Blood Brothers (2 page)

The first child stepped onstage and walked to
the grand piano. A young boy, dressed nicely in a black and white
tuxedo and well-polished shoes. He bowed once to the audience and
took his seat behind the ivories. Christal was scheduled to perform
fourth.

She dropped the small prescription bottle
back into her purse. Begging past the patrons in her row, she
hurried to the front of the room and disappeared through the door
leading backstage. She wandered around as beautiful music filled
the air. He was good. No Christal, but good.

“Hi, Mrs. Cole.” Stephanie turned to see Miss
Fowler, the music teacher, standing near a doorway. Dressed in a
long denim skirt and velour blouse, with heavy thick-lens
spectacles on her face, she looked every bit the schoolmarm that
she was.

“Josephine. How are you? I was just looking
for Chris.”

Josephine Fowler possessed a sickly thin
smile. She used it now, in a most patronizing manner. “She’s down
the hall. She just peeked out. She saw you. She didn’t see her
father.”

Stephanie was not in the mood for this
woman’s mock sincerity. “Thank you,” she muttered and moved
past.

The corridor was well-lit and she easily
found Christal at the far end, propped up with her face against the
wall. Stephanie approached cautiously, taking baby steps. Damn
Michael Cole for this!

“Hey baby girl,” she said. Even though she
was eight years old, Stephanie still thought of her daughter as a
baby, though she was doubly careful not to treat her as such.
“You’re up in a few. I bet these people have never heard Bach the
Christal Cole way.” Christal had been practicing the last movement
in Bach’s Brandenburg No. 4 in G for months. And, though she might
be a bit biased, the kid was pretty darn good.

“Where’s Daddy?” The pleading in her voice
was almost enough to break Stephanie. “I thought he was
coming?”

“He is…I mean, he did. Daddy’s here,
sweetheart. He just got ill. He’s in the bathroom.”

“No. No he’s not.”

Stephanie couldn’t really blame the girl for
doubting her. It wouldn’t be the first time Michael had let her or
Stephanie down, far from it. “No, listen, baby. It’s the truth.
He’s probably already back in his seat by now.”

Christal snubbed. Still facing the wall, she
used her hands to dry the tears from her eyes. Slowly, she turned.
Facing her mother, she asked in a weak voice, “You think so? Is he
really here?”

“I double swear,” Stephanie said.

Damn you to hell, Michael Cole, Mr.
Bigshot!

Christal’s eyes were red, her face still
streaked with the dampness of her sorrow. A beautiful child, she
looked as if she would take on the same shape as her mother. Tall,
slim at the waist, slightly wider at the hips and shoulders. Lean
without being skinny. She had the deep green eyes of her mother and
the corn silk blond hair of her father. Delicate cheekbones and
features like Stephanie. And the long, slender, powerful hands like
her father’s made a perfect fit on piano keys. She was the best of
both of them, and none of the worst. Stephanie would never be
accused of being the best mother in the world, but she was miles
away from the worst. And if she took pride in anything, it was this
child.

“Can I see?”

Stephanie inhaled sharply. “Sure,
sweetheart.” She took Christal’s hand and they walked slowly up the
bright hall. “I love you, Mom.”

Despite the high that Stephanie was currently
riding courtesy of Doctor Farmer, she said, “I love you, too,” with
tears of her own trailing down her cheek.

As they approached the far edge of the
curtain, a voice called from behind them. “Christal Cole, where are
you?” It was Miss Fowler and she look bedraggled, which in
Stephanie’s mind, seemed a natural look for the hag.

“Right here, Miss Fowler,” Christal said, a
bit of the sadness gone from her voice.

“Come here, girl. You’re up next and we
haven’t finished our appendage exercises.”

Christal looked back to her mother, her face
a question.

“Go ahead. I’ll make sure your father’s found
his seat. Smile for him, he’s got the camera.”

“I will Mother, I will.” With that, she was
off. Happier at the prospect of performing, than any pep-talk her
mother could give her.

