World Tree Girl

by Kerry Schafer

  Five minutes after he’s out the door, though, it becomes a big fat L-I-E.

  The password for Vince’s phone cracks. I’m in. There are a couple of text messages that look like petty drug deals. One from a girl showing him a graphic image of what he stands to gain should he come to her house and bring her a little hit for free.

  And a text message that says: Come to me. You need to check in.

  This looks very much like the text on Sophie’s phone. I try to get into Vince’s head from the little I know of him, then send a text: They r watching me. Hard 2 get away.

  The response is immediate: Make sure you’re not followed.

  Very interesting.

  River road. Pull out btwn park and Radio Springs. 1 hr.

  Just come to the usual place.

  My way or high way. Gotta go. Somebody’s watching.

  I wait, but nothing follows this last message. Hopefully that means my quarry is already en route to the rendezvous site. If I’m going to get there on time, I need to move. When Jake’s cell rings once and goes directly to voicemail, I’m relieved. I can move faster alone. Besides, I’m spoiling for a fight and his scruples would only get in the way.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The only problem with flying solo is that my wheels are still in Spokane. Fortunately, I have the keys to Jill’s rental. It’s not much better in snow than my Jag, and I very nearly slide off the road and into the ditch when I hit the first corner. After that I drive at a snail’s pace, and when I finally arrive at my destination, there’s already a vehicle parked in the turnout. It’s an SUV. Black. Muddy. I memorize the license plate, texting it to Jake from Vince’s phone. If I vanish, at least maybe he’ll know where to start looking.

  My windows are tinted, letting me observe my quarry before they can see me.

  As the door of the pickup opens, I draw my gun and loosen my knife, ready for anything. The woman who emerges from the SUV and walks over to my van is the last person in town I’d been expecting.

  “Open up, dear,” she says, kindly, knocking on the window. “It’s about time we had a chat.”

  I don’t see evidence of a weapon and roll down my window. Cold, damp wind blows in through the open window. Mist on the river swirls and eddies, obscuring the water, changing constantly into new patterns.

  “Mrs. Hemsley. Or Eve. Can I call you Eve? Does the good pastor know where you are?”

  “Do tell me what this is all about,” she says. “I haven’t much time. There’s choir practice tonight, and I need to take a casserole to the Flinders. And poor Geneva is drinking herself into oblivion over Dason’s death.”

  “The length of this conversation depends entirely on you.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.” She smiles sweetly, as if I’m seven and she’s bent on demonstrating that she’s the boss of me. I’m not here for a pissing match. So I try to morph into a softer woman, using Ed’s new squeeze as a model. I soften my voice, relax my muscles into the seat, allow myself to shiver a little.

  “You might as well get in. It’s warmer in here.”

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “I do think. Walk around to the passenger door, and get in. Don’t try anything.”

  She presses a hand to her chest and tries to look faint. “Why are you pointing that gun at me? I don’t understand.”

  “Get in.”

  Apparently my tone convinces her I mean business. A last moment of hesitation, and she complies, walking around to the passenger side of the car and climbing in.

  She gives me a smile, as if glass wouldn’t cut her and butter won’t melt in her mouth. “What is this all about then?”

  “Seems like I should be asking the questions. Why did you want to meet with Vince?”

  “That seems clear, doesn’t it? That poor boy, on the path to destruction. I’ve been trying to bring him to salvation. He’s been recalcitrant.”

  “I can imagine. What do you know about Sophronia?”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s missing.”

  “Did she finally run away from Lysander? Can’t say as I blame her. Poor, motherless girl. It’s not true what they say about her, you know.”

  “And what do they say?” I put my hands over the heat vents, avoid looking in her direction.

  “Oh, you know. That people die when she is around them, that she’s some sort of witch. She has a compassionate heart and is drawn to comfort those who are ill. When you spend a lot of time with the sick and old, the probability of death is highly increased, of course.”

