Dream With Little Angels (22 page)

Slowly, I nodded. “Parts,” I said.

“How come?”

“Because there was stuff he just didn't need to know about. Why tell him things that are just gonna scare him?”

“But they didn't scare you so much, did they?” she asked. “I mean, they probably upset you—and I would be worried if they didn't—but you've slowly learned, simply by virtue of living under the same roof as me and really having no other full-time role model, that the world isn't always a nice place. You don't expect it to be. Dewey still does. If it rained gumdrops tomorrow, Dewey'd be outside with his mouth open, tryin' to catch every one he possibly could. Whereas you—”

“Whereas I'd be wonderin' why there was gumdrops fallin' from the sky, and since there were, it would seem mighty suspicious, and my first thought would be that they might possibly be poisonous.”

Both my mother's eyebrows went up. “Wow. You're even further along on this than I thought,” she said. “I hope to God I haven't messed you up, Abe. Aren't you going to try your coffee?”

I had forgotten about it completely. Now I gently lifted it to my mouth, smelling that delicious aroma before taking my first sip. It tasted exactly like it smelled, although as a taste, it wasn't quite as fulfilling as an aroma, but still it wasn't bad. And I felt very grown up drinking it. I set my mug back down on the table and said, “It's good. I think I like coffee.”

“You just don't drink too much of it, okay? How 'bout we keep it special for Saturdays for now?”

“Okay,” I agreed. “What did you mean about messing me up?”

My mother shuffled uncomfortably on her cushion. “You've grown up so fast. In some ways, I think you're older than your sister. You're far more cynical, that's for sure. I just . . . sometimes I think I robbed you out of experiencing all the fairytale parts of life. You seem to have a better handle on the horrible parts.”

I had no idea what
cynical
meant, but didn't bother asking. “I don't think life is horrible. I mean, some parts are. I think it's just confusin' at times. Like tryin' to figure out what sort of comments are racist and what ones aren't.”

“I've noticed you seem to be gettin' better at that,” she said. “I suppose my biggest worry is that you could fall one of two ways. Growing up the way you have could make you more wary and keep you safer, or it could make you . . .” She trailed off.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

“Well, sometimes when you grow up differently than other people, you can have strange thoughts that cause you to behave in ways you don't understand or even mean. Like, say you started stealin' from Mr. Harrison's five and dime.”

“I ain't never stole a thing in my life!” I said, finding that a mite insulting.

She patted my leg. “I know, honey, I'm just using that as an example. Anyway, I think we've gone off on a trail we shouldn't have. I was more talking to myself with that last part. Anyway, you had some questions about Mr. Garner?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but just as I was about to, Uncle Henry called from the kitchen. “Breakfast is pretty near done, guys!”

My mother smiled. “Is it okay if we talk more later? I'm starving.”

“Sure,” I said. After everything she'd just told me, I was actually relieved. I needed to do some thinking before I said what I was going to say.

My mother stood, finishing her coffee. “Actually, how about you stay in here a few more minutes,” she said. “Finish up your coffee while I go help Hank finish up breakfast. We'll call you when it's ready. Shouldn't be long.”

“Okay,” I said. I only said it because I could tell she wanted to talk with Uncle Henry alone.

“You think that was a smart conversation to have?” he asked her. His voice was flat and I couldn't tell what his opinion on the matter was.

“I don't know,” my mother answered. “But it's one I felt needed havin'. You think it was a mistake, right?”

There was a pause before he answered. “They're your children. You raise them as you see fit. Some of it I think was good. Some of it started gettin' into dangerous territory. But I'm sure you know what you're doin'.”

“Thank you. Now I'm gonna go tell my boy his breakfast is ready while you go down the hall and brave the danger of wakin' his sister up and draggin' her lazy ass out to this table.”

“This is revenge for me questioning your little conversation with Abe, isn't it?”

“No,” my mother said, “this is actually my survival skills training kicking in. The best altercation is one you avoid altogether.”

B
reakfast turned out as delicious as it always did on Saturday mornings. Even Carry didn't seem to be in the moldy, rotted-up mood she had been stuck in going on four months now. I figured my mother had completely forgotten about my request to ask some questions about Mr. Garner, but I turned out to be wrong. She surprised me as we were just finishing cleaning up from the meal by saying, “Hank? Any chance you could take Carry into town? I think she could use a new set of clothes for school, and I know there's some things Abe wants to discuss with me.”

Uncle Henry and Carry seemed equally surprised. A wide smile spread across my sister's lips. “What about my groundin'?”

“I told you already,” my mother said. “Groundin' means you do what I say. Christ, if I had to put up with you at home twenty-four hours a day that would be more like grounding myself.”

Carry frowned. “I ain't got no money.”

Fishing twenty dollars from her purse, my mother handed it to Carry, then looked at Hank. “Do you mind? If you have any other plans at all, I completely understand.”

Uncle Hank put on his cap. “I would love nothing better than to take my little sugarplum out shopping.”

“Thank you,” my mother said. “Now, that money's for clothes, and clothes only. And, Hank? Make sure they're practical. The sort of thing that might attract
fourteen
-year-old boys, not nineteen-year-old ones, you got me?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, saluting her.

