The Trees Beyond the Grass (A Cole Mouzon Thriller)

by Reeves, Robert

  Pulling up to his parents’ home, he admired how it had withstood the years without much exterior wear. Its pink, wood-sided frame had some mildew, but otherwise looked new. The heavy iron stains from the sprinklers were present at its base, but pretty much any house in the lowcountry that used sprinklers had the same stains, old or new. Randall Mouzon, his uncle and adopted father, was sitting in a rocker on the front porch with his pale jeans and typical patterned shirt. He could be in a Norman Rockwell painting. A drunk Norman Rockwell. The Thanksgiving one came to mind, with a drunk of a father stammering around with a very large knife, demanding a prayer be said. The entire table would acquiesce out of fear of igniting an outrage. Cole had lived that painting over and over again, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter… Monday through Sunday, it didn’t matter. Jackie took the blunt of it, protecting Cole and Henry, her little brother, from the verbal rage of Jack Daniels. Cole took a deep breath as he started to walk toward the home.

  Jackie pulled up behind his green Ford Focus with her dirty black Volvo SUV as Cole was assisting Billy in crawling out of the back seat. They reunited and walked up the long brick and moss covered pathway to the front porch.

  “Dad, how goes it?” Randall stood up, standing almost as tall as Cole at six-foot-two. For the last ten years his father had been dry, and for that, Cole was proud. But he couldn’t push off the fear and memories that had filled his life from early childhood until his father’s newfound peace with the bottle. He never struck, but there was always the fear that would change. Cole had no clue what had brought on the condition, but from what he understood Randall had never had a problem when he met Ava, Cole’s biological aunt. It was only when kids entered the picture that booze seemed to have eased the stress of life. Cole had always felt partially to blame, a burden to the family, though there was absolutely no support that anyone other than him felt that way.

  Cole looked at Randall and noted old age now hung on him like a branch with too much Spanish moss and too little fortitude. Since going dry he had aged…a lot. They embraced as Randall responded. “…Oh, I’ve seen better, but can’t complain.”

  Cole laughed. “Seen better? Better than this?” Cole waved his hands up and down his body, mimicking a Price is Right show girl, with a big smile.

  Settling back down into the rocker, Randall joked back, “Boy, I’ve certainly seen better than those sticks you call legs. You better get in there and get some of your Mamma’s hummingbird cake before you start trying to compete with this Adonis.” He repeated Cole’s movements over his now seated body making Cole laugh in a deep, heavy voice. His father had never lacked for a sense of humor, a trait conveyed to Cole.

  Randall swatted at Cole’s legs. “Boy, get on in there before your momma has a conniption fit.”

  Cole turned and entered, noting the home hadn’t changed much since it was first built some twenty years earlier. The folks had obviously upgraded the furniture, but the colors and pictures were all the same. He liked the consistency of it all. It was home.

  “Hey, hey baby. Hold on a second while I put down these potatoes.” His aunt and adopted mom, Ava, was wearing a sundress of yellow and pink. Even at sixty-nine she held her beauty, the beauty that had made her Miss Shrimp Queen sometime in the early sixties down in Sanibel Island, Florida. She had on her ‘kitchen slippers,’ as she called them, pretty much glorified socks with some grip material on the bottom. Cole bought her them every year for Christmas at her request. Her dyed blonde hair showed black and grey roots. An apron prevented an obvious ketchup glob from getting on her floral summer dress.

  Ava moved in for a hug. “Hold up Mom, you have something on your apron.” She looked down, stuck her finger in the red smear and returned her finger to her mouth. Looking up, she proclaimed, “Ketchup,” and smiled. She promptly removed the apron to hug Cole.

  At the same moment Billy ran into the old yellow kitchen at the back of the house where Cole and Jackie were standing with their mother. Cole was released and Billy took his place. His mom leaned down, suffocating him with her fleshy arms.

  “Nana, I found a frog!” From behind his back he revealed his treasure, a fat green frog larger than a cantaloupe. Ava immediately released him, her hands flying into the air, and looked in amazement.

  “Oh, that’s a baby bullfrog. Probably getting ready for that storm coming next week. Angela, Andrea, hell if I know…some woman who pissed off a weather guy.” The aged, raspy voice had come from behind Cole.

