Laura and I both froze. I wondered how she’d break the news. She did it with two silver bullets: “Daddy’s dead.”
“Dead?” Skell took two steps backwards.
He’d forgotten he still stood in the doorway. He would have fallen downstairs and possibly broken his neck if she hadn’t grabbed his arm. She hauled him back and headed him toward the big green chair. “He was killed Friday night. They found him Saturday afternoon.”
“Killed? How? By who?” Without waiting for an answer, he muttered, “No way,” and sank into the chair. He stared up at us and we stared down at him. Pain was thick around us, and the only sound in the room was the ticking of the grandfather clock.
At last, Skell spoke in a choked voice, “What happened? Have you already buried him?” His face had lost so much color that his eyes looked black—and bleak.
Laura leaned against a bookshelf, started at the end of his questions, and worked her way back. “The funeral’s Saturday. They had to do an autopsy. He was run over by a car out on a dirt road off Warner Road, but they don’t know yet who was driving.”
“No way,” he repeated, shaking his head. Then he buried his face in his hands and crumpled forward. “Oh, God. I wish I’d known.”
Laura glared down at him. “I wish you had, too. We could have used you around here. Why didn’t you call? If you had called the dealership, you’d have heard the message about why we were closed.”
“I”—he started out firmly enough, but tapered off—“didn’t want to talk to Daddy.” His breath came in quick little puffs. “And they don’t know who killed him?”
Somebody had to tell him. Laura didn’t, so I was elected. “They think you did. They’ve arrested Mr. Garcia from the restaurant—”
“Rosita’s daddy? No way!”
“Yes way,” I said, using our grandson Cricket’s favorite comeback to that, “but they don’t have a lot of solid evidence against him. And Chief Muggins has mentioned several times how funny it looks that you disappeared just before the body was found.”
“They’ve been watching the house, the business, and your place, waiting for you to come home,” Laura added.
“I wouldn’t kill Daddy!” He pressed his temples and shook his head. “I can’t believe this. After all I’ve been through—”
“All
you’ve
been through?” Laura’s eyes were blue fire, and she pitched words at him like boulders. “We’ve got a business to run here. People to take care of. Cars to sell and service. You can’t just go off and party any time you feel like it without telling a soul where you are.”
Skell’s anger rose, equally hot. “You think I was partying? You don’t have any more faith in me than that?” His face was as pink as hers, his mouth equally tight. “I was trying to save your—”
I held up one hand. “Stop it, both of you. Skell, the police are busy right now, but they’ll be back. Bring your car into the garage.”
“No, put it down in the woods behind the garage.” Laura reached down and hauled him up by one arm. “We don’t want Mama knowing you are here yet. But hurry! And take off your shoes. We don’t want her recognizing the sound of your big feet.” I knew for a fact that he wore an eight, she an eleven.
He slipped off his running shoes and padded downstairs carrying them. Laura sank into the blue chair, kicked off her loafers, and drew her long legs up to hug her knees. She used to sit like that as a little girl when one of childhood’s tragedies had gotten to be more than she could handle. Resting her chin on her knees, she said, “Sit down and take the load off your feet, Mac. I’ll get the coffee in a minute.”
“Let me get it, honey. It will give me something to do besides look at your unhappy face.”
I poured milk into the pitcher she’d already put out and was setting a steaming mug beside each chair when Skell came back as quietly as he’d left. As soon as he came in the door, I started talking, hoping to calm the air a little. “We mothers are amazing, when you think about it. We recognize our children by all sorts of little things—your foot-steps, the sound of your sneezes and coughs. I even read somewhere that no matter how many children a woman has, she can tell you which one took off a T-shirt by the smell.”
Skell grinned as he closed the door behind him. “Mama sure could if she got a whiff of the one I took off tonight. I’d had it on two days. I didn’t want to buy more than one outfit on the trip, but I figured everybody would appreciate it if I stopped by my place and cleaned up before—”
Death has a way of sneaking up on you again and again. I saw the exact second when Skell realized his daddy wasn’t going to appreciate anything he did, ever again. He came to a full halt and his eyes got pink. “Where is Marvin?” he asked hastily, blinking rapidly as he peered around.
“Over at Cindy and Walker’s,” Laura told him shortly. Anybody could tell her mind wasn’t on ferrets.
Skell, though, looked like he needed a bit more time to pull himself together, so I added, “Cindy’s feeding him, and the kids are spoiling him rot—”
“That ferret is the least of our worries.”
