Dead to the World (15 page)

1952

Edgar made his way to Savannah, Georgia – a good town, he’d heard, for a gambler. And that’s what he now considered himself: a professional gambler. But Savannah had real gamblers, real pros, and Edgar was just a midnight snack for them. Within a month he’d lost all his money and was into a shark for over a thousand, with no way of paying it back. He heard of a high-stakes game going on in the rich part of town and, wearing one of his best zoot suits from Biloxi, headed that way. But the buy-in was much more than he had on him – or ever had the hopes of having on him – and they teased him about his clothes. The biggest teaser was a guy named Walker, an arrogant SOB barely out of his teens. He called Edgar a ‘white nigger,’ and shoved him. To Edgar this was the last straw – his dead brother’s straight-razor was out and he sliced the boy named Walker long and deep.

In all truth, the Walker boy would have made it if any of his friends had stayed around to call the authorities, but none did. And neither did Edgar, who ran back to his fleabag hotel only to find part of his belongings out on the street – and not the good stuff either. So there was an altercation with the hotel manager, the straight-razor was brandished again, and the police were called. Once they had him in the jail, it didn’t take long for the truth about the Walker boy to come out. As the only son of a district judge, the boy’s death was considered a major crime and, with no attorney at his side, Edgar took a plea bargain and was sent to prison for twenty years.

BACK HOME

‘W
hy didn’t you tell me?’ Bess asked as Megan drove the minivan to school that Monday morning. Alicia was conspicuously absent.

‘Tell you what?’ Megan asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Bess said sarcastically, ‘like maybe seeing Graham sucking face with Lotta, for God’s sake!’

‘Because I figured it would just upset you. Like I knew it would upset Alicia.’

‘Well duh. Her boyfriend making out with his old girlfriend? I guess so!’ Bess said. She couldn’t help wondering if Megan seeing them together had been the first time Graham had snuck out with Lotta. Somehow she didn’t think so. Lotta had been the love of his life. And he the love of hers, until that guy Ramon had come along. He was some professional Latino muckraker and started out chastising Lotta for being with a gringo – namely Graham. He’d already turned her cousins and uncles into rebels for his cause, and it didn’t take all that long to turn Lotta. She’d broken up with Graham, announcing she could no longer tolerate his white man ways. As far as Graham had known, he didn’t have any ‘white man ways,’ so it crushed him on many levels when she walked out on him. At the time Bess had wondered if he might not give up his happy home and beg to be adopted by a Latino family. Thankfully, he hadn’t.

And then there was the whole kidnapping ordeal that Alicia had gone through, and the two of them falling into each other’s arms. That line from
Speed
sure seemed to be resonating now.

‘You know this is killing her, don’t you?’ Bess said.

Megan glared at her sister. ‘I didn’t want to tell her! You made me!’

Bess sighed. ‘I know I did. This is just so …’

‘Fucked up?’ Megan suggested.

Bess nodded. ‘For want of a better word, yes.’

‘What are we gonna do? She can’t just skip school. We’ve got finals coming up,’ Megan said.

‘Let’s give her the day,’ Bess said.

Megan shrugged. ‘Yeah. Well, should we tell the office, or is she gonna call in or what?’

‘I don’t know!’ Bess said, aggravated at the thought of the bureaucracy involved. She sighed and picked up the phone, hitting the button for their home number. No one answered. ‘Either she’s gone or she’s not picking up,’ she told Megan.

‘Where would she go?’

‘I don’t know! How would I know?’ Bess demanded.

‘Because she was your best friend before she came to live with us. That’s why!’

‘She still is one of my best friends,’ Bess said quietly. ‘Right next to you.’

Megan slammed on the break, almost getting rear-ended by a teenager heading for the school only a block away. He honked his horn a little more insistently than necessary as he swerved around the minivan.

‘How dare you call me your best friend!’ Megan yelled.

Bess’s eyes got big. She’d never seen Megan this angry. She hunkered in the corner, trying to make herself an even smaller target than she already was. ‘I’m sorry! I thought you knew!’

Megan slammed the heel of her hand on the steering wheel. ‘That’s just so … so …’

‘So what?’ Bess asked tentatively.

‘So sweet!’ she said and broke into sobs. As she reached for her sister, Bess drew back, but found herself in a bear hug that was causing heart palpitations and an inability to breathe.

She patted Megan on the back and got out the words, ‘I can’t breathe!’

Megan lightened up her grip on her sister. ‘Sorry,’ she said as she wiped her eyes on the hem of her T-shirt. Then she sighed. ‘I don’t think anybody’s going to school today, huh?’

‘It’s probably a good idea to stay at home,’ Bess said. Then remembered her ‘date’ with Logan to go see Harper Benton’s mother at the Denny’s where she worked. ‘But I’ll need the minivan around noon. I’ve got someplace I need to be.’

