Twelve
Saturday, October 12
IT WAS THE kind of Saturday that wanted a child, or at least a dog. The white haze of pollution that usually hung caul-like over Atlanta dissipated, revealing a startling blue sky, empty of everything except an occasional vee of geese winging steadily toward Florida. The wind gusted in from the north, cool and carrying the rich, indefinable mixture of smells that signaled autumn. Mary knew as she watched the little boys next door tumbling like puppies in a pile of fallen leaves that Atlanta would play outdoors this weekend—cool, sparkling days like this had become a rarity in the urban South, no less special than a January morning that presented three inches of glistening snow.
She’d allowed herself to sleep till noon, then she dressed in jeans and an old Emory sweatshirt and sipped her morning coffee on her grandmother’s back patio. A seedless birdfeeder swung reproachfully from a low branch of a redbud tree while weeds grew thick in the peony beds. Though she paid to have her two acres of sprawling lawn regularly cut and trimmed, she kept up with the rest of the yard only as her work allowed. The place reflected her neglect. The goldfish pond, long empty of goldfish, was choked with dead leaves, and the crape myrtles that her grandmother had kept so nicely trimmed now looked like a cluster of old women with wildly frazzled hair.
“You really have no business here,” she scolded herself aloud, thinking that she ought to take the advice of her friend Alex and move to some upscale condo where she might meet more single people her own age. Four thousand square feet of space for one childless woman was ridiculous, but the old place had been her refuge ever since her mother had died fourteen years ago. Her grandmother had come roaring up to Little Jump Off in her white Cadillac the instant she heard the news, and the morning after Martha Crow’s funeral she loaded Mary and her one suitcase in the car and whisked her to Atlanta. Although it was worlds away from the little mountain cabin she and her mother had shared, over the years Mary had grown to love its odd nooks and pantries. Her great-grandfather Bennefield had built the place in the twenties, and she felt as if the walls still held secrets she had yet to discover.
“Someday I’m going to sell you and move to a condo,” she told the old house, sounding like a mother issuing a threat she had no real intention of carrying out. “But not anytime soon.”
She finished her coffee, then started in resolutely on the peony beds. Five hours later, with the peonies looking only marginally better, her gloves and garden snips lay on the ground. Mary was inside, letting the glorious day die without her. Once again she’d succumbed to the house’s siren call; once again the ghosts had lured her upstairs.
She sat in her favorite room of all. Though the furniture was all ancient Bennefield antique, the decor was all America, circa 1965. Photos of a skinny blond teenager in various team uniforms lined the walls, interspersed with posters of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. A bright red electric guitar stood in one corner, surrounded by stacks of old record albums. An archaic stereo system, complete with tape deck and bulbous head phones, covered one wall. She twisted around in her chair and turned on the tape. It sputtered for a moment, as if troubled by some electrical short, then the unmistakable rhythm of an electric guitar playing rockabilly came on. A young man’s voice filled the room, singing Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right, Mama.” Though the pitch and timbre were not those of the King’s, it was a pleasing voice, filled with such energy that shivers went down her spine. Beyond a few snapshots, the voice and this room were the closest experience of her father that she would ever have.
As she listened, she sat at her father’s old desk, a long mahogany affair pushed beneath a bank of picture windows. Spread out all over it were stacks of thirty-five-year-old letters, all addressed to her grandmother. On one end were yellowing business-sized envelopes with a Fort Bragg return address. At the other end lay smaller and dirtier envelopes sent from Vietnam, bordered in red, white, and blue with “FREE” printed where a stamp should be. Between the letters, a laptop computer sat on a large desk calendar that had names, dates, and times all connected with intersecting lines.
She looked at the calendar and read the notes she’d made months ago, feeling like a long-dry alcoholic who’d just succumbed to a bottle of whiskey. Right here lay her dirty little secret, the obsession that always shadowed her. She was determined to figure out the puzzle of the relationship between her parents and Stump Logan.
That Logan had killed her father was a given; that he had murdered her mother was highly likely as well. What Mary Crow didn’t know was the why and that was what tortured her.