My mother and I finished washing and drying dishes while Uncle Henry and Carry got ready before heading outside to where Uncle Henry's supposedly stolen car sat parked in front of our house.

“There, all done,” my mother said, folding her dishtowel and hanging it over the handle of the stove. “You ready for another coffee?”

“Sure,” I said slowly, wondering if this was some sort of test. “Am I gonna stop growing, though?”

She laughed. “I actually don't think that's true.”

“Then why did you say it in front of Mr. and Mrs. Yates?”

“Because some people wouldn't think it's proper for me to allow my eleven-year-old son to drink coffee. I'm not really entirely sure why, but I'm quite positive the bit about it stunting your growth is an old wives' tale.”

“Like whistling when you walk past a graveyard so the spirits don't think you're scared?” I asked.

“Actually,” my mother said, “that one may be true. I still do it.” She shrugged. “Usually I find it's better to err on the side of caution with things like that. Being short ain't that big of a deal if I turn out wrong. Being attacked by someone's dead ghost is another thing entirely.”

I laughed as my mother handed me the second cup of coffee I had ever been given in my life. Once again we went into the living room, taking the same places on the sofa we had before. I set my mug on the table. This time, she held hers in her lap and sat back, crossing her legs.

“So,” she said, “you wanted to ask me something about Mr. Garner?” I could tell she was a little worried about what it was I wanted to know. Likely it had to do with our conversation earlier.

“Well, I have some questions and stuff,” I said, not liking how awkward it all felt. It felt so awkward that I came close to telling her to just forget about it, but I couldn't on account of some things were really bothering me and needed to be gotten off my chest.

“Well, then,” she said, “go ahead and ask me, Abe. I'll do my best to answer as honestly as possible.”

I took a deep breath. She could tell I was a bit wary. “Well,” I said, “if Mr. Garner killed Mary Ann Dailey, does that mean he also took Tiffany Michelle Yates?”

She thought about this a minute, then leaned forward, her hands coming around her cup, placing it between her knees. Steam rose from the top. I had no idea how she could grasp the sides of the mug that way; her fingers must have been burning. “Yes, honey, I think so.”

“Then, where is she?”

“That's a good question, Abe. It's the one we're all asking. And it's something we have to figure out soon, because wherever she is, she probably doesn't have any food or water. You were there at the station today—I'm not sure how much you heard or how much you understood, but we
do
have some new evidence and clues to follow up on, and we're hoping it will help us uncover her whereabouts.”

“So you don't think Tiffany Michelle is dead?” I asked.

She sipped her coffee. “I'll be honest,” she said, “I truly don't know. What I do know is that we haven't seen her body, so I'm hoping that's a good sign.”

I stared at my coffee on the table in front of me. Then I noticed the table. It was old and brown and chipped. We had had it for as long as I could remember. It was yet another piece of furniture that would one day be replaced with something brand-new, according to my mother. I didn't see why it was so important to replace old things if they still worked fine. All the furniture in our house seemed as reliable as always to me.

“Do you
really
think he did it?” I asked without looking up. “Mr. Garner, I mean.”

“Them experts from Mobile found lots of forensic evidence supporting that he did, Abe.”

“Yeah, but what does that mean?”

“It means they found
his
prints on her body and nobody else's. Fingerprints are like snowflakes. Everybody's is completely different than everyone else's. And they're tiny. You can only see them under a microscope.”

“I know,” I said. “We studied them in school. But couldn't they have come from when Mr. Garner found Mary Ann Dailey's body? I mean, they said they found Dixie's hair on her, too. Do you think Dixie killed her?”

My mother gave me a patronizing smile. “Come on, Abe. The important fact is that
nobody else's
prints were found.”

“What if the real killer wore gloves? And a hairnet? Or some kind of space suit?”

“Okay, maybe you aren't old enough for this conversation,” she said.

I regretted mentioning the space suit. With a sip of my coffee, I continued, ignoring her comment. “All right, but Mr. Garner's fingerprints could easily have already been on that shovel, right? I mean it
was
his shovel. And it could have already been by that tree. He goes to that tree a lot. You guys saw the flowers underneath Mary Ann's body, right?”

Mom leaned forward and set her mug on the coffee table. “How do you know about the flowers?” she asked, looking at me until I rose my face up to meet hers. “We were holding that evidence back in case of false confessions.”

“What's a false confession?” I asked.

She sat back. “Well, as strange as this sounds, some people want to be noticed so much that, when they hear about somethin' like this happenin', they'll tell the police they were the ones who did it, just so they feel important.”

“That's crazy,” I said.

“It's a crazy world, Abe,” my mother said. “Anyway, what we normally do is hold back at least one pertinent piece of evidence from everyone, especially the newspapers, so that nobody but the real killer could possibly know 'bout it. That way we know whether or not the person really did it. In this case, it was the fresh flowers we found when we removed Mary Ann Dailey's body. They had been placed right beneath her.”

“Yeah, I know. White daisies, clipped and tied in a bunch with a pink ribbon,” I said.

This grabbed my mother's attention in a way I had seen nothing do before. “Now, how in the name of the Lord do you know that?”

