Here she stopped for a minute. When she continued, her voice was dreamy, like she had forgotten Sapphire and I were there and she was just talking to herself. “I hated that room most of all. Of all the rooms in that house, I hated it the most.
“It stunk of that nasty cigar Mr. Miller was always smoking, for one thing. And it looked ridiculous! The rest of the house was all light and Florida-looking, but he did up his ‘study’ like he was some lord in some English manor house. Dark paneled walls, mahogany desk, heavy leather couch and chairs. And bookshelves full of books. I hated him for those books more than anything else. No, that’s not true. I hated what he did to Billie, to his own daughter, more than anything. But anyway, he had rows and rows and rows of books. All with the same leather cover. He got them all from one of those companies. They sent him ‘guaranteed classics,’ one a month. He never read them. I’d bet good money on that. Never.” She snorted with derision. “I so missed having something, anything, to read. There wasn’t a single book in that shack Elijah took me to. I would have liked an indoor toilet. I would have liked hot running water. But I think I could have taken it better if we’d had some books.
“I knew better than to try to use the Port Mullet Public Library. Besides, it was a pitiful little thing.” She looked at Sapphire again. “I only saw it from the outside, but from the looks of it, there weren’t as many books in that library as you and I kept in our bedrooms here at home. I couldn’t keep from hoping that you and Daddy would send me something to read.”
“I didn’t know,” said Sapphire softly. “I didn’t think.”
Etta Mae went on as if Sapphire hadn’t spoken. “I coveted those books. I did. And it wasn’t fair that he had them and never even looked at them, while I was aching for a chance to read them.”
“Couldn’t you have asked to borrow?” I broke in.
She shook her head slowly. “Of course not.” She thought it over, and then shook her head more vigorously. “No, I could not.”
“But you being trained as a teacher and all...”
She stopped shaking her head and looked at me, puzzled. “What makes you think they knew that?”
“Well, didn’t they?”
“Oh, Laurie.” She sighed, and waited, as if trying to decide if she had the energy to deal with my ignorance. “I was a good worker, and a good cook. That’s all they wanted to know about me. If they knew anymore, they probably wouldn’t have kept me.”
Sapphire was growing restless. “I’m gonna call the sheriff ’s wife again,” she said. “Tell him to get the word to those guys out there that they can end their little visit. I’ll let him know, in an oblique sort of way, that we haven’t told you a thing. That we don’t need some outside agitator looking into the water under the bridge, as it were. Then I’ll get him to promise safe passage for you.”
“How are you going to do that?” I asked, surprised.
“Won’t be hard,” she said. “I got a little something I’ve been saving for just the right occasion. Alice Parson, our cousin’s wife, she does the washing and the ironing for the sheriff ’s wife. She told me about some bright-pink lipstick she keeps encountering on the sheriff ’s uniform shirts. Well, I put two and two together, how the sheriff ’s young secretary overdoes it with her make-up, and how the sheriff’s cruiser is parked by the woods near that secretary’s house on a good number of the nights when her husband is out of town, and well… let’s just say I’ve got a feeling he will cooperate.”
I chuckled. Sapphire grinned and went into the kitchen. Etta Mae sat there, staring at the table.
“So, how did it end?” I asked.
Etta Mae spoke without looking up. “Billie was committed to Tassahatchee again before nightfall. Elijah’s body was found two days later. The day after the funeral, I borrowed the money from Mr. Miller for bus fare home to Daddy. I could see he was relieved I was going when he handed me the money. I never paid it back, but I’m telling you now that I don’t have any outstanding debts.
“I raised Sammy, the sweetest, smartest little girl I could wish for. Better, even. And Clara, I loved her just like she was mine, too. She was as sweet as Sammy, but she wasn’t as smart. But the main thing was, she wasn’t as strong.
“She was troubled, that one, from the time she was tiny. Things went wrong for her, no matter how hard she tried. And she always thought it was her own fault. That partly comes from having Sammy to compare herself to, I think. She saw how well things went for Sammy. She got so she blamed everything on herself. I got the feeling that she sensed there were bad things in the past, the things we didn’t talk about, and the very fact she didn’t know what they were, made her feel guilty.
