CHAPTER 9
LUCY
Dad was home when I got back from work Saturday evening. He’d spent the day fishing out at Rockbridge and surprised me by frying up a dinner of trout and hush puppies without my help. Bess stopped by while I was washing the dishes and sweet-talked me into forgiving her. I made her recite back to me all the things she was now forbidden to do: fix my hair, pick out my clothes, take me anywhere near the Petrees. We made a batch of molasses cookies and sat on the porch talking until Dad came out to enforce curfew and drive Bess home. Bess was almost as disappointed as I was when I told her nothing romantic had happened between me and Daniel on Friday night. She didn’t say anything about her night with Gage, and I didn’t ask.
The next time I saw Daniel at Dane’s, he offered to go with me to visit Cheri’s mom. There was no mention of our spin-the-bottle conversation, but it felt good to no longer be hiding anything. Exposing our shared secret seemed to have dissipated the tension between us, and talking to him felt normal now, like talking to a friend.
He picked me up after work so we could drive to see Mrs. Stoddard together. I’d brought along the last of the molasses cookies in an attempt to give my visit legitimacy. I figured once Mrs. Stoddard invited us in and we were eating, I’d casually start asking questions.
There was a conversion van parked in front of the trailer when we pulled up, and a scrawny boy, four or five years old, stood in the dirt yard throwing rocks at a pile of animal droppings. He watched as we approached, blond hair hanging down in his eyes.
“You better not go in,” the boy said. “He’ll kick your ass. He said stay-right-here-don’t-move.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering who he was. “Okay. Can we wait out here with you, then?”
He shrugged and resumed throwing rocks. We watched him in silence, shifting back and forth uncomfortably as we waited for whoever was inside to finish up whatever he was doing. Flies swarmed around the droppings and then buzzed away briefly when a rock came near.
“Yeah!” the boy cried. “Got you, little fucker.”
Daniel and I exchanged looks. “You got a fly?” he said to the little boy. “Way to go. They’re fast.”
“Hey,” I said, opening the bag. “You want a cookie?” The kid eyed me warily and then eyed the cookie. He snatched it out of my hand and wolfed it down. I handed him another one.
A scraggle-haired man in a flannel shirt and Dickies stumbled out of the trailer, snorted, and spat on the ground. He looked up and saw us all watching him, and his eyes locked on mine before turning to the boy. “What’s that?” he growled. “Where’d you get that?”
The boy stood frozen, the cookie inches from his lips, as the man walked up and slapped it to the ground. “Don’t take shit from strangers,” he said, grabbing the boy’s arm and dragging him toward the van.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was just a cookie, I didn’t think—” Daniel put his hand on my shoulder, and I stopped talking. “Who was that?” I asked as the van tore out of the yard.
“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him around Henbane.”
We waited a minute and then knocked at the door. Doris Stoddard appeared in a ratty housecoat. “I don’t go to church, and I ain’t buying no Avon,” she said.
“Hi, Mrs. Stoddard,” I said. “It’s Lucy Dane, Cheri’s friend? From down the road?”
She narrowed her eyes, appearing to have some recognition. “Why’re you here?”
“I baked these for you,” I said, holding up the bag. She took it, pulled out a cookie, and made a sour face. Not a fan of molasses, apparently. A Rottweiler sauntered up next to her, and she tossed him first the cookie, then the entire bag, which he proceeded to tear apart. So much for my plan.
“I thought maybe we could talk a minute,” I said. “About Cheri.”
She grunted. “That girl was nothing but trouble when she was here, and now she’s dead, I got her goddamn ghost hanging on. I ain’t got nothing else to say.”
“Please,” I said. “I think I might have some information about where she was staying when she was gone, and I just wanted to ask you a couple questions. See if Cheri’d been hanging around anyone new before she disappeared.”
Mrs. Stoddard’s face blanched. “How would you know anything about where she was?”
I hesitated, not knowing how much to say. She looked at once angry and afraid. “I found something of hers.”
She gazed at me for a long moment, then moved to shut the door. “I got appointments coming.”
“You said her ghost is here,” Daniel said loudly, stepping in front of me. “That true?”
I didn’t know what he was doing, but he’d succeeded in getting Mrs. Stoddard’s attention. She paused, pressed her lips together, and nodded.
“You want to get rid of it?” Daniel said. “I can help. I can get you something.”
Mrs. Stoddard angled forward to better examine Daniel’s face. “I know you,” she said, her voice hushed. “Your mama’s the medicine woman, up Crenshaw Ridge. I thought she’d quit after all that trouble with the Walker girl.”
Daniel’s stance was commanding and assured, his expression calm. He wasn’t bluffing. “She does a little work here and there,” he said. “You’d have to keep quiet about it.”
She nodded vigorously. “ ’Course.” I could see in her eyes how badly she wanted this, believed it.
“Surely you know this sort of thing’s expensive. But she’ll do it for free if you talk to Lucy. Tell her everything you know.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll talk once the ghost is gone.”