The Mulberry Tree

by Jude Deveraux

  Harper was said to be “in love” with Kyle—and this was in 1953, when no attempt to understand such a love was made.

  And then there was Frederick Burgess, a murderer at four years old. Everyone in Calburn knew the story of Burgess, as he was called, and his older brother, Bobbie. Bobbie Burgess was one of those rare children who possessed scholastic aptitude and athletic ability in equal abundance. He was the head of the debating team and captain of the football team, and on Sunday afternoons, he tutored underprivileged children in reading. On the twelfth of July, 1940, when he was sixteen years old, Bobbie was washing the family car while his four-year-old brother Frederick played inside. A neighbor, also outside, saw what happened. The child, playing that he was his big brother and driving, moved the gearshift. The car, parked on an incline, rolled backward, trapping Bobbie’s foot, then running over him and killing him instantly.

  Frederick did not inherit the intelligence or the athletic ability that his deceased brother had had, and it was said in Calburn that his parents despised their younger son for what he’d done, for what he’d taken from them. In fact, one person in Calburn said that Burgess’s father had often expressed the wish that his second child had never been born.

  Bailey looked up from the book. “I don’t think I can read any more,” she said as she closed the book. “High school is difficult enough, but what those kids had to go through was horrible.”

  “But if the torture ended when they graduated, why did all the rest of the bad stuff happen to them?”

  “I don’t know,” Bailey said. “Maybe it was their destiny. Are you sure you have the address?”

  “Yes,” Matt said distractedly.

  “What are you reading?” She put her head on his shoulder.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking how everything leads back to the Golden Six. No matter what we want to know, it always leads back to those six boys.”

  “Your father,” Bailey said softly.

  “It happened before he was my father. Anyway, I was thinking that the more we find out about them, the more likely we are to find out who Manville trusted.”

  “And if that person is still alive,” Bailey said.

  “Yes. If,” Matt answered.

  Twenty-seven

  “He’s never had a visitor before,” the nurse said to Bailey and Matt a few minutes after they entered the rest home. “Well, a couple of friends from work have visited him, but no family.”

  “Where did he work?” Matt asked.

  “High school football coach,” the nurse said, looking at them in speculation, as though to ask why they didn’t know that. “If he’s your uncle—” she began, looking at Matt.

  “Family feud,” Matt said. “You know how those things are.”

  “Sure,” she said as she stopped in front of a door. “All right, now here are the rules. He’s a very sick man, so if you upset him, out you go. Understand?”

  Both Bailey and Matt nodded as they stepped past the woman to enter the room, and right away Bailey wanted to leave. The man on the bed looked as though he barely weighed a hundred pounds, and tubes were coming out of him everywhere. His left arm was strapped down, and a drip was slowly entering his veins. An oxygen tube was across his face. Machines all around him measured his breathing and his heart rate.

  “Matt, I—” Bailey began, her hand on his arm.

  But Matt stepped forward to the man’s bedside. “Mr. Burgess,” Matt said firmly, “we’d like to ask you about the night Frank McCallum died.”

  In the next second all hell broke loose as the man opened his eyes and alarm bells started screaming. In an instant the door opened, and a doctor and two nurses ran into the room, pushing Bailey and Matt aside.

  Bailey stood back, clutching Matt’s hands in hers as they watched the doctor examine the patient and the nurses switch off the machine alarms. After a moment Bailey heard a voice say, “I’m all right. Get off of me!” and she breathed a sigh of relief. “I was having a bad dream,” the voice said. The doctor and two nurses were blocking their view, but Bailey knew it was Burgess speaking.

  “Would all of you get the hell out of here and let me talk to my guests?” the voice said.

  The doctor turned around and gave Bailey and Matt a hard look. He hadn’t been fooled by his patient’s lie. “You upset him again like that, and I’ll personally escort you out of here,” he said, then the three of them left the room.

  Bailey walked to his bedside. The man in bed was emaciated, wasted by whatever was eating his life away, but his eyes were bright and alive. And she could see past his wrinkled face to the young man she’d seen so many pictures of.

