The Hunt Club (6 page)

Then came a shot of a man at a podium, at the bottom of the screen the words
FILE FOOTAGE
. The man had on a gray suit and red tie, was reading something, though it was the anchorman’s voice I heard: “Dr. Simons was on the faculty at South Carolina Medical University, where only last June he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the president of the university for having founded the Christian Children’s Reconstructive Surgery Foundation, a charitable organization providing Third World children with needed reconstructive surgery.”

The man in the film footage finished what he was reading, smiled big, and waved to the crowd before him. The camera pulled away to show the whole head table at this party.

Cleve Ravenel was up there. And Dr. Buck. And two or three others from the club, all of them clapping and smiling.

And there was the woman next to me, looking up at him, her clapping, smiling.

Then it was over, the anchor’s big forehead here again. “State Law Enforcement Division officers as well as Charleston City Police and the County Sheriff’s Department are still searching for Mrs. Constance Dupree Simons, wife of Dr. Simons, in connection with the murder. Mrs. Simons, a trustee and former director of Acquisitions for the Carolina Museum of History, has as yet to be located.”

The anchor disappeared again, and here came more file footage, this time of the woman beside me. She was surrounded by children somewhere in the woods, before them a staked-off pit a couple feet deep, strings up around it. Inside the pit was a man stooped to the ground, who then pulled from the ground a piece of pottery, held it
out to the kids. Constance smiled, nodded at them, touched the heads of the kids as they looked at the piece.

Then it was over, the anchorman back. “Anyone with information as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Constance Dupree Simons is urged to contact authorities immediately.”

He gave a small nod, turned to another camera, on the screen behind him now a lighthouse. “Sullivans Island authorities predict the new leash law—”

I turned to her. She was looking at me, smiling.

“No one more invisible than a doctor’s wife,” she whispered.

She brought her other hand from where it’d been in the pocket of her skirt. “You need to give this to him,” she whispered, and held that hand over mine on the bed, my fingers curled and holding on to the sheet.

I couldn’t move. This was her. Constance Dupree Simons.

She reached with her other hand to mine, gently folded open my fingers. Her hand was soft, just like her movements, and like her face, her hair. All soft, and suddenly, with the way she touched my hand, I believed her: she didn’t do it. Even if she
was
smiling after seeing her dead husband fed into the back of an ambulance.

She lifted my hand up, put something in it.

It was warm and hard, a little heavy, the size of the bottom end of a quart beer bottle: a warm, flat piece of round glass. I didn’t look at it, let her ease my hand back to the bed, my eyes on her.

She nodded at my mom again. “You cherish her,” she said, then, quieter, “I have no children of my own, and had always hoped to be cherished.”

I nodded.

“And tell Leland,” she said, “that I did not do it.” She paused, touched at my hand, in it that piece of glass. “And tell him I loved him.”

I tried hard to believe what was going on here, that she knew where I was, how to get to me to tell me what she needed Unc to know.

Finally, I whispered, “Yes ma’am.”

She turned, slow, like she might be sleepwalking, and started for the door, opened it. Light crashed in on her, made her a silhouette to me. She stood there in the doorway, staring straight ahead, then looked back to me one last time.

Still smiling, she nodded, and stepped out into the light.

I brought my hand up, wanted to see what it was she’d given me, so important she’d walk into a hospital, the sheriff and police both after her for murder.

I held it close to my eyes, tried to see it with the light from the doorway but only caught the reflection of that light. A piece of glass was all it was, a little rough on the edges.

I looked over at my mom, wondered if she’d wake up if I turned the lights on, then sat up, slow, so my head wouldn’t fall off, and scooted to where the rail stopped down near the foot. I turned, stepped to the cold floor. All I had on was the thin dresslike thing they gave you, and my underwear, and now my back went cold for the sweat, and I shivered.

I looked to Mom again, then started across the room, my head heavy and big, and I was at the oak door into the bathroom, and I opened it, pulled it to behind me before I turned on the light.

