Penumbra (4 page)

E
arly morning light filtered through the yellow curtains of the second-floor bedroom window. A fly buzzed against the screen, its electric green body thumping, demanding entrance. Dotty Strickland turned her face, catching the light full on her cheek. She examined her reflection in the mirror, searching for the faint crinkling of skin at the corner of her eye that would mark the beginning of the end. Satisfied, she put on lipstick and fluffed the curls she’d just taken down from foam curlers. She examined her reflection one last time, thinking that Jade Dupree had been right. Cutting her hair had taken at least five years off her appearance. The golden blond, from a bottle, had been her idea. Dotty ran down the stairs to the kitchen, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Heat blasted her face as she pulled the metal casserole pan and a baking sheet of biscuits out of the oven. She put the pan on the top burner, peeled back the tinfoil, and nodded in satisfaction at the perfectly browned crust of cheese. There wasn’t a man alive who could refuse her sausage, eggs, grits, and cheese casserole.

She put the hot biscuits in a basket and covered them with a cloth, picked up the pan, and headed to her car, an older model Ford. No traffic was stirring as she drove through the main street of Drexel. Her watch showed half past six. She was right on time.

One hand fluffed her curls as she left Drexel behind and drove two miles down the main highway to the two-story gray house where her best friend Marlena lived. A frown touched Dotty’s face. Marlena was in the hospital. She’d been attacked and nearly killed. The talk was all over town, and the details coming out of the hospital were just awful. Someone had raped Marlena with a tree limb. It was just horrible. And they’d cut her. They’d sliced her like a gutted cow.

Dotty forced that image from her mind and concentrated on the task at hand. As Marlena’s friend, Dotty was trying to help out by making breakfast for Lucas Bramlett. Lucas wasn’t a man who would know his way around a kitchen. He’d been raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. He liked to eat at six-forty-five sharp. Every morning. Marlena had told her that with a roll of her eyes. “Like the whole world will end if he doesn’t have hot food in front of his face at six-forty-five.”

Dotty had ignored Marlena’s sarcasm. Marlena didn’t appreciate having a man like Lucas. Dotty was Marlena’s best friend, but there were things that Marlena did that were just pure-dee self-destructive, Like complaining about making breakfast for the man who kept her in such style and comfort.

She stopped her car in front of the house and got out, admiring the gray paint job with the white trim, green plants, and white wicker lawn furniture on the front porch. It looked like something out of a magazine. Marlena complained all the time about keeping the plants alive. She said they drank more water than a thirsty field hand. The plants made the porch, Dotty could see that. As she walked across the wooden floor she touched the frond of a fern. The plant needed water. She’d be sure to bring some out. With Marlena in the hospital for God knew how long, Dotty decided on the spot that she’d come over and water the plants so they wouldn’t die. It was bad enough that Lucas had to worry about his wife hurt so bad and his little girl taken. He shouldn’t have to worry about plants, too.

Her knock was answered by Lucas himself. For all his grief and worry, he was impeccably dressed. “I brought you some breakfast, Lucas,” she said, inching the hot pan she held with a baking mitt toward him.

“Dotty,” he said, his voice not even surprised, “what a kind thing to do. Come in.” He stepped back so she could enter.

Dotty took the hot food to the kitchen, talking over her shoulder as she walked. “Any word on Suzanna?”

“None.”

She didn’t have to see his face to know that he didn’t want to talk about his missing daughter. “Let me fix you a plate. Just take a seat at the table, and I’ll serve you. Is there coffee made?” She looked at the untouched percolator. “I’ll put some on.” She loved working in Marlena’s kitchen. Everything was spotless, and there were all the latest appliances to work with. Cooking meals in such a kitchen would be a pleasure, not a chore like Marlena made it sound.

She put water and coffee in the pot and plugged it in. While it was perking she got a china plate and loaded it with a heaping serving of her casserole. She got the fresh butter that Joe Mergenschoer’s wife churned every other day and put chunks in two still-hot biscuits. She picked up silverware and a clean linen napkin from the drawer and took it all to the table where Lucas waited.

She put the food in front of him and allowed her hand to flutter over his shoulder, barely registering the feel of the worsted wool suit jacket. “I know this isn’t as good as Marlena can make, but I tried.”

