Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good (4 page)

‘Did you leave a message?’

‘I hung up.’

‘You could have left a message and when she comes in, she would call back.’ His wife didn’t know everything, not by a long shot. ‘Call her again at five o’clock.’

She sat up, took Violet in her arms, and wandered to the window, staring out. When his wife stared out windows, wheels were turning—walls may get glazed, chandeliers removed and replaced by lamps, draperies changed to a more seasonal color, and now what? Irene McGraw’s door was driving her crazy.

For years he had mildly resented her ardent labors at the drawing table, which for months on end took her out of his life into another.
He must have developed a kind of mental callus, for now he wished her there at the table in her small studio—the familiar sight of her bowed head as he walked down the hall, the crick in her neck that he would willingly rub out, her struggle to produce a higher work than she had produced before—even the rice bubbling and then burning on the stove would be a consolation compared to this meddling business.

He never thought he’d hear himself say it. ‘Go work on your book, Kav’na.’

‘Okay,’ she said, obliging, and turned and disappeared down the hall with her cat.

He couldn’t believe she was actually doing something that wasn’t her idea. This woman could take charge of his life like a house afire, but she had the poignant and childlike side, too, that moved his heart every time.

•   •   •

I
T
WAS
QUIET
next door.

After he and Cynthia remodeled the yellow house a few years ago and moved through the hedge from the rectory he’d purchased from the diocese, he had rented the place to Hélène Pringle. Hélène was a French-born piano teacher and, to his everlasting surprise, a half-sister of the deceased Sadie Baxter—a circumstance which turned out to be more rose than thorn, thanks be to God.

Subleasing the basement apartment from Hélène was Harley Welch, a sixtysomething reformed moonshine runner and gem of a mountain fellow, who once acted as self-appointed guardian to Lace Turner before her adoption by Hoppy and Olivia Harper—all that being an opera of considerable magnitude with many arias yet to be sung. Indeed, the basement had become home, also, to Dooley’s two younger brothers, Sammy, seventeen, and the nineteen-year-old
Kenny, recently returned from the four winds to which they’d been flung as children.

Suffice it to say, the trio made the occasional racket. In addition to the keyboard melodies pouring from Miss Pringle’s studio windows, ten until four, there was the racing of the engine of a derelict pickup on which the tenants labored into the night. No less clamorous was the hammering at the back stair treads which were slowly but surely being replaced. Through it all ran the threnody of country music from a boom box, turned full blast while reclaiming a rectory toolshed formerly lost to briars.

It was the stuff of life over there, though something of a blow to the neighborhood.

How the seemingly prim Hélène Pringle could bear all this, he didn’t know. She said a few weeks ago, when he found her weeding along her side of the hedge, that ‘they’ kept things ‘cheerful, more like a home.’

‘
Pardon moi
, Father, but before they congregated down there, I found the old place a bit . . .’ She looked up at him, apologetic. ‘. . .
morose
,’ she said in the French way.

Now you could hear a pin drop. Before they arrived home from Ireland, Harley had taken the boys to visit a branch of the Kentucky Welches, and Hélène had flown to Boston to settle her mother’s estate.

He found himself pacing the floor, as if waiting for something unknown.

•   •   •

H
E
PORED
OVER
HIS
CALENDAR
and a stash of notes scribbled to himself.

A Rotary meeting. A Kiwanis Club dinner. Cleanup day on the lawns at Children’s Hospital.

Return the call from the mayor—he was pretty sure Andrew Gregory wanted him to run for town council, an idea he’d dodged for years.

A request to speak to a clergy group in Holding.

The cure in Hendersonville looking to fill their pulpit for a month.

And there, of course, was the unopened letter from the new bishop. The new bishop. He had liked the old bishop.

He wasn’t busy enough, pure and simple. And yet such a list didn’t engage him at all. Dashing uphill and down, his tongue hung forth like a terrier’s, had lost its luster.

In the years he was heaped with responsibility and a flock that buzzed about him like bees, he’d been fine—except, of course, for the two diabetic comas. He had never lacked for something to do, some problem to solve, someone to try and make happy. Then came the course in clergy counseling, and the contemporary notion that he couldn’t possibly make someone else happy, such business was entirely up to the other person.

He wished, albeit briefly, that Emma Newland was still his erstwhile secretary. She would call around and cancel or decline as he directed, and leave most of them afraid to try again.

In sum, he wanted more out of life than meetings and dinners and confabulations of every sort and kind. He had thought Holly Springs and Ireland might give him some answers, but both seemed only to emphasize the questions, What now? What next?

