Promises of Home (20 page)

I didn’t want to cry. No, not in front of her. I didn’t want her to see me that way. I put my fingers over my face and they were wet and sticky with Dr Pepper.

“Why? Why?”

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know why he died,” she murmured into my chest.

“Not him dying! Why did he leave us?” I buried my face against her disarrayed hair. “He left
me.
I was like his brother and he left me. He left Sister and Mark and Mama and Daddy and his own father, but why did he leave me?” I pulled in a badly needed breath. “We were as close as brothers. What could have happened that he couldn’t tell me? If he was going to run away from here, why didn’t he come to Boston? I would have helped him, no matter what the trouble was. Didn’t he know that? What did I do wrong? Why’d anyone want to kill him? Why? Why?”

I was conscious of her taking me to the sink, washing the soda from my hands and my face, toweling me dry. She led me back upstairs to my room and laid me on my bed. She held me in her arms and I talked, I babbled like a mute just given speech, telling her all the idiocies and kindnesses that Trey and I had done in our reckless, vanished youths, our time when we thought we were immortal. It didn’t make, I’m sure, for a cohesive monologue. But she laughed at all the funny stories, and she smiled sadly at our tragedies. She stroked my hair and kissed my face and gave me all the strength in her heart. I took it like the precious gift it was. I never loved her more in my life. I told her so and she kissed me gently.

I felt her fingers lightly brushing my hair. “You know what?” she whispered. “I think you loved him very much.
I think he loved you, too. And it’s okay to say that, and it’s okay to be sad. It’s normal.”

“You sound like one of them therapists on TV,” I rasped, sticking my face in my pillow.

“I don’t care what I sound like. I’m just glad you’re grieving,” she said. I opened one eye at her.

She ran a finger inside the cup of my ear. “I’m serious. I was about sick of watching you pretend that Trey Slocum’s death hadn’t affected you in the least. It wasn’t natural, not to someone that cares as much as you do. I was about ready to kick your butt if you didn’t start acting like a human being.”

I watched the translucent blue vein in her wrist as it moved barely above my face. “I was mad at him for so long. I didn’t know how not to be mad at him.” I closed the one eye I’d opened. “Now I can’t tell him I’m sorry. He can’t tell me if he’s sorry for what he did.”

“I’m starting to wish I’d known Trey Slocum. He must’ve had some virtues thrown in with the vices.”

I wished she had, too. I felt exhausted, as though I’d run a marathon with a weight on my back. I pulled her to me, feeling a sudden, intoxicating need for her. Candace responded, her lips seeking mine, her fingers tangling in my hair. My hands framed her face like a precious treasure.

The phone rang, shattering the three a.m. silence. I jerked in surprise. Candace rolled over, grabbed the receiver, murmured a quick “Hello, Poteet residence,” and listened.

“Oh, my God. Oh, no.” Her face crumpled with shock as she handed me the phone. “It’s the police station. Junebug’s been shot.”

ICE WATER IN YOUR FACE IS A SOBERING SLAP.

I’d had two friends die by violence—and I’d tried wrapping myself in denial like it was one of my grandmother’s quilts, a cocoon against the sharp pain of loss. I’d stumbled along, hardly like myself, numbed and slack-jawed, ruminating at a snail’s pace.

Now my eyes were wide and clear and fueled by hot anger. I wanted to catch whoever was destroying my friends and strike at them with viciousness. I felt restless and shivery as I paced the hospital hall.

The Monday-morning hours found Sister, Mark, and me sitting in a large, crowded waiting room at Mirabeau Memorial. Clo had volunteered to stay with Mama and Candace had gone to open the cafe. It was now eight in the morning and we hadn’t been told anything by Franklin Bedloe, the acting police chief, except that Junebug’d been shot twice, was out of surgery, and was still unconscious. Junebug’s mother, Barbara Moncrief, a big-boned woman with a heart to match, was in with her son. Well over a dozen of the Moncrief clan and their friends were crammed into the chairs, talking quietly, mindlessly turning pages of back issues of
People
while we waited. The rest of the Mirabeau police force seemed to be patrolling the hospital, their faces set in sorrow and anger, and I wanted to scream at them;
Why aren’t you out catching the asshole that did this?
But I didn’t.

