They Call Me Crazy (17 page)

Chapter Thirty

Maryanne

C
lay is at my house when I get back from my run. The sun is shining, and it’s another humid day following a rain. May is a great time. One day it’s raining, and the next, it’s bright and everything is renewed.

He starts the coffee while I shower. I stay under the water until it runs cold, not willing to come out and let him see the tears that flow freely. Having him in the kitchen reminds me of all the mornings Roland did the same thing.

As I dress, I hear Shaylene and Clay laughing. They’re good together, always have been. She was never so relaxed with Roland. I wanted her to be, but Roland didn’t seem to have the knack for it.

I spent countless mornings sitting at the kitchen table with Roland while Shaylene got ready for school, drinking coffee with him and talking about the coming day. That was how things were supposed to be, even if only for a few minutes. I would dream about Shaylene leaving for school, and Roland and I calling in late to work to spend the morning in each other’s arms, the way a husband and wife should. But it was only a fantasy.

I know he had other women. Not many, but a few. He was a handsome man, and those women threw themselves at him, so I guess I can’t blame him for taking a bit of comfort every now and then. But it made me feel empty. I deserved him. I was better for him. I loved him. And I couldn’t have him.

Shaylene and Clay quit talking when I enter, and my heart drops. She gives Clay a hug, perfunctorily kisses me on the cheek, and leaves. So much going on, and she wants—maybe needs—to go to school. It makes my stomach hurt to think she feels the need to be away from me. One day, she’ll fall in love and understand.

“I guess you’ve already heard the news.” Clay peers at me over his coffee cup as I stand at the counter and stir a splash of milk into mine. I like the caramel color the milk makes the coffee. Not so dark, not so black.

I shake my head. “I didn’t know you were out of jail. I went to bed early last night.” Actually, I crawled into bed very late last night. I waited for Shaylene to go to sleep, then I drove to a seedy bar I knew out on Grand Lake where I can usually find someone willing to satisfy my hunger. I didn’t get home until about three a.m., dirty and still unsatisfied.

“That’s not the news I’m talking about. It’s Cassie. You haven’t heard?”

I roll my eyes and let out a long sigh. Cass. I’m tired of hearing about Cass. “What felony did she commit now?”

He motions for me to sit down, at my own table, as if he’s holding court. He’s back to good old Clay, trying to break the news as easily as possible, not cruel as he has been in the past few days. In a way, I missed that niceness. In another, I want him to be mean to me. Maybe I should fight back, or maybe I deserve it. I don’t know. I sit and wait.

“She didn’t kill him. That’s what the coroner said. He died of a heart attack. Too much fried food and partying, I guess.”

“What?”

“She didn’t hit him with a shovel. She wanted to, and in her mind, she actually had. She hallucinated… a lot, I guess. Her doctor says she was on the wrong medicine, and it made her a lot crazier than she really is.”

I can’t move. I just stare into my coffee.

“Did you hear me, Maryanne? She didn’t kill him. It’s over.”

“But…”

He stands and puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s over.”

I stay at the table long after Clay leaves. I’ve taken the entire week off of school to avoid any more of the embarrassing visits at work similar to the one I had from Benny on Monday. Two days ago. It sure seems longer than that.

I study the insurance policy that the adjuster delivered yesterday. It specifies that Shaylene’s portion will be put in a trust until she is eighteen. Just a few more weeks and my baby girl will be that adult. A few more months and she’ll be going off to school in Lawrence. Then, instead of seeing her daily, I’ll get a few calls and visits during breaks. Like Roland, she’ll be gone. And with all that money and freedom, she won’t need me for anything at all.

I figure Cass will try to fight me for the bank account unless I turn it over to Shaylene. Cass won’t stand a chance if the money is for Roland’s daughter. That’s fine. It’s Shaylene’s money, and thirty thousand isn’t much, certainly not enough to replace Roland.

Cass now owns the hill, half of the life insurance, and half of the plot of land that Clay’s house sits on. I’m sure Clay has Shaylene’s name on his piece in case something happens to him. Cass and Shaylene will share the benefits from the death of the man I loved. And I get nothing. Not even a real memory to cherish. Nothing.

