Farthest House (41 page)

“However it comes down, I’m gonna swing.”

“No. I’ll take his car to the river. I’ll leave the lights off, everything looking fine, like he just stepped out and into the water. I’ll leave his whiskey bottle on the seat, open, empty.”

“You don’t drive a car.” He was stirring, agitated, but moving.

“Watch me! I need you here starting the heavy work, and if you were to get caught in that car….” I shuddered to think. “If there’s a fingerprint left behind, it needs to be mine.”

He looked in the direction of the trees. “I still got dark.”

“Where would you go? They’d find you. One week, two weeks. I can’t do this without you.” I nodded at the log of flesh on the ground. “If that thing is found, and you’ve run off—even if I claim responsibility—there will be
‘Wanted’
posters with your picture sprouting up on every tree and in every storefront across the fifty states. How you going to escape, if you can’t even board a train?” I gave him a minute to consider what he’d have to face. “I can’t keep you here. You’re a free man, but I don’t think running is your best chance.”

I was walking up and down alongside the body, wringing my hands, something I’d been doing since dropping the stick. I hated begging, but considering what a mob would do if they caught him rammed a stake through my heart. Even if he was brought in alive to face a jury, highly unlikely they’d bother with the formality, Luessy was already considered half-crazy for saving his life the first time. She wouldn’t be believed again; she’d spent all the good faith folks had in her, and trying to save him over her daughter? Oh, God in heaven, she’d try and fight for the truth, but no mother deserved having to condemn a child.

I didn’t know what was right and couldn’t reason through all the probabilities with a dead body already stinking of old blood, and time a crucible lowering over us, but I knew I wanted Jonah to stay close. We were his only family. I didn’t want anything to happen to him that didn’t happen right here, where I could run into the fray and knock off a couple of heads.

“I need you,” I said, “and you need me. That beast got his just desserts, and we don’t deserve the trouble his body could bring. He won’t be missed. Folks down the hill know all about his chasing one new pot of gold after another or some young thing with bobbed hair and a cigarette. They don’t care if he walked into the river or left his car to crawl into some floozy’s.”

“Except if a black man can be blamed. Then they care.”

How could I answer? He knew better than I. “A few bored locals might pull on fishing waders and tramp around in the water for a bit, but they won’t waste more than a morning. By the time their noon burgers and fries are set on the table, they’ll be done with it.”

“Sheriff comes to tell Miss Luessy about the car, sees the stones all tore up?”

Jonah would stay. I stood shaking, realizing it wasn’t because I’d made a lick of sense, but because he simply wasn’t running again. He wouldn’t have his name tacked to this murder, which leaving would do, and he wouldn’t be forced from his garden and his bees. On top of that horrible list, he’d become an old man. Running was for the young, those who could jump trains, climb trees, and scavenge.

“People aren’t murdered in Greenburr,” I was pleading my case. “Bodies aren’t buried under patios here. That only happens in books. The sheriff gets reelected because he hasn’t got the imagination of a garden toad and beds down with the sun. That way no one’s teenage son is arrested for drinking or speeding. He wouldn’t think murder, if one happened in
his
kitchen.”

We’d already wasted precious time, and Jonah would need help. The cracks winding through the flagstones would give him a place to stick a crowbar or the tip of a shovel, but the work would be hard. Still, I needed to settle Victoria first. Again, I feared for her mind, and I had to clean up the massive amount of blood in the kitchen.

I’d read all of Luessy’s books, and I knew many of the ways murderers fouled up, leaving clues, and getting caught. I had to find out how Victoria really killed Phillip, especially if I intended to take the blame. If there was some obvious evidence I was missing, I needed to get rid of it. I steered her back through the kitchen door, her body trembling against mine, her feet stumbling with fear. Her terror made me stop and call over my shoulder. “Jonah, you remember this: Victoria is innocent, too.”

I sat her down with her first-ever glass of sherry. I used buckets of water from the kitchen sink, scrubbing, dipping, and wringing out my rag until the water turned so soiled I couldn’t bear putting my hands in it again. I poured the soup into the toilet and refilled my bucket with fresh water, over and over again.

With the kitchen clean and scalding water poured over the threshold, I coaxed Victoria out of her clothes and into a warm bath. Two hours, maybe more, had passed since I first walked into the kitchen, and still she sobbed and trembled. If her mind skipped away and she couldn’t be trusted to keep quiet, if she climbed to the roof-peak like the village idiot and sang, what then?

