Slow Fall

  #

  The town was dark, as was the old courthouse; but fluorescent white shown from the Sheriff's annex. Excitement shown from the eyes of the deputy at the reception desk.

  “Does he wanna see you.”

  It wasn't a question so Pickett didn't answer. A second deputy, in the corner, fed a file cabinet. The graveyard shift.

  “He aint here now.” The first deputy nodded toward Homer's closet. “We got a call just a little while ago—” He paused, his eyes fixed upon Pickett's swollen lip and discolored jaw. “What happened to you?”

  “Bit a dog. What call?”

  The first deputy looked guiltily across the room at the second, who pretended not to notice. “Another body,” he whispered.

  “Whose?”

  “Dunno—just a body. A dead one. That was all they said. Homer—Sheriff Beane, I mean—he went out there with Singleton an hour ago.”

  “Out where?”

  “Can't say. Ficial business.”

  “Sheriff wants to see me. Right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So I'll go see him. Where is he?”

  “Well,” the deputy scratched his head, “Sheriff did wanna see you.” He looked to the second deputy. The second deputy stared at his papers, shaking his head in disgust—and not at the papers. “Out the old Orlando highway.” And the first deputy proceeded to give Pickett directions to Millie's place. “You know where I mean?”

  “I'm afraid I do. Any eye-dee on the corpse?”

  “Nope. A female. Caucasian. I didn't take the call.” He nodded toward the deputy in the corner. This time, it was the first deputy that shook his head. In amazement. “Man. There sure as shootin's something strange going on around here.”

  Pickett admitted that there sure as shootin was.

  17

  The motor court was dark, save for a stream of light from the open door of Millie's cabin. The stream flowed diagonally across the semi-circular lawn, emptying into the elliptical pool of a street light at the foot of the drive. Homer's men came and went from the bungalow, throwing spasmodic shadows down stream. Bodie Pickett U-turned beyond the court and parked across the street. Behind Tom's Buick—the one Millie had taken. It was empty.

  Save for the spit and prattle of the radio in Homer's cruiser, all was silent. An ambulance waited in the drive a little beyond Millie's cabin, the back doors open wide, awaiting a midnight feeding. Pickett walked through the pool of light and upstream, carrying an island of shadow with him.

  Two deputies stood in front. They talked with the exaggerated quiet and solemnity affected by public officials in the face of private tragedy. They looked up as Pickett approached. “I'm sorry, Mister, but—”

  “I'm Pickett. Homer wants to see me.”

  The one who spoke looked at the other, then at Pickett's ruined mouth. He shrugged, smiled, and nodded to the cabin. “Round back.”

  A silent storm raged there. Lightning flashed silently beneath the live oaks, setting the wet moss ablaze in moments of white light. Homer and half a dozen other men stood around in rough circle, their faces alternately lit and dark as the police cameraman took a last turn around.

  Millie lay on her back in the center, oblivious of light, time, and the stares of men. Her arms lay limply at her side, legs tangled, head turned to the side. Rain glistened on her face, the wet t-shirt a second skin.

  Pickett walked around the circle of men and light. Homer looked up; he was older, by decades. His weight hung like a burden just recently perceived.

  “Take a look.”

  Pickett did. Millie's one eye stared blankly, a drop of water balanced to the side of the iris. The other lid was half closed and concave, the eyeball collapsed around a small hole.

  Pickett looked to Homer.

  “The rain,” said Homer. “Must a been blood, not a hell of a lot, but some. Rain washed it away.”

  The photographer finished and nodded to Beane. “All right.” Homer motioned to the two white-coated men who stood across from them. “Let's get her outta here.” Then he turned to the dark man next to him. “When can I have it, Sal?”

  “I'll get on it first thing tomorrow morning, if that's okay.”

  Homer shrugged. “She aint going nowhere. Singleton?”

  Sal turned and disappeared into the dark. The skinny kid who'd fallen in the canal detached himself from the clot of figures around the body. “Sir?”

  “You go with her.” Homer nodded toward the two men in white. They were lowering Millie into a black plastic bag. “Stay with her till we get someone down there to relieve you.”

  “Yessir.”

  The man called Sal reappeared and put a hand to Homer's shoulder. “Forgot the warrant. It's out in the car. I'll give it to Franklin on my way out.” He patted Homer on the shoulder. “Get some sleep, you need it.”

  Homer said, “Right,” as if sleep were the last thing he were going to get.

  The men in white took up the stretcher and followed the man called Sal. Singleton walked behind and nervously touched the brim of his hat to the Sheriff.

  Homer directed his flashlight at the ground where Millie had been—had ceased to be. The grass was flat and dry. “Skeeter?”

  The remaining deputy straightened.

  Homer made a vague circular gesture with his left hand. “Get a rope around here or something.”

  “Yessir.” And Skeeter hustled around the bungalow leaving Homer and Pickett alone.

  “Well, boy, you sure gotta nose for murder, that's for sure. That's for damn sure.” His light was still on the dry spot. He walked around it to the opposite side, then turned the beam on Pickett's face. “Rough day?” He shut off his light, and walked slowly back around the circle toward the younger man. Homer set his jaw as he approached, stopped close in front of Pickett and thumped an index finger against his chest. “Playtime's over, boy. I wanna know where you been and what you know and I want it now.”

  Homer's eyes drilled into Pickett's; but Pickett said nothing.

  “I been running round this goddamn county for the last eighteen hours, and I find I'm running in your wake the whole goddamn way. I trace last night's stiff to up round Umatila, then to a jerk joint out Sanford. I pump some oily bastard for an hour, get nothing. Then, on the way out, some bimbo tells me that this guy sounds a helluva lot like you been round asking the same questions as me, but spreading a little green for sweetening. So's I got to threaten her with damn near everthin to jaywalking just to get the same thing out of her for nothing.”

  Skeeter busily strung orange tape among the live oaks and around Homer and Pickett, sealing off the crime scene. Homer stopped and thumped Pickett again with his finger.

  “You listening, boy? I'm talking to you.”

  Skeeter pretended he wasn't there.

  “I mean, hell, I'm only the Sheriff, right? Why should anyone tell me nothing? So, I come back to Belle Haven, trying to get some kind a line on this Millie woman, and we get this phone call. Seems there's been some old West showdown earlier in the evening at the Krispy Krunch—a woman name a Millie Moses and some clown that sounds a whole helluva lot like you. Christ, I mean why should anyone tell me bout any of this? So… I get the home address from the Krispy Krunch lady, but nobody's home. So, whataya think, I get a call from Ralph Kemp. Yeah, right, member him? Says this lady stole his car. Now you shut up and just listen.

