All the Dead Lie Down Page 6

  BUT WHEN SHE AWOKE, SHE FOUND IT A JOKE,

  FOR STILL THEY ALL WERE FLEETING.

  —“LITTLE BOPEEP,” VERSE 2, MOTHER GOOSE

  Grady had turned his back and was pretending to be asleep, but it didn’t fool her. Even in the dark, Molly could see the tension between his bare shoulder blades. There was a question she wanted to ask him. It was a question she had wanted to ask for a quarter century but had been afraid to. She wanted to ask it now more than ever, but she didn’t feel quite ready. If she could keep him awake, maybe she could work her way up to it.

  “Grady, stop playing possum,” she said. “I know you’re not asleep.”

  Without moving he muttered into the pillow, “How could I be asleep with you lying there grinding your teeth?” “I’m not grinding my teeth.”

  “Must be your mental gears, then. You’re grinding them so hard it’s going to wake the neighbors.”

  “You can stop the racket real easy. Just say you’ll do that tiny favor for me. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

  “I don’t want you to leave me alone. What I want is for you to drop this thing. I want it so much, I’m begging you. Please drop it.” His voice was thick with fatigue or emotion. She wasn’t sure which.

  The favor would be a piece of cake for him; he was an Austin police lieutenant with contacts all over the state. All it would take was a phone call. She rested her hand on his shoulder. “I can’t drop it, Grady. Do this one thing to help and I won’t ask for any more.”

  He let out a bitter laugh. “You always say that, and I hate it because you make it sound like I keep score on things I do for you. I’d love to help, but plowing up this old soil is not going to do you any good.”

  “This is not about what might or might not be good for me.”

  “That’s for damn sure.”

  “Grady, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I can find an unlisted address myself, but it might take a few days. It’s so much easier for you to do it. Please.”

  He rolled over to face her. In the soft glow from her night light, his pale eyes looked silvery, the skin under them creased with worry. “You promised me you were finished with this.”

  “I know, but you have to admit that this new development is interesting—Franny Lawrence marrying Frank Quinlan.”

  “Only if you believe he or someone in his family killed your father. And you’ve never come up with a shred of evidence that they did. And it sure as hell wasn’t for lack of trying.”

  He reached out and stroked her cheek. “Let me give you some advice?”

  She hated advice, and she didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking: it could easily end up in the forbidden zone—that time, twenty-five years ago, when they had been married. Their four-year marriage had crashed in flames, mainly—she accepted it now—because of her craziness after her father’s murder. By mutual agreement they never talked about it, and she was afraid this conversation was going to goad one of them into breaking the pact. “No,” she said, “don’t give me advice.”

  He closed his eyes and she could see he was trying to subdue his exasperation. In the silence, she thought about asking him the question. It had been on the tip of her tongue all evening, through dinner and her long rehash of the whole situation. But this was probably a bad time to ask it. So instead she skirted it by saying, “It’s not just this thing about Franny and Frank Quinlan that’s bothering me. It’s the suicide thing and Rose and Parnell. All along they’ve let me believe they agreed with me that my daddy was murdered. Sure, they tried to convince me to let it go and get back to my life. But that was because they thought it was impossible to prove anything. That’s what I thought they thought, anyway. But now, suddenly I get the feeling that they never agreed with me. This huge chasm opened up.”

  “I can see that.”

  There was a silence, in which the only sound was the heavy breathing of the dog stretched out next to the bed. She could ask him the question now. He was an honest man. He’d give her an honest answer. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it yet. She said, “How could Franny possibly think he committed suicide? I mean here’s a man who’s forty-five years old, in good health, everything to live for. He’s about to have a big article published in a national magazine. He’s finally gotten away from Lubbock. He’s going to get married again. And he’s got a daughter who adores him, friends—everything. Everything to live for.”

  “Uh-huh.” Grady’s eyes were still closed. She wasn’t sure if it was because he was bored with her repeating some variant of this all evening, or because he really was sleepy.

