Crystal knew Wes had secrets. Mysteries that he’d almost revealed a dozen times in their few months together, but each time he pulled back from those secrets before letting them loose.
Wes parked his Jeep Wagoneer, complete with wood siding, in the driveway and hopped out. He trotted over and opened Crystal’s door.
“I stopped by the party store and grabbed a bottle of wine. It’s not the good stuff, but I’ve had it before. It’s drinkable.” He grabbed her hand and helped her out, kissing her on the mouth.
“Great,” she murmured, reaching back in to grab her purse before following him inside.
He stood at the counter, uncorking the wine, while Crystal wandered to the glass sliding doors that opened onto his little back porch. He neglected his yard. The overgrown grass nearly reached the top step of the porch.
It was the curse of living two lives, he’d once said, no time to mow. His statement had unnerved her. Teaching in Traverse City and Lansing was hardly living two lives, but when she’d probed the subject, he’d shifted the conversation.
He paid a neighbor kid to mow the lawn every couple of weeks, but in the interval it always turned unruly, and he started to get annoyed looks from the old woman who lived across the street. The woman, whose name Crystal had learned was Henrietta, kept her lawn pristine. Every time Crystal had spent the night with Wes, she’d spotted the woman in her yard stalking the weeds with garden gloves and a trowel.
Wes handed her a glass of red wine.
Crystal smelled it, started to take a sip and felt her stomach clench. Saliva filled her mouth.
Wes noticed as she pulled away.
“What? Smells funky?” he asked, sniffing his own wine.
“Wes,” Crystal said, her stomach continuing to churn as she set her glass on the table.
He studied her, his eyes shifting to the glass and back to her face.
“What is it, love?” he asked, taking her hand and kissing her palm.
“I’m pregnant,” she blurted.
She’d intended a more eloquent delivery, but her mouth had jumped ahead.
As the words floated in the quiet kitchen, Crystal realized it was the first time she’d spoken them out loud. She’d thought it a thousand times in the previous two hours. Now the truth seemed larger, more alive.
Wes’s eyes were wide, his mouth parted. When he swallowed, she watched the slow bob of his Adam’s apple. He set his wine down next to hers.
He glanced at her stomach.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Before she answered, he picked up his glass of wine and drained the red liquid in a single gulp.
“A baby?” he said in a detached voice.
She could see the revelation had knocked him off-kilter, and he hadn’t quite grasped it.
Crystal walked to her purse and opened it. She extracted the small plastic stick, wondering if this is how she’d expected it to go. Wondering if she was disappointed and had hoped he’d smile and laugh and jump in the air. She didn’t know. She hadn’t considered how he might react.
He took the little stick. Two narrow pink lines.
He pulled out a chair and sat down heavily.
“Holy…” but he didn’t finish. He just sat and stared at the test.
Crystal’s eyes welled with tears.
A single drop slipped off her chin. It seemed to fall in slow motion and splash on the table.
Wes looked up, startled.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I’m doing this all wrong.”
Crystal wiped her cheek and shook her head.
“No, it’s okay,” she backed away from him. “Just… take some time. Okay?”
She didn’t wait for him to respond.
She walked out the door and climbed into her car. As she turned the key, she looked at the front door, hoping, wondering if he’d follow her, but the door didn’t fly open.
Weston didn’t run across the lawn and insist she come back inside.
Crystal started her car and drove away.
28
1970
Joseph Claude
Joseph saw the black man leaving the dance hall. He wore a powder-blue tuxedo and walked confidently, as if he owned the street, the whole damn world.
A throb pulsed behind Joseph’s eyes. The steady pulse of a hunger that lived within him but outside him as well. He appeased not only his needs but the needs of the land, of the forest, of the chamber.
He pulled alongside the man and rolled his window down.
“Care to make ten dollars?” he called.
The man looked at him with happy, drunken eyes.
“Ten dollars?” he exclaimed. “Sure would.” The smile fell from his face as he looked down at his clean tux. “Best if I go on home and change first. I’m staying two blocks from here.” He gestured down the dark road.
“Hop in and I’ll give you a ride,” Joseph told him.
“What do you need help with, sir?” the man asked, settling into the deep bucket seat and resting his hands on his knees.
“Can you grab my pen there?” Joseph asked, gesturing to the pen he’d deliberately knocked to the passenger floor.
As the man bent down, Joseph glanced in the rear-view mirror before lifting the iron bar he’d held tucked against his leg. He brought it down on the back of the man’s head. A sickening crunch rang out as the bar connected with his skull.
People believed skulls were powerful, unbreakable even, but Joseph had seen how easily they cracked and caved. It took much less force than one imagined.
The man slumped forward. He hadn’t let out a single cry.
As Joseph drove into the dark trees around the asylum, the pulsing grew in intensity. He parked on the hidden trail behind his house and pulled open his passenger door, grabbing the man beneath the armpits and hauling him from the car.
He slumped over in the dirt.
Blood had pooled on the floor of the car, but Joseph had come prepared with throwaway floor mats and, beneath those, two dark towels.
He didn’t bother with the cleanup yet. He grabbed the man and dragged him into the house.
From her bedroom window, Greta watched the black man in the powder-blue tuxedo. The suit near his neck was stained dark, and she knew he was leaking blood, though she couldn’t see the wound in his head.
She listened as her father threw open the back door and dragged the man through the front hall, pausing to open the basement door.
Thump-thump-thump went the man’s head as her father dragged him down.
29
Now
Bette slipped on a pair of soft leather gloves. She usually wore them in winter. In June they looked ridiculous, but she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her shorts as she left her car and crept down the dark sidewalk.
It was an older neighborhood, and streetlights illuminated the corners but left the spaces between mostly in shadow. Weston’s house was dark except for a small light over the garage door.
She pulled the key from her pocket.
The black “W” marked on the silver key could have stood for anything. A key for one of Crystal’s many jobs, but when Bette discovered the key tucked into the interior pouch of her sister’s purple rain jacket, she knew it belonged to Weston Meeks’ house.
She slipped behind the house and took the two cement steps that led to the back door. The key slid into the lock, but stuck halfway.