I forgot to close my eyes, and the room exploded white, shot through me for a second, and I squinted hard, opened my hand.

It was brown and shiny, just like glass.

But sealed inside the glass, or whatever it was, was a little pinwheel of pine straw or sweetgrass, every half inch or so a wrap around the straw with a strip of wider straw, like the very center of a sweetgrass basket. It was just three circles, a tiny spiral of a basket, there inside the glass.

A spiral.

Those shapes Unc’d made on the ground, then wrecked. He’d been drawing sweetgrass baskets.

I looked in the mirror, saw a kid with his mouth open, his hair all plastered to his head for sweating in his sleep.

Sweetgrass baskets?

Tell Leland I didn’t do it
, she’d said.

But sweetgrass baskets?

Sweetgrass baskets, those baskets made of coiled sweetgrass and bulrushes and palmetto leaves, a craft brought here by the original slaves from West Africa, we all learned in school, the tradition passed down one generation to the next to the next, the only ones still to practice it the black women set up at the Market downtown, and on Broad and Meeting streets downtown, too, and at the tiny roadside stands along 17 on the way out of Charleston.

Then came three tiny knocks at the door, my mom’s voice: “Honey? You okay in there?” She paused. “Honey, the nurse is here to check up on you.”

I looked at the piece of brown glass again. Constance Dupree Simons had come all the way here, the world looking for her, to hand me this, what looked like a paperweight you might buy at the Market downtown, except for the rough edges of the thing.

No one more invisible than a doctor’s wife
, she’d said.

And tell him I loved him
, she’d said, too.

“Honey, everything all right?” Mom said. “Huger?”

I looked in the mirror again. No bandages, my head no bigger than ever. But I knew something. In that head—my head—was something important enough to make her come to me.

The only problem was I had no idea what it could be.

“I’m okay,” I said. Then I leaned over to the toilet, flushed it. “Just using the toilet,” I said, and held the paperweight in my palm so no one would see it when I came out.

Next morning Dr. Buck came in early, woke me up. I lay on my stomach, my hand inside the pillowcase under the pillow, in it this glass thing. I squinted at him for the light above the bed again. I let go the paperweight, rolled over, sat up.

The blinds were open, the sky through them gray, though I could tell it wasn’t cloudy. Just early.

Mom’s cot was empty, the blanket and sheet they’d given her folded at the foot, the pillow set on top of them.

“Where’s Mom?” I said.

Dr. Buck put the clipboard on the bed, flashed that penlight in my eyes a couple times more, the pain almost gone. He put a hand to the back of my head, felt the bump back there.

“Can’t say as I know, bo,” he said, and gave a quick smile. He picked up the clipboard. “We’ll keep you here maybe another hour or so, then you’re good to go. Okay?”

I looked back to the window. Through the blinds I could see pieces of the tops of other buildings, pieces of palmettos and live oak and the red metal and gray slate roofs of old houses way off and down.

Charleston.

I closed my eyes. I wanted home: Hungry Neck.

“I’ll be ready,” I said.

He turned, went for the door, but stopped, and I opened my eyes. He looked at his clipboard, at me again. “That was something, yesterday.” He paused. “What happened. What you saw.” He put his hand up to the doorjamb, tapped his fingers.

“Yep,” I said.

“Hope your uncle’s okay.” He gave that quick smile. “Hope he’s all right out there without you.”

“He’s been alone before,” I said. “He’s a big boy.”

He tapped the doorjamb one last time. “You got that right, bo,” he said. Still his redneck talk didn’t sound right, or real. He cleared his throat. “You take it easy, hear? And give my best to your uncle, when you see him next.”

“Okay,” I said.

Mom showed up around eight, all her makeup on, hair done. She had a nice blouse and pants on and had a little carry bag with her, one of those flowery free things you get when you buy a few dollars of soap at the Belk. She was laughing when she came in, behind her a nurse, a big black woman with her hair pulled tight into a ponytail. She was pushing a wheelchair.

