Burying the Honeysuckle Girls (12 page)

Seizures?
And no mention of aneurysm. How could that be? I scanned farther down. There was another section below, with spaces for more details on her death. Every space was blank.

“No autopsy,” I said. “Manner of death, ‘natural.’” I looked at Jay. “I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be a little more here. I mean, was it a preexisting condition? An injury? Drugs? There’s nothing here to explain it. Nothing.”

He furrowed his brow. “Bush-league death certificate. Who signed it?”

I looked at the bottom. “Woodrow Smart.”

“Who’s he? Her doctor?”

“I don’t know. That’s all it says. Woodrow Smart.”

Jay whipped out his iPad and tapped in the name. He scrolled down the page of results.

I thought back through every name I could remember, all my father’s friends. Anyone that would’ve been able to help him falsify medical documents.

“Here we go,” he said, clicking on a link.

He read aloud. “‘January 11, 1988. A Mobile paramedic who fell from the I-10 Bayway Bridge into the Mobile River on Sunday night has died, according to the Mobile Fire Department. Twenty-four-year-old Woodrow “Woody” Smart suffered multiple severe injuries in the fall and was discovered drowned. He was found by Mr. Donald McLean, 58, of Daphne, who was fishing under the bridge. “I saw him hit the supports a couple of times on the way down. I knew he was a goner after that,” McLean said. Smart was responding to a call by a stranded motorist. He left his partner in the emergency vehicle and walked alone to the car, which was wedged against the cement barrier. It is believed he was attempting to open the door and extricate the passenger when he slipped and fell into the river below.’”

We were silent for a moment, then I spoke. “So . . . three months after Woodrow Smart signs my mother’s sketchy death certificate, he falls over a bridge and dies? A little handy, don’t you think?”

“What I think,” Jay said, “is that you need a lawyer.”

Chapter Seventeen

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Birmingham, Alabama

The next day, we were supposed to meet an old college buddy of Jay’s for lunch, a general-practice attorney who Jay swore we could trust. Jay was going to go early, catch up with his friend and explain the situation. I was going to spend the morning seeing if I could dig up any more information on Collie Crane or David, her husband, and meet Jay and the lawyer later to hear his recommendations.

The whole scenario gave me a sour stomach. And an almost uncontrollable desire to rip open one of the bottles of pills and crunch one between my teeth. But I resisted. For the moment.

I had work to do.

A search for Collirene Wooten Crane turned up nothing. I had a bit more luck with David, even though he wasn’t much more than a blip on the Internet. I did find what looked like a Crane family reunion site, based in Maryland, that briefly mentioned him. He was born in 1930 in Birmingham, a graduate of Phillips High School in 1948 and a member of the Rotary Club in 1963. Married to Collirene Wooten Crane and member in good standing at Cathedral of Saint Paul Catholic church. One daughter, Trix.

The search dead-ended there. I tossed the iPad aside and went to shower.

Forty-five minutes later, circling the block in the Five Points section of Birmingham, I was tempted to point Jay’s car east toward 280 and floor it. Fly right out of town and across the state line to Georgia or Tennessee. Maybe even head west to Mississippi to find my mom’s grave. Skip town. Disappear.

It wasn’t that Jay hadn’t been great. After we’d left the Department of Health, we’d gone south of town to stock up on enough clothes and toiletries to get me through the week. And we’d finally had a meal that wasn’t from a drive-thru. In other words, he’d continued his Mr. Wonderful routine.

But he was intensely distracting. And with the threat of death or insanity or being locked away forever hanging over my head, I couldn’t afford to be sidetracked. What I needed to focus on was solving the mystery, not Jay’s spectacular shoulders. The way the skin crinkled out in two delicious fans at the corners of his eyes. I had to streamline my operation, and soon. And then I had to figure out how I was going to untangle this mess without Jay’s help . . . and his shiny silver credit card.

And then there was the issue of my complete lack of leads. There was basically no record of the women in my family, on the Internet or elsewhere, and I couldn’t help but feel suffocated by the gloomy cloud of that reality. It was like history had conspired to wipe out any trace of the women who came before me. Nothing was happening in Birmingham. I was banging my head against a triple-bolted door.

