The Steep and Thorny Way(8)

“I’m sorry.” She nestled her shoulder against mine. “I knew it would upset you, but Laurence told me Joe cut up his legs pretty badly when he hopped a fence to steal eggs. I made him a poultice and brewed him some tea. But I wasn’t nice to him at all—I swear.”

I leaned away so that her shoulder no longer touched mine.

She lowered her head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you about him, but there was something in his eyes that made me feel his message was important. I thought he might want to make peace with you.”

I pressed a hand over my forehead and drew a long breath through my nose. “He didn’t make peace with me at all, Fleur.”

“Then what did he say?”

“He told me Uncle Clyde killed my father.”

The record stopped. Fleur jumped up, the scent of lilacs breezing away with her, and set the phonograph needle back to the beginning of the song. The fanfare of trumpets recommenced, and Henry Burr again warbled “Faded Love Letters.” Fleur crouched back down beside me, hanging her head next to mine over a new article, one that explored the shape of ten film stars’ noses in relationship to their personalities. Good Lord, I thought, I sure hope my nose doesn’t reveal what’s going on inside me.

“He didn’t really say that, did he?” asked Fleur.

“He claimed that Daddy’s arm and leg hurt badly after he crashed into him with that damned Model T but that Daddy didn’t seem like a man about to die. After Uncle Clyde went in to see my father, however . . .” I cleared my throat, experiencing an ache that felt like the stab of a fork into my tonsils. “That’s . . . that’s when Daddy suddenly died, ‘as if someone had just shot a poisonous dose of morphine through his veins,’ Joe told me.”

“And you believe Joe?”

I clenched my teeth and stared at the “backward dip” of Mary Pickford’s right nostril, which supposedly demonstrated her “great affection and sympathy.”

Fleur nudged me with her arm. “Do you believe him?”

“No. Of course not. I think I would know if I were living under the same roof as my father’s murderer. If Clyde Koning hates Negroes, I’d be long gone, too, wouldn’t I?”

“Hanalee!” Fleur grabbed my hand. “Dr. Koning does not hate Negroes. Did Joe try to convince you he did?”

“He hinted that Uncle Clyde’s involved with the Klan.”

At that, Fleur sputtered a laugh. “This isn’t the old South. Do you know what the Oregon KKK is like?”

“I know, I know—they’re pushing to fix roads and improve public education.”

“And they have ridiculous names for their ranks. ‘Imperial Wizard,’ ‘Exalted Cyclops,’ ‘Great Titan.’”

I shuddered, not liking such names. “How do you know?”

“Mama once received an invitation to join the Women of the Ku Klux Klan in Bentley, and they included all sorts of pamphlets.” Fleur flipped the magazine to an advertisement for Mulsified Cocoanut Oil Shampoo. “But she didn’t join them. She heard that the organization’s mainly a big business venture out to collect money from people still scared of immigrants from the war years.”

I held my forehead in my hand and sighed from deep within my lungs.

“Hanalee . . .” Fleur squeezed my right shoulder. “You’re safe here in Elston, despite a few prejudiced folks out there who might imply otherwise. And you’re safe in your house with Dr. Koning. You’ve told me yourself that he saved your mother when she was sick with grief and drugging herself with nerve pills. How could a kind man like that commit murder?”

“He did marry her awfully quickly—just thirteen short months after we put my poor father in the ground.”

“Hanalee, don’t—”

“Uncle Clyde was always friendly with her”—I picked at one of the magazine’s curled-up corners—“even before Daddy died. They’ve known each other as long as your mama has known her, since childhood.”

“Your mother’s a likable person.”

“She is. She’d be worth killing for, wouldn’t she?”

“Stop it, Hanalee.”

“Especially if your target was a man with no rights and no respect—only a pretty white wife who wasn’t even considered his legal spouse within this state. Oh, Jesus, Fleur”—I gave a start, for the music came to an abrupt halt again—“I hate that I’m tempted to believe that jailbird. I hate that he planted these sickening seeds inside my brain.”

“Shh.” She cupped her warm fingers over my hand. “Stop thinking about him tonight. Stay here with me, have a calming cup of tea, and push all your worries off to another time. I’ll take care of you, Hana-Honey.” She kissed my cheek with lips butterfly soft. “Like always.”


WE LISTENED TO FIVE MORE PHONOGRAPH RECORDS and skimmed at least ten additional Motion Picture articles. After those diversions failed to assuage me, Fleur brewed a pot of tea in the kitchen, and then we trooped upstairs to her bedroom with our beverages and my bag.

I fetched my drawing pad from the valise, sank onto Fleur’s bed, and rested my back against the rosebud-papered walls of her bedroom with a charcoal pencil in hand. A teacup steamed by my side, smelling of chamomile.