South Of Hell lk-9 Read online

  “Who was that lady in your car?”

  “Her name is Joette,” he said. “I call her Joe. She’s a sheriff up north.”

  Lily looked up at him, the last bite of her hot dog poised at her lips. “But who is she to you?” she asked.

  Louis hesitated. He did not want to go into this with Lily for several reasons, but he wasn’t sure if Lily had seen him kiss Joe goodbye. If she had, to hedge around the truth now was dead wrong. He guessed that Lily hadn’t seen Amy sitting in the backseat.

  “She’s my girlfriend,” Louis said.

  Lily lowered her hot dog and wiped her lips with the napkin. “Momma thinks black men ought to marry only black women,” she said softly.

  Louis crumpled the food wrappers and stuffed them inside his empty cup, then took a long look over at the market across the street, completely lost for anything to say. Who was he to pass along his philosophies on race and relationships to a child he had no part in raising?

  He looked back at her. “I understand why your mother feels that way,” he said gently. “But we can’t always help who we fall in love with, Lily.”

  Lily began to wrap up her papers. Louis watched her, sure she was still bothered by the idea of Joe and maybe the idea of having to tell Kyla that there was a white woman in Louis’s life. And he had the horrible feeling that maybe this would be their last meeting.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Lily asked.

  “Sure.”

  “There’s a boy at school,” Lily said, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “His name is Kurt Vanderloop. He’s ten. He likes me, but I don’t think I’m allowed to like him back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s white.”

  Louis leaned over the picnic table and gently covered Lily’s small hand with his. She didn’t pull away.

  “Liking people is about what you feel in your heart,” he said. “Not about what you can see with your eyes. And I think if you explained it to your momma like that, she might understand it better.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she said.

  Louis smiled. “Well, she let you make the decision to see me,” he said. “I have a feeling she’ll let you make some other decisions, too. You have to trust her to do that, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He sat back and looked again toward the street. He wanted to take a walk, but Channing’s cruiser was gone, probably on a call. Louis wasn’t sure they should leave.

  “Can I ask you another question, Louis?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do I have more family on your side?”

  Her pale gray eyes were steady on his. In them, he could see the same look he had seen sometimes on Amy’s face when she spoke of finding her mother. That odd little look of hunger, a hunger for connection to your past, a hunger to know where you had come from. A hunger he had never acknowledged in himself, despite the fact that he kept a picture of his father in his drawer. One he usually looked at only through the amber glow of a brandy bottle.

  “Yes,” he said. “I have a half-brother and sister.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Mississippi, I think,” he said. “I…”

  Hell, there was nothing to say here but the truth.

  “I haven’t seen them since I was seven,” he said. “The three of us were split up and put in foster care. Do you know what that is?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Daddy told me about it. Why did that happen to you?”

  “My mother got sick.”

  “And you had no grandma or anyone else who could take care of you?”

  Louis rubbed his brow. “No.”

  Her face wrinkled with a mix of sympathy and pity. He didn’t like the idea that an eight-year-old felt sorry for him.

  “I had good foster parents,” he added. “Right here in Michigan. I was fine.”

  “And even when your momma got sick, your father didn’t come back for you?”

  “No.”

  “Couldn’t you have called him or something?”

  Louis sighed. “Truth is, Lily, I wouldn’t have known where to call,” he said. “I’ve never even met him. He left my mother before I was born.”

  “Like you did me?” she asked.

  Louis met those eyes. The questions were getting tougher again but somehow easier to answer.

  “Yes.”

  “But you came back looking for me,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “But your father never came back for you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How come you never went looking for him?” she asked. “Didn’t you want to ask him why he didn’t care about you being born?”

  Yes, a thousand times.

  “No,” he said. “I… I told myself, if he didn’t care about me, then I didn’t care about him.”

  Lily was staring at him, either not understanding him or not believing him. Could she hear the lie in his voice?

  “Would you do it now?” she asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Would you find him now?”

