Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Feigning confidence, I zipped the Death Nugget around the circular driveway and stopped it in front of the door, ignoring the cop cars with conscious effort. I slammed my car door closed, making a show of the noise. See? I'm not trying to sneak or skulk. See? Just minding my own business, paying a visit to an elderly relative. Innocent as can be.

I rang the doorbell.

From the other side I heard footsteps too heavy to be hers. Two great, resounding clacks echoed as the bolts were drawn back and the door swung inward. A large man greeted me. He was too old to be middle-aged but wasn't yet a senior citizen, and he was tall enough to be staring down at the top of my head, but not so wide that he could be called fat. I lifted my eyes from his chest and planted them squarely on his somber face.

"Can I help you, madam?"

"Yes sir, you can. You can tell Eliza her niece is here to see her."

One of his bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows lifted as he scanned me from curly head to black-booted foot. "I think perhaps you are mistaken."

I pressed my fingertips to my chest in faux astonishment. "What? Tatie didn't tell you she had a nigger in the family woodpile? I assure you that we are in fact near and dear relations, and I think she might be interested in talking to me."

The doorman hesitated, but he did not withdraw. He recovered his composure and said, with carefully measured dignity, "Ms. Dufresne is not receiving visitors at this time. Perhaps if you were to leave a message and return, she might give you an audience at a later date. Since you are family, you no doubt know about the unpleasantness with her nephew—your cousin, I suppose. She's quite elderly, you understand, and she's not taken the news well."

It was all I could do not to laugh in his face, but he seemed perfectly nice, and being rude wasn't likely to get me half so far as manners might. "Malachi? Of course I know. I'm the reason he was in jail to begin with." I let that sink in before following it up with the rest. "I'm the kid he tried to kill fifteen years ago. And a couple of nights ago, too, come to think of it."

His right eyebrow joined the left one, high up in the creases of his forehead. "You're Eden?"

I propped a hand on my hip and smiled with my lips pressed together. "C'est moi."

"And . . . and you want to talk to Ms. Dufresne?"

"I sure do. Last time I saw her, she made it pretty clear she had some things to say to me; I just thought I'd give her the opportunity."

He faltered, dropping his hand down the door until it fell to rest atop the knob. With his other hand, he rubbed at the wrinkle on his forehead that now threatened to swallow both brows whole. "But I don't think . . . I don't think they're . . . very nice things."

I laughed, but not too loud or hard. "You know her well, then. You've worked for her a long time?"

He permitted himself a smile, slowly catching up to my nervous good humor. "Many years. Though not as many as it sometimes seems." His arm pulled the door open and he stepped aside. "Do come in. I'll tell Ms. Dufresne you're here."

"I would very much appreciate that," I said, swooping past him and into a marvelous hallway with a lengthy Turkish carpet spread over the wooden floors. The doorman led me into the parlor—there was actually a parlor—and asked me to wait while he went up to announce my arrival. I complied, sitting on a high, velvet-padded chair at the fully stocked wet bar that gleamed brass and mahogany.

I expected the man to return and say something like, "The lady will see you now," but instead old Tatie came shuffling down the stairs alone. She was small and unfathomably old, but she held herself upright and stiff as an arrow, and she was quick on her feet. Her fingers grazed the rail for effect and not for support.

She stomped towards me, her mouth set in a straight line and her fierce blue eyes exposing no hint of senility. She did not politely stop at the edge of my 2.5 feet of personal space but pushed her way in farther, until she was right under my chin—close enough that I could count the liver spots and upper lip hairs. I did not back up, but folded my arms between us and let her look at me. Her nostrils flared slightly and she took a step away, turning towards the bar.

"You're old enough to drink, aren't you?" she asked, glancing toward the bar.

"You know I am."

"Well, I suppose you are. What'll you have?"

I think she was trying to convey that she never thought about me. I didn't buy it, but I let it slide. "Surprise me."

Eliza did not look over her shoulder but called out to the doorman, who had crept in a few moments behind her. "Harry, make us a couple of gin and tonics."

"Yes, ma'am."

