Burying the Honeysuckle Girls (22 page)

“Then we’re going to need each other that much more,” I finished.

He slumped back. “Jesus. What the hell are we digging into here?”

“I don’t know. But any minute now Wynn’s going to figure out I’ve gotten out of the hospital—he may have already—and he’ll be coming after me. I can’t stop now. I have to find out what happened to Jinn, and I have to do it fast.”

He pointed at the wine label on the quilt before me. “Then this is where we start.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Friday, September 28, 2012

Sybil Valley, Alabama

Old Cemetery Road was exactly that—a half-paved road that meandered up the mountain past an old, mossy cemetery. From the car I thought I saw a crumbling headstone bearing the name Wooten. The sight sent a chill through me.

The lady at the bed-and-breakfast had told us the Stocker place was roughly three-quarters of the way up the mountain, an old but immaculate two-story brick Italianate that crowned a couple hundred acres of the area’s best pasture and farmland. According to her, Tom Stocker’s father, a shrewd businessman and entrepreneur, had struck gold in Georgia back in the late 1800s, then settled this land in Alabama and instructed his children in the intricacies of the stock market. Evidently they all amassed quite a bit of wealth, including Tom. Most of them moved away to the surrounding cities—Birmingham or Chattanooga—after securing their fortunes, but Tom stayed on the mountain, as did his son, William, now in his late seventies.

Our hostess told us everybody in Sybil Valley knew William Stocker. Elected mayor multiple times throughout the past decade, he’d established the town as a sort of festival Mecca. If tourists weren’t coming here for the apple-picking festival, they were enjoying a book fair or wine-tasting event. He’d built a quaint country diner, a music venue, and a small Swiss chalet-style hotel, but these days he mostly just ran his few head of cattle and fished.

Stocker appeared to be eating his dinner on the front porch when we pulled into his gravel drive. He lowered a newspaper, took off his glasses, and watched us climb out of the car. William Stocker might be big money, but he was still mountain folk, and I’d heard they regarded strangers with more than the usual small-town level of suspicion. When I reached the porch steps, I lifted my hand in greeting.

“Mr. Stocker?” I could feel myself trembling so I clasped my hands together. “I’m Althea Bell, from Mobile. This is my friend, Jay Cheramie.”

“How do?” He eyed the both of us coolly. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here in town trying to do some research on my great-grandmother. She lived up here a long time ago. I thought you might be able to tell me something about her.”

“I just may. What was her last name?”

“Wooten.”

“We got a lot of Wootens around here. What was her first name?”

“Jinn. I’m not even sure of her maiden name.”

He put down his paper then. “It was Alford,” he said. “She was Jinn Alford before she married Howell Wooten.” He stood up, skirted the table, and came down the steps. He put his glasses back on his nose and took a closer look at me. “You’re her great-granddaughter, you say?”

I nodded, my heart thumping. “Did you know her?”

“I knew her son, Walter.” He was still looking at me. “When I was a boy. He was a few years older than me. My father knew Jinn well.”

Jackpot.

“I’m trying to find out what happened to her,” I said.

“How do you mean?”

“How she died.”

He didn’t flinch. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“I’ve heard she had a bit of a reputation. Maybe your father mentioned something about that?”

“I don’t think so. At least, not to me.”

“Did you ever hear things from other people? Gossip, maybe?”

“I know the Wootens were good Christian people. They went to the Baptist church, and Howell never spoke against his wife.”

“Why would he? Because of this?” I held up the label. He straightened.

“Yes. Jinn made her own wine and sold it. Which was a bit . . . out of the ordinary.”

“You mean illegal?”

“Borderline. The state had just made the sale of alcohol legal—four years after the rest of the country—but only under their strict supervision. I’m pretty sure Jinn’s wine didn’t have the official government stamp of approval. The folks up here have always liked to do things their own way. It’s possible she could’ve brought some trouble on her family.” He hesitated a fraction of a second. “There was something else. People said she and her husband had a falling-out over her wine business. That she left him.”

“For another man?”

