S Is for Silence

things to take care of. Maybe another time,” he said. He noticed a pair of white cardboard glasses sitting on the front seat. “Those your sunglasses?”
    She glanced down. “No, what, these?” She picked them up and put them on. “I took Daisy and Liza Mellincamp to that 3-D movie this afternoon. Bwana Devil. Daisy’s going to have nightmares for a month.”
    “Kids will do that,” he said mildly.
    “Anyway, I gotta be some place so I better let you go. Tahtah,” she said. She put her foot on the gas and took off.
    He’d never seen her so cheerful or so full of goodwill. He returned to his car with an overwhelming sense of relief. Maybe everything was okay and he could breathe again.

    He went back to the hospital late that afternoon, feeling lighter than he had in months. It was not quite 5:00, but the dinner carts were already in the hall. He’d sit with her through dinner and spend the evening with her until she was settled in for the night. He’d bought Mary Hairl a little houseplant to keep beside her bed. The gal at the florist’s shop had wrapped it in a high cone of green tissue paper with a bright purple bow. Jake thought she’d be pleased to have something colorful to look at. He got on the elevator and went up to the second floor. As the doors opened, he stopped in his tracks. Mary Hairl’s father was standing in the hall, his face stony. Something had happened to Mary Hairl. Maybe she’d taken a turn for the worse; maybe she was dead. Cold seeped up from the floor and climbed his frame.
    Hairl held a Bible in one hand, and in the other he clutched a piece of pink notepaper, covered with a slanting scrawl of black ink. “You son of a bitch. Tell me on this Bible you never lusted in your heart. Tell me you never lain with Violet Sullivan and don’t you lie. My poor girl, my only girl, she’s in there dying as we speak. She probably doesn’t have but a week to live. So you tell me you didn’t put that pecker of yours in that vile whore’s mouth! Swear on this book! This isn’t the first time you’ve done this, Son. You think I don’t know that? Word gets around and I heard about every single one of your affairs. You thought you were being sly, but you never fooled me. I could barely stand to look you in the eye, but I kept hush for Mary Hairl’s sake. I should have said something years ago, but she worshiped you. Worshiped the ground you walked on. You’re a failure. You’re worthless. You can’t even manage to earn a decent wage. Weren’t for me, you’d be on welfare. And now there you are, off in some bar making a public display of yourself.”
    Hairl lost his momentum. His voice broke and the pink notepaper shook in his trembling hand. He sobbed once and then gathered himself again. “If I had the strength, I would choke the life out of you. My beautiful girl. She’s the soul of goodness and what of you, sir? You are low-down, stinking trash. You’ve made her an object of pity in this town, and she’ll go to her grave looking like a fool, but there’s worse in store for you. I can promise you that.”
    Jake’s mind went blank. He was speechless with horror. What had she done? What in god’s name had Violet Sullivan gone and done?

22
    The three of us drove to Daisy’s in separate cars, like a very short motorcade. Having warned them, I peeled off at Broadway and made a stop at JC Penney, where I bought a cotton nightie, two T-shirts, and cheap underwear. I made a second stop at a nearby drugstore and bought three paperback novels, shampoo, conditioner, and deodorant, figuring if I was in town for any length of time I might as well smell good. Even if the Bel Air was magically unearthed and I went home the next day, the purchases would be useful. It’s not like the underpants were stamped with a sell-by date.
    I reached Daisy’s house at 8:00, when the autumn dark had fully settled and the streetlights had come on. She’d left the garage door open, so I pulled my car in, locked it, and triggered the automatic-door device as I emerged. Once in the house, I found Tannie stretched out on the living room floor, trying to get the kinks out of her back after a morning of hacking brush and an afternoon watching cops dig a car out of her lawn. Daisy was in the kitchen brewing a fresh pot of tea. She’d changed out of her work clothes and into her sweats, but she looked just as stressed as she had at the site. Her face had the pinched look of someone in the throes of a