Slow Fall

  #

  The Friday traffic was heavy, and, with the heat, mean. Pickett made good time nonetheless.

  A blue speck curved over the Osteen bridge as Pickett was still a good mile away. Half a minute later, he pushed his Nova up the same grade. The Ayers' house was just visible through the late afternoon haze; a thinning trail of dust connected it to the highway. The Nova reached the Ayers' drive before Pickett knew it. He hit the brakes hard and went into a skid that left him broad side to the road. Throwing the transmission into reverse and then into first, he returned the twenty yards to the Ayers' turnoff.

  As the Nova's front wheels left the asphalt, the blue VW skidded in front of it and slammed sideways into the front bumper, throwing Pickett's forehead against the steering wheel. Pickett looked up into a blue-brown haze of dust and steam. He heard the VW's engine rev, and the transmission grind. Through the haze, Amy was barely visible, wrestling furiously with the gear shift.

  Pickett pushed open the door and stepped out onto legs made of rubber. He collapsed into the dust just as the VW's gears meshed; the blue bug lurched forward and skidded onto the blacktop, its rear wheels spinning like broken flywheels. An image of Amy flashed past, her head thrown back from the sudden acceleration, her mouth twisted in a death's-head grin.

  As the VW swerved back toward the bridge, Pickett grabbed hold of the Nova's open door and pulled himself up. He stumbled out onto the highway. Amy's blue car zigzagged down the quarter mile stretch to the bridge. Pickett half trotted, half staggered down the hot asphalt after her.

  The VW moved in fits and starts. The brake lights flashed irregularly until the car shuddered to a halt not more than a hundred yards from the bridge. Pickett yelled. The sound was lost in the vastness of the savannah.

  The black smoke came first, then, as if in answer to Pickett's cries, came the shrill squeal of her tires. The bug jumped forward, accelerating up the grade. Pickett screamed now, and sprinted dead out for the bridge. His cries were lost beneath the VW's laboring engine.

  As he reached the smoke, Pickett pulled up, winded. He breathed hard, bent at the waist, his hands on his thighs, filling his lungs with the dry heat, and the stench of burned rubber. Amy's VW crested the bridge. The right front tire struck the curb, skidded across the walkway climbing the guard rail. The rear wheels bit into the concrete and drove the front end high into the air. When only the left rear wheel touched the pavement, the rail gave way. The blue bug hurtled into open air, falling in a slow, shallow arc like a discarded match box toy thrown to the hazy grey water below, hitting the water with a thud, its wheels to the sky.

  Grey blossomed white. Poised momentarily on the surface while the curtain of spray hissed down around it, Amy's VW fell suddenly beneath the foam in a rush of compressed air. Time slowed to the tempo of nightmare. Pickett's limbs pumped to the pilings at the river's edge. The slow fall of the little blue car repeated itself as if in some comic replay as Pickett belly-flopped into the warm river. He was an engine now, a machine without purpose or intent other than to arch one arm over the other and suck in the hot, wet air. His eyes, glancing high above the river, curved down in a slow fall toward death, and his body raced to meet them.

  Cutting through concentric rings of waves toward the point of impact, he stopped only once, to pull what remained of the gauze wrapping from his right hand. The water writhed with rainbow hues as Pickett sliced through an expanding slick of oil and gas to the center of the circle. He kicked himself high above the water, pulling in air, then jack-knifed at the waist, kicked his feet into the air, and followed Amy down into warm, grey water. Quickly, it was cold and black.

  He pushed downward through the dark, following the tendrils of bubbles that wound up from the depths like particles of light escaping from the wreck back to the world above. A grey smudge in the darkness below became pale blue; the VW had righted itself on the way to the bottom. The doors, sprung open like vestigial wings, flapped vainly in the swirling currents created by its descent. Amy's car bobbed awkwardly, its rear wheels sunk in the mud, its nose inclined toward the surface, suspended above the bottom by some hidden fragment of weightless upper air. With cheeks puffed and eyes almost swollen shut by the pressure behind them, Pickett reached for the door jam and pulled, thrusting himself into the driver's compartment; it was empty—save for miscellaneous debris and a pocket of air trapped in the concave ceiling. Pickett pressed his nose and mouth into the musty fabric and inhaled deeply. His lungs expanded with new air and the fragrance of a young woman. He pushed himself from the wreck through the opposite door and squinted up toward the surface light.

  Amy hung suspended above him in silhouette, her limbs limply extended as if frozen in free fall. Silver bubbles like pearls trailed up around her black image, then slanted to the surface and a vanishing point in the upper air. Pickett coiled on the roof of the VW and pushed. He pulled against the water, toward Amy and the light. A curtain of black hair covered her face, the individual strands spreading out in all directions from her head like a halo. Pickett caught his right arm under Amy's chin, pulled her head toward his body and kicked for the surface.

