The Qualities of Wood

6

Vivian was standing at the refrigerator opening a beer when Nowell came in.

He walked towards her and she moved abruptly away.

‘What’s your problem?’ he asked, glowering over her.

She swallowed a gulp of beer. ‘You didn’t have to act like I was some crazy person for asking a few questions.’

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to cut you off with the sheriff. I’d already been talking to him for a while, and I figured he probably wanted to get out of here. Besides, I can take care of things.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The sheriff. I can take care of it.’ He turned to leave.

‘You didn’t ask him when he would call us,’ she said.

Nowell spun around. ‘That girl was practically in our backyard. You can be sure he’ll let us know.’

‘I didn’t realize you were such an expert in the protocol of police investigations.’ She grinned, but now he looked angry.

‘You just have to know everything right away,’ he said. ‘But there’s nothing to know yet. You threatened the sheriff…’

‘Threatened him, by asking questions? I was just concerned. Aren’t you worried about our safety?’

‘Not until I have a reason to worry.’

They stood several feet apart. An impasse. Outside, tree branches slapped against the north side of the house and leaves blew across the porch. She had noticed, in some peripheral zone of her brain, storm clouds forming. ‘I wonder what happened to her,’ Vivian said.

‘I don’t know,’ Nowell said. ‘I really don’t.’ He shook his head, looking down at the weathered yellow floor. Vivian realized that he was more affected by the sheriff’s visit than she had thought.

‘It’s going to rain,’ she said. ‘My elbow hurts.’

‘We should close the windows,’ Nowell said. He walked down the hallway.

She went to the back door, rubbing her elbow and watching the flurry of weather outside. The night had come alive; the sky was brooding and thickly dark. A strong wind pushed the trees crazily into each other and lifted leaves and papers into tiny, racing cyclones. Vivian thought about the girl they had found and tried to picture her splayed across a wide, flat rock. The sheriff told Nowell she was seventeen years old. Vivian wondered how long she was there before the sheriff came, what she’d been wearing. She thought about their neighbor to the east, Mr Stokes, marching over the land like he owned it. The way he looked at her had been strange, judgmental.

Nowell returned to the kitchen, rubbing his hands together. ‘They’re all closed now,’ he said. ‘It’s really something out there.’

On cue, a crack of thunder echoed through the yellow kitchen. They both jumped.

Nowell asked, ‘Do you need ice for your elbow?’ He nestled behind her, wrapped his arm across her collarbone.

She felt a familiar tingle. ‘So you did hear me,’ she said.

When the weather was wet and cool, the joints in Vivian’s knees and elbows were prone to soreness. An ingrown barometer, they alerted her with more accuracy than the weather forecast in the newspaper. When she was young, her mother called it growing pains and was uncharacteristically patient with her when it happened. Now that Vivian was an adult, she wasn’t sure what caused it. Surely, she was finished growing.

That poor woman, Katherine had called the dead girl’s mother. Vivian remembered being seventeen; she and her own mother had rarely seen eye-to-eye. High school changed Vivian, gave her a flavor of independence. By her third year, she was staying out every weekend, often missing her curfew or disregarding it altogether. She argued with her mother constantly, even threatened to move away.

Nowell had gone into the living room, a small, blue-carpeted area next to the kitchen. Seldom used, the room was cramped with furniture and dimly lit. A brick fireplace took up most of one wall, on its mantle sat a porcelain owl with wide, black eyes. As Vivian entered, lightning brightened the room, throwing stark shadows against the walls. A clap of thunder followed, echoing in the chimney. Rain pelted the windows; fat drops slid down the glass. She sat next to Nowell on the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest. He was watching a nature program. On the screen, two female tigers squared off against each other, their backs and ears raised. She thought about Katherine’s tattoo and suppressed a grin.

‘Let’s go into town tomorrow morning,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘I want to sign up for the newspaper. Maybe we could have breakfast while we’re down there.’

‘Why don’t you just call the newspaper office?’

‘I want to buy one for tomorrow, see if there’s anything on that girl. We could see a movie afterwards, and…’

‘I can’t,’ Nowell said. ‘I’m not at a good stopping point.’

She sighed. ‘I’ll go by myself then. I guess I have to drive that truck sometime.’

The tigers were in a group of five now. Two of them had young to look after. The cubs rolled around on the dirt, smacking each other with their large paws.

‘How’s the book coming?’ she asked.

‘Good,’ he said.

‘How far have you gotten?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How many chapters?’

‘About nine I guess.’

On the television screen, the cubs frolicked in the grass. ‘Is it going to be like the other book?’ she asked.

‘I hope not.’

‘I mean, the same kind. A mystery.’

‘Yes.’

She put her legs down and leaned over, pressing her hand on Nowell’s chest. ‘Come on, tell me something about it.’

