I can’t flee the library fast enough with this information, calling Clayton on the ride home. He doesn’t pick up so I leave a detailed message.
“Robert Johnson?” Sebastian asks when I enter the houseboat out of breath and relate all that occurred this afternoon. “Why does name that sound familiar?”
“Mississippi blues singer,” TB mumbles from the couch.
His lip’s still bruised on one side, making him lopsided like a hound dog. I’m surprised my husband knows who Robert Johnson is considering his seventies infatuation. He shrugs as if he’s reading my mind.
“I visited Greenwood, Mississippi, with the high school football team. Seen his grave. The man has three, you know?”
“What?” Sebastian asks.
TB leans on an elbow and I notice the color blooming in his cheeks. The black eyes still break my heart but my husband’s slowly improving. I wish I was sitting on the couch so I could cover those cheeks with grateful kisses.
“Robert Johnson died mysteriously outside Greenwood,” TB tells us. “Some say by a jealous husband of a woman he was flirting with, maybe poisoned. Others think syphilis. No one knows for sure where he’s buried and there are three gravestones in cemeteries in the Mississippi Delta that insist it’s the place. I’m going with the one I visited.”
Sebastian shakes his head trying to make sense of it. “Fascinating.”
TB perks up. “It was. People visit his grave all the time, leave weird things like harmonicas and bourbon.”
Sebastian turns to me. “Why would you think someone with a blues singer’s name and three graves is Dwayne?”
I cringe remembering meeting Dwayne in the middle of the Natchez Trace, and what I had contemplated at the time.
“Because Robert Johnson was such an amazing musician people claimed he sold his soul to the devil at the Mississippi crossroads,” I explain. “And I nearly did the same thing.”
“What?” The color drains from TB’s face. He never knew how close I came to giving in to Dwayne’s insistence that he could help me contact Lillye.
“I didn’t know what he wanted in return,” I tell him, finding my voice taking on a desperate tone.
I nearly lost TB on that trip down the Natchez Trace, so desperate I was to reach my sweet girl, and now my husband’s staring at me like I’m a lost cause. And maybe I am. Because I’d still offer my life for one more moment with my precious baby.
TB swallows. Hard. “Vi…,” he begins.
I rise from my seat. More like slowly slide out of my chair, belly first, arm on the back for support. “Anyone want something to drink?”
No one answers as I head toward the kitchen and I swear I can feel TB’s gaze boring into my back. Once inside the kitchen, the men begin to talk quietly and I let out the breath I’ve been holding. My heart’s beating hard again so I set the kettle on the stove and pull out another Maribelle concoction, this one she swore would help with my high blood pressure. What would really help bring my heartbeat down, I’m thinking as a rush of anger creeps up my neck, is for someone to tell me how to contact my child!
TB’s whispering to Sebastian and I grind my teeth. I’m suffering day and night carrying two of his children, losing sleep and having to pee constantly, not to mention the horrific heartburn I suffer after every meal and my back about to break in two. Here he is, sitting in the other room discussing me to my twin, no doubt expressing my insane determination to see Lillye. And what mother wouldn’t move heaven and earth to see her child? God knows what Sebastian’s telling him back, probably all kinds of nonsense from my youth.
I’m furious by the time I head to the living room with my tea, my heartbeat so intense I can feel it pulsating in my ears. But instead of discovering a conspiracy, I find the men debating whether Les Miles should coach another season of LSU football.
Sebastian looks up. “That better not be coffee, Miss Addicted to Caffeine.”
TB adds a sweet smile. “Maybe next year we can take the kids to a game in Death Valley.”
“Uh, a few years,” Sebastian inserts. “Next year the twins will be one.”
“Oh yeah,” my husband retorts with a goofy smile.
“But we can go,” Sebastian adds and the two of them laugh.
My heart plummets to my toes. Where did that paranoia come from?
The wind whips up from the lake and the woods to the left of our houseboat dance in response. It’s so sudden, we all glance out the window, watching the tree tops sway frantically. Stinky jumps off the couch and scratches at the back door, letting out a plaintive howl.
“Clayton,” TB says.
“How do you know?”
I see no one, still watching the trees rock back and forth as if they’re waving at me.
TB rises from the couch and heads to the bedroom. “I can smell him.”
Sure enough, our favorite FBI agent appears outside our door, waves at me through the glass. I welcome him in and while Stinky makes love to his ankles Sebastian merely shakes Clayton’s hand and excuses himself, says he has important work to finish.
