Bloodline Page 18

  I’m glad I stole the pineapple brooch. And the locket full of Lily dirt that thank god I never opened.

  I can’t go door to door, either, knocking, asking people what they know.

  What does that leave?

  I find myself in front of Dr. Krause’s. He isn’t originally from around here and so wouldn’t be a help even if he were the obliging sort, but I spot my answer across the street: the Lilydale Nursing Home. Surely someone inside remembers Virginia and Paulie Aandeg.

  I walk in like I know what I’m here for. I ignore the unsettling, overpowering smell of antiseptic and stride to the front desk. I assume my mildest expression.

  “Hello, how are you?” I ask.

  The older woman behind the desk glances up, her eyes narrowing. She’s nondescript. Brown hair under a nurse’s bonnet, brown eyes, crisp white uniform. “I’m good, Mrs. Schmidt. What can I do for you?”

  The familiar chill settles in my bones. Everyone in Lilydale knows me. Small-town insanity. Well, I will use it to my advantage. “I’m good, thank you. You know I’m writing the article on Paulie?”

  The woman leans forward conspiratorially. “We all do. How exciting! The boy has come home.”

  “So it would appear,” I say. “There aren’t any residents here who would have known him before he was abducted, are there? Maybe a neighbor or friend? He doesn’t remember much of anything from back then, and I’m trying to flesh out my story.”

  The woman taps her chin with a pen. “I think I can do you better than that. We have Rosamund Grant here with us. She used to watch the neighborhood children back in the day. The poor kids, anyhow. They didn’t call them babysitters back then, but I suppose that’s what she was. Maybe she watched Paulie, too?”

  I try to keep the excitement off my face. This might be the first uncensored, unbiased lead I’ve had. “I’d love to speak with her. I promise not to say anything upsetting.”

  The woman snorts. “You don’t need to worry your pretty head about that. Mrs. Grant is an old battle-ax. She was mean back then, and she’s even crabbier now. I’d be more concerned about you.”

  “Yes, Paulie had one just like that. Remember it as plain as the back of my hand. So unusual.”

  I let my short sleeve drop. “Did any other kids you took care of have a similar scar?”

  “Well, I suppose your beau, Deck,” she says.

  I blink rapidly. “Did you used to watch him, too?”

  She cackles. She’s the oldest woman I’ve ever spoken to, her back a hump that rises higher than her head as she sits bent nearly double in her wheelchair. Her eyes are bright, though. “That family would sooner die than let me within an inch of their child. Same with all of those Mill Street snoots. But I assisted Dr. Krause when the vaccinations were given. Not a nurse, exactly. Just a helper. I also cleaned the wounds when they got infected.”

  “Wait,” I say, my heart pounding. Something is drifting into place, something important, but I’m too close to see it. “Dr. Krause from across the street administered the vaccinations to Paulie and the other kids?”

  “None other.”

  Skittering apprehension tickles my skin. “So he’d know that Deck had the scar like me and Paulie?”

  “Decades ago, I suppose he knew it. No telling if he’d remember. Not everyone has a brain built like mine.” She taps her scalp, visible beneath thin wisps of white hair.

  I didn’t bring a notebook. “Is it correct that none of Paulie’s family is still around?”

  She squints. “It was just Virginia and Paulie, which means no Aandegs in town since 1944. I don’t blame that poor Virginia for leaving. It wasn’t her choice to get pregnant, and then her boy is snatched from her.”

  My mouth drops open. “Virginia Aandeg was raped?”

  Her eyes dart up, drilling into mine. “That’s not what we called it back then.”

  I’m reeling. “Who raped her?”

  Her face grows cagey. “I only know rumors.”

  “What do the rumors say?”

  “They say Stanley Lily visited many women back in the ’40s, whether they wanted him to or not.” She twists a gold ring on her knotted finger.

  Sad Stanley. My brain sparks and spits. Sadistic, Sinister Stanley.

  “Not just poor ladies, like Virginia. Rich ladies. Rich like Barbara Schmidt.”

  I gasp and jump to my feet.

