Ada Unraveled (27 page)

Finally Hannah noticed and said, “Clinton.
My mother’s part Irish. She dates everything either BC or AC.”

I nodded. My camera had reached the point
where I’d entered the cramped bathroom.

Gerry said, “So, before 1992. So Eddie was
imprisoned in the basement for….”

Hannah said, “At least twenty years. Maybe
longer.”

Two pictures of the shower stall. Partially
torn curtain. Black mold in the corners.

Gerry said, “Do you think they kept him in
that cage all the time? They must have let him out occasionally,
right? I mean, even a murderer gets time in an exercise yard. What
the hell did he do to deserve this?” She’d stopped whispering.

We’d all stopped whispering.

Hannah reached over the seatback to point.
“What are those? Look, those medicine bottles. Zoom in!”

We peered at the five shelves of
prescription bottles in the medicine chest—switching back and forth
between the several pictures I’d snapped, searching for the
clearest. I was disappointed that only a two of the bottles had the
labels fully facing us. And one of those was partially washed out
by the flash.

I fiddled with the dials on my mini camera,
thinking mini wasn’t always so great. My quilter’s fingers felt
more like a man’s. I finally maneuvered to a close up of the
clearest bottles.

Hannah muttered, “Sleeping pills. And…maybe
Valium.”

I said, “I didn’t think it was called that
anymore.”

Gerry added, “And tranquilizers. That one
may be Prozac. My mom is on that. And the little blue pill is
Halcion. Downers. All of them are downers of one kind or
another.”

To control the poor man. To keep him calm
and manageable.

Hannah said, “Ada’s?”

I focused in on the clearest bottle again.
“Yes. It looks like it. Ada must have been getting them filled. The
date on this one is a couple years old. But the bottle at the top
is fairly current.”

Suddenly a shot of the wastebasket came into
view. I quickly returned to the cabinet shelves.

“Wait! Go back, Rachel,” Hannah said.

I did as she asked.

Gerry said, “Look at that. It’s a syringe.
So they were shooting him up with stuff, too.”

No one had to ask me. I focused in as
closely as I could, to read the label.

Gerry said, “’Depo-Provera’. What the heck
is Depo-Provera?”

I felt a frown crease my forehead.

Hannah said, “Ada’s?”

“No.” I didn’t explain my answer. There was
no name visible. But the obvious reason this couldn’t be in Ada’s
name is because she was in her sixties.

Hannah peered more closely, stretching
herself over the back seat. “What’s that date?”

I couldn’t read it. Was wondering if she did
yoga, feeling my space invaded.

Gerry leaned in closer, too. “Maybe an
injectable tranq?”

I shook my head. They pulled back.

Hannah said, “What?”

There was little doubt in my mind now. I
said, “Depo-Provera is a progestin-only hormone. It can be used as
a contraceptive, especially for mentally challenged females, who
need protection, but can’t be relied upon to remember their pills.
It can last for several months. But…it’s also used for chemical
castration. It converts testosterone into estrogen. Kills the male
libido.”

The drumming of the steady rain on the roof
formed a cocoon around the silence in the car. For a few seconds
Gerry and Hannah tried to absorb what this might mean.

Gerry spoke first. “But…why?”

I said, “Pedophilia is the usual
reason.”

Hannah said, “How do you know that,
Rachel?”

“Matt and I did a search for a child
molester who’d gone underground last year. We were told he was on
Depo-Provera…till he ran away. There was a limited window of time
before the drug would wear off. We never did find him. Matt’s still
looking for him, when he can.”

Gerry pulled away, turned toward the crying
window. “Oh dear God, no.” She began shaking her head no,
slowly.

The noisy cocoon returned eagerly.

Hannah said, “So, we’re thinking Eddie might
have molested a child when he was in his teens and that’s why they
kept him in the basement? Maybe that child was the girlfriend my
mom spoke about?”

I turned to look back at Hannah. There was
something in her tone.