  “So I go back to the office, and whataya know—I get another call. Yeah. Says to hurry on back. Seems somebody's trying to plant a stiff in the backyard. Now, I high-tail it back, and what do I find? Huh? I find my goddamn witness laid out like a fucking slab of meat. And just then,”—Homer grinned and gestured expansively—”here comes old super sleuth hisself, prancing round like you was out for a walk or something.” The grin became a grimace. “Now you talk to me, boy, and I don't mean tomorrow. You about to get burned bad.”

  Pickett sighed, eyebrows raised, and talked. He gave Homer everything that he had since that mornin
g. That covered the facts of the matter—as far as he knew them—and left Amy, Mark, and Jan Ayers out of it.

  Homer was unimpressed. “That aint the way Ralph Kemp tells it. Seems your friend here…” Homer pointed to the ground. He paused, then rubbed his brow. “Cording to Kemp, she up and stole his car. And you interfered when he tried to stop her.”

  “Come on, Homer, that's bullshit, and you know it.”

  “Course it's bullshit, asshole. But he's got two witnesses that'll back him and you aint got two cents worth of chicken-shit to prove otherwise.” Homer glared at Pickett for a moment in silence, then closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. He pulled a roll of Tums from beneath the flap on his breast pocket.

  “Look, son… Kemp's a two-bit greaser from way back. He's got his hand in every minor racket in the county. Prostitution, small-time gambling, some grass probly—that sort a thing. He aint smart enough for the big-time, but he's plenty smart enough to stay outta stir. And he covers his ass any way he needs to. You got lucky tonight, boy, damn lucky, cause Kemp's mighty worried—least he oughta be. Someone's unloading some heavy-duty junk in the county the last couple a months, and he's nervous. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if he figured someone was trying to move in on him. Aint no time to go pushing him around, boy, not if you wanna stay healthy. You was just plain flat out lucky tonight, boy, nothing but lucky.”

  Homer bit off the end of the Tums wrapper, spit it over his shoulder.

  “Your Krispy Krunch friend here weren't so lucky.” He popped a pair of white tablets into his mouth, crushing them between his teeth. “Don't push it.”

  And Pickett didn't, he remained silent.

  Homer chewed slowly and thoughtfully for a moment. Then he swallowed hard, looked down at the ground and spat. “Where you staying?”

  Pickett told him.

  “Well you go on back there and stay. I'm tired of thinking bout you, right now—shoot, I'm tired of looking at you. Now get outta here.” Homer wheeled around and stalked off. Over his shoulder, he said: “Stick tight, Skeeter. We'll set up some shifts and get some relief out here later.” He stepped over the tape and disappeared into the shadows.

  Skeeter stood in silence, looking at the dark space within the fluorescent tape. “Aint been this much action around here since that sink-hole. Swallowed up two blocks a down town and a Porsche dealership.” He was older than he looked from a distance. He was tall and wiry, but had the weathered face of a middle-aged farmer. He looked over at Pickett, who was looking down at the ground.

  “He pretty rough on you, huh?”

  “Nah. I probably earned it.”

  “Don't pay Homer no never mind. He's just upset. Bout all this business, you know. Jeez, who aint.” Skeeter slid a couple of bony fingers into his shirt and scratched his stomach. “Two murders in a week. Shi-it.”

  “Three.”

  “Huh?”

  Pickett glanced up at Skeeter absently. “Nothing. Forget it.” He stepped out of the ring of tape. “Who called it in?”

  “Manager. The lady lives in one of the other units. She's at a movie or something and comes back late. Ol' Fido needs a walk, but it's raining by then so she watches herself a little Carson—till the rain stops, y'know—then she takes the mutt out for a leak. Well…” Skeeter was warming up to the good part.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, her ol' dog goes bananas, y'know what I mean, and she damn near falls on the body. Then she high-tails it back to her place and calls the office. It's funny…”

  Pickett glanced up as though it didn't sound funny to him at all. “What?”

  “Well, the sheriff—he was up here right before the storm, y'know, looking for her. The corpse, I mean. Of course she weren't a corpse then. I guess. Anyhow, he got the address from the place she worked.” Skeeter smiled and shook his head. “Must've been right about when she was getting it out back. Never found the gun, though.”

  Pickett shrugged. “Might not been one. A wound like that… Coulda been a lot of things. Won't know till after the post mortem.”

  “Uh-uh. A gun. The woman saw a gun, a little silver one, laying next the body. Least she said she did.”

  “Where is it?”

  Skeeter chuckled and threw up his hands. “Who knows? In her mind, proly. Least there weren't no gun when Homer and Singleton got here.”

  “She do anything with it?”

  “Nah. She said the kid took it.”

  “Christ. What kid?”

  Skeeter laughed. “It's something aint it?”

  “Goddamn it, Skeeter!”

  Skeeter's face fell and he straightened like a buck-private.

  Sheriff Beane puffed out of the darkness. “I gotta good mind to leave you here all night. Shoot. Think you can keep your eyes open and your mouth shut long enough for me to get Franklin back here? Huh, think you can handle that?”

  “Yessir. I—” “Save it.” Homer pointed to Pickett. “You. Com'ere.”

  Pickett followed the sheriff to the front of the bungalow.

  “Wait here.” Homer went inside.

  Only two cruisers were left now. A deputy leaned against the wall and smiled at Pickett knowingly. A moment later, another stuck his head through the door and motioned Pickett inside.

  The room was just as he'd left it, except that the waitress uniform had joined the terry robe at the foot of the bed. Homer stood behind the bed, leaning with his back against the wall, looking at Pickett. A middle-aged woman with a puffy white face and unnaturally red hair sat primly on the bed. She smoothed a green print dress down over her knees as Pickett walked in, and looked back at the Sheriff.

  Homer gestured toward Pickett with his head. The redheaded woman looked at Pickett, squinting a little, and shook her head. “No, Sheriff, I am quite certain. The man I saw was much younger—and not so tall. No, he couldn't have been much over twenty. If that.” She put two small white hands to her cheeks and closed her eyes. “Is there anything more, Sheriff. I'm very tired.”

  “Just a minute more, Ma'am. Can you think of anything else? Like you ever see the kid before?”

  “Well, I don't know… Perhaps. Yes. Yes, I think so. I saw someone a lot like him—could have been him—hanging around off and on for the last week or so.” She straightened primly and glared at the Sheriff. “I called your office about it, but they said you had other things to worry about.” She pressed her lips together and looked away.

  Homer exhaled slowly and looked down at the floor. “Did he come to see anyone, Ma'am? That's what we need to know.”

  “Well, no, not as far as I know. I sure didn't see him visit Miss Moses—least I didn't see him if he did. Only visitor she ever had was that girl.” Beane suddenly looked up.

  Pickett hardly moved, but his eyes narrowed slightly.

  Beane said: “Which girl would that be, Ma'am.”

  “I don't know, really, some black-haired child. Cute, but a little too—oh, you know what I mean—grown up. More than she should be, I mean. Though come to think of it, I did see that kid talking to the girl. I don't know what about. He was hanging around once while she was with Millie. He didn't go in or anything. Just waited. He tried to talk to the girl when she came out, but she wasn't interested.”