His eyes flickered. “Some said. I never thought it was so.”

I flipped the label over, held it up to him. He adjusted his glasses and read the inscription.

“Well, I’ll be,” he breathed.

“Did Jinn run off with your father, Mr. Stocker?” I said.

I thought I detected his face flushing, but he ducked his head, scratched at his jaw. “No, he was a widower—my mother died soon after I was born—and he never did remarry. We left town for a bit, we went over to Georgia for a while . . . but it was just the two of us, nobody else. And it was after Jinn left. We moved back a couple of years later, and my father died right here on this mountain, back in 1991.”

I decided to lay all my cards on the table for William Stocker. “Jinn’s daughter, Collie, kept that label with your father’s name written on it for many years. I assume because Jinn wanted her to find him. I’ve been told Jinn had some kind of episode when she turned thirty—a nervous breakdown or some kind of psychotic break—and then disappeared. I’ve wondered if she might’ve been sent away. To Pritchard Hospital.”

He didn’t nod or look surprised. His face was a stone.

I went on. “The same thing happened to Collie.”

That glimmer in his eyes again. “I knew Collie.”

“Well, she had some kind of breakdown at thirty too and ended up at Pritchard. It happened to Collie’s daughter, my mother, as well. At age thirty, oddly enough. Although I can’t prove it, I’m pretty sure my father had her locked up. She died like the other two, under questionable circumstances.”

He studied me so long I began to think he’d determined I was crazy and he was plotting a strategy to extricate himself from this conversation.

“So you’re telling me,” he finally said, “that you think the same thing’s going to happen to you?”

“You could say I’m concerned, yes.”

“I gather you’re close to turning thirty . . .”

“In two days.”

He nodded once, then averted his gaze and folded his arms over his chest so tightly it seemed like an act of self-preservation. His gaze traveled out to the fields where a couple of cows were lowing about something—then he spoke.

“I do know a few things about Jinn Wooten and my father.” The lines along his mouth deepened and his eyes dimmed. “Not that I’ve ever felt it was right to share any of them. My father was a very private man.”

“Please,” I said. “I have no desire to ruin anyone’s reputation. I just want to know the truth about my great-grandmother.”

He scratched his cheek and gazed out over his property. “The last time any of us saw Jinn Wooten was the night of a church revival, for an itinerant preacher. It was the talk of the town. Everyone went to the service that night. But not us. My father was . . . well, he seemed agitated that night.”

He clamped his mouth shut, but I wondered if there was more.

“You don’t remember anything else?”

“Well. Some folks said she ran off with the preacher.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?”

He hesitated.

“You can’t tell me . . . anything.”

He gave me a rueful smile. Then shook his head. “She didn’t run off with the preacher.”

I pulled out the wine label and handed it to him. “As far as I know, Collie never contacted your father. Do you know why Jinn would’ve wanted her to?”

“By God.” He whipped off his glasses and scrubbed at his eyes. “I can’t believe I . . . I’d almost forgotten.” He looked at me. “I have something for you. Do you mind waiting?”

He went inside. The big door, gleaming white with an ornate medallion, slammed shut behind him. Jay and I exchanged glances and waited in silence. After a few minutes, he reappeared with a small coin purse made of blue silk, held together with a metal snap of tarnished silver.

He handed it to me. I opened it and pulled out a thick stack of neatly folded vintage bills.

William Stocker cleared his throat. “Before my father died, he told me a little bit about Jinn. About their friendship. I’m fairly certain they were things he’d never told anyone. He was a respectful man, Miss Bell, a good man. Jinn asked him to hold that fifty dollars. For Collie. But she never came back for it.”

The breeze made the bills flutter in my fingers. Fifty dollars hidden away for a young daughter. Something about it seemed so sad.

“I suppose it’s yours now.” He adjusted his glasses. “It was a lot of money back then and worth something now too, vintage bills like that.”

“I don’t know what to say.” I smiled at him. “I mean, thank you.”

