The Three Miss Margarets (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

A
CTUALLY, THERE WAS A BOX
and her ma’s guitar. The box was a large cardboard carton Sara Jayne had kept under her bed. The guitar was probably quite valuable. It had once belonged to the great Bill Monroe, who handed it down from the stage into the arms of a giddy teenaged Sara Jayne after a tent concert in Vidalia, Georgia.

When Laurel got the box home, she put it in the middle of the living room floor with the guitar next to it and eyed them warily, like a house pet circling a nest of snakes. Sara Jayne hadn’t left much in the way of personal effects. In addition to the guitar, there had been a heavily studded denim jacket, some jeans, half a dozen T-shirts, and the box. It contained what her mother referred to as “my case against those old bitches.”

Laurel had never looked inside it, but when she was small she believed it held magical artifacts that would prove John Merrick’s devotion and the perfidy of the three Miss Margarets. After that happened, she and her ma would make everyone who had ever put them down eat dirt. It was a belief that got her through many a bad day.

Her ma never opened the thing in Laurel’s presence, but when she was having an attack of the blue devils, Sara Jayne would haul it out from under the bed, crying and cussing. Gradually the battered old carton changed character in Laurel’s mind. She associated it not with miracles but with Sara Jayne being mean. Then it stopped appearing altogether, and Laurel figured it was gone. Until she was cleaning up Sara Jayne’s bedroom after she died, and there it was, crammed into a corner of the closet behind a broken ceiling fan and a stack of old telephone directories. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it away, so she gave it to Denny with the guitar. And now it was back.

Laurel picked up the old guitar and did a couple of strums. It needed new strings, but old Bill’s name was still written on the neck in shiny gold paint that hadn’t chipped. She took it to a corner of the room and set it upright against the wall. Then, unable to delay any longer, she took a deep breath and opened the box.

At first she wanted to throw the whole damn thing against the wall. Then she started to laugh. Because she should have known. It was full of junk. No miracles or horrors, just junk. There were three dead flowers tied together with a crumpled silver ribbon and impaled on a rusted corsage pin. There was a blue button that said
THE BEACH AT PANAMA CITY
, a pink satin ribbon that was too wide for a hair bow, a plastic champagne glass with ancient residue still in the bottom, an envelope with a birthday card in it, another envelope full of movie theater stubs, and a bright red dress with a halter top and a skirt so short it was basically a wide ruffle, made out of some kind of fake silk.

She lined the stuff up on the coffee table. This was her ma’s big proof, a box full of a teenager’s souvenirs. She didn’t know who to feel sorrier for, herself or Sara Jayne. Probably both of them. She opened the birthday card. Inside was a note written in the familiar childlike handwriting that was on the front page of the books on her wall.

Baby—

This is my present to you. I got the job for us. They will put the story in the newspaper. I’m not much for writing, but I want you to know, like it says in the song, I love you so much it hurts me. Happy Birthday.

Love, John

Laurel turned over the envelope and looked at the postmark. The card had been sent the November before she was born, three weeks before her father died. So Sara Jayne was right about one thing. John Merrick had gotten himself a new job. One that was splashy enough to warrant coverage in the newspaper.

Laurel scooped up the whole mess and dumped it back into the box. A pack of pictures held together with a dried-up rubber band fell out of the skirt of the dress.

The pictures had been taken sometime in the late sixties. They showed her mother and father, young and having the time of their lives at some kind of fair or amusement park.

Given what a monumental figure he had been in her life, she’d seen relatively few pictures of her father. Sara Jayne had had a snapshot in her wallet that featured a guy with puffy sideburns and a grin that, even as a kid, Laurel had felt carried an awful lot of “screw you.”

The young man looking out at her from these pictures was laughing. His hair was slicked back, and he wore a white short-sleeved shirt and brown pants with bell-bottoms. He was good looking, in an ordinary sort of way.

But young Sara Jayne was a revelation. She was wearing the red dress from the box. With impossibly long and glamorous legs stretching out from under a short skirt, a mass of auburn hair, and big hazel eyes, she was a knockout.

