Isabella Moon (21 page)

“Did work call while I was in the shower?” Francie said. “With Sarah taking off, things are already going to be tight.”

Kate poured herself a cup of coffee and sat at the table across from Francie. She spoke gently, unsure how to approach this Francie who was suddenly, alarmingly, so much like her old self.

“Didn’t you say that they told you to take as much time as you need?” Kate said. “What about the funeral?”

Francie wouldn’t meet her eyes. She chewed steadily, watching her plate. Finally, she waved her hand dismissively. “The autopsy,” she said. “The coroner said it wouldn’t even be finished until the end of this week at the earliest. Those guys in the basement are slower than death.” When she realized what she’d said, she gave a little “Ha!”

But Kate couldn’t laugh. The mental image of Lillian’s delicate body exposed, naked on a gurney in a cold examining room, her flesh cut and breastbone broken, made her want to weep again, as she had on and off since Lillian’s murder. She wished that Lillian might have been spared the indignity of it all. But, of course, it had to be. The autopsy was critical to finding out who had killed her.

Francie, though, didn’t seem to be particularly disturbed by the notion. Maybe, Kate thought, it’s because she’s in shock.

“Are you sure you want to be there, Francie?” Kate said. “So close?”

“She’s not
there,
Kate,” Francie said, looking her in the eye. “Mama’s with Jesus, right? Isn’t that what she believed? Why shouldn’t I believe that, too?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Kate said. “I know that’s not really her. I just thought it might be hard for you to be at the hospital.”

Francie sighed. “You’ve been awfully sweet, Kate,” she said. “But I think it’s time for you to get back to your house. Your life. You don’t need to babysit me anymore. I’m not going to do anything drastic, honey.”

It was more than Kate could take. She knew that there was something wrong with Francie, that something had happened to change her, but she didn’t have the inner reserves at that moment to stand up to her, to take care of Francie the way Lillian had asked her to. She’d let Lillian down in so many ways. She felt her throat close up. Unexpected tears fell onto her cheeks.

“Kate!” Francie said, getting up from the table. “Stop it! She wasn’t even your mother, for pity’s sake.” She dropped her dishes in the sink with a clatter. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“And I don’t know what’s wrong with you!” Kate said, almost shouting.

Francie shut off the coffeemaker and the light over the sink before pushing past the table where Kate sat. Out in the hallway, she paused at the bedroom door.

“Quit acting like a baby and get your own life,” she called before shutting the door firmly behind her.

Kate sat for several minutes, trying to get herself together. She had already felt like she was losing her mind. Now, her feeling that she was somehow responsible for Lillian’s death added to the pressure. For the briefest of moments she thought about leaving Carystown. Running away had served her well in the past. She rarely even thought about Miles and Hilton Head now that they were several years behind her and would, she prayed, keep getting farther away. But there was Caleb to think about. And Isabella Moon. Somehow she knew that leaving town wouldn’t stop Isabella from reaching her.
But hadn’t she done what the child had wanted her to do?
Worse, Bill Delaney already suspected her of something, and he didn’t seem like the kind of man who would let her go easily. She thought of how kind his eyes had been when she’d come to his office the week before.
Had it been only a week?
How fast her life, so carefully crafted, now seemed to be flying apart.

It took only a few minutes to toss her belongings into her duffel bag. She glanced over the kitchen and the breakfast dishes that cluttered the sink and countertop. She’d come to the conclusion that Francie had just skipped some of the grief process, that because Lillian’s death had been so sudden and violent, Francie couldn’t be expected to react normally.

She was set to walk out the door, but not hearing any sounds from Francie’s bedroom, she decided to give the office a quick call to let Edith know that she’d be in after she stopped at home to get cleaned up.

Edith sounded breathless when she answered the phone.

“Edith,” Kate said. “It’s me.”

“Kate,” she said. “You’ll never guess. They’ve found that little girl’s body. They’ve found Isabella Moon.”

“No,” Kate said. “What do you mean?”

