Covenant

by Ann McMan

Gladys thought about it. “I reckon it was closer to seven—maybe a little bit after that when he started actin’ crazy. It took me about twenty minutes to drive home. There wadn’t no traffic on account of everybody bein’ at the river for the fireworks.”

  “And David was still at the cemetery when you left to head home?”

  Gladys nodded. Byron was surprised when she reached out and laid a gnarled hand on his arm.

  “Don’t be arrestin’ that boy for this, Sheriff. If you’d a known how mean that man was to him growin’ up, you’d be surprised somebody hadn’t done this to that grave sooner. If somebody has to pay for them damages, I’d like to try and cover it. That boy was always real good to my Beau.”

  Byron patted the top of Gladys’s hand. “I don’t want you to worry one bit about any of this, Gladys. Nobody is going to get arrested—for anything.”

  At least, not David Jenkins, thank god . . .

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Avi was adding a second pack of Splenda to her coffee. Syd was amused. It was incredible how alike she and Maddie were.

  She figured the sweet tooth must be a professional thing. She recalled Dorothy mentioning that Celine had one, too.

  They’d met up with Avi at the inn so Maddie could drop off her new set of keys to the clinic. They were on their way to Junior’s to pick up Syd’s Volvo, so Maddie made the quick detour on their way out of town. When they arrived, Avi was sitting downstairs in the big front parlor, drinking coffee and scanning real estate listings in the local paper.

  “Finding anything worthwhile?” Syd asked.

  Avi closed the paper. “Alas, no. Not unless I want to share a two-bedroom mobile home with a single mother and three kids.”

  “Is that really all that’s available?” Maddie was incredulous. “Maybe you need to widen your net.”

  “You think?” Avi agreed. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go so far out of town. It kind of negates the reason for staying overnight here in the first place.”

  “How much room do you need to have?”

  Syd’s wheels were turning.

  “Not much. Just one room, with a bath and a small kitchen—or access to one. Fortunately, I have a small footprint.”

  “All your books, notwithstanding,” Maddie added. “We’re going to need to get you another bookcase.”

  “Yeah.” Avi faced her. “About that. I was wondering if we could turn that big hall closet into a library. Both you and Lizzy could store stuff in there, too.”

  “Which hall closet?” Maddie asked. “The one across from the kitchen?”

  “Yeah. There appears to be nothing stored in there but cleaning supplies and a prehistoric wine fridge—which I’ve been meaning to ask you about. I realize things are unconventional here in the hinterland, but it does seem like rather an esoteric appliance for a medical practice.”

  Syd shot an incredulous look at Maddie. “Don’t tell me you moved that thing from the barn to your clinic?”

  “Hey . . . I had no choice. Once Henry told David it was working again, I knew I had to relocate it.” It was obvious Syd wasn’t buying it, so Maddie hauled out the big guns. “Come on, honey . . . it’s got bottles in there I’ve been saving for the wedding.”

  “Oh, almost thou persuadest me, Agrippa. You haven’t been saving anything for our wedding. I can barely get you to discuss it without breaking out in hives.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it.” Maddie sounded offended by Syd’s assessment.

  “Um,” Avi interrupted them, “not to sound a trumpet before my good deeds or anything, but I am a rather brilliant shrink—and it appears the pair of you might benefit from a few hours of what we in the trade like to call ‘billable time.’”

  “Thanks, Avi.” Syd frowned at Maddie. “We’ll take that under advisement.”

  “Well, if you’re offering anything like a family discount,” Maddie suggested, “I’d love to get your assessment of Henry.”

  Avi looked surprised. “What about Henry?”

  “Remember I asked you to keep an eye on him at dinner the other night?” Maddie prompted. “To see if you could detect any signs that he might be depressed or worried about anything?”

  “Yes,” Avi replied. “I remember.”

  “We’re worried that he might be getting bullied at school,” Syd added.

  “Have you asked him about that?” Avi queried. Maddie and Syd exchanged glances. “I thought not.”

  “It’s not like that,” Maddie explained. “We simply don’t want to introduce a possibility that might not have occurred to him.”