  It wasn't far, and though the shore was, the shock of the hot, dry air on Pickett's face seemed to revive him, driving him on. And when he reached the wet sand beyond the pilings, he dragged Amy from the water and gently laid her on the warm earth. Shivering, Pickett knelt, brushing sand and strands of ebony hair from her face.

  Half closed and unseeing, Amy's eyes stared into the setting sun, her mouth open as if about to reveal some secret that her eyes had found there. And though her face, cleansed of makeup, was that of a child, the wet cotton clung to her small round breasts and the fullness at her hips, and she seemed suddenly the woman she had strained to become. As the light receded, a siren cried in the distance. And in the extended shadows, Amy's eyes seemed to close in sleep, and the pale, cold skin of Amy's face glowed rosy in the final colors of the day. Pickett knelt there for a very long time, his face as blank as Amy's eyes.

  Gradually, the shadows lengthened. Bodie Pickett sank to the ground, the lifeless form that he had pulled from the river now his shadow. And he put his head down on the warm sand and closed his eyes and sank slowly back into the darkness from which he'd pulled Amy—or that lifeless thing that once was Amy—as if in search of the life that had escaped him there.

  22

  “This one's alive, I think.”

  “Shoot. That boy's too goddamn dumb to get himself killed—takes half a brain for that.”

  “Got more guts than brains, I guess.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe so…” Homer Beane nudged Del Trap aside and hung, heavy, above Pickett. “Well now, boy, you like to take the long way home that time.”

  “Amy…”

  “Calm down now, son. You done all you could.” Homer laid a hand on Pickett's forehead and pressed it back to the ground. “When someone wants to die, there aint no stopping them. You just rest a spell, now. Doctor'll be here in a minute. Plenty of time—”

  “Sheriff!”

  “For Chrissake, Skeeter—”

  “Franklin's here with Mooring.”

  “Shoot!” Homer pulled himself up, hitched up his trousers and lumbered off toward the bridge. “Let's get it over with. God damn,” he muttered to Trap as he passed, “I hate this.”

  Trap's brow was knit, but not with concern. He cocked his head and looked at Pickett from the corners of his brown eyes. “Whydya do that?”

  “That?… that what?” Pickett slowly pushed up to his elbows, rubbed his eyes.

  “Go in after'er like that. There weren't no use in it. Damn near kilt yourself, too.”

  “Why?” Pickett repeated stupidly. “I dunno.”

  “Can't figure you, man…”

  The rest was lost, covered by a cry that sounded from the highway. Pickett looked down at the dark shape that lay next to him as if the sound had come from Amy. What once was Amy. He blinked and looked back over his shoulder.

&nb
sp; Roger Mooring struggled down the sandy shoulder to where Pickett sat. Homer had hold of his upper arm, half restraining him, half supporting him. He was speaking to Roger. Roger reiterated the cry as he staggered toward the body that lay next to Pickett: “No!”

  “Wait for the doctor,” Homer was saying. “You don't want to see her like that. Roger—”

  “Let go!” Roger shouted.

  Homer stepped back as Roger's fist fanned his face. Roger stumbled to the limp form next to Pickett and stopped. He looked down with his mouth loose, his eyelids heavy, the eyes beneath them momentarily losing focus. He dropped to his knees. “Amy,” he whispered, “don't go. Don't leave me, Amy.” His voice held neither desperation nor tension. Only gentleness. Roger buried his face in the wet sand filled hair and pulled Amy's shoulders onto his lap. “It's okay,” Roger whispered. “It's all right, now. Daddy's here, don't you worry.” Roger Mooring huddled above the lifeless face like a thunderhead above a grey winter landscape. He rocked it in his arms.

  A siren sounded from the far side of the river. The flashing lights moved smoothly toward the bridge, while their doubles glittered through the lazy ripples of the St. Johns toward some more obscure destination.

  Pickett rose awkwardly to his feet. He stepped toward Roger, but Homer pulled at Pickett's sleeve and motioned him back toward the highway.

  “Let him be.” Homer's face darkened in the last light of the day. “Won't make no difference to her.”

  Pickett didn't move. “How'd you get here?”

  “That nigra fella, Trap. He lives here abouts. Saw Amy… saw the car go over. Gave the office a call. Roger'd already called; said we ought a stop her. Didn't pay no attention, though. Rog been calling me about Amy everyday for the last couple of weeks. Anyways, when that Trap fellow described the car I was afraid maybe Roger was right this time. So…” Homer shook his head. “Should a listened to him, I guess. Hell, you can't though. You can't go traipsing off after every god damn…” He stopped, unable to take his objection seriously. He looked at Pickett. “Why'd she do it, you got any idea?”