  “I mean, I guess I understand why the medical examiner would call it suicide. It did look like that. But people who knew him, like Aunt Harriet and his old friends in Lubbock—for them to even consider the idea of suicide always seemed so unreasonable to me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I just want to go see Franny. I never really talked to her alone after my daddy was killed. And I should have. This would give it closure.”

  “What worries me, Molly, is your getting caught up in it again.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Last time it got so … out of control.”

  He was being cautious, just skirting the forbidden topic, using euphemisms. She didn’t respond right away. The subject was so emotionally loaded for them, it was like walking barefoot on broken glass. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to mention that she had seen Olin Crocker today. Even a quarter of a century later, just thinking about her excesses during that frenzied time gave her hot flashes.

  When Vernon Cates had been pulled from Lake Travis on May 25, 1970, with a gunshot wound in his temple, she had been sixteen, just finishing her junior year in high school. She had dropped out and spent the following year desperately trying to find out what had happened to him. She had followed every possible lead as far as it would go, no matter what it required of her. It was a nightmare time. A year later, while she was pursuing one of those leads, she’d met Grady Traynor, fallen in love with him, got pregnant and married—in that order. She settled briefly into contentment, but when new information came her way, she’d started up the quest again. During that time she had neglected her daughter, betrayed her husband, and alienated everyone who tried to talk reason to her. There had been no limits to her obsession with trying to prove that Vernon Cates had not killed himself and with finding the person who did kill him. Even Grady didn’t know the worst of it.

  “Out of control?” she said. “More like berserk. Demented.” She had left baby Jo Beth with Aunt Harriet for months while she spent every waking moment following one hunch or another. At one point, when Jo Beth was two and a half, Molly had returned to a child who didn’t recognize her and cried when she came near. The memory was so painful she shook her head to chase it away. All that had happened when she was very young. Now Jo Beth was older than Molly had been in that bad time. “Don’t worry, Grady. It could never happen again. I just want to talk to Franny—for the record.”

  “But, Molly, that’s how it starts with you. Just one thing. Then one more. And pretty soon it takes over your life. And mine. And Jo Beth’s. Keep away from this. It’ll suck you down again.”

  Her head began to throb. “What is this, Grady? You think you know better than I do what’s right for me? And Jo Beth, for God’s sake—you’re bringing her into this?”

  “Of course. She’s suffered more than anyone.”

  Molly was so angry her jaw felt locked. “You think I’d do anything that might hurt her?”

  “Not deliberately, but I think you’ve got a blind spot here.”

  “Oh, I’ve got a blind spot, but you, on the other hand, are perfectly balanced about it, carrying no grudges from the past.”

  “No, I’m not saying—”

  “Yes, you are. You’re saying you don’t trust me to look back at this without going berserk.”

  “No. I’m just trying to remind—”

  “Oh, here it comes! You’re
going to throw all that ancient history at me. You’re going to dredge up the Olin Crocker shit. You’re going to tell me what I did when I was twenty and you’re going to—”

  “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop it right there. Let me finish just one goddamned sentence, will you?”

  In the lowest and most reasonable voice she could muster, she said, “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “I just want you to think over what is to be gained by pursuing this.”

  “I have thought it over. It’s a very normal thing for me to pay a call on Franny. After all, she was almost my stepmother.”

  “It might have been normal to do it twenty-eight years ago. It’s not normal now.”

  “Suddenly you’re an expert on normal?”

  “You’re the one who used the word.” He rolled over again, turning his back to her. “Give it a rest.”

  “Rest? Who the hell can rest?” She threw back the covers and slid out of bed.

  She landed with both feet on top of the dog. He exploded to his feet, snarling.

  “Oh, God!” She jumped back onto the bed. The dog stood stiff-legged, growling, his narrow eyes glowing amber in his black wolfish face. He looked like some nightmare vision of a family pet gone mad.