‘What?’ I said, staring at Miss Hutchins.

She was still pointing at the photo. ‘That’s my daddy,’ she said. ‘But that can’t be …’ She frowned, her pointed finger gone, her hands at her sides. Then she brightened. ‘But maybe Miss Lovesy really did channel Daddy and somehow got this picture!’

I looked around the room. In the photo Diamond was wearing an intricately patterned silk kimono. I checked the closet and the clothes strewn about the room. The kimono was not there. ‘This was taken before Diamond came here,’ I said to one and all. The chief had grabbed the photo from my hand as I stood up to search the room, and now he, Willis, and Miss Hutchins were studying it. ‘See that kimono she’s wearing?’ I asked the three of them. ‘It’s not here. She certainly wasn’t wearing it when she was killed. So that picture wasn’t taken here.’

‘It’s outdoors, though,’ Willis said, his head bent toward the snapshot. ‘Can you see anything to ID the location?’

The chief shook his head. ‘Don’t look like Peaceful to me. Don’t got any sidewalk cafes in Peaceful,’ he said.

It was my turn to snatch back the photo. They certainly were standing in front of a sidewalk cafe. Behind them were several occupied tables with umbrellas and behind that a plate glass window with a few words and letters visible: ‘G-A-N-I-C,’ ‘A NATURAL,’ ‘BELINNIS,’ ‘G-R-K,’ and ‘S-U-N’. I found a piece of paper and pen and sat down at the dressing table, pushing aside some of the paraphernalia on top. I wrote down the letters as the three others gathered around.

Willis pointed at the first set: ‘G-A-N-I-C’. ‘Organic!’ he said triumphantly.

I fist-bumped him. ‘All natural,’ Miss Hutchins said of the next. So I fist-bumped her.

‘Don’t know what that next one could be,’ the chief said.

‘Just what it says,’ I told him. ‘Belinnis. It’s an Italian sandwich.’

‘G-R-K,’ Willis read. ‘G-R-K?’

‘Greek!’ I all but shouted.

He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed. With all the tension that had built up over the last few days, I would have been quite happy to have him continue doing that for another hour or so.

‘S-U-N?’ I asked, looking up at my husband.

Willis shrugged and stopped kneading my shoulders.

‘Sundried tomatoes?’ Miss Hutchins asked.

‘Is there enough room for that?’ We all bent over the photo again. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Maybe they sell sundaes?’ the chief suggested.

I shrugged and Willis said, ‘See how much bigger that S-U-N is than the rest of this?’ He pointed at the plate glass window in the photo. ‘Maybe it’s the name of the place.’

‘Good point!’ I said. Turning to the chief, I asked, ‘You ever heard of a place in or around Peaceful with S-U-N in the name?’

‘Well, there’s a place over to Boerne called Sonny’s, but that’s with an O and it don’t have tables outside. It’s just a hole-in-wall bar,’ he said.

‘Do you have wifi here?’ I asked Miss Hutchins.

‘No, dear, I don’t. But the library does.’

‘Is it open on Sunday?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘No. Only Monday through Saturday, with a half day on Thursday.’

‘I know the librarian though,’ the chief said. ‘We can get her to open it up. What are you thinking?’

‘I have my laptop. I just need to get to the internet. See if I can put in the clues we have and come up with a restaurant name.’

‘You can do that?’ he asked.

‘I’ll start with Houston. That’s the most likely place this picture was taken,’ I said.

We all looked at each other and then out the window. It was pitch black outside. ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

The chief looked at his watch. ‘Damn. It’s after midnight.’ He looked at me and shrugged. ‘I ain’t waking Shirley up at this time of night. She’s my wife’s cousin and has a tendency to get a might uppity – her having an advanced degree and all. But I’ll come get you and your machine in the morning.’

And with that we all said goodnight. I noticed Miss Hutchins pocket the snapshot of Diamond Lovesy and Miss Hutchins’ ‘daddy.’

BACK HOME

Bess and Megan let Alicia know they were back and also taking the day off. They did this through the closed and locked door of her bedroom. ‘Whatever,’ she said in reply, thus letting them know she was there, not having run off somewhere, and that she just didn’t answer the phone earlier. That, of course, would have required her leaving her room, and the two sisters wondered if she ever would or if they would spend the next twenty years or so sliding skinny food under her bedroom door.

Bess and Megan went downstairs, where Megan declared she was hungry. ‘Aren’t you always?’ Bess asked.

‘Is that any way to talk to your best friend?’ Megan asked.

Bess flopped down on the sofa and sighed. ‘I’m never going to live that down, am I?’

‘Nope,’ Megan said, opening the refrigerator. Turning to Bess, she grinned her biggest grin and said, ‘Bestie!’

