Scandal in Copper Lake

by Marilyn Pappano

  After rinsing the dishes, she returned to the table. “Do you have plans for this evening?” A date, work, clubbing with his friends, Thursday-night poker with his buddies—she didn’t know how he usually spent his time. Selfishly, at the moment all she cared about was his time with her.

  He shook his head. “Do you have something in mind?”

  She sat across from him, taking in his dark gaze, his expression that managed both satisfaction and discomfort, the stubble of beard that would give him a disreputable look if he wasn’t one of the Calloways. She thought about the things they could do. Sex. Sex. And more sex.

  But instead she said, “I’d like to go to the place where my mother’s body was found.”

  Automatically he looked out the window. “It’s dark and raining.”

  “It was dark and raining that night, too.”

  “You won’t be able to see much.”

  “I don’t want to see. I want to feel.” Her hands trembled, and she moved them to her lap. It might be crazy. Traipsing around in the dark and rain in an unfamiliar place—okay, so there was no might about it. But the idea had taken root, and she didn’t want to shake it. The weather was right, and so was the time. If those conditions might help open her to whatever spiritual residue remained at the river, she would take advantage of them.

  If he would go with her.

  He wasn’t the type for mucking around in the nighttime rain, and he certainly wasn’t dressed for it tonight, but after a moment and another long look outside, he nodded. “Sure. Why not?”

  Before he could change his mind, she surged from the chair and went into the bedroom, changing into jeans, a T-shirt and running shoes, pulling a slicker from the closet. She stuffed her keys into her pocket and returned to the kitchen to find him standing in the doorway.

  “It’ll be easier to reach it from the park, and I can stop at my place and change on the way.”

  He was suggesting that they go separately. He didn’t want to be seen leaving the neighborhood with her, didn’t want her seen at his condo. She tamped down the disappointment that rose. “Okay. I’ll meet you at the park—”

  Or maybe that wasn’t what he’d meant at all. Before she could finish, he grabbed her hand, turned and pulled her down the hall and out the door. He stopped on the porch long enough for her to lock up, then ran with her down the steps and through puddles to his car.

  The torrential rain had passed, leaving behind a steady fall of the sort that could last for days. It overflowed the ditches and collected in the streets, reflecting headlights and streetlamps, and it fled the windshield wipers in undulating drops. She listened to the rhythmic swipe of the blades and the softer, also rhythmic tenor of his breathing before breaking the silence. “What do you normally do on Thursday nights?”

  He shrugged. “Watch TV. Play poker with Tommy and a few guys. Nothing special. What about you?”

  “Thursdays are my late night at the shop. I’m there until nine, and I have to be at the diner at six the next morning, so I go home and to bed.”

  “What kind of shop?”

  “Mama Odette’s place.” She smiled. “Did you think I set up a card table and two folding chairs on a street corner?”

  “I thought you probably worked out of your house.”

  With a sign that said “Sister Anamaria Sees All,” she recalled from their first meeting. “A lot of readers do. I don’t want strangers coming into my house, and Mama Odette’s shop is just a few blocks from both the diner and the house. It’s convenient.”

  “You have regular clients?”

  “I do. Just like you. Though I’m fairly sure my advice comes quite a bit cheaper than yours.”

  He smiled faintly as he turned off Carolina Avenue just before the bridge that crossed the river, followed the street for a few moments, then turned into a gated community nestled along the river. An elaborate brick-and-iron sign identified it as River Crossing, a dozen or so buildings housing five units each. The houses looked a century old in the soft light from the streetlamps, but the only ancient feeling to the place came from the land itself.

  Robbie’s condo was in the best location, on the south end of a building that faced the river. With red brick and white columns, decorative iron and a wicker-decorated porch, it was gracious and lovely. He parked at the curb—the garages were at the rear of the building—and shut off the engine. “It’ll just take—Do you want to come in?”

  Of course she did. She wanted to see where he ate, slept and entertained the other women in his life. But because she didn’t know whether the invitation was sincere or merely manners kicked into gear by some emotion that had crossed her face, she shook her head. “I’ll wait.”

