“It’s a mistake,” I said loudly, but my heart pounded violently. Not the police, I learned a few minutes later. Federal agents. FBI. Men in crisp dark suits walked up to Ella and me, and flashed their badges, and said a lot of soothing, fatherly things to us—at least for the first few hours. That was before they had charged Pop with a long list of federal crimes that included conspiracy to murder a federal judge.
When I finally saw him the next day, his high-priced, long-haired, mob-connected defense lawyer shadowed him at a court hearing. Pop searched me out and I saw something in his eyes that was tragic apology but also something that was rage.
“I swear to you on your mother’s grave,” he said to me when we were allowed to meet in an interview room, “I had nothing to do with the Billings arson.”
“I never thought you did,” I said. It was that simple. I don’t know if I believed my own words or not, but I never considered saying anything else.
“I’m going to fight this. I’ll clear my name. I swear to you.”
“I know, Pop.” I didn’t cry; it was as if we’d both always known I was tough like him, that I’d absorbed his nature.
“Dear God,” he murmured, his eyes vacant, searching. “What have I done to you and your sister?”
It was the closest I ever heard him come to uttering a prayer. The lapse of pure control terrified me. I think he knew that what he’d dreamed for us—for me, in particular—was ruined already, and he’d betrayed the faith our mother had put in him before she died. He’d broken our hearts and his own.
The last time I saw him he was in handcuffs. I couldn’t even get close enough to touch him when he was taken out of the courtroom. I remember Ella sobbing.
He died that week of a heart attack, in a jail cell, alone.
My father came full circle in a system that betrayed him, dying in government custody. I went to the morgue and took his elegant, golden hands in mine, and my mind was open and blank as an empty song sheet.
I absorbed his rage and sorrow from his cold skin. I forgave his mistakes and believed him innocent of murder if not of revenge, and I swore to him I’d never forget the betrayals that made him the way he was.
After Pop’s death, friends of his were scared to help us, talk to us, or even admit they knew us. Ella, who had always been dreamy and excitable—a lot like Mom, Pop always said—fell apart when the FBI agents began interrogating us about every detail of Pop’s life. Her terror made her almost incoherent; there were times when she hid in an upstairs closet, trembling violently, sweating, trapped in episodes of blind panic or hysterical sobbing she couldn’t control.
The doctors put my sister in the psychiatric ward. I went back to the house alone. When cronies of Pop’s showed up and told me they needed files he stored in his bedroom closet, I let them take everything. I was so stupid. So scared and naive and desperate to protect my dead father and damaged sister. I had no idea what the files contained, but I assumed the information could hurt Pop. I gathered all of his office papers at home, carried them into the backyard, and burned them.
The Government arrived an hour later. It arrived in the form of dull-colored sedans and men—all men, no women—in dark suits, wearing shoulder pistols and flashing badges, and carrying notepads, tape recorders, and search warrants. Then came the men with equipment to test for fingerprints and other evidence.
To put our lives under a microscope.
“What did you do with the files upstairs?” they asked me. “What did you burn in the backyard?”
I never admitted anything. “You’re in trouble,” they said.
The next morning Pop was national news—the widower of sixties pop singer Shari Kirk, who was by then only an answer in Trivial Pursuit and whose quaint old ballad, “Evening Star,” had become a standard on the oldies radio stations. The father of Van Cliburn finalist Venus Arinelli.
Max Arinelli, the embittered son of immigrants. That’s what he was called in the news.
For twenty years he’d laundered dirty money through his club. Drug money, gun money, foreign money, all of it headed for an umbrella group of activists doing God alone knew what. Some of it was about funding legal defense for ne’er-do-well federal prisoners considered to be political victims. Some of the money went to rabble-rousing left-wing newspapers and underground newsletters, and some went to support candidates for public office.
And some of it went to a group who sent an assassin into the basement of Judge Billings’s big colonial home and set the timer on a sophisticated device that exploded in white-hot flames a few minutes later.
