Black-Eyed Susans (32 page)

I crawl out of bed, away from the delicious
heat of Bill’s body. His breathing, rhythmic.

I shut the connecting door, back on my side
of it. I relive the
intimacy of what just happened. Things I
didn’t do unless I was in love.
How can I ever be sure his attraction is to
me, and not the shiny glitter of Black-Eyed Susan?

My red North Face jacket drips like blood
off the closet doorknob. A fresh white orchid is stuck all alone in a slim vase, even
though no one knew I was coming. A young woman in the antique frame on the dresser gazes
at me coolly as if I have no place in her room
.

She’s just a girl in this picture,
about Charlie’s age. A thick, migraine-inducing braid is roped around her head. I
imagine her with loosened braids and a little of Charlie’s MAC eye makeup. I pick
up the picture and flip it over.

Mary Jane Whitford, born May 6, 1918, died March 16, 1934, when a convict
roaming the sugarcane fields stepped in front of her carriage and startled the
horses.

A tourist attraction. Like me.

It makes sense that Lydia would come to me
here, in this room, embroidered like a doily in the dark fabric of this town. Where
I’m reminded by a pretty girl in braids that we don’t get to choose.

I almost died three hours ago on I-45,
halfway between Huntsville and Corsicana. What an ironic end that would have
been—the lone survivor of the Black-Eyed Susan killer taken out by an
eighteen-wheeler packed with baked goods. A truck driver a hundred feet in front of our
car had skidded on a patch of ice into a perfect jackknife. If skidding were an Olympic
sport, he’d win. All I could think for six seconds, while Bill and I hurled toward
a picture of a giant pink confetti-sprinkled donut, was,
Is it all going to come
down to this?

Instead, it came down to me completely
rethinking BMWs. Their drivers act superior for a reason.

Lucas is opening my front
door before I can, a good thing because I don’t remember the new security code he
insisted on, and a bad thing because Bill is still in the driveway making sure I get
inside safely. I turn to wave but Bill is already backing the BMW onto the street. I
hope he believed me when I said I wasn’t sleeping with Lucas.

Breakfast at the B&B was a little
awkward. Bill sat across from me, at a table formally appointed with fragile crystal and
an array of silverware, while Mrs. Munson sat at the head of the table and chattered on
about how prisoners carved the intricate detail on the cupboard behind us. It was
impossible to resist the work of art placed in front of us by Mrs. Munson’s
daughter, a Dutch baby pancake with a strawberry fan on top and a spritz of powdered
sugar.

Maybe Bill was upset that he woke up alone
in bed. Later, in the car, we each seemed to be waiting for the other to bring up those
thirty intimate minutes. It almost seemed like a dream conjured by a house that missed
the noise and meaning of its old life—the people who wed on its lawn, gave birth
in its beds, lay dead in their coffins in the front parlor. Except I can still feel his
handprints on my skin.

After Bill avoided the near-accident, the
silence in the car grew even more awkward. As if Bill was exhausted from saving
lives.

Because I’m distracted by such
boy-girl worries, still wearing death like a coat, still delirious not to
be
a
Dutch baby pancake, it takes a second to register the expression on Lucas’s
face.

“Welcome home.” He seems uneasy.
He’s pulling the backpack off my shoulder as I walk the few steps into the living
room.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Someone leaked your … feeling
… that the Black-Eyed Susan killer has planted flowers for you over the years. A
few quack experts on TV are chiming in on your mental state. There’s a shadowy
picture going around of a woman with a shovel at the old Victorian house where you used
to live. It’s supposed to be you. Well, it
is
you. But it’s hard to
tell.”

“When did you find this
out?”

“Why don’t you sit
down?”

“I’ve been
sitting for hours.”

Lucas examines my face carefully.
“Charlie texted me. It’s all over Twitter and Instagram.”

“Shit. Shit, shit,
shit.
”

He hesitates. “I had to turn off the
ringer on the phone. Why do you even have a landline?”

“Is it OK if we don’t talk about
this right now? It doesn’t really matter, does it? Terrell’s going to die.
It’s impossible to protect Charlie.” I’ve moved over to the kitchen
island, where Lucas has stacked the mail. He’s behind me, rubbing my shoulders.
Kind. Concerned. But not helping. His fingers are grinding the death that clings to
these clothes into my skin.

