Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
When I awoke the next morning, the first thing I saw was the borrowed dress from Merilee hanging on my closet door, and I smiled, determined to focus on my upcoming date with Whit instead of the strange events at Merilee and Netty’s apartment.
I mean, it’s not like I hadn’t experienced things one hell of a lot stranger already at Dawes House.
There was a bounce in my step, a happiness I couldn’t suppress as I left for work that morning, but the sight of Billy Wayne standing in front of the elevator doors when Henry and I came downstairs brought me up short.
The man made my skin crawl. Even if I hadn’t known what an asshole he was to Kitty, I wouldn’t have liked him.
There was something about him that was just… off. Menacing. Dangerous.
“Good morning,” I said politely as we passed.
He cast a surly look my way and said nothing before stepping into the elevator.
“I think he has his grumpy pants on,” Henry told me, rolling his eyes.
“Mind your manners, sir,” I said with a warning look, but softening it with a grin.
Iris was already at the front desk when I left Henry with June. I wished her good morning on my way out, but then paused and turned back, needing to ask the questions that had been nagging me for days.
“I saw Billy Wayne earlier,” I told her. “He was even more disgusted by my presence than usual. Is everything okay?”
Iris shook her head on a sigh. “You haven’t heard yet? Their baby didn’t make it. Poor little thing just wasn’t strong enough.”
“Oh, God, no,” I breathed. “No, I hadn’t heard that. How’s Kitty taking it?”
Iris cast her eyes down at the paperwork on her desk and didn’t immediately answer. “She was beside herself. Couldn’t bear the loss.”
I frowned at her, hoping I didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“Billy Wayne went to the hospital this morning to make arrangements for her body,” Iris said.
Sweet Jesus.
The shock of the truth left me speechless as I wrestled with the poor woman’s tragic fate. That she had been so hopeless, so despondent… And as much as I detested Billy Wayne and how he’d treated his wife, I still hated that anyone would ever experience such heartbreaking loss.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked. “Is there anything he needs? I know he’s not my biggest fan, but I would never wish that on anyone.”
Iris gave me a kind smile. “I’ll let you know,” she promised. “I’m sure he could use consoling from all of us.”
That evening before picking up Henry from June’s, I took the elevator to the third floor, intending to offer my condolences to Billy Wayne. I had no idea what I could say. There were no words that seemed adequate.
When I reached his apartment door, I lifted my fist to knock but a sudden cry in the apartment brought me up short. Then came muffled moans and gasps—a woman and a man who I assumed was Billy Wayne.
“That son of a bitch,” I spat under my breath, seething for poor Kitty and her baby, not even in their graves yet. Grieving husband, my ass. He’d probably had a mistress all along. Hadn’t Whit told me Billy Wayne’s wandering eye was behind their screaming matches and Kitty’s uncontrollable sobs?
Disgusted that the man could be such an unfeeling bastard, I marched down the stairs, needing the extra time before picking up Henry. I’d managed to tamp down my contempt by the time I reached June’s door, but the woman was far too perceptive.
“What’s wrong, darlin’?” she asked, taking my arm and pulling me inside. “You look like you could spit nails.”
“Hi, Mama!” Henry cried, running to me and giving me a tight hug when I scooped him up and kissed his cheek. “We helped Mamaw June dig up one of the flowerbeds to get it ready for new plants!”
“Did you find any squiggly worms?” I asked, tickling his ribs.
“No!” he laughed. “But I found a treasure!”
I gasped with excitement. “You did? No way!”
“Why don’t you go play with Addie for a few more minutes,” June said. “Then you can show your mama what you found.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Henry said, squirming to be put down.
As soon as he was out of earshot, June led me into her kitchen and put on the tea kettle. It was way too hot and humid for anything warm to drink, but I wasn’t going to refuse her hospitality.
I glanced around her kitchen, taking in the countless plants that filled the room, many of them hanging upside down from several lines strung across the room, drying until ready for…whatever she used them for.
“Now, tell me what’s wrong,” she insisted, pulling out the chair across from me and setting a teacup of pale-yellow liquid on the well-worn top of the heavy wooden farm table.
I took a sip of the tea, surprised by the spiciness but finding it unexpectedly soothing. “Iris told me about Kitty and her baby.”
She nodded. “A terrible loss.”
“I thought so, too,” I said. “So, I went upstairs a little bit ago to offer my condolences. But…” I hesitated, cleared my throat, took another sip of the tea. “When I reached the apartment, I heard Billy Wayne having sex with someone. Loudly.”