‘You know I don’t like to. It’s not complete, not even the idea of it. Right now, it’s all stored in my mind, in some sort of inexplicable order.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘You don’t have to get it.’

She sat upright. ‘I guess that’s just one more thing we can’t talk about tonight. Can’t talk about the sheriff, can’t talk about your book.’

A vulture watched the group of cubs as they dove in and out of the tall meadow grass.

‘I talked to my mom today,’ Nowell said. ‘They’re trying to reduce her pension.’

‘Who?’ Vivian asked.

‘My dad’s old company. They’re saying something about a time limit or something. She’s really upset about it.’

‘I thought pensions were forever.’

‘There’s a new tax law. She told me all about it, but I couldn’t follow half of it, the rules and regulations. That place has turned very corporate since Dad died. I can’t believe his old partner would do this to her.’

‘What’s she going to do?’

Nowell shrugged. ‘She’s worried about losing that money. She’s never had a real job.’

‘How much is it?’

‘Not much, but she depends on it.’

‘She has savings and the house, the money from your grandma…’

Nowell leaned forward. ‘But it’s regular income and she’s entitled to it. She got a lawyer, an old friend of my dad’s.’

Nowell kept in very close contact with his mother, and it had taken some time for Vivian to get used to it. Communication between herself and her own parents was more sporadic and less involved. She spoke to her mother every other week, about mundane things – jobs, illnesses, the weather. And her mother talked about her work. She taught Sociology courses at the university and was usually working on another book.

Vivian’s father didn’t like the telephone. Normally, all she could get out of him was a general statement about what he was doing before he passed the receiver on. In person, he could be quite animated about his work. He was a good listener and never gave advice.

But Beverly Gardiner unburdened all of her problems onto her sons. Nowell helped her decide on appliances, insurance and doctors, and he worried about every problem with her house or car. At first, Vivian thought him kind and responsible for assuming some of his father’s responsibilities but recently, she’d witnessed the unnecessary worry Beverly caused. The pension issue, like many others, would probably end up being nothing.

After a long commercial break, the vulture carried off a tiger cub that had fallen sick and died.

‘That’s disgusting,’ Vivian said. ‘Is he going to eat it?’

Nowell chuckled, pulling her next to him with his long arm. ‘It’s the way of nature.’ Then he coaxed her onto his lap so that they faced each other.

After a moment he asked, ‘What’s all that stuff out in the garbage?’

‘Assorted junk. A whole box of plastic silverware and plates, sewing stuff, stacks of paperbacks.’

‘You could take the books to a used book store.’

‘They’re romance novels,’ she said, leaning in. ‘I figured you’d think the world is better off without them.’

Nowell gripped her hips. ‘Because of poverty, I’ve had to reconsider my high ideals.’

‘We’re not in poverty.’

‘Okay. Without means.’

‘You’re right, I could have traded them for something to read.’ She shrugged. ‘They’re all wet now.’

‘What else have you uncovered?’ he asked.

‘Nothing exciting. Mostly clothes, junk. I really haven’t gotten much done yet.’

‘There’s no rush. You deserve a break.’

‘So do you, so how about that movie tomorrow?’

He shook his head. ‘I told you. I can’t.’

‘It’s only one day.’ She moved back to her spot next to him on the couch.

‘Viv, please. I’m trying to do something here, for both of us. I have a hard enough time staying focused. Random Victim did pretty well, but I’ve got to produce something else. Besides, Dani wants me to start doing some promotion in the fall for Random Victim, getting ready for the new book.’

Dani was Nowell’s agent. She had a husky voice and like a used car salesman, was overly and suspiciously friendly.

The rain had let up; occasional drops splashed against the windows and the wind was calmer.

‘Let’s plan a day off soon,’ she said, ‘you and me. We’ll pack a picnic lunch and go for a long walk.’

‘Maybe next week,’ he said.

The remaining tigers were enjoying the spring sunshine. They were leaner now, learning to hunt. In the high grass, they crouched and chased each other around.

Maybe the girl was taking a walk when it happened, Vivian suddenly thought. Sometimes it’s nice to be alone, only your thoughts for company and no one telling you what you should be doing. Maybe someone saw the girl, someone with bad motives and a sudden opportunity. But the sheriff had said that it looked like an accident. Maybe someone was with her and the other person ran off afterwards. But people don’t normally run away from accidents, she thought, unless they’re guilty in some way. She squeezed her elbow, trying to rub away the insistent throb.

‘I’ll get you that ice,’ Nowell said, and he went out to the kitchen.