In a couple of shots her parents mugged for the camera together. Then, Laurel decided, they must have lost whatever stranger they had asked to help them, and John took pictures of Sara Jayne alone. She was wonderful: fresh-faced and eager, smiling the sweet smile Laurel had always known was there but could never get for herself. The last picture was of the two of them again. His arms were around her and she was leaning back against him, her head tilted up so she could smile dreamily at him; he looked down at her tenderly.

Which didn’t matter a damn, Laurel reminded herself. Because while he was looking tenderly at Sara Jayne, he was getting some on the side. And killing a man and ultimately getting killed in the process. She tossed the pictures into the box and started for the garbage pail with it, but she couldn’t make herself throw it in. Telling herself she was a damn fool, she took it into the bedroom and stuck it in the closet. But with the box in the closet and the guitar in the corner of the living room, Sara Jayne was suddenly back in the house, taking up all the oxygen again. Laurel had an old familiar desire to run.

She went to the bookshelves, pulled out a book at random, turned to the front, and stared at the names written in her father’s handwriting and her own. An image of the radiant girl who had been her mother and the young man looking down at her with love in his eyes floated across the page. She put the book down and went out.

L
AUREL HAD HER CHOICE OF SPOTS
in the police station parking lot when she pulled in. The Sabbath was a light day for crime in Charles Valley, and the place was deserted except for the pickup with a
GUNS, GUTS, AND GOD
bumper sticker that belonged to Sherilynn. On top of all the other indignities she endured, Ed made his token female work on Sundays. Laurel parked next to the truck and went inside.

Sherilynn was seated behind the counter in front. She was a good ol’ girl with all the heavy eye makeup and big hair normally associated with her type. She was definitely not what one would picture behind the wheel of a squad car—which didn’t dampen Sherilynn’s ambition for highway patrol in any way. Her daddy had been on the force for twenty-two years, his daddy had been there for twenty-six. Sherilynn was determined to carry on the family tradition.

“Hey, Laurel,” she yodeled cheerfully. “What’re you doing here on the Lord’s Day? I’d’ve thought your butt would be in church, praying for your sins. I know that’s where mine should be.” She laughed heartily at her own wit and Laurel forced a smile. She and Sherilynn had never been pals. If she was honest about it, that had been Laurel’s choice. Throughout the years of her affair with Ed she’d clocked in a lot of hours at the station house, and she’d often seen the sympathy—and sisterhood—in Sherilynn’s Maybelline-fringed eyes. But she never picked up on it. Because she was too humiliated, she’d told herself. But she knew that wasn’t it. Sherilynn’s neck was a tad too red for that free-thinking egalitarian Laurel Selene McCready. Laurel might get high and sing in a bar, but she worked for the newspaper and had gone to college for almost a year. Her daddy might have been trailer trash, but her ma’s people, although bastards, were pillars of their community in the next county over.

“You give that note to your Yankee boy?” Sherilynn asked casually, but her shrewd eyes were watching Laurel hard.

Laurel nodded. “And the boy was grateful.”

“Well, good. Always glad to help the course of true love.”

“Actually, the Yankee took off for New York.”

Sherilynn sighed. “Short but sweet—ain’t it the way with visitors? From what I heard he wasn’t bad looking. And he tipped real good over at the Lodge.” Through a vast network of family relationships and friendships, Sherilynn was on top of all major gossip in Charles Valley. Laurel wondered how many people she’d told about smuggling out the suicide note for Josh.

“In case you’re wondering, I never mentioned you getting that note for him to anyone,” Sherilynn said, reading her mind.

“Thanks.”

“Honey, I’d be up the old creek without a paddle myself if Ed knew.”

“Right.” Laurel took a beat, then started testing the waters. “Isn’t it something, Vashti coming back here to die after all these years?”

Sherilynn shrugged. “It was still her home, I guess.”

“I wonder how she got herself here. The way that note looked, she was real far gone at the end.”

“That was all planned out. When Vashti got sick for the last time, she came east to Atlanta to stay with a woman: Catherine something or other, an Italian name. She’s a nurse, works in a hospice up there. And get this: She’s the niece of some roommate Dr. Maggie had a million years ago.”

“How did it work? How did Vashti get here?”

