The Wishing Garden (42 page)

Jake pulled himself up straight. He knew he couldn’t outrun the police—they would hunt him down eventually and bring him back. All at once, though, he knew he could do something about a ghost. It was as easy as turning his back on him. All he had to do was walk away.

They got into the car and Savannah turned the key. The roar of the engine drowned out any outrage Roy might be spewing. Her headlights cut right through the heart of his black soul.

“Ready?” she said.

Jake reached out and fingered the green silk feathers on her hat. He marveled at the blue glow of her rings on the steering wheel. “Let’s go.”

She pulled out of the driveway and he didn’t look back. He let out his breath when they reached the road. Sometime life masqueraded as complicated, when really it was as simple as moving on.

She drove for twenty minutes down the treacherous road before even looking at him. “You want to know where we’re going?” she asked.

“I don’t care.”

She stopped the car and turned off the engine. In a painful heartbeat, she crawled onto his lap. She ran her palms down the smooth skin of his cheeks and chin. He had shaved off the beard the day Doug Dawson died, and no hair had grown back since.

“Did I tell you I love you?” she asked, tracing his jaw, the curl of his ear.

“Not that I recall.”

“Well, I’m telling you.”

He took off her hat and tossed it in the backseat with the dogs. “All right.”

He opened the door and carried her to a soft spot by the road. The meteor shower was worse than ever, poking holes through the sky. Up around Flagstaff, four thousand hits had been recorded in a two-hour period, shattering windshields and choking off lakes, but miraculously killing no one. No one knew where the next strike would land, and if it would be deadly. People led braver lives than they imagined just by walking out their front doors.

He slipped his hand under her dress, around the hot, inner curl of her thigh. He could live without her, he’d proven that, but there were degrees of living. You measured its quality by the things you dared to love: a home, a dog, a woman, a child. Each demanded a greater offering and returned a bigger slice of rapture, until it was as fierce a thing as a man could stand.

She tugged at his pants and he pulled them off. When he slipped inside her, he closed his eyes. He didn’t even bother to check what was streaking out of the sky. He was just going to take his chances.

“I love you too,” he said. Where she kissed him, he could feel her lips curling up in a smile.

Later that night, as Savannah drove them wherever it was she thought they would be safe, Jake slept soundly for the first time in weeks. When he finally opened his eyes, it was morning, and they were in the green, wrinkled hills of northern California. Savannah was drinking coffee, which she must have picked up somewhere along the way.

“We won’t go to my house,” she said. “We’ll stay at Ramona’s a couple days. I already called her. She’s got some ideas, some friends in out-of-the-way places. We can disappear off the face of the planet, if we want to.”

He woke up a little more now that he knew what
she wanted. He reached for her hand and held it tightly. No one had ever tried to save him before.

“Savannah,” he said, but she just shook her head.

“Don’t even think about saying you’ll just wait around for Cal to arrest you. Don’t even dare.”

He wouldn’t, not with the look in her eye. He just reached over and turned on the radio, as if everything might still turn out fine.

Emma registered for eleventh grade at Danville High because she had to, because her stepmother was standing right there, watching her every move. But she wasn’t going to show up for a single chemistry class. If it was up to her, she wouldn’t come out of her room ever again. She wouldn’t even breathe.

Melinda took her home after registration and poured them each a glass of milk. Emma hated milk, but she didn’t have the energy to fight Melinda’s kindnesses. Her stepmother had already bought her new flannel sheets for the fall and pasted stars on the ceiling of her bedroom. She’d slaved over her previously favorite meals, none of which Emma could eat, because food just stuck in her throat.

Melinda picked up an envelope from the counter and held it out. Emma didn’t take it. She recognized her mother’s handwriting, and just the sight of those curlicue letters made her stomach roll. She wasn’t going to forgive her mother for anything. She was never going to speak to her again.

Melinda opened the envelope for her. She read the letter, then took out the card behind it and set it face down on the table. Though she ought to have been drained dry, Emma still managed to start crying all over again.

