Not One of Us(22)

This latest arrest had occurred only four months ago in Mobile. If I left now, I’d have plenty of time to make the trip before Zach returned home from his day program. Again, my body seemed to move of its own accord, just as it had when I’d driven on autopilot to the nursing home. Now I found myself on Highway 10 East, my GPS set and ticking down the ETA to the address I’d googled of this unknown woman.

What the hell did I expect to gain? All I had was a suspicion that my murdered cousin’s death was linked to Deacon’s disappearance—which had sprung forth from Raymond Strickland’s words, hardly a reliable source. Yet on I drove. The day was pewter, and clouds swirled mercilessly, always at the whim of the gulf’s capricious winds. Light rain drizzled, and the roads were slick, a black track leading out of the primitive bayou and into a large commercialized city.

My GPS efficiently guided me off the highway and onto a county road that led to a residential area. I wasn’t familiar with the area and braced myself to drive into a housing project peopled with loitering drug dealers. I promised myself that if it looked too dangerous, I’d get the hell out of Dodge and instead call Grace Fairhope. I tried to formulate my approach if by some miracle she was still at the listed address, but my brain refused to function past the moment-to-moment tension of moving forward.

I’d have to wing it when I arrived.

Surprisingly, I was only a couple of miles from my final destination, and the neighborhood wasn’t half-bad—a lower-middle-class area that was, frankly, better than what I expected. The homes were small and close together. I felt as though I’d traveled back in time to the 1950s, before the vogue of today’s McMansions or the long, sprawling ranch houses popular in the 1960s. Each house was different—no cookie-cutter construction here—and the streets were laid out in no-nonsense square grids. Stately magnolias and live oaks shaded the properties, some of them so large the roots had broken up driveways and sidewalks, and their branches towered over the rooflines. If a strong hurricane gale uprooted them and they toppled, these tiny homes would be crushed.

My palms sweated against the steering wheel as I pulled up to 945 Cypress Lane. After parking the car against the curb, I dried my hands on my jeans and studied the house. It was all redbrick and white trim with overgrown azaleas along the front and sides. Light glowed from inside, and a tan, slightly rusted Toyota Camry was parked in the driveway.

Someone was home. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or nervous. Probably a combination of both. Best not to think too hard. I grabbed my purse and exited my car, heart thumping as my sneakers squeaked with each step along the cracked cement of the Fairhope driveway. Something about the cheeriness of the bright bottle collection shimmering by the window gave me comfort. Anyone who could appreciate their delicate beauty must have goodness inside them.

Or so I reasoned.

Before I knocked on the door, the drone of a TV set, familiar and reassuring, further quieted my qualms. The door squeaked open a few inches, and a woman regarded me, eyes narrowed. It could be her. She certainly seemed old enough, judging from the lines etching her eyes and lips and the gray roots by her temples.

“Grace Fairhope?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she admitted in a husky smoker’s voice colored with fuchsia and navy coils. Her eyes raked me up and down. “You from the court or something?”

My casual attire should have tipped her off that this was not the case, but she opened the door wider and beckoned me inside.

“I was getting ready for my AA meeting,” she informed me as I followed her into the den. She sat down gingerly on the couch and pointed to a high-back chair opposite. Her pale arms were streaked with scars slicing through the translucent skin. The thin white track lines looked as though they were healing. Nothing was raw, red, and fresh.

Grace caught my stare and flushed. “I been clean four months, two weeks, and six days,” she said, facing me down with defiant pride.

I smiled in what I hoped was an encouraging manner. “That’s great. Congratulations.”

She wore faded jeans and an old Led Zeppelin T-shirt. The skin on her face, neck, and arms was no longer scabbed, albeit her pallor was tinged with a gray sheen, as though she’d been dragged through fire and emerged with a faint trace of ash. A reborn woman.

From beyond the side door, a teakettle whistled shrilly.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, disappearing into the kitchen. I took the opportunity to study the surroundings. A TV was in the corner of the room playing Jeopardy. The carpet was old gray shag, but clean. Dark paneled wood lined the walls. My attention was captured by a bank of framed photographs atop the stone fireplace mantel. I walked over and scanned them, but there were no baby pictures or any others resembling photos I’d seen of Jackson. Mostly, they were photos of an elderly couple.

“Those were my parents.”

I whirled around, face burning at being caught snooping.

“They both died last year, within three months of each other. They say that happens, you know. When two people have been married a long time, they can’t live without the other. My parents were like that. Dad died of lung cancer, and Mom died in her sleep weeks later. Heart attack, the doctors said. I say she grieved herself to death.”

“I’m so sorry.”

A sad smile tugged the side of her mouth, transforming her look. I caught the shadow of the handsome girl she might have been long ago, before the drugs. Her son had inherited her high cheekbones and a similar disarming smile.