“She decided when she was—well, when it was time to . . . you know. . . .” Sherilynn paused delicately. Laurel nodded. “Then this nurse called the three Miss Margarets, and Miss Peggy and Dr. Maggie flew to Atlanta, rented a car, and drove Vashti back here. They took her to the cabin, and she did what she had to do. If you want, I can print out a copy of that report for you,” she added.

“That’s okay.”

“I just thought maybe you were asking all these questions ’cause you wanted to try writing a story about this yourself instead of Hank. I always liked to read what you wrote in the school newspaper when we were in high school.”

Slightly dazed by support from such an unexpected source, Laurel murmured, “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

“Hank would eat glass before he’d let me do any real writing. Well, you know how that is.”

“Tell me about it,” Sherilynn said grimly.

Feeling that a bond had been established, Laurel plunged ahead. “The three Miss Margarets have always been real close with Vashti’s family, haven’t they.”

“That’s the way I always heard it.”

“Wasn’t your granddaddy on the force back when”—it took a bit of work to get it out—”back when Grady killed my father?”

Sherilynn threw her a startled look and nodded.

“Did he ever say anything about it?”

Sherilynn eyed her warily. “The case was pretty much open and shut.”

“Pretty much?”

“There were some questions. . . .”

“What kind of questions?”

“No police questions. Nothing official like that.”

Laurel felt herself go very still. “But?”

“It was just . . . my mama knew your . . . she knew John Merrick. They came up together. And a lotta people who did know him thought—” She stopped short. “Look, Laurel, are sure you want to talk about this?”

“That’s why I asked. People thought what?”

“It just didn’t seem right. What they said about how he died.”

The stillness could become a problem. Laurel made herself move a little.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Sherilynn went on. “The way I heard it, John got into fights all the time. Him and Grady would beat the shit outa each other if they’d been drinking. And when it came to women, well. . . .” She paused awkwardly.

Laurel managed a smile.

Encouraged, Sherilynn plunged ahead. “Daddy used to say, ‘You get John Merrick partying hard enough, he’d fuck a snake if someone would hold it down.’ But he wouldn’t fight Grady for a woman. More like, they’d both, you know—”

“Take turns.” Laurel finished the thought for her.

Sherilynn shrugged assent. “And there’d be no way either one of them would pick up a gun over a black girl. Just wouldn’t happen. So the whole story didn’t sit right with a lot of folks.”

“And no one ever thought to mention that to me or my mother because . . . ?”

“It wasn’t an easy thing to bring up. You used to beat the snot out of any kid in school that said your daddy’s name. This is the first time you’ve ever asked anybody about it that I know of. And your mama, when she was alive . . . well, she pretty much turned up her nose at the folks who knew John before she was around, you know? Not that you could blame her, my mama always said.”

“If there were all those questions, why wasn’t there a police investigation into my father’s death?”

“Honey, what I told you was just folks talking. What with Dr. Maggie backing up Nella, and Lottie and Miss Li’l Bit saying Miss Li’l Bit saw it happen, and even Miss Peggy ready to testify, who was gonna listen to a bunch of rednecks John hung out with in bars? It’s not like anyone had any evidence. And then Grady pled guilty.” She paused. “According to Daddy, everyone was just glad to see the whole thing go away.”

“I’m sure they were.” Laurel stood up. “Thanks.” She started out, but Sherilynn called after her.

“For what it’s worth, my mama always said that after John heard about you, he changed. Talked about going back to church and getting right with God. He meant to be a real good daddy to you. Least that’s what Mama thought.”

When Laurel’s teeth got ready to start chattering, she knew she was scared. They didn’t even have to start doing it; just the cold shaky feeling that they were about to was enough. It had been that way ever since she was a kid. She’d come home from school, Ma would be gone, she’d fix supper for herself, clean up, and get herself into bed, proud of how grown up she was, and the teeth would begin going so hard they sounded like castanets.

It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise that they started up when she thought about talking to the three Miss Margarets—even though there was nothing wrong with asking them a few questions about things that had been bugging her over the years. They’d understand a daughter’s curiosity, she told herself. Maybe they wondered why she’d never come to them before. She was a grown woman and there was nothing to be afraid of.