Morning Glory (48 page)

By nine o’clock Tuesday night, Lula was taping together the torn note. By nine-thirty she felt like a piece of itchweed was stuck in her pants. By ten o’clock she was in a tub full of bubbles, getting ready.

Harley Overmire hunkered in the cold December drizzle, cursing it. One thing was lucky though: the blackout was still in effect in the coastal states. No streetlights. No window lights. Nobody on the streets after ten unless they had a permit.

Come on, Lula, come on. I’m cold and damp and I wanna get home to bed.

The rear door of the library was eight feet above his head, giving onto a set of high concrete steps with an iron handrail. He’d heard Parker lock the door and leave well over half an hour ago, had sat as still as a sniper in a tree, listening to Parker’s footsteps scrape down the steps, to the sound of his car starting and driving away without lights on.

Now Harley hunkered in his black rubber jacket and old fedora hat, feeling the rain seep into a tear on his shoulder. He hugged himself with crossed arms, feeling the cold concrete pressed against his back, and listened to the rain drip from the library eaves onto the alley below. In his fist the oily dustrag formed a hard knot. Something solid to hold on to.

When he heard Lula’s footsteps his heart hammered like that of a coon before a pack. High heels—click... click... click... probably toeless, because she stepped in a puddle and cursed. He waited till she’d reached the third step, then quickly slithered around the base of the steps and up behind her.

He’d planned to do it swift, clean, anonymously. But the
damn rag was old and rotten and tore and she struggled free, turned and saw his face.

“Harley... don’t... pl—”

And he was forced to finish the job with his hands.

He hadn’t planned to see the shock and horror on her face. Or the grotesqueness of the throes of death. But no blackout was total enough to hide it. And Lula struggled, fought longer and harder than he’d have thought a woman of her size could.

When she finally succumbed, Harley staggered down the steps and threw up against the north wall of the library.

On a day in late December, Elly was working in the kitchen when she looked up and saw Reece Goodloe pull into the yard in a dusty black Plymouth with adjustable spotlights and the official word
SHERIFF
on the door. He’d held office for as long as Elly could remember, since before he’d come knocking on the door of Albert See’s house, forcing him to let his granddaughter go to school.

Reece had grown fat over the years. His stomach bobbed like a water balloon as he hitched up his pants on his way up the walk. His hair was thin, his face florid, his nostrils as big as a pair of hoofprints in the mud. In spite of his unattractiveness, Elly liked him: he’d been the one responsible for breaking her out of that house.

“Mornin’, Mr. Goodloe,” she greeted from the porch, shrugging into a homemade sweater.

“Mornin’, Mizz Parker. You have a nice Christmas?”

“Yessir. And you?”

“A fine Christmas, yes we did.” Goodloe scanned the clearing, the gardens neatly cleared for the winter, the junk piles gone. Things sure looked different around here since Glendon Dinsmore died.

“Your place looks good.”

“Why, thank you. Will done most of it.”

Goodloe took his time gazing around before he inquired, “Is he here, Mizz Parker?”

“He’s down yonder in the shed, painting up some supers for the hives, getting everything ready for spring.”

Goodloe rested a boot on the bottom step. “You mind fetchin’ him, Mizz Parker?”

Elly frowned. “Somethin’ wrong, Sheriff?”

“I just need to talk to him about a little matter come up in town last night.”

“Oh... well... well, sure.” She brightened with an effort. “I’ll get him.”

On her way through the yard Elly felt the first ominous lump form in her belly. What did he want with Will? Some sheriffing business, she was sure. His homesy chitchat was too obvious to be anything but a cover for an official call. But what? By the time she reached the open shed door, her misgivings showed plainly on her face.

“Will?”

With paintbrush in hand, Will straightened and turned, his pleasure unmistakable. “Missed me, did ya?”

“Will, the sheriff is here lookin’ for you.”

His grin faded, then flattened. “About what?”

“I don’t know. He wants you to come to the house.”

Will went stone still for ten full seconds, then carefully laid the paintbrush across the top of the can, picked up a rag and dampened it with turpentine. “Let’s go.” Wiping his hands, he followed her.

With each step Elly felt the lump grow bigger, the apprehension build. “What could he want, Will?”

“I don’t know. But we’ll find out, I reckon.”

