Hissy Fit (34 page)

It was Wednesday night.
Salmon loaf night. After I dropped Austin off, I drove aimlessly around Madison, around and around the square, past the Charm Shop, then the drugstore, then the closed-up Piggly Wiggly, every place in town I could ever remember going with Mama. And then I drove out to the last place I’d seen her. Home.

I breathed a little sigh of relief when I saw that Serena’s car was not parked in Daddy’s driveway. I’d had some time to get used to the idea, and after some time spent with Serena, I’d concluded that she actually was a very nice person. Maybe not who I would have picked for him, but in real life, you seldom get to pick a parent’s new partner. Anyway, tonight needed to be a night for just the two of us.

“Hey, shug,” Daddy said, when I came in the back door. He was bustling around the kitchen, whistling along with a big band tune on the CD player I’d given him for Father’s Day, and having a high old time. The room smelled like roasting meat and onions. It smelled familiar. It smelled like home.

He turned from the saucepan he was stirring and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“What is it?” he asked. “You’ve been crying.”

“A little,” I admitted. “Can you put dinner on hold for a little while?”

He nodded. “Just let me turn off the potatoes. The chicken’s already done. I’ll leave it in the oven.”

I went to the liquor cabinet and got out a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. I poured some in each glass, then added ice and water. Daddy was sitting at the kitchen table. I held my glass up to his and clinked it.

“To Mama,” I said. “To her memory.”

He looked up, surprised. “That’s what this is about? You found out something?”

I sank down into my chair and took his hand in mine. “She’s dead,” I said softly. “She’s been dead all these years. She never even left Madison.”

He nodded. There were tears in his eyes. “I always had a feeling. Nothing I could put a finger on. Just a feeling. So. That’s it, then. She’s dead. What happened? How did you find out?”

I told him then, starting with our meeting with Sonya Wyrick and ending with Vince Bascomb. I left out a couple details, including the part where I’d hit a sick old man. That I wasn’t particularly proud of.

“I want to bring her home now,” Daddy said when I’d finished telling the story. “Give her a proper burial. And a headstone. In the family plot.”

“Bascomb says he doesn’t know where Drew Jernigan hid the body,” I said. “But I intend to find out. I want him to pay for what he did to her. To us.”

“Keeley Rae,” Daddy said, shaking his head. “You’ve done enough now. More than I could have done. You leave this up to me now.”

“But Daddy,” I protested.

He put his finger across my lips. “Shhh. I mean it. I want to think about this now. Think about what it all means.”

“Vince Bascomb is at death’s door already,” I said gloomily. “Eaten up with cancer, from the looks of him. And anyway, he claims he wasn’t out there when it happened. But it should mean obstruction of justice, for Drew and Lorna, in the very least,” I said hotly. “And even Sonya. Mama was her cousin. How could she cover up for those criminals? It should mean jailtime for all of them. And if the law gets involved again, maybe they can track down Darvis Kane. We know he was alive up until the mid-eighties. Maybe they could put his picture on that
America’s Most Wanted
program on television, and then—”

“Shhh,” Daddy repeated wearily. “Not tonight. Give me some
time.” He got up from the table and went back to the stove. “Supper’s almost ready.” He opened the oven door so I could get a peek. “Coq au vin,” he said proudly. “Serena’s recipe.”

“Smells wonderful,” I said. But my stomach was in knots. I forced myself to eat a few bites of Daddy’s chicken, which, amazingly, tasted as good as it smelled. We managed some conversation, but whenever the discussion came too close to Mama, Daddy firmly declared the subject closed. I couldn’t understand it. This was the moment I’d been waiting for for years. We finally had some answers. But Vince Bascomb was right about one thing. It didn’t make us happy. And later, as I washed up the dinner dishes, I realized that it didn’t even make us any different.

My mother was gone. She’d been gone for almost twenty-five years. For a long time I’d expected her to come back again. When, exactly, I wondered, had I given up? And when had my father given up?

I threw myself
into my work. All the structural and mechanical work at Mulberry Hill was done. The painters and plasterers were nearly finished. Will was in and out of town on business, but mostly out. And Stephanie Scofield was driving me nuts.

Her weekly visits had morphed into daily phone consults. “It’s me!” she’d chirp gaily. “I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking about the towel bars in the downstairs powder room…”

I’d been thinking about braining her with one of the aforementioned towel bars.

Finally, the week before the dove hunt, I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had one more buying trip to make for Mulberry Hill. The plan was for me to go up to High Point, North Carolina, to shop the after-market sample sales at all the big furniture showrooms. I’d pick up the last few pieces of furniture for the house, as well as shop for things for our other clients, and be back Friday, in time to supervise the preparations for Will’s big dove hunt.

