“I’ve been with her, Meg,” he said. “She really is sick.”
I chuffed impatiently. “Okay, well, I guess it’s possible she could be sick. But you’re there with her, and I’m sure she’ll be just dandy before you know it. Tell her I’ll be back later tonight, and I’ll check on her then.”
“Okay.” He was quiet again, no doubt thinking what a shitty daughter and terrible person I was. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time or mental energy to convince him otherwise. All I could think of was finding William Kitchens. “What are you doing?” he asked.
I passed another house—a shack, just like the other one—except this one was deserted. Half-burned and caved in on one side. Beside a small pink tricycle, turned over on its side, was a crude cross made of two thin slats, driven into the ground out front. It was also charred black, like the walls and roof of the house, and it had a wreath of white silk flowers hung over it.
“Just some research,” I said. “I’ll be back tonight, I promise.” I hung up.
It wasn’t until after I hit another stretch of empty highway that I realized the cluster of sad buildings I’d just blown past was the actual town. I did a clumsy U-turn in Captain Mike’s giant truck, then headed back. Once I hit the main drag, I pulled up to the curb and parked beside the buckled, weed-sprouted sidewalk. There were no meters or signs on the road. Not a soul in sight.
I glanced around. Captain Mike had been generous. Worse than being a turd town, Farrow, Georgia, appeared to be headquarters of the local KKK chapter. Other than one grimy hardware store a few doors down, most of the storefronts were boarded up with plywood. Everything baked under the relentless sun. The bricks of the buildings along the street were either a flat yellow or else painted over in charcoal. The sky was enormous above me—white, with a bank of thick, gray clouds rising up behind the buildings. Windows were smashed; halfhearted graffiti decorated the brick facades: God and KKKountry, they read. Trojans 14—Rebels 0, Boo-Yah!
Besides the hardware store, only one other establishment seemed to be open for business. Its cracked, masking-taped display windows were festooned with a couple of bedraggled, sun-washed Confederate flags. The door was blacked out and a plywood sign hung on two chains. WAR ROOM, it read in block letters, and under that, KIDS KADET KLUB AT 6.
My God.
How had William Kitchens, the man who’d gone to Custer, South Dakota, with the American Indian Movement, losing his wife in the process, ended up in this nightmare of a town? How could he stand to live here?
The sharp tang of rain hung in the air, making my mouth feel even drier. I had thought I’d grab a Coke or a cup of coffee at a local diner before heading to Kitchens’s place, but there didn’t appear to be anywhere to do that. No quick-mart or grocery or deli anywhere in sight. I was going to have to power through.
I pulled away from the curb, maneuvered through the sad downtown and along a series of potholed roads lined with sagging shacks. The neighborhood—if you could call it that—led to fields littered with broken stalks, the remains of a harvest I couldn’t identify.
Kitchens’s house stood in the middle of one of these fields, flanked on one side by a huge oak that had been shredded by lightning. A ring of wood spikes crowned the trunk, and one of the partially amputated branches, itself as big as a small tree, lay at an angle across the front yard. A small johnboat on a rusted trailer sat on the other side of the house. I parked a dozen or so yards away from the house, the nose of Mike’s truck pointed out, positioned for a quick getaway.
I marched up onto the dirty porch (anchored on one end by a rusty white porch glider, on the other by a miniature fake Christmas tree) and rapped on the door. There was no answer. I moved to the window and peered through the blind. A large framed photograph hung above the sofa. The beach at Bonny Island. A fallen tree—probably yanked up by a storm and dumped on the beach, sea-washed and slick. A horse stood beside it, looking out over the roiling Atlantic. I stared, entranced. I’d just begun to think no one was home, when I heard a voice coming from the other side of the door.
“What’s your business?” The voice had a distinct Midwestern twang.
I backed away from the window. “Hi, Mr. Kitchens. My name is Meg Ashley. I’ve come from New York. I . . . I wondered if I could talk to you about your daughter, Dorothy.”
“Meg Ashley?”
“Frances Ashley’s daughter.”
Silence.
“Mr. Kitchens, I’m here on my own behalf, not my mother’s. I want to help, if I can.” I scanned the desolate yard, the dry-bark pines, the puddles of yellow water teeming with mosquitoes. “I want to fix what my mother broke.”
“I don’t have anything to say,” came the reply.
“I’m writing a book,” I said. “It’s an account of what Frances . . . what my mother did to me . . . and to you and Dorothy.”
“She didn’t do anything to us.” There was a pause. “So you can go on, back to wherever you came from.”
But his voice sounded unsure. Weighed down with some long-held, unnamed burden. I shifted, put a hand on the doorknob. It was blazing hot, even in the shade of the porch, but I gripped it tightly. I wasn’t going to be turned away, not having come this far.
I leaned into the door. Spoke loudly. “Mr. Kitchens, would you be willing to talk about Susan Doucette’s theories? About where you think the murder weapon might be?”
The door flew open so quickly, I didn’t think to let go of the knob, and I stumbled into the house. When I finally righted myself, I saw William Kitchens. He had backed against the far wall and held a gun, a black and silver pistol. It was leveled at me.
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 15
Smashed crystal goblets and shards of glass tumblers littered the carpet of the grand salon. Curtains pooled on the floor under cracked rods. One velvet sofa cushion was ripped nearly in two, its wadded cotton viscera spilled out.
It was Kitten’s handiwork. She’d flown into a rage when she learned that Fay intended to give the deputy the ashtray.
“You’ve done it now, you stupid cow!” the child had screamed, taking a carved wooden pipe from a table and pitching it at the shelf over the bar. A row of silver julep cups toppled, smashing the champagne flutes below them. “Cappie’s angry and she’s come back. She’s taken the bowl because you called the sheriff instead of throwing it in the ocean. And now she’ll never leave us alone!”
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Drop the gun, asshole,” I blurted on reflex, like I was a character on a cop show.
He lowered the gun, and, to my amazement, I saw he was grinning.
“New York, huh?”
I glared at him.