Dark River Road (87 page)

“I’m goin’ to tell Tansy what happened. Just one more burden for her to carry, and lord, that child has had her share. She’s strong though, like Julia. Never turned a hair back when I told her about Ted Quinton bein’ her real daddy. Said she didn’t care. Said she already had the best daddy. Guess I did something right after all.”

“Yeah. You were the best daddy I ever had, too.”

Dempsey coughed and looked away, mouth working silently for a minute, and then he looked back with a smile. “I was always proud of you, Chantry. Like you were my own flesh and blood. I’ve been mighty blessed. Mighty blessed.”

There it was between them, that bond that had been there since he was only a kid, and he felt a fierce surge of affection for the old man.

“Look,” he said, “don’t go to the police station until you’ve got a lawyer. Tansy’s on her way here with Chris. She’ll get you a lawyer. Maybe you can plead self-defense, or whatever, but don’t say anything yet.”

“Son, it won’t make no difference what’s said. Judgment comes to all of us. I kilt him even though I didn’t mean to, didn’t go there for that. There’s a law of retribution, and none of us can escape that.”

He had his own doubts about that, since he’d seen folks get away with too much, but now wasn’t the time to say it. He shook his head.

“If you go up there alone, Gordon’ll stick you so far under the jail they’ll have to pipe in daylight. There’s no hurry. Quinton’s already dead. A few hours more won’t hurt anything. Wait for a lawyer.”

“Time ain’t my friend right now, Chantry. I saw those po-lice from down in Jackson snooping around where I dumped the knife. They’ll find it. And they’ll blame you. I can’t have that.”

“It doesn’t matter right now.”

“It matters. Chantry, boy, I don’t have much time left. I spent today seein’ my lawyer, gettin’ things in order. Don’t want to leave Tansy with a mess. Made out my will and got everything in place.”

He shook his head. “Even if you’re convicted, if it was self-defense, that doesn’t mean you’ll get the death penalty.”

“I already got the death penalty. Not from the law, but from God. I got the cancer, Chantry. Known about it for a while. Just taking my time getting things done, I guess. Old man Quinton was one of the things I needed to tend to before I die. Shoulda known he wouldn’t listen to reason. He never has. Said he’d take care of Tansy good, said he knew folks that wouldn’t think twice about teachin’ her a good lesson about what happens to nigger gals that mess around with white boys. I guess I got pretty mad then.

“Quinton took out some little ole gun that looked like no more’n a pea-shooter, but it was pretty loud. He’d got old, I guess, and his aim was off. Missed me by a mile. That’s when I got so mad I couldn’t think straight. Had a knife I’d put in my coat, the one you keep up under your car seat. Don’t know why I took it in. Maybe I knew, deep down, that it was gonna be our last face to face. When he took aim again, I stuck him. He kept trying to shoot, and I kept stickin’ him. Tough old bastard, tougher than I ever thought he was, I guess. Wasn’t ‘til he fell out on the floor and didn’t move anymore that I knew what I’d done. And I knew I hadn’t taken care of everything yet, still had stuff to finish. So I left. Never tried to run away, always knew I’d turn myself in, and then I heard you’d come back and got arrested for it. So now I’m goin’ to do what I shoulda already done.”

Chantry couldn’t say anything. He heard music playing on the stereo, watched the light outside the window and patio door fade, and felt the air quiver. It should never have come to this. Even in death, Bert Quinton destroyed the lives of others.

When Dempsey stood up, Chantry did, too. “I’m going with you.”

“No, this is somethin’ I got to do by myself.” A little smile tucked in one side of his mouth, and Dempsey nodded. “I was always right about you, Chantry. You turned out to be a fine man. You’da made your mama and daddy proud.”

No one had ever said that to him before, and Chantry couldn’t say anything back, just watched Dempsey walk out the door and heard him start his truck and drive off. For a long moment, he stared at the closed door. Then he changed clothes and went up to get Cinda.