“Of course,” Clayton says. “I’m sure Viola will relate anything we discuss here.”
Sebastian heads to his room and closes the door and I glance down the hall to see that the main bedroom door is closed as well. I turn back to Clayton with a smile but I’m sure he catches both my shock at their rudeness and my embarrassment.
“No worries. I get it.”
I don’t. “Can I get you something to drink?”
He shakes his head and politely declines, walks through the living room clearly uncomfortable, glancing around as if he’s looking for something. Stinky follows, rubbing his back against Clayton’s legs, acting as if he can’t get enough of the man. That delicious manly scent Clayton carries with him permeates the room but it doesn’t alleviate the darkness following in his path.
“You have something to tell me. And it’s not good.”
Finally, Clayton turns his enormous brown eyes toward me, rubbing his forehead and grimacing. “No, I’m afraid it’s not.”
I motion for us to sit and Clayton chooses the sofa, his giant form encompassing most of the cushions, his knees sticking out at ninety-degree angles, bumping up against the coffee table. Would hate to sit next to this man on a plane. Stinky immediately jumps into his lap and makes himself comfortable while Clayton performs a massage on his head. I can hear the purring from my chair opposite the two lovers.
“Clark-Everhart’s hotel division, called Tennessee’s Best Hotels, wants to purchase the woods next to Maribelle’s motel,” he begins. “She owns the property and has no intention of selling.”
I gathered this much but I say nothing, let Clayton explain all in due time.
“Touché, whom you know, is helping them. He knows the area, knows the Cove, knows Maribelle’s history.”
“Right.” Again, this is information I fed him in my long message after I left the library.
“The man called Robert Johnson….”
“Is Dwayne Garrett.”
Clayton shakes his head, looking as lost as I feel right now when it comes to my nemesis.
“I don’t understand it, Vi. No matter what we do, we can’t catch the man.”
I lean forward, as much as I can with a beach ball for a stomach, and touch one knee so Clayton looks me in the eye.
“There’s something I have to tell you.” I swallow hard, wondering how this news will go down. “Dwayne’s not of this world.”
Surprisingly, Clayton’s countenance remains solid.
“He’s a descendant,” Clayton whispers. He nods toward the back bedroom. “Like your husband.”
I’m so shocked I’m not sure how to respond.
“Well, not like your husband,” Clayton adds.
I fall back into my chair and realize that not only does Clayton know about descendants who walk this earth, but so does the FBI. But, Clayton surprises me again, dropping his shoulders and offering a sad smile.
“I’m not of this world either, Vi. I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out.”
If I had time to think about it, I’d come up with some banal response, some repudiation. Instead, I blurt out what I’ve been thinking all along.
“I had a feeling, although I have no idea what it is.”
Clayton smiles for the first time. “I figured.”
“Think it was that earthy smell.”
“Think your husband knows too.”
What?
“Why would TB know?”
Clayton extends one arm across the back of the couch and pats the fabric. “I’ll explain another time. Right now, we have bigger things to worry about.”
I nod although I’m bursting with curiosity, especially wondering how my husband knew and why he appears to dislike the man. Instead, I relate what I found in the library.
“Touché we know,” Clayton begins, pulling out a miniature notebook from his inner coat pocket. “From what we’ve uncovered, he owns a substantial amount in Clark-Everett’s hotel division.”
“Was that always the case? Do you think his insistence that Maribelle killed Jack was because he wants her land?”
“I’m not sure the idea of the resort goes back that far; we’re looking into it. But Dwayne is now involved and likely helping them with the development. We can’t comprehend what his role is in all this.”
I’m racking my brain trying to see a connection. Dwayne wants me to solve a mystery and transition a soul to enable his immortality, so why would he be involved in a real estate transaction that pushes Maribelle off her land? Unless this results in the town’s “unraveling,” as Sebastian predicted, putting pressure on me.
“Is Dwayne trying to destroy my brother’s business to get to me?”
Clayton rises, pushing Stinky off his lap, much to my cat’s chagrin, and begins pacing the living room, filling up the space with his enormous body and causing me anxiety.
“You’re scaring me.”
He stops moving, hand through his thick brown hair, and apologizes. And yet, he still doesn’t move, Stinky gazing up at him as if pleading for Clayton to return to the couch and his massage.
“Is this about Gunnar Bronagh?” I ask, probably destroying the pronunciation of his name.
Clayton silently looks down on me, hands on his hips, and I suspect he’s wondering how much to divulge.