“I tried so hard so make a clean, new future for the girls. But looking at what happened to Clara, I swear, I could no more change what she was headed for than I could change what had already happened. Just like I knew Elijah would end up bad, I knew Clara was going to have a hard time. She sensed all our faults, all our failings, and she made up her mind to pay for them. That’s what I believe.”
In the silence that followed, we could hear the murmur of Sapphire’s voice in the kitchen but not the words.
“Have you seen Forrest Miller’s study?” Etta Mae asked suddenly.
I was surprised, but I nodded yes.
“There were these big leather bound photo albums. Made in Italy. Oh, so finely made. Pages of black paper, filled with pictures, and little descriptions written under them in white ink. Not snapshots of the family. Mrs. Miller kept those on her desk in the bedroom, in scrapbooks from the five-and-dime.”
I was a little irritated at Etta Mae for going on about trivia then. My head was filled with the sad, terrible things she’d told me, and I didn’t have the patience for chitchat. And I was trying to listen to Sapphire’s side of the telephone conversation, since my immediate personal safety seemed to be the main topic.
But Etta Mae kept on. “He kept pictures of all the important things he did. The stuff he thought made him a big shot. I only took quick peeks at them now and then, when I was in there cleaning. I was afraid someone would catch me. But there were lots of pictures of him. Of Forrest. The vanity of that man. Every event that he thought reflected well on him, he had a picture of it. Every time he gave a speech, got an award, organized an event, anything. Did that man think highly of himself!”
After a long day, I was tired. I had gotten what I had come for, and yet I couldn’t help remembering something Momma used to say: “Be careful what you wish for.” I was too tired to listen anymore. But now that Etta Mae had finally started talking about the past, it didn’t look like she could quit. I was grateful when I heard Sapphire hang up the phone.
“I think you ought to see if you can get a look at those albums,” said Etta Mae, droning on in my ear. “You know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh. Sure do,” I said, not paying attention.
Sapphire walked back in the room, smiling. “Okey-dokey. It’s all clear. Sheriff is going to have a talk with those boys. Let them know we’re just two old country girls that want to be left alone. We’re not interested in telling ancient tales to our young guest here. Sheriff ’s going to escort the young lady to the state line. And he’s promised me those guys are not going to bother her.”
I was grateful, but I couldn’t help asking, “Do you believe him? What makes you think that he’s not going to double-cross you?”
“He won’t,” Sapphire said sharply. I think she was miffed that I hadn’t praised her accomplishment.
Etta Mae spoke quickly, “Don’t you see, Laurie, the sheriff doesn’t want any race trouble here. That’d be the last thing he wants. This is a rural county, lots of land, few people. Local economy needs the cheap black labor, and Lord knows the sheriff’s worthless wife needs help to do the washing and ironing.
“And this can of worms belongs to another state. Nothing to do with these country boys.”
Sapphire broke in then. “No, he wants an easy out, and this is it. Truth be known, I don’t believe that Forrest Miller wants to mess with you unless he has to. He knows the rules have changed in the last twenty years. Something happens to you, no telling what kind of investigation might get started into a lot of old stuff that he just wants to keep buried. But look at it from his point of view. You told him you write for a magazine, right? He hasn’t seen you in years, and then you show up to ask him about Elijah’s death. And that very night you go showing up at his Klan rally. Your behavior has been more than enough to spook him, if you’ll pardon the expression. When I told the sheriff it was Forrest Miller behind those boys out there in that truck, you should have heard him gasp. Your old Forrest is one big man in the Klan this part of the South. Hear tell that they have all sorts of political ambitions for him. I don’t think the sheriff minds this chance for Forrest to hear his name. He’s passing on the word that your investigation dead-ended right here, and Etta Mae and I are sending you home empty-handed. That’s what Forrest wants to hear. That you’re not a threat and you’ll be getting yourself back north where you belong, and out of things that aren’t any of your business.”
Etta Mae interrupted. “Nothing anyone can do now, after all these years anyway. We can’t prove that they did what we know they did.” Her voice trailed off at the end there, tired, and bitter.
