Burying the Honeysuckle Girls (16 page)

When my gut had settled, I cleared my throat. “Your parents didn’t mention anything about Collie meeting with a woman before she had her breakdown?” I didn’t say it—
the honeysuckle girl
. I had a feeling if I did, Terri would probably turn tail and run.

She shook her head. “They didn’t talk about it. I think they were ashamed about the whole situation, to be honest.”

So Trix had had some sort of freak-out in Walter’s presence and was hustled off to Pritchard because of it. Collie had ended up at Pritchard too, courtesy of Walter. And gone missing on top of that. It could’ve been schizophrenia that had landed both women there, but that explanation seemed too easy. Especially now that I knew about the other strange occurrences: the woman my mother had met at Bienville Square. The woman in the painting with Collie. The strange death of the paramedic who’d signed my mom’s death certificate.

There were too many missing pieces.

Terri was quiet for a minute, then looked at me with solemn eyes. “Will you come with me for a minute? I want to show you something.”

I followed her out of the bedroom, back into the cavernous, paneled living room, which was crowded with people. At the soaring stone fireplace, she stopped and looked up. I followed her gaze, all the way up to the rusty rifle balanced on a couple of nails over the center of the timber mantel.

“Excuse me, everyone,” she said. “Can we have a minute?” The people drifted to the other side of the room by the walls of bookcases, watching us, and she turned to me. “Dad’s rifle. It’s an antique. Valuable, maybe. I don’t know. He got it from his grandfather when he was a boy.”

We both stared up at the gun. Then Terri pulled a chair over from the corner, set it on the hearth and, hiking up her dress, climbed up and took hold of the gun. She stepped down off the chair, handed it to me.

The wooden stock was heavier than I expected, the brass plate cold. I brushed my fingers over the engraving—oak leaves and acorns—and then over the action. Even though the gun was small enough for me to hold with one hand, I knew it could do real damage. My father and brother had both hunted with guns like this. Brought home limp squirrels and rabbits and raccoons that they skinned out by the shed on the old dock.

I shivered, the rifle heavy and cold in my hands. Why did I feel like I was holding generations of secrets when I held this weapon? I wondered if my mother had felt the same.

“What do you think my mother wanted with this gun that night?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “And I don’t care to. Some things need to stay in the past.”

I looked at her, my eyes wide, then down at the gun, half expecting to find streaks of gold from the pads of my fingers. All I saw was dull, brown metal.

“Can I have it?” I asked. “Not forever. Just for a while, in case there’s something else I can learn.”

“Take it. Keep it if you want. I certainly don’t have any use for it.”

The scavengers stared as I walked out, the gun at my chest. I felt like a soldier heading off to war, amped up for action, but unprepared for the dangers ahead. Whatever they were, whatever horrors were going to reveal themselves, I needed it to happen soon. I had just over a week left.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Friday, September 21, 2012

Birmingham, Alabama

At exactly three o’clock, an assembly line of shiny SUVs and sedans began their crawl past the ivy-covered brick Hillyard Middle School. The cars opened their doors, gobbled the children up, and roared off. I’d parked at an out-of-the-way corner of the lot, under the shade of a feathery mimosa tree, and reviewed my strategy.

Find Lindy Wade. Show her the painting. Beg for help.

It was a sorry-ass plan, even I could see that, but my brain didn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders these days. I felt foggy and unsettled, the way I’d felt in the broken-down ruins of Old Pritchard. Like I was slowly coming apart.

I wondered if it was just anxiety over my impending birthday or if it was something more. The sickness, inching its way toward me. The spidery curse. Or maybe it was just the threat of another appearance by Wynn. I contemplated the pills stashed at the bottom of my purse. A couple—just two measly pills—would calm me, give me that extra blast of confidence I needed.

I pushed the thought out of my mind and focused on the woman I’d picked out and identified as Lindy. She had to be in her early seventies, but looked no more than fifty. She was a stunner. Willowy, with dark-brown skin and short, white hair twisted into dreadlocks. She stood in the midst of her charges, half-moon glasses perched on the end of her nose, directing the chaotic flow of adolescents around her. Throwing out a word here, a look there, all with the calm demeanor of an elder statesman. I wondered what kept her at the school, in this job, at her age. I wondered if it had anything to do with her brother, Dante. What they’d experienced.

