by Tim Downs
“Sorry for what?”
“For the way things have to be right now. She’d just love to tell everyone about you, but news like this would be very distracting just before an election. She hopes you understand.”
“I do—of course I do. I know Victoria can’t have an old sow like me around—that’s why I did what I did. I only wanted her to know, that’s all.”
“She also wants you to know how sad she is.”
“Sad? Why is she sad?”
“She feels cheated. It’s like she said in her speech today: She didn’t get to grow up here. Now she meets you and she feels like she missed out on even more. She has no photographs, no mementos—she feels like her entire childhood is one big blank.”
“I have plenty of photographs. She can see them anytime she wants.”
“She told me all about the wonderful scrapbook you put together for her. I sure wish I’d had a chance to see it. I wonder—is there any chance I could take a look?”
“I’d be more than happy,” Agnes said. “You come with me.”
Riddick followed Agnes into the small room off the lobby and watched as she unlocked the lower drawer and pulled out the leather-bound scrapbook. He noted the drawer’s location and looked at the lock; it was a simple single-tumbler device that any moron with a bobby pin could pick. He looked at his watch. Closing time, Grandma—time to go home so I can get to work.
He watched over her shoulder while Agnes turned the pages, showing him the photographs, the birth records, the adoption papers. He shook his head in amazement and grinned from ear to ear. Poor Victoria, he thought. Looks like you’re not the purebred you thought you were—no wonder you just about had a coronary today. Poor little Victoria—or should I say, poor little Beulah? Given away by her own mother to a family on the other side of the tracks. Hey, who says you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? Your folks sure did. Man—what would happen if the wrong people got their hands on this? Can you imagine, Victoria? ’Cause I sure can.
“This is just wonderful,” Riddick said. “Are these documents originals?”
“Every last one.”
“I don’t suppose you have any copies? I’d love to surprise Victoria with them—I know she’d die to have them.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t. These things can never leave this room.”
“I understand completely.”
“Would you like to see the other scrapbook too?”
Riddick looked at her. “What scrapbook is that?”
“Victoria left in such a hurry, I never got to show it to her.” She bent down to the drawer again and pulled out a second scrapbook almost equal in size to the first. She set it in front of Riddick and began to turn the pages.
Riddick threw back his head and laughed.
“How’s it goin’ at the Patriot Center, Elgin?”
Sheriff ’s deputy Elgin Tate swiveled around on his barstool and looked at the table behind him. “Evenin’, Mr. Decker—didn’t see you sit-tin’ there.”
“Thought I’d stop off for a quick one on the way home.”
“Haven’t seen you here before.”
“First time. Good crowd—looks like a popular place. I asked where all the sheriff ’s deputies go after work—cops always know the best watering holes. Can I buy you one?”
“I was just about to head home to the wife.”
Decker pushed out the chair across from him with his foot. “Sit for a minute. Don’t make me drink alone.”
“Just one then.” Elgin moved from the crowded bar to the table.
“So how was your day?”
“No complaints.”
“What’s new at the Patriot Center? Find any more bodies?”
“Nah. Looks like four is all there is—now they’re just haulin’ up all those coffins.”
“I bumped into that bug man up in Endor. What a character.”
“Nick? Real smart fella—a little strange, though.”
“Did you get a look at those glasses of his? Spooky.”
“He puts in a long day’s work, I’ll give him that. I’m usually there before sunup, and sometimes Nick’s already there.”
“I did a little interview with him this evening. He says he thinks that cadaver dog woman might be dead.”
“He said that?”
“Not directly, but he sure hinted at it. Do you think it’s possible?”
“It’s a little early to think that. Did Nick say why?”
“Let me run a theory by you. See what you think of this: Suppose somebody saw Marge on the evening news admitting that she found all those graves. Suppose somebody saw that interview—somebody who didn’t want any more graves to be found—so they killed her. What do you think?”
“I think it would be a real shame. Marge didn’t find those graves.”
“What?”
“Nah—that dog of hers couldn’t smell fish in a bucket.”
“But she said she did.”
“Nah. She was just wishin’ real hard.”
“Then who found the graves?”
“The witch.”
“Who?”
“Yep—saw her drivin’ out one mornin’ just as I was pullin’ in. Musta worked all night. Nick was there—he could tell you.”
“Did you say witch?”
“The Witch of Endor. The woman’s got powers; she can talk to animals; she can raise the dead.”
Decker looked at him for a long time before he finally waved to the bartender. “Let’s get you that drink,” he said.
27
Victoria sat down on the plush rolled-arm settee, slid off her black-and-silver Giuseppe Zanottis, and slowly massaged her heels. She looked at her closet, which spanned one entire wall of the dressing room. She tossed the shoes onto the closet floor and watched them tumble to a stop. She looked at all the other pairs of shoes—dozens of them—perfectly aligned heel-to-heel and toe-to-toe on their own little slanted shelves. She wondered who put them away every morning; she wondered who picked up all the dresses and blouses and slips she left hanging from chairs and doorknobs every night.
Beulah.