  She cackles. “Maybe your Deck and Paulie Aandeg are half brothers?”

  My jaw opens and closes before I find the words. “It can’t be. Deck looks exactly like his father.”

  “Does he?” she asks, her grin evil.

  Yes, of course he does. “Deck is Ronald’s son.”

  She shrugs again. “I may have mixed up names. It was so long ago, and all those Mill Street men liked to plant their seeds far and wide back then. Plant a seed, harvest it, plant a seed, harvest it.”

  She’s singing, her eyes growing rheumy. I grab her arm desperately, unwilling to get off topic. “Do you know who took Paulie?”

  Her smile creases her face. “If you see pretty trinkets, don’t you take them?”

  This woman is old, I remind myself. Her memories are all jumbled. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. I must stick to facts. “Mrs. Grant, do you remember where the Aandeg house was? Before it burned down?”

  “South side,” she says, quick and sharp as a paring knife. “A little Baptist church stands where it used to be. The church has been empty for a few years. Guess religion couldn’t find root in that cursed soil.” She cackles again.

  “Cursed how?” I ask through tight lips.

  “Why don’t you ask the ghost next door?”

  My breath freezes. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re living next door to Johann and Minna Lily’s original home, didn’t you know? Oh, the house has been rebuilt for Stanley and Mrs. Lily, but the underground is the same. The well out back, too, though you may have to dig a bit to find that.”

  Suddenly, I am no longer tethered to my own body. My eyes are sticky, but I can’t seem to blink, my chest tight but I can’t draw a breath. We’re sitting at a card table in the communal room. A nurse appears and tells Mrs. Grant it’s time for her medication. The nearby residents are watching us.

  “You’ve been very helpful,” I tell Mrs. Grant, forcing my mouth to shape the words. “I won’t keep you any longer.”

  Her eyes grow crafty. “You shouldn’t be working, you know.”

  I feel an increasing pressure at my throat. “Excuse me?”

  “Not when you’re pregnant like that. Your father-in-law won’t like it. And here’s one final piece of advice, and this one’s free: whatever you do, don’t wander into the basement.”

  The spit in my mouth turns to paste. Does she mean the nursing home basement, the one below the Lily house, or my own dirt basement, the one I’ve refused to enter?

  Before I can ask, she leans forward, a shadow falling across her ax of a nose. “I’ll give you one hundred dollars for that baby.”

  Her cackling hooks my skin as I stumble out of the nursing home.

  CHAPTER 41

  Have I underestimated the power of this town, been overconfident in my ability to bust free? If Stanley is a serial rapist—and Paulie Aandeg’s father—and the Mill Street families are covering for him, how far would they go? Would they have murdered Virginia Aandeg after they’d shuttled Paulie—the only evidence of Stanley’s crime—out of town, destroying any chance of her turning in her rapist? And if so, if he’s really Paulie, how much danger is Kris Jefferson—walking proof of the bloodline—in?

  Or is Rosamund Grant simply a crazy old lady, stirring up a kettle of trouble?

  I’m hurrying toward my house, walking as fast as I can without exploding into a run, struggling not to shatter as I go. I don’t look around. I certainly do not want to talk to anyone. So when the shape separates from the tree and glides toward me, I turn my face away.

  “Joan.”

  I recog
nize the voice. I don’t want to slow, but I must. “Ronald.”

  He ambles up to me. If someone is watching, they’ll witness a charming scene: a middle-aged man and the mother of his grandchild taking a stroll. I confirm that Ronald and Deck are nearly identical, twins separated by age but not appearance. I should never have let Mrs. Grant worm her doubt into my mind.

  “Visiting someone at the nursing home?” he asks.

  “Yes.” I’m brittle. “How about you?”

  “I was on my way to speak with you. I just received very disturbing news.”

  My hand instinctively tracks to my belly, to the curve that is visible no matter how shapeless my clothes. Be still, Beautiful Baby. I am here. I will protect you. Has Deck told his father we’re moving? He wouldn’t.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say. I want that to end the conversation. I turn to walk home alone, but Ronald doesn’t let me. He stays at my side.

