From Potter's Field

  I looked at her. 'Well, then I guess I'd better try a small side dish.'

  'So you want all two of 'em.'

  'Please.'

  The service maintained its languid pace, and it was almost one o'clock when I paid my bill. The lady in the bright dress, who I decided was the manager, was outside in the parking lot talking to another dark woman who drove a van. The side of it read Gullah Tours.

  'Excuse me,' I said to the manager.

  Her eyes were like volcanic glass, suspicious but not unfriendly. 'You want a tour of the island?' she asked.

  'Actually, I need directions,'1 said. 'Are you familiar with Live Oaks Plantation?'

  'It's not on no tour. Not no more.'

  'So I can't get there?' I asked.

  The manager turned her face and looked askance at me. 'Some new folks is moved there. They don't take kindly to tours, you hear my meaning?'

  'I hear you,' I said. 'But I need to get there. I don't want a tour. I just want directions.'

  It occurred to me that the dialect I was speaking wasn't the one the manager - who no doubt owned Gullah Tours - wanted to hear.

  'How about if I pay for a tour,' I said, 'and you get your van driver to lead me to Live Oaks?'

  That seemed a good plan. I handed over twenty dollars and was on my way. The distance was not far, and soon the van slowed and an arm in a wildly colorful sleeve pointed out the window at acres of pecan trees behind a neat white fence. The gate was open at the end of a long, unpaved drive, and about half a mile back I caught a glimpse of white wood and an old copper roof. There was no sign to indicate the owner's name and not a clue that this was Live Oaks Plantation.

  I turned left into the drive and scanned spaces between old pecan trees that had already been harvested. I passed a pond covered with duckweed where a blue heron walked at the water's edge. I did not see anyone, but when I got close to what was a magnificent antebellum house, I found a car and a pickup truck. An old barn with a tin roof was in back next to a silo built of tabby. The day had gotten dark and my jacket felt too thin as I climbed steep porch steps and rang the bell.

  I could tell instantly by the expression on the man's face that the gate at the end of the driveway was not supposed to have been left open.

  'This is private property,' he flatly stated.

  If Temple Gault was his son, I saw no resemblance. This man was wiry with graying hair, and his face was long and weathered. He wore Top-Siders, khaki slacks and a plain gray sweatshirt with a hood.

  'I'm looking for Peyton Gault,' I said, meeting his gaze as I gripped my briefcase.

  'The gate's suppose to be shut. Didn't you see the No Trespassing signs? I've only got them nailed up every other fence post. What do you want Peyton Gault for?'

  'I can only tell Peyton Gault what I want him for,' I said.

  He studied me carefully, indecision in his eyes. 'You aren't some kind of reporter, are you?'

  'No, sir, I most certainly am not. I'm the chief medical examiner of Virginia,' I handed him my card. . He leaned against the door frame as if he felt sick. 'Good God have mercy,' he muttered. 'Why can't you people leave us be?'

  I could not imagine his private punishment for what he had created, for somewhere in his father's heart he still loved his son.

  'Mr. Gault,' I said. 'Please let me talk to you.'

  He dug his thumb and index fingers into the corners of his eyes to stop from crying. Wrinkles deepened in his tan brow, and a sudden blaze of sunlight through clouds turned stubble to sand.

  'I'm not here out of curiosity,' I said. 'I'm not here doing research. Please.'

  'He's never been right from the day he was born,' Peyton Gault said, wiping his eyes.

  'I know this is awful for you. It is an unapproachable horror. But I understand.'

  'No one can understand,' he said.

  'Please let me try.'

  'There's no good to come of it.'

  'There is only good to come of it,' I said. 'I am here to do the right thing.'

  He looked at me with uncertainty. 'Who sent you?'

  'Nobody. I came on my own.'

  'Then how'd you find us?'

  'I asked directions,' I said, and I told him where.

  'You don't look too warm in that jacket.'

  'I'm warm enough.'

  'All right,' he said. 'We'll go out on the pier.'

  His dock cut through marshlands that spread as far as I could see, the Barrier Islands an infrequent water tower on the horizon. We leaned against rails, watching fiddler crabs rustle across dark mud. Now and then an oyster spat.

  'During Civil War times there were as many as two hundred and fifty slaves here,' he was saying as if we were here to have a friendly chat. 'Before you leave you should stop by the Chapel of Ease. It's just a tabby shell now, with rusting wrought iron around a tiny graveyard.'

  I let him talk.

  'Of course, the graves have been robbed for as long as anyone remembers. I guess the chapel was built around 1740.'

  I was silent.

  He sighed, looking out toward the ocean.

  'I have photographs I want to show you,' I quietly said.

  'You know' - his voice got emotional again - 'it's almost like that flood was punishment for something I did. I was born on that plantation in Albany.' He looked over at me. 'It withstood almost two centuries of war and bad weather. Then that storm hit and the Flint River rose more than twenty feet.

