This was new. Scarbrough sat at attention. “You’re sure? Because you told me earlier that you found it after the Pulses started.”
Aaron squirmed in his chair. “Well … I got mixed up on the time. I can’t remember exactly.”
Scarbrough waited for a long moment. Then he turned to Joey. “Joey, do you remember when he got that gun?”
Joey didn’t look up. “No. I wasn’t with him.”
Scarbrough leaned in and touched the boy’s shoulder. “Joey, look at me.”
The boy looked up.
“Joey, it may be that the real owner of that gun was your mama’s killer. None of you are gonna get in trouble for giving me a name. If you stole it from someone’s home, or if you did something else to get it, I’m not going to charge you. I just need that name.”
Joey just shrugged and looked at Aaron.
Aaron sat stiffer. “Thought you said Edith did it.”
Sheriff Scarbrough shook his head. “I didn’t say that exactly. She may have, but we can’t rule out anyone else.”
He questioned them a little more but got nowhere. Finally, he brought the interview to an end. “Okay,” he said, “then I’ll be on my way.” He shook Doug’s and Kay’s hands and they led him to the door.
Before the kids got up, Deni took his chair. “Hey, Aaron,” she said, “I have a question. Today at the funeral and before at your mom’s memorial, when we put the dirt on the grave, Sarah said something. Do you remember that, Sarah? What did you say when you threw the dirt on?”
Sarah grinned proudly. “Asha to Asha, dirt to dirt.”
Deni frowned. “Where did you hear that?”
“At a foonal.”
“But whose funeral?”
“Nobody’s funeral,” Aaron cut in before she could answer. “She saw it on a cartoon or something. I don’t know where she got it.” He pulled Sarah out of her chair. “Come on, Sarah. You need to wash up. You’re really sticky.”
Aaron had never wanted to wash Sarah before.
Deni stopped them. “Wait a minute. Sarah, tell me where you heard that.”
Sarah turned around, her curls bouncing. “At Mama’s foonal,” she said. “Not the one with the bush. The other one.”
“The other one?” She looked from Aaron to Joey. They both looked down at their feet, not wanting to meet her eyes.
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Aaron sneered. “She’s always making stuff up.”
“Huh-uh,” Sarah said. “’Member when we had the foonal for Mama?”
Craig had gotten interested now, and he came and stood behind Deni’s chair. “So, is she saying that you had a funeral for your mother before they found her dead?” he asked.
Aaron’s face was turning red. “We figured she was dead, okay? That’s all it was. We got tired of waiting for her to come home. And I felt bad for Sarah and Luke and I decided the best thing to do would be just to tell them she was dead.” His hands were shaking as he slid them into his pockets.
“It didn’t work. They forgot it as soon as it was done. Kept looking for her to come home and couldn’t remember we pronounced her dead and gone. But no, she doesn’t forget the stupid ashes to ashes.”
Something wasn’t right. Deni stared at him, trying to imagine a kid lying about his mother’s death to comfort his siblings. It didn’t even make sense.
Avoiding her eyes, he went inside, and she heard his footsteps going up the stairs. Joey stood still, looking into space as if remembering that day. Sarah and Luke were quiet.
“Why is Aaron sad?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know.” Deni watched the three-year-old look toward the door her brother had gone through.
“Why don’t you guys go play? I’ll check on Aaron in a minute.”
As the children went out into the yard and started to throw a ball, she looked up at Craig. He stood against the wall, arms crossed, wearing his lawyer frown. “What do you think?” he asked. “Do you believe him?”
She turned her palms up. “I guess it could be true. I mean, after a while when you get tired of waiting for somebody who never shows, you finally realize that you’ve got to declare an end to it.”
He dropped into the chair across from her. “Are you talking about me or Jessie?”
She shrugged. “Just trying to relate, that’s all. Trying to understand what would make little kids decide to have a funeral for their mom before they knew she was dead.”
