Stone Angel

by Carol O’Connell

  “Is it possible to lose a body in that swamp, say if you sunk it in a bog, and – ”

  “What goes into this ground will come up again, Mr. Porter. I’ll show you what I mean.”

  She led them through the skirt of trees and into the cemetery. “We generally bury bodies aboveground. If we sink ‘em in the earth, they just rise again, and it doesn’t matter how many stones you put in the coffin to weight it down. Now some of these bodies here were buried in a traditional manner, but you see that big slab of concrete? That’s to keep the coffin belowground.”

  “Couldn’t there have been one alligator hiding in the bayou?” asked the hopeful Mr. Porter.

  “No! Sorry. No, the closest thing we got to a gator around here is Augusta. When she smiles, you can see the resemblance, and if you get on her bad side, her eyes will go dead on you – just like a gator. Oh, and just because a gator’s dead, that doesn’t mean it’s safe to approach one. An alligator can bite you two hours after it’s been killed. I plan to be several hours late to Augusta’s funeral when she goes.”

  “But suppose there was just one alligator.”

  Betty’s smile was broad, but her teeth were grinding. “Cass Shelley died this same time of year. Even if there was a gator in there, he would have been hibernating. Cass did not end up as gator food. Now, Mr. Porter, if we are done with the alligators?”

  She pointed to the monument which towered over all the others. “That’s the back of the angel. She’s the image of Cass Shelley, God rest her soul. And the little girl in her arms? That’s Kathy. She’s come home again and murdered Babe Laurie.”

  The first of the tour group stood in front of the angel while Betty brought up the rear. “Now you just gather around. As I was saying, the little girl in the angel’s arms – ”

  “What little girl?” The California woman was looking up at the angel.

  “The little girl in her arms.” What kind of blind fools did they make up north? They shouldn’t allow idiots to travel; there ought to be a law. “Later, I’ll take you into the alley alongside the sheriff’s office and show you where her jail cell is.” No point in telling them the fugitive was on the loose. That might result in some empty rooms. “She might even come to the window, so take a good look at the little girl.”

  “What little girl?” asked the very sensible man from Maine.

  Now Betty came around to the front of the statue to point out the little girl you couldn’t fail to notice even if you were just this side of legal blindness.

  But the stone child was gone.

  The angel was alone on her pedestal, eyes cast down and holding out her empty arms.

  “Oh, my God. It’s a miracle.” Betty walked up to the angel and stared into her eyes. “Oh, my God.”

  “She’s crying,” said the man from Maine. “The statue is crying.”

  Ten cameras shot the angel simultaneously.

  Augusta wondered if sleep had been induced by the herbal concoction to stave off infection. Or had the girl passed out from the pain of irrigating the bullet wounds? Well, better that she slept.

  All around the room were soggy towels and windings of gauze. Augusta picked up the bloody debris and put it into a plastic garbage bag. When she had washed her hands, she sat down in a chair by the bed and removed the bandages. She pulled the packing from the back wound and replaced the poultice. The girl slumbered on as Augusta taped the poultice in place and then turned the body over to clean the front wound in the shoulder.

  With no warning, one white hand snaked out and held Augusta’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip. The cat leapt onto the foot of the bed and made a low growl. Augusta hushed the cat and looked back at her patient and deep into a pair of very angry young eyes.

  “What did you give me to make me sleep?”

  “Nothing I didn’t grow in my herb garden,” said Augusta. “Now do you mind if I get on with this? It’s a big hole.” She bent low over the wound, ignoring the tight squeeze of her arm, and finally the hand fell away. “Must have been a hollow-point bullet. This exit wound was real good for drainage.”

  Augusta’s patient looked down at the new packing in her flesh. “Is that what I think it is?”

  The old woman nodded. “Spider silk resists bacteria. I wrap herbs inside it so the medicine releases slowly. Takes a lot of silk to make a good packing, but my house is a damn factory of spiders spinning webs ”

  Augusta unraveled a long strand of cotton gauze and clipped it with a pair of shears. “You were lucky. It’s a soft-tissue wound. Missed the joint and the bone. No permanent damage.” She wrapped the gauze over the naked shoulder to cover both wounds. “This is a pressure bandage. I know it hurts, but the greater the pressure the less you bleed.”