  “In case he isn’t experiencing any of that,” Syd added hastily.

  “The two of you know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right?”

  Maddie sighed. “So you’re saying we should ask him outright?”

  “If you’re worried he’s being bullied by someone, yes. You’ll be able to tell a lot by how he responds. If he hedges or acts like he doesn’t want to discuss it, you might have grounds for concern.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Syd asked. “Henry is uncommonly suggestible. I don’t want to scare him.”

  “What does his father say?” When neither of them answered, Avi continued. “So you have this concern, but you haven’t mentioned it to Henry’s dad? Why not?”

  “Okay . . . I’ll say it.” Syd replied. “Uncle. We didn’t want to tell James we were worried about it until we knew something concrete. It didn’t seem like a good idea to tell him we feared Henry might be getting bullied because he has two mommies.”

  “James does know his son is living with an out lesbian couple, right?”

  Maddie nodded. “Of course, he does.”

  “Then I would imagine he considered this possibility when he left Henry in your care. Would you agree?”

  “I suppose so.” Syd sighed. “To be honest, we didn’t want to amplify any potential barriers to going through with the formal custody arrangement.”

  “The adoption, you mean?”

  “Well, no.” Maddie explained. “Originally, we did discuss adoption. But honestly, it seemed like a better idea for Henry—and for James—to share custody, with us as primary caregivers. Henry needs to know his daddy is going to remain engaged in his everyday life.”

  “That’s a very good decision. I’m glad you opted for that solution. Especially since it seems Henry’s father wants to stay involved with his son.”

  “James is a good man, and he loves Henry.” Syd smiled. “We’re all very fortunate about that.”

  “So, the reality is that Henry has two mommies, and a daddy. Right?”

  “Right.” Maddie agreed. She looked at Syd. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like an idiot.”

  Syd took hold of her hand. “Together in all things.”

  Avi watched their exchange. “As much as I hate to shatter this moment of epiphany, I think Henry’s dilemma is a lot simpler than you imagine.”

  Syd was all ears. “You do?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s as simple as one, two, three.” Avi took a moment to consider. “Or was it four, five and six?”

  Maddie chewed the inside of her cheek. “Could you be a tad less vague? I think we’ve already demonstrated our level of obtuseness where our son is concerned.”

  Avi laughed. “I was counting up the biscuits he kept passing to Lizzy.”

  “Lizzy?” Maddie seemed perplexed. “What does Lizzy have to do with this?”

  “Oh, dear god . . . that’s all this is?” Syd threw back her head in amazement. “How on earth did I miss that?”

  Maddie was looking back and forth between Syd and Avi. “Would one of you care to enlighten me? I think the subtitles dropped out during this part of the opera.”

  “You did complete a standard psych rotation, didn’t you?” Avi asked. “This is pretty textbook stuff. Henry isn’t being bullied: he’s in love.”

  “In love?” It was clear Maddie realized she was missing something. “With Lizzy?�
��

  “Unless I miss my guess. Which,” Avi added, “I rarely do.” She smiled at them. “If you ask me, the kid’s got great taste, too.”

  Maddie was still trying to take it in. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “She’s right, Maddie. Every time Henry sees Lizzy, he morphs into some kind of Cheshire cat.” Syd slowly shook her head. “I don’t know how we missed this.”

  “With Lizzy?” Maddie repeated.

  “Why is that so hard for you to comprehend?” Avi asked.

  “It’s not that,” Maddie explained. “Of course I can understand why any guy—or child—with a functioning brain stem would find Lizzy attractive.”

  “Not just any guy . . .” Avi pointed out.

  “Yeah.” Maddie raised an index finger. “We’ll get to that later. But how do we mend Henry’s little heart if Lizzy moves to Colorado with Tom?”

  “I don’t think we’ll have to cross that bridge, honey. Tom called me this morning. He said Lizzy broke up with him.”

  “She did?” Syd could tell Maddie was trying to conceal her excitement at the news. “I mean . . . I’m sorry for Tom—and for her. It can’t have been an easy decision.”