I found a spot on the far side of the street and wedged the sleek BMW into it. I was early, so I grabbed the cigar box from the backseat, climbed out of the car, and walked down the sidewalk. Just across the street from the restaurant, someone had left a newspaper and a half-empty Styrofoam cup of coffee at the side of a fountain. I picked up the paper, folded it under my arm, and sat by the fountain. I hoped I looked like I had a reason for being there.

I wasn’t ready to go into the restaurant. Not yet. I wasn’t ready to unburden myself to a lawyer, much less to say the things I had to say to Jay. Telling him I’d decided to continue on without him was going to be tough, and he was going to fight me on it. Nevertheless, I owed him this much. I would go in there, listen to his buddy’s spiel, then cut the cord. But, before that, I needed to gather myself.

From behind the row of parked cars, I could see into the window of the place. It was one of those French bistros with baskets of crusty bread and an endless wine list. I’d been fantasizing about a cappuccino and crème brûlée ever since Jay had told me about the place, and, even now, my mouth watered. In the window I could see him, seated at a table. He was alone, tipping back a beer. The waitress came up and said something. Smiled. Said something more. He laughed, and then I saw her hook a finger in her ponytail and trail it down her neck and white button-down chest provocatively.

Jealousy stabbed at me, and I knew instantly I couldn’t go on, keeping this man tethered to me, dragging him all over the state of Alabama, deluging him with my family secrets. I wasn’t ready for all that. I dropped my head and listened to my own shaky breathing for a long time. I had to go, that was all there was to it. I couldn’t do this with Jay.

When I lifted my eyes, there was still no sign of Jay’s lawyer friend at the table. Meanwhile, the flirty waitress had managed to sidle a couple of inches closer to Jay’s chair. She was caressing her ponytail with feverish intensity now, her lithe frame curled toward him. He said something to her, something obviously riotously funny because she threw back her head and belly-laughed. He checked his watch.

Something, a hunch maybe, or a niggling thread of doubt, made me glance down the block. I caught a flash of movement—a smudge of dark hair out the corner of my eye. My whole body tingled with shock.

It was my brother, Wynn, walking up the sidewalk in the direction of the restaurant. Sauntering, really, like he owned the world. He was dressed in a white polo shirt, collar up, sporting a pair of sunglasses attached to a neoprene strap. He looked like he was on his way to celebrate some particularly good news. Or to crush an opponent.

My gaze swiveled back to Jay, and he flicked a glance out the window at me. We locked eyes, and I felt time grind to a halt. Jay’s back straightened, ever so slightly. His face had gone slack. Pale. For the second time, gooseflesh sprang out all over me.

Sonofabitch. He called Wynn.

My brain spun into overdrive. I leapt up, and, at the same moment, Wynn stopped, his head swiveling in my direction. He pivoted, a slow, measured move, the way he might move if he was stalking a deer. My breath caught in my throat, and, in the next instant, he was running toward me, crossing the street, shrinking the distance between us with a series of easy lopes.

I backed away from the fountain, stumbling over my own feet, fumbling with the cigar box and frantically digging for the keys. I edged around the car and, hands shaking, unlocked the door, slid in. I pounded at the locks just as a set of knuckles rapped the glass beside my head. A scream shot out of me like an arrow.

Wynn leaned down, head sideways in the window, his lips stretched apart in a smile. I couldn’t even fathom how fast he’d made it up the sidewalk and to Jay’s car. My heart thundered; my fingertips tingled. The sunglasses blocked his eyes, but if I could have seen them, I wondered if they’d be filled with false concern. And that underlying flicker of hatred.

I heard his voice, muffled through the window. “Hey, kiddo. Come on inside with me. Get something to eat.”

I reached for the keys—where were they?—then remembered I’d dropped them in the console. I snatched them up. Wynn pounded on the window, rattling it in the doorframe. “Althea? Don’t be like this. I just want to talk to you.”

I went for the ignition, but my hands were shaking so bad, I missed the slot. On the second try I jammed the key in, and the car roared to life. The door opened, and he reached for me, grabbing at my sleeve. I flailed back at him with one hand but couldn’t shake him off. I threw my elbow, smashing his hand against the metal frame. He yelped. I slammed the car into reverse.

“Althea!” He sounded enraged.