  “And you believe she’s not a witch?”

  Eve laughs, indulgently. “Now you’re playing with me. Surely you don’t believe in fairy tales.”

  The witches of my acquaintance don’t have sharp noses and warts, and they don’t have magical powers in the way the world thinks of magic. They are powerful women, though, and some delve into the dark.

  No. I don’t believe in fairy tales, which is what she’s giving me.

  “So, why would Vince want to meet you in an out-of-the-way place like this, I wonder?”

  “Why would you want to meet me here?” she counters. “I can’t imagine what you want to talk about.”

  “Vince.”

  “What’s he done now? Why do you have his phone?”

  “He’s dead.”

  My words hit her like a sack of bricks. She sinks back against the seat, as if under a heavy weight. “How? When?” Her eyes gravitate to my gun. “Did you kill him?”

  That, I don’t answer. The more off balance she is at the moment, the better. “Tell me why you wanted to talk to him?”

  “As I said. Prayer. Repentance.” She’s recovered quickly, her eyes alert and watchful. “It’s my job as a pastor’s wife.”

  “And are you always so mysterious with your former parishioners? ‘Meet me at the usual place, it’s time to check in’? Hardly sounds like prayer meeting.”

  Her hand strays for the door handle and I press the gun barrel into her ribs and offer up a friendly smile. “We’re not done.”

  “What do you want?”

  “The truth. I want to find Sophronia.”

  She’s good. Years of church work, maybe, but something has taught her to school her features and her hands. But her breathing quickens, just enough.

  “Where’s Jake?” she asks. “If Vince is dead and you’re looking for Sophronia, why isn’t he talking to me?”

  “Oh, I’m quite sure the two of you will have a conversation soon enough. He’s busy. We’re working together on this.” I show her my FBI card and wait for all the implications to register. She’s an intelligent woman, despite her attempts to masquerade behind a façade.

  “How well did you know Alice Sorenson?”

  “Who?” She visibly startles for the first time, eyes widening. Recovery is quick, but it’s too late.

  “Ten years you’ve lived in Shadow Valley, is that about right? Came to town just before Sophronia’s mother vanished, then? Did she disappear before or after your arrival?”

  She stiffens. “If you are insinuating—”

  “I haven’t begun to insinuate. What was your relationship with Alice Sorenson?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  I hand her the letter that Jake found in Sophie’s room. “Look familiar? Signed Eve, which is interesting. I looked up your marriage license—documents are so delightfully easy to find. Your given name before you became Evelyn Hemsley was Eve Hightower. Eve went to Harvard Medical School. And she collaborated with Alice Sorenson on a thesis involving the manipulation of DNA. Alice went on to work for the government in paranormal research. Eve got an MD and specialized as an obstetrician. I’m guessing that Genesis was a collaborative project between the two of you. I don’t have proof yet, but give me a few days, I’ll find it. Meanwhile, your test cases are dying like flies and I’d like to stop that.”

  “You have no proof of any of this.”

>   “Other than the text messages between your phone and Vince’s, and the fact that the cell number given on certain letters with the Genesis letterhead happens to be the same number he’s been texting.”

  For a long time she’s quiet, thinking through her options, staring out the window. Finally, she draws a deep breath.

  “The letter to the girl was a mistake. I see that now. But her father refused to answer his, or respond to phone inquiries. I tried to observe from a distance, but the subject wasn’t interested in religion—”

  “Sophronia. She has a name. She’s not Research Subject Number Four, or whatever they named her.”

  “Number One-Oh-Three,” she says, correcting me.

  “God.”

  “Most of them died as juveniles. Birth defects. Cellular incompatibilities. It was—unpleasant—for the parents.”

  “And a barrel of laughs for the kids, I’m sure.”

  “Test subjects,” she says. “Not kids. Especially those ones.”

  “Are you sure about that? What if they had souls?”