“Tell me.”
He lets out a breath and returns to the couch, Stinky once again making himself at home in his lap.
“How much do you know about Maribelle?” Clayton says softly, looking off toward Sebastian’s closed door.
I don’t like the way this conversation’s heading but I report what I know.
“She’s from New England. Her parents killed themselves in a basement in Maine. She moved here to get away from a loveless marriage and purchased the motel next door to start over.”
“And half the town.”
I tilt my head. “Sorry?”
“She bought up half the town. The motel, the two historic buildings and the fifty acres of woods to the right of her business.”
This takes me back. “Fifty acres?”
“All in all, worth about two million dollars.”
“Where on earth did she get that much money?”
Clayton smiles grimly. “Where indeed? Kinda hard to believe she earned it working as a nurse.”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand. She bought it before her husband died so you can’t think she killed him for money. Besides, he didn’t have any.”
Clayton leans forward, careful not to interrupt Stinky, and whispers, “She inherited it from her parents.”
A chill settles over the room and I shudder.
“You have to ask yourself, Vi, why would two people who seemed happy to their neighbors and friends go into a dank basement and kill themselves by carbon monoxide poisoning? Together?”
I shake my head because I don’t want to imagine Maribelle doing such a thing. Maribelle grows plants, welcomes the dawn, gives thanks to the compass points each morning. And she cried relating what happened to her parents.
“She couldn’t have done it.”
Clayton sighs. “One thing I’ve discovered in this job, Vi, is that everyone’s capable of doing horrible things. It’s not something I hoped to learn being in the FBI, wanted to believe that human beings were basically good. But as they say, just because you don’t believe something is true, or hope it’s not, doesn’t make it not true.”
I’m still not convinced. “But why kill her husband?”
“They weren’t divorced yet.”
“And?”
“If and when they divorced, he was entitled to some of her money. Like you said, the man owned nothing, worked for a fishing company, a job he lost when he moved down here trying to get his wife back. He rented an apartment back in Rhode Island so he truly owned nothing.”
“So, Maribelle had a motive, kill her husband so he wouldn’t be entitled to some of her inheritance? She must have known Jack would get some of her cash after their divorce when she bought the property. If that was such an issue, why didn’t she divorce him first?”
“Maybe she didn’t expect him to find her. Her property isn’t in her name, it’s in a corporation she created.”
This doesn’t sound good.
“I don’t know, Vi, but killing him gets him out of the way, regardless.”
Neither one of us says a word and I hear a pair of cardinals calling out to one another from the deck where TB planted three bird feeders. Suddenly, I remember something.
“So, who is Gunnar Bronagh?”
Clayton’s cell phone rings and he rises, answers the call and begins speaking deferentially to a man’s voice that sounds like a boss. He looks at me as if to indicate the conversation is important, then grabs his notebook and heads for the door, talking all the way. He pauses at the threshold, still in conversation, but leans down and kisses the top of my head. Placing a hand over the cell, he whispers, “Stay vigilant and know that agents are watching the house.”
“I will.”
“And stay away from Maribelle.”
With those final words, Clayton exits the houseboat and I watch his long stride fill eat up the side of my houseboat. While I’m gazing at his retreating form, something to my right catches my eye. It’s Jack Greene, standing in my neighboring woods, looking forlorn. He’s been remiss all these months, thought maybe my friendly ghost had become satisfied that I’d befriended his wife, that he settled into an in-between land or moved on. I should have known better than to assume a soul stuck on this plane would disappear that easily. Or that Jack Greene would find peace with his death still unsolved.
The wind’s blowing hard now, a thunderstorm rolling in. Where before temperatures reached into the high eighties and humidity pasted clothes to my skin, the oncoming storm’s bringing a chill to the area. I button the top of my blouse and check the horizon, then head toward the woods. But not before calling Stinky for company.
My cat and I stride off the deck and into the grove of maples and oaks, enjoying the cool breeze coming off the water. I love my new home. In New Orleans this time of year, breezes are hard to come by unless a hurricane’s brewing in the Gulf. Louisiana in July means stagnant air, high temperatures, and steam rising from the sidewalks. Even before Katrina came barreling through my hometown and taking what was left of my life, I wanted to move north, someplace with four seasons and summers that didn’t steal your essence.
I look down at my cat who appears to be relishing in our new home as well.
“If only we felt safe here, huh Stinky?”
He looks up and winks.