It took me a few seconds to figure out why she was so surprised. “Wait,” I said. “You think the
killer
put them there?”

“Who else would've, Abe?”

“Mr. Garner. Those daisies were there when we rode our bikes over earlier that day. Mr. Garner always puts flowers around that tree. He's done so ever since finding Ruby Mae Vickers.”

“And you know this how?”

“He told us during the time we walked along the river lookin' for Mary Ann Dailey the day after she disappeared. Remember? The day it rained somethin' awful and most everyone in the town went out searching for her. Well, except Mr. Farrow from across the street,” I said, letting that fact sink in. “We saw flowers then and asked him about them and he said he put them there, but I got the distinct feeling he didn't much like discussin' them too much. But when me and Dewey rode up that day right before he found Mary Ann's body, those daisies was already there. You can ask Dewey if you don't believe me.”

“Now, why would I believe Dewey over you, Abe?” she asked. “Of course I believe you. But why didn't you tell me this before? You didn't even tell Chris when he took your report.”

I shrugged. “Guess I forgot about them. Seeing Mary Ann Dailey's body just thrown away like that made it hard for me to think properly.”

Closing her eyes, she let out a shallow breath, then opened them again. “Do you wish you hadn't seen it? Did I make a mistake bringing you along?”

“Sometimes I wish I hadn't. But I don't think you made a mistake. It's like you said earlier, I already thought about things like that a lot. Sometimes what you picture in your mind can be worse than it turns out to be in real life.”

“Was this one of those times?” she asked, looking as though she hoped my answer would be yes.

But I shook my head. I figured there was no point in not being honest now. “I never expected her eyes to look the way they did. All the life was gone, yet they was still open. It was like seeing a puppet without a hand inside.”

Her head dropped, and I wished I would have said it different. I touched her hand. “Mom, I'm glad I got to see it. It didn't mess me up, like you said earlier. I promise.” She brought her eyes back up to mine. “But there's something you need to understand,” I said. “Maybe you're right about Mr. Garner killing Mary Ann Dailey, although I don't rightly think you are, but you sure as heck aren't right about him doin' the same to Ruby Mae Vickers. Me and Dewey listened to the way he talked about her. It was almost as though he had found his
own
daughter dead by that tree, he felt so bad.” A wetness was coming to my mother's eyes, making them look like pools of blue. “Mom, for twelve years he's been putting flowers out for her. Do you think he'd do that if he
killed
her? I sure as heck don't.”

Now normally, I would be expecting a slap for using an almost cuss word like
heck
once in front of my mother, and here I had done it twice. But today was special and I could sense it. Maybe it was the coffee, maybe it was the way she was treating me, but I felt more grown up than ever.

She may not have even noticed I did so. Her head turned toward the window. Outside, a bluebird perched on a branch of one of the two fig trees that grew along the edge of our property. Across the street, Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow's house sat dark and quiet, as though it were asleep. I guessed my mother had been right. He probably did spend most early parts of the days sleeping and then used the nights for working. I found it strange that some people worked at night. But then, Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow apparently built stuff for a living, although where he found a market for Roadkill Frankensteins was a problem for another day.

What was it Mr. Garner had said that day we went huntin' for Mary Ann Dailey? That he just built stuff to keep busy because “the devil finds work for idle hands to do.” So he didn't have to work nights. In fact, he had just been finishing up his work on that tool shed that afternoon Dewey and I pulled up on our bikes. The day Mary Ann Dailey's body turned up.

It was then that I realized what it was that'd been bothering me the last few days. The thing I kept feeling like I should be remembering but couldn't. “Mom?” I asked.

She seemed distracted, and I nearly repeated the question until she tore herself away from the view outside and looked at me. “Yes, Abe?”

“How long does it take to put a roof on a tool shed?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea, why?”

“Because it took us, say, twenty-five minutes or so to ride home that afternoon from Mr. Garner's ranch. Then it probably took another fifteen or twenty before you and I got back there in the car. It took almost as long in the car on account of me and Dewey know some shortcuts, and it took me a good five minutes or so to convince you to let me come along, remember?”

From her eyes, I could tell she was completely lost as to where I was going with this. “Abe, what's your point?”

“My point's this. Mr. Garner claims he had just finished the roof of his tool shed and gone in for a beer when but five minutes later Dixie's barking brought him back outside and, maybe five minutes after that, he found Mary Ann Dailey. It probably took him a couple more minutes to run back to the house and call you.”

She nodded. “And what evidence we have supports his claim that the body had only been under that tree maybe ten minutes or so, so I will agree with you that on this particular point, Mr. Garner is probably not lying.”

“Good,” I said, feeling myself get on a roll. “And then there's the very shallow hole someone dug. I mean, it wasn't even a hole. It couldn't have been more than three or four shovels of dirt.”

“Right.”

“So, why even dig that much? Unless you planned on diggin' more, only what you didn't plan on was to have some coon dog spot you and start raisin' up such a fuss. So you drop the diggin' idea completely and just toss the body down. I mean, if Mr. Garner wanted to dig a hole, he could dig all day, and Dixie wouldn't even raise an ear.”