She’d pieced together as much as she could from her father’s correspondence. Jack Bennefield had referred to a “Logan” in three of his letters to his mother, then his mail to her dribbled off, as his new bride Martha became his chief correspondent. Mary’s mother had not been one to keep old letters, and her grandmother Eugenia could not speak of that time without starting to cry all over again, the death of her only child like a wound that would not heal. As much as she wanted to ask her about it, Mary could not bear to cause Eugenia pain, so she’d let the matter drop. Now everybody who knew the truth was dead—with the exception of Stump Logan.
“And he’s dead, too,” Mary told herself, getting up from the desk as her father’s song ended. “Eileen says so, and so does the FBI.” She moved to the door and turned off the light. She’d gone over every line of correspondence at least a hundred times. Her father’s room simply wasn’t going to reveal anything more. Her time would have been better spent in the peony beds. “Get over it, kiddo. There are some secrets you just aren’t going to ever find out.”
Downstairs, she slid another chicken dinner in the microwave. As she once again set a place in the little breakfast nook, she turned on the TV, hoping to catch the weather report. If tomorrow was pretty, she’d finish the peony beds early and ask Alex to meet her at the Emory tennis courts.
The national news came on, something about anti-American demonstrations in France, then the anchorman segued into another story.
“Tremont, Tennessee, was the site of a different kind if demonstration today,” he began. “Native Americans from all over the country joined together in…”
Mary looked up, surprised. It was Ruth’s Indian rally. She’d forgotten all about it. She watched the screen as video clearly shot from a helicopter scrolled over a mass of people gathered in front of a small stage. The camera panned on hundreds of angry Indians raising their fists, shouting. Drums thudded. Placards waved. Finally the camera cut to a nearly nude man in war paint tossing a pie in the face of the governor of Tennessee.
“I’ll be damned!” Mary laughed at the sputtering, creme-covered politician. “Ruth wasn’t kidding!”
The Indian yelled something about “the Red Nation’s fight against ecological criminals” as the cops carried him away, then Ruth’s face filled the screen. Compared to the raving pie-tosser, she looked like a poster girl for Native America—flawless skin, high cheekbones, a beautiful, almost movie-star smile.
“What we’re protesting here is the fact that the governor of Tennessee thinks he has the right to desecrate our burial grounds just so he and his friends can build a new condo development,” Ruth was saying, her voice calm and articulate. “We regard this ground as holy as nonnative Americans regard the Arlington National Cemetery.”
Mary watched, astonished, as Ruth went on, fielding questions with the polish of a pro. When the tape ended and the program went to a commercial, Mary shook her head. That’s Ruth, alright. Hitting them with her best shot.
The microwave beeped; she took her dinner from the oven and put it on a plate. The phone rang. Mary decided to let the machine get it, then, impulsively, she scooped it up, on the outside chance it might be Danika.
“Hello?“
“Mary?” A high, frantic voice came through waves of static.
“T
his is Mary. Who’s this?”
“Ruth. Ruth Moon.”
“Ruth?” Mary couldn’t believe the coincidence. “I just saw you on television!”
“Mary, you’ve got to come! They’ve taken Lily.”
“What?” Mary reached over and turned off the TV. “What did you say?”
“They’ve taken Lily, Mary! And they don’t believe me! You’ve got to come up here and help me out!”
Mary felt as if she’d been suddenly dropped from some great height. “Who’s taken Lily, Ruth? And who doesn’t believe you?”
“I don’t know. The police won’t believe me. They say it’s a tribal matter.” Ruth’s voice was quivering on the edge of hysteria.
“Where’s Jonathan?” Mary asked urgently.
“I don’t know that either!” With that, Ruth’s voice dissolved in sobs.
“Ruth? Ruth, try not to cry right now. I need to know—” A wave of static assaulted Mary’s ear. She heard a loud crash, then a male voice came on the line.
“Hello?”
“Yes, hello. I was speaking with Ruth Moon…” Mary felt as if she were trying to connect with someone in Baghdad or Kabul.
