The question was rhetorical, but Jake answered it anyway. "Get rid of the evidence. My guess would be that she either owes a favor to good old boy Charles, or he has something on her."
The morning had lost its glory. The air hung languid about them, sticky with grease fumes from the restaurant next door.
"You ready to go to the library and see if we can get rebuffed there, too?" Jake asked.
She nodded, her eyes meeting his, searching for reassurance that they weren't really going to be rebuffed, that this situation wasn't as hopeless as it was beginning to look.
Of course he gave none.
She turned and headed for his car anyway.
***
Jake parked in the small lot behind the Edgewater Public Library. Rebecca stepped out immediately, not giving him the chance to come around and open her door, to remind her of his overwhelmingly male presence.
Jake joined her, squinting into the sun as they walked to the front of the big old stone building. "July in Texas. Every day's a carbon copy of the one before. It'll be a hundred degrees by noon."
"By noon we'll be inside Doris Jordan's cool, comfortable house," she pointed out. She was very much looking forward to that lunch, to being with the older woman who had so much chaos in her life and so much peace in her soul.
"Without the dress she asked to see again," he reminded her.
"Maybe she'll be able to remember something without actually having to see it this time."
He shrugged. "Maybe. At least the fact that somebody stole the dress tells us there's something there to be remembered."
"Did you ever doubt it?"
"Nothing's certain until you have proof, and then sometimes you're still wrong."
She wasn't sure if he was trying to reassure her about the terrible possibility that Charles Morton might be her father or prepare her for the possibility of never finding her heritage.
They turned the corner of the big old building where yesterday they'd found the story of Ben Jordan's death, and she let Jake's comment pass without a reply. He probably didn't expect one anyway. He seemed to think it was part of his job to dispense pessimistic advice.
The front of the library was impressive with wide steps leading up to large double doors of dark, shiny wood. Stone lions on each side guarded the town's collection of reading material. On the surface, Edgewater was an idyllic town, a remnant of a bygone era when life was slower and simpler.
But ugliness seethed just beneath the picturesque surface.
And her search was causing the town's ugly little secrets to rise to the surface. She was bringing up the skeletons of her birth for everybody—herself included—to see.
Jake held the door for her to enter the library.
Wooden card catalogues—no computers for Edgewater—and reading tables spread to the left with an Oxford English Dictionary on a stand in the middle. On the right was the desk where they'd obtained the microfiche the day before, but Eunice wasn't presiding today. Instead, a short woman with pale hair—blond or silver or a mixture—in a medium length nondescript style stood talking to a tall, slender man. From their postures and expressions, the quiet conversation appeared to be intensely personal.
"Excuse me," Jake said, and both people turned to look at him. The man had a pleasant, disinterested expression as anyone, interrupted by strangers, might have. However, Rebecca thought she saw a flicker of something else in the woman's blue eyes...a momentary dilation of the pupils, a flash of sharp darkness...but a curtain of ambiguity descended immediately.
"Can I help you?" the woman asked, looking directly at Jake and ignoring Rebecca. A hollow essence in her low-pitched voice, a translucent overlay on her pale face and in her veiled eyes gave her a quality Rebecca could only define as haunted.
"I'd like to speak to Eunice," Jake said.
"Eunice isn't here today. I'm her assistant."
"I see." Jake tunneled his fingers through his hair, obviously frustrated by this latest hindrance to their investigation. "We were here yesterday, and someone left something in my briefcase. I need to find out who it might have been so I can return the item."
"If you'd care to leave the item with me, I'll try to locate the owner."
"I really need to talk to the person who left it."
"But you don't know who that person is."
"No, I don't."
"Then I don't see how I can help you." The woman gazed up at him, waiting, volunteering nothing. Her small chin jutted forward, the muscle in her jaw knotted.
The tall man beside her regarded them with a confused expression. During the woman's verbal exchange with Jake, he'd shifted his attention from one to the other as if surprised at his companion's reactions to the two strangers.
Jake shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Even he appeared a little disconcerted with the assistant's total lack of cooperation. "I thought you might have a list of everybody who checked out a book or brought back a book yesterday."
"I'm sorry but that information's confidential."
Jake gave her the same smile he'd given Doris Jordan. Rebecca could have told him he was wasting the wattage on this woman.
"I understand," he said. "Were you working here yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Then maybe you could just give me some idea of who might have been downstairs around two or three."
"I'm sorry but that information's confidential," she repeated, more emphatically this time.
Rebecca moved closer to Jake, trying to insert herself into the woman's line of vision. Maybe she'd have more luck than he was having.
And if she did, maybe she could even convince him she needed to be here. She certainly couldn't do any worse than he was doing in this instance.
"Please," she said, "this is very important." The woman didn't look at her, didn't admit by so much as the blink of an eye that she heard. "I'm Rebecca Patterson." Rebecca held out her hand, forcing some kind of acknowledgment.
