Close to the Broken Hearted (6 page)

 

That night, Leah Teal went to bed with a lot on her mind. She left the drapes of her bedroom window open, and outside heavy clouds had started moving in. Somehow, the moonlight still managed to find gaps between them to shine through and, once Leah turned off the lamp on her nightstand, a pale gray light fell into the room. It was enough to cast small shadows on her sprayed white ceiling. She stared up at that ceiling, unable to stop thinking about poor Sylvie Carson all holed up in that little house with that newborn. The times Leah managed to release those thoughts, her brain just switched over to ciphering about this woman who had suddenly appeared into her little Abe's life claiming to be his aunt.

Could
Billy have had a sister? Was it
possible
he kept that sort of information private all those years? Do you keep that sort of thing hidden from your wife? Then she started second-guessing herself—wondering if it's really a lie if you just don't mention it. Because deep down, Leah didn't want to believe Billy was capable of ever lying to her.

But
could
it all be true? And
parents
. New grandparents for Abe. That idea both excited and scared Leah. The last thing she wanted to do was see her boy get attached to someone only to lose them. The first time that had happened was almost too tragic to survive. She doubted she could manage it a second time around.

But Billy certainly
did
have a ma and a pa; he just rarely mentioned them. Not that he was one for being too outspoken. She used to tell him he could keep the devil's secrets in a poker game with Jesus if he'd wanted to.

Did
he lie to her?

She couldn't figure it out.

One thing was for sure. She wasn't getting any sleep tonight. It didn't help that she went to bed so early. The room grew darker. The cherrywood of the dresser across the room became lost in the shadows of the waning light, but she could still make out the bright white face of the clock set on its top. It was barely ten. She'd only tucked Abe in a half hour ago. From the living room, she heard the sound of canned laughter coming from the television. Caroline was still up, no doubt cuddled in a blanket on the sofa. That girl was a night owl during the summer, and she always had that damn television set so loud it was a wonder Leah ever managed any sleep.

That's when the phone rang and Leah nearly jumped out of her pajama bottoms. Her head and pillow had been right beside the nightstand where the phone sat between the bed and the lamp.

Figuring it was likely Sylvie, she quickly answered it. The last thing she needed was a reason for Abe to give her any more back talk about handing out her home phone number than he already had.

She was surprised, though, when the voice on the other end didn't belong to Sylvie Carson at all, but to Police Chief Ethan Montgomery whom she'd just spoken to barely four hours earlier.

“Ethan, what is it?” She hoped it wasn't Sylvie blackmailing him at the station again. She hadn't had a chance to talk to the girl about it yet. She figured that was a conversation best done in person when it came to someone like Sylvie Carson.

“Leah, we got ourselves a problem.”

“I figured that. Otherwise, why else would you be callin' me at all hours of the night?”

“Since when is ten all hours of the night?”

“Since I got a boy comin' home tellin' me he met his auntie in the street today. Can we just move past this part of the conversation?”

“You know what tomorrow is, don't you?” Ethan asked.

“Sunday.”

“I know it's goddamn Sunday. You know what
else
it is?”

“Why don't you just assume I don't and tell me and save a whole bunch of time?”

“Tomorrow is the day our old preacher man gets released.”

Oh dear Lord Jesus, how did Leah forget
that?
She'd marked it on her calendar at work barely two weeks ago. Eli Brown finished his sentence tomorrow after spending over seventeen years in jail. Twelve of them in the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, the rest up in Birmingham at the Work Release Center. He was being let out just under three years of the full twenty he got handed down for manslaughter after killing little three-year-old Caleb Carson.

After a period of silenced panic while Leah's mind raced over ideas about how to handle damage control on this event, she finally came to a realization. “Sylvie doesn't know,” she said. “Does she?”

“Well, she's not
supposed
to,” Ethan said.

That was an odd thing to say,
Leah thought. “I don't see this as bein' a huge problem, to be right honest, Ethan,” she said. “Sylvie doesn't know, and the man's done his time. In the eyes of the law, he's no longer a criminal. Besides, she might never find out. He probably won't ever return to Alvin. After all that happened it's the last place I'd think of headin' back to if I were him.”

There was a slight chuckle in Ethan Montgomery's voice when he responded that Leah didn't like one bit. “Go turn your television set on,” he said.

“What?”

“Turn on your TV, Leah. Channel six. The ten o'clock news.”

“Caroline's watching the goddamn TV,” she said. “Just tell me.”

“Go turn the channel,” he said and hung up.

