Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers (6 page)

“Just the wind,” the woman said, taking a long, relaxed puff on her cigarette. Regina turned back and scuffled into the street before she turned again for one last look. Mrs. Landcaster was gone.

A somber cloud passed, blocking out the sun, making the sky abnormally stygian for early afternoon and Regina felt that Black Water was the only place in the world in that moment where the sun was not shining.

She approached the country farmhouse-style home, where she had been to more sleepovers and pool parties than she could count. Despite the traditional style of the home, it was surprisingly modern; the house was a clean charcoal gray with bright red trimming. All of the lights were on inside of the several square windows that faced the street giving the home an inviting glow. Regina took a deep breath as she stood before the old rickety wooden gate that surrounded the property and whose depressed state did not match the clean lines and vibrant rejuvenation of the home that it enclosed.

Her hand shook as she depressed the small circular button that initiated a series of dings and dongs that sang through the house. Behind the door footsteps shuffled across the floor; she sucked in as much air as possible and held her breath until the door drew open, letting the light spill out unto the gray porch.

“Regina.” Mrs. Rusher said Regina’s name as if she had been expecting her all of this time, all of these years, just waiting for her to return.

“Mrs. Rusher.” Regina responded, not sure whether she was making a statement, asking a question, or answering one. She could not sense, in her own voice, if she was sad, sorry, mad, or scared, but before she could make the final determination Mrs. Rusher’s entire body heaved high up before it came crashing down in an implosion of emotion.

Mrs. Rusher had not cried once since Lola’s body had been discovered. When the news came she had been preparing an elaborate meal for her husband in order to celebrate nothing but the fact that they still loved each other after so many years when Sheriff Handow showed up with Pastor Reed to deliver the unimaginable news. Mrs. Rusher had intimate experience in the field of death and knew that when the Sheriff and the pastor showed up to the door that it could not be a good thing.

Not again
, she thought.

First, she assumed that they were coming to tell her that she had somehow lost her husband too. He had not yet made it home from work. Maybe a car accident or a mysterious shooting, but they assured her that her husband was fine. Next, her thoughts raced to her son Leo, to lose one child was hell, but to lose two would be unbearable. When they told her that Leo, too was fine the woman stood in the doorway with her eyebrows drawn in complete confusion with one oven mitted-hand holding the door and a spatula in the other.

“Well, what is it? Tell me, for God’s sake before I have a damned heart attack, Joe,” Mrs. Rusher said to the Sheriff whom she had known her entire life.

“It’s Lola, Gloria,” He told her.

“What?” she asked. Gloria Rusher had no need to look down; she felt her heart drop out of her chest and she was sure that it was now laying next to her feet, with its blood splattered across her pedicured toes, pulsing in disbelief.

“She’s dead,” Sheriff Handow told her before the excitement of the possibility of a living daughter had a chance to fill her, which would have been unnecessary cruelty. Gloria stood in the purgatory of her foyer with her spatula still in hand, a million hands grabbing ravenously at her, pulling her in every direction, threatening to rip her into as many pieces as stars in the sky. Closing her eyes, the woman steeled herself, fighting off the growling, spitting demons of guilt, doubt, and helplessness.

“How?” Gloria needed to know.

Sheriff Handow adjusted himself by shifting his weight to his other foot and wrestling to get his gun belt in a more comfortable position. The weather was filled with the threatening chills that foretold winter, but somehow the Sheriff’s forehead still glistened with sweat. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and patted his forehead three times from right to left.

“Maybe we should wait until Bert gets home.” Desperately the Sheriff tried putting off the unbearable news.

“Joe, you tell me how my daughter died, right now.” Gloria told her high school classmate without the slightest expression of emotion.

Joseph Handow swept his eyes across every surface wanting them to fall anywhere but into hers.

Cheese n’ crackers, why in God’s name did I ever take this job?
He secretly asked himself.

“Right now looks like blunt force trauma to the head and she may have been stabbed.” He finally mustered the courage to tell her.

Gloria pictured her daughter being hit over the head, screaming, before hitting the floor and then begging for her life.

