Stone Angel

by Carol O’Connell

  “No, and neither did the judge. The resemblance was so obvious. If this stone portrait was in better shape, you could see it, too. I think Jason just wanted an annulment so he could get on with the business of begetting a son by another woman.”

  For a long time after Henry had gone home, Charles was still searching the stone likeness of Jason Trebec, looking for traces of Augusta. He found them in the shape of one uncrumbled eye and what remained of the mouth.

  He turned away and walked along the path heading east. The sun was a pale white disk behind the cloud cover. The birds had begun to sing again, but he discerned another sound above the racket, footsteps on gravel. He glanced over one shoulder.

  Riker was back, slogging down the path, as though his legs weighed a hundred pounds each. The sky was light gray now, and so was the detective.

  “Hey, Charles. Given any more thought to helping me with my problem?” Each word was very distinct. The man took great pride in never slurring his speech, no matter how much he’d been drinking.

  Charles regarded the slack face, the poor color, and wondered why his old friend didn’t fall down. Between the liquor and the chain-smoking, Riker had never been in the best of shape. “You need to get some rest.”

  “I take that as a no.” Riker was suddenly in thrall to the angel recently restored to her pedestal. “Oh, Jesus. Charles, you gotta stop this. It’s weirding me out.”

  Distant thunder rumbled in the west. And the gray sky was bright for one split second.

  “It’s over now,” said Charles. “That’s the original angel.”

  Riker stepped closer to look at the child in the woman’s arms. He turned back to Charles, who nodded. “It’s Mallory. Six years old, going on seven.”

  “She’s really into this, isn’t she? The bastards must be going nuts wondering when she’ll make her move.” Riker drew the collar of his suitcoat close about his neck and folded his arms against the cold.

  “I suppose it’s a bit unsettling,” said Charles.

  “Unsettling? A woman tried to kill herself.” Riker was shivering in his flimsy suit.

  “Don’t throw that up to me again. And don’t ask me to turn on Mallory.” Charles sat down on the grass, suddenly very tired. “Why must you do this to me?”

  “I have to get her away from here before Babe Laurie’s crowd finds her. Travis placed Babe on the scene of the stoning, so Mallory has the best motive in town. The sheriff probably – ”

  “You’re tired, Riker, and off your game. You should know by now that nobody cares what happened to Babe Laurie.”

  “Except the people from the mob that killed her mother.” The first drop of morning rain found Riker and stained his suit with a small circle of a darker gray. “They’ll wonder how she knew Babe was one of them. They’ll see her as a threat.”

  “A very smooth recovery. Much better logic.”

  “But no sale?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  The rainfall was light, but the incessant birdsong stopped, and every more sensible creature ran for cover.

  “Charles, the sheriff wants her to go. This might crush the brat’s ego – couldn’t hurt to try – but I’m not so sure the jailbreak was Mallory’s idea.”

  “You think the sheriff set her up for that?” Not likely. On the day of the jailbreak, the sheriff had seemed very determined to get her back again – assuming that the sheriff wasn’t lying.

  Riker shrugged. “There’s no warrant for her arrest. Interesting, huh? No cop outside this parish knows she’s missing or wanted. If we take her out of here right now, I don’t think anybody’s gonna come after us.”

  Assuming that Riker wasn’t lying.

  “She has a right to investigate her mother’s death,” said Charles.

  “And when she’s got the complete list of names? What then?” Raindrops streaked Riker’s face. They looked like tears.

  But they’re not. Only the rain.

  It was coming down harder now, pelting the leaves of the surrounding trees. Riker’s hair was wet. “You can’t go on blind faith. You got no idea what she’s planning. Suppose more people die?” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the gold pocket watch. “Here, take it. The sheriff wants her to have it back. And then he wants her to go.”

  Charles quickly grabbed the watch and closed his massive hand around it in a tight fist to keep it from the rain. “Why can’t you be on her side? All she wants is a little justice.”

