Iron House

by John Hart

  “Don’t let her touch you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just don’t.” Abigail never looked away from the road. Her foot came off the gas, and she said, “Here it is.”

  The vehicle rolled to a stop, trees stretching off to both sides, bare dirt and blue sky unfolding. Michael saw the old house, the sheds and animals with patchy coats. Then he saw the cop car. Parked in a shady patch across the bare dirt, it was dark and unmarked, but Michael had no doubt what it was. “Police,” he said.

  “You sure?”

  Michael checked the grounds, and saw no one. “Must be inside.”

  “We should go.” She was thinking of him, his history, yet even as she reached for the key the front door opened and a man backed onto the porch, Caravel Gautreaux following.

  “I guess we talk to the cops,” Michael said.

  “You sure?” She was worried.

  “Leaving now would look suspicious.” He slipped from the Land Rover and took in the details of Caravel Gautreaux. She was taller than her daughter, but did have an earthy quality that was hard to define. She wore a sleeveless shirt, and had deep eyes under black hair salted white. Her shoulders were broad without being masculine, her hands strong-looking. She had magnetism, he thought, something in the slow droop of her eyelids, the earthiness and ready confidence.

  “Abigail Vane!” Gautreaux spoke before the cop could, her smile knowing and slow. “You bring me another one of your boys?” She stepped off the porch, and everyone seemed to follow her lead, the four of them meeting in the middle of the yard. From five feet away, her skin seemed to smooth out, becoming more dirty looking than rough. Another step, and her hair, too, had more shine than Michael expected. She looked at Michael and said, “I heard about this one.”

  “From who?” Abigail asked. “Your daughter?” Gautreaux laughed and Abigail dismissed her. “Michael, this is Detective Jacobsen.” She spoke coolly. “Detective Jacobsen and I have known each other for some while.”

  “Though it has been too long since we spoke.” The detective was a few years north of sixty, ruddy and thin. Animosity underlay his words, as did an obvious and easy distrust. “How is Julian, by the way?”

  “We’ve had dealings,” Abigail explained to Michael. “From many years back.”

  The tension was palpable as Jacobsen cataloged Michael from top to bottom. “The similarity is remarkable.” He addressed Abigail. “I wasn’t aware you had another son.”

  “She doesn’t,” Michael said. “I’m Julian’s brother, but not her son.”

  “He was adopted—”

  “And I was not. Yes.”

  The cop nodded. “What are you doing here?” He looked at both of them. “I was under the impression that you and Ms. Gautreaux had a long-running dislike for one another.”

  “We want to talk to her daughter. It’s a personal matter.”

  “Talk, talk, talk…” Gautreaux made it sound like a chicken squawking, and her laughter spiked as Abigail reddened.

  “Have you found anything at the lake?” Michael asked.

  “Not yet.” Jacobsen’s gaze hung on Michael’s face. Cool and clinical. Dissecting. “Divers are in the water. We’re canvassing the area. Beyond that, I can’t really discuss it.” He hesitated, kept his attention on Michael. “You really do favor your brother. Have you seen him lately?” He turned to Abigail. “Is he in town?”

  “You’re wasting your time,” Abigail said. “Julian has never hurt anyone. He never would.”

  “And yet, your husband has six lawyers at the house as we speak. Julian is unavailable for questioning. It all feels very familiar.”

  “Any questions you have about my son can be addressed to our lawyers. We’re here to talk to her.” Abigail pointed at Gautreaux. “A personal matter. So, if you’re finished…”

  “Finished? No. We’re just getting started.”

  “Started on what? A pointless search based on a dubious informant? Old stains in an empty boathouse? You’re overreaching.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  It might have turned into a staring contest, but his radio chirped. “Nineteen. Control.”

  Jacobsen stepped into the shade. “Control, nineteen. Go ahead.” He turned the radio down and moved away until his conversation faded to a bare hum. When he returned, his face was all business. “We’ll continue this later.”

  He moved for the car and Michael asked, “What happened?”

  Jacobsen ignored the question. He opened the door, closed it. The engine started and the car turned a tight circle, wheels chewing dirt, then straightening as the big engine gunned.

  “Come on.” Michael touched Abigail on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Why?”

  “Just get in the truck.”

  They turned for the Land Rover, but Caravel Gautreaux wasn’t finished. “I want my baby girl.”

  “And I told you—”

  “I know what you said, like I know you’re a liar.”

  “You may know my husband, but you don’t know the first thing about me.”

  Gautreaux’s lip curled. “I know hard born when I see it.” Abigail turned away, but Gautreaux stepped in front of her, head tilted. “I know marrying rich don’t make you special.”

  “Get out of my way, Caravel.”

  Gautreaux reached out a hand, and laughed coldly when Abigail flinched. “We both know that truth, too.” She moved and Abigail twitched again. “Look at you, all puckered up and white as white.”

  “Abigail?”

  “I’m okay, Michael.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “Yeah, run on, now. And don’t come back here without an invitation.”

  Michael got Abigail in the truck and closed the door. He looked once at Gautreaux, who jerked her head and said, “Keep walking, big man.”