  Pickett told the sheriff about Millie's mother, and about Amy's visits to Edmund. He did not tell Homer what, inadvertently, he had told Amy.

  “Ed's always had an eye for the ladies, the younger the better. But he's always been, well, careful, y'know what I mean? They knowed what they was doing I figured, and it weren't no business of mine. Anyhow, I figured it'd catch up with him eventually. Anyone in the public eye like that. I dunno…” Homer pulled at the loose skin on his neck. “I never figurd him for… well, I guess I just never figurd this.”

  Pickett didn't ask what this referred to, and Homer didn't explain. “Looks like Purdy might've had a hook in him.”

  Homer raised his chin and squinted up at the other. “You watch it now, boy. You let me do the thinking. I'll get to the bottom of this, don't you worry none about that. But I don't need no loose talk. There's been too much talk already, boy. I hope you understand that. You do understand that, don't you, boy?”

  Pickett ignored both the words and the tone. “Think Kemp's involved?”

  “God dammit—” Homer thrust a stubby finger at Roger Mooring. “Ain't that enough for you? Aint you helped about enough, Mister ex-big-city-cop?”

  The ambulance screamed down the bridge and shuddered to a stop on the shoulder. Its doors flew open and disgorged two attendants with a stretcher. They ambled down to the beach and glanced a question toward Homer. He still glared at Pickett, his unanswered question answered by the low drone of Roger's voice. Finally, Homer turned to the white-shirted attendants and shook his head.

  “Aint no hurry, boys. She aint going nowheres.” The repetition of his grizzly joke seemed to catch Homer unawares. He closed his eyes for a moment, then walked to Roger.

  Roger let the body slide slowly down his thighs as Homer pulled him to his feet. He looked at Homer, then glanced back down with surprise, almost astonishment. “That can't be Amy.” He looked desperately to Homer. Then to the attendants. When his eyes came to Pickett's, they hardened and froze. “What have you done with her.” Roger took a step toward Pickett, Homer Beane hanging on one arm. “Where's Amy? Where's my daughter?” There was hate in his eyes. “God damn you—” Roger pulled at Homer's restraining hands like a rabid animal.

  “Skeeter!” called Homer.

  Skeeter rushed down the grade and grabbed Roger's other arm. Anger welled up in Roger's face, and curses poured from his mouth like sour wine.

  Pickett stepped toward him, an open hand extended. Roger hawked and spat, but the tall man ignored it. He stopped close before Roger and took Roger's struggling hand. Roger settled slightly, his face still red, but the words stilled.

  “Roger…” Pickett moved a step closer. “Roger, look, I'm sorry.”

  The words hit Roger like a bucket of cold water. His knees buckled and he hung by his supported arms. All the anger and hate washed from his eyes, drenching his cheeks with a torrent of pent up grief and regret. “I'm sorry,” Roger sobbed, as if Pickett's words had been his own. “Oh Amy, I'm so sorry.”

  Homer let him back down onto the sand as the attendants loaded the body onto their stretcher. Roger followed as they carried the stretcher to the ambulance; he climbed in after the body without a word. Before the attendants could close the door, Homer Beane jogged to the back of the ambulance and climbed in with Roger.

  The siren burst to life with the engine, but a flick of the driver's finger choked it off in mid cry. The ambulance accelerated back over the bridge and into the deepening night. Skeeter stood, one foot on the asphalt, one on the shoulder, and watched as it went. “Sure as hell something funny goin' on round here…”

  Pickett headed down the highway in the opposite direction—toward the Ayers' place and his Nova. By the time he got there, he was running.

  23

  The Nova's dash said ten o'clock. Lights were on in the Ayers' house, but Bodie Pickett beat on the door steadily for several minutes before Matt Cheatham opened it. Matt looked like he'd just walked out of a department store window.

  “Mister Pickett, I believe?” Matt glanced blankly over Pickett's drip-dried clothes as if to underscore the question mark in his voice.

  “I'd like to talk to Edmund.”

  “I'm afraid that won't be possible. Reverend Ayers is indisposed.” He made it sound like a rare tropical disease for which he alone possessed the cure.

  “I'd still like to speak to him.”

  “I see. Would you wait here, please?”

  “No—” Pickett stepped around Matt into the paneled hall. “-- but I will come in.”

