The Cover Story

by Deb Richardson-Moore

Branigan parked across the lot, to the far left of the van, leaving a direct sightline. The van’s side door opened, apparently by remote control, and a robotic platform emerged. Branigan blinked in amazement to see it gently set a wheelchair onto the asphalt, and the driver open her door and lower herself expertly into the chair. The girl reached back into the van and got her purse, then clicked a key ring and the doors shut automatically. She wheeled herself onto the sidewalk, and an alert store employee opened the double doors to let her in.

  Branigan sat for another minute in her car. Why did her grandmother’s neighbor not say that Mackenzie Broadus was in a wheelchair? It seemed like the kind of thing you’d mention.

  Branigan slammed her car door and entered the store. Mackenzie had settled at a table in the coffee shop section. Branigan approached her, smiling, and Mackenzie returned the smile. With wide gray eyes and a creamy complexion, she was a beautiful young woman.

  “Miss Broadus?”

  Mackenzie’s smile disappeared; Branigan couldn’t tell whether the girl recognized her voice from yesterday’s phone call or was startled by the use of her name. “I’m Branigan Powers from The Grambling Rambler. I tried to call you yesterday, but we were –”

  Mackenzie interrupted her with a sound that was nearly a bleat. “No! I can’t talk to you!”

  “Please, Miss Broadus. There’s nothing wrong. I just need to ask you some questions about a story I’m working on. About some friends of yours.”

  Mackenzie’s head had been shaking the entire time Branigan was talking. But now it stopped. “What friends?”

  “Janie Rose Carlton and Maylene Ayers. I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “They were killed last week.”

  “What?” Mackenzie began to tremble. “No, no, no. That can’t be.”

  Branigan slid into the chair across from the girl. She spoke quietly. “I’ll begin at the beginning,” she said. “But can I get you anything first? Water?”

  Mackenzie nodded. “Yes, water,” she whispered.

  Branigan was grateful to have something to do while the girl collected herself. It hadn’t occurred to her that Mackenzie wouldn’t know the news out of Grambling. But Columbia was more than 200 miles away. Maybe its own universities provided enough drama that the newspaper didn’t need to run stories about college students in Georgia.

  She requested a cup of water from the man behind the counter. Taking her place across from Mackenzie, she placed it on the table, because the girl was still quivering.

  “What about their families?” she asked.

  Branigan wasn’t sure what she meant. “They’re devastated, of course.”

  “I still can’t talk to you.” Now Mackenzie’s lips were trembling. Branigan feared she was going to cry. “But… but… can you tell me what happened?”

  “Of course. Janie Rose was on her way home from the University of Georgia for Christmas break. Someone ran her and a friend off the road, and Janie Rose was killed.”

  Mackenzie’s pupils were impossibly large, but she said nothing.

  “And then Maylene Ayers was beaten to death beside the Grambling bus station. With a crowbar. A homeless man was arrested.”

  The girl still didn’t speak, but she began breathing rapidly. Branigan was worried that she was going to hyperventilate. “Can you drink some water, Miss Broadus?”

  Mackenzie obediently picked up the water. Her hand shook as she brought it to her mouth, spilling some. Branigan handed her a napkin.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Well, in investigating the girls’ deaths – which is a huge story in Grambling – we realized both had been freshmen at Rutherford Lee, both were in the same sorority and both left school about the same time last winter. As you did. We’re just trying to follow some of the oddities, I guess you could say, during the last months of their lives. See if there was any connection, overlap. I was hoping you could help.”

  Mackenzie was beginning to breathe a little more easily.

  “You say there’s been an arrest?”

  “Yes. Maylene was living with a man in a homeless camp. The evidence indicates that he killed her.”

  “And Janie Rose?”

  “No arrest yet, though it could have been the same guy.”

  Mackenzie sat for a long moment. “I don’t like to talk about it,” she said. “What happened to me.”

  Branigan was silent. She could hear a “but” in the girl’s voice and didn’t want to spook her.

