I shoved my worries aside and cheered the Eagles on to a 7–5 victory.
After the game, Michael and I saw the boys safely off in Mason’s mother’s car. Then he headed back to the college for a rehearsal—he had a large role in a student-directed production of Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, a particularly gory and melodramatic Elizabethan play. I headed over to Robyn’s house. Mother followed, carrying Cordelia. I’d have given my grandmother a ride, but when she saw the mess the boys had created when they’d thrown their baseball gear into the Twinmobile, she opted for the more civilized transportation experience available in Mother’s impeccably maintained sedan.
And for the next several hours we worked on clearing out Robyn and Matt’s office-turned-bedroom. What amazed me most was how much of the clutter wasn’t even really theirs. We found boxes of papers from various long-past church projects and committees that people had dropped off because they no longer wanted to give the stuff houseroom. Books lent to Robyn by people under the misguided impression that she’d have plenty of time to read them, since obviously the clergy had a flurry of activity on Sunday and spent the rest of the week loitering about having virtuous thoughts. Boxes of things belonging to several of Matt’s artist friends who were either currently between lodgings or had been at some point in the last few years. We even collected an entire box of things Dr. Womble had left behind at Trinity that Robyn had been meaning to return to him when she had the time.
“I’ll take charge of that box,” I said.
“You don’t have to,” Robyn said. “It will be nice to have an excuse to visit him when I’m up on my feet again.”
“I’m sure you can find some other excuse,” I said. “Always plenty of church topics you could ask his advice on. But I need an excuse to visit him now.”
“Be my guest, then,” Robyn said.
Although I wasn’t going to give Dr. Womble the box until I had a chance to inspect its contents, because I’d already noticed an exceedingly interesting item—an unopened letter addressed to Dr. Womble at the church’s address. In the top left corner of the envelope were the initials AvdL, along with an address in someplace called Barking Tree, Virginia.
A few minutes later I made a trip to the bathroom so I could look up Barking Tree on a state map without having to make long explanations. It was in Lee County, the westernmost county in Virginia—in fact, most if not all of Lee County was farther west than the entire state of West Virginia, and it had a population of less than 25,000—would that mean Archie would be easy to find? Or would Barking Tree turn out to be one of those places that closed ranks against outsiders? Of course, if that was the case, Archie would also be an outsider, even if he’d moved there several decades ago after getting out of prison.
I noted with interest that the county contained a high-security federal prison. Could that account for Archie’s presence there? No—the address I remembered from the envelope seemed to correspond with something called The Inchness Center—whose website revealed that it provided caring, individualized treatment in a peaceful rural setting for individuals with substance abuse issues.
“Aha!” I exclaimed—but quietly.
“Meg, dear,” Mother called. “Are you all right?”
I flushed the toilet and returned to the decluttering.
A little while later my phone rang. I glanced down at it. A local number, though not a familiar one. But I could think of any number of people who might be trying to reach me for reasons related to recent events at Trinity, so I answered it anyway.
“Meg?” A familiar voice. “It’s Maudie Morton down at the funeral home. Are you still looking to talk to Chuck Hagley? That’s Junius and Dorothy Hagley’s son.”
“Definitely.”
“Then you might want to come down here quick. The chief’s interviewing him right now over in my arrangements room.”
“Right now? I could have sworn the chief told me he was interviewing Mr. Hagley tomorrow.”
“I gather that was the plan,” Maudie said. “Originally Mr. Hagley was going to stay over at his parents’ house and talk to the chief in the morning, but I gather now he’s planning to drive back to Richmond tonight.”
“Bet the chief was annoyed.”
“Yes. So if you hurry you might be able to catch Mr. Hagley before he goes.”
“I’ll be over as soon as I can, then. Thanks.”
“Something important?” Mother was looking expectantly at me. For that matter, so were Robyn and Cordelia.
“I should have put the phone on speaker to save time.” I explained the reason for Maudie’s call.
“You go on, dear,” Mother said. “It’s past ten o’clock—probably time we let Robyn get some rest, and even if it wasn’t, I think it’s time your grandmother and I called it a day. But we made a good start, didn’t we?”
She beamed at the room. Which did, indeed, look much better, although it was still far from tidy or organized by any reasonable standards—much less those Mother, Cordelia, and I shared.
“It wasn’t nearly as awful as I expected it to be,” Robyn said. “That is—I mean—” She threw up her hands. “Just thank you, okay?”
“And come again?” Cordelia prompted.
“Absolutely.” Robyn looked around and sighed, but it was a sigh of contentment. “This place already looks several hundred percent better.”
Cordelia followed me to the front door.
“Any chance you could fit a couple of boxes in your car?” she asked. “All those boxes of stuff she agreed to sell or donate or return to the owners—we should get as much as we can out of the house in case she starts having second thoughts.”
“I’ve got the Twinmobile,” I said. “So plenty of room for boxes.”
“And there are a few boxes your mother wants to take charge of,” Cordelia added. “Nice if you could load those in her car before you go.”
While we were loading the Twinmobile, I decided it was a good thing Robyn couldn’t see its interior, or she’d lose all confidence in my organizing and decluttering abilities. The bats, helmets, gloves, batting gloves, athletic cups, baseball socks, cleats, baseball hats, water bottles, and who knew what else—all the items that should have been in the boys’ baseball bags—were strewn throughout the car. Just for a moment, I contemplated how satisfying it would be to clean it all up. And then a wave of tiredness washed over me. I’d save the satisfaction for the morning. Better yet, I’d look forward to the even greater satisfaction of supervising while the boys did it.
I called Michael to tell him I’d be home a little late, and why.
“Quiet night,” he said. “Not only are the boys out, Rob and Rose Noire are, too. So when I got back from rehearsal I went out and read my lines to the toucan.”
“Sorry!” I replied. By which I meant, sorry to have left him alone. I couldn’t say I was sorry to miss the line-reading portion of the evening’s entertainment. The Spanish Tragedy might be an important historical document and a milestone in the development of western drama, but it didn’t exactly amount to an enthralling evening for a modern playgoer. Even when it was Michael doing the orating, a little bit of Kyd went a long way. “I’ll run lines with you when I get home. Or better yet, tomorrow.”
“No problem,” he said. “There’s plenty of time. And the bird’s a great listener. Hangs on every word I say.”
I made a vow to be less critical of the play the next time I helped Michael run lines.
“He’s probably hoping you’ll feed him when you finish,” I said. “When he cocks his head on the side as if he finds what you’re saying fascinating, he wants a grape. And he won’t repeat your lines back to you, you know. No matter how much you read to him.”
“And that’s a blessing,” Michael replied. “If I thought he could learn the lines, I’d be reading to him from a much better play.”
We said goodnight, and I reached to start the car. Then I remembered the letter from Archie in the box of Dr. Womble’s stuff. The box was on the seat beside me, so I reached over, rummaged around in it, and pulled out the envelope.