Scandal in Copper Lake

by Marilyn Pappano

  There had been another call at ten, another at midnight, both brushed off. Then the fisherman had called in shortly before six the next morning.

  That baby’s crying that her mama’s in the water. She’s scared to death, and she’s making herself sick. You’ve got to do something.

  Do you see dead people? he’d asked Anamaria over lunch, making a joke of it.

  I have visions, she’d replied.

  He hadn’t believed her. It was so easy to claim parapsychological abilities, and so hard to prove. So easy to prey on people who were vulnerable, seeking peace, trying to ease a loss, and so easy to dismiss anyone who was less gullible as a nonbeliever. I don’t waste my time on skeptics, Anamaria had said.

  But according to the police dispatch tapes, she had known her mother was in the river at least ten hours before Glory was found. How? Could she have seen a vision of Glory’s death?

  He’d find it easier to believe that she had literally seen Glory in the water. The river ran just behind the trees that bordered the Duquesne house, less than two hundred feet away. Maybe she’d gone on that walk with Glory—or sneaked out and followed her—and had seen her mother fall. Or maybe she’d even caused her to fall…

  Either way, psychic vision or real life, how traumatic would such a sight have been for a five-year-old?

  After rereading the witness statement, he returned the file to the envelope, laid it on the coffee table and got to his feet. He was halfway to the door when his cell phone rang. Harrison Kennedy’s name on the caller ID display made him grimace, but he answered.

  “You know, the girl met with Liddy this morning.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “I don’t know, Harrison. There were only two people there. Anamaria’s likely to tell me it’s none of my business or to ask Lydia, and you told me not to ask Lydia anything.” He let himself into the garage, opening the door as he settled in the Vette’s driver’s seat, then switched the phone to speaker as he backed out. “Have you asked Lydia?”

  “She said they talked mostly about her mother.”

  “Lydia’s mother?”

  Harrison sounded impatient. “No. The girl’s mother. Why would they talk about Lydia’s mother? Marcette’s been dead for years.”

  Why would they talk about a white-haired man and flowers the first time? Robbie thought irritably. People didn’t go to psychics to get messages from the living.

  “Lydia says she’s here to find out more about her mother. Says she’s curious. She didn’t ask for any money, but she said something to Lydia that made her…I don’t know. Sad. Worried.”

  Why are you here? Robbie had asked, and Anamaria had smiled. Because I used to live here. She’d added other reasons: she was resting, retreating, taking a break from her regular life.

  He hadn’t believed her about that, either. If her purpose for coming to Copper Lake was as simple as a vacation, why had her first act been to contact Lydia? Why had she asked to meet with her a second time? He supposed even scam artists needed a break from time to time, but a few slick tricks with Lydia here could pay for a real vacation somewhere else.

  “Did you ask Lydia why she was sad?”

  “She acted like it was nothing. Just that the girl made her think about the mother.”

  The girl had a name, and so did the mother. Was it asking too much for Harrison to use them? “She did see Glory regularly for a year,” Robbie reminded him. “Some people might consider that a basis for friendship.”

  “I have no doubt Lydia liked the woman, but they weren’t friends. Lydia was a source of income for her. Nothing more.”

  Maybe. “Will you change your mind about letting me talk to her?”

  “No. I don’t want her upset any more than she already is.”

  “Look, I’ve got to go,” Robbie said as he turned into the riverfront parking lot. “I’ll be in touch with you soon.” He disconnected before Harrison could say anything else and got out of the car.

  He didn’t usually walk along the river if he had a chance to be out on it instead. Before Jamie had gotten married, they’d met here at least once a week to exercise her mutt and talk, but she and Mischa were taking their walks with Russ now. Sometimes Robbie missed her. They’d been close for years. She was the one person he’d told almost everything, but her marrying Russ had changed things. Now she was family, and her focus was on a different Calloway.

  Not that he begrudged Russ being happy. God knows, after the hell Melinda had put him through in their marriage, he deserved every minute with Jamie.

  There were a few joggers out, a few mothers with their children. Giving them a wide berth, Robbie turned north, following the path through the grassy park and along the high bank of the Gullah. It was a slow river, wide and lazy. He’d fished in it, swam in it and raised hell on it with his brothers and his buddies. He’d brought girls to its banks to make out and cracked more than his share of beers in a boat on hot days, and he’d never known that Glory Duquesne and her baby had died in it.

  It didn’t take long to reach the place where Glory had been found. The pavement had ended, giving way to a hard-packed dirt trail that ran along the top of the slope above the water. This section was used by mostly joggers; Tommy ran a few miles along the trail every day.

  Robbie slowed at the pilings that marked a dock long since rotted away. According to the police report, Glory had been tangled by the gnarled roots of a fallen oak twenty feet north. Much of the tree had rotted away over the years, but the trunk, easily three times his own girth, remained on the shore, unaffected by weather or time.

  He stared down at the water’s edge. Had Glory been conscious after her fall? Had she tried to push herself up out of the mud and muck? Had she known her baby was coming? Or had life ended for her when she’d hit her head? Consciousness gone, lights out, unaware that she and the baby were doomed to die.

