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Light glinted off the river from the shed at the end of the dock. A boat, sleek, low to the river, bobbed in the mottled light. The low grumble of voices mingled with the lap of water and bumping of hull against pilings.
Pickett started; the .38 slid from his lap, and he awoke with the thump. He blinked, gazed blankly around him, then focused on the light before him. He stuffed the pistol into his chinos and crawled deeper into the shadows. The scrub was thick but the moon too bright to chance moving into the open. He made way slowly.
The curtain of moss that hung from the twisted oaks masked the dock. The shed was a yellow glow filtered as if through grey fog. At the river's edge, the palmetto scrub gave way to cypress, drowned oaks, and an unobstructed view. The hut was alive with light that knifed through the weathered clapboard and broken roof. It pulsated to the movement of figures inside.
Pickett barked his shin against a cypress knee. He bit off a curse and knelt behind a tangled pile of driftwood, massaging his leg.
The dock extended fifteen yards into the river as a T, with the shed perched precariously to the left and the speedboat moored to the right. Pickett glanced repeatedly from one end of the dock to the other, his body poised for motion.
A hand fell lightly to his shoulder.
Pickett twisted on the balls of his feet, still kneeling, and pulled frantically at the pistol with his good hand. He went over backwards with Mark's hand over his mouth and the barrel of Tom's revolver hopelessly tangled in the waistband of his trousers.
“Ch-rist—” Pickett spit into Mark's hand, knocking it aside with his own.
Mark held a finger to his lips and, motioning to the dock with his chin, grabbed Pickett's sleeve and pulled him back into the shadow of the scrub. Pickett brushed the limp palmetto fingers from his face and whispered:
“What the hell you doing here? Where you been?”
“Here—in the w-w-woods. Del's been looking after me.”
“Why the hell didn't you—”
“I wanted to talk to you, but Del s-s-said—”
The shed door flew open with a crack, empty-ing light and angry voices into the night: “Yeah, well count us out!” It was Bernie.
Pickett yanked Tom's .38 free from his trousers in time to see Tom and Kemp follow Bernie out of the shack. Kemp was the first to speak.
“Goddammit, you got the money. I'm just asking you to wait till this shit blows over.”
Tom guffawed from underneath his bandages and passed a paper sack to Bernie who was now in the boat. “Bullshit, we're clearing out.”
“Come on. I'll take care of you. I always have, haven't I?”
Tom stepped down into the boat and grunted: “Yeah, just like you took care of Herb and that bitch from the trailer.”
“I didn't have nothing to do with that, I told you. Man, we're on to something really good here—”
Bernie stopped and looked up: “Yeah? You wanna be such a big man all of a sudden, you going places so fast… Shit.” Bernie watched Tom drop to the seat next to him, then looked back up at Kemp. “You find someone else then.”
“Trouble with you assholes is you aint got brains big enough to think beyond yesterday—”
Bernie cut Kemp off: “It's the same ol chickenshit—cept you got your pecker caught in fence this time, Mister Big shot, and we aint waitin round to get ours lopped off with yours.”
“Fuck you,” added Tom with dumb satisfaction.
Kemp opened his mouth as the outboard exploded into life. Bernie jammed the throttle forward, leaned into the river and accelerated south as if all his yesterdays were after him, disappearing around the bend long before the thrum of their engine.
Gradually, the racket of wildlife, silenced by their departure, once again filled the pre-dawn air. Kemp stood, fists to hips, staring down the river. Pickett was on the dock and five feet behind him before Kemp turned.
“Christ Almighty!” Kemp threw his hands into the air and let them slap loosely to his side. “What else.…”
Pickett smiled: “That's my question, Ralph.”
Kemp's eyes darted involuntarily toward the shed door. A briefcase lay open on a rough work bench littered with a Bunsen burner and assorted vials and test tubes. In the briefcase lay several clear plastic bags filled with brown crystals.
“Cornering the rock candy market, Ralph?”
“Yeah, right. Gonna give the whole fucking state an insulin high.”
“What's it go for up here, Ralph, ten bucks a rock?” Kemp turned his head without taking his eyes off Pickett's and spit into the St. Johns. “No, probably less even. No overhead. Right, Ralph? You know all about overhead, don't you?”
“Yeah, so what're you gone do about it?”
“Maybe I should turn you over to the Sugar Board, Ralph. Whataya think?”
“What is it?” Mark jogged up behind Pickett.
“You got some friends, Pickett,” sneered Kemp. “That kid's a fugitive from the law. Aint that right, kid? Wasted those two over in Belle Haven. Nice work, boy. Wouldn't a thought you had it in you. Too bad you got eye-dee'd, huh?”
“Save it.” Pickett tossed his chin toward the shed, keeping his eyes on Kemp. “You know anything about this, Mark?”
“N-n-o.”
Kemp chuckled, his eyes fixed to Pickett's gun.
Mark stuck his head in the shed and then looked back at Pickett, astonished: “Really, Mister Pickett, I-I-I…”
Kemp guffawed. “Come off it, kid.”
Mark looked puzzled. “I don't know what's going on. I mean, I used to hear th-things sometimes when I'd be staying with Del. But he told me not to worry about it, th-th-that it wasn't any of our business. I guess I knew something was going on. I-I-I just didn't want to… well, you know.”
“What about the stiffs, huh kid, what about that?”
“Shut up, Ralph. You'll have your chance in front of the Sugar Board.”
“Real funny, Pickett, a reg'lar Johnny Carson—”
Pickett took a step toward Kemp, and the dock creaked behind him. He wheeled around into a crouch.
“Lower the gun, please, Mister Pickett.” Matt's gun was smaller than Pickett's, but better aimed.
Pickett did as he asked.
Matt leaned forward, his pistol still aimed at Pickett's stomach and reached for Pickett's weapon. Mark tensed as if ready to move, and Pickett grabbed his arm.
“Good.” Matt shifted Tom's .38 to his gloved gun hand and dropped his own pistol into his coat pocket. “We don't want to do anything rash, now do we, Mister Pickett? You wouldn't want to, say, get shot trespassing on private property in the middle of the night would you?”
Kemp pushed behind Pickett into the shed. The briefcase snapped shut. Kemp quickly walked around Pickett to Matt's side. “Shit, I didn't think you was gone make it.” Kemp smiled nervously and wiped at his forehead with his sleeve. “Tie 'em up and let's get outta here.”
“I'm afraid not, Ralph.”
“Afraid not? What, you gone wait around here?”
“There's no need to run, Ralph. This'll work out just fine.”
Kemp's jaw hung loose.
“There is no need to panic. Unfortunate, yes. But just a complication, nothing more. They will, quite simply, need to be disposed of.”
“Not by me they won't.”
“That's enough—”
“Holy Jesus, Cheatham—”
“Be quiet. And listen. We have Mister Pickett's gun do we not? Mister Pickett went after the fugitive Mark Ayers and shot him. In the struggle that ensued, the gun was wrestled away from Mister Pickett and used upon him. No other solution will offer itself to the police.”
“Jesus-fuckin-christ! Whataya talking about? That's Tom's gun. You just gone stand here and shoot them like that with my—”
Mark pushed nervously past Pickett. “Mister Cheatham. I-I don't unders-s-stand—”
“Be quiet!” Both Mark and Kemp froze. Matt inhaled deeply in an effort to sti
ll his shallow breath. Softly, in a rasping whisper, stepping away from Kemp, pointing the gun so as to cover all three men, he said: “The Work, Mark—the Temple. It's larger than either of us.”
Kemp's eyes grew larger at this. Holding the briefcase in front of him as if suddenly afraid of it, he set it down next to Matt. “Sh-shit, Cheatham, you can have it. I mean, Jesus, I'm willing to take some heat if I have to, but—but this…” Kemp took a step backwards wiping his hands on the side of his pants.
Matt turned toward Kemp. “Where do you think—”
Pickett lunged forward and buried his shoulder into Matt's kidney. “Run!” he yelled.
Mark dashed past as Matt hit the dock underneath Pickett. The revolver skittered to Kemp's feet. He picked it up, looked at it in his still shaking hand, and pointed it halfheartedly after Mark as he disappeared into the scrub. Pickett scrambled to his feet and grabbed Kemp's wrist, deflecting the shot. It smashed into the decking at their feet.
“Give me that,” cried Matt.
