The Sandcastle Sister (9 page)

The glass doorknob felt cool against my fingers when I touched it, the facets surprisingly sharp. “I’m coming in . . . okay?” Every muscle in my body tightened, preparing for fight or flight. “It’s just Tandi Reese . . . from the cottage. I hope I’m not scaring you, but I was wor
 
—” The rest of
worried
never passed my lips. I turned the handle. The lock assembly clicked, and the heavy wooden door fell open with such force that it felt like someone had pulled it from the other side. The doorknob struck the wall, vibrating the floor beneath my feet. Behind me, the cat hissed, then scrambled off down the stairs.

Picture frames inside the room shivered on the pale-blue walls, reflecting orbs of light over the furniture. Beyond the jog created by the hallway nook, the footboard of an ornate bed pulled at me as the shuddering frames settled into place and the light stopped dancing. By the bedpost, a neatly cornered blue quilt grazed the floor, and a pair of shoes
 
—the sensible, rubber-soled kind that Zoey, with her fourteen-year-old fashion sense, referred to as
grandma shoes
 
—were tucked along the edge of a faded Persian rug, the heels and toes exactly even.

The feet that belonged in the shoes had not traveled far away. Covered in thin black stockings, they rested atop the bed near the footboard, the folded, crooked toes pointing outward slightly, in a position that seemed natural enough for someone taking a midday nap.

But the feet didn’t move, despite the explosion of the door hitting the wall. I tasted the bile of my last meal. No one could sleep through that.

The bedroom lay in perfect silence as I stepped inside, my footfalls seeming loud, out of place. I didn’t speak again or call out or say her name to warn her that I was coming. Without even seeing her face, I knew there was no need.

Gruesome scenes from Zoey’s favorite horror movies flashed through my mind, but when I crept past the corner, forced myself to turn her way, Iola Anne Poole looked peaceful, like she’d just stopped for a quick nap and forgotten to get up again. She was flat on her back atop the bed, a pressed cotton dress
 
—white with tiny blue flower baskets
 
—falling over her long, thin legs and seeming to disappear into a wedding ring quilt sewn in all the colors of sky and sea. Her leathery, wrinkled arms lay folded neatly across her stomach, the gnarled fingers intertwined in a posture that looked both contented and confident. Prepared. The chalky-gray hue of her skin told me it would be cold if I touched it.

I didn’t. I turned away instead, pressed a hand over my mouth and nose. As much as the body looked like someone had carefully laid it out to give a peaceful appearance, there were no signs that anyone else had been in the room. The only trails on the dusty floor led from the door to the bed, from the bed to what appeared to be a closet tucked behind the hallway nook, and past the foot of the bed to a small writing desk by the window. Whatever she was doing up here, she didn’t come often. What was the lure of this turret room at the end of the upstairs hall, with its gold-trimmed walls painted in faded shades of cream and milky blue? Did she know she was approaching her last hours? Was this where she wanted to die? Where she wanted to be found?

Could I have helped if I’d checked on her sooner?

The questions drove me from the room, sent me into the hall, gasping for air. I didn’t want to think about how long she’d been there or whether she’d known death was coming for her, whether she’d been afraid when it happened or completely at peace.

Truthfully, I didn’t want anything more to do with the situation.

But an hour later, I was back in the house, watching two sheriff’s deputies walk into the blue room. The deputy in back was more interested in getting a look inside the house than in the fact that a woman had died. For some reason, it seemed wrong to leave them alone with her body. I felt responsible for making sure they gave what was left of her some respect.

I waited in the doorway of the blue room, letting the wall hide all but the view of her stocking-clad feet as the men stood over the bed. They’d already asked me at least a dozen questions I couldn’t answer: How long did I think she’d been dead? When was the last time I’d talked to her? Had she been ill that I knew of?

All I could tell them was that I was staying in her cottage out front. I’d used the term
renting
to make it sound good. The lead deputy was a thin, matter-of-fact man with an accordion of permanent frown lines around his mouth. He didn’t seem to care much one way or the other. He checked his watch several times like he had somewhere to go.

“Well,” he said finally, the floor creaking under his weight in a way that told me he was leaning over the bed near her face, “looks like natural causes to me.”