He nodded. “Jinn Wooten didn’t leave her family, and she didn’t run off with some preacher.” His voice wavered. “I don’t know exactly what happened to her that night, but I’ll tell you this—she wouldn’t have left town. She was in love with my father. And he was in love with her.”

“Mr. Stocker—”

But evidently we were done because he nodded at us, then turned and headed up the porch steps, leaving his half-eaten dinner behind him.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Friday, September 28, 2012

Sybil Valley, Alabama

William Stocker had said Jinn and her husband, Howell, attended the Baptist church. It wasn’t much to go on, and I didn’t even know what I could possibly find there, but I decided it was a place to start.

There were three Baptist churches in the valley. (Not to mention two Methodists, one Community Bible, and a broken-down roadside shack with a hand-painted sign that read “Yahweh Holiness Tabernacle.”) We chose the oldest-looking one, just up the road from town, a traditional white clapboard with a green roof and spire.

We climbed the worn steps and entered the cool, dim sanctuary. The room smelled of mildew and lemon Pledge. Two banks of glossy wooden pews flanked a center aisle of mauve carpet that ended at a simple white podium emblazoned with a painted gold cross.

From the warren of doors adjacent to the pulpit, a pasty man with Down syndrome emerged and lumbered toward us. He had a thick shingle of greasy hair and a green baseball jacket embroidered with the words “BROTHER BOB.”

“Hey there,” Jay called out. “Mind if we look around?”

He stopped and inspected us. Scratched his head. “You have your letter here?”

“We’re not members, just visitors passing through town,” I said. “Just wanted to look around if we could.”

Brother Bob nodded. “Brother Larry will be by later.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll just look around for now, if that’s all right.”

Jay’s phone buzzed, echoing in the empty room.

“No phone calls in the church,” Brother Bob said. “No music or beer either.”

Jay handed the phone to me, and I scuttled out to the vestibule. I shut the heavy wooden double doors behind me. They clunked loudly in the hush of the church.

“Hello?”

“Althea, it’s Beth Barnes from Pritchard.” My breath caught in my throat.

“Is everything okay? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

“No, not yet. They don’t expect you back until lights-out. It’s just . . . someone came by the hospital asking for you, a woman, and I thought I should call.”

“Who?”

“She wouldn’t give her name. She said she was family.”

Could it have been Molly Robb again?
Shit.
But no. Beth had seen Molly Robb when she’d attempted to abduct me the first time. So who was it?

“What did she look like?”

“I wasn’t here when she came. One of the interns talked to her.”

“Listen, Beth,” I said. “You’ve got to tell her, or anyone else who comes looking for me, you don’t know where I am—”

“Althea,” she said. “I
don’t
know where you are.”

“Right,” I said. “Look, if anyone else shows up looking for me, tell them I’m . . .” I peeked through the crack in the double doors at Jay, who was gazing intently at some photographs on the wall. Brother Bob was circling behind him. “Tell them you think I went to Paris. With my boyfriend.”

“Althea. You should come back. Call the police and tell them what your brother’s done. I’ll go with you and back you up.”

“I know. I know. I will. I just . . .” I bit my lip. “There are some things I have to do first.”

“Well, good luck,” Beth said and hung up. I pushed through the doors, back into the sanctuary.

The entire length of it was covered in rows and rows of framed photographs. There were dozens of them, some black-and-white, some color, stretching from the balcony to the chair rail, all encased in identical dime-store frames. There were grainy shots of picnics and rummage sales, revivals and singings from past decades. All the way back to the thirties.

“Holy shit,” I said, my voice echoing in the silence. Brother Bob glared at me, and I put one apologetic finger over my lips. “Sorry.”

I waved Jay over to where I stood. The pictures in front of me were faded from years in the sun. I pointed to a series of three arranged under the pitched roof: the first showed a group of men in undershirts posing in front of a large, white tent, and the second was the same tent at night, filled with people.

I pointed to the third photograph; a close-up portrait. Jay’s eyes widened.