When I reach the woods where I spotted Jack, my fish stick man’s there, although the energy he’s consuming to stay visible is taking its toll. I know I have minutes, if not seconds, before I lose him.
“I need to know,” I begin. “What happened to you? How does this involve Maribelle?”
He stares at me with those pleading eyes, still unable to communicate well. But he pulls on the fish earring hanging from one lobe.
“What is it? What can you tell me?”
He points to Maribelle’s hotel.
“Maribelle killed you?” I ask, which makes him stomp his feet in frustration. “Maribelle had something to do with it?”
He’s truly agitated now because I’m missing something important. He pulls the earring again, frowning.
“What?” I ask, equally frustrated.
Jack fades, his face distorted in a mix of anger and disappointment. Stinky sniffs the spot where the ghost had appeared and begins kneading the area like he does after using his litter box.
“Vi!” I turn to find Agent Sheridan coming up the path. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
He’s right, of course, and I’m not going to explain why I’m here so I nod and make my way down the path toward home, Stinky following behind.
“Don’t you worry about that cat running off?”
I look back at Stinky who gives Agent Sheridan a get real stare.
“He’s fine, kinda follows me like a dog.”
Sheridan studies Stinky, watches us both as we make our way on to the deck. “That cat’s not right,” he mutters and then heads towards his car.
I open the door and let Stinky inside, but I’ve got other questions to ponder. I call out to the agent and explain where I’m heading, ignoring Clayton’s last request. He follows me to Maribelle’s door but I make sure he’s out of sight before I knock. Maribelle opens before my knuckles hit wood.
“What’s the matter?”
I’d normally laugh at her keen intuition but today there’s too much doubt plaguing my brain.
“We need to talk.”
Her eyes narrow in suspicion but she opens the door wider and lets me in.
“Tea?”
Only if it doesn’t contain poison, I can’t help thinking. “That would be lovely,” I say instead.
I’m standing in her tiny living room, thinking how nice it will be for her to share that spacious second-story apartment with Sebastian, the one being renovated above the restaurant. But even though it’s tight in Maribelle’s motel suite, the numerous plants and homey furnishings make a visitor feel comfortable and welcomed.
“Have a seat,” Maribelle calls out from the kitchen.
I realize I’ve been pacing the floor of her living area, wiping my damp palms against my mommy jeans with the giant waistband that’s currently stretched to the max. I choose an oversized arm chair by the window — try not to break springs when I plop down — and her vast collection of herbs. She joins me and places two cups and a tea pot on the table next to me, sits on the ottoman.
“Tea will be ready in a minute.”
I take a deep breath, which of course immediately conveys how nervous I am. I decide to come clean.
“Clayton came to see me.”
Maribelle twists one side of her mouth into a grimace, causing a dimple to emerge on the opposite cheek. “And what did our FBI agent reveal this time?”
“Actually, it had to do with something I uncovered this morning.”
I explain how I visited the library, leaving out the part about wanting to research her family. I relate how Camille and I discovered the three men who had been there before, looking into Maribelle’s past.
“I called Clayton and he confirmed that Tennessee’s Best Hotels plans to develop your woods at Emma’s Cove. Plus, here’s the bad news. Dr. Touché owns part of the company and Dwayne’s involved.”
Surprisingly, Maribelle doesn’t react.
“You know about this?”
Maribelle stares off through the picture window toward the woods of mention. The trees grow so dense there so that lake breeze only stirs the top branches.
“The Clark-Everhart Timber Company started logging next to what is now the library,” Maribelle begins. “They cut down all the old-growth trees and built the two buildings we’re renovating. They built the employee cabins farther down the road because they thought the higher elevation would keep them from flooding.”
The tea kettle whistles so she rises and heads to the kitchen, returns and pours the hot water into the tea pot between us. The sweet aroma of orange and spice emerges.
“Thankfully, the woods over there,” Maribelle says with a nod, “were saved from the ax. Emma’s Cove was too far from the railroad and getting timber to market was too expensive so they abandoned the place.”
She pauses, tea kettle stilled in her hand. “Those woods are the reason I came here. There’s something magical about this place, Vi, something healing. I think Emma Harrington felt it too. In addition to my motel and the future herb shop, I was hoping to offer nature retreats here, especially for women needing rejuvenation.”
I think about the article I read recently concerning forest bathing, the Japanese practice of immersing yourself within forests and nature in an effort to restore balance and health.
“Trees carry powerful healing properties,” I say.