  In the bright light of the hall, Matt looked frayed. Whatever he'd been at, he'd been at since the morning. His mullet eyes stared red through horn rims not quite straight on his nose, his beard cast a five o'clock shadow on his chin. His suit gave uncharacteristic evidence of having been lived in—though his mask-like pallor suggested that if it had, it had been by someone else.

  “I see.” Matt closed the door on the dark. “Do come in. Edmund's resting, but I'll tell him you're here.” He walked past Pickett, stopped, and turned. “Do I dare suggest that you wait?” His lips flattened against his teeth, parting to reveal them.

  “I'll wait.”

  “Thank you,” he said blandly, then disappeared into the large room at the end of the hall where the party had been two nights before.

  Pickett shivered at his own damp clothes and the air-conditioning. He winced as he did, supporting his right hand gently in his left.

  “Good Lord, Bo, what happened to you?” Jan Ayers was dressed in the manner of her morning visit to the boat house. She waited for Pickett to respond; when he didn't, she whispered: “She's dead, isn't she?” Soft and sad, her words spoke concern—but without the participation of her eyes.

  “She destroyed herself.”

  Jan didn't acknowledge the quote. She gestured toward Pickett's damp clothes. “What happened?”

  “I
went in after her.”

  Jan opened her mouth in response, but it was a moment before she spoke. “Amy was beside herself when she came to the house—incoherent, really. I heard a noise at the end of the drive—”

  “I tried to stop her.”

  Jan raised her brows; Pickett raised his and frowned.

  “But I couldn't. Didn't, anyway.”

  Jan nodded. “I went to the window in time to see her, well, go over. It was horrible.” But there was no horror in her face, only a question—a question directed toward Pickett. His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

  “You made pretty good time back here.”

  “I was on my way out when she came. I didn't see any use in my stopping. I mean, the police were already there. You understand…”

  Pickett smiled with one corner of his mouth. “What did Amy want?”

  “She wasn't making much sense. That she wanted to see Edmund was about all I could understand.” She paused, self-conscious, then added quickly: “She was upset, of course.”

  “Of course.” Pickett's voice was as blank as his face. “What did you tell her?”

  “Tell her? Why—that Edmund wasn't there. What else would I have told her?”

  “That was my next question.”

  Jan paused, put anger on her face, then, as quickly, removed it. “Really, Bo, there's no need for us to quarrel. Come, sit down, and let's talk.” Jan took Pickett's arm and propelled him gently toward the door at the end of the hall.

  The room seemed smaller without all the people. It was sparsely but softly furnished in white and pastel blue. Long shadows fell across the white shag carpet and white modular furniture as though across a snowbound city. Edmund sat on the far side of the landscape, deep in a square white armchair. The lines and hollows of his face were deeply etched with shadow from the high pole lamp behind and above him that provided the only light in the room. Edmund was half dressed—dress shirt open, tie unknotted at his neck—and looked only half alive. An empty glass moved with his hand. A decanter on the low glass table beside him contained an inch of amber liquid. Its crystal stopper lay beside it refracting the light from the lamp onto the white carpet. Edmund looked up as his wife and Pickett entered, then further up to Matt who hung above him like a second shadow.

  Matt's face fixed on Jan's with icy intensity.

  Edmund's words shattered the strained silence like a stone fine crystal: “She looked so like her.” His tongue was thick and his stare vacant. “So like her…”

  “Who?” said Bodie Pickett.

  “Who?” said Edmund Ayers.

  “Really, now,” cut in Matt, “You can see that he is—”

  Pickett ignored Matt. “Who?”

  “Why… Amy.” Edmund looked at Pickett in astonishment. “It was like none of this ever happened.” He made a broad lazy gesture, and, in the process, backhanded the decanter next to him. It clattered to its side on the glass. A small pool of gold liquid formed, casting a grey double on the carpet beneath. Jan produced a handkerchief and knelt next to Edmund; she dabbed at the puddle. It seemed suspended in mid air. The stopper had rolled to the floor, and the rainbow was gone.

  Edmund watched Jan uncomprehendingly. “I don't understand. I just don't… understand. The Lord gave me another chance—another Millie; then…” He gestured languidly with a limp wrist. “I-I just don't understand. I didn't know.…” His hands lifted toward Pickett, palms up, as if to complete the thought; then he leaned forward, no longer talking to himself. “I didn't know… that. I didn't.” Edmund Ayers looked to Pickett for confirmation—or consolation.

  Pickett offered neither.

  Edmund's hands dropped to his sides, and he sank back into the white cushions looking to his wife. “Jan knew. Jan knows everything.” He showed his teeth.

