Holding Smoke Read online

  Dinah lifted her head, her chin jutting out defiantly.

  “I’m clean now, Aunt Tulah.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Dinah licked her lips to start over. She would not give Tulah reason to deny her what had been promised.

  “I’m clean, Sister Tulah. I have been for a while, over two years now.”

  Tulah shrugged and looked away. A crow had alighted on the iron fence and Sister Tulah glared at it as it stretched and folded its wings.

  “Do you think I care what you do or do not shove up your nose or into your veins?”

  “Yes.”

  “People don’t change, Dinah.”

  The crow clacked it beak, cawed once and flapped into the air. Sister Tulah tracked it with her eye.

  “I couldn’t count the number of times your mother said that to me.”

  She swung her head around to Dinah.

  “‘I’ve changed.’ Or, ‘I’m trying to change.’ Or, ‘I’m going to change.’ She said it to me over the phone, the night she overdosed in that repugnant motel room, with you sleeping feet away in your crib. ‘I’m going to change, Tulah. I’ve got a plan, Tulah. I’m going to come home. I’m going to take Felton back. I’m going to be a good mother to them, Tulah. To my boy and my girl, my Felton and my Dinah.’ She was babbling. It was nauseating. It was…”

  Tulah paused to scowl down at Rowena’s gravestone. Her pursed lips were drawn so far inward that her mouth had almost disappeared and her eye was narrowed down to a slit. Dinah wondered if Tulah was trying not to cry. She had heard the story of Rowena’s overdose many times—from caseworkers, from disgruntled foster parents, from her own lips told in jail cells and group therapy circles—but she’d never heard Sister Tulah’s version. This one didn’t seem to include the baby with the cockroach bites, or the sink full of bloody needles, or the heroic first responders who broke down the motel room door, only to arrive too late. Dinah watched as Tulah’s eye widened, then narrowed, then widened again and suddenly snapped back to Dinah’s face.

  “Abhorrent.”

  Tulah crossed her arms over her chest, her face suddenly drained of all emotion.

  “So, you’re here to claim your prize. All the money I paid you for all those jobs over the years wasn’t enough, I suppose? You had to go and get greedy.”

  “This is different. I’ve never killed anyone for you before.”

  Nor would she ever again. Dinah steadied herself, trying to sound strong without being too demanding.

  “And you promised.”

  “So I did.”

  Tulah scoffed.

  “You know Felton isn’t even aware you exist.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “This is asking for a lot, Dinah, and you haven’t delivered very much in return.”

  Dinah nodded, desperate.

  “I understand. But I haven’t asked for much for most of my life. I kept our deal, I’ve stayed away, I never once tried to contact Felton on my own, never tried to tell him the truth, even though I could’ve at any time. I kept my mouth shut and I did your dirty work for you without ever asking for nothing special. Without ever asking to be a part of my own family.”

  Sister Tulah burst out laughing. It was a rancid, guttural sound.

  “And Felton is your family?”

  Dinah held her ground.

  “I just want to see him. I want to talk to him, I want him to know who I am. That’s all. I think I deserve that. After everything between us, I think you owe me this.”

  Dinah sucked in her breath, knowing it was the wrong thing to say, but she also knew she had to fight. Tulah’s mouth had sunk back into a frown, but her eye still sparkled with mockery.

  “I owe you?”

  Dinah could think of nothing more to say, no other way to convince her aunt. She wasn’t going to beg, as she had in the past. She wasn’t going to grovel, only to be sneered at, only to be dismissed and told to ask another time. When she’d seen Levi’s body, splayed out in the dirt, when she’d heard Benji cry out, she had promised herself. After this, she and Tulah were through. And though she was back in Kentsville, Dinah knew she couldn’t stay. Levi might be dead, but the rest of the Cannons were still out there. They knew about her and Tulah. How long before they would find her? How long before they would retaliate? This was her only chance.

  Sister Tulah turned away and Dinah bit her tongue, determined not to cry. She would speak to Felton, consequences be damned. She would find a way. At the gate, Tulah paused, her back stiff, her hand resting on the iron latch.