“It’s kind of weird,” Craig said. “Most kids would be in denial about their parents being dead. They wouldn’t want to face it.”
“Yeah, well, they didn’t have the kind of parents you and I have. Their mother was neglectful, and she brought a lot of trouble and darkness into their lives. From the sound of Sarah’s nightmares, I’d say there may have been more to fear from her being alive than dead.”
When her parents came back in, Deni related the exchange to them. Her parents seemed suspicious.
Doug looked at Kay for a long moment, scratching his chin. Finally he said, “You don’t think the children witnessed her murder, do you?”
Kay swallowed hard. “That thought just crossed my mind too.”
Deni watched her dad processing the information, trying to decide what to do. “Should we tell the sheriff?” she asked.
“Tell him what? We don’t know any more than we did before. And Aaron’s sure not talking.”
“Still,” Kay said. “It might be something Scarbrough needs to know.”
Doug finally agreed. “All right. I’ll tell him. Maybe he can make some sense of it.”
fifty-three
ELOISE’S SON CAME OVER THE NEXT MORNING AND HANDED Doug the key to his mother’s home.
“I’ll sell it eventually, when the outage is over. But for now, please just watch after it and make sure there’s something to sell when the time comes.”
“I’ll be glad to,” Doug said. “Don’t worry about anything.”
“And you can plow up her yard or do whatever you need to do, just like you were going to,” Clark said. “I know Mama wanted to cooperate with the neighborhood in that. And, hey, if you find anybody who needs to rent the house or just live in it for a while until everything settles, let them. Just make sure they’re people who won’t trash it.” He looked down at his feet, clearly struggling with his grief. “I really appreciate all you and Kay have done.”
Doug put a hand on Clark’s shoulder. “You okay?”
Clark’s eyes misted and he tried to blink back tears. “Yeah, I’m fine. It was a good thing, me seeing my mother again. It would have been horrible to have had her die — ” His voice broke and he swallowed hard. “To have her die without saying good-bye. I’ve been a terrible son, you know.”
“No, not at all. You took care of her from a distance.”
“Thought I was doing her a big favor to put her in that house, then never came to see her. I got so busy making money that I didn’t have time to think about her.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Doug said. “You came when it was important. You were here at the end.”
Clark’s moist eyes brightened a little. “Yeah, that’s a good thing, or a God thing. I felt like the Lord was telling me that I needed to come and see about her after the outage, but I put it off. And then when I got your wife’s letter and heard how ill she was, something just changed inside of me. I really appreciate you taking care of her all this time. The whole neighborhood … you’ve all been great.”
“She was a real blessing to us,” Doug said. “A calm voice in a storm. She was the one with all the wisdom. She had already laid down her body at Christ’s altar, yet she seemed richer than all of us.”
“She was richer. And she passed that spiritual wealth on to me. It took my whole life, but I finally gave my heart to Christ too. I’ll see my mother again someday.”
Doug knew angels were rejoicing. “Then don’t worry about it anymore. You gave her all she ever wanted before she died.”
/> fifty-four
THE BRANNINGS HURRIED TO FINISH THEIR CHORES EARLY ON Monday so they could get to Sandwood Place to work on the cleanup and prepare to start on the well.
Craig tried to beg off, telling the family that he had some correspondence he needed to take care of, but Deni wouldn’t hear of it.
“Come on, Craig, it’s a family thing. We’re all going to help. Besides, you need to see how these people live. It’ll break your heart.”
“We have poor people in Washington too,” he said. “They’re the ones who tried to burn down the Capitol. I can get along just fine without having to deal with that type again.”
“That type?” Deni couldn’t hide her disgust. “What type? Poor people?”
“They don’t have to live like that,” he said. “They could pull themselves up if they wanted to.”