Whether he’d meant to be or not, Pop was the money man for killers.
I was convinced—for a while, at least—that he was being framed. I wasn’t going to list the names of harmless friends and old-timer musicians who ranted about politics over dinner at Pop’s club. I wasn’t going to strip our lives naked of the dignity Pop had cocooned around us. We were innocent, he and Ella and I, but these government men wanted information of any kind, and they hounded me for it.
And I didn’t give in.
Which upset them, the government men. They get very testy when teenage girls refuse to back down about basic constitutional protections, when teenage girls quote the Bill of Rights to them.
And when they get testy they break things. They jerk drawers out of the dining-room sideboard and spill sterling-silver flatware on the floor, and then they accidentally crush the filigreed iced-tea spoons under their shoes. They bump your mother’s imported demitasse cups while rummaging through the china cupboard. They shatter the crystal flower vases.
They drop jewelry into their coat pockets. “Don’t you dare take my mother’s pearls,” I said as a government agent flipped the necklace into a bulging canvas bag. I lunged for the bag and he pinned me against a wall. “They’re evidence now,” he said.
They scatter your panties and bras across your bed. “You like pink,” an agent said. “Tell me why pink turns you on.” A grown man saying that to a teenage girl. I never forgot the look in his eyes.
They strew clothing, rip out wallpaper, search beneath floorboards, snatch photographs from albums. “Who are these people?” they demand. When I visited Ella in the hospital she could only clutch my hand and stare at the ceiling, hollow-eyed and speechless.
I was terrified that she had left me forever, too.
I hid Mom and Pop’s wedding photo inside my blouse before the agents got to the music room. They snatched up the rest of the photos on the piano. The picture was the only belonging I took when my sister and I disappeared onto the long, anonymous roads stretching in endless loneliness across the years.
There were no simple answers anymore. Ella and I were outcasts. I promised myself we’d survive. I was still keeping that vow ten years later, when Gib Cameron, the childhood sweetheart I’d never met, tracked me down in Chicago.
I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse. Gib’s untapped threat—or promise—rang in my ears.
When we arrived at a dingy RV campground on the edge of a high-rise Chicago neighborhood, I watched him surreptitiously. I had a bad feeling he’d already checked out our temporary home in the lovely Trailer and RV Paradise, an acre lot trapped like an armpit between an apartment building and an all-night convenience store. The silhouette of Chicago towered behind him in the midnight sky. Mountains. I’d always thought of Gib Cameron among mountains, and there he was.
“Home sweet home,” I said dryly. “Like it?”
He perused the trailer park with obvious disapproval. “It reminds me of a bad truck-stop motel.”
“You speaking from personal experience, hillbilly, or from just peeking in motel windows?”
“Now don’t go and make fun of my hobbies. I’ll have to throw you in that cement pond over there.” He nodded at the decrepit concrete fountain at the trailer park’s center, then gazed at me steadily. “You could use a good soak. I expect you’re pretty under all that stage makeup.”
I sla
mmed my car door and said no more as I strode around to the passenger side. I knew how I must look to him. Like punk trash or a street hooker. My low-cut two-piece black minidress bared enough cleavage and midriff to qualify as a bikini. The trusting little girl who resorted to voodoo spells had turned into a cynical woman who might have been mistaken for a blond voodoo queen. I could tell him it was all part of my act, but he’d never believe me.
I opened the hatchback’s passenger door and bent to take Ella’s black vinyl tote from her fumbling hands. “Sorry,” she whispered. “Now I really am sick. My head’s killing me.” The scent of vomit wafted from the towel in the floor between her feet. “Just give me a minute to clean up.”
“No problem. I’ll ward off Dudley Dooright with my wicked urban wit.”
I shut the door and busied myself straightening the contents of her purse. Gib walked over from his own vehicle, an old jeep, one of those hulking models that had led a hard, true-jeep life. Next to the jeep our faded little hatchback had the personality of a pigeon. “Can I help with your sister?” he asked.