  “You should be more careful around people you don’t know.”

  “Trust me,” Gautreaux said. “I know her plenty.”

  “Do you know me?”

  He made a gun of his fingers, then pulled the trigger and drove them out. Beside him, Abigail looked as if she was in shock. After long minutes, she finally spoke. “I’m sorry.” She sat low in the passenger seat, small color back in her face. “She scares me.”

  “Why?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  They drove farther, the Land Rover bucking as Michael pushed it harder on the rough track.

  “Why are you driving so fast?” Abigail asked.

  “We need to hurry.”

  “Why?”

  “They found the body.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  Twenty minutes later they came out of the woods, and Abigail directed him to a place that looked down on the lake. He stopped at a spot where the low ridge dipped, then fell off sharply. They got out of the car, and no trees grew in the place where they stood. They could see everything: the lake, the cops, the cluster of boats on smooth water. They were gathered at the same place on the lake—four boats—while on the shore, every cop stood silent and still. Two divers were already in the water. As Michael watched, another went over the side.

  “What are they doing?”

  Abigail stepped close to the edge. One more step and she would tumble off. Michael watched activity on the lake. Cops were trying to lower a mesh basket over the side of the largest boat. The basket was the length of a tall man, and had ropes at each of the four corners. They eased it into the water, a diver at each end. Abigail spoke when it became clear that Michael was not going to answer her.

  “They use that to bring up the body?”

  “In theory, yes.” He watched until the basket sank, taking all three divers with it. “There’s only one problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “That’s not where I put Ronnie Saints.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  They waited for the basket to come up, Michael and Abigail. Bubbles
rose from the lakebed and broke the surface, but the basket stayed down. “What do we think about this?” Abigail watched his face as if he could provide an answer that made sense.

  “I sank Ronnie over there.” He gestured with his chin. “Three hundred yards, at least.”

  “No current in the lake. No way the body could have moved.”

  “Unless somebody moved it.”

  Abigail shook her head. “That seems unlikely.”

  Michael agreed. “The sun was almost up when I put him in. If somebody moved him, they did it in daylight.”

  “So, where does that leave us?”

  “Two choices, I guess. Either they’ve made a mistake.” Both looked at the cops, the boats. “Or there’s another body in that lake.”

  Abigail crossed her arms over her chest. She rolled her shoulders and looked ill. “I don’t like this at all.”

  Michael looked at his watch, the angle of the sun. “We should go.”

  “Go?”

  “If they pull up a body, they’ll shut this place down. It will go from a search to a full-blown murder investigation. There’ll be interviews, interrogations. They could declare the entire estate a crime scene. Jacobsen’s a hard-ass with a reason to be upset. Nothing will get in or out of here without cop approval.”

  “But my husband—”

  “They’ll push harder because of who your husband is, and because of what happened last time. It’ll be worse. Federal cops may get involved. Media. No way they can keep this quiet.” On the lake, men began to pull on ropes. Water churned between the boats, and Michael took her arm. “We have to go.”

  “Where?”

  “They’re bringing something up. We don’t have much time.”

  “I want to see.” He pulled gently, but she pulled back, stubborn, and her arm came loose from his hand. “I need to see.”

  He gave her a minute. She rocked where she stood, the edge of the ridge just a few feet away. On the lake, men leaned over the boats’ sides. Agitated movement. Loud voices that barely carried. A diver broke the surface, then a second. Between them, the basket hung just below the surface, a hint of silver the shape and size of a coffin.

  “It’s too far,” Michael said. “You won’t see detail.”

  “I can’t stand this.” The basket rose the last few inches. It was not empty. “Oh, God.”

  The cops were shouting now, trying to heave the basket out of the water.

  “We need to go.” Michael got her in the Land Rover and started the engine. The transmission ground as he shifted into first. “We need to be gone by the time they get that body to shore.”

  “Gone, where?”

  “Asheville’s five hours away.”

  “Asheville?”

  “We need answers. Whose body is that? Why is it here and what does it have to do with Ronnie Saints? Why did he die? How? And who the hell put the body in your lake? That’s a pile of questions, I know, but they must be connected to Ronnie, somehow. His house seems like a good place to start.”

  “How do you know Ronnie Saints lived in Asheville?”

  “I found his driver’s license.”

  “But what could you possibly learn there? He’s dead. It’s done.”

  Michael shook his head. “This just feels wrong.”

  “You mean Julian doing this?”

  She gestured at the lake, and Michael tried to come up with a good answer. Julian could kill, he knew. He’d killed Hennessey when they were just boys, and the thought that he could kill Ronnie Saints was not a great stretch to make. He’d killed one Iron House boy, after all. Why not another? But none of this felt right. He and Julian had connected, and even though Julian had been in the throes of a mental break, even though he’d known about a body being in the boathouse, the idea still felt off. “I could see him killing Ronnie, maybe. Ronnie shows up, old emotions rise, they fight, it goes bad. I can see it like that. But this second body…”

  “You don’t think he could do that?”