Maribelle lights up, knowing I get it. “Yes, they do. Which is why I have to protect those woods.”
I lean forward and take her free hand. “But you realize that there are powerful people behind the development. And Dwayne might be involved in a way to get at me.”
Maribelle never falters, appears as confident as the moment I knocked on her door. “I’m not afraid of them, Vi. I refuse to live my life in fear. It only makes me stronger and more determined.”
“But, how will you fight them?”
She heads to the kitchen, still wearing that smile, asking if I want lemon scones she baked this morning. Of course, I do, I tell her, but I’m worried for my friend. A major corporation with a legal department can attack with unlimited resources.
“Lesson number one?” she asks from the kitchen.
“You can’t avoid these people, Maribelle. They are already coming down your dark alley.”
I hear plates being moved from a cabinet. “Lesson number two?”
I sigh and do her bidding. “Center yourself and achieve balance before you face your enemy.”
“Good!” She turns the corner, two plates of goodness in her hands.
“And three?”
“There was a three?”
She hands me the plate with a still-warm scone. I can’t wait to slip that soft lemony pastry into my mouth.
“Fight them from a place of love.”
I can’t imagine facing Dwayne with love in my heart but I kinda get where she’s coming from. Military generals might disagree but I think Martin Luther King, Jr. found the right answer, moving social mountains without ever pointing a finger of hatred toward his enemies. And he had plenty.
While I enjoy the most delicious scone I’ve ever tasted and Maribelle pours us both more tea, I glance at the desk full of photos and notice the smiling older couple, the man in uniform and the woman dressed in a tea-length dress carrying a bouquet of flowers. I lean closer to get a better look.
“My parents,” Maribelle says, returning to her ottoman. “On their wedding day.”
“They look so happy.”
“They were.”
The comment’s stated so assuredly I can’t help wondering about their strange deaths, what made them so unhappy.
“What happened to them?” I ask in a whisper.
Maribelle appears in a trance gazing at the photo and I doubt she will discuss the horrific event, not to mention her involvement. But, then she begins to speak.
“The maid came over in the morning as she always did, expecting to find my parents drinking coffee at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper. She called out their names as she entered the house. When she had no response, she started searching.”
“How horrible.”
“Police found the furnace exhaust pipe wasn’t attached and had been spewing carbon monoxide into the basement. That’s what caused their deaths.”
Maribelle pauses in her telling and neither of us says a word. I listen to the wind moaning through the trees and around the building, hear rain falling outside in large noisy drops. I wait for an appropriate amount of time, then decide to spill the beans. I feel horrible initiating this accusatory conversation but I must know.
“Clayton said you inherited their estate,” I say softly. “He suspects you might have killed them for the money.”
Maribelle turns her eyes to me, tears pooling. “I know. I didn’t.”
“I know you dislike him, but you must admit, the money gives you reason to kill Jack.”
Maribelle smiles grimly, looking down at the cup in her lap. “Not to mention my parents.”
Despite my doubts, I reach over and take my friend’s hand. She squeezes back and the tears cascade down her cheeks.
“I’m not a fan of Clayton, as you know,” she tells me, wiping the moisture away. “He’s not the FBI’s sharpest cowboy on the ranch. But I do understand why he thinks the way he does.”
“You don’t think your parents committed suicide?”
Her eyes enlarge and she shakes her head. “Absolutely not.”
The wind howls again and I shiver. “Who would want to kill your parents?”
For the first time, I sense fear in Maribelle, as if an evil presence has entered the room, threatening to absorb us both. The fear in her eyes sends goosebumps up my back, that ole skunk running over my grave.
She looks past me to the desk full of photos, to the one I spotted that day in February, the first time I entered Maribelle’s apartment. It’s a photo of Maribelle’s mother standing next to two children. One of them resembles Maribelle as a scrawny teenager, looking at her feet awkwardly, arms crossed against her chest. An older boy stands more confidently on the side showing a full set of teeth in a creepy scowl, reminding me of Jack Nicolson’s character in The Shining when he pushes his face through a door and says, “Here’s Johnny.”
I shiver again. “Who’s that?” I ask, pointing to the man.
Maribelle’s countenance doesn’t change. If anything, it turns darker. I don’t know how I put the pieces together or if there’s someone on the other side forcing the words from my lips.
“Gunner Bronagh?” I ask.
We lock gazes and the fear I sense emanating from Maribelle seeps into my soul.
“Yes,” she whispers. “He’s my brother.”