The Marriage at the Rue Morgue (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) (16 page)

That Alex was brawny and ragged, with a drunk’s sweaty sheen and scruffy hair. His eyes in those days had been perpetually dilated and his beard unkempt. Although he dressed nicely, it was always in loud colors. A bright red polo shirt and tight blue jeans with the inevitable hat. Tonight, his clothes could only be called conservative. A sooty white button-down shirt with gray pleated pants tucked into those boots. His beard was neatly trimmed, his body language subdued, and the sweat on his face seemed to be from exertion. Lance was right. His brother had changed. But how much?

I tried to pay attention to what Alex was saying. It was hard to tune into his voice now, when the last thing he had said to me, the last thing I could actually remember, was a week before he came after me with the phone base. He said, “See ya, babe.” I couldn’t remember him talking at all to me when he beat me that last time. Although those memories were hazy, and I preferred them that way, I now strained to call back a single word of his. But nothing came.

I
said lots of things. I screamed for help and begged him to stop, and apologized for Nicole’s call that I’d had no control over. But I don’t think he said a word. Just grunted with the effort of holding me down while he beat me bloody. So the words he was saying now kept sliding back in time and sounding like other words, as I tried to remember something besides, “See ya, babe.”

Finally, I grasped some of it. “We didn’t want to make a big deal. Noel’s folks don’t know the half of what’s been happening, and Pop and I didn’t want to upset the apple cart. So I rode with them to keep an eye on her, but she seemed OK. She was . . . even when it was awkward with Noel’s parents, with me being here and you not, she acted normal. Then she said she forgot her purse in the car. I got into a conversation with your sister-in-law’s husband, and I guess too much time passed. I meant to keep an eye on her. I swear I did.”

“But what happened?” I demanded.

Joining us, my father said, “We’re not entirely sure. Those are my fuel cans there, for the bush hog.” In the years since Granton burned and disappeared, much of the former town had returned to farmland. My parents owned, along with the parcel that the house stood on, two additional fields. I didn’t know what use they planned to make of them. Possibly they were an excuse for Daddy to buy a tractor and drive around mowing them.

Now that he mentioned it, I could see one of his big five-gallon plastic gas cans discarded some distance from the car.

Alex went on, “The next thing we knew, there was a bang, and Mom was running all over the yard screaming,
‘Burn, baby!’
”

Daddy said, “Mama and I called for the fire department, and the police arrived not long after that.”

Lance said softly, “Anything at all to drive a wedge.”

Alex looked down and then away, toward the fire.

Long before the wreck that had been my car had finished burning, I went inside alone. I suppose since Alex wasn’t staying at our house, I could have gone home, but I didn’t want to face my guest room closet with five thousand dollars’ worth of stolen casserole dishes or look at Lance’s father, or at my driveway, where my little blue Mazda should have been sitting.

I went upstairs and got in the shower, only to have the door rattle open right behind me.

“Occupied!” I shouted to whichever member of my family
couldn’t
hear the water running.

“It’s me,” Lance said. Couldn’t he tell I was using the shower to get away?

And then he got in.

“What are you
doing
?” I demanded.

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he pulled me close against him and held me while the water ran down over both of us. Eventually, before the water got cold or someone really did barge in, we got out and went to bed. But I didn’t know whether either of us was really looking forward to tomorrow.

“Aunt Noel? Are you awake?”

For a moment, I thought it was ten years ago and Rachel was spending the summer. She used to get me like this in the morning, whispering, concerned that she might be disturbing my slumber. Of course, she was. I never went to bed before midnight, and Rachel never got up after six. However, now, as then, I rejoiced in her gentle voice. What a glorious way to wake up on my wedding day.

“Yes,” I said quietly, smiling as I opened my eyes, feeling like we really could move forward without Art, like we could get married without a best man. After the car debacle last night, Nana had come to my room to sit with Lance and me for a little while before she went on to bed herself. She called Art a great heart. She said his spirit would be with us, even if his body was elsewhere. Waking now, I thought
I hope so, Nana,
before I returned my mind to the young woman who had come to get me like she used to when she was a child.