  He was quiet.

  “You’re a private investigator,” she said. “You could do it easy.”

  “What would be the point?” he asked. “I’m a grown-up now. You need fathers when you’re young, like you. Plus, I’m not sure I’d have much to say to him.”

  “But don’t you want to know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Where you come from?”

  Louis couldn’t think of an answer for that one.

  Luckily, Lily didn’t demand an answer. Her eyes had wandered away from him, off in the direction of where the cruiser had been parked, as if she wanted to end the lunch right now and head back to Channing.

  He wondered if he’d been too honest, maybe too sharp in his reply, or worse, if he had disappointed her somehow. He was reminding himself that she was only eight and trying to think of a way to soften what he said, when she looked back at him.

  “I didn’t know what I was going to say to you, either,” she said, “but here we are talking.”

  Jesus.

  “Would you find him for me?” she asked.

  Louis sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know, Lily. That’s not as easy for me to do as you might think. I might be a grown-up, but there’s still a little hurt there.”

  “I understand.”

  Louis gathered up the wrappers and rose to throw them away. When he got back to the table, she was standing and trying to work the puffs from the knees of her red tights. Beyond her, Louis could see Kyla walking toward them. She was all in black, with a red shawl thrown over her shoulder. His heart quickened. He had not expected her to come anywhere near him, and he didn’t want words shared in front of Lily.

  Lily saw her coming and looked quickly to Louis. “Will you come back to Michigan for my birthday?” she asked.

  “For your birthday?” he asked.

  “I forgot,” she said. “You don’t know when that is, do you?”

  “No.”

  “It’s September 2,” she said. “If Momma says it’s okay, will you take me to Mackinac Island?”

  “You’ve never been?”

  “Momma says it’s ticky-tacky, but I saw a movie about it in school and want to go. Will you take me?”

  “Sure. If it’s okay with your mother.”

  Kyla stopped next to Lily. Her hand closed over Lily’s, but her gaze was pinned on Louis — not with anger, just coolness.

  “I don’t know what to say to you except thank you,” Louis said. “She’s beautiful, and it’s obvious you’ve been a great mother.”

  Kyla ignored the comment. “When are you leaving?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Louis said. “Maybe a week or so.”

  “We need to talk before you do,” Kyla said.

  “I know.”

  Kyla turned and led Lily away. Just before they reached the parking lot, Lily broke her mother’s hold on her hand and
said something to her. Kyla nodded. Lily ran back to him, out of breath by the time she reached him. He knelt down to meet her eyes.

  “I just wanted to tell you,” she said, “I’ll help you find him and talk to him if you’re scared to do it alone.”

  Louis stared at her.

  “’Bye,” she said as she ran off again.

  He rose slowly and watched her until she was inside the car and Kyla had buckled her into the passenger seat. When the car left the parking lot, he turned and wandered the market until he found a cafe.

  He needed to wait for Joe. He took a seat near the window, ordered a beer, and thought about Jordan Kincaid and the courage of eight-year-old girls.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  They got to Dr. Sher’s home early, and there was a note pinned to the front door from the doctor saying she would be a little late. So now, Louis, Joe, and Amy were waiting on her front porch.

  Amy was sitting in a wicker chair, engrossed in a book. From his place sitting on the steps, Louis could see the cover. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Yesterday, it had been Gone with the Wind. Tomorrow, it would likely be Little Women. She read the same three books over and over, rotating them in no particular order. Joe had offered to buy her something new, but Amy had politely declined, saying the people in the books were her friends, and she didn’t want to lose them.

  Francie, Ben Blake, Mammy, Aunt Sissy, Marmee, Big Sam, Cornelius… she could name them all.

  Louis looked across the porch to where Joe sat, a hip propped on the porch railing. She was watching Amy, her expression one Louis could never remember seeing before, tenderness mixed with a sort of quiet terror. Was that the maternal instinct? An aching urge to protect even when you knew how impossible the job was?

