Deadly Kiss

by Bob Bickford

  He nodded. “Buildings like this one are so haunted,” he said, “that it leaches out and poisons the ground underneath them. You can tear the damn thing down and build something brand new, and it’ll be just as sick as what was there before. The ground’s no good anymore.”

  “People are afraid of this place?” I asked. “Is it because of the shootings? The men my father shot?”

  “No. Not many people remember about that anymore. They just say it’s haunted. Sixty years of local legend. People claim to have seen and heard things.”

  “Do you think it is?” I asked.

  “Yes, maybe I do. Wanda’s mother...Florence, her name was. I remember her--not that old, but a bitter woman all the same. Disappointed with her life. She hung herself inside there. I always thought she had more to do with Eli’s killing than people realized. I wouldn’t be surprised if she drove those men to do what they did.”

  “Why do you think it’s her?”

  “I saw something myself, years ago. I never knew what it was for sure.” He looked away. I waited and, finally, he spoke. “In the early ’70s I drove by here on my way to a house call, early one morning. The place was between owners again. Closed. I was passing, and I saw a woman with a ladder going up the front steps. Looked like she was going to do some work, and I wondered if someone bought the place and was fixing it up. I slowed down a bit, interested. She stopped at the top and turned around and looked at me.”

  He stopped, clearly debating whether to go on.

  “And...” I prompted.

  “And I recognized her. It was Florence Sutton. I hadn’t seen her since I was a child, but I recognized her. I stepped on the gas, but I saw--I saw--she was carrying the ladder, and she was also carrying a rope, so help me God. I’m sure you think I’m crazy.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “You have no idea. I absolutely believe you.”

  He was obviously stricken by his admission, and I changed the subject.

  “Are you ever afraid of dying?” I asked.

  “Am I ever not afraid of dying? I’m a doctor. I can’t kid myself about it the way most people can. I know better than anyone that it comes to us all.”

  We stood there in silence. The old store was still, almost as if the building were listening to us.

  “I think,” he said, “maybe I’m expressing myself wrong. I made my peace with Mr. Death when I was still a young man. I think what I’m afraid of is dying wrong. I see the people who die without leaving behind anything good. Being the world champion of anything doesn’t matter. Getting rich, being good-looking--none of it. What matters is decency, and doing the right thing, and raising your kids up right. You do take those things with you. They last forever. They spread like ripples in all the lives that follow you.”

  “Do you think we go on from here?” I asked.

  “I know we do, and from what your Molly has told me, you do too.”

  I was surprised. Molly didn’t confide very often. My measure of Roy Tull went up. “I see things sometimes, yeah. So does she. She told you about that?”

  “Some of it,” he said. “I think the world of that young lady. I don’t think I’d be inclined to doubt much of anything she told me.”

  “It’s not like I walk around seeing dead people every day,” I said. “Once in a while I see a person who’s...out of place. Someone who seems out of kilter, somehow. I realize that whoever I’m seeing has moved on, but for some reason, they’re still here.”

  “How do they look? Are they transparent or something?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “They seem perfectly real, because they are real. They aren’t here in the same way that they used to be, but they’re very much still here. As real as you or me, you know? But with a different physicality than they used to have.”

  “Believe it or not, more than forty years as a physician doesn’t make me doubt you. When you’ve been present at as many deaths as I have been, you start to notice that there’s a remarkable similarity to being present at a birth. There’s a physical change at death. I can’t describe it.”

  I was starting to feel like I wanted to get away from the store. Things were stirring, and I wanted no part of them.

  “Tell me,” he said. “If you’ve seen what seems to confirm that life goes on afterward, are you still afraid of dying?”

  “I’ve seen some incredible beauty. I think I’ve seen angels. I’ve also seen some crazy, scary shit, enough to make me believe that you’re not automatically flooded with wisdom and light and grace just because you die.”

  I turned to go.

  “I guess that makes me the same as you. I’m not so much afraid of dying as I am afraid of dying wrong. I don’t want to die wrong.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Roy Tull,

  Halifax County, North Carolina, Saturday, July 23, 1949:

  He was fishing with a cane pole held out over the muddy water when the car hit the bridge railing above him. There had been occasional cars and trucks passing overhead, and their tires on the boards made a brief sound like a musical riff as they drove over the small bridge. When they left the other side he could look up and see them briefly on the road before they were swallowed by the greenery, and it was mildly interesting to guess what kind of vehicle had played the short wooden song before it appeared at the other end.

  This one played only a few staccato notes before there was a loud crack and its headlights appeared at the edge of the bridge, looking surprised. It was a big touring car, creamy yellow with red wire wheels, and it paused and then followed the broken railing down into the water. The people in the car screamed as though they were on an amusement park ride. It was less than a half dozen feet from the roadway down to the water, but the car broke the surface with an impressive splash, which drenched the boy. He set his fishing pole down beside him.

  The car had landed on its wheels. The creek was neither deep nor fast-moving, and the water just broke over the window sills of the vehicle. He could see heads. There were at least four people inside. A woman continued to shriek, sounds of alarm rather than pain. The boy knew the difference. The driver’s door was pushed open against the slow current, and a man waded toward him. He was a handsome man. His pale suit and red suspenders matched the car. A woman’s voice followed him.