‘Bite me!’ was Bess’s response.

‘Hum, bite me, Bestie! Sounds like a song title!’

‘Bite me, Bestie, take a huge chunk—’ Bess said.

‘Just don’t bite me, Bestie, in my trunk!’ Megan finished and both girls laughed out loud.

‘What’s so friggin’ funny?’ Alicia asked as she came down the stairs.

‘We wrote a song—’ Megan started.

Bess said, ‘Never mind. Are you OK?’

Alicia stopped in her tracks and stared at Bess. ‘Why wouldn’t I be OK? I mean, just because I found out that my boyfriend has been cheating on me for God only knows how long? Just because I now realize that every
fuckin’
thing he’s ever said to me is a lie? Just because I almost gave it away to a lying, cheating son-of-a-bitch—’

‘Yeah, ah, maybe not the last one?’ Bess suggested.

‘Sorry,’ Alicia said, and fell down on the loveseat. ‘I hate him.’

‘Good,’ Megan said as she came out of the kitchen, Bess’s leftover steak from the night before in her hand. ‘You need to hate him. It’s healing.’

‘Is that my steak?’ Bess screeched, jumping up.

‘What? Oh, is this yours?’ Megan said. Bess grabbed for it, and Megan, being almost a foot taller, held it just out of her sister’s reach. ‘It’s delish.’

‘Gimme!’ Bess said, jumping up to grab the meat.

‘I thought you were a vegetarian?’ Megan said. ‘Are you condoning cow murder now?’

‘Gimme, bitch!’ Bess said, snarling.

‘I’m saving you from yourself. You know you don’t really want this nasty dead cow now, do you?’

‘I’m gonna cut you!’ Bess said, which made Megan laugh.

‘Oh my God! You’ve turned into a carnivore!’

Bess grabbed the arm Megan was holding above her head and jerked it down, tearing the steak out of her sister’s hand. ‘What’s mine is mine. If I have turned into a carnivore I’ll eat it, but if I haven’t, I can just throw it away! And you can’t touch it because it’s mine!’

‘So you’d rather that poor dead cow died for nothing than to have it nourish your bestie?’

‘You are no longer my bestie!’ Bess declared.

‘Ha! I knew it! Fairweather bestie!’

‘Will you two stop it? Megs, I have some of my steak left in there. It’s in the meat keeper. You can eat it. Just stop. My head can’t take any more.’

The two sisters calmed down and Megan went back to the refrigerator. Turning quickly, she asked Alicia, ‘Can I get you something while I’m in here?’

Alicia just stared at her. She’d never heard those words come from Megan’s mouth. Finally, she was able to speak. ‘Why, yes, Megan, thank you. A glass of ice water would be nice.’

‘Coming right up,’ Megan said.

After the two sisters had demolished the dead meat, Megan said, ‘OK, so Saturday night you were all “I’m not sure I
love
him love him, or brother-love him,” and now you hate his guts—’

‘Because he’s cheated on me!’ Alicia said. ‘He didn’t know of my ambivalence! How could he? So that had nothing to do with his cheating! And how do I know when this started? Last Thursday’s when he said we should start seeing other people! When did you see him sucking face at the movies?’

Megan sighed. ‘The Saturday before.’

Alicia fell back on the sofa. ‘That’s cheating. Pure and simple.’

Megan and Bess looked at each other. They couldn’t disagree with that statement.

Changing the subject, Megan asked Bess, ‘So where are you going at noon? You said you needed the van?’

Bess nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m meeting Logan at the Denny’s where Mrs Benton works. We’re hoping she’ll be willing to tell us what’s really going on.’

‘Well, it’s eleven twenty now. Don’t you think you should do something about your hair and face?’ Megan said and shrugged. ‘I’m just saying …’

‘That I look like shit?’ Bess provided.

‘I didn’t use those words!’ Megan said.

‘You could look better,’ Alicia provided.

‘
Et tu?
’ Bess said to Alicia, then got up and headed upstairs.

At five minutes to twelve Bess turned into the Denny’s parking lot. Her hair was fixed, even curled, and her make-up was well-applied. She saw Logan’s car in the lot and was able to park next to it. Logan was still sitting behind the wheel. He got out and came around to the passenger side of the minivan. Bess unlocked the door and he slid inside.

‘Hi,’ he said, smiling.

Bess smiled back. ‘Hi,’ she said.

‘I like your hair,’ he said.

‘Thanks. Just trying something new,’ she said.

‘I like it,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Well,’ he said, the smile slipping away.

‘Yeah,’ she said, her smile also slipping away.

‘What do you think we should do?’ he asked.

‘Do we know what section is hers?’ Bess asked.