“Everybody’s talking about it,” Edith said. “Where are you? Are you still at home?”

“No,” Kate said.
Why hadn’t she known?
She felt a moment’s loss. Somehow she’d thought she would be there when the little girl’s body was found.

“Where did they find her, Edith? Did they say?” Kate heard the burble of one of the office’s other lines in the background.

“I have to go,” Edith said. “Janet’s called in sick and that might be her. Are you coming in?”

“Where, Edith? Where did they find her?” Kate said.

“In the colored cemetery, of all places,” Edith said. “Who’d have thought of looking in a cemetery?”

There was silence on the line, and Kate realized that Edith had hung up. She felt a small amount of weight lift from her chest. Maybe she wasn’t insane after all. Maybe she was as sane as homely, dull Edith.

As she closed Francie’s front door behind her, she felt better than she had in days. She hurried down the stairs and almost ran straight into Paxton Birkenshaw at their foot.

“Paxton,” she said. “Hello.”

“Kate,” he said. “Good to see you.” He gave her a quick smile and stepped around her to take the stairs up by twos.

She looked back after him until he turned at the landing in front of Francie’s door. She’d been startled by his sudden appearance, but she knew that he and Francie had known each other a long time. By the time she reached her car, he was out of her thoughts and she had decided that she would not go straight to work, but to talk to Hanna Moon.

20

IF PAXTON HAD SHOWN UP
at her door a week ago, Francie would have been unnerved. But seeing him there now, she was completely calm. She was beyond caring about what happened to her, or what might happen to the two of them. Now that her mother was dead, there was no reason to keep Paxton away from her, here or in public. There would be no lectures about how rich folk and middle-class folk didn’t really mix, no raised eyebrows at Paxton’s goofy behavior, his “unpredictability.” If her mother was beyond caring now, then she would be, too.

“Hey, come to Daddy,” Paxton said, holding open his arms. “I took the whole day off to be with you.”

“You sure took your time about it,” Francie said. “Where have you been?”

“Hush. That’s just your broken heart talking,” he said, coming over to the couch, where she had retreated after letting him in. “Look.” He took his stash box from his pocket and laid it in her lap. “I brought feel-better treats and everything.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Francie said. “You didn’t even like Mama, so don’t pretend you feel all bad.” She knew it wasn’t quite true. She knew he had maintained a grudging kind of respect for Lillian, but she felt like hurting him anyway. Nothing bad ever happened to Paxton. He was some kind of Golden Boy. Every kind of trouble he’d ever been in, he’d gotten out of in five minutes, no problem. When she started to get up from the couch, he restrained her gently, pulling her back down by her upper arm.

“Quit, you,” she said.
Where had this feeling of abandon come from? Pouty, angry, foolish—she could be anything she wanted!
“I’ve got to go to the funeral parlor to make arrangements for my mother.”

“Let me go with you, Francie,” Paxton said. “We’ll go to Obermeyer’s together and then we’ll go somewhere quiet for lunch. Anywhere. Out of town if you want.” She could tell by the look in his eyes that he was sincere. He didn’t even look high. But then, it was only ten o’clock in the morning.

She laughed. “Obermeyer’s? Paxton, honey, even in this enlightened age, black folk still go to their own undertakers.” She put a hand to his cheek. “You’re such a baby sometimes.”

His naiveté had touched her, and she felt her brittle mood break just a bit. What she really wanted to do was lie back in his arms and forget about the stupid funeral parlor and the way her mother had died.
Had that stiffened doll once been her mother? That thing with the pitchfork jutting from her back like some freakish handle?

“Now you’re going to have to let me take care of you,” he said.

Francie sighed. She knew that she was going to have to go to the funeral parlor, with or without Paxton—and she thought that
without
would probably be the better idea. But just at that moment, as she watched him lay out the coke on her coffee table, she was grateful for the rest from her grief, from Kate and her intense sadness. It bugged her how upset Kate was. There was something unseemly about her worn appearance, her immersion in sadness over the death of someone to whom she wasn’t even related.

