A Stillness of Chimes (10 page)

“Your dad’s doing quite well, isn’t he?”

“He sure is.” Cassie made a face. “I wish it’d rub off on me.”

“Maybe he’ll want to buy this acreage too. I’ll sell it, sooner or later.”

“Just don’t sell your mom’s house. It’s too cute. The perfect size for starting a family too,” Cassie said.

Laura laughed. “You and Drew want to buy it? I’ll give you a great deal.”

“I wish. No, you’d better hang on to it. You never know when you might need it.”

Laura ignored the comment.

They tromped around to the front of the cabin. Cassie groaned and pointed toward the road. “Watch out. Here comes the old busybody.”

Moving with eerie grace, Granny Colfax held her parasol as level as water. Like a neighbor who’d been invited for tea, she turned into the driveway, never slowing her pace. The parasol was sun-faded and threadbare. It must have been fifty years old—nobody used parasols anymore—and Granny must have been ninety. She was thin as a witch.

She came closer, her feet moving relentlessly in red sneakers with the toes cut out. A pale echo of the blue sky, her parasol never wavered.

“Hey there,” Laura called. “You picked a warm day for a walk.”

“Y’all ought to be ashamed,” Granny scolded. “Traipsing on other folks’ land. Snooping in other folks’ houses.”

“This was my grandparents’ place,” Laura said. “I know you. You’re Granny Colfax.”

Granny’s deep-set blue eyes drilled into Laura. “Can’t a body be decent and let a house die in peace?”

Was she deaf? “My grandparents lived here years ago,” Laura said, raising her voice.

“You don’t own this land, missy.”

“Yes, I do.” She was nearly shouting. “It belonged to my grandparents. The Gantts. I’m Laura Gantt.”

“What’s that you say? Gantt?” Granny’s eyes softened. “Oh, that red hair. Lord, have mercy. Would you be Jessamyn’s girl?”

A lump rose in Laura’s throat. “Yes, and this is Cassie Cutler. Gary and Ardelle Bright’s daughter.”

Granny paid no attention to Cassie. “Land sakes, I’m sorry about your mother, child. And I still miss your old granny too. She was a fine lady. A strong one. Strong as an ox and stubborn too. You find a lifelong friend like that, honey, you hang onto her.”

Laura gestured toward Cassie. “I’ve found one.”

“Ha! You ain’t lived enough years to know what
lifelong
means.” Granny came closer, smelling like soap. Honest, clean—and astringent.

Laura licked her lips, tasting sweat and dust, and felt unreasonable anger rising up against the old woman who was, after all, a trespasser herself.

“What are you doing here?” Laura asked.

“Oh, I do like to forage. There’s something in every season. Greens and nuts and berries. The old berry patch near the railroad tracks, that was the best one. Remember? Y’all used to pick there.”

Cassie finally chimed in. “Yes, we did.”

Granny faced her. “What’s the name of your little sister, girl?”

“Tanya. But everybody calls her Tigger. She married Tom McTavish.”

“Well, ain’t that nice. And you skedaddled for the West Coast, didn’t you? But you’re back. Nobody ever stays away if they have any sense. This is the best place on earth.”

Cassie’s eyes narrowed. “Easy to say if it’s the only place you’ve ever seen.”

Granny hooted. “You think you’re so smart. Smart and pretty too. Believe me or not, I had my pretty day. I had my day like yours. And y’all will have your day like mine.”

A ghost’s fingertip traced Laura’s spine. She imagined herself with a shriveled body, an unused womb. Past being useful, past being pretty. Wearing sneakers with the toes cut out.

Granny eyed Cassie. “I bet your daddy wants to buy this place so he can put in big, fancy houses and make a truckload of money.”

Cassie shrugged. “Maybe.”

Granny chuckled. “Ain’t no maybe about it. He loves to build big ol’ houses where country folks kept goats and bees. It don’t seem right. City folks don’t know the first thing about making scuppernong wine or killing copperheads. They just like their pretty lawns and their air conditioning.”

Laura stayed silent, remembering Grandpa Gantt. He’d never had central air. Never wanted it. He’d said it liked to give a body pneumonia. The last time she saw him, he’d been whittling on the porch in the summertime heat. They’d both been whittlers, her grandpa and her dad.

