Stony River (49 page)

So what if Buddy was crazy? Everyone she'd ever known was nuts in some way. She didn't give a whoop about some cop's murder, either. Or anyone else's when it came down to it because the only people who mattered were those whose breathing you could hear as loud as your own; your mind couldn't take in more than that. That must have been how it was for Ma. Once Tereza ran away, all Ma could've done was think about Allen and Jimmy. People died and went missing every day. Buddy and Lisa were all Tereza's heart could take in at the moment.

On day five, Buddy said, “You gotta get some sleep, Ladonna,” and took Lisa downstairs to Dearie. When Tereza woke, Dearie said Buddy had driven to the store for milk and bread.

He didn't come back.

Two days later a reporter found his car at a motel in Irvington and the cops his body in bloody bathwater gone cool. He'd slit his
wrists with Miranda's knife—black-handled and double-edged, the papers wrote, like the one that had stabbed Barbara Pickens.

Dearie said the cops and the press had hounded Buddy to death, like dogs on a rabbit. For days she paced the house, wailing, or sat on the back porch with her hands curled in her lap all funny, like her fingers were busted. Complaining to Alfie that it wasn't fair Irene still had Richard and she didn't have Buddy.

Tereza did her crying alone, on the crapper, in the shower or in bed, turned toward the cold, empty spot beside her. She'd cry until she felt empty, like her insides had poured out. Barbara Pickens's and Evelyn Shore's families were pissed off that Buddy hadn't left a note. Pastor Scott said God was angry, too, at the loss of a tortured soul.

Tough gazzobbies.

Tereza had her own feelings to sort out without worrying about God's or anyone else's. At first, she was mad at Buddy for not telling her everything. Then she realized he'd done her a favor. When Lisa got old enough to ask if he'd done those bad things, she could honestly say he'd never said. Lisa wouldn't have reason to ask about the cop. Tereza was pissed off at everyone who hadn't taken care of Buddy the way they should've. Mostly she was scared she wouldn't be smart enough to raise Lisa right without him.

But she was also a little proud.

She wasn't the one who'd split. She hadn't run away this time.

DADDY BOOKED TIME OFF
from work to drive Linda and Mom to the Woodbridge police station where Linda would view the knife Eldon Jukes used to kill himself and determine if it was the one he pulled on her. She hadn't been to school since the trial, unwilling to face the inevitable taunts; the trial and her humiliation had been widely reported. So what if she flunked the entire year? It took only ten
minutes to arrive in the new turquoise Dodge that was supposed to make them all feel better, a few more minutes to park and climb the steps of the yellow-brick building with tall narrow windows.

Detective Roesch was waiting for them at the entrance in a brown corduroy jacket and tan chinos. In his twenties, Linda figured. He was a big-shouldered guy with a crew cut. He escorted them to a small windowless room that had a table with benches on either side. The detective with the scarred face was there and a young woman who looked familiar. The room was cramped and stuffy with the six people it now held and smelled as if it needed a good clean. Linda fought an impulse to flee.

Detective Roesch said, “You met Detective Rotella before, right?”

Linda and her parents nodded.

Detective Rotella said, “This is Miss Haggerty. She suspects the knife in question was stolen from her house in 1955. Miranda: Mr. and Mrs. Wise, their daughter, Linda.”

That name. That wavy hair the color of autumn leaves.

Linda was wrenched back to a summer day a childhood ago when the future was still a sparkly advent calendar, a numbered window concealing a surprise each day. Crazy Haggerty's daughter hadn't died and didn't appear to be a lunatic.

The girl, now a woman, stepped forward and took Linda's hands in her own long-wristed ones. “I asked to meet you,” she said, “so I could tell you I admire your courage.” Her green eyes felt probing, the press of her palms too intimate. Linda gently extricated her hands.

“Ditto,” Detective Rotella said. “Bum luck not finding the knife before the trial. We would've loved to have spared you the ordeal.”

Linda could only nod. She was lost in memory. The Miranda of then had been mysterious, even dangerous. This one you wouldn't look twice at in her red plaid skirt and white sweater. Close up, though, something about her was unsettling.

Daddy stepped beside Linda and said, “Was James Haggerty your father?”

Miranda turned to him. “He was. You knew him?”

“Only on neighborhood patrol during the war. Not after that. We live just a few blocks from his old house. Your old house.” Daddy dipped his head. “I'm glad you're all right.”

“Thank you.” Miranda turned toward Linda's mother. “Mrs. Wise, I sense bravery runs in your family.” Mom lifted her eyebrows and took the hand Miranda extended. Miranda winced, then leaned in and whispered something to Mom. They sidled to a dark corner and exchanged words Linda couldn't hear until Detective Roesch said, “Can we get started?” Miranda and Mom sat together on one side of the table with Detective Rotella, leaving the other for Linda and Daddy. Linda had never seen her mother take to a stranger so quickly. Detective Roesch stood at the table's end with a plastic bag from which he withdrew a long knife with a black handle. He placed it on the table. Linda noticed Miranda's shoulders sag.

“Do you recognize this, Miss Wise?”

