Bloody Kin Read online

  Gordon resumed his seat on the couch and stared into the flames.

  “I remember dinner on the terrace the evening before. James and the Harknesses were spending a few days with us and Cyrus Dickerson called and invited us to go sailing the next day. It was a ninety-footer, teak deck—beautiful thing. Crew of three. The Harknesses loved messing about in boats. Jill’s father was one of the stewards at Newport.

  “And I can remember someone saying ‘red skies in the morning’ because the sun came up a bit pink, but after that, it’s all a blank. Concussion does that, I’m told. Erases the most recent memories.

  “There was a McDermott woman, Cyrus’s friend, who filled me in on the actual squall—the lines tangled and the mast snapped before they could reef the mainsail. It was total confusion, she said, and she doesn’t recall the exact sequence of events or even who was where. One of the crew members survived, too, but his memory’s just as spotty.”

  “Is it important?” Kate asked gently.

  “Yes, it is rather. You see, Kate,” he said apologetically, “I don’t know if I was a hero or a coward. How did I manage to save myself and not save Elaine or my brother?”

  “No Tyrrell could ever be a coward,” said Kate and it was, miraculously, the right thing to say.

  Gordon gave her a grateful smile and they began to speak of Kate’s plans to remodel the packhouse.

  “Unless you have someone specific in mind, you’re welcome to use Tom Whitley,” he offered.

  “Doesn’t Gilead keep him busy?”

  “When summer comes, it probably will. Just mowing the lawns takes two full days as I recall, but most of the farm’s leased and there’s little grounds work right now. He’s supposed to be quite handy with a hammer and saw, and I gather they could use the extra money.”

  “Are the Whitleys local?”

  “No, California, I think. Ever since Patricia died, Gilead’s caretakers have been State University kids, so I assume Whitley was recommended through the school’s financial aid office and Rob Bryant vetted him for the trustees. In fact, Rob staffed the whole place when I told him Mary Pat and I were coming back to Gilead. Then at the last minute, the Mexican nursemaid balked at coming north, so Sally stepped into the breach. It was supposed to be temporary, but Mary Pat’s taken to her, and the doctor says we shouldn’t introduce any more change than is absolutely necessary.”

  “Miss Emily mentioned Mary Pat’s trouble,” Kate said.

  “She’s getting better. Fewer nightmares. But she still believes things can change their appearances overnight.”

  “Like the kitten,” said Kate.

  “Kitten?”

  “That’s how she came to be with me when I found the body. Lacy gave her a kitten and she brought it back because she said her kitten had white feet and that one’s feet were different. They all look the same to me.”

  “They probably are,” Gordon sighed. “At Christmas, I—or rather Santa Claus—gave her some bedroom slippers shaped like little rabbits. She loved them. Wore them all day long for three days, then got up on the fourth morning and declared they weren’t the same bunnies. Their spots were different, she said, and since then she won’t touch them.”

  Through the open doorway, they saw a flash of white on the staircase and Mary Pat in pajamas and fuzzy pink slippers darted across the hall. She paused upon the threshold, suddenly shy again.

  Gordon held out his hand. “Did you come to say goodnight to Cousin Kate?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered in the way of well-mannered Southern children. The corners of her mouth tilted upward. “And will you tell me a story?” she asked winningly.

  “Not tonight,” he began, but Kate forestalled him.

  “You mustn’t change bedtime ritual on my account. It’s been a long day and bed begins to sound like a wonderful idea to me, too.”

  She stood and Gordon patted his pants pocket. Car keys jingled.

  “Let me run you home then,” he said as they walked out into the entrance hall.

  “Nonsense. It’s a warm night and I need to walk off some of that delicious dinner. Tomorrow’s my first appointment with an obstetrician in Raleigh and she’ll probably lecture me about exercise and weight.”

  “You aren’t nervous about walking through the lane alone?” Gordon asked as the maid appeared with Kate’s shawl.

  “Because of the—” She started to say murder but stopped as she realized that Mary Pat was listening to their words.

  “Well,” said Gordon. “After all . . .”

