TWO

BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, THE PRESENT

The boy who calls himself her brother, I’ll kill him first. I owe him big time. I’m gonna gut him like a fish. Fillet him. I can feel the smile on my face. Just the thought of him gone makes me happy. Maybe I’ll let Bessie watch. She deserves that much for her part in trying to escape me! She’s been bad, but I’ll teach her how to be good. I’ve learned from the best!

OK, here’s what happened:

APRIL, 2009 (LAST WEEK)

Elizabeth Lester Pugh was of two minds when it came to what she wanted to be when she grew up: a Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist or the Poet Laureate of the United States. Maybe both. She had no concerns whatsoever about make-up, clothes, shaving her legs, all those things girls her age seemed to fixate on. She believed highly in personal hygiene, would never go outside without washing her face and combing her hair, and was always careful not to have a booger hanging out of her nose. But that was about it. Except – and this was a big exception – when it came to her sister Megan.

Megan was a total girly-girl. Her existence was tied up in her make-up, her clothes, and what boy said what about what girl. Megan’s goal in life was to be a wife, mother, and fashion consultant, not necessarily in that order. So Elizabeth, who was smaller than Megan, was very careful to buy the clothes that Megan wanted but couldn’t wear, borrow things from Megan’s closet when Megan could never borrow anything from hers, and generally make Megan’s life as miserable as possible. It was her duty: they were sisters.

On the other hand, nobody, and I mean nobody, said a bad word about Megan in front of Elizabeth, and visa versa. And that went double for their brother Graham. On the Graham front, the two girls were totally bonded.

On this beautiful Thursday in April, the two girls got out of the minivan that was their carpool vehicle of the week, and raced to the front door, Megan of the longer legs winning as usual. They knew that today they were latchkey kids, as Dad was still at work and Mom was off to her romance convention in Austin, so they dug the extra key out of the flowerbed and used it to get in the house.

Megan, heading for the kitchen, said, ‘I’m hungry.’

Elizabeth answered with, ‘You’ll never lose weight that way. I’m going upstairs.’

Megan wasn’t really overweight but Elizabeth never missed an opportunity to point out that she could be. She bounded up the stairs and into her room, throwing her backpack on the bed and heading straight to the computer. She turned it on and checked her email. And there it was: an email from Tommy.

Elizabeth wasn’t really into boys, but Tommy was different. He was smart and funny and he understood her. She had to admit, to herself at least, that she was beginning to have a bit of a crush on him. The email was simple:

TO: Skywatcher75

FROM: T_Tom37

Home yet? IM me when you get there. T

So she did. They’d met in a chat room several weeks ago, one dedicated to astronomy nuts, which they both were. They were the only non-college-aged kids in there and had gravitated to each other. Now neither visited the astronomy site much, but talked to each other by email and IM as often as possible. Elizabeth sent out an IM:

Skywatcher75: ‘T, u there?’

T_Tom37: ‘Hey, E, been waiting for u.’

Skywatcher75: ‘Just got home’

T_Tom37: ‘Missed u.’

Skywatcher75: ‘How was school?’

T_Tom37: ‘Usual – u?’

Skywatcher75: ‘Same’

T_Tom37: ‘Gotta talk bout something’

Skywatcher75: ‘What?’

T_Tom37: ‘This is serious, E’

Elizabeth felt a stab of panic laced with joy. Was he going to profess his undying love for her? Was he going to say he couldn’t talk to her anymore? What?

Skywatcher75: ‘What?’

T_Tom37: ‘I haven’t been telling u the whole truth’

Skywatcher75: ‘About what?’

T_Tom37: ‘Me’

Oh, God, Elizabeth thought, he’s not a boy in the ninth grade like he said – he’s some thirty-year-old freak . . .

Skywatcher75: ‘Go ahead’

T_Tom37: ‘U have to be brave and hear me out’

Skywatcher75: ‘T, stop. Just tell me’

T_Tom37: ‘My name’s not Tommy’

This was it, Elizabeth thought. His name is Herman and he’s in his fifties. Oh, gross.

Skywatcher75: ‘What is it?’

There was a long silence from the other end, so long that Elizabeth thought for a moment that Tommy, or whatever his name was, had gone away. Then her computer pinged and words she’d never expected to see popped up.

T_Tom37: ‘My name is Aldon.’