Laura would never have interrupted me if she wasn’t so upset.
21
I took the plaid chair, propped my feet on the ottoman since they didn’t reach the floor, and picked up my coffee. “Sit down and drink your coffee, Skell. Then tell us where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to.”
He dropped into the chair, laid his head against the chair back, and closed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice sounded two hundred years old. “You all have no idea what’s going on.”
“Try us.” When Laura started to speak, I waved for her to be quiet. “Go on. Tell us.”
We waited while he collected his thoughts. Normally I enjoy sitting in silence in a room full of the smell of hot coffee while a clock gently ticks. That night we were all too jumpy to enjoy anything. Skell’s right leg was jiggling so much it jingled the change in his pockets. Laura kept reaching for a hank of hair that wasn’t there. When the ice maker dumped ice, I jumped like somebody had shot me. Even my coffee tasted bitter.
Skell finally began. “When I got to work Friday—and yes”—he opened his eyes and looked at Laura—“I was late. Very late. I’d been out the night before, and my alarm didn’t go off.”
She started to speak, but again I flapped a hand at her. “Hush. You’ve got the rest of your life to fuss at him. Let him tell his story.”
He sipped his coffee, then cupped the mug in both hands like he needed the warmth. “When I got to work, Bratson was in my office, talking to somebody on my private line. He knew not to use my office when I wasn’t there—I’d told him a hundred times. I walked in on him, thinking I’d really raise sand this time. As soon as he saw me, he muttered, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and hung up. But before I could light in on him, he started in on me. Said I’d really blown it this time, that Daddy had come down when I wasn’t there and sold a car that he—Bratson—had promised to his best customer, and if I didn’t get the car back, the guy would take his business elsewhere. Now, I’m not the best car dealer in the world, but I know a fishy story when I hear one, and all the time he was talking, a muscle was jumping in his cheek like something was trying to get out. I played along at first—told him we’d find an equally good car for his customer. But he kept getting more upset until I said, ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?’ ”
Skell stopped to take an enormous breath. Laura’s chair creaked slightly as she shifted. “So Bratson said, ‘There’s thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise in that car—you understand me? Expensive merchandise. And the person who put it there is not going to be happy when his man comes to pick up the car and it’s not here. You’d better get it and get it fast.’ Then he moved around so he was between me and the door—” Skell stopped and shivered.
Laura’s eyes met mine. “We know how you felt, honey,” I told him. “We had a little run-in with Mr. Bratson tonight. He’s a scary person.”
“You know?” He whirled toward Laura. He read the answer in her eyes. “How long have you known?”
“Only since tonight. And I can see how you’d be scared of him and that goon he’s partners with, but—”
“I never saw his partner.”
“Count yourself fortunate,” I said at exactly the same time Laura asked, “Why didn’t you just go tell Daddy the truth?”
“Are you kidding? I hired Bratson practically over Daddy’s dead body.” Horror dawned in his eyes. “They killed him, didn’t they? They thought he knew, but he didn’t. They killed him!”
He looked so wretched, I wanted to hold him on my lap and promise everything was going to be all right. Instead, I sighed. “It’s certainly a good possibility.” Such a good possibility, in fact, it was what had sent me to look at their used-car-lot records that very night.
“You should have told Daddy.” Laura’s whisper was raw with anguish. Again she drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. This time she laid her face on them as well.
“Look,” Skell appealed to the top of her head, “I wasn’t doing a good job of running the lot. We both know that. But I didn’t need him flinging it in my face that I’d hired a drug dealer to help me run the place.”
Skell’s whimper was the signal for Laura to come over to his side. She’d always done it before. She clasped her arms tighter around her legs, and I sensed the battle she was fighting within. I held my breath. Would she comfort her little brother one more time and assure him she would make everything all right? Or would she let him face the fact that this time the consequences of his irresponsibility were bigger than she could—or even wanted to—fix?
She raised a face pink with tears and shot me a look of pure pain; then she said sadly, “You really messed up. You hired that scum, and you didn’t watch him.”
