When Did We Lose Harriet? Part 20

I shook my head and answered honestly. "Never. But a few months ago I made a promise I intend to keep. Morse hasn't done anything to deserve this." I thought about Morse raging about that silly s.h.i.+rt, whining about the bad weather, or partying up there with any women who came along. "Morse doesn't deserve this," I amended it swiftly. "You matter to me a whole lot, but my word means something, too."

"Even if the person you gave it to doesn't."

"Don't say that!" I cried hotly. "Morse does matter, in many ways. He hurts me sometimes, sure. Deep inside I keep wondering if what I feel for you isn't just a reaction..."

He reached out and gripped my wrist hard. "Don't say that!" he repeated my own words. "What we feel is real and special and ours. Say it!"

"What we feel is real and special and..." I faltered, then looked him straight in the eyes. "...ours. You're right, it is. But it's got to stop."

"You could change your promise," he suggested, taking my hand and tracing a circle over and over in my palm. "Make it to me, instead. If you have regrets-"

I pulled my hand away and ma.s.saged the scalp under my braids to stimulate my brain. "Who knows why I have regrets, Lewis? Maybe it's just because Morse's away. Or because we had a fight right before he left. I don't even know you, not really. We've spent most of our time talking about Harriet-"

"Spare me Harriet," he said sourly.

"Okay. But what I mean is, I can't promise to love you while I'm still promised to Morse. If I did, you ought to worry whether I'd change my mind again sometime. My mama taught me that every time we break our word or hurt somebody, it gets easier, until some people get to the place where they can abuse others, even kill them, without a twinge. The men who killed Daddy were like that. I saw them, you know. Don't look at me like that. I did. I was at the window when he went out on the porch. I saw them shoot him and saw their faces when he fell. They laughed! I hated them. Mama spent the rest of her life teaching me it was possible to become just like them if I let myself hate, or if I valued other people, my own self, and my honor lightly. Maybe that's why I can't let this Harriet thing go."

"Amen to that," Lewis murmured. He leaned back and crossed his ankles. "But continue. I haven't been to church this week."

I jumped to my feet. "Never mind."

He caught my wrist again. "Hey, I'm sorry. But you do remind me of your daddy, honey, did you know that? He used to talk about not valuing yourself and others lightly, too. I remember a sermon he preached once-I couldn't have been more than nine, but the image was so clear. He said that if even a b.u.t.terfly gets hurt"-he pointed toward the Monarch, still waving its wings gently in the heat-"ripples go out until the very core of the universe gets bruised. While he was talking, I could just see it happening. Now that I've lived a while, I see how true it is. I've bruised more people in my lifetime than I like to remember."

I nodded. "We live in a bruised and hurting world, Lewis. I don't want to add any more than I have to."

"You don't mind leaving me hurt and broken." He spoke lightly, but his eyes were full of pain.

I bit my lip. "I'll tell you what I'll do. The only thing I can do. Morse is out of town, but he ought to get home tomorrow or the next day. After that, I'll rethink my promise to him and see what seems most honest. But I can't even think about it while he's gone. Fair enough?"

"I don't know what fair's got to do with it," he said glumly, "but if it's what I've got, it's what I've got. Come on!" He pulled himself to his feet and reached for my hand. "We've got to plant rosebuds while we may."

"Surely it's *gather' rosebuds?"

He shook his head firmly. "Nope. I want them to multiply. Come on!" He tugged my hand, and together we ran, laughing, through the heat.

Twenty-Five.

Does not wisdom call out? Does not

understanding raise her voice?

Proverbs 8:1

While Josheba and Lewis were gallivanting all over Old Alabama Town, I, MacLaren, was trying to talk some sense into Carter. When he came by to see Jake, I walked him to the elevator. "Dee Sykes identified that picture as Harriet, Carter."

He said a word he would never say in front of Glenna, then turned bright red. "I've heard worse in my life, honey," I told him, "and you've got a lot on your plate right now."

"You don't know the half of it, Miss MacLaren. A lot of people are on vacation this week, another batch is down with a virus, and we've had a series of burglaries that have us all hopping. And now you tell me we may have messed up a case back in June. That's going to mean an incredible amount of paperwork, and the Sykes family is important enough that it could hit all the papers. That isn't going to make anybody happy."

He'd left out one thing. "You haven't even mentioned the trouble of finding out when and how Harriet died."

He cleared his throat and looked miserable. "I doubt we ever will, ma'am. Not after all this time. Forensics could tell us how long she lay there, by looking at the...uh...well, maggots. But after that long lying out, n.o.body could tell when she died."