“Is this Mary Crow?”
“Yes.”
“Mary, I’m Gabriel Benge—a colleague of Ruth’s. Something terrible has happened.” The man sounded calm, but she heard the deep concern in his tone.
“Lily’s been abducted?”
“It looks like that. We’re having some difficulty convincing the authorities that it’s not a publicity stunt. Ruth is frantic. She was wondering if you might drive up here and help her sort things out.”
“Isn’t Jonathan there?”
“Uh, he opted not to come to this rally.” Mary frowned. What the hell was going on?
Ruth was hysterical, Lily had vanished, and Jonathan was missing in action?
“Has anyone tried to contact him?” she asked Gabriel Benge.
“Ruth has, but he’s taken someone on a hunting trip.” The man paused. “Ruth’s in bad shape, Ms. Crow. She seems to think you’ve got some kind of in with the police.”
“I’m an assistant DA in Deckard County, Georgia, Mr. Benge,” Mary explained. “I’m not a cop.”
“Ms. Crow, Ruth believes you can make the police believe her. Is there any possible way you could help us out?”
Mary glanced at the Pugh files heaped on her kitchen table. She was in the middle of a trial, but this was Lily…this was her goddaughter, Jonathan’s baby!
“Where exactly are you, Mr. Benge?” she asked the man on the phone.
“Hillbilly Heaven campground. On Route 321, east of Tremont, Tennessee.”
“I’ll be there by midnight,” she said, scribbling the directions on the back of her phone bill. “Tell Ruth I’m on my way.”
Thirteen
MARY CHANGED INTO clean jeans, threw a couple of sweaters into a small overnight bag, and jumped in her car. Someone’s taken Lily! Ruth’s panicked words had sounded like those of the mothers, mothers she sometimes interviewed at precinct houses, wildly venting their rage and heartbreak over what somebody had done to their child.
“It’s probably just a huge mix-up,” she told herself, trying to warm away the cold, sick lump of fear in the pit of her stomach. She’d been to powwows before where child care had been a communal effort, with babies passed from person to person. Somebody had probably taken Lily to hold and then just lost track of the time. By the time she got there, Lily would be back in Ruth’s arms, sound asleep.
She tried hard to cling to that belief as she sped toward Tennessee, her speedometer seldom dipping below ninety. At eleven p.m. she turned east, passing campground signs that invited people to “come play in the foothills of the Smokies.” She exited the interstate, then crested a hill to discover a line of Tennessee state trooper cars pulled off the side of the road, their flashing blue lights slicing the darkness.
Her stomach twisted, but she ignored it. They’re here because their boss just got smacked with a pie, she reminded herself, recalling the comical scene on television. “They have nothing to do with Ruth at all.”
She slowed to a crawl, pulling out her identification both as a Georgia driver and as an officer of the Deckard County Court, but the troopers made no move to stop her. They leaned against their cars as she passed, regarding her with cold cop eyes. When she came to the en trance of Hillbilly Heaven campground, she pulled in.
A long-haired man wearing jeans and a red T-shirt leaned out of a small information booth. “Hi,” he told her, keeping a cautious eye on the fleet of police cars lighting up his campground like a carnival midway. “Twenty dollars, please. Rally starts at eight tomorrow.”
“I haven’t come for the rally,” Mary answered him. “I’ve come to see Ruth Moon Walkingstick.”
“You and everybody else.” He pulled out a clipboard. “Name?”
“Mary Crow.”
He shook his head as he scanned the yellow sheet. “I don’t see your name. Are you police?”
“No,” Mary replied. “I’m law.”
“Law?” He glanced over at the cruisers again, as if suspicious the cops were trying to sneak her in as a spy.
“Never mind.” She pulled a twenty-dollar bill from her purse. “Just tell me where I can find Ruth.’’
“Piney Grove campsite. Straight ahead, behind the stage.” He pointed into the darkness behind him.
