Call the Devil by His Oldest Name

by Sallie Bissell

  Her phone beeped. Quickly she dug it out of her pocket. Any news, at this point, would sound good.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Killer. Mike here.”

  She fought the urge to turn away from Gabe and whisper. “Did you talk to Pugh?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did.” Czarnowski sounded smug. “I talked for a good while. Old Dwayne listened pretty good, too.”

  “And?”

  “He’s not your boy, Mary.” Czarnowksi’s voice went flat.

  “What?” She couldn’t believe this. Pugh had to be the one.

  “He didn’t do it. By the end of our conversation he wished he had, but he didn’t.”

  “But how can you be so sure? He’s a sociopath and a liar. And he’s smart, and he’s—”

  “Mary, men lie to me only once. When they learn what that lie costs them, they always come up with the truth. Trust me on this, darling: Pugh’s a slimy wad of snot, but he didn’t have anything to do with your little Cherokee baby.”

  “Mike, are you positive?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  Mary closed her eyes. She’d engaged in junta tactics, and for what? Nothing, except for inflicting some well-deserved pain on Dwayne Pugh. She felt sick inside.

  “Thanks, Mike,” she said sadly, knowing she would never again walk into the Deckard County Courthouse in quite the same way. “I appreciate your trying.”

  “I’m sorry, Mary. I wish I could have done more.”

  She dropped the phone back in her purse just as a mockingbird landed on top of Nancy Ward’s gravestone. The gray-feathered bird perched with its long tail at a rakish angle, its throat throbbing with song. Although it sounded beautiful, all she could hear was Lily, crying on that grave.

  Gabe touched her shoulder. “I take it you did not get good news?”

  She turned and faced him, straight on, feeling as if she were confessing a sin. “For the first time in my career, I just had a man questioned by an officer famous for encouraging reluctant criminals to own up to their deeds.”

  “In other words, you had the shit beat out of him.”

  “Right.”

  “And?”

  “And he couldn’t get Pugh to cop to any of this.” Miserable, Mary shook her head. “My wonderful theory just crashed and burned.”

  “You’re absolutely convinced that it isn’t Walkingstick?”

  “Without a doubt,” she answered firmly. She stared at Nancy Ward’s tombstone a moment, then switched her cell phone back on. “I’m calling Ruth,” she told Gabe. “Maybe she’s gotten some news from Dula or Jonathan.”

  “What if she hasn’t?”

  “Then I’m calling my assistant in Atlanta. To tell her to ask for a continuance.”

  She pushed the buttons that would connect her with Danika when, just as before, a blinking e-mail icon materialized on her screen. Once again, she’d received a picture; once again, the image was of Lily Walkingstick.

  Nineteen

  “HOLY SHIT!” CRIED Gabe. “Another one!”

  “Come on,” Mary said, staring at the tiny picture on the phone. “Let’s get to a computer where we can print off a clearer image.”

  They raced back to the van. While Mary called a stunned Danika, explaining the situation and telling her to ask for a continuance, Gabe drove south, catching I-75 to Chattanooga. “There’s a fair-sized college there,” he explained to Mary. “We can log on to the Internet at the library.’’

  They reached Chattanooga just after sundown. On the way to the college they saw a Kinko’s, and pulled in. The clerk behind the counter took an imprint of Mary’s credit card and gave her a swipe card that served as an electronic key. They hurried into the computer room, to the first PC they came to. When the welcome screen came on, Mary logged on to the Deckard County server. Twenty new messages appeared, but only one had a .jpg file attached. She clicked the mouse; the file opened.

  It was Lily. This time she lay in front of a weather-beaten tombstone that had a long eroded lamb carved at its top. The child wore nothing but a disposable diaper clumsily fastened around her legs. Although she still stared at the camera with defiant little eyes, she no longer exhibited the squalling rage of the first picture. Her fists were not clenched, nor was she flailing her feet at the photographer. To Mary, she seemed to be drooping, like prisoners of war who still had the will but not the strength to fight back. Mary moved the cursor down to the lower margin of the picture, where a new message appeared. Please, Mary. Come now. I need you. Jonathan.

