The Good House Part 26

"I owe you an explanation," Tariq said gently. "Promise me you'll keep quiet?"

He was being nice about this, whatever it was. Naomi nodded, her teeth clicking together. Maybe he only wanted to unburden his heart. He'd tell her how Angela had always misunderstood him, how much it had hurt him when his son died, how awful he felt at the funeral when Angela cussed him out in front of G.o.d. She would promise not to tell anyone about the gun and send him away. Sometimes deranged people just wanted someone to listen. She could listen.

"It's not your fault. You didn't know," Tariq said. "Everyone's been telling you your luck's changed because of hard work and your pretty face, and I won't take that away from you. But you've had help-help from Angie, help from her grandmother. They've been pushing things along, wheedling. People in power dream about you and see your face everywhere for two days solid. Did you know that? Ask Vincent. Ask Stan Loweson at FilmQuest. That's what happened to them. That's what people mean when the say the fates are smiling on you. It's all good, right?"

Naomi's head nodded fervently, as if she understood, although she was barely listening, getting madder at herself. This man was the kind of psychopath she'd read about in tabloids. Why hadn't she prepared for this? She'd laughed at Bennett when he'd ask her if she was getting a bodyguard.Just don't let him get mad, she thought.Just let him keep talking, Jesus, and help me find a way out of this. In her peripheral vision, she looked for places to hide, a towel or a bedsheet she could throw on Tariq to give her a minute to...

"But you've been used, Naomi. Marie used you to send Angie back to Sacajawea, back to the place. Marie dragged you in, and now you're involved. But you didn't know Marie was talking to you, did you? You couldn't hear her voice. Well, she was talking to you, baby. You did exactly what she wanted you to do-a little puppet, Naomi. Marie said jump, you said, 'I'm jumping!' "

Tariq sounded like he was getting agitated, and Naomi stared at the glaring pinhole again. If Tariq's finger slipped on the trigger, if he twitched, he was going to kill her. He waspointing that gun at her. Sweet Lord, what was wrong with this man?

Suddenly, Naomi felt obligated to listen again. She wanted to cry, but she was afraid to.

"The flesh realm can be a lonely place if you don't know how to reach the ones who've gone, and you never learned that, did you? Don't you miss your father, Naomi? And Mama June? Well, they're right here. They're right here watching."

The names of her father and grandmother froze Naomi still. She gaped at Tariq with a sob that sounded like a hiccup. Her moorings to reality had loosened long ago, from the moment she had seen Onyx again, but now her mind snapped free. She was babbling. She'd never done that before.

"Shhhh. Don't make a sound," Tariq said. "I promise, I won't hurt you. I treat beautiful women with respect. Eshu's happy with your line-Mama June always had pipe tobacco and a walking stick waiting for him at her door. I'm not here to cause you pain. I'm here to punish Marie. You should have been more careful about choosing your friends, Naomi. And you'll have to stop that whimpering, or I'll get mad. I'm not a saint, and I'm having problems with my temper."

Naomi's hand flew over her mouth. She'd thought the whimpers were coming from Onyx, but they were hers. She closed her eyes. In the sanct.i.ty of darkness, her terror retreated enough that she could breathe without feeling smothered.

Tariq's broad, cold palm rested against her cheek. "You would have been timeless," he said.

Would have been.The words clawed at Naomi. She decided to scream, at the same instant she realized that the living room television was so loud that no one would hear her. Tariq tightened his grip against her jaw, behind her ear, pushing her head to one side. Gasping, Naomi opened her eyes, a reflex. She had to see what was about to happen to her.

She was an observer now. This couldn't really be happening. Itcouldn't .

And then, as soon as she'd decided it wasn't happening, it really wasn't.

The gun's muzzle was gone. Tariq held the gun up in the air, flipping it in his hand until he gripped it by the barrel. The tape-covered b.u.t.t was facing her, safe. Harmless.

"See? I won't hurt you," Tariq said again, his eyes studying hers with great curiosity. He pulled her toward him, until he was close enough to embrace her, gently squeezing Onyx between them. But Tariq kept a distance, not pushing himself against her as she'd been afraid he would, a prelude to rape. Out of the corner of one eye, Naomi saw Tariq raise his right arm high, the gun's b.u.t.t facing the ceiling. Far, far from her.

Naomi's feeling of overwhelming thankfulness lasted until Tariq's gun hand swooped down in a chopping motion, and she screamed, trying to pull away, convinced he was going to hurt Onyx.

"You'll be beautiful for posterity," Tariq said, but she didn't hear him.