  “Obviously, it changed my life. For the worse.” She hit the arms of her chair.

  “What did?”

  “You didn’t talk to Janie Rose or Maylene? You don’t know why I left school?”

  “No, sadly none of us talked to them.” Branigan didn’t know how to put this delicately. “They weren’t a story until they were killed.”

  “Well, the three of us were friends. We lived on the same hall freshman year. We went through rush together, and we all wanted to pledge Gamma Delta Phi. And we all got in. We were so looking forward to our next few years there. Then we did something stupid. Or I should say I did something stupid.”

  Again Branigan allowed space for the girl to talk.

  “I sneaked two bottles of my parents’ wine back to school after last Christmas. One night in February, Janie Rose and Maylene and I had been studying and decided to take a break. I pulled out those bottles and we pretty much finished them. Then we decided to take a walk around campus.” Mackenzie’s voice took on a wooden quality. Branigan recognized that she was trying to distance herself from something painful. “We ended up on the football field. I had been a gymnast in high school, and they knew it. I guess I talked about it a lot. So I wanted to show off. I took off my shoes and socks, and climbed up the goalpost. That crossbar is six inches wide, two inches wider than the balance beam I was used to. The difference, I guess, is I’d never walked the beam drunk.” Mackenzie’s face reddened. “I did a few scissor leaps. Then I tried a cartwheel. I fell off the goalpost, flat on my back. Which I broke.”

  Branigan was bursting with questions, but she didn’t want to push Mackenzie too hard. “That would’ve been a big story,” Branigan said softly. “But we never heard it from the police. And I don’t think the school knows about it.”

  “I know.”

  “So how did that happen?”

  “I was hysterical. Scared and crying and probably in shock. I insisted that Janie Rose and Maylene drive me to the hospital.”

  Branigan gasped inadvertently. “With a back injury?”

  Mackenzie’s face grew redder still. “I know. I know. Stupid decision on top of stupid decision. But they carried me to the hospital, which helicoptered me to our bigger hospital in Columbia. I was there through April.”

  “Why didn’t you let the school know?”

  “They kept calling,” she conceded. “But I begged my parents not to say anything. I was humiliated. I just wanted to forget I’d ever heard of Grambling, Georgia.”

  Now that the story was out, Mackenzie’s face began to clear a little. “Don’t you see?” she said. “It was all my fault.” For the first time, her eyes locked with Branigan’s. “Are you going to use all this? It’s okay with me now. After all this time.”

  “I imagine so,” Branigan said. “I appreciate how hard it’s been for you to talk about this.”

  She thought for a moment – of Ina Rose Carlton’s suspicion that Janie Rose had been raped; of Maylene’s move into the path of Ralph’s fists. Something didn’t make sense.

  “I understand why you left school,” she said. “But that doesn’t explain why Janie Rose and Maylene left. Were they that distraught over your accident?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said. “Survivor’s guilt and all that. We never talked about it.”

  Branigan didn’t
know how to pose this next question. “Did they think maybe you might not be paralyzed if they’d called an ambulance instead of moving you?”

  Mackenzie kept her eyes on her lap. A tear plopped onto her folded hands. “Yeah, maybe. But I made them do it.”

  “I’m not sure an accident victim is the best one to decide,” Branigan said mildly.

  Again, Mackenzie’s face and throat flushed. “I guess I was pretty persuasive.”

  “Hmm. Well, Mackenzie, I appreciate your talking to me. Can I get you anything else before I go?”

  Mackenzie smiled weakly and shook her head. Branigan felt the young woman’s eyes follow her out.

  She sat in the Civic and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Mackenzie Broadus had had no intention of talking to her. Branigan had met resistance often enough to know it when she saw it. The girl had opened up only upon learning that Janie Rose and Maylene were dead.

  Did learning about their deaths mitigate her fear and allow her to talk? Or did their deaths scare her further?

  For there was one thing Branigan was sure of: Mackenzie Broadus was terrified.