  “Now Edmund, you don't know what you're saying.” Jan spoke to him as if to a child. She rose and brushed the hair off his damp brow. “You need your

  rest, dear. You're not used to—”

  Edmund struck angrily at Jan's hand. “Don't you touch me.” Jan froze, her hand in midair above his head. “Don't either of you ever touch me.” He didn't mean Pickett; in fact, he seemed to have forgotten that Pickett was there.

  But Matt and Jan hadn't. Their eyes dueled above Edmund's head. Edmund appeared to revel in the battle.

  “You didn't want me to know, did you. You let me… let me…” Edmund sank deeper and deeper into his chair. “Just so you—just so the Temple could…”

  “Mister Pickett,” cut in Matt, “I think that you have done just about enough meddling—”

  “Oh, that's good.” Edmund Ayers's mouth twisted into a grotesque smile. “Meddling. Oh that's good, Matt.” Edmund's laugh was more a cough. His eyes moved once again to Pickett. “Maybe we could do with a bit of meddling around here, maybe Bo would like to hear how—”

  Suddenly, Edmund's eyes started from his pink face. They focused over Pickett's shoulder. He threw out one arm, palm open, toward the hall door as if parrying a blow. “No! I didn't know!”

  Pickett whirled around.

  Black in the doorway, back-lit by the bright hall lights, stood Roger Mooring.

  “You killed Amy!” he bellowed, his right arm raised toward Edmund, something small and black in his trembling hand.

  Pickett lunged toward Roger's extended arm. His broken hand struck cold metal as Roger's pistol exploded. He was on his feet again by the time Roger had brought the gun back to level. Pickett lowered his head and rushed in under the pistol; Roger grunted as Pickett sunk a pointed shoulder into his chest. The gun flew from Roger's hand, thudding to the floor in the middle of the room. Pickett's arms locked around Roger's chest, and the two men tumbled to the floor. Roger pummeled the top of Pickett's skull with his fists, rolling Pickett back and forth on top him as Matt and Jan rushed toward the gun. With the second explosion, Roger went limp.

  Pickett threw himself off Roger and scrambled to his feet.

  Matt stood by the chair in which Edmund had been sitting, the gun in his hand. The chair was on its side, the glass table next to it broken in half by Edmund's body. Chin on his chest, his head against the wall, Edmund lay in the V of the shattered table. The small spot on the left side of his forehead as well as the wall behind him were red. Jan stood in the center of the room, both hands to her neck looking from Pickett to Matt. Matt spoke first:

  “I didn't want to hurt you.” Matt looked from Roger's gun to Pickett.

  Roger stumbled to his feet as if only then sure that he hadn't been shot. Both his gaze and his legs were unsteady. He put a hand to his head and dropped to his knees huddled like a vagrant in an empty doorway. He began to cry.

  “I fired into the chair.” Matt pointed the gun to a small black hole in the arm of the upturned chair; then the gun moved toward Roger. In a voice as cold and hard as his eyes, Matt said: “He killed Edmund. He…” His voice now registered astonishment. “Edmund's dead.”

  “That bastard killed my Amy,” burst Roger, then quickly subsided back into incoherence.

  Matt stared at Roger, his face like stone. Slowly, he raised the gun.

  “No, Matt. Let's call it even, huh?” Pickett stepped toward Matt who moved only his eyes. They went to Jan's. “Let me have it.” Pickett extended his hand toward Matt; both Matt and Jan stared at Pickett's hand. It glistened sodden and red in the half-light. A black shadow spread on the white carpet beneath it. Pickett's eyes followed theirs.

  Pain crumpled his face; he dropped to the white sofa cradling his right arm.

  Matt lowered the gun, walked past Edmund, around Jan's rigid body, and to the phone. Roger hunkered next to it, sobbing on the floor where he'd fallen.

  “Nine-one-one?… Yes, it is.…”

  Matt looked to Pickett. His face said nothing. The pistol hung at his side. His voice was small above Roger's sobs, and calm.

  Jan stood silently, her face turned from the light.

  From across the room, Edmund grinned idio
tically at the two of them, as if embarrassed by his gaudy red halo.

  24

  “Well, son, it aint pleasant, but then neither's murder. Look, the manager eye-dee'd him, for pete's sake. She seen him with the gun over the body, she seen him hanging around once or twice before. It aint pretty, and it aint nice, and I wish to hell it was somebody else, but—”

  “Why, Homer, why? That's what I wanna know.”

  “It was the girl. It was because of Amy. Roger didn't help that none, neither. But I guess he's gone pay for it now, all right. Anyway, Amy don't want nothing to do with Mark anymore, so he follows her, finds she's seeing this woman and—”

  “That's a motive? Come on, Homer—”

  “Then the Purdy fella comes into the piture. He goes by the Ayers' house, right? And Mark overhears him—we know he saw him come. And what does he learn? That this woman's not only Amy's mother, but she got something on his daddy that'd mess him over but good.”