  “I think we’d better leave,” she said. “We’ve—”

  “What?” he said. “Already almost killed me?” Burgess said, then coughed.

  Bailey got a glass of water with a straw in it off the table and held it while the man drank.

  During this, Matt had been standing at the foot of the bed, his hands white-knuckled as he gripped the rails.

  “You’re Kyle’s boy, aren’t you?” Burgess said. “You look like him, only fatter.”

  “He eats a lot,” Bailey said, smiling.

  Burgess turned to her. “And who are you?”

  Before Bailey could speak, Matt said, “Lucas McCallum’s widow.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Bailey said, then sat down on a chair beside the bed. She was sure that this news would certainly kill the man. The machines made some beeps, but no alarms went off.

  “Manville,” Burgess said after a moment. “James Manville. I saw him once. I was in Oregon buying lumber, and someone said that James Manville had just come into town and was going white-water rafting. Like everyone else, I wanted to see him, so I was in the crowd that watched him get in the boat. Just before they took off, he waved at us, and I thought my heart would stop, because I was looking into Luke McCallum’s eyes.”

  “Did he see you?” Bailey asked.

  “Oh, yeah. He saw me, and when he did, the arrogant look of James Manville left his face, and he was that scared little boy again. But I put my finger to my lips and shook my head to let him know that I’d never tell, and Luke smiled back at me. I always liked Luke.”

  “I want to know everything about him,” Bailey said.

  But Burgess smiled. “Sorry. Can’t help you there. All I know is that Frank left town right after graduation, stayed away for a few years, and when he came back, he had a kid with him. I once asked Kyle why we never saw the kid, and Kyle said that he was deformed, so Frank kept him hidden away up in the mountains so people wouldn’t make fun of him. It wasn’t any of my business, so I never asked any questions about him. I never even saw the kid until he was a teenager. He used to sneak down out of the mountains and visit . . . ” Burgess paused for a moment. “A farm. There was a nice little farm on—”

  “Owl Creek Road,” Bailey said. “The old Hanley place.”

  “Yes! That’s it. Have you seen it?”

  “Yes,” Bailey said softly. “It’s beautiful. There’s an old mulberry tree in the back that—” She stopped; the man’s machines had begun to beep wildly. “I’m sorry, I’ve upset you. I think we should go.”

  “No, please don’t leave,” Burgess said. “It’s lonely here, and I’d like to talk. I go days without saying a word. I used to be known as a pretty good storyteller.”

  Bailey looked at Matt, and he smiled.

  Burgess was silent for a moment as he looked from one to the other of them. “Maybe you’d like to hear about the Golden Six and what really happened.”

  “Yes,” Matt said. “We’d like to hear anything you can tell us.”

  For a moment Burgess closed his eyes. “Dying has made me want to tell the truth.” He opened his eyes and looked at Bailey. “It was all caused by that bitch, T. L. Spangler. You know that?”

  “I read most of the book,” Bailey said softly. “All that I could stand to read of it, that is.”

  Burgess shook his head. “No, n
ot that part. Not what was written in that book. She tried to justify the horror she’d caused, but she knew what she’d done. I hear she’s in Washington now,” Burgess said, then smiled. “Politics. Backbiting and underhanded tricks. That’s where she belongs.” He paused a moment to calm himself. “It all started with a bet, a bet that Roddy lost, a bet that changed the lives of a whole lot of people. If you’ve read the book, then you know all about that social class crap she harped on, but some of it was true. We were kings in Calburn and nobodies in Wells Creek.

  “But what that ugly woman didn’t write in her book was that she was behind all the hatred that happened in Wells Creek. You see, Roddy— Is he still alive?”

  “Yes,” Bailey said. “He’s alive. And he’s mean and he’s crazy, but he’s still marrying little girls and producing babies.”

  Burgess smiled. “Then he hasn’t changed at all. He always was mean and crazy, but back then he was also beautiful, and few people outside Calburn could see past that beauty. Your father could,” he said, looking at Matt, who’d taken a seat beside Bailey. “Kyle couldn’t stand Roddy, just plain detested him, and contrary to what’s been written, it had nothing to do with Roddy’s ‘parental origins’ or his ‘social status.’ Roddy was born mean, and he never changed.”