  “Granny!” Cole moved in fast for a large hug. At five-five, she hugged his waist while he was left trying not to implement a choke-hold on her neck.

  “Hey pumpkin.” Her arms tightened. In the past year his grandmother had moved into a mother-in-law suite off the back of the house. Randall and Ava were getting up there themselves at sixty-eight and seventy-two, and taking care of Granny was certainly taxing them. Jackie had stopped taking them up on baby-sitting for over a year because their plates were full babysitting Granny.

  As Cole looked at his grandmother he laughed to himself. Granny was, well, Granny. She was full of spirit, spunk and energy…more energy than even Billy. But she had fallen and hurt her hip a few years back and her mobility was failing. Her weathered, deep-wrinkled skin reminded Cole of some historic photos he had seen of Native Americans from the 1800s—sturdy, defiant, and noble.

  “Pumpkin, you want some tea. Billy wants some tea, don’t you?” Granny’s sweet tea was famous with kids and dentists, both thankful for her ability to cram as much sugar into liquid form as possible without making it syrup. Granny looked down at Billy like she was luring Hansel and Gretel to take a bite of her candy house. Granny was a spoiler. As she put it, “It’s retribution for all the grief you gave me when you were growing up.” She always said that with a huge smile and ended with more of a cackle than a laugh, whether from her decades of smoking or her intent, it was unknown. But, it was known the woman was wonderfully evil and slightly crazy.

  Cole decided to tempt her. “Granny, how the men treating you? Find a sugar daddy yet?”

  Busy pouring Billy a tall glass of ‘insta-hyper,’ she responded. “Ha, sugar daddy? I’ve got enough sugar for me and five others! The question is have you found any sugar lately?”

  She had successfully turned the focus on him. He threw up a hand as if to say ‘no more’ and said, “Uh, no. And, if I had, I wouldn’t be telling you, dirty old lady. Don’t make me put you in a home.” They both laughed. Being in the Mouzon family required thick skin and a lot of humor.

  Billy rushed out the door with the frog, leaving an empty glass on the counter. Cole turned back to hear Granny speaking. “I was going to go out to the dock after dinner and go gigging for fish. You want to come with the old lady? I promise to not out-fish you.” An evil grin crossed her face and her eyes went slender. She always out-fished you. “Nah, I’ve got plans after dinner, but perhaps before I leave. But only if you cook up some of those flounder.” The planned meeting with Leas was still on Cole’s mind. He dreaded whatever the FBI agent was coming to discuss.

  Granny smiled at Cole’s response. “Deal.”

  COLE STEPPED BACK to take in the moment. With everyone but Cole’s dad crowded in the kitchen, it felt like home. Cole’s dad was the strong, silent type, and so he was often left to his own thoughts in reunions like these. During his drinking years that was a welcomed habit. But Cole secretly desired that for one sitting, the family could be that Rockwell painting. When his father did open his mouth, it was to either scold or to joke. Over the years the ratio had switched in favor of joking. He had always been a good father, but not necessarily the most emotionally available. That had changed when he went dry. Cole and his sister agreed he had gained a new appreciation for family and happiness that he’d never showed before that change.

  Granny came alongside Cole and grabbed his hand. “Sit, sit, baby. Let the old lady grab a tea, too. Ava, you finish that coleslaw, that boy looks starved. Don’t they feed you out there in Colora
do? See, that’s what happens when you move somewhere that doesn’t know how to cook grits. I bet they only bake their chicken out there, don’t they?” Granny was being playful—she knew full well they had KFC like the rest of the world.

  Cole sat on a stool on the far side of the white marble counter and continued talking to Ava while Granny ran about here and there. When she delivered his tea and Cole looked at her she went in for another hug. The warmth of her love washed over him as, still seated, Cole wrapped his arms around her with his head landing squarely on her very large breasts, or ‘baboombas,’ as she called them. They felt like a pillow.

  Released, Cole turned to Jackie. “Sister, what happened to you?” Cole asked, referencing the clear discrepancy between his sister’s breasts and the other women’s in the room.