  “They didn’t,” she says, her voice clear with conviction. “Trust me. These newer models, like Sophronia, have done quite well. Vince is older, and marginal—”

  “And dead. Did you kill him?”

  “No! Of course not. It was important to get data. So few of the test subjects had survived into adolescence. But I couldn’t risk speaking with the subjects directly.”

  “So you sent a letter to Sophronia—who has all of the emotions of any teenage girl, by the way, and maybe a few extra besides—explaining that her parents are not her parents and she’s a freak of nature you’re trying to study.”

  “When you express it that way, you make me sound heartless. It’s all in the interest of science and—”

  “So when the research is done you’re killing them off? Is that it?” I hand her a picture of Aline, dead on the autopsy table. “She was a child.”

  “No! No, killing them was never the plan. At least not now. Not yet. We want to keep them alive long enough to reproduce, to see if the genetic material—”

  I hold up my hand to stop her. “Just be quiet. Now. Or I’ll forget that I have reasons for you to be alive and do a mercy killing. Tell me where to find the others.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about this person? And this?” I show her the photographs of the pictures from Dason’s laptop.

  Her hand wanders toward her purse and I reach over and take it from her, searching through it with my free hand, cursing women and their habits the whole time. The gun is buried beneath a packet of tissues, a little bag of cough drops, lipstick, travel size hairspray, a wallet, several sets of keys, and a phone.

  “A gun really isn’t very useful if you have to mine for it,” I tell her, fishing it out. “Do you have a permit?”

  “Of course. Pastor Hemsley suggested I carry that. For self-defense, you know, but I could never shoot somebody, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Do you really call him that all the time? He calls you Mrs., you call him Pastor?”

  “Of course,” she says, with dignity. “He’s a man of God.”

  “And you’re a mad scientist and a spy. Poor man. Does he know? Is he in it, too?”

  “No. No, of course not.”

  “Do you have any other weapons?” A quick pat down turns up nothing further, but I don’t trust her for a minute. “Look. You don’t want to give away the location of your few surviving test subjects. I get that. What I want to know, besides Sophronia’s whereabouts, is who is killing these people. This girl was only sixteen. A little Siren in her genetic makeup, I believe. And Vince—”

  Her breath catches, an involuntary reaction.

  “What was his thing?”

  “He was a—mistake.”

  “Let me guess. His father took what you billed as a fertility treatment and spilled his altered sperm on a drug-addicted prostitute. I’m surprised you allowed the child to live, at all.”

  She doesn’t confirm my guess, but doesn’t deny it, either. I want to put my hands on her shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattle in her head. “After he was born, you couldn’t use your position as the pastor’s wife to help him to something better than a crazy old aunt who can barely take care of herself? Food, shelter, I don’t know—an education?”

  “Observation only,” she says, primly. “Any intervention changes the results. Even observation changes the results, like physics particles under the microscope.”

  “Didn’t look like observation only at Dason’s house. That looked a lot like damage control. Did you kill him yourself?”

  “I was at the house for Geneva. I’m the pastor’s wife. It’s expected that I comfort the grieving, that I be there in their time of trouble. Geneva doesn’t have anybody. I did not kill Dason.”

  “So you’re part of the cleanup team.”

  I try to picture her killing Dason, blood spattering onto her perfect hair, the bandbox clothing.

  She makes a clucking sound, like a broody hen sitting on a hatch of eggs, and shakes her head so that her earrings jingle, very gently. “Tragic. I can’t imagine why somebody would kill any of them.”

  “Because somebody knows. Either that, or because the researcher has decided it’s time to stop the project and destroy the evidence.”

  “Oh, surely not! All that time and effort gone to waste?”

  “Not to mention pain and suffering and loss of human life. You meant to say that, right?”

  I’ve shaken her. Her hands grip each other in her lap, neatly folded Sunday school hands, except that the fingers are blotchy and the knuckles white.

