No Way Home (17 page)

Lillie had not been able to go into Michele’s room since the murder. Brenda had gone in and picked out the clothes that Lillie described to her for the funeral. The sheriff had searched the room, and Lillie had watched him carry out various papers and objects, but she had stayed outside in the hall. Thinking about it now, Lillie realized that the sheriff might have made the same assumptions.

He had never put the idea into words for them, but he was probably thinking that way. That’s what he was searching for in Michele’s room. Some clue to a boyfriend’s identity.

But, Lillie reasoned, if there was some clue in there, it might not be apparent to the sheriff. It might well be something that only a mother would recognize. After all, who would know better than she what was normal for Michele?

She knew she was going to have to go into the room and look, to satisfy herself. But she hesitated on the threshold, filled with dread. Only the hope for some kind of answer enabled her to put her hand on the doorknob and turn it.

Lillie opened the door to the room and stepped inside. The look, the scent, and everything about it nearly knocked the wind out of her. The rose-pink dress still hung on the closet door. Trembling, she sat down on the bed and smoothed the cover with her hand as she let the memories break over her. The finality, the cruelty, the unfairness of it, battered her heart, but she did not run. After a while she felt more composed. She reminded herself that she was here to find something, although she wasn’t sure what that something was.

Unlike many girls her age, Michele had no scrapbooks, and she did not keep a diary. Perhaps, Lillie thought, because a diary was for frivolous things, and Michele’s life had too many days of needles in her arms and hospital rooms and green-masked faces hovering above her. Perhaps she knew she would never want to read about that again. When she was writing, it was always her school-work. She had to make such an effort to keep up.

Gently Lillie picked up the schoolbooks from the desk and leafed through them. Lillie could picture Michele, the diligent student to whom nothing came easily, bent over them with a furrowed brow. Lillie turned the pages in her notebook. Michele had been an exceptionally neat person. There were no doodles on the page, no silly drawings, no indication of the impatience, the inattention of students. Lillie put down the notebook and picked up the student yearbook. The class that graduated this June should have been Michele’s. She had been held back because of her long absences. Still, she had bought the yearbook, and many of her old classmates had signed it. There was a friendly impersonality to the inscriptions. To a sweet kid. To a nice girl. Lots of luck, remember homeroom. Remember gym.

Nowhere did it say Remember our great date, the fun party, the school dance. She had missed it all. It had all been shimmering ahead of her when some maniac struck her down.

Lillie replaced the book on the shelf and looked around the room. Everything in the room was neat and orderly. Was there no hidden side, Lillie wondered, to this child’s life? She went to the closet and looked through the pockets of her clothes. She opened every shoebox, and each contained a pair of shoes. She moved on to the dresser, lifting the neatly folded clothes, the coiled belts and organized jewelry drawer. She was giving the bottom drawer a perfunctory check when her hand fell on something lumpy under the pile of cotton sweaters. Lillie reached back and pulled it out. It was a paper bag with a mortar and pestle printed on the front with the Flood’s Pharmacy logo. Lillie opened the bag and pulled out a little stuffed dog with floppy ears, the kind of toy one might buy for a two-year-old. A little gold paper medallion still hung from the thread around its neck, but there was no price on it, and when Lillie shook the bag, no receipt fell out. She turned the toy over in her hand, examining it. Michele never bothered with stuffed animals, she thought. Maybe she bought it for some child she knew. Lillie sat back on her heels and tried to figure out for whom Michele might have bought a present. And then, as she was unsuccessfully reviewing a list of possible children, another idea occurred to her. Maybe the toy had been a present for Michele. Maybe a secret admirer had bought it for her. Maybe admiration had turned to hatred somewhere along the way.

Lillie put the toy back in the bag. It’s too far-fetched, she told herself. You’re just reaching for something, anything, to make sense of a crime that was senseless. She looked at the pharmacy logo on the bag. There was probably some perfectly simple explanation for the toy stuffed into the drawer. Still, she thought, it wouldn’t hurt to try to find out.

Lillie got herself ready to go out and then drove to the center of Felton. She parked on Main Street and crossed the square to Flood’s Pharmacy. A bell jingled softly as she opened the door and went in. The blond girl who worked for Bomar was behind the makeup counter, fixing her cottony hair with the tail of a comb and studying her face in one of the round tilted mirrors that sat on the counter. Without lifting her gaze from the mirror she asked, “Can I help you?”