The younger man answered with a snarky laugh. “Shoot, Jim, she had to be somewhere up around a hundred. I remember when my granddad retired, Mama wanted to buy the altar flowers for church, to get his name in the bulletin, but she couldn’t. The pastor had already ordered the altar flowers that week, on account of Iola Poole’s birthday. She was turning eighty then, and that was back when I was in middle school. Mama was mighty hot about it all, I’ll tell ya. Granddaddy’d been a deacon at Fairhope Fellowship for forty years, and Mama wasn’t about to be having him share altar flowers with the likes of Iola Anne Poole. Our family helped move that old chapel here to start the church. Iola was just there to play the organ, and they paid her for that, anyway. It’s not like she was a member, even. Mama figured, if Iola wanted altar flowers for her birthday, she could put some at a church down in New Orleans, where her people come from.”

Deputy Jim clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Women.”

His partner laughed again. “You haven’t been down here long enough to know how things are. Stuff like that might not matter much up in Boston, but it sure enough matters in Fairhope. Believe me, if they could’ve found anybody
 
—and I mean
anybody
else who knew how to play that old pipe organ over to the church, they would’ve. That’s half the reason my mama pushed for that new band director at the high school in Buxton a few years ago; he said he could play a pipe organ. I never saw the church ladies so happy as the week the band director took over at Sunday services and they sent Iola Poole packing.”

“Okay, Selmer, we might as well get the right people out here to wrap this up.” Deputy Jim ended the discussion. “Looks pretty cut-and-dried. She have any family we should call?”

“None that I’d know how to find. And that’s a can of worms you don’t wanna open either, by the way, Jim.”

“No next of kin. . . .” The older man drew the words out, probably writing them down at the same time.

Sadness slid over me like a heavy wool blanket, making the air too stale and thick. I stood gazing through the blue room to the tall bay windows of the turret. Outside, a rock dove flitted along the veranda railing. What had Iola Poole done, I wondered, to have ended up this way, alone in this big house, laid out in her flowered dress, dead for who knew how long, and nobody cared? Did she realize this was how things would turn out? Was this what she’d pictured when she placed herself there on the bed, closed her eyes, and let the life seep out of her?

The dove fluttered to the windowsill, then hopped back and forth, its shadow sliding over the gray marble top of the writing desk. A yellowed Thom McAn shoe box sat on the edge, the lid ajar, a piece of gold rickrack trailing from the corner. On the windowsill, half a dozen scraps of ribbon lay strewn about. As the dove’s shadow passed again, I noticed something else. Little specks of gold shimmered in the dust on the sill. I wanted to walk into the room and look closer, but there wasn’t time. The deputies were headed to the door.

Hugging my arms tightly, I followed the men downstairs and onto the front porch. It wasn’t until we’d reached the driveway that I looked at the cottage and my stomach began churning for a different reason. With Iola gone, it would only be a matter of time before Alice Faye Tucker came to evict us. I had less than fifty dollars left, and that was from the last thing I could find to pawn
 
—a sterling watch that Trammel had given me. The watch was only in my suitcase by accident
 
—left behind after a trip to a horse event somewhere, undoubtedly in better times. If Trammel knew I still had it, he would have taken it away, along with everything else of value. He made sure I never had access to enough money to get out.

What were the kids and I going to do now?

The question gained weight and muscle as the afternoon passed. The coroner’s van had just left when Zoey and J.T. came in from school. I didn’t even tell them our new landlady had died. They’d find out soon enough. At nine years old, J.T. might not make the connections, but at fourteen-going-on-thirty, Zoey would know that the loss of the cottage spelled disaster for us. The minute we reemerged on the grid
 
—credit card payment at a motel, job application with actual references provided, visit to a bank for cash
 
—Trammel Clarke would find us.

I slipped into bed at twelve thirty, boneless and weary, guilt ridden for not being honest with the kids, even though it was nothing new. Outside, the water teased the shores of the sedges, and a slow-rising Hatteras moon climbed the roof of Iola’s house, hanging above the turret like a scoop of vanilla ice cream on an upside-down cone.

How could someone who owned an estate like this one end up alone in her room, gone from this world without a soul to cry at her bedside?

