Morgan James - Promise McNeal 02 - Quiet Killing (18 page)

Susan covered the marinating meat with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. “Don’t worry. Daddy can handle anything. What’d the UGA professor say?”

I patted my shirt pocket. “Made notes. Let’s talk about it when your dad gets back. That okay?”

“Sure. That way you only have to say it once. Besides, I’m into food right now and not kids with matches. I’m starving. Aren’t you?”

I wasn’t sure what I was, except confused. “I don’t know, maybe. Here, have some carrots.” We each took several long sticks, dunked them in blue cheese dressing, and crunched. I ate, chewed, and swallowed without really tasting.

Four days ago I was on a quest for information about my great grandfather—simple little genealogy
search. Find a few facts to connect to my past, maybe a hint or two why I’ve been dreaming about January McNeal. Now I’m told he was a religious fanatic, was the only person ever to be asked to leave the Methodist church, and was probably a grave robber. How could I have a relative who was so far over the edge? I’m so ordinary I set the bar for average. Then the Georgia convict thing happens, and I’m spinning my brain over who killed Shane Long—since the Georgia man obviously did not—instead of processing my own trauma that I could have been killed by a desperate criminal. On top of all that, Mrs. Allen’s visitor seems to be an abandoned little girl who sets fires. This was entirely too much drama for my relatively quiet, country life, and certainly enough drama to confuse my appetite.

“You know, I feel like I need a scorecard to keep up with what’s going on. I still can’t wrap my mind around being tied up by that Georgia convict. And then Fletcher shooting him—it’s all so surreal, like I’m in a Cohen brothers’ movie. Now we have the Missy situation. I know Mrs. Allen means well, but we can’t ignore the fact that the child dropped out of nowhere. I mean at some point, someone would have to be looking for her—some family member, somebody. And what about getting her into school? You can’t just march a child into the principal’s office and say here you go— I think her name might be Missy; see if she can keep up with the third grade. Plus, there is no doubt in my mind that we’re breaking some child protection law by not immediately calling Sheriff Mac about her.”

Susan nodded her head in agreement and ate another carrot stick. “Yeah, I know. Mac is going to
be pissed as a penned up opossum when he finds out. Daddy’s gonna have to call him; I don’t want my hair parted by his temper. And we haven’t even talked about MaMa being too old to take on the responsibility of a child, even if she could keep Missy. I don’t even want to think about how badly her heart will be broken when somebody takes the child away. Oh Lordy, let’s talk about something else. What about the January McNeal connection to Shane’s murder? What do you think we’re going to find in the Lewis Redmond book? And what about that Ezekiel 37 thing you were asking about? What do dry bones have to do with anything?”

Talking about January’s implied directive to read Ezekiel 37 was more baggage than I could carry at the moment. But the Redmond book…. What was the connection? The book had been relegated to the back seat of the Subaru when Susan and I decided to visit Mrs. Allen. And then, everything else was eclipsed by Missy’s appearance. I needed to get back to the book and its meaning. The book was something concrete. Something I could touch. I could deal with that.

“I’m not sure what we’re looking for in the Redmond book. Maybe some clue why Shane Long would check the book out of the library and take it on a hike. Doesn’t that seem sort of odd to you? If you’re going to hike, then hike. You don’t need a book on a moonshine outlaw to plot your trail.”

“Yeah. I’m with you, that can’t be a wild coincidence.”

“What can’t be a coincidence?” Daniel asked, as he walked in and closed the kitchen door behind.

“Oh, long story. Susan and I found some information today that may relate to my great grandfather. I’ll tell you later. What happened at Mrs. Allen’s?”

Daniel got himself another beer and retraced his steps to hang his hat in the utility room. “I saw the little girl. She tried to hide in the closet, but I convinced MaMa to bring her out to the kitchen. She sat in MaMa’s lap most of the time, and you know what I think? She isn’t so much scared of strangers as she’s afraid somebody’s coming to take her back where she came from. She’s holding on to MaMa like the last lifeboat to shore. Couldn’t get her to talk, except when I asked her if that was her stuffed elephant she was holding. Then she said, ‘da.’ Just the one word. That’s all.”

Susan and I chimed together, “
da
?”

“Yeah, that’s what it sounded like to me,
da
.”

Susan rolled her eyes. “Daddy, that’s not even English. I think old time Irish children called their daddy, da. I think it’s also an Eastern European language. Maybe the word for yes. You know like maybe Slavic— Croatian or Czech. Remember when I went on that student trip to Europe after graduation and we went over to Prague?”

Daniel stretched out an arm, palm out, toward Susan as though he was stopping traffic. “Stop. Don’t remind me. I don’t want to hear it. I was worried sick the whole month you were gone. Kept having nightmares about you being jailed in some communist country for shooting your mouth off, or something like that.”

Susan didn’t say anything else, but leaned over and hugged her Dad.

My mind was leaping to all sorts of conclusions. “Good grief. If English isn’t the child’s first language, no wonder she doesn’t have much to say. Or, it could be possible that she’s heard someone else use the word
da
. Maybe someone who lives with her mother is Slavic. Or, maybe her mother? No, that isn’t it. Mrs. Allen didn’t mention the mother spoke with an accent. Or, maybe the young woman who dropped Missy off at Mrs. Allen’s isn’t her mother at all. Mrs. Allen said Missy doesn’t ask about the woman or seem to miss her. Oh Daniel, we have to get social services and the sheriff involved. There is something terribly wrong here.”

