Help for the Haunted(55)

Now Penny, the rag doll from Columbus, Ohio, was coming to stay.





[page]Chapter 13

You and You and You



Dear Rose,

I’m probably the last person or spirit on God’s green earth you want to hear from right now. Yet here I am writing you anyway. I have tried the phone but no one answers at your house these days. The reason I’m writing is because I feel such terrible guilt for the terrible trouble that has befallen your family. Please give me a chance to explain my part in it all. I know how headstrong you can be when you want to be, but please. If it sounds like I’m begging, it’s because I am. My number is right at the top of this newspaper letterhead. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call it.

Yours,

Sam Heekin

The pay phone outside the first of those industrial buildings reeked of beer. I picked up the sticky receiver anyway, dropped in a coin from the floor of Rose’s truck. Not far away, two men leaned against a Pinto with a smattering of Bush-Quayle bumper stickers, watching. Otherwise the place was deserted.

On the other end of the line, a receptionist answered, and I asked to be connected to Sam Heekin. His line rang and rang until she came on to ask if I wanted to leave a message. I gave her my name and the number on the phone, letting her know I’d wait for the next twenty minutes in case he returned. That plan sounded fine until I hung up and realized I had nothing to do but stand by the phone as those men stared.

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed,” the one with a belly popping out of his unzipped jacket told me, “but your clothes are kind of big.”

“They’re not mine,” I said, staring down at Dereck’s jacket and boots.

“Whose are they? The Jolly Green Giant’s?”

“Easy, Trigger,” the other guy told him. He had the same large belly, though he was zipped up tight in his coat. To me, he said, “You waiting for a ride or something?”

Or something, I thought. “No. But someone is going to call me at this number.” I willed the phone to ring to prove it, but the air around us remained silent.

“We’re splitting in a minute,” the zipped-up one said. “It’s going to be just you here. You sure you don’t want a ride someplace? We could drop you.”

I shook my head. Right on cue, Louise’s reminder about speaking my answers stirred, though I no longer cared. Even though I’d read Heekin’s letter dozens of times, I read it again, thinking of my mother’s complaints about his convoluted sentences, of the way she and my father came to dislike him once his book was published. Why, I wondered, had he written to my sister? And did she bother to respond?

When I looked up, the men were climbing into their Pinto. The one who made the comment about my clothes got behind the wheel, giving me a quick salute before they sped off. I waited, feeling time slip away, bringing me closer to the moment I’d have to return to the station and give Rummel and Louise an answer.

After what seemed like an eternity, Heekin still had not called. It would be dark soon, so all I could do was begin trudging out to the road toward home. Cars and trucks zoomed past as I walked along the sparse grass bordering the road for a long while before rounding a corner and looking up to see it.

It’s where Rose asked us to meet her. Someone was going to drop her here. . . .

In an effort to restore some life to the place, mums had been planted in the church’s window boxes. Earlier when we drove by, there had been a dozen or so cars in the lot. Now, though, only a maroon Buick remained. Keep walking, I told myself. But the thought of Rummel telling me to figure out exactly what I’d seen lured me off the road. When I arrived at the steps, I felt another urge to turn away, but my hand reached for the handle. Same as that night, the door opened right up. I took a breath and stepped inside. The place felt drafty, but nowhere near the extreme cold it had been the previous winter. The last of the day’s sun lit the space, and I saw that the statues by the altar had been removed and the white walls were covered with a new coat of paint, so fresh I could smell it.

“Hello,” I called out, just the same as I had before. Hello?

No answer. I walked slowly toward the altar, the clomp of Dereck’s boots echoing around me. When I reached the front, I stood in the exact spot where my mother and father had taken their last breaths. If I waited, I thought perhaps a more clear memory might surface from that night, but none came.

Walking in those boots had left my feet tired, so I slipped into the first pew. Head down, hands clasped, eyes closed, I said a prayer the way I was taught. When I was done, that tune my mother used to hum came to me, and I began softly humming it too.

That’s when the church door opened. The sound caught me off guard, and some instinct led me to sink in the pew. I heard heavy shoes shuffle against the wooden floor, and I craned my neck around, peeking over the back of the bench.

Just like the first time he visited our house with that ice cream cake, Father Coffey wore stiff jeans and a black turtleneck. His posture was slouched. His splotchy skin was flaking. Since he was bound to notice me, I stood and said, “Hello.”

Coffey gasped, nearly dropping the bag in his hand.

“Sorry,” I said, my voice echoing. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well, you did,” he snapped back. But after a second, he looked at me and his tone softened. “Sylvie?”