Silence reigned in the kitchen. Sister and Mark stood near the refrigerator, ill at ease in their own home. I was surprised to see Steven Teague hovering behind Mark. Scott was halfway through a hearty plate of roast beef, broccoli-rice casserole, copper-penny carrots, and rolls. Mama sat next to him, quiet as a mouse. Candaee was in the middle, a forced smile on her face. Wanda, Eula Mae, and Bradley stood together on the other side of the kitchen. Mark and Scott stared at each other.
“Uh, hi, Sister, Mark.” I gestured toward our young guest. “This is Scott Kinnard. Trey was staying with Scott and his mother. Scott, this is my sister, Arlene, and her son, Mark.”
Scott had the wide eyes of a trapped rabbit. Sister pursed her lips and stepped forward, offering her hand.
“Hello, Scott. It’s nice to meet you.” Sister could be a spitting hellion at times, but Mama didn’t raise her to be rude to folks. I, however, was fair game.
“Jordan, may I speak privately to you?” she asked.
Explanations were in order. “Scott brought us some pictures, Sister. Pictures that Trey took with him before he left town. Scott thoughtfully returned them to us.”
Sister’s face softened slightly as she glanced back toward Scott. “Well, I’m sure that was very nice of him. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am.” Scott, emboldened by her kindness, looked to Mark again. “Hi, Mark. I’m glad to finally meet you. Your dad talked a lot about you.”
“Why would he do that?” Mark’s voice sounded wooden.
Scott coughed, fumbling for words. “I don’t—well, he always said he was real proud of you.”
“Proud of me? That’s a joke! How could he be proud of me? He wasn’t here for me! He didn’t even know me!” Mark stumbled back, stepping on Steven Teague’s immaculately loafered foot.
Scott looked helplessly at me, confusion on his face.
“Course he knew what you did. It was in his letters.” He blinked at our blank stares. “Trey used to get letters from Mirabeau from some lady named Anne. He didn’t tell me who she was. They stopped about two years ago.”
Scott glanced from Mark to me; but my gaze, along with everyone else’s in the room, went to my mother. She was tunelessly humming and drawing pictures with a fork on the canvas of her mashed potatoes. Suddenly aware that she was the focus of attention, she smiled brightly at us.
“If Mama wrote him, he must’ve written her. If he was moving around like Scott said, he would have to tell her where she could reach him.” Sister fumed as she paced up and down the back porch. “Mama never threw a thing away in her life. Ever. We’re gonna find those letters. We’re going to tear the house down if we have to.”
“I can easily see Mama destroying any letters Trey wrote her,” I interjected. “She might not have wanted you to see them.”
“How could she? How could she carry on a correspondence with the man that deserted me and my child?”
“Look, we don’t even know why he left town.”
“Of course we do! He was a coward, Jordy! He was tired of the responsibility of a wife and a child.”
“All of a sudden, without warning? Why would he do that?”
Sister’s eyes narrowed. “That woman. Nola Kinnard. Maybe he was seeing her on the sly. She used to spend her summers here as a kid, Hart says. She’s got family here. Maybe he met her when she was visiting them. They had an affair and he left me for her.”
“Then why would he write Mama? Why would she write him back?”
She shook her head. “Maybe Scott’s lying.”
“Why would he?”
“Well, he brought back those pictures. Why doesn’t he produce these so-called letters?”
“I asked him. He said he doesn’t know where they are. Maybe Trey didn’t keep them.”
“God!” Sister collapsed in a wicker chair, her hands balled into fists. “I don’t know anything anymore. Goddamn him.” She looked up at me, her face pale, the blackened eye like a smudge of ash that her tears couldn’t rinse away. “I can’t take this, Jordy. This is killing me. I always was strong. I had to be, for Mark. And then I had to be for Mama. I just don’t think I’m strong enough for this.”
I knelt by her and took her in my arms. She tucked her head under my neck. With her face still pressed against my shoulder, she performed a typical Sisterism and changed the subject from one unpleasant to her to one unpleasant to me. “I asked Steven Teague to come talk with you after his session with Mark. I think it would be useful for our whole family to have some counseling.”
“Well.” I didn’t know what to say. “I guess my first question for our family session is how’d you get that black eye, Sister.”
She jerked back from me. “I told you. I ran into a tree.”