I poured her a second glass of the sherry, the only liquor Luessy kept in the house for when Bess Streeter Aldrich visited. “Keep drinking,” I said. “Sleep, forget what happened. Sip. Sip. Sip.”

The glass trembled against her teeth, the fortified wine running red over her chin and onto her chest and into the bath. “Why’d Jonah do that?” she asked.

Was it possible? Was the mind so malleable that enough trauma could twist it into a new shape? Was she really convinced Jonah had done the killing? Even though
her
body was covered in blood? Again, I thought of Sabine. Hadn’t her mind just finally given out?

I helped Victoria hold the glass, tipped it to her lips, slowly, the way I helped her learn to drink milk as a toddler, coaxing her to finish the sherry, and finally helping her into bed. All I wanted was for her to sleep. I knew she’d have to be watched, possibly for months, even years, but I couldn’t think of that then, only that I’d stay close, keep her under my wing, and give her whatever sherry she needed to sleep through the night.

In the darkness of her room, waiting for her to sleep, I strode back and forth at the foot of her bed. My heart pounded with all I still needed to do and wondering how Jonah was faring. Then, I began to see: the dresser mirror lay shrouded with a ghostly sheet, as if she never wanted to see herself; her hope chest was thrown open, and the tea towels and aprons and handkerchiefs we’d embroidered were strewn about the room and soiled—looking stomped on with dirty shoes. Even the movie posters of Loretta Young and pictures of Anita Page taken from movie magazines were pulled from the walls, crushed, and torn on the floor. Dried and emptied Datura pods, the poisonous, almond-shaped harvested seeds, lay on the dresser.

Luessy worked on a new novel:
Mad Apple,
and I’d given her the idea of doing away with several characters by using locally grown toxic substances. She and Tory had followed me down to the river and through Thomas’s wood to pick Datura seedpods, and Luessy even visited a chemist at the university in Lincoln. They came up with a possible combination of mushrooms and plants so poisonous even dumb cows knew to avoid them. It was a mixture that could
conceivably,
when combined with alcohol, prove fatal.
Mad Apple
was still a work of fiction, and she had the recipe so vaguely written that she never supposed someone would try and copy it.

I stood in that dark room, Victoria tossing in her bed, while I wrestled with my dread. Had she figured out an exact formula, or was she just lucky? My stomach rolled, and I promised myself she had happened on to a lethal dose. Because if she hadn’t, if Phillip had only passed out, she’d taken a rake to a live man. A rake she knew would cost Jonah his life, as well.

49

Tory’s funeral ended and finally, the post-funeral luncheon hosted by Greenburr’s Altar Society. Willow walked toward the parking lot and Clay’s car, with one arm slung through his for support. Prairie, with her little-tyke gait, scuttled ahead of them.

Standing at Tory’s gravesite, Willow had refused to mumble along with the prayers, and she looked across Tory’s casket to the headstones of Jeannie, Papa, and Mémé, all possible victims of Tory.

Prairie continued her toddler running, getting as many as twenty steps ahead.

“Stop, don’t go so far,” Willow cried.

Clay slipped his arm from hers, hurried up on Prairie’s heels, and swooped her into the air. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Don’t let her down. Keep hold of her.”

He turned to Willow, raising an eyebrow at the panic in her voice.

“I know,” she said. “I may never be relaxed again. Deal with it.”

“Give yourself time.”

She still had Tory’s room to clear, that stifling closed-up dungeon, where more dire findings might still be lurking, the filthy nests hanging from the ceiling, likely full of dead spiders, the boxes of dolls likely mixed with bees. She wouldn’t leave it to Mable. Clay would help; she wouldn’t be able to keep him away, and if there were more secrets, he’d help her destroy them. Maybe then, maybe with that task out of the way, she’d feel better.

She couldn’t be sure when she had her last dose of poison, at least the three days since Tory’s death, but with the prior crippling weeks, the discovery of Tory’s room, the sheer horror of Tory’s death, and her own role in that, she felt as exhausted as she had all summer long. She scolded herself for not feeling more relaxed. She needed a break from thinking about anything connected to Farthest House. “Could we drive out to Briarwood and see the library?”

Clay’s face brightened, “You got it.”

The afternoon was warm, and at the car he removed his coat, tossing it into the back where he strapped Prairie into her seat. Watching the two of them gave Willow hope. As crazy as the last few months had been, she still had things to be thankful for, and as Clay drove, she looked out over the serene lawns and family homes. This was her hometown, now, and she needed to fit herself into the rhythms of its people. She needed to build a life forward, an artist’s life.