  He was walking away from the detective, crossing the circle of tombs, half blind with the rain slanting into his face.

  Riker said to his back, “I gotta figure she came back to destroy maybe twenty, thirty people.” His voice was rising to cross the distance between them. “I don’t want you to be too disappointed in the kid… when she actually pulls that off.”

  And Charles kept walking.

  “Does anyone know where the sheriff was when Babe Laurie died?”

  “Charles, you don’t really think he did that.” Augusta presided over the kitchen table. It was laid with plates of sweetbreads and bowls of steaming concoctions, mingled aromas of saffron and chicken, sweet-meats and vegetables. Augusta was spooning a broad array of food onto Charles’s plate. “Tom Jessop wouldn’t take time out of his day to talk to Babe, let alone kill the man.”

  “But the sheriff has a history of violence. I understand he beat up Fred Laurie for taking shots at the dog.”

  “Oh, that was years ago. Now Tom was there, but I was the one who beat up on Fred.”

  “You, Augusta?”

  “With a shovel. I hit him in the gut with the first blow and whacked his hands with the next one. Tom was busy checking the dog for holes. He looks up at me and down at Fred, and he says, ‘Augusta, that’s rude.’ But he didn’t say anything when I hit Fred alongside the head. Tom isn’t given to repeating himself.”

  He looked at Henry, the source of this story, but Henry was concentrating on his food. Charles turned back to Augusta. “I’m sorry. I was misinformed.”

  Deliberately?

  And now Charles became lost in speculation. Henry could have been shielding Augusta. Or she might be shielding the sheriff. One of them was less than truthful. And now he pondered the etiquette of lies within this company of liars he had joined. And then he considered the well-intentioned lie versus the lie for personal gain, the general ranking of sin.

  “So Fred told people Tom did that?” Augusta did not look pleased. “Well, that isn’t right, giving Tom all the credit.”

  Now Henry lifted his face and his hands to say to Charles, “I thought you were more interested in the old murder. Getting hit with one rock doesn’t have the same cachet as a stoning by a mindless mob.”

  “A mob is not mindless,” said Augusta, passing Henry a plate of butter. “You don’t remember that lynching in Arkansas?”

  She turned to Charles. “Three boys were jailed for murder. One of them had a change of heart and run off before the man was shot and his wife was robbed of her jewelry, but all three were arrested. Next day, a rumor spread all over town that the woman had been raped – though she never was. That night, a mob dragged the boys out of the jailhouse and lynched them – all but the one. They were putting the rope around his neck when someone in the crowd yells out, ‘That boy had no part in the murder.’ The rope was taken off, and the mob returned him to his cell.”

  “She’s right, Henry,” said Charles. “The mob has a goal and a guiding intelligence. It even has an awareness of right and wrong. But something has always bothered me about this mob. It’s just wrong somehow.”

  “The lack of noise? The lack of passion?” asked Henry.

  “Yes. It was done in cold blood. That’s one oddity. But I don’t think Travis or Alma knew what was going to happen before they got to the house.”

  “It wouldn’t make sense to do a cold murder in a group,” said Augusta, “unless they were all in on it. Otherwise someone would talk.”

  “That is
a problem,” said Charles.

  “Not a problem at all.” Mallory stood in the doorway of the kitchen, holding a carrier cage full of white doves. “They have a lot in common.” She set the cage on the slate counter. “One murder charge for all of them, whether or not they threw the rocks. Bloodshed makes the bond real tight.”

  Augusta set out a plate for her, saying, “Now how did you charm those doves into the cage?”

  “I threatened to break their little legs if they didn’t cooperate.” She sat down at the table. Her back was turned on the cat sitting on top of the refrigerator. “How’s it going?”

  Augusta ran one finger down the list. “Henry’s favorites are the women. But if you don’t count Alma, every one of them has an admirable mean streak. Not a weak sister in the pack. I could make the same claim for most of the men.”

  “Most?”