  “It’s about your mugger.”

  This stops me in my tracks. Ronald might know about the day I got Slow Henry, if Deck told him against my wishes. That’s all Ronald could mean, because the only person who knows that I thought I spotted my mugger in Lilydale is Regina, who promised she’d carry my secret to the grave.

  I hold myself still. “What about him?”

  “I heard you think you saw him. Here in town.”

  I blink rapidly, too shocked to respond. Regina. But she wouldn’t have told, at least not told Ronald. There must be another explanation.

  Ronald continues. “He followed you here, Joan. We don’t know why. We want to help you, though.”

  I speak through clenched teeth. “Who is ‘we,’ and who told you I saw him?”

  Ronald holds up his hands. “You mentioned at dinner last week that you saw a man get hit by a car. Amory told me the gentleman was fine, but when Dennis followed up by calling the Saint Cloud hospital, he was told the fellow had taken a turn for the worse.”

  “You said he didn’t die. When you were at my house for dinner. You said he was alive.”

  Ronald shrugs. “Internal injuries.”

  I swallow past the horror of learning the man is dead. “What does any of that have to do with the mugger?”

  Ronald sighs deeply. “You seemed upset by the accident, far more upset than would be expected. Deck was worried about you. Thought maybe you knew the man. So, he and I drove to the hospital, looked at the body. Joan, the man who you saw get hit by a car perfectly matches the description of your mugger.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  Ronald scowls but keeps walking. “How’s that?”

  “I didn’t see anybody get hit by a car. I saw a car run up the curb, then I saw a man on the road. Deck never saw my mugger. Yet he identified a corpse in the morgue as the man who mugged me?”

  Ronald cuts to the side, stepping away while keeping pace. When he turns back to me, he’s a different person. His kind, grandfatherly presence has been replaced by a dreadful storm of a man, his words dripping with condescension, his lip curled in a snarl.

  “You know,” he says, “the Fathers and Mothers kept this town out of poverty even during the Great Depression. What we do is provide leadership. That takes balance. It’s about doing what’s the best for the majority. Most people want to live life on the surface.” His gravelly voice drops even lower. “Very few want to go to the deep dark below. The Fathers and Mothers roll up our sleeves and dive down there, managing the townsfolk’s nasty business. Protect them like the children they are. ‘Honor thy father and thy mother, that long lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee.’ I hope you can learn to respect our authority.”

  He glances at my stomach. “And I hope you’re well enough to care for your child. Deck has mentioned some troubling things. I’d hate to see your firstborn taken away because you’re unfit.”

  I’m stunned. Immobile. A pregnant springbok with nowhere to hide.

  He leans toward my ear, his breath hot on my neck. “But if that’s the case, you can trust that the Mill Street families will raise him as if he’s our own.”

  He strolls away, hands in his pockets, whistling a merry tune.

  I watch Ronald go, panic crawling across my flesh because after our conversation, I now know two things for sure: I really did see my mugger in Lilydale, and now he’s dead.

  And only one screw can possibly hold those two pieces together.

  My mugger was from Lilydale all along, and he’s been murdered for the mistake of letting me spot him here, in his hometown.

  CHAPTER 42

  I let Saturday, June 1, come and go.

  I know it’s the monthly initiation ceremony for the Fathers and Mothers. I garden. I clean. When the phone rings and Deck answers, and I hear him tell somebody that I’m not home, I don’t ask any questions.

  When later that day, Deck drops to his knee and proposes with his grandmother’s sapphire ring, I say yes. I will say yes to everything and no to nothing. I know now, after walking with Ronald, that it’s no longer about staying to finish the investigative story so I can land a reporting job in Minneapolis.

  It’s about survival.

  Paulie probably is Stanley’s child. A child of rape, a Lily, and despite their best efforts to get rid of him, he’s back in town. The Mill Street families are dark and dangerous, and they want my baby, too. Or, more accurately, they want Deck’s baby. To escape with my child, I must be smarter than smart.

  The leopard, not the springbok.

