I could have gone to the house on the hill. I could have run into my father’s home office, turned on his computer, and researched myself into oblivion, but I did not. Mother would become curious, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to answer any questions right now. But the public library—even on a Sunday in the South—would be open, and I could use one of the computers, search through decades of microfiche, piles of books and magazines, and without an inquisition.
I was dismayed, upon my arrival, to discover I had but a half hour to work. It was 5:30 and the library closed at 6:00. Having read the notice on a placard near the front door, I turned and went back to the car. There was no need in opening this can of worms now. Instead, I called Mother.
“Hi,” I said, giving her my best “cheerful as always” voice.
“Hello, yourself. I just got off the phone with Mae-Jo. She says you’ve been at the big house all afternoon.”
“Yeah, well . . . I’m not now. I’m at the library here in Raymore. Can I spend the night with you and Daddy? I’ll want to come back in the morning.”
“What are you doing at the library?”
“Mother, can I?” I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes. A headache the size of Georgia was creeping up my spine, wrapping around my neck.
“You know you don’t have to ask. But what are you doing at the library?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. I need to call Mae-Jo now. I’ll see you shortly.” I disconnected, started my car, pulled out of the parking lot, and then—at the first red light I came to—dialed Mae-Jo’s number. When she answered I told her I’d gotten some brilliant idea for the big house, had come to Raymore to do some research, and needed to come back in the morning so I’d spend the night with my parents. In her endearing way she told me to be careful, enjoy my evening, and she’d see me soon.
In spite of the cold, Mother was standing on the front porch in wait for me, reminding me of a cat preparing to pounce on a piece of string newly discovered in the carpet. She stood between the center columns, resting a shoulder against one, legs crossed at the ankles, dressed in charcoal gray wool slacks and a matching mock turtleneck top and quilted vest. Even from the driveway I could see the complementary sterling silver accessories she wore. Though petite against the massive framework of the Georgian colonial, she stood out like a model waiting for the shutter of a photographer to open and close.
I looked over at the black-and-white Henry Hawkins print in the seat beside me, pulled it onto my lap, then took the packet of Klan information and slid it under the front seat of my car.
“What’s that?” Mother asked as I approached from the driveway.
“A photograph. I thought you’d be interested in seeing it.” I extended it to her, and she took it. “What are you doing outside? It’s getting so cold. Let’s go in. Does Daddy have a fire built?”
Mother turned to go inside and spoke to me as she studied the photograph. “My, aren’t you twenty questions this evening?”
I coughed out a laugh. “Aren’t we the pot calling the kettle black?” I returned.
“Don’t be sassy, Josephine Milynn. It isn’t Christian on a Sunday, and it certainly is not becoming of a lady of your breeding.”
I pretended to fold like a road map as we entered the foyer, where Daddy met us. “I don’t know why she insisted on meeting you outside,” he said with a chuckle and a hug.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said, hugging him back.
“Come in, take a load off,” he said, wrapping one arm around my shoulder and leading me into the warm glow of the living room, where a fire blazed, sending heat into the classic elegance brought by Mother’s décor. “I just made hot cocoa, and there’s a cup waiting for you on the sofa pouf.”
I laughed lightly. Whenever my father said the word pouf he deliberately inserted a certain highbrow air. “How your mother got me to say the word pouf, ” he’d once said to me, “is anybody’s guess.”
Mother’s pouf was hefty and skirted, large enough in circumference for an ornate silver tray topped with tall mugs of hot cocoa and marshmallows and a short stack of dessert plates and a serving dish of wedding cookies, my all-time favorite store-bought treat. While I helped myself, Mother handed Daddy the photograph.
“Well, how about that,” he said. “Goodness, I don’t know when I remember that number of buildings in the back.”
I popped a cookie in my mouth, then moved to the central seating area and the camelback sofa with way too many pillows. I swallowed and then said, “I wanted to ask you about that.”
“They tore several of those down when you were very young,” Mother said. She sat then in her favorite chair while Daddy made himself comfortable in its twin a few feet away, cocoa mug cupped in his hands. “Uncle Jim said they weren’t necessary anymore because even though he ran the farm successfully, mostly they were unused and becoming a danger to anyone who walked in them. Much like the one you’re faced with now.”
“I’m tearing it down,” I said, taking a sip of my drink. “This is good. I was hungry and didn’t know it.”
Mother jumped up then and said, “Why didn’t you say you hadn’t eaten? I’ll fix you a sandwich.” She was out of the living room before I could blink.
I looked at Daddy. “Did I say I hadn’t eaten?” I asked with a wink.
He winked back. “A mother’s intuition.” He flipped the photo over to read the back. “HLH?”
“I think that’s Henry Hawkins. Well, I know it is. His father had a photography studio back when Mother’s grandparents were young, and then his son took over. There’s a photograph of Aunt Stella as a young woman I’d be willing to bet he took. It has his touch.”
“What do you know about Henry Hawkins?” Daddy set the photograph on the table between the two chairs.
“He kept his father’s studio going in Cottonwood for a while—I remember Mother telling me this—and then he left and . . . see, he became a famous photographer, Daddy. His photos used to appear in Land & Home. I was always taken by his work.”
“Whatever happened to him?”
“I don’t know. I—”
Mother entered the room then, carrying a plate with a sandwich and some coleslaw. “I don’t usually allow eating in the living room, but I suppose you’re grown enough not to drop your crumbs on the floor. You know how I hate to run the vacuum.”
I made a playful face at her.
“Who were you two talking about?” she asked, never one to be left out of any conversation.
“Henry Hawkins. The second one.”
Mother picked up the photo. “Why all this interest, Jo-Lynn? Henry Hawkins lived in Cottonwood, then he didn’t.”
I took a bite of my sandwich, making sure the plate stayed directly under it. I chewed carefully, then swallowed, following it with a sip of cocoa. “Mother,” I said. I tried to keep my voice as nonchalant as possible. “What do you remember about Alfred Pitney?”
“Now why would you want to . . .” Mother gave me her best exasperated look.
“He’s a holdout in the town project,” I interjected, silently thankful for the information Karol had divulged about him. “Oh. Well, let’s see . . .” She crossed her legs then and leaned back in her chair. This was a good sign all the way around. “He’s an old goat, if you’ll pardon my expression.”
I gave my father a quick look. He sighed as he rose and then walked over to the sofa pouf to replace his mug of now-finished cocoa.
“Okay. What else do you know?”
“He’s married to a woman named Diana, who I remember well when she moved to town with her boys. I was grown by then, but Aunt Stella filled my ears with enough gossip to last a lifetime. Not that I partake in gossip. I abhor gossip.”
Daddy returned to his chair, and I said, “Daddy, I think I feel a Shirley Jackson short story coming on.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Jo-Lynn?” Mother asked.
“Shirley Jackson. We had to read her in a high school lit class. She was a somewhat modern gothic writer . . . she wrote . . . oh! She wrote The Haunting of Hill House. Maybe she had this house in mind when she wrote it.” I raised my brow.
“Don’t try to be cute, Jo-Lynn.”
I laughed heartily then and felt an afternoon’s worth of tension slip from my shoulders, down my spine, and into the soft cushions of the sofa. “I needed this,” I said. “Anyway, she wrote a short story called ‘Strangers in Town’ in which the lead character states that she abhors gossip and then does nothing but gossip the rest of the story.”
“Well, I really do abhor gossip. Now, do you want to know about the Pitneys or not?”
“Sorry. Pray continue.”