  “You're reaching.”

  “Damn straight I am. Now just shut up for half a second.” Homer stared at Bodie Pickett for a moment while his face colored. “I don't need to prove nothing to you. Shoot, I don't even need to talk to you, so just shut up and listen.”

  “I second the motion,” said a small black man who fussed over Pickett's damaged hand; it was the intern who'd wrapped it the day before. “Either you stay still or you'll not only have a crooked hand, but one with a hole in it.” He smiled at Pickett from under a droopy black mustache and jerked a thread through the ragged gash.

  Pickett jumped.

  The intern chuckled.

  Sheriff Homer Beane said: “Listen, it aint so far fetched.” He counted off on his thick fingers. “First, Purdy. The guy could destroy his father. Then Millie. She could not only destroy Edmund, but might take Amy away—did, in fact, far as Mark was concerned.”

  “Sure, it's an adolescent's nightmare. But it's hardly motive for murder. Come on, Homer…”

  “I seen a hell of a lot worse.”

  “Sure, but that's it. If Mark had shot Purdy on the spot, maybe. Or if he'd had it out with Millie in some jealous rage. But these weren't like that. The murderer lured each to an isolated spot, then executed them. There's nothing impulsive in that. Anyway, what about the gun?”

  “We'll find it when we find Mark.”

  “I mean how'd he get it?”

  “Piece a cake, you know that.”

  “For a kid like Mark? Come on. You know the circles he runs in.”

  “Yeah, and I know the circles I been running in for the last couple days mostly cleaning up after you. And I been at it long enough to know where it's gonna end. We got a witness—”

  “To what? All you got is someone who might've seen Mark at the scene of the crime—”

  “—we got motive, we sure as hell got opportunity, and we got a match on the murder weapon.”

  Pickett looked up sharply. “Same gun?”

  “Yup. Same gun—both Purdy, and Millie Moses. Or Ayers—or whatever-the-hell name she was going by.

  “Okay. But the gun, it belonged to Millie.” He told Homer Amy's story of the confrontation between Millie and Purdy. “And she described the gun the same way your witness did.”

  “That's chicken-shit, boy. The woods're full of silver automatics—ladies purses, anyways. You can get them about anyplace but a Wheaties box. Anyways, it don't matter. We got everything we need. Opportunity, motive—”

  “Hell, Homer, you want motive, why not nail Mark for shooting Edmund. Christ, he wasn't there, but at least he had a motive.” Homer Beane stepped toward Pickett and pushed the intern aside.

  “We got three murders and two suicides in Belle Haven since you come back. Your goddamn big nose caused two of those. You killed your daddy yourself as sure as if you pulled that trigger, and since you can't face that fact—and lemme tell you, boy, it's sure as hell a fact—you go stirring up people you got nothing to do with, and one kills herself and the other kills somebody else and I'd say you done just about enough for Belle Haven. And the Moorings.”

  Pickett opened his mouth to speak, but Homer cut him off.

  “Now I come down here to get your statement, that's all. If it weren't for your daddy—for J.B. who was bout the best friend I ever had or hope to have… Well, I wouldn't even be talking to you bout this. Now it's all over. We're gone find Mark and he's gone have to answer for what he done. And you're gonna go home. And that's somewheres else, boy, not here. And then you can answer to your own self bout what you done and what you dint do. Shoot, by all rights you're as guilty as—as—” He looked wildly around the room as if for the word he couldn't find. When he failed to find it, Sheriff Homer Beane jammed his hat back on his head, wheeled around, and marched out of the room, his big boots clattering down the tiled hall. His voice echoed from the reception lounge down the hall: “God dammit, Skeeter… Get off your shaggy ass!”

  The black man chuckled self-consciously. “Ol' Homer's never been one for diplomacy.” He tied off the thread with a flourish, and delicately transferred Pickett's hand to a redheaded nurse for wrapping. “That's why they keep electing him. Everybody always knows what's on his mind.” He leaned back against the white wall and pulled a stick of gum from his white jacket and popped it into his red mouth. “You wouldn't think that people'd worry about that sort of thing out in the sticks, but they do.”

  Pickett's nurse tossed her red head toward the black man. “Listen t'him. Guy's from Cleveland. Do you believe it?” She had a few years on the young intern, and even more miles.

  “Now Martha…” said the black man obviously enjoying himself. “I'm about to make a profound analysis of small town life.”

  “Ugh.” Martha looked disgust at Pickett. “Guy comes from Cleveland to bring us poor crackers outta the stone age. They still wear bones in their nose in Cleveland, Doctor?”