The image of Iola as a young woman taunted my thoughts. I imagined her walking the veranda in a milky-white dress. The moon shadows shifted and danced among the live oaks and the loblolly pines, and I felt the old house calling to me, whispering the secrets of the long and mysterious life of Iola Anne Poole.

I
T’S AMAZING HOW ENDLESS
a week can be when you’re wondering if you’re about to be living in your car. Iola Poole’s house had been quiet for days
 
—no sign of Alice Faye Tucker, sheriff’s deputies, or any family members or friends. I’d slipped into Bink’s Village Market on Fairhope Inlet twice now and looked for a funeral flyer among the notes taped to the front of the counter, but I hadn’t seen Iola’s.

It was as if she’d never existed at all, but of course I’d found her in the blue room, and that meant that sooner or later our time in the cottage would end. I had no idea what I’d do when it happened. After weeks of looking for work around the Outer Banks, I’d figured out that between the hurricane damage and this being the off-season, no place was hiring, and even if they were, a woman with no references and no past history to offer isn’t too tempting. The last official job I’d had was riding Trammel Clarke’s show horses, and that was before one of them hooked a toe on the top rail of a jump at a grand prix event and cartwheeled to the ground with me on board. A botched surgery and a long recovery had led me down a dark hole I was still trying to climb out of.

No matter what it took now, I had to keep moving forward. I might’ve fallen short in the mothering department over the years, but I’d always promised myself that Zoey and J.T. wouldn’t have the kind of life my sister and I had. If it came down to scrubbing streets with a toothbrush, I was going to find a way to take care of us and keep Trammel out of our lives for good. He’d already done enough damage.

If worse came to worst, Ross had said that we could move into his place, as soon as he was back in town. He had a saltbox house on Ocracoke, but most of the time he stayed in beachfront rental homes his father owned. He did light repair work and maintenance on them when he wasn’t gone delivering long-haul orders for the family lumber company. Meeting Ross at Frisco Pier was one of the good things that had happened since we’d been here. But I’d picked up on the fact that Ross wasn’t too much on kids in general. Zoey and J.T. would grow on him over time, but I knew better than to rush things.

It was probably too much to hope that we could keep Iola’s cottage until a job came through, but as each day came and passed, I grew slightly more optimistic.

When I heard car doors shutting outside on the seventh day, I felt the ax tipping over my head again.

We were going to end up at Ross’s, like it or not. He was due back from a long haul tonight. I’d have to pack what we had in the cottage and be ready when the kids came home from hanging out at the beach with a boy Zoey had met at school.

Anxiety hit me like a wave striking shore, dragging me out to sea in bits and pieces. More than anything I wanted to pop an OxyContin to tamp it down. But when we left Texas in the middle of the night, I’d made a promise
 
—no more pills and no more Trammel Clarke. So far I’d held true on both.

I stepped out of the cottage with a greeting and a big smile, to make it look less like we’d been squatting there on purpose. Growing up in the family I had, I’d learned so much about delivering the kind of smooth story that could hide all sorts of ugly truths underneath. The lines I’d been crafting all week rehearsed themselves in my head.
After she passed away, poor thing, and I didn’t hear from anyone, I wasn’t sure what to do. I hated to just leave the place unsupervised and her cat with no one to take care of it. We’ve been keeping an eye on things
 
—putting out food and water. The cat comes and goes from the house, so there must be a pet door somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. The night after she died, I was worried because the cat was locked inside, but then the next day, he was out in the yard again. I thought we should look after him anyway, poor thing. I hope that’s all right. . . .

I really would miss this place. Nestled between the towering Victorian and an old horse corral that stretched to the parking lot of Fairhope Fellowship Church, it seemed protected from the things that were chasing us, its routines a sort of salve on wounds that were still bleeding. I would miss the sounds of fishermen readying their gear in the dim hours of the morning and boats rumbling out of Fairhope Marina. I’d even miss the church bells marking the time of day, over and over and over.

In the driveway, a man was unloading a riding lawn mower from the back of a pickup filled with yard-care equipment, chain saws, and ladders. I stopped at the top of the porch steps, craning sideways to get a better view around the crape myrtles. He seemed young, in his twenties or maybe even a teenager. He was wearing orange tennis shoes and red-flowered swim shorts, topped off with a lime-green Windbreaker with palm trees and lizards on it. A floppy fishing hat cast a shadow over his face and hid all but the endmost curls of his hair, reddish blond. All in all, he looked like he’d raided Jimmy Buffett’s closet and then gotten dressed in the dark.