  “Whataya mean?”

  “Well, she got mad, that's all. Didn't want anything to do with him.” She folded her arms over her breasted and shuttered. “Now I know why.” She sat in silence for a moment, unhappy with the thought.

  “Anything else, Ma'am?”

  “No, I don't think so—” She started, eyes wide and staring. “You don't suppose he's one of those—those junkies they've been talking about on TV do you? I really don't know what things are coming to, all these drugs and what not… In Wekiwa County, too.” She clucked and shook her head, looking down at her hands.

  Homer exhaled and pushed wearily off the wall. “Well, thank you, Ma'am. We'll be back in the morning and take you over to the office for a statement.”

  “Well, i
f it's absolutely necessary…”

  “It's necessary.”

  “You—you think he'll be back—tonight, I mean?”

  “No, Ma'am, I doubt that he'd do that. But I'll have a man on duty just the same. Don't you worry none. You go on back home and get some sleep. And thanks again for your help.”

  “All right, Sheriff.”

  “Walk her home will you, Franklin?”

  She walked past Pickett to the door. She stopped, turned, and smiled. Pickett's face was blank, but his eyes were sharp and wary. The redheaded woman left, followed by Deputy Franklin.

  “What was that all about?”

  “She runs this place. Saw a fella hanging round the body after she called it in. Went back out there to find her dog. Do you believe it? Lucky she didn't end up like her tenant. Anyhow, she seen this kid—sounds like a kid, anyway—standing over the body. He took off when she seen him.”

  “And the gun was gone?”

  Homer looked sideways at Pickett. “Yeah. When we got there the gun was gone.”

  “And you figured it was me?”

  “I don't figure nothing, boy. I just do a job best I know how.” He fell into a straight-back chair next to the small kitchen table, and leaned back against the wall. The chair gave off a loud crack in protest. “And you,”—Homer tossed his chin at Pickett—”you're worse than no help at all.”

  For a moment, both stared into the silence of the room.

  Finally, Homer looked purposefully at his muddy boots, stretched and pushed himself up from the chair. He walked past Pickett to the door and yelled: “Franklin!” Then, he turned back. “Get outta here now, Bo. And stay outta this. It got nothing to do with you—”

  Pickett opened his mouth.

  “-- or your daddy. Nothing, y'hear?”

  Homer glared at the taller man, daring him to speak. He didn't; chin bunched below a frown, brows raised, he stared back at Homer.

  Franklin appeared in the door, short of breath. Homer turned to him, dismissing Pickett with a sharp movement of his chin.

  Pickett followed the light out the door and across the lawn to the street and the Nova. He drove to the boat house and sleep.

  18

  The sun was high and bright, but the damp pavement was only just beginning to steam. Noon would obliterate the evidence of the night's rain and by mid-afternoon the clouds would mass at the horizon once again. If the rains came too soon the super-heated earth would have it back in the air by dusk and the night would be hot and steamy. That was the norm; the late night rain that remained was as rare as it was welcome. But in the end, it was always the sun that won out. Today would be no different.

  Bodie Pickett raised his left hand again, but the door opened before he could strike.

  “Bo.” It was a statement of fact, one that Roger Mooring seemed unable to assimilate. The two stared at each other for an instant; Pickett spoke first:

  “May I come in?”

  “Uh, yes. Yes, of course. God, what happened to your face?” Roger stepped back pulling the door with him. “Please come in.”

  “Nothing that won't heal.” Pickett stepped into a small living room, a small kitchen through a door to the left. A table there was set for two; only one setting had been occupied.

  “Please…” Roger gestured to a sofa against the far wall. It, like everything else in the room, was comfortably worn. Roger looked as worn, but a little less comfortable in suit pants, white short sleeve shirt, and navy tie. Roger waved a paper napkin in the direction of the kitchen. “I just finished breakfast.” It was as if an explanation were somehow called for. “Would, uh, would you like some coffee?”

  “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

  Roger disappeared through the arched kitchen door.

  The living room was cool and dark. The venetian blinds cast bars of light across the hardwood floor. The shafts of light were visible in the dust particles stirred by Pickett's passage through the room. The dust looked as if it had been there forever; so did everything in the room—everything except the red jacket that lay across the easy chair next to the door. It looked new, stylish with a mandarin collar. It also looked out of place on the moth-eaten tweed of the easy chair—in bad taste almost, a boutonniere at a funeral.

  Roger returned. The cup rattled as he handed it to Pickett, and coffee slopped over into the saucer. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It's okay. Smells wonderful.”

  Roger wiped his hands on his pants and looked around the room. He crossed to the other side of the room and settled gingerly into a platform rocker. It creaked. He coughed in embarrassment.

  “Is Amy up?”

  Roger glanced at the jacket on the chair. “No, I don't think so.”

  Pickett looked a question at him.

  “She—well, we both were up late last night. I—” He hesitated. Some doubt at the tip of his tongue blocked the words. “You know about my—about Amy's mother?”

  “Uh-huh. I didn't know who she was till last night, though.” Pickett sipped at the coffee, and squinted as he swallowed. “How'd you find out?” “Sheriff Beane called late. Seems she was going by her maiden name. Moses, I think it was. Homer found a driver's license and what-not in her room with Mooring on it. He remembered about the divorce, I guess.”

  Pickett nodded. “It all makes a little more sense—”

  “No,” Roger bridled, “no, it doesn't make any sense at all. Why did she come back? Hadn't she punished me enough? She had to turn my own daughter against me. She had to—to squeeze the last bit of joy out of me and take my Amy—”

  “Did Amy tell you that?”

  “I wouldn't have let her, you know. I wouldn't have let her do it.”

  Pickett let his question hang, and said nothing. Roger's gaze wavered; his eyes fluttered briefly with embarrassment, and he looked to the floor, settling back into the rocker. It groaned. Roger coughed.

  Pickett said: “Did you know that Millie was in town?”

  “Know? No, I didn't know. I couldn't have stood it if I had. If I'd known she was here…”

  “What, Roger?”

  “It was a long time ago, and I just want to forget about it—her. Look, I've made my share of mistakes. But then I've paid for them by now, surely. But she had to come back, didn't she?” His eyes dared Pickett to answer.

  “Did she?”

  “Yes,” Roger replied sharply, but his anger had peaked. “Yes, I suppose she did.”

  Roger relaxed back into the chair and began to rock. He let it groan away without comment. “You know, it's the way I met her in the first place. And the way she left, too—left Amy and me, I mean. I knew she'd come back. Eventually. I went through the divorce in absentia, hoping, I guess, that somehow it would keep it from happening. Keep her away.” Roger smiled down at his lap, still rocking. The chair squeaked in easy rhythm. “The spells and charms of modern man. That's what J.B. called the Law. He told me that when he drew up the papers for me. Spells and charms. I didn't know what he meant then.” Roger puffed once in a halfhearted laugh, as if to say that he knew now. Suddenly, he drew a long face. “Oh, I'm sorry, Bo.”