Slowly, as if with great effort, the assistant turned her veiled gaze toward Rebecca but ignored the outstretched hand.
Haunted.
The woman was being incredibly rude, but somehow Rebecca couldn't get upset with her. She could almost reach inside the stranger and feel the inconceivable anguish that quivered behind her stony gaze.
"The item was a note," Rebecca explained, "and it's very important that I find out who wrote it."
The woman—Rebecca realized she hadn't even told them her name—shook her head, the movement a series of short, staccato jerks. "I can't help you." She spaced each word out in a staccato rhythm that matched her movements. "Please excuse me. I have work to do." She turned away, heading toward an open office door behind her.
"Please, I'm trying to locate my mother." Rebecca could only assume the entire town knew already, so she might as well use the information if she could.
The woman kept going, disappearing into the office and closing the door as if she hadn't heard...or didn't care.
The man gave them an apologetic smile, shrugged then started after the woman. He was attractive in a quiet, artistic way, tall and thin with curly salt and pepper hair. The woman's husband? Lover? Had he seen a new side to her today?
He pushed the door open and stuck his head inside. "Mary?"
A soft murmur came from the room, and the man entered, closing the door behind him.
"Well," Jake said. "I'd say we need to come back tomorrow and talk to Eunice."
"Apparently." Rebecca stared at the closed door. "He called her Mary. Do you suppose that's Mary Jordan, Ben Jordan's widow?"
"Could be. Like I said, it's a small town. If we stay here long enough, we're bound to run into everybody. On the other hand, Mary's a common name."
"I guess so." Rebecca couldn't seem to tear her gaze away from the door which hid Mary and her friend. "I think it's her, though. She seems so..." She hesitated, reluctant to use such an intangible term as haunted in the presence of Jake's pragmatism.
"Rude?" he suggested.
She shook her head and faced him squarely. "Your job may be detective work, but my job is working with people. And that woman has had tragedy in her life."
Jake shrugged. "Whatever. She wasn't much help to us. To you."
Of course he couldn't let the us stand. For Jake Thornton, there was no us even in the two of them working together.
"Do you think that guy was her husband?" she asked.
"Could be. She was wearing a wedding ring. He wasn't, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Well, there's no point in hanging around here. I doubt if that lady will even give us the trays of microfiche to go through. We'll come tomorrow when Eunice is here. Let's go back to the motel room. I need to make a couple of phone calls."
Reluctantly Rebecca left the library with Jake.
Or, at least, in the company of Jake. She doubted that anyone was ever with him.
At the big doors, she turned one more time to see if Mary and her friend had come out of the office.
They hadn't. She could see nothing but the closed, silent door.
Chapter 12
October 21, 1979, Edgewater, Texas
A knock sounded on the front door.
The candy dish Mary had been dusting slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor.
She chided herself for being silly. Ben had assured her that he'd take care of everything.
Like your mother said your father would come back from the hospital. Like she promised at his funeral that she'd never leave.
Like anybody had any control over the dangers of living.
Heart pounding furiously, she dashed to the door, praying to see a neighbor, a girl scout selling cookies, even an insurance salesman.
Charles and another officer, Clyde Hartman, his and Ben's sergeant, stood on the front porch, hats in their hands. Clyde's broad, freckled face was distorted, his eyes sad, his lips compressed as if holding in words he didn't want to speak. Charles frowned solemnly but his eyes glittered with anger and something else. Triumph?
Mary's hand went to her throat as the world spun dizzily around her. "Ben—" The word came out a croak, a desperate plea.
"I'm sorry, Mary," Clyde said. "There was a shooting."
She shook her head. "No!"
"I tried to save him," Charles said smoothly. "But I couldn't. He died instantly."
Blackness surged up to envelop her, to wrap around her and keep out the awful lie Charles had just told.
Strong arms grabbed her, holding her just above the night. Ben had caught her. Ben would always catch her. He'd promised to keep her and their baby safe.
A scent of too-sweet cologne assailed her nostrils, a scent imposed over but not hiding the dark, musty odor of death.
It wasn't Ben who'd caught her.
"She's fainted!" The concerned voice came from far away. She wondered briefly who was talking and who'd fainted, but the comforting darkness beckoned.
"She'll be all right. I'll take her by the doctor to be sure. Get her a sedative. Ben would want me to take care of her."
The doctor. Ben had been hurt, but they were going to the doctor. Ben was going to be all right.
She let herself drift into the safe shroud of darkness.
***
Pain.
Stabbing, hurting, pulling her out of the darkness. Someone was groaning.
Ben!
She tried to sit up, to see if it was Ben who was groaning, ask the doctor if he'd be all right, but someone held her down. Someone who smelled of too-sweet cologne and death.
Charles.
A woman swore. "This'll hurt a lot less if you'll lay still."
