by Faith Hunter
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* * *
“Cale Nowell went to prison for vehicular manslaughter four years ago,” I said, as I dumped a French fry into a pile of mustard. “He’s out on good behavior. His parole officer, A. K. Montgomery, says Cale got special permission to travel across state lines with the band, with Stella Mae swearing in court during his parole hearing that there would be no alcohol and no drugs on any of the tour buses. Cale missed his parole meeting last week, but he called, talked to Montgomery on the phone, and said he would be back for a long break and would be in to see the parole officer. He’d been a model parolee so the officer let him go this once.”
JoJo and I were in the conference room eating. The big boss was in back, on the phone. The sex pics were off the main screen, thank goodness.
I punched a key and put up crime scene photos taken by Occam from the farm. Cale Nowell had taken shelter in the tents and had then spent time in the portable null room. I had talked to him through the layers of sky blue P3E unis and never seen his face so I didn’t recognize him from the sex photos. He had tattoos on every visible part of his body, from knuckles to face. There were tattooed swirls over his left eye and into his carefully sculpted hairline. He was tall, buff, with chiseled musculature and beautiful bone structure. His jaw was sharp, his chin hard, his green eyes soft. His driver’s license listed him as Black and Other, which meant that he was probably mixed race. In one single photo from Stella’s farm, snapped by a deputy early on, his eyes were red from weeping, his expression shocked and full of horror.
I studied the photos, and then pulled up Nowell’s original arrest report. At the scene of an accident that had killed a seventy-year-old woman, Cale had been arrested, pled guilty to a reduced charge, and served three years. He had been driving Stella’s car and Stella had been injured. I opened the crime scene photos from the car accident. It had been awful, Stella’s car half on top of the other car. There was no way that the driver in the other car had survived.
I focused on the images of the car Cale had been driving, paging through. The driver’s seat was far forward. That could have happened from the impact. But there was makeup smeared on the driver’s-side airbag. None on the passenger-side airbag.
In the arrest photos, Cale’s face showed no traces of makeup.
I could find no mention or photos of Stella Mae, except that she had been taken to the hospital by ambulance.
I had a bad feeling that Cale, one of Stella’s husbands, had taken the hit for Stella, or the arresting officer had arrested the only black man at the scene. It was unlikely to affect this case, but I ran a quick search for the family and heirs of the woman who had died in the accident, just in case vengeance was a motive. I found nothing that led me to believe there was any family revenge involved. The accident didn’t look as if it pertained to this case.
Summarizing my conclusions, I sent all the information to the current case files. Almost immediately my cell rang and Occam’s name appeared on the screen. A warm, slightly electric heat flashed through me. “Special Agent Ingram,” I said, letting him know that I was in the presence of other unit members.
“Nell, sugar, this is good stuff. Prison record. Disappeared from the crime scene. Hasn’t been seen since. I’ll be contacting Cale Nowell. We finally got us a person of interest.”
“I’m glad I could help.”
“I miss you, sugar.”
The call ended before I could reply, but JoJo snickered at my expression. Before I could figure out how to respond, the office number rang and I answered, “PsyLED. Special Agent Ingram.”
“This is Sophee Anne Ragel, Stella Mae Ragel’s sister. I’d like to talk to someone who can tell me about the investigation into my sister’s murder.”
“Ms. Ragel,” I said. JoJo looked up and motioned me to put it on speaker. I did. “We’re just in the opening stages of the investigation. I know this must be very difficult.” JoJo gave me a thumbs-up to continue. “And I thank you for calling. Can you tell me if you have any new thoughts on your sister’s state of mind in the days leading up to her death?”
“I can’t think a nothing new. I can only think about the usual death threats. Are you people looking into them?”
JoJo nodded and mouthed, Me.
“Our very best investigator is looking into each and every one, Ms. Ragel. Was Stella Mae unusually worried or afraid of one of the threats?”