  “For what?”

  “I mean, your father being dead and all…”

  “Forget it. When did she leave you and Amy?”

  “A long time ago. Amy wasn't even one. So that makes it—what, fifteen, sixteen years?”

  “How long had you been married before…” Pickett finished the sentence with his left hand.

  “Not long. Long enough to have Amy, though. I was in my senior year at Jacksonville, I guess. Yeah. The accounting program, y'know. Man, that was one rough year.” He laughed self-consciously. “In more ways than one. Anyway, I met her in the Fall, and we were married by Christmas. Whirlwind romance, huh?” Roger looked at the other with a crooked smile, then to his hands. “She, well, was gone by the summer.”

  “What about Amy?”

  Roger ran a hand through his thinning hair, then laid his head against the back of the c
hair. He stopped rocking. “She came in February. February fourth. I'll never forget that day. God, she was beautiful—even then.”

  “You were married before Christmas, and Amy came in February? Three months later?”

  “Yup, old Rog to the rescue, huh?” He rocked lazily, absorbed in his own past. “Jeez—” Roger suddenly sat forward. “Look,—I've never told Amy about that. Christ, I've never told anybody. You forget it, okay? Please, Bo, I mean it. I—I don't know what got into me just now, I was—”

  “Father?” came a sleepy voice from the hall. “Is anything the matter?”

  Roger's eyes implored, begged.

  Pickett nodded.

  “It's all right, Amy,” said Roger warmly.

  She leaned against the hall door without seeing Pickett. Her eyes were puffy from sleep. A housecoat once pink but now almost white with wear covered her slender form, falling open in the front, revealing a lavender night gown of some satin-like material that hung loosely down between her breasts in folds of white lace. Her eyes followed her father's to where Pickett sat. She started, caught the collar of her house coat with both hands. “Mr. Pickett! Oh, excuse me. I didn't know…”

  “It's all right,” echoed Pickett.

  “Bo came by to see if you were okay, honey.”

  “And to talk to you for a few minutes—if you feel up to it.”

  “Of course I feel up to it. Why shouldn't I feel up to it?”

  “Well, I thought that, perhaps, after last night…”

  “What was last night to me?” She placed herself solidly in a straight back chair next to the hall door and stared at the tall man on the sofa. She couldn't help blinking the sleep from her eyes. She looked as if she might be blinking back more than that.

  “Bo, I don't think Amy—”

  “I'm not a child, Father,” Amy said with the petulance of a child. As if to prove her point, the housecoat fell away at the knee revealing a triangle of silky lavender beneath and the outline of a rounded thigh. It seemed to make Roger uncomfortable. Amy seemed not to notice. “I am perfectly capable of talking to Mr. Pickett myself.”

  “I could come back—”

  “No, I want to talk. Why shouldn't I?”

  “Could you, then, tell me a little about your mother?”

  “I have no mother.” Amy stared at Pickett defiantly.

  “Could you tell me when she got in touch with you?”

  “It was about a week ago. Maybe a little more.”

  “What did she want?”

  “Nothing.” Amy glared at Roger, daring him to assert the opposite.

  Roger opened his mouth, but decided against it.

  Amy turned to Pickett, waiting, her right hand pinning the left to her lap, knuckles white, blue veins coursing. The trapped hand squirmed, clawing at the worn cotton beneath. “She wanted nothing.”

  “What did she say, then?”

  “This is your mother. That's what she said. I believed her at first—I so wanted to believe her.”

  “Did she ask to see you?”

  “Yes.” Amy's body stirred. “She… that's all she wanted. Just to see me. She said—she said that she just wanted to see me once again. Before…”

  “Before what, Amy?”

  “I don't know. She wasn't going to stay. I asked her to. I wanted her to. At first, anyway. But she said she was going away. I don't know where. Or why. She didn't tell me.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  Roger stiffened at the question.

  “Told me? Amy bridled like her father. The mark of her nails was visible on the back of her left hand which now held down the right. “She told me nothing—except that she was my mother. And that she was sorry that she'd left me. That—” Amy put a hand to her mouth and cleared her throat. Her hand shook. “—that she loved me.”

  She recited this as if it were a catechism.

  “Is that all that she told you?” her father asked. There was a desperation in his voice that he instantly regretted. “I mean, did she tell you her plans or… anything?” He looked to Pickett sheepishly.

  “What do you care?” Amy said it with contempt.

  “Amy, please—”

  “No. What do you care. If it hadn't been for you, I'd still have a mother, instead of a… a…” She gestured angrily toward her father, but couldn't find the word. “You drove her off, just like—”

  “Did she tell you that?” Roger Mooring's face grew pink. “She told you that didn't she?”

  Pickett cut them both off: “Amy…”

  They stopped, as if caught in some pet game, embarrassed that an outsider should have witnessed it. Father withdrew back into his shell; daughter assumed her cloak of composure. The eyes of both spoke pain.

  “Amy, I have to ask you this. The Sheriff will if I don't. Did you ever see the man in the canal before that night? Before he died?”

  It was as if the sheath of ice that shrouded her were melting away. Her features and posture fell as if only now feeling the weight of the earth that pulled at them. Amy seemed tired now, worn. She looked down to her hands.

  “Yes…”

  “Amy!”

  “It's all right, Father”—all rancor gone now. “I went to see my… to see Millie at her—well, it's sort of a house. I think that it used to be a motel or something…”

  “And?”

  “And we were talking—arguing really. She wanted to tell me things—things I guess I just didn't want to hear.”

  “What sort of things?”

  Roger looked at Pickett in horror.

  “Just things. She—she wanted me to understand, I guess.”

  “Understand what, Amy?”

  “Why she… had done things. Bad things with men. For—for money. I didn't want to hear. I wanted my mother to be… something else, I guess.” Amy pushed her hands deeper into her lap. “Someone else.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of a hand. “I wanted her to be someone I could—could love. She just wanted me to understand… so desperately for me to understand.” Amy shook silently, shoulders hunched, head bowed over her breast as if to shelter it from such memories.

  “Really, Bo, I think that this is just about enough—”

  “Roger—” said Pickett sternly; then more calmly: “Roger, you asked me to look into this. I'm in so deep now that there's only one way for me—for any of us—to get out of this whole. You don't want it that way, I know, but it's the way it's gotta be.”