I try to be casual as I move away.
“What’s this?” I’m fingering an opened cardboard box. A new
paperback lies next to it on the counter.

“That came in the mail yesterday.
Charlie opened the box because she thought it was
Catch-22
and wanted to get
going on it for an English class. She says she asked you to order it a week
ago?”

“I forgot. I didn’t order
Catch-22.
Or any other books.”

“Your name is on the address
label.” He turns the box over so I can see.

“Where’s the receipt?”
I’m staring at the book cover. A filmy image of half-spirit, half-girl rising out
of a rocky sea.
Beautiful Ghost
by Rose Mylett.

Rose Mylett. The name stirs something
unpleasant at the back of my brain.

Lucas reaches inside the box.
“Here’s the receipt. It looks like it was a gift. There’s a message.
Hope you enjoy.
Nothing else.”

Hope you enjoy.
Ordinary words that
crawl like three spiders up my back.

“Are you OK?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say dully.
“It’s just a book. A gift. I need to get these clothes off.”

“One more thing. Your friend Jo
dropped by for a second. You
need to give her a call. That geochemist
friend of hers is coming to town, the one who’s been working on the Susan bones.
She wants you to meet him. Oh, and that tooth from your grandfather’s yard?
It’s from a coyote.”

Twenty minutes until Charlie gets home from
school. A little longer before Lucas returns from his hunt for
Catch-22
and
coffee with a “new friend”—Lucas code for “female.”

There’s no time to dry my hair. I wrap
the belt of my robe more tightly around my waist, ransack Charlie’s drawer for
some fuzzy socks, and plant myself on her unmade bed with my laptop. It had found a
happy home in her sheets during my absence.

I am suffused with manic energy, pulsed back
to life by the shower and the certainty that Rose Mylett means something. Her name is an
insistent drill in my skull, more important than me, as the Grim Reaperette, skipping
across Twitter right now, or calling Jo to hear about more hopeless efforts to pull
names from dust. Those bones are stubborn.

I get an immediate hit. The first Rose
Mylett that pops up isn’t a true crime writer. The image on my screen isn’t
of an airbrushed author trying to look smart and beautiful and ten years younger.

This Rose Mylett is very dead. Murdered in
1888. A purported victim of Jack the Ripper. A prostitute also known as Catherine, Drunk
Lizzie, and Fair Alice. She was wearing a lilac apron, a red flannel petticoat, and
blue-and-red-striped socks when she was found with the imprint of a string around her
neck.

For a second, I’m fourteen again, in
the second row, smearing on Pink Lemonade Lip Smacker, listening to Lydia’s Jack
the Ripper report that instilled nightmares in half of our class.

My fingers are still working in the present.
They skip to the next page and, four links down, find
Rose Mylett, author, Beautiful
Ghost, What Elizabeth Bates is trying to tell us about her murder fifty years
later.
Yep, the same book as the one sitting on my kitchen
counter. I read the plot summary quickly. This crime rings no bells
whatsoever—the tale of a young English royal who vanished off the rugged coast of
North Devon on her honeymoon—184 reviews, 4.6 stars. Published five years ago in
the U.K. That .4 off of perfect would eat at Lydia. There’s no author bio. No
other book by Rose Mylett. The site does politely suggest, “If you like this
author, you might also like these books by Annie Farmer and Elizabeth Stride.” I
Google quickly even though I already know. Two more Ripper victims. Clever, clever
Lydia.

This has to be Lydia, right? Sending me
flowers. Mail-ordering a book for my reading pleasure.

Still walking the earth after all. Still
sticking her nose in evil. Stealing her pseudonyms off of pitiful dead whores. Making
money off of excruciating sorrow. For some ungodly reason, she’s messing with
me.

Why are you suddenly back, Lydia?

I snap the laptop shut.

My daughter is coming home.

For a few precious moments, I bask in the
Bohemian essence of Charlie: the black chalkboard wall she painted herself last summer,
now scribbled with Stephen Colbert quotes and skilled graffiti from her friends; her
collection of moon-and-stars ornaments that hang on fishing line thumbtacked to the
ceiling; the array of candles in various stages of melted life on the windowsill. The
trophies she’s stuffed into the top shelf of her closet because they are
“braggy.”