  When Sunday rolls around and Deck asks if I still want to attend church, I behave as if he’s offered me the moon. I even make chocolate-marshmallow bars for the fellowship meal after the service.

  The Catholic sermon is rule bound and oddly violent with threats of harsh punishments and notions of an unforgiving God. I act as if Jesus is speaking directly to me the entire time. I let the engagement ring glitter on my finger and catch the light to distract myself.

  It’s beautiful.

  I will keep it, once I escape. I want Deck to go with me, but if he takes much longer, I will leave without him. Protecting my baby is all that matters.

  We’re seated in the front pews with the other Mill Street families. All of them Fathers and Mothers. The Schramels and the Bauers, the Lilys and the Schmidts. Do the women look happy?

  I study them as they watch the priest.

  They appear purposeful. Like they have a place in this world. It’s different from how the people in the rear of the church look. It’s not just because those people have darker skin, are migrant workers judging by their dress and rough hands. It’s that the people in the back seem like they cannot quite relax. Not like the Mill Street families can.

  When I twist my head, I spot Angel Gomez, the beautiful child I first noticed at the school musical, with his family. He’s still impossibly lovely, with his dark curls and deep-brown eyes. His mother and sister are doting on him, bribing him with a cherry-colored lollipop to keep him quiet.

  I catch the mother’s eye and smile. She smiles back.

  My sight is pulled to the right by the vision of Clan Brody arriving late to church, Catherine at his side. It takes all my will to not gasp out loud. His face is covered in green and yellow bruises, his eyes swollen nearly shut. Deck must feel me go rigid.

  He glances in the direction I’m staring, then leans over to whisper in my ear. “Heard he was so drunk when he left our place the other night that he fell down his own stairs.”

  Deck laughs.

  I stroke my neck, wondering what Clan has done to displease the others. The net is closing in.

  CHAPTER 43

  Deck wants to meet with the Fathers after the fellowship gathering.

  “Are you going to tell them about our move?” I don’t want to bother him, am afraid it will cost me, but I can’t stop the question from spilling out. I need to know what he’s planning, at least as much as he’ll tell me.

  He kisses my forehead. “Everything I do from this day forward is about
making the move smooth.”

  I lean into him. “Do you need me to stay?”

  “It’s probably better if you don’t.”

  I pull back, studying him. “Why not?”

  “You look tired,” he says, brushing my cheek. “That’s all.”

  That’s how I find myself walking home alone and noticing for the first time that I’m moving like a woman who’s expecting. I am five and a half months pregnant.

  There is no longer any outfit that can hide my condition.

  I’m tempted to jog. To see if it’s still possible. To see how fast I can move.

  A car pulls up, driving slow enough to roll alongside me. I look over. Kris is behind the wheel of the blue Chevy Impala with Florida plates, the same one I spotted outside unit 6 of the Purple Saucer. It’s a nice car, or at least it was. A rear panel has been replaced with a sheet of black metal, and rust rims the wheel wells.

  “Need a ride?” he asks. He’s wearing a soft-looking tie-dyed shirt, its blues and greens and purples faded by age and sun. His curling hair and impish smile are as attractive as ever, but the lust I felt for him is no longer there.

  I lean in, looking for evidence of Stanley Lily in his features and build. It’s impossible to say, as eroded as Stanley is. I glance around to see who’s watching us before opening the passenger door and sliding in. “Thanks. Remember where I live?”

  “You want to go straight home?”

  “It’s closer than Siesta Key.” I shouldn’t be in this car. Eyes are always watching me.

  He laughs. “True enough.”

  He drops a relaxed hand on my shoulder. “You won’t believe Siesta Key once you get there. It’s beautiful. If it was a different life, I’d drive there right this second, just take off.”

  “With me?”

  Smile lines bloom beyond the edges of his sunglasses. “If you like.”

  He starts driving. I don’t have a plan. I don’t even really have interview questions. It just feels good to be with him. The attention. The freedom.

  “Take a right here,” I find myself saying. Mrs. Grant didn’t exactly pinpoint where Paulie’s home had been. Lilydale isn’t that large, though, and there can’t be an abundance of abandoned Baptist churches around.