Copper Lake Encounter

I turn to go back, fear heavy in my chest. I take a few steps, and the rain stops. The wind stops. The sun reappears in the bright blue sky with the fat white clouds. The air is warm and muggy, and ahead of me, so close I could reach out my fingers and touch it, is the other tree, half in the water, half in the air. Its limbs are still and dry. I’m still and dry.

There’s no storm. No gale-force wind. No deluge. No lights. No house. No little girl. No one calling. Just the dead tree and me.

* * *

Church had been a part of Ty’s life ever since he’d come to Copper Lake to live with Granddad. Back in the beginning, he’d been okay with the going-to-church part. He’d just had trouble with the church-clothes part: black or gray pants, white button-down shirt and tie, no matter how hot and miserable the weather was. Despite the fact that his father had run off before Ty was old enough to remember him or that his mother had died long before her time and he’d been uprooted from his home in Macon, he was thankful. He just didn’t see that it made much difference to God whether he was thankful in church clothes or shorts and a T-shirt.

It was all about respect, Granddad said, and there’d been no arguing with Obadiah Gadney. Still wasn’t. Eighty years of getting what he wanted meant he expected to continue getting what he wanted. What he’d wanted was for his grandson to be a God-loving, God-fearing, responsible and honorable young man.

As he straightened his tie and then left his house for Granddad’s down the street, Ty hoped he’d lived up to Obadiah’s expectations. He was pretty sure he had, except maybe when it came to women. No maybe about it when it came to Kiki Isaacs in particular. Granddad didn’t have anything against mixed-race relationships. He’d always said a person’s outside wasn’t important. It was the inside that mattered. He just didn’t think Kiki’s inside was very pretty. He couldn’t see her settling down, being happy, having babies or going to church. She’d never set foot in church yet, she had once proudly told Obadiah, and she wasn’t about to change.

The disappointment in Granddad’s face before he’d no doubt said a silent prayer for her had stayed with Ty.

Jingling his keys in his pocket, he walked the half block to the house where he’d grown up. It was nothing fancy. None of the houses on Easy Street were. It was a black neighborhood, its residents mostly hardworking and underpaid, spending too much energy and money on the necessities of living to have either left over to spend on their houses. Back in the day, when the neighborhood was new, practically every soul there had worked for the rich white families in town. All of them had traced their family history back to before the Civil War and ancestors who’d been owned by the rich white families in town.

In the past six months, though, two new families had moved in: a physician’s assistant and her husband, an accountant and his schoolteacher wife, both with kids. Ty had been living there a year in his own house, bought from Anamaria Duquesne Calloway. It was good to hear kids playing in the yards again, to see care taken with the properties. Someday he planned to expand his house and raise his own kids there.

Easy Street was getting gentrified, Obadiah said with a great satisfied laugh. Who would have believed it?

Ty didn’t think Obadiah was as surprised by it as he pretended. His family wasn’t the only group of people Granddad had high hopes for.

The front door of Granddad’s house closed as Ty turned into the driveway. Despite the heat, the old man wore a pale gray suit, a white shirt and a deep red striped tie, and his hat, a shade darker than the suit, was settled on his head. He held a cane in one hand and carried his Bible in the other. Ignoring the ramp Ty and his buddies had built a few years earlier, he took the steps with a slow, measured step and then started along the sidewalk.

“Mornin’, son.”

“Good morning.”

“You have breakfast?”

“Now, why would I do that when I know you’ve got pot roast with all the trimmings in the slow cooker?”

Obadiah grinned. “And pecan and sweet potato pie for dessert.” He pronounced it pee-can, with equal emphasis on both syllables. “Anamaria delivered ’em this morning, hot from the oven. She’s a sweet girl. I sure wish you’d met her before that Calloway boy did.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. Once she saw Robbie, she would have forgotten all about me.”

His grandfather nodded in agreement. “The girl’s got the sight. She knew.”

A lot of people Ty knew, especially within the department, didn’t believe in the sight or any other psychic abilities. But Granddad knew there was plenty more to the world than people could see and touch, and he’d taught his kids the same.

