When the Wind Blows (29 page)

   Jerome and Claire Jennings were silent as they drove home from the marshal’s office, but once they were inside their house, Claire stared dully at her husband.

“It’s the Ambers’ fault,” she said bitterly.

“Claire,” Jennings said. “You can’t mean that.”

“I can. It all goes back to them, just like everything in this town goes back to them in the end. If they hadn’t tried to reopen that mine, none of this would ever have happened. It’s just like Kim Sandler, and
her not even buried yet. The quarry should have been fenced, and the mine closed.”

She began sobbing inconsolably, and Jerome slipped his arm around her.

“It’s the will of God,” he whispered.

Claire jerked away from him, her eyes suddenly angry. “The will of God,? What kind of God would kill an innocent little girl in a coal mine in the middle of the night? It was something else, Jerome, and you know it! Don’t talk to me about God!”

“Claire—”

“I’m sick to death of God! Why can’t He leave us alone? First Elliot Lyons, then Kim Sandler, and now—now—” She couldn’t finish and began sobbing again. The doorbell rang, and Jennings stood up to get it, but Claire clung to his hand.

“Come in,” he called. The door opened, and Joyce Crowley stepped inside.

“Claire,” she said, her voice filled with sympathy. “Oh, Claire, I’m so—”

“Go away,” Claire Jennings said brokenly. “Get out of my house and don’t ever come back. This is your fault, too, you know!”

“My fault?” Joyce echoed. “I don’t understand—”

“It was your son’s idea to go out there, wasn’t it? Even though you tried to blame it all on Jay-Jay? How could you?” Suddenly she was on her feet, an accusing finger pointed at Joyce. “Jeff! It was Jeff and you and your friend Diana!” Joyce stared at her, then shifted her gaze to Jerome, who could only shake his head.

“She doesn’t mean it,” he whispered.

“I mean it,” Claire hissed. “My baby’s dead, and you all might as well have killed her yourselves!”

“Claire, you
can’t
mean that,” Joyce began, but by now Claire was becoming hysterical.

“I do!” she shouted. “It was you, and Diana Amber, and that little brat Christie! Maybe Jay-Jay was
right—maybe Christie Lyons did kill Kim Sandler! Well, I only pray they’ll turn on you next! Now, get out of here and leave me alone!”

Stunned, Joyce backed out the front door. As she made her way home she could hear Claire Jennings’s words echoing in her ears, and she knew that something had begun. Claire, in her grief, would talk to her friends, and her friends would listen to her, no matter how irrational she was. Within a few days Amberton would be split down the middle. There would be those who would know that Jay-Jay’s death had been accidental, but there would be the others, too.

There would be those who preferred to gossip.

It never occurred to Joyce that the gossips might be right.

19

The late-June sun was beating down on the cemetery, and in the dry heat dust swirled near the ground. Even the trees—the willows whose shade was usually inviting—seemed tired and forlorn.

Edna Amber, her face stony and her gaze fixed steadily on the small coffin that contained the remains of Jay-Jay Jennings, tried to ignore the whispering of the people around her. Over the years she had grown used to being talked about, though she liked it no better now than she ever had.

Today, though, was worse than anything she could remember. It had been bad enough three days ago at Kim Sandler’s funeral, when the townspeople, numbed with shock at the death of Jay-Jay Jennings only hours before Kim’s service, had stood in the cemetery, staring at the coffin of one child while thinking of another. And every now and then they had glanced toward Diana Amber and whispered amongst themselves. Edna had quietly realized that the people, rightly or wrongly, were already beginning to gossip.

And now, three days later, Alice Sandler and Claire Jennings had done their work, whispering to their friends that in the end, all of what had happened came back to Diana Amber, and her negligence. In a strange way it amused Edna that she didn’t seem to share the blame with her daughter—apparently she had reached the age when, though still respectable, she was no longer considered responsible. And yet, as
she steadfastly closed her mind to the whispering, she realized that something had to be done. A gesture had to be made. And as the funeral began an idea began to form in her mind.

