Grave Secret

Nineteen

INSTEAD of asking a nurse, I talked to Dr. Spradling directly first thing the next morning. To my surprise, he agreed that Tolliver was doing well enough to travel a little, provided he didn’t lift anything or exert himself much.

Being able to travel a little made a wonderful change in Tolliver. It was as if he’d been thinking of himself as a sick person because he had to stay still. Now he thought of himself as a well person with temporary problems. I was delighted (and relieved) to see the resolution and decisiveness come back into his face and bearing. But I reminded myself to stay mindful that I had to take care of him.

Since we weren’t anchored to the hospital anymore, we checked out of the hotel. We didn’t know what would happen during the day or if we’d come back to Garland to spend the night.

It felt so good to drive away from the urban sprawl. We were back on the interstate, together. For an hour we were able to act like we were leaving our problems behind. But the closer we got to Texarkana, the more our questions and uncertainties bore in on us.

We went past the turnoff to Clear Creek, and I said, “We might have to stop here later.”

Tolliver nodded. We were pretty close to Texarkana by then, and we weren’t feeling chatty.

Texarkana straddles the state line, of course, and about fifty thousand people live there. A shopping area has grown up along the interstate passage through the north part of town, a shopping area with all of the usual suspects. We hadn’t lived close to that part of town. We’d lived in the raggedy part. Texarkana is not better or worse than any other southern town. Most of our classmates had come from decent homes, and they’d had decent parents. We’d simply drawn the short end of the stick.

The street where we’d lived was lined with trailers. Their virtue was that they weren’t packed together in little parks, at least where we’d been. They each had a little lot. Ours had been planted on its lot with the end toward the road, so you pulled into a rutted driveway and swung around to park in the front yard. Well, it was a yard in that it was a space in front of the trailer, but it never had had any grass, and the azaleas that had once been on either side of the concrete steps had been sickly bushes that were hardly worth the trouble.

Seeing it again was strange. We sat in the car, pulled to the side of the road, and looked at it without talking. A Latino walking by stared at us with a hard face. We no longer looked like we belonged here.

“What do you feel?” Tolliver asked.

“I don’t feel any bodies,” I said, and the relief made me almost giddy. “I don’t know why I was scared I would. I would’ve known when we lived here, if-anyone-had been buried here.”

Tolliver closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his own measure of relief. “Well, that’s something,” he said. “Where do you think we should look next?”

“I’m not sure why we felt like we had to come here,” I said. “Where should we go next? I guess we should go to Renaldo’s place. The chances aren’t too good that he and Tammy are still there, but we can try.”

“Do you remember how to get there?”

That was a good question, and it took me ten minutes longer than I’d assumed it would take to find the ratty little rent house that Renaldo and Tammy had lived in when Cameron had been taken.

I wasn’t surprised when someone I didn’t know answered the door. She was an African American, about my age, and she had two children under school age. They were both busy with safety scissors and an old Penney’s catalog, making some kind of art project. “Just cut out the things you’d want in your house when you build one,” the woman reminded them, before turning back to me. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I’m Harper Connelly, and I used to live a couple of blocks over,” I said. “My stepfather used to have some friends that lived in this house, and I was wondering if you knew where they live now. Renaldo Simpkins and his girlfriend, Tammy?” I hadn’t been able to remember Tammy’s last name.

Her face changed. “Yeah, I know ’em,” she said. “They live in another house, about six streets over. On Malden. They bad people, you know.”

I nodded. “I know, but I have to talk to them. They’re still together?”

“Yeah, hard to believe anyone would stay with Renaldo. But he had himself an accident, and Tammy, she’s taking care of him.” The woman glanced back over her shoulder, and I could tell she was anxious to get back to the kids.

“You know their house number?”

“No, but it’s on Malden, and it’s a block or two west of this house,” she said. “It’s a brown house with white shutters. Tammy drives a white car.”

“Thanks.”

She nodded and shut her door.

I relayed all this to Tolliver, who’d remained in the car.

With some difficulty, we tracked down a house we thought was the right one. “Brown” covers a lot of territory. But we suspected a sort of flesh-colored house might fall under the umbrella of brown, and there was a white car in front.