  “Well now, this name is a surprise.” She pointed it out for Henry. “Are you sure about this one?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought he had any violence in him at all.”

  “He’s the one I want,” said Mallory.

  The cat was only staring at the captive doves, her eyes wide, and perhaps disbelieving.

  “You don’t know he did anything,” said Augusta. “Alma never threw her stone, and Travis only stoned your dog.”

  “If you believe them.”

  When Charles turned back to the cat, it was standing on top of the wire cage, staring at the docile doves, which apparently had never seen a cat before. There was a great deal of eye contact, but no violence yet.

  Mallory, unaware of the impending massacre, was saying, “I don’t care if he threw rocks or flowers. He was there, and I’m gonna break him.”

  “Maybe not,” said Augusta. “You don’t know the first thing about these people. You could pummel this one all day, and he’d just take it.”

  Charles was raising his hand to point to the cat’s paw dipping in between the wires, when cage and cat tumbled to the floor, the door banged open and the doves flew upward in tight formation, all of one mind in their desire to live.

  “Damn cat!” Mallory was on her feet. “It took me hours – ”

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Augusta.

  The cat was in pursuit of its lunch, and Mallory was reaching for her revolver. Augusta grabbed the wrist of the gun hand and stared the younger woman down, eyes hard and unwavering. “Don’t even think about it, little girl.” Each word had the same weight, the same amount of menace.

  The cat was leaping joyfully from countertop to refrigerator and down to the floor again in pursuit of each new roost of a dove. But the birds were quicker. White feathers were flying, and some were drifting to the floor as the manic chase went on.

  Augusta still held Mallory’s wrist in a tight grip, and her expression was conveying that the younger woman would be dead meat if she dared to shoot that animal. And that was a promise.

  The cat was closing on a bird, stealing up from behind and hyperventilating in happy anticipation. A squeak of excitement escaped from the cat and warned the dove into flight.

  Mallory’s expression was somewhere between anger and incredulity. This old woman had no weapon, no -

  Augusta assured her with a slow nod that she could and would make good on a threat. If Mallory wanted to go round and round, the older woman was up for it.

  Charles was only a little shocked to note that Mallory was clearly weighing this proposition. Then she sat down.

  He sipped his coffee and watched a fish hawk dive for its dinner as the gulls screamed and circled over the river. Charles was viewing nature in a less than pastoral light these days. He smashed an insect on his wrist and left a red smear on his skin. Another bug made a clean getaway with his body fluids, and who knew what was going on among the flightless insects and the small animals in the long grass extending out to the levee. And what of Augusta, nature’s local custodian?

  Mallory leaned against the veranda rail, and stared down at the pocket watch in her hand, oblivious to any violence not of her own making.

  He had asked her a question ten minutes ago and was still waiting for a response. “You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

  She wouldn’t even look at him.

  He felt his relationship with her had reached a new growth point, for she pissed him off so easily these days. “You don’t trust me. You think I’d give it all away.”

  She slipped the watch into her jeans pocket. “Do you trust me, Charles?”

  “You want blind faith? Like Malcolm’s little flock?” He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It was only an echo of Riker from the back of his mind. “When were you going to tell me about the bullet wound in your shoulder?”

  “Never.”

  Well, so much for trust.

  “I want you to find Riker,” she said. “Just go from bar to bar, you’ll turn him up. I want you to give him a story, send him off to the next parish to keep him out of my way.”

  “Riker thinks you’ve come back to destroy all those people. Have you?”

  “I came here to collect evidence in a homicide.”

  “Not just any homicide.”

  “It’s like any other case, same – ”

  “Mallory, you’re not really going to play the blushing virgin, are you?” He noted the sudden widening of her eyes, and he nearly laughed. “You always said I didn’t have a face for poker. Well, you don’t have the face for righteous indignation.”

  She was angry now. Good. Before she could speak, he put up one hand. “I should warn you, I can not only outvirgin you, but even though I’m not from the South, I can outsouthern you too. I’ve learned a lot from Henry and Augusta.”

