After Dark (40 page)

    Edith closed her eyes momentarily
and took a deep breath. Her slender shoulders lifted and fell slowly.
Suddenly the woman looked every day of her sixty years. The strain of these
past few weeks had taken its toll.

    "Will is confused at the moment,"
she said. "But if he has remembered seeing me, it's only a matter
of time before he recalls exactly what happened."

    "There will have to be an investigation.
There's no way to avoid it. But you can say that yes, you were there that
day. But you can deny killing Kent. You can say that you saw Will kill Kent
and you've kept quiet to protect the boy you've loved like a grandson
all his life." Buddy grabbed Edith by the shoulders and shook her.
"It can be your word against his. And in this town, who are people going
to believe?"

    "You idiot! Framing Lane for
Kent's murder was one thing, but blaming Will is another matter altogether.
I will not accuse that child of something he didn't do." Edith jerked
free of Buddy's tight grip. "Don't you see that once Will remembers
everything and if Johnny Mack tells what he knows about Mary Martha and
Kent, people are going to believe the truth. The vile, ugly truth."

    "You're not going to involve
her in this," Buddy warned. "I will not allow her to suffer anymore."

    The only reason he had become embroiled
in Miss Edith's schemes was to help protect Mary Martha. He would do anything
for her. Go to any lengths to keep her safe. Guilt and regret had been
eating away at him for some time now, ever since he had learned the truth
about what Kent had done to Mary Martha. If only he had known years ago.
If only he had suspected the truth. He would have killed Kent. He would
have happily beaten the man to death himself.

    Miss Edith had called him minutes
after Kent's murder, and together they had concocted a believable
story, one they hoped would protect both Edith and Mary Martha. But before
they could speak to Will and persuade him to back up their fabricated
story, Lane had arrived and phoned the police, saying that she had discovered
the body. The shock of Kent's death-luckily-had traumatized Will so badly
that he had suffered from partial amnesia.

    "I don't see any way to keep
Mary Martha out of it. We took a chance, counting on Will's amnesia being
permanent," Edith said. "I had hoped Will wouldn't remember,
that we could get Lane convicted and put an end to it. But that damn Johnny
Mack had to come back to Noble's Crossing and stir things up."

    "Well, you'd better prepare
yourself to meet the devil," Buddy told her. "Lane and Johnny
Mack are on their way over here right now. They've already phoned Wes Stevens
and told him that you killed Kent. Thank God, T. C. called me instead of
coming over here himself the way Lane had asked him to do."

    Buddy knew what he had to do, what
he probably should have done weeks ago. They shoot horses to put them
out of their misery, but they allow people to suffer the torment of the
damned. But no more. No more suffering. No more pain. Peace. The peace
of eternity.

    Buddy walked out of the living room,
prepared to handle this situation the only way that he could-in order
to protect the woman he loved. Edith ran out into the foyer and followed
him to the foot of the staircase.

    "Buddy, where are you going?
Lane and Johnny Mack will probably be here any minute now. We need to
plan our strategy."

    "You plan your strategy, Miss
Edith," he replied. "I'm going upstairs to see Mary Martha."

    "It won't do any good to talk
to her. She won't understand what's happening." Edith wrung her hands
together. "Whatever happens to me, I can survive. But if they take
Mary Martha away and put her in an institution-"

    "No one is ever going to put
Mary Martha in a mental institution," Buddy said softly as he continued
climbing the stairs.

    Lane rang the doorbell several
times before she gave up and tried the front door. Unlocked. How strange.

    "T. C. hasn't arrived,
yet," Johnny Mack said. "I think we should wait on him."

    "I don't. I want to speak to
Miss Edith right now! I want her to look me in the eye and deny that she killed
Kent."

    "She very well could deny
it," Johnny Mack said. "I don't see her willingly admitting that
she murdered her own son."

