Black-Eyed Susans, page 26
“Tessa. Are you seeing something?”
Not now. I can’t stop the movie to talk. I want more. I close my eyes into a light so bright it burns. There’s Lydia, dancing with the Susans. Pushing them off the floor. Voguing to Madonna in my kitchen. Brushing my hair until my scalp tingles. Imitating Coach Winkle’s sex talk: Every time you think about doing it, I want a picture of my head to pop up. I’ll be saying: “Genital warts, genital warts!”
Images, smashing into my brain. Lydia’s drawing of the red-haired girl and the angry flowers. Mr. Bell, drunk. The dogs yipping and spinning in crazy circles. Mrs. Bell crying. Lydia and I pedaling our bikes to my house with our bodies slung low and forward, feet churning as fast as they can. Mr. Bell’s Ford Mustang breathing like a nasty dragon in the driveway while we hide in the flower garden. My father talking to him in calm tones on the porch. Sending him away. It was one night, and a hundred nights.
Me, the protector. A sob catches in my throat.
Cut. New scene. Here comes the doctor. Right on cue. I’ve seen this part of the movie before. There’s Lydia. And over there, under that tree, are Oscar and me. Such a pretty campus to take a walk. If I’d let Oscar tug me the other way, I never would have seen them.
The camera weaves in close. I can almost read the titles of the library books crammed in Lydia’s arms. Lydia, the pretend college girl. Yammering up at the doctor in her usual, earnest frenzy. The doctor, hurried, trying to be polite, looking like he wants nothing more than to get away.
September 1995
MR. LINCOLN: Your honor, permission to treat the witness as hostile. I’ve been patient but I’m in the home stretch here. This witness has skirted around my last five questions.
JUDGE WATERS: Mr. Lincoln, I see nothing hostile about a hundred-pound girl wearing glasses unless it’s that her IQ is larger than yours.
MR. LINCOLN: Objection … to you … your honor.
JUDGE WATERS: Ms. Bell. You need to answer. Did Tessie lie about anything related to this case?
MS. BELL: Yes, your honor.
MR. LINCOLN: OK, let’s go over this one more time. Tessie lied about the drawings?
MS. BELL: Yes.
MR. LINCOLN: And she lied about when she could see again?
MS. BELL: Yes.
MR. LINCOLN: And before the attack, she lied about where she was going running?
MS. BELL: Yes. Sometimes.
MR. LINCOLN: And your father also lied about where he was going sometimes?
MR. VEGA: Your honor, objection.
9 days until the execution
A little more than a week before Terrell is scheduled to die, and I’m cleaning out Effie’s freezer.
The judge rejected Terrell’s habeas corpus appeal five hours ago, news leached to the bottom of my stomach. Bill delivered the announcement by phone. I could barely listen after I heard the word rejected. Something about how the judge felt it was a tough call but there was no convincing evidence that Terrell was innocent and the jury got it wrong.
It’s not like the police aren’t still plugging away with Igor’s new theories. They’ve turned up sixty-eight names, all females in their late teens to early twenties from Mexico and Tennessee who went missing in the mid-to-late ’80s—Jo’s best estimate on the age of the bones.
The problem is, that list of sixty-eight translates to hundreds of searches for family members who have moved or died or who don’t answer their phones or who simply won’t give up their DNA to help identify the Susans. At least fifteen people contacted by the police are family members still listed as suspects in some of those cases. Some of them are probably killers, just not the one we’re looking for. Eleven girls on the list turned out to be runaways found alive but never removed from the missing persons database. It’s a slog that could take months or years, all of it surmised from an ancient code from the earth. It seems impossible. I can’t even figure out the best way to scrape purple Popsicle juice out of Effie’s freezer.
“Effie, keep or toss?” I know the answer—it’s been my mantra for the last hour—but I’m asking anyway. I’m holding up a plastic bag that contains the battered paperback copy of Lonesome Dove. Gus McCrae and Pea Eye Parker had been freezing to death for years behind several foil-wrapped items furry with ice crystals. Those have solidly hit the trashcan outside without Effie’s knowledge.