  “And my father disliked him,” Matt said thoughtfully. “But I thought the Golden Six were—”

  “One for all and all for one?” Burgess said, then tried to laugh, but when the machines started beeping again, he calmed himself and held up the arm that was filled with needles. “I’d take them out, but they’ll just put them back in,” he said with a sigh. “Now where was I?”

  “A bet,” Bailey said. “You said it all started with a bet.”

  “Yes. I remember that day clearly. We were in Wells Creek High School, standing by the lockers. It was Kyle, Roddy, Frank, and me. Roddy was trying to impress Kyle. Talk about an impossible task! But Roddy was even more full of himself back then, so he bragged to Kyle that he could get any girl in the world. For some reason, instead of ignoring him as he usually did, Kyle turned around and glared at Roddy. Then Kyle gave this little smile that I’ll never forget. ‘Her!’ Kyle said. ‘Get her.’ It was Theresa Spangler. Have you seen a picture of her?”

  “I have,” Bailey said, then looked at Matt. “Have you?”

  Puzzled, Matt said, “Sure, she was on the cover of Time.”

  “No,” Bailey said, “not a recent picture. Have you seen what she looked like in high school? Back then, she was—”

  “A dog,” Burgess said. “A real bowzer.” He closed his eyes for a moment as he remembered that day. “Roddy went to her and gave her his best sexy looks, his oiliest, most lustful come-on lines, but Spangler wasn’t affected by him. She told Roddy to drop dead, that she wanted nothing to do with him.

  “You should have seen his face.” Burgess chuckled. “Roddy thought all the girls at Wells Creek were mad for him, but here was this dog telling him to get lost. By then a crowd of girls had gathered, and they were whispering among themselves. Roddy’s pride was hurt, so he said, ‘Who’d want an ugly old hag like you anyway?’ and started to walk away. But Spangler—” Burgess had to take a breath before he could go on.

  “Loudly, down the length of the hallway, Spangler said, ‘You might have beauty, and I might be ugly, but I have brains and you don’t. I can get my face fixed, but you can’t get a brain. Someday I’ll be in the White House, while you’ll be in a shack dreaming of the days when you were beautiful.’ ”

  “Yeow!” Matt said. “She was certainly right on the money, wasn’t she? Smart girl.”

  “A good memory, anyway,” Bailey said. “But she stole the whole thing from Winston Churchill.”

  Both men looked at her as though to ask what she was talking about. “A woman Winston Churchill disliked was sitting beside him at dinner, and she said, ‘You, sir, are drunk,’ and Churchill said, ‘And you, madam, are ugly, but I shall be sober in the morning.’ ”

  Both men were still looking at Bailey in question, silently asking what her story had to do with anything. “Roddy could have pointed out the woman’s plagiarism,” Bailey said, but the men kept staring at her. “Right. I forgot. You’re boys. You probably think Roddy should have punched her in the nose. Oh, well, what did he say?”

  “Nothing,” Burgess answered. “Roddy was beautiful, not smart, so he said nothing, and everyone in school laughed at him.

  “But what none of us from Calburn knew was that no one made fun of Theresa Spangler, because she was dangerous. All the kids in Wells Creek had learned in primary school to stay away from her. If they didn’t, their lunches ‘disappeared.’ Or they found chewing gum in their hair. Or there were ‘accidents’ on the playground.”

  “A dirty fighter,” Matt said.

  “The dirtiest,” Burgess said. “She never did anything in the open. The kids all knew who had hurt them, but the teachers never did. They felt sorry for Spangler because she was so ugly, so if a kid said Spangler did it, it would usually be the innocent kid who got punished.

  “In high school, the snotty little leader of the cheerleading team once made a rude remark about the ugliness of Theresa Spangler, and the other girls laughed. The next day someone put green dye in the shampoo of all the girls on the team. After that, everyone in Wells Creek High School treated Theresa with the utmost respect.”