Sapphire said, “The sheriff said to sit tight, he will be here for you in just a little while, Laurie, dear.”
When Sheriff Pierre showed up at Etta Mae and Sapphire’s door, he had his ridiculous, cowboy-esque, standard-issue sheriff’s headgear in hand. He spoke politely to Etta Mae and Sapphire. They responded graciously. I was seething. For hours we had been scared silly by the stupid behavior of a bunch of jerks in a truck. And here was another good old boy condescending to extend his power on my behalf. I hated him. I was filled with raw, powerless, hatred.
He said that I should follow him to the intersection of Highway 21, then turn into the parking lot of the motel at that corner. I followed the red taillights of his cop car with the radio turned up loud to drown out the pulse of anger beating in my ears. When he turned into the lot, I followed him, and when he stopped, I did, too, and shifted into park, but I didn’t turn the car off. Sheriff Pierre got out of his car and walked over to me. I rolled down the window with my left hand, kept drumming the flat of my hand hard against the steering wheel in time to the music.
He motioned that I should turn the music down. I did, but not until the song, “The South’s Gonna Do It Again,” was over. He waited, but his expression wasn’t quite as good-natured as it had been earlier.
“It’s late at night for a lady to be driving alone,” he said blandly. “This here motel is owned by my uncle, and his boy runs it. I’ll tell Cousin Howard to look out for you. You can get a good night’s sleep and then get an early start tomorrow.”
I thought about this for a moment. “How do I know that those guys won’t bother me here?”
“I set those boys straight. I talked to their boss, Mr. Miller, and he called them off. They won’t be bothering you again. Not in my part of the country.”
His self-confidence irked me. He was proud of his power, that much was clear, and yet it was guys like him who protected guys like Forrest, someone who had done the terrible things I had just heard about from two sweet old sisters leading a quiet life on a dirt road in rural Alabama. Still, I wanted to gloat over the way they’d been able to make Sheriff Pierre dance to their tune.
I was dead tired. If I was going to have to drive the highway home with my brain on high alert, I was going to need at least a couple hours of sleep, and then a couple of gallons of caffeine. So I turned off the car and stumbled out of it onto the gravel driveway. Sheriff Pierre accompanied me to the front desk, where his cousin Howard conducted his business. Howard was almost a Sheriff Pierre look-alike, but he wasn’t wearing a uniform.
I was thinking about a hot shower and a good night’s sleep, and a temporary reprieve from all remedy-less old sorrows. It sort of reminded me of standing in the murky, salty water at Deer Key, and feeling that gentle biting around my toes and thinking it was probably minnows, but worrying a little, too, that it might be a crab getting ready to get a good hold of me. I didn’t want to worry about crabs for awhile.
Anyway, so I was out of it, but not so out of it that I didn’t notice a little drama at the front desk, a little momentary embarrassment, when Cousin Howard obviously figured the Sheriff and I were going to check into the room together. It was clear that the sheriff ’s usual course of behavior made that a natural assumption. But they both jumped on it quick, smoothing over that little misunderstanding, hoping I didn’t catch all the implications.
I should have left it at that, I know. But I was angry and tired beyond reason. Sheriff Pierre started to take his leave, and I just couldn’t help myself. “Oh, no, Cousin Howard. You don’t think that the Sheriff and I... No, you couldn’t think that. Oh my. I don’t want people thinking that about me. Not when I’m hoping to be his new secretary.”
Cousin Howard blushed. Sheriff Pierre blushed. I went on, in my best imitation of a sweet Southern girl voice. “I’m not that kind of girl. And the sheriff is not the sort of man. Right, Sheriff Pierre?”
Howard started assuring me that I didn’t look like that kind of girl at all. And, of course, his cousin’s reputation was beyond reproach.
The sheriff ’s face may have been red but as he turned to me, the look on his face made me decide that my future travel plans would not include Sheriff Pierre’s part of the country. He left.
I picked up my room key. “No thanks,” I said sweetly to Howard. “I don’t need any help with my luggage.”
Sheriff Pierre waited until I stepped outside the office before burning rubber on his way out of the parking lot.