“Keep,” Effie admonishes me. “Certainly. Lonesome Dove is my favorite book of all time. I put it in there so I’d know where it was.” I’m never sure with Effie if these explanations are truth or cover-up.
Two days after Terrell is scheduled to die, Effie is moving to live with her daughter in New Jersey. I can barely breathe thinking about the absence of Effie’s spirit in this house, but here I am, helping my friend load her life into boxes. At least that was the plan.
So far, she has not relinquished her hold on anything, including four iron skillets that are almost exactly alike except for the stories fried into their black history. In one, Effie made her husband’s favorite Blueberry Surprise pancakes on the day he died. The skillet with the slightly rusted handle belonged to her mother. Effie almost came to blows over it post-funeral with a sister who can’t cook a lick. The other two leave the best, crispest almost burnt crust on okra and cornbread, and you always have to have two pans of okra.
Effie is rather elegantly sprawled on the kitchen floor in a pair of old red silk pajamas, looking like an old Hollywood diva, if that’s possible sitting on yellowed black-and-white linoleum surrounded by sixty years of pots and pans. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, is a wreck. She has spent the last three days yanking every single thing out of the cabinets, shelves, and closets and tossing it onto the beds, the floor, the tables, any available open space. The effect is that of a tornado hitting an antiques store.
“Sue, you’re awfully quiet. Is it that damn Terrell Goodwin business?”
My fork stops its scraping. My head emerges from the freezer. Effie called me Sue, her daughter’s name, while asking me the most pointed question of our relationship.
“Don’t look so surprised. My mind’s not that far gone, hon. I thought you might finally bring it up after the police broke down my door that night and ripped off my earphones. But you didn’t, and that’s fine. It’s not even a smidgen of who you are, honey. Who you are—well, I’m going to miss who you are something terrible. And Charlie. I want to see that girl grow up. She’s going to teach me to do that Sky-hype thing. Did I tell you that Sue’s fiancé and I had a real good talk last night? He’s fifth-generation New Jersey Italian. He told me it’s always been an honor and privilege in his family to take care of the old. At least that’s what I think he said. I couldn’t understand half the conversation. I thought he had a speech impediment for the first fifteen minutes.”
I laugh because I’ve listened to Effie rattle off fluent French in her East Texas drawl, and it wasn’t as pretty as a Hoboken accent. It’s a slightly uneasy laugh, because I’m not interested in any heartfelt, tell-all goodbye with Effie. I’m going to leave her dreams alone. I don’t want her to see my eyes dilate into black holes or for her to walk endless fields of yellow flowers that hold the scent of death. I don’t want her to wake up still smelling it.
I’m relieved when my phone begins to buzz somewhere near a counter of jumbled spices. I dig it out from under yellowed directions for a Sunbeam Percolator and a recipe for Doc’s Gay Salad. I have no memory of placing my phone under anything; it’s like the kitchen is turning into some form of kudzu and growing over itself.
Jo’s name is on the screen. An instant sense of dread, pickled with hope.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hi, Tessa. Bill told me he let you know about the judge’s ruling. Sucks.”
“Yes, he called.” I want to say more, but there’s Effie.
“I’m a little worried about Bill. He looks like he hasn’t slept for days. I’ve never seen him quite like this with a case. I think it’s all tied up in his grief for Angie. Like he can’t let her down.”
If I start to feel something for Bill or Terrell right now, I will feel everything. I already sense the hot well building behind my eyes.
“There’s another reason I’m calling,” Jo continues. “The cops got the guy who stuck those signs in your yard. He was caught vandalizing the lawn of a Catholic priest in Boerne. I thought you might want to get a restraining order. He’s free on bond. His name is Jared Lester. He’ll probably end up with a severe fine and community service instead of jail time.”
“OK. Thanks. I’ll think about it.” I’ll think about not purposely pissing him off right now.