“Oh dear Christ.” She set down the receiver. Pulling back the covers of her bed, she swung her legs over her mattress and slid her feet into her slippers. Even though it was July, the hardwood floors of the bedrooms still managed to somehow get cold at night.

She padded down the hallway, through the kitchen and dining room, and into the living room where Caroline sat curled up on the sofa just as Leah had expected, wrapped in the yellow blanket she'd had since she was about ten years old. The thing was ridiculously worn, with tattered corners and even holes in some places, but Caroline refused to give it up, even when Leah offered to replace it with a new one.

She was watching some situational comedy Leah hadn't ever seen. Before Caroline even had a chance to complain, Leah walked over to the television and started turning the dial.

“Hey!” Caroline yelled. “What are you doin'? I was watchin' that!”

“Police business,” Leah said. “Now shush.”

Leah got to channel six and stopped turning the dial. On the screen, a reporter was at the Birmingham Penitentiary interviewing a very old-looking Eli Brown. His face was even more creased than it had been the last time Leah had seen the man, when he was transferred up to Birmingham. He had less hair and what little he had was pure white.

“Mother,” Caroline whined from the sofa. “Please turn it back to my show?”

Leah shushed her again and turned up the volume. “So,” the reporter asked the old preacher man, “after seventeen years, how do you go about stepping back into your life?” The reporter was a young dark-haired kid in a gray blazer.

Eli Brown was wearing an orange prison outfit. Leah couldn't help but think it kind of suited him. “Just the way I left it, I s'pose,” Eli said, his voice more hollow and broken than ever. “I'll find my way back to God and back home to Alvin. For me it's really about picking up the thread right where it started to unwind.”

The phone immediately rang again. And this time, Leah had no doubt when she picked it up whose voice she was going to hear at the other end. It certainly wouldn't be Police Chief Montgomery. Not
this
time.

Staring at the screen, she let the phone ring once more as two words came out of her mouth. One was “Oh.” The other was “Shit.”

A
s Leah had imagined, the telephone call was a disaster. It was Sylvie, of course, and she'd been watching the same channel six news program. Until now, nobody had told her that Eli Brown's parole was coming up two and a half years early. Far as Leah knew, the girl didn't even know the man had been moved from Talladega into the work release program in Birmingham. Apparently, old Preacher Eli was as good as gold behind bars. Nobody wanted to see him spend any more time there than he had to.

Obviously, Sylvie Carson didn't feel the same way about the man.

“What are you gonna do 'bout this?” she asked Leah, although it was more like she screamed it into her phone than so much as asked a question. Leah could barely understand a word the girl was saying she was talking so loud and fast.

“What do you mean, what am I gonna do?” Leah asked back. She tried to keep her own voice as quiet and slow as possible, hoping to calm Sylvie down, but she knew in her mind there was no calming this girl down. She'd been jumping at boogeymen hiding in corners too many years. Now, suddenly, she felt she had a real boogeyman to jump at and seeing him on the television screen made the danger more real than ever.

“I mean you
can't
just let him walk out free! You
know
what he did to little Caleb!” Leah heard Sylvie begin to wail. “He don't deserve to ever be free. He don't deserve to be alive. He shoulda been sentenced to die!”

Leah stayed quiet. It was the only thing she could think of to do. Nothing she could say would placate Sylvie when she was this upset. Preacher Eli Brown had been convicted of manslaughter in the first degree, a class B felony in the state of Alabama. “He got the maximum prison time the judge could sentence him to, Sylvie,” Leah said. “The minimum was ten years. Eli got twenty. You should be happy 'bout that. Justice was served.”

Sylvie's voice suddenly grew eerily quiet as the sobbing stopped. It almost sounded scary from Leah's end of the phone. “Justice was served?” Sylvie asked, now speaking slowly. “Justice was served?” Her voice slowly rose in volume. “You didn't see your little brother get blown apart four feet in front of you at the supper table when you was five. Don't
you
tell
me
that justice was served when the murderin' son of a bitch who done it is about to walk out of prison a free man tomorrow.”

“You're right,” Leah said, remaining calm. “I can't possibly know how it feels to be you. It must be horrible. But Eli Brown has done his time. By the laws of this state, he's no longer a criminal.”

“Yeah? Well, by the laws of me, he's still a murderin' son of a bitch who better not show his face anywhere near round here on account of I got a loaded shotgun with his name on it just waitin' for a chance to have its trigger pulled.”

