“I do have my own agenda,” Chris said after a minute, shrugging. “It just doesn’t have a whole lot to do with yours. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you and my grandfather battle it out to the bitter end. Still not quite sure who I’ll put my money on, just don’t want to get caught in the fall-out.”
“So you’re hedging your bets. Riding the wheel until you know which way to place.”
“Something like that. Seems to work for others.”
“Yeah? Let me know how it works for you.”
“Oh, I will.” Chris looked like he was about to say something else, then changed his mind. He turned around and walked away, and Chantry had the distinct feeling that he’d missed out on something important.
He found out just how much influence Quinton had the next day. Doc got a phone call from the university. They wanted a detailed report on Chantry, said it had to do with his exams. It didn’t matter that Doc gave them what they wanted in spades. Chantry got furious.
When he started for the clinic door, Doc stopped him. “Let it go, Chantry. He’s just doing his best to yank your dick. If you let Quinton know he got you, he’ll do it again.”
“He’ll do it again anyway.”
“Probably. But why give him the satisfaction of a reaction?”
That was true. Chantry let it go for now. Doc was right. What could he do besides give Quinton even more reason to go after him? Not that he needed any more reason. Hell, he’d been thinking about it for years, now he was here and he still hadn’t done anything besides go out to Six Oaks and come away empty-handed. It was time he went on the offensive.
In a few days, when his face didn’t look so bad anymore and he could move without pain shooting through his ribs like a knife, he drove back out to Six Oaks. This time, he waited until he knew Quinton was gone, over in Tunica at the Silver Dollar. That’d been easy enough to find out. One of the clinic clients worked there, had mentioned while he treated her dog for eczema that she dreaded Fridays because Quinton always spent the day at the casino looking over operations.
It was the same Friday he was supposed to go to Tansy’s show at the Grand Isle. His face still looked pretty battered; the bruises had yellowed, but his eye had healed and the swelling in his mouth had gone down so he guessed he didn’t look too scary to show up. Besides, Tansy would probably come after him if he didn’t keep his promise to be there.
When he parked his car in front of Six Oaks, he wasn’t even sure this would work, or that he’d get in. Quinton could have meant it when he’d said he wouldn’t be welcome anymore. Right now, it was worth a try.
The maid let him in, told him that Mr. Quinton was out until late that afternoon, looked a bit flustered when he asked if Mrs. Quinton was in.
“Mrs. Quinton? You mean Miss Laura? Why . . . no, she’s not here. It’s her regular week for treatment—she won’t be back until Sunday. Shall I leave a message for you?”
“No. No message.” He paused, then said, “She’s still going to Parkwood for treatment, isn’t she?”
“Why—yes. I heard that name mentioned.”
He nodded. Parkwood had been a hunch. A lucky guess. Close enough for easy travel, far enough away from Quinton County to keep rumors at bay. Desoto County was an hour and a half away. He could still get there and back in plenty of time to get to Tunica for Tansy’s show.
Set in gentle wooded hills, Parkwood was right off the main drag in Olive Branch, not far from a Walmart Superstore, close to a main highway out of Memphis. Patients there were treated for some mental illnesses, drug addictions, and alcohol abuse. It was probably a toss-up which malady was the illness of the week for Laura Quinton. She seemed to have a fair share of each.
Sometimes he thought about Chris when he’d come out to get his mother that time, how he hadn’t even looked anywhere but at her, so gentle with her and patient despite the fact he had to be embarrassed and upset. It hadn’t shown in the way he dealt with her. That was the only time he’d seen them together, but he’d heard Colin Quinton yelling at Chris, sounding so much like Rainey that he’d realized then money didn’t really make a person better, just better-dressed. And he’d begun to understand what Chris and Mama meant when they’d said money didn’t solve all of life’s problems. An illuminating discovery for a fifteen year old boy.
The receptionist behind the desk in the glassed office had him sign in, then called back to check to see if Mrs. Quinton was allowed all visitors. Some were, some weren’t, for while there was a restricted juvenile side, the adults were pretty much like regular hospital patients. After a few minutes, someone came out to show him to the cafeteria, a bright room with plastic chairs and long tables and a few vending machines on one wall opposite a closed serving line.