  The intern proceeded with mock solemnity: “People like me come to a small town to get away from the city, to have a private life. But what we find is that the city's the only really private place. Nobody cares what you're doing or when your doing it. But in a small town, say, Belle Haven for instance—”

  “Right,” smirked Pickett's redhead.

  “—In a town like this everybody wants to know what you're doing and when you're doing it and who you're doing it with. Or to.”

  “Watch your mouth now, Doctor.”

  “And that's how Sheriff Beane fits in, see? Everybody's dirty secrets are safe because, if they're still secret, Homer doesn't know anything about them, and, hence, he doesn't believe them when he does find out. See?” He was talking to Pickett now. “You can't just live on the surface in a small town.”

  Pickett smiled. “You lost me, Doc.”

  “Look,” pushing himself from the wall, “you have to live on the surface, sure, you need a life to show everybody else, but you have another life underneath, a life that supports the other, that's lived behind the façade.”

  “Jeez—” The redhead rolled her eyes.

  Pickett wrinkled his brow above the smile. “Yeah, so?”

  The intern shrugged. “So nothing, I guess. It's just that nobody else seems to notice. Know what I mean? Everyone pretends that things are the way they seem. Everyone acts as though their lives are private, but in a town like this—” He gestured expansively to complete the thought. “So, I guess motives get very complicated, that's all. Motives for anything.”

  “You're telling me,” muttered Pickett's nurse as she finished smoothing out the plaster on his wrist.

  The black man took it as a request: “I mean, everyone's got two lives—at least two lives. How many motives they got?” He chuckled then goosed Pickett's redhead. “But we aint gotta worry about that, Martha, do we?”

  Martha swore under her breath as the intern disappeared into the hall.

  “There.” Martha presented Pickett his hand as if it were a bottle of rare wine. It was as white and hard as the emergency room lights. “Don't pay
no never mind to him. Two lives… Lord, I'm lucky enough to squeeze out one most days. You take care a that hand now, y'hear?”

  Pickett told her that he did and would. Then he tailed her to the reception desk where he took care of the bill.

  Though it was the dead of night, the air was still warm. Skeeter had delivered Pickett's Nova to the hospital lot. Pickett slipped behind the wheel as if into a hot bath. He headed toward town.

  “Two lives…” He smiled and shook his head. But the smile slowly straightened, and Pickett's eyes widened beneath a crinkled brow. He stomped on the brakes and pulled off onto the sandy shoulder. For a long while, he sat there in the same attitude. Suddenly, his face cleared, his jaw set. He U-turned off the shoulder and headed back to 17-92.

  25

  Bodie Pickett breasted the Osteen bridge again at 3 a. m. by the Nova's dash.

  Del Trap's place was dark.

  Farther down river at the Ayers' house one window glowed dimly.

  Pickett cut his lights as he passed Del Trap's pick-up and parked in the saw grass a few hundred yards beyond. He fished Tom's revolver out from under his seat. The dark crackled with night sounds—crickets, frogs, the buzz and whine of hungry mosquitoes. They covered Pickett's footfalls as he skirted the swamp grass up the Ayers' drive and sprinted to the side of the house.

  He peered into a dark bedroom that opened onto another room lit by a small table lamp. A leather easy chair stood next to the lamp with its back to the window. A thick male forearm hung over the side of the chair swirling ice cubes in a highball glass. The arm didn't belong in that house.

  Headlights swept across the yard.

  Pickett dropped to the ground behind a rangy hibiscus.

  A car pulled up to the front door.

  Picket crept to the back of the house and into the shadow of the azaleas that ringed the screened porch. Double doors opened onto it from the living room. The aluminum lawn chair that he'd upset the previous morning glinted in the secondhand light. A moment later, Ralph Kemp's shadow enveloped it like a shroud.

  Kemp stood with his back to Pickett, masking the man who'd taken Kemp's place in the armchair. Kemp was a little drunk, and a lot worried. He gestured with the highball glass, sloshing whiskey on the oriental rug. Kemp wheeled around suddenly and stepped onto the porch: “God damn amateurs.”

  Pickett dropped to the scrubby grass.

  Kemp stopped a yard from him on the other side of the screen. He turned back to the living room. “I'll tell you one thing, pal. There aint gonna be no more after this one unless you take care of your end. Christ, what the hell's going on up there, anyway?”

  The other man raised his voice: “We can't be held responsible for—”

  “Look, I'm delivering good shit—”

  “And getting a fair return.”

  Pickett's mouth turned up at the corners. The voice belonged to Matt Cheatham.