“Tammy,” I said when she answered the door. Tammy-whose last name was Murray, I suddenly remembered-had aged more than the eight years since Cameron had been gone. She had been a full-figured woman of mixed race, with wavy reddish hair and a flamboyant style. Now her hair was cropped very short and slicked to her head with some kind of gel. She had tattoos running down her bare arms. She was gaunt.

“Who are you?” she asked with some curiosity. “You know me?”

“I’m Harper,” I said. “Matthew Lang’s stepdaughter. My brother is in the car.” I pointed.

“Come in,” she said. “Tell your brother to come, too.”

I went back to the car and opened the door for Tolliver. “She wants us to come in,” I said quietly. “You think that’s all right?”

“Should be,” he said, and we walked back to the porch.

“What happened to you, Tolliver?” Tammy said. “You’re all banged up.”

“I got shot,” he said.

This was a place where no one would be surprised by that, and Tammy only said, “Bad luck, man!” before moving aside so we could enter.

The house was tiny, but since there wasn’t much furniture, it didn’t feel too crowded. The living room was big enough for a couch, where a figure was lying wrapped up in a blanket, and a battered recliner, clearly Tammy’s normal station. It was flanked by an old TV tray laden with a remote control, Kleenex, and a package of cigarettes. Everything smelled like cigarette smoke.

We came around the corner of the couch to look at the man lying on it. If I hadn’t known this was Renaldo, I would never have guessed it. Renaldo, who was also of mixed race, had always been light skinned. He’d also had a pencil mustache and worn his hair pulled back in a braid. Now his hair was cut very short. At one time, Renaldo had made what passed for good money in our neighborhood, because he’d been a mechanic at a car dealership, but his drug habit had cost him his job.

His eyes were open, but I couldn’t tell if Renaldo was registering our presence or not.

“Hey, honey!” Tammy said. “Look who’s here. Tolliver and his sister, you remember them? Matthew’s kids?”

Renaldo’s eyelids flickered, and he murmured, “Sure, I remember.”

“I’m sorry to see you in such bad shape,” Tolliver said, which was honest if not tactful.

“Can’t walk,” Renaldo said. I looked around for a wheelchair and glimpsed one leaning against the back door in the kitchen. It almost seemed that since the house was so small, opening up the wheelchair would be a waste of time, but I guess Tammy couldn’t lift Renaldo.

“We had a wreck,” Tammy said. “About three years ago. We’ve had some bad luck, sure enough. Here, Harper, take this chair and I’ll get a couple from the table in the kitchen.”

Tolliver looked frustrated that he couldn’t go to get the chairs, but Tammy didn’t think anything about doing it herself. She was used to a male that was helpless. I didn’t ask any more questions about Renaldo’s condition, because I didn’t want to know. He looked bad.

“Tammy,” Tolliver said after he and our hostess had wedged themselves into the folding chairs, which barely fit in the room, “we need to talk about the day my father was here, the day Cameron was taken.”

“Oh, sure, that’s all you folks ever want to talk about,” she said, and made a face. “We’re tired of talking about that, ain’t we, Renaldo?”

“I’m not tired of it,” he said, in his oddly muffled voice. “That Cameron was a fine girl; losing her was bad.”

I felt like I’d bitten a lemon, the idea of someone like Renaldo looking at my sister made me feel so sour. But I tried to keep a pleasant expression on my face. “Can you please tell us again about that day?” I said.

Tammy shrugged. She lit a cigarette, and I tried to hold my breath as long as I could. “It’s been a long time,” she said. “I can’t believe me and Renny been together that long, can you, baby?”

“Good years,” he said, with an effort.

“Yeah, we had some good ones,” she said tolerantly. “These aren’t them, though. Well, that afternoon, your dad called, wanted to do some business with Renny. He told the cops he was going to take some stuff to the recycle with Renny, but that wasn’t the truth. We had an overstock on Oxys; your dad had some Ritalin he wanted to swap for it. Your mama, she loved her Oxys.”

“My mom loved everything,” I said.

“That is the truth, child,” Tammy said. “She loved her pills.”

“And her alcohol,” I said.

“That, too,” Tammy said. She looked at me. “But you aren’t here about your mother. She’s dead and gone.”

I shut my mouth.

“So my dad wanted to come over,” Tolliver prompted.

