Wabanaki Blues (23 page)

Beetle's licorice eyes plead with me to explain my cruelty.

Cricket grabs her golden hair and pulls it, exactly like Beetle. “Your name is Del? As in Delaney?” She pulls two hundred dollar bills out of a nearby drawer. “If this is some kind of paternity blackmail scheme against Worthy, I'll pay. He never needs to know about you. But if he's your father, you deserve compensation.”

I have to hand it to Cricket for making the name connection between Del and Delaney so quickly. I couldn't do it. But the fact that she thinks he is Worthy's kid shows her paranoia about the nature of Mia's relationship with her husband.

Del raises his palms, “Keep your money, Mrs. Dill. I'm not claiming to be your husband's son. I only want to know why your name was written on the wall of the room where my
mother died.”

Cricket steps outside, gasping for air, mouthing the words, “My name? Mia is your mother?”

Beetle supports his mother's arm. “Forget it, Mom. Even if what he says is true, it means nothing except that Mia was jealous of you because she had a thing for Dad.”

“Beetle, that's a lie,” I say. “You heard your dad say Mia rejected him!”

Cricket tugs harder at her hair, turning her scalp pink. “No! Mia loved Worthy. I know she did.”

“No, Mrs. Dill. Mia never cared for Worthy,” I interject.

She groans and yanks her hair with all her might. “This can't be true! No one would reject my Worthy! I had to fight for him. It was the only way! I needed to keep Mia away from him.” Her scalp and cheeks flush crimson.

“So you admit to telling my dad Mia was cheating on him with Worthy, so he wouldn't look for her.”

Both of Beetle's arms now support his mom to keep her from collapsing. “Don't answer that, Mom. I don't want to hear another word.”

Cricket's face reddens to the point where I'm afraid she'll collapse. She spits words and water, as though she might drown if she doesn't expel them both rapidly. “I never meant to hurt a soul!” She pulls away from Beetle to grab the collar of Del's shirt and shake him. “Locking Mia up was a prank.”

“How did you do it?” I ask.

“I stole the principal's key from her desk. I couldn't believe it when I heard nobody found Mia all summer, that she died in that closet. It was an accident. The janitor always came in on Mondays. I was sure he'd find her. How was I to know the school board would lay him off?” She slips down onto her knees on the neatly cropped grass in her front yard. “I'm no murderer. I can't even set a mousetrap, or fly paper. I could not kill anything on purpose.”

Invisible fingertips pat my arm, supportively, but I see no one.

Beetle punches the green glass of the front door until it cracks. “That's enough, Mom. Shut up!”

Cricket ignores her son and focuses on Del and me. “I thought if I locked Mia up, I could get my chance with Worthy. You see? That's all. I was sure somebody would find her.”

Beetle slaps a hand over her mouth and shouts, “I'm calling a lawyer.”

Cricket's eyes deepen like an ocean trench. She pushes him away. “This young man has grown up motherless because of me! I need to make it right!”

Beetle shakes her. “So what happens now, Mom? He gets to take my mother away from me? What's the point?”

Beetle's bangs are disheveled and sweaty and his licorice eyes lay vacant. His smirk is nowhere to be found. “You can't bring your mother back. What happened to her was an accident. You heard what my mom said. Nobody meant to kill anybody. She locked up a girl, to keep her from going out with some guy she liked. It was a stupid high school prank gone wrong. We all do stupid stuff.”

Del lunges for Beetle's throat. “Your mom's stupid prank ruined my dad's life!”

I insert myself between them. “Del's right, Beetle. This is serious.” I lower my voice because several neighbors have stepped out onto their lawns with their cell phones raised. I hope at least one of them has already called the police.

Worthy appears and rushes to his wife, still kneeling on the grass. “Cricket, what's all this commotion? Dear God, sweetheart, what has happened to you?”

“It's nothing,” she says, patting her cheeks as he lifts her to her feet. “I need to freshen up a little, is all. Everything will be fine.”

Worthy speaks in his most fatherly voice. “It's obvious Mrs. Dill is unwell. I'm taking her to the doctor.” He glances at Del's heaving chest. “Young man, did you provoke this incident?”

