“Why does that worry you?”
“Because it means it don’t matter if he saw you. He knows you were there. And he knows that maybe you saw him.”
Faye supposed she’d known this all along, but she hadn’t let herself think about it. Maybe she should listen to Joe and run for home, but Kali didn’t have that option.
Kali was stuck in this neighborhood, whether it harbored a killer who was looking for her or not. Or rather, she was stuck in this neighborhood if she was lucky. Any day now, a social worker could decide Laneer was too old or too poor to be a suitable guardian, swooping in to park her with a family of people who were strangers.
To be honest, this could happen anyway. At Laneer’s age, he was a heart attack away from dying or from being too sick to take care of a little girl. Next week, Kali could have a brand-new address, but that wouldn’t save her from a killer who probably knew her name.
Faye considered the evidence. Unless McDaniel was sitting on something explosive, there weren’t many clues that she knew about, but Faye felt comfortable making a few assumptions. An attack as violent as the one that killed Frida didn’t come out of nowhere. This man had hurt people before. Maybe he had a criminal record that could tie him to this crime. And maybe he had hurt Frida before.
If he knew that Frida was alive when he buried her, then the possibility of a criminal record only grew. A man didn’t start a criminal career by burying people alive. He worked up to it, or so it seemed to Faye, unless he was completely unbalanced. And maybe he was. If she were to play amateur psychologist, this act rose to the level of sociopathy displayed by the most famous serial killers. Ted Bundy. Danny Rollins. Aileen Wuornos. The BTK Killer. Jeffrey Dahmer. All of them had made a final misstep and been brought to justice, but not before killing scores of innocent people among them.
Faye looked at little Kali and tried to imagine walking away from her, knowing that there could be a Jeffrey Dahmer on the loose right here in her neighborhood. She couldn’t do it.
Kali hugged her knees tighter. “I’m scared, Faye. Aren’t you?”
Chapter Twenty-one
He liked women in dresses, because there was so much pleasure to be had from arranging the sumptuous folds of their skirts in the final minutes before he said good-bye and laid them in the graves he’d carved from the earth, just for them. Straight sides, flat bottoms, perfectly square corners—he was meticulous about the forever beds that he made for the women he loved, all of them.
And once he’d lowered them into those graves, he gave them the care and attention they deserved. He crossed their hands beautifully on their still bellies. He straightened their legs, even when they’d been broken, making sure their dainty feet rested side by side as he fanned their skirts about their battered thighs. Once, when he was young and brash and believed he could never be caught, he had taken the time to paint a dead woman’s fingernails, washing her face and applying fresh lipstick while he waited for the nail polish to dry. It bothered him still that Frida had lost a shoe in their flight toward her open, waiting grave.
The archaeologist, a woman who loved to interfere in the lives of children and the burials of their mothers, had surprised him and he’d had to flee. He’d been forced to throw Frida in her open grave and shovel hard.
Faye Longchamp-Mantooth was delicately formed, small and slender, and that was the way he liked his women. His attraction to women who wore their hair short was inconveniently weak. However, when he looked past the manly clothes she favored—olive drab work pants, button-up shirts styled for men, heavy boots—he could see that she had the large eyes and full lips that always caught his eye. If he needed her dead, and he was fairly certain that he did, he felt sure he could muster up the enthusiasm to make it so.
His enthusiasm would be more heartfelt if she were wearing the dresses he favored, and fate was going to fix that for him. Sylvia had announced to the world that the “doctor woman,” was taking little Kali to afternoon tea. The archaeologist was worldly. She had class. Any fool could see that Dr. Faye Longchamp-Mantooth would not darken the door of the four-star Chez Philippe in trousers.
He would be waiting for them outside the Chez Philippe, hidden in a faceless crowd. Then, after they’d sipped their tea and nibbled their party sandwiches, he would…what? Grab them both off the streets of Memphis or out of one of the city’s dark, lonely parking garages? Kill the child, too?