  Without thinking, she touched the computer screen. She knew Jonathan Walkingstick better than anyone else on earth. Every thread of her being told her that he was incapable of this, yet here was a picture of his baby with a message clearly addressed to her. Of course she would come if he needed her. Without question and without fail. And Jonathan knew that.

  She glanced up. Gabe was watching her. His face was like stone.

  “I know how this looks,” she said defensively. “But believe me, Jonathan is not responsible for this.”

  “You wouldn’t kid a kidder, would you?” Gabe’s smile was mirthless.

  “No,” she answered quietly, noticing that his eyes were not brown like she’d thought, but a blue so deep they almost looked black. “I would not.”

  Once again he studied her; once again his face softened. “Okay, then. Let’s make some copies of that and get back to the van.”

  Ten minutes later they sat in his camper, comparing the two photos of Lily.

  “Look,” said Gabe. “This is still a Hotmail account, still Lily Walkingstick’s name, but the ad­dress lines at the top have changed.”

  “He’s moving around,” Mary said.

  Gabe shrugged. “Maybe. He’s at least using different computers.”

  “Do you recognize this tombstone?” Mary almost laughed at her own question. What made her think Gabe Benge had intimate knowledge of every old cemetery in Tennessee?

  “No, but if he’s sticking with the Cherokee thing, then it could be the Shellsford Baptist Church.” He turned to pull a book down from the shelf behind him.

  “Is that some archaeological site?”

  “No. It’s one of the few places east of the Mississippi where nineteenth-century Cherokees were buried like whites. Here.” He pointed to a black-and-white photo. “That’s the Shellsford cemetery.”

  To Mary it looked like a thousand other old graveyards, tombstones broken and listing at odd angles, as if the dead rose up to dance when no one was looking and then hastily scooted back into their graves. “I don’t know. I don’t see that particular grave there.”

  “Wait!” Gabe exclaimed. “I just thought of something. If this picture was taken at Shellsford, then the kidnapper could be following the Trail of Tears.”

  Mary blinked. She well knew about Andrew Jackson’s brutal, forced removal of the Cherokees to Oklahoma in 1838. In fact, right after Lily’s baptism, Jonathan’s Aunt Little Tom had put a personal spin on that tragic history.

  “When my grandmother’s mother was a girl, sol­diers from Georgia marched down this very road we’re standing on,” the old woman had told them. “Came to this cabin where my great-grandmother’s family was eating bean bread and squirrel stew. The soldiers stuck rifles in their faces. Made them get up and leave right then. They left kettles on the fire, sup­per on the table. They were terrified that the soldiers were going to kill them. The soldiers marched them hard, into country they did not know. Finally one night, my great-grandmother’s father sneaked his fam­ily away from the soldiers. They hid deep in the woods, and finally made their way back here!” Aunt Little Tom had spoken with such passion that Mary almost looked over her shoulder to make sure the Army wasn’t coming down the road to again force-march them off to places unknown.

  Now she refocused on the matters at hand.


  Gabe had retrieved a pen and a tattered map of Tennessee from his glove box. He spread it out on the dinette.

  “Look. The first photo was taken here at Nancy Ward’s grave.” He made an X on the map. “If the second one was taken there,” he made a second X at Shellsford, “then whoever’s got Lily is following the northern route of the Trail of Tears.”

  Mary frowned. “Where does it go from Shellsford?”

  Gabe traced the route with his finger. “North­west to Nashville, then up to Hopkinsville, Kentucky.”

  “Then on to Missouri and Arkansas and Oklahoma.” Mary’s heart sank. Somehow she knew that Lily would never see that part of the trail. The baby looked so much worse than she had in the first photo, taken only hours earlier. At this rate, she wouldn’t make it out of Tennessee alive. And for what reason? The whole thing made less sense by the minute.

  “But why?” she asked Gabe. “Why Lily? Why Cherokee graves along the Trail of Tears? And why are these photos being sent to me?”