  “No. But I think it was the right one for Lizzy. I love my brother, but he continues to demonstrate how not ready he is to make any kind of lasting commitment. To Lizzy, or to anyone else.”

  Maddie considered Syd’s observation. “Your mother is gonna go ballistic when she finds out.”

  “That’s nothing compared to how my father will react.” She looked at Avi. “Dad pretty much wants to canonize Lizzy.”

  “George really likes Lizzy,” Maddie agreed with a smile. “He likes me a lot, too.”

  Syd rolled her eyes. “He’s a man of simple tastes.”

  Avi laughed.

  “We need to boogie if we’re gonna make it to Junior’s before he closes.” Maddie got to her feet and withdrew a shiny set of keys from the pocket of her slacks. “Here you go.” She handed them to Avi. “I guess this makes it official.”

  Avi took them from her. “I feel like there should be more ceremony here.”

  “Cake? Ice cream?” Maddie prompted. “Exotic dancers?”

  “That could work as a start.”

  “How about you come to the house on Tuesday night for tacos?” Syd suggested. “We can invite Lizzy, too, and test your theory about Henry.”

  Maddie shot Syd a wary glance, but Syd ignored her.

  “Okay.” Avi tossed the keys into the air and caught them. “I’m not ashamed of being transparent enough to accept.”

  “So what do we owe you for the therapy session?” Maddie asked.

  Avi took a moment to consider Maddie’s question.

  “What?” Maddie prompted her. “Do you prefer to be paid in small bills with non-sequential serial numbers?”

  “How’d you guess?” Avi grinned. “I’ll slip an invoice under your door.”

  Chapter Seven

  Recorded Interview

  Preliminary Inquest Investigation

  Death of Mayor Gerald Watson

  “James Edward Lawrence, Corporal, U.S. Army Transport Corps. Now stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.”

  I hope the signal doesn’t drop out again. I only have twenty more minutes left on my lunch break.

  “Yes, sir. I reenlisted at the end of June, about ten days before the picnic on the 4th of July. I went to the picnic with my son, Henry. He was really excited to see the fireworks. He still lives in town with Dr. Stevenson and her partner, Miss Murphy. We share joint custody of him.”

  I really don’t understand why they’ve been so hell-bent on talking with me. I didn’t even know the mayor. At least I could do it this way and not have to fly back to Virginia. That wouldn’t have gone over well with the CO.

  “Yeah. I did see the shouting match between Mayor Watson and David Jenkins. It was right before the debate was supposed to start. The mayor showed up loaded for bear. He started it all. David pretty much stood there while the mayor went off on him. I never heard David say anything to him, in fact.”

  That man looked like he wanted to crawl beneath one of the tables and hide. It was like he folded up on himself. I could see how scared he was—I’d seen that same look on the faces of some of the guys in Afghanistan.

  “The mayor was all ramped up about his daughter, and he was accusing David of behaving . . . inappropriately toward her. But none of us who were there standing in line to get dessert saw anything like that. David and the little girl, Dorothy, were joking and teasing each other—more like brother and sister, you know? All in fun. He was trying to get her to take one of each dessert, and she was complaining that she’d never be able to eat that much. It all seemed pretty innocent to me.”

  When Watson grabbed that girl by the arm and jerked her away, I wanted to take his head off, myself. I don’t think I was the only one who felt that way, either.

  “I was with my son, Henry and my friend, Rita. Rita Chriscoe. We were in line together when all this happened.”

  Shit. Rita said if they talked to me, they’d probably ask about her . . .

  “After Watson took off with his daughter, I went up and helped Raymond Odell set the tables back up. Watson had pushed David into one of them and knocked it over. There were plates of cake and cookies and stuff all over the ground.”

  Rita disappeared about that time, too. She wasn’t still there with Henry when we finished cleaning up. He said she just left without saying anything to him.

  “No sir, I don’t know where David went. All I know is he ran off and his partner followed him. That’s Michael Robertson. They run the inn in town.”