The name kept haunting her—she couldn’t get it out of her mind. Twice that afternoon she had turned and looked, imagining that someone had whispered the name behind her—but there was no one there.
Beulah.
She began to undress, then stopped and looked at herself in the closet mirror. She stood up a little straighter; she turned her head from side to side and looked at her cheekbones and jawline. She lifted her chin and patted the skin of her throat with the back of her hand.
She felt numb—the kind of aching emptiness you feel after fear and panic have left you dry. She kept thinking about Agnes—about her mother—and she couldn’t bear to put the two thoughts together. She thought about the scrapbook again—the photographs, the birth certificate, the adoption papers signed by the only parents she ever knew. She kept wondering if it could somehow be a mistake—a joke—a ploy—but the look on the old woman’s face told her it was all true. She tried to imagine her first six months of life in some trashy trailer park in Endor— she couldn’t do it. She remembered lying in bed as a little girl, feeling a proud sense of destiny as she imagined her noble ancestors—and it was all just a fiction compiled by a librarian with no husband and no future. She felt robbed—she felt raped—as though a part of her own soul had been stolen.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the bedroom door; she pulled on a robe and wrapped the belt around her waist. Halfway across the bedroom, the door opened slightly and her husband slipped his head inside.
“Darling? A word?”
“Come on in, John.”
The senator stepped into the bedroom and shut the door quietly behind him. He was dressed in a crisp cotton bathrobe with wide lapels and square-cut shoulders that looked good enough to hold a press conference in. He was clean shaven as always—the senator always shaved twice a day to avoid that incriminating Nixon shado
w. His hair was neatly combed and fixed, and it occurred to her that she had almost never seen his hair mussed—as though the wind was somehow cooperating with his press agent. She glanced down at his legs and noticed a sharp crease in his pin-striped pajamas. Starched pajamas—something really bothered her about that, and she wasn’t quite sure what it was. She tried to remember if it had always bothered her, but she couldn’t.
“What’s this I hear about Endor?” the senator asked.
She felt a cold jolt in her gut. “What do you mean?”
“I hear you’re planning to move there.”
“What?”
He grinned. “From what they tell me, every living soul in town fell in love with you today—one man can’t hope to compete with that.”
She let out a breath. “That’s not funny, John.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“It was a long day, that’s all.”
He walked to the end of the bed and sat down. “I caught your speech. I thought it was perfect. Was that Evan’s work?”
“He wrote the rough draft—I added a few touches of my own.”
“I thought so. I can always tell. So what did you think of your hometown?”
“A grimy little backwater with no economy and substandard housing and education—I wish we could bulldoze the place so we could save the tax dollars on infrastructure. The mountains are full of these little hovels.”
“Not exactly a glowing assessment.”
“But fair.”
“Still, I think you were right to go there. You got a lot of good press coverage today—and those are cameras that weren’t at the Patriot Center. You met a lot of people too, and every one of them is in our back pocket now.”
You met a lot of people, she thought—but she could only remember one.
The senator smiled. “So you won’t be moving home just yet?”
“I told you, that’s not funny. Look, I was just about to take a bath— is there something you need?”
“Just wanted to check in. I don’t see a lot of you these days.”
“Well, the schedule’s pretty tight.” She walked to the door and opened it, then turned to him and waited.
He nodded and got up from the bed; in the doorway he stopped and looked at her. “I just don’t want us to end up like some of the others,” he said. “You know—holding hands but leaving fingernail marks.”
“Thanks, I’ll add it to the agenda.”
He turned to leave but she stopped him; she leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. “Some other time,” she whispered.
She shut the door firmly behind him.
She walked into the bathroom and twisted both handles on the Jacuzzi, sending a torrent of water cascading into the deep white basin. She almost felt sorry for Johnny—almost. She wasn’t naive enough to believe that the junior senator from Virginia had simply fallen in love with her eight years ago; he was an ambitious man and it wasn’t that easy. John Henry Braden saw in her the same things the cameras saw: beauty, grace, and poise. He needed those things—not to fill his soul but his ticket. She wasn’t angry or resentful, because she knew in her heart that she had struck the same bargain. Johnny was a handsome man, a successful man, but he was empty: a beautiful package that had nothing inside—at least, nothing that called to her. They were just two images that complemented each other well; two faces that voters could remember; two travelers on a journey to the same place.
But now everything had changed. She wasn’t the woman Johnny thought she was; she no longer filled out the image—and she wondered what would happen if he ever found out. She felt sick to her stomach; she didn’t understand what was going on inside of her. This morning she’d felt no need to be loved by John Henry Braden—but this evening she did.
She slipped off her bathrobe and let it drop to the floor—then she heard the bedroom door open and close again.
“Johnny?”
There was no answer.
She shut off the water and listened.
“Johnny, it’s been a long day.”
Still no answer.
She put the robe back on and cinched it tight. She walked to the bathroom door and poked her head around the corner; there was Chris Riddick, sprawled out on her chaise lounge with a grin on his face and his hands folded behind his head.
