The White Widow: A Novel Read online

  Do you like decorating the outside of your house at Christmastime?

  I like whatever you like, dearest.

  Can we make love now?

  Certainly, dearest.

  They were lying side by side in the sand. Now he rose up and glided his body on top of hers. He kissed her hard on the mouth and took her head in his hands and stroked her hair.

  What is your name? he asked.

  Grace, dearest. My name is Grace.

  He undid the first two buttons on her purple and white flowered blouse and kissed her gently.

  I love you, Grace.

  “Hey, Jack!” yelled Johnny Merriweather. “Your bus is about to leave!”

  “My bus? I don’t have a bus anymore …”

  “The four forty-five, the one to Austin and on to Charlottesville. Come on, Jack. Wake up. Wake up, wake up.”

  Wake up, wake up. Mr. Abernathy had not come back.

  “I can’t leave without Mr. Abernathy,” Jack said in a voice that Johnny Merriweather could barely hear.

  “He isn’t coming. You know that, Jack.”

  Yeah, Jack knew that. Jack knew that all right.

  Jack stayed right there in his waiting-room seat, just like Mr. Abernathy had done hundreds of times. The bus was called, but he didn’t answer the call.

  He had to go home. He had to go the other way. He had to go home to Loretta.

  After the bus left, he turned his ticket back in to Johnny Merriweather and bought a cheaper one, a one-way to Corpus Christi on the 6:20, College’s schedule.

  College made him sit in the Angel Seat of his bus, #4203, which Jack knew had a perpetual rattle on the left side, just above the dual tires, which no one had ever been able to fix.

  “I hear it,” he said to College a few blocks out, on Moody, toward Inairi.

  “It’s the ghost of Mr. Brill,” said College.

  “You really were right the other day when you said you were as stupid as me.”

  College grunted and kept to his driving, which Jack appreciated. They didn’t say more than a handful of nothing words to each other the entire two-hour trip. College clearly knew Jack was through with Great Western—everybody knew that. But he did not say anything, which Jack appreciated for a while but then didn’t. This man is not my friend. Friends care about why something as huge as what happened to me happened. He doesn’t know I won’t tell him. Why doesn’t he at least ask? Why doesn’t he say, “Hey, Jack, what happened?”

  Jack did not get off the bus at any of the stops, and he got College to promise not to say anything to any agents along the way about his being on the bus. He particularly did not want to have to see or say anything to Adele Lyman in Refugio.

  But he thought about her. He thought about what it must have been like for her when her husband died and she had to understand and accept the fact that he was never going to be with her again. He thought about Adele when he thought that same thing about his Ava.

  He closed his eyes and kept them closed when the bus drove up to, through and away from the intersection of Highway 77 and Farm Road 682, 1.3 miles east of Refugio. He had avoided it altogether coming up the other way this morning by taking a San Antonio bus to Mathis and changing to the Laredo–Victoria bus.

  The terrible part of having the imagination and the remembering mind he had was that he saw the faces of that woman and her daughter as clearly as he did the face of his Ava under him in the sand at Padre. And he knew he always would. That would be part of his life forever.

  Loretta would never understand, but she would forgive him. They could take up their lives again the way they were before Ava and the woman and her daughter came into his. Loretta had no other place to go, no other life to lead. Neither, as it turned out, did he. He would go along with her on one thing, though. He would go along with finding a newer and better Santa than Oscar.

  To Oscar, still wrapped in paper in the seat next to him, he said, “Sorry, Oscar. We’ll keep you but you just won’t be the star anymore.”