  “I’m sure her methods were bad, but at least she fought back,” Bailey said. She had too frequently been called “ugly” herself, and she’d fantasized often about revenge.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Burgess said. “She was right to get revenge, and maybe she was. But that girl played too dirty, and she didn’t forgive. After those cheerleaders laughed at her, Spangler didn’t stop at dyeing their hair green. They led lives in hell for that whole year. The next year, three of them moved to other schools, and the other three . . . well, let’s just say that they desperately needed therapy.”

  “So you boys had inadvertently chosen the most formidable person in school to pick on?” Matt said.

  “Yes. And she took her rage out on all of us. She set herself a goal to undeclare us the heroes that the bomb scare had made us. On the next Monday, Kyle opened his notebook, and inside was some jock’s homework. Four of them were waiting for Kyle after school. They beat him so badly he spent two days in the hospital.”

  Burgess shook his head. “All six of us were accused of awful things that year, but we were innocent. An obscene note from Roddy was found in some football player’s girlfriend’s locker, and only by luck did he escape a beating. Part of Frank’s shirt was found outside the girls’ locker room, and he was accused of being a Peeping Tom. Taddy was accused of cheating on a test. And Harper was locked inside Kyle’s locker by four boys who said he was spying on them. They did it on a Friday afternoon, and we didn’t find him until Saturday night. We had to break into the school to get him.”

  “And you?” Bailey asked. “What did they do to you?”

  “ ‘Murderer’ written on my locker. And it was written inside my books and on anything that had my name on it.”

  For a moment the three of them were silent.

  “Was it all a setup?” Bailey asked quietly. “The bombing, I mean. Did you all plan it, or were you really heroes?”

  “Yes and no,” Burgess said. “In a way we planned it because we fantasized about doing it for days beforehand, but I don’t think any of us really thought about planting a bomb in the school.”

  “Except Harper,” Matt said softly.

  “Exactly. How’d you guess?”

  “I think maybe my dad told my mother the truth because one time there was a news piece on TV about a bomb going off somewhere, and my mother said, ‘Better check Harper’s whereabouts.’ She didn’t mean for me to hear her, but I did. At the time I was so young that I thought she meant a harp, a musical instrument, but what she’d said was so puzzling that I remembered it. Years later, I heard the name Harper,
and I put two and two together.”

  “So how did it happen?” Bailey asked.

  “It started out as loneliness, just as Spangler said. We were strangers in a school that didn’t want us, and we desperately wanted to find our places.”

  “Spangler said that Frank and Rodney and Thaddeus were better off in Wells Creek than they had been in Calburn,” Bailey said. “She said Frank had impressed the whole school with his persuasive speech.”

  Burgess snorted so loud that one machine began to beep, and he had to take a couple of breaths to calm himself and quieten the machine. “You know why Frank had such a good voice? He’d been chain-smoking since he was eleven, and his lungs were charbroiled. Spangler wrote that book to impress her teachers. We were all misfits. The only thing that woman got right was that since we were the only boys from Calburn, it threw us together. And she was right when she said that in Calburn we’d never been friends. Nerds like Taddy don’t rub elbows with shining stars like Kyle Longacre.”

  Bailey glanced at Matt and saw that his mouth was in a hard line. Obviously, he didn’t consider his father a “shining star.”

  “The first weeks were awful,” Burgess said. “We were alone and lonely and we missed our school, where we knew the rules. Every afternoon we had to wait forty-five minutes to an hour for the bus to pick us up to take us back to Calburn. And, like kids then did, we stayed apart from the girls. The first time the bomb was mentioned, as usual, we were complaining about how much we hated Wells Creek High School.”

  “What would you do if someone bombed this place?” Harper asked the other boys as they stood in the little kids’ playground and waited for the bus to arrive.

  “Run,” Roddy said, and they all laughed.

  “I’d get the hell out of here, and hope that they all blew up,” Frank said.

  “No!” Harper said fiercely. “That’s not the way to become heroes.”

  “Heroes? Who wants to be a hero?” Roddy asked.

  “Look, we have to stay in this school for a whole year, and it can be heaven or hell,” Harper said. “Which do you want?”