Sacrificial Ground

by Thomas H. Cook

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars.”

  Frank wrote it down. “What did she do with that money?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Frank looked at him doubtfully.

  “It’s quite true,” Cummings said. “I have absolutely no idea. That’s what I meant by calling my guardianship purely technical.”

  “Purely technical?”

  “It means that I was her financial caretaker,” Cummings explained. “But as far as a personal relationship with Angelica went, I had none whatsoever. So, when she became eighteen and took charge of her own finances, we ceased to have any relationship at all.”

  “She took full charge?”

  “Full charge, yes,” Cummings said. “And I must admit that I didn’t think that was very wise. But as you know, Mr. Clemons, the law is the law. And in matters of this kind it is explicit. At eighteen, Angelica assumed full control of her entire inheritance. That’s that.”

  Frank nodded. “When did you see her last?”

  “On her birthday, as you might expect,” Cummings told him.

  “When was that?”

  “June seventeenth.”

  “Here in your office?”

  “That’s right. My legal connection to Angelica ended at that time. And, of course, there was no personal connection.”

  “How did you happen to become her guardian?”

  “I was named executor of the estate left at the death of Angelica’s parents.”

  “Why?”

  “I was a friend of her father.”

  “And that was your only personal connection?”

  “Yes. Angelica was, as you will probably discover, a somewhat headstrong person. I think she always rather resented my guardianship. She certainly severed it at her first opportunity.”

  “Which was her eighteenth birthday.”

  “Yes,” Cummings said. “I must say that I’m sorry Angelica and I never developed any kind of rapport.” He smiled quietly. “But that’s rather the way of things. I mean, I was the wall that kept her from her money.”

  “How old was she when her parents died?”

  “Five years old,” Cummings said. “Karen was almost eighteen. They never lived with anyone else. They simply lived together in that enormous house.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why. But I did try to be more than simply a financial advisor. They were young girls. They needed a father. I suppose I made certain efforts to play that role.”

  “But they never accepted you?”

  “No, they didn’t,” Cummings said. “Of course, that wasn’t entirely their fault. After all, I couldn’t be much of a father. I don’t know how to be one.”

  “You don’t have any children?” Frank asked.

  “I have three,” Cummings said, “but I rarely see them. They live at home with my wife.” He lifted his arms slowly. “And I live here.” He allowed his arms to drift back slowly toward the desk. “I learned a long time ago that you cannot make people love you. You cannot even make them seek your counsel.” He pushed a polished wooden box across the desk. “Would you like a cigar?”

  “No.”

  Cummings took out one for himself and lit it. “I deal with the law. It’s something I can understand. People? They are a mystery to me.”

  “Was Angelica a mystery?”

  “One of the deeper ones,” Cummings said. “Have you learned much about her?”

  “I’m only beginning.”

  “There may be nothing to learn,” Cummings said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, I’m no great judge of character, but I do know when there’s nothing there, when someone is rather empty.”

  “Was Angelica like that?”

  “She seemed unformed,” Cummings said. “That was my only impression.”

  “Did you know that she was pregnant?”

  For a moment Cummings did not answer. His eyes grew almost childlike, wondering. “Yes,” he said. “I could hardly have been more surprised.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of exactly what I mentioned,” Cummings said. “The fact that she seemed so unformed. I could not imagine her making love. So beautiful, yes. Very desirable, no doubt. But actually making that flesh-and-blood decision, and then going through with it? I couldn’t imagine Angelica doing that.” He smiled gently. “I can’t imagine that it was pleasurable for her.”

  It seemed so odd a comment that Frank wrote it down in his notebook.

  “I wouldn’t put too much stock in what I say, however,” Cummings added dismissively. “I’m not a very good student of mankind.”

  “How did you know she was pregnant?”

  “She told me.”

  “When.”

