Johanson turned toward his Jeep. “Best take the Jeep. Road’s all tore up from heavy rains we had a while back. No point throwing up dust and gravel on that fancy car of yours.”
I thought he was being snide. I checked for Dolan’s reaction, but he was apparently in agreement with the old man’s assessment.
We piled in the Jeep, Stacey in the front seat, Dolan and me climbing into the rear. The seats were cracked leather, and all the glassine windows had been removed. Johanson started the engine and released the emergency brake. The vehicle’s shocks were gone. I reached up and grabbed the roll bar, clinging to it as we began to lurch and bang our way up the deeply rutted gravel road. Like me, Stacey was clinging to the Jeep frame for stability, wincing with pain from the jolts to his injured back.
The grass on either side of us was rough. A hillside rose on our left and then leveled out at the top, forming a mesa where numerous pieces of heavy equipment sat. Much of the remaining ground was stripped and terraced, broad fields of rubble unbroken by greenery. “That’s the quarry,” Johanson said, hollering over the rattle and whine of the moving vehicle.
I leaned forward, directing my comments toward the back of his head. “Really? That looks like a gravel pit. I pictured limestone cliffs.”
“Different kind of quarry. These is open pit mines. Grayson Quarry goes after the DE. That’s diatomaceous earth. Here, I’ve got a sample. Take a look at this.” One eye on the road, he leaned down and removed a chunk of rock from the floor of the Jeep, then passed it across the seat to me. The rock was a rough chalky white, about the size of a crude round of bread with irregular gouges in the crust. I passed it on to Lieutenant Dolan, and he hefted it as I had, finding it surprisingly light.
I said, “What’d you say this was?”
“Diatomaceous earth. We call it DE.”
I felt a tingle of uneasiness run down my spine as his explanation went on. “DE’s a deposit made up mainly of siliceous shells of diatoms. This whole area was underwater oncet upon a time. The way they tolt me, marine life fed on diatoms, which is these colonies of algae. Now it’s pulverized and used as an abrasive, sometimes as an absorbent.”
Stacey raised his voice against the crunch of the tires over gravel. “I used to use it to filter beer when I was making it at home.”
The road began to climb and the Jeep labored upward, finally rounding a bend. The old house came into view—massive, dilapidated, Victoriana under siege. Clearly, the structure had once been regal, but weeds and brush were creeping up on all sides, consuming the yard, obscuring the broken lines of wood fence. Years of neglect had undermined the outbuildings so that all that remained now were the rough stone foundations and occasional piles of collapsed and rotting lumber.
The house itself was a two-story white frame, flanked by a one-story wing on either side of the facade. There were four porches visible, providing shade and sheltered ventilation so that doors and windows could be left open to the elements. A porch wrapped around the house at the front, with a second porch stacked on top. A widow’s walk encircled the roof. The numerous paired windows were narrow and dark, many of the panes sporting the sort of tattered holes that rock throwers make when they score a hit.
Johanson waved at the house, scarcely slowing his speed. “Been empty for years. I’m in the gardener’s cottage on ’tother side of the barn,” he yelled.
I found myself averting my gaze as we passed the house and headed for a compound of structures I spotted in a shady area ahead. Barn, toolshed, greenhouse. There were arbors of grapevines as gnarly as rope. Weathered wooden tables were arranged under the trellises. I had the sensation of cold blowing down on the back of my neck.
Johanson pulled up in front of a ramshackle frame cottage. Beyond, I could see a raw wood barn that listed to one side, and beyond that there were endless stretches of three-board wood fence.
I leaned forward again and laid a hand on Johanson’s shoulder. “Excuse me, who’d you say owns this?”
He killed the engine before he turned. “Miz LeGrand. I guess I should say Miz Kinsey to be accurate. She’s a widder woman, must be ninety-some by now. Married to Burton Kinsey, the fella who leased the quarry from her pappy. He made his fortune off the mine, though the whole of it was rightly hers oncet the old man died....”
I’d ceased to listen and the silence in my head seemed as profound as temporary deafness. He was talking about my maternal grandmother, Cornelia Kinsey, born Cornelia Straith LeGrand.
4
Friday morning, I arose at 5:59, switching off the alarm a moment before the clock radio was set to burst into song. I stared up at the skylight above my bed. No rain. Shit. I didn’t feel like exercising, but I made a deal with myself: I’d do the jog and skip the gym. I leaned over and scooped up the sweats I’d left folded on the floor. I wriggled into pants and top. I sat up and tugged on a pair of crew socks, shoved my feet into my Sauconys, and had my key tied to the laces before I’d left my bed. It occurred to me that if I just made it my habit to sleep in my sweats and crew socks, it would be a lot more efficient. All I’d need were my running shoes and I’d be ready to go. I went into the bathroom and availed myself of the facilities, after which I brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, and then used my wet hands to comb the sleep-generated peaks and valleys from my hair. I trotted down the spiral stairs, checked the thumblock on the front door and pulled it shut, then rounded the studio to the gate.