He supposed he would do as he had always done—he would perform whatever duty his calendar dictated, and he would try to like it.

•   •   •

S
HE
MADE
YET
ANOTHER
CALL
AT
SIX
-
THIRTY
.

‘Still no answer,’ she said. ‘I left a message.’

‘The towel was damp when we were there this morning around nine,’ he said, musing.

‘So let’s say she left soon after. It’s six-thirty now; that would be—at least nine hours. Would you leave our front door open for nine hours?’

‘Only if I forgot it was open when I went out through the kitchen to the garage and drove somewhere.’

‘Maybe she drove to the airport and is gone for two weeks to . . .’ She threw up her hands, unable to think of a destination.

‘Ibiza,’ he said.

‘Do you think we should call the police?’

‘I do not. You know Rodney Underwood. He would rope off the house with yellow tape, and such a crowd of squad cars and theatrics you’d never see again. The poor woman couldn’t get in her own driveway when she comes home.’

‘It’s a good thing there’s a glass storm door, at least the bugs and squirrels can’t get in.’

He opened the
Muse
to finish what he had started hours ago.

‘But since it will be dark soon,’ she said, ‘don’t you think we should go up and close her door? Wouldn’t that be the neighborly thing to do?’

Here was his all-time favorite
Muse
column, Mayhew’s Mitford. Worth the cost of the paper right there, as Hessie Mayhew knew everybody’s business and wasn’t afraid to tell it.

‘Timothy?’

He glanced up.

‘This
is
Mitford, after all. Remember what we say about ourselves.’

‘“Mitford takes care of its own!”’ He quoted their longtime, albeit former, mayor’s classic slogan.

She made a beeline for the key rack. ‘I’m going up there.’

‘I’ll just get my shoes on,’ he said.

•   •   •

T
HEY
HAD
HOPED
for the welcome surprise of seeing Irene’s car garaged next to Chester’s, but it wasn’t there. They pulled into the
driveway. In the approaching dusk, a nearly full moon had risen; the house had a vaguely lost look.

‘We should have called the post office and asked if she put a stop on her mail.’

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘about the message light that was blinking. Maybe there’s a phone message that would give us a clue.’

‘We could try it. Should we?’

‘Maybe,’ he said, getting out of the car.

They stood on the front stoop, indecisive. There was a definite drop in temperature, as often happened when the sun dipped behind the mountains.

They stepped into the dark entrance hall. He wasn’t feeling so good; something in the pit of his stomach. What was it about an empty house, any empty house where the human or even canine spirit was absent? He looked up to the stair landing, nearly vanished in the shadows.

‘I just remembered,’ he said. ‘We don’t have a password to pick up her messages. Besides, I don’t really want to go up those stairs.’ They were not his stairs to go up.

‘How about her windows being open? What if it rains? Did you hear a weather forecast? It’s hurricane season.’

‘They were up maybe two inches, for Pete’s sake.’ He was curt without meaning to be.

She looked at him, wounded. ‘Sometimes rain blows sideways.’

She appeared twelve years old in the diminished light. Though she’d recently had her sixty-fourth birthday, she was occasionally mistaken for his daughter.

‘I’m leaving,’ he said. ‘This is it for me.’ He took her arm, felt her stiffen.

‘Did you see that?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Something moved out there.’

‘Like what?’

‘A person, maybe. To the right, in the driveway.’

They were fresh from a burglary in Ireland, and a lawless freak jumping from the armoire in their room . . .

He saw movement, too, then; a blur through the glass door. The sudden impulse to run with his wife out the back door came forth as paralysis. He couldn’t move.

‘Deer,’ he whispered, hoarse.

‘Yes?’

‘As in doe and buck. They’re after what’s left of the hosta.’ They came in families most nights to the Kavanagh hosta, but only after they finished off the azaleas.

She was trembling, an ash leaf; his heart hammered. Dear God, for the comfort of home, the innocence of his dog’s snore . . .

Maybe She Who Always Had an Idea would come up with something; he didn’t know what to do.

‘We can’t stand here all night,’ he said. It was fish or cut bait. ‘Stay there, don’t move, it’ll be fine, I’m going out.’ But only if he could walk with knees turned to water.

The movement of the door latch was nearly inaudible.

His wife’s shriek; an inferno of white light emptied into his face.

‘Put your hands where I can see ’em.’

He said something unintelligible, his vital forces blinked off.

‘Father Tim?’

Another blaze of light, a young face, a gun.

‘Joe Joe?’ he said, aghast.