  “On June seventeenth, when she came to take control of her inheritance. It was one of the reasons she gave me for wanting full control of her assets. She planned to keep the baby, or so she said. She wanted to support it herself.”

  “She planned to keep it?”

  “Yes,” Cummings said.

  “You didn’t get the impression that she was going to get an abortion?”

  “No, why?”

  “Well, one idea is that she died while trying to give herself one.”

  Cummings laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Why?”

  “My God, if Angelica had wanted an abortion, she could have gotten one from the finest doctors in the world,” Cummings said. He leaned forward slightly. “We’re talking about a very wealthy young woman.”

  Frank wrote it down.

  “Did she mention an abortion at all?”

  “No,” Cummings said. “She said that she planned to have the baby, raise it herself, and at the same time—we’re talking about a young girl here—she was going off to New York to be an actress.”

  “New York City?”

  “That’s right, that paradise for exiles,” Cummings said. “She was going there.”

  “Did that surprise you?”

  “Not really. She was drifting, I could tell.”

  “In what way?”

  Cummings tapped his head. “In here. She was drifting inside her mind.” He shook his head. “I don’t think she had much to stand on, but I think, in whatever naive way she could, she loved that unborn child.” He was silent for a moment, his eyes gazing at his hands. “Who knows about Angelica’s death?” he asked, after a moment.

  “Her sister. You.”

  “Her killer,” Cummings added quietly.

  “Yes,” Frank said, sure for the first time that there was one.

  Cummings shook his head. “They’ve been through so much, those two. First the plane crash, now this.” His eyes drifted for a moment, then returned to Frank. “She’s all alone now, Karen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Angelica’s money will go to her, of course.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, I doubt that Angelica had a will,” Cummings said. “She’d had to have made a will right away, and I don’t think that was a top priority for her. And, of course, if there is no will, then it’s all Karen’s now.”

  “But she doesn’t really need it, does she?”

  “Need?” Cummings said. “No, she doesn’t need it. But need has very little to do with whether someone wants more money. That’s one of the few things I’ve actually learned about life.” He took a long drag on the cigar. “I don’t need a Cuban cigar, but I want one.” He watched the blue smoke curl upward toward the ceiling. “Lovely house they have out on West Paces Ferry Road. Have you seen it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quite elegant. Did you notice the paintings?”

  “No.”

  “The Devereauxs were quite avid collectors,” Cummings said. “Always going to Paris, Rome. The art in the foyer, it was all given to me by Charles, Karen’s father.”

  Frank nodded.

  “Karen is quite a painter, actually,” Cummings added.

  Fra
nk closed his notebook. “Well, that’s all I have for now,” he said. He stood up. “Thanks for your time.”

  Cummings seemed hardly to hear him. “You should see some of Karen’s work the next time you’re over there. I even have one of hers in the foyer.”

  “I will,” Frank said. “Thanks.”

  “Miss Carson will see you out,” Cummings said from across the room as Frank closed the door.

  Once in the foyer, it took him but an instant to recognize the painting that had been done by Karen Devereaux. It was an oil of a little girl standing by a vase of flowers. He stared closely at the swirling colors, his eyes drawn toward the face, the pale, flawless skin and deep blue eyes. It was Angelica’s face, he realized immediately, and it watched him vacantly, its lips faintly blue. Without doubt, it was Angelica, and he felt his eyes move from her face down along her body to her small white legs. He half-expected to find one bare foot and a sad, scraped ankle.

  Karen had signed her name in the lower right corner, and as Frank continued to look at the painting, he was surprised that it had not caught his attention earlier. Its colors were darker, its mood more somber; the portrait was vastly different from the ones that surrounded it. Instead of cheerful crowds and gay scenes, there was only the body of a little girl, and a face that seemed larger than the body. It was the face which drew him toward it now, very beautiful as Angelica certainly had been, but with a beauty that now seemed misplaced, misshapened, and which brooded over its own features rather than radiated from them. It was as if Angelica had already known that she would never be allowed to live out her life. Somehow, Karen had painted this knowledge into her sister’s face, a knowledge, Frank realized with a sudden, dreadful chill, that had, in fact, been Karen’s, and not her little sister’s at all.