“Maybe,” I answered tentatively.

“So how does that explain Ada?”

The question was too hard. She was angered
by the thought. But was she angry at me for suggesting it?

“Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s a separate
issue,” I said.

Gerry said softly, “All rapists murder. Even
when they don’t murder the body, they murder the soul.”

Their emotions were carrying them in two
different directions. Hannah had clearly developed an image of
Eddie as a victim. She was having difficulty entertaining the
possibility that he was more than that.

And Gerry was…she seemed to be exploring
some female truth that either rose out of her motherhood—of four
boys--or out of some personal experience.

Either way, it could present a hindrance to
her objectivity.

I said, “That’s why you’ve hired me, ladies.
To find out what the Stowall secret is. And it’s now led us to the
question of who Eddie is.”

I saw this as a turning point in my
investigation of the Stowall secret--from searching for answers
about Ada’s death, to searching for answers about Eddie’s life.

Slowly, the sounds of barking dogs, then
voices—
shouts
--reached us from behind the house. I rolled
Gerry’s window down a notch. The cops and their canine hunters were
excited. They’d found something.

“Get your umbrella Gerry, we’re going
out.”

We made our way around the house and through
the backyard toward the cemetery. As we neared, Gerry slowed the
pace, but I encouraged her to get closer. From this distance all I
could see was an oddly familiar shape coated in mud at the feet of
a group of raincoat draped deputies.

They’d pulled someone up from the
ground.

“It’s a body. I don’t know if I can,” Gerry
whispered and slowed again.

“Try,” Hannah encouraged gently.

We needed her umbrella. Gerry inched a bit
closer.

The lump of mud began to turn a gray-pink as
the rain continued to wash it—especially around her augmented
breasts. But the most startling color to emerge from the
mud-covered form was a mass of bright, red hair.

One of the officers coughed and turned away.
Another swore, and said, “It’s one of them missing women.”

“Thought you said they were in Vegas, Gary,”
another raincoat shrouded form said.

No bad deed goes unnoticed, I mused.

“Let’s get APBs out on these two guys. One
or both of them think that having a family graveyard is a license
to kill.”

Luke and Eddie.
They were talking
about Luke and Eddie.

“All right, get the spectators back. We got
work to do boys. There may be more here. Clear the area.”

We were hustled away unceremoniously. When
we reached my car, my assistants quickly said their goodbyes and
drove away.

I sat for a few minutes more, contemplating
my need to get my own oversized umbrella real soon. Southern
California was experiencing climate drenching.

And contemplating that now Eddie
Stowall--whatever horror had been done to him or he had done to
others--was a hunted man.

The horror of Hazel Stowall’s forever young
life was limited to the first of Ada’s two known diaries. I skim
read the rest of diary one; it held additional accounts of
destruction both physical and psychological, meted out by the
drunken Gordon to his broken wife. Skim reading was all I could
bear.

Then I began the second.

The difference between the two diaries was
that the first volume contained mostly remembered stories about
Ada’s earliest life, written down by her when she was an older
child.

The second volume had been recorded as her
life occurred—beginning in her twelfth year. It was a real-time
diary. And not until the second diary did the childhood reflections
recount that in between the violent storms a sober Gordon and
Jolene Stowall lived good and normal lives.

But something odd struck me about this
mixed-race couple who the genealogy stated was married in 1942; the
anti-miscegenation laws of California weren’t repealed until
1948.

It was possible that the couple had lived
together without benefit of marriage, until the law was changed,
and after that made their common-law marriage official. They could
also have gone out of state to marry. But people of those early
times didn’t usually treat mixed race couples with respect, let
alone do business with them--which would have limited Gordon’s
ability to accumulate wealth. Yet he seemed to have been quite
comfortable financially.

Or there was another possible explanation.
Maybe it wasn’t a mixed race marriage.

In fact, I did not yet know whether Gordon
was Caucasian or another person of mixed race—like Jolene.