  Jackie looked down and back up. Before she could respond, Granny piped in, “Pumpkin, you know I always told you that ‘more than a handful is a waste.’ See this? Waste.” She waved her hands over her breasts. “Back in the day, your grandpa and I would go scooter pootin’ around the the ba’try, and stop to watch the submarine races at night when no one was around. You know, I never did see a submarine.” She winked impishly.

  “Granny!” Ava exclaimed, playfully appalled, her hands now full with a mandolin and a bowl of shaved cabbage. Cole just shook his head. Yes, his grandmother had said that many times and he loved it each and every time.

  Jackie had her hands on her hips. “Well, I get no complaints.”

  “Indeed, sis. How is your dating life?” Cole felt comfortable throwing his sister to the wolves. His mother and Granny would focus their attention on her and avoid him at least for thirty minutes or so.

  CHAPTER 37

  LEAS HAD ONLY BEEN back in Quantico a few days when he was notified the FBI had located Mouzon visiting in Charleston. After attempts to locate him by phone had failed, he was instructed to get there fast and make personal contact before anything happened. Who is this Mouzon character and what is in Charleston?

  It was Sunday and his mind was racing as he boarded his three forty-five p.m. Delta flight to Charleston. The city was foreign to him. He knew it had started the Civil War with shots at Fort Sumter and was an original colony. He’d learned in college that it had its share of violence, too. In fact, the first documented American serial killer was a woman, Lavinia Fisher, who poisoned and killed numerous men and woman in Charleston between 1810 and 1820. From what he could recall, Fisher and her husband were part of a gang of highwaymen. Together, they operated Five Mile and Six Mile House, along the Ashley River in current day North Charleston and just south of Middleton Place Plantation, a spot then called Ashley Ferry. The Charleston News and Courier, still operating today, reported on the events with enough excitement to rival the likes of CNN or Fox News.

  The reporting detailed how the gang, including Mrs. Fisher, was frustrating Charleston’s trade routes with their thefts and murders. Locals, dissatisfied with the authority’s response, implemented ‘lynch law.’ A cavalcade of horses and riders descended on the property, and advised the residents and guests that if they did not depart within minutes, they would be lynched. All left, only to return and attack the watchman left by the citizens. Mrs. Fisher, for her part, was first to attack, choking the watchman Dave Ross and shoving his head through a window. Ross would ultimately be saved from his otherwise impending doom by a passerby. With this the authorities acted, capturing Mrs. Fisher and a majority of her gang.

  The Fishers were never convicted of murder, though numerous bodies were found on the inn’s property. But the sentence for highway robbery was a public hanging, because such a crime was a capital offense in early America. On February 18, 1820, the hanging was convened and Mrs. Fisher impressed and insulted the crowd into silence with her large collection of expletives. She cursed Charleston, its government and its citizens for ‘letting a woman swing.’ Her last words were the most memorable, telling the crowd, “If you have a message you want to deliver to hell, give it to me—I’ll carry it.” Though certainly not as wicked as Aileen Wuornos’s final words to her jury, wherein she said, “May your wife and children get raped, right in the ass,” Mrs. Fisher’s remarks were certainly shocking for the time. The Post and Courier described to its readers that Mrs. Fisher died almost immediately. Mr. Fisher wasn’t so lucky, struggling, gasping, and swinging for minutes before death consumed him.

  Looking down at a file labeled ‘Mouzon,’ Leas didn’t know what to expect when he finally landed in Charleston. But whoever was killing those who had been taken thirty years earlier was moving fast. Mouzon appeared to be the last of those survivors. Everything in the background check his office had pulled together said the guy was highly intelligent, having aced law school at Emory. The CIA had actually tried to recruit him in law school but he’d declined. Leas thought that move alone showed ‘smarts.’ Mouzon was going to need his ‘smarts’ if he was going to survive.

  CHAPTER 38

  COLE WALKED OUTSIDE with the potatoes Ava had previously washed, joining Randall, who had come around to the back of the house to start dinner, frogmore stew. Randall heated the water in a giant pot over a gas burner and added a pouch each of Old Bay and Zatarains seafood spice bags to form the base for what the rest of the world would just call a seafood boil. Cole craved a beer. In the ten years since his father got dry, Cole had avoided drinking alcohol around him out of respect, even though his father was clear he would never touch the stuff again.

  “So, Dad, what have you been up to since retiring?”