“One more thing. He claims, rather proudly, that he planted the black-eyed Susans under your windowsill several weeks ago. I’ve checked, and the potting soil in his garage has the same basic signature as what I sampled from your yard that day. I don’t think he’s lying. He brought it up voluntarily in the police interview. Here’s the deal. He’s only twenty-three.” Meaning, not my monster. I do the math. He was five when I was tossed in that grave.
Effie’s eying my throat, where my pulse drums. One of my tears drops onto the yellowed coffeepot instructions with the cartoon percolator with a Mr. Kool-Aid face. I begin to methodically stand the spices into efficient lines.
How long has Jo known? Long enough that the police have caught this man, interviewed him, and set his bail. Long enough to run tests on potting soil.
I should give Jo a break, of course. As she ran that test, she had to know the outcome couldn’t reassure me that much.
My monster is still out there.
This time, the door opens, and it’s me on the other side wanting in.
I search his face, and my heart cracks.
I silently beg him to see all of me. The Black-Eyed Susan who talks to dead people, and the artist with the half-moon scar who tortures paint and thread to make sure beauty exists somewhere inside her. The mother who named her daughter Charlie after her father’s favorite Texas knuckleball pitcher, and the runner who has never stopped running.
“You look like hell,” I say.
“What are you doing here?” As he says this, Bill is pulling me across the threshold into his arms.
We haven’t spoken much or texted in the last several days. Bill doesn’t appear to have showered for most of them. I don’t mind. He smells alive. His chin scrapes my cheek like sandpaper. Our lips connect and, for a very long time, that’s all there is.
“This is a bad idea,” he says, breaking us apart.
“That’s my line.”
“Seriously. I’m running on fumes. Let me get you a beer and we’ll talk.”
“I’m so sorry about Terrell,” I say, following him inside. “Sorry for everything.” My words, inadequate.
“Yes. Me, too.” His voice is grim.
“I didn’t mean to be so short on the phone. I was just … shocked.”
He shrugs. “Next stop, U.S. Court of Appeals. A bunch of buffoons with rubber stamps. The habeas appeal was our real shot. Have a seat and I’ll be back with your beer.”
He disappears through an archway, leaving me to glean what I can from the first encounter with his living space. I scour the art on the walls the way other people surreptitiously peer at bookshelves and CD collections. Or used to anyway. A few decent modern prints with reds, greens, and golds. Nothing that provides insight into Bill’s soul, and if it does, I don’t want that to pop my bubble.
I pick out a buttery white leather chair and wonder a little too late if I’d gotten a nice young law intern named Kayley into trouble by bullying her for Bill’s home address. When I showed up in Angie’s basement, Kayley dripped as much exhaustion as Bill. I wore her down with my red eyes, driver’s license, and a rambling dissertation on Saint Stephen, still being stoned to death over Angie’s shrine of a desk. Kayley spent much of the dissertation time trying not to gape at my scar, openly impressed that she was meeting the myth.
All of which led me to this 1960s-era converted garage, which I’m sure is worth about $600,000 plus. It nests in the winding waterways and trees of Turtle Creek, a famous, wealthy old Dallas neighborhood where Indians used to camp. I love the play of light on hardwoods, the gracious white brick fireplace with a grate covered in ash, even the concentric coffee rings near the open laptop on the coffee table. The art, not so much. It matches these pillows.
Bill appears with two St. Pauli Girls in his hands. I want to think this means he took note of my favorite beer and stocked it.
“In case you’re wondering,” he says, gesturing with his beer, “I’m a squatter. My dad enjoys flipping town homes after retirement, which I guess is better than playing baccarat at Choctaw. My mother decorates. So I’m just here making it look lived in until it sells.” He takes a swig and settles on the couch directly across from me.
“I have to confess,” he says. “Kayley called to warn me you were coming.”
“So you could get your gun out.” I smile.
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” he says.
I switch the subject back to Terrell. “How many times have you won a reprieve in a death penalty case?”