  Her answer relieved him. No pesky explanations to offer to nosy neighbors. He got out of the car and jogged to the door.

  As rain gathered to obscure her view, she called up an image of her Savannah neighborhood: a few square miles crisscrossed by railroad tracks, the houses aged, the businesses shabby. She lived in a duplex, carved out of a house that was small to start with. It was drafty in winter, and with a window air conditioner that made the heat bearable, it was noisy in summer. The furniture was secondhand, the appliances thirdhand. All totaled, her every possession, including her car, didn’t equal even a fraction of what this condo must be worth.

  But she didn’t envy Robbie’s wealth. She was happy in Savannah. Everything she needed was within walking distance—both of her jobs, the market, their church, her grandmother, aunts and cousins. Sometimes Duquesne women had a lot of money, like Lucia with the wooden chest filled with jewels; most of the time they didn’t. But they always had enough. Enough money, enough family, enough love.

  Robbie certainly had the money and the family. Did he have enough love?

  He came out again, wearing jeans, a slicker like hers and hiking boots that had seen better days. In one hand, he carried two bright yellow lanterns.

  It took only a few minutes to reach Gullah Park. The lot was deserted and dark, the lights unable to penetrate the thick leaves of the trees under which they parked. He handed her a lantern but didn’t let go once she’d taken it. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I am.” Some part of her was even looking forward to it. Another part knew she couldn’t do it without him at her side.

  The rain merely dripped on them until they cleared the trees and reached the trail. She didn’t bother to pull the slicker’s hood up; she liked the rain, cool and gentle, on her face.

  They walked in silence. She could think of a hundred things to say—questions to ask, secrets to share—but it seemed wrong, indulging in casual conversation on this particular journey. When they reached the bleached remnants of an old dock, Robbie silently tucked her hand into his. They’d left the park path behind and were following a dirt trail so hard-packed that the afternoon’s heavy rain hadn’t marked it. There was no traffic on the river, no sounds at all besides the rain and their breathing and the steadily increasing beat of her heart.

  A few yards beyond the old dock, she stopped. Her fingers were knotted around his, and her stomach was knotted as well. With some effort, she turned off the flashlight, loosed her fingers and took a few steps alone.

  This was the place.

  Slowly she turned in a circle. The trail, pounded out at the top of the riverbank. Trees, tall spindly shadows of loblolly pines, the heavier growth of oaks and gums. Shrubs, deadwood, the deep, dark curves of the river. This was the last place her mother had been. The last things she’d seen, smelled, touched. The last thoughts she’d had—for her babies, her mama, her sisters and nieces, her hopes and regrets, her sorrows and her joy—had dissipated into the air here. The place she’d given birth. The place she’d died.

  Anamaria breathed deeply, smelling rain and mud and pines and…almonds. She inhaled again, the scent remaining strong, sweet, and sparking a sweeter memory. “We baked almond-meringue cookies that afternoon,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper as she w
elcomed back the time. “It was my job to put one nut on each cookie, but I ran out of them with two trays of cookies left. You’re eating all the almonds, she scolded, but she laughed when she said it, and then she took another bag from the cabinet, and we finished the cookies and ate the rest together.”

  A warm tear trickled down her wet skin. Bending, she set the lantern on the ground, then carefully made her way down the slope toward the river. It was muddy at the bottom, sucking at her shoes as she moved to the fallen tree that extended out into the water. Leaning against it for support, she stared at the place where her mother had died.

  “I asked her not to go out that evening. I could tell it was going to rain, and my stomach hurt really bad and I didn’t know why and it scared me. But Mama said I’d just eaten too many cookies, and she made me some ginger tea. She said she had to go, that she had appointments to keep, and she tucked me under a quilt on the couch, kissed me, wrapped her shawl around her and left as soon as Marguerite came.”

