Mary replied in kind, trying to pull up words she seldom used. “Azkahi.”
“What are you saying?” Brendle clucked like a hen. “Are you speaking Ani Galoshi?”
“Ani Zaguhi.” Again, Mary corrected him. “And no, we were speaking Cherokee. He asked how Hugh was. I told him he was scared.”
“Well, you’ll have to speak in English if you want any help from me,” Brendle sniffed.
In Cherokee, Mary told Ridge that they would have to speak English from here on out, then she explained why Brendle was there. “Ridge, this is Timothy Brendle. He’s going to help you. He’s a lawyer, like me, but he’ll be better for you. He specializes in cases like yours.”
Brendle stuck out his small white hand. Next to Ridge, the lawyer had the physical presence of an unbaked pretzel. Ridge did not move to shake his hand, but instead stared at him so intently that Brendle squirmed in his chair. Mary finally felt compelled to ease the impasse between the two.
“Ridge, Tim and I need to talk to you about Bethany.”
Ridge turned his eyes away from Brendle and focused on her. For a moment, his deep, dark gaze caught her like a fly in a spiderweb. She felt sweat begin to trickle between her breasts.
“I did not kill Bethany Daws,” he said.
“We know that, Ridge,” Mary replied. “And we believe you. But we need to know a little bit more.”
“I did not kill Bethany Daws,” he repeated flatly.
Brendle leaned forward. “Mr. Standingdeer, I don’t particularly want to know what happened the night your girl was killed. But I do need to know about you. What you did before she died, what you’d like to do after we get you out of jail.”
Ridge gave Brendle a hard stare, then he rose from his chair, walked over beneath the room’s single, high window, and sat down cross-legged on the floor, in a little patch of sunlight. He turned his face to the window and closed his eyes, like someone meditating. That, apparently, was what Ridge wanted to do. Go back to the sun and the air from which he’d come. Mary and Brendle sat there watching him in helpless silence until, a few moments later, the deputy came and took Ridge away.
Mary slumped back in her chair, disappointed. She had been hoping the boy might display the innocent charm that he had when they’d had dinner at Hugh’s. Instead, he’d come across as a hostile mute. Brendle was making notes on his legal pad, the scratch of his pen audible in the small room. When he came to the end of the page, he dotted a large exclamation point.
“So what do you think?” she asked.
Brendle capped his fountain pen. “He’s weird as hell, is what I think.”
“I mean what do you think about his case?”
“That ponytail will have to go. It makes him look like he eats children for breakfast. And he’s going to have to wear something to cover those tattoos.”
“I’ll get him a nice suit. I’ll make sure he looks good.”
“It wouldn’t hurt for his hair to grow beyond skinhead length. And what was that creepy evil eye thing he had going on? He certainly can’t look at a jury like that.”
“I know, I know.” Mary was growing impatient with Brendle’s lectures on the obvious. “Do you think you can work with him?”
Frowning, Brendle tapped his pen on the table, then he said, “I think so. Turpin probably has a circumstantial case. If we mainstream this kid’s appearance, put him in Armani and load the jury with youngish women, then he’ll probably have a fair chance.” He smiled, as if envisioning Ridge transformed for the courtroom. “Hell, dressed right, he might come out of this with a movie deal. A high-concept Hiawatha.”
Mary smiled, too, but remembered the gaunt look in Ridge’s face, the dejected slope of his shoulders. He’d clearly faded, just overnight. “Refresh my memory about North Carolina criminal statutes. Is this a right-to-speedy-trial state?”
Brendle laughed. “Hardly. Here, the average time from charges to disposition is three hundred and seventy-two days. One poor bastard in Durham spent four and a half years just waiting to go to trial.”
“Didn’t he appeal? On due process? Sixth amendment?”
Brendle shrugged. “Of course he did. Our Tarheel justices said it was his tough luck. The docket was backed up.”
Mary felt sick inside. However tough Ridge Standingdeer was, he would not survive three hundred and seventy-two days in a jail cell. He was a young man of the forest and sky. Concrete walls and barred windows would kill him as surely as that crude tomahawk killed Bethany Daws.