He nodded and drank his beer; a frown cutting deep lines around his mouth telling me there was more. When he didn’t volunteer anything, I asked, “So, what else?” He shrugged and closed his eyes for a moment. “You asked Mrs. Allen about the fires, didn’t you?”

The beer went on the table and he sat up a little straighter. “Yeah, when Missy went back to the bedroom, I figured no point in skirting around the bugger. First I asked her where the missing kitchen chair got to. She hemmed and hawed around some and told me a lie about sending it out to get repaired. I wasn’t going to argue about the lie, so I outright asked her why she reckoned Missy would start fires, and didn’t she see how dangerous that was. Just about broke my heart to see MaMa cry like that. You know how she does, Susan; keeps the tears all tight inside her and squeezes her eyes down to slits to keep them from coming out. I can’t hardly stand that. I’d rather she’d wail and bawl. Anyway, I don’t think she knows the child probably came over here and set a match to your barn, but she
sure knows Missy tried to burn the chair, and set the bathroom alight.”

Susan perked up. “So what did MaMa say about
why
Missy would start fires?”

Remnants of a smile shattered his frown. “Well, MaMa said she figured this world had treated the child pretty sorry, and she was probably mad enough to burn up the whole lot of it.”

My counselor’s mentality was resurfacing. “Sounds like a lot of unresolved anger and fear. We have to get this child help.”

Daniel regained his sober face. “I know, Babe, I know.”

Susan jumped back into the conversation. “While you were over at MaMa’s house, Miz P. talked to a hot-shot professor, another doctor of psychology, at UGA, about children setting fires.”

“A hotshot professor, huh?” Daniel repeated the phrase with a skeptical tilt of his head and winked my way. “And what did the hotshot say?”

I got up, opened myself a ginger-ale, and sat back down to face them while framing what I could say about such a complicated issue that wouldn’t sound like an eight a.m. class lecture. I decided on simplicity.

“Actually, Dr. Jeffcoat said the child had probably survived a painful family situation and was reacting to the trauma by feeling the need to burn the whole world down.”

Now Susan’s slight smile matched her dad’s. Sitting across the table from them was a flash reminder of how much they looked like family—the smile, the set of the chin, the same dark, thick hair. Family. What
was it Mrs. Allen said about family?
Family is who takes care of you
.

Susan broke into my thoughts. “So your big time college professor said exactly what MaMa said?”

I was too worried to share the Allen smiles, but I nodded, yes. “Pretty much.”

16

Steaks were finally grilled around nine-thirty. The beer and carrots killed what little appetite I had, so most of my T-bone went into the refrigerator for a sandwich another day. Susan left around eleven. I can’t remember how it happened, but Daniel stayed the night, the anger we’d carried for each other from days before dissipating into tenderness. Later, as I was drifting toward sweet, sweet, sleep, I wondered if Daniel’s silence on the issues that fueled our argument meant I’d won. Marriage would not be up for discussion. Then I questioned if this was an argument I really wanted to win. In my blissful state, with Daniel asleep beside me, I decided no, not really. What I really wanted was to feel safe and hopeful about getting married again. I wanted to know risking my heart wouldn’t result in breaking it. I also wanted the bliss to last forever and a pair of ruby slippers that would always take me home.

When I awoke at seven, Daniel was dressed and sitting on the back porch nursing a cup of coffee. I poured
myself a cup and watched him from the kitchen window, slowly nudging the rocking chair back and forth, and staring out into the thin fog curdling, here and there, beyond the porch steps. He turned and smiled as I eased into the chair beside him. “Morning, Sunshine. I’ve got to get on out of here pretty shortly. Got cows to tend to and make my run as a loyal servant of the US Postal Service.”

“Umm. I’m glad I don’t have to rush anywhere this morning.”

Daniel laced the fingers of my right hand into his. “I hope I contributed to your peaceful state of mind this morning.” I smiled and kissed the ridge along his knuckles. He knew he had.

“I’d rather you didn’t drive anywhere until the fog clears.”

“Don’t worry Babe; this little patchy stuff is nothing. Doesn’t bother me. It’ll burn off by mid-morning.”

I frowned and sipped my coffee, avoiding any response that would bring up my fear of fog. It’s the claustrophobic weight of fog, snaking along the ground…not being able to see through it…not knowing what’s waiting in the shadow…like the laurel thicket I got myself lost in on Fire Mountain. It felt like a blanket over my head, suffocating me. I jerked as a shiver trembled across my shoulders. “You seemed deep in thought when I came out. Still worrying about MaMa Allen?”

“Umm. That’s part of it, sure. But what I was mostly trying to figure out was why you were so determined to hike Fire Mountain alone. Why is a fallen down cabin so important? How come you couldn’t wait for
me to get back from Raleigh, or ask Susan to go with you? When I think on how close I came to losing you, well…well, I don’t know …” His voice trailed off. I didn’t know what to say.

With all the drama of Mrs. Allen and Missy the night before, I realized I hadn’t filled in the blanks for Daniel about January McNeal and Reba. I held on to his hand and told him about my first visit to Mrs. Allen: her confirmation that January McNeal may well have bought Sorley land on Fire Mountain; the letter from Margaret Connell; Reba’s adoption by Enid and Joab Sorley; her father being a man of color in Baltimore; and the puzzling coincidence of the letter’s reference to Lewis Redmond.