When the last of the carpool line petered out, I locked the car and ambled toward the main doors of the school. Dr. Bradley and a young male teacher with long hair and a beard were talking. He laughed at something she said, and she looked around, catching my eye. She froze for a nanosecond, her head cocked to the side.

I started toward her, Collie’s painting in my hand. Stopped in front of her just as the other teacher headed back into the school.

“Dr. Bradley?”

She raised her eyebrows, removed her glasses. “Can I help you?” She studied me, and I could’ve sworn I saw her swallow nervously.

“I have something that belongs to you.”

I held the small watercolor out to her. She looked down at it, then up at me, then back down again. She took a step back and raised one hand, palm up as if to ward off both me and the painting.

“I think you’re mistaken,” she said. She spun and hurried into the building.

I took off after her, catching the door as it closed. She was moving fast, already down the hall and rounding the corner.

“Wait!” I called out. “Dr. Bradley, wait!”

I followed her to the front office, pulled open the door, and stepped in. The space was empty, save one woman behind the long counter with silver hair and a nametag that read “BARB.” The woman looked at me with saucer eyes.

“Hi, Barb. Sorry to bother you,” I said. “Where’s Dr. Bradley’s office again?”

She pointed down the hall behind her, and I skirted the end of the counter. She held up her hands and waved them at me like I was an errant airplane on the wrong runway. “Miss! She closed her door. That means she doesn’t—”

I kept going, down the hall and up to the only door that was closed. I pushed it open. Dr. Bradley, seated on a leather chair behind her desk, swiveled around, looking not so much surprised as resigned.

“Dr. Bradley.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Althea Bell.”

“I don’t know you.”

“But you know this painting.”

Her eyes dropped to the pile of papers on her desk. She straightened them. Inhaled.

“Five minutes. That’s all I need.”

She regarded me for a minute over her glasses, then, as if she knew that was a lie, nodded at a chair across the desk. I sat and tried to ignore the discomfort that settled in my gut—residual dread left over from my school days. I’d spent more than my share of school hours on this side of a principal’s desk.

“Can I ask how that painting came to be in your possession?”

“It was my mother’s—Trix Crane’s.” I handed it to her. She pulled up her glasses and studied it, her face softening. Then the moment passed, and the light in her eyes flickered out. She handed the painting back to me.

“How is Trix?”

“She’s dead,” I said. “She died twenty-five years ago. I was five years old.” Dr. Bradley removed her glasses and sat back against her chair. I went on. “Trix was thirty when she died, the same age her mother was when
she
died. The same age as her mother before
her
.”

Dr. Bradley was silent.

I leaned forward, pushing the painting to the side, pressing my hands flat on her desk. “I turn thirty in nine days. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I don’t want to die like they did. I was hoping you could help me. That you could tell me something that would keep it from happening to me.”

She turned away from me, stared out the window.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said at last. “I looked after Trix a long time ago, when she was quite young. She was very special to me.”

“Right. Just like Collie was special to you.”

She didn’t flinch at my words. “Miss Bell, why are you here?”

“I need your help. I need to know what you know.”

“Why? What exactly do you think is going to happen to you?”

“I’m going to—” My voice caught, and I cleared my throat. “I’m going to go crazy, like they did.”

“Is that what you’ve been told?” she asked. “Is that what you think happened? That Collie went crazy? And Trix too?”

“That or they were witches with crazy mountain blood. I’ve heard that one too, believe it or not.” I took a breath. Tried to collect myself. “Here’s the thing: everybody agrees Trix and Collie both had symptoms of something. Schizophrenia or some kind of mental illness like it. Whatever it was, they acted crazy. So they had to be dealt with.”

“What exactly did Trix do, that had to be dealt with?”

“She took drugs. There were rumors about an inappropriate relationship with a teenage boy. Oh, and she fired a gun at her uncle.” I swallowed. “My father was running for attorney general. She was going to jeopardize the campaign. I’m starting to think he may have killed her. Helped her overdose on Haldol pills.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Miss Bell,” she said. “I knew your mother as a five-year-old girl. After they sent Mrs. Crane to Pritchard, Mr. Crane, David, fired me, and I never saw Trix again. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”

She stood up, which, I guess, was my cue to leave. But I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t giving up, not yet. I stayed in my chair.

