After Dark (8 page)

    "Yes, he's gone," she said.

    "He's Johnny Mack Cahill,
isn't he?"

    "Yes." Heaven help us
all, yes, he's Johnny Mack Cahill. Your father. And my destroyer.

    "I'm glad you made him leave.
I don't want to ever see him again!"

    Will rushed past her, his long legs
taking him quickly up the spiral staircase to the second level of the
house. Lane hurried after him, but halted halfway up the stairs.

    "Will!"

    The sound of his door slamming reverberated
in her ears. She sank down on the steps, a feeling of hopelessness encompassing
her. How much more could her son endure? What was his final breaking point?
She had to keep him safe from anything and anyone who might harm him.
And that included Johnny Mack.

    "Has Johnny Mack gone?"
Lillie Mae stood at the bottom of the staircase.

    Lane glanced at the rail-thin old
woman who had been her only confidante and dearest friend for the past
fifteen years. "Did you send that note to Johnny Mack?"

    Standing at attention, like a
proud soldier, Lillie Mae said, "Yes, I sent the note. Even if he doesn't
realize it right now, Will needs his father-his real father. And whether
you'll admit it or not, you need Johnny Mack, too. You need a strong man at
your side if you're going to fight and win this battle. And it's way past
time for Johnny Mack to pay the piper."

    Edith Ware opened the door to
Mary Martha's room. Jackie Cummings jumped up out of the chair in front
of the television in the sitting area and smiled a warm greeting to her
employer.

    "Come on in, Miss Edith."

    Jackie all but bowed to her. Edith
liked subservience in her employees. Actually, she appreciated subservience
in all her relationships, even in her marriage. There had been only
two people she had never been able to bend to her will. Her first husband,
John Graham. And his bastard son, Johnny Mack Cahill.

    Edith motioned for Buddy Lawler
to follow her as she entered her daughter's sanctuary, a room that
had changed little since Mary Martha was twelve. Pastels and lace and
girlish frills. French Provincial furniture and a wall curio filled
with dolls.

    "How is Miss Mary Martha doing
tonight?" Edith asked.

    "She ate a few bites of supper,"
Jackie reported "She's been sitting peacefully over there in her
rocker for the past hour."

    Edith turned her attention to
her child. Her thirty three-year-old child. Her only child, now that Kent was
dead. Mary Martha possessed an innocent beauty that was deceptive.
Flawless pale skin. Waist-length strawberry blond hair. And pale brown
eyes that seemed incapable of seeing into the real world.

    "What's that she's holding?"
Edith took a step closer and barely stifled the gasp that came immediately
to her lips.

    "It's just a baby doll,"
Jackie said. "She's been toting it around all day. And tonight she's
been rocking it and singing to it. I hope that's all right. I didn't see
any harm in her playing with her doll."

    "No, of course not."
Edith bit down on her bottom lip. No harm at all for her mentally unstable
daughter of thirty-three to play with a doll as if she were a six year-old.
Without glancing back at the hired nurse Edith said, "Why don't you
take a break, Ms. Cummings. Buddy and I will sit with Mary Martha awhile.'

    "Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I wouldn't
mind a smoke."

    "Remember to go outside for
that," Edith said "No one has smoked in this house since Mr. Graham
died. The day he died, I burned every damn box of cigars he had."

    "I'll go on the back
porch." Jackie nodded hell to the police chief as she excused herself.

    Edith moved slowly toward her daughter,
halting as she came up behind the rocking chair. "She's been like
this since the afternoon after Kent's funeral, thought surely by now
she would have improved."

    Mary Martha rocked back and forth
in the white wooden rocker. Holding the life-size baby doll in her arms,
she crooned to it as a mother would to a child.

    Edith caressed the top of Mary Martha's
head. "I'm afraid to let a psychiatrist examine her. There's no
telling what she might say."