  A shudder worked through him, and he rubbed his arms, bemused by the goose bumps. No doubt, Anamaria—or especially her grandmother, who claimed to talk to the dead—would say something still lingered here from that night. But he wasn’t sensitive to the living; he damn sure wouldn’t feel anything from the dead.

  He gazed downriver, then up, to orient himself. The path continued to the north, narrowing, angling away from the river and into the trees. It ended before reaching his uncle Cyrus’s fishing cabin, about a mile and a half upstream. Also between here and there, a short distance to the east, was Easy Street and the Duquesne house.

  It was a seven-minute walk at a good pace before the first sign of habitation came into sight: a house, battered and tilting, that would have blended into the surrounding forest if not for the lemon-colored sheets on the clothesline out back. He counted four houses—a roof here, a flash of sun reflected off a window there—before he followed a beaten path through the woods to the street.

  Anamaria’s house was thirty feet to the left, her car parked in the driveway. A dog barked down the street, quieted by an admonishing hush. The voice was elderly and came from the porch of the nearest house. With rusted screen enclosing the porch and the roof creating deep shade, he couldn’t see the woman who had spoken, but he did hear her next words. “I been telling them kids to quit using that path. Look what’s done stumbled in on it from the river. It’s a Calloway.”

  A moment’s silence, expectant, damn near humming in his ears. Then…“It certainly is. Thank you for your time, Miss Beulah.”

  The screen door creaked, and Anamaria came down the steps, avoiding the hole in the third one. She crossed the dirt and pine needles that passed for a yard, then stopped in the street a dozen feet in front of him.

  “What’s the difference between a dead rat lying in the road and a dead lawyer lying in the road?” She paused only a moment. “There are skid marks in front of the rat.”

  When he didn’t smile, she did and began walking lazily toward her house. He forced his feet to move, to walk beside her rath
er than behind her, where he could watch the sway of her hips.

  “Did you decide to take me up on my offer?”

  Yes. No. Damned if I know. Silence was a good choice when you didn’t know what to say, Granddad Calloway had always advised. It was Robbie’s choice as they moved single file past her car, then climbed the steps to the porch. As he reached the top, though, his mouth opened and words came out of their own accord.

  “Were you at the river the night your mother died?”

  Anamaria’s fingers curled around the screen door so tightly that the nail beds turned white. She turned, forcing him to stop on the last stair, blocking his way. The extra height put her an inch or two above him and allowed her to stare down at him with all the ice she could muster. “What?”

  He moved as close as the step would allow, his shirt brushing hers, his face mere inches from hers. “According to the police report, you told your babysitter that your mother was in the water hours before she was found there. Were you there?”

  She never retreated. Never. But that afternoon she did, taking a step back, folding her arms protectively over her middle. She tried to look away, but his blue gaze was too intense, tried to walk away, but her body refused to obey.

  He closed the distance between them again, standing much too near, intruding on every breath of her personal space. “Were you at the river that night? Did you sneak out and follow her, or go looking for her? Were you with her when she fell? Did you know she was dying? Did you leave her there?”

  Sensation threatened to overwhelm her: his heat, his scent, his arousal—oh, yes, even though he was questioning her, he was aroused. So were her own emotions. Sweat beaded on her forehead as chill bumps raised on her arms. Over the buzzing in her ears she heard whimpers coming from the front bedroom, felt her five-year-old heart breaking all over again, tasted the fear, the helplessness, the anger that Mama wasn’t there to help her deal with what she couldn’t understand.

  She grabbed onto the anger, straightening her spine, wrapping it around her for warmth and strength. “Who the hell do you think you are, coming here demanding answers from me?”

  He raised his hand, bringing his fingertips close to her cheek, so close she felt their warmth, so close she imagined their texture, smooth and calloused, against her skin. Every nerve ending was humming, every pleasure sensor on alert, waiting, anticipating, but he stopped before making contact. Stopped. Stared at her. Said quietly, deliberately, “I’m the man you’re going to touch.”

  Her heart beat a hundred times before she managed a breath. The whimpers faded back into the dark corner of her memory, and so did the anger. A knot of fear remained, though. The unbridled passion experienced by Duquesne women was a powerful thing, according to Mama Odette. It would take away her breath, rip out her heart and make a different woman of her, one who understood the exquisite pleasure and pain of desire, love and loss.

  It was her destiny. Since she was a little girl, she’d grown up expecting not marriage but a broken heart. She envisioned it. Was resigned to it. Had waited for it all her life.

  I’m the man you’re going to touch.

  She was. Maybe not this instant. Maybe not today. But soon. When the mere promise of a touch could made her tremble…definitely soon.

  And then he would break her heart.

  She dragged in another breath, turned away and walked into the house. The windows were open in every room except the front bedroom, and the gentle breeze floating in from the kitchen was scented with cocoa and butter and coconut, ingredients in the cookies she’d made to take to her neighbors. She didn’t need to hear quiet footsteps to know that Robbie followed her. She felt his presence. Felt his gaze on her. Felt his ambivalence toward her.