“Sister.” I said it softly and I saw her lip tremble. “Don’t lie to me. If you’d hit a tree, the bark would have left abrasions or cuts. Now, who hit you?”
“No one.”
“Why on earth are you protecting him? Or her?” A thought dawned. “Was it Trey? Did he hit you, and you don’t want anyone to know because it might make you even more of a suspect?” I could see the scenario unfold: Sister and Trey arguing at his house, he grabs and belts her (he could still do that from his wheelchair), she runs, tearing her pants on that stray nail on the stairs.
“Trey didn’t hit me. No one hit me.”
“I don’t believe you, Arlene.”
“I don’t care what you believe, Jordan.” It was serious business if we’d stooped to Christian names. Her voice was as icy as a frosted pane of glass in the dead of winter. “Now, will you come to family counseling?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” I turned away from her. She got up and went back inside. After a moment I followed her.
“What’s your prognosis on my nephew?” I asked Steven. We’d offered him some lunch and he and I’d taken it out on the porch to talk in privacy. I stuck a tender piece of pot roast in my mouth and watched Mark showing Scott his favorite pecan tree to climb. I couldn’t hear what the boys said to each other in their hushed tones. Maybe Scott was telling Mark what-all Mama had written about Mark in those six empty years.
“He’s a smart kid. But he’s been through hell,” Steven said, buttering a roll and balancing the plate on his lap. “Mark would like to pretend that his father never died in front of him. That it just didn’t happen.”
The meat was tasteless in my mouth. “Can you help him, Steven?”
He paused, chewing. He took a long sip of iced tea before answering. “Yes, with time. Your sister’s done a great job of raising him, but he has a lot of unresolved issues with his father’s leaving him.” He patted at his mouth with a napkin. “Your sister suggested that your whole family attend some of the sessions. I think it might be productive. I understand you were once very close to Trey—”
“I was. Once. We were no longer friends when he came back.” I put my plate aside; my appetite had deserted me.
“Yes, so Arlene said. My plan is to have several individual sessions with Mark; we need to get him a certain stage past the trauma of his father’s death before we tackle the other—”
He didn’t get to finish. Junebug came out onto the porch, exhausted and a little peeved.
“Hello, Jordy. Well, Mr. Teague, you certainly turn up in the most unusual places.” His voice sounded tired and he sat heavily in one of the porch chairs.
“Excuse me, Chief?”
“I finished reading the case file on Clevey you had to turn over,” Junebug said, “and I’ve got a number of questions to ask you. Do you mind coming down to the station with me?”
Steven pointed at his heaping plate. “May I have my lunch first, Chief?”
“Lunch. What a concept,” Junebug muttered, eyeing the meat, gravy, and vegetables.
I’m not so dense I don’t know a plea for an invite. “Junebug, we’ve got plenty. Why don’t you and Steven have a bite and y’all can talk here if you like? Go on and get a plate.” I stood. “I’ll leave y’all alone and I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”
“Thanks, Jordy. Would you mind fixing me a plate?” Junebug asked. “Your sister’s wearin’ war paint instead of makeup, as far as I’m concerned. She didn’t look too happy to see me.”
“Give her time. She’ll cool off.” I went back inside, where I found Eula Mae, Sister, and Candace all speaking in hushed tones in the kitchen. I silently took a plate from the cabinet and began ladling food onto it.
“Second helpings for you?” Sister asked archly.
“No, for your boyfriend. I invited him to lunch. He and Steven need to have a little privacy out on the porch to talk about Clevey’s case.”
“Some boyfriend he is, supposing I could’ve killed Trey.”
“He had to take himself off the case because he believes you’re innocent. Don’t you see that? He couldn’t be impartial in his investigation.”
Sister made a noise that indicated logical arguments were not welcome. I didn’t respond. Nabbing a glass of iced tea, I took Junebug his food. He thanked me and dove heartily in.
“Y’all help yourselves if you want more.” I left them alone on the porch.
Solitude sounded good to me. I avoided any further skirmishes with the female contingent and went up to my room. I lay down on my bed and tried to nap, but the image of Trey, collapsing, dying, staring into his son’s face with the final glimmer of life, kept me awake. And the air felt dense in my lungs, the room having been shut so tightly during all the recent rain.
I went to my bedroom window, which faced out onto the backyard. Scott and Mark had either gone ’round to the
front or gone inside. I tugged the window open, hoping for a little fresh air.
