The Covenant Read online

  “And we have a swimming pool,” Cassie added.

  I told myself this is what I had asked for, hoped for. This is what had to happen if I wanted to find out what happened to Sam Loftin.

  I told myself one place was as good as another. I also told myself that it wasn’t any of my business, but I wasn’t listening to that part. This place was a damn sight better than my motel room, even if it did come with a woman whose grief was still as raw as hamburger.

  * * *

  I let them talk me into it, and Jenny seemed genuinely happy when I agreed. Deacon drove me to the motel in her van. In less than ten minutes I was packed and ready to leave the old place forever. I paused at the door to shake the cockroaches from my shoes.

  I would have been happy sleeping on the couch for the two weeks it was going to take me to finish the photography job, but Jenny had already decided that I would move into Reece’s room. She helped me carry my luggage upstairs. “If you need space, I can clean out these drawers,” she said, opening them one by one. “I just never had the heart to go through her old clothes and throw anything away. I kept telling myself that one day Cassie could wear this stuff.”

  I was unpacked, moved in, and crawling into bed by one o’clock. As I lay there in the dark, the door safely locked, naked beneath pink sheets, surrounded by all the cultural detritus of a teenaged girl dead these last five years, just beginning to drift off into a dream of coffee-black nights and bacon-bright mornings, I sat up suddenly in bed. Cassie’s friend in the red swimsuit hadn’t joined us for ice cream. She hadn’t been in the house at all.

  29

  In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators; as befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful.

  — NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, THE SCARLET LETTER

  I’D BEEN LIVING THERE ABOUT a week when it really hit the fan. Jenny was outside vacuuming the pool while the kids played in the shallow end. I watched them for a while, especially Cassie. A strong swimmer, she still avoided the deep end and kept busy herding her little brother in his arm floaties away from that side of the pool, as he seemed determined to drown himself.

  It was strange living in a house with children. The noise level was startling. I’d lived on my own for so long, I was used to being the only living source of sound. I wasn’t used to locking doors. I’d be in the bathtub and the door would open and it would only be Cassie, looking for her hairbrush, or Eli coming in to stand at the toilet and pee with his pants around his ankles. Being among the living on a regular basis took some getting used to. I was practically feral.

  Now that Deacon’s workers had finished the roof, the dust had settled considerably in Ruth’s house. I took tremendous pains not to stir it up again, and everything seemed fine while I was working, but when I checked my work on the computer, most of the photos were fouled with orbs. A whole day’s work and I’d end up with maybe ten usable pictures.

  So there I was, sitting at the kitchen table trying to clean up some photos, using Reece’s old laptop, which was newer than the one I’d lost when my car was stolen, while still learning the photo-editing software Deiter had given me. Jenny came inside to get a drink of water. She watched me work for a while and listened to me swear, which she found strangely edifying when her kids weren’t within earshot. “Maybe you need to clean the lens,” she suggested unhelpfully.

  Eugene Kitchen knocked at the back door. He’d boated over from his house. A gauze bandage still covered his nose, like a pirate’s eye patch that had slipped down. Bruises the size and color of plums surrounded both eyes. He was wearing a little white captain’s hat just like the one Senator Mickelson had been wearing at the Fourth of July picnic. It might even have been the same hat. I wondered if he had picked it out of Luther’s garbage.

  Jenny opened the door. “How are you Eugene?”

  “I still can’t breathe,” he said, pointing at his nose.

  “I’m sure Holly didn’t mean to hit you.”

  “Luther made her apologize.” He entered the kitchen and stood just inside the threshold, his eyes scouring the room before coming to rest on me. He nodded, perhaps to me, or maybe to himself. I couldn’t tell. “I’m having surgery next week.”

  Jenny sat at the table and tinkled the ice in her glass. “Who is your surgeon?”

  “Dr. Ledbetter. You know the Ledbetters, from over on Jefferson Street?”

  “I go to him for my sinuses,” she said. “He’s good.”