  “Get some help, Francis! Send that boy for the police!”

  He turned and looked back at the car in the middle of the stream. Only the top of the hood and the tall roof were visible above the gentle stream.

  “For what?” he called back. “Are you nuts? I can’t have the cops here! We’ll be all over the papers.”

  Another man had levered himself out of the vehicle, and he waded chest-deep to the front passenger door. He slowly forced it open and helped a woman emerge. She was very pale and had dark hair plastered to her cheeks. Even from the river bank, the boy could tell that she was beautiful. Another woman continued to scream from the back seat.

  “OhmyGodohmyGod I’m stuck. I’m gonna die here. Somebody. Get me out, don’t leave me. Pleeeease!”

  The wet man on shore looked at the boy and jerked his head toward the car.

  “See if you can help out, wouldya? Six bits in it for your trouble.”

  The boy stood up and waded into the water. He automatically scanned for snakes. In Georgia, they would have been a concern in water like this, but North Carolina was altogether more civilized, even with its snakes. Still, the habit was ingrained. The water was cool and felt good. He made his way to the car. The second man and the dark-haired woman were by the rear door, and they looked at him as he came near.

  “My leg. Owwww--Larry, get me out,” the woman in the car wailed.

  The second man, Larry, looked at the boy through water-spotted spectacles which had miraculously stayed on his face during the crash.

  “Hush a minute, Bappie. You’re in no danger. What’s your name, son?”

  “Roy, sir. Roy Tull.”

  “Can you swim, Roy? Her leg is stuck fast some
how. Let him by, Ava.”

  “I can swim, sir.”

  The man said there was no danger, but Roy had seen the big car shift in the current. He knew that the bottom of the small river was uneven and that the car was resting close to the hole he had been fishing. If it dropped even six inches, the woman in the back seat would drown. The woman named Ava looked at him. Her dark eyes were apprehensive. She knew.

  He took a breath and plunged. There was almost no visibility under the water. He could make out the edge of the car door and nothing else. He felt his way down the woman’s leg, and sensed her trying to pull away from him. He felt the problem--the seat cushion she sat on had dislodged and slid forward in the crash, trapping her ankle on the floor. He pushed at it hard. It only had to give up an inch before her leg came free.

  The group of them thrashed their way across the soft bottom to shore. The first man, Francis, was standing up on the bridge with another man who had stopped his car to offer help.

  “This fellow’s going into town,” he called. “He’ll have them send a wrecker for us.”

  “Have a taxi sent, too,” the woman called Ava said. “Unless you want a parade. Ask him if he has a cigarette. Mine are wet, and I want one awful bad.”

  Francis scrambled down the embankment and held out a red-and-white package of Luckies. He lit one and handed it to her

  “You can scram, kid,” he said, doling out smokes to the others. “Give him a buck, Larry.”

  “Wait,” Ava said to him. “Don’t leave. I need to talk to you. Get your dollar, though, before they forget all about you.”

  Bappie sat on a rock and rubbed her ankle. “This would be a party if we had a bottle,” she said.

  “We do,” Francis said. “Hey, kid. Be a sport and get wet again. It’s a good cause. There’s a bottle in the map box.”

  Roy did as he was asked. The water seemed colder the second time in, and the car waiting in the middle of the creek seemed like a dead animal. He wasn’t quite sure what the map box was, and he submerged himself several times before he located the bottle.

  “I had a full one in there, and a half-full one,” Francis said when he handed it to him. “He brought the full one. You’re all right, kid. You’re a real lucky charm.”

  “What’s your name?” Ava asked.

  “Roy Tull, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Roy Tull. That could have ended badly for my sister. I want to repay your goodness.”

  “Awwww, leave the kid alone,” Francis said. “He has places to be.”

  She ignored him and kept her dark eyes on Roy’s. She was very beautiful for a white woman. “I came from here,” she said. “I lived here as a girl. Do you live nearby, Roy? Are you a dark son of Carolina?”

  “I stay with my aunt, ma’am. I come here from Georgia.”

  “What do you want most?” she asked. “What can I do for you?”

  The question confused him, but he thought he’d better answer. “I want to be a doctor, ma’am. A doctor.”

  She looked steadily at him for a moment and then looked over her shoulder at the second man. “Can he do that, Larry? Be a doctor? Is there a school?”

  “I don’t know. There are Negro doctors, I suppose. Winston-Salem, maybe.”

  “See about it,” she said. “Look after it. I want this boy to become a doctor, if that’s what he wants to be.” Her eyes returned to his. “Good luck, Roy Tull.”

  ***

  Present Day:

  When things went bad, they went bad fast.

  I met Sydney for breakfast in Atlanta, at a place called the OK Cafe. I had never liked to eat in the morning. I pushed away my fried potatoes, nearly untouched, and concentrated on my coffee. Across the table, she ate pancakes, eggs, and sausage with complete concentration.

  “How’s yours?”

  “Good,” she said between mouthfuls. “I’m an absolute pig for breakfast. I probably won’t eat again ’til tomorrow.”