  “How many are in the project? This person? This one?” I go through the photos again, sorting them into piles on the seat between us. The two dead on one side, the others, including Sophronia, on the other. “I want to warn them. Give them a chance.”

  She hesitates.

  “You’re not in this alone. You have to confer with your team. Is that it? How about I confer for you. Give me names.”

  You’d think I’d suggested holding a satanic ritual in the church from the look she gives me. “Oh, I couldn’t. That information is highly confidential.”

  “Fine. Maybe your husband knows. Is he home now, or out visiting somebody on their sickbed?” I pick up my phone and start pressing numbers. Her hand snakes out and clutches my wrist.

  “Don’t. Please.”

  Finally, a real emotion in her voice. Her eyes are direct now, holding my gaze, pleading. “Don’t tell him. He’s a good man. Don’t hurt him.”

  Whatever the good pastor’s wife does, he’ll be blamed for it. If she’s murdered somebody, he’ll have to resign. And if he actually loves her, a possibility that has just now occurred to me, the rest of this will all be difficult as well.

  Unless he’s in it, of course.

  “I told you the truth. I don’t know who is killing them.”

  “How about you let me figure that out? It’s what I do. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t been targeted and shot.”

  “I’ve had a good cover.”

  “And you can stay in cover, if you help me now. Understand?”

  It takes her a minute, but the threat to her own safety finally cracks her. “The lipstick,” she says.

  I go back to her purse and fish out a tube marked “Autumn Rust.” I handle it carefully. James Bond isn’t just for movies, and a lipstick gun is a possibility. Or a bomb, with instructions to activate for self-destruction if discovered.

  I open the lipstick carefully, not wanting to trigger anything, but it’s not a weapon.

  It’s not lipstick either, it’s a secret compartment. Where the lipstick ought to be I find a rolled slip of paper with a name and a cell phone number. I stare at it for a long moment, pieces coming together in my head.

  “You won’t tell the pastor?”

  “Not now. Not yet. If Sophie dies…”

  I let the threat hang there, between us
, knowing she’ll take it seriously. The girl is her responsibility.

  “What do you want me to do if Sophie calls me?”

  “Let me know. You can reach me at the Manor.”

  Chances are good that if Sophie calls, she’ll get me, since I’m keeping Eve’s phone. I also pocket the lipstick, and on second thought, sling the whole purse over my shoulder. The damn thing weighs a ton.

  “You can’t have that,” Eve protests.

  “Time for you to go now. Get out. Go home to your husband and don’t do anything stupid, like trying to leave town. We’ll be watching you.”

  She opens the door and a cold wind swirls in. “Can I at least have my ID? Driver’s license? Credit cards?”

  “Have fun at choir practice.”

  I stay where I am, waiting until her SUV drives away. Then I call Jake and take another stab at reaching Matt. It’s time all three of us catch up.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A little preparation always pays for itself.

  In usual circumstances, I’d think of Jake as more patient than I am. In this case, his emotions are getting the better of him and it takes all of my willpower to induce him to go along with my plan instead of sending out deputies to round up suspects for formal questioning at the station.

  Now that the trap is sprung and there’s nothing to do but wait, he paces the lab, one end to the other. “Do you think she’ll show?”

  “I can’t imagine her turning down my invitation.”

  “What exactly did you tell her?”

  “Nothing. Ready, Matt?”

  “Ten-4, Red Fox.” He grins at me, and I grin back.

  We’ve laid our little trap down in the lab. Phil’s ashes are once again contained in the plastic potato salad container from the kitchen. We’ve scrubbed Jill’s bloodstains off the floor. Apart from a few flickers of the electricity there’s been no sign of spirit activity, and I can’t help wondering what’s going on with that.

  The minutes tick by and even I’m feeling a little restless by the time we hear footsteps in the hall.

  We hear her, before we can see her. “Maureen, I don’t see why you are dragging me all the way down here. I’ve got things to do, and I’d think at your age you’d prefer somewhere more comfortable.”