She charged into the bedroom. “How dare you come into my private quarters without my permission!”
“Nice outfit,” he said. “A little casual, but then I suppose this is an unscheduled meeting.”
“Get out of here!”
“Or what—you’ll call your chief of security? I’m already here.”
“You’re fired. I want you out of this house in ten minutes.”
He just looked at her and smiled.
She ran her fingers up the front of her bathrobe and closed the neckline a little. “I’ll call my husband—he was here just a minute ago.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you—Beulah.”
She sank down on the edge of the bed.
“You never have understood my job,” he said. “I sure hope you pay more attention to the Secret Service than you do to me. See, my job is security: I walk into a room before you do; I keep people from getting too close; and I never, ever allow you to meet with a stranger alone—even if you want to. It’s just too dangerous; you never can tell what a stranger might do—or say. So what I do is stand right outside the door—that way I can listen in and make sure nothing goes wrong. See?”
She nodded.
“It’s a thankless job, believe me. There are lots of things I do that you probably aren’t even aware of. When you spilled coffee on your dress the other day, who drove home and got you another one? I did. When you broke a heel on your way up the Capitol steps, who ran over to the Old Post Office Pavilion and bought you another pair? I did. And when that sweet old woman at the Endor Library showed you all those nice pictures and you ran off like your hair was on fire, who went back to say thank you?” He grinned. “I did.”
“What do you want?”
“The same thing as always: security.” He reached over and picked up a large manila envelope from the floor. “Family records are precious,” he said. “You of all people should know that. What if there was a fire? You could lose everything: baby pictures, birth certificates—everything. The smart thing to do is to make copies.” He tossed the envelope; it landed beside her on the bed.
She opened the envelope and took out the copies.
“Convenient place, a library—it has a copier and everything. You can do whatever you want with those. I’ve got plenty more.”
She tossed the envelope aside. “Okay, you know. Now what?”
“Beulah,” he said with a grin. “It didn’t grab me at first, but it kind of grows on you. I can see it embroidered on a bowling shirt, or maybe tattooed on some auto mechanic’s forearm.”
“What do you want, Chris?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Just what I asked for before: a job with a salary, that’s all. And—”
“And what?”
“I think I deserve benefits too, don’t you? That’s what I want: a salary plus benefits.”
“What kind of benefits?”
“The personal kind. The kind I had before.”
“Chris—”
“That’s not asking so much, is it? I mean, it’s not like I’m asking for something new—they were voluntary benefits a couple of years ago. That’s all I want, Vic: my old job back. You give me a salary plus benefits, and I give you security. You’ll never have to worry about the rest of those copies and where they might turn up.”
She stared at him for a long time before she finally said, “No.”
“No?”
“Do whatever you want with them. Sell them to the Post or the Times—I don’t care.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“I can survive this. Think it over, Chris—this isn’t about me, it
’s about something that happened to me when I was just a kid. It makes me look better, not worse: Look how I started out—look at the adversity I’ve had to overcome—that’s the way we’ll spin it. Show everybody the copies if you want to; you’ll be doing me a favor. Hey, I might even show them myself.”
“And what will John Boy think?”
She hesitated for just an instant. “He’ll get over it. He’ll have to. He needs me to reach the White House; he’ll never do it without me.”
“But think of the humiliation,” Riddick said. “Beautiful Victoria Braden is really Beulah what’s-her-name. I didn’t catch the last name, did you? Oh, that’s right—you don’t really have one. Momma isn’t sure who Daddy was.”
“It’s Braden,” she said. “That’s the only name I need.”
“What about all that ‘good breeding’ you always talk about? What about your membership in the Mayflower Society and the Colonial Dames of America? I don’t think they take trailer trash, do you?”
“They need me more than I need them.”
He just looked at her.
“Is that all you’ve got, Chris? Was that your best shot? Then we’re done here—pack your bags and get out.”
He nodded. “That’s pretty much what I thought you’d say. You’re a smart girl, Vic—it’s one of the things I like about you. You know what you want and you know how to get it—and you don’t let anything get in your way. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I wasn’t surprised to find out where you really came from.”
“No?”
“It explains a lot about you. You’ve got the survival instincts of a pit bull, and somehow I never thought that came over on the Mayflower. You’re right, you can survive this—you’d rather not face all the embarrassment, but it wouldn’t stop you. I never thought it would.” He reached down to the floor again; he picked up a second manila envelope and set it in his lap, then looked at Victoria.
She glanced down at the envelope.
“A salary,” Riddick said, “plus benefits.”
“Never.”
He smiled. “You know, you left that library awfully fast this afternoon. You must have had a lot on your mind—you didn’t even see me standing by the door. You probably didn’t hear Momma calling after you either—she kept saying, ‘Wait! I have more to show you!’ I thought she just meant there were more pages in the scrapbook, but I was wrong—there was a second scrapbook. Shame on you, Victoria— your momma made a whole scrapbook for you, and you didn’t even bother to open it.” He tossed the envelope onto the bed. “You should have. You really don’t understand your family history until you do.”