“I am Mother Teresa.”
Oh, oh. This was going to be delicate. “Where is Cow Lady?” Molly asked. “What can I do to help?”
“She want you to come to her now please. Very important she say. Tell Molly Cates, life and death.”
“Maybe we should call 911, for an ambulance.”
“Ooh, noooo. That you cannot do, missus.”
“Why not?”
“It would defeat the miracle, which you are to behold.”
“Miracle?”
“Yes, missus. You will write about it, she say. You will make me famous, like the other Mother Teresa, that one in India. You will write in a magazine about the miracle.”
“Well, I’d sure like to hear about that. But I’m worried she might need medical attention.”
“She be much better now. You will see. Come right now and I will show you.”
Molly pulled her notebook out of her bag. “Where shall I come?”
“You know where the two roads Barton Springs and Lamar come together?”
“Yes.”
“Stand on the corner that is to the south and the west, where there is paintings on cloth. I will come to get you and together we will walk to her.”
“All right. But it will take me about fifteen minutes to get there. How will I know you?”
The woman chuckled, a light musical riff. “You will know me. I am Mother Teresa.”
“Just in case I don’t, what are you wearing?”
“A robe of many colors. You will know me.” The woman hung up.
Oh, boy.
Molly put the phone down. She should call Calvin Shawcross, who had the Emily Bickerstaff murder, and let him decide how to handle this, but he was likely to be too heavy-handed. And she had a hunch this Mother Teresa might provide some grist for her homeless article. Anyway, she could call Shawcross later, after she’d had a chance to talk to Cow Lady.
And there was no real risk to this. It was broad daylight on a Sunday afternoon. They were meeting at one of the busiest intersections in town. And she’d be willing to bet this Mother Teresa woman was squirrelly, but not dangerous. But just to be on the safe side, she stuck her cellular phone in her bag, and after a few seconds of thought, she left the revolver where it was in the secret compartment. It had proved itself highly useful last night. She was beginning to see why people got devoted to their handguns.
She drove south on Lamar in the sparse Sunday traffic, thinking about Parnell. She’d vowed she would talk to him today. And she would. She had to, but it was a relief to have this excuse to delay it. Strange that, just as she was getting close to answering the most compelling question of her life, she seemed to be losing momentum.
She turned onto Barton Springs Road and parked behind a hippie coffeehouse that had somehow survived intact from the sixties.
She walked the three blocks to the intersection, which had been developed in the past year into a multilaned traffic nightmare. Two corners sported fast food places, the third corner, a Texaco station. At the fourth, a self-serve car wash was surrounded by a chain link fence covered today by a display of tie-dye fabrics. Austin was the kind of place where a tie-dye artist might still eke out a living. It was also the kind of place where an intersection like this could coexist a few blocks from a spring-fed pool and a beautiful park.
She stood on the corner and looked around. The rain had stopped, but the sky was dark and the trees were still dripping. The air was so thickly humid that breathing took a conscious effort.
Molly leaned against a utility pole and waited for the woman who called herself Mother Teresa. The accent was Caribbean; she would probably be black. There was not much foot traffic here, so she shouldn’t be too hard to spot.
A minute later she saw her walking from the west on Barton Springs—a tall, extremely thin, mahogany-colored woman wearing layers of colorful, patched dresses that hung to her boots. Her posture was as upright as if she were carrying a basket of fruit on her head. As she drew closer, Molly saw that the turban she wore was made of silk scarfs of many different patterns braided together.
She walked up to Molly and looked her over quickly. “Follow me, missus.” She turned and headed back the way she’d come.
Molly fell into step with her. “Where are we going?”
“Why, to where I live. That is where the Cow Lady be. Someday a shrine will be erected there to mark the place of the first miracle and healing. People will call it the Lourdes of Texas, and they will come from far and wide to be healed. You will be part of this.”
“Is it far?” Molly asked. “We could drive there. My truck’s right nearby.”
“Oooh, nooo. It is in the wood. To walk is the only way.”
“Okay. Tell me how Sarah Jane is.”
“Sarah Jane?”
