Bloody Kin Page 15

  According to the log sheets, a C. Bernard had rented a Datsun on the second Friday in October and had turned it back in the following Sunday night.

  It was like scoring a thirty-foot basket at the buzzer, Dwight thought happily. No pom-pom girls, no chanting crowds, only the matronly rental agent to cheer him on; yet, as he headed toward the main lobby to find out how good the airline records were, he felt as if he were taking the ball downcourt for a slam dunk.

  Kate led Rob Bryant to the middle of the remodeled packhouse and gestured with proprietary pleasure. “Voila!”

  The redheaded lawyer had stopped by on his way to an afternoon meeting in Fayetteville, and he’d found Kate superintending the finishing details on her new studio.

  She wore jeans and an oversized green maternity sweater that changed her eyes to green, too. Her shoulder-length brown hair was looped back from her face with a ribbon and her skin was lightly tanned from her daily walks. Despite Lacy’s continued disapproval, Covington’s murder, and the mystery surrounding Jake’s death, these weeks in the country had helped Kate. She was still too thin, but her eyes were clear and her hands were steady. Rob knew that Bessie and his mother were partly responsible. Ever since the two women had decided that “Kate could use some fattening up,” a steady supply of nourishing casseroles and tempting goodies had issued from both kitchens.

  Now the object of their concern pirouetted in a model’s turn and pointed to the large expanse of glass that replaced the north wall. “Isn’t it beautiful, Rob?”

  Her brown hair swung golden in the clear light and her lovely face tilted toward his with such radiance that there was a sudden catch in his emotions.

  Beautiful indeed, he thought; but she was talking about the room of course, so he dutifully examined the tilt-top drawing table, the swivel stool, and the new shelves and counters that would soon be stocked with the tools of her trade. There was a movement in one of the deep cupboards and Rob stooped for a closer look.

  “Boo!” said Mary Pat from her niche, and dissolved into giggles as he jumped back in mock fright.

  A couple of gray kittens skittered along the bare shelf; the other two crouched in her lap.

  A wide ledge had been built under the large window between two sets of counters and Bessie Stewart gave Rob a distracted smile as she measured and jotted her figures on a scrap of paper.

  “Bessie thinks I need a place to nap, so she’s going to make cushions for the window seat,” Kate explained.

  “It’ll do for the baby, too,” said Bessie, ever practical, “Push you a couple of chair backs up real close so he can’t roll out—be just like a playpen.”

  “Tom says I can start moving in this afternoon,” Kate said. “It’s all finished except for wiring the fluorescent fixtures to the fuse box, right, Tom?”

  “And painting the outside,” said Whitley, ducking his head selfconsciously as he knelt on the floor and continued to tack weather-stripping around the under edge of the solid new trapdoor he’d built to replace the broken one.

  The smell of new wood and fresh paint almost overcame the odor of damp tobacco-permeated earth that rose through the opening. Originally, Kate had considered flooring over the entire opening, but matching the wide planks would have been difficult and besides, a trapdoor might be useful if she ever wanted to convert the pit into a proper storage space.

  “You’ve really done a professional job here, Tom,” Rob said, looking down into the pit at the newly-mended steps.

  The outer door to the pit was open down below and sunlight spilled inside, lighting up the gloomy interior. A bundle of old tobacco sticks had been neatly repiled beside some scraps of lumber and Formica left over from the remodeling. Several dusty jugs of cider were grouped on the ground near the back and Aunt Susie, Lacy’s old beagle hound, was nosing among the jugs and jumping back with soft excited little yelps.

  “What’s she found?” asked Rob.

  “One of the kittens?” hazarded Tom Whitley.

  “All my kitties are here,” said Mary Pat, pushing between the two men for a better view.

  Aunt Susie looked at the humans clustered on the stairs and gave a sharper bark.

  “Another mouse,” Kate said with a resigned air. “We’ve caught three already.”

  Rob armed himself with one of the four-foot tobacco sticks and followed Aunt Susie’s lead. He poked behind the cider jug that interested her most, then abruptly jerked the stick back even faster than the dog’s retreat.

