She doesn’t turn away, but neither does she say anything. She doesn’t respond in any overt way, though I detect a deepening in her dark eyes. There are different levels of awareness in Pearlie’s eyes, the way there are in the eyes of most black people of her generation. In Natchez prior to 1965, a black person could witness a fatal shooting between two white people and see nothing at all. Such an event was “white folks’ business,” and that was that. I hate to think what sins lie concealed beneath that outdated rubric. Instead of prodding her further, I wait in silence.
“You done asked me about that a thousand times, baby,” she says, closing her eyes against my scrutiny.
“And you’ve put me off a thousand times.”
“I told you what I saw that night.”
“When I was a child. But I’m asking you again. I’m thirty-one years old, for God’s sake. Tell me about that night, Pearlie. Tell me everything you saw.”
At last the eyelids open, revealing dark brown irises that have probably seen more of life than I ever will. “All right,” she says wearily. “Maybe it’ll finally settle you down.”
Pearlie sits on the edge of my old bed and looks at the wall, her eyes cloudy with remembrance. “The truth is, I didn’t see much. If I’d been sleeping in my house, I might have, but I was in the big house tending to your grandmother.”
She stops talking, and for a moment I fear she means not to continue. But she swallows and goes on.
“Mrs. Kirkland was having pains that turned out be her gallbladder. She had to have it cut out the next night. Your granddaddy wanted to do it, but she wouldn’t let him. Anyway, I heard a gunshot.”
“What time?”
“About ten-thirty, I guess. Rifle, I thought. That cracking sound, you know? It woke up your grandmother. I said Dr. Kirkland probably just shot a buck that wandered up out of the woods, but Mrs. Kirkland told me to call the police.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“How long did it take them to get here?”
“Ten minutes. Maybe a little longer.”
“And you only went down to the garden after the police got here?”
She nods slowly. “But I phoned down here to make sure you and your mama was okay.”
“Who answered?”
“Dr. Kirkland. He told me everything wasn’t okay, but that I should stay with Mrs. Kirkland. I panicked and made him tell me you was all right. That’s when I figured out something had happened to Mr. Luke.”
Mr. Luke … Pearlie’s term of address for my father.
“He was supposed to have left for the island about nine, but I just had a feeling. I went out to the back gallery of the big house and looked down. When I saw Mr. Luke lying under that tree, it broke my heart. Lord, let’s don’t talk about that.”
“Did you speak to Mom when you phoned down?”
“No.”
I close my eyes. Blue police lights flash behind them, illuminating the great U created by the rear of Malmasion and the two slave quarters, painting the streaking rain with a sapphire glow. Tall men wearing uniforms and caps stand talking to my grandfather amid the roses, deferring to him like soldiers to a senior officer. I open my eyes before the memory can go any further.
“This is what I remember being told,” I murmur. “Daddy and Grandpapa both heard someone prowling the grounds. Daddy was in here, Grandpapa in the main house. They met outside, talked a few seconds, then started checking the grounds separately. Both had guns, but Daddy was surprised by the prowler. They fought in the dark, and Daddy was shot with his own rifle.”
Pearlie nods sadly. “That’s what Dr. Kirkland told me.”
“Is that what he told the police?”
“Course it is, child. That’s what happened. Why you ask me that?”
Without realizing it, I’ve already formulated an answer to her question. “Because I think that bare footprint on the carpet is mine. And I think I put it there on that night.”
Pearlie shakes her head. “That’s nonsense, child. You ain’t never got over losing your daddy, that’s all. You been trying to make sense of it for twenty years, but there ain’t no sense to things like that. Not unless you God hisself. Then you understand everything. But that’s the only sense there is. Ain’t none for you and me.”
I ignore Pearlie’s simplistic philosophy, however accurate it might be. “Talking to Mom about that night was like pulling teeth. When she did talk, she told me conflicting stories. She heard the shot, she didn’t hear it. She saw one thing, then she didn’t see it. What do you think about that?”
Pearlie gives me a rare unguarded look. “You say you’re grown up now … and I guess you are. Old enough to hear this, anyway. Your mama didn’t see anything that night, baby. She was taking your father’s sleeping pills back then. Or his pain pills. Whatever he took for his war wound and his nerves.”
Nerves … Pearlie’s euphemism for post-traumatic stress disorder. “You’re saying that was a habit?”
“Girl, your mama swallowed most everything Mr. Luke got from the doctor back then. She had nerve problems herself. Your daddy went to Dr. Tom Cage back then, and I think Dr. Cage prescribed enough for the both of them. Your mama wouldn’t hardly go see a doctor.”
I make a mental note to find out if Dr. Cage is still alive. “So Mama was unconscious when Daddy was shot?” I close my eyes and try to visualize something—anything—before the blue lights appeared, but nothing will come. “So it was only when you came down to the garden that you saw me walk up to the body?”
“That’s right.”
“Where did I come from?”
Pearlie hesitates. “From this house, I think. Or behind it, maybe. I’m not sure.”
I try again to recall something fresh from that night, but the impassable gate that guards that information from my conscious mind remains locked. “Pearlie, who do you think that prowler was? What was he doing here?”
The maid sighs with bone-deep fatalism, and then her dark eyes settle on mine. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“I think he was a friend of your daddy’s. Either that, or somebody who came here to kill Dr. Kirkland.”
For a moment I can’t speak. In all the years since my father’s death, I’ve never heard anyone voice either of these theories. “Kill Grandpapa? Why would someone do that?”
Pearlie