“Some of them may have been able to before the outage, but not all of them,” she said. “And now it’s utterly impossible.” She sat down and pulled her dirty sneakers on. “I’m disappointed in you, Craig. I thought you had more social conscience.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you shouldn’t be working in government if you isolate yourself from the truth. There are people there who are trying to raise children, trying to do the right things, fighting to survive every day. Some of them are helping with the work. If we all felt like you, what kind of world would it be?”
He let out a long-suffering sigh and slammed his pen on the table. “Okay, Deni, you’ve made me feel like pond scum. I guess I’ll go.” He stormed upstairs to change clothes.
Guilt was a fine motivator. She was glad it had worked.
Ten of Doug’s church members showed up to help — including Mark Green. They all rode bikes over together, and one of the men brought his horse-drawn wagon with all their tools piled in it. Deni and Craig doubled up on Craig’s bike, trailing behind. Craig brooded at Mark’s presence, but Deni pretended not to notice.
With Craig’s arrival and Eloise’s death — not to mention the Disbursement — it had been several days since they’d been there to work. To their surprise, the residents of the complex had finished cleaning up the garbage. Stacks of recyclables, washed and sorted, were stacked against the back wall of the building. They’d started a compost pile in an area that had been nothing but dirt before, and even though they didn’t yet have a place to plant, one of the men pointed out that the compost might be something they could sell if they could make enough of it.
Some of the men were working on digging a pit in which to bury the rest of the garbage, but they had at least separated it into a mound. As soon as the pit was deep enough, they would shovel it in and bury it. Craig helped the men with the digging of the garbage pit, while Deni and her mother wheeled uprooted bushes and saplings from the site where the well would be. Craig and Mark worked side by side, in seeming competition with one another. But after a while, Craig raised his hands in surrender. “I have to rest,” he said.
“No problem, man,” Mark said, and kept working as if there wasn’t an option.
Each time Deni emerged from the trees, she looked for Craig. He never went back to work. Instead, he was talking to the people who stood around. Talking — that was what he was good at. He would make a great politician. Too bad those talents weren’t useful at the moment.
When the pit was finally deep enough, they shoveled the garbage in. The residents cheered as they began to cover it with the loose mounds of dirt. Craig joined in then, shoveling the dirt in, but she could see in the redness of his face that he was out of his element. Most guys she knew loved the outdoors and the sheer brute strength required in such a task, but Craig seemed resentful each time he sank his shovel blade in the dirt.
At one point, little Luke strayed too close to where they were working, and Craig swung around and yelled, “Hey, kid, stay out of the way, or you’ll get hurt!”
Deni caught her breath at his harsh tone. Luke looked crushed and slunk away. Mark stopped working and rescued the child. “Over here, Luke. I’ve got a job for you.” He busied him stacking the cardboard boxes they were using for the reusable items.
Deni’s gaze followed Mark as he stooped with Luke, showing him how he wanted the boxes stacked and praising him for his efforts. It was a far cry from Craig’s irritable outburst.
She turned and saw Craig leaning on his shovel, watching the others work again.
One of the women who lived on the first floor got her small children involved in helping Luke. The skinny kids worked on their piles with pride and contentment.
The stench was already fading as the garbage was buried. Feeling a mighty sense of accomplishment, Deni steered her wheelbarrow back into the woods.
“Hey, Deni.”
She turned and saw Craig with his hands on his hips. “Are we leaving as soon as the garbage is buried, or does your family intend to work until dark?”
“Until dark,” she said.
He huffed out a breath. “You’ve got to be kidding. Enough is enough.”
Deni looked at the dirt covering his arms and shirt. Somehow, the rugged look wasn’t as attractive on him as it was on Mark.
“If you don’t want to work, you don’t have to. Just quit. You know how to get to our house.”
“Yeah and look like a complete jerk,” he said. “I just don’t get your family.”
She wanted to say that they didn’t really get him, either, but she didn’t want to fight. “Just take a break,” she said. “You’ve been working hard. Go sit down, drink something.”