“It was always business as usual with Stella. If she was singling one out, she woulda told her security, not her family. She wouldn’t ever worry us.”
“Have you had any further thoughts about Stella seeing someone new romantically?” I asked, wondering if her family was really blind to Stella’s lifestyle, or if I would hear the truth now. “Has Stella recently broken up with someone? Fired someone from the band? Was she having financial problems?”
“I don’t know. No. And definitely not. Her band are family. This tour was a crazy good financial success, according to her manager.”
I glanced at JoJo, who rolled her hand in the air in a keep going gesture. “Has anyone found her will?”
“Not that I know of. There’ve been three in the last few years. It’ll turn up. Or her lawyer will come forward with the latest.”
“Three? Why so many wills?”
“Stella was always adding people to her will. She’d make a few codicils or whatever you call ’em, and then her lawyer, Augustina Mattson, would tell her it was getting confusing and it was time to upgrade. This last time she created trusts and added gifts for a bunch a friends. But I haven’t seen it. None of us have. We been putting together funeral arrangements, and we ain’t had access to her house to look, thanks to the cops. You can check with Mattson.”
I asked, “What can you tell me about the poly marriage Stella was part of at the commune?”
Sophee pulled in a noisy breath and said, “That’s disgusting. We don’t talk about that. Ever.” She hung up.
“Sounds like you hit a nerve,” JoJo said.
I stared at the wedding photo, thinking about hidden emotions and anger and jealousy and multiple-partner marriages. Thinking about secrets, church-style.
* * *
* * *
I could have, probably should have, stayed longer at HQ, but I was exhausted. I left work early, and felt my usual intense joy at driving onto Soulwood land, passing a small open space between trees, about an acre of grassland at the bottom of the hill, close to the road. A deer was standing in the center of the grass, nibbling, ignoring me as I drove past. I knew, without understanding how I knew, that Mud and Esther were not at the house, which meant that tomorrow, someone from the church would have to drive Mud to school and Esther to wherever she wanted to go. I should have listened to the messages from my sisters, but consoled myself that they had survived the day at the church. My Honda pulled up the hill, a steady purr of sound. The car wasn’t an all-wheel drive, which meant it wasn’t as practical for winter driving as I might want, but the heated seats and the ability to lock my weapons in the trunk made up for not getting an SUV with better icy-road-handling for winter.
Just as I was about to turn into my drive, I spotted the trees. New trees. Trees growing where they shouldn’t. I slowed, coasted to a stop on the side of the road, and stared at the trees growing among the oaks and poplars and sweet gums on the far side of the boundary between the Vaughns’ farm and Soulwood. They were saplings with dark bark and very dark green leaves with red petioles and red veins. Leaves that looked a lot like the kind I grew. There were long, thin thorns on the branches. What looked like vines reached from branches to the ground. The vampire tree had taken root just beyond the boundary of my property, hiding in plain sight among the existing trees on the Vaughn farm side. The tall straight trunks were directly across the street from my dogs’ gravesites, the dogs shot by the churchmen.
I stared at the graves and my eye
s teared up, making the trees waver. “Stupid to grieve about the dogs now,” I whispered to myself.
The trees stood in a line, a hundred feet long, at least three trees deep. As if guarding the road to the house and, perhaps, the small graves. The tree had no fruit, no others of its kind to mate with, so until it figured out how to cross to itself, it propagated via runners, rootlets that pushed through the soil. The roots had to extend far onto my land and also back, the many, many yards, beneath the top of the hill east of my land, to the original tree on church land.
Sneak attack. Dang tree.
I blinked the tears away, put the car in park, and walked across the dirt to the grass verge, the engine still idling. The afternoon temperatures didn’t prove it, but it was technically autumn and there were a few colorful leaves on the ground, mostly maple and poplar. My three acres needed to be mowed, but it took a while to cut that much grass, even using the new small tractor and large mower attachment I had bought recently.