Linda had envisioned a knife stained with Eldon Jukes's blood but this one was clean, its blade glinting under the fluorescent light. She reached beneath the table to still a trembling leg, grateful for Daddy's arm around her shoulders. Her mind flashed to the knife emerging from Georgie's glove compartment. If she'd begged for her life, as he demanded, would she be dead like that other girl? Had the knife been single-bladed or double? Shorter or longer than this one? Was this a test to confirm she was the liar the jury thought her to be? “The handle looks the same”—her voice cracked, making her hot with embarrassment—“but I can't say for sure.”

“I understand,” Detective Roesch said. “It's tough to register details when your life's in the balance. Miss Haggerty?”

Miranda's face had turned hard. “It looks like mine.” She picked up the knife and turned it around in her hand, as though weighing it.
She ran her fingers up and down the handle and the flat part of the blade. Closed her eyes and took deep breaths. So many breaths that, at some point, Daddy cleared his throat and frowned. “Give her a moment,” Detective Rotella said.

Miranda was motionless for so long that Linda thought she was asleep or unconscious. Then she shuddered, arched her back and cried out as if she'd been wounded. Linda gasped. Daddy started. Mom laid a hand on Miranda's arm. Detective Rotella stood and gripped Miranda's shoulders. “No more,” he said.

Miranda let the knife fall to the table with a thud. She opened her eyes, wet with tears. Rubbed her temples with the heels of her hands and said, “It was never intended to harm anyone.”

“What just happened here?” Daddy asked.

Detective Rotella said, “She sees things differently, that's all.”

Maybe Miranda
was
a lunatic.

“We'd like to hang onto the knife for a while, if that's okay,” Detective Roesch said.

“Do what you like,” Miranda said. “I'll not be wanting it back.”

In the car, Mom said, “She could be some sort of Jeanne Dixon.”

“Why?” Daddy asked. “Did she make a prediction?”

“No, but she asked, ‘How long have you had that pain in your pelvis?' I said, ‘Seems like forever,' and she said, ‘Drink chamomile tea four times a day and take deep breaths while imagining scissors cutting the wires to the pain.' Can you imagine? I've never heard of chamomile, have you, Linda?”

“No.” Linda twisted her head to stare at an opportunity for courage disappearing through the rear window. She should've told Miranda she'd seen her before. At seventeen, Linda was still afraid her parents would learn where she'd been that day—nothing brave about her at all.

“She said I should call her at Doris Nolan's house if I'd like to talk more.”

“She's living with the widow?” Daddy asked.

“Seems so. She's a strange one, but I don't think she's an unbraked wagon.”

Daddy laughed. “A what?”

“You've heard that before, haven't you?”

“Never. You surprise me every day.”

Linda lay on the back seat and breathed in the chemical smell of the new upholstery.

THIRTY

OCTOBER 5, 1962
. Daddy was home. His briefcase met the floor with a soft plunk. The hanger scraped as he hung up his jacket.

“How are my girls?”

Linda caught the slight stiffening of her mother's spine. “Mom's hand is stuck in the meat grinder and I've melted into a puddle of grease,” she called back.

His shoes rattled the furnace grate as he crossed into the dining room. “Very funny.” He appeared in the kitchen doorway, rolling up his sleeves, his face flushed from his walk home. “What a gorgeous day. We haven't had the first frost, so technically it's not Indian summer. What would you call it, kiddo?”

“Hot?” Linda was straining spaghetti over the sink, the steam fogging her glasses.

Daddy leaned over the pot Mom was stirring and sniffed. “Hmm, onion? Garlic?”

“Chicken cacciatore,” Mom said. “We made it in class yesterday.” She'd begun Adventures in Gas-Tronomy at the gas company a month ago. So far she'd come away with recipes for Spanish Rice, Potato Puff Soufflé and Beef Rouladen as well as a red apron exclaiming in fat white letters,
NOW YOU'RE COOKING WITH GAS
.

Linda slid the spaghetti onto a big platter. She'd go easy on it at dinner. She was down to a hundred and forty-eight and back into
clothes with waistbands. According to Doc Pierce's chart she'd be the perfect weight if she grew four inches taller. She didn't care about being somebody else's idea of perfect, but no one would dismiss her or doubt her word again simply because she was fat.

“Car run okay for you today?” Daddy asked.

“Seemed to,” Linda said. She'd gotten her license, finally. Took the car to and from County Junior College on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Daddy walked to work those days. He said he enjoyed the exercise and the chance to smoke his pipe. After Mom read about thugs surrounding a young woman's car at a red light and rolling it over, she'd insisted on riding with Linda. She'd bring a book and wait in the cafeteria until Linda's classes were over, or, if she wasn't feeling well, curl up in the back seat of the car. How she thought she'd be any defense against thugs, Linda couldn't imagine.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Daddy drove Linda to and from her part-time job at Quill and Page, a book publisher six blocks from his office. She wouldn't have minded walking, but he said the area had become over-industrialized and unsafe. She'd gotten the position because she had excellent pronunciation. A copyholder, she sat at a book-strewn table in a cavernous, high-ceilinged room, adding her voice to the chant-like hum of dozens of other voices at dozens of other tables. They read aloud from edited manuscripts to better-paid proofreaders whose eyes searched for errors on galley proofs. She'd thought it would be a boon to be paid for reading books all day, but all she ever got were dreary school texts. Plus, she had to read every word and every scrap of punctuation, all without emotion.
Capital T the verb hyphen adverb combination open parenthesis as distinct from the verb hyphen plus hyphen prepositional phrase close parenthesis provides another variation period.