In Search of Eden (34 page)

“This is my life, Aunt Bobbie,” she said. “I have a right to know, and you're the only one who can tell me.” So there was a little of Noreen's grit in her, after all. Or at least some of Noreen's bullying, for Aunt Bobbie provided her with the information she wanted in a tone of resignation. Miranda felt a little guilty when she ended the call, knowing that she had intimidated and harassed her aunt into helping her, but she was on an important quest. And she did have a right to know. Everyone had a right to know their roots, no matter how unpleasant an experience it was for the guardians of the secrets.

She didn't waste any time mulling over what she'd been told. She went on the Internet to West Virginia's Web site and followed the link to VitalChek, the company that would expedite
official documents for a thirty-dollar charge. She paid the fee with her debit card and requested her mother's birth certificate and then went to the Tennessee Web site and did the same for her mother's marriage license. They would arrive in two or three days. In the meantime she went over what her aunt had told her. The information was scant but interesting.

“We were born in Thurmond,” Aunt Bobbie had said. “And I don't think there's much there anymore. Since the coal gave out, the railroads stopped coming. Then there were no jobs and everybody left.”

“Are any of our relatives still there?”

“I don't know,” Aunt Bobbie said, and then she said something that shocked Miranda. “And if you find out there are, I don't want to know. I don't want to know anything about it. Nothing, do you understand?” Her voice quavered with emotion.

Miranda had ended the call soberly and wondered if she had been wrong to force her aunt to talk.

Well, there was no undoing it, she realized. The only thing to do now was to push ahead.

She got a pen and determined to write down everything she knew, smiling when she thought of Eden and her notebook. She was proving to be just as obsessive. She had bought a three-ring binder at the discount store and currently had sections for her mother, herself, and one labeled Baby. She turned to the mother section and started writing down what Aunt Bobbie had told her. Noreen Louise Gibson had been born to Beck Maddux and Lois Mae Gibson, and that was the first thing that struck her like a dash of cold water. Noreen's mother and father had not been married, and suddenly a lot of things became clearer. Why her mother was so ashamed when she found out her daughter was fifteen and pregnant. She had lived through that shame herself, in a time when illegitimate children were whispered about. Miranda wondered if things would have been different if she had known this instead of its being a deeply buried secret. If perhaps she and her mother would have been able to talk about it instead of shout.

Noreen had been born at home. A doctor had delivered her, but Aunt Bobbie had long since forgotten his name, so there would be no medical records.

The information Aunt Bobbie had provided about the wedding was a little clearer. She gave Miranda the date and told her they had been married in Nashville, Tennessee, at the county courthouse by a judge.

Miranda stared at the wall and thought about what she had learned from just the bare facts Aunt Bobbie had told her. It reminded her of those shows she saw from time to time on television where an artist begins a picture with a few odd, random strokes on a canvas. He shades and colors, and still there is no sense to it. A few more lines and shadows and the eye barely makes out a shape. Then, sometimes suddenly and sometimes slowly, the brain begins to “see” some sense in what was purely random before. And then, once you know what you are looking at, the delicate details are filled in. Before, she had had only a few broad, nonsensical lines, random pieces that fit into no discernible whole. Now, with the new information she had a vague outline of a story. A history barely glimpsed through a thick fog. But with any luck, and with a FedEx delivery and perhaps a trip across the state line to West Virginia, she would learn more and eventually have a whole picture. She realized she had been deprived of the secrets of her birth and background as surely as her own child had been.

She got up, stretched, then returned to the computer, determined to see it through. She searched for Thurmond, West Virginia, and learned more than she wanted to. She sat back when she was finished and stared into space. She wondered that she'd ever had the audacity to think she knew her mother. How could you know someone until you knew where they'd been? Until you knew the places and the people who had shaped them?

Thurmond, she learned, was in the rugged coal country of southern West Virginia. The New River ran through town, leading to the joke about the town's reputation. “How is Thurmond
different from hell?” it went. “A river runs through Thurmond.”

She felt a chill as she read it, for even though the facts were colorful and might be amusing to some, she had a picture of two little girls who had somehow been so traumatized by their past that they would not even speak the name of the place that had spawned them.

Thurmond had been a coal and railroad town at the turn of the century. It was a lawless, brutal place, giving birth to another saying: “There's no Sunday west of Clifton Forge and no God west of Hinton.” The sins of the place were nothing new, she saw as she continued reading. Gambling, prostitution, and alcohol served as a backdrop to the soul-numbing business of coal mining and the darkness of lives lived underground. She read, she looked at photographs. When she signed off, she shook her head to clear it. The day outside looked wonderfully bright and cheerful compared to what she had just seen. She felt she needed to feel the sun on her head, if for no other reason than to remind her that she was here now, that only her mind had traveled to that place. She went outside, walked through town, then onto the trail, drinking in the sweetness of the air. She wondered what she had opened up. She had a feeling she was close to the answers. The only question now was whether she really wanted to know them.

Joseph went to church with his mother and Eden, ate dinner with them, then left, pleading work as an excuse but still feeling guilty. He knew Eden was a handful for his mom, but apparently a friend of his niece's was coming over for the afternoon, so she would have someone to play with. Besides, there were things he needed to do. And the sooner the better. He had already been regaled with stories about Miranda taking Eden and her new friend on a trip to the camp yesterday. He felt a sense of urgency about finding out the background of Miss DeSpain. She was worming her way into his family's lives, and better to nip things
in the bud if she was up to no good.

