Devlin's Light

by Mariah Stewart

  “Get it out,” he told her, “and I’ll cut the grass. You don’t have much of a yard. I’ll have it done by the time the oven has heated for the fish.”

  “Nick, you don’t have to cut my grass. I’ll do it tomorrow. Or I’ll try to find someone in the neighborhood—”

  He had already bounded past her and down the steps. “Out here?” he asked, pointing to the small cedar-sided shed that stood near the far corner.

  “Well, yes, but …”

  He was already into the shed and had lifted the small lawn mower out before she had finished her sentence. Soon he had the mower running, and she leaned on the deck railing, watching as he left trails of grassy clumps in his wake as he crossed back and forth across the small yard, the mower humming as he attended efficiently to the task.

  “You really didn’t have to do all this,” she told him as he finished and turned off the mower.

  “It’s your birthday,” he said solemnly, “and it was important to Corri to be with you, to surprise you. Ry talked a lot about making a difference in her life—it was important to him to try to give her some security after she lost her mother. He said he knew just how frightening it was for a child to lose a parent. He didn’t want her to feel alone.”

  India nodded. “Our mother died when Ry was barely four years old, just about the same age as Corri was when Maris died. I was just a baby, but Ry said many times how scared he had been, that she just seemed to have gone away, and he never saw her again.”

  “Maris’s death was hard enough on her, but now, with Ry gone, I think it’s even more important for her to feel wanted, to feel a part of something. I owe it to Ry to do what I can, when I can. Corri really wanted to celebrate your birthday with you. I needed to make sure that happened for her. And for you.”

  “Thank you, Nick,” she said simply. “For Corri. And for me.”

  “And for Ry,” he reminded her.

  “Certainly,” she said softly, “for Ry.”

  Of course, that was why he had made this trip, why he had brought Corri to her. Because of Ry, because of his respect and fondness for her brother. Unexpectedly, her heart was stung by the slightest trace of disappointment as she acknowledged the reason for his presence there, in her home, on her birthday.

  But even knowing that, once back inside her tidy house, she watched him fill her kitchen with energy and humor and wondered if she had ever known a man quite like him.

  Dinner was exquisite, lacking only Aunt August’s presence to make it the perfect birthday feast. Nick lifted the bluefish from the oven and slid it onto an old platter, happily chattering with Corri, taking pains to draw India into the conversation from time to time. They talked about various personalities in Devlin’s Light, about the start of the school year and who was in Corri’s class, why the art teacher was great and the music teacher not so. All in all, it was a wonderful birthday. India could not remember the last one that had brought her more pleasure.

  Corri bit her lip with happy anticipation as India opened the card that had been made just for her, watercolored rainbows and balloons painted on light blue construction paper.

  “Aunt August helped me with some of the words,” Corri announced proudly, “but I drew the pictures myself.”

  Happy birthday, Indy. I love you. Corri.

  “Balloons and rainbows are two of my most favorite things.” Indy hugged her, holding the child close for a very long minute.

  “Mine too. I used blue paper so it would be like the sky. See, rainbows are in the sky, and that’s where your balloons go if you don’t hold on to them.”

  “It’s a wonderful card, simply beautiful, Corri. I’ll have to find a good place to keep it.”

  “Oh!” Corri jumped from her seat. “We forgot!” She stuck her face into the picnic basket. “Here, India.” Corri handed over two small yellow and white plastic daisies.

  “What are these?” India asked.

  “They are magnets, silly.” Corri took them from her and used them to hold the card in place on the refrigerator door.

  “Why, how very clever!” India laughed. “Thank you. Now I can see my pretty card every time I come into the kitchen.”

  “Thank Aunt August,” Corri told her brightly, “it was her idea. She said it was time we started spreading around the ’frigerator art.”

  “And she wasn’t kidding,” Nick told her as he cleared the table. “I have a few of those little collector’s items myself. August does believe in sharing the wealth.”

  “I painted ducks for Nick. And a bird sitting on cattails.”

