No Way Home (20 page)

If it was Tyler, she thought…but what about Royce? Why hadn’t he let Ronnie Lee Partin take the blame for it? She thought again of the sheriff, standing grimly on the outskirts of the evening’s proceedings.

Would he have let Tyler get away with it? And then she wondered if Royce had noticed her talking to the Reverend Davis tonight. She had not seen the sheriff anywhere around. She assumed that he had left early. But what if he had been watching her, knowing what the old man was saying to her, wondering if she had made the connection? She had virtually revealed her suspicions about Tyler in their conversation tonight. Lillie shivered and turned on all the lights in the house.

Even as she did so, she chided herself for her fears. Royce would never hurt you, she thought. It just wouldn’t be possible. But a crackling noise outside the window in the den made her jump. She would never have thought Royce capable of shielding a murderer either. Not even his son. If he would go that far…She walked to the window, holding her breath, and looked out. The yard was still, and apparently empty, in the darkness. She locked the window and pulled the curtain.

She walked to the door of Michele’s room and pushed it open, snapped on the light, and walked in. Then she went quickly to the window and pulled down the shade. Lillie repeated her conversation with the sheriff in her mind. She had told him that she had learned of a friendship between Michele and Tyler. Did he know a lot more than that about what was between them? Could it be that there had been some shared, secret passion between her little girl and the sheriff’s son? Some passion that had turned to rage? She had been bluffing when she said it to Royce, but perhaps it was true. Lillie looked frantically around the room, as if the room could speak. She tried to think where she could find her answer. After a moment she rushed to the bookshelf and pulled down the yearbook. She turned to the section on Juniors. With cold fingers she flipped the pages. His picture was on the second page. Tyler Ansley. Next to his photograph was a smudge. Lillie snapped on the desk lamp and held the book beneath it. The smudge was pale, pale pink and striated. It took her only a second to realize that it was a lipstick smudge. As if someone had kissed the picture. Lillie stared down at the photograph, her head thudding in time with her heart. The house was so silent she could hear her heart beating. Tyler, she thought. Oh, no.

The shrill ring of the phone sheared through her. She jumped and let out a cry, then slammed the book shut as if to hide her discovery. Her mind racing, she went out to the kitchen and picked up the phone. After a moment she held it to her ear. “Hello,” she said warily.

“Lillie,” said a faraway voice. “It’s Jordan.”

Lillie sank down on a chair. “Jordan,” she whispered.

“What’s the matter? You sound strange. Are you okay?”

Lillie licked her lips and tried to calm her breathing. “I don’t know.” She knew why he was calling. She didn’t want to tell him. She could imagine the polite disbelief of his reaction. She thought about hanging up. “What do you want?”

“I’ve been thinking about Michele. What else? Is this a bad time to call?”

Lillie sat huddled in the chair, holding the phone in her shaking hand, her mind working feverishly, her caller silent on the other end. Suddenly she wanted to say it. She wanted to hear the stunned reaction and then the pity in his voice, the feeble effort to console her for losing her mind.

“I think,” she said calmly, “that Tyler Ansley killed her. And that his father is protecting him.”

She heard the expected sharp intake of breath and then there was a pause. “What makes you think this?” he said in a steady voice.

Lillie began to laugh. She could not help herself. The laughter, which was close to tears, rushed out of her in a jagged burst. “I must be crazy,” she said. “I must be falling the hell apart.”

“Not you, Lillie. You’re the sanest person I know,” he said. “Please, tell me.”

“Forget it, Jordan. It’s too long a story. I’m too tired, and there’s no proof of anything. Not really. I have to go,” she said.

“Lillie!”

“Good-bye.” She hung up the phone and rubbed her freezing arms. Then she went back into Michele’s room. It seemed chilly and unbearably lonely in the house. She kicked off her shoes and crawled under the flower-sprigged comforter in all her clothes. Then she switched off the bedside light and lay in the dark. She tried to imagine Michele, lying in this bed, fantasizing about Tyler Ansley. Innocently daydreaming of a boy she had a crush on. Planning to meet him perhaps. Never suspecting…

Lillie got up out of the bed and went to the door of Michele’s room. She closed it tight and locked it. After checking to make sure the windows were locked too, she got back under the covers. In a few minutes, clutching her daughter’s pillow, she was asleep.

