Judas Burning (22 page)

“How old were you?” It was such a relief to talk to someone who understood, someone who had been there. She finished her drink, got up, and made them another round.

“I was fourteen. Gary was my idol.”

She didn’t say anything. There were no words to help.

“For a long time I was furious. I stopped doing everything I used to do with Gary. By the time I realized that punishing myself wouldn’t bring him back, it was too late to return to sports. So I became a writer.”

“The professional outsider.”

He nodded. “That’s right. We become the watchers. It isn’t our responsibility to act, just to document.”

“There’s a man on death row. Willard Jones. He’s scheduled to be executed in less than a month.” She swallowed. “I’m not certain he’s guilty.”

Robert stared at her. “If you’re not certain …”

“I’m meeting with his son tomorrow. Zander wants to talk to me. I don’t think he understands there’s nothing I can do. Without evidence, the state will carry out the sentence.”

“Does he have evidence?” Robert leaned forward and caught her hand. “Is there something I can help with?”

She shook her head. “No, but thank you. I’ll speak with Zander, and then I’ll make a decision. The evidence against Jones was pretty convincing. My family just wants me to let it all go. They want Jones executed, and then they want to move on with their lives. If only it were that simple.”

Killing Willard Jones wasn’t the end of the pain. It wouldn’t be the end of anything, except a man’s life.

“Why do you think Jones might be innocent?” Robert asked.

She hesitated. She’d told the prosecutor, but he’d told her to forget it. Her mother had told her to forget it, and her brother. But she couldn’t.

“The night before my father was killed, he called me. He was excited about something he’d discovered, a story. I was to pick him up for lunch the next day so he could tell me all about it.” She felt her temples tighten. “I was late picking him up. If I’d been there on time, Dad wouldn’t have been there to be killed.”

“You were his heir in the profession. It makes sense he’d want to share his story with you. Any idea what it was?”

Robert’s face was eager. She’d wanted so much for someone to share this with, someone who would see the importance of it and help her follow through. After Jones was arrested and convicted, no one had wanted to hear any of this. No one.

“It was about dumping waste chemicals in Mississippi. My father believed that it was happening and that some state legislators had taken a payoff to allow the chemical companies to slip into the state and dump the stuff.”

“Is it true?”

“Ask the folks around Eula Springs. The incidence of cancer there is six hundred percent higher than anywhere else.”

Robert reached into his back pocket and drew out a map. “I have to carry this because I don’t know the area. Where is Eula Springs? I’ve never heard of it.”

Dixon put her hand on his. “It’s north of Hattiesburg. Look, none of this was ever proven. I looked for signs of a dump site. I hired a private investigator, but he could never find anyone who knew anything about chemical waste. The police arrested Willard Jones on another charge, and when they searched his home they found hundreds of clippings from my father’s newspaper. He’d written things on them, saying my father was a racist because of the coverage Dad did on a black politician.”

“And when they found that, they also found materials to make the bomb.”

“Yes.” Dixon could hear her pulse thudding. “You see it, too, don’t you?”

“Clearly.”

“Willard Jones may have been set up.”

“I’d say there’s a strong chance.”

He picked up her hand and held it. “Dixon, you said you were late picking up your father and that he’d be alive if you’d been on time.” He shook his head when she started to speak. “Listen to me. It might just be possible that the bomb was intended to kill both of you.”

“No—”

“Folks knew you and your dad were close. If he told anyone, it would be you, right?”

She nodded. “But—”

“Just hear me out. If there was a tap on your father’s phone—and there easily could have been, especially if he was poking sticks at the big dogs in the legislature—they would have known he talked to you that night. They would have known he intended to tell you about everything that day at lunch.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “The fact that someone made you late may be the thing that saved your life. Do you think you were detained deliberately?”

She knew her face showed the pain she felt. Mark Barrett. The man she’d been in love with. Could he have known about the bomb? Was he protecting her while her father was being killed?

Robert put his arms around her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

The word was barely a whisper. Even with the passing of eleven years, it hurt like a fresh cut. She closed her eyes. “I’d like another drink, please.”

He released her and went to the counter to make the drinks. When he put the glass in her hand, he touched her face, stroking her hair. “You’re an intriguing woman. Maybe too smart for your own good.”

She stood up, the drink in her hand. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

The symphony of night had settled around the cabin by the time Eustace returned from upriver. He’d learned too much at Hathaway’s Point. He could still hear the buzz of bottle flies swarming the ground where the body had oozed.

His right hand held the tiller, but his left was clenched around something else, a shard of pottery he’d found embedded in the riverbank. The clay, a bluish green, could only be found closer to the coast. He knew, because he’d helped Camille extract it.

He went over the scene again and again, circling his boat in the river until long past his normal time to go home.

When he pulled up to the landing, he was surprised to find the grounds completely lit. He’d installed fairy lights around the trunks of the old oaks and landscape lights around the paths and minnow vats. Camille sat with her legs dangling in the large cement vat. Her pale yellow summer dress was pulled high on her thighs, and her long hair tumbled, unbrushed, down her back. She flinched and giggled softly as darting minnows nibbled at her toes. Eustace stopped and stared. Camille’s hair was infused with the twinkling lights, and her soft laughter was as artless as a child’s.

He shifted the weight off his bad leg. Camille’s enjoyment of the water and the minnows was total. It was a rare moment when her past didn’t haunt her, and he chose not to intrude. Camille’s remarkable gift of not judging allowed him into her life. She’d asked nothing about his past, told nothing of her own. But Eustace knew he was not so free of judgment.