  “Snake!” he said hoarsely.

  “Snake?” squealed Kate and hastily fled back up the steps, scooping Mary Pat up in her arms as she went.

  “Where? Where?” said Mary Pat, struggling to see, but Kate was too frightened to let her down.

  All her life, she’d had an instinctive, unreasoning fear of snakes, and the thought of this one’s nearness made her tremble and clutch Mary Pat even tighter.

  “All the banging I’ve done lately probably woke him out of hibernation early,” said Whitley, peering over Rob’s shoulder at the sluggish creature that lay in loose black loops around the cider jugs. “Anybody have a shotgun handy?”

  “What you talking shotgun for?” asked Bessie, who’d come up behind them.

  “You’re right, Bessie,” Rob said. “No point in smashing Lacy’s cider. As slow as he’s moving, I could probably fish him out with a hoe and then chop his head off.”

  Bessie gave a disgusted snort. “Where your eyes at, boy? You been living in Raleigh so long you don’t know a blacksnake from a cottonmouth no more?”

  She looked back up to Kate, who stood well away from the trapdoor opening, still holding Mary Pat. “You don’t need to be afraid of him, honey,” she said reassuringly. “It’s just an old blacksnake. He’ll keep the mice and rats down for you.”

  “Oh, no, please, Bessie!” Kate implored. “Let Rob kill it. I couldn’t bear to know it’s crawling around down there. Please!”

  There was such panic in her voice that Bessie said, “Well, if you’re sure you don’t want him—”

  To Kate’s horrified disbelief, Bessie reached down among the jugs, grasped the snake firmly behind the head and lifted its muscular three-foot length with gentle confidence.

  In her blue print dress and white apron, with sunlight turning her gray hair into spun silver, Bessie turned to them as if it were the most natural thing in the world to have a snake coiled around her arms. “Any tow bags still up there, Kate? He’s too heavy for me to carry like this.”

  Kate looked around wildly for a substitute. “We burned all the trash. Would a paper bag do?”

  “Ah,” came Gordon’s voice from outside the pit door. “I thought I heard voices around here.”

  He started to enter just as Bessie turned. The snake writhed in her arms.

  “Oh my God!” Gordon exclaimed and nearly stumbled over backward in his haste to get out of her way.

  Bessie clicked her tongue impatiently. “You folks beat all I ever seen! He’s scareder of y’all than y’all are of him.”

  The snake was wide-awake now and he did not look scared to Kate. He looked mad enough to bite and she was glad when Bessie gathered her big white apron up into a makeshift sack and dumped the sinuous creature safely inside.

  “Lots of girls don’t like no kind of snake and maybe they’s only poisonous ones out in California,” Bessie said, giving Tom Whitley the benefit of doubt. “But you, Robbie Bryant! You used to catch snakes and lizards, too, when you was little and chase those Gilbert girls all over creation.”

  “Just garter snakes, Bessie,” Rob protested. “I never picked up any rat snakes that big.”

  She didn’t bother to argue with him. “I’ll just step across the road and put him in our barn, Kate. Old Nebuchadnezzar went and got hisself ’lectrocuted in the transformer last fall. Time I thought about fixing Willy his dinner, anyhow.”

  There was a sheepish silence as Bessie’s sturdy little figure struck off on the footpath that led directly thro
ugh the wooded triangle to the Stewart house.

  “I suppose snakes do play some sort of role in the ecological chain,” Kate said doubtfully.

  “I’ve heard they eat a lot of rodents,” said Tom Whitley.

  “It was just seeing one so unexpectedly like that,” said Gordon with an involuntary shudder.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Rob said kindly. “You couldn’t pay me enough money to pick up any kind of snake anymore.”

  “Me neither!” said Mary Pat from her perch atop Gordon’s shoulder.

  CHAPTER 17

  Over a simple lunch of soup and grilled cheese, Sally Whitley listened happily to Tom’s description of the snake discovery. He was in such high spirits that she wished to prolong the mood.

  “Was Mr. Tyrrell scared, too?”