    Johnny Mack followed Lane into
the large foyer and almost ran into her when she skidded to an abrupt
halt in the middle of the entranceway. She stood perfectly still. There
was an unnatural quiet about the house. No activity whatsoever. Where
was Mrs. Russell? For that matter, where was Edith?

    "Listen," Lane said.

    "I don't hear anything,"
Johnny Mack replied.

    "Neither do I. Something
isn't right. This house is never deadly quiet. And the front door is never
unlocked."

    Johnny Mack grabbed her shoulders
and whirled her around to face him. "I want you to go outside and wait
on T. C."

    "And what are you going to do
while I'm waiting?"

    "I'll search the house. Somebody
has to be here. I

    Since Edith fired Mrs. Bryant, she
would make sure someone was with Mary Martha."

    "I'll help you look."

    Johnny Mack tightened his grasp
on Lane's shoulders. "In case something goes wrong, I don't want
you in harm's way. Stay here."

    "Wait!" Lane cried, when
he released her and turned to leave, "What if… maybe we shouldn't have
trusted T. C. Maybe he notified Buddy and Buddy told Miss Edith and she's
already left town."

    "I don't think Miss Edith has
had time to escape. Besides, she's the type who'd stay and put up a fight,
not run. She's confident enough to think she could beat a murder rap in
this town."

    "If she's here, I'm not leaving
this house without talking to her. I will not let her maneuver her way
out of this. She's going to confess what she did, even if I have to beat
the truth out of her."

    A piercing scream chilled Lane
to the bone. She and Johnny Mack exchanged a quick, startled look, then
immediately turned their heads in the direction of the ear-splitting
yell. It had come from the second story of the house.

    "Stay here," Johnny Mack
ordered, then headed toward the staircase.

    "You're not going without
me."

    When he paused to issue her a warning
glare, she shook her head in a refusal to obey his command and caught up
with him on the fifth step. He nodded and grunted, obviously realizing
that she had no intention of being left behind. Whatever was happening
in this house, she wasn't going to wait and hear about it secondhand.

    Together, they raced up the stairs,
flung open door after door and searched for the screamer. After corning
out of the third room they had checked, Lane spotted the open doorway at
the end of the hall. Standing there, her mouth agape, her shoulders trembling,
Mrs. Russell wandered into the hall. When she saw Lane, she reached out
toward her, and even though her lips moved, she said nothing.

    "That's Mary Martha's room,"
Lane told Johnny Mack.

    Together they rushed up the hall
where the housekeeper, as if in slow motion, headed toward them. Although
she continued working her mouth, no words came out.

    Lane grabbed the woman's shaky
hands. "What's wrong, Mrs. Russell? What's happened? Are you the one
who screamed?"

    She nodded, then grasped Lane's
hands tightly. "Help… help them. Please." Mrs. Russell folded
over, grabbed herself around the waist and began rocking back and forth
as she cried.

    "Come on over here and sit
down." Lane led the woman to a settee nestled within a small alcove
in the hallway, then knelt down in front of her. "Will you be all right
here while we check on Mary Martha?"

    '’I’ll be all right," Mrs. Russell
said. "But she's not… she's not… she… please, go help Miss Edith."

    Lane didn't know what to expect,
had no idea what they would face when they entered Mary Martha's bedroom.
The room seemed unchanged in any way. A little girl's fantasy room.
Bright and beautiful and filled with light. No blood. No gore. No stench.
Nothing the least bit frightening.

    Miss Edith sat on the side of the
bed, her arms draped around Mary Martha, who lay quietly, her head in
her mother's lap. A serene scene of maternal Section. Edith repeatedly
smoothed Mary Martha's hair away from her face.

    "Miss Edith?" Lane approached
the bed, Johnny Mack following directly behind her.

    Edith glanced up, her eyes slightly
dazed, her expression mournfully sad. "She won't ever suffer again.
She's at peace for the first time since she was a little girl."

