Full Circle (11 page)

‘Who is it?’ she called.

‘Who do you think it is?’ Megan said, coming in without permission.

‘I want to be alone right now—’

‘Uh uh,’ Megan said, flopping down on Elizabeth’s bed. ‘You’re going to tell me what’s going on. Don’t deny that something is, because you haven’t been riding my ass in two days, and that’s just not you. So I know something’s up and you’re going to tell me what it is.’

‘Nothing’s up—’ Elizabeth started.

Megan rolled on to her stomach and stared up at her sister who sat cross-legged on the bed. ‘Tell me.’

Elizabeth began to cry.

BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999

I drove to the church for my meeting with Berry Rush. His office was plush: a teak-wood desk, a six-foot silver and teakwood cross on the wall between rows of built-in bookshelves, an antique settee, and a winged rocker. All new since our last pastor.

He met me at the door with outstretched arms, grabbing me by the arms and squeezing. ‘E.J., it’s so good to see you! I’m so sorry it had to be under these circumstances! Come! Sit! Coffee? Tea? A soda, perhaps?’

I came, I sat, I declined refreshment. I pulled the paper the Lubbock attorney had sent me out of my purse and handed it to him. ‘This proves power of attorney.’

‘As if I would doubt it?’ He chuckled.

‘Now, about the service,’ I said.

‘Since you declined a private service, I suppose we’ll need to have it in the sanctuary,’ he said with a sigh. ‘The chapel would be too small for the hordes of curiosity seekers bound to attend.’

I smiled stiffly. ‘I doubt if we’ll have that many. Now, about the service . . .’

‘I’ve selected some hymns I feel appropriate for the occasion.’ He then read off three of the drier selections in the Methodist hymnal.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t feel . . .’

‘I’ve spoken with Choir Leader Johnson. He feels under the circumstances a soloist would be out of the question. A few flowers, possibly. Sedately scattered—’

‘Reverend Rush!’ My voice was loud so as to be heard above his.

‘Why, yes, E.J.?’ His look of hurt surprise would have withered a lesser person.

I shoved a piece of paper into his hand. On it were written the titles to three songs. ‘These were Terry’s favorite hymns. These are the songs I want sung at the funeral.’

He laughed nervously. ‘But these songs are inappropriate for a funeral, E.J.’

‘I really don’t care, Reverend Rush. These were Terry’s favorite hymns. These hymns will be sung in her honor. And I’m sure as a friend of Roy’s, Tom Johnson would be happy to do the solo honor himself on “Amazing Grace.” As for the flowers, there will be no flowers. People will be instructed to give any money they want to donate in the Lester family’s memory to the Codderville Children’s Foundation, a favorite charity of both Terry and Roy. The family will be buried at Memorial Hill Cemetery where Terry and Roy bought plots several years ago.’ I hesitated. Then I said, ‘I’ll have to see about two more, I guess.’ I stood up. ‘Now if you’ll kindly draw up a bill for the use of the church and your services, Reverend Rush, and mail it to me, I’ll be happy to add it to the pile of other bills awaiting probate. Good day.’

I left the room to an amazing quiet. Not a sound. Not a peep. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to turn back for a look.

SIX

BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS

E.J., THE PRESENT

I waited outside the theater in the ninety-degree heat, all the windows in the Volvo rolled down, fanning myself with a piece of paper I found on the floor. It was eight o’clock, but the sun hadn’t completely set for the night, and the heat was still stifling. There was a crowd at the ticket booth, paying admittance for the many movies playing at the quadraplex. The doors opened and Graham and Lotta came out. I waved and they came over to the car.

‘Why are y’all leaving?’ I asked. ‘The movie’s not over yet, is it?’

‘No, not yet, but I didn’t want Megan and that dude seeing us, so I thought we should leave,’ Graham said.

Feeling guilty, I rummaged in my purse until I found a twenty and handed it to my son. ‘It’s my fault you had to leave, so this is reimbursement,’ I said.

‘Ah, Mom, you didn’t have to do that,’ my son said as he hurriedly stashed the bill in his back pocket.