She thought she saw an eruption of red light. But true to his word, Tariq did not hurt her.

Naomi Price was dead before she felt any pain.

Twenty-Three.

SACAJAWEA.

That same day.

ANGELA MISSEDthe old Main Street.

The ma.s.sive windows of Downtown Foods were darkened, mourning. At the old brick hotel next door, the yellowed marquee advertising Liza's play,The Last Good Time, was a savage joke. Orange sawhorses up and down the south side of Main Street blocked residential intersections leading toward the river. Two news vans were parked outside the courthouse, one with a large satellite dish atop its roof, posing a spectacle here in a way news vans did not in Los Angeles. It was lunchtime, and dozens of people had come to congregate around the vans. Older children played on bicycles and skateboards, basking in their town's newfound importance. Angela wondered if school had been canceled, or if parents had decided on their own to keep their children home today, close to them.

Thank G.o.d it hadn't been like this after Corey died,she thought.How did Liza survive it?

As Angela drove at a crawl, she saw Myles in a crowd of four or five reporters comparing notes outside the courthouse doors, but he didn't see her. In that instant, unseen, Angela felt alone in a way that terrified her, until she deadened herself to the feeling.

Moun fet pou mouri,Gramma Marie used to say. People are born to die.

Angela braked, and the car behind her honked before driving past her in an impatient roar. Creole! She hadn't been able to remember more than a word or two of Creole in thirty years. When she was young, Gramma Marie had taught her songs in Creole, and she'd recognized many sentences as a toddler, she'd been told, but she'd forgotten the language after a time, living in L.A. with Mama. Mama hadn't known Creole and hadn't wanted to. But Gramma Marie's phrase had just leaped into her mind as if it belonged there.

"Keep talking to me, Gramma Marie," Angela said. "I hear you."

Gramma Marie's whispers came in so many ways now; the tingling, a subtle foreknowledge that made her feel slightly out of sync with the world around her, words and ideas popping into her head. Was Gramma Marie getting stronger? She hoped so. If not, Angela would have nothing but funerals to look forward to, and anyone left would have to attend hers. That was afact, not a fear.

She needed an answer, and now. She was running out of time.

As her feeling of desperation grew, Angela noticed that she was ten yards shy of the driveway to the restored fisherman's cottage that was now the Sacajawea Historical Society, beyond the antique schooner, near the pier where Rob had driven her yesterday. She should stop here, she decided. She swallowed back a bad taste in her mouth when she saw the empty pier, imagining Art carrying his muddy, drowned child from his boat to the car he might have parked exactly where she was parking now. As she left her car, she again noticed the sour, fishy smell of the riverbank. Misty rain caressed her face.

Maybe Gramma Marie wanted her to come here.

A tiny bell chimed when Angela walked inside the historical society building, which was musty despite the air-conditioning that kept the room too cold to be comfortable. The large front room was crowded with tables and shelves of town memorabilia: old oil lamps, uniforms from World War I and World War II, medals, display cases full of letters, historical photographs.

Laney Keane appeared from the back, startled to see Angela. Laney's skin was stretched tightly against her face, too bony to look healthy. Her short hair was limp, barely combed. "I don't believe this," Laney said, frozen in place. "I was about to call you."

Good. Therehad been a reason to come here.

"What about?" Angela said.

"Because..." Laney blinked, embarra.s.sed. "Well, how can I put it? I remembered something, and...I wanted to tell you..." Laney straightened up the tourist brochures on the front table, separating the stacks for the marina, the deer refuge, the Lewis and Clark trail.

Angela watched her work, as patiently as she could. "Go on, Laney."

Laney gazed at her with hollow eyes that looked nearly bruised. "I saw all three of them going out yesterday in the boat, and I waved. They were just grinning, all three of them. I can see where they were fishing from the window right here. If I'd only looked up, I keep thinking. If only I'd seen something. He must have walked right past my window, after. I just didn't see...." Laney gazed out toward the pier and the winding path that led to the inlet. Angela saw yellow police tape strung up across the shoal.

"Is that what you wanted to tell me?"

Laney shook her head no with a sigh, her thin lips tight. She swallowed.

"I've been thinking a lot about your party, Angie. About what happened. Is it all right if I talk about that?"

It always came back to the Fourth of July.

"Please," Angela said, although the idea of it made her feel queasy already.

"I've always wanted to tell you about your piano. In your living room."

"What about the piano?"