“Yes,” Tammy said, taking a big drag on her cigarette. I was afraid I was going to start coughing. “He came over about four. Give or take fifteen minutes. It might have been as late as four fifteen, four twenty-five, but it wasn’t any later than that, because the TV show I was watching was over at four thirty, and he was at our house by then and in the pool room with Renaldo. They were playing a game. We had a nicer house.” She looked around the tiny room. “Bigger. I told the police, I think he was here by a few minutes after four. But I wasn’t paying too much attention until my program ended, and they called to me to bring them a beer.”

Renaldo laughed, an eerie huh-huh-huh sound. “We drank us some beer,” he said. “I won the game. We swapped some pills, made a deal. That was a good time.”

“And he stayed here until he got a phone call?”

“Yeah, he had a cell phone, you know, for business,” Tammy said. “That guy who lived next door to you-all, he was calling to tell Matthew to get his ass home, the cops were all over the place.”

“Was he surprised?”

“Yeah,” Tammy said, somewhat to my surprise. “He thought they were there about the drugs, and he flipped out. But he figured he’d better go home rather than run, because he knew your mama couldn’t stand up to being questioned.”

“He did?” I was really astonished.

“Oh, yeah,” Tammy said. “He had big love for Laurel, you know, girl.”

Tolliver and I exchanged glances. If Renaldo and Tammy were right, Matthew hadn’t known anything about Cameron’s disappearance. Or could he have been acting, to establish an alibi?

“He had a fit,” Renaldo mumbled. “He didn’t want that girl gone. I visited him at the jail. He told me he was sure she run away.”

“Did you believe him?” I leaned forward and looked at Renaldo, which was painful but necessary.

“Yes,” Renaldo said clearly. “I believed him.”

There wasn’t much point staying after that, and we were glad to get out of the reeking little house and away from its hopeless inhabitants.

I could hardly wait for Tolliver to buckle his seat belt. I backed out of the yard without having any idea where we were going. I began to drive back to Texas Boulevard, just to have a direction. “So, what do you think?” I asked.

“I think Tammy is repeating what my dad told her,” Tolliver said. “Whether or not he was telling the truth, that’s another thing.”

“She believed him.”

Tolliver made a derisive sound, practically a snort. “Let’s see if we can talk to Pete Gresham,” he said, and I headed for the police department. There are two police departments in one building on State Line Avenue, the Texas and the Arkansas police. There are two different police chiefs. I don’t know how it all works, or who pays for what.

We found Pete Gresham working at his desk. We’d been given permission to go up to his office, and he was poring over a file on his desk, a file he shut when he saw us standing before him.

“You two! Good to see you! I’m sorry the tape didn’t pan out,” he said, standing and leaning over the desk to shake Tolliver’s good hand. “I hear you had a little trouble in Big D.”

“Well, the outskirts of Big D,” I said. “We were in the neighborhood, and we thought we’d stop by to ask what you knew about the anonymous caller who tipped you off about the woman who looked like Cameron.”

“Male, call came in from a pay phone.” Pete Gresham, a big man who was a little bigger every time I saw him, shrugged. He still didn’t wear glasses, but as Rudy Flemmons had told us, there wasn’t a hair on Gresham’s head. “Not much to tell.”

“Could we hear it?” Tolliver asked. I turned to look at him. That had come out of nowhere.

“Well, I’ll have to track the recording down,” Pete said. He got up and headed toward the elevator, and I said, “What made you think of that?”

“We might as well,” Tolliver said.

But Pete was back too quickly. I know my bureaucracies, and he couldn’t have found the recording that quickly. “Sorry, you two,” he said. “The guy who stores all that stuff is off today. He’ll be in tomorrow. Can I call you and play it over the phone to you?”

“Sure, that’d be fine,” I said. I gave him my cell phone number.

“You making a good living finding corpses?” he asked.

“Yeah, we do okay,” Tolliver said.

“Hear you stopped a bullet,” Pete said. “Whose toes did you step on?”

“Hard to say,” Tolliver said, and he smiled. “Matthew’s out of jail, by the way.”

The detective looked a lot more serious. “I forgot he was due to get out. He turn up in Dallas?”

I nodded.

“Don’t let him get you down,” Pete said. “He’s one of the bad ones. I’ve known guys like him my whole working life, and as a rule, they don’t change none.”