  “This fucking blood bath wasn't part of the bargain.” Kemp grunted as he dropped to the chaise longue that Jan had occupied earlier. “I got cops climbing up my ass for the last two days, man. And I keep thinking to myself, over and over again how what a coincidence it is that those two stiffs both worked for me.” The chaise creaked as Kemp turned. “Sort a sounds like a frame, don't it?”

  Matt was silent, but his footsteps sounded on the porch floor. Kemp rattled his ice cubes nervously. “Whattaya think, pal?”

  “We're in business, Ralph. We work the odds. What odds would you give us if we turned on you?”

  “Fuckin' short.”

  “Exactly. Don't you suppose I'm intelligent enough to see that?”

  “Yeah, you're smart all right. A regular smart ass.” Not even Kemp laughed. “Icing them two was just plain fuckin' stupid. If I'd wanted them dead, I could a fixed it so's nobody would even find them, much less connect them up with me. Sounds like amateur night shit to me.” Kemp pulled spittle to his tongue with a rasping sound. He spit on the floor. “Sounds like some smart ass stuck his pecker in the wrong hole is what it sounds like to me.”

  “I hope you don't mean to imply that I—that we had anything to do with those killings.” Matt paused, then added smoothly: “What could we possibly hope to gain?”

  “You aint gonna gain shit, cause the cops'll be all over us both till some fucker fries. You got that, Mister Brain? And I'll tell you one thing for goddamn sure, I aint gonna hang for nobody, least of all for you crazies. Christ, I ought a be strung up just for getting mixed up with you morons.”

  “Nobody will fry for anything if we stick to our bargain. You can't hold me responsible for the action of some homicidal maniac.”

  “It aint that Mooring clown that bothers me. It's that kid, what's-his-name—”

  “Mark.”

  “Yeah. Christ, that kid aint got enough balls to wipe his ass without his mommy's say-so. You really think he hit those two up in Belle Haven? Who you kidding?”

  “The police seem to think that he did it.”

  “And you're so smart you think that let's us off, huh?”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “That means I think we got major-league problems if they turn that kid. Where is he?”

  “I've no idea. He dropped out of sight a day or two ago.”

  “You best not be shitting me, cause if that kid's found you're the one got the big problem.”

  “If you mean to imply that—”

  “Come off it, for Chrissake. I don't know what sorta shit's going down up there, and I couldn't care less long as it don't interfere with business. But don't you play Mister Clean with me. If you wanna set that kid up, it's ace with me, but that kid hangs around here a lot. Stays up there with that shine, what's-his-face—”

  “Trap isn't a problem. He has an easy life here and isn't about to jeopardize it.”

  “Yeah, well what if that kid's a tad more curious, what then? And maybe it just won't be business that he talks about.”

  “Look, I've had just about enough of these innuendos. The victims were, as you yourself admitted, associated with you, not us. For all I know, you killed the both of them and set up Mark.”

  “You fucking—”

  “And frankly, I don't care. But, if you're planning to make trouble for us, remember that if you reveal our… our business relationship to the police—or anyone else for that matter—you will simply provide yourself with a motive, which, of course, is all the police would need to—to have you fry, as you put it. So I'd advise you not to threaten me.”

  “Yeah, well, I'd advise you to find some other source till this blows over. The shipment tonight's the last.”

  “We made a bargain. I've kept my end and I—we—expect you to keep yours. We have cash-flow problems at the moment and need continuous supply.”

  “Yeah, well you better have your problems some other time of the month, honey. And your cash best flow tonight or you'll be getting more than a few kee's for your—”

  “Look,” Matt sighed, “this is getting us nowhere. Now, when's the shipment scheduled to arrive?”

  “S'posed to be here in an hour. But those assholes—”

  “Good. Now let's calm down and wait. We haven't had any problems yet, and there's no reason to expect any. We'll talk about the future after things have settled down.”

  Kemp grunted. “The future?” The chaise scraped along the concrete. “Shit,” said Kemp, considering his future, “I need a drink.”

  “Yes, I imagine that you do.”

  Their voices disappeared into the house and were lost in the rattle of the crickets. Pickett rose to his knees. The porch was empty. Kemp was back in the living room easy chair, staring down into an inch of whiskey as if it held portent of his future. Matt was nowhere in sight.

  Pickett crawled to the other side of the house, then sprinted to a hummock of palm and live oak behind the barn. From it he could see the dock and its ramshackle shed black against the grey St. Johns. He buttoned his collar against the mosquitoes, s
tretched his legs and leaned back against an oak. In his lap lay Tom's .38. Pickett's eyes blinked erratically, then slowly closed; his long body relaxed.