Let it be nothing, she entreated silently, let it be a carburetor for that dusty black Plymouth, or maybe Will’s got his road sign on county property or they need to borrow the library chairs for a dance. Let it be somethin’ silly.

She glanced at Will. He walked unhurried but unhesitant, his face revealing nothing. It wore his don’t-let-’em-know-what-you’re-thinking expression, which worried Elly more than a frown.

Sheriff Goodloe was waiting beside the Plymouth, with his
arms crossed over his potbelly, leaning on the front fender. Will stopped before him, wiping his hands on the rag. “Mornin’, Sheriff.”

Goodloe nodded and boosted off the car. “Parker.”

“Somethin’ I can do for you?”

“A few questions.”

“Somethin’ wrong?”

Goodloe chose not to answer. “You work at the library last night?”

“Yessir.”

“You close it up, as usual?”

“Yessir.”

“What time?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“What’d you do then?”

“Came home and went to bed, why?”

Goodloe glanced at Elly. “You were home then, Mizz Parker?”

“Of course I was. We got a family, Sheriff. What’s this all about, anyway?”

Goodloe ignored their questions and uncrossed his arms, firming his stance before firing his next question at Will. “You know a woman named Lula Peak?”

Will felt the anxiety begin at the backs of his knees and crawl upward—sharp needles of creeping heat. Hiding his worry, he tucked the rag into his hind pocket. “Know who she is. Wouldn’t exactly say I know her, no.”

“You see her last night?”

“No.”

“She didn’t come in the library?”

“Nobody comes in the library when I’m there. It’s after hours.”

“She never came there... after hours?”

Will’s lips compressed and a muscle ticked in his jaw, but he stared squarely at Goodloe. “A couple of times she did.”

Elly glanced sharply at Will.
A couple times?
Her stomach seemed to lift to her throat while the sheriff repeated the words like an obscene litany.

“A couple o’times—when was that?”

Will crossed his arms and stood spraddle-footed. “A while ago.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“A couple of times before I went in the service, once since I come home. Back in August or so.”

“You invited her there?”

Again Will’s jaw hardened and bulged, but he exercised firm control, answering quietly, “No, sir.”

“Then what was she doing there?”

Will was fully aware of Elly staring at him, dumbfounded. His voice softened with self-consciousness. “I think you can prob’ly guess, bein’ a man.”

“It’s not my job to guess, Parker. My job is to ask questions and get answers. What was Lula Peak doing at the library in August after hours?”

Will turned his gaze directly into his wife’s shocked eyes while answering, “Lookin’ to get laid, I guess.”

“Will...” she admonished breathily, her eyes rounded in dismay.

Having expected circumvention, the sheriff was momentarily nonplussed by Will’s bluntness. “Well...” He ran a hand around the back of his neck, wondering where to go from here. “So you admit it?”

Will pulled his eyes from Elly to answer, “I admit I knew that’s what she was after, not that she got it. Hell, everybody in Whitney knows what she’s like. That woman prowls like a she-cat and doesn’t make any effort to hide it.”

“She... prowled after you, did she?”

Will swallowed and took his time answering. The words came out low and reluctant. “I guess you’d call it that.”

“Will,” Elly repeated in dull surprise. “You never told me that.” Her insides felt hot and shaky.

Again he turned his brown eyes directly on her, armed only with the truth. “’Cause it meant nothin’. Ask Miss Beasley if I ever gave that woman any truck. She’ll tell you I didn’t.”

The sheriff interjected, “Miss Beasley saw Lula... shall we say, ah... pursuin’ you?”

Will’s gaze snapped back to the uniformed man. “Am I bein’ accused of somethin’, Sheriff? ‘Cause if I am I got a
right to know. And if that woman’s made any charges against me, they’re a damn lie. I never laid a hand on her.”

“According to the record, you did a stretch in Huntsville for manslaughter—that right?”

The sick feeling began to crawl up Will’s innards but outwardly he remained stoic. “That’s right. I did my time and I got out on full parole.”

“For killing a known prostitute.”

Will fit the edges of his teeth together and said nothing.

“You’ll excuse me, ma’am.” The sheriff quirked an eyebrow at Elly. “But there’s no way to avoid these questions.” Then, to Will, “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with Lula Peak?”