  “Scared? Oh, Sally, you should have seen him trying to get out of the pit once he saw that thing! His feet were still coming in, but his head wanted out. That fancy walking stick got caught in the door and I thought he’d either break it or break his leg before he got everything moving in the right direction!”

  Sally giggled at the picture Tom drew.

  It was not a malicious giggle. Gordon Tyrrell had been courteous and fair in his dealings with them. He did not make unreasonable demands on their time nor burden them with nit-picking duties, but he was still an employer. Their employer. A bit too distant, a little too dignified. It was always amusing to see authority’s dignity ruffled.

  “Mary Pat said she wanted to follow Bessie Stewart home and watch where she put the snake, but Mr. Tyrrell wouldn’t let her,” said Sally.

  Tom had given Tyrrell and Mary Pat a lift back to Gilead in his pickup, and he had heard the warning Tyrrell gave his young niece about touching strange snakes, no matter what Bessie’s example.

  “He’s right, too,” said Tom. “This state has almost every kind of poisonous snake going: copperheads, moccasins, rattlers. When I was at Fort Bragg, one of the guys even found a coral snake. Our sergeant told us that a copperhead would make you good and sick if you didn’t get help right away, but a coral snake could make you good and dead.”

  Sally shivered lightly even though she’d never seen a snake in the wild.

  “Want more soup?” She had brought a potful from the main kitchen to keep hot on the stove in their efficiency kitchen. If pressed for time, they occasionally ate lunch in the staff room; however, they were still so newly-married that both preferred to have their meals alone, together, and Mrs. Faircloth often made something special for “the honeymooners,” as she called them.

  Tom glanced at his watch and shook his head. “No time. Class starts in forty-five minutes, so I’d better hit the road. I may be a little late this afternoon, I told Mrs. Honeycutt I’d pick up a few gallons of exterior paint. She wants me to match that faded red.”

  “Think you can?”

  “No problem.” He took a crumpled card smeared with rosy color from his pocket. “We experimented with some of her inks till we got a good match. I think a bright red would be better, but she knows what she wants. Makes up her mind and sticks to it,” he said admiringly.

  He picked up his books, kissed her, and was off, leaving Sally feeling vaguely diminished. She knew all too well that she dithered, that her firmest decisions were almost always undone by second thoughts.

  She put their dishes in the tiny sink and went to see if Mary Pat had finished lunch.

  In the dining room, she found the little girl toying with a cluster of grapes she obviously didn’t want. Her eyelids looked heavy and she gave a big yawn as Sally appeared.

  “I believe somebody could use a nap,” Gordon Tyrrell smiled.

  “Aren’t we going to walk with Cousin Kate?” The question was half protest.

  “Not today, honey. She’s busy and I have letters to write. You go along with Sally now and rest a little while, all right?”

  “Yes. sir.”

  She slipped down from the silk brocade chair and followed Sally upstairs.

  This was a time Sally enjoyed. She washed the sticky face and hands, untied the shoelaces, and together they chose a storybook. Mary Pat was an affectionate child and she climbed onto Sally’s lap to hear Dr. Seuss’s gentle nonsense. Horton Hatches the Egg was her current favorite; but Sally looked forward to the day when Mary Pat would be old enough for Watership Down or the Tolkien books.

  If they were still here. She had grown so fond of Mary Pat that the thought of ever leaving was a sad one.

  Sally liked to read aloud; and under the spell of the printed page, her normally light voice became firm and dramatic.

  “And it should be, it should be, it SHOULD be like that! Because Horton was faithful! He sat and he sat! He meant what he said and he said what he meant. And they sent him home happy, one hundred percent!”

  “One hundred percent,” Mary Pat echoed with a great sigh of satisfaction that everything had ended happily once again despite the Mayzie-bird threat.

  Impulsively, she turned her lips to Sally’s cheek and gave her a quick kiss. Sally hugged her back and they rocked in comfortable silence for a few minutes. “Sing about Puff,” she murmured sleepily.

  Sally’s voice was thin but true and she turned “Puff the Magic Dragon” into a lullaby. Mary Pat snuggled deeper in her arms and soon fell asleep.

