Legacy of Masks

by Sallie Bissell

  That man had been Deke Keener, who’d brought them here and given them a house, a good job, and security like they’d never known before. He and Glenn had, over the years, become like brothers, and when Glenn had confided in Deke about their problems with Bethany, Deke had reassured them as none of their paid professionals could. “It’ll pass,” he said sympathetically. “I’ve seen a little of this behavior in some of my ball players. You just have to ride it out.”

  “Why are you cooking breakfast?” Glenn blinked at the frying bacon, accustomed, as they all were, to her usual menu of cereal, milk, and fruit.

  “I don’t know.” She didn’t want to admit to falling victim to her mother’s criticism, or to the specious logic that a hearty breakfast might start Bethany on the road to sobriety. “I thought maybe it might get everything off on a better foot.”

  “Everything or everybody?” asked Glenn pointedly.

  Paula shook her head. “Doesn’t matter, does it?” She poured the first pancake in the skillet. That one, she remembered, you were supposed to cook and then throw away. “So what are you up to today?” she asked as he spooned sugar in his coffee.

  “Deke wants to visit that Bear Den site,” he replied. “Although I don’t know why. He hasn’t even gotten the right-of-way from that old Cherokee.”

  “Maybe he thinks two of you can be more persuasive than one.”

  Her husband gave her a dour look. “You ever see an Indian who could be persuaded into anything he didn’t want to do?”

  Though his words were about a construction project, she knew he was really talking about Ridge Standingdeer. “Let’s not go there,” she told him wearily, dumping the first pancake in the garbage and pouring three new ones into the skillet. “It’s too early, and anyway, he doesn’t come around here anymore. You scared him off.”

  Glenn snorted as he sat down at the table. A few moments later, she put a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of him.

  “Oh, wow. These look great.” He grinned at her as he reached for the maple syrup. “Are there seconds?”

  “I made enough for a small army.”

  “So where’s our army?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll call them again.” She started across the kitchen to rouse her children once more, when Kayla appeared in the doorway.

  “Hi, honey,” said Paula. “I was just about to call you. Did you wake up your sister?”

  “I banged on her door,” Kayla replied, plopping down in the chair beside her father.

  “She’ll be down in a few minutes, then.” Paula went back to the stove, hoping that her firstborn was indeed up, hoping that this wasn’t going to be one of those mornings.

  Two more months. Paula stacked pancakes on Kayla’s plate, now imagining breakfast in September. They would all be here at the table, at the same time, getting ready for their day, sleepy but not nervous; quiet perhaps, but not out of fear that the wrong word or glance might set off a maelstrom of abuse. The tight sick knot that this family had been coiled in would loosen. For the first time in years, they could just be themselves.

  Suddenly she heard a knock at the kitchen door. She turned. Her husband’s boss stood there, grinning. She hurried to let him in. “Deke!” she leaned over and kissed his cheek. “What a nice surprise!”

  “Good morning, beautiful! Your worthless husband awake yet?”

  “He sure is. Come on in and have some breakfast with us.” She held the door open wide. “I’ve made pancakes.”

  “Pancakes?” Deke came in and gave Kayla a wink, Glenn a playful punch on his shoulder. “What did y’all do to deserve pancakes this morning?”

  “Beats me,” Glenn replied. “I just showed up and here they were. Want some?”

  “Have you got any extra?” asked Deke.

  “I’ve got plenty,” said Paula, thinking that maybe for once her sour old mother had been right. This was fun, sitting around the breakfast table, eating pancakes. Paula stacked three on a plate for Deke, then fixed him a cup of coffee just the way he liked it—one sugar, plenty of cream.

  She sat down finally, and began to eat a pancake of her own, listening as the men discussed the softball team, the upcoming Fourth of July picnic, the new attorney Deke had hired to help him with the Bear Den site.

  “That’s one of the reasons I stopped by,” Deke told Glenn. “I thought I would take this Bear Den mess over to her and free you up for that Tsali Trail meeting.”

