Death in Reel Time (8 page)

“Are you and Esme still available to work on my family history?” she asked.

“Well, yes, we're here for another week. But we weren't sure you'd be up for it right now after all that's happened. It's okay if you'd rather wait.”

“No, I want to keep going, if that's okay,” Olivia said, then let out a whooshing breath that came through the phone line so clearly I could almost feel its warmth on my ear. “The thing is,” she said, “we're desperate for something to distract
us right now. Beth especially. I'm worried about her. If I'd known she'd take this so hard . . .” She went silent and I thought for a moment that we'd lost our connection.

“Olivia, you still there?”

“Yes, sorry. The thing is, Beth needs to keep her mind and her hands busy. Things are such a mess. This is not how she intended her life to go and she's just sort of checked out right now. I need to get her involved with something.”

“If you think working on this will help, we'll be glad to do it, Olivia,” I said, though I doubted there was much that could distract Beth right now. “When would you like us to come?”

“How about tomorrow morning? Beth is staying with me for now. Do you know she can't even stay at her own house? They're saying it's a potential crime scene. Which is ridiculous; Blaine wasn't even home that day. He always left the house early on Saturday mornings to check in at the store then go off to play golf or tennis or shoot at the range or whatever.”

“I'm sorry, Olivia,” I said. “I hadn't heard they'd taped off her house. I know it must be distressing, but they're just being thorough.”

“I suppose,” Olivia said. “But I have to tell you, though I've always been fond of Denton Carlson, I resent some of his questions and I don't like the way he's treating Beth.”

“I know he's pushing her hard, but, Olivia, you know he just wants to find out who did this so Beth can begin to put it behind her,” I said.

“I
do
know that,” Olivia said with another big sigh. “But I don't have to like it. No matter that she's a grown woman,
Beth is still my baby and I wish I could protect her from every hurt in life. There's nothing as fierce as a mother's love.”

“Just hang in there, Olivia,” I said. “It'll all be okay.”

I said it, but I wasn't totally convinced.

“We going back on the job?” Esme said after I hung up the phone. “So soon?”

“Yes, looks like it,” I said.

“Celestine will be happy,” Esme said. “She is mighty eager for us to get cooking on this family history.”

“When did she make contact?”

“When I started packing up these boxes. I think she's enjoying having us read her diaries. She fancies herself an author now and she doesn't want us to stop.”

“Well, I don't think fans will be lining up at midnight to snatch the latest release, but her diaries are interesting and I think Olivia and Beth will be enthralled. Maybe they will distract Beth, at least for a time. I wonder if she's remembered any more about that day,” I mused as I looked out the window into our backyard. The leaves that had made charming, colorful wind devils last week were now amassed in a sodden, knee-deep pile. We'd definitely need to rake or they'd be so heavy they'd be nearly impossible to move. I thought of Beth babbling on about dealing with the leaves in her yard the night Denny came to tell her Blaine was dead.

“According to Denny,” Esme said, “Beth remembers even less now than she did that night. The doctors predicted that might happen. She can't remember being at her mother's that morning, nor anything she did that afternoon, including doing yard work. She can't even remember coming to dinner
at Olivia's that night or how she got there. The morning after, when Denny went to the hospital, she couldn't even remember that she'd seen him the night before and he had to break the news about Blaine to her all over again. Talk about the devil in the déjà vu!”

“I hear the department is getting pressure from Sterling Branch,” I said.

“Yep, as if they needed more pressure. Every available officer in the Morningside Police Department is working the case. Jennifer Jeffers is lead detective on this one, and, much as it pains me to say it, since we're not exactly bosom buddies, I wish her great success.”

“Does that take some of the pressure off Denny?”

“Not a jot or a tittle. The pressure on Denny all comes from that big heart of his, not from outside. Anyhow, you can't blame the Branches. They want to know what happened to their son.”

“As any parent would,” I said.

