JEZEBEL'S BLUES Read online

Gently, Celia touched his arm. “Come with me, Eric. You’ll feel better once you see she’s not there.”

  “Will I, Celia?”

  His midnight eyes glowed with the hollowness of an empty mine shaft. She thought of Lynn’s warning: if his sister died, he’d have nothing left.

  “Let’s go,” she said firmly.

  Chapter 11

  The drive was utterly silent. Eric hunched next to her in the seat of her economy car like a caged animal, and Celia thought fleetingly that he and her father were both as big as grizzly bears. It was too bad the pair of them had never met. They would have been quite comfortable together.

  “Pull off on that little turn there,” he said as they approached a bridge. It was a bigger bridge than many of the others spanning Jezebel’s dozens of creeks and tributaries that ribboned through the landscape. This bridge spanned the river herself at a spot where she ran fast and clear over a tumble of boulders. A rescue van was parked on the shoulder of the road. Celia pulled up behind it.

  A cluster of women sobbed as a sheet-draped body was reeled up the embankment. The lights of the rescue van flashed monotonously and as they climbed out of the car, she could hear the muted, intermittent growl of a police scanner.

  A fist of memory slugged her body. She flashed on herself standing on the side of a cliff in Italy, seeing below the ruined remains of her father’s car, heard the singing, sympathetic voice of the young man who had been nominated to tell her that her father was dead.

  She blinked hard, forcing herself back to the moment by focusing on the trio of weeping women at the side of the road. There was an older woman with cat-eye glasses and a sleeveless cotton shirt over green and pink polyester pants. A double row of pin curls looped around her head.

  The two girls, teenagers, were obviously her daughters. They huddled close to their mother, peering toward the river with reddened eyes.

  Eric brushed past Celia toward the embankment, his dark face closed tight. As he passed the trio of women, the mother cried out and tore herself from the grasp of her daughters to lunge at him, uttering an almost unearthly sound of rage, deep and guttural. Her straight-armed thrust caught Eric on the shoulder and knocked him sideways. He stumbled under the force, and startled, not quite understanding that he’d been attacked, he reached for the woman as if to steady her.

  Celia watched in horror as the woman found her footing and slugged him. Eric staggered and lifted one arm to ward off another blow. The woman, making shrill, animalistic noises, pushed him again and they tumbled down the steep slope, locked in an angry embrace.

  The woman flung her fists wildly, pummeling Eric wherever she could reach him. Most blows glanced off his shoulders and arms and chest, but one landed square in his mouth.

  “Mama!” the girls cried in unison, and ran after her. “Mama, stop it!”

  By the time Celia found the presence of mind to follow, Eric had gained his footing and held the woman in a hard grip against his chest. One of his hands wrapped around both the woman’s wrists as he blotted the blood away from his lip.

  He looked utterly disinterested in spite of the obscenities the woman screamed into the evening air: slurs upon Eric, his mother, his sister. The girls grabbed her.

  “Get her out of my sight before I kill her,” Eric said in a harsh, low voice.

  And still the woman screamed obscenities. Celia paused in front of her as the girls dragged her up the hill. The girls both looked at her with alarm. Celia narrowed her eyes, her fists clenched at her side. “Why don’t you hit someone who can hit you back?”

  The younger of the two girls, her eyes welling with tears, whispered, “She’s just crazy with grief. She don’t mean it.”

  Celia shook her head and moved aside. She joined Eric, who stood next to a battered row boat, talking with the ambulance driver. As she approached, the man clapped Eric on the shoulder and, with a nod to Celia, headed back up the hill.

  “He said there was no sign of anybody else being in the boat with Jake when it got caught under the pilings,” Eric said quietly. “They’ve been through the woods all around and didn’t find any footprints or anything like that.”

  Celia nodded. Anything she said would be hollow under the circumstances.

  He bent over the boat suddenly and grabbed a muddy bit of cloth. As he tugged it out, Celia saw that it was a scarf, red and purple and gold, with a fringe. She felt a catch in her throat.