She was not going to turn over that card. She
thought about how quickly she could be up and out of that house, throwing herself in front of traffic, but instead Melinda put a hand on her shoulder. Somewhere along the line, this woman Emma had had every intention of hating had thrown out an unexpected lifeline, and it had taken hold. Melinda never gave her enough time alone to kill herself. She spent all her time and energy making up reasons Emma should just hang on.

Melinda slid the letter in front of her. “Mothers just go on adoring you,” she said. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Despite herself, Emma looked up. She stopped crying for the barest instant. She took the paper out of Melinda’s hand and read it.

Melinda sat down beside her and gathered her in her arms. Emma didn’t want to love anyone but Eli, but they were making it so
hard
.

At some point, she reached for the card her mother had enclosed and flipped it over. “Jeez, she is
so
obvious.”

Still, after Melinda had gone, she slipped the card in her pocket. The Three of Cups, the card of compromise, the card of mothers and daughters.

They had one good night at Ramona’s, and that was something. A few blissful hours of thinking they were free. The night even lingered a while, the sun stayed dim behind the fog, to give them time to say what they
needed to say. It was all they could have asked for, under the circumstances.

In the morning, Savannah and Jake and Ramona sat at the kitchen table planning where they should go.

“The Russian River,” Ramona said. “Carol and Fred Tarkinton live in a little cabin you’d never know was there. Fred’s still hiding out from the draft.”

Savannah looked at Jake, but he was staring out the window, watching the fog drift past in clumps.

“All right,” she said. “Give me directions. We’ll be there by this afternoon.”

After Ramona left the room, Jake walked back and took her hand. “What I’m thinking is—”

Savannah rose up and kissed him. “Don’t think.”

“Savannah—”

“Just don’t. For once in your life, you’ve got to trust another person. Do you think you can do that?”

He stared at her, then finally nodded. They went to the guest room and packed their things.

Savannah kissed Ramona goodbye. She had one moment of thrilling expectation, then she opened the door and walked straight into Cal Bentley.

“It was Dan Merrill,” Cal said. “He’s been antsy for weeks. Once we got the lineup scheduled, he went on out to Jake’s cabin. It wasn’t hard to track you down.”

Cal took out a cigarette and lit it. In forty years on the force, he’d been solid as a rock, but now his hand was shaking. “He took it on himself to let San Francisco PD know you’d crossed state lines. They took it out of my hands. All I could do was ask to come along when they picked you up.”

Savannah looked past him, to where two more cops waited on the curb. “He’s not under arrest.”

“No. But he’s a prime suspect. It all depends on the lineup. The rest, well, it’s all circumstantial. A
judge would throw it out in a heartbeat. But that woman … We’re just going to have to see what the witness says.”

“This is crazy,” Savannah said. “The man’s been dead fifteen years. He’s a goddamn ghost, Cal. There are some people who plain deserve to die.”

Once the words were out, she knew she couldn’t take them back. She didn’t even want to. They were words that hung in moist California air forever.

“That may be. But it’s not up to me anymore.”

“It’s all right,” Jake said. “Really. I want this, Savannah. Can you understand that?”

She started crying, because all she understood was that the people she loved most would not let her save them.

Cal led them to the squad car, and Jake turned to her. “Have faith,” he said.

Savannah shook her head. It had taken her thirty-six years to realize that, at times, faith alone was not enough. Sometimes you had to do a little more than hope for the best. Sometimes you had to stack the cards.

Monday morning, Savannah wore a blood-red dress and the most colorful hat she owned—a green velvet bowler, smothered with red silk peonies and purple feather plumes a foot high. She told her mother what she wanted to do, and Maggie squinted at her. Finally, she broke into a slow, satisfied grin. “I knew you’d come around.”

They went into Cal Bentley’s office and shut the door behind them. Cal had been bent over paperwork, but now he leaned back in his chair. “Ladies?”

“We’d like to talk to the witness,” Maggie said. “Just for a few minutes.”

Cal stared at the papers in front of him. Half of his photographs had already been packed in boxes, his inbox was nearly cleared out. But more than that, the sheriff didn’t grow outraged or order them to leave; in every way that mattered, he’d already retired his badge.

