One Summer (16 page)

Rachel and Kay murmured good-byes as Glenda whisked her son away.

“Put his hand on her what, I wonder?” Kay mused with lively interest as the two women started for the car.

“I have no idea,” Rachel answered in as discouraging a tone as she could muster. She had no desire to discuss or even think about Johnny’s relationship with Glenda Watkins.

“I could hazard a guess,” Kay said with a chuckle as she climbed into the car. Casting Rachel, who was inserting a key into the ignition, an indulgent look, she added, “But I won’t. Though I must say I’m surprised Johnny Harris
found a local woman to take up with. Even one like that. I would have thought they’d all be too afraid of him.”

“I think Johnny and Glenda have known each other for a long time,” Rachel said curtly. Distracted, eager to be rid of Kay, Rachel didn’t notice the concrete bump in front of the car until they jolted over it. Her lips tightening, she vowed to be more vigilant and set herself to concentrating on her driving as she pulled out into traffic.

“You know who those two girls were?” Kay was bright-eyed as she turned in her seat to relate a particularly choice bit of gossip. “Don Gillespie told me. They were hookers, Rachel. Real hookers, can you believe it?”

“Oh, Kay!” Rachel took her eyes off the road to dart a skeptical glance at her friend. “Hookers?”

“Don said Willie Harris went to Louisville twice a month, as regular as clockwork, to see one of them. He said the old man had been cavorting with the girl since she was twelve.”

“Twelve! Oh, Kay! I don’t believe it!”

Kay shrugged. “He said Willie Harris bragged about it. Good grief, Rachel, look out! We’re running off the road!”

The Maxima’s tires bumped over the gravel berm. Rachel, startled back to attention, quickly jerked the steering wheel to the left, and they were on the road again.

“Becky always said you were the most awful driver,” Kay muttered, shaking her head.

“Becky is so perfect at everything she does that she tends to be critical of other people’s efforts,” Rachel retorted sweetly.

“Oh-ho!” Kay grinned. “Such devoted sisters! Am I glad I only have brothers. Stop, Rachel, you’re driving past my shop!”

The Maxima had indeed overshot the small brick building where Kay ran her business, which was called Say It With Flowers. Gritting her teeth, Rachel turned the car around and pulled up before Kay’s shop.

Kay opened the car door, then turned to glance back at
Rachel. “Are you coming to the Preservation Society meeting tonight?”

“I don’t think so. But Mother is, I think.”

Kay smiled. “Your mother is wonderful. Did you know that she donated the rest of the money we needed to restore the gardens in the old Baptist church cemetery? I’ll be able to do some pruning and plant some bulbs this fall, and then finish up in the spring. They’re going to be gorgeous.”

“I can’t wait to see them,” Rachel said politely.

Kay chuckled. “I know, I know, not everyone is as interested in flowers as I am. But it will be something to see, I promise you.” Her voice turned suddenly serious. “I just love that place, and it hurts me to see it so neglected.”

“The society is lucky to have such a dedicated chairwoman,” Rachel said.

“It is, isn’t it?” Kay grinned. “Well, I’ll let you go. Thanks for the ride. Tell your mother I’ll see her tonight.”

Kay got out and slammed the door. Rachel drove off with a wave. Though she was in complete agreement with the sentiments behind the establishment of the First Baptist Church of Tylerville Preservation Society, she could not drum up much interest in their efforts to restore and refurbish the town’s oldest church at that precise moment. She was too concerned about locating Johnny.

Her next stop was Grant’s Hardware, to see if Johnny had decided to report for work rather than attend his father’s funeral.

Olivia, at the counter, shook her head. “He hasn’t been here at all this morning. Ben said he didn’t call to say he wouldn’t be in, either.”

The store was empty except for one out-of-earshot customer browsing through paint charts, so Olivia’s thoughtless broadcasting of yet another store problem was heard by no one except Rachel. Rachel knew that at some point she was going to have to speak to Olivia about her big mouth, but at the moment she wasn’t up to delivering a
gentle scolding. She was growing genuinely worried about Johnny. If he wasn’t with Glenda and he wasn’t at work, where was he?