  “Suits me,” said Glenn. “What did you say her name was?”

  “Mary Crow. I went to high school with her. She’s half Cherokee.” Deke grinned. “The other half is pure Atlanta belle.” He looked around the breakfast table. “Say, where is our own little belle? She’s the other reason I stopped by here.”

  “Good lord!” cried Paula, glancing at the clock over the refrigerator. “She’s still asleep. And she’s got to be at work by nine. You guys help yourselves to more pancakes. I’ll go drag her out of bed.”

  Paula hurried out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Bethany’s door was still closed. She knocked once, for an instant wondering what she would do if Bethany wasn’t there; if Bethany had just ditched her scholarship and her future and run off with that Cherokee boy. Hurriedly she opened the door. To her relief Bethany still lay in bed, the sheets pulled up around her ears.

  “Bethany!” Paula called. “Bethany! It’s time to get up! You’re going to be late!”

  The girl did not move; did not even twitch. Lord, thought Paula. She must have really tied one on.

  “Bethany!” she called, louder. Still no response.

  “Bethany!” Walking over to the bed, she shook her daughter’s shoulder. Then she saw her head, bashed in like a melon. The tomahawk that Ridge Standingdeer had given her lay on the bed beside her. She realized then, as she screamed a scream that filled the room, the house, the whole rest of the world, that she was not going to have to wait until August to find out what life was like without Bethany; for her, life without Bethany was beginning right now.

  14

  Later that morning, Mary Crow sat in her new office, gazing at the buttery sunlight that slanted across her desk. Usually her work surface was cluttered with evidence files and coroners’ reports and a hundred other documents peculiar to prosecutors. Today her desk held only a growing list of items she needed from the hardware store, and three thick legal texts she had not cracked since first-year law. Two empty armchairs faced her desk and behind them, on the wall, a battery-operated clock she’d found in Irene’s guestroom, a curious thing that marked the hours with various bird calls. She’d been waiting for Deke Keener since the mockingbird trilled nine; now the tufted titmouse had just chirped eleven. Her nervousness at having her first client was rapidly growing into irritation at his lateness, and she wondered if she’d fallen victim to one of those notorious Southern hyperboles, like “Come on over anytime” or “I’ll call you real soon.” Natives knew those airy phrases meant nothing, but they aroused great confusion in more literal-minded New Yorkers and Californians, who either showed up on the doorstep at inopportune moments or waited hopefully for phone calls that never came.

  Still, Deke said he’d be here first thing this morning, so she assumed that eventually he would show up. Anyway, it wasn’t like she had any other clients lined up outside the door. Taking a sip of the coffee she’d brought up from Layla’s, she tried to refocus on the one book she’d opened. Her mind balked. Property estate had been dull enough in law school; after ten years as a criminal prosecutor, reading about general warranty deeds, special warranty deeds, and mortgage deeds made her feel as if her brain was shutting down, neuron by neuron. As she looked at the two other texts she had yet to open, a wave of dread washed over her, and it was all she could do not to close the book and run shrieking out the door.

  “You can do this,” she scolded herself. “Once you get accustomed to it, it won’t seem so bad. Just remember Jonathan.”

  Jonathan. Although last night had gone far better than
she’d hoped, there had been a tentativeness about Jonathan she’d never seen before. She’d glimpsed it in his eyes the moment she walked in the store; she’d felt it much later in his kiss, after they’d put Lily to bed.

  “I can’t believe you’re really here,” he’d said as they sat on the porch, watching a huge yellow moon rise over the pine trees across the river. With one finger, he traced her cheek, all the way down to the tip of her chin.

  “Actually, I can’t either.” She closed her eyes, his touch electric on her skin. She was amazed that no other woman had staked a claim on the single father with the beautiful brown-eyed baby girl.

  “And you’re really going to open your own practice?” He sounded so much like a little boy, she almost laughed.

  “I’ve signed a six-month lease in town,” she told him. “If I can’t drum up some business by Christmas, I may have to rethink things.”