“I agree,” I said. “And we’re doing our best to keep away from him.”

“How’s those little sisters?” We were walking to the elevator now, and Pete was escorting us.

“They’re good. Mariella just turned twelve and Gracie is going on nine.” Maybe she was younger. In fact, I was sure she was younger. It was a strange moment to think it, but I realized that Gracie’s being classified as lagging behind in her age group might be an incorrect diagnosis. The lag in her development that we’d attributed to her low birth weight and her persistent bad health might actually have been due to her real birth date being three or four months later than we’d believed.

“I can’t imagine them that old.” Pete shook his head at the passage of time, and I pulled myself back into the here and now to say, “By the way, I talked to Ida the other day.”

“Ida? The woman who saw the blue truck? What did Ida have to say?”

When I told him about Ida’s conversation with the Meals on Wheels woman, he cursed a blue streak. Then he apologized. “Idiots,” he said. “Now I gotta call the woman and then I’ll have to go see Ida again. I swear someday I’m not going to get out of that house. She’ll say she don’t want any visitors, and once I get there, she’ll talk and talk until I think I’m going deaf.”

I tried to smile, but I couldn’t squeeze one out. Tolliver just nodded.

“I see what that does to the timeline, Harper. I promise you, any time I get a lead I chase it down. I want to know what happened to your sister about as much as you do. And I’m sorry your asshole of a father ever got out of jail.”

“I am, too,” I said, not sure if I could speak for Tolliver or not. “But we don’t think he took Cameron.”

“I don’t either,” Pete said, which surprised me quite a bit. “I know what you can do, Harper, and I remember seeing you and Tolliver riding around after you graduated from high school. I know you were looking for her. If you didn’t find her, I don’t think she’s here to be found. If Matthew did it, he’d have had to bury her close, real close, and he didn’t have much time. You would’ve found her.”

I nodded. “We tried,” I said. “Unless someone took her from the parking lot at the high school and just dumped her bag along the route back to the trailer, which would widen the search area…”

“We did think of that,” Pete said mildly.

I flushed. “I’m not…”

“It’s okay. You want to find your sister. I do, too.”

“Thanks, Pete,” Tolliver said and shook his hand again.

“You get better now, you hear,” Pete said and turned to walk back to his cubicle.

“We’ve wasted a lot of time here today,” I said. I was depressed and wondering what to do next.

“I don’t know about that,” Tolliver said. “We’ve learned a little. You want to drop by to say hello to the Clevelands?”

I thought about it. My foster parents were good people, and I respected them, but I wasn’t in the mood for catch-up conversation. “I guess not,” I said. “I guess we ought to head back to Garland.”

The cell phone rang. “Hello,” I said.

“Harper, this is Lizzie.”

She sounded shaky. Though our acquaintance was limited, I’d never heard Lizzie sound less than positive and forceful.

“What’s wrong, Lizzie?”

“Oh, gosh, nothing! We were wondering where you were… if you could stop by the ranch for a minute.”

Stop by the ranch? When for all they knew, we were two hours’ drive away in Garland?

“We’re in Texarkana right now,” I said, thinking furiously but not coming up with anything. “I guess we could come by. What do you need?”

“I just wanted to touch base with you. About poor Victoria, and a couple of other things.”

I relayed all this to Tolliver in fewer words. He looked as taken aback as I felt. “Do you feel up to this? I can tell her no,” I said.

“We might as well stop by. We’re in the area, and they know a lot of people.” The Joyces knew a lot of people with disposable income who might want to have some graves read.

I found myself wondering if we’d see Chip again. There was definitely something about the ranch manager/boyfriend that interested me, and it wasn’t a physical attraction. At least not in the “I want to jump your bones” sense. But bones had something to do with it…

We didn’t talk much as we drove out of Texarkana. I was puzzled and worried by Lizzie’s odd request, and Tolliver was thinking about something that worried him, too. I could tell by the way he sat and the tense muscles of his face. We took the exit off the interstate without any further discussion.

We drove by Pioneer Rest Cemetery and turned off onto the long driveway that ran between wide rolling fields. We could see miles in every direction, even with evening drawing in. Finally, we reached the gate to RJ Ranch, and Tolliver insisted on jumping out to open and then close the gate after I drove through.