  “It's okay, Daddy. I need to talk—to tell someone. I'll be fine.” She pulled a tissue from the pocket of her house coat, blew her nose, then dabbed at her eyes. As she spoke, she began the slow process of shredding it between her nervous fingers. “You asked about the man—the man in the canal. Well, I saw him that night. We were… arguing and he came to the door. My… Millie wouldn't let him in. I couldn't hear everything he was saying, but she kept saying that she didn't want any part of it. Whatever it was. Then he said he'd break down the door if she didn't open it. She was afraid that he'd wake the landlady. She… my… Millie was terribly afraid of losing that place. It was so cheap, and she was saving her money.”

  “What did they talk about then?”

  “Nothing really. When he saw that I was there, he laughed, thought it a wonderful joke. He was such an ugly, spiteful man—I hated him. Millie seemed scared. She told him that she would never have anything to do with his… plans—I think she said—and to get out. He just laughed and asked her how she'd like it if he told me right there and then.”

  “Told you?” Roger's voice cracked.

  “Yes, that's what he said.”

  “Told you what?” said Pickett.

  “I don't know what. I guess he meant about her, well, past… about the… bad things that she'd done. But then”—Amy's pain turned to puzzlement—”she'd already told me that.”

  “What did Millie say?”

  “She didn't say anything, she got mad. Real mad. I've never seen anyone that mad. I was afraid…”
br />   “Of what, Amy?”

  “I don't know, I was just afraid.”

  “What did Millie do?”

  “She ran to the bed and got her purse and, well, she had a gun in it.”

  “Holy Jesus—” muttered Roger.

  Pickett admonished him with a glance. “What sort of gun?”

  “I don't know. Small, shiny—sort of silverish.”

  “What happened then?”

  “The man stopped laughing, I can tell you that.” Amy managed a laugh of her own. “He thought she was going to shoot him, I could tell. Millie said that if he ever came around again—that if he ever so much as looked at me she—she…”

  “She would what?”

  Amy looked down and said, “She would kill him.” Amy spoke almost in a whisper. “She said that she would squash him like a bug—that's what she said—like a bug, and think nothing more of it. I can still hear her. I don't know if I believed her. I'm pretty sure he did, though. He left, and I never saw him again. Except, well, you know, that time at the donut shop…”

  “Did Millie say anything to you after he left?”

  “No. I asked what was going on, but she didn't say anything. She wouldn't say anything. She put the gun away in her purse and went to the door, like she'd forgotten I was there or something. She said that she had something to do, someplace to go, and that if that man ever came near me again I was to tell her. That was all she said.” Amy paused and took a deep breath. “It was the last time that I saw her, too. Except the next afternoon. Where I saw you.”

  “Why'd you go to the donut shop?”

  “I don't know, really. I wanted an explanation, I suppose; I wanted to know what was going to happen—with us, I mean, Millie and me. I demanded an explanation. Oh… she exploded, told me who was I to make judgments on others, who was I to… to decide who was worthy of love and who wasn't, when I was no better than her, what with—” Amy froze, a word half formed by her lips.

  Pickett's eyes narrowed. “Why did she say that, Amy?”

  “Say what?” Amy's face became hard and dumb.

  “That you were no better. What did she mean?”

  “I-I dunno, I mean… nothing. She didn't mean anything; it was just, I dunno, what she said.” Amy looked to her father for help.

  Roger stared back, sternly.

  Amy stared at the mangled tissue in her lap. “That's all it was. Really.”

  Pickett was the first to break the long silence that followed. “Go on, Amy.”

  “Well… that man came in. It's like our arguing made him come—you know what I mean, like the last time?”

  “Did she say anything to him?”

  “No. I don't think either of us noticed him, I mean, who he was. She was pretty mad at me. I don't blame her, now. Then, when she saw who he was, she stopped in the middle of a sentence. If she could have—have squashed him then and there, I'm sure she would have. She was so mad… Her face… She was like a different person. It was scary. I-I-I had to leave. I was too confused and, well, ashamed, I guess.”

  “Ashamed of what, Amy?”

  Amy stared down at the shredded tissue without answering.

  “And you never saw either of them again?”

  “No. And—and I never will, will I? God has seen to that.”

  “God?” Pickett started—then relaxed. “No, I don't think so. This particular disaster's fairly well man-made.”

  “Woman-made. The sins of the mother…”

  “They've nothing to do with you, Amy. You can't feel responsible for them.”

  Amy smiled—with her mouth only—and shook her head slowly. “You don't understand, do you?” Amy turned from Pickett to her father. “Her sins are my sins, and—and I never will see her again, will I? Not even in heaven.” She turned to her father. Roger squirmed in his seat, opening and closing his mouth. Nothing came out. “Will I?” Amy's defenses fell beneath the weight of her grief and regret.

  Roger Mooring crossed the room to his daughter. He urged her from her chair and into the darkness of the hall. She was swept away by a father's protective arm—welcome, but too late.

  “She was right, wasn't she?” Amy asked the hall shadows. “And God has punished her for her sins. And now—and now he'll punish me, won't he? He'll… He'll… `For whatsoever is not of faith… is sin.'“ She stumbled into the hall, but her father's arm held her on her feet. “She was right,” Amy repeated to herself like an incantation. “I had no right…”

  Pickett sat alone. The room had become warm and close. The stripes of light had narrowed on the floor; the dust had settled. A door shut softly on Amy's murmured chant. Pickett rose as Roger returned.

  “I want to thank you, Bo, for all you've done. But I think, now, that—”

  “That's what I came to tell you, Roger. There's nothing I can do for you or Amy now. I figure that Millie musta hired Purdy to find the two of you—Amy anyway. Millie musta thought you were still in Jacksonville, and didn't know how close you were. Anyway, something musta gone wrong. This Purdy seems to have been pretty much a low-life. He got onto something else—what, I don't know; but it's out of our hands now. I just hope that… well, we'll just have to let Homer worry about that now, I guess.”

  “Yes, I think that's best, Bo. And…” Roger lowered his voice. “I'd appreciate it if you kept what I told you—you know, about Amy's… well, you know—as a confidence. I've never told anyone else, not even Amy.”

  “Sure. Do you know the father?”

  “No. No, I don't. I never asked. Does that seem strange to you?”

  “Not really. Did you—do you have any ideas?”

  “No. He brought Millie to Jacksonville, whoever he was. That's really all I know. When we were married, I knew nothing of Millie's life before she met me. I learned that later. She was very unhappy, that's all I knew. And now? Now she has succeeded in making me and Amy the same.”

  The two spoke about getting together again some time, and Roger told Pickett to come by and visit if he ever were in town again. Pickett said that he would, and Roger seemed satisfied. As Pickett walked out to his car, he looked anything but satisfied.

  The seat of the Nova was too hot to sit on. He opened the door and stood, staring down the street. The old bungalows sat in the heat, unmoved and unmoving. Pickett looked back over his shoulder to the Mooring's house, then dropped to the still hot vinyl and drove back to Main.

  He stopped at the Gulf station on the corner, but the phone was out of order. He found a phone booth a block down next to the Winn Dixie. He dropped in two dimes.

