Down River (17 page)

He was defensive, and I knew why. The gambling was nothing new—it had happened before—and my questions about Danny had upset him. Sometimes I hated being right.

“How much did you lose?” It was a guess, but a good one. He froze, and I knew. “Dad had to cover you again, didn’t he? How much this time?”

He slumped again, suddenly frightened and young. He’d gotten into a hole once his last year of high school. He’d hooked up with a bookmaker in Charlotte and gone heavy on a round of NFL playoff games. The engine ticked as it cooled. “A little over thirty thousand,” he said.

“A little over?”

“Okay. Fifty thousand.”

“Jesus, Jamie.”

He sunk lower, all animosity gone.

“Football again?”

“I thought the Panthers were going to break out. I kept doubling down. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

“And Dad covered it.”

“It was three years ago, Adam.” He help up a hand. “I haven’t gambled since.”

“But Danny has?”

Jamie nodded.

“You still want to go a few rounds?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then don’t fuck with me, Jamie. You’re not the only one that had a bad night.”

I started the truck, pulled back onto the road. “I want the name of his bookie,” I said.

Jamie’s voice was small. “There’s more than one.”

“I want them all.”

“I’ll find them. They’re written down somewhere.”

We drove in silence for a mile, until a convenience store appeared ahead of us. “Can you pull in here?” Jamie asked. I stopped at the store. “Give me a minute.”

Jamie went inside. He came back out with a six-pack.

   I drove to the farm, took the turn for Dolf’s house. There were cars there; Janice was on Dolf’s porch. I stopped in the drive. “What’s going on?” I asked. Jamie just shrugged. “You getting out?”

“I’m not that drunk,” Jamie said.

I climbed out and Jamie slid across the seat. I put my hands on the window frame. “I misjudged Danny. Now he’s dead. The cops should look into these bookies. Maybe there’s something there.”

“The cops?”

“I want those names.”

“I’ll find them,” he replied, then waved once to his mother and turned the truck around.

I took the long walk.

My stepmother watched me approach. Young when she’d married my father, she was still shy of her fifties. She sat alone on the porch, and looked haggard. She’d lost weight. Once lustrous hair had faded to brittle yellow; her cheekbones looked hawkish and sharp. She rose from the rocking chair as my feet landed hard on the lowest step. I stopped halfway up, but she stood between the door and me, so I went to her.

“Adam.” She found the courage to step in my direction. There had been a time when she would have swept forward and laid her light, dry lips on my cheek, but not now. Now she was as distant and cold as a foreign shore. “You’re home,” she said.

“Janice.” I’d imagined this moment a thousand times. The two of us, speaking for the first time since my acquittal. Sometimes, when I saw it, she apologized. Other times, she struck me or cried out in fright. Reality was different. It was uncomfortable and nerve-racking. She held herself under tight control and looked as if she might simply turn and walk away. I could not think of a single thing to say. “Where’s Dad?”

“He told me to wait out here. He thought that it might help us get reacquainted.”

“I didn’t think you’d want much to do with me.”

“I love your father,” she said woodenly.

“But not me?” For better or worse, we’d been family for almost twenty years. I could not hide the hurt, and for an instant her face reflected some unknown pain of her own. It did not last.

“You were acquitted,” she said, “which must make me a liar.” She sniffed and sat down. “Your father has made it plain that there is to be no more talk of misdeeds by members of this family. I choose to honor his wishes.”

“Why don’t I think you mean that?”

Some of the old steel flashed in her eyes. “It means that I will breathe the same air as you, and keep my tongue still. It means that I will tolerate the presence, in my home, of a liar and a killer. Don’t mistake it for anything other than that. Don’t you ever.” She held my eyes for a long moment, then fished a cigarette from a pack on the table beside her. She lit it with trembling hands, twisted her lips to blow the smoke sideways. “Tell your daddy I was civil.”

I gave her one last look and went inside. Dolf met me and I hooked a thumb toward the closed door. “Janice,” I said.

He nodded. “I don’t think she’s slept since you came back into town.”

“She looks bad.”