  “I doubt if he’s lurking around,” she said dryly. The maid held her shawl. Kate thanked her and slung it loosely about her shoulders before stooping to Mary Pat’s level. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

  The child gave her a quick spontaneous hug, then retreated to Gordon’s legs. He swung her up on his back in an easy movement and hooked his arms under her legs to hold her in place while Mary Pat clasped her arms around his neck.

  As they lingered a moment on the wide veranda, Mary Pat rested her head on Gordon’s shoulder and sang softly and dreamily to herself, a song about a spotted pony galloping, galloping.

  “At least give me a call when you get home,” said Gordon. “If you don’t phone in a half hour, I’ll come looking for you.”

  She laughed and set off briskly down the drive. The night air was a little too cool for ambling, but she knew it would be comfortable once her blood stirred.

  Even though the moon was less than first quarter, it gave sufficient light after her eyes were accustomed to the darkness. The gravel drive was quite visible now since the oaks above them had no leaves to block even a pale moon. Azaleas kept their leaves all year through, however, and were bulky dark masses beyond the oaks, impenetrable in their inkiness. Whole armies could camp there, thought Kate, without her seeing them.

  Yet she wasn’t consciously nervous. The dead man had a likeness to Jake’s old army buddy; but until he was definitely identified as such, she could consider him a stranger, killed in her isolated packhouse for reasons that were nothing to do with her. Surely the killer had no cause to return.

  She came to the highway, crossed, and entered the sandy lane. The westering moon dodged in and out of the pine tops as she passed silently along the rutted track.

  Night sounds in the country were quieter, but no less varied than in a city. Wind, pushed through longleaf pines, made soughing murmurs as steady as any flow of traffic. Spring peepers were loud in the creek bottom; dogs barked in the distance; and an occasional car passed on the highway, a burst of music from its radio trailing behind.

  To the southeast, a line of Marine Corps helicopters, practicing night maneuvers, flop-flopped slowly across the sky like a string of lost Christmas tree lights looking for a giant tannenbaum. When the sound of their rotors had faded, Kate heard the end of a plaintive bird cry in the wooded triangle to her right. Owl? She knew it was still too early for a chuck-will’s-widow.

  She listened intently, but the cry was not repeated.

  At the bottom of the slope, the packhouse loomed up darkly beside the lane, its one window like a black eye patch on the north side peering out at her.

  Kate had just drawn even with it when her blood froze at the sudden awareness of another presence. Footsteps approached stealthily from behind the packhouse.

  She heard dead leaves crunch beneath someone’s feet, a slight scuffling of twigs brushed against the wall, and she became rigid, unable to breathe.

  “Lacy?” she whispered.

  Silence.

  “Who’s there?” she said tremulously.

  The scuffling became louder and closer.

  She drew back to run just as the dogs burst through the bushes and tumbled into the lane to greet her. Shaky with relief, Kate realized that they had caught her scent and come down from the yard to meet her.

  She bent to scratch behind their ears and let them nuzzle her face and a cold shock of reality flowed through her. Part of her desire to walk home alone w
as to prove to herself that the morning’s shakes had been a passing condition.

  The dogs had just shown her that her nerves were not as steady as she’d thought.

  She was still feeling edgy as the dogs escorted her through the orchard, although the area light mounted on a pole near the kitchen porch made another surprise like the dogs unlikely.

  Up in the yard, an unfamiliar dark green truck was parked under the light. It had a larger cab than the usual pickup and its longer bed had no side panels, only a row of what looked to Kate like four or five fencepost on either edge of the flatbed. There was some sort of homemade winch immediately behind the cab and double rear wheels supported the flatbed.

  A low murmur of masculine voices reached her ears and when Kate passed the truck to approach the back porch, she saw Lacy and another man leaning against the truck in deep conversation.

  The other man spotted Kate first when she was about forty feet away. “Evening, ma’am,” he said.

  Lacy straightened abruptly.

  Kate gave the formal nod she knew was expected and would have continued on into the house had not Lacy suddenly become mannerly for the first time since she’d arrived.