Pickett released Kemp and ducked to the side; Matt and Kemp collided. They fell to the dock, scrambling frantically for the pistol. Pickett sprang from his crouch into midair and landed flat on his belly in the warm river. A grove of cypress projected into the shallows not fifty yards up river, and Pickett pulled toward it.
The .38 exploded. A bullet thhh-wopped into the water to his right.
Pickett kicked his legs up and went under—for the second time that day. The thwoop-hissss of another round broke the underwater silence. Pickett pushed off the bottom and continued his sprint toward the cypress grove. The .38 was empty.
He hit a cypress knee, mud, and then pulled himself around behind a smooth grey trunk as two snaps from Matt's automatic sounded in quick succession. Pickett didn't wait to hear any more.
He slogged through the shallows to the shore and sprinted up-river through the saw-grass and palmettos. He ran until the Osteen bridge loomed black against the lightening sky. He continued to run, stumbling, forcing himself up, on and on toward the bridge. His pace slowed, but steadily he put one foot before the other, stumbling, rising again, then staggering to his knees, his eyes held by the filigreed arch on the horizon. Finally, he could not rise and fell to his stomach in the high grass. Pickett raised his head toward the bridge, but now it was gone.
Sadness, regret, and fatigue knotted his face like a dried fig, and Pickett wept. Through the tears, he spoke—a single name, repeated, again and then again. After a long while, Pickett closed his eyes and put his head to the dry sand. He became still finally, and slept.
26
The heat lay on Bodie Pickett's shoulders like a physical object. He rose to his elbows as if under the weight of the sun itself.
Squinting into the noon glare, Pickett found himself imprisoned in a circle of swamp grass. Mud caked his ragged clothes, his shoes were gone. His face, arms, and feet were crisscrossed with saw grass cuts—shallow, but pink and angry.
The sky was clear, but of that washed out blue that melded with the haze on the horizon and presaged rain. The Osteen bridge towered above the brown grass like the skeleton of some mythic monster, while below it, less dramatic though more substantial, lay Del Trap's hut.
Pickett pushed off toward the hut.
The old fishing boat was gone, the ramshackle dock seemingly sunk deeper into the river without its support. The hut stood open and dark. A pair of mockingbirds nattered away at some grassland villain, alternating sorties from Trap's tin roof into the high grass up river. Pickett climbed the steps, fending off a surprise attack from the roof-top defenders. He walked in as if no one were there.
Someone was.
“I wondered which one of you white folks'd show up. I have to say, I'm a might surprised.” Del Trap didn't sound surprised, he sounded weary. He sat facing the door behind a small kitchen table. His hands rested palm down on the dirty muslin tablecloth, in the center of the table a small silver automatic.
Pickett stopped in the doorway, his eyes on the gun. “Where's Mark?”
“Gone.”
“Gone… Where?”
Del Trap smiled a tired smile, and picked up the automatic. “Where?” he echoed. “Where he'll be safe”—he set his elbows on the table and leveled the gun at Pickett's abdomen, his massive hands almost covered it—”from the likes a you.”
Pickett stepped closer, halfheartedly extending his good hand. “Don't. I'm trying to help…”
“You're gone help him, huh?” Trap's smile broadened. “Everone's gone help poor Mark—right into the lectric chair. Real white a you Christian folk, I gotta say.”
“He's innocent. I can prove it.”
“Innocent?” Trap cocked his head to the side, eyes momentarily closed, and shrugged. “Who cares? Don't matter shit iffin he's innocent or guilty. Them things aint nothing—they worse than nothing. They l-i-e-s.” Trap lingered over the last word with obvious distaste. “You don't unerstand, do you?”
Pickett said nothing.
“Good, bad, innocent, guilty… They don't make it, man. They just crap you white folks throw out there to mess over the rest of us. Innocent, guilty… what's the difference? They jus the game you white lying—” With effort, Del trapped calmed himself. “You don't get it do you? You smart bastards jus miss the whole fuckin thing don't you? Miss the whole way a things. Shit, it's funny don't y'know? A bunch a ghosts run by things, and they don't know shit bout the way of things.” Trap looked down to the greasy muslin and shook his head wryly. “So, what's it matter you live or die, ghost? No differnt, really. It's clear as the sky, man, can't you see it?”
“See what? You show me.”
When Trap didn't respond, Pickett wet his upper lip and shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other. “Look—”
“That we's already dead. That we's always been and always will be jus as live as we is now… jus as dead.” Trap sighed as if depressed with the obvious. He jacked a round into the chamber. The clack of the mechanism cut through the velvety fabric of the morning air like a razor. Trap didn't seem to notice. “So, y'see man, shootin you don't mean shit to me one way or the other. Don't make no diffrence to you, neither. Though”—Trap scratched his wooly head—”I spect you might feel someways else bout it. Funny…” But there was no humor in his eyes.
Pickett stepped to the table and extended his hand. It closed on the cold metal.
Trap offered no resistance. His eyebrows rose in a question.
Pickett gently pulled.
The machine came from Trap's hand like a plug from its socket. Trap's eyes clung to Pickett's, quizzically, without fear. Pickett released the hammer, disengaged the clip, and slid the barrel back over the breach. A small copper cartridge spiraled across the room, clattering to the floor in the corner.
Pickett stared at it.
Moisture beaded his upper lip, sweat stains spread beneath his arms. The automatic shook in his hand before thudding to the center of the table. He walked away, out the door and into the heat of the day. He moved as if his head were lighter than air and pulling the rest of his body slowly down the steps—barely touching the rotted planking—then more quickly to the river's edge. He sank weightless to his knees and looked down into his own eyes. His stomach turned then, and he huddled frozen in a silent scream. But terror was seemingly all that his stomach held, and he subsided into dry heaves, working out what he could in a clammy sweat.
Trap followed. The small silver machine lay flat in his pink palm.
Pickett looked back over his shoulder. He leaned away from Trap and his offering.
“No. Here. Take it.” Trap pushed it toward the other. “I don't want no truck with this thing. It's been cause a nough.”
Pickett stared at it for a long moment; then, with shaking hand, he took it. He set the safety and sank back, sitting, onto the ground. “Mark give you this?”
Trap nodded, burying his hands deep into his cut-offs. As if to protect them from such things.
“Did he tell you where he found it?”
“Look, man, he tol me lotta things—things no kid oughta have to deal with. Now, I know things I don't wanna know—”
“Like those midnight deliveries down river?”
“Yeah, for one, but let me tell it my way, okay?”
Pickett nodded.
“After your daddy died, I was the only one Mark could talk to. I been trying to help the kid, but I aint no damn good off river. You seen that.” Trap tossed his chin back toward the cabin. “Off river” seemed to encompass more than geography. “I—”
Trap knelt down beside Pickett and scratched at his grizzled head.
“I unerstand what's going on out there. I mean, I know better'n the people living out there what makes things tick. But, shit, I just aint no good off this place. I mean, I went off to get some schoolin and all… And I seen what they want you to learn and how they want you to be, and, well, I got pretty good at them games, y'know what I mean? But I got so tangled up inside I thought I was gone splode. Jesus, I'm just tryin to say that Mark needs help out there, and I can't cut it. He trusts you, I guess cause a your papa. I've gotten so I don't trus nobody—nobody what aint as tied up inside as me, anyhow. But I got a trust you. Now, I want you to tell me. Can I? Should I trust you, man?”
Pickett looked up, stupidly.
“Can I?”
“I… I don't know.”
Trap stared at Pickett for a moment, then said: “He's up river, this side a Lake Poinsett. Town called Jesup, off five-twenty. You take forty-six through Canaan, then thirteen south. You get five-twenty at Bithlo. There's a sign, but it's easy to miss if you aint watching for it. Colut folk. Farmers—sharecroppers mostly. I know a fella there who'll put Mark up for awhile. It's the only eatin place in town. `Pulley's' the name of the place. His name, too. Got some rooms upstairs. Good folks. Anyhow”—Trap stood—”you go take care of him.”
“What'd he tell you about the gun—”
“Best talk to him bout that. That ol' skip-jack of mine aint much, but it'll get'im there.” Trap waved his hand toward the highway path. “Now scat. Get goin. Might even get there fore him if you get on it. They'll never find'im, but I don't know how long Mark'll stay. He's pretty shook up.”
Pickett stood, headed down the path to the highway. He turned back once.
Trap stood at the dock, watching. His black face was featureless in the noon sun and seemed to melt into his beard and down onto his chest. He raised a hand as if to wave, then changed his mind, and dropped it, limp, to his side. Pickett continued to the highway and his battered Nova, the two of them now a matched set.