From her dreams, salted with tears, he had figured out some of her past. She had been badly hurt, emotionally damaged. He’d known it from the beginning but hadn’t feared the extent of the damage until now. In her heart, she was a sweet and loving child. Anything else was a result of what had been done to her.

A fast boat passed on the river, and Eustace followed the sound of its motor for a moment. It was a big boat, probably Jimmy Vinter’s. Headed to Fitler.

He heard Camille’s sharp gasp and had started forward before he realized that she’d slid into the chest-high water. After the initial shock of cold, she cried out with pleasure.

Eustace walked to the vats. He’d urged Camille not to leave the area around the house unless she was going into Jexville. She didn’t always obey him, and he wasn’t certain that Jexville was safer than the swamps anyway, even with a killer on the loose. He never attempted to stop her visits to her family, though he would have preferred that she avoid Calvin and Vivian. They had nearly destroyed her. They were evil, careless people. They did not deserve even the lingering concern that she held for them. But he knew better than to interfere.

“Eustace!” She held out her arms. “Come in.” She jumped and giggled. “The minnows are … devilish.”

Eustace felt himself smile. Before Camille, there had been days when his expression had never changed. Even now the muscles sometimes reminded him of their long neglect.

“It’s wonderful!” Camille insisted. “Perfect. Better than a shower.”

Eustace sat on the wall, his feet on the ground. He leaned down to feel the icy water. “I might have a heart attack if I jumped in there,” he said.

Camille waded toward him. “Okay, I’ll get out.”

“I was kidding,” he said, starting to unbutton his shirt. She often took him literally. He bent to unlace his shoes.

Camille wiped a drop of water from her eye. “Where have you been? You didn’t leave a note. Mama says she’s going to sell the houseboat. She asked me to tell you.”

He paused with three buttons undone. “Why tell me?”

“She said you’d know someone who wanted to buy it. She’s tired of it. She says she only wants ten thousand for it. She just wants to be done with it.”

Vivian was spoiled rotten. She’d bought the houseboat three years before at maximum price. Now she was practically giving it away. “What’s the rush?”

“She said people were tearing it up when she wasn’t there to see about it.”

“I’ll put the word out,” he said, easing into the water.

He watched her, choosing his moment. “The man they’re looking for is Francisco Chavez.” He waited for her reaction.

Camille leaned against the wall. Her skin was translucent, almost blue. Beneath her sundress, her nipples were hard. “I don’t think Francisco did anything wrong. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Eustace’s heart was leaden. She knew him. She called him by his first name. He gently lifted her head and stared into her green eyes.

“Camille, what do you know about this man? You have to tell me.”

Her eyes dropped, and she tried to pull her chin to her chest. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me.”

“I have to know. If you’re involved in the disappearance of those girls, it’s serious.” So serious he was willing to kill a man, even the other girl. “Tell me, Camille.”

Camille put her arms around him; her flesh was cold. He held her tightly.

“Let’s get out of the water.”

“You hate Mother, don’t you?”

He sighed. He’d never lied to Camille, and he didn’t intend to start.

“Yes,” he said. “I do. I hate both of them, for what they’ve done to you.”

“They didn’t win.”

Oh, but at what cost, he wanted to ask. He closed his eyes against the tears that threatened. He hadn’t cried in forty years, but Camille was so fragile.

“You went up there where they found that girl, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Hathaway’s Point. When was the last time you were there, Camille?”

“Not so long ago,” she answered, turning away and wading to the other end of the vat. “I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

“There’s going to be another hunt tomorrow.”

Eustace waited.

“They won’t find her.” Camille hopped to the ledge, swung her legs over, and stood. She lifted her dress, revealing her nakedness beneath, and squeezed the water from the fabric. Come on, she said. “I’m hungry.

He climbed out with less grace and followed her. When they were inside, she went to the kitchen. He lingered in the bedroom until he heard her banging pots. Easing out her dresser drawer, he felt for the bracelet. It was gone.

The leaves of the oak tree hung limp. Already hot and humid with hardly a breath of breeze, the day would only get worse. J.D. sat beneath the tree in his cruiser, his mind far ahead. He rasped a hand across the growth of beard and regretted that he hadn’t gone home when he got back to Jexville. Instead he’d begun to put together the evidence. Now, sitting at the end of Dixon’s driveway, he wished for a shower, shave, and fresh change of clothes. He also wished that Robert Medino’s rental car weren’t parked on the road in front of Dixon’s house at five-thirty in the morning.

Waymon had left him a note saying Dixon had called repeatedly and been by the office more than once. She had a bee in her bonnet over something, and J.D. wanted to know what it was.

If he were honest with himself, though, he’d have to admit that he wanted to see her for other reasons. His physical reaction to her was perfectly normal; it was his emotional response that worried him. Dixon was a survivor, but she had not come through life unscathed. She was searching for something that would make her whole, and J.D. understood that. Women, or men for that matter, who’d never suffered or lost lived on a different plane. Dixon lived where he lived. He wanted to know more about her.

He almost drove away but instead got out of the cruiser and started down the tree-lined drive. “Fuck it,” he said softly as he walked up on the porch and knocked on the front door.

To his surprise, Dixon, dressed in jeans and an unironed shirt, answered immediately. She waved him to silence, disappeared, and returned with two cups of coffee, both black. They walked into the shade of the big oaks.

“Where in the hell have you been?” she asked. There was more weariness than force in her words. “I tried all day yesterday to find you.”

“Mexico.”

She wore no make-up and her hair was unbrushed. The shadows beneath her eyes showed that she hadn’t rested well. Was her sleep disturbed by bad dreams or Robert Medino? J.D. would have liked to ask her.