all, he would have gone to Nashville to see if he could make it. I bet he could have too. He played a mean guitar. Learned all by himself, and then he taught me. What kind of songs you like to sing?"

I'd never really thought about it. I sang what was assigned. "Just about anything," I said. "I don't know how good I am, but I'm getting a solo in the next recital." Funny. No one in my family knew that yet. Trace was the first I'd told.

"That's real nice," Trace said. "Maybe before you go, we'll sing something together."

"I'd like that," I said. "No one else in my family sings. Does Granny Coffey?"

Trace shook his head. "She sings like a crow." He laughed. "I guess it comes from Great-Grandpa Coffey's side of the family, but he took off way before I was born, so I don't know. Never asked Budge."

"Maybe we could ask Granny Coffey," I said.

"Yeah," Trace said. "But I ain't willing to risk my life trying."

I laughed with him. And then I remembered where I was.

I guess Trace did too, because his laughter stopped almost as abruptly as mine had.

"She's a mean little bitch," he said. "Meanest I ever come across, and I met my share."

"But she's letting you stay with her," I said.

"Sorta," Trace said. "I'm sleeping on the porch. She lets me in to use the john and then she chases me out again. I was thinking I might stay here, but the bedroom's a mess, and I don't think I'd be comfortable in the girls' room. I could sleep on the couch here, though. It'd be warmer than the porch."

"It's a rental," I said. "And the rent's paid up till the end of the month. I don't see why you couldn't stay here. If you can stand it, I mean."

"That's a good question," he said. "I guess I won't know until I try."

I turned away from him. Jesus smiled at me. "The reason I'm here..." I began. "Well, I'm in Pryor because I wanted to go to the funeral. They were my sisters, even if I didn't know them. I felt like I should be here."

Trace nodded. "I understand," he said. "I'm here too."

"What I meant was the reason I'm
here,
in their house," I continued. "Faye works for a lawyer, Sam Weldon. I saw him yesterday morning, and he said if Crystal hadn't made out a will or if she did and she left everything to her daughters, then I'd inherit from them. You and I. Since we're their closest relations."

"Wouldn't the money go to Crystal's folks?" Trace asked.

"Not according to Sam," I said. "Not if Krissi was the last one to die. She'd inherit from Crystal, and then we inherit from her. My guess is there isn't very much, the house being a rental and all."

Jesus continued to smile at me.

"How did you get in anyway?" I asked. "Did Granny have a key?"

"I broke in through the kitchen door," Trace said. "When I heard that music box go off, I damn near had a heart attack."

"Me too," I said, laughing with my brother the housebreaker.

"I wouldn't mind inheriting something," Trace said. "If there's anything to inherit. Crystal kind of owes me, you know. Kicking me out like she did. I figured I could take the guitar because I knew it was Budge's, but I didn't know I could take everything else. Half of everything else."

"I didn't see anything worth taking," I said. "Not that I looked very hard."

"Sit here," Trace said. "I'll get that jewelry box. Maybe there's something pretty in there for you." He left the room and I went back to looking at the wedding pictures, staring at Trace without a tattoo.

He returned a few moments later. I could make out the outline of some jewelry in his pockets. "There wasn't hardly nothing there," he said. "Crystal used to wear a little gold cross, but I guess she had it on when she died." He opened his hand and showed me a silver and turquoise pin. "Maybe you'd like this."