27
A plate glass window pierced the narrow brick store front. NEWS, the window said, ISIDORE MOSES, PROP.
The building looked as if it had been gradually squeezed into its present one room width and two story height by the Western Auto on one side and the Trailways Bus Terminal & Taxi Stand on the other. A wrought iron awning hung low above the door supported by heavy chains. They emerged from the mouths of stone faces fixed on either side of the one second-floor window. Long rust stains ran from the mouth of each and down the brick facade like dried blood. The glass in the door said, NEWSPAPERS, BOOKS, SUNDRIES, and gave the hours. Closed Mondays. The door tinkled as Bodie Pickett entered.
A high two sided rack of paperbacks divided the narrow room in half. Newspapers and sundries covered the wall to the left, and a short counter backed by cigarettes and girlie magazines ran along the right. An old woman stood behind the counter sorting receipts.
“Can I help you?”
She appeared built to scale. Tall and slender hipped, she looked designed to fit behind the pinched counter, to maneuver the few feet of cramped aisles. Her height, though, was an illusion fostered by the narrow room and low tin ceiling. She barely reached Pickett's shoulders. Her age was illusory as well. Her hair was white, but the premature white that makes a woman appear middle-aged at thirty and old at fifty. She was long past thirty, but not so far past fifty as the sloppy old maid bun fixed at the back of her head might suggest. She'd settled into dowdiness the way most women her age had sunk into the beautician's chair. It was the mask she wore in place of the paints and powders of synthetic youth. A cotton shift hung from her boney shoulders masking a form fuller than the straight line of the fabric would suggest. She was comfortable here; but, it seemed, that comfort had been hard won.
“Just looking for the Orlando paper. And a place to buy some clothes.”
She leaned over the counter, looked him over. “You in a accident or something?”
“Something.”
“Hurt?”
“Not so's you'd know it.”
The woman shrugged. “You can get just about anything in the Woolworth's cross the street. Long as you're not looking for nothing fancy. Sentinel's on the rack behind you. Thirty-five cent.”
Pickett rifled his pockets for change. “You Miss Moses?”
“Missus. Mister Moses died eight year ago.” The explanation seemed to satisfy her. “Thirty-eight with tax.”
Pickett pulled change from his pocket and picked through it. He laid coins on the counter, one by one. “I'm sorry to hear about Millie.”
The woman's face turned to stone. “I don't know no Millie, Mister.”
“Yeah?”
“I run a respectable business here. I don't cause nobody no trouble.” She swept the coins into the palm of her hand. “Now you get out of my shop and leave me alone.” She glared at Pickett, her mouth set half way between defiance and fear.
Gradually, the expression grew puzzled. “What you say your name was?”
“I didn't. But it's Pickett. Sorry to bother you.” And Pickett turned toward the door.
“Pickett, you say?” Her face fell, the features gone limp. “You, uh, what's your first name—your Christian name?”
Pickett turned back to the old woman. “Bo. Bodie Pickett. I was hoping—”
“You from around here?”
“I grew up over in Belle Haven. Live in Miami now. Did, anyway.”
The old woman's eyes glazed. She stepped back and lowered herself into a narrow wooden chair wedged between the counter and the wall. Her hand went to her mouth as if to keep something from falling out. “Oh my…” She stared at the floor for a moment, then looked up as if to ascertain that the tall man was still there—her face composed now, but her eyes far away. “You're just like him.”
“Miss—Missus Moses, I'm sorry to trouble you, but—”
“And now he's gone too.” She looked up. “You don't remember me, do you?”
Apparently, Pickett did.
She seemed to see it in his expression. Her smile brightened. It was a lovely smile, only just a little tired.
“Your father, he… well, J.B. was very kind to me. Except for Izzie—Mister Moses—he was the only man that'd ever been kind to me.” Her brows knit, and the words came as if foreign to her. “I wanted to stay, you know; but he wouldn't let me. He couldn't—wouldn't leave your mother. Not even after…” She looked down and was silent for a moment. When she looked back, she tried to smile again. “I never blamed him. I—I wasn't a very good person in those days. It was hard with the girls, you know; but your father helped whenever I needed it. He wouldn't see me no more. Nope. And I tried, too. Two or three times I tried. You see, he blamed himself—for your mama, I mean. You know, the way she…” The dreamy eyes suddenly woke. “I want you to know that… I've always wanted to tell you that… that—” She buried her head in her hands, and the words that filtered through her thin white fingers strained and broke. “That your father, he always loved your mother and you. He never loved me. Not really. I know that now—oh, I knew that even then—he never lied to me. And I just want you to know that I'm sorry, terrible sorry. It aint worth much I know—my being sorry—but, well, I am. Please believe that. He done nothing but help me, and I… I damn near destroyed his life. Did, in a way, I guess. And now he did that… that horrible
thing to himself. I'm to blame, you know? It's my fault in the end. I'll never be able to make up for that, no matter what I do. And I'm so sorry. That's all. I'm sorry.”
She stared up at Pickett; but she wasn't waiting for absolution, she was beyond that. She wanted him to listen, that was all; she wanted to tell someone of her sorrow and regret—someone, perhaps, who shared it. For his part, Pickett said nothing. But she read something from his face, and it was what she wanted. She relaxed.
After a long moment, he said: “And Millie, she was your daughter?”
“My daughter? Yes, she's my daughter. Was. Not that anyone'd know it. She and Nettie went away a long time ago. They didn't come back neither. `Cept Millie. Once—no, twice.”
“Did you know that she was in trouble?”
“Millie?” Betty Hudgins Moses laughed painfully. “She was always in trouble. One way or another.”
“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble?”
“The only kind there ever was for her—for any of us. Man trouble.” She smiled bitterly at Pickett. “Millie said things was gonna be different for her from now on, that she was gonna make up for all the lost years. She said… Oh, she said a lot of things. She talked my ear off. Then she left—left for the last time.” Betty Hudgins was silent for a moment. “I don't know what she wants from me.” She closed her eyes tightly. “. . . what she wanted. Guess I'll never know, now.”
“You saw Millie recently?”
“She stayed the night last week sometime. She didn't say so, but I knew she was in trouble.”
“Why man trouble? She mention any names?”
“What d'you mean?”
“Purdy. She mention a guy name of Herb Purdy?”
“Who? No. But she did say she was going back to Belle Haven and get what she was owed by that Ayers bastard.”
“She mentioned Ed Ayers?”
“Yeah, that's right, the Reverend Edmund Ayers.” She said it as though announcing the radio show.
“Know what she meant?”
“Know?” She laughed in amazement. “I knew all right. It was him started it all.”
“Ed Ayers?”
“Yeah, you knew him back then. Wasn't much was he? But he had money, and lots of it. His folks had a place out here. Up towards Osteen. There was a place down by the Osteen bridge where the kids used to hang out. They'd have music on Saturday nights and—during the summers—there weren't much else for them to do. Millie and her younger sister used to go up there. Millie wasn't but seventeen, and Nettie, what, fifteen? Anyway, she always had to do what her sister did—had to have what she had.”
The old woman paused, staring into the shadowed corner.
“Well, things was different then. Anyway, that bastard Ayers started hanging around Millie. They dated a couple a times, maybe, that summer—no more'n that. Then he's off north for school. First thing you know he shows up on the doorstep. It was the middle of the year. Millie's still in school. Izzie sure didn't like it much. Ayers said he was going to marry her.” The old woman laughed as though she'd heard that one more than once. “So, Millie goes off with him. Didn't tell Izzie and me, of course. He just picks her up one day and they're gone.” She was still amazed by the whole thing. She shook her head, then shrugged. “Maybe he meant it—who knows? He was pretty broke up over his parents getting killed and all. He was gonna quit school and start a family. That's what Millie said, anyway.” She grimaced. “Sure—with a sixteen year old kid.”
“They get married?”
“Ho! Fat chance.” She tried to muster a laugh, but managed only a throaty wheeze. “No sir. He just puts the bread in the oven and leaves, nice as you please.”
“Leaves?”