Leah sighed. “Now don't you go doin' nothin' stupid. You just go on pretendin' things are the same as al—”

“I will
not
pretend things are the same as anythin',” Sylvie said. “If I have to, I will hunt that man down, but he will get what he has comin'. Because the law might not think he deserves to serve his full sentence, but I'm gonna make certain he is fully punished for the crime he committed. I don't think the
law
completely understands real life. Things might look good to all them fancy lawyers, but all them fancy lawyers ain't livin' with pictures in their heads of their baby brother bein' blown to bits. They're just sittin' round big tables makin' chitchat and decidin' on things they have no right decidin' on.” She kept talking and Leah wondered if she was even going to stop to take a breath. “But I'm gonna make the decisions regardin' what's adequate punishment for Preacher Eli from now on because I'm someone who
does
live with those pictures in my mind. I'm someone
affected
by all this. I can make the
right
decision.”

Leah heard something in Sylvie's voice she didn't like. Maybe it was on account of the fact that the panic seemed to have gone. It was replaced with something more like determination. Sylvie meant what she was saying, and that scared Leah. The last thing she wanted was Sylvie becoming a vigilante and going on a manhunt, trying to kill someone who had just finished serving his time.

Leah decided this was something too important to just shrug off or even to leave until tomorrow to deal with. By tomorrow, Sylvie could have disappeared and be fully engaged in some or other creative plan.

Leah had to change Sylvie's mind. And she had to do it tonight.

“I'm comin' to your house,” she said.

“Why's that?” Sylvie asked. She sounded genuinely surprised.

“To talk.”

“We's talkin' now.”

“I want to talk face-to-face.”

“Ain't gonna make no difference,” Sylvie said. In the background, Leah heard the baby crying. “Oh, damn it, The Baby just woke up.”

“Well, you go put her back down and listen to me, Sylvie. I want you to be there when I arrive, you understand? And you'll let me in. And you're gonna talk to me.”

There was a long pause and Leah thought Sylvie might have gone to get the baby, but then she heard her breathing on the other end. Finally, Sylvie said, “Okay, but I might not listen too close.”

“That's okay,” Leah said. “I can't control how much you listen. Just do me a favor and put the kettle on? It's been a long day already. You
do
have coffee, right? If not, I can bring some.”

“I got coffee,” Sylvie said. “But I ain't got no milk. Well,” she laughed, “ 'cept for my breast milk. You better bring some of your own milk.”

“I'll take it black,” Leah said. “Just make sure it's strong.” Leah dug her forefinger and thumb into her temples. The day had given her a headache. Now, instead of letting her go to bed early, it was continuing on into the night, giving Leah a second act.

“How long will you be?” Sylvie asked. “I wanna know it's you when you come to the door. I don't like people comin' to the door after dark.”

Leah already knew that. “I'll leave in ten minutes. Probably be there in twenty-five. Don't worry, I'll call out from the other side of the door and let you know it's me. Don't ever open the door for anyone you don't know. Understand?”

“What you think I am? Stupid?”

“No, Sylvie. Just young.”

“I ain't so young.”

Leah's fingers dug harder into the side of her head. “Maybe not. But you're a lot younger than me.”

 

Sylvie Carson lived up on Old Mill Road in the northeast part of town. The road should have been called Old Mill River Road, as it almost exactly followed the Old Mill River, although the river ran all the way down to the Anikawa and the road started where the old railroad tracks crossed Main Street at Finley's Crossing.

It was one of the oldest roads in town, and most of the houses along it were spaced far apart, giving it a very desolate feeling as you drove along, especially at night. In a way, it was much like the area on the exact other side of town called Cloverdale where a lot of the black people lived. Both Cloverdale and Old Mill Road were probably built around the same time.

Alvin had the distinct look and feel of a town that was originally built from the outside in. Leah hadn't noticed this in other small Alabama towns. When you came into Alvin from the west side by Highway Seventeen or from the east side through Finley's Crossing, you came through the oldest farms and ranches first. Once you got off the main highways, the roads on the outskirts were all gravel. It wasn't until you started getting past the perimeter that things became paved and houses started looking newer.

This was opposite to how she thought it should be. In her mind she thought a town would start with a single building, maybe a Town Hall, and then grow around that building. Start with a central street, such as Main Street, and grow around that street. Alvin had a Town Hall and a Main Street, but it all seemed in much better repair than the buildings and streets on the outskirts.

This was a question she would one day ask her uncle Hank about. Hank knew lots about everything, and even if he didn't have the right answer, he'd give her an answer that she would be satisfied with. That was the way Hank worked.

Earlier, when the sun had gone down, the sky had only been partially cloudy with a waxing moon. Before going to bed, the sunset had been quite pretty, even with the clouds stretched across it. It was one of those late afternoons when the sun and the moon were in the sky at the same time, something Leah had once thought impossible when she was a kid. It wasn't until she was well into her teens that she realized the moon didn't only come out at night.