‘Shoo now before they come out,’ I said, smiling at Lotta. I didn’t need to say it twice. They were off.

It was another twenty minutes before the exit doors opened to the throngs of movie-goers exiting the theater. Megan and her skater-dude were halfway back in the crowd. She wasn’t wearing the jeans and oversized T-shirt she’d had on when she left the house; no, instead she was wearing a very short miniskirt I’d never seen before, and a very tight top that showed a belly ring I’d never seen before and way too much fourteen-going-on-forty boobage. Skater-dude, his oversized shorts about to fall off, the dirty watch cap still pulled down to his eyebrows, and still wearing the shades, had his arm around my daughter in a very possessive way, fingertips only a half-inch from aforementioned boobage.

I got out of the car and walked up to them. Because of the crowd and eyes only for each other, they didn’t see me until skater-dude stepped on my foot.

‘Xuse me . . .’ he started, then looked up and froze.

Megan looked up too, and her pale skin turned a purplish shade that clashed with her red hair. She tried to pull away from skater-dude. The sudden movement started a reflexive move on skater-dude’s part, and his hand grasped Megan’s breast. She screamed and bolted and he jerked his hand away and started shaking it like it was on fire. I just stood there and watched while the dwindling throngs moved around us.

Finally I said, ‘Megan, get in the car.’ She did.

Turning to skater-boy I said, ‘At this point I don’t like you. But I know I’m just going on instinct. Come to dinner Friday night and I’ll see if I like you or not.’

‘Huh?’ he said.

I left him standing there trying to figure out what I’d said, and got in the car to drive Megan home.

‘I invited your friend over Friday night for dinner,’ I said casually as I started the car.

Megan turned all shades unbecoming and said, ‘Huh?’ Skater-dude was definitely influencing my daughter – at least her grasp of the English language.

‘Do I really have to repeat myself?’ I asked.

‘Mom, you didn’t!’ Megan wailed.

‘Daughter, I did,’ I said calmly.

‘Ground me!’ she pleaded. ‘Take away my electronics! All of it! Even my MP3 player! Beat me! Anything but that!’

I smiled. ‘We’ll all have a lovely time,’ I said.

ELIZABETH, THE PRESENT

We’re having a sort of anti-party Friday night. Sometimes I wonder about my mother. Megan lied to her, got her belly button pierced, and did all sorts of stupid things, and instead of grounding her for the rest of her life, Mom’s inviting her – excuse the expression – boyfriend over for dinner Friday night. She said we could all bring someone and it will be like a party. I’m just not sure what she’s up to, but I know it can’t be good. I’m inviting my friend Alicia to come over. Lotta got permission from her boss to be a couple of hours late to work, and Graham’s going to pick her up at her house and he’ll pick up Alicia on the way back. I’ll go with him, ’cause Alicia’s way shy and she’d feel uncomfortable with just Graham and Lotta. Oh, and Dad’s going to be home. So, everybody, including Mom, is going to have a ‘friend’ over. Ha! Ha!

Megan is totally flipping out! She knows Mom and Dad are going to do something to torture and humiliate her (one can only hope, haha!), but she’s just not sure which. And (I can’t help but laugh here – yes, I’m a bitch!) her belly button is infected! Ha! Green stuff is oozing out of the hole but she won’t take it out because
he
bought it for her. The reason it’s infected, I’m sure, is because it’s made out of some nasty stuff from a third world country, or he bought it out of a bubble gum machine and Meg is allergic to plastic!!!

BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999

I got Bessie down for a nap in her new house and her new bed, then went back outside to pick up the Codderville
News-Messenger
that was sitting by the front door. I hadn’t looked at the paper since Monday, and wondered what page my friends warranted by Friday.

Page one. But at the bottom. Above the fold was an article about the death by car wreck of the beloved Mrs Olson, the counselor at the high school where Monique had attended. That article, along with one about misappropriation of funds at the Codder County Utility, had bumped the Lester family from above-the-fold status. A small article in the right-hand corner below the fold was all the news fit to print about the Lester family. ‘Police sources say they are wrapping up their case on the Lester family murders, which will be listed as murder-suicide.’