"Who are you? Where's my husband?" She was lying on her back on a table. A bare bulb dangled from the ceiling, the harsh light blinding her. She squirmed, trying to rise, to see where she was, who the invisible woman was...to get away from Charles. The movement increased the pain between her legs. Panic burst through her. "What's going on? I want to get up!"
"I can't do this if you don't hold her still."
"Give her something." Charles.
The other person snorted. "You want drugs, you go down to the hospital and ask them to do your abortion for you."
Abortion?
This couldn't be happening! She was having another horrible nightmare.
The room spun dizzily, the light above swirling like a drunken sun. Mary felt herself sinking back into that black oblivion where Ben was still alive and—
No! She couldn't go there, had to stay awake, remain in the terrifying nightmare. She had to fight for her baby's life.
"Please don't do this!" she begged the woman. "My husband—"
"Ben's dead." The brutal pronouncement came from Charles' lips on a gust of fetid breath.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and a sob rose in her throat.
"I warned you what would happen if you started mouthing off," he said. "Now you'll lie still if you know what's good for you. Let us get this over with."
Charles had killed Ben because Ben knew. She'd told Ben and because of her, he was dead.
The horror engulfed her, invading her soul, sinking its tendrils into every part of her body, bleak and painful and forever.
She thought of the child growing inside her. Ben's child. Or—
For a second she considered doing as he said, lying still, letting them take this baby who might not have been conceived in love.
But only for a second. As Ben had said, it didn't matter who started the process, this was her child. Hers and Ben's. And she loved her baby with all her heart.
And hated Charles with a like intensity.
That hatred gave her strength to do whatever it took to save her child. She swallowed hard and sucked in a deep breath. "You're right." The calm, cold voice seemed to come from a stranger, couldn't possibly be hers. "I don't want any child that might grow up to be like you. I'll lie still but only if you go in the other room. I don't want you to see me...to see my body."
He laughed. "It's not like I haven't already seen everything you've got. It's a little late for modesty."
She pulled her knees together with every ounce of strength she possessed, ignoring the stabbing pain the action brought.
"Go on in the other room," the female voice instructed. "A woman's got a right to a little privacy at a time like this."
Charles was silent for several heartbeats. "You know what happens if you don't do this right."
"I know." The voice was hollow and dull, devoid of hope.
"All right then. Whatever it takes to get on with things."
She heard and felt every footstep as he left the room, closing the door behind him and taking the stench of death with him.
"I need to sit up a minute," she begged. "I think I'm going to be sick."
The woman sighed. "Okay. Hang on just a minute. Let me get this speculum out."
The pain eased, and Mary sat upright on the table. For the first time, she was able to see the woman, a very ordinary, somewhat mousy person who looked to be in her forties but could be younger. The hard edge to her plain face made it difficult to be certain.
"Why are you doing this?" Mary asked, her voice low to keep Charles from hearing and because every word, every movement, was an effort.
The hard edge deepened. "I owe Charles, and Charles always collects on his debts."
"You owe him enough to take the child of someone you don't even know?"
The woman reached for a package of cigarettes on a nearby lamp table, extracted one, lit it and blew out a stream of smoke. "Yeah," she said, "I owe him enough."
"Look, what if you just tell him you did it. Tell him the baby's gone."
She took a long draw on the cigarette then shook her head slowly. "Can't do that."
"Why not?"
"You think he's not gonna notice when you swell up like a house?"
"It'll be too late then!" She leaned forward in her fervor, her hands held out beseechingly.
The woman took seve
ral short, nervous puffs on her cigarette then crushed it out in an overflowing ashtray, her eyes on her action, refusing to meet Mary's gaze. "Not too late for him to ruin my life. I'm a nurse. I got a kid, a boy ten years old. I'll lose all that if Charles throws me in jail for doing abortions. That man is pure evil. He uses his job to collect evidence on people, then he owns that person. Like he owns me."
"I'll go away! Leave town! He'll never know. I promise!"
The woman's brown eyes lifted to hers and softened, but her mouth remained hard. "Come on, honey, why would you want to have the kid of a man like that?"
"It's not his baby!" This baby is ours, Ben had said. I don't care whose eyes or hair she has. I don't care who started the process, who planted the seed. It's our baby.
"He says it's his."
"He's lying! This baby belongs to my husband and me."
"Your husband's dead."
Mary shut out the hateful words. She couldn't think about that now. Later she'd have to face it, accept it, figure out how she could possibly live with it, but not now. Now she needed every resource she could muster to fight for the life of her child.
"This baby's all I have left. You're a mother. Surely you can understand."
The woman pushed her short brown hair away from her face and sighed again. "Yeah, I can understand. I don't know what I'd have done without my kid when my husband took a walk." She shook her head. "I gotta take care of that kid, and I can't do it from the inside of a jail cell."
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