His Last Wife

“We could know the killer. It could be one of us,” Val announced shadily. “How do you know it’s not me? How do I know it’s not you?”

Thirjane started coughing and looking around the corner for Tyrian and Kerry. “Where are they? Taking so long up there.” Thirjane tried to change the topic, but Val ignored her.

“It could be anyone. The killer is out there.”

Thirjane looked back at Val and started getting up from her chair. “You want some tea? I want some tea,” she asked erratically.

“I’m not thirsty,” Val said. “But you look like you could use something to drink.”

Thirjane was out of her chair and had her back to Val as she took steps toward the foyer that led to the kitchen on the other side.

“A drink . . . or a priest,” Val added.

Thirjane stopped straightaway, but did not turn around.

“I know,” was all Val said.

“I didn’t do it.” Thirjane turned around.

“No. But you ordered the hit,” Val said, getting up from her seat and walking toward her.

“Who told you that? How do you know that?” Thirjane asked.

“A little birdie told me,” Val joked. She got in close to Thirjane. “It whispered in my ear that you had Jamison killed. Hired someone else to do your dirty work. Not a surprise, either. I bet you have someone clean this house too. Make your bed. Clean your ass. Bail your daughter out of jail—I did that for you.”

For the first time in her life, maybe, Thirjane worked as hard as she could to look innocent and maybe weak. “Did you tell her?” she asked.

“No,” Val revealed. “Not going to. I thought you could handle that dirty work yourself. You should be the one to tell your daughter you had her ex-husband, the father of her son, murder—”

Before Val could finish, Kerry came bouncing around the corner, all smiles.

“Hey!” Val switched her tone and looked at Kerry. “How’d it go upstairs? What did he have to show you on the iPad?”

“I didn’t get to see it. The darn battery was dead,” Kerry answered. “We plugged it in. It’ll be up in a minute.” Kerry looked at Thirjane, who was standing right beside her in the entryway to the foyer. “You okay?” she asked. “You look like you just got bad news. Come on, I’m home! That’s the best news ever.”

“I know. I’m just worried about lunch,” Thirjane managed. “Just wondering how we’re going to feed our guest.”

“God, Mama. You’re always worrying about stuff like that. I’ll split mine with her,” Kerry said. “Come on. Let’s go eat. I’m starving. I haven’t had a decent meal in months.”

Everyone laughed. Val laughed the loudest.

“Come downstairs to eat, Tyrian,” Kerry hollered upstairs as she led Thirjane and Val to the kitchen. “Wash your hands and leave that iPad upstairs.”

Chapter 11

Something bad was coming. Or something bad was going. At least that’s what Mama Fee thought. Val knew this because a few days after Kerry was released from jail, she woke to the smell of sage, cedar, and sweetgrass burning in the house. It meant Mama Fee was smudging, burning dried herbs in tiny terra-cotta bowls in the corners and side spots everywhere to fend off some negative energy or bid it farewell. When Val was a little girl, she’d witness her mother wrapping the furry, soft green sage sprigs in her prayer closet sometimes after a funeral and other times days before someone had died. Mama Fee was young and beautiful then, and she’d pin some of the herbs in her bun. Like her mother, Mama Fee taught her daughters about burning and smudging when she’d finished combing their hair and forced them to collect every single fallen nap from the floor, comb, or brush to add to her smudge bowl and be burned immediately.

One time, Val asked Mama Fee how she knew trouble was coming or going and what she should burn. When and where. Mama Fee was braiding sweetgrass then. She leaned over to Val. An extra braid of sweetgrass was dangling from a feather at the base of her scalp. Val’s older sister had always told people they were part Chippewa to explain the ornaments neighborhood kids witnessed hanging from their mother’s hair. “I smell kitten’s breath and hear the drum in my sleep, baby,” Mama Fee said to Val. “That’s how I knows what to do. The world tells me.”

Val had gotten a cryptic and shaky phone call from Leaf the night before the smudging scent filled the house. He wanted to meet with her and Kerry. He had new information, something big that led him to lock himself up in his summer cabin in the woods in Dahlonega up in North Georgia near the Chattahoochee National Forest. On the phone, Val was half asleep and complained about the hour drive out to the middle of nowhere where black people hardly went and white people probably still hung the Confederate flag on the front porch. She’d asked him why he couldn’t just come meet her and Kerry in the city over a cup of coffee, but Leaf insisted on it and told Val to make sure she told no one else about the meeting a

nd ensured they weren’t being followed on their trip up to the mountains.

In the days since Kerry was released from jail and the media was going crazy trying to figure out why the DA would kill himself in a hotel room, leaving behind only a note to his wife that read I’m sorry, Val was telling herself there was no reason for her to continue to be involved in the mystery behind Jamison’s death. She’d done her part. Paid her debt to Kerry in a sleazy airport hotel room with her legs in the air and forwarded all of the photos she’d taken of the DA to his cell phone with the words Let her out or I’ll let these out. Her part was done. And though she was still grateful for Kerry helping her when she was at her lowest after Jamison kicked her out, she knew in her heart that neither Jamison nor Kerry would have gone that far for her had she been the one behind bars or thrown from the top of a building. While her baby was dying in her stomach and Jamison was out in the street drinking and calling Kerry all times of night, she realized she was just a point in their love triangle. But with Jamison gone from the top of the geometric shape, Val was made far more important in Kerry maintaining her own balance. It seemed like Kerry now thought of Val as a friend, an ally, a confidante. Since she’d been out, she’d been calling Val, seeking her out, telling her secrets. And again, Val explained to herself that Kerry was out of jail. There was no reason to answer the phone or listen to annoying mothers and boys who were just like their fathers. But there was something about Kerry’s attention that made Val feel less alone in her predicament. They were both grieving the same loss in different ways. Missing the same man. There was something kindred in that. Something sisterly. It was a feeling Val, even with two sisters all her own, never knew.

But still, why should she care about what happened to Jamison? She certainly didn’t believe he was alive like Kerry had been telling everyone. And, like Lebowski, she thought Kerry was simply listening to those underground theorists who crowded Internet shows, blogs, and podcasts with theories of Jamison’s every move that Kerry was now tracking in a notebook, because she couldn’t accept that he was dead. But he was. Val had gone to the hospital. While the coroner said there was nothing left of his face that could be identifiable and what he could show Val would give her nightmares for the rest of her life, she did see Jamison’s bloody clothes, his wallet, his hands, his feet. It was him. She was sure of it. He was dead.

However, knowing that and disagreeing with Kerry did nothing to answer what had happened to Jamison. And her reasons for caring were becoming quite personal.