This was a problem. Killing a child was a line he had yet to cross. He had thought of it, of course. He was not immune to the premature charms of a girl who was rocketing toward womanhood but didn’t know it yet. Those premature charms had never driven him to action, but now the novelty appealed to him. In fact, he was surprised by his enthusiasm.
Had he been bored? He wouldn’t have thought so. There had been safety in repetition. Hunt. Stalk. Kill. Bury. He knew how to do these things and, as evidence showed, he knew how to do them without getting caught. Would adding a second victim, a very young one, to the mix change that? Could he do it?
He didn’t know, but the more he thought about the question, the more he wanted to know the answer.
Chapter Twenty-two
Kali walked out of the bathroom and past the dining room table where Faye, Sylvia, Walt, and Laneer sat. She didn’t speak, although she did acknowledge Laneer with just a slight wave in his direction. She was moving fast, but not fast enough to avoid being embarrassed by her great-great-uncle and her candy lady.
“So pretty…” Sylvia announced loudly. “Don’t she look pretty?”
Laneer nodded forcefully. “That’s my girl. She’s growing up.”
Kali was almost running as she stepped out the front door.
Sylvia picked up the backpack that Walt had brought. Peering inside, she said, “Is she wearing the barrettes you gave her?”
Smiling broadly, Walt said, “Yes, she is. And she’s carrying the little purse I brought her, too.”
“She could’ve thanked you,” Sylvia said, and the tone of her voice told Faye a bit of what it meant to be a child’s candy lady.
“She already did by using my gifts. It makes me so happy to see that she liked them.”
Sylvia snorted and muttered something about gratitude being seen and heard.
Faye rose and said, “I’d better get moving. There’s a girl with a very pretty new hairdo waiting in my car, and downtown Memphis is waiting to meet her.”
“Hold on.”
Faye felt a hand grab hers. She looked down and saw that it was Laneer’s. He rose slowly to his feet to speak.
“Did she talk?” he asked. “When you were on your walk, did my girl say anything to you?”
She put her other hand on top of his and squeezed it. “She talked a blue streak. She seriously hasn’t been talking to you?”
The old man shook his head. “Not a word since you left. Doesn’t leave her room except to go to the bathroom.” She felt his hand tremble between both of hers. “I need to talk to Kali ’bout her mama’s funeral. Maybe there’s hymns she wants played or bible verses she wants the minister to read, but how can I start talking about things like that when we ain’t even said good morning to each other?”
“I don’t know anything about hymns or bible verses, but Kali says she wants her mother to be buried in a yellow dress.”
“She was wearing her yellow dress when—” Laneer’s voice broke. “I saw it when the police took me to identify her. Oh, Lord.”
Faye’s hope that Frida had owned more than one yellow dress crumbled. “I’ll go buy one tonight after I bring Kali home. It’ll be my present to all of you.”
She squeezed Laneer’s hand again. “Do you hear me? Take this off your list of worries. I saw the dress she was wearing, and I’ll go find one as much like it as I can. I’ll bring it to you tonight. Go over to her house and look at the dresses in her closet, then text me Frida’s size.”
> Laneer didn’t answer, and Faye wasn’t sure he was able. She looked at Sylvia. “Can you text me those sizes?”
Sylvia nodded. “I can do that. Thank you.”
Laneer’s hands trembled as always, and sorrow had caused his tremor to spread to his arms and trunk, but he was still standing tall. Faye respected that.
“I thank you, Faye,” he said. “We all do.”
Faye took a trembling old hand and squeezed it. “We won’t tell Kali about the dress. If we’re lucky, she won’t notice that it’s a different dress. I can’t fix anything else that has happened here, but maybe I can fix this.”
Kali waited until Faye merged onto the interstate highway before she spoke.
“Where are we going?”
“Sylvia and Laneer didn’t tell you? Then I think I’ll leave it for a surprise.”
“The signs say we’re going to the Mississippi River bridge.”