He said, ‘Yeah. Well, at least I know what section was hers months ago when I met Harper here for a free lunch. She had that left corner area,’ he said, pointing at the location. They could see a woman in a Denny’s uniform standing by a table.

‘Is that her?’ Bess asked.

‘Yeah, I think so,’ he answered.

‘So,’ she said, looking at him. ‘I guess we should just go in?’

‘Right,’ he said.

‘What if the hostess doesn’t seat us in her section?’ she asked.

‘We can request that section. It doesn’t look too full. It should be OK,’ he said.

‘Well, OK then,’ she said.

They both sat there for another moment, staring at the left-hand section of the diner. Then they looked at each other and both sighed. Then they laughed awkwardly. ‘Well, let’s do it,’ Bess said.

Logan nodded and they both opened their doors.

In the morning I found Miss Hutchins in the living room, the disfigured photo albums in her lap. I sat down next to her. She held the snapshot of Diamond and the handsome man in one hand and appeared to be comparing it to that of the man in the wedding picture with her mother. The face was still scratched out but the body was visible. The two men in the pictures definitely didn’t have the same body type. Miss Hutchins’ father was a big man, half a foot taller than his wife, whereas the man in the picture with Diamond Lovesy was slight of build, and was practically the same height as Diamond. I mentioned this to Miss Hutchins.

‘But lots of men lost weight during the war,’ she said. ‘That means nothing.’ She stared at the picture. ‘And I think as a ghost you’d look the same as when you died, don’t you think?’ she asked me.

I shrugged. ‘I have no idea. But look at the difference in height,’ I said.

She looked back and forth between the two pictures. ‘Well, this means nothing,’ she said. ‘Mother was a tiny woman, and Miss Lovesy was quite tall.’

She had me there. I was afraid this was going to take math to figure out – not my strong suit. ‘How tall was your mother?’ I asked her.

‘I don’t really know. I was just a child when she died, but everyone has always said she was a small woman. Especially in comparison to my dad.’ She pointed to the wedding picture. ‘See?’

‘Yes, I see,’ I said, wondering how tall Diamond was. I excused myself and went to the hall phone.

I heard Miss Hutchins sigh. ‘I suppose I should start breakfast. Oh, dear,’ she said, clasping her hands. ‘I haven’t even made coffee yet.’

I said, ‘No problem,’ while in my head I was thinking, ‘So hop to it!’ It was early, I’d been up late – I’m not proud of my thought, but at least I had the decency not to say it out loud. She left for the kitchen and I dialed the chief’s office. The gray-haired lady answered the phone and I asked for the chief, identifying myself. She made a ‘humph’ sound but put me right through.

‘Hey, Miz Pugh,’ the chief said. ‘To what do I owe this honor?’

‘Can you find out how tall Diamond Lovesy was? The ME should know that, shouldn’t he?’

‘We ain’t got an ME. What we got is a funeral director with two semesters of med school. But he does OK.’

‘He should be able to give you her height, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, sure, and her weight, and her stomach contents, if you need that.’

I gagged slightly. ‘Oh, no, that’s not necessary. Just her height.’

‘Well, I’m busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs, and then you and me got a date to go to the library, right, little lady? But I’ll have him call you. His name’s Ernest.’

Before I could ask first or last name, he’d hung up on me. But first name Ernest, last name Emory, called before I’d left the foyer. He told me that Diamond was five feet, eleven and a half inches tall and weighed two hundred and sixty-five pounds. When he started on stomach contents I severed the call.

OK, so she was half an inch taller than me and, well, even at my heaviest, she still out-weighed me. I hate to admit I was proud of that. It’s just the whole misery loves company thing – it’s always better when the company’s misery is worse than yours. Human nature? Or am I just a bitch?

So what did this tell me, besides the fact that I’m not as nice a person as I’d hoped to be? If she was five feet, eleven and a half inches tall and, looking at the picture once again, the man standing next to her was equal to her height – and yes, I checked shoes: they were both wearing running shoes (and don’t get me started on running shoes with a silk kimono) so any height difference would be negligible – then he too was probably around five foot eleven. But everyone, including Miss Hutchins herself, claimed Norris Hutchins, her father, was a tall man. And even as early as the nineteen forties, tall was probably considered somewhere over six feet. Was this proof that the man in the picture with Diamond Lovesy was
not
the dead Norris Hutchins? Like I needed proof of that? I asked myself. Well, maybe not for the chief, my husband, or any other rational being out there, but maybe for Miss Hutchins. She was bound and determined this was her daddy, and that all the weird goings-on at the Bishop’s Inn – up to and including the murder of her own mother – had somehow been at the hand of her very deceased father. And why should I challenge that? If somehow between the chief, Willis, and myself we were able to get to the truth of the matter, then confront her. But why upset her now?

I went in search of coffee. After the night I’d had, I could use a pot – or two.