  “If we assume Walkingstick’s not the kidnapper,” he replied logically, “I’d say somebody’s after you or Ruth Moon.”

  “A fair number of people want me dead,” Mary told him, “but Mike Czarnowski eliminated the most likely suspect.” She frowned at Gabe. “That leaves Ruth. How does John Black Fox feel about her? And that construction company?”

  “John’s as radical as any of the old Black Panthers, but he has a lot of respect for Ruth. And as bad as Summerfield stinks as a corporation, I can’t see them having a child kidnapped.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his eyes on the map. “And neither Fox nor Summerfield knows you. Who could put the Walkingsticks, you, and the SOB rally all together?”

  Again she thought of Stump Logan, but the mental image of him hoisting babies over six­ foot fences was almost ludicrous. Logan was old and lame, plus he’d always acted alone. And don’t forget he’s dead, she almost blurted aloud.

  “I’m going to call Ruth and tell her what’s going on,” she said. “If she’s gotten the FBI involved, they should have these new address headers.”

  “And if she hasn’t?”

  “Then I’m going to call the Feds myself while you drive us to this Shellsford Baptist Cemetery. We’ve got another grave to visit.”

  At that same moment, someone else was tracking a different trail. Sitting at Clootie Duncan’s desk, Edwina Templeton scowled as she heard the Philadelphia clock downstairs strike eight. Duncan had left at noon on Friday, vowing to return with his baby the next day. Now Sunday was fast turning into Monday, and Duncan had yet to reappear.

  “Where the hell has he gone?” Edwina muttered peevishly as she rifled through Duncan’s papers. Among an extraordinary number of crumpled candy wrappers she found a half dozen books on the history of the Cherokee Indians, three detailed maps of Tennessee, a pamphlet from her own office entitled “Basic Baby Care,” and a receipt for four boxes of .300 Magnum rifle shells.

  Edwina gave a low whistle. “Looks like daddy’s gone a-hunting. But what on earth for?” She hurried over to the cabinet where she kept her weapons. Opening the door, she stepped back, stunned. Two of her Tasers were gone. So were the old Winchester .70 she used to shoot four-legged skunks and the Smith & Wesson automatic she kept for the two-legged variety.

  “Good Lord,” she cried. “All this to get one baby?”

  She wondered if Duncan might be one of those jealous types who would take both his baby and his girlfriend and shoot them both, in some weird kind of hillbilly revenge. Probably not, she decided as she returned to the desk. He’d shown little real emotion when he’d talked about the child. But she knew he was up to something. Any man who would woo her as if she were a teenager had to be a little suspect. She had eyes and mirrors enough to know that her breasts sagged and her butt looked like a bag of loosely packed oranges. Men did not feign love for women her age without some deeper motive.

  “But what could it be?” Up until a minute ago she’d figured Duncan’s impetus had been fairly straightforward. Relieve an old girlfriend of a love child she didn’t want, and maybe make a buck or two on the side. Now, she wondered. With that Winchester and four hundred rounds of long-range ammunition, Duncan could do some serious damage. Could he have gone off his nut and be planning some kind of sniper attack? If so, what would happen to Paz and Ruperta? And her van?

  “Damn,” she snarled, finding nothing more incriminating than chocolate candy stashed in his desk drawers. She should have known better than to trust Duncan with anything. Better to have left Paz and Ruperta in charge here and gone with him herself. But, oh, how she loved it here alone, when the big old house stood empty of staff and clients! Then its gleaming floors and moiré-papered walls became truly hers, and it took on the sheen of a real home—her real home.

  “Just think a minute,” she said, closing the drawer as she tried to rein in the skittery fear that was rising inside her. “Duncan might be crazy, but he isn’t a fool.”

  She could, she supposed, call the police and report him for stealing her van and kidnapping her two servants. But she knew from experience that police tended to linger, asking hard, tricky questions. The last thing she wanted was for any of the Christmas-tour women to drive past and see a squad car parked in front of her house. She had no close friends she could call, nor did she keep company with her neighbors. No, there was nothing she could do except wait and hope that Duncan returned. If he didn’t, the worst thing she would be out of would be that antique bed. The van and the two Mexicans would be easy enough to replace.