  “All right.”

  Dinah almost collapsed in surprise.

  “All right?”

  Tulah was gazing down her long driveway, her eye on the church.

  “Did you not hear me correctly? You may see him tonight. You are fortunate to ask now, as Felton has been gone from us for the past two months and has only recently returned. I’ll be welcoming him back during tonight’s service. I’m inviting you to attend.”

  Her heart was galloping.

  “You’re serious?”

  Tulah didn’t look back at Dinah, but her head dipped in a stilted, begrudging nod.

  “You have no place within my holy walls, but I’ll allow an exception for tonight. I suppose, as you say, owe it to you. It’s Wednesday, so the service starts at seven. Sit in the back. You can talk to Felton after, if you like.”

  Dinah started to thank her, but Sister Tulah was already striding away.

  *

  Judah scooped up the last shovelful of dirt and decomposing leaves and slung it on top of the low mound heaped between two spindly pines. He stepped back, jabbed the shovel into the ground, and leaned against the handle, pressing his sweaty, grit-streaked face into the crook of his arm. The untamed woods, quickly sinking into a murky dusk, were eerily quiet. It was the eventide hour, when the cicadas had folded their wings but the crickets had yet to fiddle. Beside him, Benji hiccupped. Judah let the shovel tip over as he stretched his aching back and glanced at his brother, bracing himself against the scaly trunk of a wild cherry tree. His face was slick, though it may have been from sweat, like Judah’s, and not tears. Despite having to take every step with his cane, Benji had insisted on helping Judah carry Levi’s body half a mile into the tangled woods and had done his fair share of digging as well. Judah rubbed his palms together and kicked a final spray of dirt over the mound.

  “I think that should do it.”

  Judah peered up through the thick, sprawling canopy of branches. The leaves and pine needles were falling fast this time of year. In a few days’ time, the clearing would be smoothly blanketed again and the rise in the earth would be nothing more than a fallen tree branch or a rotten log, a palm stump or a snarl of vegetation and vines. Not that it mattered; Judah couldn’t imagine anyone looking for a body this far out. He wasn’t even sure they’d be able to find their way back to the rutted dirt track they’d come in on, let alone ever find this place again. In the ebbing light, it was already hard to make out the shape of the grave. Benji coughed and wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt.

  “I wish we could mark it or something. Put up a cross.”

  Judah cut his eyes over to Benji.

  “Did he believe in God?”

  Benji shrugged and stumped his way over to stand beside Judah.

  “I don’t know.”

  Judah looked back down.

  “Me neither.”

  They stood in silence a while longer, until Benji began to fidget, stabbing at the pine needles with his cane.

  “He just…he was such an asshole. I mean, he really was. Levi could do these things, say these things, man. He could be a real dick.”

  “Yep.”

  “But he was our brother, too. I mean, I loved him. I know you did, too. In your own way. He deserves better than this.”

  Judah swatted at the halo of mosquitos hovering around his head.

 
; “I know. But it’s the best we can do. We need to keep Levi’s death quiet for now.”

  “You call Susan?”

  Judah shook his head.

  “You going to tell her?”

  “She’s still up in Indiana, right? With her family or something? I don’t even have a number for her.”

  Benji bent his head to wipe his nose again.

  “I do. I mean, I can find it. I can call. I think his wife and kid should know.”

  Judah waited until Benji stopped sniffling and was looking at him with swollen eyes. He needed him to understand.

  “Okay. But not yet. You got to trust me.”

  It took him a moment, but Benji finally nodded.

  “I’m with you on this, Judah.”

  “Good.”

  Judah stooped down to pick up the shovel.

  “I just wish I knew why Tulah went after him, though. I mean, why now? I’d almost forgotten about her.”

  “Shelia and I were talking ’bout that this afternoon.”

  Judah swung the shovel onto his shoulder.

  “Shelia? You told Shelia about Levi?”

  “’Course I did. I can understand lying to Elrod, but Shelia’s one of us.”

  “Is she now? You two stop trying to kill each other?”