An eyebrow shot up. “She accused her husband’s son of murder. You cannot imagine the hell those two have endured.”

His words stopped me. In all this time, I’d not once considered what the trial had done to them as a couple. In my mind, I’d always seen them as unchanged.

“But your father put her on notice. He told her that their marriage would be in the most severe danger she could imagine if she did anything but make you feel welcome.”

“I guess she tried,” I said. “What’s going on in there?”

“Come on.” I followed Dolf through the kitchen and into the living room. My father was there, along with a man I’d never seen. He was in his sixties, with white hair above an expensive suit. Both men rose as we entered. My father held out his hand. I hesitated, then shook it. He was trying. I had to acknowledge that.

“Adam,” he said. “Glad to have you back. Everything okay? We went to the sheriff’s department but couldn’t find you.”

“Everything’s fine. I stayed with Grace last night.”

“But they told us… never mind. I’m glad she had you there. This is Parks Templeton, my attorney.”

We shook hands and he nodded as if something important had been decided. “Good to meet you, Adam. I’m sorry that I didn’t make it to the police station in time last night. Your father called as soon as you left with Detective Grantham, but it’s an hour up here from Charlotte; and then I went to the sheriff’s office. I expected to find you there.”

“They took me to Salisbury P.D. as a courtesy. Because of what happened five years ago.”

“I suspect that was not entirely true.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If I could not find you, that gave them extra time alone with you. I’m not surprised.” I thought back to my time in the interview room, the first thing that Robin had said to me.

It was my idea
.

“They knew you’d come?” I asked.

“Me or someone like me. Your father had me on the phone before you were off the property.”

“I don’t need a lawyer,” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my father said. “Of course you do. Besides, he’s here for the family as well.”

Parks spoke. “A body was found on the property, Adam, discovered in an out-of-the-way place that few people know about. They’ll be looking at everyone, and they’ll be looking hard. Some people may try to take advantage of the situation to pressure your father.”

“You really believe that?” I asked.

“It’s a six-tower nuclear facility and it’s an election year. The forces at work are beyond anything you can imagine—”

My father interrupted. “You’re overstating things, Parks.”

“Am I?” the lawyer asked. “The threats have been graphic, but up until yesterday they were just threats. Grace Shepherd was attacked. A young man is dead, and none of us know the reason why. Putting your head in the sand now won’t make it go away.”

“I refuse to accept that corruption spreads as thickly in this county as you’d have us believe.”

“It’s not just the county, Jacob. It’s Charlotte. Raleigh. Washington. Nothing remotely like this has happened in decades.”

My father waved the comment away, and Dolf spoke up. “That’s why you called Parks, isn’t it? Let him do the doubting for you.”

“There will be an investigation,” Parks said. “This is the match dropping, right here. It’s going to get hot. Reporters will be all over this place.”

“Reporters?” I asked.

“Two came to the main house,” my father said. “That’s why we’re here.”

“You should put a man on the gate,” I said.

“Yes,” Parks said. “A white man, not a migrant. Someone that cleans up well and knows how to be respectful but firm. If this is going to be on the news, I want the face of Middle America staring out.”

“Jesus.” Dolf sat down in disgust.

“If the police or anyone else wants to talk about anything, you direct them to me. That’s what I’m here for. That’s what you’re paying me for.”

My father looked at Dolf. “Do it,” he said.

Parks pulled a chair from the card table by the window and dragged it across the rug. He sat in front of me. “Now, tell me about last night. I want to know what they asked you and I want to know what you said.”

I told him, and the other men listened. He asked about the river, about Grace. He wanted to know what was said between us. I repeated what I said to the cops. “It’s not relevant,” I told him.

“That’s for me to judge,” he said, and waited for my answer.

It was a small thing, I knew, but not to Grace; so I looked out the window.

“This is not helpful,” the attorney said.

I shrugged.

   I drove into town to buy something nice for Grace, but changed my mind by the time I hit the city limit. Danny did not attack Grace; that had finally sunk in. That meant that whoever did was still out there. Maybe it was Zebulon Faith. Maybe not. But shopping would get me no closer to an answer.