He didn’t seem to be searching for anyone in particular, and my hopes flitted from the muck, taking flight like a marsh bird. Maybe he was just here to mow. Maybe we were safe for another day.

No sense giving anyone a reason to ask questions. I’d just tiptoe back inside and stay away from the windows until he left. . . .

“Afternoon.” His greeting stopped me as I reached for the door. I paused midstride, a trespasser caught in the act.

Be calm. Be calm. Don’t look guilty. Remember the story about keeping an eye on the house and the pet cat.

Smoothing my T-shirt over the old, holey jeans that I loved but Trammel would have frowned on, I turned slowly and flashed a smile. “Hi. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get in your way. You look like you’ve got a job to do.”

He shooed a carpenter bee away from his tools, his face still concealed by the shadow of the paint-spattered fishing hat. “Just finished mowing at the church.” A shrug indicated Fairhope Fellowship next door. He walked closer to me, carrying a weed whacker. “Had the mower all loaded, and then I noticed how bad this place looked. Thought I’d do the church a favor and knock down the grass a little. Looks like I’ll need a hay cutter and a baler, not a lawn mower.”

I chuckled, still playing it low-key, yet friendly. “Too much rain lately.” The yard had been a swamp most of the time we’d been here. When we moved in, there’d been some mention of a lawn service, but with all the moisture, no one had shown up. This guy didn’t look like he was from a lawn service, though. I hoped he didn’t try to give me a bill when he was done with the work.

He’d said something about doing this as a favor, hadn’t he? Why was mowing Iola’s yard a favor to the church? Just because the overgrown grass looked bad next door? Or was the church caretaking the house now?

He wandered nearer, and I felt obliged to come down the porch steps. We stopped on either side of the oyster-shell driveway. Up close, he looked older than the horrendously mismatched outfit made him seem. Somewhere in his thirties, maybe close to forty. The deep laugh lines around his caramel-brown eyes gave the impression that he smiled a lot, but something about him, maybe the reddish hair, reminded me of a smart-mouthed kid who’d put me through freshman-year agony in a high school near my third foster home in seven months.

“You staying in the bungalow?” His question seemed casual enough.

Bungalow . . .
What a funny word for it. For some reason, I thought of reruns of
Fantasy Island
. “Yes. Just renting short-term.” A blush crept up my neck. I hoped he couldn’t see it in the thick pine shadow. When he was finished mowing here, would he go check with someone to make sure I belonged in Iola’s cottage?

He nodded as if that made sense enough, and we hovered in an awkward silence for a moment before he shifted the weed whacker so he could shake my hand. He wiped his palm on his shorts before offering it. “Paul Chastain.”

“Tandi Reese.”

“Sad about Miss Poole,” he commented after the introductions.

He was the first person I’d heard mention Iola in days. I’d almost started to feel like her death wasn’t real. “Did you know her?”

Shaking his head, he squinted at the house. “My mom was from Fairhope, but I never spent time here, except visiting my grandparents on vacation. Didn’t really know the old-timers. I heard she left this place to the church, though. That’s pretty awesome.”

My jaw stiffened at the memory of what the deputy had said about the church ladies and Iola. I’d watched Fairhope Fellowship since we’d been here. The old white chapel with its lighthouse-style steeple did a brisk business with brides looking for a picturesque wedding spot and tourists seeking a quaint place to go for Sunday morning service. Judging by the collection of high-dollar cars coming and going, they weren’t hurting for money. On top of that, I hadn’t seen one person from that church darken Iola’s door. I couldn’t imagine why she would leave anything to those people.

“I’ll get out of your way.” I turned and started back into the house before what I was thinking could come spilling out. The less information I exchanged with Paul Chastain, the better.

Inside, I tried to read a copy of a Tom Clancy novel from the bookshelf, then gave up and turned on an old episode of
I Dream of Jeannie
. But nothing keeps the attention of a guilty conscience for very long. Every few minutes, I was up peeking out the windows, wondering what he was doing out there, how long he would stay, and whether he was calling anyone about me.

