longtime dead and the recently dead, those buried neatly in graves and those tossed aside like debris. I sent that extra sense I had down into the ground. Connected. Learned.
“Woman in her sixties, aneurysm,” I said. I opened my eyes and stepped to the next grave. This was an older one, much older. “Hiram Joyce,” I said. I stood there, trying to get a firm fix on the few remaining bones in the ground under my feet. “Blood poisoning,” I said finally. I walked to the next one, rested for a moment until the buzzing impelled me: that was the call of the bones, the remains. They wanted me to know about them, what had killed them, what their final moments had been like. I looked at the headstone. No point in reinventing the wheel.
This was not a Joyce, though the burial was within the family plot. The date was eight years and a few months before. The carved name was
“Oh,” I said, softly. The wind whooshed past, lifting my short dark hair and teasing it. “Oh, poor thing.”
“What?” asked Lizzie, her harsh voice sounding simply confused. “That’s my grandfather’s caregiver. She had a burst appendix or something.”
“She had a hemorrhage, bled out after childbirth,” I said. I put two and two together and glanced over at the two men. Drexell had actually taken a step closer. Chip Moseley was stunned; he was also furious, whether because the information was a shock to him, or because I’d said it out loud, I couldn’t say. But whatever they were feeling, it was too late for Mariah. I looked away and stepped over to the right grave, the one I’d been brought to read. It was the biggest headstone in the plot, a double one. Richard Joyce’s wife had predeceased him by ten years. Her name had been Cindilynn, and I discovered she’d died of breast cancer. I said so out loud, and I glimpsed Kate and Lizzie look at each other and nod. I stepped to the ground just adjacent, Rich Joyce’s side of the headstone. Rich had died eight years ago, not long after his caregiver. I cocked my head as I listened to Richard’s bones.
He’d seen something that startled him. I got that, but it took me a few seconds to understand that he’d stopped the Jeep and gotten out because he’d seen someone he knew.
I didn’t have a picture of that person in my head. It’s not like I’m watching a movie. It’s like being inside the person for a moment or two, thinking the person’s thoughts, feeling his emotions, in the last seconds of the person’s life. So I understood from Rich Joyce that he’d stopped because he’d seen someone. I didn’t go through the process of recognizing that person and reasoning that I should stop because he was standing there. As Rich Joyce, I turned off the Jeep, stepped out, and then the snake came flying through the air, the rattlesnake, giving me (Rich Joyce) such a shock that my (his) heart stopped working properly.
When I opened my eyes, the four people in the Joyce party were staring at me as if I’d developed stigmata. Sometimes it grabs people that way, even when they’ve asked me there to do exactly what I just did.
I creep people out or I fascinate them (not always in a healthy way)… or both. However, the fascination thing wasn’t going to be a problem today. The boyfriend was looking at me as if I were wearing a straitjacket, and the three Joyces were gaping. Everyone was silent.
“So now you know,” I said briskly.
“You could’ve made that up,” Lizzie said. “There was someone there? How’d that happen? No one has said they were there. Are you telling me someone threw a rattlesnake at Granddaddy? And that gave him a heart attack, and then that someone just left him? And you’re saying Mariah had a baby? I didn’t hire you to tell me lies!”
Okay, that pissed me off. I took a deep breath. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Tolliver had started over to me, the beginnings of alarm evident on his face. Behind them all, Chip Moseley had retreated to the Jeep and was standing with one hand braced on it, doubled over. I realized he was in pain, and I knew he wouldn’t thank me if I drew attention to him.
“You brought me here to do this,” I said. I spread my hands. “There is nothing you can verify, even if you dug your grandfather up. I warned you that might be the case. Of course, you can find out about Mariah Parish, if you really are concerned. There should be a birth record, or some paper trail.”
“That’s true,” Lizzie said. Her face was more thoughtful than repulsed now. “But aside from the issue of what happened to Mariah’s baby, if she really had one, it makes me sick that someone would do that to Granddaddy. If you’re telling us the truth.”
“Believe me; don’t believe me. That’s up to you. Did you know about his heart condition?”
“No, he wasn’t one for doctors. But he’d had a stroke already. And the last time he went in for a checkup, he came back looking worried.” She’d thought about this many times since her grandfather’s death, it was obvious.
“He had a cell phone in his Jeep, right?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “He did.”
“He was trying to reach it.” Some last moments are more informative than others.
I glanced quickly in Tolliver’s direction, and then away. The tension was leaving his shoulders. I thought we were going to be okay.