I heaved a deep sigh. "I hate to think of that child being just one more unsolved murder, Carter."

"She wasn't murdered, Miss MacLaren!" Can't you get that through your thick head? He didn't say those words, but they rang in the silence, and his face was flushed from holding them in. "There was absolutely no sign of foul play. That girl just got sick and died. Look, it's really great what you've already done, but it's also enough. With Jake going home tomorrow-"

He didn't have to finish the sentence. We both knew what he meant. His mama just hadn't taught him any polite way to say it: Old woman, bug off!

He jabbed the elevator b.u.t.ton. "I guess you'll be heading back up the road pretty soon, won't you?" He didn't need to sound so relieved.

"Pretty soon, I guess. By the way, Carter, I took Jake's car to William Sykes's mechanic this morning, and found him fixing William's truck. It has a streak of darker red paint on it that the mechanic and I both think came off Jake's fender."

Carter looked at me with what I hoped was admiration and not exasperation. "You sure do beat all. Just happened to use William's mechanic, huh? Will he testify?"

"Since I was pretending to be a friend of William's, I couldn't ask. Besides, I doubt we'd ever bring charges. But at least the mechanic will remember, if it comes up again."

"I'll go see him tomorrow. I owe it to Jake." Carter took down the address. "You said the person who ran you off the road had long blonde hair. Mr. Sykes is nearly bald."

"Maybe he had on a wig. I don't know. I didn't get that good a look. Or maybe it was Ricky. Did you ask him?"

He frowned and scratched the back of his neck. "We can't find him. Somebody went by the trailer where he used to live, but his girlfriend said while he was in jail, she threw out all his stuff and moved her brother in. She didn't know where Ricky is."

"Good for her, at least. Now, Carter, I sure do wish you'd try to find somebody who saw Harriet after June fourth. That's the day her trustee took her to the bank."

"Bank?"

I realized I hadn't told him everything, but from the way he was eyeing that open elevator door, this wasn't the place or the time.

"Tuesday morning is the last definite time anybody remembers seeing her," I said hurriedly. "I wish you'd see if you could find somebody who saw her later."

He left without promising a thing.

On the way back to Jake, I remembered something: June fourth was a Tuesday.

I puttered around Jake's room for a minute or two, watering his flowers and straightening his blind, then I asked, real casual, "Did you work the desk down at the teen center on the first Tuesday in June?"

Jake glowered. I was interrupting a rerun of Perry Mason. Jake prefers his mysteries in one-hour segments with somebody else doing the detecting and doing it fast. "How do you know anything about a teen center, Miss Nosy?"

"Because some woman from your church made me cover for you last week. You owe me one, brother, and don't forget it. But don't worry about that right now. Just stir your brain cells a minute and tell me if you volunteered down there the first Tuesday in June."

He thought a minute, then nodded. "Sure. It was my first day, because school had just let out." He turned back to Perry Mason, who was doing his usual fancy stuff in the courtroom. Then Jake's brain finally kicked in. "Are you poking your nose into something that doesn't concern you, Sis?"

"No, Bubba. It concerns me. It concerns me a lot. So let Perry Mason handle his own case for a minute and help me with mine."

"I swan," he said, disgusted. "Leave you alone in a town for one blooming week, and you dig up a mystery."

"I didn't exactly dig it up-more like pulled it up. So would you tell me what you remember about that morning?"

He was silent. I could almost hear him turning mental pages. "I had to go to the dentist first, I remember. Hated to be late my first day, but a crown came off the day before, so I called the director and told him I'd get there as soon as the dentist could glue it back. He said one of the kids would answer the phone until I got there. Little white girl. Only one I ever saw down there, in fact, and she was just there the one day."

"Harriet?"

"Yeah, Harriet. Not a name you hear much anymore."

Speak for yourself, I thought. "Did Harriet stick around after you got there?"

"Yeah, all morning. In fact, she was fixing to leave when I did, so I gave her a ride downtown to catch a bus."

I couldn't believe this! "Did she say where she was going?"

"I don't remember-wait, she said something about miracles. No, I know! She asked if I believed in miracles, and I said, *Sure I do.' Then she said, *Well, maybe I'm gonna start believing in them too.' Her eyes were right pretty-yellow and s.h.i.+ning. I don't think I've seen her around the center since that day, though. What's this about, Clara? Why do you want to know about Harriet?"

