35

Frankie’s Beans had gone through at least five iterations since I’d moved back to North Georgia from Charlotte. New managers, new names, new signs, but I was hoping this one was going to stick. I liked the new manager, a long-haired kid name Theo, who had a master’s in philosophy from some school down in Florida. He wasn’t a hippie—at least not in the traditional sense of the word—but you’d be forgiven for thinking he was. The long hair and unshaven face masked a sharp mind, one more interested in questions of metaphysics than psychedelic drugs. We’d spent many an afternoon in the spring talking about the world and the way things always seemed to go wrong. And damned if he didn’t make a good pot of coffee.

I waited in the back for Claire, hoping I wouldn’t see anyone I knew, especially not anyone who might ask me how Mary was doing. I didn’t need anything else to remind me of her, not with her face already constantly swimming into my consciousness. Between that and Rufus’s absence, I’d started to feel like the protagonist in a Greek tragedy.

When Claire did finally come in, I did a double take. She was more attractive than I’d remembered. Maybe it was her outfit, a short skirt and a tight blouse, both of which accented ample curves.

She smiled and sat down across from me. “Thanks for meeting.”

“Can I get you a coffee?” I said, taking her hand.

“An iced coffee sounds perfect. This heat is insane.”

I waved at Theo, and he came over, grinning.

He shook my hand, glancing at Claire but not speaking. “How’s Mary?” he asked.

“We broke up,” I said.

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, man.” He glanced at Claire awkwardly. “Is … is this …”

“No,” I said. “This is business.”

He nodded, pale faced.

“She did want an iced coffee. And I’ll have some ice water.”

“Coming up, Earl. Listen, if you need to talk …”

“I’m fine, Theo. Really.”

“Should we meet another time, Earl?” Claire said.

“Nope,” I said. “This is perfect.”

Theo left to grab her coffee.

“You broke up with your girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“It’s okay. I’m okay. It was totally my fault.”

She reached across the table and took my hand. I let her. Of course I did. I was a glutton for a woman’s touch.

“I’m sorry, Earl.”

Theo returned with the iced coffee and put it in front of Claire.

“Put it on my tab?” I asked.

“On the house. I feel bad for interrupting.”

“Not necessary,” Claire said, producing a small purse and putting it on the table. She opened it up and pulled out a five, which she handed to Theo. “Keep the change.”

“We’ll catch up soon, Theo” I said.

When I turned back to Claire, she was holding a photocopy of an old newspaper article.

“I found this after talking to Susan. I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds.” She pushed the article across the table. “I think you’ll recognize a name in there.”

The article was from a Chattanooga paper, and it was dated August 3, 1986. The headline read Missing Woman Ruled Dead.

Twenty-one-year-old Harriet Duncan of Brethren has been missing for three days, but Sheriff Hank Shaw is calling off the search. According to Shaw, the troubled woman committed suicide.

“Unfortunately, she had some emotional issues that likely caused her to make this decision,” Shaw said in a press conference.

Though not a student, Duncan was a resident of the otherwise male-only Harden School, where she was undergoing an extensive emotional evaluation. According to several students, Duncan was obsessed with the waterfall at the rear of the school.

“She used to go out there and sit all the time. And she was always saying how she was going to jump across the ravine,” 10th-grader Chris Marsh said.

At least one counselor witnessed the leap. Rufus Gribble, who helps with discipline at the school, was with her three nights ago when she told him she was going to jump across the ravine.

“She’d been telling me for a while she was going to jump to the other side and never come back. I told her there wasn’t any way to make it. I think she knew it too. It was just what she said because she didn’t want us to know she was trying to kill herself,” Gribble commented.

Sheriff Shaw claims she would not have been able to make the jump. “Unless she’s Superwoman, she’s dead.”

“I tried to physically restrain her, but she slipped free,” Gribble continued. “She leapt into the darkness. I couldn’t see, but I heard her scream. When I called out to her, there was no answer. She was gone.”

Duncan’s older sister, Lyda, has asked for a full investigation into the school, claiming the methods used by the administration were abusive, but according to Gribble, that just wasn’t the case.

“Mr. Harden and Mr. Deloach did everything they could possibly do to help her. She just didn’t want help. I’d say if she hadn’t come to the Harden School, she would have been dead a long time ago.”