“A reprieve? Five or six. That’s the real goal most of the time. To extend life as long as possible, because if you’re sitting on Death Row in Texas, you are most likely going to die on that gurney. I’ve only worked one case with a Capra-esque ending. Angie was the lead. I don’t do this full time. But you know that.”
“That one time … you must have been … elated,” I say.
“Elated isn’t exactly the right word. It doesn’t change that the victim died a horrible death. There’s a family out there who might always feel like we set a killer free. So I’d say, more like very, very, very relieved. Angie insisted we did our high-fiving in private.” Bill pats the side of the couch. “Come here. You’re too far away.”
I get up very slowly. He pulls me down into his arms and drags a kiss along my mouth. “Lie down.”
“I thought this wasn’t a good idea.”
“This is a very good idea. We’re going to sleep.”
The fierce pounding rocks both of us upright and fully awake.
Bill jumps from the couch, leaving me gracelessly sprawled against the pillows. He’s already peering through the peephole before my feet touch the floor. In a second, I’m beside him. “Go into the kitchen,” he orders, “if you want to keep us a secret.”
I don’t budge, and he turns the knob.
I’m blinded by lime green. A ski jacket meant to stand out to rescue helicopters on a snowy slope. Jo’s head is sticking out of it. She pushes her way into the room like she’s been here before.
She’s quickly figuring out what my presence means. “Tessa? Why …?” She shakes her head. “Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. You should know, too.”
“Know what?” I’m awkwardly smoothing my hair.
“About Aurora.”
“Is something wrong? Is she hurt?” Or dead?
“No, no. It’s her DNA. We found a match. It’s bizarre.”
“Come on, Jo. What’s up?” Bill, impatient. Watching my face.
“We have a DNA match from Aurora to the fetal bone from the Black-Eyed Susan grave. They shared the same father. They would have been half-sisters.”
“A DNA match to … Lydia’s daughter?” Bill is asking the incredulous words while I’m trying to catch up. To let go of the picture of Lydia and a high school boy in a naked tangle.
Lydia slept with the killer. Or she was raped.
I’m the one with the answers, a Susan whispers.
Bill’s phone begins to bleat. He pulls it out of his pocket, annoyed, and glances at the screen. His face is suddenly locked down.
“I have to take this.” He points a finger at Jo and me. “Hold off saying more until I’m off the phone.”
Jo guides me by my elbow back to the couch. The Susans are whispering very low, like the wind humming through that tiny hole in my tree house.
That night, the Susans come to me in my sleep. They are frenzied, running around, a blur of youthful limbs and bright swirling skirts, more alive than I’ve ever seen them. They are searching for my monster in every nook and cranny as if their mansion in my head is about to explode. As if it is for the very last time.
They are shouting and cursing at each other, at me.
Wake up, Tessie! they are shrieking. Lydia knows something! They are spreading out like Army men. Opening and slamming closet doors, tearing off bedcovers, dusting cobwebs off chandeliers, ripping weeds out of the garden. Merry, sweet Merry, is falling to her knees to beg God’s mercy.
A Susan calls out. Over here! I’ve found the monster! She’s telling me to hurry, hurry, hurry because she can’t hold him down for long.
I teeter on the edge of consciousness. The Susan is planted on top of him, her red skirt swirled over his body like blood. She is using every last bit of strength to twist his neck around so that I can see. A worm is gyrating out of his mouth. His face is caked with mud.
I wake up sobbing.
My monster is still wearing a mask. And Lydia knows exactly who he is.
September 1995
MR. LINCOLN: I think we’re all done, Ms. Bell. Thank you for your testimony. I’m sorry it’s been a difficult day for you.
MS. BELL: It wasn’t difficult. I have one more thing. It’s about Tessie’s journal.
MR. LINCOLN: I wasn’t aware she had a journal.
MR. VEGA: Objection. I know nothing about this journal. It is not in evidence, your honor, and I don’t see its relevance.