7

The storm had pushed soggy leaves against the house and left a puddle directly below the porch steps. Broken branches lay scattered about, their leaves still green and beneath the bark, clean white fiber gleamed. Vivian kicked off her shoes, the damp grass cool between her toes as she gathered the debris. In the shed next to the well, amidst rusty gardening tools and bags of old potting soil, she found a straw broom. She swept the porch and gathered everything into a black garbage bag. By mid-morning, the grass dried into scented vapors and the dirt driveway lightened, strip by strip, as the sun moved higher over the trees.

Nowell was in his airless study, hidden behind the curtain like a sick ward. Vivian’s mind had started to believe that the divider was solid and soundproof; it gave the illusion of complete separation. Nowell’s touch on the keyboard was light. She seldom heard any sounds from the room. If she strained, sometimes she could make out a soft, steady tapping, like raindrops on a distant roof. Most of the time, she forgot he was in the house.

She telephoned her parents but reached their answering machine, her mother’s staid, succinct recording. Then she went to the study.

‘Nowell? Can I come in?’

‘Hey, Viv,’ he called back.

She pulled aside the curtain, an old sheet with delicate baby blue stripes, and stepped down. ‘It’s so stuffy in here,’ she said without thinking.

This was a continual disagreement between them, at their apartment and now here, at Grandma Gardiner’s house. Nowell kept windows sealed; Vivian liked to air things out, even in the winter.

‘It’s cold in the morning,’ Nowell said. ‘There’s no sun back here. I wish you’d leave the windows alone.’

‘I opened them in the afternoon, when it was warm.’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘It’s your room.’ She perched on the edge of his desk. ‘I’m going to head into town now. I’m going to the newspaper office and having lunch with Katherine. She called earlier.’

He moved some papers to the side. ‘Are you sure you’re comfortable driving the truck?’

‘I think so.’

The night before, he adjusted the seat and brought a pillow from the house for her to sit on. It seemed demeaning to her, like a booster seat for a child, but she was determined to drive the thing.

She climbed into the cabin as effortlessly as possible given its height, started the truck, and backed it slowly down the driveway. As she turned onto the road, she glanced up at the house, looking for Nowell in the windows. She felt sure he was watching, to see how she’d do.

Vivian had no trouble driving to town and finding the newspaper office. The Sentinel was tucked between two squat office buildings, its white-painted brick façade standing stubbornly between the modern structures. She walked through the double doors at the front and a bell tied to the doorknob jangled, reminding her of Christmas. The woman at the desk looked up and smiled. Above her, a wooden placard that said ‘Customer Service’ hung from the ceiling under two thick cables. She had a double chin that protruded underneath her first chin. Bulbous and jiggling, it extended down in a rounded curve to the opening of her shirt. ‘Hello there,’ she said.

Vivian tried to focus instead on her eyes, which were dull green but friendly. ‘My husband and I just moved here,’ she said, ‘and we’d like to receive the newspaper.’

‘Surely.’ She took a sheet of paper from a plastic tray at the side of the counter. ‘Just fill out this form.’

Vivian set her purse on the counter. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but could I borrow a pen?’

‘Surely. Take mine and I’ll fetch another one.’ The woman made slow movements to disembark her chair, which was a high, backless stool pushed up close to the counter. She turned to the side and scooted forward a little, then straightened her torso so that her rear slid over the edge of the seat. Finally, she landed with a grunt on the floor, her neck shaking up and down.

‘There are three different kinds of subscriptions,’ she explained when she came back with the pen. ‘There’s every day service, which includes every day of the week except Tuesday and Thursday. We don’t print those days. So the ‘every day’ title really means every day we print. Then there’s Monday, Friday, and Sunday service. Basically that excludes Wednesday and Saturday. Then there’s Sunday only service.’

‘I’ll take the second one.’ As the woman checked the paperwork, Vivian looked around the office. Behind the counter, two desks sat side by side, each cluttered with papers. A doorway at the back of the reception area opened to a larger room. Two people were working in that section. A man leaned on the corner of a desk, talking to a woman and smoking.

‘I see you’re out on the main road,’ the woman said.

Vivian looked back to her milky green eyes and nodded.

She lowered her voice. ‘Did you hear about the girl they found out there?’

Vivian answered in her normal speaking voice. ‘Yes. She was found near our house.’

The woman’s eyes widened and as she lowered her head, her neck creased into white and pink bands. ‘Right near your place, you say?’

‘Practically our backyard.’

‘Goodness! How terrifying for you!’

Vivian didn’t like her conspiratorial tone or the way she had lowered her voice.

‘You poor thing,’ the woman continued. ‘Your husband’s out there with you?’

‘Well, yes. Why?’

She looked at Vivian curiously. ‘For protection.’

‘The sheriff seems to think it was an accident.’