What would her grandparents have said if they’d known their only son might stage his own drowning someday? They’d been so proud of him. Their soldier boy, they’d called him, but Laura had only known him as a craftsman and a musician. A father who was kind and gentle—most of the time.

Granny planted herself directly in front of Laura and cupped her chin in a wrinkled hand. “You fretting about those rumors?”

“Do you think they’re true?”

“What I think don’t have a thing to do with it, honey. Is that why you’re here? Looking for your dad?”

“I thought, maybe, since he grew up here—”

“It’s the first place you come to, ain’t it?”

Laura nodded, her captive chin moving against Granny’s callused fingers.

“Well, then.” Granny took her hand away. “Why would he stay right where folks would look first? He’s smarter than that.”

“You’re probably right.”

“He went to war a boy, come home a grown man who’d seen too much. But he didn’t get no hero’s welcome like the boys who fought in the world wars. It ain’t right.” Granny patted Laura’s shoulder. “But be done cryin’, girl. Tears can’t put the spilt milk back in the jug. You remember that.”

“I’m not crying. I’m just—”

“What’s done is done, and if a man did the best he knew to do, that’s that. There’ll come a day when we’ll answer to God, every one of us, yes, and He’ll answer us. He won’t answer
to
us, you understand, because He’s God, but He’ll answer. Lord, how He’ll answer.”

“I want answers now,” Laura said. “Not in the sweet by-and-by.”

“No, you’d best leave things alone. Leave it be.” Granny turned to go, then looked over her shoulder. “Might be snakes, so don’t go prowlin’ around too much. Don’t tempt God no more. You hear me?”

“Yes ma’am, I hear you.” Laura bit back a comment on Granny’s
unwise choice of footwear for foraging—on land that wasn’t hers. The old hypocrite.

“Good-bye, then,” Granny said crisply. She set her blue gaze on the road and picked her way back down the driveway, holding the parasol like a mace.

A mockingbird flew up from a bush smothered with vines. The bird swooped behind the house where kudzu-draped pines formed giant sculptures, strange and beautiful and looming like time. In a hundred years—or two hundred, what did it matter?—the lush growth would cover other abandoned houses, along with their pools and tennis courts. Mockingbirds would still fly. Old women would still lecture young women and envy and pity them.

“You about ready to go?” Cassie asked.

“First I want to know if the outbuildings survived.”

Cassie folded her arms across her chest. “Go right ahead. I’m staying here.”

Laura waded across a relatively shallow stretch of kudzu, trying not to think about snakes, and stopped near the corner of the cabin. Shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun, she searched the piles and mounds and mountains of green where the shed and barn used to be, might still be. Even if they’d collapsed, they might provide a corner of shelter.

“Dad,” she called. “Are you there?” Her voice sounded faint and far away, as if it were drowning in the vines too. She tried again, louder. “Dad! Elliott Gantt! Do you hear me?”

There was no answer, of course, but two crows flew over, cawing.

The old woman’s voice whispered in Laura’s imagination:
“He’s smarter than that.”
Granny Colfax had spoken of him in the present tense. Maybe she’d misspoken, or maybe—a crazy thought—it had been a deliberate hint.

Laura turned and tramped back to the car, making a mental list of possible clues. Granny’s slip of the tongue—if that’s what it was. The prowler in the yard. Preston’s story. Even the way her dad hadn’t seemed like himself in the weeks between his big blowup and his disappearance. She didn’t believe for a minute that his accusation of infidelity was true, but if
he’d
believed it …

Cassie was already opening her door. “Let’s go. He’s not here.”

“Why are you so sure? Give him a chance!”

Tears filled Cassie’s eyes. “You’re just torturing yourself. We need to face it, Laura. He’s … he’s dead.”

The words swept Laura back to the first time she’d heard someone say her father was dead. The finality of the statement still made her heart ache. Now she couldn’t let anyone trample her newborn scrap of hope that it hadn’t been final after all.

“He’s alive.” Her voice shook. “I saw him.”

