“Who’s swimming? Come on.”
We went back to the house and I called Edgren at the sheriff’s office. “Sergeant,” I told him, “I’m sorry to say that you or your men or somebody did such a careless job of beaching my boat that the river took it away. So it’s out in the middle right now, in a place where I can’t get it, on a tree trunk, half tipped over. So could you call your friends in DiVola and ask them to get it for me? Come in their cruiser and—”
“OK, no problem.”
“The river keeps rising, you know.”
“I said OK. Hold everything.”
It wasn’t over an hour when here came the sound of the outboard and then there the DiVola men were, the same three guys, still in their firemen’s helmets. They made quick work of the johnboat, first pulling it clear of the snag, then bailing it out, where it was half-filled with water, and then rowing it in. They were friendly, especially to Jill, it being the first time they had seen her. She told them about the locket, and they offered to help. So we all went out to the island. Then one of them called to her: “Open your hand and close your eyes, I’ll give you something to make you wise.” So she did, and in her hand he put the locket. She was so happy she cried, and then kissed him to show her thanks. Then the other two said they wanted to be made wise, so she kissed them too. Then we went back to the house for coffee. It was all friendly and warm and wonderful. None of us had any idea of the horrible meaning that boat being hung on a snag had, though.
They left, and Jill and I sat on the living room sofa, whispering, going over it once more, and over and over and over it, this news Mom had come up with, as well as stuff that seemed to apply, that I’d remember and come popping out with, from when I was little and we’d lived in the old house, praying for spring to come when we wouldn’t shiver so much. She wanted to go over and see it, but I said we’d better stay there in the new house where we were. People were sure to come for one reason and another, and I’d been asked to stay put.
Sure enough, around noon a bunch did come, people from upriver, with more stuff to eat. It was Ohio friendliness. It started Jill off crying, but then she started eating, which seemed to cure the tears. Then a man named Douglas came. He had the next place upriver. He came over to see how things were, so he said, but the rest of them kidded him about it, saying it was just his excuse to drop by and meet the hero. “And heroine,” added Jill, and they all gave her a hand.
They left, and so did Jill, “to pick out some clothes at that shop and be indemnified at the bank so I can draw some cash.”
“Identified.”
“Dave, does this change things at all? Your finding out who she is? That she’s your stepmother, instead of your mother?”
“How change things?”
“Do you want me to prosecute?”
“Why would I?”
“Well? She deceived you, didn’t she?”
“Listen, that was the deal.”
“I was just asking, Dave.”
“In spite of last night, if that’s what you’re talking about, I’ve thought of her as my mother for years.”
“OK.”
“If she should be prosecuted, I’d have to help her out.”
“OK, OK.”
11
I sat around for a couple of hours, with more people dropping by and then leaving pretty soon and the phone ringing every few minutes. Edgren called to say the inquest had been postponed from that day to the day after next. I said: “Just let me know when. I’ll be there.”
“Will you tell Mrs. Howell?”
“Sure,” I told him. Well? I would have if I could have, and whether I could, he didn’t ask me. Some newspapermen called, especially the one from the Times, the Marietta Times I mean, and I gave them what little news I had, about the postponement of the inquest and Jill finding her locket. Jill called to say she’d moved out of the hospital to a motel in the center of town, one York had found her, and asked whether she should call Edgren and tell him. I said that York could do it, then changed my mind and said she should do it herself. She said she’d be out in a little while.
I went back to thaw out a lamb roast and check whether I had mint jelly. I was just about done when she came, looking so pretty I wanted to cry. She had on a beautiful winter coat, dark brown, and under that a bottle-green mini that was perfect with her hair, beige pantyhose, and loafers she said were “frumpty,” but “are comfortable on my feet.” I didn’t think they were frumpy, but couldn’t rightly say for looking at her legs, which were beautiful. She didn’t mind being told, and in fact lifted the mini so I could see all the way. We were in each other’s arms when a car drove up.
When I looked, Uncle Sid was getting out. He was Mom’s brother, not only mountain but looked it: six feet, thin, raw-boned, and lanky. He had on a dark-blue flannel shirt, gray striped pants, and black windbreaker. But what you noticed most was the hat — black felt, kind of rolled up at the sides and pulled down low in front. It didn’t make him look mean, the way a wild kid looks mean; somehow it made him look important. But mostly, he looked like someone you shouldn’t monkey with. I let him in and introduced him to Jill. He was polite, but cold. He mentioned that he’d seen her picture and, pointing to the pile of papers still on the floor, explained: “I mean in the papers, miss. That was a terrible thing to be snatched from a plane that way.” And then, to me, almost in the same breath: “Where’s my sister, Dave? Where’s your mother?”
“Uncle Sid, why don’t you tell me? It was you she called, wasn’t it? Before she left the house? Before she drove off in the car?”
He blinked without answering, and I added: “Well, it was, wasn’t it? Where was she headed for? Your place? Flint?” Flint was the village on the Monongahela, where he lived and where she originally came from.
“Well, she might have called me at that,” he said finally in that left-handed mountain way that never quite lines it out straight. “I don’t say she didn’t.”
“Then she must have said where she was headed for. Was she headed for Flint, or wasn’t she?”
“Flint’s her home, Dave.”
“Then that’s where she figured to go?”
“We could expect her to.”
“It’s what I want to know.”
“But maybe she didn’t get there.”
“Not yet, you mean, Uncle Sid.”
“She should have, by now.”
“Give her time.”
“Does that hit you funny, Dave? That she should haul out of here, bang, just like that, at three in the morning?”
“It does and did — at the time.”
“What made her do it, then?”
“She got sore at me, is all.”
“What about?”
He sounded ugly as he said it. I counted three before trying to answer, but while I was doing it, Jill broke in: “Me, I was the what. She didn’t like me, Mr. Giles.”
“Why not?”
“I’m going to marry David.”
“I see...I see.” Then: “You were here, then? You spent the night with Dave? I don’t wonder she kind of got sore.”
“No, sir. I was in the hospital.”
“But I was here,” I said. “She came to my room, screaming. She called Jill a Jezebel and other things too, still worse. One thing led to another, like her trying to beat me up.” I showed the tooth marks on my cheek and went on: “Then she slammed back in her room. Later she came out and called you. Finally she went outside and drove off in my car.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dave, I asked you where to.”
“Goddamn it,” I roared, going slightly mountain myself, “knock it off with the third degree. I told you, I don’t know where to. What’s more, I don’t much care. Now how’d you like to get the hell out?”