  Benji almost smiled.

  “Today, anyway. You mad? That I told Shelia?”

  Judah plucked at his sweat-soaked T-shirt.

  “No, I ain’t mad. You come up with any ideas? About why Sister Tulah wanted Levi dead?”

  “Shelia reminded me of this story Levi told us, just last week at the party up at Elrod’s place. We was all pie-eyed on this pint of Wild Turkey going around and Levi told us why he really come back from the panhandle.”

  “I thought he said he just wasn’t making it out there.”

  “Oh, no. He was making it all right. Working at some weed farm out in the woods. Remember that girl, Carol? The one Levi was stringing along on the side? Well, she hooked him up with this crazy dude and they was living in a big house like a bunch of hippies, growing and selling pot wholesale or some shit.”

  Judah felt a swell of panic. It was Weaver all over again.

  “You think Levi double-crossed some drug dealers?”

  Benji shook his head.

  “Listen to the whole story. Levi said that one day he got back in town from being gone a few days and the pot fields had been burned to the ground. He went up to the house where everybody stayed and they’d all been killed. Like, slaughtered. He said the head guy, I think his name was Ian or something, had been hung from a tree. That’s why Levi came home. He got spooked. He said it seemed like everybody around this guy had got murdered and he weren’t going to be next.”

  Judah was trying to work it out.

  “But we know it was Tulah who ordered the hit on Levi. Dinah told us and I believe her.”

  “Yeah, but Dinah said she ain’t know why. Maybe Sister Tulah had something to do with killing all those people up at the weed farm. I don’t know. She seems pretty cuckoo, you ask me. Shelia said she once put a rattlesnake in a box and sent it to the Scorpions as a warning. A live rattlesnake.”

  Judah nodded.

  “I’d say that sounds about right. Well, why she went after Levi don’t change the fact that she did. Levi’s dead. Sherwood’s dead. She’s taken out half the Cannon family in the span of a few months. It don’t matter why, only that it happened.”

  The trees were swiftly fading into shadow and the scuttling clouds had blocked any chance of a moon. It was time to go.

  “Do you want to say something? For Levi?”

  Benji hunched forward, bowing his head over the grave.

  “You were our brother, man. We ain’t never going to forget that. In the end, that’s all that counts.”

  14

  Sister Tulah could hardly contain herself. She stood solidly behind the pulpit, her palms resting flat, one on either side of the familiar leather Bible, her harrowing eye fixed on the threshold of the church. Already there were whispers trilling up and down the aisle. Tulah was never on the stage this early for a sermon. On a normal Wednesday night at this hour, Sister Mona would be banging away at the piano, Brother Kenneth accompanying on the drums, as Tulah sat back in her comfortable, air-conditioned office and let her followers sweat. On this night, however, all who passed through the front doors of the Last Steps of Deliverance Church of God had found Sister Tulah waiting, boring down on each as they looked around in confusion and hurriedly assumed their places. There was no music, no hymns, no clapping or stamping or calling out to one another in greeting. The church was silent except for the soft shuffling of feet against the glossy new floorboards. Creaks and muffled coughs, a throat cleared of phlegm in the back. And those whispers, muttered by bent heads down into starched collars and the pleated fronts of cotton dresses.

  Tulah waited until the last snot-nosed child was dragged in—willful Briley, her arm twisted lollipop red in the vice grip of Sister Cora, face sticky with tears, though she knew better than to open her mouth once inside—and nodded to Brother Jacob to close the doors. As they clanged shut, the whispers ceased, as did every bit of restless movement in the church. All heads were raised, all eyes on her. Sister Tulah smiled and dug her nails into the pulpit to keep from rubbing her hands together in glee.

  “Tonight is a special night, brothers and sisters.”

  Her voice boomed across the church and even Briley, sulking between her mother and father on one of the middle benches, sat up in attention. Tulah paused artfully, basking in their apprehension and disquietude. She let her gaze drift to the very back of the church, to the brunette in slacks, sitting with a suspiciously wide amount of space on either side of her.

  “Tonight, we’re welcoming someone new to our church.”