SHE AWOKE FEELING AS IF SHE HAD A HANGOVER.
Her head was leaden and stuffy, her eyes scratchy from tears she must have shed in her sleep. At first she felt a little jolt of alarm, finding herself in the unfamiliar room, and then she remembered. Michele. And Tyler. She forced herself to sit up.

The smell of coffee was coming from the kitchen. She looked at her watch. It was nearly ten-thirty. She wondered why Pink hadn’t gone to work yet. Perhaps he was waiting to have it out with her about last night. She dreaded the confrontation, feeling as she did. But that was the least of her problems. What was she going to do about Tyler?

After opening Michele’s bedroom door, she shuffled out into the kitchen in her stocking feet. Jordan Hill was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee.

“Good God,” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

Jordan could not help but smile at the sight of her matted hair and wrinkled clothing and the makeup smudged across her face. “You always did look pretty in the morning,” he said.

“Damn you, Jordan, I asked you what you’re doing in my kitchen.”

“What do you think?” he said soberly. “Unlike you, I couldn’t sleep after that call last night. I got up at dawn, drove down from the mountains, and caught the first flight to Nashville. Then I drove here. Your back door was open.” He offered her a cup of coffee. “It’s still hot. I just got here.”

Lillie stared at the mug in his hands.

“Go ahead,” he said. “You always liked my coffee.”

Lillie reached for the coffee mug with trembling hands and the steam rose from it, soothing her scratchy eyelids, her tense forehead. After a few moments she took a sip, and then she carried the cup to the window, warming her hands on it, and looked out at the gray, rainy day.

“Well, that was very dramatic of you,” she said. “You picked the right line of work. You always did have that dramatic streak.” She turned and gave him a thin smile, then took another swallow of coffee. “I feel a little like the boy who cried wolf. I was in a fever when I talked to you, but in the gray light of day here, I’m not sure of anything.” She rubbed her forehead wearily. “Tyler is a nice boy. I’ve known him all his life. He’s not a bad boy.”

“Start from the top,” said Jordan. “Tell it to me step by step.”

Lillie sighed and tried to organize her thoughts. Then, slowly, she began to talk. When she got to the dinner and the conversation with Reverend Davis, Jordan stopped her.

“Wait,” he said. “A black guy, right? A heavyset guy. Older. Kind of graying sideburns.”

“That’s him.” She nodded.

Jordan got up and paced the kitchen. “I saw him, Lillie. The day I was leaving, he was coming out of the sheriff’s office.”

“I told you he talked to the sheriff.”

“Yeah, but I mean as he swung the door out, I was going in. And yet when I asked Ansley if there was anything new, any new information, he said no. Just flat-out no.”

“He’d probably say it was confidential. Police business.”

“We’ve got to talk to that preacher again, Lillie.”

“What for?” she asked. “I told you what he said.”

“We’ll show him the yearbook picture of Tyler. See if it’s the boy he saw.” He looked at Lillie, who was leaning over the sink as if she felt ill. “Are you up to it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Just let me change.” She started for her bedroom. Then she turned around. “Jordan, what if it is him? What do we do then?”

“Worry about that then. I’ll do the dishes,” he said, rinsing the two mugs out under the faucet and tossing them into the drainer.

Lillie called Loretta to determine the reverend’s whereabouts, and then Jordan drove his rental car through the mist that hung over the fields of the town, while Lillie sat beside him, clutching the yearbook to her chest.

“Rain, rain, and more rain,” Jordan said. “Tennessee in the autumn. And the winter.”

“I guess so,” Lillie said. “I hardly notice it anymore. Do you remember the way to Bell Street?”

“Sure,” he said. “I think I still know every road in this county. Actually it rains a lot in the mountains where I have my house. It’s just more likely to turn to snow in the winter.”

“Michele told me about that sleigh ride you took last winter.”

“That was fun,” Jordan said wistfully.

They were silent then until they reached the Walker house. The house was quiet and dark. For a minute Lillie feared that Loretta had not gotten through to say they were coming. Then she saw Clara Walker open the front door and look out at their car.

Lillie and Jordan made a run for the porch through the rain and Clara invited them inside. The Reverend Davis was sitting in the front parlor, leafing through his Bible.