Elizabeth stared at the letters, not sure she was reading them right. Finally, she wrote:

Skywatcher75: ‘I don’t understand.’

T_Tom37: ‘I’m your brother, Bessie.’

E.J., THE PRESENT

When Elizabeth told me about the emails, and the stalker’s ‘confession’, I was sick to my stomach. There was no question that this could be Aldon. I saw his dead body – tripped over it. Buried it. Cried over it. Bessie was so young when it happened that any memory she had of that terrible time would be shaky. The trauma of what she had experienced that night left her mute for several weeks. I’m not sure how much of that time she remembered. We used to make a pilgrimage every year to the Lesters’ graves, but in the last five years or so, we’ve let Bessie set the tone. Some years we all go, some years just Bessie. And once, no one went. It’s her call.

But I never suspected that she could be almost convinced that Willis and I had lied to her. That Aldon never died, that we were somehow in a conspiracy to cover up ‘what really happened.’ I cried when she told me that. I didn’t even know tears were streaming down my face until she looked at me and her face began to crumble. Then I felt the tears and wiped them away. ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ I said. ‘So sorry you had to go through this.’

‘I’m sorry!’ she said. ‘That I could believe that creep! I don’t know what got into me!’ she said, sobbing.

At fourteen, my youngest daughter is still tiny, still small enough that I can pick her up. I did, and pulled her into my lap, holding her tight. Megan was crying too, saying, ‘I told her you and Dad could never ever do that! I told her!’ Then I had ended up with both girls in my lap, holding them tight, all of us crying. Willis and Graham sat at the table, Willis with his face in his hands, Graham looking anywhere but at the crying females.

It had been the longest night I’d spent since childbirth. And it wasn’t over. Not until he was found, and I managed to have a few words with him.

GRAHAM, THE PRESENT

Here’s the strange thing: I didn’t get grounded. Not one day. Actually, I came out of this whole thing looking pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. Semi-superhero status. The girls, my sisters, might disagree, but they sure as hell didn’t when I was saving their asses! It’s just when they got time to think about it and figure out how much they now owed me that they decided I didn’t do much. But they are Wrong with a capital ‘W’.

So I called Lotta that first Sunday, after I finally got up, late in the afternoon, and asked if I could drive her home from school on Monday. I’d met Lotta the night before, riding around in the low-rider. Long story. Anyway, the guys in the low-rider were her cousins (one was an uncle, I think), and they picked her up from work. So she was with us when the whole thing with Elizabeth came down. And she was hot – Lotta, not Elizabeth, jeez – and she’d given me her number.

‘Hey, I work, idiot,’ she said.

‘Who you calling an idiot?’ I said, smiling when I said it.

‘You! Who do you think?’ she asked.

‘I dunno. Thought maybe you had somebody else on the line who really was an idiot,’ I said.

‘Naw, I only talk to one idiot at a time,’ she said.

‘So I’ll drive you to work,’ I said.

‘Um, you’ll have to talk to my cousin,’ she said.

‘Which one?’

‘You saying I got too many cousins?’ she asked.

‘Hey, if you can count ’em all, that’s fine.’

‘Are you saying I can’t count?’ she said, no longer playing around.

‘No, I’m saying you got a lot of cousins!’ I said.

‘’Cause if you’re saying you think I can’t count ’cause I’m Mexican, you can just take your white ass . . .’

‘Whoa, there! Jeez, Lotta, where’d this shit come from?’ I asked, totally confused.

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. ‘Never mind,’ she finally said. ‘The school counselor says I got issues.’

‘Hey, we all got issues,’ I said.

‘You saying your issues are better than my issues?’ she demanded.

‘OK, look,’ I finally said, ‘I guess this isn’t gonna work, so, Lotta, enjoyed meeting you . . .’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I tend to get defensive. I think that comes from being the only girl with five brothers and fourteen male cousins. Not another girl in the bunch.’

‘I can understand that – on a smaller scale,’ I said, ‘being the only boy with two sisters.’

‘Yeah, but I met your sisters, and I think they’re nice,’ she said.

‘That’s ’cause you’re not a boy sharing a bathroom with them. Underwear drying on the bathtub, hairy razors everywhere, face cream or some such shit all over the counter – and don’t get me started on trying to get in there in the morning! I almost pissed myself last week.’

‘Oh, thanks for that image!’ she said, laughing.

‘So,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘Can I drive you to work after school tomorrow?’