But since sunset, a layer of thick clouds had rolled in, and now there was no moon and no stars whatsoever. To make matters worse, the few streetlights along Old Mill Road were sparsely strung while it curved and twisted its way along the edge of the river. The road felt even more desolate, cold, and lonely as it began to climb upward into thicker forest. And, as she came up on Sylvie's old house with the peeling paint, things felt more desolate, colder, and lonelier still. Even though it wasn't actually cold at all, this road just brought with it a chill Leah didn't like at all.

Leah parked in the drive and walked the few steps to the door, hoping Sylvie had that coffee ready. Leah's eyes were barely staying open on their own. She knocked on the door and called out, “Sylvie? It's Leah.” Then she caught herself. She was being much too friendly and informal. Normally, she would never act so casual. Quickly, she knocked again and corrected the mistake. “Sylvie? It's Detective Teal, Alvin Police Department.”

Surprisingly, Sylvie didn't go through her usual routine of sliding the chain over and peering through the crack to verify Leah was who she said she was before opening the door. She just shot the dead bolts, opened the door, and welcomed her in. This was so unprecedented that, for a moment, Leah just stood there, stunned.

“Well, you comin' in or what?” Sylvie asked. “You said you wanted to talk, let's talk. I've had your coffee ready for ten minutes. It's probably not even hot no more.”

Blinking her eyes wider open, Leah stepped across the threshold into Sylvie's place. Once again, the ugly living room lamp was on, but this time the light over the kitchen table was on too, so things didn't look quite so much like death.

The living room wasn't as tidy as it had been on Leah's last visit. The magazines were no longer neatly stacked, and there were a few plates with leftover food sitting on the old coffee table. But Leah had come unexpectedly. She had to remind herself that there were times her place looked like a hurricane had hit it.
Having kids will do that. Kids of any age. Speaking of which—

“Did you get the baby down again?”

Sylvie smiled. One of her front teeth was crooked. Leah hadn't noticed this before and wondered if maybe that was on account of this possibly being the first time she'd ever actually seen the girl's teeth. Could she really have never seen Sylvie smile before?

“Yeah,” Sylvie said, “she fell right back to sleep after I fed her for a bit. Come on in. Never mind the mess. Coffee's in the kitchen.”

As soon as they walked into the kitchen, Leah's eyes locked on the shotgun still leaning against the wall beside the back door. She knew it would be loaded. There was no point in even asking anymore. She'd asked so many times she'd lost count, and the answer never changed. There was no way it would be any different
now,
of
all
times.

They sat at the table. Leah instinctively took the chair facing out into the room.

“So what brings you here so late?” Sylvie asked. Her voice was pleasant. She even smiled again. It felt so strange to Leah. It was as if she was talking to somebody normal. And, really, she should be very happy about that, but something inside her wouldn't let it settle right, because she knew very well that Sylvie wasn't normal. Sylvie shouldn't be acting normal. She shouldn't be happy. A half hour ago, she was yelling on the phone that she was going to hunt down and kill a man tomorrow, and now it was as though she had turned into Miss Congeniality.

Leah took a sip of her coffee. Sylvie was right, it had gotten a bit cold, but at least the girl had listened to her and made it strong. It tasted like the old campfire coffee she used to make when she and Billy would drive up into Mississippi for the weekends. That was back before their marriage. She'd been seven years younger than Sylvie. “I wanna talk about Eli, Sylvie,” Leah said. “I wanna finish what we was talkin' 'bout on the phone.”

“Oh.” Sylvie looked away and, for a moment, her face fell. Leah watched it very closely. The girl was being very guarded with her emotions, and that scared Leah, because it meant she really did have a plan. This wasn't just some displaced reaction; this was something cold and calculated.

The smile came back, as though by magic. “Would you like to try some oatmeal raisin cookies I made? They aren't too good. I'm not much of a baker, but I thought I'd give 'em a try. I watched this woman on the TV make 'em? And she said they was easy as pie. So I tried to follow step by step, only she started going too fast, and I think maybe I—”

“Sylvie,” Leah said, reaching out and touching the girl's hand, which was grasping the side of her coffee cup. “I didn't come here for cookies. I came to talk about Preacher Eli. He's bein' released tomorrow and he says he's movin' back to Alvin. Now, that probably bothers you a mite. I know if I were you, I'd probably be bothered a mite by it, too.”

Concern fell over Sylvie's face. “You think I should be worried?”