I noticed that I couldn’t see anyone, anywhere. On our previous visit, we’d been able to see people moving around in the distance.

We pulled up in the large paved parking area in front of the big house. We got out of our car and looked around. Everything seemed still. It was a warm day; in fact, it felt like it was spring. But the hush seemed abnormal. I shook my head doubtfully, but after a shrug, Tolliver led the way up the brick-paved path.

The big front door swung open, and Lizzie stood framed by the rectangle. The entrance hall behind her was shadowy. Talk about abnormal; though she was obviously making a huge effort to smile at us, it seemed more like the grin of a skull. Her eyes were as round as quarters and tension screamed in every muscle.

Red alert. Our steps slowed. “Hey, you-all, come on in.” All the natural enthusiasm she’d shown when we’d met here the first time had been replaced by an intense anxiety.

“We shouldn’t have said we’d come by, we have an appointment in Dallas,” I said. “Lizzie, can we come back tomorrow? We really can’t miss this date we have.”

I saw the relief on Lizzie’s narrow face. “Well, just give me a call tonight,” she said. “You-all drive on to Dallas.”

“Oh, come in and have a drink,” Chip said from behind her.

She twitched, and her attempt at a smile vanished. “Get back in the car,” she said, “Get out!”

“You better not,” Chip said, his voice calm and level. “You better come on in.” We saw that he had revolver in his hand. That clarified our choice.

Chip and Lizzie backed up.

“I’m sorry,” she said to me. “I’m sorry. He said he’d shoot Kate if I didn’t call you.”

“I would have done it, too,” Chip said.

“I know you would,” I told him. As we eased past Lizzie and stood in the square foyer, waiting for further directions, I understood what had fascinated me about Chip. His bones. His bones were dead. This was a strange connection, and one I’d never experienced before; or if I had, I hadn’t understood its nature.

“Where is everyone?” Tolliver asked. His voice was as calm as Chip’s.

“I sent everyone on the payroll to the farthest places on the ranch I could think of, and it’s Rosita’s day off,” Chip said. He was smiling again, bright and hard, and I sure would have liked to wipe that look off his face. “It’s just me and the family.”

Shit.

Chip herded us all down the hall to the gun room. The light was still streaming in all the French doors, and the view was just as beautiful, but now I was in no mood to admire it.

Drex was standing there. He had a gun, too, which was a surprise. Kate was tied to a chair. They’d released Lizzie to lure us in the house. The ropes were loose around another chair.

“Good to see you again, Harper,” Drex said. “We had a good time at the Outback, didn’t we?”

“It was all right,” I said. “It was too bad that Victoria was murdered after that. Kind of ruined my memory of the evening.”

He gulped and looked upset, just for a split second. “Yeah, she was a nice woman,” he said. “She seemed like a… She seemed good at what she did.”

“She worked hard for you-all,” I said.

“You think they’ll ever find out who killed her?” Chip said. He smiled some more.

“Did you shoot Tolliver?” I asked him. There didn’t seem to be much point in keeping quiet about it.

“Naw,” he said. “That was my buddy Drex, here. Drex ain’t good for much, but he can shoot. I told Drex to shoot you, but he seemed reluctant.” He said the word slowly, as if he’d just learned it. “He didn’t want to shoot a woman. Ol’ Drex is gallant in his own way. I tried to correct his thinking a few nights later when you were out running, but damn if that cop didn’t jump in front of you and take the bullet. I wouldn’t have fired if I’d known he was a cop. I thought he looked sort of familiar, and it made me sick when I heard I’d shot a football player.”

“Why shoot us at all?”

“Because you knew about Mariah, and you told. Maybe I could get Lizzie to forget about it if you died, but I knew as long as you lived she’d think about what you said at the cemetery. She’d wonder about her grandfather’s death, and she’d ask herself who wanted him dead. Then she’d go looking, if she believed there was a baby. Lizzie would love to have a kid to raise, and she’s all about family.” He dug the gun into Lizzie’s neck, and he kissed her on the mouth. She spat when he drew away, and he laughed.

“Why would I have to be dead?” I was genuinely curious.

“’Cause that’s the way my baby is. She pays attention to things when they’re right in front of her, but if they’re out of sight, they’re out of mind.”