‘Hum,’ she said, like it was the first time she’d heard me ask. ‘I guess so.’

‘Great!’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you at the door to the parking lot, OK?’

‘See you then after last bell,’ she said.

Then we both said goodbye and hung up. Then I thought, all I had to do was figure out how to get Mom’s car. But that afternoon, that, and so many more of my problems got solved when my grandma came over.

She had her friend Miss Gladys with her and they were driving what I thought were both their cars. One was a fairly late model Ford Taurus and the other was Grandma’s Valiant.

Once everybody got in the living room, she made Mom call me downstairs and then came the bombshell of all bombshells.

‘I was looking at the Valiant,’ Grandma said, ‘and thinking about the horror Bessie went through in my car. And I thought she’ll never want to ride with me anywhere again. And then I thought, I need to get her to ride in it a lot so she’ll get used to it being my car again, and not that horrible place where she was held captive, but then I thought how she hardly ever rides with me, so then I came up with the perfect solution.’

Grandma looked from one to the other of us with a beaming smile on her face. Finally, her friend Miss Gladys said, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Vera, just spit it out!’

Grandma glared at her but then turned to me with a smile. ‘If it’s OK with your parents,’ she said, ‘I want you to have the Valiant. I already bought me a new car,’ she said, pointing toward the window, ‘that Taurus out there. Fine little automobile. Now that Valiant has a lot of years left in it, Graham, if you treat it right!’

I whirled around to my parents. Mom was looking shocked but Dad was smiling, which meant he and Grandma had already discussed it, without talking to Mom about it. Oh, boy. ‘Can I?’ I asked. Or panted. Or whatever.

‘I don’t see a problem with it,’ Dad said.

‘Willis!’ my mother said, staring daggers at my dad.

‘What’s your objection, E.J.?’ Dad said, really putting her on the spot.

She opened her mouth and closed it, and then tried it again, with still no words coming out. Finally she shook her head, sighed, and said, ‘No objection.’

I jumped up and hugged my grandmother and thanked her a bunch. Then grabbed the keys and headed out the door.

E.J., THE PRESENT

So I picked them up after school that day, and the next, and the day after that. He didn’t show. I knew he wouldn’t right away. He’d wait for us to let our guard down, to stop watching every move that Elizabeth made. Then he’d once again go after her. That’s what stalkers did.

One afternoon, as Megan climbed into the backseat, Elizabeth stuck her head in the open window of the passenger side of the car. ‘Mom, my friend Alicia wants me to go home with her. I told her it would be OK, right?’

‘Who’s Alicia?’ I asked, never having heard of this particular friend.

‘She’s new in school . . .’ Elizabeth started.

Megan cut in. ‘And she’s a total geek and a snob on top of that! Why in the world a geek would think they have anything to be snobby about, I don’t know.’

‘Shut up!’ Elizabeth said.

‘Bessie! We don’t say shut up!’ I corrected.

‘Yeah, and we don’t call me Bessie, remember, Mother?’ she said, drawing the dastardly word ‘mother’ out as only a teenage girl can. To her sister, she added, ‘And you’re just pissed because she didn’t invite you!’

‘Elizabeth! We don’t say pissed!’ I corrected.

‘Maybe you don’t, Mom,’ Megan said, ‘but I think Bessie just did!’ There was stress on the old nickname, which caused Elizabeth to stand up straighter and glare at her sister.

‘Is anyone really talking to you?’ Elizabeth said. ‘Other than that skuzzy skater who tries to look down your shirt every day?’

I couldn’t help looking back at Megan. She was turning blood red. This was something I’d have to delve into – later.

‘Elizabeth. I don’t want you going home with someone I don’t know. Have her mother call me and we’ll discuss having your friend come over to our house,’ I said.

‘Oh, gawd! You’ve got to be kidding! Alicia’s waiting for me! What am I supposed to tell her? That my mother thinks I’m too young to have play dates, for God’s sake!’

I was losing my patience. ‘Get in the back seat now,’ I said.

‘No! I have to go tell Alicia I can’t go!’ she almost screamed at me.

I took off my seatbelt and opened the driver’s door. Before I got myself out of the car, Bessie was in the backseat, buckling her own seatbelt.

Still standing outside the car, I said, ‘Where is this Alicia? I’ll tell her myself.’

‘No! Don’t! Please, Mom! Gawd, I’d die of embarrassment!’ Bessie said.