  8

  Caleb Stone was sitting at his desk when Frank returned to the detective bullpen. Propped back in his chair, his large belly drooping over the thick black belt of his trousers, he looked like a god of misspent youth.

  “Well, I beat on some doors for you,” he said dryly.

  “Turn anything up?” Frank asked as he ambled up to Caleb’s desk.

  “By the grace of God, I did,” Caleb said. “You ever work Vice, Frank?”

  “No.”

  “It’s an eye-opener, let me tell you. You walk around the streets, checking out this guy in a high-priced double-breasted suit. He’s got a sweet little wife in Ansley Park, and a son who’s doing just fine at Emory.” He smiled sadly. “Thing is, this is the same guy who likes to tie a woman to the bedstead once a month and beat the shit out of her.”

  Frank turned away slightly. “What’d you turn up, Caleb?”

  Caleb leaned back in his chair. “Well, when I was in Vice, I used to keep my eye on this little house on Glenwood. A guy people called Sancho used to run a string of whores out of it. One of them was named Beatrice, and dear God, Frank, she was the cutest little thing in the world.” He smiled, almost wistfully, as if his memory were turning faintly sweet. “Black as the ace of spades, and with a wild look in her eye. But goddamn was she cute.” Suddenly the sweetness fell away, and Caleb’s voice took on a dangerous edge. “Anyway, the guy in the suit, he used to pay the price once in a while and Beatrice would meet him at this cabin he had on Black Mountain. For the whole weekend, you know. A real fly-me-to-the-moon sort of thing.” He shook his head gently, and his voice grew darker and more somber. “Well, he used to give Bea a slap once in a while, just for the fun of it, you might say. She let it go. It was just part of the deal, nothing serious. She didn’t like it, she told me, but whoever asked a whore what she liked? One weekend, though, things turned real sour up on Black Mountain, and this fuck did a real nasty job on Bea.” Caleb’s eyes shifted away, as if he were trying to hide what the story made him feel. “Well, I sort of liked Beatrice. She didn’t exactly have a heart of gold, and she’d probably rolled more than one conventioneer in her time, but there wasn’t a really mean bone in her body.” He looked back toward Frank. “Hell, even old Sancho was a stand-up guy. About as good as a pimp can ever be.” He laughed slightly. “Fat bastard with two buck teeth. Like the saying goes, he could eat a ear of corn through a keyhole.”

  Frank smiled.

  “When things got hot for him, Frank,” Caleb went on, “he did one thing I never knew a pimp to do. He spent his last goddamn dime bailing out his stable, and when he had to leave Atlanta, he run all the way to Kansas City, took every single whore with him, gave them some money, and then you know what?”

  Frank shook his head.

  “He cut them loose, Frank,” Caleb said. “Just said, ‘Good luck. Hope you’ll have a nice life.’ And then he just disappeared.”

  “What are you getting at, Caleb?” Frank asked finally.

  “Well, after the double-breasted suit beat up on Bea, Sancho came to me,” Caleb said. “He told me the story, and he said he was going to make sure this guy stayed clear of his girls.” Caleb shook his head. “And he tried to do that. But the suit was hot for Beatrice. Something about her skin, the way it bruised, maybe. Anyway, he wouldn’t leave her alone, and after Sancho said to stay away from Beatrice, just about everybody he knew got busted by the cops.”

  “So he looked like a snitch,” Frank said.

  “That’s right,” Caleb said. “That’s a dangerous thing to be.”

  Frank nodded.