Rachel was not a child anymore. She was seventeen now, and Marguerite would not want her oldest in the room with Lance while they were both in pajamas. My sister read sex into everything her two oldest daughters did and said, fearful of becoming a grandmother too soon. It didn’t matter that she wouldn’t suspect Lance specifically of harboring intentions toward her children. She mistrusted
all
males where her slender dark-haired girls were concerned. Besides, I wanted to let Lance sleep. “Let’s head down to the kitchen,” I said.

Rachel didn’t answer right away. I turned my head and saw her kneeling beside the bed. Once again, I was transported back to those summers when she stayed with us. Marguerite insisted she was too young the first summer. She said, “She’ll be home before the first night is over,” which would have been awkward since they were living in Schenectady, and Ohio to New York was no short drive.

But she needed the child care. Brenda, at three, was too young to send away, and the last months of that pregnancy with Poppy had gone very badly for my sister. Mama went up to stay with the family, to cook, clean, and care for Marguerite. I came for a weekend, but I couldn’t stay because I had a job. Moreover, I had only recently escaped my relationship with Alex and tentatively begun one with Lance. I didn’t like to be away from work and home long. I offered to take Rachel home with me, promised to keep her a safe distance from the animal enclosures and generally protect her from harm. (Alex was safely locked away in a rehab program at the time.)

Although Mama and Marguerite never would have admitted it, two young children in the house with Marguerite overwrought and on bed rest would have been a strain. Which was why I got to keep the leggy, thoughtful Rachel at all. There had been one long tearful night when I thought Marguerite might be right, but the second morning Rachel had come to me like this, kneeling, serious, whispering me awake to ask, “Can we go meet the monkeys now, Aunt Noel?”

But this morning, my niece did not want to go see the monkeys. This morning, something was wrong. Her oblong, olive-skinned face was tear-streaked, and she was still sniffing a little. She turned her head, and our eyes met. “Help me,” she whispered.

“Oh, honey.” I sat up and pulled her into my arms. “What is it?”

She nuzzled against my shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she said in a choked whisper. “I wasn’t thinking of the dress.”

“The dress?”

My wedding gown was still upstairs on Mama’s dressmaker’s form, waiting for me to lift it up and put it on tonight. If one of the siblings had done something to it, I’d be more inclined to suspect the eight-year-old Bryce, with his fondness for stairs and boundless energy, not the cautious, responsible Rachel.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she repeated, “about the wedding. I was . . . it was after Mom tried to cancel senior prom.” She looked at me in mute appeal, suddenly wary. Marguerite had lobbied the school board to halt the dance rather than allow a lesbian couple to attend. One of the girls was a close friend of Rachel’s, and Rachel joined her friends in supporting the couple. After one horrible rally with mother and daughter hurling insults across a parking lot, Rachel simply picked up and moved out.

There had been a couple of rocky weeks when both my sister and my niece called me nightly expecting comfort and support. In the end, Marguerite relented, realizing that her relationship with her daughter was more important than a dance. Rachel had come home, but the damage Marguerite had caused was permanent, and now the two didn’t talk much to one another, even though they shared a house again.

I patted the bed beside me, since it seemed we wouldn’t be heading down for breakfast yet. Rachel climbed up and asked, “You’ve seen the dresses, right? Mom e-mailed pictures?”

Ah. The bridesmaids’ dresses. Because I would have put this off also until late, Marguerite had simply taken the detail out of my hands. She demanded to know my colors back in January and assigned me some when I refused to pick. By March, she had her children perfectly outfitted in powder blue and sea foam green, and I had one less thing to worry about for June. And she
had
e-mailed pictures. I had never actually opened the attachment. Lance and I had instead allowed my sister to figure out the groomsmen’s vintage colored lapels by working with my friend Hannah in her vintage store down in Ironweed.

Marguerite had been in her element coordinating Art, Xian, and Chesley to match Rachel, Brenda, and Poppy. Handy that she lived in Cleveland now, not all the way up in New York. The prom debacle was in late April, after the bridesmaids’ dresses had been selected. I was getting a glimmer of what my niece might be talking about. Lance was awake now, perched up on his left elbow, stroking my back with his right hand. I turned my head and briefly met his eyes. He shrugged with his right arm, and I knew that whatever my niece had to say, he would be fine with it.