They passed a big green sign that said just that. “Well, we’re going downtown, and that’s where the bridge is, but we’re not going over it.”
“I want to see the river. I always wanted to do that.”
Faye almost said, “You’ve lived all your life in Memphis and you’ve never seen the Mississippi River?” but she managed to stop herself.
“Mama was always too busy to take me on the bus. Laneer don’t have a car, neither, and he never wanted to go. Sylvia says the river’s pretty much like my creek, just bigger, so why do I need to go look at it? But that’s why I want to see it. It’s big.”
“Yes, it is. It’s really, really big.”
“I tried to walk there once.”
Faye remembered their hike down the creek. “I bet you did.”
“I followed my creek downstream all the way, and it dumped into something pretty big. I thought I’d got there. It looked like a river to me. I came back and went straight to Sylvia. First, she said she’d tell my mama if I ever did anything that dumb again. Then she said I’d only gone to Nonconnah Creek. Just a creek!”
“I’ve seen Nonconnah. It’s a big creek, but the Mississippi will make it look like nothing.”
“Get out.”
“Yep.”
“Can I see your phone? So I can look at a map of where we’re going?”
Faye handed it over.
“I told Sylvia I was going to try again. I said, ‘All the water I saw in Nonconnah Creek has gotta go somewhere. Probably it’s the Mississippi River. Next time, I’ll just keep walking.’ Then she got out a map. She showed me where I started and where my creek runs into Nonconnah Creek and where it runs into some lake. I forget the name. To get to the river, I’d have to get across that lake and then across a big island.”
Faye pictured the map of Memphis that she’d studied to get ready for this job. “It’s a long way from here to the Mississippi on foot, sweetie.”
“No joke. I’m not gonna lie. I cried. But I was only eight then. I ain’t eight no more.”
“No, you’re not.”
Faye topped an overpass and got a good look at downtown Memphis and its tall buildings. She knew that the Mississippi River and its bridge were just on the other side of them. “I’d take you to the river right now, but we have reservations in a few minutes.”
“We have what?”
“Reservations.” Faye got a blank look, so she tried again. “We have an appointment for your surprise and we can’t be late. But when we’re finished with the surprise? We’ll walk down to the riverfront, so you can see just how big it really is.”
Another sign caught Kali’s eye. This time it was a billboard announcing that Armand’s Rib Palace was the place to be. Specifically, it said “Get Down with Armand’s! Mouthwatering Ribs with A Funky Downtown Vibe!”
“Mama used to say that Armand would sell anything for a buck. That’s why she kept telling him no, she wouldn’t go out with him. Until she did.”
“Wait. She went out with Armand. On a date?”
“I started to tell you that in the woods, but we got to talking about something else.”
“Your Uncle Laneer doesn’t know that. Neither does Sylvia.”
“I know. She didn’t have much of a chance to tell ’em. She didn’t even get a chance to tell me how her date went. He came and picked her up, but she never came home. I know because I checked her bed that morning.”
Faye’s hands spasmed around the steering wheel, clenching tight. “You’re saying that she was out with Armand on that last…on Thursday night?”
Kali nodded once.
“Do you mind if I call Detective McDaniel and tell him that? Can I call him right this minute?”
Again, Kali nodded once. “I want you to call him. That’s why I told you.”
So Faye did. When she hung up, Kali said, “Guess she changed her mind. About going out with Armand, I mean. Tell me something. When I grow up, am I gonna start doing dumb things because of men?”
Faye couldn’t help smiling. “It happens to most of us. And they do dumb things because of women. It doesn’t always turn out bad.”
Kali rolled her eyes. “Coulda fooled me.”
Faye stood in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel, surrounded by marble and bronze and the trappings of wealth, and she knew that she had made a mistake.
Standing just outside the doorway of Chez Philippe, the Peabody’s flagship restaurant, she lingered in the grand hotel’s lobby, surrounded by hundreds of tourists who weren’t even dressed as well as she was. In comparison with their touristy shorts and sneakers, Faye’s clothes might even be called upscale. This was not the case inside Chez Philippe, where there were children wearing shoes that cost more than she had paid for her wedding dress.