Joe Joe grabbed him as he fell and stood him against the doorjamb like a cooked noodle.

‘I can explain everything,’ he said. But why bother? Let his wife do the
talking.

I
’m off,’ she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

‘To?’

‘Concrete World, for a birdbath and two frogs under an umbrella.’

‘Don’t do the frogs,’ he said. ‘Go and be as the butterfly.’

Out she went to the garage, in breezed Puny from the stoop.

‘It’s your short day,’ he said. ‘You don’t have time to torment me.’

‘I’ve always got time for that, Father.’

She was mischief itself, he could see it coming.

She removed her sweater, rolled it into a ball, stuffed it in her bag, put the whole business under the counter, and stood up, grinning.

‘Joe Joe says you fell out when he shined that light on you.’

‘And shoved a Glock .45 in my face. Wouldn’t you fall out?’

‘I’d drop dead on th’ spot.’

‘The truth is, I did not fall out, as you say; my knees went weak, that’s all. I trust he won’t be spreading such foolish news around town.’

She took the cushion off a kitchen stool, pummeled it. ‘He would
never say a word, but I don’t know about Officer Greene, th’ ol’ so-an’-so. He might tell Ruby, an’ then, you know, party time.’

‘Party time?’

‘Everybody will know you fainted. But that’s okay, men faint a lot, it’s not just women that faint. A woman tells her husband she’s havin’ twins, an’ what does he do? He falls out. A man goes to th’ doctor an’ when he hears th’ bad news, he pitches headfirst off th’ table.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I have a friend who’s a nurse in Wesley. She says men fall out all th’ time.’ She gave what-for to another stool cushion.

‘Did Joe Joe do that when you announced you were having the girls?’

‘He actually did, I forgot about that. Hit his head on the bedstead.’ She was having a pretty good laugh about it. ‘It didn’t hurt him none, though.’

‘What about the second time around?’

‘Cool as a cucumber. Lord knows, twins don’t run in that family, they gallop. It’s nothin’ that ever come out of my family, I can tell you that.’

‘So tell Joe Joe I’ll keep quiet if he’ll keep quiet.’

‘More coffee?’

‘Half,’ he said, holding forth the mug.

‘All that uproar over nothin’,’ she said. ‘Who wouldn’t git in their car an’ shoot down to Georgia with their door wide open? Especially if her daughter was havin’ a baby a whole month early an’ lost th’ last one. If one of my girls was in that fix, I’d be leavin’ my door blared open, too.’ She rattled a handful of flatware out of the dishwasher and into a drawer. ‘It’s a good thing her neighbor spotted your car over there and called th’ police. It’s nice to know people still keep an eye out for each other.’

‘All’s well that ends well.’ He snipped the coupon from the
Muse
.

‘Seven pounds four ounces and a great pair of lungs, she said when Joe Joe an’ her neighbor called down to Georgia. An’ think about it—if you and Miss Cynthy hadn’t gone over to check, who knows what criminal element might’ve backed a truck in there an’ emptied th’ place?’

She lifted the lid on the Dutch oven, peered in. ‘Are you movin’ Barnabas down today?’

His heart sank.

‘I’ll help you. It’s got to git done.’

‘No, no. I mean yes. Monday. I think Monday. He likes it up there, you know. That’s home.’

‘But he’ll like it down here, too, once he gits used to it. Y’all are down here so much, it’ll be company for ’im. Where’s Miss Cynthy at?’

‘Buying a birdbath and two frogs under an umbrella.’ Actually, that was his wife’s code for buying art materials in Wesley.

‘She don’t need to buy those frogs, ever’body has frogs under a umbrella. You could not
give
me frogs under a umbrella. Does she want these beans cooked?’

‘She does.’

‘Did she soak ’em overnight?’

‘She did.’

‘Did she add ginger?’

‘I believe so.’

‘What are you doin’ today?’

‘Lunch with J.C. and Mule.’

‘Fancy Skinner’s sister is movin’ here from Tennessee, she’ll have ’er own chair at A Cut Above.’

‘So I hear.’

‘You need a trim really bad.’

Here it comes, he thought. For a full decade, Puny Guthrie had monitored his barbering regimen—in truth, had a particular zeal for it.

‘I had a trim a couple of weeks ago.’

‘That was in Ireland,’ she said.

‘How much could it grow in two weeks?’

‘I been wantin’ to say it, but I hated to—they left it too long. It’s throwin’ money down th’ drain when they leave it too long, I can tell you that.’ Out with the mop bucket.