Mom got this big smile on her face, said, “My baby is awake!” and set the bag on the bed. “Dorinda here says Dr. Morrison’s signed you out already. I myself went home to get you some clean clothes, not to mention taking care of myself. Nothing like sleeping on a cot to give your hair a royal mess.” She sat at the foot of the bed. “But of course the doctor’s already here and gone.”

“The governor’s signed your reprieve,” the nurse said, smiling.

Mom was pulling stuff out of the carry bag now: a pair of jeans, socks, a green-and-white plaid shirt. “Dorinda’s going to wheel you out, once you get your clothes on.”

They looked at me, the two of them smiling.

But all I was thinking on was the paperweight in my right hand,
under the sheet, my mind set on how I was going to get my clothes and go to the bathroom and change without either of them seeing it.

“If you’d get out of here,” I said, “we can head home all the quicker.”

Mom stood, gave me this look, rolled her eyes:
Who do you think you are?

But I covered it, gave her my shit-eating grin, the one any kid with half a brain has figured out by the time he’s three.

“Well,” she said, and smiled. “A young man’s got to have his privacy, I guess,” she said.

“Damn straight,” I said, and gave it another good smile, her skinny and pitiful and only child here in a hospital bed.

It was in my pocket. I knew that. But I felt like everybody in the hospital knew it too, though we’d only wheeled out of the room, were only a few doors down the hallway. I glanced into each room as we passed, expecting to see a nurse who’d call out to me, ask who that lady was who came into my room late last night. I saw nobody, just the same oak and brass and wooden blinds as back in my room.

We made it to the elevator, to my left an oak desk on an oriental rug. A woman in a gold suit coat and white blouse sat behind it, hands together on the desktop, smiling like a real estate agent in a TV commercial. She said, “I hope you enjoyed your stay with us.”

I just looked at her. She tilted her head one way, still smiling at me.

I felt Mom’s hand at my shoulder, squeezing. I smiled at the woman, said, “Thank you,” then looked forward, my eyes to the lighted numbers above the elevator doors. We were almost out of here.

Then the doors opened up.

Two men stood inside, both with buzz cuts, both with black windbreakers on. They didn’t even have to turn around, show me
SLED
in big yellow letters across their backs, for me to figure out who they were. Or why they were here.

It was in my pocket. I knew that. But they didn’t.

They stepped out, smiled at us as fake as Dr. Buck’s redneck words.

“Mrs. Dillard?” one of them said to Mom. He was blond, thick-necked, and had on a red polo shirt, the sleeves of his windbreaker pushed up to his elbows.

“Yes?” Mom said. She turned, nodded at the nurse. “I’ll take it from here, Dorinda. I’m a hospital employee, so if something happens while I’m pushing him out, I can sue me, and win.” She smiled, shrugged.

“Sound like a plan,” Dorinda said, and let go.

Mom pushed me between them and inside the elevator, then wheeled me around, so that now we were inside, looking out at them. She knew something was up.

The second one, black hair and with just as thick a neck, only with a white dress shirt and tie on, put his hand to the elevator door, held it so it wouldn’t close.

“We need to talk to Huger Dillard,” he said, and looked at me, smiling.

Mom touched the button for the ground floor.

“We’re going home,” she said.

“Ma’am, this is official business,” the blond said, and took out a billfold from his back pocket, flashed a badge and ID card. “I’m Agent Hampton, this is Agent Elliot, State Law Enforcement Division.” The other man, still with one hand holding the door open, took out his billfold, too, showed his badge.

“You don’t think I know who you are?” she said, and I could hear in her voice where she was headed.

“Ma’am,” the black-haired one said, “all we need is a few minutes to go through some questions. You can make it easy on yourself and your son, and just give us that time, or we can waste all our time, and make this harder than it has to be.” He smiled at her.