Ty opened the passenger door of the 1963 Mercury, helped his grandfather inside and then went to the driver’s seat. “One of these days, you’re gonna have to ride to church in my truck,” he teased as he strapped the seat belt over his hips and then turned the key. “This old barge doesn’t do much for my reputation.”

Obadiah snorted. “I don’t think I can climb high enough to get into that truck of yours. It’d take you and two of the deacons to get me out when we get there.”

“There’d be plenty of volunteers to catch you when I push. Miz Hopkins, Miz Rutledge, Miz Mattie...”

A grin split Granddad’s face. “I’ve still got my own hair and my own teeth, and all the parts God sent me into the world with still work. Can you blame them for likin’ me?”

There was some truth to what he said. He was eighty, breathing, living on his own, and he didn’t require medication for every little thing. He probably was a prize to the elderly widows at the church.

Not that he’d ever looked twice at any of them. Ty’s grandmother, Genevieve, had been the one love of his life. They’d both been forty when she died—of cancer, like Ty’s mother—and it had broken Obadiah’s heart. He’d never shown any interest in another woman. He fully believed he was going to be reunited with his precious Genevieve in heaven, and that promise was enough to keep him going here on earth.

They were met in the parking lot by a dozen kids, most of them Ty’s cousins two or three times removed and all of them eager to be the one to help Obadiah inside. They were scrubbed clean, the girls in summer dresses and sandals, the boys in trousers, white shirts and ties. Had a Gadney female ever attended a church service in pants, a Gadney male without a tie? Not in Granddad’s life, he was sure.

Ty was halfway across the parking lot when he passed Cherina’s and Shiraz’s teenage boys leaning against the oak tree in the center of the yard, looking off in the direction from which he’d just come.

Roland gave a low whistle. “She got some curves on her.”

“She don’t look bad in that pink dress, neither,” David agreed.

Since he couldn’t remember the last time a girl had caught their attention so thoroughly, Ty turned to see whom they were talking about. He totally got the sense of wonder in their voices as he watched Nev Wilson make her way carefully across the parking lot. In her snug-fitting dress and ridiculously high heels, she should have looked at least a bit comical, taking small, cautious steps to avoid twisting an ankle on a loose piece of gravel, but she didn’t. She looked graceful and womanly and...damn, was it a sin to think sexy in the churchyard?

“Wonder who she is,” Roland said.

“And why we ain’t seen her here before,” David added.

“She’s a friend of mine.”

Both boys startled at the sound of his voice. They’d been concentrating so fully on Nev that they hadn’t even noticed him. He took each by a shoulder and turned them toward the door. “Go on, now. Get inside or you’ll miss Miz Rutledge warming up on the organ.”

With groans and rolls of their eyes, both boys headed to the door. Ty waited a moment and then stepped from the oak’s shade and walked to the edge of the grass. “Nevaeh.” He liked the way her name rolled off in three easy-flowing syllables. “You look like a little bit of heaven right here on earth.”

Even more startled than the boys had been, she blinked at the sight of him. “Detective Gadney.”

“Please call me Ty.”

“Please call me Nev.”

“Of all the churches in all of Copper Lake... Are you stalking me?”

“Absolutely. Your almost running me down on the sidewalk yesterday—I planned that. Your buying me coffee and cookies was part of the plot, too.”

He laughed and then, as she reached the parched grass, offered his arm. He’d escorted plenty of women in heels across the lawn on Sundays—most of them old enough to be his mother or his grandmother—but this was the first time he didn’t wonder why the church hadn’t built a sidewalk to the parking lot years ago. He was grateful they hadn’t, in fact.

“Do you always go to church when you’re on vacation?”

She shrugged, and he felt the movement where her fingers rested on his forearm. Today would have been a good day to wear a short-sleeved shirt. Then he could have really felt her touch, could have seen whether her skin was soft or callused, cool or warm or clammy in the muggy air. But damn his ego, he didn’t like the look of short sleeves with a tie, and since the tie wasn’t optional...

“I don’t actually go on vacation very often,” she replied. “I mean, I take time off, but our family trips are usually to visit other family who live in Georgia. And that’s not a vacation at all, not when it comes to church. Heavens, I spent half my summers growing up attending Aunt Lavinia’s little church in Jonesboro or Aunt Opal’s in Three Rivers.”