For Diana, who stood next to Edna with Christie’s hand firmly grasped in her own, it was even worse. She couldn’t ignore the whispering, and even though she couldn’t hear all of what was being said, she understood the gist of it.

Somehow she was being held responsible for Jay-Jay’s death.

Joyce had called her the day after Jay-Jay had died and tried to explain what was happening, but Diana hadn’t been prepared for the coldness emanating from the group gathered at the grave site. The chill seemed to reach out to her like a serpent, threatening to strangle her.

Slowly the little cemetery filled with the friends of the Jenningses and with the curious, too: those people who, though they had had only an acquaintanceship with Jay-Jay Jennings, were suddenly aware that something was going on in Amberton and had come to whisper and stare.

Esperanza Rodriguez was there, standing close to her son. Dan Gurley, using the gossip of the town to reinforce his own conviction that Juan Rodriguez was guilty of nothing more than having discovered a body, had released him the day before. With his mother, he stood at the edge of the crowd, watching.

Eventually the Crowleys arrived. Joyce led her husband and son over to the Ambers. Diana smiled gratefully at Joyce and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“It’s almost like they think I killed Jay-Jay myself.”

Joyce nodded sympathetically. “I know. I’ve been getting some of it myself. If I ain’t with ’em, I must be agin ’em, as the saying goes. It’s like being a stranger, even though I grew up here. Matt didn’t want to come at all, but I won’t give people that satisfaction.”

Diana shook her head sadly. “Well, at least they’re not after Juan anymore.”

“Great!” Joyce said, her voice bitter. “Now all you have to do is lock yourself in jail till someone else dies!”

“Joyce!”

Joyce grinned crookedly. “I’m sorry. I guess this whole thing has me more upset than I thought.” She paused and nodded to Mrs. Berkey, who was glaring at her. Mrs. Berkey did not return the greeting.

A few moments later Jerome Jennings stood up, and the crowd fell silent. His sonorous voice cracking with emotion, he began praying for his daughter’s immortal soul.

   When the service was over, Christie looked up at Diana.

“Are we going to the Jenningses’, like when everyone came to our house when my father died?” she asked.

“I—I don’t think so,” Diana stammered. She looked to Joyce for support, but it was Edna who spoke.

“We’ll go home,” she said. Then she paused and turned to Joyce. “I don’t suppose you’ll be going to the Jenningses’ either, will you?”

“I doubt it,” Joyce said dryly.

“Then come to our house,” Edna said. If she noticed the shocked expression on Joyce’s face, she gave no sign. “Diana will make some lemonade, and we’ll have a chat.”

Without waiting for an answer, Edna walked away from the grave site, her back straight, her cane held confidently. As she made her way through the crowd she spoke to no one, but a path seemed to open before her. When she was out of earshot, Joyce turned to Diana, her expression so comical that Diana almost laughed out loud.

“Did she mean that?” Joyce asked.

Diana, as shocked as Joyce by the invitation, could only shrug. “She must have.”

Matt, standing with his wife, scratched his head. “I wonder what she meant by ‘a chat’?”

Now Diana did permit herself a small chuckle, though there was little humor in it. “With Mother, that could be anything,” she said. “But she must want something. You know how Mother feels about the—” She broke off, embarrassed.

“—the peons?” Joyce finished for her.

“I—I wasn’t going to say that,” Diana stammered.

“Of course you weren’t,” Joyce agreed, patting Diana’s arm. “You’re too polite. But let’s not kid ourselves.” She brightened. “However, since most of the town is no longer speaking to me, I might as well be received at court. Do you think you can spike my lemonade with gin?”

“I can try. Do you want to follow us out to the ranch?”

Joyce shook her head. “I’m going to hang around here and see just who is still speaking to me.”

There was the sudden blaring of an automobile horn, and Diana looked quickly toward the parking lot, where Edna was standing next to the old Cadillac. “We’d better get going. See you in an hour?”