  'We had state police, military police barricading everything. The water reached the damn ceiling of what had been my family home, and forget the trees. Not that we've ever depended on pecans to keep food on the table. But for a while my wife and I were living like the homeless in a center with about three hundred other people.'

  'Your son did not cause that flood,' I gently said. 'Even he can't bring about a natural disaster.'

  'Well, it's probably just as well we moved. People were coming around all the time trying to see where he grew up. It's had a bad effect on Rachael's nerves.'

  'Rachael is your wife?'

  He nodded.

  'What about your daughter?'

  'That's another sorry story. We had to send Jayne west when she was eleven.'

  'That's her name?' I said, astonished.

  'Actually, it's Rachael. But her middle name's Jayne with a y. I don't know if you knew this, but Temple and Jayne are twins.'

  'I had no idea,' I said.

  'And he was always jealous of her. It was a terrible sight to behold, because she was just crazy about him. They were the cutest little blond things you'd ever want to see, and it's like from day one Temple wanted to squash her like a bug. He was cruel.' He paused.

  A herring gull flew by, screaming, and troops of fiddler crabs charged a clump of cattails.

  Peyton Gault smoothed back his hair and propped one foot on a lower rail. He said, 'I guess I knew the worst when he was five and Jayne had a puppy. Just the nicest little dog, a mutt.' He paused again. 'Well' - his voice caught - 'the puppy disappeared and that night Jayne woke up to find it dead in her bed. Temple probably strangled it.'

  'You said Jayne eventually lived on the West Coast?' I asked.

  'Rachael and I didn't know what else to do. We knew it was a matter of time before he killed her -which he almost succeeded in doing later on, it's my belief. You see, I had a brother in Seattle. Luther.'

  'The general,' I said.

  He continued staring straight ahead. 'I guess you folks do know a lot about us. Temple's made damn sure of that. And next thing I'll be reading about it in books and seeing it on movies.' He pounded his fist softly on the rail.

  'Jayne moved in with your brother and his wife?'

  "And we kept Temple in Albany. Believe me, if I could have sent him off and held on to her, that's what I would have done. She was a sweet, sensitive child. Real dreamy and kind.' Tears rolled down his cheeks. 'She could play the piano and the saxophone, and Luther loved her like one of his. He had sons.

  'Al
l went as well as could be expected, in light of the trouble we had on our hands. Rachael and I went out to Seattle several times a year. I'm telling you, it was hard on me, but it nearly broke her heart. Then we made a big mistake.'

  He paused until he could talk again, clearing his throat several times. 'Jayne insisted she wanted to come home one summer. And I guess this was when she was about to turn twenty-five, and she wanted to spend her birthday with everyone. So she, Luther and his wife, Sara, flew to Albany from Seattle. Temple acted like he wasn't fazed a bit, and I remember . . .'

  He cleared his throat. 'I remember so clearly thinking that maybe everything would be okay. Maybe he'd finally outgrown whatever it was that possessed him. Jayne had a grand time at her party, and she decided to take our old hound dog, Snaggle-tooth, out for a walk. She wanted her picture taken, and we did that. Among the pecan trees. Then we all went back into the house except her and Temple.

  'He came in around suppertime and I said to him, "Where's your sister?"

  'He replied, "She said she was going horseback riding."

  'Well, we waited and we waited, and she didn't come back. So Luther and I went out to hunt for her. We found her horse still saddled up and wandering about the stable, and she was there on the ground with all this blood everywhere.'

  He wiped his face with his hands, and I could not describe the pity I felt for this man or for his daughter, Jayne. I dreaded telling him his story had an ending.

  'The doctor,' he struggled on, 'figured she just got kicked by the horse, but I was suspicious. I thought Luther would kill the boy. You know, he didn't win a Medal of Honor for handing out mess kits. So after Jayne recovered enough to leave the hospital, Luther took her back home. But she was never right.'

  'Mr. Gault,' I said. 'Do you have any idea where your daughter is now?'

  'Well, she eventually went out on her own four or five years ago when Luther passed on. We usually hear from her at birthdays, Christmas, whenever the mood strikes.'

  'Did you hear from her this Christmas?' I asked.

  'Not directly on Christmas Day, but a week or two before.' He thought hard, an odd expression on his face.

  'Where was she?'

  'She called from New York City.'

  'Do you know what she was doing there, Mr. Gault?'

  'I never know what she's doing. I think she just wanders around and calls when she needs money, to tell you the truth.' He stared out at a snowy egret standing on a stump.

  'When she called from New York,' I persisted, 'did she ask for money?'

  'Do you mind if I smoke?'

  'Of course not.'

  He fished a pack of Merits from his breast pocket and fought to light one in the wind. He turned this way and that, and finally I cupped a hand on top of his and held the match. He was shaking.