  “I got me a job at the new Royal Hardware on Highway 17; I think my official title is ‘customer liaison.’ That’s a fancy way of saying bag boy. Keeps me busy though and out of that hen coop.” His father looked behind him to the house to reference the women inside and grinned. He continued for a few moments talking about the tools he sold and the crazy customers that walked through the door on a routine basis in a flustered attempt to finish a home-improvement project they should have never started. Cole could see his father enjoyed the escape from what would otherwise be a quiet life in the marsh backwoods.

  “Where’s Henry nowadays?” Cole said.

  Replying without looking up from the boiling water, Randall responded, “Oh, he’s down in Ft. Myers with Ava’s sister Fran. Got some t-shirt business or something down there. You know how he is.”

  Cole nodded. Henry, Randall and Ava’s son, had always been independent and aspiring for the next big thing. Though only twenty-three, he had already started a gourmet pancake restaurant, been a partner in a parasailing company and tired his hand at a tax return prep shop—all ultimately flopping hard to the ground like his pancakes.

  “So, you dating anyone?” His father had decided to pick up where the ladies had left off. Dating and relationships were things Cole never really talked much about and moments like this flustered him deeper into silence.

  “Nah, not really. Well…at least nothing serious.” Randall dropped the large bowl of washed potatoes into the pot—now a rapid caldron of hot, spiced water.

  “Well, you know we love Billy and all, but your mom and I would love to see you with some children, son. You would make a good father. But, more importantly, we aren’t getting any younger—so you best get to it and soon.” His father smiled, showing his playful side while looking up, his head tilted towards Cole. His father rarely gave compliments, so when he did; it was known to be heart-felt.

  Cole was shocked for a moment before he spoke. Rubbing his forehead, he said, “That is certainly on the list. I need to find someone who will marry me first, though. But, don’t you worry; I’ll make sure the kids drive you utterly crazy like we did.” Cole patted his dad on the back and Randall looked up with a large grin. Cole knew retribution for all his childhood shenanigans was in store when he had kids.

  With the sausage and onion already dropped in, Cole’s father added the shrimp, shells on, into the pot and let them boil until just pink. Cole called his family as instruc
ted by Randall and the entire family ran out, Ava in the rear with a stack of paper plates. Billy was pushed back while Cole and his father lifted the large pot, almost overflowing with water and its load, and poured it out onto newspaper that had been placed on top of the old wood picnic table. Scalding water went everywhere, spilling to the ground as the rest of the family held their plates at the edges to act as a lip to hold the bounty on the table. Once the water had completely run off, Billy scooped up the first plate as the youngster. He was followed by Granny and the rest of the women before Cole and his father dove in, Cole focusing on the shrimp and sausage.

  The adults now sitting around a glass patio table on the screened-in back deck of the house, Granny said, “Bet you don’t get this out there in Colorado?” Granny was dipping a shrimp in homemade cocktail sauce with one hand and holding a Bud Lime in the other. She clearly didn’t subscribe to Cole’s line of thinking about booze around his dad. “No, ma’am. No roadside-fresh shrimp or crabs to bring home, and certainly no boils.”

  Granny smiled at his response; it was obvious that she saw potential for continued visits home in Cole not having such things. The family was quiet as they looked out over the marsh, enjoying its fruits. Consistent with its meaning in the South, dinner was served at three p.m.—the term supper was reserved only for a late, final meal of the day. In Cole’s youth, that meal was served Monday through Saturday, around nine pm. It was too hot any sooner than that to get in the kitchen to cook where the night temperature might drop ten degrees in an average ninety-five degree, one-hundred percent humidity day.

  SUNDAYS WERE ALWAYS special days in the Mouzon family. Until Cole was a teenager, the routine was fixed. Granny came over in her giant gold Cutlass Supreme at ten a.m. from her home behind the Red and White in the heart of town. Sticking out the window were three fishing rods, one each for Jackie, Cole, and her. Jackie and Cole would pile in the back after Granny caught up over coffee with his dad and mom. Henry, their always-reclusive younger brother, wouldn’t join until he was four and Cole fourteen. Until then, Cole and Jackie would head off to some pond up in Awendaw, over the Wando River, and unpack and wait.