“What do you want?” Her voice was louder than necessary.
“Mrs. Davies, my name is McKenzie. I work for the attorney who’s helping your daughter.”
There was no reply.
“Mrs. Davies?”
“Leave me alone.”
“May I speak with you?”
“No.”
“Your daughter, Mrs. Davies, she needs—”
The door opened abruptly. I was startled into taking a tentative step backward. The woman who opened it was six feet tall and so enormously broad she filled the doorway—I doubted she was able to squeeze through it. Her eyes were narrow and without color, and her hair was stringy and unwashed. She wore a garish housecoat fastened with a safety pin at the throat. The housecoat reminded me of one of my grandmother’s quilts pieced together with whatever cloth was at hand.
“I don’t want any part of that slut,” Sharon Davies shouted. “I ain’t had no part of that slut for sixteen years and I don’t want no part of her now.”
“She’s your daughter.”
Sharon Davies slammed the door and screamed, “Get out of here or I’ll call the police,” through the window.
My own mother died when I was twelve, and over the years my memories of her have become soft around the edges. I was no longer sure what was real about her and what might be what the psychologists call a false memory. Nor did I remember what she looked like. I only remembered what the photos I have of her look like, and that’s not the same thing. Still, I always knew I was loved. I felt it in the brief years before her death and the long years after. I feel it even today. It has always been a comfort to me; there have been times in my life when I drew on it the way a thirsty man draws water from a well.
That’s why seeing a mother or father disown a child, degrade a child, or abuse a child, do anything but love a child totally and unconditionally, leaves me feeling both angry and sad and thoroughly helpless. You can take children out of an abusive environment. You can force parents to obey the law. When no one is looking you can even beat hell out of them. But you cannot make parents love the people they should love the most, who need their love the most, and nothing is ever going to change that.
I got in my Audi and drove away without looking back and prayed what I always pray when I meet someone like Sharon Davies—that one day she will get exactly what she deserves. That she’ll die alone.
I met Eli Jefferson’s sister—her name was Evonne Louise Lowman—at the Mueller Funeral Home in Coon Rapids. The building seemed unnaturally cool and still. The ruby-colored carpet was thick, and I could barely hear the sound of my own footsteps. They piped organ music throughout the place, but somehow that made it seem even more silent. In the distance I heard voices speaking softly. I followed them, stopping outside a small conference room that was adorned with examples of flower arrangements, headstones, and urns.
Evonne and the director of the Mueller Funeral Home were inside. Listening to their conversation, I learned that Evonne had decided to have her brother cremated. Considering the condition of Eli’s body, what with the autopsy and all, an open coffin just didn’t seem like the way to go. The funeral director agreed even though he muttered something about losing money on the disposition—immediate cremation, no services, no obituary, just the minimum that the state required, you’re talking seven hundred bucks compared to the average disposition of five thousand.
“What do you wish done with your brother’s ashes?” he asked.
Evonne didn’t care. What did he suggest?
“There’s some vacant property owned by the crematorium. We could just scatter his ashes there.”
“Sold,” Evonne said, slapping the tabletop like an auctioneer.
The director produced some forms. Evonne signed them. She was in and out in ten minutes flat, which suited me right down to my toes. Funeral homes made me nervous. On the other hand, Vonnie Lou—she told me to call her Vonnie Lou—found the place quite comforting. Nice tunes, she said.
Vonnie Lou was a tall woman with coarse, disorganized hair and a woodenish body, all straight angles and no curves. Her eyes were small and dark, and she spoke with a pleasant, melodic voice, her sentences going up and down the scale.
“I’m an office temp,” she told me. “That’s why I asked you to meet me here during my lunch hour. I really can’t afford to take the time from my job.”
I told her I appreciated her agreeing to meet with me.
“Anything new on Merodie?” she asked as we moved from the sedately lit funeral home into bright August sunlight.
“What do you mean?” I asked
Vonnie Lou shielded her eyes with her hand. “Has she been charged with murder yet?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good.”