  “This here’s Tucker Sauls,” he said. “He’s gonna help me haul out some of them firewood logs.”

  Tucker Sauls was cut from the same mold as Lacy: tall and bony and just as wrinkled, but with the same impression of wiry strength. He lifted his crumpled old fedora and the light overhead revealed a bald head. “Evening, ma’am,” he repeated.

  Kate was momentarily confused, not wanting to violate the delicate mores of country courtesies. Did Lacy expect her to join them by the truck?

  She slowed her steps and acknowledged the introduction with a friendly smile and pleasantries about the spring night even as she kept moving toward the back porch.

  Evidently, it was the correct response, for she saw Lacy relax against the truck side as she said goodnight and entered the house.

  She went to the telephone and called Gilead, and, when a maid answered, asked that Gordon be told she’d returned safely.

  By then Kate was so tired that she went straight to bed and was already drifting off to sleep when she heard the old truck outside crank up and lumber on down the lane.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Alberta Clipper roared out of Canada that night to glaze the Midwest with yet another layer of ice and snow and to dump ten inches on winter-weary New York. By the time it reached central Carolina some time after midnight, though, its power was diffused. The mercury dipped into the upper twenties as winds shifted from southeast to northwest, but the sun came up on clear skies and forecasters were predicting temperatures in the low fifties.

  “A beautiful March day for Greensboro,” burbled the announcer. “How nice for Greensboro,” thought Kate and switched off the bedside radio with only a fleeting wonder as to why a Raleigh station would report on weather ninety miles to the west.

  She had awakened with boundless energy and by nine o’clock, her first load of laundry was flapping in the breeze and the old automatic washer in the kitchen was chugging through a second load of overalls and flannel shirts that she’d practically wrestled away from Lacy.

  “I can do my own washing,” he told her.

  “I know you can, Lacy, but I have some jeans and things that won’t make a full load, so why waste the hot water?” she asked, determined that Lacy would not spoil her good mood.

  His thrift appealed to, Lacy had grudgingly complied.

  “I’ve started a grocery list on the counter,” she told him. “If you want to add anything, I have an appointment in Raleigh and I’ll shop afterwards.”

  The telephone rang and she hurried down the hall, thinking they really could use a couple of extensions.

  “Good morning, Cousin Katie,” came Rob Bryant’s cheerful voice over the wire. “Mother tells me you’ll be in town this afternoon. Why don’t you come a little early and let me take you to lunch?”

  “I haven’t spoken to your mother since lunch yesterday,” Kate laughed, “so how did she know?”

  “I never question Mother’s sources. Nor her facts. She isn’t wrong this time, is she? You will come in for lunch, won’t you?”

  “I’d love to, Rob, but the movers haven’t arrived, so I couldn’t give you a definite time.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “We didn’t schedule much for today. Come when you can. I’ll wait for you.”

  By mid-morning, the brisk sunny day had dried the laundry, and as Kate folded sheets and shirts out by the clothesline, the dogs gave friendly woofs of warning and she turned to see a blue Toyota pickup drive into the yard with Mary Pat holding on tightly in the back.

  Gordon emerged from the passenger seat as if from a Rolls. Despite plaid flannel shirt, corduroy slacks and brown wool sweater, he couldn’t help looking faintly patrician as he presented the Toyota’s driver to Kate, who left her laundry basket on the kitchen porch and came forward to meet them.

  Tom Whitley was older than she’d expected. Instead of a college kid, he was perhaps in his mid-twenties, a sharp-featured young man with a shock of dark brown hair and deep-set brown eyes that met and then darted away from Kate’s. He wore jeans and a denim windbreaker and had the nervous intensity of a man more at ease with things than people. “Mr. Tyrrell says you need some work done.”

  “And he tells me you’re a good carpenter,” Kate smiled, instinctively trying to put him at ease.

  “I’m a pretty fair jackleg,” he said, looking over her head. It was impossible for Kate to hold his eyes. He spoke to the air just left of her face or to the sleeve of her sweater. He kept one hand in his pocket and Kate heard the nervous tinkling of loose change against his key ring.

