Eight
Hunter scrambled toward the front of the canoe, almost tipping us out into the river. I clutched both sides, lifting up and shifting my weight in the direction I thought would steady us, but my brain wasn’t working like it should.
“Sit down,” Hunter shouted.
Too late. The canoe flipped faster than my numb mind could register the action. Splashes and sputters later, we came up clinging to the canoe’s underside.
Hunter had a few choice words for the situation, which I won’t bother repeating. Nor did I acknowledge the glare he shot my way before we managed to right the canoe and get back inside.
By then the kayak had banged up alongside the riverbank, and we had to paddle over.
“Who is it?” he asked, jumping out of the canoe and grabbing the kayak before it could move away. “Do you know?”
I nodded, not that he was looking my way. “Her name is Faye Tilley.”
I’d seen the dead woman on my ex-husband’s arm at our divorce trial, and most recently, making a spectacle in front of The Wild Clover. Faye was wearing the same jewelry she’d worn at the hearing—a butterfly barrette in her hair, and one of the dragonfly earrings was dangling from her right ear. The left one was missing.
I stumbled out of the canoe onto solid ground and considered passing out. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything productive. Instead I sat down hard and watched Hunter spring into action. I made a mental bullet-point list of what happened next:
? Hunter secured both the canoe and kayak, then used his cell phone, which had been inside his waterproof jacket, to call for assistance.
? It took a lifetime for backup to arrive, some on land, some by water. The approximate location where we’d first seen the kayak was marked with a buoy.
? The far shore area was marked in grids, and the search began for evidence.
? Divers went down, hunting for weapons or other clues.
? Jackson Davis, the M.E., and Johnny Jay, the police chief, both arrived. Hunter and I gave our statements, and Johnny Jay was too busy to torture me with verbal abuse, which was a huge relief.
? Afterward, we couldn’t just leave Stu’s canoe in the middle of nowhere, so despite being soaking wet, we declined an offer of a ride back to town and went back in the canoe.
The music from the library’s bluegrass band event wasn’t playing when we paddled into Moraine near Stu’s. A few bar patrons standing along the river watched us come in. Hunter jumped out of the canoe and ran for his truck and took off back to join the other professionals in their search for answers. My thoughts were a jumble. I couldn’t get poor Faye’s face out of my head.
And Clay. He would have to be told. Did I have to be the one to tell him the horrible news?
After securing the canoe, I stood on the shore—barefoot, wet, and wind-whipped. Where had my flip-flops gone? Oh, yes, I remembered—into the river when the canoe tipped.
More people were beginning to gather at the river’s edge. Word was spreading. I had to get out of here before they heard that Clay’s ex-wife had found his girlfriend’s dead body in her kayak.
It was true that I’d wished Clay Lane dead a bunch of times, sometimes even verbally in front of witnesses, but I’d never extended that sentiment to any of his conquests. I figured they would be punished enough when they figured out that Clay wasn’t what he seemed.
A terrible idea flittered across my mind. What if Clay had killed her? Impossible. The man wasn’t capable of that kind of extreme emotion. Through our entire relationship, he’d never displayed passion for anything other than his own creature comforts. Good food and sex without borders, those were his most important needs.
Someone wrapped a towel around my shoulders. My mom and grandmother appeared out of nowhere and rescued me from the crowd of spectators, guiding me to Grams’s Cadillac Fleetwood, refusing to let anyone interfere with our progress.
I heard the band tuning back up.
After I took a hot shower at home, Mom handed me a cup of steaming tea, settled me in a kitchen chair, put on her everyday scowl, and went to work on my confidence. “What were you thinking to get involved in something like this?”
My defensive hackles went up. I forced them down.
Being the oldest sucks. Personally, I’ve always suspected our mother/daughter conflict has everything to do with me being the firstborn female. I had a theory about relationships between mothers and oldest daughters. They couldn’t get along no matter how hard they tried. I’d seen it time and time again by observing other families. While Mom had a hot, poisonous tongue and spoke out before thinking about how harsh her comments were, most mother/daughter relationships were cooler and crisper. Sometimes I wished for a cold, restrained version of Mom.
Since most of my immediate family lives within a ten-mile radius of each other, I really try to get along with them the best I can. But I seem to be the only one who has unresolved issues with Mom.
Grams squeezed my arm to show support. She had her gray hair pulled up in her standard cute little bun with a new, fresh daisy tucked into it. Grams, at eighty, was an avid flower gardener, card player, and amateur photographer.
“You didn’t kill that girl, did you?” Mom asked. “Please tell me you didn’t.”
“Of course not. I just found her. That’s all there is to it.”
“What must people think?” That’s my mom, she really focused on the important things in life.
“Now, Helen,” Grams scolded my mother. “It’s your daughter we should be most concerned about, not the neighbors.”
With a little coaxing from Grams, I told them what I knew, which was next to nothing other than that my kayak had gone missing and Clay had given me the impression this morning that Faye was with him, when all along she must’ve been lying dead in my kayak.
“You’re still shaking,” Grams said when I tried to take a sip of my tea and my trembling hand gave me away. “I’ll get you a sweater.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
Grams didn’t believe me about being fine. She went into my bedroom to find a cover-up. Her departure gave Mom another opportunity.
“When are you going to stop causing problems for us?” she complained. “This is killing your grandmother. First, you marry the wrong man . . .”
True. I had liked Clay more than I should have simply because my mother hadn’t.
“Your personal life is spread over the entire town like a B movie . . .”