Matt and I had found several people of Asian
descent—with last names such as Kim and Sun—on the genealogy, and
an entire branch that consisted of the last name of Washington and
Lincoln, as well as a bunch of first names that could easily have
been used by early African-Americans. Names like Moses, Dolly, and
Athena were all through that Washington and Lincoln branch of
Stowalls. Ada’s maiden name on the Stowall genealogy was listed as
Johnson. And Gordon’s tree connected very distantly to the primary
branches of Stowalls, despite the fact that he carried the
famous--or infamous, depending on your perspective--moniker.

The fact that Gordon and Jolene were wealthy
and apparently respected members of Cleveland County society led me
to believe Gordon was white.

And, although the picture of Ada, the one on
top of Eddie’s first floor bureau, showed her clearly to be of
African descent, a little pale-colored powder and Eurasian wigs
could have made it difficult to tell. Her features were not heavily
African. Her nose wasn’t much different from my own. And her lips
had that luscious plumpness for which modern white actresses
resorted to injections.

Hair…well that was a different matter.

Eddie might well have chosen this picture
because it emphasized that African portion of her heritage. But I
told myself that frankly none of this was germane to my
investigation anyway. So I put the question of heritage aside and
concentrated on finding clues that would help explain Ada and
Eddie’s maltreatment more directly.

And so it was in Ada’s second book that I
discovered that Gordon could be a reasonable man, Jolene could be a
wise and caring mother.

Unfortunately for Ada, by her eleventh year
too many damaging memories had been planted and the course of her
life had been largely determined.

I should note that while the second volume
was an on-going diary, Ada didn’t write in it every day. From what
I was noticing now, in the first few pages it seemed she was only
taking time to record significant events such as achievements at
school, holidays and vacations.

So the death of Hazel had had a sobering
effect on Gordon and Jolene’s marriage--at least for a while.

That I’d had no idea until early this
morning that Ada’s mother Jolene was African-American galled me. It
made me wonder what other significant information was being
withheld.

As I lay in our second spare bedroom, where
I retreat when I can’t sleep, I pondered my anger over this
omission. Maybe my anger was the problem. Maybe my anger was more
due to the content of these poison-filled, little books, and the
frustrating secrecy of the Bee Women. With these thoughts I finally
fell asleep.

The phone rang. I stumbled from my bed,
reaching it on time to hear someone speak to me in
dial-tone.

Not my language. I looked at the display.
The number was unfamiliar. I jotted it down, left a note on Matt’s
computer, fell back into bed, this time with my husband.

Saturday, October 11

I needed a day off from the Stowall family
weirdness, so I stayed home, did the mundane things that kept me
feeling sane and rational. It was lovely. Until nine.

Will Townsend, our hulking apprentice came
to visit.

One of the disadvantages of running your
business out of your home was bumping into non-family types while
retrieving a cup of coffee in your robe. Sans makeup. He and Matt
were conferring in our front office, with the double glass doors.
The one adjacent to the front door that we usually use for
interviewing clients.

I scooted back down the hall toward our
bedroom, only briefly wondering why they were sequestered. Probably
planning some more snooping. It never ceased to amaze me how
stealthy a guy Will’s size was capable of being. He had probably
been svelte in his youth, but now he was…large.

I showered, dressed, and called my son Harry
to plan our next visit. Due to leave for the Mideast wars next
month, he was at the top of our list. His wife Tammy and their
children would remain in North Carolina during his long overseas
tour, a decision that would have worried me except her parents
lived nearby.

After talking with Will—and sending him
wherever he was going--Matt left to deal with a battling husband
and wife from Oceanside. One of them had hired a lawyer to sue his
spouse—but not for divorce. Some weirdness to do with her
allegiance to a rival gang. Matt said it sounded like the lawyer
was feeling threatened by them. Might need protection.

That was my Marine’s purpose in life.
Protection.

I waved goodbye to Matt, noting my hubby
seemed a little preoccupied this morning. Our kiss had been a
perfunctory peck.