I hate her. I hated her in high school for always being so small and cute while I was so average. When I came back from college, I hated her because she had Roland. When she got too close to my baby daughter, I hated her because my child seemed to love her more than she did me. I hated that Cass lay beside my man at night and made him breakfast in the morning. I hated that she acted so stupid that he had to move out of town, taking himself away from me. Then, she took him from me permanently.

Regardless of what they say, she killed him. Slowly. She was a poison that ate at his heart until it just stopped beating. She stole him, and now she’s stealing Shaylene. They will share Roland’s legacy. I will forever be the woman who had a baby out of wedlock and lied about it.

I hate her.

Chapter Thirty-One

Clay

I
haven’t been in a funeral home in ten years, not since Mom died. The soft, peaceful music, the smell of fresh flowers, the polished wood and low-pile grass-green carpet—all designed to make one feel comfortable and relaxed—make me want to run for the door. It made me sick back then, and it makes me even sicker now.

But Cassie wanted me to go with her, so of course, I agreed.

I’ve seen more of Cassie in the past week than I have in the past year. Sure, she would stop by the hardware store once a week when Rolly would bring her to town for groceries, but he was always with her, and she was different when he was around. Even with everything going on lately, I’ve enjoyed every minute of her company. She seems so much more alive, as if she woke up from a long nap and is ready to take on the world. Cass Van Winkle.

I didn’t realize how much I missed her. The old her, I mean, from fifteen or even ten years ago. She was a fiery sprite who had no problem speaking her mind and who always made me smile. That was before she went into her box. I guess a cocoon would be a better way to describe it, because now she’s out and getting freer every day.

“I am so sorry for your loss.” Paul, the funeral director with his dark suit and white face, uses his boilerplate line on Cassie.

“Really? I bet you say that all the time.”

He clearly wasn’t prepared for her response. I nudge her shoulder.
Not now, Cassie. Not here.

He plays it off as if he thinks she is kidding, but this is a small town, and he knows the story. He’s also about to get paid a chunk for a funeral in a town where one service a week is a novelty, so he sucks it up and motions toward the “planning” room.

We go in and sit at a small table surrounded by coffins and urns. I shut my eyes for a moment, wishing I had a handful of worms to play with.

“Are you considering a burial or a cremation?” Paul has his fancy leather-bound notebook out and is filling in the blanks.

Cassie flips through a binder filled with laminated pictures of coffins. She stops and looks at me.

“Cremation,” I say.

When our mother died, Rolly and I bought five vaults and had them put on the back lot of our land: one for Mom, one for Rolly, one for me, and one for Cassie. The extra, we didn’t specify, but I decided it was for Shaylene. They lie side by side, and Mom is already in the middle. They’re small but big enough for a box of ashes. We figured from ashes to ashes. Also, they were a lot less expensive than the whole coffin thing.

Cassie shrugs. “Probably best. He’s been buried once, and that didn’t work out too well for either of us.”

I nudge her again, this time with my knee. Paul’s smile is growing more forced, and I’m a little queasy, not because of her humor, or lack thereof, but from being in this place. There are just too many ghosts.

She picks a simple white pine box, bypassing the more expensive cherry and mahogany woods, to hold his ashes. “What difference does it make anyway?” she asks.

It’s going in a cement urn vault and then in the ground. So I guess she’s right.

We agree on a service, which means Rolly would be renting a casket for a day. We decide that since he had a lot of friends, they should at least be able to pay their respects. Cassie also thinks it would be good for Shaylene. I appreciate that.

We have to get a permit to open a vault in our family plot, which will take a few days. Then we need more time for the embalming, the funeral, the cremation, and the actual laying of ground. One more week and Rolly will finally be laid to rest. The arrangements are done.

“We do require a deposit,” Paul says.

“How much?” I’m ready to leave. We still have to go to the monument shop and choose a marker. At least it won’t reek of lilies in there.

