Now off the hook, they let Marcus know their outrage at the Gestapo-like actions of the SMPD and their cynicism upon hearing the charges proffered. They were free to share with him their hysteria after he’d been hauled away — they were only human! — and how anxious they had been for a while about the, ahem, quality of his desserts, for they wondered if, aside from being an (alleged) strangler and a rapist, he wasn’t a (potential) poisoner to boot — it all sounded so silly now, so screwball! — and how they’d been unsuccessful in their attempts to retrieve the cookies and pastries, because there weren’t any left. That’s how popular the damn things were! (There was money lying around somewhere for William, they assured, royalties on goods sold.) And how they checked the newspaper each day for reports of victims … the lawsuits they imagined! Did you ever see the Keystone Kops? asked one of the staffers, rhetorically. Well, that was us — for a while, anyway.
Even Marcus joined in the laughter.
As Sling Blade had remained stoic, one of the counselors on a more serious note reminded that they had become purveyors of his confections because they wished him to get a leg up, and their intentions had been pure from the beginning — and that he had been the most successful guest to have ever passed through shelter doors. Seeing how at least William was still convivial, they pulled up chairs as he extemporized on his prison ordeal.
“They call the place Twin Towers, and a more evil set of twins you’re unlikely to meet! It wasn’t easy receiving visitors, and frankly, I’m glad for it — I wouldn’t have wanted Janey to see me that way, all shackled up. It would have upset her no end.”
They looked at him, and looked away too.
“What is it, then?”
The one who had first discovered his talents with a saucepan took Marcus by the arm and walked him away. “There is bad news.”
“Let me have it, man!”
“Jane … is dead. She was murdered. It happened the day after your arrest.”
“My arrest?” He repeated it, as if it related to someone else. “How—”
“In the old Tropicana … that’s where they found her. A man killed her—”
“The Tropicana? A man … — what man?”
“I don’t know. She killed him, too — stabbed him dead.”
“Stabbed him—” He said the phrase over and again, like someone frantically trying to recall a crucial code by saying key words aloud. “Stabbed who?—”
“The man who attacked her.”
Sling Blade, that Ph.D. of misery, had been eavesdropping, and moved closer to put a hand on Marcus’s biceps for support.
“We’re sorry, William. She was doing so great. Of course, she wasn’t happy about you being arrested … When I went to identify her — one of the officers who found the body recognized Jane from having seen her on the night they took you—I claimed her property. She had a knapsack, and that was all. We’ve got her hearing aids, if you want them. She had something of yours — she was on her way to the jail to give it to you.”
An associate had already fetched the item, stowed in a slick gray garbage bag with a built-in bright yellow cinch, and passed it to the one doing all the talking. It was handed to Marcus, who gingerly looked inside.
“That’s it, no?” asked the counselor. “What we gave her from your locker?”
Marcus reached into the bag and pulled out his diary, still wrapped in grocery paper and hemp. There was a brown smear of blood on it.
“Isn’t that what you asked Jane to bring you? She was probably on her way when she got mixed up with the man who attacked her.”
Slipped beneath the frayed string was an envelope addressed “To my Darling Will.”
Toulouse fled to Stradella House for Thanksgiving supper as the mood at Saint-Cloud was forbidding. His mother had taken to bed, and the self-righteous boy guessed drugs were at fault. Bluey was dragged kicking and screaming all the way to Alzheimer’s World; Grandpa Lou took her absence hard.
We lied when saying Toulouse “fled”—the old man ordered him to go, knowing the domestic air to be clouded even more than usual. The truth was he didn’t want Trinnie blabbing to the boy about the reappearance of his dad, which in her current state she was resoundingly capable of.
The cousins took this forced reunion as a welcome rapprochement. In short order, with much thanks to Pullman (a natural icebreaker), the three were together again as if never parted. They caught up on various enterprises, and gossiped, too — about a few “pieces of intelligence” regarding Trinnie’s beaux. The first, from Toulouse, seemed anticlimactic on the telling: the detective and his mother had definitively broken it off. Lucy was particularly thrilled, never having completely gotten over her crush; now and then during class, her pulse quickened while daydreaming that she had Mr. Dowling in the 747 ready for takeoff. The second bit of news was more delicious. As it turned out, the Screenwriter Formerly Known as Rafe had struck paydirt and was now actually dating Diane Keaton. Edward said the great actress had even asked him to punch up the movie she was directing (featuring Boulder Langon as the juvenile lead). But there was no discussion of the runaway girl; the subject was too radioactive. Toulouse slept in the main house, and took great care in avoiding Olde CityWalk altogether — the mere thought of the Boar’s Head garret and the perfect picture of that sad-eyed gamine staring down through its trapdoor were enough to cause a catch in his throat.
In the late afternoon, they gathered at table. Joyce shabbily asked where his mother was on this Thanksgiving Day, and Toulouse, not half because Amaryllis was still on his mind, spontaneously said, “A dinner for orphans.” Lucy nearly choked on her marshmallow’d yams; Edward grinned—touché—for his cousin had killed two birds with one stone: not only had he boldly referenced their illicit boarder, but he had also stood on Joyce’s nerve by implying that Trinnie would be more inclined to help the abandoned living than the abandoned dead.
But his comment had a deeper meaning — at meal’s end, he promptly announced that he wished to go home.
He thanked his hosts and said heartfelt good-byes to Lucy and Edward. That was the wondrous thing of being their age; they hadn’t yet the sophistication to shut a final door — whereas in adulthood bruised feelings born of shared adversity become the stuff of feud, and mysteriously acquire permanence. The spite of children is truly child’s play; grown-ups hate for all eternity.
The light in his mother’s room was on, and he decorously rapped at the door. She softly asked if it was Winter (who’d been told she could stay on indefinitely even though Bluey would not return) and was surprised when Toulouse answered.
He slipped in with her assent.
Trinnie lay in bed in the dark, in a crumb-stained Ghesquière caftan. She asked him to hand her a glass of water. She looked druggy.
“Are you sick?”
“No — why? And why are you looking at me like that?”
“Are you … taking drugs?”
“No, I’m not taking drugs. Are you? You’re not being very respectful. I’m tired. And I don’t feel well.”
“That’s what you say when you’re taking drugs.”
“I thought you were with Lucy and Edward.”
“I wanted to come home. I need to talk to you.”
“You mean you need to torture me — I told you: I’m not taking anything, OK?”
“I wanted to talk to you about the girl.”
“What girl?”
“Amaryllis. The one Samson was looking for.”
“What about her? You didn’t get her pregnant, did you?”