“You can help me,” I said. “You can tell me about this painting. And you can tell me about the day they took Collie away.”

“I don’t . . .” She gazed over my head, her eyes unfocused. “I don’t see how me telling you any of that will help you.”

“If I know Collie’s story, I can change mine. I believe that.”

“It’s not just Collie’s story.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Or yours. And if I tell you, I could put you in danger, in ways you can’t even begin to understand.”

“I know about your brother, Dante,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to go into that. I just want to hear about my grandmother.”

“I can’t talk about your grandmother without talking about my brother.” She paused. “And other people.”

“The other people are dead,” I said. “Walter Wooten and his wife Val are dead.”

I stood then too, and hoped she saw the sincerity in my face. I’d been hiding and lying and convincing people to believe every word I said for so long, I had no idea what my face looked like when I actually told the truth. I closed my eyes for a minute.
Trust me,
I thought.
Please.
I opened my eyes. She was watching me, her head cocked to one side.

“I know Walter is dead,” she said. “I read the obituaries every day. Which is how I know his children are still alive and well. And a couple of his friends. There are still enough of those guys kicking around this city that I keep my mouth shut.”

“They’re not going to hurt you. They can’t.”

She smiled. “If it makes you feel better to believe that, go ahead.”

“It’s been a long time since Walter and his friends rode with the police.”

“Trust me on this. People may die. Hatred doesn’t. I don’t think certain things will ever be forgotten. You must understand that, even after all these years, some people will do just about anything not to go to prison. Whether you believe it or not, I could still be in danger. And my family.”

“I believe you, I do. But you have to believe me too. Anything you say will be between you and me. I swear that to you.” I pushed the painting toward her. She picked it up, gingerly, like it might crumble in her hands. Ran her index finger down the length of the paper, then rubbed her fingers and thumb together like the paint might still be wet.

I took one step forward. “I’m not a journalist. I’m not here to do some kind of exposé on those days. I just want to know what happened to my grandmother. So I can stop it from happening to me.”

She stared at the painting. Pursed her lips.

“The story doesn’t go beyond these walls.”

“Whatever you say.”

“We weren’t supposed to be friends,” she said at last. “To mix black business with white. Not back in 1962. Back then our roles were clear-cut and simple, and we were supposed to stick to them. Collie Crane was my boss, and I was her maid.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Friday, September 21, 2012

Birmingham, Alabama

“Mrs. Crane was a terrible boss. She didn’t need a maid, she needed a friend.”

As she spoke, Dr. Bradley looked again out the window of her tiny office. The teachers were scattering to their cars and pulling out of the lot. I took the opportunity to scan the room. It was simple, neat, and it smelled like hand sanitizer. On the beige wall behind the desk, an arc of framed diplomas haloed her—University of Alabama in Birmingham, Howard, Emory.

No photographs with Oprah or Obama, though, or any other civil-rights luminaries. As the sister of a famed, still-missing activist, she had to have been invited to every awards dinner and memorial dedication in recent history. But her wall was devoid of any such evidence.

“Mrs. Crane knew I liked to draw and paint,” Dr. Bradley went on. “So she bought me supplies and let me play around after I’d finished my work. She talked to me too. All the time. She told me all about her childhood up in the mountains. Her mama had gone crazy when she was little, run off with a strange man, is what she heard. She didn’t know for sure, but she was always wanting to solve the mystery. She was always wanting to
do
something about it. Or just do something, in general. She was smart. And a good person.”

In addition to digging up her past, Lindy told me, Collie took an interest in politics. It was in the early sixties, when the civil-rights storm had just begun to brew. She used to talk to Lindy about the various protests that were cropping up around Birmingham. Lindy avoided these conversations as best she could until Collie insisted she tell her everything.

“Somehow Collie found out my brother and I were organizing secret meetings for the young people,” she explained. “Planning marches and sit-ins. We’d show up to the white folks’ church services and kneel at the front steps when the services let out. I don’t know how, but Collie always managed to have at least one person at the church, taking pictures, sending them to the newspaper. Sometimes, when she could, she passed messages or found us places to meet.”