Three people—two men, one woman, in front of the same tent. The woman, fine-boned and pale, was a beauty, with delicate features and a shiny, waved bob. Her head was turned to the side, and I could see her hair was pinned back on one side with a uniquely shaped barrette. The photo was grainy, but it could have been a bird with its wings outstretched.

It might’ve been.

“The barrette?” I said.

Jay hung over my shoulder. “I dunno. Maybe.”

I looked at the bottom of the photo. Tiny letters spelled out the inscription:
Br. Daley, Br. and Mrs. Charles Jarrod.

“Mrs. Charles Jarrod.” I spelled the last name out for him.

Jay was already tapping away at his phone.

“Brother Jarrod preached here in 1937,” a voice behind us said. Jay and I spun. Brother Bob was pointing to the photo. “He was from California. That’s Brother Daley, the pastor back then with him. And his wife. Her name was Dove. Dove Davidson Jarrod.”

Dove. A bird name. My heart kicked into overdrive.

“She was outlaw Dell Davidson’s half sister. Some people said she made that up, though, nobody knows. They came to Sybil Valley in October 1937 to do a healing revival.”

Jay and I exchanged stunned looks.

“You know who all these people are?” I asked Brother Bob.

He waved his arm at the wall. “I’ve worked here ten years. I’ve memorized them all,” he said proudly.

“Listen to this.” Jay read from his phone. “‘Charles Jarrod passed away in 1956 of cancer at his home in San Diego, after which . . .’” He paused at this point and pronounced each word deliberately.
“‘Dove Jarrod returned to the state of Alabama where she currently resides.’”

“You’re kidding me.” I grabbed the phone. “It really says that?”

He leaned over, and we read it together. “Is she here?” he said. I looked at the guy in the green jacket. “Does Dove Jarrod live in Sybil Valley?”

“No. But she’s come to see Jean before. I seen her in town a time or two. She’s real old. Dead now, probably.”

My heart sunk, then leapt again. “You said Jean? Jean who?”

“Jean Tippett. She lives down by the creek.”

“Finally,” I said. I sank down onto a pew and rested my head back, feeling simultaneously lightheaded and nauseated. Here, at last, was someone who might’ve owned the hair barrette. Dove Jarrod. Maybe she was my honeysuckle girl. Maybe.

Jean Tippett’s shingled cottage nestled on a shale slope that led down to a creek, just as Brother Bob had described. When we got out of the car, we could hear the creek running somewhere out back. I wished I could circle past the house and head to the water. Hide in the woods. Maybe I was just afraid of what I’d find inside.

Jay took my hand—I’d noticed he’d been doing this more and more—and together we walked up the dirt lane to the house. The yard was exploding with perennials, all kept in check by a low wall of stones. The door and shutters were painted a deep eggplant, window boxes overrun with a mass of blooms. A fairy-tale cottage.

I knocked on the door. There was no answer, not even a rustling from inside the house. All I could hear was the sound of the bees swarming the black-eyed Susans. I knocked again, a little louder in case Jean had hearing difficulties. Nothing. I turned to Jay.

“She’s in there.” He nodded at a puddle of water beneath a window box just to the left of the front porch. “She just watered her plants.” He scanned the yard. A beat-up Oldsmobile sat on the far side of the house.

“What the hell,” I growled in frustration. “Why won’t she answer?” I looked into Jay’s eyes, feeling the enormous dread I’d been keeping at bay for almost a whole month, creeping toward me.

My confidence was slipping. I was going to face my thirtieth birthday like Trix, Collie, and Jinn had faced theirs—exposed. In a position of weakness. I hadn’t found the road map. In fact, the way ahead looked as dangerous and confusing as when I first started.

I took the brass-and-ivory barrette out of the cigar box and laid it in the center of Jean Tippett’s green, plastic welcome mat. A last offering. We walked back to the car, and Jay climbed in, rested his head against the seat. I looked over my shoulder, hesitated, then wheeled back.

“What are you doing?” he called after me.

I didn’t answer, just leapt up the front steps and began beating on the door with the flat of my palms, slapping at it until I thought it might rattle off its hinges. I’d curled my hands into fists and continued to pound when he got out of the car and ran to me. He touched my shoulder, but I shrugged him off.