  19

  By the time Bodie Pickett hit I-4, sweat glued his seat and back to the vinyl.

  He had telephoned for Edmund and got Annie the maid. She said that the Reverend Ayers was not at home. No, she didn't know where Master Mark was. Miss Jan was at the river house. She had gone down early that morning looking for Master Mark. Miss Jan had left a message for a Mr. Pickett, though. Miss Jan needed to speak to him—in person. Yes, Annie thought, it was urgent. No, Annie said, there was no telephone at the river house. Yes, she was certain—Miss Jan was expecting him. No, she couldn't tell him how to get there: “It's sommers out near Osteen, east a Canaan. They never takes me out there.” And that, her tone suggested, was just fine with her.

  He turned east onto oak lined 46; then, at the Crab Shack, left towards Osteen. Gradually, the hardwoods disappeared and the savannas spread out on both sides, seething liquid and insubstantial behind the curtain of parched air that snaked up from the asphalt and roared through the Nova's windows. The dark pine scrub was barely visible on the horizon.

  The Osteen bridge arched out of the green ahead, flanked by two clapboard structures of weathered cypress. The largest rose two stories and carried a battered wooden sign. PUGH'S FISH CAMP/BOAT LAUNCH/ROOMS BY THE NIGHT. The smaller structure had the largest sign, the words written in unlighted neon: PUGH'S INN. Both looked abandoned.

  The river, hidden below the surface of the marsh gras
s, appeared as Pickett curved over the Osteen bridge and through the afternoon sun toward the opposite shore. A small cabin squatted directly to the left, slanting downstream into the shadow of a stand of palms and stunted water oaks. Beyond it, the dark humped shapes of brahma cattle dotted the grassland. Farther down river stood a ranch house with out buildings.

  The Nova angled down to the eastern bank and back into the saw-grass.

  The long green blades rippled in the light breeze, and beat gently on the palm groves that sprang from the marsh like islands in a tropical sea. The cabin was invisible now, hidden by the shoulder high grass that flanked the highway. A once white Ford pick-up, rust spreading up from its underbelly and wheel wells like fungus, napped on the raised shoulder. Next to it, a muddy track ran off into the grass at right angles to the highway. Pickett pulled onto the shoulder opposite and cut the engine.

  The dry grass and crickets rattled in the warm breeze. Below this din flowed the low, hollow sound of a flute, as cool and insistent as an underground stream. It came from the other side of the highway.

  Pickett crossed toward the path and truck. A gun rack hung with fishing rods covered the rear window. Foam rubber pushed through the worn seat-covers like distended flesh. A dirty, hard bound book lay on the passenger seat, its burgundy cover partially stained black. The dashboard sported a radio, but it was silent. The sounds of the flute drifted through the window from the high grass beyond. Pickett turned down the path in the direction of the sound and the cabin.

  A grove of palms appeared above the grass; the path curved toward it. Mud became mostly water, and he skirted the path, walking as close to the saw-grass as he could manage. The blades clung and pulled at his damp shirt, scratching his bare forearms. Suddenly, the path cornered to the left, and Pickett found himself at the foot of a small dock, looking across the St. Johns. A rowboat slanted under the weight of an ancient trolling motor; it seemed poised for flight, as if surprised in the act of shedding its alligatored green paint. Pickett turned from the river toward the music. It stopped.

  A few yards behind him and to the left was the cabin that he'd seen from the bridge—no more than a shack leaning into the shadow of a grove of tall palms that hung over it like solicitous kin. Wide open and dark, it looked abandoned. It wasn't.

  “Can a man really lack feelings?” The voice was low and liquid, like the flute.

  Pickett shaded his eyes and searched the darkness framed by the open door. “Well, sure, I suppose so.”

  “But how?” A rhythmic creaking came with the voice. “I mean, if he's without feelings, how can you call him a man?”

  Pickett walked to the dilapidated steps, and up them to the front porch. A piece of driftwood nailed to a porch pillar read, COLD MOUNTAIN, in crude white letters. The rotted wood was spongy beneath his feet. He stopped at the door and waited for his eyes to adjust. “If he looks like a man, and walks like a man, and if he talks like a man, why not call him a man?”

  “Y'see…” The voice seemed to come from a large form that rocked back and forth in the cool twilight of the hut. “. . . you called him man already. And if he is man, he can't be without feeling, now can he? See what I mean?”

  Pickett exhaled and shook his head.

  The form inside stopped rocking, stood, and emitted a soft laugh. “You try too hard, man. Life'll help itself along. Don't need you. It'll get where it's going.”

  Pickett stepped back as the voice stepped out into the light. “And where's that?”

  “Where ever it wants, m'man, where ever it wants.” He was a little shorter than Pickett, but probably fifty pounds heavier. Mostly fat. It enveloped him like a layer of insulation. He wore dirty chinos torn off at the knee and heavy work boots caked with mud. His chest was bare, hairless, and black as tar. A full black beard laced with fine spirals of grey hung to his chest. Tight coils of grey covered the top of his skull like a steel wool cap.”You got the look of the lost, m'man.” A blond cat leaped down from the black man's cradling arm. The man's hand half covered a short length of bamboo, pierced irregularly with rough cut holes. He stuck the bamboo under his arm and clapped his hands sharply. The cat disappeared into the scrub that ringed the palms. “And from the look a your face I'd say you been lost in some a the wrong places.”

  “You're right there. But I'm not so much lost as searching. Know where the Ayers' place is.”

  “Look round you, m'man, and whataya see?”

  It sounded like a song. Pickett looked at the black man, half expecting him to begin singing. Deep brown eyes looked back, crinkled with good humor.

  “Now, you see anybody's place?” When Pickett still didn't answer, the black man threw back his head and bellowed. He doubled over and dropped to the edge of the porch, his laughter flushing blackbirds and coots from the waters edge. “Oh my, my…” He wiped at his eyes. “You trying hard, man, aren't you now?”

  When he'd calmed himself a bit, he stood. “Relax…” He draped an ebony arm over Pickett's shoulder and drew him down the steps. “This here's the Ayers' place, most everthing you see from that there bridge…”

  Pickett glanced back at the hut, then looked a question at the fat black man next to him.

  “Nah, man… The big house. Mile or so up river. Saw it from the bridge, most likely. I guess you'd call this'ere my place. Never seen it quite like that myself. I'm the…” He paused and thought. “. . . the caretaker. Yeah. Yeah, the caretaker.”

  He seemed pleased with the formulation.

  “Uh-huh, sorry to interrupt your care-taking. I was wondering if the Ayers were in.”

  “You a friend?”

  “Bo Pickett,” and Pickett stuck out his hand.

  The black man looked at it as if it were a dead fish. He took hold of it awkwardly and smiled.

  “Del Trap. Delano Trapani, really, but nobody believes it.”

  “Don't know why. What about the Ayers?”