  “How long will I be laid up?”

  “Not long at all, now that the bleeding is under control. In fact, the sooner you begin moving this shoulder the better. It won’t be so stiff later on if you use it now. But go easy – you don’t want to do anything to start the bleeding again.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  Augusta looked up to the greenest eyes she’d ever seen, and they were drilling holes in her. Strange child.

  “Real estate,” Augusta said, bending to the work at hand, winding another layer of gauze over the holes. “I never lose an opportunity to do a real estate deal. If you die intestate, it could take more years than I got left to tear your mother’s house loose from the state.” And now she risked another glance at her patient.

  Not good enough, said the girl’s bright eyes, narrow with suspicion. “Why didn’t you let the place go for back taxes?”

  “And pay top dollar in a bidding war at auction?” She put one hand to her breast to say, What kind of fool do you take me for? “I tried to buy this place from your grandfather in a fair deal, but he wouldn’t sell. Then after he died, and your mother moved back to Dayborn, she wouldn’t sell either. But now I got you, don’t I? I think you’ll like my offer, Kathy.”

  “Call me Mallory.” This was not a suggestion, but clearly an order.

  “All right then. You know, your mother never did say who your father was. That name you took – Mallory. Might that be his name?”

  The younger woman only stared at her, impassive.

  Well, there was silence, and there was silence. Maybe she did know who her father was, and perhaps she also knew how to keep a secret.

  Augusta pointed to the corner. “There’s your bags over there.” She had recovered them from the woods and made it back to the house not ten minutes before Tom Jessop had pulled into her yard with the patrol car.

  “What about my dog?”

  “I slipped him into the bog at the top of Finger Bayou. Fred Laurie too. Those bodies won’t stay down forever, but I guess we can worry about that later. I hope you don’t mind the dog keeping company with Fred. That animal deserved better, but it was as good a burial as I could manage on short notice. Poor demented dog, his dying was a mercy,” she said in lament for the dog and passing over the incidental death of a man.

  Augusta continued to wind the bandage tight. And all the while, Mallory and the cat exchanged looks of suspicion, two distrustful beings taking one another’s measure, resolving into a standoff. And then the cat curled up in a ball, perhaps intentionally insulting her adversary by closing her eyes while the larger animal, Mallory, was still within harming distance.

  “What was my dog’s name?”

  “You named him with your first words,” said Augusta, tying off the bandage and binding it with adhesive. “You wouldn’t talk till you were three years old. It drove your mother nuts, but not me. I always figured you could talk – you were just taking your own sweet time.”

  Augusta picked up the old bandages and dropped them into the garbage bag. “So, one day, I’m out in the yard with your mother, making her a very good offer on the house, when Tom Jessop comes by with a birthday present for you. He put that little black pup in your arms and asked what name you would
give him. Well, you and your dog locked eyes and fell in love.

  “Then your mother ripped into Tom for giving you a pet without first discussing it with her. Cass was mad, and Tom was real confused. Men always know when they’ve done something wrong, but they’re never sure just what it is. So all he can think of to say is, ‘But Cass, it’s a real good dog, papers and everything.’ Your mother was backing him up to the wall, explaining the error of his ways in simple words a man could understand. And then, clear as a bell, you said, ‘Good dog,’ and Cass’s mouth dropped open. She’d never heard the sound of your voice until that second. Tom laughed and said, ‘Good Dog it is.’ And Good Dog was his name from then on. And you never did shut up for the rest of that day ”

  Augusta stood up and turned her back on Mallory as she sorted through the bottles and jars of herbs on the bedside table. “I know why you came back. You want to kill them all, don’t you? Everyone in that mob.” She turned back to Mallory. “Ever kill a man before? Not counting Fred. I mean a complete man, an actual person.”

  Mallory said nothing and turned her face to the wall.