  Eric turned to her, holding up the scarf. His lip was bleeding. A leaf clung to his hair from his tumble down the embankment. And in his eyes was such hopeless grief that all of Celia’s hurt pride and anger instantly dissolved. She stepped forward without a word and hugged him.

  He clung to her with desperation and terror, making no sound. Celia felt his need as if he were a light-starved plant, crawling through crevices and cracks to find the sun.

  Which man was he? The broken blues-man with no future, or the troubled, lonely man who needed to set down roots before he died? She wished she could decide.

  * * *

  Eric tried, on the way back to Laura’s house, to find words to thank Celia for the comfort she offered so easily. He struggled with ways to tell her how much he needed her calm, her simple and uncomplicated offerings, how much it meant.

  But he kept coming back to the fact that he’d stepped over the line last night. There was no way to make that right, not with a woman like Celia.

  So he didn’t speak until she pulled up in front of the house. If he asked, she would come inside with him, would sit with him as long as necessary. This morning he’d managed to kill the light of hero worship in her eyes, but now there was something deeper. Compassion, maybe.

  For a moment he sat in the cramped seat of her car, listening to the small engine idle. A part of him ached to reach for her, to bury his face in her hair and—what? Take more from her? He’d already taken enough.

  He clenched his fist against the urge because he knew he’d have to leave her behind eventually. He’d been wrong last night to go to her, more wrong than he’d ever been about anything. Somehow, he had to undo the damage.

  “I appreciate your coming with me,” he said finally. “I guess tomorrow I’ll start calling around again.”

  She touched his hand. “Why don’t you come with me and let me fix you some supper?”

  “No, Celia.”

  She snatched her hand away as if she had been burned. A stab of something sad cut through his belly. Once again, he was handling everything wrong. “I didn’t mean it like that, sugar,” he said.

  “Don’t call me that.” She stared straight ahead, her hands crossed over the steering wheel.

  He stared at her, surprised, then remembered his own words last night. You’re so beautiful, Celia. Like sugar. And she was. She made him feel as though he’d gotten lost in some fairy-tale land of happy endings, lost in the scene of spun sugar on top of a cake.

  As he stared at her silvery hair and the smooth, delicate profile, he found himself lifting his hand—a gesture he caught and stopped halfway. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said. “Not now, not ever.”

  She looked down, hiding her face behind her hair. This time, he couldn’t stop himself. He reached over to brush her hair gently away from the rose-tinted cheek. “I mean it, Celia. I tried hard to keep away from you. But you really are as sweet as sugar, as sweet as morning, and I couldn’t.”

  Her lips set in a hard line.

  Undeterred, Eric tucked the silky locks behind her ear and traced the lobe lightly. “You still really think you can reform me, Celia.”

  She looked at him. “That’s ridiculous.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Maybe reform is a bad word, then. Try heal. Or enlighten.” Her dark lashes swept downward once more and he knew he was right. “I’m not worth the time you’d spend, Celia.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Eric,” she began earnestly.

  “Shh. I don’t mean that I’m no good. Just that I’m not the ki
nd of man you need. You need somebody stable, somebody willing to put down roots and raise those babies you want.” He swallowed. “No matter how hard I tried, I’d never be able to be that man.”

  Any other woman he’d ever met would have looked at him then with tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes. But Celia, as usual, surprised him.

  With a long-suffering sigh, she rolled her eyes. “It would make a great song,” she said. “Now, would you please get out of my car and let me go get something to eat?”

  Thrown off center, Eric frowned and opened the door. “Sure. Thanks again,” he said.

  “Anytime.” Then she drove off, leaving him to stand alone in the darkness, his belly growling with hunger, his chest aching with loss and confusion and something he couldn’t name.

  He bit back a grin. That was a lie. That third emotion was pure admiration. She was really something.

  Shaking his head at both of them, he went inside to fix himself something to eat. Provisions were getting low and he had to make do with fried eggs and bacon. As he settled the ingredients on the table, a grip of restlessness caught him and he reached for the flour and baking powder, as well. A half-empty carton of buttermilk had been tickling his appetite for several days, and he smelled it to make sure it was still good.