  “Well, ol holy Ed and the fambly's in town, I think. Bel'aven. Aint seen them for weeks. Mizz Ayers come by this morning, though. Maybe gone up to the house. She didn't say.” Del Trap looked down to the dusty ground between his boots and marked it with his spittle. He looked up. “Something I can do for you?”

  “How often they use the place?”

  “They? They don't use it at all.” Trap winked at the thin man next to him. “They comes up mosly by themselves, know what I mean?” Trap smiled with satisfaction, like he'd just explained Einstein's theory. Apparently Pickett didn't look sufficiently enlightened. Trap explained further: “See, they don't come up here together much—except sometimes in the winters. Don't come no more in the summers, not since Mister Clayton—Ed's daddy—not since he and Mizz Marjorie was kilt. Mosly come down by themselves, now. Mizz Jan makes it, oh, I dunno, once, twice a month or so. Usely business. Sometime that Matt fella—Matt what's-his-name—he come down too. Anyways, the Holy Reverend gets down, maybe, oh, every other weekend.” Trap winked again. “He comes down by hisself, but he aint usely alone.”

  “He meets someone then?”

  Del Trap smiled, but he said nothing.

  “What about Mark?”

  “Yeah? Yeah… What about Mark? Massa Mark.” Trap smiled, then winked. “There's hope there, know what I mean? He come down ever now an again—by hisself, like the others. His momma and papa glad to have him outta their hair. He aint much for that holy roller shit, y'know. But then again, he aint quite sure how to get outta it neither.” Trap clucked and shook his head. “The Way aint easy, m'man. Aint tall easy?” Trap scratched at his beard; then he studied his boots for awhile. He looked up slowly, his face brightening. “Y'see that don't you? Simplest things aint clear no more. We beat down them prison walls and all we find is that they the wrong walls.” He smiled, spread his arms. “We's just in another cell. Bigger, maybe—sometimes bigger, if we lucky, but a jailhouse just the same. Crazy, y'know… Just plain crazy.” He looked up, a light in his brown eyes. “Kinda funny too, don't y'think?” Del Trap did an
yway. Tremors of laughter began to rise from his round, black belly like smoke from a wood stove.

  Pickett broke in: “Know Mark pretty well then?”

  Trap made a gesture with his hands and shoulders, as if to say, Who knows anybody? “I sees him plenty—or he sees me. Spends the time with me when he's here. He used t'axe questions all day long. Stopped that though.”

  Pickett smiled as if able to understand why.

  “He can sit all day now thout a word. Nothing like that, m'man—the quiet tween two people, the kind what comes when nothing needs be said.” Del Trap stopped with another sentence on the tip of his tongue. But he closed his mouth and looked at Pickett sorrowfully. “Too bad. Too, too bad.” He turned and shuffled out onto the dock.

  Pickett followed. “Does he ever come with a girl?”

  Trap went down on his knees and pulled a bait cage from the river. He paused for a moment, staring out into the haze, then poured flopping minnows into a plastic bucket. He picked it up, and walked back toward the cabin. Pickett stayed at the dock, following Trap with his eyes alone. Trap stopped, set the bucket down, and turned.

  “Comes on her own. Stays up to the big house.”

  “With Mark?”

  “Nope. She aint never come when Mark's here.”

  Pickett pulled out the torn photo and held it up to Trap. “This girl?”

  Del Trap looked at it, then at Pickett, then back at the photo. “Could be… Aint seen her close up. But her hair's sort a like that—blacker'n me.” He looked at Pickett again, and grinned. “Wouldn't mind seeing the rest of that piture none, neither.” He winked, then picked up the bucket and a bamboo pole that lay in the shadow of the steps. “Nah. Never seen her with Mark. Nope. Never with Mark. She only comes round when his daddy's here.”

  Delano Trapani shambled into the swamp grass like some great herbivore seeking refuge from the sun. Soon, only a red and white plastic float that bobbed at the end of his pole was visible above the high grass. Pickett watched it dance for a moment, then walked back to the highway. When he got to the pickup, he reached in and flipped open the book on the seat—Burton Watson's translation of the Chuang Tzu. It smelled of fish.

  Pickett looked back into the saw-grass and he laughed.

  20

  It was visible from the highway on the far side of a well grazed pasture dotted with grey stumps and an occasional pavilion of oak and palm. Cattle hunched in their shadows. The house itself was small, low and long. It faced away from the river toward the pasture, a few outbuildings, and the sun. A barbed wire fence ran along the mud drive then cut along the front of the house to a long steel gate that ran before the largest of the outbuildings. A lone brahma bull stood in the angle at the end of the drive.

  As Bodie Pickett peeled himself from the seat of the Nova, the beast looked up, grey, dumb and malevolent. Pickett rattled the screen door with his fist. It was dark inside and Pickett's eyes still squinted from the glare. Jan was at the door before he saw her.

  “Oh, Bo. Thank you so much for coming. Come on in out of the sun.” She padded away on bare feet, leading Pickett through the cool darkness to the back of the house and a deep screened porch. The St. Johns spread out on three sides providing a light cross breeze, warm but comparatively pleasant. An old dock lay crooked and low on the water beyond, ending in a ramshackle shed like an old duck blind. Occasional new planks striped the weathered grey green. Jan settled into an upholstered chaise longue and motioned Pickett to an aluminum lawn chair opposite. Her legs were bare and tucked beneath a short denim skirt. Her pale arms took on a bluish cast where they curved from a sleeveless plum-colored blouse. Sweat stained the thin muslin material a darker purple under her arms and between her breasts. Her body was smaller, younger than it had appeared the day before. Her face, though, was drawn. Her eyes—wide, glassy, intense—belied the languor of her pose. And her body hung suspended from them like a marionette. She spoke softly.

  “Mark's disappeared, he—God Lord, what happened to you?”

  “Where'd he go?”

  “Go? That's just it, I don't know. He left the house last night after dinner and never returned.”

  “Why tell me?”

  “Well, I'm afraid he's in trouble.”

  “Why? Lots of reasons a boy his age might stay away from home for a night—”

  “But he's never done this before. Not without telling me—us first. He's been…” She moved her chin through a slow arc away from Pickett and to the river. “Well, he's been very upset ever since he spoke to you.”

  “Look, Mizz Ayers—”

  “Jan. Please.”

  “Jan, then. We both know that it wasn't talking with me that upset Mark.”

  “Whatever it was, you've taken on a certain degree of responsibility for his actions.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “You encouraged him in this—this fantasy of his.”

  “Come on. Mark saw something that worried him. I suggested he tell the truth.” Pickett wrinkled his brow. “I hope that he has.”

  “Yes, we spoke to Sheriff Beane. That's not what I mean. I'm talking about that Mooring child.” The words were harmless enough, but the tone was ugly. “She's not suitable for him. She will cause him—has caused him—nothing but trouble.”