“You can help by stopping where you are and not embarrassing her while she does a little impromptu freshening up.”
He inclined his head in a sardonic acceptance, but halted a few yards out, gallantly facing away from Ella. I strolled over to him, eyeing the jeep. “That’s a lousy rental car.”
“It’s mine. World War Two vintage. My father’s older brother was killed in England during an air raid. He was a driver for General Eisenhower. The general sent the jeep to my family as a gift, after the war.”
I stared at the vehicle. The Cameron family had an even more patriotic history than I’d realized. I took a deep breath. “Don’t tell me you drove a fifty-year-old Army jeep all the way from Tennessee.”
“I like to drive.” He fished the remnant of a cigar from his shirt pocket, using his maimed hand awkwardly. When he saw me watching his hand he dropped the cold cigar butt into an overflowing trash can by the trailer park’s communal picnic tables, which were each chained to steel eyelets set in the concrete pads beneath them. He scowled at the chained tables and the garbage can, then rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I haven’t been able to get out and do much until the last month or so. I couldn’t maneuver a steering wheel or a gearshift.”
I avoided glancing at his hand again. “You must like being isolated up there in the mountains,” I offered, by way of changing the subject. “You must stay busy.”
He smiled a little. “Sure. Breeding with my first cousins and making moonshine takes all my time.”
So much for my sympathy. He didn’t want it. “First cousins? Why, I’m impressed you swam that far out in the family gene pool.”
“Vee!” Ella whispered weakly through the hatchback’s open window.
I opened the door again and bent over her. “Ready?”
“Yes. I think. I’m a little woozy. And I smell horrible.”
“You don’t smell worse than anything else around here.” In the concrete fountain a few live goldfish swam anemically among more than a few dead ones. When we’d leased an RV berth Ella said the fountain smelled like the Louisiana bayous in summer. That the odor made her homesick. I said it just made me sick, period. Home, to me, smelled like jasmine and bougainvillea. The scent of the past could break my heart if I thought about it too much. I helped Ella from our car.
“Nice rolling motel,” Gib said, looking at our ancient blue-and-white RV.
Ella leaned against the hatchback’s hood and managed a weak smile at Gib, holding out one hand with delicate gentility, as if we were at the country club. “Vee told me our mother’s stories about your home and your family when we were children,” she said. “Our parents’ wedding at Cameron Hall—and how Vee got her name—why, those were Vee’s favorite stories. A real-life fairy tale. It really is nice to meet you.”
I groaned inwardly at her openness. Gib shot a surprised glance my way as he clasped her fingers with his good hand. No one could resist Ella. “I heard a lot about your family, too,” he answered.
Ella faltered. “Oh.” She touched her forehead shakily. “I’m sorry.”
I took her by one arm. “I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home. Have a seat on any of the fine picnic tables over there.” He responded with a slight bow. I quickly helped Ella inside our creaky RV.
“Get out the good wineglasses,” she urged weakly. I guided her to the built-in bed behind a partition. “He’s a friend, Vee.”
“No, he’s not. He wants something from us. I just haven’t found out what yet. And Ella? Don’t ever apologize for our family.”
“I didn’t mean to sound as if I were.”
“All right. Just don’t do it again.”
“Gib went to a lot of trouble to look for us and to find us, Vee. His family remembers Mom and Pop just as vividly as we remember Mom’s stories about the Camerons. The Camerons were special to us and we’re still special to them. After all these years, that’s amazing. It’s profound.”
“It’s peculiar. Get some sleep,” I whispered. My twin bed was bolted on the RV wall crossways of Ella’s twin, but her side was all gauzy white netting and lacy white pillows, while mine was jumbled with everything from African kente-cloth blankets to a ten-dollar purple afghan I’d bought at a salvage shop—and the covers were usually scattered with composition sheets where I’d scribbled new duet arrangements for us.