“I can’t believe it. I had no idea.”

Dr. Bradley lowered her voice. “She suspected her older brother, Walter, was KKK. One of the big guys, involved in major stuff. Cross burnings, bombings, shootings, that kind of thing. I knew she considered me a friend. But I think that’s really why she wanted to help—she liked the idea of sticking it to her brother.”

Whether a result of her illegal activities or her family history, Collie’s anxiety skyrocketed. David, her husband, persuaded her to meet with a priest. The priest gave her a copy of a prayer, the
Veni, Creator Spiritus
, and she began to chant it on a loop, all through the day. It was her invisible, spiritual shield against the slings and arrows of the invisible enemy. Lindy couldn’t help but memorize the prayer too. As did Trix, even though she was just five at the time.

In spite of Collie’s fervor, nothing much had come of her underground civil-rights efforts. With her connection to Walter, Collie was a liability, and Dante put his foot down. Lindy had to stop sharing information with her. So once again, Collie turned to the real mystery that had haunted her for years—her mother’s disappearance.

She showed Lindy the cigar box and the barrette her mother had given her when she was a little girl. She believed it had belonged to someone who had known her mother. Someone who could tell her what had happened.

The honeysuckle girl.

Dr. Bradley said that one day soon after, a woman had dropped by the house. Collie and the woman met outside in the backyard, under the arbor. Like she always did when she had a free moment, Lindy pulled out her art paper and brushes and painted them. But she had been inside the house, looking through a window the whole time. She hadn’t heard a word of their conversation.

“So all they did was talk?” I asked.

“Yes. And then she left.”

I tightened my hands around the cigar box. “Who was she?”

“I’d never seen her before. She wasn’t one of the Cranes’ friends and I don’t think she was a member of David’s family.”

“What did she look like?”

“She had red hair, bright-red hair, and expensive clothes. I let her in, and she said hello. She didn’t sound Southern, not exactly. I couldn’t really place her accent. Anyway, Collie took her right out back, and I stayed inside.”

“And afterward?”

“Collie was a mess. She stayed in the backyard, pacing, for an hour, maybe longer. Walking in circles and talking to herself. When she finally came inside, she was crying and shaking. She wouldn’t even say her prayer. I asked her to lie down, but all she wanted was to go see Walter. She wouldn’t say why.”

“Did it seem like . . . like a psychotic break to you? Like she was hearing voices or being paranoid?”

“She was agitated, yes, maybe acting a bit paranoid. She took Trix back to her room, and they stayed there a long time.”

“Could you hear what they were saying?”

“No. But when she came out, she said we had to go to Walter’s house. She was insistent we had to go right then.”

“Did you?”

Lindy nodded. “I drove her. We took Trix with us. Collie went inside and left us out in the car. I told Trix stories, and we sang songs. After a while, Val came out and told me to drive Trix home. She said Collie was sick, and they were going to keep her there. Look after her. When Trix and I got back to the Cranes’ house, Mr. Crane fired me. He wasn’t mean about it, he just said he had to let me go. I gave Trix a hug and went home, and that was the end of that.”

“What about the painting?” I asked.

She touched the paper. “I gave it to Trix. As a going-away gift, I guess.” Her lips curved in a slow, sad smile. “I was scared to take it with me, scared somebody would find out I’d been messing around instead of working. I knew it could get Collie in trouble, but I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it. I didn’t think it was important. I just . . . I thought Trix might want it, to remember me by.”

I realized I was jiggling my leg like a hyper kid, ready to jump out of my skin. I told myself to stop.

“So Collie knew Walter was Klan,” I said. “But do you think the woman told her something else?”

“Like what?”

“Do you think there was something . . . I don’t know, mystical? Or psychic? That went on in the backyard?”

Lindy narrowed her eyes. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“I don’t know.” I shifted on the chair. “I’ve heard people believed Collie and her mother had mountain blood—like they were witches or something. Maybe this woman was a witch. Maybe she put a spell on Collie, made her lose her shit and confront Walter.”