“He takes her to Jax, bangs her till his money runs out and then he leaves. You can do anything with money.” A fact, her tone said, that she had never doubted. She looked Pickett square in the eye. “You know what that son of a bitch does then?” She didn't expect an answer, and Pickett didn't give her one. “He comes back after a couple a years, like he's coming home from work, and first thing you know, he takes up with Nettie, Millie's baby sister—d'you believe it? Her kid sister. Like Millie never even existed. But he's all holier-than-thou, all praise-the-lord and howdy-do, now. It damn near killed Izzie on the spot when he turned Nettie against him. It did, I guess. His heart gave out not six months after that. He'd lost one family already. In the war. He…” She seemed to be losing herself in a past too dark and bitter to allow a way out. “He was from Poland, you know.…”
She paused, finding her way back to the present.
“So she finds the Lord. She wouldn't have nothing to do with Izzie after that. No time for the man who pulled her and her mother outta the gutter and give them a home. After she done that to Izzie, I told her she weren't no kin of mine. She said it was fine with her and I aint spoke to her since.” The anger unfocused with her eyes, and sunk back down inside her. It drew her vitality with it. She became a bitter old woman again. And silent.
“What happened to her?”
“She called me once—no, twice—from Jacksonville. She said she was getting married. Did it. Up in Jacksonville to some guy. She called up one other time and said they'd had a baby.”
“Nettie?”
“No.” She looked at Pickett, puzzled. “Millie. She got married up in Jax. The guy must a been all right—least he didn't mind about the baby. Not being his, I mean.”
“What about Nettie?”
“Nettie?” She continued to look at Pickett, and puzzlement had become disbelief. “She married him.”
“Him who?”
“Why, Ayers of course.” She smiled grimly and released a short burst of air through her nose. “I saw her on TV once. It like to make me puke.”
Pickett looked lost, or as if by some misstep he had slipped into the labyrinth of Betty Hudgins' past. “Jan Ayers? You're talking about Jan Ayers?”
“Yeah, sure. Janet—Nettie we called her. And Millie…” she continued, as if unable to stop. “Millie wasn't through yet, though—oh, no. No, Millie weren't nearly through messing up her life. She shows up here one night with her suitcase and says she's left the guy. Left him up in Jax with the baby. That was right after Izzie'd died. God. Least he didn't live to see that. Do you know why she left? She was gonna get Ayers back.” She released another burst of air something like a laugh. “When I told her about Nettie she, well, I thought she was gone drop dead on the spot. She left that night, and I never seen her again. Least not till last week.”
“Why'd she come back?”
“I dunno. She kept talking about things being different, about getting her life back. Things like that. She said she wouldn't be sending me anymore money for awhile, either.”
“Did she often send money?”
“Yeah, over the last year or so anyway. Izzie had a couple of big operations before he died. It took all we'd saved. Had to hawk half the shop in the end. And he still died.” She smiled a crooked smile at that cosmic joke. “Millie sent me a little money every now and then after that. Nettie never even wrote.”
She looked up at Pickett. “I didn't care about the money.”
Pickett nodded, exhaled, and gazed down at the dusty linoleum. Suddenly, his brows came together. He glanced up: “How long she stay?”
“Stayed the night and left. Said she had a new job and that she'd be in touch when she found a place to stay. I didn't really believe her. Ah, I don't know. Maybe I did. It don't matter really—not any more. She was born trouble.” She pushed herself up out of the chair, grimaced with the effort. “But… well, I guess they're over now.” She sorted receipts. “Hope so anyways.” Her tone suggested that hope was something she knew about but not come across for a long time. “Bo Pickett…” she said to herself, shaking her head. She continued to sort. She seemed unaware that Pickett was still there. Betty Hudgins Moses had become one of the fixtures.
Pickett turned toward the door. As he opened it, he paused and glanced bac
k over his shoulder. There was more on his face than pity or compassion. There was, perhaps, envy.
28
By the time Bodie Pickett left Betty Hudgins, the haze on the horizon had already darkened. He bought a pair of Dickie chinos and a chambray work shirt at the Woolworth across the street, then changed at the Texaco station while they filled the Nova. When he reached Jesup late that afternoon, the rain had begun in earnest.
Pulley's was long and dark, lit by a single low watt bulb. A bar backed by a long dirty mirror and fronted by a few mismatched stools ran along one wall, a line of high backed booths along the other. A plate glass window at the far end, grime streaked by the rain, published the proprietor's name in flaking red letters. The feed store across the street was dimly visible through the downpour. In front of the window, and leaning against the wall in a permanent state of tilt, stood an ancient pinball machine covered with lurid illustrations of half naked Amazons. Above it in the middle of the window, a bug strip mottled with long dead bottle flies flowed up from its yellow canister like dirty ribbon candy. A single fly walked lazily and with apparent immunity amidst the bodies of his brethren. Pickett, his back to the kitchen, sat in the last booth before a plate of black-eyed peas with chipped ham, listening to the rain splatter on the sidewalk.
Pulley had turned out to be a tiny man of beige complexion and indeterminable age as taciturn as Trap was prolix. Pulley had heard from Trap, but Mark had yet to arrive. Pickett said he would wait. He ordered from the cardboard menu that hung behind the cash register. He was working on a side of vinegar and greens when the door swung open and Mark Ayers lurched in out of the rain.
He wore a dingy olive-drab raincoat frayed at the sleeves. Squinting into the darkness, he ran a hand through his wet cropped hair, over his furred chin, the loose flesh around his mouth, then to his eyes, pressing thumb and forefinger into the sockets and squeezing toward the nose. A fist emerged from his pocket, fell to the bar and released a crumpled twenty.
“Whiskey,” he said. The word caught in the back of his throat, and he coughed twice through clinched teeth, staring at his hand and the twenty. From the dark behind the counter Pulley spoke:
“Scotch, Canadian, Bour—”
Mark straightened petulantly. “Anything.” The limp hand, tensile once again, closed back to a fist. “Doesn't m-m-matter.” Pulley move behind the bar. His thin arm materialized in the circle of light that fell from the bare bulb. In the shadow of Mark's fist, he set up a heavy glass tumbler mottled with the imprint of other hands. “Give me the b-b-bottle,” Mark dead-panned. A clear bottle half filled with amber liquid appeared next to the glass. Mark pulled glass and bottle to his chest and walked across the room to the nearest booth. Pickett followed him in the mirror, finishing his greens.
Mark dropped to the hard bench and put bottle to glass. The liquor glugged in rhythm to the rattle of the bottle against the thick rounded lip. Mark pressed glass and bottle to the oily table top. The effort steadied his hand. Suddenly, he brought the tumbler to his mouth and threw back his head as if with the impact. Hand and empty tumbler fell back to the table with a thud. Mark swallowed hard and with some difficulty. His chin sunk to his chest and his eyes closed.
Pickett picked up the bottle before Mark and examined it elaborately. “Foul stuff, boy.”
Mark exhaled deeply, raising his chin, and with it, his eyelids. The muscles around them tensed as he focused on Pickett's face. An attempted reply lapsed into a cough. He put both hands to his mouth till he was through, looked at the man standing next to him, took a deep breath, and said: “I'm sorry, Mister P-p-pickett.”
“Bo.”
“I'm just no good, am I, Bo?”
“I imagine you're some good…”
“I just couldn't take—couldn't f-f-face it.”
“Facing-it is about the only thing left, I think.”
“I… Yeah, I guess so.” Mark massaged his eyes with both hands. He smelled of gasoline and cheap bourbon. “Hell, I just don't know anymore.” He starred blankly at the scarred table top, his jaw loose, the tip of his tongue tracing a thin upper lip. His gaze met Pickett's and, for a short moment, the opacity clarified and his eyes brightened. He looked down as if embarrassed. “It was f-f-Father's gun. The one next to—that woman's body. I didn't know what to d-d-do. I . . “
“It's all right, Mark,” lied Pickett. “Take it slow, from the beginning.”
“It was so sudden—I mean, like a n-n-nightmare, one that wouldn't go away. One minute we were in love—Amy and me, I mean. We were going to get m-m-married.” He swallowed hard and looked up. “Then, overnight, she doesn't want anything to do with me. It was like she became old—adult, or something—all of a sudden, like she'd lived through a hundred years while I slept one n-n-night. She wouldn't talk or even see me. I should've seen what was going on, I…” Mark rubbed at his eyes. “I don't know, maybe I did. I just didn't want to believe it. I knew what father was like but—Damn! He didn't deserve to die like that, and—Oh, Jesus, Amy's father—I can't blame him. I could've killed them all myself. Sometimes I felt like I could—but… I…” He paused, shook his head. “I couldn't decide what to do. About anything.”
