I don’t believe in psychics or premonitions or fate. Still, something stopped my hand just as I was about to knock on the door.
I’d pleaded with James to call in sick again, but he said a third day in a row would get him busted back to clearing tables. I told him he was my Watson and I needed him. He said bullshit, he was my Sherlock, but that I’d be fine.
I wasn’t so sure.
Still, I’d gone ahead and called Tru to tell him I’d be at work on Monday. Then I asked him how to get in touch with Tilda, because I wanted to see if she’d introduce me to her friend Opal. The one with the peach pie recipe. The one Joe Tillman had said was Ruby Goodhope’s daughter.
An hour later I was standing on Opal Johnson’s front porch.
Now or never, I told myself. Knock.
Just knock.
Opal Johnson was the jelly bean woman I’d seen using a walker at Arvin’s funeral. Inside her house, she left the walker in a corner and steadied herself against furniture.
“Tilda says you’re after my gramma’s pie recipe,” she said, with a dare-me-and-I’ll-do-it gleam in her eye that reminded me of the picture of Ruby Goodhope on Joe’s windowsill. “She doesn’t think I’ll give it to you, but wouldn’t it just chap her hide if I did!”
I’d spent most of the night before thinking about whether or not I could convince the DA that Jerry Randall hadn’t pushed Arvin in self-defense. And about how doing it would mean putting myself out there for every TV reporter, blogger, and racist comment troll to tear down.
When I wasn’t obsessing about that, my overactive brain had bounced over to the skeleton and what James and I knew about it. I needed to patch everything together into a story that made sense. The problem was, every time I thought I had, I’d remember some random little detail that didn’t fit and my whole theory would fall apart. By the time I actually made it to Opal Johnson’s kitchen table, I was too tired and frustrated to worry about being delicate. Besides, Opal wasn’t the delicate type.
“It is delicious pie,” I told her. “But actually, I came here more about your mother than your grandmother’s recipe. See, my friend and I visited a man named Joe Tillman in Pawhuska yesterday…”
I paused, hoping to catch some glimmer of recognition in Opal’s smart brown eyes.
No such luck.
“Anyway,” I went on, “Joe’s grandparents built the house my family lives in, and my friend and I went up there to talk with him about what some workmen found underneath the floor of our servants’ quarters a few weeks ago.”
Opal’s face was a mask of calm, but her foot jiggled underneath the table.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?” I asked.
The tapping stopped.
“You know who it is, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“We found a receipt from the Victory Victrola Shop in the body’s pocket,” I said. “And the police anthropologist believes the man who died was young. And black.”
Opal blinked slowly.
“Ruby was your mother, wasn’t she? And Joseph was your uncle?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Is it him?” I asked. “Is the skeleton Joseph?”
Opal laced her fingers together and put her hands in her lap.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “But I’m afraid my answer is the same one Joe must have given you yesterday: I can’t say.”
My pulse throbbed in the achy knot at the back of my head.
“Let me guess—you promised your mom on her deathbed,” I said.
Opal laughed. “Gracious no, dear. Nothing so dramatic as that. But Mother asked me not to discuss the matter, so I don’t.”
I stood up quickly, nearly knocking over my chair. The old familiar pinch at the top of my nose was back, and I didn’t want to cry in front of a woman I barely knew.
“Thank you for your time.” I turned fast enough toward the door that it must have come across as rude. Mom’s Mercedes keys were already in my hand.
“Rowan!”
I stopped.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Do you always give up so easy?”
“I just thought…”
“I know you did. But hasn’t anyone ever told you it takes old women like me a while to warm up our engines?”
“I… I’m sorry,” I stammered.
She shook her head and sighed.
“Don’t apologize, young lady. Just help me to the parlor. And listen.”
“There it is,” Opal said. “My grandmother’s Model 14. But what you’re really after is the smaller machine sitting on top.”
She pointed to a Victrola cabinet that was as tall as Uncle Chotch’s, but not quite as fancy. The thing on top of it was a strange-looking box with a hose and a small horn attached to it.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A Dictaphone.”
She let go of my arm, took a cigar box down from the bookshelf beside her, and handed me a key from inside it. “Here you go,” she said. “The Dictaphone cylinders are in that locked cupboard over there.”
I unlocked the door. The shelves inside were filled with rows of antique cardboard cylinders marked EDISON GOLD MOULDED RECORDS ECHO ALL OVER THE WORLD. Each was numbered in black, starting at one, ending at forty.
My fingertips slid along their curved fronts as I asked Opal what was on them.
“Answers,” she said. “To some of your questions, at least. Mother carried the rest of them to her grave. But I never did have children of my own, and it would be nice to pass on what I do know before I’m gone. Besides, Tilda said you’re the girl Arvin was trying to help when that evil man killed him. I expect the confession on those cylinders won’t be your first clue that the world can be a hard place.”
I took out the cylinder marked #1.
“You’re sure you want to know?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” I said.
Opal smiled sadly. “Then you’d best settle in and make yourself comfortable, young lady. It’s going to be a long afternoon.”