“Cow Lady.”
“Oh, she is very good indeed.” The woman turned her small, elegant, wrinkled face toward Molly. “For a person who come back from the dead only one day ago.”
“Back from the dead?” Molly affected a neutral tone.
“Yes, missus, she was laying cold, no sign of life in her at all, out in the rain. At the roots of my sacred tree she was waiting for the miracle.”
As they walked, the woman continued to talk nonstop about finding Cow Lady in the rain and bringing her back to life and healing her. Just past a decrepit service station, she turned into what looked like an ancient parking lot with patchy, cracked asphalt. Uncut grasses and weeds nearly obscured a NO DUMPING sign that stood on the corner. At the rear, a driveway of crumbly cement led back to a wild overgrown area that looked more like the Amazon jungle than South Austin. They stepped over a low cable meant to keep cars out and followed the driveway to where it ended in a dirt path. Molly looked back and was amazed to see that civilization had disappeared. They might have been miles from the city, instead of a few hundred yards from a busy urban intersection.
“Come,” said Mother Teresa. “It is not good for the Cow Lady to be alone after such an experience.”
The path, after the heavy rains, was a mud rut and Molly’s favorite black suede loafers were sinking deep into the muck. She winced and trudged on.
They entered a densely wooded area where the path was so covered by the undergrowth they had to push their way through. Molly was getting scratched by briars. She waved away a swarm of gnats that swirled around her and stuck to her sweaty face. Ahead of her, Mother Teresa moved serenely, seemingly unbothered by gnats or mud or humidity. She seemed to live on some higher plane of existence.
Finally she came to a stop in a small grassy clearing, in front of something that could have been a chicken coop or a clubhouse slapped together by six-year-olds. It was a box made of some old charred wooden boards, with rags and newspaper stuck into the cracks. A sheet of crumpled, rusted tin rested on the top, weighted down by rocks.
Molly stared at the structure. This couldn’t be where the woman lived; no one could live here.
Mother Teresa turned and smiled widely. “This is where the miracle happened. This is where the Cow Lady was healed.” She bent over and lifted a filthy blanket covering the opening. Molly pulled out her shirttail and used it to wipe her sweaty face. She wouldn’t go inside that box on a bet. Just looking at it made her claustrophobic. She’d have to bend over double to get in and there were probably lice, and God knows what else, inside.
“Come.” The woman held the blanket higher and beckoned to her. “Here she be.”
“Thanks,” Molly said. “I’ll wait out here. Ask her to come out, please.”
“She be sick, in bed. You come, missus.”
Molly shook her head. She squatted down and tried to peer inside the dark box. “Cow Lady,” she called in a low voice, “are you there?”
A shaky voice answered. “Yes. Come in.”
Mother Teresa bent down and entered, letting the blanket fall back over the opening. Molly straightened up, but she stayed where she was.
As she stood there waiting,
she felt a prickling on the back of her neck. The sensation was so intense, she was afraid to move. The only sound was the steady dripping of the trees and the faint whir of insects, but she knew someone was standing behind her. The presence was like a ripple in the humid air.
She turned her head slowly. Just a few feet behind her stood a man with a gun pointed at her back. He was built like a fireplug and had tattoos up and down his thick, hairless arms. “Slow,” he said, “real slow now.”
Molly turned around. His hard, blunt features had the blankness of a stone carving and his dead brown eyes seemed not to reflect light. It had been foolish to come here alone, but all her life she had done foolhardy things like this and she had gotten away with them. Not this time, it appeared.
The man nodded toward the hut. “In there.”
“No.” She shook her head. She would take her chances out here in the open.
The man took a step toward her and, before she could even react, something smashed into her chin, snapping her head back and blurring her vision. She stayed standing for a long moment, reeling, as galaxies of stars whirled past her.
Molly Cates finds herself on her hands and knees in the mud. Tears are spurting from her eyes. She can’t remember how she got to the ground. She can’t remember starting to cry either. Her jaw is screaming in pain and she can’t see straight.