“Maybe not
an
y parent,” Esme said, holding up a letter she'd taken from an envelope a few minutes earlier. “This is to Renny from her daddy. I want to know did he forgive her, so I'm not waitin'. I'm gonna read it now. Do you want to hear or not?”

“Yes,” I said with a sigh. “We've really fallen off the organizational system wagon, but I want to know, too. And anyway, we only have one more box to index so we'd be reading it soon anyway.

Esme unfolded the pages and smoothed them with her cotton-gloved hands. I could see Thomas Lockwood's straight-up-and-down handwriting marching across the page, uniform and precise.

“It's dated November 4, 1941, so he got back to her pretty quick. He says,”

Daughter,

We are glad to learn you are well and that you have good people to depend on there in Crawford. However, do not interpret those sentiments to mean that we in any way condone or approve of the disobedient path you have chosen. We remain sorely injured that you have willfully ignored our counsel and our expressed command that you disassociate yourself from that boy. You have dashed all our hopes and dreams that you would become an educated and accomplished woman in this world and one pleasing to God to achieve the world hereafter. We are fearful of what the future holds for you.

As for a visit, that most assuredly will not be possible. Not now, and perhaps not ever. You must give us time to mend and to prayerfully consider the proper course. And aside from our own feelings, there is the issue of timing. For we will soon meet with the mission board to find out what shall be our next posting.

We had hoped to have you safely settled at Women's College under the tutelage of Mrs. Babcock before accepting another foreign mission, but you have scuttled that plan with your impetuous and unwise decision to run away and make a secular partnership with that boy. I surely do not recognize it as a marriage as you made no promises to God in a proper church.

I have made inquiries about Riley and Celestine
Hargett. People who know them assure me they are good, simple people. I hope they will look after you.

Alas, I cannot send you false reassurances about the state of affairs in the world. The war clouds are gathering and we'd all best prepare ourselves. There is evil afoot, daughter, and we will be called upon to stand, stalwart and unflinching, for what is good and right.

And now I must close. Please know that what I have expressed in this missive comes from both your mother and me. Do not depend on your mother's soft heart to win you absolution for what you have done. We love you with an abiding love, but we cannot pretend that we are not gravely disappointed in you. But there is no turning back now so we can only hope and pray for the best for you and turn our efforts to our call to service.

Your father,

Thomas Lockwood

“Wow, crusty old coot, wasn't he?” I said.

“No wonder Renny didn't choose to share much with Olivia about her parents. There are only seven letters here from the parents to Renny. Five written by her father and two by her mother. They were all in the boxes from her aunt Celestine's house. So Renny kept them, but I doubt she shared them. I'm betting Olivia never even knew they existed.”

“Could be,” I allowed. “I can understand why Olivia's mother didn't want to talk about Johnny. But why wouldn't Celestine and Riley? He may have been a draft dodger, but he was still Riley's brother.”

“Your idea of a draft dodger is different, Sophreena. Your
parents were Vietnam era. Lots of guys tried to avoid going to 'Nam. Young people saw that as an unjust war. It was an accepted decision to become a conscientious objector or to run off to Canada, at least among the young. In World War Two it wasn't like that. That was my mother's generation and she told me a lot of stories about how it was back then. People were behind the war effort. Victory gardens, Rosie the Riveter, paper and scrap metal drives, doing without and making do. And everybody, right down to the schoolkids, was expected to play a part. Refusing to go fight would have been a disgraceful, unforgivable thing to most people.”

“Still,” I said, “you'd think that would have faded a little with the passage of time. Olivia said she asked her aunt Celestine about her father just before she died. She was in her nineties, for heaven's sake. That stuff was all so far in the past what could it possibly matter now?”

“Oh, you'd be surprised,” Esme said, shaking her head. “People will take so much baggage with them into the hereafter they need a pack mule for a spirit guide.”

W
E
'
D JUST FINISHED GOING THROUGH
the last box of Olivia's artifacts when my cell rang.

