Della
“Horne’s still calling Enoch a person of interest, but I think he’s just stumped.”
I was filling in Cleva and Alex on the news from the past week. Alex had flown into Asheville from L.A., picked up his car at the airport, and driven to Laurel Falls. Together we made chicken korma with a vegetable biryani for the three of us. He brought Kingfisher beer from Asheville, and I contributed mango sorbet from the freezer at the store.
We talked about how, after the first flurry of the investigation, things had come to a standstill. Horne wanted to pin it on Enoch, but the facts didn’t line up. “Horne keeps saying that Astrid’s mother was depressed, and Enoch snapped,” I said. “But that doesn’t cut it for me. If being depressed leads to getting murdered, I’d be six feet under now. I don’t need to tell either of you that I’d had some trouble getting oriented to this place.”
“Honey, just because you’re born here don’t mean it comes easy,” Cleva said. “Sometimes I get the blues, too. Or I get so mad, I just want to pinch someone’s head off. I reckon it’s like that the world over. Get two people in a room, anywhere, and the likelihood of a head-pinching doubles.”
After dinner, Alex poured three glasses of iced coffee he’d brewed earlier and added his two cents. “That sheriff needs to cut the father some slack. Enoch sounds as though he’s better with the kids than that mother ever was, not exactly a hothead ready to snap. He’s the one who tried to find work and serve as both parents to his kids.” Alex’s voice grew louder as he stuck up for not just Enoch, but every man who worked at being kind to his family. He was a convert to that group, and as the saying goes, there’s nothing like a convert’s zeal. He sipped his coffee before going on. “Over the years, I’ve known lots of people like them—idealistic, aka stupid transplants from big cities. They quickly found it’s not easy living here, though Della has managed rather nicely.” He clinked my glass and then looked at Cleva. “Not that I don’t enjoy your homeland, Cleva. It’s wonderful to come for a visit.” They clinked glasses.
“And why is Horne horning in on your time, Della?” Alex added, trying to make it sound like a casual quip, but I knew him too well. “You’re not law enforcement or even a reporter anymore. I think he’s got his eye on you.”
I waved off his comment. “Oh, he just needs some help, and he is a galoot—not too smooth with kids or women. I suppose I help that way.” My turn to sip coffee and pull my thoughts together. “I’ve spent a good amount of time with that family, and I can’t shake the feeling they aren’t particularly upset Lilah’s gone. Their lives are chaotic because of everything going on, but there doesn’t seem to be much sadness beyond that. Kids are wired to love or at least count on their parents—their survival rests on that. We’ve all heard disturbing studies about abused kids going back to hug their oppressors. But the last time I saw the three of them, they seemed more like a family without Lilah. Oh, and that reminds me. Horne drove out to question Maddie Kramer, the woman Enoch was seeing on the side. She told him they only got together occasionally and had broken it off recently. He said she seemed credible.”
I’d spent time over the past week reading Lilah’s diary, and Horne’s description—bizarro—was spot on. I shared with Alex and Cleva how she seemed to write whatever came to mind, things that sounded more like Stephen King than a troubled mother. Watching critters come up the bathroom drains. Imagining she was stabbing everyone she knew. Chattering over and over about the stupidest things.
Meanwhile, Horne had also discovered a few things from public records. They’d paid cash for the land and the cabin kit from Rocky Top Cabins, something that supported the assumption that one of them had money.
“Whoo!” Cleva interrupted. “Land prices sure have skyrocketed. It’s to the point now where families are building small villages on the farms their great-grandparents carved out of the wilderness. Grown children are just flat out unable to afford land of their own these days.”
I knew that was true for Abit. I was glad he’d moved away from his folks and found that rental cabin on the lake, but if he ever wanted to own his own place, I didn’t know what he’d do. I did know he’d never live on his parents’ land. The woodshop was one thing. Living there? No way.
“When Horne tried to trace deeper into their story, he hit a dead end,” I went on. “Their Social Security records didn’t go back that far, just twenty years or so. Of course, not everyone gets a Social Security number at a young age. Again, that speaks of money—no jobs after school or during the summers. Enoch told Horne he hadn’t gone to college and claimed he couldn’t remember his high school. Given his age, I bet he went through an extended doper phase. Same with Lilah. Horne reluctantly admitted he didn’t have anything to charge Enoch with except some marijuana they found during the search. I couldn’t believe it when he said he wouldn’t bother—Enoch and the kids had enough to worry about without that. Brower would have threatened the electric chair.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Cleva said, polishing off her mango sorbet. I’d noticed Cleva’s speech returning to her roots more since she’d retired from the school system.
Alex got up and started to clear the table. The kitchen and living room were one big room, up above the store and overlooking the mountains, where streaks of pink and gold danced behind their majestic peaks, closing out the longest day of the year. “Della told me they ran you off, Cleva, while you were giving away extra food from the Rolling Store,” Alex said. “So much for gratitude.”
“It was that wife, the mother of them two kids,” Cleva said, using her spoon for emphasis. “She came running out one day with a big wooden spoon in her hand, held up high above her head. ‘You get off our land and quit pumping these kids for information about us.’ I didn’t know what to make of that. I’d only said howdy to that little girl; I handed her a can of beans and hightailed it back to the bus. That woman scared the shit outta me, even if it was just a wooden spoon.”
The phone rang. Everything was close in the small apartment, and I caught it on the third ring. When I hung up, I told them, “The sheriff has a new lead. He wants to run it by me tomorrow afternoon.”
Alex smirked, but I just laughed at him.