I got back in the car. ‘Tomorrow, tell her to have her mom call me and we’ll set something up. That’s the only way, Elizabeth. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said. In the rearview mirror, I could see her folding her arms over her chest and glaring out the side window.

BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999

I finally got to sleep sometime around three a.m. When I awoke the next morning, it was after ten and my mind registered the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen downstairs. And then the terrible events of the day before washed over me like a red tide.

I found a robe and put it on over my gown and headed downstairs. Willis and I had decided to keep the kids home from school another day. We had to tell them what happened; we didn’t want schoolyard gossip to be their first hint of the tragedy that had befallen their friends.

Willis was leaning against the bar that separated the kitchen from the breakfast room, his back to me, bacon frying in a skillet on the stove.

‘Where are the kids?’ I asked, aware of the silence of the house.

Willis whirled around at my voice, the Codderville News-Messenger he’d been reading shoved behind his back. ‘Ah, hey, babe. Mom came by early this morning and picked them up. She’s taking them to a movie in Codderville.’

I nodded my head. The only good reason, I thought to myself, to have a mother-in-law in the first place. ‘That’s good,’ I said. Then, ‘What are you hiding behind your back?’

‘Hum? Oh, nothing,’ he said. ‘Have some breakfast! I bet you didn’t eat anything yesterday. You must be starving. What can I get—?’

I grabbed the paper from where he’d tried to hide it. The headline: ‘Black Cat Ridge Family Victims of Murder-Suicide.’ The story read:

‘Codderville Police yesterday discovered the bodies of four members of the Lester family of Black Cat Ridge. In an apparent homicide-suicide, the father of the family, Roy Lester, manager of the Codder County Utility District, allegedly shot his wife, Terry Lester, and two of their three children, Monique Lester, age sixteen, junior at Black Cat Ridge High, and Aldon Lester, age ten, fifth grader at Black Cat Ridge Elementary, then allegedly turned the gun on himself. The Lesters’ youngest child, Elizabeth, age four, is in undisclosed condition at Codderville Memorial Hospital.

At this time, the police can find no reason for the apparent murders and suicide.’

‘You bet your ass they can find no reason!’ I said, flinging the paper in the trash. ‘Roy didn’t do it!’

Then I looked at Willis, his head bent, one hand covering his face. ‘Honey,’ he finally said, ‘the police said he was sitting there with the shotgun in his lap, his face . . .’

I walked up to my husband and gently pulled his hand away from his face. ‘I know what they saw, Willis, because I saw it first. But that has nothing to do with anything. Roy didn’t do it. You know it and I know it.’

Willis shook his head, tears streaming down his face. ‘Ah, shit, baby . . .’

I put my arms around him and we both cried, long and hard. It was the first time I’d ever seen my husband cry.

Later, after we’d exhausted our tears and cleaned our faces, we sat at the kitchen table, coffee cups before us. ‘Why would Roy do it?’ I asked.

Willis shook his head. ‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t – not unless he went nuts.’

‘Why would he suddenly, out of the blue, go nuts? Have you seen any signs of impending nuttiness?’

Again, he shook his head. I placed my hand over his. ‘Let’s assume for a minute that he didn’t do it.’ Willis looked up at me. ‘Let’s assume,’ I went on, ‘that our funny, lovable friend we’ve known for four years did not kill his wife and two of his children.’

‘If we assume that,’ Willis the engineer said, ‘then we must also assume that someone else did.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And if someone else did it, then that someone else manufactured things to make it look as if Roy had done it.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Again, the shake of the head. ‘But why? Why in the hell would anybody – anybody – do this?’

‘It’s easier for me to believe somebody else did it than to believe Roy did. So there’s a Charles Manson clone out there – I don’t know! I just know Roy didn’t do it.’

This time Willis put his hand on mine. ‘Honey, statistically speaking more murders are committed by family members than by strangers.’

‘Not in this case.’ Then it hit me – the anomaly. ‘OK, answer me this: Where in the hell did that shotgun come from?’

‘The attic,’ Willis said.

‘What?’

He sighed. ‘The shotgun had been his dad’s – the only thing he had of his father’s.’

‘OK, so Roy, the most laidback person I’ve ever known, suddenly goes nuts, and instead of using a kitchen knife to kill his family, goes upstairs, pulls down the ladder to the attic, crawls around up there until he finds this shotgun – oh, and did he have bullets for it? – and then comes back down and proceeds to shoot his family. Is that what you’re saying?’

