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Every night I tried to wait until the house got quiet so I could look around and every night I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
So, bright and early on Wednesday, I drove into town and found the hardware store. It was well-stocked for a town this size and what I couldn’t put in my cart—the tiller, chain saw and sod—I was able to have delivered.
“We can get you two more bags of cement,” the old man behind the counter said, his red plaid shirt straining at the buttons over his belly. “In fact, let me check in the warehouse, sometimes we keep overflow there.”
“Great,” I said, and the man tucked his pencil behind his ear and left and a woman slid into the old man’s spot.
“You that man working out at the Manor?” she asked, her long gray hair pulled into a ponytail, her eyes, behind glasses, bright and focused. Rabid, nearly.
“That would be me,” I said, cautiously.
“I told you, Doug!” she yelled, and another man, a younger version of the man in red plaid, appeared at her elbow.
“So?” she asked. “Is it true what they say?”
“What exactly do they say?” I asked, putting gloves and nails on the counter to be rung up.
“That Margot’s crazy,” the woman said.
“And Savannah’s a bitch,” Doug said bitterly, and the woman slapped his arm.
“Watch yourself,” she said. “There’s no need for name calling.”
Doug didn’t for a second seem sheepish and I had the urge to teach the boy some manners with my fists, but I knew an opportunity when I saw one.
If the O’Neills wouldn’t talk about the O’Neills, maybe I could get my news from another source. And there was nothing as far-reaching as small-town gossip.
“They seem fine enough,” I answered, leaning against the counter as if settling in for a nice chat. “My name is Matt.”
“Cheryl,” she said, smiling. “This is my boy, Doug.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, pouring it on a little thick, but Cheryl seemed to eat it up. “Now what’s this about Margot?”
“Well, people been saying it for years, that Margot buries money in the backyard.”
“No, I heard she stopped doing that,” Doug said. “On account of all those high schoolers who go back there to party.”
“You know that Garrett boy broke into the house, scared those women to pieces.”
I took note of the name and watched as the two seemed to forget I was there.
“Can you blame him?” Doug asked. “I wish I had the guts to get close to that house. I heard they’ve got this huge wall safe in the library filled with money and gems and shit.”
“Well, honey, if you’d been nicer to Savannah, maybe Margot wouldn’t have run you off when you tried,” Cheryl said and Doug rolled his eyes.
But the hair on my neck stood up and chill washed over my arms. “Gems?” I asked blankly, steering them back on course.
“Diamonds and such. Big ones. Can you imagine?”
Yes. I could. I did.
“Where would they get gems?” I asked. “I mean, judging from the house, those two women are barely getting by.”
“Don’t be fooled,” Doug said, starting to ring up the items in front of him. “It’s all a cover.”
“Cover for what?”
“I think it’s the middle boy, Tyler,” Doug said. “I don’t know how, but I think they’re hiding the money he wins in Vegas so he doesn’t have to pay taxes.”
Cheryl shook her head. “I think it’s the mother, what’s her name—”
“Vanessa?” I asked, perhaps a bit too eagerly, but Cheryl didn’t seem to notice. “But where is she? They never talk about her.”
“Oh, God, no.” Doug laughed. “No one talks about Vanessa. Ever. Savannah about slapped my head off a few years ago when I asked her.”
I paused a moment, grateful that Savannah had ignored me rather than slapped my head off.
“I told you that was no way to get her to go out with you.” Cheryl tsked her tongue and I got a little insight into that bitch comment. A beautiful woman like Savannah who wouldn’t date the riffraff—what else would the riffraff do but call her names?
Something detonated in my chest, sympathy and anger that there was no one around to defend these women against people bent on believing the worst of them.
I could do it.
But I wasn’t here to defend them, not any more than I had. I was here for answers and so far, Cheryl and Doug had been more help than all three O’Neill women combined.
“So where is Vanessa?” I asked.
“No one’s seen her in years,” Doug said.
“Oh,” Cheryl laughed. “Just because she ain’t been seen doesn’t mean she’s not around. Trouble, that one. Worse than all the others put together. Her and that husband of hers.”
My head spun. “Husband?”
“Richard someone or other. He and Vanessa got divorced long before the kids ended up in Bonne Terre.”