Ella lay down gratefully and I pulled off her black pumps and her demure black leggings, then rubbed her feet for a second. My sister had too many soft spots and I had too many hard ones. I adored her, despite everything. She would say the same about me.
Ella sighed. As I turned away she whispered, “Don’t be too hard on him. I saw a feather this morning. It means something. I think he’s somebody we can trust.” Her eyes filled with tears. Her pale, champagne-fine complexion was quickly streaked with them. “I still want to trust people,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”
Ella believed angels, or our parents, or, for all I knew, space Wookiees, watched over us. She was convinced the occasional bird feathers were good tidings from them.
I glanced at Gib out a window lined with Ella’s feathers taped to the camper’s fake wood paneling. Playbills, newspaper reviews, ticket stubs, and publicity photos of us were taped nearby. Mom and Pop’s wedding photo hung in a small gold frame. “I saw a feather,” Ella repeated. “It’s a sign. Tell him about the feather.” She turned uneasily on her pillow.
“It means a pigeon died,” I said under my breath.
When I stepped out of the camper Gib was leaning against one of the trailer park’s metal picnic tables with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t look pleased as he surveyed the lines of campers squatting on gravel lots under yellow security lights. When he swiveled his attention to me I gave a small curtsy. “Is this more acceptable to your meat-and-potatoes idea of how a decent woman should dress?” I gestured toward my T-shirt, baggy shorts, and sandals. I’d pulled my hair back. The mass of tight cornrows was heavy enough to keep my head tilted back, a decidedly superior posture. I carried a half bottle of wine and a pair of plastic wineglasses.
“I miss the belly jewelry,” he said.
“You’ve seen more than your share, I expect.”
“How do you get past airport metal detectors?”
“I distract the guards with my tattoos.”
“Which one do they like better? The burning flag or the hammer and sickle?”
I bristled like a cat. “It’s the smiley face on my ass that really gets their attention.” I sat down at the picnic table and unceremoniously removed the wine bottle’s screw top. “Hope you like discount chardonnay.” He eyed the plastic goblets just as he seemed to study every other detail of my world. He made me feel defensive without uttering another word.
I poured wine. He neither took a glass nor said anything. His scrutiny focused suddenly on my bright yellow cornrows and braids. “I can’t figure out what kind of fas
hion statement you’re trying to make.”
“I’m sure you’re used to women whose idea of a fashion statement is the bill they pay for a tease job at Lula Ethel’s House of Beauty every month.”
“I like women with big hair. I admit it.” He sat down across from me slowly, gracefully, all long legs and broad shoulders, his knees brushing mine under the table before I twisted my legs aside. From his shirt pocket he pulled a folded sheet of notepaper and a yellowed envelope with a stamp so old it was peeling off. “Read this first,” he said, handing me the note.
I frowned at the mystery as I unfolded the paper. The handwriting was spidery but strong.
Venus—
Gib found you for me. I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you. I believe your family’s friendship is a treasure we lost and have to recover. You and your sister are our compatriot survivors of life’s cruel fates. Now we’ve found you and you’ll prove me right. I also believe your family shares my family’s faith and hope. I believe that with all my heart.
It was signed “Olivia Cameron.” Next, Gib laid the old, fragile envelope in front of me. “My great-aunt Olivia kept this. She asked me to give it to you along with her note. Your mother sent it to her.”
I plucked out a color snapshot of Mom, Pop, me at about five, and Ella in Mom’s arms. Little, dark-haired, innocent girls. A lump formed in my throat. “Read the inscription on the back,” Gib said. My hands trembling, I turned the photo over and read in Mom’s handwriting: Dear Olivia, I’m going to bring my girls to meet you and yours as soon as I can coax Max away from his nightclub. Venus always asks me when she can meet “her” Gib. I promise we’ll visit someday. You have blessed us with a friendship we cherish. I think of your family as our own special angels.
Gib cleared his throat. “My aunt says it’s time you made good on your mother’s promise to visit.”