  Branigan pondered her next move. She guessed she’d learned everything she could in Columbia. She watched idly as a gleaming white Porsche Boxster pulled into one of the empty spaces still available in front of the store. A good-looking young man emerged, dipping his head to get out of the car’s confined space. He glanced around, and Branigan stared: he was a male version of Mackenzie Broadus, all dark hair and square jaw and preppy clothes. As he walked into the store, she pulled her Civic into a handicapped space beside Mackenzie’s van so she could see through the store’s plate glass window.

  Sure enough, the young man was bent over Mackenzie, giving her a quick hug around the shoulders, then rubbing a fist over her head. Branigan smiled to herself. If she wasn’t sure he was her brother before, that noogie confirmed it.

  But now Mackenzie was crying, and the young man looked bewildered. He leaned across the table for a moment, still standing, his weight on his hands, listening intently. Suddenly he spun and looked directly through the window, his eyes raking the parking lot. He charged for the door. Branigan swallowed, and got out of her car.

  “I think you’re looking for me,” she called as he flung the store door wide and barreled onto the sidewalk. She held her hand out. “Branigan Powers.”

  His face was flushed and he ignored her hand. His anger seemed to be battling his Carolina upbringing. “You’re a reporter?” he said. “From Grambling?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want with my sister?”

  “Did she tell you that two of her friends from Rutherford Lee have been murdered?”

  He visibly sagged, and the bewildered look Branigan had seen through the window returned.

  “She did. These are the girls who took her to the hospital? I’m more confused than ever.”

  Branigan relaxed slightly. “As are we. Obviously, the murder of two co-eds is a big story in Grambling. I was following up on the coincidence that they – and your sister – all left Rutherford Lee during their freshman year. Your sister filled in a missing piece. But I gotta tell you, I too may be more confused than before.”

  The young man stared at Branigan for another moment, then stuck out his hand. “I’m Tony Broadus. Can you tell me what happened to her friends?”

  “Janie Rose Carlton was run off the road on her way home from her new college for Christmas break. Maylene Ayers was beaten to death with a crowbar outside the Grambling bus station. Her boyfriend was arrested.”

  He frowned. “That sounds pretty random.”

  Branigan looked at him closely. “How much did you know about Mackenzie’s accident?”

  “Just that those three had been drinking and she climbed on a goalpost in the football stadium to do balance beam routines. She fell off and broke her back.” He shrugged. “It kills me – and our mom and dad – to see her in that chair.”

  “What did you think about what happened after the accident?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it sounds like Mackenzie insisted the girls drive her to the hospital rather than call paramedics trained in spinal injuries.”

  “Yeah, a supremely dumb move. Though we try not to say that to her face.”

  Branigan considered how to phrase her next question. “But you don’t – didn’t – blame her friends?”

  Tony Broadus shrugged again. “What good would that do?” He paused. “I mean, I admit I wasn’t happy about it. But they were eighteen-year-old girls. I did some pretty dumb things when I was eighteen. What are you gonna do?”

  He turned his gaze toward the bookstore window. Mackenzie had stopped crying and wasn’t even looking at her brother and Branigan on the sidewalk. Instead, she was staring straight ahead.

  Branigan was silent for a few moments, watching Tony as he watched his sister through the glass. She couldn’t quite make out the look on his face. “What are you gonna do?” he repeated softly.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Charlie and Chan called this day Christmas Eve Eve. Only this year it was something even more special. It was Going Home Eve.

  Charlie had had a lot of visitors as old high school friends came home for the holidays and heard about her wreck. Even her former soccer coach came, along with three high school seniors who’d played on teams with Charlie.

  Now it was nearing dusk, and Maggie Fielding and Jones Rinehart were back. Maggie had brought Christmas cookies her mom had made. When she handed over the tin container, she tapped it deliberately with her left hand. “Oh, what was that noise?” she said.