He got up from his desk and walked to the window. He kept his back to them while he spoke. “You wouldn’t do anything stupid, would you? Because foolishness, at this point, could land Jake in prison without parole.”

Savannah walked up beside him and put her hand on his arm. “Ten minutes. Isn’t he worth that much of a risk?”

The anteroom outside the lineup chamber reeked of stale tobacco and nerves. Three torn black vinyl chairs had been pushed to the walls, the floor was orange and brown linoleum, an old paisley design Savannah was fairly certain her mother had once had in a bathroom. A brown-haired woman and her five-year-old daughter sat fidgeting in the chairs, the woman flipping through a three-year-old copy of
Good Housekeeping
. Savannah took a deep breath and sat down beside Bethany Appleton, while her mother stood watch at the door.

“They called me in for a lineup,” Savannah said. “Can you believe that?”

The woman stiffened. She was wearing a tight skirt and oversized black sweater. There was a single bead of sweat in the hollow beneath her ear. Her daughter was grabbing cigarette butts out of the ashtray and popped one in her mouth.

“Good God.” The woman expertly inserted a pinkie into her daughter’s mouth and swiped out the stub. “Don’t be gross.”

She turned back to Savannah, but didn’t smile.
“For that murder?” she said. “The one fifteen years ago?”

“Well, I don’t know if it was a murder. They just want me to look at someone I saw a lifetime ago. Like I can remember. Like anyone can be sure.”

The woman hesitated, then shook her head. “I’m Bethany Appleton. I thought I was the only witness.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but I’m glad you’re here too. I don’t want it all on my conscience. I don’t want a man’s fate riding on my recollection, which believe me, can change according to mood and time of day and what I had for breakfast.”

“I remember,” Bethany said. “Some things are, like, etched in your brain.”

The girl reached out to touch one of the feathers in Savannah’s hat, but her mother grabbed her hand.

“Tara, for God’s sake.”

“That’s all right.” Savannah took off her hat. “She can have it.”

Savannah smiled at the girl, while Bethany beat the arm of the chair with her purple fingernails. “This is fucked. I mean, sorry, no offense, but I thought I was, like, this star witness. The
Enquirer
even called me. Did they talk to you? Have you been getting crank phone calls?”

Savannah reached into her purse and took out her cards. She got down on the scuffed vinyl floor. When the girl came over to look, she turned the cards over briefly, but didn’t let her touch them.

“Tarots,” she said. “I’m a fortune-teller.”

Bethany sat forward. “So did he talk to you? That guy at the
Enquirer?
Because I don’t know what fortune-tellers make, but I’m a single mom on welfare. I’ve got to get a job by November, and you tell me who’s gonna hire a thirty-one-year-old with no experience and a kid who gets sick every other day. If someone
wants to pay me five grand for the rights to my story, well then, I’m gonna take it. I’m not gonna feel guilty about it. Especially when all I have to do is tell the truth.”

Savannah turned the cards back over and didn’t shuffle. She could hear movement in the room next door, possibly the sound of a row of black-haired men being aligned. She looked at her mother, then tucked the cards into her lap when she began to shake.

“They didn’t offer me anything,” Savannah said, and Bethany unclenched her fists. Her daughter was pulling the feathers out of the hat one by one. “I wouldn’t have taken it anyway,” she went on. “It’s been so long. I mean, fifteen years. Even if something did happen all those years ago, would you want to be held responsible for what you did in your teens, when you were just a stupid kid? A man can change a lot.”

“Not that much,” Bethany said. “Believe me. I know men.”

Savannah lifted the cards. “You want a reading? Want to know how this all comes out?”

Bethany touched the cards, then quickly drew back. “A friend of mine went to a psychic and the woman told her she’d be a young widow. Two weeks later, bam, her husband was dead from a drug overdose.”

“That was no psychic. That was plain old awful coincidence.”

Bethany shook her head. “No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”

Savannah began laying out the cards. Bethany picked up her magazine, turned a few pages, then set it back down.