Del stands as tall as he is able. “Yes, sir, I did. I am Mia Delaney's son. My name is Delaney Pyne. Your wife killed my mother.”

Worthy shoots me a hangman's glare. “Dear God, what kind of game are you playing, Mona? You told me the culprit was Will Pyne.” He waves his finger between Del and me. “After what I saw you two doing at the Farewell Dance, why should I trust either of you?””

Beetle thunders forward. “After you saw them doing
what
at the dance, Dad?”

“Your girlfriend was kissing this boy.”

“What! Mona, is this true?” Beetle grabs me.

“Yes, I admit it. But do you really want us to get into what either of us did that night?”

Beetle silently pulls his bangs, confirming my worst suspicions about him and Rasima.

Worthy shakes his cell phone at Del and me. “I'm phoning the police. This is some sort of blackmail game, cooked up by you two young lovers. I've had enough. Cricket had nothing to do with Mia's death. How could little Cricket have forced Mia Delaney into the school basement? She has always been delicate.”

Mrs. Dill bobs her head up. “I convinced her that her father was on his way to school because he found out about her secret baby. I guessed she'd been pregnant, junior year, because I'd seen her vomiting in the bathroom. My theory was a long shot. But the panicked reaction I saw in her eyes confirmed my suspicions. I told her she'd be safe in the janitor's closet and she believed me. Once she was inside, I locked her in. I was certain the janitor would find her on Monday. By then Worthy and I would be away together on Lake Winnipesaukee.” She turns to Del, “Please phone the police. I need to tell them I am responsible for the death of your mother. It's the least I can do.”

Del lurches at her violently. Worthy and I both grab him. Worthy Dill agrees to phone the police. I listen to him disclose everything. His honest action makes me feel worse about the fact that he caught Del and me making out at the dance. Del appears frozen in shock. I bring him around the side of the house, away from the Dills. I hold him in my arms while we wait for this thing to be over. Instead of fire ants, I absorb his burning rage, something more intimate than any lovemaking. I feel his devotion to his mother, his fury at Cricket, and his shock over discovering the ugly truth. He has no one else to console him but me. His mother is long gone. His surrogate parents—Bilki and Grumps—they're gone, too. His loser dad is five hours away. His stoner best friend is a pin brain. His fiancé is who-knows-where. I'm all he's got. Del wants to see this thing through to closure. He fears the Dills will bolt. But none of them budge.

The police show up in two minutes. Cricket waives her right to a lawyer and delivers a full confession on the spot. Neither Worthy nor Beetle objects. Del and I offer the police a quick summary of how we pieced things together. The last thing I hear Worthy do is call his office to ask his administrative assistant to reserve Beetle a one-way ticket to Stadt.

Del phones Will to tell him what's happened. I phone Mom and she offers to pass the information on to Celine. There is some gasping and sobbing, along with a stream of thank yous.

“What now?” Del asks, beaming at me like I'm his shining star.

I won't take advantage of his vulnerability. I kiss him warmly on the cheek, with all the love and friendship in my heart. He pulls me to him, kissing my mouth so fully I'm not sure I can ever sing another blues song. This is the kind of powerful kiss that could ruin me for anyone else. But I perform a reality check. I remind myself that this isn't a romantic kiss; it's a kiss born of an impossible goal achieved through teamwork, like a kiss after an underdog team wins a state playoff game or a group of doctors and nurses saves a hopeless life on the operating table. Together, Del and I have solved an infamous Hartford murder case that involved his Mom. What he's feeling is the rush of having avenged her and maybe saved his dad's life. I can't take advantage of that.

I pull away from him, overwhelmed, wanting more but afraid to make his wedding more painful for both of us than it already is. Still, there is much to celebrate. Mia Delaney's killer is in custody. The Hartford Police let Mealy perform the arrest honors, as senior officer. After he handcuffs Cricket, he tells me he's giving his two weeks' notice. I imagine Mom dumping her depression medication and Will tossing his whiskey bottles over the news. I see Celine blowing out Mia's memorial candle because her sister finally knows justice. As for me, there remains one more thing I need to do with Del Pyne, before he heads north and walks his bride down the aisle, into forever.