I stomped on the gas, and the car jerked back and stalled, lurching to a stop. The door swung open, and he lunged. Suddenly he was on top of me, reaching for the steering wheel and pressing me back against the seat with one surprisingly strong forearm. I let go of the wheel and at the same time hit the gas as hard as I could. The car skidded back and crashed into the one parked behind it. The door swung closed, crunching Wynn’s torso. He yelped.

With all the force I could muster, I pushed him out and slammed the door, locking it as he rolled onto the asphalt. I put it in drive, cut the wheel hard, and gunned it, doing my best to maneuver around him. But it wasn’t necessary. He’d already scrambled up and stumbled over to the other lane, out of the way of an oncoming cab.

I screeched into the street, spinning out, narrowly missing the cab myself. The irate driver yelled something unintelligible at me. I was halfway down the block when I finally allowed myself to look in my mirror. Wynn was doubled over in the street, his crushed sunglasses and their neoprene strap dangling around his neck. Jay stood beside him.

I cut the wheel to the right, heading downtown. Praying for a sign that would point me toward the interstate. I couldn’t think straight, and I had no idea where I was. My hands were shaking on the steering wheel. In fact, my whole body was shaking.

I thought of Val’s story, Collie’s death certificate, and what they had in common. Pritchard. Over and over the place had come up. Maybe Mom had been there, maybe not, but for sure Collie had been. Maybe it was time I dug deeper into my grandmother’s life. And her death. I had to get to Pritchard.

With trembling fingers I switched off the GPS, although it probably didn’t make any difference. No doubt Jay could find me instantaneously with his stupid, space-age, car-locating app, but why make it any easier for him? And there was a chance he’d just let me go. I hoped he still cared enough about me to do that. Or didn’t care enough. Either way, hoping was all I could do.

I told myself to breathe. Breathe and try to remember the way to Tuscaloosa.

I was headachy and limp with adrenaline loss by the time I pulled into the parking lot of a dumpy motel on the outskirts of the college town. I rested my forehead against the steering wheel and whispered into the still air.

“I am not my mother.

“The honeysuckle girl isn’t real.

“I do not have gold dust on my fingertips.

“There’s no such thing as a red raven.”

The truths brought me comfort, but saying them felt a little pathetic. There were new developments now, facts I couldn’t just chant out of existence.

My brother is out to get me.

Jay betrayed me.

I am alone.

Alone.

Reciting mantras wasn’t going to cut it anymore; I had to keep moving forward. Figure out how to root out this evil seed of mental illness that might possibly be growing inside me. And now, on top of that, I had to stay one step ahead of Wynn. And Jay.

I lifted my head and surveyed the sad sight before me. I’d bypassed the shiny Courtyards and Suites and Expresses in favor of a seedy, one-story rathole aptly named the Crimson Terrace. The bottom third of the original white brick walls was stained with red clay that bordered the L-shaped structure, and there were no shrubs in sight, just a broken-up parking lot with an empty, cracked swimming pool at its center.

Sandwiched between a KFC and a Hardee’s, the place felt isolated and, at the same time, like it might be the safest spot in the world. The perfect hideout. I could get a room, settle in, and formulate a plan.

I rented a room—nineteen dollars cash for a single night—and then went back to search the car for supplies. Jay had left a pair of aviator sunglasses (good), his iPad (very, very good), and a couple of unopened bottles of water (couldn’t hurt). In the trunk I found a yoga mat, multiple maps of Alabama, and a bottle of hand sanitizer.

I lugged everything out—all of it being mine now, on account of Jay being a deceitful dickhead—then hit the “Lock” button on the key fob three times, for good measure. If anyone tried to steal the tank of a car, I’d be out of the door in seconds, ready to tear them to pieces. I walked to Room 11 and let myself in. Dumped everything on the round laminate table by the window and slammed the door behind me. It bounced back open, and outside, I could see a grimy old man watching me. I shut it again, bolted it tight, and slid the chain into its rusty slot.

When the single light by the bed was switched on and the curtains were drawn, the wood-paneled room glowed red. There were twin beds, a dresser, and a gargantuan TV on a wheeled metal stand. The bathroom was like something out of a postapocalyptic novel—grime-encrusted and possibly infectious. After inspecting things, I decided to make a supply run across the street, maybe pick up some food on the way back. A couple of hours later, fueled by a greasy fried-chicken-and-mashed-potato dinner, I cleaned every surface of the place with a pasty mix of Comet and bleach while the TV blared the local news.