Laura Quinton already sat at one of the tables, watching the door. She didn’t seem to be at all surprised to see him. He bought her a coke from the vending machine, sat opposite her, not quite sure where to start. She smiled.
“I know why you’re here.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You’ve decided it’s time at last to learn some secrets. I knew you’d come. I just didn’t know when. Or if you’d wait too late.” Her head tilted to one side and she stared at him with intense attention like a bright-eyed bird. “Your poor face. People are afraid of you. You don’t give up easy. Not like my Chris. He tries . . . but he knows too much. That can be a curse. It’s not always wise to know things about others. Things that can destroy them. Because then those same secrets can destroy you, too. Are you sure you want to know?”
He stared at her. Hell no, he wasn’t sure, but he knew he was slowly self-destructing by not knowing. It was a toss-up which way it’d go. Doing something was better than doing nothing. He’d learned that lesson from Mama. She’d done nothing and ended up dead because of it.
“Yeah. I want to know.”
Laura smiled, one of those slow, spooky smiles that made his muscles go tight and his belly clench. Her voice was soft, silky, a bare whisper of sound. “He’ll know you came to see me. He’ll ask me questions. He’ll be so angry. And so afraid. I like it when he is. It seems only fair.”
This was crazy. She was crazy. He must be crazy too, or he’d never have come here. She talked in circles, like some mad old dame from one of the Gothic novels he’d had to study in high school and college. It was even more disturbing that she didn’t look crazy. She looked like a pale version of Chris, her blonde hair caught back on her neck, her skin almost translucent so that he could see blue veins in her hands and arms and face, the white satin gown and robe she wore only strengthening the impression of a ghost.
“I met Colin in California,” she said suddenly, “and fell in love with him before my first semester at Berkeley ended. He seemed so . . . tragic. Lonely. Aloof and distant and flawed. Maybe like draws like, do you suppose? Ah well. We married before he told his father about us. I didn’t know then about Bert Quinton. Not until we moved to Cane Creek right after graduation. By then, I had Chris on the way. A Quinton heir. That made things better. Not good, just . . . better. Colin worked so hard, long hours doing whatever his father told him, jumping each time that whip cracked . . . it was so boring with nothing to do but deal with some of those feather-headed delta mamas.”
She paused, drank some of her coke, and Chantry could almost see the dark liquid wash down her throat as she swallowed. He kept quiet, let her tell things in her own way, whatever she wanted to tell. Getting impatient wouldn’t help.
She talked of the early days in Cane Creek, her loneliness, how even after Chris arrived she had nothing in common with the closed circle of Cane Creek matriarchs, not even her sister-in-law, Cinda’s mother. Nights were the worst, when Colin was away on some errand for his father, and she took to wandering the darkened house late at night. That’s how she heard secrets, by being in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Cara was there the first night we got there, talking to her fathe
r. I heard her complaining about Colin when she thought we’d gone upstairs. Then she started in about Ted. She said something had to be done. If it got out . . . if it got out about the baby, they’d never be able to hold up their heads in Cane Creek again.”
Ted. Chantry remembered that conversation with Chris when he’d gone out to Six Oaks to demand he do right by Tansy. The portrait on the wall . . . Tansy’s real father. The son and brother no one ever mentioned anymore, that he hadn’t even known existed until that night. The forgotten relative.
“Ted is Tansy’s father,” he said, and Laura smiled.
“Yes. Colin’s brother.” Laura laughed suddenly, sounding a little shrill. Chantry stared at her. “But Ted—Ted always knew where he stood. Never had any illusions about it. If he was still here, he’d be close to fifty now, I suppose.”
“So where is Ted?” Chantry couldn’t keep from asking, and Laura got a crafty little look in her eyes.
“Don’t know. No one knows. Some say he left after an argument with his father.”
“And what do you say?” he asked when she paused.
“I say he went for a swim and never came back. That he’s still swimming.”