I had room number three. I walked along the shadowy concrete sidewalk in front of the units which had few outside lights. Both of the doors I passed had torn screens. An ancient air conditioner chugged in each window, leaking a dark stream of water onto the sidewalk. It was just water, but I was careful to step around it. I sensed unclean, invisible vapors rising from it, thick and nasty and contaminated.
From the looks of the parking lot, only those two rooms I had just passed were rented out. I wondered if business was always so slow at the Warm Breezes Motel and Motor Court. Then I thought what I knew about the sheriff and figured the place probably did better with its by-the-hour rates for lusty locals than with the overnight tourist trade.
I unlocked the door to my room and pushed it wide open. Finding the room even darker than outside, I was reluctant to step in, so I stood there in the doorway, giving my eyes time to adjust to the lack of light. Finally reaching along the wall by the door, I found the light switch, but still resisted flicking it. I was afraid somehow that there was something in the room I didn’t want to see.
And of course there was. I turned on the light and found the room depressing instead of scary. Very shabby, from the worn brown shag carpet and brown curtains that didn’t quite cover the windows, to the worn, dirty cover on the sagging bed.
I started to drop my backpack on the floor, but the carpet, with dark spots and places where the nap was matted together, was so unappealing that I put it on the small chest next to the bed instead. There was no chair.
Now, this is the thing. I’ve stayed in worse places, places that were far more unsanitary. I’ve slept in a bed in a youth hostel in Paris that was definitely dirtier. One night in Italy I slept on the filthy floor of a train. And I can’t even begin to describe some of the dilapidated rooms in the East Village, where I’ve lain in a lover’s arms. Those were adventures; that was romantic. So a rustic inn run by Italian peasants thrills me, but Alabama dirt, the tackiness of a run-down highway motel disgusts me.
I wanted a hot shower. I wanted to feel clean. I felt tired and confused, an overdose of other people’s sorrow clinging to me like a layer of oil all over my skin.
The light in the bathroom was poor, but it wasn’t so dim that I missed noticing how dingy the tiny room was. A tiny lizard perched on the shower floor. I stripped off my clothes, stuffing them in the sink, as it was the only surface that looked partly clean. Then I stepped in the shower, scaring the lizard away, and turned on the water. I was expecting a cleansing, healing blast of hot water. Instead I got a drizzle of brownish, rotten-egg smelling liquid.
The one tiny bar of soap, supplied by the management of this establishment, had a strong, artificial violet scent that was worse than the sulfur water. I rubbed it vigorously against me, then stopped, proceeding more gently when I found the texture similar to that of steel wool. After I had soaped up, I stood under the shower head for a long time, hoping that eventually I would feel, if not clean, perhaps a little cleaner. The water began to run cold, but I still didn’t feel clean. I got out.
I dried off on the miniature towel, so threadbare in places that I could see right through it. I was hesitant to put my dirty clothes back on, but then sleeping naked between those questionable sheets seemed even less appealing. I pulled on my t-shirt, then rinsed out my underwear in the brown water from the faucet. I turned on the air conditioner and hung my wet underwear in front of it, hoping that would encourage it to dry.
Then I lay down on the bed. I pulled up the top sheet over my shoulders, to protect myself from the air conditioner. The air wasn’t cold, but it emanated from the machine with the force of gale winds, even on the lowest setting.
At first my body rejoiced at the relief of stretching out. “Yes!” cried my calves, my thighs, my back, my neck. “This is what we were waiting for!” I sighed, sank deeper into the bed. My tired red eyes closed automatically, and it felt so good. I thought I was maybe thirty seconds away from a good night’s sleep.
But it didn’t happen. Even my nose was too tired to keep registering the mildewy smell of the room and the sulfuric, violet vapors from my hair. All conscious thinking ceased. But damn it, some hidden part of my mind refused to take my orders.
And so there it was, trying to listen for car engines, for footsteps, for voices, straining to hear over the hum and spin and clunking and blowing and dripping noises of the prehistoric air conditioner. I was never going to get any sleep that way.
I got up and turned the air conditioner off. The air hadn’t been very cool, but it certainly had been moving. I crawled back in bed, and, within minutes, the heavy, hot, full air hung over me, making sweat drop down the back of my neck, under my arms, down my thighs. I was suffocating.
