Shattered Image (8 page)

I had seated myself at the counter and Doris approached me with a green plastic tumbler in one hand and a water pitcher in the other. Under the apron, Doris wore a cotton print dress. Her hair was bleached blond—probably to cover the gray—and teased up into the big-hair style. She had pudgy little hands and long fingernails polished expertly with red lacquer. Her lipstick matched her nail polish and, upon close inspection, I could see that Doris had run the lipstick just slightly outside of the natural edge of her lips. She couldn’t have been more than five or six years older than me, but she seemed old enough to be my grandmother. In fact, she kind of reminded me of my grandmother.

“Hey there, hon. You’re not from around here. Must be in town for Addie’s funeral, right?”

“Well, yes,” I said, just a little nonplussed. Then it occurred to me that this would be one of the few funerals they’d have in a town like this for a while, and as it involved murder and discovery of a missing woman sixteen years
after her disappearance, this would be big doings indeed. Why else would an outsider stop in a small town like Viola, six miles off of the state highway, just to eat lunch?

“I don’t recall ever seeing you before, hon. How did you know Addie?”

“Well, actually I never knew her in life. I’m the sculptor who reconstructed her face from her remains.”

“Well, I say! You are, are you? Well, I say…”

She poured the water into the glass, shaking her head the whole time.

“Well, now, what can I get you for your lunch, hon?”

I gave Doris my order and she scratched it down on a little order pad she pulled out of her pocket, tore off the page and handed it through a small window behind the counter.

“There you go, Pop,” she said to the man who was slaving over the stove.

Doris tended to several customers at the other end of the counter. Soon, two of them at the other end craned their necks around to look at me, and then whispered to Doris again. A few seconds later, Doris came back my way with the water pitcher. She was smiling and popping chewing gum between her teeth.

“You know, hon, I saw that sculpture you did on the news the other night. I knew as soon as I seen it that it was her. You just did a wonderful job—a wonderful job. How’d you do such a great job of making that look like little Addie?”

I explained to her about the anthropological charts and about what I do to try to make the reconstruction as personal and human as I can. She listened intently, nodding the whole time and alternately smacking and then popping her gum.

“Well,” she said when I was done with my explanation, “you just did a wonderful job.” Then she sighed appreciatively.

I thanked her and she turned around to get my sandwich out of the pass-through window where Pop had put it. She laid it on the counter in front of me and winked as she walked away.

The sandwich was delicious. It consisted of cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and Doris’s special dressing on whole wheat bread. On the menu it came with ham, but as I’m a vegetarian, I had asked Doris to omit that. As I licked my lips over the last couple of bites, Doris revisited my section of the counter.

“How was it, hon?”

“Mmm, fantastic,” I said while still chewing the last bite.

“How about some of my homemade pie?”

“Oh, I don’t know…”

“Oh, hon, you have to have some of my homemade pie. We have chocolate cream today and apple. Everyone just raves about them both, but my favorite is the apple.”

“Well, okay, I’ll have the apple.”

“You want ice cream on it, hon?”

“No, thank you.”

When Doris cut you a piece of pie, Doris cut you a slab of pie. I have lived in Texas my whole life and I don’t recall ever seeing a piece of pie that large, not even at my grandma’s house.

Doris hung over the edge of the counter waiting for me to take the first bite. That pie was heaven in a crust.

“Oh my!” I exclaimed.

Of course, Doris was delighted at my reaction.

“Well, I’m sure glad you like it all that well. That just makes me feel so good.” She bumped the heel of her hand on the edge of the counter for punctuation.

As was typical in a small town in Texas, the owner of the local café knew just about everybody and everything going on in town and the surrounding area. I decided to find out just how much information I could get from Doris.

“So, Doris, how well did you know Addie?”

“Oh, hon, I knew her and Dody their whole lives. Why, Dody’s about eight years younger than me and I can remember when he was born. My little brother used to play with him.”

“I see.”

“Addie was a lot younger. Her birthday was just a week before mine. I always remembered that because she was born right before my sweet-sixteen party.” Doris beamed at the memory.

“Well, how about that?” I said.