“—and I resent this, Chief Moncrief.” Steven’s voice was tight with anger. ’I’ve given you my case file. You’ve read it. I really don’t want to be grilled about my therapy with Clevey.”
“I read it, but I don’t understand half of your mumbo jumbo. And you don’t have a choice, Mr. Teague. You’re not a psychiatrist. You’re not under the same legal obligation to confidentiality. Your lawyer’s already advised you to cooperate fully with me; I suggest you heed his advice.” Junebug’s voice, fainter than Steven’s, floated up to me past the back-porch roof. I saw a bluish puff of smoke from Steven’s pipe drift up from the porch steps.
Shut the window, I told myself, but I didn’t. Curiosity won out over good manners. So much for my Southern-gentleman merit badge. I leaned down slightly from the window.
Junebug muttered something I couldn’t catch. Another miniature cloud of pipe smoke wafted from the porch as Steven didn’t answer.
Junebug spoke again: “He was murdered. He was my friend. I’d like to think that if he’d had a problem, he would come to his friends. I know you want to find who killed him, Steven. Please don’t help this killer get away.”
There was a long, thoughtful silence, then Steven’s unaccented, polished voice: “I’ve never discussed a patient’s therapy before. Never.”
“You’ve never had a patient murdered, I assume.”
“No, I haven’t,” Steven answered. There was another pause and then he spoke, his voice sounding resigned and not a little bitter: “Have you ever read Steinbeck, Chief Moncrief?
East of Eden,
in particular?”
“No, but I saw the movie—with James Dean, right? About the perfect son and the bad son.”
“Clevey was both. He wanted to be good, someone liked and respected. He envied you, he envied Davis, his other friends that he saw as successful. But he enjoyed … being bad, for lack of a better term. He thought there was
a certain glamour in breaking the rules. But he was driven to make up for bad actions by doing good. He was like a moral pendulum, swinging from anger and bitterness to piety and kindliness, back and forth. It made him a very unhappy man.”
I heard Junebug’s distinctive snort. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, but it certainly wasn’t Clevey.”
“Wasn’t it? Didn’t you ever see him be cruel to someone, then be desperate to make amends? Again, and again, and again?”
That phrasing put a different spin on it. Clevey, torturing Ed with truly mean-spirited teasing and the next moment being Ed’s best friend, apologizing and treating him to lunch. Raking Junebug over the coals in the newspaper for a flubbed case, then rallying support around him out of friendship. I’d noticed it always in him, but perhaps I’d dismissed it as a quirk of personality. I’d grown up with him. I thought I knew him.
Steven continued: “Chief, I tried to help Clevey see the value of moderation in his judgments. Realizing that if he made one good judgment, that didn’t give him permission to make a bad one. And if he made a bad choice, did something he regretted, he needed to let go of it and move on with his life. Clevey was eternally making amends because he was eternally doing something wrong.”
“Wrong? Like he was committing a crime?” Junebug demanded.
A pause ensued, and I could imagine Steven sucking at his pipe. “Of course not. At least he didn’t confess to me. Clevey was a manipulator—but he specialized in manipulating himself. He was his own worst victim. He made himself miserable.” He paused again. I glanced around, wondering if any of my neighbors would wonder why I was sticking my head out the window for so long. “I think he would have been much happier if he’d just tried to be a saint or a total son of a bitch. But not both.”
“Do you think you helped him?” Junebug said. I would’ve asked that myself—I didn’t like the thought of Clevey dying a tortured soul, always doing wrong and forever
trying to make up for it. Assuming that Steven’s portrayal was correct. I knew of no reason for him to lie.
“I don’t know. Maybe if I had, he wouldn’t have died. He wouldn’t have hurt someone so much they killed him.”
“This swinging back and forth between good and evil,” Junebug said. “How did it manifest itself? What was he doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you must know, Steven. How else did you arrive at this diagnosis?”
The wind whipped through the dripping trees. I heard the tap of Steven’s pipe against the rail of the porch. “I think,” he said slowly, “that this conversation is over. I still respect my client’s memory, even if you don’t. And I’m not going to answer any more questions without my lawyer present. Good day, Chief.” I heard the back door shut and Junebug cuss softly, then go inside. I pulled the window closed, the air smelling like waiting rain. And I went downstairs to tell Junebug about the argument between Clevey and Trey that Scott had overheard.