  Augusta surmised that this was not a guilty reaction; it was just too humiliating for the girl to admit she’d never killed anyone but Fred Laurie. The old woman wondered if this child might not be the most damaged creature she had ever dragged home.

  “I’m talking to you the way your mother would if she were here. She would say, ‘Now, Kathy, you know mass murder is wrong.’ However, speaking for myself, a little revenge is a necessary thing.”

  She leaned over Mallory and tenderly pushed back the damp tendrils of golden curls. “You can still do evil things to them, child. If that’s what you want, I will show you how to have a real good time. I’ll tell you who’s afraid of the dark, and who’s afraid of the light. When you know where all their soft spots are, you can drag it out until you’re bloated with revenge, until you’ve sickened on it. Now won’t that be fun?”

  Mallory nodded. There was a terrible purpose in those cold green eyes, but no detectable soul.

  “Did your mother ever mention that I was the one who delivered you?”

  Silence.

  “No? Well, your mother overdid it the day she moved back into the house. Too much heavy lifting brought on an early labor. The phone wasn’t hooked up, and there was no time to run for help. You were just demanding to be born. Your little head was crowning before your mother had time to say, ‘Oh, shit!’ She said that a lot during the delivery.”

  Only silence.

  “Well, you’re a quiet one, aren’t you, Kathy?”

  “Mallory,” she said, correcting Augusta.

  “You know, you were born quiet. Oh, you were breathing normal enough. Your little fists were balled up, all pissed off at the cold air and the bright light outside of your mother’s body. But you were stubborn – you wouldn’t cry. Now that terrorized your mother. Cass was lying on the bed in a bath of sweat and blood, screaming, ‘Why doesn’t she cry?’ But despite that, I didn’t slap your newborn bottom. Though, privately, I thought you had it coming to you.”

  Finally, Augusta had pried a smile out of her, but then it ghosted away so fast. Well, at least it showed that Cass’s child was still human – that was promising. So the damage had not gone bone-deep. And now there was time to wonder about the soul, and whether it might be hovering somewhere close by, searching for a way back into Kathy.

  CHAPTER 15

  When detective sergeant Riker walked into the reception area of the sheriff’s office, there was no one minding the store. A man’s deep voice came from the next room. Riker looked through the open doorway of the private office, but the only person in sight was a pretty woman with long red hair and a tight dress.

  Riker sat down on a wooden bench with a carved backing a little higher than a church pew. A toilet flushed behind a door on the other side of the room. The door swung open, and a small boy of six or seven emerged, stuffing his T-shirt into his jeans. He had the pretty woman’s red hair, but not her large blue eyes. The boy’s eyes were small, brown and curious.

  “Are you a bum?”

  “No, I’m a cop.”

  The boy’s mouth went up on one side, and the jut of his chin said, You’re lying.

  Riker looked down at his tie, spotted with souvenirs of past meals. The old gray suit had been creased by the long train ride. It had been merely rumpled before he had gotten on that train. His scuffed shoes had not been polished since the last funeral he attended. He looked up at the boy, who was sniffing the air and no doubt detecting the beer scarfed down with lunch. “I’m an undercover cop,” he lied.

  “Cool.” The boy sat down beside him and scrutinized the two-day growth of stubble on Riker’s face. “It’s really good.” And now the child took in every detail of the shabby apparel, down to the scruffy shoes. “Great disguise.”

  “Thanks, squirt. So what’re you in for? You didn’t kill anybody, did you?”

  “Well, no,” said the boy with some regret. Then he smiled and leaned deep into the zone of conspiracy, whispering, “But I think my mom did.”

  “No kidding,” said Riker, very impressed.

  “The Georgia police arrested her. Then they put us on a plane back to Louisiana. Sheriff Jessop’s in there with her now. He’s gonna make her confess.”

  Now Riker and the boy listened together.

  The sheriff’s voice was asking, “You think Fred might’ve had a hand in it?”

  Riker thought the man’s tone lacked the passion of a good grilling. The sheriff might as well have been asking his suspect where she bought that tight dress. The woman’s response was too soft to carry distinctly, though Riker and the boy strained their necks in unison to catch the words.