“Rachel, could I speak to you a minute?” Having heard her voice, Ben stuck his head out of the storeroom. Rachel wanted to refuse, but Ben was already walking toward his office. With an inward sigh, Rachel followed.

Ben leaned against the edge of his desk, his arms crossed over his chest, as Rachel shut the door behind her and looked at him questioningly.

“Johnny Harris did not show up for work this morning.”

“His father’s funeral was this morning,” Rachel replied defensively, without bothering to add that Johnny hadn’t attended it.

“He still should have called to say he wouldn’t be in, and you know it.”

“I’m sure he’s emotionally upset.”

Ben snorted. “Nothing short of being hauled before a firing squad would get him emotionally upset. Rachel, he’s bad for business. Half our customers outright refuse to let him wait on them, and the other half just stop in to gawk at him! He’s rude and insubordinate, and he looks like he ought to be in that motorcycle gang, the Hell’s Angels. On Saturday, I told you I was going to quit if you let that kid go without calling the police. Well, you let him go. My letter of resignation is right here.”

He picked up an envelope from the desk and held it out to Rachel.

“Oh, Ben, you don’t really mean it, do you?” Rachel accepted the envelope and glanced at Ben’s face.

“Yes, ma’am, I mean it. That guy gets my goat every time I look at him, Rachel. I swear, just having him in the store is giving me an ulcer. The only way I’ll stay is if you let him go.”

“But, Ben, I can’t. If he doesn’t have a job, they’ll send him back to prison. I know he can be a bit much, but—”

“A bit much,” Ben jeered.

“If you will just bear with me, I’ll talk to him.”

“Talking to him’s about as much use as going after a tank with a fly swat. It won’t do a bit of good, Rachel, and I mean what I say. If you won’t, or can’t, fire him, then I’m quitting. I’ve already gotten an offer to manage the hardware section at Wal-Mart.”

Rachel stared at Ben for a moment without speaking. It was clear from the apologetic yet obstinate look on his face that he meant what he said.

“I hope you will do me the courtesy of giving me two weeks’ notice,” she said stiffly. Ben’s lips compressed.

“You know I’ll do that.” His eyes shifted, then came back to her face. “I’m real sorry, Rachel.”

“Yes,” said Rachel, “so am I.”

She turned and walked out of the office, envelope in hand. As she passed the stairs that led to Johnny’s apartment, she hesitated, wondering if she should go up and knock, just to check. Ben didn’t have to know that she hadn’t seen Johnny at all that morning. Why, she could be going upstairs to see if he had returned after the funeral.

“Harris isn’t up there,” Ben said from behind her. “I practically pounded the door down not ten minutes ago. I thought he might be lazing around in bed.”

“Oh. Well, I—” But before she could continue, Ben put a hand on her arm. She turned to find a frown creasing his brow.

“Look, I know it’s not my place to say this, but I’ve seen the way Harris looks at you when you come in here, and it worries me. I’m telling you, the guy’s dangerous, Rachel. For your own sake, you ought to fire him. If he gets sent back to prison, so be it. At least you’d be safe.”

“Ben, it’s nice of you to be concerned,” Rachel said. As she patted the hand that rested on her arm, much of her rancor toward her store manager dissipated. “But I am not afraid of Johnny. He may look dangerous, but he’s not, and he would never hurt me or anyone else.”

“Famous last words,” Rachel heard Ben mutter after she had freed herself and started to walk away.

The remark wrung a wry smile from Rachel. But she wasn’t smiling some twelve hours later, when on what must have been her dozenth drive-by of the store to see if Johnny had returned, she finally saw a light in the upstairs apartment window. Then relief led to indignation, and indignation led to all-out anger. Fired with wrath, Rachel parked her car, marched up the outside stairs, and knocked.

A burst of furious barking answered her. Rachel was just recovering from her surprise when the door was pulled open. Johnny stood swaying in the doorway before her, one hand on the knob, to which he seemed to cling for balance. He was clearly well on his way to being falling-down drunk.

