Carolyn Haines - Revenant

The trailer door cracked open and a young girl with blond hair and blue eyes came outside. She took Mary’s limp hand and hid behind her leg.

“Memaw, when’s Mama comin’ back?” she asked.

My eyes burned and I had to fight to stabilize my voice. “Hello,” I said to the child. “Who are you?”

“Megan.” She didn’t smile. There was a shadow in her blue eyes. “Where’s Mama?”

“Go tell your uncle Timmy to get a video for you,” Mary said. “I’ll be inside in a minute.”

“And Mama?” she asked, reluctantly going inside the door as Mary gently pushed her. She turned to look over her shoulder at me. “Do you know where Mama is?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Mary closed the door and faced me. “Megan doesn’t understand that Pamela won’t be back. We tell her, but she doesn’t understand.”

“I’ll check the information you gave me. If I find anything, I’ll let you know. One more thing, Mrs. Sparks. Who is Megan’s father?”

“Pamela never said. She was eighteen.” She took a long breath and put her hand on the doorknob. “When Bob gets hisself together, he’s going to find Pamela’s killer. He might go to prison for murder, but it’s what has to be.”

I put my hand on her arm, in caution not comfort. “No, it doesn’t. Please, Mrs. Sparks, don’t do anything foolish. Megan needs both of you now.” The words were ashy in my mouth. I’d heard them before, directed at me. Daniel had needed me, but I’d had nothing left to give him. Mary Sparks was only a few years older than me. Her face was worn and lined from hard work, but there was substance there. She wasn’t going to cave. She would pull her family back together and do what was necessary.

My hands were shaking as I backed my truck out of the drive. Instead of going to the paper, I went to the Ruby Room, a small restaurant in the Back Bay run by Garnett Roper. Garnett was my age, unmarried and a fine Southern cook. Her menu varied from day to day, but she always had the best fried chicken, homegrown vegetables, iced tea and, on demand, alcohol. I ordered a Bloody Mary and sat at a table on the patio. She came out to serve me herself.

“You okay?” she asked, putting the drink in front of me and taking a chair.

It was only ten, too early for her lunch regulars, so the place was quiet. I looked at the still waters of Back Bay. The morning was undercut with the cawing of the gulls around the shrimp boats.

“Tough interview,” I finally said. “The mother of the dead girl.”

She put her hand on mine, and her fingers were warm. “I’m sorry, Carson. I know that brings up a lot of stuff.”

Garnett Roper, née Dupree, was also from Leakesville. We’d been friends since the first grade, when I’d punched Robby Caldwell for trying to steal Garnett’s new box of eighty-four Crayola crayons.

“A lot of my customers knew Pamela one way or the other,” Garnett said as she straightened the sugar packets. She had lovely hands, long and graceful. Even in grammar school her hands had fascinated me. They were never still.

“What’s the talk?” I asked. Garnett’s restaurant was the meeting place for almost every faction on the bay. The fishermen came in early for breakfast and a packed lunch for the day. The businessmen and housewives rolled in at lunch. If there was talk, Garnett would have heard it.

She frowned, the harsh cut between her eyebrows the only line on her lightly tanned face. “She made a mistake and got pregnant, but she had the baby. From what I hear, she never even told the father. He must have been someone from outside Back Bay. Anyway, she had the kid, stayed with her folks, worked to earn a nest egg and started going to junior college last year. She was engaged to be married.”

“In two weeks,” I added.

“Shit.” Garnett’s hands flattened on the table for two seconds, then busied themselves rearranging the condiments on the far corner.

“Do you know the guy? Joe Welford.”

“Yeah. Joe comes in every Saturday morning with Pamela’s dad. He’s quiet, but in a shy way not a psycho way.” She shook her head. “He didn’t kill Pamela.”

“People are capable of anything,” I said, looking at the last swallow in my glass.

“You used to believe they were capable of kindness, too. And love.” Garnett’s brown eyes were sad.

“I used to believe in a lot of things.” I drank the last swallow. “Heard any talk about the fifth body in the grave?”

“Lots of talk, nothing I’d consider to be even a half-cocked theory. Let’s see, it’s the killer’s sister or mother, going with the assumption that she was the first victim and that she drove him to do the others. An Anthony Perkins kind of thing. And—”

“Wait a minute. So everyone is certain the victim is female and the killer male?”

“That’s the consensus. Why? Do you think differently?”

“No, that’s pretty much what I think. Maybe he killed someone in Louisiana or Alabama and brought the body here.”

“I’ve heard that one, too, and that’s the one I’d put my money on. The thing that’s really got folks buzzing is Pamela’s murder. I mean is it a copycat? Or is the guy back?”

“I wish I knew.” I picked up my empty glass. “I think I’ll have another.”

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