Randy Harden, the school’s founder and headmaster as well as Harriet’s uncle, echoed these sentiments. “I took Harriet in as a personal favor to my sister, and we did everything within our power to save her, but sometimes you have to want to save yourself. She just didn’t.”

Later in the interview, Harden asked if he could make a statement to the community.

“There is nothing more disturbing than seeing a young person take their own life, but I would like to point out there is some light within the darkness. Rufus Gribble, a young man from the Fingers area, should be commended for his commitment to discipline and education of the students here. I just hate that he’s finally getting the recognition on the back of this tragedy. Rufus is going to be a wonderful teacher when he gets his degree.”

Despite not yet finding her remains, a funeral will be held for Harriet Duncan on Friday, May 17, at the Ponder’s Funeral Home.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the article. Did it happened like Rufus said? If so, what did it mean for what I was investigating now? Not much, I decided. I’d already determined Harriet was dead.

Still, there was something about the article that didn’t sit right with me. When I looked up at Claire, she was studying me closely, leaning across the table, her eyes big and brown and filled with light that beheld landscapes I couldn’t quite map.

“He’s your friend, right?” she said.

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Susan told me. Did you ask him about this?”

I shook my head. “Rufus is missing.”

“Missing? You’re kidding, right?”

I shook my head. “I wish I was.”

She touched my hand. “What do you think happened?”

“I think it goes back to this.”

She looked down at the paper and read it again. I watched her, trying to read her thoughts.

She looked up after a time. “It feels off.”

I felt the same thing but decided to play dumb. “How do you mean?”

“Well, the part at the end where Harden praises Gribble. Seems almost like a quid pro quo to me. Rufus says the right thing, and Harden praises him in the paper.”

“So, you don’t think it was suicide?”

Claire shrugged. “I’m not the detective, but something’s off here.”

“Explain what you’re thinking.”

She leaned in, her lips curling into a smile. “Okay, you’re going to think I’m crazy, right, but what if Harriet’s not dead? What if that’s why it feels off? What if that’s why Rufus is gone right now? Maybe he knows where she is. And somebody doesn’t want that info to get out.”

I couldn’t help but see the possibilities in what she was saying. It actually jibed pretty well with what I knew about Joe. Perhaps Joe had known the truth about Harriet too and that was what he’d been wanting to tell me, in hopes that I would be able to help him do something about the school. Either that or because he wanted my help protecting her.

“It’s a good thought,” I said. “Something to look into.” I didn’t want to seem too positive about her idea because it might make her suspicious about the other stuff I already knew.

She shrugged. “What else could it be?”

I just looked at her, trying to figure out exactly who I was dealing with. I’d certainly been down on the idea of working with an armchair detective at first, but I had to admit, she was making some sense. Knowing Rufus like I did, I couldn’t help but see something was way off about the article. And now Rufus was missing.

“What are you thinking?” she said.

“I’m thinking that you may be right, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

She clicked her red nails on the table. The more I was around her, the more attractive she became. She had a kind of knowing sexuality, very different from Daphne’s. Daphne’s hit you like an avalanche, obscuring your thoughts, your judgment, all rational thought. Claire was much more subtle, and I found myself becoming more alert to each small gesture, the curl of her lip, the sweep of hair off her forehead, the way her eyes shined a liquid silk beneath her glasses.

Focus, Earl. I took a deep breath. It worked. I was done with women for the foreseeable future. The emptiness of my last encounter with Daphne still lingered fresh in my mind, as did the disappointment on Mary’s face when I’d told her about what I’d done. Those two feelings alone would be enough to make me keep my dick in my pants for many years to come.

I hoped.

But then Claire smiled at me and reached over to my touch my hand, and I felt myself stir. Goddamn it all to hell. I was nothing if not weak.

“I don’t know what to do about it either,” she said, responding to my earlier question. “I figured that was your thing.” Her fingers snaked up toward my wrist, just her nails grazing the back of my hand, my knuckles, the fine hairs of my lower arm. It was exquisite.

I closed my eyes and made myself see Mary’s face. And I felt better. The sad truth was, I still needed her to save me.

*   *   *

When I left the coffee shop, I couldn’t help but notice two men standing listlessly down the street in front of the library. The Hill Brothers. One of them saw me but didn’t move or wave or acknowledge me. I lifted a hand to him, but he turned away.