  “The best. Listen.” He took off his cap and twisted it in his hands. “The reason I stopped by is because there is an HOA meeting at the clubhouse tonight. You should be there.”

  “Why?

  “Well, for one thing, we’re voting on a new treasurer.”

  “Yes, I heard. I’m not interested.” Jenny said.

  “I say this as a friend. It would be in your best interest to be there.” He turned to me. “Both of you.”

  “I have nothing to say. I don’t want to be the treasurer. I’m not Sam.”

  “Still, you should be there. I can’t tell you why.”

  “You’ve been sworn to secrecy?” Jenny asked.

  He nodded gravely, as though he’d signed his name in thumb-blood to an oath taken in a graveyard with Huck Finn, Injun Joe and a stray dog. He clapped his cap on his head, took his leave, and thumped down to the boat dock, where his wooden Hacker-Craft speedboat bobbed expensively.

  “I wonder what that was about,” I said, returning to my work.

  “Sam used to say they were worse than the CIA. They made him sign a nondisclosure agreement before every closed meeting. It was ridiculous.”

  “Well, at least Eugene was friend enough to give you a heads-up.”

  Jenny said, “Eugene Kitchen has never been our friend, Jackie.”

  * * *

  That evening, we left the kids with Holly. Jenny drove to the meeting, which was held at the clubhouse. It looked like someone had gone to Switzerland, stolen one of their ski lodges, and set it down at the edge of the lake.

  Back in my rich, married days, I’d stayed in casino hotels that weren’t as nice as this. The place reeked of fir and gin and the expensive sweat of golfers. The dining room advertised on the menu their star in the Michelin guide. The HOA meeting was being held in a small auditorium shaped like an amphitheater. It was the sort of place where you took freshman psych with three hundred other people. Residents were filing in as we arrived; many greeted Jenny by name and asked her about her kids and how she was holding up, to which she replied with the constancy of an answering machine, “Just taking things day by day.”

  Presiding over this snake pit was HOA president Luther Vardry, his associate president of vice Eugene Kitchen and Secretary Annette LaGrance, birth mother of the Elle model I’d taken an instant dislike to that first day. The first order of business was the vote for the treasurer. Several people spoke on behalf of this or that resident, or on their own behalf, and about five names were floated, including Jenny’s. Finally, they voted, placing their ballots into a box guarded by two of Stegall’s goons.

  Luther sat with his little sausage fingers folded in front of him, eyes lowered as though he were half asleep in prayer, while Eugene banged his gavel on the table long after everyone was seated and quiet again. Finally he tucked his dick away and checked his notes, as if he hadn’t already memorized everything he was about to say.

  Eugene spoke while Annette took the minutes. “The votes will be tallied and the results announced next week. Next order of business is the posting of signs along the roadway and on light poles. This is strictly prohibited by the covenant. The only signs allowed are For Sale signs by a licensed realtor. The covenant does not allow for-sale-by-owner. This bylaw was ratified in the annual meeting in January 2006. Also, there shouldn’t be any Garage Sale
signs, much less garage sales. As you know, we hold a semiannual community yard sale. The second weekends in April and October are the only weekends when garage sales may be held. This also goes for the sale of automobiles and boats. You can’t park a boat in the front yard and stick a For Sale sign on it. This isn’t Memphis. We aren’t a flea market. If you have a car or boat or any other large item you wish to sell, you know that you can place a free ad in the monthly newsletter. The same goes for missing cat and missing dog notices. Send me an email and a photograph and I’ll broadcast it through our phone app. Everybody in the community will see it. There’s no need to trash up the place with missing pet posters taped to every light pole.”

  “What about missing children?” A woman at the back stood up and repeated her question. “It took you three days to send out the notice when my daughter disappeared.”

  Eugene looked more pained that she had spoken out of order than by the accusations in her statement. Luther didn’t look at all. He was playing churches-and-steeples with his fingers. Eugene said, “It was already all over the news, Lauren. I didn’t see the point.”

  “Not everybody watches the news day and night, Eugene. Some people have to work for a living,” the woman said.