  She stared a long time at the image that had evaded her for so many years: Mama, her hair loose and curling, her eyes bright, her smile reassuring. Her dress was blue and white and stretched tightly across her belly, and her shawl was faded and soft, pieced together by Mama Odette from old velvets and wools belonging to one passed-on Duquesne or another. It was long, rectangular, and Mama had worn it everywhere.

  Her brow wrinkled. Where was it now?

  “But it wasn’t too many cookies.” Robbie switched off his own light and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Despite the slicker, he was wet pretty much everywhere, with rain trickling down his face and scalp and soaking into his shirt. Anamaria was wet, too, but she didn’t seem to notice. She leaned against the oak tree, fingers pressing hard against the smooth surface where the bark had long ago peeled away. Her eyes were closed, the sorrow etched on her face.

  “Why was she here? Where had she been? Why did she leave her car and walk all this way? She loved the rain, she loved the night, but she was nine months’ pregnant. Why did she come here?”

  He set his lantern next to hers and followed her trail down the slope. When he reached her, he slid his arms around her and tried to pull her close, but she stood rigid. “I don’t know, Anamaria. No one knows.”

  “She knows! She knows, but she won’t tell, just like she wouldn’t tell who Charlotte’s father was.”

  “Anamaria…Annie, she’s dead.”

  She jerked away from him, took a few steps, then sank into a crouch in the mud, hugging herself tightly. “What were you doing here?” she whispered. “Why didn’t you listen to me? What good is knowing something’s going to happen if nobody listens?”

  Guilt sharpened her voice and stabbed through him, too. She’d tried, in her five-year-old fashion, to tell her mother, but Glory had failed to recognize her daughter’s actions for the warning they were. She’d died as a result, along with the baby, and Anamaria had blocked those memories from her mind.

  For the warning they were. God, was he starting to buy into this? Did he really believe that Anamaria’s stomachache and fears had been a sign of impending doom that the little girl hadn’t known how to read? That she’d known Glory was in danger, that she’d really seen a vision of her mother’s death?

  A couple of days ago, it would have been easier to shrug off. Tonight, in this place…

  Boots squishing, he crouched behind her and wrapped his arms around her, refusing to let her maintain any distance this time. After a moment, she raised both hands to grip his arms, holding on tightly enough to hurt.

  “You don’t feel her, do you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I do. I feel her…essence. Her memory. The part of her that was left behind when she passed. It still lingers.”

  “Like her soul?” He felt foolish asking. He’d never given thought to souls or essences, to what happened when a body died. All he’d known were the consequences for those left behind. His father had died; life had been better. Granddad had died; life had been poorer.

  “Not her soul. That’s passed on. Her imprint. A person can’t die, a life can’t end, without leaving some mark, some sign that she was there.”

  “And you sense these marks?” Another foolish question. His brothers would laugh at him. His mother would worry about him. Tommy…maybe not so much. After all, his great-grandma Rosa had been a believer.

  She shook her head, water spraying from her hair. “Sensing the imprint of everyone who’s ever passed on could drive a person crazy. But this is my mother. She lay here. She died here. She took her last breath here. She left this life right here where we are.”

  There was no doubt of that, Robbie thought, gazing at the water where it lapped against the shore. The fisherman had found Glory; the police had documented her death. But was Anamaria really feeling something, or was she imprinting what she knew of her mother’s death with guesses and guilt?

  “She gave life, too,” he reminded her. “Charlotte was born right here. She died, if not here, then very nearby. What about her? What do you feel about her?” It had been February when Glory and the baby had died. The medical examiner had estimated survival for a newborn infant whose birth was unattended in such conditions at mere minutes.

  Anamaria stilled, her breathing growing slow and steady. Her eyes closed, she looked as if she might have been asleep, and for an instant, the photograph of Glory from the police file flashed into his mind. She had looked asleep, too, except for the gash on her forehead.

  Anamaria opened her eyes again. “I don’t feel her—Charlotte. I don’t feel anything at all. No imprint, no memory, nothing.”

  “You said you don’t usually see things about people close to you.”