  Charlie shrieked. “Oh my gosh! Got your rock, did you? Congratulations. You too, Jones.”

  She pushed herself a little higher in the bed. She was happy for her friend. But there was something about the fiancé she wasn’t sure about. He was handsome all right. And friendly. But maybe just a bit too… what? Smooth, maybe?

  “Is Jones spending Christmas with your family?”

  He answered. “Nah, I’m heading to Alexandria tomorrow. But I’ve been at the Fieldings’ a few days.”

  Maggie looked at him adoringly. Maybe that’s it, Charlie thought. Maggie acts different around him. Less assertive. More simpering. Ah well, none of my business.

  Maggie chatted easily for half an hour, asking Chan and Charlie about their freshman semesters. As she and Jones prepared to leave, they invited Chan to join them for the free hot chocolate in the lobby.

  “No, I’d better stay with Charlie,” he said.

  “Go on,” she told him. “I’m fine by myself.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. I’m going to take a nap. And there is a cop at the door.”

  “Well, okay. I’ll go down for a few minutes.”

  With the room finally quiet, Charlie groped for the remote console and turned off the lights, then snuggled as far into the blankets as she could get. Her side was still sore, but there were positions she could manage that were relatively pain-free.

  She drowsed, thinking, or maybe dreaming, about sleeping in her own bed tomorrow night. She could feel the other dream starting, the movement of the Jeep beneath her, when the scrape of a chair beside the hospital bed woke her. Her eyes flew open. Jones Rinehart stood over her.

  “I forgot my phone,” he said, holding it up. But he remained standing by her bed.

  Charlie cleared her throat, hoping it wouldn’t squeak. “Where are Chan and Maggie?”

  “Drinking hot chocolate. It’s a mob down there. Oh, and your policeman got called away. Some traffic pile-up at the mall.”

  Charlie’s heart started pounding.

  “Your pillow looks like it could use a little help,” he said, reaching for it.

  “No, no, it’s fine,” she said, but he ignored her,
grasping the pillow on either side of her head.

  “It looks bunched up. You’ll sleep better if it’s smooth.”

  Charlie’s uninjured hand frantically sought the console under the blankets. Unseeing, she punched every button. A buzzer sounded.

  Jones jumped back. “What was that?”

  “You must’ve hit the Call Nurse button with your elbow. She’ll be right in.”

  His eyes flicked to the bedside rail. “Well, sorry about that. I’d better be going.” He smiled. “You guys have a merry Christmas.” He slipped quickly into the hallway.

  Charlie’s heart continued to pound. A nurse poked her head round the door. “You called, Charlotte?”

  “Yes,” she said weakly. “Can you stay with me just a minute until my brother gets back?”

  Part Two

  Chapter One

  Marjorie raised her beer bottle for a toast: “To Christmas and New Year’s and MLK Day being over for one more damn year!”

  “Here! Here!” the reporters shouted and clinked bottles.

  It was close to midnight on a Friday, the first week of February, and the crew from The Rambler were at Zorina’s. No reporter liked holidays, or the obligatory stories that came with them. This year Branigan was more relieved than usual to be past them. The Christmas egg story and the New Year’s champagne story and the Martin Luther King Day panel discussions were the least of it. Christmas with her family had been cheerless. Oh, they’d tried. She and Mom and Dad had gone to family dinners with both the Powers and Rickman sides. The most normal was Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Bobby’s annual brunch – complete with sausage rolls from their own hog slaughter, Aunt Jeanie’s cream cheese braid, and three of their five children, Branigan’s favorite cousins, home for a few days. The Delaneys had come to that, Charlie in a wheelchair with her leg straight out in front, her arm in a sling, her teeth not yet ready for dental work.

  Branigan’s mom had overdone it on the gifts, especially for her grandson Chan and his sister Charlie, trying to make up for the fact that Davison, Branigan’s twin, was gone and wouldn’t be coming back. Branigan was grateful when December 26 arrived, and she and Cleo could huddle by the fire without seeing anyone.