  “I made an honest mistake.”

  “You tore down her posters!” A man stood up beside her and took her elbow. She jerked it away. He took it again, gently, and leaned close to whisper in her ear.

  “The covenant is clear…” Eugene started to say.

  “To hell with the covenant! We’re not talking about a stray dog. Lindsey was my daughter! She disappeared!”

  “Ran away,” Eugene muttered. The woman froze, her chin wagging in the air as she tried to find words for a rage that had no words. The man at her side turned her into the aisle and guided her to the door.

  Luther finally roused himself. He leaned forward, steepling his hands, his brow thoughtfully furrowed. “We’ve already been over this, Lauren. This is neither the time nor the place to bring it up again. Eugene is truly sorry, and as you know we’ve changed our policies and procedures. As soon as an alert comes in, Eugene forwards it to everyone in the community. So some good did come of that whole unfortunate incident.”

  “Good? Good God!” the woman shrieked as the door closed behind her. The council members shuffled their agendas and tried not to look at one another. For a few intensely uncomfortable moments, the room was as silent as a tomb.

  Then it got worse.

  Eugene called Jenny’s name.

  “Yes?”

  He glanced at Luther, who shrugged, nodded and folded his hands across his waistcoat. Eugene cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to have to mention this, but our rules are clear. It has been reported to this council that Jackie Lyons…” Here he pointed at me, as though identifying a suspect in a Perry Mason courtroom. “… is renting a room from you. As you know, this is a violation of the covenant.”

  Jenny smiled thinly, but the hand behind her back clenched into a fist. “Jackie isn’t renting. She’s my guest.” Someone behind us snorted.

  “And I suppose y’all are just friends.”

  “That’s right,” Jenny said after a moment’s pause.

  Eugene stuck his thumbs behind his bracers and addressed the ceiling. “Would you say you are good friends?”

  Jenny looked at me, a question on her face. I winked at her. “Yes, we have become friends,” she said, winking back.

  “And does Mrs. Lyons have her own bedroom?”

  I came up out of my chair. Eugene had the gall to look surprised. Jenny said my name and snatched futilely at my elbow. I noticed Stegall’s goons closing in on either side, but I knew I could get to him before they brought me down, unless they had Tasers. Eugene backed into the American flag and knocked it over. Somewhere a Boy Scout fainted.

  The doors banged open and Deacon entered and for some reason I stopped as though I’d reached the end of my chain. He was dressed in black slacks, black silk vest over a dusky red shirt, black watered silk tie, aviator shades and black leather cowboy boots. All he needed was a cheap tin star. “Sorry I’m late.”

  His timely entrance saved me eleven months and twenty-nine days’ participation in the Fayette County highway beautification project. “Evening,” he said, tipping his invisible hat to me as he passed. Jenny glared at me, barely able to contain her glee.

  While Stegall’s goons rescued the flag, Eugene recovered his composure by banging his gavel on the table. “Late?” he said. “Late? You weren’t invited at all, preacher. This is a homeowners’ association meeting and you aren’t a homeowner.”

  “I am here to represent the interests of Ruth Vardry on this council.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  Deacon continued to the front of the room, then turned and sat on the edge of the officers’ table. “According to the HOA bylaws, Ruth Vardry maintains a permanent advisory seat on the homeowners’ association council. If you want, we can look it up.” He removed a piece of paper from his back pocket, unfolded it and set it in front of Luther. “This is an affidavit in which she names me as her representative. I am authorized to speak on her behalf, and I intend to do so.”

  Luther scanned the document and said, “Everything seems to be in order here. Fetch him a chair, Eugene.”

  “But Mr. President…”

  “Be quiet, Eugene. I want to hear what Mama has to say.”