“Old habits are hard to break. I’m glad.” When they reached the sidewalk that extended from the double doors out to the street—and not to the parking lot on each side—he kept his hand on hers to keep her from pulling away. The momentary tightening, and then easing, of her strong fingers suggested that had been her plan. “How did you choose this one?”

She gazed at the wooden doors as if she could see inside. “I drove around town yesterday after we met, just to get a feel for the place. I think it chose me. It spoke to me.” Her gaze darted his way, a bit of embarrassment in it.

No need. The old church spoke to a lot of people. There were plenty of bigger, newer, fancier churches in Copper Lake—plenty that relied on central air instead of big windows and ceiling fans. Paper or bamboo fans had never gone out of style here. Most of the families who attended services here were following generations of family tradition. Gadneys had sat in these pews for a hundred and fifty years. It was home to them.

The strains of the old organ swelled through the open windows as Miz Rutledge began warming up her arthritic fingers. Despite Roland’s and David’s groans, she was a talented musician. She just had a tendency to do everything with great flourishes.

Ty opened the door and then followed Nev into the vestibule. There he had no choice but to let go of her. If he escorted her into the sanctuary, every soul inside would think, first, that he’d been holding out on them and, second, that a marriage was in the planning.

And all of them who knew Kiki would be thanking God, silently or out loud. A few of them might even give in to the urge to dance in the aisle in response to the miracle.

Ty would have led the way to the pew near the front that he usually shared with Granddad, but Nev was quick to slide into the empty last row. He followed her, thinking with a grin that if she figured sitting in the back row would stop Brother Luther from acknowledging her, she was in for a surprise. The church didn’t get many out-of-town visitors, and they never got any wearing hot-pink dresses and shoes with four-inch heels and sexy little bows just above where the toes peeked out.

They didn’t even get a chance to sit down before Brother Luther, wearing his usual robe and already wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, stepped to the pulpit and invited everyone to stand for prayer. Some rose easily, others struggled with help from their neighbors. Mothers admonished their children to bow their heads, close their eyes. Beside Ty, Nev did both with the comfortable ease of familiar routine. He lowered his head but didn’t close his eyes. Too many years of being a cop made that part difficult.

After a rousing prayer, everyone sat again. Nev settled on the moss-green cushion that ran the length of the pew and crossed her legs. Cousin Roland had been right: she had some curves on her, and Ty had the best vantage point in the house to notice. If the reverend’s sermon wasn’t all hellfire and brimstone today, he was going to be at risk of behaving inappropriately in the Lord’s house, and he did not want that.

“Before we get started on the prayer requests—” Luther’s voice boomed from the pulpit “—Brother Tyler, would you like to introduce your guest today?”

Ty grinned as the moment Nev equated Tyler with him became evident on her face. He stood—another of those matters of respect Granddad had taught him—and offered his hand to her. “This is Nev Wilson.”

“Ned? Did he say Ned?” Miss Mattie sat four rows up, hard of hearing but refusing to give up the pew she’d spent seventy-four years in to hear better. “She don’t look like no Ned to me.”

“Nev, Miss Mattie,” he said louder. “Nevaeh.”

“Oh, Nev. Like the first half of your cousin Vaeh.” Miss Mattie nodded her gray head. “Heaven spelled backward.”

“Welcome, Sister Nevaeh.” A number of voices echoed the reverend’s, and then he gave the nod that allowed them to sit again.

Ty leaned near her as they did and murmured with a grin. “Welcome, Nevaeh.”

* * *

Sunday school and sermons were fine, and prayers, of course; Nev prayed every single day. But her favorite part of church was always the singing. She’d been blessed with a voice, and the looks she’d received from virtually everyone in the church soon after the song service started showed they agreed. She was flushed with pleasure as the strains of the last hymn faded away, followed by the final prayer, and the slow exile started.

“Lovely voice, girl,” Miss Mattie said in the booming voice she used to compensate for her hearing loss. “You sing like an angel.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Like an angel,” another woman agreed, bobbing her head. “Pure and sweet.”

“And soulful.” That came from the elderly man behind them.