    "Then, we'll make sure she's
taken care of until she's ready to come back to us on her own terms."
Buddy Lawler knelt in front of Mary Martha and spoke to her in a soft, caring
voice. "How are you tonight, sweetheart? I hear you ate a little
bit of supper. That's good. You gotta eat more. Gotta keep up your
strength. As soon as you get well, I'm going to take you down to the Gulf,
and we'll gather seashells on the beach the way we did the last time we
were there."

    Ignoring him, Mary Martha continued
humming, continued rocking, apparently oblivious to all that was around
her. Buddy reached out and caressed the doll's cheek. Mary Martha gathered
the doll close to her chest and held it there as if she thought Buddy was going
to snatch it away.

    "Don't take my baby! Don't you
take my baby!" Mary Martha's pathetic cry pierced her mother's heart.
This tragedy was her fault. Everything was her fault. But it was too late
to do anything that could help Mary Martha. And too late for recompense
on her part. Nothing could change the past. The most she could do now was
protect her child.

    "No, no, sweetheart,"
Buddy said. "It's all right. I'm not going to take your baby away from
you."

    He rose to his feet and turned
his back, but not before Edith saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. If anyone
on earth loved Mary Martha, Buddy did. He had been in love with her since
they were children, and his devotion to her was touching. There was
nothing Buddy wouldn't do for Mary Martha. She envied her daughter on
that count.

    Edith clasped the top round on the
rocker with white-knuckled ferocity. Taking a deep, calming breath,
she nodded toward the settee by the fireplace and said, "Why don't
you sit down, Buddy? We'll stay a few more minutes. Our just being here
with her will somehow reassure her, don't you think?"

    Buddy nodded, then sat on the settee.
His gaze rested sorrowfully on Mary Martha. "Do you think it's all
right to talk in front of her? I mean, you don't think she'd get upset, that
she'd actually understand what we're saying?"

    ''Just what did you want to talk to
me about? " Edith asked.

    "Well, we haven't had much
chance to discuss the current situation, not with Kent's funeral and
then Mary Martha going to pieces the way she did."

    "And what is the current situation?"
Edith walked over to the vanity, picked up a silver brush and returned to
stand behind her daughter's chair.

    "For one thing Lane is the main
suspect in Kent's murder. How do you want us to handle that? Do you want to
see her arrested or not?"

    "Oh, yes, that situation."
Edith ran the brush through Mary Martha's fiery gold hair and wished that
she had taken the time to do this when her daughter was a child. "Lane
deceived Kent. She made his life miserable and all for what? For a baby
she knew had been fathered by Johnny Mack Cahill. Even if she didn't strike
the blows that actually killed Kent, her part in the deception helped
to kill him long before he died."

    "You know what the local gossip
is, don't you?"

    "Tell me."

    "I hear folks are saying they
think Will killed Kent, and Lane is just taking the rap for him."

    Edith had loved her grandson-the
boy she had thought was her grandson. Even now, knowing Will wasn't her own
flesh and blood, she still cared for him. But she couldn't-wouldn't-allow
Johnny Mack's son to inherit anything from John Graham's estate.

    "Hmm… Interesting. But we
know that poor boy is as innocent of any wrongdoing as… as my Mary Martha,"
Edith said. "He's a good boy, even if he is the spawn of the devil."

    "Yes, of course." Buddy
stared directly at Edith and nodded agreement. "And speaking of the
devil-I plan to call on our visitor and find out just who he is and what he
wants." Buddy rubbed his hands nervously up and down the front of his
thighs. "If by some chance he really is Johnny Mack, then we don't
want him hanging around and muddying the water, do we?"

    "By all means, pay this man
calling himself Johnny Mack Cahill a visit. Tonight. If he is who he says
he is, give him fair warning that he's not wanted here now any more than
he was fifteen years ago."

    "I don't see how it can be
Johnny Mack. Not after the beating we gave him." Sweat dotted Buddy's
forehead and upper lip. "My guess is that what's left of him is at
the bottom of the Chickasaw River."

    "Then, if this man isn't who he
says he is, find out who he is and what he wants. And get rid of him!"