That made no sense. He stared at her, a little frustrated, wondering how this related to him and his mother or if it was just family history that too many people knew and no one cared that much about anymore.
“So what happened that night Chris went to the hideout and you were arrested?” she said suddenly, switching subjects so rapidly that he had to think a minute, “I’ve often wondered if it started then or later.”
“The hideout—you mean the Hideaway?”
“Yes. That’s it. That place on the backwash. It’s closed now. Fallen in on itself. Ruined, like so many other things. Chris went there to see her, didn’t he?”
She knew about Tansy. It wasn’t his secret to discuss, so he didn’t say anything, just sat there for a minute not knowing what to say. She seemed to understand, because she nodded.
“Yes. I like that about you. You can be trusted. That’s rare. So many people can’t be, you know. Even those who love you. They may want to be loyal, want to do what’s right, but then it gets hard and they do what’s easy instead.” She leaned forward, fixed him with an intent gaze. “I know the truth.”
“About my mother?”
She sat back. “Carrie Callahan. So young when she came here, so pretty and elegant and nice. I thought maybe we could be friends. We would have been, perhaps, but Bert didn’t approve, said we weren’t in the same class.” Her laugh was sudden and loud again. “He was right. Carrie was far above us. You’re so like her. It’s the eyes. I’ve heard it said the eyes are a window to the soul. Sometimes . . . sometimes I look in the mirror and mine are just blank. Like no one lives inside. Like the house is empty. That frightens me. Then I think that I have to save myself, have to tell someone . . . or I’ll go mad.”
Too late, he thought, looking at her, at the fear twisting her face. Maybe all this was just a fabrication, the sordid facts of an old family warped into something much larger than it was in her mind. The prodigal son was an ancient tale, Ted’s desertion of Cane Creek and his father more sad than mystery. A rift between them because he’d gotten Tansy’s mother Julia pregnant, a liaison with a black woman forbidden in his world. Quinton wouldn’t be the first father to disinherit a son.
It was vaguely disappointing. He’d expected—something momentous. Something to use against Bert Quinton, at the very least. Something about his mother, a clue to why she’d not left Cane Creek. He’d wanted facts. Not unpleasant history.
“Bert’s a wizard,” Laura said suddenly. “Rainey knew. Did you know?”
Okay, now she was getting a little too far out. He shook his head, looked around for an attendant. Maybe it was time for her medication. An end to this. Then Laura reached out and put a hand on his arm, fingers cool and holding with surprising strength to his wrist. Her voice was low, urgent.
“A grand wizard.”
It took a moment, then he understood. Flashes came to him, men in white sheets, burning crosses, Rainey’s frequent disappearances . . . Jesus.
“The Klan?”
She stood up. “Come back tomorrow. I have to decide . . . I’m tired. My head hurts. Will you come back?”
“Yeah. I’ll be back. Are you okay?”
A wan smile briefly flashed. “It’s just that it makes my head ache so to remember things. I know . . . things I shouldn’t. Maybe . . . maybe I should tell you so they’ll go away. Do you think it will make the secrets go away, Chantry?”
“No,” he said after a moment, “they won’t ever go completely away. But maybe sharing will make them bearable.”
She looked at him a moment, then nodded. “I knew I could trust you to understand. No false promises, no false hope. But the truth shall set us free, right? That’s what I’ve heard all my life. We’ll see if it’s true.”
He didn’t tell her that sometimes the truth came with chains that weighed too heavily to set anything or anyone free. Sometimes the truth just made the prison walls higher.
CHAPTER 34
Tansy’s show was at eight, and he got to the Grand Isle at seven, like she’d said. Dempsey had come earlier to browse the buffet, and greeted him in the spacious room furnished with plush chairs and round tables. They had reserved seats, their table so close to the stage they could touch the performers if they just stood up.
“Dang if she didn’t do right by us, boy,” Dempsey said, looking pleased. “It’s sold out, they tell me. All four shows. Casino wants her to extend her contract and she’s thinkin’ about it.”
“Do you go to many of her shows?”