I am always amazed by the strength of women. I don’t think I ever appreciated it until Mama got sick and her vitality ebbed away in cruel fashion. Sister has that same
vigor. I watched her cast her face in iron as she waited for Barbara Moncrief to come back so she could go in and see her man. She held my hand, her fingers twitching occasionally as we sat. We didn’t talk. I’d tried to comfort her with reassuring words, but she turned monosyllabic on me, and I retreated. After a while she got up and paced fiercely, as though the excess energy in her would explode if not given release.

Davis and Ed had appeared after I’d called them, their voices still creaky with sleep. Both looked exhausted and pained. I felt the same way; as though I’d been pummeled in the stomach for the past three days. Except I felt ready to punch back. They sat in the far corner of the lounge. I couldn’t decide if they were avoiding me or they were trying to give us privacy. Davis was impeccable in his lawyer’s suit, as though nothing of consequence had happened and it would be another day pushing wills and real-estate closures around his desktop. Unshaven Ed looked rumpled in wrinkled khakis and a Patty Loveless tour T-shirt. He looked like a confused child tumbled out of bed. I felt nearly sick looking at Ed. Of us all, he reminded me most of those long-ago boys. Every now and then his eyes met mine, asking the unanswerable question as to why our friend lay struggling for life.

I tried to talk to Franklin Bedloe, the acting police chief, but he brushed me off to return to the crime scene.
2 DOWN
had been the message at Trey’s murder scene. Had another profane scorecard been left as Junebug lay on the bloodied porch? I desperately wanted to know. But Franklin didn’t have time for me, and I didn’t try to detain him. He had a killer to catch, and I had a friend to stand watch over.

A heavy-eyed Peggy Godkin stumbled into the room, lugging a satchel. Peggy is the editor of
The Mirabeau Mirror
and possibly the only workaholic in town. She’s certainly the only achiever in the large Godkin clan that permeates every part of Bonaparte County. Most of the Godkins shuffle by on a day-to-day existence; Peggy got the recessive Puritan work-ethic gene, put herself through
college, started as a cub reporter for the
Mirror,
and had moved up to editor in record time. She was now in her fifties, a handsome woman with dark hair marred by a thick, lacy-white streak that ran back from her forehead. Peggy nearly always played a witch at the high-school Halloween haunted house. It was definitely casting against type.

She saw us and waved. I gestured back feebly. Sister stopped wearing out the carpet and moved toward Peggy.

“Arlene, Jordan. I’m so sorry. How is he? Where’s Barbara?”

Sister shook her head. “He’s out of surgery. The bullet grazed his skull. Barbara’s with him now.”

Peggy gave Sister a fierce hug. Sister hugged back.

“What exactly happened?” Peggy asked.

I told her what little we knew; apparently Junebug had been working very late at his office, had come home, and while putting the key in his lock, was shot. Franklin Bedloe hypothesized—based on the trajectory of the wounds, he said, and I shuddered—that the gunman crouched waiting in the bushes on the far side of Junebug’s porch. One bullet creased his skull; the other one tore into his big frame, narrowly missing his heart. A neighbor, awakened by the shots, phoned the police. Franklin had called Barbara Moncrief and then our house.

Peggy shook her head. “My Lord. Two murders in as many days, and now an attempt on Junebug’s life. What the sweet hell is going on in town?”

I stood. “I don’t know. Peggy, let’s go down to the cafeteria and get some coffee. Sister, Mark, y’all want anything?”

They said no. Peggy gathered her purse close to her and walked along with me. When we got to the end of the hall, I glanced back; Mark’s face was buried in his hands and Sister was watching me intently.

The cafeteria was sparsely populated. I got two steaming cups of coffee and sat across the Formica table from where Peggy had parked herself.

She sipped at her brew. “I’m so sorry about Trey, Jordan. I didn’t know what to say to Arlene and Mark. My
policy is stay silent till you’re sure what’s going to come out your mouth.”

“We’re all trying to deal with it.”

