Cemetery Road

by Greg Iles

“Done, done, and done,” says Donnelly. “Have a good day, Marshall.”

  The oilman extends his hand, and God forgive me, I take it. This is the way business is done in America in 2018.

  “Walk me out, Blake,” I tell him. “I don’t want any bullshit from Beau or Tommy.”

  On the street outside the bank, I check my text messages. One from Nadine informs me that my father is still unconscious, but his cardiologist plans to bring him out of the coma later this morning. Nadine is at her store, but she’s staying in close touch with my mother. I text her back: Deal terms agreed. Will pick you up on way to hospital, probably 1 hour from now. Have errand to run first.

  She texts me a thumbs-up emoji in reply. Then she adds: Be safe.

  After a last look at the Greek Revival façade of the Bienville Southern Bank, I get into the Flex and head east out of town. I want to be back at the hospital to watch my father sign the papers that will return the Watchman to the McEwan family. But before I do, I need to speak to Tallulah Williams.

  Chapter 46

  The Belle Rose neighborhood in late morning looks like the cover of a Frontgate catalog. Zero-turn mowers scuttle over perfect lawns like manta rays combing the floor of a green sea. A gleaming mail truck rolls slowly from oversize box to oversize box, looking like a prop from a Steven Spielberg movie. And set well back from the road on every lot stands a McMansion to shelter the white refugees of Jackson, Mississippi. A few prosperous Bienvillians live out here, though I’m told that more bought in Beau Chene, built just five years ago. Only the lowering sky ruins what would have been a perfectly saturated Technicolor morning in America.

  When Paul and I were growing up, he lived in a subdivision about a mile away from mine. The houses in his neighborhood were newer than ours, and nicer, but the Mathesons at that time were fully integrated into the middle-class life of Bienville. Now Paul and his father own homes in this physical expression of Beau Holland’s dream: an exclusive refuge from the black crime of both Bienville and the state capital, which is only twenty-two miles from the entrance to Belle Rose. Paul and Jet live in a conventional McMansion, which Jet claims to detest, but Max built a Spanish hacienda that looks remarkably authentic. Besides the house, the property boasts a lavish outdoor kitchen, an infinity pool, a pool house, and a seemingly endless terrace of clay tiles. Behind the pool house stands another outbuilding, styled like a stable. For the past few years it has housed the family maid, Tallulah Williams, and her husband, Terrence, who worked as the Mathesons’ yard man until he got too old for outdoor labor.

  I park at the side of the hacienda, trying to keep the Flex out of sight in case Paul happens to return from Jackson. Not wanting to give Tallulah a chance to brush me off by phone, I didn’t call ahead. The maid is probably busy inside the main house, so I walk quickly around it on the terra-cotta pavers, cross the expansive patio, and step up to the glass doors at the rear of the house. I knock casually, hoping she’ll assume I’m a pool boy or a neighbor.

  I stand alone for half a minute, but as I raise my hand to knock again, I see a large black woman slowly making her way to the door. She’s not wearing the white uniform I remember from childhood, but a pair of blue jeans and an enormous flower print blouse. When Tallulah reaches the door, she puts her palm over her eyes to shield them and peers at me. At first she looks suspicious, but then the light of recognition dawns, and she pushes down the handle.

  “Sorry I took so long,” she says, pulling open the door. “I was in the kitchen watchin’ my story and sortin’ socks.”

  Tallulah’s face is old and heavy, with pendulous jowls, but her eyes radiate wisdom and perception that misses nothing. She’s been a maid all her life, but as a boy I learned you had to get up damned early to pull anything over on her.

  “What can I do for you?” she asks.

  “I’m Marshall McEwan, Mrs. Williams. You might—”

  “Oh, I ’member you, Marshall. You and Paul used to play together at the old house. You’s just a little string bean back then. You filled out good.”

  “I remember you, too. You took good care of us.”

  “I tried, Lord knows. I liked that old house better than this one. Even when I was younger, this would have been too much. Who you lookin’ for out here? Paul? He up in Jackson at University Hospital.”

  I consider telling her that I’ve come looking for Max, then decide against it. “Actually, Mrs. Williams, I came to see you.”

