“I went to the bathroom after my session. I heard Davis come in the office. He was talking real loud at Steven. Saying that Steven had to help him, he couldn’t go on with how stuff was.”
Mark shifted in his seat, avoiding my astonished gaze. “Steven tried to calm him, but Davis sounded really upset. His voice was all squeaky like. I waited till I heard Steven’s door shut, and then I opened the bathroom door. Bradley was sitting in the waiting room. He’d been crying, his eyes were all bloodshot. He was making this freaky groany noise and he looked at me like he didn’t know me.
“Mark. You better not be joking. Why do you think Davis is beating him?” My throat felt scratchy with tightness.
“I saw… the marks on his arms. Like someone had grabbed him really, really hard and squeezed. Thin bruises. And his face was red, like he’d been slapped. I tried to get him to come outside with me, but he just started moaning sort of and didn’t want to leave the couch.”
“Did you ask him specifically if his daddy had hit him?”
“No, but I did ask him who’d done this. I told him I’d kick whoever’s butt it was for him, and he just started kind of whining and getting upset. He was having trouble not slobbering, and that always means he’s upset.” Mark ran a finger under his nose, looking miserable.
My God. Davis upset, seeking a counselor, with a bruised Bradley in tow. I tried to picture Davis beating his son and the image came easily; Davis losing patience with his son that could never realize his dreams, striking Bradley perhaps even before he knew it.
Bradley had let out a scream to chill blood at Trey’s burial. No, I amended, not at the burial, not at any given moment-but right after Nola Kinnard had double-slapped me. I felt a quiver in my stomach, wondering if Bradley’s cry was because he’d seen or felt slapping lately.
“What are we gonna do?” Mark asked, clearing his throat.
“I don’t know. We don’t know for sure that Davis is beating Bradley. I can’t imagine that Cayla would put up with it-unless he’s abusing her, too.” The rain pattered on the car roof while I gathered my thoughts. The air felt clammy and Mark’s suspicions made my stomach do clumsy somersaults. “I don’t know what we can do. Let’s say Davis is beating them. He’s asking for help by going to Steven.”
“But what if it don’t work?” Mark demanded. “We got to get them out of there, Uncle Jordy.”
“It’s not that simple, Mark.” I felt like a cornered lion tamer, sans chair and whip. I had enough of my own troubles to contend with, and selfishly, I didn’t want to tackle the problems of the Foradorys. “I don’t know what we can do without some proof. And if Davis tells Steven he’s beaten Bradley or Cayla, then Steven can contact the proper authorities.”
“But what if he don’t?” Mark pressed. “We can’t leave him there, just for his daddy to whomp on him! It’s not right.”
This couldn’t be happening, I thought. I’d cast my childhood friends into certain statues and now cracks crept up from their bases. Harmless, fun-loving Clevey as a vengeful, guilt-ridden manipulator who was never at peace. The unredeemable Trey as a man who’d perhaps been forced into a hellish choice. And now our rock of propriety, Davis, suggested as a man who couldn’t keep his fists off his own child. The thought of domestic violence happening with people I’d known for years was eerie and-
Domestic violence. Suddenly I saw Peggy Godkin’s face, bleary in the cafeteria light on the morning Junebug had been shot, telling me about Clevey’s reporting assignments on the paper: He was working on his usual assignments – the city council, the book-review section. And he was researching a feature on domestic violence.
And at Junebug’s, Davis hoisting a toast to our dead friend: Clevey, our friend and fine reporter. He’ll dig up all the secrets, even if it sends him to hell.
No, it couldn’t be. If Clevey, in researching his story, uncovered battery right in the home of one of Mirabeau’s most prominent lawyers, he’d do something to help Cayla and Bradley, right?
Ed’s voice whispered in my ear: Clevey was going to buy an interest in KBAV. Said he’d gotten the money from a Louisiana inheritance…
“Uncle Jordy?” Mark’s voice sounded distant, as though I was fathoms away under the sea, drowning while staring up at the far glimmer of the sun.
I found my voice. “We’ll call Cayla. See if everything is okay. You can call Bradley and see if he’s all right. But I don’t think we can do much else.”
“Why not?” Mark insisted.
Maybe because Davis’d kill us. Did he kill Clevey? My musings made my temper short. “Because you just can’t, Mark! Not without proof! You only have conjecture right now.”
“Con-what?”
“Conjecture. We don’t have any proof.”
“His arms were bruised.”
“That could have been an accident. Or another kid picking on him. I’ve known Davis my whole life and I’m not about to think he’s a batterer on the most circumstantial evidence.” I remembered when I’d called him about Clevey’s death-his voice was dulled, nearly stuporous. Why? Shock over what he’d done? Brains rattling due to firing a gun in an enclosed space? Seeing a boyhood friend’s lifeblood seep out?
Okay, if he’d killed Clevey, why had he killed Trey? Had Trey known about Davis? How? Clevey had told Trey that revenge was sweet. What revenge was there to get on Davis?
I lurched out of the car. I needed to talk to Candace, to Junebug, tell them this outrageous theory and let them dismiss it for me. I stumbled up the front steps. And saw Nola Kinnard sitting primly on our porch.
17
“Your maid won’t let me in,” Nola said by way of introduction. She stood, brushing dank bangs back from her forehead. She was dressed as I’d seen her at Steven Teague’s office: snug jeans, a blue, faded sweatshirt with a napping kitten on the front, a weathered, tan, down jacket splitting at the seams. Red rimmed her mascara-bare eyes.
“I don’t have a maid,” I said. Mark tensed beside me.
“The black lady, whatever she is. So I waited out here.”
“Get out of here!” Mark suddenly demanded. He stepped forward. “We don’t want you around.”
“I guess you don’t, honey.” Nola dug a pack of Marlboros out of her purse. “But I ain’t here to see you. I came to see your uncle.” She extracted a cigarette from the crumpled pack and delicately placed it in her mouth. “You gonna talk to me or tell me to hit the road?”
“He don’t want you here-” Mark sputtered, but I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Mark, go inside.”
He bristled at the order, but he didn’t argue with me. He stomped to the screen door and swung it open.
“Mark?” Nola called. I saw him pause, not looking at her.
“I understand you’ve been real kind to my boy, Scott.” She coughed, her throat raspy with smoke. “I appreciate that.”
Mark wavered on the doorstep, torn between the manners his family had instilled in him and (I suspected) a strong desire to tell Nola to kiss his ass.
“You’re welcome,” he muttered, and slammed the door.
She sat back on the rocking chair that had once been Mama’s favorite place to sit, gossip, and snap green beans. Nola seemed out of place and she knew it. Fumbling in her purse, she didn’t look at me.
“I don’t suppose apologizing to him would have done much good. He wouldn’t have listened.”
“You don’t know that.” I sat next to her.
“Sure I do. He looks like his daddy, don’t he? I figure he’s like him in mind. That man wasn’t one to listen to an I’m sorry.” She flicked her lighter, regarded me for a brief moment, then returned to contemplating her cigarette. “You want one?”
“No, thanks. I don’t smoke.”
“Used to, though, didn’t you? I saw the gleam in your eye when I lit up.” She drew on the cigarette and blew