They all showed up at the police station, Cinda, Chris, Tansy. Gordon stalled, but Tansy had already called a local lawyer and she showed up soon enough to keep Dempsey from saying too much before the high-powered defense team Tansy hired could arrive. Tansy would have paid whatever bail required to get him out that night, but he wouldn’t be arraigned until the next day. Dempsey didn’t seem to much care; he had the look of a man resigned to his fate, and a kind of peace about him that Chantry almost envied. Nobody said much when they left, and Chris and Tansy went back to Tunica for the night, neither of them wanting to face his parents or the empty house on Liberty Road. There were too many reporters lurking around Cinda’s house, too great a chance of Tansy being recognized and pursued to risk staying in town anyway. One thing Grand Isle had, was good security. Cameras everywhere. By now the police probably had the tapes of him and Dempsey leaving together that night, he commode-hugging drunk and the old man half-carrying him out to his car.

“It’s going to be another long day tomorrow,” Cinda said when they got in her car, and he knew she was right. He felt like he’d been beaten with a club. Battered, bruised, and weary.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have to tell my parents. And aunt and uncle. It’d be best coming from me. I dread it. God, I dread it.”

“Tonight? It can wait until tomorrow.”

“No, what if they hear it from a reporter first? That Tansy’s father, Chris’s future wife, killed Granddad? This isn’t the kind of news that can be told over the phone or by some reporter with a camera and a story deadline to make. I have to tell them.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said, even though he’d rather have been dragged behind the car. “You don’t need to be by yourself right now.”

Her smile was almost worth what he’d just committed to enduring.

“Well, that’s handy,” Cinda said when they turned into the driveway of the house on St. Clair Road, “both my parents are here, and it looks like Uncle Colin is too. Saves us a trip out to Six Oaks.”

Small blessings. Philip Sheridan looked happy to see Cinda, and his soon-to-be-former wife looked unhappy to see Chantry. Colin stood in a corner of the kitchen with a drink in one hand and his eyes narrowed, and Laura Quinton laughed softly at nothing. Only Tinky held no hard feelings. She barked until Colin said to shut her up, for Christ’s sake, and Cinda shot him an unfriendly look.

Picking up the fat, wriggling dog, she held her in her arms, stroking the soft fur as she faced her family. Chantry leaned against the door frame ready for a quick exit as soon as it was expedient.

“For the love of god, Cinda,” Cara Sheridan said impatiently, “I’m exhausted after that long flight. Now you bring that
murderer
in here? What on earth is the matter with you?”

“I have something to tell all of you. And Chantry’s not a murderer.”

“That’d be Bert,” Laura said with a wise nod of her head. “He’s dead.”

Colin put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and squeezed. “Dad was murdered, not a murderer.”

“Oh yes. I know that.” Laura smiled brightly. She looked at Chantry with eyes that were slightly glazed. He figured Colin had increased her medication.

Cinda set Tinky on the kitchen floor and straightened to look at her mother, then her uncle. “Dempsey Rivers just confessed to killing Granddad. He’s being held over for an arraignment tomorrow.”

No one moved or spoke for a long moment. Chantry thought of the last time he’d been in this kitchen, when he was fourteen, sitting at the table feeling awkward while Cinda opened his box of Valentine’s Day candy. Cara Sheridan had hated him then, and she hated him now. He wondered if she’d brought Paolo back with her.

“I don’t believe it,” Cara said abruptly, and gave Chantry a hard look. “He’s only saying that to protect Chantry. Everyone knows that old man would do anything for him. I think the rumors are probably true about him being his father. After all, Carrie Lassiter never did have—”

Chantry pushed away from his lazy slump against the door and took three steps into the kitchen. “Don’t you dare say another fucking word about my mother.”

He’d said it quiet, but his words seemed to reverberate in the room like thunder. Cara Sheridan opened her mouth, then shut it again with an audible snap. She looked a little scared. Good.

“Mother,” Cinda said, and sounded more weary than mad, “your idiocy never ceases to amaze me. You know damn good and well no one ever believed that. It was just something Granddad said a long time ago to make me mad.”