Clay reached over, the back of his hand running a warm line down her jawbone from her ear to her chin. “However it unfolded, Tory is the only one responsible.”

She did her best to smile. Of course Tory’s death was Tory’s fault. But entirely? Tory hadn’t been alone in the library, and Willow wished there was a way of going back to that moment before she traded cups. She wouldn’t. She’d carry the tea back to the kitchen and dump it. Pride and anger made her challenge Tory. She knew Tory would never back down.

Greenburr continued to pass by her car window. So many times Papa had driven her down this road. Papa. Now that Tory was dead, she’d do exactly as he did, hide more truth than she told. Except this time, no one was going free, and no more people would be hurt.

Clay pulled onto the campus grounds, driving slowly over the narrow and winding streets and past old buildings. “
Loeffler Hall,
right there,” he said. “My office, second floor.”

She could see through the glass panes in the heavy wooden double doors to a broad wooden staircase. She sighed, remembering the delicious weight of new textbooks and the groan of such stairs in ancient collegiate buildings. “Who’s Loeffler? Another rich alumni?”

“He was one of the music world’s greatest and most famous composers. The music hall is in the basement.”

“Sounds noisy.”

“I don’t hear anything unless I go downstairs, which I love doing. At the top of the stairs is a replica of a large, charcoal portrait of Loeffler, the work of John Singer Sargent.”

“Really?”

He enjoyed her surprise. “You’ll want to see it. Someday, we’ll visit Boston and see the original, if you’d like.”

From the backseat, Prairie began singing a sleepy-sounding song, her small hands clapping. Students moved between classes. Two squirrels ran one after the other across a green lawn. Everything
looks
peaceful, Willow thought, and yet, her stomach fisted and sent pain shooting toward her ribs.

“There it is,” Clay said.

They parked at the curb. The library sat twenty yards away, across a wide sweep of grass. Groups of students sat in pairs or small clusters beneath stately burr oaks spared during the library’s construction. At the building’s entrance, balloons bobbed on strings, and carved above the door was the inscription,
Luessy Starmore Library.

Studying its size and the new stone and glass, Willow couldn’t help but wish Papa and Mémé were there to see it. “It’s beautiful.” The pride on Clay’s face pleased her. “Mémé would love this.” She lifted a shaky hand and ran a fingertip down his jaw, solid, yet soft. Flesh and spirit. “You really like being here, Greenburr and this school.”

“It’s become home. I am happy here. What would a bigger, over-crowded university offer me? Probably a much smaller office for one thing, so many students I’d never learn their names or anything about their lives, and have less time to write.”

From the backseat, Prairie kicked in her seat, and Clay reached over and squeezed her toes through her soft shoes. “Okay, okay,” he said. And to Willow, “She’s ready to get out and move.”

I ought to be ecstatic,
Willow thought.
I have
everything I wanted.

“Hey, if this is too much too soon,” Clay was studying her expression, “we can do it another day.”

“I thought I was ready, but seeing the library…,” she stopped, thinking of all the time he spent on the project and how she had whined about one thing or another their entire relationship. “It’s beautiful, it’s amazing. You don’t see any yellow cars, do you? Or Tory’s ghost peering out from some shadow?”

He looked around, “No. Do you?”

She took a deep breath. “We’re here. I’d love to see it.”

“We won’t stay long. Next time though, you’ll have to suffer the campus-wide tour.”

She stepped into the warm air while Clay unstrapped Prairie, and she told herself her uneasiness was just nerves. She’d spent so much time afraid, that now, fear nested in her hair.

They started up the walk, Prairie in Clay’s arms when he stopped. “Hang on a second, I’m going to grab my coat.” He set Prairie down and turned back for the car. “You never know who you’ll see. Tory’s funeral may have pulled donors from the woodwork.”

Prairie started off in the direction of the balloons. Willow started after her but caught herself.
Today’s the day. The day I start learning to relax.
Prairie wasn’t running for the street, but away from it, and twenty pairs of eyes watched her.

Two male students passed, hardly catching Willow’s attention until one stopped. “Hey,” he said. “How you doing?” A smile cracked across his face.

She smiled back. She supposed she might not have caught his attention had she been in a pair of jeans, the every-campus uniform. But in her black skirt, quitting just above her knees, and her heels, she stood out.

Beside the car, Clay unrolled his sleeves before reaching for his coat. “Hey, Butler,” he called, “the lady is with me.”

Both students turned to him and grinned. “Dr. H., how you doing?”