So far everything was fine. Miss Nancy had the food lined up, and Austin had been designing “rustic chic” flowers for weeks. Before I left, I got caller ID for the phones at the studio, and instructed Gloria to keep Stephanie the hell away from Mulberry Hill, at any cost.

“You keep on avoiding her, she’s just going to come over here and be a pain in my ass,” Gloria complained.

“She won’t,” I assured my aunt. “She knows Will’s out of town, and I’ve told her I’m going up to High Point. At one point, God help me, she even talked about going with me. ‘A shopping trip just for us girls!’ is the way she put it. But she’s got some big closing this week, and we’ve had to put it off.”

“Pity,” Gloria said. She pushed away the stack of fabric samples
she’d been sorting through. “Are you going to see Sonya Wyrick when you’re up there in North Carolina?”

I’d filled Gloria in on what I’d learned about Mama’s death, and hoped she’d persuade Daddy to let me deal with Drew Jernigan and the others. But to my surprise, she’d sided with her brother. “Your daddy knows best this time, Keeley,” Gloria had said.

“I want to see the look on her face when I tell Sonya I know Mama’s dead, and that she had a hand in it,” I told Gloria.

“But Wade said…”

“I know. And I promised him I’d let it alone. So I guess I will.”

And I meant to keep my promise to my father. But when I reached the Kannapolis exit off I-85, I thought about turning off. Telling myself it was just a pit stop. I’d top off the rental van’s gas tank, get a cold drink, and use the bathroom. But I wasn’t really thirsty, and didn’t need to pee. Without giving it another thought, I pulled into the Waffle House where we’d met with my cousin Sonya the previous month. I called information for her phone number, and reached her at home on my cell phone.

“Sonya? It’s me, Keeley Murdock.”

“Hey,” she said, her voice cautious. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, trying to sound finer than I actually was. “I was just passing through town on my way to High Point, and I wanted to get a bite to eat. I’m up here at the Waffle House, and I wondered if you’d join me for a cup of coffee.”

“I’m kinda busy right now,” she said. “The grandkids was here this weekend, and the house is all tore up, and I got prayer meeting tonight, and I’m giving the lesson.”

“I’ve talked to Vince Bascomb,” I cut in. “He told me Mama’s dead. I know all about what happened that night. My daddy has hired a lawyer and is considering pressing legal charges against all of y’all.”

“What!” she shrieked. “I wasn’t even out there when it happened. If Vince Bascomb says I was, he’s a goddamn liar.”

Her churchiness had gone out the window with breathtaking suddenness.

“I’m at the Waffle House,” I said, my voice steely. “See you in five minutes?”

“Ten,” she said. “I got a cake in the oven.”

I ordered coffee and rye toast, and amused myself by reading the song selections on the tabletop jukebox, all of which included something about Waffle House in the titles.

I was on my second cup when Sonya came lumbering into the restaurant. She glared at me as she eased herself into the booth. “You got no right to be calling me up and making accusations about something that happened twenty-five years ago,” she said, right off the bat. “If it hadn’t been for me, you still wouldn’t know nothing about your mama. I done you a favor, and look how you treat me. My own flesh and blood, and you’re threatening to call the cops on me? If your mama were alive today, she’d be ashamed of you.”

“I doubt that very much,” I said. “There’s just one thing I want from you. I want to know where her body is.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

I leaned forward. “I don’t believe you. You lied before. Vince Bascomb told me you were there. It was pitch dark. Nobody around. Drew Jernigan didn’t hide that body by himself. I know you helped him.”

“Vince Bascomb would rather tell a lie than eat when he’s hungry,” Sonya said. “He’s a bad man. He’s spent his whole life whoring and drinking and sinning. If you want the truth about your mama’s death, you better ask somebody who knows the truth when she sees it.”

“He’s dying,” I said abruptly. “He doesn’t even weigh ninety pounds. He’s got nothing to lose now. Why would he lie about any of this? Come on, Sonya. I know you were there. I know you know where her body is. You say you’ve got religion now. You say you’re saved. Prove it. All my daddy wants now is to find Mama’s body and give her a decent burial. If you’re such a good Christian now, help us give her a Christian burial.”

She drummed her stubby fingertips angrily on the laminate tabletop.

Finally she folded her hands in front of her. “She was dead when I got there. I don’t care what Vince told you, she was already dead. Drew Jernigan and that fool Lorna Plummer were standing around like a couple of statues, and Darvis had already run off. Lorna wanted to leave Jeanine’s body in the cabin and set it on fire, but Drew wasn’t having none of that. He was afraid the fire would spread to his own place, or burn down the whole woods. He said he had a better idea. The well.”

“What well?”

“There was an old drinking well out at Vince’s hunting camp. It had gone dry years before; nobody ever used it. So that’s what he did. He and Lorna drug her out of there, and put her down in that well, and chunked in a bunch of rocks and stuff to cover her up. As far as I know, that’s right where she’s at today. But I had nothing to do with it. I stayed back behind in the cabin, waiting for Vince. And when he got out there, we cleaned the place up. And that’s all.” She put her hand on her heart. “As God is my witness.”