  “Which was actually quite good,” Nick told her.

  Corri beamed, basking in the happy moment for a split second before bouncing up and clapping her hands. “Now we can have birthday cake!”

  India’s favorite coconut cake with white frosting had survived the trip from Devlin’s Light with little more than some mooshed frosting on one side. Corri planted the candles across the top layer and Nick lit them, and both of them sang the birthday song while Indy closed her eyes and, for a moment, was transported back to another birthday, another time.

  “Make a wish Indy,” Ry was saying. “Wish with your heart and blow the candles out at the same time, and whatever you wish for will come true.”

  She opened her eyes and looked up into the smiling faces of two people who had become, suddenly, achingly precious to her. Taking a deep breath, enough to blow out all twenty-nine candles at the same time, India looked into eyes the color of caramels and knew exactly what to wish for.

  Maybe, she thought as she watched the tiny lights on the cake go out, when this trial was over, she’d have time to work on making that wish come true. For now, she just wanted to hold on to what remained of the evening, to the warmth that came, not from the candles’ glow, but from the heart of a child and the eyes of a very special man.

  Great-Aunt Nola’s Award-Winning

  Coconut Cake

  Cake:

  2½ cups plus 2 tablespoons flour

  3 teaspoons baking powder

  1/2 teaspoon salt

  1½ cups sugar

  3/4 cups butter

  3 eggs, separated

  3/4 cup milk

  1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

  3/4 cup flaked coconut (soak in 2 tablespoons milk)

  Preheat oven to 350° and prepare 2 cake pans (grease and flour). Add vanilla and coconut extracts to milk and set aside. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside. Cream butter with mixer for 30 seconds, then gradually add sugar and mix on medium speed for 5 minutes. Beat egg yolks and add to butter mixture. Add flour and milk alternately to butter mix, stirring after each addition, until smooth. Stir in coconut. With clean, dry beaters, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gently fold into batter. Turn into pans*, baking at 25 minutes for 8-inch round or square pans. Cool in pans 10 minutes, then invert onto racks and cool completely before frosting.

  Frosting (makes enough for 2 layers or one 9x13x2-inch sheet cake):

  1/2 cup butter, softened

  1 lb. box of 10X sugar, sifted

  4 tablespoons milk

  2 tablespoons coconut

  1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

  1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

  Soak coconut in milk. Beat butter with mixer on medium speed 30 seconds. Add 1/2 of the sugar, beat well. Drain coconut and add milk to butter mixture, beating well. Gradually add remaining sugar until desired consistency. Blend in extracts and coconut. Frost cake and cover with as much coconut as the cake will hold.

  * * *

  * Makes 2 8- or 9-inch layers or one 13x9x2-inch sheet.

  Chapter 6

  The glow was, sadly, short lived, since first thing Monday morning found India back in court, battling with Axel Thomas’s attorney on technical issues. The trial dragged on for three more very tense weeks, every day of which was war. Certainly it had been a war worth fighting, she later noted with satisfaction. Par
ticularly since she had emerged the victor and had the pleasure of knowing that Axel’s sorry butt would soon be hauled to the state prison for what would surely be a long and miserable stay.

  “Indy, we saw you on television!” Corri chirped into the phone, which had been ringing even as India had unlocked her front door and stepped inside following several hours of postverdict celebrations with her colleagues. “You looked pretty.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart.” India laughed. She had, of course, seen the film, but she hadn’t noticed whether she looked pretty or not, couldn’t have told with any degree of certainty what she had been wearing or who else had been framed by the camera’s lens following the pronouncement of the jury’s verdict.

  “I’m so proud of you.” Aunt August’s whisper filled her ear and gladdened her heart. “I always am, India. This time especially, I applaud your efforts.”