  He really might even get another job behind the wheel of a bus right out of Corpus if Mr. Glisan and Pharmacy kept their part of the deal and Slick and the highway patrol stayed in the dark. Missouri Pacific Bus Lines or Rio Grande Coaches might hire him. Missouri Pacific ran GMCs, which were all pushers and noisy but not too bad. Rio Grande Coaches carried mostly Tamales and ran mostly Fitzjohns, which were tinny like Becks, and Aerocoaches, which were called bugeyes by the drivers because the design of their front windshields resembled the wide-open eyes of bugs. Eventually he might put in an application to Greyhound. It might be something special to drive one of their new model Scenicruisers everyone was talking about. The rumors were that they were going to be deck-and-a-half luxury coaches with gigantic diesel engines, full power steering and even rest-rooms. The ultimate bus was what they said it would be, but that’s what everybody said about every new bus that was brought out.

  The main thing Jack didn’t like about the idea of the ultimate bus was the automatic transmission they always said would be in them. He couldn’t imagine driving a bus and not changing the gears—four speeds up, four speeds down. He couldn’t imagine not double-clutching as he worked that gearshift lever up and across and back and around.

  But that’s progress, you see.

  College wanted Jack to come into the Corpus depot and into the drivers’ ready room with him. “I’ll do my paperwork and then maybe we can get a cold one at the Tarpon and I’ll drive you on home afterward,” he said.

  “I’ll take a rain check on that,” Jack said. There was no way Jack was going into the depot or the Tarpon. He had already seen and been seen by too many people since his life with Great Western Trailways came to an end, and he needed to get on with his life without it, whatever exactly it was going to be. And he needed to get home to Loretta and get on with his life with her, whatever exactly that was going to be.

  Jack, the first passenger off the bus, followed College down the bus stairwell and, after a quick so-long salute, broke away at a slow trot toward his regular N.T.C. stop over at Lancaster and Chaparral. A bus—a blue-and-white GMC TDH37—was pulling away as he came up from the rear.

  “Was that the Alameda–Staples?” he said to an elderly Tamale woman who was standing there, obviously waiting for another bus.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “Alameda–Staples.”

  Jack knew it would be at least ten minutes before another Alameda–Staples came. He couldn’t talk to this woman for ten minutes. But he couldn’t just stand there doing nothing. He would think. He would think about something pleasant for ten minutes.

  His mind went to Ava, to her elbow, to her right leg. No! No, no, no. No more Ava. No more Grace. No more of that. He tried to see himself again behind the wheel of an ACF-Brill. But it was raining and then he saw those two dead people, the mother and the daughter, with blood all over and around them and in the rainwater. They both looked just like this woman at the bus stop.

  Loretta. I will think about Loretta. I will imagine eating meat loaf with her like it was Friday night and then going into the bedroom. Yes, that is what I will think about. My old life returns like nothing has happened.

  But something had happened. He had killed two people and he had been fired from his job and position as a Master Operator and he had run away. Now he had run back. Now he was back and everything would be the same again.

  It was twelve minutes before his bus came. The driver, a guy named Shrimper Adams, didn’t recognize Jack out of uniform, so it meant he would have to pay the fare. It was just as well. Jack didn’t want to talk to him. He put a dime and a nickel in the fare box. It was one of those rotary machines—the driver had to keep pushing a lever to make the coins pass on through a counter and then out through a large slot at the bottom, where the driver collected the money and put it into his own five-tube coin changer for turn-in to the company at the end of his shift.

  Jack went to the rear of the bus and found a seat by a window. He saw his
own reflection in the window and looked away. What if Loretta would not take him back? She would. She definitely would. She was like him. She really was. Neither had any other choice but the other. She might put the freeze on him for a while and make him pay for a while but it would work out. It would work out. He could smell and taste the meat loaf. He could feel her under him. What about a movie tonight? Anything but Show Boat. Or High Noon.

  His stop was coming up. He knew it without even seeing any landmarks. He knew from the passing of time and the feel of the stops and starts.

  College was standing there at the corner of Staples and Anderson Street. College. College? What in the world is he doing here? I just left him back at the bus depot. What in the world?

  Jack stepped off the bus through the rear folding door.