Willow wanted to run back to the car and kiss Clay for announcing their relationship to his world, but she couldn’t let Prairie get too far ahead. She mouthed the words, “I love you.”

His voice rose over the top of the car, “Very well, I might add.”

On the sidewalk, Prairie moved quickly, still with a toddler’s forward tilt, as though her feet tried to keep up with the rest of her body. “Prairie,” Willow called. Something unquiet had begun to tick in her ears, “Stop.”

Half way up the walk, Prairie did stop and turn to watch Willow.

Safe
. Still, breath by more rapid breath, Willow found she struggled to pull air into her lungs. Each gasp left her more desperate. She opened her mouth wider, wheezed harder for oxygen, and felt as if her lungs were quitting on her. Her peripheral vision began to darken, heavy curtains slowly closing on a stage. A classic panic attack? A heart attack? Would she actually drop, or worse, in front of Prairie? She waved her hand, tried to shoo her daughter on, keep her from seeing. “Balloons,” she said. “Prairie, get the pretty balloons.”

Clay caught her as her knees buckled. “Whoa, there, you okay?”

Slunk against his chest, the world spun, but she managed an apology. “I’m sorry,” or hoped she did. Her voice sounded reedy in her ears.

He held her tight. “Come on, let’s get you back to the house.”

The world continued to circle. She didn’t understand the ticking, only that it came from within the listening, talking place. It wasn’t residual poison in her system, but the “listen up” hollow, where she saw images of crones, where warnings caught her, and she’d seen Papa dying.

“Prairie,” Clay called, “come on back, now.”

His voice in Willow’s ear startled her. Pieces rattled down and clicked into place.
Mary was there.
The line from my journal slammed into her head.
I, the one who knew him.
She was the only one who truly knew Mary. Then a second line from my journal:
Death rides into a village holding the reins of three horses.
Papa and Tory, Willow counted, her heart hammering. “Prairie! Get Prairie!”

“She’s okay,” Clay said, “I’m watching her.” Willow twisted in his arms, but he held her. “Hang on would you? Let’s get you in the car first, Prairie’s not going anywhere.”

Trees spun faster. The ticking increased. Her dizziness put Prairie there and there and there. She struggled to force words that would not rise over the crest of her panic. She heard Mary’s threat from nearly two years earlier:
Your baby is going to die, too.
“Get Prairie,” she was sobbing.

“Okay, okay.” He let her go, took a small step back, but kept his hands out as if he might have to catch her again. “Calm down. You’re scaring the hell out of me. I’ll get Prairie, and we’re going straight to the hospital.”

He had heard her words, but the way he hesitated told her he didn’t understand the urgency. “Prairie!” she wailed.

A yellow car.
Impossible. She didn’t know from which direction the car approached, possibly it dropped from the sky or swelled up through the ground.

The TR6 jumped the curb behind a parked car, bounced onto the grass, settled on its shocks, and headed for Prairie.

Willow’s reaction was instinctive. Before her mind could think of the best thing to do, her arms lifted into the air, and she stepped from Clay and onto the grass, waving, “Here I am.” Leaving Clay baffled, keeping herself the center of Mary’s attention.
Not this time, not again,
she told herself,
nothing and no one would take another from her.

She’d keep herself the target while Prairie escaped. How simple it seemed now, she and Mary. That’s how it started and should have remained. She wanted to yell but didn’t dare for fear the sound would distract Prairie. “Come on,” she only mumbled through clenched teeth. Mary couldn’t kill her. Tory hadn’t been able to. Papa’s death hadn’t. She waved her arms, both arms feeling strong, healthy, and fixed.
Come on.
She’d need only a second, half a second to jump behind the oak at her side.

“Hide!” Clay shouted. He pushed her behind the tree, upsetting her balance in the shove.

“No,” Willow screamed, as Mary’s attention turned to Clay and then to the child he raced toward. Time slowed, nearly stopped, as milliseconds curved in slothful loops. The yellow car changed trajectory, slow now, too. Mary could take both, double the loss, wait for just the right moment when together they entered her riflescope.

Students in the car’s path screamed, cursed, and scattered. Hearing the fright made Prairie, who’d reached the steps, turn and look back with fear. She saw Clay and began running back into the open, back to him, her arms out, her tiny dress flouncing, her small soft shoes patting, her face stricken.

Willow lay paralyzed on the ground. Her body frozen, as frame by frame the unfolding images struck her. She couldn’t outrun Clay, and she couldn’t look away.