  She stands in the open door with hands on her hips, studying me with an expression I cannot read. She looks worried but also intrigued.

  “You’d better just call me Tallulah. That’s what you called me when you was seven. No use changin’ now.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Tallulah, I believe a friend of mine came out to see you yesterday. Blond, cute, about five-foot-six—”

  She smiles. “Name of Nadine, like that Chuck Berry song?”

  “That’s her.”

  “You’re lucky to have her as a friend. That girl got a good soul. Treats people right.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Tallulah glances behind her, then says, “I reckon I ought to let you in, but I got a feeling Mr. Max might not like you bein’ here just now. Am I right to figure that?”

  “You could be.”

  “Well, then. What you wantin’ to know? Same thing Nadine ax me?”

  “Did she ask whether you’d caught Max with her mother, Margaret Sullivan?”

  Tallulah gives me a conspiratorial look. “Sho’ did. But Mrs. Sullivan wasn’t the first wife I seen in here with her clothes off. Or the last.”

  “Did you tell Sally about it? Catching Mrs. Sullivan?”

  “No, indeed. I wouldn’t have hurt Mrs. Sally for all the money in the world. Poor soul put up with more trouble than any two white ladies I ever knew. That Mrs. Sullivan was all right, too. Didn’t have no business messin’ with Mr. Max. But then . . . a lot of ’em was like that. Moths to the flame, I reckon.”

  “I think you’re right.” I hate to push her, but I need to know what she knows. “Tallulah, I don’t want to get you in trouble with Max. I’m going to get right to the point.”

  The maid looks wary. She probably hasn’t had many good experiences with white men who tell her they are coming to the point.

  “I know Max is Kevin’s father,” I tell her.

  The maid grunts down deep in her chest. “Who told you that? Nadine, I expect?”

  “No. Kevin’s mother.”

  Tallulah draws back her head and regards me with open suspicion. “You don’t come around this neighborhood much, do you?”

  “I haven’t, no. I stay pretty busy.”

  There’s a new light in the maid’s eyes, cold and judgmental. “That the only reason?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “’Cause I seem to ’member you and Miss Jet bein’ an item back in the day. I wondered if maybe it’s hard for you to be around her.”

  I try not to betray any emotion, but my odds of hiding anything from this woman are pathetically low. “I think it’s probably best to leave the past in the past.”

  Tallulah nods slowly. “I think you’re right about that. If only we could.”

  “Sometimes we can’t. As much as we’d like to.”

  She looks like someone being coerced to speak against her will. “What is it you want to know, Marshall?”

  “I’m not sure. Do you think Sally killed herself because she found out Max was the father of that boy?”

  Tallulah looks at the ground for a while, but then she looks up and nods. “Two, three years back, I’d have told you Mrs. Sally couldn’t do that. Take her own life.”

  “And now?”

  The old maid shakes her head. “Those who don’t cry don’t see.”

  Something about her answer pulls my mind away from the present. “When did Sally find out the truth?”

  “Two, three months back, maybe. She would have seen it before, but her heart blinded her mind to what her eye
s took in.” A wistful look comes into the old woman’s eyes. “The thought first struck me about the tenth time I changed that boy’s diaper. I pushed it away, or tried to, but it stuck. By the time he was walkin’ and talkin’, I knew for sure.”

  “How?”

  “Same way his mama knew, I reckon. Just watchin’. I’d raised Paul since he was a baby, you know that. And something jus’ told me li’l Kev hadn’t come from him. Kevin’s got Mr. Max’s blood. Got his bones, muscles . . . his way.”

  “Kevin acts like Max?”

  “Mm . . . I don’t mean that, exactly. He don’t have Mr. Max’s cruel way. But he’s more straight-ahead than Paul ever was. He don’t hesitate with nothing. Paul did sometimes. Still does.”

  “I see.” Tallulah still looks wary to me, which tells me she’s holding something back. “I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but what do you think finally made Sally see the truth?”