  “It’s too much. Another body. Hiding it in the lake. Julian acts in the moment.”

  “May I ask why you sound so certain?”

  Michael considered that, wondering how much he could say. That Julian had learned from birth that he should run before he fought? That he was fearful in his soul? That killing Hennessey had been an aberration? That none of this truly fit? “You’ve read Julian’s books?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Bad things happen in his books.”

  She touched her throat. “Horrible things.”

  “His characters struggle; they suffer.”

  “Evil and violence and children.” She looked bleak. “Even the pictures are terrifying.”

  “But the books are about more than that, aren’t they? They’re about damaged people finding a way to move beyond the things that damaged them. They’re about light and hope and sacrifice, love and faith and the fight to do better. No matter how troubling or terrible the story, his characters find doors through the violence. They cope and move on.” Michael struggled, then said, “You can see in his books the life that Julian chose.”

  “Helplessness and abuse?”

  “No.”

  “Fragility?”

  Her own fragility leaked through, and Michael understood. Julian would always suffer, and it would always be hard to watch. But that’s not what Michael saw in his brother’s lifework. “His books don’t end happily, no. His characters go through hell and end up close to destroyed, but you see good in the people he makes. You see small strength and the power of choice, movement through fear and loathing and self-doubt.” Michael shifted gears and the vehicle lurched. “His characters are conflicted and hurt, but that’s the magic of what he does. That’s the point.”

  “Magic?”

  “Julian writes dark because the light he hopes to convey is so dim it only shows when everything around it is black. You’ve read it: dark characters and black deeds, pain and struggle and betrayal. But the light is always there. It’s in his people, in his endings. His books are subtle, which is why so many school systems and parents want them burned or banned. They think the godlessness is about a lack of God, but that’s not the truth of what he writes. God is in the little things, in a last, faint flicker of hope, a small kindness when the world is ash. Julian scrapes beauty from the dirt of ruined worlds and does it in a way that children understand. He shows them more than the surface, how beneath the ugliness and horror, we can choose the hard path and survive. I’ve always taken comfort in Julian’s books, always believed that he found the same path for himself.”

  “He’s unhappy and frightened.”

  “Maybe the path is longer for some. Maybe he’s still walking it.”

  “And maybe he killed those men.”

  Michael’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “I won’t believe that until I know it for a fact, and even then I’ll try to find some way to make it disappear.”

  “Make it disappear?”

  Michael was unfazed. “I’ll fix it.”

  “Like you did with Hennessey?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Michael looked right, and earnestness gave weight to her features. “I used to sit by Julian’s bed when he first came home.” Her smile was knowing and wan. “He still talks in his sleep.”

  “What exactly are you saying, Abigail?”

  “You’re the one talking about love and sacrifice and doors through violence. You tell me what I’m saying.”

  “You think Julian killed Hennessey?”

  “It doesn’t matter to me if he did, but yes. I think maybe so. Mostly, I’m glad you see his books that way. I do, too.”

  “Really?”

  “I think your brother’s a genius. He’s also the most deep-feeling, thoughtful man I’ve ever known. Take a left here.”

  Michael came to a fork in the road, the house to the right, a Y-shaped divergence to the left. He didn’t know what to say, but Abigail didn’t seem to expect any
response. “There are two smaller gates on either side of the perimeter.” Her voice was still empty. “No guards. Just keypads.”

  “Which way to the closest one?”

  “Left.”

  Michael turned right.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I want to take Julian with us.”

  “He won’t talk to us,” Abigail said.

  “Maybe, maybe not. In the end, I don’t care.”

  “Then, why?”

  “I don’t want him near the cops.” Michael saw the house ahead, a slab of gray stone through thinning trees. “I don’t want him confessing.”

  Abigail closed her eyes, and in her mind saw Julian broken in his room. She saw a body in a long wire basket. It was nearing the surface, black water going green, green water fading to clear. The sockets were empty and frayed. Fish had chewed flesh from the bone, and the lips were tattered over clean, white teeth. Something flickered in the open mouth.

  “Jesus…” It came as a whisper.

  “You okay?”

  She rubbed her temples. “Headache.”

  Michael said nothing. He drove fast, and at the mansion Abigail told him to drive around back, where he saw a twelve-car garage. It was made of stone, long and low. Wooden doors gleamed. Abigail pointed to a bay near the end, and when he stopped they got out.

  “Come with me.”

  She disappeared into a side entrance, and Michael followed. Inside, he saw hints of steel and glossy paint, keys on a long row of hooks. Abigail did not waste time. The car she chose was a thing of exceptional beauty. He didn’t know much about Mercedes Benz, but guessed that this car was the most expensive one they made.

  Abigail handed him the keys. “The Land Rover’s terrible on the highway.”

  “What’s the best way to get Julian out?”

  “Julian’s not going with you. Neither am I.”

  “You heard my reasons.”

  “We don’t run from our problems in this family. I trust the senator. Whatever his faults, he always does what needs to be done.”

  “Julian could implicate himself.”

  “He needs to be in his home, with people he loves. He’s not strong enough to go tearing around the state with you.”