  “But you’ll still just be a general lawyer?”

  “I’ll do everything except divorces,” she answered, remembering her promise to Dana Shope.

  “What about DUIs? Assault and battery? Murder?”

  She smiled. In different guises, he’d asked the same question three times since supper. She knew exactly why. As much as he loved her, Jonathan had always hated what she did. Hated the evidence files she’d brought home in Atlanta, hated the look in her eyes when a case wasn’t going well, hated the thought that at any time some vengeful scumbag might be waiting for her with a knife in a dark parking lot. Her career choice had been an issue between them for years. Now, with a daughter to raise, as much as he might love Mary, she knew he would not tolerate Lily being exposed to the risk and squalor of a prosecutorial career. She understood perfectly; in fact, she fully agreed.

  “DUIs maybe. Murder—no. I might not be a prosecutor anymore, but I’m certainly not going to work the other side of the aisle.”

  “For real?” The moonlight glittered in his eyes, the sometimes hard curve of his mouth was soft, relaxed.

  “Yes,” she said. She was not, after a three-thousand-mile journey back from Peru, going to let her choice of legal specialty stand between them. She had avenged her mother’s murder many times over. Now it was time to let younger, hungrier prosecutors take up the fight. She wanted other things from life.

  Her promise seemed to quell the turmoil inside him. He put his arm around her and together they watched the moon rise, becoming a small bright circle of light shimmering over the dark waters of the Little Tee.

  Now she sat back, reliving the feel of his lips, until her gaze fell on the book that lay open in front of her.

  Come on, she told herself, forcing her attention back to the present. Deke Keener is coming to see you. You’d damn well better at least try to sound like you know something about property law.

  For the fourth time, she began the chapter on the various types of deeds. Line after line of print darkened the page, with little white space in between. Though she tried to comprehend the meaning of the text, as she read, the letters seemed to blend together, making an unintelligible hash of words. Finally she started reading the sentences out loud, just to keep her eyelids from closing. By the time she’d read to the end of the first page, the mourning dove clock cooed noon.

  “Good grief!” She slammed the book shut, angry. In no way could noon be considered first thing in the morning. Apparently, Keener had stood her up. She could have gone to the hardware store, bought all the items on her list during the time she’d spent here, poring over stupid real estate law. She was considering calling him on the new land line they’d installed this morning, when she heard a chirp of another sort—her cell phone beeping in her purse.

  “Hello?” she answered quickly, thinking perhaps Jonathan had brought Lily to town and they could have lunch.

  “Mary? Is that you?” Hugh Kavanagh’s normally low-pitched voice sounded high and breathy, as if he were in pain.

  “Hugh!” Mary sat up straighter in her chair. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ve got to get over here! The cops have Ridge cornered in my barn!”

  “Ridge? What on earth for?”

  “They want to arrest him.” She heard Hugh choke back a sob.

  “Arrest him? Why?”

  “Sweet Jesus, they think he killed Bethany Daws.” The old man broke down in tears.

  Mary nearly dropped the phone. Bethany Daws? The girl who’d just yesterday brought them muffins for breakfast—dead?

  “I don’t understand, Hugh—”

  “Neither do I. But the girl’s dead and the bastards have Ridge trapped in my barn. Mary, girl, you’ve got to come. These bloody fools will shoot him!”

  She remembered the pill bottles lined up across Hugh’s windowsill. Nitroglycerin, Inderal. Heart medications. Whatever the problem was between the cops and Ridge Standingdeer, it was spiking Hugh Kavanagh’s stress level up to Mars. “Take a deep breath, Hugh,” she said. “Go in the kitchen and take one of your pills, then go back outside and tell the officer in charge that there is no need for violence, your attorney is on the way.”

  “Aye.” Hugh gave a loud sniff.

  Mary could picture the old man with his Irish up, hobbling out to bash some cop over the head with his cane. “I know you’re angry, Hugh, but you’ve got to stay calm. You mustn’t give the cops any reason to think you’re out of control, too.”