“Probably sooner,” Joyce replied wryly. “I have a feeling I only have about twenty minutes worth of friends left.” Then, tucking her arm through Matt’s, and taking Jeff with the other hand, she began circulating through the crowd, speaking to everyone.

Very few people returned her greetings.

   “Shall we use the living room?” Diana asked her mother as she lifted a large cut-glass pitcher down from a high shelf.

“I said I wanted to have a chat,” Edna replied. “I didn’t say I wanted my house invaded. We’ll use the yard.”

Diana didn’t protest. She began squeezing lemons, while Christie, her face pale, sat silently at the table.

Diana looked at her worriedly. “Are you all right?”

There was a silence, and then, her voice quavering, her eyes brimming with tears, Christie asked a question.

“Why is everybody dying?”

Diana set her knife down and moved to Christie, slipping her arms around the shaking child. “They aren’t, honey,” she said softly. “It’s just been a terrible three weeks, that’s all. Sometimes it happens.”

Christie shook her head doubtfully. “Am I going to die, too?” As Diana’s eyes suddenly darkened Edna decided it was time to intervene.

“For heaven’s sake, child, don’t be morbid. Why don’t you make yourself useful and get the glasses out? And use a stool!”

“I can reach,” Christie said, hastening to obey. She crossed the kitchen and reached up to the shelf where the glasses stood. One of them teetered for a moment, then crashed into the sink. Once more she had made a mistake, and she turned to see which of the Amber women would mete out her punishment.

Edna, however, was stalking out of the kitchen, and Diana was simply staring at her.

“I’m sorry,” Christie apologized as she began picking the shards of glass out of the sink. “It was an accident.”

Diana smiled at her gently. “Don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone now and then.” Diana finished squeezing the lemons and added water to the pitcher. “Want to taste this?”

Christie made a face at the pitcher. “Not till you put the sugar in.” As Diana began adding sugar the little girl looked at her expectantly. “Well, am I?” she asked.

“Are you what?”

“Going to die.”

Diana paused, then shook her head. “No, you’re not. You’re going to stay here with me. You’ll always be my little baby, and I’ll always take care of you. All right?”

Christie was silent for a long time, turning the matter over in her mind. Finally she nodded her head. “Okay.” The matter apparently put to rest, she put the glasses on a tray and took them outside. As she was setting them on the picnic table, the Crowleys came up the driveway, with Jeff standing up in the bed of the pickup, his arms spread out on the roof of the cab.

When the truck came to a stop, he climbed out and faced Christie. “Guess what? The Gillespies and the Penroses are still speaking to Mom, so we’re not lepers after all.” Then he looked at his father quizzically. “Dad, what’s a leper?”

“It’s what you’re going to be if you don’t stop telling everyone every word your mother says,” Matt replied, swatting at Jeff’s backside but missing.

Diana came out the kitchen door with the lemonade pitcher, and a moment later Edna, too, emerged from the house.

“Matthew,” Edna said formally, extending her hand in what Joyce could only think of as a regal gesture. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting us, Miss Edna,” Matt replied, matching her formality so perfectly that Joyce had to stifle a laugh. Edna, if she noticed it, chose to ignore the parody.

“Is lemonade all right, or would you like something stronger?” she asked. “I think Diana keeps some liquor over the refrigerator. There’s bourbon and gin, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Mother,” Diana protested. “You’re making it sound like I hide it.”

“Well, don’t you?”

Diana reddened and looked helplessly at Joyce. “All women hide the liquor, Miss Edna,” Joyce said
quickly. “It’s more fun to have a drink if you can feel sneaky about it.”

Edna suddenly smiled. “Well, then, I think I’ll just be sneaky, too. Diana, why don’t you bring out whatever we have and some soda water.”

“Soda water?” Diana echoed. By now the group had drifted over to the picnic table, except for Jeff and Christie, who had headed for the barn.

“Your father drank bourbon and soda. If it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.”