“Ah,” June said, straightening in her chair.
I shook my head. “Don’t you think it’s suspicious? Billy Wayne and Kitty had such horrible fights they’d leave her sobbing so loudly I could hear her from the floor above. Then their baby dies, and Kitty takes her own life. And now I hear him with another woman?”
“Don’t get involved, Zellie,” June warned. “It’s not your business.”
“But what if Billy Wayne did something to Kitty and the baby?” I pressed. “What if the complications were because of him?”
“Zellie,” June said firmly, “don’t you think the doctors would’ve reached out to the police if they’d found anything suspicious?”
She had a point, of course. But the nagging wriggle of unease at the base of my spine told me something was off. The whole situation wasn’t right. There was more to the story, I was certain. But June’s tone told me our little heart-to-heart was over.
“Now,” she said, assuming her usual pleasant tone, “drink your tea, darlin’. It’ll help you feel better.”
She wasn’t wrong. I was completely relaxed after a few more sips. “What’s in this?”
“Herbs and flowers and a few other ingredients,” she said with a smile. “Old family recipe.”
“So, tell me about Henry’s treasure,” I said, changing the subject before I made myself completely unwelcome.
“Oh, yes!” June said, her face lighting up. “Henry, my little prince, come show your mama what you found!”
“Why do you call him ‘little prince’?” I asked.
June turned to me, her smile somewhat condescending. “Well, Henry’s rather a royal name, isn’t it? It suits him, even though he obviously hasn’t been raised in wealth.”
I leveled my gaze at her, narrowing my eyes. “So, what? It’s a snide joke making fun of the fact that we’re poor?”
“Now, Zellie,” June replied, waving off my indignation as if it were a pestering fly. “You’re being too literal. And, besides, just because you’re poor doesn’t mean Henry always will be. Humble beginnings and all that.”
I blinked at her a few times, trying to figure out what the hell she was implying. But before I could press her, Henry bounded in, Addie at his heels, her blond curls bouncing.
“We found pirate treasure!” Addie announced.
“Addie, I want to tell her!” Henry protested.
I set my tea aside and pulled Henry onto my lap. “I still don’t know what it is, baby,” I told him. “No need to get upset with Addie.”
“Mamaw June,” Henry said, his voice eager once more, “could you please show Mama?”
June rose from the table and picked up an object wrapped in a very dirty burlap cloth. Grinning, she set it on the table in front of me. “Go ahead.”
Henry looked at me expectantly, his eyes shining with barely restrained excitement. “Open it, Mama!”
With a slight shake of my head, I pinched a bit of fabric and unfolded one side, then the other. I gasped when I saw Henry’s “treasure.”
A very old, very dirty dagger lay on the cloth, its sheath caked with mud, obscuring the designs engraved in the metal. The hilt was simple, reminding me of the pieces I’d seen in a museum display case on a school field trip, but I didn’t know enough to guess how old it was or where it came from.
“Isn’t that cool?” Henry asked. “Mamaw said I could have it if you were okay with it, but that you’d have to keep it put up for me until I was old enough.”
All I could think of as I sat there staring down at the antique weapon was the dagger in Macbeth. “Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?” In the infamous play, it had foreshadowed murder—and the beginning of the end.
When we arrived back at our apartment, I placed the dagger, still wrapped in its cloth, on top of one of the bookshelves in the living room where Henry couldn’t reach it, my fingertips lingering on the bundle.
Part of me wanted to examine it more closely, try to determine its origin, why it would be buried in the garden.
But there was something just outside my knowing that nagged at me, an impression I couldn’t quite grasp that made me shy away from thinking about it more.
Despite June’s warning not to get involved, I decided to stop by Billy Wayne’s apartment the next morning to tell him how sorry I was about Kitty and their son and see if I could sense anything about what had happened.
But as I stepped out of the stairwell and into the third-floor hallway, Billy Wayne’s apartment door opened.
And Iris stepped out. Her hair was a tangled mess, her stiletto heels in her hand.
She threw her lovely head back and laughed as Billy Wayne grabbed her around the waist and pulled her roughly to him with a hungry growl. And then he grabbed her by the back of the neck and kissed her hard, making her moan.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, disgusted and heartbroken by the truth. How could they betray Kitty that way? Had Iris always been the other woman, or had she just moved in as soon as Kitty was out of the picture?