Nineteen

A Tale of Yellow Roses

The gold metallic words “Madame Celine, Astrologer” gleam in the fall sun. Del examines the zodiac mobile spinning in the window and points warily at the scorpion, the lion, and the crab, questioning the sociability of a person who displays such creatures. He scowls, like Bilki might, at the uneven brushstrokes of green, gold, and black paint on the Jamaican flag on her door. So Del is an art critic. It's clear he was more of a grandchild to my painter grandmother than I was.

“Your aunt Celine lives here,” I explain.

The door flies open, bells tinkling. Out bursts Celine, like a tossed bridal bouquet in a dress covered with fuchsia hibiscus flowers. “Welcome, Nephew! I knew you would stop by. After all you've been through, you need to be with family.” She kisses Del's head. “Seeing you is a dream come true.”

“How do you know who I am?”

“I could say the stars told me but…” She points to a news alert running at the bottom of the television that says, “Hartford Socialite Jailed for Delaney Murder.” The screen is showing high school yearbook photos of Del and me. “Besides, Lila phoned to tell me the good news.”

She shakes her head. “What on earth was that Cricket woman thinking?”

“Celine, Cricket thought Mia loved Worthy Dill.”

She throws her hands into the air. “She must have been blind. Mia never gave that Worthless Dill boy the time of day.” She shakes a finger at Del. “That's what she called him: Worthless Dill.”

Del chuckles nervously. “My dad called him that, too.”

I scan the room and find Mia's remembrance candle, still lit.

Celine catches me looking and retrieves it, placing it before Del. “This candle is for you to extinguish, Delaney Pyne. I have kept it for your mother since she died, waiting for justice. I would like you to be the one to blow out this flame, now that her killer sits behind bars.”

He hesitates—perhaps preparing to say some silent prayer.

“Mona Lisa,” he says. “You did most of the work finding Mom's killer. You need to do this with me.”

I nod. We both blow on the flame, hard. It flickers for an instant before snuffing out and sending a phantomlike trail of smoke all the way across the room.

I feel a jolt when I notice who is missing. “Where is
Damerae?”

Celine points to the sky. “When the stars come out, you can see him shine.” She squeezes Del's hand, “like your beautiful mother, Mia.” Celine plucks Angel's strings and eyes the painted wings on Del's guitar, dubiously. What's this, Nephew?”

“This is my guitar. I named her Angel, after my mother.”

“I see.” Celine shakes off something, before patting Rosalita. “Mona also has her guitar with her. This is good. The three of us will sing today for Mia and Shankdaddy. He was your grandfather, and a great musician. Mona's grandfather, Reggie, was not a bad musician, either. They jammed together, back in the day. But enough about yesterday. Today is about moving forward. We three will sing together beside the Delaney graves. Their burial ground is a short way from here.” Celine opens a closet by the front door and grabs some things that she stuffs into her giant raffia floral handbag. “Follow me.”

Her fast-stepping spiked heels make it hard to argue with her. But I'm not sure how I feel about this cemetery visit. Mia and Shankdaddy aren't exactly dead to me. I've never visited Bilki's grave because she's not dead to me, either. Still, I know this visit is important to Del.

We pass an abandoned brick garment factory, a burned-out tire warehouse that still reeks of melted rubber, and a condemned elementary school that looks suspiciously like Colt High. Only our school will never deteriorate like this one because it's scheduled for demolition soon. It will simply disappear in a rumbling puff of smoke, later this fall, which is probably best, considering its history.

This lengthy walk leaves us dripping with sweat. It's been a hot September. Celine distracts us from the heat by telling family stories, not skipping the parts most people edit out, saying things like, “Do you know my fadda, Shankdaddy, mixed bourbon with his cereal on Sunday mornings before church?” and “My sister, Mia, used to make up the funniest rhymes that no lady could repeat.” She slaps her knee. “Oh how Principal Millicent Dibble hated her rebellious behavior. She thought that Cricket girl was a saint. I wonder what she thinks of her perfect little Cricket now?”