Lucas laughed. “Marlena does good to scramble an egg without burning it. I didn’t marry her for her talent in the kitchen.”

Dotty stepped back. Marlena had never discussed her sex life with Lucas. Not because Dotty hadn’t tried to lead her that way. In fact, Dotty had often fantasized what it would be like to climb between the sheets with Lucas Bramlett. There was just something about him that made her imagination gallop. He had an air of command, like he’d do whatever he felt like doing. That excited her. She wanted to feel helpless and ravished, forced to climax by a ruthless man. Lucas played a large role in her fantasies as she lay alone in her bed each night. She realized he was talking to her.

“Jade stayed with Marlena last night. Could you manage to sit with her today? I have work at the real estate office.”

“Sure,” Dotty said. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you. I mean, Marlena’s my best friend.”

Lucas assessed her as if she’d suddenly spouted the formula for a successful stock buy. After a moment, he said, “I can see you want to be helpful.”

She felt the area below her bellybutton tighten, as if the muscles had suddenly bunched into a fist. Under the common words he spoke was another message. “Yes,” she answered, her voice breathless. “I want to help.”

She could tell that he knew how he was affecting her. His smile was nothing more than the lift of one corner of his mouth.

“Do you really want to help me?” he asked, putting his napkin on his barely touched food.

“Yes.” The word was hardly a whisper. She pressed her thighs together beneath the full skirt of her navy dress. She had the strangest idea that he could see up her skirt, see that she’d worn her fanciest panties with the white lace panel that covered the entire front. Her pubic hairs were a triangle of darkness beneath the lace, looking mysterious and feminine.

“Dotty, I know you’re Marlena’s best friend,” he said, scooting his chair back so he could face her, hands relaxed on the arms of the chair. His expression was mildly curious. “And you want to help me, is that right?”

He was playing with her. She knew that, and she liked it. “Yes,” she said, her thighs pressing against the sensation that crept through her lower body. She stood only two feet away from him, unable to move closer or away.

“Take off your clothes,” he said. “Lean over the table.”

The trees caught Frank’s attention first. He stood in the spot where Marlena had been found. He knew it was the exact spot because he found darkened earth where her blood had pooled. Had he not had the mental picture of her bloody body, he would have found the place beautiful. Old oak trees, limbs draping to the ground, created a circle. The morning sun slanted through the mossy limbs and gave it the look of a place where an ancient ritual might have been held, some Druid rite, he thought.

There was no sign of the Cadillac, but there was evidence that Marlena had stumbled through the underbrush until she’d fallen, unable to go farther. As he began to examine the ground more closely, he found traces of the story he sought. Her footprints led back to the river. Marlena had come up from the water, her right foot dragging slightly as she stumbled along.

He read the trail in the pine needles and thought about Totem Joe, a wind talker in the 101st Airborne, a unit that took heavy casualties during the war. Joe had been only a kid, a boy of eighteen whose real name was Joseph Longfeather. Totem Joe had been a nickname, one given in spite and accepted in friendship. Joe had taught Frank the art of tracking. Frank could still hear his soft voice with the rustle of
Cot
tonwood trees in it. “The earth tells many stories, if a man is patient enough and observant enough to read them.” Frank had decided that he would be such a man. Even though he was five years older, Frank had become a student of Joseph Longfeather. The two of them had done a good bit of tracking in the war. Joe had used his strange pecks and taps to send information he’d observed back to army headquarters. Totem Joe had saved a lot of lives, but not his own. Joe had been hit by shrapnel. Frank looked up and saw Joe partially hidden by one of the old oaks. He stepped forward, his hands holding his stomach where the shrapnel had cut him wide open. Blood and pink tissue peeked from beneath his fingers.

Leaving Joe behind, Frank followed Marlena’s trail to the sandy bank of the river. Her footsteps had left hollow indentions in the sand and finally disappeared in the brown current of the Chickasawhay. She’d come from up river, he could tell that by the angle of her footsteps as she came out of the water. She was trying to make her way east, toward Drexel, maybe. Or maybe toward the Chevy car, which he’d learned was registered to one John Hubbard. That was a long leap, but so far, no one had come forward to claim the car, and in Frank’s experience, folks didn’t just up and lose a mostly new Chevy on the side of a little-used dirt road. Marlena’s attack, the abduction of the girl, and the car were all tied together.

