Page 41 of Blackwood

I explained his work as we ate a leisurely breakfast. Ty had given Bonnie the morning free to come and visit with me. If I ever laid eyes on him, I’d definitely thank him. She brought me bits of gossip from the county, and more importantly, the knowledge that I had a friend nearby. After we finished and cleaned up, I leaned against the farmhouse sink and tried to figure out the best way to ask questions without raising Bonnie’s suspicions.

“I looked around at some of the family photos here. One of them sort of got my attention. A girl, Garrett’s sister.” I fidgeted with the hem of my tank top. “Did you know her?”

She glanced around, her dark eyes scanning every corner and shadow. Did she think Garrett was going to pop out and yell boo? “Everyone knew Lillian, sugar.”

“What was she like?”

Once satisfied we were alone and staying that way, Bonnie relaxed and rubbed her fingers along the brown skin at her throat. “She was beautiful. Larger than life. Back in my heyday, I competed in a few pageants around these parts.” She stood a little straighter. “But I was always runner-up to Lillian. You know how you meet some people and you forget them the next minute?”

“Yes.”

“Lillian was the sort you never forget. She sparkled, you know?”

I nodded. I’d always thought the same of my mother.

“She could light up a room as sure as a chandelier. Bright. She used to get up to some crazy shenanigans around here, I tell you.” She smiled and leaned back against the counter next to the fridge. “Damn girl would toilet paper roll the Browerton mayor’s house, then egg Sheriff Pennington’s cruiser, then go on a tear all along the country roads on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle—well, whichever boyfriend she had at the time.”

I found myself smiling. “She sounds like a good time.”

“She was. She really was. Charmed her way out of every lick of trouble.” Her face fell. “Shame what happened to her. I didn’t know she had any problems like that, you know?”

“I don’t think anyone did.” Garrett still doubted it; his revelations last night told me as much. “Did you talk to her after she came back from Hollywood?”

“Sure.” She started opening drawers, her scowl growing with each bit of disarray she found. When she discovered a stash of dishcloths, she snagged one, wet it, and began wiping down the counters.

“Had she changed?”

“Not really. Same sparkle. Just a little older like all the rest of us. She took up writing for the Browerton paper. Got the whole town riled when she did an exposé on Golden Grocery for discrimination against its black workers.” She smiled. “Made me damn proud.”

I’d read her piece and remembered being impressed with her dogged search for the truth. We seemed to have that in common. “Did she still have boyfriends?”

“Oh, sure.” She scrubbed a particular spot next to the sink with all the might her small frame could muster.

“Any in particular?” I knew I was pressing my luck, but I had to make some headway on my father’s disappearance. The car told me I was on the right path. I just needed some trail markers to show me which way to go.

“Sure, she saw crazy Danny—that was before he caught the crazy, mind you. Let’s see, the Satterly brothers. They got into a fight over her one afternoon right outside the diner. I’m talking grown men, in their late thirties, fighting over her. Ty had to break it up. I even heard she used to have girlfriends, too. Don’t know about that.” She worked her way around me, moving jars and wiping up every bit of dust as she went. “And there was one handsome fella she used to bring to the diner. Vince. He grew up around here. A couple years ahead of me in school.”

I went taut like a dog on the trail of a deer. “How long did she see Vince?”

“About the same as the others. Though, I think she was still dating him when”—She faltered, then scrubbed the side of the counter even harder—“when she did it.”

“What happened to Vince?”

She paused and wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm. “I don’t rightly know. I guess he left after that. He was raised here, but he never stayed. I think he was only hanging around again for Lillian, to be honest.”

“So you never saw him again?”

“Nope.”

That put his disappearance just two weeks after I’d seen him last. He’d come to visit me at school, plopped down on my dorm room bed, and asked me when I was going to start digging for dinosaurs. He stayed long enough to smoke a cigarette, in violation of dorm rules, and give me an early birthday present—a surprisingly attractive scarf. Had Lillian picked it out?

“You said she dated Danny. What happened to him between then and now?”

She dragged the washcloth across the counter and shook it out in the sink. “Nobody knows. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he started acting squirrely right around the time Lillian died. Hiding in the woods. Showing up in town every few months screaming about lights in the trees, or voices, or God knows what else.”

“I saw him. When I first started my survey, he found me in the woods, warned me away.”

She turned and glanced down at my leg. “Maybe you should have listened.” She shrugged. “Sheriff Crow keeps him in line. Locks him in the drunk tank to dry out whenever he shows up. Then we don’t hear from him again for months.”

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