“I can see that she is,” Rayford Drew said. “Thanks, Sal. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Sal looked at Elnora. If she wanted him to stay, he would. She gave a slight shake of her head and he stomped to the door.
“I’ll be right downstairs.” Sal gave the other man a hard, meaningful look. “Cleaning up.”
His heavy footsteps trailed down and away. Elnora lingered at the door. The office wasn’t quite the mess it’d been on her last visit. A Corner Drugs calendar hung over a metal filing cabinet. Two wooden guest chairs were opposite his desk. One held a stack of papers, but the other was free of clutter. A gray pinstripe suit fresh from the cleaners hung on a hook and a pair of shiny black shoes was on the floor right below.
“Don’t be shy.” Rayford Drew held up the bottle. “Have a snort.”
She shook her head.
“I made it myself.” He laughed when she remained firm. “Come on. Sit down.”
She chose the empty wooden chair and pulled it to a respectable distance, realizing that sitting down was a first, as was his offer for her to do so.
“How’s that toilet working out?” The words came slow.
Elnora squeezed her hands together in her lap. Several days of strong humidity had already set her disposition on a wayward course. Then Cissy showed up at her door with her sorrowful tale. Holding her tongue in check for Rayford Drew and his penchant for insinuation would require more control than she was capable of.
“Graham Lee took the baby again.”
“Well. Shit.” He ran a hand over his face. “Here I thought this was a friendly visit.”
“Help me get her back.”
“That stupid sonuvabitch.” He reached for the shine, but didn’t open it. “I’m tired of this shit, Nora.”
“I’m not keen on it either.”
“Where’s the gal?”
“Does it matter?” She folded her arms.
He stared at her for a moment. Whether or not he resented her defiance, she couldn’t be sure. His eyes had darkened and were unreadable, as was his posture. Gone was the lustful man appreciating the form of a shapely woman. The calculating, decisive Donner sat there in his place. He closed the ledger, then took both it and the shine to the filing cabinet, which he locked.
“Let’s go.”
IV
The dark blue 1935 Pontiac coupe still carried the scent of leather on its seats. He handled the vehicle with ease even over the bumpy gravel road that led them off the highway and into the backwoods of Holcomb. Elnora had spent summers picking cotton out there and farther into the Delta. Sometimes the work even took her and the other children her age out of school. She’d hated the work and would never forget the oppressive humidity, relentless sun, and painful blisters that riddled her small fingers. Her twelfth summer found her working in the kitchen alongside a cousin at the country club. She hadn’t been out to Holcomb since, but those memories remained.
“All this is Donner land,” Rayford Drew said, puffed with pride. “From that marker all the way back beyond those trees. Has been for over a hundred years.”
She didn’t comment on who had worked their asses off to make it so.
He turned off at a mailbox. The bushes had hidden it from view. They continued on for half a mile. A cozy one-story cottage stood amidst a grove of pecan trees and honeysuckle bushes. A Dodge pickup was parked near the door. Rayford Drew pulled up beside it.
Other than the eerie quiet, Elnora noticed that the clouds didn’t loom as dark out there. They hung back as if they were saving their full power for Grenada and beyond. If Graham Lee had the baby, she supposed she’d rather Hattie not have clouds hanging over her head.
Rayford Drew headed inside first, calling for his nephew as he trudged across the porch. The silence, other than the elder Donner’s loud voice, unsettled Elnora. She sensed something was off before she crossed the threshold and discovered the front room in disarray. Rayford Drew’s voice echoed as he searched the rooms.
Plates and drinking glasses lay broken and scattered on the hardwood floor. A cotton sheet was in a puddle near an overturned end table and stuffed chair. A slip of paper caught Elnora’s attention. She stooped down and pulled it from underneath the sheet. It was half of a photograph. Someone had ripped the black-and-white image in two. Her unease turned to dread the longer she stared at the photo.
“What is it?” Rayford Drew asked.
She hadn’t heard his return. Nor was she surprised when he took the photo from her. He stared for a moment before handing it back to her.
“Don’t mean a thing.”
“That’s the three of them,” she said. “Him, Cissy, and little Hattie.”
“How do you know? Half of it’s missing.”
True, Graham Lee was torn off the photo, but his pale hand rested on Cissy’s knee plain enough for Elnora’s two eyes. Cissy was sitting up straight and pretty in that white lace dress she wore last Easter, a slight smile on her face. Hattie’s dress matched her mama’s and she was plump and happy, as a baby should be on her mother’s lap; a toothless grin revealed that she had not one care in the world. Who would want to ruin an image as innocent as that?
“That’s him in that picture,” she stated. “Where is he?”
“He couldn’t go far.”
“Why you say that?”
Rayford Drew went to the window and pulled the curtain aside. “That’s his truck. He’s probably fishing with his cousins or something. Maybe he didn’t take her.”
Elnora wasn’t sure about that. She stuffed the photo in her pocket and started to straighten the room. He stood at the door watching, neither protesting nor assisting. Inside the sheet, she felt a bundle and quickly shook it out. A little rag doll rolled to the floor. She recognized it immediately.
“That’s Hattie’s,” she said.
“Well hell.” Rayford Drew rubbed his neck. “He couldn’t have gone far with her.”
“Gone far?” She wondered if he was blind or just didn’t want to see. “Look at this room. It’s tore up! Something happened here.”
V
Elnora didn’t like trouble. Some people catered to it; they went out searching for it when things were too good and easy in their lives. Not Elnora May Harden. She avoided trouble like it was a black cat crossing to her left at midnight with a full moon shining bright in a cloudless sky. Omens were nothing more than bullshit, but she wasn’t about to test anyone’s theory. Still, trouble often had a way of finding her. Either whipping up a storm in her life or raising hell in the life of someone she loved. By now, she should have realized that trouble was as unavoidable as a hot Mississippi summer and a Baptist preacher who overstayed his welcome.
“Say something.” Rayford Drew took his eyes from the highway long enough to glare at her.
Ahead of them, cloudy skies loomed over Grenada, but only sunshine glowed brightly in the country town they’d left behind. She resented the difference. It was unreasonable, but she didn’t care.
“Nora—”
“I’m just thinking.”
“More like ruminating,” he said. “Worrying over nothing. He knew that gal would send somebody for him, so he took off with the baby. When he gets tired of playing daddy, he’ll bring her back. You’ll see.”