“You believe this stuff?” Chip asked the sisters incredulously. He’d recovered from whatever had ailed him, and he was standing at Lizzie’s side. He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before, when I knew from our research that he’d been her escort for the past six years.
Lizzie was too confident to be hurried. She appeared to be thinking hard as she got out a cigarette and lit it. Finally, she tilted her face up to him. “Yes, I believe it.”
“Shi-it,” Kate Joyce said and pulled off her cowboy hat. She slapped it against her lean thigh. “You’ll be wanting to bring in that John Edward next.”
Lizzie shot her sister a look that was not fond. Drexell said, “I think she made all of this up, you ask me.”
We had gotten a deposit from Lizzie. We were coming to Texas anyway, but we sure wouldn’t have stopped if we hadn’t gotten the up-front money. Clients this rich, oddly enough, often change their mind. Poorer people don’t. So, though we’d already deposited the first check from RJ Ranch, the balance was due, and a blind man could tell the whole Joyce party was dubious about what I’d accomplished. Before I could get a good start on worrying about it, Lizzie pulled a folded and creased check from her hip pocket and handed it to Tolliver, who’d gotten close enough to slide his arm around me. I was a little shaky. This hadn’t been as hard as some readings, because Rich Joyce’d only had a second’s surge of fear before he passed over, but direct contact with the dead is draining.
“Need candy?” he asked.
I nodded. He got a Werther’s Original out of his pocket and unwrapped it. I opened my mouth and he popped it in. Golden buttery goodness.
“I thought he was your brother,” Kate Joyce said, inclining her head toward Tolliver. Though I knew she had to be in her late twenties, there were more years of experience than that in the way she walked and spoke. I wondered if this was the result of being brought up rich but practical in Texas, or if life in the Joyce household had had other sources of stress.
“He is,” I said.
“Looks more like your boyfriend.” Drexell sniggered.
“I’m her stepbrother and her boyfriend, Drex,” Tolliver said pleasantly. “We’ll be on the road. Thanks for asking us to help you with your problem.” He nodded at them all. He’s less than six feet, but not by much, and he’s thin, but he has a set of shoulders on him.
I love him more than anything.
THE sound of the shower woke me up. We see the inside of so many motel rooms that sometimes I have to spend a second or two recalling where the particular motel room is located. This was one of those mornings.
Texas. After we’d left the Joyces, we had driven most of the previous afternoon to reach this motel off the interstate in Garland, outside of Dallas. This wasn’t a business trip; it was personal.
I had that consciousness when I opened my eyes, that grim awareness that I was thinking too much about the old, bad times. Whenever we visit my aunt and her husband outside of Dallas, the bad memories resurface.
It’s not the fault of the state.
When I’m close to my little sisters, I start remembering the broken trailer in Texarkana, the one where Tolliver and I lived with his father, my mother, his brother, my sister, and our two mutual sibs, who were practically babies at the time that household dissolved.
The delicately balanced deception we older kids had maintained for several years had collapsed when my older sister, Cameron, vanished. Our unpleasant home life had been exposed to public view, and our little sisters had been taken away. Tolliver had gone to live with his brother, Mark, and I’d gone to a foster home.
The two little girls didn’t even remember Cameron. I’d asked them the last time we saw them. The girls live with Aunt Iona and Uncle Hank, who don’t like us to visit. We do, though; Mariella and Grace (called Gracie) are our sisters, and we want them to remember they have family.
I propped up on one elbow to watch Tolliver drying himself off. He’d left the bathroom door open while he showered, because otherwise the mirror became too foggy for him to use while he shaved.
We don’t look unalike; we’re both thin and dark haired. Our hair’s even about the same length. His eyes are brown; mine are dark gray. But Tolliver’s complexion is pitted and scarred from acne, because his dad didn’t think of sending him to a dermatologist. His face is narrower, and he often has a mustache. He hates wearing anything besides jeans and shirts, but I like to dress up a bit more, and since I’m the “talent,” it’s more or less expected. Tolliver is my manager, my consultant, my main support, my companion, and for the past few weeks he’s been my lover.
He turned to look at me, saw I was watching. He smiled and dropped the towel.
“Come here,” I said.
He was quick to oblige.
“WANT to go for a run?” I asked in the afternoon. “You can take another shower afterward, with me. So you won’t waste water.”
We had our running clothes on in no time, and we took off after we’d stretched. Tolliver’s faster than I am. Most often, he pulls away for the last half mile or so, and today was no