  “So Sancho came to me,” Caleb said. “He figured the suit was in on it, that the suit had plugs into the cops, and that they were helping him set Sancho up.” Caleb smiled. “But he was wrong. The suit had a connection to a newspaper, to a reporter on the cophouse beat. That’s the guy that was feeding him.” He leaned even further back in his chair. “Well, it wasn’t long till somebody worked over Beatrice. It wasn’t the suit. It was somebody who thought Sancho had snitched on him. So the way I looked at it, it might as well have been the suit. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Caleb smiled broadly. “Ever heard the expression ‘to take the law into your own hands’?”

  “Yes.”

  Caleb lifted his arms into the air. “These old hands right here, son,” he said. “One night they grabbed that fucker in the double-breasted suit, and they just didn’t stop working on his face until he was really sorry he’d ever been nasty to a nice little black girl.”

  Frank smiled indulgently. “And this all has something to do with Angelica Devereaux?”

  “It has to do with me knocking on a few doors around that lot,” Caleb answered. “When one of them opened, it was little Bea behind it.”

  “She lives around there?”

  “No, she lives in Kansas City,” Caleb said. “Right where Sancho cut her loose. Claims she’s a computer operator. Says she’s long gone from the whorehouse business.”

  “You believe her?”

  “Yeah,” Caleb said confidently.

  “What’s she doing back in Atlanta?”

  “Her sister’s just got married for the fourth or fifth time,” Caleb said. “She wanted Bea to come down and mind the kids while she went on her latest honeymoon.”

  “And you don’t doubt any of this?”

  “Nope,” Caleb said. “Know why? Because she didn’t give me that look whores always give men, even the ones they like. Lord God, Frank, you don’t know what disgust is until you listen to whores talk about men. I know. I listened to a lot of them when I was working Vice.”

  Frank took out his notebook. “Beatrice, you said?”

  “Beatrice Withers’s what she goes by.”

  “And what did she tell you?”

  “Well, Beatrice don’t much like kids,” Caleb said. “Fact is, she don’t know a thing about them. So they’ve been running her ragged for the last few days. She’s been walking the floor a lot. She was walking it at around three in the morning the day we found Angelica Devereaux.”

  “Tuesday morning,” Frank said.

  “That’s right.”

  Frank could feel
the skin of his fingers tighten slightly, as if they were already stretched out and reaching for the killer’s throat. “What’d she see?”

  “I thought you might want to hear it from her own mouth.”

  “Where is she?”

  “At her sister’s house, like I said,” Caleb told him. He glanced at his watch. “She said she’d be there until around noon, then she was planning on taking the kids to the park so they could have a go at the squirrels. She’s probably there now.” He stood up immediately. “Ready to go?”

  On the drive to the park, Caleb sat leisurely in the front seat, his. large thighs spread out across the seats like thick rolls of dough. An enormous cloud of blue smoke ringed his head as he puffed at his pipe and, despite the open window, it seemed to coil around in the car, increasing the already stifling heat. It was as if it had become a part of him, this tumbling blue smoke, a swirling, indefinable cloud that marked and identified him like his own personal badge.

  “She said she’d be near the playground,” Caleb said as Frank turned the car onto Grant Street, then made a right and headed into the park. “She’s wearing a bright yellow dress,” he added with an appreciative smile. “That’s something that hasn’t changed much about Beatrice.”

  The bright yellow dress was visible from a great distance, and Frank saw it almost immediately. He guided the car slowly over to the curb and glanced toward the playground.

  “That her?” he asked.

  Caleb’s eyes were already on her, and they seemed to soften as he looked at her. “Oh, yeah, that’s her,” he said, almost in a whisper, “sitting by the swings.” He looked at Frank. “You might say she always did love things to be in motion.”

  It was well past noon, and as he got out of the car and headed down the small, bare hill toward the playground, Frank could feel that the steadily building summer heat had already turned everything dull and slow and sluggish. Even the children who dotted the playground moved ponderously through the thick, pulsing air. They hung like overripened fruit from the climbing dome, or swung slowly back and forth, as if moving through layers of gelatin.