She closed her eyes, smoothing out the laughter lines around them. “And poor Clevey. I still can’t believe he’s dead. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to really talk to you at Truda’s house. I got cornered by his aunts.” She hesitated for a moment then plunged ahead: “I saw the argument between Trey and Arlene. I might’ve been tempted to whack him one myself. But I’m sorry Trey’s dead.”

I sipped at my coffee and considered how to proceed. “Peggy, I wanted to ask you about Clevey. I’ll be blunt. Be blunt back. Could he have been researching something for the paper that might’ve gotten him killed?”

Shock registered on her face. “My God, Jordan. What a suggestion!”

“What do you think?”

She saw my seriousness. “No. He was working on his usual assignments—the city council, the book-review section. And he was researching a feature on domestic violence.”

I thought of the hidden files on Rennie Clifton and her tragically short life. “No other special assignments?”

Peggy gave a tired sigh. “Clevey? Honey, it was all I could do to get him to finish his regular work. It sounds terrible to say now, and I’d never want his mama to know, but I wasn’t far off from firing Clevey.”

“May I ask what was wrong?”

“I don’t think I should say.”

“Peggy, I knew Clevey his whole life. I won’t repeat it. And what you say won’t hurt him now.”

Peggy stared down into her coffee. “His work had become substandard. He was missing deadlines more and more. We’re a small paper, Jordan, and everyone’s got to pull their weight. I don’t have the resources to keep a layabout on the payroll. Clevey was irresponsible.” She shook her head and ran her hand along the pale streak in her hair. “I didn’t understand his attitude. He was so enthusiastic
about journalism for so long, and he was talented.
Was.
”

“When did this downhill slide start?”

She shrugged. “Last summer. My patience was at an end.”

“I want to ask you some questions, but off the record,” I said.

Peggy leaned forward. “What a change. I’m usually the one conducting the interview. I’ll answer your questions if you’ll answer mine.”

“Deal. Did you ever hear Clevey mention a girl named Rennie Clifton?”

Her brow furrowed. “Sounds familiar, but I can’t place the name.”

“And you never heard him mention
anything
about Trey?”

“No, never. That for sure I would have remembered, after the awful way Trey left your family.”

I leaned back. “Damn.”

“Who’s Rennie Clifton?” Peggy asked.

It was no point in telling her to forget it; I’d rather have Peggy Godkin on my side than snooping on her own and plastering a story across the front page. I told her about the long-ago hurricane and the girl who died. Peggy propped her face in her hands.

“I remember that now. Hurricane Althea. Clevey wrote the twentieth-anniversary special report we did last August.”

“Weren’t you writing for the
Mirror
when Althea hit?”

“Yes.” She frowned. “Unfortunately that was the week I took a vacation and visited my college roommate in Dallas. Biggest story to hit Mirabeau in years and I missed it.”

“Did you ever hear anything unusual regarding the hurricane? Or Rennie Clifton’s death?”

She closed her eyes in concentration, her reporter’s mind flipping through the enormous Rolodex of facts that resided in her brain. “No, sorry. Nearly everyone was busy picking up the pieces, thanking God they were alive.”

“Rennie wasn’t,” I said. “Clevey had developed a new
interest in the case. I thought maybe he was writing a story about her.”

She shook her head. “He wrote the retrospective on Hurricane Althea. And he wrote a brief piece on the Clifton girl.”

“I wonder why he got interested again in that case.”

Peggy shrugged. “Newsfolk love to write about themselves. Maybe he wanted to revisit the great trauma of his childhood.”

“Speaking of trauma, did you know that he was seeing a psychotherapist? A man named Steven Teague.”

“Lord, no, I didn’t know he was getting counseling.” She tapped her nail against her lip, a meditative gesture I’d seen her use while covering library board meetings. “Steven Teague. I know that name.”

I frowned. “He just moved here recently. Very urbane, polished-looking fellow. He said—” I stopped for a moment, feeling I was breaking a rule by discussing what I’d overheard. If it got back to Junebug or Steven, I’d be in serious trouble. But Clevey was dead and his murderer walked free. “Steven says that Clevey was troubled. That he’d done serious wrong and was trying to find ways to rectify it.”