  “There’s been an accident, Jack,” College said. “They told me when I went inside the terminal. They’d been calling all around looking for you. I jumped in my car and sped over here right away.”

  An accident? Yes, there has been an accident. I know all about that accident. I backed up #4101 into and onto two female persons, two Tamale persons, and killed them. I know about the accident. I was there. Why are you telling me about the accident? Why have you sped here or whatever in your car to tell me I killed those two people? I know about the accident.

  I was in the accident. I was there. I am the accident.

  There was a terrible smell. Something was burning. What was burning? Where was whatever it was that was burning?

  The blue-and-white N.T.C. GMC TDH3102 sped off to its next stop. Maybe that smell was from the diesel motor of that bus? No, it wasn’t that. Something was burning.

  Jack then noticed another man standing there, behind College. The other man stepped forward. He was in uniform. But it wasn’t a Great Western Trailways uniform. It wasn’t a bus driver’s uniform at all. It was something else. He had a holster on his right hip, but not for a ticket punch. There was a pistol in that holster. This man was not a bus driver. He was something else.

  “I’m Captain Rhodes of the Corpus police,” said the man. That was it. He was wearing a police uniform. Light-blue shirt, dark-blue pants, white cap. Was he causing the peculiar smell? No, no. It was a burning smell. Something was burning.

  “There’s been a fire at your house, Mr. Oliver,” said Captain Rhodes.

  Jack took off toward his house. College and the police captain were right there on each side of him.

  “Fire?” Jack said. “What kind of fire?”

  “A bad one, Mr. Oliver,” said the police captain.

  The burning smell was his house. They rounded the corner and there was his house. Some smoke was coming out of the roof. But the house was still there. There was no flame. There were several fire trucks and firemen in the street and in the front yard. A lot of other people were standing around, too.

  Who are all of these people?

  “Maybe we should stop right here for a minute, Jack,” College said. “Let the captain explain what’s happened …”

  Yes, yes. Let’s stop right here for a minute. Let the captain explain what’s happened.

  The captain explained: “Your wife, Mr. Oliver, was in the house. The firemen got here too late to do her any good. She’s dead, Mr. Oliver.”

  She’s dead, Mr. Oliver?

  “There are some signs that it might not have been an accident, Mr. Oliver.”

  Not an accident?

  “She was found with strings of Christmas lights wrapped around her. They began around her neck and went around her chest and under her arms and around her stomach. We don’t know if she did it herself but it looks that way. It looks like she might have just wrapped those lights around herself and then walked over to an outlet, sat down on the floor and stuck the plug in the socket. She was burned pretty badly.”

  She was burned pretty badly.

  “The fire probably started from the lights. Looks like they shorted out or something. Maybe you can help us figure it out.”

  I warned her about those old lights. I told her that might happen. I told her those lights were bad. I told her to throw them out.

  “One of the firemen found this in a baking dish in the kitchen,” said the captain. He handed Jack a folded piece of paper.

  “Was it brown?”

  “What?”

  “The baking dish.”

  “Yes, I think so. Why?”

  “It was what she always baked the meat loaf in.”

  Jack unfolded the piece of paper and read: “It’s all right for you, Jack, but not for me, Jack.” The words were written in black ink in Loretta’s small, tight, perfect handwriting.

  “She was holding another note in her right hand,” said Captain Rhodes. “Unfortunately that was where the short was and most of it burned up—she may have even planned it that way. It was a note from you, Mr. Oliver.”

  Yes, a note from me, Mr. Oliver. A note that said that I was leaving her and Corpus and that she should go on without me.

  Jack blinked his eyes and his mind. “Where is she?” he said.

  “At Nueces County Hospital,” said the captain. “She was pretty much gone, but they took her there to see if something could be done, but there wasn’t anything. We got the word back here awhile ago that she had expired. Do you have a minister?”

  Nueces County Hospital. They took her to Nueces County Hospital to see if something could be done.

  “We don’t have a minister,” Jack said.