  Joe rose from the railing suddenly and went down to the yard, looking down the street for Dr. Sher’s Volkswagen. Louis knew why Joe was so edgy. Dr. Sher was going to hypnotize Amy again. But this time, it was with the intent to retrieve Amy’s memories of the black woman’s death. Joe had been against it, but Dr. Sher had convinced her that the old memory, even if it was a fabrication, was so powerful that it was blocking everything else. And until Amy came to terms with this imaginary past life, they would never access her memory of her mother’s death.

  He still didn’t buy it, this regression stuff, not for a second. But if making Amy believe she could go back a hundred years could somehow lead them to how Jean Brandt died, then he’d play along with this idea of a past life.

  He reached into his jeans for his wallet. The snapshot of Lily was tucked behind his driver’s license. He pulled it out and ran his finger over the surface.

  “Who is that?”

  Louis turned and looked up. He hadn’t heard Amy come up behind him. She sat down next to him on the step, cradling her book to her chest.

  “That’s your daughter, isn’t it?” Amy said before he could answer.

  Louis nodded, surprised. He hadn’t said anything to Amy about Lily. He was sure Joe hadn’t, either.

  Amy glanced at Joe, then back at the snapshot. “Miss Joe isn’t her mother, is she?”

  “No,” Louis said.

  “But you and Miss Joe-”

  “She’s here,” Joe said, coming up onto the porch.

  Louis slipped the snapshot back into his wallet, glad that Joe had not heard Amy. He went down to the sidewalk as Dr. Sher got out of her car.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dr. Sher said. “I had a meeting at the university and had no way to reach you.”

  “We found your note,” Joe said.

  “Good,” Dr. Sher said, smoothing her hair. “Come in, please.”

  She led them into the living room, dropping her coat onto a chair, and turned to face them, giving Amy a smile.

  “How are you feeling today, dear?”

  “I’m okay, Dr. Sher,” Amy said softly.

  Dr. Sher looked up at Joe.

  “She didn’t sleep well last night,” Joe said. “She had another asthma attack.”

  “The inhaler I prescribed isn’t helping?” Dr. Sher asked.

  Joe shook her head.

  “Are you sure you feel up to this today?” Dr. Sher asked Amy.

  Amy nodded. “I want to do it. It’s the only way I can help my mother.”

  Dr. Sher put her arm around Amy’s shoulders. “Then let’s get started.”

  The drapes in the living room were closed against the bright sun. The room was quiet except for the ticking of an old alabaster clock on the mantel. Louis had removed his jacket twenty minutes ago in an effort to get comfortable in the too-warm room.

  Amy was having trouble going under for some reason. From his vantage point sitting with Joe on the sofa, Louis could see the anxiety etched in Amy’s face. But Dr. Sher was persistent, gently taking Amy through a series of breathing exercises.

  Finally, Dr. Sher began slowly to count backward from ten. Louis watched as the tension melted from Amy’s face and her breathing deepened.

  “We’re going back now, Amy,” Dr. Sher said. “Back through your childhood, back to when you were a baby.”

  Amy’s eyelids fluttered but remained closed. Dr. Sher tried to elicit memories from Amy’s days on the farm as a child, but Amy did not seem to want to stay in that place.

  “All right, I want you to go back even farther,” Dr. Sher said. “Go back to as far back as you can remember.”

  The room was quiet except for Amy’s breathing and the ticking of the clock.

  “Amy, where are you?” Dr. Sher asked softly.

  “I’m not sure,” Amy whispered.

  “Look down at your feet. Can you tell me what you are wearing?”

  “Boots… black boots. Laced up around my ankles. They have mud on them, and one of the laces is broken. I had to tie it together.”

  “Can you see anything else?”

  “My skirt. There is mud on the bottom of it, too.” She frowned slightly before she went on. “It’s spring. I see a big house and a barn. I am in a carriage. Someone is bringing me to the house. I feel… afraid.”

