Black River

NINE

Laura Jordan finished eating a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with her four-year-old daughter, Paula. She lifted Paula up and onto a stool next to the counter in their kitchen. “Mommy, can I help make the cookies?”

“Of course, sweetheart. We’ll mix up the dough, add the eggs and chocolate, and blend it all up. Then we’ll roll it on a cookie sheet, press the dough into fun shapes, and put the cookies in the oven to bake. When Daddy comes home our house will smell soooo yummy.”

“Yippee!” Paula Jordan’s cherub face lit up. She clapped her tiny hands, her blue eyes wide, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Can I put the eggs in, too?”

“You can help me crack them. We’ll pull open the shells, and you can let the eggs plop into the mix, okay?”

“Okay.”

Laura draped a small apron over her daughter’s neck and tied the strings behind her back. She glanced up at the clock, calculating the time she anticipated her husband would be home. She wore her light brown hair in a ponytail; her emerald green eyes captured the afternoon light streaming through the kitchen window. Her face was almost heart shaped, skin tanned and flawless with no make-up.

“How long do we bake the cookies, Mommy?”

Laura smiled. “The instructions say ten minutes.”

“Will Daddy be home in ten minutes?”

“He might, but I expect him maybe in a half hour or so.”

“How many minutes is a half hour?”

“Thirty minutes.”

“Is that long?”

“No, it’s just a blink and it’s gone. I love you, sweetie. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, because you tell me lots of times.” Paula smiled.

“Okay, let’s get baking.”

The doorbell rang.

Laura looked up at the kitchen clock again. “Stay right here, Paula. I’ll see who’s at the door.” She lifted up a clean, white towel and wiped her hands walking to the front door. She looked through the peephole.

Two police officers. Standing on my front porch.

Laura touched her throat with two fingers, hesitated a second, then opened the door. “May I help you?”

The taller of the two men nodded. “Good afternoon, ma’am. Are you Laura Jordan?”

“Yes…why? Is something wrong?”

The taller officer blew air out of both cheeks. The shorter officer with rounded shoulders glanced down at the tops of his polished black boots. He lifted his eyes up, meeting Laura. “Mrs. Jordan, is your husband Jack Jordan?”

“Yes. What is it? Has something happened to Jack? Is he hurt or in some kind of trouble?”

“Ma’am, we’re so sorry to have to tell you this…but there’s been an accident. Your husband was killed.”

Laura dropped the hand towel. Her heart hammered in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. She stood there, holding onto the doorframe. Knees weak. Nauseous. She couldn’t walk. Couldn’t move. Paralyzed from the words that hit her with the force of a sledgehammer in her stomach.

The taller officer reached for her. “Please, Mrs. Jordan, sit down.”

She pushed his hand away, breathing fast through her nostrils. She turned, almost stumbled in the foyer, running to the hall bathroom. She jerked the door open, dropped to her knees, vomiting an undigested peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the toilet.

Sean O’Brien followed the GPS directions to a rural neighborhood of older homes in south Jacksonville. He read the addresses on the brick mailboxes, turning into a concert driveway that wound through a large, fresh-cut lawn and around stately oaks up to a 1920’s Greek revival style house with columns shading a wrap-around front porch. Baskets of white and red impatiens hung between each of the round pillars, a half dozen wicker rocking chairs sat motionless on the porch.

O’Brien climbed the four brick steps up to the porch as a breeze tickled two wind chimes, their jingling compositions drifting across lush grass and into the deep shade of blooming azaleas and camellias. He stood at the front door a moment, the sound of a horse whinny in the adjacent pasture. O’Brien pressed the doorbell and could hear the soft cascade of bells followed a few seconds later by the canter of heels on hardwood floors.

A forty-something woman opened the door, partially. Her raven-black hair framed an attractive face filled with suspicion. She wore pearls around her long, slender neck, her blouse exposing full cleavage. Her dark eyebrows were pencil-drawn and arched above ice-blue eyes. “Can I help you?” Her voice was southern, laced with mistrust. “We don’t need a new roof, driveway paved, or the lawn cut at this time.”

“Good, I don’t do any of those things very well.” O’Brien smiled. “My name’s Sean O’Brien. A man who owns an antique store in DeLand, Florida, gave me your contact information. Are you Ellen Heartwell?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to talk with you briefly.”

“What about.”

“A painting.”

“What painting?”

“It’s one that was done around the time of the Civil War.” O’Brien opened the folder he carried and showed her a copy of the picture. “This old photo was donated to the Confederate Museum in Virginia, and no one knows the identity of the woman. The fellow who owns the antique store said he bought the matching painting from you. I was hoping you might know who this woman was…or maybe shed some light about the painting.”

“Is it still in his store?”

“No, it was sold, and we can’t locate the buyer.”

The woman looked away, her eyes following purple martins flying in and out of the gourds hanging from the pole near a massive live oak tree. “It was here at the house for a long time. This was my grandmother’s house. She passed last year. My husband and I moved in, it’s the way she wanted it, in her will and whatnot.”

O’Brien nodded.

“Anyway, Mike and I had to get rid of a lot of clutter. We took an ad out in one of those Civil war re-enactor magazines and had a garage sale of sorts. It’s amazing at how many people showed up. One man in particular was very angry we sold the painting. But it was first come, first serve.”

“Did he tell you his name or where he lived?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. Not after his snarky attitude. I’m glad he didn’t buy it. Grandma wouldn’t have approved.”

“What do yon mean?”

She smiled. “Grandma was a great person, she had a hard time letting go of stuff. Not that she was a hoarder, she just kinda had a personal relationship with her things…especially that old painting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Grandma had always been active in the Daughters of the Confederacy. The Civil War was still fought, in spirited debates, when she and Granddaddy had family and friends over for a party, especially in the summer when the azaleas were in bloom. They’d grill a pig on a spit, drink beer — mint julep’s if it was near the runnin’ of the Kentucky Derby. It was after one of those parties when I first heard Grandma talking to the painting.”

“Talking?”

“Yes, and sort of listening too. I remember, even as a little girl, standing in the foyer and hearing Grandma speak to the painting like she was chatting with a real person. She’d even pause and carry on. Like I said, she had some kind of connection with the things she collected, especially that painting.”

“Was there anything written behind the painting, on the other side?”

“I don’t recall ever looking, and Grandma or my parents never mentioned it.”

“Any idea where your grandmother got the painting?”

“I believe she bought it from an estate sale many years ago. It came with some old magazines, Saturday Evening Post and Colliers. Grandma kept them stacked neatly in an armoire under the painting, and it hung on a wall near the fireplace for about as long as I can remember. I’d ask my parents if they were still alive. Mama might have known.”

“Did you ever glance through any of the old magazines?”

“Not that I can remember. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to run. Mike and I are entertaining friends soon.”

“Okay, but one last question…do you know the name of the woman in the painting?”

She inhaled deeply, her eyes shifting back to the purple martins in flight. She exhaled and said, “I remember one time, I was about eleven…I believe Grandma had consumed a couple of glasses of wine. I hid in the foyer behind a tall vase when I heard her talking to the painting. She said the name Angelina. I never forgot that. So I always assumed that was the name of the woman in the painting, but I don’t know for sure. Oh, something else, she said the secret of the river would always be a family secret. I never knew what Grandma meant by that, and I never had the courage to ask her.”