  Laura always made biscuits for breakfast the first morning when he visited. As he stirred the dry ingredients together with a fork, he smiled again, thinking he’d been waiting to eat biscuits until she could make them for him. Trouble was, she wasn’t much of a cook. Never had been. He ate the tough, crispy biscuits she cooked because he loved her.

  This time, he’d have the real thing. There was a small MP3 player on the counter and he flipped it on, pressing the button to play a favorite playlist, a hodgepodge of blues favorites, as eclectic as it was good. New and old, guitar and harmonica, country blues and Delta blues and city blues. Even a little Roberta Flack for a soulful touch.

  The music filled the room with a comforting sound, and he put bacon in a pan to fry. With a deft touch, he mixed buttermilk into the flour for his biscuits, stirred just long enough to moisten the dough, then rolled and cut it with an economy of motion learned in a hundred little cafés on the road before his luck had turned.

  He slipped the pan of biscuits into the oven, humming along with the music. Cooking had been one of the only little jobs he could stand. His mechanical skills were nil, and although he could do carpentry and concrete work as well as anyone, he hated the long hours and hot work. At least in a kitchen, there were waitresses to flirt with and music to listen to.

  As he stirred the eggs, he pursed his lips. A little café, now that might be work he wouldn’t mind, something to fill the void left by workless hands that had spent a lifetime at some kind of industry. The past two years, he hadn’t worked because he didn’t need the money—his long habit of frugality and careful husbandry had also seen to that. Canny investments had turned his song royalties and concert gigs and road trips into a nest egg big enough so he wouldn’t have to work the rest of his life if he was careful. Royalties from his songs and records would continue to come.

  And in spite of everything, he doubted he’d quit writing songs, even if he couldn’t play them.

  But he found he wanted to work. It was unnatural for a man to spend his days idle.

  He reached for a plate from the shelf as his eggs cooked, then frowned at the black ceramic-ware. His sister was just plain weird in some ways, he thought as he put it back and dug at the bottom of the stack for plain white china. Much better. He dished out the eggs, drained the bacon and bent to remove the biscuits.

  Perfect. Fluffy and lightly browned. He ate five with apple jelly—probably made from juice if he knew short-cut Laura—and generous helpings of butter.

  It was only as he cleared the meal and looked out to the black night that he let the situation filter back into his mind.

  It was dark; dark and hot and filled with bugs. Was Laura out there somewhere, alone and afraid? Her fear of snakes made Celia’s look like friendliness, and she hated creepy-crawlies with a passion. She didn’t like to rough it or to get dirty. To think his sister was out there in those dark woods alone made him feel sick.

  He wandered into the living room and picked up the scarf he’d found in the boat. It had shattered him upon finding it—a kind of shock had first set in when Celia had announced they’d found Jake’s body. It hadn’t really dissipated until he’d put a solid meal in his belly.

  Chewing his lip, he pulled the silky fabric through his fingers, back and forth between his left and right hands. At some point, Laura had been in that boat—a damned rowboat—while Jezebel was flooding.

  Jake had been in Gideon all his life, too. He would have known it was suicidal to take that tiny boat out on the river. And it had proved to be so.

  A scenario began to piece itself together in Eric’s mind as the fabric swished through his fingers, back and forth, back and forth. Jake had always been crazy. He’d fought in high school, fought in bars when he drank too much, was prone to wild drives down dark country roads in his truck.

  But none of it seemed dangerous in the old days. Restless country boys fought and drove fast to relieve their boredom.

  Jake and Laura had dated off and on all through high school, but had broken up when Laura went to Dallas for her training. She had lived there a few years, then returned to Gideon. She and Jake had just naturally drifted together, got married.

  It hadn’t seemed any worse than any other match she might have made. Eric had come home for the wedding, but because of Retta, he hadn’t come home again for a long time after.