I threw the paper in the recycle bin. Nobody was going to do anything! Nobody! Four people murdered and everyone in Codderville and Black Cat Ridge was just going to look the other way. I picked up the phone and called the police station, asking for Detective Luna.

‘Detective Luna,’ she said on answering her line.

‘I read the paper this morning,’ I said.

‘I’m glad you’re able to read,’ she said. ‘It’s astounding the number of adults in this community that can’t. You should be congratulated. Possibly the Adult Literacy Program at the high school could use your—’

‘Can it, Luna,’ I said. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

‘Is there something I can do for you, Mrs Pugh?’ she asked in a mockingly serious tone. OK, it could have been serious, but to me it sounded mocking.

‘You can get off your butt, you and the rest of the jerks at that place, and find out who killed the Lester family!’

‘Mrs Pugh, after an exhaustive investigation—’

‘Of four days!’

‘—we have discovered nothing to prove anyone else was involved in the murders of the Lester family. There was no break-in—’

‘They rarely locked their doors!’

‘—no indication of a disturbance of any kind, no neighbors heard anything—’

‘No one asked me!’

‘Did you hear anything the night before you found the Lester family’s bodies, Mrs Pugh?’ Luna asked.

‘Well, no, but that’s not the point . . .’

‘Mrs Pugh, I haven’t gotten to the most incriminating and disturbing piece of evidence to indicate this was a murder-suicide,’ she said. ‘Roy Lester was discovered with the murder weapon in his possession in a position of suicidal indication.

‘Therefore, the verdict has been handed down that Theresa Lester, Monique Lester, and Aldon Lester were murdered by Roy Lester, who then shot and killed himself.’

There was a long silence. Finally, Detective Luna said, ‘E.J., I’m sorry. I know this is not what you want to hear.’

‘Look, Detective, I know that’s what it looks like, because that is precisely what it is
supposed
to look like! But I’ll tell you one damn thing for sure, and you can take this to the bank: Roy Lester did not kill his wife and children!’

‘You come up with any proof of that, ma’am, and we’ll be happy to reopen the case.’

‘You know, I’m sitting here thinking what in the hell do you do when you can’t get the police to investigate a murder? Well, I’ve just figured out what it is I’m supposed to do! I just remembered. I think the Codderville
News-Messenger
might be interested in a little muck-raking of the police department! They might be interested in the truth!’ And with that, I hung up.

E.J., THE PRESENT

Willis and I lay in bed that night talking. It had been a while since we’d had this indulgence. He’d been working late or out of town. Any other guy and I would have suspected something untoward, but not Willis. For one thing, he’s too lazy for an affair; for another, we don’t have enough cash on hand for an affair, and thirdly, he once said to me, while watching a Lifetime movie about cheating husbands, ‘Why would you give up your whole life – your wife, your kids, your house, everything – just for a piece of ass?’ I’ll always love him for that less than tactful statement.

‘Remember when we brought her home from the hospital?’ I said.

‘Yeah, when we thought all we had to do was get her to talk and everything would be OK,’ he said.

‘Well, we had to do a little more than that, but still. I thought it was all OK. I thought she was stable and ours.’ I felt tears spilling down my face to my pillow below. Willis must have felt them.

‘Hey, baby,’ he said, his fingers wiping away the tears. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

‘Is it?’ I asked, looking into his big brown eyes that I so loved. ‘How? Please, baby, tell me, how is it all going to be OK?’

He rolled over on his back, staring once again at the ceiling and not at me. ‘It just is,’ he said unconvincingly.

‘I need you home more,’ I said.

Again on his elbow looking down at me, he said, ‘And which of our children do you suspect will get a full scholarship to college? And which should we send to mechanics school? ’Cause without this deal I’m working, there won’t be enough money for college for three kids.’

‘Well, Bessie might get a scholarship but she’s the only one.’

‘She’s the only one who won’t need it. She’s got the Lesters’ money for college.’

‘What happened to that money we put aside for Megan and Graham? The money Terry’s mother left us?’

‘It hasn’t accrued quite as fast as a college education has,’ my husband informed me.