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The woman's face looked really familiar, though, and I kept examining her, hoping I'd make the co
Bryan was asking her if there was any way she could remember a particular customer who'd come by two days before, and Emma confirmed that she'd been right there behind the counter on Monday. But Emma was wary of Bryan, for whatever reason—maybe just because he was an affluent white male. Watching her face seal itself off, I had a sinking feeling that any information we could have gathered was being chucked down a well inside the clerk.
"We were pretty busy that morning, same as always on Monday," she said grudgingly. "Let me see the receipt, but I ain't holding out much hope."
I pulled the receipt out of my pocket and handed it to her. As our eyes met, a little click sounded in my ears. "Emma!" I said. "You were three years behind me in high school, right?"
"I sure was," she said, relieved to track down her own elusive memory. "I'm Jane's sister—Jane Pocket she was then."
"Oh, sure. How is Jane?"
"Well, she's gotten married twice now, and she has four kids in school and another one on the way. I have two myself. I married Dante McKibbon right after we graduated. My girls;— one's in high school, and the other's in junior high."
"Oh, how nice," I said, smiling as brightly as I could.
"Now, you still live in town, don't you? I'm sure I saw you at the store last month."
"I do. I have a house over on McBride."
"You married?"
A black pit opened abruptly, right in front of me, and I took a deep breath, gathered my composure, and stepped right over it. "I'm a widow," I said, maintaining my smile.
"Oh, too bad! You got any babies?"
"No, I'm all on my lonesome," I said.
Emma obviously regarded this as the worst of all possible situations and cast around in her brain desperately for something upbeat to say to me. "Well, you look great," she told me. "You don't look a day older than you did when you graduated. Those kids'll put the years on you, for sure."
Bryan opened his mouth, but I got in there first. I knew what I was doing now. "You remember my mom?" I asked. Emma nodded. No one forgot my mother. "She married John Queensland, John David's dad? I know you remember John David." He would be a little younger than Emma, but he'd had a lot of success on the football field, and that would have made his name more familiar.
"Oh, sure," Emma said, relieved to be on a different topic. "That John David, he speaks every time he comes in here."
"Oh, he gets his gas here?" I leaned on the counter, as if I had all the time in the world.
"Sometimes," she said. "He was in here the other morning, the morning you were asking about, unless I'm real confused. But I think it was early, not at the time on this receipt. This says ten-twenty-two, and he always comes in before eight, on his way to Atlanta."
"You remember Bubba?"
"Which one?" she said with a big laugh, and I had to laugh right along with her. "You mean the big black Bubba who played center on the football team, or the Chinese Bubba who was so smart, or that Bubba who's a lawyer in town?"
"Lawyer Bubba."
"He comes in here, too, but not so often," she said, thinking back. "He's always in a hurry, don't talk to me."
"You remember Poppy?"
"Yeah, I hear she's dead."
"Yeah. She married John David."
"Yeah, after they fought all through high school. Were you in the cafeteria that day she slapped him upside the head?"
"I had already graduated, but I heard about it."
"She didn't hold back none, either. She let him have it. Maybe that's why somebody killed her, she mighta whomped on them like that."
"Her mom and dad are here," I said.
"Yeah, her dad is that preacher," Emma said. "My mama used to clean house for them. I was over to see Mama the other day when the radio said that about Poppy. My mama said, ‘Like father, like daughter, I guess.' "
"Oh my gosh," I said, "did he make pass at your mother?" I am sure I looked as disgusted as I felt. Somehow, you're always a child when you hear about the peccadilloes of those who represented authority to you when you were young.
Emma looked sardonic. "He don't like my skin tone," she said, as if adding another mark against Marvin Wy
"Ew," I said, and Emma laughed.
"I like a man with more meat to him than that," she said. "His wife is like that, too, all thin and bony. Now she was in here Monday around the right time, and I was surprised, because I hadn't seen that woman in a coon's age. Did they move back into town?"
I leaned more heavily against the counter, suddenly weak.
Bingo. What the hell had Sandy Wy
She looked puzzled.
"He's a half brother. You may not recall that my mom was divorced when I was pretty young?"
"I knew something happened, since he wasn't around anymore."
"Yeah, well, my dad remarried, so I have this brother, Phillip, who lives in California. He just hitchhiked over here to see me, and he met these girls along the way."
"I can't believe he got here alive," Emma said frankly.
"Me either. It was dumb, but he's a kid." I shrugged. "Anyway, he may have been here that morning, Monday morning. The car he was in stopped here for gas. It would have been my brother—he's about as tall as this lawyer here—and two girls, both older than he is." I dredged my memory. "He says they were in a green Impala." Though Phillip had told me he'd caught a bus into Lawrenceton, I thought it would be unfair of me not to check on him, too.
"Can't remember," Emma said after she'd turned it over in her head. "So many kids, and if they're that young and white, I don't know ‘em, so I just don't recall."
"Thanks for taking the time to help," I said. "I enjoyed talking to you. You tell Jane I said hello, okay? And Dante."
"Sure will," Emma said. She smiled, but she also looked at me as though she was sorry for me.
Well, I just had to swallow that. I kept my smile steady, and Bryan and I left the store after he'd asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee, then bought me one and paid for it.
He handed me into the car as ceremoniously as he'd gotten me out of it, and I found that was a tiny bit tiresome. But I was glad to sink back into the leather seat and feel the heat blowing around me as we started back to town.
"That was a stroke of luck." I was thinking of Emma's face as it was now, trying to picture the way it had been in our high school days. I was thanking my lucky stars I'd remembered the woman, since she was a few years younger. In high school, that makes a big difference.
"That was very smooth," Bryan said, interrupting what I suddenly realized had been a long silence.
"Smooth? What?"
"Your questioning. Are you sure you don't want to be a lawyer? Or maybe join the police force?"
"I'm sure," I said, smiling. He'd sounded almost miffed, but I was going to ignore that. I had a feeling Bryan was unhappy because his own questioning had proved unproductive. "If you know someone, it's just easier to ask the right questions."
"So. Mrs. Wy
"That's about it."
"Sandy Wy
"Yes. She's so—well, she seemed so devastated when they came to my house Monday night. I could have sworn all that grief was genuine."