‘Miserere nobis.’

‘What’d you say?’

‘Talking to myself.’

How many times had he wanted to tell her to back off, he had a wife to mind his business? But he couldn’t say that to this spunky mountain girl whom he loved like a daughter. Puny had ministered to him as tenderly as any angel before Cynthia came on the scene—trouble was, she never stopped doing it, and he didn’t have the heart to rebuke her.

‘You said you’d never go back to Fancy again in this life, an’ Lord knows, I don’t blame you, but maybe her sister would work out. It’d save you th’ trip to Wesley. You know th’ price of gas these days an’ Joe Joe says it’s not goin’ down anytime soon.’

Talk about meddling; he was a novice.

She ran hot water in the mop bucket and turned, green eyes wide, to pin him to the wall of the study.

‘So?’ she said.

‘So, what?’

‘You know. What I brought you.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, stiff as a board. ‘A very helpful household hint.’ End of discussion.

‘It sure made you nicer this mornin’.’

He fled upstairs to don his running gear.

•   •   •

‘I’
M
HAVIN
’
TWO
CHILDREN
’
S
PLATES
,’ said Mule, looking pleased with himself.

‘Why a children’s plate?’ said J.C.

‘I want to see if it’s any good; it’s their new promo.’

‘And why two, for God’s sake?’

He didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation, but he’d give it a go. ‘He likes children,’ he told J.C.

‘So order one children’s plate,’ said J.C., ‘and if you don’t like it, you won’t be stuck with two.’

‘But I really like macaroni and cheese,’ said Mule.

‘Which comes with a grilled cheese sandwich, for crap’s sake. You want to detonate your arteries?’

‘You only get half a grilled cheese with it.’

‘But if you get two plates, one each with half a grilled cheese, that’s a whole grilled cheese plus a double macaroni and cheese. Why not just order a grilled cheese and a side of macaroni and save a buck fifty? I thought you liked to pinch a penny.’

‘I want two children’s plates, one at a time.’

‘If you ain’t th’ cuckoo clock,’ said J.C.

‘Leave him alone,’ he said. ‘Let the man order what he wants.’

‘But he’s not goin’ to like havin’ two children’s plates. You don’t even get a pickle with that deal.’

‘Children don’t generally enjoy pickles,’ he said, conciliatory.

‘And look around. Do you see any children in here? I don’t see any children in here, which tells you where this promo is headed.’

He examined the menu card.

‘I guess you read about Fancy’s sister coming in?’ asked Mule.

‘I did,’ he said. ‘Clipped the coupon this morning.’

‘She’s single.’

‘Aha.’

‘I heard she’s movin’ here to look for a husband.’

‘She might want to rethink that,’ he said.

Lunch and dinner only

No breakfast served, you are on your own

Soup of the day: Cream of chicken

Pie of the day: Cherry

Special salad of the day with our homemade poppyseed dressing

Try our house specialty: Banana pudding—sorry about leaving out the bananas last week

For restroom key, ask Mindy

‘I think I’ll have the special salad,’ he said.

‘Maybe I’ll have that, too.’ Mule looked hopeful.

J.C. did an eye roll. ‘Every wife’s dream—for hubby to have a salad.’

‘What’s in the special salad?’ asked Mule.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It just says special salad.’

‘You’d order a salad and not know what’s in it?’

‘Why not? Whatever it is, you get fiber.’

‘You order salad just for fiber?’

Why did he continue to have lunch with these clowns? Had he been a bona fide psychiatric case all these years and people were too kind to confront him with the truth? Lunch at home, that was the ticket. Or better still, in Wesley once a week, to get out of the house. Mule was too cheap to drive to Wesley for lunch, and J.C. went to Wesley only on Thursdays, so if he avoided going to Wesley on Thursday, he would have complete freedom the other four days to do what he wanted, and with no dithering conversation thrown in. It came to him that under such circumstances, he’d be at liberty to eat a whole
pepperoni pizza with nobody the wiser. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of this before.

He rechecked the menu. ‘Or maybe I’ll have the vegetable plate.’

‘What are th’ choices?’

‘Green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, cooked apples . . .’

‘I don’t like green beans.’

‘. . . black-eyed peas, coleslaw, glazed carrots . . .’

‘Nothin’ glazed for me,’ said Mule.

‘. . . sweet potatoes, or cabbage. Choose three.’

‘How would mashed potatoes and gravy go with cooked apples?’ Mule eyed J.C., who refused to comment. ‘But maybe not, maybe th’ gravy would run into th’ apples.’