  “I don’t see futures, but I saw our mother’s death. Why can’t I tell anything about Charlotte’s?”

  “Maybe they were wrong. Maybe she didn’t die here.” With a lot of rain, the river current would have been swifter than usual. Maybe it had carried the baby beyond the range of sensing.

  He shook his head. He was cold and wet, and the muscles in his thighs were starting to cramp, yet there he sat having a conversation about visions of death and spiritual imprints as if they were rational things.

  He eased to his feet, taking her with him. “Let’s go back to the car.”

  She nodded, but when he started up the hill, she remained where she was, staring at the river. He retraced his steps, took her hand and pulled her up the slope. On the path he retrieved their lanterns, switched his on and headed back toward the paved trail, keeping her chilled fingers wrapped in his.

  They were halfway there when she stopped abruptly, dragging him to a halt, as well. “Maybe she’s not dead.”

  He gazed at her, but when he opened his mouth to speak, she laid her free hand across it to silence him.

  “They never found her body. They never found anything. Mama Odette knows people’s fates, especially people close to her, but she doesn’t know Charlotte’s. And Mama doesn’t know, either. Maybe they don’t know because Charlotte isn’t dead.”

  He pushed her hand away, then gripped it as tightly as he held the other. “Then where is she?”

  Anamaria didn’t answer. She wanted to—he could see it in her eyes—but there was nothing to say. The baby was dead. Her first breath had been damn near her last. And Glory and Mama Odette didn’t know because people didn’t know that sort of thing. It was all part of the scam the family had been running for generations.

  Her lips compressed, her brows furrowed, as anxiety, need and hope crossed her features. For an instant, the hope faded, then returned just as fiercely. “What about the shawl? Where is it?”

  Glory had wrapped her shawl around her before leaving, Anamaria had said. “Your grandmother’s probably packed it away somewhere.”

  She shook her head. “That shawl was special. Mama Odette made it, and Mama never went anywhere without it. She wore it when she was chilled or wrapped it around me when I was cold. We had picnics on it. She covered me
with it when I fell asleep in church. There was a piece of fabric in it from every Duquesne in the last hundred years. If Mama Odette had it, she would have given it to me.”

  “Maybe Glory forgot it somewhere.”

  Again she shook her head solemnly. “You’d be more likely to forget your Vette somewhere.”

  “Maybe she dropped it in the river.” Robbie swiped his hair from his forehead, then brushed back her hair. “I know what you’re hoping, Annie—that someone came along, that they found Charlotte, took the shawl and wrapped her in it and that she’s safe, alive and well somewhere. But look around. What are the odds that someone happened along on a night like this? You’re not going to have any fishermen, no hunters, no joggers, no hikers. No one came along. No one took Charlotte. No one saved her.”

  A breath shuddered through her, and for a moment he thought she might cry. Instead, she raised her chin, stiffened her spine and fixed a determined look on him. “My sister did not die back there.”

  He stiffened his spine, too, and used the harsh, confronting tone that stood him well in courtroom cross-examinations. “Where she died doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she did die.”

  “If the police were wrong about where, they could be wrong about how. They could be wrong about whether.”

  “Why don’t you call them?” he demanded as she pulled her hand free, crossed her arms over her middle and started along the path. “Tell them your mother lost an old handmade shawl that night and that you can’t feel her dead baby’s imprint on the riverbank. I bet they’ll want to open an investigation immediately.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that. Tommy Maricci is a conscientious detective, and he’s got believer’s blood flowing through his veins.” She tossed her hair over one shoulder. “On top of that, he likes me.”

  Jealousy curled, hot and ugly, in Robbie’s gut. “And do you like him?”

  “I do.” With that blunt response, she strode ahead. He stood looking after her, wondering what the hell he was doing. He could be at home, warm and dry, kicked back in front of the television. Packing his car and heading off for a long weekend at his uncle Travis’s beach house on Kiawah Island. Driving west to Atlanta for a few days of easy relaxation and easier sex with an ex-girlfriend he still saw on occasion.