Lindy looked like she was about to burst with laughter. “You sound like my New Orleans granny, with her holy-roller, hoodoo stuff. No, there was no cauldron in the backyard. No spells or witchcraft or anything like that. All that happened was, they talked. Then Collie confronted Walter, and it didn’t go well.” She leveled a look at me. “He put her in Pritchard, the very same day.”

I thought of Collie’s file. “He put her in with the black patients.”

She sighed. Sat back in her chair.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would he do that?”

“To teach her a lesson. Scare her. Walter was a bully and a racist. If his sister said she wanted to mix with black folks, why, he was going to see to it that she got to mix with black folks.”

I let this information sink in.

“You went to see her there a week later,” I said. “Right?”

“Yes. She was shaking, completely out of it, nothing like her normal self.”

“Drugs?”

Lindy spread her hands. “Maybe. More likely it was because she hadn’t been eating or drinking. They said she wouldn’t sleep. She kept talking nonsense to me about the bones. The bones and Walter’s gun.”

Rowe had said Mom had been obsessed with Walter’s gun too. I thought of it now, hidden in the trunk of Jay’s car. If it was a clue, I didn’t know how to interpret it. My eyes filled with tears, and then I felt, with horror, one slip down my cheek. I pressed my fingers against the wetness, brushed it away. I was so close but, at the same time, miles away. I had a jumble of facts—these disconnected bits of information about my mother and Collie—but nothing made any sense. Nothing fit.

“I understand why you couldn’t speak up or tell anybody about Walter,” I said. “But why didn’t you say anything to Trix? Find her later and tell her what had happened to her mother?”

“I couldn’t. It was too dangerous.”

I could feel the heat rising in my body. “My mother, the little girl you supposedly cared so much about, had
no
idea what had happened to her mother. She didn’t know anything about the Klan. All she knew is her mother had gone off the deep end and had to be locked up. Nobody explained anything to her.” I gripped the arms of the chair. “So when she opened up that box—that stupid box—you know what she found? A hair barrette, a label off a wine bottle, and a Latin prayer. Which, as you can imagine, was not a whole hell of a lot of help.”

“Althea—”

I thrust out both my hands. “No! Let me tell you what Trix’s solution was. Right before she turned thirty, she found a kid to sell her drugs, a wagonload of them. It ruined her, messed with her brain and her body. She was a wreck by the time my father had her locked her up. And now all I’ve got is that damn cigar box and a bunch of empty pill bottles that mean
nothing
. I’m no closer to really understanding what it was she had.”

She leaned forward. Her eyes blazed. “The things in that box, they mean something, don’t they?”

“I guess.”

“Maybe Collie and Trix did find answers. From the redheaded woman. Maybe you will too.”

The redheaded woman.
The honeysuckle girl.

I pressed my fingers to my eyes. I was doing it again, getting sucked into magical thinking. The redheaded woman was just a person. A friend of Collie’s. She wasn’t anybody magical, some fairy godmother or superhero who was going to swoop in and save the day for me.

I could not go down this path again, believing one woman was the answer to my problems. I was sober now. I had tools, real tools, not fantasies, to help me deal with life. The honeysuckle girl wasn’t real, any more than Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. She was just some story my mom concocted—a fairy tale to soothe a scared little girl.

Unless she wasn’t.

My stomach bucked so hard I thought I was going to gag. I clapped my hand over my mouth.

Lindy reached out a hand. “Althea. Are you all right?”

I nodded, but I didn’t think I was. Dizziness was washing over me, and I felt faint.

“Have they threatened to lock you up too?” she asked.

I said nothing.

“I know I’m probably the last person who should being saying this . . .” She pressed her lips together. “I hope you’ll fight. I hope you’ll keep searching for the woman.” She leaned forward. “You may actually find the answers, to both our mysteries.”

Images flashed through my mind.

Collie. Trix. Dante. The rifle.

The older woman held my gaze, and at that moment, I was sure of two things. First, that my questions kept leading me back to this mystery woman. Second, I was about to be horribly, colossally sick. Clutching my stomach, I clawed at the arm of my chair, leaned over, and vomited out the entire contents of my stomach on Dr. Linda Wade Bradley’s tastefully patterned carpet.