I got out of bed again. I couldn’t open the front window, the one with the air conditioner in it, without the air conditioner falling out the window. I walked to the back wall, to the other window. It was behind dusty curtains and venetian blinds with a heavy layer of dirt.
The crank to open the jalousie panes had cobwebs hanging from it, with some dried, withered, dead insects. A big palmetto bug skittered away as I fought with the crank. It was hard to turn, didn’t feel like it had been used for years, and probably hadn’t been oiled since it was installed.
When it was fully opened, I pressed my face against the screen, embroidered with dust, cobwebs, and filth. No hint of breeze, no relief from this direction. I tried to see what was out there in the dark, behind the motel. At first there was nothing but blackness, but I peered hard, so hard my eyes hurt. After a while, I could see shapes. Trees and bushes, I thought. I saw no lights, it didn’t look like any houses or buildings of any sort anywhere near by. I really was in the boonies.
The full import of that began to dawn on me, even through the layers of fatigue. I was really in the boonies. Those who were following me, chasing me, threatening me, could do what they wanted with me, and no one would know. I had the word Sheriff Pierre had given the old ladies, and I knew they had believed him. They were sharp all right, but they led such isolated lives. Could they really judge how well he could be trusted?
They put great credence in what they had to hold over him. But for all I knew, his wife wouldn’t particularly care that he was sleeping with his secretary. She might already know. She might even be grateful that she was relieved of the nasty chore of being the object of Sheriff Pierre’s desires.
Maybe Sheriff Pierre planned on getting rid of Etta Mae and Sapphire himself, and turning me over to whoever it was that wanted me. I was, for all intents and purposes, one of those nosy Yankees, and I had stupidly annoyed the hell out of the sheriff by revealing I knew his secrets.
And here I was, putting myself at his mercy. I was still playing this like it was a game, a good story I could pursue when I felt like it, and then take a little time off, rest up. But this was real life, this was twenty-four hours a day. And since I had made a mess of things, it was my job to clean it up. I had obligations to people, to Sammy, and to Etta Mae and to Sapphire, and even to my parents. And to myself.
Now was the time to think everything through, to consider everybody who had a stake in this, to decide what the game was worth, what risks I should take. I was going to make plans, get as prepared as possible.
I sat cross-legged on the bed, doing just that. I was also listening to the occasional car or truck passing on the highway, waiting for the crunch of gravel that would tell me someone had pulled into the parking lot.
Then I heard it. I held my breath, hoping I was imagining it. I wasn’t. I walked to the window, pulled aside the curtain and peeked out. An old clunker of a car was pulling up in front of the office. It was hard to tell the color. I thought it might be gray, and then thought no, it’s brown.
A guy climbed out of the driver’s side. He was tall, jeans and cowboy boots. Another one stayed put on the passenger side. I didn’t recognize either of them from that distance, in that light, but that didn’t mean anything.
I looked out at my car, across the lot from me. Cursed myself for not thinking to move my car directly in front of my room. I grabbed my jeans, wiggled into them, slipped my bare feet into my boots, and peeked back out the window. The brown car was still there, and the two men were in Howard’s office.
I grabbed my backpack and slid out the door, running across the gravel, slipping, struggling to keep from sliding on my ass. The keys were in my hand.
Then I had the door unlocked and I was behind the wheel, turning the ignition. Pressing that gas pedal, and slamming the door at the same time, I swung out on the highway. Headed south. Fast. I kept looking in the rearview mirror, and no one was behind me.
Exhilarated, I turned up the tape player, sang along for all I was worth. The dark trees raced along beside me. I rolled down the window and the wind dried the sweat on the back of my neck, and under my arms.
I’d been on the highway for a good half-hour, no other car in sight, before I relaxed my foot a little on the gas pedal, down to where the car wasn’t shaking. I was still way over the speed limit.
A half hour later and still no other cars in sight, I couldn’t fight the fatigue any longer. I pulled into another motel, checked in, parked my car around back, but took a room next to the office, facing the highway.
I fell into the bed in my clothes, and slept deeply, dreamlessly, until the sun was high and the day had heated up.