“Get inside. You say no to me again, you dumb cunt, and I’ll rip your head off.” He lifts his muddy boot to her forehead and gives her a push with it.
Feeling broken and dazed, Molly crawls through the mud to the entrance. The man pulls the blanket back and she drags herself inside.
The only light comes from one candle and the cracks in the wall that let in a few rays of dingy daylight. It smells of sweat and decay. Against the wall is a mattress and on it Sarah Jane Hurley lies. Her hands and feet are tied with rags, her eyes are wide with fear. Mother Teresa is hunched into the corner and, right next to her, a man with long black hair has his arm wrapped tight around her neck, his hand covering her mouth.
The man with the gun squeezes his thick body inside, so there are five of them now, packed inside a wooden box barely large enough for two.
“Golly, Roylee,” says the black-haired man, “we got us more than we bargained for—a harem, but I don’t know. Two crazy old scum-bums and”—he lets go of Mother Teresa’s head and leans close to Molly so he can look at her face from about a foot away with his tiny deep-set eyes—“this one here might of been okay, but it looks like you done broke her chin off.”
Molly raises a hand to her chin. Blood is dripping and it feels like raw hamburger. Her lower lip is split and hugely swollen already. She groans without intending to.
“Don’t whine now,” says the black-haired man. “We just got to sit tight till our customer comes. Roylee, you and me got to figure out what to do with these two extras. You think we could sell them all to the Kraut, give him some group discount? Let him do whatever sick-oo Kraut thing he’s got in mind?”
Roylee taps the gun muzzle on Molly’s head, sending ripples of pain to her jaw. “Nah, Squint. Who’d want ’em?”
Squint points at Molly. “Let’s see what she’s got in that bag.”
Molly has forgotten all about her purse. It is still hanging from her shoulder. Roylee jerks it away from her and tosses it to Squint, who dumps the contents onto the mud floor: the cell phone, her notebook, wallet, lipstick, comb, keys, checkbook, a couple of pens. He is about to toss the bag away when he stops and hefts it in one hand. Then he squeezes it and his eyes light up. He finds the secret compartment right away and pulls the gun out. “Lawdalmighty!” he cackles. “Lookee here, Roylee. She was armed.” He sticks the pistol in his pocket and says to Molly, “Don’t do you no good, you dumb bitch, if you don’t use it.”
Molly tries to speak. She wants to say that her policeman boyfriend knows where she is and he’s on his way here right now, but when she tries to speak, her lip and chin won’t obey her will. Her jaw might be broken, she thinks.
Squint picks up her wallet. He takes the bills out and stuffs them in his pocket. Then he pulls out her driver’s license and holds it about an inch from his eyes. “Molly Cates,” he reads, glancing up at her with his slitlike eyes barely visible under the jutting brows. “Expires 5, ’99.” He grins. “Might be sooner than that, Molly Cates. You just never know.” He tosses the wallet into the corner. “Let’s go outside, Roylee, so’s we can talk.”
“We ought to tie ’em up,” Roylee says, pointing the gun at Molly and Mother Teresa.
“Yeah. Throw me them rags over there,” Squint says. He pulls Mother Teresa’s skinny arms behind her back and ties her wrists, then her ankles. As he’s doing it, she says, “It is a wrong thing to stop a healing miracle when it is in progress.”
Roylee snorts. “Nutty as a fruitcake.”
Then Squint turns to Molly. She knows she should make a break for it. Once you are tied up, you are as good as dead—it is the lesson taught in all self-defense courses, and she believes it. She has seen these men up close and heard their names. They have to kill her now, and the other two women too. It might be better to get shot right now, while making a run for it.
“Hands behind you,” says Squint.
Molly hesitates. She glances toward the door.
But Roylee is fast. Before she can move, he’s on her. This time he smashes the gun into the side of her head and she crumples. This time she doesn’t see stars. This time she doesn’t see anything at all, for a long time.
When she awakes, her hands and feet are tied, her head is cracking open, her brains spilling out. A person could die from such a headache. She doesn’t know where she is or if it is day or night. Her cheek is stuck to a pool of dried blood on the dirt floor. She moans. She’s cold and she has to pee.