Celine shares some wholesome family stuff, too. “Whenever Shankdaddy sold a new CD, he played Santa Claus to the neighborhood kids, filling new athletic socks with gift certificates for video games and hanging them on their doorknobs.”

At the end of each story, Celine tosses back her head full of sapphire braids and wails with a laugh as big and bold as the crystal blue Jamaican sky.

Her well-told stories keep us from noticing exactly when the street crowds vanish and the music dies away. We've arrived at a place so far down Manburn Street that nothing is familiar. In fact, I wonder if we're even on the same street. The pavement is eroded down to potholes and pebbles, exploding with hairy weeds. We keep going until there is no more pavement. We cross an open field of tall yellow grass, filled with glistening granite headstones. A cool breeze blows welcome relief. The wind whistles through the headstones like the open prairie, or some western ghost town. This place doesn't feel like Hartford. I'm disoriented but fortunately not dizzy. I see no blue fingernails, no bluesy straw hats. I wonder if my dead friends are gone, now that Cricket is in jail. If they are, I may miss them.

Celine strolls past row after row of granite headstones labeled with names like Trevor, Desmond, and Paulette. These names hail from Jamaica, that warm Caribbean island bursting with emerald grottos, cerulean mountains, and ruby red ackee fruit. It's odd to think of these vibrant islanders taking their eternal rest in a dull New England straw field, strewn with crooked gray stones jutting from the land like bad British teeth. Celine's hibiscus flower dress swishes by their headstones, and they lean her way. She halts with breathless recognition beside two small markers set close together, taking up only one plot.

“I got stones in my passway, and my road seem dark as night,” quotes Celine.

I recognize those Robert Johnson lyrics and instinctively reach for Rosalita.

Del reads the names on the headstones. “Mia Mendoza Delaney and Dauntay ‘Shankdaddy' Delaney.” A full bourbon bottle rests beside Shankdaddy's grave.

Del asks, “Dauntay? That's a Jamaican name, right?”

“Yes.” Celine sits by the grave and spreads her skirt around her like a tropical flowerbed. She slips into island speak. “Your grandfadda's people were Irish and Jamaican. He met my mudda when they were both schoolchildren in Kingston. They weren't much more than children when I was born there. They moved here a few years later. Shankdaddy was a wandering man. He left my mudda for some woman who played with his band. Then he replaced her with Anna Mendoza, a fan he met while touring with the Hoodoo Chickens in Mexico. Anna was Mia's mother. She disappeared before Mia's first birthday. Nobody knows where she went or why. That's another mystery for you two detectives to solve, one day. My own mudda stayed in Hartford until I turned eighteen. Then she returned to Jamaica. Thanks to her, I was better off than Mia, growing up. She had only her fadda, and he couldn't get her to behave, any more than he could get himself to behave. Shankdaddy and Mia lived up to their Irish namesake, ‘Delaney,' which means ‘disobedient child. There now, you know your family story.'”

Del touches his mother's name, engraved in the stone above the short years of her life:

Mia Mendoza Delaney 1976–1994

My mind floods with the power of Mia's name: how Grumps and Del tried not to mention it to me in order to protect Will Pyne from wrongful imprisonment, and how hearing it made Worthy and Cricket flee their dining room, and eventually, fall apart completely.

Celine pats Angel's gray wings and takes the guitar. “I don't mean to offend, Nephew, but I must tell you: your mudda was no angel. She softly picks the opening notes of Bob Marley's “Redemption Song.” “I knew she had a secret baby, but she never told me where you were. She was afraid my fadda would pry the information out of me if he ever heard about it. Lord knows what he would have done to Will. After Mia died, I tried to find you and failed. I know now that Lila couldn't tell me where you were because your fadda, Will, asked her to keep your location secret, for his sake. He was sure he'd go to prison, if anyone discovered his whereabouts. When I heard on the news that you were in New Hampshire, the stars told me you would find me. The star beings know everything that happens on our planet. Earth and sky are connected.”