Brendle must have noticed her distress. When he spoke next, his tone was more upbeat. “Look, the DA’s up for reelection in November. A lot of people are tired of his stupid barbecue obsession. Turpin needs a conviction, fresh in the voters’ minds. I imagine he’ll go to trial pretty fast with this.”
Mary stared at the swatch of sunlight where Ridge had sat. “I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or worse.”
“It’s a toss-up,” Brendle said. “Turpin won’t have any extra time to build his case, but we won’t have the advantage of memories growing foggy, should he scare up any eyewitnesses.” Brendle snapped his briefcase shut. “Can I take you to lunch?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got a pretty busy afternoon. I’d love a lift to my office, however.”
“Sure thing.” As Brendle rose, he smiled. “Hey, I really appreciate your calling me in on this. It’ll be my first defense of an Ani Galoshi.”
“Ani Zaguhi,” Mary corrected him for the third time as they headed for the door.
A few minutes later, she was about to start the climb to her office, in hopes of cramming a few more property statutes into her head, when she impulsively put that chore off again and headed into Sutton’s Hardware. She wanted to display her diplomas on her walls. For that, she needed picture hangers. As she walked into the store directly beneath her own office, she felt the same sense of déjà vu that she had when she’d stopped to visit with Johnny Reb, two weeks ago. Though the interior had been repainted and dirt-hiding commercial grade carpeting now covered the old plank floors, the store still functioned for urban Pisgah Countians as Little Jump Off did for their mountain-bound cousins—a one-stop-shopping place where money, tall tales, and town gossip were exchanged in nearly equal parts. Sutton’s stocked birdseed for the local Audubon society, rifles for deer hunters, surge protectors for cyber Hartsville. They even popped popcorn for the children; Mary smelled the salty aroma as soon as she entered the store.
“Can I help you?” a tall, buxom girl called from behind the counter.
“Picture hangers?” Mary was certain they had them, she just couldn’t imagine where.
“Midway down the back wall. You need me to get them for you?”
Mary smiled. “No thanks. I can find them myself.” She passed old-fashioned washboards stacked below microwave ovens, butter churns beneath electric ice cream freezers. Picture hangers were displayed next to school supplies. She grabbed two packages and headed back to the counter.
“Is that all today?” Up close, Mary saw that the clerk was more than just buxom. The girl was, in fact, quite obese. Though her mouth was a beestung pout and her blue eyes were astonishingly beautiful, both were lost in the soft, doughy expanse of her face.
“That’s it for now.” Mary fished her wallet from her purse as the girl rang up her tab.
“That’ll be two dollars and sixty-seven cents. You’re Mary Crow, the lawyer, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Mary replied. She mentally prepared herself for the usual you’re the one who killed Stump Logan routine, but mercifully, the girl didn’t go there. “Have we met before?”
“No.” The girl giggled. “Ridge told me you’d moved in upstairs. I sweep the landing up there and deliver y’all’s mail.”
“Then it’s nice to meet you.” Mary handed the girl a five-dollar bill. “Are you friends with Ridge?”
“Mr. Sutton lets me run the gift shop for the tourists,” she said proudly. “I’ve sold a bunch of masks for
Ridge.” The girl pointed again, this time to the front corner of the store. There, among dreamcatchers and baskets and a couple of pint-sized bows and arrows, hung three of Ridge’s masks—a raccoon, a fox, and a scary-looking medicine man. Again, Mary noted, no bears.
“He’s a very talented young man,” said Mary as the girl handed her the change.
Unexpectedly, the girl leaned closer. She whispered, “Is it true that they arrested him yesterday? For killing Bethany?”
“Unfortunately, they did,” Mary said truthfully, astonished at the alacrity of small-town gossip.
“I’m so sorry,” said the girl. “I like Ridge a lot. I liked Bethany a lot, too. I don’t think he killed her.”
“Oh? Who do think did?” Too late, Mary realized that she’d pounced as if she had this poor fat girl sweating on the witness stand.
“I don’t know.” Flustered, the girl’s pudgy cheeks grew crimson. “I just work this register all day and listen to all the crazy things people come up with.”
“I guess you do hear it all,” Mary said, more kindly. “What’s your name?”