“Oh no,” he said. “If mighty Mark can keep at it, so can I.”
She recognized the jealousy in his tone, but it only made her angry. Ignoring him, she went back to work.
LATER THAT NIGHT, WHEN THEY HAD ALL RETURNED HOME AND cleaned up from the hard work, Deni went into her dad’s study to work on this week’s paper. By the light of an oil lamp, she pecked on the typewriter keys.
Craig came in and leaned in the doorway. He had shaved when they got home, and he looked more like the man she’d fallen in love with. The sun had done him good. He was getting a tan, though his cheekbones were burned, and without the beard, she realized she really did like his longer hair. “How can you do that now?” he asked. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Exhausted,” she said. “But I have to use all my free time, since I’m so busy during the day.”
He came in and read the headline over her shoulder. “ ‘Gatlin’s Next-Door Neighbor Arrested.’ ”
She kept typing, copying from the original she’d written last night. “I need to get this out tomorrow so that if anyone has information about Edith Stuart, they’ll come forward.”
“Assuming anyone reads it.”
She stopped typing and looked up at him. “Lots of people are starting to read my newspaper. Everywhere I go people mention it to me.”
“ ‘Newspaper’ seems a little delusional, doesn’t it? How many copies do you put out? Ten? Twelve?”
She bristled. “Fifteen, on bulletin boards in key places around town. But there may be thousands reading them.”
He breathed a condescending laugh. “I just wouldn’t try using it on a résumé if I were you.”
His amused tone made her feel small. Her mind strayed to Mark’s support of her paper — the typewriter he’d found her, the carbon paper he’d salvaged.
Craig didn’t even realize he’d put her down. He put his arm around her, stroked her arm, and lifted her left hand to look at her ring. “I was thinking, Deni.”
“Thinking what?”
“I can’t stay much longer. Senator Crawford really needs me.”
She sprang up, stricken. “You’re going to leave? When?”
“I need to get back soon,” he said. “I only came to get you. I don’t want to set up housekeeping here with your folks. And as important as the work over at Sandwood Place is, and all the stuff you’ve got going on here, it’s not my kind of thing. I??
?m better with helping the senator write bills that will help this country move forward. That’s what my job is right now.”
“So what are you saying? That the wedding isn’t going to happen?”
His eyes twinkled. “Think again,” he said. “I didn’t plan to go back without you. I don’t want to leave you again.”
“Oh.” It was what she had hoped to hear in the letters, just the kind of affirmation she needed. Now she wondered why it didn’t thrill her. She tried to smile. “So when do you want to go?”
“I was thinking sometime in the next few days. How would you feel about a quick wedding here with your family, and then we take the train back to Washington?”
She thought of the beautiful wedding she had planned. It would have taken place next month. She would have worn her Vera Wang gown and all of her sorority sisters would have flown in for the occasion. It would have been so beautiful. But she didn’t have the dress anymore, and her bridesmaids were scattered halfway across the country. She’d never get them all here now.
“It’ll be great,” he said. “Your dad can marry us.”
“But he’s not ordained,” she said. “He just set up a house church. He’s not allowed to officiate at a wedding.”
“Then we’ll get someone who is. Your old pastor or the judge or a justice of the peace.”
She didn’t like that idea. “And where will we do it?” she asked. “We can’t very well do it in our backyard with it all tilled up. We could do it in a church, but it’s dark in there, and even in daylight — ”
“Come on, Deni. You’re a problem-solver. This is doable, if you want to do it.”
She looked into the flame flickering at the desk. What would it be like to leave her family now? She thought of little Sarah and her brothers, the project at Sandwood Place, the murder investigation. So much was unresolved. Could she really be happy with him in Washington? She swallowed and tried to think. “I’m not sure I’m ready to leave my folks, Craig.”
He grunted. “Come on, Deni. You left them years ago. You’ve only lived back here a few weeks. They don’t need you. They have your brothers and sister.”