I’m hurriedly spilling detergent into
the washing machine when I hear the click of the key in the lock.

“Mom?”

“In the laundry room!” I yell
back. Three clunks. Her backpack, hitting the floor. One shoe off, and then the other.
Good sounds.

Charlie wriggles her arms around me from
behind just as I’m about to drop the lid on clothes that will probably never feel
clean again.

“Why is it so freaking cold
outside?” she asks. Not
Why are you
such a freak? The kind
of mom who ends up on Twitter?
I pull Charlie’s arms tighter.

“I missed you,” Charlie says.
“What are we eating?” She releases me from our backward hug. I decide to
throw some extra Biz into the washer.

“I missed you, too. I’m thinking
of making eggala.”

“Awesome.” Eggala, short for egg
a la goldenrod, our go-to comfort food. Hard-boiled egg whites chopped into a white
sauce, slathered over white toast, sprinkled with powdery yolk. Lots of salt and pepper.
Dr Pepper on the side. Aunt Hilda made it once a week for me when I was blind.

“I’m sorry about …
today,” I say.

“No big deal. My friends don’t
believe it. They are starting a campaign against it. Make some bacon, OK? Hey,
don’t start the washer. I’ve got a ton of volleyball clothes. People forgot
shi—stuff all week and Coach kept making us run.
Everything
stinks. Plus,
some guy’s mom is
losing it
because he has this scabby thing going on
with his foot. These people in Star Wars suits cleaned all the locker rooms and now
every person in school smells like Lysol. Well, the guys smell like Lysol
and
Axe.”

“Hmm, not good.” I shut the lid.
“Don’t worry, I’ll wash another load of your clothes after
this.”

“But there’s hardly anything in
there,” she protests. “I’ll go get the rest of it right now. I
can’t forget anything tomorrow. The team can’t
take
any more
running.”

She’s already stripped off her
clothes. She’s standing there in her bra, panties, and knee-high socks, the
cheerful, melodramatic all-American girl. Fourteen years ago, she was the adorable pink
package with red fuzz sent to a teen-age girl named Tessie so she’d agree to stay
on the earth.

“That’s OK.” I shut the
washer lid firmly. “I don’t want these clothes to bleed on yours.”

I’m lying and telling the truth.

I’m in my pajamas when I remember to
call Jo. She picks up on the first ring.

“Tessa?” she asks eagerly.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t
call sooner.”

“It’s OK. I talked to Bill. He
told me about your trip. Ice and sorrow and no tequila. Sounds grueling. Can you drop by
my office tomorrow?”

“Yes. Sure.” My response is
immediate even though all I really want is to lock the front door and never come
out.

“I wanted to give you a heads-up
before we meet because this will be part of his presentation.” Jo is rushing the
words. “I’ve held something back from you because it just seemed …
like a little too much. You know? A week and a half ago, one of my Ph.D. students was
finishing up cataloging the remains of the Susans from the two caskets we exhumed. There
was a lot of detritus, as you might imagine. Dirt, clay, dust, bits of bone. I just
wanted to make sure every last piece of it was recorded after we figured out the
original coroner missed that there was a third right femur. In fact, we’re looking
back at some of the other cold cases he worked and have found other mistakes.”

“Just spit it out, Jo,” I
say.

“My student had a hunch about a tiny
piece of cartilage. I confirmed that hunch. The cartilage came from a fetus. One of the
two unidentified girls was pregnant with a baby girl. We just tested the baby’s
DNA against Terrell’s. There’s a 99.6 percent chance he isn’t the
father. We’re throwing the baby’s DNA into criminal databases. Maybe
we’ll get a hit. A new lead.”

Of course
Terrell isn’t a
match.

I’m counting in my head. Six girls in
that grave. Merry and me. Hannah makes three. Two more unidentified sets of bones. And
now a little girl. One of them is buzzing awake in my head, reminding me, just in case I
forgot.

I’m the one with the answers.

MR. VEGA
: Tessie, can you tell
us a little about Black-Eyed Susan glitter?

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: It’s
hard to explain. My friend Lydia came up with the name for it.