  “Perhaps you’d like to see the place,” Kate suggested kindly.

  The four of them walked through the orchard to the packhouse accompanied by the two pointers and Aunt Susie, a mostly beagle bitch who patiently withstood Mary Pat’s hugs and ear-scratches.

  While Kate outlined her plans for a studio, Whitley took a screwdriver from his back pocket and poked and pried at the rotten wood beneath the north window. He lifted the trapdoor, pushed the curious dogs aside so that he could examine the joists from below, and pronounced the floor basically sound. Kate described the counters she wanted built and Whitley looked at the top button on her shirt and made some suggestions about rewiring and plumbing.

  “If you’re not in too big a hurry, I can work this in around my school schedule and on weekends, and probably be finished in two weeks if that’s all right with you and Mr. Tyrrell.”

  “Take all the time you need,” Gordon said.

  “Gordon, are you sure?” asked Kate. “I don’t want to impose.”

  “You’re not imposing. Tom’s conscientious about Gilead, but there just isn’t enough to keep him busy until summer, is there, Tom?”

  Before he could answer, Mary Pat appeared at the open door with a kitten cradled in each arm and said, “Cousin Kate, Uncle Lacy’s calling you. Your truck’s come.”

  “I will impose now,” said Kate and described the heavy chest that needed to be shifted.

  The movers soon had Kate’s cartons, drawing table, and few pieces of furniture stowed in the front parlor; then they hoisted the sideboard up on their dolly and, with Tom Whitley’s help, muscled it to one of the unused bedrooms upstairs. Kate had just signed the final voucher and sent the movers on their way with a generous tip when the phone rang.

  “Dwight Bryant,” Lacy called down the hall.

  “Oh, dear! He’s going to ask about that man’s name,” said Kate.

  “Gordon, do you mind? Look for the carton marked with Jake’s name, okay?”

  She darted along to the telephone and heard Dwight drawl, “Morning, Kate. Wonder if you’ve had a chance to find those pictures of Jake’s yet?”

  “The cartons just came. Hang on a few minutes.” She hurried back to the front parlor.

  “Is this t
he one?” asked Gordon, pushing aside some of the boxes so Kate could get closer.

  “That’s it.” She began to tear at the tape that held the cardboard box together.

  “Here, let me,” said Tom Whitley. He took out a pocket knife and sliced through the tape.

  The top fell open and Kate rummaged among books and papers. “You didn’t look through James’s trunk yet, did you, Gordon?”

  “No, it completely slipped my mind. I’ll go up to the attic this afternoon.”

  The bulky manila envelope she sought was halfway down and, since Dwight was waiting on the telephone, Kate just upended it into the carton.

  Letters, draft papers, military forms, a battle ribbon, part of a torn army terrain map, and some odds and ends with Vietnamese printing tumbled out. Mixed in were a handful of snapshots and negatives. Kate hastily riffled through them until she found the one she had remembered, a picture of Jake with three companions. On the reverse was his round scrawl: “Nam ’70 w/Tyrrell, Covington & W.T.”

  Like James, Jake had occasionally worn a mustache in Vietnam, only he had shaved his off permanently when their tour of duty was over. Kate had to look carefully to distinguish her husband’s face from his friend’s. The difference in height helped. Bernie Covington’s beard was as full as she remembered; the youngest man’s face was indistinct.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Kate apologized to Dwight Bryant a moment later. The dim hall blurred the snapshot’s details. “It really doesn’t look much like the man in the packhouse. The mole’s the same, but I can’t tell a thing about his features because of the beard. Anyhow, I was close—the name is Covington, not Chesterton.”

  She spelled it for him. “I have to go out this afternoon, but if you want the picture, I can leave it with Lacy.”

  “Well, the name’s the important thing,” said Dwight. “With his fingerprints and a name, we can go ahead and see what the army knows about him. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll pick up the picture tomorrow morning sometime.”

  “Okay,” Kate agreed.

  She returned to the parlor and put the snapshots back in the envelope with Jake’s other service souvenirs.