  I didn’t see Rita again that night, either.

  “Henry and I stayed on and watched the fireworks. We left for Troutdale at about 8:30. I didn’t hear anything about what had happened to the mayor until the next morning.”

  Come on, man . . . let’s wrap this up. Oh, shit. Here it comes.

  “No, sir. I don’t know where Rita went after the whole dessert fiasco. I suppose she wandered off to get more smokes out of her car. She’d been trying to quit, but had fallen off the wagon, and had pretty much been smoking up a storm all day.”

  That’s not really a lie. I hope it’s enough to call the damn dogs off her.

  “No, sir. I didn’t see Rita or David again that night. Like I said, Henry and I watched the fireworks and left right after they were over.”

  I wish like hell I could say Rita had stayed on with us.

  “Yes, sir. That’s all I know about what happened. I hope it ends up being an accident, like they say. I think everybody associated with that man has already suffered enough.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Dorothy was trying really hard not to show how nervous she was. Dr. Heller had brought her to the doctor’s office and said she’d stay there in the waiting room until Dorothy’s appointment was over. That way, if it got too hard or too scary, Dorothy could leave.

  But she didn’t want to leave. She knew it meant a lot to Dr. Heller for her to be here, and she thought she could do it. She owed a lot to Dr. Heller. And when Dr. Heller had asked her to think about doing this, Dorothy felt like she needed to. Talking about her father was never easy—and it was going to be really hard, now. She knew Dr. Zakariya was going to ask her questions about him. Probably more questions than anyone had ever asked her about him.

  Most people shied away from doing that.

  She guessed that was because sometimes when people asked, they were just being polite and didn’t really want to know the truth about what was happening to her at home. They just did it because they felt like they were supposed to. She could always see the looks of relief on their faces whenever she’d shrug and say she was fine.

  But Dr. Heller had never done that. Neither had Dr. Stevenson or Miss Murphy. Or David. David always asked like he meant it, too. She was lucky to have so many people who really seemed to care about her, and weren’t afraid to show it.

/>   And there was Buddy, too. He had always been really nice to her. She knew he tried in his quiet ways to protect her. That’s why she couldn’t let her father hurt him that day at the river. She had to stop him in the only way she could.

  Now he was dead.

  And she was here to have to talk about it with this doctor. The doctor would try to tell her she wasn’t responsible, but she knew she was. She hit him and he died. Nothing could ever change that.

  But as much as she trusted Dr. Heller, she had still never told her very much about everything her father had done. It was too hard—and she worried that if people knew everything, they’d blame her for all of that, too.

  That was the part that always scared her most . . . worrying that maybe she had done things to make him act the way he did.

  When Dr. Zakariya came out to the waiting room to greet her, she looked really happy to see Dr. Heller. They shook hands and made small talk for a minute. Dr. Zakariya made a comment about how much Dr. Stevenson looked like her mother.

  That was true. They were both really pretty women—tall, with the same dark hair and blue eyes. But Dr. Heller’s hair was short and had streaks of gray in it. Dr. Zakariya asked if Dr. Heller wanted some coffee while she waited. Dr. Heller said that would be great, and the nurse, Mrs. Hawkes, jumped up to fetch it for her.

  Then they walked down a hallway to Dr. Zakariya’s new office.

  Dorothy could tell that Dr. Zakariya—Avi, she asked Dorothy to call her—was trying to make her feel less nervous. She apologized that her office was still kind of messy. There were books stacked in piles along two of the walls, and some framed diplomas leaning against the side of her desk. There was some artwork in there, too. One of the pictures was of a big group of lines and squares painted in all different colors. Dorothy liked that one. It reminded her of some of the pictures at Dr. Heller’s.

  Dr. Heller liked modern art and had explained to Dorothy that paintings like this one dealt with abstract depictions of light and color in ways that pulled the viewer into a shared sense of space.

  Dorothy just knew that to her, the colors looked warm and alive, and seemed to work well painted next to each other. Dr. Heller said that was exactly right, and that what Dorothy was seeing was the artist’s idea of harmony.