When Ghosts Come Home(73)

Her father drove into the Grove and slowed down, coming to a stop at the side of the street. He put the car in park. Colleen lifted her head from the passenger’s-side window. They both sat without moving.

“I’m sorry,” her father finally said.

She looked over at him. “For what?”

“For what I said. I shouldn’t say things like that. I’d love to hear any ideas you’ve got. That lead down in Horry County probably isn’t going to pan out.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said.

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind,” he said. “I had to fire a deputy yesterday because of this mess that Bradley Frye caused here in the Grove, and that’s put me a man down, and I’ve had to keep somebody out at the airport. There’s just a lot going on.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Well, there’s no need for you to say that to me,” he said.

“What about Mom’s?”

“Mom’s what?” he asked.

“Mom’s ideas about the case,” she said. “You want to hear more of those?”

He laughed, nodded his head.

He dropped the car into drive and they continued on. “I think I’ll hold off on hers if that’s okay.”

Winston turned into the driveway of a small, wooden-frame house. A burgundy sedan was parked on the road in front, and a white Datsun sat in the driveway with a pickup truck. A sheet of plywood had been nailed to the front of the house, apparently to cover a window that had been broken. By the time Colleen had taken off her seat belt, Rodney’s father had stepped out onto the small porch. To Colleen he looked the same as he’d looked when she was in high school, despite the spots where his hair was graying around his temples. The same thick glasses, the same rigid demeanor. He wore a blue button-down shirt and khaki pants, and he stood with his hands in his pockets, watching Colleen and Winston as if he’d been waiting for them, uncertain whether to welcome them or ask them to leave.

“Mr. Bellamy,” Colleen whispered to herself, obviously loud enough for her father to hear from where he sat behind the steering wheel.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice edged with resignation. He turned off the engine and opened his door. Colleen climbed out and followed her father down a short walkway to the porch.

“Morning, Ed,” her father said.

“Sheriff,” Bellamy said, nodding his head toward Winston, his voice portraying neither a warmth of welcome nor a coldness of indifference. Bellamy looked past Winston to where Colleen stood behind him. His face softened slightly, the way it would when a student would accidentally do or say something funny in class. “Colleen Barnes,” he said.

She smiled and gave him a small wave. She suddenly felt very shy. “Hello, Mr. Bellamy,” she said. “I am so sorry.”

“Come on now, you’re grown,” he said. “Call me Ed.” Colleen could never imagine calling him by his first name. “You’re not in school anymore,” he said, his face cracking into a slight, nearly imperceptible smile. “Y’all come on. Janelle’s expecting you.”

Colleen followed her father and Mr. Bellamy through the front door and into the living room of a home that was comfortably furnished. Immediately, Colleen got the sense of this being Rodney and his wife’s first home, and although the house that she and Scott had purchased together in Dallas was very different, this home still carried with it the same luster of hope and possibility that she and Scott had invested in theirs. Colleen’s chest seized with awful and terrifying grief, for both the loss she felt in her own life and the loss she knew Rodney’s widow must be feeling, and she found herself desperate to see Scott, to touch him, to hear his voice.

But then Rodney’s widow appeared, a beautiful young woman in a well-fitted purple dress with a made-up face and well-set hair, smiling, wiping her hands dry on a towel that she tossed on the counter, reaching for Colleen’s hand and holding it and shaking it firmly, the woman’s clothes or body or hair smelling faintly of something clean and soft, like vanilla or powder. Janelle introduced herself, and when she let go of Colleen’s hand, a smile still on her face, Colleen placed the scent of what she had just smelled: baby. Janelle Bellamy smelled like her baby. She fought the urge to raise the hand that Janelle had just shaken and smell it to see if it too now smelled like a baby, but she knew there was no way to do that without looking strange and rude. But she was desperate for another whiff of that scent, which ran through her body like a drug she unknowingly had been craving and now knew she couldn’t live without.

Colleen had known that Rodney and his wife had a baby—Winston had told her that just a few days ago—so of course she knew a baby would be in the house somewhere. But how had she forgotten? Her eyes quickly scanned the room for the child or any signs of it: a pacifier, toys, a blanket or a bottle; but there was nothing there.

Janelle looked from Colleen to Winston. “Can I get y’all something?” she asked. “Coffee or a glass of tea?”

“No, no,” Winston said. “We don’t want to take too much of your time.” He paused and looked over at Colleen where she stood to his right. “I have a few questions I have to ask, just formalities really, and Colleen came along . . .” His voice trailed off, and it was clear that he was thinking about how best to frame her visit. “She was friends with Rodney.”