Lillie felt immediately self-conscious and hid the bag behind her back. This girl wasn’t going to remember who bought a stuffed toy on some unknown past date. There wasn’t even a receipt so that the date could be pinpointed.

Lillie pretended to be looking at the greeting cards so that it would appear that she had a reason for being there. Having performed her duty, the girl at the counter began applying tester eyeshadows to her lids.

Lillie walked over to the toy section and stared at the stuffed animals arranged there, as if they could speak and give her the answer she was seeking. Row upon row of round plastic eyes stared blankly out of furry faces. Go home, Lillie thought, this is a dumb idea.

“Lillie, my dear, how are you?”

Lillie jumped. She had not heard Bomar approaching on the soft soles of his Wallabees. His creased face shone above the plaid bow tie he wore. “Bomar.”

“Is Kimberly helping you?” he asked sternly, casting a glance at the salesgirl, who suddenly busied herself by rearranging perfume bottles on the counter.

“I was just looking,” Lillie said weakly.

“Well, I guess congratulations are in order,” he said.

Lillie looked at him, confused. “For what?”

“Oh, there I go,” said Bomar, “spoiling the surprise.”

“What surprise?” asked Lillie.

“Well, I guess I have to tell you now,” the old man said cheerfully. “The Chamber of Commerce had their meeting this morning over at the Sizzler Steak House, and they voted to name your Grayson as one of the winners of the leadership awards that they’re giving out at the banquet next Friday.”

“Oh, that’s great,” said Lillie. “He’ll be so thrilled.”

“Well, he deserves it, you know. He’s a fine lad.”

“Thank you, Bomar.”

“Matter of fact, I nominated him,” the druggist said proudly.

“That was right nice of you.”

Bomar shrugged and rubbed his hands together. “Glad to do it,” he said. “Now, what can I get you, little lady?”

Lillie hesitated, not wanting to spoil the good news about Grayson, but if anyone would know about the toy, she thought, it was Bomar Flood. She reached into the bag and pulled out the dog. She looked at it a minute and showed it to the druggist.

“I know this is going to sound kind of crazy, Bomar, but humor me if you would.”

“I’ll sure try,” he said.

“I was going through Michele’s things and I found this in her drawer, still in the bag. Do you sell this kind? I don’t see one here.”

Bomar squinted at the dog and nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Sure.” Then he looked at her uneasily. “Did you want to return it?”

“Oh, no,” said Lillie, “heavens no.” The idea of returning the toy seemed so ghoulish that it made her errand seem innocuous by comparison. More confidently she said, “No, I’m just trying to figure out where she got it. I mean, who she got it from. If it was a present.”

Bomar looked at her sadly. “Lillie,” he said, “will you take an old man’s advice and not dwell on things like this? It’s not healthy.”

“Bomar, I am not doing that. I am just trying to figure out if there was someone special in her life that we didn’t know about. Some boy who might have liked her. Maybe someone she got mad at her. That might have had a grudge against her.”

The pharmacist suddenly understood her implication. “One of these kids?” he asked incredulously. “Oh, no.”

“Somebody did it,” Lillie said angrily. “Why not one of these kids?”

“Well, all right, wait a minute.” The druggist put his hands on his narrow waist and frowned down at the floor. “Well, she used to come by after school sometimes, like the other kids. With her girlfriends, usually. She didn’t have a boyfriend. I can tell you that right now.”

“No, I know,” said Lillie.

Bomar took the stuffed toy from her hands and looked at it. “I’ll be honest with you, Lillie. I don’t rightly remember who bought it.”

Lillie sighed. “It was kind of a long shot,” she said.

“I do recall though,” said Bomar, pointing a skinny finger at the toy’s head, “I had a ruckus in here one afternoon over these animals. They were teasing one of the kids. Tyler Ansley it was. One of the boys caught him admiring one of these, and they got on him something awful. I remember ‘cause it struck me odd, too. Tyler always acted so surly and tough. Anyway, he cursed the lot of them and I had to hustle him out of here before he started breakin’ things.” Bomar shook his head. “That poor boy. I hope he’s better off in military school. Although he’d be a misfit anywhere. Now I can’t remember if Michele was here that day or not. She might could have been. I just don’t know.”