Pickett watched him for a moment. “Look, there's no use in torturing yourself. Just start from the beginning and tell me exactly what you did, what you know. Blame doesn't matter.”
“Yeah, sure.” Mark's tone placed the meaning of his words somewhere between sarcasm and resignation. “Yeah. So, I, uh, didn't understand why she all of a sudden shut me out. And I started following her. I… well, it sounds s-s-stupid, I know, but it wasn't. I mean, I wanted to find out why—what was really happening to her. Anyway, I saw her meet that w-w-woman at—what's-its-name, you know, the donut shop? Amy met her there a couple of times. I wanted to know who she was so I followed her to that motor court and, well, I didn't do anything. I mean, I didn't know what to d-d-do. I was just sort of hanging around, waiting.”
“For what?”
“I dunno. For Amy, for—a miracle, the second coming, Christ, I don't know! It was all I could think to d-d-do.”
“Did anyone see you there?”
“This woman came out of one of the other cabins that first time and gave me the once over. So I left.” Mark was silent for a moment. He chewed abstractedly at his lower lip. Abruptly his thoughts found voice: “I only wanted to help, to find out what the trouble was!” He broke off as abruptly, embarrassed by the outburst, and closed his eyes, hard. When he looked up again, his eyes were liquid and unguarded. He spoke in barely a whisper: “I was there at the river house, don't you see? In the woods. Hiding, for Chrissake. I heard her go off the bridge. I didn't even know what—who it was. Do you see? It was the end for Amy. And me. I was just plain scared, Christ, I was hiding. I was going to help her, pro-t-t-tect her, I was going to…” His hands rose, palms up, as if lifting something, or, perhaps, demonstrating their emptiness. “Right.” He let his hands fall to the table. “It all happened so fast. I mean, over the last couple of weeks, but it sounds—feels, even—like years, decades. Then—what, three or four days ago?—Amy and that woman had a real big fight. I was outside, waiting for Amy to leave. I'd followed her. I was going to try to talk to her again. And then I started hearing their voices, loud. Amy came storming out with the woman after her. She kept saying—the woman said, `Promise me. Promise you'll not see that Ayers bastard ever again.' I remember that: `. . . that Ayers b-b-bastard.' That's what she said.” Mark looked up, desperately. “I thought she was talking about me. I mean, that was only natural, wasn't it? I'd have to've been—Christ Jesus, would it've been normal to figure that your father was—I mean, with the girl you were going to m-m-marry? Would it?”
Pickett said nothing.
Mark looked down, kneaded his furrowed brow and continued: “That was the night before the party. I decided right then and there to talk to the woman, to find out what she had against me, what she had over Amy. I couldn't the next night because of the part
y and all—Christ, and that business with the m-m-murder…”
“Why didn't you tell me about this woman when you came to see me?”
“I didn't mean to talk about Amy at all. I didn't see the connection until the next day. I was in my room, and I heard this ruckus downstairs. All hell's breaking loose. It was that woman—the one Amy'd been seeing. Christ, she was yelling at Father, really giving it to him. I don't think I've ever heard that kind of talk. Mother was there too—and that was really strange. The woman was mad at m-m-Mother, yelling at her—and Father—like she knew them both. God, she was mad. Told Father to lay off the kid. That's what she kept saying, `Lay off the kid.' Told my Mom she was—called her horrible names. There was some sort of fight. I mean, I heard some sort of scuffle that broke the name-calling off pretty sharp. Then all of a sudden she was gone. Everything was quiet. I went downstairs a few minutes later and saw father drop something into the top drawer of that desk in the hall. You know, the one with the leather top?”
Pickett nodded.
Mark wet his lips, ran a hand carelessly through his short hair. “It was the g-g-gun. The one I found next to the body that night—”
Pickett pulled the gun from his pocket. “This?”
Mark flinched. “Yeah.” He opened his mouth to say more, but nothing came out.
“Just tell it as it happened. One thing at a time.”
Mark took a deep breath. “I didn't think much about the gun because, well, what she'd been saying about the kid—`Lay off the kid'—and what I'd heard the night before—you know, her telling Amy to stay away from Ayers—well, it all of a sudden made sense.” He started, bringing both hands to his forehead. “No. No, it didn't make any sense at all. But I knew—for the first time I thought that I knew—what she was talking about. She wasn't talking about m-m-me. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I—” Mark's hands began to shake again. He exhaled again, more slowly, his mouth slack, eyelids heavy. “I tried to reach Amy all day. I couldn't find her. I went to the woman's place—”
“Had the rain started yet?”
“What? Oh. Yeah, I-I-I think so. I'd sat around the house till after it was dark. I couldn't decide whether to go or not—I mean, I just wasn't sure if I w-w-wanted to know what was going on.”
“Why? What made you finally decide to go?”
Mark's eyelids fluttered, fanning his eyes into brightness. “I thought that I—that the house would explode. There was so much unspoken, so much—up in the air. Father was in his study—or I'd thought he was—had been there since the afternoon without coming out. And Mother, she—I dunno—she was so intense, so wired.… When she came back I just had to get out. I don't know why I went to that woman's place except that I thought maybe Amy would be there. I parked around the corner and came in through the woods. I could just see the cabin through the trees when I heard a dog barking, a-a-and this scream. It scared the crap out of me. For some reason I thought it was Amy. I ran t-t-toward it—where I thought it came from a-a-and—” Mark cleared his throat and wiped his mouth. “And I found the body laying there—j-j-just like the man in the river. And the gun was lying there, t-t-too.”
“That's why you ran, because of the gun?”
“Yeah, I guess. I just don't know, I wasn't really thinking what I was doing. Maybe I was running from everything. It was the gun that gave me an excuse, anyway. It was the same gun, you see—the one Father had put in the d-d-drawer. I was afraid—afraid that he'd… he'd…” Mark swallowed hard and blinked. “I-I-I hadn't seen him all day, and I was afraid that he'd gone out and… So I took the gun. That's when the woman—the one from the other cabin, with the dog—saw me. I ran. I drove to Del's. I couldn't think what else to d-d-do. We hid the car in the saw grass. Del said the police would be looking for it.”
“You gave the gun to Trap?”
Mark nodded. “I, well, he wouldn't let me take it. Said it was time to break the karma chain or something. He talks like that sometimes—Del does. He-e-e's…” Mark's eyes became unnaturally bright and the words began to roll from his tongue. “. . . had a tough life, y'know, Del has? But he's been awfully nice to me. He's been…” Mark shifted in his seat, his eyes blinking erratically. “Y'know some people think he's crazy. You know that? But, well, I don't know why—I mean, yes, I do know—know why, I mean—see, people all want the same thing, but they don't know what it is, or they think it's something else—that's what Del says—and when someone like Del comes along, well, people think… they think… But then—th-th-then people don't always… know…”
Grief or fatigue or too much life lived too soon overwhelmed the words. Mark pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, and pressed hard. His face froze distorted; his body grew rigid and silently quivered to the frequency of some interior current. Pickett put his hand to Mark's forearm.
“Mark—”
“No! Just… leave me be for a minute. Okay?”
Pickett stood and, for a long interval, stared down at Mark Ayers. He walked to the screen door. The rain still fell. The floor was damp from the fine spray that filtered through the screen. Pickett closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the cool wet air. A hand fell softly on his shoulder.
“Boy gone be alright?” Pulley's brown eyes looked up to Pickett's. “Aint takin him nowheres tonight, are ya?” The voice was warm and musical; the eyes, quick and wary. Pickett looked over Pulley's head. Mark slumped over the table, and buried his head in his arms.
Pulley's eyes were still on Pickett's. And they smiled. “Stay the night, Mister. Aint no use rushin nothing.” Pulley took Pickett by the arm. “Aint no use in that, son. Plenty a time for trouble…”
Pickett bunched his lips, and nodded. “Yeah. You're right there…” He walked past Pulley, Mark, to the back of the room and a pay phone. He lifted the receiver and dropped in a dime. He dialed 8 numbers, waited, dropped in two quarters and a nickel, and waited some more. “Yeah. Sheriff Beane, please.… Uh-huh, I know. I'm Pickett.… I'm sure he does. Put him on, will you?… Yeah, I'll wait. Got plenty of time…”Pulley smiled at Pickett from across the room. Pickett raised his chin and eyebrows, and he smiled too. But only with his lips.
29
“You'll need see Homer. But I don't think he'll keep you long.”