  When the goons had brought his chair, Deacon ignored it and walked forward to address the audience. “Thank you, Mr. President. My name is Deacon Falgoust. I am the pastor of the Hope Church of the Gospel Revealed. So you know that I am but a humble servant of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

  “First let me say that I am appalled that Jenny Loftin and Jackie Lyons are being questioned in this shocking manner. When last I checked, this association was not a court of law. This is not Boston Colony and we are not the Puritans. Should we publicly shame our neighbors for minor violations of a homeowners’ agreement, much less call into question their living arrangements?”

  Eugene fumed and toyed with his gavel, while Luther smiled beatifically at his own hands. Annette’s pen hovered above her steno pad. She had stopped writing. The minutes ticked by, un-minuted.

  Deacon slipped into that peculiar booming cadence that I called his preacher voice. His rhythms were poetic, the pitch rising and falling, expressing love and disappointment in the same paternal breath. He used a sonorous Southern drawl that he could tune like a dial to suit his audience, with the occasional Cajun inflection or word thrown in to hammer home a point. “If Jesus were standing here tonight, what would He say to us about this situation? Would He say, no, you may not give shelter to a stranger or even to a friend in need? No, He would not. That’s not the Jesus of the Gospels. The money changers in the temple might say that, but not Jesus.

  “These are difficult economic times, scraping times, when even a family that works hard and is frugal can get into difficult straits, but when one of us is struck by disease or a death in the family, we may not be able to survive at all. Because of these hard times, we are mal pris, we can’t find a buyer for our house, yet neither may we rent it. Would Jesus say, too bad for you, sucker? The money changers might say that, the scribes and the Pharisees in the temple might say to the poor widow with two young children, go and pauper yourself, destroy your good credit, bankrupt yourself rather than rent even a single room of your house until such time as it can be sold. But Jesus, He would not say that. Not to me and not to you, dear friends.”

  “The community has standards to keep. If we let people…” Eugene said.

  Deacon interrupted, still addressing the audience, “Every year you pay your homeowners’ association fees. These fees are considerable, and for some here they are unbearable. Ruth Vardry wishes to know what is being done with this money.”

  “Our books are open. If you want to audit them, you need only obtain a majority vote at the next annual meeting.” Eugene’s voice was
small, like the whining of a mosquito. Deacon spoke over him.

  “Mais, I don’t need to audit the books, ladies and gentlemen. You can tell me all I need to know. Are we spending these fees for them to mow the park? To trim a little bitty strip of lawn by the road and plant a few pansies in the median? Or are we throwing it away on holiday parties for the glory of a single man, a politician some of us may or may not support?”

  “We’ve been having these parties long before you got here, preacher,” Eugene said.

  “Co faire? Are we a community?” Deacon asked. No one in the audience answered. Some didn’t want to answer and resented him for asking. Others were too afraid to answer, but looking around, I could see a few were beginning to ask the same questions. They were starting to put two and two together and seeing that it came to several million a year.

  Deacon walked back to the council table and finally took his seat beside Luther. “Our neighbors are like our family. We should be using this money to help them, not to grind them down and force them into poverty and bankruptcy. Therefore, Mr. President, it is Ruth Vardry’s request that the HOA set up a hardship fund with these fees, so that when your husband dies you don’t lose your house, or when you get sick or lose your job and can’t pay your mortgage, the bank doesn’t foreclose on you before you can get back on your feet, and you aren’t forced to sell that which is nearest and dearest to you just to keep body and soul together. I don’t want to lose you as a neighbor. You are all, every one of you good God-fearing people, but this homeowners’ association is run like the old temple. Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple and said, you have turned my father’s house into a den of thieves. It’s time we drove the money changers out and started helping each other, as neighbors should.”

  “I’m not paying…” Eugene started.

  “Because that, brothers and sisters, that is what creates real property value. Not the color of your paint. Not the cut of your lawn. Not the cars parked in your garage. Community. When we create a community in which neighbor helps neighbor, people will want to live here, they will pay top dollar to live here, no matter how difficult the economy. If the scribes and Pharisees cannot see this, then they are blind. They do not want to lift up and ennoble their fellow man. They want to profit off their neighbor, to stand on his back, your back and my back, so that they may stand a little higher and look down at the world.”