Lima had always told her it was wrong to take such pleasure in the compliments. After all, it wasn’t as if she had anything to do with the quality of her voice; it was just the one the Lord had given her. To which YaYa had always responded that of course she should bask in the compliments. After all, it was the voice the Lord had given her.

She met a lot of people on the short journey from church to parking lot, all of them friendly, inviting her back again, wishing her a good visit. She committed names to memory, studied faces and even thought for a moment that a few of them seemed familiar, and then the obviousness of it hit her: as she’d told Ty, she’d grown up in churches like this. The old buildings; the talented choirs; the spirituals; the Sunday clothes; the women’s hats that, all gathered together, could rival the brightest garden for color; the families and friends. Things were bound to feel familiar.

They were making their way across the gravel lot, Ty offering his arm again, when Nev realized they were headed in the opposite direction of her car. She started to speak, but an elderly man waiting beside an old boat of a car caught her attention. He was clearly waiting for them.

“Miss Nevaeh Wilson,” he said, his voice thin, creaky but strong. It was a good description of him in general. He might have been six feet tall before age stooped his shoulders and rounded his spine. His skin stretched tightly over the bones of his face and his swollen knuckles, burnished and gleaming in the midday sun, and his gaze was sharp and...peaceful. This gentleman was happy with himself, his life, his past and present and future.

She took the hand he offered, but he didn’t just shake it. He folded both of his own hands over hers. “I’m Obadiah Gadney. Ty, here, is my grandson. All that charm and presence and intelligence? Comes straight from me.”

“I can see that, Mr. Gadney.”

“If you aren’t tired of hearing it, can I say you have a lovely voice?”

“Do you get tired of hearing that you’re a devilishly handsome man?”

He laughed and gave her hand a light squeeze. “Not at all. Would you do an old man the honor of having Sunday dinner with him and his boy?”

Nev glanced at Ty, but if the invitation was an unwelcome surprise, he didn’t show it. Since she wasn’t looking forward to another take-out meal alone in the motel room, she smiled. “Oh, Mr. Obadiah, the honor would be mine.”

With fingers that trembled slightly, Obadiah pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “Ty, why don’t you come with her? Easier than givin’ her directions. I’ll drive the barge home myself.”

“Yeah, right. It’s not that hard to get to. Besides, she won’t mind following us. It’s not like she’ll lose sight of this baby.” Ty patted the pale blue trunk before meeting her gaze. “You don’t mind, do you?”

His unspoken message was clear: he’d rather not have his grandfather behind the wheel of the car in Sunday post-church traffic. If her family didn’t live close enough to walk to church most Sundays, she would feel exactly the same about YaYa, for her own safety as well as everyone else’s. “I don’t mind at all.”

“Then I’ll go ahead and get settled while Ty walks you to your car.” Obadiah gave her a wink. “It takes me a bit longer than you young folks. I don’t move as fast as I used to.”

With only half a mind on vehicles backing up and exiting the parking lot, Nev walked alongside Ty to her car. Small, sleek, silver, convertible, it was her third-proudest possession, after her voice and her shoes. A fancy car didn’t make up for being short and fat, Marieka had said disdainfully, right before she’d tried to borrow it for a night out with her besties. It wasn’t going to provide any protection if she got into an accident, Lima had pointed out.

Put the top down and let’s drive real fast, YaYa had suggested.

“Nice car,” Ty said.

“I like it.” She opened the door and tossed her purse onto the passenger seat, and then she paused before sliding in. “In case I do lose sight of the big blue baby, where are we going?”

“108 Easy Street. But I’ll keep you close.”

Now, there was an image to make a woman hot, as if ninety degrees and matching humidity weren’t enough on their own. Then his answer registered. “Your grandfather lives on Easy Street?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s aptly named in some ways, grossly misnamed in others. You’ll see for yourself in a few minutes.”

She sat in the driver’s seat, swinging her legs in last, and had the satisfaction of seeing Ty’s gaze slide with them, from the adorable peep-toes all the way up to where her dress slid a few inches above her knees. He was gorgeous and probably preferred women who matched him for breath-stealing perfection. He probably had never dated a woman who wasn’t as dedicated to fitness as he was—like Marieka—but he still had a man’s appreciation for a few soft curves.