I hated gin and tonic, but I didn't say so. Eliza glowered at me—offended, curious, and maybe just a touch amused. She plopped her little self into a green velour wing-backed chair and gestured at the one facing her. I leaned back into it, crossing my legs across the shins as though I were wearing a skirt, and not at my thighs, like a man would. Eliza noticed. She noticed pretty much everything, I was willing to bet. She dragged her eyes up and down my posture as if she was calculating a score for my presentation.

By the time we'd settled, Harry had provided the drinks and quietly retreated. A door closed somewhere down the hall, declaring that we were alone. The distant, soft click was Eliza's cue.

"So what do you think?" she demanded.

"Of what?"

"Me. This place. You came here to have a look, didn't you? You jealous and greedy mixed kids always did envy this house. You're all just sitting around, waiting for me to kick the bucket so you can go to court and try to get it."

"I wouldn't take this house if you gave it to me, and I don't need your money. I came here to see you." I figured I'd tell the truth until I had a better handle on what I needed to lie about.

Of course, she'd known that much already—I could tell by the way her eyes gleamed. "And now you have. Am I as charming as you remember?"

"As charming as I remember, and then some. I do remember you taller, but then, last time I saw you, I was a lot shorter. Honestly, though, you don't look any different." I was still being truthful. She hadn't aged a day, although that wasn't the compliment she took it to be, considering I'd thought she looked like a mummy when I was eight.

Eliza knew cheap flattery when she heard it, but she let slip a wry half smile to match the one I must have flashed. "You think you're pretty slick, don't you, girl?"

"Oh yes. Terribly slick." I sipped at the alcohol and tried not to grimace. It tasted like piney kitchen cleaner. "But I'm not trying to snow you, Tatie. I came here for information, not for money or to provoke you." I choked down another small mouthful.

Eliza did not appear relieved to hear this. She did not relax at all, but instead clutched her crystal glass tight and held it to her mouth. She swallowed the liquor full and deep, the way I treat wine. I watched the gulp slide down the wattle of her throat and disappear past her collarbones. She was positively skeletal, as nearly a ghost as I'd ever seen a living human being. If she stood in front of a good stiff light, I could have watched her insides tick through her parchment skin.

"You can't threaten me," she said firmly, trying to convince me that her frailty only extended so far.

I dipped my jaw enough to indicate shock at the very idea. "I wouldn't dreamof it. I only want answers, and no one on my side of the family is very forthcoming. You're the only person who might could help me, so I've come to you."

"Hmm." She downed a little more of her drink and swirled the remaining contents of the glass with a winding of her wrist. "What sorts of answers?"

"For starters, I want to know who A is."

She jumped, almost sloshing the clear beverage free of the clinking ice and over her fingers. "What are you talking about? What A? What is it you think you know?"

Her reaction startled me as much as my question startled her. "I was just wondering—the A who wrote to my mother when she was in Pine Breeze. I think he must have been my father."

Eliza's shiny snake eyes glistened, but she settled back into her chair and set the glass on a small table to her left. She had misunderstood me, and she was relieved to realize it. I couldn't help but wonder what she thought I'd meant. "Oh. So you want to know about Arthur."

I leaned forward. "That's what the A was for?"

"Oh yes." She nodded hard enough to make her loose skin flap, and her voice was more earnest than honest. "And you're very correct—he was your father, if your mother was to be believed. He believed her, that much was certain. How'd you learn of him?"

"I went to Pine Breeze."

"Don't lie to me, child," she snapped. "Not if you want straight answers in return, like you say you do. Pine Breeze has been torn down."

"No, it was shut down. And it's aboutto be torn down, but it still stands—just as they abandoned it twenty-five years ago. I dug around in there until I found Leslie's files, and those files included some letters from A, presumably Arthur."

"What did those letters say?" She was on the literal edge of her seat now, our faces only feet apart. I sensed an advantage, but I didn't want to press it too hard or reveal too much. I leaned back again and took another swig. It was easier to imbibe after two-thirds of a glass, but not much easier. I'd still rather drink turpentine.

"Mostly that he missed her, and he wanted her to leave Pine Breeze. He wanted her to move to a facility closer to him. He also complained a lot because she wouldn't write him back."

"Is that all?"

"Basically."

She retreated too, distrusting my slippery word but sinking against the winged chair back and exhaling. She polished off the rest of her drink in one quick upward tip of the glass. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">