"You'll need to ask Glenna-and here she is." I turned him over gladly to the next s.h.i.+ft. I figured Glenna would tell him enough to satisfy him but not enough to upset him. Glenna didn't know yet that Harriet was dead. I hoped she'd have enough sense to leave the Buick out of the story, too.

When we got home that night, I had one of those moments of deep sadness that always come after somebody dies. I stepped out of the car and took a deep breath of thick, hot air sweet with honeysuckle, roses, boxwood, and Russian tea olive. Then it hit me that Myrna and Harriet couldn't enjoy that splendid evening. I found myself brus.h.i.+ng away angry tears for two women I never actually knew.

Propped on my pillow a little later, I reached for my Bible and hunted through the gospels for the parable of the lost sheep. When I located it in Matthew's eighteenth chapter, I found, to my surprise, that it was framed as a question: What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?

"Not anymore," I muttered bitterly. "We let them wander off and don't even notice they're gone."

What do you think? The words leapt from the page as if newly written.

That was the question, wasn't it? Not what did anybody else think, but what did I-MacLaren Crane Yarbrough-think? I answered aloud. "I think somebody ought to find out what happened to that poor child, but n.o.body else but Josheba seems to care." My eye fell on a later verse: Your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones be lost.

Okay, so it was me, Josheba, and G.o.d, but two of us were fresh out of ideas.

As I lay in the dim room waiting for sleep to come, I got to thinking about how often circ.u.mstances and people get woven together into a pattern none of us can see at the time. Some people would say it was just coincidence that Jake signed up for the center on Tuesdays, that he had his heart attack on a Monday so I went in his place, that I am the kind of person who can't sit in a filthy room without cleaning it up, that I pulled out the sofa bed and found Harriet's money, that Josheba-who was already concerned for Harriet-was at the library desk that particular morning, that Glenna has a cousin in the homicide division. I pity those people. They see the pattern, but miss the Weaver. As an archbishop of Canterbury once said, "Coincidence? Sure I believe in coincidence. When I pray, coincidences happen."

And in case you're about to stand up and stump for free will, think about this: I had free will as to whether I sat in that filthy room without cleaning it. G.o.d just knew I wasn't likely to do so. I guess it's a matter of knowing the kind of threads you have to work with, and choosing the right ones.

Which, considering the kinds of a.s.signments I sometimes get, is a most unflattering thought.

We trudged side by side, the brown-haired child and I. We pa.s.sed through gates as large and hollow as the doorway to h.e.l.l. Inside, I could see leaning white tombstones and tall obelisks crammed together against a dark gray sky. As we walked down a crooked dirt path between the tombstones, she reached out and clutched my arm. I looked at her. She had a new face. Harriet's face. And she was terrified.

Twenty-Six.

Poverty is the ruin of the poor.

Proverbs 10:15

Thursday morning, I lay in the dim dawn light listening to birds waking up, trying to think through everything I knew. I didn't get any flashes of inspiration, but I did get a few more questions. What made Harriet suddenly believe in miracles? Who took her back to Dee's for clothes? Why did she go to the cemetery? When? How? Where did she stay that weekend after she left Dee's?

It was possible I would never know all the answers, but I might be able to find some. Where she had stayed that weekend, for instance. If anybody knew, Kateisha would. And surely Harriet hadn't walked to the cemetery. Was that where she was going when Jake took her to the bus? Would a bus driver remember her?

Also, I wanted to visit the cemetery where her body was found.

But first, this was the day we were bringing Jake home. I was both delighted and, as you can well imagine, full of dread.

Sure enough, as soon as we pulled in their driveway, he growled right off, "Where's my car?"

Bless Glenna's heart, she said, "It needed to be moved, honey, so I could get you close to the walk. Come on in, now, and let's get you settled, so I can start fixing you some lunch."

Joe Riddley called not long after we got there. "Well, Little Bit, did you get the old deadbeat home? Let me yell at him." As soon as they'd exchanged insults, Jake handed me back the phone. "I think he wants to talk to you again. I can't imagine why."

"When you comin' home?" Joe Riddley demanded. "Sunday suit you?"

I couldn't think of a single reason for staying later that wouldn't bring him to Montgomery by tomorrow morning. "I'll try to get a plane on Sunday afternoon."

He hooted. "You've been in Montgomery so long you just said after-noon, like they do over there. I need to get you back home so you can learn to talk right again. See what reservations you can get and call me back. I'll be at the airport with bells on."

"Forget the bells, honey," I told him. "Just be there on time."