Willis stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair. ‘I’m not saying shit! We don’t know what’s in other people’s souls, in their hearts! We don’t know what went on in their bedroom! What deep dark secrets they had!’

I stood up and glared at my husband. ‘Well, I do! I know they lost a baby between Aldon and Bessie and Roy cried for days! Did you know that? I know that Roy had an affair the first year they were married and Terry kicked him in the balls so hard he had to go to the ER! Did you know that? I know that Monique went on the pill last year – just in case! Did you know that? I know that Roy’s mother died in an alcoholic ward in Dallas. Did you know that?’

Willis shook his head as he sat back down. ‘No, I didn’t know that. Except for the ER visit – Roy told me about that.’

I sat back down across from him. ‘I also know something else. If Roy Lester was capable of doing what was done at that house yesterday, then so are you – so is everybody! And I don’t believe that! I could not go on living in this world if I thought for an instant that everyone – me, you, Roy – was capable of what I saw!’

‘You don’t think I’m capable of killing somebody?’ my husband demanded.

‘Yes, I do. I think you would shoot, stab, bludgeon or beat to death anyone hurting me or the kids or even a stranger, but I do not think you are capable of picking up a shotgun and chasing your children down the stairs and shooting them in the back!’

The tears were again running freely down my face. Sobbing, I got up and left the room, heading up the stairs, feeling the muzzle of an imaginary gun at my back.

ELIZABETH, THE PRESENT

It wasn’t bad enough that I got kidnapped by that horrible cretin a while back, now my mother acts like I’m made of glass. I can’t go anywhere by myself! Ever! I had to make up going to Alicia’s house because there was no way my mother was going to let me take the bus to the new mall in Codderville. And she wouldn’t even let me do that! Just go to Alicia’s house! With her mother there! Alicia’s cool and it would have been a blast at the mall. Half our class was going to be there. With the great big exception of Megan!

I can’t do anything without Megan! You know, sometimes, I’d just like to be myself – not an extension of Megan. If that horrible incident taught me anything, it’s that I’m entirely too wrapped up in this family! I have a family! They’re dead, but they’re mine! Sometimes my mother acts like I’ve always been hers! And that’s not true! And sometimes I wish that guy really had been Aldon. Even if it meant Mom and Dad had been lying to me and were involved in some way in what happened to my family – the up side of that is I would have someone really mine. My blood.

In biology class we talk about bloodlines and genetics and I know nothing about mine! I know my grandma died of cancer. What about my real mom? Would she have succumbed to it too? Would I? There are so many things I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like just taking off! Surely there’s someone out there related to me. Somewhere!

E.J., THE PRESENT

So for six weeks Graham took the girls to school every morning and I picked them up from school every day. I had two more weeks until school was out, and needed to get the kids involved in something. There had been a flyer in the church program the Sunday before about the Methodist Youths doing a summer camp for the smaller kids. I figured that would be a perfect way to keep the kids occupied and watched the entire time. I knew Graham wasn’t going to like the idea, but he was my ace in the hole.

It’s funny how kids change. I always figured Graham would be my problem child. A smart-mouthed, in-your-face child, he turned into a relatively mellow teenager. And, as far as I can tell, the mellow isn’t from anything he smokes. He’s a straight ‘B’ student, does sports, has a lot of friends – albeit some of them not so bright – and does some of his chores without bitching. And the way he stepped in and took care of his sisters during that horror, well, I can’t praise him enough for that. Actually, I can’t praise him at all. All three of them get mad at that. The girls are all ‘we didn’t need to be rescued,’ and Graham’s all ‘shucks, ma’am, I didn’t do nothin’.’ It would be comical if it wasn’t so maddening.

I’ve always heard that the teenage years are the hardest, but who would have thought Bessie – excuse me, Elizabeth – would be the problem? She was an angelic child. Always the voice of reason when she and Megan were playing. Megan would say, ‘Let’s play fairies and jump off the roof!’ and Bessie would say, ‘But, Megan, we’d get hurt. Let’s don’t.’ Megan would say, ‘Let’s put the cat in the dryer!’ and Bessie would say, ‘I think that would make her sick. Let’s don’t.’ And Megan would say, ‘Let’s stick our Barbies in the oven and see if they come out with a tan!’ and Bessie would say, ‘I think they’d just burn up. Let’s don’t.’ Megan would always argue, but Bessie would almost always curb Megan’s enthusiasms.