  He knew he would break her heart, too. He preferred his lovers well-bred, educated, sophisticated, elegant. He liked women who blended in at the country club—fair-skinned, blond, blue-eyed—who understood the value of influence, appearances and convention.

  But he wanted her.

  At least for sex.

  At least for a while.

  She went into the kitchen, fixed two glasses of iced tea and set them on the table, then peeled the plastic wrap from a plate of cookies and put it in the middle. She sat in one chair, crossing her legs. After a moment, he sat in the other, and for a long time, that was all they did. Sit. Avoid looking at each other. Ignore both tea and cookies. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should have been. At least, until she spoke.

  “No,” she said at last, with a great breath for fortitude. “I wasn’t with my mother that night. I didn’t literally, physically, see her in the river.”

  The breath he exhaled was as strong as the one she’d taken in. “Then how did you know?”

  “I had a vision. It was as real as if I was there. I could hear the rain falling. I could feel the drops stinging my skin. I could smell the mud and the river, and I could see…” Her fingers knotted in her lap. “I called to her. I pleaded with her to open her eyes and come home where she belonged. I screamed at her, but she didn’t hear me. She was already gone.”

  The clock on the wall counted the seconds, one for every two beats of her heart. Sixty of them had ticked past when she added, “It was the first vision I ever had.”

  Another sixty seconds passed before he met her gaze. He didn’t believe her. That was all right. She knew what she’d seen, knew it was real. His cynicism didn’t change that.

  Finally he took a drink from the sweating glass in front of him. Moisture collected on his fingertips, wiped away carelessly on a napkin. “You said you don’t see anything about the futures of people you’re close to.”

  “I said rarely. But it wasn’t Mama’s future I was seeing. It was her death.” She gazed out the window, thinking idly that she needed to hire someone to cut back the weeds before they grew over her head, smiling faintly at the thought of a lawn service making routine visits to Easy Street.

  Then, feeling Robbie’s gaze, she turned back to him. “Detective Maricci gave you the police report, didn’t he? That’s what was in the envelope.”

  He didn’t reply. Protecting his source.

  “Can I see it?”

  Her request startled him. “Why would you want to?”

  “She’s my mother. I want to know how she lived. I want to know how she died.”

  “She died alone,” he said flatly. “In the dark. In the rain.”

  Anamaria shook her head hard enough to make her hair sway. “She wasn’t alone. My sister was with her, and there were others waiting for her—her grandma Chessie, Chessie’s grandma Moon, Moon’s grandma Florence. And she liked the rain.”

  Glory had liked the rain, Anamaria realized as soon as she heard the words. They’d gone for walks in the rain, leaving the umbrellas and slickers at home, splashing through every puddle they came across, quacking like ducks and laughing till their faces hurt. She remembered.

  Across from her, Robbie was scowling. “Lydia says you’re here because you’re curious about your mother. Why didn’t you tell me that when I asked?”

  Half a smile curved her mouth. “I’d met you all of two minutes before. I didn’t owe you an answer.”

  “If you didn’t have anything to hide…”

  “If you hadn’t come expecting the worst of me…” She let the smile form fully. He still wasn’t convinced. It was apparent in the way he looked at her, the very air around him. And she still didn’t owe him an answer, but she decided to give him one anyway.

  “Your father’s death wasn’t even an inconvenience in your life. My mother’s death changed my entire life. She was my life. I lost her. I lost my home.” She brushed her hair back before settling both hands on the tabletop. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had a great life. Instead of one mother, I had a dozen—Mama Odette, Auntie Lueena and Auntie Charise and their daughters. They taught me everything I needed to know about being a girl, a woman, a Duquesne. They explained the visions to me. They helped me develop my sight. They wer
e there when I went on my first date, when I graduated from high school, when I had my first client, when I suffered my first broken heart.”

  Not that it had been much of a break. She’d been seventeen, left for an older woman of twenty, and for two weeks she’d stayed in her room and cried as if she were vying for the title of drama queen of the universe. Her first day back at work at the diner, a handsome construction worker had flirted with her, and within another two weeks, she’d hardly been able to remember her ex-boyfriend’s face.

  “They were great mothers,” she said quietly.

  “But they weren’t your mother.”

  She was touched that he grasped the difference. “I don’t remember much about living here. I know I must have been very happy, because I know how unhappy I was when I first went to Savannah. Mama and I must have sat at this table for our meals. She must have tucked me into bed at night, and I must have crawled into bed with her when the storms came. We lived our lives in this house, just the two of us, but I don’t remember.”

  “What does it matter?”

  Spoken like someone who’d never had a doubt about his history, himself.

  Silently she nudged the plate of cookies in his direction. When he shook his head, she took it to the kitchen counter, covered it once more with plastic wrap, then glanced at him over her shoulder. “It matters. It matters to me, and it especially matters to Mama Odette.”

  Chapter 4

  In his job, Robbie made a lot of decisions based on whatever sketchy information he had: whether a client was being truthful, whether he could create reasonable doubt in a jury’s minds, whether he could trust the story a witness was telling him. Instinct said Anamaria wasn’t being entirely truthful.