“Poor Little Bopeep,” a voice whispers in her ear, “has lost her sheep. How’re you feeling?”
“Cow Lady,” Molly murmurs through swollen lips. It is hard to form the words. Painfully Molly focuses on Sarah Jane Hurley’s face, which is only a few inches from hers. It seems to be dark outside, but the candle is still burning.
Now she becomes aware of a faint voice droning: “Lying at the foot of the sacred tree, her life flown away, and that is when I am working the first miracle and returning her to life.” Molly hasn’t the strength to lift her head and look and, anyway, her cheek is still stuck to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah Jane says. “I didn’t mean for you to walk into this. I didn’t know these dudes were coming when I got Mother Teresa to call you.”
“Why are they doing this?” Molly’s words are barely understandable, even to her.
“They’re waiting for this really bad dude—Billy Goat Gruff, a big German guy, to come. He wants to kill me. He’ll probably kill us all. He’s the one killed Tin Can and he’s gonna wipe out everyone in the Senate with a poison gas. So killing a few more is nothing to him.”
Molly is trying to take this in, but her head is so thick and woolly. In the corner Mother Teresa continues to drone on about the miracle of the Cow Lady. Both stories—the one about killing everyone in the Senate and the one about bringing Cow Lady back to life—sound like fairy tales to Molly; she isn’t sure which one is more fantastic.
“How do you know this? About the Senate?” she whispers to Sarah Jane, each word an agony to get out, but she needs to know.
“I heard him and another man talking about it when I was under the deck, where I used to sleep. He killed Tin Can ’cause they thought she heard them, and saw them, but it was me that heard.”
“What happened at the library?” Molly asks.
“He found me there and tried to kill me—Billy Goat did. These assholes told him where to find me.”
It is making some terrible sense to Molly now. Tin Can murdered. The book on poison gas stolen from the library. The fight at the library. The FBI agent worried about a plot in the Capitol. It fits together. If she’d been paying attention,
she might have seen this picture. But she wasn’t paying attention. She was wrapped up in her own little world, looking at all the wrong things, as usual.
From the corner comes the crooning voice, “And I carried her to my place of healing just as God commanded me to do.”
“When?” Molly asks in a whisper.
“Huh?” Sarah Jane says.
“The poison gas in the Senate,” Molly says, every word an agony.
“Monday.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Hours. Lots of hours. I’ve lost track.”
“I’ve got to pee.”
“Me too.”
“They’ll have to let us go outside to pee,” Molly says. “I’m going to—”
“No! Don’t call them,” Sarah Jane says, her eyes wide with alarm. “Don’t. But listen, maybe you could reach—”
Molly is so exhausted by the problem, she drifts back to semiconsciousness. When she wakes again, she is shivering, cold and wet, and a dirty gray is seeping through the cracks in the hut. Can it possibly be dawn?
Mother Teresa is asleep, snoring gently.
Sarah Jane Hurley is lying there, watching Molly. “Gramma,” Sarah Jane says, “what big eyes you have.”
It is a madhouse, Molly thinks. She is going to die right here on the dirt floor of a madhouse. “I peed in my pants,” she moans.
“Me too,” Sarah Jane says. “Feels good to say ‘What the hell’ and just let it go.”
“I don’t know. I was asleep,” Molly says.
“No,” Sarah Jane whispers, “you were passed out, all night. I think Roylee gave you a concussion.”
“Is it morning?” Molly asks.
“Monday morning, I think,” Sarah Jane says. “Listen, my bag is in the corner there, behind Mother Teresa. They didn’t notice it. There’s a knife inside.”
Molly lifts her head to look, but the shooting pain in her skull stops her halfway.
“I can’t reach it,” Sarah Jane says, “but you’re closer.”
Molly tries to sit up but she can’t—her arms are tied behind her and her ankles are tied so tight her feet have gone to sleep.
“Mother Teresa.” Sarah Jane raises her voice just above the whisper she’s been talking in. “You awake?”
All the Dead Lie Down Page 28