But now it’s different. I’m afraid Megan got thrust into the role of the reasonable one when she began reading Elizabeth’s emails from her ‘brother Aldon.’ And Bessie, poor Bessie, still so desperate for her own family, wanted to believe. No matter what, she wanted to believe.

It breaks my heart a little more that this person did this to her. Someone attacking her for no other reason than the fact that she was a girl and available would have been bad enough, but for this person to seek her out, stalk her, play games with her head, bring up the past that we’ve tried so hard to help her understand and put behind her, is unconscionable. He needs to be put down like a rabid dog. Yes, I know, Texas’s leading unknown liberal is talking. Sometimes politics are just words. I want this monster dead. Hey, I’m a mom.

I found the church program where I’d dropped it by the back door, and found the number for the youth summer program director, Myra Morris. She’d been with the church for three summers, directing the youth summer programs, and the kids loved her. I figured with Myra involved, at least I had a fighting chance of getting all three to go. Especially Graham, who, as I mentioned, was going to be my ace in the hole. Myra was twenty years old, had blond hair that she usually wore in a perky ponytail, blue eyes as big as an anima character, and legs at least twice the length of her torso. She was a serious beauty – a former UT sorority girl who’d seen the light and transferred to SMU to finish up before going on to seminary.

‘This is Myra,’ she said when she picked up the phone.

‘Hi, Myra, it’s E.J. Pugh, Graham—’ I started.

‘And Megan and Elizabeth’s mom! Hi, Ms Pugh! I hope you’re calling to enroll all three as counselors!’

When I was a teenager and young adult, full of angst and anger and rebellion, I would have hated Myra Morris. But as a mom, these things change. I wanted the Myra Morrises around my kids. The perky, head cheerleaders with the Type A personalities and an overload of spunk. I would gladly kick a clone of myself as far away from my kids as I could get her.

‘Actually, that’s exactly why I’m calling. And, Myra, I need to tell you confidentially that Elizabeth was being stalked this spring. We never found the guy who did it, but he did try to kidnap her—’

‘Oh, dear Lord!’ Myra breathed. ‘Is she OK?’

‘She’s fine, Myra, but actually it’s me. I’m scared shi— to death,’ I said, remembering I was talking to someone at the church and trying desperately to clean up my language. ‘I was hoping I could enlist you to keep a clandestine eye on her.’

‘Of course! We’ve got a lot of safe guards in place for the little ones, and I’ll just make sure we follow them for the older kids too. Is there anything else I can do?’

‘Would it be possible for Elizabeth and Graham to work together? He’ll be coming to keep an eye on her.’

‘I’ll make sure of it. What a good big brother he is!’ Myra said, of course finding the bright side. OK, I didn’t say these perky types weren’t still annoying as hell, just that they’d be better around children than I would have been at that age. Personally, more than two minutes around her gave me hives.

‘That’s great, Myra,’ I said. ‘Thanks so much. When does it start and when do they need to be there?’

She gave me all the pertinent information, including location, which, unfortunately, was not on the church grounds. They would be bussed every day to the church sleepaway camp that had a day-camp area, and was about fifteen miles from Black Cat Ridge.

I hung up and sat back in my chair, thinking about my idea. Maybe not such a good one, I thought. I didn’t like the idea of the kids being fifteen miles away from help (and on the road the camp was on that translated into thirty to forty-five minutes), if they needed it. OK, in my mind when they needed it. Myra had told me who would be driving the bus, Gus Mayhew, a forty-five-year-old former Marine with arms like ham hocks and legs like sides of beef, who she’d talk to about staying the day. If Gus, one of the deacons of the church, agreed to do it, and I thought he would, then it was on.

BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999

Willis and I had been raised in different faiths – Willis as a Southern Baptist, me as an Episcopalian – and, at the urging of Terry and Roy, found ourselves firmly in the arms of the Methodists within weeks of moving to Black Cat Ridge. Willis’s mother, Vera, wasn’t happy, but then, I really didn’t care about making the woman happy. OK, we had issues. Everything was fine the first year, but the minister we had moved on and our church was punished for some reason with the entrance of The Right Reverend Berry Rush. The only thing worse than Berry Rush was his wife, Rosemary Rush. Separately they were both pompous, arrogant, self-righteous, and holier-than-thou. Together they were royal pains in the ass.