“Open up,” I shouted. “Let us in, goddamn it, or I’m going to kick down your door!”

“Althea, come on.”

I kept banging.

“Stop it!” he said. “Stop!” He touched my arm but I jerked away.

“She’s in there,” I said, panting. “I’ve had enough of this bullshit. She knew we were coming. This is a small town. I bet Stocker called her.” I dug my fingers into my hair, curled them into fists. “I don’t know, Jay. I don’t know what I’m trying to do here. This is crazy . . . this whole thing. Maybe I should just forget everything.”

“Okay, let’s just—”

“I can’t go on like this. I’ve got . . . I have other concerns now.”

“And we’ll do whatever we have to do. I know what I said before, Althea, but I don’t know. I’m starting to think you need to keep going. Find out the truth.”

“I don’t think I can. I don’t.”

“I’ll help you . . .”

But I’d already backed across Jean’s front porch, stumbled down the steps and around the side of the house. I slipped into the woods that bordered Jean’s backyard, weaving my way through the trees, unable to stifle the sobs that tore at my throat. I came upon a meadow, and a sharp, sweet smell enfolded me—honeysuckle, moss, cold water. I stopped for a minute, my whole body trembling, the tears still falling. I dashed them away. Started off in a new direction.

I could hear my breath coming fast and the sound of the grass as I thrashed my way across the field. At last, I reached the creek. Broad and shallow, it sparked and tumbled over rocks, dancing its way down the mountain. I collapsed on the mossy bank, eyes squeezed shut and fists clenched.

A few minutes later, the sound of crashing underbrush brought me back to reality.

Jay stood behind me, in the grass, the sunlight behind him making his edges glow. He was so beautiful, feet planted wide and hair tousled. I turned my back to him.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said. “I just . . . can’t.”

“I know you feel that way.” He dropped down beside me. “But I don’t believe it. You aren’t a person who gives up.”

I sighed. “Yes, I am. That’s exactly who I am.” I squinted out over the flashing creek. “I stole pills, Jay. From your mom’s bathroom drawer. From the nurse at Val’s place. I was keeping them . . . for later. It made me feel better, just knowing they were there.”

He was quiet.

“And now . . . with the baby . . . I can’t do that stuff anymore. And I don’t have anything left that makes me feel safe.”

He put his arm around me. I thought of the way he’d bumped my shoulder a few weeks ago in the clearing beside my house. I remembered the way the gesture had practically turned me inside out. It had been exactly thirteen days ago. Thirteen days, but it felt like a century. I had changed so much. Everything had changed.

He nodded at the creek and the waterfall. “Beautiful, don’t you think? Magical, even.”

I said nothing.

“There’s a story here, you know.”

I wound a blade of grass around my finger, then split it. “I hate stories. I don’t ever want to hear another story as long as I live.”

“So you’re really going to give up?”

I flicked the grass away. “You don’t understand. These stories—they’ve torn me up. Ripped me to pieces. My mother, my grandmother, they were at everyone’s mercy. They couldn’t save themselves; they couldn’t do anything for themselves. I don’t want that. I want to be okay. To be strong. To take care of myself.”

“How long have I known you, Althea?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Since we were eight,” he said. “We were eight when you walked down to my house and asked if I wanted to go sailing. You were this little wild child, dirty feet, mismatching clothes. You weren’t afraid of anything. You shoved me in that Sunfish and sailed us all the way down to the bay like a fucking pirate.”

I shook my head, unwilling to trust myself to speak.

“You’ll be okay, Althea. You have so much more than those women ever had.”

“What?” I looked at him. “What do I have that makes me so different?”

“Their stories, the things they put in that box. You have Trix and Collie and Jinn inside you. It’s not true what you said before, that you were bad odds. I think you’re excellent odds, Althea. Really excellent odds.”

Whether it was true or not, I needed to believe him. I couldn’t face my future alone. I was losing my grip. I let my body fall against him, let him put his arms around me, and settled there.