Pizza, his wife would say to the coroner.

How do you know that, ma’am?

I smelled pepperoni. He could never fool me.

Their favorite server, a young mountain girl with consummate charm, was nowhere to be seen. Someone tall, big-boned, and tricked out in an apron and cowboy boots was taking orders.

‘That’s th’ new owner,’ said Mule. ‘She sold her other place down th’ mountain. Cracker Barrel came in and she went out. Heard this place was up for sale an’ jumped on it.’

‘News you can use,’ said J.C.

‘We pumped regular together at Lew’s this morning.’

‘Hello, boys.’

A hand shot his way. He stood and shook it.

‘Father Kavanagh?’ she said. ‘Wanda Basinger.’

‘Ms. Basinger, this is J. C. Hogan, editor of the
Mitford Muse
, and I believe you’ve met Mule Skinner, our erstwhile realtor, at the gas pump. Welcome to Mitford.’

‘So this is th’ Turkey Club I’ve heard so much about.’

‘Where’s that young woman used to wait tables here?’ asked Mule.

‘I had to let ’er go.’

‘Let her go? What for?’

Wanda Basinger raised an eyebrow. ‘She was nice to th’ customers.’

Mule adjusted the knot in his tie, stricken. J.C. mopped his forehead with his napkin. As for himself, he sat down.

‘We’ll start with you, Mr. Skinner, what are you havin’? I can recommend the special salad with Gruyère, sliced figs, and onion.’

‘Sliced figs,’ said Mule, dazed. ‘Onion. No, thanks.’

‘The cows’ll come home before you get an order out of him,’ said J.C. ‘I’ll have th’ chopped barbecue plate, double hot sauce, double fries, double pickles, and a large root beer.’

‘A man who knows what he wants. Father?’

‘The vegetable plate. Coleslaw, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, hold the corn muffin.’

They all looked at Mule; J.C. drummed the table with his fingers. ‘Sink or swim, buddyroe.’

Mule faced the wall, avoiding eye contact with Wanda Basinger. ‘I don’t know,’ he snapped. ‘Ask th’ father.’

‘Bring him two children’s plates,’ he said. ‘One at a time.’

•   •   •

‘I’
M
NEVER
COMIN
’
BACK
HERE
.’ Mule stared at children’s plate number two, disconsolate. ‘Who would fire a girl like that? She was th’ best thing they had goin’. She always gave me an extra roll and butter, and extra whipped cream on th’ chocolate pie. Since when is it a crime to be nice to customers? Right there is what’s wrong with th’ world today.’

‘How was the barbecue?’ he asked J.C.

‘Good. Real good. Amazing barbecue.’

Wanda was patrolling the room with a water pitcher. ‘Everything all right over here?’

Mule shoved his untouched second order to the side.

‘Would you like this in a take-out, Mr. Skinner?’

‘For my dog.’

‘Whose barbecue was that?’ asked J.C.

‘It was yours, honey, you’re payin’ for it.’

‘What I mean is, who made it?’

‘Somebody in east Tennessee.’

‘The menu says it’s North Carolina barbecue.’

‘You do not have to live in North Carolina to make North Carolina barbecue. Just open th’ vinegar bottle and pour it in there, you can do that in Tennessee, Mississippi, or Detroit, Michigan.’

‘May be a little misleading,’ said J.C.

‘North Carolina is a
style
of barbecue,’ said Wanda, ‘just like Memphis is a
style
of barbecue. My husband makes Texas barbecue without steppin’ foot out of our backyard on Little Mitford Creek.’

She filled their water glasses.

‘If you know what you’re doin’—an’ my husband, Lloyd, knows what he’s doin’—it tastes like the real thing, you can’t tell it from th’ real thing. You take Kansas City barbecue, they make it over in Alabama and Arkansas and all around down there . . .

‘. . . which,’ she said, taking her leave, ‘would make that a
style
of Kansas City barbecue.’

‘Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide in this town,’ said J.C., slapping a couple of quarters on the table.

•   •   •

T
HEY
STOOD
ON
THE
SIDEWALK
and watched Mule head out with his Styrofoam box.

‘I didn’t know Mule had a dog.’

‘He hasn’t had a dog since fifth grade,’ said J.C. ‘He’ll eat the second go-round when his stomach settles down. That woman needs to be rustlin’ cattle, not hustlin’ food.’

‘She does make Velma look cordial.’ J.C. had engaged in a verbal
brawl with Velma Mosely, co-owner of the old Main Street Grill, thereafter taking his lunch trade to the tea shop.