He called at noon on Wednesday.

‘E.J.,’ he said when I picked up the phone. ‘This is Reverend Rush.’

‘Oh, hello,’ I said, finding the nearest chair to sit down. Along with everything else, Berry Rush was long-winded.

‘I was so terribly sorry to hear about what happened at the Lesters.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Do you have the names of the next of kin so I may call and offer my condolences and any services they might possibly need?’

I found my address book and read off the name of the only viable next of kin.

‘I understand that you found them, E.J.,’ Reverend Rush said.

‘Yes.’

‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

‘I’m OK, Reverend Rush,’ I answered, gritting my teeth. ‘Thank you for asking.’

‘If there’s anything Rosemary or I can do . . .’

The thought made me shudder. ‘No really, I’m all right. But I do appreciate your concern.’

‘Well, we’ll be praying for you and your family, and of course, little Bessie.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, but was talking to dead air.

Thinking about Mrs Karnes, Terry’s mother, the number I’d given Berry Rush, I decided the first voice she needed to hear from her daughter’s neighborhood should be mine and not Berry’s. So I dialed the number, hoping to beat Berry to the punch.

‘Hello?’ a female voice answered.

‘Mrs Karnes?’ I asked.

‘I’m afraid Mrs Karnes can’t come to the phone,’ the woman said. ‘She’s not taking any calls right now.’

‘Oh, of course,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. This is E.J. Pugh. I was Terry’s next-door neighbor—’

‘Oh, my goodness!’ the woman exclaimed. ‘You’re the poor thing that found . . . Oh my goodness!’

There was a commotion on the line. I could hear the woman say, ‘Now, Irene, you shouldn’t be up . . . E.J., Mrs Karnes wants to speak to you.’

‘E.J., is that you?’

‘Yes, Mrs Karnes, it’s me.’

I heard her sob. ‘I don’t believe any of this,’ she said.

‘I know, I know.’ I hadn’t realized how hard this was going to be. My own tears were welling up and spilling over. This woman had been through so much, so damn much.

‘How’s Bessie?’ she asked. ‘Are you taking care of Bessie?’

‘She’s still in the hospital, ma’am, but I saw her yesterday. It’s too soon for the doctors to know much.’ Know what, I hope she didn’t ask. She couldn’t take the possibilities – the horrible possibilities that went through my head a thousand times a day.

I heard her take in a breath. ‘Do you have a copy of their will?’ she asked.

‘No, ma’am, I don’t know that they made one.’

She sighed, and I could tell she was in pain – her words coming out in short, staccato sentences. ‘They did. Last Christmas. Up here. I made them. The cancer was back. I couldn’t be . . . responsible . . . for the . . . children. I thought I’d be dead . . . long before . . .’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Again, the long intake of breath. ‘Terry didn’t tell you?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘You – and Willis – are executors. Lynda was . . . but . . .’

Lynda, Terry’s sister, had died in a car wreck the year before. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said.

There was a sob on the other end of the line. ‘A woman shouldn’t outlive both of her children, E.J.! It’s not right!’

I was gasping for my own air. Terry hadn’t said a word, but then, when was there time? Why would that be on her mind? Her sister dead, her mom dying, why would she even think to mention it?

‘I hate to break it to you like this, E.J.,’ Mrs Karnes said. ‘You’re listed as guardian of the children in case . . . Oh, Lord.’

‘Mrs Karnes . . .’

‘I can’t be responsible, don’t you see?’

‘Ma’am . . .’

‘E.J., I’m dying. The chemo, it’s not working. They’re talking about calling in Hospice.’

‘Mrs Karnes, I’m so sorry . . .’

‘Thank you, but that’s not the point! The point is Bessie! I’m going to have my lawyer send you a copy of the will. You need to get your own lawyer. Somebody’s going to have to pay for Bessie’s hospital bills, and the funerals . . .’

‘Mrs Karnes, we’ll take care of it,’ I heard myself saying. ‘Please don’t worry about it.’

‘Oh, I’ll worry about it, I’ll worry myself sick about it, but there’s not a blasted thing I can do!’ I heard another deep intake of breath, as if she were fighting for each one. ‘E.J. Roy . . . Roy was like a son to me . . .’

‘He didn’t do this, Mrs Karnes,’ I said.

I heard her sob again, then the phone went dead.