"I was studying it that day. My grandparents had one just like it, with the piano rolls, and I love those old pianos. I was looking at your piano, and I'd opened the case to see what condition it was in. And it started playing right before...right before..."

The piano had been playing right before the gunshot. "I remember," Angela said.

"But I didn't do it, Angie." Laney's face was pleading, as if she'd been accused of a crime. "I didn't move your rolls. I would never do that without asking you first. And the bar was empty. It wasn't even moving. I know, because my nose wasn't six inches from it. And then...I looked down at the keys, and they were playing. Just...playing. The keys were moving of their own accord, Iswear they were. And I looked around for you to tell you what was happening, and I heard you laughing, but then..." Her wan face looked like old china, mapped with age lines.

"Anyway, it's always stayed with me. Followed me. And who was standing right beside me when the piano started playing? June McEwan. We both commented on how curious it was, the way it began playing that way. We laughed at the time, we were so startled, but then we looked at each other, and I saw the same question in her eyes:Well, how isit playing, then? Then the gunshot right after. We jumped like jackrabbits. I'll never forget it. Later, when June tried to hurt Randy, that was so curious, too...and I remembered that d.a.m.ned piano." Laney's bottom lip twitched. "I woke up first thing this morning and wanted to tell you that, Angie. I've been working up my nerve."

Angela squeezed her arm, which felt as frail as an old woman's even though Laney couldn't be older than fifty. The wild look in Laney's eyes reminded her of one of the patients she'd known at The Harbor, Mrs. Shaw, an eighty-year-old widow who had been sweet and smart and utterly gutted by life, haunted by anxiety attacks after decades of beatings by her husband. "Take the day off, Laney," Angela said. "Why are you open? No one's coming today. Close up and go home."

Laney's face deflated, disappointed. "You don't believe me?"

"Of course I do. I know something terrible is happening. Something in the house."

Laney smiled a sickly smile. "Yes. That's it, exactly. It's something terrible, Angie."

"Before you go home, you have to do me a favor, though. I need your help right away. Did Gramma Marie ever give you anything for your archives? Any papers? Or trinkets?"

Laney thought about it hard, her eyebrows furrowing. Then, she shook her head. "I asked her to many times. I asked her about the piano, too. But she never wanted to-" She stopped, and the sun seemed to shine on her troubled face. "But there was an interview once. I'm almost sure I still have it! I started a heritage series when I first came here, interviewing town pioneers...."

Angela's heart leaped. She held Laney's face between her palms. "I need to see it," she said.

"It's a ca.s.sette tape. I'll find it for you. Come with me to the back."

The back was the historical society's small library, a carpeted room with two tables for reading, with a few thinly populated bookshelves. While Laney rummaged through a file cabinet near the window, Angela glanced over the book t.i.tles:Beach of Heaven, South of Seattle, The Northwest Guide to Medicinal Herbs and Plants . Local t.i.tles. Nothing she needed right now.

"Here it is!" Laney said proudly, producing a single ca.s.sette case. "I don't think she was feeling well, so it's not the full hour. Just the first side, if I remember...."

The typed label on the ca.s.sette saidMARIE F. TOUSSAINT, 11-23-90.

Gramma Marie had done this interview a month before she died.

Angela's chest locked with guilt. She should have interviewed Gramma Marie a dozen times over and captured this history herself. She should not have left that job to a stranger. Gramma Marie had never liked talking about herself, but she should have forced her to. It was Angela's story, too. "Where can I listen to this?"

"I'll bring out the player and headphones. You can sit right here and do it."

The oversized ca.s.sette player Laney brought was labeledSACAJAWEA HIGH , probably an old donation. But it looked like it worked, so Angela put on the large, cushioned headphones and waited for the hum to pa.s.s after she pushed Play. Laney slipped out of the room to give her privacy. She closed the door behind her.

"-sure it's on?" Gramma Marie's voice came suddenly, draining Angela's breath. She'd sounded a little raspy as she'd gotten older, but her grandmother's voice and careful speaking pattern were unmistakable, immediate. Angela closed her eyes, wishing she could climb into the recording and wrap her arms around her. How could Gramma Marie's voice be here if she was truly gone?

"Yes, ma'am," Laney's voice came, much more sprightly than it was today. "We're rolling."

"Well, let's roll on along then, young lady."

"You're one of the remaining pioneers in this town, Mrs. Toussaint," Laney said.

Gramma Marie hated being called a pioneer, Angela remembered. A beat later, the tape affirmed her recollection: "Oh, I can't tolerate that word!Pioneer. You make it sound as if I should be sitting here wearing a racc.o.o.n-skin cap," Gramma Marie said.