“Don’t you dare bring God into this,” I said angrily. “The last time I saw you, you were talking about forgiveness, and turning to God for the answers. When you had the answers all along.” I took a deep breath. “I grew up thinking my mother had abandoned me. Thinking she was still alive, and didn’t care enough about me to get in touch. You could have prevented that. You could have changed it with one phone call. But you and the others were more worried about saving your own sorry asses. So don’t you dare talk to me about forgiveness. And don’t you dare say you’re flesh and blood to me. Or my mother.”

Sonya blinked, and then burst into tears. Her chest heaved with sobs. Rivulets of mascara dripped down her cheeks. The people sitting at the counter turned around to stare, and then turned back to their waffles and eggs. I watched the show impassively, sipping my coffee, waiting for intermission.

Finally I’d had enough. I got the waitress to bring her a glass of cold water. I handed her a wad of paper napkins. She drank the water and blew her nose on the napkins, and managed to mop up some of the mascara on her face.

“I know you don’t want to hear it,” she whispered. “But I am sorry. I don’t have a right to ask you to forgive me, and I won’t. You know, I’m glad you came here today, and made me tell the truth. I been hiding from it a long time. You’re right. I was just as much a part of it as they were. I been a coward. I been lying to myself, telling myself that because I’m a Christian, I’m forgiven. But you can’t get forgiven until you take it all to Jesus. I took the rest of it to him years ago, the drinkin’ and running around, the lying and hurtful things I done to my children and my friends. But that’s the last thing I was holdin’ on to. My one last, awful secret. And you made me face up to it. You helped me to lay that burden down. Now your daddy can call the law if he wants to. I’ll stand up and tell the truth, and I won’t care what happens on this earth. Because this is not my home.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand so tightly, I thought I would scream with the pain.

“Thank you, Keeley Rae. For bringing me some peace. I thank you.” She leaned across the table and planted a kiss on my cheek.

And I walked out.

I had to check myself in the sun visor mirror to see if I recognized myself. I’d gone into the Waffle House determined to confront Sonya and force her to tell me the truth. And I’d done that. I’d walked out of there with the one last missing piece to the puzzle. I knew now where my mother was. She was at the bottom of an abandoned well. And I was still no closer to feeling whole. Where was the closure you always hear people talking about? Where was the healing?

I thought about it the whole two hours between Kannapolis and High Point. And then I checked into my room at the motel next to the Atrium Furniture Mall. I was at ground zero for the furniture capital of the world. The twice yearly international market week had
just closed, and now most of the showroom samples were on sale. The hell with closure, I told myself. The hell with healing. The hell with the Jernigans and the Plummers, and Stephanie Scofield and all of it. What I needed right now was some good old-fashioned retail therapy. But at wholesale prices.

Armed only with my checkbook and shopping list, I hit the streets. First I went over to Rose Furniture Company. The very sight of the building made me start feeling better. I’d done my research—one hundred eighty thousand square feet and more than six hundred different manufacturers.

I signed in and got myself assigned a salesman named Tim who was some kind of kin to the Rose family who’d opened the showroom in 1925. Six hours later I kicked my shoes off my swollen feet and fell onto the bed in my motel room.

The van was full to overflowing, and I’d paid for the rest of my finds to be shipped down to Madison the following week. For the den, I’d bought a pair of luscious leather club chairs, similar to the antique ones I’d put in the pump house, two overstuffed sofas, a heart-pine armoire for the entertainment center, and assorted side tables, along with a massive wrought-iron and glass-topped coffee table. I’d bought a pair of Ralph Lauren four-poster beds for one of the guest rooms, and, God help me, a Martha Stewart bed for another room. I bought a long oval table for the family dining room, and eight reproduction Hitchcock chairs to go with it. After leaving Rose Furniture I’d gone to my favorite big antiques showroom, then hit Butler’s Electric for lighting fixtures, and finally back to the Atrium, to About Last Night, a linen showroom where I let myself go nuts buying the creamiest, most exquisite towels and bed linens I could find—aside from the monogrammed Pratesi sheets I’d already ordered for the master bedroom.

The next day, Thursday, I allowed myself one last binge. I started at the Boyles gallery, but by three o’clock I’d run out of steam. I was easing myself back into my room when my cell phone began ringing.

“Keeley?” Gloria was out of breath. “I think you better get back here in a hurry.”

“Right now? I was going to take a hot bath and order some dinner from room service. I thought I’d head back first thing in the morning. You won’t believe all the great stuff I’ve found.”

“Now,” Gloria said. “You better get back here right now. There’s trouble out at Mulberry Hill.”