  “What do I have to do with that?”

  “You encouraged him in his… Concern. At least, he left the impression that you had.”

  “I was worried about Amy, sure. I still am—for all that I can do about it. As it turns out, the concern was well placed.”

  “You mean the woman—the one last night, I suppose.”

  Pickett nodded.

  “It must have been terrible, really. To have your mother—that's who it was, as I understand it, her mother—to have her destroy herself in such a horrible manner.”

  Pickett straightened slightly, almost imperceptibly. “She was fairly well destroyed all right. But not by herself.”

  “Is that so?” Jan Ayers' voice was calm, but in her eyes was panic. Some desperation lurked behind the studied calm of her pose.

  “She was shot in the face, actually. Like the man in the canal.”

  “I had—I was under the impression that she'd done it herself. To herself, I mean. The paper said—”

  “Not likely. No weapon, for one thing.”

  “Ah…” Jan Ayers raised her chin, putting a hand to her throat. She let the hand fall, slowly, to the moist skin between her breasts. “. . . I see.” She was silent then, her body still. Pearls of sweat glistened on her upper lip; the tip of her tongue slowly swept them away. She unfolded her pale legs and stretched them out before her.

  Pickett looked back to her eyes, and they were on his, and no longer far away.

  “But,” she smiled, “in the end, we all destroy ourselves, don't we?” It was a statement of fact, not a speculation. Jan pulled up the leg closest to Pickett, bending it at the knee. The denim slid down with a slight hiss to rest, crumpled, at her hips. The white flesh of her thigh was damp, its pallor alive in the river's glare.

  Pickett looked away. “Is that what Mark is up to, do you think, self-destruction?”

  Jan Ayers started at the sound of Pickett's voice, as if her mind were on something else. “What?”

  “You asked me here to talk about Mark, didn't you?”

  “Yes. Mark…”

  “And he's never gone off like this before?”

  “Never.” She stretched out her leg, and brought the other up, bent at the knee, revealing more pale skin—and a small triangle of white lace below the folds of denim. “Mark's gone off on occasion, but he's always come down here. And he's always told us beforehand.”

  “He comes down here alone then?”

  “Yes, occasionally. But he seems to spend most of his time with the caretaker. Trap is his name, I think—Delbert, Delmare… Something like that. I've tried to discourage Mark from seeing him, but…” She raised open palms to the ceiling and exhaled.


  “You don't approve of Mister Trap?” Smiled Pickett.

  “Approve? It's not a question of approval… The man's quite simply a pagan. A godless man of the worst sort. A heathen, even.” The tension between the intolerance of her sentiment and the sensuality of her pose hung in the humid air between them. Jan let her head fall back to the chaise longue, let it loll toward Pickett. Then she smiled.

  “And yet you employ him to take care of the place?”

  “We allow him to use the house by the bridge in exchange for looking after things, yes. He's been there for years. Ever since I was a child. He went off to school at one point I think, but he had a breakdown of some kind. Never been quite—well, right ever since. We couldn't just throw him out. Wouldn't be Christian. Not that we would want to… In any event, he's certainly not an employee.”

  “I didn't know you'd been coming here that long.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said that he'd been here since you were a child.”

  “Did I?” Jan exhaled slowly, then turned to Pickett, her eyes quick and cautious. “I grew up near here, actually.” She paused and waited for Pickett's reaction. When he made none, she continued: “You wouldn't have guessed it, would you?”

  “No, I wouldn't have guessed.”

  Jan relaxed; it had apparently been the right answer. “It was the other side of the bridge, but I spent a lot of time near here as a child. I didn't know this… Trap fellow or his family of course, but I understand that he grew up in that cabin. His father was a sharecropper on this land when it was still being worked. Celery, I think.” Jan looked up self-consciously. “Anyway, when we—Edmund inherited this place, Trap was already here; he had the same arrangement with the Edmund's parents. He's been there alone since his Mother died, I believe. It didn't seem, well, right just to turn him away. What with him being not quite”—she tapped her temple softly—”altogether.”

  “Have you asked Trap about Mark's whereabouts?”

  “Of course. He denies any knowledge of Mark. Or his whereabouts.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “Just this morning. When I drove in.”

  “You don't sound like you believe him.”

  “Well, I don't. But then”—her eyes drifted toward the river—”what I believe, or anyone believes for that matter, is of no consequence to Satan.” It was as if the tension in the air had distilled into that final word. Jan peered silently at the opposite shore, her eyes wide, but somehow blind. Her breast rose and fell in steady rhythm as, gradually, her flesh flushed pink. She leaned forward, without turning and whispered: “You—you don't understand, do you, Bodie Pickett? You aren't a believer. You've never… Felt the call, have you?” She turned suddenly. “I have.” Her eyes wide, expectant, she whispered: “Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and—and…”

  She swung one glistening leg to the concrete floor. The other remained cocked at the knee, her skirt crumpled at her waist barely shading the cream colored lace that figured her groin. “Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel to teach, and to seduce and—and to commit…” She leaned forward.

  “Do you know those words?” Eyes wide and blank, she stared into the narrowing eyes of Bodie Pickett. “Blessed is he that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written therein…” Jan took a deep breath; her eyes widened, a thin smile flickering nervously on her lips. “Do you hear the word of God, Bodie Pickett?”

  Her breasts hung heavily, the dark centers shadowy points taut against the restraining gauze. Jan watched her own hand move to Pickett's knee as if the hand belonged to someone else. She smiled grimly, and looked up. Wide and blank, her eyes bore into the eyes of Pickett, her voice almost a growl. “Thrust in thy sharp sickle. And gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe…” She dropped to her knees. Her hands rested on his thighs. Her voice rose. “Cast them into the great winepress of the wrath of God…”

  Pickett started to his feet.

  Jan remained as she was, her hands on his thighs. “And I will kill her children with death.”

  Pickett's jaw dropped; he stepped backwards. The lawn chair folded back on itself, and Pickett went over on top of it. He scrambled quickly to his feet and turned back to Jan.

  She stood ramrod straight, her eyes keenly focused on his, a slight smile played on her lips. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I'm okay. I…” Pickett rubbed his brow. “I hope I didn't hurt the chair.”

  The two of them stared mournfully at the collapsed chair. Each seemed embarrassed by the silence. But it was Jan that spoke first.

  “Thank you for coming out here, Bo.” She looked at her wrist. It was bare. “I must, however, get back to Belle Haven. Preparations… For the Sunday Service. You understand.” Her eyes wandered for a moment, confused. Then found Pickett's. “It was kind of you to come. I mean…” She hesitated, seemingly confused. “If you hear from Mark, please let me know.”

  Pickett said that he would but by the time he'd finished speaking Jan Ayers had disappeared into the cool shadows of the inner house. He found the front door on his own and let himself out into the sun. The sweat that he felt was cold.