  “Yeah, and you were going to find out who killed Babe. How much did you learn about that?”

  He didn’t care for her sarcasm either. “Well, according to the sheriff, to know Babe was to have a motive. What did you turn up at the hospital yesterday?”

  “Nothing.”

  Right.

  “Charles, are you going to help me with this or not?”

  “What you’re doing is just another variation on torture. That’s the sheriff’s method.”

  “It was Markowitz’s method too.”

  “No, your father was a good and decent man.”

  “And a world-class cop. When Markowitz didn’t have any hard evidence to use in court, he worked the perps into a frenzy. He lied like the devil, and scared them shitless. If Markowitz had been here, he would have done it the same way, or maybe gone me one better.”

  “Riker says this is – ”

  “Riker will say whatever it takes to get you working against me. He came here to bring me back to New York, like I’m some runaway kid.”

  “He worries about you. I think his biggest fear is that you’re only – ”

  “I came here to do a job, and I will finish it. So don’t help me, all right? Just don’t get in my way.” She stalked to the staircase.

  “Mallory, wait. I don’t think – ”

  “No, you’re not thinking at all – you’ve got Riker for that.” She turned on him. “He’s got you blindsided.” She came walking back to him, not with her usual stealth, but with boot heels hitting the boards hard. “He’s a fine one to quote the rule book. You don’t think he’s ever gone over the edge to get a confession?”

  She stood over him now, arms folded. “Once I watched Riker slap a child molester on the back and smile. Then he commiserated with the pervert – ‘What a tease that four-year-old kid was, huh, pal? Yeah, she had it coming to her.’ Oh, did I mention that the creep killed the kids when he was done with them?”

  Charles lowered his head, and she shot out one hand to lift his face to hers. “No cop can stomach the rape of a child. It’s the lowest crime, and this insect also killed them. Not because he was sick – he just didn’t want any witnesses – it was that cold.”

  Her hand fell away. “Riker was the child k
iller’s best friend. The perp was so smitten with his new buddy, the cop. He led us to every little corpse – all for the love of Riker. As we went from one child’s grave to another, Riker held the perp’s hand in the back of the car. It was a love affair. Are you disgusted, Charles? You think there was a righteous way to get that confession?”

  His eyes stayed with her as she paced to the staircase and back again.

  “Did Markowitz try to stop it? Did he say, ‘No, Riker, don’t get down in the dirt with that creep’? No! The old man watched Riker develop the suspect as a witness to his own crime. Riker went around with this pervert for days and days until we’d collected seven very small bodies. The techs would dig up a little kid, and Riker would hug the pervert and say, ‘Good job, pal.’ And then they’d pick up their shovels, and we’d all go on to the next shallow grave.”

  She hunkered down beside his chair. So close. “By comparison, I don’t think Riker found you much of a challenge.” She stood up and turned her back on him.

  Charles felt drained, as though he had run a mile. He looked down at a flower blooming through the rail near his chair. Its vine had twined up fifteen feet of brick foundation to get at the wood. The flower was flame-red, so beautiful, fragile. A dark, twitching beetle crawled from its center as Mallory came to light in the chair beside his own.

  “Forget that the victim is my mother.” Her voice was so calm, so utterly detached. She went on, with no inflection to give a meaning beyond the dry words. “The crime is old. A cold trail is the hardest one No evidence, no witnesses, unless you count Ira, and I don’t. I’m keeping him out of this. And Alma’s crazy and useless.”

  Now her voice was on the rise, but still no emotion, as though she had merely turned up the volume on a machine. “I have to develop a witness to testify against the rest of them. I plan to break the bastard any way I can – whatever it takes.”

  Mallory’s face was inches from his own. Her hand wrapped around his arm, fingers digging in. All her emotions came out to play now. There was real pain in her face, her voice. “And then I’m going to tell the creep that my mother had it coming to her! That the bitch deserved to die!”