  A few dared to turn, and Dinah, fists crossed tightly over her chest, seemed to shrink back into herself. There were shaken heads and murmurs as some of the followers took in Dinah’s pants, her masculine white polo shirt and the faded, barbed wire tattoo snaking above her elbow. Sister Tulah smiled cruelly at Dinah, but then pointedly turned toward the front row of benches to her right.

  “Someone you might not expect.”

  A few of those seated on the opposite side of the church raised themselves up slightly, craning their necks to see who Sister Tulah was staring at now. Unlike Dinah, the girl in the short eyelet sundress and baggy pullover sweater, her red hair in a messy braid flung over one exposed shoulder, did not shirk from Tulah’s scrutiny. Juniper, her hands clasped lightly in her lap, stared back at Tulah and seemed unfazed by the gawking around her. Tulah huffed, unsure of what exactly the girl was doing in her church, but she wasn’t overly concerned. The tramp was one more witness, at any rate, to the humiliation about to take place. Sister Tulah’s eye tacked once more, just to the girl’s left. She was salivating by the time she finally spat out his name.

  “Our dear and beloved Brother Felton.”

  Felton was gazing at Tulah with an uncanny lucidity. His hands were folded serenely in his lap, but his shoulders weren’t slumped or his broad back bent. His thighs, while still straining the seams of his maroon, polyester pants, weren’t welded together. His ridiculous striped shoes weren’t curled under the wooden bench. Sister Tulah noticed that the collar button on his dress shirt was fastened, but he was still holding his head at that slight, disconcerting angle. And then there was the bandage running from his right wrist to elbow, a long wrap of white gauze, puffy on the inside of his arm. If whatever it concealed pained him, Felton showed no sign. Tulah swept her hand out across the room, reaching for her followers.

  “Yes, our Brother Felton. Who is back with us tonight.”

  She reached for her Bible.

  “Now, some of you might be thinking to yourself, well, Brother Felton’s not new. Most of you have known Felton for all of your lives. Many of you watched him grow up. I heard your concern
s when he left us, when he vanished without a trace, like a thief in the night. You were worried. Afraid he was hurt. Afraid some misfortune might have befell him. You prayed, as I prayed, for his safe return.”

  Sister Tulah stepped away from the pulpit.

  “And, as we saints have come to expect, our prayers were answered. The Lord God, our merciful God, heard your cries for Brother Felton and returned him to us this past Sunday night. You were all here. You were all a witness to his arrival. To his unexpected homecoming, without explanation, without apology. Without acknowledgment of those prayers, of the knees sore and the palms blistered, of the tears you shed on his behalf.”

  Tulah hoisted the Bible over her head and then swung it down in a swift chop as her eyes snapped back to Felton.

  “And now you will bear witness to what he has become.”

  Tulah had anticipated some kind of reaction from Felton—a flush of fear, a squirm at the very least—but his face remained immobile, his expression that of a sphinx.

  “Let me tell you about Brother Felton. As you no doubt know, Felton has always been as loyal as a dog. To this church, to God. To me, as the instrument of His divine will. For all his life, Felton has been constant in his devotion. Acquiescent. Obedient. Crawling on his belly toward a bone. Simpering and fawning and cringing, whimpering as any cur would do.”

  Tulah grinned, stalking to the edge of the stage and clutching the Bible behind her back.

  “Like any loyal dog, Felton was always ready for a kick. He was always shrinking back from the might of God, but still trying to creep close to the fire. You were all witnesses to his unerring fealty over the years. No doubt, you can still remember. The time we found Brother Felton shaking in the back of the church, smelling like a sour child, the wetness spread all the way down to the floor. That wasn’t so long ago you could forget.”

  She ranged along the rim of the low stage with that maniacal smile cauterizing her lips, matching the fervid blaze of her eye. Tulah was reveling, almost wallowing, in her debasement of her nephew. A few of her followers looked uncomfortable, a few were fidgeting and stealing sheepish glances toward Felton, but most were staring up at her with ingrained rapture, nodding in concert.