  The chair rocked slowly and Sally began to feel somewhat drowsy herself, but there was something she needed to do; so she carried Mary Pat over to the bed, switched on the intercom, and tiptoed out.

  The stairway just beyond Mary Pat’s door led directly down to a vestibule that separated the kitchen area from the Whitleys’ quarters. Through the closed swinging doors, Sally could hear the television in the staff room.

  This was always a quiet period of the day. After lunch was served and the kitchen put in order, Mrs. Faircloth and the maids usually watched soap operas for an hour or so while they rested.

  For the past two weeks, Sally had dithered over the cedar chest that she’d found in the suitcase. Alone, she had taken out each item and carefully examined it: the torn map, the pictures, the discharge papers, a crumpled brass bullet shell, a carved ivory bead, and half a dozen other bits and pieces of war souvenirs.

  She had sneaked an atlas from the study, but its map of Vietnam was too small to correlate to the damaged terrain map which had neither latitude nor longitude markings.

  The pictures were only a little better. There were names on the backs, so she could pick out which was the dead man and even though Mr. Tyrrell was clean-shaven and his brother had worn a mustache, she could see a resemblance about the eyes and the tilt of his head, enough to identify which was James Tyrrell. The other man, taller and really good-looking, must be Mrs. Honeycutt’s husband.

  It gave Sally goose pimples to realize that those pictures had been taken only twelve or thirteen years ago and now all of them were dead. All except the slender boyish figure that stood off to one side and squinted in the sunlight as if he were too shy to push in with the other men.

  They had called him Kid and he looked so incredibly young that she couldn’t understand how the army could have let him enlist. Of the four, he would have changed the most over the years. The bones would have tightened, the face firmed into manhood. He probably looked nothing like this picture now.

  Was that why she couldn’t decide what to do? Was it because she honestly didn’t think these pictures would help the sheriff locate the boy, or because she’d have to tell how and where she had found the chest? She couldn’t do that without first asking Tom why he had taken it from James Tyrrell’s trunk and hidden it in their dilapidated old suitcase.

  And she couldn’t bring herself to ask him.

  For the past week, the suitcase had been stuffed under their bed, unnoticed by Tom and untouched by her, while she tried to make up her mind about it.

  Sometimes, she thought, not deciding could be a decision.

  Now, while the house was quiet and Mary Pat’s curious eyes were closed in
sleep, she would take the suitcase back up to the attic and put it where she had found it. Next week, she could casually tell Tom it would soon be time for summer shorts and swimsuits. Together, they would bring the suitcase down and maybe then he would confide in her, tell her what it was about Vietnam that still festered inside him.

  When she turned the knob, a sudden draft caught the door as cool air whistled through the rooms. Her first thought was that Tom had rushed back for a forgotten book or paper and hadn’t closed the outer door properly.

  Her second thought was that he’d been awfully messy about trying to find whatever he’d misplaced. Then, with a shock much colder than the mild spring air swirling around her, she realized that someone else, not Tom, had pulled out all their drawers, tumbled his books on the floor, and plundered the closets.

  Mom’s earrings!

  Her jewelry was department store quality except for her wedding band and a pair of ruby and pearl earrings which was all she had left of her mother.

  Her father wasn’t wealthy, but he liked to give jewelry and the earrings had been a special gift to mark Sally’s birth. After her mother died two years ago, he had promptly remarried a woman who took possession of everything except those earrings. Her father insisted that Sally should have them even though his new wife sulked for a week.

  With sinking heart, Sally rushed into the bedroom and found an even greater mess. Her jewelry box was upside down on her dresser and, yes, the earrings were gone.

  A wave of nausea swept over her. For a moment, she felt as if she would either faint or throw up; then the mists cleared and she saw that the thief had pulled the old suitcase from its hiding place under the bed.

  It took only another moment to confirm that the little cedar chest was missing, too.

  A dozen possibilities raced through her mind and were immediately blotted out by the knowledge that she couldn’t raise an alarm until that suitcase was safely back in the attic. No one must know about it. Not even Torn.