“Sylvia,” said the big girl. “Sylvia Goins.”
Mary held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Sylvia.”
Sylvia shook Mary’s hand with obvious relief. Are you taking Ridge’s case?” Her blue eyes widened in her sea of flesh.
“No. I’m not doing criminal work anymore.” Mary wondered how long it would take that little tidbit to race through town. Suddenly Sylvia Goins’ face cracked, Humpty Dumpty–like, into a smile. Mary turned to see the bandanna-wearing young man from the Mexican market across the street hurry into the store, his own wide face shyly reflecting the joy of his girlfriend’s.
“Sylvia, it’s been a pleasure meeting you,” Mary said, excusing herself quickly in the face of young love. “I’m sure I’ll be back soon. There’s always a lot to buy when you set up an office.”
“Welcome to our block, Ms. Crow.” Sylvia’s smile revealed deep dimples in both cheeks. “Anything you need that we don’t have, I’ll be happy to order for you.”
Mary nodded to the girl’s Mexican beau, then left the oddly matched pair to commune among the butter churns, undisturbed. As she stepped back into the bright morning light, she gazed up the street toward the courthouse, wondering what kind of case George Turpin was cooking up against Ridge.
It’s not your problem, she reminded herself. You got the boy a good attorney, you got Hugh new help with his farm. Now you need to keep your promise to Jonathan. You need to become the very best real estate attorney in all of Pisgah County. With a final, lingering glance at Johnny Reb and the courthouse that towered behind him, she turned toward her office, and her brand-new career as Deke Keener’s dirt lawyer.
19
Six Weeks Later
Thwack! The ball banged against the garage door. Thwack! Thwack!
Kayla Daws played a mindless game of catch with herself. For the past month she’d passed the slow, hot afternoons in this way, first throwing soccer balls, then basketballs, then tennis balls at the wide door directly beneath her mother’s bedroom. Now she was using a half-chewed rubber ball that had belonged to Darby when he was a puppy.
Thwack! This time the ball bounced high. She caught it in her right hand, then turned and threw it at Darby, who lay sleeping on the cool flagstone patio. The old Lab yelped as the ball struck his hip. Then he struggled stiffly to his feet, tail wagging but confused, as if his mistress had invented some new game he hadn’t quite caught on to.
Stupid dog, thought Kayla. You were upstairs that night. You were sleeping in my bedroom. Why didn’t you bark? Why couldn’t you have at least whimpered?
Because Darby is thirteen, she told herself for the thousandth time. Darby is mostly deaf. And even though he would have defended any of them to the death, Darby had not heard whoever came to kill Bethany.
Remorse swept over her as quickly as her anger had lashed out, and she ran over to the old dog, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m sorry, Darb,” she cried, kneeling to throw her arms around his bony shoulders. “I didn’t mean to do that.” She held the dog tight, as if he were the last soft, kind thing left of her family.
Suddenly she heard a scraping sound, just above her head. She looked up. Her mother had opened her bedroom window and was leaning out, squinting into the bright July afternoon. Paula Daws still wore the same lacy pink nightgown that she’d worn for the past week, the black mascara streaking down her cheeks making her look like a mournful raccoon. “What’s going on down there?” she demanded, lurching so far forward that she almost tumbled out the window.
“Nothing, Mama,” Kayla replied.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying.”
“Then go back to bed.”
Before Kayla could explain that it wasn’t bedtime, that it was just the middle of an endless afternoon that had seemingly begun several years ago, her mother slammed the window shut. Kayla knew, then, her mother would spend this day like all the others—lying in a darkened bedroom, staring at the home makeover channel, trying to find her way through the next nineteen million minutes of her life. She might get up when her father came home or it could just as easily be her and her dad sitting at the kitchen table together—Kayla eating canned soup, her father starting on the first of his evening six-packs. When he only drank it was tolerable—he slowly got drunk in front of whatever baseball game was on TV and fell asleep in the recliner. The nights she truly hated were the nights Glenn Daws brought home a newspaper. Then he would crack open a tall boy and make her sit down and listen while he read aloud every word devoted to Ridge Standingdeer. He’d started weeks ago, when Ridge had been charged with Bethany’s murder, and he hadn’t lost interest since. The more he drank the angrier he grew, calling Ridge and his lawyer terrible names, finally crushing the beer cans as if they were mere paper cups. She’d complained about it once, at the grief therapy sessions that Coach Keener arranged for everybody, but it hadn’t done any good. Her father had come home the next night and made her listen while he read the whole paper, just to spite her.