  Trembling, she moved back from the mattress edge.

  Grady said, “Molly, there’s no reason for us to—”

  “Listen, Grady. If you don’t like what I do, you can leave. Go home.” She pointed at the growling dog. “And take that hellhound with you.”

  Grady leaned across the bed. “Shhh, Copper, it’s okay, sweetie, that’s a good dog.” He reached out and rubbed the dog’s head. “You startled him.”

  The growling subsided and then stopped.

  “That’s right. Good Copper,” Grady cooed. Still lying across the bed, he looked at Molly, who sat propped up against the headboard. “See,” he said, “Copper doesn’t believe you should ever get out of bed mad. He thinks it’s important to embrace forgiveness.” He stopped petting the dog and reached his hand out toward Molly.

  The dog resumed his growling, louder and more menacing than before.

  Molly said, “Copper also doesn’t believe you should touch anyone, so maybe you need to embrace chastity.”

  Grady laughed. The sound was so pleasing to her, so full of affection and good will, that her anger lost its edge. “Molly,” he said in a low voice, “Molly, my darling, forgive my clumsiness about all this. I love you. There is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for you. I just hate to see you invite misery.”

  He reached out to touch her but stopped short and glanced down at the dog still staring at them. “Here.” He stretched out on the bed, reached down for the covers, and pulled them up over himself. Then he lifted them high over his head, inviting her to come under the tent with him. Molly accepted the invitation, and the apology. She crawled in and stretched out next to him. Grady drew the covers over their heads.

  Molly was still in a turmoil, but it did feel comforting to be together inside this cocoon of blankets. She decided it was time to ask him. “Grady?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have to ask you something.” Her voice sounded forced and unnatural to her.

  “I know.”

  “You know what?”

  “What you have to ask me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Uh-huh. But I wish—” He stopped.

  “What do you wish?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t ask. I wish you would let it go and never talk about it again. I wish you’d put your arms around me and press up against my back, real tight, and run your toes up the inside of my leg. I wish—”

  “Whoa! Some of this we could arrange, Grady. But you know I can’t just let this go.”

  “Yes, I do know.” His voice sounded defeated. That was a good sign, she decided.

  “So tell me,” she said. “And no matter what you say, I’ll still do lascivious things to you with my toes. Tell me the truth.”

  “I will.”

  She took a little time to fortify herself. Finally she said, “Okay, here it is: do you think my father committed suicide?”

  “There was so much about it that didn’t make sense. If it had been my case, it would’ve been one of the ones that haunt me.”

  She nodded in the dark. It wasn’t the total agreement she wanted, but at least he understood how bothersome the loose ends were. He was a very smart man, a good homicide detective, and he knew almost as much about it as she did.

  “But,” he said, “I also think you should declare this twenty-eight-year-old case closed. Stamp it unsolved and closed. Weep over it one last time. Then walk away from it.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that. Maybe I will. But I need to do just this one last thing. Then I’ll walk away from it.”

  “Frank Quinlan in Lakeway?” he said.

  Bingo. She lowered her head to the pillow and began to relax. “And Frances Lawrence. I wonder why they’re unlisted.” She snuggled up against his back. “Just for fun, see if he has a sheet, or anyone in his family back in Lubbock.” She pressed her body tight along the length of his.

  “That’s a good start,” he murmured.

  She inched her toes up the inside of his leg. “Grady?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Do you know the second verse of ‘Little Bopeep’?”

  “I don’t even know the first verse.”

  “It’s bothering me. She fell fast asleep and dreamt something.”

  “Molly,” he moaned, “no more words. Concentrate on what you’re doing. Live in the moment. Mmmm, yes, just like that.”