“And …” The Sheriff had debated in his head over the past several seconds whether to tell her everything and had determined that no matter how bad, she had a right to know and in Black Water, she would find out sooner rather than later.

“And …” Gloria repeated him, goading him mercilessly to speech.

“Her body was dismembered.” He spit before he had any more time to think about it. Gloria Rusher felt the heat begin churning in her chest until it was a full blaze inside of her head making her eyes burn. It was difficult for her to hear anything that was said after those words. He spoke and she watched as his lips moved, laying out all of the known details of the murder of her daughter, but she was already gone.

“Do you want me to pray with you?” Pastor Reed finally asked her after Sheriff Handow finished speaking. Gloria Rusher fixed her eyes on the man of God.

“No.” Gloria responded resolutely. She would speak to God when she was ready.

“Please go now. Come back tomorrow when my husband is home.” She instructed the two bearers of the news as she closed them out of her home politely. The woman walked into her formal dining room that had been set for a beautiful dinner with her husband. With a piercing battle screech, she used the spatula to topple the champagne glasses, sending them shattering to the
floor. One at a time, she drove the plates into the dining room walls with a scream for each dish. Gloria destroyed everything in the room that she possibly could before sliding down one of the walls until she sat with her legs spread out against the hard wood floor. In the next room, a beautiful dinner sat untouched on the stove. Gloria reviewed the damage that she had done and despite the fact that she did not feel one ounce better she still did not cry.

Despite all of the phoned-in condolences, despite all of the depressing flower bouquets with apologetic cards, despite the barrage of dry casseroles and flavorless meatloaves that had arrived at the front door, Mrs. Rusher had managed to keep the tears inside. She managed to push all of the memories, the rage, the sorrow, the hopelessness, the helplessness far enough down inside that she could pass the time in the day without thinking of the many ways to bring her own suffering to an end.

A gunshot would be simple, but too messy, slicing her wrists just seemed too dramatic; maybe she would just hold her head under the water in the lake, she thought. Before she could get too precise in the planning, she would see her husband, a man whom she did not always see eye to eye with, but who had always been there for her, provided for her family and had been her best friend since they were teenagers.

Mrs. Rusher saw the face of her son, the beaming brown-eyed boy who was now a man and had already had to endure too many years being on his own while she chased a ghost, a man who now had a son of his own. As much as she loved Lola, somewhere along the line, she had realized that Lola was gone, but that she herself was still here; that her family was still here. All of these years she thought that it had been the not knowing that was worst of all, that at least finding her beloved daughter or knowing what happened to her would make the situation better somehow, but now she knew that was bullshit.

She spent years chasing the dragon of closure, but now that she had cornered it, walked upon it and laid her eyes on it, there was nothing but a puff of smoke.

Losing a child was like being an alcoholic; you just have to live with it, fight with it, sleep with it, and struggle with it every day, she concluded. The first time around, Mrs. Rusher had been forced to deal with the fact that her daughter was gone, but now she was forced to live with the fact that she was dead, dead, mutilated, and had been buried not even fifteen miles from her front door step all of this damn time.

That was the killer part!

Her daughter had been right under her nose and she had not even smelled her rotting corpse.

Lola was not here, but the fact that Regina was now standing at her doorstep just made the situation real all over again. It replayed in Gloria Rusher’s head from beginning to end in a flash. Though Mrs. Rusher still had not come to full terms with the discovery of her daughter’s mangled body, she had learned the most painful, but most enlightening lesson of all; that life was for the living and she was glad that Regina was alive and that was the reason she finally cried.

Bert Rusher hurried into the foyer when he heard his wife’s cries, the cries that he had been waiting for, the ones that told him that his wife was not stone cold, the ones that confirmed that she was still human. He held his wife for a moment and allowed the relief of his wife’s tears to wash over him.

“Regina,” he called when he saw her. Both of them grabbed Mrs. Rusher, as it seemed her legs would give out any moment, and helped her past the stairs and into the living room, comforting her until she was able to gain some semblance of composure.

“Oh, Regina,” she cried.