  “I won’t. Just hurry, girl. Please!”

  Switching off her phone, she grabbed her purse. She should probably leave Keener a note, but since he was the one who’d not shown up at the appointed time, she was off the hook. Anyway, she really didn’t have time to write any notes of apology. If she left right now, it would still take her half an hour to get to Hugh’s. Grabbing her car keys, she opened her door. She jumped. Directly in front of her, with his hand poised to knock, stood Deke Keener. His complexion was ashen beneath his freckles, and his brown eyes darted as if they were hooked up to small wires.

  “Hi, Mary. I’m so sorry I’m late. Something terrible has—”

  “I can’t meet with you now, Deke,” she interrupted, practically running over him. “I’ve got to get over to Hugh Kavanagh’s farm.”

  “Is it something to do with Ridge Standingdeer?”

  She frowned. “How did you know?”

  “I just left Glenn Daws’ house. I heard Jerry Cochran put out the APB on the boy.”

  Mary’s heart fell. “So it’s true? That pretty young girl is dead?”

  Deke nodded sadly. “I was there this morning, when Paula found her. Someone smashed her head open with a tomahawk.”

  “A tomahawk?” Mary echoed, incredulous.

  Deke swallowed, as if trying not to weep. “Yeah, you know, they sell them all over town. A river rock the size of my fist, tied to a length of white oak.”

  Mary nodded. She’d grown up selling the things to tourists at Little Jump Off. They were primitive, but lethal, weapons that now sold for about four bucks a pop.

  “It was awful, horrible,” Deke moaned. “The worst thing I’ve ever seen . . .”

  “Hugh just called me. He says cops have Ridge cornered in his barn. They think he killed the girl.”

  “They do have a history,” said Deke. “But when I left Glenn’s house, Cochran just wanted to bring the boy in for questioning.”

  “Well, according to Hugh they have a SWAT team with every gunsight trained on Ridge. I’ve got to get over there before Hugh drops dead from the stress!”

  “How about I drive you?” suggested Deke. “I know a shortcut that’ll get us there fast.”

  “We may have to stay there a while,” Mary warned him. “I have no idea what’s going on out there.”

  “I don’t mind. You know, Mary, that boy’s going to need a whole lot better place to hide than Kavanagh’s barn. Glenn already wants to kill him. When the rest of the town finds out about this, they’re gonna go just as nuts.”

  “Deke, the boy’s innocent until he’s found guilty.”

>   “Of course he is.” Deke seemed embarrassed. “It’s just been a very hard morning. I want Bethany’s killer found just as badly as Glenn does.”

  “I’m sure you do, Deke,” said Mary. “But you’ve got to make sure you’ve got the right killer before you shove the needle in the guy’s arm.”

  15

  Police cars blocked both the front and rear entrances to Hugh’s barn. Hugh stood holding Cushla McCree on a lead rope, waggling his cane at a plainclothes officer the size of a small tree. The horse’s ears were slapped back and Hugh’s face looked purple as he raged at the man, who was further fanning Hugh’s wrath with his best I’m-a-cop-and-you’re-not smirk.

  Mary scrambled out of the car before Deke came to a full stop. She could tell that Hugh was about thirty seconds away from a coronary and that nothing would please the cop more than to have the old Irishman drop dead at his feet.

  “Hugh!” she called. “Wait! What’s going on?”

  Both men turned. Then Hugh stormed out to meet her, pulling Cushla behind him. The cop pushed his sunglasses higher on his nose and stared at them, animated as a stump.

  “Ridge and I were working Cushla when this sorry bastard came into the ring.” Hugh pointed his cane at the cop. “He spooked the horse into next Tuesday. By the time Ridge got her calmed down, more cops had come, and they were aiming rifles at him!”

  “Did you take your pills, Hugh?” asked Mary, noticing that his color had gone from purple to a strange mottled gray. His breath was coming in shallow gulps. Are you having chest pains?”

  “Aye. That I am.”