She was angrier now than she had been prior
to her talk with Christal. And there was only one person to take
that anger out on. “Michael, where are you,” she whispered. She
took her leave of backstage, heading back out into the
auditorium.

Seeing their seats still empty, she felt her
cheeks flush with heat. With her jaw set, she started marching up
the aisle, heading out. Just as she reached the swinging door, it
swung inwards and there was Michael. He was as shocked as she. She
caught something in the air, a scent lingering on him.

“Decide to come back?”

“Don’t be so feisty, Steph. I got sick at my
stomach.”

“I believe you. That cheap perfume would turn
anyone’s gut.”

He looked as if he were about to respond, but
he stopped before giving life to his words. He looked past her,
beyond her, to the stage. She turned, and there was Christal. She
was beautiful under the stage lights. Like an angel in her navy
blue dress with white lace trimmings. The blue and white both
reflected the spotlight equally and Stephanie’s baby girl was
bathed in an aura of gold.

“We’ll finish this later,” Michael said and
walked away. But somehow, she knew they wouldn’t. They never
did.

Damn you, Michael!

Two

Now

All small towns have secrets. There is great
power in them. While no secret is eternal, they strengthen with the
passing of time. The size, the importance, of the secret may vary.
Love affairs, crimes, from strange to downright spooky; the
spectrum of secrecy is astounding.

Roswell, New Mexico has its alleged UFO
conspiracy. The colony of Roanoke, which vanished without a trace
in the 16th century is still a mystery. Amityville, whose exploits
have long been a part of the horrible annals of American history,
is another example. These are but a few towns, admittedly infamous,
that share in the brotherhood of conspiracy.

People have secrets, too. From computer
passwords and clandestine email addresses, to hidden phone numbers
and bank accounts of which a spouse is unaware. There is no end to
the number of things people will hide away, hoping to never find
the need to disclose them to another.

Benedict, Mississippi is such a town.

And Michael Cole is such a person.

Morning brought new life to the town of
Benedict. If spectacular landscape is the exception rather than the
rule in the great state of Mississippi, then Benedict is the
exception that proved that rule. Situated in a valley surrounded by
high hills—most people call them mountains around here, but those
same people have never seen real mountains—covered in tall, mighty
pine forests, the view from any window in any house in town is
awe-inspiring. The pines were sprinkled with just enough cedar,
maple, and oak for autumn and spring to make themselves known in a
glorious spectacle. A narrow stream, Venom River—again, named by
those who had never seen real rivers—runs just outside of town, on
its western side.

The town itself is built around a Norman
Rockwell-themed town square, newer businesses radiating from that
quaint central core. Relatively affluent in today’s shaky economy,
Benedict is looked upon by neighboring boroughs as a well-to-do
person’s city.

But, just as is the case in every other
community, town, and city, Benedict isn’t without poverty. Though
the poor and low-income populace is treated well enough, and their
existence is known town-wide, the subject of those less fortunate
isn’t a typical topic of conversation. The most abounding display
of dwellings for those who can’t afford the three-story brownstones
or the large antebellum homes, either left over from or inspired by
the Civil War, is in an area down on the south end of town called,
and not very kindly, the Projects.

The Projects are not actually housing
projects as you and I would know them. True, there are several runs
of welfare-funded apartment complexes, but the majority of the
Project’s residents reside in mobile homes…trailers. These are not
the shiny new models with hardwood laminate flooring, huge garden
tubs, or built-in plasma screen televisions, but twenty- and
thirty-year-old trailers, with some dating back even earlier. A
blight in the eyes of the well-to-do’s, the Projects, for all
intents and purposes, is a community unto itself. A convenience
store, a grocery store, and even a few video rental joints and
restaurants service the area.

Now, take Cloverfield Street north just a
mile or so, and you’re out of the Projects and into a much more
eye-pleasing section of Benedict. Passing onto Benedict Avenue and
then to, of course, Main Street, the brick is clean, the trash
swept from the sidewalk, and the paint too fresh to ever think of
peeling, why you’d think the Projects were a hundred miles away.
The most impressive structure along Main Street, to be sure, is the
Benedict Town Hall. Built so many years ago the actual date has
long since passed to posterity, renovations on the spectacular
stone and marble structure is almost constant, but never obtrusive.
The work is done with care, and only expert artisans are ever
called upon.