  “Mr. Max. He loves that boy too much. It’s natural for a granddaddy to love a grandchild, even dote on him. And that helped Mr. Max hide the truth. He was hiding one light behind another, you see? But his feelings as a father just grew and grew, until nothing would hide ’em. You can’t hide the sun behind a candle.”

  Her image leaves me shaken, and even more worried for Paul. “What kind of shape do you think Paul is in, Tallulah?”

  “Oh, he’s in a bad way. So sad. He never should’ve married that Jet. Or the other way ’round, maybe. She didn’t love Paul—not really. She may have wanted to, but she never did.”

  To this I say nothing. Tallulah is validating the truth of Jet’s life as she told it to me last night.

  The maid tilts her head to one side and regards me with fresh suspicion. “I reckon you know who Mrs. Jet loves, don’t you?”

  “Tallulah . . . I’m going to ask you one more hard question. Maybe a stupid one. But I would really appreciate an answer.”

  “You done used up your time, Marshall. I need to get back to work.”

  “Wait—please. I was told that Max raped Jet. That that’s how he fathered Kevin.”

  Tallulah’s gaze settles on me with gentle but insistent pressure. “Who told you that?”

  “Does it matter? I want to know if that’s what you believe.”

  Tallulah looks down at a flower bed filled with Louisiana iris. “It’s gon’ rain this evening. These flowers need it.” When I don’t respond, she looks up and says, “I’ll tell you this. Mr. Max been with a lot of women over the years, white and black. He’s a hard-dick man. He broke a lot of hearts over the years . . . but I ain’t ever known him to force nobody. He never had to.”

  How closely her words echo Nadine’s. “Maybe this time he did,” I suggest. “Maybe he had to. To get Jet to submit.”

  Tallulah nods slowly. “Mayhap that’s how it was. But I ’member that time pretty good. Wasn’t but thirteen years back. Hard times in this family. Paul was takin’ pills, smokin’ that reefer. Drinkin’ every morning, passed out by dark. Mrs. Sally was having health issues. Female troubles, but worse things, too. Terrible diverticulitis. But Mr. Max? He was his same old self. Heck, he wasn’t but fifty-three back then.”

  “What are you telling me, Tallulah?”

  “Nothing. I don’t speak ill of nobody. All I’m saying is things had a funny feeling ’round here for a month or so.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing! I’ll swear that on the Bible. I never saw nothing untoward.”

  “But you felt something.”

  She shrugs her big shoulders. “Like I said . . . things just felt funny for a bit. Then they settled back down. And next thing I know, Jet had the big belly. Then she was bringin’ li’l Kev into the world. After that, it was like a rainbow coming out after a storm. Everybody got better. Whole house had a glow in it, all coming from that boy.”

  The memory has lightened this woman’s heart. “And now?” I ask.

  Another heavy sigh, and her lips pooch out. “This house done gone dark again. Darker than before, even, ’cause Mrs. Sally gone. Now . . . you’ve kept me too long. I need to go.” She puts her hand on the doorknob and starts to close the door.

  “Did Paul ever sense anything?” I ask quickly. “This is important, Tallulah. I’m trying to avert bloodshed.”

  She stops, looks back. “Paul’s smarter than people think. A lot smarter than his daddy ever give him credit for. He has a lot of Mrs. Sally in him.”

  “I know that. What about my question?”

  “If Paul sensed anything, he shoved it way down deep, with all the other stuff been killin’ him all these years.”

  That’s the Paul Matheson I know. But what she’s suggesting about Jet goes against everything I know about her. And I know her better than anyone alive. Yet what reason could Tallulah have to lie? As I stare at the anxious maid, an answer comes to me. It’s not a pleasant one, but it’s grounded in hard reality.

  “Tallulah, Max’s murder alibi rests on you. He told the police you told Sally you caught Max with Margaret Sullivan. You and I know that’s not true. If the police ask you that question . . . what will you tell them?”

  She sighs heavily, then looks at my feet. “I don’t know. One thing’s for sure, nothing I say gon’ help Mrs. Sally now. She’s with Jesus. Long past these earthly travails.”

  “But you’re not. Do you feel you owe it to Max to protect him?”