  “Just go on as you’d planned,” she told herself. “Then if he does show up, you’ll be ready.”

  Hurrying into her bedroom, she climbed up on her bed with the auction-house catalog and her address book. Although it was an odd time to conduct business, she needed to call one of her colleagues in Florida. Her boobs and her butt may have sunk to ruin, but she still had a memory like a ticker tape when it came to the adoption market.

  She looked up the number and punched it in her phone. It rang once, twice, then, on the third, a high nasal voice answered gruffly, as if awakened from sleep.

  “Hello?”

  “Myrtle? This is Edwina Templeton.”

  “Who?”

  Edwina heard a commercial for Burger King blaring in the background. She raised her voice. “Edwina Templeton. Calling from Tender Shepherd Home, in Tennessee.”

  “Oh, Edwina, of course! I’m sorry. I just walked in the door.” The commercial ceased abruptly.

  “Listen, Myrtle. The last time we talked, didn’t you say you had a couple who was looking for a half-Arab child?”

  “’Yes.” Myrtle’s voice sharpened.

  “Are they still looking for a child?”

  “I haven’t talked to them in a month or so, but I assume they are. Why? Have you got one?”

  “I might be getting one,” Edwina replied cautiously. “Do you think your couple might be interested?”

  “I’d have to call them. The man was pretty particular. He’s from some old Middle Eastern family. Very proud, those people.” Myrtle coughed. “What kind of baby have you got?”

  “All I know for sure is that it’s a girl.” Edwina looked at a picture of the bed in the auction catalog. If she played her cards right, she might be able to get the bed and something else, as well. Some little antique Christmas doodad to show off on the tour.

  “Is it half-Iranian?” Myrtle wanted to know. “That’s the key with these people.”

  “Oh, yes,” Edwina lied. “That’s why I thought of you right off the bat. Why don’t you find out if your couple’s still interested and then give me a call? Maybe we can work something out for everybody concerned.”

  Myrtle chuckled. “And that something would entail a number with zeros behind it that we can put in the bank?”

  “That would be correct, Myrtle,” replied Ed
wina. “A number with lots of zeros after it. I just hope your clients are as full of money as they are of ethnic pride.”

  “Not a problem,” said Myrtle. “For the right baby, they’ll dig down deep.”

  Twenty

  “MARY JUST GOT another e-mail.” Ruth put the cell phone down and looked at her cousin, who sat playing solitaire on her cot.

  “What was it?” Clarinda looked up, the four of spades poised in her hand.

  “Lily again. In another cemetery.”

  “Oh, gross.” Clarinda grimaced. “What are they going to do?”

  “They’re driving to someplace called Shells­ford.”

  “So Mary knew where the second picture was taken?”

  “Gabe did. He thinks whoever’s got Lily is taking her along the Trail of Tears.”

  “The Trail of Tears? Why?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find Dula. I’ll make him get the FBI involved.”

  “Ruth, we’ve gone over to his office thirty times. He’s never there.”

  “Then I’ll wait,” Ruth declared as she rose and reached for her denim jacket. “Stay here and play cards if you want. I’ll go by myself.”

  “Never mind.” Clarinda wearily tossed her last card down on the mattress. “I’ll come too.”

  The two women stepped out of the camper. Where earlier the streets had been lined with tourists, National Guardsmen now walked regu­lar patrols, their cadenced footsteps thudding ominously on the pavement. Clarinda shivered in the crisp mountain air. “I wish we’d never come here.”

  You and me both, thought Ruth, walking slump-shouldered to keep her breasts from chafing against her bra. Lily had missed six or seven feedings, and though her milk let down and drenched her blouse with every unanswered phone call to Little Jump Off, her breasts were still engorged with excess milk, her nipples hot and sore to the touch. I’ll take some squaw root after I see Dula, she promised herself. She felt a feverish heat, as if Lily’s absence were some kind of sickness spreading outward from her breasts, soon to engulf her whole body.