Thinking about the Chevy sent his thoughts to the Cadillac convertible. Lucas hadn’t said a word about the missing car. Of course, Lucas hadn’t been around to make statements of any kind, and the sheriff had ordered Frank not to go to the Bramlett house. On the two trips that Frank had made to the hospital yesterday evening and early this morning, he’d seen only Jade in the room. One time Jade had been sleeping while she sat in a chair, her head tipped back against the wall. The last time she’d been wiping Marlena’s face with a cool cloth. Even from the doorway Frank could tell that Marlena was not awake. He’d left without talking to either woman. He thought about that, about how he felt in the presence of Jade Dupree and her half-sister Marlena Bramlett.

The resemblance shared by the two women was uncanny, more a type of glow than a physical trait. One was lemon sherbet and the other burnished like pale wood. He couldn’t say which one was the more beautiful. That would be like trying to say what tasted better, steak or fried chicken. Jade was the older by two years, but it seemed to make no difference. They both had large eyes, one had a blue set and the other that impenetrable green. They were both slender, with graceful arms and hands and pretty legs. Marlena was blond, a pale ash shade that said money. Jade’s short hair was a cluster of brunette curls. He thought of the story
Black Beauty
when he looked at the two of them. It didn’t make much sense, but he always thought of Beauty and the other horse, Ginger. Inseparable, and when they were parted, one died. The women were like elegant horses of two different colors, but both thoroughbreds who could go the distance.

They lived within four miles of each other, yet Marlena had never been allowed to acknowledge her half-sister. Jade had been in the Bramlett house, but as a servant. She’d baby-sat the girl, Suzanna, and cooked for special events, and done Marlena’s hair. Almost like real sisters, but Jade had been paid for these services. That fact was well known in town. Lucille had made sure of it.

The unacknowledged kinship between the women was another indication of the power that Lucas, and through him Lucille, held over the town. Lucille Sellers Longier had slept with a black man, had borne him a child, yet folks pretended it never happened. With Jade standing right in front of them looking like a dark shadow of Marlena, they pretended she belonged to Jonah and Ruth. It was downright amazing.

Frank stepped into the deliciously cold water of the river, moving slowly so he could examine the bank. Once he found Marlena’s entry point, he’d be close to finding the scene of the abduction and attack.

As he moved upriver, his thoughts remained on Jade. He still had to wonder how Lucille had pulled off having the baby of a Negro and not been run out of town on a rail. The only thing he could figure was that folks were busy trying to survive the Depression. He moved steadily against the current, his gaze on the riverbank, his mind on the past. The 1920s had been hard for everyone, especially those who made their living from timber. Bad storms had leveled vast tracts of pines, wrecking the timber industry. Lucille’s family had not suffered, though. They’d hosted big parties with music and liquor. The way he heard it was that Lucille had taken to carrying on with a café au lait trumpet player from New Orleans. She got pregnant, and when she began to show, her folks sent her away, saying she’d gone to the Meridian School for Young Ladies. Before she came back, though, an infant girl appeared in the home of Jonah and Ruth Dupree, a childless black couple who worked for the Sellerses, and then later the Longiers.

Most folks had put two and two together, but nothing was ever said in public. Lucille, properly subdued by her experience, married Jacques Longier, a newly arrived Frenchman who hadn’t had time to hear the seamier rumors of the town, or maybe heard them and didn’t care because the Sellerses were wealthy and Lucille their only child. In truth, Jacques had been a poor businessman and a worse gambler. But Marlena was born during the second year of the marriage, thereby sealing the bargain.

Frank had traveled several miles upstream when he noticed several ferns had been uprooted on the bank. He waded over to make a closer inspection. Something had been dragged over the lip of the small bank. He moved a few leaves with a pencil. There was a dark stain in the sand. Blood. Using a tree limb he pulled himself up the bank, stopping when he found a cane pole thrown into the shrubs beside the river. He didn’t touch it, hoping he could lift some prints. His heart rate increased. He was closing in on the place where everything had gone wrong for Marlena and Suzanna. He was glad he was alone.