  “Thank you, Aunt August.” India squeezed her eyes tightly closed, bringing back the scene in the courtroom. The hush as the judge climbed three steps to his seat, his black robes trailing slightly behind him like a nun’s habit. The rustle of skirts and the tap-tap-tap of one juror’s high-heeled shoes as they crossed the ancient pine floor to the jury box. A poorly smothered cough from somewhere behind her. The mass of apprehensive uncertainty that filled her chest, threatening to displace every bit of oxygen in her lungs, as she waited, the very picture of composure and self-assurance, while inside her intestines twisted grotesquely. Axel Thomas’s stare, deliberate and unconcerned, sure of his impending freedom, as he sought to engage her eyes in one last bemused gesture of contempt.

  And then the judge asked, “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

  “We have, Your Honor,” replied the foreman, a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair and round-framed glasses too large for his elongated and dole face.

  “How do you find?”

  “We find the defendant, Axel Edward Thomas, guilty on all counts, Your Honor.”

  There was just the barest hesitation, a heartbeat’s worth of silence, before pandemonium erupted. Those members of India’s staff who had gathered across the back of the courtroom holding their breaths without even realizing they were doing so shouted and applauded the jury’s decision. India fought back tears as Herbie fought to control his own exaltation, as he rubbed a shaking hand across her shoulders to signal it was all right now, the weeks of traveling into the mind of a killer were over. Axel’s mask of bemused certainty dissolved into contentious disbelief, then snapped into crude threats thrown aggressively in every direction. India, the judge, his own attorney, all bore the brunt of his incensed declarations over the excited chatter in the courtroom.

  In the end, it all came down to this, she later reflected: She had done what no one had been sure she would be able to do. She had won a conviction on all charges—kidnap, rape, assault, and first-degree murder—for two of Axel Thomas’s three victims.

  And for you, Lizzie, she whispered.

  “I’m asking for the death penalty,” India said softly into the receiver.

  “Sic semper tyrannis,” replied August. Thus always to tyrants. “Well then. Corri is jumping up and down here— she wants to know if you’ll be home in time for dinner.”

  “Not dinner tonight, but tomorrow night for sure. Tonight I’m planning on being in bed by seven. I can’t remember the last time I was this tired. And I plan to sleep late.”

  “Will you be able to take a few vacation days?” Concern was clearly evident in August’s voice. “You’ve been working far too hard, India, for far too long. You haven’t taken any time off except when Ry died. And God knows, that was no vacation.”

  “I’m taking a few days, but I have to bring some work with me. I have another trial starting in about ten days.” India bit the nail on her right index finger, the Mobley case starting to swirl slowly in the recesses of her mind. How to play it. How to win. “I’ll bring some files home with me, but I will have a little time to relax. I want to spend some time with Corri.”

  “That’s exactly what you need to be doing right now, India. It’s a necessity.” August knew of India’s commitment to her work and understood better than any living soul the depth of that commitment. At the same time, August knew how desperately the child needed India—as much, August suspected, as India needed Corri.

  India heard August’s sigh as she hung up the phone and knew exactly what her aunt was thinking: At least India would be home for a few days, and she, August, would see that her niece was well fed, warm and surrounded by love for however long she would stay. And to India, coming off the Thomas trial and weeks of missing meals, missing sleep and living inside the head of a madman, well fed, warm and loved sounded like pure luxury. Even better, it sounded like home, and she couldn’t wait to get there.

  She played back the messages on her answering machine and made notes as the recorded voices broke the silence of the small house. A magazine salesman, a credit-card company whose bill she had somehow managed to overlook in the midst of the past few weeks of frenzy, her hairdresser scolding her for having missed the appointment she had scheduled weeks ago before her trial had begun and she had optimistically thought that she might have a day when she could leave the office early enough to make a 7:30 P.M. appointment. Indy hung up her jacket in the closet as the hairdresser’s high-pitched voice was replaced by a husky, masculine one.