    "Eavesdropping, Ms. Cummings?"
James Ware asked as he came up behind his stepdaughter's private duty
nurse.

    Jackie gasped and jumped, then turned
to face her accuser. "Mercy, Mr. Ware, you scared the bejesus out
of me!"

    "What's going on in Mary Martha's
room?"

    "Oh, Miss Edith and Buddy Lawler
are visiting with her." Jackie gave James a provocative, come-hither
smile. "I've just come upstairs after taking a smoke on the back
porch. I wasn't eavesdropping. I was waiting. Didn't want to disturb their
visit."

    "Hmm… I see."

    James would bet his bankroll that
Jackie would be more than willing to scratch any itch he had. She had had
that kind of reputation as far back as he could remember. But he wasn't
interested in her. The only woman for him was Arlene. He had loved her
since they were teenagers, but he had been a gutless coward back then.
He'd allowed his family to keep them apart. However, after all these years,
finally, if his plans worked out, they would have the rest of their lives
together. With Edith consumed by Kent's murder, now was the perfect time
to tie up all the loose ends.

    "You're in kinda late, aren't
you, Mr. Ware? Business in town?"

    James searched Jackie's eyes for
any hint that she knew about his affair with Arlene, but her expression
revealed nothing.

    ''A mayor's work is never done,''
he replied, hoping he had infused his words with just the right amount of
humor.

    "Is that so? Would you believe
my beautician says the same thing-that her work is never done? You know
my beautician, Arlene Dothan, don't you?"

    Jackie's tittering laughter sliced
like a razor blade along James's nerve endings.

    "Yes, of course I know Ms.
Dothan."

    "I thought you did." Jackie
snuggled up to James's side. "I'll make you a deal, Mayor-you don't
mention anything about my eavesdropping to Miss Edith, and I won't mention
anything to her about how well you know my beautician."

    Light from a full moon bathed the
old boathouse with a soft, creamy wash and danced across the river in
shimmering ripples. A fresh coat of white paint on the aged wood and new
hinges on the side door told Johnny Mack that Lane had kept the structure
in tiptop shape. He wondered if William Noble's boat still resided inside
or if it had been sold years ago. Since leaving Noble's Crossing, he had
often thought about this place, about the times he and Lane had met here.
She had been so young. So naive. So innocent. God, how he had wanted her.
And he could have had her. She would have given herself to him without
reservations.

    Johnny Mack tried the door. Locked.
In the old days, Lane had always left the door unlocked for him. This had
been their place, a sanctuary from the real world. Here, he hadn't been
a trailer trash bastard, and she hadn't been the princess of Noble's Crossing.

    Lane sure had been in a hurry to
get rid of him tonight. He'd seen the fear in her eyes. Had she been afraid
that he would ask to be introduced to her son? Surely she knew that he'd
never do anything to hurt her or the boy. Even if Will turned out to be
Kent's son, he would never hurt him. Because he was Lane's child, too.

    Johnny Mack strolled by the river's
edge, the ground soft beneath his feet, the heels of his boots branding
the damp soil. Ancient willow trees dripped their long, feathery branches
into the thick green grass, creating secluded little tents around their
trunks. The one and only time he had ever kissed Lane had been beneath
one of these willows.

    Nighttime insects chortled late
summertime choruses, the sound blending with the gentle rush of the river.
Southern humidity seeped into the skin of man and beast alike, creating
a heat within and perspiration on the flesh. Even the buildings weren't
spared the effects of the weather, sweating and moaning and waiting for
the relief of autumn.

    As a young man, he had loved summertime.
Swimming in the river. Drinking cold beer over at Goodloe's Tavern. Watching
the girls walk by in their short-shorts. Getting all hot and sweaty by heating
up the sheets with a willing woman. And watching Lane Noble watching
him while he mowed their grass and pruned their hedges. He had usually
worked in cutoff jeans and without a shirt, getting himself a dark tan
and giving the ladies an eyeful.