From the town square and its charming mixture
of the beautiful older buildings with the attractive new designs,
you take Fillmore Street north, heading past the new Wal-Mart, two
shiny strip malls with their neon signs that set the sky ablaze
come nightfall, and newer franchise businesses, and you’ll begin
the ride out of the urban district. About a mile and a half from
the steps of the Town Hall, the stores fall away, and in their
place homes of no small historical significance begin piling around
on either side of the road. From pre-Civil War times, Benedict had
always been a prosperous little burg, starting with cotton two
hundred years ago. Huge mansions were built with the surplus wealth
of the citizens and during wartime, generals had taken said homes
as headquarters, departing when the need arose, but leaving behind
their heritage.

Instead of wealthy cotton merchants or
Confederate generals, the houses now belonged to Benedict’s elite.
Towering antebellum structures still stand with lawns as carefully
manicured as those embellishing the palaces of royalty. With
weeping willows, magnolia trees, juniper bushes, and rose gardens,
the yards are as eye-catching, and often as expensive, as the
dwellings they embellish.

Cut from Fillmore and you’ll find the gated
community of White Oak Lane, the most impressive collection of fine
homes and architectural achievements for hundreds of miles in any
direction. Only nine houses fall to the sides of the lane. The
community is commonly owned by all nine families and to even
attempt to build within its opulent borders, you must first
convince all nine families to allow you to do so, and second, have
deeper pockets than 99 percent of the entire state’s population.
The nine families of which include; the Hunts, the McKendricks, the
Washingtons, the Reddicks, the German immigrated Howitzer’s, the
Franklins, Cooper Lane, a bachelor attorney and his fiancée Dee-Dee
Welles, and the Coles. If, by the pure grace of chance you were
born into one of these families, your future was pretty much as
shining and as promising as a summer sun at high noon.

Michael Cole and his family; Stephanie, his
wife, and Christal, their daughter, lived at the very end of the
lane, in a house that could be called many things, huge being just
a clumsy word that could not, in any way, be used to describe the
elegance, the power, and the influence such a house exuded, well
beyond the limits of town.

At the rear of the house, reaching across its
entirety, was the pool area. Mexican tile pavers covered the
ground. A large narrow pool guarded by tall granite columns on each
of the two long sides stretched fifty feet, in its center a
fountain of three jetting steams of water that, until weather
demanded, were shut off. As an entertainment area, the back patio
was second to none. Several sets of table and chairs, a large
covered cooking and grilling area with a fully-stocked wet bar on
one end, could easily accommodate up to two and a half dozen
guests.

The house itself, a three-story brick and
stucco feat held seventeen rooms, excluding baths, an attached
four-car garage, large study and library, and plenty of room for
turning an outdoor party indoors.

On the first level, nestled in the northwest
corner, behind the French doors leading to the steps of the Jacuzzi
near the shallow end of the pool, was the master bedroom.

It was early by contemporary standards, but
at seven minutes after seven, with the sun still kissing the dew
upon the grass, Michael Cole was oversleeping. Six days a week he
was up, at the latest, before five o’clock. He did, on occasion,
sleep in until around nine on Sundays.

Last night, however, had affected him deeply.
Not just the tryst with Carrie or the near-confrontation with his
wife, but the entire experience of going back to the grammar
school. Through most of the night his sleep was troubled, and he
rolled and flipped and flopped, restlessly. But when the dreams did
come, they were worse than he would have thought possible.

Outside the window, where all was quiet and
the smell of burning leaves still lingered on a swift and chilly
breeze, a man stood. His shadow fell on the window and draperies of
Mike’s bedroom.

Anger as well as other emotions filled the
man’s heart, as they had for a long time now. But the insulting
display of affluence, extravagance, and material corpulence enraged
and sickened him.