He did not blink. “You want to go look at it?”
She nodded. “I can go to my office. You stay here, with your friends.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I want to come with you.”
They walked, hand-in-hand, to Ravenel & Crow. The night was soft, Victor’s hand was warm, and the magnolia tree that bloomed in front of the Baptist church made the night air heady and sweet. Though Teresa Ewing’s murder seemed as distant as the stars, Mary knew it wasn’t. There was, according to Emily, quite a surprise awaiting her on the Internet.
She unlocked the door to the building and walked up to the second floor. Her office was dark, illuminated only by the moonlight shining through the high, arched windows. Half a block away the courthouse stood on the hill, its gold dome shining in the darkness.
Victor gazed at the handsome old building. “So where’s your office going to be?”
She went to stand beside him. “Right now Turpin’s on the third floor, in the back. I’d like that corner office in the front.”
“Why there?”
“One set of windows overlooks the town. The other set looks south, toward the rez.”
“Your mother’s home.” Victor put his arm around her.
“My home too,” said Mary softly. “If I win, I don’t ever want to forget where I came from.” She leaned against him a moment longer, then she turned. “Come on. Let’s see what Emily’s so upset about.”
She switched on her computer. Victor sat down in her chair and pulled her on his lap. Together they watched the Hartsville Herald logo fill the screen, then a headline appeared above a video. “Teresa Ewing Witness Breaks Silence.”
“What the hell?” Victor sat up straighter.
“I don’t know,” said Mary. She clicked on the play button. John Cooksey came on the left side of the screen, sitting across someone cast in shadow. It was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman, young or old.
“Did you see Teresa Ewing on the last afternoon of her life?” Cooksey acted as if he were interviewing someone on Sixty Minutes.
“I did.” The person’s voice had been altered, making it sound mechanical and slightly drunk at the same time. “We were playmates.”
“Could you tell us what happened that last afternoon?” asked Cooksey.
The strange voice went on, recounting much the same story she’d heard from Jack Wilkins. Seven of them playing under the tree, the three girls went home, then Two Toes McCoy ran the boys off. This is a setup, thought Mary. But then Cooksey went on.
“That’s pretty well documented,” Cooksey acknowledged. “What makes your story different?”
“I went back,” said the voice. “Later. I left something there and had to find it.”
“And what did you see then?”
“I heard someone crying. I couldn’t tell who it was, so I peeked around the tree. I saw someone carrying Teresa Ewing over their shoulder, toward Zack Collier’s house.”
“Did you recognize this person?”
“No. It was dark. But I could tell they were big—bigger than the rest of us.”
“And was Teresa Ewing crying?” asked Cooksey.
“No. Teresa Ewing wasn’t moving at all.”
The interview went on for a few more exchanges. The voice claimed to be scared, claimed to have run home only to find later that Teresa had gone missing.
“Why didn’t you tell the police this at the time?”
“I was scared. I knew we’d been done something bad, asking the girls to play strip poker. The cops were in my face all the time anyway. I figured if I told them anything else, it would just make everything worse.”
The video stopped then; the show was over. So far, no comments had been left on the site, so Mary turned off the computer.
“Who do you figure that was?” asked Victor.
“I’d say somebody who wants to frame either Zack Collier or Two Toes McCoy,” she replied. “Which brings Adam Shaw, Devin McConnell, and Butch Russell to mind.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” said Victor. “But you’ve got to wonder—why now, after all these years?”
She nestled down in his arms. “Maybe your SBI report’s making somebody nervous.”
“I know you’re representing Collier, but why did Emily want you to look at this tonight?”
“Because she wants me to dump Collier. She heard that Turpin’s going to make it look like my campaign is full of criminals who I’ll go easy on if I get in office.”
He kissed her behind her ear, raising the most pleasurable gooseflesh. “So what are you going to do now?”
“What time is it?”
He shifted, looked at his watch. “12:47.”
“First thing tomorrow I’ll call Grace and tell her she may get more baseball bats aimed at her mailbox. Emily, I’m sure, will call me.”
“And you’ll reassure her that you’re not going easy on any criminals?”
“I will never go easy on a criminal.”
He nibbled her earlobe. “Then, would you like to go easy on me?”
She shifted in his lap. “What did you have in mind?”
“Right now. Over there, where the moonlight comes in those windows. I can look at you and you can look at that office you want so badly.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No.” He stood up, lifting her in his arms. “I want it for you too. I think it is the only thing that will make you truly happy.”
“I can think of one other thing,” she whispered as he carried her over to the window.
“No need to worry about that,” he said. “That, I’ve got covered.”
Thirty
The first bat hit Grace’s mailbox just after sunrise. She was asleep and dreaming when three sharp blams made her sit up in bed, her heart thumping. At first she thought it was her usual chase nightmare, then a car roared off, tires squealing. By the time she got out of bed and ran to the front window, the mailbox was in pieces, all over the street. When she heard a second car approaching, she hurried outside and stood on the front porch, hands on hips, daring the driver to whack the remains of it. A low-slung black coupe rolled past her house slowly, as if reconnoitering her property. But the driver must have seen her and recognized her challenge. He gunned his engine and roared off down the road.