Bodie Pickett threw open the Nova's door and swung one foot out onto the hot asphalt. He squinted in the glare down the rows of parked cars that ran to the white Temple dome beyond. “Stay here and wait. Now I mean that—enough's enough. Don't make things any harder than they are already.”
“It's all r-r-right, Bo. I…” Mark's weary face relaxed. “I'm sorry. I mean, well… Yes, I'll wait.”
Pickett pushed himself from the front seat. He stood unfolding in the sun, then walked around the front of the car to the passenger side.
“What?”
Pickett pulled the silver automatic from his pants pocket. “I'd just as soon get this out of circulation.” He reached inside the window, clicked open the glove compartment and tossed in the pistol. “Enough is enough.” Pickett slammed the door shut. “You stay put now. This shouldn't take long.” Pickett wound through the parked cars toward the media annex. He passed the Sheriff's empty cruiser on the way.
On the other side of the glass door the same blonde sat behind the same counter, but the smile she lit was not the same—at half-mast in memory of her slain leader. Skeeter paced the linoleum behind her, twirling his Stetson around a boney index finger. He looked up: “Jeez, Mister Pickett. . .” He looked at the blonde. “Tell the Sheriff Pickett's here.”
The blonde looked up.
“Do it!”
She jabbed at the intercom.
“Yes?”
“Mister Cheatham, there's a Mister Pickett here to—”
The box popped and spat. “Get that boy in here,” crackled an electronic Homer Beane.
Skeeter leaned toward the box. “Y-y-yes sir. Right away.” Skeeter reached the sound studio door before Pickett.
&
nbsp; Kimberly the usherette stood on the other side, one hand extended toward the knob. “Oh!”
“I'm Pickett.”
“Oh, Mister Pickett. Please follow me.”
He did. Skeeter remained behind with the sad blonde.
“It's horrible.” Kimberly spoke without looking back, moving swiftly down the long hall. “Just horrible.” She didn't feel the need to explain what she meant. Pickett didn't ask. She pulled up in front of the door from which the Ayers family had entered the studio on the day of taping. She opened it for Pickett; he smiled at her. She lowered her eyes. “I just don't know. . . I mean, what's going to happen?”
Not a question, so Pickett didn't answer. He walked past her through a short hall to a door marked, PRIVATE. He leaned into it and stepped through onto a wine colored carpet.
“Well, it's about time, boy.” Sheriff Homer Beane rose from a brown leather easy chair.
The walls were darkly paneled and lined with books and religious artifacts. To the right were an easy chair before which stood a weary sheriff and a large carved oak desk behind which sat Matt Cheatham. Only Matt's torso showed, covered by a stiff white dress shirt. Silver clasps held the french cuffs, a red silk tie hung from his neck, his face only slightly less white than his shirt. “Perhaps Mister Pickett can tell us what this is all about.”
The Sheriff bridled. “Maybe I'd best do the talking here, Mister Cheatham. For the moment anyways.”
Matt Cheatham shrugged. “Whatever you think best.”
Pickett said nothing.
On the opposite wall between two large bookcases, a door bore a black and white plastic sign: SANCTUARY/PLEASE DO NOT ENTER WHEN LIGHT IS ON. A light above the door glowed red from its brass fixture. The door itself emitted sounds, vague and muffled. An amplified voice, distant organ chords—they came as if from under water; and below them all, the indistinct rustle and random hacking of a congregation. Pickett tossed his head toward the door.
“Jan?”
The sheriff nodded.
Matt Cheatham quickly added, “The memorial service. It began right before Sheriff Beane arrived.” He looked at his wrist. “Jan usually returns here during the offertory. Another five, ten minutes.” He paused. “Fortunately, I was still here when the Sheriff Beane arrived.”
“Yes,” Pickett nodded. He smiled. “Fortunately.” He closed the door, walked to the wall opposite the desk and a brown leather sofa that matched Homer's easy chair. The leather creaked under his weight. The two men opposite stared, waiting. But Pickett said nothing.
“The, uh—” The Sheriff coughed. “The autopsy report's in. Sal's up half the night with it.” He cleared his throat, coughed once again, then finally looked at the tall man opposite. “Well, you was right, boy. Simple as that. It looks like the shot come after the blow to the head.” He turned. “You getting this, now?”
Matt's expression remained bland and wooden. Only his eyes moved—from Sheriff Beane to Pickett. “I'm not sure that I do.”
Pickett, still smiling, stared back. “The burns?”
“Not on the chair,” said the Sheriff. “On Ed. Not much, but enough. Nough not to've come from across the room anyways.”
Matt Cheatham shook his head. “I'm sorry, gentleman, I don't quite understand—”
“Well, Mister Cheatham, let me see if I can clarfy it some for you.” Homer scooted forward in his chair. “First, it seems that Brother Ed smashed his head gainst that wall before he died. You understan, Mister Cheatham? I aint goin too fast for you now, am I? Now, second, it seems like you must a been standing in the hall when you made that hole in Ed's chair cause from the look of them powder burns it pears that ol' Rog Mooring must a been standing where you were when Ed got shot. Seems strange, don't it. Don't it seem strange to you?” The volume rose with the intonation. “Don't it seem just a little goddamn bee-zare, Mister Cheatham?”
“I've no idea what you're talking about, Sheriff. Just ask Mister Pickett, he was there—he saw Roger shoot Edmund.”
“I saw Roger shoot, and I heard Ed fall. A few seconds later, I heard your shot.”
“You see, Sheriff? Roger shot—”
“That's not what I said.” Pickett's smile disappeared. “Roger fired, hitting the chair. Edmund rolled away from the shot onto the table, hitting his head against the wall. You grabbed the gun while I tried to quiet Roger. Then—well, you shot Edmund, Matt. That's the sum of it.”
Matt winced.
Pickett smiled and shrugged. “Nothing to feel bad about. Goddamn good shot, really—considering the pressure you were under. And the distance. Took nerve, anyway.”
Matt Cheatham's mouth opened slightly, then closed. His tongue flicked quickly over dry lips.
Pickett's smile broadened. “Far enough to make the shot chancy. But, too close not to leave some powder marks on the body. But, aside from that, not too shabby.”
“But this is absurd! Why would I want to kill Edmund? Really, now…” He gestured wildly. “This is barely… circumstantial!”
“Circumstantial my country ass,” boomed Homer. “All I need's a jury knows its ass from a watermelon and I got you sewn up, boy. You got that? Now you talk to me—and I mean now. Or you sure as hell gone talk to the electrician up at Starke.” Homer leaned forward, almost out of his chair. “You wanna talk, boy, or you want three-thousand volts shot up your ivy-league ass?”
The din of organ music drowned out Matt's reply. It swept through the sanctuary door along with Jan Ayers. On seeing the three men, Jan paused, chin raised, a pose theatrical and self-aware. She closed the door on the harmonious racket outside.
“Well…” Her tone was casual, her look decidedly formal. A black gown ran high on her neck in patterns of black lace. Her wig was blonde and high; her makeup, exaggerated. At her throat, tied around the lace with a black velvet ribbon, full and red as her mouth, bloomed a silk rose.
“Matt. Sheriff.” She looked at Bodie Pickett. “Is anything the matter?”
Homer rose. “Considerable, I'm afraid, Ma'am. It appears that your husband was… well, that Roger Mooring wasn't the one who—”
“She's the one!” The silence that followed Matt's pronouncement resonated with the vehemence of his tone.
Pickett shook his head. “No, Matt.”
“It was! It was Jan.”
“Not likely.”
“Not Edmund, that Moses woman.”
Pickett said nothing. Once again, he smiled.
“I…” Matt blinked rapidly. “I put the gun back. She didn't… Jan was supposed to…” His eyes rose to Jan Ayers, hardened and grew small. “Jan was supposed to give it to the sheriff after the body was found.”
Beane looked skeptical. “Which body?”
“Purdy. He… Purdy, he had to be silenced, surely you can understand that. The Moses woman, Millie—her gun gave us the chance we'd been waiting for. If Jan had turned over the gun like she was supposed to, you would have had to blame that woman—”
“Oh, come, Matt.” Jan's mouth smiled. “You can't expect these people to believe—”
“No? You think I don't know, don't you? It was you—it couldn't have been anyone else. We were in the clear, too. But that wasn't enough for you. You had to get even, didn't you? You never forgave her. She got to Edmund first, and you just couldn't stand—”
“Be quiet, Matt. They don't know enough to—”
“Be quiet so they blame me? Is that it? No, my dear Jan. No more—”
Pickett cut him off: “How did you get the gun?”
