On Wednesday Gloria came back from the post office with a package, which she laid on my drawing table. It was wrapped in brown paper recycled from a Bi-Lo grocery sack and addressed to me in wavery black ink. “Open it,” she instructed.
I slit the box with the edge of my scissors, and out slid a thick rectangle wrapped in a cardboard sleeve. I cut the tape on the sleeve, unfolded the flaps of cardboard, and found myself looking down at a formal black and white portrait of Jeanine Murry Murdock. She wore the same kind of black off-the-shoulder drape I’d worn in my own high school senior picture. Her dark hair was teased and flipped up at the ends, and her lips were parted, just slightly, into a smile that promised everything.
Gloria stood by my shoulder, looking down at the photo. “You like?”
I nodded. “Where’d you get it?”
“Sonya Wyrick,” she said. “She called me, not long after you went to see her that second time. Said she wanted to do something to make amends. We talked. I told her how you felt. She hadn’t heard about Vince Bascomb. I told her what Drew said—you know, about the fact that we’ll never be able to recover your mama’s body. She said then that if she could find it, she had something she wanted you to have. I think this is it.”
“And I’m just supposed to forgive and forget, is that it?”
“That’s up to you,” Gloria said.
I turned around. “What would you do?”
“Me?” she asked. “I think I would want to lighten my load. Right now, Keeley, you’re carrying around an awful lot of black muck. You hate Drew Jernigan. Hate Lorna Plummer. Hate Sonya. Hate Darvis Kane. And you know what? It’s not doing you a damn bit of good. Sonya feels bad, but she’s apparently the only one of ’em who has a conscience.”
“I want them to hurt,” I said. “I want Darvis Kane found. I want him in jail for killing my mother.”
She sat down at the conference table and started flipping through the rest of the mail she’d brought back from the post office. “Look,” she said. “I wasn’t going to tell you this at all, but I hate to see you spending all this energy making yourself miserable, so here goes. I talked to Howard Banks about Darvis Kane, and he’s been doing some digging.”
“Sheriff Banks,” I said eagerly. “Does he know where Kane is?”
“No,” Gloria said. “Howard ran one of those national crime computer checks. Darvis Kane did some time in the late eighties and the early nineties for mail fraud, auto theft, and bank fraud. He was released from a county jail in Bakersfield, California in 1997. And after that, there’s nothing.”
“He might still be alive,” I said. “Daddy’s detective could still track him down.”
“No,” Gloria said, sounding very definite. “No more detectives. No more digging. Howard says Kane is probably dead. Darvis Kane was a con artist and a thief. He ran with criminals most of his life, and the chances are one of them killed him. So that’s it. End of story.”
“Did you tell Sheriff Banks about Drew Jernigan’s part in Mama’s murder?” I asked. “Does he think something can still be done?”
“He already knew,” Gloria said. “Vince Bascomb called him up and asked him to come out to see him at his house, just a couple of days after you saw him. I guess he didn’t want to take his secret to the grave.”
“Then why isn’t Drew in jail?” I demanded.
“Because Drew Jernigan denied everything,” Gloria said. “And without a body, there’s no proof of any of it. Now, Keeley,” Gloria said sternly. “I want you to stop obsessing about this. Your father wants it too. Jeanine has been dead for twenty-five years. It’s over.”
I propped Mama’s picture up against the drafting lamp on my table. I would need a frame. Sterling silver always looks nice with black and white.
“So that’s it,” I said softly. “No justice. Sounds like a made-for-television movie. No justice for Jeanine.”
“Well,” Gloria said thoughtfully, “maybe just a little. Poetic justice, I guess you’d call it.” Slowly that megawatt smile blinked on. “I passed Madison Mutual coming back from the post office, and I thought I’d check to see if the new console tables we ordered for the boardroom had been delivered. Guess who’s sitting in the president’s office starting today?”
“Drew,” I said. “He’s been sitting there every day for as long as I can remember.”
“Not anymore,” Gloria said gleefully. “It’s Kyle’s office now. According to the new head teller, there was a shake-up at the quarterly board meeting, and Drew was quietly dethroned by unanimous vote.”
“How?” I asked. “It’s a family-owned bank. The Jernigans are the board.”
Gloria shook her head. “Correction. GiGi, A.J., and Kyle are the board. Together the three of them hold controlling interest in the bank. I guess having the sheriff pay them a visit to inquire about Vince Bascomb’s story got GiGi’s attention. Plus I hear she thought Drew was spending too much time with JoBeth, the old head teller. And the boys had apparently had it with their father screwing around on all of them. So now JoBeth is on the street, and from what I hear, Drew is too. Although it’s a very nice street. GiGi has decided to keep The Oaks and the house at Cuscawilla. She’s decided Drew can have the house at Highlands.”
“So Kyle’s president of Madison Mutual?” I asked. “A.J.’s in Chicago, learning how to be a mortgage broker. And Drew’s out? For real?”
“For real,” Gloria said. She reached for her Rolodex. “I think I’ll give Kyle a call. That new office of his is going to need some work.”