  Grady had fallen asleep, but Molly was still wide awake and edgy. She got out of bed, careful this time not to step on the dog, and walked quietly downstairs. In her dark office the only light came from her new computer monitor. From the dark screen a shower of brilliant stars hurtled toward her: her current favorite screen-saver. She sat down and stared into it, letting herself be swept into space, carried through galaxies of multicolored stars and planets. They zoomed toward her and flowed around her as she headed to the center of the universe.

  Stars again. The same color and luminosity as the sprinkles on Aunt Harriet’s star cookies. She tapped the space bar. The star shower vanished and the screen appeared, with some notes she’d made for an essay she’d been trying to write, an essay that wasn’t working out.

  She read from the screen:

  Next month I will have (celebrate?) my forty-fifth birthday, which will make me the same age (!) my father was when he died. This birthday looms in front of me as a major milestone, one I both fear and welcome.

  I have noticed that women in midlife who are fortunate enough to have living fathers seem to grow increasingly close to their fathers as the years pass. More than they ever could when they were younger, they come to savor and embrace the ways in which they are like their fathers. Father and daughter become peers, easy companions, intimate friends. Maybe the reason for this is women’s waning estrogen levels, or having gotten child care out of the way; or maybe, having finally discovered that being our mothers hasn’t served us well, we decide to try living the second half of life more like a man; or maybe age just confers the freedom to be more ourselves and to get in touch with our male side. I’m not sure of the reason for it, but I have observed with interest and with more than a little envy the increasing rapport between middle-aged women and their fathers.

  My own father was murdered when I was sixteen, so this experience is denied me. But as I get older, I certainly recognize the many ways I am growing more like him.

  There are of course the obvious things: Vernon Cates was a writer. I am a writer. He had one daughter whom he loved unconditionally. I do too. He loved to drive the back roads of Texas with no itinerary and no set destination. He loved to read in bed, to do crossword puzzles, to sit and talk and drink on the front porch long into the night, to explore an interest to the point of obsession. I love doing those things too. He liked seedy old hotels and coastlines a
nd dusty town squares and honky-tonk bars with neon signs and the moment when the sun drops behind the horizon. I like those things too.

  And there’s more: he was at heart a loner. So am I. He was given to bleak moods; me too. He had no desire to accumulate possessions; what little desire I once had is withering away.

  I don’t know—???

  Here it ended. It had just been an experiment, one of those many writing ideas that seem like a good idea at first and then just peter out. She thought about deleting the text but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it, so she saved it to her hard disk, calling the file “Fathers and Daughters.”

  She got up and wheeled her desk chair toward the storage closet. She turned on the light and looked up at the stacks of dusty boxes crammed together on the top shelf. Like the rest of the Cates family, she was a pack rat who never threw away anything that could be put in a box and stored in a closet or a garage. Her father, her Aunt Harriet, her grandmother—they had all been prodigious, lifelong letter writers and they all kept every piece of paper, every memento that came into their lives.

  The top shelf was an inaccessible place, where she stored things she didn’t think she’d need very often—or ever: old tax returns and receipts, years of bank records, Jo Beth’s school projects from grade school, computer paper for a long-abandoned printer. Up there, alongside an old rolled-up sleeping bag, was the carton she was seeking. In her own scrawly handwriting, it was marked, “H. Cates photos.”

  She pulled the chair into the closet, climbed up on it—carefully, since it was on casters—and reached up. The box was heavy; Aunt Harriet had been the family’s alpha pack rat, a born archivist. She carried it to the middle of the floor, set it down with a thump, and sat cross-legged in front of it. Immediately she heard quick light footsteps on the stairs and, a few seconds later, the jingle of Copper’s tags. The dog burst into the room with his ears erect—even the ear he’d lost half of in the line of duty with the APD K-9 Unit. He was retired, but still on patrol.

  “It’s okay, Copper. It’s just me.” The dog came to her and Molly scratched under his chin. “Sorry about stepping on you before, buddy.” She pressed her cheek to his muzzle. “And the name-calling. All forgiven?”