Celine notices Del's heaving chest and stops playing the guitar. “It's over now, Nephew. Your mudda's killer is found.” She pats his heart. “We must let her go.”

She opens her enormous raffia purse and removes a familiar straw hat and an earring with the word “LOVE” carved across it. I can hardly breathe as she places these funerary items on the ground. Del's face softens. Mine tenses up. These things are the property of my otherworldly friends. The thought of anyone else touching them feels like an invasion of their personal property.

Celine stiffens and eyes me flatly, which tells me she is about to lecture me on something. “Mona Lisa, in the old Jamaican way, the belongings of the restless dead must be broken to free them from their torment. You must be the one to sever their connection to this earth because you are the one who serves as their connection; for you have seen their ghosts.”

Del squeezes my arm apologetically, “Mona, I'm sorry I didn't believe you about seeing Mom.”

“It's okay,” I say, trying to focus on my final task for Mia and ignore the fire ants crawling between Del and me.

Celine hands me a pair of heavy wire cutters from her bottomless purse. “Here you go.”

They remind me of the day I found out Grumps had died and cut up my bed sheets, the day Mom cut her hair. The wind blows hard, tousling my hair. That's enough of a sign from my dead friends for me to continue. I waste no time, cutting Shankdaddy's straw hat in two and snapping Mia's earring in the middle of the word, “LOVE.” Maybe this action will allow Will to move on.

I wince, recalling the pain of cutting my bangs after Grumps died. Only, this time, I don't feel any pain.

Celine raises her arms, signaling we should stand.

“Now we sing, “ she says. “Mona, you play your Rosalita. Nephew, you play your Angel. I'm sure you play better than Mona's band partner, Beetle-boy. He misses every B chord.”

Celine pokes Del with her well-manicured finger and they both laugh. I can't laugh. I'm realizing for the first time that I've lost my band and Beetle. Soon Del will be gone, too. Solving Mia's case has taken a lot from me.

Celine turns to Del dreamily, “You know, your mudda could really sing the blues.” She fluffs her dress. “I ain't such a bad singer, myself. On occasion, I sang with the Hoodoo Chickens. Today, we three will sing Mona's song, ‘Skinny Bones.'” She winks at me with a wide rum-ball eye. “I know Shankdaddy likes that one. I will begin.”

I open with an E7 chord—arpeggiated—and Celine's harrowing set of pipes explodes onto the first line.

I walked into her room, wasn't nobody there…

Del and I pat our guitars signaling we'll both stick to instrumental accompaniment after hearing Celine's otherworldly voice. Her dynamite rendition of “Skinny Bones” confirms Shankdaddy's heavy hand in writing it. This is the tale of a stolen daughter, a murdered baby sister, a lost mother, and a woman frozen in time as a teenager.
Just a child all her days
. Celine's voice whistles through the yellow grass and between the headstones, until the ground itself sings, calling down to Mia's long gone skinny bones.

We head back to Celine's place, sweaty, worn out and taking it all in. Del bends to tighten the laces on one of his heavy black boots. He's been limping badly, so badly I'm wondering if he'll make it the last few blocks.

Celine declares, “I have special presents for you when we return!”

This news gives us both a much-needed energy boost. When we reach the golden stairs of her stoop, he's wincing but makes it to the top. Celine rifles through her closet and emerges wearing a gratified expression. She's carrying a tombstone gray jacket and a pale green jazz hat.

“Here you go!” She holds the jacket up to me and it falls full length on my frame. “My father wore this jacket on a dinner date with a zombie woman, and lived to tell the tale. You cavort with restless spirits, which is almost the same thing. So you need its protection.” She hands the hat to Del. “This is for you. It was Shankdaddy's good luck hat. It matches your eyes.”

My cell phone rings, startling us. It's Officer Mealy, asking me if I can come downtown to sign a statement. The spell of our enchanted afternoon is broken. We say our good-byes, knowing it's time for my blue-fingered friend and Del's blue-haired aunt to fade away. I must return to the real world, where my band partner's mom is headed for jail, and the stardust from Del Pyne's lips remains on mine, as he heads for the altar.