Her unexpected reproach stung him. “I couldn’t know every dang thing that went on at that lot. I couldn’t be thinking about it every minute. I have a life, you know.” She didn’t say a word, just looked at him. “Besides,” he ploughed on, “I thought at first I could fix it pretty easy. I headed over to MacDonald’s to tell Daddy to call the person he’d sold the car to and get it back. But Daddy wouldn’t even try. He said Maynard bought that car for his honeymoon and wasn’t likely to return it. I told him he had no business working our lot just because Bratson and I weren’t there, that I’ve got other salesmen, and this was real important. Then he started yelling, like he always did. He yelled that I was supposed to be at the lot, but if I wasn’t, he’d sell cars to whoever he da—” Skell shot me a look and amended that to “whoever he pleased. Finally he told me if I wanted that car back, I had to tell Maynard myself.” Skell had gotten all fired up with indignation, but he suddenly stopped. Regret spread over his face like a cloud. His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “I only saw him twice that day, and both times we yelled at each other.” He blinked back new tears.
We could have plied him with platitudes about how his Daddy knew he didn’t mean it, but the truth is, sometimes we
feel
guilty because we
are.
Fighting with his daddy that last day and never making it up was something Skell would have to make his own peace with.
“Why didn’t you explain to him what was really going on?” Laura repeated.
“Can you imagine what he’d have said if I’d come right out with, ‘Look, Daddy, I need you to get me out of a scrape here. Jimmy Bratson is using Sky’s the Limit to pass drugs from Florida to the north, and that car you sold Maynard is full of them’? He would have kicked my butt from MacDonald Motors to kingdom come.”
“Maybe so,” she said soberly, “but he might have been able to help. And no matter how loud he yelled, Daddy really did want you to make a go of it.”
Skell angrily brushed away a tear. “Daddy wanted me to be him. I’m not him. I never was and I never will be. But I did want to make him proud of me. I thought if I could handle this—if I could make this one thing come out halfway right—maybe just once he’d be proud of me.” He dropped his face to his hands, and his shoulders heaved with sobs. “I never did a thing in my life that made Daddy proud.”
“Mama’s proud of you,” Laura said gruffly. “You’ve always had that.” Her own eyes were full of tears. “And Daddy loved you. He loved you the most.” Her voice was a harsh whisper.
“Stop it,” I snapped. Sure, I wished I could reach out and hold that whole hurting family in my own short arms, but we needed some facts before we smothered in sentiment. “Your parents both loved each of you, but they weren’t perfect. They had some dreams for you that you didn’t dream, and sometimes they didn’t understand the ones you did dream. That’s how earthly parents are. Fortunately, you have—”
“—three parents,” Laura finished for me. She hiccupped and sniffed. “And all we have to worry about is making our heavenly parent proud. He’s a lot easier to please, anyway.” She gave me a watery smile. “I’ll bet you thought I wasn’t listening to all those Sunday school lessons back in seventh grade.”
“I thought your mind was one hundred percent on soccer,” I admitted. “And that little redheaded boy with the freckles—what was his name?” I got my feet down off the ottoman and headed for a box of tissues.
Her voice followed me. “Barry Wilson. He could swing a mean bat. But I was listening, Mac. I just didn’t absorb what you said until later.”
I rested a hand on her shoulder as I thrust the tissue box under her nose. “Here, you both need these.”
I refilled our mugs while they wiped their eyes and blew their noses; then I sat back down and informed Skell, “So far you haven’t told us much we don’t know. We know what happened Friday—you looked for Maynard and finally found him, but couldn’t get him to trade cars. Then you tried again after the wedding, but he still wouldn’t. What happened after that? For starters, where were you Friday night?”
He sniffed a few times and took a fortifying gulp of hot black coffee. “You don’t know jack. Sure, I looked for Maynard all Friday afternoon, but I wasn’t trying real hard. Mostly I was mad at Daddy and avoiding going back to work and good old Bratson. I figured I’d find Maynard eventually, and when I did, I’d take that Beamer straight to Isaac James and tell him the whole story. But then, around five, Bratson called on my cell phone, and it was like he was reading my mind. He said he hoped I wasn’t getting any funny ideas about going to the police with the car, because if I did, he’d tell Chief Muggins—who plays poker with him every week—that Daddy and I both knew everything that was going on. He said he had somebody who would back him up in court. They’d plea-bargain and get off for testifying against us, and we’d both go to jail. Then he laughed—he actually laughed—and he said, ‘Bye, bye MacDonald Motors.’ ” Skell shook his head in disbelief. “He was going to take down the whole company, Sissy. I couldn’t let that happen if I could help it.” You’d have thought Skell had been MacDonald Motor’s greatest champion since birth. “That’s when I really started looking seriously for Maynard—and you,” he nodded toward me—“told me where he was. I offered to practically give him any other car on the lot. I even offered to loan him my car for his honeymoon, but he wouldn’t deal.”