That seemed like underrating Lizzie, to me. But he knew her better than I ever would. I understood, after a second’s thought. Chip knew that failing to prevent me from coming to Texas was his big mistake. If I died, my death would erase that mistake. Of course that couldn’t be done. But it would make him feel better.

“Lizzie, I’m sure someone drew your attention to my website,” I said. “I’m sure someone pointed you in the right direction, thought it might be interesting to have me here to look at your graveyard.”

“Yeah,” Lizzie said. The sun was shining onto the terrace at an angle; it was about three thirty in the afternoon. “Yeah, Kate did.”

“How’d you come to think of that, Kate?” I asked.

Kate was clearly in a bad state. Her face was white, her breathing panicky. Her hands were tied to the arms of the chair, and I saw her wrists were chafed raw. It took her a moment to understand the question.

“Drex,” she said, her voice jerky. “Drex told me that he’d met you once.”

Chip’s head whipped around like he was a snake about to strike. “Drex, thanks to you, we’ve lost everything,” he said in a deadly voice. “What were you thinking?”

“It come on the TV when we were watching the news,” Drex whispered. “About her being in North Carolina, finding those boys’ bodies. I told Kate I’d gone to her trailer when she was living in Texarkana, ’cause I knew her stepfather. I’d met her.”

“And you told Lizzie,” I said to Kate.

“She’s always looking for something new,” Kate said. “That’s the name of the game, here. Find things for Lizzie, keep her happy.”

Lizzie looked absolutely astounded. If we lived through this day, she would have a lot of mental rearranging to do.

“So it’s a TV newscaster that brought me down.” Chip laughed, and it was an awful sound.

“How much of a snake handler are you, Chip?” I asked.

“Oh, now, that’s Drex’s strong point,” he said, grinning at the man standing beside him.

“Jesus, no!” Lizzie said, shocked out of her senses. “Drex? Chip, are you saying that Drex threw a rattler at Granddaddy?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’, darlin’,” Chip said. His grip on Lizzie’s shoulder never wavered.

“Have you gone nuts, man?” Drexell said, and his face looked different now. He didn’t look as bewildered and befuddled as he had. He didn’t look as weak as he had. He looked craftier and harder. “Why are you telling my sisters lies?”

“Because we’re not going to get away with it,” Chip said. “You hadn’t gotten that yet, I see.” Drexell looked blank. “There’re too many loose ends, fool. We should have killed the doctor. Yes, you asshole, sometime within the past few years we should have moseyed on over to Dallas and taken care of that old idiot. And we knew Matthew was getting out of jail sooner or later. We should have been waiting outside the gate for him with a gun.”

Now there was a sentiment I could agree with.

“You say we’re not going to get away with it,” Drex said. “So why are you doing this hostage thing? I thought you were playing a deeper game. I thought you had a plan. You’re just crazy.”

“Yes, I am, and I’ll tell you why,” Chip said. He let go of Lizzie’s shoulder, and she swung around to face him, taking a step backward, closer to the wall covered with guns. “I had me an appointment with a much better doctor than Bowden last week, and you know what he told me? I’m eaten up with cancer. At thirty-two! And I don’t give a fuck what happens when I’m not on the earth anymore. I don’t have long enough to live for you-all to do anything to me. Since I’m not getting away with anything, I sure as hell don’t want ol’ Drex to.”

His eyes were mean beyond belief when he said this.

“You’re going to die?” said Lizzie. “Well, good. I wish Drex had cancer, too. I want you both to die.” She seemed to have shaken off her fear, and I wished I could do the same. I looked at Tolliver, and I thought we would not make it through this. Chip would take us all out, because we were going to live and he wasn’t.

With one incredibly fast motion, Lizzie grabbed a rifle off the wall, the one right by one of the doors. It was pointed at Chip in a split second. “Go on and shoot yourself, since you’re going to die anyway!” She meant it, too, and she was ready with that rifle. “Save me the trouble!”

“I’m not going by myself,” said her lover, and he shot Drexell Joyce in the chest.

Katie shrieked and went over backward in her chair, covered with the mist of her brother’s blood, and as we all looked at the falling dead man, the screaming woman, Chip put the gun barrel in his mouth and fired at the same moment Lizzie did.