16

“W
ell, if it isn’t Miss Grant,” Johnny said, looking her over with a jeering smile turned lopsided by drink. “Come in, come in.”

Opening the door wider and stepping back from it in an exaggerated gesture of hospitality, Johnny stumbled over the carpet and almost fell. Saved by his grip on the knob, he righted himself, cursing under his breath. Behind him, a huge, dun-colored dog stopped barking, bared its teeth, and snarled ferociously at Rachel. She shrank back, her anger banished in a heartbeat by a combination of shock and fear.

“Don’t mind him.” Following her wide-eyed gaze, Johnny waved a dismissing hand at the slavering animal. “That’s just Wolf. Sit, Wolf.”

Disregarding the command as completely as if it had not been uttered, the dog continued to snarl, its beady black eyes fixed on Rachel, who retreated a pace. Johnny frowned.

“Bad dog,” he said without much conviction. The animal still growled. Muttering something under his breath, Johnny let go of the doorknob, reached down to grab the beast by the scruff of its neck, and dragged it off toward the bedroom. Johnny’s steps were unsteady, and he lurched occasionally to one side. It looked almost as if the
dog’s powerful shoulders were propping him up. It didn’t require much imagination on Rachel’s part to picture the animal breaking free, whirling, and leaping for her throat. She stayed pressed against the wooden rail of the outside landing until the dog was safely stowed in the bedroom with the door shut behind it. Only then did she enter the apartment.

“What was that?” she asked Johnny as, one hand on the wall to steady himself, he negotiated his way back across the living room toward her. The dog, now that it was safely incarcerated, made no sound. Rachel found that almost more unnerving than frenzied barking would have been.

“That? Oh, you mean Wolf? He’s my legacy. My only legacy from my old man.” Johnny started to laugh in a drunken fashion that would have sent Rachel running for cover if she had possessed the least sense at all. He collapsed onto the brown tweed couch.

“You’re drunk.” Rachel shut the door behind her and advanced into the room to look down at him severely. The smell of whiskey assaulted her nostrils, and she discovered a quarter-full bottle of the stuff on the lamp table by the couch.

“Yup.” His head lolled back against the rolled top of the couch, and his long, bluejean-encased legs sprawled out across the beige plush carpet. He wore dirty white athletic socks with no shoes and a white T-shirt with the tail outside his jeans. His hair was loose. The jet-black strands, so long that they almost touched his shoulders, waved around his face. His blue eyes glittered restlessly up at her. From the stubble on his chin, she guessed that he had not shaved since she had seen him last. He looked like a bum, if a very sexy bum.

Strangely, Rachel was not in the least afraid of him, drunk or not. In the depths of his eyes she recognized real pain.

“You heard about my old man?” Johnny asked carelessly.
He reached for the bottle, tilted it to his mouth, took a long swig, then wiped his mouth on his hand. He set the bottle with exaggerated care back on the table. “Raw hamburger. That’s what he is now, raw hamburger. Made into raw hamburger by a goddamned train.”

“I went to the funeral this morning,” Rachel said, watching him. “It was a very nice service.”

Johnny laughed again, and the sound was queer. “I bet it was. Were you the only one there?”

Rachel shook her head. “There were others. Have you had anything to eat lately?”

Johnny shrugged. “Did they sing hymns and pray?”

Rachel nodded. “Could you eat some scrambled eggs, maybe, and toast?”

Johnny made a violent gesture with one hand. “Would you quit yammering on about goddamned food? I want to know who was there. Did Buck show?”

Edging around his legs, Rachel unobtrusively picked up the whiskey bottle and headed for the kitchen. “No.”

She disappeared and for the next ten minutes busied herself making scrambled eggs and toast and coffee from the groceries she knew he had on hand. On the last of her previous night’s visits to his apartment, she had stifled her conscience and used her pass-key to let herself in. She had feared what she might find, but the apartment had been empty. Down to the open loaf of bread on the counter and the perishable groceries in the kitchen, it had looked as though its resident had just stepped out and would be back any minute. Only he hadn’t come back for two days.