Not my fault that Clay tried to sleep with every woman in town.
“And poor Manny Chapman is killed by the same kind of bees you have, and I can look right out this window and see them all over the place. What do you have, a death wish?”
Heavy sigh.
“Now you’re linked to what might turn out to be murder, through some kind of sex triangle!”
“Okay, that’s going too far,” I said. “I have a few bullet points for you. One, I have no control over Clay’s actions. Two, Manny’s death has hit me hard enough without you going through this big lecture, okay? Three, he was killed by wasps, not honeybees. Four, I’m not involved in any triangle. And five, I refuse to take responsibility for Clay’s bad behavior ever again.”
“Not taking responsibility has been your problem all along.” Mom made a sour expression. Worry lines were permanently etched in her forehead. I knew that if I pointed them out to her, she’d blame those on me, too.
Grams came out of my bedroom carrying a cardigan.
“Mom’s ready to leave,” I said to her, taking the sweater and putting it on. But my goose bumps and shivers weren’t from coldness. Extra layers wouldn’t help bring back Manny or Faye. “Thanks for rescuing me at the river.”
Grams beamed. “You’re welcome, sweetie. Take care of yourself. If you don’t want to be alone, you can come stay with us for a while.”
“I’ll remember that.” No, thanks! Eating poisonous mushrooms would be less painful than staying with my mother.
“I’ll drive,” Mom said to Grams at the door, picking up an ongoing conversation that they carried from one scene to another. You’d think she’d have given up by now.
“I’m perfectly capable, Helen.” Grams refused to give up the driver’s seat, which annoyed my mom no end. The Cadillac Fleetwood was Grams’s pride and joy. It had been the height of luxury in the mid-nineties, she took great care with it, and she never, ever allowed anyone else to drive it.
Mom gave me an eye-roll and grimace that implied we were on the same side. It said, Look what I have to put up with.
Grams is third-generation Morainian, Mom is fourth, making me fifth, and our family one of the oldest in town. The old cemetery, next to The Wild Clover, is filled with names from both sides, since my father came from this area, too. If you’ve been in Moraine as long as we have and you’re from Grams’s generation, you get automatic acceptance in the old guard’s eyes. They watch out for each other and know more of the goings-on than they’d ever admit.
My cousin Carrie Ann came up the sidewalk as Grams and Mom were leaving.
“How are you doing, Carrie Ann?” Mom said, rather stiffly. Carrie Ann was my dad’s sister Marla’s daughter. Mom had never gotten along with Aunt Marla and she didn’t have any use for my cousin or her hard ways, but she was bound by her manners.
“Pretty good,” Carrie Ann said. “Thanks for asking.”
We watched them drive away at a max of ten miles per hour with a jerky stop at the Main Street crossing.
“I’m ready to chew off my left arm,” Carrie Ann said. I noticed she had a hunk of gum in her mouth. She was a visual gum chewer, rolling it around while she talked. I couldn’t help staring at it. “I quit smoking this morning and it’s killing me. This nicotine gum is the only thing saving my sanity.” She pulled a piece out of her pocket, peeled off the foil and popped it in her mouth right along with the old one.
It was beyond me how my cousin could pull off quitting two addictions at once. But it was her business, not mine. Hunter had refused to date smokers in high school and probably still avoided it. Was she quitting for him? I wanted to ask her about AA but I didn’t know if I’d blow a confidence if I did. I was sure she wouldn’t have wanted Hunter telling me.
“You smell nice, instead of like smoke,” I said, trying to give her encouragement. I knew she expected to be invited in, but I just couldn’t entertain at the moment. “Like lilacs.”
“Hey, thanks.”
“I heard hypnotism helps if your willpower starts breaking down.”
“Ha. I’ll keep it in mind. Right now I’d like to beat my head against a wall. Anything to numb my brain. And my hands. I don’t know what to do with them.” She gave me a studied look. “I heard about what happened. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. “
“You’re awfully pale.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“Okay, if you insist.” Then Carrie Ann got to the point of her visit. “Did you figure out when I work again? I know this isn’t the best time to talk about it with a dead person in your kayak and all, but I need to pay my rent and I’m a little strapped right now.”
I took a moment to realize how lucky I was that The Wild Clover market was doing well enough that I could hire extra help. Times were tough. The twins needed to pay for college; Carrie Ann had rent due. Financially, I wasn’t in bad shape. Although, if things had gone like Manny and I had planned and we had expanded Queen Bee Honey, my future finances would have been even more secure.
“Come by the store tomorrow afternoon,” I told her. “We’ll talk about it and work up a plan.”
With that, Carrie Ann took her leave and went off down the street. I wondered where she was heading—home or to the bar. I hoped it was the former.
I went back inside and lay low, watching the world through the cracks in the blinds. Cop cars came down Willow Street and parked behind each other. Law officials began canvassing the neighborhood. A team swarmed into my backyard, staying wide of the beehives. They began searching along the waterline. I saw a deputy go into Moraine Gardens across the street. Clay’s car was next door, so he was home. The police chief’s SUV pulled up to the curb. Johnny Jay rang my bell. I had been surprised when none of the others had bothered to check to see if I was home, but now I knew—they must have been ordered to stay clear. It seemed that the police chief wanted first crack at me.
I decided to ignore him. I was all worn out emotionally and didn’t have the strength to take on Johnny Jay in the manner in which I had become accustomed. When I didn’t answer my door, he went over to Clay’s house. My phone rang multiple times, but I didn’t answer that, either, preferring to let the answering machine take over.