  'It's very important you tell me about the money,' I said. 'How much and how did she get it?'

  He paused. 'You see, Rachael does all that.'

  'Did your wife wire the money? Did she send a check?'

  'I guess you don't know my daughter. No way anybody is going to cash a check for her. Rachael wires money to her on a regular basis. You see, Jayne has to be on medicine to prevent seizures. Because of what happened to her head.' -

  'Where is the money wired?' I asked.

  'A Western Union office. Rachael could tell you which one.'

  'What about your son? Do you communicate with him?'

  His face got hard. 'Not a bit.'

  'He's never tried to come home?'

  'Nope.'

  'What about here? Does he know you're here?'

  'About the only communicating I intend to do with Temple is with a double-barrel shotgun.' His jaw muscles bunched. 'I don't give a damn if he is my son.'

  'Are you aware that he is using your AT&T charge card?'

  Mr. Gault stood up straight and tapped an ash that scattered in the wind. That can't be.'

  'Your wife pays the bills?'

  'Well, those kind she does.'

  'I see,' I said.

  He flicked the cigarette into the mud and a crab went after it.

  He said, 'Jayne's dead, isn't she? You're a coroner and that's why you're here.'

  'Yes, Mr. Gault. I'm so sorry.'

  'I had a feeling when you told me who you are. My little girl's that lady they think Temple murdered in Central Park.'

  'That's why I'm here,' I said. 'But I need your help if I'm going to prove she is your daughter.'

  He looked me in the eye, and I sensed bone-weary relief. He drew himself up and I felt his pride. 'Ma'am, I don't want her in some godforsaken pauper's grave. I want her here with Rachael and me. For once she can live with us because it's too late for him to hurt her.'

  We walked along the pier.

  'I can make certain that happens,' I said as wind flattened the grass and tore through our hair. 'All I need is your blood.'

  18

  Before we went inside his house, Mr. Gault warned me that his wife did not have good coping skills. He explained as delicately as he could that Rachael Gault had never faced the reality of her offsprings' blighted destinies.

  'It's not that she's going to pitch a fit,' he explained in a soft voice as we climbed the porch steps. 'She just won't accept it, if you know what I mean.'

  'You may want to look at the pictures out here,' I said.

  'Of Jayne.' He got very tired again.

  'Of her and of footprints.'

  'Footprints?' He ran callused fingers through his hair.

  'Do you remember her owning a pair of army jungle boots?' I then asked.

  'No.' He slowly shook his head. 'But Luther had all kinds of things like that.'

  'Do you know what size shoe he wore?'

  'His foot was smaller than mine. I guess he wore a seven and a half or an eight.'

  'Did he ever give a pair of his boots to Temple?'

  'Huh,' he said shortly. 'The only way Luther would have given that boy boots would be if Luther still had 'em on and was kicking Temple's butt.'

  'The boots could have belonged to Jayne.'

  'Oh sure. She and Luther probably wore close to the same size. She was a big girl. In fact, she was about the size of Temple. And I always suspected that was part of his problem.'

  Mr. Gault would have stood out in prevailing winds and talked all day. He did not want me opening my briefcase because he knew what was inside.

  'We don't have to do this. You don't have to look at anything,' I said. 'We can use DNA.'

  'If it's all the same to you,' he said, eyes bright as he reached for the door. 'I guess I'd better tell Rachael.'

  The entrance of the Gault house was whitewashed and bordered in a pale shade of gray- An old brass chandelier hung from the high ceiling, and a graceful spiral stairway led to the second floor. In the living room were English antiques, oriental rugs and formidable oil portraits of people from lives past. Rachael Gault sat on a prim sofa, needlepoint in her lap. I could see through a spacious archway that needlepoint covered the dining room chairs.

  'Rachael?' Mr. Gault stood before her like a bashful bachelor with hat in hand. 'We have company.'

  She dipped her needle in and out. 'Oh, how nice.' She smiled and put down her work.

  Rachael Gault once had been a fair beauty with light skin, eyes and hair. I was fascinated that Temple and Jayne had gotten their looks from their mother and their uncle, and I chose not to speculate but to attribute this to Mendel's law of dominance or his statistics of genetic chance.

  Mr. Gault sat on the sofa and offered me the high-back chair.

  'What's the weather doing out there?' Mrs. Gault asked with her son's thin smile and the hypnotic cadences of a Deep South drawl. 'I wonder if there are any shrimp left.' She looked directly at me. 'You know, I don't know your name. Now, Peyton, let's not be rude. Introduce me to this new friend you've made.'

  'Rachael,' Mr. Gault tried again. Hands on his knees, he hung his head. 'She's a doctor from Virginia.'
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  'Oh?' Her delicate hands plucked at the canvas in her lap.

  'I guess you'd call her a coroner.' He looked over at his wife. 'Honey, Jayne's dead.'