“Kayaks or rowboat?” Jack asked, without preamble.

“Rowboat,” I said. I knew he was finishing up a job today and I'd half expected a call proposing an outdoor activity at some point in the afternoon. I had hoped for leaf raking, but a turn around Misty Lake in a rowboat sounded much more appealing. Still, maybe I could have my cake and eat it, too.

“Could you load your gas-powered leaf blower in the truck?” I asked. “If Marydale were to bring Sprocket and Gadget over right now they'd disappear into the leaf mountain in our backyard.”

“Sure thing,” Jack said. “Be ready in fifteen.”

This is why a friendship is better than a romance,
I told myself as I clicked off. If Jack were my boyfriend, I'd have been vexed by the short notice and by his taking me for granted. But he wasn't my boyfriend; he was my amigo, my pal. And never mind that lately he was my pining heart. That was my
problem and I was just going to have to deal with it. I wanted Jack Ford in my life until the end and I wasn't about to do anything to put our friendship in jeopardy or make things awkward between us. I'd tried to think of him as a brother but that definitely wasn't working. Forcing brotherly thoughts while admiring his blue eyes was
icking
me out.

Esme was planning to do the grocery shopping for the week. Having been brought up Catholic, I could have easily let myself feel guilty about running out on her, but she loved the grocery store; I hated it. She enjoyed browsing, comparing prices, and reading labels while I stared longingly out the store windows wishing I could escape the fluorescent glare and get out into the sunshine.

“Thank the Lord,” she said when I told her I wouldn't be going with her. “Honestly, Sophreena, having you along is like taking a three-year-old shopping. You ask ‘are we nearly done' every five minutes.”

“I never do that!” I protested.

“In your head you do,” Esme said. “Now you go paddle your way across the lake and I'll go sidle my way through the Harris Teeter and we'll both have a happy afternoon. Leastwise I will if Celestine will let me have a little peace.”

“More messages from beyond the veil?” I asked.

“Same message, she's just amping it up. Hurry, hurry. Read faster. For such a gentle countrywoman she's turning into quite the diva.”

*  *  *

The lake was smooth and untroubled and the October afternoon so warm Jack and I had both shed our sweatshirts
before we even got the boat in the water. The craft was homely, scarred, and weather-beaten, but Jack refused to gussy it up. He maintained the hull, repairing and waterproofing as necessary, but otherwise tried to keep it looking the same. His father had built the boat with him when he was a boy and it helped him navigate more than waterways.

No motorized craft were allowed on the lake, but there were a few kayaks and wind sails out, and there'd be more when school let out for the day.

We lifted the boat off the back of the truck, me taking the land end, bracing myself and bending my knees to take the weight.

“No matter how many times we do this, it always amazes me you can lift your end,” Jack said. “You're stronger than you look.”

“I watched a lot of Mighty Mouse when I was a kid,” I said.

Jack laughed as we put the boat down at water's edge. “Well, that explains a lot. But Mighty Mouse was a little before your time, wasn't he?”

“Yeah, but my dad had movie reels filled with cartoons. He had them transferred to videotape and we'd watch them together. I liked them better than the stuff being made when I was little. I mean
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
? What was that about? What was your favorite cartoon?”

“Hate to admit it,” Jack said, “but I worshipped
He-Man
. I was small for my age and he made me feel even more inadequate, but I figured if I could just get my hands on one of those swords I could kick ass.”

The boat rocked as I climbed in and I had to grab at the sides to steady myself. Jack laughed and underscored the
taunt by taking a wide-legged stance, shifting his weight from side to side, rocking the boat wildly while maintaining perfect balance. I wanted to put my foot up and kick him overboard, but I knew he had his phone and keys in his pocket. I'd have to plot a comeuppance for later.

We settled into an easy rhythm, oars synchronizing by virtue of both muscle memory and the Martian mind-meld Jack and I have going on. With the exception of the one, rather large secret I was keeping about my feelings for him, Jack and I were open with one another.