Will repressed his seething anger to answer, “No.”

“Did you know she was four months pregnant?”

“No.”

“The child she was expecting is not yours?”

“No!”

The sheriff reached into his car and came up with a cellophane packet. “You ever seen this before?”

Standing stiffly, Will let his glance drop, examined the contents of the transparent packet without touching it. “Looks like a dustrag from the library.”

“You read the newspaper regular-like, do you?”

“Newspaper. What’s the newspaper—”

“Just answer the question.”

“Every night when I take a break at the library. Sometimes I bring ‘em home when the library’s done with ‘em.”

“Which one you read most often?”

“What the hell—”

“Which one, Parker?”

Will grew aggravated and temper colored his face. “I don’t know. Hell...”

“The New York Times?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“What is this, Goodloe?”

“Just answer.”

“All right! The
Atlanta Constitution,
I guess.”

“When’s the last time you saw Lula Peak?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, try.”

“Earlier this week... no, it was last week, Wednesday maybe, Tuesday—Christ, I don’t remember, but it was when I drove in to work, she was locking up Vickery’s when I went past on my way to the library.”

“And you haven’t seen her since last week, Tuesday or Wednesday?”

“No.”

“But you admit you went to your job as usual last night and left for home around ten
P.M.?”

“Not
around.
At. I always leave exactly at ten.”

Goodloe squared his stance, giving himself a clear shot of both Will’s and Elly’s faces. “Lula Peak was strangled last night on the rear steps of the library. The coroner puts the time of death at somewhere between nine and midnight.”

The news hit Will like a fist in the solar plexus. Within seconds he went from hot to icy, red to white.
No, not me, not this time. I paid for my crime. Goddammit, leave me alone. Leave me and my family in peace.
While the tumult of sick fear built within him, he stood unmoving, wary of reacting the wrong way lest he be misread. His stomach trembled. His palms turned damp, his throat dry. In that quick black flash of time while the sheriff threw out his bombshell, a montage of impressions wafted through Will’s head, of the things he valued most—Elly, the kids, the life they’d built, the good home, the financial stability, the future, the happiness. At the thought of losing them, and unjustly, despair threatened.
Aw, Jesus, what does a man have to do to win... ever?
He was struck by the irony of having fought and survived that miserable war only to come home to this. He thought of all else he’d survived—being orphaned, the years of lone drifting, the time in prison, the hungry days afterward, the taunts, the jeers. For what? Rage and despair slewed through him, bringing the unholy wish to sink his fist into something hard, batter something, curse the uncaring fates who time after time turned thumbs down on Will Parker.

But none of what he felt or thought showed on his face.
Dry-throated, expressionless, he asked flatly, “And you think I did it?”

The sheriff produced a second cellophane packet matching the first, this one bearing the pieces of newsprint with the cryptic message. “I got some pretty convincing evidence, Parker, starting with this right here.”

Will’s eyes dropped to the incriminating note, then lifted again to Goodloe before he slowly reached to take the packet and read it. A rush of hatred poured through him. For Lula Peak, who just wouldn’t take no for an answer. For the person who did her in and pinned the blame on him. For this potbellied vigilante who was too stupid to reason beyond the end of his horsey nostrils.

“A man’d have to be pretty damn dumb to leave a message that clear and expect to get away with it.”

Elly had been listening with growing dread, standing like one mesmerized by the sight of a venomous snake slithering closer and closer. When Will began handing the packet to Goodloe she intercepted it. “Let me see that.”

MEET ME BACK DOOR LIBRARY 11 O’CLOCK TUESDAY NIGHT W.P.
While she stood reading it the kitchen door opened and Thomas called from the porch, “Mama, Lizzy wet her pants again!”

Elly heard nothing beyond the frantic thumping of her own heart, saw nothing beyond the note and the initials, W.P. Terror rushed through her.
Oh, God, no. Not Will, not my Will.

“Mama! Come and change Lizzy’s pants!”

She fixed her thumbs over the edge of the cellophane simply for something to hang on to, something to steady her careening world. From the recent past she heard again Will’s voice admitting things that she wished now she had never heard... We used to go down to La Grange to the whorehouse there... Me, I wasn’t fussy, take any one that was free... I picked up a bottle... She went down like a tree and hardly even bled, she died so fast...