“I haven’t seen them yet, love,” I admitted to her.

“Oh.” Rachel seemed to be thinking this over. Then she said, “They really are pretty. You know Mom. She’d never do anything gauche.” She paused. “Here’s the problem. Mine has spaghetti straps. And that was the last thing on my mind. And, oh Aunt Noel, I’m so sorry.” It looked for a minute like she was going to cry, but she didn’t. She also didn’t say anything else. She lapsed into one of those Rachel-ian silences that indicated complete discomfort with a topic.

“Rachel,” I said, “Whatever it is, you know I support you. We support you.”

She smiled at that and leaned heavily against me. Finally, she said, “I went and got a tattoo. And Mom hasn’t got any idea at all, and I can’t stand for her to find out.” She hunched over to rest on my shoulder. She had gotten too tall to cuddle up to me comfortably, and I regretted it, because she needed holding. I did the best I could, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into a tight hug.

Finally, I said, “A tattoo’s not such a bad thing. Some are really nice. Let’s see it.”

“It really is. Nice, that is.” She rolled up one of her nightgown’s long sleeves. At the top, the tattoo covered her shoulder, then vanished into the nightgown’s fabric. At the bottom, it extended a couple of inches toward her elbow. It featured a young woman’s face in profile. The artist had captured Rachel’s upturned nose and oblong eyes beautifully in ink. But instead of long dark tresses, the tattoo had rainbow hair. I stared at it for a little while, then said, “Honey, if you want this to show in the wedding, it is absolutely fine with us. Right, Lance?”

Lance was sitting all the way up now, studying Rachel’s shoulder from behind me. “Yes,” he said. “Absolutely.”

“It’s not you. It’s Mom,” Rachel reminded us.

“It’s a little bit big to cover up with an adhesive bandage,” I pointed out.

“I know. I even tried one of those big knee-sized ones, but the rainbow actually wraps up over my shoulder. Mom’s no dummy. She’d ask questions.”

“That she would,” I said. “How did you even get it without some kind of parental consent?”

“Oh, you know,” she said. “It was April, and I was living on Lisa’s couch. And you know Cleveland’s Pride community really ...”

“I’m sorry, what?” Lance interrupted.

“Pride,” Rachel said. “You know. Gay pride.”

“Ah,” he said. “Sorry. Not awake.” Then he added, apparently thinking now about her sleeping on anybody’s couch, “You could have come to us, you know.”

“Little far to drive to school every day,” Rachel said. “And we were pretty busy with the protests. But thanks, Uncle Lance.” Then she suddenly burst out, “I wish I hadn’t moved back in! It would have been better if I’d stayed away, but I didn’t want . . . I mean, she’s my mom, and I’m already . . .” Rachel’s sentence trailed off. She didn’t need to finish the statement. Her choice to attend college in the middle of the Arizona desert, about as far from her mother as she could manage without leaving the country altogether, was another sore spot for my sister.

“The tattoo,” I said. “How did that come about?”

“Oh. Yeah. Lisa’s uncle was pretty pissed . . . sorry . . . pretty furious with Mom.” Rachel still blushed when she swore. Or anyway, when she did it around us. I was pretty sure that by her age I had been deliberately cursing in front of my parents entirely to enjoy their reactions. It was strange that a girl brave enough to stand up to her mother at a rally still got embarrassed over mildly bad words in front of her aunt. Rachel continued, “Lisa and I have been friends since grade school, and Lisa went through so much crap when she came out, and to have her best friend’s mom try to turn her into an untouchable over prom . . .” My niece dissolved into silence again, and it took several minutes of back patting to bring her back around.

Finally, she continued. “It was awful. Not only that half the community didn’t want Lisa and Nancy at prom, but that it should be
my
mom leading the pack. Anyway, Lisa’s uncle does tats. A couple of the organizers helped me come up with this one and he inked it. But when Mom backed down, I didn’t want to throw it in her face so much. If I can get to August, I’ll be gone, and when she sees me on holidays she’ll think I did it at school.”

“Which means,” I said, “that we have”—I paused to check the clock—“a little under twelve hours to do something about those spaghetti straps.”