  Following his accident, Eric realized Jake was more than a wild redneck. He was crazy. He was so jealous Laura couldn’t even go to the grocery store alone, so jealous he was furious over Eric’s return.

  Laura begged him to get counseling and had gone for some herself. Jake would have none of it.

  A year ago he’d beaten Laura for making a phone call he didn’t approve. She had landed in the hospital with a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder. She’d filed for divorce the next day.

  But Jake wouldn’t leave it alone. Eric had been on his way to stay with Laura until the bastard got the message when the flood stranded him at Celia’s.

  Had Jake known Eric was coming? Maybe he had seen the flood as his last chance. He’d kidnapped Laura and set them both afloat on the rising river, knowing they would drown.

  A chill touched his chest. It made sense with the sick reasoning Jake would have used. There was also the fact that Jake’s mother had blamed Eric for Jake’s death, which meant she knew more than she let on.

  Could Laura possibly have survived the flood in a rowboat? Could she have been thrown overboard and managed to swim to safety? Or had she drowned and been swept so far downriver, no one had found her yet?

  He shoved that grim scenario away. Laura had survived one flood. He had to believe she had the resources to survive another.

  He picked up his guitar case and flipped it open. He lifted the instrument and held it, stroking the sleek, cool lines, taking pleasure in the shielded feeling it gave him.

  He bent his head again to tune the strings. But before he could pluck a single note, the strident, shattering sound of the phone cut into the quiet room.

  Dread slammed his body. Another ring screamed out. He stared at the red instrument with horror. It rang again.

  Slowly, he got to his feet.

  * * *

  Rather than go home, Celia went back to the school. Lynn had gone home, as had most of the other volunteers. A game of basketball was going on between a group of teenage boys in the gymnasium, and the hollow, slapping sound of their ball echoed in the empty halls. Faintly, below the sound of their play, came the slight clink of dishes being washed in the kitchen.

  Celia headed for the auditorium, gathered up the computer lists and marched to the office and the phones. She had to end this once and for all. Once Eric found out what
happened to Laura, he’d move on. The sooner the better. If Laura didn’t surface soon, Eric Putman was going to leave the shards of Celia’s heart in a trail from Gideon to the ends of the earth.

  Armed with the lists and phone books from every county in Jezebel’s path, she sat down and started dialing. She called sheriff’s offices, ambulance companies, hospitals, Red Cross centers—every possible source of information.

  It took hours. Each source had to double-check lists and descriptions and anything new they’d found. One woman at a sheriff’s office in a nearby county heard the description Celia gave and said, “That sounds like a woman we found this afternoon. Hang on.”

  Heart in her throat, Celia held the line. A small headache had begun to pound in her temples, and her neck ached with fatigue. It had been an awfully long night and day, after all. Her body screamed for rest and food.

  “Hello?” the woman said.

  “I’m here.”

  “We have a body fitting the description you gave. Do you have a name?”

  No! Celia’s mind screamed as she remembered the way Eric had crumpled this afternoon. “Laura Putman,” she said, her voice tight.

  “Okay. You’ll have to keep lookin’, honey. This is a different woman. Her identification was found on her.”

  “Thank you.” Celia hung up and collapsed on the desk, her head on her arms. She trembled violently, giving in to her terror for a moment. A thread of sorrow wound around her heart for the family and friends of the other woman, and once again she counted her blessings that she and everyone she cared about had come through the flood safely.

  Part of her trembling was hunger, she realized dimly, and she promised her empty stomach she’d fill it as soon as she finished the calls. There were only two more names on the list.

  Both fruitless, it turned out. Defeated, Celia stood up and started to round the desk to go beg food from the kitchen. She nearly tripped on a slim, tiny phone book for a town she’d never heard of.

  She put it on the desk, rubbing the back of her neck. In the kitchen, she coaxed the cook out of a roll and a cold slice of roast beef to tide her over until she could get home. But on a hunch, she paused on her way out of the kitchen. “Have you ever heard of a town called Calla’s Folly?”