“We require at least twenty-five percent.”

Cassie gives me a plain white envelope from her purse. “No, how much total?”

Paul pulls out a calculator and totals some numbers. “The total for everything is four thousand twenty-two dollars.”

I open the envelope and extract a wad of hundred-dollar bills. “I assume you take cash?”

We settle up, then Cass and I get up and leave. We walk outside, and the smart-ass attitude that she played for Paul is replaced by a more playful aura.

“Four
thousand
dollars? For a cremation? Hell, I should have just dragged him into the house before it burned.”

I know Cassie isn’t really upset about the money. She just wants to talk, and the money seems to be the first thing that comes to mind.

“That’s about what you could get for the land up on the hill,” I say. “You don’t want it anyway.”

She tilts her face to the sun. “Hmm. I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t know. I can’t say I cotton to the thought of living with Grams for the rest of my days. And I did enjoy my conversations with Old Man Booker.”

“My offer still stands. You own half my lot. A pad is already there for a mobile home.”

She touches my arm. “I thought you said I could live in your house with you?”

I smile. Yes, that’s an option, too.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Babe

L
ola has been helping me with my morning chores for the past few days. With Cass in jail most of the time and Richard doing his best to get her out, it’s been just the two of us. I’ve appreciated the help, but mostly, I’ve enjoyed having her around. She visits, but this time has been different. She’s really
here
, not simply passing through to say hello.

She acts all together, what with her fancy clothes and such, but she can’t fool me. I know something’s missing, and I know what it is. All those expensive toys are fine, but you have to have some intimacy in your life. That spark in Lola has died out for some reason. But I’ve got a remedy for that. It’s nothing that can’t be cured with the right combination of herbs and plants.

“What’s this one for, Grams?” Lola holds one of my pots and sniffs the yellowish flowers that are in full bloom. “It’s dill, isn’t it?”

I’m surprised she remembers. “The leaves are to remove a love jinx, and the seeds will make you irresistible to the opposite sex. It’s also been said to help you win in court.”

She smiles and puts the pot back on the small ledge on the patio. “Well, we won’t be needing that one after all.”

When Lola was younger, she didn’t show much interest in my plants and bushes, not the same way Cass did. Cass would come to me with a problem and ask me to mix her up something to make it go away, whereas Lola would create problems, and I’d have to sneak a new root in her morning tea. Now here she is, helping me tend my gardens and being curious about the special properties of each item.

We’ve taken to sitting on the back porch to avoid all the gawkers that have been creeping up the front side of my house. There have been a couple of reporters and a few people screaming obscenities as they drive by, but mostly it’s been walking traffic, people hoping to see the murderess and her elderly witch grandma.

Lola surveys my yard, a hodgepodge of different plants and bushes, no two the same. To others, it probably appears as an overgrowth gone wild, but it’s a pharmacy to me. I’ve never taken a pill from an actual drugstore, and I never will.

She snaps her fingers. “Grams, I think it’s time to paint the house.”

“I like these colors. I don’t care what anyone has to say about it.”

My house has been painted four colors for as long as I can remember: red, green, white, and blue. When Jack was alive, he repainted every five years and never once said we should have all four sides painted the same color. He said whatever it was that all these colors were doing must be working, because things went pretty smoothly for us. I added the pentagram after he passed, to protect our home from evil. I probably should have had that up years ago when Cass and Lola’s mama was still around.

Lola smiles. “No, of course the colors stay. But it’s been a while and the slats are starting to show through. It needs a fresh coat. I’ll get someone lined up to do that before I leave.”

“You don’t have to, honey. You spend that money on yourself.”

She puts her hand on mine, silk against my leathery hide. “There’s plenty of it, Grams, and besides, Richard doesn’t care. He’s the one that suggested it.”

I haven’t had cause to be around Lola’s husband much before now, with them living up in Springfield and me in Deacon, but I have to say, I really trust the man’s character. “I do appreciate it. It’s hard keeping everything up by myself.”

“Well, maybe with Cass back home, you won’t have to as much.”