I thought of the woman I’d seen in the blue canoe. She’d been with Grace moments before the attack. She’d been on the river. Maybe she’d seen something. Anything.

What was her name again?

Sarah Yates
.

I stopped at the first pay phone I saw. Someone had ripped the cover off of the phone book, and many of the pages were torn, but I found the listings for Yates. There was less than a page of them. I scanned for a Sarah Yates but there was no such listing. I ran down the names more slowly. Margaret Sarah Yates was on the second column. I had no plan to call.

I drove to the historic district and parked in the shade of hundred-year-old trees. The house was all about tall columns, black shutters, and wisteria vines as thick as my wrist. The door was armored by two hundred years of lead paint and had a brass knocker shaped like a swan’s head. When the door opened, it was as if the wall had shifted. The crack that appeared and then widened was at least twelve feet tall; the woman standing in it looked more like five. A smell of dried orange peels rolled over me.

“May I help you?” Age had bent the woman’s back, but her features were sharp. Dark eyes appraised me from beneath light makeup and white, lacquered hair. Seventy-five, I guessed, trim in a tailored suit. Diamonds flashed at ears and throat, while behind her, an antique silk runner stretched off into a world of serious money.

“Good morning, ma’am. My name is Adam Chase.”

“I know who you are, Mr. Chase. I admire what your father is doing to protect this town from the greed and shortsightedness of others. We need more men like him.”

I was momentarily undone by her frankness. Not many women would stand and chat with a stranger once tried for murder. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to contact a woman named Sarah Yates. I thought that she might live here.”

The warmth dropped off of her face. The dark eyes hardened and the teeth disappeared. Her hand moved up on the door. “There is no one here by that name.”

“But your name—”

“My name is Margaret Yates.” She paused, and her eyelids flickered. “Sarah is my daughter.”

“Do you know—”

“I have not spoken to Sarah in more than twenty years.”

She put some of her weight on the door. “Ma’am, please. Do you know where I can find Sarah? It’s important.”

The door stopped moving. She pursed dry lips. “Why do you want her?”

“Someone I care about was attacked. It’s possible that Sarah saw something that could help me find who did it.”

Mrs. Yates considered, then waved a hand vaguely. “She’s in Davidson County, last I heard. Over across the river.”

I could shoot an arrow from Red Water Farm and hit Davidson County on the other side of the river. But it was a big county. “Any idea where?” I asked. “It really is important to me.”

“If this porch were the bright center of the world, Mr. Chase, then Sarah would have found the place farthest from it.” I opened my mouth, but she cut me off. “The darkest, farthest place.” She took one step back.

“Any message?” I asked. “Assuming that I find her.”

The small body sagged, and the emotion that touched her face was as soft and quick as a moth’s wing beating once. Then the spine locked and the eyes snapped up, brittle and tight. Blue veins swelled beneath the paper skin, and her words popped like dry grass burning. “It’s never too late to repent. You tell her that.”

She crowded me and I stepped back; she followed me out, finger up and eyes gone crazy-bright.

“You tell her to beg our Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness.”

I found the stairs.

“You tell her,” she said, “that hellfire is eternal.”

Her face overflowed with some unknowable emotion, and she pointed at my right eye as the fire in her voice snapped once more then died. “You tell her.”

Then she turned for the great mouth of a door, and by the time it inhaled her, she was a much older woman.

   I drove down shaded lanes and left the armored walls behind me. Thick lawns dwindled to weed and earth as I hit the poor side of town. Houses grew short and narrow and flaked, then I was through and onto long roads that ran wild into the country. I crossed into Davidson County, the bridge humming beneath me. I saw the long, slow brown, and a fat man with no shirt drinking beer on the shore. Two kids with stained lips picked blackberries from a thicket on the roadside.

I stopped at a bait shop, found an S. Yates in the phone book and tracked down the address. The drive pierced a dense tree line eight miles from the nearest traffic light. I made the turn, and the drive straightened into a long descent toward the river. I came out of the trees and saw the bus, which sat on blocks under a gnarled oak. It was pale purple with faded flowers painted on the sides. In front of it, fifteen acres had been cleared and cultivated.