She sighed. The sky was a sullen, dull white and the blacktop driveway radiated heat like a stove, but she had no desire to go inside. Not that she was scared, though sometimes it did make her shiver to think that whoever killed Bethany could have just as easily killed any or all of the rest of them. What really creeped her out was the smell of the place. Coach Keener had special teams of men clean the whole house immediately after the police finished in Bethany’s room, even helping out in the attic and garage himself. Though it was good to have all the blood and police crap cleared away, the house now had a weird new disinfectant smell. Despite the fact that Coach Keener had fancy alarm systems put in every room and floodlights now covered the yard, once you went inside, the smell was always there; always reminding you that somebody had sneaked in and murdered Bethany.
As bad as that was, the silence was worse. It had settled on the house a week after the funeral. Up to then, everything had seemed as festive as Christmas. People had dropped by to “keep them company”; sent them tuna casseroles and blackberry pies. Women came over to medi-tate with her mother every morning, and all the girls on the softball team had sat right behind her at the funeral, crying softly into wadded-up tissues as Coach Keener gave the eulogy. Many had sent cards, and Jeannette Peacock had even sent her daisies from the florist, Lauren Reynolds a Ludacris CD.
All that, however, had ended. As the weeks passed the phone grew silent, the casseroles stopped coming, and the softball team greeted her with an increasingly awkward silence. Jeannette and Lauren just looked at her with shy, stunned eyes, and although they always made room for her on the bench, Kayla could tell that none of the girls really wanted to sit beside her. In one day she’d gone from being someone with a lot of friends to someone whose phone rang only with calls from telemarketers. Two months ago, she had been looking forward to starting junior high school. Now she dreaded it. N
obody would want to sit with someone whose sister got murdered.
“I miss my family,” she said, rubbing Darby’s velvety ears. “I wish I could put us all back together again.” That, she knew, was impossible. Not only could she not bring Bethany back to life, but she couldn’t even join in her father’s utter conviction that Ridge Standingdeer had killed her. However much he ranted and raved, she just couldn’t believe that Ridge had done it. He was too good, too kind. He’d been nice even to her, and not just because she was Bethany’s kid sister. He always included her when they went out together; always talked to her seriously, as if she were someone who mattered.
She heard a car pulling in the driveway. She turned, hoping maybe it was Jeannette, out joyriding with her big sister Dot, or even Coach Keener on one of his goodwill missions, but her father’s white truck pulled up, dusted pale orange with construction-site clay. Kayla stood still, holding Darby by his collar. She used to like it when her father came home. He’d play a game of catch or shoot baskets with her. Now he just got out of his truck and hurried inside, glaring at her as if she were some weed growing in an otherwise pristine garden.
“Hi, Dad,” she called, wondering if today could be the day they might start to knit themselves back together. They weren’t scheduled for therapy this afternoon, but she had a softball practice later on. Sometimes going to the ball field helped to take his mind off things.
“Hi.” He replied with the briefest of nods as he headed inside, his shoulders slumped, a brown grocery sack in his hand. As the door slammed behind him with a resounding shunnnnt, she knew it was unlikely that anything was going to get knitted back together today.
Still, Dr. Shope had told her not to give up, and she wasn’t going to. Maybe she could persuade her mother to join them for ball practice and they could go get ice cream afterward. Anything to leave this land of the living dead.
Buoyed by that hope, she took Darby and walked the perimeter of the backyard. The wet, rainy spring had dried into a month-long drought, leaving their usually luxuriant green lawn yellow and brittle as glass. She walked with her head down, always searching for the odd footprint or scrap of a clue the cops might have missed—the one that would clear Ridge and convict the real murderer. Though all she ever found were mole tunnels and Darby’s dried-up turds, she never quit looking. She was watching Darby nose around a chipmunk burrow when the back door opened like a shot.
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