Something has happened, Grace thought. Something bad. She went back to her bedroom and dialed Mary Crow.
“How bad is it, Grace?” Mary said immediately, as if she’d been expecting her call.
“Two drive-bys already. The first destroyed my mailbox. I went outside and scared the second one away. What’s going on?”
“The paper posted an interview with one of the Salola Street gang on their website last night. Now somebody’s re-posted the thing on YouTube.”
“The Salola Street gang?” Grace cried. “One of those boys?”
“One of those men, now. But they never showed the guy’s face on camera and his voice was distorted.”
“But what did he say?”
“Nothing new, until the very end. Then he claimed to have come back to the tree and watched a tall person in a dark hoodie carry Teresa Ewing toward your house.”
Grace went cold inside.
Mary continued. “It sounds fabricated, plus it’s too vague a description to be of any use in court, so don’t worry about that. But things could get dicey out there. I was just going to call you.”
“I see.” Grace opened her blinds to keep watch on the front yard.
“Have you got any relatives you could visit for a couple of weeks?” asked Mary.
“No.” She gave a bitter laugh. “The people who would welcome me would not welcome Zack.”
“Even in an emergency?”
“You know the word oolundeeha?”
Mary
translated the Cherokee. “Crazy.”
Grace said, “My great aunt Junebug calls Zack egwa oolundeeha, Big Crazy. She’s afraid of him. Throws salt over her shoulder every time she sees him.”
“And there’s nowhere else you could go?”
“My parents are dead, and my two brothers live in Alaska.”
“Okay,” said Mary. “I’ll ask Cochran to up his patrols out there. But be careful, Grace, and keep a record of what goes on. The world isn’t short of crazies these days.”
“No kidding.” Grace replied, giving a heavy sigh. “It’s not like this is anything new.”
For a moment she sat on the bed, angry tears welling in her eyes. Then she blinked them away and padded into the den, to the computer. First she watched the video on the paper’s website, then she watched it again on YouTube. Though it was impossible to tell which of the Salola Street gang was talking, the idea of some coward hiding in the shadows, implicating her son relit her anger. She found her cell phone at the bottom of her purse and punched in Adam’s number.
“Were you the one on that video?” she spat, shaking with rage.
“Huh?” he asked, his voice husky with sleep. “What are you talking about?”
“Go look at the paper’s website,” she said. “Or just search Teresa Ewing on YouTube.”
She clicked off the phone and made some coffee. By the time she’d poured her first cup, he called her back. “It’s Devin.”
“How do you know?”
“His speech pattern. Plus he’s always tilted his head funny—probably because of his goony eye.”
Suddenly she wanted to cry, to scream. “But why say all this now? Does he not realize how much evil this brings down on our heads?”
“He’s scared, Grace. Whatever new evidence the police have must be making him very nervous.”
“So of course he implicates Zack.”
“He actually just implicated somebody taller than he was. It sounds like he’s desperate to blame anybody but himself.”
“Do you think he killed Teresa?”
“I don’t know,” said Adam.
She gave a deep sigh. Though talking to him had dissipated her rage, she was now exhausted, at only 7:13 in the morning. “Well, thanks for talking to me. I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“You didn’t really think that was me on the video, did you?”
“No. I was just angry. And I didn’t have anybody else to call.”
“I would never do anything like that, Grace. Not to you, not to Zack, not to anybody.”
After that day, there was nothing to do but slog through. Hillview Haven sent her a nice letter, thanking her for her interest, but saying that they did not consider Zack a good fit for their program. Hardly surprised, Grace kept on teaching, relying on Clara to take care of Zack. Adam, whose parents had hit a plumbing snag with their new home in South Carolina, visited most afternoons, helping Zack catalog his vast collection of videotapes. Grace slept poorly at night, one ear attuned for a footstep outside her window, a car rolling up her drive. Every morning she woke at dawn to search the front yard for dead animals. Her landline began ringing constantly. Afternoons, a group of little girls would call and ask for Zack. The first time Clara handed him the phone, one of the young callers pretended to be Teresa Ewing speaking from the grave. It scared him so badly that he cried. After that Clara started screening the calls, telling the girls off in rapid Spanish.
At night the calls were for her. Most of them were stupid, but one caller frightened her. Always it was eerie, whistling music playing, then a gravelly whispered I’m coming for you, Grace. You and your fucked-up son. The voice was male, younger than her fifty-eight years, his accent distinctly Southern. A couple of times she was tempted to say, “Go fuck yourself, Dev!” But she had no proof that it was Devin McConnell. With her luck it would be John Cooksey, who would then put her on YouTube, or Twitter, or some other stupid site where teenagers could make fun of an old woman using the F word.
Ultimately, painting saved her. She had her upcoming show in Asheville, and when she wasn’t teaching at the college or checking the front yard for dead squirrels, she holed up in the little mudroom off the garage and worked on her canvasses. Entering a world of color and light was like diving in a pool of warm water. As long as she kept a paint brush in her hand, the accusations and hatefulness seemed distant and far away.