Matt stiffened and turned his head slowly toward the tall man across the room. “Ask Jan. She came up with the idea.”
“Millie brought it, didn't she?” Pickett stared at Matt, whose eyes were still on the woman in the middle of the room. “Millie threatened Edmund with it, told him to leave Amy alone. He took the gun from her.” Pickett relaxed back into the soft leather, turning his head toward Jan Ayers. “Then you got the gun from the hall desk. I know that already. What I
don't know is who told Ed about Amy—who she was. Millie?”
Jan stared at Pickett, her face blank.
“Or did Ed figure it out on his own?”
“On his own?” Jan's face collapsed around her mouth as if shattered by the burst of hysterical laughter that broke through it. “Fat chance. Of course she told him. Edmund had no idea. As a matter of fact, he wouldn't believe her. It was almost comical—that pathetic harlot come to shame the Reverend Edmund Ayers, come to destroy the ministry of the Lord Je—”
“Why Ed?” cried Homer. “Why kill him?”
“Why?” Jan Ayers looked up in amused astonishment. “He found out. We had to kill him—no other choice. We—”
Jan paused, recomposed her features. And with the air of someone explaining something to a child she said, “The Lord simply presented us with the opportunity once again—this time as Roger Mooring. Edmund found out about our”—she gestured vaguely—”relationship with Ralph Kemp. He knew long before that, I think. But he didn't have the nerve to bring it up. Much less nerve enough to go to the authorities. He—”
“Look…” Matt's voice brightened, apparently in response to the topic. “His inheritance dried up long ago. His name was collateral enough for a while, but the New Temple strained even that. It was a simple cash-flow problem. We needed cash, that's all. Tithes were not even meeting operating expenses, much less keeping up with the debt payments. Ed said the Lord would provide.” Matt smiled indulgently. “He didn't understand, he never understood, that… well, the Lord's provisions aren't always, shall we say, palatable? Jan and I both realized that he would have to become the front man—the… the…” Matt drew himself up straight in his chair; he fairly beamed. “. . . the Aaron to my Moses. Someone had to do something. Or this great witness would simply—”
“And that slut's daughter ruined it!” cried Jan. “That whoring child destroyed herself. And then Edmund—”
“You told her,” cut in Pickett, “didn't you? Amy came by to see Edmund. She wanted the truth, and you threw it in her face. She couldn't take it. That's why she killed her self.”
“I told her, yes.” Jan straightened, proudly. “But the Lord destroyed her. For her sins. What have I to do with that? He destroys all those who stand between the Word and its witness. I was merely His tool. But when I told Edmund—told him that his whoring child was dead, gone for ever, he blamed me. Me! He gave himself over to Satan, then. Entirely. He had to die. He would tell, he said. He would have actually gone to Sheriff Beane.” The amazement seemed genuine. “He would have told you, Bodie Pickett, if Matt hadn't—”
“And what about you?”
“Shut up!”
“What about you, Nettie Moses?” Matt leaned awkwardly across the desk. “You explain what shooting Millie had to do with the Lord's work, with the Word's witness. Explain that, Nettie dear.”
“Millie had to die.” Jan polled the room with her eyes. “You see that don't you? She was all that remained of the Reverend Edmund Ayers' fall—the only one left who could taint Edmund and the great work of the Temple.”
“Your sister,” said Pickett quietly. “That's who we're talking about.”
Jan Ayers paused, her mouth still open, and turned from Matt to Pickett. Her voice low, barely human, she said: “No sister of mine. I was born anew. Born into the New Jerusalem, from the blood of the Lord, and the Grace of the Lord God… Born anew.”
Organ music billowed into the close room through a crack in the sanctuary door; a youthful head came with it. “Mizz Ayers? There anything the matter? The service—they're waiting.”
Without a word, Jan Ayers whirled around and pushed past the young messenger into the sanctuary beyond. Pickett rushed to the door as it closed.
“No. Leave her be,” Homer shrugged. “She aint going nowheres—not yet anyway.”
A light tapping and Kimberly's voice came from the opposite door. “Missus Ayers, are you in there? They're waiting. Are you in there?” The door opened. “Oh. I'm sorry.” Kimberly moved back through the door leaving only her head in the room.
Homer stood. “It's okay.” He leaned over the desk, bracing one hand on the blotter in front of Matt Cheatham, and reached for the intercom.
Kimberly scanned the silent faces, and slipped back into the room, backing up against the door and closing it in the process. “Is anything the matter?”
Homer paused over the array of buttons and looked back to Kimberly. “Not that can be helped, honey.” He pushed the red button. “Skeeter?… Skeeter! Where the hell are you?”
The intercom crackled. Matt Cheatham moved uncomfortably in the chair. Sheriff Homer Beane loomed over him like a wrathful god.
“Yessir.”
“Skeeter, better get in here. Call for another car—we'll need two.”
“Sir, Singleton and Franklin's already here. They foun another stiff up round the Osteen Bridge. It looks like—”
“Jesus. Get in here, Skeeter, or am I gonna have to—”
“Nosir. I'm comin! I—”
Homer released the button. With a grunt of effort, he pushed himself off the desk. “Just what I need right now, another goddamn body.”
The revolver slipped from the sheriff's holster without a sound.
“Let's hope it's the last,” said Matt.
He held the revolver awkwardly, using both hands. He cocked the hammer. He moved toward Kimberly and the door through which she'd entered. A loud knock at the door brought a gasp from Kimberly.
Matt grabbed her, pulling her in front of him.
Skeeter burst through. “Sheriff, that there body they foun, it was—” Skeeter froze, looked at Kimberly, Cheatham, and the long barrelled service revolver that joined the two. Without moving anything else, his eyes shifted to Beane's.
Beane shook his head.
“Uh, Mister Cheatham?”
Matt stood, silent, tightening his grip on Kimberly's arm. Kimberly grimaced in pain. “Please, Mister Cheatham. I… You're hurting me. I don't understand—”
“Be quiet.”
Skeeter raised his hands to shoulder height. “Mister Cheatham—look, we got two officers out there in the lobby, and another car comin. They aint no way in hell you gone—”
“Be quiet.”
Pickett said: “It was Kemp, wasn't it?”
Matt turned nervously. Pickett smiled nervously.
“Kemp. Had to be. The last two shots you fired—the two from your gun—they weren't fired at me, were they? Kemp was coming apart, you couldn't count on him any more. You had the gun again, so you killed him. Not bad.”
Skeeter cut in eagerly: “Tha's right, sheriff, it was Kemp. He had two holes in him. Small caliber, probably one of those there pocket automatics. Like the one what—”
“Be quiet! All of you!”
All were.
Matt pulled Kimberly with him toward the sanctuary door—and Bodie Pickett, who planted his weight firmly on both feet and stood, hands at his sides, blocking the way.
“You will please move, Mister Pickett. We are leaving. And if you”—and he swung the revolver back toward the center of the room—”or anyone else does anything to stop us, Kimberly will be the first but certainly not the last to get hurt.” Matt Cheatham moved closer to Pickett and the door. “Do you understand me?”
Bodie Pickett stepped aside. “Perfectly.”
“You're a goddamned fool, Cheatham.”
“No doubt, Sheriff, no doubt.” Matt released Kimberly long enough to open the door. She gasped when he grabbed her again and pushed her into the space beyond. “But then I've nothing to lose. Nothing what-so-ever.” And the door closed softly behind them.
Homer rushed to it, paused, then turned back to Skeeter. “Send Franklin and Singleton round front to the sanctuary. You wait for the other car out front then cover as many of the exits as you can. And call for all the backup we got. Pickett?”
Pickett stared down at the floor, apparently lost in thought.
“Yo
u.”
Pickett started. “Yeah?”
“You wait here. Lock the door after me so's he can't get out this way. Get going, Skeeter!”
With that, Skeeter took off through the door he'd entered by. Pickett opened the opposite door for the sheriff. “You lock it now, y'hear?” Pickett nodded, and held the door open as Homer stepped through.
It opened at floor level. A runway cut through the tiered seating which formed a high wall on either side. It ran to the three broad steps at the base of the center dais, the distance carpeted in red. Matt and Kimberly pressed against the wall, inching their way down the runway toward the dais. Homer followed them, always at the same distance, not threatening, but nonetheless holding his ground.
