Leaving Time(137)
She collapses against the wall, and I sit down beside her. “I don’t know about that,” I admit.
Jenna turns to me. “What do you mean?”
“You were the one who first said that your mom wasn’t a murderer. That the hair on the body proved that she had some contact with Nevvie at the site where she was trampled.”
“But you said you saw Nevvie in Tennessee.”
“I did. And I do think that there was a mix-up, and that the body identified as Nevvie Ruehl wasn’t Nevvie Ruehl. But that doesn’t mean Nevvie wasn’t involved in some way. That’s why I asked Lulu to test the fingernail. Say the blood comes back matching your mom’s and the fingernail doesn’t—that tells me someone was fighting with her before she died. Maybe that fight got out of control,” I explain.
“Why would Nevvie want to hurt my mom?”
“Because,” I say, “your dad isn’t the only one who would have been upset to hear she was having Gideon’s baby.”
“It is a fact universally acknowledged,” Serenity says, “there is no greater force on earth than a mother’s revenge.”
The waitress who comes to refill her coffee cup gives her a strange look.
“You should embroider that on a pillow,” I tell Serenity.
We are at the diner down the street from my office. I didn’t think Jenna would want to eat after being sick, but to my surprise, she is ravenous. She’s consumed an entire plate of pancakes, and half of mine.
“How long will it take the lab to get the results?” Serenity asks.
“I don’t know. Lulu knows I want it done yesterday.”
“I still don’t get why Gideon would have lied about the body,” Serenity says. “He must have known it was Alice when he found her.”
“That’s easy. He’s a suspect if the body is Alice’s. He’s a victim if the body is Nevvie’s. And when she wakes up in the hospital, and remembers what went down, she bolts because she’s afraid she’s going to be arrested for murder.”
Serenity shakes her head. “You know, if you get tired of being an investigator, you’d make a fantastic swamp witch. You could make a fortune doing cold readings.”
By now other people in the diner are giving us strange looks. I guess it’s legitimate to talk about the weather and the Red Sox, but not murder investigations, or the paranormal.
The same waitress walks over. “If you’re nearly done, we could use the table.”
This is bullshit, because the diner is half empty. I start to argue, but Serenity waves her hand. “The hell with them,” she says. She takes a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket—enough to cover the bill with a three-cent tip—and slaps it on the table before hoisting herself out of the booth and walking outside.
“Serenity?”
Jenna’s been so quiet that I’ve almost forgotten about her. “What you said about Virgil being a good swamp witch. What about me?”
Serenity smiles. “Honey, I’ve told you before that you probably have more actual psychic talent than you think. You’ve got an old soul.”
“Can you teach me?”
Serenity looks at me, and then back at Jenna. “Teach you what?”
“How to be psychic?”
“Sugar, it doesn’t work that way—”
“Well, how does it work?” Jenna presses. “You don’t actually know, do you? You haven’t had it work, in fact, for a really long time. So maybe trying something different isn’t a bad idea.”
She faces me. “I know you’re all about facts and figures and evidence you can touch. But you’re the one who said that sometimes when you look at the same thing a dozen times, it takes try number thirteen before what you’re looking for jumps out at you. The wallet, and the necklace, and even the shirt with the blood on it—all that stuff’s been waiting for a decade, and no one managed to find it.” Then she turns to Serenity. “You know I said last night that you were in the right place at the right time whenever we found those things? Well, I was there, too. What if those signs weren’t meant for you, but for me? What if the reason you can’t hear my mom is because I’m the one she wants to talk to?”
“Jenna,” Serenity says softly, “it would be the blind leading the blind.”
“What have you got to lose?”
She barks a frustrated little laugh. “Oh, let’s see. My self-respect? My peace of mind?”
“My trust?” Jenna says.
Serenity meets my gaze over the kid’s head. Help me, she seems to be saying.
I understand why Jenna needs this: Otherwise, it’s not a complete circle, it’s a line, and lines unravel and send you off in directions you never intended to go. Endings are critical. It’s why, when you’re a cop and you tell parents their kid was just found in a car crash, they want to know exactly what happened—if there was ice on the road; if the car swerved to avoid the tractor-trailer. They need the details of those last few moments, because it is all they will have for the rest of their lives. It’s why I should have told Lulu I did not want to go out with her ever again, because until I do, there will still be a sliver of hope in the door that she can wedge herself into. And it’s why Alice Metcalf has haunted me for a decade.