“Yes. Mama and Daddy had a party out at the house and Daddy churned homemade ice cream and Mama made pie—that very recipe that I used to make the pie you’re eating right now!”

“Oh, well, what a treat.”

“Yes, it was. Mama and Daddy invited everyone in town to my party—everyone! It was wonderful. Pop was there, too.” She pointed back at Pop in the kitchen.

“Oh, really?”

“Why, yes. Pop was my sweetheart from high school.”

Then she began to tell me how Addie and Dody had begun dating when Addie was sixteen. Dody was already twenty-four by then and some people in the town were
wondering if he would ever settle down. They thought Addie was too young for him, or at least too young to know what she was doing. He and Addie did marry, though, and had two children, Melissa and Emma.

“They sound like such a happy family,” I remarked. “I wouldn’t have thought that Addie would run off with someone, the way you describe her.”

“Well, she and Dody only got along because Addie wouldn’t talk back to him. I think that’s one reason why Dody wanted to marry someone so young—so he wouldn’t be challenged. I tell you, I’d have never put up with his nonsense.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was unreasonable as he could be. Grumpy, just grumpy. Didn’t like anything anybody did or the way they did it. I think Addie met Doug and just saw her savior.”

“A way to get out of the relationship with Dody.”

“Right. And you know, Addie and Doug could never have had a relationship and stayed here.”

“So, she left her kids and everything?”

“Well, that kind of surprised me, but I reckon if she’d taken them with her and all, there would have been big problems. Living through a divorce like that in a small town like this…” Doris shuddered.

“Why are you so sure that they were actually having an affair? I mean, did people actually see them together?”

“I didn’t, but I heard that other people saw them talking and looking very secretive in their talk. Also, Doug came by the house when Dody wasn’t there. In fact, he never did come by at all if Dody was home.”

“Couldn’t just have been because Dody was so unpleasant?”

She turned up one corner of her mouth. “Well…I guess it could, but why would he be dropping by the house of a married woman like that? I don’t know…I suppose it could be like you say, but that just doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. So, tell me more about Doug—what kind of guy was he?”

“He was a nice fella. I know his mama. You know Rock Hill is only about ten miles from here and it’s smaller than Viola. They don’t have no café over there.”

I nodded.

“Doug’s mother has always sworn that her son wouldn’t have had an affair with Addie. She always said that they were friends and she knew he wouldn’t do that, but you know, she’s his mother, so what would you think she’d say?”

“She would know him real well.”

“Well, I know, hon, but still she wouldn’t be wanting to think her boy would do something like that even if he was guilty of it, now, would she?”

“Did she have anything to back up what she said?”

“She claimed that Doug was just being friendly to Addie and all because he felt sorry for her—on account of Dody being so hard to live with. She said that Doug was sweet on some girl in Rock Hill—I forget her name now—but, anyway, none of us ever saw him with anybody, so I always just dismissed that as his mama’s wishful thinkin’.”

“Think he could have killed Addie?”

“Doug? Oh, my! I just don’t see that. I mean, I think Doug would have run off with her, but I just can’t imagine that he killed her.”

“So, what do you think happened?”

“Well, hon, I think maybe they broke up after they left here, and she just fell into the hands of the wrong person.”

“You don’t think Dody could have done it?”

“Well, I don’t know. If he did, he’d have had to kill both of them. I just can’t imagine Dody being a killer. He’s contrary and he’s kind of an oddball sometimes, but I think he’s basically harmless. I mean, he was always hard on Addie, but he never did lay hands on her—you know, hit her or anything. If he had, the whole town would have known about that. I mean, you can’t get a hangnail ’round here without everybody knowing.”

“I’ve heard that Doug’s mother hasn’t heard from him since the time he disappeared with Addie. Is that true?”

“Oh yes, that is true. I’ve often wondered about that myself. Perhaps he and Addie were both killed out on the road somewhere and we just haven’t found his bones yet.”

“Hmm. Perhaps.” We both paused for a few seconds. “So, what happened with Dody and the girls after she left?” I took another huge bite of pie.