They did the lines. When Paxton came close to her face, he told her to hold still, and he tenderly licked some loose grains of coke from the edge of her nostril.

Then, suddenly, he was on top of her, kissing her neck, her earlobes, her forehead. Francie knew it was wrong, with her mother lying in the morgue just up the highway. She knew that her life from this day would be forever different. When Paxton entered her—she was ready for him, always she was ready for him when he was close enough that she could feel his breath on her—she cried out, not from pain, but from relief of the pain she’d been feeling for days now. Finally—
finally
—the image of her mother’s empty and mutilated body was pushed from her mind.

21

WHAT SHE’D EXPECTED
from Hanna Moon, Kate wasn’t sure. She’d gone to the farm with the intention of comforting her, to let her know that she wasn’t alone in her grief for her daughter. Hanna had told her on the street days before that she knew Isabella had come to her, but Kate hadn’t wanted to admit that she was right. She just wanted to deal with the rescue—
of course,
rescue
was not quite the word, was it?
—of Isabella’s body so it would not have to lie, undiscovered and uncherished, in that grim little clearing behind the mausoleum.

Now, back at her desk, trying to concentrate on purging Janet’s client files of nonpayers, she wished that she hadn’t bothered with Hanna Moon. The woman was too far gone for help. Kate shuddered to think of Charlie Matter and the way he had stood behind Hanna’s chair, insisting on remaining in the room while they talked. He gave her the creeps with his long, theatrical mustache and his tattooed arms wound around with blue and gray snakes devouring each other. He had come to the door without a shirt and didn’t bother to put one on after she came inside. Kate decided that his single redeeming quality was the fact that he didn’t laugh at the two of them right off or try to patronize them, telling them that
sure
they’d seen Isabella’s ghost,
sure
she had led Kate to her grave. Charlie Matter reminded her of several of the men who had worked for Miles: she hadn’t known they were dangerous when she first met them, but something about their easy, accommodating manners—most, like Charlie Matter, were passable salesmen—made her afraid to trust them.

Hanna Moon wasn’t any different from when she’d seen her on the street: distracted and probably stoned, prone to going on about how Isabella would come to her at odd times, while she was working in the greenhouse, or even in the bathroom.

Kate had blushed at the thought.
Earthy
was the word her grandmother would’ve used for a woman like Hanna Moon. She would not have meant it as a compliment.

“Issy had no idea of privacy,” Hanna had said, laughing. “She would even come barging in when I was on the toilet! Usually, it would be after she’d been working with the honey. That honey. It was like a tonic to her or something. Like it would make her high. She smelled of honey, too. She always smelled of honey, my Issy did.”

Perhaps it was for her own reassurance that she had gone to Hanna, Kate thought, an act against the hope that it was the last she would see of Isabella Moon. After the previous night at Francie’s, she was beginning to feel as though she’d become some kind of magnet for the dead. Nothing in her past had prepared her for this freakish turn in her perception of the world. And she was starting to think that maybe it was all perception, that the dead were around her all the time, only she couldn’t always see them, hear them. It was as if some button had been pushed inside her, or she’d crossed some kind of line that made her a safe bet for them to contact her. All the same, she desperately wanted to be back on the other side of the line.

“Kate!” Edith called to her. “Did you hear me? Janet’s on line two.” She shook her head at Kate’s apparent wool-gathering. Edith didn’t approve of wool-gathering.

A split second after Kate rang the doorbell, Bitty Bit, Janet’s Maltese, began barking hysterically on the other side of the door. Remembering that Janet had told her to let herself in, Kate opened the door, only to have the dog rush at her feet to get outside.

“No, you don’t,” Kate said, sweeping the dog into her arms before it could get over the threshold. She closed the door. More than once she’d had to chase Bitty Bit through the yard while the dog ran ahead. Kate felt sorry for the dog. Janet was too busy to play with her much.