Wordlessly he grinned, closed the door and walked away. By the time she got the engine running, the air conditioner blasting and her seat belt fastened, a low rumble sounded behind and to her left. He and his grandfather, in the big old blue car, were waiting for her to back out and follow them.

Going to a stranger’s house for dinner? And no one knows you’ll be there? She wasn’t sure whether the voice in her head was Lima’s or Marieka’s. Granted, Marieka had been plenty of places with strangers, and done a whole lot more than eat dinner, but rules were different for her. She considered herself savvier, more sophisticated, far more experienced and bulletproof. She was the golden girl, not only of the Wilson family but of their neighborhood, of the entire city of Atlanta. Bad things could not happen to her.

And drowning out that voice as she followed the Gadneys from the parking lot was YaYa’s: Ooh, mama, that man is hot!

The church was in the north part of town, situated off a two-lane road that would have been better suited as a country lane: paved, broad shoulders, meandering this way and that. Houses lined the left side; the right opened onto a forest of tall pines, oaks and crape myrtles. In thin places between the trees, she caught sight of wooden fences, the privacy kind people built around their backyards, and soaring roof peaks, houses that probably cost twenty times what the compact little homes across the street ran.

The contrast seemed a perfect definition of the South to her.

When they reached River Road, they turned right and then a short distance later made a left. One more turn put them on Easy Street. The sign mounted at the intersection looked brand new. Thinking back to her school days, she’d bet theft was a problem. A lot of her classmates would have loved an Easy Street sign to hang on their walls.

The Gadney house was on the right, third house down on the single long block. There were no shoulders here, just deep ditches that collected the runoff from the rain. Luckily, Mr. Obadiah’s driveway was long enough to allow docking of the blue barge with plenty of space left over for her car behind it.

As she climbed out, she breathed deeply and smelled woods and water. From the internet photos and maps she’d studied, she would guess they weren’t far from the river, maybe a block through the tangle of tall grass and trees on the far side of the street. The sound of kids laughing came from a yard a few houses to the north, a beagle’s baying from the house directly south. His face was pressed to the chain-link fence, begging for attention or sounding an alarm. She wasn’t sure which.

Ty helped Mr. Obadiah out of the car, but as she joined them, the old gentleman shook off his grandson’s hand and offered her his arm. “You’ll have to pardon the mess inside. I don’t often have women guests.”

“At least, not ones who can see without their glasses,” Ty murmured from behind them. “Usually not ones who can see with their glasses.”

“I heard that.”

Nev grinned. Elderly, stooped and slow, but nothing wrong with his hearing. Would PawPaw have been like Mr. Obadiah if his heart hadn’t given out on him before she was born? Still alert, smart, friendly, compassionate and happy? She liked to think the answer was yes.

Steps led to a screened porch, along with a ramp that Mr. Obadiah ignored. A trio of ancient rockers, plus an old wooden church pew, were sheltered inside, and a door with a nine-paned window led into the house. It was small, square, little space wasted on hallways, decorated in the style of decades past, and it felt like home the moment she walked through the door. Delectable smells drifted on the air—beef roast, potatoes, carrots and onions, the usual dinner every fourth Sunday in the Wilson house.

“I’d have cleaned the clutter if I’d known we’d be entertaining,” Mr. Obadiah said as he hung his hat on a hook inside the door, his suit coat on another.

“This isn’t clutter,” she disagreed. “This is just living. Besides, you’re entertaining all on your own.”

With a laugh and a wink, he gestured toward a photograph on the nearest wall. “This here’s my boy when he come to live with me. Good thing he grew into those ears, huh?”

“Hey, old man,” Ty said with genuine respect. “I got those ears from you.”

“I accept complete credit for the charm and the intelligence and your way with women, but I’m pretty sure the ears came from your own daddy. Now, you two go on and make yourself comfortable. I’m gonna check on dinner.”

Nev glanced around the room, its overstuffed furniture in muted floral prints, crocheted doilies and scarves on every table, a scarred wood floor with most of its finish gone covered by a faded fringed rug. As she circled an early American coffee table to sit in an armchair, Ty took a seat on the couch.