“Oh well, he was never the same person again. That’s another reason I don’t think he could have killed them. When she ran off, he just kind of came apart. I mean, he was still negative and all, but he hardly ever talked to folks. He withdrew, kind of. Had a lot of stomach problems—ulcers, you know.” She looked at me knowingly and nodded.

“I see.”

“Yes,” she continued. “Ulcers and then with all his drinkin’—he started that after she run off—with all his drinkin’ on top of those ulcers…” She made a soft clicking noise with her tongue behind her teeth.

“Then he left about fourteen years ago?”

“Yes, to move to Manor, but those little girls spent most of their time with their grandmother anyway—Addie’s mama—Dody’s mama passed away some years ago.”

“Well, it just all seems so sad.”

“Yes, it does,” Doris sighed.

I paid her for the lunch and that awesome pie and headed back to Austin. On the way, I pondered everything I had seen and everything Doris had told me, and I wondered what had befallen Addie and Doug after they had left Viola, or if they had ever left Viola. I wanted to know if she had really been involved with Doug. I wanted to know what had really happened.

I was packing my clothes for the trip to Hawaii. All of my sculpture supplies were already packed in a case that I would carry with me on the trip. I was standing in the doorway to my closet trying to decide what final pieces of my wardrobe I would take with me, when I heard the front door open.

“Mom?”

“I’m back here—in my closet.”

I heard Mike’s heavy footsteps coming across the living room floor and then down the hallway. I looked up to see my son standing in the door to my room. He was wearing jeans and a golf shirt with the tail out.

“What are you doing here, son?”

“I came over to take you to the airport. You’re not through packing yet?”

“You don’t have to take me to the airport.”

“Of course I don’t, but that’s beside the point. I am taking you to the airport. Mom, your flight leaves in three hours. I thought you’d be done packing.”

“Thought wrong, but I am almost done. I just need to make a decision on one more thing…”

He sighed. It was one of those deep, male, “I totally don’t get this” kind of sighs. I finally selected one of my
favorite sundresses. I removed it from the hanger, folded it neatly and placed it in my bag. Then I closed the top and zipped the bag up. I was done.

“There.”

“You’re done?”

“Yes. I told you I only needed one more thing.”

“So, your supplies are already packed? Please tell me that your supplies are already packed.”

“Yes, Michael. I packed those four days ago.”

“Good.”

“So, why did you decide you needed to take me to the airport?”

“For one thing, you don’t need to be leaving one of the cars out there for several days. Grandpa doesn’t need to be driving you out there either—the traffic is awful, and he gets hacked off with the way people drive. I’m off today, and what kind of a son would I be if I didn’t take my mom to the airport?”

I gave him one of my looks and raised my left eyebrow.

“You’re a lousy storyteller, Michael Sullivan.”

He looked down at his feet.

“I didn’t want to send you off to do something like this without moral support. I don’t want you coming back from this trip and having to drive yourself home alone either.”

I nodded.

“You’re a pretty decent son, Michael Sullivan.” I smiled and then patted him on the arm.

“Don’t go gettin’ mushy on me or anything, Mom.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of that.”

We both grinned at each other. I looked up at my only child and marveled. He was six feet one inch tall, and with his strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes he was the spitting
image of my husband. Now he was in the same line of work as Jack, too. Now my little boy was a big man who carried a badge and a gun. Then I couldn’t help myself, and I reached up and put my arms around the neck of my “little” boy. My son whom I used to hold in my arms when he cried. My son whose boo-boos I used to kiss and assure him everything was okay. Then something incredible happened.

“It’s all going to be okay, Mom.” He squeezed me tight. “I’m here for you, and we’ll get through this thing with Uncle Teddy together.”

Tears were streaming down my face. I had not intended to lean on my son for support through this, but without my asking or saying so much as a single word, here he was. I wept because it was the first time my small boy had changed roles and become the man to buck up his ol’ ma.

He pulled away from me and pulled his hankie out of his pocket. “No more of that cryin’ now. Wipe your face, and let’s get your stuff loaded in the car and get on the road. You’re the best in your field, and you’ve faced worse things in life than this. You can do this. Let’s get going.”