  I looked out the window. Two Atlanta police cruisers pulled in and parked away from the other cars in the lot. Four officers met between them, walked across to the front door, and out of sight. In a minute, a hostess led them back and past our table. They were all large and creaked with the weight of the equipment they carried. The last one caught my glance and held it until they were past our table.

  “So what do we know?” she said. “Enough to make a decision?”

  “How do you mean? Decide on what?”

  “Primarily, whether to chase this any further. Is Wanda Sutton your blackmailer, and if so, what are you gonna do about it?” She waved happily to our server and indicated her empty cup. “Bottom line--do you think she’s guilty of extortion? If you do, what have you seen supports that?”

  “Run-down house with a brand new Harley in the drive,” I said, ticking off a finger. “Restored antique station wagon, with what sounded like a hot rod engine under the hood. Recent purchases, and not cheap either.”

  “Huge big-screen television on the wall,” she countered. “I’d like one of those myself. My TV’s so old it has dials on the front.” She looked up at the waitress and nodded her thanks for the refill.

  I asked for the check.

  “Also remember,” she said, “that if these people got a windfall, they aren’t likely to redecorate their house. They won’t invest, or tour Europe. They’ll buy some toys, but a lot of any windfall is going to partying. Mother and son both.”

  I remembered something. “The boat. New, and looked like he used it once and lost interest.”

  “Right,” she said. “Lots of recent money, and no one’s working at a legit job. Wanda gets a small monthly check, and Arthur probably sells a little dope--no apparent reason for sudden wealth. Without trying to prove anything, does your gut tell you it’s your dad’s money?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “And talking to them? Impressions?”

  “Guilty as hell. She’s insanely angry, and he’s ready to blow just at the sight of me.”

  “Agreed. By rights, you should take your suspicions to the cops. You could get someone to listen. Blackmail’s a serious crime, and Crider probably has a contact in the system that he could push a bit to investigate. But it’ll be tough to prove the money was your dad’s--my God, he’s dead. Your biggest and only witness is gone. It would drag out for years. Legal fees, whatnot--a couple hundred thousand would be long gone before you ever saw a cent of it.”

  The check came. I waved Sydney off and counted out some bills. “I don’t need the money,” I said. “I told you that. Forget that part of it.”

  “You could probably tip off the tax people if you wanted to cause them some trouble. Let them show the IRS where the income to buy all the stuff in the driveway came from. These aren’t sophisticated people, and they have a long history of trouble. They’d feel like the roof had fallen in.” She fished in her purse. “I need a cigarette. Let’s go outside.”

  “I think,” I said when we were on the front steps, “that I don’t have a whole lot of stomach for destroying these people. My dad’s gone. I’ve been trying to imagine what he’d want. I think he’d tell me that enough is enough. Terrifying these poor, ignorant people might feel like sweet revenge, but maybe it’s bad karma.”

  It was just getting light, and the air was already warm and humid. It was going to be a scorcher. I loved the air in the South. On the island, summer mornings were often cool enough to need a jacket. Sydney was taking deep drags on her cigarette.

  “So what do you want, at the end of all this?” she asked. “What’s the best outcome in this shitty situation? Your dad killed her dad, and she got her revenge years and years later. What’s the ending?”

  “I’d settle for confronting Wanda,” I said slowly. “I don’t care about her son. What happened behind that store has taken out so many lives. I just want some end to it. It’s a cliché, but I want my dad at peace.”

  I nodded to myself and thought about it. That felt right. We had stopped walking,
and Sydney stood still and looked at me.

  “I can’t quite put my finger on it,” I continued, “but I think my dad wants me to break the cycle. I don’t know what he would have told me if he had lived long enough to tell me the whole story, but he was haunted. I want all of this to stop.”

  “Then let’s talk to Wanda again. You can tell her what you think she did, and see what develops.”

  “I know what you did,” I said softly.

  Sydney raised an eyebrow in question.

  “I know what you did. That’s the message she left my dad on his machine, and that’s the message she left me. Time to turn it back on her.”

  “Done,” she said. “I’m gone for the rest of the day. How does tomorrow morning work for a trip to see her then?”

  I agreed, and she dropped me off at my father’s house.

  “We need to confront her,” I told Molly. “We need to tell her that we know about the blackmail.”

  “Will that do any good, Mike? I mean, she’s an old woman. She’s been bad her whole life. Do you expect to change her? Do you think she’ll just see the light?”

  “I’m not sure. I can feel my dad’s hand here, somehow. She needs to know she didn’t get away with it.”

  We sat in silence for at least a minute. Finally she spoke. “In a very real way, she killed him. She at least precipitated his death.”

  “It seems like that,” I agreed, “but is that what my dad would tell me? He was also tired of the whole thing. Maybe he wanted it to stop.”

  “Yes. You know what’s missing? In that whole story about your dad, and what happened when he was a little boy--from the very first, do you know what’s missing? What could have changed all of it?”

  “What’s that, Molly?” I asked.

  “Forgiveness. No one ever got forgiven for any of this, at any point. That’s what’s kept this alive.”

  I thought about it. “You think my dad wanted me to forgive her?”