  “Sally,” said the sheriff, “I’m not looking at conspiracy theories here. Babe was no Jack Kennedy, and his death ain’t that big a deal.”

  The woman said something in a low rush of words. All that was intelligible was a slight tone of indignation.

  Riker leaned toward the boy and whispered, “Who’s Babe?”

  “My father,” said the boy, brightly. “The bastard’s as dead as a doornail.”

  And now Riker really was impressed. Even New York children were not so blasé about the demise of a parent. “I guess you didn’t like your old man that much.”

  “He creeped me out, and my mother hated his guts.”

  Now Riker looked up to see a man his own age with a gold star pinned to his dark linen sports jacket. The sheriff was taking his own turn at eavesdropping.

  The boy followed the train of Riker’s eyes to the other man’s face. “Sheriff Jessop, are you gonna lock up my mother?”

  Riker honestly could not tell if this would be good news to the boy or not.

  “No, Bobby. You and your mother can go whenever you like. Who’s your new friend?”

  “My name is Riker,” he said, standing up and extending his hand “I’m a cop. I was – ”

  “And you’re from New York City,” said the sheriff, taking his hand in a firm grip.

  Riker opened his wallet to display the NYPD gold shield and ID. “How’d you guess?” As if he didn’t know how thick his Brooklyn accent was.

  “Oh, just a damn shot in the dark.” The sheriff held Riker’s ID at arm’s length to read it, and then handed it back. “If we get any more of you New York boys out this way, Betty’s gonna have to add another wing onto the bed and breakfast.”

  The boy’s mother appeared at the door. Riker suppressed an appreciative whistle when she passed him by without a glance, as every pretty woman did. She sat down on the bench next to her son and ignored the sheriff when he spoke to her.

  “Sally, when my deputy gets back, you tell her I said to take you out to the airport.” He gestured to the open door of his office. “Come on in, Sergeant Riker. Or should I call you Detective?”

  “Just Riker is fine.” He settled into a comfortable chair opposite the sheriff. The clutter on the desk between them
was amazing. His skill in reading upside down gave him an overview on the formidable paperwork for the Georgia extradition. Apparently, the Georgia boys had dragged their feet on compliance.

  The sheriff lit up a cigarette and moved a handful of papers to expose a generous ashtray. Riker smiled and reached for his own cigarettes. So far, he liked this little town a lot. He had been in motion for two days on a nonsmoking train, only stopping for a quick lunch in the town square. He had wanted to kiss the floor of Jane’s Cafe at the sight of an ashtray on every table.

  “So, Riker, I hear you New Yorkers ain’t number one in crime and murder anymore.”

  “Oh, sure we are. And you would know that, if our police commissioner wasn’t the best liar in fifty states.” Riker exhaled a cloud of smoke and felt utterly at home, despite the trappings of another century.

  “I don’t know about that.” The sheriff tossed a match and missed the ashtray. He eased his feet up on the desk, knocking files down to the floor, and winning Riker’s heart as a fellow slob. “Miami seems like a real up-and-comer in the killing trade.”

  “Well, Miami’s real competitive. They claim to kill more tourists than we do, but that’s a damn lie.”

  “According to the newspapers, you New York boys doubled the drop in crime nationwide.”

  “That’s slander,” said Riker. “The top cop decentralized the department, and the mayor fired the press liaison. The reporters had no way to check the stats.” Riker draped one leg over his chair and dropped a long log of ashes on the pantleg of his suit. “It’s all politics. New York has the best politicians dirty money can buy.”

  “Sorry, Riker. That happens to be our state motto. But you can be forgiven for brassing. We do admire that down here.”

  And now Riker wondered why the sheriff had not asked him about his business in Dayborn. Just how slow did things move in this part of the world?

  “There’s a friend of yours in town,” said the sheriff. “A man named Charles Butler.”

  Well, that explained a lot. How much damage could Charles have done by now? “A friend of mine? This guy says he knows me?”