“Wanda’s boyfriend?” It didn’t make sense until I remembered that Wanda was about four years older than Ed. That distinction hardly matters in your thirties, but when Ed and I were twelve, Wanda would have been Rennie’s age.
“Yeah. A football player that Wanda was sweet on named Glenn Wilson. He died a few years back in a car wreck. He was seeing Rennie, secret like. She thought I didn’t know, but I did.” She sniffed. “A white boy and a black girl couldn’t really have dated out in the open then, but I saw ’em kissin’ on the porch one night. God, it made me mad. I tried to tell her she had no business datin’ a white boy, but she didn’t pay me no heed. She always went for fellows she thought she couldn’t have.”
I remembered Glenn Wilson. He’d been a big, likable guy, easygoing, popular in town. He’d played football for Sam Houston State and married a college sweetheart. I even remembered hearing about when he and his wife had been killed three years ago, driving back to Houston after the Labor Day weekend. Everyone said what a terrible shame it was.
Had he gotten Rennie Clifton pregnant? Had Wanda or Ivalou found out? How would they? And why, still, was she out in the middle of that storm?
“Did you know Rennie was pregnant before she died?”
Mrs. Clifton shook her head. “No. She didn’t tell me. I guess she knew, though. Her period was always real regular.”
Maybe she’d seen a doctor. Maybe-I remembered the clinic. “Did she ever mention a fellow named Steven Teague?”
Mrs. Clifton furrowed her face in thought. “Not that I recall. Who’s he?”
“A psychotherapist who lived here around the time Rennie died.”
She shook her head. “Don’t recognize the name. Rennie was a handful, but she sure weren’t crazy.”
I knelt by her again. “Did you ever think that Rennie was murdered, Mrs. Clifton?”
She took several deep breaths. “I didn’t want to. I wanted to believe it was just God callin’ her home. When they told me she was with child, I thought that Glenn had killed her when he’d found out… but that didn’t seem right. He wasn’t the kind of boy to kill. That Wanda, though…” She left her sentence unfinished. “There wasn’t no evidence she’d been murdered. The coroner said it was an accident. I couldn’t argue. I didn’t.”
“Was there anyone else you suspected?” I asked.
“No. No one else wanted to hurt my girl. She didn’t have many friends, she kept to herself, she worked at Miz Purcell’s, and she helped me out some with my work.”
“She helped you with your housecleaning?”
“Yeah, she sometimes helped if I had a big house to clean.”
“Who were you working for when Rennie died?” She scratched her chins, and began rattling off names. Grayson, Kucerak, Hubbert, Montgomery-names that didn’t connect to the case. I didn’t bite my lip till she mentioned Hart Quadlander.
I parked the car in my driveway, noting automatically that Sister’s car was still gone and neither Candace’s nor Clo’s car was there. I only hoped that Mama hadn’t been left to her own devices.
I rubbed my eyes. I’d left Thomasina Clifton forlorn with her oversweet Kool-Aid and a load of terrible memories to mull over. I was a jerk, no doubt about it. The limp body of Rennie Clifton rose through the currents of my memory, as clearly as when I’d first seen her corpse, and I tried to force her out of my mind. Trey’s body replaced hers, and then Clevey’s face, smiling in a rictus of death. The gagging cherry taste of the Kool-Aid came back into my mouth and I swallowed hard. I needed food and sleep and some quiet to think.
I thought I’d get those restoratives right away. Until I opened the front door and saw my house had been ransacked.
13
“Your tie is crooked,” I said, straightening the dark knot at Mark’s throat.
“Does it matter?” He squirmed under my ministrations.
“Yes, it does matter. You want to look nice for your father’s funeral.”
“No one’ll care. He wouldn’t have.” Mark twisted away from me, knocking his tie further askew. I surrendered and watched him storm off. He’d passed from pretending that he hadn’t seen his father’s life leak away on that cold kitchen floor to anger toward Trey-and toward the world. And I, friend to his father, bore the brunt of most of Mark’s wrath.
The back door slapped against the frame as he bolted onto the porch. I settled on the couch. The house had returned to a semblance of order after I’d found it in disarray yesterday afternoon. At first I’d figured we’d been burglarized, but nothing was missing. Drawers were pulled out, papers scattered, books yanked from shelves, pictures wrenched off the wall. A hurried, frantic search had been made.
Mama, first in my thoughts, turned out to be enjoying a visit to Candace’s cafe with Clo. Mark had been out for a long walk with Scott Kinnard. (I found that highly interesting, but Mark volunteered no details. I didn’t pry. If those boys could be friends, share memories of the man they’d both wanted for a father, I wouldn’t interfere.) No one had been home, no one had been hurt. I’d called the police and reported the break-in (apparently accomplished by knocking out a pane of the backdoor window) and had started a desultory cleanup by the time Sister got home. A good night’s sleep had done wonders for my constitution.
Now I reclined on the couch, watching Mark stare out at the yard. Sister came downstairs, dressed in a black skirt, a white blouse, and a black jacket (she didn’t have a proper black dress, and I felt a pang that maybe I don’t provide enough for her), and putting in her earrings. Her eye remained discolored. She’d applied makeup to the bruise, but a purplish half circle still shone beneath the cream.
“Not much makeup is going to do for that shiner,” I observed.
She didn’t break stride as she went to the window to watch Mark. “I tried to hide it, but I’m stuck with it. I’ll wear dark glasses.”
“Who hit you, Sister?” I might as well try again.
“I told you, no one.” She glanced at me in irritation.
“I know you’re lying. And I know you were at Trey’s house the morning of the murder.” I stood. I wasn’t going to stand there and smile like a wimp at her prevarication.
Her jaw worked. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“I found a shred of fabric on a nail on the Kinnards’ back steps right after Trey died. It was from those batik print pants I gave you. You were wearing them that morning.”
Her shoulders gave a slow heave, as if creaking out from under a heavy burden.
Sister turned away from me to look out at Mark. “And what did you do with this scrap? Give it to Junebug? Is that why he took himself off the case?”
“No. I hid it.”
“Maybe that’s what our burglar was looking for.”
“I don’t think so. No one knows I have it.”
“And what are you going to do with it? When were you planning on giving it to the police?”
My throat felt dry. I thought when I confronted her with my shred of evidence that there would be protestations of innocence, pleadings, denials, possibly a full explanation-anything except this calm discussion. She was implacably set on her own unknown course, and nothing I said swayed her. “For God’s sake, tell me. Did you kill him?” With quivering hands she put on her sunglasses. “It’s nice to know your own brother thinks you’re capable of murdering someone.” She turned away and went outside on the porch, putting her arms around her boy. They held each other, lost in their own world of bereavement and betrayal. I stood and watched them until it was time to go.
Like nearly everyone, I don’t like funerals, although for some reason I find the Mirabeau cemetery peaceful and oddly reassuring. Perhaps I take comfort in knowing where my bones will lie.
Mirabeau’s new Episcopal church, St-George’s-on-the-River, had been finished just a few months ago to much fanfare. It was the first new church in town in fifteen years. (We local Anglicans, who’d been raised in churches in Bavary and La Grange, took great pleasure in its opening.) Although Clevey had strayed from the flock, Truda Shivers had remained a steadfast Episcopalian. Trey, although baptized, did not have a steady faith, according to Nola. Since he’d been married in the Episcopal church, a service at St. George’s seemed appropriate for him as well.