I walked to the graves, still easy to pick out even now. The rocks I had placed over them were mixed river rock and broken hill-stones, iron brown and deep gray, some with sharp edges. I stood between the graves, regarding the trees. They— No. It. It was a fast-growing hardwood, once an oak, now a meat-eating monster, despite its claim to be the Green Knight. A squirrel was speared on one of the thorns and a vine was circling around it. I had never watched to see how the tree ate. I didn’t really want to know and, as if the tree knew that, it pulled the squirrel around back, out of sight.
I sank onto the ground and put my hands flat on the grass, wriggling my fingertips in through the roots into the soil. Good, rich Soulwood soil warmed me up through my hands and arms. It was like getting a hug from Mama, safe and protected.
I reached into the ground with my gift, deeper into the soil, bypassing the bones of my dogs, not encouraging the earth to digest them. I touched buried rocks and clayey soil and various layers from floods. Roots from all the nearby trees had encroached onto the land. Including the roots of the vampire tree.
They knew I was there, underground, with them. I let my eyes close and my shoulders slump. Conversation with the tree wasn’t easy. It didn’t have eyes or language as people understood it. However, it had absorbed mammals, probably even the man who had gone missing on the church land, a slime of blood the only trace. It had digested and taken in their sensory perceptions, perhaps even their memories. It had created for itself the human-shaped persona of the Green Knight to protect me and talk to me. Communication was possible, strangely image-based and concept-based. I envisioned the place where I sat, the house behind me, the grass beneath me, the trees in front of me.
I got back an image of a green horse, nibbling green grass.
I sent images of human shapes cutting down oak and pine and walnut and hickory trees, sawing them to make boards.
The horse raised his head and looked at me, long tufts of grass waving in his lips as he chewed.
I sent a vision of my house being built from the wood. Visions of the wood in its walls, on its floors, siding, window frames. And then I sent images of me walking on the cut boards, touching cabinets. Of me being able to commune with the land beneath simply by taking off my shoes and touching the boards that had grown on Soulwood.
The green horse was joined by the Green Knight, his hand on the horse’s neck. Waiting. Interested.
I sent it images of the vampire trees being cut down, shaped into logs, some cut into boards. Of being made into a house.
The horse stomped, nostrils flared. The Green Knight fisted his hand in the mane.
The tree sent me images of bloody tree stumps and roots, of bloody leaves waving in the air. Of vines coiling around my wrists. Sticking thorns into my flesh. Pulling me beneath the ground, wrapped tightly in roots.
Defensive moves. Saying no.
I called on Soulwood. Its power rose up in me, warm, alive, and . . . mine. I gathered it into myself. And shoved. Shoved the roots away, breaking them, tearing them, crushing them. Then sending an image of the trees cut down and made into a house. Allowed to regrow in the same place. Taking and giving back. A job.
The Green Knight and the horse backed up at a synchronized pace, stepping high over the tall green grass. Aloud, I said, “You will have to find a way to survive in this world, a job to do, a purpose to fulfill, and not just as my protector. I won’t have you imposing your will on me. Soulwood and I will destroy you first.”
I sent an image of Soulwood rising up, a massive green predator. I had claimed leopards for my land and in my vision, the land rose as a leopard with dark green spots and emerald claws, huge green fangs like a monster. Another cat followed it, this one darker, a green so dark it might be black, but with paler green claws and serrated fangs and glowing leaf-green eyes. In my vision, I sent Soulwood after the tree.
The wild green cats attacked the Green Knight and the horse. The battle was fierce and short, and when the scarlet blood finished falling, the Green Knight and his horse were withering on the ground. Dead. The vision broke up and misted away, leaving the real Green Knight staring at me, his horse staring at me. Unmoving.
I didn’t wait to see its reaction. I got up and left the tree, walking to the Honda. I had never been threatened by a tree. The Green Knight, my pale leafy butt, I thought. I’ll kick your’un butt before I let you’un take me. I would not be abused by a dang tree, no matter how smart it was.