Finally one afternoon she lined up all her canvasses and signed them with the GC monograph she’d used throughout her career. Twelve landscapes, representing a year of work. Before, she’d hoped to make enough for a weekend at the beach. Now, all her money would have to go to Mary Crow.
She studied the paintings another moment, then called down to the den, where Adam and Zack were watching videos.
“You guys up for a road trip to Asheville?”
“Sure,” yelled Zack, excited.
“If you two will help me get these canvasses up there, I’ll take you out for dinner afterward.”
“Can we go to the restaurant with the hat?” asked Zack.
“Yes,” she replied. “Casa Lupe it is.”
With her available manpower doubled, they got the van loaded quickly. Two hours later, she stood in the Gallery L’Atelier, talking with Sue Creason as Adam and Zack brought the canvasses. The coil of nervousness in her stomach loosened as the no-nonsense, spiked hair Sue enthused over the paintings.
“Grace, these are just amazing,” she gushed. “I don’t know how you do it.” She glanced at Zack, who was carrying a huge landscape to a far corner of the exhibit space and lowered her voice. “I heard you had some trouble in Hartsville. That little girl who was killed years ago.”
“We’ve had some tough days,” Grace admitted. “But we’re getting through them.”
“Well, it doesn’t show in your work,” said Sue. “We won’t have a bit of trouble selling these. You have any preference about how we hang these?”
“Any way so they sell like hot cakes,” said Grace. “I need the money.”
After that they were done. As promised, she drove them to a Mexican restaurant north of Asheville. Usually, the floppy black sombrero was reserved for people celebrating their birthdays, but she whispered to the manager that her son was autistic, and wearing the hat would mean a lot to him. A few minutes later Zack was sitting at a corner table, the sombrero casting a shadow over all their food. Grace ordered a pitcher of beer and sat back, happy. It had been a good day. She’d finished her paintings, Sue was confident that she could sell them, and Zack was sitting with his best pal, Adam. Maybe the worst is over, she thought. Maybe the phone will stop ringing and the cars will stop driving by and the DNA test will exonerate Zack, forever. Then you can get back to your regular, everyday troubles.
They finished at Casa Lupe’s and drove home. It was dusk when she pulled into the driveway, fireflies twinkling over the front yard. She was tempted, for a moment, to check the yard for dead squirrels, but she decided she could do that in the morning. Better to get Zack inside and settled down for the night. They’d all had a big day. Zack hurried into the house, eager to watch a final video before bed. She followed him, assuming that Adam was right behind her, when he called her name.
“Grace,” he said softly, looking up at her from the bottom of the steps. “I didn’t want to say anything at the restaurant, but I’ll be leaving tomorrow. We’ve gotten everything loaded and Dad says the plumbing at the new house is working fine.”
“Oh,” she replied. His words took her by surprise. She knew he was only here temporarily, but she’d grown accustomed to having him around. “I’m happy for you, Adam, but Zack and I will miss you terribly.”
He smiled. “I wanted to ask you the best way to say good-bye to—”
Before he could finish a scream came from inside the house. “Nooooooo!” Zack screamed. “Not them!”
Grace turned and raced up the stairs, Adam following. Zack was standing in the doorway of his room, hands flapping like wings, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Something happened, Mama!” He pointed into the room. “Something bad!”
She looked where just hours ago he’d had bird paintings on the wall, stuffed animals piled on the bed, Barbie dolls arranged in some kind of tableau only he could understand. Now the room was a wreck. The bird paintings had been sprayed with black paint. All the stuffed animals had been decapitated, their heads grotesquely re-arranged on different bodies. But the Barbies were the most disturbing—someone had arranged them in sexual positions. One doll’s head was between a prone one’s legs; another doll’s face was on her breast while another straddled her face. The fifth stood propped against the wall, apparently observing the whole scene.
“Jesus,” Adam whispered. “Who the fuck did this?”
“I don’t know,” replied Grace, feeling shaky inside.
“Let’s get it cleaned up,” said Adam, moving toward the Barbie dolls.
“No.” Grace touched his arm. “Not yet. I want Mary Crow to see it first.”
Thirty-One
Emily Kurtz was the one who inadvertently received Grace’s urgent calls to Mary Crow. She was sitting in the back of the Lions Club dining room, listening as the candidates for District Attorney spoke to the gathered Lions. Mary had left her purse and phone in Emily’s keeping, and the campaign manager gave an inward groan when she saw Grace Collier’s name appear on the phone screen. Every candidate has a fatal flaw, she remembered one of her political science professors saying. It’s your job to figure out how to hide it. Misplaced loyalty was Mary Crow’s flaw. She doubted it would take George Turpin to figure that out.
As it turned out, not long at all. Mary had just given her basic pitch for more transparency and equal justice in domestic abuse cases when Turpin took the microphone.
“Ms. Crow, how can you talk about cleaning up the DA’s office when you have so much dirt among your own campaign staff?”
A Judgment of Whispers Page 21