On the central podium, Jan Ayers stood with her arms outstretched, a black shadow cast by the high white cross above her. The white sculpted figures behind her listened in cool silence to the voice she raised in tribute to the Reverend Edmund Ayers and his vision—the Temple of Glory. The congregation was rapt.
No one noticed as Matt dragged Kimberly to the steps. Matt looked nervously over his shoulder, noticing Homer—and Bodie Pickett, who still stood in the open doorway. He wheeled around, putting Kimberly between himself and the Sheriff. The first few rows of seats not more than ten yards away could now see Matt's revolver. There were whispers.
A large sunburned man with grey hair stood from his seat at the end of the second row. Matt's eyes bulged; he turned the gun quickly on the risen man. Sheriff Homer Beane exploded:
“Stay back!”
The hall fell silent as his cry multiplied throughout the vast doomed space. The sunburned man froze, he sat back down. The clatter of feet echoed through the hall as Singleton and Franklin ran to the front, down separate aisles.
“No!”
At the sound of the sheriff's voice, they froze, revolvers drawn, in front of the dais—and Jan Ayers who stopped mid-sentence. Homer said in his public voice:
“Nobody move. Everbody stay put, and everthing'll be just fine.” The words multiplied and spiraled through the sanctuary.
Slowly, theatrically, Homer strode forward toward Matt Cheatham. He stopped not ten feet from Matt and his hostage, braced his legs apart, hooked his thumbs through his polished tooled leather holster belt and, cocking his massive head to the side, said:
“What's it gone be now, Mister Cheatham? They aint but two ways outta this. And you know what they are. They jus aint no sense in—”
But Beane gave it up. Matt Cheatham was beyond sense—eyes large and red, face gone pink against the background of his white dress shirt. With an arm around Kimberly's neck, he pulled her behind him up the steps, and onto the dais. Kimberly's eyes started as her own face grew red from lack of air. Matt backed against the white marble figure of a saint, the beatific figure dwarfing both Matt and his burden. Sibilant murmurs ran low through the space.
Jan Ayers lowered her arms, and descended from the Plexiglas pulpit. When she stood before Matt Cheatham and the terrified Kimberly, she turned.
The congregation quieted.
Beginning low, her voice quickly rising to a volume that filled the hall without amplification, Jan said:
“Lift thy sword, Oh God. Release thy terrible swift sword upon thy children. And kill thy children with death. For vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord. And terrible is the wrath of our God. And terrible is the day of His Wrath—”
“No!”
Jan froze.
Matt's voice spoke terror. “No, no you can't! I… I—”
Jan looked at him, then back to the congregation. “A-a-and kill thy children…”
Jan looked at Matt then, in silence; he returned the stare. Awe and wonder spoke in the eyes of each, the remnants of Jan's last words the only sound vibrating the cavernous sanctuary.
Homer stepped forward. His boot missed the carpet, striking the marble floor. Matt started at the sound. Homer froze. But Bodie Pickett moved.
He moved quickly down the aisle, past the sheriff, and to the steps. He paused there, staring at Matt, his eyes bland and disinterested. Slowly, he mounted the steps, stopping in front of Matt Cheatham, Homer's service revolver six inches from his belly. Apparently calm, his hands to his sides, his weight firmly planted on both feet, he stared into Matt's bulging eyes, his own narrowing and opening in turn. Quietly, as if in intimate conversation, as if oblivious of the thousands of souls staring down on the two of them, Pickett said:
“That's not all, is it Matt?”
Matt didn't move, but his gaze became less glassy.
“It's not, is it? You killed J.B.—or had him killed. The same thing. I wanna know why.”
Matt's eyes shifted nervously from Pickett to Jan Ayers. Then to the Sheriff.
“Then I'll tell you, Matt. He was executor of the estate—Clayton and Marjorie's estate, Ed's parents. He knew Ed had overextended himself. He spoke to Ed about it. Was that it? And Ed told him what he thought you were up to. You killed him then, just like the others…”
Matt mouthed a “no.”
But Pickett ignored the other's denial. “And just like the others, you pointed the evidence someplace else. Notorious drunk shoots self in drunken depression. You could have predicted the headlines.”
“No,” and this time the word found voice.
Still, Pickett ignored it. “That's the way they read. And that's the way you planned it. Isn't it?”
“No,” said Matt clearly.
“Isn't it?” repeated Pickett, the mask of calm gone from his face. It flushed with desperation.
Matt suddenly laughed; then, as suddenly, stopped.
The laugh echoed into silence. Matt smiled then, shook his head slowly, for an instant closing his eyes. “You pathetic sod… You think that drunk could have found out anything about anything? He didn't know one drink from the next. He didn't have the faintest idea about us.”
He leaned forward, his smile hardening into a sneer.
“You get me, Pickett? You understand that? Kill him?—”
Kimberly gagged.
Matt shook her, drew his arm tighter around her neck, then looked back up to the tall man before him. He showed his teeth, his eyes crinkling with genuine amusement. “He killed himself, Pickett! Himself! He stuck that gun of his in his mouth and—”
In desperation, Kimberly kicked back.
A spike heel caught Matt in the shin. He cried out, threw Kimberly to the marble floor and pulled back Homer's revolver as if to strike her.
But he never got the chance.
Three sharp snaps as from a bullwhip broke the echo of Kimberly's fall. The crack of each hammered Matt against the marble statue behind him.
Jan screamed, the echo of her voice cutting through the periodic echoes of the three gunshots. Her hands went to her throat, closing on her neck and the red rose that hung there.
At the same moment, to the left of Matt's red silk tie, three gaudy flowers of the same hue bloomed on his white starched shirt. The revolver twisted in his hand, and, for an instant, hung limply from his index finger before it clattered to the polished marble. Matt glanced down to his shirt and the three expanding stains. They had become one. He looked up at Bodie Pickett. His mouth came open; but before it released any words his eyes went white, his jaw slack. Matt Cheatham slid down the white marble statue behind him, and to the floor. His passage streaked the white marble red.
Silence became murmur; then, quickly, roar.
Jan Ayers stepped over Kimberly, reaching for Matt's pistol. Catching her foot in the hem of her gown, she went over on top of the other woman, falling toward the gun. Pickett stepped forward quickly and kicked the revolver out from under her. It skittered across the dais and over the edge. Jan Ayers and Pickett followed it with their eyes as it clattered to the floor at the feet of Mark Ayers.
He stood, feet braced apart, eyes wild and staring, with Millie's silver automatic still held before him clasped tightly in both hands. A wisp of white smoke spiraled up from t
he barrel.
But it no longer pointed at Matthew Cheatham, but Jan Ayers.
Pickett, his eyes red, his long face as white as those of the saints behind him, stepped between Mark and his mother. Below the roar in the Temple, he said:
“No.”
“But—” Mark batted his eyes. “—but she… she—”
“No. Enough.”
Mark looked from Pickett to the silver automatic. It trembled in his white hands, sparkling in the reflected glare of the stage lights.
Pickett raised his eyebrows in a question.
In answer, the silver automatic dropped to the cold stone floor.
Homer pushed past, scooped up the pistol, and stopped, staring up into the dull eyes of Bodie Pickett. “Well, boy, I guess you bout—”
But Pickett wasn't listening. He rushed down the steps, and cut through the pressing congregation toward the double door marked EXIT. He pushed through without stopping. Out onto the steaming asphalt, into the midday glare. Brisk, deliberate, his face blank and hard, Picket continued past the ranks of glittering windshields and super heated steel.
Until he came to a white '65 Nova. He put a hand to its door.
He stopped. He looked down at his hand.
Slowly, he turned his face toward the sky—the high Florida sky, blue with that azure sometimes seen in the eye of a child. He stared up into that sky and into the bright Florida sun fixed in its center like the glint of light that can sometimes hide the black center of the eye. He stared into that light till his hazel eyes brimmed. Translucent blues streaked his face then, and his lids grew swollen and closed.
And Bodie Pickett looked down at his hand then, and opened the door. He dropped to the hot vinyl. The Nova started on the first try.
###
About the Author
Edgar Warren Williams is a fifth generation Floridian, born and raised in pre-Disney central Florida. He has made a living as a chauffer, a teacher, a farmer, and an orchestral conductor. A published composer and the author of two out-of-print non-fiction books, he lives in hundred-year-old farm house twenty miles from the closest grocery store. If you enjoyed this mystery, please contact him at
[email protected].
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