  “Indy, hi, it’s Nick. Sorry I missed you tonight, but I know you’ve been really busy. I did get the names of two people you might want to run a check on. A guy named Hap Manning and a Gene Hatfield. Both had apparently been active last summer with the environmental protests over in Lincoln’s Beach, and both were seen in Devlin’s Light on several occasions. Dave Shelby at the gas station said he thought that one or both of them may have been around the week or so before Ry died, so you might want to look into them. Well, good luck tomorrow, I’ll be thinking about you.”

  Indy played it back twice, just to listen to his voice.

  “I’ve been thinking about you too,” she said aloud to the answering machine, “between briefs and arguments and rulings.”

  There were several more messages, mostly from tonight, to congratulate her. There was one from the D.A. himself, several from her fellow A.D.A.s, several more from members of the police force, even one from the mayor. All the local television stations, the local newspapers, all looking for interviews. She called the police department and chatted with the detectives, then asked that they run checks on Manning and Hatfield as soon as possible. She pushed the play-back button, just to hear Nick’s voice one more time before she hit the pillows.

  And hit them she did, hard and fast and grateful, almost joyful, to be doing so. No files to read tonight. No statements to run through, over and over in her mind, searching for exactly the right inflection to make a key point, the most apropos expression for delivering a thought she wanted the jury to recall, the correct body language for commenting without words on a statement of the defendant. Not tonight. Tonight she would sleep. Habit lifted her arm toward the alarm clock, and she smiled broadly, remembering that she would not need it. She would sleep until her exhausted body told her she could get up.

  The aroma reached out to welcome India even as she climbed the back steps of the house on Darien Road. She stood in the doorway and breathed it in, certain what the dark blue enameled pot on the stove held. Dropping her suitcase and her bags, she crossed the well-worn yellow pine floor and lifted the lid.

  Aunt August’s New England clam chowder. Fresh chopped clams and potatoes, onions and bacon. A cholesterol-counter’s nightmare of butter and cream. She peeked in the oven, where a loaf of bread was baking to golden brown perfection. On the counter a pan of fresh gingerbread, still warm and fragrant, rested upon a wire cooling rack next to a bowl of homemade applesauce. All in all, it smelled like her childhood, like comfort. The very scents had the power to refresh and restore her.

  “Ah, there you are, Indy. I thought I heard your car.” Aunt
August came into the kitchen through the doorway leading to the back stairwell, which led from the pantry to the second floor.

  India returned the firm embrace her aunt offered, holding the older woman for a second more than she had in a long time. August’s hair was flattened slightly on one side, and her usually crisp white oxford shirt—sleeves, as always, rolled to the elbows—was a little wrinkled.

  “Were you napping?” How unlike her aunt, she of endless energy, tireless of mind and body.

  “Just a catnap, dear.”

  “Why?” India’s eyes followed the beloved face before it dipped down to peer into the oven, checking on the progress of the bread.

  “Why?” August chuckled. “Because I was tired, India. That’s why most people seek rest.”

  India couldn’t recall a single nap that August had taken in all the years they had lived under the same roof. She recalled the recurring migraines, and a tingle of fear pricked the back of her neck. “Aunt August, are you all right?”

  “India, this will come as a great shock to you, I know,” August said, trying not to smile, “but I’m not as young as I once was. And life is more hectic than it has been in years, with an active six-year-old to keep up with. Goodness, we have homework to deal with again. Granted, it’s usually no more than a few letters of the alphabet to print in a little copybook every night, but it’s still homework. And all the parents are asked to volunteer to do something with the class, so I go in once a week during story hour and read a book.”

  August busied herself with removing the bread from the oven while India leaned against the counter under the weight of guilt that pressed against her. She should be tending to Corri’s schoolwork and volunteering in the library, not Aunt August, who had never borne a child of her own, yet had raised her brother’s children with love, and who now was blessed with the task of raising the child of a woman she hadn’t even liked. As much as August loved the child, raising Corri might well prove to be more than August could handle.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt August,” Indy said as she tossed her keys on the counter. “It shouldn’t all be left up to you. I should be doing some of those things with her. I should try to be more of a… a parental figure.”