When they’d entered the hotel’s lobby from the street, a throng of people had blocked their view of the grand fountain rising in its center. Carved from a single block of granite, the fountain dominated the room, but she and Kali couldn’t see much but the towering mound of fresh flowers that topped it. Monumental chandeliers shone down on the fountain and its flower crown.
“What’s everybody looking at?” Kali had whispered, but Faye had said only, “Keep looking.”
Holding the child by the hand, Faye had snaked through the crowd and secured them a spot so close that they could feel the cool air rising off the fountain’s flowing water. This choice viewing spot had put them less than an arm’s-length from the five mallard ducks paddling nonchalantly in the fountain. Kali had nearly had a spasm when she saw them. Their soft feathers and bright beaks had been so unexpected amid the lobby’s opulence that Faye had almost joined the girl in jumping up and down, flapping her hands, and squealing. Among the overexcited tourists, Kali’s exuberance had blended right in. Above them, more tourists had leaned over the mezzanine’s railings to get a look at the Peabody’s famous ducks, swimming unperturbed among the tumult around them.
Kali had laughed every time they paddled their feet, rose out of the water and flapped their wings. She’d cooed over their broad yellow feet, slick and leathery. When they had quacked, she had quacked back.
Faye had hung back and let the girl entertain herself as long as possible, but she’d been lucky to land the last reservations of the day, and time was getting on. Dallying too long would cost them their tea at Chez Philippe. When she’d tugged Kali’s hand, the girl had given the ducks a final longing look, then she had followed, looking around for the door that had brought them in from South BB King Boulevard.
“I can’t wait to tell Uncle Laneer about those ducks. They were so cute! Did you take pictures?”
Faye nodded and said, “You’re not ready to go home yet, are you? I know where we can get a special meal before we go. Then maybe we can see the ducks again.”
Kali’s face had brightened. “And the river?”
“Yes. I promised you a river. A big one.”
> Their trek across the lobby to Chez Philippe had been arduous. The lobby’s many tables, all occupied by tourists wearing shorts, fanny packs, and souvenir t-shirts, had stood in their way.
The t-shirts and their ribald slogans had added an extra element to the trip. By Faye’s observation, the younger the tourist, the edgier the t-shirt’s caption, so the slogans on the chests of teenagers had ranged from suggestive to obscene. Wishing Kali couldn’t read, Faye had led her on a twisty path between the tables, eventually getting them to the doorway of Chez Philippe, where they were on the reservation list for afternoon tea. And now, here she was at the gilded doorway to the finest restaurant in Memphis, realizing that she’d made a mistake.
Faye peered through an imposing doorway into the most sumptuous room she’d ever seen. She wore a trim beige sundress and a pair of flat leather sandals. Her hair was slicked down with a bit of pomade. She even wore a smear of cinnamon-brown lipstick on her lips. If she’d been at home in the Florida panhandle, she would have blended in at a restaurant, a church, a business, a bar, anywhere. Here at Chez Philippe, she was painfully underdressed.
Kali, in her orange-and-gray elephant dress, stood out even more. Seeing the girl in this light, among these people, Faye saw things that hadn’t been obvious before, not even under the sun’s unforgiving light.
Kali’s dress was faded from repeated washings. The soles of her shoes were worn at the heels. The colorful barrettes in her hair, though brand-new, adorned the hair of a ten-year-old who had combed it herself. Faye personally saw nothing wrong with the way Kali’s hair looked, but none of the children in Chez Philippe wore the hair of ten-year-olds. They wore hair that had been blow-dried and flat-ironed and hair-sprayed into submission, and Faye hated herself for not helping Kali more. The difference between Faye and the parents in this room was that Faye thought Kali looked beautiful the way she was and she, quite frankly, thought the other children dining at Chez Philippe looked a little plastic.
Undercurrents Page 14