‘That’s not what I heard.’ At once, the woman changed her posture, straightening her back. She looked over her shoulder. ‘Well, I can’t…’

Vivian leaned forward. ‘What did you hear?’

The woman contemplated for a moment then squinted, her eyes catlike. ‘I heard it’s not a foregone conclusion.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They say the girl fell, right?’

Vivian nodded.

‘And hit her head on the rock?’

‘Yes.’

The woman paused, puckering her lips. ‘Say you’re running and you trip on something and fall. Where would your hands be?’

‘My hands?’

‘You’re running and your feet hit something and you fall forward.’

‘I don’t know.’

The woman shook her head irritably, then glanced over her shoulder again. ‘Your hands would be up, near your chest or your face, depending how far they got.’ She demonstrated. ‘You would try to break the fall, by instinct. That’s why kids on roller-skates are supposed to wear those wrist things, because they break their wrists more than anything else.’

‘So?’

‘Chanelle Brodie’s hands were at her side, like this.’

Vivian peered over the counter to see the woman’s arms, pressed to her sides like a soldier at attention.

‘Weird, isn’t it?’ the woman said.

‘I guess.’

‘Like an execution,’ she almost hissed.

They concluded their business and Vivian thanked the woman. Outside, the morning brightness was a shock. She locked the truck and started down the street toward the restaurant Katherine had suggested, thinking about the conversation with the woman at The Sentinel. What she had said about instinct seemed reasonable. Small children often fell on their faces, cutting their lips open or bruising their cheeks, but after a certain age, injuries happened more to limbs. Older children scraped their knees and elbows, broke arms and fingers. It seemed logical that if a seventeen-year-old girl had fallen in the woods, her hands would have gone up to break her fall.

Vivian passed a toy store and a women’s clothing boutique. The streets were quiet for mid-morning, most businesses still closed. She lowered her sunglasses to read the sign on the door of a flower shop: Open weekdays at eleven. Most of the places were the same. She was meeting Katherine at eleven-thirty, and still had an hour to kill. She reached the plaza with the statue of William Clement, sat on a red-painted bench, and opened her complimentary copy of The Sentinel.

There were two articles about Chanelle Brodie, the first one on the front page: Local Girl, 17, Found Dead. The article was short, just covering the most basic facts; that the body was found face down, on a large rock, and that the death was believed to be an accident. More information would follow after an autopsy, it said. The other article, buried on page six, talked about an impromptu memorial service that took place at Chanelle’s high school. The entire fence surrounding the football field was threaded with flowers. The formal services would be held in a few days.

She wondered again what Chanelle had been doing in the woods behind their property. Vivian thought about a small box she buried in her backyard when she was young. The box contained mementos: notes she had received from a boy, a plastic multi-colored bracelet, a picture of her mother as a teenager. Between the gnarled roots of an old, dried-up tree, she dug a hole and covered the box with a thin layer of dirt. She thought: Maybe Chanelle had a hiding place in the woods; that would explain why she went there alone. Then again, maybe she did most things by herself, being an only child. Vivian could relate to that.

‘Hey there!’

Vivian opened her eyes. The sun glared through her sunglasses.

Katherine moved over, blocking the light. ‘I thought that was you. I drove by a minute ago.’

‘None of the stores were open,’ Vivian said. ‘I thought I’d read the paper and enjoy the sun a little.’

‘I keep telling Max that we should open later like everyone else, but some people like to drop off their cleaning on the way to work.’ She looked up at the sky. ‘Feels like another hot one, doesn’t it? July is going out with a bang, I swear.’

They walked across the plaza, over the jagged shadow of William Clement and horse.

Katherine said, ‘This place has a great salad bar, and it should be pretty fresh since we’ll get there before the lunch crowd.’

Vivian looked up and down the streets, which were clear but beginning to show a few sporadic signs of life. She couldn’t imagine any type of crowd anywhere on this street, lunchtime or otherwise. There was a pregnant stillness, like a suspenseful movie. Any moment, a mad gunman would burst from the bank or someone would scream and fall from the top of a building.

‘Those kids were a handful today,’ Katherine said.

‘What grade?’

‘Third. Eight and nine years old. They’re hard to handle during the summer. It’s like the heat gets to their little brains.’ She laughed, pleased with herself. ‘What did you think of that storm?’

‘Windy, wasn’t it? I filled a trash bag with leaves and branches.’

Katherine grabbed Vivian’s upper arm. ‘I still can’t believe it. One of the teachers at the school heard that Chanelle had been missing for almost three weeks. She has a friend who knows Kitty.’

‘Kitty?’

‘Mrs Brodie, Chanelle’s mother. Her name is Katlyn but she’s always gone by Kitty.’ She made a clicking sound with her tongue. ‘She had a hard time raising that child alone. Chanelle was a magnet for trouble.’