Page 54 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“Lila,” Nancy said with a curled upper lip.

“You didn’t like her?” I asked.

“She was always a bit too uppity for my taste.”

I glanced around the table. Gayle was looking down at her coffee cup, and Linda appeared to be biting her tongue.

“So how did y’all know Lila and her sister?” Dixie asked.

“Why, we were in school together,” Gayle said. “When that poor girl was killed, Lila was a senior and Bethany was a freshman.”

“On account of Bethany having been held back in the third grade,” Nancy added with a head bob. “We were in the same class three years in a row, but she didn’t move on to fourth grade.”

“Oh…” I said, unsure how to respond to that.

“Bethany was a quiet girl,” Nancy said. “She didn’t have many friends.”

“But,” Linda said, “to be fair, neither did Lila.” She leaned closer to me. “Lila and I were in the same grade.”

“So neither of the Brewer girls had friends?” I asked.

Linda shook her head. “They were dirt poor, so I think they kept to themselves out of shame. Their clothes were used, often threadbare. One year my mother put together a basket to take to the family for Christmas. Their father, Jim Bob, didn’t take it well and sent her away—yelling and cursing that he didn’t need our charity.” She huffed out a breath, seeming to get momentarily lost in her memories. “I was little, maybe first grade, and I remember being terrified that he was going to hurt us. But Lila’s mother came out and grabbed his arm and dragged him back inside. Lila and Bethany were standing at the window, watching us. Bethany was crying. It was only a coupleof days before Christmas, and I remember being horrified that they didn’t have a Christmas tree, let alone presents. I always felt sorry for the Brewer girls after that. I tried to stop anyone who made fun of them.”

“So they were bullied?” I asked.

Linda pressed her lips together as though trying to decide how to answer.

“We didn’t call it bullying back then,” Gayle said. “But I suppose it was. It was mostly the boys. Chuck Petty was particularly mean to Lila. Even through high school. She had the misfortune of having been in the same graduating class as him.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why couldn’t he let it go?”

“Because Lila was an easy target,” Gayle said. “She didn’t fight back.”

“That is until Rachel moved to Sweet Briar,” Linda said with a knowing look, “and then she and Lila became like peas in a pod, making Lila a lot less interesting of a target for teasing.”

“Why did that change things?” I asked.

“Rachel was a little wild,” Gayle whispered.

Nancy barked a laugh. “You don’t need to be quiet about it. Rachel’s in her sixties, for heaven’s sake.”

“And she did settle down…some,” Linda said. “We hardly hear a peep out of her now.”

“Are you sayin’ Rachel’s still here?” Dixie asked.

“Sure is. She lives about ten miles north of town. Got herself a hobby farm.”

“What’s a hobby farm?” I asked.

“She has five acres,” Linda said. “Not enough land to have a real farm. She’s got some goats and chickens.”

“She’s lived out there all by herself for years,” Nancy said. “It’s her parents’ land. Turns out her grandparents and her great-grandparents owned a whole heap of it. The family sold it off parcel by parcel. Her father moved away when he went tocollege, and he came back when his father—Rachel’s grandaddy—had a heart attack. They moved from Birmingham and Rachel hated it here.”

“At least at first,” Gayle added.

“She lives out there all alone?” Dixie asked.

“Yep,” Nancy said. “She was married for about twenty years, but they never had any kids. Her husband died about a decade ago, so now she’s alone.”

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