Back at my vehicle, I drove to the house, parked, and sent a text message to Sam, my brother, asking if he’d find out what the churchmen would charge to cut down and mill a bunch of trees. I didn’t mention the vampire tree. My brother thought it was a murdering demon tree. And maybe he was right. I gathered my gear and stepped from the car.
Soulwood reached up and twined around my soul. Healing. Warm. Full of gentle magic, my magic. The magic of life and all living things. But life came with battle, with defending all that was mine. And if I had to fight, that might come with death.
Before I got the door unlocked, I received a three-part text from Sam that the girls were staying over with Mama tonight, that he’d take Mud to school in the morning, and that he’d check on the logging and land clearing. I had . . . I had a night to myself. A night free. Delight spread through me. And then I remembered that Occam was in Cookeville.
Dagnabbit.
I changed clothes and went to the greenhouse. Greenhouses took a lot of work, but it wasn’t backbreaking work, since the beds were raised and so much was automated, like the delivery system for water and fertilizer. I worked in the garden too, which was much harder on the back. I weeded, harvested, turned over the mulch, picked off pests and wondered if chicken runs in the garden would keep most of the pests off. I’d never tried it. I worked hard, sweating, needing this, this contact with the earth. With Soulwood.
Hours later, my cell rang just as I was crawling into bed. I answered, “Ingram here. Hello, FireWind.”
“Two more people who were at the house the day the T-shirts were opened have fallen ill. All of the sick are now at UTMC for paranormal medical workups. Go to the hospital in the morning and this time,” he said sharply, “stay long enough to interview the sick and their doctors. I have done this one by cell; I want you to personally reissue the invitation for the patients to use the null room at HQ. When you get to HQ, I’d like you to spend a bit of time in it too, just to be on the safe side.”
I hadn’t interviewed the patients last time I visited because Connelly Darrow died. It had been the right thing to do, but I hadn’t gone back yet. And FireWind was peeved. “Yes, sir,” I said.
The call ended. I stared at the screen and said, “Good-bye to you too.” And oddly, my brain added one silent word to that.
Butthole.
I felt dreadfully guilty.
TEN
I arrived at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, Paranormal Unit, just
before dawn. I went through the usual process of showing ID at the nurses’ station and gave them two more null pens to share among the patients. Following FireWind’s orders, I informed and reminded them that time in a null room should be a primary component of the patients’ treatment plans.
After comparing the names of the patients on the floor with a list sent to me by Tandy during the night, and dressing out in a blue gown, gloves, booties, and a mask, I eased back the patient curtain in Thomas Langer’s room. Robinelle was asleep in the chair in the corner, her legs drawn up, her head at an uncomfortable angle, weighted down by the big bun.
There were purple circles under Robinelle’s eyes and her skin was ashen. She was exhausted. I was careful not to wake her, and turned slowly to look at her brother. I managed to hold in my flinch. Thomas Langer was watching me.
His dark eyes were intense, and his hands, in restraints at his sides to keep him from pulling his tubes out, were balled tightly inside the bloody and green-goo-stained bandages. A pulse pounded in his throat, throbbing beneath the bluish vein. His dreadlocks had been pulled back beneath a blue cap. He was still on the ventilator.
I tilted my head. “Do you understand me?”
He tried to speak and his eyes clenched shut. It looked painful. He opened them a few heartbeats later and nodded once.
“Shall I get the nurse?”
He nodded again.
I pressed the “nurse call” button and a woman in purple scrubs stuck her head in, her eyes taking in everything. She said, “He’s awake, that explains the vitals we’re seeing just now. Give me a minute and I’ll be right in.”
She was still tying her blue gown when she entered. “Tommy, I’m your nurse, Ginny. How are you? No, don’t struggle. Just listen. Are you listening?”
Thomas nodded once, slightly. Even that looked painful.