Lillie stared at the toy. Tyler Ansley. She suddenly remembered the baseball game on Founders Day. Michele had been so indignant that everyone was being unfair to Tyler.

“Bomar,” she said slowly, “did you ever see them together? Michele and Tyler?”

“Well,” he said, “maybe I saw them talking a few times.

But he was real uncomfortable around girls. Tell you what, I think that she might have liked him a little bit. But I don’t think he was interested. I hate to say this about that boy, because his daddy is a friend of mine, but the thing in this drugstore that interested him the most was drugs. Not that he ever stole from me. Don’t get me wrong. But I kept my eyes open when he was around.”

Bomar stopped talking long enough to notice the whiteness of Lillie’s face. “Now hold on,” he said. “Don’t you start thinking any such thing about Tyler. I’ve been around a long time and I’m a darn good judge of character. That boy wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s got his problems, but he’s not that kind of boy.”

“Well, thank you, Bomar,” said Lillie. She suddenly felt a little light-headed. “I really appreciate your taking the time.”

“I mean it now, Lillie. Don’t start thinking crazy things. Do you understand me?”

“I do,” she said, clutching the bag and backing out toward the front door.

“You take care now,” said Bomar. “And I’ll be seeing all of y’all at the banquet.”

Lillie looked at him blankly. “The Chamber banquet. Grayson’s award.”

“Oh, right,” she said. “I’ll see you…”

“Friday,” Bomar said.

“Friday.”

The door jingled behind her as she hurried out to the street.

After she left the drugstore, Lillie got into her car and began to drive. She drove aimlessly for over an hour, preoccupied with her thoughts. When a pickup truck honked at her, she realized that she was not paying sufficient attention to the road. Lillie looked around and got her bearings. She was not far from Crystal Lake. She needed a chance to stop, and think and collect her thoughts. She drove in the direction of the lake and pulled into the empty gravel parking lot of a tiny bait and tackle shop that was closed on weekdays until spring, then parked her car.

Through the bare branches and the patchy bright foliage of the trees she could see a silvery sliver of the lake’s shimmering surface. It was a place Lillie had come to all her life when she had something important to think about. She and Brenda had played at its perimeter with rocks and frogs and twigs, and later they had walked around it discussing boys. She and Jordan had skinny-dipped there in the moonlight on the loveliest of summer nights. She had walked the edge alone, trying to decide if she should accept Pink’s proposal. She had sat under a tree there and prayed when she had to take Michele to Pittsburgh for surgery, feeling somehow that God hovered nearer to this lake than anywhere else in the county. Once she had come with Pink when he took Grayson fishing here.

Getting out of the car, Lillie walked down the road past a hazy lavender and brown field that skirted the lake and through a thicket of trees to the water’s edge. She walked along the lakeside for a while, the water lapping gently near her as she bent over to pick up a stone and toss it into the smooth surface of the water. There was a motel on the other side of the lake, and a couple of trailers and cabins around its perimeter, but otherwise it was a quiet spot, a peaceful spot.

Lillie felt anything but peaceful. She walked along until she came to a long wooden jetty. After walking out to the end of it, she sat down and dangled her feet over the end. The water was low and her feet did not reach it.

She held the fur dog in her hand and gazed down at its plain, unthreatening face. Tyler Ansley, she thought. It couldn’t possibly be. He was a troubled boy. Everyone in town knew that. But a killer, no. It couldn’t be. She had known him all his life. He was young and confused and mad at the world. But not mean. Not vicious. It was just a rebellious phase he was in.

And Royce Ansley was her friend. One of the finest men she knew. He could never raise a boy to be a killer. Then an unwelcome thought came into her head. They always said that preachers’ kids were the worst of the sinners. Maybe the same could be true of a sheriff’s son. Maybe Royce was searching for a killer that would turn out to be his own son.

And then in the next moment, she had an even worse thought. Maybe he already knew. After all, hadn’t he taken the boy off to military school not two days after Michele’s death? No, she thought, it’s not possible.