  “What about some family or some close friends? We could take you to them afterward.”

  Jack looked at Oscar, who was still there under his left arm, and at College, who was still there on his right side.

  There was nobody else to take him to.

  “Afterward?” Jack said.

  “We’re going to want you to identify her, if you don’t mind, Mr. Oliver,” the police captain said. “I regret very much putting you through this, but there is no other way to do it.

  “Texas law requires an ID from somebody who is related to or knows the deceased very well.”

  What does Texas law require from Master Operators who cause the deaths of wives they are related to and of checkers they don’t know at all?

  Jack grabbed Oscar by his right leg and threw him as hard and as far as he could toward the house and walked away with College and Captain Rhodes.

  He saw only Loretta’s neck and head; the rest of her body was covered by a white sheet. Most of her hair had been singed off and the skin on her face was coarse red and flaked. Her eyes were closed. There was a dark black ring burned deeply into and around her neck where the string of Christmas lights must have been. It was as if she had been branded by some crazy cowboy.

  Jack knew he would spend the rest of his life seeing that black branded ring and that red face and that sparse head of hair most every time he closed his eyes. If he ever closed them again, that is.

  There was an insurance adjuster and an undertaker waiting for Jack when he stepped back out into the hospital hallway. The adjuster, a guy in a brown suit, about thirty-five, told him that most of the fire damage was in the kitchen, where “your missus did it.” He said there was mostly smoke damage elsewhere, and that it wouldn’t take somebody too much elbow grease to clean it up. He gave Jack forty-five dollars in cash to spend a few nights away at a hotel of his choice. Jack told the adjuster that he was through with the house forever, and the insurance company could do whatever it wanted to do with it. Someday he would call or write to tell them where to send whatever money there was from it all.

  “I never had anybody just walk away from a house like that before,” said the adjuster. “I’ll have to check out what to do.”

  Jack didn’t catch the name of the adjuster but he did the undertaker’s. Morton F. Harper, Jr., of Harper and Sons. He was younger than the adjuster but his suit was darker and he had less hair. Morton F. Harper, Jr., said he was in a position to take “possession of the departed” and to “formulate and fa
cilitate the full and final arrangements for her departure both from here at this hospital and from here on earth.”

  Jack told him that would be all right and he gave Morton F. Harper, Jr., the name of Loretta’s parents and their phone number over at Ingleside. He also told him about Alice Armstrong, the All-American Girl.

  “I’ve got to go now,” Jack then said to the undertaker, the adjuster, Captain Rhodes and College, who had not said a word to Jack since they left the house for the hospital with Captain Rhodes.

  Jack walked out the Buford Street side of the hospital and headed north and west, through downtown toward the bay, the water. He had nothing in his mind except the funeral Harper and Sons would “formulate and facilitate” for Loretta. Jack had already been to that funeral. He had gone there in his mind the afternoon he first thought about Loretta’s dying. He would not go again.

  He would not go again.

  He came to the corner of Buffalo and Upper Broadway. There above the street, in flashing blue and white neon, was a running greyhound dog. It was the Greyhound bus depot.

  He would not go again.

  CHAPTER 12

  There he was, nine months and five days later.

  Jack left Pica Chama on time but after only twenty miles and two stops he was twenty-five minutes late.

  “Has there ever been one of you to get here when you were supposed to?” asked the angry woman. She was the only passenger waiting for his schedule at San Juan, this tiny town with less than five hundred people, one school, two churches, a café-tavern and a Skelly Oil station where the bus stopped. It wasn’t a regular commission agency, like the ones Adele Lyman in Refugio and others ran for Great Western, because Cannonball Coaches didn’t have official bus depots. They had no places with small porcelain signs hanging out front that sold tickets and took in package express or gave out schedule and fare information. Passengers and express customers had to know when the bus was coming and wait at a certain place and flag it down. In San Juan that certain place was the Skelly station.