When the mower and the weed whacker finally went quiet, there were voices outside. Two people. Men. My nerves pulled clothesline tight, and adrenaline jangled through my body. Someone was walking up the porch steps, but it wasn’t Paul Chastain. Paul had on tennis shoes. He looked like he’d be light on his feet, sort of wiry and quick. These were boots, heavy steps. Slow and purposeful.

I opened the door and found a stocky, middle-aged man poised with his fist in the air, about to knock.

“Well, my eye! I think you jus’ took a good year off my life, young lady!” He staggered backward a few steps. The slight Cajun accent surprised me.

“I heard you coming.” Pulling the door closed, I kept a death grip on the handle as he introduced himself
 
—Brother Joe Guilbeau
 
—and explained that he was the music minister at Fairhope Fellowship Church. He smiled and said he’d enjoyed visiting with my kids at Bink’s Market a few times, which wasn’t good news at all. I’d told the kids to stay close to home and not to tell people in Fairhope anything about us. We’d rehearsed the story
 
—newly divorced mom, two kids, just looking for a job and a new place to be. Nothing interesting that anyone would want to pry into.

After this conversation, it probably wouldn’t matter what the kids had let slip about us. As soon as Brother Joe Guilbeau finished with the small talk, the ax would fall and we’d be moving on, though I had no idea how. After a week of waiting for it to happen, I wanted to break down and cry, blurt out our whole story, beg this stranger for help. But I couldn’t. There was no way to know who to trust. Aside from that, bilking a church was far too much like something my mother or my big sister would’ve done. I wasn’t going to be someone’s charity case. I’d find a way out of this mess myself.

“You know what’s the situation with the house, I guess?” The question slipped off his tongue in a roll so smooth and pleasant-sounding, I barely heard it coming. His accent reminded me of old Pat, who lived next to my Pap-pap’s little tidewater farm on the North Carolina mainland near Wenona. Pap-pap’s was the only place I remembered where things were calm day in and day out when I was little, but we only spent time there in bits and snatches
 
—usually whenever my mother left my father.

“We’ve just been renting by the month.” My voice quivered, and I swallowed what felt like a cocklebur. “I was hoping to stay . . . a little longer . . . if that’s possible. The kids and I just moved to the island, and I’ve been looking for a job. Once I get something, it’ll be easier to think about relocating.”

Brother Guilbeau studied the porch ceiling rather than me. “Alice Faye rushed outta town when her daughter birthed that grandbaby premature. Granny Jeane, she takin’ care of the real estate office, but jus’ to keep up wit’ the phone calls and the mail. They got enough to worry about, so you find any problem wit’ the cottage, you come on by my office next door. Gonna take some time to get all the paperwork sorted out, but Iola had it planned to leave this ol’ place in the hands a’ the church.”

I nodded, my mind racing ahead. The real estate lady was out of town for a family emergency? That explained why no one had come knocking when the rent was due. “Okay . . . well . . . I’ll let you know if we have any problems, thanks.”

I was hoping he’d leave, but he lingered there, surveying the rafters.

“Lil’ seekahsah, he got ’im a nest up there. Better take you some spray and knock it down.” He motioned to a lacy paper wasp nest in the corner.

“I’ll do that.”

“You be interested in doing some cleanin’ in the big house? Get the food and trash outta there, pass a broom around the floors, few things like that? Maybe we pull it off in rent here?”

I should’ve been overjoyed, but it took me a moment to answer. I had a feeling that Brother Joe Guilbeau knew a whole lot more about me than I wanted him to. I wondered what my kids might have told him in Bink’s. This felt way too much like a handout. But when it’s a choice between feeding your kids and watching them go hungry, you do what you have to do. “Sure. I might be interested in that.”

He nodded, the sun glinting off his large, round head, making it seem more disproportionate in size than it already was. “Nine tomorrow mo’nin’, you come by the church office. We’ll see, can we work up somethin’?” Then he exited the porch, studying Iola’s house as he crossed the yard.

In the driveway, Paul Chastain was loading the riding mower into his pickup truck. Brother Guilbeau stopped to help. Then the two of them shook hands, and Brother Guilbeau strode off across the field in front of the tumbledown stable, headed back to the church parking lot.