  She looks up, and I see harsh truths written in her lined face. “Owe him? Boy, that’s like askin’ me why I still work for Mr. Max, when he coulda killed Mrs. Sally.”

  I don’t even blink as I stare at her. “Will you answer me?”

  Tallulah closes her eyes, then shakes her head with a sadness that has a centuries-old provenance. “This be where I stay at, Marshall. Who else gonna give me my own house to sleep in? Bills paid, water paid, ’lectric paid. Health insurance, even. I got no choice, have I? Body my age? You know that.”

  There it is. Odds are, Tallulah wouldn’t tell me Max raped Jet even if she’d seen it with her own eyes.

  “I’ll tell you somethin’ else for free,” the maid goes on. “You ain’t helped Paul none. I always thought you were a good boy. Your mama and daddy were good folks. But this ain’t right, what been goin’ on these past months. If Jet don’t know better, then you ought to. If you had sense, you’d marry that Nadine before somebody smarter does it first. Now, I gots to go.”

  As I stand openmouthed, she shuts the door in my face, then slowly makes her way back toward the kitchen and her story.

  On the road back to Bienville, the sting of Tallulah’s last words takes a long time to fade. I remember staring after her through the glass, watching her waddle across the floor of a twenty-first-century hacienda owned by a man whom she would as soon let fade into darkness, if she didn’t depend on him to support her into old age. As for myself, I don’t much feel like going to Nadine’s store just now. I need to think. Most of all, I need to talk to Jet. But not yet. Right now I need to see my father. If he comes out of his coma without brain damage, I will give him the only medicine that might yet bring him relief at this point in his life. If he doesn’t, then I will still speak the words that, after my revelation in the jail, I know must be said. For who knows what sleeping minds might register, and how deeply? Perhaps even in darkness the soul can be healed before the last warm pulse of life fades.

  Chapter 47

  “Marshall?” says my father, blinking his yellow eyes in the ICU bed.

  They brought him out of his coma thirty minutes ago. Often patients emerge from unconsciousness in a state of confusion that can persist for hours or days, but after about ten minutes, Dad oriented himself to both recent history and his present situation. I missed his awakening, but Mom told me that what brought him fully alert was the sight of this morning’s guerrilla edition of the Watchman.

  “Right here,” I tell him, touching the thin cotton bedspread over his thigh.

  A soft cacophony of beeps, whirs, and pumping sound
s fills the room, and voices leak in from the nurses’ station beyond the half-open sliding glass door. Dr. Kirby has come and gone, heading for the lab in search of some elusive test result, leaving my mother and me to perform the play I’ve authored with the Bienville Poker Club.

  “Dad?” I say, moving closer. “I need to tell you something. It has to do with the future of the paper.”

  He closes his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that. All these years I clung to it . . . fought to keep it open . . . then I lost it right at the end, when you were making good use of it.”

  “Dad—”

  “Blythe showed me your special edition,” he whispers. “I haven’t read it yet, but I saw the front-page headlines. Printed on the job press, I heard.”

  “Aaron and Gabriel tried hard, but they couldn’t get the folder for the old Heidelberg up to speed in time.”

  Dad lifts a trembling hand and points at the paper lying across his lower legs. “That’s all right. I’m damned proud of that. Proud you did it.”

  I haven’t heard him say anything like that since I was a boy. The lump in my throat stops me from going on for several seconds. “Dad, listen to me for a second, please. I’ve got a present for you.”

  “Did your mother tell you Marty Denis came by this morning?” he asks in his reedy whisper. “To apologize for what he did? That took some guts. I was asleep. Seems Claude Buckman took over the debts of Marty’s bank. Poor Marty had no choice in the matter—had to do whatever Buckman told him to.”

  I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or worse about Marty Denis. But it makes me feel better about the next two minutes. “Dad, stop talking. You’re about to get one of those moments that’s very rare in life.”

  At last his bleary eyes find mine. “What are you talking about, son?”

  I nod to Mom, and she goes to the glass door, beckons through the opening. A moment later, Arthur Pine walks into the room in a rumpled suit. In his left hand are some papers, which he begins to unfold.

  “Arthur?” Dad says, obviously confused. “What are you doing here?”