    Lane's breath caught in her throat.
Lord, no! Had Edith actually killed her daughter? Had she murdered
both of her children? As Lane drew closer to the bed, she noticed that
Mary Martha lay unnervingly still. She wasn't breathing!

    Johnny Mack placed a hand on Lane's
shoulder. "Find a phone and call T. C. Tell him to get his ass over here
as fast as possible and send an ambulance."

    Just as Lane nodded agreement,
Edith spoke, halting Lane's exit.

    "I had no idea what was happening
between Kent and Mary Martha. I knew they were very close, that they loved
each other dearly, but it never once entered my mind that Kent would have…
that he could have… I should never have married. I should never have
had children."

    "Miss Edith, do you know what
you've done?" Johnny Mack asked as he approached the bed.

    "Yes, I know," she replied,
and when Johnny Mack knelt beside the bed, she reached out and stroked his
face. "So like John. In every way. He loved me once. When we first married.
He wanted a son. Even knowing the risk I took in giving him a child, I… It
was wrong of me to bring babies into this world when I knew that my own dear
mother had been sick. So sick. And her father before her. I knew and yet I
took the chance, and my children paid the price."

    "What are trying to tell
us?" Johnny Mack took her hands in his.

    "If I hadn't been so involved
with social events and elicit love affairs… if I'd paid more attention
to Kent and Mary Martha, I might have realized what was happening. I thought
Kent was normal. If I'd spent more time with him, I could have put a stop
to what he was doing and gotten him the help he needed. And maybe Mary Martha
could have been helped, too. But my children were never my top priority.
I had them because John wanted them. My life was too full… I was too busy
to be bothered with them. And look what happened."

    Lane eased closer to the bed, her
heartbeat humming inside her head. How was it possible that she could
actually feel sorry for Miss Edith, even knowing that she had murdered
both of her children?

    "What happened?" Johnny
Mack prodded. "Tell us what you did the day Kent died and what you did
today."

    Edith pulled her hands from Johnny
Mack's and gazed down at her daughter. "Look at her. So beautiful.
So sweet and gentle and loving. But so damaged. And it's all my fault.
If I'd been a better mother, I could have spared her from so much. All
these years, I didn't understand. I didn't know. Not until the truth came
out about Will's true paternity. That morning Kent had come by the house,
and Mary Martha overheard us talking. I've never seen her react in such
a violent way."

    Edith covered her face with her
hands and wept. Johnny Mack glanced at Lane, and she realized that he was
as confused as she. Confused by their odd sympathy for a woman they both
disliked intensely. And confused as to why she had felt compelled to
murder her own children.

    Edith continued speaking, her voice
eerily soft and completely controlled. "Mary Martha ran toward
Kent and began hitting him with her little fists, and all the while she
kept screaming, 'You made me kill my baby, but you let her baby live. You
didn't want my baby, but you wanted hers.' I didn't understand. But I listened
when Kent began talking to Mary Martha, telling her that Will was her
baby, that her baby hadn't died."

    Lane gasped. Was it possible that
Mary Martha had been pregnant and the child had been Kent's? Yes, of course
it was possible.

    Kent had gotten his sister pregnant!

    "Miss Edith, are you saying
that Mary Martha had at one time been pregnant with Kent's child?'' Johnny
Mack asked.

    "Yes," Edith replied.
"That summer, fifteen years ago, only a few months before Sharon
Hickman discovered she was carrying your child, Kent had taken Mary Martha
to a private clinic in Birmingham for an abortion."

    Lane thought she might vomit. Sour
bile rose in her throat and left a bitterness on her tongue. Poor, pitiful
Mary Martha. And that bastard Kent had encouraged her to believe that
Will was her baby, the child he had forced her to abort. No wonder that all
these years, Mary Martha had thought Will was her son.

    "You see, Mary Martha's memories
of that abortion had been buried deep in her subconscious until the
truth came out about Will," Edith said. "Then suddenly she began
remembering… remembering what Kent had done to her. And remembering
that he had made her abort their child.