Cass fell into her past routine the minute she stepped into that back room: not making her bed, leaving the door wide open, and sleeping more on the couch than in her bed, reminding me of when she was a teenager. She feels at home here, and I’m happy about that. But I sense a bit of distance in her, as if she doesn’t mean to put down roots here again. I don’t say anything to Lola about it, though. I know she and Cass think my sight is failing as I get older, but it’s the opposite. I’m seeing things I never saw before.

“Grams?” Lola says, pulling me out of my reverie. “Did she tell you why she did it? I mean, she really thought she killed him, so she must’ve had a reason. Why would she do it?”

I knew this question was swimming in Lola’s mind. I’m sure she’s asked Richard, but if he knew anything, he wouldn’t have told her. Cass is his client, and he takes that mighty seriously.

Also, it’s a question I’ve had in my own mind. But I won’t ask. If Cass needs to talk, I think I’d be the first she would come to. Maybe the only one she trusts.

“No, honey. I guess that’s between her and whatever spirit controls her. Us looking from the outside don’t always see what’s going on.” That’s what I mean by my sight getting clearer lately. I have always thought highly of Roland, but now, I don’t know. Something was going on out there that I couldn’t see, and I’m pretty hard to fool. I hate to say it, but you have to have a lot of devil in you to get one by me. “Maybe there was more to it than any of us will ever know.”

“Well, there certainly was that.”

I know she’s talking about Maryanne. I hadn’t seen her in many years, until the other day outside the police station. I couldn’t help but yell at her. It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, but she was surrounded by blackness, and I couldn’t tell why. I guess we know now. At least part of it. That much blackness is more than enough to hide that dirty little secret.

I hear Cass and Clay come through the front door. Cass is giggling. It’s good to hear her laugh, even if she did just come from planning her husband’s funeral. Clay seems to make her happy, which bothers me some, him being Roland’s brother and all. But he’s a bit of an odd man anyway, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he and Cass are such close friends. He’s surrounded by brown and green, and that means he’s peaceful, down to earth, balanced. Sure, there’s also a bit of jealousy and low self-esteem, but mostly he has positive colors. He’s a nice complement to Cass’s reds and yellows.

Lola and I follow the sound of their voices and find them in the kitchen, already cutting into the huckleberry pie. It wasn’t easy finding the fresh berries, but I figured we all needed a new start, so it was worth the hunt. The four of us sit at the kitchen table while Cass tells us about the arrangements she and Clay have made. Another week and it will all be over. I should have saved the huckleberries.

I can’t help but notice the light that surrounds the two of them. I haven’t seen Cass this happy in years. I guess these two knew Roland better than anyone—well, other than that Maryanne—and they must have seen something in him that the rest of us missed. As I say, closed doors and all. I hate to think they’re happy that he’s dead, but if I were to guess, I would say they both are. Either that or they are falling in love.

“Did you tell that man at the funeral parlor about the candles?” I ask.

Cass nods. “Yes, Grams. White candles only. I told him.” She smiles at me, not in a way to say that she ordered the candles to make an old woman happy, but to say she understands.

“Clay, do you know anyone who would be interested in painting this house?” Lola asks.

Clay swallows a bite of pie and washes it down with some milk. “Sure, I know a few guys. I can get the paint for a discounted price at the hardware store. Same colors?”

“Of course,” Lola says.

“I’ll talk to Pet. He paints houses on the side. He’ll do a professional job.” He starts to take another bite then stops. “Do you mind if I ask, Ms. Shatner? Why the different colors?”

He’s still timid around me, but I think in the past couple of days he has realized that I don’t bite.

“Red for health. Green for growth. White for protection and blue to wake up the mind. I never could decide which one I needed most, so I figured if I surrounded myself, they’d all be in play.”

Most people would think that was nutty, but Clay nods, as if it makes perfect sense.

We sit there, the four of us, and have another piece of pie. The energy around us is gold and clear white light. It is almost too perfect. And that’s when I realize: the devil plays tricks on you.

It
is
too perfect.

I’ve missed something.