Mary drove into Hillbilly Heaven, following the road as the guard directed. Knots of people gathered at the small fires burning between the campsites, and she could hear the low, insistent beating of drums. An eeriness hung in the air, and she felt as if she’d somehow driven back in time, when red men gathered to fight the white eyes once again.
She crested another, higher hill. To her left, tall lights illuminated an empty stage. A bank of amplifiers lined the back of it, while three microphones awaiting their next speakers stood like skinny stalks of corn.
Driving on, she finally came to a sign that pointed to the Piney Grove campsite. The road twisted through tall trees, then bottomed out beside a creek where three vehicles were parked. One was a police car, one a sleek new camper van, the third a familiar pop-up camper. The last time she’d been in it, Jonathan had given her such a fierce orgasm she wondered if she might not die from the pleasure of it. “But that was a long time ago,” she whispered, feeling a single, sharp stab of sadness.
She nosed her Miata in front of Jonathan’s truck and turned off the engine. Only when she got out of the car did she realize that she’d been gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her fingers had gone numb.
She scuffed through the dead leaves to the camper door and peered inside. Although both mattresses looked rumpled, nobody was home. Furious voices rose abruptly from the nearby van, where two men stood outside its open door.
“Mr. Bench, we’ve searched every trailer in this campground. I’ve put out an APB in North Carolina, Tennessee, and the better part of Georgia.” The short, bald man’s khaki uniform had more gold braid than most four-star generals. “I’m holding both Miss Wachacha’s boyfriend and John Black Fox in jail, along with every Mexican construction worker I could run down. Just what else do you figure I should do?”
“It’s Benge, not Bench, Sheriff Dula. Like binge drinking. I don’t understand why you haven’t called the FBI.” The second man towered over the sheriff. He wore jeans with the ubiquitous red T-shirt, and had a face more intelligent than handsome. Short, dark hair curled around his forehead, making him look younger than the thirty-something Mary guessed him to be.
“I’m fully prepared to call the Feds, Mr. Benge. But not for twenty-four hours. And not until I’m totally convinced a crime has been committed here.”
“What do you mean? Lily’s been gone since this afternoon!” Ruth Moon’s voice, coming from
within the van was tearful. Mary’s heart sank. This was not some oversight in communal baby-sitting. Lily Walkingstick had indeed gone missing.
She stepped forward. “Excuse me,” she called. “Is Ruth Moon in there?”
Both men turned, surprised.
“Who wants her?” asked the sheriff.
“My name is Mary Crow. I’ve just driven up from Atlanta.”
“Mary.” Immediately the taller man smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Gabe Benge. This is Sheriff George Dula. Thanks for coming.”
Mary shook Benge’s hand, then looked inside the van. Ruth Moon sat in the turned-around driver’s seat. Another, slightly younger woman sat beside her. Both wore jeans and the red SOB shirts, but where Ruth’s friend had the bright nervousness of a frightened squirrel, Ruth looked as if she had just washed up on some shore in hell.
Mary stepped inside and knelt in front of her. “Hi, honey. How are you doing?”
Ruth’s eyes were red and haunted. “I didn’t think you would come…”
“Of course I came.” Mary hugged her close, catching the aroma of cigarette smoke and nervous sweat. “I’m Lily’s godmother. Remember?”
“Jonathan warned me.” Ruth shook her head. “He said something bad would happen…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Mary whispered, smoothing back her hair. “We’re all going to help you.” She smiled at Ruth, trying to impart as much hope as she could, then she turned to the men.
“What happened?”
The sheriff rested one booted foot up on the edge of the van and pulled a little notebook from his back pocket. “First why don’t you tell me who you are.’’
“I’m a friend of the Walkingsticks,” Mary explained. “I’m also an ADA for Deckard County, Georgia. Mrs. Walkingstick called me to come here. I dropped everything and here I am.” She dug her ID from her purse and passed it to the sheriff. She knew it would zoom her to the top of his shit list, but she didn’t care. Predictably, Dula took his time in studying her credentials, then handed them back with a disdainful sneer. “Aren’t you a little far from your jurisdiction?”
Call the Devil by His Oldest Name Page 10