He reviewed what he already knew as he walked to his office. She had no outstanding warrants and no criminal history. But that didn't preclude civil lawsuits. He thought about where to start looking, for there was no central database for those. He had to know a county. The car was registered in Nashville. He would start there. She might have evaded jail but still caused enough ire to prompt a lawsuit or two. He unlocked the door and climbed the stairs to his office. He made his notes quickly, scribbling on a yellow legal pad.

Call Nashville—check out pending civil cases

Check credit report

Check driving record

Ask Wally and Ed Cornwell what she put on employment applications for former jobs

He sighed in frustration. All of these except one would have to wait for tomorrow. He phoned Wally and asked for a copy of her employment application.

“Is she up to something?” Wally asked.

“If she is, I'll let you know.”

Wally's deep-rooted lack of curiosity took over then, and he said he would have it for him in the morning. Joseph stared around the office for a few minutes, then decided to take a walk. He headed for the woods to clear his mind. He would walk a mile or two up the trail.

He was by no means alone in his intentions. It was busy for this early in the season. He walked briskly until he was past the commotion of the other hikers, then slowed his pace and breathed. He was unusually involved emotionally in this whole case of the Irish Travelers, he knew. And he had to admit that Ms. Miranda DeSpain had gotten under his skin. Why? he wondered. It was possible he was wrong about the whole thing. It could be sheer coincidence that she appeared the same time as the plague
of crime. She might actually be telling the truth, that she just enjoyed living in different locales for six or seven months at a time and Abingdon was the current in a lifetime of temporary stops. After all, she had gotten a job and found a place to live.

He looked up the trail toward the giant sycamore. It was so huge a man could stand inside the hollow made by the roots. He and David had loved playing in it as boys, and he thought of his brother with pain. He would go back to his mother's in time to call him tonight. It was the right thing to do. He stared and walked and thought, and for a moment he doubted his eyes, but after he stared a minute longer he realized Miranda DeSpain herself was headed toward him, coming down the trail.

She saw him and smiled, raised her hand in a tentative wave. He nodded but didn't wave back, and part of him felt angry at himself for being such a curmudgeon. What if she was just a nice girl who couldn't make up her mind what she wanted to be when she grew up? But what if his instincts were right and she was a trickster, another untrustworthy woman who was nestling her way into his family's lives and hearts, another part of him answered back. It had happened before, and he thought of the past with pain. By the time they approached each other he was angry again. At Sarah. At himself. At Miranda DeSpain.

“Hello, Lieutenant Williams.” She smiled at him, and he had to admit she was very pretty in a fresh, clean way. Her dark hair swung around her shoulders, her eyes were bright and interested, her cheeks pink with health and exercise. Today she wore a T-shirt and denim shorts. Noticing all that made him feel even more annoyed. He glanced at her feet, which, he tried not to notice, were at the bottom of shapely legs. She was wearing hiking boots. He frowned, remembering the prints near the scene of the mysterious trailer.

“Hello, Ms. DeSpain,” he answered coolly. “What's the matter? You get tired of pedaling, or did the bike get a flat tire?”

She gave him another smile, and he suddenly felt ashamed of
himself. He seemed to bounce between acting like a suspicious parent and an obnoxious child.

“Actually, I arranged for some car insurance,” she said. “When I get the paper work, I'll bring it by your office so you know you don't have to keep pulling me over.”

For some reason her transparency annoyed him. “Do you expect me to congratulate you for obeying the law like you should have done in the first place?”

Her smile disappeared and was replaced by a look that was somewhere between irritation and regret. “I don't expect anything,” she said.

He was a little embarrassed. He tried a lighter tone. “What prompted the change of heart?” he asked.

“Summer's coming,” she said back with a tight smile. “It'll be hard riding up and down all these hills.”

“So you're planning on being here come summertime.”

“You sound less than pleased at the prospect.”

“It's immaterial to me either way. As long as you obey the law, you're welcome here. If you don't, I assure you, I'll find out.” Well, then. There it was. Out for both of them to see.

The smile went away. Her eyes registered hurt, then anger. “Look,” she said, “I don't know what your problem is, but I would like you to stop harassing me.”

“Harassing you? Exactly how have I harassed you?”

She apparently ran through the facts in her mind and couldn't come up with an answer that held together. “What is it, exactly, that you find so threatening about me?” she asked. “What have I done to make you so hostile?”

He thought about defending himself. Once again he was thrown off balance. And he knew what the problem was. He didn't have his facts. If he knew the facts, he could answer that question. He wished heartily that it was Monday or that at least he hadn't encountered Miranda again until he had the results of tomorrow's inquiries.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I told you. I travel around.”

“And I don't believe you.”

“Well, I'm sorry, but it's the truth.”

“But is it the whole truth?” he asked, and an expression flashed across her face so quickly he barely saw it before it was gone. Bingo. He had struck pay dirt. The expression he had seen was guilt and a hint of something else. Fear?

“I don't have to tell you anything,” she said quietly.

This time it was he who felt a flash of some emotion travel through him like a bolt, because as he watched, her face closed. The friendliness and childlike trust just disappeared and was replaced by a mirror that showed him the same cold suspicion he had shown her.