Dempsey shook his head. “Never seen one. She ain’t never come back here before to sing. I guess there’s a right time for ever’thing, huh, Chantry?”
Yeah, he supposed so. Maybe it was the right time for Tansy. He just wasn’t sure if it was the right time for him to be here. He couldn’t stop thinking about Laura Quinton and what she’d said. It made sense. Things clicked into place, Rainey’s frequent absences from home, his odd affiliation with old man Quinton . . . the mutual disdain for anyone not a WASP, Chris Quinton’s need to hide his love for Tansy from his grandfather. Hell, if the old man was in the Klan, he sure as hell wouldn’t want his grandson to be in love with Julia’s daughter. It made him wonder about Ted Quinton. How had he dealt with his father’s hatred of blacks? He’d ignored it enough to get Julia pregnant with Tansy. But was it for love or vengeance? Not that it mattered. It’d happened.
Damn, it was hard to keep his mind on the show when he had all these questions running through his head, hard to think of anything else since he’d left Parkwood. Laura Quinton had just given him the key to Quinton’s destruction if he could figure out how to use it. If he was into politics it would have been simple enough, but Quinton had never aspired to office himself, only to buying those elected. That way he held several offices at the same time and all over the state. It beat tying himself to just one position. He could own a judicial seat in Quinton County and a senate seat in Washington at the same time. He was police chief, judge, city attorney, and mayor while he also held influence in the state capitol as well as the nation’s capitol. Why settle for one when he could have all?
And he held a high office in one of the most notorious organizations to ever bedevil the South, begun after the end of the Civil War when reconstructionists ground Mississippi into the dirt with taxes and stringent laws, when soldiers returned home to find family lands confiscated and their families starving, when Carpetbaggers swarmed to buy land cheap and sell it for top dollar. Maybe at first the Klan really had been intended to wrest back some form of control from lawless, conquering invaders, but it had been quickly distorted into something ugly and evil. Good men abandoned it; the scourge remained behind, men intent upon vengeance instead of justice. Intent upon persecution instead of salvation. No one would ever know for certain what the originato
rs of the Klan had intended, though a lot had been written about possible motives, some even by the men themselves. Whichever, it hardly mattered now. The Ku Klux Klan was synonymous with hate and racial prejudice. Yeah, he could see Rainey as a member, and see Quinton as a leading member. But how did that apply now?
There was so much he didn’t know. There were things Dempsey would know. It wasn’t the right time, but when it was, he’d ask those questions.
Tansy put on a hell of a show. After the warm-up act left the stage, lights dimmed and the stage went completely dark. In the tiny glow of the candle in the middle of their table, Chantry could see Dempsey’s pained expression. Apparently, he hadn’t much enjoyed the warm-up band. Then Tansy came on-stage to pulsing music, high-energy dancers behind her, lights flashing.
Dempsey sat back, blinking at his daughter dressed in a slinky outfit more along the lines of what Madonna might wear than a choir girl. The skirt was made of some shiny, glittery red stuff, cut into thin strips to wave around her legs, while the top was short, wound around her torso like the elastic bandages Chantry wore to bind his ribs. Slivers of bare skin peeked through, her long legs were bare and she wore high heels made of the same kind of stuff Dorothy had worn in the Wizard of Oz movie. Tansy’s hair was done up high on her head, with lots of streamers left free to brush against her shoulders and frame her face.
“I thought she was going to sing some gospel,” Dempsey muttered with a glance at him, and Chantry just shrugged.
There was nothing Sunday School about her performance. The first song was apparently one that had hit it big on the charts because it was greeted with enthusiastic applause and loud yells. Chantry didn’t recognize it, but he didn’t pay that much attention to what was popular, just listened to the radio in his car. Immediately after the first song, she tuned it down a bit, went into a slow, sultry tune that was also greeted with recognition from the audience. Lights dimmed, she let her voice go into what Chantry did remember, that throaty, husky power that could soar clean up to the sky, so pure and emotional that the lyrics didn’t matter. He could just ride that voice to heaven.
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