"Well, this town is called Sacajawea, and the Native Americans like to honor their elders...."

"I hope the Indians aren't the only ones, or the world's in trouble," Gramma Marie said. "Well, this must be what happens when you reach a certain age. When your hair gets gray and your memory gets long, suddenly you're a pioneer and an elder. Don't waste your lofty words on me,cher . I haven't earned them. Not everyone with gray hair is worthy of honor."

"You're being modest. You've made such a wonderful contribution here. Your tutoring-"

Gramma Marie sighed violently, cutting Laney off, and Angela couldn't make out the first words she muttered. She replayed the tape three times, but the sound was too m.u.f.fled. "-as honest as I can bring myself to be. There's too much resting on my soul, too much done and too much undone. I've spent my adult life trying to mend the mistakes I made when I was young, which is what we all do, I suppose-but my mistakes were so large and my life was so short. There's too, too much on me."

Suddenly, Gramma Marie made a strange sound, and after a few seconds, Angela realized she had sobbed. Angela had never seen Gramma Marie cry. She felt a stab of envy. Why had she opened up to Laney more than she ever opened up to her?

"Should we stop the interview?" Laney said.

"No, go on. It's good to say it. Words are powerful. You know that, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am. That's why I do what I do. I love to preserve words."

"Not all of them are worth preserving. I'll say that much. Words are treacherous, too. They outlive you. They follow you. You don't know what I'm talking about when I say this, but words can move the earth. Just a mouthful ofwords."

"Yes! That's so profound, and that's exactly the way-"

Gramma Marie cut her off. "You don't understand me,cher, but that's all right. It's best you don't. I wouldn't want you or anyone else to live with what I know. My life was sour longer than it was sweet. I lost Dominique, G.o.d rest her poor, sweet soul. But I saved Angela from it, didn't I? I sure did."

At the sound of her name, Angela's heart quickened. Saved her fromwhat? Please let there be something on this tape I can use, she prayed.Please, Gramma Marie.

"Your granddaughter?" Laney said.

"Oh, yes. My grandbaby. She'll be here any day for Thanksgiving. She comes four times a year, her and her husband and her little boy. And if that baby isn't thespitting image of my first husband, Philippe. I tell you-those eyes, that jaw. Angela looked like her grandaddy too, but not like the baby does. One of the blessings of G.o.d, having Philippe back. Angela gave him the middle name Toussaint in Philippe's honor. As for that first name, I never understood that, but she said it was after a boy on a television series about a nurse in the 1960s. Said it was the first time she'd seen a little black boy on TV. Can you imagine naming the child Corey after a child on TV? Silliest thing I ever heard. But at least Philippe is in the name, too."

Angela rolled her eyes, nearly laughing despite her sorrow. She and Gramma Marie had argued back and forth over Corey's name, and now it was all coming back, an argument in progress. On this tape, at least, time had not moved an inch.

Gramma Marie went on: "G.o.d's miracles, G.o.d's miracles. You see? I lost Philippe, Eli, and John, so I had three husbands-they were all husbands to me, at least-and I lost them all in a short time. I didn't have more than three years with any of them. But Angie, she's got herself a husband to keep. Smart as a whip, that one, and so good with the boy. He and Angie have their disagreements, but all married folk go through that. Angie's the first one of us to keep a husband since my mother. I don't know if we women are harder to live with or the men are harder to hold."

Gramma Marie had been many things, Angela thought wryly, but she'd been no psychic. True, Angela's early years with Tariq had been good ones, but they had lost their way in their arguments in the years following her grandmother's death. Almost from the time she died, really.

"So despite the hardships in your life...it's easier for you because you know you've left your grandchild and great-grandchild behind?" Laney said.

"Well, of course,cherie! They're my joy. If not for them, it would be better if I'd never pa.s.sed this way." Tears came to Angela's eyes. Thank goodness Gramma Marie hadn't lived to see Corey's death.

"What has been the hardest thing, Mrs. Toussaint?" Laney said.

"The worrying," Gramma Marie said. "I thought the worrying would drive me to my death, but the devil must want to keep me here to worry me some more."

"What has worried you most in your life?"

There was a long pause, and the hum on the tape returned for a moment before she spoke again. "That others would suffer for my pride," Gramma Marie said. "I couldn't bear it. That's why I've stayed here all this time, to tend after my mistake. I say prayers every morning. Two hours every morning. Prayers are the water I need to put out the fire."

"I don't understand."