Chantry looked at her. This was crazy. He wanted to get out of there, take Cinda with him and just start driving, but he couldn’t. This was something he had to see through to the end. But damn if Cinda didn’t make him think somehow of Mama, standing there with her chin tilted up in defiance, a look on her face like she’d seen it all, heard it all, and nothing much mattered but what she’d set out to do. Cotton candy-covered steel.

“I heard him say that,” Laura offered. “It was after Chantry ran away. After that awful Rainey Lassiter burned up in the fire with all that money. Bert was angry because it didn’t happen like he wanted. But he was always that way, wasn’t he?”

“Hush, sugar,” Colin murmured, but Laura only smiled.

“You remember, Colin. I know you do. Don’t you remember how happy I was that he didn’t get his way for once? And he was so angry because he couldn’t put that boy in jail, said he’d been nothing but trouble ever since Carrie Callahan came to town with him anyway.” She looked over at Chantry and nodded. “I heard him that day with Carrie, you know. I told you I’d tell you if you got rid of Bert for me.”

“I didn’t kill him, Mrs. Quinton,” he said when it seemed like she expected some kind of response, and she said, “I know.”

Colin put an arm around Laura’s shoulders and started to walk her toward the door like he was going to take her from the house, but she pulled away, turned to look back at Chantry.

“Bert killed Ted, you know. I saw it. It was late at night, and we’d just got here from California. We were newlyweds then. Happy.” She looked over at her husband, who stood stock still and frozen in the middle of the kitchen floor, staring at her like he’d never seen her before. “He killed him, Colin. Right after Ted told him he intended to do the right thing by Julia. I’d come downstairs to go to the kitchen and got turned around, and when I heard voices, I went to see
 . . .
Rainey Lassiter was there, but it was your father who shot Ted. Right in the heart with that little pistol. I’d never seen anyone die before. I couldn’t move
 . . .
my heart was beating so fast and I was so scared
 . . .
and then Rainey said he’d take Ted out to the Hideaway, let him feed the turtles with the rest. I suppose that’s what he did. I didn’t stay to see that. I ran away then.”

The only sound in the room was the
clicka clicka
of Tinky’s toenails against the kitchen floor as the dog searched for vagrant crumbs she might have missed. Chantry stood there like stone, like the others, all staring at Laura Quinton.

Laura smiled. “It just seemed fitting to shoot him in the heart with that pistol, too. Don’t you think? He did it to Ted. And after Dempsey Rivers left, I did it to him.”

“Aunt Laura,” Cinda said, breaking the awful silence that fell, “Granddad was stabbed.”

“Oh, I know. He had blood all over him. But he’d gotten up off the floor and said he’d make sure Dempsey paid, and Tansy, too. Said he’d be able to get rid of all of them at last. Then he yelled at me, told me not to just stand there looking at him, to call for an ambulance. When he said it was past time I got put away too, I saw that little gun lying there, and I picked it up. I pointed it at him. He just laughed. Said I’d never have the guts to shoot him. So I did. Right in the heart. He stopped laughing then.”

Colin made an inarticulate sound and she turned to look at him.

“It’s all right, Colin. He won’t ever make you cry again. Or Chris. Or anyone else.” When no one said anything, she turned to look at Chantry. “He made Carrie cry. I heard him. He told her he’d take you away from her if she didn’t marry Rainey, that he’d have her declared an unfit mother. He told her she’d never see you again. That it’d be the best thing if she married Rainey Lassiter because Rainey wanted her really bad and she’d never be able to do any better anyway. Not an unwed mother like her, with no one to help her out. So Carrie said she would, but I know she didn’t want to. But she said she’d do what she had to do to keep her little boy. So I suppose she did. Just like I’ve done what I had to do for my little boy. Chris wants Tansy and he should be happy. Isn’t that right?” She turned to look at her husband. “Shouldn’t Chris have what he wants?”