“Thank you for seeing us, Reverend Davis,” Lillie said. “This is my…this is Michele’s father, Jordan Hill.”

They all shook hands and Clara Walker leaned over and said to Jordan in a conspiratorial voice, “I like to watch your program when I’m home on Tuesday afternoons. It’s pretty good.”

Jordan stroked his mustache, smiled, and thanked her. He turned to the man in the chair. “Reverend Davis, my wife tells me that you reported to the sheriff that you saw a young man down by the Three Arches the night my daughter was killed.”

The reverend nodded wearily. Lillie opened her mouth to say “ex-wife” and then did not bother. The minister looked as if he was anxious to be rid of them.

“Could you just look at this picture,” said Jordan, “and tell us if this is the same boy you saw?”

Lillie looked up at Jordan and then opened the book. She handed it to the old preacher and pointed to Tyler’s picture. Ephraim Davis studied the photograph in silence. Lillie thought that everyone in the room could hear her swallowing.

The old man raised his eyes from the picture. “Ansley,” he said. “Same name as the sheriff.”

“It’s the sheriff’s son,” Jordan admitted. The two men stared into one another’s eyes.

Then the reverend looked down again and closed the book. He handed it back to Lillie. “I’m not sure,” he said.

“But you saw him,” Lillie protested.

“I saw a young man,” the preacher said. “It could have been this boy. But it was dark, and my headlights just passed over him.”

“Oh, please,” Lillie cried. “You’re the only one who knows, who can help us. All you have to do is tell the truth.”

The old reverend rose from his chair and glared at Lillie. “That’s what I am doing, ma’am. I didn’t want to go to that sheriff and tell him anything at all. But I searched my conscience and I did what I had to do. But I’m not about to accuse some young boy of murder who may be innocent just from looking at a postage-stamp-size picture. I’m an old man and my eyes aren’t that good.”

Jordan signaled for Lillie to stop, although she appeared to be ready to launch another plea. “Thank you for your time,” he said politely.

“You’re welcome,” the preacher said stiffly. Clara Walker saw them out to the porch. They hurried to the car and slammed the doors.

“Well, that’s it,” said Lillie. “Now you think I was imagining it too.”

“No,” Jordan replied. “I think you’re right.”

She glanced over at his brooding profile as he turned on the car and started to drive. She did not ask where they were going. It felt strangely normal to be with him, to let him take control. They drove through the woods and country roads with only the shush of the wheels on sloppy, wet pavement to accompany their thoughts. She was not surprised when he turned down the dirt road leading to the Old Stone Arches Bridge. Wet branches slapped the car as they bumped down the rutted road and pulled off into a clearing. From where they sat they could see the rugged mass of stones that formed the bridge and the long, wet fronds of the willow that hung down over it. The narrow river that ran beneath looked like a dark gash in the earth. Jordan turned off the engine and they sat there in silence, Lillie still holding the yearbook to her chest.

The car was filled with the smell of their damp clothing, their hair, Jordan’s aftershave, her cologne. Their eyes met, almost furtively, and they both looked away.

“What are we doing here?” Lillie asked.

“We’re thinking.”

Lillie nodded and looked out across the bridge. She began to shiver. Jordan shuffled out of his coat and draped it over her despite her protest that she did not need it. Then they stared out across the hood of the car again.

“The thing is,” he said at last, “that it makes sense. It really does.”

“I know it,” said Lillie.

“We just don’t know why. But everything else makes sense.”

Lillie looked over at him. “Thanks for coming, Jordan.”

Jordan shrugged and did not look at her. ” ‘Bout time I got here,” he said.

“I try to talk to Pink but he acts like I’m a raving lunatic. He keeps saying to let the sheriff handle it. But how can we let the sheriff handle it if it is his son? I know Royce is a good man. But when it comes to your kids…”

Jordan turned to her with wide eyes. “Maybe Pink knows that it was Tyler, but the sheriff is forcing him to keep quiet.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Lillie. “That’s impossible.” But instantly she recalled Pink’s furtive reaction when she mentioned Tyler.

“Why? Royce could have threatened him.”

“Oh, think about it, Jordan. Could the sheriff make you keep quiet? Even with threats. It’s not possible.”