Cassie’s fair skin paled further. She dived into the passenger seat, leaving the door open, and stared up at Laura. “Here? Now?”

“No, last night. At the house. Walking through the yard in the wee hours.”

“And you really believe it was your dad?”

Laura hesitated. “I didn’t get a good look at him,” she admitted.

“Did you call the cops?

“No. I’m not calling the law down on my dad’s head.”

“But what if it wasn’t him? What if it was some random pervert?”

“That’s an awfully strong conclusion to jump to.”

“Yeah, but you know how those creeps show up sometimes. What if this guy comes back? What if he breaks in?”

Laura walked around to her own door and climbed in. “I know where my dad’s guns are, and I know how to use them.”

“If you won’t report it, I will.” Cassie dug her phone out of her jeans.

“Don’t you dare. Look, if it happens again, I’ll call 911—or—or somebody.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Cassie squinted at her. “I’ll hold you to it.” She put her phone away.

Thinking she’d better go solo on her future investigations, Laura started the engine. As she turned onto the road, she caught a glimpse of Granny’s faded parasol disappearing around the bend, heading farther out of town. Then a black pickup truck approached from the other direction.

“Ugh,” Cassie said as the truck rattled closer. “That’s Dale Halloran.”

Laura tried to catch a glimpse of the driver, but the truck was already past them. She hit the brakes, wanting to keep it in sight. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. He’s driven the same nasty old truck for years, and I’d know his ugly mug anywhere too, beard or no beard. Man, how on earth did Sean and Keith turn out so good-lookin’ and sweet?”

“I don’t know.” Laura frowned into the rearview mirror. The truck’s brake lights lit up.

“Ha! I got you to admit Sean’s good-lookin’ and sweet.”

“Oh, stop it.”

As Cassie prattled on, Laura watched in the mirror. The truck slowed to a crawl and made the turn into the Gantt driveway.

Slightly comforted to know Dale would find the cabin empty, she decided to buy a few No Trespassing signs and post them as soon as possible.

Dale had become a regular visitor at the boxy little house he’d once owned. When Sean got home from a run to an ATM, Dale waited in his beat-up truck in the driveway, pulling on a bottle of Jim Beam. He followed Sean inside, parked his raw-boned frame on the couch, and started rambling about his truck’s brakes, the price of gas, and how his best buddy had landed in jail over a little misunderstanding about a woman.

It wasn’t a social call. Dale wanted something. He always wanted something.

In recent weeks, he’d grown a scruffy beard. If he was cultivating the outlaw look, it wasn’t far from the truth. People kept hiring him for odd jobs, though, knowing he did decent work when he was sober. He got by.

Bottle in hand, he heaved himself off the couch, ambled into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator. “Pretty near empty. You got nothin’ to feed your old man?”

Sean sat on his hearth and picked up the mandolin that lay in its case beside him. He tried a little riff he’d been working on but messed it up.

“No time to shop,” he said. “You know. The upcoming festivities.”

“You got no time for nothin’ but your lutherie.” Dale gave the word a ridiculous, pseudo-French pronunciation. “You’re a pansy, boy. When I die, I’ll leave you the pansy gun.”

“Gee, thanks. Can’t wait.”

“It’s all that’s left.”

Sean focused on the notes again and got them right. They reminded him of “Turkey in the Straw.” He segued into the happy, fast-moving tune, hoping it might dispel the gloom that entered the house whenever Dale did.

Dale came back and leaned against the mantel, his eyes bleary slits. “So, the Gantt girl’s back in town. I bet she’s still a good girl.” He winked. “You could fix that.”

“Keep your filthy thoughts to yourself.”

Dale raised his hand. Sean flinched, a reflex he thought he’d conquered.

“What’s wrong?” Dale leaned closer, giving off the familiar smells of booze and onions. “Ol’ crazy man Gantt isn’t around to protect your sorry butt? Or is he?”

“I don’t know, Dale. You tell me.”

“I hope he’s alive and well. At least as well as a psycho can be. Keepin’ an eye on our fair city from afar.”

That last phrase sounded like Elliott’s old-fashioned speech. Coming from Dale, it was cruel mockery.