  “Are you at the farm?” Dr. Sher asked.

  Amy nodded slowly. “Yes. I can see the oak tree in the front. But it’s smaller. Everything else looks different. The house looks different, newer and pretty, with white trim. A man and a woman are standing in front of it. They are waiting for me.”

  “Do you know how old you are?”

  “I… I am seventeen. I am very tired from the long journey. I miss my mother. She got sick from fever and died, and that is why I am here, because I have nowhere to go.”

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Isabel. My name is Isabel.”

  “Do you know the man and the woman who are waiting for you?”

  “No. I just know I am supposed to work for them now. The man is very tall and wears glasses. They reflect the sun like mirrors. He is smiling at me. The woman… doesn’t smile.”

  “Can you tell me what year it is?” Dr. Sher asked.

  “I… it is 1842.”

  Louis heard Joe’s sharp intake of breath, but he didn’t look at her.

  “Amy,” Dr. Sher said, “I want you to move ahead now. Go ahead a couple of years. What do you see now?”

  “Snow. I had never seen snow before I came here,” Amy said. “It is very cold outside, but I am warm, because I am in the kitchen near the stove. I am holding a baby.”

  “Is it your baby?”

  Amy slowly shook her head. “It is Miz Phoebe’s daughter, Lucinda. I take care of her because Miz Phoebe stays in her room so much now. She is a very good baby and never cries. I love Lucinda.”

  Louis thought about the photograph he had found in the old tin. Had Joe shown it to Amy? Had Amy found the Brandt family Bible? Is that where she saw the name Lucinda? Or was she remembering all of this simply as part of Geneva’s handed-down family “stories”?

  “Oh…” Amy was grimacing.

  “What’s wrong?” Dr. Sher asked.

  “I
didn’t do it! Don’t beat me, don’t beat me!”

  “Who’s beating you?”

  “Miz Phoebe,” Amy whispered. “She hates me so much. But I didn’t take her comb! He gave it to me and said it was mine to keep! He told me to hide it, but Miz Phoebe found it. It’s mine! Mr. Amos gave it to me!”

  “Amy, move ahead,” Dr. Sher said firmly. “Go to a time when you are happiest. Can you do that?”

  Amy’s breathing deepened again, and her expression became calm. For a long time, the room was quiet. Then Amy slowly brought up her arms, as if she were cradling something. She began to hum softly.

  “Don’t cry,” she murmured. “Mama’s here, Charles. We’re safe now, Charles, we’re safe in the corn.”

  Louis felt a trickle of sweat make its way slowly down his back.

  “Charles is your son, Amy?” Dr. Sher asked.

  She nodded.

  “Who is Charles’s father?” Dr. Sher prodded.

  Amy took a long time to answer, and when she did, it was in the softest of whispers. “Amos.” Her face creased into a frown that made her look suddenly much older. “Miz Phoebe tried to kill Charles. She took him one night and went to the creek to drown him. Amos stopped her. We… Amos has built us a house out in the cornfield. He is good to me.”

  The mantel clock chimed two times.

  Dr. Sher’s face had a sheen of sweat on it. She drew a handkerchief from her pocket, dabbed at her face, and looked down at Amy.

  “I want you to go to the time when your breathing problems first started, Amy,” she said.

  Amy didn’t respond.

  “Can you do that? Can you tell me about the first time you felt like you couldn’t breathe?”

  “I don’t…”

  “I’m here with you, Amy,” Dr. Sher said softly. “It will be all right, I promise.”

  The room fell quiet again.

  “It’s dark tonight, no drinking gourd to light the way,” she said. “But the preacher says there’s a parcel coming. So I light a candle and put it in the parlor window.”

  For a moment, Amy said nothing more.

  “I am afraid,” she whispered.

  “Why are you afraid?” Dr. Sher asked.

  “The wind blows from the south tonight,” Amy said.