“I know, I know.” Regina knew nothing, but she felt it was the right thing to say, she realized that somewhere along the way she had begun to cry as well as tears streamed down her soft freckled cheeks.

“I am just so happy to see you.” Mrs. Rusher spoke while dabbing her red-rimmed eyes with a white Kleenex.

“I am so happy to see you because I just can’t help thinking that I’m glad it wasn’t you. Not that I wanted this to happen to my
daughter, but…but…it could have just as easily been any one of you and I am just glad that you are alive.” Mrs. Rusher experienced the deepest sorrow and the most gleeful joy in one agonizing and triumphant, all-consuming moment.

Tears burst into Regina’s palms as she hid her face in her hands, and now, Mr. Rusher sat comforting both women holding, grappling at the last strands of his own diminishing countenance.

After a barrage of tears and decaf coffee, the trio was able to actually exchange words not drowned in complete and overflowing grief. The mourning mother took an elegant sip of her coffee before setting it down on the table and clasping her hands in front of her chin.

“Leo is here.” Mr. Rusher smiled heavily.

“How is he?” Regina’s face lighted at the memory of the crush she once had on Lola’s older brother.

“He is good. He has a wife and a son. They’re at the park. He will be so glad to see you.”

“Wow, it
has
been a long time. Leo with a little boy …” Regina fought back the tears evoked at the thought of all the lost time.

“I’m glad you came.” Mrs. Rusher cut her off as if she had to get the words out before they got stuck in her throat.

“She would have wanted you here, Regina.” Mrs. Rusher looked into Regina’s glittering rusty brown eyes.

“You were her best friend.” She affirmed.

“I had to come.” Regina replied simply.

“Regina, let me ask you, do you remember anything? Anything about …”

“Gloria.” Mr. Rusher’s voice was firm. He placed a comforting, but restraining hand on his wife’s back.

“Bert,” she shot back. “I just have to ask.”

“It’s OK,” Regina assured them both.

Gloria finished “You were her best friend. Did you notice anything different about her? The way she was acting? Did she say anything to you? I know we have been over all of this a million times, but I can’t help but ask.”

Regina closed her eyes and thought with intensity before she responded, she searched every corner of her brain, every shadow in her heart, every pit in her stomach, every crease in her soul. Her eyes fluttered rapidly under her soft lids, she searched and searched, questioned, reflected, and debated before opening her eyes, her quivering lips opened slowly and the words that she waited to hear waltzed on the tip of her tongue as the Rushers’ hung on every breath, blink and sigh.

Regina was jolted when a series of noisy dings and dongs infiltrated the rooms of the house.

“I just don’t recall anything like that.” Regina’s words exploded into the air and she was crying again. Mrs. Rusher pulled her close as Mr. Rusher hurried to the door.

Stifled voices were exchanged in the foyer. From the couch, Regina could see Sheriff Handow and a short, stout woman in a navy blue suit with a purple sweater underneath coming down the short hall and into the living room.

“Gloria,” Sheriff Handow greeted the woman with a hug.

“Joe,” she responded.

“Mrs. Rusher,” said the stout woman as she wrapped the other woman in a sincere, but somewhat awkward embrace.

“Mayor Parks.” Mrs. Rusher accepted the hug.

“Regina, correct?” Sheriff Handow looked Regina over.

“Yes, I am Regina.”

“I recall now. Good to see you home.” He told her.

Regina gave a slight nod.

Sheriff Handow had questioned her when Lola first vanished. He questioned loads of other students at Oakley High School that knew Lola, but everyone’s story was the same. Almost everyone Lola knew was at the home of Stephen Mitchell for a party that night and no one wanted to hurt Lola Rusher.

Now Sheriff Handow stood before her once again and had hardly aged in the past six years since Regina had left the town.

“Regina, this is Mayor Parks. Mayor Parks, this is Regina, she was one of Lola’s best friends. They were friends ever since they were children. She has come home for the funeral.” Mrs. Rusher
introduced her to the mayor of Black Water instantly reminding her yet again of the size of this speck on the map that they called home, considering the mayor came to your house personally if someone died.